06. Salvation

ness of his own house. But we know the results. Within a very brief period the man was disgorging his ill-gotten gains.

Now mark most carefully that, in this connection, our Lord made His one recorded public definite use of the word salvation: "To-day is salvation come to this house."¹ The proof that salvation had come was that the man was revealed as "a son of Abraham." Do not confuse cause and effect in this story. Christ declared salvation had come to the house. How did He prove it? "Forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham." Was he not a son of Abraham before? Jesus did not recognize his sonship until he did the works which were the outcome of faith. In the hour of supreme conflict with the rulers, later on, Jesus said, "If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham."² Of this man, giving up ill-gotten gains, swinging back to lines of righteousness; morally remade, and demonstrating his moral reconstruction by his righteous act; Christ said, That is a son of Abraham. To-day salvation is come to this house. There is the evidence of it!

Salvation then is a power that takes hold of a man, and remakes him. And immediately following, in closest connection, our Lord declared in simple words the meaning of His own mission in the world, "The Son of Man came to seek and to save." "To-day is salvation come to this house." The Son of Man came to do that! He was criticized for eating with sinning men, for accepting the hospitality of a rogue! But the results reveal the purpose of His going into that house. He came to seek and save that which was lost.

Now let us turn to other illustrations, in order that we may know what He really meant when He said in the presence of Zacchaeus, that His business was that of saving. Let us take one or two occasions on which He used the word in the material realm. When He was about to heal

¹ Luke xix. 9.

² John viii. 39.

the man with the withered hand in the synagogue, He challenged the scribes and Pharisees by asking this question, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good, or to do harm? to save a life, or to destroy it?" When the woman touched Him and was healed of her issue of blood, He turned and said, "Daughter, thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." When He was taken to the house of the dead child of Jairus He said to Jairus, "Fear not: only believe, and she shall be saved." After the cleansing of the ten lepers, He said to the one who alone returned to praise God, "Arise, and go thy way: thy faith hath saved thee." Once again, when He healed the blind man, He said to him, "Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee."

In the case of the man with the withered hand, what did He mean by saving? The withered hand was restored. In the case of the woman with the issue of blood what did He mean? "The issue of her blood was stanched." When He spoke of the dead child being saved, what did He mean? "Her spirit returned," and immediately she rose. When He spoke to the leper, what did He mean by saying "thy faith hath saved thee"? He was cleansed. What did He mean by being saved when the blind man received his sight? He saw. Gather together those illustrations, and we find in every case that on the lips of Jesus the word save meant the negating of destructive forces, and the restoration to men and women of all that had been lost thereby. That is in the material realm alone. The withered hand was restored whole as the other. For long, long years in the case of the woman the blood had been flowing, and she had suffered ostracism, excommunication, and the loss of everything; and in a moment the fountain

1 Luke vi. 9.

4 Ibid., xvii. 19.

5 Ibid., viii. 48.

6 Ibid., xviii. 42.

7 Ibid., viii. 50.

Salvation of her blood was stanched, the whole trouble ceased. The child was dead; He uttered one soft rhythmic command, "Talitha cumi," and the spirit came back, and the eyelids fluttered, the lips opened, the limbs moved, and she rose and went to father and mother. Leprosy was cleansed, so that the flesh was again the flesh of a little child. Blindness was ended, and sight given. That was His common use of the word.

Pass from these material illustrations, and take two only in the moral realm. The first is that of the woman who was a sinner, who came into the house of Simon; and Simon stood in amazement and in anger. What did Simon see that shocked him? Simon saw a fallen woman fondling Jesus; and we miss the whole impact of the story if we dare to put it in any softer form or fashion. Luke with fine delicacy says, "A woman which was in the city, a sinner;" and this woman crossed the threshold of the house of Simon, knelt behind the couch on which Jesus reclined at the board, and began to wash His feet with her tears as she wept, and wipe them with her hair. Simon in amazement saw a woman who had never crossed the threshold before,—a sinning woman,—fondling Jesus; and he said within his soul, That either means that He will be polluted, or else that there is some guilty secret in the past. Now listen to the words of Christ: "Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee"; and to the reply, "Master, say on!" Then the Master put that woman into comparison with Simon, and said in effect: Simon, your mistake is that you are looking at the woman as she was. Look at her as she is. You only know her past. Look at her now. You have criticized her as being a sinning woman. I tell you, Simon, that, by the side of her, you are as coarse sack-cloth in comparison with finest silk. In the matter of common courtesy that woman has made up for your boorishness by her sweetness and her love. And, Simon, now I will tell you the secret. Her sins which are many are forgiven;— for Christ did not mean to say that she was forgiven because she loved; but that she loved because she was forgiven. He had known her before, He had met her before. He had wrought in her soul the moral healing that had remade her! Then He looked at her, and He said, "Thy faith hath saved thee."¹ He used the word now in the moral realm, and what does the story reveal as to its meaning? A sinning, soiled, smirched woman, held in profound contempt by Simon the Pharisee, had become the gentle, the refined, the beautiful, who made up for the boorishness of his failure in the tenderness of her ministry to her Lord. His moral use of the word has the same significance as His material use of it, with a broader reach, and a more spacious application. To save, according to this conception of Christ, is to take hold of all the destructive forces, and to destroy them, and to realize the highest beauty and glory of life.

The other occasion is that of Zacchæus who, at first hard and unscrupulous, suddenly became repentant, and compassionate, giving half his goods to the poor, making restitution fourfold. Of that change Christ said, That is salvation, to-day is salvation come to this house; and I came to bring it; "the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."²

Salvation then according to the teaching of Christ is the complete change from one condition to its opposite. The withered hand healthy and powerful, cessation of the issue of blood, the dead child alive, the leprous men cleansed, the blind eyes seeing; all these He described as saved.

Passing to the moral, we reach the realm of mysticism. But we may interpret the moral by the material. The forgiveness of sins is not merely that God will never again

¹ Luke vii. 50.

² Ibid., xix. 10.