salvation

Our Eternal Union with Jesus

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 1 Comment

He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already... – John 3:18

And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. – Ephesians 2:1

Because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

The text secures that the death-penalty of the law shall never fall upon believers. The quickened man shall never fall back into the old death from which he has escaped; He shall not be numbered with the dead and condemned either in this life or the next. Never shall the spiritually living become dead again in sin. As Jesus being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him; even so sin shall not have dominion over us again. Once, through the offense of one, death reigned in us; but now having received abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, we shall reign in life by one, Christ Jesus. Rom 5:17 “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Rom 5:10

We are united to Christ this day by bands of spiritual life which neither things present nor things to come can separate. Our union to Jesus is eternal. It may be assailed; but it shall never be destroyed. The old body of this death may for a while prevail but it cannot die. Who shall condemn to death that which is not under the law? Who shall slay that which abides under the shadow of the Almighty? Even as sin reigned unto death, even so must grace reign unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

Safe and Secure

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

 Because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

“Ye shall live.” I think I see in that much more than lies upon the surface. Whatever is meant by living shall be ours. All the degree of life, which is secured in the covenant of grace, believers shall have. Moreover, all your new nature shall live, shall thoroughly live, shall eternally live. By this word it is secured that the eternal life implanted at regeneration shall never die out. As our Lord said so shall it be…”Ye shall live,” applies to all the parts of our new-born nature. If there be any believer here who has not lived to the full extent he might have done, let him lay hold upon this promise; and seeing that it secures the preservation of all his new nature, let him have courage to seek a higher degree of health. “I am come,” saith Christ, “that ye might have life, and have it more abundantly.” There is no reason, Christian, why your love to Jesus should not become flaming, ardent, conquering; for it lives, and ever must live…Here in your Lord’s promise the abiding nature of the vital faculties of your spirit is guaranteed. There is no stint in the fullness of Christian life. Beneath the skies I would labour to attain it, but herein is my joy, that it shall be most surely mine, for this word is faithful and true. As surely as I have this day eternal life by reason of faith in Christ Jesus, so surely shall I reach its fullness when Christ who is my life shall appear. Even here on earth I have the permit to seek for the fullest development of this life; nay I have a precept in this promise bidding me to seek after it. “Ye shall live,” means that the new life shall not be destroyed-no, not as to any of its essentials. All the members of the spiritual man shall be safe; we may say of it as of the Lord Himself, “Not a bone of Him shall be broken.” The shield of Christ’s own life covers all the faculties of our spiritual nature. We shall not enter into life halt or maimed; but He will present us faultless before the presence of His glory, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, much less any dead limbs or decayed faculties. It is a grand promise and covers the spiritual nature as with the wings of God. Psalm 91:4 ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

Have You This God-Given Life?

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

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. – John 3:36

Because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

Blessed is that man who hath everlasting life, who is made a partaker of the divine nature, who is born again from above, who is born of God by a seed which remaineth in him; for he is the man upon whom the second death hath no power, who shall enjoy life eternal when the wicked go away into everlasting punishment.

We have now to ask each of you whether you have received it. Have you been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God? Was there a time with you when you passed from death unto life, or are you abiding in death? Have you the witness in yourself that you have been operated upon by a divinely spiritual power? Is there something in you which was not once there, not a faculty developed by education, but a life implanted by God Himself? Do you feel an inward craving unknown to carnal minds, a longing desire which this world could neither excite nor gratify? Is there a strange sighing for a land as yet unseen, of which it is a native, and for which it yearns? Do you walk among the sons of men as a being of another race, not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world? Can you say, with the favoured apostle, “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” Oh! then, thank God for this, and thank God yet more that you have an infallible guarantee for this, and thank God yet more that you have an infallible guarantee that your life shall be continued and perfected, for so saith the text, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

The Soul’s Highest Life

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

For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. – Romans 8:6

Christ is our life, but He works in us through His Holy Spirit, who dwelleth in us evermore. We know that this life very much consists in union with God. “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither again can be. So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Death as to the body consists in the body being separated from the soul; the death of the soul lies mainly in the soul’s being separated from its God. For the soul to be in union with God is the soul’s highest life; in His presence it unfolds itself like an opening flower; away from Him it pines, and loses all its beauty and excellence, till it is as a thing destroyed. Let the soul obey God, let it be holy, pure, gracious, then is it happy and truly living; but a soul sundered from God is a soul blasted, killed, destroyed; it exists in a dreadful death; all its true peace, dignity, and glory, are gone; it is a hideous ruin, the mere corpse of manhood. The new life brings us near to God, makes us think of Him, makes us love Him, and ultimately makes us like Him. My brethren, it is in proportion as you get near to God that you enter into the full enjoyment of life-that life which Jesus Christ gives you, and which Jesus Christ preserves in you. “In His favour is life.” Psa 30:5 “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.” Pro 14:27 To turn to God is “repentance unto life.” To forget God is for a man to be “dead whilst he liveth.” To believe the witness of God is to possess the faith which overcometh the world. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

Alive from the Dead

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 1 Comment

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses… – Colossians 2:13

“In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” was the Lord’s threatening to our first parent, who was the representative of the race. He did eat of the fruit, and since God is true, and His word never fails, we may be sure of this, that in that selfsame day Adam died. It is true that he did not cease to exist, but that is quite another thing from dying. The threatening was not that he should ultimately die, but “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;” and it is beyond all doubt that the Lord kept His word to the letter. If the first threatening was not carried out, we might take liberty to trifle with all others. Rest assured, then, that the threat was on the spot fulfilled. The spiritual life departed from Adam; he was no longer at one with God, no more able to live and breathe in the same sphere as the Lord. He fell from his first estate; he had need if he should enter into spiritual life to be born again, even as you and I must be. As he hides himself from his Maker, and utters vain excuses before his God, you see that he is dead to the life of God, dead in trespasses and sins. We also, being heirs of wrath even as others, are through the fall dead, dead in trespasses and sins; and if ever we are to possess spiritual life, it must be said of us, “And you hath He quickened.” We must be as “those that are alive from the dead.” The fall brought universal death, in the deep spiritual sense of that word, over all mankind; and Jesus delivers us from the consequences of the fall by implanting in us spiritual life. By no other means can this death be removed: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” The work of regeneration, in which the new life is implanted, effectually restores the ruin of the fall, for we are born again, “not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

Always Looking unto Jesus

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

Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me: because I live, ye shall live also. – John 14:19

Here and there among the crowds of the sightless there were a few chosen men who had received spiritual sight; Christ had been light to them, He had opened their blind eyes, and they had seen Him as the world had not seen Him…We who have the same sight still see Him. Read carefully the words of the verse before us: “Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me.” It is a distinguishing mark of a true follower of Jesus that he sees his Lord and Master when He is not to be seen by the bodily eye; he sees Him intelligently and spiritually; he knows his Lord, discerns His character, apprehends Him by faith, gazes upon Him with admiration as our first sight of Christ brought us into spiritual life, for we looked unto Him and were saved, so it is by the continuance of this spiritual sight of Christ that our spiritual life is consciously maintained. We lived by looking, we live still by looking. Faith is still the medium by which life comes to us from the life-giving Lord. It is not only upon the first day of the Christian’s life that he must needs look to Jesus only, but every day of that life, even until the last; his motto must be, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” …Faith is the life-look. We must never think that we live by works, by feelings, or by ceremonies. “The just shall live by faith.” We dare not preach to the ungodly sinner a way of obtaining life by the works of the law, neither dare we hold up to the most advanced believer a way of sustaining life by legal means. We should in such a case expect to hear the apostle’s expostulation, “Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” Our glorifying is that our life is not dependent on ourselves, but is safe in our Lord, as saith the apostle, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Because He lives, we live, and shall live forever. God grant that our eye may ever be clear towards Jesus, our life. May we have no confidence but in our Redeemer; may our eyes be fixed upon Him, that no other object may in any measure or degree shut out our view of Him as our all in all. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0968.cfm

Praise Him! Praise Him!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, prayer, promises, salvation Leave a comment

Hosanna! – Matthew 21:9; Mark 11:9; John 12:13

You that have not yet received Him, we want you to join with the rest of us in honoring Him and glorifying Him as He comes into your heart. “Oh!” saith one, if He will only come into my heart I will indeed praise Him.” Have your Vivas ready! Receive the Lord Jesus Christ with all honors. Mention His name with rejoicing. Have your Hurrah ready to welcome the King, the Conqueror, as He enters your soul. Be jubilant! Be enthusiastic! Rejoice that such a one as He should come to dwell with such a one as you and bring such blessing with Him. Praise Him! Praise Him! Extol Him in the highest heavens! Then pray to Him. “Save, Lord! Save, oh, save!” Then pray for others to Him in the same words, “Hosanna; save, Lord, save!”

And when you have done with Hosannas and prayers, conclude as the Psalmist did in that famous hundred-and-eighth Psalm, wherein he cried, “Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.” Ask God of His love to-day to bind you to Christ, the altar, with one of those wreaths of love and ribands of triumphant grace which you now throw at His feet. Oh, for a twisted garland of mercies, the roses of gladness, and the lilies of delight, to bind our heart to Christ for ever! These cords of love may seem weak, but in very deed they hold us faster than chains of steel. Nothing holds a man like the silken cord of gratitude. When you know how Jesus loves you, when you see how He died for you, then you are drawn to love Him in return, and are held to serve Him in life, in death, and to eternity. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2196.cfm