76. We Need a Two-Fold Salvation
We Need a Two-Fold Salvation
We recall first that we were born into the world with a nature that is nothing but sin, and again that we have an inescapable record of sins committed by that nature that are constantly piling up against us. It is easy to see, therefore, that our need is two-fold. We need to be saved from the penalty due our own personal sins, and for this to be effective and permanent, we must be delivered from the power and finally from the presence of the nature of sin. So it is great good news to any one who knows his need of rescue, that God has provided for us a two-fold salvation that perfectly meets our need at every point. It can be seen running like a golden thread all through the Old Testament. In the pictures set forth in history, type and ceremony, Egypt is a type of the world, Pharaoh a type of Satan, the prince of this world (John 12:31; John 16:11), Israel a type of the people of God saved out of the world, and their deliverance from Egypt under Moses a type of our deliverance by Christ from sin, Satan and the world.
There was first the shedding of a lamb’s blood, and its application as a shield from death to every Hebrew home and family. Then there was the eating of the flesh of the lamb for the needed strength to escape from Egypt. So they were saved by blood and by power, as they followed Moses and left Egypt behind them forever.
There were also two crossings, which God intended should be close enough together to typify the two-fold nature of the one great transaction of salvation, just as by Christ we are delivered out of bondage to death, and also from needless spiritual helplessness. The crossing of the Red Sea cut Israel off from their helplessness in Egypt, and that of Jordan (Joshua 3:17) from the fruitlessness of the Wilderness. It was only because the people believed the faithless spies instead of God that these crossings were so far apart. But they show plainly the two-fold provision of God in our salvation.
Then after Israel had been separated to God from Egypt and become a nation, among the ceremonies which pictured our two-fold salvation were the five great Offerings set forth in Leviticus, which enfold this truth in their names and set it forth in their performance. In the Burnt Offering, the Meat or Meal Offering, the Peace Offering, Christ as the spotless Lamb is presented to God for His approval and acceptance as a Substitute. Then in the Sin and Trespass Offerings He is the two-fold Saviour from “sin” and “sins,” and is given to us as our Substitute, with the Peace Offering midway between God and man.
Then in the New Testament the same thing is found. Paul sets forth in the first eight chapters of Romans the whole doctrine of salvation, unfolding from the first into the fifth chapter our salvation from “sins,” and the word for it is “justification.” Then to the end of the eighth chapter we find the doctrine of salvation from “sin,” and the word for this is “sanctification.” This is the major passage in the New Testament on this subject, and the two-fold nature of God’s provision for our two-fold need is very marked.
We find it also in various phrases and words that are paired with each other. We read of “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” and “the peace of God that passeth understanding;” of “the riches of his grace, the forgiveness of sins,” and “the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might (dynamite) by his Spirit in the inner man;” and of the “well of water, springing up into everlasting life,” and “rivers of living water” which are to flow from our “inmost being” in spiritual service. Indeed, we have been singing all our lives:
“Let the water and the blood From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure;