The Spurgeon Series 1859 & 1860. Charles H. Spurgeon
again, at the covenant of grace. We know that there was a covenant made with the Lord Jesus Christ, by his Father, from before all worlds, and that in this covenant all his people were given to him, and were secured; but of what use, or of what avail is the covenant to us, until the Holy Spirit brings the blessings of the covenant to us? The covenant is, as it were, a lofty tree laden with fruit; if the Spirit does not shake that tree and make the fruit fall from it until it comes down to the level of our standing, how can we receive it? Bring here any sinner and tell him there is a covenant of grace, how is he any the better by it? “Ah,” he says, “I may not be included in it; my name may not be recorded there; I may not be chosen in Christ”; but let the Spirit of God dwell in his heart, richly by faith and love which is in Christ Jesus, and that man sees the covenant, ordered in all things and sure, and he cries with David, “It is all my salvation and all my desire.”
10. Take, again, the redemption of Christ. We know that Christ did stand in the room, place, and stead of all his people, and that all those who shall appear in heaven, will appear there as an act of justice as well as of grace, seeing that Christ was punished in their room and stead, and that it would have been unjust if God punished them, seeing that he had punished Christ for them. We believe that Christ having paid all their debts, they have a right to their freedom in Christ — that Christ having covered them with his righteousness, they are entitled to eternal life as much as if they had themselves been perfectly holy. But of what avail is this to me, until the Spirit takes of the things of Christ and shows them to me? What is Christ’s blood to any of you, until you have received the Spirit of grace? You have heard the minister preach about the blood of Christ a thousand times, but you passed by; it was nothing to you that Jesus should die. You know that he atoned for sins that were not his own; but you only regarded it as a tale, perhaps, even an idle tale. But when the Spirit of God led you to the cross, and opened your eyes, and enabled you to see Christ crucified, ah, then there was something in the blood indeed. When his hand dipped the hyssop in the blood, and when it applied that blood to your spirit, then there was a joy and peace in believing, such as you had never known before. But ah, my hearer, Christ’s dying is nothing to you, unless you have a living Spirit within you. Christ brings you no advantage, saving, personal, and lasting, unless the Spirit of God has baptized you in the fountain filled with his blood, and washed you from head to foot in it.
11. I only mention these few out of the many blessings of the covenant, just to prove that none of them are of any use to us, unless the Holy Spirit gives them to us. There hang the blessings on the nail — on the nail Christ Jesus; but we are short of stature; we cannot reach them; the Spirit of God takes them down and gives them to us, and there they are; they are ours. It is like the manna in the skies, far out of mortal reach; but the Spirit of God opens the windows of heaven, brings down the bread and puts it to our lips, and enables us to eat. Christ’s blood and righteousness are like wine stored in the wine vat; but we cannot get at it. The Holy Spirit dips our vessel into this precious wine, and then we drink; but without the Spirit we must die and perish just as much, though the Father elects and the Son redeems, as though the Father never had elected, and though the Son had never bought us with his blood. The Spirit is absolutely necessary. Without him neither the works of the Father, nor of the Son, are of any avail to us.
12. 4. This brings us to another point. The experience of the true Christian is a reality; but it never can be known and felt without the Spirit of God. For what is the experience of the Christian? Let me just give a brief picture of some of its scenes. There is a person come into this hall this morning — one of the most reputable men in London. He himself has never committed any outward vice; he has never been dishonest; but he is known as a staunch, upright tradesman. Now, to his astonishment, he is informed that he is a condemned, lost sinner, and just as surely lost as the thief who died for his crimes upon the cross. Do you think that man will believe it? Suppose, however, that he does believe it, simply because he reads it in the Bible, do you think that man will ever be made to feel it? I know you say, “Impossible!” Some of you, even now, perhaps, are saying, “Well, I never should!” Can you imagine that honourable, upright tradesman, saying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner?” — standing side by side with the prostitute and the swearer, and feeling in his own heart as if he had been as guilty as they were, and using just the same prayer, and saying, “Lord, save me, or I perish.” You cannot conceive it, can you? It is contrary to nature that a man who has been so good as he, should put himself down among the chief of sinners. Ah! but that will be done before he will be saved; he must feel that before he can enter heaven. Now, I ask, who can bring him to such a levelling experience as that, except the Spirit of God? You know very well, proud nature will not stoop to it. We are all aristocrats in our own righteousness; we do not like to bend down and come among common sinners. If we are brought there, it must be the Spirit of God who casts us to the ground. Why, I know if anyone had told me that I should ever cry to God for mercy, and confess that I had been the vilest of the vile, I should have laughed in their face; I should have said, “Why I have not done anything particularly wrong; I have not harmed anyone.” And yet I know to this very day I can take my place at the lowest level, and if I can get inside heaven I shall feel happy to sit among the chief of sinners, and praise that Almighty love which has saved even me from my sins. Now, what works this humiliation of heart? Grace. It is contrary to nature for an honest and an upright man in the eye of the world to feel himself a lost sinner. It must be the Holy Spirit’s work, or else it never will be done. Well, after a man has been brought here, can you conceive that man at last conscience stricken, and led to believe that his past life deserves the wrath of God? His first thought would be, “Well, now, I will live better than I ever have lived.” He would say, “Now, I will try and play the hermit, and pinch myself here and there, and deny myself, and do penance; and in that way, by paying attention to the outward ceremonies of religion, together with a high moral character, I do not doubt that I shall blot out whatever slurs and stains there have been.” Can you suppose that man brought at last to feel that, if ever he gets to heaven, he will have to get there through the righteousness of another? “Through the righteousness of another?” he says, “I do not want to be rewarded for what another man does, — not I. If I go there, I will go there and take my chance; I will go there through what I do myself. Tell me something to do, and I will do it; I will be proud to do it, however humiliating it may be, so that I may at last win the love and esteem of God.” Now, can you conceive such a man as that brought to feel that he can do nothing? — that, good man as he thinks himself to be, he cannot do anything whatever to merit God’s love and favour; and that, if he goes to heaven, he must go through what Christ did? Just the same as the drunkard must go there through the merits of Christ, so this moral man must enter into life, having nothing around him but Christ’s perfect righteousness, and being washed in the blood of Jesus. We say that this is so contrary to human nature, so diametrically opposed to all the instincts of our poor fallen humanity, that nothing but the Spirit of God can ever bring a man to strip himself of all self-righteousness, and of all creature strength, and compel him to rest and lean simply and wholly upon Jesus Christ the Saviour.
13. These two experiences would be sufficient to prove the necessity of the Holy Spirit to make a man a Christian. But let me now describe a Christian as he is after his conversion. Trouble comes, storms of trouble, and he looks the tempest in the face and says, “I know that all things work together for my good.” His children die, the partner of his bosom is carried to the grave; he says, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” His farm fails, his crop is blighted; his business prospects are clouded, all seems to go, and he is left in poverty: he says, “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail and the fields shall yield no food; the flocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” You see him next laid upon a sickbed himself, and when he is there, he says, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, for before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept your Word.” You see him approaching at last the dark valley of the shadow of death, and you hear him cry, “Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; your rod and your staff comfort me, and you yourself are with me.” Now I ask you what makes this man calm in the midst of all these varied trials,