SOME time ago a Protestant French pastor heard that an Englishman had come to his neighborhood, and was preaching that men were justified by faith in Christ Jesus. The pastor knew not that he himself was lost― dead ―and could do nothing for God. While owning that Christ had died to save, he yet held that that alone was not enough, but that he must, by his own good works, complete his salvation, and, such being the case, he opposed the truth the stranger preached with all the energy he possessed.
Blind, blind, as only a dead man could be! And, reader, if you believe that you are “dead in trespasses and sins,” what can you do to merit God’s forgiveness? Do you say, “I trust in the mercy of the Almighty”? Remember God says, “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.” Do you then think to obtain salvation without that precious blood―without Christ, of whom it is written, “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved? Neither is there salvation in any other?” Christ Jesus alone can save. He did not do half the work, and leave the rest for you to do: He did it all―once and forever.
The French pastor of whom we speak, eventually went to visit the evangelist, and heard from his lips the story of God’s free grace. At first he resisted every argument of our English friend, who, feeling that the word of God was the only weapon to use with such an opponent, pressed on his consideration these three words, “It is finished.” Do you know whose words they are, reader? ―words of Him who “spake as never man spake”―the words of One who was truly God over all, and yet the Man of Sorrows for our sakes. If He says, “It is finished,” who are we to say, “It is not”?
Thank God, as the pastor pondered over these three precious words, he saw how utterly needless it was to add anything to a finished work. Exclaiming, “It is too good to be true,” all his opposition vanished, and the light of God’s grace shone in on his soul. He went home to tear up the sermon he had written for the next day, and took these words for the text of a very different one― “What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” T.