Is Salvation Only Forgiveness?
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| William Law (1686-1761) |
Our friend, Leonard
Ravenhill, said that to be forgiven was to be half-saved. I would add that to be half-saved is to be
totally lost. Bible salvation means not only to be forgiven, but to be
transformed into a new creation that loves righteousness and hates sin. From
the first half of the 18th Century come these words from William Law…
But you will say, “Do not all
Christians desire to have Christ to be their Savior?” Yes. But here is the
deceit; all would have Christ to be their Savior in the next world and to help them into Heaven when they die, by His
power and merits with God. But this is not willing Christ to be your Savior.
For His salvation, if it is had, must be had in this world; if He saves you, it
must be done in this life by changing and altering all that is within you, by helping
you to a new heart, as He helped the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the
dumb to speak.
Consider, how was it that the
carnal Jew, the deep-read Scribe, the learned Rabbi, and the religious Pharisee
not only did not receive, but crucified their
Savior? It was because they willed and desired no such Savior as He was, no
such inward salvation as He offered to them. They desired no change of their
own nature, no inward destruction of their own natural tempers (self-qualities
or self-righteousness), no deliverance from the love of themselves and the
enjoyments of their passions. They liked their state, the gratifications of
their old man, their long robes, their broad phylacteries and greetings in the
markets. They wanted not to have their pride and self-love dethroned, their
covetousness and sensuality to be subdued by a new nature from Heaven derived
into them. Their only desire was the success of Judaism, to have an outward
savior, a temporal prince, that should establish their law and ceremonies over
all the Earth. And therefore they crucified their dear Redeemer, and would have
none of His salvation, because it all consisted in a change of their nature, in
a new birth from above and a Kingdom of Heaven to be opened within them by the
Spirit of God.
Oh Christendom, look not only at
the old Jews, but see yourself in this glass. For at this day (oh, sad truth to
be told!) a Christ within us, an inward Savior raising a birth of His own
nature, life, and spirit within us, is rejected as gross enthusiasm; the learned
Rabbi’s take counsel against it. The propagation of property, the propagation
of Protestantism, the success of some particular church is the salvation which
priests and people are chiefly concerned about today.
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