that love belongs to us. 4-6. Yes, I know that it was so; and Christ, to meet my sin against knowledge brings a sacrifice offered with his own full knowledge of all that it involved. Let us go on believing and repenting, as we have done; but let us not have to begin believing and begin repenting, let us go on to something beyond that stage of experience. I. All that he has, all that he is, therefore, belongeth to us. "No," says he, "it is God that justifieth, I am not afraid to face the highest heaven, since God has said that I am just. Now I want your attention while I try to show that this blessed sentence, "It is Christ that died," is AN ANSWER TO EVERY ACCUSATION which, under any circumstances, may arise from sin. I do not know a more beautiful sight to be seen on earth than a man who has served his Lord many years, and who, having grown grey in service, feels that, in the order of nature, he must soon be called home. and then, even if any charges should be brought against them, he defies all our foes to secure an adverse verdict: "Who is he that condemneth?" Then the apostle says, "nor things to come." Oh! What! Brother owes to brother what he cannot pay until he dies. If according to law we are only heirs-presumptive, whose rights may be superseded, then our great joint heir, so far as he is co-heir with us, is superseded also. Will he judge the nations? It is not optional with him, it is an inevitable law of the universe. He knows and comprehends the cryings, and meanings, and sighings, and chatterings of his bewildered children. What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory. And who amongst us has not been so foolish as to desire that there were no God? This is an instructive emblem of a great fact. Jonah went down to the depths of the sea, but he oame up with this testimony, that there was nothing there to separate us from the love of God. AP&A-c1970 lfpb. If I read in the Scriptures that in the most heroic acts of faith God the Holy Ghost helpeth his people, I can understand it; if I read that in the sweetest music of their songs when they worship best, and chant their loftiest strains before the Most High God, the Spirit helpeth them, I can understand it; and even if I hear that in their wrestling prayers and prevalent intercessions God the Holy Spirit helpeth them, I can understand it: but I bow with reverent amazement, my heart sinking into the dust with adoration, when I reflect that God the Holy Ghost helps us when we cannot speak, but only groan. his Allmightiness is ours. The Spiritual Resurrection of our Mortal Body (8:1-13) 8:1. This shall be an all-sufficient argument to shut their clamorous mouths, "Christ hath died." It is the mighty God himself who came here to be a Man, and to die in our stead, for is it not written that God hath bought his people with his own blood? From this he infers that if God has given us the Spirit whereby we call him "Father," then we are his children, which is plain, fair, and clear reasoning. God will not leave you, my brethren, he has pledged himself by covenant to you, and he has given au oath that his covenant shall stand. And wilt thou think, yet again, what cause there is that thou shouldest realize to-day thy union with Christ, since thou art joint heir with him. Is thy calling of God? Oh, yes, rivers of consolation flow from my calling. The city has turned me out; let it rue the day that it ever drove me away." IV. One of you says, "Well, it is an empty pocket with me." And yet this is just through our ignorance and through the blindness of our eyes; for verily to the enlightened believer there is more consolation in Jesus arising from the tomb, than there is in Jesus nailed to the cross. If he adds anything at all, it is still something about that same Christ "yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be praise." Delivered on Sabbath Evening, August 10, 1856, by the. 2 If you belong to Christ Jesus, God's Spirit has given you a new life. In deigning to help us in the grief that cannot even vent itself in groaning, he proves himself to be a true Comforter. Romans 8 1-39 Spurgeon's Bible Commentary Romans 8:1-39 Romans 8:1. "But thou hast long resisted grace, and long stood out against the warnings of God." and what is election, but God's purpose to do what he does do? Wait awhile; that weary head shall soon be girt with a crown. Reach the bottom of Christ's sea of joy, and then hope to understand the bliss which God hath prepared for them that love him. Come, I know as you look down the inventory, you are apt to look a little askance on that cross, and you think, "Well, the crown is glorious, but I love not the spittle, I care not to be despised and rejected of men." You not only sinned with your body, with your eyes, your lips, your hands; but you have sinned in imagination and desire very horribly." We have faith, that priceless, precious jewel. We take our burden to our heavenly Father and tell it out in the accents of childlike confidence, and we come away quite content to bear whatever his holy will may lay upon us. Why, Paul, Satan will bring thundering accusations against thee; art thou not afraid? Is the carnal mind at enmity against God? NVIPT. Possibly they fancy that creation is a paternal act, that all created things are sons. Take care then of that class, brethren, for we are debtors to them. Come life, come death, my soul can rest on this. Have you been called, not of man but of God? But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.". God did as it were hold a bond against us which we could not pay. "The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup." It is only where God's hand has been that the vessel begins to assume the form of the model. You have been very generous to yourselves by coming here, but not very just to your ministers in neglecting the places of worship where you ought to have gone. What was the experience of Christ in this world? View the Saviour in his agonies, with streams of blood purchasing thy soul, and with intensest agonies enduring thy punishment. ", There is now nobody left that I know of, that can condemn us, except the Judge; and if we have escaped our opponents Satan, the world, conscience, and the law, we need not fear to stand even at God's judgment seat. "I have been sick for many a day, and wife and children, dependent on my daily labor, are crying for food: will this work together for my good?" Oh, the bitterness of that cry "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" As an old countryman once said to me, from whom I gained many a pithy saying "Ah! He is in an enemy's house; for he is at enmity with God. God will never say that they are guilty. So, when we get the first works of the Spirit of God, we are not to say, "I have attained, I am already perfect, there is nothing further for me to do, or to desire." But he is much more than this. If it be settled in our mind by the true witness the spirit within us, and the Spirit of God, that we are God's children, what a NOBLE PRIVILEGE now appears to our view. Therefore it is that we groan. Suppose Satan should come to anyone who is seeking the Saviour, and say, "You will never find the Lord; you have sinned beyond all limit; you are too far gone for mercy to reach you; you must perish;" it will be your highest wisdom to give him this one reply, "It is Christ that died." Conceive the beauties of the risen Redeemer. You were saying of such-and-such an ungodly person, "Everything seems to go well with him, but as for me, all the day long am I plagued, and chastened every morning." The blood of Jesus Christ, God's own Son, cleanseth us from all sin; so away foul fiend, that also has received its due. Others of you who can do little yourselves, can this day assist by sending forth men of God to preach the gospel of Christ. I will make no answer to that accusation but this: "It is Christ that died." Let me imagine a man entering heaven without a change of heart. I wish that all here present had a share in my blessed text. Death is terrible to them; the tomb affrights them, they can scarcely understand the possibility of having any confidence this side of the grave. "He was tempted in all points like as we are." Do you hate him because he spared your life by his tender mercy? So shall we be, for because he lives, we shall live also. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Do we say that he is love? Yes, as we look, we must confess that it is true, there is the sin. You had a share in his death. So the high priest takes off his royal robes, and puts on the garments of the minor priest, and goes within the veil, and sprinkles the blood upon the mercy-seat. We are all of us under obligations; let us consider the fact in the following manner: First, how are we to understand this? If there be work to do for him in future ages we will be the first to volunteer for service; if there be battles to be fought in times to come with other rebellious races, if there be wanted servants to fly over the vast realms of the infinite to carry Jehovah's messages, who shall fly so swiftly as we shall, when once we feel that in his courts we shall dwell not as mere servants, but as members of the royal family, partakers of the divine nature, nearest to God himself. Our text begins by the expression, "Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate," and many senses have been given to this word "foreknow" though in this case one commends itself beyond every other. "It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again." And he goes to Eli, and it is not till afterwards, perhaps, that he finds that Eli had nothing to do with the impression, but that the Lord had called him. I shall direct your joyous attention to one precious jewel in your treasury, namely, your adoption into the family of God. That old preacher Solomon once said as much as that. Evidently we are exotics here. Here, I say again, is the pinch of faith. The law has, therefore, more than it asked for, and I am thus not afraid of the anger of the great God. Oh, what an enterprise! Here is a test for us all. God's Spirit now rules in your life and he has made you free. No; the blood must he taken to the mercy-seat, God will not stoop when he is just; it must be brought to him. I can recollect evil things far better than those which savor of piety. and secondly, how ought it to affect us? A groan then is a part of prayer which we owe to the Holy Ghost, and the same is true of all the prayer which wells up from the deep fountains of our inner life. Consider thou art as deep in debt as thou canst be to every attribute of God. Infidelity, popery, and every other phase of anti-Christ are now straining every nerve. There is the worldling's sense: "Who will show us any good?" is this the cause of thine enmity? Now, there is but one Judge the man Christ Jesus. It is Christ that died." but thou wilt not leave one of the "many brethren" for whom he died: the Spirit shall be with them, and when they cannot so much as groan he will make intercession for them with groanings that cannot be uttered. I can see that death does not break the believer's peace; it seems rather to strengthen it. That leads me to pass on to the second thing of which Paul was persuaded. He is the ambassador; he it is who can make peace through his blood; and though you came in here an enemy, it is possible you may go out through that door a friend yet, if you can but look to Jesus Christ, the brazen serpent which was lifted up. "To the very uttermost" he is able to save, seeing he ever lives to intercede the strongest argument of the whole four. As far as I can guess, the main text on which these people build the doctrine of the universal Fatherhood, is that quotation which the apostle Paul took from a heathen poet "As certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." Read Joo 15:7 bible commentary from Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible by Charles Haddon Spurgeon FREE on BiblePortal.com. Psalms 16:5 . And now I come to my last point, upon which briefly but I hope interestingly. I take him a bill to-morrow morning, and he says, "Do you coming begging?" All things work together for a Christian's lasting good. Very likely all things will work together in a clean contrary way to that. Then our spirit beareth witness that we are the children of God. Sow well, for others must reap. 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