Let us however clearly understand, when we speak of exclusiveness, that
we do not mean exclusiveness in the glad tidings, for, as already shown,
these glad tidings are freely sent to every man; but what we do mean
is,—that Christ Jesus is the only Saviour, and that “there is none other
name under heaven, given amongst men, whereby we must be saved.” We do
mean that God has not promised salvation through a conscientious devotion
to Buddha, or Vishnu, or Mahommed, or reason, or the light of nature; but
that God, in giving Christ as our life, gave Him as the only Source of
life, and not as one amongst many Saviours.
Now this exclusiveness appears to be the necessary consequence of the
breadth and freedom of the offer; and had I had the framing of the
thesis, I should have preferred to have stated it as “The breadth,
freeness, and _consequent_ exclusiveness of the Gospel:” for if we
consider the great origin of the Gospel,—the eternal love of God; the
marvellous plan of the Gospel,—the sacrifice of the Son of God; the
boundless mercy of the Gospel,—as seen in the offering such a salvation
to every poor sinner under heaven; and the unutterable grace of the
Gospel,—in offering it freely to poor sinners, at the very time that
those sinners are hopelessly sunk in the ruin of their sin;—it does
appear to be an act of the deepest presumption for men to suppose that
there may be other ways through which men can be saved, other systems
through which men can be restored. If men could be saved any other way,
why did the Lord Jesus come? why did He die? If self-denying idolatry or
conscientious morality were sufficient, why was there any Gospel at all?
and why were we not left to win our way to eternal life, by morality and
heathenism in all their varied forms? If the Gospel be regarded as a
Divine remedy for the sinner, then surely it must be exclusive. If this
be God’s plan, then surely a plan from God was needful, and no human plan
was sufficient. If it were a human plan, then I could perfectly
understand that other human plans might be equally effectual,—or, I
should rather say, equally fruitless; but if it be really God’s plan,
then it must stand alone as the only way of restoration to life.
The only possible way of meeting this view of the subject is, by
supposing that the result of our Lord’s propitiation is applied, without
their knowledge, to those who do not believe in His Name. Of course if
this were God’s plan, we should have nothing to say, and our simple duty
would be to accept it with thanksgiving. But on this point we must be
wholly dependent on God’s own statement of His own counsel. When we are
studying God’s purpose, our only hope of arriving at truth is by simple
dependence on what God has revealed to us in His Word; and not the
smallest reliance can be placed on any conclusions which we may draw from
what we think most probable in so benevolent a God. Of course if men do
not believe in Scripture, as inspired by the Spirit, this evidence fails
them; but then they have nothing to assure them that there is any Gospel
at all. But if we admit it to be God’s plan, then from God we must learn
its character, and His Word alone must guide our decision. Now it is
needless for me to multiply passages, as I might do to almost any extent,
to show that in God’s Word we are taught, that the blessings of our
Lord’s work are not bestowed except through faith in His Name. Whatever
conclusions men may derive from their own ideas of Divine benevolence,
there cannot be a question that this is the testimony of Scripture. If
men place greater reliance on their own opinion of what they think God
ought to have done, than on what God Himself declares He has done, we can
only say, as St. Paul did,—“Nay! but, O man, who art thou that repliest
against God?” In such a matter we are entirely limited by the Divine
statements, and man’s opinion is utterly worthless; for the counsels of
God, in their very nature, lie quite beyond the limits of human enquiry.
If we do not believe in the words of our blessed Saviour, we have not the
slightest evidence of any salvation at all; and if we do believe them, we
must believe them all, and must accept without hesitation His own most
solemn statement, the most exclusive sentence which I know in the whole
range of Christian theology,—“He that believeth, and is baptized, shall
be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned.”
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London: William Hunt and Company.
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