The Holy Spirit's Work In Salvation # 4

The Holy Spirit's Work In Salvation # 4

How perversely man reverses the order of God's truth. They urge dead sinners to come to Christ, supposing they have the power or will to do so. Whereas Christ has plainly and emphatically stated that "No man can come to Me, except the Father who has sent Me, draws him" (John 6:44). "Coming to Christ" is the affections of the heart being drawn out towards Him, and how can a person love one he knows not? See John 4:10. Ah, it is the Spirit who must bring Christ to me, reveal Him in me before I can truly know Him. "Coming to Christ" is an inward and spiritual act, not an outward and natural one. Truly, "the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14). We cannot so much as "see Christ" until we are born again. (John 3:3).

Saving grace is something more than an objective fact presented to us; it is a subjective operation wrought within us. As it is not by natural discernment that I discover my need of Christ, so it is not by my natural strength and will that I come to Him. There must be life and light (sight) before there can be motion. A babe has to be born, and have sight and strength, too, before it is able to come to its parent. Believing in Christ is a supernatural act, the product of supernatural power. One may, by means of grammatical phrases and scriptural propositions teach spiritual truth to another - but he cannot illumine his mind with respect thereto. He may tell a man that God is holy - but he cannot impart to him a consciousness that God is holy. He may tell him that sin is infinitely heinous - but he cannot beget in him a feeling or heart-realization that it is so.

To those who were well acquainted with them outwardly, Christ said, "You neither know Me nor My Father" (John 8:19). A man may know the way of righteousness" theoretically, intellectually - but that is a vastly different matter from a spiritual experimental acquaintance with it. "We having the same Spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believe, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak" (2 Cor. 4:13). Here the Spirit of God is spoken of according to the work that He performs.

"The title "Spirit of faith" intimates that the Holy Spirit is the Author of faith; for all men have not faith; that is, it is not given to all and does not belong to all" (2 Thess. 3:2). The designation means that the procuring cause of faith is the Holy Spirit who produces this effect by an invisible call, an invitation which accompanies, according to the good pleasure of His will, the external proclamation of the Gospel. The faith, therefore, of which He is the Author, is not affected by the hearer's own strength - or by the hearer's own effectual will. The special operation of the Spirit inclines the sinner, previously disinclined, to receive the invitations of the Gospel; for it is He alone, acting as the Spirit of faith, that removes the enmity of the carnal mind to those doctrines of the Cross which - but for this, would seem to him unnecessary or foolish or offensive.

Writing to the Philippian saints the apostle declared, "Unto you it is given...to believe on Him" (1:29). Faith is God's gift as Eph. 2:8, 9 positively affirms. It is not a gift offered for man's acceptance but actually conferred upon God's children, breathed into them. It is imparted to each of God's elect at His appointed time by the Holy Spirit. It is not produced by the creature's will, but is faith of the operation of God. (Col. 2:12). It is the work of the Spirit, by His supernatural action. The Holy Spirit given by Christ to this end, that each of those for whom He died should be brought to a saving knowledge of the truth; therefore we are told "Who by Him (not by our wills) do believe in God" (1 Peter 1:21). In 1 Cor. 3:5 it is said "by whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to every man"; so in Eph. 6:23 it is declared, "Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." The very degree and strength of our faith is determined solely by God: "think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith" (Rom. 12:3) If by grace you are truly a believer, let the reader give God the Spirit honor, glory and praise for it!

Salvation is wholly applied by the Holy Spirit

The salvation of God's elect was purposed, planned, and provided by God the Father before the foundation of the world. It was procured and secured by the incarnation, obedience, death and resurrection of God the Son. It is made known, applied to and wrought in them by God the Spirit. Thus, "Salvation is of the Lord" (Jonah 2:9), and man has no part or hand in it at any point whatever. The child of God is not the earner of salvation, but the recipient of it. Faith is not a condition which the elect sinner must perform in order to obtain salvation - but is the means and channel through which he personally enjoys the salvation of the Triune Jehovah. 

~A. W. Pink~

(The End)