S. The Sinning Christian and His Sins

THE SINNING CHRISTIAN AND HIS SINS

Dear Brethren: Before the text is announced, let us prepare our minds for it by prayerful attention to these Scriptures: Romans 8:34 : “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” Spurgeon has a great sermon on this text which he says contains “the four pillars of salvation,” namely: (1) The sacrificial death of Christ; (2) His resurrection from the dead; (3) His exaltation to the throne of sovereign power;

(4) His ever-living intercession.

It is this fourth pillar: “Who also maketh intercession for us,” that I would have you bear in mind just now. Romans 5:10 : “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.” Here notice salvation by the life of Christ. Three pillars of salvation of the four just cited belong to Christ’s life after His death. As He said to John on Patmos: “I am He that liveth, and was dead: and, behold, I am alive for evermore.” And again as He said to His sorrowing disciples when preparing them for His departure: “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me; because I live, ye shall live also.” Now, let this next Scripture sink deep into your hearts, Hebrews 7:24-25 : “But this man, because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.” Hear one more passage: 1 John 2:1-2 : “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And He is the propitiation for our sins.” With this introduction I now announce as the text, 1 Timothy 2:5 : “There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” You have learned a great deal of theology, you have made tremendous progress in divine things, when you have accepted without any sort of modification the simple declaration of this text, that there is one, and that means but one, Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. There are many millions, there are hundreds of millions of those who profess to be Christians, that do not believe it, but who believe in other mediators between God and men than the man Christ Jesus. In taking this text today I want to compare it with two other passages of Scripture. One of them is in the letter to the Corinthians, where the Apostle Paul says that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, and where he goes on to say that this reconciliation was affected by the death of Christ. The other passage of Scripture I read to you a while ago from the letter to the Romans, where he says that if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more shall we be saved by His life. There are two departments in the work of mediation. One is to make an offering, a satisfactory propitiation, and the other is in the intercession based on that offering. Jesus Christ, when He died, made an offering of Himself, without spot, unto God, as a lamb without blemish, and in that offering became the propitiation for our sins and furnished the ground upon which we are reconciled to God. That is the first department. But now, after you are reconciled to God, when your past sins are blotted out, when you are a Christian, you come in conflict with this thought: No man’s conscience can reproach for a sin before it is committed. Hence it is the sight of “past offenses which pain his eyes” and constitute his burden. But he reads that Christ died once for all. That there will be no more offering for sin. And his conscience, he knows, was not purified from the reproach of future sins. Hence, while he questions not the sufficiency of the one offering to propitiate for all sins, past, present and future, he does not feel that when he first came to Christ there was an application of its cleansing power to any but the sins which preceded his faith in Jesus. After you become a Christian you sin. You know that you do. I have had children ask me the question, and with as much intelligence as when grown people have asked it, “What must we do, and what does God do with the sins which we commit after we are Christians?” They understand that when they first come to Christ by faith they put all their sins on Him, and they understand that these past sins are blotted out forever. But in a very short time after that, much sooner than they are aware of, but consciously to them, soon after they say: “We have sinned.’ The conscience says it.” They know that they have violated some law of God. And when the question arises with them, What am I to do with this? Where am I to put it? What disposition does God make in His Word for the sins which Christians commit of per they are converted? Now it is upon this point that we come to the second part of the mediation of Jesus Christ. It is here that we understand, not how we are saved when we trust in Jesus Christ, but how we are saved to the uttermost; not how we are saved when we are converted, but how the salvation is to continue, and continue to the end. That is the thought. I shall not seek at all today to be original. Indeed, if I were to tell you in what books of theology you may find similar thoughts, I would have to refer you to all that have been written upon the subject. But I want to speak very plainly today about one of the grandest doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that is the intercession of Christ-Christ’s intercession. And I am not talking about the intercession that Christ, when here upon earth, made for sinners. He did make intercession for the transgressors. He did pray, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do,” just as He commands us to do today. But I am not discussing that part of Christ’s work. I wish to discuss His intercession for His own people, by which the life that comes into them at their conversion is to be continued; by which remission of sins which they receive at conversion is to be applied to sins after conversion; by which the life that is in their souls is to continue and prove itself to be eternal life. That is the subject, and I will put some questions so that you can understand. The first question is: “Where does Christ make His intercession?” The place of it. In the ninth chapter of the letter to the Hebrews, and in the third chapter of the first letter of Peter, we are expressly told that the place where he makes this intercession is in heaven; that He ascended to heaven for that purpose. The thought was presented in type in the Old Testament ceremonies, where the priest would first slay the sacrificial victim in the outer court. The lamb would be put to death, and then taking the blood of the lamb as the basis, he would enter into the holy of holies, and there would offer the blood, and when the blood was offered he would stand there, and upon the plea of that blood the intercession took place, in the Most Holy Place. So is Christ’s intercession for His people in heaven. It is going on now. Right here today when we are gathered to worship God, His intercession is going on at the court of Heaven, and the sins which you Christians have committed during the past week He is interceding for. He is pleading His blood, once offered, as ample to cover your sins, for the present as well as the past. The next question has already been answered. What is the basis-of the intercession which He offers up there? Again I repeat that the basis of it is the ample atonement that He made for sin when He offered Himself up as a lamb without spot or blemish. He never offered any other plea, never! And no plea could possibly be accepted that was based upon anything else than the fact that the blood of Jesus Christ was shed for the remission of sins. No prayer for forgiveness could possibly be heard, either here or yonder, that was not based upon the ample and all-sufficient atonement made in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The blood is shed once for all. But we come to the blood as often as we sin. So the Lord’s Supper teaches by its frequency. That blood not only cleansed us once, but still cleanses. And now we come to a particular part of the subject. What are the qualifications of one who is to be a mediator between God and men? What constitutes Him a suitable Mediator to go before God and touch Him with one hand and reach back and touch man with the other hand? 1. He must be both God and man. With His divinity He must be able to touch God, and with His manhood He must be able to touch man, to be able to put the two in contact. And impress this on your mind, that whenever anybody offers to you a mediator between God and men, who does not possess both humanity and divinity, reject him at once. Suppose they offer the angels? You must say, “These angels do not possess either one of these qualifications. They are neither divine nor human. They can neither touch man nor touch God. They cannot mediate between men and God on that account.” Bear that in mind. You will need it directly. 2. Now the next qualification. The Lord God says, as you will find in Hebrews 1:1-14, that no one taketh this honor upon himself. Even Aaron, who was to represent the thought in type, did not take it upon himself. He did not say, “I will be the mediator. I claim this office.” There had to be divine authority conferred. God had to speak from heaven and say, “I invest this one with authority. I appoint him. I furnish him credentials to mediate between me and men.” As Aaron could not do that in the type, so it is expressly stated that in the anti-type the Son took not this honor upon Himself, but the Father put it on Him. The Father gave Him His credentials. And now you apply this test if any one presents for your consideration a mediator between God and men. Call on him for the chapter and verse where Almighty God conferred that authority; and if he has no credentials; if he cannot be in this mission authenticated as from God, you reject him. Now I want to read you where authority was conferred on somebody else than Christ, and that, too, since you were born. I read from a decree of Pope Pius the Ninth, on the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin Mary: “Since we have never ceased in humility and fasting to offer up our prayers and those of the church of God the Father through His Son, that He might deign to direct and confirm our mind by the power of the Holy Ghost, after imploring the protection of the whole celestial court, and after invoking on our knees the Holy Ghost the Paraclete, under His inspiration we pronounce, declare and define unto the glory of the holy and indivisible Trinity, the honor and the ornament of the holy virgin, the mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the Christian religion, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and insure our own authority, that the doctrine which holds the blessed virgin Mary to have been, from the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Christ Jesus, the Saviour of mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin, was revealed by God, and is, therefore, to be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful. Therefore, if some should presume to think in their hearts otherwise than we have defined (which God forbid), they shall know and thoroughly understand that they are by their own judgment condemned, have made shipwreck concerning the faith, and fallen away from the unity of the church; and, moreover, that they, by this very act, subject themselves to the penalties ordained by the law, if, by word or writing, or any other external means, they dare to signify what they think in their hearts.” 1854. Now you ask yourself why that decree was published. The point is that whoever goes as a mediator between God and men must be righteous. John says, “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The proof must be made out that the mediator is holy, undefiled and separated from sinners; there must not be a spot, or a blemish, or a wrinkle upon the character of the one who mediates between God and man. Otherwise, he would need to have a mediation offered for himself instead of being mediatory for others. Now to meet that qualification-the qualification of holiness and righteousness-it became necessary in order to have a mediator other than the Lord Jesus Christ; in order to have a woman, one who could plead with God, and who would act as days-woman between men and God it was necessary that the decree should be issued making her immaculate. But the decree is marvelously out of date. It is nearly two thousand years after the canon of Scripture is closed. It is a decree signed by the name of a man, himself frail, sinful, who expressly declares that it is issued by inspiration and under his authority, as well as the authority of God, and upon that it is issued and being accepted it is held by two hundred million so-called Christians upon the earth, that Mary intercedes, that Mary mediates. 3. The next qualification: In Hebrews 4:1-16, where this mediator is being discussed, it is said that he is touched with a sense of our infirmities. Now that is a phrase, expressed by one Greek word, which being Anglicized becomes our word “sympathy.” There must be in this mediator a bond of sympathy between him and the one for whom he intercedes sympathy. And the basis of the sympathy toward us in that Scripture is declared to be this, that in all points (now you may not be willing to believe it, but that is what the Bible says) that in all points He was tempted as we are, yet without sin. It is the declaration of God that when the Lord Jesus Christ was here upon this earth that every kind of temptation that comes to you came to Him. The Devil suggested to Him in His hunger what He suggests to men in their hunger now. The Devil suggested to Him, in view of His being able to establish kingly power over earthly territory, just what he suggests to the ambitious men of the present time. The Devil suggested to Him when He met the contradiction of sinners, just the same kind of resentment that you would be tempted to exercise if there should fall upon you such an indignity. In every point, every point, it covers the amazing length and breadth of human experience on the subject of temptation. That could not be affirmed of Mary or any other woman, or any man, or any angel, but it was true of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Mediator between God and men. Now, take the next question: For whom does He make intercession in heaven? I stated to you a while ago that I was not discussing the intercession that He offered for transgressors, and which we are commanded to imitate, but I am speaking of His priestly office as exercised in heaven, in which He says, “I pray for them I pray not for the world.” I will now merely state this point so as to hasten to the concluding part of my subject. In making intercession in heaven, for what does He intercede? What does He ask? First, He asks that Christians here in the world should not be taken out of it, but that while in the world they should be preserved from evil. I do not know how to express the thoughts that are in my mind on this subject. I imagine that if the Lord would just lift the veil off the inscrutable past, and we could take a back look at all the paths we have trod, and see in the light of that revelation how many times we have unconsciously walked as it were upon the edge of a knife, how many times our feet have stood on the brink of a pit, how many times, as it were, by a chance step we have over-stepped a net that was set for our feet, how many times enemies have come and have lain in ambuscade and were ready to shoot their arrows against us, and yet utterly unseen by us a shield was interposed that protected us from the fiery darts of the adversaries, and as we look at it and wonder where it came from, we look up to heaven and see Christ praying: “Preserve him. Preserve him from the evil. I see the evil ahead of him. I see the plans, I see the counsel and devices, I see the hazard. Father, preserve him. Let him not fall into them.” Oh, if we could realize it, how rich, how deep and how sweet to our hearts would be the thought of the preciousness of the intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ continually going on for us, that we should be preserved from evil! I can look back over my life where in after years things have been brought to light that I knew nothing on earth about at the time, just as ignorant as a child, and yet how there seemed to be just a hair’s breadth between me and death just a hair’s breadth. And surely it was not my forecast, it was not my wisdom, it was not my strength that rescued me, but that prayer of Jesus: “Father, preserve him from evil.” Brethren, if the Lord Jesus Christ was to withdraw that shield from between you and your enemies; if the restraints of the great ‘High Priest were withdrawn, every Christian in this town would be wrecked before night. You may think you know men, but you do not know the Devil. You do not know the depths of sin. You do not know Satan’s wiles. You do not know his stratagems. Oh, it is principalities and powers with which you have to wrestle, and were it not for the restraining power of God, every one of us would be swept away like driftwood on the rising breast of a stream swollen by the downpour of waterspouts of rain! For what else does He pray? I will give you a sample. You will understand it better. Jesus one time saw the Devil looking with hungry eyes at one of his apostles, and He saw the Devil laying his traps for him, and He called the apostle to Him and said, “Simon, Satan hath desired thee. Satan hath made a request that he might have you. Don’t you know that he made a request to God about Job? Satan hath made a request that he might have you, that he might sift you as wheat; and, Simon, I have prayed for you that your faith fail not.” Now, there is a part of it. There the intercession comes in. What is it that keeps your faith alive! What is it that keeps the faith of any Christian alive! Why, I tell you that the Devil would gather about you a fog and mist of doubts and perplexities that you would absolutely not know whether you are in the flesh or not. He could make ‘you doubt your very existence. He has made men doubt it. I say there have been men who have carried their doubt to the extent that they have doubted their own existence. Now Jesus said, “I have prayed for you that your faith fail not.” I cannot tell you how many times, right here in this town (I do not call any names), some of the best Christians in this town, from my estimate of a Christian, have come to me staggered on that question of faith-staggered. Is my faith failing? Is the light going out? Now, that intercession goes on in heaven. You are to be saved in that respect by the life of Christ; having been reconciled to God by His death, much more shall you be saved by His life. He ever liveth to intercede for you, and therefore He is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God through Him. Well, what else? As I told you just now, sins that you commit after you are Christians, if we confess them, He is faithful and just to forgive them. If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Here is our attorney, here is our pleader. Here is the one that takes our case upon the sins that we commit after we are Christians, and takes it before the Father’s throne and pleads the all-sufficient blood offered once for all, and never to be offered again, and says, “Father, forgive him.” That blood is enough, that atonement is enough. I tell you what I do: Whenever I become conscious that I have done wrong I do not parley. I take the wrong, whatever it may be, and say, “Lord Jesus, take this and plead for me. Take my case; I do not dare to plead my own case. O thou righteous Advocate with God, plead for me, and by Thy intercession let this sin be blotted out.” Now, a great many Christians are continually in trouble because they have not learned that when they do a wrong they must come and put that case in the hands of the Advocate. Let Him plead. He is the Mediator. We cannot go to God directly. There must be a daysman between us and God. Our prayers do not reach God directly. The High Priest offers the prayers. He takes them as the high priest of old took the censer, and having kindled the incense with a coal from the altar, and waved it before the throne of God, He said, “Father, let these prayers be heard.” He is our Advocate. He prays for the unity of His people: “I pray that they may be one.” Now if there be any danger (and there is always danger) of schisms, a rent of any kind, flying “off at a tangent”, the supreme hope of the world on that subject is the intercession up yonder: “I am praying all the time that my people may be one; even as the Father and myself are one. I am praying that my people may be one.” Hurrying on, the intercession takes in the whole subject of our sanctification: “I pray for them that thou mayest sanctify them by thy truth. Thy word is truth.” The whole process of sanctification that goes on in Christians after they are converted is brought about by the intercession of the High Priest. He is pleading that this work may go on. Very briefly I mention two other points. After He went up there to exercise His priestly office in heaven (I do not understand it, but I know the fact) He went up there to make some preparations. Here is what He said: “I am going to leave you, but I am going to prepare a place. I am going to prepare a place for you.” And, based upon His death, upon the plea that is predicated upon His blood, in His high priestly power, somehow, I cannot explain how, He does prepare a place in heaven for every one of His children. Sometimes here on this earth a letter comes to a family about a long-absent loved one: “I will be home on the twentieth of a certain month.” And they read the letter over in the family, and Oh, how glad they are! “He will be here at that time. Now we must make ready. Let us prepare a place for him. What room shall we give him and how shall we fit it up, and shall we put flowers here and shall we prepare the things that he likes best? Shall we gather his friends to meet him and grace his coming and help us to extend a welcome?” And that preparation goes on, and after a while that long-absent traveler comes, and when he comes he does not have to go to a hotel. He does not have to go among strangers. But here in a bright and happy home is a place made ready, and those that love him the best are there to greet him and go out and kiss him, go out and take him by the hand; go out and say, “Oh, we are glad that you have come to be with us!” So up there in His high priestly office He prepares a place for us. I tell you, my brother, we may die suddenly, as in a lightning’s flash, but death cannot come to you in so sudden or startling a form, cannot thrust you out of this life and thrust you into a world to come so as to take the reception committee unaware of the fact. It will be ready, no matter whether your train gets to the depot of death in the daytime or in the night; or in the summer or in the winter; God’s carriage, His chariot of fire and His convoy of angels, will meet you there and take you to the place that is prepared for you in that bright and better world up yonder. You do not have to send any dispatches ahead, oh, no; it will be ready, your place; yours, brother; yours, sister; it will be ready when you get there. There is room enough in Paradise for all to have a home in glory. Now my crowning thought is that the effect of this intercession not only gets the place ready, but, blessed be God, it provides an abundant entrance into the place. Why, you do not go as if you were squeezing through a hole in the wall. You do not go as if you were a galley slave, whipped and scourged to a task. The door is open. The door is a wide-open door. Your ship comes home, comes to the harbor of heaven, comes to the port of eternity, not a battered and shattered hulk, with compass and helm lost, and cordage snapped and shrouds and sails torn to tatters. No! It comes with every sail full; without danger of rock in the harbor. It comes with an abundant entrance into the glory of God, our Father. And ever since that time when you received the Lord Jesus Christ as your only Saviour, ever since that time, up yonder in heaven Jesus has been praying: “Father, I want that one to be with me, where I am. I want that one to be here in heaven forever with his Lord. Father, I want that one to have an abundant entrance into heaven.” That prayer goes on day and night, forever and forever. And it is in this way that we are saved by His life. It is in this way that we are saved to the uttermost. It is in this way that the one Mediator between God and men ever liveth to make intercession for us.