Hebrews 8:10
The Wondrous Covenant
NO. 3326
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31ST, 1912,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
“For this is the covenant that I
will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I
will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I
will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” — Hebrews
8:10.
THE doctrine of the divine covenant
lies at the root of all true theology. It has been said that he who well
understands the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant
of grace is a master of divinity. I am persuaded that most of the mistakes
which men make concerning the doctrines of Scripture are based upon
fundamental errors with regard to the covenants of law and of grace. May
God grant us now the power to instruct, and you the grace to receive
instruction on this vital subject.
The human race in the order of history, so far as this world is concerned,
first stood in subjection to God under the covenant of works. Adam was the
representative man. A certain law was given him. If he kept it, he and all
his posterity would be blessed as the result of obedience. If he broke it,
he would incur the curse himself, and entail it on all represented by him.
That covenant our first father broke. He fell; he failed to fulfil his
obligations; in his fall he involved us all, for we were all in his loins,
and he represented us before God. Our ruin, then, was complete before we
were born; we were ruined by him who stood as our first representative. To
be saved by the works of the law is impossible, far under that covenant we
are already lost. If saved at all it must be all quite a different plan,
not on the plan of doing and being rewarded for it, for that has been
tried, and the representative man upon whom it was tried has failed for us
all. We have all failed in his failure; it is hopeless, therefore, to
expect to win divine favour by anything that we can do, or merit divine
blessing by way of reward.
But divine mercy has interposed, and
provided a plan of salvation from the fall. That plan is another covenant,
a covenant made with Christ Jesus the Son of God, who is fitly called by
the apostle, “the Second Adam,” because he stood again as the
representative of man. Now, the second covenant, so far as Christ was
concerned, was a covenant of works quite as much as the other. It was an
this wise. Christ shall come into the world and perfectly obey the divine
law. He shall also, inasmuch as the first Adam has broken the law, suffer
the penalty of sin. If he shall do both of these, then all whom he
represents shall be blessed in his blessedness, and saved because of his
merit. You see, then, that until our Lord came into this world it was a
covenant of works towards him. He had certain works to perform, upon
condition of which certain blessings should be given to us. Our Lord has
kept that covenant. His part in it has been fulfilled to the last letter.
There is no commandment which he has not honoured; there is no penalty of
the broken law which he has not endured. He became a servant and obedient,
yea, obedient to death, even the death of the cross. He has thus done what
the first Adam could not accomplish, and he has retrieved what the first
Adam forfeited by his transgression. He has established the covenant, and
now it ceases to be a covenant of works, for the works are all done.
“Jesus did them, did them all, Long, long ago.”
And now what remaineth of the covenant? God on his part has solemnly
pledged himself to give undeserved favour to as many as were represented
in Christ Jesus. For as many as the Saviour died for, there is stored up a
boundless mass of blessing which shall be given to them, not through their
works, but as the sovereign gift of the grace of God, according to his
covenant promise by which they shall be saved.
Behold, my brethren, the hope of the sons of man. The hope of their saving
themselves is crushed, for they are already lost. The hope of their being
saved by work is a fallacious one, for they cannot keep the law; they have
already broken it, but there is a way of salvation opened on this wise.
Whosoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, receives and partakes of the
bliss which Christ has bought. All the blessings which belong to the
covenant of grace through the work of Christ shall belong to every soul
that believeth in Jesus. Whosoever worketh not, but believeth on him that
justifieth the ungodly, unto him shall the blessing of the new covenant of
grace be undoubtedly given.
I hope that this explanation is plain enough. If Adam had kept the law we
should have been blessed by his keeping it. He broke it, and we have been
cursed through him. Now the second Adam, Christ Jesus, has kept the law,
we are, therefore, if believers, represented in Christ and blessed with
the results of the obedience of Jesus Christ to his Father’s will. He said
of old, “Lo, I come, to do thy will, O God! thy law is my delight.” He
has done that will, and the blessings of grace are now freely given to the
sons of men.
I shall ask your attention then, first, to the privileges of the covenant
of grace; and, secondly, to the parties concerned in it. This will be
quite enough, I am sure, for consideration this evening during the brief
period allotted to our sermon.
—————
I. As to The Privileges Of The Covenant Of Grace.
The first privilege is, that to as many as are interested in it there
shall be given an illumination of their minds. “I will put my law in
their minds.” By nature we are dark towards God’s will. Conscience keeps
up in us a sort of broken recollection of what God’s will was. It is a
monument of God’s will, but it is often hardly legible. A man does not
care to read it, he is averse to what he reads there. “Their foolish
heart was dark,” is the expression of Scripture with regard to the mind
of man. But the Holy Spirit is promised to those interested in the
covenant. He shall come upon their minds and shed light instead of
darkness, illuminating them as to what the will of God is. The ungodly man
has some degree of light, but it is merely intellectual. It is a light
that he does not love. He loves darkness rather than light, because his
deeds are evil. But where the Holy Spirit comes, he floods the soul with a
divine lustre, in which the soul delights and desires to participate to
the fullest degree. Brethren, the renewed man, the man under the covenant
of grace, does not need constantly to resort to his Bible to learn what he
ought to do, nor to go to some fellow-Christian to ask instruction. He has
not got the law of God now written on a table of stone, or upon parchment,
or upon paper; he has got the law written upon his own mind. There is now
a divine, infallible Spirit dwelling within him which tell him the right
and the wrong, and by this he speedily discerns between the good and the
evil. He no longer puts darkness for light, and light for darkness, bitter
for sweet, and sweet for bitter. His mind is enlightened as to the true
holiness and the true purity which God requires.
Just mark the men to whom this light comes. By nature some of them are
deeply depraved. All of them are depraved, but by practice some of them
become yet further dark. Is it not marvellous that a poor heathen who
scarcely seemed to recognize the distinction between right and wrong,
before the Spirit of God entered his mind, has afterwards, without needing
to be taught all the precepts individually, received at once the quick
light of a tender conscience, which has led him to know the right and love
it, and to see the evil and eschew it. If you want to civilize the world
it must be by preaching the gospel. If you want to have men well
instructed as to the right and the wrong, it must be by this divine
instruction which only God himself can impart. “I will do it,” and oh!
how blessedly he doeth it, when he takes the man that loved evil and
called it good, and so sheds a divine beam into his soul, that henceforth
he cannot be perverse, cannot be obstinate, but submits himself to the
divine will. That is one of the first blessings of the covenant — the
illumination of the understanding.
The next blessing is, “And I will write my law in their hearts.“ This is
more than knowing the law — infinitely more. “I will write the law, not
merely on their understandings, where it may guide them, but in their
hearts where it shall lead them.” Brethren, the Holy Spirit makes men
love the will of God, makes them delight in all in which God delights, and
abhor that which Lord abhorreth. It is well said in the text that God will
do this, for certainly it is not what a man can do for himself. The
Ethiopian might sooner change his skin or the leopard his spots. It is not
what the minister can do, for though he may preach to the ear, he cannot
write God’s law on the affections. I have marvelled at the expression used
in the text, “I will write my law in their hearts.” To write on a heart
must be difficult work, but to write in a heart, in the very centre of the
heart, who can do this but God? A man cuts his name upon a tree in the
bark, and there it stands, and the letters grow with the tree; but to cut
his name in the heart of the tree — how shall he accomplish this? And yet
God doth divinely engrave his will and his law in the very heart and
nature of man!
I know what the notion is about Christian people, that they do not conform
to this and that custom because they are afraid; they would like to revel
in the vanities of the world, but they do not care to encounter the
penalties. Ah! ye sons of men, ye comprehend not the mysterious work of
the Spirit! He doeth nothing of this sort. He maketh not the child of God
to be a serf, a slave, in fear of bondage, but he so changes the nature of
men that they do not love what they once loved; they turn away with
loathing from the things they once delighted in, and can no more indulge
in the sins which were once sweet to them than an angel could plunge
himself down and wallow in the mire with the engine. Oh! this is a
gracious work, and this is a blessed covenant in which it is promised that
we shall be taught the right, to know and love the right, and to do the
right with a willing mind.
Am I addressing some to-night who have been saying, “I wish I could be
saved.” What do you mean by that? Do you mean you wish you might escape
from hell? Ah! well, I would to God you had another wish namely, “Oh,
that I could escape from sin! Oh, that I could be made pure, that my
passions could be bridled! Oh, that my longings and my likings could be
changed! “If that is your wish see what a gospel I have to preach to you.
I have not to come and tell you — do this, and do not do that. Moses tells
you that, and the preacher of the law speaks to you after that fashion,
but I, the preacher of the gospel, unveiling the covenant of grace
to-night, tell you that Jesus Christ has done such a work for sinners that
God now for Christ’s sake comes to them, makes them see the right, and by
a divine work upon them in them makes them love holiness and follow after
righteousness. I protest, I count this one of the greatest blessings of
which ever tongue could speak. I would sooner be holy than happy if the
two things could be divorced. Were it possible for a man always to sorrow
and yet to be pure, I would choose the sorrow if I might win the purity;
for, beloved, to be free from the power of sin, to be made to love
holiness though I have spoken after the manner of men to you, is true
happiness. A man that is holy is in order with the creation; he is in
harmony with God. It is impossible for that man long to suffer. He may for
awhile endure for his lasting good, but as sure as God is happy the holy
must be happy. This world is not so constituted that in the long run
holiness shall go with sorrow, for in eternity God shall show that to be
pure is to be blessed, to be obedient to the divine will is to be
eternally glorified. In preaching to you, then, these two blessings of the
covenant I have virtually preached to you the open kingdom of heaven, open
to all such whom God’s grace shall look upon with an eye of mercy.
The next blessing of the covenant is — ”I will be to them a God.“ If any
ask me what this means, I must reply, Give me a month to consider over it.
And when I had considered the text for a month, I should ask another
month; and when I had waited a year, I should ask another year; and when I
had waited till I grew grey, I would still ask the postponement of any
attempt to fully open it up until eternity. “I will be to them a God.”
Now, mark you, where the Spirit of God has come to teach you the divine
will, and make you love the divine will, God becomes to you — what! a
father? Ay, a loving, tender Father. A shepherd? Ay, a watchful Guardian
of his flock. A friend? Ay, a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
A rock? A refuge? A fortress? A high tower? A castle of defence? A home? A
heaven? Ay, all that, but when he said “I will be their God,” he said
more than all these put together, for “I will be to them a God,”
comprehendeth all gracious titles, all blessed promises, and all divine
privileges. It comprehendeth — ay, now I halt, for this is infinite, and
the infinite comprehendeth all blessings. “I will be to them a God.” Do
you want provision? The cattle on a thousand hills are his; it is nothing
to him to give; it will not impoverish him; he will give to you like a
God. Do you want comfort? He is the God of all consolation; he will
comfort you like a Lord. Do you want guidance? There is infinite wisdom
waiting at your beck. Do you want support? There is eternal power, the
same which guards the everlasting hills waiting to be your stay. Do you
want grace? He delighteth in mercy, and all that mercy is yours. Every
attribute of God belongs to his people in covenant with him. All that God
is or can be — and what is there not in that? — all that you can conceive
and more; all the angels have and more; all that heaven is and more; all
that is in Christ, even the boundless fulness of Godhead — all this
belongs to you, if you are in covenant with God through Jesus Christ. How
rich, how blessed, how august, how noble are those in covenant with God,
confederate with heaven! Infinity belongs to you. Lift up your head, O
child of God, and rejoice in a promise that I cannot expound, and you
cannot explore. There I must leave it; it is a deep which we strive in
vain to fathom.
Notice the next blessing, “And they shall be to me a people.“ All flesh
belongs to God in a certain sense. All men are his by rights of creation,
and he hath an infinite sovereignty over them. But he looks down upon the
sons of men, and he selects some, and he says, “These shall be my people,
not the rest; these shall be my peculiar people.” When the King of
Navarre was fighting for his throne, the writer who hymns the battle, says
—
“He looked upon the foemen, and his glance was stern and high;
He looked upon his people, and the
tear was in his eye.”
And when he saw some of the French in
arms against him —
“Then out spoke gentle Henry,
No Frenchman is my foe
Down, down, with every foreigner,
but let your brethren go.”
The king looked for his people even if they were in rebellion against him,
and he had a different thought towards them from what he had towards
others. “Let them go,” he seemed to say, “they are my people.” So,
mark you, in the great battles and strifes of this world, when Lord lets
loose the dread artillery of heaven his glance is stern upon his enemies,
but the tear is in his eye towards his people. He is always tender towards
them. “Spare my people,” saith he, and the angels interpose lest these
chosen ones should dash their feet against a stone.
People have their treasures, their pearls, their jewels, their rubies,
their diamonds, and these are their peculiar stones. Now, all in the
covenant of grace are the peculiar stones of God. He values them above all
things else besides. In fact, he keeps the world spinning for them. The
world is but a scaffold for the Church. He will send creation packing when
once it has done with his saints; yea, sun, and moon, and stars shall pass
away like worn-out rags when once he has gathered together his own elect,
and enfolded them for ever within the safety of the walls of heaven. For
them time moves; for them the world exists. He measures the nation
according to their number, and he makes the very stars of heaven to fight
against their enemies, and to defend them against their foes. “They shall
be to me a people.” The favour which is contained in such love it is not
for tongue to express. Perhaps on some of those quiet resting-places
prepared for the saints in heaven, it shall be a part of our eternal
enjoyment to contemplate the heights and depths of these golden lines.
—————
II. And now, brethren, I wish I had time to go over the other parts
contained in the eleventh and twelfth verses of the chapter, but I have
not, for I have a practical business to do, and it is to enquire —
For Whom Hath God Made This Covenant? I said he made it with Christ, but
he made it with Christ as the representative of his people. The question
to-night for you, and for me, and for each one is, “Am I interested in
Christ? Did Christ Jesus stand for me?” Now, if I were to say that Christ
was the representative of the whole world you would not find any
substantial advantage in that, because the great proportion of mankind
being lost, whatever interest they may have in Christ, it is certainly of
no beneficial value to them as to their eternal salvation. The question I
ask is — have I such a special interest in Christ that this covenant holds
good towards me; so that I shall have, or so that I now have, the
enlightened mind, and the sanctified affections, and the possession of God
to be my God? Be not deceived, my brethren; I cannot, and you cannot, turn
over the leaves of the book of destiny. It is impossible for us to force
our way into the cabinet chamber of the Eternal, I hope you are not
deluded by superstitious ideas that you have had a revelation made to you,
or that there has been some special sound or dream which makes any one of
you think you are a Christian.
Yet on sounder premises I will try to help you a little. Have you obtained
already any of these covenant blessings? Have you got the enlightened
mind? Do you find now that your spirit tells you which is the right and
which is the wrong? Better still, have you got a love for that which is
good? Have you got a hatred for that which is evil? If so, as you have got
one covenant blessing all the rest go with it. Now, men and women, have
you passed through a great change. Have you come to hate that which you
once loved? If you have, the covenant lies before you like Canaan before
the ravished eyes of Moses on top of the mountain. Look now, for it is
yours. It flows with milk and honey, and it belongs to you, and you shall
inherit it. But if there has been no such change wrought in you, I cannot
hold you out any congratulation, but I thank God I can do what may serve
your turn. I can hold you out divine direction, and the direction for the
obtaining an interest in this covenant, and for clearing up your interest
in it, is simple. It is contained in few words. Mark well those three
words — “Believe and live,” for whosoever believeth in Christ Jesus hath
everlasting life, which is the blessing of the covenant. The argument is
obvious. Having the blessing of the covenant you must needs be in the
covenant, and being in the covenant Christ evidently must have
representatively stood sponsor for you. But saith one, “What is it to
believe in Christ?” Another word is a synonym to it. It is — trust
Christ. “How do I know whether he died for me in particular?” Trust him
whether thou knowest that or not. Jesus Christ is lifted up upon the cross
of Calvary as the atonement for sin; and the proclamation is given out,
“Look, look; look and live,” and whosoever will cast away his
self-righteousness, cast away everything upon which he now dependeth, and
will come and trust in the finished work or our exalted Saviour, has in
that very faith the token that he is one of those who were in Christ when
he went up to the cross and wrought out eternal redemption for his elect.
I do not believe that Christ died on the tree to render men salvable, but
to save them; not that some men might be saved “if,” but really to
redeem them, and he did there and them give himself a ransom; he there
paid their debts, there cast their sins into the Red Sea, and there made a
clean sweep of everything that could be laid to the charge of God’s elect.
Thou art one of his elect if thou believest. Christ died for thee if thou
believest in him, and thy sins are forgiven, thee. “Well but,” saith
one, “how about that change of nature?” It always comes with faith. It
is the next akin to faith. Wherever there is genuine faith in Christ,
faith works love. A sense of mercy breeds affection; affection to Christ
breeds hatred to sin; hatred to sin purges the soul; the soul being purged
the life is changed.
You must not begin with mending yourselves externally; you must begin with
the new internal life, and it is thus to be had — the gift of God through
simply believing in Jesus. A negro who had been for some time attending at
a place of worship had imbibed the idea, and a very natural one too, that
he was saved because he had been baptized. He had been to one of those
places where they teach little children to say after this fashion, “In my
baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an
inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” “Now,” said he, very simply and
very plainly, for so the catechism teaches, and a gross delusion it is,
“I am saved because I have been baptized; that has made me a child of
God.” Now the good man who sought to instruct him better, would find no
metaphor to suite his intellect better than taking him into the kitchen
and showing him a black ink-bottle. “Now,” said he, “I will wash it,”
and he washed the outside of the black ink-bottle, and invited the man to
drink out of it because it was clean. “No,” said the man, “it is all
black; it is all black; it is not clean because you have washed the
outside.” “Ah!” said he, “and so it is with you; all that these drops
of water could do for you, all that baptism could do for you, is to wash
the outside, but that does not make you clean, for the filth is all
within.” Now, the work of the covenant of grace is not to wash the
outside, not to clean the flesh, not to pass you through rites and
ceremonies, and episcopal hands, but to wash the inside; to purge the
heart, to cleanse the vitals, to renew the soul, and this is the only
salvation that will ever bring a man to enter heaven. You may go tonight
and renounce all your outward vices — I hope you will; you may go and
practice all church ceremonies, and if they are scriptural I wish you may;
but they will do nothing for you, nothing whatever as to your entering
heaven, if you miss one thing else, that is, getting the covenant blessing
of the renewed nature which can only be got as a gift of God through;
Jesus Christ, and as the result of a simple faith in him who did die upon
the tree.
I press the work of self-examination upon you all, I press it earnestly
upon you church members. It is of no avail that you have been baptized; it
is of no avail that you take the sacrament. Avail? Indeed it shall bring a
greater responsibility and a curse upon you unless your hearts have been
by the Holy Spirit made anew according to the covenant of promise. If you
have not a new heart, oh! go to your chambers, fall upon your knees, and
cry to God for it. May the Holy Spirit constrain you so to do, and while
you are pleading remember the new heart comes from the bleeding heart, the
changed nature comes from the suffering nature. You must look to Jesus,
and looking to Jesus, know that —
“There is life in a look at the crucified one,
There is life at this moment for
thee.”
These blessings I have spoken of seem to me to be a great consolation and
inspiration. They are a great consolation to believers. You are in the
covenant, my dear brother, but you tell me you are very poor. But God has
said, “I will be your God.” Why, you are very rich. A man may not have a
penny in the world, but if he has a diamond he is rich. So if a man has
neither penny nor diamond, if he has his God he is rich. Ah, but your coat
is threadbare, and you do not see where means are to come from to renew
your apparel. “Consider the lilies how they grow; they toil not neither
do they spin, and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these.” You have the same God that the lilies have,
and shall he so clothe the grass of the field which to-day is and tomorrow
is cast into the oven, and shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of
little faith? I said also it would be an inspiration, and I think it is.
It is an inspiration for us all to work for Christ, because we are sure to
have some results. I would, indeed I would, that the nations were
converted to Christ. I would that all this London belonged to my Lord and
Master, and that every street were inhabited by those who loved his name;
but when I see sin abounding and the gospel often put to the rout, I fall
back upon this: “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure; the
Lord knoweth them that are his.” He shall have his own. The infernal
powers shall not rot Christ, he shall see of the travail of his soul and
shall be satisfied. Calvary does not mean defeat. Gethsemane a defeat?
Impossible! The Mighty Man who went up to the cross to bleed and die for
us, being also the Son of God, did not there achieve a defeat but a
victory. He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the
pleasure in the Lord shall prosper in his hands. If some will not be saved
others shall. If, being bidden, some count themselves not worthy to come
to the feast others should be brought in, even the blind, and the halt and
the lame, and the supper shall be furnished with guests. If they come not
from England they shall come from the east, and from the west, from the
north and from the south. If it should come to pass that Israel be not
gathered, lo! the heathen shall be gathered unto Christ. Ethiopia shall
stretch out her arms, Sinim shall yield herself to the Redeemer; the
desert-ranger shall bow the knee, and the far-off stranger enquire for
Christ. Oh, no, beloved, the purposes of God are not frustrate; the
eternal will of God is not defeated. Christ has died a glorious death, and
he shall have a full reward for all his pain. “Therefore, be ye
steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch
as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
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Hebrews
9:22 With or Without Blood Shedding
NO. 2951
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 31ST, 1905,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, MAY 30TH, 1875.
“Without shedding of blood is no remission.” — Hebrews 9:22.
Week after week, standing before this congregation to preach the things
concerning the kingdom of Christ, I sometimes say to myself, “I wonder
how much longer I shall have to point out to some of these people the way
of salvation before they will walk in it; — I wonder how many times I
shall have to preach to them the doctrine of justification by faith in the
crucified Christ of Calvary, and how often I shall have to urge them to
immediate decision for Christ, the renunciation of their self-confidence,
and the forsaking of their sins.” It seems to me that, after I have done
this, the right thing for me to do is to keep on asking you, “Have you
given due attention to thee truths? Do you know them in your soul?” For,
“if ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them;” but the very
opposite of happy are ye if ye leave them undone.
I am going to try to enlist the attention of any earnest, thoughtful
persons who are here, any of those who are still unconverted, but who have
begun to consider their ways, and to turn unto the Lord. To you, dear
friends, I mean to preach nothing but the simple gospel of Jesus Christ,
and not to preach it as though I were addressing the settlers in Australia
or the pundits of Hindustan, but to preach it distinctly to you, and to
urge you to accept it here and now. If you have not accepted it by the
time the sermon is done, it shall be through no fault of mine; but the
blame must lie at your own door, that you have been directed to the way of
salvation, but have not walked in it; or that, having heard the gospel,
and taken some interest in it, you have wilfully rejected it.
The subject of my discourse is to be the remission, the putting away and
getting rid of sin, and that concerns every one of us, from the youngest
child to the oldest man or woman, for we are all sinners. It is very
common for people to say, “Oh, yes! we are all sinners.” But I do not
use that expression as they do; I mean that you have done wrong, and that
I have done wrong, and that we have all of us done wrong. We have done the
things which we ought not to have done, and we have left undone the things
which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us.” We have
chosen the wrong instead of the right, we have chosen to please ourselves
rather than to please God; we have even lived as if there were no God; if
there had really been no, God, our conduct, might not have been materially
affected. We have all sinned in some way or other, —
“Each wandering in a different way,
But all the downward road.”
And, dear friends, we all of us need to be cleansed from this sin. There
is not one among us who can afford to live in sin, or who can afford to
die in sin. We may find a temporary pleasure in it, but it must end in
eternal loss to us unless there comes a time when God’s grace saves us
from it; we cannot be truly happy while we are out of gear with God. And
since we are immortal beings, and our soul will not die, but will live on
for ever, there will come a time in which the sin, which is unforgiven,
will be a sore plague to us, so it is vitally important that we should
enquire whether, being sinners, we have been forgiven or not.
I hope I shall be able to reach the conscience of each person here while I
try to, talk to, you about two contrasts. First we have, in our text, sin
unremitted, and sin remitted, and then, secondly, we have without
blood-shedding, and with blood-shedding.
—————
I. So, first, we will consider these two things which are so opposite
to each other, Sin Unremitted, And Sin Remitted.
The apostle says, “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” I do not
like the sound of those words, “no remission.” They seem to me like a
funeral knell, — “no remission.” That might have been the sound in the
ear of every sinner from the time of Adam until now, — “no remission.”
It, would have made this world a dreadful prison-house if everywhere, when
we, sat down to bethink ourselves of sin, there stared us in the face the
words “no remission.” This is, indeed, one of the inscriptions across
the vault of hell, — “no remission,” “no remission.” I say that I
cannot bear the sound of those words, yet must they be sounded aloud, for
there are still some persons to whom they apply; I trust that the sounding
of those words in their ears may be the means of their awakening.
What does it mean when we say that a man has sinned, and that there is no
remission for him? It means, first, that he is the object of the daily
anger of God. God has a benevolent regard for him as one of his creatures,
and is not willing that he should perish. God would infinitely prefer that
the sinner should turn unto him, and live; but, viewing him as an
impenitent sinner, we read that “God is angry with the wicked every
day.” I have learned not to take much notice of other people’s opinions,
yet I do not like to make anybody angry if I can help it. If I have ever
done so, — and sometimes it has happened unintentionally, — I have had no
pleasure in reflecting that someone was angry with me; and if it was
somebody who would not be angry without a cause, it has been a very
painful thing to live under a consciousness of his displeasure. I want
you, whose sins are unforgiven, to, reflect that God is angry with you
every day. When he looks upon you, he cannot regard you as a father
regards a dear child who has done everything he can to please him, but he
must look upon you as a rebel, as one who has revolted against him, and
defied him to his face. When he looks upon your sin, his anger must flame
forth. A man, who is not angry with sin, must be himself a guilty man;
and, in proportion to the holiness of God must be his abhorrence of evil.
Reflect, then, upon what a sad condition you are in. If God should never
smite you in his righteous wrath, — if he should continue to give you the
mercies of this life every day just as he has done, I think, dear friend,
that it ought to trouble you all the more that you are still provoking him
by your continued sin. If you really are of the noble spirit that I hope
you are, you will not be so ungenerous as merely to regret your faults
because of the suffering it will bring to yourself, but you will lament it
because it offends so loving, so good, so tender, so gracious a being as
the God of the whole earth. Were he vindictive, — had he no bowels of
compassion, — if he had made no proclamation of mercy and no terms of
grace, — I could understand how you could brazen your forehead, and defy
his; but how can you live in enmity against the God who has been so
gracious to you? Let the thought of the mercy of God make your unremitted
sin such a burden upon your conscience that you will not rest until you
have repented of it, and been forgiven.
Remember, deal friends, that, in addition to being the object of the daily
anger of God, you are in constant peril of suffering that anger to the
full. A single step may cause you to fall, and that fall may lead is the
grave. Who among us can tell all the perils of this mortal life? I
remember reading a work in which there were collected together numerous
instances of the simple means by which men have died, such as the
swallowing of a fruit stone, or the sticking of a small bone in the
throat, the breathing of some invisible noxious gas, or the failure of
some almost imperceptible organ in the body to perform its usual
functions. How suddenly death often comes! A friend said to me, this
morning, “Do you know that So-and-so is dead?” He was a dear
fellow-servant of Christ, an eminent preacher of the gospel. I had no
idea, when I saw him a little while ago in robust health, that he and I
should never speak to each other again in this world. You also must often
have heard of the death of friends, and some day people will tell the
survivors that you too are gone. With unremitted sin upon you, you know
where you will go, do you not I need not tell you where, they are driven
whose sin has never been forgiven, and whose sin never will be forgiven,
as they have passed out of this world unwashed in the precious blood of
Jesus.
May I very earnestly put to all of you who are still unsaved this
question, — “How will you be able to die with unremitted sin upon you?
“There are some of us who believe that there is a spot on this earth
where our mortal remains are to lie, and it is possible that the tree, of
which the planks will form our coffin, has already been cut down. We
expect to die unless the Lord shall soon come, and that will amount to
much the same thing; and, expecting to die, we would like to be ready to
die, and to have our house in order. I like to meet a sensible, man, who
insures his life so as not to leave his wife and family in poverty, or
who, when he has means at his disposal, lays by for a rainy day, that,
should he be out of work, he will not need to go and beg. Now, if such
provision as this is commendable, — and who, will say that it is not? — is
it not much more commendable with regard to eternal things. Are we to be
careful about lesser matters, and yet to make no preparation for that last
moment in which we must pass out of this world to undergo the solemn
testing in the scales of unerring justice? If unremitted sin be upon you,
— and it is to, be fearful that it is upon very many of you, — I pray you
to consider what you will do in that dread hour when the immortal tenant
of your house of clay males her fatal leap without a wing to buoy her up,
and sinks into despair, and into yet deeper despair in the bottomless
abyss. God grant that none of our spirits may ever know what it is to be
found disembodied with sin unforgiven, and afterwards to hear the trumpet
of the great day of judgment ring out, and to go back into our risen
bodies with sin unforgiven, and shall to be cast, body and soul, into, the
lake that burneth for ever and ever.
This is, surely, enough for me to say upon that sorrowful theme, so let us
now think upon the brighter theme of remission. Our text seems to me to be
musical with hope: “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” Then, it
is clearly implied that, with shedding of blood, there is remission. In
the gospel, we always have glad news to tell. Unconverted sinner, with thy
unremitted sin, we have glad news to tell thee, and it is this. Thy sin
may be remitted. There is no sin, of which you can repent, which may not
be forgiven you. There lives not a mortal man who, if he repenteth of his
sin, shall not find mercy. There is a sin which is unto death, but those
who commit it never ask for mercy, or desire it. They are dead even while
they live, their conscience is seared as with a hot iron, and they rush to
hell willingly; but never has a man, sincerely anxious for salvation,
committed that sin. Let no penitent man despair, for there is remission
for every sin of which any man truly repenteth, and for which he
exerciseth faith in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The remission of sin, which God gives to his people, is complete; that is
to say, it wipes out all his sins, whatever they may have been. Now look,
believer, there is the list of your sins, it is a huge roll; if I were to
unroll it, how long would it be? Would it not belt the globe, and reach
from the earth to the sun and back again? Can you see all the sin that is
recorded there? Yet, the moment that the blood of Jesus is applied to that
roll, the whole record is blotted out, and there shall never be any more
sin inscribed there, for Jesus Christ, never yet divided a man’s sins,
forgiving some, and leaving others unforgiven. He deals with sin in the
mass, and takes it all up, and flings it, into the sea, or buries it in
his own sepulcher, and never shall it have a resurrection, for, saith the
Lord, “the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be
none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found.” In the Epistle
from which our text is taken, the Lord says, “I will put my laws into
their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and
iniquities will I remember no more.” King Hezekiah said is the Lord,
“Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back;” and King David wrote, “As
far as the east is from the west,” — and that is an infinite distance, —
“so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” So you see that God
completely sweeps away our sins when he remits them.
Further, the man, who gets remission of sin, gets a clearance from all
danger of any penalty resulting from sin, so that he can sing, —
“If sin be pardoned, I’m secure,
Death hath no sting beside;
The law gave in its damning power,
But Christ, my Ransom, died.”
In dying, Christ bought my pardon, so that I have no cause to fear the
punishment of my sin. What a blessing it is that the sin is gone, and the
penalty is gone too! When a man’s sin is remitted, he comes to the
position which would have been his if he had never sinned. We fell,
federally, in Adam, and we fell, actually, by our own sin; but Christ has
put us back where Adam was in his state of innocence; nay, he has done
more than that for us, for man was but man before he fell, but now man is
linked to the Eternal in the person of the God-man, Christ Jesus, so we
are nearer to God than Adam was before he fell. I said, sinner, that God
was angry with you; but if your sin is remitted, his anger is gone. What
does a forgiven sinner say to God? “Though thou wast angry with me, thine
anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me.” “Like as a father pitieth
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” Jeremiah wrote,
“The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn
thee.” It is sin that separates us from God; when that is put away, there
is no longer any separation, but we are one in bleed amity, and sacred
relationship, and holy concord, and near and dear communion.
Do all of you, dear friends, know what this remission of sin is? There are
some of us who could boast of this; — not that we could boast of anything
that we are, but we could boast and glory in the great goodness of the
Lord to us, the very chief of sinners. There are many here, who could join
with me in this declaration, “We were guilty and hell-deserving; but,
having believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we know that our sins, which
were many, are all forgiven. We are clothed in the righteousness of
Christ, and are accepted in the Beloved,’ and we know it; and there is,
therefore, now no condemnation to us who are in Christ Jesus, and we are
not afraid of any, for, ’being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The peace we have, through believing in
Jesus, is so full, so rich, so deep, that it cannot be broken. Death
itself will only deepen it. We are not afraid now to die; why should we
be? With the robe of his righteousness upon us, we shall stand boldly even
in the great day of judgment; and with the name of Jesus named upon us, he
will welcome us, and say to us, ’Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’”
I wish, with all my heart and soul, that every one of you had received the
remission of your sin. I bless God that there are many, in this place, who
are humbly resting on the great atoning sacrifice. My brothers and sisters
in Christ, do not question the remission of your sins; for, to question
that is to question the Word of God itself. God himself there declares
that every believer in Christ is justified and saved. But many of you, who
have heard the gospel, have not believed it. “This is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than
light, because their deeds were evil.” This is your greatest sin, that ye
have not believed on Jesus Christ, whom God hath sent. Oh, that God the
Holy Spirit would convince you of the sin of unbelief, and enable you to
repent of it, and to lay hold on Jesus Christ by a act of childlike faith,
that you might live through him!
—————
II. This brings me to the second point of my discourse, which divides
itself into two parts, — Without Blood-Shedding, And With Blood-Shedding.
“Without shedding of blood,” says the apostle, — wherever that is the
case, there is no remission. It is not possible that any sin should ever
be forgiven to any man without shedding of blood. This has been known from
the very first. As soon as man had sinned, God taught him that he needed a
sacrifice. Adam and Eve, after they had sinned, tried to clothe themselves
with fig leaves; but, that was not a sufficient covering. God must kill
some animals, shedding their blood, and in their skins our first parents
must be clothed. When Cain and Abel had grown up, the only sacrifice that,
God could accept was the slain lamb. To Cain and his sacrifice of the
fruits of the earth, God had no respect. Job is, perhaps, the earliest of
the patriarchs, but he offered sacrifice for his children lest they should
have offended God while they were feasting. He did not think nor did any
of those ancient men who feared God think, of finding acceptance with him,
and remission of sin, without shedding of blood. This belief has been
almost universally held; there is scarcely to be found a tribe of men who
have not believed in this. Wherever explorers go, they find that, wherever
there is any conception of God, there is a sacrifice in some form or
other. Many people have thought it necessary to make very great
sacrifices, and some have imagined that they could only expiate their
guilt by offering up their own children, so deeply-seated is the thought
in our humanity that there must be a sacrifice for sin. I scarcely know of
any religion, except Socinianism, without a sacrifice. Humanity craves for
it, and cannot do without it. If anyone should proclaim a religion without
a sacrifice, you would soon see how quickly this building would be
emptied, or any other place of worship. There are always more spiders than
people where, the atonement is left out. Men must have a sacrifice; in
their inmost hearts, they knew their absolute need of it when they seek to
approach the Lord.
The old Mosaic law revealed this need of a sacrifice for sin; the most
prominent thing about it, that which must have stuck everybody, was the
blood. I do not know whether you have ever realized that the tabernacle,
which was praised for its beauty, must have looked like a veritable
shambles, and the gorgeous temple itself must have needed abundant
arrangements for its cleansing because of the continual sacrifices offered
there, and because so much of the service consisted in the shedding and
sprinkling of blood. The most prominent idea that a worshipper would get
would be that there was something for which an atonement was needed, and
that this involved time presentation of life before God; and that is just
the thought that God would have us still retain in our minds, for,
“without shedding of blood is no remission.”
Do not quarrel with this truth, dear friends, for you cannot alter it. It
is not for me is stand here to justify the ways of God to men, or to
propound any theories of atonement. I have no theory; I simply say what
the apostle says, “Without shedding of blood is no remission;” and there
is no remission otherwise. You may stand and weep for sin till you become
a very Niobe, or be transformed into a dripping well, and waste away in
one continual shower of penitential lamentation; but no sin will ever be
washed away so. To repent of sin is a part of your natural duty; and
attention to one part of duty cannot atone for the neglect of another
part.
“Oh, but!” you say, “in addition to this weeping and lamentation, I
mean to amend.” Well, suppose you do so; if, from this time forth, you
never sin again, — if a wrong thought, or word, or act should never stain
your character again, you will have done no more than it was your duty to
do, and the fulfillment of your duty so far will be no atonement for the
faults of the past; all your tears and all your efforts’ cannot put away
the guilt of the past, for “without shedding of blood is no remission,”
and repentance and good works are, not blood-shedding.
Suppose you add to these things what you call religiousness. Very well; do
so. Attend the house of prayer, join in the petitions of the saints as far
as you can, sing with them; but, all time while, mind what you are doing,
for you may be adding to your sin, instead of decreasing it, by relying
upon such things as those. I repeat the declaration that you have only
done what you ought to have done, and that cannot make amends for your
previous misdeeds and neglects, so that there too you rest upon a broken
reed.
Are you so foolish as to hope that sin can be put away by some legerdemain
that may be practiced by so-called “priests”? A plague upon them! They
swarm on the face of this earth, — these men who say that, they are endued
with some strange power by which they can remit human guilt, by the
muttering of certain words, and by passing you through certain
performances which are generally attended with the transference of some
part of your substance to the pockets of the so-called “priests.” O
sirs, be not deceived by them! Open your eyes, and see for yourselves what
there can be in one of your fellow-men just because there have been laid
upon his head the hands of a man wearing lawn sleeves, that he should have
the power to put away your sins. If this folly is to be believed, do not
let us hear any more about “the enlightened nineteenth century.” It
would be a disgrace to the people of any century to believe in such a
transparent lie as that. Go you to the living God for pardon, for he alone
can give it. Make your confessions at his feet; they will be valid only
there. And when you have confessed your sin to God, do not in any degree
rely on sacramental efficacy, or on priestly power; but trust wholly to
the blood-shedding. There is your hope; but, without shedding of blood,
priest or no priest, sacrament or no sacrament, you will be lost, as
surely as you are a human being and a sinner.
My last point is to be, with the blood-shedding, there is remission; that
is a much more delightful topic. If God had not provided the sacrifice for
sin, my text would have sounded the death-knell of all our hopes.
“Without shedding of blood — no remission,” would have been like the
flaming sword of the cherubim keeping us back from the tree of life. “My
son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering,” was the sweet
assurance of Abraham to Isaac; but to us there is a still sweeter
assurance, God has provided the Lamb for a burnt offering. Listen to this,
ye who would have remission. God himself came into this world; he who was
offended by man’s sin condescended to become the sacrifice to put away
that sin; and coming here, he took upon himself a human body, spotless and
without taint of original sin; and here he lived as man, perfect man, yet
just as truly very God of very God. When he had reached the appointed
time, he offered himself upon the altar as the one sacrifice for human
sin; and, by the shedding of his blood, there is remission for sin. Think
of this great truth. Here was an innocent Sufferer, the value of whose
life was worth more than an innumerable number of ours. It did more for
the honor of God’s law for Christ to die than if we had all died; for all
created beings will see how just God is when he will not let his own Son
escape even when guilt is only imputed to him.
Jesus Christ has died; the Son of God has offered himself as a sacrifice
for sin; so, now, whosoever believeth on him shall have immediate
remission of sin. It hardly matters how I tell you this great truth so
long as I make it clear to you; if I spoke it ungrammatically, if I
uttered it so that you had to lean forward, and strain your ears to catch
the message, it would not matter, so long as you were able to understand
it. You are bound to lay hold of this truth, for it is your life. If you
do not grasp it, whose fault will it be? If I stood in the midst of a
company of criminals condemned to die, and told them that a free pardon
could be obtained in a certain way, there would not be one of them who
would criticize my voice or my manner; because, if they really wanted
pardon, they would all be taken up with the thought of getting it. It does
not matter to me what criticism you may happen to make upon me. I shall
sleep just as well, I daresay, for all that, and live as long; but I
beseech you not to let any remarks or thoughts about me, or the place, or
anything else, drive any one of you from this conviction — that you must
either be saved or lost, that you must have your sins forgiven, or else
you will be ruined for ever, that the only way of getting them forgiven is
through the shedding of blood, and that the only way of availing
yourselves of the efficacy of the blood-shedding of Christ is by simple
confidence in him. Does anybody misunderstand that expression? Then I put
it thus, — give yourself up deliberately into the hands of Christ to save
you from the consequences of your sin. As one who is falling drops,
because he must; but drops cheerfully, because another stands with
outstretched arms to catch him, so drop into the Savior’s arms. We are all
prone to sin; but, if we give ourselves up to Christ, he will change our
natures, and make us love holiness. He will renew our hearts, so that we
shall seek after that which is good, and pure, and lovely, and excellent
in the sight of God. Salvation from the propensity to sin, as well as from
the guilt of sin, will be given at once to everyone who believes in the
Lord Jesus Christ.
“But I do not feel right,” says one.
Feeling right is not the
all-important matter.
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and then shalt be saved.”
“I will go home and pray,” says another. That is not what I urge you to
do first of all. First believe, and then pray; to put prayer in the place
of faith, is to suggest is God that he should change the plan of
salvation, which is, as I just reminded another friend, “Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” “What am I to, do, then? Am
I to believe that Jesus Christ died for me in particular?” I did not say
that; you are to trust Jesus Christ whether you have any particular
interest in him or not. You will find out your particular interest in
Christ in due time. Just now, look at Christ upon the cross. That is a
spectacle that is well worthy of your careful observation. There he hangs,
he who made all worlds; with hands and feet fastened to the accursed tree,
he hangs there to die the death of a slave, — the death that the Romans
would scarcely inflict upon slaves unless they had committed some
extraordinary crimes. He, whom the angels worship, hangs there to die,
“the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” Can you not
trust your soul with him? Will you not believe that God, for Christ’s
sake, can forgive you? Will you not now rush into his arms, and there
confess your sin, yet look up, and say, “I know that thou canst forgive,
for Christ has died, and I do rest my soul on his atoning sacrifice?
I remember — though it was many years ago — when first I really understood
that I was simply to look to Jesus Christ and that, doing so, I should be
saved. I felt, in my heart, that I wished I had known it long before, for
I had been for years seeking rest, and finding none, and I only needed
just to be told that there was nothing for me to do but simply to look to
Christ. Oh, how I did leap at that message! It was the best sermon I ever
heard, yet it was, in itself, a very poor one; but it had in it that which
was the means of saving my soul. I trusted Christ then with my soul, and I
have nothing else to rest on now. I have preached some thousands of times
since that day, and God has given me many souls, but I have not found out
any improvement as to the way of salvation. I trusted wholly in Christ
then, and well I might, for I had nothing else to trust to, and I trust in
nothing but Jesus Christ now, and well I may, for I have nothing else to
trust to. If there is a poor sinner here, who sees the lifeboat of faith
come close up to him, and he is afraid to step in, if it is any comfort to
you, sinner, let me tell you that, if you step into that lifeboat, and are
lost, I must be lost too, for I do not know of any other way of escape. If
there is anyone, who trusts in Jesus Christ, and is damned, I must be
damned with him, I am perfectly willing to go with him to prison and to
death. If my Lord Jesus Christ is not able to save a sinner just as he is,
then he is not able to save me: and if the blood of Jesus Christ cannot
wash out sin, then mine will never be washed out, for I have nothing but
the blood of Jesus Christ to trust to, and I say to him, —
“Other refuge have I none:
Hangs my helpless soul on thee.”
O sinner, you can hang where I can hang, and where all God’s people are
hanging. “Ah!” you say, “you do not know what a great sinner I am.”
No, and you do not know what a great Savior he is. “Ah, but I have such a
hard heart!” But his heart was broken, and he can break yours. “Ay, but
it will be a wonderful thing if he ever saves me.” Ah! there you are
right, and so it is when he saves anybody, and he delights to work wonders
of grace. I wonder which will be the biggest wonder in heaven, — you or I,
or someone else here or elsewhere. Well, we shall see when we get there;
but mind that you do get there. God bless you, for his dear Son’s sake!
Amen.
><>><>><>
Hebrews
10:9 The First and the Second
NO. 2698
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, OCTOBER 28TH, 1900,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, OCTOBER 9TH, 1881
“He takes away the first, that he may establish the second.” — Hebrews
10:9.
The way of God with men is to go from good to better, and from better to
best. In the creation, “the evening and the morning were the first,
day?” “and the evening and the morning were the second day;” and so on
to the sixth day. God often gives us darkness before he gives us light,
and he gives us some measure of light in the rising sun before he gives us
the full glory of noontide. And this, I suppose, is not because God needs
any such rule for himself. He can give the best first if so he chooses;
but I imagine that this arrangement is needful because of our infirmity.
It would never do for weak eyes to have the full light of the sun pouring
down upon theta. Often, when men are faint, and nearly dying of hunger,
they would be killed outright if strong meat were at once set before them;
they must be gently fed as they are able to bear it. So God, knowing the
feebleness of his creatures, and especially the feebleness of his sinful
creatures, is pleased to bestow his mercies with great wisdom and
prudence. Little by little, first a very little, it; may be, and then
rather more, and then still more, and then much more, and then most of
all, until he does exceedingly abound in mercy towards us according to the
riches of his grace.
It often happens that the lesser blessing is a sort of preparatory school
before the greater favor. The law of Moses acted as an education for men
to prepare them to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. The types and
shadows of the twilight of the tabernacle and temple services helped men,
by-and-by, to appreciate the substance when the True Light began to shine
among the sons of men. We have need to be continually educated and trained
for that which lies before us. Even heaven itself we are not fit to enter
until we have learnt something of the heavenly things here below. There is
a first in order that there be a second; and the first has to be taken
away, when it has fulfilled its design, in order that then we may enter
upon the second. Some lower good precedes the higher; and when the lower
good has educated us for the higher, then it is removed, and the greater
blessing fills its place, even as it says in our text, “He takes away the
first, that he may establish the second.” I am going to sever these two
sentences from their connection, just for the time being, because they
seem to me to contain a valuable general principle, which may be used for
comfort and instruction in many ways.
—————
I. I shall ask you to notice, first, the grand instance of this rule
given in the chapter from which our text is taken, the instance which was
the occasion of the utterance of the rule.
“He taketh away the first;” that is,
the sacrifices and offerings of the ceremonial law; — “He taketh away the
first;” that is, the blood of bulls and of goats; — “that he may
establish the second,” which second is Christ himself, the one effectual
propitiation for sin, the great burnt-offering which the Lord accepts, and
by which he is reconciled to all who trust in it.
The taking away of “the first” involved the removal of instructive and
consoling ordinances. Let us never forget that “the first” was given for
the wisest possible purposes, and was itself exceedingly useful. God
forbid that we should ever find fault with the first dispensation, for it
was the means of great comfort, and of much instruction, to the people of
God who lived under it. Though it was, in itself, little better than a
piece of glass, yet the Old Testament believers saw much through it. Those
of them who had clear vision saw through it the same Christ whom we, by
faith, see at this day; so that window was to them a very precious thing
because of the future glory which they were able to see through it. I can
understand how David enjoyed the ceremonies of the holy place in his day;
and how, when he was obliged to be absent, he longed once more to stand
within the tabernacles of God, and envied the very sparrows and swallows
that could fly or build their nests around the courts Of the Lord’s house.
I can realize how earnestly he desired again to stand and see the priests
presenting the holy offerings before the shrine of the Most High; and I
can easily comprehend that. to tell him that all these observances were to
be put away, would give him some cause for disquietude. But when he
understood that they were to be removed in order that a second, and a
better dispensation: should be established in their place, then his
disquietude would altogether cease.
Brethren, we ought this day to be far more happy than ever the Jews were
when God had accepted their richest sacrifices; for what, after all, were
holocausts of bullocks, what were thousands upon thousands of lambs
compared with the only-begotten Son of God who has sacrificed himself on
our behalf? Of what avail were all the rivers of blood that were shed, and
the seas of oil that were poured out? What comfort could, they bring to
Jewish believers compared with that which we derive from the flowing
wounds of the Christ of Calvary, and from the fact that he who suffered on
the cross, that he who was dead and buried, has risen again, and gone back
into the glory, and is there pleading, on our behalf, the merit of his one
finished, perfect sacrifice? Yes, beloved, let “the first” go; we need
not drop a single tear over its departure, seeing that “the second,”
which is established in its place, is so infinitely superior to it.
Many Jewish believers tried, as long as ever they could, to keep some
relic of the old dispensation. For many a year, they sought at least to
teach that converts to Christianity must be circumcised; but they
gradually learned that, with the coming of Christ, — rather, through his
death, the old dispensation was all taken away. Every fragment of it is
gone; and, if we are wise, we shall say, “Let it go; why should we seek
to preserve it? Why should we keep that which is dead now that the
ever-living One has come, and dwells among us? So, let ’the first’ go, and
let ’the second’ be established.”
I want, dear friends, to urge all of you to come to this decision very
emphatically. I beseech you never to try to bring back “the first.” I do
not suppose you will ever literally imitate the Jews, and offer the
sacrifices enjoined under the ceremonial law; but there is, in certain
quarters, an attempt to bring back portions of it, — ill-formed, broken
bones of that which has long since been dead. For instance, when men
insist upon it that such an unscriptural ceremony as infant sprinkling is
necessary to salvation, and that another man-made rite must be performed,
or else grace will not come to us, if we yield to their pretensions for a
single moment, we shall be putting ourselves under the bondage of a
ceremonial law, which has not even the authority which the law given by
Moses had. The two ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s supper, which
Christ has left us, are blessed means of instruction and comfort to living
men and living women, but they are not saving ordinances; and he who tries
to make them so, in any measure whatever, is to that extent, seeking to
bring back “the first” dispensation, which God has for ever abolished.
He is also endeavoring to disestablish “the second” dispensation; as far
as he can, he is overthrowing it. But Christ will not share with rites and
ceremonies the glory of our salvation. We are either saved by grace
through faith, or else by the works and ceremonies of the law; there can
be no mingling of the two, for they are diametrically opposed to each
other. There must be a clean taking away of “the first” that there may
be an establishing of “the second.”
Then I want you, next, to take care that you do regard “the second” as
being really established; that is to say, that there has been offered one
great Sacrifice for sin, and that Christ’s sacrifice has put away sin, and
has put it away once for all. This is the establishment of the real,
perfect, everlasting atonement. Now, Christian people, you do believe this
as a matter of doctrine; but have you truly appropriated all the
blessedness of it? Do you know that your sins are forgiven you for his
names sake; that an atonement has been presented for you, by which you are
so effectually purged from guilt that you will never need to bring any
other purgation, or to look for any other atonement? Do you really regard
yourself as one who will never have to offer smother sacrifice for sin
because your conscience is completely purged already, and you are clean
every whit? I know that some professors do not like Kent’s verse, but I
like it, for I quite agree with him when he says, —
“Here’s pardon full for sin that’s past,
It matters not how
Black its cast;
And, O my soul, with wonder view,
For sins to come, here’s pardon,
too!”
The Christ who died on Calvary’s cross, will not have to die again for my
new sins, or to offer a fresh atonement for any transgressions that I may
yet commit. No; but, once for all, gathering up the whole mass of his
people’s sins into one colossal burden, he took it upon his shoulders, and
flung the whole of it into the sepulcher wherein Once he slept, and there
it is buried, never to be raised again to bear witness against the
redeemed any more for ever. Do regard Christ’s sacrifice, then, as firmly
established, and, having been once offered, never to be repeated, that one
offering having completed the redemption of all the blood-bought throng,
and so finishing the great work that nothing needs to be added to it.
—————
II. Now, secondly, I want to give you some historical instances in
which the same rule has been carried out. I must speak very briefly upon
each point, so try to catch the words as they fly.
First, God took away the earthly paradise, but he has given us Christ and
heaven. God gave to man, originally, perfect happiness. In the garden of
Eden, there were all manner of delights; and under the covenant made with
our first father, all of these would have been ours if he had persevered
in obedience. But Adam sinned, and so the covenant of works was broken. He
fell, and we fell in him; and, therefore, paradise was taken away from
him, and from us also. There is no hope of our ever going through the gate
of that garden. Even if it had remained perfect, and we could find it, we
should see there the cherubim with a flaming sword turning every way to
keep us out of the garden. Why hast thou taken away this paradise, Lord?
The apostle here gives us the answer to our question, “He taketh away the
first, that he may establish the second;”’ for, now, as many as believe
in Jesus are brought into another and a better Paradise. They are saved in
the Lord with an everlasting salvation, and there is prepared for them a
place of joy and delight compared with which the bliss of Eden shall not
even be mentioned, neither shall that earthly paradise be brought to mind,
or be spoken of any more.
Next, the first man has failed; but behold the second Man, the Lord from
heaven; and see again the moaning of our text: “He taketh away the first,
that he may establish the second.” There was a man in that first
paradise; he was the first man, Adam; and you and I were representatively
in him; for he was the federal head of the human race. But he fell, and he
was taken away. Do we regret this, and mourn over it as though it were an
irreparable calamity? By no means; for the Lord hath taken away the first
man, Adam, that he may establish the second Man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Concerning these two, the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “The
first man is of the earth, earthy: the second Man is the Lord from
heaven.” The first man has ruined us; but we have the second Man now, who
heads up his people, having become their federal Representative; and in
him they are saved beyond all fear of falling.
“He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second,” is
illustrated again in the case of Adam and Noah. Adam was not only the
federal head of the human race, but he was also its first father and
founder; but, although God took away our first father, he gave the race a
second father, even Noah, from whom we have all sprung as much as from the
loins of Adam. Now, Adam’s safety depended upon the perfection of a
creature, the obedience of a human being; but Noah’s safety lay in a
figurative death, burial, and resurrection, went into the ark, and died to
that old world in which he had lived so long. Inside that ark, as in a
coffin, he was buried beneath the descending floods; and he was floated
into a new world, to be the father of a race that should live through his
death, burial, and resurrection; as the apostle Peter says, “The like
figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us;” — not that baptism
saves us, but it is another figure of how we are saved by death, burial,
and resurrection, as Peter goes on to say, “not the putting away of the
filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ: who is gone into heaven, and is on the right
hand of God.” “He taketh away the first, that he may establish the
second.” Father Adam was taken away, but Father Noah was given to be the
new head of the race, and to him the Lord said, “This is the token of the
covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is
with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it
shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.” That second
covenant, which God made with Noah, is infinitely more secure than the
first covenant which was broken by Adam.
Brethren, there is another great historical instance of the rule mentioned
in our text in the case of the covenants made with the literal and the
spiritual Israel. There was a first covenant to which the Israelites gave
their consent soon after they came out of Egypt. That was a covenant of
works, and when Moses rehearsed in the ears of the people the terms of
that covenant, “All the people answered together, and said, All that the
Lord hath spoken we will do.” Yet they soon forgot their solemn promise.
You remember how the commandments were “written with the finger of God”
upon “two tables of testimony, tables of stone;” but when the people
turned aside to worship the golden calf which Aaron had made, we read
concerning Moses, “it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the
camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses anger ’waxed hot,’
and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the
mount.” In God’s great longsuffering, the commandments were given a
second time, though Moses, and not God, wrote on the second tables of
stone, and they were put away for safety into the golden ark, above which
was placed the mercy seat of pure gold. This was another symbolical
illustration of our text: “He taketh away the first, that he may
establish the second.” The law in the hand of Moses is broken that we may
have the law in the heart of Christ hidden away under the sacred covering
of divine mercy in the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High. The
first covenant of “This do, and thou shalt live,” is taken away, that
God may establish the second, which is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” The first covenant, because it waxed
old, has passed away; and now God has established a second covenant, the
covenant of grace: “They shall be my people, and I will be their God: and
I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever,
for the good of them, and of their children after them: and I will make an
everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do
them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall lot
depart from me.’
Thus I might keep on showing you how, all the way along in history, there
has been a first, and then there has been a second, as there was in the
case of the temple at Jerusalem. Solomon built the first temple, but God
permitted that to be taken away that he might establish that second temple
into which Christ came, and so made the glory of the latter house to be
greater than that of the former one. All history seems to me to say,
“This is God’s usual method of procedure, to give the dim twilight first,
and then to follow it with the full glory of the noontide brightness.” We
must, therefore, expect that it will be so in our time.
—————
III. But, now, leaving history in
general, I come to your own individual history, so as to give you some
instances in your own experience of the working of this rule: “He taketh
away the first, that he may establish the second.’”
First, this is true of our own righteousness and Christ’s. I shall speak
of myself because, then, I shall be speaking of many of you also. I once
thought that I had a very fine righteousness of my own; and, in looking
back upon it, I am not at all sure whether it was not about as respectable
as the righteousness which the most of my friends have possessed. Like the
young man who came to our Lord, I could have said, concerning the ten
commandments, “All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I
yet?” But I well recollect the time when God’s Holy Spirit began to pull
my righteousness away from me. Oh, how fiercely I fought to keep it! There
Was a terrible tugging between my pride and my conscience, for even my
conscience joined with the Spirit of God, and the Word of God, in telling
me, that, though outwardly righteous, yet I was inwardly wicked. Still,
for a long while, I could not understand and believe that I, the child of
godly parents, who had never fallen asleep from the days of infancy
without the repetition of the prayer my mother taught me, and who had
never left my bedroom in the morning without having presented the
petitions which I had learnt as a child, — I could not bring myself to
think that I, who was so regular in attendance at the house of God, who
read my Bible, who tried to understand theological books, and so on, —
could not admit that I had a righteousness which was only like filthy
rags, fit for nothing but to be burned. I tell you, dear friends, I did
not like that ugly truth, and I fought very hard against it; but I bless
God that he took away “the first” righteousness that he might establish
’the second.” That second — “the righteousness which is of God by
faith,” — the righteousness which is imputed to everyone who believeth in
Jesus, — is so much superior to “the first” that I can truly say with
the apostle Paul, “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for
Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffererd the
loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and
be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is
of God by faith.”
Is there anybody here who is having his righteousness tugged at as mine
was? Is that beautiful but flimsy house of your own righteousness
beginning to tumble about your ears? Did a big brick-bat come down just
now? Was there a slate or two blown off the roof, or did the chimney-pots
begin to fall? Thank God for it! Thank God for it! If you have a very fine
robe of righteousness, all of your own weaving, I am not desirous that you
should be unclothed, and left naked to your shame, but I am anxious that
you should be clothed with that spotless robe which was woven in heaving;
and I know that you will never wear that wondrous garment until your own
dirty rags are pulled off you. Christ never comes and puts his glorious
robes over our poor, beggarly, leprous rags. No; they must come off before
