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

Arrayed in Perfect Righteousness

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

In the mystical body, every member is made righteous before God, because joined to the living Head. Here is an actual righteousness given to us through the righteousness of Jesus Christ our Lord. He is made of God unto us righteousness. Consider this, O believer-you are (right now) righteous before God. You are a sinner in yourself worthy to be condemned, but God does not condemn you, nor ever will He do so, for before the eye of His justice you are arrayed in perfect righteousness. Your sin is not upon you: it was laid upon the Scapegoat’s head of old. All your iniquities were made to meet upon the head of the Crucified Savior: He bore your transgressions in His own body on the tree. Where are your sins now? You may ask the question without fear, for they have ceased to be. “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.” “He hath cast our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” Glory be to His name; there is no sin in existence against a believer. Is it not written: “He hath finished transgression, made an end of sin [what stronger expression can there be?], and brought in everlasting righteousness”?…In God’s sight you are as much “accepted in the Beloved,” as you will be when you stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire. You are beloved of God, and dear to Him and justified, so that even (now) you can say: “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?” You cannot lift up a louder boast than that, even when you shall see your Savior, and shall be like Him because you see Him as He is. By faith this righteousness is yours at this present moment and will always be yours without a change; yours when your spirit is cast down, as much as when your joys abound. You are accepted not because of anything in yourself, but because you stand in the Lord your righteousness. ~ 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

Truest Wisdom

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

It is always wisest to act in any condition as Jesus would have acted, supposing Him to have been in that condition. Never did He temporise. Principle guided Him, not fashion nor personal advantage. You shall never be a fool if you follow Christ, except in the estimation of fools; and who wishes to be wise in a fool’s esteem? But sometimes it may be said: “To do as Christ would have done would involve me in present difficulty or loss.” It is true; but there is no man that loseth aught in this life for Christ’s sake who shall remain a loser, for he shall receive tenfold in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting. The wisest action is not always the most pecuniarily profitable. It is wise sometimes for men to be poor, ay, even to lose their lives. Truest wisdom-not sham wisdom, not temporary wisdom-you shall manifest by following the example of Christ, though it lead you to prison or to death. His teachings and His example, together, will give you the wisdom which cometh from above.

Above all, if you have the Redeemer’s presence, He will be made of God unto you wisdom in a very remarkable sense. Never forget or doubt that Jesus is still with His people. They who know how to enter into the secret place of the tabernacles of the Most High, find Him still at the mercy-seat. He feedeth among the lilies, and they who know the lilies know where to find Him; and those who live with Him, and catch His spirit, have their garments perfumed as His are with myrrh, and aloes, and cassia. These may be thought to be mad by some, and others may call them fanatical enthusiasts; but these are the wisest of mankind. O happy men that live at the gates of Heaven while yet on earth; that sit at the feet of the blessed in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus while they are toiling along through the pilgrimage of this life! This is to be wise, to have Christ’s teaching, Christ’s example and above all, Christ’s presence; so may the poorest find the Lord Jesus made of God unto them wisdom. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Dare to Be a Daniel

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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.

Sermon Text

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