1910. The Heart Of The Gospel

No. 1910-32:385. A Sermon Delivered On Lord’s Day Morning, July 18, 1886, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God beseeched you by us; we beseech you in Christ’s stead, be reconciled to God. For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. {2Co 5:20,21}

For other sermons on this text:
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1124, “God Beseeching Sinners by His Ministers” 1115}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1910, “Heart of the Gospel, The” 1911}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3148, “Christ’s Ambassadors” 3149}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3497, “Solemn Embassy, A” 3499}
   Exposition on 2Co 5:9-21 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2837, “Ministry of Reconciliation, The” 2838 @@ "Exposition"}
   Exposition on Ro 5:1-10 2Co 4; 5 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3203, “Christ Made Sin” 3204 @@ "Exposition"}
   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "2Co 5:21"}

1. The heart of the gospel is redemption, and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. Those who preach this truth preach the gospel in whatever else they may be mistaken; but those who do not preach the atonement, whatever else they declare, have missed the soul and substance of the divine message. In these days I feel bound to go over and over again the elementary truths of the gospel. In peaceful times we may feel free to make excursions into interesting districts of truth which lie far afield; but now we must stay at home, and guard the hearths and homes of the church by defending the first principles of the faith. In this age there have risen up in the church itself men who speak perverse things. There are many who trouble us with their philosophies and novel interpretations, by which they deny the doctrines they profess to teach, and undermine the faith they are pledged to maintain. It is good that some of us, who know what we believe, and have no secret meanings for our words, should just put our foot down and maintain our standing, proclaiming the word of life, and plainly declaring the foundational truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

2. Let me give you a parable. In the days of Nero there was a great food shortage in the city of Rome, although there was abundance of grain to be purchased at Alexandria. A certain man who owned a vessel went down to the sea-coast, and there he noticed many hungry people straining their eyes towards the sea, watching for the vessels that were to come from Egypt with grain. When these vessels came to the shore, one by one, the poor people wrung their hands in bitter disappointment, for on board the galleys there was nothing except sand which the tyrant emperor had compelled them to bring for use in the arena. It was infamous cruelty, when men were dying of hunger to command trading vessels to go to and fro, and bring nothing else except sand for gladiatorial shows, when wheat was so greatly needed. Then the merchant whose vessel was moored by the wharf said to his shipmaster, “Take good heed that you bring nothing back with you from Alexandria but grain; and whereas, previously you have brought in the vessel a measure or two of sand, do not bring so much as would lie upon a penny this time. Bring nothing else, I say, but wheat; for these people are dying, and now we must keep our vessels for this one business of bringing food for them.” Alas! I have seen certain mighty galleys recently loaded with nothing but mere sand of philosophy and speculation, and I have said within myself, “No, but I will bear nothing in my ship but the revealed truth of God, the bread of life so greatly needed by the people.” May God grant us today that our ship may have nothing on board it that may merely gratify the curiosity, or please the taste; but that there may be necessary truths for the salvation of souls. I would have each one of you say: “Well, it was just the old, old story of Jesus and his love, and nothing else.” I have no desire to be famous for anything except preaching the old gospel. There are plenty who can fiddle to you the new music; it is for me to have no music at any time but what is heard in heaven, — “To him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, to him be glory for ever and ever!”

3. I intend, dear friends, to begin my discourse with the second part of my text, in which the doctrine of Substitution is presented in these words — “He has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” This is the basis and power of those appeals which it is our duty to make to the consciences of men.

4. I have found, my brethren, by long experience, that nothing touches the heart like the cross of Christ; and when the heart is touched and wounded by the two-edged sword of the law, nothing heals its wounds like the balm which flows from the pierced heart of Jesus. The cross is life to the spiritually dead. There is an old legend which can have no literal truth in it, but if it is regarded as a parable it is then most instructive. They say that when the Empress Helena was searching for the true cross they dug deep at Jerusalem and found the three crosses of Calvary buried in the soil. Which out of the three crosses was the veritable cross upon which Jesus died they could not tell, except by certain tests. So they brought a corpse and laid it on one of the crosses, but there was neither life nor motion. When the same dead body touched another of the crosses it lived; and then they said, “This is the true cross.” When we see men quickened, converted, and sanctified by the doctrine of the substitutionary sacrifice, we may justly conclude that it is the true doctrine of atonement. I have not known men made to live for God and holiness except by the doctrine of the death of Christ on man’s behalf. Hearts of stone that never beat with life before have been turned to flesh through the Holy Spirit causing them to know this truth. A sacred tenderness has visited the obstinate when they have heard of Jesus crucified for them. Those who have lain at hell’s dark door, wrapped about with a sevenfold death shade, even upon them has a great light shone. The story of the great Lover of the souls of men who gave himself for their salvation is still in the hand of the Holy Spirit the greatest of all forces in the realm of mind.

5. So this morning I am going to handle, first, the great doctrine, and then afterwards, and secondly, as God shall help me, we shall come to the great argument which is contained in the 20th verse: “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God beseeched you by us: we beseech you in Christ’s stead, be reconciled to God.”

6. I. First, then, with as much brevity as possible I will speak upon THE GREAT DOCTRINE. The great doctrine, the greatest of all, is this, that God, seeing men to be lost by reason of their sin, has taken that sin of theirs and laid it upon his only-begotten Son, making him to be sin for us, even him who knew no sin; and that in consequence of this transference of sin he who believes in Christ Jesus is made just and righteous, yes, is made to be the righteousness of God in Christ. Christ was made sin so that sinners might be made righteousness. That is the doctrine of the substitution of our Lord Jesus Christ on the behalf of guilty men.

7. Now consider, first, who was made sin for us? The description of our great Surety here given is upon one point only, and it may more than suffice us for our present meditation. Our substitute was spotless, innocent, and pure. “He has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin,” Christ Jesus, the Son of God, became incarnate, and was made flesh, and dwelt here among men; but though he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, he knew no sin. Though upon him sin was laid, yet not so as to make him guilty. He was not, he could not be, a sinner: he had no personal knowledge of sin. Throughout his entire life he never committed an offence against the great law of truth and right. The law was in his heart; it was his nature to be holy. He could say to all the world, “Who of you convinces me of sin?” Even his vacillating judge enquired, “Why, what evil has he done?” When all Jerusalem was challenged and bribed to bear witness against him, no witnesses could be found. It was necessary to misquote and wrest his words before a charge could be trumped up against him by his bitterest enemies. His life brought him in contact with both the tables of the law, but no single command had he transgressed. Just as the Jews examined the Paschal lamb before they killed it, so Scribes and Pharisees, and doctors of the law, and rulers and princes, examined the Lord Jesus, without finding offence in him. He was the Lamb of God, without blemish and without spot.

8. Just as there was no sin of commission, so there was about our Lord no fault of omission. Probably, dear brethren, we who are believers have been enabled by divine grace to escape most sins of commission; but I for one have to mourn daily over sins of omission. If we have spiritual graces, they still do not reach the point required of us. If we do what is right in itself, still we usually mar our work upon the wheel, either in the motive, or in the manner of doing it, or by the self-satisfaction with which we view it when it is done. We come short of the glory of God in some respect or other. We forget to do what we ought to do, or, doing it, we are guilty of lukewarmness, self-reliance, unbelief, or some other grievous error. It was not so with our divine Redeemer. You cannot say that there was any feature deficient in his perfect beauty. He was complete in heart, in purpose, in thought, in word, in deed, in spirit. You could not add anything to the life of Christ without its being obviously a disfigurement. He was emphatically a well-balanced person, as we say in these days. His life is a perfect circle, a complete epitome of virtue. No pearl has dropped from the silver string of his character. No one virtue has overshadowed and dwarfed the rest: all perfections combine in perfect harmony to make in him one surpassing perfection.

9. Neither did our Lord know a sin of thought. His mind never produced an evil wish or desire. There never was in the heart of our blessed Lord a wish for any evil pleasure, nor a desire to escape any suffering or shame which was involved in his service. When he said, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” he never desired to escape the bitter potion at the expense of his perfect life-work. The “if it is possible,” meant, “if it is consistent with full obedience to the Father, and the accomplishment of the divine purpose.” We see the weakness of his nature shrinking, and the holiness of his nature resolving and conquering, as he adds, “nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” He took upon him the likeness of sinful flesh, but though that flesh often caused him weariness of body, it never produced in him the weakness of sin. He took our infirmities, but he never exhibited an infirmity which had the least of blameworthiness attached to it. Never fell an evil glance from those blessed eyes; never did his lips let drop a hasty word; never did those feet go on an ill errand, nor those hands move towards a sinful deed; because his heart was filled with holiness and love. Within as well as without our Lord was unblemished. His desires were as perfect as his actions. Searched by the eyes of Omniscience, no shadow of a fault could be found in him.

10. Yes, more, there were no tendencies about our Substitute towards evil in any form. In us there are always those tendencies; for the taint of original sin is upon us. We have to govern ourselves and hold ourselves under stern restraint, or we should rush headlong to destruction. Our carnal nature lusts after evil, and needs to be held in as with bit and bridle. Happy is that man who can master himself. But with regard to our Lord; it was his nature to be pure, and right, and loving. All his sweet wills were towards goodness. His unconstrained life was holiness itself: he was “the holy child Jesus.” The prince of this world found in him no fuel for the flame which he desired to kindle. Not only did no sin flow from him, but there was no sin in him, nor inclination, nor tendency in that direction. Watch him in secret, and you find him in prayer; look into his soul, and you find him eager to do and suffer the Father’s will. Oh, the blessed character of Christ! If I had the tongues of men and of angels I could not worthily describe his absolute perfection. Justly may the Father be well pleased with him! Well may heaven adore him!

11. Beloved, it was absolutely necessary that anyone who should be able to suffer in our place should himself be spotless. A sinner obnoxious to punishment by reason of his own offences, what can he do except bear the wrath which is due to his own sin? Our Lord Jesus Christ as man was made under the law; but he owed nothing to that law, for he perfectly fulfilled it in all respects. He was capable of standing in the room, place, and stead of others, because he was under no obligations of his own. He was only under obligations towards God because he had voluntarily undertaken to be the surety and sacrifice for those whom the Father gave to him. He was clear himself, or else he could not have entered into bonds for guilty men.

12. Oh, how I admire him, that being such as he was, spotless and thrice-holy, so that even the heavens were not pure in his sight, and he charged his angels with folly, yet he condescended to be made sin for us! How could he endure to be numbered with the transgressors and bear the sin of many? It may be no misery for a sinful man to live with sinful men, but it would be a heavy sorrow for the pure-minded to dwell with a company of abandoned and licentious wretches. What an overwhelming sorrow it must have been to the pure and perfect Christ to tabernacle among the hypocritical, the selfish, and the profane! How much worse that he himself should have to take upon himself the sins of those guilty men. His sensitive and delicate nature must have shrunk from even the shadow of sin, and yet read the words and be astonished: “He has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” Our perfect Lord and Master bore our sins in his own body on the tree. He, before whom the sun itself is dim and the pure azure of heaven is defilement, was made sin. I need not put this in fine words: the fact is itself too grand to need any magnifying by human language. To gild refined gold, or paint the lily, would be absurd; but much more absurd would it be to try to overlay with flowers of speech the matchless beauties of the cross. It suffices in simple rhyme to say — 

   Oh, hear that piercing cry!
   What can its meaning be?
   “My God! my God! oh! why hast thou
   In wrath forsaken me?”
      Oh ’twas because our sins
      On him by God were laid;
   He who himself had never sinn’d,
      For sinners, sin was made.

13. This leads me on to the second point of the text, which is, what was done with him who knew no sin? He was “made sin.” It is a wonderful expression: the more you weigh it the more you will marvel at its extraordinary strength. Only the Holy Spirit might originate such language. It was wise for the divine Teacher to use very strong expressions, for otherwise the thought might not have entered human minds. Even now, despite the emphasis, clarity, and distinctness of the language used here and elsewhere in Scripture there are found men daring enough to deny that substitution is taught in Scripture. With such subtle wits it is useless to argue. It is clear that language has no meaning for them. To read the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, and to accept it as relating to the Messiah, and then to deny his substitutionary sacrifice is simply wickedness. It would be vain to reason with such beings; they are so blind that if they were transported to the sun they could not see. In the church and out of the church there is a deadly animosity for this truth. Modern thought labours to get away from what is obviously the meaning of the Holy Spirit, that sin was lifted from the guilty and laid upon the innocent. It is written, “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” This is as plain language as can be used; but if any plainer was required, here it is, — “He has made him to be sin for us.”

14. The Lord God laid upon Jesus, who voluntarily undertook it, all the weight of human sin. Instead of its resting on the sinner, who committed it, it was made to rest upon Christ, who did not commit it; while the righteousness which Jesus worked out was placed to the account of the guilty, who had not worked it out, so that the guilty are treated as righteous. Those who by nature are guilty, are regarded as righteous, while he who by nature knew no sin whatever, was treated as guilty. I think I must have read in scores of books that such a transference is impossible; but the statement has had no effect on my mind. I do not care whether it is impossible or not with learned unbelievers: it is evidently possible with God, for he has done it. But they say it is contrary to reason. I do not care about that, either: it may be contrary to the reason of those unbelievers, but it is not contrary to mine; and if I am to be guided by reason, I prefer to follow my own. The atonement is a miracle, and miracles are rather to be accepted by faith than measured by calculation. A fact is the best of arguments. It is a fact that the Lord has laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. God’s revelation proves the fact, and our faith defies human questioning! God says it, and I believe it; and believing it, I find life and comfort in it. Shall I not preach it? Assuredly I will.

   E’er since by faith I saw the stream
      His flowing wounds supply,
   Redeeming love has been my theme
      And shall be till I die.

Christ was not guilty, and could not be made guilty; but he was treated as if he were guilty, because he willed to stand in the place of the guilty. Yes, he was not only treated as a sinner, but he was treated as if he had been sin itself in the abstract. This is an amazing utterance. The sinless one was made to be sin.

15. Sin pressed our great Substitute very severely. He felt the weight of it in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he “sweat as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground.” The full pressure of it came upon him when he was nailed to the accursed tree. There in the hours of darkness he bore infinitely more than we can tell. We know that he bore condemnation from the mouth of man, so that it is written, “He was numbered with the transgressors.” We know that he bore shame for our sakes. Did not your hearts tremble last Sunday evening when our text was, “Then they spat in his face?” {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2473, “An Awful Contrast” 2474} It was a cruel scorn that exhausted itself upon his blessed person. This, I say, we know. We know that he bore innumerable pains of body and of mind: he thirsted, he cried out in the agony of desertion, he bled, he died. We know that he poured out his soul to death, and yielded up the ghost. But behind and beyond all this, is an immeasurable abyss of suffering. The Greek Liturgy fitly speaks of “Your unknown sufferings”: probably to us they are unknowable sufferings. He was God as well as man, and the Godhead lent an omnipotent power to the manhood, so that there was compressed within his soul, and endured by it, an amount of anguish of which we can form no conception. I will say no more: it is wise to veil what it is impossible to depict. This text both veils and reveals his sorrow, as it says, “He made him to be sin.” Look into the words. Perceive their meaning, if you can. The angels desire to look into it. Gaze into this terrible crystal. Let your eyes search deep into this opal, within whose jewelled depths there are flames of fire. The Lord made the perfectly innocent one to be sin for us: that means more of humiliation, darkness, agony, and death than you can conceive. It brought a kind of distraction and almost a destruction to the tender and gentle spirit of our Lord. I do not say that our Substitute endured a hell, that would be unwarrantable. I will not say that he endured either the exact punishment for sin, or an equivalent for it; but I do say that what he endured rendered to the justice of God a vindication of his law more clear and more effective than would have been rendered to it by the damnation of the sinners for whom he died. The cross is under many aspects a more full revelation of the wrath of God against human sin than even Tophet, and the smoke of torment which goes up for ever and ever. Those who would know God’s hatred of sin must see the Only-Begotten bleeding in body and bleeding in soul even to death: he must, in fact, spell out each word of my text, and read its innermost meaning. There, my brethren, I am ashamed of the poverty of my explanation, and I will therefore only repeat the full and sublime language of the apostle — “He has made him to be sin for us.” It is more than “He has put him to grief”; it is more than “God has forsaken him”; it is more than “The chastisement of our peace was upon him”; it is the most suggestive of all descriptions — “He has made him to be sin for us.” Oh depth of terror, and yet height of love!

16. So I pass on to notice in the third place, who did it? The text says, “He has made him to be sin for us”; that is, it was God himself who appointed his dear Son to be made sin for guilty men. The wise ones tell us that this substitution cannot be just. Who made them judges of what is right and just? I ask them whether they believe that Jesus suffered and died at all? If they believe that he did, how do they account for the fact? Do they say that he died as an example? Then I ask, is it just for God to allow a sinless being to die as an example? The fact of our Lord’s death is certain, and it has to be accounted for. Ours is the fullest and truest explanation.

17. In the appointment of the Lord Jesus Christ to be made sin for us, there was first of all a display of the Divine Sovereignty. God here did what no one except he could have done. It would not have been possible for all of us together to have laid sin upon Christ; but it was possible for the great Judge of all, who gives no account of his matters, to determine that it should be so. He is the fountain of rectitude, and the exercise of his divine prerogative is always unquestionable righteousness. That the Lord Jesus, who offered himself as a willing surety and substitute, should be accepted as surety and substitute for guilty man was in the power of the great Supreme. In his Divine Sovereignty he accepted him, and before that sovereignty we bow. If anyone questions it, our only answer is, “No, but, oh man, who are you who replies against God?”

18. The death of our Lord also displayed divine justice. It pleased God as the Judge of all, that sin should not be forgiven without the exaction of the punishment which had been so righteously threatened to it, or such other display of justice as might vindicate the law. They say that this is not the God of love. I answer, it is the God of love, preeminently so. If you had upon the bench today a judge whose nature was kindness itself, it would behove him as a judge to execute justice, and if he did not, he would make his kindness ridiculous; indeed, his kindness to the criminal would be unkindness to society at large. Whatever the judge may be personally, he is officially compelled to do justice. And “shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” You speak of the Fatherhood of God. Enlarge as you please upon that theme even until you make a heresy of it, but still God is the great moral Governor of the universe, and it behoves him to deal with sin in such a way that it is seen to be an evil and a bitter thing. God cannot wink at wickedness. I bless his holy name, and adore him that he is not unjust in order to be merciful, that he does not spare the guilty in order to indulge his gentleness. Every transgression and disobedience has its just punishment. But through the sacrifice of Christ he is able justly to pardon. I bless his holy name that to vindicate his justice he determined that, while a free pardon should be provided for believers, it should be based upon an atonement which satisfied all the requirements of the law.

19. Admire also in the substitutionary sacrifice the great grace of God. Never forget that he whom God made to be sin for us was his own Son; indeed, I go further, it was in some sense himself; for the Son is one with the Father. You may not confound the persons, but you cannot divide the substance of the blessed Trinity in Unity. You may not so divide the Son of God from the Father as to forget that God was in him reconciling the world to himself. It is the Father’s other self who on the cross in human form does bleed and die. “Light of light, very God of very God”: it is this Light that was eclipsed, that Godhead who purchased the church with his own blood. Herein is infinite love! You tell me that God might have pardoned without atonement. I answer, that finite and fallible love might have done so, and so have wounded itself by killing justice; but the love which both required and provided the atonement is indeed infinite. God himself provided the atonement by freely and fully giving himself up in the person of his Son to suffer as result of human sin.

20. What I want you to notice here is this, if ever your mind should be troubled about the propriety or rightness of a substitutionary sacrifice, you may at once settle the matter by remembering that God himself “has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin.” If God did it, it is well done. I am not careful to defend an act of God: let the man who dares accuse his Maker think carefully what he is doing. If God himself provided the sacrifice, be sure that he has accepted it. There can be no question ever raised about it, since Jehovah made to meet on him our iniquities. He who made Christ to be sin for us, knew what he was doing, and it is not for us to begin to say, “Is this right, or is this not right?” The thrice-holy God has done this, and it must be right. What satisfies God may well satisfy us. If God is pleased with the sacrifice of Christ, shall we not be much more than pleased? Shall we not be delighted, entranced, enraptured, to be saved by such a sacrifice as God himself appoints, provides, and accepts? “He has made him to be sin for us.”

21. The last point is, what happens to us as a result? “so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Oh this weighty text! No man living can exhaust it. No theologian lived, even in the sunniest days of theology, who could ever get to the bottom of this statement.

22. Every man who believes in Jesus is through Christ having taken his sin made to be righteous before God. We are righteous through faith in Christ Jesus, “justified by faith.” More than this, we are made not only to have the character of “righteous,” but to become the substance called “righteousness.” I cannot explain this, but it is no small matter. It means no inconsiderable thing when we are said to be “made righteousness.” What is more, we are not only made righteousness, but we are made “the righteousness of God.” Herein is a great mystery. The righteousness which Adam had in the garden was perfect, but it was the righteousness of man: ours is the righteousness of God. Human righteousness failed; but the believer has a divine righteousness which can never fail. He not only has it, but he is it: he is “made the righteousness of God in Christ.” We can now sing,

   With my Saviour’s vesture on,
   Holy as the Holy One.

23. How acceptable with God must those be who are made by God himself to be “the righteousness of God in him!” I cannot conceive of anything more complete.

24. Just as Christ was made sin, and yet never sinned, so we are made righteousness, though we cannot claim to have been righteous in and of ourselves. Sinners though we are, and forced to confess it with grief, yet the Lord covers us so completely with the righteousness of Christ, that only his righteousness is seen, and we are made the righteousness of God in him. This is true of all the saints, even of as many as believe in his name. Oh, the splendour of this doctrine! Can you see it, my friend? Sinner though you are, and in yourself defiled, deformed, and debased, yet if you will accept the great Substitute whom God provides for you in the person of his dear Son, your sins are gone from you, and righteousness has come to you. Your sins were laid on Jesus, the scapegoat; they are yours no longer, he has put them away. I may say that his righteousness is imputed to you; but I go further, and say with the text, “You are made the righteousness of God in him.” No doctrine can be more sweet than this to those who feel the weight of sin and the burden of its curse.

25. II. So now, gathering it all up, I have to close with the second part of the text, which is not teaching, but the application of teaching, — A GREAT ARGUMENT. “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God beseeched you by us: we beseech you in Christ’s place, be reconciled to God.”

26. Oh, that these lips had language, or that this heart could speak without them! Then I would plead with every unconverted, unbelieving soul within this place, and plead as for my life. Friend, you are at enmity with God, and God is angry with you; but on his part there is every readiness for reconciliation. He has made a way by which you can become his friend — a very costly way for him, but free for you. He could not give up his justice, and so destroy the honour of his own character; but he did give up his Son, his Only-Begotten, and his Well-Beloved; and that Son of his has been made sin for us, though he knew no sin. See how God meets you! See how willing, how anxious he is that there should be reconciliation between himself and guilty men. Oh sirs, if you are not saved it is not because God will not or cannot save you; it is because you refuse to accept his mercy in Christ. If there is any difference between you and God today it is not from a lack of kindness on his part; it is from a lack of willingness on yours. The burden of your ruin must lie at your own door: your blood must be on your own skirts.

27. Now observe what we have to say to you today is this: we are anxious that you should be at peace with God, and therefore we act as ambassadors for Christ. I am not going to lay any stress on the office of ambassador as honourable or authoritative, for I do not feel that this would have weight with you: but I lay all the stress upon the peace to which we would bring you. God has reconciled me to himself, and I would gladly have you reconciled also. I once did not know him, neither did I care for him. I lived well enough without him, and sported with the trifles of a day, so as to forget him. He brought me to seek his face, and seeking his face I found him. He has blotted out my sins and removed my enmity. I know that I am his servant, and that he is my Friend, my Father, my All. And now I cannot help trying in my poor way to be an ambassador for him with you. I do not like that any of you should live at enmity with my Father who made you; and that you should be deliberately provoking him; by preferring evil to good. Why should you not be at peace with one who so much wants to be at peace with you? Why should you not love the God of love, and delight in him who is so kind to you? What he has done for me he is quite willing to do for you: he is a God ready to pardon. I have preached his gospel now for many years, but I never met a sinner yet whom Christ refused to cleanse when he came to him. I never knew of a single case of a man who trusted Jesus, and asked to be forgiven, confessing his sin and forsaking it, who was cast out. I say I never met one man whom Jesus refused; nor shall I ever do so. I have spoken with prostitutes whom he has restored to purity, and drunkards whom he has delivered from their evil habit, and with men guilty of foul sins who have become pure and chaste through the grace of our Lord Jesus. They have always told me the same story — “I sought the Lord, and he heard me; he has washed me in his blood, and I am whiter than snow.” Why should you not be saved as well as these?

28. Dear friend, perhaps you have never thought of this matter, and this morning you did not come here with any idea of thinking of it; but why should you not begin? You came just to hear a well-known preacher; I pray you forget the preacher, and think only of yourself, your God and your Saviour. It must be wrong for you to live without a thought of your Maker. To forget him is to despise him. It must be wrong for you to refuse the great atonement: you do refuse it if you do not accept it at once. It must be wrong for you to stand up against your God; and you do stand up against him if you will not be reconciled to him. Therefore I humbly play the part of an ambassador for Christ, and I beseech you believe in him and live.

29. Notice how the text puts it: “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us.” This thought staggers me. As I came along this morning I felt as if I could bury my head in my hands and weep as I thought of God beseeching anyone. He speaks, and it is done; myriads of angels consider themselves happy to fly at his command; and yet man has so become God’s enemy that he will not be reconciled to him. God would make him his friend, and spends the blood of his dear Son to cement that friendship; but man will not have it. See the great God turns to beseeching his obstinate creature! his foolish creature! In this I feel a reverent compassion for God. Must he beseech a rebel to be forgiven? Do you hear it? Angels, do you hear it? He who is the King of kings veils his sovereignty, and stoops to beseeching his creature to be reconciled to him! I do not wonder that some of my brethren recoil from such an idea, and cannot believe that it could be so: it seems so derogatory to the glorious God. Yet my text says it, and it must be true — “As though God beseeched you by us.” This makes it awful work to preach, does it not? I ought to beseech you as though God spoke to you through me, looking at you through these eyes, and stretching out his hands through these hands. He says, “All day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” He speaks softly, and tenderly, and with paternal affection through these poor lips of mine, “as though God beseeched you by us.”

30. Furthermore notice that next line, which if possible has even more force in it: “We beseech you in Christ’s stead.” Since Jesus died in our stead we, his redeemed ones, are to implore others in his stead; and as he poured out his heart for sinners in their stead, we must in another way pour out our hearts for sinners in his stead. “We beseech you in Christ’s stead.” Now if my Lord were here this morning would he beseech you to come to him now? I wish, my Master, I were more fit to stand in your place at this time. Forgive me that I am so incapable. Help me to break my heart, to think that it does not break as it ought to do, for these men and women who are determined to destroy themselves, and, therefore, pass you by, my Lord, as though you were only a common felon, hanging on a gibbet! Oh men, how can you think so little of the death of the Son of God? It is the wonder of time, the admiration of eternity. Oh souls, why will you refuse eternal life? Why will you die? Why will you despise him by whom alone you can live? There is only one gate of life, that gate is the open side of Christ; why will you not enter, and live? “Come to me,” he says; “come to me.” I think I hear him say it: “Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest for your souls.” I think I see him on that last day, that great day of the feast, standing and crying, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to me, and drink.” I hear him sweetly declare, “He who comes to me I will in no wise cast out.” I am not fit to beseech you in Christ’s stead, but I do beseech you with all my heart. You who hear my voice from Sunday to Sunday, come and accept the great sacrifice, and be reconciled to God. You who hear me only this once, I would like you to go away with this ringing in your ears, “Be reconciled to God.” I have nothing pretty to say to you; I have only to declare that God has prepared a propitiation, and that now he entreats sinners to come to Jesus, so that through him they may be reconciled to God.

31. We do not exhort you to some impossible effort. We do not ask you to do some great thing; we do not ask you for money or price; neither do we demand from you years of miserable feeling; but only this — be reconciled. It is not so much reconcile yourselves as “be reconciled.” Yield yourselves to him who now would cast the bands of a man around you drawing you with cords of love because he was given for you. His Spirit strives with you, yield to his striving. With Jacob you know there wrestled a man until the breaking of the day; let that man, that God-man, overcome you. Submit yourselves. Yield to the grasp of those hands which were nailed to the cross for you. Will you not yield to your best friend? He who embraces you now presses you to a heart that was pierced with the spear on your behalf. Oh, yield! Yield, man! Do you not feel some softness stealing over you? Do not steel your heart against it. He says, with a tone most still and sweet, “Today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” Believe and live! Leave the arch-enemy who has held you in his grip. Escape for your life, do not look behind you, do not stay in all the plain, but flee where you see the open door of the great Father’s house. At the gate the bleeding Saviour is waiting to receive you, and to say, “I was made sin for you, and you are made the righteousness of God in me.” Father, draw them! Father, draw them! Eternal Spirit, draw them, for Jesus Christ your Son’s sake! Amen.

[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — 2Co 4; 5]
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Lord’s Day — Sweet Rest” 917}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Names and Titles — Substitute” 404}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Sufferings and Death — ‘The Lord Hath Laid On Him The Iniquity Of Us All’ ” 284}

Public Worship, The Lord’s Day
917 — Sweet Rest
1 My Lord, my love, was crucified,
      He all the pains did bear;
   But in the sweetness of his rest
      He makes his servants share.
2 How sweetly rest thy saints above
      Which in thy bosom lie!
   The church below doth rest in hope
      Of that felicity.
3 Welcome and dear unto my soul
      Are there sweet feasts of love;
   But what a Sabbath shall I keep
      When I shall rest above!]
4 I bless thy wise and wondrous love,
      Which binds us to be free;
   Which makes us leave our earthly snares,
      That we may come to thee!
5 I come, I wait, I hear, I pray!
      Thy footsteps, Lord, I trace!
   I sing to think this is the way
      Unto my Saviour’s face!
                        John Mason, 1683.

Jesus Christ, Names and Titles
404 — Substitute <8.8.6.>
1 From whence this fear and unbelief?
   Hath not the Father put to grief
   His spotless Son for me?
   And will the righteous Judge of men,
   Condemn me for that debt of sin,
   Which, Lord, was charged on thee?
2 Complete atonement thou hast made,
   And to the utmost farthing paid
   Whate’er thy people owed:
   Nor can his wrath on me take place,
   If shelter’d in thy righteousness,
   And sprinkled with thy blood.
3 If thou hast my discharge procured,
   And freely in my room endured
   The whole of wrath divine:
   Payment God cannot twice demand,
   First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
   And then again at mine.
4 Turn then, my soul, unto thy rest;
   The merits of thy great High Priest
   Have bought thy liberty:
   Trust in his efficacious blood,
   Nor fear thy banishment from God,
   Since Jesus died for thee.
               Augustus M. Toplady, 1772.

Jesus Christ, Sufferings and Death
284 — “The Lord Hath Laid On Him The Iniquity Of Us All”
1 In Jesus’ name, with one accord,
   Lift up a sacred hymn,
   And think what healing streams he pour’d
   From every bleeding limb.
2 Oh who can tell what woes he bore
   When that pure blood was spilt,
   What pangs his tortured bosom tore
   When loaded with our guilt?
3 ‘Twas not the insulting voice of scorn
   So deeply wrung his heart;
   The piercing nail, the pointed thorn,
   Caused not the saddest smart:
4 But every struggling sigh betray’d
   A heavier grief within,
   How on his burden’d soul was laid
   The weight of human sin.
5 Oh thou who hast vouchsafed to bear
   Our sins’ oppressive load,
   Grant us thy righteousness to wear,
   And lead us to our God.
               William Hiley Bathurst, 1831.

(Copyright (c) 2015, Larry and Marion Pierce, Winterbourne, Ontario. Permission for non-profit publishing/distribution of this sermon on paper is freely granted. Contact Larry Pierce, (519) 664-2266 (larrypierce@alumni.uwaterloo.ca) for permission for all other forms of publishing/distribution. We have not knowingly changed the meaning of this sermon. We intended only to eliminate archaic language. If you find a place were you think we have changed the meaning, please contact us so we can correct it.