A Fourfold Salvation by A. W. Pink - Salvation from the Power of Sin - part 2

A Fourfold Salvation by A. W. Pink - Salvation from the Power of Sin

Following up yesterday's post, we will look at the rest of Pink's explanation of our salvation from the power of sin. Pink differentiates between human responsibilities and Divine responsibilities in our salvation from sin's power. Yesterday we focused on the human side, today we will consider the Divine side.

"These two aspects (the Divine and the human) are brought together in a number of scriptures. We are bidden to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling” but the apostle immediately added, “for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12,13). Thus, we are to work out that which God has wrought within us; in other words, if we walk in the Spirit we shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:16)."

Pink offers four ways in which God helps save us from the power of sin:

1. "First , by granting us a clearer view of our inward depravity , so that we are made to abhor ourselves. By nature we are thoroughly in love with ourselves, but as the Divine work of grace is carried forward in our souls we come to loathe ourselves; and that, my reader, is a very distressing experience—one that is conveniently shelved by most of our modern preachers."
2. "Second , by sore chastenings . This is another means which God uses in delivering His people from sin's dominion: “We have had fathers of our flesh which have corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness” (Heb. 12:9,10)."
3. "Third , by bitter disappointments . God has plainly warned us that “all is vanity and vexation of spirit, and there is no profit under the sun” (Eccl. 2:11), and that by one who was permitted to gratify the physical senses as none other ever has been."
4. "Fourth , it is by the gift of the Spirit and His operations within us. God's great gift of Christ for us is matched by the gift of the Spirit in us, for we owe as much to the One as we do to the Other. The new nature in the Christian is powerless apart from the Spirit's daily renewing. It is by His gracious operations that we have discovered to us the nature and extent of sin, are made to strive against it, are brought to grieve over it. It is by the Spirit that faith, hope, and prayer are kept alive within the soul. It is by the Spirit we are moved to use the means of grace which God has appointed for our spiritual preservation and growth. It is by the Spirit that sin is prevented from having complete dominion over us, for as the result of His indwelling in us, there is something else besides sin in the believer's heart and life, namely, the fruits of holiness and righteousness."

Pink sums up this aspect of our salvation with this: "Present salvation from the power of sin consists in, first, delivering us from the love of it, which though begun at our regeneration is continued throughout our practical sanctification. Second, from its blinding delusiveness , so that it can no more deceive as it once did. Third, from our excusing it: “that which I do, I allow not” (Rom. 7:15). This is one of the surest marks of regeneration."