Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, January 19th, 1871 by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"For our conversation is in heaven; from whence we also we look for the
Savior; the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it
may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working
whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto
himself,"–Philippians 3:20,21.
I SHOULD MISLEAD YOU if I called these verses my text, for I intend
only to lay stress upon the closing expression, and I read the two
verses because they are needful for its explanation. It would require
several discourses to expound the whole of so rich a passage as this.
Beloved, how intimately is the whole of our life interwoven with the
life of Christ! His first coming has been to us salvation, and we are
delivered from the wrath of God through him. We live still because he
lives, and never is our life more joyous than when we look most
steadily to him. The completion of our salvation in the deliverance of
our body from the bondage of corruption, in the raising of our dust to
a glorious immortality, that also is wrapped up with the personal
resurrection and quickening power of the Lord Jesus Christ. As his
first advent has been our salvation from sin, so his second advent
shall be our salvation from the grave. He is in heaven, but, as the
apostle saith, "We look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who
shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his
glorious body." We have nothing, we are nothing, apart from him. The
past, the present, and the future are only bright as he shines upon
them. Every consolation, every hope, every enjoyment we possess, we
have received and still retain because of our connection with Jesus
Christ our Lord. Apart from him we are naked, and poor, and miserable.
I desire to impress upon your minds, and especially upon my own, the
need of our abiding in him. As zealous laborers for the glory of God I
am peculiarly anxious that you may maintain daily communion with Jesus,
for as it is with our covenant blessings, so is it with our work of
faith and labor of love, everything depends upon him. All our fruit is
found in Jesus. Remember his own words, "Without me ye can do nothing."
Our power to work comes wholly from his power. If we work effectually
it must always be according to the effectual working of his power in us
and through us. Brethren, I pray that our eyes may be steadfastly
turned to our Master at this season when our special services are about
to commence. Confessing our dependence upon him, and resorting to him
in renewed confidence, we shall proceed to our labor with redoubled
strength. May we remember where our great strength lieth, and look to
him and him alone, away from our own weakness and our own strength
too–finding all in him in our work for others as we have found all in
him in the matter of the salvation of our own souls. When the
multitudes were fed, the disciples distributed the bread, but the
central source of that divine commissariat was the Master's own hand.
He blessed, he brake, he gave to the disciples, and then the disciples
to the multitude. Significant also was one of the last scenes of our
Lord's intercourse with his disciples before he was taken up. They had
been fishing all the night, but they had taken nothing; it was only
when he came that they cast the net on the right side of the ship, and
then the net was filled with a great multitude of fishes. Ever must it
be so; where he is souls are taken by the men-fishers, but nowhere
else. Not the preaching of his servants alone, not the gospel of itself
alone, but his presence with his servants is the secret of success.
"The Lord working with them," his co-operating presence in the gospel,
this is it which makes it "the power of God unto salvation." Lift up
your eyes then, my brethren, confederate with us for the spread of the
Redeemer's kingdom, to the Savior, the Lord Jesus, who is the Captain
of our salvation, through whom and by whom all things shall be wrought
to the honor of God, but without whom the most ardent desires, and the
most energetic efforts must most certainly fail. I have selected this
text with no less a design than this–that every eye may by it be
turned to the omnipotent Savior before we enter upon the hallowed
engagements which await us.
In the text notice, first of all, the marvel to be wrought by our Lord
at his coming; and then gather from it, in the second place, helps to
the consideration of the power which is now at this time proceeding
from him and treasured in him; and then, thirdly, contemplate the work
which we desire to see accomplished, and which we believe will be
accomplished on the ground of the power resident in our Lord.
I. First, we have to ask you to CONSIDER BELIEVINGLY THE MARVEL WHICH
IS TO BE WROUGHT BY OUR LORD AT HIS COMING.
When he shall come a second time he will change our vile body and
fashion it like unto his glorious body. What a marvellous change! How
great the transformation! How high the ascent! Our body in its present
state is called in our translation a "vile body," but if we translate
the Greek more literally it is much more expressive, for there we find
this corporeal frame called "the body of our humiliation." Not "this
humble body," that is hardly the meaning, but the body in which our
humiliation is manifested and enclosed. This body of our humiliation
our Lord will transform until it is like unto his own. Here read not
alone "his glorious body," for that is not the most literal
translation, but "the body of his glory;" the body in which he enjoys
and reveals his glory. Our Savior had a body here in humiliation; that
body was like ours in all respects except that it could see no
corruption, for it was undefiled with sin; that body in which our Lord
wept, and sweat great drops of blood, and yielded up his spirit, was
the body of his humiliation. He rose again from the dead, and he rose
in the same body which ascended up into heaven, but he concealed its
glory to a very great extent, else had he been too bright to be seen of
mortal eyes. Only when he passed the cloud, and was received out of
sight, did the full glory of his body shine forth to ravish the eyes of
angels and of glorified spirits. Then was it that his countenance
became as the sun shining in its strength. Now, beloved, whatever the
body of Jesus may be in his glory, our present body which is now in its
humiliation is to be conformed unto it; Jesus is the standard of man in
glory. "We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." Here we
dwell in this body of our humiliation, but it shall undergo a change,
"in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we
shall be changed." Then shall we come into our glory, and our body
being made suitable to the glory state, shall be fitly called the body
of glory. We need not curiously pry into the details of the change, nor
attempt to define all the differences between the two estates of our
body; for "it doth not yet appear what we shall be," and we may be
content to leave much to be made known to us hereafter. Yet though we
see through a glass darkly, we nevertheless do see something, and would
not shut our eyes to that little. We know not yet as we are known, but
we do know in part, and that part knowledge is precious. The gates have
been ajar at times, and men have looked awhile, and beheld and
wondered. Three times, at least, human eyes have seen something of the
body of glory. The face of Moses, when he came down from the mount,
shone so that those who gathered around him could not look thereon, and
he had to cover it with a veil. In that lustrous face of the man who
had been forty days in high communion with God, you behold some gleams
of the brightness of glorified manhood. Our Lord made a yet clearer
manifestation of the glorious body when he was transfigured in the
presence of the three disciples. When his garments became bright and
glistering, whiter than any fuller could make them, and he himself was
all aglow with glory, his disciples sew end marvelled. The face of
Stephen is a third window as it were through which we may look at the
glory to be revealed, for even his enemies as they gazed upon the
martyr in his confession of Christ, saw his face as it had been the
face of an angel. Those three transient gleams of the morning light may
serve as tokens to us to help us to form some faint idea of what the
body of the glory of Christ and the body of our own glory will be.
Turning to that marvellous passage in the Corinthians, wherein the veil
seems to be more uplifted than it ever had been before or since, we
learn a few particulars worthy to be rehearsed. The body while here
below, is corruptible, subject to decay; it gradually becomes weak
through old age, at last it yields to the blows of death, falls into
the ground, and becomes the food of worms. But the new body shall be
incorruptible, it shall not be subject to any process of disease,
decay, or decline, and it shall never, through the lapse of ages, yield
to the force of death. For the immortal spirit it shall be the immortal
companion. There are no graves in heaven, no knell ever saddened the
New Jerusalem. The body here is weak, the apostle says "it is sown in
weakness;" it is subject to all sorts of infirmities in life, and in
death loses all strength. It is weak to perform our own will, weaker
still to perform the heavenly will; it is weak to do and weak to
suffer: but it is to be "raised in power, all infirmity being
completely removed." How far this power will be physical and how far
spiritual we need not speculate; where the material ends and the
spiritual begins we need not define; we shall be as the angels, and we
have found no difficulty in believing that these pure spirits "excel in
strength," nor in understanding Peter when he says that angels are
"greater in power and might." Our body shall be "raised in power."
Here, too, the body is a natural or soulish body–a body fit for the
soul, for the lowest faculties of our mental nature but according to
the apostle in the Corinthians, it is to be raised a spiritual body,
adapted to the noblest portion of our nature, suitable to be the
dwelling-place and the instrument of our new-born grace-given life.
This body at present is no assistance to the spirit of prayer or
praise; it rather hinders than helps us in spiritual exercises. Often
the spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak. We sleep when we
ought to watch, and faint when we should pursue. Even its joys as well
as its sorrows tend to distract devotion: but when this body shall be
transformed, it shall be a body suitable for the highest aspirations of
our perfected and glorified humanity–a spiritual body like unto the
body of the glory of Christ. Here the body is sinful, its members have
been instruments of unrighteousness. It is true that our body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost; but, alas! there are traces about it of the
time when it was a den of thieves. The spots and wrinkles of sin are
not yet removed. Its materialism is not yet so refined as to be an
assistance to the spirit; it gravitates downwards, and it has a bias
from the right line; but it awaits the last change, and then it shall
be perfectly sinless, as alabaster white and pure, upon which stain of
sin did never come; like the newly driven snow, immaculately chaste.
"As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image
of the heavenly."
Being sinless, the body when it shall be raised again shall be
painless. Who shall count the number of our pains while in this present
house of clay? Truly we that are in this tabernacle do groan. Does it
not sometimes appear to the children of sickness as if this body were
fashioned with a view to suffering; as if all its nerves, sinews,
veins, pulses, vessels, and valves, were parts of a curious instrument
upon which every note of the entire gamut of pain might be produced?
Patience, ye who linger in this shattered tenement, a house not made
with hands awaits you. Up yonder no sorrow and sighing are met with;
the chastising rod shall fall no longer when the faultiness is
altogether removed. As the new body will be without pain, so will it be
superior to weariness. The glorybody will not yield to faintness, nor
fail through languor. Is it not implied that the spiritual body does
not need to sleep, when we read that they serve God day and night in
his temple? In a word, the bodies of the saints, like the body of
Christ, will be perfect; there shall be nothing lacking and nothing
faulty. If saints die in the feebleness of age they shall not rise
thus; or if they have lost a sense or a limb or are halt or maimed,
they shall not be so in heaven, for as to body and soul "they are
without fault before the throne of God." "We shall be like him," is
true of all the saints, and hence none will be otherwise than fair, and
beautiful, and perfect. The righteous shall be like Christ, of whom it
is still true that not a bone of him shall be broken, so not a part of
our body after its change shall be bruised, battered, or otherwise than
perfect.
Put all together, brethren, and what a stretch it is from this vile
body to the glorious body which shall be! yet when Christ comes this
miracle of miracles shall be wrought in the twinkling of an eye. Heap
up epithets descriptive of the vileness of this body, think of it in
all its weakness, infirmity, sin, and liability to death; then admire
our Lord's body in all its holiness, happiness, purity, perfection, and
immortality; and know assuredly that, at Christ's coming, this change
shall take place upon every one of the elect of God. All believers
shall undergo this marvellous transformation in a moment. Behold and
wonder! Imagine that the change should occur to you now. What a display
of power! My imagination is not able to give you a picture of the
transformation; but those who will be alive and remain at the coming of
the Son of God will undergo it, and so enter glory without death. "For
this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality," and therefore the bodies of living believers shall in the
twinkling of an eye pass from the one state into the other; they shall
be transformed from the vile to the glorious, from the state of
humiliation into the state of glory, by the power of the coming Savior.
The miracle is amazing, if you view it as occurring to those who shall
be alive when Christ comes. Reflect, however, that a very large number
of the saints when the Lord shall appear a second time will already be
in their graves. Some of these will have been buried long enough to
have become corrupt. If you could remove the mould and break open the
coffin-lid, what would you find but foulness and putrefaction? But
those mouldering relics are the body of the saint's humiliation, and
that very body is to be transformed into the likeness of Christ's
glorious body. Admire the miracle as you survey the mighty change! Look
down into the loathsome tomb, and, if you can endure it, gaze upon the
putrid mass; this, even this, is to be transformed into Christ's
likeness. What a work is this! And what a Savior is he who shall
achieve it! Go a little further. Many of those whom Christ will thus
raise will have been buried so long that all trace of them will have
disappeared; they will have melted back into the common dust of earth,
so that if their bones were searched for not a vestige of them could be
found, nor could the keenest searcher after human remains detect a
single particle. They have slept in quiet through long ages in their
lonely graves, till they have become absorbed into the soil as part and
parcel of mother earth. No, there is not a bone, nor a piece of a bone
left; their bodies are as much one with earth as the drop of rain which
fell upon the wave is one with the sea: yet shall they be raised. The
trumpet call shall fetch them back from the dust with which they have
mingled, and dust to dust, bone to bone, the anatomy shall be rebuilded
and then refashioned. Does your wonder grow? does not your faith accept
with joy the marvel, and yet feel it to be a marvel none the less?
Son of man, I will lead thee into an inner chamber more full of wonder
yet. There are many thousands of God's people to whom a quiet slumber
in the grave was denied; they were cut off by martyrdom, were sawn
asunder, or cast to the dogs. Tens of thousands of the precious bodies
of the saints have perished by fire, their limbs have been blown in
clouds of smoke to the four winds of heaven, and even the handful of
ashes which remained at the foot of the stake their relentless
persecutors have thrown into rivers to be carried to the ocean, and
divided to every shore. Some of the children of the resurrection were
devoured by wild beasts in the Roman ampitheatres or left a prey to
kites and ravens on the gibbet. In all sorts of ways have the saints'
bodies been hacked and hewn, and, as a consequence, the particles of
those bodies have no doubt been absorbed into various vegetable
growths, and having been eaten by animals have mingled with the flesh
of beasts; but what of that? "What of that?" say you, how can these
bodies be refashioned? By what possibility can the selfsame bodies be
raised again? I answer it needs a miracle to make any of these dry
bones live, and a miracle being granted, impossibility vanishes. He who
formed each atom from nothing can gather each particle again from
confusion. The omniscient Lord of providence tracks each molecule of
matter, and knows its position and history as a shepherd knows his
sheep; and if it be needful to constitute the identity of the body, to
regather every atom, he can do it. It may not, however, be needful at
all, and I do not assert that it will be, for there may be a true
identity without sameness of material; even as this my body is the same
as that in which I lived twenty years ago, and yet in all probability
there is not a grain of the same matter in it. God is able then to
cause that the same body which on earth we wear in our humiliation,
which we call a vile body, shall be fashioned like unto Christ's body.
No difficulties, however stern, that can be suggested from science or
physical law, shall for a single instant stand in the way of the
accomplishment of this transformation by Christ the King. What marvels
rise before me! indeed, it needs faith, and we thank God we have it.
The resurrection of Christ has for ever settled in our minds, beyond
all controversy, the resurrection of all who are in him; "For if we
believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep
in Jesus will God bring with him." Still it is a marvel of marvels, a
miracle which needs the fullness of the deity. Of whom but God, very
God of very God, could it be said that he shall change our bodies, and
make them like unto his glorious body?
I know how feebly I have spoken upon this sublime subject, but I am not
altogether regretful of that, for I do not wish to fix your thoughts on
my words for a single moment; I only desire your minds to grasp and
grapple with the great thought of the power of Christ, by which he
shall raise and change the bodies of the saints.
II. We will now pass on. Here is the point we aim at. Consider, in the
second place, that THIS POWER WHICH IS TO RAISE THE DEAD IS RESIDENT IN
CHRIST AT THIS MOMENT.
So saith the text, "according to the working whereby he is able to
subdue all things unto himself." It is not some new power which Christ
will take to himself in the latter days and then for the first time
display, but the power which will arouse the dead is the same power
which is in him at this moment, which is going forth from him at this
instant in the midst of his church and among the sons of men. I call
your attention to this, and invite you to follow the track of the text.
First notice that all the power by which the last transformation will
be wrought is ascribed to our Lord Jesus Christ now as the Savior. "We
look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus." When Christ raises the dead it
will be as a Savior, and it is precisely in that capacity that we need
the exercise of his power at this moment. Fix this, my brethren, in
your hearts; we are seeking the salvation of men, and we are not
seeking a hopeless thing, for Jesus Christ is able as a Savior, to
subdue all things, to himself; so the text expressly tells us. It doth
not merely say that as a raiser of the dead he is able to subdue all
things, but as the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. His titles are
expressly given, he is set forth to us as the Lord, the Savior, the
Anointed, and in that capacity is said to be able to subdue all things
to himself. Happy tidings for us! My brethren, how large may our
prayers be for the conversion of the sons of men, how great our
expectations, how confident our efforts! Nothing is too hard for our
Lord Jesus Christ; nothing in the way of saving work is beyond his
power. If as a Savior he wakes the dead in the years to come, he can
quicken the spiritually dead even now. These crowds of dead souls
around us in this area and in these galleries, he can awaken by his
quickening voice and living Spirit. The resurrection is to be according
to the working of his mighty power, and that same energy is in
operation now. In its fullness the power dwells in him, let us stir him
up, let us cry unto him mightily, and give him no rest till he put
forth that selfsame power now. Think not, my brethren, that this would
be extraordinary and unusual. Your own conversion, if you have truly
been raised from your spiritual death, was by the same power that we
desire to see exerted upon others. Your own regeneration was indeed as
remarkable an instance of divine power as the resurrection itself shall
be. Ay, and I venture to say it, your spiritual life this very day or
any day you choose to mention, is in itself a display of the same
working which shall transform this vile body into its glorious
condition. The power of the resurrection is being put forth to-day, it
is pulsing through the quickened portion of this audience, it is
heaving with life each bosom that beats with love to God, it is
preserving the life-courses in the souls of all the spiritual, so that
they go not back to their former death in sin. The power which will
work the resurrection will be wonderful, but it will be no new thing.
It is everywhere to be beheld in operation in the church of God at this
very moment by those who have eyes to see it; and herein I join with
the apostle in his prayer "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being
enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what
the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is
the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according
to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he
raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the
heavenly places' far above all principality, and power, and might, and
dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but
also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet,
and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his
body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all."
Note next that the terms of our text imply that opposition may be
expected to this power, but that all resistance will be overcome. That
word "subdue" supposes a force to be conquered and brought into
subjection. "He is able even to subdue all things unto himself." Herein
is a great wonder! There will be no opposition to the resurrection. The
trumpet sound shall bring the dead from their graves, and no particle
shall disobey the summons; but to spiritual resurrection there is
resistance–resistance which only omnipotence can vanquish. In the
conversion of sinners natural depravity is an opposing force; for men
are set upon their sins, and love not the things of God, neither will
they hearken to the voice of mercy. My brethren, to remove all our
fears concerning our Lord's ability to save, the word is here used, "He
is able," not only to raise all things from the dead, but "to subdue
all things to himself." Here again I would bid you take the
encouragement the text presents you. If there be opposition to the
gospel, he is able to subdue it. If in one man there is a prejudice, if
in another man the heart is darkened with error, if one man hates the
very name of Jesus, if another is so wedded to his sins that he cannot
part from them, if opposition has assumed in some a very determined
character, does not the text meet every case? "He is able to subdue all
things," to conquer them, to break down the barriers that interpose to
prevent the display of his power, and to make I hose very barriers the
means of setting forth that power the more gloriously. "He is able even
to subdue all things." O take this to the mercy-seat, you who will be
seeking the souls of men this month! Take it to him and plead this word
of the Holy Spirit in simple, childlike faith. When there is a
difficulty you cannot overcome, take it to him, for he is "able to
subdue."
Note next, that the language of our text includes all supposable cases.
He is able to "subdue all things unto himself," not here and there one,
but "all things." Brethren, there is no man in this world so fallen,
debased, depraved, and wilfully wicked, that Jesus cannot save him–not
even among those who live beyond the reach of ordinary ministry. He can
bring the heathen to the gospel, or the gospel to them. The wheels of
providence can be so arranged that salvation shall be brought to the
outcasts; even war, famine, and plague, may become messengers for
Christ, for he, too, rides upon the wings of the wind. There lived some
few years ago in Perugia, in Italy, a man of the loosest morale and the
worst conceivable disposition. He had given up all religion, he loathed
God, and had arrived at such a desperate state of mind that he had
conceived an affection for the devil, and endeavored to worship the
evil one. Imagining Satan to be the image and embodiment of all
rebellion, free-thinking, and lawlessness, he deified him in his own
mind, and desired nothing better than to be a devil himself. On one
occasion, when a Protestant missionary had been in Perugia preaching, a
priest happened to say in this man's hearing, that there were
Protestants in Perugia, the city was being defiled by heretics. "And
who do you think Protestants are?" said he. "They are men who have
renounced Christ and worship the devil." A gross and outrageous lie was
this, but it answered far other ends than its author meant. The man
hearing this, thought, "Oh, then, I will go and meet with them, for I
am much of their mind;" and away he went to the Protestant meeting, in
the hope of finding an assembly who propagated lawlessness and
worshipped the devil. He there heard the gospel, and was saved. Behold
in this and in ten thousand cases equally remarkable, the ability of
our Lord to subdue all things unto himself. How can any man whom God
ordains to save escape from that eternal love which is as omnipresent
as the deity itself? "He is able to subdue all things to himself." If
his sword cannot reach the far off ones his arrows can, and even at
this hour they are sharp in his enemy's hearts. No boastful Goliath can
stand before our David; though the weapon which he uses to-day be but a
stone from the brook, yet shall the Philistine be subdued. If there
should be in this place a Deist, an Atheist, a Romanist, or even a
lover of the devil, if he be but a man, mercy yet can come to him.
Jesus Christ is able to subdue him unto himself. None have gone too
far, and none are too hardened. While the Christ lives in heaven we
need never despair of any that are still in this mortal life–"He is
able to subdue all things unto himself."
You will observe, in the text that nothing is said concerning the
unfitness of the means. My fears often are lest souls should not be
saved by our instrumentality because of faultiness in us; we fear lest
we should not be prayerful enough or energetic or earnest enough; or
that it should be said, "He could not do many mighty works there
because of their unbelief." But the text seems to obliterate man
altogether–"He is able to subdue all things unto himself"–that is to
say, Jesus does it, Jesus can do it, will do it all. By the feeblest
means he can work mightily, can take hold of us, unfit as we are for
service, and make us fit, can grasp us in our folly and teach us
wisdom, take us in our weakness and make us strong. My brethren, if we
had to find resources for ourselves, and to rely upon ourselves, our
enterprise might well be renounced, but since he is able, we will cast
the burden of this work on him, and go to him in believing prayer,
asking him to work mightily through us to the praise of his glory, for
"He is able even to subdue all things unto himself."
Note that the ability is said in the text to be present with the Savior
now. I have already pointed that out to you, but I refer to it again.
The resurrection is a matter of the future, but the working which shall
accomplish the resurrection is a matter of the present. "According to
the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself,"
Jesus is as strong now as he ever will be, for he changes not. At this
moment he is as able to convert souls as at the period of the brightest
revival, or at Pentecost itself. There are no ebbs and flows with
Christ's power. Omnipotence is in the hand that once was pierced,
permanently abiding there. Oh, if we could but rouse it; if we could
but bring the Captain of the host to the field again, to fight for his
church, to work his servants! What marvels should we see, for he is
able. We are not straitened in him, we are straitened in ourselves if
straitened at all.
Once more, for your comfort be it remembered that the fact of there
having been, as it were, a considerable time in which few have been
converted to Christ, is no proof that his power is slackening; for it
is well known to you that very few have as yet been raised from the
dead, only here and there one like Lazarus and the young man at the
gates of Nain, but you do not therefore doubt the Lord's power to raise
the dead. Though he tarrieth we do not mistrust his power to fulfill
his promise in due time. Now the power which is restrained, as it were,
so that it does not work the resurrection yet, is the same which may
hare been restrained in the Christian church for awhile, but which will
be as surely put forth ere long in conversion as it will be in the end
of time to accomplish the resurrection. Let us cry unto our Lord, for
he has but to will it and thousands of sinners will be saved; let us
lift up our hearts to him who has but to speak the word and whole
nations shall be born unto him. The resurrection will not be a work
occupying centuries, it will be accomplished at once; and so it may be
in this house of prayer, and throughout London, and throughout the
world, Christ will do a great and speedy work to the amazement of all
beholders. He will send forth the rod of his strength out of Zion, and
rule in the midst of his enemies. He will unmask his batteries, he will
spring his mines, he will advance his outworks, he will subdue the city
of his adversaries, and ride victoriously through the Bozrah of his
foes. Who shall stay his hand? Who shall say unto him, "What doest
thou?"
I wish we had time to work out the parallel which our text suggests,
between the resurrection and the subduing of all things. The
resurrection will be worked by the divine power, and the subduing of
sinners is a precisely similar instance of salvation. All men are dead
in sin, but he can raise them. Many of them are corrupt with vice, but
he can transform them. Some of them are, as it were, lost to all hope,
like the dead body scattered to the winds, desperate cases for whom
even pity seems to waste her sighs; but he who raises the dead of all
sorts, with a word can raise sinners of all sorts by the selfsame
power. And as the dead when raised are made like to Christ, so the
wicked when converted are made like to Jesus too. Brilliant examples of
virtue shall be found in those who were terrible instances of vice; the
most depraved and dissolute shall become the most devout and earnest.
From the vile body to the glory-body, what a leap, and from the sinner
damnable in lust to the saint bright with the radiance of sanctity,
what a space! The leap seems very far, but omnipotence can bridge the
chasm. The Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ is able to do it; he is able
to do it in ten thousand thousand cases, able to do it at this very
moment. My anxious desire is to engrave this one thought upon your
hearts, my brethren and sisters, yea, to write it on the palms of those
hands with which you are about to serve the Lord, learn it and forget
it not–almighty power lies with Jesus to achieve the purpose upon
which our heart is set, namely, the conversion of many unto himself.
III. I said I would ask you to consider, in the third place, THE WORK
WHICH WE DESIRE TO SEE ACCOMPLISHED. I will not detain you however,
with that consideration farther than this.
Brethren, we long to see the Savior subduing souls unto himself. Not to
our way of thinking, not to our church, not to the honor of our powers
of persuasion, but "unto himself." "He is able even to subdue all
things unto himself." O sinner, how I wish thou wert subdued to Jesus,
to kiss those dear feet that were nailed for thee, to love in life him
who loved thee to the death. Ah! soul, it were a blessed subjection for
thee. Never subject of earthly monarch so happy in his king as thou
wouldst be. God is our witness, we who preach the gospel, we do not
want to subdue you to ourselves, as though we would rule you and be
lords over your spirits. It is to Jesus, to Jesus only that we would
have you subdued. O that you desired this subjection, it would be
liberty, and peace, and joy to you!
Notice that this subjection is eminently to be desired, since it
consists in transformation. Catch the thought of the text. He
transforms the vile body into his glorious body, and this is a part of
the subjection of all things unto himself. But do you call that
subjection? Is it not a subjection to be longed after with an
insatiable desire, to be so subdued to Christ that I, a poor, vile
sinner, may become like him, holy, harmless, undefiled? This is the
subjection that we wish for you, O unconverted ones. We trust we have
felt it ourselves, we pray you may feel it too. He is able to give it
to you. Ask it of him at once. Now breathe the prayer, now believe that
the Savior can work the transformation even in you, in you at this very
moment. And, O my brethren in the faith, have faith for sinners now.
While they are pleading plead for them that this subjection which is an
uplifting, this conquering which is a liberating, may be accomplished
in them.
For, remember again, that to be subjected to Christ is, according to
our text, to be fitted for heaven. He will change our vile body and
make it like the body of his glory. The body of the glory is a body
fitted for glory, a body which participates in glory. The Lord Jesus
can make you, sinner, though now fitted for hell, fitted for heaven,
fitted for glory, and breathe into you now an anticipation of that
glory, in the joy and peace of mind which his pardon will bring to you.
It must be a very sad thing to be a soldier under any circumstances; to
have to cut and hack and kill and subdue, even in a righteous cause, is
cruel work; but to be a soldier of King Jesus is an honor and a joy.
The service of Jesus is a grand service. Brethren, we have been
earnestly seeking to capture some hearts that are here present, to
capture them for Jesus. It has been a long and weary siege up till this
hour. We have summoned them to surrender, and opened fire upon them
with the gospel, but as yet in vain. I have striven to throw a few live
shells into the very heart of their city, in the form of warning and
threatening and exhortation. I know there have been explosions in the
hearts of some of you, which have done your sins some damage, killed
some of the little ones that would have grown up to greater iniquity.
You have been carefully blockaded by providence and grace. Your hearts
have found no provision for joy in sin, no helps to peace in
unrighteousness. How I wish I could starve you out until you would
yield to my Lord, the crown Prince, who again to-day demands that you
yield to him. It is dreadful to compel a city to open its gates
unwillingly to let an enemy come in; for however gentle be the enemy
his face is an unwelcome sight to the vanquished. But oh! how I wish I
could burst open the gates of a sinner's heart to-day, for the Prince
Emmanuel to come in. He who is at your gates is not an alien monarch,
he is your rightful prince, he is your friend and lover. It will not be
a strange face that you will see, when Jesus comes to reign in you.
When the King in his beauty wins your soul, you will think yourselves a
thousand fools that you did not receive him before. Instead of fearing
that he will ransack your soul, you will open all its doors and invite
him to search each room. You will cry, "Take all, thou blessed monarch,
it shall be most mine when it is thine. Take all, and reign and rule."
I propound terms of capitulation to you, O sinner. They are but these:
yield up yourself to Christ, give up your works and ways, both good and
bad, and trust in him to save you, and be his servant henceforth and
for ever. While I thus invite you, I trust he will speak through me to
you and win you to himself. I shall not plead in vain, the word shall
not fall to the ground. I fall back upon the delightful consolation of
our text, "He is able to subdue all things unto himself." May he prove
his power this morning. Amen and Amen.
PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Philippians 3.
MESSRS, PASSMORE AND ALABASTER, 18, Paternoster Row, beg to inform the
sermon readers that the second volume of MR. SPURGEON'S GREAT WORK UPON
THIS PSALMS is receiving the most favorable notice of the reviewers.
The first edition of Vol. I is nearly exhausted, and a second edition
will be issued. The large volumes, unusually crowded with matter, are
published at 8s. each, a price far below the usual charge for such
books. The following extract is from the Baptist Magazine:–
"It seems to us that Mr. Spurgeon has got himself not only to the
devout and scholarly exposition of the Psalms, but also to the
rendering of his work positively fascinating by its many charms. . . .
In the possession of this book the young will find themselves at
college, with the learned and the good of all ages for their tutors;
and maturer Christians will have the largest spiritual knowledge
increased, and its richest experiences strengthened."