Reasons to Trust Christ

George Gillespie

Posted at Reformation Scotland:

We don’t just need the gospel once in our lives: we need it every day. Fellowship with God, assurance and holiness all derive from salvation in Christ. The glorious gospel of the blessed God gives meaning even to the practical realities and duties of life. In the face of constant spiritual onslaught against our souls, we need daily strength and refreshment from this fountain of life.

Everything we need for salvation depends on Christ. Reminding ourselves daily of the reasons for trusting Christ helps maintain our grip on this reality. In the following updated extract, George Gillespie outlines the “true and safe grounds of encouragement to believe in Christ”. These simple truths ought to be stored in the memory for ready and fresh access. They are of particular help for those that struggle with assurance of faith.

1. Christ is an Entirely Sufficient Saviour

Christ is all-sufficient. If He will He can. He is able to save to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25). Are you a sinner to the uttermost? His plaster is broad enough to cover the broadest sore. Christ’s merit is as infinite as God’s mercy because the blood He shed is the blood of God as well as of man (Acts 20:28).

This is a good, strong foundation of comfort for a soul, convinced of its own sinful condition and the emptiness of comfort in any creature. It must fix its thoughts on Christ to the extent that He is the only Saviour and therefore an all-sufficient Saviour. The sinner is so far encouraged (it is no small encouragement) as to resolve: “There is power enough in the blood of Christ to cleanse my crimson sins, even mine. There is no help for me out of Christ, but in Him there is help for all that come unto God by him”.

The great quality of true faith is believing that Christ is able and all-sufficient. Therefore He Himself said to the blind men: “Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you” (Matthew 9:28- 29). The man in Matthew 8:2-3 was not rejected as an unbeliever but got a good answer from Christ. Every poor sinner that comes to Christ as sufficient, and believes that Christ, and Christ only, can cleanse him from all sin and save his soul, has a true, though imperfect faith and is in a fair way for salvation.

There is many a true believer whose faith cannot as yet rise so high as to stay and rest upon the good-will and love of Jesus Christ to him in particular. Yet the soul believes the all-sufficiency of Christ, and that He only is the Saviour. Thus he comes and draws near to God, by and in Christ as the greatest good that he values above all things. Although his faith has not yet attained to rest on the love of Christ to him in particular; it is true faith and Christ will not despise it.

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