The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

with many of them very often.” This law does not only mean what it says in words, but it has deep things hidden in its heart. It says, “You shall not commit adultery,” but it means, as Jesus has it, “He who looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” It says, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”; it means that we should reverence God in every place, and have his fear before our eyes, and should always pay respect to his ordinances, and evermore walk in his fear and love. Indeed, my brethren, surely there is not one here so fool-hardy in self-righteousness as to say, “I am innocent.” The spirit of the law condemns us. And this is its useful property; it humbles us, makes us know we are guilty, and so we are led to receive the Saviour.

      5. Notice this, moreover, my dear hearers, one breach of this law is enough to condemn us for ever. He who breaks the law in one point is guilty of the whole. The law demands that we should obey every command; and if one of them is broken, the whole of them are violated. It is like a vase of surpassing workmanship; in order to destroy it you need not shiver it to atoms; make but the smallest fracture in it and you have destroyed its perfection. As it is a perfect law which we are commanded to obey, and to obey perfectly, make only one breach in it and though we are ever so innocent we can hope for nothing from the law except the voice, “You are condemned, you are condemned, you are condemned.” Under this aspect of the matter ought not the law to strip many of us of all our boasting? Who is there that shall rise in his place and say, “Lord, I thank you, I am not as other men are?” Surely there cannot be one among you who can go home and say, “I have tithed mint and cummin; I have kept all the commandments from my youth?” No, if this law is brought home to the conscience and the heart we shall stand with the tax collector, saying, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” The only reason why a man thinks he is righteous is because he does not know the law. You think you have never broken it because you do not understand it. There are some of you most respectable people; you think you have been so good that you can go to heaven by your own works. You would not exactly say so, but you secretly think so; you have devoutly taken the sacrament, you have been mightily pious in attending your church or chapel regularly, you are good to the poor, generous and upright, and you say, “I shall be saved by my works.” No, sir; look to the flame that Moses saw, and shrink, and tremble, and despair. The law can do nothing for us except condemn us. The utmost it can do is to whip us out of our boasted self-righteousness and drive us to Christ. It puts a burden on our backs and makes us ask Christ to take it off. It is like a lancet, it probes the wound. It is, to use a parable, as when some dark cellar has not been opened for years and is full of all kinds of loathsome creatures; we may walk through it not knowing they are there. But the law comes, takes the shutters down, lets light in, and then we discover what a vile heart we have, and how unholy our lives have been; and, then, instead of boasting, we are made to fall on our faces and cry, “Lord, save me or I perish. Oh, save me for your mercy’s sake, or else I shall be cast away.” Oh, you self-righteous ones now present, who think yourselves so good that you can mount to heaven by your works — blind horses, perpetually going around the mill and making not one inch of progress — do you think to take the law upon your shoulders as Samson did the gates of Gaza? Do you imagine that you can perfectly keep this law of God? Will you dare to say, you have not broken it. No, surely, you will confess, though it is only in an undertone, “I have revolted.” Then, know this: the law can do nothing for you in the matter of forgiveness. All it can do is just this: It can make you feel you are nothing at all; it can strip you; it can bruise you; it can kill you; but it can neither quicken, nor clothe, nor cleanse — it was never meant to do that. Oh, are you this morning, my hearer, sad, because of sin? Do you feel that you have been guilty? Do you acknowledge your transgression? Do you confess your wandering? Hear me, then, as God’s ambassador, God has mercy upon sinners. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And though you have broken the law, he has kept it. Take his righteousness to be yours. Cast yourself upon him. Come to him now, stripped and naked and take his robe as your covering. Come to him, black and filthy, and wash yourself in the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness; and then you shall know “What purpose then does the law serve?” That is the first point.

      6. II. Now, the second. The law serves to kill all hope of salvation of a reformed life. Most men when they discover themselves to be guilty, avow that they will reform. They say, “I have been guilty and have deserved God’s wrath, but for the future I will seek to win a stock of merits which shall counterbalance all my old sins.” In steps the law, puts its hand on the sinner’s mouth, and says, “Stop, you cannot do that; it is impossible.” I will show you how the law does this. It does it partly thus, by reminding the man that future obedience can be no atonement for past guilt. To use a common metaphor, that the poor may thoroughly understand me, you have run up a score at your shop. Well, you cannot pay it. You go off to Mrs. Brown, your shopkeeper, and you say to her, “Well, I am sorry, madam, that through my husband being out of work,” and all that, “I know I shall never be able to pay you. It is a very great debt I owe you, but, if you please madam, if you forgive me this debt I will never get into your debt any more; I will always pay for all I have.” “Yes,” she would say, “but that will not square our accounts. If you do pay for all you have, it would be no more than you ought to do. But what about the old bills? How are they to be paid? They will not be cancelled by all your fresh payments.” That is just what men do towards God. “True,” they say, “I have gone far astray I know; but then I will not do so any more.” Ah, it was time you threw away such childish talk. You do only show your rampant folly by such a hope. Can you wipe away your transgression by future obedience? Ah, no. The old debt must be paid somehow. God’s justice is inflexible, and the law tells you all your future obedience can make no atonement for the past. You must have an atonement through Christ Jesus the Lord. “But,” says the man, “I will try and be better, and then I think I shall have mercy given to me.” Then the law steps in and says, “You are going to try and keep me, are you? Why, man, you cannot do it.” Perfect obedience in the future is impossible. And the ten commandments are held up, and if any awakened sinner will only look at them, he will turn away and say, “It is impossible for me to keep them.” “Why, man, you say you will be obedient in the future. You have not been obedient in the past, and there is no likelihood that you will keep God’s commandments in time to come. You say you will avoid the evils of the past. You cannot. ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil.’ ” But you say “I will take greater heed to my ways.” “Sir, you will not; the temptation that overcame you yesterday will overcome you tomorrow. But, notice this, if you could, you could not win salvation by it.” The law tells you that unless you perfectly obey you cannot be saved by your doings, it tells you that one sin will make a flaw in it all, that one transgression will spoil your whole obedience. It is a spotless garment that you must wear in heaven; it is only an unbroken law which God can accept. So, then, the law answers this purpose, to tell men that their attainments, their amendings, and their doings, are of no use whatever in the matter of salvation. It is theirs to come to Christ, to get a new heart and a right spirit; to get the evangelical repentance which does not need to be repented of, that so they may put their trust in Jesus and receive pardon through his blood. “What purpose then does the law serve?” It serves this purpose, as Luther has it, the purpose of a hammer. Luther, you know, is very strong on the subject of the law. He says, “For if anyone is not a murderer, an adulterer, a thief, and outwardly refrain from sin, as the Pharisee did, which is mentioned in the gospel, he would swear that he is righteous, and therefore he conceives an opinion of righteousness, and depends on his good works and merits. Such a one God cannot otherwise mollify and humble, that he may acknowledge his misery and damnation, but by the law; for that is the hammer of death, the thundering of hell, and the lightning of God’s wrath, that beats to powder the obstinate and senseless hypocrites. For as long as the opinion of righteousness abides in man, so long there abides also in him incomprehensible pride, presumption, security, hatred of God, contempt for his grace and mercy, ignorance of the promises and of Christ. The preaching of free remission of sins, through Christ, cannot enter into the heart of such a one, neither can he feel any taste or savour of it; for that mighty rock and adamant wall, that is, the opinion of righteousness, by which the heart is surrounded, resists it. Therefore the law is that hammer, that fire, that mighty strong