Can You Tell a Sinner Just How to Be Saved?
The following question has been put again and again to audiences consisting of Christian workers and Bible students: “How many here are sure you could tell an inquirer exactly what he must do to become a Christian and receive the new birth?” The result of this question is nothing less than startling. As many as half and two-thirds in these audiences have not raised their hands to indicate that they could explain the way of salvation. But if one cannot tell an inquirer how to be saved, neither can he tell why he himself is sure of salvation. And until one knows the word regarding the real meaning of sin and the atonement, there will be only disappointment in trying to get hold of the experience of victory in Christ.
The steps of salvation are perfectly simple. First, one must know that he is lost. Otherwise he cannot need a Saviour. To believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died in my place, I must believe that I am such a sinner as deserved death. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Joined with this is the word, “The wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). I am saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8); faith is believing that all my sins were put on Jesus and he paid the penalty for them (Isa. 53:6); now I have been born again and am a child of God; and I know it not because I feel it, but because God’s Word says so (John 1:12; 1 John 5:9-13).
A clear understanding of the blood will save us from a superficial idea of sin and its awfulness. If the cross of Christ is ever in view we shall have God’s estimate of sin, and there will be a clear realization that it required the whole sacrifice of Calvary to accomplish the miracle of victory. In a testimony meeting at a Victorious Life conference a Christian was explaining that his chief difficulty had been with “those little troubles,” such as irritation, impatience, pride and such things. “You mean those devilish sins,” the leader of the meeting suggested. There is not likely to be that earnest, agonizing heart cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death,” so long as we think of sin as little troubles to be overcome. All sin is devilish, and the Son of God is the only one who has won the victory over sin. Victory for us then begins with the cross of Christ, but it is possible only as we keep continually under that shed blood and appropriating His resurrection life. The whole sacrifice of Calvary is necessary to keep us free from the least of what we call the little sins.
Christian Science not only would rob a Christian of faith, it would rob him of the blessed hope. “The second appearing of Jesus is unquestionably the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God in Christian Science,” says Mrs. Eddy. Hope points toward the future, and Christian Science has no place for future deliverance from evil and sin, except as the human race learns that these are errors of mortal mind.