Redemption By Price

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 22, 1880,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"You are not your own: for you are bought with a price." 1 Corinthians
6:19,20.

ATTACKS have often been made upon the central doctrine of the Gospel,
namely, the doctrine of Redemption or Atonement, for it is well-known
to be the crux of the Gospel. These onslaughts have, in many instances,
been very craftily made. They have professed to be mere corrections of
our phraseology, but were essentially assaults upon the Truth of God
itself. We believe that in and through the blood of Jesus we have
redemption and that we have been ransomed from destruction by the
Mediator's death, the Lord Jesus having bought us by the suit and
service which He rendered in our place and on our behalf.

When we speak very plainly upon this point, certain pretentious
Divines, whose custom it is to sneer at the old theology, at once raise
objections to what they are pleased to call, "the mercantile theory of
Atonement." With weak minds an ugly phrase stands for argument, but in
this case there is really nothing horrible in the description, even if
it is allowed all its force. There may have been, among us, certain
persons who carried ideas of the shop and the counter into their notion
of redemption, but we maintain that even these were nearer the Truth of
God than those who reduce the ransom paid by the Lord Jesus to nothing
and make His Redemption a meaningless figure of speech.

Within the idea of purchase lies hidden the essence of the Savior's
work and, therefore, it is to be adhered to. He is coming again to
complete the Redemption of the purchased possession and we shall not
forego our hope to please the squeamish. Paul, at any rate, was not
afraid of the mercantile theory, if men so please to call it, for he
writes, "You are bought," yes, to make it still more sure, he puts it,
"bought with a price." This is put very strongly and there is no
planing it down. If it means anything, it must mean that a price was
paid for us! Instead of our being forever captives under bondage and
death, a Ransom has been found, according to that ancient saying,
"Deliver him from going down to the Pit–I have found a ransom."

The song of Heaven is no idle rhapsody. Listen how they chant the
solemn hymn before the Throne of God and the Lamb, saying, "You are
worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof: for You were
slain and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every kindred
and tongue and people and nation." Was it not said of Him while He was
here below, "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister and to give His life a ransom for many"? There was a
substitutionary Sacrifice presented on the behalf of His people by
Jesus Christ, who thus redeemed His chosen from their lost estate. This
was a matter of fact and an efficacious action, actually ransoming
those who were redeemed.

We do not believe in a cloudy, phantom-like Atonement, which did
something or nothing and was a mere exhibition without results. We
believe that Jesus did actually redeem His people by a Ransom, which
Ransom was His suffering and death in their place, by which the justice
of God was satisfied and His Law was honored. If there were no other
text in Scripture, the one which is now before us would abundantly
justify us in using those very expressions which have been ridiculed as
mercantile–"You are not your own: for you are bought with a price."
Though we were not redeemed with corruptible things, as with silver and
gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, yet the transaction
was, none the less, real and effective. An equivalent was given, a
possession was secured.

The fact is, the objection is not merely to the mercantile
expression–the objection is to the very idea of Substitution and a
vicarious Sacrifice. The pretense is that mistaken words are
criticized, but it is a mere pretense–the gun is aimed at Christ's
bearing Divine Wrath in our place–this is the doctrine which they
cannot endure! They will have to aim very often and burst their cannon
before they will be able to destroy our belief in the truth of
Substitution while we have the 53rd chapter of Isaiah remaining in the
Bible and other passages of sacred Scripture to the same effect. Even
if they could disprove the Doctrine of Vicarious Suffering and show
that Substitution is an ignorant fancy, the best thing they could

do would be to wring their hands in agony because they had blotted out
the brightest star that ever shone amid the storm-wreck of a
tempestuous conscience.

No Truth of God within the circle of theology is so eminently
consolatory to souls burdened with sin as the great fact that Jesus
Christ bore the sins of many and carried away, on His own shoulders,
the transgressions of His people. Let others believe or disbelieve, I
nail my colors to the Cross where Jesus, my Lord, paid His blood as a
price for me! It is a high honor to our poor fallen race that man is
the only redeemed creature in the universe! He, alone, has cost the
Lord His life! Rebellious angels kept not their first estate–they are
left to their doom and no price has ever been paid for them. Other
angels, sustained by God's power, still keep their high position in His
sacred courts, but they are not redeemed by blood. In them there is an
exhibition of Divine wisdom, power and goodness, but there is no
display of Free Grace and dying love.

Only man stands in this respect–nowhere else is the blood-mark–the
blood-mark of the Son of God! We, alone, are the flock of God which He
has redeemed with His own blood! Therefore man cost God more than the
whole universe besides. The Lord could speak worlds into existence. He
could mold ponderous orbs as one rolls clay between His palms, or
create constellations as the smith strikes off sparks from the
anvil–but to erect the new creation of redeemed men, God must endure
the loss of His own Son–resign His Beloved to death! And in the Person
of the Only-Begotten, He must ransom men by His own sufferings! I may
not venture, now, to describe the agonies of the Incarnate God, but all
these were necessary to redeem man. The Lord has given more than
Ethiopia or Seba for us, for He has given Himself!

Think of yourself, my dear Friend, (if, indeed, you have believed in
Christ), as being a singularity in the realm of beings, a special
wonder in the creation! You, alone, can say, "I know that my Redeemer
lives." Neither in the earth nor in the stars, however they may be
peopled, nor in yonder golden streets, are there any beings except men
who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb. We are the costliest of creatures! We are dearest to God, for He
has spent most upon us and made us the choice objects of His heavenly
expenditure. This work of Redemption is a very marvelous one, for the
more one tries to study it, the more its many-sidedness appears.

In what respects and under what aspects have we been ransomed? Time
would fail me to recount them all. We have been redeemed, we know, in
reference to Divine Justice. We had violated God's Law and, therefore,
there was a punishment to be exacted from us. This punishment the Lord
Jesus has endured in our place. "The Lord has made to meet on Him the
iniquities of us all." "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him
and with His stripes we are healed." We are justified, or reckoned as
just through the Redemption which is in Christ Jesus! Our great
Redeemer has done, for the honor of the Law, more than all of us put
together could have done and this stands as a ransom for us–so that we
may go free because He has suffered in our place whatever was due from
us to the Law of God.

This is a blessed aspect of Redemption and one which we hope to always
keep prominent in our thoughts and in our teaching. "Christ has
redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us: for
it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree." May the Holy
Spirit teach us to value this great Redemption! Furthermore, we are
redeemed from the power of evil, even as the Holy Spirit says in the
Epistle to Titus, "He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from
all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good
works." This Redemption may be said to be not so much Redemption by
price as by power, yet even in this, there are signs of price, for the
Apostle says, "He gave Himself for us."

It is true that no price was paid to Satan–that is not to be imagined
for an instant! We were never the devil's rightful possession and,
therefore, he is compelled to let go of his captives neither for price
or reward. We have been brought out from under the power of evil even
as Israel was brought out from under the tyranny of Pharaoh. No
redemption money was paid to the Egyptian king, but the Lord redeemed
His people with a high hand and a stretched out arm–it was a case of
redemption by power and yet that smear of blood made by the hyssop on
the lintel and the two side posts still indicated that price went hand
in hand with power and the blood of Atonement was needed as well as the
rod of Omnipotence.

In our deliverance from evil it is not only by the power of the Holy
Spirit that we are delivered, but He applies the blood as a cleansing
power. The Lord Jesus is "made unto us sanctification and redemption."
Of those who conquer sin and Satan it is said, "they overcame by the
blood of the Lamb." Grace breaks the yoke from off the neck of the
Believer,

but the finger of delivering Grace is dipped in blood and leaves
Redemption's token wherever it comes. Do you see it? Know you not that
you are not your own–the price paid in Gethsemane and Calvary has set
you apart? Another phase of this Redemption which we do not often think
of seems to me to be suggested by the text. There was a time, Brothers
and Sisters, when we thought ourselves to be our own.

Now, says my text, "You are not your own." "Because you are 'bought
with a price.'" Bought from whom? May I not fairly say that, in one
sense, you were bought from yourselves? Where else is the force of the
expression, "You are not your own." Through the Redemption which is in
Christ Jesus, a compensation has been given to you for yourselves, so
that your rights to yourselves are now the property of your Lord Jesus!
That independence and liberty which you once delighted in is now
surrendered. You said, "Our lips are our own–who is Lord over us? Who
is the Lord that we should obey His voice? As for us, we will be free
and do according to our own wills!" But the matchless Ransom has been
paid and all idea of self-will and self-indulgence are trespasses upon
the enclosed possession of the Redeemer.

Our vested interest in ourselves, though it never was a true property
at all, is once and for all surrendered to Him who has laid down His
life for us! We have received at the Lord's hands a thousand-fold for
all that we hand over to Him–the price is so great, so altogether
beyond all computation–that we gladly yield our unworthy selves to be
the Lord's forever and ever. I shall need you to remember this form of
redemption and to that end I will set it first among the points to
which I shall call your attention.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, let us try, at this time, to feel the force
of the Truth of God that we are bought with a price and are not our
own, for it must not remain a dead letter. It ought to affect our
hearts and influence our lives. I shall try to set it forth to you in a
series of contrasts which I may compare to the double glasses of a
stereoscope–they will, I trust, aid you in seeing more clearly and
feeling more forcibly. We can never be too much affected by this
important practical Truth of God. O that the Spirit of God would press
it home upon our hearts and consciences!

I. First, I see in the text COMPENSATION AND YET GAIN. Compensation is
intended to make good a loss, but in our case the transfer of ourselves
from self to Christ is a clear gain. Compensation, then, first–"You
are not your own: for you are bought with a price." You have
surrendered, as Believers, your right and property in yourselves. Have
you made a good bargain? Assuredly you have, for, first of all, you
live and, had you retained your supposed right to yourself, you would
have died! He that saves his life in such a sense, by keeping it to
himself, shall lose it.

You were, in fact, already dead while you lived, because you were
living in pleasure and finding that pleasure in yourself. But now the
Lord has given you a new, high, noble, Divine life. Is not that a
compensation, indeed, for giving up the groveling life of the flesh? He
has given you, in addition to life, peace–you are now at rest in
Jesus. As a Believer, you know that your sins are forgiven for Christ's
name's sake, that the Father Himself loves you, that you are accepted
in the Beloved and safe in Jesus' hands! You enjoy great peace–deep,
lasting, ever-flowing. Is it not much better to have peace and to be
Christ's than to be like the troubled sea that cannot rest and belong
to yourself? One drop of sacred peace is an abundant recompense for the
yielding up of yourself to Jesus.

In addition to peace, you have joy. Sometimes when it is at flood, your
happiness is as much as you can bear–you know what it is to be carried
off your feet by a whirlwind of intense delight when you are musing
upon your Lord and His love to you and the price paid to win you. Oh,
the joy, the unutterable blessedness which is the fruit of the Spirit!
What delights grow on the bitter tree, the cross! No clusters of the
vine can equal the fruit of Calvary's Cross! I am sure that whatever
earthly joys you have given up, you are abundantly compensated for them
all by the joy you find in the purchase price which Christ Jesus gave
for you. And then you have a grand reversion–a hope which looks across
the stream of death to a better land–a hope of immortality with
Christ, of likeness to Him and association with Him and glory with Him
forever!

Why, my Friend, if there had been a kingdom to renounce; if there had
been a world of self-denials and 10,000 pleasant things to be given up,
you might have been well content to be repaid by such a price! You have
received for your little, the fullness which is in Christ who is All in
All–yes, the polluting joys, the dangerous independence, the
rebellious indulgences of sin at their best and all put together are
not worthy to be compared with the matchless endowments which your
Redeemer has bestowed upon you! Today you possess all that the blood of
Jesus confers and effects and I cannot, in a few words, tell you the
whole of that treasury of Grace! The price which Jesus paid means
cleansing–"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all
sin."

Is it not better to be cleansed and to be the Lord's than to be filthy
and be your own? The blood of Jesus brings us near to God, for we are
"made near by the blood of Christ." Is it not better to be near to the
Lord and belong to Jesus than to be in the far-off country with the
swine and the husks and be your own? The blood has spoken peace–it
"speaks better things than that of Abel." Is it not better to be God's
and hear the blood cry, "Peace," than to be your own and to hear a
terrible sound in your ears of judgment to come? The blood has given
you entrance into the Most Holy Place, even into the very heart of God!
And is it not better to be the Lord's beloved and to come close to Him
and speak with Him as a man speaks with his friend than to be your own
and to be shut out from God and from the Glory of His Presence? Until
the blood is sprinkled, no man may dare to approach the thrice holy
God, but that once done, we have access with boldness! Is not this a
joy? If any complain that a Christian's life is a life of self-denial
as, indeed, sometimes it is, yet the compensations are incalculably
rich, for in the blood of Jesus we have had given to us 10,000 times
over and above all that we ever lost for Christ's sake.

So far compensation. But then we must not forget that the supposed loss
is an actual gain! It is a fine business when a man is compensated for
a loss and yet the loss, itself, becomes an advantage to him. Yet most
emphatically this has been our case, for anything that we have lost for
Christ's sake, we may truly count as clear gain. We have only lost that
which dishonored, injured and enslaved us. Blessed loss! What were we
without Christ? We were the slaves of self! But if set free from self,
we are, indeed, set free from a worse than Egyptian bondage whose wage
is death! It was inevitable that we must have some master or other, but
all our former masters were tyrants. Now, Brothers and Sisters, we are
set free from Satan and is not that a gain to be delivered from the
Prince of the power of the air?

Once we served the world and it was our lord, but what gain it is to
feel that we are no longer the servants of men because we are bought
with a price. Instead of needing that anything should be given to us as
a recompense for self-surrender, we can reply–We find our joy and our
delight in being altogether Christ's and the very height of our
ambition is that, by-and-by, we may live entirely according to the will
of God! Oh, that this much-desired were fully come, for we shall never
know perfect liberty until we reach that lofty degree and then we shall
be ready to step into Glory. The Lord help us in it!

So much, then, on the first point–the Lord Jesus has, by His blood,
given us compensation and yet there never was a loss, but an
unspeakable gain.

II. Look at the text again and you will see in it HIGH VALUE AND YET
LOWLINESS–"You are not your own: for you are bought with a price."
Value is clearly here, for we are bought with an immense price. How
great a store ought man to set by himself as before God, for he is a
purchased possession. God thinks not lightly of man, but esteems him
sufficiently, in Divine condescension, to buy him with the richest
price conceivable! He lost the angels and would not pay a penny for
them–but when man had fallen, He laid down His life to ransom him!
You, my dear Friend, should have the very lowest view of yourself, but
yet see how God has exalted you! "What is man, that You are mindful of
him, O God? And the son of man, that You visit him?"

Yet He does visit him. He has visited him so as to take his nature into
union with the Divine! More than that, He visited him so as to redeem
him with pangs and unutterable anguish. If you want to know the value
of yourself, see Christ upon the Cross and make a note of His wounds.
You are not a thing to be trifled with. Do not reckon so cheaply of
yourself as to stoop to become a mere money-grubber or earthworm! You
are worth more than that! Do not fancy that you ever can truly be
yourself while you are living for any human objective or any earthly
aim–you are too precious to waste yourself on fading flowers.

In the first place, you are a being of God's making. In His own image,
remember, He made you and nothing but sin could spoil you–and now you
have been bought and, therefore, have become a costly thing–more
costly than a mere creation. In the Lord's house you are not a vessel
of dishonor, a broken crock to be flung on the dunghill and another
obtained in your place–you are a vessel of honor fit for the Master's
use since He has paid so dearly for you. "You were not redeemed with
corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation;
but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and
without spot." There is a sanctity about a blood-bought man or woman of
the highest degree–the Lord has purchased Him with His life!

A sanctity surrounds even these frail bodies, for the Apostle is
speaking about them in the text now before us. Let me read what he says
upon them–"What? Don't you know that your body is the temple of the
Holy Spirit which is in you,

which you have of God and you are not your own?" Never, therefore, give
up your body to idleness, drunkenness, or any form of uncleanness. Paul
speaks especially of fornication as a thing not to be thought of among
the saints because the body has been valued by God at a great price and
purchased accordingly. And it must not, therefore, be defiled by even
an impure conversation. Though Paul, in another sense, called it a
"vile body," yet it cannot be vile in all respects, for even now it is
a sacred thing, the shrine of the eternal Spirit!

We ought to value the very dust of the departed saint. It little
matters what becomes of a dead body, yet would I have it laid
reverently in its last resting place and let its bones be undisturbed
until the trumpet of the archangel shall sound, for every atom of a
Believer's body has been redeemed with the blood of Jesus Christ, as
well as His soul and spirit! Yes, his entire manhood has been purchased
by Christ Jesus. I want you, then, to think of yourselves, you
Believers, as precious things! The Lord says to each one of His own
beloved, "Since you were precious in My sight, you have been honorable
and I have loved you." You are "the precious sons of Zion, comparable
to fine gold." Use yourselves only for honorable purposes, for God puts
honor upon you.

Now look at the other side of the picture. You are precious, but you
must yet be lowly, for whatever value there is about you, you do not
belong to yourself. "You are not your own." Though precious enough to
have been bought with a price, yet none of the preciousness is yours.
Believers, you are the goods and chattels of Christ–as you were once
sold under sin, so are you now "bought with a price." We are done with
slavery of men, I hope, though in a few countries it ignominiously
lingers as a crime on which society has laid its ban. But the blessed
bondage of belonging to Christ I pray that it may be extended all over
the world! "I bear in my body," said Paul, "the marks of the Lord
Jesus," as if he had been branded with Christ's name, as sheep and
cattle often bear the mark of their owner.

I think he alluded to the scars which had been left by the scourges, or
perhaps to the watermark of Baptism which he had received in his entire
body–in which some of us greatly rejoice because it is the reminder of
our being dead with Christ and buried with Him. Never can the fact of
our immersion into the sacred name be reversed! Only once and that to
last forever, we are buried with Christ in Baptism unto death! Into His
name have we been plunged, that we may be His forever and no more our
own. A man cannot be proud of himself, however he knows his value, when
He perceives that not a hair on his head or a finger of his hands
belongs to himself.

In true Christian life not a pulse beats for ourselves, not a breath is
breathed for ourselves, not a single part of the complex machinery of
our body or of our mind or soul remains our own–we are to use all for
Christ, for we are bought and sold properties–taken right away from
ourselves and owned by Christ by an everlasting tenure as "a purchased
possession." I wish I could get into the mind of all here the thought
which burdens my own heart, that we should esteem ourselves as
blood-bought men, as being sacred things, as holy as the golden
candlestick, or as the golden table of the show-bread and yet think of
ourselves as being the very least and lowest in the Lord's house
because we are not at all our own. Our honor lies in our Owner!

God forbid that we should glory in anything except that we belong to
Christ! Paul cried, "Whose I am and whom I serve!" And this we, too,
will say with hearty exultation! We will walk with holy boldness as the
Lord's own, but yet with deep humility as not our own.

III. Thoughtfully let us consider another contrast–"You are not your
own: for you are bought with a price." This

brings before my mind SECURITY AND YET WATCHFULNESS. First, security.
You will not be lost, for He who

owns you is able to keep you. If you were to perish, who would be the
loser? Why, He to whom you belong and "you are not your own," you
belong to Christ! My hope of being preserved to the end lies in this
fact, that Jesus Christ paid far too much for me ever to let me go.
Each Believer cost Him His heart's blood! Stand in Gethsemane and hear
His groans! Then draw near and mark His bloody sweat and tell me–will
He lose a soul for whom He suffered like this?

Look at Him hanging on the tree, tortured, mocked, burdened with an
awful load and then beclouded with the eclipse of His Father's face! Do
you think He suffered all that and yet will permit those for whom He
endured it to be cast into Hell? He will be a greater loser than I
shall if I perish, for He will lose what cost Him His life! Surely He
will never do that. Here is your security–you are the Lord's portion
and He will not be robbed of His heritage! We are in a hand that bears
the scar of the nail! We are hidden in the cleft of a rock–the Rock
that was riven for us nearly 1,900 years ago! None can pluck us from
the hand which redeemed us–its pressure is too warm with love and
strong with might for that.

Now turn the picture over. Look at the other side of the medal. Here is
reason for watchfulness. "You are not your own: for you are bought with
a price." Therefore take great care of yourselves and keep your hearts
with all diligence, for you are a King's treasure. If a thing is my
own, I may do what I like with it, but if it is entrusted to my care, I
must mind how I behave towards it or else I shall be an unfaithful
steward. Come, come, Friend, you may play with yourself if you like if
you are your own, but if you belong to Jesus Christ, I charge you by
the love you bear Him and by the dignity of His sacred Character and by
His death–the price He gave for you–do not pollute or degrade
yourself! You are not your own, therefore permit no damage to come to
your Lord's estate lest He call you to account.

The prodigal away in the far country may live just as he likes if he is
his own, for the citizens of that country and their swine care nothing
about how he behaves. Poor wretch that he is, he may destroy himself if
he wills–on his own head shall come the loss–nobody will grieve over
a fool and a spendthrift. But you and I are not in that condition! We
have been brought home and are our Father's own children and we must
behave ourselves according to the law of His house and please Him in
all things. We have no rights of property in ourselves, now that Christ
has purchased u, and it is our solemn duty to act towards ourselves as
husbandmen act towards a vineyard, the fruits of which are not to be
eaten by themselves, but by their lord.

Let us preserve each cluster of the heart's vine for the King to whom
it belongs and trim each walk and train each flower of the soul's
garden according to His pleasure. See to it, then, that you waste not
and spoil not the royal estate. You are safe in the Lord's hands,
therefore rejoice! But mind you take the other side of the Truth and
watch so as to keep your garments white by walking close to God, for
"you are not your own: you are bought with a price."

IV. A fourth contrast, well worthy to be worked out in your private
meditations, is CONSECRATION AND YET PERFECT LIBERTY. "You are not your
own: for you are bought with a price"–there is consecration. You are,
today, to dedicate yourself wholly and entirely to the Lord because you
are not partly redeemed, but wholly redeemed. Do you make any provision
for the flesh, dear Friend? Do you keep back any faculty you possess
from Christ? Is not this a robbery of your Lord? How would you like to
think of that particular reservation as being unredeemed? Would you be
content to believe that no blood of Christ has ever fallen to redeem
that part of you?

Which portion is it which is to be unconsecrated? Is it the body that
you would pamper and indulge? What? Have you an unredeemed body, then?
Are you satisfied that it should be eaten of the worm and never rise
from the dust? Or do you give to Christ your loving heart, but reserve
your thinking mind to yourself and say, "I will invent my own beliefs
and not yield my judgment to the dicta of Revelation"? What? My Friend,
have you, then, an unredeemed intellect? What is to become of it in
that day when only those things shall be gathered into Heaven which
have been bought with blood and owned by Christ? In that day when He
makes up His jewels, He will not put another man's goods among them!

Do not keep back from Christ even your second-class powers. Withhold
not your voice, but sing for Jesus, or speak for Him if you can! Write
for Jesus, paint for Jesus, yes, make and mend garments for His sake!
Do not keep back from Christ any minor power that you possess, but ask
God to enable you to consecrate the skill of your fingers to Him as
well as the force of your arms, for even your least members are bought
with a price. Your time is included in the purchase, for there is never
a moment when you are unredeemed! Some people think, perhaps, that they
are off duty now and then–let me ask them, "Are you ever off the roll
of Redemption? Is there one St. Monday in the week in which you are an
unredeemed man and may be your own or the devil's? Suppose you die that
day? What then?"

As this consecration holds good for all times, so in all manner of
ways. You are consecrated to Christ to do whatever you can do to His
Glory–to suffer whatever you can suffer as He lays it upon you and,
above all, to be, as well as to do, and to suffer–to be forever the
Lord's! There is a great deal in actually being Christ's, even when you
are not actively engaged–when you are neither praying, nor singing,
nor working, but, as it were, standing still–it is well to be as the
sweet flowers in the garden which exhale the perfume of their innermost
hearts in silent surrender to the passing gales. O that we may be full
of Grace and may the wind of the Divine Spirit scatter abroad the
sweetnesses of our inner life, even when we are scarcely conscious of
it!

But then, there is with this, a perfect liberty. I believe that to be
consecrated to Christ is when we come to the bottom of things, the sure
way to give to all the faculties of our nature the fullest possible
play. Vice is the indulgence of the passions. True. Therefore some
think it joy, but if all the passions of a man of every sort were to be
exercised in their right harmony and proportion, as they would have
been had he remained in his first estate, then perfect virtue and not
vice,

would have been the result–and in that virtue manhood would have found
a delightful liberty. The propensities of our nature as nature–not as
fallen nature–will have their right indulgence when they acknowledge a
complete subservience to the will and Law of God. Liberty to sin is
slavery, liberty from sin is freedom!

There is no liberty to a man like that of being under Law to God. If we
are encased within the compass of the Law, we are no more restricted
than a bird which is imprisoned within the boundless expanse of air, or
a fish which is shut in by the ocean! Obedience to Christ is our
element! The element of a truly renewed man is holiness and, therefore,
when you and I shall become perfectly consecrated to Christ, so as to
live only for Him, we shall have reached that way of living which God
designed us to follow wherein we shall be perfectly filled with
happiness.

Do not think, therefore, that the more a Christian you become, the more
you will feel of restriction and bond. Say, rather, that you will
rejoice more in the freedom of such as good men, alone, can understand.
The fact is that self-denial, itself, will become no self-denial, but a
supreme joy when once the heart is perfectly loyal to its Lord!

V. To close, I will mention a fifth pair of contrasts–SUBMISSION AND
EXPECTANCY. These are both suggested by my text. Submission–"You are
not your own" and, therefore, God has a right to do whatever He wills
with you. We cannot tell what He may do with us, yet, but if we must
suffer pain week after week upon our bed, He has a right to lay us
there and chasten us in every limb. If the Lord says, "Go into your
room and cough all the winter through and then melt away with decline,"
we must bow before His decree, remembering these words, "You are not
your own." Or, if He says, "Come down from your position of comfort
into hard work and poverty," again you must remember, "you are not your
own."

Or if He says, "Migrate across the seas. Go to a new country, cut every
tie and break the fondest connections," you must cheerfully obey, for,
"you are not your own." If the call of duty should be, "Go, preach the
Gospel among the heathen! Go and die among them–find a grave where
malaria shortens life, or cruelty brings sudden death"–you must go
without question, for, "you are not your own." Ours is not to raise
questions or debates, for those can only be legitimate among persons
who are their own–

"Ours not to reason why: Ours but to do and die,"

for we are not our own! Submission, absolute submission, is the
rightful position of the blood-bought!

Side by side with that comes expectancy. I could not do much for myself
if I were my own, but if I am Christ's, I expect that He will do great
things for me. Do you see those two boys? Neither can do much for
himself, but one of them has great expectations. And why? Because he
has a kind and wealthy father, of whom he expects great things. He
says, "I am my father's son and he will take care of me." It is the
same with us! Our great Owner's goodness and power have raised our
expectations! Look at this body of mine–it must decay and become mere
dust–but my Lord has bought it and you can be sure He did not purchase
it to let it end in corruption! It is not my own, therefore I feel sure
that He who owns it, will lift it up, again, in nobler form than it now
wears and make it bright and glistening like His own, not liable to
pain, or sickness, or decay.

I know He will! If this body were only mine, I should expect there
would be an end of it when the gravedigger hides it in the earth. But
if it is my Lord's, since He has paid so much for it, He must have some
grand intention concerning it! He sees in this body the raw material
out of which His Grace and power can make something that shall glorify
Himself. Is there not a guarantee for great expectations in our
belonging to Christ? We are not our own! Then these minds of ours–
depend upon it He will enlarge them! He will increase our mental
caliber and make His property more worthy of its Owner. You say, dear
Brother, "I shall never be much of a man. I have but small capacity for
learning." Well, what you have belongs to Christ and He will sanctify
your talents and increase them and give you wisdom to use them for His
honor!

You do not know what you may yet become. You will know more after you
have been in Heaven five minutes than all the doctors of divinity on
earth! For there you shall know even as you are known. You shall know
Christ and see Him and rejoice in Him beyond all that you can now
conceive. You are not your own, but He who owns you means to make
something out of you–He bought you at too great a price to let you run
to waste. As for your entire being, rest assured that He intends to
reflect His own Glory by means of it throughout eternity. I never knew
Christ act unwisely, yet, and though sometimes it seems to me as though
I could have forbidden the Cross and His Sacrifice–as though His death

were too dear a price to redeem such insignificant beings as we
are–yet He must have seen in our poor, fallen nature, in its very sin
and misery, room for His Grace, room for His power and, therefore, the
opportunity for a grand display of His power and love to the amazement
of angels and principalities and powers throughout eternity!

At any rate, a piece of clay that lies in the pit, all its own, has no
destiny before it until it has been purchased by the potter and beaten
and prepared. And when it feels itself revolving on the wheel, it has
just reason to believe that it will bear a useful part in time to come.
It might say, if it could speak, "I am not my own lump of clay! I have
been bought with a great price and, therefore, something is to be made
of me! It does not yet appear what I shall be, but when he that
fashions, has finished me, I shall, no doubt, be worthy of the hand
that has worked this upon me." Raise your expectations as high as you
will–God means to do for you exceedingly above what you can ask or
even think! According to the riches of His Glory in Christ Jesus He
will show the greatness of His power in you that believe in Jesus
Christ! Blessed are the men, then, of whom it is true, "You are not
your own: for you are bought with a price."

Now, I finish with this question–"Are you your own, dear Hearer?" I
can imagine some sitting here saying, "Of course I am! I do not believe
in surrendering myself to God." Well, then, if you are your own, you
will go to your own place and where your own place is read the Word of
God and discover! There shall you find that those who know not God
shall be driven from His Presence! If they are their own, they must be
their own comforters and their own helpers, but they shall be driven
far off from God forevermore! Are you anxious to be saved, my dear
Hearer? Then the way of salvation is that you believe in Jesus
Christ–and it is an essential part of that believing that you
surrender yourself to Christ.

If He will save you, shall He have you to be His possession? If He will
buy you, will you be His? If He will redeem you, will you confess that
you are not your own? Many a man is unable to find peace because he
wants to be independent and demands to have his own will and way.
Surrender! That is a necessary exhortation to every revolted one who
would be restored. Surrender! Surrender at discretion! God cannot deal
with rebels while they carry their weapons in their hands. Down with
your weapons! Cry to Him, "Lord, I am dying, starving, perishing! Wrath
is upon me! Only let me live and be cleansed and I will be Yours
forever, as Your Grace shall help me."

He will accept you! He does accept you, now, if that is the utterance
of your heart! And you, too, may go away and sing–

"I am Yours and Yours alone, This I gladly, fully own." God grant it,
for Jesus' sake. Amen.
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The Glories of Forgiving Grace