Appetite Swallowing Up Itself

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. – Genesis 3:6

“I thirst.” – John 19:28

We know from experience that the present effect of sin in every man who indulges in it is thirst of soul. The mind of man is like the daughters of the horseleech, which cry for ever, “Give, give.” Metaphorically understood, thirst is dissatisfaction, the craving of the mind for something which it has not, but which it pines for. Our Lord says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink,” that thirst being the result of sin in every ungodly man at this moment. Now Christ standing in the stead of the ungodly suffers thirst as a type of His enduring the result of sin. The great Surety says, “I thirst,” because He is placed in the sinner’s stead, and He must therefore undergo the penalty of sin for the ungodly. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” points to the anguish of His soul; “I thirst” expresses in part the torture of His body; and they were both needful, because it is written of the God of justice that He is “able to destroy both soul and body in hell,” and the pangs that are due to law are of both kinds, touching both heart and flesh. See, brethren, where sin begins, and mark that there it ends. It began with the mouth of appetite, when it was sinfully gratified, and it ends when a kindred appetite is graciously denied. Our first parents plucked forbidden fruit, and by eating slew the race. Appetite was the door of sin, and therefore in that point our Lord was put to pain. With “I thirst” the evil is destroyed and receives its expiation. I saw the other day the emblem of a serpent with its tail in its mouth, and if I carry it a little beyond the artist’s intention the symbol may set forth appetite swallowing up itself. A carnal appetite of the body, the satisfaction of the desire for food, first brought us down under the first Adam, and now the pang of thirst, the denial of what the body craved for, restores us to our place. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1409.cfm

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