Apr 21
18
SONS OF GOD
from Spurgeon’s sermon, SONS OF GOD
If we are born into God’s family, it is a miracle of mercy!
It is one of the ever-blessed exhibitions of the infinite love
of God which without any cause in us, has set itself upon us.
If you are this day an heir of heaven, remember you were
once the slave of hell. Once you wallowed in the mire.
If you should adopt a swine to be your child,
you could not then have performed an act of
greater compassion than when God adopted you!
And if an angel could exalt a gnat to equal dignity
with himself, yet the gain would not be such a one
as that which God has conferred on you.
He has taken you from the dunghill,
and he has set you among princes!
Light and Dark in Spiritual Experience
A child of God is like a person in a beautiful palace; if there is light in it, he sees the splendid objects around him, and enjoys them; but if the light is removed, he is nevertheless in the palace still, and surrounded with the same splendid objects as before, though he cannot see them. So, though the believer’s frames and sensible comforts may have their ebbs and flows, his state, Godward, is invariably the same.
~Augustus Toplady
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe on his name.” John 1:12
J.C.Philpot
Wherever faith is given to the soul to “receive” Christ, there will be mingled with this faith, and blessedly accompanying it, love to the Lord of life and glory; and sometimes we may know the existence of faith when we cannot see it, by discerning the secret workings and actings of love towards that Savior, in whom God has enabled us to believe. There will be, from time to time, in living souls a flowing forth of affection towards Jesus. From time to time, he gives the soul a glimpse of his Person; he shows himself, as the Scripture speaks, “through the lattice;” passing perhaps hastily by, but giving such a transient glimpse of the beauty of his Person, the excellency of his finished work, dying love, and atoning blood as ravishes the heart, and secretly draws forth every affection of the soul, so that there is a following hard after him, and a going out of the desires of the soul towards him. Thus, sometimes as we lie upon our bed, as we are engaged in our business, as we are occupied in our several pursuits of life; or at other times under the word, or reading the Scripture, the Lord is pleased secretly to work in the heart, and there is a melting down at the feet of Jesus, or a secret, soft, gentle going forth of love and affection towards him, whereby the soul prefers him before thousands of gold and silver, and desires nothing so much as the inward manifestations of his love, grace, and blood.
And thus a living soul “receives” Christ; not merely as driven by necessity, but as also drawn by affection. He does not receive Christ, merely as a way of escape from “the wrath to come,” merely as a something to save the soul from “the worm that dies not, and the fire that is not quenched;” but mingled with necessity, sweetly and powerfully combined with it, and intimately and intricately working with it, there is the flowing forth of genuine affection and sincere love, that goes out to him as the only object worthy our heart’s affection, our spirit’s worship, and our soul’s desire. And we cannot say that less than this comes up to the meaning of the Scripture expression–“to receive Christ.”
“The only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14
C.H.Spurgeon
Believer, you can bear your testimony that Christ is the only begotten of the Father, as well as the first begotten from the dead. You can say, “He is divine to me, if He is only human to all the world beside. He has done that for me—which none but a God could do! He has subdued my stubborn will, melted a heart of adamant, opened gates of brass, and snapped bars of iron! He has turned my mourning into laughter, and my desolation into joy; He has led my captivity captive, and made my heart rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Let others think as they will of Him—to me He must be the only begotten of the Father—blessed be His name.
And He is full of grace. Ah! had He not been—I would never have been saved. He drew me when I struggled to escape from His grace; and when at last I came all trembling like a condemned culprit to His mercy-seat He said, ‘Your sins which are many—are all forgiven you—be of good cheer.’
And He is full of truth. True have His promises been, not one has failed. I bear witness that never any servant had such a master as I have; never any brother had such a kinsman as He has been to me; never any spouse had such a husband as Christ has been to my soul; never any sinner had a better Savior; never any mourner had a better comforter than Christ has been to my heart. I desire none beside Him. In life—He is my life; and in death—He shall be the death of death. In poverty—Christ is my riches. In sickness—He makes my bed. In darkness—He is my star. In brightness—He is my sun. He is my manna in this wilderness. He shall be heavenly manna when I come to the heavenly Canaan. Jesus is to me—all grace and no wrath, all truth and no falsehood. And of truth and grace He is full, infinitely full. My soul, this night, bless with all your might ‘the only Begotten.’
Christ must be all!
(Octavius Winslow, “Morning Thoughts”)
We cannot keep our eye too exclusively
or too intently fixed on Jesus.
All salvation is in Him.
All salvation proceeds from Him.
All salvation leads to Him.
And for the assurance and comfort of our salvation
we are to repose believingly and entirely on Him.
Christ must be all!
Christ the beginning;
Christ the centre; and
Christ the end.
Oh sweet truth to you who are sensible of
your poverty, vileness, and insufficiency,
and of the ten thousand flaws and failures
of which, perhaps, no one is cognisant but
God and your own soul!
Oh, to turn and rest in Christ;
a full Christ;
a loving Christ;
a tender Christ,
whose heart’s love never chills,
from whose eye darts no reproof,
from whose lips breathes no sentence of condemnation!
Christ must be all!
“Christ, who is our life.” Coloss. 3:4
Octavius Winslow
THE renewed man is a living soul, in consequence of his union with the life of Christ. We too little trace the life which is in us to the life which is in Jesus. The Spirit Himself could not be our life apart from our union to Christ. It is not so much the work of the Spirit to give us life, as to quicken in us the life of Christ. The apostle thus briefly but emphatically states it—”Christ, who is our life.” Hence we see the relation and the fitness of the second Adam to the Church of God. In consequence of our federal union to the first Adam, we became the subjects of death—he being emphatically our death. And in consequence of our covenant union to the second Adam, we become the subjects of life—He being emphatically “our life.” Hence it is said, “The second Adam is a quickening spirit.”
The headship of Christ, in reference to the life of His people, is written as with the point of a diamond in the following passages:—”In Him was life;” “The Son quickens whom He will:” “The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall lave;” “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;” “He that eats me, even he shall live by me.” Now this life that is in Christ becomes the life of the believer in consequence of his union with Christ. “You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God;” “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” And what is the crowning act of Christ as the life of His people? What but His resurrection from the dead? “We are risen with Christ;” “You are also risen with Him;” “That I may know the power of His resurrection.” This doctrine of the Lord’s resurrection is the pivot upon which the whole system of Christianity hinges. He is risen, and in virtue of this, His people are partakers of a resurrection-life to eternal glory. It is utterly impossible that they can perish, for they have already the resurrection-life in their souls. Their own resurrection to everlasting life is pledged, secured, antedated, in consequence of the risen Christ being in them the hope of glory. Thus is Christ the life of His people. He is the life of their pardon—all their iniquities are put away by His blood. He is the life of their Justification—His righteousness gives them acceptance with God. He is the life of their sanctification—His grace subdues the power of the sins, the guilt of which His blood removes. He is the life of their joys, of their hopes, of their ordinances; the life of everything that makes this life sweet, and the life to come glorious.
A rebellious, filthy, frightful, ugly child!
From Spurgeon’s sermon, “ADOPTION”
ADOPTION is that act of God, whereby men who were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others, and were of the lost
and ruined family of Adam, are from no reason in themselves,
but entirely of the pure grace of God, translated out of the evil
and black family of Satan, and brought actually and virtually
into the family of God; so that they take his name, share the
privileges, and they are to all intents and purposes the
actual offspring and children of God.
This is an act of pure grace. No man can ever have a
right in himself to become adopted into God’s family.
Adoption is the pure gratuitous effect of divine grace,
and of that alone.
Let us give all thanks to the free grace which overlooked
the hole of the pit from which we were digged, and which
passed over the quarry whence we were hewn, and put
us among the chosen people of the living God.
If a king should adopt any into his family, it would likely
be the son of one of his lords– at any rate, some child of
respectable parentage. He would never take the son of some
common felon, or some gypsy child, to adopt him into his family.
But God has taken the very worst to be his children.
The sons of God all confess that they are the last persons
they should ever have dreamed he would have chosen.
Beloved, when God passed by the field in which we were lying,
he saw no tears of penitence in our eyes till he put them there
himself; he saw no contrition in us until he had given us
repentance; and there was no beauty in us that could
induce him to adopt us.
On the contrary, we were everything that was repulsive.
And if he had said, when he passed by, “You are cursed,
be lost for ever!” it would have been nothing but what
we might have expected from a God who had been so long
provoked, and whose majesty had been so terribly insulted.
But no! He found a rebellious child, a filthy, frightful, ugly child!
He took it to his bosom, and said, “Black though you are, you
are lovely in my eyes through my son Jesus; unworthy though
you are, yet I cover you with his robe, and in your brother’s
garments I accept you.”
And taking us, all unholy and unclean, just as we were,
he took us to be his– his children, his forever!
It was then, an act of simple, pure, gratuitous grace,
and of nothing else, because he will have mercy on
whom he will have mercy, and because he delights to
show the marvellous character of his condescension.
The fact is, we are by nature utterly lost and ruined, and there
is not a saint in heaven that would not have been damned, and
that did not deserve to be damned in the common doom of sinners.
The reason why God has made a distinction is a secret to
himself; he had a right to make that distinction if he pleased,
and he has done it. He has chosen some unto eternal life, to the
praise of his glorious grace. He has let others alone to be
punished for their sins, to the praise of his glorious justice.
And in one as in the other, he has acted quite rightly, for he has
a right to do as he wills with his own creatures. Seeing they all
deserved to be punished, he has a right to punish them all. So too,
as he has reconciled justice with mercy or mated it with judgment.
He has a right to forgive and pardon some, and to leave the others
to be unwashed, unforgiven, and unsaved– willfully to follow the
error of their ways, to reject Christ, despise his gospel, and
ruin their own souls.