Saved Through Faith

C.Spurgeon

Chapter 12

SAVED THROUGH FAITH
The way of salvation has always been the same. No man has ever been saved by his good works. The way by which
the just have lived has always been the way of faith. There has not been the slightest advance upon this truth; it is
established and settled, ever the same, like the God who uttered it. At all times, and everywhere, the gospel is and must
forever be the same. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever" (Heb 13:8). We read of "the gospel" as
one; never of two or three gospels. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but Christ's Word shall never pass away.
It is also noteworthy not only that this truth should be so old, and should continue so unchanged, but that it should
possess such vitality. This one sentence, "The just shall live by his faith," produced the Reformation. Out of this one
line, as from the opening of one of the apocalyptic seals, came forth all that sounding of gospel trumpets, and all that
singing of gospel songs, which sounded like the noise of many waters in the world. This one seed, forgotten and
hidden away in the dark medieval times, was brought out, dropped into the human heart, and made to grow by the
Spirit of God so that it produced great results. The least bit of truth, thrown anywhere, will live! Certain plants are so full
of vitality that if you only take a fragment of a leaf and place it on the soil, the leaf will take root and grow. It is utterly
impossible that such vegetation should become extinct; and so it is with the truth of God-it is living and incorruptible,
and therefore there is no destroying it. As long as one Bible remains, the religion of free grace will live; indeed, if they
could burn all printed Scriptures, as long as there remained a child who remembered a single text of the Word, the truth
would rise again. Even in the ashes of truth the fire is still living, and when the breath of the Lord blows upon it, the
flame will burst forth gloriously.
In the Old Testament we are told that Abraham "believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness" (Gen
15:6). This is the universal plan of justification. Faith lays hold upon the righteousness of God, by accepting God's plan
of justifying sinners through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and thus makes the sinner righteous. Faith accepts and
appropriates for itself the whole system of divine righteousness which is unfolded in the person and work of the Lord
Jesus. Faith rejoices to see him coming into the world in our nature and in that nature obeying the law in every jot and
tittle, though not himself under that law until he chose to put himself there on our behalf; faith is further pleased when it
sees the Lord, who had come under the law, offering up himself as a perfect atonement and making a complete
vindication of divine justice by his suffering and death.
Faith lays hold upon the person, life and death of the Lord Jesus as its sole hope, and in the righteousness of Christ it
arrays itself. It cries, "The chastisement of my peace was upon him, and by his stripes I am healed." Now, the man who
believes in God's method of making men righteous through the righteousness of Jesus, and accepts Jesus and leans
upon him is a just man. He who makes the life and death of God's great propitiation his sole reliance and confidence is
justified in the sight of God, and is written down among the just by the Lord himself. His faith is imputed to him for
righteousness because his faith grasps the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. "All that believe are justified from all
things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses" (Acts 13:39). This is the testimony of the inspired
Word, and who shall deny it?
But the believer is also just in another sense, which the outside world appreciates more, though it is no more valuable
than the former. The man who believes in God becomes by that faith moved to everything that is right, and good, and
true. His faith in God rectifies his mind, and makes him just. In judgment, in desire, in aspiration, in heart, he is just. His
sin has been forgiven him freely and now, in the hour of temptation, he cries, "How then can I do this great wickedness,
and sin against God?" He believes in the blood-shedding which God has provided for the cleansing of sin, and, being
washed in that blood, he cannot choose to defile himself again.
The love of Christ constrains him to seek after whatever is true, and right, and good, and loving, and honourable in the
sight of God. Having received by faith the privilege of adoption, he strives to live as a child of God. Having obtained by
faith a new life, he walks in the newness of life. "Immortal principles forbid the child of God to sin." If any man lives in
sin and loves it, he does not have the faith of God's elect; for true faith purifies the soul. The faith which is worked out
in us by the Holy Spirit is the greatest sin-killer under heaven. By the grace of God it affects the inmost heart, changes
the desires and the affections, and makes the man a new creature in Christ Jesus. If there are on earth any who can
truly be called just, they are those who are made so by faith in God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Indeed, no other
men are "just" except those to whom the holy God gives the title, and these live by faith. Faith trusts God, and therefore
loves him, and therefore obeys him, and therefore grows like him. It is the root of holiness, the spring of righteousness,
the life of the just.
God is so true that to doubt him is an injustice: and he who does the Lord such an injustice is not a just man. A just
man must first be just with the greatest of all beings. It would be idle for him to be just to his fellow creatures only, if he
did a wilful injustice to God. In fact, he would be unworthy of the name of just. Faith is what the Lord justly deserves to
receive from his creatures: it is his due that we believe in what he says, and specially in reference to the gospel. When
the great love of God in Christ Jesus is plainly expressed, it will be believed by the pure in heart. If the great love of
Christ in dying for us is fully understood, it must be believed by every honest mind. To doubt the witness of God
concerning his Son is to do the sorest injustice to infinite love. He who does not believe has rejected God's witness to
the unspeakable gift and rejected that which deserves man's adoring gratitude, since it alone can satisfy the justice of
God and give peace to the conscience of man. A truly just man must, in order to be completely just, believe in God, and
in all that he has revealed.
Some dream that his matter of justness only concerns the outer life, and does not touch man's belief. I say this is not
so; righteousness concerns the inner parts of a man, the central region of his manhood; and truly just men desire to
be made clean in the secret parts, and in the hidden parts they would know wisdom. Is it not so? We hear it continually
asserted that the understanding and the belief constitute a province exempt from the jurisdiction of God. Is it indeed
true that I may believe what I like without being accountable to God for my belief? No single part of our manhood is
beyond the range of the divine law. Our whole capacity as men lies under the sovereignty of him who created us, and
we are bound as much to believe rightly as we are bound to act rightly; in fact, our actions and our thoughts are so
intertwined and entangled that it is impossible to divide one from the other. To say that the rightness of the outward life
suffices is to argue contrary to the whole tenor of the Word of God. I am bound as much to serve God with my mind as
with my heart. I am bound as much to believe what God reveals as I am to do what God enjoins.
"The just shall live by faith." This sentence savours of the strait gate which stands at the head of the way-the narrow
way which leads into eternal life. At one blow this ends all claims of righteousness apart from one mode of life. The best
men in the world can only live by faith, there is no other way of being just in the sight of God. We cannot live in
righteousness by self. If we are going to trust ourselves, or anything that comes from ourselves, we have not known
the life of God according to the teaching of Holy Writ. You must abandon all confidence in everything that you are or
hope to be. You must tear off the leprous garment of legal righteousness, and part with self in any and every form.
Self-reliance as to the things of religion will be found to be self-destruction; you must rest in God as he is revealed in
his Son Jesus Christ, and there alone.
The just shall live by faith; but those who look to the works of the law are under the curse, and cannot live before God.
The same is also true of those who endeavour to live by sense or feeling. They judge God by what they see: if he is
bountiful to them in providence, he is a good God; if they are poor, they have nothing good to say of him, for they
measure him by what they feel, and taste, and see. If God works steadily to a purpose, and they can see his purpose,
they commend his wisdom; but when they either cannot see the purpose, or cannot understand the way by which the
Lord is working to attain it, immediately they judge him to be unwise. Living by sense turns out to be a senseless mode
of life, bringing death to all comfort and hope.
Too many say, "I am my own guide, I shall make doctrines for myself, and I shall shift them and shape them according
to my own devices." This is death to the spirit. To be abreast of the times is to be an enemy to God. The way of life is to
believe what God has taught, especially to believe in him whom God has set forth to be a propitiation for sin; for that is
making God to be everything and ourselves nothing. Resting on an infallible revelation and trusting in an omnipotent
Redeemer, we have rest and peace; but on the other unsettled principle we become wandering stars, for whom is
appointed the blackness of darkness forever. By faith the soul can live; in all other ways we have a name to live and
are dead.
The same is equally true of fancy. We often meet with a fanciful religion in which people trust impulses, dreams, noises
and mystic things which they imagine they have seen: fiddle-faddle all of it, and yet they are quite wrapped up in it. I
pray that you may cast out this chaffy stuff, for there is no food for the spirit in it. The life of my soul lies not in what I
think, or what I fancy, or what I imagine, or what I enjoy of fine feeling, but only in that which faith apprehends to be the
Word of God. We live before God by trusting a promise, depending on a person, accepting a sacrifice, wearing a
righteousness, and surrendering ourselves up to God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Implicit trust in Jesus, our Lord, is
the way of life, and every other way leads to death. Let those who call this statement narrow or intolerant say what they
please; it will be just as true when they have execrated it as it is now.
Much is comprehended in the saying, "The just shall live by his faith." It does not say what part of his life hangs on his
believing, or what phase of his life best proves his believing: it comprehends the beginning, continuance, increase,
and perfecting of spiritual life as being all by faith. The moment a man believes, he begins to live in the sight of God: he
trusts his God, he accepts God's revelation of himself, he confides, reposes, leans upon his Saviour, and that moment
he becomes a spiritually living man, quickened with spiritual life by God the Holy Spirit. All his existence before that
belief was only a form of death: when he comes to trust in God he enters upon eternal life, and is born from above.
Yes, but that is not all, nor even half of it; for if that man is to continue living before God, if he is to hold on his way in
holiness, his perseverance must be the result of continued faith. The faith which saves is not one single act done and
ended on a certain day: it is an act continued and persevered in throughout the entire life of a man. The just not only
commences to live by his faith, but he continues to live by his faith: he does not begin in the spirit and end in the flesh,
nor go so far by grace, and the rest of the way by the works of the law. "The just shall live by faith," says the text in
Hebrews, "but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto
perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul" (Heb 10:38-39). Faith is essential all along; every day and
all day, in all things. Our natural life begins by breathing, and it must be continued by breathing: what the breath is to
the body, faith is to the soul.