A Saviour from Sin by L. A. Reed

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 3, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 43.

A Saviour from Sin

By L. A. Reed

By L. A. Reed

“None other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved.” Acts 4:12. In none other name than Christ is there salvation. Only through Him may we be saved. The truth is well-nigh self-evident.

Man with his whole environment was plunged by his own act into a whelming tide of evil that hourly carries him farther from God. It takes therefore nothing short of omnipotent power to stem that tide and save man. Christ is the omnipotence of God for man. “All power” is given Him, “all power . . . in heaven and in earth.” Matt. 28:18. And this “is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” Rom. 1:16.

Man was bewitched, his notions all wrong. It needed nothing short of infinite wisdom to undeceive him and set him free. And this, all of this, Christ is for man. In Him “are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.” Col. 2:3. And so the man’s ideas are incorrect, and tho he is mystified and mentally bewitched, a pure wisdom, an all-embracing knowledge, is his through “Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God.” 1 Cor. 1:30.

Man was contaminated by sin; the very fountain of his nature was defiled; all the outflowing of his life became corrupt and hence corrupting. He could heal nothing, not even himself; like a leper, he could only defile whatsoever his life might touch. But Christ is holy; the very fountain of His nature is divine; all the outflowings of His life are only wholesome and healing. Into man’s life of sin, through Christ, comes the healing tide that cleanses away the sin and removes all the taint of corruption. Christ for us is God, and pours into man the very nature of God; this is for the child of faith, “even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe: . . . being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Rom. 3:22, 24.

Outside of Christ man has no where to put his sins; he must bear them himself. But to bear one’s own sins is to be crushed by these sins; for “the wages of sin is death.” Sin crushed to death the Sin-Bearer, tho in Him was the eternal life of God, and tho sin rested on Him only by imputation as our Substitute. Much more, then, shall sin slay the sinner, if he attempt to carry his own sin, and bear its responsibility.

Only in Christ has man refuge from delusion and folly. All man’s reasonings of themselves are illogical and fallacious. Only in

Christ is there clear-sightedness, and reasonable views of duty and life.

Only in Christ is there power to refrain from the habits of sin. Only in Christ, who links the believer with God, is there power to cease from evil and learn to do well. Jer. 13:23. Without Christ we can do nothing. John 15:5.

Man can no more save himself than he can raise himself by pulling upward on his own person. He has no fulcrum to apply his power; and if he had that fulcrum, there is not leverage enough in all mankind to morally save one man. “None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.” Ps. 49:7. Man can no more find refuge from sin by his own acts than he could get out of the sun by hiding in his own shadow. We can not get away from our sins of ourselves, for to do so would be to get away from ourselves, our very natures.

And so let us take heed that we do not frustrate the grace of God. Gal. 2:21. Salvation can not come through our efforts, purely human; let us cease to try to save ourselves. He that seeks to save his life shall lose it. But God help us here and now to lose self and gain Christ, our true and better self; and then we shall have proved His word true, that he that loses his life for the kingdom of heaven’s sake, shall find it. Let our efforts be purely those of faith that works by love and purifies the soul; for such efforts will be energized by all the might of God in Jesus Christ to our salvation.

God give us grace to say in the words of the old hymn:

“Could my tears forever flow, Could my zeal no languor know, These for sin could not atone; Thou must save, and Thou alone. In my hand no price I bring; Simply to Thy cross I cling.”