Salvation From Self

Publishing Committee · ROCHESTER, N. Y. · Apr 25, 1854

Salvation From Self.

Many have prayed to be saved from their enemies—some, to be saved from their friends: but he that is saved from himself, need suffer no fears from foes or friends. His salvation is certain and complete. It is the great deliverance which the Lord Jesus came to effect for us. Every sin against God, and crime against man, springs out of selfishness. It is the fountain of all bitterness. It is the great upas, shedding wickedness and wo over the world. The gospel lays an axe at its root. That instrument, designed and wrought in Heaven’s wisdom, strikes for the uncompromising extermination of this tree of evil, root and branch. The plan of human salvation, is a plan for the destruction of human selfishness. All the mighty enginery of redemption is levelled against this rebellious and destructive principle of the depraved soul. The exhibitions of Divine love, in creation, in providence, and in the mission and death of the Redeemer, are the grand influences plied against it. He that yields to these, is redeemed. He that resists, is self-destroyed—self-damned.

The first great commandment annihilates self. The second makes selfishness its own condemnatory judge, and its own executioner. The whole law of God and selfishness are antagonistic principles, never reconcilable. The precepts of Christ declare the impossibility of obedience to God and of Christian discipleship, in any one who does not wholly relinquish self. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me; for whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.” Vain the effort to be a Christian and yet retain a selfish interest. Self, will raise its claims and interpose its obstacles against the Christian course, so long as it is not absolutely denied—crushed—exterminated. While there is one point of self interest not broken off from, that point will hold its subject from following Christ fully. “Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” Some things may be done in obedience to christian faith, without the full renunciation of self. The wicked Herod “did many things” that John taught, but when the dancing-girl asked it, he beheaded that holy man. So with the unconsecrated professor: he does what he can without sacrificing self; and when his selfish interest requires, he betrays Christ—as Judas did.

The precept enlightens, and assures the understanding; the Cross subdues the heart. When the soul, conscious of its lost condition, looks upon the Son of God “lifted up” on the Cross, and discerns in him the Lamb of God whose sacrifice takes away its sin, and apprehends the Divine love that gives forth such an offering for its redemption—its selfishness perishes—self is crucified with Christ—and the yielding heart responds to this exhibition of God’s love.

“Nay, but I yield, I yield, I can hold out no more, I sink, by dying love compelled, and own the conqueror.”

Then the believer loves God with all the heart, and his neighbor as himself. Then is fulfilled the great design of Him “who died that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but to Him who died and rose again.” Then may such an one say: “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live—yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith of

the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”—Selected.