JESUS by R. S. Hutton

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 15, 1876

JESUS

By R. S. Hutton

“Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins.” Matt. 1:21.

What a precious name is the name of Jesus—how sweet and soothing and joyous! To how many weary hearts it affords refreshment and rest. It means Saviour, and Jesus saves his people from their sins. They are guilty; but he saves them from guilt. They are unholy; but he saves them from the power of indwelling iniquity. They are by nature liable to the punishment of eternal death; but he saves them from all the woeful consequences of the fall.

Jesus can save you from the guilt of sin. That guilt exposes you to the wrath and curse of God. Because of it you are in danger of all the miseries of everlasting death. Whither can you flee for security?

There is but one shelter for the soul—Jesus Christ. Repair to him; put your trust in him; secure by faith a saving interest in him. In that case, all is well; the stains of guilt are washed away in his atoning blood; you are accepted of God; he regards you with complacency; you are his forever. “You have read,” says Chalmers, “of certain venomous animals which expire the moment they have deposited their sting and its mortal poison in the body of their victim; and thus there ensues a double death—the death of the sufferer, and the death also of the assailant. And certain it is that on the cross of our Saviour just such an event as this occurred. There did Christ pour out his soul under the weight and agony of the exactions that were laid on him by the law; but there also did the law expend all its power as a judge and an avenger over those who believe in the Saviour.”

Jesus saves from the dominion of sin. Perfection is not to be reached on earth. In the ripest saint there are manifold frailties. The Spirit lusteth against the flesh, and the flesh against the Spirit. The atmosphere of earth is tainted, and all who breathe it are impure. But truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the power of sin will be broken within you. You will be no longer a slave, but free. Through the grace imparted to you, you will be enabled to struggle successfully with temptation, and to run the race set before you—not that you will ever be what you will long to be while you remain in this world; but you will be in a measure holy now, and there will await you in a great and glorious eternity complete and stainless purity.

“The gospel,” says one, “runs in two golden streams—pardon of sin, and purity of walking.” They run undividedly all along in one channel, yet without confusion one with the other, as it is reported of some great rivers that run together between the same banks, and yet retain distinct colors. These streams that make glad the city of God never part one from another; if they be divided, they cease to be.

Jesus saves from all the dread consequences of sin. What a dark and terrible future is before the sinner! You cannot conceive its misery. To be a castaway from God, and happiness, and Heaven,—such is the doom hanging over the sinner. But Christ is the deliverer from the wrath to come. Give yourself up heartily to him, and you will have no cause to dread the realities of the unseen world; you will walk the dark valley with the peace-giving persuasion that all will be well with you.

What think you of Jesus? He is your salvation; make him your desire; count him the chief among ten thousand; yield yourself unreservedly to him, and then you will know in your own happy experience the power and blessedness of his name.—Rev. R. S. Hutton, M. A.