We might perhaps more accurately read _receive_ salvation, for that
salvation is not won by any efforts of our own, but if we ever possess
it, our possession is the result of our accepting it as a gift from God.
The first word which the Gospel speaks to men and which makes it a
Gospel, is not Do this or that, but Take this from the hands that were
nailed to the Cross. The beginning of all true life, of all peace, of
all self-control, of all hope, lies in the humble and penitent
acceptance by faith of the salvation which Christ brings, and with which
we have nothing to do but to accept it.
But Paul is here speaking to those whom he believes to have already
exercised the initial faith which united them to Christ, and made His
salvation theirs, and to these the exhortation comes with special
force. To such it says, 'See to it that your faith ever grasps and feeds
upon the great facts on which your salvation reposes--God's changeless
love, Christ's all-sufficient sacrifice and ascended life, which He
imparts to us if we abide in Him. Hold fast and prolong by continual
repetition the initial act by which you received that salvation. It is
said that on his death-bed Oliver Cromwell asked the Puritan divine who
was standing by it whether a man who had once been in the covenant could
be lost, and on being assured that he could not, answered, 'I know that
I was once in it'; but such a building on past experiences is a building
on sand, and nothing but continuous faith will secure a continuous
salvation. A melancholy number of so-called Christians in this day have
to travel far back through the years before they reach the period when
they took the helmet of salvation. They know that they were far better
men, and possessed a far deeper apprehension of Christ and His power in
the old days than is theirs now, and they need not wonder if God's great
gift has unnoticed slipped from their relaxed grasp. A hand that clings
to a rock while a swollen flood rushes past needs to perpetually be
tightening its grip, else the man will be swept away; and the present
salvation, and, still more, the hope of a future salvation, are not ours
on any other terms than a continual repetition of the initial act by
which we first received them. But there must also be a continually
increased appropriation and manifestation in our lives of a progressive
salvation that will come as a result of a constantly renewed faith; but
it will not come unless there be continuous effort to work into our
characters, and to work out in our lives, the transforming and
vitalising power of the life given to us in Jesus Christ. If our
present experience yields no sign of growing conformity to the image of
our Saviour, there is only too abundant reason for doubting whether we
have experienced a past salvation or have any right to anticipate a
perfect future salvation.
The last word to be said is, Live in frequent anticipation of that
perfect future. If that anticipation is built on memory of the past and
experience of the present, it cannot be too confident. That hope maketh
not ashamed. In the region of Christian experience alone the weakest of
us has a right to reckon on the future, and to be sure that when that
great to-morrow dawns for us, it 'shall be as this day and much more
abundant.' With this salvation in its imperfect form brightening the
present, and in its completeness filling the future with unimaginable
glory, we can go into all the conflicts of this fighting world and feel
that we are safe because God covers our heads in the day of battle.
Unless so defended we shall go into the fight as the naked Indians did
with the Spanish invaders, and be defeated as they were. The plumes may
be shorn off the helmet, and it may be easily dinted, but the head that
wore it will be unharmed. And when the battle and the noise of battle
are past, the helmet will be laid aside, and we shall be able to say, 'I
have fought a good fight, henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness.'
'THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT'
'The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.'--Eph. vi. 17.
We reach here the last and only offensive weapon in the panoply. The
'of' here does not indicate apposition, as in the 'shield of faith,' or
'the helmet of salvation,' nor is it the 'of' of possession, so that
the meaning is to be taken as being the sword which the Spirit wields,
but it is the 'of' expressing origin, as in the 'armour of God'; it is
the sword which the Spirit supplies. The progress noted in the last
sermon from subjective graces to objective divine facts, is completed
here, for the sword which is put into the Christian soldier's hand is
the gift of God, even more markedly than is the helmet which guards his
head in the day of battle.