Saved by His Life

A. B. Simpson was an author, hymn writer, conference speaker, evangelist to the urban masses of New York City, and a missionary statesman.  He founded The Christian and Missionary Alliance and Nyack College.

The following is from his book The Christ Life:

"And this leads us to notice that this expression, the Blood of Christ, has a higher and deeper meaning in connection with the resurrection, for 'the blood is the life,' and it is the life of Jesus Christ, His risen life as well as His atoning death, which cleanses us from all sin. We are 'saved by his life,' quite as truly as by death. 

". . . And so with grateful love we celebrate the victory of our risen Lord and hail Him as the Prince of Life and the Living One, living now as the Conqueror of death, as the Possessor of a new life for all who are united to Him in His death and resurrection.

The Life Indwelling.—For this life is not for Himself, but for us; having risen from the dead He now comes to relive His life in us. This is the secret of sanctification as it is unfolded in the first Epistle of John, and it is the solution of every puzzling problem in connection with that epistle.

"Perhaps no portion of the New Testament has so many seeming contradictions on the subject of holiness as this Epistle.

"For example, we are told in the first chapter, 'If we say we have no sin, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.' And yet a little later we are told with equal emphasis, 'He that is begotten of God sinneth not, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.' Now how can these be reconciled?

"It is all very simple. First, it is true that we—that is the human 'we'—have sin and have sinned. There is no good in us, and we have renounced ourselves as worthless and helpless; but, on the other hand, we have taken Him to be our life, and His life is a sinless one.

"The seed that He plants in us is as spotless as that beautiful bulb and blossom which you plant in the unclean soil, but which grows up as pure as an angel’s wing, unstained by the soil around it. It belongs to another element, and is in its own nature essentially and inherently pure."