FEBRUARY 8

He will save His people from their sins.
(Matthew 1:21)

If asked what they understand by salvation, many people will reply, “Being saved from hell and taken to heaven.” This is one result of salvation, but it is not one-tenth of what is contained in that blessing. Our Lord Jesus Christ does indeed redeem all His people from the wrath to come; He saves them from the fearful condemnation that their sins had brought upon them, but His triumph is far more complete than this. He saves His people “from their sins”—a full deliverance from our worst foes.

Where Christ works a saving work, He casts Satan from his throne and will not let him be master any longer. No man is a true Christian if sin reigns in his mortal body. Sin will be in us—it will never be utterly expelled till the spirit enters glory, but it will never have dominion.

There will be a striving for dominion—a lusting against the new law and the new spirit God has implanted—but sin will never get the upper hand to be the absolute monarch of our nature. Christ will be the Master of the heart, and sin must be mortified. The Lion of the tribe of Judah shall prevail, and the dragon shall be cast out.

Professing Christian, is sin subdued in you? If your life is unholy, your heart is unchanged, and if your heart is unchanged, you are an unsaved person. If the Savior has not sanctified you, renewed you, given you a hatred of sin and a love of holiness, He has done nothing in you of a saving character. The grace that does not make a man better than others is a worthless counterfeit. Christ saves His people not in their sins but from them “… for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”¹ “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”² If not saved from sin, how shall we hope to be counted among His people?

Lord, save me now from all evil and enable me to honour my Savior.

1. Hebrews 12:14
2. 2 Timothy 2:19