onement for sin through His shed blood on the
cross, and reckons pardon for sin and new life in Christ to be now ours
according to the Word of God. For faith, you remember, is both an attitude
and an act; an attitude of surrender to God, and an act of receiving what
God has for us; and this is precisely what it means to repent and believe
the Gospel.

This means that the man of genuine scientific spirit will begin his pursuit
of spiritual truth by sincere "repentance toward God" and "faith toward our
Lord Jesus Christ" for salvation through His shed blood, which, according
to the Textbook, are the first steps in willing to do the will of God,
followed by a moment-by-moment dependence on Christ, Who is now his life,
to reveal truth to him as he continues, by faith, in the attitude of an
open heart. This is the only possible way of ever knowing that truth which
alone can make us free.

It is true that it is quite the fashion these days for every unbeliever,
agnostic, modernist, and unitarian to quote those words of Christ "Ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" in justification of the
claim that something which he is pleased to call truth has given him what
he fancies is freedom. But Scripture could not be more grossly perverted
than by such a wresting of its plain meaning. The whole statement reads:

Then said Jesus unto =those= Jews that =believed= on =Him=,
if =ye continue= in =My Word=, =then= are ye My disciples
indeed; and =ye= shall =know= the truth, and the truth shall
make you free.

Only the spiritually blind can fail to see the meaning of such a statement.
It plainly means that the first step toward freedom is =faith in Christ=,
the genuineness of which is evidenced by =continuance in His Word=; and
that it is only in this attitude of =faith= that it is possible to =know=
the truth that makes us free.

The truth is, therefore, that to be free one must believe on Christ. This
does not mean to give intellectual assent to this or that fact about Him,
but utterly to commit the life to Him, sin and all, past, present, and
future. For the Gospel tells us not so much what to believe as Whom to
believe, and Paul tells us what faith in Christ means when he exclaims: "I
know =Whom= I have believed," and then further unfolds what this involves
by adding, "and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have
=committed unto Him= against that day."

Faith is not simply giving