Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. – 2 Corinthians 9:15
Paul said, “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.” Over and over and over again, have we to proclaim that salvation is wholly of grace: not of works nor of wages, but it is the gift of God’s great bounty to undeserving men. Often as we have preached this truth, we shall have to keep on doing so as long as there are men in the world who are self-righteous, and as long as there are minds in the world so slow to grasp the meaning of the word “grace”, that is, “free favour”, and as long as there are memories that find it difficult to retain the idea of salvation being God’s free gift.
The essence of salvation is the gift of God’s Only-begotten Son to die for us, that we might live through Him. I think you will agree with me that it is inconceivable that men should ever have merited that God should give His Only-begotten Son to die for us. To give Christ to us, in any sense, must have been an act of divine charity; but to give Him up to die on yonder cruel and bloody tree, to yield Him up as a sacrifice for sin, must be a free favour, passing the limits of thought. It is not supposable that any man could deserve such love. It is plain that if man’s sins needed a sacrifice, he did not deserve that a sacrifice should be found for him. The fact that his need proves his demerit and his guiltiness. He deserves to die; he may be rescued by Another dying for him; but he certainly cannot claim that the eternal God should take from His bosom His Only-begotten and Well-beloved Son, and put Him to death. The more you look that thought in the face, the more you will reject the idea that, by any possible sorrow, or by any possible labour, or by any possible promise, a man could put himself into the position of deserving to have Christ to die for him. If Christ is to come to save sinners, it must be as a gift, a free gift of God. The argument, to my mind, is conclusive.
