SALVATION
Walter M Patterson
2 Corinthians 6: 2
Hebrews 2: 10
Matthew 26: 36-39; 27: 45, 50
Psalm 116: 3-5, 13, 1
These things that I have read of, dear hearer - “the day of salvation”, “the leader of their salvation”, “the cup of salvation” - all speak to us of the goodness of God , the desire in the heart of God to bless His creature. Salvation is a wonderful thought, that there is an intent in the heart of God that He might intervene on the part of His creature to bring in salvation. It is “the day of salvation”. That is, we are at present, even in this hour, in a time when God is speaking in grace and offering salvation to His creature. That is “the day of salvation”; it is now. It was also a “day of salvation” last week and last year. It was a “day of salvation” in the last decade, the last century, the last millennium, a “day of salvation”, God extending that day in longsuffering. It says that, that God is “longsuffering” (2 Pet 3: 9), that is the patience of God. Think of that, extending the day of grace even to this hour! In view of what? To secure you. Why does it say “longsuffering” as to God? Because He suffers all that has come into the race of humanity. And what is that? Man’s disobedience, man’s rebellion, man’s lawlessness: sin. Sin has come into the world, and God has gone on in His grace through that whole period waiting on men to have to do with Himself in this “day of salvation”.
You will notice that I did not speak of tomorrow. I did not say, ‘Tomorrow is a day of salvation’, because I cannot say that. Scripture does not warrant me to say that; it is God who speaks in the glad tidings, and so the word of God governs what is to be said in the preaching tonight. When Paul the apostle was preaching to those who were in Athens in Acts 17, he said that God “has set a day in which he is going to judge” - note that word “judge” - “the habitable earth in righteousness” (v 31) - note that word: everything that God does is righteous. He is a righteous and holy God, and so a day has been fixed. I do not know when that day is, tonight, tomorrow, the next day. I do not know; so I cannot say that tomorrow is “the day of salvation”, because that day may be the day that God has fixed to close the present day of grace.
I have spoken to you about God and His appeal in the glad tidings, but there is another influence abroad in this world and that is the influence of the devil, Satan, the great deceiver. When God speaks about that personage in Genesis chapter 3, it says he was “more crafty ”, v 1. He is deceitful, tells lies, and one of the lies he would tell you is that God’s word does not matter. I said that God will “judge the habitable earth”. Who will be judged in that day that God has fixed? Those who have refused His offer in “the day of salvation”, those who have refused His overtures of grace, who have turned away from His appeal in love. That will be their portion, to be judged, but Satan’s lie is that it will not happen. He may even say, ‘Well, if there is a God, He is a loving God. He is gracious and favourable ’. And He is . In the glad tidings tonight, in “the day of salvation”, God is gracious, but in that day He will judge righteously “by the man whom he has appointed”, Acts 17: 31. It is Satan’s lie is that it will not matter: ‘Do not listen; do not change your life! Why would you do it?’. The appeal in the glad tidings for you tonight is that you might pay attention to what God is saying: “now is the well-accepted time”.
But there is another reason why I cannot speak of tomorrow and that is because who knows the day of their death? It is a sober and solemn fact, is it not? I suppose many of the people who die in this world began a day when they did not expect that to happen. They did not expect that that would be their portion. But “it is the portion of men once to die, and after this judgment”, Heb 9: 27. That is what the scripture tells us; so I cannot say tomorrow for those two reasons. One is that God will withdraw His offer of grace to men at some time; it is certain. As was said in the street preaching, you will have to do with God some time, but you can have to do with Him now in “the well-accepted time … the day of salvation”.
So we are in that day, and I read about “the cup of salvation”, and that suggests something very precious, does it not? It suggests that there is a whole wealth of blessing to be had in accepting God’s word and believing what He says. But how has that come about? In fact, how did “the day of salvation” begin? When did it begin? I have earlier gone back one millennium from today but it is about two millennia ago that God raised from among the dead, out of all who were in the grave, His own beloved Son Jesus, the Leader of your salvation, the Leader of our salvation. Can you say that, Leader of my salvation? Mr Darby, who has made a very good translation of the Scriptures, tells us that that word in the Greek is difficult to render. He uses the word “originator” in one part (Acts 3: 15) and he uses the word “leader” in Hebrews, but what he says as to it is, ‘It is used for one who begins and sets a matter on … it means, ‘he began and finished the whole course’’ (see note ‘a’ to Acts 3: 15). And that is who I want to speak about now, the One who has completed the work that has allowed God to open the gates of forgiveness, the gates of salvation, to introduce “the day of salvation”. There was an actual day when God was free in His heart to go out to men to offer salvation, and that was when His Son came out of death and was exalted and glorified. So, when it says, “to make perfect the leader” it meant that Jesus was installed in the place where He should be. The One who was here as the meek and lowly Jesus, God has installed Him in the place that was always rightly His, and that is what “to make perfect” means in the sense of Hebrews 2. But it adds these words, “through sufferings”.
There has been a cost to God to open up “the day of salvation”, and a cost to the One who came to bring salvation into this world. When Jesus came in, it says, “and thou shalt call his name Jesus” - ‘Jah the Saviour’ (see note ‘e’ which refers to Exod 17: 9 note ‘d’) - “for he shall save his people from their sins”, Matt 1: 21. He came in with that express purpose, to deliver men from Satan and sin and death. He came in to do that. How did He accomplish it? You say, ‘Well, I know from the gospels how He wrought very wonderful works; He healed persons; He proclaimed the love of God; He made the grace of God known in all its goodness to men; He brought in healing’. For those who were in the most wretched conditions, the Lord Jesus brought in healing, but, ah, dear friend, that would not be enough for that blessed Man to have remained here and gone on in that pathway of healing men - as He could have done because He was God in His Person. No! If there was to be a “cup of salvation”, then it had to be that that every vestige of God’s judgment in relation to sin was emptied from the cup that Jesus took. All that was in that cup for Jesus, a cup of bitterest woe, He took it on Himself. He came in to do that; He came in to die. Yes, to make God’s love known, to proclaim that message of the kingdom of God in love and grace, but He came in “to give his life a ransom for many”, Matt 20: 28. He came in to do that, and I can say tonight He has done it. I spoke about that word “leader” being “the originator”. He has set the matter on and He has completed it.
He is the One who has completed every matter for the satisfaction and glory of God but, oh, what a moment! There was a cup that Jesus took and in it was all that was due to you and to me as sinners, going on in our own lawless way, unheeding perhaps as to the overtures of grace, but, as a sinner I “come short of the glory of God” Rom 3: 23. I do not measure up to God’s standard, and that is what the scripture says. None of us would measure up to the standard that God requires. In fact, even more than that, the epistle to Romans says that we have been “enemies” of God (chap 5: 10) and thus deserving of the wrath of God, His righteous and holy indignation about sin. Sin came into a world that God had created, and it spoiled everything. The whole universe, if I might say, the whole fabric of creation, was affected by sin coming in. It came into the expanse, and it came into the earth to affect it; and God’s anger, His righteous, holy anger burns against that whole principle of sin. But not against the sinner. God is not against the sinner. He is extending a message of grace to the sinner now in “the day of salvation”.
So, Jesus speaks in the verses read from Matthew 26 of that cup of bitterest woe and of going to the cross as the holy, perfect sacrifice. He was holy; He was perfect; He was sinless; He was the obedient One. “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us”, 2 Cor 5: 21. On that cross He suffered the hatred of men. That was a public matter. It was apparent He suffered the hatred of men as going to the cross. But there, as He suffered for sin in His atoning sufferings - that is, He made reparation: that is what that word means - He made reparation to God for the whole matter of sin coming into His universe and He atoned for sins, for my sins. Can you say that those sufferings were for you? That is the intent in the divine mind that that might be the case as laying hold of the offer of grace in the day of salvation. But there was this cup that Jesus drank, and these three hours of darkness, what sufferings entered into them, the Sin-Bearer, bearing the wrath and judgment of God in relation to sin.
But He is “the leader of their salvation”; and so in Matthew 27: 50 it says, “Jesus, having again cried with a loud voice, gave up the ghost”. He died, that work complete. What a glorious matter, a work complete, God fully satisfied! You might say all that was required of His righteousness Jesus met there; He met it in full, in dying on the cross, so that God is free now, as having raised up Jesus from among the dead, to offer salvation to all. So, He has been made “the leader of” your “salvation through sufferings”. Dear hearer, I cannot stress it enough that in order for that day of salvation to continue, to begin and to continue, it has cost God so much, and it cost Jesus that He should bear the judgment of God, the whole weight of it, and suffer and die on Calvary’s tree.
But there is “the cup of salvation”. The experience of the man in Psalm 116 was that he was going to take it, “take the cup of salvation”. Will you take it? That is the question tonight. Will you take that cup of salvation? “Now is the well-accepted time”. So that means now; it means in your seat; you can do it here. In fact, there may be no better place to do it. You are surrounded by those who have done so before you and who would desire that you might do it.
So it is a sphere of affection here, family affection and feelings. You are among a company like that tonight; so it can be “now” for you, right at this moment to “take the cup of salvation”, to take that offer of God in grace. What does it mean to take it? It means to believe God, to believe in God, of course, but to believe Him, take Him at His word, believe what He says, that on account of the work of Jesus having fully and wholly satisfied Him as to the whole outstanding matter of sin and your sins, He is able to speak of a “day of salvation”, to offer salvation to you, full and free salvation, the salvation of your soul.
I read at the beginning of Psalm 116 because it tells us something else. It tells us something about a man that is concerned. I spoke about judgment at the start, and I do not apologise for that because it is a sobering, true matter as to where you might stand if God should close the door of grace or if you should die. Here is a man who is concerned about it. He said, “The bands of death encompassed me”. ‘I started thinking about death and where would I stand, where would I stand before God?’ Where would you stand? “Then called I upon the name of Jehovah”. The preaching of the glad tidings is not just intended to be a kind of happy message - it is, of course, a very blessed message - but it is not meant to leave you just feeling a nice, warm glow, or contented. It is meant to exercise you, to have soul exercise, even those of us who are converted, that we might be exercised as to the reality of our convictions and the reality of our link with the One who is the Leader of our salvation, the One whom God has brought out of death and exalted and glorified because the day of salvation began then. It did not begin when He died and went into the grave; it began when He came out of death. It is a new beginning. God has a Man in glory, a Man in heaven , and so the divine proposition is that He is going to have men there. Luke 9 speaks of men in glory, "appearing in glory”, wonderful thought, v 31. The man of Psalm 116 is going to “take the cup of salvation”, and the question for you tonight is, are you going to take it? It is available to you.
You might ask me, what is in it? What is in “the cup of salvation”? We have been reading the Roman epistle together here on Wednesday nights, and it helps us to understand more. Romans 3: 23 says, “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”. We spoke about that earlier, “all”, me and you, and every man and woman and boy and girl, but God addresses Himself to you in the glad tidings; so it says, “being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus”, v 24. Now, that is in “the cup of salvation”: redemption is there. For on that cross, after Jesus died, He shed His precious blood and redemption’s price was paid. You have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus if you take that “cup of salvation”. It is in it for your redemption, and God has done that for Himself. He has redeemed you to Himself. That is in redemption you are brought into relationship with God, into peace with God. The hymn says it,
Peace, sonship, joy the Holy Spirit giv’n,
Through Him are known (Hymn 123)
There it is, “the redemption which is in Christ Jesus”. Then it says, “whom God has set forth a mercy-seat”, v 25. There it is; that is “the day of salvation”. And then in chapter 4, as we go on, it speaks about reconciliation and justification; so if we read the end of Romans 4 it says, “who has raised from among the dead Jesus our Lord”, v 24. Wonderful! That Man is out of death, the Man that so pleased God, and has completed that work. He has been “delivered for our offences”, v 25. He went there, dear hearer, for you and for me and He “has been raised for our justification”. That is in “the cup of salvation”, justification. That means that God is going to have you joyful in His presence there without any hindrance, there without any stain on you for God has removed your sins; He has dealt with them in the death of Christ; He has taken them away, cast them into the sea. What a God! What a Saviour God!
So, there it is, redemption in that “cup of salvation”, justification in that “cup of salvation”. What else might be there? We turn over the page and we are in Romans 5: 10, “For if, being enemies, we have been reconciled to God”. “Reconciled to God”: is that not wonderful? It means, dear hearer, as you drink that “cup of salvation”, not only is the outstanding matter of your guilt and sin dealt with by a loving God, but He brings you into His very presence, to be reconciled, to be in easy relationship with Himself. He would bring you into the divine family. There it is: “reconciled to God”. How has it come about? Through suffering, “through the death of his Son”. And in Romans chapter 8 Paul says in verse 15, “For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”. In that “cup of salvation”, dear hearer, there is redemption; there is justification; and there is the gift of the Spirit. Think of that, God taking the needy sinner in all your want and need, bringing you into blessing and giving you His Spirit that there might be an indwelling Spirit, the Spirit of God indwelling you. To do what? To cry, “Abba, Father”; that is, to come into a place of sonship.
Peace, sonship, joy, the Holy Spirit giv’n,
Through Him are known.
That is “the cup of salvation”. I said at the outset it was a cup that was full, and it is full. What wonderful things God proposes for you, but you have to take it, and that is always the urgency in the appeal in the glad tidings that you might in the faith of your soul reach out because it involves faith. All these things involve faith. It is through faith. You will notice that in Romans “through faith”, faith in the One that suffered and died, faith in all that God has accomplished in raising Him from the dead and setting Him forth “a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood”, all that God has accomplished in the work of Jesus, and it is available to you and to me.
But I go back to the beginning of Psalm 116. There was exercise, a man who was troubled in his soul, and that is where you begin. You begin by acknowledging your need, dear hearer. If you are still without Christ in the world, you have a need, you have an urgent need, “now the day of salvation”. And it is available; it is available now. Reach out in faith and lay hold of it!
For His Name’s sake!
Glasgow
8th October 2023