Modern Theses

The Need of Reformation in the Church

By Arthur Zepp

Chapter 15

THE HOW OF SALVATION -- THE ANSWER OF JESUS

"For if ye believe not that I am He ye shall die in your sins." John 8:24.

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Acts 16:31.

For ages before the advent of Jesus on the scene of earth's activities, men had been looking for the Messiah. Christ performed many miracles and some believed on Him; others questioned, when the real Messiah came, would He do more miracles than this man doeth? Jesus claimed to be their Messiah and the Light of the World. More than that: the God whom the Jews claimed was their God, He claimed was His Father and if they really loved Him and knew Him as they claimed they would love His Son whom He has sent. If God were their Father He was His Son and they were brothers and should love the members of the Father's family. If, also, they were the children of Abraham, as they claimed, they would do the works of Abraham. The Abraham they claimed as their father rejoiced to see His day and if they were His children they would honor Him too.

The God they claimed was their God, yet whom they knew not, had not only sent Him but had given Him the words He spoke and inspired Him to do all the works He did before them. He claimed also to be God -- "I and the Father are One."

To the charge that His witness was not true because He bore witness of Himself He replied that there was Another who bore witness of Him, and even their own law said that in the mouth of two witnesses every word should be established.

Further, that He was their true Messiah, fulfilling all the prophecies concerning Messiah, was proven, He said, by the fact that the Father not only sent Him into the world, (that He did not come of Himself) but that the Father actually gave him commandments, what to say and what to speak and showed Him what works to perform, so that His doctrines and works were not His own but!His that sent Him, and rejecting such overwhelming evidence was not to reject the Man Christ Jesus before them but the One they called their God, who sent Him.

Again, in the controversy, He charged them, "Ye both know Me and ye know whence I am; and ye know that God sent me and confirms my Divine origin, by the working of such powers and miracles as the world never knew; "but though He had done so many miracles among them yet they believed not on Him:" even His own brethren did not believe on Him. "Whence is He?" "Who is He?" "Where will He go?" "Will He go up to the feast?" "Will He kill Himself?" were questions asked. There was a division because of Him.

It is a pathetic fact that the Son of God, most worthy of perfect trust, must ever labor to get men to believe on Him. The Master tells the unbelieving Jews that His Father had confirmed His mission by every necessary evidence; that He was sent of God no fair mind could doubt, and if after all this overwhelming evidence they still persisted in their unbelief they must die in their sins: "For if ye believe not that I am He ye shall die in your sins."

The text teaches that the Jews, with all their faith in God as their Father and themselves as His chosen people, were sinners -- that they, religious to the extreme, were too, in sin.

It teaches that they needed saving from their sin by some outside agency or agent than what they trusted as equivalent to salvation. That their boasted descendancy from Abraham or ancestral salvation was inadequate to their need; that unless they were saved from the sins of their life and state there would be the payment of the fearful penalty of present and eternal death in sin; that they might be saved, impliedly from all the guilt, pollution, power and penalty of their sin.s and sin on the simple condition of Faith. But properly directed faith: not by faith in traditionalism, nor ancestry; nor in a dogma, creed, party Or movement sect or system, but by faith in a Person: "Believe that I am He" -- Messiah.

What a terrible alternative for unbelief! Faith or Death! Death, present and eternal!

How we have darkened counsel by words! How we have muddled the way to salvation by our insistence on salvation by newly invented modern Protestant works! How we have blocked the way to the cross, in ignorance, insisting on things and steps as essential which God's word is strangely silent about! We have intervened steps between men and salvation! We have said you must do this and this and you must see this and this and this and you must believe this and this and this.

In the text the Lord Jesus lays down one single solitary condition for salvation and it is not faith in a statement of doctrine or things one must do but faith in Some One, faith in a Person, Himself. There may be subsequent acts of faith in Himself for higher degrees in salvation but in each instance the condition is the same-"Sanctified by faith that is in Me" -- a different apprehension of need supplied by faith in the same One.

This has been our trouble, we have many times tried to pin our faith, and have forced others to pin their faith, to things which were short of Jesus Christ Himself and we have almost driven freedom in Christ from the world, so that an earnest soul asks -- "Where are the really free souls in Christ?" With Romanism it is faith in the infallible Church and Popes; with Protestantism it is fast becoming a matter of faith in the infallible consciousness of the 20th. Century stamp. But, thank God, all these lights have failed, only Jesus has not failed; He abideth faithful; He is ever the same. Unless we see Him as the end of the law for righteousness, and repose our faith in Him alone we must ever continue to be tossed about by every alternating wind which blows like the North Dakota tumble weed -- by every wind of doctrine, by every new preacher and every new shade of meaning in interpretation of the Scriptures. Let us immediately stop trying to adjust ourselves to men and submit ourselves to the Master. He will resolve our troublesome religious questions by the Vision of Himself -- "When you see Me, " he said to the questioning disciples (Weym., Tr. John 16), "you will ask Me no questions then."

The Master Illustrates the Method of the Text in His own Work.

Instance the poor cripple at the pool who was looking to many sources for healing except the one right source. He was pinning his faith on the certain season. He was trusting the waters. And the waters when troubled. And to stepping in them first.

And to the angel who came down to trouble the waters.

Finally he thought some man could help him: "I have no man to put me down" when the certain season rolls around with the down coming angel and the troubled waters. Is it not pathetic how the poor world after numberless disappointments and positive betrayals through man still looks to man and his efforts for deliverance from its ills?

Jesus pitied his plight, knew the futility of salvation from all other sources and securing his attention to faith in Himself said, "Rise, take up thy bed and walk."

We would not need to lie around with the multitude so long in helpless spiritual impotency if we would be willing to look away from! everything and everybody to Jesus. That is what Hebrews 12:1-2 means in the German translation: "Look off unto Jesus.":Look off of everything and every body and every human prop and method, and every source of deliverance except Jesus Himself. "For if ye believe not that I am He ye Shall die in your sins."

Then instance the man born blind, whom Jesus healed and whom the Jews for jealousy excommunicated.

He has peculiar love for those who have been cast out of the synagogue for His Name's sake, so He hunted him up at the outskirts of the city and asked him if He believed on the Son of God, and the healed blind man replied, "Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?" Jesus tenderly replied, "Thou hast both seen:Him and He it is that speaketh with thee." And he worshipped him and was saved without any other condition -- the vision of Jesus is enough.

Observe, Jesus did not ask him' if he believed in the Rabbinical lore, or the Talmudic expositions of the Doctors of the Law, or the six hundred and thirteen negative and positive rules for salvation, of the Pharisees who were dead in sins notwithstanding all their pretense to piety, but the one sufficient question, "Do you believe on the Son of God?" Let us repeat, "For except ye believe that I am He ye shall die in your sins."

Having Him the soul need not be concerned about joining the propaganda or submitting to the doctrinal formulae as a condition of salvation, but is free to follow the Lamb whithersoever He leadeth, for He includes all the good in all parties and formulas.

Let not the seven steps of Keswickism, nor the hundred distinctions between justification and sanctification of the zealot for fine discriminations, nor theories of the one, two, three or fourfold gospel (which is, however manifold) neither yet the traditions of the elders ancient or modern nor the commandments of men nor their peculiar doctrinal tenets keep us from going straight to Jesus believing on Him and being filled with all joy and peace in believing. Oh, that our churches, instead of offering men their peculiar tenets would simply present Jesus as the One essential to salvation in all its stages. How sweet, and how simple is Jesus' method of salvation from sin by faith in a Person, rather than in a sacrament or a system. How much easier to repose faith in a Person than in that which is impersonal!

The case of the Samaritan woman at the well is another illustration of the Master's use of the method of the text. He did not stir her antagonism by specifying a change of church relation from Samaritan to Jew, or of worship, from Mount Gerizim to Jerusalem, or proselytism from Samaritanism into the Jews' religion, for the Jews had no dealing with the Samaritans. He simply offers Himself as the way out of her dilemma: "If thou knewest the gift of God (Jesus Himself is the Gift of God of whom Paul wrote 'Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift') and Who it is that asketh thee drink thou wouldst have asked of Him and He would have given thee living water."

We are in danger of losing Christ Himself in this day as in Luther's day. Only then He was lost in the dark. Our danger is that we shall lose Him in the light of what we term correct knowledge about Him. Only now with so much activity in His Name it will be difficult to see wherein we have lost Him. We have substituted a Christian (?) legalism, as one suggests, for the ancient legalism.

There are between seven and eight thousand references to Himself in the New Testament and including Him in the unity of the Godhead a fair approximation of the references of the entire Bible would be fifteen thousand. Think of this preeminence of the Personal God and then of how much more we hear of the church than Him; and of the emphasis of a particular mode of baptism which it is hard to prove was ever practiced; or of the hair splitting doctrinal discussions down through the History of the Church. We think there are not five hundred references to the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. Not twenty-five references to speaking in tongues in the entire Bible. Six hundred references to the coming of the Lord; few to the tribulation; one specific reference to the second grace, though it is implied oftener, in the New Testament. No mention of the four-fold Gospel specifically. Go on my reader and develop this thought and see how the ratio or proportion of the exaltation of Christ Himself over-towers every other doctrine. Then think how we have contended for these and divided the church into endless sects and parties and thereby stumbled and damned many of the world, and Oh, may it please God to lead us a11 back to the feet of Christ in deep penitence because of our ignorance.

The position of Sonship was bestowed upon those who received Himself: "For as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God even to those who believed on His Name, which were born, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of the man but of God." The writer of these lines is deeply conscious of his unworthiness of all the manifold goodness of God to him in Christ, but he has many times been thankful to God that the man of God who won his soul did not offer him salvation through the Southern Methodist Church; but offered him Jesus only and asked him to accept Him, which he did the best he knew, and was born of His Spirit, later making a full surrender and was filled with the Spirit.

Zacchaeus received Him joyfully and salvation came to his house, including in his conversion the giving of half his goods to feed the poor. Where do those come in who claim a life a degree in advance of Zacchaeus who still limit their stewardship to a Mormon's one tenth?

This direct faith in Jesus merits the Father' love: "The Father Himself loveth you because ye have loved me and believed that I came out from God."

The great issue is still Jesus Himself and whether we will have this Man to reign over us.

The famous text, John three sixteen, is in harmony with the text: "Whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish (or die in his sins), but have everlasting life"-"Except ye believe that I am He ye shall die in your sins." Let us ever remember that God offers us salvation not by faith in a dogma or doctrine, but by believing in a Person, His Son.

Philip Schaff said: "The Person of Christ is the great Central Miracle of history and the strongest evidence of Christianity. The Person of Christ is to me the surest as well as the most sacred of all facts; as certain as my own personal existence, yea, even more so; for Christ lives in me, and He is the only valuable part of my existence. I am nothing without my Saviour; I am all with Him, and would not exchange Him for the whole world -- His saving grace flows and overflows to all on the simple condition of faith in HIMSELF."

"Evangelical Theology is essentially Christological, or controlled throughout by the proper idea of Christ as the God-man and Saviour. This is emphatically the article of the standing or falling church." Ibid.

We might easily see that this is so in our justification without seeing that it is equally so in our sanctification: "That they might be sanctified by faith that is in ME," a Person. Acts 26:18. To the believers He offered a deeper freedom on condition of continuing in His Word -- another revelation of Himself as Truth, and the Truth (Jesus) shall make you free indeed.

Jesus does not emphatically prescribe a lengthy process for freedom from sin either in its guilt or pollution, in its pardon or cleansing. The writer has seen many instances of pardon and purity within from five minutes to a few hours after the first apprehension of faith in Jesus as sacrifice for sin.

It is said, "That for hundreds of years the Monastic establishments of the Roman Church (and I quote this to call attention to similar tendencies among all churches: we glibly call Rome, Babylon: whereas any organization extant without the Spirit of Jesus is Babylon) prescribed in their rules of life, methods more or less elaborates, by which the religious are led towards perfection. The Jesuit System reduced its rules to military precision and rigor."

But Protestantism may unconsciously do the same with our emphasis on secondary things; with our seven steps to victory. They are doubtless good steps, and more or less implied in believing on Jesus, but their prescription came after Christ. He only required the one step of belief in Himself for salvation from the guilt of sin, and continuity in His Word and trusting in Him to become free from sin or free indeed. "Sanctify them by thy Truth, Thy Word is Truth, " and "the Truth shall make you free."

Steps to salvation and humanly imposed conditions, however good, are very apt to divert the mind from Jesus to the steps we are taking and unconsciously the soul trusts the steps when God orders us to trust the Lord Jehovah.

It is a serious thing when Jesus says He alone is the way, to present seven steps however good, as the way. It is serious to intervene anything between the soul and the Saviour.

A prescribed process to victory may not work alike in all cases, as God will not be standardized, in His method of delivering the soul. lie uses great variety and brings some souls into salvation and Canaan, as of old, in a way they know not of.

God save us from a cut and dried, formulaed special-mold method of gaining salvation or sanctification, and help us to welcome any method and means God is pleased to use. A Scotch revivalist says "Ye canna put God in a corner."

We must not look to measures, steps, procedure or processes, but to Christ Himself.

The Lord is not always uniform as to methods, but He is more or less so as to results. He is not like man, who to get uniform results must use the same moulds or patterns. God can use a great variety of methods and arrive at the same results.

Mr. Moody used to say, "The surest way not to help another man is to tell him your experience. This is because in entering the Christian life the same process is not prescribed for all. Your experience is your own and not another's because you are not another. God has life for every seeker which will just suit him. Offer not your experience to the seeker, but your Christ."

A preacher announced his topic: "Many people want what they don't need and need what they don't want. You need the Church." And so four hundred years after the Lutheran Reformation showed the fallacy of salvation by the Roman Church, the Protestant Church is still offering men a system rather than a Person, and under a new name is repeating the old error of substituting a Church for Christ.