The Spurgeon Series 1855 & 1856. Charles H. Spurgeon

to enter the cabinet council of Jehovah, we may discover them.

      11. 1. First, we see that justice is by it fully satisfied by the choice of one from the people. Suppose God had chosen an angel to make satisfaction for our sins — imagine that an angel were capable of bearing that vast amount of suffering and agony which was necessary for our atonement; yet after the angel had done it all, justice would never have been satisfied, for this one simple reason, that the law declares, — “The soul that sins IT shall die.” Now, man sins, and therefore man must die. Justice required, that as by man came death, by man also should come the resurrection and the life. The law required, that as man was the sinner, man should be the victim — that as in Adam all died, even so in another Adam should all be made alive. Consequently, it was necessary that Jesus Christ should be chosen from the people; for had that blazing angel near the throne, that lofty Gabriel, laid aside his splendours, descended to our earth, endured pain, suffered agonies, entered the vault of death, and groaned out a miserable existence in an extremity of woe, after all that, he would not have satisfied inflexible justice, because it is said, a man must die, and otherwise the sentence is not executed.

      12. 2. But there is another reason why Jesus Christ was chosen from the people. It is because by it the whole race receives honour. Do you know I would not be an angel, if Gabriel would ask me. If he would beseech me to exchange places with him, I would not, I should lose so much by the exchange, and he would gain so much. Poor, weak, and worthless, though I am, yet I am a man, and being a man, there is a dignity about manhood — a dignity lost one day in the garden of the fall but regained in the garden of resurrection. It is a fact, that a man is greater than an angel — that in heaven humanity stands nearer the throne than angelic existence. You will read in the book of Revelation, of the twenty-four elders who stood around the throne, and in the outer circle stood the angels. The elders, who are the representatives of the whole church, were honoured with a greater nearness to God than the ministering spirits. Why man — elect man — is the greatest being in the universe, except God. Man sits up there — look! at God’s right hand, radiant with glory, there sits a man! Ask me who governs Providence, and directs its awfully mysterious machinery; I tell you it is a man — the man Christ Jesus. Ask me who has during the past month bound up the rivers in chains of ice, and who now has loosed them from the shackles of winter, I tell you a man did it — Christ. Ask me who shall come to judge the earth in righteousness, and I say a man. A real, veritable man is to hold the scales of judgment, and to call all nations around him. And who is the channel of grace? Who is the emporium of all the Father’s mercy? Who is the great gathering up of all the love of the covenant? I reply a man — the man Christ Jesus. And Christ, being a man, has exalted you, and exalted me, and to put us into the highest ranks. He made us, originally, a little lower than the angels, and now despite our fall in Adam, he has crowned us, his elect, with glory and honour, and has set us at his right hand in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus.

      13. 3. But, my brethren, let us take a sweeter view than that. Why was he chosen from the people? Speak, my heart! What is the first reason that rushes up to yourself? for heart thoughts are best thoughts. Thoughts from the head are often good for nothing; but thoughts of the heart, deep musings of the soul, these are priceless as pearls of Ormuz. {d} If it is a humbler poet, provided that his songs gush from his heart, they shall better strike the cords of my soul than the lifeless emanations of mere brain. Here, Christian: what do you think is the sweet reason for the election of your Lord, he being one of the people? was it not this — that he might be able to be my brother, in the blest tie of kindred blood? Oh! what relationship there is between Christ and the believer? The believer can say —

      One there is above all others

      Well deserves the name of friend;

      His is love beyond a brother’s,

      Faithful, free, and knows no end.

      I have a great brother in heaven. I have heard boys say sometimes in the street that they would tell their brother; and I have often said so when the enemy has attacked me — “I will tell my brother in heaven.” I may be poor, but I have a brother who is rich; I have a brother who is a king; I am brother to the prince of the kings of the earth; and will he allow me to starve, or want, or lack, while he is on his throne? Oh! no; he loves me; he has fraternal feelings towards me; he is my brother. But, more than that: think, oh believer! Christ is not merely your brother, but he is your husband. “Your maker is your husband; the Lord of hosts is his name.” It rejoices the wife to lean her head on the broad breast of her husband, in full assurance that his arms will be strong to labour for her, or defend her; that his heart ever throbs with love to her, and that all he has, and is, belongs to her, as the sharer of his existence. Oh! to know by the influence of the Holy Spirit, that the sweet alliance is made between my soul and the ever precious Jesus; surely, it is enough to quicken all my soul to music, and make each atom of my frame a grateful songster to the praise of Christ. Come, let me remember when I lay like an infant in my blood, cast out in the open field; let me remember the notable moment when he said, “Live!” and let me never forget that he has educated me, trained me up, and one day will espouse me to himself in righteousness, crowning me with a nuptial crown in the palace of his Father. Oh! it is bliss unspeakable! I do not wonder that the thought does stagger my words to utter it! — that Christ is one of the people, that he might be nearly related to you and to me, that he might be the goel, {e} or kinsman, next of kin.

      In ties of blood with sinners one,

      Our Jesus is to glory gone;

      Has all his foes to ruin hurled —

      Sin, Satan, earth, death, hell, the world.

      Saint, wrap this blessed thought, like a necklace of diamonds, around the neck of your memory; put it, as a golden ring, on the finger of recollection; and use it as the king’s own seal, stamping the petitions of your faith with confidence of success.

      14. 4. But now another idea suggests itself. Christ was chosen from the people — that he might know our wants and sympathise with us. You know the old tale, that one half the world does not know how the other half lives; and that is very true. I believe some of the rich have no notion whatever of what the distress of the poor is. They have no idea of what it is to labour for their daily food. They have a very faint conception of what a rise in the price of bread means. They do not know anything about it; and when we put men in power who never were of the people, they do not understand the art of governing us. But our great and glorious Jesus Christ is one chosen from the people; and therefore he knows our wants. Temptation and pain he suffered before us; sickness he endured, for when hanging upon the cross, the scorching of that broiling sun brought on a burning fever; weariest — he has endured it, for weary he sat by the well; poverty — he knows it, for sometimes he did not have bread to eat, except that bread of which the world knows nothing; to be houseless — he knew it, for the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, but he did not have anywhere to lay his head. My brother Christian, there is no place where you can go, where Christ has not been before you, sinful places alone excepted. In the dark valley of the shadow of death you may see his bloody footsteps — footprints marked with gore; indeed, and even at the deep waters of the swelling Jordan, you shall, when you come close by its banks, say, “There are the footprints of a man: whose are they?” Stooping down, you shall discern a nail mark, and shall say, “Those are the footsteps of the blessed Jesus.” He has been before you; he has smoothed the way; he has entered the grave, that he might make the tomb the royal bedchamber of the ransomed race, the closet where they lay aside the garments of labour, to put on the vestments of eternal rest. In all places wherever we go, the angel of the covenant has been our forerunner; each burden we have to carry, has once been laid on the shoulders of Emmanuel.

      His way was much rougher and darker than mine;

      Did Christ my Lord suffer, and shall I repine?

      I am speaking to those in great trial. Dear fellow traveller! take courage: Christ has consecrated