Here we behold the power of the gospel to save us from sin: It is in being attended by the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven. I freely admit that it is the setting forth of the love of God which saves people from sin, but in order that the love of God may have its cleansing efficacy, it must be as Paul says to the Romans, “the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5). Accordingly, we find that the success of the apostles in saving from sin by the preaching of the gospel, is uniformly ascribed to the Holy Ghost. Barnabas was a man full of the Holy Ghost and faith, and many people were added to the Lord. Peter preached at the house of Cornelius, and the Holy Ghost fell on all which heard the word. “Then remembered I,” said he, “the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 1:5). The whole current of the New Testament shows that the work which should follow the coming of Christ, should be the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. Peter in the first chapter of his first epistle tells us that the prophets searched and inquired diligently respecting the time of this salvation, which the Spirit of Christ which was in them signified, when it testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. This glory was to be the outpouring of the Spirit as predicted by Joel; and which Ezekiel also had in view, when God is heard saying by the mouth of that prophet, “then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean, from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. And I will save you from all your uncleannesses” (Ezekiel 36:25). Here also is brought to view by the prophets that baptism of the Holy Ghost which was to be the establishment of the kingdom of Heaven upon earth—which kingdom we are told is “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17).

John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way of the Lord for the establishment of this kingdom. This work of preparation was performed by him, as he preached saying, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2), the kingdom of “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17). “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but there cometh one after me, mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire” (Luke 3:16, 17).

The same great truths Christ Himself had in view, when He said to Nicodemus, “Verily verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). What is the kingdom of God? “Righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17). What is it to be born of water? It is to receive John's baptism unto repentance. That is, truly to repent and bring forth fruits meet for repentance. This prepares the way of the kingdom of heaven in us. What is it to be born of the Spirit? It is to receive the baptism of Christ with the Holy Ghost, or to have Christ sprinkle clean water upon us, and make us clean; and cleanse us from all our filthiness, and from all our idols. (Ezekiel 36:25.) Then when this baptism of Christ is received, when this work of purification is wrought by being baptized with the Holy Ghost, we enter that kingdom of God which is “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” And we have the positive asservation [acknowledgment] of the Son of God, “Verily, verily, I say unto you except a man be born of water” i.e., led to the exercise of true repentance, “and of the Spirit,” i.e., sprinkled with clean water, or baptized with the Holy Ghost, and cleansed from all his filthiness and from all his idols, “he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” which is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”

Here then we clearly see, my hearers, what it is which makes the gospel of Christ the power of God unto salvation from sin. It is our Lord Jesus Christ, baptizing with the Holy Ghost, and thus cleansing our souls from all their filthiness and from all their idols; thus bringing us into God's kingdom of righteousness, and establishing that kingdom in our hearts—filling them with righteousness, as Christ says those shall be, who hunger and thirst after it; and giving them peace and joy in the Holy Ghost—making their peace as a river and their righteousness as the waves of the sea. This gospel is indeed the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. It is the dispensation of God's Almighty Spirit, burying us with Jesus Christ, by baptism of the Holy Ghost into death”—i.e., making us dead to sin—“that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). It is enabling us to “put off the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and to put on the new man, which after God” (i.e., after the likeness of God) “is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

We cannot leave out of the account the work of the Holy Ghost in renewing and cleansing the heart. “Create in me,” said the psalmist, “a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:10, 7). . . .

[Some expect to cleanse their own heart merely by contemplation] of the universal love of God. I know it is by the revelation of the love of God that the heart must be cleansed—but this love as I have already said, great as it is, is powerless in our hearts until “shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto them” (Romans 5:5). Paul speaks of “the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power” (Ephesians 3:7). It is in this way that every gift of God's grace is communicated: only by the effectual working of God's power. The Bible represents unholy men as dead in trespasses and sins, and as having no spiritual life but in Christ. . . . “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:53). He therefore who would have spiritual life is to look to Christ for it. He is to seek, through faith in Christ, that baptism of the Holy Ghost which will cleanse him from sin; or in other words, raise him up from his spiritual death, and make him alive to the love and enjoyment of God. That same God who first breathed into man the breath of spiritual life, so that he became a living soul—must again by the power of that same Spirit breathe spiritual life anew, or the sinner will remain dead in sin forever. All his contemplations of the love of God, without this baptism of the Holy Ghost, this resurrection from spiritual death by the power of Christ, will avail nothing. Men will by such contemplations, become no better than whited sepulchres. If the outside is beautiful, the uncleanness will all remain within. “If ye believe not that I am he,” said Christ “ye shall die in your sins” “and whither I go ye cannot come” (John 8:24, 21) if ye believe not that I am . . . the Saviour whom God promised to send into the world; and whose “name was called Jesus, because he should save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21.)

The question then, for you to settle, my hearers, is this: have you been baptized by the Holy Ghost? Have you been raised up by the power of Christ's spiritual resurrection from the death of sin and made alive unto God, and had that kingdom of God established within you which “is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost?” If not, you are dead in sin, and your expectation of going where Christ is, in your present state, will avail you nothing. To the Jews, Christ said, ye will not come unto me that ye may have life. . . . [We] must come to Christ for it by faith, and receive it by the power of the Holy Ghost, for “the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.” . . .

“It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth” (1 John 5:6), and when we obtain the witness of the Spirit that we are righteous, by having Christ baptize us with the Holy Ghost, then we know in our own blessed experience, what it is which makes the gospel “the power of God unto salvation [from sin] to every one that believeth”; and are prepared with Paul to say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ” (Romans 1:16). . . .

Here is Christ our horn of salvation, even Jesus saving His people from their sins—but instead of saving them at death, it is all the days of their life. Saving them too, out of the hand of all the enemies of their souls, unto holiness and righteousness all the days of their life.

With the same blessed truth in view, we hear Paul saying to the Corinthians, “I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ, that in every thing ye are enriched by him in all utterance, and in all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless, in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:4–9). Faithful to preserve blameless to the end. This same faithfulness of God in preserving His people blameless, after enriching them with the blessedness of full salvation from sin, Paul recognized again in writing to the Thessalonians. “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). He says also again, to the same church, “but the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil” (2 Thessalonians 3:3). Thus plainly does the Bible present to us the doctrine of salvation from sin through Christ—in this life, and during all this life, while it never speaks of death as the time of salvation. Its language is, “now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). And the Bible nowhere regards anything as salvation but salvation from sin.

You must then, my hearers, have salvation from sin while you live, or die in your sins, and where Christ has gone, never go. Any hope but this is baseless, for Christ declares that at His coming, He will give every man according as his work shall be, and that the unjust shall be unjust still, and the filthy, filthy still—while the righteous and the holy shall so remain. Revelation 22:11. O that every heart who hears me, might be brought by the Holy Ghost, to cry out, how shall this salvation from sin be obtained?

In reply to such an inquiry, I answer: The blessed Bible tells us that God's “divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:3, 4). . . .

“All the promises of God in [Christ] are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us” (2 Corinthians 1:20) so that if we seek by earnest prayer and faith in Christ, to have these promises fulfilled in us, their fulfilment is sure. These promises are such as the following:

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:9–13).

I have already shown that the design of this gift or baptism of the Holy Spirit, which we receive through faith in Christ, is to save from sin; to sprinkle with clean water, and cleanse us from all our filthiness and all our idols (Ezekiel 36:25), this is the baptism of Christ, which cleanses from sin, or makes us dead to sin, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. If you would have this gift of the Holy Ghost, this baptism of Christ, this salvation from sin, seek it, with earnest prayer, and faith in Christ, and you shall find in your own blessed experience, that “all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Matthew 21:22).

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6), and filled as we are assured, in the covenant and oath of God, all the days of their life. Come, I beseech you, by faith, to Christ, for this salvation, and you shall find, that the gospel of Christ is indeed the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth. All this, hearer, you must receive, or Christ will say to you at last, “I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity” (Luke 13:27).

O, it is a dreadful opiate to the consciences of men, to teach them, that though they sin against God every day, in thought, word and deed, they may yet be saved from sin, when they die, and be received to heaven. It lulls into carnal security. It operates as a standing excuse for all the iniquities which [they] may chance to commit. While on the contrary, our Savior's doctrine, that if we believe not in Him as our Savior from sin, we shall die in our sins, and where He has gone never go, tends most directly and powerfully to arouse from the fatal slumbers of worldliness and sinful pleasure, to cry mightily to God in Christ's name, for deliverance from all our spiritual foes—and for strength and grace that we “might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life” (Luke 1:74, 75). God grant that this may be the earnest cry of every soul, and be continued by every one of you until you find your feet in that highway of holiness over which the unclean shall not pass (Isaiah 35:8). He that thinks that he shall certainly be saved from sin at last, will be almost sure to be saying, “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep” (Proverbs 6:10). May the Lord save us out of this destructive snare of the devil, and bring us all to behold by faith, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). Then shall we obtain the witness that we are righteous, God testifying (Hebrews 11:4) within us by His Spirit of His own gifts, and then shall we not be ashamed when we have respect unto all his commandments (Psalm 119:6).

We may see it to be a matter of unspeakable consequence, that we do not trifle with, nor resist the Holy Ghost. He trifles with the Holy Ghost, who thinks lightly of the pollutions which God charges upon him, and will not seek to be cleansed by the Spirit of God. He resists the Holy Ghost who will not yield to the motives of the gospel, and come to Christ for the Holy Spirit that he may have life. If any of you, my hearers, desire the salvation of God, let me say to you as did David to Solomon his son: “Thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever” (1 Chronicles 28:9).

The influences of God's Spirit are the waters of salvation, from sin. They can be had by being sought through faith in Christ. “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters” (Isaiah 55:1). “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (John 7:37). “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). Amen.