A Way of Escape for Sinners

Ashbel Green

1. The first idea of importance is: there is an escape from the wrath and curse of God. It is too little recollected that we are entirely indebted, for the possibility of such an escape, to God’s sovereign grace and mercy. You know that for the angels “who kept not their first estate”, no way of escape was provided or was possible. They were immediately consigned to unavoidable, hopeless, endless perdition; and God was under no obligation to deal in a different manner with our fallen race. He would have done us no injustice if he had treated us just as He did “the angels that sinned”. But in His boundless love and compassion, He has provided a Saviour for mankind, and through Him a way of escape.

Further, the word escape suggests two other important ideas. One is, this word is never applied to any but to those who are in a state of danger. We have seen in what an awfully perilous condition man was placed by his original apostasy, and how God’s benevolence has opened a way of deliverance. But it is not enough that the way has been opened: it must be used; it must be entered and pursued till it leads to a refuge of perfect safety. Every unregenerate sinner is still in a state of the most awful peril. Believe that if any one of you who is not yet reconciled to God through Jesus Christ should

¹These are the first two sections of Green’s comments, as edited, on the answer to Question 85 in The Shorter Catechism: “To escape the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin, God requireth of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with a diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption”. This extract is taken, with editing, from Green’s Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, vol. 2. Green (1762-1848) was a prominent American minister and was President of the Board of Governors of Princeton Theological Seminary.

have his eyes opened at once to see all the danger of his condition, it would make him tremble. Awakened sinners who get only an imperfect view of their fearful condition do often tremble; and the only reason why any wonder at this is because they themselves are blind.

The other idea suggested by the word escape is a flight from the impending evil. He who escapes hastens away, with all possible speed, from the peril which threatens to destroy him. Now this points to the duty which a regard to their own best interest, as well as to the command of God, enjoins on all unsanctified sinners. They ought not to remain at ease for a single moment, in a situation where they are constantly exposed to remediless misery. Hence we read of fleeing from the wrath to come. Hence the anxious demand of the convicted Jews, on the day of Pentecost, for immediate direction: “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” – and of the trembling jailor at Philippi: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

Unawakened sinners under the gospel plead for delay, and it destroys them by the tens of thousands; but no sinner who has his eyes opened to see the danger of an impenitent state ever pleads for delay. He is all alive to make his escape from the brink of final perdition, and would to God that every one of you, who are not yet savingly interested in the redemption of Christ, were in this state of mind. You would then listen with all earnestness to what I am now to state from the answer of the Catechism before us, which is:

1. Means are to be employed in making an escape from the “wrath and curse of God due to us for sin”. These means are of two kinds, inward and outward. The outward means are to be particularly considered afterwards; the inward means claim our special attention at present. They are “faith in Jesus Christ and repentance unto life”, called inward means because they are acts which take place entirely within the mind. When these, however, are called the means of escaping God’s displeasure, it is of the highest importance to understand and remember that they are not the meritorious cause of God being reconciled to the offending sinner. The merits of the Lord Jesus Christ – His finished righteousness and prevailing intercession – are alone the meritorious consideration on which pardon, justification and eternal life are granted to any of our guilty race. You will understand how faith and repentance operate as means of salvation if you consider attentively that none will be admitted to heaven but those who are at once entitled to its unspeakable bliss and qualified to enjoy it, and that it is by faith and repentance that both the title and the qualification are obtained.

It may be sufficient meantime to observe that faith is exclusively the grace by which the believing sinner becomes connected and identified with the Saviour, and of course interested in all the benefits of His great redemption.

Thus the sinner gains a title to those celestial mansions which the glorified Head of the redeemed has promised to all the members of His mystical body, and which He has gone to prepare for them. At the same time, repentance – for faith and repentance always take place together – breaks the power of sin in the soul, turns the whole bias or current of its affections from sin to holiness. Thus the disposition is implanted and cherished which, when perfected at the point of death, qualifies it for partaking in all the holy exercises and enjoyments of the heavenly state.

It is in this way, and only in this way, that faith and repentance are means of salvation. And till it can be proved that there is merit in a perishing individual accepting offered life and happiness which he has a thousand times forfeited – and merit in ceasing to hate, and beginning to love, what is supremely amiable and excellent – it can never be shown that faith and repentance are meritorious acts. For faith is really nothing more than a perishing sinner accepting spiritual and eternal life and happiness, procured for him and offered to him by the Lord Jesus Christ without money and without price. And repentance essentially consists in ceasing to hate, and beginning to love supremely, the ever blessed God, the source and sum of all that is excellent and lovely.