The Ever-Living Priest
(No. 1915)
A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 22, 1886,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to
continue by reason of death: but this Man, because He continues
forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is able to sa ve
them to the uttermost who come to God by Him, seeing He lives forever
to make intercession for them." Hebrews 7:23-25.
THE Apostle Paul is very much at home with his theme whenever he is
extolling his Master. When handling the Jewish types and figures, with
which he was so familiar, he was charmed to point out how far superior
the Lord Jesus Christ is to any and all the priests of the Old
Testament dispensation. In this case he is dwelling upon the special
honor of our Lord, because His Priesthood is without end, seeing, He,
Himself is not put forth from the priesthood by reason of death. A
common priest served from 30 to 50 years of age and then his work was
done–priests of the house of Aaron, who became High Priests, held
their office through life. Sometimes a High Priest would continue in
his office, therefore, for a considerable length of time. But in many
cases he was cut off as other men are by premature death and,
therefore, there was priest after priest of the order of Aaron to go
within the veil for the people.
Our Lord is of another race, being a Priest according to the order of
Melchisedec, "having neither beginning of days nor end of life." He was
made a Priest not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the
power of an endless life. He continues to make intercession for the
people of God by virtue of His eternal life and perpetual Priesthood.
In this respect the true Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, rises above
all former priests–they were, indeed, but types and shadows of
Himself.
This superiority of our Lord Jesus Christ is a topic which will not
interest everybody. To many persons it will seem a piece of devotional
rapture, if not an idle tale. Yet there will always be a remnant
according to the election of Grace to whom this meditation will be
inexpressibly sweet. Who are the people that will be interested in this
theme? They are indicated in the text–they that come unto God by Jesus
Christ. The people who are in the habit of using Christ as their way of
access to God are those who will value Him beyond all price–and such
persons will delight to hear Him extolled in the highest terms.
We will begin our discourse, then, by the enquiry–Do we come unto God
by Jesus Christ? Listen and answer for yourselves. Do we come unto God
at all? Do we recognize the Lord our God as a Person who should be
approached? Are we now approaching Him? Are we among those who are
always coming to God, to whom, at the last, the great Judge shall say,
"You have been coming, continue to come. Come, you blessed of My
Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you"? Or are we departing from
God by forgetting Him, or rebelling against Him, so that we shall be
among that number to whom the Judge shall say, "You have long been
departing, continue to do so. Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire
in Hell, prepared for the devil and his angels"? Are we coming to God?
That is the question. Is the direction of our lives towards God? We are
either going to God or from God–and by this we may forecast our
everlasting destiny. The direction in which the arrow is flying
prophesies the target in which it will be fixed–the way the tree is
leaning, that way foretells the place of its fall–and where the tree
falls, there it will lie.
So let us judge ourselves this day! Which way are we drifting? Have we
ever come to God by sincere repentance of our wanderings? Have we come
to Him by faith and are we reconciled to Him? Do we come to Him in
prayer? Do we come to Him day by day, speaking with Him and desiring to
walk with Him? Do we come to God by communion with Him, hav-
ing fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ? Do we,
in fact, know the meaning of what it is to draw near to God? It is ill
with us if we either have no God, or if He seems to be very far off, an
almost unrecognizable phantom, an idea never fully realized, much less
approached! Blessed are they that know the name of the Lord and that
walk with Him, rejoicing in the light of His Countenance. It is to such
that Jesus is precious as their way of access to the Father.
In the description there is a little word of distinction, for the
people who are said to be saved by the great Intercessor are those who
come unto God by Him. Certain persons talk of coming to God as Creator,
Ruler and even as Father–but they do not think of His dear Son as
their way of approach. They forget or otherwise deny the declaration of
our Lord Jesus–"No man comes unto the Father, but by Me." Yet this
saying is true. There is no true way of approach to God except through
Jesus Christ, the one Mediator between God and man. A deep abyss
divides us from God and only that ladder which Jacob saw can bridge the
gulf. Our Lord Jesus, being God and Man in one Person, reaches from
side to side of the chasm. Coming near to us, this ladder stands at our
feet in the Human Nature of our Lord and it reaches right up to the
Infinite Majesty by reason of the Divine Nature of our Redeemer. God
and Man, in one Person, unites God and man in one league of love! We
come unto God by Jesus Christ.
Prayers in which Christ is forgotten are insults to the God of
Revelation! Faith in which Jesus is not the foundation of our hope is
mere delusion! God cannot accept us if we will not accept His Son. O
Sinner, God has opened one Door in Heaven–if you will not go in by
that Door, you shall never enter within the walls of the New Jerusalem!
God bids you come to Him by One in whom He is well pleased, but if you
will not be pleased with Jesus, you can not come to the Father! O you
who are daily users of this royal way to God, you will forgive me if I
hide myself behind my Lord this day and seek to do nothing more than,
in all simplicity, set forth His unchangeable Priesthood and endless
life! Pray the Lord to help me to extol the great High Priest of our
profession and also to help you all to join in the praise of Jesus in
the power of His Holy Spirit!
In the text there are four subjects for your consideration–they are
joined together as links of a golden chain–and they are all full of
encouragement for you. Here is a great Savior with an endless life.
Secondly, with an endless Priesthood. Thirdly, with an endless
intercession. And fourthly, with an endless salvation–"He is able to
save them to the uttermost that come to God by Him, seeing He lives
forever to make intercession for them."
I. First, we have in our Lord Jesus Christ a Priest with AN ENDLESS
LIFE. I want you to think earnestly upon this very simple theme–it is
in the simplicities that we find our greatest consolations. Our Lord
Jesus is not as Aaron, who had to be stripped of his garments on the
top of Mount Hor and to die in the mountain. Neither is He like any of
the sons of Aaron who, in due time, suffered the infirmities of age and
at last bowed their heads to inevitable death. He died once, but death
has no more dominion over Him–it is witnessed of Him that He lives!
We clearly perceive that our Lord Jesus possesses endless life as God,
for how shall the Godhead expire? It is not possible for the Godhead to
cease or to suspend its existence. Our Lord is "God over all, blessed
forever" and, in this respect, He is necessarily everlasting as to His
life.
But our Lord also always lives in respect to His Manhood. Though He
died unto sin once, He soon rose again from the dead, His body never
having seen corruption. He died in His Priesthood and for His
Priesthood, but never from His Priesthood. By His Resurrection, His
Manhood was fully restored to a life which dies no more. We speak of
Him as, "He that lives, and was dead, and is alive forevermore." This
is a very sweet Truth of God to those who are in Christ Jesus. The Lord
Jesus Christ had lived one life as a Man–why did He not end that life
as a Man when He died on the Cross? It shows His deep attachment to our
manhood, that He retained the Human Nature after His great Sacrifice
had been presented and accepted. The fact that He again appeared as a
Man among men and carried Human Nature into His glorified estate is
clear evidence of His deep attachment to our humanity!
If some glorious spirit from on high, angel or archangel, had loved a
race of ants and had condescended for the salvation of these tiny
creatures to assume their nature. And if, in that nature, he had died
for them, you would naturally expect that at the conclusion of his
labors and sufferings he would lay aside the form of his humiliation
and return to the greatness of his former estate. But our Lord Jesus
Christ, whose stoop of condescension, when He assumed our Nature, was
greater than any archangel could have achieved–having taken our Human
Nature and having bled and died in it– continued to wear it after He
had said, "It is finished," after He had risen from the dead and after
He had taken His seat
at the Divine right hand! He has become so wedded to us, so truly one
flesh with us, that He will not be divided from us in Nature. He sits
upon the Throne of God, not in His pure Godhead, but as One that has
been slain, clothed in a body like our own! What manner of love is
this! What bliss to know that my Kinsman lives! Truly many waters could
not quench His love to manhood, nor could death, itself, destroy it!
The Son of God is still the Son of Man! He whom angels worship is not
ashamed to call us Brethren, for as partaker of our Nature, He lives
and will live forever!
He always lives, then, as God and as Man and I prolong the blended
thoughts by saying that He always lives in His relationship to us. This
you have already seen to be the case because He lives in our Nature.
But now I beg you to note that He lives as God and Man for us. I love
to read these words–"He ever lives to make intercession for them."
This is the one great objective for which He lives. To make
intercession for those that come unto God by Him is the business of His
life. Is not this wonderful? If some influential and powerful person
should say to you, "I live to promote your interest. Wherever I go and
whatever I do, whatever I seek and whatever I obtain, I live for
you"–it would show great friendship and excite in us great
expectations. Would it not? Yet here is the Lord Jesus declaring that
He lives for us– for us He appears in the Presence of God! For us He
has gone to the many mansions of the Father's house! For us He
constantly intercedes with God! Oh, the deep debt of gratitude we owe
to this glorious One who, having died for us, now lives for us!
It is more than if a brother should say, "I live my whole life for you"
for, remember, this might be said to be the second life which our Lord
gives to us. He lived for us here below a whole lifetime! He laid down
that life for us and now He lives again for us. I know not how to speak
what I feel concerning the surpassing greatness of His love. He could
not be content to give His life once for us, but He must take it again
and shall give it over again for us! See how He loves us– He died for
us! See how He loves us–He lives again for us! He lives for sinners,
for He lives to intercede–and for whom is intercession but for those
who need an advocate? "If any man sin we have an Advocate." May I say
that Jesus lives two lives for us?
Yet more, it is said, "He ever lives to make intercession for us" so
that the whole life of Christ throughout eternity– His boundless,
endless, glorified Existence is still for His people! He glorifies the
Father and makes glad the hosts of Heaven, but still this is the set
purpose of His heart–to live for us. "He loved me and gave Himself for
me" is true. But we may read it in the present tense if we like, for it
is still true–"He loves me and He gives Himself for me." Christ loved
His Church and gave Himself for it–and now He loves His Church and
gives Himself to it! What inspiration lies in the endless life of
Christ for us! Let our lives be lived wholly for Him since He lives
wholly for us.
This truth of the living Christ should be remembered in our greatest
need. Dear Friends, there is an Almighty and Divine One in Heaven who
always lives for our highest benefit! Let us adore Him most lovingly.
This should show us how great our need is, that we always need a living
Savior to interpose for us. A dying Savior was not enough! We still
require, every moment of our lives, a living Savior engrossed with the
care of our spirits, interposing on our behalf in all manner of ways
and delivering us from all evil! Our hour of necessity is ever present,
for Jesus is always guarding us and His work is never a superfluity.
Herein should lie our great comfort–we should fall back upon this
Truth of God whenever our burden presses too sorely upon our shoulders.
Jesus lives! My great Redeemer lives for me! He lives in all fullness
of power and Glory and devotes that life, with all that pertains to it,
to the preservation of my soul from every evil! Can I not rest in this?
With such a Keeper, why should I be afraid? Must I not be safe when One
so vigilant and so vigorous devotes His life to my protection? What
innumerable blessings must come to those for whom Jesus spends the
strength of His endless life!
II. Secondly, I must carry you on to another and kindred
subject–ENDLESS PRIESTHOOD. Our Lord is ordained unto an unchangeable
Priesthood or, rather, as the margin has it, to a priesthood "which
passes not from one to another." His office cannot be taken up by a
successor–it is not transferable, but belongs to Him alone, seeing He
always lives to carry it out Himself. We have only one Priest and that
one Priest we have forever.
In this, we are not like Israel of old, for, as we have already seen, a
High Priest would die. I can conceive that to many Jewish believers the
death of a priest was a great affliction. I could imagine an Israelite
saying, "And so he is dead–that good man, that tender-spirited
minister, that gentle and affectionate shepherd. I have told him all my
heart and now he is taken from me. I went to him in my youth in deep
distress of conscience. He offered a sacrifice for me when I was
unclean and brought me near to the Holy Place. Since then, I have gone
to him when I have needed guidance. He has consulted
the oracle on my behalf and my way has been made plain. He knows the
secrets of my family. He knows those delicate griefs which I have never
dared to tell to anybody else. Alas, he is dead and half my heart has
perished! What a gap is made in my life by his decease!"
The mourner would be told that his son had become his successor, but I
think I hear him say, "Yes, I am aware of it. But the young man does
not know what his father knew about me and I could never again lay bare
my heart. The son can never be in entire sympathy with all my sorrows
as his good old father was. No doubt he is a good man, but he is not
the same person–I reverenced every hair in the gray beard of the old
High Priest. I have grown up with him and he has helped me so many,
many times. It is so sad that I shall see his face no more." There
would always be the feeling, in some minds, that the next High Priest
might not be quite so acceptable with God, or so tender towards the
congregation as he who had passed away. He might be a man superior in
education, but inferior in affection. He might be more austere and less
tender. He might have greater gifts and less fatherliness.
At any rate, it would seem like having to begin again when one went,
for the first time, to the new priest–it would be a break in the
continuity of one's comfort. The quiet flow of life would be marred, as
when a river comes to its rapids and an impassable fall causes a break
in the navigation–and a necessary unloading of the vessel and a
laborious portage instead of an easy passage down a gently flowing
stream. "Oh," says one good Israelite, "the venerable High Priest who
has just fallen asleep was my friend. We took sweet counsel together
and walked to the House of God in company. He was in my house when my
beloved child died. He was with me when the partner of my bosom, the
light of my eyes, was taken away from me at a stroke. His long
experience he used for my instruction and comfort, but, alas, it is all
gone, for the saint of God is dead!"
Beloved, here is our comfort–we have only one Priest and He lives
forever! He had no predecessor and He will have no successor because He
always lives, personally, to exercise the office of High Priest on our
behalf. My soul reposes in the faith of His one Sacrifice, offered once
and no more! There is but one Presenter of that one Sacrifice and never
can there be another, since the One is all-sufficient and He never
dies! Jesus reads my heart and has always read it since it began to
beat–He knows my griefs and has carried my sorrows from of old and He
will bear both them and me when old age shall shrivel up my strength!
When I shall fall asleep in death, He will not die, but will be ready
to receive me into His own undying blessedness! Brothers and Sisters,
our Lord in Glory–
"Looks like a lamb that has been slain, And wears His Priesthood
still." Do we not rejoice in the unbroken continuity and everlasting
perpetuity of the Priesthood of Christ?
Again, we are not as Israel is at this moment. Alas, poor Israel! After
all her privileges of the past, where is she now? She is without a High
Priest! She does not dare, even, to think of anointing one of her
Cohens to that office. She is without an Altar or a Sacrifice. Once a
year, on the Day of Atonement, she has something which bears the shadow
of sacrifice, but it is a worship of her own devising and not after the
Law of Moses or the ordinances of God. She is left without Priest,
Altar, Temple, or Sacrifice–and the outlook of her sons and daughters
as to the future life is, for the most part, exceedingly dark and
dismal. I am assured that nothing is more unwelcome to a Jew than the
thought of death–and it may well be so. Beloved, we are not without a
Priest! Our faith beholds Jesus passed into the heavens and abiding
there in the Glory of His once-offered Sacrifice, always living to
intercede for us.
Jesus is, to my soul, at this moment, as living a Person as I am,
myself, and even more so! I have come to look on friends and dear ones
as passing shadows. I see written across their brows the word,
"mortal." But Jesus is the only one Friend who has immortality and,
therefore, can never be lost to me. His Sacrifice is forever effectual
and His Priesthood is forever in exercise. Christ's Priesthood remains
without end! What bliss it is to be a believer in Jesus and thus to
have one Priest and never to desire another!
We are not as the votaries of Rome. That Babylon has many priests
within her borders. Some say that these priests are substitutes for
Christ. If so, the assertion is a flat blasphemy against Him who is a
Priest forever and needs no substitute. Others say they are the vicars
of Christ, carrying on His work, now that He is gone, by presenting the
unbloody "sacrifice of the mass." This, also, is clean contrary to the
teaching of the Apostle in this passage, wherein he proves that this
Man, because He continues forever, has a Priesthood which cannot be
passed from one to another. In this he shows that our
Lord is different from the Aaronic priests who had their office taken
up by those who followed them, whereas Jesus, like Melchisedec, has no
successor, but exercises His office in His own proper Person according
to the power of an endless life.
We now know no priests on earth, save that in a secondary sense the
Lord Jesus has made all Believers to be kings and priests unto God. We
now have no special order of persons set apart to represent their
fellows before God. Under the Mosaic dispensation there were many
priests not allowed to continue by reason of death, but under the
Christian dispensation we have only one Priest who continues always in
a Priesthood that cannot be transferred–this is the Apostle's
argument. But this is not true if bishops and presbyters are priests in
the sense in which they now claim to be! I count the very thought of
our having other sacrificing priests than the Lord Jesus to be
derogatory to the one unique, completely-accomplished Sacrifice of our
Great High Priest who alone abides in His personal office forever and
ever! Therefore, Brothers and Sisters, despise in your very souls the
pretensions of a human priesthood either in the Church of England or in
the Church of Rome!
If any man calls himself a priest otherwise than as all the people of
God are priests, we rate him at no higher value than Korah, Dathan and
Abiram, to whom Moses said, "You take too much upon you, you sons of
Levi." They claimed a priesthood which did not belong to them, as all
men do who intrude into the priesthood in these days. Our Lord Jesus
walks in that supreme, solitary majesty which was foreshadowed in
Melchisedec–and in that spirit He fulfils a Priesthood which renders
all other priests a superfluity and a mockery! What have we to do with
more sacrifices when the one Sacrifice offered once and for all?
Brethren, hold fast this precious Truth of God and rejoice in it!
III. Now I conduct you, thirdly, to the fact of ENDLESS
INTERCESSION–"Seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them."
If I were to read this passage, "Seeing He ever lives to interpose for
them," it would not be an incorrect reading. The Lord Jesus Christ, in
His perpetual Priesthood, lives on purpose to be the Advocate,
Defender, Patron, Mediator and Interposer for His people. You that come
to God by Him will highly esteem this constant service rendered to you
by your Lord. Whereas Christ, by His death, provided all that was
necessary for your salvation, He, by His life, applies that provision
which He made in His death. He lives on purpose to see brought home to
you and enjoyed by you, all those blessed gifts and privileges which He
purchased upon the Cross when He died in your place. Had He not lived
for you, His death for you would have miscarried. He would then have
begun the work and provided all the materials for its completion, but
there would have been none to render those materials available and to
complete the building whose foundation had been laid in so costly a
manner.
We are pardoned by the death of Christ, but we are justified by His
Resurrection. We are saved because He died, but that salvation is
brought home and secured to us because He sits at the right hand of God
and continually makes intercession for us. I want you, today, to think
as much of a living Christ as you have ever thought of a dead Christ.
You have sat down at the foot of Calvary, your eyes suffused with
tears, and you have said how delightful it is to behold His love
written out in crimson characters in yonder streams of blood which His
very heart pours out for our redemption! I want you, now, to sit at the
foot of His Throne and, as far as your dim eyes will permit, behold His
splendor and see how He spends His Glory-Life in perpetual intercession
for you! He is as much ours on the Throne as on the tree. He is always
living to apply to us with His own hands what He purchased by the
nailing of those hands and the piercing of His heart upon the Cross of
our redemption.
Why is it so necessary that Jesus, ever-living, should always be
interceding for us? I answer, first, it is most becoming God-ward. The
great principle which God would teach to men is this–that sin is so
hateful to Him that the sinner can only approach His Justice through a
Mediator. This Truth of God is most clearly set forth in the fact that
even now that we are washed in the blood of the Lamb, there is no
approach unto God except through the intercession of Christ. Does not
this teach the grand principle of the evil of sin and teach it in the
most plain manner? The distance which sin puts between the sinner and
God–and the necessity of mediation in order that a just God may
commune with the imperfect–are not these fully taught by the
institution of the perpetual intercession of the Son of God? This is as
much a declaration of the righteousness of God as was the
substitutionary death on Calvary!
Moreover, the intercession of Christ is necessary God-ward to
illustrate the union, co-operation, and intercommunion of the Divine
Trinity in the work of our salvation. The Son of God intercedes in
Heaven and the Holy Spirit intercedes on earth. If Jesus intercedes, it
is of necessity that the Father be there with whom He may intercede.
The Son
pleads and the Father hears and answers and, in consequence, conveys to
us by the Holy Spirit the blessings purchased by His Son. Thus, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit are brought before our minds as all concurring in
the Believer's salvation. A Mediator who is not only Man, but also one
Person of the blessed Trinity, continues to intercede for us and thus
we see how God remembers us.
Once again, our own communion with God is openly declared, while there
sits on the Throne of God a Man who is also God, pleading with the
Godhead! Man is always standing in Glory in connection with God. The
perpetual intercession of Christ is a perpetual recognition of the
communion which now exists between God and once fallen, but now
restored, manhood! We ought to look upon Christ pleading in Glory as
the sign, token and evidence that man is reconciled to God, that man
speaks with God, that God speaks with man and that, once again, the old
dominion is restored to man, for we see Jesus, who was made a little
lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with Glory
and honor.
The perpetual intercession is necessary God-ward. But it is even more
necessary man-ward. Think, Brothers and Sisters, though we have been
forgiven through the precious blood, yet we, in many things, offend
and, therefore, every day we need a fresh application of the Blood of
Sprinkling. Conscience accuses us for daily flaws and faults and it is,
therefore, well for us that it is written, "He makes intercession for
the transgressors." Where would our hope be of continual preservation
from the weaknesses and sins of our nature did not Jesus constantly
plead for us? The way is rough, the world is sinful, our wanderings are
many, our needs are incessant and, therefore, we need the eternal
intercession. We are never out of danger and, therefore, always need
the guardian prayer. We are never above weakness and folly and,
therefore, require the perpetual patronage of our Protector.
What man is there among you that is not full of needs? What woman is
there among you that does not need to come to the Mercy Seat many times
a day? Jesus is always there, waiting to present our petitions–always
making our persons, our petitions and our praise acceptable with God.
Brethren, we are daily pressed either with conflict with inbred sin or
suffering in the body, with service of our Lord or sympathy for our
Brethren–and for all these we need help from the Holy Place–help
which can only come by way of the Throne of the heavenly Grace. We need
an Interposer, at whose feet we may lay down our burdens, into whose
ears we may tell our sorrows! Therefore Jesus ever lives to make
intercession for us.
Our great Intercessor also obtains for us those precious gifts and
Graces which are necessary for our growth and usefulness. His is the
hand which leads us onward to those attainments of the spiritual life
which are necessary for our ser-viceableness in this world and for our
meetness for the life to come. The higher virtues would be beyond our
reach if His prayers did not bring us more and more of the Spirit of
God to make us perfect in every good work to do His will.
Have you also forgotten that there is an enemy who is always alive and
always full of malice? He acts as the accuser of the Brethren, who
accuses them day and night before God. And were it not for our glorious
Advocate, who, for Zion's sake, does never hold His peace, what would
become of us? This accuser is also a tempter who subtly contrives plots
for our overthrow. It is at times true of us as it was of
Peter–"Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift
you as wheat: but I have prayed for you." How often are we hidden from
evil by the prayers of Jesus! We do not know, my Brothers and Sisters,
how many poisoned arrows are caught upon the shield of our Lord's
intercession. The intercession of Christ, as with 10,000 hands, is
always scattering benedictions. Job asks, "Have you entered into the
springs of the sea?" Surely our Lord's intercession is the source of an
ocean of blessedness! If we but had eyes enlightened by the Holy
Spirit, we would see the mountain full of horses of fire and chariots
of fire round about the people of God. Who guides those horses? Who
directs those chariots? Who is the Captain of the hosts of spirits that
encompass the camp of God? Who, but the Prince Immanuel, who by His
all-powerful intercession rules all things for us!
The Lord Jesus, by His unceasing pleas, keeps all the powers of
darkness in check and moves all the powers of the Light of God for our
rescue. His prayers form an atmosphere of blessing in which we live and
move. We do not know, we cannot begin to calculate the depths of our
obligation to the ceaseless care of our unwearied Intercessor! Even
when time shall be no more and all the saints shall be saved, their
continuance in bliss will be due to His endless intercession.
Think of it–Jesus always praying, never ceasing! His very appearance
in Heaven is a plea. The memory of His finished work is a plea. His
constant thought of us is a pleading with God. Not with tears and cries
will He pray, as He did in the days of His flesh. Nor, perhaps, even
with words will He plead, for His Spirit speaks to the Spirit of God
without such vocal instrumentality as creatures require. This much we
know, He is always praying, always prevailing and, conse-
quently, always showering down upon us blessings beyond all count, the
most of which we scarcely recognize! And yet if they were withheld, we
would perish miserably. Lord Jesus, Your dying blood is well matched by
Your living pleas and our hearts rejoice in this because of these two
sure proofs of Your love and Grace.
IV. That brings me to my fourth point which is–For this cause,
therefore, there is ENDLESS SALVATION in the power of Jesus. "He is
able to save without end, or to the uttermost, them that come unto God
by Him." That word, "uttermost," includes within it a reference to
time. Because our Lord Jesus never dies, He is endlessly able to save.
At all times His power to save remains. He was able to save some of you
40 years ago, but you would not come to Him that you might have life.
He is able to save you now though you have passed your fourscore years
in impenitence. If you come to God by Him, He will save you however
multiplied your sins!
Beloved, many years ago, as boys and girls, some of us put our trust in
the Redeemer and He forgave us our trespasses. Happy day! Happy day! We
are much further advanced in life at this time and our strength grows
less as the shadows lengthen, but Jesus is always the same and is still
able to save to the fullest! No diminution has taken place as to His
ability to save. He that helped us in the seven struggles of our youth
and the 70 burdens of our manhood, will help us to 70 times seven, if
necessary! We need not fear old age or death, seeing He always has the
dew of His youth and is always our Friend, laying out His life for us,
even as once He laid it down for us.
He is abundantly able to save–from the uttermost of evil to the
uttermost of good He can save us. As He ever lives in the fullness of
life, so He can save to the fullness of salvation. His name is
Jesus–the Savior–and as Jesus, the Savior, He lives! He has not
renounced His office, nor allowed any part of His life to run to
another purpose–He lives to save.
The Lord Jesus Christ is, now, "seeing He ever lives," able to save to
the uttermost in point of our sin. Whatever the sin of anyone here may
be, if he comes to God by Jesus Christ, it shall be forgiven him! God
forbid I should try to make a list of human crimes–what purpose would
it serve? The reading of the details of vice is very defiling. I will
not, therefore, attempt a list of crimes into which mortals sink. Sorry
scoundrels come here at times–there may be dreadful characters at this
moment mingled with this vast congregation–and truly, I am not sorry
that they are hearing the Gospel! But whoever you may be, the text
draws a circle of hope around you as it says–"He is able to save them
to the uttermost that come unto God by Him."
Whatever your offense, if you will now come to God and confess it, and
ask mercy through the name of Jesus, He is able to save you to the
extreme limit of your need. If you have gone as far in sin as is
possible and are forced to acknowledge that if you could have gone
farther you would have done so, yet there is forgiveness! O my Hearer,
though your hands are even red with murder, yet the blood of Christ can
wash them clean! "All manner of sin and of blasphemy shall be forgiven
unto men." Yes, let the silver trumpet sound it out! You chief of
sinners, hear the news! The Savior lives that to the uttermost He may
save such as you! Come, then, to your living Lord, you that groan under
the load of deadly guilt, for He can take it all away!
So, too, He saves to the uttermost of our need and misery. One old
divine says if we were to climb a great hill from which we could see
wide fields of spiritual distress and poverty and, if all this
represented our experience, yet the Lord is able to spread salvation
all round the far-off horizon and encompass all our needs. Come, poor
Trembler, climb the mountain and look far over this terrible
wilderness! As far as you can see, or foresee of dreaded need in years
to come, so far and much further can the salvation of Jesus reach! As
far as with the telescope of apprehension you can spy out trials in
life and woes in death, so far is Jesus able to save you! The uttermost
will never be reached by you, but it has long ago been provided for by
Him! All your capacious emptiness can ever need to fill it, He has
provided. Though your heart should, like a horseleech, cry, "Give,
give," Jesus can satisfy its hunger! Though like the sea that swallows
up a navy and is not full, your soul should never cease its cravings,
yet Jesus can make you content. All that you can require, He can surely
give you since He always lives by the power of an endless life to be
the fullness of every emptied soul!
Jesus can save you to the uttermost of your desires. I want you to
think of all you would like to be in righteousness and true
holiness–for all that will Jesus do unto you before He has done with
you. I asked a young convert the other day "Are you perfect yet?" "Oh
dear, Sir," she said, "No." I asked, "Would you not like to be?" Her
eyes twinkled, as well they might, and she said, "That is what I long
for." It will be Heaven to be perfect! Jesus is able to make us perfect
and He has resolved to do it. As it is written, "I shall be satisfied,
when I awake, with Your likeness." In that likeness He will cause us to
awake if we come unto God through Him! Jesus will save us to the
highest degree.
The Lord Jesus Christ will also save us entirely–He will work out the
salvation of the whole man–body, soul and spirit. He always lives to
save His people to the utmost, that is to say, all His people and all
of every one of His people. Nothing essential to manhood shall be left
to perish in the case of those whom He redeems. All that which the
first Adam ruined, the Second Adam shall restore. The Canaan of manhood
from Dan to Beersheba shall be conquered by our Joshua! As yet the body
is dead because of sin, though the spirit is life because of
righteousness, but the day comes when the body shall also be delivered
from the bondage which sin has brought upon it. Not a bone, nor a piece
of a bone of a redeemed one shall be left in the hands of the enemy!
God's deliverances are always complete. When the Lord sent His angel to
bring Peter out of prison, he said to the slumbering Apostle, "Cast
your garment about you, and follow me." That garment might be only a
fisherman's cloak, but it must not be left in Herod's hands! He also
said, "Bind on your sandals," for when the angel of the Lord sets a man
free, he will not leave even a pair of old shoes behind him! The
redemption of Christ is perfect–it reaches to the uttermost. He seems
to say to sin, Satan and death, as the Lord said to Pharaoh–"Not a
hoof shall be left behind." All that He has redeemed by price, He will
also redeem by power–and to that end He makes ceaseless intercession
before God.
"To the uttermost," from all our doubts and fears, follies and
failures, Jesus will bring us by His endless intercession. "To the
uttermost," from every consequence of the Fall, personal sin and actual
death, Jesus, by His intercession will save us. "To the uttermost." Oh,
think of it! To the Resurrection Life, to clearance at the Judgment
Seat and to the highest glories of Heaven and to boundless bliss
throughout the ages He will save us. Right on while you endure, O
Eternity, the pleading of the High Priest shall save the chosen company
who, forever rising into something higher and yet higher, shall prove
more and more the heights and depths of everlasting bliss! Because He
lives we shall also live and because He always intercedes, we shall
forever be glorified.
There I leave my subject, only coming back to the one enquiry, Do you
come to God by Jesus Christ? If so, the text speaks comfortably to you.
It speaks not only of the Church as a whole, but also of each
individual Believer–Jesus intercedes for each one of those who "come
unto God by Him." You, dear Friend, though unknown to fame, are known
to Jesus! You, dear Sister, hidden away in obscurity, are not hidden
from the all-seeing eyes of the Divine Mediator! His breastplate bears
your name, yes, He has engraved it upon the palms of His hands and He
will never forget those whose memorials are thus perpetually with Him!
May the living blessing of the ever-living Savior be with you today and
forever! Amen.