What the Bible Contains for the Believer 99 Saviour of the world, but they never believe on Him or in H im ; in other words, that He is a Saviour to them. God’s Book is full of doctrines and promises. We declare them, and some one says, “You must prove that doctrine or that promise to be true.” The only way to prove a doctrine to be true is by a personal experience of it through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ says, “Ye must be born again.” Should you attempt to master the meaning and power of that doctrine by mere speculation, you would presently land just where Nicodemus did, and say, “How can these things be?” Instead of doing so, suppose you attend further to what is said, namely, “Whosoever believeth is born of God” (1 John 5 :1 ; John 1:12, 13). In obedience to this Divine teaching, not knowing how it is to be done in us, we take that Word and yield ourselves to Jesus Christ; and lo! there dawns upon us an experience that throws light upon all that which before was a mystery. We have experienced no physical shock, but a great change is wrought in us, especially in our relation to God. “Old things are passed away, and behold all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). Thus we come into an experimental understanding of the doctrine of the new birth. So every other doctrine pertaining to the spiritual life is by God’s grace transmuted into experience. For just as a word stands for an idea or thought, so the doctrines of God stand for experiences; but the doctrine must be received before the experience can be had. And, moreover, we are to receive all doctrines, all truth, through faith in Him, for Christ and His Word are inseparable, just as a man’s note is only current and valuable because the man is good. A bank note is received in the faith of the bank it represents. Should the bank fail, the note instantly becomes worthless. But there are some things revealed in the Word of God which we believe without experience. For instance, we believe that this “vile body” (Phil. 3:21), dishonored by sin and upon the neck of which death will soon put his foot, will
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