Coming to Christ

Coming to Christ

A Sermon

(No. 3509)

Published on Thursday, April 27th, 1916.

Delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At [17]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

On Lord's-day Evening, June 17th, 1868.

"To whom coming."–1 Peter 2:4.

IN THESE three words you have, first of all, a blessed person
mentioned, under the pronoun "whom"–"To whom coming." In the way of
salvation we come alone to Jesus Christ. All comings to baptism,
comings to confirmation, comings to sacrament are all null and void
unless we come to Jesus Christ. That which saves the soul is not coming
to a human priest, nor even attending the assemblies of God's saints;
it is coming to Jesus Christ, the great exalted Saviour, once slain,
but now enthroned in glory. You must get to him, or else you have
virtually nothing upon which your soul can rely. "To whom coming."
Peter speaks of all the saints as coming to Jesus, coming to him as
unto a living stone, and being built upon him, and no other foundation
can any man lay than that which is laid, and if any man say that coming
anywhere but to Christ can bring salvation, he hath denied the faith
and utterly departed from it. The coming mentioned in the text is a
word which is sometimes explained in Scripture by hearing, at other
times by trusting or believing, and quite as frequently by looking. "To
whom coming." Coming to Christ does not mean coming with any natural
motion of the body, for he is in heaven, and we cannot climb up to the
place where he is; but it is a mental coming, a spiritual coming; it
is, in one word, a trusting in and upon him. He who believes Jesus
Christ to be God, and to be the appointed atonement for sin, and relies
upon him as such, has come to him, and it is this coming which saves
the soul. Whoever the wide world over has relied upon Jesus Christ, and
is still relying upon him for the pardon of his iniquities, and for his
complete salvation, is saved.

Notice one thing more in these three words, that the participle is in
the present. "To whom coming," not "To whom having come," though I
trust many of us have come, but the way of salvation is not to come to
Christ and then forget it, but to continue coming, to be always coming.
It is the very spirit of the believer to be always relying upon Christ,
as much after a life of holiness as when he first commenced that life;
as much when he has been blessed with much spiritual nearness of access
to God, and a holy, heavenly frame of mind; as much then, I say, as
when, a poor trembling penitent, he said, "God, be merciful to me a
sinner." To Christ we are to be, always coming; upon him always
relying, to his precious blood always looking.

So I shall take the text, then, this evening thus:–These three words
describe our first salvation, describe the life of the Christian, and
then describe his departure, for what even is that but to be still
coming to Christ, to be in his embrace for ever? First, then, these
three words describe, and very accurately too:–

I. THE FIRST SALVATION OF THE BELIEVER.

It is coming to Christ. I shall not try to speak the experience of many
present; I know if it were necessary you could rise and give your "Yea,
yes" to it. In describing the work of grace at the first, I may say
that it was indeed a very simple thing for us to come to Christ, but
simple as it was, some of us were very long in finding it out. The
simplest thing in all the world is just to look to Jesus and live, to
drink of the life-giving stream, and find our thirst for ever assuaged.
But though it is so plain that he who runs may read, and a man needs
scarce any wit to comprehend the gospel, yet we went hither and
thither, and searched for years before we discovered the simplicity
which is in Christ Jesus. Most of us were like Penelope, who spun by
day, and then unwound her work at night. It was even so we did. We
thought we were getting up a little. We had some evidence. We said,
"Yes, we are in a better state; are shall yet be saved." But ere long
the night of sorrow came in. We had a sight of our own sinfulness, and
what we had spun, I say, by day, we unwound again quite as quickly by
night. Well, there are some of you much in the same way now. You are
like a foolish builder who should build a wall, and then should begin
to knock down all the stones at once. You build, and then pull down.
Or, like the gardener who, having put into the ground his seeds and
planted his flowers, is not satisfied with them, and thinks he will
have something else, and so tries again. Ah! the methods and the shifts
we will be at to try and save ourselves, while, after all, Christ has
done it all. We will do anything rather than be saved by Christ's
charity. We do not like to bow our necks to take the mercy of God, as
poor undeserving sinners. Some will attend their church or their chapel
with wonderful regularity, and think that that will ease their
conscience, and when they get no ease of conscience from that, then
they will! try sacraments, and when no salvation comes from them, then
there will be good works, Popish ceremonies, and I know not what
besides. All sorts of doings, good, bad, and indifferent, men will take
to, if they may but have a finger in their own salvation, while all the
while the blessed Saviour stands by, ready to save them altogether if
they will but be quiet and take the salvation he has wrought. All
attempts to save ourselves by our own works are but a base bargaining
with God for eternal life, but he will never give eternal life at a
price, nor sell it, for all that man could bring, though in each hand
he should hold a star; he will give it freely to those who want it. He
will dispense it without money and without price to all who come and
ask for it, and, hungering and thirsting, are ready to receive it as
his free gift, but:–

"Perish the virtue, as it ought, abhorred,

And the fool with it, who insults his Lord,"

by bringing in anything that he can do as a Around of dependence, and
putting that in the place of the blood and righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ.

I said, dear friends, that it was very simple, and indeed it is so, a
very simple thing to trust Jesus and be saved, but it cost some of us
many a day to find it out. Shall I just mention some of the ways in
which persons are, long before they find it out. Some ask, "What is the
best way to act faith? What is the best way to get this precious
believing that I hear so much spoken of?" Now the question reminds me
of a madman who, standing at a table which is well spread, says to a
person standing there, "Tell me what is the best way to eat. What is
the philosophy of eating?" "Why," the man replies, "I cannot be long
about that; I need not write a long treatise on it: the best way I know
of is to eat." And when people say, "What is the best way to get
faith?" I say, "Believe." "But what is the best way to believe?" Why,
believe. I can tell you nothing else. Some may say to you, "Pray for
faith." Well, but how can you pray without faith? Or if they tell you
to read, or do, or feel, in order to get faith, that is a roundabout
way. I find not such exhortations as these put down as the gospel, but
our Master, when he went to heaven, bade us go into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature; and what was that gospel to me?
His own words are, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,"
and we cannot say anything clearer than that. "Believe"–that is,
trust–"and be baptized," and these two things are put before you as
Christ's ordained way of salvation. Now you want to philosophise, do
you? Well, but why should a hungry man philosophies about the bread
that it before him? Eat, sir, and philosophise afterwards. Believe in
Jesus Christ, and when you get the joy and peace which faith in him
will be sure to bring, then philosophize as you will.

But some are asking the question, "How shall I make myself fit to be
saved?" That is similar to, a man who, being very black and filthy,
coming home from a coal mine or from a forge, says, seeing the bath
before him: "How shall I make myself fit to be"? You tell him at once
that there cannot be any fitness for washing, except filthiness, which
is the reverse of a fitness. So there can be no fitness for believing
in Christ, except sinfulness, which is, indeed, the reverse of fitness.
If you are hungry, you are fit to eat; if you are thirsty, you are fit
to drink; if you are naked, you are fitted to receive the garments
which charity is giving to those who need them; if you are a sinner,
you are fitted for Christ, and Christ for you; if you are guilty, you
are fitted to be pardoned; if you are lost, you are fitted to be saved.
This, is all the fitness Christ requireth, and cast every other thought
of fitness far hence; yea, cast it to the winds. If thou be needy,
Christ is ready to enrich thee. If thou wilt come and confess thine
offences before God, the gracious Saviour is willing to pardon thee
just as thou art. There is no other fitness wanted.

But then, if you have answered that, some will begin to say, "Yes, but
the way of salvation is coming to Christ and I am afraid I do not come
in the right way." Dear, dear, how unwise we are in the matter of
salvation! We are much more foolish than little children are in common,
everyday life. A mother says to her little child, "Come here, my dear,
and I will give you this apple." Now I will tell you what the first
thought of the child is about; it is about the apple; and the second
thought off the child is about its mother; and the very last thought he
has is about the way of coming. His mother told him to come, and he
does not say, "Well, but I do not know whether I shall come right." He
totters along as best he can, and that does not seem to occupy his
thoughts at all. But when you say to a sinner, "Come to Christ, and you
shall have eternal life," he thinks about nothing but his coming. He
will not think about eternal life, nor yet about Jesus Christ, to whom
he is bidden to come, but only about coming, when he need not think of
that at all, but just do it–do what Jesus bids him–simply trust him."
"What kind of coming is that," says John Bunyan, "which saves a soul?"
and he answers, "Any coming in all the world if it does but come to
Jesus." Some come running; at the very first sermon they hear they
believe in him. Some come slowly; they are many years before they can
trust him. Some come creeping; scarcely able to come, they have to be
helped by others, but as long as they do but come, he has said, "Him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." You may have came in the
most awkward way in all the world, as that man did who was let down by
ropes through the ceiling into the place where Jesus was, but Christ
rejects no coming sinner, and you need not be looking to your coming,
but looking to Christ. Look to him as God–he can save you; as the
bleeding, dying Son of Man–he is willing to save you, and flat before
his cross, with all your guilt upon you, cast yourself, and believe
that he will save you. Trust him to do it, and he must save you, for
that is his own word, and from it he cannot depart. Oh! cease, then,
that care about the calling, and look to the Saviour.

We have met with others who have said, "I Well, I understand that, that
if I trust in Christ, I shall be saved, but–but–but–I do not
understand that passage in the Revelation: I cannot make out that great
difficulty in Ezekiel; I am a great deal troubled about predestination
and free will, and I cannot believe that I shall be saved until I
comprehend all this." Now, my dear friend, you are altogether on the
wrong tack. When I was going from Cook's Haven to Heligoland to the
North of Germany, I noticed when we were out at sea, far away from the
sight of land, innumerable swarms of butterflies. I wondered whatever
they could do there, and when I was at Heligoland I noticed that almost
every wave that came up washed ashore large quantities of poor dead,
drowned butterflies. Now do you know those butterflies were just like
you? You want to go out on to the great sea of predestination, free
will, and I do not know what. Now there is nothing for you there, ant
you have no more business there than the butterfly has out at sea. It
will drown you. How much better for you just to come and fly to this
Rose of Sharon–that is the thing for you. This Lily of the
Valley–come and light here. There is something here for you, but out
in that dread-sounding deep, without a bottom or a shore, you will be
lost, seeking after the knowledge of difficulties, which God has hidden
from man, and trying to pry into the thick darkness where God conceals
truth which it were better not to reveal. Come you to Jesus. If you
must have the knots untied, try to untie them after you get saved, but
now your first business is with Jesus; your first business is coming
unto him; for if you do not, your ruin is certain, and your destruction
will be irretrievable. But I must not enlarge. Coming to Christ is very
simple, yet how long it takes men to find it out!

Again, we, bear our witness to-night, that nothing but coming to Christ
ever did give us any peace. In my own case I was distracted, tossed
with tempest, and not comforted for some years, and I never could
believe my sin forgiven or have any peace by day or night until I
simply trusted Jesus, and from that time my peace has been like a
river. I have rejoiced in the certainty of pardon, and sung with
triumph in the Lord my God, and many of you are constantly doing the
same, but until you looked to Christ, you had not any peace. You
searched, and searched, and searched, but your search was fruitless
until you looked into the five wounds of the expiring Saviour, and
there you found life from the dead.

And once more, when we did come to Christ, we came very tremblingly,
but he did not cast us out. We thought he never died for us, that he
could not wash our sins away. We conceived that we were not of his
elect; we dreamed that our prayers could only echo upon a brazen sky,
and never bring us an answer. But still we came to Christ, because we
dared not stop away. We were like a timid dove that is hunted by a
hawk, and is afraid. We feared we should be destroyed, but he did not
say to us, "You came to me tremblingly, and I will reject you." Nay,
but into the bosom of his love he received us, and blotted out our
sins. When we came to Jesus, we did not come bringing anything, but we
came to him for everything. We came strictly empty-handed, and we got
all we wanted in Christ. There is a piece of iron, and if it were to
say, "Where am I to get the power from to cling to the loadstone?" the
loadstone would say, "Let me get near you, and I will supply you with
that." So we sometimes think, "How can I believe? How can I hope? How
can I follow Christ?" Ay, but let Christ get near us, and he finds us
with all that. We do not come to Christ to bring our repentance, but to
get repentance. We do not come to him with a broken heart, but for a
broken heart. We do not so much even come to him with faith, as come to
him for faith.

"True belief and true repentance,

Every grace that brings us nigh;

Without money,

Come to Jesus Christ, and buy."

This is the first way of salvation–simply trusting and looking up to
Christ for everything. But, then, we did trust. There is a difference
between knowing about trust and trusting. By God's Holy Spirit, we were
not left merely to talk about faith, nor to think about it, but we did
believe. If the Government were to announce that there would be ten
thousand acres of land in New Zealand given to a settler, I can imagine
two men believing it. One believes it and forgets it; the other
believes it and takes his passage to go out and get the land. Now the
first kind of faith saves nobody; but the second faith, the practical
faith, is that which, for the sake of seeking Christ, gives up the sins
of this life, the pleasures of it–I mean the wicked pleasures of
it–gives up all confidence in everything else, and casts itself into
the arms of the Saviour. There is the sea of divine love; he shall be
saved who plunges boldly into it, and casts himself upon its waves,
hoping to be upborne. Oh! my hearer, hast thou done this? If so, thou
art certainly a saved one. If thou hast not, oh! may grace enable thee
to do it ere yet that setting sun has hidden himself beneath the
horizon. Hast thou known this before, that a simple trust in Christ
will save thee? This is the one message of this inspired Volume. This
is the gospel according to Paul, the one gospel which we preach
continually. Try it, and if it save thee not, we will be bondsmen for
God for thee. But it must save thee, for God is true, and cannot fail,
and he has declared, "He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he
that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed
on the Son of God."

Thus I have tried to explain as clearly as I can that coming to Jesus
is the first business of salvation. Now, secondly, and with brevity.
This is:–

II. A GOOD DESCRIPTION OF THE ENTIRE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

The Christian is always coming to Christ. He does not look upon faith
as a matter of twenty years ago, and done with, but he comes today and
he will come to-morrow. He will come to Jesus Christ afresh to-night
before he goes to bed. We come to Jesus daily, for Christ is like the
well outside the cottager's house. The man lets down the bucket and
gets the cooling draught, but he goes again to-morrow, and he will have
to go again at night if he is to leave a fresh supply. He must
constantly go to the same place. Fishes do not live in the water they
were in yesterday; they must be in it to-day. Men do not breathe the
air which they breathed a week ago; they must have fresh air into the
lungs moment by moment. Nobody thinks that he can be fed upon the fact
that he did have a good meal six weeks ago; he has to eat continually.
So "the just shall live by faith." We come to Jesus just as we came at
first, and we say to him:–

"Nothing in my hands I bring,

Simply to thy cross I cling;

Naked come to thee for dress,

Helpless, look to thee for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly,

Wash me, Saviour, or I die."

This is the daily and hourly life of the Christian.

But while we thus come daily, we come more boldly than we used to do.
At first we came like cringing slaves; now we came as emancipated men.
At first we came as strangers. Now we come as brethren. We still come
to the cross, but it is not so much to find pardon for past sins, for
these are forgiven, as to find fresh comfort from looking up to him who
wrought out perfect righteousness for us.

We come, also, to Jesus Christ, more closely than we used to do. I
hope, brethren and sisters, you can say that you are not at such a
distance from Christ now as you once were. We ought to be always
getting nearer to him. The old preachers used to illustrate nearness to
Christ by the planets. They said there were Jupiter and Saturn far
away, with very little light and very little heat from the sun, and
then they have their satellites, their rings, their moons, and their
belts to make for that. Just so they said, with some Christians. They
get worldly comforts–their moons, and their belts–but they have not
got much of their Master; they have got enough to save them, but oh!
such little light. But, said they, when you get to Mercury, there is a
planet without moons. Why, the sun is its moon, and, therefore, what
does it want with moons when it has the full blaze of the sun's light
and heat continually pouring upon it? And what a nimble planet it is;
how it spins along in its orbit, because it is near the sun! Oh! to be
like that–not to be far away from Jesus Christ, even with all the
comforts of this life, but to be near him, filled with life and sacred
activity through the abundance of fellowship and communion with him. It
is still coming, but it is coming after a nearer sort.

And I may say, too, that it is coming of a dearer sort, for there is
more love in our coming now than there used to be. We did come at
first, not so much loving Christ, as venturing to trust him, thinking
him, perhaps, to be a hard Master; but now we know him to be the best
of friends, the dearest of husbands. We come to his bosom, and we lean
our heads upon it. We come in our private devotion; we tell him all our
troubles; we unburden our hearts, and get his love shed abroad in our
hearts in return, and we go away with a joy that makes our heart to
leap within us and to bound like a young roe over the mountain-tops.
Oh! happy is that man who gets right into the wounds of Jesus, and,
with Thomas, cries, "My Lord and my God!" This is no, fanaticism, but a
thing of sober, sound experience with some of us. We can rejoice in
him, having no confidence in the flesh. It is still coming but it is
coming after a dearer fashion.

Yet, mark you, it is coming still to the same person, coming still as
poor humble ones to Christ. I have often told you, my dear brethren and
sisters, that when you get a little above the ground, if it is only an
inch, you get too high. When you begin to think that surely you are a
saint, and that you have some good thing to trust to, that rotten stuff
must all be pulled to pieces. Believe me, God will not let his people
wear a rag of their own spinning; they must be clothed with Christ's
righteousness from head to foot. The old heathen said he wrapped
himself up in his integrity, but I should think he did not know what
holes there were in it, or else he would have looked for something
better. But we wrap ourselves in the righteousness of Christ, and there
is not a cherub before the throne that wears a vestment so right royal
as the poor sinner does when he wears the righteousness of Jesus
Christ. Oh! child of God, always live upon your Lord. Hang upon him, as
the pitcher hangs upon the nail. Lean on your Beloved; his arm will
never weary of you. Stay yourselves upon him; wash in the precious
fountain always; wear his righteousness continually; and be glad in the
Lord, and your gladness need never fail while you simply and wholly
lean upon him. And now, not to detain you longer, I come to the last
point, upon which we will only say a word or two. The text is:–

III. A VERY CORRECT DESCRIPTION OF OUR DEPARTURE.

"To whom coming." We shall soon, very soon, quit this mortal frame. I
hope you have learned to think of that without any kind of shudder. Can
you not sing:–

"Ah! I shall soon be dying,

Time swiftly glides away;

But on my Lord relying

I hail the happy day."

What is there that we should wait here for? Those who have the most of
this world's cods have found it paltry stuff. It perishes in the using.
There is a satiety about it; it cannot satisfy the great heart of an
immortal man. It is well for us that there is to be an end of this
life, and especially for us to whom that end is glowing with
immortality. Well, the hour of death will be to us a coming to Christ,
a coming to sit upon his throne. Did you ever think of that? "To him
that overcometh will I give to sit upon my throne." Lord, Lord, we
would be well content to, sit at thy feet. 'Twere all the heaven we
would ask if we might but creep behind the door, or stand and be manual
servants, or sit, like Mordecai, in the king's court.' No; but it must
not be. We must sit on his throne, and reign with him for ever and
ever. This is what death will bring you–a glorious participation in
the royalties of your ascended Lord.

What is the next thing? "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast
given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." So that
we, are to be going to Christ ere long to behold his glory, and what a
sight that will be! Have you ever thought of that too? What must it be
to behold his glory? Some of my brethren think that when they get to
heaven they shall like to behold some of the works of God in nature and
so on. I must confess myself more satisfied with the idea that I shall
behold his glory, the glory of the Crucified, for it seems to me that
no kind of heaven but that comes up to the description of the Apostle
when he saith, "Eye hath not seen, nor hath ear heard, neither hath it
entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath
prepared for them that love him." But to see the stars, has entered
into the heart of man, and to behold the works of God in nature, has
been conceived of; but the joys we speak of are so spiritual that the
Apostle says, "He has revealed them unto us by his Spirit," and this is
what he has revealed, "That they may behold my glory." St. Augustine
used to say there were two sights he would like to have seen–Rome in
her splendour, and Paul preaching–the last the better sight of the
two. But there is a third sight for which one might give up all, give
up seeing Naples, or seeing anything, if we might but see the King his
beauty. Why, even the distant glimpse which we catch of him through a
glass or a telescope darkly ravishes the soul. Dr. Hawker was once
waited upon by a friend, who asked him to go and see a naval review. He
said, "No, thank you; I do not want to go." "You are a loyal man,
doctor, and you would like to see the defences of your country." "Thank
you, I do not wish to go." "But I have got a ticket for you, and you
must go." "No," he said, "thank you," and after he had been pressed
hard he said, "You have pressed me till I am ashamed, and now I must
tell you–mine eyes have seen the King in his beauty, and the land
which is very far off, and I have not any taste now for all the pomps
that this world could possibly show." And if such a distant sight of
Jesus can do this, what must it be to behold his glory with what the
old Scotch divines used to call "a face-to-face view"; when the veil is
taken down, when the clouds are blown away, and you see him face to
face? Oh! long-expected day begin, when we shall be to him coming to
dwell with him.

Once more only. Recollect we shall come to Christ not only to behold
his glory, but to share in it. We shall be like him, for we shall see
him as he is. Whatever Christ shall be, his people shall be, in
happiness, riches, and honour, and together they shall take their full
share. The Church, his bride, shall sit on the same throne with him,
and of all the splendours of that eternal triumph she will have her
half, for Christ is no niggard to his imperial spouse, but she whom he
chose before the world began, and bought with blood, and wrapped in his
righteousness, and espoused to himself for ever, shall be a full
partaker of all the gifts that he poses world without end. And this
shall be, and this shall be, and this shall be for ever; for ever you
shall be with Christ, for ever coming to him. When the miser's wealth
has melted; when the honours of the conqueror have been blown away or
consumed like chaff in the furnace; when sun and moon grow dim with
age, and the hoary pillars of this earth begin to rock and reel with
stern decay; when the angel shall have put one foot on the sea and the
other on the land, and shall have sworn by him that liveth that time
shall be no more; when the ocean shall be licked up with tongues of
fire, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and
all the works that are therein shall be burnt up–then, then shall you
be for ever with the Lord, eternally resting, eternally feasting,
eternally magnifying him; being filled with all his fulness to the
utmost capacity of your enlarged being, world without end.

So God grant it to us, that we may come to Christ now, that we may
continue to come to Christ, that we may come to Christ then, lest
rejecting him to-night we should be rejecting him for ever; lest
refusing to trust him, we should be driven from his presence to abide
in misery for ever! May we come now, for Christ's sake.