PRESENT full assurance of soul is the spring of the purest affection and of the freest service.
Indeed it is necessary to each of them. The present forgiveness of sins is to be asserted with all confidence.
I ask, What has been the business of the blessed God in this world of ours, if not for the very end of putting us into such a condition? Our sins brought Him here—and then, the putting away of our sins gave Him His history here, after He had come among us. He died and rose from the dead. For what do I see in that history—the death and resurrection of the Son of God—if I see not the blotting out of my sins?
As soon as ever sin entered, He was foretold—not as a Lawgiver but—as the Holy Sufferer and the Vanquisher of Satan. This is seen in the very first prophecy. It is as a Savior, as the Purger of sins, He is now revealed—the then mystery of His bruised heel and the serpent's bruised head—His death and resurrection as the Lamb of God and the Son of God. And what, again I ask, do I see in these great facts, if I see not the remission of sins? How can I, with any reason, with any simplicity of mind, stand before the cross of Christ and not apprehend the purging of sins there? If I do not apprehend that, everything should and must rebuke the darkness of my heart. Did not the rent veil, accompanied by the rent rocks of the earth and the opened graves of the saints, tell out that the death of the Son of God then accomplished had restored man to God, casting up a highway from the prison-house of him who had the power of death up to the bright heavens, and the throne of the majesty there? Did not the empty sepulcher follow in its appointed day, to bear like witness, and to tell that God was satisfied with the death of Christ, and that it had atoned for sins and made reconciliation? And then did not the gift and presence of the Holy Ghost come, in its due Pentecostal hour, to seal the same great fact? And I further ask, What was the preaching, the gospel, the testimony of the apostles immediately afterward, as we have it in the book of the Acts?
Surely it is remission, forgiveness of sins, upon the virtue of the blood or death of Jesus, to all who will receive Him.
All this is truly and indeed so. And now, our souls are to keep this blessed fact of our sins gone, as in the foreground. It is not to be treated as something which we might be able to descry in the hazy, misty distance, after some anxious scrutiny.
It is to be set in the foreground, where the rent veil, the resurrection, the Pentecost, apostolic preaching and apostolic teaching have already set it, that we may apprehend it as in the very light of noonday, and possess ourselves of it with all assurance.
Eternal life, forgiveness of sins, salvation, peace and glory!
These, dear reader, are yours, if you but now come to Jesus just as you are, in all your sins, but confessing them at His feet, who died for you.
Will you not then turn to God in true repentance and faith in His word, and receive this blessing?