By Alexander Maclaren (1826 – 1910)
When we are saved by faith, we mean, accurately, through faith. It is God who saves. It is Christ’s life,
Christ’s blood, Christ’s sacrifice, Christ’s intercession that saves. Faith is simply the channel through which
there flows into my emptiness the divine fullness, or to use the good old illustration, it is the hand which is
held up to receive the benefit which Christ lays in it.
A living trust in Jesus has power unto salvation only because it is the means by which the power of God
unto salvation may come into my heart. On that side is the great ocean – Christ’s love, Christ’s abundance,
Christ’s merits, Christ’s righteousness, or rather that which includes them all, Christ Himself! And on this side
is the empty vessel of my soul.
It is not faith that saves us; it is Christ that saves us, and He saves us through faith.
