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Salvation by Grace
As for the proud Pharisee, “God grant him grace to groan.” WHAT SAITH THE CROSS? Grace and atonement go hand in hand. Dr, Adolph Saphir has well said: “The world does not know what grace is. Grace is not pity; grace is not indulgence nor leniency; grace is not long-suffering. Grace is as infinite an attribute of God as is His power, and as is His wisdom. Grace manifests itself in righteousness, Grace has a righteousness which is based upon atonement or substitution, and through the whole Scripture there run the golden thread of grace and the scarlet thread of atonement, which together reveal to us, for man, a righteous ness that comes down from heaven.” The fact that Christ has died, a Sacrifice for sin, surely settles the question as to whether salvation is or is not by Grace. “If righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought.” Yon great Sacrifice were worse than waste, if man can save himself. They who think to be saved through works of the flesh make void the grace of God. The unspeakable gift had never been donated; the substitutionary sacrifice had never been offered, had any other way been possible. Calvary says, more plainly than anything else, “Salvation is of the Lord. Away, ye merit-mongers from the Cross, where “the sword of Justice is scabbarded in the jeweled sheath of Grace.” Penances, and pieties, and performances are less than vanity in view of the “unknown sufferings” of the spotless Lamb of God. It is impossible for self-righteousness to thrive on the slopes of the hill called Calvary. “Oh bring no price; God’s grace is free To Paul, to Magdalene, to me!” ALL OF GRACE Salvation, then, is necessarily all of Grace. Man’s fall is so complete, God’s justice is so inexorable, heaven is so holy,
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