An Urgent Call to Salvation (Part three of three)
By Jay Wegter
The Person of Christ (cont.)
Have you ever seen the glory of the cross—has it attracted your heart? Are you unspeakably pleased with that way of salvation? Do you see God glorified when you are saved? That God is the God of majesty, truth, holiness, inflexible justice—and yet, you are justified? Do you love that phrase, “The righteousness of God?” Does it bring calming pervasive other world peace to your soul knowing that you have righteousness by faith—righteousness without works? Do you sit in sight of the cross? Does your soul rest there? Do you glory only in the cross of Christ (Gal 6:16)? There are no secret Christians—the true believer cannot keep silent. He feels the sweetness of the cross. You will be constrained to confess Christ before men—it causes lips to speak. Do you make it known that you are Christ’s? (Ibid).
The God-awakened soul shows the hatefulness, vileness of self. He sees that his heart’s imaginations have been evil. His body members have been used to serve sin. He has treated Christ in a shameful manner. He has sinned against law and love. He has kept the door barred against Christ. He sees himself as a lump of hell and cries, “How shall I come before the Lord?” But, what will be the state of the unsaved soul on judgment day—you will be speechless in your guilt before the Great White Throne (Rev 20:11-15). There is nothing in a man that can bring him justly before God. The natural man is always striving to bring something to be a robe of righteousness before God. There is nothing a man can do—yet nothing he won’t attempt to try to cover himself before God. But all of his righteousness is filthy rags (Ibid, pp 423-424).
The natural man hates the law of God for its purity, for its breathing out of the holy mind of God. He hates the law for its opposition to the love of sin. He hates the law for its breadth and rigor (Rom 8:22; Ps 19). The law is so comprehensive, so invasive, so searching, so inflexible! He hates the law for its strictness. That the law exposes the secrets of the mind and heart—it exposes secret thoughts and desires—sinful cravings and desires I cannot prevent (Heb 4:12-13). Thus the law exasperates. The law cannot change though unless God Himself changes; and He won’t. We must be changed by the new birth (Titus 3:5-6).
The Personal response to be united to Christ and your Personal Destiny
There is no way to depart from that fear of judgment but by effectual grace. The fear of judgment and the fear of the law combine on judgment day (1 Cor 15). When you look upon the soul of Christ scarred with the God’s thunderbolts of wrath and His body pierced by sin—can you say, “He was made a curse for me, why should I fear Thy holy law?” Do you delight in the thought of how wonderful it would be if the whole world came under the pure rule of the gospel? Test yourself by these questions. If you can’t answer in the affirmative from the heart, it is absurd to think that you have substantive hope in God’s favor when you reject the sacrifice the Father has made of His only begotten Son for the guilty (Ibid, pp. 428-430).
The gospel, by means of the cross of Christ, ‘undoes a man’ of his imagined merit in order to make him complete in Christ (Gal 3:27). Consider the paradox of knowing you are a wretched man in order to know joy. To know the plague of your own heart is pivotal in a grace awakening. It is joy to look upon Christ crucified amidst your corruptions. The gospel is the preaching of Another’s righteousness, which you must have or you will perish. The law of bondage to sin speaks of chains too strong to sever. Once a man gets a sight of the supreme excellence and sweetness of Christ, he sees the fullness for pardon, peace, holiness—he will never draw back (Ibid, pp. 433-436, 440).
To see clearly then the turpitude and ugliness of your sin is to cry, “O wretched undone, vile sinner, I am bankrupted in my own indebtedness to the law of God.” Be warned, those who have rejected the gospel for years have developed an ‘instinct’ of heart closure. Like an eyelid which instinctively closes when an object comes near; so also the heart of the hardened man manifests those years of hardening when the gospel comes near, the heart closes (Ibid, pp. 447-448).
While you have life and breath will you consider afresh the urgency of Christ’s call to sinners? In hell the attributes of God are against a man—that is a horrific thought. When the Spirit removes constraining grace from a reprobate and the doors of offered mercy close; how terrifying to be a castaway, to be unable to repent. The conscience in hell as a castaway will forever condemn and be filled with rage and remorse (Ibid, pp. 462, 464). As C. H. Spurgeon said, “Until you have humbled yourself before God and sought and found mercy, God is at war with you and you are at war with Him. There can be no peace where there is no purity. God has no peace with sin, and never can have.”
Remember that faith in Christ is a most self-renouncing act; it looks away from self to the sufficiency of the Mediator whom the Father has sent. Apart from the blood of Christ on the conscience, there is no peace, no rest, and no assurance. No one will be in heaven who is not righteous by faith. God reckons the believing sinner righteous because Christ his representative is righteous. Thus, in Christ alone is a God-approved righteousness (Rom 10:1-4; 2 Cor 5:21). Christ has promised that His sheep will hear His voice in the message of the Word of His grace, the gospel and He has promised that those who believe in Him shall never perish (Jn 10:28).
The gospel is about our necessary response to be united to Christ. The glorious benefits of Christ’s death belong only to those who repent and trust Him (Mark 16:16). The person who savingly believes, trusts solely in Christ’s Person and finished work on Calvary. The believing sinner trusts in nothing he can do, only in the Savior (Acts 3:19; 16:31).
The person who entrusts his soul to the Lord transfers his trust away from self to Christ alone. Saving faith is reliance upon Christ to be our necessary and sufficient payment for sin (Rom 10:13). Faith and repentance toward God involves casting oneself upon Christ as the only hope for right-standing before God.
Christ alone is the One who pays for sin and provides power over sin (Rom 3:21-26). The sinner who believes commits his life to Christ for obedience (Jn 3:36; 10:27). He came to seek and to save that which was lost. Saving sinners is the mission for which Christ came to earth (Luke 19:10). Your sin is not a barrier to salvation!
God commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). To repent is to agree with God that we have wronged Him and deserve judgment. Repentance is not only a change of mind about our sin, it is a turning from sin toward God in humble obedience (Ez 18:30-32; Luke 13:5).
To repent is to determine to turn from our rebellion in order to serve our Redeemer and Creator with our whole selves (and to be ruled by His Word). Repentance involves turning from the deceitful promises of sin so as to despise the sin and our sin natures (Matt 10:38-39; 16:25-26).
Have you ever placed your guilty hands upon the forehead of the innocent Lamb of God and transferred all your sin and guilt to Him? There is no peace with God until you know precisely what has been done with your sin (1 Pet 2:24). Your quarrel with your Creator cannot end until you say the same thing about your sin as God does—that you deserve to be terribly miserable, for the cross is proof that all men deserve to die and be separated from God.
There is no coming to God without coming to Christ and there is no coming to Christ without repentance. Have you ever seen your sin as utterly ruinous as against God Himself? Scripture describes our iniquity as an abscessed sore that oozes corruption (Is 1:6; Jer 6:7; 30:12). We are morally deformed in God’s sight. Oh the horror and terror of standing before God without a mediator! What a withering thought that you shall exist as long as God does. You’ll find no refuge in Darwin on that day. His religion of the elimination of the weak is the very opposite of the gospel. For Christ, the perfectly ‘fit One’ lays His life down for the unfit.
The original tree of life in the Garden has been shut off from sinners. The only possible access back to life and Paradise is Calvary’s tree. For in His bloody death Christ answers all the effects of sin and He does so in His own Person. Let your conscience behold what the Father has done in giving Christ for sinners. Relinquish your false hopes that you have the ability to placate God. How we see the heart of God in giving the blood of the atonement! This is foreshadowed in Leviticus 17:11. This passage says that the life is in the blood. God allows it to cover sin because it is life for life. It is substitution. My friends if your sins are not covered by the death of Christ, they shall be uncovered in great detail publicly before the watching the universe (Rom 2:16; Rev 20). The most prolific speaker about the doctrine of hell in the New Testament is Christ Himself. If He is not your suffering substitute bearing your penalty, you will have to bear your own penalty in your own person. But there is no need for that to take place. Leave off your rebellion and your unbelief. Look again at the perfect Lamb of God slain for sinners (Jn 1:29; 10:11).
God’s grace comes to us at an infinite price (1 Pet 1:17-19). You must abandon your natural religion, for you cannot successfully make an atonement out of your tears, your remorse, or your resolve to do better. There is no pardon or cleansing apart from the Mediator. Countless religionists go wrong by assuming they have salvation because they have some remorse for their sins and they are willing to ask God for compassion. But God will turn a deaf ear to your cries for mercy if you reject the Mediator.
Sadness about your sin is not the same as your faith in Christ. Looking to Christ alone for righteousness is beyond the power of nature. A work of the Spirit is required, for the natural man does not know what salvation is and does not know what eternal life is. As a consequence, unbelievers trust their natural instincts; namely that they can do something to placate God. Man’s efforts to mollify God are doomed to failure because they are based upon an ignorance of God’s character (Rom 10:1-4).
Thus all men naturally look to their own efforts to contribute to salvation all the while remaining strangers to divine grace. For, the slightest self-righteousness causes the heart to be locked shut to the offices of Christ. Consider for a moment this question, what is it about God that requires the death of His Son to put away our sin? The answer has to do with the two great prongs of His holiness, justice and mercy. At the cross of Christ, justice and mercy were reconciled.
The satisfaction of divine justice was the cost of eternal mercy. This is why God refuses to be known except by the gospel and because God redeems for His namesake. His character, attributes and nature are made known by the work of Christ. This is why salvation cannot possibly be man-centered or humanly engineered and this is why those who are depending upon their works will perish forever (Gal 2:16). Salvation is about God revealing His righteousness in the recovery of sinners. (Rom 3:24-26).
God’s righteousness is revealed in the cross-work of Christ because God wants the world to know He has a legal basis for pardoning the wicked who believe upon Christ (Rom 3:25-26). No one knows God savingly unless they know Him as the Just and the Justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God has determined that His Son and His blood and His cross and His covenant are the means of knowing God. Apart from these things God remains hidden.
To rejoice in the fact that God has reconciled His justice and mercy at the cross is to take refuge in Christ—when Christ’s death alone is the sinner’s plea, God takes that person as His child forever. Like the cities of refuge in the Old Testament, the manslayer is guaranteed safety if he flees to the refuge provided. In the New Testament the imagery in Hebrews 6:18 is as follows: we have fled to Christ as our city of refuge. But, from what are we fleeing? We are fleeing from the rigor of the Law which is avenging God’s wounded honor. The Law is there to vindicate God’s holiness. It is not a ladder to climb to heaven. It is a mirror to show us our predicament and it is also there to prosecute every lawbreaker who remains outside of Christ, the ‘city of refuge’.
The law has shut up all men in disobedience (Gal 3:22). The law came with a curse which it pronounces upon all who attempt to be saved by law keeping (Gal 3:13). The law way to eternal life is forever shut because of man’s sin. But, the law has an evangelical use; it drives the sinner to Christ—to take refuge in Him alone.
The Psalms are filled with promises to those who take refuge in the Lord (Ps 5:11; 18:2). But, only those who fear God will do so. There is great urgency in fleeing to Christ our city of refuge. Today is the day of salvation. The Puritans warned that the hardest work in the world is repentance. The only work harder is repentance that is overdue. Sometimes we forget what a traumatic thing it is to have one’s soul searched by God. It‘s incredibly invasive—it brings our shame into the open. The ‘heavy laden’ must look to Christ who bore all of the reproach of His people (Heb 13:13).
Impenitent sinners prove that they follow the usurper (the evil one) because they have no sentiment for the glory of God and the knowledge of God. But, Christ tells us in John 16 that the ruler of this world and his works have been judged (Jn 16:11; 1 Jn 3:8). Christ is rightful Lord. He is worthy to be King (Acts 2:32-36; Phil 2:9-11; Heb 1:8-9; Rev 5:9-14). He was anointed with the oil of gladness above His brethren. The Father will give Him the nations as His inheritance (Ps 2:8-9). He will rule the nations with a rod of iron (Rev 2:26-27). Through Christ, God will make all of His enemies the footstool of His feet (Ps 110:1; 1 Cor 15:25).
The verdict is out, we are without excuse—“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb 1:1-3). God has appointed a day in which He will judge all men through a man having furnished proof by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:30-31).
This is every man’s crossroads. All who refuse to fall at the feet of Christ demonstrate that they have cast their lot in with the usurper, Lucifer himself. The lake of fire was not made for people, but for the devil and his angels (Mt 25:41). But, those who oppose the knowledge of God by means of the gospel and who have no sentiment for His glory, prove that they yet ‘walk according to the prince of the power of the air’ (Eph 2:1-3).
God has made unbreakable oaths to His Son (Ps 110). The salvation of sinners is grounded upon the oaths the Father has made to the Son, that in the giving of Christ’s life He shall see His seed (Is 53:10-12). He will redeem His people. The Father has given Him a people, the church shall be His spotless bride, Christ shall be Mediatorial King, and all judgment shall be given to the Son (Jn 17:1-9; Eph 5:25-27). Therefore, as Peter announces in Acts 2, this Jesus whom you crucified, God has made Him Lord, all authority has been given to Him in heaven and on earth, and He has the power to subjugate all things to Himself (Phil 3:20-21).
What you think of Christ is inseparable from what you think of God, for Christ is the very glory of God made manifest to us; He radiates the glory and knowledge of God (2 Cor 4:6; Col 1:15; Heb 1:1-2). All of God’s purposes are embodied in Christ. Consider just how far reaching it is that God has made Christ Lord. And that Christ is both redeemer and judge—thus He alone will bring every single facet of creation back in line with God’s holiness.
Nothing can slay the sinner’s imagined sovereignty but the gospel. Nothing can cancel the sinner’s faulty claims about personal merit but the gospel. Nothing can penetrate and reverse your natural darkened state but the light and power of the gospel (Rom 1:16-17). Salvation bursts into the sinner’s darkened faculties giving the knowledge of God (2 Cor 4:6). We come to God through Christ. He is like a prince, the son of a king who takes a wicked traitor by the hand and leads him to the king who grants him pardon because the prince who brought him has befriended him and is holding his hand. There is no coming to God but through the Son.
The saving knowledge of God comes by means of how God deals with the filth of sin and depravity and rebellion through His Son’s cross. Our saving knowledge of God comes by way of the massive guilt transfer which took place at Calvary. And only those who have tasted this blood-bought grace can exalt and praise heartily (even as an act of worship) the justice of God.
The true believer knows God through Christ and therefore loves to daily have his conscience ‘educated’ by the gospel of Jesus Christ. From the safety of that vantage point of being hidden in Christ, the true believer may view the holy perfections of God Almighty (knowing that his justification and adoption are safe with the Son). Slavery to Christ is the only true freedom.
Those who come to faith in Christ have the light of God’s glory burst upon their souls (2 Cor 4:6). They understand for the first time that God has brought them into His ‘kingdom plot’. For, the God of the universe is going to restore all things and He is reproducing His own character in the church. This is why Christ says that He gives His followers His glory (Jn 17:21-24; 2 Thess 2:13-15). God will present the glorified church before principalities and powers. He will say of the church, “This is My work through My Son!” (Rom 8:18-19ff.). The manifold wisdom of God will be revealed to angels through the church (Eph 3:10).
We who are believers stand only because of our faith in what God has done in Christ (Rom 11:20). The things which reveal the only true God are: His Son, the cross, the blood, the covenant, and the righteousness of God. These bring the saving knowledge of God, newness of life, reconciliation, sanctification, justification, and honor to God. But there will be unmixed wrath for those who wish to stand in themselves and not in God’s appointed Mediator.
How absurd for the depraved creature to take on the self-existent transcendent holy God of the universe. What is future? Christ will subject all things to Himself (Phil 3:21). This is why a man’s fear of God or lack thereof shows itself so clearly in his choice of refuge. What is salvation? It is life in God—it is God giving us Himself in Christ. God has inseparably joined the redeemed creature’s happiness with His plan to glorify Himself in Christ. In Him we are made fit to glorify God and enjoy Him forever in a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Pet 3:13).
The perfection of beauty and the restoration of paradise will be the environment of the people of God. Our regenerated sense of aesthetics will behold the perfect union of physical and moral order. Central to God’s glory is this restorative work in which the true, the real, the beautiful and the good are joined—no more to be severed by sin. We may designate this “cosmological holiness” because everything is in its proper place, restored to its created order.
Believers in their glorified state will exalt God—magnifying His grace for manifesting His glory to us by imputing and imparting Christ’s righteousness and holiness to us so that we are capable of glorying and enjoying God in all things. Those who cherish God and His infinite gift of comprehensive forgiveness will not sell themselves to sin—they love God and revolt against the original revolt. You can’t keep your sin and have heaven too.
History and the cosmos comprise a stage for the display of moral majesty and righteousness. Where do you line up with His rectitude, His transcendent holiness? Christ came to give men the knowledge of God, of His goodness, love, holiness, and grace. But these great blessings are only communicated by the Mediator whom God has chosen, anointed, and sent. To know Christ and Him crucified is to have God as one’s own Father—whom to know is life eternal (Jn 17:3).
In our culture, ownership is connected with status. But God reveals in Psalm 49 that much of what we think is ownership is actually a myth. Everything is actually on loan. God has given you faculties, senses, a body with limbs and organs, a mind, a conscience, affections, and faculty of speech. The Scriptures indicate that we are constantly employing these faculties in activities of sowing, building, serving, worshipping, treasuring, guarding, exalting. You see, how you use these faculties is a clear revealer of what you worship and serve. On Judgment Day, what you have built will be examined, and your ‘functional god’ will be revealed to the watching universe.
Perhaps there is one who is reading this article today who is yet oblivious to the fact that unsaved friends, coworkers, and the media have all lied to you about the value of your eternal soul. You have been complacent about the incredible danger you are in. You don’t see your sin as ruinous. God says it is a great disaster and you say that it is just part of being human.
I urge you to go to Scripture, to seek the Lord, welcome views of your sin. For, the gospel is good news only for those who know themselves to be guilty sinners. It is good news of such a magnitude it towers over any imaginable earthly fortune. We beg you to be reconciled to God. For Christ has committed to us the word of reconciliation. The infinite cost of restored friendship with God has been fully paid on His side. Therefore, put down your ‘weapons’ of distrust, unbelief, and iniquity and receive through Christ the matchless gift of peace with God (2 Cor 5:18-21).