CHRISTIANS LOOK UPON the salvation of the soul as the goal rather than the starting point of faith. We do not forget, indeed, that the Scripture uses the expression “receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet. 1:9). But the connection clearly shows that it is the further end, not the nearer end, which is here referred to, the perfecting and glorifying of the soul at the revelation of Jesus Christ, not its justification when it believes on Christ. “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life ” (Jn. 3:36) — has it in germ and principle. But Christ says, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (Jn. 10:10).
Christ for us, appropriated by faith, is the source of life; Christ within us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the source of more abundant life; the one fact secures our salvation; the other enables us to glorify God in the salvation of others.
How distinctly these two stages of spiritual life are set forth in our Lord’s discourse about the water of life! The first effect upon the believer of drinking this water is, “he shall neverthirst: but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (Jn. 4:14). That is, the soul receives salvation, and the perennial joy and peace which accompany salvation. But the second stage is this: “He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive” (Jn. 7:38-39). Here is the divine life going out in service, testimony, and blessing through the Holy Ghost.
It is the last stage, the fullness and consequent outgiving of the influences of the Spirit, which needs to be especially sought in these days by Christians. There are so many instances of arrested development in the Church; believers who have settled into a condition of confirmed infancy, whose testimony always begins with conversion and hovers around that event, like the talk of children who are perpetually telling them how old they are.
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Taken from The Twofold Life by A. J. Gordon (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1900), 1-2
