Jesus - Saviour | AdventAI

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 24, 1913

Jesus — Saviour

JESUS means Saviour. When Christ was about to be born, the angel directed, “Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.” Jesus died for mankind. He “is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe.” To those who accept him as their substitute he is a Saviour in a special sense. This class “receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness.”

Dear reader, is Christ your Saviour in this special sense? Is he working out his purpose in your life? Is he saving you from your sins daily? Through his grace are you obtaining victory over every besetment? Are you finding in him present salvation, an earnest of the eternal salvation he desires to bestow upon you?

You can never save yourself. Many have tried this by power of will, by resolutions, by pledges and promises. The righteousness of God does not come as a result of education or physical or intellectual training. It can not be secured by the science of eugenics or by change of environment. Those who are born into the kingdom of righteousness do not obtain the birthright through the inheritance “of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Many have tried to obtain righteousness by these means. Israel of old tried it, but all their promises and resolutions and efforts were as ropes of sand.

Dear reader, are you one of this class? Have you tried and tried again, and failed, until you feel that there is no need of making further effort? The trouble was not with God nor with his promises. You left these too largely out of the account. You failed because you trusted in yourself. You failed because you had not made a full and complete surrender. With one hand you were seeking to grasp heaven, and with the other you were reaching out after the things of earth. You had not come to that place in your experience where you were willing to surrender every plan in life, every ambition of the heart, to the Lord Jesus. Only in this surrender, in this self-distrust, in this reaching out in your helplessness after God, is overcoming power assured.

When you realize that you are lost and undone, possessing no wisdom, no power, no strength; that you deserve nothing at the hand of God through your own merits; that you are entitled to no consideration in consequence of anything you have ever done or planned or accomplished of yourself; that God, knowing your frame and all your inherent weaknesses, does not bless you primarily because of your promises and resolutions, but wholly on account of his great love; that the work of grace must be the exercise of the mercy of God, and that you are saved alone because God treats you better than you deserve — in thus coming to God you will find help and overcoming power in your own personal experience. God’s strength will be made perfect in your weakness. “By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourself: it is the gift of God.”