DID you ever hear a person say, in connection with I getting to heaven at last, something to this effect. That they hoped at least to find some place there, if only just inside the door? To come a little closer, has such a thought ever entered the reader’s own Mind? Perhaps you are free to own that you hardly expect to merit a very high place in heaven, but you certainly hope to be allowed some place there.
Now do not be offended when we tell you that this thought, wherever found, betrays serious ignorance of the real ground of entering heaven at all. Deeply seated in every such heart is the delusion that one’s own merits have at least something to do with our title to glory; and Scripture is entirely opposed to any such idea. Listen to its voice. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done” (Titus 3:55Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5)). “Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:99Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:9)). “To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:4, 54Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. 5But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:4‑5)).
Now directly this truth of no salvation, no heaven by our own merit is apprehended in the soul―as soon as it is seen that the merits of Christ are the only ground for acceptance before God―the notion of only getting “just inside” the door is abandoned forever. For the question is no longer, How far inside the door will my own merits place me? but, How near will the merits of Christ bring me? What soul would not shrink from the thought that the merits of Christ would only put a man “just inside”? Nay, ask yourself, Where have those merits placed the Lord Jesus Himself?
The question needs no answer, you will say.
Exactly. But then, where those merits have placed Him they will place every soul that rests upon Him. They will give to the most distant a title to the nearest place, to the most unworthy a sense of fitness for the very holiest. “For Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us TO GOD” (1 Peter 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18)). He did not suffer to place us just inside the door, but to bring us right home to God.
“So nigh, so very nigh to God,
I could not nearer be,
For in the person of His Christ
I am as near as He.”
Let me ask myself, therefore, and be sure that I get a true answer,
“ON WHOSE MERITS AM I RESTING?”
Is it on supposed merits of the past? Is it even on hoped-for merits in the future? Or is it on the precious merits of the accepted, the highly exalted, the righteously glorified One, the Man after God’s own heart, “the man Christ Jesus”? Can I truly say―
“I stand upon His merits,
I know no safer stand;
Not e’en where glory dwelleth
In Emmanuel’s land”?
All that my own merits could do for me would, instead of putting me just inside the gate of heaven, plunge me into the hopeless depths of damnation! Do I honestly believe this?
“Oh, surely I am not so bad as that,” someone may say.
Yes, you are; you have sinned, and with one sin upon you you will never enter heaven. Every question of sin must be settled outside the gates of glory. For every true believer it has been settled―settled on the cross; and through the merits of that precious shed blood he stands before God cleansed from every spot, clear of every charge. For the unbeliever the final settlement will be deferred to the great white throne, but the question will have to be settled. Do not forget, my reader, that every sinner standing there then will be judged by the very One he rejects now (John 5:2222For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: (John 5:22)), and everyone be condemned to the second death. Every one thus judged will go to hell, and will go there on his own merits entirely.
“Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, [O Lord]: for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified.”
May the Lord in His grace, dear reader, give you to weigh this matter seriously. Otherwise you will yourself one day be weighed, and coming short of the glory of God, will get your righteous dues with every lost Pharisee in the lake of fire.