If Christ comes in He comes with His pierced hands full of gifts.
Through our faith we receive all spiritual blessings. But we must ever
remember, what this metaphor most forcibly sets forth, that faith is
but the means of entrance. It has no worth in itself, but is precious
only because it admits the true wealth. The door is nothing. It is only
an opening. Faith is the pipe that brings the water, the flinging wide
the shutters that the light may flood the dark room, the putting
oneself into the path of the electric circuit. Salvation is not
arbitrarily connected with faith. It is not the reward of faith but the
possession of what comes through faith, and cannot come in any other
way. Our 'hearts' are 'purified by faith,' because faith admits into
our hearts the life, and instals as dominant in them the powers, the
motives, the Spirit, which purify. We are 'saved by faith,' for faith
brings into our spirits the Christ who saves His people from their
sins, when He abides in them and they abide in Him through their faith.