Faith and Regeneration
by C.H. Spurgeon
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A Sermon
(No. 979)
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, March 5th, 1871
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
In the following sermon, Spurgeon teaches with the correct
biblical tension that saving faith is both the duty of man and
is the gift of God (through regeneration). Spurgeon's doctrinal
position so parallels my own convictions on the matter, that I feel the need
to get many essays and sermons like these in the hands of modern evangelicals.
The highlighted sections of his sermon are concepts that I think are
particularly illuminating -JWH
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Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. - 1 John 5:1
FOR THE PREACHER of the gospel to make full proof of his ministry will
be a task requiring much divine teaching. Besides much care in the manner and
spirit, he will need guidance as to his matter. One point of difficulty will
be to preach the whole truth in fair proportion, never exaggerating one doctrine,
never enforcing one point, at the expense of another, never keeping back any
part, nor yet allowing it undue prominence. For practical result will much depend
upon an equal balance, and a right dividing of the word. In one case this matter
assumes immense importance because it affects vital truths, and may lead to
very serious results unless rightly attended to; I refer to the elementary facts
involved in the work of Christ for us, and the operations of the Holy Spirit
in us. Justification by faith is a matter about which there must be no obscurity
much less equivocation; and at the same time we must distinctly and determinately
insist upon it that regeneration is necessary to every soul that shall enter
heaven. "Ye must be born again" is as much a truth as that clear gospel
statement, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." It
is to be feared that some zealous brethren have preached the doctrine of justification
by faith not only so boldly and so plainly, but also so baldly and so out of
all connection with other truth, that they have led men into presumptuous confidences,
and have appeared to lend their countenance to a species of Antinomianism very
much to be dreaded. From a dead, fruitless, inoperative faith we may earnestly
pray, "Good Lord, deliver us," yet may we be unconsciously, fostering
it. Moreover to stand up and cry, "Believe, believe, believe," without
explaining what is to be believed, to lay the whole stress of salvation upon
faith without explaining what salvation is, and showing that it means deliverance
from the power as well as from the guilt of sin, may seem to a fervent revivalist
to be the proper thing for the occasion, but those who have watched the result
of such teaching have had grave cause to question whether as much hurt may not
be done by it as good. On the other hand, it is our sincere conviction that
there is equal danger in the other extreme. We are most certain that a man
must be made a new creature in Christ Jesus, or he is not saved; but some
have seen so clearly the importance of this truth that they are for ever and
always dwelling upon the great change of conversion, and its fruits, and its
consequences, and they hardly appear to remember the glad tidings that whosoever
believeth on Christ Jesus hath everlasting life. Such teachers are apt to
set up so high a standard of experience, and to be so exacting as to the marks
and signs of a true born child of God, that they greatly discourage sincere
seekers, and fall into a species of legality from which we may again say, "Good
Lord, deliver us." Never let us fail most plainly to testify to the undoubted
truth that true faith in Jesus Christ saves the soul, for if we do not we shall
hold in legal bondage many who ought long ago to have enjoyed peace, and to
have entered into the liberty of the children of God.
It may not be easy to keep these two things in there proper position, but we
must aim at it if we would be wise builders. John did so in his teaching. If
you turn to the third chapter of his gospel it is very significant that while
he records at length our Saviour's exposition of the new birth to Nicodemus,
yet in that very same chapter he gives us what is perhaps the plainest piece
of gospel in all the Scriptures: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." So, too, in the chapter
before us he insists upon a man's being born of God; he brings that up again
and again, but evermore does he ascribe wondrous efficacy to faith; he mentions
faith as the index of our being born again, faith as overcoming the world,
faith as possessing the inward witness, faith as having eternal lifeindeed,
he seems as if he could not heap honour enough upon believing, while at the
same time he insists upon the grave importance of the inward experience connected
with the new birth.
Now, if such difficulty occurs to the preacher, we need not wonder that it also
arises with the hearer, and causes him questioning. We have known many who,
by hearing continually the most precious doctrine that belief in Jesus Christ
is saving, have forgotten other truths, and have concluded that they were saved
when they were not, have fancied they believed when as yet they were total strangers
to the experience which always attends true faith. They have imagined faith
to be the same thing as a presumptuous confidence of safety in Christ, not grounded
upon the divine word when rightly understood, nor proved by any facts in their
own souls. Whenever self-examination has been proposed to them they have avoided
it as an assault upon their assurance, and when they have been urged to try
themselves by gospel tests, they have defended their false peace by the notion
that to raise a question about their certain salvation would be unbelief. Thus,
I fear, the conceit of supposed faith in Christ has placed them in an almost
hopeless position, since the warnings and admonitions of the gospel have been
set aside by their fatal persuasion that it is needless to attend to them, and
only necessary to cling tenaciously to the belief that all has been done long
ago for us by Christ Jesus, and that godly fear and careful walking are superfluities,
if not actually an offence against the gospel. On the other hand, we have known
others who have received the doctrine of justification by faith as a part of
their creed, and yet have not accepted it as a practical fact that the believer
is saved. They so much feel that they must be renewed in the spirit of their
minds, that they are always looking within themselves for evidences, and are
the subjects of perpetual doubts. Their natural and frequent song is
"Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought;
Do I love the Lord, or no?
Am I his, or am I not?"
These are a class of people to be much more pitied than condemned. Though I
would be the very last to spread unbelief, I would be the very first to inculcate
holy anxiety. It is one thing for a person to be careful to know that he is
really in Christ, and quite another thing for him to doubt the promises of Christ,
supposing that they are really made to him. There is a tendency in some hearts
to look too much within, and spend more time studying their outward evidences
and their inward feelings, than in learning the fullness, freeness, and all
sufficiency of the grace of God in Christ Jesus. They too much obscure the grand
evangelical truth that the believer's acceptance with God is not in himself,
but in Christ Jesus, that we are cleansed through the blood of Jesus, that we
are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus, and are, in a word, "accepted
in the Beloved." I earnestly long that these two doctrines may be well
balanced in your souls. Only the Holy Spirit can teach you this. This is
a narrow path which the eagle's eye has not seen, and the lions whelp has not
trodden. He whom the Holy Ghost shall instruct will not give way to presumption
and despise the Spirit's work within, neither will he forget that salvation
is of the Lord Jesus Christ, "who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption." The text appears to me to blend these
two truths in a very delightful harmony, and we will will try to speak of them,
God helping us.
"Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God"
We shall consider this morning, first of all, the believing which is here
intended; and then, secondly, how it is a sure proof of regeneration;
and then, thirdly, dwelling for awhile upon the closing part of the verse we
shall show how it becomes an argument for Christian love: "Every
one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him."
I. WHAT IS THE BELIEVING INTENDED IN THE TEXT?
We are persuaded, first of all, that the believing here intended is that which
our Lord and his apostles exhorted men to exercise, and to which the promise
of salvation is always appended in the word of God; as for instance that faith
which Peter inculcated when he said to Cornelius, "To him give all the
prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive
the remission of sins;" and which our Lord commanded when he came into
Galilee, saying to men, "Repent ye, and believe the gospel" (Mark
i. 15). Certain persons have been obliged to admit that the apostles commanded,
and exhorted, and besought men to believe, but they tell us the kind of believing
which the apostles bade men exercise was not saving faith. Now, God forbid we
should ever in our zeal to defend a favorite position, be driven to an assertion
so monstrous. Can we imagine for a moment apostles with burning zeal and ardor,
inspired by the Spirit of God within them, going about the world exhorting men
to exercise a faith which after all would not save them? To what purpose did
they run on so fruitless an errand, so tantalizing to human need, so barren
of results? When our Lord bade his disciples go into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature, and added, "he that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved," the faith which was to be preached was evidently none
other than a saving faith, and it is frivolous to say otherwise. I must confess
that I felt shocked the other day to read in a certain sermon the remark that
the words of Paul to the jailor "were spoken in a conversation held at
midnight under peculiar circumstances, and the evangelist who wrote them was
not present at the interview." Why, had it been at high noon, and had the
whole world been present, the apostle could have given no fitter answer to the
question, "What must I do to be saved?" than the one he did
give, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
It is, I repeat, a mere frivolity or worse, to say that the faith enjoined by
the apostles was a mere human faith which does not save, and that there is no
certainty that such faith saves the soul. That cause must be desperate that
calls for such a defence.
Furthermore, the faith here intended is the duty of all men. Read the
text again: "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born
of God." It can never be less than man's duty to believe the truth; that
Jesus is the Christ is the truth, and it is the duty of every man to believe
it. I understand her by "believing," confidence in Christ, and it
is surely the duty of men to confide in that which is worthy of confidence,
and that Jesus Christ is worthy of the confidence of all men is certain, it
is therefore the duty of men to confide in him.
Inasmuch as the gospel command, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved," is addressed by divine authority to every creature,
it is the duty of every man so to do. What saith John: "This is
his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ,"
and our Lord himself assures us, "He that believeth on him is not condemned:
but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed
in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." I know there are some
who will deny this, and deny it upon the ground that man has not the spiritual
ability to believe in Jesus, to which I reply that it is altogether an error
to imagine that the measure of the sinners moral ability is the measure of his
duty. There are many things which men ought to do which they have now
lost the moral and spiritual, though not the physical, power to do. A man
ought to be chaste, but if he has been so long immoral that he cannot restrain
his passions, he is not thereby free from the obligation. It is the duty
of a debtor to pay his debts, but if he has been such a spendthrift that he
has brought himself into hopeless poverty, he is not exonerated from his debts
thereby. Every man ought to believe that which is true, but if his mind has
become so depraved that he loves a lie and will not receive the truth, is he
thereby excused? If the law of God is to be lowered according to the moral
condition of sinners, you would have a law graduated upon a sliding- scale to
suit the degrees of human sinfulness; in fact, the worst man would be under
the least law, and become consequently the least guilty. God's requirements
would be a variable quantity, and, in truth, we should be under no rule at all.
The command of Christ stands good however bad men may be, and when he commands
all men everywhere to repent, they are bound to repent, whether their sinfulness
renders it impossible for them to be willing to so or not. In every case it
is man's duty to do what God bids him.
At the same time, this faith, wherever it exists, is in every case, without
exception, the gift of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. Never yet did a
man believe in Jesus with the faith here intended, except the Holy Spirit led
him to do so. He has wrought all our works in us, and our faith too. Faith
is too celestial a grace to spring up in human nature till it is renewed: faith
is in every believer "the gift of God." You will say to me, "Are
these two things consistent?" I reply, "Certainly, for they are both
true." "How consistent?" say you. "How inconsistent?"
say I, and you shall have as much difficulty to prove them inconsistent as I
to prove them consistent. Experience makes them consistent, if theory does not.
Men are convinced by the Holy Spirit of sin"of sin," saith Christ,
"because they believe not on me;" here is one of the truths; but the
selfsame hearts are taught the same Spirit that faith is of the operation of
God. (Col. ii. 2) Brethren be willing to see both sides of the shield of
truth. Rise above the babyhood which cannot believe two doctrines until it sees
the connecting link. Have you not two eyes, man? Must you needs put one
of them out in order to see clearly? Is it impossible to you to use a spiritual
stereoscope, and look at two views of truth until they melt into one, and that
one becomes more real and actual because it is made up of two? Many
men refuse to see more than one side of a doctrine, and persistently fight against
anything which is not on its very surface consistent with their own idea.
In the present case I do not find it difficult to believe faith to be at the
same time the duty of man and the gift of God; and if others cannot accept the
two truths, I am not responsible for their rejection of them; my duty is performed
when I have honestly borne witness to them.
Hitherto we have only been clearing the way. Let us advance. The faith intended
in the text evidently rests upon a personupon Jesus. "Everyone
who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God" It is not
belief about a doctrine, nor an opinion, nor a formula, but belief concerning
a person. Translate the words, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is
the Christ," and they stand thus: "Whosoever believeth that the
Saviour is the Anointed is born of God." By which is assuredly not meant,
whosoever professes to believe that he is so, for many do that whose lives prove
that they are not regenerate; but, whosoever believes it to be the fact, as
truly and in very deed to receive Jesus as God has set him forth and anointed
him, is a regenerate man. What is meant by "Jesus is the Christ,"
or, Jesus is the Anointed? First, that he is the Prophet; secondly, that he
is the Priest; thirdly, that he is the King of the church, for in all these
three senses he is the Anointed. Now, I may ask myself this question: Do I this
day believe that Jesus is the great Prophet anointed of God to reveal to me
the way of salvation? Do I accept him as my teacher and admit that he has the
words of eternal life? If I so believe, I shall obey his gospel and possess
eternal life. Do I accept him to be henceforth the revealer of God to my soul,
the messenger of the covenant, the anointed prophet of the Most High? But he
is also a priest. Now, a priest is ordained among men to offer sacrifices; do
I firmly believe that Jesus was ordained to offer his one sacrifice for the
sins of mankind, by the offering of which sacrifice once for all he has finished
the atonement and made complete expiation? Do I accept his atonement as an atonement
for me, and receive his death as an expiation upon which I rest my hope for
forgiveness of all my transgressions? Do I in fact believe Jesus to be the one
sole, only propitiating Priest, and accept him to act as priest for me? If so,
then I have in part believed that Jesus is the Anointed. But he is also King,
and if I desire to know whether I possess the right faith, I further must ask
myself, "Is Jesus, who is now exalted in heaven, who once bled on the cross,
is he King to me? Is his law my law? Do I desire to submit myself entirely to
his government? Do I hate what he hates, and love what he loves? Do I live to
praise him? Do I, as a loyal subject, desire to see his kingdom come and his
will be done on earth as it is in heaven?" My dear friend, if thou canst
heartily and earnestly say, "I accept Jesus Christ of Nazareth to be Prophet,
Priest, and King to me, because God has anointed him to exercise those three
offices; and in each of these three characters I unfeignedly trust him,"
then, dear friend, you have the faith of God's elect, for it is written, "Everyone
who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God"
Now we go a little further. True faith is reliance. Look at any Greek lexicon
you like, and you will find that the word pisteuein does not merely mean to
believe, but to trust, to confide in, to commit to, entrust with, and so forth;
and the marrow of the meaning of faith is confidence in, reliance upon. Let
me ask, then, every professor her who professes to have faith, is your faith
the faith of reliance? You give credit to certain statements, do you also place
trust in the one who glorious person who alone can redeem? Have you confidence
as well as credence? A creed will not save you, but reliance upon the Anointed
Saviour is the way of salvation. Remember, I beseech you, that if you could
be taught an orthodoxy unadulterated with error, and could learn a creed written
by the pen of the Eternal God himself, yet a mere notional faith, such as men
exercise when they believe in the existence of men in the moon, or nebulae in
space, could not save your soul. Of this we are sure, because we see around
us many who have such a faith, and yet evidently are not the children of God.
Moreover, true faith is not a flattering presumption, by which a man says, "I
believe I am saved, for I have such delightful feelings, I have had a marvelous
dream, I have felt very wonderful sensations;" for all such confidence
may be nothing but mere assumption. Presumption, instead of being faith, is
the reverse of faith; instead of being the substance of things hoped for, it
is a mere mirage. Faith, is as correct as reason, and if her arguments are considered,
she is as secure in her conclusions as though she drew them by mathematical
rules. Beware, I pray you, of a faith which has no basis but your own fancy.
Faith, again, is not the assurance that Jesus died for me. I sometimes feel
myself a little at variance with that verse
"Just as I amwithout one plea
But that thy blood was shed for me."
It is eminently suitable for a child of God, but I am not sure as to its being
the precise way for putting the matter for a sinner. I do not believe in
Jesus because I am persuaded that his blood was shed for me, but rather I discover
that his blood was shed especially for me from the fact that I have been led
to believe in him. I fear me there are thousands of people who believe that
Jesus died for them, who are not born of God, but rather are hardened in their
sin by their groundless hopes of mercy. There is no particular efficacy in a
man's assuming that Christ has died for me; for it is a mere truism, if it true
as some teach, that Jesus died for everybody. On such a theory every believer
in a universal atonement would necessarily be born of God, which is very far
from being the case. When the Holy Ghost leads us to rely upon the Lord
Jesus, then the truth that God gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth
in him might be saved, is opened up to our souls, and we see that for us who
are believers, Jesus died with the special intent that we should be saved.
For the Holy Spirit to assure us that Jesus shed his blood for us in particular
is one thing, but merely to conclude that Jesus for us on the notion that he
died for everybody is as far as the east is from the west, from being real faith
in Jesus Christ.
Neither is it faith for me to be confident that I am saved, for it may be the
case that I am not saved, and it can never be faith to believe a lie. Many have
concluded rashly that they were saved when they were still in the gall of bitterness.
That was not the exhibition of confidence in Christ but the exhibition of a
base presumption destructive to the last degree. To come back to where we started
from, faith, in a word, is reliance upon Jesus Christ. Whether the Redeemer
died in special and particular for me or not, is not the question to be raised
in the first place; I find that he came into the world to save sinners, under
that general character I come to him, I find that whosoever trusteth him shall
be saved, I therefore trust him, and having done so, I learn from his word that
I am the object of his special love, and that I am born of God.
In my first coming to Jesus I can have no knowledge of any personal and special
interest in the blood of Jesus; but since it is written, "God hath set
him forth to be a propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also
for the sins of the whole world," I come and trust myself to that propitiation;
sink or swim I cast myself on the Saviour. Great Son of God, thou hast lived
and died, thou hast bled and suffered, and made atonement for sin for all
such as trust thee, and I trust thee, I lean upon thee, I cast myself upon
thee. Now, whoever has such faith as this is born of God, he has true faith
which is proof positive of the new birth. Judge ye, therefore, whether ye
have this faith or no.
Let me tarry just one minute longer over this. The true faith is set forth in
Scripture by figures, and one or two of these we will mention. It was an eminent
type of faith when the Hebrews father in Egypt slew the lamb and caught the
warm blood in the basin, then took a bunch of hyssop and dipped it in the blood
and marked the two posts of his door, and then struck a red mark across the
lintel. That smearing of the door represented faith. The deliverance was wrought
by the blood; and the blood availed through the householder's own personally
striking it upon his door. Faith does that; it takes of the things of Christ,
makes them its own, sprinkles the soul, as it were, with the precious blood,
accepts the way of mercy by which the Lord passes over us and exempts his people
from destruction. Faith was shown to the Jews in another way. When a beast was
offered in sacrifice for sin, the priest and sometimes the representatives of
the tribes or the individual laid their hands upon the victim in token that
they desired their sins to be transferred to it, that it might suffer for them
as a type of the great substitute. Faith lays her hands on Jesus, desiring to
receive the benefit of his substitutionary death.
A still more remarkable representation of faith was that of the healing look
of the serpent-bitten Israelites. On the great standard in the midst of the
camp Moses lifted up a serpent of brass; high overhead above all the tents this
serpent gleamed in the sun, and whoever of all the dying host would but look
to it was made to live. looking was a very simple act, but it indicated that
the person was obedient to God's command. He looked as he was bidden, and the
virtue of healing came from the brazen serpent through a look. Such is faith.
It is the simplest thing in the world, but it indicates a great deal more than
is seen upon its surface:
"There is life for a look at the Crucified One."
To believe in Jesus is but to glance the eye of faith to him, to trust him
with thy soul.
That poor woman who came behind our Saviour in the press offers us another figure
of what faith is. She said, "If I may but touch the hem of his garment
I shall be made whole." Taking no medicines, making no profession, and
performing no ceremonies, she simply touched the ravelling of the Saviour's
robe, and she was healed at once. O soul, if thou canst get into contact with
Christ by simply trusting him, though that trust be ever so feeble, thou hast
the faith of God's elect; thou hast the faith which is in every case the token
of the new birth.
II. We must now pass on to show that WHEREVER IT EXISTS IT IS THE PROOF OF
REGENERATION.
There never was a grain of such faith as this in the world, except in a regenerate
soul, and there never will be while the world standeth. It is so according to
the text, and if we had no other testimony this one passage would be quite enough
to prove it. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born
of God." "Ah!" I hear thee say, poor soul, "the new birth
is a great mystery; I do not understand it; I am afraid I am not a partaker
in it." You are born again if you believe that Jesus is the Christ, if
you are relying upon a crucified Saviour you are assuredly begotten again unto
a lively hope. Mystery or no mystery, the new birth is yours if you are a believer.
Have you never noticed that the greatest mysteries in the world reveal themselves
by the simplest indications. The simplicity and apparent easiness of faith is
no reason why I should not regard its existence as an infallible indication
of the new birth within. How know we that the new-born child lives except by
its cry? Yet a child's crywhat a simple sound it is! how readily could
it be imitated! a clever workman could with pipes and strings easily deceive
us; yet was there never a child's cry in the world but what it indicated the
mysteries of breathing, heart-beating, blood-flowing, and all the other wonders
which come with life itself. Do you see yonder person just drawn out of the
river? Does she live? Yes, life is there. Why? Because the lungs still heave.
But does it not seem an easy thing to make lungs heave? A pair of billows blown
into them, might not that produce the motion? Ah, yes, the thing is easily imitated
after a sort; but no lungs heave except where life is. Take another illustration.
Go into a telegraph office at any time, and you will see certain needles moving
right and left with unceasing click. Electricity is a great mystery, and you
cannot see or feel it; but the operator tells you that the electric current
is moving along the wire. How does he know? "I know it by the needle."
How is that? I could move your needles easily. "Yes; but do not you see
the needle has made two motions to the right, one to the left, and two to the
right again? I am reading a message." "But," say you, "I
can see nothing in it; I could imitate the clicking and moving very easily."
Yet he who is taught the art sees before him in those needles, not only electric
action, but a deeper mystery still; he perceives that a mind is directing an
invisible force, and speaking by means of it. Not to all, but to the initiated
is it given to see the mystery hidden within the simplicity. The believer sees
in the faith, which is simple as the movements of the needle, an indication
that God is operating on the human mind, and the spiritual man discerns that
there is an inner secret intimated thereby, which the carnal eye cannot decipher.
To believe in Jesus is a better indicator of regeneration than anything else,
and in no case did it ever mislead. Faith in the living God and his Son Jesus
Christ is always the result of the new birth, and can never exist except in
the regenerate. Whoever has faith is a saved man.
I beg you to follow me a little in this argument. A certain divine has lately
said, "A man's act of believing is not the same as his being saved: it
is only in the direction of being saved." This is tantamount to a denial
that every believer in Christ is at once saved; and the inference is that a
man may not conclude that he is saved because he believes in Jesus. Now, observe
how opposed this is to Scripture. It is certain from the Word of God that the
man who believes in Jesus is not condemned. Read John iii. 18, and many other
passages. "He that believeth on Him is not condemned." Now is not
every unregenerate man condemned? Is not a man who is not condemned a saved
man? When you are sure on divine authority that the believer is not condemned,
how in the name of everything that is rational can you deny that the believer
is saved? If he is not condemned, what has he to fear? Will he not rightly conclude
that being justified by faith, he has peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ?
Note, secondly, that faith in the fourth verse of the chapter before us is said
to "overcome the world." "This is the victory that overcomes
the world, even our faith." What, then, does faith overcome the world in
persons who are not saved? How can this be possible when the apostle saith that
that which overcomes the world is born of God? Read the fourth verse: "Whatsoever
is born of God overcometh the world:" but faith overcomes the world. therefore
the man who has faith is regenerate; and what means that but that he is
saved, and that his faith is the instrument by which he achieves victories.
Further, faith accepts the witness of God, and more, he that hath faith has
the witness in himself to the truth of God. Read the tenth verse of the chapter:
"He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."
It is not said, "He that does this or feels that," but "He that
believeth hath the witness in himself," his heart bears witness to the
truth of God. Has any unsaved man an experimental witness within? Will you
tell me that a man's inner experience bears witness to God's gospel and yet
the man is in a lost state, or only hopeful of being saved ultimately? No, sir,
it is impossible. He that believeth has that change
wrought in him which enables by his own consciousness to confirm the witness
of God, and such a man must be in a state of salvation. It is not possible to
say of him that he is an unsaved man.
Again, note in this chapter, at the thirteenth verse, that wherever there is
faith there is eternal life; so run the words, "these things have I written
unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye
have eternal life." Our Lord himself, and his apostles, in several places
have declared, "He that believeth on him hath everlasting life." Do
not tell me that a sinner who believes in Jesus is to make an advance before
he can say he is saved, that a man who trusts Christ is only on his way to salvation,
and must wait until he has used the ordinances, and has grown in grace, before
he may know that he is saved. No, the moment that the sinner's trust in placed
on the finished work of Jesus he is saved. Heaven and earth may pass away, but
that man shall never perish. If only one second ago I trusted the Saviour I
am safe; just as safe as the man who has believed in Jesus fifty years, and
who has all the while walked uprightly. I do not say that the new born convert
is as happy, nor as useful, nor as holy, nor as ripe for heaven, but I do say
that the words, "he that believeth on him hath everlasting life,"
is a truth with general bearings, and relates as much to the babe in faith as
does to the man who has attained to fullness of stature in Jesus Christ.
As if this chapter were written on purpose to meet the gross error that faith
does not bring immediate salvation, it extols faith again and again, yea, and
I may add, our Lord himself crowns faith, because faith never wears the crown,
but brings all the glory to the dear Redeemer.
Now, let me say a word or two in reply to certain questions. But must not a
man repent as well as believe? Reply: No man ever believed but what he repented
at the same time. Faith and repentance go together. they must. If I trust Christ
to save me from sin, I am at the same time repenting of sin, and my mind is
changed in relation to sin, and everything else that has to do with its state.
All the fruits meet for repentance are contained in faith itself. You will
never find that a man who trusts Christ remains an enemy of God, or a lover
of sin. The fact that he accepts the atonement provided is proof positive
that he loathes sin, and that his mind is thoroughly changed in reference to
God. Moreover, as to all the graces which are produced in the Christian
afterwards, are they not all to be found in embryo in faith? "Only believe,
and you shall be save," is the cry which many sneer at, and others misunderstand;
but do you know what "only believe" means? Do you know what a world
of meaning lies in that word? Read that famous chapter to the Hebrews, and see
what faith has done and is still able to do, and you will see that it is no
trifle. Wherever there is faith in a man let it but develop itself and there
will be a purging of himself from sin, a separating himself from the world,
a conflict with evil, and a warring for the glory of Christ, which nothing else
could produce. Faith is in itself one of the noblest of graces; it is the compendium
of all virtues; and as sometimes there will lie within one single ear enough
seed to make a whole garden fertile, so, within that one word "faith,"
there lies enough of virtue to make earth blessed; enough of grace, if the Spirit
make it to grow, to turn the fallen into the perfect. Faith is not the easy
and light thing men think. Far are we from ascribing salvation to the profession
of a mere creed, we loathe the idea; neither do we ascribe salvation to a fond
persuasion, but we do ascribe salvation to Jesus Christ, and the obtaining of
it to that simple, child like confidence which lovingly casts itself into the
arms of him who gave both his hands to the nail and suffered to the death for
the sins of his people. He who believes, then, is savedrest assured of
that. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of
God"
III. Now what flows out of this? Love is the legitimate issue! We must love
if we are begotten of God all those who are also born of God.
It would be an insult to you if I were to prove that a brother should love
his brother. Doth not nature herself teach us that? Those, then, who are born
of God ought to love all those of the same household. And who are they? Why,
all those who have believed that Jesus is the Christ, and are resting their
hopes where we rest ours, namely, on Christ the Anointed One of God. We are
to love all such. We are to do this because we are of the family. We believe,
and therefore we have been begotten of God. Let us act as those who are
of the divine family; let us count it our privilege we are received into the
household, and rejoice to perform the lovely obligations of our high position.
We look around us and see many others who have believed in Jesus Christ; let
us love them because they are of the same kindred. "But they are some of
them unsound in doctrine, they make gross mistakes as to the Master's ordinances."
We are not to love their faults, neither ought we to expect them to love ours,
we are nevertheless to love their persons, for "whosoever believeth that
Jesus is the Christ is born of God," and therefore he is one of the family,
and as we love the Father who begat we are to love all those who are begotten
of him. First, I love God, and therefore I desire to promote God's truth and
to keep God's gospel free from taint. But then I am to love all those whom God
has begotten, despite the infirmities and errors I see in them, being also myself
compassed about with infirmities. Life is the reason for love, the common life
which is indicated by the common faith in the dear Redeemer is to bind us to
each other. I must confess, though I would pay every deference to every brother's
conscientious judgment, I do not know how I could bring my soul as a child of
God to refuse any man communion at my Master's table, who believed that Jesus
is the Christ. I have proof in his doing do, if he be sincere (and I can only
judge of that by his life), that he is born of God; and has not every child
a right to come to the Father's table? I know in the olden times, parent used
to make their children go without meals as a punishment, but everybody tell
us now this is cruel and unwise, for it injures the child's constitution to
deprive it of necessary food. There are rods in the Lord's house, and there
is no need to keep disobedient children away from supper. Let them come to the
Lord's table, and eat and drink with the Lord Jesus and with all his saints,
in the hope that when their constitution bestows stronger they will throw out
the disease which now they labor under, and come to be obedient to the whole
gospel, which saith, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved."
Let me beg the members of this church to exhibit mutual love to one another.
Are there many feeble among you? Comfort them. Are there any who want instruction?
Bring your knowledge to their help. Are there any in distress? Assist them.
Are they backsliding? Restore them. "Little children, love one another,"
is the rule of Christ's family, may we observe it. May the love of God which
has been she abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,
reveal itself by our love to all the saints. And, remember, other sheep he has
which are not yet of this fold; them also he must bring in. Let us love those
who are yet to be brought in, and lovingly go forth at once to seek them; in
whatever other form of service God has given us, let us with loving eyes look
after our prodigal brothers, and who knows, we may bring into the family this
very day some for whom there will be joy in the presence of the angels of God,
because the lost one has been found. God bless and comfort you, for Jesus Christ's
sake. Amen.
Note: ESV Used for some texts of Scripture