The salvation of God may surely 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 Apocalypse.
It came with the first utterance of God in the hearing of this sin-stricken world. The promise of the seed of the woman conveyed it. It was illustrated in patriarchal stories all through Genesis. It was presented 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 old 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 named of God “Jesus.” If the first divine utterance in the Old Testament bore it upon it, so does the like first divine utterance in the New, “Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. The salvation of God was, as I may again say, now embodied. It entered its human temple, to dwell there forever; from thence to be unveiled: and thereby and therein to accomplish all eternal purposes of grace. (Matt. 1)
Not only, however, 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; and vessels anointed by the Holy Spirit proclaim this welcome. Mary rehearses it, and so does Zacharias, and so Simeon and Anna; and the shepherds in the fields, and the babe in the womb, wait in their several way to greet it and rejoice. (Luke 1:22Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; (Luke 1:2))
When thus arrived, it is active. What had been ushered forth in the midst of such congratulations, could not but 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, in every form of its misery.
Being thus announced and arrived, and having thus dispensed itself in the ministry of Jesus, as we read in the Evangelists; 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. (Chaps. 2, 9) 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. (Chapter 13) And 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. (Chapter 28) It is as fresh in that 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.
There is no moment, in the story of the world, to be compared with that which witnessed the arrival of it from heaven to earth, as we have seen, heaven in its hosts, and its glory was rejoicing then; and earth in its anointed vessels, great and small, was answering it.
And throughout this lengthened story, we may see, that the sinner may possess himself with this salvation, taking it immediately from God, without debtorship 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; and 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 leave of its mother, for faith knows it to be God’s gift to the sinner, as the sinner; and knows that it is our necessities as sinners that constitutes our fitness and our title for it and to it.
From that day surely, to say no more, 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 upon it; and 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.”
The Epistles, in their season, teach it 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 have now “the salvation of the soul;” we wait for that “salvation which is to be revealed at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1) 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).)
And then when we pass the Epistles, and reach the end, the very end of the divine book, and read the Apocalypse, there we find that this salvation is celebrated—not preached nor taught; not as addressing itself to a wide world of sinners, or unfolding itself to the sacred enclosures, and 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)
And surely then, as I said, I may still say, the salvation of God is tracked all through the word; promised, illustrated, typified, prophesied, embodied, dispensed, preached, taught and celebrated. But salvation is too great a thought for the heart of man to suggest—or indeed to receive. God must provide us with it—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, 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 perfect it in all its glory by and bye, and will call us to celebrate it.
“Jesus” is the imperishable name— Jesus Christ the same yesterday, 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 Saviour, 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 nigh, too distant, too sacred, for human lips to use. But the sinner, under grace, talks now of the divine name all the day long, and will forever.
When God spake in law, He satisfied Himself to speak in a sequestrated 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 wide, wide world to listen!
Great and glorious as it is, it rests on the simplest foundation which God has found in the sacrifice of the cross. This I have assumed throughout. 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, son ship, peace, glory, redemption, reconciliation, or whatever other name that good thing may carry, all rests on this, that Christ has satisfied God in that which He has done for sinners The rent vail, the empty sepulcher, the resurrection and the ascension, the glory of the Purger of our sins in heaven, and the mission of the Spirit upon that to earth, testify, in the mouth of the most august witnesses, this satisfaction of which we speak. None can gainsay such witnesses on the side of the accuser! none can exceed them in dignity and triumph on the side of God! 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.
If God have rent the vail, it is obedience in the sinner to enter. When I lay my burthen 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 they will hear it.” “Faith comes by hearing.” We cannot get it by working. We dare not count upon deserving. 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 had to gaze and to listen—to be debtors to the provisions of grace for the most ruined, miserable, degraded condition in which the creature could find itself!
J. G. B.