The Ground of Our Peace
By John A. Brunson
WORK acceptable to God presupposes a worker accepted by God. The zeal and success of the accepted worker are usually commensurate with the degree of intelligent assurance he has that he has been accepted. Doubt in reference to the point of acceptance with God produces hesitancy, timidity, barrenness. He who is not assured that God has accepted him in the Beloved, is ill prepared to aid another struggling for relief from sin’s oppressive yoke. Christ’s freedmen alone are qualified to preach deliverance to Satan’s bondmen. The Philippian jailer, aroused to a keen sense of guilt, and anxious to be set free, cried out in agony of soul, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Paul, the Lord’s freedman, to whom the appeal was addressed, had passed through a similar experience. In anguish of mind and depth of distress, he had been where the trembling jailer now was, and had been made to exclaim, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” But he had been freed through Jesus Christ, and knew positively that he was free. Therefore, without a moment’s hesitancy, he replied to the jailer’s inquiry, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” He enthusiastically recommended to the distressed sinner the remedy that had brought to him sweet and permanent relief. That is preaching the gospel, the good news of salvation. Had there been a lingering doubt in Paul’s mind that Christ could and would give relief, his timorous manner and faltering speech would have communicated a like doubt to the jailer’s mind, who, in turn, would have been thrown into a state of indecision, resulting in discouragement and ultimate defeat. It is, then, of the utmost importance that every Christian worker have a clear, intelligent assurance of his acceptance with God, and that this assurance is not the result of exuberant emotion, but rests upon an enduring Scriptural foundation. This blessed possession is the privilege of every Christian, and no one should allow the fear of fanaticism, or the charge of hypocrisy, to deprive him of his birthright, and thereby bring dishonor upon Christ. Mr. Spurgeon’s testimony on this point is helpful. He said of himself, “I feel myself to be a lump of unworthiness, a mass of corruption, and a heap of sin, apart from His almighty love. I know by a full assurance that I am justified by faith which is in Jesus Christ, and treated as if I had been perfectly just, and made an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ; and yet by nature I must take my place among the most sinful.” Paul bears a like testimony when he refers to himself as “less than the least of all saints,” “not meet to be called an apostle,” the chief of sinners, yet gratefully acknowledging that he had “obtained mercy” through Christ, and to him ascribes all the glory, saying, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” God has mercifully made provision for the acceptance of sinners in Christ, has revealed the same to us in his Word, and wants us to believe it, and rejoice in it. Consider well the statement, He accepts sinners in Christ—not the righteous. A righteous man would be accepted in his own name, and on account of his own merit. It is the sinner that is accepted in the Beloved. This is made plain in Scripture, and any doubt in reference thereto arises either from the want of understanding or from unbelief. An important part of the Holy Spirit’s work is to bear witness with our spirits that we are children of God. This he does by assuring us that the Scriptures are true, the very Word of God, and are directly applicable to us. But if we do not believe the Word, or if we misinterpret it, the application cannot be made. In the one case it is arrested by doubt, in the other by error; for the Spirit cannot apply the Word to him who refuses to accept it, nor can he bear witness to a false interpretation. Then, since God not only accepts us in Christ, and accords to us all the rights, privileges, and immunities of children, but also by his Holy Spirit, through the Word, assures us of that fact, let us look into the Word to ascertain the ground of our acceptance. Turning to the epistle of Titus, we read, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.” Titus 3:5. In 2 Tim. 1:9 similar language is employed: “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and10grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” Rom. 4:5 bears this testimony: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” In the light of these passages of Scripture, we inquire, What is the ground of our acceptance? And we reply that it is not our righteousness, nor our humility, nor contrition, nor tears, nor repentance, nor anything that the Holy Spirit has wrought in us, but what Christ has done for us. The blood of Jesus alone constitutes the ground of our hope, peace, and joy. Salvation is all of grace, not partly by works and partly by grace. This truth is so clearly stated in a sermon by Christian David, a Moravian preacher of Hernhuth, in the year 1738, and reported by John Wesley, that we quote at length:— “The word of reconciliation which the apostles preached as the foundation of all they taught, was that we are reconciled to God not by our own works, nor by our own righteousness, but wholly and solely by the blood of Christ.
“But you will say, Must I not grieve and mourn for my sins? Must I not humble myself before my God? Is not this just and right? And must I not first do this before I can expect God to be reconciled to me? I answer, It is just and right. You must be humbled before God. You must have a broken and contrite heart. But then observe, this is not your own work. Do you grieve that you are a sinner? This is the work of the Holy Ghost. Are you contrite? Are you humbled before God? Do you indeed mourn, and is your heart broken within you? All this worketh the self-same Spirit.
“Observe again, this is not the foundation. It is not this by which you are justified. This is not the righteousness, this is no part of the righteousness, by which you are reconciled unto God. You grieve for your sins. You are deeply humble. Your heart is broken. Well. But all this is nothing to your justification. The remission of your sins is not owing to this cause, either in whole or in part. Nay, observe further, that it may hinder your justification; that is, if you build anything upon it; if you think, I must be so or so contrite, I must grieve more, before I can be justified. Understand this well. To think you must be more contrite, more humble, more grieved, more sensible of the weight of sin, before you can be justified, is to lay your contrition, your grief, your humiliation, for the foundation of your being justified; at least for a part of the foundation. Therefore it hinders your justification, and a hindrance it is which must be removed before you can lay the right foundation. The right foundation is, not your contrition (though that is not your own), not your righteousness, nothing of your own, nothing that is wrought in you by the Holy Ghost; but it is something without you, namely, the righteousness and blood of Christ. For this is the word, ‘To him that . . . believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.’ See ye not that the foundation is nothing in us! There is no connection between God and the ungodly. There is no tie to unite them. They are altogether separate from each other. They have nothing in common. There is nothing less or more in the ungodly to join them to God. Works, righteousness, contrition?—No; ungodliness only. This then do, if you will lay a right foundation: go straight to Christ with all your ungodliness. Tell him, Thou whose eyes are as a flame of fire, searching my heart, seest that I am ungodly. I plead nothing else. I do not say I am humble or contrite; but I am ungodly. Therefore bring me to him that justifieth the ungodly. Let thy blood be the propitiation for me; for there is nothing in me but ungodliness.”
Truly a revival of such preaching is needed to-day. Many to-day are engaged in the Lord’s work, and have no adequate conception of salvation by grace, are experimentally ignorant of the great fact of regeneration. Consequently there are weakness and barrenness in the pulpit, and lethargy in the pew. The remedy must be sought and found in the message to the Laodiceans, in a revival of the old-time truth of righteousness by faith. Our young workers must be taught the Scriptural foundation of our peace with God, and urged to lay greater emphasis upon the necessity of the new birth, and the preachers and teachers must set the example. Every worker for Christ should know that he has been accepted, and why, and should not be afraid nor ashamed to say so. Positiveness of conviction, definitiveness of knowledge, fullness of assurance, accuracy of statement, are the equipment needed in this age of skepticism. To this end let us pray and labor.