78. No Excuse for Spiritual Infancy
No Excuse for Spiritual Infancy But with too many of God’s children there is little or no growth out of spiritual babyhood, for lack of the proper knowledge of what their salvation includes. While they are fully and forever saved from the guilt of all their “sins” the moment they believe on Christ, yet they are not told that they may be just as fully kept safe from the power of “sin,” if they will commit the nature of Old Adam to His constant victory over it within them, as they depend on Him moment by moment as fully as they depended on Him in the one act of faith to save them from their “sins.” When a “babe in Christ” enters deliberately into that attitude of utter and continual dependence on Him, his spiritual growth begins, never to be interrupted, except as his failure to walk in the Spirit retards it. This is how it is that some new converts will in a few months show a knowledge of God’s Word and a degree of spiritual power far beyond that of many who have been saved for long years. Their crossing out of Egypt into Canaan was almost in a single experience, while others are still in the wilderness in a state of unfruitfulness. They committed themselves to Christ in accepting the forgiveness of their “sins,” and they also committed themselves to Him to accept His life in and service through them; and they continue to maintain that attitude of yieldedness toward Him moment by moment, thus being kept from the power of “sin.”
It is possible now to go a little further into detail as to the perfection of God’s two-fold provision for our salvation. On God’s side of the transaction, there are several words used to describe Christ’s work on the cross, no one of which seems to underlie all the rest of them. Substitution is perhaps the one word that comes nearest to doing that, as it seems more nearly to comprehend all the others.
God’s word of honor insures the protection of all who depend on Him for their welfare and happiness, His execution of the death penalty on all who sin against that welfare being His fulfillment of that word. The whole race of Adam coming under the penalty, God in one act saves both His word of honor and all sinners against it who will accept that word, by substituting Himself, through His own Son, in the place of the sinning race, and accepting their penalty for them. The relation thus created between God and man is one in which an atonement is now made for the whole world, that “whosoever will” may be saved from execution by simply accepting this work for him, which is freely offered to all men without exception. This means that from God’s side, redemption has been fully accomplished for the whole world, with nothing lacking between Him and any individual sinner but simply to receive this redemption as a gift, upon which it becomes to him his personal salvation. The world is a forgiven world, so far as God is concerned, with God waiting for every sinner as an individual to accept at His hand the full pardon of all his sins. The only sin God cannot forgive is the final refusal of that pardon. And so the cross brings about complete reconciliation, in that two beings who have been opposed are now brought into harmony. Atonement is universal; reconciliation is personal. One removes God’s displeasure, the other accomplishes harmony in the sinner’s heart. By atonement all are free to be saved; by reconciliation every sinner who accepts Christ is saved. God never ceased to love the sinner, though He was compelled to oppose his sin. But now by Christ’s work the sinner needs simply to cease being opposed to Him by accepting the gift of reconciliation at His hand. This is now possible because the cross fully released God from the restraint man’s sin had put upon Him, and opened His way to show that unmerited favor which is grace. Christ thus became a “propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2).
God is therefore now so propitious toward the world that there is nothing for any sinner in it to do, nor for him to persuade God to do. Eternal salvation is so perfectly complete and fully ready for delivery to any one who will take it, that only those who refuse to take it will fail of and forfeit God’s propitious attitude toward them, and thus miss salvation altogether. But when one turns toward God in the attitude of acceptance, a propitious God does a work in his heart that turns him from enemy to friend, and the already provided redemption becomes his personal salvation.