J.C. Ryle

Do you know how your sins are to be pardoned? Do you know how a just and holy God can forgive your many transgressions and yet be just and holy still?

Let me suppose for a moment that you are anxious about your soul. You are pressed down by a bad conscience. The remembrance of your sins is grievous to you. The burden of them is intolerable. Now what ought you to do? Whither will you go? Which way will you turn? What will you trust in for pardon and forgiveness? Listen to me for a few moments, while I speak to you about this.

Will you turn to ministers, and put your trust in them? They cannot give you pardon: they can only tell you where it is to be found. They can set before you the bread of life; but you yourself must eat it. They can show you the path of peace; but you yourself must walk in it. The Jewish priest had no power to cleanse the leper, but only to declare him cleansed. The Christian minister has no power to forgive sins,—he can only pronounce who they are that are forgiven.

Will you turn to sacraments and ordinances, and trust in them? They cannot supply you with forgiveness, however diligently you may use them. By sacraments faith is confirmed and grace increased, in all who rightly use them; but they cannot justify the sinner; they cannot put away transgressions. You may go to the Lord’s table every Sunday in your life, but unless you look far beyond the sign to the thing signified, you will after all die in your sins. You may attend a daily service regularly; but if you think to establish a righteousness of your own by it, in the slightest degree, you are only getting further away from God every day.

Will you trust in your own works and endeavours, your virtues and your good deeds, your prayers and your alms? They will never buy for you an entrance into heaven; they will never pay your debt to God; they are all imperfect in themselves, and only increase your guilt; there is no merit or worthiness in them at the very best. “When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you,” says the Lord Jesus, “say, ‘We are unprofitable servants’” (Luke xvii. 10).

Will you trust in your own repentance and amendments? “You are very sorry for the past; you hope to be better for time to come; you hope God will be merciful.” Alas, if you lean on this, you have nothing beneath you but a broken reed! The judge does not pardon the thief because he is sorry for what he did. Today’s sorrow will not wipe off the score of yesterday’s sins. It is not an ocean of tears that would ever cleanse an uneasy conscience and give it peace.

Where then must a man go for pardon? Where is forgiveness to be found? Listen, reader, and by God’s help I will tell you. There is a way both sure and plain, and into that way I desire to guide every inquirer’s feet.

That way is, simply to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour. It is to cast your soul, with all it’s sins, unreservedly on Christ,—to cease completely from any dependence on your own works and doings, either in whole or in part,—and to rest on no other work but Christ’s work, no other merit but Christ’s merit, as your ground of hope. Take this course, and you are a pardoned soul. To Christ, says Peter, “give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts x. 43). “Through this man,” said Paul at Antioch, “is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by Him all that believe are justified from all things” (Acts xiii. 38). In Him, writes Paul to the Colossians, “we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Col. i. 14).

The Lord Jesus Christ, in great love and compassion, has made a full and complete satisfaction for sin, by His own death upon the cross. There He offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, and allowed the wrath of God, which we deserved, to fall on His own head. For our sins He gave Himself: suffered and died,—the just for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty,—that He might deliver us from the curse of a broken law, and provide a complete pardon for all who are willing to receive it. And by so doing, as Isaiah says, He has borne our sins as John the Baptist says, He has taken away sin; as Paul says, He has purged our sins, and put away sin; and as Daniel says, He has made an end of sin, and finished transgression (Isaiah liii. 11; John i. 29; Heb. i. 3, ix. 26; Dan. ix. 24).

And now the Lord Jesus is sealed and appointed by God the Father to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give remission of sins to all who will have it. The keys of death and hell are put in His hand. The government of the gates of heaven is laid on His shoulder. He himself is the door, and by Him all that enter in shall be saved. (Acts v. 31; Rev. i. 18; John x. 9).

Reader, believe on this Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Come to Him this day, with all thy sins and wickedness, with all thy doubts and fears, with all thy feeling of unfitness and unworthiness, and He will not cast thee out nor refuse thee. He has said it. He will stand to it. He never breaks His word. “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John vi. 37).

Reader, do you want to have your sins pardoned? You have heard of the good way. Walk in it, and you shall be saved.