29 June 2011

What it Means to Accept Christ as Savior from Sin

From the tenth sermon ('True Grace Tends to Holy Practice') in Edwards' 15-sermon series Charity and Its Fruits, on 1 Corinthians 13--
That act of the will which there is in justifying faith tends to practice. He who by the act of his will does truly accept of Christ as a Savior accepts him as a Savior from sin, and not only as a Savior from the punishment of sin. But it is impossible that anyone should heartily receive Christ as a Savior from sin and the ways of sin, if he is not one who sincerely has a mind to part with all the ways of sin; for he who has not a mind that sin and he should be separated cannot have a mind to receive a Savior to part them. . . .

The very notion of trusting in God is resting or having an acquiescence of mind in a persuasion of another's sufficiency and faithfulness, so as to run the venture of it in our actions.
--Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, Yale ed., 8:300-1

It was the second sentence above that really arrested me--'He who by the act of his will does truly accept of Christ as a Savior accepts him as a Savior from sin, and not only as a Savior from the punishment of sin.'

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