Do any ask “What has God done for your soul that you should talk so much about it?” I answer, pointing to that thrilling scene, “He has done that for it. He has saved it. Out of the jaws of death and from eternal wreck — he has delivered it.” But while “saved” may describe the work in general, it fails to tell all. A saved soul includes many things. I can only mention them.
A saved soul is a God-pardoned soul. All its sins are forgiven, and its iniquities are drowned in that deluge of pardoning love that rises high above the topmost peaks of all its mountain sins!
A saved soul is a God-reconciled soul. Once at enmity — God and the sinner are now at peace. All differences are at an end. The prodigal sinner has been embraced and kissed by the father. The rebel has thrown down his weapons, and bent his knee to the Monarch — and the Monarch has raised him up, and with a smile of love, has put him among His children. If I may so express it, God and the sinner have met and shaken hands beneath the shadow of the cross. They are at at-one-ment there.
A saved soul is also a sin-delivered soul. This is something more than pardon, or reconciliation. It is a higher blessing. Pardon remits the punishment of sin — but leaves the guilt of sin. But justification acquits the person of every charge. Believer, your sins are not merely forgiven — but they are done away with, put out of sight, removed from you as far as the remotest east is from the extreme west! In the eye of God, you are as guiltless as His spotless Son! “You are altogether beautiful, My love; there is no flaw in you!” Song of Songs 4:7
A saved soul is also a God-arrayed soul. This is higher still. The former blessing was a negation of guilt — this is a possession of righteousness. A righteousness, mark you, that is not capable of improvement — but a righteousness that is superlative in its quality — it is the righteousness of God Himself! A saved soul, even to the omniscient eye of Deity, is not only without spot or wrinkle or any such thing — but it is altogether lovely and glorious, robed in the splendor of “Jehovah Tsidkenu” — “The Lord our Righteousness!”
A saved soul is a Heaven-entitled soul. This crowns all. Not merely am I delivered from Hell — but in my hand is placed a title-deed to eternal glory! This is no fiction or flight of imagination — but a blessed fact. Possessed by every saint, is a title that God Himself will declare to be valid to all eternity.
Now believer, if all these things are included in what God has done for our souls, then did I not say rightly that many words were necessary to describe the work? Let us then, as God-pardoned, God-reconciled, Sin-delivered, God-arrayed, Heaven-entitled souls — call on all, far and near, to come and listen to our joyous tale.
