Our justification is the direct result of our believing the gospel; our knowledge of our own justification comes from believing God’s promise of justification to every one who believes these glad tidings. For there is not only the divine testimony, but there is the promise annexed to it, assuring eternal life to every one who receives that testimony. There is first, then, a believed gospel, and then there is a believed promise. The latter is the “appropriation,” as it is called; which, after all, is nothing but the acceptance of the promise which is everywhere coupled with the gospel message. The believed gospel saves; but it is the believed promise that assures us of this salvation.

…

Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor the sacrifice; it is not the altar, nor the laver, nor the mercy-seat, nor the incense. It does not work, but accepts a work done ages ago; it does not wash, but leads us to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. It does not create; it merely links us to that new thing which was created when the “everlasting righteousness” was brought in (Daniel 9:24).

…

Though faith is not “the righteousness,” it is the tie between it and us. It realizes our present standing before God in the excellency of His own Son; and it tells us that our eternal standing, in the ages to come, is in the same excellency, and depends on the perpetuity of that righteousness which can never change. For never shall we put off that Christ whom we put on when we believed (Romans 12:14; Galatians 3:27). This divine raiment is “to everlasting.” It waxes not old, it cannot be rent, and its beauty fadeth not away.

—Horatius Bonar
The Everlasting Righteousness, Chapter 7

If God is willing that Christ should represent us, who are we, that we should refuse to be represented by Him? If God is willing to deal with us on the footing of Christ’s obedience, and to reckon that obedience to us as if it had been our own, who are we, that we should reject such a method of blessing, and call it unjust and impossible?

—Horatius Bonar
The Everlasting Righteousness

In the last days many shall be as “clouds without water, carried about of winds.” And this is one of the special perils of these “perilous times.” The winds are let loose, and are now performing their awful work of tossing hither and thither these empty clouds.

Hence the instability that prevails. Men are “carried about with every wind of doctrine.” They are not “rooted and grounded in love;” and having never “tasted that the Lord is gracious,” nor rested their weary souls upon Him, they go about seeking they know not what. They want something that will fill them, but not going to the Divine fulness of the incarnate Word for it, they wander on in sadness of spirit, vainly trying to soothe their uneasy souls with every new doctrine or device that meets them in the way! All in vain. For what can be a substitute for God and His free love?

Amid all this instability, let us “stand fast in the faith.” Let us be “strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Let us beware of novelties in religion. Let us guard against fickleness of opinion and hastiness of decision. Satan will let loose his blasts and call up his storms; let us only moor our vessel firmer, and keep faster hold of the anchor, which is sure and steadfast, “and which entereth into that which is within the veil.” Thus, in patience shall we possess our souls, for “he that believeth doth not make haste.”

—Horatius Bonar
Words of Peace and Welcome

Via: Horatius Bonar

Upon a Life I have not lived,
Upon a Death I did not die,
Another’s Life; Another’s Death:
I stake my whole eternity.

Not on the tears which I have shed;
Not on the sorrows I have known:
Another’s tears; Another’s griefs;
On them I rest, on them alone.

—Horatius Bonar
Christ For Us

Faith is not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us; that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for our sins. Faith is one thing, the Saviour is another. Faith is one thing, and the cross is another. Let us not confound them, nor ascribe to a poor, imperfect act of man, that which belongs exclusively to the Son of the Living God.

Our security is this, that it matters not how poor or weak our faith maybe: if it touches the perfect One, all is well. God has asked and provided a perfect righteousness; He nowhere asks nor expects a perfect faith. So a feeble, very feeble faith, will connect us with the righteousness of the Son of God; the faith, perhaps, that can only cry, ‘Lord, I believe; help mine unbelief.’

—Horatius Bonar
Not Faith, But Christ

Via: Of First Importance