I can’t seem to understand anymore why the Church fails to see what it means when we say, “Jesus saves.” For some reason, for the sake of assurance of really having “received” God’s saving Grace, we bid people to do something, where that “something” differs from congregation to congregation. In some places it is Baptism. In some, by coming forward and praying the “sinner’s prayer.” Is it because of ego or pride that we put this yoke onto people? Is it because of pastoral frustration of the outward uncertainty of the salvation of the pew-dweller? A definite reason of this occurrence I cannot give. But with this quote I wish to remind us of what the Bible means when it says that Jesus Christ is “The Lord of our Salvation” (Jeremiah 23:5).
Not by prayer. Not by baptism or any kind of outward work that we provide from ourselves. But by a realization of the fullness of God. By meeting Him who is sovereign, holy and just, we would be able to see the deadness of our souls and our hatred against the Creator, being drawn by the Spirit of God leading us to repentance and faith unto salvation.
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13)
- A.W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God
This doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God is a great battering-ram against human pride, and in this it is in sharp contrast from “the doctrines of men.” The spirit of our age is essentially that of boasting and glorying in the flesh. The achievements of man, his development and progress, his greatness and self-sufficiency, are the shrine at which the world worships today. But the truth of God’s sovereignty, with all its corollaries, removes every ground for human boasting and instills the spirit of humility in its stead. It declares that salvation is of the Lord—of the Lord in its origination, in its operation, and in its consummation. It insists that the Lord has to apply as well as supply, that He has to complete as well as begin His saving work in our souls, that He has not only to reclaim but to maintain and sustain us to the end. It teaches that salvation is by grace through faith, and that all our works (before conversion), good as well as evil, count for nothing toward salvation. It tells us we are “born, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). And all this is most humbling to the heart of man, who wants to contribute something to the price of his redemption and do that which will afford ground for boasting and self-satisfaction.
