Every blessing through that channel

We are not justified before God by works in any measure or in any degree, but by faith alone; and the apostle tells us “it is of faith, that it might be by grace.” We see a golden thread of grace running through the whole of the Christian’s history, from his election before all worlds, even to his admission to the heaven of rest. Grace, all along, “reigns through righteousness unto eternal life,” and “where sin aboundeth, grace doth much more abound.”

There is no point in the history of a saved soul upon which you can put your finger and say, “In this instance he is saved by his own deservings.” Every single blessing which we receive from God, comes to us by the channel of free favor, revealed to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Boasting is excluded, because deservings are excluded. Merit is an unknown word in the Christian church; it is banished once for all; and our only shoutings over foundation or topstone are, “Grace, grace unto it!”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Salvation All Of Grace," delivered August 4, 1872. Image by Victor Bezrukov under Creative Commons License.