Christ – our substitute

A sermon by Charles H. Spurgeon

“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” – 2 Corinthians 5.21

Some time ago an excellent lady sought an interview with me, with the object as she said, of enlisting my sympathy upon the question of “Anti-Capital Punishment.” I heard the excellent reasons she urged against hanging men who had committed murder, and though they did not convince me, I did not seek to answer her. She proposed that when a man committed murder, he should be confined for life. My remark was, that a great many men who had been confined half their lives were not a bit the better for it, and as for her belief that they would necessarily be brought to repentance, I was afraid it was but a dream. “Ah,” she said, good soul as she was, “that is because we have been all wrong about punishments. We punish people because we think they deserve to be punished. Now, we ought to show them,” said she, “that we love them; that we only punish them to make them better.” “Indeed, madam,” I said, “I have heard that theory a great many times, and I have seen much fine writing upon the matter, but I am no believer in it. The design of punishment should be amendment, but the ground of punishment lies in the positive guilt of the offender. I believe that when a man does wrong, he ought to be punished for it, and that there is a guilt in sin which justly merits punishment.” “Oh no; she could not see that. Sin was a very wrong thing, but punishment was not a proper idea. She thought that people were treated too cruelly in prison, and that they ought to be taught that we love them. If they were treated kindly in prison, and tenderly dealt with, they would grow so much better, she was sure.” With a view of interpreting her own theory, I said, “I suppose, then, you would give criminals all sorts of indulgences in prison. Some great vagabond who has committed burglary dozens of times-I suppose you would let him sit in an easy chair in the evening before a nice fire, and mix him a glass of spirits and water, and give him his pipe, and make him happy, to show him how much we love him.” “Well, no, she would not give him the spirits, but, still, all the rest would do him good.” I thought that was a delightful picture certainly. It seemed to me to be the most prolific method of cultivating rogues which ingenuity could invent. I imagine that you could grow any number of thieves in that way; for it would be a special means of propagating all manner of roguery and wickedness. These very delightful theories to such a simple mind as mine, were the source of much amusement, the idea of fondling villains, and treating their crimes as if they were the tumbles and falls of children, made me laugh heartily. I fancied I saw the government resigning its functions to these excellent persons, and the grand results of their marvellously kind experiments. The sword of the magistrate transformed into a gruel-spoon, and the jail become a sweet retreat for injured reputations.

Little however, did I think I should live to see this kind of stuff taught in pulpits; I had no idea that there would come out a divinity, which would bring down God’s moral government from the solemn aspect in which Scripture reveals it, to a namby-pamby sentimentalism, which adores a Deity destitute of every masculine virtue. But we never know to-day what may occur to-morrow. We have lived to see a certain sort of men-thank God they are not Baptists-though I am sorry to say there are a great many Baptists who are beginning to follow in their trail-who seek to teach now-a-days, that God is a universal Father, and that our ideas of his dealing with the impenitent as a Judge, and not as a Father, are remnants of antiquated error. Sin, according to these men, is a disorder rather than an offence, an error rather than a crime. Love is the only attribute they can discern, and the full-orbed Deity they have not known. Some of these men push their way very far into the bogs and mire of falsehood, until they inform us that eternal punishment is ridiculed as a dream. In fact, books now appear, which teach us that there is no such thing as the Vicarious Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. They use the word Atonement it is true, but in regard to its meaning, they have removed the ancient landmark. They acknowledge that the Father has shown his great love to poor sinful man by sending his Son, but not that God was inflexibly just in the exhibition of his mercy, not that he punished Christ on the behalf of his people, nor that indeed God ever will punish anybody I his wrath, or that there is such a thing as justice apart from discipline. Even sin and hell are but old words employed henceforth in a new and altered sense. Those are old-fashioned notions, and we poor souls who go on talking about election and imputed righteousness, are behind our time. Ay, and the gentlemen who bring out books on this subject, applaud Mr. Maurice, and Professor Scott, and the like, but are too cowardly to follow them, and boldly propound these sentiments. These are the new men whom God has sent down from heaven, to tell us that the apostle Paul was all wrong, that our faith is vain, that we have been quite mistaken, that there was no need for propitiating blood to wash away our sins; that the fact was, our sins needed discipline, but penal vengeance and righteous wrath are quite out of the question. When I thus speak, I am free to confess that such ideas are not boldly taught by a certain individual whose volume excites these remarks, but as he puffs the books of gross perverters of the truth, I am compelled to believe that he endorses such theology.

Well, brethren, I am happy to say that sort of stuff has not gained entrance into this pulpit. I dare say the worms will eat the wood before there will be anything of that sort sounded in his place; and may these bones be picked by vultures, and this flesh be rent in sunder by lions, and may every nerve in this body suffer pangs and tortures, ere these lips shall give utterance to any such doctrines or sentiments. We are content to remain among the vulgar souls who believe the old doctrines of grace. We are willing still to be behind in the great march of intellect, and stand by that unmoving cross, which, like the pole star, never advances, because it never stirs, but always abides in its place, the guide of the soul to heaven, the one foundation other than which no man can lay, and without building upon which, no man shall ever see the face of God and live.

Thus much have I said upon a matter which just now is exciting controversy. It has been my high privilege to be associated with six of our ablest brethren in the ministry, in a letter of protest against the countenance which a certain newspaper seemed willing to lend to this modern heresy. We trust it may be the means, in the hands of God, of helping to check that downward march-that wandering from truth which seems by some singular infatuation, to have unsettled the minds of some brethren in our denomination. Now I come to address you upon the topic which is most continually assailed by those who preach another gospel “which is not another-but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ,” namely, the doctrine of the substitution of Christ on our behalf, his actual atonement for our sins, and our positive and actual justification through his sufferings and righteousness. It seems to me that until language can mean the very reverse of what it says, until by some strange logic, God’s Word can be contradicted and can be made to belief itself, the doctrine of substitution can never be rooted out of the words which I have selected for my text “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

First, then, the sinlessness of the substitute; secondly, the reality of the imputation of sin to him; and thirdly, the glorious reality of the imputation of righteousness to us.

I. First, THE SINLESSNESS OF THE SUBSTITUTE.

The doctrine of Holy Scripture is this, that inasmuch as man could not keep God’s law, having fallen in Adam, Christ came and fulfilled the law on the behalf of his people; and that inasmuch as man had already broken the divine law and incurred the penalty of the wrath of God, Christ came and suffered in the room, place, and stead of his elect ones, that so by his enduring the full vials of wrath, they might be emptied out and not a drop might ever fall upon the heads of his blood-bought people. Now, you will readily perceive that if one is to be a substitute for another before God, either to work out a righteousness or to suffer a penalty, that substitute must himself be free from sin. If he hath sin of his own, all that he can suffer will but be the due reward of his own iniquity. If he hath himself transgressed, he cannot suffer for another, because all his sufferings are already due on his own personal account. On the other and, it is quite clear that none but a perfect man could ever work out a spotless righteousness for us, and keep the law in our stead, for if he hath dishonoured the commandment in his thought, there must be a corresponding flaw in his service. If the warp and woof be speckled, how shall he bring forth the robe of milk-white purity, and wrap it about our loins? He must be a spotless one who shall become the representative of his people, either to give them a passive or active righteousness, either to offer a satisfaction as the penalty of their sins, or a righteousness as the fulfilment of God’s demand.

It is satisfactory for us to know, and to believe beyond a doubt, that our Lord Jesus was without sin. Of course, in his divine nature he could not know iniquity; and as for his human nature, it never knew the original taint of depravity. He was of the seed of the woman, but not of the tainted and infected see of Adam. Overshadowed as was the virgin by the Holy Ghost, no corruption entered into his nativity. That holy thing which was born of her was neither conceived in sin nor shapen in iniquity. He was brought into this world immaculate. He was immaculately conceived and immaculately born. In him that natural black blood which we have inherited from Adam never dwelt. His heart was upright within him; his soul was without any bias to evil; his imagination had never been darkened. He had no infatuated mind. There was no tendency whatever in him that to do that which was good, holy, and honourable. And as he did not share in the original depravity, so he did not share in the imputed sin of Adam which we have inherited-not, I mean, in himself personally, though he took the consequences of that, as he stood as our representative. The sin of Adam had never passed over the head of the second Adam. All that were in the loins of Adam sinned in him when he touched the fruit; but Jesus was not in the loins of Adam. Though he might be conceived of as being in the womb of the woman-”a new thing which the Lord created in the earth,”-he lay not in Adam when he sinned, and consequently no guilt from Adam, either of depravity of nature, or of distance from God, ever fell upon Jesus as the result of anything that Adam did. I mean upon Jesus as considered in himself though he certainly took the sin of Adam as he was the representative of his people.

Again, as in his nature he was free from the corruption and condemnation of the sin of Adam, so also in his life, no sin ever corrupted his way. His eye never flashed with unhallowed anger; his lip never uttered a treacherous or deceitful word; his heat never harboured an evil imagination. Never did he wander after lust; no covetousness ever so much as glanced into his soul. He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” From the beginning of his life to the end, you cannot put your finger even upon a mistake, much less upon a wilful error. So perfect was he, that no virtue seems to preponderate, or by an opposing quality give a bias to the scale of absolute rectitude. John is distinguished for his love, Peter for his courage; but Jesus Christ is distinguished for neither one above the another, because he possesses all in such sublime unison, such heavenly harmony, that no one virtue stands out above the rest. He is meek, but he is courageous. He is loving, but he is decided; he is bold as a lion, yet he is quiet and peaceful as a lamb. He was like that fine flour which was offered before God in the burnt offering; a flour without grit, so smooth, that when you rubbed it, it was soft and pure, no particles could be discerned: so was his character fully ground, fully compounded. There was not one feature in his moral countenance which had undue preponderance above the other; but he was replete in everything that was virtuous and good. Tempted he was, it is true, but sinned he never. The whirlwind came from the wilderness, and smote upon the four corners of that house, but it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. The rains descended, heaven afflicted him; the winds blew, the mysterious agency of hell assailed him; the floods came, all earth was in arms against him, but yet he stood firm in the midst of all. Never once did he even seem to bend before the tempest; but buffetting the fury of the blast, bearing all the temptations that could ever happen to man, which summed themselves up and consummated their fury on him, he stood to the end, without a single flaw in his life, or a stain upon his spotless robe. Let us rejoice, then, in this, my beloved brothers and sisters, that we have such a substitute-one who is fit and proper to stand in our place, and to suffer in our stead, seeing he has no need to offer a sacrifice for himself; no need to cry for himself, “Father, I have sinned;” no need to bend the knee of the penitent and confess his own iniquities, for he is without spot or blemish, the perfect lamb of God’s passover.

I would have you carefully notice the particular expression of the text, for it struck me as being very beautiful and significant,-”who knew no sin.” It does not merely say did none, but knew none. Sin was no acquaintance of his; he was acquainted with grief, but no acquaintance of sin. He had to walk in the midst of its most frequented haunts, but did not know it; not that he was ignorant of its nature, or did not know its penalty, but he did not know it; he was a stranger to it, he never gave it the wink or nod of familiar recognition. Of course he knew what sin was, for he was very God, but with the sin he had no communion, no fellowship, no brotherhood. He was a perfect stranger in the presence of sin; he was a foreigner; he was not an inhabitant of that land where sin is acknowledge. He passed through the wilderness of suffering, but into the wilderness of sin he could never go. “He knew no sin;” mark that expression and treasure it up, and when you are thinking of your substitute, and see him hang bleeding upon the cross, think that you see written in those lines of blood written along his blessed body, “He knew no sin.” Mingled with the redness of his blood-that Rose of Sharon; behold the purity of his nature, the Lily of the Valley-”He knew no sin.”

II. Let us pass on to notice the second and most important point; THE ACTUAL SUBSTITUTION OF CHRIST, AND THE REAL IMPUTATION OF SIN TO HIM. “He made him to be sin for us.”

Here be careful to observe who transferred the sin. God the Father laid on Jesus the iniquities of us all. Man could not make Christ sin. Man could not transfer his guilt to another. It is not for us to say whether Christ could or could not have made himself sin for us; that certain it is, he did not take this priesthood upon himself, but he was called of God, as was Aaron. The Redeemer’s vicarious position is warranted, nay ordained by divine authority. “He hath made him to be sin for us.” I must now beg you to notice how very explicit the term is. Some of our expositors will have it that the word here used must mean “sin-offering.” “He made him to be a sin-offering for us.” I thought it well to look to my Greek Testament to see whether it could be so. Of course we all know that the word here translated “sin,” is very often translated “sin-offering,” but it is always useful, when you have a disputed passage, to look it through, and see whether in this case the word would bear such a meaning. These commentators say it means a sin-offering,-well, I will read it: “He hath made him to be a sin-offering for us who knew no sin-offering.” Does not that strike you as being ridiculous? But they are precisely the same words; and if it be fair to translate it “sin-offering” in one place, it must, in all reason, be fair to translate it so in the other. The fact it, while in some passages it may be rendered “sin-offering,” in this passage it cannot be so, because it would be to run counter to all honesty to translate the same word in the same sentence two different ways. No; we must take hem as they stand. “He hath made him to be sin for us,” not merely an offering, but sin for us.

My predecessor, Dr. Gill, edited the works of Tobias Crisp, but Tobias Crisp went further than Dr. Gill or any of us can approve; for in one place Crisp calls Christ a sinner, though he does not mean that he ever sinned himself. He actually calls Christ a transgressor, and justifies himself by that passage, “He was numbered with the transgressors.” Martin Luther is reputed to have broadly said that, although Jesus Christ was sinless, yet he was the greatest sinner that ever lived, because all the sins of his people lay upon him. Now, such expressions I think to be unguarded, if not profane. Certainly Christian men should take care that they use not language which, by the ignorant and uninstructed, may be translated to mean what they never intended to teach. The fact is, brethren, that in no sense whatever-take that as I say it-in no sense whatever can Jesus Christ ever be conceived of as having been guilty. He knew no sin. Not only was he not guilty of any sin which he committed himself, but he was not guilty of our sins. No guilt can possibly attach to a man who has not been guilty. He must have had complicity in the deed itself, or else no guilt can possibly be laid on him. Jesus Christ stands in the midst of all the divine thunders, and suffers all the punishment, but not a drop of sin ever stained him. In no sense is he ever a guilty man, but always is he an accepted and a holy one. What, then, is the meaning of that very forcible expression f my text? We must interpret Scriptural modes of expression by the verbage of the speakers. We know that our Master once said himself, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood;” he did not mean that the cup was the covenant. He said, “Take, eat, this is my body”-no one of us conceives that the bread is the literal flesh and blood of Christ. We take that bread as if it were the body, and it actually represents it. Now, we are to read a passage like this, according to the analogy of faith. Jesus Christ was made by his Father sin for us, that is, he was treated as if he had himself been sin. He was not sin; he was not sinful; he was not guilty; but, he was treated by his Father, as if he had not only been sinful, but as if he had been sin itself. That is a strong expression used here. Not only hath he made him to be the substitute for sin, but to be sin. God looked on Christ as if Christ had been sin; not as if he had taken up the sins of his people, or as if they were laid on him, though that were true, but as if he himself had positively been that noxious-that God-hating-that soul-damning thing, called sin. When the Judge of all the earth said, “Where is Sin?” Christ presented himself. He stood before his Father as if he had been the accumulation of all human guilt; as if he himself were that thing which God cannot endure, but which he must drive from his presence for ever. And now see how this making of Jesus to be sin was enacted to the fullest extent. The righteous Lord looked on Christ as being sin, and therefore Christ must be taken without the camp. Sin cannot be borne in God’s Zion, cannot be allowed to dwell in God’s Jerusalem; it must be taken without the camp, it is a leprous thing, put it away. Cast out from fellowship, from love, from pity, sin must ever be. Take him away, take him away, ye crowd! Hurry him through the streets and bear him to Calvary. Take him without the camp-as was the beast which was offered for sin without the camp, so must Christ be, who was made sin for us. And now, God looks on him as being sin, and sin must bear punishment. Christ is punished. The most fearful of deaths is exacted at his hand, and God has no pity for him. How should he have pity on sin? God hates it. No tongue can tell, no soul can divine the terrible hatred of God to that which is evil, and he treats Christ as if he were sin. He prays, but heaven shuts out his prayer; he cries for water, but heaven and earth refuse to wet his lips except with vinegar. He turns his eye to heaven, he sees nothing there. How should he? God cannot look on sin, and sin can have no claim on God: “My God, my God,” he cries, “why hast thou forsaken me?” O solemn necessity, how could God do anything with sin but forsake it? How could iniquity have fellowship with God? Shall divine smiles rest on sin? Nay, nay, it must not be. Therefore is it that he who is made sin must bemoan desertion and terror. God cannot touch him, cannot dwell with him, cannot come near him. He is abhorred, cast away; it hath pleased the Father to bruise him; he hath put him to grief. At last he dies. God will not keep him in life-how should he? Is it not the meetest thing in the world that sin should be buried? “Bury it out of my sight, hide this corruption,” and lo! Jesus, as if he were sin, is put away out of the sight of God and man as a thing obnoxious. I do not know whether I have clearly uttered what I want to state, but what a Grim picture that is, to conceive of sin gathered up into one mass-murder, lust and rapine, and adultery, and all manner of crime, all piled together in one hideous heap. We ourselves, brethren, impure though we be, could not bear this; how much less should God with his pure and holy eyes bear with that mass of sin, and yet there it is, and God looked upon Christ as if he were that mass of sin. He was not sin, but he looked upon him as made sin for us. He stands in our place, assumes our guilt, takes on him our iniquity, and God treats him as if he had been sin. Now, my dear brothers and sisters, let us just lift up our hearts with gratitude for a few moments. Here we are to-night; we know that we are guilty, but our sins have all been punished years ago. Before my soul believed in Christ, the punishment of my sin had all been endured. We are not to think that Christ’s blood derives its efficacy from our faith. Fact precedes faith. Christ hath redeemed us; faith discovers his; but it was a fact of that finished sacrifice. Though still defiled by sin, yet who can lay anything to he charge of the man whose guilt is gone, lifted bodily from off him, and put upon Christ? How can any punishment fall on that man who ceases to possess sins, because his sin has eighteen hundred years ago been cast upon Christ, and Christ has suffered in his place and stead? Oh, glorious triumph of faith to be able to say, whenever I feel the guilt of sin, whenever conscience pricks me, “Yes, it is true, but my Lord is answerable for it all, for he has taken it all upon himself, and suffered in my room, and place, and stead.” How precious when I see my debts, to be able to say, “Yes, but the blood of Christ, God’s dear Son, hath cleansed me from all sin!” How precious, not only to see my sin dying when I believe, but to know that it was dead, it was gone, it ceased to Be, eighteen hundred years ago. All the sins that you and I have ever committed, or ever shall commit, if we be heirs of mercy, and children of God, are all dead things.

Our Jesus nailed them to his cross,
And sung the triumph when he rose.

These cannot rise in judgment to condemn us; they have all been slain, shrouded, buried; they are removed from us as far as the east is from the west, because “He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin.”

III. You see then the reality of the imputation of sin to Christ from the amazing doctrine that Christ is made sin for us. But now notice the concluding thought, upon which I must dwell a moment, but it must be very briefly, for two reasons, my time has gone, and my strength has gone too. “THAT WE MIGHT BE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM.” Now, here I beg you to notice, that it does not simply say that we might be made righteous, but “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him;” as if righteousness, that lovely, glorious, God-honouring, God-delighting thing-as if we were actually made that. God looks on his people as being abstract righteousness, not only righteous, but righteousness. To be righteous, is as if a man should have a box covered with gold, the box would then be golden; but to be righteousness is to have a box of solid gold. To be a righteous man is to have righteousness cast over me; but to be made righteousness, that is to be made solid essential righteousness in the sight of God. Well now, this is a glorious fact and a most wonderful privilege, that we poor sinners are made “the righteousness of God in him.” God sees no sin in any one of his people, no iniquity in Jacob, when he looks upon them in Christ. In themselves he sees nothing but filth and abomination, in Christ nothing but purity and righteousness. Is it not, and must it not ever be to the Christian, one of his most delightful privileges to know that altogether apart from anything that we have ever done, or can do, God looks upon his people as being righteous, nay, as being righteousness, and that despite all of the sins they have ever committed, they are accepted in him as if they had been Christ, while Christ was punished for them as if he had been sin. Why, when I stand in my own place, I am lost and ruined; my place is the place where Judas stood, the place where the devil lies in everlasting shame. But when I stand in Christ’s place-and I fail to stand where faith has put me till I stand there-when I stand in Christ’s place, the Father’s everlastingly beloved one, the Father’s accepted one, him whom the Father delighteth to honour-when I stand there, I stand where faith hath a right to put me, and I am in the most joyous spot that a creature of God can occupy. Oh, Christian, get thee up, get thee up into the high mountain, and stand where thy Saviour stands, for that is thy place. Lie not there on the dunghill of fallen humanity, that is not thy place now; Christ has once taken it on thy behoof. “He made him to be sin for us.” Thy place is yonder there, above the starry hosts, where he hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in him. Not there, at the day of judgment, where the wicked shriek for shelter, and beg for the hills to cover hem, but there, where Jesus sits upon his throne-there is thy place, my soul. He will make thee to sit upon his throne, even as he has overcome, and has sat down with his Father upon his throne. Oh! That I could mount to the heights of this argument to-night; it needs a seraphic preacher to picture the saint in Christ, robed in Christ’s righteousness, wearing Christ’s nature, bearing Christ’s palm of victory, sitting on Christ’s throne, wearing Christ’s crown. And yet this is our privilege! He wore my crown, the crown of thorns; I wear his crown, the crown of glory. He wore my dress, nay, rather, he wore my nakedness when he died upon the cross; I wear his robes, the royal robes of the King of kings. He bore my shame; I bear his honour. He endured my sufferings to this end that my joy may be full, and that his joy may be fulfilled in me. He laid in the grave that I might rise from the dead and that I may dwell in him, and all this he comes again to give me, to make it sure to me and to all hat love his appearing, to show that all his people shall enter into their inheritance.

Now, my brothers and sisters, Mr. Maurice, McLeod, Campbell, and their great admirer, Mr. Brown, may go on with their preaching as long as they like, but they will never make a convert of a man who knows what the vitality of religion is; for he who knows what substitution means, he who knows what it is to stand where Christ stands, will never care to occupy the ground on which Mr. Maurice stands. He who has ever been made to sit together with Christ, and once to enjoy the real preciousness of a transfer of Christ’s righteousness to him and his sin to Christ, that man has eaten the bread of heaven, and will never renounce it for husks. No, my brethren, we could lay down our lives for this truth rather than give it up. No, we cannot by any means turn aside from this glorious stability of faith, and for this good reason, that there is nothing for us in the doctrine which these men teach. It may suit intellectual gentlefolk, I dare say it does; but it will not suit us. We are poor sinners and nothing at all, and if Christ is not our all in all, there is nothing for us. I have often thought the best answer for all these new ideas is, that the true gospel was always preached to the poor;-”The poor have the gospel preached to them.”-I am sure that the poor will never learn the gospel of these new divines, for they cannot make head or tail of it, nor the rich either; for after you have read through one of their volumes, you have not the least idea of what the book is about, until you have read it through eight or nine times, and then you begin to think you are a very stupid being for ever having read such inflated heresy, for it sours your temper and makes you feel angry, to see the precious truths of God trodden under foot. Some of us must stand out against these attacks on truth, although we love not controversy. We rejoice in the liberty of our fellow-men, and would have them proclaim their convictions; but if they touch these precious things, they touch the apple of our eye. We can allow a thousand opinions in the world, but that which infringes upon the precious doctrine of a covenant salvation, through the imputed righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ,-against that we must, and will, enter our hearty and solemn protest, as long as God spares us. Take away once from us those glorious doctrines, and where are we brethren? We may lay us down and die, for nothing remains that is worth living for. We have come to the valley of the shadow of death, when we find these doctrines to be untrue. If these things which I speak to you to-night be not the verities of Christ; if they be not true, there is no comfort left for any poor man under God’s sky, and it were better for us never to have been born. I may say what Jonathan Edwards says at the end of his book, “If any man could disprove the doctrines of the gospel, he should then sit down and weep to think they were not true, for,” says he, “it would be the most dreadful calamity that could happen to the world, to have a glimpse of such truths, and then for them to melt away in the thin air of fiction, as having no substantiality in them.” Stand up for the truth of Christ; I would not have you be bigoted, but I would have you be decided. Do not give countenance to any of this trash and error, which is going abroad, but stand firm. Be not turned away from your stedfastness by any pretence of intellectuality and high philosophy, but earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to he saints, and hold fast the form of sound words which you have heard of us, and have been taught, even as ye have read in this sacred Book, which is the way of everlasting life.

Thus then, beloved, without gathering up my strength for the fray, or attempting to analyse the subtleties of those who would pervert the simple gospel, I speak out my mind and utter the kindlings of my heart among you. Little enough will ye reck, over whom the Holy Ghost hath given me the oversight, what the grievous wolves may design, if ye keep within the fold. Break not the sacred bounds wherein God hath enclosed his Church. He hath encircled us in the arms of covenant love. He hath united us in indissoluble bonds to the Lord Jesus. He hath fortified us with the assurance that the Holy Spirit shall guide us into all truth. God grant that those beyond the pale of visible fellowship with us in this eternal gospel may see their danger and escape from the fowler’s snare!

A sound investment

The global credit crunch is on. The crime rate is rising. Online phishing and offline fraud is commonplace. House prices are falling and mortgage rates are rising. In our homes, things wear out and break down. We live in world of decay and corruption.

This world has been described as one “where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.” And yet still we go on, buying things that we hope will last, building up savings that we hope will not be lost, investing in schemes and properties that we hope will hold or increase their value. We hope our inheritance will be worth something. And yet many of us are storing up our treasure in a world that will finally pass away.

The Bible talks about a man whose investments seemed to be paying off. He made big plans for the future, with dreams of expanding business and increasing wealth. He said to himself, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” But God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?” (Luke’s Gospel, chapter 12, verses 13 to 21).

Jesus Christ wrote a warning over that man’s life and death: “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”

Are you still investing in this world? Are you storing up treasures on earth, where decay and corruption reign, and without any guarantees that you will be around to enjoy the things which you are able to get?

This passing world is a place of moths and rust and thieves. Nothing belonging to it lasts or is secure. It is uncertain and unpredictable. Our own lives are short, our days passing swiftly: “As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more” (Psalm 103, verses 15 and 16).

So where do we turn? What can we invest in? What will last the test of time and of eternity? When Northern Rock shatters, is there solid rock on which we can build?

Jesus Christ warns us to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where our treasure is, there will our hearts be also (Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 6, verses 19 to 21). He goes on to speak of the man who hears his words and does them as building his house upon the rock. Such a house stands when the storms of time and of judgement batter it, because it is founded on the rock (chapter 7, verses 24 to 27).

Where is your treasure, and where is your heart? What is your foundation and your hope? Are you like the rich fool, investing everything in a passing and uncertain world, in a passing and uncertain life? Or will you be the wise man, who built his house on the rock, and therefore could never be shaken? Have you made a sound investment?

Born again

There cannot be many people who do not feel some sort of emotion at the return of Spring. Winter can be very dreary and depressing: waking up with the sun shining and feeling the stirrings of a fresh breeze that does not make you run for a thicker coat or a pair of gloves can be a real relief. Similarly, it is hard not to feel some sort of pleasure at the first signs that the cold earth has woken after months of silence and deadness, and that the wounds of Winter are beginning to heal: the ground is not so hard; the showers are refreshing; the buds are beginning to show green against the bark of the trees; the first green shoots pierce the heavy soil; some mornings when the sun rises and picks out the green promises of summer to come you can almost feel life and vitality in the air.

The hearts of men and women are naturally very similar to the world’s Winter. They are hard and cold. There is no life, and no sign of life. There is nothing that the earth can do itself in Winter to cause life to spring up, and there is nothing that the human heart can do in and of itself to bring about a change in its dead state. The Bible likens our hearts to ‘tablets of stone’ (Ezekiel 26.26), and nothing living grows in stone: the capacity for life does not exist in it.

But we have a hope: in the same way as the return of the sun brings life to the earth, so there is hope for the human heart. The heart needs to be melted – there must be new life given. The Bible informs us that we must be born again, that we must be made anew, that what was cold and dead must be made living and healthy. How does this change come about? The only way for the heart to thaw, for men and women to be born again, is for ‘the Sun of Righteousness’ to arise, ‘with healing in his wings’ (Malachi 4.2). Who is this Sun of Righteousness? It is the Lord Jesus Christ.

However, unlike the Spring, we cannot simply wait for this to happen in us. There is no automatic change of season in our hearts that brings new life. The Scriptures teach that the Sun of Righteousness shall rise and heal ‘you who fear my name’ – the name of God Almighty. To fear God is to repent of sins, and to humble yourself before him for salvation, a salvation that comes only through Jesus.

Without Christ, without being thawed by the Sun of Righteousness, without being drenched in the tears of repentance, the heart remains dead, and will remain forever dead. We must be born again by the Spirit of God (John’s Gospel, chapter 3, verse 3), and only in Christ does the heart of stone become a heart of flesh, able to experience the true joy of life, able to rejoice and bring forth good fruit. The Sun of Righteousness heals the wounds of a barren heart, and brings newness of life to that which was dead.

“What must I do to be saved?”

What follows is taken from a descriptive account of the apostle Paul’s ministry in the city of Philippi, recorded in Acts 16.6-40.[1] We pick up with the angry activity of the masters of a young slave girl just delivered from the bondage of demon possession by Paul:

They hurried Paul and Silas to the forum, raised a tumult against them, first as Jews, and then as religious innovators. Toleration was not known to the Roman law, though it was sometimes practised. Thus Judaism was allowed, but proselytism forbidden. It was, as Livy tells us, one of the laws of the Twelve Tables – the great Roman Charter – “Let none have gods apart, neither let new or strange gods be privately worshipped unless publicly received.” The “masters” had become suddenly conscientious in defence of the old established faith. Not that they cared in truth for any altar; their motive was pelf and not piety; and having so strangely lost one source of wealth, under the plea of religion they thirsted for vengeance. The bench yielded to the clamour, and the clothes of the preachers being torn off them by the lictors, they were scourged, not as under Jewish law, by which the castigation was inflicted by thongs, and limited to stripes ” forty save one,” but ” many stripes” inflicted by rods were laid upon them. With their backs unwashed, and their wounds bleeding, were they thrust “into the inner prison;” and, to augment the torture, the raw and quivering flesh was further bruised, jagged, and irritated by the friction and the unnatural posture, for “their feet were made fast in the stocks.” But their courage did not fail them. On losing a battle in that neighbourhood, Cassius, “the last of the Romans,” hid himself in his tent, and bade his freedman strike, while Brutus, in his sullen desperation, fell upon his sword. But, so far from drooping and murmuring, and calling God to account, who had beckoned them to Europe, and yet had permitted them to be so “shamefully entreated;” so far from resolving to desert a Master who had not protected them, or deeming the vision at Troas a lure to draw them on to stripes and a dungeon, Paul and Silas” prayed, and not only poured out their hearts in supplication, but “sang praises unto God,” and that in no whispered melody, for ” the prisoners heard them.” Peter slept soundly in prison “between two soldiers, bound with two chains,” and that on the eve of expected martyrdom; for Herod was “intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.” There was more peace in Paul’s heart than in that of the damsel’s masters who were cursing their loss; more than in the hearts of the praetors who had caused him to be scourged, for it is plain by their conduct on the following day, that their minds were uneasy as to their rash and cruel procedure. A Hebrew melody was chanted in that inner prison at the dead hour of night. The sleep of the prisoners had been often broken by oaths, groans, and terrible noises; but that hymn, falling and swelling with its strange music and foreign words, produced a profound sensation. And as the prisoners heard – were listening, to the song as its dying cadence was echoing through the vaults and corridors, the edifice was shaken, the massive doors were opened, and “everyone’s bands were loosed.” The concussion awoke the jailor, who staring around him in consternation, and guessing the result, would have committed suicide – a miserable but common Roman refuge. Paul prevented so insane an act, and the keeper, with a light in his hand, “sprang in” to the cell of the apostle, and, in an agony of alarm, cried – “What must I do to be saved?” Self-murder was often eulogized by Roman sages, and had been practised by not a few of them. The jailor would have reckoned it a less disgrace to die by his own hand than by a military execution. But his hand was arrested by the apostle’s abrupt command – “the life that now is” was prolonged, that he might be soon put in possession of the life “that is to come.”

“What must I do to be saved?” was his exclamation; and it shows that he was no stranger to the general lesson of the apostle’s preaching. Like the fortune-telling demoniac, he had heard the word “salvation.” He knew that Paul proclaimed this, and, terror-stricken by the phenomenon which had happened – ay, and convinced by it, that a supernatural power guarded the two prisoners, he eagerly demanded how it could be got by him. It was the best thing for him as he now imagined, but how was he to attain it? He might previously have laughed at the term, but he had caught some idea of what it meant. It was a blessing which he had not, and now his soul was on fire to have it. Did he deem that he was unworthy of it – that his conduct yesterday to its preachers excluded him from it? Must there be some other path for him than that which the Jewish stranger ordinarily pointed out? I know what is presented to others, but as for me, so cruel and guilty – as for me, who have acted savagely to the strangers – “What must I do to be saved?”

“What must I do to be saved?” The response – the immediate and unhesitating response – was – “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” A true reply. If a man wishes salvation, let him accept the Saviour. If he will have the gift, let him confide in the giver. Can he have redemption, and yet reject Him who wrought it out? Can he be taken out of the pit, and yet spurn from him the arm that alone can lift him?

“What must I do to be saved?” Believe on Him who provided and who bestows this salvation. This is the only effectual process. He is able and He is willing. The lash on the back of Paul and Silas may have cut their skin into ribands, and the jailor did not dress their wounds; he put them in the inner prison, and by a refinement of cruelty locked them in the stocks; his office in a Roman jail was one which few could discharge without misgiving, for torture and outrage were often resorted to; and yet let him, even him, but believe, and the coveted blessing would without doubt be conferred upon him. Yes, let a man’s station be what it may, his position what it may, his past life what it may, he is not placed beyond the pale of this salvation. He is welcome, and he is warranted to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not the idea of belief, nor the desire of it, nor the hope of it, but actual belief itself, which secures salvation. One may not be able to analyze it, far less to define it; he may not discover its adaptation, nor understand why it should be selected as the means of safety; yet he may possess it, and enjoy all the fruits of the possession. The Lord Jesus Christ is so exhibited in power, truth, and love, that they who see Him may be attracted to believe on Him; the Lord – Governor – on the throne, because He died on the cross; Jesus – the Saviour, His name taken from his work; Christ – the Anointed One, commissioned to redeem humanity, and qualified for the great enterprise by the unction of the Holy Spirit. What can keep us back from faith in Him? Has not He the arm of God and the sympathy of a brother? Has He not given Himself to death, and what higher of attachment could He tender? Is He not anxious that His salvation be dispensed? He that provided it in His blood, He it is that rejoices to confer it. Are not all those invitations and promises sealed in His blood? Are they true, then, or are they false? Yea or nay? Let there be no ambiguity – decide. Is God duping you, that you refuse to trust him? Did anyone ever find it so? Why, then, be “slow of heart” to believe? “Be not faithless, but believing;” yea, let the individual response be – “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.”

“What must I do to be saved?” Believe, and salvation is obtained in its fulness – not a segment of it, as if its perfect fruition depended on some other grace. The state of salvation is attached to faith and every blessing connected with it. There is pardon – we are “justified by faith;” there is acceptance, for “faith is counted for righteousness;” and there is also perseverance, for we are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” Belief gives sweep and power to prayer. “Whatsoever ye ask, believing, ye shall receive;” and He is “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” The possessor of faith enters into God’s family; for “as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” He has tranquillity of soul; for “we which believe do enter into rest;” and he has a growing purity; for he is “among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Christ.” There is guidance, for “we walk by faith;” and life, too, “for the just live by faith;” and triumph also, “for this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” There is, in conclusion, a chartered fulness of gift – “Blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.” And thus it is that “the end of your faith is the salvation of your souls.”

“What must I do to be saved?” Believe, and salvation is certain. It is not believe and you may be saved, or there is a chance or even a probability of salvation. The result is immediate. Not at some distant day, or when you come to die; but at this moment faith possessed is safety enjoyed. To say, Believe, and thou shalt be saved, is equivalent to saying, Take it and you have it. Guilt is cancelled, and the Spirit descends into the soul. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” – “is passed from death into life.” Not only do believers possess salvation, but they are conscious of it: “being justified by faith, we have peace with God” – “by faith ye stand.” “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.” He is not told about safety only, but he enjoys it – he has experience of it. Tell the mother that her strayed child is safe, and she credits the statement; but let her clasp it to her bosom, and she has the witness in her rapture. Show a man the electric machine and describe its results to him, he does not deny them so far as he comprehends them; but let him feel the shock, and then he has the witness in every nerve as it tingles and vibrates. He that feels what peace is, what a changed heart is, what the spirit of adoption in prayer is, what advancing purity is, and what the hope of glory is; feels as well as knows, rejoices in the record, but also has experience of its truth and power.

If all depend on faith, it is a truism to say that the want of it must be fatal. Nay, to disbelieve God, is to call him a liar. Devils do not commit so insulting and flagrant a crime. They believe, and they tremble through their belief; they cannot sink into unbelief. But, alas! if a man wants faith, he wants every spiritual blessing; for God does not thrust His salvation on an insulting heart. O, then, give Him credit for what He has done, and take Him at His word for what He has said. And your faith rests on decisive evidence. There needs no great trial of it; it is not beset with obstacles. Abel believed, and acted out his belief, when the testimony was scanty and the ceremonial not very transparent. Enoch believed and maintained his faith, when faith seems to have fled the earth, and all around were “ungodly men,” full of “ungodly deeds” and “hard speeches” against God. Noah believed, and persisted in building the huge fabric from keel to deck, under a cloudless sky, and in a country which gave no token of earthquake and inundation. Abraham became an emigrant through faith, yea, went out under this lodestar, “not knowing whither he went.” Moses, with the eye of faith, saw “the reproach of Christ to be greater riches than the treasure of Egypt,” when the crown of the country might have devolved on him as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Joseph believed that his mummy should not lie in Egypt though laid up there, and “gave commandment concerning his bones,” at a time when Pharaoh was strong and his own people were but a handful. Job was smitten with terrible calamities, but his faith did not waver; and even when he contemplated the worst, he would not renounce it – “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” In Christ’s days there were many external barriers to faith in the carpenter’s son, and yet many believed. The woman of Samaria accepted as Messiah the way-worn Jew who sat upon the well and asked for a draught of water. And though it was a Jew, one of a despised and obnoxious race, one who had been scourged and thrown into the inner prison by himself; though it was a poor, defenceless stranger, bruised, bleeding, pale, hungry, and ragged, who preached unto him Jesus – the jailor “believed, with all his house.” And if we have clearer evidence – no ambiguity or mystery; not types, but facts; not prophecies, but annals; if we are not summoned to do battle against appearances, and soar on strong pinions above what seems dark and hostile, as it mocks our heroism and brands our confidence as a mere romance at variance with all reality; if we have the gospels and the epistles, the church and the Spirit, all attesting our faith, the lives of so many to illustrate its powers, and the deaths of so many to show its triumphs – then, if we be faithless, we are surely without excuse, and our doom must be that of those of whom it is written – “They could not enter in because of unbelief.” “He that believeth not is condemned already” – “shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.”

Paul’s further exposition is called speaking “the word of the Lord” – delivering the message of Jesus. It was a strange locality and an unusual hour; but the gospel triumphed. The terror of the night passed away, and joy came in the morning. The jailor was a new man; he led the apostles to his house, washed their stripes with all tenderness, was himself baptized, “set meat before them,” for evidently none had been given them previously; hunger, fasting, and cold had embittered their imprisonment.

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[1] John Eadie, Paul the Preacher (Birmingham, AL: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2005), 148-156.