Salvation, not of works, but of grace.
"But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared," etc. The great subject here is salvation. This includes the restoration of the soul to the knowledge, the image, the fellowship, and the service of the great God. The passage leads us to offer two remarks on the words.
I. THAT WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WE CANNOT PERFORM, AND THEREFORE THEY CANNOT SAVE US. "Not by works of [done in] righteousness which we have done [which we did ourselves]." What are righteous works? Condensely defined, works inspired ever by supreme sympathy with the supremely good. No other works, whatever their sacred semblance, whatever their popular appreciation, are righteous. Now, such righteous works we cannot render in our unrenewed state, because we have lost this affection, and the loss of this is the death and damnation of the soul.
1. Could we render such works they would save us. They secure the blessedness of the unfallen angels.
2. Without rendering such works we cannot be saved. Moral salvation consists in holiness of character. Character is made up of habits, habits made up of acts, and the acts, to be of any worth, must be righteous.
II. THAT REDEMPTIVE MERCY HAS BEEN VOUCHSAFED TO US, AND THEREFORE WE MAY BE SAVED. "According to his mercy he saved us." Observe:
1. The special work of this redemptive mercy. What is the work?
2. The Divine Administrator of this redemptive mercy. "The Holy Ghost." No agency but that of God can either morally cleanse or renew. That Divine Agent which of old brooded over the face of the deep can alone morally recreate.
3. The glorious Medium of this redemptive mercy. "Through Jesus Christ our Savior." Christ our Savior is the Medium. Through him the Spirit came, by him the Spirit works, in him the Spirit is abundant.
4. The sublime result of this redemptive mercy. "That being justified by his grace, we should [might] be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." The word "justified" means to be made right—right in heart, right in life, right in relation to self, the universe, and God. What is it to be made right? To be put in possession of that spirit of love to God which is the spring of all "works of righteousness." This rectitude:
Justification; faith; works.
"That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs," etc. There are three subjects in these verses of vital interest to man which require to be brought out into prominence and impressed with indelible force.
I. THE MORAL RECTIFICATION OF THE SOUL. "Being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." This means, I presume, not that being pronounced right, but that being made right. Forensic justification is an old theological fiction. Those who have held it and who still hold it have ideas of God incongruous and debased. They regard him as such a one as themselves. "To be justified" here means to be made right. There are three ideas here suggested in relation to this moral rectification of the soul.
1. All souls in their unrenewed state are unrighteous. We do not require any special revelation from God to give us this information. Man's moral wrongness of soul is revealed in every page of human history, is developed in every scene of human life, and is a matter of painful consciousness to every man. We have all "erred and strayed from the right like lost sheep."
2. Restoration to righteousness is the merciful work of God. "Being justified by his grace"—"his grace," his boundless, sovereign, unmerited love. Who but God can put a morally disordered soul right? To do this is to resuscitate the dead, to roll back the deep flowing tide of human sympathies into a new channel and a new direction, to arrest a wandering planet and plant it in a new orbit. He does it and he alone. He does it by the revelation of his Son, by the dispensations of life, the operations of conscience. "Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living."
3. There is the heirship of eternal good. "Being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." Eternal life must mean something more than endless existence; for mere endless existence, under certain conditions, might be an object of dread rather than hope. It might mean perfect goodness. Goodness is eternal, for God is eternal Goodness is blessedness, for God is blessed. A virtuous hope is not hope for happiness, but a hope for perfect goodness. He whose soul is made morally right becomes an heir to all goodness. This heirship is not something added to this inner righteousness. It is in it as the plant is in the seed. Man's heaven is in righteousness of soul and nowhere else. No man can be happy who is merely treated as righteous if he is not righteous. Such treatment, even by God himself, would only enhance his misery. To be treated as righteous if you are not righteous, is an outrage on justice and a revulsion to moral nature.
II. THE ESSENTIAL FOUNDATION OF ALL TRUE FAITH. "And they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men." The basis of all true faith is faith in God. In him, not in it. In him, not in men's representations of him. "He that cometh to God must believe that he is." To believe in him implies:
1. To believe in what he is in himself. The only absolute existence, without beginning, without succession, without end, who is in all and through all, the all-mighty, the all-wise, the all-good Creator and Sustainer of the universe. This faith in him is the most philosophic, the most universal, and the most blessed and ennobling faith.
2. To believe in what he is to us—the Father, the Proprietor, and the Life. "Not willing that any should perish." This is the faith that is enjoined upon us everywhere in the Old Testament and the New; not faith in infallible propositions, in infinite personality; not faith in man's ideas of God, but in God himself, as the Source of all life, the Fountain of all virtue, the Standard of all excellence. "Trust in him that liveth forever."
"Not in priesthoods, not on creed,
Is the faith we need, O Lord;
These, more fragile than the reed,
Can no rest for souls afford.
Human systems, what are they?
Dreams of erring men at best,
Visions only of a day,
Without substance, without rest.
Firmly fix it, Lord, on thee,
Strike its roots deep in thy love;
Growing ever may it be,
Like the faith of these above.
Then though earthly things depart,
And the heavens pass away,
Strong in thee shall rest the heart,
Without fainting or decay."
('Biblical Liturgy.')
III. THE SUPREME PURPOSE OF A TRUE LIFE. "To maintain good works." What are good works?
1. Works that have right motives. Works that society may consider good, that Churches may chant as good, are utterly worthless unless they spring from supreme love to the Creator. "Though I give my body to be burned, if I have not love, I am nothing." "Love is the fulfilling of the Law."
2. Works that have a right standard. It is conceivable that man may have a right motive and yet his work be bad. Was it not something like this with Saul of Tarsus when he was persecuting the saints? We make two remarks in relation to these good works.