The Generous Love of the Aggrieved

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the LORD…And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces. And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun… And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed. – Numbers 16:41,44-46,48

Aaron must have felt grief when he saw Korah there and the two hundred and fifty men, all of them with their censers, that the plot was against him, that they wished to strip from him his mitre, to take from him his embroidered vest, and the glittering stones that shone upon his breast, that they wished to reduce him to the position of a common Levite, and take to themselves his office and his dignity. Yet, forgetting himself, he does not say, “Let them die, I will wait awhile till they have been sufficiently smitten.” But the old man with generous love hastened into the midst of the people, though he was himself the aggrieved person.

Is not this the very picture of our sweet Lord Jesus? Had not sin dishonored Him? Was He not the Eternal God, and did not sin therefore conspire against Him as well as against the Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit? Was He not, I say, the one against whom the nations of the earth stood up and said, “Let us break His bands asunder, and cast His cords from us.” Yet He, our Jesus, laying aside all thought of avenging Himself, becomes the Savior of His people.

Oh! generous Christ, forgetting the offenses which we have committed against You, and making atonement by Your own blood for sins which were perpetrated against Your own glory! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The High Priest Standing Between the Dead and the Living

The Offended Ones Are the Saving Ones

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And Aaron took as Moses commanded and ran into the midst of the congregation; and behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense and made an atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed. – Numbers 16:47-48

The authority of Moses and Aaron had been disputed by an ambitious man belonging to an elder branch of the family of Levi, who had craftily joined with himself certain factious spirits of the tribe of Reuben, who themselves also sought to attain to power by their supposed rights through Reuben the first born. By a singular judgment from heaven, God had proved that rebellion against Moses was a mortal sin. He had bidden the earth open its mouth and swallow up all the traitors, and both Levites and Reubenites had disappeared, covered in a living grave. One would have imagined that from this time the murmurings of the children of Israel would have ceased…Yet…(on) the very morrow after that solemn transaction, the whole of the people of Israel gathered themselves together, and with unholy clamors surrounded Moses and Aaron, charging them with having put to death the people of the Lord.

Aaron deserves to be very highly praised for his patriotic affection for a people who were the most rebellious and stiff-necked that ever grieved the heart of a good man. You must remember that in this case he was the aggrieved party. The clamor was made against Moses and against Aaron, yet it was Moses and Aaron who interceded and saved the people. They were the offended ones yet were they the saving ones. You know who it is to whom we give that name of “Lover of my soul.” You will be able to see in Aaron the lover of Israel, in Jesus the lover of His people. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The High Priest Standing Between the Dead and the Living

In Him, Like Him

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You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

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Come to the Gate of Life

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

…we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. – 2 Corinthians 5:20

“We pray you in Christ’s stead.” Since Jesus died in our stead we, His redeemed ones, are to pray others in His stead; and as He poured out His heart for sinners in their stead, we must in another way pour out our hearts for sinners in His stead. “We pray you in Christ’s stead.” Now if my Lord were here how would He pray you to come to Him? I wish, my Master, I were more fit to stand in Your place at this time. Forgive me that I am so incapable. Help me to break my heart, to think that it does not break as it ought to do, for these men and women who are determined to destroy themselves, and, therefore, pass You by, my Lord, as though You were but a common felon, hanging on a gibbet! O men, how can you think so little of the death of the Son of God? It is the wonder of time, the admiration of eternity. O souls, why will you refuse eternal life? Why will ye die? Why will ye despise Him by whom alone you can live? There is one gate of life, that gate is the open side of Christ; why will you not enter, and live? “Come unto Me,” says He; “Come unto Me.” I think I hear Him say it: “Come unto Me all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” I think I see Him on that last day, the great day of the feast, standing and crying, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.” I hear Him sweetly declare, “Him that cometh to Me I will no wise cast out.” I am not fit to pray you in Christ’s stead, but I do pray you with all my heart. Do come and accept the great sacrifice and be reconciled to God. You that hear me but this once, I would like you to go away with this ringing in your ears, “Be ye reconciled to God.” I have nothing pretty to say to you; I have only to declare that God has prepared a propitiation, and that now He entreats sinners to come to Jesus, that through Him they may be reconciled to God. Father, draw them! Father, draw them! Eternal Spirit, draw them, for Jesus Christ Your Son’s sake! Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The Heart of the Gospel

Sinner, You Can Become His Friend

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. – 2 Corinthians 5:21,20

Oh, that these lips had language, or that this heart could speak without them! Then would I plead with every unconverted, unbelieving soul and plead as for my life. Friend, you are at enmity with God, and God is angry with you; but on His part there is every readiness for reconciliation. He has made a way by which you can become His friend—a very costly way to Himself, but free to you. He could not give up His justice and so destroy the honour of His own character; but He did give up His Son, His Only Begotten, and His Well-Beloved; and that Son of His had been made sin for us, though He knew no sin. See how God meets you! See how willing, how anxious He is that there should be reconciliation between you and God today. It is not from lack of kindness on His part; it is from lack of willingness on yours. The burden of your ruin must lie at your own door: your blood must be on your own skirts.

Now observe what we have to say to you today is this: we are anxious that you should be at peace with God, and therefore we act as ambassadors for Christ…I once knew Him not, neither did I care for Him. I lived well enough without Him, and sported with trifles of a day, so as to forget Him. He brought me to seek His face, and seeking His face I found Him. He has blotted out my sins and removed my enmity. I know that I am His servant, and that He is my friend, my Father, my All. And now I cannot help trying in my poor way to be an ambassador for Him with you. I do not like that any of you should live at enmity with my Father who made you; and that you should be wantonly provoking Him by preferring evil to good. Why should you not be at peace with the One who so much wants to be at peace with you? Why should you not love the God of love, and delight in Him who is so kind to you? What He has done for me He is quite willing to do for you: He is a God ready to pardon. I never knew a single case of a man who trusted Jesus, and asked to be forgiven, confessing his sin and forsaking it, who was cast out. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The Heart of the Gospel

Made Righteousness Before God

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…that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

“That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Oh, this weighty text! No man living can exhaust it. No theologian lived, even in the palmiest day of theology, who could ever get to the bottom of this statement.

Every man that believes in Jesus is, through Christ having taken his sin, made to be righteousness before God. We are righteous through faith in Christ Jesus, “justified by faith.” More than this, we are made not only to have the character of “righteous,” but to become the substance called “righteousness.” I cannot explain this, but it is no small matter. It means no inconsiderable thing when we are said to be “made righteousness.” What is more, we are not only made righteousness, but we are made “the righteousness of God. “Herein is a great mystery. The righteousness which Adam had in the garden was perfect, but it was the righteousness of man: ours is the righteousness of God. Human righteousness failed; but the believer has a divine righteousness which can never fail. He not only has it, but he is it: he is “made the righteousness of God in Christ.” We can now sing,

“With my Saviour’s vesture on,
Holy as the Holy One.”

How acceptable with God must those be who are made by God Himself to be “the righteousness of God in Him”! I cannot conceive of anything more complete. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The Heart of the Gospel

Herein is Infinite Love!

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For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin… – 2 Corinthians 5:21

Admire in the substitutionary sacrifice the great grace of God. Never forget that He whom God made to be sin for us was His Own Son; yes, I go further, it was in some sense His Own Self; for the Son is one with the Father. You may not confound the persons, but you cannot divide the Son of God from the Father as to forget that God was in Him reconciling the world unto Himself. It is the Father’s other Self who on the cross in human form does bleed and die. “Light of light, very God of very God”: it is this Light that was eclipsed, that Godhead which purchased the Church with His own blood. Herein is infinite love! You tell me that God might have pardoned without atonement. I answer, that finite and fallible love might have done so, and thus have wounded itself by killing justice; but the love which both required and provided the atonement is indeed infinite. God Himself provided the atonement by freely and fully giving up Himself in the person of His Son to suffer in consequence of human sin.

What I want you to notice here is this; if ever your mind should be troubled about the propriety or rightness of a substitutionary sacrifice, you may at once settle the matter by remembering that God Himself “hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin.” If God did it, it is well done. I am not careful to defend an act of God: let the man who dares accuse His Maker think what he is at. If God Himself provided the sacrifice, be sure that He has accepted it. There can be no question ever raised about it, since JEHOVAH made to meet on Him our iniquities. He that made Christ to be sin for us, knew what He did, and it is not for us to begin to say, “Is this right, or is this not right?” The thrice holy God hath done this, and it must be right. That which satisfies God may well satisfy us. If God is pleased with the sacrifice of Christ, shall not we be much more pleased? Shall we not be delighted, entranced, emparadised, to be saved by such a sacrifice as God Himself appoints, provides, and accepts? “He hath made Him to be sin for us.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

The Heart of the Gospel