181. Particular Redemption

A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, February 28, 1858, By Pastor C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

Even as the Son of man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many, (Mt 20:28)

1. When first it was my duty to occupy this pulpit, and preach in this hall, my congregation assumed the appearance of an irregular mass of people collected from all the streets of this city to listen to the Word. It was then simply an evangelist, preaching to many who had not heard the gospel before. By the grace of God, the most blessed change has taken place; and now, instead of having an irregular multitude gathered together, my congregation is as fixed as that of any minister in the whole city of London. I can from this pulpit observe the faces of my friends, who have occupied the same seats, as nearly as possible, for these many months; and I have the privilege and the pleasure of knowing that a very large proportion, certainly three-fourths of the people who meet together here, are not people who stray here from curiosity, but are my regular and constant hearers. And observe, that my character also has been changed. From being an evangelist, it is now my business to become your pastor. You were once a motley group assembled to listen to me, but now we are bound together by the ties of love; through association we have grown to love and respect each other, and now you have become the sheep of my pasture, and members of my flock; and I have now the privilege of assuming the position of a pastor in this place, as well as in the chapel where I labour in the evening. I think, then, it will strike the judgment of every person that as both the congregation and the office have now changed, the teaching itself should in some measure undergo a change. It has been my custom to address you from the simple truths of the gospel; I have very seldom, in this place, attempted to dive into the deep things of God. A text which I have thought suitable for my congregation in the evening, I would not have made the subject of discussion in this place in the morning. There are many high and mysterious doctrines which I have often taken the opportunity of handling in my own place, that I have not taken the liberty of introducing here, regarding you as a company of people casually gathered together to hear the Word. But now, since the circumstances are changed, the teaching will be changed also. I shall not now simply confine myself to the doctrine of the faith, or the teaching of believer’s baptism; I shall not skim the surface of matters, but shall try, as God shall guide me, to enter into those things that lie at the basis of the faith that we hold so dear. I shall not blush to preach before you the doctrine of God’s Divine Sovereignty; I shall not stagger to preach in the most unreserved and unguarded manner the doctrine of Election. I shall not be afraid to propound the great truth of the Final Perseverance of the saints; I shall not withhold that undoubted truth of Scripture, the Effectual Calling of God’s elect; I shall endeavour, as God shall help me, to keep back nothing from you who have become my flock. Seeing that many of you have now “tasted that the Lord is gracious,” we will endeavour to go through the whole system of the doctrines of grace, that saints may be edified and built up in their most holy faith.

2. I begin this morning with the doctrine of Redemption. “He gave his life a ransom for many.”

3. The doctrine of Redemption is one of the most important doctrines of the system of faith. A mistake on this point will inevitably lead to a mistake through the entire system of our belief.

4. Now, you are aware that there are different theories of Redemption. All Christians believe that Christ died to redeem, but all Christians do not teach the same redemption. We differ as to the nature of atonement, and as to the design of redemption. For instance, the Arminian holds that Christ, when he died, did not die with an intent to save any particular person; and they teach that Christ’s death does not in itself secure, beyond doubt, the salvation of any one man living. They believe that Christ died to make the salvation of all men possible, or that by the doing of something else, any man who pleases may attain to eternal life; consequently, they are obliged to believe that if man’s will would not give way and voluntarily surrender to grace, then Christ’s atonement would be unavailing. They believe that there was no particularity and speciality in the death of Christ. Christ died, according to them, as much for Judas in hell as for Peter who mounted to heaven. They believe that for those who are consigned to eternal fire, there was as true and real a redemption made as for those who now stand before the throne of the Most High. Now, we believe no such thing. We believe that Christ, when he died, had an object in view, and that object will most assuredly, and beyond a doubt, be accomplished. We measure the design of Christ’s death by the effect of it. If anyone asks us, “What did Christ design to do by his death?” we answer that question by asking him another—“What has Christ done, or what will Christ do by his death?” For we declare that the measure of the effect of Christ’s love, is the measure of the design of it. We cannot so undermine our reason as to think that the intention of Almighty God could be frustrated, or that the design of so great a thing as the atonement, can by any way whatever, be missed. We hold—we are not afraid to say what we believe—that Christ came into this world with the intention of saving “a multitude which no man can number;” and we believe that as the result of this, every person for whom he died must, beyond the shadow of a doubt, be cleansed from sin, and stand, washed in blood, before the Father’s throne. We do not believe that Christ made any effectual atonement for those who are for ever damned; we dare not think that the blood of Christ was ever shed with the intention of saving those whom God foreknew never could be saved, and some of whom were even in hell when Christ, according to some men’s account, died to save them.

5. Thus I have just stated our theory of redemption, and hinted at the differences which exist between two great parties in the professing church. It shall be now my endeavour to show the greatness of the redemption of Christ Jesus; and by so doing, I hope to be enabled by God’s Spirit, to bring out all of the great system of redemption, so that it may be understood by all of us, even if all of us cannot accept it. For you must bear this in mind, that some of you, perhaps, may be ready to dispute things which I assert; but you will remember that this is nothing to me; I shall at all times teach those things which I believe to be true, without restraint or hindrance from any man breathing. You have the similar liberty to do the same in your own places, and to preach your own views in your own assemblies, as I claim the right to preach mine, fully, and without hesitation.

6. Christ Jesus “gave his life a ransom for many;” and by that ransom he worked out for us a great redemption. I shall endeavour to show the greatness of this redemption, measuring it in five ways. We shall note its greatness; first of all, from the heinousness of our own guilt, from which he has delivered us; secondly, we shall measure his redemption by the sternness of divine justice; thirdly, we shall measure it by the price which he paid, the pangs which he endured; then we shall endeavour to magnify it, by noting the deliverance which he actually achieved; and we shall close by noticing the vast number for whom this redemption is made, who in our text are described as “many.”

7. I. First, then, we shall see that the redemption of Christ was no little thing, if we do only measure it, first, by OUR OWN SINS. My brethren, for a moment look at the hole of the pit from where you were dug, and the quarry from where you were hewn. You, who have been washed, and cleansed, and sanctified, pause for a moment, and look back at the former state of your ignorance; the sins in which you indulged, the crimes into which you were hurried, the continual rebellion against God in which it was your custom to live. One sin can ruin a soul for ever; it is not in the power of the human mind to grasp the infinity of evil that slumbers in the heart of one solitary sin. There is a very infinity of guilt couched in one transgression against the Majesty of heaven. If, then, you and I had sinned only once, nothing but an atonement infinite in value could ever have washed away the sin and made satisfaction for it. But has it been only once that you and I have transgressed? No, my brethren, our iniquities are more in number than the hairs of our head; they have mightily prevailed against us. We might as well attempt to number the sands upon the seashore, or count the drops which in their aggregate do make up the ocean, as attempt to count the transgressions which have marked our lives. Let us go back to our childhood. How early we began to sin! How we disobeyed our parents, and even then learned to make our mouth the house of lies! In our childhood, how full of wantonness and waywardness we were! Headstrong and giddy, we preferred our own way, and burst through all restraints which godly parents put upon us. Nor did our youth sober us. Wildly we dashed, many of us, into the very midst of the dance of sin. We became leaders in iniquity; we not only sinned ourselves, but we taught others to sin. And as for your manhood, you who have entered upon the prime of life, you may be more outwardly sober, you may be somewhat free from the dissipation of your youth; but how little has the man become bettered! Unless the sovereign grace of God has renewed us, we are now no better than we were when we began; and even if it has operated, we have still sins to repent of, for we all lay our mouths in the dust, and cast ashes on our head, and cry, “Unclean! Unclean!” And oh! you who lean wearily on your cane, the support of your old age, have you not sins still clinging to your garments? Are your lives as white as the snowy hairs that crown your head? Do you not still feel that transgression besmears the skirts of your robe, and mars its spotlessness? How often are you now plunged into the ditch, until your own clothes abhor you! Cast your eyes over the sixty, the seventy, the eighty years, during which God has spared your lives; and can you for a moment think it possible, that you can tally up your innumerable transgressions, or compute the weight of the crimes which you have committed? Oh you stars of heaven! the astronomer may measure your distance and determine your size, but oh you sins of mankind! you surpass all thought. Oh you lofty mountains! the home of the tempest, the birthplace of the storm! man may climb your summits and stand wonderingly upon your snows; but you hills of sin! you tower higher than our thoughts; oh chasms of transgressions! you are deeper than our imagination dares to dive. Do you accuse me of slandering human nature? It is because you know it not. If God had once shown you your heart, you would bear me witness, that so far from exaggerating, my poor words fail to describe the desperateness of our evil. Oh! if each of us could look into our hearts today—if our eyes could be turned within, so as to see the iniquity that is engraven as with the point of the diamond upon our stony hearts, we would then say to the minister, that however he may depict the desperateness of guilt, yet he cannot by any means surpass it. How great then, beloved, must be the ransom of Christ, when he saved us from all these sins! The men for whom Jesus died, however great their sin, when they believe, are justified from all their transgressions. Though they may have indulged in every vice and every lust which Satan could suggest, and which human nature could perform, yet once believing, all their guilt is washed away. Year after year may have coated them with blackness, until their sin has become of double dye; but in one moment of faith, one triumphant moment of confidence in Christ, the great redemption takes away the guilt of numerous years. No, more, if it were possible for all the sins that men have done, in thought, or word, or deed, since worlds were made, or time began, to meet on one poor head—the great redemption is all sufficient to take all these sins away, and wash the sinner whiter than the driven snow.

8. Oh! who shall measure the heights of the Saviour’s all sufficiency? First, tell me how high sin is, and, then, remember that as Noah’s flood prevailed over the tops of earth’s mountains, so the flood of Christ’s redemption prevails over the tops of the mountains of our sins. In heaven’s courts there are today men who once were murderers, and thieves, and drunkards, and fornicators, and blasphemers, and persecutors; but they have been washed—they have been sanctified. Ask them from where the brightness of their robes has come, and where their purity has been achieved, and they, with united breath, tell you that they have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Oh you troubled consciences! Oh you weary and heavy laden ones! Oh you who are groaning on account of sin! the great redemption now proclaimed to you is all sufficient for your needs; and though your numerous sins exceed the stars that deck the sky, here is an atonement made for them all—a river which can overflow all of them, and carry them away from you for ever.

9. This, then, is the first measure of the atonement—the greatness of our guilt.

10. II. Now, secondly, we must measure the great redemption BY THE STERNESS OF DIVINE JUSTICE. “God is love,” always loving; but my next proposition does not at all interfere with this assertion. God is sternly just, inflexibly severe in his dealings with mankind. The God of the Bible is not the God of some men’s imagination, who thinks so little of sin that he passes it by without demanding any punishment for it. He is not the God of the men who imagine that our transgressions are such little things, such mere peccadilloes that the God of heaven winks at them, and allows them to die forgotten. No; Jehovah, Israel’s God has declared concerning himself, “The Lord your God is a jealous God.” It is his own declaration, “I will by no means clear the guilty.” “The soul that sins, it shall die.” Learn, my friends, to look upon God as being as severe in his justice as if he were not loving, and yet as loving as if he were not severe. His love does not diminish his justice, nor does his justice, in the least degree, make warfare upon his love. The two things are sweetly linked together in the atonement of Christ. But, mark, we can never understand the fulness of the atonement until we have first grasped the Scriptural truth of God’s immense justice. There was never an ill word spoken, nor an ill thought conceived, nor an evil deed done for which God will not have punishment from some one or another. He will either have satisfaction from you, or else from Christ. If you have no atonement to bring through Christ, you must for ever lie paying the debt which you never can pay, in eternal misery; for as surely as God is God, he will sooner lose his Godhead than allow one sin to go unpunished, or one particle of rebellion unrevenged. You may say that this character of God is cold, and stern, and severe. I cannot help what you say about it; it is nevertheless true. Such is the God of the Bible; and though we repeat that it is true that he is love, it is no more true that he is love than that he is full of justice, for every good thing meets in God, and is carried to perfection, while love reaches to consummate loveliness, justice reaches to the sternness of inflexibility in him. He has no bend, no warp in his character; no attribute so predominates as to cast a shadow upon the other. Love has its full sway, and justice has no narrower limit than his love. Oh! then, beloved, think how great must have been the substitution of Christ, when it satisfied God for all the sins of his people. For man’s sin God demands eternal punishment; and God has prepared a hell into which he casts those who die impenitent. Oh! my brethren, can you think what must have been the greatness of the atonement which was the substitution for all this agony which God would have cast upon us, if he had not poured it upon Christ? Look! look! look with solemn eye through the shades that part us from the world of spirits, and see that house of misery which men call hell! You cannot endure the spectacle. Remember that in that place there are spirits for ever paying their debt to divine justice; but though some of them have been there these six thousand years sweltering in the flame, they are no nearer a discharge than when they began; and when ten thousand times ten thousand years shall have rolled away, they will no more have made satisfaction to God for their guilt than they have done up until now. And now can you grasp the thought of the greatness of your Saviour’s mediation when he paid your debt, and paid it all at once; so that there now remains not one farthing of debt owing from Christ’s people to their God, except a debt of love. To justice the believer owes nothing; though he owed originally so much that eternity would not have been long enough to suffice for the paying of it, yet, in one moment Christ paid it all, so that the man who believes is entirely justified from all guilt, and set free from all punishment, through what Jesus has done. Think you, then, how great his atonement was if he has done all this.

11. I must just pause here, and utter another thought. There are times when God the Holy Spirit shows to men the sternness of justice in their own consciences. There is a man here today who has just been cut to the heart with a sense of sin. He was once a free man, a libertine, in bondage to no one; but now the arrow of the Lord sticks firmly in his heart, and he has come under a bondage worse than that of Egypt. I see him today, he tells me that his guilt haunts him everywhere. The negro slave, guided by the pole star, may escape the cruelties of his master and reach another land where he may be free; but this man feels that if he were to wander over the whole wide world he could not escape from guilt. He who has been bound by many irons, can yet find a file that can unbind him and set him at liberty; but this man tells you that he has tried prayers and tears and good works, but cannot get the shackles from his wrist; he feels as a lost sinner still, and emancipation, no matter what he does, seems to him impossible. The captive in the dungeon is sometimes free in thought, though not in body; through his dungeon walls his spirit leaps, and flies to the stars, free as the eagle that is no man’s slave. But this man is a slave in his thoughts; he cannot think one bright, one happy thought. His soul is cast down within him; the iron has entered into his spirit, and he is sorely afflicted. The captive sometimes forgets his slavery in sleep, but this man cannot sleep; by night he dreams of hell, by day he seems to feel it; he bears a burning furnace of flame within his heart, and no matter what he does he cannot quench it. He has been confirmed, he has been baptised, he takes the sacrament, he attends a church or he frequents a chapel, he regards every rubric and obeys every canon, but the fire burns still. He gives his money to the poor, he is ready to give his body to be burned, he feeds the hungry, he visits the sick, he clothes the naked, but the fire still burns, and no matter what he does he cannot quench it. Oh, you sons of weariness and woe, what you feel is God’s justice in full pursuit of you, and blessed are you who feel this, for now to you I preach this glorious Gospel of the blessed God. You are the man for whom Jesus Christ has died; for you he has satisfied stern justice; and now all you have to do to obtain peace and conscience, is just to say to your adversary who pursues you, “Look up there! Christ died for me; my good works would not stop you, my tears would not appease you: look up there! There stands the cross; there hangs the bleeding God! Hear to his death shriek! See him die! Are you not satisfied now?” And when you have done that, you shall have the peace of God which passes all understanding, which shall keep your heart and mind through Jesus Christ your Lord; and then you shall know the greatness of his atonement.

12. III. In the third place, we may measure the greatness of Christ’s Redemption by THE PRICE HE PAID.

13. It is impossible for us to know how great were the pangs of our Saviour; but yet some glimpse of them will afford us a little idea of the greatness of the price which he paid for us. Oh Jesus, who shall describe your agony?

  Come, all you springs,
Dwell in my head and eyes; come, clouds and rain!
My grief has need of all the wat’ry things,
That nature has produc’d. Let ev’ry vein
Suck up a river to supply my eyes,
My weary weeping eyes; too dry for me,
Unless they get new conduits, new supplies,
To bear them out, and with my state agree.

Oh Jesus! you were a sufferer from your birth, a man of sorrows and grief’s acquaintance. Your sufferings fell on you in one perpetual shower, until the last dread hour of darkness. Then not in a shower, but in a cloud, a torrent, a cataract of grief, your agonies dashed upon you. See him there! It is a night of frost and cold; but he is outside. It is night: he does not sleep, but he is in prayer. Hear his groans! Did ever a man wrestle as he wrestles? Go and look in his face! Was ever such suffering depicted upon mortal countenance as you can see there? Do you hear his own words? “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.” He rises: he is seized by traitors and is dragged away. Let us go to the place where just now he was engaged in agony. Oh God! and what is this we see? What is this that stains the ground? It is blood! From where did it come? Had he some wound which oozed afresh through his dire struggle? Ah! no. “He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood, falling down to the ground.” Oh agonies that surpass the word by which we name you! Oh sufferings that cannot be described by language! What could you be that thus could work upon the Saviour’s blessed frame, and force a bloody sweat to fall from his entire body? This is the beginning; this is the only opening scene of the tragedy. Follow him mournfully, you sorrowing church, to witness the consummation of it. He is hurried through the streets; he is dragged first to one court and then to another; he is cast and condemned before the Sanhedrin; he is mocked by Herod; he is tried by Pilate. His sentence is pronounced—“Let him be crucified!” And now the tragedy comes to its height. His back is bared; he is tied to the low Roman column; the bloody scourge ploughs furrows into his back, and with one stream of blood his back is red—a crimson robe that proclaims him emperor of misery. He is taken into the guardroom; his eyes are bound, and then they slap him, and say, “Prophecy, who was it that struck you?” They spit into his face, they plait a crown of thorns, and press it into his temples; they array him in a purple robe; they bow their knees, and mock him. All silently he sits; he answers not a word. “When he was reviled, he did not revile again,” but committed himself to him whom he came to serve. And now they take him, and with many a jeer and jibe they drive him from the place, and hurry him through the streets. Emaciated by continual fastings, and depressed with agony of spirit he stumbles beneath his cross. Daughters of Jerusalem! he faints in your streets. They lift him up; they put his cross upon another’s shoulders, and they urge him on, perhaps with many a spear prick, until at last he reaches the mount of doom. Rough soldiers seize him, and hurl him on his back; the transverse wood is laid beneath him; his arms are stretched to reach the necessary distance; the nails are grasped; four hammers at one moment drive four nails through the tenderest parts of his body; and there he lies upon his own place of execution dying on his cross. It is not done yet. The cross is lifted up by the rough soldiers. There is the socket prepared for it. It is dashed into its place: they fill up the place with earth; and there it stands.

14. But see the Saviour’s limbs, how they quiver! Every bone has been put out of joint by the dashing of the cross into that socket! How he weeps! How he sighs! How he sobs! No, more, hear how at last he shrieks in agony, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Oh sun, no wonder you shut your eye, and looked no longer upon a deed so cruel! Oh rocks! no wonder that you melted and rent your hearts with sympathy, when your Creator died! Never a man suffered as this man suffered. Even death itself relented, and many of those who had been in their graves arose and came into the city. This however, is only the outward. Believe me, brethren, the inward was far worse. What our Saviour suffered in his body was nothing, compared to what he endured in his soul. You cannot guess, and I cannot help you to guess, what he endured within. Suppose for one moment—to repeat a sentence I have often used—suppose a man who has passed into hell—suppose his eternal torment could all be brought into one hour; and then suppose it could be multiplied by the number of the saved, which is a number past all human enumeration. Can you now think what a vast aggregate of misery there would have been in the sufferings of all God’s people, if they had been punished through all eternity? And remember that Christ had to suffer an equivalent for all the hells of all his redeemed. I can never express that thought better than by using those often repeated words: it seemed as if hell was put into his cup; he seized it, and, “At one tremendous draught of love, he drank damnation dry.” So that there was nothing left of all the pangs and miseries of hell for his people ever to endure. I do not say that he suffered the same, but he did endure an equivalent for all this, and gave God the satisfaction for all the sins of all his people, and consequently gave him an equivalent for all their punishment. Now can you dream, can you guess the great redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ?

15. IV. I shall be very brief upon the next point. The fourth way of measuring the Saviour s agonies is this: we must calculate them by THE GLORIOUS DELIVERANCE WHICH HE HAS EFFECTED.

16. Rise up, believer; stand up in your place, and this day testify to the greatness of what the Lord has done for you! Let me tell it for you. I will tell your experience and mine in one breath. Once my soul was laden with sin; I had revolted against God, and grievously transgressed. The terrors of the law laid hold on me; the pangs of conviction seized me. I saw myself as guilty. I looked to heaven, and I saw an angry God sworn to punish me; I looked beneath me and I saw a yawning hell ready to devour me. I sought by good works to satisfy my conscience; but all in vain. I endeavoured by attending to the ceremonies of religion to appease the pangs that I felt within; but all without effect. My soul was exceedingly sorrowful almost to death. I could have said with the ancient mourner, “My soul chooses strangling and death rather than life.” This was the great question that always perplexed me: “I have sinned; God must punish me; how can he be just if he does not? Then, since he is just, what is to become of me?” At last my eye turned to that sweet word which says, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses from all sin.” I took that text to my room; I sat there and meditated. I saw one hanging on a cross. It was my Lord Jesus. There was the thorn crown, and there the emblems of unequalled and peerless misery. I looked upon him, and my thoughts recalled that word which says, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Then I said within myself, “Did this man die for sinners? I am a sinner; then he died for me. Those he died for he will save. He died for sinners; I am a sinner; he died for me; he will save me.” My soul relied upon that truth. I looked to him, and as I “viewed the flowing of his soul redeeming blood,” my spirit rejoiced, for I could say,

Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to this cross I cling;
Naked look to him for dress;
Helpless, come to him for grace!
Black, I to this fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die!

And now, believer, you shall tell the rest. The moment that you believed, your burden rolled from your shoulder, and you became light as air. Instead of darkness you had light; instead of the garments of heaviness you now had the robes of praise. Who shall describe your joy since then? You have sung on earth, hymns of heaven, and in your peaceful soul you have anticipated the eternal Sabbath of the redeemed. Because you have believed you have entered into rest. Yes, tell it to the whole wide world; they who believe, by Jesus’ death are justified from all things from which they could not be freed by the works of the law. Tell it in heaven, that no one can lay anything to the charge of God’s elect. Tell it upon earth, that God’s redeemed are free from sin in Jehovah’s sight. Tell it even in hell, that God’s elect can never come there; for Christ has died for them, and who shall condemn them?

17. V. I have hurried over that, to come to the last point, which is the sweetest of all. Jesus Christ, we are told in our text, came into the world “to give his life a ransom for many.” The greatness of Christ’s redemption may be measured by the EXTENT OF THE DESIGN OF IT. He gave his life “a ransom for many.” I must now return to that controversial point again. We are often told (I mean those of us who are commonly nicknamed by the title of Calvinists—and we are not very much ashamed of that; we think that Calvin, after all, knew more about the gospel than almost any man who has ever lived, uninspired)—We are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ, because we say that Christ has not made a satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved. Now, our reply to this is, that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it: we do not. The Arminians say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men? They say, “No, certainly not.” We ask them the next question—Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They answer “No.” They are obliged to admit this, if they are consistent. They say “No; Christ has died that any man may be saved if”—and then follow certain conditions of salvation. We say, then, we will just go back to the old statement—Christ did not die so as beyond a doubt to secure the salvation of anyone, did he? You must say “No;” you are obliged to say so, for you believe that even after a man has been pardoned, he may yet fall from grace, and perish. Now, who is it that limits the death of Christ? Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as to infallibly secure the salvation of anyone. We beg your pardon, when you say we limit Christ’s death; we say, “No, my dear sir, it is you who does it.” We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ’s death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You are welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it.

18. Now, beloved, when you hear anyone laughing or jeering at a limited atonement, you may tell him this. General atonement is like a great wide bridge with only half an arch; it does not go across the stream: it only professes to go half way; it does not secure the salvation of anyone. Now, I had rather put my foot upon a bridge as narrow as Hungerford,1 which went all the way across, than on a bridge that was as wide as the world, if it did not go all the way across the stream. I am told it is my duty to say that all men have been redeemed, and I am told that there is a Scriptural warrant for it—“Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” Now, that looks like a very, very great argument indeed on the other side of the question. For instance, look here. “The whole world is gone after him.” Did all the world go after Christ? “Then all Judea went and were baptized by him in Jordan.” Was all Judea, or all Jerusalem baptized in Jordan? “You are of God, little children,” and “the whole world lies in the wicked one.” Does “the whole world” there mean everyone? If so, how was it, then, that there were some who were “of God?” The words “world” and “all” are used in some seven or eight senses in Scripture; and it is very rarely that “all” means all people, taken individually. The words are generally used to signify that Christ has redeemed some of all sorts—some Jews, some Gentiles, some rich, some poor, and has not restricted his redemption to either Jew or Gentile.

19. Leaving controversy, however, I will now answer a question. Tell me then, sir, who did Christ die for? Will you answer a question or two for me, and I will tell you whether he died for you. Do you want a Saviour? Do you feel that you need a Saviour? Are you this morning conscious of sin? Has the Holy Spirit taught you that you are lost? Then Christ died for you, and you will be saved. Are you this morning conscious that you have no hope in the world but Christ? Do you feel that you by yourself cannot offer an atonement that can satisfy God’s justice? Have you given up all confidence in yourselves? And can you say upon your bended knees, “Lord, save me, or I perish?” Christ died for you. If you are saying this morning, “I am as good as I ought to be; I can get to heaven by my own good works,” then, remember, the Scripture says of Jesus, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” So long as you are in that state I have no atonement to preach for you. But if this morning you feel guilty, wretched, conscious of your guilt, and are ready to take Christ to be your only Saviour, I cannot only say to you that you may be saved, but what is better still, that you will be saved. When you are stripped of everything but hope in Christ, when you are prepared to come empty handed and take Christ to be your all, and to be yourself nothing at all, then you may look up to Christ, and you may say, “You dear, you bleeding Lamb of God! your griefs were endured for me; by your stripes I am healed, and by your sufferings I am pardoned.” And then see what peace of mind you will have; for if Christ has died for you, you cannot be lost. God will not punish twice for one thing. If God punished Christ for your sin, he will never punish you. “Payment, God’s justice cannot twice demand, first, at the bleeding surety’s hand, and then again at mine.” We can today, if we believe in Christ, march to the very throne of God, stand there, and if it is said, “Are you guilty?” we can say, “Yes, guilty.” But if the question is asked, “What have you to say why you should not be punished for your guilt?” We can answer, “Great God, your justice and your love are both our guarantees that you will not punish us for sin; for did you not punish Christ for sin for us? How can you, then, be just—how can you be God at all, if you do punish Christ the substitute, and then punish man himself afterwards?” Your only question is, “Did Christ die for me?” And the only answer we can give is—“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ came into the world to save sinners.” Can you write your name down among the sinners—not among the complimentary sinners, but among those that feel it, bemoan it, lament it, seek mercy on account of it? Are you a sinner? That felt, that known, that professed, you are now invited to believe that Jesus Christ died for you, because you are a sinner; and you are bidden to cast yourself upon this great immovable rock, and find eternal security in the Lord Jesus Christ.