40. “A. V. M.,” Bayswater. We heartily thank you for your letter of sympathy. The accompanying lines we could not recommend you to print.
41. “Anxiety,” Inverness. The apostle John, by the Holy Ghost; teaches us that “He that hath the Son, hath life; he that, hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Now, the person you describe has not the Son of God. Anyone who denies that Jesus is God, has not the Son of God nay, he is a blasphemer. As for his saying that “God was in Him, more than in any one else on earth,” it is a blinding delusion and deceit of the enemy. If Jesus was not God, it is the merest absurdity to speak of His being a good man, or the best man that ever lived, or of God being in Him. For any other than God to speak as Jesus did, would be blasphemy. We must either confess the essential deity of the Man Christ Jesus or deny Him altogether. There is not the breadth of a hair of middle ground. But, blessed be God, scripture is plain, express, and emphatic. It claims for our adorable Savior not merely divinity but essential deity. This is demonstrated in a very singular and forcible manner by the fact that in Rom. 1, where the apostle is speaking of the testimony of creation, he says, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, his eternal power and Godhead,” &c. And in Col. 2:9,9For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9) in speaking of the Person of Christ, he says, “In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Now, in the original of these two passages we have a different word for “Godhead.” In Rom. 1:2020For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: (Romans 1:20) the word is (divinity). In Colossians 2:99For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9) it is (deity). The heathen should have learned that there was something superhuman, something divine in creation; but the Holy Ghost is not satisfied to claim divinity for the Person of Christ but absolute deity. This is magnificently striking.
We cannot understand you, dear friend, when you speak of a blasphemer of Christ as “a good living person—keeping God’s commandments.” What! “A good living man,” yet denying the Godhead of Jesus! “Keeping God’s commandments,” yet blaspheming the Son of His love! Be not offended, dear friend, by our plain language. We must speak plainly. We have no sympathy with—yea, we utterly loathe and abhor the false liberality of the present day—a liberality which can lavish its compliments upon men, but deny the Christ of God. We would just add, in conclusion, that we hold it to be utterly impossible for anyone who lives and dies in the denial of the deity of Christ to be saved. Such an one has no Savior, unless there be some other way of being saved than by Christ. May God open the eyes of your friend to see his guilt and danger—notwithstanding his “good living” and “keeping God’s commandments”—and to flee by faith to the refuge provided for the lost, in the precious atonement of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! We regret having to write in such a strain concerning one who, as you say, “is very near and dear to you;” but we should either write as we have done, or leave your letter wholly, unnoticed. Our Lord Christ is more to us than all the friends in the world.
42. “S. T. H,” Hantsfort, Nova Scotia. We thank you heartily for your kind communication and the pamphlets; also for your loving thoughtfulness in not wishing a reply to your letter. The Lord greatly bless you! May He strengthen you greatly for the blessed path of service and testimony into which He has so manifestly called you! Blessed be His holy Name, He never fails a trusting heart; nay, He delights in being trusted and used. May His peace ever possess your soul! We have read with very deep interest your faithful pamphlet. May God use it to stir the consciences of thousands of His beloved people who are still mixed up with all that terrible evil on which you have been enabled, through grace, to turn your back!