SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
REDEMPTION
TRUTHS
CONTENTS
1.How a Sinner Can Be Saved
2. Significance of the
Passover
3. Fullness of Our Redemption
4. Gods Provision for the
Way
5. Recognizing My Need
6. Receiving His Provision
7.
Justification and Sanctification Through Redemption
8. Change of
Dispensation
9. Doctrine of the Gospel
10. Sonship and the New Birth
11. Christendom and the Judgment
12. Hope of the Christian
13. The
New Apostasy
Scripture Index
CHAPTER 1
HOW A SINNER CAN BE
SAVED
"A certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and
when he saw him, he had compassion on him." Luke 10:33 "What shall I do to
inherit eternal life?" The question was framed by a professional theologian, to
test the orthodoxy of the great Rabbi of Nazareth. For evidently it was
rumoured that the new Teacher was telling the people of a short road to Heaven.
And the answer given was clear - no other answer, indeed, is possible; for what
a man inherits is his by right - eternal life is the reward and goal of a
perfect life on earth. A perfect life, mark - the standard being perfect love
to God and man. And this being so, no one but a Pharisee or a fool could dream
of inheriting eternal life, and the practical question which concerns every one
of us is whether God has provided a way by which men who are not perfect, but
sinful, can be saved. And the answer to this question is hidden in the parable
by which the Lord silenced his interrogators quibble, "Who is my
neighbour?" Here is the story. (Luke 10:30-35)
A traveller on the
downward road to the city of the Curse fell among thieves, who robbed and
wounded him, and flung him down, half dead, by the wayside. First, a priest
came that way, and then a Levite, who looked at him, and passed on. Why a
priest and a Levite? Did the Lord intend to throw contempt upon religion and
the law? That is quite incredible. No; but He wished to teach what, even after
nineteen centuries of Christianity, not one person in a thousand seems to know,
that law and religion can do nothing for a ruined and dead sinner. A sinner
needs a Saviour. And so the Lord brings the Samaritan upon the scene. But why a
Samaritan? Just because "Jews have no dealings with Samaritans." Save as a last
resource, no Jew would accept deliverance from such a quarter. Sin not only
spells danger and death to the sinner, but it alienates the heart from God.
Nothing but a sense of utter helplessness and hopelessness will lead him to
throw himself, with abject self-renunciation, at the feet of Christ. Not that
man by nature is necessarily vicious or immoral. It is chiefly in the spiritual
sphere that the effects of the Eden Fall declare themselves. Under human
teaching the Fall becomes an adequate excuse for a sinful life, But the Word of
God declares that men are "without excuse." For although "they that are in the
flesh cannot please God," they can lead clean and honest and honourable lives.
The "cannot" is not in the moral, but in the spiritual, sphere. For "the mind
of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God."
(Romans 8:7, 8, R. V.)
This affords a clue to the essential character
of sin. In the lowest classes of the community sin is but another word for
crime. At a higher level in the social scale it is regarded as equivalent to
vice. And in a still higher sphere the element of impiety is taken into
account. But all this is arbitrary and false. Crime and vice and impiety are
unquestionably sinful; but yet the most upright and moral and religious of men
may be the greatest sinner upon earth. Why state this hypothetically? It is a
fact; witness the life and character of Saul of Tarsus. Were the record not
accredited by Paul the inspired Apostle, we might well refuse to believe that
such blamelessness and piety and zeal were ever attained by mortal man! Why
then does the Apostle call himself the chief of sinners? Was this an outburst
of wild exaggeration, of the kind to which pious folk of an hysterical turn are
addicted? It was the sober acknowledgment of the well-known principle that
privilege increases responsibility and deepens guilt. According to the
"humanity gospel," which is today supplanting the Gospel of Christ in so many
pulpits, the man was a pattern saint. In the judgment of God he was a pattern
sinner. And just because he had, as judged by men, attained pre-eminence in
saintship, Divine grace taught him to own his pre-eminence in sin. With all his
zeal for God, and fancied godliness, he awoke to find that he was a blasphemer.
What a blasphemer! Who would care a straw what a Jerusalem mob thought
of the Rabbi of Nazareth? But who would not be influenced by the opinion of
Gamaliels great disciple? An infidel has said that "Thou shalt not steal"
is merely the language of the hog in the clover, to warn off the hogs outside
the fence. And this reproach attaches to all mere human conceptions of sin. Men
judge of sin by its results; and their estimate of its results is coloured by
their own interests. But all such conceptions of sin are inadequate.
Definitions are rare in Scripture, but sin is there defined for us. It may show
itself in transgression, in failing to come up to a standard. But essentially
it is lawlessness; which means, not transgression of law, nor absence of law,
but revolt against law - in a word, self-will. This is the very essence of sin.
The perfect life was the life of Him who never did His own will, but only and
always the will of God. All that is short of this, or different from this, is
characterized as sin. Here it is not a question of acts merely, but of the mind
and heart. Mans whole nature is at fault. Even human law recognizes this
principle. In the case of ordinary crime we take the rough and ready method of
dealing with men for what they do. But not so in crime of the highest kind.
Treason consists in the hidden thought of the heart. Overt acts of disloyalty
or violence are not the crime, but merely the evidence of the crime. The crime
is the purpose of which such acts give proof. Men cannot read the heart; they
can judge of the purpose only by words and acts.
But it is not so with
God. In His sight the treason of the human heart is manifest, and no outward
acts are needed to declare it. The truest test of a man is not conduct, but
character, not what he does, but what he is. Human judgment must, of course, be
guided by a mans acts and words. But God is not thus limited. Man judges
character by conduct, God judges conduct by character. Therefore it is that
"what is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." And
this brings us back to the case of Paul. Under the influence of environment,
and following his natural bent, he took to religion as another man might take
to vice. Religion was his speciality. And the result was a splendid success.
Here was the case of a man who really "did his best," and whose "best" was a
"record" achievement. But what was Gods judgment of it all? What was his
own, when he came to look back on it from the Cross of Christ? Surveying the
innumerable hosts of the sinners of mankind, he says, "of whom I am chief." And
this, as already urged, because his unrivalled "proficiency" in religion had
raised him to the very highest pinnacle of privilege and responsibility, and
thus proved him to be the wickedest and worst of men. "But I obtained mercy,"
he adds. Not because he had sinned "ignorantly in unbelief "; for that plea
counts for nothing here, though it led the Lord to extend further mercy to him
on his repentance. He was twice mercied, first by receiving salvation, and next
in being called to the Apostleship; for it is not Gods way to pull
blasphemers into the ministry.
But the mercy of his salvation was only
and altogether because "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." (1
Timothy 1:15) He had no other plea. The Apostle Pauls case only
illustrates the principle of Divine judgment, as proclaimed by the Lord Himself
in language of awful solemnity. The most terrible doom recorded in Old
Testament history was that which engulfed the Cities of the Plain. And yet the
Lord declared that a still direr doom awaited the cities which had been
specially favoured by His presence and ministry on earth. The sin of Sodom we
know. But what had Capernaum done? Religion flourished there. It was "exalted
to Heaven" by privilege, and there is no suggestion that evil practices
prevailed. The exponents of the "humanity gospel," now in popular favour, would
have deemed it a model community. They would tell us, moreover, that if Sodom
was really destroyed by a storm of fire and brimstone, it, was Jewish ignorance
which attributed the catastrophe to their cruel Jehovah God. The kind, good
"Jesus" of their enlightened theology would have far different thoughts about
Capernaum! "But I say unto you," was the Lords last warning to that
seemingly happy and peaceful community, "it shall be more tolerable for the
land of Sodom in the Day of Judgment, than for thee." (Matthew 11:24)
What, then, we may well ask, had Capernaum done? So far, as the record
tells us, absolutely nothing. Had there been flagrant immorality, or active
hostility, the Lord would not have made His home there; nor would it have come
to be called "His own city." (Matthew 4:13; 9:1; cf. Mark 2:1) And had there
been aggressive unbelief, the "mighty works" which He wrought so lavishly among
its people would have been restrained. Thoroughly respectable and religious
folk they evidently were. But "they repented not," that was all. That such
people should be deemed guiltier than Sodom, and that the champion religionist
of His own age should rank as the greatest sinner of any age, here is an enigma
that is insoluble if we ignore the Eden Fall - that "degrading dogma," as it is
now called, of the corruption of our nature - and the teaching of Scripture as
to the essential character of sin. It was not that these men, knowing God,
rejected him, but that they did not know Him. "He was in the world, and the
world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." "But," the record adds, "as
many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God." On
receiving Him, or, in other words, on believing on His name, they were "born of
God." (John 1:10-13, R.V.) If sin were merely a matter of wrong-doing, if it
was not "in the blood, if our very nature was not spiritually corrupt and
depraved by it - a new birth would be unnecessary. A blind man does not see
things in a wrong light; he cannot see them at all. And man by nature is
spiritually blind. He "cannot see the Kingdom of God," much less enter it. He
must be born again. But there is more in sin than this. It not only depraves
the sinner, but it brings him under judgment. Guilt attaches to it. Salvation,
therefore, must be through redemption, and redemption can only be by blood.
Go To Chapter Two
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