Romans 8:17 Heirs of God

NO. 2961
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9TH, 1905,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 22ND, 1875.

“And if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.”-Romans 8:17 (note)

THIS chapter — the 8th of Romans, like the garden of Eden, full of all manner of delights. Here you have all necessary doctrines to feed upon, and luxurious truths with which to satisfy your soul. One might well have been willing, to be shut up as a prisoner in paradise, and one might well be content, to be shut up to this one chapter, and never to be allowed to preach from any other part of God’s Word. If this were the caseã one might find a sermon in every line; nay, more than that, whole volumes might be found in a single sentence by anyone who was truly taught of God. I might say of this chapter, “All its paths drop fatness.” It is among the other chapters of the Bible like Benjamin’s men which was five times as much as that of any of his brothers. We must not exalt one part of God’s Word above another; yet, as “one star differeth from another star in glory,” this one seems to be a star of the first magnitude, full of the brightness of the grace and truth of God. It is an altogether inexhaustible mine of spiritual wealth, and I invite the saints of God to dig in it, and to dig in it again and again. They will find, not only that it hath dust of gold, but also, huge nuggets, which they shall not be able to carry away by reason of the weight of the treasure.

I notice, in this chapter, and also in many other parts of Paul’s writings, that it is his habit to make a kind of ladder — a sort of Jacob’s ladder, let me call it, — which he begins to climb. But every step he takes leads to another, and that one to another, and that again to yet another. You see it here. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God,”-there is the leading of the Spirit, — “they are the sons of God.” And when he gets to sonship, then he says, “And if children, then heirs.” So he gets to heirship, and he climbs still higher when he says, “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” I think he means us to judge, by this mode of writing, that this ought to be the style of our Christian experience. Every measure of grace which we receive should lead us to seek after something higher still. We are never to say, “This is the pinnacle of grace; I cannot get beyond this.” Self-satisfaction is the end of progress; so we are constantly to cry, “Higher, and yet higher still; onward and upward,”-and still to ask to be filled yet more completely with all the fullness of God.

My text is far too large for me to attempt to preach from it in an exhaustive style; so I will just make four observations upon it; and even those observations will only give you a bird’s-eye, view of the great truths here revealed. May God grant that, in each of those four things, there may be food for your souls!

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I. These first thing that I see in the text is The Ground Of Heirship: “If children, then heirs.” The children of God are heirs of God, and they come to be heirs through being his children, and in no other way.

Mark that we are not heirs of God as the result of creation. I cannot say what we might have been by creation had the Fall not ruined us; but that fatal disobedience of our first parent robbed us of any inheritance that, might have come to us in that way; and now, by nature, we are “children of wrath, even as others,” but certainly not, heirs of the promise or heirs of the graces of God. No, beloved friend, nature will never entitle you to be a joint-heir with Christ. Whatever you may think of your human nature, — and you may suppose that it is not so depraved as the nature of others — you may even get the notion that yours is a very superior sort of human nature; — well, let it be what it may, it will not entitle you to this inheritance. For as it was not the children of the flesh who were necessarily the heirs of the old covenant, even as; Ishmael, born after the flesh, was not; the heir, but Isaac, born after the spirit; and not Ishmael, but Jacob; so is it now. It is not what you are by nature, — not that which is born of the flesh, but what you are by grace, — that which is born of the Spirit, — that is the ground upon which heirship may be claimed before God. So, my dear hearer, if you are in a state of nature, — if you have never passed out of that state into a state, of grace, — this text has nothing to do with you.

And, further, as our heirship with God depends upon our being the children of God, it does not depend upon our natural descent. I have already shown you that it does not depend upon our nature, but there is another phase of that truth which needs to be mentioned. There were some, of old, who said, “We have Abraham to our father;” but being born as sons of Abraham after the flesh availed not to give them any part, in the inheritance which was according to the Spirit. And, today, there are some who say, “We are the children of godly parents. We were born in a Christian land, so, of course, we are Christians.” Not so, you are no more Christians, on that ground, than if you were the children of the Hottentot in his kraal. You need as much to be born again as does “the heathen Chinee”; you need to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit as much as if you had been taught from your childhood to bow your knee to a block of wood or stone. O ye, who are the inhabitants of this so-called Christian country, you stand before the living God in no sort of preference to the heathen, except that you have the privilege of hearing the gospel; but if you reject it, it shall be more tolerable for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the inhabitants of heathen lands, in the day of judgment, than for you. Did not our Lord Jesus Christ say that “many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit, down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom” — the flavoured ones of his day, or of our day, — “shall to cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth”?

Further, as the inheritance is not by creation, nor by natural descent, neither can it come by meritorious service. The apostle says, “If children, then heirs;” — not, “if servants.” You may toil, and keep on toiling all your life, but that will not make you an heir of God. The servant in your house, however diligent, is not your heir; for a servant to claim to be the heir, would not be tolerated for a moment in a court of law. The servant may be able truthfully to say, “I have been in my master’s house these many years, neither transgressed I at any time his commandments; and all that is right for a servant to do, I have done for him from my youth up;” but if he were to go on to ask, “What lack I yet?” the reply would be, “You lack the one thing that is absolutely essential to heirship, namely, sonship.” Oh, how this truth cuts at the root of all the efforts of those who hope to win heaven by merit, or to obtain the favor of God by their own exertions! To them all, God says what Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again.” Birth alone can make you children, and you must be children if you are to be heirs. O sirs, if you remain what you are by nature, you may strive to do what you please; but, when you have dressed out the child of nature in its finest garments, it is still only the child of nature, finely dressed, but not, the child of God. Ye must be, by a supernatural birth, allied to the living God, for, if not, all the works that you may perform will not entitle you to the possession of the inheritance of the Most High.

And as good works cannot do this, neither can any ceremonial observances. You know that there is a ceremony of which children are, taught to say, “In my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” It does not matter what people may say in order to make an excuse for believing that this statement is true, for it is as gross a falsehood as was ever put into human language. We know it is not true. Look where we may, we can see numbers of persons who were sprinkled in their infancy, or were even baptized after they had reached years of discretion, but their conduct shows that they are not members of Christ children of God, or inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. And as that ceremony cannot make them Christians, neither can any other, whether it be devised by man, or ordained by God himself, for God never intended that any ceremony should take the place of the new birth, the regeneration, which must be wrought by the Spirit of God himself.

“Not all the outward forms on earth,

Nor rites that God has given,

Nor will of man, nor blood, nor birth,

Can raise a soul to heaven.

’The sovereign will of God alone

Creates us heirs of grace;

Born in the image of his Son,

A new peculiar race.”

And, without the Holy Spirit to carry out that sovereign will of God by making us to be born into the image of his Son, we are not his heirs, for thus it stands in our text, “If children, then heirs;” which implies that, if we are not children, we are not heirs.

So this is the all-important enquiry for us to make. Do we, beloved friends, possess this qualification which is absolutely essential to our heirship? Have we been born again? We cannot have been born into, God’s family when we were born the first time, for Christ himself said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and nothing more; — “and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” so we must be barn of the Spirit, we must be born again, born from above, if we are to be children of God. Did you ever undergo that great change? Do you know what regeneration means? I do not mean, have you read of it in the Confession of Faith, but have you experienced it in your own soul? Are you knew creatures in Christ Jesus? For, as the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, if any of us have not been created anew in Christ Jesus, if we have not been born again by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, we cannot possibly be the children of God, and heirs according to the promise.

If we have been thus regenerated, we shall certainly know it. There may be times when we shall doubt it; but we shall know it, partly by the indwelling of the Spirit, as Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father;” and in the verse before our text, we read, “The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” Do you know anything, dear friend, about this witness-bearing by the Holy Spirit? I have often asked myself that question, so I feel free to ask you the same. This is not a thing that you may know, or may not, know, and yet possibly may be safe; but you must have this witness of the Holy Spirit, or else the witness of your own Spirit will be a very doubtful thing indeed. The Holy Spirit never confines a false witness, but a true witness he will confirm; and if the witness of your spirit be true, you will have, more or less definitely, the witness of the Spirit within you, bearing confirmatory testimony that it is even so.

Those who are truly the children of God have yet another mark by which they can be recognized, namely, that there is a likeness to their Heavenly Father begotten in them. If a man says to you, “I am the son of So-and-so,”-some old friend of yours, — you look into his face to see whether you can trace any likeness to his father. So, when a man says to us, “I am a child of God,” we have the right to expect that there shall be at least some trace of the character of God visible in his walk and conversation. Come, dear friend, with all your imperfections, are you seeking to be an imitator of God, as one of his dear children? Do you try to do that which he wishes you to do? Do you make his Son to, be your Exemplar? Do you strive after holiness? Are you aiming at obedience to those divine commands, “Be ye holy; for I am holy:” “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”? Do you feel that, because you are a child of God, it becomes you to walk even as his firstborn Son walked while he was here below? Remember that, without holiness no man shall see the Lord; because, without holiness, no man has the evidence that he is indeed a child of God.

And, once more, the main evidence of our being children of God, by the new birth, lies in our believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” There are many evidences of the life of God in the soul, but there is no other that is so abiding as the possession of faith in Jesus Christ. Perhaps, dear friend, you are afraid to say that you have the likeness of God upon you, although others can see it, but I hope you are not afraid to say, “I do believe that Jesus is the Christ” and the apostle John says, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” If you accept him as appointed and anointed of God to be your Savior, and commit your soul into his hands, then be you sure that you are a child of God, for true, simple, sincere faith in the Lord Jesus exists only in the heart of the regenerate. No unregenerate man ever did, or ever could, believe in Jesus Christ; but where the Lord has given the divine life, he gives faith at the same time, — faith which is the surest proof of the existence of that divine life in the soul.

God grant to each one of you the grace to test yourself by these four questions: — “Have I been born again? Have I the Spirit of adoption? Have I at least some likeness to my Heavenly Father Do I believe in Jesus Christ? “If so, then you are a child of God, and that childhood is the ground of heirship, so we can leave that point, and go on to the next.

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II. The text teaches, in the second place, The Universality Of Heirship To All The Children Of God: “If children, then heirs;” — not some of them heirs, but, “if children, then heirs,” all of them without an exception.

Proven that they are children, it is also proven that they are heirs it is not so among men, for, often, it is only the firstborn sons who are the heirs; but, with God, the rule is, “If children,”-whenever born, — “then heirs.”

Why is it that all the children of God are his heirs? First, because the principle of priority as to time cannot possibly enter into this question. There is a Firstborn, who has priority by nature, and honor, and right; but he is “the firstborn among many brethren:” and in him all the rest of the children of God are also firstborn for Paul writes of “the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are, written in heaven.” The question of the time of birth is, sometimes, a matter of very great concern on earth. In the ways of twins, a few minutes may make all the difference between his lordship and his brother who is no Lord at all, — between the brothers who shall be heir of many broad acres, and the one who shall go forth upon the broad acres to earn his bread. But, with God’s children, there is no difference in point of time. Adam, if he was the first man converted, certainly has no priority over Paul, although Paul says that he was as “one born out, of due time.” Noah, an early member of God’s great family, has no preference over Abraham; indeed, Abraham seems to be mentioned with greater honor than any of those who had gone before him; certainly, they had no priority over him. Time has to do with time, but time has not to do with eternity; so, whether you, my brother, were born to God fifty years ago, and I five-and-twenty years ago, and our young friend over there five-and-twenty days ago, it makes no difference. “If children, then heirs,” because the date of birth cannot come into our reckoning when we have to do with eternal things.

Again, we know that the love of God is the same toward all his children. They are all his children, — all chosen, all redeemed, all regenerated, all called, all justified, and they shall be all glorified. Where a father loves all his children alike, his disposition leads him to treat them all alike, both as to what he gives them now, and also as to what he will leave them as an inheritance; but, sometimes, circumstances such as the law of the land and the title-deeds of estates, — prevent the father from treating all alike. But, in the case of the children of God, laws cannot hamper or hinder him. He is the great Law-Maker, and he can control circumstances so as to do everything according to the dictates of his own heart; and his heart of love says, “I have loved all my children alike, and they shall all have the blessing;” and so they shall, beloved. Though you, my dear friend, think yourself obscure, and one of the least in God’s Israel, your name is just as prominently written upon the heart of Christ as the names of his apostles are, and you are as dear to the Lord as the very noblest among his saints. Indeed, he carries the lambs in his bosom, so the little ones have the best chariot of all. He may leave the sheep to walk, but he carries the lambs; and he always takes special care of the weak and feeble. “If children, then heirs,” because all God’s children are, equally partakers of their Father’s love.

Again, we know, from Scripture, that all the children of God are favored with the same promise. If you turn to the 6th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the 18th verse, you will find there what Paul says to all the Lord’s children. What a precious passage that, is where he; tells us that, “by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.” In the previous verse, he mentions the heirs of promise, and by that expression he means all the children of God, for they are all heirs according to the promise, and all heirs of the promise. Well, then, as God has given them a promise, he will fulfill it; and that promise is that they shall be heirs of this world, and also heirs of the world to come; and he will fulfill it to them all, and keep his oath by which he has confirmed it to them, so they shall surely be his heirs.

Notice, again, that all God’s children are his heirs because they are all equally related to him through whom the heirship comes, for every child of God is neither more nor less than brother to the Lord Jesus Christ yea, a member of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. In this brotherhood with Christ there can be no degrees; a man is not partly a brother, and partly not a brother. If he is a brother of Christ he is his brother. A man is not partly in Christ and partly out of Christ. If one with Christ, he is one with Christ; and all the members of Christ’s mystical body are quickened with the same life, and shall have the same heaven to dwell in for ever. Seeing, then, that we are all one in Christ Jesus, the heirship which comes to us by way of the Firstborn must, come equally to, all the children.

And there is one more very comforting reflection, and that is, that the inheritance is large enough for all the children. Rich men sometimes have to let their estates go to the eldest son, according to the stupid regulations of this age, “to keep up the family dignity.” There are some great lords, who, find that they can accumulate wealth enough to set up two or three sets of families, and they do so; but, in other families, there generally are some of the children who must, remain lean in order that the firstborn son may grow fat. Now, it is not so with the inheritance of God, because there is enough for all; and there is this peculiarity about it, that every child of God has all the inheritance, yet there is not any the less for all the rest of the family. It, can never be said, in relation to human heirs, that each heir has all the inheritance, yet no one else has any less than all. You, my brother, if you are a child of God, are an heir of God, and so am I; and I have not any the less of God because you have him, and you have not any the to of God because I have him. Nay, if it were possible, for it to be so, I should have the more in the joy that you also have the same blessing, and you would have the more in the joy of seeing others partaking in the same privilege as you have. The whole of God belongs to Christ and the whole of God belongs to the least member of Christ all are “heirs of God.” So, you see that there was no reason for the exclusion of the younger branches of God’s family in order to make, up a greater estate for the older ones. All the children of God are the heirs of God, because the inheritance is an infinite one, and there is an infinite inheritance for each one of them.

O beloved, let us dwell for a moment or two on this theme! The text says, “If children, then heirs.” It does not say, “If children, then apostles.” None of us could attain to that high office. It does not say, “If children, then preachers.” Here and there, one of us could claim that title. It does not say, “If children, then deeply-experienced saints.” Some of us may never be that. It does not say, “If children, then mighty men of valor.” Perhaps some of us are too timid ever to grow to that. It does not say, “If children, then rich men,” because some of us are poor. It does not say, “If children, then favored with health,” for some of us have little enough of that boon. It does not say, “If children, then filled with full assurance,” for some of us are vexed with many doubts and fears. But it does say, If children, then heirs.” So let us rejoice that we are “heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” Let us rejoice in that fact now, and let us begin to live worthily of our rank as heirs of God. Let us strive after holiness, and seek to live as becometh the heirs of eternal life considering what manner of pews we ought to be in all holy conversation and godliness.

Thus I have spoken of the universality of the heirship to all the children of God.

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III. Now, thirdly, I want to speak concerning The Inheritance Itself: “If children, then heirs; heirs of God.”

That little phrase, which I have just uttered, is one which none of us can fully comprehend, and none of us may even attempt to do so. This is the glory of our inheritance, that we are “heirs of God.” Will you give men your most earnest attention while! I remind you of some of the descriptions of our inheritance which are given in Scripture?

Here is one, which you will find in the 21st chapter of the Revelation, and the 7th verse: “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.” That is the extent of your inheritance, “all things”; and it is not a singular expression, for you have it again in 1 Corinthians 3:21, 22: “All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours.” The richest, man who ever lived could not say that all things were his, but the poorest Christian who ever lived can say that. If you turn to the 1st chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the 14th verse, you will find that we are there called “heirs of salvation.” Looking on a little further in the same Epistle, in the 6th chapter, and the 17th verse, you will find that we are called “the heirs of promise.” In his Epistle to Titus, the 3rd chapter, and the 7th verse, Paul calls us “heirs according to the hope of eternal life,” while James says, in the 2nd chapter of his Epistle, at the 5th verse, that we are “heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that love him;” and Peter says, in his first Epistle, the 3rd chapter, and 7th verse, that we are “heirs together of the grace, of life.” If any preacher wants to deliver a series of sermons upon the heirship of the saints, let him take these texts, and preach upon them. I have not time to do that to-night, and even if I should say all that I could upon all these texts put together, I should not then have said so much as my text says, for that does not speak of “the heirs of promise,” or the “heirs of salvation,” or the “heirs of the kingdom,” but it says, “heirs of God.”

“Heirs of God,”-what does that mean? Well, it means, first of all, that we are heirs to all that God has. Suppose I am my father’s heir, and that he has an old thatched cottage worth a shilling a week, — well, that is what I am heir to; but if I happened to be the heir of the Duke of Westminster, he might take me over a county, and say to me, “That is what you are heir to.” Ah, just so! Whatever the father has, that is what the child is heir to. Now think what God has Stretch your wings, most vivid imagination! Fly abroad, most capacious thought, and when the remotest bounds of space have been crossed, you have only just commenced your endless journey. We will not attempt such a flight as that. We will stop at home, and meditate upon the great truth that all God has is ours because we are his, — heirs of God.

Yet even that, great as it is, is only part of the meaning of our text, for the apostle next means that God himself belongs to us. David said, “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance, and this is what every child of God can say; so that the portion of each child of God is not only what God has, but what God himself is. O child of God, thou hast God’s power to protect thee, God’s even to guide thee, God’s justice to defend thee, God’s immutability to be constant to thee, God’s infinity to enrich thee! Thou hast Gods heart of love, God’s hand of power, God’s head of glory, — time would fail me to tell all that thou hast, for thou hast all that God is to be thine for ever and ever.

All the worlds that at present, have been created are but as mere trifles compared with what God could make if he so pleased. A thousand, thousand, thousand, thousand worlds, when they were all made, would be but as a handful of dust scattered from his almighty hand, and he could, if he willed, do the like; again a thousand, thousand, thousand, thousand times over. “Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.” Think of the whole mountain range as one great altar, and all the cedars set ablaze, and them all the beasts that feed there offered up as a burnt sacrifice, yet the prophet says that is not sufficient for God. Then, how great he must be Oh, make him great in your hearts, and reverence and adore him; but when you do so, do not forget to say, “My God! my God! my God!” How often you have that expression in the Psalms! It never could have been there, as the utterance of any mere man, if it had not been first in the eternal purpose of God as the utterance which was to be on the lip of Christ in that dread hour when he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” So, now, each believer can say, “my God;” for Jesus Christ himself puts it, “My Father and your Father; my God, and your God.” In some aspects God is as much my God as he it Christ’s God, and as much my Father as he is Christ’s Father. O beloved, I have got out of my depth now! I wish I were able to go even deeper into this wondrous, truth, but there I must leave off what I have to say concerning the inheritance itself: “heirs of God.”

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IV. My last point is, perhaps, as blessed as any in the whole text. It is, The Partnership Of The Claimants To The Inheritance: “joint-heirs with Christ.”

This is, first of all, the test of our heirship. Listen. You are not an heir of God alone; you cannot be. You can only be an heirs of God through being “in Co.” — in company — joint-heir with Christ. Now, are you and Christ in company? That is a simple question. Are you and Christ, in company, or do you stand alone? If you stand alone, you are a poor miserable bankrupt, gazetted in the court of heaven; so do not try to stand alone. You will perish if you do. But are Christ and you thus joined together? Have you learned to trust in Christ to live in Christ, to pray in Christ, to trade with heaven through Christ and to have everything in Christ? That is the text of heirship. God’s child is born God’s heir, but it is because he is in Christ and is born in union with Christ, that he becomes God’s heir. If we are out of Christ we are out of the family of God, and out of the heirship of God. “Without Christ” you are “without God in the world;” but in Christ, joined in company with Christ, you are an heir of God.

This, beloved, seems to me to be the sweetest part of all the inheritance. Once let me know that I am one with Christ and so have become a fellow-heir with him, and it is like heaven below to my soul. Indeed, I shall like heaven itself all the better, and I shall like all that God is aging to give me by-and-by all the better, because I am gain to share it with Christ. A good deal depends upon the company we may meet in going to any place to which we may be invited. A person might ask you to his house, and you might not know whether you cared to go there. But suppose the host were to tell you that a very dear friend of yours was going to be there, you would say, then, “Oh, yes, I will go for the sake of having his company!” Now, wherever Jesus Christ is, — I do not care whether it is in the house of a Pharisee, or on some lonely hillside, — it is good to be where he is, and to go shares with him; it makes everything more sweet, to, be able to enjoy it with him. So, beloved, while you are heirs of God, you are not the only heirs; for you are joint-heirs with Christ and you will share, the inheritance with him. When the Lord Jesus Christ prayed the best prayer that he could pray for his people, do you remember what he asked for? It was this: “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me;” — as if he knew that his people would prize something that belonged to him better the anything else in all the world, or even in heaven itself. If Christ sups with us, it is a blessed supper though it is only a dish of herbs; but if Christ is absent, it is a poor dinner though there may be joints enough to make the table groan. T’s my mind, then, this is the sweetness of sure inheritance, that it is a joint-heirship with Christ.

This also shows the greatness of the inheritance; because, if we are to be joint-heirs with Christ it cannot be a little thing that we are to share with him. Can you imagine what the Father would give to his Son as the reward of the travail of his soul? Give yourself time to think what the everlasting God would give to his equal Son, who took upon himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and who humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Can you think of a reward that would be large enough for him? Let the Father’s love and the Father’s justice judge. Oh, it must be a large inheritance, for such a well-beloved Son, and such an obedient Son as he was! I, a poor worm of the dust, cannot think of anything that I consider good enough for him. Lord, I would have him crowned with many crowns, and set up on a glorious, high throne. But what must be the reward which his Father devises for him? What must be the greatness of the infinite recompense which the infinite God will bestow upon his Only-begotten? Follow that line of thought as far as you can, and then recollect that you are to be joint-heir with Christ. What he has, you are to share. I will read those wonderful words again;” If children, them heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” The same glory that is to be his, he will have us to enjoy with him.

Again, this joint-heirship ensures the inheritance to us. I am quite sure that I should not like to go into partnership with just anybody whom I might meet in the street; indeed, if I had a share in any limited liability company, I would do with it as the man did with the bad bank-note, — lay it down, and run away from it as fast as over I could. What multitudes of people have been ruined by taking shares in companies which seemed to be the nicest, neatest, most money-getting schemes under heaven! But one need not mind going shares if one has nothing at all, and the other partner is the wealthiest person in the whole world. So, what a blessing it is to go shares with Christ because we know that he cannot fail. I was thinking, just now, that, if I ever should lose heaven, seeing that I am joint-heir with Christ it would be “the firm” that would lose it, because we must stand or fall together if we are joint-heirs. Somebody once said to a holy man, “Your soul will be lost.” “Then,” said he, “Christ will be the loser.” He was like the negro, who was quite unconcerned when the ship was being wrecked. He said that he should not lose anything, for he belonged to his massa, and his massa would lose it. Well, what the negro said in his simplicity, we may say in real earnest. If our souls are lost, it will be Christ who will be the loser, for he bought us with his blood, and he will lose what he purchased at so great a cost. And his Father gave us to him, so he will lose his Father’s gift. And he has loved us, and is married to us, so he will lose his spouse, the beloved of his soul. But he will not lose us, — he cannot lose us, and if Christ cannot lose his inheritance, then none of his people can lose theirs, for we are joint-heirs with him. If two partners go into a court of law, and the case is decided against the one, it is against the other also, for the two are one in that matter. So, if the decision could, by any possibility, be given against anyone who is in Christ Jesus, it would be given equally against the Lord Jesus Christ himself; but that cannot be. How secure, then, is the inheritance of the saints! We are joint-heirs with Christ.

And, my brethren, to conclude, how this endears his love to us, — that he should thus put himself on the same footing with us as- to his heirship, first taking us into union with himself, making us joint-heirs with himself, and then himself going back to heaven to plead for us, and to make it part of his glory up there to prepare the place which we are to share with him. Does not this bind us fast to him? If he lets us be sharers in his inheritance in glory, will we not gladly be sharers here in his sufferings and in his shame? Is there anybody who desires to spite upon Christ as they did of old? Then, let him do me the honor to spite upon mu for Christ’s sake. Is there anyone who has an evil word for Christ? Then, let that word fall upon my ears. Do you not feel, beloved, that it is an honor for you to endure any reproach for Christ’s sake! Surely, if we are to be with him there for ever, it is but right that we should be with him here; if we are to share the splendor of his throne, we may be joyful to; share the dishonor of his cross so far as we may.

Romans 8:32 The Saints Riches

NO. 3204
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 30TH, 1910,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, NOV. 2ND, 1862.

“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall be not with him also freely give us all things? “ — Romans 8:32 (note)

Many of you, dear friends, are coming to the Lord’s table at the close of this service. Our blessed Redeemer instituted that simple but sublime ordinance so that we might be kept in constant remembrance of him. The bread is nothing but bread, yet it is the very suggestive emblem of Christ’s flesh; and it shall be well with you if, after a spiritual fashion, you shall thus eat the flesh of Christ. The wine is nothing but wine, yet is it the emblem of Christ’s blood; and they are thrice blessed who experimentally understand the meaning of Christ’s words, “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life.” Christ is yours, believer; you know that he is more yours than even your own life, for that you may lose; when God gave you your existence, he gave it to you without any covenant as to its prolongation, but he has given Christ to you by an everlasting covenant, to be yours for ever and ever. Christ is yours, beloved; oh, that you knew how to make the best use of this blessed property! Christ is yours to live upon and to spend, yours to have and to hold, to keep and to enjoy, yours not only to look at that you may be saved, and to wear that you may be justified, but yours, to eat that you may be refreshed by him, and live upon him. Christ is yours to the fullest extent possible; there is no reservation, he is your absolute, indefeasible, and inalienable property; yours to-day as perfectly as he will be when you are in heaven, yours as certainly as you are his. Oh, that you may now, knowing that Christ is thus your property, live upon him, and rejoice in him, and feel that you are indeed immeasurably rich!

When we come to this communion table, to partake of these emblems of Christ’s death, it will be a very happy thing for us if we remember that, possessing Christ, we have everything. There is no want that you have which will not be supplied if you really know that Christ is yours; there is no necessity, however great, which may press upon you which shall not be instantaneously supplied if Christ is truly yours. You come to Christ’s table to meet with Christ, and you know that, when you have him, you have everything, so you do well to sing, —

“Thou, O Christ, art all I want,” —

for in him you have all that you can possibly need. And, moreover, the gift of Christ is God’s solemn pledge that he will keep back from you nothing that you really need. “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” “Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” Having given you Christ, he must, he will, with him, freely give you all things.

“How vast the treasure we possess! How rich thy bounty, King of grace! This world is ours, and worlds to come: Earth is our lodge, and heaven our home.

“All things are pure; the gift of God,

The purchase of a Savior’s blood;

While the good Spirit shows us how

To use and to improve them too.”

I am going to make it my business, in a very simple but earnest manner, to try and exhort the children of God to cast aside all thoughts of their being poor, and to rejoice now in their boundless riches in Christ Jesus.

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I. First, let me remind you, believer, that, whatever you may really require, God will not deny it to you, for he has already given you Christ, Think What This Gift Was To The Father; it was his only-begotten and well-beloved Son.

Perhaps you have a wilful, wayward boy, one who costs you much, but brings you little comfort; yet, would you like to lose him? If you saw him in his coffin to-morrow, would you not cry ever him as David cried over his son, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son”? Vile he may be, and a disgrace to your name, yet he is still your child, and you could not bear to give him up. But what shall I say of the child who, from his youth up, has been obedient to you; who, having grown up to manhood, has become your friend as well as your offspring, who has been with you in every holy enterprise, and has proved himself to be worthy of his fathers love and esteem? Could you give him up? Mother, thou knowest how dear is thy firstborn son to thee. Of all griefs that rend a mother’s heart, perhaps the greatest is to lose her firstborn. Even if he is only in his infancy, it is a wound from which the mother’s tender heart does not soon recover, but to lose that son in manhood, to see the hale strong man suddenly cut down, this is no small sorrow; and many, under such trying circumstances, have found it no easy task to say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

To lose one’s child even for some object which is nearest and dearest to our heart, is pain and grief indeed; then what must it have cost God to give up his Son to die for his people? What must God’s love to his only-begotten Son be? We can only speak of God after the manner of men, for we know not how otherwise to speak of him; and inasmuch as God is infinitely greater than we are, his love is infinitely greater than ours. We can only love, to the finite degree of which humanity is capable; but God loveth beyond all degree. The heart of God is filled with fathomless oceans of eternal affection, and this affection has ever been fixed upon his Son. Christ is infinitely more dear to God than your son can ever ke to you, because of the greatness of the heart of the Father who loves his Son who has been ever with him, and ever his delight, who has never offended him, who takes, his share in all the Father’s plans, and who said of old, and says it ever, “I delight to do thy will, O my God.”
Besides, Christ is one with his Father in essence. What that mysterious unity is, we cannot tell; and how Christ is the Son of God, we do not know. We know that his sonship: does not imply any inferiority in the Son, nor that the Father existed before, the Son. He was not the Father till the Son was his Son; and the names “Father” and “Son” are not to be understood as; they are used among us, although the marvellous, indescribable relationship which we cannot fully understand cannot be better expressed than by the terms used, “the Father” and “the Son.” Again I ask, — what must it have cost such a Father’s heart to give up such a Son, — a Son so near and so dear to him? Yet the Father gave up his Son to die for you and for me, beloved. Theologians lay it down as an axiom that God cannot suffer, but I am not sure that they are right. I cannot understand God’s love to me, I cannot rejoice as I should in his goodness to me unless I believe that the gift of his Son cost his heart divine and awful pangs. I know that I am treading upon delicate ground, and that I am standing where thick darkness gathers; but I am not certain that what theologians take for granted is necessarily true. That God can do everything, I do believe, and that, if he wills to suffer he can do so, I also believe. I cannot think of God as an insensible being when he gave his Son to die for sinners; I cannot imagine him giving his only-begotten Son, and feeling no more than a heathen idol of stone could have done. I do think that the Father, in giving up that Son who had always given him such intense joy, must have suffered in his Son’s death.

Well then, as God has thus given up his only-begotten and well beloved Son, how can he deny anything to you who believe in him? Do you feel anxious about the bread that perisheth? Is that worthy to be compared with God’s only begotten Son? Are you concerned about how you are to get food and raiment? How can God deny you such trifles as these when he has given you his Son? Perseverance in grace, — is that what you ask? Even that is but a crumb under the Master’s table compared with his Son. You want certain virtues, you want help in trouble, you want sustenance under stern difficulties; — I know not what you want, but this I know, all the wants of all of us put together could only make one little drop in comparison with the tremendous ocean of benevolence which flowed out of God’s heart when he spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all. As we look at Christ, whom God has given to us, we must believe that, with him, he will give us whatsoever we need.

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II. I shall try to knock a second time at the door of your hearts to comfort you by reminding you now Precious Christ Was Intrinsically In Himself:

The wonder is, not only that God gave his Son, but that his Son was what he was. Paul says he is “over all, God blessed for ever.” Jesus himself said, “Before Abraham was, I am,” — claiming the very name of the eternal Jehovah. In due time, Christ became man; and, as man, he was very dear to his Father; even his earthly mother could not look upon her Child with half the affection that his Father had for him. He was a perfect man, and therefore lovely in his Father’s sight; he was, indeed, himself God, and therefore one with the Father even while he was man. The loftiest angel could not adequately preach to you upon this point; unto what, then, shall I liken the preciousness of this gift? Similes fail me, metaphors I have none, “no mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls; for the price of Jesus is above, rubies;” he shall not be given for gold, nay, not for much fine gold; as for topaz, and onyx, and sapphire, and all other precious stones, these must not be mentioned in comparison with him. Paul’s expression is the only appropriate one, “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.” Eternity alone can reveal the value of Christ. By the miseries of the hell from which he saves us, let us measure him; by the bliss of the heaven to which he lifts us, let us estimate his worth; by the depths of ignominy and shame into which he dived, let us conceive of him; by the glories he relinquished, and by the agonies he bore, let us attempt to form some faint idea of his value. But this pearl of great price is so precious that I am bold to say that, if heaven, and earth, and all the starry orbs could be sold, their united price could not buy such another pearl as this one which God has given to us in Christ Jesus.

So, beloved, as God has already given you this, priceless pearl, will he not also, give you all else that you need? If a man gave you ten thousand pounds, would you doubt his willingness to give you a farthing? If he should give you a munificent income, to last throughout all your life, would you doubt his willingness to give you a penny if you were ever in need of one? I think I need not attempt to draw the inference, you can draw it for yourselves. See, then, the wondrous treasure you possess if you are a believer in Jesus; God is yours, the perfect man is yours, Christ’s life, his death, his blood, his righteousness, his intercession, his incarnation, his second advent are all yours; and all else that you need. Do but ask boldly, receive gratefully, wait patiently, hope trustfully, and walk rejoicingly; for, as God has given you his Son, shall he not with him also freely give, you all things? Sing, with good old John Ryland,

“He that has made my heaven secure,

Will here all good provide;

While Christ is rich, can I be poor?

What can I want beside?”

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III. But now, as a third blow at your unbelief, I want you to remember, beloved, The Manner In Which This Gift Was Given.

The text says, “He that spared not his own Son.” A mother may give up her tall strong son to fight in the army of her country, and he may perish by an enemy’s hand; but I cannot conceive of a mother slaughtering her own son for her country’s good. We have wondered as we have read of Brutus, who, when his sons, had entered into a conspiracy against the Republic, could say, “Lictors, do your duty.” The father saw the corpses of his sons with the pangs of a father, but with the stern serenity of a judge; they had offended, so they must die. Strong must be a man’s sense of justice to be able to overcome his love so as to give up his own son to die; but our gracious God not only gave up his Son to die for us, but he was himself (if I may use such an expression,) the executioner of Christ. Isaiah tells us, in his wonderful, fifty-third chapter, that

“The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all ... It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: ... thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin ...We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”

This indeed was the very sting of Christ’s death, for he cried out in his worst agony, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Oh, what love God must have had to you and to me, for it overcame his love to his only-begotten Son! So we read in Zechariah 13:7, “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” My tongue cannot tell the story of this marvellous grace of God to you and to me; but I again remind you that, although God knew that his plan of salvation involved his smiting his own Son, and deserting him in his hour of deepest need, yet, that you and I should not perish, the Father smites, and wounds, and slays) his own Son; and there upon the accursed tree, in pangs intense, unutterable, unknown, the Son of God dies, “the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.”

Well, then, beloved, as God has given you his Son, will he not also give you all else that you need? You are about to ask for fellowship with Christ, but that will not cost the Father the smiting of his Son again, so he will surely give it to you. You are going to ask God for holiness, but it will give him pleasure, and nothing but pleasure, to make you holy; it will certainly not involve his lifting up his hand against his only-begotten Son any more, so it shall be God’s delight to give you your heart’s desire. Having given you his Son, will he not, with him, give you whatsoever you believingly ask of him? He says still, “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.” Tell him what thy present need is, and thou shalt have all that thou needest. Cast all thy care upon him, for he careth for thee, and he will take all thy care away. Shame on thee, Christian, if thou shalt give way to sadness now; surely thou wilt not let unbelief vex thee now. Thou knowest that God has given Christ for thee, then canst thou fear that he will deny thee anything, or leave thee at last in trouble to sink? That is impossible; God forbid that you should slander him by thinking that he can so act! What were you saying, poor aged Christian? “I shall want for bread.” How can it be? How can it be? The God, who out of his amazing love to you, has smitten his only-begotten Son, will certainly give to you whatsoever your soul or body may need.

“Seek first his kingdom’s grace to share,

Its righteousness pursue;

And all that needs your earthly care

Will be bestow’d on you.

“Why then despond in life’s dark vale?

Why sink to fears a prey?

Th’ almighty power can never fail,

His love can ne’er decay.”

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IV. Now, as a fourth stroke of the axe at the root of unbelief, let me remind you of The Spirit In Which Christ Was Given.

The Father gave his Son, but who asked him to do so? Not you, certainly; for, even after the Father had given Christ, you despised the wondrous gift. Who asked him? No one of the whole human race. The thought never crossed any created mind.

Angels did not throw themselves down between justice and the sinner, and intercede for him. I have never read of any burning seraph crying to God, “Spare the guilty, Lord, spare the guilty; give up thine only-begotten Son to die, and let the guilty live.”

I cannot conceive of anyone proposing to the Most High to make so tremendous a sacrifice. The Father did it according to his own sovereign will, unswayed by anything outside himself. That self sustained, almighty Being deigned to give this matchless manifestation of his inflexible justice and his infinite love to the sons of men; it was his own conception freely welling up from the deeps of his own loving heart. Well, beloved, if he gave his Son unsolicited, will he not give you all you need now that you have learned to ask of him, now that you understand the art of the widow woman who came to the unjust judge, and can plead with the Lord in holy importunity? Now that you have been taught to knock and knock again at God’s door, — as the man knocked at his friend’s door until, at last, he arose at midnight to give him the loaves he needed, — surely he will not deny you what you ask. As he gave you Christ unasked, unsought, when you were dead in sin, when you were his enemy, when you hated him, how much more — now that you are his son, adopted into his family, and taught by his Spirit to pray, and to plead the promises he has given you, — how much more will he give, you all things that you need! If you have not, surely it must be because you ask not, or because you ask amiss. Ask now, ask in faith, ask in the name of Jesus, and all you need shall be given unto you.

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V. A fifth time let me try to smite down that old giant, Incredulity, by bidding you remember The Persons To Whom This Gift Was Given: delivered him up for us all.

Not one child of God is left without that gift. Little Benjamin has as great a share in Christ as Reuben or Judah has. Mr. Ready-to-halt has as true an interest in the blood of Jesus as Mr. Greatheart himself has. The ancient Jews, on the day they were numbered, had to pay half a shekel each as a ransom for their souls. The Lord said to Moses, “The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less.” The redemption money was the same for all, and Christ has paid the redemption money equally for all who believe in him. Not one of those whom he bought with his blood is left out, not one of his chosen, not one whom he calls, not one whom he justifies; but all are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. I know you are apt to say, “No doubt the Lord will give much to So-and-so, for he is an eminent saint, but not to me.” Yet, as he gave Christ to you, why should he not give you all else that you need? “Oh, but I am so obscure, no one will take notice of me.” Did not the Lord take notice of you when he gave you Christ? Then why should he not, with him, freely give you all things?

“Ah!” says another, “but I have been such a backslider; not only my faith, but all my other graces are so feeble, I do not feel fit to be numbered with the Lord’s people.” Ah, poor heart, that may be true; yet, as God has given you Christ, why should he deny you anything that you need? I wish I could put this truth in words that would never be forgotten; I should like to help every heir of heaven to carry this truth with him even to his tomb. It is certain that, as you believe in Christ, he is yours; then it must be equally certain, be you who you may be, that “all things are yours.” Go, ye lonely ones, up from the hour of your mourning, take down your harps from the willows, and make every string in them praise the name of the Lord. Come, ye afflicted ones, where’er ye wander; come, ye who think yourselves poverty-stricken, and find yourselves infinitely rich in Christ Jesus. It always delights me to know how many poor people there are, and some very poor ones too, who say that this house of prayer is the happiest place to which they ever go. Dearly do they love the truth, and the preacher too for the truth’s sake; and he often thinks, with gratitude, when other things have failed to cheer him, that there are poor and needy ones who will come up to the sanctuary, seeking comfort, and finding it, while critics, who come only to judge, will go away thinking there is nothing notable here; and the wise men of the world and the disputers will cavil at this, and carp at that, and get no good out of it all. But these afflicted and poor people of God know the joyful sound of his truth, and they walk in the light of his countenance, and find it sweet indeed to know that Christ is theirs and that all good is theirs in Christ.

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VI. Now let us turn to another argument from The Value Of Christ To Us.

What is the value of Christ to us? Christ is to us — I pause, for what shall I say? I cannot tell all that Christ is to us, for what is he not to us? He is the sun of our day; he is the star of our night; he is our life; he is our life’s life, he is our heaven on earth, and he shall he our heaven in heaven. How sweetly does Madame Guyon sing of Christ and of his exceeding preciousness to her soul! I was reading, only yesterday, an account that she gives of herself and of the persecutions she endured for Christ’s sake; yet she says that it seemed to her to be just the same whether she was a prisoner in the Bastille or in the gay society of Paris so long as she was in communion with Christ, for Christ was everything to her; and the grace-taught Christian will tell you that he has had his happiest times on a bed of sickness, or when losses and crosses have come quickly one upon another. Fellowship with Christ transforms a desert into a garden, a wilderness into a paradise; it makes the beggar a prince, and sets the prince above the angels. Give a man Christ, — and this is no dream I speak of, no vision of a heated imagination, but in sober solemn earnest do I say it, — and he has everything that a believer can desire; yea, there is more in Christ than a Christian can hold, and, like good John Welsh, the old Covenanter, he is ready to cry, at times, when Christ’s love is very sweet to him, “Hold, Lord, hold! for I can hear no more; the joy of thy love is, too great for me.” Beloved of God-not beloved of kings, though men grow great if they have a king’s affection, — not beloved of angels, yet it were no trifle to have a seraph’s affection, but beloved of Jesus, the eternal Son of God, to have our names written on his heart, and engraved on his hands, oh, how exceedingly precious is Christ to us!

“Precious in his death victorious,

He the host of hell o’erthrows;

In his resurrection glorious,

Victor crown’d o’er all his foes.

“Precious, Lord! beyond expressing,

Are thy beauties all divine;

Glory, honor, power, and blessing

Be henceforth for ever thine.”

Well then, I hope you never set your food and raiment in comparison with Christ. He who gave you his unspeakable gift will give you such trifles as those. I hope you never pub your worldly estate, nor even your spiritual comforts, in comparison with your blessed Lord Jesus; for, as God has given you him, what can he deny you? Pick up heart, poor fainting one; be of good courage, and face the foe again; thou hast no armor for thy back, so show thy breastplate to thine adversary, and never even dream of defeat. He who has brought thee thus far, and enriched thee with such a priceless gift, can deny thee nothing that thou really needest.

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VII. And, lastly, remember The Purpose For Which God Gave His Son, Jesus Christ, For Us.

His purpose was our salvation, and it is inconsistent with all right ideas of Deity to believe that the purposes of God can be frustrated. We know that our God made the heavens and the earth, and that the Word of our God shall stand for ever. Our God is not a lackey to the will of men, and his purposes are not like footballs to be kicked about as men may please. What God says, is done; what he commands, stands fast for ever; and what his heart deviseth, that his hand doeth. “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent;” and if he wills to save, none can damn. He has proved the honesty and sincerity of his purpose to save us by giving us Christ; and if my faith has laid hold of Christ, and Christ is mine, then I know that it is God’s purpose to save me, and I also know that all things that are necessary to my being saved must surely be bestowed upon me. I have never yet been able to put my mind into such a condition as to understand that God would give Christ to die with the intention of saving a man, and yet that man would not be saved.

I know that you and I, in ordinary business transactions, are accustomed to expect, if we pay the price for anything, that we should have what we buy. I am sure that I could not speculate with another man’s blood, and especially I know that I could make no speculation with the blood of my own son; I must know beforehand what so great a sacrifice would effect. In like manner, we believe that God well knew what Christ’s blood would buy, and what Christ’s death would effect; and we cannot think that Calvary was a venture, that the cross was a speculation, and that the death of Christ was a lottery. God forbid! Be of good courage, then, thou who art redeemed, not with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, all things must shine. How can he, who has already given Christ to be the Way to heaven, leave thee without shoes for thy feet, or without armor for the fight, or without anything else that thou wilt need? He who has given the greater must and will give the less. Lay thy many needs before him; throw thyself, penniless, at his feet; and plead thus, “Lord, thou hast given me Christ with the purpose of saving me, such-and-such a thing I need for my soul’s salvation, Lord, give it me, that thine eternal purpose may be fulfilled.” This is a plea that must prevail, a knock that shall make heaven’s gates ring till the porter shall open them, and the favor that thou needest shall be given with open hands.

The only question I have to ask ere I have done is this, — Is Christ yours? Is Christ thine, my hearer? Answer “Yes,” or No,” to-night; he is thine, or he is not thine, there is no, third answer. Is Christ yours? Do you say “No”? Alas, poor wretch, how miserable is thy state now! — ”condemned already.” How wretched shall thy state be hereafter, when “Depart, ye cursed,” shall be thy sentence! “I know not,” says one, “whether Christ is mine or not.” Dost thou trust him? This is the deciding question. If thou dost trust thyself with Christ fully and implicitly, he is thine. If thou restest in any degree upon thine own works, frames, doings, or willings, he is not thine; but if thou dost take him now to be thine All-in-all, trusting him, and him alone, he is thine, and he shall be thine for ever and ever. Let there be no aching heart at this communion table to-night, let every one of us come to this feast of love with joy and gladness, because, when we can say that Christ is ours we-

“Can smile at Satan’s rage,

And face a frowning world.”

Romans 8:34 A Bold Challenge Justified

NO. 3067
PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1ST, 1907,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, MARCH 1ST, 1871.

“Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who will, maketh intercession for us.” — Romans 8:34 (note)

ALL through this very wonderful chapter the apostle seems to be piling up, in heaps upon heaps, the many marvels of divine grace. I might quote from the old classic fable of the giants who piled the mountains one upon the other, — Pelion upon Ossa, and I might say that, even so has Paul done here. He has piled mountain upon mountain of wondrous grace in his description of the way to heaven. and now he seems to have climbed to the top of them all, and to have transformed them into a kind of Tabor or Pisgah; and as he stands there, he exults in the Lord; he waves the palm-branch of triumph; he boasts with holy boasting; and he challenges all his enemies to attack him,: “Who, shall lay any thing to the charges of God’s elect? It is God that, justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ, that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”

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I. Here, first of all, is A Solemn Question, — a very solemn question if it were put by all here present:

“Who, is, he that condemneth?”

— for I am afraid that some of my hearers, if they asked that, question, might, have a speedy answer; — “It is your own conscience that condemns you; it is the Word of God that condemns you; it is Christ himself’ who, condemns you; it is God the Judge of all who condemns you because, you have not. fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope, set before, you in the, gospel: you have not believed in Jesus.” But Paul is speaking as a believer in Christ, and for him to put the question, or for any other believer to put, it, is a very different thing: for he, may say what others must not, “Who can lay anything to my charge? Who is he that can condemn

Now, beloved, one answer that might be, given to this question, “Who is he that condemneth?” is that, there are many who would if they could; for, probably, no believer in Christ. is without his enemies. There are few good men and women who are not slandered. The majority of God’s people have been persecuted in some way or other, and some of them have had to lie in prison year after year. Many more have been condemned to die; and yet, inasmuch as slanderers and persecutors have no right to, condemn the man of God, he may challenge his slanderers and his persecutors, and say, “You may profess to condemn me if you please, but, I count your condemnation to be no more potent than the whistling of the wind. You would condemn me if you could, but you cannot really do, so.” Satan, our arch-enemy, would condemn us if it were in his power. Only fancy him, for a moment,, sitting on the judgment-seat. If we had the devil to judge us, he would soon bring to our recollection our many faults, and follies, and failings, and condemn us for them. But, O thou fiend of hell, God has not made thee. the, judge, of his saints! Thou mayest cast foul insinuations against them; but the Lord says to them concerning each one of them, “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan! Is not this a brand plucked out, of the fire?” Satan has no right to, judge us, and no power to condemn us; so, when he speaks the worst he can about us, we laugh him to scorn, rejoicing that God will bruise him under our feet. shortly.

But, beloved, sometimes our own conscience condemns us. The best man here will, at times, have painful memories of the past; and to look at the past, except through the glass made red by our Savior’s precious blood, is to look upon despair; for our past transgressions would drag us down to hell were it not for the stoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Ay, and we, need not look back far to have this sad view, for the sins of any one of the best, days we have ever lived might cause us to tremble,. The sins of our holy things are black enough to cause us great sorrow. Did you ever pray a prayer that you could not have wept over afterwards? Have you ever preached a sermon with which you could feel content? Is not, sin mixed with all that, we do? But, here is the mercy, that. our conscience is not. set, upon God’s throne to judge and to condemn us, although we do well to listen to the voice of conscience, and to give heed to its admonitions. The apostle John reminds us that, “if our heart condemn us, God is greater than, our heart, and knoweth all things;” and that, “if any man sin, we have an advocate, with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” With all our imperfections, and our consciousness of guilt, we rejoice that, —

“There is a fountain fill’d with blood,

Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;

And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains.”

It looks a bold question for any man to put. so unreservedly, “Who is ha that, condemneth?” But there is really only One who can condemn. Out’ characters may have been pulled to pieces by a thousand tittle-tattlers, but they could not condemn us. When a prisoner stands in the: dock, he need not be afraid of anybody except the judge and jury. It does not signify what, you or I may believe about him; nobody but, the twelve men in the box can give the verdict against him or in his favor. These are the persons before whom he has cause to tremble; but, before none besides. So, whoever may pretend to condemn us, there is only One who can really do so, and that is the Judge; and what. is his name? O Christian, what a comforting fact is this to you! Your Judge is your Savior; and it is not possible to. conceive that he, who died and rose, again, and entered into, heaven, and every day pleads for us, over can use his blessed lips to. pronounce con-detonation upon any one of his own people. “Oh! “say you, “but he must do it as he, is the Judge; he must not show any favor on the judgment-seat.” That is a right remark, and I have been sorry whenever I have heard a preacher say that, it. is a consolation to think that the Judge will be our Friend. Why, beloved, we must not imagine that Jesus will judge partial]y, and give his verdict in our favor because we are his friends. No, but here is our comfort; he who is our Judge, beyond everybody else knows the whole, truth about us, and he would not, justify us at the last if we really ought to be condemned. Ah, no,! he is too just to do that; but he knows that every believer is so completely justified that he cannot be, condemned. He knows, as nobody else does, how the believer was justified:, what bleed it was that washed the believer white, and what righteousness it is that has made. the believer “accepted in the Beloved.” He knows his own, and he knows the way in which he has justified his own; and, therefore, as an omniscient, infallibly just Judge, he knows that the sentence which will be passed upon the believer, which is a sentence of acquittal, is the only one that could be passed. “Who is he that condemneth? Christ that died.” So the fact stands that, whatever there may be in store for others in connection with the coming day of final judgment, and the banishment of the condemned to hell, all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will never be condemned. Under no possible or conceivable circumstances can they ever be condemned, for they who are once forgiven and justified always shalt be forgiven and justified in time and throughout eternity. There, is no condemnation now to them who are in Christ Jesus, and there never shall be.

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II. Our second point, is, The, Ground Of This Holy Confidence.

It was holy confidence that, made Paul ask, “Who is he that. condemneth?” and he has, given us the reasons for his confidence; but I shall first, call your attention to, what he has not given as the ground of confidence.

He does not say, “Who is he that condemneth? — for we have never sinned.” That would be a very good ground of confidence if it were true; for, if we had never sinned, nobody could condemn us. God is not unrighteous, so he does not, condemn an innocent man; but there is not one glorifed person in heaven who, will ever dare to plead that he had never sinned, for “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” We have all gone astray from God like is sheep; every one of us has gone the downward road. By the works of the law we never can be justified, for the law only brings to us a knowledge, of sin, and proves to us that our fancied perfection can never be the ground of our confidence.

Neither does the apostle, ground his confidence on the fact of his repentance. Some people seem to have a notion that, although sin is a very evil thing, yet, if repentance be sincere and deep:, it will suffice to wash out the sin. But Paul does not say, “Who is he that condemneth? — for I have felt the plague of sin, and hated it, and wept over it,, and turned from it,.” He, makes no mention whatever of his repentance as a ground of his. confidence. He had truly repented, yet. he never dreamed of relying upon his repentance as a reason for his justification in the sight of God.

Nor does he say that he, puts any dependence upon a long life of holiness. From the tame of his conversion, Paul had been an example to all the flock, so that, he could even write, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ;” yet he does not say, “Who is he that condemneth? — for I have lived a blameless life among you all, and none can convince me of sin.” Not a word of that sort does he utter. I know that some of you seekers after salvation fancy that those good Christian people, whom you very much admire, must get a great deal of comfort out of the good lives that they lead; but I can assure you that this is not the case with any of them. They will all tell you that they have not, the, least. confidence in themselves, or in their own doings, but that their confidence is found in quite another direction.

Paul does not say that his confidence was based upon the fact that he had practiced great, self-denial, and had been a most devoted missionary of the, cross of Christ. It is true, that he had been boatins, and stoned, and shut, up. in prison, and that he had been quite willing to lay down his life for his Lord, but, he, makes no mention of all that as the reason why he felt that he could not, be, condemned. What, do you think was Paul’s opinion of all the good works he had ever done, and of all that he had suffered for the name of Christ? This is what he says, “I do count them but dung,” (he could hardly haw.’, used a more opprobrious word than that,) “that I may win Christ,, and be, found in him.” A good man, when he. was dying, slid that he was gathering all his good works and his bad works together in one bundle, and flinging them all overboard; in his estimation, the one, set, was about as good as the other as a ground of confidence in the sight, of God, and he meant to be rid of the whole, and to put his trust, somewhere else. And believe me, dear hearer, as I stand here before you, I know whom I have believed, and I have not only a hope of eternal life; but, I know that. I have, eternal life within my own soul. But, if you ask me. whether I ground my confidence of my salvation upon the fact that, these many years, I have preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, I tell you, “No, I place no reliance upon my own preaching as any ground of merit