“Lo, I Come”–Exposition

"Lo, I Come"–Exposition

(No. 2202)

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING. APRIL 26, 1891,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, My ears ha ve You opened:
burnt offering and sin offering have You not required. Then said I, Lo,
I have come–in the volume of the Book it is written of Me–I delight
to do Your will, O My God: yes, Your Law is within My heart." Psalm
40:6-8.

Explained to us by the Apostle Paul in Hebrews 10:5-7–

"Therefore when He came into the world, He said, Sacrifice and offering
You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt
offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said, Lo,
I come–in the volume of the Book it is written of Me–To do your will,
O God."

WE have, in the use made of the passage by the inspired Apostle,
sufficient authority for applying the quotation from the 40th Psalm to
our Divine Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. With such a commentary, we are
sure of our way and our whereabouts. We might have been perplexed as to
its meaning had it not have been for this, although I think, even
without the guidance of the New Testament passage, those who are
familiar with Holy Writ would have felt that the words could not be
fulfilled in David, but must belong to a greater than he, even to the
Divine Messiah, who, in the fullness of time, would come into the
world. We rejoice that the Lord Jesus, Himself, here speaks of Himself.
Who but He can declare His own generation? Here He is both the subject
of the Words and the Speaker. The Word is from Himself and of Himself
and so we have double reason for devout attention. He tells us what He
said long ago. He declares, "Then I said, Lo, I come." Because He has
come to us, we gladly come to Him, and now we reverently wait upon Him
to hear what our Lord shall speak, for, doubtless, He will speak peace
to us, and will cause us to learn, through His Spirit, the meaning of
His Words. O Savior, say to each of our hearts, "Lo, I come"!

I. Without further preface, I call upon you to notice, first, THE
SWEEPING AWAY OF THE SHADOW. "Sacrifice and offering You did not
desire. . .burnt offering and sin offering have You not required."

When the Son of God is born into the world, there is an end of all
types by which He was formerly prefigured. The symbols end when the
Truth, itself, is made fully manifest. The sacrifices of the Law had
their times and place, their teaching and their influence. Blessed were
those in Israel whose spiritual minds saw beneath the outward sign and
discerned the inward Truth of God! To them the sacrifices of the holy
place were a standing means of fellowship with God. Day after day they
saw the Great Propitiation as they beheld the morning and the evening
lamb–so often as they looked upon a sacrifice, they beheld the Lamb of
God which takes away the sin of the world! In the Paschal supper they
were instructed, by the slaying of the unblemished victim, the roasting
with fire, the sprinkling of the blood upon the door outside and the
feasting upon the sacrifice within.

Spiritual men could have found in the rites and ceremonies of the old
Law a very library of Gospel literature! But, alas, the people were
carnal, sensual and unbelieving and, therefore, they often forgot,
even, to celebrate the appointed sacrifices. The Passover, itself,
ceased for long periods and when the festivals were maintained, there
was no life or reality in them. After they had been chastened for their
neglect and made to wander in exile because of the wandering of their
hearts after their idols, they were restored from captivity and were
led to keep the Ceremonial Law, but they did it as a heartless,
meaningless formality–and thus missed all spiritual benefit–with the
unlighted candle in their hand they

blindly groped in the dark. They slew the sacrifices and presented
their peace offerings, but the soul had gone out of the service and, at
last, their God grew weary of their formal worship and said, "Bring no
more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto Me."

We read, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me?
says the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of
fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or
of he-goats. When you come to appear before Me, who has required this
at your hand, to tread my courts?" When once the life is gone out of
the best symbolism, the Lord abhors the carcass and even a
Divinely-ordained ritual becomes a species of idolatry! When the heart
is gone out of the externals of worship, they are as shells without the
kernel. Habitations without living tenants soon become desolations–and
so do forms and ceremonies without their spiritual meaning. Toward the
time of our Lord's coming, the outward worship of Judaism became more
and more dead–it was time that it was buried. It had decayed and waxed
old and was ready to vanish away–and vanish away it did–for our Lord
set aside the first, or old, that He might establish the second, or
new. The stars were no longer seen with their twinkling, for the sun
had risen!

The removal of these things was wholesale. We have four sorts of
sacrifice mentioned here, but I need not go into details. Sacrifices in
which blood was shed were abolished when the Son of God offered Himself
without spot unto God. Bloodless offerings, such as fine flour, wine,
oil, sweet cane bought with money and precious incense–which were
tokens of gratitude and consecration–these, also, were no longer laid
upon the altar. Both sacrifice and offering were not desired. And burnt
offerings, which signified the delight of God in the great Sacrifice,
were ended by the Lord's actual acceptance of that Sacrifice, itself!
Even the sin offering, which was burned outside the camp as a thing
accursed, ceased altogether. It represented sin laid upon the victim
and the victim's being made a curse on that account. It might have
seemed always useful as a reminder, for they were always sinning and
always needing a sin offering, but even this was not required.

Nothing of the old Ceremonial Law was spared. Now we have no Ark of the
Covenant, with its Shekinah light between the wings of the cherubim.
Now we have no bronze laver, no table of showbread, no bronze altar and
no sacred veil–the Holy of Holies, itself, is gone! Tabernacle and
Temple are both removed. "Neither in this mountain, nor yet at
Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father." But the time is come when
"they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." A
clean sweep has been made of all the ancient rites, from circumcision
up to the garment with its fringe of blue. These were for the childhood
of the Church, the pictures of her first schoolbooks! But we are no
longer minors and we have Divine Grace given us to read with opened
eyes that everlasting classic of "the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ." Now has the brightness of the former dispensation been quite
eclipsed by the Glory which excels.

As these outward things vanish, they go away with God's mark of
non-esteem upon them–they are such things as He did not desire.
"Sacrifice and offering You did not desire." The Lord God had no desire
for matters so trivial and unsatisfactory. They were good for the
people, to instruct them–if they had been willing to learn–but they
fulfilled no desire of the heart of God. He says, "Will I eat the flesh
of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?" By the Prophet Micah, He asks,
"Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands
of rivers of oil." These furnish no delight for the Great Spirit and
give no pleasure to the thrice holy Jehovah! The formal worshipper
supposed that his offerings were, in and of themselves, pleasing to God
and, therefore, brought his "burnt offerings, with calves of a year
old." So far as they believingly understood the meaning of a sacrifice
and presented it in faith, their offerings were acceptable, but in
themselves considered, these were far from being what the Lord desired.

He that fills Heaven and earth says, "I will not reprove you for your
sacrifices or your burnt offerings, to have been continually before Me.
I will take no bullock out of your house, nor he-goats out of your
folds. For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle upon a
thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild
beasts of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you:
for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof." The spiritual, the
infinite, the almighty Jehovah could not desire merely outward ritual,
however it might appear glorious to men! The sweetest music is not for
His ears, nor the most splendid roses of priests for His eyes. He
desired something infinitely more precious than these–and He puts them
away with this note of dissatisfaction.

And more, these sacrifices passed away with the mark upon them that
they were not what God required. "Burnt offering and sin offering have
You not required." What did God require of man? Obedience. He said by
Samuel, "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat
of rams." He says in another place, "He has showed you, O man, what is

good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" The requirement of the
Law was love to God and love to men. This has always been God's great
requirement. He seeks spiritual worship, obedient thought, holy living,
grateful praise, devout prayer–these are the requirements of the
Creator and Benefactor of men. Ritualistic matters were so far required
as they might minister to the good of the people and, while they stood,
they could not neglect them without loss. But they were not the grand
requirement of a just and holy God and, therefore, men might fulfill
these without stint or omission, and yet God would not have of them
what He required. "Yes," He asks, "who has required this at your hand,
to tread My courts?" To see His Law magnified, His justice vindicated,
His sovereignty acknowledged and His holiness imitated, is more to His
mind! Absolute conformity to the standard of moral and spiritual
rectitude which He has set up is His demand–and He can be content with
nothing less. These things are not found in sacrifice and offering,
neither do they always go therewith and, therefore, the outward
sacrifice was not what God required.

They were so to be put away as never to be followed by the same kind of
things. Shadows are not replaced by other shadows! The ceremonials of
Aaron are not to be followed by another set of carnal ordinances! There
are some who seem to think that they are to be so. Instead of Aaron,
whom God ordained, we have a so-called priesthood among us at this day,
claiming an Apostolic succession, which is impossible if they are
priests, since no Apostle was a priest! Instead of rites which God has
ordained, we have rites of man's invention! The blessed ordinances of
our Lord Jesus Christ, such as Baptism and the Lord's Supper, have been
prostituted from their instructive and memorial intent into a kind of
witchcraft, so that by what is called, "baptism," children are said to
be born again and made members of Christ and children of God! While in
the second, or what they call, "Holy Communion," the sacrifice of
Christ is profanely said to be repeated or continued, even in the
unbloody sacrifice of the "mass."

Ah, Friends! Our Lord did not put away that grand, magnificent system
of Mosaic rites to introduce the masquerade in which Rome delights,
which certain Anglicans would set up among us! No, no! We have done
with the symbolic system and have now but the two outward ordinances of
Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which are meant only for Believers who
know what it is to be buried with Christ and to feed on Him. You have
no right to bring in your own forms and ceremonies and place them in
the Church of Christ. Beyond what God has ordained, we may not dare to
go–and even in those things we may not rest as though there were
anything in them of their own operation apart from their sacred
teaching! These are instructive to you if you have a mind to be
instructed–and if you know the Truths of God which they set forth. But
do not imagine that men have come under another kind of ceremonialism,
another system of ritual and rubric, for it is not so. The rites
appropriate to priests are abolished with the Aaronic priesthood and
can never be restored– "He takes away the first, that He may establish
the second." When He comes into the world, these carnal ordinances must
go out of the world! Sacrifice and offering, burnt offering and sin
offering and all other patterns of heavenly things are swept away when
the heavenly things, themselves, appear!

II. Thus much upon the shadows being swept away. And now, secondly, let
us view THE REVELATION OF THE SUBSTANCE. We find the Son of God,
Himself, appearing. We read here and we hear Him say–"My ears have you
opened." The Lord Himself comes, even He who is all that these things
foreshadowed!

When He comes, He has a prepared ear. The margin has it, "My ears have
you digged." Our ears often need digging, for they are blocked up by
sin. The passage to the heart seems to be sealed in the case of fallen
man. But when the Savior came, His ears were not as ours, but were
attentive to the Divine voice. He says, "He wakens My ears to hear as
they that are taught. The Lord God has opened My ears, and I was not
rebellious." Our Lord was quick of understanding in the fear of the
Lord. He knew what the will of the Lord was and He could say, "I do
always the thing that pleases Him." As Man, He had a Divine instinct of
holiness which made Him to know and love the Father's will–and caused
Him always to translate that will into His own life.

You see He came with opened ears and some think that we have here an
allusion to the boring of the ear in the case of the servant who had a
right to liberty, but refused to quit his servitude because he loved
his master and wished to remain with him forever. It is not certain
that there is any such reference, but it is certain that our Lord was
bound forever to the service which He had undertaken for His
Father–and that He would not go back from it. He pledged Himself to
redeem us and He set His face like a flint to do it. He loved His
Father and He loved His chosen so much that He vowed to execute

the Father's work, even to what I might call, "the bitter end," if I
did not know that it was a sweet and blessed end to Him. His ears were
prepared for His service!

But our Lord came also with a prepared body. Therefore the Apostle
Paul, when He quoted this passage, probably taking the words from the
Septuagint translation, writes, "A body have You prepared Me." You will
wonder how, in one passage, it should speak of the ears and the next
should speak of the body, and yet there is small difference in the
sense. We do not think of an ear without a body–that would be a sorry
business. The reading in the Hebrews is involved in the text as it
stands in the Psalm. If the ear is there, a body is there–you cannot
even dream of an ear hearing if separate from the rest of the body! The
Apostle gives us the sense of the text rather than the words and, at
the same time, dealing as He was with Jews by whom the Septuagint was
prized, He quoted from the version which they would be sure to
ac-knowledge–and very properly and wisely so–because that version was
perfectly accurate as to the meaning of the Hebrew. Regardless, he was
inspired to read it–"A body have You prepared Me." There was fashioned
by the Holy Spirit, in the womb of the blessed Virgin, a body fit to
embody the Son of God. Worked mysteriously, by means into which we must
not inquire–for what God has veiled must remain covered–that body was
suited to set forth the great mystery, "God manifest in the flesh."

The whole body of Christ was prepared for Him and for His great work.
To begin with, it was a sinless body, without taint of original sin,
otherwise God could not have dwelt in it. It was a body made highly
vital and sensitive, probably far beyond what ours are, for sin has a
blunting and hardening effect even upon flesh, and His flesh, though it
was in the "likeness of sinful flesh," was not sinful flesh, but flesh
which yielded prompt obedience to His spirit, even as His whole human
Nature was obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. His body
was capable of great endurance, so as to know the griefs and agonies
and unspeakable sorrows of a delicate, holy and tender kind which it
was necessary for Him to bear. "A body have You prepared Me." In the
fullness of time He came into that body, which was admirably adapted to
enshrine the Godhead. Wondrous mystery, that the Infant of Bethlehem
should be linked with the Infinite! And that the weary Man by the
shores of Galilee should be very God of very God, revealed in a body
prepared for Him! "A body have You prepared Me"–He had prepared ears
and a prepared body.

He who assumed that body was existent before that body was prepared. He
says, "A body have You prepared Me. Lo, I come." He from old eternity
dwelt with God–the Word was in the beginning with God–and the Word
was God. We could not, any one of us, have said that a body was
prepared for us and, therefore, we would come to it, for we had had no
existence before our bodies were fashioned! From everlasting to
everlasting our Lord is God and He comes out of eternity into time–the
Father bringing Him into the world. He was before all worlds and was
before He came into the world to dwell in His prepared body!

Beloved, the human Nature of Christ was taken on Him in order that He
might be able to do for us that which God desired and required. God
desired to see an obedient man, a man who would keep His Law to the
fullest–and He sees Him in Christ. God desired to see One who would
vindicate the eternal justice and show that sin is no trifle. And,
behold, our Lord, the eternal Son of God, entering into that prepared
body, was ready to do all this mighty work by rendering to the Law a
full recompense for our dishonor of it! An absolutely perfect
righteousness He renders unto God–as the second Adam, He presents it
for all whom He represents. He bows His head, a victim beneath
Jehovah's sword, that the Truth, justice and honor of God might suffer
no detriment. His body was prepared to this end. Incarnation is a means
to Atonement. Only a man could vindicate the Law and, therefore, the
Son of God became a Man. This is a wonderful Being, this God in our
nature. "Emmanuel" is a glorious word! Surely, for the Incarnation and
the Atonement, the world was made from the first!

Was this the reason why the morning stars sang together when they saw
the cornerstone of the world, because they had an inkling that here,
God would be manifest as nowhere else, and the Creator would be wedded
to the creature? That God might be manifested in the Christ, it may
even be that sin was permitted. Assuredly, there could have been no
Sacrifice on Calvary if there had not, first of all, been sin in Eden.
The whole scheme–the whole of God's decrees and acts– worked up to an
atoning Savior! Of the pyramid of creation and of Providence, Christ is
the apex–He is the flower of all that God has made! His Divine Nature
in strange union with humanity constitutes a peerless Person, such as
never was before, and can never be again! God in our nature, one Being,
and yet wearing two Natures, is altogether unique. He

says, "A body have You prepared Me. Lo, I come." Think of this–it is a
Truth of God more fit for meditation than for sermonizing. The Lord
give us to know it well by faith!

III. But now, thirdly, I call your attention to THE DECLARATION OF THE
CHRIST made in the text–"Sacrifice and offering You did not desire.
Then said I, Lo, I come." Observe when He says this. It is in the time
of failure. All the sacrifices had failed. The candle flickered and was
dying out. And then the great Light of God arose, even the Eternal
Light and, like a trumpet, the words rung out, "Lo, I come." All this
has been of no avail; now I come. It is in the time of failure that
Christ always appears. The last of man is the first of God and when we
have come to the end of all our power and hope, then the Eternal Power
and Godhead appears with its, "Lo, I come."

When our Lord comes, it is with the view of filling up the vacuum which
had now been sorrowfully seen. God does not desire these things. God
does not require these things, but He does desire and He does require
something better, and lo, the Christ has come to bring that something!
That awful gap which was seen in human hope when Moses had passed away
and the Aaronic priesthood and all the ordinances of it were gone,
Christ was born to fill! It looked as if the light of ages had been
quenched, and God's glorious revelation had been forever withdrawn. And
then, in the dark hour, Jesus cries, "Lo, I come!" He fills the blank
abyss! He gives to man in reality what he had lost in the shadow!

When He appears, it is as the personal Lord. Lay the stress upon the
pronoun, "Lo, I come." The infinite Ego appears. "Lo, I come." No mere
man could talk thus, and be sane! No servant or Prophet of God would
ever say, "Lo, I come." Saintly men talk not so. God's Prophets and
Apostles have a modest sense of their true position–they never magnify
themselves, though they magnify their office. It is for God to say,
"Lo, I come." He who says it takes the body prepared for Him and comes
in His own proper personality as the I AM. "In Him dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily." He comes forth from the ivory palaces
to inhabit the tents of manhood! He takes upon Himself the body
prepared for Him of the Lord God and He stands forth in His matchless
personality ready to do the will of God! "It pleased the Father that in
Him should all fullness dwell." Everything is stored up in His blessed
Person and we are complete in Him.

Observe the joyful avowal that He makes–"Lo, I come." This is no
dirge–I think I hear a silver trumpet ring out– "Lo, I come." Here is
a joyful alacrity and intense eagerness! The coming of the Savior was
to Him a thing of exceeding willingness. "For the joy that was set
before Him, He endured the Cross, despising the shame."

He comes with a word calling attention to it, for He is not ashamed to
be made partaker of our flesh. "Lo," He says, "I come. Behold, behold,
I come." This is no clandestine union. He bids Heaven behold Him come
into our Nature! Earth is bid to gaze upon it. O you sinners, listen to
this inviting, "Lo!" Others have cried to you, "Lo, here!" And, "Lo,
there." But Jesus looks on you and cries, "Lo, I come." Look here–turn
all your thoughts this way and behold your God in your Nature ready to
save you! Verily, the Incarnate God is a subject meet for the loftiest
thoughts of sages and for the lowliest thoughts of children. Blessed
are the children of Grace who can sit at the feet of the Incarnate God
and look up, forgetting all the wisdom of the Greeks and all the
sign-seeking of the Jews in the satisfaction which they find in Jesus!

I think, too, I hear in this declaration of the coming One, a note of
finality. He takes away the sacrifice from Aaron's altar, but He says,
"Lo, I come." There is the end of it. "Lo, I come." Is there anything
after this? Can anything supersede this–"Lo, I come"? "Lo, I come" has
been the perpetual music of the ages! Read it, "Lo, I am come"–for it
is in the present tense and how sweet the sound! Christ is come and joy
with Him! Read it, as well, in the future, if you will, "Lo, I come,"
for He comes "the second time without sin unto salvation"–here is our
chief hope! "Lo, I come." He, Himself, is the last Word of God. "In the
beginning was the Word" and so He was God's first Word. But He is the
end as well as the beginning–God's last Word to man–Christ is God's
ultimatum! Look for no new Revelation–"Lo, I am come," shines on
forever. Do not ask, "Are You He that should come, or do we look for
another?" He has come! Look for no other! Behold, He came to give what
God desires, what God requires–what more would you have? Let Him be
all your salvation and all your desire. Let Him be "the desire of all
nations." He is the fulfillment of all the requirements of the human
race as well as the full amount of what God requires.

IV. Next, I beg you to note THE REFERENCE TO PRECEDING WRITINGS. He
says, "Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me." If I
preached from the passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, I might fairly
declare that in the whole volume of Holy Scripture much is written of
our Lord and prescribed for Him as Messiah. The pages of Inspiration
are fragrant with the name of Jesus. He is the top line of the entire
volume and in the Greek Word I see a half allusion to this. He is the
headline of contents to every chapter of Scripture. He is, of all
Scripture, the Sum. "In the begin-

ning was the Word." Everything speaks of Him. The Pentateuch and the
books of the Prophets, the Psalms, and the Gospels and the Epistles all
speak of Him. "In the volume of the Book it is written of Me."

Preaching as I am from the Psalms, I cannot take so long a range. I
must look back and find what was written in David's day and certainly
within the Pentateuch. And where do I find it written concerning His
coming? The Pentateuch drips with prophecies of Christ as a honeycomb
overflowing with its honey. Chiefly is He to be found in the head and
front of the book–as early as the opening chapters of the Book of
Genesis, when Adam and Eve had sinned and we were lost–behold, He is
spoken of in the volume of the Book in these terms. "The Seed of the
woman shall bruise the serpent's head." So, early was it written that
the Redeemer would be born in our nature to vanquish our foe.

But I confess I do not feel shut out from another interpretation. I
conceive that our Lord, here, refers to another Book, the Book of the
Divine purposes, the volume of the Eternal Covenant. There was a time
before all time, when there was no day but the Ancient of Days–when
all that existed was the Lord, who is All in All–then the sacred Three
entered into Covenant, in mutual agreement, for a sublime end. Man
sinning, the Son of God shall be the Surety. Christ shall bear the
result of man's offense. He shall vindicate the Law of God and make
Jehovah's name more glorious than ever it has been! The Second Person
of the Divine Unity was pledged to come and take up the nature of men,
and so become the First-Born among many Brothers and Sisters to lift up
a fallen race, and to save a number that no man can number, elect of
God the Father, and given to the Son to be His heritage, His portion,
His bride.

Then did the Well-Beloved strike hands with the Eternal God and enter
into Covenant engagements on our behalf– "In the volume of the Book it
is written." That sealed Book, upon whose secrets no angel's eyes have
looked, a Book written by the finger of God long before He wrote the
Book of the Law upon tables of stone! That Book of God may be spoken of
in the Psalm, "And in Your Book all My members were written, which in
continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." Our
Lord came to carry out all His suretyship engagements–His work is the
exact fulfillment of His engagements recorded in the Everlasting
Covenant, "ordered in all things and sure." He acts out every
mysterious line and syllable, even to the fullest. Then He said, "A
body have You prepared Me. Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is
written of Me." It is always a pleasing study to see our Lord, both in
the written Word, and in the Everlasting Covenant of Grace.

V. I must close with the fifth point, THE DELIGHT OF HIM THAT COMES. He
said, "Lo, I come." As I have already told you, there is wonderful
delight in that exclamation–"Lo, I come." But lest we should mistake
our Lord, He adds, "I delight to do Your will, O My God: yes, Your Law
is within My heart." There can be no denial of His joy in His service!

Note well that He came in compete subservience to His Father, God. "I
delight to do"–what? "Your will." His own will was absorbed in the
Divine will! His pleasure it was to say, "Not as I will, but as You
will." It was His meat and His drink to do the will of Him that sent
Him and to finish His work. Though He was Lord and God, He became a
lowly servant for our sakes! Though high as the highest, He stooped low
as the lowest! The King of Kings was the Servant of Servants, that He
might save His people! He took upon Him the form of a Servant, girded
Himself and stood obediently at His Father's call.

He had a prospective delight as to His work. Before He came, He
delighted in the thought of His Incarnation. The Supreme Wisdom says,
"My delights were with the sons of men." Happy in His Father's courts,
He yet looked forward to an access of happiness in becoming Man. "Can
that be?" asks one. Could the Son of God be happier than He was? As
God, He was infinitely blessed, but He knew nothing by experience of
the life of man–and into that sphere He desired to enter. To the
Godhead there can be no enlargement, for it is infinite, but still,
there can be an addition–our Lord was to add the nature of man to that
of God! He would live as Man, suffer as Man, and triumph as Man–and
yet remain God! And to this He looked forward with a strange delight,
inexplicable except upon the knowledge of the great love He bore to us.
He had given His heart so entirely to His dear bride, whom He saw in
the glass of predestination, that for her He would endure all things–

"Yes, says the Lord, for her I'll go Through all the depths of care and
woe, And on the Cross will even dare The bitter pangs of death to
bear."

It was wondrous love! Our Lord's love surpasses all language and even
thought. I am talking prodigies and miracles at every word I utter. It
was delightful to our Lord to come here!

"What did He delight in?" asks one. Evidently He delighted in God's
Law. "Your Law is within My heart." He resolved that the beauties of
the Law of the Lord should be displayed by being embodied in His own
life and that its claims should be vindicated by His own death. To
achieve this, He delighted to come and keep it and honor it by an
obedience both active and passive. He also delighted in God's will and
that is somewhat more, for law is the expression of will and this may
be altered. But the will of the great King never changes. Our Lord
delighted to carry out all the purposes and desires of the Most High
God. He so delighted in the will of God that He came to do it and to
bear it, "by which will we are sanctified through the offering of the
body of Jesus Christ once for all."

He delighted also in God. He took an intense delight in glorifying the
Father. He came to reveal the Father and make Him to be beloved of men.
He did all things to please God. Moreover, He took a delight in us and
here, though the object of His love is less, the love, itself, is
heightened by the conspicuous condescension. The Lord Jesus took a deep
delight in His people, whose names were written on His heart and
engraved on the palms of His hands. His heart was fixed on their
redemption and, therefore, He would present Himself as a Sacrifice on
their behalf. The people whom the Father gave Him from before the
foundation of the world lay on His very soul–for them He had a baptism
to be baptized with, and He was straitened till it was accomplished. He
gave Himself no rest till He had left both joy and rest to ransom His
own.

May I go a step further and say that He had an actual delight in His
coming among men? "I delight to do Your will, O My God"–not merely to
think of doing it. When our Lord was here, He was the most blessed of
men! Are you amazed? Do you remind me that He was "a Man of Sorrows"? I
grant you that none was more afflicted, but I still stand to it, that
within Him dwelt a joy of the highest order. To Him it was joy to be in
sorrow–and honor to be put to shame. Do you think that lightens our
estimate of His self-denial and disinterestedness? No, it adds weight
to it! Some people fancy that there is no credit in doing a thing
unless you are miserable in doing it. No, Brothers and Sisters, that is
the very reverse! Obedience which is unwillingly offered and causes no
joy in the soul is not acceptable. We must serve God with our heart, or
we do not serve Him. Obedience rendered without delight in rendering it
is only half obedience! You shall say what you will about the greatness
of my Lord's agonies. You shall never go too far in your estimate of
His unfathomable grief, but going with you to the fullest in it all, I
shall still take liberty to say that He had within Himself a fountain
of joy which enabled Him to endure the Cross and even to despise the
shame! Blessed among men was He, even when He was made a curse for us!
With delight He gave Himself for us and made a cheerful surrender of
Himself, that He might be the Ransom for many. The text is express upon
that fact.

And all this because our Lord came with such intense heartiness. He
says, "Yes, Your Law is within My heart." Our Lord is most thorough in
all that He does. His work is never slovenly, nor in a half-hearted
way. He does not even sit on the well and talk to a poor woman, but
what His heart is there. He does not go into a fisherman's hut, but
what His heart is there and He heals the sick one. He does not sit down
to supper with His followers, but what His heart is there and He
reveals His love. I wish we were always at home when the Lord calls for
us! Sometimes we are all abroad and our heart is away from the service
of our Father–but He loved the Lord with all His heart, mind and
strength. For us He gave His whole being, rejoicing to redeem us! He
was always intense. Whether He preached or practiced, Jesus was all
there and always there. Hence His delight, for what a man does with his
heart he delights to do. These two sentences are melodious ofjoy to my
ears! "I delight to do Your will, O My God: yes, Your Law is within My
heart."

Hear this one other word. It is all done now. Jesus has fulfilled the
Father's will in the salvation in the midst of His ransomed ones. And
shall I tell you, need I tell you, what must be the delight, the
heavenly Joy of our Lord, now that the work is finished? He is now the
focus, the center, the source of bliss! What must be His own delight?
We often say of the angels that they rejoice over one sinner that
repents. I doubt not that they do, but the Bible does not say so. The
Bible says, "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one
sinner that repents." What does it mean, "the presence of the angels"?
Why, that the angels see the joy of Christ when sinners repent! Hear
them say to one another, "Behold the Father's face! How He rejoices!
Gaze on the Countenance of the Son! What a Heaven of delight shines in
those eyes of His! Jesus wept for these sinners, but now He rejoices
over them! How resplendent are the nail-prints today, for the re-

deemed of the Lord's death are believing and repenting! That blessed
Countenance which is always as a sun, shines in the fullness of its
strength now that He sees of the travail of His soul." He who suffered
feels a joy unsearchable–

"The first-born sons of light

Desire in vain its depths to see:

They cannot read the mystery–

The length, the breadth, the height." Oh, the joy of triumphant love!
The joy of the Crucified, whose prepared body is the body of His Glory
as once it was the body of His humiliation! In that Manhood He still
rejoices and delights to do the will of the Father.

My time has fled and yet I am expected to say something about missions.
What shall I say? My Brothers, Sisters–all of you–do you know
anything about the Truths of God I have spoken? Then go and tell the
heathen that the Lord is come! Here is a message worth the telling!
Mary Magdalene and the other Marys hasten to tell the disciples that
the Lord had risen–will you not go and tell them that He has come down
to save? "Lo, I come," He says. Will you not take up His Words and go
to the people who have never heard of Him and say, "Lo, He has come"?
Tell the Ethiopians, the Chinese, the Hindus and all the islands of the
sea, that God has come here to save men and has taken a prepared body,
that He might give to God all He required and all that He desired, that
sinful men might be accepted in the Beloved, with whom God the Father
is well pleased!

Go, and take to the heathen this sacred Book. "In the volume of the
Book it is written of Him." Do not begin to doubt the Book, yourself.
Why should you send missionaries to teach them about a Book in which
you do not, yourself, believe? Tell the nations that, "In the volume of
the Book it is written of Him." Believe this Book and spread it! Help
Bible Societies and all such efforts. And aid Missionary Societies
which carry the Book and proclaim the Savior! The men of the Book of
God are the men of God such as the world needs. Bid such men go and
open the Book of God and teach the nations its blessed news!

Go, dear Friends, and assure the heathen that there is happiness in
obedience to God. So the Savior found it. He delighted in God's will,
even to the death! And they will also know delight, as in their
measures they bow before the authority of the Word and the will of the
one living and true God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob.
Jehovah, the I AM, must be worshipped, for beside Him there is none
else. Give glory unto God, whom our Lord Jesus has come to glorify.
Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Psalm 40.