“Salvation is of the Lord.” Precious words! Most precious to all those to whom the Holy Ghost has interpreted the meaning and force of that one little word “lost.” Only such can really understand them. When Jonah uttered these words, he was, in good truth, as low as any human being could well be. We know, from our Lord’s own words, that he was a type of a greater than Jonah; but only in the fact of his being three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. There is the immense difference between the type and the Antitype, that the latter went down into the depths, as an obedient One, on behalf of others; the former went down as the fruit of his own willfulness. Jesus suffered, the just for the unjust; Jonah suffered the consequences of his own self-will his was self-earned sorrow.
This makes all the difference. But, notwithstanding all this, we hear the voice of Jonah sounding in our ears these most blessed words, “Salvation is of the Lord.” And this voice reaches us from the very belly of hell. “I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottom of the mountains: the earth with her bars was about me forever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that I have vowed.”
Here, then, we have profound exercises of soul. There is no superficial work in all this—no mere lip profession—no cold formal utterance of religious formularies—no empty generalities. All is intensely real. The soul is actually made to feel something of the awful reality of hell—to taste the bitterness and horror of the outside place—the anguish of being cast out of God’s sight—the crushing weight of Jehovah’s billows and waves—the very darkness and desolation of the pit of hell.
All this our blessed substitute entered into perfectly—entered into for us—entered into it that we might never know the reality of it. All praise to His peerless Name! He went down into the dust of death. He actually encountered all the billows and waves of God’s righteous wrath against sin. He tasted the very bitterness and anguish of the forsaken place—that His people might never taste it. For this we praise Him, and shall praise Him through eternity’s countless ages.
But who are they that can most fully and blessedly enter into the glorious result of those priceless sufferings of our adorable substitute? Those who, like Jonah, have entered most deeply into the reality of their condition as lost, ruined, guilty, undone—those who have been most thoroughly exercised in heart and conscience, under the powerful ministry of God the Holy Spirit, and thus brought to feel and own that they deserve nothing but the everlasting consumings of the wrath of God. We may rest assured of this that the more we feel how near we are to hell, the more we shall praise the grace that has rescued us—the more we realize how thoroughly we have earned for ourselves the wrath of a sin-hating God, the more we shall value and delight in His everlasting favor.
We greatly fear there is a vast amount of superficial work amongst us. Sin is not felt to be that horrible thing that it really is in the sight of God. It is not judged, in the conscience, with sufficient spiritual energy. Hence it is that so many who once seemed to have found peace in Jesus, go back to the world, and throw off even the very profession of Christ. They prove themselves to be merely stony-ground hearers—persons whose natural feelings were stirred under the word; but over whom the plow and the harrow had never really passed.
All this is deeply solemn. It demands the most serious attention of those engaged in the work of evangelization. It is not, need we say it? that the depth of our spiritual exercises has aught to do with our salvation. Most surely not. “Salvation is of the Lord,” whether our exercises be deep or shallow. But we are most fully persuaded that those who undergo the deepest ploughings, under the mighty ministry of the eternal Spirit, make the most solid, steady, satisfactory Christians afterward. There is a deplorable amount of levity, indolence, and self-indulgence in our midst. We lack depth, seriousness, and self-judgment. It is to be feared that many of us are ready enough to accept salvation as a free gift, without entering, by the power of the Holy Ghost, into what it cost our precious Savior to make it thus free to us.
Hence it is that we can so readily trifle with sin—so easily make terms with the world—and take up with every vanity and folly that crosses our path. We cannot but believe that if the divine work in the conscience were of a deeper character, our whole christian career would exhibit far more holy gravity, steadiness, and consistency.
In short, we want to enter more fully into the power of the cross. We want to understand its application to our sinful nature, so that we may not so readily give a loose rein to that nature. There is this grand defect in much of our modern preaching and teaching, that the cross is presented as the means of forgiveness of sins; but it is not set forth as the condemnation of sin.
Now this is a very serious defect indeed; and its result is seen in the light, flippant, frivolous, airy-going style of many amongst us. We are saved from hell—fully, freely, perfectly saved. Thanks be to God for it. But is this all? Does God’s salvation merely consist in delivering us from the eternal consequences of our sins? Is there no deliverance from the present power of sin? Yes, blessed be God, there is; for the selfsame cross that has blotted out our sins has condemned sin—crucified our old man—destroyed the body of sin—crucified us to the world, and crucified the world. to us.
Thus there are two sides to the great question of salvation, as there are two sides to that cross on which salvation rests. Should we not seek to know both sides? Should we rest in a one-sided view of such subject? Surely not. We ought diligently to seek a deeper knowledge, a more intense realization, a more practical sense of what is comprehended in that one. word “salvation,” that so our entire course and character might, in a much fuller degree, adorn the doctrine of God. our Savior.
Reader, let us deeply ponder the two sides of God’s salvation, the two sides of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, the vast difference between the forgiveness of sins and the condemnation of sin.