Internal Salvation

Extract

Internal Salvation
A. W. Pink

“Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” Phil. 1:6.
These words set forth a fundamental aspect of salvation that is now widely ignored, and it is one of the vital points at which the pulpit needs testing, for if it be faulty here, then its trumpet gives forth an uncertain sound. Alas, most of the pulpits today are engaged in declaring what man must do: creature performances are the sum and substance of the great majority of modern sermons, the operations of God being relegated to the rear. True, there are those who have quite a little to say of what God has done for sinners, yet most of these men are radically defective in their conceptions of what has to be wrought in sinners before there can be any salvation for them. These men talk much about the “finished work of Christ,” and many are misled by them, for they are largely, if not wholly, silent upon the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

How few there are today who perceive that the regenerating and sanctifying work of the Spirit is as indispensable as is the sacrificial work of Christ. That is why we often hear untaught evangelists say, and read in the “tracts” of our day, “salvation is by the blood of Christ alone,” or “we are saved by faith alone”: statements which are unscriptural, most misleading, and highly dangerous because of their lopsidedness. A man may hold the most Scriptural views of the Atonement, and though that may evidence his “orthodoxy,” yet it is no proof at all that he is a new creature in Christ. He may highly honour faith and vehemently affirm that good works have no part or place in the saving of the soul, and yet be alienated from God. Unless the Holy Spirit has “begun a good work in me” then I am still dead in sins!

“He which hath begun a good work in you.” Ah, that is what draws the line of demarcation between the living and the dead: that is what distinguishes true professors from empty professors. And why? Because that “good work” is not in any of us by nature. That statement calls for a word of explanation and amplification. There …