3488. Justification, Propitiation, Declaration

A Sermon Published On Thursday, December 2, 1915.

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has presented to be a propitiation through faith in his blood; to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: so that he might be just, and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus. {Ro 3:24-26}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 126. Justification by Grace, “Justification by Grace” 121}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 373, “Christ Set Forth as a Propitiation” 363}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3038, “Justice Vindicated, and Righteousness Exemplified” 3039}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3488, “Justification, Propitiation, Declaration” 3490}

   Exposition on Ps 110; Ro 2:25-3:31 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3475, “Soul’s Great Crisis, The” 3477 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ro 3:19-4:21 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3038, “Justice Vindicated, and Righteousness Exemplified” 3039 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ro 3:9-27 5:6-11 8:1-32 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2974, “Wafer of Honey, A” 2975 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ro 3:9-31 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3356, “David’s Sublime Consolation” 3358 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ro 3; 4:16-25 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2357, “Two Pillars of Salvation, The” 2358 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ro 3 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2255, “God Justified, Though Man Does Not Believe” 2256 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ro 3 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2608, “There Is No Difference” 2609 @@ "Exposition"}

   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "Ro 3:25"}

   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "Ro 3:26"}

1. I think, dear friends, some of you will be saying, “There is that same old doctrine again that we are so continually hearing,” and I am sure if you do say so I shall not be surprised. Nor, on the other hand, shall I make any kind of excuse. The doctrine of justification by faith through the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ is very much to my ministry what bread and salt are to the table. As often as the table is ever set, there are those necessary things. I regard that doctrine as being one that is to be preached continually, to be mixed in with all our discoursings, even as, under the law, it was said, “With all your offerings you shall offer salt.” This is the very salt of the gospel; indeed, it is impossible to bring it forward too often. It is the soul-saving doctrine; it is the foundational doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It explains how God is pleased to bring many into reconciliation with him. Just as the school teacher takes care to ground his scholars well in the grammar, that they may get hold of the very roots of the language, so must we be rooted and grounded in this fundamental and cardinal truth of justification through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Martin Luther, who used to preach this doctrine very vehemently and forcibly, yet declared that he felt as if he could bang the Bible on the people’s heads if he could by any means get this doctrine into them; for as soon as they had learned it they forgot it. Over and over, and over again must the Christian minister continue to insist on this truth, that God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. And for ever and ever, as long as the world stands, he must continue to repeat the truth, that we are justified through the righteousness of our Redeemer, and not by any righteousness of our own.

2. I do not intend at this time to try and preach a sermon, but rather give an “outline exposition” again of this doctrine. And if you turn to the text, I think we can very well divide it, and very properly too, into three parts, and entitle it with three words of, justification, propitiation, declaration. Justification: “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Propitiation: “Whom God has presented to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins.” And then we come to the third; the Declaration: to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God: to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, so that he might be just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus.

3. I. First, then, here is something about: — JUSTIFICATION.

4. The sense of this term is, in this place, and in most others, to declare a person to be just. A person is put on trial, he is brought before the judge. One of two things will happen; he will either be acquitted or justified, or else he will be condemned. You and I are all virtually before the judge, and we are at this moment either acquitted or condemned, either justified or under condemnation. It is not possible that any one of us should be acquitted on the basis of our not being guilty, for we must all confess that we have broken the law of God ten thousand times. It is not possible for any of us to be declared just on the basis of our own personal obedience to the law, for to be just through our own obedience we must have been perfect; but we have not been perfect. We have broken the law, we still continue to break it, and, by the works of the law, it is clear we cannot be just, cannot be justified. The Lord, even the God of heaven and earth, has planned and promulgated a way by which he can be just, and yet can declare the guilty to be just: a way by which, to use the words of our text he can be just and yet the justifier of him who believes.

5. That way is simply this, a way of substitution and imputation. Our sins are taken off of us, and laid on Christ Jesus, the innocent Substitute: “For he has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin.” Then, when this is accomplished, the righteousness which was worked out by Jesus Christ is taken from him and imputed, attributed to us; so that the rest of the text comes true, “That we may be made the righteousness of God in him.” We are found in him not having our own righteousness which is from the law, but the righteousness which is from God by faith. You see, we did not keep the law, but broke it. We were, therefore, condemned. Jesus came and stood in our place, headed up the whole race that he had chosen, became their representative, kept for them completely all the law, suffered also the punishment due for all their breaches of the law, becoming a substitute actively and passively obeying the law, and suffering its penalty too. And now what he did is imputed to us, while what we did by way of sin was of old imputed to him, and he was made a curse for us: as it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” If you ask me how this can be a just thing to do, I reply, God has determined it, and it is not possible that he should have determined anything that was not just.

6. But, moreover, there was an original reason for it, for our first ruin happened to us through our first parent, Adam. Our first fall was not our doing, but the doing of the man who stood as our representative. Perhaps had each one of us at the first separately and distinctly sinned, without any connection with him, redemption might have been as impossible for us as we have reason to believe it is for fallen angels; but inasmuch as the first sin was in connection with the federal headship of the first Adam, it became possible and right that there should be a salvation through a second federal headship, even Jesus Christ, the second Adam. “Just as by man came death, so by man also comes the resurrection from the dead.” Just as by man sin came into the world, and the race perished, so by the second glorious man, Christ Jesus, grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life. But you need not question the justice of the plan. The Sovereign against whom you have offended condescends to accept it, and what God accepts we need not hesitate to rely on. If the offended One is satisfied to proclaim us just, we may be perfectly satisfied with what he shall do towards us: for if he justifies, who can condemn? If he acquits, who dares to accuse? We may boldly say, if once we are acquitted, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?”

7. Now notice what the text says about this plan of justification. It tells us that, as far as we are concerned, it is given to us freely. Being justified freely, God forgives the sinner’s sins gratis, freely; not on account of any repentance of his meritoriously considered — not on the basis of any resolutions of his which might bribe the Eternal mind — not on account of penance, or suffering endured or to be endured; but he puts sins away freely because he chooses to do it — for nothing; without money, without merit, without anything that could move him but his own grand nature, for he delights in mercy — “Being justified freely.”

8. And then to make it even clearer, it is added by his grace, which is not a tautology, though it is a repetition. We are justified, not by any debt due to us, not because God was bound to justify, but because out of his own abundant love and rich compassion he freely makes the guilty to be pardoned, and the unrighteous to be justified by the righteousness of Christ. I know it has been said by some that we preach that there is no such thing as free pardon and free justification, because we state that the righteousness of Christ is the procuring cause of both. I grant you we do, but we equally strenuously hold the pardon to be free, and the justification to be free, though it is through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus — free to us, free so far as the heart and mercy of God is concerned, and only through redemption, because God must be just, he must be righteous, he cannot separate sin from the penalty. He is a Sovereign, but he never, in his sovereignty, violates righteousness; and it would be a sovereign act of unrighteousness if he passed by sin without awarding to it the punishment which he threatened should follow it: an act which it is not possible for God to do; for he must be just, and he has himself declared he will by no means clear the guilty. Still, the justification is free to you, free to every soul that will have it, free to every man who believes in Jesus.

9. Now note this justification is put before you as being through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus. There is a price paid, it is through the redemption. There is an intervening suffering, and an intervening obedience. We are not justified freely without redemption, nor justified by his grace without the intervention of the atoning sacrifice. Oh! how men laboured to get rid of this. There are certain people who think themselves philosophical, who will do all they can to throw dirt into the face of this doctrine of substitution, but it is the very soul, head, foundation, corner, and keystone of the entire gospel; and if it is left out, I do not hesitate to say that the gospel preached is another gospel, which is not another, but there are some who trouble you.

   In vain the guilty conscience seeks

      Some solid ground to rest upon;

   With vain desire the spirit breaks,

      Till we apply to Christ alone.

   Till God in human flesh I see,

      My thoughts no comfort find;

   The holy, just, and sacred Three

      Are terrors to my mind.

   But if Emmanuel’s face appear,

      My hope, my joy, begins;

   His grace forbids my slavish fear,

      His love removes my sins.

10. We cannot give up the doctrine of redemption, the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. This is it, soul: listen to it — you are justified freely, but it cost the Saviour dearly; it cost him a life of obedience; it cost him a death of shame, of agony, of suffering, all immeasurable. There was your cup of wrath which you must drink for ever, and which you could never drain to the bottom. It must be drunk by someone. Jesus drinks it, sets the cup to his lips, and the very first drop of it makes him sweat great drops of blood falling to the ground; but he drinks right on, though head, and hands, and feet are all suffering: drinks right on, though he cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Drinks right on, I say, until not one black drop or dreg could be found within that cup, and, turning it upside down, he cries, “It is finished. It is finished,” as he gives up the ghost. With one tremendous draught of love, the Lord has drunk condemnation dry for every one of his people for whom he shed his blood. “Justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” There was a redemption by substitutionary suffering, a redemption by vicarious obedience, a redemption by intervention of Christ on our behalf: — 

   To bear, that we might never bear

   His Father’s righteous ire.

11. Do you understand this, sinner? Do you understand this? If you do not, then may God help you to grasp it now, for it is a thing of the present — is it not here a present participle? — being justified freely, that is, now, now justified. Oh sinner, you are now condemned, but if you now will look to Jesus standing as the victim in your place, if you will now trust in Jesus dying in your place, you shall be now just, your sins shall be now forgiven; the righteousness shall be yours now, and you shall know the meaning of that text, “There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” See then what justification means? Oh! may you enjoy it; it will make you leap for joy if you do.

12. II. And now the second word is: — PROPITIATION — a reference here to the mercy seat, the covering in; in our own word it is a reconciliation, something by which God is propitiated; an at-one-meant by which God and man are made one, a propitiation; something which vindicates the injured honour of God, which comes in to make amends to the divine law for human offences.

13. Now concerning this propitiation let us speak, and may the Holy Spirit give us utterance. You say, oh sinner, “How shall I come before God? How shall I draw near to the Most High God?” What would you give to be saved? All that you have, you would freely present; if you had young bulls and sheep on a thousand hills, and their blood could cleanse you, you would pour it out in rivers. You ask again, “What is the propitiation I can bring?” God tells you. Here he tells you that he has provided a propitiation in the person of his dear Son.

14. And I would have you notice first of all who it was who provided it — whom God had presented. Admire the love of this — that the God who was angered is the God who finds the propitiation. Against God the sin was levelled; God himself finds the way of being gracious towards sinners. How safe it must be to accept a propitiation which God, the offended one, himself proposes.

15. Notice next that it is said that God has presented this. The margin has it, “Has foreordained it.” The atonement of Christ is not a new idea; it is an old determination of the Most High, and it is no close secret. God has proclaimed it — presented it. By his prophets in his Word — by his preachers in all your streets, God has presented Christ to be the propitiation for human sin. It is his own arranging, his own, and the proclamation to you tonight is by his own authority. Oh! regard this, and you who seek his mercy leap to think that it comes to you certified in such a way.

16. But then notice that the main point in this propitiation is the blood. “Christ Jesus, whom God has presented to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” Some cannot bear to hear about the blood of Jesus, and yet, under the old law, it was written, “It is the blood which shall make atonement for sin.” And again, “Without shedding of blood there is no remission,” and again, “The blood is its life,” and again, “When I see the blood I will pass over you,” that is to say, what makes atonement for human sin is not the life of Christ as an example — nor the actions of Christ as a vindication of righteousness — but the suffering of Christ — the death of Christ. Everyone knows that this is what is meant by the blood. In the bloodshedding, Jesus suffered — his body suffered — inwardly his soul bled, his spirit suffered — his soul-sufferings were the soul of his sufferings. Then came death. Death was the penalty of sin. Jesus died, literally died; and the heart’s blood came out, mixed with water, from his pierced side. God is pleased to pardon us because Jesus suffered, and the main point of comfort is the cross — the cross of the crucified, the dying Saviour. Do not let your minds wander away from this, you who are seeking peace with God. Your hope is not so much at Bethlehem as at Calvary. Your consolation is not to be found in the Second Advent but in the First Advent, and the death that concluded it. You are not to look to Christ in his glory for your comfort, but to Christ in his humiliation. Christ in his expiatory sufferings as your only hope. The blood, the blood, the blood, it is there the propitiation lies; and to that our faith must turn our eye. It is so. Yes, it is so.

   My sins deserve thy wrath, my God;

   Thy wrath has fallen on thy Son.

17. My sins turned away your face: you have turned away your face from him. My sins deserved death: he has died. My sins deserved to be spit on — to be mocked — to be cast out as felons. All this he has endured as if he were my sin, and is it not so? “He has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Brethren, I affirm that my conscience never knew any peace until I understood this truth, and ever since then I have no rock I build on but this. Christ in my place, and I in Christ’s place, safe in him, and he chastened, bruised, wounded, slain, instead of me. It is he. Propitiation through the blood. But the text says, “Through faith in his blood.” So, then, this shows you that no propitiation has had any effect with regard to us actually until we have faith in the blood. I can never know that God has blotted out my sin until I have faith. And what is faith but trust? And then, when I trust the blood of Jesus, my sin is all forgiven me in one moment. When I humbly rely on my Saviour’s finished work, “Though my sins were as scarlet, they become as wool; though they were red like crimson, they are whiter than snow.”

18. Do you know — I hardly know how to talk about this propitiation truth. It makes my heart so leap for joy that I cannot find words to tell you. I do know that I, and that you, and that every believer under heaven, is as clear before God of every sin as if he never had sinned, and is before God as accepted as if his whole life had been perfect obedience; and all because that propitiation blood and the dear merits of our once crucified, but now glorified Redeemer stands in our place. If I might have a perfect righteousness of my own, I would not; I would sooner have my Lord’s, for my righteousness, were it perfect, would only be the righteousness of a man; but his is the righteousness of God and man, God-man. Oh! it is not merely immaculate and complete; it overflows with merit. Truly I say again, could we have a righteousness of our own, it would be wise to abandon it, and to have the righteousness of Jesus Christ wrapped around us by an act of faith, so that we might for ever stand accepted, but “accepted in the Beloved.” Why, it is the very glory of the acceptance that the acceptance comes to us in Christ.

19. So I have dwelt as well as our short time allows on the propitiation.

20. III. And now a word about: — THE DECLARATION.

21. The great object, it appears, of the redemption, and of the gospel, is to show how God is just, and yet the justifier of such as believe; and Paul very properly divides the effect of Christ’s death into two parts. First, he says that that death declared God’s righteousness concerning the sins that were past, through the forbearance of God.

22. Before our Saviour came into the world there had passed over the world thousands of years. Our chronology talks about four thousand years. I do not know that. I never did believe in the chronology which is appended by human judgment to our Bibles. It may be, or it may not be correct; however, it may be four thousand years. During that time a very large number of sinners lived, and a large number of sinners were saved. The transgressions of the Patriarchs, the transgressions of Israel under the law, were remitted; and these people were justified by faith, and accepted — but how? There had been no offering of blood. True, the young bulls and the lambs were offered, but these could never put away sin. These were brought often, as if to show that the work was not done. The text tells us that this was through the forbearance of God. In the anticipation of the atonement to be offered, God remitted — passed over, as the word is — the sins of those of his children who lived before Christ was sent — before the penalty was endured by the Substitute. It is a glorious thought, this atonement of Christ acting forward, before it was finished, before it was presented, and multitudes entering heaven and enjoying felicity as Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the saints did, when as yet not a drop of that blood which saved them had been shed, not a pang of the agony which made up the atonement had yet been endured. Now had God passed over all this sin, and no atonement been after all presented, his justice would not have been declared, but our Saviour ultimately coming and suffering for it all, was a declaration of the righteousness of God concerning the sins that were past. It was proven that he had in his mind’s eye this great sacrifice when he passed by sin — that he had not unjustly remitted it without demanding the penalty.

23. But then the apostle gives us the other half of the great result of Christ’s death: he says, “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness.” That is, today: while we read this passage. “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, that still as for us who live after the Passion, he might be just, and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus.” The atoning sacrifice of Christ looks forward, and will look all down the ages until he comes.

   His precious blood shall never lose its power

   Till all the ransomed Church of God

   Be saved, to sin no more.

24. All the sins of his people, both past and present and to come, were laid on Christ — the whole mighty mass of all the sin of all his people who have ever believed, or shall ever believe, on him — all were transferred to his head and laid on him, and he suffered for them all, and made an end of all their transgressions, and brought in everlasting righteousness for them all. Here is the grand truth, the grandest truth of inspiration.

25. Now I shall spend the last few minutes of our time in reminding you that I have not, beloved, been beating around the bush, nor preaching to you a doctrine that may or may not be true. I have not been holding up to you some angle of an eccentric creed. Behold before you what will be a savour of life to life, or of death to death. Not with words of man’s wisdom, but in simplicity I have tried to tell you God’s way of pardoning and justifying men. At your peril reject it. Since you shall answer for it before my Master’s judgment bar in that day when he shall summon you to give an account, oh! I beseech you by the living God to accept the propitiation which God presents. Here are no hard terms: here are no rigorous conditions. There stand the words, “Believe and live”; as it is written, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved: he who does not believe shall be damned.” I have told you what this believing is. It is a sincere act of reliance on the Incarnate God, suffering in your room, and place, and stead. If you believe in him, or trust him, that is the indisputable evidence that he was a substitute for you: that the load of your guilt is gone: that the stone that lay at the door is removed, and you are saved.

26. Please do not go around to seek another righteousness. All the righteousness you need Christ freely presents to you. Do not say that you are guilty: it is true you are, but this mode of salvation was meant for the guilty. Do not demur because you feel unfit. All the fitness that is needed is that you only confess you are unfit, and take freely what God presents to you. No sin of yours shall ruin you if you believe, but no righteousness of yours shall save you if you will not believe. This is God’s way to save men. Will you set up another? Will you dare play Antichrist with Christ? He has declared his righteousness in the substitution of the Saviour. Do you fail to see that righteousness, or seeing it, will you not admire it? Will you not accept the plan which reveals it? Accept it, sinner! It is all a brother’s heart and voice can say, accept it. Oh! if you know the joy it would bring you, you would accept it now. I bear my witness personally. Burdened with sin, lost utterly, as much as you, I heard this glad news; I heard the message which said, “Look to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth.” I did look: I was as unfit as you — as undeserving as you — but the moment my eye caught sight of the great Surety on the ground of Gethsemane, bleeding for me, and on the cross dying for me, I saw that if God had punished him for me, he could be just, and yet never punish me. Indeed, that if Christ was punished in my place, to punish me after Christ had died for me would be injustice altogether; and I hide myself tonight beneath the wings of Jesus, the great Surety, and my only shelter in the storm.

   Rock of Ages cleft for me,

   Let me hide myself in thee.

27. In his riven side my soul finds a shelter from the blast of divine wrath. It is peace now: it is joy now: it is salvation now with me. Why should it not be so with you? You did not come here to find him. No! but God brought you here to find you. Is it not written, “I will call them a people who were not a people, and her beloved who was not beloved.” “I am found,” he says, “by those who did not seek me.” Oh! may he be found by you tonight. You did not know the way to be saved: you do know it now. Do not add to your guilt by knowing what you do not practise, but now, now trust him. Oh! may the Holy Spirit work faith in you. “It is only a little faith,” one says. Little faith will save you, but Christ deserves great faith; Oh! he is a true Christ: he cannot lie. Oh! can you not lay hold of him? Do you see only the hem of his garment? Is it only a ravelled thread that hangs out? Touch it, touch it with your finger, and you shall be made whole. What if you cannot believe as you wish? Believe as you can. Say with him of old, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” Lift up the cry of the Publican, “God be merciful — be propitiated — towards me, a sinner. Jesus, I will have you: have me.” May the Lord grant it, and may many in this place be saved tonight, to the praise and the glory of his grace by which he has made us accepted in the Beloved. Amen and amen!

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Joh 15:1-17}

So the Lord Jesus speaks: — 

1. “I am the true vine,

Many questions have been raised about which is the true Church; the Saviour answers them, “I am the true vine.” All who are united, really united, to the ever-living Saviour are members of the true Church. Find them wherever you may, if they are one with Christ, they are his — they are parts of the divine vine; they are belonging to his Church.

1. And my Father is the vine-dresser.

It is the Father’s business, by the Holy Spirit and by the works of Providence, to see to the prosperity of the Church. “My Father is the vine-dresser.” All preachers, all teachers, are only, so to speak, the pruning tool in the hand of the great vine-dresser. “My Father is the vine-dresser.”

2. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he takes away:

It is a necessary part of vinedressing to remove the superfluous shoots. Too much wood-making, which does not lead to fruit-bearing, is only a waste of strength. And so in the Church there are those who produce no fruit, and for a while they appear to be fresh and green, and those who are the subordinate vine-dressers dare not take them away. But the Father does it — sometimes by removing them by death; at other times by permitting them openly to expose their own character, until they are then amenable to the discipline of the Church, and are removed.

2. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he takes away and every branch that produces fruit — 

What of that? “He purges it (prunes it) so that it may produce more fruit.”

“I cannot understand,” said one to me the other day, “why I am so very severely afflicted. I have been searching myself to discover what sin can have been the cause of it.” Now, beloved, if that is your question tonight, there may be a sin to be put away, and, if so, God forbid that I should prevent your searching; but remember, on the other hand, affliction is no evidence of sin, but often of the very contrary. It is the fruit-bearing branch that gets the pruning. You are so good a branch that God would gladly have you better. You have such capacities for producing fruit, that he wants to see those capacities developed. The lapidary does not emboss on the wheel the stone that is not precious, but what is, and so your affliction is no sign, therefore, of your lack of grace, but of your having it. “Every branch that produces fruit, he purges it, so that it may produce more fruit.”

3. Now you are pruned

For so it should be.

3. Through the word which I have spoken to you.

While Christ was with his disciples he kept his vine continually pruned by the word which he spoke. That word cut off the useless branches, for we read that after that saying there were some who went back, and walked no more with him, for they said, “This is a hard saying; who can bear it?” That was the word pruning off the useless branches. And there were others who were grieved by his Word. These were good people, and it did them good. It was a godly sorrow that led to producing fruit fit for repentance.

4. Remain in me and I in you.

There is the great canon of the Christian life. Hold firmly to Christ. Not only live with him, but live in him. “Remain in me.” And oh! let Jesus not be merely your companion now and then, on holy occasions, but let him remain in you; make your heart a temple; let him find his home of sweetest rest in you.

4. Just as the branch cannot produce fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine; no more can you, unless you remain in me.

It is remaining in Christ, then, that is the vital matter. There is the root of the whole business, to be still one with Jesus by vital union, deriving the sap of our life entirely from him.

5. I am the vine, you are the branches: he who remains in me, and I in him, the same produces much fruit:

This double abiding gives a double harvest. Christ in me, and I in Christ — I must be fruitful. Oh! beloved, look well to this. I am afraid we get at a distance from Christ. There is more danger of this in old professors than there is in young beginners. The young beginner is often warm of heart. The very novelty of the thing keeps him near his Master, but oh! take care of slackening; you who have been long pilgrims, take care of slackening. It is so easy to grow cold in this cold world, and it is so hard to maintain the holy spiritual fervour, without which there is no spiritual health.

5. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same produces much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.

Not “you will do less,” or “you will do least,” but you can do nothing — nothing good, nothing spiritual, nothing acceptable, if severed from Jesus.

6. If a man does not remain in me, he is cast out as a branch, and is withered: and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

And oh! how many come to this end! They did seem to be all that the fruit-bearing branches are, but they were never saved souls, for saved souls always produce fruits of righteousness. Their salvation is proved by their fruitfulness. But these appeared to be all that the others were, and after a while they were discovered, and cast into the fire and burned.

7. If you remain in me, and my words remain in you,

My very words. You must treasure up Christ’s teaching; you must obey his precepts. If you do this, “You shall ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.”

In this chapter we are taught once or twice that the power of prayer depends very much on the closeness of our communion with Christ, and the completeness of our obedience to him. We are saved by faith in the Redeemer, but the joy of salvation, the very dignity and glory of it, will only come to those men who jealously watch themselves, and zealously obey their Lord and Master.

8, 9. By this my Father is glorified, that you produce much fruit; so you shall be my disciples. Just as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you:

What a glorious word! I scarcely know a text more deep, more full than this. In the same way as God the Father loves the Son — in that same way the Son loves us. Hear the words again, “Just as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; continue in my love.” He confirms us in it, and tells us to live in the enjoyment of it.

10. If you keep my commandments, you shall remain in my love.

You shall know it; you shall live in it; it shall be the atmosphere you breathe.

10, 11. Even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and remain in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy might remain in you.

Christ would have his people happy; happy, however, with a holy joy, which is not, therefore, a dim and second-rate joy. It is the very joy of Christ, God’s people are to enjoy.

11-16. That my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that you love each other, as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you. From now on I do not call you servants; for the servant does not know what his lord does: but I have called you friends; for everything that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and produce fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatever you shall ask from the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

A second time he puts this remarkable prevalence of prayer side by side with walking in the Lord’s commandments. Oh! you who miss success in your life and work, may you not trace your failure to your forgetfulness of God. Shall God do your will, if you will not do his will? Shall he wait on you, if you will not wait on him? Will he not (must you not expect that he will) walk contrary to you if you walk contrary to him? May his Spirit make you pure in life, for then you shall be successful at the mercy seat!

17. These things I command you, that you love each other.”

Jesus! please send us this spirit of love.

John Ploughman’s Almanac

For 1916, with a Proverb or Quaint Sayings for every Day of the Year. Suitable for Cottage Homes, Workshops, Mission Halls, etc. originated by C. H. Spurgeon. One of the most popular Sheet Almanacs published. Price 1d.

Spurgeon’s Illustrated Almanac

For 1916, containing Daily Texts and Choice Quotations from the Writings of C. H. Spurgeon, with numerous illustrations. A useful little Almanac for every home. Sixtieth year of publication. Price 1d.

Marshal Brothers Ltd., 47 Paternoster Row, London, E. C.