“Salvation is of the Lord.”—Jonah ii. 9.

“According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain onto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue.”—2 St. Peter i. 3.

No one can read his Bible without being convinced that it is full of practical exhortations as to human conduct and human effort. Those who are seeking the Lord Jesus Christ are exhorted to repent, to believe, to be converted, to seek, to come, and to follow on to know the Lord. Hence it follows that as we are very apt to see only one side of anything at a time, there is a great tendency to dwell exclusively on human action, and to exhort, and to persuade, as if everything was in our own hands, so that we may do just what we please, and when we please, in the great matter of our soul’s salvation. People are apt to write and speak about coming to Jesus as if it all rested with the sinner himself. But this, though deduced from a truth, is not the whole truth of Scripture. We find there beyond all doubt the warning, the offer and the invitation; but we find also the clear description of a divine salvation, the plan of divine wisdom, and the gift of divine grace. Accordingly in this passage when St. Peter [17] is addressing those who had obtained like precious faith with himself, he makes it perfectly clear at the very outset of his letter that they had obtained it, not by the power of their own energy, or the determination of their own will, but through the power of God, the gift of God, and the call of God, “whereby were given unto them exceeding great and precious promises.” [18a]

Let us, therefore, turn our attention to the divine side of the great transaction, and trace through four successive steps, the divine Saviour, the divine salvation, the divine revelation, and the divine application.

I. A Divine Saviour.

It is not my business now to make any attempt to prove the divinity of our Blessed Redeemer, for I take it for granted that we all admit the great truths of Christianity. What I desire now to do is to point out that, if saved at all, we are saved by a Person, and that that Person is divine. The Lord Jesus Christ is a personal Saviour, and as a personal Saviour, saves us from the death of sin. It is as much a personal act as when a bold swimmer leaps into the ocean and saves a drowning man.

Now it is plain that everything depends on the nature and power of the person who saves us. If He be only man, then we can hope for nothing more than a man-made salvation. The salvation will not rise above the Saviour; but if He is divine, then we may rest on His divine omnipotence, and look for the power of God unto salvation. Thus the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ is a matter of life and death to us. The question is whether we are to save ourselves or be saved by our God. And this is the issue which He Himself raised when He said, “I give unto them eternal life.” [18b] The statement of that passage is that He, as a Person, holds His people in His own hand, and holds them with omnipotent strength because He is divine, for He and the Father are one. There, then, is both the foundation and the keystone of our trust. We may see all kinds of difficulties; there may be confusion, perplexity, and the cry of distress in every direction, but according to His divine power God has provided a divine Saviour, and in that Saviour we may rest, for He is the Son of God.

II. A Divine Salvation.

The whole plan from first to last is divine. The world is full of human plans, some of which are successful and some total failures. One man contrives one thing and one another, but God alone planned the great salvation. It was not in the power of ruined nature to restore itself, so in boundless mercy and in His own divine omnipotence He provided a plan of restoration. Thus the purpose is divine, His own eternal purpose before the world was; the mode of reconciliation is divine, the release of the sinner through the imputation of sin to the sin-bearer. The propitiation was divine, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.” [20a] The imputation of righteousness is divine, “For God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” [20b]

The work of sanctification is divine, “Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us . . . sanctification;” [20c] and the final gathering of God’s elect will be divine for “all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth.” [20d]

It is most important to bear this well in mind, for it places the subject beyond the sphere of human speculation. If a man starts a new system of philosophy, or if people advocate any particular system in politics, we are perfectly at liberty to criticise it. What one man does, another man may criticise. But it is a very different thing with the salvation of God. Once admit that it is a divine plan, arranged in divine wisdom and carried out in divine power, and it is then manifestly beyond the reach of human intellect. There may be things in it which seem to us very mysterious; but what else can we expect when the infinite and divine arrangements of God are subjected to the speculations of the finite mind of man? If the whole salvation were of such a character as to present no points of difficulty to the human inquirer, we might almost doubt its divinity, and believe that as it is within the range of man’s mind, so it had its origin in man’s ingenuity. But when we see it beyond the reach of man, then we are taught by our own inability to fathom it, to regard it as a plan above ourselves, for the simple reason that it is divine.

III. Divine Revelation.

But when we have acknowledged that the Saviour and the salvation are divine, there remains a further question of the utmost possible importance. It is this. In what way is this divine salvation made known to mankind? Is it known by human discovery or divine communication? Do we know it by thinking out the subject, or by receiving a revelation from God? Surely the answer to this question is obvious, that a divine salvation can only be known by a divine communication. The eternal purpose of God can only be known by divine communication from Himself. A supernatural salvation requires in the very nature of things a supernatural communication from God. Thus an Apostle describes [21] the faith, not as having been discovered by the saints, but as having been delivered to the saints, delivered to them, that is, in God’s own inspired Word. As God has planned a complete salvation, so He has given a complete revelation of that salvation. He has not left us to grope for it as blind men feeling for the wall; but has revealed His plan in His own word, and taught us to rest in the scripture of truth as His own revelation of His purpose of grace.

IV. The Divine Application.

To many this is the most difficult of the four points mentioned at the outset. They are perfectly satisfied as to the divine Saviour, the divine salvation, and the divine revelation in the Word of God, but have found no little difficulty in the application of it to themselves. They can see the chain with its three links hanging down from heaven over their heads, but it is just out of their own reach, and as a poor dying sailor once said to me, “I see the rope, but I cannot get hold of it.” So they see the salvation, but cannot get hold of it as their own. If there are any anxious on the subject, and earnestly desiring “to get hold” on the great salvation, let them remember that what they really want is for the Saviour to lay hold on them, and this is what He practically does by the power of the Holy Ghost. It is the peculiar office of the Holy Ghost to take of the things of the Lord Jesus Christ and apply them unto us, and without that act of His we may struggle in vain to reach the blessing. It is not enough for us to be told that God has provided a perfect Saviour, that that Saviour has made a perfect propitiation, and that by virtue of that propitiation the great salvation is offered to us as a gift. We may be assured of all that and yet live on without it, for we want in addition that which the human heart cannot find in itself, the power to receive the gift and, receiving it, to live. It is by this mighty power that those who sleep are awakened; those far off are brought nigh; the bondsmen are set free; the dead made alive, and those who are strangers and outcasts are made heirs of God through the blood of Christ.

There is no case too hopeless for the Lord’s salvation. There are many who have been so utterly unsuccessful in their efforts to rise that they begin to think there is something peculiar in themselves which makes them an exception to the general offer of life and pardon. And there are others who are longing for the salvation of some stubborn, unbroken heart, but who have sought so long and so hopelessly that they almost begin to despair. Now whether your anxiety be for yourself or others, remember the divinity of the great salvation. If the whole is divine, why should it not be sufficient? You say you are dead, but cannot the divine power raise the dead? You say your sins are too great for pardon, but is not the divine propitiation sufficient for them all? You say you cannot produce even a good prayer, but does not the divine revelation assure you that the salvation is a free gift even for those who have nothing?

Give up, then, all thought of working yourself up to salvation, for that is a mere human process, and is certain to fail, but throw yourself before you are saved right away on the Saviour for His great gift of salvation. Remember that the whole thing from first to last is divine, and, because it is divine, as a little child trust it without the slightest qualification, trust the promise, accept the gift, and may God grant that you may be able to use as your own the words of the text, “According as His divine power hath given unto me all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who hath called me to glory and virtue.”