The Last Words of Christ on the Cross
(No. 2644)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, OCTOBER 15, 1899.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE
25, 1882.
"And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said, Father, into Your
hands I commend My spirit: and having said this, He gave up the ghost"
Luke 23:46.
"Into Your hands I commit my spirit: You have redeemed me, O LORD God
of Truth."
Psalm 31:5.
"And they stoned Stephen, as he was calling upon God and asking, Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit."
Acts 7:59.
THIS morning, dear Friends, I spoke upon the first recorded words of
our Lord Jesus [Sermon #1666, Volume 28–The First Recorded Words of
Jesus] when He said to His mother and to Joseph, "How is it that you
sought Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?"
Now, by the help of the blessed Spirit, we will consider the last words
of our Lord Jesus before He gave up the ghost. And with them we will
examine two other passages in which similar expressions are used.
The words, "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit," if we judge
them to be the last which our Savior uttered before His death, ought to
be coupled with those other words, "It is finished," which some have
thought were actually the last He used. I think it was not so, but,
anyway, these utterances must have followed each other very quickly and
we may blend them together. And then we shall see how very similar they
are to His first words as we explained them this morning. There is the
cry, "It is finished," which you may read in connection with our
Authorized Version–"Did you not know that I must be about My Father's
business?" That business was all finished–He had been about it all His
life and now that He had come to the end of His days, there was nothing
left undone–and He could say to His Father, "I have finished the work
which You gave Me to do."
Then if you take the other utterance of our Lord on the Cross, "Father,
into your hands I commend My spirit," see how well it agrees with the
other reading of our morning text, "Did you not know that I must be in
My Father's house?" Jesus is putting Himself into the Father's hands
because He had always desired to be there, in the Father's house with
the Father. And now He is committing His spirit, as a sacred trust,
into the Father's hands that He may depart to be with the Father, to
abide in His house, and go no more out forever.
Christ's life is all of a piece, just as the alpha and the omega are
letters of the same alphabet. You do not find Him one thing at the
first, another thing afterwards, and a third thing still later–He is
"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever." There is a
wondrous similarity about everything that Christ said and did. You
never need write the name, "Jesus," under any of His sayings as you
have to put the names of human writers under their sayings, for there
is no mistaking any sentence that He has uttered!
If there is anything recorded as having been done by Christ, a
believing child can judge whether it is authentic or not. Those
miserable false gospels that were brought out did very little, if any
mischief, because nobody with any true spiritual discernment was ever
duped into believing them to be genuine! It is possible to manufacture
a spurious coin which will, for a time, pass for a good one, but it is
not possible to make even a passable imitation of what Jesus Christ has
said and done! Everything about Christ is like Himself–there is a
Christ-likeness about it which cannot be mistaken! This morning, for
instance, when I preached about the Holy Child Jesus, I am sure you
must have felt that there was never another child as He was. And in His
death He was as unique as in His birth, childhood and life. There was
never another who died as He did and there was never another who lived
altogether as He did. Our Lord Jesus Christ stands by Himself! Some of
us try to imitate Him, but how feebly do we follow in His steps! The
Christ of God still stands by Himself and He has no rival!
I have already intimated to you that I am going to have three texts for
my sermon, but when I have spoken upon all three of them, you will see
that they are so much alike that I might have been content with one of
them.
I. I invite you first to consider OUR SAVIOR'S WORDS JUST BEFORE HIS
DEATH. "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit."
Here observe, first, how Christ lives and passes away in the atmosphere
of the Word of God. Christ was a grand original thinker and He might
always have given us words of His own. He never lacked suitable
language, for, "never man spoke like this Man." Yet you must have
noticed how continually He quoted Scripture–the great majority of His
expressions may be traced to the Old Testament. Even where they are not
exact quotations, His words drop into Scriptural shape and form! You
can see that the Bible has been His one Book. He is evidently familiar
with it from the first page to the last and not with its letter, only,
but with the innermost soul of its most secret sense and, therefore,
when dying, it seemed but natural for Him to use a passage from a Psalm
of David as His expiring words. In His death, He was not driven beyond
the power of quiet thought–He was not unconscious, He did not die of
weakness–He was strong even while He was dying! It is true that He
said, "I thirst," but, after He had been a little refreshed, He cried
with a loud voice, as only a strong man could, "It is finished!" And
now, before He bows His head in the silence of death, He utters His
final words, "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit." Our Lord
might, I say again, have made an original speech as His dying
declaration. His mind was clear, calm, and undisturbed–in fact, He was
perfectly happy, for He had said, "It is finished!" So His sufferings
were over and He was already beginning to enjoy a taste of the sweets
of victory. Yet, with all that clearness of mind, freshness of
intellect and fluency of words that might have been possible to Him, He
did not invent a new sentence, but He went to the Book of Psalms and
took from the Holy Spirit this expression," Into Your hands I commend
My spirit."
How instructive to us is this great Truth of God that the Incarnate
Word lived on the Inspired Word! It was food to Him, as it is to us
and, Brothers and Sisters, if Christ thus lived upon the Word of God,
should not you and I do the same? He, in some respects, did not need
this Book as much as we do. The Spirit of God rested upon Him without
measure, yet He loved the Scripture and He went to it, studied it and
used its expressions continually. Oh, that you and I might get into the
very heart of the Word of God and get that Word into ourselves! As I
have seen the silkworm eat into the leaf and consume it, so ought we to
do with the Word of the Lord–not crawl over its surface, but eat right
into it till we have taken it into our inmost parts! It is idle to
merely let the eyes glance over the Words, or to remember the poetical
expressions, or the historic facts–but it is blessed to eat into the
very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural
language and your very style is fashioned upon Scripture models–and,
what is still better, your spirit is flavored with the words of the
Lord!
I would quote John Bunyan as an instance of what I mean. Read anything
of his and you will see that it is almost like reading the Bible
itself. He had studied our Authorized Version, which will never be
bettered, as I judge, till Christ shall come. He had read it till his
very soul was saturated with Scripture and though his writings are
charmingly full of poetry, yet he cannot give us his Pilgrim's
Progress–that sweetest of all prose poems–without continually making
us feel and say, "Why, this man is a living Bible!" Prick him
anywhere–his blood is Bibline–the very essence of the Bible flows
from him! He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is
full of the Word of God. I commend His example to you, Beloved and,
still more, the example of our Lord Jesus! If the Spirit of God is in
you, He will make you love the Word of God and, if any of you imagine
that the Spirit of God will lead you to dispense with the Bible, you
are under the influence of another spirit which is not the Spirit of
God at all! I trust that the Holy Spirit will endear to you every page
of this Divine Record so that you will feed upon it and, afterwards,
speak it out to others. I think it is well worthy of your constant
remembrance that, even in death, our blessed Master showed the ruling
passion of His spirit so that His last words were a quotation from
Scripture.
Now notice, secondly, that our Lord, in the moment of His death,
recognized a personal God. "Father, into Your hands I commend My
spirit." God is to some men an unknown God. "There may be a God," so
they say, but they get no nearer the truth than that. "All things are
God," says another. "We cannot be sure that there is a God," say
others, "and, therefore, it is no use our pretending to believe in Him
and so to be, possibly, influenced by a supposition." Some people say,
"Oh, certainly, there is a God, but He is very far off! He does not
come near to us and we cannot imagine that He will interfere in our
affairs." Ah, but our blessed Lord Jesus Christ believed in no such
impersonal, pantheistic, dreamy, far-off God, but in One to whom He
said, "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit." His language shows
that He realized the Personality of God as much as I would recognize
the personality of a banker if I said to him, "Sir, I commit that money
into your hands." I know that I should not say such a thing as that to
a mere dummy, or to an abstract something or nothing–but I would say
it to a living man and I would say it only to a living man.
So, Beloved, men do not commit their souls into the keeping of
impalpable nothings! They do not, in death, smile as they resign
themselves to the infinite unknown, the cloudy "Father of everything,"
who may be nothing or everything. No, no, we only trust what we know!
And so Jesus knew the Father, and knew Him to be a real Person having
hands– and into those hands He commended His departing spirit. I am
not now speaking materially, mark you, as though God had hands like
ours, but He is an actual Being, who has powers of action, who is able
to deal with men as He pleases and who is willing to take possession of
their spirits and to protect them forever and ever. Jesus speaks like
one who believed that and I pray that, both in life and in death, you
and I may always deal with God in the same way. We have far too much
fiction in religion–and a religion of fiction will bring only
fictitious comfort in the dying hour. Come to solid facts! Is God as
real to you as you are to yourself? Come now, do you speak with Him,
"as a man speaks unto his friend"? Can you trust Him and rely upon Him
as you trust and rely upon the partner of your bosom? If your God is
unreal, your religion is unreal! If your God is a dream, your hope will
be a dream and woe be unto you when you shall wake up out of it!
It was not so that Jesus trusted. "Father," He said, "into Your hands I
commend My spirit."
But, thirdly, here is a still better point. Observe how Jesus Christ
here brings out the Fatherhood of God. The Psalm from which He quoted
did not say, "Father." David did not get as far as that in words,
though in spirithe often did. But Jesus had the right to alter the
Psalmist's words. He can improve on Scripture, though you and I cannot.
He did not say, "O God, into Your hands I commend My spirit." He said,
"Father." Oh, that sweet word! That was the gem of our thought, this
morning, that Jesus said, "Did you not know that I must be at My
Father's–that I must be in My Father's house!" Oh, yes, the Holy Child
knew that He was especially and, in a peculiar sense, the Son of the
Highest, and therefore He said, "My Father." And, in dying, His
expiring heart was buoyed up and comforted with the thought that God
was His Father. It was because He said that God was His Father that
they put Him to death, yet He still stood to it even in His dying hour
and said, "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit"!
What a blessed thing it is for us, also, my Brothers and Sisters, to
die conscious that we are children of God! Oh, how sweet, in life and
in death, to feel in our soul the spirit of adoption whereby we cry,
"Abba, Father"! In such a case as that–
"It is not death to die."
Quoting the Savior's words, "It is finished," and relying upon His
Father and our Father, we may go even into the jaws of death without
the "quivering lips" of which we sang just now. Joyful, with all the
strength we have, our lips may confidently sing, challenging death and
the grave to silence our ever-rising and swelling music! O my Father,
my Father, if I am in your hands, I may die without fear!
There is another thought, however, which is perhaps the best one of
all. From this passage we learn that our Divine Lord cheerfully
rendered up His soul to His Father when the time had come for Him to
die. "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit." None of us can,
with strict propriety, use these words. When we come to die, we may
perhaps utter them and God will accept them–these were the very
death-words of Polycarp, Bernard, Luther, Melanchthon, Jerome of
Prague, John Huss and an almost endless list of saints–"Into Your
hands I commend my spirit." The Old Testament rendering of the passage,
or else our Lord's version of it, has been turned into a Latin prayer
and commonly used among Romanists almost as a charm–they have repeated
the Latin words when dying, or, if they were unable to do so, the
priest repeated the words for them, attaching a sort of magical power
to that particular formula! But, in the sense in which our Savior
uttered these words, we cannot, any of us, fully use them. We can
commit or commend our spirit to God, but yet, Brothers and Sisters,
remember that unless the Lord comes first, we must die–and dying is
not an acton our part. We have to be passive in the process because it
is no longer in our power to retain our life. I suppose that if a man
could have such control of his life, it might be questionable when he
would surrender it because suicide is a crime and no man can be
required to kill himself. God does not demand such action as that at
any man's hands and, in a certain sense, that is what would happen
whenever a man yielded himself to death.
But there was no necessity for our blessed Lord and Master to die
except the necessity which He had taken upon Himself in becoming the
Substitute for His people! There was no necessity for His death even at
the last moment upon the Cross, for, as I have reminded you, He cried
with a loud voice when natural weakness would have compelled Him to
whisper or to sigh. But His life was strong within Him–if He had
willed to do so, He could have unloosed the nails and come down into
the midst of the crowd that stood mocking Him! He died of His own free
will, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." A man
may righteously surrender his life for the good of his country and for
the safety of others. There have frequently been opportunities for men
to do this and there have been brave fellows who have worthily done it.
But all those men would have had to die at some time or other. They
were only slightly anticipating the payment of the debt of nature. But,
in our Lord's case, He was rendering up to the Father the sprit which
He might have kept if He had chosen to do so. "No man takes it from
Me," He said concerning His life. "I lay it down of Myself."
And there is here a cheerful willingness to yield up His spirit into
His Father's hands! It is rather remarkable that none of the
Evangelists describe our Lord as dying. He did die, but they all speak
of Him as giving up the ghost– surrendering to God His spirit. You and
I passively die, but He actively yielded up His spirit to His Father.
In His case, death was an act and He performed that act from the
glorious motive of redeeming us from death and Hell! So, in this sense,
Christ stands alone in His death.
But, oh, dear Brothers and Sisters, if we cannot render up our spirit
as He did, yet, when our life is taken from us, let us be perfectly
ready to give it up! May God bring us into such a state of mind and
heart that there shall be no struggling to keep our life, but a sweet
willingness to let it be just as God would have it–a yielding up of
everything into His hands, feeling sure that, in the world of spirits,
our soul shall be quite safe in the Father's hands and that, until the
Resurrection Day, the life-germ of the body will be securely in His
keeping, and certain that when the trumpet shall sound, spirit, soul
and body–that trinity of our manhood–shall be reunited in the
absolute perfection of our being to behold the King in His beauty in
the land that is very far off! When God calls us to die, it will be a
sweet way of dying if we can, like our Lord, pass away with a text of
Scripture upon our lips, with a personal God ready to receive us, with
that God recognized distinctly as our Father and so die joyously,
resigning our will entirely to the sweet will of the ever-blessed One,
and saying, "It is the Lord." "My Father." "Let Him do as seems good to
Him."
II. My second text is in the 31st Psalm, at the 5th verse. And it is
evidently the passage which our Savior had in His mind just then "Into
Your hands I commit my spirit: You have redeemed me, O Lord God of
Truth." It seems to me that THESE ARE WORDS TO BE USED IN LIFE, for
this Psalm is not so much concerning the Believer's death as concerning
his life.
Is it not very amazing, dear Friends, that the words which Jesus
uttered on the Cross you may still continue to use? You may catch up
their echo and not only when you come to die, but tonight, tomorrow
morning and as long as you are alive, you may still repeat the text the
Master quoted, and say, "Into Your hands I commit my spirit."
That is to say, first, let us cheerfully entrust our souls to God and
feel that they are quite safe in His hands. Our spirit is the noblest
part of our being; our body is only the husk, our spirit is the living
kernel, so let us put it into God's keeping. Some of you have never yet
done that, so I invite you to do it now. It is the act of faith which
saves the soul, that act which a man performs when he says, "I trust
myself to God as He reveals Himself in Christ Jesus. I cannot keep
myself, but He can keep me and, by the precious blood of Christ He can
cleanse me. So I just take my spirit and give it over into the great
Father's hands." You never really live till you do that! All that comes
before that act of full surrender is death! But when you have once
trusted Christ, then you have truly begun to live. And every day, as
long as you live, take care that you repeat this process and cheerfully
leave yourselves in God's hands without any reserve. That is to say,
give yourself up to God–your body, to be healthy or to be sick, to be
long-lived or to be suddenly cut off. Your soul and spirit, give them,
also, up to God, to be made happy or to be made sad, just as He
pleases. Give Your whole self up to Him and say to Him, "My Father,
make me rich or make me poor, give me sight or make me blind. Let me
have all my senses or take them away. Make me famous or leave me to be
obscure. I give myself up to You–into Your hands I commit my spirit. I
will no longer exercise my own choice, but You shall choose My
inheritance for me. My times are in Your hands."
Now, dear children of God, are you always doing this? Have you ever
done it? I am afraid that there are some, even among Christ's
professing followers, who kick against God's will and even when they
say to God, "Your will be done," they spoil it by adding, in their own
mind, "and my will, too." They pray, "Lord, make my will Your will,"
instead of saying, "Make Your will my will." Let us each one pray this
prayer every day, "Into Your hands I commit my spirit." I like, at
family prayer, to put myself and all that I have into God's hands in
the morning–and then, at night, to just look between His hands and see
how safe I have been. And then to say to Him, "Lord, shut me up again
tonight! Take care of me all through the night watches. 'Into Your
hands I commit my spirit.'"
Notice, dear Friends, that our second text has these words at the end
of it–"You have redeemed me, O Lord God of Truth." Is not that a good
reason for giving yourself up entirely to God? Christ has redeemed you
and, therefore, you belong to Him. If I am a redeemed man and I ask God
to take care of me, I am but asking the King to take care of one of His
own jewels–a jewel that cost Him the blood of His heart!
And I may still more especially expect that He will do so, because of
the title which is here given to Him–"You have redeemed me, O Lord God
of Truth." Would He be the God of Truth if He began with redemption and
ended with destruction–if He began by giving His Son to die for us and
then kept back other mercies which we daily need to bring us to Heaven?
No, the gift of His Son is the pledge that He will save His people from
their sins and bring them home to Glory–and He will do it. So, every
day, go to Him with this declaration, "Into Your hands I commit my
spirit." No, not only every day, but all through the day! Does a horse
run away with you? Then you cannot do better than say, "Father, into
Your hands I commit my spirit." And if the horse does not run away with
you, you cannot do better than say the same words! Have you to go into
a house where there is fever? I mean, is it your duty to go there? Then
go saying, "Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit." I would advise
you to do this every time you walk down the street, or even while you
sit in your own house.
Dr. Gill, my famous predecessor, spent very much time in his study and,
one day, somebody said to him, "Well, at any rate, the studious man is
safe from most of the accidents of life." It so happened that one
morning, when the good man left his familiar armchair for a little
while, there came a gale of wind that blew down a stack of chimneys
which crashed through the roof and fell right into the place where he
would have been sitting if the Providence of God had not just then
drawn him away! And he said, "I see that we need Divine Providence to
care for us in our studies just as much as in the streets." "Father,
into Your hands I commit my spirit." I have often noticed that if any
of our friends get into accidents and troubles, it is usually when they
are away for a holiday. It is a curious thing, but I have often
remarked about it. They go out for their health and come home sick!
They leave us with all their limbs whole and return to us crippled!
Therefore we must pray God to take special care of friends in the
country or by the sea–and we must commit ourselves to His hands
wherever we may be. If we had to go into a leper colony, we would
certainly ask God to protect us from the deadly leprosy. But we ought
to equally seek the Lord's protection while dwelling in the healthiest
place or in our own homes!
David said to the Lord, "Into Your hands I commit my spirit." But let
me beg you to add that word which our Lord inserted–"Father." David is
often a good guide for us, but David's Lord is far better. And if we
follow Him, we shall improve upon David. So, let us each say, "Father,
Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit." That is a sweet way of
living every day–committing everything to our Heavenly Father's hands,
for those hands can do His child no unkind-ness. "Father, I might not
be able to trust Your angels, but I can trust You." The Psalmist does
not say, "Into the hand of Providence I commit my spirit." Do you
notice how men try to get rid of God by saying, "Providence did this,"
and, "Providence did that," and, "Providence did the other"? If you ask
them, "What is Providence?"–they will probably reply, "Well,
Providence is Providence." That is all they can say.
There is many a man who talks very confidently about reverencing
nature, obeying the laws of nature, noting the powers of nature and so
on. Step up to that eloquent lecturer and say to him, "Will you kindly
explain to me what nature is?" He answers, "Why, nature–well, it
is–nature." Just so, Sir, but, what is nature? And he says,
"Well–well–it is nature." And that is all you will get out of him.
Now, I believe in nature and I believe in Providence, but at the back
of everything, I believe in God, and in the God who has hands–not in
an idol that has no hands and can do nothing–but in the God to whom I
can say, "'Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.' I rejoice that
I am able to put myself there, for I feel absolutely safe in trusting
myself to Your keeping." So live, Beloved, and you shall live safely,
happily and you shall have hope in your life, and hope in your death!
III. My third text will not detain us many minutes. It is intended to
explain to us THE USE OF OUR SAVIOR'S DYING WORDS FOR OURSELVES. Turn
to the account of the death of Stephen, in the 7th chapter of Acts, at
the 59th verse, and you will see, there, how far a man of God may dare
to go in his last moments in quoting from David and from the Lord Jesus
Christ. "And they stoned Stephen, as he was calling upon God and
saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." So here is a text for us to use
when we come to die–"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." I have explained
to you that, strictly, we can hardly talk of yielding up our spirit,
but we may speak of Christ receivingit and say with Stephen, "Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit."
What does this prayer mean? I must just hurriedly give you two or three
thoughts concerning it and so close my discourse. I think this prayer
means that, if we can die as Stephen did, we shall die with a certainty
of immortality Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." He did
not say, "I am afraid my poor spirit is going to die." No, the spirit
is something which still exists after death, something which Christ can
receive and, therefore, Stephen asks Him to receive it! You and I are
not going upstairs to die as if we were only like cats and dogs–we go
up there to die like immortal beings who fall asleep on earth and open
our eyes in Heaven! Then, at the sound of the archangel's trumpet, our
very body is to rise to dwell, again, with our spirit–we have not any
question about this matter! I think I have told you what an infidel
once said to a Christian man, "Some of you Christians have great fear
in dying because you believe that there is another state to follow this
one. I have not the slightest fear, for I believe that I shall be
annihilated and, therefore, all fear of death is gone from me." "Yes,"
said the Christian, "and in that respect you seem to me to be on equal
terms with that bull grazing over there, which, like yourself, is free
from any fear of death. Pray, Sir, let me ask you a simple question.
Have you any hope?" "Hope, Sir? Hope, Sir? No, I have no hope! Of
course I have no hope, Sir." "Ah, then!" replied the other, "despite
the fears that sometimes come over feeble Believers, they have a hope
which they would not and could not give up." And that hope is that our
spirit–even that spirit which we commit into Jesus Christ's
hands–shall be "forever with the Lord."
The next thought is that, to a man who can die as Stephen did, there is
a certainty that Christ is near–so near that the man speaks to Him and
says, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." In Stephen's case, the Lord
Jesus was so near that the martyr could see Him, for he said, "Behold,
I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand
of God." Many dying saints have borne a similar testimony. It is no
strange thing for us to hear them say, before they die, that they could
see within the pearly gates and they have told us this with such
evident truthfulness, and with such rapture, or sometimes so calmly–in
such a businesslike tone of voice–we were sure that they were neither
deceived nor speaking falsehood. They spoke what they knew to be true,
for Jesus was there with them! Yes, Beloved, before you can call your
children around your deathbed, Jesus will already be there! And into
His hands you may commit your spirit.
Moreover, there is a certainty that we are quite safe in His hands.
Wherever else we are insecure, if we ask Him to receive our spirit, and
He receives it, who can hurt us? Who can pluck us out of His hands?
Awaken, Death and hail! Come forth, all you powers of darkness! What
can you do when once a spirit is in the hands of the Omnipotent
Redeemer? We will be safe there!
Then there is the other certainty, that He is quite willing to take us
into His hands. Let us put ourselves into His hands now–and then we
need not be ashamed to repeat the operation every day and we may be
sure that we shall not be rejected at the last. I have often told you
of the good old woman who was dying and to whom someone said, "Are you
not afraid to die?" "Oh, no," she replied, "there is nothing at all to
fear. I have dipped my foot in the river of death every morning before
I have had my breakfast, and I am not afraid to die now." You remember
that dear saint who died in the night, and who had left written on a
piece of paper by her bedside these lines which, before she fell
asleep, she felt strong enough to pencil down?–
"Since Jesus is mine, I'll not fear undressing, But gladly put off
these garments of clay–
To die in the Lord, is a Covenant blessing, Since Jesus to Glory thro'
death led the way."
It was well that she could say it–and may we be able to say the same
whenever the Master calls us to go up higher! I want, dear Friends,
that we should, all of us, have as much willingness to depart as if it
were a matter of will with us! Blessed be God it is not left to our
choice–it is not left to our will when we shall die. God has appointed
that day and ten thousand devils cannot consign us to the grave before
our time! We shall not die till God decrees it–
"Plagues and deaths around me fly,
Till He please I cannot die!
Not a single shaft can hit
Till the God of love sees fit."
But let us be just as willing to depart as if it were really a matter
of choice, for, wisely, carefully, coolly consider that if it were left
to us, we should none of us be wise if we did not choose to go! Apart
from the coming of our Lord, the most miserable thing that I know of
would be a suspicion that we might not die. Do you know what quaint old
Rowland Hill used to say when he found himself getting very old? He
said, "Surely they must be forgetting me up there." And every now and
then, when some dear old saint was dying, he would say, "When you get
to Heaven, give my love to John Ber-ridge, and John Bunyan and ever so
many more of the good Johns, and tell them I hope they will see poor
old Rowley up there before long." Well, there was common sense in that
wishing to get Home, longing to be with God. To be with Christ is far
better than to be here!
Sobriety itself would make us choose to die! Well, then, do not let us
run back and become utterly unwilling and struggle and strive and fret
and fume over it. When I hear of Believers who do not like to talk
about death, I am afraid concerning them. It is greatly wise to be
familiar with our resting place. When I went, recently, to the cemetery
at Norwood, to lay the body of our dear Brother Perkins there for a
little while, I felt that it was a healthy thing for me to stand at the
grave's brink and to walk amid that forest of memorials of the dead,
for this is where I, too, must go. You living men, come and view the
ground where you must shortly lie and, as it must be so, let us who are
Believers welcome it!
But, what if you are not Believers? Ah, that is another matter
altogether! If you have not believed in Christ, you may well be afraid
even to rest on the seat where you are sitting! I wonder that the earth
itself does not say, "O God, I will not hold this wretched sinner up
any longer! Let me open my mouth and swallow him!" All nature must hate
the man who hates God! Surely, all things must loathe to minister to
the life of a man who does not live unto God. Oh that you would seek
the Lord and trust Christ and find eternal life! If you have done so,
do not be afraid to go forth to live, or to die, just as God pleases.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN151-8.
Verse 1. I am the true vine. Now we know where to find the true Church.
It is to be found only in Christ and in those who are joined to Him in
mystical but real union. "I am the true vine."
1. And My Father is the vinedresser Now we know who is the true
Guardian of the Church. Not the so-called "holy father" at Rome, but
that Father above, who is the true Guardian, Ruler, Keeper, Preserver,
Purifier, Vinedresser of the one Church, the vine!
2. Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away. There are
many such branches, in Christ's visible Church which are not
fruit-bearing branches and, consequently, are not partakers of the sap
of life and Grace which flows into the branches that are vitally joined
to the central stem. These fruitless branches are to be taken away.
2. And every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring
forth more fruit There is some work, then, for the knife upon all the
branches–cutting off for those that are fruitless–cutting for those
that are bearing some fruit that they may bring forth yet more.
3. Now you are clean [purged] through the word which I have spoken unto
you. The Word is often the knife with which the great Vinedresser
prunes the vine. And, Brothers and Sisters, if we were more willing to
feel the edge of the Word, and to let it cut away even something that
may be very dear to us, we would not need so much pruning by
affliction. It is because that first knife does not always produce the
desired result that another sharp tool is used by which we are
effectually pruned.
4. Abide in Me, and I in you.1 'Do not merely find a temporary shelter
in Me, as a ship runs into harbor in stormy weather and then comes out
again when the gale is over, but cast anchor in Me, as the vessel does
when it reaches its desired haven. Be not as branches that are tied on
and so can be taken off, but be livingly joined to Me. 'Abide in Me.'"
4. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abides in the
vine; no more can you, except you abide in Me. You must bear fruit, or
else be cast away, but you cannot bear any fruit except by real union
and constant communion with Jesus Christ your Lord!
5. I am the vine, you are the branches: he that abides in Me, and I in
him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without Me you can do
nothing. Not merely will you do very little, but you can do nothing at
all if you are severed from Christ! You are absolutely and entirely
dependent upon Christ, both for your life and for your fruit-bearing.
Do we not wish to have it so, Beloved? It is the incipient principle of
apostasy when a man wishes to be independent of Christ in any
degree–when he says, "Give me the portion of goods that falls to me
that I may have something in hand, some spending money of my own." No,
you must, from day to day, from hour to hour and even from moment to
moment, derive life, light, love, everything that is good from Christ!
What a blessing that it is so!
6. If a man abides not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is
withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they
are burned. There is a sad future in store for tares, according to
another parable, but, somehow, there is a much sadder lot reserved for
those that were, in some sense, branches of the vine–those who made a
profession of faith in Christ, though they were never vitally united to
Him. Those who, for a while, did rum well, yet were hindered. What was
it that hindered them that they should not obey the Truth of God? Oh,
it is sad, indeed, that any should have had any sort of connection with
that Divine Stem and yet should be cast into the fire!
7. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what
you will, and it shall be done unto you. Do not think that all men can
pray alike effectually, for it is not so. There are some whom God will
hear and some whom God will not hear. And there are some even of His
own children whom He will hear in things absolutely vital and
essential, to whom He never gave carte blanche after this fashion. 'You
shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you." No, if you
will not hear God's words, He will not hear yours! And if His words do
not abide in you, your words shall not have power with Him. They may be
directed to Heaven, but the Lord will not listen to them so as to have
regard to them. Oh, it needs very tender walking for one who would be
mighty in prayer! You shall find that those who have had their will at
the Throne of Grace are men who have done God's will in other
places–it mast be so. The greatest favorite at court will have a
double portion of the jealousy of his monarch, and he must be
especially careful that he orders his steps aright, or else the king
will not continue to favor him as he was known to do. There is a sacred
discipline in Christ's house, a part of which consists in this, that,
as our obedience to our God declines, so will our power in prayer
decrease at the same time.
8. Herein is My Father glorified, that he bearmuch fruit; so shallyou
be My disciples. If we are His true disciples, we also shall bring
forth much fruit.