1850. Immeasurable Love

No. 1850-31:385. A Sermon Delivered On Lord’s Day Evening, June 7, 1885, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

A Sermon Intended For Reading On Lord’s Day, July 26, 1885.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. {Joh 3:16}

1. I was very greatly surprised the other day, in looking over the list of texts from which I have preached, to find that I have no record of ever having spoken from this verse. This is all the more exceptional, because I can truly say that it might be put in the forefront of all my volumes of discourses as the sole topic of my life’s ministry. It has been my one and only business to present the love of God to men in Christ Jesus. I heard recently of an aged minister of whom it was said, “Whatever his text, he never failed to present God as love, and Christ as the atonement for sin.” I wish that much the same may be said of me. My heart’s desire has been to proclaim as with a trumpet the good news that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

2. We are about to meet around the communion table, and I cannot preach from this text anything but a simple gospel sermon. Can you desire a better preparation for communion? We have fellowship with God and with each other upon the basis of the infinite love which is displayed in Jesus Christ our Lord. The gospel is the fair white linen cloth which covers the table on which the Communion Feast is spread. The higher truths, those truths which belong to a more enlightened experience, those richer truths which tell of the fellowship of the higher life — all these are helpful to holy fellowship; but I am sure not more so than those elementary and foundational truths which were the means of our first entrance into the kingdom of God. Babes in Christ and men in Christ here feed on one common food. Come, you aged saints, be children again; and you who have long known your Lord, take up your first primer, and go over your A B C’s again, by learning that God so loved the world, that he gave his Son to die, so that man might live through him. I do not call you to an elementary lesson because you have forgotten your letters, but because it is a good thing to refresh the memory, and a blessed thing to feel young again. What the old folks used to call the Christ-Cross-Row {a} contained nothing but the letters; and yet all the books in the language are made out of that line: therefore I call you back to the cross, and to him who bled on it. It is a good thing for us all to return at times to our starting place, and make sure that we are in the way everlasting. The love of our espousals is most likely to continue if we again and again begin where God began with us, and where we first began with God. It is wise to come to him afresh, as we came in that first day when, helpless, needy, heavy laden, we stood weeping at the cross, and left our burden at the pierced feet. There we learned to look, and live, and love; and there we would repeat the lesson until we rehearse it perfectly in glory.

3. Tonight, we have to talk about the love of God: “God so loved the world.” That love of God is a very wonderful thing, especially when we see it set upon a lost, ruined, guilty world. What was there in the world that God should love it? There was nothing lovable in it. No fragrant flower grew in that arid desert. Enmity towards him, hatred for his truth, disregard of his law, rebellion against his commandments; those were the thorns and briars which covered the waste land; but no desirable thing blossomed there. Yet, “God loved the world,” says the text; “so” loved it, that even the writer of the book of John could not tell us how much; but so greatly, so divinely, did he love it that he gave his Son, his only Son, to redeem the world from perishing, and to gather out of it a people for his praise.

4. Where did that love come from? Not from anything outside of God himself. God’s love springs from himself. He loves because it is his nature to do so. “God is love.” As I have said already, nothing on the face of the earth could have merited his love, though there was much to merit his displeasure. This stream of love flows from its own secret source in the eternal Deity, and it owes nothing to any earth-born rain or rivulet; it springs from beneath the everlasting throne, and fills itself full from the springs of the infinite. God loved because he would love. When we enquire why the Lord loved this man or that, we have to come back to our Saviour’s answer to the question, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight.” God has such love in his nature that he needs to let it flow out to a world perishing by its own wilful sin; and when it flowed out it was so deep, so wide, so strong, that even inspiration could not compute its measure, and therefore the Holy Spirit gave us that great little word SO, and left us to attempt the measurement, according as we perceive more and more of divine love.

5. Now, there happened to be an occasion upon which the great God could display his immeasurable love. The world had sadly gone astray; the world had lost itself; the world was tried and condemned; the world was given over to perish, because of its offences; and there was need for help. The fall of Adam and the destruction of mankind made ample room and reason enough for almighty love. Amid the ruins of humanity there was opportunity for showing how much Jehovah loved the sons of men; for the span of his love was no less than the world, the object of it no less than to deliver men from going down to the pit, and the result of it no less than the finding of a ransom for them. The far-reaching purpose of that love was both negative and positive; that, believing in Jesus, men might not perish, but have eternal life. The desperate disease of man gave opportunity for the introduction of that divine remedy which God alone could have devised and supplied. By the plan of mercy, and the great gift which was needed for carrying it out, the Lord found means to display his boundless love to guilty men. Had there been no fall, and no perishing, God might have shown his love to us as he does to the pure and perfect spirits that surround his throne; but he never could have commended his love to us to such an extent as he now does. In the gift of his only-begotten Son, God commended his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. The black background of sin makes the bright line of love shine out all the more clearly. When the lightning writes the name of the Lord with flaming finger across the black brow of the tempest, we are compelled to see it; so when love inscribes the cross upon the jet tablet of our sin, even blind eyes must see that “herein is love.”

6. I might handle my text in a thousand different ways tonight; but for simplicity’s sake, and to keep to the one point of presenting the love of God, I want to make you see how great that love is by five different particulars.

7. I. The first is the GIFT: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son.” Men who love much will give much, and you may usually measure the truth of love by its self-denials and sacrifices. That love which spares nothing, but spends itself to help and bless its object, is love indeed, and not the mere name of it. Little love forgets to bring water for the feet, but great love breaks its box of alabaster and lavishes its precious ointment.

8. Consider, then, what this gift was that God gave. I should have to labour for expression if I were to attempt to present to the full this priceless blessing; and I will not court a failure by attempting the impossible. I will only invite you to think of the sacred person whom the Great Father gave in order that he might prove his love to men. It was his only-begotten Son — his beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased. None of us ever had such a son to give. Ours are the sons of men; his was the Son of God. The Father gave his other self, one with himself. When the great God gave his Son he gave God himself, for Jesus is not in his eternal nature less than God. When God gave God for us he gave himself. What more could he give? God gave his all: he gave himself. Who can measure this love?

9. Judge, you fathers, how you love your sons: could you give them to die for your enemy? Judge, you who have an only son, how your hearts are entwined around your first-born, your only-begotten. There was no higher proof of Abraham’s love for God than when he did not withhold from God his son, his only son, his Isaac whom he loved; and there can certainly be no greater display of love than for the Eternal Father to give his only-begotten Son to die for us. No living thing will readily lose its offspring; a man has particular grief when his son is taken; has not God even more? A story has often been told of the fondness of parents for their children; how in a famine in the East a father and mother were reduced to absolute starvation, and the only possibility of preserving the life of the family was to sell one of the children into slavery. So they considered it. The pinch of hunger became unbearable, and their children pleading for bread tugged so painfully at their heart-strings, that they must entertain the idea of selling one to save the lives of the rest. They had four sons. Who of these should be sold? It must not be the first: how could they spare their first-born? The second was so strangely like his father that he seemed a reproduction of him, and the mother said that she would never part with him. The third was so exceptionally like the mother that the father said he would sooner die than that this dear boy should go into bondage; and as for the fourth, he was their Benjamin, their last, their darling, and they could not part with him. They concluded that it would be better for them all to die together than willingly part with any one of their children. Do you not sympathise with them? I see you do. Yet God so loved us that, to put it very strongly, he seemed to love us better than his only Son, and did not spare him so that he might spare us. He permitted his Son to perish from among men “that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.”

10. If you desire to see the love of God in this great procedure you must consider how he gave his Son. He did not give his Son, as you might do, to some profession in the pursuit of which you might still enjoy his company; but he gave his Son to exile among men. He sent him down to that manger, united with a perfect manhood, which at the first was in an infant’s form. There he slept, where horned oxen fed! The Lord God sent the heir of all things to toil in a carpenter’s shop: to drive the nail, and push the plane, and use the saw. He sent him down among Scribes and Pharisees, whose cunning eyes watched him, and where cruel tongues scourged him with base slanders. He sent him down to hunger, and thirst, amid poverty so dire that he had nowhere to lay his head. He sent him down to the scourging and the crowning with thorns, to the giving of his back to the smiters and his cheeks to those who pulled out his hair. At length he gave him up to death — a felon’s death, the death of the crucified. Behold that cross and see the anguish of him who dies upon it, and notice how the Father has so given him, that he hides his face from him, and seems as if he would not acknowledge him! “Lama sabachthani” tells us how fully God gave his Son to ransom the souls of the sinful. He gave him to be made a curse for us; gave him so that he might die “the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.”

11. Dear sirs, I can understand your giving up your children to go to India on her Majesty’s service, or to go out to the Cameroons or the Congo upon the errands of our Lord Jesus. I can well comprehend your yielding them up even with the fear of a pestilential climate before you, for if they die they will die honourably in a glorious cause — but could you think of parting with them to die a felon’s death, upon a gibbet, cursed by those whom they sought to bless, stripped naked in body and deserted in mind? Would that not be too much? Would you not cry, “I cannot part with my son for such wretches as these. Why should he be put to a cruel death for such abominable beings, who even wash their hands in the blood of their best friend?” Remember that our Lord Jesus died what his countrymen considered to be an accursed death. To the Romans it was the death of a condemned slave, death which had all the elements of pain, disgrace, and scorn mingled in it to the uttermost. “But God commends his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Oh, wondrous stretch of love, that Jesus Christ should die!

12. Yet, I cannot leave this point until I have you notice when God gave his Son, for there is love in the time. “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.” But when did he do that? In his eternal purpose he did this from before the foundation of the world. The words here used, “He gave his only-begotten Son,” cannot relate exclusively to the death of Christ, for Christ was not dead at the time of the utterance of this third chapter of John. Our Lord had just been speaking with Nicodemus, and that conversation took place at the beginning of his ministry. The fact is that Jesus was always the gift of God. The promise of Jesus was made in the garden of Eden almost as soon as Adam fell. On the place where our ruin was accomplished, a Deliverer was bestowed whose heel should be bruised, but who should break the serpent’s head beneath his foot.

13. Throughout the ages, the great Father stood by his gift. He looked upon his Only-Begotten as man’s hope, the inheritance of the chosen seed, who in him would possess all things. Every sacrifice was God’s renewal of his gift of grace, a reassurance that he had bestowed the gift, and would never draw back from it. The whole system of types under the law signified that in the fulness of time the Lord would in very deed give up his Son, to be born of a woman, to bear the iniquities of his people, and to die the death on their behalf. I greatly admire this resolute love; for many a man in a moment of generous excitement can perform a supreme act of benevolence, and yet could not bear to look at it calmly, and consider it from year to year; the slow fire of anticipation would have been unbearable. If the Lord should take away that dear boy from his mother, she would bear the blow with some measure of patience, heavy as it would be to her tender heart; but suppose that she were reliably informed that on such a day her boy must die, and so had from year to year to look upon him as one dead, would it not cast a cloud over every hour of her future life? Suppose also that she knew that he would be hung upon a tree to die, as one condemned; would it not embitter her existence? If she could withdraw from such a trial, would she not? Assuredly she would. Yet the Lord God did not spare his own Son, but freely delivered him up for us all, doing it in his heart from age to age. Herein is love: love which many waters could not quench: love eternal, inconceivable, infinite!

14. Now, just as this gift refers not only to our Lord’s death, but to the ages before it, so it includes also all the ages afterwards. God “so loved the world that he gave” — and still gives — “his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have everlasting, ‘life.’ ” The Lord is giving Christ away tonight. Oh, that thousands of you may gladly accept the unspeakable gift! Will anyone refuse? This good gift, this perfect gift, — can you decline it? Oh, that you may have faith to lay hold on Jesus, for by this he will be yours. He is God’s free gift to all free receivers; a full Christ for empty sinners. If you can only hold out your empty willing hand, the Lord will give Christ to you at this moment. Nothing is freer than a gift. Nothing is more worth having than a gift which comes fresh from the hand of God, as full of effective power as it ever was. The fountain is eternal, but the stream from it is as fresh as when the fountain was first opened. There is no exhausting this gift.

   Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood
      Shall never lose it’s power
   Till all the ransomed church of God
      Be saved to sin no more.

See, then, what is the love of God, that he gave his Son from of old, and has never revoked the gift. He stands by his gift, and still continues to give his dear Son to all who are willing to accept him. Out of the riches of his grace he has given, is giving, and will give the Lord Jesus Christ, and all the priceless gifts which are contained in him, to all needy sinners who will simply trust him.

15. I call upon you from this first point to admire the love of God, because of the transcendent greatness of his gift to the world, even the gift of his only-begotten Son.

16. II. Now notice secondly, and, I think I may say, with equal admiration, the love of God in THE PLAN OF SALVATION. He has put it like this: “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

17. The way of salvation is extremely simple to understand, and extremely easy to practise, when once the heart is made willing and obedient. The method of the covenant of grace differs as much from that of the covenant of works as light from darkness. It is not said that God has given his Son to all who will keep his law, for we could not do that, and therefore the gift would have been available to none of us. Nor is it said that he has given his Son to all who experience terrible despair and bitter remorse, for that is not felt by many who nevertheless are the Lord’s own people. But the great God has given his own Son, that “whoever believes in him” should not perish. Faith, however slim, saves the soul. To trust in Christ is the certain way of eternal happiness.

18. Now, what is it to believe in Jesus? It is just this: it is to trust yourself with him. If your hearts are ready, though you have never believed in Jesus before, I trust you will believe in him now. Oh Holy Spirit graciously make it so.

19. What is it to believe in Jesus?

20. It is, first, to give your firm and cordial assent to the truth, that God sent his Son, born of a woman, to stand in the place and stead of guilty men, and that God caused to meet on him the iniquities of us all; so that he bore the punishment due to our transgressions, being made a curse for us. We must heartily believe the Scripture which says, — “the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” I ask for your assent to the grand doctrine of substitution, which is the marrow of the gospel. Oh, may God the Holy Spirit lead you to give a cordial assent to it at once; for wonderful as it is, it is a fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. Oh that you may rejoice that this is true, and be thankful that such a blessed fact is revealed by God himself. Believe that the substitution of the Son of God is certain; do not object to the plan, nor question its validity, or efficacy, as many do. Alas! they kick at God’s great sacrifice, and consider it a sorry invention. As for me, since God has ordained to save man by a substitutionary sacrifice, I joyfully agree to his method, and see no reason to do anything else except admire it and adore the Author of it. I am glad and rejoice that such a plan should have been thought of, by which the justice of God is vindicated, and his mercy is set free to do all that he desires. Sin is punished in the person of the Christ, yet mercy is extended to the guilty. In Christ mercy is sustained by justice, and justice satisfied by an act of mercy. The worldly-wise say harsh things about this device of infinite wisdom; but as for me, I love the very name of the cross, and consider it to be the centre of wisdom, the focus of love, the heart of righteousness. This is a main point of faith — to give a hearty assent to the giving of Jesus to suffer in our place and stead, to agree with all our soul and mind to this way of salvation.

21. The second thing is that you accept this for yourself. In Adam’s sin, you did not sin personally, for you were not in existence then; yet you fell; neither can you now complain about it, for you have willingly endorsed and adopted Adam’s sin by committing personal transgressions. You have laid your hand, as it were, upon Adam’s sin, and made it your own, by committing personal and actual sin. So you perished by the sin of another, which you adopted and endorsed; and in the same way you must be saved by the righteousness of another, which you are to accept and appropriate. Jesus has offered an atonement, and that atonement becomes yours when you accept it by putting your trust in him. I want you now to say,

      My faith doth lay her hand
      On that dear head of thine,
   While, like a penitent, I stand,
      And here confess my sin.

22. Surely this is no very difficult matter. To say that Christ who hung upon the cross shall be my Christ, my surety, needs neither stretch of intellect, nor splendour of character; and yet it is the act which brings salvation to the soul.

23. One thing more is necessary; and that is personal trust. First comes assent to the truth, then acceptance of that truth for yourself, and then a simple trusting of yourself completely to Christ, as a substitute. The essence of faith is trust, reliance, dependence. Fling away every other confidence of every kind, except confidence in Jesus. Do not allow a ghost of a shade of a shadow of a confidence in anything that you can do, or in anything that you can be; but only look to him whom God has presented to be the propitiation for sin. This I do at this very moment; will you not do the same? Oh, may the sweet Spirit of God lead you to trust in Jesus now!

24. See, then, the love of God in putting it in so plain, so easy a way. Oh, you broken, crushed and despairing sinner, you cannot work, but can you not believe what is true? You cannot sigh; you cannot cry; you cannot melt your stony heart; but can you not believe that Jesus died for you, and that he can change that heart of yours and make you a new creature? If you can believe this, then trust in Jesus to do so, and you are saved; for he who believes in him is justified. “He who believes in him has everlasting life.” He is a saved man. His sins are forgiven him. Let him go his way in peace, and sin no more.

25. I admire, first, the love of God in the great gift, and then in the great plan by which that gift becomes available to guilty men.

26. III. Thirdly, the love of God shines out with transcendent brightness in a third point, namely, in THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM THIS PLAN IS AVAILABLE, and for whom this gift is given. They are described in these words — “Whoever believes in him.”

27. There is in the text a word which has no limit — “God so loved the world”; but then comes in the descriptive limit, which I ask you to notice with care: “He gave his only-begotten Son that whoever believes in him might not perish.” God did not so love the world that any man who does not believe in Christ shall be saved; neither did God so give his Son that any man shall be saved who refuses to believe in him. See how it is stated — “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish.” Here is the limit of the love: while every unbeliever is excluded, every believer is included. “Whoever believes in him.” Suppose there is a man who has been guilty of all the lusts of the flesh to an infamous degree, suppose that he is so detestable that he is only fit to be treated like a moral leper, and confined in an isolated house for fear he should contaminate those who hear or see him; yet if that man shall believe in Jesus Christ, he shall at once be made clean from his defilement, and shall not perish because of his sin. And suppose there is another man who, in the pursuit of his selfish motives, has ground down the poor, has robbed his fellow businessmen, and has even gone so far as to commit actual crime of which the law has taken cognisance, yet if he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ he shall be led to make restitution, and his sins shall be forgiven him. I once heard of a preacher addressing a company of men in chains, condemned to die for murder and other crimes. They were such a drove of beasts to all outward appearances that it seemed hopeless to preach to them; yet if I were I appointed to be chaplain to such a wretched company I would not hesitate to tell them that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Oh man, if you will believe in Jesus as the Christ, however horrible your past sins have been they shall be blotted out; you shall be saved from the power of your evil habits; and you shall begin again like a new-born child, with a new and true life, which God shall give you. “Whoever believes in him,” — that takes you in, my aged friend, now lingering within a few tottering steps of the grave. Oh grey-headed sinner, if you believe in him, you shall not perish. The text also includes you, dear boy, who have scarcely entered your teens as yet: if you believe in him, you shall not perish. That takes you in, fair maiden, and gives you hope and joy while still young. That includes all of us, provided we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Neither can all the demons in hell find any reason why the man who believes in Christ shall be lost, for it is written, “He who comes to me I will in no wise cast out.” Do they say, “Lord, he has been so long in coming?” The Lord replies, — “Has he come? Then I will not cast him out for all his delays.” But, Lord, he went back after making a profession. “Has he at length come? Then I will not cast him out for all his backslidings.” But, Lord, he was a foul-mouthed blasphemer. “Has he come to me? Then I will not cast him out for all his blasphemies.” But, one says, “I take exception to the salvation of this wicked wretch. He has behaved so abominably that in all justice he ought to be sent to hell.” Just so. But if he repents of his sin and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, whoever he may be, he shall not be sent there. He shall be changed in character, so that he shall never perish, but have eternal life.

28. Now, observe, that this “whoever” makes a grand sweep; for it encircles all degrees of faith. “Whoever believes in him.” It may be that he has no full assurance; it may be that he has no assurance at all; but if he has faith, true and childlike, by it he shall be saved. Though his faith is so little that I need to put on my spectacles to see it, yet Christ will see it and reward it. His faith is such a tiny grain of mustard seed that I look and look again but hardly discern it, and yet it brings him eternal life, and it is itself a living thing. The Lord can see within that mustard seed a tree among whose branches the birds of the air shall make their nests.

   My faith is feeble, I confess,
      I faintly trust thy word;
   But wilt thou pity me the less?
      Be that far from thee, Lord!

29. Oh Lord Jesus, if I cannot take you up in my arms as Simeon did, I will at least touch your garment’s hem as the poor diseased woman did to whom your healing power flowed. It is written, “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” That means me. I cannot preach at length to you tonight; but I would preach with strength. Oh that this truth may soak into your souls. Oh you who feel yourselves guilty; and you who feel guilty because you do not feel guilty; you who are broken in heart because your heart will not break; you who feel that you cannot feel; it is to you whom I would preach salvation in Christ by faith. You groan because you cannot groan; but whoever you may be, you are still within the range of this mighty word, that “whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

30. So I have commended God’s love to you in those three points — the divine gift, the divine method of saving, and the divine choice of the people to whom salvation comes.

31. IV. Now fourthly, another beam of divine love is to be seen in the negative blessing stated here, namely, in THE DELIVERANCE implied in the words, “that whoever believes in him should not perish.”

32. I understand that word to mean that whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ shall not perish, though he is ready to perish. His sins would cause him to perish, but he shall never perish. At first he has a little hope in Christ, but its existence is feeble. It will soon die out, will it not? No, his faith shall not perish, for this promise covers it — “Whoever believes in him shall not perish.” The penitent has believed in Jesus, and therefore he has begun to be a Christian; “Oh,” cries an enemy, “leave him alone: he will soon be back among us; he will soon be as careless as ever.” Listen. “Whoever believes in him shall not perish,” and therefore he will not return to his former state. This proves the final perseverance of the saints; for if the believer ceased to be a believer he would perish; and since he cannot perish, it is clear that he will continue a believer. If you believe in Jesus, you shall never stop believing in him; for that would be to perish. If you believe in him, you shall never delight in your old sins; for that would be to perish. If you believe in him, you shall never lose spiritual life. How can you lose what is everlasting? If you were to lose it, it would prove that it was not everlasting, and you would perish; and so you would make this word to be of no effect. Whoever with his heart believes in Christ is a saved man, not for tonight only, but for all the nights that shall ever be, and for that dread night of death, and for that solemn eternity which draws so near. “Whoever believes in him shall not perish”; but he shall have a life that cannot die, a justification that cannot be disputed, an acceptance which shall never cease.

33. What is it to perish? It is to lose all hope in Christ, all trust in God, all light in life, all peace in death, all joy, all bliss, all union with God. This shall never happen to you if you believe in Christ. If you believe, you shall be chastened when you do wrong, for every child of God comes under discipline; and what son is there whom the Father does not chasten? If you believe, you may doubt and fear concerning your state, as a man on board a ship may be tossed about; but you have gotten on board a ship that never can be wrecked. He who has union with Christ has union with perfection, omnipotence and glory. He who believes is a member of Christ: will Christ lose his members? How should Christ be perfect if he lost even his little finger? Are Christ’s members to rot off, or to be cut off? Impossible. If you have faith in Christ you are a partaker of Christ’s life, and you cannot perish. If men were trying to drown me, they could not drown my foot as long as I had my head above water; and as long as our Head is above water, up there in the eternal sunshine, the least limb of his body can never be destroyed. He who believes in Jesus is united to him, and he must live because Jesus lives. Oh what a word is this, “I give to my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father who gave them to me is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” I feel that I have a grand gospel to preach to you when I read that whoever believes in Jesus shall not perish. I would not give two pins for that trumpery, temporary salvation which some proclaim, which floats the soul for a time and then ebbs away to apostasy. I do not believe that the man who is once in Christ may live in sin and delight in it, and yet be saved. That is abominable teaching, and not mine. But I believe that the man who is in Christ will not live in sin, for he is saved from it; nor will he return to his old sins and remain in them, for the grace of God will continue to save him from his sins. Such a change is accomplished by regeneration that the new-born man cannot remain in sin, nor find comfort in it, but he loves holiness and makes progress in it. The Ethiopian may change his skin, and the leopard his spots, but only divine grace can accomplish the change; and when divine grace has done the deed the negro will remain white, and the leopard’s spots will never return. It would be as great a miracle to undo the work of God as to do it; and to destroy the new creation would require as great a power as to make it. Just as only God can create, so only God can destroy; and he will never destroy the work of his own hands. Will God begin to build and not finish? Will he begin a warfare and end it before he has won the victory? What would the devil say if Christ were to begin to save a soul and fail in the attempt? If there should come to be souls in hell that were believers in Christ, and still perished, it would cast a cloud upon the diadem of our exalted Lord. It cannot, shall not be. Such is the love of God, that whoever believes in his dear Son shall not perish: we greatly rejoice in this assurance.

34. V. The last commendation of his love lies in the positive — IN THE POSSESSION. I shall have to go in a measure over the same ground again. Let me therefore be brief.

35. God gives to every man who believes in Christ everlasting life. The moment you believe there trembles into your heart a vital spark of heavenly flame which never shall be quenched. In that same moment when you cast yourself on Christ, Christ comes to you in the living and incorruptible word which lives and remains for ever. Though there should drop into your heart only one drop of the heavenly water of life, remember this, — he who cannot lie has said it, — “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” When I first received everlasting life I had no idea what a treasure had come to me. I knew that I had obtained something very extraordinary, but I was not aware of its superlative value. I only looked to Christ in the little chapel, and I received eternal life. I looked to Jesus, and he looked on me; and we were one for ever. That moment my joy surpassed all bounds, just as my sorrow had previously driven me to an extreme of grief. I was perfectly at rest in Christ, satisfied with him, and my heart was glad; but I did not know that this grace was everlasting life until I began to read in the Scriptures, and to know more fully the value of the jewel which God had given me. The next Sunday I went to the same chapel, since it was very natural that I should. But I never went afterwards, for this reason, that during my first week the new life that was in me had been compelled to fight for its existence, and a conflict with the old nature had been vigorously carried on. This I knew to be a special sign of the indwelling of grace in my soul; but in that same chapel I heard a sermon upon “Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” And the preacher declared that Paul was not a Christian when he had that experience. Babe as I was, I knew better than to believe so absurd a statement. What except divine grace could produce such a sighing and crying after deliverance from indwelling sin? I felt that a person who could talk such nonsense knew little about the life of a true believer. I said to myself, “What! am I not alive because I feel a conflict within me? I never felt this fight when I was an unbeliever. When I was not a Christian I never groaned to be set free from sin. This conflict is one of the best evidences of my new birth, and yet this man cannot see it; he may be a good exhorter to sinners, but he cannot feed believers.” I resolved to go into that pasture no more, for I could not feed there. I find that the struggle becomes more and more intense; each victory over sin reveals another army of evil tendencies, and I am never able to sheathe my sword, nor cease from prayer and watchfulness.

36. I cannot advance an inch without praying my way, nor keep the inch I gain without watching and standing firm. Only grace can preserve and perfect me. The old nature will kill the new nature if it can; and to this moment the only reason why my new nature is not dead is this — because it cannot die. If it could have died, it would have been killed long ago; but Jesus said, “I give to my sheep eternal life”; “he who believes in me has everlasting life”; and therefore the believer cannot die. The only religion which will save you is one that you cannot leave, because it possesses you, and will not leave you. If you hold a doctrine which you can give up, give it up; but if the doctrines are burned into you so that as long as you live you must hold them; and so that if you were burned every ash would hold that same truth in it, because you are impregnated with it, then you have found the right thing. You are not a saved man unless Christ has saved you for ever. But the thing that has such a grip on you that its grasp is felt in the core of your being is the power of God. To have Christ living in you, and the truth ingrained in your very nature — oh sirs, this is the thing that saves the soul, and nothing short of it. It is written in the text, “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” What is this except a life that shall last through your seventy years; a life that shall last you if you should outlive a century; a life that will still flourish when you lie at the grave’s mouth; a life that will remain when you have left the body, and left it rotting in the tomb; a life that will continue when your body is raised again, and you shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ; a life that will outshine those stars and that sun and moon; a life that shall be as long as the life of the Eternal Father? As long as there is a God, the believer shall not only exist, but live. As long as there is a heaven, you shall enjoy it; as long as there is a Christ, you shall live in his love; and as long as there is an eternity, you shall continue to fill it with delight.

37. May God bless you and help you to believe in Jesus. — Amen.

[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — Joh 3]
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Sufferings and Death — The Shepherd Smitten” 291}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Gospel, Stated — The Life Look” 538}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Gospel, Stated — The Brazen Serpent” 539}

{a} Christ-Cross-Row: The alphabet; so called from the figure of a cross prefixed to it in horn-books. OED.

Jesus Christ, Sufferings and Death
291 — The Shepherd Smitten
1 Like sheep we went astray,
      And broke the fold of God;
   Each wandering in a different way,
      But all the downward road.
2 How dreadful was the hour
      When God our wanderings laid,
   And did at once his vengeance pour
      Upon the Shepherd’s head!
3 How glorious was the grace
      When Christ sustain’d the stroke!
   His life and blood the Shepherd pays,
      A ransom for the flock.
4 His honour and his breath
      Were taken both away;
   Join’d with the wicked in his death,
      And made as vile as they:
5 But God shall raise his head
      O’re sons of men to reign,
   And make him see a numerous seed,
      To recompense his pain.
6 “I’ll give him,” said the Lord,
      “A portion with the strong;
   He shall possess a large reward,
      And hold his honours long.”
                     Isaac Watts, 1709, a.

Gospel, Stated
538 — The Life Look
1 There is life for a look at the Crucified One;
      There is life at this moment for thee;
   Then look, sinner — look unto him, and be saved — 
      Unto him who was nail’d to the tree.
2 It is not thy tears of repentance or prayers,
      But the blood that atones for the soul:
   On him, then, who shed it, believing at once
      Thy weight of iniquities roll.
3 His anguish of soul on the cross hast thou seen?
      His cry of distress hast thou heard?
   Then why, if the terrors of wrath he endured,
      Should pardon to thee be deferr’d?
4 We are heal’d by his stripes;  — wouldest thou add to the word?
      And he is our righteousness made:
   The best robe of heaven he bids thee put on:
      Oh! couldest thou be better array’d?
5 Then doubt not thy welcome, since God has declared,
      There remaineth no more to be done;
   That once in the end of the world he appear’d,
      And completed the work he began.
6 But take, with rejoicing, from Jesus at once
      The life everlasting he gives:
   And know, with assurance, thou never canst die,
      Since Jesus, thy righteousness, lives.
7 There is life for a look at the Crucified One;
      There is life at this moment for thee:
   Then look, sinner — look into him and be saved,
      And know thyself spotless as he.
                  Amelia Matilda Hull, 1860.

Gospel, Stated
539 — The Brazen Serpent
1 So did the Hebrew prophet raise
      The brazen serpent high;
   The wounded felt immediate ease,
      The camp forbore to die.
2 “Look upward in the dying hour,
      And live,” the prophet cries:
   But Christ performs a nobler cure
      When faith lifts up her eyes.
3 High on the cross the Saviour hung,
      High in the heavens he reigns;
   Here sinners, by th’ old serpent stung,
      Look, and forget their pains.
4 When God’s own Son is lifted up,
      A dying world revives:
   The Jew beholds the glorious hope,
      The expiring Gentile lives.
                        Isaac Watts, 1709.