Character of Jesus

Sanctified in Christ Jesus

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

But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us righteousness, and sanctification… – 1 Corinthians 1:30

Our sanctification is all in Christ; that is to say, it is because we are in Christ that we have the basis of sanctification, which consists in being set apart. A thing was sanctified of old, under the law, when it was set apart for God’s service. We were sanctified in Christ Jesus when we were set apart by the divine Spirit to be the Lord’s own peculiar people for ever. Election is the basis of sanctification. Moreover, the power by which we are sanctified comes to us entirely by virtue of our union with Christ. The Holy Spirit who sanctifies us through the truth, works in us by virtue of our union with Jesus. That which becomes holy in us is the new life. The old nature never changes into a holy thing; the carnal mind is not reconciled to God, neither, indeed, can be. The old man is not sent to the hospital to be healed, but to the cross to be crucified. It is not transformed and improved but doomed to die and to be buried. The ordinance of baptism…is meant to show, by our immersion in the liquid tomb, that it is by death and burial that we pass into life by the power of resurrection. If any man be in Christ, he is not an old creature mended up: he is a new creature. “Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.” Now, it is because this new life is the great, the true matter of sanctification, and because it comes to us by virtue of our oneness with Christ, that Jesus Christ is made to us the power and the life by which we are sanctified. 

“Thou art God’s child: walk worthy of Him who is thy Father.” His love to thee will never cease. He cannot cast thee away: He is faithful and never changes, therefore love Him in return. This is a motive fit for the child of the free woman, and it moves His heart. The child of the bond woman is driven by the whip, but the child of the free woman is drawn by cords of love. “The love of Christ constraineth us;” not fear of hell but love of Christ; not fear that God will cast us away, for that He cannot do, but the joy that we are saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation constrains us to cling to Him with all our heart and soul, for ever and ever. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0991.cfm

Imputed Righteousness

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

But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us…righteousness… – 1 Corinthians 1:30

He is made of God unto us righteousness. This was a great want of ours, for naturally we were unrighteous, and to this hour in ourselves we are the same. Righteous we must be to be acceptable with God, but righteous we certainly are not personally, and by merit. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we are unable to stand before the great King; but there is One who says: “Take away his filthy garments from him,” and that same Deliverer, even the Lord Jesus Christ, is made of God unto us righteousness. You know how we usually speak of this as a double work. His blood cleanseth us from all guilt; by it pardon is bestowed upon the believer. He that looks to Christ is absolved from all sin completely so. Then, in addition to that cleansing, which we call pardon, there is the clothing, the arraying in the righteousness of Christ-in a word, there is justification by faith. The doctrine of imputed righteousness seems to me to be firmly established in the Word of God…Not only is Christ’s righteousness imputed to me, but it is mine actually, for Christ is mine. He who believes in Jesus, has Jesus Christ to be his own Christ, and the righteousness of Christ belongs to that believer, and is his. We are not merely imputably righteous, but the righteousness of our substitute is legally, actually, truly our righteousness. I am not now speaking of nature-that would have to do with sanctification-but I am speaking of repute before God. He reckons us to be righteous in Christ, and He does not reckon wrongly; the imputation is not a legal fiction or a charitable error. We are righteous. Depend upon it, God’s imputation is not like human imputation, which makes a thing to be what it is not: we are in Christ made actually righteous, because we are one with Him…As He is, so are we also in this respect. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0991.cfm 

Be of Holy Courage

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

But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom… – 1 Corinthians 1:30

Let none of us ever be so foolish as to suppose that when we have received Jesus and His gospel, we have occasion to blush when we are in the company of the very wisest of the present day. Carry a bold face when you confront the brazen faced philosophy which insults your Lord. The man who does not believe the Bible does not know so much as thou dost. Blush not, though with mimic wisdom the unbeliever tries to laugh or argue thee down. He who knows not Christ, though he propounds wonderful theories as to the creation of mankind and the formation of the world, and though he has a glib tongue, is only an educated fool, a learned idiot, who thinks his own rushlight brighter than God’s own sun. “Ah! but he has been to college, and he has a degree, and he is esteemed by men; for he has written books that nobody can comprehend.” “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God;” and I do not care even if he be a Solon, if he has said that there is no God, he is a fool. Do not blush, then, if you find yourself in his company, do not make yourself the blushing one because the fool is there. Self-conceit were to be avoided and loathed; but this is not self-conceit, but a holy courage in a case which demands of you to be courageous. To know Christ is the best of all philosophy, the highest of all sciences. Angels desire to look into this; but I do not know that they care a fig for half the sciences so valued among men. If you know Christ you never need be afraid of being ashamed and confounded whatever company you may be in. If you stood in a senate of emperors, or amidst a parliament of philosophers, and only told them of the God that came in human flesh, and loved, and lived, and died to redeem mankind, you would have told them a greater mystery and a profounder secret than reason could discover. Be not ashamed, then, amid the intellectual pride of this boastful age. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0991.cfm

Scholars at the Cross-foot Let Us Always Be

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 2 Comments

But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom… – 1 Corinthians 1:30

Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom... we do not expect wisdom to come to us through the culture that is of man, but we expect to be made wise through sitting at our Master’s feet and accepting Him as wisdom from God Himself… “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” It seemeth to me to be greater wisdom to believe what Christ hath said than to believe what my deepest thoughts have discovered; and though I have thought long upon a subject, and turned it over and over, and think I know more of it than another man, yet, in one simple word of Christ there is more wisdom than in all my thoughts and ruminatings. I am never to look to myself for wisdom, and to fancy that I am the creator of truth or the revealer of it; but ever to go to Him, my Lord, my Teacher, my All, and to believe that the highest culture, the best results of the highest education are to be found by sitting at His feet, and the best results of the deepest meditation, too, are to be gained in lying down in the green pastures, beside the still waters, where He, as the good Shepherd, leads me.

To know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. Now, that man is wise in three respects who has Christ for his wisdom. Christ’s teaching will make him wise of thought, and wise of heart. All you want to know of God, of sin, of life, of death, of eternity, of predestination, of man’s responsibility, Christ has either personally, or by His Spirit in the word of God, taught you. Anything that you find out for yourself, anything over and above revelation, is folly, but whatever He has taught is wisdom; and He has so taught it that if you learn it in the spirit in which He would have you learn it, it will not be dry, dead doctrine to you, but spirit and life; and His teaching will endow you with wisdom as well as knowledge. Scholars at the cross-foot let us always be. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0991.cfm

God’s Beloved Ones

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But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus… – 1 Corinthians 1:30

Being in Christ you are of God. Not of the earth, not of Satan, not of the bondage of the law, not of the powers of evil, but of God are you; God’s husbandry, God’s people, God’s children, God’s beloved ones. “Ye are of God,” little children, “and the whole world lieth in wickedness.” On you hath God’s light shone, to you hath God’s life come, in you God’s love is made manifest, and in you shall God’s glory be fully revealed. What a dignity is this to be “of God!” Some have thought it a great thing to have it said, “These are they which are of the prince’s household,” and others have been yet more boastful when they have been pointed at as parts of an imperial court; but you are of the divine family, descended from Him who only hath immortality. “they shall be Mine, saith the Lord, in the day when I make up My jewels.” “For the Lord’s portion is His people, Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.” Of God, are you, every one of you who are in Christ Jesus: ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. The Creator, the Upholder, the Sublime, the Invisible, the Infinite, the Eternal claims you. You have a part and lot with Him, and you are herein uplifted to the highest degree of exaltation because you are in Christ. Here, then, you have the dignity of the Christ life-it is of God, as its source is through God. Our life hinges upon union to our Lord. “Because I live, ye shall live also.” Out of Christ we abide in death, but in Christ we live, and we are of God. Our spiritual being, and the fact that our spiritual being is an exalted one, both hang upon this-that we are in Christ. Beloved hearer, there is no joy in this world like union with Christ. The more we can feel it, the happier we are, whatever our circumstances may be. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0991.cfm

Our Spiritual Existence

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

But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus… – 1 Corinthians 1:30

Are you this day united to Christ-a stone in that building, of which He is both foundation and topstone-a limb of that mystical body, of which He is the head? Then you did not get there of yourself. No stone in that wall leaped into its place; no member of that body was its own creator. You come to be in union with Christ through God the Father. You were ordained unto this grace by His own purpose, the purpose of the Infinite Jehovah, who chose you, or ever the earth was. “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.” The first cause of your union with Christ lies in the purpose of God who gave you grace in Christ Jesus from before the foundation of the world. And as to the purpose, so to the power of God is your union with Christ to be attributed. He brought you into Christ; you were a stranger, He brought you near; you were an enemy, He reconciled you. You had never come to Christ to seek for mercy if first of all the Spirit of God had not appeared to you to show you your need, and to lead you to cry for the mercy that you needed. Through God’s operation as well as through God’s decree you are this day in Christ Jesus. It will do your souls good, my brethren, to think of this very common-place truth. Many days have passed since your conversion, it may be, but do not forget what a high day the day of your new birth was; and do not cease to give glory to that mighty power which brought you out of darkness into marvellous light. You did not convert yourself; if you did, you still have need to be converted again. Your regeneration was not of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of birth; if it were so, let me tell you the sooner you are rid of it the better. The only true regeneration is of the will of God and by the operation of the Holy Ghost. “By the grace of God, I am what I am.” He “has begotten us again unto a lively hope.” “He that hath wrought us to the selfsame thing is God.” “Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus.” Through the operation and will and purpose of God are you this day a member of Christ’s body and one with Jesus. Give all the glory, then, to the Lord alone. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0991.cfm

Make Him Known

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

But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. – 1 Corinthians 1:30, 31

Beyond all question the name, person, and work of Jesus are the salt and savor of every true gospel ministry, and we cannot have too much of them. Alas! that in so many ministries there is such a lack of this first dainty of the feast, this essence of all soul-satisfying doctrine. We may preach Christ without prescribing how much, only the more we extol Him the better. It would be impossible to sin by excess in preaching Christ crucified. It was an ancient precept, “With all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt;” let it stand as an ordinance of the sanctuary now: “With all thy sermonisings and discoursings thou shalt ever mingle the name of Jesus Christ; thou shalt ever seek to magnify the alpha and omega of the plan of redemption.” The apostle in the first chapter of this epistle was anxious to speak to the Corinthians about their divisions and other serious faults, but he could not confine himself to that unpleasant theme; as naturally as possible his heart bounded over the mountains of division to his Lord and Master. Divisions did but remind him of the great uniting One who has made all His people one, and human follies did but drive him nearer to the infallible Christ who is the wisdom of God. Though Paul had to write many sharp things to those ancient Plymouth Brethren at Corinth, yet how sweetly did he prevent all bitterness by dipping his pen in the honeyed ink of love to the Lord Jesus, and admiration of His person and work! Let us, dear friends, if we have to preach, preach Christ crucified; and if we are private persons, let us in our household life, and in all our conversation, make His name to be as ointment poured forth. Let your life be Christ living in you. May you be like Asher, of whom it is said, he dipped his foot in oil may you be so anointed with the Spirit of your Lord that wherever you put down your foot, you may leave an impression of grace. The balmy south wind bears token of having passed over sunny lands; may the ordinary bent and current of your life bear evidence in it that you have communed with Jesus. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0991.cfm