by J. G. Bellett
The salvation of God surely may be traced all through Scripture, from the earliest, simplest revelation of it in the opening of Genesis to the celebration of it in realms of glory at the close of the Revelation.
It came with the first utterance of God after sin entered this world. The promise of the seed of the woman conveyed it. It was illustrated in patriarchal stories all through Genesis. It was presented in a thousand shadows or symbols in the ordinances of the law. It was echoed in a thousand voices of the prophets. And thus the current of it may be traced all through the ages of the Old Testament, and the line of light that was revealing it then may be seen as spanning, or stretching across, the whole volume.
In due time, in the fullness of time, the New Testament age begins, and then at the very outset the salvation of God appears again. It becomes embodied. The child that was to be born, the Son that was to be given, was given by God the name of JESUS.
If the first divine utterance in the Old Testament bore witness, so does the first divine utterance in the New Testament, "Thou shalt call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins." The salvation of God was now embodied. It entered unveiled, thereby and therein to accomplish all eternal purposes of grace (Matt. 1).
Not only was salvation thus embodied, but its arrival here was celebrated by the ecstatic joy of heaven, and the full, earnest-hearted welcome of the earth. Angelic hosts in the light and presence of the glory and angels in their individuality tell us of this joy. The vessels anointed by the Holy Spirit proclaim this welcome. Mary rehearses it and so do Zacharias, Simeon and Anna. The shepherds in the fields and the babe in the womb wait in their several ways to greet it and rejoice. (Luke 1 and 2.)
When thus arrived, it is active. What had been ushered forth in the midst of such congratulations could now stir itself and be at its work under its high commission. And this is the life, the ministerial activity of the Lord Jesus. He was dispensing health and salvation all around Him. Every sickness and every disease among the people had to tell that "Jehovah-rophi" was here: Christ the healer. The salvation of God was abroad dispensing itself to the need of a ruined, death-stricken world.
Preached to All Being thus announced and arrived, and having thus dispensed itself in the ministry of Jesus, as we read in the four gospels, it is now the subject of preaching in the Acts of the Apostles. The Jews hear of it first, and then the Gentiles. Peter calls on the Jew to come to it, and goes to the house of the Gentile with words that convey it (Acts 2 and 10). Paul preaches it to the nation of his kindred in the flesh, and then to the ends of the earth on the authority of God by His prophet (Acts 13). When at the very end he leaves Israel in unbelief, under sentence of blindness of eye and hardness of heart, he lets them know that it—the salvation of God—is sent unto the Gentiles and that they would hear it (Acts 28:28). It is as fresh in the day of Acts 28 as it was when first announced in Gen. 3. The Spirit of God was as full of it then as the mouth of the Lord was when He uttered His earliest word in a world where sin had entered.
What a moment in the history of this world when it witnessed the arrival of salvation from heaven to earth. As we have seen, heaven in its hosts and its glory was rejoicing then; earth in its anointed vessels, great and small, was answering it.
Received by Faith
Throughout this story, we may see that the sinner may possess this salvation, taking it immediately from God without owing to any other. Adam took it from the lips of God and made it his own at once. It entered the house of Zaccheus, and came there simply and solely in company with Jesus. It is faith that gets it; faith is the individual act of the soul, the sinner's exercise of heart and conscience entirely with God alone. Old Simeon illustrates this. He took the child in his arms as God's salvation, without asking permission of its mother, for faith knows it to be God's gift to the sinner as a sinner. It knows that it is our necessities as sinners that constitute our fitness and our title for it and to it.
From the day of Acts 28, "the salvation of God" has come forth to this wide, wide world under divine commission. It has been sealed with the broadest seal—the clear and deep stamp of heaven or of God— has been put on it. No one speaks from God, under commission and authority from Him, who does not publish it. "The salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles.”
Celebrated in Heaven and on Earth
The epistles, in their season, teach salvation to those who have received it as preached to them. They teach it in its glories. They distinguish it in its present and future relation to us. We now have the salvation of the soul. We wait for that salvation which is to be revealed at the appearing of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:77That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: (1 Peter 1:7)). We have now "the grace of God that bringeth salvation." We wait for that form of it which the second coming of the Lord shall bring with it (Titus 2:11-1411For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. (Titus 2:11‑14); Heb. 9:2828So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:28)).
Then when we pass the epistles and reach the very end of the divine book, and read the Revelation, we find that this salvation is celebrated—not preached nor taught. It is not as addressing itself to a wide world of sinners or assemblies of the saints, but celebrated, whether in heaven or on earth, in courts of glory or regions of renewed creation (Rev. 7; 12; 19).
Surely then, the salvation of God is tracked all through the Word of God; it is promised, illustrated, typified, prophesied, embodied, dispensed, preached, taught, and celebrated.
Salvation is too great a thought for the heart of man to suggest or indeed to receive. God must provide us with it, and the Spirit must enable us to accept it. The religious mind of man resents it as inconsistent with the obligation he owes to God, and with the responsibility under which he lies to Him. The moral sense resents it as being no security of practical life and righteousness. How deeply at fault both are! How unequal is the best human thing to reach the divine. While neither man's religion nor man's morality give toleration to the idea of salvation, God, as we see, is occupied with it from first to last. The promise of it, the history of it, the display of it, and the illustration of it in one sinner after another stretch across the whole volume. God dispenses it now and would have us enjoy it. He will display it in all its glory by and by, and will call us to celebrate it.
Jesus, the Imperishable Name
“Jesus" is the imperishable name, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." This is the name which abides in bloom and freshness still, the unfading name which eternity has no power to efface. Time may wear away rocks; eternity will do nothing with that name but celebrate it. "Jesus," or Savior, was the first word written by the finger of God in the record-book of this world of sin, as we have seen, and it has ever since been kept, like the bow in the cloud, in the vividness of its earliest power. It is the unchanging, unchangeable name. It is not the unutterable name, it is true, but it is the imperishable one. We have heard that the Jew, under the law, found the divine name to be too high, too distant, too sacred, for human lips to use. But the sinner under grace, talks now of the divine name all day long, and will forever.
When God spoke in law, He satisfied Himself to speak in a sequestered nook of the earth, and in the hearing of the smallest of all the nations of the earth. But when He came to speak of salvation, He summoned the whole wide world to listen!
The Foundation
Great and glorious as it is, it rests on the simplest foundation which God has found in the sacrifice of the cross. God is satisfied in Christ: the believing sinner is saved. God has found His satisfaction in Jesus. I have found my salvation in God. Call our good thing by what name we may—justification, acceptance in the beloved, sonship, peace, glory, redemption, reconciliation, or whatever other name that good thing may carry, all rests on this: Christ has satisfied God in that which He has done for sinners. The rent veil, the empty sepulcher, the resurrection and the ascension, the glory of the Purger of our sins in heaven, and the mission of the Spirit testify in the mouth of the most august witnesses this satisfaction of which we speak. Himself our Justifier, we are to accept salvation from God just because He has accepted satisfaction from Christ—to accept it with all thankful, worshipping assurance.
God has rent the veil, and it is obedience in the sinner to enter. When I lay my burden on God's foundations, I am glorifying as well as using them.
Salvation is to be enjoyed by faith. As we read, "the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it." Faith comes by hearing. We cannot get it by working. We dare not count on deserving it, for it is God's salvation, "prepared" as we read, by Him (Luke 2:28-3228Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, 29Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: 30For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, 31Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; 32A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. (Luke 2:28‑32)), counseled, brought out, revealed by Himself, and sent out into the world by Him. We have to gaze and to listen as debtors to the provisions of grace.
Sweetest rest and peace have fitted us,
Sweeter praise than tongue can teal
God is satisfied with Jesus,
We are satisfied as well.