Charles Haddon Spurgeon ...
COME, BELIEVER, AND contemplate this sublime truth,
thus
proclaimed to thee in simple monosyllables: "He laid dowm
His life for us." There is not one long word in the
sentence; it is all as simple as it can be; and it is
simple because it is sublime. Sublimity in thought always
needs simplicity in words to express itself. Little
thoughts require great words to explain them; little
preachers need Latin words to convey their feeble ideas,
but great thoughts and great expressers of those thoughts
are content with little words.
Come, now, my soul, and worship this man, this God.
Come,
believer, and behold thy Savior. Come to the innermost
circle of all sanctity, the circle that contains the cross
of Christ, and here sit down. And, while you worship,
learn three lessons from the fact that "He laid down His
life for us." The first lesson should be, Did He lay down
His life for us? Ah! then, my brethren, how great must
have been our sins that they could not have been atoned for
at any other price! Second, did He lay down His life for
us? Ah! then, beloved, how great must have been His love!
He would not stop short anywhere, until life itself had
been resigned. Third, did He lay down His life for us? Ah!
such an atonement has been offered, if such a sure
satisfaction has been given to Almighty God, how secure
thou art! Who can destroy him who has been bought with the
blood of such a Redeemer?
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"He laid down His life for us." Here there is not much
upon which any man can display his eloquence. Here is
little room for metaphysical discussion or for deep
thought. The text sets before us a simple yet sublime
doctrine. What, then, shall I do with it? If I would
speak of it profitably to myself, since I need not employ
my wit to dissect it, nor my oratory to proclaim it, let me
exercise my adoration to worship it. Let me prostrate all
my powers before the throne, and, like an angel when his
work is done, and he has nowhere else to fly at his Lord's
command, let me fold the wings of my truth. Let me meekly
bow myself and worship Him that was, and is, and is to come
- the great and glorious One who "laid down His life for
us."
It will be well for me, in commencing my discourse, to
remind you that there is no understanding the death of
Christ unless we understand the person of Christ. If I
were to tell you that God died for us, although I might be
telling you a truth, and you might possibly not understand
what I meant, yet I should be at the same time uttering an
error. God cannot die. It is, of course, impossible, from
His very nature, that He could even for a moment cease to
exist. God is incapable of suffering. It is true that we
sometimes use words to express emotions on the part of God,
but we speak after the manner of men. He is impassive. He
cannot suffer. It is not possible for Him to endure aught;
much less, then, is it possible for Him to suffer death.
Yet we are told, in the verse from which our text is
taken, "Hereby perceive we the love of God." You
notice that the words of God are inserted by the
translators. They are in italics because they are not in
the original. A better translation would be, "Hereby
perceive we love." But when we read "of God," it might
lead the ignorant to fancy that God could die; whereas, God
could not. We must always understand, and constantly
remember, that our Lord Jesus Christ was "very God of very
God," and that, as God, He had all the attributes of the
Most High, and could not, therefore, be capable either of
suffering or death. But then He was also man, "man of the
substance of His mother," man, just like ourselves, sin
alone excepted. And the Lord Jesus dies not as God; it was
a man that He gave up the ghost; as man, He was nailed to
the cross. As God, He was in heaven, even when His body
was in the tomb. As God, He was swaying the scepter of all
worlds even when the mock scepter of reed was in His hand,
and the imperial robe of universal monarchy was on the
eternal shoulders of His Godhead when the soldier's old
purple cloak was wrapped about His manhood. He did not
cease to be God. He did not lose His omnipotence and His
eternal dominion when He became man; nor did He, as God,
die or suffer. It was as man that He "laid down His life
for us."
How great must have been my sins, if Christ lay down
His life for me? Come, then, let me believingly meditate
on this sad fact.
Ah! my brethren, I will speak a little of my own
experience, and in so doing I shall also be describing
yours. I have seen my sins in many different ways. I saw
them once by the blazing light of Sinai; and, oh! my spirit
shrank within me, for my sins seemed exceeding black. When
the sound of the trumpet waxed loud and long, and the
lightning and fire flashed into my heart, I was a very hell
of iniquity within my soul, and I was ready then to curse
the day that I was born, that I should have had such a
heart, so vile and so deceitful. I thought that then I had
seen the exceeding blackness of my sin. Alas! I had not
seen enough of sin to make me loathe it so as to leave it,
for that conviction passed away. Sinai was but a volcano,
and it was hushed to silence; and then I began to play with
sin again, and loved it as much as ever.
I beheld another sight one day; I saw my sins by the
light
of heaven. I looked up, and I considered the heavens, the
work of God's fingers. I perceived the purity of God's
character written on the sunbeams, I saw His holiness
engraved upon the wide world, as well as revealed in
Scripture; and as I compared myself with Him, I thought I
saw how black I was. O God! I never knew the heinousness
of my own guilt until I saw the glory of Thy character.
But now I see the brightness of Thy holiness, my whole
soul is cast down at the thought of my sinfulness, and my
great departure from the living God. I thought that,
then. I had seen enough. Ah! I had seen enough to make
me worship for a moment; but my gladness was as the early
cloud and as the morning dew, and I went my way, and forgot
what manner of man I was. When I had lost the sense of te
majesty of God, I lost also the consciousness of my own
guilt.
Then there came to me another view, and I beheld God's
loving kindness to me. I saw how He had dandled me upon
the knee of Providence - how He had carried me all my life
long and had strewn my path with plenty, giving me all
things richly to enjoy. I remembered how He had been with
me in the hour of trial, how He had preserved me in the day
of hurricane, and kept me safe at the moment of storm. I
remembered all His goodness to me; and, struck with
surprise at His mercy, I looked upon my sin in the light of
His grace; and I said, "O sin, how base thou art, what dire
ingratitude dost thou manifest against a God so profoundly
kind!"
I thought, then, surely I had seen the worst of sin, when I
had laid it side by side, first with the character of God,
and afterwards with His bounties. I cursed sin from my
inmost heart, and thought I had seen enough of it. But,
ah! my brethren, I had not. That sense of gratitude passed
away, and I found myself still prone to sin, and still
loving it.
But, oh, there came a thrice-happy, yet thrice-mournful
hour! One day, in my wanderings, I heard a cry, a groan;
methought 'twas not a cry such as came from mortal lip, it
had in it such unutterable depths of wondrous woe. I
turned aside, expecting to see some great sight; and it was
indeed a great sight that I say. Lo, there, upon a tree,
all bleeding, hung a man. I marked the misery that made
His flesh all quiver on His bones. I beheld the dark
clouds come rolling dowm from heaven, like the chariots of
misery. I saw them clothe His brow with blackness; I saw
even in the thick darkness, for mine eyes were opened, and
I perceived that His heart was as full of the gloom and
horror of grief as the sky was full of blackness. Then I
seemed to look into His soul, and I saw there torrents of
unutterable anguish - wells of torment of such an awful
character that mortal lip dare not sip, lest it should be
burned with scalding heat. I said, "Who is this mighty
sufferer? Why doth He suffer thus? Has He been the
greatest of all sinners, the basest of all blasphemers?"
But the voice came forth from the excellent glory, and it
said, "This is My beloved Son; but He took the sinner's sin
upon Himself, and He must bear its penalty." O God! I
thought, I never saw sin till that hour, when I saw it tear
Christ's glories from His head, when it seemed for a moment
even to withdraw the lovingkindness of God from Him, when I
saw Him covered with His own blood, and plunged into the
uttermost depths of oceans of grief. Then I said, "Now
shall I know what thou art, O sin, as never before I knew
it!" Though those other sights might teach me something of
the dire character of evil, yet never, till I saw the
Savior on the tree, did I understand how base a traitor
man's guilt was to man's God.
O heir of heaven, lift now thine eye, and behold the
scenes
of suffering through which thy Lord passed for thy sake!
Come in the moonlight, and stand between those olives; see
Him sweat great drops of blood. Go from that garden, and
follow to Pilate's bar. See your Master subjected to the
grossest and filthiest insult; gaze upon the face of
spotless beauty defiled with the spittle of soldiers; see
His head pierced with thorns; mark His back, all rent, and
torn, and scarred, and bruised, and bleeding beneath the
terrible lash. And O Christian, see Him die! Go and stand
where His mother stood, and hear Him say to thee, "Man,
behold thy Savior!" Come thou tonight, and stand where
john stood; hear Him cry, "I thirst," and find thyself
unable either to assuage His griefs or to comprehend their
bitterness. Then, when thou hast wept there, lift thine
hand, and cry, "Revenge!" Bring out the traitors; where
are they? And when your sins are brought forth as the
murderers of Christ, let no death be too painful for them;
though it should involve the cutting off of right arms, or
the quenching of right eyes, and putting out their light
forever; do it! For if these murderers murdered Christ,
then let them die. Die terribly they may, but die they
must. Oh! that God the Holy Spirit would teach you that
first lesson, my bretheren, the boundless wickedness of
sin, for Christ had to lay down His life before your sin
could be wiped away.
How greatly He must have loved me. Now we will come
to the second head, and here we will lift up our hearts
from the depths of sadness to the heights of affection.
Did the Savior lay down His life for me? We will read it
now, "He laid down His life for me;" and I pray the Lord to
help each of you, by faith, to read it so, because, when we
say "us", that is dealing in generalities - blessed
generalities, it is true - but let us, at this time, deal
in specialities, and say, each one of us who can do so
truthfully, "He laid down His life for me." Yes, HOW
GREATLY HE MUST HAVE LOVED ME!
Ah, Lord Jesus! I never knew Thy love till I understood
the meaning of Thy death. Beloved, we shall try again, if
we can, to tell the story of our own experience, to let you
see how God's love is to be learned. Come, saint, sit down,
and meditate on thy creation. Note how marvelously thou
hast been formed, and how all thy bones are fitted to one
another, and see love there. Next, notice the
predestination which placed thee where thou art; for the
lines have fallen unto thee in pleasant places.
Notwithstanding all thy troubles, thou hast, compared
with many a poor soul, "a goodly heritage." Notice, then,
the love of God displayed in the predestination that has
made thee what thou art, and placed thee where thou art.
Then look thou back, and see the lovingkindness of thy
Lord, as displayed to thee in all thy journey up till now.
Thou art getting old, and thy hair is whitening above thy
brow; but He has carried thee all the days of old; not one
good thing has failed of all that the Lord they God has
promised. Recall thy life story. Go back now, and look at
the tapestry of thy life, which God has been working every
day with the golden filament of His love, and see what
pictures of grace there are upon it. Canst thou not say
that Jesus has loved thee? Turn thine eye back, and read
the ancient rolls of the everlasting covenant, and see thy
name amongst the first-born, the elect, the church of the
living God. Say, did he not love thee when He wrote thy
name there? Go and remember how the eternal settlements
were made, and how God decreed and arranged all things so
that thy salvation should come to pass. Say, was there not
love there?
Pause at the remembrance of thy convictions; think of
thy
conversion; recollect thy preservation, and how God's grace
has been working upon thee, in adoption, in justification,
and in every item of the new covenant. When thou hast
summed up all these things, let me ask thee this question:
Do all these things produce in thee such a sense of
gratitude as the one thing that I shall mention now, the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? For, my brother, if thy
mind is like mine, although thou wilt think highly enough
of all these things that the thought of the death of Christ
upon the cross swallows them all up. This I know, my
brethren: I may look back, I may look forward, but whether
I look back to the decrees of eternity or look forward to
the pearl-gated city and all the splendors that God has
prepared for His own beloved children, I can never see my
Father's love so beaming forth, in all its radiant
splendor, as when I look at the cross of Christ, and see
Him
die thereon. I can read the love of God in the rocky
letters of the eternal covenant, and in the blazing letters
of heaven hereafter; but, my brethren, in those crimson
lines, those lines written in blood, there is something
more striking than there is anywhere else, for they say,
"He laid down His life for us." Ah, here it is ye learn
love.
You know the old story of Damon and Pythias - how the
two
friends struggled together as to which should die for the
other; there was love there. But, ah! there is no
comparison between Damon and Pythias, and a poor sinner and
his Savior. Christ laid dowm His life, His glorious life,
for a poor worm. He stripped Himself of all His splendors,
then of all His happiness, then of Hiw own righteousness,
then of His own robes, till He was naked to His own shame.
Then He laid down His life, that was all He had left, for
our Savior had not kept anything back.
&nbs; Just think of that for a moment. He had a crown in
heaven;
but He laid that aside so you and I might wear a girdle of
righteousness. He had listened to the holy songs of the
cherubim and seraphim, but He left them all that we might
forever dwell where angels sing. Then He came to earth,
and He had many things, even in His poverty, which might
have tended to His comfort. He laid down first one glory,
and then another, at love's demand. At last, it came to
this: He had nothing left but one poor garment, woven from
the tip throughout and clinging to His back with blood,
and He laid down that also. Then there was nothing left.
He had not kept back one single thing. "There," He might
have said, "take an inventory of all I have, to the last
farthing; I have given it all up for My people's ransom."
And there was nothing left now but His own life. O love
insatiable! Couldst thou not stay there? He had given up
one hand to cancel sin and the other hand to reconcile us
unto God. He had given up one foot that we might have our
sinful feet forever transfixed, and nailed, and fastened,
ne'er to wander, and the other foot to be fastened to the
tree that we might have our feet at liberty to run the
heavenly race. There was nothing left but His poor heart,
and He gave His heart up too. They set abroach with the
spear, and forthwith there came out blood and water.
Ah, my Lord! what have I ever given to Thee compared to
what Thou hast given for me? Some poor things, like some
rusty farthings, I have given Thee - but how little
compared with what Thou hast given me! Now and then, my
Lord, I have given Thee a poor song upon an ill-toned
instrument. Sometimes. my Lord, I have done some little
service for Thee; but, alas! my fingers were so black they
spoiled what I intended to have presented to Thee white as
snow. I have done nothing for Thee, my Lord. No, though I
have been a missionary and surrendered home and friends;
no, though I have been a martyr, and given my body to be
burned, I will say, in the last hour, "My Master, I have
done nothing for Thee, after all, in comparison with what
Thou hast done for me; and yet, what can I do more? Thou
hast done for me; and yet, what can I do more? How can I
show my love to Thee, for Thy love to me, so peerless, so
matchless? What shall I do? I will do nothing but -
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I'll fall to
the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy I've found.
That is all I can do, and that I must and will
do.
How safe I am. Now, beloved, we will change the
theme, and go one note higher. We have run up the gamut a
long way, and now we have just reached te height of the
octave. But we have something else to get out of the text;
"He laid down His life for us." Did my Savior lay down His
life for me"? Then, HOW SAFE I AM!
We will have no controversy tonight with those who do
not
see this truth; the Lord open will their blind eyes and show it
to them! That is all we will say. We who know the gospel
see in the fact of the death of Christ a reason that no
strength of logic can ever shake, and no power of unbelief
can remove, why we should be saved. There may be men with
minds so distorted that they can conceive it possible that
Christ should die for a man who afterwards is lost; I say,
there may be such. I am sorry to say that there are still
to be found some such persons, whose brains have been so
addled in their childhood that they cannot see what thy
hold is both a preposterous falsehood and a blashphemous
libel. Christ dies for a man, and then God punishes that
man again; Christ suffers in a sinner's stead, and then
God condemns that sinner after all! Why, my friends, I
feel quite shocked in only mentioning such an awful error.
Were it not so current as it is, I should certainly pass
it over with the contempt that it deserves.
The doctrine of holy Scripture is this, that God is just,
that Christ died in the stead of His people, and that, as
God is just, He will never punish one solitary soul of
Adam's race for whom the Savior did thus shed His blood.
The Savior did, indeed, in a certain sense, die for all;
all men receive many a mercy through His blood. But that
He was the substitute and surety for all men is so
inconsistent, both with reason and Scripture, that we are
obliged to reject the doctrine with abhorrence. 
No, my soul, how shalt thou be punished if
thy Lord endured thy punishment for thee? Did He die for
thee? O my soul, if Jesus was not thy substitute and did
not die in thy very stead, then he is no Savior to thee!
But if He was thy substitute, if He suffered as thy
surety, in thy stead, then, my soul, "Who is he that
condemneth?" Christ has died, yea rather, has risen again,
and sitteth at the right hand of God, and maketh
intercession for us. There stands the master-argument:
Christ "laid down His life for us," and "if, when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God saved by His life"
(Romans 5:10). If the agonies of the Savior put our sins
away, the everlasting life of the Savior, with the merits
of His death added thereunto, must preserve His people,
even unto the end.
This much I know - ye may hear men stammer when they say
it
- but what I preach is the old Luteran, Calvinistic,
Augustinian, Pauline, Christian truth: There is not one sin
in the Book of God against anyone that believeth. Our sins
were numbered on the Scapegoat's head, and there is not one
sin that ever a believer did commit that has any power to
damn him, for Christ has taken the damning power out of
sin, by allowing it, to speak by a bold metaphor, to damn
Himself, for sin did condemn Him. Inasmuch as sin
condemned Him, sin cannot condemn us. O believer, this is
thy security, that all thy sin and guilt, all thy
transgressions and thine iniquities, have been atoned for,
and were atoned for before they were committed. Thou mayest
come with boldness, though red with all crimes and black
with every lust, and lay thine hand on that Scapegoat's
head. When thou hast put thine hand there and seen that
Scapegoat driven into the wilderness, thou mayest clap
thine hands for joy, and say, "It is finished, sin is
pardoned."
Here's pardon for transgressions
past,
It matters not how black their cast;
And oh, my soul, with wonder view,
For sins to come, here's pardon too!
This is all I want to know: Did the Savior die for
me?
Then I will not continue in sin that grace may abound.
Nothing shall stop me of thus glorifying, in all the
churches of the Lord Jesus, that my sins are entirely
removed from me; and, in God's sight, I may sing, Hart did
sing, -
With Christ's spotless vesture on,
Holy as the Holy One.
O marvelous death of Christ, how securely dost thou set
the
feet of God's people on the rocks of eternal love; and how
securely dost thou keep them there! Come, dear bretheren,
let us suck a little honey out of this honeycomb. Was
there ever anything so luscious and so sweet to the
believer's taste as this all-glorious truth that we are
complete in Him; that in and through His death and merits
we are accepted in the Beloved? Oh, was there ever
anything more sublime than this thought, that He has
already raised us up together and made us sit together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus, far above all
principalities and powers; just where He sits? Surely
there is nothing more sublime than that, except it be that
a master-thought stamps all these things with more than
their own value - the master-thought that, though the
mountains may depart and the hills be removed, the covenant
of His love shall never depart from us. "For," saith
Jehovah, "I will never forget thee, O Zion; I have graven
thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls are continually
before Me" (Isaiah 49:14-16)> O Christian, that is a firm
foundation, cemented wih blood, on which thou mayest build
for eternity! Ah, my soul! thou needest no other hope but
this, Jesus, Thy mercy never dies; I will plead this truth
when cast down with anguish - Thy mercy never dies. I will
plead this when satan hurls temptations at me, and when
conscience casts the remembrance of my sin in my teeth; I
will plead this ever, and I will plead it now:
Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress.
Yea, and after I die, and even when I stand before thine
eyes, thou dread Supreme:
When from the dust of death I rise,
To take my mansion in the skies,
E'en then shall this be all my plea,
"Jesus hath lived and died for me."
Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
While through Christ's blood absolved I am
From sin's tremendous curse and shame.
Ah, brethren, if this is your experience, you may come to
the table of communion now right happily; it will not be
coming to a funeral, but to a feast of gladness. "He laid
down His life for us."
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) is
undoubtedly the most famous minister of modern times.
Converted in 1850, he united with the Baptists and soon
began to preach in various places. He became pastor of the
Baptist church in Waterbeach in 1851, and three years later
he was called to the decaying Park Street Church, London.
Within a short time, the work began to prosper, a new
church was built and dedicated in 1861, and Spurgeon became
London's most popular preacher. In 1855, he began to
publish his sermons weekly; and today they make up the
fifty-seven volumes of The Metropolitan Tabernacle
Pulpit. He founded a pastor's college and several
orphanages.
This sermon is taken from The Metropolitan Tabernacle
Pulpit, volume 46. It was preached by Spurgeon in
1857.
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