Bible Journal

Salvation

   
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“To save” means something more than just delivering penitents from going to hell. By the word “to save” I understand the whole of the great work of salvation, from the first holy desire, the first spiritual conviction, onward to complete sanctification. All is done of God through Jesus Christ.
     Christ is not only mighty to save those who do repent, but He is able to make men repent; He is engaged not merely to carry those to heaven who believe, but He is mighty to give men new hearts and to work faith in them; He is mighty not merely to give heaven to one who wishes for it, but He is mighty to make man who hates holiness love it, to constrain the despiser of His name to bend his knee before Him, and to make the most abandoned reprobate turn from the error of his ways.
     By the words “to save” I do not understand what some men say they mean. They tell us in their divinity that Christ came into the world to put all men into a salvable state – to make the salvation of all men possible by their own exertions. I believe that Christ came for no such thing – that He came into the world not to put men into salvable state, but into a saved state; not to put them where they could save themselves, but to do the work in them, from the first even to the last.
                                                   – Charles Spurgeon

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