THE very moment a man believes God's testimony to Christ, he repents toward God, and his repentance is deep and genuine in proportion as his faith is simple and childlike. But if I make repentance to be something which I must feel previous to, or as a warrant for, my coming to Christ, I overthrow the true and possible ground of peace. It is the revelation of God's true character in Christ that leads to repentance, and that saves the believer's soul. It is neither human penance nor human repentance, but divine atonement, that justifies God in justifying a believer.
The blood of Jesus has settled the whole thing, "ONCE" and "Forever"; and the soul that believes this has got "repentance unto life,” perfect pardon and perfect peace. He has given up the previous mind, the false mind which came from Satan, and become the possessor of “an after mind," “a right mind," which comes from entire fabric of redemption, I make the cross of Christ of none effect, and deprive the sinner of the only Christ. It is labor in vain to seek to produce repentance in any other way. Neither the moral evil nor the direful consequences of sin, can lead a sinner to repentance. Such things may terrify him for a moment; but momentary terror is not permanent repentance, not a change of mind unto life. It is to be feared that preachers sometimes give greater prominence, in their preaching, to the evil of sin, and the terrors of hell, than they do to the powerful, soul-subduing, heart-melting attractions of the grace of God, and the immortal joys of "His eternal glory.”
Now, if we look at the preaching of the Lord Jesus and His apostles, we do not find such topics brought prominently' forward. True, they are occasionally glanced at, when circumstances demand it. The Lord Himself speaks of one “lifting up his eyes in hell, being in torment." Awful thought! And the apostle Paul could “reason of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come," after such a fashion as to make Felix tremble. All this is quite true; and there may be seasons when the man of God will feel called upon to set before the careless infidel heart the terrors of "the wrath to come"; but this is quite another thing from making such subjects, the grand theme of testimony.
If my reader will look at Peter's address to the Jews in Acts 3, and to the Gentiles in Acts 10, and then turn to Paul's address to the Jews in Acts 13, and to the Gentiles in Acts 17, he will find divine models of true gospel preaching.
And what, let me ask, is, the theme? Is it sin and its horrid fruits? hell and its ineffable terrors?
Nay; it is Christ, from beginning to end; Christ as the living expression of the very heart of God; Christ as the channel of out-poured love, from the eternal bosom of God; Christ, dwelling in that bosom from before all worlds; Christ, manifested down here, in perfect humanity, revealing God in every movement of His blessed life; Christ, nailed to the cursed tree, "by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God," as an offering and a sacrifice for sin; Christ, laid in the dark, silent tomb; Christ, raised from the dead, by the glory of the Father, and seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven, as the proof of the perfectly accomplished redemption; Christ, coming again in the clouds of heaven, to lay the top-stone of glory upon the magnificent superstructure of grace. Such is the prominent theme of apostolic testimony, to which is, added the gift of the Holy Ghost, as the witness, the seal, the unction, the earnest, the power of enjoyment, and as producing in the heart of a sinner that faith which connects him with all the fullness of grace and blessedness in Christ.
In short, the apostles simply presented to their hearers "the truth as it is in Jesus"; leaving it to God the Holy Ghost to clothe that truth with heavenly power. They did not, in their preaching to unconverted people, occupy themselves with those feelings, emotions, affections and practical results, which are sure to flow from the hearty belief of the glad tidings. Their preaching was OBJECTIVE. They presented "salvation" as a thing complete, irrespective altogether of any SUBJECTIVE work in the sinner. This is of immense importance. The gospel should be so preached that any one hearing it may enjoy immediate and everlasting peace.