any escape from the dominion of sin.
And lastly, some of us have resort to doc-
trines. We have got the leading points of cer-
tain doctrines worn into our minds, and because
these have a religious name we are apt to think
they have also a religious power. In reality,
while dealing with the theory of grace and sin,
we may leave the power to resist it untouched.
And many a pen has been busy with a book on
the doctrine of sin while the life which employed
it was going to destruction for want of salvation
from its power.
There is one doctrine especially with which
the word salvation is most often connected and
to which many look for their deliverance from
the power of indwelling sin. And it may seem a
startling statement to make, but it will emphasise
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 175
a distinction which cannot be too clearly drawn,
that even the atonement itself is not the answer
to the question, "What must I do to be saved
from the power of sin?" The answer entirely
depends on the atonement, but it is not the
atonement. The atonement is 7tot the fact of
salvation which saves the sinner from the power
of sin. If you believed in the atonement to-day,
if you were absolutely assured that your past
sins were all forgiven, that would be no criterion
that you would not be as bad as ever again to-
morrow. The atonement, therefore, is not the
fact which deals with the power of sin. The
atonement deals with a point. We are coming
to that. Just now we are talking of a life. We
are looking out for something which will deal
with something in our life ā something which
will redeem our life from destruction. And a
man may believe the atonement whose life is not
redeemed from destruction.
You have gone out into the country on a sum-
mer morning, and as you passed some little rustic
mill, you saw the miller come out to set his sim-
ple machinery agoing for the day. He turned
on the sluice, but the water-wheel would not
move. Then, with his strong arm, he turned it
once or twice, then left it to itself to turn busily
all the day. It is a sorry illustration in detail,
but its principle means this, that the atonement
is the first great turn as it were which God gives
in the morning of conversion to the wheel of the
1/6 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION
Christian's life. Without it nothing more would
be possible : alone it would not be enough. The
water of life must flow in a living stream all
through the working day and keep pouring its
power into it ceaselessly till the life and the work
are done.
Now, practically everything depends in salva-
tion upon the clearness with which this great
truth is recognised. Sin is 2. power in our life ; let
us fairly understand that it can only be met by
another power. The fact of sin works all through
our life. The death of Christ, which is the atone-
ment, reconciles us to God, makes our religion
possible, puts us in the way of the power which
is to come against our sin and deliver our life
from destruction. But the Water of Life, which
flows from the life of Christ, is the power itself.
He redeemeth my life, by His life, from destruc-
tion. This is the power, Paul says, which re-
deemed his life from destruction. Christ's life,
not His death, living in his life, absorbing it,
impregnating it, transforming it. " Christ," as he
confessed, ^' in Me." And this, therefore, is the
meaning of a profound sentence in which Paul
states the true answer to the question, What must
I do to be saved ? records this first great fact of
salvation and pointedly distinguishes it from the
other. " If when we were enemies we were recon-
ciled X.o God by the death of His Son, much more,
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life"
(Rom. v. 10).
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 177
" We shall be saved by His life^' says Paul.
Paul meant no disrespect to the atonement when
he said, " We shall be saved by his life." He
was bringing out in relief one of the great facts of
salvation. If God gives atoning power with one
hand, and power to save the life from destruction
with the other, there is no jealousy between.
Both are from God. If you call the one justifica-
tion and the other sanctification, God is the
author of them both. If Paul seems to take
something from the one doctrine and add it to
the other, he takes nothing from God. Atone-
ment is from God. Power to resist sin is from
God. When we say we shall be saved by the
death of Christ, it is true. When Paul says, " We
shall be saved by His life," it is true. Christ is
all and in all, the beginning and the end. Only
when we are speaking of one fact of sin, let us
speak of the corresponding fact of grace. When
the thing we want is power to redeem our life
from destruction, let us apply the gift which God
has given us for our life, and for guilt the gift of
guilt. When an Israelite was bitten in the wilder-
ness, he never thought of applying manna to the
wound. The manna was for his life. But he
did think of applying the brazen serpent. The
manna would never have cured his sin; nor
would the brazen serpent have kept him from
starving. Suppose he had said, " Now I am
healed by this serpent, I feel cured, and I need
not eat this manna any more. The serpent has
178 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION
done it all, and I am well." The result would
have been, of course, that he would have died.
The man, to be sure, was cured, but he has to live,
and if he eats no manna his life must languish, go
to destruction, die. Without taking any trouble
about it, simply by the inevitable processes of
nature, he would have died. The manna was
God's provision to redeem his life from destruc-
tion, after the serpent had redeemed it from
death. And if he did nothing to stop the natural
progress of destruction, in the natural course of
things, he must die. Now there is no jealousy
between these two things ā the manna is from
God and the serpent is from God. But they are
different gifts for different things. The serpent
gave life, but could not keep life; the manna
kept life, but could not give life. Therefore,
the Israelites were saved by the serpent, but they
did not try to eat the serpent.
To apply this to the case in hand. The atone-
ment of Christ is the brazen serpent. Christ's
life is the manna ā the bread of life. Our sins
are not forgiven by bread, nor are our lives sup-
ported by death. Our life is not redeemed from
destruction by the atonement, nor kept from day
to day from the power of sin by the atonement.
Our life is not redeemed from destruction by the
death of Christ, nor kept from day to day by the
death of Christ. But we are saved, as Paul says,
by his " lifeT We cannot live upon death. Mors
janua viUB ā death is the gate of life. And after
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 179
we have entered the gateway by the death of
Christ, we shall be saved by His life.
To sum up, therefore. It is one thing, there-
fore, to be saved by the death of Christ, and
another to be saved by His life ; and while both
expressions are correct, to talk of being saved by
the death of Christ is not so scriptural as to talk
of being saved by the life of Christ; and Paul,
with his invariable conciseness on important
points, has brought out the facts of salvation
with profound insight in the pregnant antithesis
already quoted, " When we were enemies we were
reconciled by the death of Christ, now we shall be
saved by His life."
What first fact of salvation, therefore, is to be
brought to bear upon the first great fact of sin,
is not our own efforts, our own religiousness, our
own doctrine, the atonement, or the death of
Christ, but the power of the life of Christ.
He redeemeth my life from destruction. How?
By His life. This is the fact of salvation. It
takes life to redeem life ā power to resist power.
Sin is a ceaseless, undying power in our life. A
ceaseless, undying power must come against it.
And there is only one such power in the universe
ā only one, which has a chance against sin : the
power of the living Christ. God knew the power
of sin in a human soul when He made so great
provision. He knew how great it was ; He cal-
culated it. Then He sent the living Christ
against it. It is the careful and awful estimate
i8o THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION
of the power of sin. God saw that nothing else
would do. It would not do to start our religion,
then leave us to ourselves. It would not do with
hearts like ours, yearning to sin, to leave us with
religiousness or moral philosophy or doctrine.
Christ must come Himself, and live with us. He
must come and make His abode with us. He can-
not trust us from His sight ; so that when we live
it shall be not we that live, but Christ living in us,
and the life which we are now living in the flesh
must be lived by the power of the Son of God.
What, then, must I do to be saved? Receive
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
Slave of a thousand sins, receive the Lord Jesus
Christ into thy life, and thy life, thy far-spent
life, shall yet be redeemed from destruction.
Receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou who
hast lived in the far famine land shalt return and
live once more by thy Father's side. Thou seek-
est not a welcome to thy Father's house ā of thy
welcome thou hast never been afraid. But thou
seekest a livelihood ; thou seekest Power. Thou
seekest power to be pure, to be true, to be free
from the power of sin. " What must I do to be
saved from that? What power will free me from
that?" The power of the living Christ! "As
many as received Him, to them gave He power
to become the sons of God." " Power to become
the sons of God " ā the great fact of salvation.
Receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved. (JLutJicr Santa Scala.~)
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION i8i
Christ, therefore, is the power of God unto sal-
vation ā the counter-fact to the power oi sin unto
destruction. Christ is the way ā He is also the
Truth and the Life. This power, this life, is
within our reach each moment of our life; as
near, as free, as abundant as the air we breathe.
A breath of prayer in the morning, and the
morning life is sure. A breath of prayer in the
evening, and the evening blessing comes. So
our life is redeemed from destruction. Breath by
breath our life comes into us. Inch by inch it is
redeemed from destruction. So much prayer to-
day ā so many inches redeemed to-day. So
much water of life to-day ā so many turns of the
great wheel of life to-day. Therefore, if we want
to be saved ā whosoever will, let him take of the
water of life freely. If you want to be saved,
breathe the breath of life. And if you cannot
breathe, let the groans which cannot be uttered
go up to God, and the power will come. To all
of us alike, if we but ask we shall receive. For
God makes surpassing allowances, and He will
do unto the least of us exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think.
Secondly, and more briefly, the second fact of
sin is the stain of sin, the second fact of salvation.
" He healeth all thy diseases." The stain of sin
is a very much more complicated thing even than
the power of sin ; and that for this reason ā that
most of it lies outside our own life. If it only
i82 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION
lay in dark blotches upon our own life, we might
set to work to rub it out. But it is a blind vision
of sin which confines has crossed over into other
lives all through the years that have gone, and
left its awful mark ā our mark, on every soul we
touched since the most distant past.
A young man once lay upon his deathbed.
He was a Christian, but for many days a black
cloud had gathered upon his brow. Just before
his last breath, he beckoned to the friends around
his bed. "Take my influence," he said, "and
bury it with me." He stood on the very thresh-
old of glory. But the stain of sin was burning
hot upon his past. Bury his influence with him !
No, his influence will remain. His life has gone
to be with God, who gave it ; but his influence ā
he has left no influence for Christ. His future
will be for ever with the Lord. The unburied
past remains behind, perhaps, for ever to be
against him. The black cloud which hangs over
many a dying brow means the stain of an influ-
ence lost for Christ ā means with many a man
who dies a Christian, that though his guilt has
been removed and his life redeemed from destruc-
tion, the infection of his past lurks in the world
still, and his diseases fester in open sores among
all the companions of his life.
What must I do to be saved from the stain of
sin? Gather up your influence, and see how
much has been for Christ. Then undo all that
has been against Him. It will never be healed
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 183
till then. This is the darkest stain upon your
life. The stain of sin concerns your own soul,
but that is a smaller matter. That can be undone
ā in part. There are open sores enough in our
past life to make even heaven tremble. But God
is healing them. He is blotting them from His
own memory and from ours. If the stains that
were there had lingered, life would have been a
long sigh of agony. But salvation has come to
our soul. God is helping you to use the means
for repairing a broken life. He restoreth thy
soul, He healeth all thy diseases. But thy
brother's soul, and thy brother's diseases? The
worst of thy stains have spread far and wide
v^\\\\oiit thyself; and God will only heal them,
perhaps, by giving you grace to deal with them.
You must retrace your steps over that unburied
past, and undo what you have done. You must
go to the other lives which are stained with your
blood-red stains and rub them out. Perhaps you
did not lead them into their sin ; but you did not
lead them out of it. You did not show them you
were a Christian. You left a worse memory with
them than your real one. You pretended you
were just like them ā that your sources of hap-
piness were just the same. You did not tell them
you had a power which kept your life from sin.
You did not take them to the closet you had at
home, and let them see you on 3^our knees, nor
tell them of your Bible which was open twice a
day. And all these negatives were stains and
1 84 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION
sins. It is a great injustice to do to any one we
know ā the worst turn we could do a friend, to
keep the best secret back, and let him go as
calmly to hell as we are going to heaven.
If we cannot bury our influence, thank God if
here and there we can undo it still. The other
servant in the kitchen, the clerk on the next stool,
the lady who once lived in the next house, we
must go to them, by the grace of God, and take
the stain away. And let the thought that much
that we have done can never be undone, that
many whose lives have suffered from our sins
have gone away into eternity with the stains still
unremoved, that when we all stand round the
throne together, even from the right hand of
the judgment seat of Christ, we may behold on
the left among the lost the stains of our own sin,
still livid on some soul ā let this quicken our
steps as we go to obliterate the influence of our
past, and turn our fear into a safeguard as we try
to keep our future life for Christ.
The second fact of salvation, therefore, Is to be
effected by God in part and by ourselves in part
ā by God as regards ourselves ; by God and our-
selves as regards others. He is to heal our dis-
eases, and we are to spread the balm He gives us
wherever we have spread our sin.
^^ Lastly^ the third great fact of sin is guilt ā the
MA,-if third fact of salvation is forgiveness. "He forgiveth
all thine iniquities." The first question we asked
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 185
came out of our life ; the second mostly from our
memory ; but the third rises up out of conscience.
Our first cry, as we looked at our future, was,
" Where can I get power? " Now we are looking
at our past, and the question is, " Where can I
get pardon?" The questions which conscience
sends up to us are always the deepest questions.
And the man who has never sent up the ques-
tion, "Where can I get pardon?" has never been
into his conscience to find out the deepest want
he has. It is not enough for him to look life-
ward ; he must also look Godward. And it is
not enough to discover the stain of his past, and
cry out, " I have sinned." But he must see the
guilt of his life and cry, " I have sinned against
God." The fact of salvation which God has pro-
vided to meet the fact of guilt, although it is the
most stupendous fact of all, only comes home to
man when he feels a criminal and stands like a
guilty sinner, for pardon at God's bar.
It is not enough for him then to invoke God's
strength against the power of sin. Just as the
fact which meets the guilt of sin, as we have
seen, can never meet the power of sin, so the
fact which meets the power of sin can never meet
the fact of guilt. Manna was what was required
for a man's life ; but it is no use against his guilt.
// is 7iotJiing that he makes a good resolution not
to do wrong any more, that he asked Christ to
come and live with him and break the power of
sin, and redeem his life from destruction. God
1 86 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION
has something to say to him before that. Some-
thing must happen to him before that. He must
come and give an account of himself before that.
The good resolution is all very laudable for the
days to come, but what about the past? God
wants to know about the past. It may be conven-
ient for us to forget the past, but God cannot forget
it. We have done wrong, and wrong-doing must
be punished. Wrong-doing must be punished ā
must ; this is involved in one of the facts of sin.
Therefore the punishment of wrong-doing must
be involved in one of the facts of salvation. It is
not in the first two. It must be somewhere in this.
Now the punishment of sin is death. In the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Therefore death is the punishment which must be
in one of the facts of salvation. It was not in the
other two. It must be somewhere in this. It
will not meet the case if the sinner professes his
penitence and promises humbly never to do the
like again. It will not meet the case if he comes
on his knees to apologise to God, and ask Him
simply to forget that he has sinned, or beg Him
to have pity on the misfortunes of his past. God
did not say, " In the day thou eatest thereof I
will pity thy misfortunes, in the day thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely apologise^ or thou shalt
surely repent^ but " in the day thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely diey So death, and nothing
less than death, must be in the fact of salvation
from the guilt of sin, if such salvation is to be.
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 187
This fact, this most solemn necessity under-
stood and felt, the rest is plain. We all know
Some one died. We all know Who deserved to
die. We all know Who did die. We know we
were not wounded for our transgressions, we were
not bruised for our iniquities. But we know Who
was. The Lord hath not dealt with us according
to our iniquities ; but we know with Whom He
has. We know Who bare our sins in His own
body on the tree, ā One who had none of His
own. We know who was lifted up like the ser-
pent in the wilderness ā Him who died the just
for the unjust. If we know this, we know the
great fact of salvation, for it is this.
It only remains to answer one question more.
How is a poor sinner to make this great fact his?
And the answer is, By trusting Christ. He has
nothing else wherewith to make it his. The
atonement is a fact. Forgiveness is a fact. Let
him believe it. He does not understand it. He
i* not asked to understand it. The proper way
to accept a fact is to believe it; and whosoever
believeth in Him shall not perish, but have ever-
lasting life. It is well to understand it, and you
may try to understand it if you can, but till then
you must believe it. For it is a fact, and your
understanding it will not make it less or more a
fact. The death of Christ will always be a fact.
Forgiveness of sins will always be a fact. Son,
accept the facts of sin : accept the facts of grace.
The atonement, you say, confuses you. You do
1 88 THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION
not understand its bearings ; the more you think
and hear and read, the more mysterious it be-
comes. And well it may, well it may !
A student went to a professor of theology not
long ago, and asked him how long it took him to
understand the atonement. He answered, all his
life. Thinking perhaps there might be some mis-
take, the young man went to another professor,
who taught the very doctrine in his class. " How
long did it take you, sir," he asked, " to under-
stand the atonement?" The professor thought a
moment, then looked him in the face. " Eternity^'
he said, ''Eternity; and I won't understand it then."
We have been dealing to-day with facts; we
need not be distressed if we do not understand
them. God's love ā how could we? God's for-
giveness ā how could we? "He forgiveth all
mine iniquities." It is a fact. What proof could
commend itself if God's fact will not do? Verify
the fact as you may, find out as much about it as
you may; only accept it ā accept it first. You
are keeping your life waiting while you are find-
ing out about it. You are keeping your salvation
waiting. And it is better to spend a year in igno-
rance than live a day unpardoned. You are
staining other lives while you are waiting : your
influence is against Christ while you are waiting,
and it is better to spend your life in ignorance
than let your influence be against Christ. Most
things in religion are matters of simple faith. But
when we come to the atonement, somehow we all
THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 189
become rationalists. We want to see through it
and understand it ā as if it were finite hke our-
selves, as if it could ever be compassed by our
narrow minds ā as if God did not know that we
never could fathom it when He said, " Believe it,"
instead of " Understand it." We are not ration-
alists when we come to the love of God, or to
faith, or prayer. We do not ask for a theory of
love before we begin to love, or a theory of prayer
before we begin to pray. We just begin. Well,
just begin to believe in forgiveness. When they
brought the sick man once to Jesus, He just said,
" Man, thy sins are forgiven thee," and the man
just believed it. He did not ask, " But why should
you forgive me, and how do you mean to forgive
me? and I don't see any connection between your
forgiveness and my sin." No ; he took the fact.
** Immediately he rose up, and departed to his own
house, glorifying God." The fact is, if we would
come to Christ just now, we should never ask any
questions. Our minds would be full of Him.
We should be in the region of eternal facts, and
we should just believe them. At least, we should
believe Him ; and He is the Saviour, the sum of
all the facts of salvation ā the one Saviour from
all the facts of sin. If you will not receive salva-
tion as a fact, receive the Lord Jesus Christ as a
gift ā we ask no questions about a gift. Receive
the Lord Jesus Christ as a gift, and thou shalt be
saved from the power and the stain and the guilt
of sin, for His is the power and the glory. Amen.
NUMBER IX
"What Is
Your Life?"
James iv. 14.
TO-MORROW, the first day of a new year,
is a day of wishes. To-day, the last day
of an old year, is a day of questions. To-morrow
is a time of anticipation; to-day a time of reflec-
tion. To-morrow our thoughts will go away out
to the coming opportunities, and the larger vistas
which the future is opening up to even the most
commonplace of us. To-day our minds wander
among buried memories, and our hearts are full
of self-questioning thoughts of what our past has
been.
But if to-morrow is to be a day of hope, to-
day must be a day of thought. If to-morrow is
to be a time of resolution, to-day must be a day
of investigation. And if we were to search the
Bible through for a basis for this investigation,
we should nowhere find a better than this ques-
tion, " WJiat is your life f "
We must notice, however, that life is used
here in a peculiar sense ā a narrow sense, some
would say. The question does not mean, " What
"WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?" 191
quality is your life?" " What are you making
of life?" "How are you getting on with it?"
" How much higher is the tone of it this year
than last?" It has a more limited reference
than this. It does not refer so much to quality