THE MEANING OF "BELIEVE ON" OR "BELIEVE IN" CHRIST

If language can be made plain, if it can be used to express a fact clearly, then God's word teaches clearly, unmistakably, that the one who believes on Christ is going to Heaven. One may think it to be too good to be true, when he reads what God's word says along this line; he may be honestly tempted to suspect that there must be many hidden, suppressed conditions, which, if expressed, would make the meaning different; or from religious prejudice, he may warp the meaning or bring in other conditions;—but God's word is plain.

"God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life."—John 3:16.

It does not say, whosoever believeth on him and unites with the right church, or is baptized the right way, or lives the right kind of a life; it simply says, "whosoever believeth on him"; and then the promise is plain and absolute, "should not perish."

Jesus said, "he that believeth on me shall never thirst."—John 6:35. He did not say, he that believeth on me and unites with the right church, or is baptized the right way, or lives the right kind of a life; he said plainly, simply, "he that believeth on me," and then added "shall never thirst."

Peter to the household of Cornelius said, "To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth on him shall receive remission of sins."—Acts 10:43. He did not say, whosoever believeth on him and unites with the right church, or is baptized the right way, or lives the right kind of a life; but simply, "whosoever believeth on him," and then adds the plain promise, "shall receive remission of sins."

When the jailor came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas and brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" they answered, simply, plainly, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved."—Acts 16:31. They did not say, believe on the Lord Jesus and unite with the right church, or be baptized the right way, or live the right kind of a life; they said simply, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved."

When Paul wrote to the Romans, "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness,"—Rom. 4:5, he did not say, believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly and unites with the right church, or is baptized the right way, or lives the right kind of a life; but simply, "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness."

Jesus to the grief-stricken sister of Lazarus said, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in [into] me shall never die."—John 11:26. He did not say, whosoever liveth and believeth in me and unites with the right church, or is baptized the right way, or lives the right kind of life; but simply and plainly, "whosoever liveth and believeth in me," and then He adds His plain promise, "shall never die."

When Paul said to the Galatians, "we have believed in [into] Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ,"—Gal. 2:16, he did not say, we have believed in Jesus Christ and united with the right church and been baptized the right way, that we might be justified by faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. Instead of this, he puts it in simple, plain language.

In all of these cases, these conditions could have been expressed just as easily by the Saviour and Peter and Paul as they are expressed by religious teachers to-day. Why did not the Saviour and Peter and Paul express these conditions? There can be but one answer,—because they are not conditions of salvation. How could the Saviour and Peter and Paul have left out these conditions if they are conditions of salvation?

But the question arises, if being baptized the right way and living the right kind of a life are not conditions of salvation, why do these things? Not from fear of Hell; God desires no service from that motive. Let the Saviour tell why. When He instituted the Lord's supper, He said, "This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many, for the remission of sins,"—Matt. 26:28; and then before leaving the upper room He said to His disciples: "if ye love me, keep my commandments."—John 14:15. Why love Him? Love Him because He shed His blood for the remission of their sins. Let Paul tell us why serve Him: "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge that if one died for all, then all died; and he died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again."—2 Cor. 5:14, 15.

Now comes the all-important question, what do these parallel expressions, "believe on Christ" or "believe in [into] Christ" mean? Many, when they see how simple and plain is the teaching, say, "Why, almost every one believes on Christ." No; they believe about Christ, but not on Christ. A wealthy man deposits a large sum of money in the bank and promises to pay the debts of all the poor people who will trust him to pay their debts. They all may believe him, may believe about him; but only those who believe on him, depend on him, rely on him to pay their debts, will have their debts paid. So Christ died for all our sins (1 Cor. 15:3); He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity (Titus 2:14); but only those who believe on Him, depend on Him, rely on Him to save them, will ever be saved. The man who is depending on Christ and his baptism or Christ and his church, or Christ and his good life to save him, will be lost; for he is not believing on, depending on, relying on, Christ to save him; but only partly on Christ and partly on something else; and there is no promise in God's word that those who partly believe on Christ shall be saved. The very fact that a man depends partly on Christ and partly on something else to save him, shows that he has never believed that the Saviour "gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity" (Titus 2:13, 14); the Saviour he is depending on is not the Saviour God's word reveals; and hence he has no Saviour at all.

Notice Paul's instruction to the Romans concerning believing on Christ: "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness."—Rom. 4:5. Consider the simple but vital teaching of this passage: He justifieth the ungodly. How? "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood ... to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus" (Rom. 3:25, 26); "being now justified by his blood."—Rom. 5:9. And He justifies us from all sin, "Our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity" (Titus 2:13, 14); redeems us from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), redeems us from under the law (Rom. 6:14), and this makes us God's children (Gal. 4:4-7).

Consider further: He justifies the ungodly. If He justifies the ungodly then all efforts to become godly in order to be saved, are worse than wasted and are in rebellion against God's plan for men. "When we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly."—Rom. 5:6. "God commendeth his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."—Rom. 5:8. "When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son."—Rom. 5:10. Why? Because Christ justifies the ungodly. The Saviour did not say to Nicodemus, "Whosoever becomes godly should not perish," but "Whosoever believeth on him." Why? Because He justifies the ungodly. Paul and Silas did not say to the jailor, a hardened sinner, "Become godly and thou shalt be saved"; but "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved." Why? Because He justifies the ungodly. On what condition does He justify the ungodly? "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him." Here is the work of the soul to be saved; Paul says to cease working at the task, and believe on, depend on, Him—He justifies the ungodly. God gave men ten commandments to keep. God's word says, "The man that doeth them shall live by them."—Gal. 3:12. But all men have failed to keep them; "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."—Rom. 3:23. To illustrate: A father gives a little boy ten rows of corn to work out and says to him, "Willie, if you will work out the ten rows of corn to-day, I will pay you five dollars; but it will take steady work all day." About nine o'clock some boys persuade Willie to play, and he plays with them for two hours. Now he cannot get the task done, and so is sure to lose the five dollars. His grown brother comes to him and says, "Willie, I saw the trouble you were getting into, and had a talk with father. Father says that the work must be done or you will lose the five dollars. But father agreed to let me do the work for you. Now if you will quit working at the task and trust me, depend on me, I will see that the work is done, and that you get the five dollars." The little brother quits working at the task, and gets out of the field. He believes on, depends on, trusts, his big brother. If, now, there is any failure, it will be the big brother's failure, and not the little brother's. So, "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness." If, then, the sinner will quit working at the task of his salvation and believe on, depend on Christ, trust the whole work of salvation to Him, He will "justify the ungodly" from "all iniquity" (Titus 2:14). If, then, there should be any failure of being saved, it would be Christ's failure, for He said, "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out."—John 6:37. Why, then, should the one who has thus trusted Christ ever be baptized, or live a faithful, godly life? Go back to the illustration: As the little brother quits working at the task in the field and believes on, depends on, trusts, the big brother to have the task done, a man meets him and says, "Willie, your brother was good to you. But to do your work for you, that you might not lose the five dollars, he left his field, and it needs work badly. If I were in your place, from love to my big brother, I would go and work in his field for him." The little brother says, "I will do it, sir." He goes over into his big brother's field and works harder than ever, not from fear of losing the five dollars, but from love to his big brother. So the Saviour, after we have believed on Him, trusted Him to save, justify us, says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments."—John 14:15. "Go work to-day in my vineyard,"—Matt. 21:28; not "in your own." All the work that the redeemed, the saved, man does is not in his own field, to get the task done, that he may be saved; but in the big brother's field, from love to the big brother for having relieved him of the entire responsibility for the task.

To follow up the illustration: The big brother sees the little brother working in the big brother's field and he goes to him and says, "Willie, I appreciate this, for you are doing it from love to me. If you were doing it from fear lest I might not keep my promise, it would hurt me; for that would show that you did not trust me. But you cannot work for me for nothing. I will pay you fifty cents for every hour you work in my field. Now, work hard and have a large reward for your labor." So the Saviour says, "Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward."—Matt. 10:42. And he says, "Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven."—Matt. 6:20. "He shall reward every man according to his works."—Matt. 16:27. The reward of fifty cents for every hour's work does not destroy the motive of love that moves the little brother; it only increases the motive of love.

But do not redeemed people, God's children, sometimes become backsliders? Yes. Go back to the illustration of the little brother and his task. As he is working from love to his big brother, in the big brother's field, the bad boys follow him and tempt him, and prevail on him to leave the big brother's field and to mistreat the big brother. The father sees it all; goes and takes the little brother out into the forest and reproves him for his wrong to his big brother, and then chastises him and sends him back to the big brother's field. So, when God's redeemed, saved children backslide, do wrong wilfully, He chastises them. "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him; for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."—Heb. 12:5, 6. "Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail."—Ps. 89:27-33.

Reader, which field are you working in? Are you working in your own field? trying to accomplish a task, now that you have sinned, you can never accomplish?—Meet all of God's just laws and requirements, and develop a character that will entitle you to a home in Heaven? Heed the message, "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness." Believe on Him, depend on Him, to justify you from all iniquity (Titus 2:14). The moment you do, your eternal destiny is settled, "Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life."—John 5:24. Then, from love to the big brother, go into his field and work till the day is done.

In telling of his own salvation, Paul again makes plain what "believe on the Lord Jesus" means: "I know him whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day." Notice this declaration as to the apostle's salvation: "I know him." A man must "know him" or he cannot "believe on" Christ. He can risk Him without knowing Him, but he cannot believe on Him, cannot trust Him for salvation. It does not mean, know Him in every respect, as to how His divine and human nature could be united; as to how He could have had eternal existence; as to how His resurrected body could appear and disappear, etc., but to know Him in His character as Saviour. In trusting money to a bank one does not need to know how much German or French or English blood there is in the bank officials. In trusting one's case to a physician, one does not need to know the different nationalities from which he is descended, but he needs to know him in his character as physician. So men must know Jesus in His character as Saviour, or they cannot believe on, trust Him to save them. They must, then, know Him as the Messiah, the promised Saviour, the complete sin-bearer, or they cannot believe on Him. But after one knows the bank, he must commit his money to the bank, else the bank is not responsible for it. After one knows the physician, he must commit his case to the physician, else the physician is not responsible. And so Paul says, "I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." No one, then, is redeemed, is saved, who has not committed his salvation to Christ against that day. Let the reader get clearly the meaning of "commit." No one has committed money to the bank who yet holds to the money; no one has committed a package to the express company who yet holds to the package; no one has committed a letter to the post-office for delivery who yet holds to the letter. So no one has committed his salvation to Christ, no one is redeemed, is saved, who yet holds to the work of his salvation. He must commit it to Christ.

Further, no one has committed his money to the bank who has not left the entire responsibility for the money's safety to the bank, leaving no further responsibility whatever upon himself for the safety of the money. No one has committed a package to the express company, who has not left the whole responsibility for the delivery of the package entirely to the company, leaving no responsibility whatever upon himself for its safe delivery. No one has committed a letter to the post-office who has not left the entire responsibility for its safe delivery to the government, leaving no responsibility whatever upon himself for its safe delivery. Even so, no one has committed his salvation to Christ, no one is redeemed, is saved, who has not left the entire responsibility of his salvation to Christ, leaving no responsibility whatever for his salvation upon himself.

But one may have committed his money to the bank and yet not really have trusted the bank, but only risked the bank; one may have committed a package to the express company and yet not really have trusted the express company, but only risked it; one may have committed a letter to the post-office and yet not really have trusted the post-office, but only risked it. So, one may have committed his salvation to Christ, and yet be unredeemed, unsaved, because he only risked Christ and did not trust Him. Hence Paul says, "I know him whom I have believed," trusted, taken at His word.

One other fact needs to be considered as to what believing on Christ means in Paul's case. He says, "I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day." It is not a committal of one's salvation to Christ a moment at a time, nor till one can see how he will afterwards feel; nor till one can see whether he is going to be able to live a Christian life. It is to commit one's salvation to Christ "against that day." And the moment one does what Paul did, commits his salvation to Christ against that day, God's word says he is saved, redeemed: "Verily, verily I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life."—John 5:24.

FOR FURTHER STUDY:—When Paul says, "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness,"—Rom. 4:5, he is in line with the teaching of the Saviour when He said, "The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you,"—Matt. 21:31; and if the teaching of the Saviour and Paul on this point is true, then there is not left one square inch of ground on which the teachers of "salvation by character" may stand. They are not in agreement with the Saviour and Paul on this point, but there is one with whom they are here in strict agreement; "I hope for happiness beyond this life"; "I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy"; "The only true religion is deism, by which I then meant and now mean the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues; and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested my hopes of happiness hereafter. So say I now, and so help me God." These are exact quotations from "The Age of Reason," by Thomas Paine. And those who preach "salvation by character" thus line up with Paine against the Saviour and Paul. They fail to see that there can be no proper character without proper motive, and that there can, in the sight of God, be no proper motive till one is redeemed, saved, and thus placed where the motive will be love, the purest motive possible to human beings. And they fail to see that God's plan with men is to save irrespective of character, and then to develop in the redeemed man the real character for all eternity.

God has not two ways of salvation; He has not two ways of believing on Christ. What is essential to one man's salvation is essential to the salvation of every man. What is "believing on Christ" for one man, is believing on Christ for every man. When Paul says "I know him whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed to him against that day,"—2 Tim. 1:12 (R. V.), he has given the pattern of saving faith. "I know him." Man must know Him in His real character as Saviour or he cannot commit to Him against that day the matter of his eternal destiny, cannot believe on Him. What are the essential things, then, that must be included in "I know him" in His character as Saviour, in order that one can believe on Him, be saved by Him, be a real Christian? First, one must know Him as the promised Messiah, in order to really believe on Him, to be really a Christian. The high priest asked, "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am."—Mark 14:61, 62. The woman at the well said, "I know that Messiah cometh, who is called Christ: When he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee, am he."—John 4:25, 26. As Ballard, in "The Miracles of Unbelief," has clearly pointed out, either (1) He was the Messiah; or (2) He was the illegitimate son of a fallen woman and the vilest deceiver the world has ever known, or (3) He was the illegitimate son of a fallen woman, and a poor, simple-minded ignoramus, who claimed to be the Messiah and honestly thought He was, but was simply ignorant and deluded. Men in their intellectual pride or religious prejudice may sneer and try to avoid this issue, but every honest thinking man will see and confess that only these three conclusions are possible, that one of the three is inevitable: and every honest man will take one of the three positions. Voltaire said "curse the wretch." He is to be commended as compared with the man who tries to avoid the issue.

Second, one must know Him as complete Redeemer in order to believe on Him, in order to commit one's salvation to Him against that day. There is no middle ground. He was either no redeemer at all, or He "gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity."—Titus 2:14. To try to avoid the issue here is as fatal as to try to avoid the issue as to His being the Messiah. To believe on, to commit one's salvation to, a partial Redeemer, is to have no redeemer at all, to be left unredeemed, unsaved.

Third, to know Him in order to believe on Him, to commit one's salvation to Him against that day, one must know Him as having been really raised from the dead. Belief in the real resurrection of the Saviour is essential to salvation. For one to be heralded abroad as a great preacher and theologian who yet denies the literal, real resurrection of the Saviour, cannot change God's word that all such are yet unredeemed, lost, not real Christians. God's word is plain on this point: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."—Rom. 10:9. "If Christ hath not been raised your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins."—1 Cor. 15:17.

Chalmers, the great Scotch preacher, in a letter to a friend made plain what believing on Christ means: "I must say that I never had so close and satisfactory a view of the gospel salvation, as when I have been led to contemplate it in the light of a simple offer on the one side, and a simple acceptance on the other. It is just saying to one and all of us, There is forgiveness through the blood of My Son: Take it, and whoever believes the reality of the offer takes it.... We are apt to stagger at the greatness of the unmerited offer and cannot attach faith to it till we have made up some title of our own. This leads to two mischievous consequences: It keeps alive the presumption of one class who will still be thinking that it is something in themselves and of themselves which confers upon them a right of salvation; and it confirms the melancholy of another class, who look into their own hearts and their own lives, and find that they cannot make out a shadow of a title to the divine favor. The error of both lies in their looking to themselves when they should be looking to the Saviour. 'Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.'—Is. 45:22. The Son of man was so lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:14, 15). It is your part simply to lay hold of the proffered boon. You are invited to do so; and you are entreated to do so; nay, what is more, you are commanded to do so. It is true, you are unworthy, and without holiness no man can see God; but be not afraid, only believe. You cannot get holiness of yourself, but Christ has undertaken to provide it for you. It is one of those spiritual blessings of which He has the dispensation, and which He has promised to all who believe in Him. God has promised that with His Son He will freely give you all things (Rom. 8:32); that He will walk in you, and dwell in you (2 Cor. 6:16); that He will purify your heart by faith (Acts 15:9); that He will put His law in your mind and write it in your heart (Heb. 8:10). These are the effects of your believing in Christ, and not the services by which you become entitled to believe in Him. Make a clear outset in the business, and understand that your first step is simply confiding acceptance of an offer that is most free, most frank, most generous, and most unconditional. If I were to come as an accredited agent from the upper sanctuary with a letter of invitation to you, with your name and address on it, you would not doubt your warrant to accept it. Well, here is the Bible, your invitation to come to Christ. It does not bear your name and address, but it says 'Whosoever,' that takes you in; it says 'all,' that takes you in; it says 'if any,' that takes you in. What can be surer or freer than that?"

Equally helpful are the words of Horatius Bonar in "Words for the Inquiring":—"If you object that you cannot believe, then this indicates that you are proceeding quite in a wrong direction. You are still laboring under the idea that this believing is a work to be done by you, and not the acknowledgment of a work done by another. You would fain do something in order to get peace, and you think that if you could do this great thing 'believing,' if you could but perform this great act called faith, God would at once reward you by giving you peace. Thus faith is reckoned by you to be the price, in the sinner's hand, by which he buys peace, and not the mere holding out of the hand to get a peace which has already been bought by another. So long as you are attaching any meritorious importance to faith, however unconsciously, you are moving in a wrong direction—a direction from which no peace can come. Surely faith is not a work. On the contrary, it is a ceasing from work. It is not a climbing of the mountain, but a ceasing to attempt it, and allowing Christ to carry you up in His own arms. You seem to think that it is your act of faith that is to save you, and not the object of your faith, without which your act, however well performed, is nothing. Accordingly, you bethink yourself, and say, 'What a mighty work is this believing—what an effort does it require on my part—how am I to perform it?' Herein you sadly err, and your mistake lies chiefly here, in supposing that your peace is to come from the proper performance on your part of an act of faith; whereas, it is to come entirely from the proper perception of Him to whom the Father is pointing your eyes, and in regard to whom He is saying, 'Behold my servant whom I have chosen, look at Him, forget everything else—everything about yourself, your own faith, your own repentance, your own feelings—and look at Him! It is in Him, not out of your poor act of faith, that salvation lies; and out of Him, not out of your own act of faith, is peace to come.' Thus mistaking the meaning of faith and the way which faith saves you, you get into confusion, and mistake everything else connected with your peace: you mistake the real nature of that very inability to believe of which you complain so sadly. For that inability does not lie, as you fancy it does, in the impossibility of your performing aright the great act of faith, but of ceasing from all such self-righteous attempts to perform any act, or do any work whatsoever in order to your being saved. So that the real truth is, that you have not yet seen such a sufficiency in the one great work of the Son of God upon the cross, as to lead you utterly to discontinue your mistaken and aimless efforts to work out something of your own.

"But perhaps you may object further, that you are not satisfied with your faith. No, truly, nor are you ever likely to be. If you wait for this before you take peace, you will wait till life is done. Not satisfaction with your own faith, but satisfaction with Jesus and His work, this is what God presses on you. You say, 'I am satisfied with Christ.' Are you? What more, then, do you wish? Is not satisfaction with Christ enough for you, or for every sinner? Nay, and is not this the truest kind of faith? To be satisfied with Christ, that is faith in Christ. To be satisfied with His blood, that is faith. What more could you have? Can your faith give you something which Christ cannot? Or will Christ give you nothing till you can produce faith of a certain kind and quality, whose excellences will entitle you to blessing? Do not bewilder yourself. Do not suppose that your faith is a price, or a bribe, or a merit. Is not the very essence of real faith just your being satisfied with Christ? Are you really satisfied with Him and with what He has done? Then do not puzzle yourself about your faith, but go on your way rejoicing, having thus been brought to be satisfied with Him who to know is peace, and life, and salvation.... Faith, however perfect, has of itself nothing to give you either of pardon or of life. Its finger points you to Jesus. Its voice bids you look straight to Him. Its object is to turn away from itself and from yourself altogether, that you may behold Him, and in beholding Him be satisfied with Him and in being satisfied with Him have joy and peace."

Likewise James Denny, in "The Death of Christ," teaches the same lesson: "It is this great Gospel which is the gospel to win souls—this message of a sin-bearing, sin-expiating love which pleads for acceptance, which takes the whole responsibility of the sinner, unconditionally, with no preliminaries, if only he abandon himself to it."

A young person who felt that his time in this world was short, wrote to an eminent English preacher to write and tell a sinner what he must do to prepare to die—what is the preparation required by God—and when he is fit to die. The preacher wrote: "I urge you to cast yourself at once, in the simplest faith, upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. All your true preparation for death is entirely out of yourself and in the Lord Jesus. Washed in His blood, and clothed upon with His righteousness, you may appear before God divinely, fully, freely and forever accepted. The salvation of the chief of sinners is all prepared, finished and complete in Christ (Eph. 1:6; Col. 2:10). Again I repeat, your eye of faith must now be directed entirely out of and from yourself, to Jesus. Beware of looking for any preparation to meet death in yourself. It is all in Christ. God does not accept you on the ground of a broken heart, or a clean heart, or a praying heart, or a believing heart. He accepts you wholly and entirely on the ground of the atonement of His blessed Son. Cast yourself in child-like faith upon that atonement—'Christ dying for the ungodly' (Rom. 5:6)—and you are saved! Justification is this, a poor law-condemned, self-condemned, self-destroyed sinner, wrapping himself by faith in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is unto all them that believe (Rom. 3:22). He, then, is justified and is prepared to die, and he only, who casts from him the garment of his own righteousness and runs unto this blessed city of Refuge—the Lord Jesus—and hides himself there—exclaiming, 'There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus' (Rom. 8:1). God is prepared to accept you in His blessed Son, and for His sake He will cast all your sins behind His back, and take you to glory when you die. Never was Jesus known to reject a poor sinner that came to Him empty and with nothing to pay. God will glorify His free grace by your salvation, and will therefore save you just as you are, without money and without price (Is. 55:1). I close with Paul's reply to the anxious jailor, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved' (Acts 16:31). No matter what you have been, or what you are, plunged into the fountain opened for sin, and for uncleanness (Zech. 13:1), and you shall be clean, 'washed whiter than snow' (Ps. 51:7). Heed no suggestion of Satan, or of unbelief; cast yourself at the feet of Jesus, and if you perish, perish there! Oh, no! Perish you never will, for He hath said, 'Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out' (John 6:37). 'Come unto me' (Matt. 11:28) is His blessed invitation; let your reply be, 'Lord, I come! I come! I come! I entwine my feeble, trembling arms of faith around Thy cross, around Thyself, and if I die, I will die cleaving, clinging, looking unto Thee!' So act and believe and you need not fear to die. Looking at the Saviour in the face, you can look at death in the face, exclaiming with good old Simeon, 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation' (Luke 2:29). May we through rich, free and sovereign grace, meet in Heaven, and unite in exclaiming, 'worthy is the Lamb, for he was slain for us' (Rev. 5:12)."

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