Now I notice another thing: “Because I rejoice in Your salvation.” There is something striking in that expression. You hear lots of people rejoicing “in my salvation,” but here it is, “Because I rejoice in Your salvation.” It is viewing salvation from His side instead of ours. If you think of salvation as your salvation—though to be sure you are the subject of it—you measure it by your need; but when it is the Lord’s salvation, you measure it by Him, so it is just as big as God Himself. He is revealed in that character as Savior.

In Hebrews we have salvation spoken of as “so great a salvation” (Heb. 2:3). It is not great because of what it saves us from, or what it saves us to, but great because of the One who has wrought it, who has effected it, and accomplished it. It cannot be an ordinary salvation because it has not been provided by an ordinary one, but by the One who made the world.

Then Hannah says, “No one is holy like the Lord.” That is a very salutary truth. You hear people constantly speaking about the love, pity, and compassion of God. But do not be led to believe that God is love in such a way as not to be righteous. People are saying everyone will be saved and none will be lost. But it is just like this: if sin is a thing of such enormity that it required the death of the Son of God, can it be any wonder that a sinner will be judged if he rejects that Son? You remember the devil’s early lie to Eve in the Garden of Eden: “You will not surely die”; as much as to say, God is too good to carry into execution His threat. He is saying now, God is too good to punish man. Yet, “No one is holy like the Lord.” His holiness required the sacrifice of His Son, and it will require the punishment of the sinner who rejects that Son.