Sermons of Benjamin Palmer: The Righteous Scarcely Saved

and it was done-He commanded, and it
stood fast. n (Psalm 33:9) But in
redemption there was counsel; as
though wisdom must be brought in to
consider and to surmount embarrassments.
It was a scheme gradually
unfolded through a period of four
thousand years, before its completion
in the sufferings and death of Christ
upon the cross. Nay, a language must
be constructed in the types and symbols
of a figurate economy, through which
the methods of saving grace might be
revealed to the world. How wonderful
the contrast! And God means the
Christian to understand the obstacles,
over which the great salvation is
brought to his door in the sweet offers
ofthe gospel.
Descending from this broad survey,
you may choose to enterinto the details
of this amazing scheme. I warn you,
that difficulties will thicken upon every
step of the investigation until, it may
be, you will pause in alarm. When
justice, truth and holiness have united
in the decree, "the soul that sinneth, it
shall die,"-how shall mercy and love
protest against it, without a schism in
the attributes of God which it would
be blasphemy to suggest? Do you fall
back upon the idea of
SUBSTITUTION? Then explain the
embarrassment of expiating the sins of
the guilty by the sufferings of an
innocent party. Would it not be
tyranny in the lawgiver to lay this
dreadful service upon any who should
be unwilling to assume it? And could
any creature lawfully propose it of his
own accord? Perhaps, if the law-giver
could himself achieve the task-if he
who has the deepest interest in
preserving the integrity of his own
administration could endure the
penalty-in that case, the repugnance
to justice would be lost in the saClifice
which lays the suffering exactly upon
him. But do you not see that you have
risen now above the human plane to
the divine? You havefound the Son of
God, so far one with the Father as to be
identified with the Lawgiver; and yet
so far distinct from the Father, that He
may freely offer to take the sinner's
place.
But then how shall "the Wordbemade
flesh?"(john l:14) ForuntiltheDivine
is also human, the substitute is not yet
found. Need I tell you, that you have
just struck upon the deep mystery of
the Incarnation? PaSSing this by,
however, do you clearly see how this
substitute shall really feel the shame of
the sins He has assumed? Thesuffering
you may conceive as coming upon
Him from without; but the shame is
within. Here is the dilemma; how can
He, who was "holy, harmless,
undefiled," encounter this strange
emotion of shame? And yet without it
how can He be said to put His soul in
our soul's stead, as a true substitute
must?
Without pressing further these
difficulties, which lie in the SCripture
facts of incarnation, substitution, and
vicarious atonement. turn your
thoughts a moment to the office which
the Holy Spirit discharges in our
salvation. Evidently, His agency must
be omnipotent; for it is His function to
give life-to make the sinner a new
creature in Christ Jesu5-to raise him
from his death in sin, that he may
"walk in newness of life. " (Romans 6:4-
6) Yet in all this work of Almighty
power, He must not disturb the
autonomyofman'snature. The sinner
must be plucked from the jaws ofhell,
and a complete change be wrought in
his whole character; whilst not a pin of
the delicate machinery shall be jarred
from its place, in the spontaneity and
responsibility of the acts which he
shall put forth underthe impulse ofall
this grace.
I sweep over these points rapidly,
having no purpose beyond that of
passing them in review. They are but
illustrations of what must be
surmountedinanyplanofmercywhich
may be revealed to us; and it is in the
solution of these and kindred
difficulties, that the gospel of Christ
becomes "the power of God to salvation
to every one that believeth." They are so
brought home to us, in our Christian
experience, that we cannot suppress
the feeling of being "scarcely saved.»
Indeed theysometimesso frown upon
us with their rugged grandeur, that we
smile at the flippancy of the assaults
which infidelity has ever made upon
them. Dr. Payson used to say that he
could write from his own experience
against Christianity, ifhe chose to do
it, with a power that would put to
shame all that infidels had ever
dreamed. And it is true. The man,
who has drawn into his own experience
what Divine grace has achieved in
order to secure his salvation, could
furnish the skeptic with difficulties
that would blanch his check with
terror. Yetthey have all been conquered
in the gospel of the grace of God, as the
believer with a blessed experience fully
knows. It is his prerogative therefore
to say to the sinner who rejects this
gospel, these difficulties remain with
their eternal pressure against you. By
this gospel the Chlistian is only saved;
"what then shall the end be of them that do
110t obey it?" The oppressive silence
which follows this interrogatory, is the
most solemn condemnation that can
be pronounced.
II. The righteous are scarcely
saved, in view of the struggle with
which each passed into the Kingdom
of God. What a long period of apathy
and indifference, duting which God
was pleading for admission into the
heart that was barred against His
approach! What resistance of motives
drawn from three worlds, the
attractions of heaven, the tortures of
hell, and the emptiness of earthagainst
which three-fold battery the
human spirit has the power to hold
out in obstinate siege! Over what a
October, 1992 t- THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon t 9

dreams and to pass the most weird
apparitions before the eye closed in
sleep? Nay, when the arts of solicitation
have all been exhausted, what resources
of malice are displayed in harassing
those whom he cannot destroy! What
horrible suggestions, full of filth or full
of blasphemy, are suddenly thrown
into the mind-which recoils from it
with a degree of horror showing them
to be arrows from the bow of an enemy
withoutl But say-if a Christian can
come out of a life-long conflict with
this triple conspiracy of the world, the
flesh, and the devil, without the
conviction riveted upon
him of being "scarcely
saved?"
IV. That he is
scarcely saved, isproved
by the severe discipline
to which he is subject
during life. Trials,
doubtless, are allotted to
all: forthe double reason ....
that by the interlacing of .
human relations the
piousandthewickedare
bound up togetherand
because this Divine
providence operates
chiefly through natural
and established laws,
under which all men live alike. But
there is this fundamental difference
between the sorrows of the righteous
and ofthe wicked: that the fonner are
embraced within the covenant which
God has made with His people, and
fall therefore under the ministration of
love. I scarcely know what should
excite a deeper gratitude, than the
tenderness and unction with which
this distinction is pressed upon us in
the Word of God. If you tum to the
Old Testament, there is the testimony
of the Eighty-ninth Psalm: "if his
children forsake my law, and walk not in
my judgments; if they break my statutes,
and keep not my comntandments; Olen
will I visit their transgreSSion with the
rod, and tl1eir iniquity with stripes: hearts, without putting us to the
nevertl1eless my loving-kindness will I not torture. What those suffer whom God
utterly take from him, nor suffer my undertakes to purify, must remain a
faithfulness to fail-my covenant will I secret betwixt Him who inflicts and
not break, nor alter the thing that is gone them who endure. "The heart knoweth
out of my lips." (vv. 30-34). Uyou tum its own bitterness;" and can we come
to the New Testament, there is the ever forth from the pressure of grief and
classical passage in Hebrews: 'jorwhom pain, without knowing that we are
the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and "scarcely saved?" The teaching power
scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. there is in sorrow-

There is, too, a blessed sense in
which these works, follow the believer
into heaven, there to receive a gradous
reward. Our Lord intimates as much
in the parable of the talents, when to
him who had used well his trust it was
said: "Well done, thou good and faithful
servant; thou has been over a few things,
I will make thee ruler over many thingsenter
thou into the joy of thy Lord. » (Matt
25:21,23). And the voice, whichjohn
heard from heaven, sweeps away the
last vestige of doubt: "Write, blessed
are the dead which die in the Lord, from
henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they
may rest from their labors;
and their works do follow
them." (Rev. 14: 13)
But whilst these
Christian works are
recognized as evidences of
our state before God, and as
proofs of personal zeal in
the Divine service, they are
entirely disallowed as
forming any part of the
ground of our acceptance in
the day of judgment. "For
other foundation can no man
lay than that is laid, which is
Jesus Christ. Now if any man
build upon this foundation gold, silver,
precious stones, wood, hay stubble; every
man's work shall be made manifest-for
the day shall declare it, because it shall be
revealed by fire, and the fire shall try
tveryman'sworkofwhatsortitis. Ifany
man's work abide which he hath built
thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If
any man's work shall be burned, he shall
suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved,
yet so as by fire.» (I Cor. 3: 11-15).
How prophetic of this separation of
the believer from the imperfect works
he has wrought, is that solemn
disclaimer of them which he himself is
constrained to make in the hour of
death! At no moment does the
redemption of our Lord jesus Christ
seem so precious, as when the curtain
is lifted which hides the realities of the
12 'I' TIlE COUNSEL of Chalcedon t October, 1992
eternal world. The language of every
departing saint is, "not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but
according to His mercy He saved us, by
the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Ghost-which he shed upon
us abundantly, through Jesus Otrist our
Saviour." (Titus 3: 5,6). What can this
repudiation of his own righteousness,
prophetic of a more public divorce at
the judgment, import-except that
salvation is purely of grace? In no
uncertain tone is the testimony
delivered that, so far as his personal
agency is involved, every Christian is
compelled to feel that he is "scarcely
saved."
In the application of this fact,
according to the Apostle's argument, it
will be best to be pointed and brief. "If
the righteous scarcely be saved, where
shall the ungodly and the sinner oppear?"
Before this solemn question is
answered,let the advantages possessed
by 'the righteous be carefully
considered.
l.They are scarcely saved, notwithstanding
their union with Christ
from whom life is constantly derived.
The preceding exposition was intended
to free the gospel from the suspidon of
incompleteness. But 1 am anxious that
you shall appredate its sufficiency in
all its partS. What a splendid gain it is
to the believer "to be found in Otrist, not
having his own righteousness which is of
the law, but that which is through the faith
of Christ, the righteousness which is of
Godbyfai.th?" (Phil. 3:9.) What vantage
ground can be higher, than to be
"complete in Him who is the head of all
prinCipality and power"-in whom
"dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead
bodily?" (Co\. 2: 9,10). Who can be
safe, if he be not-unto whom jesus
Christ has been "made of God wisdom,
and righteousness, andsanctificatfon, and
. redemption?" (I Cor. 1 :30). Yet in the
face of all this, the Christian confesses
with Peterthatheis "scarcely
saved." What possible hope
can then be cherished by
those who are "without
Christ, being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, and
strangers from the covenants
of promised, having no hope,
andwidwutGodin rheworld?"
(Eph. 2: 12). ' Is not the
argument well put by the
Apostle, and can its force be
evaded?
2. The righteous are
scarcely saved, notwithstanding
the indwelling of
the Holy Ghost to sanctify and glorify.
The Christian has, in this presence of
the Comforter, a double assurance of
his salvation. He is given as the seal
and pledge of this: "in whom, • says the
Apostle, "after that ye believed, ye were
sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
which is the earnest of our inheritance,
until the redemption of the purchased
possession, unto the praise of His glory.»
(Eph. 1:13.) And we can see that
nature of the guarantee in the fact that
the Holy Spirit is the quickener, the
fountain of spiritual life to those in
whom he abides. Yet with this perfect
assurance of salvation, in the actual
presence and official working of the
agent by whom salvation is applied, it
is still most solemnly true that "the
righteous are scarcely saved." What