“True and False Religion” (1874) was originally published in 1830 as “An Introductory Essay” for the book Extracts of Letters to a Christian Friend by a Lady.
Abstract:
Thomas Erskine’s “True and False Religion” argues that the dominant form of religion—whether Protestant, Catholic, or non‑Christian—is essentially a refined selfishness in which people seek God only to secure pardon and safety, not because they love His character. Erskine contends that any religion that makes forgiveness conditional on faith, repentance, or moral effort inevitably drives the soul inward, producing fear, self‑righteousness, and rebellion rather than love. True religion, he insists, begins with the proclamation that God has already forgiven and reconciled the world through Christ, a finished act revealed in the cross and resurrection. Only when a person believes this personal, unconditional forgiveness does love for God arise, and only this love fulfills the law and transforms character. The essay therefore contrasts a false gospel that bases confidence on human qualities with the true gospel that rests entirely on God’s revealed character of holy love.
The general idea that men have with regard to religion is that it consists in their believing something or doing something in order to obtain from God forgiveness of their sins and the enjoyment of security under his protection. They think that there is a forgiveness in God but that it comes forth only upon those who have a certain character, i.e. those who believe or do some particular things. The things to be believed or to be done may vary somewhat in the different modes and forms of religion, but this idea runs through them all that the object to be attained is a deliverance from penalties and an assurance of safety—and that the way of attaining it is by believing something or doing something. Now it is obvious that this is a system of pure selfishness and that the man who acts under its influence must in everything that he thinks or does be serving himself and seeking his own interest and that God is considered in it merely as a being whose power makes it a matter of primary importance to appease His resentment and obtain His favor. According to this religion, God is sought not for Himself but for His gifts—not because He is the God of holy love and therefore the fountain of life but because He is the dispenser of rewards and punishments. But the man who acts in a particular way in order to obtain heaven or to avoid hell is as thoroughly selfish (only on a larger scale) as the man who acts in a particular way to obtain a thousand pounds or to avoid the gallows. The one glorifies God just as much as the other—they are both evidently following their own interests. And as we should never dream of saying that he who was seeking to gain the thousand pounds or to avoid the gallows was acting for the sake of the person from whom he expected to get the money or of the judge who pronounced the sentence of the law, so it would be equally absurd to say that he who was seeking to obtain a pardon or to escape from hell was acting for the sake of God.
He is not acting from love to God or from a desire to glorify God—he is seeking his own safety. It is not what God is but what he may get from God that he cares for. This is the religion of every natural man whether he be called a Protestant, or a Papist, or a Hindoo, or a Mahometan. It is man’s religion, and it is in fact nothing else than his natural selfishness acting in relation to the things of eternity, just as his principle of worldly conduct is selfishness acting in relation to the things of time. So long as the things of this world appear to be enough for happiness, he occupies himself in forming plans to secure his comfort in this world, and when he is constrained to think of the world beyond the tomb, and when he cannot shake from him the thoughts of death and the charges of conscience, he transfers his selfishness from time to eternity and forms his plans to secure, if possible, his safety and comfort in that untried and unending duration.
His seriousness and earnestness in this religion do not change its character at all, it is a pure system of selfishness, and every step that he takes in it is just a further training and hardening in selfishness. His earnestness in it is the earnestness of a disinherited son who fawns upon his father for the sake of his estate. Selfishness is very earnest and very serious. A condemned criminal is very serious in using means to obtain a pardon. And when a man has at all realized that he is a sinner against that omnipotent Being in whose hand he is and from whose grasp he can never extricate himself and who, as he has brought him into existence, can sustain him in existence and uphold him even against his will in the capacity of endurance that he may suffer all that He pleases to inflict—when a man has at all realized such a situation as this, he cannot but be very earnest and serious in his endeavors to alter his circumstances and to appease the anger and obtain the favor of that powerful Being. But his earnestness is entirely selfish—he is not earnest in serving God but in averting a danger from himself—he is not earnest in glorifying God but in providing for his own interest. And in point of principle, although his thoughts may now be entirely occupied with God and eternity, there is in reality as little of true love to God and devotedness to His service, as little of the disinterested desire to please Him in his heart as there was when, as an avowed worldling, he thought of nothing but the gratification of his appetites or his ambition or his vanity. Every human being sees and feels the truth of this reasoning when applied to the case of the disinherited son fawning on his father for his estate—and the only reason why its truth is not equally acknowledged in its application to religion is just because this is the universal religion, and if a man were to admit that this religion is false, he would have to admit to himself that he has no true hope before God at all.
But it is evident that until a man knows that God loves him and has forgiven him his sins, this must be his religion if he has any religion at all. For whilst he does not know himself actually to be forgiven, he must, in order to have any comfort of mind, either forget God altogether or he must be occupied with endeavors to obtain forgiveness. In the first case, there is an atheistical selfishness—and in the second, there is a religious selfishness. The second of these is certainly the preferable state of the two, but its superiority does not arise so much from what it is in itself as from its giving hope that the man once awakened will not rest there. For if his religion continues to be just an endeavor to obtain forgiveness, the selfishness of his heart must remain as unsubdued as in the state of the most confirmed worldliness. And if his religion continues to be of this kind, it really makes little difference what it is that he does in order to obtain forgiveness. One may build an hospital, another may undergo a penance, another may lead a sober and upright life, another may endeavor to do what he calls believing in Jesus Christ, but whilst the object is to obtain forgiveness, the whole acting of the man is a continued self-seeking—he is fawning on his father for his estate. He cannot love God—he cannot serve God for God’s sake but for his own private ends.
And this selfishness is not a merely negative offense, it is a direct rebellion. For so long as a man is not sure that God loves him and has forgiven him, he cannot he satisfied with God as He is—he cannot but wish that he could change God and control His will—he would think himself safer in his own hands than in God’s. Now what is all this but wishing that he himself were God? What does it mean but that if he had power according to his will, he would wrest the scepter out of the hand of God? Thus, must be the state of every man until he knows that God loves him and has forgiven him. He cannot but wish that he had the choosing of his own lot for time and for eternity until he knows that he is in the hands of one who regards his interests at least as tenderly as he does himself. And he cannot in reason or in possibility believe this of God until he knows that his righteous condemnation is removed off from him and that He loves him freely. And thus, until he knows this, he is necessarily in heart a rebel against God, and the history of his existence is just a history of plans and arrangements to secure a happiness to himself independent of God and to guard himself from evils which he apprehends from God’s plan. He plans for his comfort in this world and for his safety in the next world as if he were in the hand of an unfriendly power.
No one can doubt that it would be welcomed as good news by almost the whole human race if they were told, “that they might choose their own lot for time and for eternity.” And why would it be welcomed as good news but because they feel that they would be safer in their own hands than in God’s? Every man who feels in this way would be God if he could—and every man who does not know that his sins are forgiven must feel in this way; he must feel that he would be safer in his own hands than in God’s—and therefore he is in heart a rebel. There are probably very few who would directly avow such a wish as to usurp the throne of God or to control his will—there are probably very few who even in the secret of their own hearts are conscious of such a wish—for they know the fruitlessness of such a wish, and they fear the power of Him who searches the hearts, but it cannot be denied that every man who would feel himself to be safer in his own hands than in God’s must have the wish that he were in his own hands—and this is just wishing that he himself were God. And is it possible for a man who feels himself to be walking on the verge of eternity and who has apprehensions that this eternity may be an eternity of misery to him in consequence of the condemnation of God resting upon him, is it possible for him in such circumstances not to wish that he were in his own hands? He may know that he ought not to wish it, and he may make this answer, but it is not an answer to my question. There is a prodigious delusion contained in the answer, “we ought to submit to the will of God.” A man thinks that by acknowledging this to be a duty he has actually done the duty. But this is nothing—a religion which only teaches man his duty is of no value to man—the religion which he needs is one which contains a provision for converting the knowledge of duty into the acting of the will. A religion which does not provide for this is absolutely useless—and such is every religion which requires the submission of the heart without declaring that sin is forgiven. The duty may be admitted, but it is absolutely impossible that it can be complied with. For a man cannot submit in heart to God until he knows himself to be safe in God’s hands—and he cannot know himself to be safe in God’s hands until he knows himself to be forgiven.
Thus it appears that every movement of man’s mind until he knows himself to be forgiven is in reality a movement of selfishness and rebellion—and therefore it necessarily follows that no religion can save a man from sin or put him in a condition to love God and serve God from love except a religion which reveals to him God’s love already bestowed and God’s forgiveness already past as the objects of his faith—and that every religion which does not declare forgiveness to be already past but teaches that it is to be attained by faith or prayer or repentance and which thus makes it an object of hope and not of faith—that every such religion must in the nature of things be false because its necessary tendency is not to produce love but selfishness and to train the mind in the very element of rebellion.
There is another obvious effect of this false scheme of religion yet to be mentioned—and that is the self-righteousness which is necessarily connected with it. So long as it is received as truth that God’s forgiveness is bestowed only on those who possess some particular quality such as faith or repentance or sincerity—so long are men necessarily compelled to regard their possession of these qualities as the ground of their confidence before God. They may conceive that there is forgiveness in God through Jesus Christ sufficient for all men, and they may hold that there is no confidence to be placed in anything else, but whilst they believe that this forgiveness does not actually come out to any man until he possesses this quality of faith or repentance, they must necessarily have hope or fear before God just according as they consider themselves possessed of these qualities or not. It is easy to vary phrases, and it is easy for ingenious minds to deceive themselves by the use of phrases, but it is absolutely impossible in point of fact for anyone to believe that God’s condemnation rests upon all men until they have faith in the gospel and that that condemnation is removed as soon as they have faith in the gospel without at the same time regarding faith as the ground of his confidence before God. He is thus necessarily led to look inward for the ground of his confidence. His belief is that, if he can acquire faith, he will be pardoned —and thus his endeavor is to acquire faith and to ascertain that he has acquired it. He has not a very definite idea of what faith is, but he believes it to be a particular quality or character of the mind, which will prove its own existence by a certain course of conduct. In addition, therefore, to the endeavor to acquire faith, he also endeavors to follow this course of conduct that he may have an evidence that he possesses faith. In this way his thoughts are entirely drawn aside from the contemplation of God’s character as the foundation of his confidence and directed to his own character. It is not what God is but what he is himself that is of importance to him. For he must acquire faith, and he must ascertain that he has faith before he has confidence in God’s forgiveness —for none, according to this scheme, are forgiven except those who have faith. Many suppose that they escape from this error by representing the gospel as an offer of pardon to all men and by teaching that those who believe in the offer or who close with the offer receive the pardon. But this statement really denies that a man is pardoned until he believes. And thus, it throws his whole confidence on his having believed or his having closed with the offer. The offer of the gospel does not refer to the pardon but to the enjoyment of the pardon. This is an important distinction, A friend leaves me a legacy of a thousand pounds; if I believe the information, I have the enjoyment of it; if I do not believe it, I have not the enjoyment of it, but the fact remains unaffected by my belief or unbelief. If I am told “you are offered a legacy and you shall have it if you believe in it.” I should ask “what is it that I am to believe? Am I to make a fact by believing it? or am I to get the legacy as a reward for believing what is not true for it is not supposed to be mine until I believe in it.” There is a different form of words under which this same error appears, viz. the statement that there is in Christ a sufficiency of pardon and every good gift for all who believe and that all are commanded to trust in Christ in order that they may become partakers of that sufficiency. But if we are not already pardoned, our pardon must be conditional on our undergoing some change—and that change, whatever it may be, must, whilst unattained, be the object of our desire and when attained be the ground of our confidence. And thus, we are not resting on God’s character but on our own—we are leaving the fountain of living waters and hewing out broken cisterns which can hold no water.
It is said of God in the Bible— “they that know thy name or character, will put their trust in thee.”1 That is to say, there is something in God which cannot be known without inspiring confidence. There is a ground of confidence in His very nature, which requires only to be known in order to give peace. The gospel is just a declaration of that something in God’s character or, in other words, it is a manifestation of that name of God which calls forth the confidence of the sinner for God’s name is his character. No man hath seen God at any time. No man could look into his heart to see a ground of confidence there. —But the only begotten Son, which was in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. The bosom of God opened and the Son came forth to show us what the heart of the Father was. And what did he do? He made propitiation for the sins of the whole world; he tasted death for every man—he was made under the law and thus he put himself under the obligation of loving every man as he did himself—and had he failed in this, he would have been a breaker of the law—but he failed not—he loved every man and thus he proved that the Father loved every man for he declared the name or character of God in his whole being. And is it not a name to love? A name to trust in? Now the gospel is just the name of God as declared by Christ, and it is this, “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them,” and they who know it cannot but trust in it without going farther. But according to man’s religion, God’s name is— “God is in Christ forgiving those who believe,” and they who know this name must know themselves to be believers before they can trust in it. It is not God’s name, but their own name of believers that they trust in. They are cast on themselves for confidence.
This religion which regards pardon not as a thing already bestowed from which we are to advance to the service and the enjoyment of God but as an ultimate object in itself to be attained by faith, or prayer, or holiness, this is man’s religion whatever name it may take, and it rises out of the primary and radical sin of man’s nature. For man’s sin is that he has become his own center—that he seeks his own gratification as his chief object—that his thoughts meet in self and radiate from self—and therefore it is no wonder that when he frames to himself a religion, it should be such a one as consecrates this grand sin. And indeed, it does so for his religion is in fact just a bargain between God and man by which man seeks to secure his own interests. Man requires from God personal safety through eternity, and God requires from man certain sacrifices of inclination and restraints on the actings of his will along with certain observances and submissions as the price of his safety. And in this bargain, it is taken for granted that nothing could keep man to the fulfilment of his part of the agreement but the apprehension that the neglect of it might be attended with fatal consequences to his eternal well-being.
My dear reader, I pray you to consider this seriously. Don’t you see that according to the religion which I have described as man’s religion, there is absolutely no provision made for a love towards God on the part of man at all? For whilst assurance of the pardon which it holds out is yet unattained, man necessarily strives to obtain it in the spirit of selfishness and rebellion—and when it is attained, which however is a very rare thing, it just becomes an object of selfish enjoyment for which the appointed price has been paid. Man never, according to this plan, can have any confidence in God—any confidence that he has, is in himself, because it arises from a consciousness that he has performed his part of the agreement, because it arises from a conviction that he has done that thing which draws forgiveness out of God and has thus made that forgiveness his own. And thus, man’s religion dishonors God, both in the attainment of its object and in the means which it employs for attaining it. It considers God merely as a power that can inflict injuries and bestow benefits. It does not consider him as in himself the Fountain of living waters. It does not make God’s character to be a matter of any importance. It does not consider him as a Father. It denies both his love and his holiness. —It tramples underfoot the Son of God, and all that is contained in his incarnation, and death, and resurrection. This I say is man’s religion, whether it assumes the name and uses the phrases of that religion which God has revealed, or takes any other name and uses any other phrases. And this I believe to be the prevalent religion of our land—taught from the pulpits and received by the people. I don’t speak of the worldly people but of the religious people. This may appear a harsh and presumptuous saying, but I feel it to be the kindest thing that I can say because I am persuaded that it is the truth.
Is it not true that men are taught that God’s love and forgiveness and an interest in Christ are bestowed only on those who have a true faith and that a true faith must be evidenced by its fruits? And is it not the universal consequence of this that people are set to the business of acquiring a true faith, and what they conceive to be the fruits of faith, viz. repentance and holiness in order to obtain forgiveness? Is not this the business of the great mass of religious people in the land? Are they not just engaged in this business of seeking a pardon? And are they not encouraged in it and comforted in -it by being assured that they are in a right and safe state whilst so engaged? Now this is just that religion which I have been describing as man’s religion. The great body of the religious world are seeking a pardon and an interest in Christ as if Christ had left the work of redemption for them to finish and as if he had not put away condemnation by bearing it himself. —They are seeking a personal safety and not the glory of God—they are seeking a selfish object by self-righteous means—they are denying that Christ’s blood has put away sin, and they are endeavoring to put it away themselves by faith and prayers and fears and doubts—they are just saying who shall ascend for us into heaven to bring down the Saviour—or who shall descend into the deep to bring him up from the dead or how may we do it for ourselves?
Alas! my fellow countrymen and my fellow sinners, you need not weary yourselves for very vanity. The Lamb of God hath taken away the sin of the world. He was delivered for our offences, i.e. because we had offended, and he was raised again for our justification, i.e, because we were pardoned.
That I have given a faithful description of the general religion of the country, I am confident few who are acquainted with the religious people in it will deny. If you ask a serious man what his hope is before God, he will very probably answer, “I hope that there is a work of the Spirit in my heart—I hope that I am a believer, and if you then ask him, what it is that he believes, he will answer that Jesus Christ died for all that should believe in him.—If you say this is good news indeed for those who know themselves to be believers—are you sure that you are one? He will answer, I hope that I am a believer—ask him again, and what do you believe? He will answer as before that Christ died for believers—and so on in the circle. —And thus, it appears that the man’s hope is really founded on nothing at all but what he conceives to be the favorable state of his own mind. He has little or no confidence at all—and all that he has is in himself-in his own faith.
This is the leprosy which has overspread the land. And whence does it proceed? It proceeds from the voice of the shepherds who tell the people that although the gospel is a proclamation of God’s love and of forgiveness of sins through Christ—yet that those only are loved and those only are forgiven who have faith in the gospel. I do not speak of the authorized standards of any church; I speak of the religion taught to the people. This is the fountainhead of the leprosy—and let the shepherds look to it and let the flocks look to it. This doctrine is the standing doctrine of the land, and it is nothing else than making the cross of Christ of none effect. It is a false gospel, which places the ground of confidence not in God but in the creature. It is a false gospel which mocks man with a semblance of good but gives him nothing. It makes the whole matter a peradventure. It takes the name of good news, yet it tells nothing which can give peace to a soul. I may believe it all and yet remain without peace. I may believe that Christ hath put away the sins of those who shall believe in him, but unless I know myself to be a believer, this can give me no peace. I may believe that there is an offer made to me of pardon, but unless I know that I have closed with that offer, I have no peace. I may believe that God loves and forgives the elect, but unless I know myself to be one of the elect, this belief can give me no peace. This false gospel promises me forgiveness if I believe in Christ. And if I ask, what is it to believe in Christ? I receive for answer, that it is to believe that Christ died for those who should believe in him. Why is not this moving in a circle? Is it not absolutely nothing? —Is it not a shifting sand which affords no rest to the wearied soul? Well, but they say that after we have believed this general truth, we have a right to assume our own interest in it. And why not at first? What is the use of making two steps instead of one? Just that man may have confidence in his own faith and thus may have all the glory—and that God may be robbed of his glory. Let the shepherds look to it—let them look to the state of their flocks, and whilst they do so, let them ponder that word, “If they had stood in my counsel, and caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings” Jer. 23:22. And there is a word in that same chapter for the flocks which they also would do well to mark. They must judge of the doctrine which they hear by the standard of the word of God. It is no excuse for their receiving false doctrine, that they have heard it from their teachers—they are called on to “try the spirits, whether they be of God.”2 They will be judged by the Bible—and God says of the truth that it is easily discernible from falsehood for, “What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord; is not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”3 And let all look to that word-“Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.”4
Now, just compare this false gospel with the true gospel. The true gospel is proclaimed in various forms through the Bible, thus— “All we like sheep had gone astray, we had turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6. And again, “he is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world.” I John 2:2. And again, “behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.”5 And again, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing unto them their trespasses.”6 The God of the Bible is a God who by the sacrifice of Christ has put away the sin of the world, of every individual in the world. This is the true God, and every other god is an idol. And, therefore, the gospel is the declaration to every creature that God loves him and has washed away his sins in the blood of the Lamb. Here is something for a man’s foot to stand on—it is not a message which applies to him on the condition of his being the possessor of any particular quality—it applies to him whatever quality he may have or whatever quality he may lack—it comes to him as a sinful child of Adam, and it comes to him as a truth from the God of truth—it declares to him something in God, which if it be true, is an immovable ground of confidence and rejoicing. This is the beginning of his confidence, and this it is which he is exhorted to hold steadfast unto the end. This is a confidence which gives all glory to God. It is a confidence which sets its seal to the last words of Jesus, “It is finished,”7 —and to the record of the Father— “that he hath given us eternal life in His Son.”8 It is a confidence which agrees with that word— “This is life eternal to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”9 It is, moreover, a confidence which cannot be enjoyed away from God—for it is not founded on a mere declaration of pardon. It is a confidence resting on an act which declares the character of God and thus it cannot be enjoyed except in the contemplation of that character. It rests on an act by which God has condemned sin in the flesh, and, therefore, it cannot be enjoyed except in the recognition that sin is that evil thing which God hates and for which Christ died. It is thus a holy confidence—and through this confidence it is, that man glorifies God by entering into the conformity and enjoyment of His character.
The questions at issue are nothing less than these—whether the true ground of a sinner’s confidence be in himself or in God. And whether the service to which God calls man be the loving and willing service of the heart or a mere external doing. And whether the true God be really that God who was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them—or whether He be a God who either loves the elect alone or who is still imputing trespasses unto men until they believe in Jesus.
I am anxious to press this because I am aware that many persons think that this controversy is a mere dispute about words, or at most, a contending for the superiority of one statement of truth over another. But this is a great mistake—it is not a dispute about words, nor about different views of the same truth—it is a dispute between two distinct and opposed religions, one of which must of course be false and must be holding forth as the object of worship an idol instead of the true God.
A religion which does not declare sin already forgiven but which promises pardon as the consequence of believing something, or doing something or closing with an offer certainly places the ground of the sinner’s confidence in himself and not in God. And therefore, any confidence which can he attained under such a religion, must be a confidence in self and not in God. But confidence naturally gravitates to its own center, and it naturally clings to that and glories in that and seeks enjoyment in that on which it is founded—and so the soul which has confidence in self will cling to self, and glory in self and seek its enjoyment from self, and the soul which has confidence in God will cling to God, glory in God and seek its enjoyment from God. Now, as the only purpose of the pardon is just to put the sinful creature in the condition of clinging to God and glorifying and enjoying Him in His true character—so this its only purpose would be defeated if it depended on anything in the creature and if it did not exclusively and solely rise out of the character of God. If a soul does not know itself to be pardoned, it cannot look upon God’s character without distrust—and if, when it believes itself to be pardoned, it can trace its pardon to anything else than God’s character, it will not look into God’s character for its enjoyment—it will not regard God as the fountain of life.
And therefore the pardon of the gospel arises simply out of the character of God as revealed in Christ, and it is declared to all without exception and independent altogether of their own characters that all men may be in a condition to regard God without distrust—and that all men may be shut in to glory in God alone and to seek their enjoyment in Him alone. If the pardon were not to all but were directed to any class or to the possessors of any quality, then God’s character could not be the source of man’s glorying nor joy. I know that those who have confidence because they have faith will defend themselves from the charge of trusting in anything of their own by saying that faith is the gift of God and the work of the Spirit, but this is no defense for, whatever faith may be, it is assuredly not God’s character and unless that character be the one ground of our confidence, we can never glory in it alone nor enjoy it alone. And therefore, Christ’s work is the only true ground of confidence because therein only the character of God is fully revealed.
The whole of man’s character depends on what is the ground of his confidence. And therefore, it is that the establishment of the true ground of confidence is the great object of the true religion.
The basis or very first principle of the character which Christianity requires is a confidence that we are personally interested10 in the love of God which gave Christ to the world, and in the sacrifice which Christ offered up for the sins of the world, and in the forgiveness which was manifested by the resurrection of Christ. And this confidence is founded on the fact that God has declared this as a truth to every human being. This is personal assurance, and I mean to say that the Christian character can be built on no other foundation than this personal assurance and that no man can obey the least of God’s commandments without it. Because the law is love—and we can only love by knowing ourselves loved and forgiven. The character which is produced by the hope of obtaining a forgiveness is quite different from the character which is produced by the knowledge of an undeserved forgiveness already past—for the one, character is selfishness and the other is love. And the religion which inculcates the one character is quite different from the religion which inculcates the other. And the God who requires the one character is quite different from the God who requires the other.
If an external conduct were all that the law of God required, then a principle of selfishness might obey it, and a hope of obtaining pardon and of avoiding punishment might be a sufficient motive to operate on that selfishness: but if the law really requires love, then nothing short of a personal assurance of being loved and forgiven can be a sufficient motive for it is absolutely certain that no man can love God or look upon him otherwise than as an enemy until he knows that He has forgiven him his sins and loves him as a father for “we love God, because He first loved us.”11 Why then is the necessity of personal assurance so generally denied amongst us? Just because the general religion of our land is that the gospel does not tell any man that his sins are forgiven. Now if this be so, a man may believe the gospel without knowing that his sins are forgiven him; that is, without personal assurance, for faith cannot draw more out of the gospel than what is in it. And if he may believe the gospel without personal assurance, he may be saved without personal assurance for he that believeth the gospel is certainly saved. But if a man can be saved without a personal assurance that his sins are forgiven him, he may be saved without confidence in God, or love to God, or giving glory to God for he cannot have confidence in God, nor can he love God, nor give God glory until he knows that his sins are forgiven. Yet the very meaning of salvation is the having confidence in God, and loving God, and giving him glory for the fall of man consists in distrusting God, and being at enmity with God, and refusing Him glory.
It may appear strange but it is nevertheless true that the carnal mind prefers this uncertain gospel which speaks only of a way of obtaining pardon to the true one which speaks of a pardon already past having been obtained through the blood of Christ. And the reason is that it does not lay such a weight of condemnation on man nor does it bring him directly face to face with God as the true gospel does. It does not charge him with the guilt of trampling on the love and blood of Christ for that love and that blood, according to it, are only set before him, they are not actually upon him—and it does not charge him with the guilt of making God a liar, although he continues to distrust God and thus to dishonor Him, for if God does not tell him that his sins are forgiven, he is not making God a liar by thinking that they are not forgiven. It tells him that God’s forgiveness is just within his reach and that he may have it by believing something (of which he has no definite idea, but which of itself can give him no comfort) and by using what are called the means of grace, that is, by praying and reading the Scriptures and repentance and amendment. And he has a sort of ease of mind in the thought that forgiveness is so near him and that as he is in the way of getting it by using the means of grace, he is doing his part and so cannot be in any great danger. And thus, he is not obliged to look for his confidence directly and solely into the mind and character of the living, and mighty, and holy God, who is ever present, but he may have a confidence out of God’s presence and thus he gains the power of enjoying self without fear of consequences. Whereas the true gospel which declares forgiveness through the sacrifice of Christ as an act already past, charges everyone who is not rejoicing in it with the guilt of making God a liar and condemns all peace which is not drawn from the perception of God’s character and thus gives no room for the enjoyment of self. For our pardon is written in the blood of Christ, and no copy can be taken of it; we must read it in the blood itself, in that very blood which condemns sin. And this characteristic of it, whilst it gives it its sanctifying virtue, makes it disquieting and burdensome to the carnal mind,
This is of great importance. The very notion of a God as the root of all being and the source of all power involves the principle that happiness can only be enjoyed by those who are of one mind with Him. And therefore, the exhibition of His character must always be regarded as an exhibition of the only possible condition of true blessedness in the intelligent creature. And nothing surely can demonstrate so thoroughly the opposition of God’s character to all sin as this that in the very deed of pardon, in the very deed which shows the immensity of His tenderness and love towards the sinner, there should appear such an unrelenting and uncompromising abhorrence of sin. The pardon is the form in which God declares His character in relation to sinners. And that character is thus declared for the purpose of being infused into the hearts of those who hear of it and not for the purpose of leading any one to suppose such an absurdity as that he may live comfortably and safely in the very midst of a power which is the only power of the universe and the only root of being whilst he continues at direct variance with all the principles on which that power acts. The pardon of the gospel declares the bar removed which sin had reared between God and man and which prevented the previously existing love of God from flowing forth upon the creature, but no conceivable pardon could ever undo the necessary connection between misery in the creature and opposition to the will of the Creator. And besides this, there is also the condemnation at last for the rejection of the gospel and the penalty of the second death.
But to return from this digression. It is certain that nothing stirs up the enmity of men more than the maintaining that personal assurance is necessary to salvation, and this is just because they have no personal assurance as indeed according to their religion they cannot have it, and yet they wish to think themselves safe and are irritated against any who would awaken misgivings in their minds about the state of their souls. They wish to think that there is some neutral ground on which they may stand safely between the entire ignorance that there is a Saviour at all and the knowledge that he is their Saviour who has taken away their sins. Now, they know that there is a Saviour, but they do not know that he has taken away their sins for they do not think that they have any warrant to believe this until they are conscious of possessing the fruits of the spirit. And here is their sad dilemma, for they never can possess these fruits until they have first believed that their sins are forgiven. And thus, the dislike to the doctrine of personal assurance flows necessarily from the prevalent religion of the land. Men are conscious that they do not possess the fruits of the spirit, and yet they hold that the conscious possession of these fruits is the only proper ground of personal assurance; if, therefore, they admitted that personal assurance is necessary to salvation, they would have to admit to themselves that they are not in a state of salvation. And they wish to think themselves safe, although they have not this assurance—and thus they willingly shut their eyes to their danger.
Nevertheless, personal assurance is necessary to salvation—for personal assurance is nothing more or less than the faith of the Gospel. For the gospel is not a message which regards the mass of the world and overlooks the individuals. It does not tell of a love and a pardon which are for the whole but which yet demand an act on the part of each individual in order to warrant him in conceiving them his own. The gospel is a personal message from God to every man, for the commission was— “Go into all the world, and preach this Gospel to every creature,”12 i.e. tell each man it is for him. Whatever therefore is spoken in the gospel to the world is in fact specially addressed to every individual in the world. And thus “God’s love to the world,” and “Christ’s propitiation, for the sins of the whole world,” and God’s “not imputing their trespasses to the world,” are to be received by each individual as if they had been directly spoken to himself. In the gospel then, forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ is declared to every man, and therefore, faith in the gospel is each man’s belief that his sins are forgiven through Jesus Christ’s finished work. He that does not believe this, does not believe the gospel—he is yet an unbeliever. And thus, personal assurance is not an advanced stage in the Christian life, it is the very first step out of unbelief. For a belief in the gospel and a belief that my sins are forgiven through Christ are one and the selfsame thing, for the gospel is that “Christ hath put away sin, by the offering of himself once for all.”13 And sin-offerings have now ceased simply because sins are remitted, for it is written, “where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.” Heb 10:18. If sins are not remitted, it can only be because the blood of Christ has not put away sin. But the gospel is just a declaration that the blood of Christ has put away sin, and therefore he who does not know that his sins are remitted does not believe the gospel. And a belief in Christ is just the same thing as a belief that sins are forgiven. For what is Christ? He is the gift of the Father’s love to the world, John 3:17. He is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, John 1:29. He was a ransom for all, I Tim 2:6. Whoever therefore professes to believe in Christ and yet does not believe that his sins are forgiven is believing in a Christ different from the Christ of the Bible.
And what is the meaning of the personal charge of guilt against every man on account of unbelief unless the gospel is a personal message of forgiveness to every man? For nothing surely can be imagined more unreasonable than to suppose that God calls on any man to believe in a message which does not relate to himself and condemns him for not believing in it.
When the faith of individuals is spoken of in the Bible, it is spoken of as a personal thing. Thus, Paul says, “I live by the faith of the Son of God (and observe now what faith in the Son of God is) “who loved me and gave himself for me.” Then he adds, “I do not frustrate the grace of God”—evidently charging all those who do not 1ive by the faith of this same thing, with the sin of frustrating the grace of God. Faith in the Son of God, therefore, is a personal thing; it is each man’s believing that Jesus loved him and gave himself for him. No man believes in the Son of God who does not believe this; and every other form of belief frustrates the grace of God. Gal 2:20–21.
Then again, the faith of the woman who washed the feet of Jesus in the house of Simon the leper was to this effect that “her many sins were forgiven her.” And it was this faith that saved her, Luke 7:47-50. And what was her salvation? Love—she loved much. Love is salvation, for it is the healing of the enmity of the heart—and love can be produced by nothing else than the knowledge of forgiving love in God. “Her sins which are many are forgiven, therefore (as the true meaning is), she loved much.” Her faith saved her, and no other faith could have saved her. She might have believed anything else about Jesus besides this, and she would have remained unsaved. The knowledge of the forgiveness of all the rest of the world could have done her no good—no belief but the belief of her own pardon could have saved her. Her many sins were forgiven—that was her faith. She loved much—that was her salvation.
And the parable by which our Lord explained to Simon the reason of the warm affection with which he had been treated by the woman and of the coldness which he had experienced from himself, decidedly proves that faith in the gospel includes a belief of personal forgiveness and at the same time, proves that the gospel is the proclamation of a past forgiveness to every human being. “A certain creditor had two debtors; the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty; and when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both—tell me therefore, which would love him most.”14 In this parable, the woman and Simon are evidently represented by the two debtors: the one owing five hundred pence, and the other fifty. Not that the one really owed more than the other—for the terms in which our Lord speaks of the self-righteous Pharisees prove that he regarded them as on a level with the publicans and sinners; but that the one knew something of the greatness of the debt, and the other did not. In other respects, their circumstances were quite alike. They were both debtors—neither of them had anything to pay—and they were both frankly forgiven. Where then did the difference between them lie? Simply in their appreciation of the amount forgiven. Suppose that two men owed me a thousand pounds each—the one of whom knew the amount of his debt whilst the other thought that he only owed me a shilling—if upon its appearing that they had nothing to pay, I frankly forgave them both—it is quite evident that their feeling towards me would naturally be proportioned not to their real debt but to their appreciation of it. In order then to draw forth much love from a debtor to his creditor, two things are necessary, the one that he should know his debt to be great, the other that he should know that his great debt is forgiven. There can be no gratitude at all if the debt is not supposed to be forgiven—and that gratitude will be small if the debt is supposed to be small. If the creditor therefore wished to draw out the right gratitude of the debtor, he would, when he informed him that the debt was forgiven, send him along with his discharge an account of the sum discharged. Now this is just the message of the gospel; it not only declares sin forgiven, but it also declares it to be forgiven through the blood of Christ—and thus it tells at once that the debt is discharged and that the amount of that debt was so great that it required the blood of Christ to wash it away. Nothing can teach man the amount of the debt discharged except knowing the price that has been paid to discharge it, and thus, he never really knows the amount of his debt except by knowing his forgiveness, both because it is in the price paid that he sees God’s judgment of his debt and because he sees there also the greatness of that love against which he has offended.
But the two debtors in the parable not only represent Simon and the woman, they represent also the two classes into which the whole human race is divided, those who know that they had incurred a great debt but that they were forgiven when they had nothing to pay and those who are not conscious of the amount of their debt, nor of their own bankruptcy, nor of their own forgiveness. God is the great creditor, and all men are His debtors, and when they had nothing to pay, He frankly forgave them all. So far, they are all on a footing. The difference between them arises from this that some believe what God has told them of their circumstances, and some believe not. The believers, or those who believe that their many sins are forgiven, love i.e. they are saved; the unbelievers, or those who believe not that their many sins are forgiven, do not love, i.e. they remain unsaved.
The very essence of the truth taught in this parable is that all men are forgiven and that each man’s salvation arises out of the belief of his own personal condemnation having been removed by his own personal forgiveness, and this is taught in all its fulness by the blood of Christ, which hath both condemned sin in the flesh and put away sin.
I do not see how any other interpretation can be given of this parable than that which I have given. It is quite evident that Jesus means by it to tell Simon that both he and the woman were equally forgiven when they had nothing to pay and that the difference of their love towards him arose from their different appreciations of their forgiveness. Now Simon was most assuredly an unbeliever—yet he was forgiven—and the woman became a believer just by believing that this Lamb of God had forgiven her sins and had come to pay his blood as their discharge.
In Simon’s case, then, we have the proof that unbelievers are forgiven though they are not saved, and in the woman’s case, we have the proof, that forgiveness must precede belief, for it is the very thing believed and that salvation must follow belief for salvation is nothing else than the love which is produced by the knowledge of God’s forgiving love already bestowed.
The woman’s faith was that her many sins were forgiven her, and it will not be denied that hers was saving faith. But surely it is the duty of everyone to have saving faith—that is to say, it is the duty of everyone to believe that his many sins have been washed out in the blood of the Lamb, and it could never be a duty to believe this unless it were true. And farther, no man can do the smallest act of obedience to God’s law until he believes this—for no man loves until he believes this—and whenever he forgets this, he becomes incapable of any obedience, for it is written, “He that lacks godliness, temperance, brotherly kindness, or charity—lacks them in consequence of his forgetting that he was purged from his old sins,” in consequence of his forgetting that the blood of Christ had washed away his sins, 2 Peter 1:9. These two passages in connection most distinctly teach that the only source of sanctification is the belief of personal forgiveness through the atonement of Christ. And this is in perfect accordance with the fact that sanctification is produced by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in the man—for that spirit is said to enter into the heart only after the heart is opened by this belief of Jesus. Thus: “this spake He of the Spirit, which they who believe on him should receive.” John 7:39. And again, “in whom also (i.e. in Jesus), after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.” Eph 1:13.
I may add here also in confirmation of what has been said of the necessity of personal assurance that the exhortations to practical duties addressed in the epistles to Christians are all founded on their knowledge that their own sins were forgiven them; thus, “put on, therefore, as the elect of God, bowels of mercies, humbleness of mind—forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, even as Christ forgave you so also do ye.” Col 3:12, 13. And there is a similar exhortation in Eph 4:32, and 5:1, 2. It may be said but these were believers, and thus it does·not support the position that all are pardoned. But I am at present chiefly anxious to press this important truth that no man is a believer who does not know that his sins are forgiven. If this be granted—if it be granted that a belief of the gospel necessarily includes a belief that sin is forgiven, then it must be true that the gospel does tell each man that his sins are forgiven otherwise no man could know it by a belief of the gospel, for belief cannot draw more out of the gospel than is in it. If the information that my sins are forgiven me is not contained in the gospel, where am I to find it? Is it in my own character? That is the only other resource. But blessed be God, it is in the gospel—and this it is which makes the gospel indeed glad tidings, for it shows us the character of God manifested in an act which declares sin condemned and at the same time washed away. Any confidence away from this ground must arise either from a man’s conceiving himself to be possessed of some quality to which the gospel promises forgiveness—or else it must arise from his believing that a particular revelation has been made to himself. But the general gospel is a personal message to each individual. For if God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life, then it is evident that the only reason why each individual has not everlasting life is just because each individual does not believe in this love of God in giving His Son for him. The whole world are in the condition of the two debtors—that is to say, when they had nothing to pay, they were frankly forgiven—and those who believe this love of God in giving His Son to be the propitiation for their sins have the everlasting life for that life is God’s love which enters into them by this belief—and those who do not believe it, have not life, they shut their hearts against it—so that it cannot enter in, although they are living and moving and having their being in it and although it longs to enter into them. And the condemnation at the last day will be, not for having broken the law, but for having rejected the gospel of this love of God.
But it may be asked, what sort of a pardon is that which admits of a man’s being finally condemned? Is it consistent with justice that a man should be condemned for an offence which had been already pardoned? No, surely! What is the meaning then of a man being pardoned and yet condemned after all? The explanation is just this: he is not condemned for the offence which had been pardoned but for a new one: he is not condemned for breaking the law, but for rejecting the gospel. Whilst man was under the dispensation of the law, the condemnation was for breaking the law: and now when through the death of Christ, we are redeemed from the transgressions that were under the first covenant, and delivered from that condemnation, and are placed under the dispensation of the gospel, the condemnation is for rejecting the gospel, see John 12:48. As the dispensation of the law was universal, so the dispensation of the gospel is universal. And it is from the condemnation of the law that the pardon of the gospel delivers us. But for the better understanding of this, we must first understand the nature of the penalty denounced by law. The penalty according to the record is this: “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die.”15 Men, by their traditions, have converted this penalty into a threefold death—death temporal, death spiritual, and death eternal. But death spiritual is nothing more or less than the sin itself—for sin is the shutting God out from the heart and that is shutting out spiritual life. And, therefore, if I am told that spiritual death is the punishment of sin, I might answer, then sin is the punishment of spiritual death for they are one and the same thing. And death eternal is not a punishment under the law but under the gospel. The death denounced by the law was just the separation of soul and body. This does not however make the penalty nugatory for the soul which had shut God out must have been miserable in its state of separation from the body. This was the sentence on the whole race—and whilst it remained unreversed, it must have kept every man in his grave—it must have lain upon every man like a tombstone and kept him down—no one could have risen. But if death be the penalty, resurrection is the reversal of the penalty. And what is pardon but the reversal of a penalty? It is true then of every man who is to be raised from the dead that with regard to him the sentence of the law is reversed, or, in other words, that he is pardoned. But we know that there is to be a resurrection of the whole race, both of the just and of the unjust. Every man is to be raised, the unbeliever as well as the believer. So that with regard to every man, the penalty of the law is reversed, that he is pardoned; and thus, we see the meaning of that text, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us,” Gal 3:13; and of that other, “for which cause he is the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first testament, they that are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance,” Heb 9:15; and of that other, “as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive,” I Cor 15:22; and of that other, Jesus Christ “is the Saviour of all men, especially of those who believe.” [I Tim 4:10.] And thus also we see the meaning of that passage in I Tim 2:6 where it is said, “that Christ Jesus gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time,” —for in the resurrection of the unbelievers a testimony will be given that Christ had died for them—for only thus could they have been delivered from the power of the grave. This also is the explanation of those passages in the 5th chapter of the Romans which assert that the redemption by the second Adam is co-extensive with the fall by the first Adam. And thus, it is that the preaching of the resurrection of Christ as the second Adam is in fact the preaching of the gospel to all men because it is the pledge of resurrection to all men, and therefore, it contains an assurance to all men that God has put away their sin and forgiven them. And it is for this reason that the resurrection of Christ as well as the resurrection of all men is so much insisted on by the Apostles, both in their sermons as appears from the Acts of the Apostles and also in the epistles.
But is this all that we get by the gift of God’s dear Son? No surely—believers get an exceeding weight of glory by that gift—but this which I have spoken of is something which all men get whether they believe in Christ or not. And their getting this is a proof of their connection with Christ and of their deliverance from the curse of the law through Him in spite of their own unbelief. And although this is no blessing for those who disbelieve the gospel because that rejected gospel shall condemn them on the great day, yet this is their own fault, not God’s. For that work of Christ in consequence of which the curse of the law is removed is an actual putting away of sin and a manifestation of the holy love of God for the whole race and for every individual of the race. And they who believe it, receive that Holy Love into their hearts, which is the eternal life—whilst they who believe it not, shut out that Holy Love and thus shut out the eternal life. But this is not all. Those who live under the dispensation of grace and reject it, although they shall not be condemned for a broken law, shall be judged and shall be condemned for a rejected gospel. The punishment denounced against them is the second death which testifies by its very name both that the first death is passed and that it is the consequence of refusing the second life. It is written that “this is life eternal to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” [John 17:3.] And therefore, it is that men have eternal life through faith in the atonement because the only true God and Jesus Christ are therein made known; and therefore, it is also that they who disbelieve the love of God to them, manifested in the atonement, have not—the eternal life however much they may be pardoned. Sin, or spiritual death, entered into man by his admitting the desire of being as God, that is, of being independent, and by his believing the suggestion of the devil that God forbade him to eat the fruit because He grudged him the advantages which would arise from eating it. Man fell by believing that lie of the devil, “Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that on the day ye eat thereof, ye shall be as gods,” —that is to say, —man became spiritually dead by disbelieving God’s love, and man is restored to life only by believing God’s love. In the gospel, God says to man, “did you think that I grudged you that fruit? behold I do not grudge you myself,” for he loved us and gave himself for us; — “did you think that I grudged you being as gods? 1t was the sin and the misery of the rebellious wish that I grudged you—for the Word who is God has taken on Him your nature that He might condemn sin in your nature, and thus that you might be partakers of the divine nature, and that you might enter into the Joy of your Lord.”
Thus, God overcomes evil with good. He meets the-devil’s lie with the blessed truth; and as the devil’s lie was spiritual death to those who believed it, so the truth is spiritual life to those who believe it. And as this truth is contained in a work with which every human being is proved by the general resurrection to stand connected, whether he believes it or not, we have a substantial proof that this truth itself has also a real application to everyone, whether he believes it or not. That is to say, we have a proof that every man is loved and forgiven and has free and welcome access to the Fountain of life. But as the eternal life consists in the knowledge of God as manifested in Christ, those who have not this knowledge have not the eternal life.
Nothing shows more strikingly both the prevalence of man’s religion in our land and that its principle and characteristic is selfishness than the apprehension that is entertained of the general proclamation of a free and full forgiveness of sin through the blood of Christ as an act already past with regard to the whole human race, irrespective altogether of their characters and of the reception which they may give the proclamation. Men immediately cry out that the whole motives for obedience and the restraints on sin are swept away at once by such a proclamation. Does not this apprehension prove that they regard selfish hope and fear as the great motives of obedience? Is it not a direct confession that love is not regarded as the principle of obedience? Does it not prove that the obedience which they dream of is quite different from the obedience which is required by that law which says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart?” This is a law which cannot be obeyed upon selfish motives—for love is just the opposite of selfishness. This law can only be obeyed by those who know that God loves them and has washed out their sins in the blood of the Lamb. None else can obey it—and therefore this proclamation of full and free forgiveness, so far from removing the motives of true obedience, contains the only motives which can produce true obedience.
Only mark the discovery which is made by this fear of the doctrine of forgiveness of sin. Man apprehends that an entire recklessness would be the consequence of a general belief that sin is forgiven, whilst God exhorts men to obedience just on this very ground, “that God in Christ hath forgiven them,” and ascribes their lack of the Christian virtues just to their forgetfulness that they had been washed from their old sins, Eph 4:32; 2 Peter 1:9. And when our Lord says to the woman taken in adultery, “Go and sin no more;” he grounds the admonition on that word of life, “neither do I condemn thee.” And lest the woman herself or any others should suppose that this word had any exclusive application to her more than to others, he immediately adds, “I am the light of the world not of this woman only, John 8:11, 12. These two verses ought not to be separated. Jesus was the light which lighteth every man, and John bare witness of that light that He was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, John 1:9, 29. It is said in John 3:17 that God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, and in the 19th verse this character of Jesus is again called the light and when this Son whom the Father sent spoke to men, he just said, “neither do I condemn thee.” This was the language of the light who came to condemn sin in the flesh, and it was on this ground that he said, “Go and sin no more.” And upon the same principle, when God gave the commandments to the Israelites, He prefaced them by a type of the gospel in these words, “I am the Lord thy God, who redeemed thee out of the land of Egypt.”16 None could obey the law except those who believed the preface, that is, who believed themselves redeemed. And indeed, none except those who were redeemed are addressed. And when the Saviour came into the world, and the times of ignorance at which God winked had passed, and when He called on men everywhere to love Him with all their hearts, the preface to the law was enlarged—it was no longer a typical redemption of one nation but a real redemption of all nations—it was no longer a shadow but the very gospel of the grace of God, and it ran thus— “God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son for it, as a propitiation for its sins.”17 Those who believe this preface are in a condition to obey the law, and those who do not believe it cannot possibly obey the law.
The discovery that is made by this dread which men have of the proclamation of a free and unconditional pardon already past to every man through the finished work of Christ is nothing short of this, that their religion is quite different from God’s religion. For God inculcates obedience by the very argument which they condemn as leading to disobedience. The truth is that they do not understand the nature of God’s pardon, they do not see that the sacrifice of Christ condemns sin as much as it puts away sin, and that by the manifestation which it makes of the character of God, it demonstrates that under His government sin and misery are necessarily connected, and that the blessedness which His love has planned for men is a blessedness arising from partaking in His own holiness and becoming the habitations of His own Spirit.
I repeat it again, therefore, as a most important subject for consideration that the fear which men have that the restraints on sin and the motives for obedience are taken away by the proclamation of an unlimited and an unconditional pardon through the blood of Christ proves that the obedience of man’s religion is quite a different thing from the obedience of God’s religion. It proves that the obedience of man’s religion is a mere outside thing, paid as a price to obtain a reward or to avert a punishment. It proves that according to man’s religion, God’s government is regarded as a mere system of police for keeping the world in order by operating on their selfish feelings.
One great mistake into which man falls in the matter of religion is that he thinks that obedience to the law is the way by which he is to arrive at a farther blessing—whereas, according to God’s religion, obedience is itself the ultimate blessing. Love, which is the only true obedience to the law, is the only right and blessed state of the creature. It is from this mistake that much error as to the nature of the gospel proceeds. Unless obedience is considered as the ultimate object, it will always be considered in some sort as a price paid for a farther blessing—and the gospel will be supposed to hold out the prospect of that blessing as a thing to be attained by paying the price. But when obedience is considered as an ultimate object and as in itself indeed the great blessing—then the gospel will be expected to contain such information as will put us in a capacity of rendering a true obedience, even the love of the heart, to Him who is alone worthy. But true obedience, which is love, is also salvation. The enmity of the natural heart is the grand evil, the grand sin, the grand misery. Deliverance from it is salvation. If the belief of the gospel, then, produces salvation, it must be because it contains information with regard to God which will destroy the enmity of the heart. And what must the information be which is capable of doing this? Nothing short of this, that God loves us and has washed away our sins in·the blood of Christ. If the gospel does not contain this information, it cannot destroy the enmity of man’s heart and so it is not worthy of the name of gospel. “We love God because He first loved us.”18 “Her sins which are many are forgiven, therefore she loved much.”19
That the Bible does represent obedience as the ultimate blessing and not as the means of obtaining another blessing is clear throughout but I shall refer to a few passages in which this principle comes strongly out.
In the prophecy of the new covenant by Jeremiah, 31:33, the blessing promised, is “I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts.” And look also what the instrument is —what the pen is by which the law is to be written on the heart; “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” But the great blessing itself is to have the law written in the heart. Now why is this a blessing? Just because the law is God’s own character. And he who has God’s law in his heart is conformed to God’s character and to Jesus who says of himself in Ps 40:8, “Thy law is within my heart.”
And what does Jesus say of the object which He had in view with regard to men when He came to the world? “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, in order that the love wherewith Thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”20 The object—the ultimate blessing was that they should be filled with that love which is the fulfilling of the law and that they should be dwelt in by Him who delighted to do the Father’s will. And Jesus accomplished this object by “declaring the Father’s name.” And what is that name? The same which was proclaimed to Moses, Exodus 34:6. “The Lord God, merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin yet by no means clearing the guilty.” This is the name of God which Jesus came to declare. It consists of two parts which appear to contradict each other: “Forgiving iniquity”—yet “not clearing the guilty.” Christ showed the harmony of these two parts of the name of God by bearing the curse himself. “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”21 So that now through Christ’s work every man’s sin is forgiven and yet every man’s sin has been condemned and punished. And this name is just the gospel, “God was in Christ (in whom the guilty were not cleared) reconciling the world unto Himself and not imputing unto them their trespasses.” The expression “God was in Christ” contains the idea of “God not clearing the guilty;” for, in Jesus, God condemned sin in the flesh, and the remaining part of Paul’s word of reconciliation, viz. “reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them” is just the first part of the name “The Lord God forgiving iniquity,” &c. and thus it appears that the gospel is just that name of God which was proclaimed to Moses, declared by Christ, 2 Cor 5:19. The name of God is just these two things in harmony, “God forgiving sin” and “God not clearing the guilty.” And the gospel is, “God forgiving every man, having already condemned the sin of every man in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.” And it is the knowledge of this name of God, or the belief of this gospel, which writes the law upon the heart and which causes the heart to open and receive into it the love of God and the Christ of God to dwell in it.
I may observe here that the righteousness of God is just the harmony of these two parts of the name of God, and thus, the righteousness of God is just the very substance of the gospel and the very thing which gives it its value and its power to heal the soul as Paul says in the epistle to the Romans, 1:16, 17. And the only true righteousness of man, the only righteousness which God reckons righteousness, consists in knowing this righteousness of God. And therefore, faith in the gospel is reckoned righteousness by God because it recognizes God’s righteousness and thus puts man in his right state before God, which is the state of a sinner who knows that his sin has been condemned and yet that he has been forgiven and that he is loved with a love passing knowledge. When a man does not know this, he is in his wrong state; when he knows this, he is in his right state, i.e. the state of righteousness as God reckons it. The eye is in the right state with regard to the light when it is open for then it admits the light, and it is in the wrong state when it is shut for then it excludes it. So, the heart is in the right state when it believes God’s holy love for then it admits that holy love into it, and it is in a wrong state when it disbelieves it for then it excludes it. The believer in this love then is by God reckoned righteous, and the unbeliever is by God reckoned wicked. And thus, repentance is just faith in the gospel for when a wicked man is called on to repent the meaning is that he is called on to leave off all other expectations of happiness or pardon and to look to the great fact that God has already forgiven him his sins through the sacrifice of Christ. This was the preaching of John the Baptist— “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world,” cease from seeking a pardon, look to the Lamb who has done it for you. This view agrees with the prophetic account of his ministry contained in Luke 1:76, 77 and with Paul’s description of it, Acts 19:4. True repentance and faith are just the same thing; they both mean recognizing the true name of God as revealed in the work of Christ. The name of God and the gospel of Christ remain the same whether they are believed or not; that is, every man is forgiven and every man’s sin is condemned whether he believes it or not, but a man is not in his right state before God until he believes this. For until he believes this, he is imagining to himself another god than the God of the Bible, he is worshipping an idol.
David had sinned against God in the matter of Uriah the Hittite, and his conscience came burdened with a sense of sin. He lost sight of God’s name and so he lost confidence in Him. He probably endeavored in vain to recover peace by the tabernacle services. At last God sent Nathan to him to repeat His name, “the Lord hath put away thy sin.” As soon as the ear of his soul heard this blessed name, he came into the right state of the creature. He had confidence in God as the God who condemned sin and yet had forgiven it. Then he wrote the 32d Psalm. Before he believed in his pardon, when he thought of God, he thought of Him as a terror, as a great prison house out of which he could not escape but as soon as he believed, “The Lord hath put away thy sin,” he said at once “Thou art my hiding place.” He then knew the blessedness of being in his right state before God. No man can know the blessedness of having sin forgiven until he believes that his sin is forgiven. And this is the message of the gospel to every man, but he only who believes it gets into his right state. This right state is just confidence in God; it is just the condition of the creature when its mouth is open to receive out of the fulness of God, to receive the love of God and the Christ of God to dwell in it,
When Abraham believed that word of God, “So shall thy seed be,” he came into his right state, Rom 4:25. It is evident from what is written in the beginning of the 15th chap. of Genesis that in·consequence of the delay in fulfilling the promise of the seed, Abraham had lost confidence in God and was therefore in a wrong state. But when God repeated the promise in that word, “so shall thy seed be,” that is, so numerous as the stars, Abraham believed it and again recovered confidence and God testified of this state that it was the right state of the creature. God reckoned it righteousness, Rom 4:22. And then it is added that this was not written for his sake but just to bear testimony that this belief of the character of God is the right state of man and that we shall every one of us be in his right state when we believe in God as the God who delivered Jesus Christ for our offences and raised him again for our justification. Now, what is the import of the expression “raised for our justification?” Does it mean raised in order that we may be justified? It may appear at first sight to have this meaning, but it is not the true meaning as a moment’s consideration will discover. The meaning of the preposition for here must be determined by its meaning in the first clause of the sentence. The whole sentence is, “who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” Now when it is said that he “was delivered for our offences,” it cannot mean that he was delivered in order that we might offend; it evidently means that he was delivered because we had offended. And so, in the last clause of the sentence, the for must have the same interpretation; “he was raised again not in order that we might be justified but because we were pardoned. Jesus never could have been raised unless we had been pardoned for he was put into the prison of the grave because of our offences, and therefore, whilst those offences remained unexpiated, he must have remained still in the prison. Why is a man put in prison? Because he is an offender. Why is he let out? Because the penalty has been sustained and exhausted. And so, Christ did not come out of the prison of the grave until the penalty was exhausted. Well then, this is just the name of God, forgiving sin, without clearing the guilty. Our sins have been both condemned and expiated by Christ’s death. We are forgiven through his finished work. Now this is true whether we believe it or not, but we are then only in the right state of the creature when we believe it; we only then know God truly and it is life eternal to know Him; we only then know ourselves truly; we only then are in a condition to enter into the mind of God in his abhorrence and condemnation of our sin; and thus we only then are in a condition really to glorify God by sympathizing in His judgment concerning our own characters and to love God as the Holy One who hates iniquity. No man can possibly do this till he knows himself forgiven. And therefore, no man can be taught to cease from sin except by knowing that his sins are forgiven him.
And this is the meaning of that passage in the Acts 3:26. “Unto you first, God having raised His Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, by turning away every one of you, from your iniquities.” The resurrection of Christ proved the forgiveness of sin, and it was by the knowledge of this forgiveness that men were to be turned away from their iniquities. The blessing then consists in being turned away from our iniquities, and the instrument of doing this is the knowledge of forgiveness through Christ.
We have a similar view of the nature of the blessing given in Luke 1:72–75 where we find the father of the Baptist blessing God for having “raised up a horn of salvation in the house of David, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, that He would grant unto us, that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him. all the days of our life.” This willing and holy and righteous service of God is the true blessedness of the creature, and that only is good news to us which puts us in a condition to render this service. Unless the gospel, then, contains information which removes our ground of fear and puts us in a condition to serve God in holiness and righteousness, it really is not good news to us, and it does not accomplish that for us which Zacharias here says that it has accomplished. What was the condition in which this promised mercy found man? He was under a righteous condemnation, and he feared and hated God. Now what could put a creature so situated, in a condition to serve God without fear? Evidently the removal of the condemnation and nothing else. Whilst that condemnation lasted, nothing but ignorance could preserve a man from fear. And be it remembered that the mercy here spoken of was to meet man’s needs not according to his own imperfect views of them but according to God’s view of them. Could God call on a man to serve him without fear whilst that condemnation remained unrepealed? Man’s fearlessness in such circumstances, if it did not proceed from ignorance, could be nothing but a madness, and God’s calling on him to serve Him without fear would have been nothing but a mockery.
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.”22 Man’s way is to arrive at pardon through obedience, God’s way is that he should arrive at obedience through pardon. It is not to a pardon nor to the enjoyment of a pardon that we are called. It is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever by being temples of the Holy Ghost and habitations of God through the Spirit. Sin had raised a barrier between us and the Holy God so that His love could not flow forth upon us, and the sense of condemnation shut our hearts against Him. The atonement of Christ has removed this barrier, and God’s love now flows forth upon us in freeness. But whilst man believes not the pardon, his heart remains still shut, and although God’s love which is the water of life flows upon him and around him, not a drop enters. The belief of the pardon is just the opening of the heart to let in the fulness of God. And so, the only thing which keeps man from the enjoyment of eternal life is unbelief. Our Lord told Nicodemus that until he had this eternal life in him, until he was born from above, he could not see the kingdom of God, he could do nothing according to the mind of God, he could not glorify or enjoy God. Nicodemus asked how he could get this birth from above— “how can these things be?”’ Our Lord answers “God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him, might not perish, but might have the eternal life,” the birth from above. God so loved the world that when the world by sin had raised a barrier to stop the flowing forth of His love which is eternal life unto them, He sent His only begotten Son to take on him the nature of man and in that nature to make propitiation for the sins of the world, and thus to put away the barrier and to become himself the channel through which the love and life of God might flow forth unto men. And now that love and life is flowing forth in fulness unto and upon men. When this love is not believed, the heart remains shut and the life cannot enter, and thus, he that believeth not the Son hath not life. But wherever this love is believed, the heart opens, and the life flows in, and thus he that believeth in the Son hath life. There is no charm which can open the heart but the voice of a believed love, and thus it is that until this voice of love and forgiveness is heard and believed, the heart never opens and the life cannot enter.
The love of God which gave Christ is the immense ocean of the water of life, and men’s souls are as ponds dug upon the shore connected each of them in virtue of Christ’s work with that ocean by a sluice. Unbelief is the blocking up of that sluice. Belief is the allowing the water to flow in so that the pond becomes one with the ocean, and man becomes partaker of the divine nature and has one life with the Father and the Son.
But where is the doctrine of election? What is election? Did Christ not taste death for every man? Is He not the propitiation for the sins of the whole world? Did God not so love the world as to give it His Son? It is denying the plain and obvious sense of words to deny these things. God’s love then does not flow through the channel of election, neither does the gift nor the atonement of Christ. Where, then, is election? It is here, that when this love was poured upon all, and this forgiveness sealed to all, and the power to believe it conferred upon all—and yet no man would believe it when all loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil; when all with one consent began to make excuses; then the electing word came forth saying, “compel some to come in.” And thus is the creature condemned throughout, and God is glorified. And he who believes, believes because he has been compelled to come in. But the fault is man’s alone.23 God loves him and has declared His love to him. God has forgiven him and hath declared that no man is common because every man has been consecrated by the shedding of that blood of the covenant which is no common thing. (Compare Acts 10:14, 15. with Heb 10:29 recollecting that the word translated common in the Acts is translated unholy in the epistle to the Hebrews.) God has thus put man in a condition to glorify and enjoy Him. His high and holy and loving purpose in all this was to train up to Himself a family from our fallen race who might be His sons and daughters and who, through their union with Christ, might reign on the earth in holiness and righteousness as kings and priests unto God. And when He calls on men to enter into this gracious purpose with regard to them, He declares that there is no hinderance to its accomplishment but their own unwillingness. “What could I have done more for my vineyard, that I have not done unto it, that when I looked that it should have brought forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes?”24 His own Son has become the root of the vine and His own Spirit the sap and nothing but the willful resistance of the branches prevents that sap from flowing into them all. And well may He ask for grapes, and well may He complain that wild grapes are brought forth! And who is he that will say that these complaints of God are not honest? Who is he that will say to his Maker, thou hast not done all that thou mightest have done? Who is he that will say that it is because God will not, therefore man does not. Who is he? Alas! potsherd of the earth, Jesus weeps for him.
- Ps 9:10. ↩︎
- 1 John 4:1. ↩︎
- Jer 23:28–29. ↩︎
- Jer 17:5. ↩︎
- John 1:29. ↩︎
- 2 Cor 5:19. ↩︎
- John 19:30. ↩︎
- 1 John 5:11. ↩︎
- 1 John 5:11. ↩︎
- Editor: This archaic use of the word interested means “to induce or persuade to participate or engage.” ↩︎
- 1 John 4:19. ↩︎
- Mark 16:15. ↩︎
- Heb 9:25–26. ↩︎
- Luke 7:41–42. ↩︎
- Gen 2:17. ↩︎
- Deut 5:6; 15:15. ↩︎
- 1 John 4:10. ↩︎
- 1 John 4:19. ↩︎
- Luke 7:47. ↩︎
- John 17:26. ↩︎
- Isa 53:6. ↩︎
- Isa 55:8. ↩︎
- “The way of sinfulness into which man has turned is, in conformity with the whole language of Scripture, called his own way in opposition to God’s way. And this opposition almost all admit to be a reality. Few will venture to say, ‘It must be according to the will of God that I should be a sinner, or I could not be as I am,’ We all feel that the holy law of God testifies against this and that God is more honored by our consenting to admit the awful fact that the creature contravenes the will of the Creator than by our regarding him as consenting to the sin of the creature. Now what the law testifies concerning the sins of men in general, the gospel testifies concerning unbelief and consequent ruin. It is a thing of man’s doing contrary to the will of God. It is man’s way opposed to God’s way. —ln the case of the law, the holiness of God opposed man’s own way; in the case of the gospel, his love, his forgiving compassion. The law can have no due effect on a man till it shows him a holiness in God averse to his sin, nor the gospel till it shows him a love averse to his misery and destruction. In the one case we must tell men fearlessly here is the law proving that God would have you to be holy and regard it as no sufficient objection to be told, ‘but men are unholy.’ In the other case, we say as fearlessly to any and every man, ‘here is the gospel. God would have you blessed forever; it is no sufficient objection that men perish.’ ‘I would have gathered you, and you would not.’” —Letter to a Sick Person, Published by J. Nisbet, London. ↩︎
- Isa 5:4. ↩︎
Copyright ©2026 Richard L Leimbach
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