FORGIVENESS AND DELIVERANCE.

If a Physician is to treat a patient successfully, the real malady must be discerned and the proper medicine prescribed. Mistakes as to the disease and the means of its cure, may not only cause prolonged suffering, but issue in the death of the patient. A Chicago medical professor declared that medicine had killed more than war, pestilence and famine. This may be a strong statement as to mal-practice ; but it has its application in connection with dealing with souls. In this question of holiness, what suffering has been produced through mistaking alike the malady and the medicine !

It ought to be clear that the subject of holiness is for believers, rather than unbelievers,-for those who are seeking salvation. But many advocates do not see how perfectly one who believes, the moment he believes, is placed before God according to His estimate of the work of Christ. They take from the value of that work, and the perfection of the person's acceptance, by setting him to seek a clean heart, or a second cleansing. Defilement is thought to be the malady :cleansing the cure. There, is a double mistake. It is not defilement, but rather his evil nature, which is the cause of the trouble. Instead of cleansing, the person needs deliverance:he requires to see that he is brought into a new place in Christ, where he may enjoy liberty, and have his heart engaged with Christ Himself, and his mind set on the things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. (Col. 3:1:)

What is to come before us now is so clearly linked with the truth already stated, that it may be well to preserve the connection. We have seen, then, that there is a difference between the facts of sins and sin :the one is the fruit, the other the root. The difference in God's way of dealing with sins in practice and sin in the nature has also been observed :sins are forgiven through faith in Christ's blood ; sin is condemned, given over to death and judgment. If things are not thus kept distinct, the real need, and the right answer to it, will not be discerned and given in each instance. The need and the answer in connection with sins are clearly distinct from the need and the answer in connection with sin. That is not cleansed, forgiven, or removed from the man's being, but he may know deliverance from the power of indwelling sin, and walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Rom. 8:4.)

It is different with regard to sins. These can be looked upon as apart, as separated from himself, and transferred to the Substitute. Whether viewed as one's own act in confessing his sins, or as God's act in laying the sins on the Surety, it is clear that the sins are looked upon as having changed places. Hence, it is said, "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all," and He "was delivered for our offences," and "His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." (Is. 53:6 ; Rom. 4:25; i Pet. 2:24.) There the sins received the judgment of God. They are not only said to be judged, but they are said to be purged, Hence, of the Lord it is said, " Himself purged our sins." (Heb. 1:3.) Then, the conscience is purged when a person believes. This purging is as complete as the perfect work on account of which it is effected. The worshipers, once purged, have no more conscience of sins ; they have remission ; they are perfected forever ; they have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. (Heb. 10:2, 14, 18, 19.) Thus, therefore, God's answer for the sins is that by what Christ has done they are cleansed, purged, forgiven, and forgotten ; so that they are gone forever in the case of the believer. But this cannot be said of sin-the evil nature.
In regard to sins, it is a question of righteousness, and how God can be consistent with Himself in forgiving sinners, and justifying the ungodly. In connection with the evil nature, it is a question of holiness, and how the one who is forgiven and has received a new nature should answer its desires, in the enjoyment of liberty, and in bringing forth fruit in harmony with the nature of God.

The person who needs forgiveness is a sinner "already judged, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (Jno. 3:18.) On the other hand, the one who seeks deliverance is a saint, beloved of God. (Rom. 1:7.) With the former, it is a question of pardon and cleansing from defilement; with the latter, a question of power and freedom from captivity. The first applies to actual guilt-what the person has done ; the second, to his lost estate-what he is, as having a ruined nature. There is no pardon, forgiveness, or cleansing for the old nature. Nor can it be improved. It has been given over to death and judgment by God. The believer has to learn this, and accept it for himself, by reckoning himself dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God, in Christ Jesus. He need not be surprised nor discouraged if he cannot see the meaning of this all at once. He sees how often anxious souls are perplexed, though the way of peace is plain. Believers often show the same perplexity, though the way of deliverance is clear. To be brought to a sense of need and utter helplessness, is the point where the need is known to be met in each instance. Both blessings are by grace, through faith ; a person may know the one without knowing the other.

Forgiveness and deliverance do not usually go together in actual experience :a forgiven man is not necessarily a delivered man. A believer might know that he could be forgiven, and have communion restored, if, after giving way to anger, he went and confessed his sin ; but he might not know how to reckon himself dead, that he would not so readily give way to anger again. So with any other tendency. He wants to know how he can be kept, that instead of having fruit of that of which he is ashamed, he should please God by bringing forth fruit unto holiness.

But these two things are often confused, and so neither forgiveness nor deliverance are distinctly understood. When a believer begins to realize that evil is still working in his nature, he is ready to fall into one of two mistakes. He may either suppose that he has not been properly converted and forgiven, or he may think that the blood ought to cleanse or silence, if it does not actually remove, the evil working within him. But work it will, in spite of the blood. He is, therefore, apt to think that he either has not received the gospel aright, or else that the gospel does not do all it proposes ; as yet, it has not met all his requirements. He has a need as a saint, just as before he had a need as a sinner.

He is like an Israelite, who had been under the shelter of the blood, and thereby has been saved from judgment. Then, when Pharaoh is seen pursuing after the people, he is distressed, because that which protected him from the angel of death has not availed to deliver him from the tyrant king. He realizes a new need, for which, as yet, he has found no answer. But this very distress is to prepare him for the understanding of deliverance, for'' the enjoyment of the Deliverer. So with the believer, who finds another need than that of forgiveness. He is on the way, where he may learn of the overthrow of the enemy, and find that the One who has triumphed through death has become his Deliverer. Both needs-that of his sins and that of his evil nature-are met in the death of Christ in two distinct ways for equally distinct results. The time between such experiences may be short or long with different persons. Only in cases where there has been very deep plowing of soul, and exercise, both as to sins and the evil nature, and where forgiveness had not been known at all, are the two results, of peace about sins and deliverance from the power of sin, likely to be realized together. No rule can be laid down as to how souls come to the consciousness of deliverance, any more than as to their being born again. In both cases it is true, as to the mode and the power, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth."

But the effects may be very different-as different as the carrying away of dust and the bringing of a mantle of snow. Indeed, the figure would bear extension, and partially illustrate the removal of defilement and the introduction of a new nature. Sweeping away dust is not more distinct from covering the ground with snow, than is the forgiveness of sins a different thing to the manifestation of a new life in realized deliverance from the bondage of sin and law. Those who seek shall find this deliverance as certainly as inquiring souls seek and find forgiveness. If there is purpose of heart, dependence on the Holy Spirit, and diligent use of the Word of God, with prayer, the joyous liberty of finding Christ as the Deliverer is nigh at hand.

In this respect, there is a gospel for saints just as there is a gospel for sinners; or, more correctly, the gospel of God may be said to include both.

Hear receive, believe, the whole truth as unfolded in Romans, and count upon a living Saviour to enable you to live it out to His praise. W. C. J.

(To be continued.)