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SALVATIONBy John MetcalfeA Review Article Published
by The John Metcalfe Publishing Trust, price £9.25
Salvation
is a subject which is at the heart of the Gospel of Christ. It is the very
reason for which Christ Jesus came into this world – to save sinners. As
Matthew
"...Thou
shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."
Matthew 1:21
Yet, many remain ignorant of just what salvation really entails; just what
we are saved from. Few works go into the full subject in depth. So it is
to be appreciated that John Metcalfe has provided such an excellent
treatment of the subject in this work. In a thorough, scholarly, doctrinal
and Spirit-led exegesis of scripture covering more than 400 pages the author
opens up the vital matter of Salvation in a fresh, in-depth, urgent and
uplifting manner. The work poses the important questions of "What is
salvation?", "What are we saved unto?" and most importantly, "What are we
saved from?" In answering the final question the following matters are
dealt with in-depth: This
work leaves no stone unturned. The author is plain, forthright and clear
in his language - blunt at times even, yet uncompromisingly faithful to
the scriptures. Here he opens up the glorious truths of God’s great
salvation of sinners in a most revealing and uplifting manner. The work of
God in Christ is exalted throughout and the reader is left in no doubt of
just what enemies he has set against him and yet how sure and certain
salvation is in Christ - a salvation nevertheless wrought at such a cost
to the Saviour.
I
highly recommend obtaining this edifying new addition to John Metcalfe's
"Apostolic Foundation of the Christian Church" series, of which this is
volume X. May the Lord bless His people as they learn of Him and His great
salvation.
There are many chapters and passages in this book which I could comment on but perhaps the following will be more helpful than my own comments. To provide a flavour of how in-depth and thorough this book is in its treatment of the apostolic teaching regarding salvation I provide an extract below from the chapter on ‘Salvation from Sin’. This chapter deals not just with sins (those deeds which we as sinners do) and the need for sins to be remitted but also with sin itself – the fallen, depraved, sinful nature which we have inherited from our father Adam. As much as we need our sins washed by the blood of the Lamb of God we also need deliverance from the very nature of sin which we have in our fallen flesh. This salvation from sin was wrought by God in Christ at the cross as He died as the Substitute for His people. In what Luther called ‘The Great Exchange’ Christ exchanged places with His people being made sin for them, that they might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). This extract expounds this vital teaching. Please consult the book itself for the full exposition in its overall context in this excellent work.
Ian
Potts
An
extract from ‘Salvation from
Sin’, pages 75-82 in 'SALVATION' by John
Metcalfe
“So great is the deliverance from sin wrought of God through the Saviour, that the apostle, transported, cries out with joy at the blessing, declaring, 'Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin', Romans 4:8. And why not shout for joy? For 'the sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law', I Corinthians 15:56. Then what, alas, can we do? Nothing. God has done everything. 'Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ', I Corinthians 15:57. For though the scripture hath concluded all under sin - for Paul had before proved, Romans 3:9, boths Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin - yet what was it, but that 'the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe', Galatians 3:22. What promise? Why, of the blessing, Romans 4:8. Hence it is written, I John 1:7, 'But if we walk in the light' - this light, which lightens the nature of inbred sin, the Saviour from it, and the deliverance wrought by him - 'we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.' This is at once the promise and the blessing. For,
‘if Christ be in you, the body is dead’ – counted as dead; reckoned in the
sight of God to be dead – ‘because of sin’ – for, on our behalf, God
condemned sin in the body of Jesus on the cross: it is this that is
reckoned to us; hence – ‘the Spirit is life because of righteousness’,
Romans 8:10.
Blessing indeed, for,
helplessly enslaved, inextricably bound, wholly ensnared in the body of
sin: how could we be saved?
The wisdom of God in Christ,
moved by everlasting love, found the way. Inbred sin could never be
forgiven: it was impossible in time, much less in eternity, that the
holiness of God could abide such abomination in his sight, much less
presence.
Then how could we, bound to it
and by it, sold under it, ever be free of it, that we might come unto
God?
Only by its being judged in
another, a Saviour, who, having been made sin for
us at the cross – O the breadth, length, depth, and height of
the love of Christ, which passes knowledge – inbred sin then
being condemned in his
body, we should be free from sin.
Hence, ‘Once in the end of the
world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself’,
Hebrews
So momentous was his coming,
that it is counted before God as ‘the end of the world’. The whole world
is – as it were – brought to a conclusion in the sight of God by the
finality of his sacrificing himself for us in the place of judgment for
sin.
That is, judgment at the hand
of God, who, first, in a mystery, made him to be sin,
so that, it should be
condemned in his own body on the
tree.
‘For he hath
made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin; that we might become the righteousness of God in
him’ , II Corinthians
And this was prefigured from
the ancient ages of
This is that of which the Holy
Ghost speaks, saying, ‘For he’ – that is, God –
‘hath made him’ –
that is, the Son, in his
manhood – ‘to be sin for us, who knew no
sin.’
He was without sin; he did no
sin; he knew no sin: no inbred
sin, common to all mankind in Adam. Thus, he was the only, the perfect,
the impeccable substitute.
Inbred sin, as has been shown,
passed by conception and natural generation from Adam to all his
posterity. But it did not
pass to the unique humanity of Jesus, born of Mary. For his
peerless humanity was ‘without sin’. He ‘knew no
sin’.
Then he, and he alone, could
be found acceptable, in the union of his deity with the perfection of his
humanity, to offer himself a sacrifice acceptable to God in the place of
sin. Because he knew no sin. Whereas all mankind without exception was
born in sin, sold under sin, and condemned for
sin.
As has been shown, the word
‘sin’ refers to the state
by birth common to all mankind. It is the condition by natural generation
of all humanity from the Fall. Now, it was that –
declares II Corinthians 5:21 – which Christ was made,
and, if so, on the cross.
Being ‘made’ – from the Greek
poieo, to make,
produce, create, cause – clearly does not refer to a reckoning
objectively. The Greek indicates a state
subjectively.
Did that state – which, as the
sacrifice for sin at Golgotha – he was made, created,
formed to be by the mysterious work of God, in order that he
should put away sin by the sacrifice of himself; I repeat, Did that state
cause his death?
It caused him untold anguish
at
There was but one way. The
divine substitution of the sinless one in place of those born in sin, so as really and
actually to exchange places with them. Then, in a mystery, to
be ‘created’,
‘made’ in that state, that it might be condemned in judgment once and for
all.
If but the prospect brought
him to such strong crying and tears, to fall prostrate on the ground in an
agony of prayer those three times, to sweat as it were great drops of
blood: Then, submitting to his Father’s will, what of the untold,
unimaginable anguish of the experience
itself?
Unbearable; yet borne.
Intolerable; yet suffered.
Suffered: since he had been made
sin. Made sin, till it was finished. Till the wrath of a holy God, and the
judgment of that purest divine righteousness subsisting in unapproachable
light, utterly consumed the sacrifice, condemned
it till neither sin nor condemnation remained for time or
eternity.
Thus our
sin was borne away. And thus
‘he gave up the ghost’.
‘He was made sin.’ By
exchanging places – in context, katallasso, to
exchange; katallage, the exchange – where kata
indicates ‘from top to bottom’, or, in context, ‘thoroughly’.
And if of sin inwardly.
Allasso
signifying to exchange;
but if from ‘without sin’ to being ‘made sin’, the divine, spiritual, inward
exchange. Now, the added preposition kata,
indicates from top to bottom. The thorough
exchange.
Utterly, from top to bottom,
thoroughly, not just to take our place under the judgment we deserved but
– exchanging
places thoroughly, from the uttermost to the innermost, first
and last – that this might be so, made in
our state.
Otherwise, why does the Holy
Ghost use the word poieo,
to create,
make? Because that word, and nothing less than that word, is
chosen of God to convey the truth.
Of God he was made,
created
in our state, in a mystery, at the cross: ‘For he’ –
God – ‘hath made him’ –
Christ – ‘to be sin for us.’ Made to
be sin.
So that he might bear justly the condemnation for what God had made him to
be for us, and for our deliverance.
‘Made sin’: Incorrigible,
unforgivable, irredeemable as it was, that he might thus be in justice –
being made actually in our state – brought under the judgment of both the
law and the righteousness of God against that
state.
To what end? That sin might be
‘condemned’
– not forgiven;
condemned
– ‘in the flesh’ – his
flesh - ‘that we might become the righteousness of God in
him.’
This is the thorough exchange
of places. As it was with the carcase of the sin offering, the blood
having been brought by the high priest into the holiest, the body was
carried outside the camp to be burned by fire utterly to destruction, till
all that was left was a cone of ashes.
Equal in his spotless
humanity, unblemished substance, and impeccable soul to take the place of
any one of his people, in the mystery of his divinity, the infinity of his
being, and the absoluteness of his ability undergirding that humanity, at
Golgotha he took the place of countless myriads in one substitutionary
sacrifice, offered up for sin, to bear its judgment once and for
all.
Notwithstanding, through
sickening pseudo-religious and sanctimonious ‘piety’, hypocritical
theological philosophers, supplanting the mystery of Christ, and
revelation of the Spirit of God, have shunned the truth that Christ was made
sin, and that he bore
sin.
Oh, no: to these whited
sepulchres, he must be shielded from such a death, even the death of the
cross. It was not for their
‘Christ’ to suffer such humiliation and degradation. Then how do they hope
to be saved?
For as plain as plain words
can be, the Holy Ghost declares what we have repeated from the mystery of
Christ in the apostolic doctrine.
But these latter-day
Pharisees, like their forbears, invent a tradition that is altogether
without a basis in the evangel of Christ, being void of the witness of the
Holy Ghost, in which they make the word of God of none effect by their
traditions, and rob lost sinners of their
salvation.
Such whitewashed deceivers –
making their blinded followers twofold more the children of hell than
themselves, Matthew 23:15 – put on a ‘pious’ show, as if their refined
souls cannot stand so much as the thought that the Saviour was made sin,
or that he bore sin within his own body.
Then they have no Saviour.
There is nothing to save their followers. And they know nothing of
salvation. Neither do their adherents have any hope of being
saved.
These false prophets and
be-gowned priests, throwing up fairy-snow washed hands, cannot stand the
thought of Christ’s bearing sin, or of his being made sin, allowing only
that the Saviour bore the judgment for sin.
Oh? Judgment for what was not
there?
Do they think God to be as
unjust as themselves, to judge what was not there? In that day, they shall
find that their invented ‘Saviour’, together with their tradition-devised
‘salvation’, is not there either.
Ah, but, they say, Sin was
‘imputed’ to him. Oh? Then, why did Christ and his apostles not say
so?
The fact that righteousness is
imputed to us is utterly beside the point. Such wording in relation to
Christ’s bearing sin does not exist, nor is their notion of
‘imputation’ regarding sin-bearing so much as mentioned, no, not in the
entire bible.
They contradict God, Christ
himself, the Holy Ghost, the word of truth, the holy apostles, and the
faith once delivered to the saints.
‘Imputed’?
Then why the deafening
silence? And why do they think it actually says made?
That is, poieo,
created?
They are so fond of their
titles, collars, gowns, and the like trappings of their acting before men,
that reality clean escapes them. ‘Imputed’? Christ only suffered the
judgment? Judgment for what?
Whatever, it must be for what he actually became
on the cross in reality, not theory.
If, unquestionably impeccable
as when he was first crucified, he was then brought under judgment,
judgment for what? Being impeccable? Judgment for a maths calculation, an
algebraic equation, a paper imputation, in which he himself remained quite
unaltered? Is that ‘thorough substitution’?
Made
unaltered, is it? Or made
sin? Judgment on impeccability – even if some such objective mathematical
calculation existed – could have imputed nothing but injustice to the
Judge.
Christ was judged for what he had
become for his people’s salvation. Not for his impeccable
qualification to become it. Having become sin, by the mysterious work of
God, in thorough exchange in the place of the sinful, being of God made
sin, then it was that reality
which was justly judged.
In no other way could
sin have been judged and put away with
justice.
Otherwise, no real
condition existed in him to be judged. But God made,
created
that real condition in him – for us – that it might
be judged, and we delivered.
If not, if – contrary to the
scripture – no actual
condition existed in him – of course by the work of God – demanding of
condemnation, such a condemnation would be utterly unjust, and void of
saving consequences.
For it would have been
impossible justly and in righteousness for him to suffer the punishment
for deliverance from what – they say – did not exist in him at the
cross.
The ‘Christ’ of these
sanctimonious hypocrites being thought by them to be too ‘holy’ to submit
to all that to which from the hand of God he did submit, then, God could
not have been glorified, Christ could not have been a Saviour, and we
could never have been saved.
Not by their scheme. No, by
their imputation we are yet in our sins, like unto
them.
But to the contrary, we have not so learned Christ.
We witness that he was without sin. We confess that God made him
to be sin for us. We do confess the Saviour. We do
believe in his salvation. We are delivered from sin. And we
are
become the
righteousness of God in him.
Withal… we are set at liberty
in Christ, rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of
glory.”
JOHN METCALFE For further details see the "Books" page.
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