The Spurgeon Series 1855 & 1856. Charles H. Spurgeon

but in the person of Christ he is no more a sinner than the angel Gabriel; for snowy as are angelic wings, and spotless as are cherubic robes, an angel cannot be more pure than the poor blood washed sinner when he is made whiter than snow. Do you understand how it is that the very guilt of the sinner is taken away? Here I stand today a guilty and condemned traitor; Christ comes for my salvation, he bids me leave my cell, “I will stand where you are; I will be your substitute; I will be the sinner; all your guilt is to be imputed to me; I will die for it, I will suffer for it; I will have your sins.” Then stripping himself of his robes, he says, “There, put them on; you shall be considered as if you were Christ; you shall be the righteous one. I will take your place, you take mine.” Then he casts around me a glorious robe of perfect righteousness; and when I behold it, I exclaim, “Strangely, my soul, you are arrayed, with my elder brother’s garments on.” Jesus Christ’s crown is on my head, his spotless robes are around my loins, and his golden sandals are the shoes of my feet. And now is there any sin? The sin is on Christ; the righteousness is on me. Ask for the sinner, Justice! Let the voice of Justice cry, “Bring forth the sinner!” The sinner is brought. Who does the executioner lead forth? It is the incarnate Son of God. True, he did not commit the sin; he was without fault; but it is imputed to him: he stands in the sinner’s place. Now Justice cries, “Bring forth the righteous, the perfectly righteous.” Whom do I see? Lo, the Church is brought; each believer is brought. Justice says, “Are these perfectly righteous?” “Yes they are. What Christ did is theirs; what they did is laid on Christ; his righteousness is theirs; their sins are his.” I appeal to you, you ungodly, this seems strange and startling, does it not? You have set it down to Hyper-Calvinism, and you laugh at it. Set it down for what you please, sirs. God has set it up as his truth; he has made us righteous through the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. And now, if I am a true believer, I stand here freed from every sin. There is not a crime against me in the book of God; it is blotted out for ever; it is cancelled; and not only can I never be punished, but I have nothing to be punished for. Christ has atoned for my sins, and I have received his righteousness. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

      9. 4. Furthermore, the Christian man, while delivered from the guilt and punishment of sin, is likewise delivered from the dominion of it. Every living man before he is converted, is a slave to lust. Profane men glory in free living and free thinking. They call this free living — a full glass, a Bacchanalian revel, shouting lewdness, lust. — Free living, sir! Let the slave hold up his fetters and jingle them in my ears, and say, “This is music, and I am free.” The man is a poor maniac. Let the man chained in his cell, the madman of Bethlehem, tell me he is a king, and grin a horrible smile; I say, “Ah, poor wretch, I know therefore he counts that he is a king; he is demented, and is mad.” So it is with the worldling who he says is free. Free sir! you are a slave. You think you are happy; but at night, when you lay yourself upon your bed, how many times have you tossed from side to side sleepless and ill at ease; and when you awoke have you not said, “Ah! that yesterday — that yesterday!” And though you plunged into another day of sin, that “yesterday,” like a hell dog, barked at you, and followed at your heels. You know it, sir, — sin is a bondage and a slavery. And have you ever tried to get rid of that slavery? “Yes,” you say, “I have.” But I will tell you what has been the end of it. When you have tried, you have bound your fetters firmer than ever; you have rivetted your chains. A sinner without grace attempting to reform himself is like Sisyphus {b} rolling the stone up a hill, which always comes down with greater force. A man without grace attempting to save himself, is engaged in as hopeless a task as the daughters of Danaus, {c} when they attempted to fill a vast vessel with bottomless buckets. He has a bow without a string, a sword without a blade, a gun without powder. He needs strength. I grant you, he may produce a hollow reformation; he may pile earth around the volcano, and sow flowers around its crater; but when it once begins to stir again, it shall move the earth away, and the hot lava shall roll over all the fair flowers which he had planted, and devastate both his works and his righteousness. A sinner without grace is a slave: he cannot deliver himself from his sins. But not so the Christian! Is he a slave to his sin? Is a true born heir of God a slave? Oh, no. He does not sin, because he is born of God; he does not live in uncleanness, because he is an heir of immortality. You beggars of the earth may stoop to deeds of wrong, but princes of heaven’s blood must follow acts of right. You poor worldlings, mean and pitiful wretches in God’s sight — you may live in dishonesty and unrighteousness, but the heir of heaven cannot; he loves his Lord; he is free from the power of sin; his work is righteousness, and his end is everlasting life. We are free from the dominion of sin.

      10. 5. Once more: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” in all holy acts of love — liberty from a slavish fear of law. Many people are honest because they are afraid of the policeman. Many are sober because they are afraid of the eye of the public. Many people are seemingly religious because of their neighbours. There is much virtue which is like the juice of the grape — it has to be squeezed before you get it; it is not like the generous drop of the honeycomb, distilling willingly and freely. I am bold to say, that if a man is destitute of the grace of God, his works are only works of slavery; he feels forced to do them. I know before I came into the liberty of the children of God, if I went to God’s house, I went because I thought I must do it; if I prayed, it was because I feared some misfortune would happen in the day if I did not; if I ever thanked God for a mercy, it was because I thought I should not get another if I were not thankful; if I performed a righteous deed, it was with the hope that very likely God would reward me at last, and I should be winning some crown in heaven. A poor slave, a mere Gibeonite, hewing wood and drawing water. If I could have stopped doing it, I would have loved to do so. If I could have had my will, there would have been no chapel going for me, no religion for me — I would have lived in the world and followed the ways of Satan, if I could have done as I pleased. As for righteousness, it was slavery; sin would have been my liberty. But now, Christian, what is your liberty? What makes you come to the house of God today?

      Love made your willing feet

      In swift obedience move.

      What makes you bend your knee in prayer? It is because you like to talk with your Father who sees in secret. What is it that opens your purses, and makes you give liberally? It is because you love the poor children of God, and you feel, so much being given to you, that it is a privilege to give something back to Christ. What is it that constrains you to live honestly, righteously, and soberly? Is it the fear of the jail? No; you might pull the jail down; you might annihilate the convict settlements; you might hurl all chains into the sea; and we would be just as holy as we are now. Some people say, “Then, sir, you mean to say that Christians may live as they like.” I wish they could, sir. If I could live as I liked, I would, always live a holy life. If a Christian could live as he liked, he would always live as he ought. It is a slavery to him to sin; righteousness is his delight. Oh! if I could only live as I wish, I would wish to live as I ought. If I could only live as I would I would live as God commands me. The greatest happiness of a Christian is to be holy. It is no slavery to him. Put him where you will, he will not sin. Expose him to any temptation, if it were not for that evil heart still remaining, you would never find him sinning. Holiness is his pleasure; sin is his slavery. Ah! you poor bondsmen who come to church and chapel because you must; ah! you poor slavish moralists that are honest because of the shackles, and sober because of the prison; ah! you poor slaves! We are not so; we are not under the law, but under grace. Call us Antinomians if you will; we will even glory in the scandalous title; we are freed from the law, but we are freed from it that we may obey it more than we ever did before. The true born child of God serves his Master more than ever he did. As old Erskine says: —

      Slight now his loving presence if they can;

      No, no; his conquering kindness leads the van.

      When everlasting love exerts the sway,

      They judge themselves most kindly bound to obey;

      Bound by redeeming love in stricter sense,

      Than ever Adam was in innocence.

      11. 6. But to conclude, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” from the