Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, August 6th, 1871, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"Ye are not your own: for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify
God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."–1 Corinthians
6:19-20.
OUR BELOVED BROTHER, Thomas Cook, who has for so long a time served
this church as an honored deacon, has fallen asleep in Christ. We have
laid his earthly remains in the tomb: his spirit rejoices before the
throne of God. This day we thank God for his useful life, and ask for
grace to imitate it. Before he closed his eyes in death he left a text
of Scripture for the pastors: "Christ is all, and in all;" and he left
another for his fellow church members, for all of you this day who are
members of the body of Christ; and this is the legacy, which now, as a
spiritual executor, I present to you: "Ye are not your own: for ye are
bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your
spirit, which are God's." I have no doubt the intention of our departed
brother was to promote God's glory by speaking to us even after he was
dead concerning our sanctification, that so we might be stirred up to a
greater consecration to the Lord our Savior.
You will notice that in this chapter the apostle Paul has been dealing
with sins of the flesh, with fornication and adultery. Now, it is at
all times exceedingly difficult for the preacher either to speak or to
write upon this subject; it demands the strictest care to keep the
language guarded, so that while we are denouncing a detestable evil we
do not ourselves promote it by a single expression that should be
otherwise than chaste and pure. Observe how well the apostle Paul
succeeds, for though he does not mask the sin, but tears the veil from
it, and lets us know well what it is that he is aiming at, yet there is
no sentence which we could wish to alter. Herein he is a model for all
ministers, both in fidelity and prudence.
Be sure also to note that the apostle, when he is exposing sin, does
not trifle with it, but like a mighty hunter before the Lord, pursues
it with all his might; his hatred to it is intense; he drags it forth
to the light; he bids us mark its hideous deformity; he hunts it
through all its purlieus, hotfoot, as we say. He never leaves it
breathing time; argument after argument he hurls like javelins upon it;
he will by no means spare the filthy thing. He who above all others
speaks most positively of salvation by grace, and is most clear upon
the fact that salvation is not by the works of the law, is at the same
time most intensely earnest for the holiness of Christians, and most
zealously denounces those who would say, "Let us do evil, that good may
come." In this particular instance he sets the sin of fornication in
the light of the Holy Spirit; he holds up, as it were, the
seven-branched candlestick before it, and lets us see what a filthy
thing it is. He tells us that the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,
and therefore ought not to be profaned; he declares that bodily
unchastity is a sacrilegious desecration of our manhood, a violation of
the sacred shrine wherein the Spirit takes up its dwelling-place; and
then, as if this were not enough, he seizes the sin and drags it to the
foot of the cross, and there nails it hand and foot, that it may die as
a criminal; for these are his words: "Ye are not your own: for ye are
bought with a price:" the price being the blood of Jesus. He finds no
sharper weapon, no keener instrument of destruction than this. The
redemption wrought on Calvary by the death of Jesus must be the death
of this sin, and of all other sins, wherever the Spirit of God uses it
as his sword of execution. Brethren and sisters, it is no slight thing
to be holy. A man must not say, "I have faith," and then fall into the
sins of an unbeliever; for, after all, our outer life is the test of
our inner life; and if the outer life be not purified, rest assured the
heart is not changed. That faith which does not bring forth the fruit
of holiness is the faith of devils. The devils believe and tremble. Let
us never be content with a faith which can live in hell, but rise to
that which will save us–the faith of God's elect, which purifies the
soul, casting down the power of evil, and setting up the throne of
Jesus Christ, the throne of holiness within the spirit.
Noticing this as being the run of the chapter, we now come to the text
itself, and in order to discuss it we must take it to pieces, and I
think we shall see in it at once three things very clearly. The first
is a blessed fact, "Ye are," or as it should be rendered, "Ye were
bought with a price;" then comes a plain consequence from that fact, a
consequence of a double character, negative and positive: "Ye are not
your own;" "your body and your spirit are God's;" and out of that there
springs inevitably a natural conclusion: "Therefore, glorify God in
your body, and in your spirit."
I. Let us begin, then, first of all, with this BLESSED FACT–"Ye are
bought with a price." Paul might, if his object were to prove that we
are not our own, have said: "Ye did not make yourselves." Creation may
well furnish motives for obedience to the great Lawgiver. He might also
have said, "Ye do not preserve yourselves: it is God who keeps you in
life; you would die if he withdrew his power." The preservation of
divine providence might furnish abundant arguments for holiness. Surely
he who feeds, nourishes, and upholds our life should have our service.
But he prefers, for reasons known to himself, which it would not be
hard to guess, to plead the tenderer theme, redemption. He sounds that
note, which if it do not thunder with that crash of power which marked
the six days' labor of Omnipotence, yet has a soft, piercing, subduing
tone in it, which, like the still small voice to which Elias listened,
has in it the presence of God.
The most potent plea for sanctity is not "Ye were made," or, "Ye are
nourished," but "Ye are bought." This the apostle selects as a
convincing proof of our duty, and as a means to make that duty our
delight. And truly, beloved, it is so. If we have indeed experienced
the power of redemption we fully admit that it is so. Look ye back to
the day when ye were bought, when ye were bondslaves to your sins, when
ye were under the just sentence of divine justice, when it was
inevitable that God should punish your transgressions; remember how the
Son of God became your substitute, how he bared his back to the lash
that should have fallen upon you, and laid his soul beneath the sword
which should have quenched its fury in your blood. You were redeemed
then, redeemed from the punishment that was due to you, redeemed from
the wrath of God, redeemed unto Christ to be his for ever.
You will notice the text says, "Ye were bought with a price." It is a
common classical expression to signify that the purchase was expensive.
Of course, the very expression, "Ye were bought," implies a price, but
the words "with a price" are added, as if to show that it was not for
nothing that ye were purchased. There was a something inestimably
precious paid for you; and ye need scarcely that I remind you that "ye
were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold;" "but
with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and
without spot." Ah! those words slip over our tongue very glibly, but we
may well chide ourselves that we can speak of redemption with dry eyes.
That the blood of Christ was shed to buy our souls from death and hell
is a wonder of compassion which fills angels with amazement, and it
ought to overwhelm us with adoring love whenever we think of it, glance
our eye over the recording pages, or even utter the word "redemption."
What meant this purchasing us with blood? It signified pain. Have any
of you lately been racked with pain? Have you suffered acutely? Ah!
then at such times you know to some degree what the price was which the
Savior paid. His bodily pains were great, hands and feet nailed to the
wood, and the iron breaking through the tenderest nerves. His
soul-pains were greater still, his heart was melted like wax, he was
very heavy, his heart was broken with reproach, he was deserted of God,
and left beneath the black thunder-clouds of divine wrath, his soul was
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. It was pain that bought you. We
speak of the drops of blood, but we must not confine our thoughts to
the crimson life-floods which distilled from the Savior's veins; we
must think of the pangs which he endured, which were the equivalent for
what we ought to have suffered, what we must have suffered had we
endured the punishment of our guilt for ever in the flames of hell. But
pain alone could not have redeemed us; it was by death that the Savior
paid the ransom. Death is a word of horror to the ungodly. The
righteous hath hope in his death; but as Christ's death was the
substitute for the death of the ungodly, he was made a curse for us,
and the presence of God was denied him. His death was attended with
unusual darkness; he cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?" O think ye earnestly on this. The Ever-living died to redeem us;
the Only Begotten bowed his head in agony, and was laid in the grave
that we might be saved. Ye are bought then "with a price"–a price
incalculable, stupendous, infinite, and this is the plea which the
apostle uses to urge upon us that we should "be holiness to the Lord."
I desire upon this theme, which is a very simple and every-day one, but
which is nevertheless of the weightiest consideration, to remind you,
dearly beloved, who profess to be followers of Christ, that this matter
of your being "bought with a price" is an indisputable fact to every
Christian. To every person here present it either is a fact or not. I
scarcely need to ask whether any of you are prepared to abjure your
redemption; and yet, professor of the faith of Christ, I shall put it
to you now: Are you willing to have the negative put upon this? will
you deny that you were "bought with a price?" Will you now confess that
you were not redeemed on Calvary? You dare not, I am sure. You would
sooner die than abjure your belief of it. Well, then, as certain as is
your redemption, so certain is it that you "are not your own," but
belong to God, and should glorify him. It is inevitable that if you be
"bought with a price," you have ceased to be your own property, and
belong to him who bought you. Holiness, therefore, is necessary to all
the redeemed. If you cast off your responsibility to be holy, you at
the same time cast away the benefit of redemption. Will you do this? As
I am sure you could not renounce your salvation, and cast away your
only hope, so I charge you by the living God be not so inconsistent as
to say: "I am redeemed, and yet I will live as I list." As redeemed
men, let the inevitable consequences follow from the fact, and be ye
evidently the servants of the Lord Jesus.
Remember, too, that this fact is the most important one in all your
history. That you were redeemed "with a price" is the greatest event in
your biography. Even your birth, what was it unless a second birth had
been yours! Might you not say: "Let the day perish wherein I was born
and the night in which it was said, there is a man child conceived"?
Would it not have been to you the direst calamity to be born into the
world if you had not been rescued from the wrath of which you were the
heir? You left your father's house, and it was an important step in
life; perhaps you crossed the great and wide sea; it may be you aspired
to high office in the state and you obtained it; it is possible you
have been sore sick, or it may be you have sunk from affluence to
poverty. Such events leave their impress upon the memory; men cannot
forget these great changes in their lives; but they all shrivel into
less than nothing compared with this fact that you were "bought with a
price." Your connection with Calvary is the most important thing about
you. Oh, I do beseech you then, if it be so, prove it; and remember the
just and righteous proof is by your not being your own, but consecrated
unto God. If it be the most important thing in the world to you, that
you were "bought with a price," let it exercise the most prominent
influence over your entire career. Be a man, be an Englishman, but be
most of all Christ's man. A citizen, a friend, a philanthropist, a
patriot: all these you may be, but be most of all a saint redeemed by
blood.
Recollect, again, that your being "bought with a price" will be the
most important fact in all your future existence. What say they in
heaven when they sing? They would naturally select the noblest topic
and that which most engrosses their minds, and yet in the whole range
of their memory they find no theme so absorbing as this: "Thou wast
slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood." Redeeming love is the
theme of heaven. When you reach the upper realms your most important
memory will not be that you were wealthy or poor in this life, nor the
fact that you sickened and died, but that you were "bought with a
price." We do not know all that may occur in this world before the
close of its history, but certainly it will be burnt up with fire, and
you in yonder clouds with Christ may witness the awful conflagration.
You will never forget it. There will be new heavens and new earth, and
you with Christ may see the new-born heavens, and earth, laughing in
the bright sunlight of God's good pleasure; you will never forget that
joyous day. And you will be caught up to dwell with Jesus for ever and
ever; and there will come a time when he shall deliver up the kingdom
to God, even the Father and God shall be all in all. You will never
forget the time of which the poet sings–
"Then the end, beneath his rod
Man's last enemy shall fall.
Hallelujah, Christ in God,
God in Christ is all in all."
All these divinely glorious events will impress themselves upon you,
but not one of them will make an impression so lasting, so clear, so
deep as this, that you were "bought with a price." High over all the
mountain tops, Calvary, that was but a little mount in human
estimation, shall rise; stars shall the events of history be; but this
event shall be the sun in whose presence all others hide their
diminished heads. "Thou wast slain," the full chorus of heaven shall
roll it forth in thundering accents of grateful zeal. "Thou wast slain,
and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood;" the saints shall remember
this first and foremost; and amidst the cycles of eternity this shall
have the chief place in every glorified memory. What then, beloved?
Shall it not have the chief place with you now? It has been the fact of
your life hitherto, it will be the fact of your entire eternal
existence: let it saturate your soul, let it penetrate your spirit, let
it subdue your faculties, let it take the reins of all your powers and
guide you whither it will. Let the Redeemer, he whose hands were
pierced for you, sway the scepter of your spirit and rule over you this
day, and world without end.
If I had the power to do it, how would I seek to refresh in your souls
a sense of this fact that you are "bought with a price." There in the
midnight hour, amidst the olives of Gethsemane, kneels Immanuel the Son
of God; he groans, he pleads in prayer, he wrestles; see the beady
drops stand on his brow, drops of sweat, but not of such sweat as pours
from men when they earn the bread of life, but the sweat of him who is
procuring life itself for us. It is blood, it is crimson blood; great
gouts of it are falling to the ground. O soul, thy Savior speaks to
thee from out Gethsemane at this hour, and he says: "Here and thus I
bought thee with a price." Come, stand and view him in the agony of the
olive garden, and understand at what a cost he procured thy
deliverance. Track him in all his path of shame and sorrow till you see
him on the Pavement; mark how they bind his hands and fasten him to the
whipping-post; see, they bring the scourges and the cruel Roman whips;
they tear his flesh; the ploughers make deep furrows on his blessed
body, and the blood gushes forth in streams, while rivulets from his
temples, where the crown of thorns has pierced them, join to swell the
purple stream. From beneath the scourges he speaks to you with accents
soft and low, and he says, "My child, it is here and thus I bought thee
with a price." But see him on the cross itself when the consummation of
all has come; his hands and feet are fountains of blood, his soul is
full of anguish even to heartbreak; and there, ere the soldier pierces
with a spear his side, bowing down he whispers to thee and to me, "It
was here and thus, I bought thee with a price." O by Gethsemane, by
Gabbatha, by Golgotha, by every sacred name collected with the passion
of our Lord, by sponge and vinegar, and nail and spear, and everything
that helped the pang and increased the anguish of his death, I conjure
you, my beloved brethren, to remember that ye were "bought with a
price," and "are not your own." I push you to this; you either were or
were not so bought; if you were, it is the grand fact of your life; if
you were, it is the greatest fact that ever will occur to you: let it
operate upon you, let it dominate your entire nature, let it govern
your body, your soul, your spirit, and from this day let it be said of
you not only that you are a man, a man of good morals and respectable
conduct, but this, above all things, that you are a man filled with
love to him who bought you, a man who lives for Christ, and knows no
other passion. Would God that redemption would become the paramount
influence, the lord of our soul, and dictator of our being; then were
we indeed true to our obligations: short of this we are not what love
and justice both demand.
II. Now let us pass on to the second point. Here is A PLAIN CONSEQUENCE
arising from the blessed fact. Ye were "bought with a price." Then
first it is clear as a negative, that "Ye are not your own," and
secondly, it is clear as a positive, that "Your body and spirit are
God's."
Take first the negative: if bought, you are not your own. No argument
is needed for this, and indeed it is so great a boon in itself that
none of us could find it in our hearts to demur to it. It is a great
privilege not to be one's own. A vessel is drifting on the Atlantic
hither and thither, and its end no man knoweth. It is derelict,
deserted by all its crew; it is the property of no man; it is the prey
of every storm, and the sport of every wind: rocks, quicksands, and
shoals wait to destroy it: the ocean yearns to engulf it. It drifts
onward to no man's land, and no man will mourn its shipwreck. But mark
well yonder barque in the Thames which its owner surveys with pleasure.
In its attempt to reach the sea, it may run ashore, or come into
collision with other vessels; or in a thousand ways suffer damage; but
there is no fear, it will pass through the floating forest of "the
Pool;" it will thread the winding channel, and reach the Nore because
its owner will secure it pilotage, skillful and apt. How thankful you
and I should be that we are not derelict to-day! we are not our own,
not left on the wild waste of chance to be tossed to and fro by
fortuitous circumstances; but there is a hand upon our helm; we have on
board a pilot who owns us, and will surely steer us into the Fair
Havens of eternal rest. The sheep is on the mountain side, and the
winter is coming on; it may be buried in the snow; perhaps the wolf may
seize it, or by-and-by, when the summer crops have been eaten, there
may be little fodder for it, and it may starve; but the sheep's comfort
if it could think at all, would be this: it is not its own, it belonged
to the shepherd, who will not willingly lose his property; it bears the
mark of its owner, and is the object of his care. O happy sheep of
God's pasture, what a bliss it is to you that you are not your own!
Does any man here think it would be a pleasure to be his own? Let me
assure him that there is no ruler so tyrannical as self. He that is his
own master, has a fool and a tyrant to be his lord. No man ever yet
governed himself after the will of the flesh but what he by degrees
found the yoke heavy and the burden crushing. Self is a fierce
dictator, a terrible oppressor; imperious lusts are cruel slavedrivers.
But Christ, who says we are not our own, would have us view that truth
in the light in which a loving wife would view it. She, too, is not her
own. She gave herself away on a right memorable day, of which she bears
the golden token on her finger. She did not weep when she surrendered
herself and became her husband's; nor did they muffle the bells, or bid
the organ play the "Dead March" in Saul: it was a happy day for her;
she remembers it at this moment with glowing joy. She is not her own,
but she has not regretted the giving herself away: she would make the
same surrender again to the self-same beloved owner, if it were to be
done. That she is her husband's does not bespeak her slavery, but her
happiness; she has found rest in her husband's house, and to-day, when
the Christian confesses that he is not his own, he does not wish that
he were. He is married to the Savior; he has given himself up, body,
soul, and spirit, to the blessed Bridegroom of his heart; it was the
marriage-day of his true life when he became a Christian, end he looks
back to it with joy and transport. Oh, it is a blissful thing not to be
our own, so I shall not want arguments to prove that to which every
gracious spirit gives a blissful consent.
Now, if it be true that we are not our own, and I hope it is true to
many here present, then the inference from it is, "I have no right to
injure myself in any way." My body is not my own, I have no right then,
as a Christian man, to do anything with it that would defile it. The
apostle is mainly arguing against sins of the flesh, and he says, "the
body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the
body." We have no right to commit uncleanness, because our bodies are
the members of Christ and not our own. He would say the same of
drunkenness, gluttony, idle sleep, and even of such excessive anxiety
after wealth as injures health with carking care. We have no right to
profane or injure the flesh and blood which are consecrated to God;
every limb of our frame belongs to God; it is his property; he has
bought it "with a price." Any honest man will be more concerned about
an injury done to another's property placed under his care, than if it
were his own. When the son of the prophet was hewing wood with Elisha,
you remember how he said, when the axe head flew off into the water,
"Alas! master, for it was borrowed." It would be bad enough to lose my
own axe, but it is not my own, therefore I doubly deplore the accident.
I know this would not operate upon thievish minds. There are some who,
if it was another man's, and they had borrowed it, would have no
further care about it: "Let the lender get it back, if he can." But we
speak to honest men, and with them it is always a strong, argument:
Your body is another's, do it no injury. As for our spirit too, that is
God's, and how careful we should be of it. I am asked sometimes to read
an heretical book: well, if I believed my reading it would help its
refutation, and might be an assistance to others in keeping them out of
error, I might do it as a hard matter of duty, but I shall not do it
unless I see some good will come from it. I am not going to drag my
spirit through a ditch for the sake of having it washed afterwards, for
it is not my own. It may be that good medicine would restore me if I
poisoned myself with putrid meat, but I am not going to try it: I dare
not experiment on a mind which no longer belongs to me. There is a
mother and a child, and the child has a book to play with, and a
blacklead pencil. It is making drawings and marks upon the book, and
the mother takes no notice. It lays down one book and snatches another
from the table, and at once the mother rises from her seat, and
hurriedly takes the book away, saying: "No, my dear, you must not mark
that, for it is not ours." So with my mind, intellect, and spirit; if
it belonged to me I might or might not play tomfool with it, and go to
hear Socinians, Ritualists, Universalists, and such like preach, but as
it is not my own, I will preserve it from such fooleries, and the pure
word shall not be mingled with the errors of men. Here is the drift of
the apostle's argument–I have no right to injure that which does not
belong to me, and as I am not my own, I have no right to injure myself.
But, further, I have no right to let myself lie waste. The man who had
a talent, and went and dug in the earth and hid it, had not he a right
to do so? Yes, of course, if it was his own talent, and his own napkin.
If any of you have money and do not put it out to interest, if it is
all your own, nobody complains. But this talent belonged to the man's
master, it was only intrusted to him as a steward, and he ought not to
have let it rust in the ground. So I have no right to let my faculties
run to waste since they do not belong to me. If I am a Christian I have
no right to be idle. I saw the other day men using picks in the road in
laying down new gas-pipes; they had been resting, and just as I passed
the clock struck one, and the foreman gave a signal. I think he said,
"Blow up;" and straightway each man took his pick or his shovel, and
they were all at it in earnest. Close to them stood a fellow with a
pipe in his mouth, who did not join in the work, but stood in a
free-and-easy posture. It did not make any difference to him whether it
was one o'clock or six. Why not? Because he was his own: the other men
were the master's for the time being. He as an independent gentlemen
might do as he liked, but those who were not their own fell to labor.
If any of you idle professors can really prove that you belong to
yourselves, I have nothing more to say to you, but if you profess to
have a share in the redeeming sacrifice of Christ, I am ashamed of you
if you do not go to work the very moment the signal is given. You have
no right to waste what Jesus Christ has bought "with a price."
Further than that, if we are not our own, but "are bought with a
price," we have no right to exercise any capricious government of
ourselves. A man who is his own may say, "I shall go whither I will,
and do what I will;" but if I am not my own but belong to God who has
bought me, then I must submit to his government; his will must be my
will, and his directions must be my law. I desire to enter a certain
garden, and I ask the gardener at the gate if I may come in. "You
should be very welcome, sir, indeed," says he, "if it were mine, but my
master has told me not to admit strangers here, and therefore I must
refuse you." Sometimes the devil would come into the garden of our
souls. We tell him that our flesh might consent, but the garden is not
ours, and we cannot give him space. Worldly ambition, covetousness, and
so forth, might claim to walk through our soul, but we say, "No, it is
not our own; we cannot, therefore, do what our old will would do, but
we desire to be obedient to the will of our Father who is in heaven."
Thy will be done, my God, in me, for so should it be done where all is
thine own by purchase.
Yet, again, if we are not our own, then we have no right to serve
ourselves. The man who is living entirely for himself, whose object is
his own ease, comfort, honor, or wealth, what knows he concerning
redemption by Christ? If our aims rise no higher than our personal
advantages, we are false to the fact that we "are bought with a price,"
we are treacherous to him in whose redemption we pretend to share.
But time would fail me if I dwelt upon this, or, indeed, at any length
upon the positive side of this blessed fact: I will therefore only say
a word or two concerning it. Our body and our spirit are God's; and,
Christian, this is certainly a very high honor to you. Your body will
rise again from the dead at the first resurrection, because it is not
an ordinary body, it belongs to God: your spirit is distinguished from
the souls of other men; it is God's spirit, and he has set his mark
upon it, and honored you in so doing. You are God's, because a price
has been paid for you. According to some, the allusion price here is to
the dowry that was paid by a husband for his wife in ancient days.
According to the Rabbis there were three ways by which a woman became
the wife of a man, and one of these was by the payment of a dowry. This
was always held good in Jewish law; the woman was not her own from the
moment when the husband had paid to her father or natural guardian the
stipulated price for her. Now, at this day, you and I rejoice that
Jesus Christ has espoused us unto himself in righteousness or ever the
earth was; we rejoice in that language which he uses by the prophet
Hosea, "I will betroth thee unto me for ever;" but here is our comfort,
the dowry money has been paid, Christ has redeemed us unto himself, and
Christ's we are, Christ's for ever and ever.
Remember that our Lord has paid all the price for us; there is no
mortgage or lien upon us; we have therefore no right to give a portion
of ourselves to Satan. And he has bought us entirely from head to foot,
every power, every passion, and every faculty, all our time, all our
goods, all that we call our own, all that makes up ourselves in the
largest sense of that term; we are altogether God's. Ah! it is very
easy for people to say this, but how very difficult it is to feel it
true and to act as such! I have no doubt there are many persons here
who profess to be willing to give God all they have, who would not
actually give him five shillings. We can sing–
"Here, Lord, I give myself away;"
and yet if it comes to yielding only a part of ourselves, if it
requires self-denial, or self-sacrifice, straightway there is a drawing
back. Now, was the cross a fiction? Was the death of Christ a fable?
Were you only fancifully "bought with a price," and not in deed and in
truth? If redemption be a fable, then return a fabled consecration; if
your purchase be a fiction, then lead the fictitious lives that some of
you do lead with regard to consecration to Christ. If it be only an
idea, a pretty something that we read of in books, then let our
belonging unto God be a mere idea and a piece of sentiment; but a real
redemption demands real holiness. A true price, most certainly paid,
demands from us a practical surrendering of ourselves to the service of
God. From this day forth even for ever, "ye are not your own," ye are
the Lord's.
III. And now I must close, and oh, may God give power to his word while
I beg to speak upon the last point, namely, THE NATURAL CONCLUSION:
"Therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit." I am not
clear that the last few words are in the original. A large number of
the old manuscripts and versions, and some of the more important of
them, finish the verse at the word "body"–"Therefore glorify God in
your body." It was the body the apostle was speaking about, and not the
spirit, and there is no necessity for the last words: still we will not
further raise the question, but take them as being the inspired word of
God: but still. I must make the remark, that according to the
connection the force of the apostle's language falls upon the body; and
perhaps it is so, because we are so apt to forget the truth, that the
body is redeemed and is the Lord's, and should be made to glorify God.
The Christian man's body should glorify God by its chastity. Pure as
the lily should we be from every taint of uncleanness. The body should
glorify God by temperance also; in all things, in eating drinking,
sleeping in everything that has to do with the flesh. "Whether ye eat
or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God," or as the
apostle puts it elsewhere, "whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in
the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by
him." The Christian man can make every meal a sacrament, and his
ordinary avocations the exercise of his spiritual priesthood. The body
ought to glorify God by its industry. A lazy servant is a bad
Christian. A working man who is always looking for Saturday night, a
man who never spends a drop of sweat except when the master is looking
on, does not glorify God in his body. The best Christian is the man who
is not afraid of hard work when it is due, who works not as an
eye-servant or man pleaser, but in singleness of heart seeks to glorify
God. Our bodies used to work hard enough for the devil; now they belong
to God we will make them work for him. Your legs used to carry you to
the theater; be not too lazy to come out on a Thursday night to the
house of God. Your eyes have been often open upon iniquity, keep them
open during the sermon: do not drop asleep! Your ears have been sharp
enough to catch the word of a lascivious song let them be quick to
observe the word of God. Those hands have often squandered your
earnings in sinfulness, let them give freely to the cause of Christ.
Your body was a willing horse when it was in the service of the devil,
let it not be a sluggish hack now that it draws the chariot of Christ.
Make the tongue speak his praises, make the mouth sing of his glory,
make the whole man bow in willing subservience to the will of him who
bought it.
As for your spirit, let that glorify God too. Let your private
meditations magnify God; let your songs be to him when no one hears you
but himself, and let your public zeal, let the purity of your
conversation, let the earnestness of your life, let the universal
holiness of your character, glorify God with your body and with your
spirit.
Beloved Christian friends, I want to say these few things and have
done. Because you are God's, you will be looked at more than others,
therefore, glorify him. You know it is not always the thing itself, but
the ownership that causes curiosity. If you were to go to a cattle-show
and it were said "such and such a bullock belongs to Her Majesty," it
may be it is no better than another, but it would be of interest to
thousands as belonging to royalty. See here, then, such and such a man
belongs to God; what manner of person ought he to be? If there be any
one in this world who will not be criticised, depend upon it,
Christian, it is not the Christian; sharp eyes will be upon him, and
worldly men will find faults in him which they would not see if he were
not a professor. For my part I am very glad of the lynx eyes of the
worldlings. Let them watch if they will. I have heard of one who was a
great caviller at Christian people, and after having annoyed a church a
long time, he was about to leave, and therefore, as a parting jest with
the minister, he said, "I have no doubt you will be very glad to know
that I am going a hundred miles away?" "No," said the pastor, "I shall
be sorry to lose you." "How? I never did you any good." "I don't know
that, for I am sure that never one of my flock put half a foot through
the hedge but what you began to yelp at him, and so you have been a
famous sheep-dog for me." I am glad the world observes us. It has a
right to do so. If a man says, "I am God's," he sets himself up for
public observation. Ye are lights in the world, and what are lights
intended for but to be looked at? A city set on a hill cannot be hid.
Moreover, the world has a right to expect more from a Christian than
from anybody else. He says he is "bought with a price," he says he is
God's, he therefore claims more than others, and he ought to render
more. Stand in fancy in one of the fights of the old civil war. The
Royalists are fighting desperately and are winning apace, but I hear a
cry from the other side that Cromwell's Ironsides are coming. Now we
shall see some fighting. Oliver and his men are lions. But, lo! I see
that the fellows who come up hang fire, and are afraid to rush into the
thick of the fight; surely these are not Cromwell's Ironsides, and
yonder captain is not old Noll? I do not believe it: it cannot be. Why,
if they were what they profess to be, they would have broken the ranks
of those perfumed cavaliers long ago, and have made them fly before
them like chaff before the wind. So when I hear men say, "Here is a
body of Christians", What! those Christians? Those cowardly people, who
hardly dare speak a word for Jesus! Those covetous people who give a
few cheese-parings to his cause! Those inconsistent people whom you
would not know to be Christian professors if they did not label
themselves! What! such beings followers of a crucified Savior? The
world sneers at such pretensions; and well it may. With such a leader
let us follow bravely; and bought with such a price, and being owned by
such a Master, let us glorify him who condescends to call such poor
creatures as we are his portion, whom he hath set apart for himself.
And let us remember that by men who profess to be "bought with a
price," the name of Christ is compromised if their behavior is
unseemly. If we are not holy and gracious, ungodly men are sure to say,
"That is one of your believers in God; that is one of your Christians."
Do not let it be so. Every soldier in a regiment ought to feel that the
renown of the whole army depends upon him, and he must fight as if the
winning of the battle rested upon himself. This will cause every man to
be a hero. Oh, that every Christian felt as if the honor of God and the
church rested upon him, for in a measure it certainly does!
May we so seek God, that when we come to die we may feel that we have
lived for something; that although our hope has rested alone in what
Jesus did, yet we have not made that an excuse for doing nothing
ourselves. Though we shall have no good works in which to glory, yet
may we bring forth fruit that shall be for the glory of our Lord. I
feel I so desire to glorify God, body, soul, and spirit while I
breathe, that I would even do so on earth after I am dead. I would
still urge my brethren on in our Lord's cause. Old Zizka, the Hussite
leader, when about to die, said to his soldiers: "Our enemies have
always been afraid of my name in the time of battle, and when I am dead
take my skin, and make a drum-head of it, and beat it whenever you go
to battle. When the foemen hear the sound they will tremble, and you
will remember that Zizka calls on his brethren to fight valiantly." Let
us so live that when we die, we live on, like Abel, who being dead yet
speaketh. The only way to do this is to live in the power of the
Immortal God, under the influence of his Holy Spirit: then out of our
graves we shall speak to future generations. When Doctor Payson died,
he desired that his body should be placed in a coffin, and that his
hearers should be invited to come and see it. Across his breast was
placed a paper bearing these words, "Remember the words which I spake
unto you, being yet present with you." May our lives be such that even
if we are not public speakers, yet others may remember our example, and
so may hear what our lives spake while we were yet on earth. Your
bodies and your spirits are God's: oh, live to God, and glorify him in
the power of his Spirit as long as you have any breath below, that so
when the breath is gone, your very bones, like those of Joseph, shall
be a testimony. Even in the ashes of the saints their wonted fires live
on. In their hallowed memories they rise like a phoenix from their
ashes.
The Lord make us more and more practically his own, and may his name be
glorious, for ever and ever. Amen, and amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–1 Peter 1.