Character of Jesus

We Are Complete in Him

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him…And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. – Matthew 17:3,8

It is a vastly better thing to see “Jesus only,” as a matter of perpetuity, than to see Moses and Elias with Jesus. It is night, I know it, for I see the moon and stars. The morning cometh, I know it cometh, for I see no longer many stars, only one remains, and that the morning star. But the full day has arrived, I know it has, for I cannot even see the morning star; all those guardians and comforters of the night have disappeared; I see the sun only. Now, inasmuch as every man prefers the moon to midnight and to the twilight of dawn, the disappearance of Moses and Elias, indicating the full noontide of light, was the best thing that could happen. Why should we wish to see Moses? The ceremonials are all fulfilled in Jesus; the law is honored and fulfilled in Him. Let Moses go, his light is already in “Jesus only.” And why should I wish to retain Elias? The prophecies are all fulfilled in Jesus, and the preparation of which Elias preached Jesus brings with Himself. Let, then, Elias go, his light also is in “Jesus only.” It is better to see Moses and Elias in Christ, than to see Moses and Elias with Christ. The absence of some things betokens a higher state of things than their presence…So the Christian wants not the symbols of Moses, or the preparations of Elias, for Christ is all, and we are complete in Him. He who is conversant with the higher walks of sacred literature and reads in the golden book of Christ’s heart, may safely lay the legal school-book by. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0924.cfm

To See “Jesus Only”

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation Leave a comment

And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him…And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. – Matthew 17:3,8

I fear there are many who see Elias only. Prophecies of future woe fascinate them rather than thoughts of present salvation. Elias may be taken representatively as the preparer of Christ, for our Lord interpreted the prophecy of the coming of Elias as referring to John the Baptist. There are not a few who abide in the seeking, repenting, and preparing state, and come not to “Jesus only.” I am not myself fond of even using the term “preparing for Christ,” for it seems to me that those are best prepared for Christ who most feel themselves unprepared; but there is no doubt a state of heart which prepares for faith-a sense of need, a consciousness of sin, a hatred of sin, all these are preparations for actual peace and comfort in Christ Jesus, and oh! How many there are who continue year after year merely in that preliminary condition, choosing the candle and refusing the sun. They do not become believers, but are always complaining that they do not feel as yet fit to come to Christ… Unhappy men and women, so near the kingdom, and yet out of it; so near the feast, and yet perishing for want of the living bread. The word is near you (ah, how near!), and yet you receive it not. Remember, I pray you, that merely to prepare for a Saviour is not to be saved; that to have a sense of sin is not the same thing as being pardoned. Your repentance, unless you also believe in Jesus, is a repentance that needs to be repented of… “Jesus only” is the way, the truth, and the life. “Jesus only” is the sinner’s Saviour. O that your eyes may be opened, not to see Elias, not to see Moses, but to see “Jesus only.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0924.cfm

A Clearer Light

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him…And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. – Matthew 17:3,8

As I read my Bible I see there that the age of the symbolical, the typical, the pictorial, has passed away. I am glad of the symbols, and types, and pictures, for they remain instructive to me; but the age in which they were in the foreground has given way to a clearer light, and they are gone forever. There are, however, certain persons who profess to read the Bible and to see very differently, and they set up a new system of types and shadows-a system, let me say, ridiculous to men of sense, and obnoxious to men of spiritual taste. There are some who delight in outward ordinances; they must have rubric and ritual, vestments and ceremonial, and this superabundantly, morning, noon and night. They regard days, and seasons, and forms of words and postures. They consider one place holy above another. They regard a certain caste of men as being priestly above other believers, and their love of symbols is seen in season and out of season. One would think, from their teachings, that the one thing needful was not “Jesus only,” but custom, antiquity, outward performance, and correct observance! Alas! for those who talk of Jesus, but virtually see Moses, and Moses only. Ah! unhappy change for the heart if it could exchange spiritual fellowship with Jesus for outward acts and symbolical representations. It would be an unhappy thing for the Christian church if she could ever be duped out of the priceless boons which faith wins from her living Lord in His fullness of grace and truth, to return to the beggarly elements of carnal ordinances. Unhappy day, indeed, if Popish counterfeits of legal shadows should supplant gospel fact and substance. Blessed be God, we have not so learned Christ. We see something better than Moses only.

Oh how blessed is it to escape from the voice of command and threatening and come to the blood of sprinkling, where “Jesus only” speaketh better things! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0924.cfm

We Have Jesus

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. – Matthew 17:8

We say, blessing the name of the Lord that we can say it, that there abides with us our Lord Jesus. At this day He is with us and will be with us even to the end of the world. Christ’s existence is not a fact confined to antiquity or to remote distance. By His Spirit He is actually in His church; we have seen Him, though not with eyes; we have heard Him, though not with ears; we have grasped Him, though not with hands; and we feed upon His flesh, which is meat indeed, and His blood, which is drink indeed. We have with us at this very day Jesus our friend, to whom we make known our secrets, and who beareth all our sorrows. We have Jesus our interpreting instructor, who still reveals His secrets to us, and leads us into the mind and name of God. We have Jesus still with us to supply us with strength, and in His power we still are mighty. We confess His reigning sovereignty in the church, and we receive His all-sufficient succors. The church is not decapitated, her Head abides in vital union with her; Jesus is no myth to us, whatever He may be to others; He is no departed shade, He is no heroic personification: in very deed there is a Christ, and though others see Him not, and even we with these eyes see Him not, yet in Him believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Oh, I trust it will never be so with us, that as we go about our life’s work, our religion shall melt into fiction and become nothing but mere sentiment, nothing but thought, and dream, and vision; but may our religion be a matter of fact, a walking with the living and abiding Saviour. Though Moses may be gone, and Elias may be gone, yet Jesus Christ abideth with us and in us, and we in Him, and so shall it be evermore. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0924.cfm

Jesus Only

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

“And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.”- Matthew 17:8

“Jesus only.” When Peter saw our Lord with Moses and Elias, he exclaimed, “Master, it is good to be here,” as if he implied that it was better to be with Jesus, and Moses, and Elias, than to be with Jesus only. Now it was certainly good that for once in his life he should see Christ transfigured with the representatives of the law and the prophets; it might be for that particular occasion the best sight that he could see, but as an ordinary thing an ecstasy so sublime would not have been good for the disciples; and Peter himself very soon found this out, for when the luminous cloud overshadowed him, and the voice was heard out of heaven, we find that he with the rest became sore afraid. The best thing after all for Peter, was not the excessive strain of the transfiguration, nor the delectable company of the two great spirits who appeared with Jesus, but the equally glorious, but less exciting society of “Jesus only.” Depend on it, brethren, that ravishing and exciting experiences and transporting enjoyments, though they may be useful as occasional refreshments, would not be so good for every day as that quiet but delightful ordinary fellowship with “Jesus only,” which ought to be the distinguishing mark of all Christian life…. “Jesus only” is, after all, upon the whole a better thing than Jesus, Moses, and Elias. “Jesus only,” as the common Jesus, the Christ of every day, the man walking among men, communing in secret with His disciples, is a better thing for a continuance while we are in this body, than the sight even of Jesus Himself in the excellence of His majesty. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0924.cfm

If We Do Not See to This Matter…

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 1 Comment

And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. – 1 Johm 5:19

How shall I urge you to give more earnest heed to this holy separation? Let me add the voice of warning to that of entreaty. If we do not see to this matter, we shall bring sorrow on our own souls; we shall lose all hope of honoring Christ, and we shall sooner or later bring a great disaster on the world. You know the world is always trying to nationalize the Church. What a mercy it is that there are some who will not have it! If you could once make the Church and the nation one, what would follow? It must be destroyed; it must fall. It was when the church and the world became one in Noah’s day that the Lord sent the flood to destroy all people. No, the proper position of a Christian is not with the world, even in its best state and its most exalted condition. We are to be separated from this present evil world according to the will of God. Our position to-day is as much as in Christ’s day, outside the camp, not in it; we are still to be protesters, still to be testifiers against the world. “Ye are of God, little children, and the whole world lieth in the wicked one.” Scripture never supposes that the world will get better till the coming of Christ. It does not propose to lift the world up and marry it with the Church. It always supposes the Church to be as an alien and a stranger here until Christ, her husband shall come. On which side will you rank? Truce there cannot be, links between the two there must not be. God and mammon cannot go together. For which will you be-for God-for truth-for right? Or for Satan-for the wrong? Which shall it be? May the Spirit of God whisper in your heart and say, “Believe thou in Christ Jesus; take up thy cross and follow Him, and be enlisted on His side henceforth and forever.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon, sermon, The Clean and the Unclean

All Nations Blessed and a Blessing

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

And blessed be His glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with His glory; Amen, and Amen. – Psalm 72:19

Men shall be blessed in Christ, because where He comes oppression cannot live. You may tell me that the governor of such an empire is a despot. Oh, yes; but despots cannot long flourish where there is an open Bible. Tyrannies may last a generation or two, but all the world knows that their time is short. They will go down: they must go down where Christ is lifted up. That inspired Book is a testimony for human liberty, louder than all others. It is a declaration of the rights of men under King Jesus: despotism must fall before it sooner or later. We, in this country, owe our liberties, beyond everything, to the Christianity which is the outflow of a present Christ among us. Slavery? What a plague-spot it was upon the fair hand of our sister nation across the Atlantic! The spot is washed away; and it was true religion which forced the washing. There would have been no freeing of the slave from fetters if it had not been for the Christianity which, after long silence, at last spoke out, and when it spake, it was as when a lion roareth…Leave our politicians alone, and we shall soon have all the infamies alive again. Slavery would be tolerated, if not encouraged, if there were not Christian souls upon the watch. What saves us from war at this moment? What influence is it that is always contrary to war, and always cries for peace? Why, it is the Christian element among us which counts anything better than bloodshed! Let the Christian element spread, and it will be a power to bless mankind. It shall, in proportion as it spreads, put down evil, and foster good. Already, many a monopoly has been ended, and many a liberty has been gained. Much religious intolerance has been subdued by the power of Jesus Christ over His people; and I do pray, dear friends, that we may live to see all nations more manifestly affected by the gospel of Jesus Christ. May every nation be ruled by just and righteous laws! May every nation be willing to submit exterior disputes to the arbitration of justice! It will be so one day. The nations shall be friends, and all men shall feel that they are members of one great family…From every corner of the whole earth, the song shall go up, “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever!” Amen. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2187.cfm