The Spurgeon Series 1855 & 1856. Charles H. Spurgeon
of his nativity. Born in a stable — cradled in a manger where the horned oxen fed — his only bed was their fodder, and his slumbers were often broken by their lowings. He might be a prince by birth; but certainly he had not a princely retinue to wait upon him. He was not clad in purple garments, neither wrapped in embroidered clothing; the halls of kings were not trodden by his feet, the marble palaces of monarchs were not honoured by his infant smiles. Take notice of the visitors who came around his cradle. The shepherds came first of all. We never find that they lost their way. No, God guides the shepherds, and he did direct the wise men too, but they lost their way. It often happens, that while shepherds find Christ wise men miss him. But, however, both of them came, the magi and the shepherds; both knelt around that manger, to show us that Christ was the Christ of all men; that he was not merely the Christ of the magi, but that he was the Christ of the shepherds — that he was not merely the Saviour of the peasant shepherd, but also the Saviour of the learned, for
None are excluded hence, but those
Who do themselves exclude;
Welcome the learned and polite,
The ignorant and rude.
In his very birth he was one of the people. He was not born in a populous city; but in the obscure village of Bethlehem, “the house of bread,” the Son of Man made his advent, unushered by pompous preparations, and unheralded by the blast of courtly trumpets.
8. His education, too, demands our attention. He was not taken as Moses was, from his mother’s breast, to be educated in the halls of a monarch; he was not brought up with all those affected airs which are given to people who have golden spoons in their mouths at their births. He was not brought up as the lordling, to look with disdain on every one; but his father being a carpenter, doubtless he toiled in his father’s workshop. “Fit place,” a quaint author says, “for Jesus; for he had to make a ladder that would reach from earth to heaven. And why should he not be the son of a carpenter?” Full well he knew the curse of Adam: “in the sweat of your face shall you eat bread.” Had you seen the holy child Jesus, you would have beheld nothing to distinguish him from other children, except that unsullied purity which rested in his very countenance. When our Lord entered into public life, still he was the same. What was his rank? Did he array himself in scarlet and purple? Oh! no: he wore the simple garb of a peasant — that robe “without seam the top to the bottom,” one simple piece of cloth, without ornament or embroidery. Did he dwell in state, and make a magnificent show in his journey through Judea? No; he toiled his weary way, and sat down on the curbstone of the well of Sychar. He was like others, a poor man; he had no courtiers around him; he had fishermen for his companions; and when he spoke, did he speak with smooth and oily words? Did he walk with dainty footsteps, like the king of Amalek? No, he often spoke like the rough Elijah; he spoke what he meant, and he meant what he said. He spoke to the people as the people’s man. He never cringed before great men; he did not know what it was to bow or stoop; but he stood and cried, “Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Woe to you, whitewashed sepulchres.” He spared no class of sinners: rank and fortune made no difference to him. He uttered the same truths to the rich men of the Sanhedrin, as to the toiling peasants of Galilee. He was “one of the people.”
9. Notice his doctrine. Jesus Christ was one of the people in his doctrine. His gospel was never the philosopher’s gospel, for it is not abstruse enough. It will not consent to be buried in hard words and technical phrases: it is so simple that he who can say, “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved,” may have a saving knowledge of it. Hence, worldly wise men scorn the science of truth, and sneeringly say, “Why, even a blacksmith can preach now a days, and men who were behind the plough may turn preachers,” while priestcraft demands, “What right have they to do any such thing, unauthorized by us?” Oh! sad case, that gospel truth should be slighted because of its plainness, and that my Master should be despised because he will not be exclusive — will not be monopolised by men of talent and erudition. Jesus is the ignorant man’s Christ as much as the learned man’s Christ; for he has chosen “the base things of the world and the things that are despised.” Ah! much as I love true science and real education, I mourn and grieve that our ministers are so much diluting the Word of God with philosophy, desiring to be intellectual preachers, delivering model sermons, well fitted for a room full of college students and professors of theology, but of no use to the masses, being destitute of simplicity, warmth, earnestness, or even solid gospel matter. I fear our college training is only a poor gain to our churches, since it often serves to wean the young man’s sympathies from the people, and wed them to the few, the intellectual, and wealthy of the church. It is good to be a fellow citizen in the republic of letters but better far to be an able minister of the kingdom of heaven. It is good to be able like some great minds, to attract the mighty; but the more useful man will still be the one who, like Whitfield, uses “market language,” for it is a sad fact that high places and the gospel seldom well agree; and, moreover, be it known that the doctrine of Christ is the doctrine of the people. It was not meant to be the gospel of a caste, a clique, or any one class of the community. The covenant of grace is not ordered for men of one peculiar grade, but some of all sorts are included. A few there were of the rich who followed Jesus in his own day, and it is so now. Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus were well to do, and there was the wife of Herod’s steward, with some more of the nobility. These, however, were but a few: his congregation was made up of the lower orders — the masses — the multitude. “The common people heard him gladly”; and his doctrine was one which did not allow for distinction, but put all men as sinners naturally, on an equality in the sight of God. One is your Father, “one is your Master, even Christ, and all you are brethren.” These were words which he taught to his disciples, while in his own person he was the mirror of humility, and proven himself the friend of earth’s poor sons, and the lover of mankind. Oh you purse proud! Oh you who cannot touch the poor even with your white gloves! Ah! you with your mitres and your croziers! {b} Ah! you with your cathedrals and splendid ornaments! This is the man whom you call Master — the people’s Christ — one of the people! And yet you look down with scorn upon the people — you despise them. What are they in your opinion? The common herd — the multitude. Away with you! Call yourselves no more the ministers of Christ. How can you be, unless, descending from your pomp and your dignity, you come among the poor and visit them — you walk among our teeming population and preach to them the gospel of Christ Jesus. We believe you to be the descendants of the fishermen? Ah! no, until you doff your grandeur, and, like the fishermen, come out, the people’s men, and preach to the people, speak to the people, instead of lolling on your splendid seats, and making yourselves rich at the expense of your pluralities! {c} Christ’s ministers should be the friends of manhood at large, remembering that their Master was the people’s Christ. Rejoice! Oh rejoice! you multitudes. Rejoice! rejoice! for Christ was one of the people.
10. II. Our second point was ELECTION. God says, “I have exalted one chosen from the people.” Jesus Christ was elected — chosen. Somehow or other, that ugly doctrine of election will come out. Oh! there are some, the moment they hear that word, election, put their hands upon their foreheads, and mutter, “I will wait until that sentence is over; there will be something I shall like better, perhaps.” Some others say, “I shall not go to that place again; the man is a hyper-Calvinist.” But the man is not a hyper-Calvinist; the man said what was in his Bible — that is all. He is a Christian, and you have no right to call him by those ill names, if indeed an ill name it is, for we never blush at whatever men do call us. Here it is: “One chosen from the people.” Now, what does that mean, but that Jesus Christ is chosen? Those who do not like to believe that the heirs of heaven were elect, cannot deny the truth proclaimed in this verse, — that Jesus Christ is the subject of election — that his Father chose him, and that he chose him from the people. As a man, he was chosen from the people, to be the people’s Saviour, and the people’s Christ. And now let us gather up our thoughts, and try to discover the transcendent wisdom of God’s choice. Election is no blind thing. God chooses sovereignly, but he always chooses wisely. There is always some secret reason for his choice of any particular individual; though that motive does not lie in ourselves, or in our own merits, yet there always is some secret cause far more remote than the doings of the creature; some mighty reason unknown to all but himself.