3189. The Tenderness Of God’s Comfort

A Sermon Published On Thursday, March 17, 1910.

Just as one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. {Isa 66:13}

1. We do not intend to enter into a discussion of the context and its relationship literally to the Jewish people. We have never hesitated to assert our conviction that there are great blessings in store for God’s ancient Israel, and that the day shall come when her comfort shall abound, when the glory of the Gentiles shall flow to her like a flowing stream, and she shall be comforted by her God just as one whom his mother comforts. But we believe that these passages are applicable to all the servants of God, that the comforting passages of Scriptures are theirs, that whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free, barbarian or Greek, we are all one in Christ Jesus, and all the promises are ours in him, for in him all the promises are “yea” and “amen.” I believe, then, that this passage belongs to every child of God.

2. It is good that there is such a promise as this on record, for believers need comfort. They need comfort because they are men, and “man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” There has been a great need for consolation ever since the time when man was expelled from Eden. Men need comfort because they are only men. Although favoured by God, elected by his sovereignty, and called by his grace into a special state of acceptance, they are still in the body, and they are made to feel it, being tempted in all points as other men are, and in some points especially tried. They are men, and only men, at the best. They need comfort, too, because they are Christian men; for if others escape the rod, Christian men must not, yes, shall not. The Lord may be pleased to give to the sinner a long prosperity that he may be fattened as a young bull for the slaughter, but his promise to his people whom he calls by his grace is, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” “Whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.” Therefore, we needs to have special consolation, since as men, as only men, and as Christian men, we shall have constant occasions for comfort.

3. When I take a text like this, I know there are very many in the congregation who cannot enter into it; but, my dear friends, if you are Christians, it will not be long before you will. You may have to look back, perhaps, on the words which I quote in your hearing, and say of them, “God sent them to me as a preparation before the trial came. He gave me food as he did Elijah under the juniper tree, because he determined that I should go forty days in the strength of that food.” Do not despise the consolations of the Lord because you do not need them just now. You will require them. The calm will not last for ever; a storm is brewing. Do not say, “My mountain stands firm, I shall never be moved.” He only has to hide his face, and you will be troubled, and then you will prize what now you lightly esteem; you will long to be comforted “just as one whom his mother comforts.”

4. But coming at once to the text, I think we may very well talk about it under three points; first, who comforts? secondly, how he comforts; and, thirdly, where he comforts.

5. I. With regard to the first point, WHO COMFORTS? “Just as one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.”

6. The work of comforting his saints is not too condescending for God to be engaged in. It is true that he sometimes uses instruments, but all real comfort for a broken heart must come directly from God himself. He does not say, “I will send an angel to comfort you,” but, “I will comfort you.” Nor in the text is it said that the Christian minister shall comfort you. Alas, dear brethren, what are we often who preach the Word but broken cisterns that hold no water? But God says, “I will comfort you”; and when he undertakes the work, then we become as conduit-pipes that are full even to bursting with the drink that you require. Your soul shall be satisfied even out of poor clay vessels. But it must be God’s work; he must do it, for when a soul is truly humbled, and heavily laden, and broken in pieces by God’s hand, there is only one hand—the pierced hand—that can heal the wound.

7. When we read, in this passage, that God will comfort the soul, we are to understand, I think, that God does so in the trinity of his person. He is called “the God of consolation.” The Father comforts us. The very use of that term “Father” seems to bring good cheer to our spirits. As long as I can call God my Father, I shall not be without a star in my sky. “My Father”—that sweetens all the sorrow that can come to me. It is a sword, but my Father, it is in your hand. It is a bitter cup, but, my Father, you have given it to me, so shall I not drink it? That word, “my Father,” shall make my heart leap for joy in the midst of my deepest distress. As a Father, God actively comes to the comfort of his children; and when a filial spirit is shed abroad in us, our souls, leaning on all-sufficient grace, rejoice even in the midst of deep distress. God the Son also comforts us, for is his name not “the Consolation of Israel”? When you stand at the foot of the cross, you find comfort there for all the ills that wring your heart. Sin loses its weight; death itself is dead; all griefs expire, slain by the griefs of the Man of sorrows. Only enter into the Saviour’s passion, and your own passion is over. Get to understand his sorrows, and your sorrows find at least a pause, if not an end. And as for the blessed Spirit, he was given for this very purpose,—to be our Comforter. He dwells in all the saints to bring to their memory the things which Jesus spoke, and to lead them into all truth, so that their joy in Christ may be full.

8. It is something very delightful to consider that Father, Son, and Spirit all co-operate to give us comfort. I can understand their co-operating to make the world; I can understand their co-operation in the salvation of a soul; but I am astonished at this same united action in so comparatively little a matter as the comfort of believers. Yet the Holy Three seem to think it is a great matter that believers should be happy, or they would not work together to cheer disconsolate spirits.

9. We must understand, when God says, “I will comfort you,” that he intends that there are various ways by which he does it. Sometimes he comforts us in the course of providence. We may be the lowest spoke of the wheel now, but by the revolution of time we may be the uppermost before long. We may suffer very acute pains tonight, but by the morning the Master may have assuaged all our pain. The interval between sickness and health may not be very long. If the good Physician shall put his healing hand on us, we shall soon be restored. How often, when you thought you were coming to your worst, has there been a sudden brightening of the sky! It is a long road that has no turning, and it is a long trouble that never comes to an end. When the sea ebbs as far as it can go then the tide begins to flow, and they say the darkest part of the night occurs just before the dawn. When the winter grows very cold and keen, we begin to hope that spring will soon come; and our desperate sorrows, when they reach their worst, are coming to their close. So let us be of good cheer. There will not always be such a rough sea, poor troubled saint. You shall be out of the Atlantic into the Pacific before long; and you shall be out of the seas altogether, and away on the terra firma of eternal joy before many years have rolled over your head.

10. However, when the Lord is not pleased to comfort us in the way of providence, he has a means of doing it by his omnipotent secret working on the human heart. Not to speak doctrinally, but rather to give a particular example, have you not found that, sometimes, when you were much burdened with trouble, a very special calm came over your spirit? You had been vexed, almost distracted; but when you woke up one morning, you felt calm and peaceful; you had given up rebellion, stopped murmuring, and you could say to your God,—

   ’Tis sweet to lie passive in thine hands,

      And know no will but thine.

11. And have you not been even conscious, in times of the very severest trouble, of an unusual joy? You did not sing with your voice, but there was something that sang with you softly, silently, but still sweetly. You sometimes look back on that sick room, (I know I do,) and almost wish that you were there now. The trial was sharp indeed, for—

   “Sharp are the pangs that nature gives,”

but, oh, the joy that came with them! It was so surpassing that, in retrospect, you forget the pain, and only remember the sweetness. How was this? Was it the pain that did it? Nothing of the kind. God is like a watchmaker who knows, because he made the watch, how to touch the wheels, and regulate them. He made us, and therefore he knows how to deal with us so that everything shall go right where before everything went amiss. He can open the flood-gates of joy, and inundate our souls with bliss, even in our darkest days of trouble. “Only hope in me, my child,” he says, “for you shall yet praise me, who is the help of your countenance and your God.” {Ps 42:11} Though the fig trees do not blossom and God does not take away the plague from the cattle, though still your substance shall be diminished, and fire shall devour your household goods, yet your God can make up for all this, and make your days of leanness to be fat days, and your days of hunger to be days of feasting, and your days of thirst to be days when you shall drink the wine on the lees well-refined.

12. It would not be good to close this point without remarking that God has been pleased to make a previous provision for the comfort of all his saints. When he comforts, he does not have to invent a novelty to do it; he only has to bring to us supplies which have been laid up, fruits new and old which have been ready for his beloved. If trouble comes, God has provided a strength by which you shall meet it, and provided a way through, by which you shall escape from it. There are promises in God’s Word suitable for every conceivable condition of the saints. Out of millions of God’s people, living in different countries, and under different forms of government, and in different ages, all of them of different temperaments and constitutions, their trials must take all kinds of forms. As in the kaleidoscope, there must be a vast variety in the tribulations of the Lord’s people, and yet there never has arisen a single case in which there has not been a promise which, word for word, and letter for letter, suited the case in hand.

13. In the great bunch of keys in that good old Book, there is a key for every lock; and if it were not so, there are one or two promises like master-keys which will fit all locks. Such a promise is the one in Isaiah, “Do not fear, for I am with you: do not be dismayed; for I am your God.” {Isa 41:10} It will suit the youth and the hoary head, it will be satisfactory for you if you have to overcome difficulties or if you have to endure sufferings, in the calm or in the storm, lying in the trench or climbing the scaling-ladder, that text will still be precious: “Do not fear, for I am with you: do not be dismayed; for I am your God.” We will fall back then on the consolatory truth that the consolations of his children are with God, that he himself is responsible for their comfort, having engaged to be their helper; and so we may suck marrow out of our text, “Just as one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.”

14. II. But now the second point is to be HOW GOD COMFORTS: “Just as one whom his mother comforts.”

15. This is a particularly delightful metaphor. A father can comfort, but I think he is not much at home doing this work. When God speaks about his pity, he compares himself to their father: “Just as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him.” But when he speaks about comfort, he selects the mother. When I have seen the little ones sick, I have felt all the compassion in the world for them, but I did not know how to set to work to comfort them; but a mother knows by instinct how to do it. There is placed in the mother’s tender heart a power of sympathy, and very soon she finds the word or gives the touch that will suit her darling’s case, and cheer his troubled soul. The father is awkward at it; our rougher, sterner nature hardly shines in the matter of consolation, but the mother can do it to perfection. How, then, does the mother comfort her child?

16. We answer, first, she does it very fondly. There is a way of administering comfort in which you stand apart from the patient, and you tell him, “There is the cup of cordial if you like to drink it.” But the mother’s way of doing it is to sip the cup, and then to put it to the child’s lips; indeed, and to do more than that, to take the child right into her bosom while she gives it. She does not talk to him at arm’s length, but she talks with him at her heart all the while, and that probably is the secret of her power. And so, when God comforts any poor heavy-laden sinner or troubled saint, he does not talk to him at a distance, but he runs, and falls on his neck, and kisses him. The infinite, almighty God falls on the neck of a repentant sinner, and gives him the kiss of his love; and he does just the same to a poor, troubled, and afflicted saint. He comforts fondly. May one venture to apply such a word as that to the great God? May we say that be has a fondness for his children? Well, at any rate, we know that, if there is a word more sweet, more dear, indicating a closer affinity and a deeper and purer love than another, we may use that word concerning our God. He loves us with a love that has no bottom, no summit, and no shore. Even as he loves his own dear Son, so he loves us. We are in his heart; we are engraved on the palms of his hands; and, therefore, when he comforts, it is in so fond a manner that we can only be cheered. With all the tenderness a mother feels, God feels for us, and so he comforts us as a mother comforts her child.

17. But there is more than fondness here. A mother comforts her child very sympathizingly. She always seems to feel the pain the child is feeling. To soothe that headache, she lays her cool hand on the hot, throbbing little brow, and is herself pained as she thinks of the pain that must be there, or she looks at the hand that has been made to bleed by a fall, and her eyes seem as if they would bleed for the little one. She feels it all, and therefore she is sure to comfort well. And this is how Jesus comforts. We have heard of a little child who said to her mother, “Mother, Mrs. So-and-so, the widow, says she likes me to go in to see her, for I comfort her so. When she sits and cries, I put my head in her lap, and I cry too; and she says that comforts her.” Ah, yes, child, there is true philosophy in that. This is just the kind of comfort we need, and this is just what God does. Our Lord in human flesh still sorrows with his people,—hungers in their hunger,—thirsts in their thirsting,—and melts in their mourning. Though he reigns on high, he is not so high that he has no “respect for the lowly.”

18. A mother also comforts her child very assiduously. She is not satisfied with saying half-a-dozen words, and putting her child down; but she picks her up, and if she will not be dandled on one knee, she tries the other, and if that form of comfort will not do, she will try another. We have heard of a good mother who wanted to teach her child something, and when he complained that she had to repeat the same thing twenty times, she answered, “Yes, I did that because nineteen times would not do.” So God perseveres. Sometimes a mother may have to comfort her child when he is very sick and very fretful, and his poor little head and heart are out of order. She has to comfort him again, and again, and again, and again. These soft words are always on her lips. She can do nothing else but just console the little one, and she is not tired of it. Oh, those mothers of ours! They never grow tired when we are sick and ill. They seem to be up all night and all day long; and if a nurse comes in for a few hours, they are up, then, too, looking after the nurse, so that I do not know that much ease comes with the helper. Our mothers are so tirelessly kind. Well, I say to you, to “you who to Jesus for refuge have fled,” that our God is kinder than any mother. His Book is full of attempts to comfort his children, and those attempts—blessed be God—are not without success.

19. Again, a mother comforts her child seasonably. A true mother is not always comforting her child. If she is a silly mother, she brings up her child so delicately that he turns out to be a viper in her bosom; if she is a wise mother, she saves her comforts until they are needed. When he is sick, then she gives the cordials. Well, God does not always comfort his saints; but when they are in affliction, then they shall have consolation. Just as our tribulations abound so our consolations abound by Jesus Christ. There is a balance kept up. If there is an ounce of trouble, there will be an ounce of comfort; if there is a ton of trouble, there will be a ton of consolation. When the child has been doing wrong, and the parent has chastised him, if the little lip curls, if the proud foot is stamped, if there is a frown on the brow, the wise mother does not comfort him. But when the child comes and asks to be forgiven, the mother’s heart is ready for it immediately. “Sin no more,” she says, “and the past shall be forgiven and forgotten.” Well, this is how God comforts us. While we are proud and stand up against him, we shall feel his hand; but when we confess our faults, and come humbly to him for pardon, we shall have seasonable comfort, “just as one whom his mother comforts.”

20. Again, a mother’s comfort has this point about it, she usually comforts in a most efficient manner, and the child goes away smiling, though he seemed to say before, “I shall never be happy again.” Five minutes of a mother’s wise talk and sweet comfort, and the child is as happy as before. “Ah,” you say, “that will do for children, but it will not do for men.” But God keeps his saints as children before him. May God grant us grace to be as little children, or we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven! Then, when our God comes to comfort us, I am quite sure he will do it more effectively than the most tender mother can.

21. But, once more, a mother comforts all her life. “A mother is a mother all her life,” says an old proverb. There is no change there. “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?” It seems impossible, but the Lord says, “Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget you.” A mother does not cast away her child, fathers sometimes have done such a thing, but mothers, I should hope, never. But even if they have;—

   “Yet,” saith the Lord, “should nature change,

      And mothers monsters prove,

   Zion still dwells upon the heart

      Of everlasting love.”

God will not cease to comfort his people. Perhaps there is a brother who is passing through a very severe trial, and he thinks he shall never be comforted again. Well, but your mother will not forsake you, and do you think God will? “But,” one says, “you do not know my difficulty; it is a crushing one.” My dear friend, I know I do not know it, but your heavenly Father knows it; and do you suppose, if an earthly mother sticks with her child, that he will leave you? Go to him. His heart is as near to you now as when you were on the mountain rejoicing in the full sunshine of his love. The very shadow of a change is unknown to him. Go to him with confidence and humble faith, and you shall find the text true, “Just as one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.”

22. III. Now I have just a little to say on the third point, that is, WHERE GOD COMFORTS his people. The text says, “in Jerusalem.”

23. Why, for his ancient people, that was the place where they had their troubles. The city had been besieged. Oh daughter of Salem, how you were made to weep! What sorrow rolled over your head, to see the city dismantled, and her palaces become ruins,—wild birds and bitterns inhabiting the place where once the assembled tribes were glad! Oh Jerusalem, what grief is in your name for your inhabitants as they remember you, your glory all departed, and your sorrow still lasting! Yes, but God will comfort his people in the very place of their trouble. This will be fulfilled on a large scale in the millennial glory when this world of ours which has been the scene of the saints’ sorrow, will also be the scene of their triumphant reign with Christ Jesus.

24. Meanwhile, you, his servants, must not suppose that, because you have trial, you are in the wrong place. The vine is not in the wrong place because the vine-dresser often uses the knife; it may be the best place for that vine where it gets most of the vine-dresser’s pruning. Beware, young friends, especially, beware of self-will in seeking to change your troubles. Some of you think, when you are single, you have special troubles; do not be in a hurry to incur the troubles of married life. And you who are servants think you are very hard done by, do not be so wondrously quick to wish to be masters. I sometimes find my cross not just what I like it to be, but I should be very much afraid to attempt to alter it. It would be better in all wisdom “to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know nothing about.” That man, whom you envy, you would probably pity if you knew more about him. Be content to stay in Jerusalem.

25. Remember, the comfort which God gives will be a comfort to suit your present place and position. “In Jerusalem,” where you have seen the furnace of God placed, for his “fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem,” even there you shall have your comfort. It is a joy to think of Daniel in the lions’ den; I believe that Daniel never had a sweeter night’s rest than he had when he had some old lion for his pillow, and the younger lions to be his guardians. And in the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the Master did not break down the furnace walls, and take them out at once, but he was with them in the fire, and cheered them in the midst of the flames. So shall the comfort of God come to you in your time of need.

26. Take another view of this matter. God will comfort you who are here below. “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!” one says. Now what would you do if you had them? They would be a very awkward appendage for a man; but suppose you had the wings of a dove, what would you do? Would you fly away? Well, you would hardly dare to do that, for to fly to God without a permit would be taking the matter into your own hands. Why cannot God comfort you where you are? “Ah,” one says, “I expect to have my happiness in another world.” So do I, but I hope to have some here too. “One heaven will be enough for me,” one says. But why not have heaven here and heaven hereafter too?

      The men of grace have found

      Glory begun below;

   Celestial fruits on earthly ground

      From faith and hope may grow.

      The hill of Zion yields

      A thousand sacred sweets,

   Before we reach the heavenly fields,

      Or walk the golden streets.

      Then let our songs abound,

      And every tear be dry;

   We’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground

      To fairer worlds on high.

27. It is true that the fairer worlds are on high, but it is equally true that we are on Emmanuel’s ground even now. “In Jerusalem”—the place of your trials—“I will comfort you,” says the Lord.

28. And now, to come to another meaning of the passage, “in Jerusalem,” that is, in the Church of God. The richest comforts are reserved for those who, fearing the Lord, speak often to each other, and are not ashamed to acknowledge his name. And I think, dear friends, the place of comfort is the assembly of God’s people. Therefore live, “not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, as the custom of some is.” There are people in the world who never go out to a service on the week-night evening, and never think of doing such a thing. They get by the fireside after that day’s business, and there they sit, and say, “We are full of doubts and fears. We cannot rejoice as we used to do:—

   What peaceful hours we once enjoyed!

   How sweet their memory still!”

and so on. Now, those people expect God to go to their house and comfort them. By what reason should they expect any such thing when they refuse to go to God’s house for the comfort? Our Lord will sometimes withhold a sense of his presence from us in order to make us feel our wrong-doing in staying away from the use of the means which he has appointed for our comfort and consolation. I wish that all congregations came out as well as you usually do. I must not say anything to you about not coming out on a week-night, for you do come; and anything I might say about people not coming would be like Dean Swift’s sermon about those who go to sleep in church. When he finished it, he thought he had done no good, “for,” he said, “only you who were awake have heard it.”

29. I would rather propose to you that, whenever you meet a friend who is greatly in need of comfort, and is complaining that he does not have it, you would give as judicious a hint as you can that it may be that they miss the comfort who miss the means of grace. He who will not go to the shop and buy cannot wonder if he does not have any oil for his lamp. He who will not take the trouble to go to the stream must not marvel if he has to suffer thirst. Oh let us, dear friends, as often as we can, gather together with the Lord’s people for praise and prayer! No doubt, “in Jerusalem” we shall find our comfort. There are those among you to whom it does one good to listen when you speak of your enjoyments in this house. Of course, there are some who are not edified by the ministry here; but if that is the case, why do they not go somewhere else? Their seats could be filled by others who would be edified. But there are some who say, “Master, it does us good to come here, and we can bless the Lord that here he makes the place of his feet glorious. We long for the Lord’s day to come around again, for we feel the place to be like an Elim.” In your case, God always makes his house to be a fountain of living waters for your souls and streams from Lebanon.

30. To that end, I pray the Master to help all his servants. Pray for your ministers, but remember that the comfort cannot come from them. It may come through them, but it must come from the Master himself. With that exhortation, we will come back to the words of the text, and the gracious promise, “Just as one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

31. May God add his blessing, and bring troubled sinners to look to Christ, and Christ shall have all the glory! Amen.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Col 2}

1. For I wish that you knew what great conflict I have for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;

Paul had not met these Colossian Christians, but he had heard of their faith, and hope, and love, and he so desired their good that he had a continual care for them in his heart. He carried that care to God in prayer, yet he still bore them in loving memory. They were always on his heart as a sick child is always on the heart of his mother.

2, 3. That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ. In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

He wanted them to know God, and to rest comforted and happy in what he revealed. He saw in them a tendency to look abroad for something more than that, a desire to tack something else on to the gospel, a wish to try and find some new light outside the Word, and over this he greatly grieved. He himself was more than satisfied with the gospel, and he wanted them to be, in that respect, as he was.

4. And I say this, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.

They did not openly contradict the gospel, they pretended to have a great affection for it, and then they tried to tear the very heart out of it with their enticing words of man’s wisdom.

5. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, rejoicing and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

He never forgot them; and it was his joy when he found them standing firm in Christ, and his sorrow and his horror when they went away after anyone else.

6. Therefore just as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him:

“Do not turn away from him; do not dream of going beyond him. You received him at first very simply, you trusted in him entirely, so go on doing so. You were satisfied with Christ when you first came to him, so be satisfied with him still, for you do not need anything more than Christ, and there is nothing more than Christ.”

7. Rooted and built up in him,

“Take a living hold of Christ as a tree does of the soil. Be also built up in him; just as a building settles down on the foundation, so you settle down on Christ.”

7. And be established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

When a man is established in the truth that he knows, and rejoices in what he has already received, he will not go away from it.

8. Beware lest any man spoils you (plunders you, it might be rendered,) through philosophy and vain deceit,

“Beware of those who pretend that they are going to enrich you, but whose real object is to plunder you. They say that they will give you advanced thought, deeper ideas, a system more congruous with the age; but it is”—

8. After the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

“What do you want with their traditions? Christ has revealed his truth to you. What do you want with the world’s rudiments? You have gone beyond such elementary, useless knowledge as that, for you have gotten the truth itself.”

9. For in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

There is in Christ a wonderful conjunction of Deity and humanity, the fulness of Godhead enshrined in a human body.

10. And you are complete in him,

In Christ, we enter into the fulness and completeness of life both materially and spiritually.

10, 11. Who is the head of all principality and power: in whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:

“The Jew boasts that he is a circumcised man, but you have spiritually all that circumcision meant literally. Even though you do not have the wound in your flesh, you have more than that, for you have the death of the flesh, and your very flesh has been buried with Christ. All that circumcision can possibly mean you have in Christ.”

12. Buried with him in baptism, in which you also are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised him from the dead.

“You have death, burial, and resurrection, all in Christ; and you received the outward sign and token of this when you were baptized, so believe firmly that it is so, and do not look anywhere else for it. You are neither dead nor buried apart from Christ, nor are you risen apart from him; all you have is in him.”

13. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.

“You do not need to go to a ‘priest’ for pardon, for Christ has forgiven you all your trespasses. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2101, “Life and Pardon” 2102} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2605, “Death and Its Sentence Abolished” 2606} You are so complete in Christ that confession to man and priestly absolution from man would be of no use to you.”

14. Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

“All the Mosaic ceremonies, from which you were excluded as Gentiles, are abolished. Christ has driven a nail through them, and fastened them up to his cross.” Just as, sometimes, a banker stamps through a cheque when it is paid, so has Christ cut through the very heart of all Jewish ordinances by what he has done for his people.

15. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 273, “Christ Triumphant” 265}

Exhibiting them as his prisoners in a triumphal procession, as the victorious Roman Generals did when they returned from war.

16. Let no man therefore judge you in food, or in drink, or in respect to a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days;

“Do not put yourselves under rules and regulations which God has not ordained. If you think it is right for you to abstain from certain drinks, do so, but do not act like this simply because others do so. If you abstain from certain meats, because they have been offered to idols, and the consciences of others might be offended if you partook of them, do not act like this as though it would save you. Do not make yourself subject to the judgment of other men, for Christ is your Lawgiver and Lord.”

17. Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

“You can do without the shadow now that you have the substance; so stick with that.” Some men multiply church ordinances; they have this form and that form; well, let them have them if they find them of any value; but do not bring yourself under subjection to anything of the kind; follow the New Testament and above all things keep close to Christ, for he is everything to you.

18. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility—

We know those who say, “We do not know anything, we are only seekers, trying to find out the truth.” They talk very humbly considering how desperately proud they really are; but that humility which makes men doubt is mock humility, and is not from God. “Let no man beguile you of your reward.” When you have learned the truth from the Scriptures, be dogmatic about it; do not be afraid of the presumption of which some will accuse you, or the bigotry which they will impute to you.

18. And worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,

Agnostics by their name confess that they do not know; but do not let them take away from you what you do know, and have you investigate matters which are beyond you with a judgment which they would lead you to think is almost infallible, whereas your judgment is very fallible indeed. Do not be puffed up by your fleshly mind.

19. And not holding the Head,

That is the point; these people get away from the Deity of Christ, they get away from the atoning blood, they get away from glorifying him who alone is the Truth.

19. From whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.

Take away the head, and there is death, everything is out of order then. If the Head is denied, if any doctrine is taught which is contrary to the glory of Christ, you have killed the body however much you may pretend to be increasing and feeding it.

20-22. Therefore if you are dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances, (Do not touch; do not taste; do not handle; which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?

You may and you should feel that there are some things which you will not touch, or taste, or handle. You had better leave poisonous drugs alone; but, at the same time, if any man seeks to impose on you any regulation concerning them as a part of the faith, you may resist it, and repudiate it, and plead your freedom in Christ.

23. Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship,—

There were some of the Jews who would not eat certain kinds of food, and others who would fast for long periods. Some thought it was very wicked to eat meat on a certain day, and there were many such notions; and similar superstitions still survive among us, such as not eating meat on Fridays, being afraid of thirteen people sitting at the table, and so on: but you have nothing to do with all that kind of rubbish, so get away from it. If you are a believer in Christ, tread all such nonsense under your feet. “Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship,”—

23. And humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour—

There is no honour about such things, they are contemptible: “not in any honour”—

23. To the satisfying of the flesh.

That is all such things would do,—make you seem better than other people; so do not be led into these ways, but stand firm in the liberty with which Christ has made his people free.