3062. The Spirit's Office Towards Disciples

A Sermon Published On Thursday, October 17, 1907.

He shall glorify me: for he shall take of what is mine, and shall show it to you. {Joh 16:14} {a}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 465, “Holy Spirit Glorifying Christ, The” 456}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2213, “Honey in the Mouth” 2214}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2382, “Holy Spirit’s Chief Office, The” 2383}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2907, “Holy Spirit Glorifying Christ, The” 2908}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3062, “Spirit’s Office Towards Disciples, The” 3063}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3127, “Promise and Precedent, A” 3128}

   Exposition on Joh 16:1-14 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3127, “Promise and Precedent, A” 3128 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Joh 16:1-20 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2307, “Greatest Exhibition of the Age, The” 2308 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Joh 16:1-22 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3052, “Christ’s Loneliness and Ours” 3053 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Joh 16 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2907, “Holy Spirit Glorifying Christ, The” 2908 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Joh 16 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3461, “Welcome Visitor, The” 3463 @@ "Exposition"}

1. Many people are anxiously asking the question, “Are we partakers of the Holy Spirit?” With heightened anxiety, they reason like this, “We have felt certain inward emotions; there has been in us, we trust, a change of life; eager are our desires for God and his grace; do these come from the Spirit of God? When we find a suggestion which appears to be holy in our soul, does it come from him? When we are at any time filled with earnestness and pray, or our soul has particular delight in considering divine things, may we say with truth that we are under the operation of the Holy Spirit?” I do not intend to go thoroughly into the resolution of these scruples; that would be too wide a subject for a short evening’s discourse; but there is one point which may often relieve your perplexities. It appears, from the text, that it is the work, and office, and custom of the Holy Spirit to glorify Christ. If, therefore, with much strength and fervour in your soul you glorify him, you may trust that it comes from the Spirit of God; but if there is anything in you which is derogatory to the character, or person, or glory of the Lord Jesus, it may either come from Satan or from your own corrupt mind; but from the Spirit of God it never did come, and it would be blasphemy to impute it to him. Whatever you feel which lifts Christ on high in your soul, comes from the Spirit; but whatever there may be which exalts self, or anything else in the place of Christ, no matter where it may come from, it never did proceed from the Holy Spirit.

2. Let us then just handle this point. The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ in his people. How does he do it, and how far may I judge that he is at work in me?

3. One way in which the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ is this, — He gives us more and more debasing views of ourselves. There are two Gods, as it were; one the true, the other the false. Self first mounts the throne in our heart; and the higher the throne of self is exalted, the lower must Christ go. Much of self, little of the Saviour. Exalted views of self, self-power, or self-righteousness, and then there are sure to be low views of Christ; but when self goes down, then Christ at once rises. It may be said of self, as John the Baptist once said of Christ and himself, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” If you have had shallow views of your own natural depravity, then you have had very shallow thoughts of Christ. If you think sin to be delightful, if Gethsemane, and Golgotha, and Calvary seem to you to be names without weight or meaning, if you have never groaned under sin, I do not wonder that you think little of Christ’s groans, and griefs, and bloody sweat; but when you come to know yourself as truly lost and undone, then you will prize your Deliverer. When the dread word “lost!” has seemed to fall like a death knell on your ear, then the news that the Son of man came to seek and to save those who were lost will be sweet to you as the Christmas carol of the angels, when they sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.” If you feel the disease, you will value the Physician; if you know your own emptiness, you will prize Christ’s fulness; but if you reject the teaching of the Holy Spirit, which shows you your utter helplessness and worthlessness, in doing so you have rejected Christ, and put far from you that Saviour who alone came to save sinners. It is, then, a most precious thing when we begin to sink lower and lower in our own estimation. At the beginning of the spiritual life, we believe that we are nothing; as we advance, we find that we are less than nothing. May the Holy Spirit so work in you! Some of you are, perhaps, desponding, and thinking that you are not children of God, or else you would not be so downcast as you are. Please understand this matter properly. Instead of having any reason for despondency, you will find a subject for joy, for I am sure that the Spirit is honouring Christ when he is lowering you in your own estimation.

4. Still more to the point, when the Holy Spirit really works in the heart of man, he honours Christ in every respect. He honours the person of Christ. Those who think very little of his Deity are not taught by the Spirit of God. No man is taught by the Holy Spirit to regard the only-begotten Son of the Father as a secondary God; for the Holy Spirit teaches us in this way, “When he brings in the first-begotten into the world, he says, ‘And let all the angels of God worship him.’” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Spirit always teaches concerning Christ that he is God over all, blessed for ever. Some have had lowering views of his humanity. Every now and then we hear dark hints about the human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, his capability for sinning, and so on; but this never comes from the Spirit of God. Both the Deity and the humanity of Christ receive honour in the Christian’s soul when the Spirit comes there with light.

   Jesus is worthy to receive

      Honour, and power divine.

That very man who hung on Calvary we now adore. He is exalted far above all principalities and powers. All teaching which honours Christ in his person is from the Spirit; but what dishonours him should be branded with its evil authorship.

5. The Spirit also glorifies Christ in his work. Have you ever seen the finished work of Christ? He came into the world to save men; and he did save them. He did not make a bridge over which they might possibly get across, but he carried them across the bridge. He did not accomplish the work of redemption so far that, by their own exertions, some people might climb to heaven; but he himself entered into the heavenly places, and took possession, representatively, of the throne of God for all his people who were in him. The salvation of the elect, so far as Christ is concerned, is finished. He took upon his shoulders all their guilt; he was punished for that guilt; and they were justified then and there. He rose again, having shaken off equally the punishment and the iniquities that incurred it; he entered into glory; and they were then and there virtually made possessors of an inheritance which nothing will ever be able to take from them. Let the Christian feel that the teaching which lowers the work of Christ, makes it dependent on the will of man concerning its efficacy, puts the cross on the ground, and says, “That blood is shed, but it may be shed in vain, shed in vain for you,” — let us all feel that such teaching does not come from the Spirit of God. It is that teaching which pointing to the cross, says, “He shall see the labour of his soul, and shall be satisfied”; that teaching which makes the atonement a true atonement which put away the vindictive justice of God for ever from every soul for whom that atonement was offered, exalts Christ, and, therefore, it is a teaching which comes from the Spirit of God. When your heart is brought to rest on what Christ has done, when, laying aside all confidence in your own works, knowledge, prayings, doings, or believings, you come to rest on what Christ has done in its simplicity, then Jesus Christ is exalted in your heart, and it must have been the work of the Spirit of divine grace. The person, then, and the work of Christ are exalted.

6. The Holy Spirit also exalts Christ in all his offices. That teaching which calls a man a priest, and tells me to take my child to receive some grace from his priestly hands, and which puts another man into lawn sleeves, {b} and tells me to kneel before him to receive a confirmation of my grace from his pretentious fingers, that system of religion which lifts up any one man above his fellow men, as if there were any priests now, except the common and general priesthood which belongs to every child of God, such teaching as that lowers Christ by lifting up human priests into Christ’s place. The Spirit bears witness that Christ is the great High Priest of his Church. It is from his hand we receive the blessing, through his blood we receive the washing, and we will look nowhere else for the grace that comes only from him.

7. Christ, too, is exalted by the Spirit in his prophetic as well as in his priestly office. Shall I call any man master so to take him for my teacher? All teaching which lifts up Wesley, or Calvin, or any man, living or dead, in the place of the authorized Teacher, and which says that their dicta are to be taken as though they were the infallible revelations of Christ, is not from the Spirit of God; but that teaching which says, “One is your Teacher, even Christ, and all of you are brethren,” and which tells us of the holy equality of all saints, and that the true Teacher and the only Teacher who can speak with authority is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, you may accept such teaching as coming from God the Holy Spirit.

8. Then Christ occupies a third office; he is Prophet and Priest, and he is also King; and any teaching which takes Christ off the throne, and puts someone else on, is not according to the Spirit of God. The headship of Christ in his Church is the doctrine which, perhaps, beyond all others, needs to be taught at this time. It was for this that Scotland’s sons suffered misery and death. Cast out, they wandered in the morasses and among the mountains. I stood, only the other day, near the place where the monument is raised to thousands of men who had shed their blood for Christ; and I felt it a great privilege to stand where Guthrie and others had poured out their blood for the defence of the Headship of the Church; when, truly, Charles the Second would be the head of the Church, or James, or some other man of similar character. But would this be tolerated by true-hearted saints of God’s own true Church? No; none but cravens and cowards will ever acknowledge the authority of men or women over the Church of Christ, or permit them to usurp the divine rights of the Lord Jesus. When that day comes, when the King of kings shall sit on his throne, he will take summary vengeance on the traitors who have dared to give up his high prerogatives. Christian, make Christ your Priest who absolves you; take him as your only Leader and Prophet, who is the truth and the life to you; and then take him as your King, and bow your knee become him; take Christ in all his offices to be exalted, for so the Spirit teaches.

9. Then Christ is also exalted by the Holy Spirit in his Word. There are some who think and say that they can do without the Bible; but such certainly do not think and speak by the Spirit of God. This is always an infallible test of the work of the Spirit, that he honours God’s own Word. I could think no man true who, first of all, professed to write out his own mind, and then afterwards contradicted it. Then how can that spirit be true that contradicts the writing of the Spirit of the living God? Bring whatever you have of revelation to the test of Scripture, if it does not agree with that, throw it away. I wish this rule were learned by all men; for every now and then we read about or meet people who think that the Spirit has revealed to them something over and above what is in Scripture. Now, this is never the case. Any man, who says that he has more revealed to him than is in the Holy Scripture, incurs the curse of the last chapter of Revelation. He must take care lest, since he adds to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, “God shall add to him the plagues that are written in this Book.” “It is finished,” must be said concerning this Book as we close it. Not a single verse or revelation shall henceforth come from the Spirit. Until Christ comes, this Book is sealed, so far as any addition to it is concerned; and it is not the Spirit of God who does not honour the Word of God.

10. Indeed, there is nothing which concerns Christ which the Spirit of God does not magnify. Consider any of his offices or his relationships, and you will find that the Spirit magnifies them, and glorifies them, and so presents them to the believer’s soul, so that he may rejoice in it.

11. Now, I advance a little further. The Holy Spirit’s work is to glorify Christ, and this he will do by filling you with Christ. If you are subject to the work of the Spirit, then you ought to have much of the spirit of Christ within you; but if you can live days and weeks without thinking of his person, write yourself down as being a hypocrite if you wish, but you are not a true Christian. The very mark of the blessed man is, that he lives on God’s Word. “He meditates on his law day and night.” We feed on Christ; and just as our bodies could not live without food, so neither can our souls live without Jesus. The Spirit of God will also fill your heart with Christ so that, the more you have of that Spirit, the more intense will be your love for the Saviour, until at last you will be able to say, — 

   Jesus, the very thought of thee

      With sweetness fills my breast.

When the Spirit of God is with you, you will feel indeed that it is so. No joy can be compared with that of the love of Christ shed abroad in your heart. When the Spirit has so filled your thoughts and hearts, he will be sure to occupy your tongues. Those who love the Saviour must speak of him. In choice company, they will tell some of the secrets of his love, and in any company they will not be ashamed to acknowledge that they are his servants. Occupying their tongue, he will be sure also to engage it in prayer for him; and they will not cease to offer such prayers as these: “Your kingdom come. Jesus, be exalted. Oh, when will you come, in your chariot of salvation, to ride over the whole earth? Come quickly, oh come quickly, Lord Jesus!” And then, too, your tongue will be employed in songs concerning him. It is always a sign of a revival of religion, it is said, when there is a revival of psalmody. When Luther’s preaching began to affect men, you could hear ploughmen behind the plough singing Luther’s psalms. Whitfield and Wesley would never have done the great work they did if it had not been for Charles Wesley’s poetry, and for the singing of such men as Toplady, and Scott, and Newton, and many others of the same class; and even now we see that, since there has been somewhat of a religious revival in our various denominations, there are more hymn-books than there ever were before, and far more attention is paid to Christian psalmody than ever before. When your heart is full of Christ, you will want to sing. It is a blessed thing to sing at your labour and work, if you are in a place where you can do so; and if the world should laugh at you, you must tell those who you have as good a right to sing the songs that delight your heart as they have to sing any of the songs in which their hearts delight. Praise his name, Christians; do not be dumb; sing aloud to Jesus the Lamb; and if we as Englishmen can sometimes sing our national anthem, let us as believers have our national hymn, and sing, — 

   Crown him, crown him,

      Crown him Lord of all.

12. And, surely, when the Spirit of God honours Christ in the tongue like this, it will not stop there; it comes to the acts of daily life. The Spirit shall glorify Christ by helping you to glorify him in your own actions. I spoke, this morning, of some who set themselves apart for extraordinary service. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 626, “The Waterer Watered” 617} I did not, however, intend to imply that that was at all necessary; for you may serve Christ as good housewives, you may serve him as merchants, shopkeepers, and, in short, in every condition of life. Our religion is for the market-place, for the shop, for the streets, and for the field. And since God’s being is not confined to temples made by the hands of men, but is present everywhere, on heath, and city, and moor, and field, — in the sunbeams that light the peasant’s cottage as well as the monarch’s palace, — present in the minute as well as in the magnificent, — down there in the glades where the red deer wander and the child loves to play, and up there where the storms gather on the mountain’s hoary brow, — as visible in a blade of grass as in the cedar and the tall waving pine, — to be seen as well in the dewdrop as in the avalanche, — as certainly in the falling of a leaf as in the tremendous roar of the thunder, — present everywhere, — so is true religion everywhere, in the cottage as well as in the temple, in business as well as in devotions, abroad in the streets as well as in the silence of retirement, up there where men wrestle with God, and down there where they come to contend with men and for his truth. You have never received the Spirit so as to know that Christ is the glorified One, unless in your life as well as with your lips you proclaim his praise.

13. If the Spirit has so far instructed you, he will conduct you a little further, and you may accept his teaching because it glorifies Christ. There are some doctrines which are not often preached in certain pulpits; they are supposed to be rather dangerous. Speaking of a certain hymn-book, I remarked to a minister in whose pulpit I preached, that I did not like the hymn-book, since I could never find a hymn that sang of the covenant of grace or the doctrine of election. “Oh, well!” he said, “that is no disadvantage for me, for I never say anything about those doctrines”; and I can quite believe what he said. There are certain higher truths which only belong to those who have passed through the rudiments, and are finished with the grammar-school book, and can enter into the university. One of the things which glorify Christ happens when the Spirit makes us understand the eternal love of Christ for his people, and his covenant engagements for them.

14. Christian, I would have you know that Christ never did begin to love you! Before the mountains were piled, or the clouds had gathered around them, Christ had set his heart on you. Indeed, when this great world, and the sun, and moon, and stars slept in the mind of God like forests in an acorn-cup, then, then Jehovah-Jesus had love for you. And when the proper time came, he offered himself up as a Surety for your souls, to pay your debts, to stand as your Representative, to keep you in this world, and to present you at the last to the Father as a priceless jewel. Oh, how you will glorify Christ, if you have enough faith to take in this divine mystery! Do not be staggered by electing love; it is one of the highest notes of heavenly music. Do not be afraid of such a verse as this: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” Here is marrow and fatness such as saints fed on in days long since gone.

15. Take another truth, the precious truth of the finished work of Christ for his people. How often do you hear Christ’s work preached as if it were only begun; and many hold him up as though he had begun making a beautiful garment, but had stopped somewhere so that by adding our rags we might complete the work. I was in one of the vaults of the British Museum, some time ago, when the sculptures came from Nineveh, and one of them was unfinished. There was evidently the last mark which the mason had made before he was killed, or, it may be, called away from his work to which he never returned. But, Jesus Christ has left no sculpture of this kind; he has finished all his work. “It is finished,” were words that gladdened earth, and made heaven more glorious. There is nothing now for souls to do to save themselves. For whom Jesus died, that soul is saved; and all that that soul has to do is, being saved, to show its gratitude and love as one that is brought to life from the dead.

   Loved of my God, for him again

      With love intense I burn;

   Chosen of him ere time began,

      I chose him in return.

16. You may know that perfection in Christ by a firm reliance on the Scriptures. How can you perish? You are saved; there is, therefore, now no condemnation recorded against you. Who shall lay anything to your charge? Who shall separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus your Lord?

17. If there is one doctrine, however, more sweet and yet more deep than another, it is the divine doctrine of that eternal union which exists between Christ and his people. It is the Spirit’s work to take the golden key, and let us into this secret cabinet. Believers are one with Christ; by vital personal union they are one with him; they are members of his body, or as he himself says, they are the branches, and he is the Vine; they are the members, and he is the Head. I know of nothing that can be more delightful than this union — this eternal union — with Christ.

   One in the tomb, one when he rose,

   One when he triumphed o’er his foes,

   One when in heaven he took his seat,

   While seraphs sang all hell’s defeat.

   This sacred tie forbids our fears;

   For all he is or has is ours;

   With him, our Head, we stand or fall,

   Our life, our surety, and our all.

18. It used to be said, by an excellent theologian, that any man who understood the two covenants of works and grace was a master in theology. {c} Yet, oh, how few Christians there seem to be who really understand the covenant of grace! “Just as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” We fell, not by our own fault, but by Adam’s fault; and we rise, not by our own virtue, but by virtue of our union with Christ. If you are in Christ, believer, you are safe while Christ stands. You cannot drown the body until you drown the Head. My foot may be deep in the stream, but until the billows roll over my brow, my foot is not drowned; and until Christ shall perish, no soul that is one with Christ can be destroyed; for he said to his disciples, “Because I live, you shall live also.” If time permitted, I might enter into some more of those sublime mysteries which make the core and pith of the comfort of the Christian; but I forbear. May the Spirit of God glorify Christ by taking these things of Christ, and revealing them to you, and making them personally yours!

19. And to close, — the Holy Spirit will continue all your life, if you are a believer in Christ, to further his work in you by writing all that concerns Christ on your experience and your life. I long to see, in the Church, more men and women who have Christ so glorified in them that their faith never staggers, who have neither doubts nor fears, who know whom they have believed, who are persuaded that he is able to keep what they have committed to him, who leave all things to the Father’s wisdom, and find everything in a perfect Saviour. I long to see some of you, brethren, made partakers of our overflowing joy. I long to see your eyes flash with the joyful radiance of your Saviour’s presence. I pray that you may be so full of joy that, when you speak, you may cheer the downcast, and lift up the countenances of the sad. I want you to have added to this an intense and fervent love, — love which shall perform impossibilities, which shall dare anything for Christ, — which, so full of zeal, shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shall winnow the wheat from the chaff on the threshing-floor. I pray that you may have that mighty consecration of spirit which shall make you altogether unearthly, that since you have borne the image of the earthy, you my also bear the image of the heavenly, and that, since you have been conformed to the first Adam in the curse, and in all the infirmities and griefs of this mortal life, you may be conformed to the second Adam in his pure unselfish love for man, his noble, all daring, all-consuming love for his Father and for his cause. I am persuaded that the Spirit does not glorify Christ in us so much as he would if we gave ourselves up more fully to the Saviour. As one said, on a certain occasion, there is a fleet lying in the river, richly laden, but it cannot come up, because the river is blocked up with ice; so, I think, I see my Master’s love lying out far down the river, and it would gladly come to my poor soul to enrich me, and make me holy and heavenly; but, alas! the coldness of my heart, like ice, blocks up the channel, and I do not get what I might obtain. Come, heavenly love, and melt the ice; flow, streams of grace, and dissolve every barrier; come Jesus, come into my heart, and let your treasures be mine for evermore! Oh, that I could stir some believers here to seek more than is generally enjoyed by Christians! May God give you the seraphic earnestness of a Whitfield, the deep piety of a Martyn, the lovely spirit of a Newton or a Cowper! May he fill you to the brim with himself, until you shall be like a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden; and like candles in the house that shine all around!

20. But, alas! there are some here who do not know my Master at all, who are strangers to his love. There is Christ looking down on you with tearful eye, and he invites you to come to him. That blood which you have so far despised will wash away your every sin. Only cast yourself on him. Look up into those languid eyes, for they are still full of compassion. That streaming blood flows to every soul that trusts in Jesus. Read the mystery of that pierced heart; there is only love written there. Study the anguish of that poor martyred body; for in every pang you can learn the story of his compassion; and as you see him bowing his head, and hear him saying, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” he asks every one of you to commend your spirit to him. Do it, do it now, God helping you, and so Christ will be glorified.

{a} Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon, on this passage: —  {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 465, “The Holy Spirit Glorifying Christ” 456} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2213, “Honey in the Mouth” 2214} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2382, “The Holy Spirit’s Chief Office” 2383} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3052, “Christ’s Loneliness and Ours” 3053} See the exposition of Joh 16:1-22 in this sermon.
{b} Sleeves of lawn: considered as forming part of the episcopal dress. OED.
{c} Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon on various aspects of the Covenant of Grace, are as follows: —  {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 19, “David’s Dying Song” 19} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 93, “God in the Covenant” 88} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 103, “Christ in the Covenant” 98} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 212, “The New Heart” 205} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 233, “Free Grace” 226} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 251, “The Necessity of the Spirit’s Work” 244} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 277, “The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant” 269} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 456, “The Stony Heart Removed” 447} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 517, “The Rainbow” 508} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 714, “A Saviour Such as You Need” 705} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1046, “Covenant Blessings” 1037} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1129, “The Heart of Flesh” 1120} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1186, “The Blood of the Covenant” 1177} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1289, “The Heart Full and the Mouth Closed” 1280} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1451b, “The Covenant Pleaded” 1443} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1840, “The Bond of the Covenant” 1841} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1886, “God’s Remembrance of His Covenant” 1887} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1921, “Cleansing: A Covenant Blessing” 1922} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1942, “Salt for Sacrifice” 1943} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2092, “God’s Own Gospel Call” 2093} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2108, “Perseverance in Holiness” 2109} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2200, “The Covenant Promise of the Spirit” 2201} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2316, “Twelve Covenant Mercies” 2317} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2427, “The Ark of His Covenant” 2428} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2438, “Two Immutable Things” 2439} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2506, “God’s Law in Man’s Heart” 2507} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3048, “The Holy Spirit in the Covenant” 3049} (Nos. 456 and 1046 are double numbers, twopence each.)

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ga 2:15-3:29}

2:15-21. We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, so that I might live for God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

Paul is arguing against the idea of salvation by works, or salvation by ceremonies; and he shows, beyond all question, that salvation is by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Notice the strength of the apostle’s argument in the twenty-first verse: “If righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in sin.” That is to say, there was no need for Christ to die, the crucifixion was a superfluity, if men can save themselves by their own good works. Paul is very emphatic about the matter. He puts it as plainly as possible: “If righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1534, “Salvation by Works, a Criminal Doctrine” 1534}

3:1, 2. Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This I would only learn from you, “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”

“When the Spirit of God came into you, and renewed you, — when he endued some of you with miraculous gifts, — did this power come by the works of the law, or through your believing the gospel? ‘Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?’” {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1705, “The Hearing of Faith” 1706}

3. Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?

“Is this work to be partly God’s and partly your own? And if he has begun it with a foundation of gold, are you to perfect it with your poor dust and clay? Are you so foolish as to attempt to do this?”

4, 5. Have you suffered so many things in vain — if it is yet in vain? Therefore he who supplies the Spirit to you, and works miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

They knew very well that the miracles came as the result of faith, and were an attestation and seal of the gospel of faith, and not of the works of the law.

6, 7. Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Therefore know that only those who are of faith are the children of Abraham.

He was the father of the faithful — that is of the believing; — not of those who trust in their own works. These are only like Ishmael, who must be cast out of the chosen family; but the true children, the real Isaacs, are those who are born according to the promise of grace.

8. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the nations through faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you shall all nations be blessed.”

That is, “in you, because you are the father of believers. You are a kind of head and prototype of men who believe in me, and so, ‘in you shall all nations be blessed’; and in your seed, too, since you shall be the father of the Christ, shall all nations be blessed.”

9-11. So then those who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, “The just shall live by faith.”

If then, even those who are just live by faith, how can anyone expect that they shall live by their works? {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 814, “Life by Faith” 805} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2809, “Faith: Life” 2810}

12. And the law is not by faith: but, “The man who does them shall live in them.”

The law says nothing about faith; it speaks only about doing: “You shall do my judgments, and keep my ordinances, to walk in them: I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man does, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.”

13. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”: {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 873, “Christ Made a Curse for Us” 864} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2093, “The Curse; and the Curse for Us” 2094}

There is the key of the mystery. Christ is our Substitute. He fulfilled the law’s demands by his perfect obedience, and he suffered the law’s utmost penalty by his death on the cross; and, now, all those who believe in him are justified for ever because of what he did for them.

14, 15. That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men: Though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed,

If it is legally drawn up, signed, and sealed, and witnessed, — 

15. No man annuls, or adds to it.

There it stands, and an appeal can be made to it in any court of law where it may be produced.

16, 17. Now the promises were made to Abraham and his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many; but as of one, “And to your seed,” who is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before by God in Christ, the law which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot annul, so that it should make the promise of no effect.

That is clear enough. The covenant made with Abraham and his seed cannot be affected by anything that was said or done on Sinai. Whatever the covenant of works may be, or say, or do, it comes in more than four centuries after this glorious covenant of grace had been signed, and sealed, and ratified; and therefore it cannot be affected, it must stand firm for ever.

18. For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no more by promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

So, then, we know it is by promise, and God must keep his promise, and we must believe it. It must be true; and if we do believe it, we shall prove it to be true, and it will be fulfilled in every jot and tittle for every believing soul.

19-22. What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there has been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has concluded all under sin,

Or, “shut us all up under sin.” The law has come, and proved us all guilty, and shut us all up as in a great prison from which we cannot escape by any power of our own. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1145, “The Great Jail, and How to Get Out of It” 1136} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2402, “Under Arrest” 2403}

22-24. That the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up to the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Therefore the law was our school teacher to bring us to Christ, {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1196, “The Stern Pedagogue” 1187}

It whipped us to Christ, and taught us that we could not be saved except by Christ.

24-28. That we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come we are no longer under a school teacher. For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Yet some foolish people still talk about our Israelite origin. What would that matter even if it were true? “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free.” All these distinctions are done away with, and Christ is all, and believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, “are all one in Christ Jesus.”

29. And if you are Christ’s, then are you Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

So that all the blessings which God promised to Abraham belong to you who are believers in Christ, and you may take them, and rejoice in them; but if you are without faith in Christ, then you are without the one essential thing which gives you an interest in the covenant of grace.

In the Press. — Will shortly be published.

John Ploughman’s Almanac for 1908, and Spurgeon’s Illustrated Almanac for 1908.

The two Almanacs are once more nearly ready for publication, and it is believed that they will prove fully equal to their predecessors. The great broadsheet contains 366 proverbial sayings, &c., and five pictures of farm scenes; five of the illustrated articles in the Book Almanac are from the writings of C. H. Spurgeon, and the 366 texts for 1908 have been selected by Pastor Thomas Spurgeon. The Almanacs are one penny each, and can be obtained from Messrs. Passmore and Alabaster, Paternoster Buildings, London, or through all booksellers and colporteurs.

The OCR quality of this sermon was poor and contained many spurious comas and corrupted words. Editor.