3. The third reason why the Apostle is not ashamed of the Gospel is because it is the power of God unto Salvation. This power of God is a power to work men's deliverance, and that in the deepest' sense. Eoman emperors shortly after Paul's time are commemorated in public inscriptions as " saviours of the world," in the sense of maintaining peace and order. But the Gospel salvation is of a deeper sort. It is salvation from the bondage of sin, a salvation which enables men to be truly and eternally free, a salvation which implies, on the one hand, deliverance from sin and its consequences, and on the other, the communication of eternal life. The Gospel, that is to say, is not only a power, not only God's power, but God's power exerted to save men. Its mission in the world is unto salvation.
TJ What is salvation ? Negatively, the removal and sweeping away of all evil, physical and moral, as the Schools speak. Positively, the inclusion of all good for every part of the com- posite nature of a man which the man can receive and which God can bestow. And that is the task which the Gospel sets to itself.3
*ff Our common phrase, " safe and sound," is the best transla- tion of the term salvation as the Apostle used it.
^f When we pass from the Psalms to the Epistles we are conscious of a change. We live in a larger world and come into contact with new ideas. What is the secret of the change? What is the master-thought of the Epistles ? What is their characteristic, dominant, invariable note ? Without going into any elaborate proof let us say that it is the experience of Christ in the sovereignty of His grace, the experience of His kingly
1 R. A. Lendram. 2 H. G. Guinness. 3 A. Maclaren.
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illimitable power to save the soul, to save it to the uttermost, to expel all its usurpers root and branch, to break it down to penitence and surrender, and through conquering it to ennoble it for Himself for ever and to crown it with a perfect salvation. It stands out in the great typical words — grace, holiness, power, joy, victory. The presence of Christ in the soul as its victorious Eedeemer and its adorable King is the master-thought of the Epistles.1
4. It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that lelieveth. This Gospel, which is God's power unto salvation, St. Paul felt he could carry without discredit to Eome, because it requires only one condition, and that the simplest, for the exertion of its power. It saves " every one that believeth." It is God's power to save, on the simplest condition, all men, Jew or Greek, to save man as man without any social or national distinctions. " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." There is one way of setting in motion the power that is unto salvation, and that is by believing the Gospel and its message.
T[ The power which resides in a word, or which operates through a word, requires one (and no more than one) condition for its operation — it must be believed. Old Eli, bowed with the weight of years, sat in the city gate of Shiloh, when a message came to him which had in it a power of death. But if Eli had not believed the fatal tidings of that Benjamite who professed to report the disastrous issue of the day's engagement, he would not have fallen dead in a fit by the side of the gate. The message which another Benjamite spoke at midnight to the Eoman jailor had in it, on the contrary, a power of spiritual life. But if that jailor had not received Paul's record of God concerning His Son, no life could have visited his rude, dark, heathen soul.2
T[ The power of God in His Gospel operates in a way different from His power in nature or on matter. The grace which provides and offers salvation to the fallen family of man, is not a physical but a moral power. God does not compel any one to accept His offer; to do so would destroy moral freedom. But physical forces always act necessarily and uniformly. There is no voluntariness in their operations. When, therefore, the power of the Gospel is brought to bear on the heart, we act freely, whether we accept or reject it. If the heart is receptive the Spirit of God accompanying the word produces faith and newness 1 W. Redfern. 2 J. 0. Dykes.
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of life. If, on the other hand, the heart is cold and repellent, the same word produces unbelief and hardness of heart. Hence the same Gospel message is to one that hears it, " the savour of life unto life," and to another, " the savour of death unto death."
T[ Matthew Arnold, in his once famous book on " Literature and Dogma," describes the work of Jesus, in bringing in a new righteousness, as consisting especially in two things, which he calls the method and the secret of Jesus. But the method of Jesus he strangely misapprehends ; for he gives no place to faith, but makes it consist altogether in repentance, in attention to conduct, in the keeping of the commandments. No doubt it is true that these things belong to our Lord's method ; but these are not the things which He puts first, and makes most prominent. Surely an unbiassed study of His words reveals to us that His essential method, the method of salvation which He constantly employs, is a living and personal faith in Himself. This, at all events, was the conviction of Paul ; and it was this that helped to make him glory in the Gospel — its method was so gracious.1