3194. A Look And Its Lessons

A Sermon Published On Thursday, April 21, 1910.

Listen to me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the LORD: look to the rock from where you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from where you are dug. {Isa 51:1}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1050, “Bright Light in Deep Shadows, A” 1041}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3194, “Look and Its Lessons, A” 3195}

   Exposition on Isa 51:1-13 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2542, “Christ’s Rest and Ours” 2543 @@ "Exposition"}

1. These words were addressed to those who were already the people of God. No others could be exhorted to look to the rock from where they were hewn, since they have never been hewn from it; nor to the hole of the pit from where they were dug, for they still are in the hole of the pit. They are lost and ruined, and they still remain in that condition. But the people of God have been broken off that rock by a blow from the divine hammer; they have been brought up from the horrible pit by the might of the divine arm, and their feet are now firmly fixed on the Rock of ages.

2. The people of God are described here as those “who follow after righteousness.” That is the direction in which their life generally flows. They are not perfect, but they want to be; they do not love what is unrighteous, but they desire to be right in all things both before God and before men. They are also said to be those “who seek the Lord”; that, is to say, they are those who could not live without seeking the Lord in prayer, or in public or private worship. Their great object in life is to glorify God, to make him famous among the sons of men, and they desire to devote all their time, and talents, and powers of every kind to his service and honour.

3. It is to such privileged people as these that the message of our text is addressed; and, surely, they will give good heed to it. Yet the form in which the message is put implies that there is need for a special call to attention. Lest those who are addressed should fail to attend as earnestly as they ought, the command “Listen to me,” puts the message before them in urgent and impressive tones. Come then, beloved, and listen to it, and let your innermost souls hear what the text has to say to you: “Look to the rock from where you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from where you are dug.”

4. So, first, let us look where we are told to look; and secondly, let us learn the lessons which that look is intended to teach us.

5. I. First, then, LET US LOOK WHERE WE ARE TOLD TO LOOK: “to the rock from where you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from where you are dug.”

6. Look back then, first of all, to your nature’s original position in the garden of Eden. See that man and woman, perfect in beauty, without blemish from head to foot, and altogether spotless in mind and heart as they came fresh from their Creator’s hand. They are placed in a garden which is as perfect as they are themselves; and what is fragrant to the smell, and gratifying to the taste, and lovely to the eye they have in the greatest profusion. The man’s easy task was to dress and keep the garden which would have spontaneously yielded all that he and his required, and the tenure on which he might have held that fair estate for himself and his heirs for ever was very simple and clear: “From every tree of the garden you may freely eat: but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it: for in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die.” To eat from that tree would show that man had revolted from his allegiance to his Sovereign, that he had ceased to depend on the God who had created him, and become independent; and it would be, in fact, a declaration of war by finite man against the infinite Jehovah. Alas for us that our first parents were not impervious to temptation! Mother Eve, deceived by the serpent, took the forbidden fruit, and ate some of it and gave some to her husband, and he also ate some of it, and then their eyes were opened, and they perceived that they were naked to their shame before God, and they hid themselves when they heard his voice in the garden in the cool of the day.

7. Poor Adam, he was our covenant head, and there could not have been a covenant that would have been more easy to keep;—only leave the fruit of that one tree alone, and you and all your descendants shall enjoy perpetual happiness; only be obedient to the God who made you, and you shall bring on yourself and all your posterity continual holiness and joy. It is foolish for anyone to complain because Adam was made our representative; for, had we all been present to chose the man who should stand as our federal head, we would certainly have selected Adam, for there has never been another man so well qualified as he was for such a responsible position. Yet, perfect man as he was, he fell, and terrible was the result of that fall both for himself and for all his posterity. Out of the garden he must go, for he was no longer fit to remain in such a paradise as Eden was; and he must go where he would learn, by painful experience, the effects of his sin, where the earth would produce thorns and thistles, and its scanty harvests (compared with the abundance of Eden,) would only be gained by long and toilsome labour. This was a necessary discipline of love, which was enforced by the very mercy of God, since Adam’s nature was no longer what it had been before. He began by doubting the truth of God’s word, and then he went further, and imagined that he might do as he pleased, and be his own god, that he might disobey God, and yet be a gainer, for he believed the lie of the serpent, “You shall not surely die; for God knows that in the day you eat it, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

8. Our earthly father had set himself up as a rival to our Father in heaven; and, because he was our representative, we were all doomed to be born into this world rebellious in our very nature, prone to evil even from our birth. You, child of God, stand tonight at the foot of the cross, “accepted in the Beloved”; but look back to the place where you once stood in the person of your representative, the first Adam. You then stood outside the garden of Eden, and sorrowfully gazed on the “flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” You do not fear that sword now, for it has been sheathed in your Saviour’s heart, and its flames have been quenched in his blood; and therefore you can now stand at the foot of the cross, and eventually you shall stand at the gates of pearl; no, more, you shall pass through that gate, and stand before the throne of the Eternal, a soul reclaimed, restored, and perfected, and made fit to dwell for ever with the thrice-holy One. But while you think of your present privileges, and of the bliss that is in store for you, do not forget to look back “to the rock from where you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from where you are dug.”

9. Let us now look back, and see our origin in another light. Let us look at human nature as it is now, and see how it became tainted by our first parents. But when I say, “Let us look at human nature as it is now,” I remember that this is a sight which I am unable to reveal to you in all its horrors; for man, by nature, is extremely sinful, and “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually.” Our heart, by nature, is a very smithy of the devil; and when man speaks blasphemy, it is only the sparks flying out of the forge; and when he works iniquities, these are only the glowing coals which Satan has fanned into a flame. “The prince of the power of the air…now works in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conduct in times past,” whatever change grace may have accomplished in us now. Remember, believer in Jesus that your heart was, by nature, as black as the heart of Judas. Whatever sin there may have been in any other man, the germ of that sin was in your nature; there was no superiority about you, by nature, to any other member of the human race. However excellent your parents may have been,—and God forbid that I should disparage them!—it is still true, “What is born by the flesh is flesh.” It must be so. From defilement,—and that is in the parents,—there can only come defilement; there cannot be a crystal stream from an impure fountain.

10. Your nature then, whatever God may have made it now, was that of a fallen being, a rebel, one who had gone astray from God. The heart is, naturally, a cage of unclean birds, a den of savage beasts; and he who has been taught to see all its abominations is the most horrified about them. We read of the fountains of the great deep that were broken up in the days of Noah, but there are depths of iniquity and transgression, in every human heart, which, if they were not restrained by education, by the laws of the land, and by the voice of conscience, would pour out in a terrible flood that would ruin the sinner and ruin society at the very same time. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” We never do know it until the Spirit of God convinces us of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; and it is good for Christians, who have been taught by the Spirit, to often look back to the rock from where they were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from where they were dug.

11. Now let us look back on human nature as it has been seen in the history of mankind. What a strange creature man is! How near akin to Deity when grace changes his whole nature, how near akin to devilry when he is left to himself! What crimes are there that men have not committed? The true story of the human race is a disgrace to us all. You cannot read the history of mankind without discovering the fact that, for cruelty to men, no beast has ever equalled man, and that, for unfaithfulness, treachery, and deceit, no serpent with its cunning, its fascination, and its deadly venom, can be compared with man. What fierce lion, ranging across the plains of Africa, has ever been equal in destructive force to a conqueror at the head of a victorious army? And what cobra, lurking by the wayside, ready to kill its victim, has ever been so full of venom as certain men have shown in the pursuit of their ambitions, utterly careless of the lives and happiness of their fellow men? There have been men who have let loose the cruel dogs of war, and waded through rivers of human blood so that they might sit on a throne. The great ones of the earth have perpetrated horrible infamies, and the lowest of the low have not been one bit better when the power has been in their hands. Sin has reigned equally among princes and peasants; and every man, unless renewed by grace, is capable of committing any crime that other men have committed. Some of you doubt that assertion, and feel inclined to say what Hazael said to Elisha when the prophet foretold what he would do when he had the power, “What, is your servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?” He did not believe that it was possible that he should do such deeds, yet he did them when he had the opportunity; and not one of us knows what we might have done if we had been placed in the positions that others have occupied, and had been exposed to the temptations that assailed them. If the grace of God has saved us, let us be the last people in the world to begin boasting; but, looking back on the crimes of which others have been guilty, let us contemplate what we might have done if we had not been divinely restrained, and so let us again look back to the rock from where we were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from where we were dug.

12. I must come even more closely home as I earnestly invite everyone here who loves the Lord to look back on what we were, and what we did, in our unregenerate condition. Some of us may well hide our faces, and hold our tongues as we think of what we did before we were converted, “of which we are now ashamed.” Some here can remember the time when “the seat of the scornful” was loved by them, and they had not learned to love the place they now occupy in God’s house and among his people. Lips that are now consecrated to the praise of God were then defiled with oaths and blasphemies. Blessed be God for saving the gross open offenders, “and such were some of you: but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” As you look back to that horrible pit, bless the name of the Lord that he brought you up out of it.

13. Others of us, who were graciously restrained by God from falling into the grosser vices, can never look back without tears to our unregenerate days. We did evil as far as we ever could; and if we did not go further into it, it was because there were blessed checks that held us in, and we hated even those bonds and restraints, and would have broken them had we dared to do so. How grieved we are now that we should ever have resisted as we did the appeals of divine mercy, the strivings of the Spirit, the admonitions of our godly parents, and the warnings of Christian friends! However painful the process may be, I ask every brother and sister here to look back to the rock from where they were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from where they were dug. It is very easy for you to get conceited and proud, but it would help to preserve you from such folly and sin if you would only remember what you used to be before the grace of God made such a change in you. You would not want then to sing to your own praise and glory, but you would walk humbly before the Lord, and give all the honour to him for what grace has accomplished in you. This will make it a most profitable exercise for us to look back to see what we were before our conversion.

14. There is only one more look that I ask you to give, and that is the saddest and most terrible of all,—look as far as you can at the state of the lost. There is a land of darkness and of the shadow of death, where the very light is as darkness, and where despair reigns supreme. There are no sights to be seen in that land but such as cause the eyes to weep, and no sounds to be heard but such as grate on the ear, for he who knows all about it has told us that there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in that dread world of the lost. Stand at a distance from that place where the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever, and if you can bear it, try to think what must be the condition of spirits that are at this moment, while you are sitting here, banished from the presence of God, and condemned to reap the results of the deeds done in the body. Think also that, except for divine grace, we should have been there too. There are some here who, except for a special intervention of providence might have been there now. Had that accident on the railway ended differently, you would have been there, my dear hearer. Had that fever proved fatal, you would have been there, my friend. Had that vessel veered just a little from her course in that dense fog, you, being unregenerate, would have been there to weep and wail for ever. There is one who, before his conversation, was at death’s door, and at hell’s gate, scores of times. I want you, my brother, to think of that, and then you will say, “Had it not been for divine grace, tonight I should have been among those lost spirits instead of being here among my brothers and sisters in Christ, rejoicing in what the Lord has done for me, and praising and magnifying his holy name.” Great as is the distance between the heights of heaven and the depths of hell, so great has the Lord’s mercy towards you whom he has redeemed. So, looking away even to the abode of the lost, and trying to realize from how terrible a doom the Lord has delivered you, remember the rock from where you have been hewn, and the hole of the pit from where you have been dug.

15. II. Now, in the second place, LET US LEARN THE LESSONS WHICH THIS LOOK IS INTENDED TO TEACH US.

16. I have already hinted at one result of looking back in the way I have described, but may I again remind you that it ought to humble us. How apt we all are to be proud! If there is one man here who says, “I am not proud, I am very humble,” I say to him, “My dear brother, you must excuse me, but I should not be surprised if you are the proudest man here, for he who imagines he is humble proves by that very fact how very proud he is.” We are all proud. Pride can hide under a beggar’s rags as well as under an alderman’s robes. Pride is a weed that will grow on a dunghill as well as in a palace garden, but it ought never to be allowed to grow in the heart of a Christian. Yet I think—yes, I know that I have seen it in some who profess to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some professors are proud because they have prospered in the world, and have raked together a big heap of money; but, of all kinds of pride, that is one of the most contemptible, for a man is no more of a man because there is more gold and silver in his house than in other people’s. The man must be judged apart from his money. There is many a millionaire who is miserably poor, and many a truly rich man who scarcely ever has a shilling to spare. It is paltry pride that is proud of pelf; {money} and, on the other hand, I have known others who had no money to make them proud, who, were not a bit more humble than the purse-proud people, for pride can come in at the backdoor as easily as at the front.

17. It is a sad thing when a Christian gets proud of his graces, and says, “I am a very different man from what I used to be, and very different also from most other Christians. I live nearer to God. I pray more, I think I walk more circumspectly than others do.” Perhaps he adds, “I glorify God for this.” Take care that you do, my dear brother, for it is very easy to descend from glorifying God to glorifying yourself. You may even be bowing down before the detestable idol of self-righteousness at the very time that you imagine you are glorifying God. The great cure for this evil is to pray to God to keep you humble, and it will tend toward that end if you often look to the rock from where you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from where you were dug. I have often told you what an old ploughman said to me long ago, “Depend on it, sir, if you and I get an inch above the ground, we get just that inch too high,” and I am persuaded that he was right. Lying in the dust before God is the safest and best posture for us. If we think we have anything of which we have reason to be proud, we are only deceiving ourselves. Yet there are professing Christians who seem to have quite forgotten what they used to be,—forgotten that they were purged from their old sins by a miracle of mercy, and that they were made Christians by the almighty grace of God. If they remembered these things, they would walk humbly before the Lord, as they used to do. When they first joined the church, they loved all their fellow members, and thought that each one of them was better than themselves; but, now, they are constantly picking holes in this or that brother’s character, and finding fault with one sister or another. When they first made a profession of religion, they were half afraid to unite with God’s people, lest they should be an injury to the church, and weaken it through their shortcomings; but, now, they look down with contempt on those who are far better than they are ever likely to be. Such high looks and such proud spirits will have to be brought down if they are really the children of God; and though the process may be a very painful one, the result of it will be highly beneficial to them. They think themselves wonderfully fine fellows, but they forget that they would have been in hell if it had not been for the infinite mercy and lovingkindness of the Lord. It is a good thing when these who have been so proudly crowing over others get their combs cut by being made to feel that, after all, they are sinners just as others are, and that, if they are saved sinners, their salvation is not to be ascribed to themselves, but to the grace of God through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ their Lord and Saviour.

18. This backward look to what we used to be will not only help to humble us, it will also tend to encourage us. “To encourage us?” someone asks. Yes; for if, when we were dead in trespasses and sins, the Lord quickened us by his Spirit, how is it possible for him to cast us away, now that we are adopted into his family? If he has reclaimed us from the dominion of sin and Satan, will he not do for us what is, after all, a less work by keeping us from going back to the old state of bondage? Would he have saved us if he had intended us to be lost at the last? Oh, no! he who has brought us up out of the horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and has set our feet on a rock, and put a new song in our mouth, even praise to our God, will never let us go back to that state from which he delivered us. If we wander from him, as we are so prone to do, he will heal our backslidings, and cause us again to rejoice in the God of our salvation.

19. Then, dear friends, this backward look tends to make us tender towards others, and to encourage us to hope for their salvation. A true Christian should never feel, “I am too good to associate with such sinful people as I see all around me.” If he would look back to the rock from where he was hewn, and to the hole of the pit from where he was dug, he would never allow such a thought as that to linger in his mind for even a minute. I hear now and then of a minister who is said to have “a very select congregation.” It seems to be the rule, whenever there is a very small number of people attending a place of worship, to say that the preacher is of such a high intellectual order that his ministry is not attractive to the masses, but that the few who go to hear him make up in quality what they lack in quantity. Well, I have occasionally had the opportunity of testing that statement, and I have come to the conclusion that such congregations are neither intellectually nor spiritually better than others, nor half so good as some with which I am acquainted.

20. If I were to feel that I was too good to mix with the worst of men in the hope of being of use to them, or that I was too pure to have anything to do with my fellow sinners, I should be imitating the Pharisee who says, “Stand back, for I am holier than you,” and I should have forgotten the rock from where I was hewn, and the hole of the pit from where I was dug. Oh beloved, if you recall your own condition as sinners, you will love those who are still “in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity,” and your great desire will be to bring them to Jesus even as you yourself were brought to him. Sometimes, when I have been preaching, I have had this thought in my mind, “I will not tell my hearers that God can save the greatest sinners because he saved John Bunyan and John Newton, but I will tell them that he can save all other sinners because he saved me.” When I have had that thought uppermost in my mind, I have found that I could preach with great tenderness to those who were out of the way. It was this feeling that led Charles Wesley to write,—

   He breaks the power of cancell’d sin,

      He set the prisoners free:

   His blood can make the foulest clean,

      His blood avail’d for me.

This ought also to be the thought and feeling of every Christian, “What he has done for me, he can do for others. There is no one living who is too far gone for his sovereign mercy. Since he was able to save me, I will go to others with the hope and belief that he is able to save them, and try to encourage them to see whether there is not salvation for them,—even for them.”

21. Now, lastly, I think that backward look will tend to make us faithful to the Saviour, and fill us with a burning zeal for his glory. I do not know anything better that I could suggest to you as the subject of your meditations, when you are at home alone and quiet for a little while, than to look back to the days of your impenitency and unbelief. I know that you will not ascribe your salvation to your own merits or your own good works, but that you will ascribe it to the grace of God from first to last; and then the natural instinct of your renewed nature will make you fall down on your knees, and adore the infinite mercy of God in saving you. He might have left you to perish as he has left so many others; but, in his sovereignty, he looked with pity and love at you, and saved you. What did you do to help the Lord to save you? Help him to save you? Why, you did all you could to hinder him until, at last, his omnipotent love overcame the natural unwillingness of your heart, and made you willing in the day of his power. Oh, you ought to praise God! Gratitude and adoration should constantly rise from your heart to him who has done such great things for you.

22. I close by reminding every sinner here that God is able to save him, into whatever depths he may have fallen, for God has saved other sinners who were just like him. If you, my hearer, have been guilty of every crime in the book, you may still be cleansed by the precious blood of Jesus, which cleanses from all sin. There is power in his blood to blot out the blackest sin, and that power shall be experienced by you if you give heed to this message, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” To believe is to trust, to rely on, to depend on; and if you do rely on Jesus, all your iniquities shall not be accounted to you, but they shall be accounted among those that were put away by him when he bore our sins in his own body on the tree. Then all his merits shall be accredited to you; there shall be a clear exchange made, Christ taking your sin, and you taking his righteousness. Oh, that you would believe in him this very moment! May God give you grace to do so! Then you shall be able, with us who also have believed in Jesus, to look back to the rock from where you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from where you were dug, and to adore and magnify the name of the Lord for ever and ever. Amen.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ga 3}

1. Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you,—

Paul writes as if they had come under some kind of witchcraft, and been deluded by it. This seemed to astonish the apostle, so he cries out to them, “Who hath bewitched you,”—

1. That you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

They had heard the plainest possible preaching from Paul and his companions. Jesus Christ had been so clearly presented before them that they might as it were, see him as he hung on the cross of Calvary. Yet, under some unhallowed spell, they turned aside from the faith of Christ.

2. I only want to learn this from you: “Did you received the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1705, “The Hearing of Faith” 1706}

“You profess to have received the Spirit; did the Spirit come to you by the works of the law, or through hearing and believing the gospel?”

3. Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you not made perfect by the flesh?

“Did you begin right, and are you going to finish in some other way? Is the foundation laid in truth, and will you build falsehood on it? Is the foundation Jesus Christ, the chief corner-stone, and is the superstructure to be wood, hay, and stubble?”

4. Have you suffered so many things in vain? if it is yet in vain.

“Have you been made to suffer through conviction of sin? Have you even been persecuted for the truth’s sake? And are you going to give it up after all that?”

5. He therefore 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?

“Have those miracles been performed in your midst by the power of faith or by the works of the law?”

6. Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

That is the scriptural doctrine, faith is accounted or imputed for righteousness.

7. Know therefore that those who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.

Those who are justified by faith in Jesus, those whose faith is accounted for righteousness, they are the children of believing Abraham,—not those who are under the law of Moses.

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

Just as Abraham was blessed, so are the nations to be blessed, that is, by faith. By faith, they become his spiritual seed; by faith, they enter into his covenant; by faith, they receive the blessings of grace.

9. So then those who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

Just as the believing Abraham was accounted righteous, so believing men, who are the spiritual seed of Abraham, are also accounted righteous.

10. 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.”

Can any man perfectly keep the whole law of God? Has any man ever continued in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them? No; and, therefore, all that the law does is to bring the curse on those who are under its dominion, and none of them can obtain salvation by the works of the law.

11. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, the just shall live by faith. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 814, “Life by Faith” 805} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2809, “Faith: Life” 2810}

This passage is again and again repeated in the Scriptures: “The just shall live by faith.” There are no other just men living, there cannot be any other just men living, except those who live by faith.

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

The law demands doing, the gospel enjoins believing. The believing man comes in as an heir of the blessing, but, the man who trusts in his own doing is an heir of the curse.

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}

What a wonderful doctrine this is! We should have hesitated to use such language as this had not the Holy Spirit himself moved Paul to write that Christ was “made a curse for us.” He who is most blessed for ever, he who is the fountain of blessing and the channel of blessing to all who ever are blessed, was “made a curse for us: for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’”:—

14. That the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Dear friends, are you living by faith on the Son of God? Are you trusting in God? Are you believing his promises? Some think that this is a very little thing, but God does not think so. Faith is a better index of character than anything else. The man who trusts his God, and believes his promises, is honouring God far more than is the man who supposes that by any of his own doings he can merit divine approval and favour.

15. Brethren, I speak after the matter of men; though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no man annuls, or adds to it.

If a covenant is once made, signed, sealed, and ratified, no honourable man would think of not honouring it. Whatever happens afterwards, the covenant having been once made is regarded as an established fact, and it must remain.

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, that it should make the promise of no effect.

This is sound reasoning. God made a covenant with Abraham, and said that in him and in his seed all nations should be blessed. All believers are in Christ, who is here called Abraham’s seed, and therefore they must be blessed. Whatever the law may say or may not say, it was not given until a hundred and thirty years after the covenant was made with Abraham, and therefore cannot affect it in any way.

18. For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no more by promise:

God gave it to Abraham by promise. It was a free gift; he did not bestow it on the condition of merit on Abraham’s part. Isaac was born, not according to the power of the flesh, but according to promise, and the whole covenant is according to free grace and divine promise.

18, 19. But God gave it to Abraham by promise. What purpose then does the law serve? {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 128, “The Uses of the Law” 123}

What was the use of that?

19. It was added because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made;

The law makes us know what transgression is; it reveals its true nature. Under the hand of the Holy Spirit, it makes us see the evil of sin. We might not have perceived sin to be sin if it had not been for the command of God not to commit it; but when the commandment comes, then we recognise sin and its evil.

19-21. 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 had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness should have been by the law.

There could not have been a better law. Some talk about the law of God being too severe, too strict, too stringent, but it is not. If the intention had been that men should live by the law, there could not have been a better law for that purpose; and hence it is proved that, by the principle of law, no one ever can be justified; because, even with the best of laws, all men are sinful, and so need that justification which comes only by grace through faith.

22. But the Scripture has concluded all under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1145, “The Great Jail, and How to Get Out of It” 1136}

All of us, by nature, are locked up like criminals in a prison that is so securely bolted and barred that there is no hope for escape for any who are imprisoned in it. But why are all the doors locked and fastened? Why in order that Christ may come and open the one only effective door of salvation: “that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”

23. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, kept for the faith which should afterwards be revealed. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2402, “Under Arrest” 2403}

Well do I remember when I was “shut up” in this way. I struggled and strove with might and main to get out, but I found no way of escape. I was “shut up” until faith came, and opened the door and brought me out into “the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

24. Therefore the law was our school teacher to bring us to Christ, so that we might be justified by faith. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1196, “The Stern Pedagogue” 1187}

The pedagogue was a slave who led the children to school, and sometimes whipped them to school. That is what the law did with us; it took us under its management, and whipped us, and drove us to Christ.

25. But after faith is come, we are no longer under a school teacher.

Now we go to Christ willingly, cheerfully, joyfully, trusting in him with all our hearts. The pedagogue’s work is done as far as we are concerned.

26. For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

We hear a great deal about the universal fatherhood of God, but it is all nonsense. There is no Scriptural basis for it whatever. Only those are the children of God who are “the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

27. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

“He is everything to you. He covers you, he surrounds you. You do not stand before God in your own filthy rags, but you have put on Christ.”

28. 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.

What a mercy it is to be in Christ, so that you yourself are not seen any more, but only Christ, and you accepted in him!

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

“According to the promise,”—not according to your works, or your deservings, but “heirs according to the promise.”