JUSTIFICATION BY NEWLY-INVENTED MODERN METHODS FUTILE

We do not save ourselves by making confession. restitution, making crooked paths straight, etc. "What must I do to be saved?" "The answer rings through the Word of God from cover to cover; the answer rings out through the universe, down through the centuries" -- (wrote a man who has sank and can never repay hundreds of thousands of other's money). "The instructions -- repent, confess, restore, make crooked paths straight, forsake -- when you have done these first things you are on believing ground, " -- saved by getting on believing ground? Nay by believing! -- would be very hard instructions for the man who has believed and has received grace. They are not the conditions of salvation but rather the results of salvation. Requiring them as conditions of faith, is the same as asking a man to produce the fruits of saving faith before he has saving faith.

If these are the conditions of salvation, then the thief on the cross was not saved, and the eleventh hour conversions we frequently hear of, are all false, for the lack of time to do these things, as a condition of faith. and the salvation of everybody is impossible, as all, or most all, have, in their lives, that which is impossible to adjust because of the death or loss of the trace of the party to whom the confession or restitution or adjustment is to be made.

Strange that, crying down Romanism's salvation by works, we should substitute our own. These are as much our works as the Romanist's confessional or rosary or mass, etc. Dr. Trumbull says that the greatest modern heresy is the emphasis on salvation by our doing works.

He who hopes to be justified by his own power and merits, and not by faith in Christ's finished work on Calvary, sets himself up as God. A return to the Holy Scriptures will bring a return to faith, for -- "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Since Christ is the Author and Finisher of our faith, it follows that we must search the Word which reveals Christ."

Thus wrote Farel: "It is creeping on us so at unawares that we suspect it not; the triple delusion of Roman Catholicism, Meritorious Works, Human Traditions and False Unity." Rome has nothing on Protestantism in the multiplicity of works for salvation; the only difference is that the name of the works is changed. She has nothing on us for tradition, only the traditions are more modern, a so-called Christian Legalism substituted for the old traditionalism; and as for false unity, where she offers and emphasizes unity and security only within her fold, we offer the right hand of fellowship to our Protestant and independent churches, in lieu of that fellowship with God's Son which comes only by faith in His atoning sacrifice and appropriation of His shed blood for the remission of sin, and which is the only bond of true union of all believers, who are all united to Him by a living faith.

"While faith in Christ's atonement and appropriation of it, is the ground of the sinner's justification, works are the logical result of it.

"The word of reconciliation which the apostles preached as the foundation of all they taught, was that we are reconciled to God, not by our works, not by our righteousness, but wholly and solely by the death of His Son.

"But, you will say, must I not grieve and mourn for my sins? Must I not humble myself before God? Is not this just and right? And must I not first do this before I can expect God to be reconciled to me? The word says: "We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." It is just and right that you be humbled before God; that you have a broken and contrite heart, but observe that this is not your own work. Do you grieve that you are a sinner? This is the work of the Holy Ghost: "The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." Are you contrite? Are you humbled before God? Do you indeed mourn and is your heart broken within you? All this worketh the self same Spirit.

"Observe again that this is not the foundation of your reconciliation, not by this are you justified. Justification is not earned or given as a reward for our struggle of praying through. This is no part of the righteousness by which you are reconciled unto God. You grieve for your sins; you are humbled -- well and good, but this does not merit your justification. Nay, observe further that it may even hinder justification, that is, if you build anything upon it; if you think I must be so or so contrite; I must grieve more before I can be justified. Understand this well; to think you must be more contrite, more humble, more grieved, more sensible of the weight of sin, before you can be justified, or to think I must have more conviction before I can be justified, is to make conviction the ground of justification, whereas conviction is what we have because we delay to believe on Him who justifies the ungodly. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin because they believe not on Me -- Jesus Christ -- (He does not convict them to get them' to believe but because they will not believe. Therefore it hinders your justification to lay your grief, your contrition, your humiliation, as the foundation, or even a part of the foundation of your justification. This hindrance must be removed before you can lay the right foundation, or rather exercise faith in the right foundation which has been laid. The right foundation is not contrition (though that is not your own), not your righteousness, nothing of your own, nothing that is wrought in you by the Holy Ghost (like conviction or sorrow) but it is something without you altogether, namely, the righteousness and blood of Christ!

For this is the Word: "To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness, " and Jesus Christ Himself is our faith's Author and Finisher. Nothing in us for the foundation, for there is no bond between God and the ungodly; no tie to unite them; they are altogether separate from each other; nothing in common; apart from the merit of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth, who has bridged the gap. This then do if you will lay a right foundation -- go straight to Christ with all your ungodliness, to the One Mediator between God and man, the Man, Christ Jesus -- tell Him, Thou whose eyes are a flame of fire searching my heart, seest that I am ungodly. I plead no merits. I do not say I am humble or contrite; but I am ungodly. Therefore I come to Him who justifieth the ungodly. Let Thy blood be the propitiation for me.

"Here is a mystery. Here the wise men of the world are lost, are taken in their own craftiness; this the learned of the world cannot understand or comprehend-it is foolishness to them. Sin is the only thing that separates men from God." The shed blood of the Lamb of God is the only thing that gives us access to God. "He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." God cannot look upon sin with any degree of allowance, yet He so loved the sinner that He gave His only begotten Son, His Beloved Son, that the sinner might be saved. Wondrous grace, matchless love and condescension!!

To one who contemplated jumping into the river and, as they expressed it, ending all, because the past life has been so ungodly, we advised them to contemplate rather the fact that their ungodliness was just the reason they could be justified, since God justifies the ungodly, and that Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. She saw it and was soon filled with all joy and peace in believing and shortly thereafter was actively at work in His vineyard.

"Reconciled to God by the death of His Son" -- this is the word of reconciliation which we preach. This is the foundation which can never be moved. Therefore Paul cried out -- "God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." By faith we are built upon this foundation and this faith also is a gift of God, through Jesus Christ its Author and Finisher. It is His free gift which He now and ever gives to those that are willing to receive it. And when they have received this gift of God, then their hearts will melt for sorrow that they have so offended Him.

"But, this gift of God lives in the heart, not the head for -- 'With the heart man believeth unto righteousness'." So one has well said: "The refining verities of believing experience (i.e. experience verified by the Word of God), immeasurably transcend the refined subtleties of unbelieving exegesis."