2. Based on a Complete Salvation
Rev D A Ross
Let us now note some of the gospel benefits and privileges revealed in the Word of God. By these gospel blessings we are assured that the purpose of the Most High is to encourage us to believe in Christ Jesus for the salvation of our soul. In the Scriptures, God affirms the suitability of Christ Jesus as a Saviour and the sufficiency of His atonement to save a sinner. He says, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him: and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Is. 55:6,7). As we proceed to notice these gospel blessings I wish also to show, despite this clarity of salvation in Christ, the iniquitous persistence, on the part of sinners addressed, in refusing Christ. Then I wish to show the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in the sinner to persuade and enable him to receive Christ as He is offered to sinners in the gospel.
While it is my intention to dwell on gospel privileges in relation to the outward call of the gospel, we cannot omit the fact that, while unconverted, we continue under the covenant of works, and the laws of God cry loudly to us, “Do this and live”. At the same time, our failure to fulfil the covenant of works is itself a loud cry to look to Christ, who kept the covenant of works on behalf of His people. Just as proud Saul of Tarsus needed Christ to do this for him, so do we all. But in our pride we go on believing that we can attain the unattainable. Who will convince us of the impossibility of doing this, unless the Holy Spirit will graciously do so?
The gospel is the good news that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Paul describes the gospel to Timothy: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief”. Thus there is absolute good here for sinners throughout the world. Again Christ tells us: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. There is here every encouragement to sinners everywhere to believe in Christ.
In this and other statements of the Word of God, we see the universal nature of the gospel. It is to be preached to the whole world; so Christ directed His disciples: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature”. It is suited to the spiritual needs of sinners to the ends of the earth. It would be unreasonable to send the gospel everywhere if it had no bearing on the spiritual needs of those to whom it comes. However, the natural man does not appreciate such a blessing when it is brought close to him. Like the Gadarenes, he prefers his swine to Christ. Jesus was their greatest good, but “they besought Him that He would depart out of their coasts” (Mt. 8:34). This demonstrates man’s unreasonable opposition to Christ and the need for the effectual work of the Holy Spirit in his heart.
Paul preferred to be a fierce persecutor of Christ, opposing all who showed an interest in the gospel until, in the mercy of God, he was savingly changed. Sadly, the natural man today is no different; he refuses to receive the things of Christ. M’Cheyne, preaching to a large congregation, said something to this effect: While you sit here quietly listening to the gospel, this place would be like a den of devils if the Lord were to leave you to yourselves. Great need therefore for the sweet influences of the Holy Spirit to draw such people to Christ!
In Christ Jesus, there is everything necessary to save a sinner. Isaiah said, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Is. 1:18). There is therefore no deficiency, even for the chief of sinners, in the salvation Christ has procured; there is every encouragement here to receive Christ. But the sinner goes on refusing Christ although all these spiritual blessings are presented in the gospel: the fullness and sufficiency of Christ as a Saviour altogether suitable for the worst of sinners and His readiness to save all who come to Him. This not only tells us of the power of man’s corrupt nature to resist the outward call of the gospel, but also of the need for the Holy Spirit to call the sinner inwardly.
We ought never to underestimate the completeness of salvation wrought out by Christ. See Isaiah 5:1-7, for example – in particular, verse 4, where God compares the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah to a vineyard which is very well cared for: “What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?” Hence sinners cannot claim on the Day of judgement that something was missing from the gospel and so they could not be saved. The truth is that the difficulty is on the side of sinners, as Christ stated, “Ye will not come unto Me that ye might have life”. A great sin indeed! Evidently the Holy Spirit must apply to the sinner’s heart what Christ has done outwith the sinner.
Again there is no mistaking the reality that the gospel calls all sinners within hearing, each and all, to repent of their sins and turn to Christ to have their iniquities washed away. Time and again they are directed to turn from sin to salvation in Christ. Not one person is left out. It is truly a universal call. Wisdom – that is, the Son of God – cries, “Unto you, O men, I call; and My voice is to the sons of man” (Prov. 8:4). Yet proud man is not interested in God’s gracious call and shrugs off these directions from the Most High, demonstrating the need of an inward call.
Gospel directions come from Almighty God in the form of a command; they thus have the highest authority; He “now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). This ought to compel sinners to come to Him trembling in penitence. But sinners defiantly say, like Pharaoh, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice . . . ?” (Ex 5:2). There is no more dreadful form of rebellion than to oppose God in the face of gracious gospel commands. When man is capable of committing such an evil, he surely needs a new heart.
There is another gospel benefit. In certain gospel commands, there is great urgency, as in the call to each of Lot’s family; “Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed” (Gen. 19:17). In disobedience to this urgent direction, Lot’s wife obstinately looked back. It is clear from the Word of God that it is natural to fallen mankind to be disobedient, which also demonstrates the need of a new nature.
Notice too the dignity of the messengers God sent to Sodom with the solemn message of imminent destruction; they were angels. Though ministers do not have this dignity, yet they are the messengers of Christ. Despite the presence of angels, and of righteous Lot, who opposed the great wickedness of his family and the city, the wicked people of Sodom despised them, and Lot’s sons-in-law thought he was out of his mind. It is a solemn reminder to us of the spiritual sloth of sinners under the urgent warnings of the law of God and the equally-urgent calls of the gospel to flee from the wrath to come, soon to be poured out. Yet these sinners decidedly refused to do so. Who can change such characters? Only God. And such were some of you.
As well as gospel commands, there are gracious invitations and pleadings. Notice Lot’s plea to his wicked fellow citizens, when bravely confronting their vile obstinacy: “I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly”. However, no messenger can excel Christ’s gracious invitations and pleadings, which remain a pattern for preachers of the gospel.
The Church in Laodicea was nauseating in its hypocrisy, for Christ threatened to spew them out of His mouth. Yet He forbears to do so, graciously showing where they were seriously wrong. What was their response? We are not told; but, going by fallen human attitudes, probably many said, “We desire not the knowledge of Thy ways”. But see the gracious reasoning of the Lord Jesus Christ. He points out the great error in their presumptuous claim that they were “rich, and increased with goods, and had need of nothing”; but did not know that they were “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”. Their spiritual ignorance was complete.
Then the Saviour gives the direction they sorely needed: “I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see”. There is no mistaking Christ’s compassion and concern for them, when He says: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne.” In this address of Christ to church-goers who spiritually were poverty-stricken, we can truly say, What a depth of compassion and concern He had for these poor, miserable, blind sinners on their way to a lost eternity!
Yet we know, from many parts of the Word of God, that the natural man is not moved to receive Christ and rest on Him alone for salvation. Nevertheless, the gracious invitation is given, in this passage and elsewhere in the Word of God, so that no sinner under the gospel can possibly be mistaken as to God’s gracious directions to them. Alas, the Saviour has to say, “We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not wept”. What need for the Holy Spirit to accompany the preaching of the gospel with power!
Because of these directions to sinners, not even the most profligate sinner need ever despair of mercy through Christ. How shameful therefore that any sinner goes on refusing Christ! And he will go on doing so unless God in sovereign mercy will act spiritually for him as Christ did for the widow’s son at Nain who, physically, was dead: “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak.”
1The first section of this Theological Conference paper was an introduction to the subject.