* This discourse was taken down by a hearer on the Sabbath before a Communion.
SOME of us are looking forward, if that is the Lord’s will, on the next Sabbath to commemorate the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and if we have any conception whatever of what that means, it will be a question with us whether we are rightly exercised in connection with that solemn duty that lies before us. There can be no doubt but all God’s people realise, and that very deeply, how utterly far short they come of what God’s Word demands of them when they endeavour to perform any duty, and more especially when they are looking forward to this solemn duty—even the commemoration of the dying love of the Redeemer. It is true about the most in this generation, that they go to the Lord’s Table as if they were just going to an ordinary meal—as if they were doing something that was common; whereas the commemorating of the death of the Lord Jesus is a solemn thing, for it is written in God’s Word, “He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation unto himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” There is, however, on the other hand, a danger of our coming to the conclusion that the Lord’s Table is for special Christians. Now, the Lord’s Table is not at all for special Christians, but is for the family of God, which, as you know, consists of “children, young men, and fathers.” “I write unto you, little children.” “I write unto you, young men.” “I write unto you, fathers.” Some people have got the idea in their minds that no one has a right to go to the Lord’s Table until they are long in Christ; but if it is true about us that we belong to the family, then we are warranted to come to the Lord’s Table; we are called upon to profess that Jesus in whom we have believed, and to whom we have committed the keeping of our souls in view of time and eternity. Who, then, have a right to go to the Lord’s Table? Believers.
The text brings before us—
I.—Believers; and
II.—What is true about believers, or how we may know them.
“Unto you therefore which believe, He is precious.”
I.—Believers.
Is it a question with yourself whether you are a true believer or not? The most seem to take it for granted that everything is all right for eternity, and that they have nothing to do but just to be absolutely indifferent about this matter, and that they will be in heaven as soon as they draw their last breath in the world. Well, friends, that is a delusion from hell, and it is a delusion that is drunk in by the people of this generation, and they are going down to eternity just in the mass, thinking it will be all well with them at last, while at the same time they are as ignorant of the new birth, of regeneration, and of holiness, as the blacks who never heard the name of Christ.
Let us now notice what it is to be a believer.
And it is in the hope of giving to the poor remnant that God has left in our midst some light with regard to this matter that I have taken these words to-night as the basis of a few remarks. I know that, however clearly I might put this matter, I cannot open the eyes of the blind to see what is really seen by the eye of faith, what is really known only by the regenerate heart. Well, believing is brought before us in God’s Word under various figures, and why are these figures used? Because believing is on the one hand such a simple thing, that it is difficult to describe it, and, on the other hand, it is such a profound thing that it is difficult to make it intelligible to men, and, consequently, figures are used which men are acquainted with. For instance, it is compared to the hearing ear; “Hear and your soul shall live.” The Psalmist also says, “I will hear what God the Lord (Isaiah lv.) will speak,” and it is written, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Faith is then compared to an ear, and believing is compared to hearing. And what does the soul hear? The soul hears the description which God’s Word gives of Jesus Christ and His finished work. Faith is again compared to an eye, and believing compared to looking. “I to the hills will lift mine eyes, from whence doth come mine aid.” It is true that believing is also compared to tasting, “Oh, taste and see that God is good”; and to hands, “My hands to Thee I stretch”; and to feet, “I will run in the way of Thy precepts when Thou my heart enlarged hast.”
Faith in Jesus Christ is, then, just the ear that hears about Him; the eye that beholds Him; the hand that lays hold of him; the mouth that tastes Him; and the feet that follow Him. Is it true of you that you have heard the glad tidings of great joy with the ear of your soul? Is it true of you that the eyes of your understanding have been enlightened in the knowledge of your Redeemer, and that you have seen His greatness and His attractiveness? Is it true of you that you have laid hold of Him for yourself, and that you have tasted something of the sweetness of His redeeming love, and that your heart has been constrained to cleave to Him, and to go out after Him in following Him in the world? This, then, brings before us what we are to understand by believing.
II.—What is here said concerning believers; to them Christ is precious.
Christ is precious only to believers, for the Word says, that to others “He is as a root out of the dry ground; He has no form nor comeliness that they should desire Him; He is despised and rejected of men”; but “unto them which believe He is precious.”
Who is the Christ who is so precious to the Church? Well, the Christ of the Church is a Divine Person, the co-equal of God the Father, and, if you are a true believer, the Christ that you know must be divine as to His personality. You see there were some who crept into the Church very early in its history, and they would allow that Christ was the greatest person who ever lived in the world, that He was the holiest Son God ever had, but they would not allow that, as to His personality, He was the Father’s co-equal, and these heresies have had a resurrection in modern times. There are many in Scotland to-day, even in the pulpits, and they do not believe in the Divine personality of the Lord of Glory; but the Christ of the believer is equal with the Father, and equal with the Spirit, as to His Person. I believe myself that no one but a believer comprehends, in a way to appreciate it, the distinctions between the Persons of the Trinity, and that through the teaching of the Holy Ghost alone, for, to a man as he is by nature, the Godhead consists just of one personality. You will hear men quote that great text, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” and it is to be feared that they have no conception whatsoever of the meaning of the Son that is brought before us there—the Son who, in regard to His personality, is equal with the Father, and who came forth from God, because the Father loved sinners equal with the Son, and did not withhold the Son of His love, but freely “gave Him up for us all.” Has Christ then become precious to yourself as to His personality, so that your soul is satisfied with nothing less than a Divine Saviour? Do you embrace Him by faith? Do you lay hold of His personality?
Christ is precious again to believers with regard to His natures.
You see Christ as to His Divine nature is equal with the Father, as the Catechism says, “the same in substance, equal in power and glory”; but the Lord Jesus Christ has a human nature also, and He is precious to believers as to His human nature as well as to His divine nature. It is said, “Great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh.” For we must bear in mind that, although Christ has a human nature—a true body and a reasonable soul, and that constitutes human nature—yet the personality which pervades this human nature is not at all a human personality, but a divine personality. It is God in our nature; and although humanity is united to divinity in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, yet the natures are distinct, but the Person is one, and when it is written in God’s Word that “Christ died,” the person that died was not a human person, but a Divine Person in a nature that was capable of dying. If you are right for eternity, this mystery has been opened up to your understanding, and you have seen the necessity of the arrangement of heaven; you have seen the wisdom of God as that is manifested in the human nature of the Lord of Glory, for “Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God.”
I would say this to you to-night, on the authority of God’s Word, that, if you have apprehended this glorious reality, namely, the personality and the natures of the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you have rejoiced in apprehending this and seen the necessity of it, then you cannot but be a true believer, for “Flesh and blood,” said the Lord to Peter, “hath not revealed these things unto you, but my Father, which is in heaven.” You see some people seem to think that man, by learning, can arrive at these things, so as to distinguish and appreciate them. Well, I ask you, can man, by learning or by any power of his own, give sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf? No. Neither can man apprehend the personality and the natures of the Lord of Glory, so as to make his own of this great Person, except by the teaching of the Holy Ghost. Christ is precious, then, as to His natures, for you see a Saviour with a human nature alone would not do, and a Saviour with a divine nature alone could not do. A Saviour with only a human nature would do for the men of this generation, for all that they require is a Christ that would set a good example before them, but the Christ of the Church is a Christ that must die for them. He must suffer the whole that they found due to themselves, and one with a human nature alone could not endure this. He would need to have a divine as well as a human nature, and the Christ of the Church has these two natures. He has a divine nature which He had from everlasting; He has a human which He assumed, when the fulness of time came.
Christ is precious also to believers in all His offices.
And there are three offices which are brought before us in God’s Word—the office of a prophet, the office of a priest, and the office of a king. God’s people require a prophet, they require a priest, and they require a king; and they find all their wants met in the Son of God, the Saviour of sinners.
They find in Him a Prophet to reveal to them the will of God for their salvation. They are darkness itself; they cannot understand the Scriptures, and they need the Divine Prophet to open their understandings so that they would understand the Scriptures, and Christ, by His Word and by His Spirit, as the Prophet of the Church, has revealed to them the will of God for their salvation, and when did He do so? Well, to begin with, He brought before their minds, and that in a very clear way, that it was not at all by works of righteousness which they could do that they could be saved, but that it was by embracing Himself as the Saviour of the lost, and that that was the will of God for their salvation. He brought before them that God was well pleased with them, that they met all that law and justice had against them, in embracing Christ as He was freely offered in the gospel.
He is precious to them also as a Priest.
There is no such office in the New Testament as the office of a priest apart from the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is only one official priest in the New Testament, the Priest that God raised up, not after the order of Aaron, but after the order of Melchisedec, and that Priest is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Christ’s work as a Priest is twofold. It is first of all the offering up of a sacrifice to take away sin, and Christ as a Priest offered up Himself to satisfy Divine Justice and reconcile His people to God. But the other work of a Priest is to intercede. “He ever liveth,” it is written, “to make intercession for us,” and it is in virtue of His offering that their guilt is removed, that they are accepted as righteous in God’s sight, and it is in virtue of His intercession that they are kept; for it is written that “the righteous are scarcely saved,” and they would not be saved at all if it were not for this intercession. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.”
Christ again executeth the office of a King.
And we might say that the office of a king is twofold also. This King Jesus exercises His power in connection with His people, and He exercises His power in connection with His enemies. “I will sing,” said the Psalmist, “of mercy and of judgment.” And you see Christ exercises his office as king in subduing His people to Himself, in making them willing, in a day of His power, and He exercises His office as king also in ruling and restraining them, and in conquering all His and their enemies. If it were not for this King of Zion, there would not be such a thing as a Church of Christ in the world at all; but he says, “Because I live ye shall live also,” and it is written that “He must reign until all His foes be made His footstool.” And when we, in this benighted generation in which we live, see the hand of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords stretched out against the nations, what are we to understand by it? We are to understand that the Lord Jesus, as King of the Church, is exercising His kingly power, and that in connection with His enemies, for there will be no such things as kingdoms at the last day, but the human race will be gathered before the great white throne as individuals. There is, however, such a thing as the sin of nations, and where are these nations to be judged? They are to be judged in this world, and Christ is calling the nations to judgment at this present time, but He has an eye on His own people, on His own Church, and when He arises to shake terribly the earth, as He has arisen at this time, He will “turn His hand upon the little ones.”
It is a great encouragement and consolation to God’s people that Christ is ruling as King among the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and that this turmoil which has arisen in the world is part of His going, and we have no doubt but that He will bring nations to follow Himself, so that it will be true that the whole earth will be filled with His glory, according to the prayer of the Church of old:
“The whole earth let His glory fill, Amen, so let it be.” (Ps. lxxii.)
Christ is then precious to His people as their King.
But He is also precious to His people in the Word.
And we might say that it was in the Word they met Him first. It was in the Truth they found this great Saviour, this great Prophet, Priest, and King, and what is the secret of the love of God’s people for the Truth? Because that Christ is the Truth. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” You see the identity of Christ and the Bible is very close. He calls Himself the Word of God.
Christ is again precious to God’s people in His Ordinances.
He is precious to them in the Supper, and what is the Supper? It is just sensible signs and these sensible signs are bread and wine, which show forth Christ, even the broken body and the shed blood of this great Person, this glorious Redeemer.
Christ is precious to them also in His people in the world.
You see every one that loveth Him that beget loveth also those that are begotten of Him, and, if you are a believer, when you see Christ in your fellow-creatures, as He is to be seen in those who are believers, then Christ is precious to you in these.
But now, in conclusion, let me ask you this question—Has Christ become precious to your own soul? It is a matter of personal experience, and if you can honestly say this night, notwithstanding everything about you which is a discouragement to you, that Christ is precious to you as to His personality, as to His two natures, as to His offices, as to His Word, His Ordinances and His people, then, let me tell you this, that you have no ground whatever to conclude that you are not a believer, for this is an infallible mark of a believer. And your duty is obvious, and that with regard to professing Christ publicly in the world. Some people seem to have the idea that God’s people are people who think that they are great persons, who are so pious and so advanced in the Christian life, and who have made great attainments in holiness. Well, it is true that “God’s people are a holy nation,” but it is also true that “they are a peculiar people,” and the longer they live in the world, the more conscious they become of their own backwardness, their own sinfulness, their own nothingness; and you may be here to-night and you may be saying, “Well, when I look back to the last communion, and when I think of what has been transpiring in my life since then, how can I have the audacity to think that I will go again to the Lord’s Table?”
Let me ask you this question, “Is Christ as precious to you as ever He was?” But you say, “He is more precious to me than ever He was; I feel that I am more dependent upon Him than ever I was.” Well, if you can honestly say that you feel that, you may rest assured of this—that your consciousness of unfitness, sinfulness and backwardness is not at all an indication that it is not your duty to pay your vows before the people and to commemorate the dying love of that Saviour who saves, and that independent of your works altogether.
If you are here to-night, and you cannot deny that Christ is precious to you in the way I have described, then it is your duty to declare that publicly, for what do God’s people declare when they profess Christ publicly? They declare that they are themselves the chief of sinners in the world, but that they have laid hold of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that as lost sinners, and that they are going through this wilderness depending, not upon their own piety, but upon the grace “that reigns through righteousness unto eternal life.” And, if that is your life and your state, then you are bound to declare that before your fellow creatures, you are bound to make a good profession. If you have found Christ to be a great Saviour, it ill becomes you to be denying Him before your fellows. I believe that God hath a controversy with many of His people because of how they neglect this duty, and that their own consciences are telling them, and that through God’s dealings with them, that they are not doing their duty with regard to this solemn matter, even professing the Lord Jesus before their fellow creatures. But you say, “There were many good people in the Church, and they never professed the Lord Jesus at the Communion Table.” That was true, but did that say that they were doing their duty? “Do this in remembrance of me.” That is the command, and we take it to be equal to this command, “Thou shalt not kill,” or “Thou shalt not bear false witness;” and it is a serious thing to be going contrary to God’s revealed will. Let those then who cannot deny, as I said already, that Christ is precious to them seriously consider this matter.
But is it not true about the most of you that Christ is not precious to you at all? You never saw His beauty; you never saw His greatness; you never saw His attractiveness; you never tasted of His love; you never found refuge in the shelter of His wings; you never felt the benefit of His blood in your conscience. His love in your heart, His life in your understanding, and still you are thinking you are going to heaven, and that it will be well with you at last. Well, you have no ground to think that. God’s Word says, “He that believeth not shall be damned;” and, you who are unbelievers, and who are going down to meet the Lord of Glory as the Judge of all the earth, take good heed to yourselves this night that it will not be true of you that you will land on the other side of time—in eternity—ignorant of the preciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. But, see that you will be found redeeming the time; see that you will be found resorting to Jesus, while it is called to-day; see that you will be found calling upon Him when He is near, seeking Him while He is to be found, for the day will come in the case of many when He will say to them, “Because I called and ye refused,” when that awful word will be fulfilled, “I will laugh at their calamity, I will mock when their fear cometh.” These words, friends, are not idle tales: they are not meaningless terms, but they are terrible descriptions of terrible realities. Flee then to the refuge which God hath provided, even to the Man who is the refuge from the storm and the covert from the tempest. “Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” “If ye shall be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
Some of us will be in eternity in a very little time, and oh! friend, where will your eternity be? If you go from this congregation to a lost eternity, it would be better for you never to have had a being in the world. Take heed then while it is called to-day.
May God bless our consideration of His own Word!
IN Matthew xix. 27: “Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have?” Their worldly case in following Christ was little worse than when they only traded in fishing, and yet “we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have?” This, their all, was not worth a-speaking of, and yet, for this, they look for some great worldly reward and recompence. “We have forsaken all.” A great all sure: a few broken boats, and a few tattered and torn nets, and a little old household stuff, and Christ maintained them too, upon His own cost and charge; and yet say they, “We have forsaken all, and followed thee.” Neither is it without an emphasis, that they begin with a Behold; “Behold, we have forsaken all,” as if Christ were greatly beholden to them. Let their wills be but crossed a little, by servants, children, friends, etc., or let them but suffer a little in their names or estates, and presently you shall have them a-sighing it out, “No sorrow like our sorrow,” no loss to our loss, no cross to our cross, etc., whereas souls strong in grace suffer much, and yet count that much but little. A soul strong in grace can suffer much, yet make nothing of it. “I am heartily angry,” saith Luther, who suffered very much, “with those that speak of my sufferings, which if compared with that which Christ suffered for me, are not once to be mentioned in the same day.”—T. Brooks.
WHEN that little prayer, “Lord, help me,” comes from the heart of one of God’s children in distress, neither men, devils, nor angels can tell its power.—W. Gadsley.