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A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, November 19, 1876, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes. [Ro 10:4]
1. You remember we spoke last Sunday morning about “the days of the Son of man.” [See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1323, “And Why Not?” 1314] Oh that every Sunday now might be a day of that kind in the most spiritual sense. I hope that we shall endeavour to make each Lord’s Day as it comes around a day of the Lord, by thinking much of Jesus, by rejoicing much in him, by labouring for him, and by our growingly importunate prayer, that to him may the gathering of the people be. We may not have very many Sabbaths together, death may soon part us; but while we are able to meet as a Christian assembly, let us never forget that Christ’s presence is our main necessity, and let us pray for it and entreat the Lord to bestow that presence always in displays of light, life and love! I become increasingly earnest that every preaching time should be a soul-saving time. I can deeply sympathise with Paul when he said, “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.” We have had so much preaching, but, comparatively speaking, so little believing in Jesus; and if there is no believing in him, neither the law nor the gospel has served its purpose, and our labour has been utterly in vain. Some of you have heard, and heard, and heard again, but you have not believed in Jesus. If the gospel had not come to your hearing you could not have been guilty of refusing it. “Have they not heard?” says the apostle. “Yes, truly”: but still “they have not all obeyed the gospel.” Up to this very moment there has been no hearing with the inner ear, and no work of faith in the heart, in the case of many whom we love. Dear friends, is it always to be so? How long is it to be so? Shall there not soon come an end of this reception of the outward means and rejection of the inward grace? Will not your soul soon decide for Christ for immediate salvation? Break! Break, oh heavenly day, upon the benighted ones, for our hearts are breaking over them.
2. The reason why many do not come to Christ is not because they are not earnest, after a fashion, and thoughtful and desirous to be saved, but because they cannot brook God’s way of salvation. “They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” We do get them by our exhortation so far on the way that they become desirous to obtain eternal life, but “they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.” Notice, “submitted themselves,” for it needs submission. Proud man wants to save himself, he believes he can do it, and he will not give up the task until he finds out his own helplessness by unhappy failures. Salvation by grace, to be sued for in forma pauperis, [the form of poverty] to be asked for as an undeserved blessing from free, unmerited grace, it is this which the carnal mind will not come to as long as it can help it: I beseech the Lord so to work that some of you may not be able to help it. And oh, I have been praying that, while this morning I am trying to present Christ as the end of the law, God may bless it to some hearts, so that they may see what Christ did, and may perceive it to be a great deal better than anything they can do; may see what Christ finished, and may become weary of what they themselves have laboured at so long, and have not even well started at this day. Perhaps it may please the Lord to enchant them with the perfection of the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. As Bunyan would say, “It may, perhaps, set their mouths a watering after it,” and when a sacred appetite begins it will not be long before the feast is enjoyed. It may be that when they see the garment of wrought gold, which Jesus so freely bestows on naked souls, they will throw away their own filthy rags which they hug so closely now.
3. I am going to speak about two things, this morning, as the Spirit of God shall help me: and the first is, Christ in connection with the law — he is “the end of the law for righteousness”; and secondly, ourselves in connection with Christ — “for everyone who believes Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.”
4. I. First, then, CHRIST IN CONNECTION WITH THE LAW.
5. The law is what, as sinners, we have above all things reason to dread; for the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. The law shoots out devouring flames towards us, for it condemns us, and in solemn terms appoints us a place among the accursed, as it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.” Yet, strange infatuation! like the fascination which attracts the gnat to the candle which burns its wings, men by nature fly to the law for salvation, and cannot be driven from it. The law can do nothing else except reveal sin and pronounce condemnation upon the sinner, and yet we cannot get men away from it, even though we show them how sweetly Jesus stands between them and it. They are so enamoured with a legal hope that they cling to it when there is nothing to cling to; they prefer Sinai to Calvary, though Sinai has nothing for them except thunders and trumpet warnings of coming judgment. Oh that for a while you would listen anxiously while I present Jesus my Lord, so that you may see the law in him.
6. Now, what has our Lord to do with the law? He has everything to do with it, for he is its end for the noblest object, namely, for righteousness. He is the “end of the law.” What does this mean? I think it means three things: first, that Christ is the purpose and object of the law; secondly, that he is the fulfilment of it; and thirdly, that he is the termination of it.
7. First, then, our Lord Jesus Christ is the purpose and object of the law. It was given to lead us to him. The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, or rather our attendant to conduct us to the school of Jesus. The law is the great net in which the fish are enclosed so that they may be drawn out of the element of sin. The law is the stormy wind which drives souls into the harbour of refuge. The law is the sheriff’s officer to shut men up in prison for their sin, concluding them all under condemnation in order that they may look to the free grace of God alone for deliverance. This is the object of the law: it empties so that grace may fill, and wounds so that mercy may heal. It has never been God’s intention towards us, as fallen men, that the law should be regarded as a way of salvation for us, for it can never be a way of salvation. Had man never fallen, had his nature remained as God made it, the law would have been most helpful for him to show him the way in which he should walk: and by keeping it he would have lived, for “he who does these things shall live in them.” But ever since man has fallen the Lord has not proposed to him a way of salvation by works, for he knows it to be impossible for a sinful creature. The law is already broken; and whatever man can do he cannot repair the damage he has already done; therefore he is totally disqualified concerning any hope of merit. The law demands perfection, but man has already fallen short of it; and therefore let him do his best he cannot accomplish what is absolutely essential. The law is meant to lead the sinner to faith in Christ, by showing the impossibility of any other way. It is the black dog to fetch the sheep to the shepherd, the burning heat which drives the traveller to the shadow of the great rock in a weary land.
8. Look how the law is adapted to this; for, first of all, it shows man his sin. Read the ten commandments and tremble as you read them. Who can lay his own character down side by side with the two tablets of divine precept without at once being convinced that he has fallen far short of the standard? When the law comes home to the soul it is like light in a dark room revealing the dust and the dirt which otherwise would have been unnoticed. It is the test which detects the presence of the poison of sin in the soul. “I was alive without the law once,” said the apostle, “but when the commandment came sin revived and I died.” Our beauty utterly fades away when the law blows upon it. Look at the commandments, I say, and remember how sweeping they are, how spiritual, how far-reaching. They do not merely touch the outward act, but dive into the inner motive and deal with the heart, the mind, the soul. There is a deeper meaning in the commandments than appears upon their surface. Gaze into their depths and see how terrible is the holiness which they require. As you understand what the law demands you will perceive how far you are from fulfilling it, and how sin abounds where you thought there was little or none of it. You thought yourself rich and increased in goods and in no need of anything, but when the broken law visits you your spiritual bankruptcy and utter penury stare you in the face. A true balance discovers short weight, and such is the first effect of the law upon the conscience of man.
9. The law also shows the result and mischief of sin. Look at the types of the old Mosaic dispensation, and see how they were intended to lead men to Christ by making them see their unclean condition and their need of such cleansing as only he can give. Every type pointed to our Lord Jesus Christ. If men were isolated because of disease or uncleanness, they were made to see how sin separated them from God and from his people; and when they were brought back and purified with mystical rites in which were scarlet wool and hyssop and the like, they were made to see how they can only be restored by Jesus Christ, the great High Priest. When the bird was killed so that the leper might be clean, the need of purification by the sacrifice of a life was exemplified. Every morning and evening a lamb died to daily remind them of the need of a pardon, if God is to dwell with us. We sometimes have fault found with us for speaking too much about blood; yet under the old testament the blood seemed to be everything, and was not only spoken of but actually presented to the eye. What does the apostle tell us in the Hebrews? “Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the testament which God has commanded you.’ Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood there is no remission.” The blood was on the veil, and on the altar, on the hangings, and on the floor of the tabernacle: no one could avoid seeing it. I resolve to make my ministry of the same character, and more and more sprinkle it with the blood of the atonement. Now the abundance of the blood of old was meant to show clearly that sin has so polluted us that without an atonement God is not to be approached: we must come by the way of sacrifice or not at all. We are so unacceptable in ourselves that unless the Lord sees us with the blood of Jesus upon us he must do away with us. The old law, with its emblems and types, illustrated many truths with respect to men’s selves and the coming Saviour, intending by every one of them to preach Christ. If anyone stopped short of him, they missed the intent and purpose of the law. Moses leads up to Joshua, and the law ends at Jesus.
10. Turning our thoughts back again to the moral rather than the ceremonial law, it was intended to teach men their utter helplessness. It shows them how short they fall of what they ought to be, and it also shows them, when they look at it carefully, how utterly impossible it is for them to come up to the standard. Such holiness as the law demands no man can reach by himself. “Your commandment is exceedingly broad.” If a man says that he can keep the law, it is because he does not know what the law is. If he imagines that he can ever climb to heaven up the quivering sides of Sinai, surely he can never have seen that burning mount at all. Keep the law! Ah, my brethren, while we are still talking about it we are breaking it; while we are pretending that we can fulfil its letter, we are violating its spirit, for pride as much breaks the law as lust or murder. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.” “How can he be clean who is born of a woman?” No, soul, you can not help yourself in this thing, for since only by perfection you can live by the law, and since that perfection is impossible, you cannot find help in the covenant of works. In grace there is hope, but as a matter of debt there is none, for we do not merit anything except wrath. The law tells us this, and the sooner we know it to be so the better, for the sooner we shall flee to Christ.
11. The law also shows us our great need — our need of cleansing, cleansing with the water and with the blood. It reveals to us our filthiness, and this naturally leads us to feel that we must be washed from it if we are ever to draw near to God. So the law drives us to accept Christ as the one and only person who can cleanse us, and make us fit to stand within the veil in the presence of the Most High. The law is the surgeon’s knife which cuts out the proud flesh so that the wound may heal. The law by itself only sweeps and raises the dust, but the gospel sprinkles clean water upon the dust, and all is well in the chamber of the soul. The law kills, the gospel makes alive; the law strips, and then Jesus Christ comes in and robes the soul in beauty and glory. All the commandments, and all the types direct us to Christ, if we will only heed their obvious intention. They wean us from self, they put us off from the false basis of self-righteousness, and bring us to know that only in Christ can our help be found. So, first of all, Christ is the end of the law, in that he is its great purpose.
12. And now, secondly, he is the law’s fulfilment. It is impossible for any of us to be saved without righteousness. The God of heaven and earth by immutable necessity demands righteousness of all his creatures. Now, Christ has come to give to us the righteousness which the law demands, but which it never bestows. In the chapter before us we read of “the righteousness which is by faith,” which is also called “God’s righteousness”; and we read of those who “shall not be ashamed” because they are righteous by believing, “for with the heart man believes to righteousness.” What the law could not do Jesus has done. He provides the righteousness which the law asks for but cannot produce. What an amazing righteousness it must be which is as broad and deep and long and high as the law itself. The commandment is exceedingly broad, but the righteousness of Christ is as broad as the commandment, and goes to the end of it. Christ did not come to make the law milder, or to render it possible for our cracked and battered obedience to be accepted as a kind of compromise. The law is not compelled to lower its terms, as though it had originally asked for too much; it is holy and just and good, and ought not to be altered in one jot or tittle, nor can it be. Our Lord gives the law all it requires, not a part, for that would be an admission that it might justly have been content with less at first. The law claims complete obedience without one spot or speck, failure, or flaw, and Christ has brought in such a righteousness as that, and gives it to his people. The law demands that the righteousness should be without omission of duty and without commission of sin, and the righteousness which Christ has brought in is just such a one that for its sake the great God accepts his people and considers them to be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. The law will not be content without spiritual obedience, mere outward compliances will not satisfy. But our Lord’s obedience was as deep as it was broad, for his zeal to do the will of him who sent him consumed him. He says himself, “I delight to do your will, oh my God, yes your law is within my heart.” He puts such righteousness upon all believers. “By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous”; righteous to the full, perfect in Christ. We rejoice to wear the costly robe of fair white linen which Jesus has prepared, and we feel that we may stand arrayed in it before the majesty of heaven without a trembling thought. This is something to dwell upon, dear friends. Only as righteous ones can we be saved, but Jesus Christ makes us righteous, and therefore we are saved. He is righteous who believes on him, even as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. “There is, therefore, now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,” because they are made righteous in Christ. Yes, the Holy Spirit by the mouth of Paul challenges all men, angels, and demons, to lay anything to the charge of God’s elect, since Christ has died. Oh law, when you demand of me a perfect righteousness, I, being a believer, present it to you; for through Christ Jesus faith is accounted to me for righteousness. The righteousness of Christ is mine, for I am one with him by faith, and this is the name by which he shall be called — “The Lord our righteousness.”
13. Jesus has thus fulfilled the original demands of the law, but you know, brethren, that since we have broken the law there are other demands. For the remission of past sins something is asked for now more than present and future obedience. Upon us, on account of our sins the curse has been pronounced, and a penalty has been incurred. It is written that he “will by no means clear the guilty,” but every transgression and iniquity shall have its just punishment and reward. Here, then, let us admire that the Lord Jesus Christ is the end of the law concerning its penalty. That curse and penalty are awful things to think about, but Christ has ended all their evil, and thus discharged us from all the consequences of sin. As far as every believer is concerned the law demands no penalty and utters no curse. The believer can point to the Great Surety on the tree of Calvary, and say, “See there, oh law, there is the vindication of divine justice which I offer to you. Jesus pouring out his heart’s blood from his wounds and dying on my behalf is my answer to your claims, and I know that I shall be delivered from wrath through him.” The claims of the law both as broken and unbroken Christ has met: both the positive and the penal demands are satisfied in him. This was a labour worthy of a God, and lo, the incarnate God has achieved it. He has finished the transgression, made an end of sins, made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness. All glory be to his name.
14. Moreover, not only has the penalty been paid, but Christ has put great and special honour upon the law in so doing. I venture to say that if the whole human race had kept the law of God and not one of them had violated it, the law would not stand in so splendid a position of honour as it does today when the man Christ Jesus, who is also the Son of God, has paid obeisance to it. God himself, incarnate, has in his life, and yet more in his death, revealed the supremacy of law; he has shown that not even love nor sovereignty can set aside justice. Who shall say a word against the law to which the Lawgiver himself submits? Who shall now say that it is too severe when he who made it submits himself to its penalties. Because he was found in the form of a man, and was our representative, the Lord demanded from his own Son perfect obedience to the law, and the Son voluntarily bowed himself to it without a single word, taking no exception to his task. “Yes, your law is my delight,” he says, and he proved it to be so by paying homage to it even to the full. Oh wondrous law under which even Emmanuel serves! Oh matchless law whose yoke even the Son of God does not disdain to bear, but being resolved to save his chosen was made under the law, lived under it and died under it, “obedient to death, even the death of the cross.”
15. The law’s stability also has been secured by Christ. That alone can remain which is proven to be just, and Jesus has proven the law to be so, magnifying it and making it honourable. He says, “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, until all is fulfilled.” I shall have to show you how he has made an end of the law in another sense, but concerning the settlement of the eternal principles of right and wrong, Christ’s life and death have achieved this for ever. “Yes, we establish the law,” Paul said, “we do not make void the law through faith.” The law is proven to be holy and just by the very gospel of faith, for the gospel which faith believes in does not alter or lower the law, but teaches us how it was fulfilled to the uttermost. Now the law shall stand firm for ever and ever, since even to save elect man God will not alter it. He had a people, chosen, beloved, and ordained to life, yet he would not save them at the expense of one principle of right. They were sinful, and how could they be justified unless the law was suspended or changed? Was, then, the law changed? It seemed as if it must be so, if man was to be saved, but Jesus Christ came and showed us how the law could stand firm as a rock, and yet the redeemed could be justly saved by infinite mercy. In Christ we see both mercy and justice shining full-orbed, and yet neither of them in any degree eclipsing the other. The law has all it ever asked for, as it ought to have, and yet the Father of all mercies sees all his chosen saved as he determined they should be through the death of his Son. Thus I have tried to show you how Christ is the fulfilment of the law to its utmost end. May the Holy Spirit bless the teaching.
16. And now, thirdly, he is the end of the law in the sense that he is the termination of it. He has terminated it in two senses. First of all, his people are not under it as a covenant of life. “We are not under the law, but under grace.” The old covenant as it stood with father Adam was “Do this and you shall live”: he did not keep its command, and consequently he did not live, nor do we live in him, since in Adam all died. The old covenant was broken, and we became condemned by it, but now, having suffered death in Christ, we are no more under it, but are dead to it. Brethren, at this present moment, although we rejoice to do good works, we are not seeking life through them; we are not hoping to obtain divine favour by our own goodness, nor even to keep ourselves in the love of God by any merit of our own. Chosen, not for our works, but according to the eternal will and good pleasure of God; called, not of works, but by the Spirit of God, we desire to continue in this grace and return no more to the bondage of the old covenant. Since we have put our trust in an atonement provided and applied by grace through Christ Jesus, we are no longer slaves but children, not working to be saved, but saved already, and working because we are saved. Neither what we do, nor even what the Spirit of God works in us is to us the reason and basis of the love of God towards us, since he loved us from the first, because he would love us, unworthy though we were; and he still loves us in Christ, and looks upon us not as we are in ourselves, but as we are in him; washed in his blood and covered in his righteousness. You are not under the law, Christ has taken you from the slavish bondage of a condemning covenant and made you to receive the adoption of children, so that now you cry, “Abba, Father.”
17. Again, Christ is the terminator of the law, for we are no longer under its curse. The law cannot curse a believer, it does not know how to do it; it blesses him, yes, and he shall be blessed; for since the law demands righteousness and looks at the believer in Christ, and sees that Jesus has given him all the righteousness it demands, the law is bound to pronounce him blessed. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” Oh, the joy of being redeemed from the curse of the law by Christ, who was “made a curse for us,” as it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” Do you, my brethren, understand the sweet mystery of salvation? Have you ever seen Jesus standing in your place so that you may stand in his place? Christ accused and Christ condemned, and Christ led out to die, and Christ struck by the Father, even to the death, and then you cleared, justified, delivered from the curse, because the curse has spent itself on your Redeemer. You are admitted to enjoy the blessing because the righteousness which was his is now transferred to you so that you may be blessed by the Lord world without end. Let us triumph and rejoice in this for evermore. Why should we not? And yet some of God’s people get under the law with respect to their feelings, and begin to fear that because they are conscious of sin they are not saved, whereas it is written, “He justifies the ungodly.” For myself, I love to live near a sinner’s Saviour. If my standing before the Lord depended upon what I am in myself and what good works and righteousness I could bring, surely I would have to condemn myself a thousand times a day. But to get away from that and to say, “I have believed in Jesus Christ and therefore righteousness is mine,” this is peace, rest, joy, and the beginning of heaven! When one attains to this experience, his love for Jesus Christ begins to flame up, and he feels that if the Redeemer has delivered him from the curse of the law he will not continue in sin, but he will endeavour to live in newness of life. We are not our own, we are bought with a price, and we would therefore glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits, which are the Lord’s. So much upon Christ in connection with the law.
18. II. Now, secondly, OURSELVES IN CONNECTION WITH CHRIST — for “Christ is the end of the law for everyone who believes.”
19. Now see the point “for everyone who believes,” there the stress lies. Come, man, woman, do you believe? No weightier question can be asked under heaven. “Do you believe on the Son of God?” And what is it to believe? It is not merely to accept a set of doctrines and to say that such and such a creed is yours, and then and there to put it on the shelf and forget it. To believe is, to trust, to confide, to depend upon, to rely upon, to rest in. Do you believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead? Do you believe that he stood in the sinner’s place and suffered the just for the unjust? Do you believe that he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him? And do you therefore lay the whole weight and stress of your soul’s salvation upon him, yes, upon him alone? Ah then, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to you, and you are righteous. If you believe you are clothed in the righteousness of God. It is of no use to bring forward anything else if you are not believing, for nothing will avail. If faith is absent the essential thing is lacking: sacraments, prayers, Bible reading, hearings of the gospel, you may heap them together, high as the stars, into a mountain, huge as high Olympus, but they are all mere chaff if faith is not there. It is your believing or not believing which must settle the matter. Do you look away from yourself to Jesus for righteousness? If you do he is the end of the law for you.
20. Now observe that there is no question raised about the previous character, for it is written, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes.” But, Lord, this man before he believed was a persecutor and injurious, he raged and raved against the saints and put them in prison and sought their blood. Yes, beloved friend, and that is the very man who wrote these words by the Holy Spirit, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes.” So if I address one here this morning whose life has been defiled with every sin, and stained with every transgression we can conceive of, yet I say to them, remember “all manner of sin and of blasphemy shall be forgiven to men.” If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ your iniquities are blotted out, for the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s dear Son, cleanses us from all sin. This is the glory of the gospel that it is a sinner’s gospel; good news of blessing not for those without sin, but for those who confess and forsake it. Jesus came into the world, not to reward the sinless, but to seek and to save those who were lost; and he, being lost and being far from God, who comes near to God by Christ, and believes in him, will find that he is able to bestow righteousness upon the guilty. He is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes, and therefore to the poor prostitute who believes, to the drunkard of many years standing who believes, to the thief, the liar, and the scoffer who believes, to those who have previously rioted in sin, but now turn from it to trust in him. But I do not know that I need mention such cases as these; to me the most wonderful fact is that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for me, for I believe in him. I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him until that day.
21. Another thought arises from the text, and that is, that there is nothing said by way of qualification concerning the strength of the faith. He is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes, whether he is Little-Faith or Great-Heart. Jesus protects the rear rank as well as the vanguard. There is no difference between one believer and another with respect to justification. As long as there is a connection between you and Christ the righteousness of God is yours. The link may be very like a film, a spider’s line of trembling faith, but, if it runs all the way from the heart to Christ, divine grace can and will flow along the most slender thread. It is marvellous how fine the wire may be that will carry the electric pulse. We may want a cable to carry a message across the sea, but that is for the protection of the wire, the wire which actually carries the message is a slender thing. If your faith is of the mustard seed kind, if it is only such as tremblingly touches the Saviour’s garment’s hem, if you can only say, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief,” if it is only the faith of sinking Peter, or weeping Mary, yet if it is faith in Christ, he will be the end of the law for righteousness for you as well as for the chief of the apostles.
22. If this is so then, beloved friends, all of us who believe are righteous. Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ we have obtained the righteousness which those who follow the works of the law know nothing about. We are not completely sanctified, oh that we were; we are not free of sin in our members, though we hate it; but still for all that, in the sight of God, we are truly righteous, and being qualified by faith we have peace with God. Come, look up, you believers who are burdened with a sense of sin. While you chasten yourselves and mourn your sin, do not doubt your Saviour, nor question his righteousness. You are black, but do not stop there, go on to say as the spouse did, “I am black, but beautiful.”
Though in ourselves deform’d we are.
And black as Kedar’s tents appear,
Yet, when we put thy beauties on,
Fair as the courts of Solomon.
23. Now, notice that the connection of our text assures us that being righteous we are saved; for what does it say here, “If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.” He who is justified is saved, or what would be the benefit of justification? Over you, believer, God has pronounced the verdict “saved,” and no one shall reverse it. You are saved from sin and death and hell; you are saved even now, with a present salvation; “He has saved us and called us with a holy calling.” Feel its blessings at this very hour. “Beloved, now we are the sons of God.”
24. And now I am finished when I have said just this. If anyone here thinks he can save himself, and that his own righteousness will suffice before God, I would affectionately ask him not to insult his Saviour. If your righteousness suffices, why did Christ come here to work one out? Will you for a moment compare your righteousness with the righteousness of Jesus Christ? What similarity is there between you and him? As much as between an ant and an archangel. No, not so much as that: as much as between night and day, hell and heaven. Oh, if I had a righteousness of my own that no one could find fault with, I would voluntarily fling it away to have the righteousness of Christ, but since I have none of my own I do rejoice all the more to have my Lord’s. When Mr. Whitfield first preached at Kingswood, near Bristol, to the coal miners, he could see when their hearts began to be touched by the gutters of white made by the tears as they ran down their black cheeks. He saw they were receiving the gospel, and he writes in his diary “since these poor coal miners had no righteousness of their own they therefore rejoiced in him who came to save tax collectors and sinners.” Well, Mr. Whitfield, that is true of the coal miners, but it is equally true of many of us here, who may not have had black faces, but we had black hearts. We can truly say that we also rejoice to cast away our own righteousness and consider it dross and dung so that we may win Christ, and be found in him. In him is our sole hope and only trust.
25. Last of all, for any of you to reject the righteousness of Christ must be to perish everlastingly, because it cannot be that God will accept you or your pretended righteousness when you have refused the real and divine righteousness which he sets before you in his Son. If you could go up to the gates of heaven, and the angel were to say to you, “What right have you to enter here?” and you were to reply, “I have a righteousness of my own,” then for you to be admitted would be to decide that your righteousness was on a par with that of Emmanuel himself. Can that ever be? Do you think that God will ever allow such a lie to be sanctioned? Will he let a poor wretched sinner’s counterfeit righteousness pass for the same value side by side with the fine gold of Christ’s perfection? Why was the fountain filled with blood if you need no washing? Is Christ a superfluity? Oh, it cannot be. You must have Christ’s righteousness or be unrighteous, and being unrighteous you will be unsaved, and being unsaved you must remain lost for ever and ever.
26. What! has it all come to this, then, that I am to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for righteousness, and to be made just through faith? Yes, that is it: that is the whole of it. What! trust Christ alone and then live as I like! You cannot live in sin after you have trusted Jesus, for the act of faith brings with it a change of nature and a renewal of your soul. The Spirit of God who leads you to believe will also change your heart. You spoke of “living as you like,” you will like to live very differently from what you do now. The things you loved before your conversion you will hate when you believe, and the things you hated you will love. Now, you are trying to be good, and you make great failures, because your heart is alienated from God; but when once you have received salvation through the blood of Christ, your heart will love God, and then you will keep his commandments, and they will be no longer grievous to you. A change of heart is what you need, and you will never get it except through the covenant of grace. There is not a word about conversion in the old covenant, we must look to the new covenant for that, and here it is — “Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, I will cleanse you. I will also give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them.” This is one of the greatest covenant promises, and the Holy Spirit performs it in the chosen. Oh that the Lord would sweetly persuade you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that promise and all the other covenant engagements shall be fulfilled to your soul. May the Lord bless you! Spirit of God, send your blessing on these poor words of mine for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — Ro 10]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Work of Grace as a Whole — Eternal Love Exalted” 231]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Gospel, Stated — Believe And Live” 535]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Desires After Holiness — Love Constraining To Obedience” 647]
The Work of Grace as a Whole
231 — Eternal Love Exalted
1 Saved from the damning power of sin,
The law’s tremendous curse,
We’ll now the sacred song begin
Where God began with us.
2 We’ll sing the vast unmeasured grace
Which, from the days of old,
Did all the chosen sons embrace,
As sheep within the fold.
3 The basis of eternal love
Shall mercy’s frame sustain;
Earth, hell, or sin, the same to move,
Shall all conspire in vain.
4 Sing, oh ye sinners bought with blood,
Hail the Great three in One;
Tell how secure the covenant stood
Ere time its race begun.
5 Ne’er had ye felt the guilt of sin,
Nor sweets if pardoning love,
Unless your worthless names had been
Enroll’d to life above.
6 Oh what a sweet exulting song
Shall rend the vaulted skies,
When, shouting grace, the blood-wash’d throng
Shall see the top stone rise.
John Kent, 1803.
Gospel, Stated
535 — Believe And Live <8.7. />
1 When the Saviour said “’Tis finished,”
Everything was fully done;
Done as God himself would have it —
Christ the victory fully won.
Vain and futile the endeavour
To improve or add thereto;
God’s free grace is thus commanded —
To “believe,” and not “to do.”
2 All the doing is completed,
Now ‘tis “look, believe, and live”:
None can purchase his salvation,
Life’s a gift that God must give;
Grace, through righteousness, is reigning,
Not of works, lest man should boast:
Man must take the mercy freely,
Or eternally be lost.
Albert Midlane, 1862.
The Christian, Desires After Holiness
647 — Love Constraining To Obedience
1 No strength of nature can suffice
To serve the Lord aright;
And what she has she misapplies,
For want of clearer light.
2 How long beneath the law I lay
I bondage and distress!
I toil’d the precept to obey,
But toil’d without success.
3 Then, to abstain from outward sin,
Was more than I could do:
Now, if I feel its power within,
I feel I hate it too.
4 Then all my servile works were done
A righteousness to raise;
Now, freely chosen in the Son,
I freely choose his ways.
5 What shall I do, was then the word,
That I may worthier grow?
What shall I render to the Lord?
Is my inquiry now.
6 To see the law by Christ fulfill’d
And hear his pardoning voice,
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice.
William Cowper, 1779.
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