Our Sympathizing High Priest
(No. 1927)
A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 31, 1886,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and
supplication, with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to sa
ve Him from death, and was heard in that He feared; though He were a
Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered and,
being made perfect, He became the Author of eternal salvation unto all
who obey Him, called by God as High Priest after the order of
Melchisedec." Hebrews 5:7-10.
THE Holy Spirit, in this chapter, reminds us that two things were
necessary in a High Priest. First, he must be suitable for the men for
whom he stood and next, he must be acceptable with God. "Every High
Priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to
God." He must be fit from both points of view, both man-ward and
God-ward. Our Lord Jesus Christ was ordained of God from of old and did
not, of Himself, assume the position of High Priest. The Prophets spoke
of Him as the Messiah of God and Jehovah, Himself, declared, "You are a
Priest forever after the order of Melchisedec." When He came into the
world, the Holy Spirit bore witness to His being the Son of the
Highest. At His Baptism there came a Voice from Heaven saying, "You are
My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," and that same Voice was
thrice heard declaring the same fact. The Father has given further
testimony to the mission of Christ, "in that He has raised Him from the
dead," and has caused Him to enter into the heavenly places on our
behalf. Moreover, He has given Him a pledge that as Melchisedec, being
both King and Priest, He shall sit at His right hand until He has made
His enemies His footstool. Our Lord Jesus has been chosen, ordained and
glorified as our "Great High Priest, that has passed into the heavens."
This is the groundwork of our comfort in our Lord Jesus, for we know
that He is One with the Father and that all things are done by Him as
the Messenger of the Covenant, the authorized Representative of Jehovah
our God.
That is not the point to which I call your attention this morning–I
would have you follow the text and consider the pre-eminent suitability
of our Lord Jesus to be a High Priest for us, viewed from the human
side. A High Priest must be one "who can have compassion on the
ignorant and on them that are out of the way; for that he, himself,
also is compassed with infirmity." He must be one who has learned
compassion in the school of suffering, so that he can succor the
afflicted. There is no learning sympathy except by suffering. It cannot
be studied from a book, it must be written on the heart. You must go
through the fire if you would have sympathy with others who tread the
glowing coals. You must, yourself, bear the cross if you would feel for
those whose life is a burden to them.
Beloved Friends, we live in a world of sin and sorrow and we are sinful
and sorrowful–we need one who can put away our sin and become a sharer
in our sorrow. If he cannot go with us through all the rough places of
our pilgrimage, how can he be our guide? If he has never traveled in
the night, himself, how can he whisper consolation to us in our darkest
hours? We have a fully qualified High Priest in our Lord Jesus
Christ–He is perfect in that capacity. I desire to speak of Him, this
morning, in that light. Oh for help from on high, for I feel that it
needs the Inspiration of the Holy One to enable a man to speak of Jesus
as He should be spoken of. No careless utterance must attempt to
describe the Great High Priest of our profession! It needs a perfect
preacher to fully describe a perfect Redeemer and where is he to be
found? To preach a crucified Savior in a crucified style is no easy
task! I take it that a lip needs as much to be touched with a live coal
from off the altar to speak of the lowly sympathy of Jesus as to
describe His Glory. Of the two I had rather venture to speak of the
Garden of Paradise than of the Garden of Gethsemane–apart from the
help of the Holy Spirit. Oh that the
Divine Instructor would direct our meditations at this time so that we
may glorify Christ and may, with increased confidence, repose in Him!
I have this further objective, also–while trying to comfort the people
of God, I would persuade others to approach our Great High Priest. Oh
how I long that many of you who have, until now, never known the love
of Christ, may now be touched with a sense of it and may be sweetly
drawn to Him! By the very fact that He is able to sympathize with you
in your griefs, I hope that those of you who are afflicted may be
induced to draw near to Him. Oh that upon this spot and at this hour,
you who have been halting and hesitating for years may at once find a
shelter with the Compassionate One! He waits to give you everlasting
comfort! Oh that you would believe in Him and enjoy it! We shall pray
for this and look for it–and may God grant us our desires so that His
Son, Jesus, may be glorified!
The great suitability of Christ for His work will be seen as we view
Him in three Characters. Let us first consider Him as a Suppliant–this
is set forth in the seventh verse–"Who in the days of His flesh, when
He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and
tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in
that He feared." Next we would view Him as a Son–"Though He were a
Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." And
then we shall close by regarding Him as a Savior–"He became the Author
of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him." Come, Holy Spirit,
and take of the things of Christ and show them to us!
I. First, then, that we may see the suitability of our Lord to deal
with us in our cares and sorrows, we shall view Him as A SUPPLIANT.
The text begins with a word which reveals His weakness–"Who in the
days of His flesh." Our blessed Lord was in such a condition that He
pleaded out of weakness with the God who was able to save. When our
Lord was compassed with the weakness of flesh, He was much in prayer.
It would be an interesting exercise for the younger people to note all
the times in which the Lord Jesus is said to have prayed. The occasions
recorded are very numerous, but these are, no doubt, merely a few
specimens of a far greater number. Jesus was habitually in prayer–He
was praying, even, when His lips did not utter a sound. His heart was
always in communion with the Great Father above. This is said to have
been the case "in the days of His flesh." This term is used to
distinguish His life on earth from His former estate in Glory. From of
old the Son of God dwelt with the Father, but He was not, then, a
partaker of human nature, and the eternal ages were not "the days of
His flesh." Then He could not have entered into that intimate sympathy
with us which He now exercises since He has been born at Bethlehem and
has died at Calvary. "The days of His flesh" intend this mortal
life–the days of His weakness, humiliation, labor and suffering. It is
true that He wears our nature in Heaven, for He said to His disciples
after His Resurrection, "Handle Me and see, for a spirit has not flesh
and bones, as you see I have." But yet we should not call the period of
His exaltation at the right hand of the Father, "the days of His
flesh." He still prays–in fact He continually makes intercession for
the transgressors. But it is in another style from that in which He
prayed "in the days of
His flesh"–
"With cries and tears He offered up His humble suit below, But with
authority He asks, Enthroned in Glory now."
Among the days of His life on earth there were some which peculiarly
deserved to be called "the days of His flesh"– days in which His
feebler Nature pushed itself to the front. Then men saw less of His
greatness as a Teacher and more of His suffering as Man. I should call
that one of the days of His flesh when He went to Gethsemane and "was
exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." He was very heavy because the
shadow of His Cross fell upon Him with a denser darkness as He drew
nearer to His death upon it. When the dread desertion by God, which was
the center of His grief, began to startle Him and when men esteemed Him
"stricken, smitten of God and afflicted," then were, "the days of His
flesh!" Prostrate under the olives, pouring out His inmost soul in
plaintive entreaties, even to a bloody sweat, you see your Lord a
Suppliant in weakness–"in the days of His flesh."
Brothers and Sisters, I beseech you to think of our Lord's pleading,
"in the days of His flesh," as a matter of fact. Do not dream of Him as
though He were a phantom and of His prayers as if they were part of a
mere show. He was a real Man and His prayers were as real as yours can
be. Believe in Jesus as Man. You would be indignant at anyone who would
diminish the Glory of His Godhead and most justly so, but oh, do not,
yourself, take away from Him the truth of His Humanity! He was, in very
deed, made flesh and dwelt among us! This was the case even when His
Apostles beheld His
Glory, "the Glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of Grace
and truth!" We must get a firm grip of the true Humanity, or otherwise
we lose the Sacrificial death, the Resurrection and all the rest–and
the Brotherhood of our Lord, which is a grand source of consolation,
also disappears. Remember that He who sits at the right hand of God was
once here in the likeness of sinful flesh! He who shall shortly come to
judge the quick and dead passed through a period of limitation,
weakness, suffering, weariness since He was in human flesh. "The days
of His flesh" were, to Him, days of poverty, sickness, weariness,
reproach and temptation–though in Him was no sin, yet He was tempted
and tried in all points like as we are. Inasmuch as He has passed
through such days as these, He is fitted to be the High Priest of
Believers who also are passing through the days of their flesh.
Brothers and Sisters, we know too well that we are partakers of flesh
and blood–and it is no mean comfort that our Lord Jesus, Himself, took
part in the same!
In the days of His flesh, our Divine Lord felt His necessities. The
words, "He offered up prayers and supplications," prove that He had
many needs. Men do not pray and supplicate unless they have greater
needs than this world can satisfy. Men work for what they can get by
working, but pray for that which can by no other means be obtained. The
Savior offered no petitions by way of mere form–His supplications
arose out of an urgent sense of His need of heavenly aid. It is
difficult to realize it, but so it is, that our Divine and innocent
Savior placed Himself in such a condition for our sakes that His needs
were manifold. Of course, as God, He could come under no necessity, but
being Man, like ourselves, He did not permit the power of His Godhead
to destroy the man-like weakness of the flesh! Therefore He endured
such necessities as we do and resorted, as we must, to the one
all-sufficient Source of supply, approaching His Father by prayer! He
sought for blessings with prayers, He pleaded against evil with
supplications. His approaches to God were many–both words are in the
plural–"prayers and supplications"–and they were manifold in their
character, for He presented prayers and supplications of all kinds.
Especially in the Garden He cried again and again, "If it is possible,
let this cup pass from Me."
Now, trite as the observation may be, yet it is one that needs to be
often repeated, that our Savior did really pray. When you, in your
heaviness, shut the door of your chamber and kneel down in prayer–when
that prayer gathers strength and you fall flat upon your face in
agony–when you cry and weep before the Most High, under a sinking
sense of need, it is hard for you to think that Jesus ever did the
same! But He did. He asked as really as you ask. He implored and
besought, He entreated and wrestled even as you must. He knows that
solitary place on Carmel where Elijah bowed his head between his knees
and cried seven times unto the Lord! He knows the turning of the face
to the wall and the weeping of the sorrowful eyes, even as Hezekiah
knew them! He can have pity upon you in your loneliness, your
distraction, your apparent desertion, your sinking of heart, your
sorrowfulness even unto death. Look to Him, then, in your night of
weeping and be of good cheer!
Those of you who are only now beginning to pray, I would encourage you
to remember Jesus as your Example of praying. If your prayers have but
few words in them and are mainly made up of crying and tears, yet in
this they are like those of your Savior and so you may hope that they
will be accepted. If you are afraid that your prayers are shut out from
Heaven, remember how the Savior complains in the 22nd Psalm, "O My God,
I cry in the daytime but You hear not; and in the night season, and am
not silent." He was heard in the end, but, at the first, He seemed to
plead in vain. Jesus prayed under discouragements–what He did,
Himself, He will help you to do. He knows what the agony of prayer
means and He will cast a Brother's eyes on you when, in the bitterness
of your repentance, you seek the Lord. How clear it is that we have a
suitable High Priest, of tender heart and loving soul!
Further, let us see how like the Son of God was to us in His intensity
of prayer. I wish I knew how to preach upon a theme so sacred. One had
need take his shoes off of his feet upon this doubly-consecrated
ground. The intensity of His prayer was such that our Lord expressed
Himself in "crying and tears." The Evangelists do not record His tears,
but the Holy Spirit, here, reveals what human eyes could not have seen.
He pleaded with God until His pent-up grief demanded audible utterance
and He began to cry! He said, so that the disciples heard Him a stone's
cast away, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me."
His voice grew louder as the stream of His sorrows forced a channel for
itself! There was great strength in His cries–there was "strong
crying"–there was deep, plaintive, touching, heart-breaking crying.
"If it is possible–if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me."
We may be thankful that we did not hear the cries of that sore distress
which fell upon our great Substitute. Cries are weak things, but His
was strong crying–strong with the heart of the Great Father. When He
ceased His crying and was
silent, His tears took up the strain. The Lord heard a voice in His
tears and who shall say which spoke the more loudly, His crying or His
tears? When a Man so courageous, so patient as Jesus, betakes Himself
to cries and tears, we may be sure that the sorrow of His heart has
passed all bounds. His soul within Him must have been bursting with
grief! We know it was so by another sign, for the life-blood forgot to
course in its usual channels and overflowed its banks in a sweat of
blood. I do not think, as some do, that it was merely a sweat such as
is common to labor. I believe it was a sweat of blood, or the
expression would not have been used, "as it were. great drops of
blood." A sweat of blood has now and then been seen upon men in great
and fatal alarm, but the Savior's was more amazing than any of these
cases, for so profuse was this bloody sweat that there was, as it were,
great drops of it "falling down to the ground." This was prayer,
indeed–supplication which exhausted His whole Manhood! Body, soul and
spirit were now upon the rack of anguish and upon the strain of agony!
He pleaded with God after a more piteous, painful, terrible, and
powerful sort than you and I will ever attain.
But, Brothers and Sisters, here is the point–if it comes to your case
to be in a dark, dark hour and to be praying with the heavens like
brass above your head. And if you are obliged to cry aloud and weep
your soul away, then remember Jesus in the days of His flesh! Usually
it may be you are very quiet and, perhaps, wordless in prayer. But now
you cannot refrain yourself–as Joseph cried so that the Egyptians in
the house of Pharaoh heard him–so do you give vent to your agony! Be
not ashamed of your weakness–your Lord did so before you. Strong man
as you are, you weep like a child. Do not apologize lest you seem to
accuse your Savior! Behold, you are not alone! Jesus is passing through
the deeps with you. Can't you see the blood-stained footprints of your
Lord? Your utmost anguish is known to Him. Fear not! Commit your way
unto the Lord, even in this worst part of it. Trust Him when the iron
enters into your soul. Leave all in His experienced hands.
You poor souls who have never as yet trusted my Lord, are you not
attracted to Him? If He suffered all this, can He not meet your case?
By all this He was made perfect as a High Priest–oh, can you not trust
Him? Is He not able to enter into your misery? Oh, darkened hearts, is
there not light here for you? When you pray with anguish, Jesus
perfectly understands the situation. Oh, you that loathe yourselves!
Oh, you that wish you had never been born! Oh, you daughters of
melancholy and children of despair–can you not see, in the marred
visage of your Redeemer, a reason for trusting Him? Since from His lips
you hear strong crying and from His eyes you see showers of tears, you
may well feel that His is a sympathetic spirit to whom you may run in
the hour of danger, even as the chicks seek the wings of the hen!
Still, to proceed with the text, we have seen our Lord's needs and the
intensity of His prayer, now note His understanding in prayer. He
prayed "unto Him that was able to save Him from death." The expression
is startling! The Savior prayed to be saved! In His direst woe He
prayed thoughtfully and with a clear apprehension of the Character of
Him to whom He prayed. It is a great help in devotion to pray
intelligently, knowing well the Character of God to whom you are
speaking. Jesus was about to die and, therefore, the aspect under which
He viewed the great Father was as "Him that was able to save Him from
death." This passage may be read in two ways. It may mean that He would
be saved from actually dying if it could be done consistently with the
glorifying of the Father. Or it may mean that He pleaded to be saved
from death, though He actually descended into it. The word may be
rendered either from or out of. The Savior viewed the great Father as
able to preserve Him in death, from the power of death, so that He
should triumph on the Cross–and also as able to bring Him up, again,
from among the dead.
Remember how He said in the Psalm–"You will not leave My soul in Hell,
neither will You suffer Your Holy One to see corruption." Jesus had
faith in God concerning death and prayed according to that faith. This
brings our blessed Lord very near to us–He prayed in faith even as we
do! He believed in the power of God to save Him from death and even
when cast down with fear, He did not let go His hold on God! He pleaded
just as you and I should plead, impelled by fear and encouraged by
faith! Let us imitate His intensity, His intelligence and His faith. He
has condescended to set us an example which we can copy–He has come
into living companionship with us in our most urgent supplications. He
has had His Jabbok. Therefore, O you seed of Jacob, trust in Him!
It will further help you if I now call your attention to His fear. I
believe our old Bibles give us a correct translation, much better than
the Revised Version, although much can be said for the latter, "With
strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death,
and was heard in that He feared." That is to say, He had a fear, a
natural and not a sinful fear–and from this fear He was delivered by
the strength brought to Him from Heaven by the angel. God has im-
planted in all of us the love of life and we cannot part from it
without a pang–our Lord felt a natural dread of death. If it is said
that the Savior was too courageous to know the fear of death, I beg to
remark that He was the more courageous because He so calmly encountered
that which He feared. Martyrs have died without the preceding dread
which fell upon our Lord, but remember that the help of God which
sustained them was taken away from Jesus! And consider, also, that His
death was special and differed from that of all others of our race, for
in that death there was condensed the penalty due to sin.
To the righteous man, death is not now a penalty, but a mode of going
Home–to Jesus it was, in the fullest sense, the penalty of death for
human guilt! He saw before Him, as we do not, all the pains and
torments of death–He knew what He had to bear and foretasted in the
Garden, the smart involved in being a Surety for sinful man. The vials
of God's wrath were about to be poured upon Him and Jehovah was heard
saying, "Awake, O sword"–as if it had never awoke before–"Awake, O
sword, against My Shepherd and against the Man that is My Fellow, says
the Lord of Hosts." He saw the abyss into which He must fall! If no
dread had come upon Him, why, I think the very essence of the atoning
suffering would have been absent! Fear must take hold upon Him–not
that of a coward, but that of one terribly oppressed! His soul was
"exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." So when you tremble after
sipping your cup of bitterness, think of Jesus trembling, too. When
you, in entering into the valley of death's shade, feel yourself
greatly disturbed at the prospect before you, think of Jesus who was
heard in His fear! Come, you that fear, and find help in One who also
feared! Borrow courage from One who, out of fear, prayed Himself into
victory! Think of Him who cried unto God, "Be not You far from Me, O
Lord: O my Strength, hasten You to help Me!" Trust your souls with Him
who, in the days of His flesh, cried out in anguish, "My God, My God,
why have You forsaken Me?"
But then notice another thing in the text, namely, His success in
prayer which also brings Him near to us. He was heard "in that He
feared." O my Soul, to think that it should be said of your Lord that
He was heard, even as you, a poor suppliant, are heard! Yet the cup did
not pass from Him, neither was the bitterness thereof in the least
abated. When we are compelled to bear our thorn in the flesh and
receive no other answer than, "My Grace is sufficient for you," let us
see our fellowship with Jesus and Jesus' fellowship with us! Jesus came
forth from His agony saying, "You have heard Me from the horns of the
wild oxen! I will declare Your name unto My brethren: in the midst of
the congregation will I praise You." Oh what a Brother Christ is, since
He, too, cried and wept and had power with God and prevailed! When God
has sent from above and drawn us out of many waters, the Lord Jesus is
there to sing with us and rejoice with us– the constant companion of
all our experiences. Can we not trust Him? Brothers and Sisters, if
Jesus rises with us to the highest note of the scale and if He also
comes down with us to the deepest bass that the human voice can reach,
then we may conclude that all along He is in unison with us in all the
intervening notes! So let us, today, feel that Jesus is like ourselves
in all but our sin and that we may fearlessly come and trust Him as we
would trust a father or a brother, or as a fond wife confides in the
husband of her love.
II. Let us now spend a few moments in beholding our Lord as A SON. His
prayers and pleas were those of a son with a father–"though He were a
Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered."
The Sonship of our dear Savior is well attested. The Lord declared this
in the second Psalm–"You are My Son; this day have I begotten You."
Thrice, as we have already noticed, did the Voice out of the excellent
Glory proclaim this truth and Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God
with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the Resurrection
from the dead." Yes, He that cried, He that wept, He that pleaded until
He came to a bloody sweat and He from whom the cup could not pass till
He had drained it to the dregs, was, nevertheless, the only-begotten
Son of God! So, my Brothers and Sisters, when you are put to great
grief, do not doubt your sonship! What son is there whom the father
chastens not? When you are in heaviness through manifold trials, do not
listen to the insinuations of the enemy–"If you are the Son of God."
Yes, if you should have to ask, "Why have You forsaken me?" do not
doubt your sonship! Your faith should not be founded upon your own
enjoyments, but upon the promise and the faithfulness of God! You are
as much a son or daughter when you walk in the dark as when you rejoice
in the light of Jehovah's Countenance!
Being a Son, the text goes on to tell us that He had to learn
obedience. Is not that an amazing thing? As Man, our Savior had to
learn! He was of a teachable spirit, and the Lord, Himself, instructed
Him. All God's children go to school, for it is written, "All your
children shall be taught of the Lord." The lesson is practical–we
learn to obey. Our Lord took kindly to this lesson–He always did the
things which pleased the Father. This is our time of schooling and
disci-
pline and we are learning to obey, which is the highest and best lesson
of all. How near this brings our Lord to us, that He should be a Son
and should have to learn! We go to school to Christ and with
Christ–and so we feel His fitness to be our compassionate High Priest.
Jesus must learn by suffering. As swimming is only to be learned in the
water, so is obedience only learned by actually doing and suffering the
Divine will. Obedience cannot be learned at the university unless it is
at the College of Experience. You must suffer the Commandment to have
its way with you and then it will educate you. We think, when we are
first converted, that we have learned obedience and assuredly we have,
in a measure, received the spirit by which we obey, but no man knows
obedience till he has actually obeyed, both in an active and a passive
sense. Even the Lord Jesus must come under the Law of God, honor the
Law and suffer the Law, or else He cannot learn obedience. Who knows
what it is to obey God to the fullest until he has had to lay aside his
own will in the most tender and painful respects? To plead with God for
the life of a beloved child and yet to see that dear child die–but to
kiss the rod–this is to learn obedience! To get alone and plead with
God for the life of a husband or wife and agonize with Him for the
gift–and then to be compelled to weep at the new-made grave, but yet
to say, by His Grace, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord"–this is to learn obedience! Our Lord,
as Man, was made to know, by His sufferings, what full obedience
meant–His was practical, experimental, personal acquaintance with
obedience–and in all this He comes very near to us. A Son learning
obedience–that is our Lord. May we not joyfully walk with Him in all
the rough paths of duty? May we not safely lean on the arm of One who
knows every inch of the way?
The Lord Jesus Christ learned this obedience to perfection. The text
speaks of Him as "being made perfect." As a High Priest He is perfect
because He has suffered to the end, all that was necessary to make Him
like His brethren. He has read the book of obedience quite through. He
was not spared one heavy stroke of Divine discipline. You and I never
go to the end of grief–we are spared the utmost depth–but not so our
Lord. The Lord sets us a service proportioned to our strength, but what
a service was exacted of the Son of God! Ours is a lightened burden,
but the Well-Beloved was not spared the lest ounce of crushing sorrow.
"For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all
things, in bringing many sons unto Glory, to make the Captain of their
salvation perfect through sufferings."
Our Lord learned by suffering much with prayer and supplication. His
was no unsanctified sorrow. His griefs were baptized in prayer. It cost
Him cries and tears to learn the lesson of His sufferings. He never
suffered without prayer, nor prayed without suffering. Supplication and
suffering went hand in hand and, in this way, our Lord became perfected
as the High Priest of our profession.
The practical point I am trying to drive at in my poor way is this–let
us trust ourselves with Him who, as a Son, knows the training and
discipline of sons. Being yourself a son, look up and see what the
elder Brother endured and know that, "in that He has suffered, being
tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted." You who are
afraid that you never will be the children of God, come and hear your
Savior cry as He rises from prayer, "Come unto Me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Sons of men, why do you
wander? Why not come to Him who is made like yourselves? Which way are
you looking? Look to Him that suffered in your place–and suffered both
as a Suppliant and a Son! If you have never trusted Him before, I think
that you should begin this morning, now that you see His fellowship
with you, His sympathy with you. I do not, at this time, set Him forth
to you in His Power and Glory–that I will do on another occasion–but
I bring Him before you in His weakness and humiliation, hoping,
thereby, to attract to Him the poor and needy who need such a Helper.
III. Time fails me and, therefore, we can do no more than spend a brief
time in beholding the Lord Jesus as A SAVIOR. It is to this end that He
pleaded as a Suppliant and learned obedience as a Son.
As a Savior He is perfect. Being made perfect through suffering, He is
fully able to discharge His office. Nothing is lacking in the Character
and Person of Christ in order to His being able to save to the
uttermost. He is a Savior and a great one. You are wholly lost, but
Jesus is perfectly able to save. You are sorely sick, but Jesus is
perfectly able to heal. You have gone, perhaps, to the extreme of
sin–He has gone to the extreme of Atonement. In every office essential
to our salvation, Jesus is perfect. Nothing is lacking in Him in any
point. However difficult your case may seem, He is equal to it. Made
perfect by suffering, He is able to meet the intricacies of your trials
and to deliver you in the most complicated emergency.
Therefore He is the Author of salvation. What a suggestive word–the
Author of salvation! Author! How expressive! He is the Cause of
salvation; the Originator; the Worker; the Producer of salvation!
Salvation begins with Christ; salvation is carried on by Christ;
salvation is completed by Christ! If a man is the author of a book and
not a mere compiler, it is all his own writing. Salvation has Jesus for
its Author! Do any of you wish to write a little of the book,
yourselves? Then Jesus would not be the author of it–it would be Jesus
and you. But because our Lord has assumed our Nature and entered into
fellowship with us, He has become the Author of salvation and we must
not intrude into His office. Let the Author of salvation complete His
own work. Come and accept the salvation which He is waiting to give to
you. He has finished it and you cannot add to it–it only remains for
you to receive it.
Observe that it is eternal salvation–"The author of eternal
salvation." Jesus does not save us, today, and leave us to perish
tomorrow! He knows what is in man and so He has prepared nothing less
than eternal salvation for man. A salvation which was not eternal would
turn out to be no salvation at all. Those whom Jesus saved, are saved,
indeed! Man can be the author of temporary salvation, but only He who
is "a High Priest forever" can bring in a salvation which endures
forever. This reminds us of the word of the Prophet–"Israel shall be
saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation." Surely I know that
whatever the Lord does shall be forever. An eternal salvation is worth
having, is it not? Jesus does not give a salvation which will let you
fall from Grace and perish, after all, but a salvation which will keep
you to the end– though you should live to be as old as Methuselah!
Salvation to eternity and through eternity is provided by Jesus. Oh,
love the Lord, all you His saints, since by His stooping to be
perfected as a High Priest, He has been able to bring in for you such a
salvation as this!
Furthermore, inasmuch as He has learned obedience and become a perfect
High Priest, His salvation is wide in its range, for it is unto "all
them that obey Him." Not to some few, not to a little select company
here and there, but "unto all them that obey Him." One of His first
Commandments is "Repent." Will you obey Him in that and quit your sin?
Then He is the Author of eternal salvation for you! His great command
is, "Believe and live." Will you trust Him, then? For if you do, He is
the Author of eternal salvation for you. He whom I have tried to
describe with all my heart–this blessed sympathetic fellow-sufferer of
ours–He is willing and able to save all of you who will obey Him at
this moment by trusting Him!
Come, my Hearers, let Jesus be your Master and your Lord! Come, you
runaways, return to Him! Come, you castaways, hope in Him! Be His, for
He has made Himself yours. Seek Him, for He has sought you. Obey Him,
for He obeyed for you. He is "the Author of eternal salvation unto all
them that obey Him."
Note, that He is all this forever, for He is "a Priest forever." If you
could have seen Him when He came from Geth-semane, do you think you
could have trusted Him? Oh, trust Him today, for He is "called of God
to be an High Priest after the order of Melchisedec," and that order of
Melchisedec is an everlasting and perpetual Priesthood! He is able,
today, to plead for you, able, today, to put away your sins! Oh that
God the Holy Spirit may lead many of you to come and obey Him at once!
A heavy atmosphere fills this Tabernacle this morning, making it
difficult to speak and more difficult to hear, but yet, if some sudden
news came to you, as the burning of your house, or the death of a dear
child, you would shake off all lethargy and wake up from all dullness
and heaviness of spirit! And, therefore, I claim your liveliest
thoughts for the solemn subject which I have introduced to you. Think
much of the Son of God, the Lord of Heaven and earth, who, for our
salvation, loved and lived and served and suffered! He that made man
was made Man! As a Suppliant, with cries and tears He pleaded with
God–even He before whom the hosts of Heaven bow adoringly! He has
still that tenderness to which He was trained by His suffering! He bids
you come to Him now! You that love Him, approach Him, now, and read the
love which is engraved on His heart! You who have not, until now, known
Him, come boldly to Him and trust Him who has come so near to you. The
Man is very near akin to us! Behold how He loves us! He bends down to
us with eternal salvation in His hands! Believe in Him and live! God
grant it! Amen.