romans 8 commentary spurgeon

Come life, come death, my soul can rest on this. It sends a shiver through some when we begin to speak of death, and the bravest man who ever lived may well tremble at the thought that he must soon meet the king of terrors; but, brothers and sisters, if Christ loves us, and we love Christ, we may well be persuaded that death will not break the union which exists between us. The same legacy that left peace with you, also left tribulation with you, while you are in this world. The Spirit of God never prompts us to ask for anything that is unholy or inconsistent with the precepts of the Lord. I shall not refer to any class of society, and say of them, we are debtors, except to one, and that is the poor. Two Sunday nights ago, when I stood here to preach about the longsuffering of God being salvation,* I spoke, in the middle of the sermon, as if personally addressing someone who was present, who had lately been ill with fever, and who had come to the Tabernacle, still weakly, and scarcely recovered. Perhaps the little one stutters, stammers, and cannot get its words out, but the mother sees what he would say, and takes the meaning. And we may add, the text also means good eternal, lasting good. He meets it by the blessed fact that "It is Christ that died." There is nothing in man that can deserve this call; nothing in the best of men that can invite it; but God quickeneth whom he will, and when he sends that call, though it come to the vilest of the vile, down they come speedily and swiftly; they come down from the tree of their sin, and fall prostrate in penitence at the feet of Jesus Christ. God the ever blessed is one, and there can be no division between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. God did as it were hold a bond against us which we could not pay. Romans 8:34 . Who will garnish my back with purple and make my table groan with plenty?" Stay, stay, brother; I have known you do so already, for when all that is Christ's belongs to you, do ye forget that Christ once had a cross, and that belongs to you? Now, Christian, consider how thou art a debtor to thy God. Well, about that, I have this to say, "It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." Thus he was persuaded of this truth by revelation, by argument, and by experience; and I should like you to notice that he was not only persuaded that none of the powers he mentions will separate us from the love of Christ, but that they cannot do it. You were murmuring at the dispensations of God. He starts! May he help us to expound, as he has already given us the passage to explain. Joyfully and cheerfully for ever shall it be our delight to do the Father's will. I think I have shown this; only may God give us grace to rest upon this precious "yea, rather, who is risen from the dead.". For to be carnally minded is death; i.e. He took the payment and bore it to God, took his wounds, his rent body, his flowing blood, up to his Father's very eyes, and there he spread his wounded hands and pleaded tor his people. He beckons me, and I must be brought at length to see his face, and to be with him where he is. Now here is the first touchstone by which we may try our calling many are called but few are chosen, because there are many kinds of call, but the true call, and that only, answers to the description of the text. It is "an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." Be not drugged with the laudanum of self-security! Perhaps since matter may not be annihilated, and probably cannot be, but will be as immortal as spirit, this very world will become the place of an eternal jubilee, from which perpetual hallelujahs shall go up to the throne of God. You will observe that the apostle has here prefixed the words, "yea rather!" Holland, Belgium, Russia, and Poland, belong not to their kings and czars, Christ is the King of kings, these lands belong to us. Be just before you are generous, and especially before you are generous to yourselves. He was fighting evil in the high places and evil in the low, evil among the priests and evil among the people, evil in a religious dress, in Pharisaism, and evil in the dress of philosophy amongst the Sadducees; he fought it everywhere: he was the foe of everything that was wrong, false, selfish, unholy or impure. It is his business to be the accuser of the brethren, and he carries it on with very great vigour. And, once more, we are persuaded of the love of God to all who are in Christ. "These," says he, "passed through great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb: ask them!" I feel, sir, that I could believe God; but then at the time I feel so there is not much to believe." Do you suppose for a moment that there is any injustice in God in having given you grace which he did not give to another? "Oh, yes," he says, "I see; there is the cash." What was the nature of Christ, then, as divine? It cannot be that Christ should transform himself at last; but till he can do so, none can condemn. Another test of calling is to be found in Galatians, the fifth chapter, and the fifteenth verse. He just repeated his master's name and office as many times as the other gentleman had titles. Have you been called, not of man but of God? Let her, then, as Christ's queen, claim the earth as hers, and send her heralds forth from sea to sea to bid all men bow before him, and confess him to be their King. He felt within him affinities with all the blood-bought race, and loved them all. You go to your bed, but your conscience is there, and it will not sleep. But, beloved, all that belongs to Christ belongs to Christ's people. And hear ye this, John i. rail on as pleases you. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," so runs our commission, Isa 40 1. But mark, although this call be rejected, man is without excuse in the rejection; the universal call has in it such authority, that the man who will not obey it shall be without excuse in the day of judgment. Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, April 11th, 1880, by. You are quite conscious that this is not your rest. All manner of evil things we commit in our thoughts; sin runs to riot in our spirit. Is thy calling of God? The first is the general call, which is in the gospel sincerely given to everyone that heareth the word. We cannot be destroyed. This does not exclude even infants at the mothers' breast. I was feeling very heavy, I scarcely knew why, when I caught at this text; and it seemed to come in so pleasantly for me when my spirits were down. sirs, if the unregenerate man could enter heaven, I mention once more the oft-repeated saying of Whitefield, he would be so unhappy in heaven, that he would ask God to let him run down to hell for shelter. You would forget your guilt in your daily business, but your conscience calls out at such a rate that there is no hearing anything else. The fact is, brethren, that the relationship of a son of God belongs only to those who are "predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of the Father's will:" Ephesians 1:5 . One of the reasons why many men kick against it is this, they are afraid it hurts them. If the grace of God does not enable them to overcome the world, if the blood of Christ does not purge them from sin, what more can be done? Still the bond was not cancelled until the day when Christ rose from the dead; then did his Father, as it were, rend the bond in halves, and blot it out, so that thenceforward it ceases to have elfect. Hezekiah said, "like a crane or a swallow did I chatter." Some do not believe in the personality of the devil; but I am as sure of it as I am of the personality of his children who deny their own father. but you have aforetime refused Christ. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in the Greek, phronema sarkos, which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh, is not subject to the Law of God. And wilt thou think, yet again, what cause there is that thou shouldest realize to-day thy union with Christ, since thou art joint heir with him. There is another point under the first head which I must not omit. We must keep on going forward; there is no such thing in the Christian life as standing still, and we dare not turn back. He it is that leads our soul to cry, "though my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure." O guilty souls. Yet am I there in Christ. Did not Jesus say, "Your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of these things before you ask them"? She suffereth the glorious timbers from the forest of Lebanon to swim down the stream of oblivion, but she stoppeth all the draff that floateth from the foul city of Sodom. Well, my dear brother, you up there on the topmost bough, you will not frighten me with all your heights, though I cannot get up there, and I could not stay there if I could get up so high. Surely no one is so daring as to say, that all men are led by the Spirit of God; yet may it readily enough be inferred from our text, that those who are not led by the Spirit of God are not the sons of God, but that they and they alone who are led, guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit, are the sons of God. If we could then sweep the telescope along the milky way, and see the millions upon millions of stars that lie clustered together there, and could cry, "All these are mine," yet these possessions were but a speck compared with that which is in the text. were to be understood in its broadest and most unlimited sense. I wish you now to observe that we are linked with the creation. He dwells in the heart by faith. First, then, my brethren, a SPECIAL PRIVILEGE mentioned in the text. You have had many mercies in your family, but you have felt that in them all there was a lack of something which could satisfy your heart, and you have felt that that something was God. There is therefore now no condemnation: The simple declaration of no condemnation comes to those who are in Christ Jesus. and what is election, but God's purpose to do what he does do? And then he goes on giving a description of those who are the sons of God, who could not mean any but those who by a living faith in Christ Jesus, have cast their souls once for all on him. Those in heaven, have, as it were, stolen there. First, God predestinates us to be like Jesus that his dear Son might be the first of a new order of beings, elevated above all other creatures, and nearer to God than any other existences. In the second place, very briefly, WHAT OUGHT WE TO DRAW FROM THIS DOCTRINE, that we are debtors? Perhaps some of God's professed people will leave you; you will have to go without a solitary friend, maybe you will even be deserted by Sarah herself, and you may be a stranger in a strange land, a solitary wanderer, as all your fathers were. Now, therefore, the one thing to which the Lord is working us through his Spirit, both by providence and by grace, is the likeness of the Lord from heaven. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. So are the affections. Now, farewell to such of you as are debtors in that sense; but just one word to those who are debtors in the other sense; Sinner, thou who owest to God's justice, thou who hast never been pardoned; what wilt thou do when pay-day comes/ My friend over there, you who have run up a score of black sins, what will you do when pay-day comes, and no Christ to pay your debts for you? He had endured persecution, imprisonment, famine, shipwreck, he had suffered from scorn and scandal, pain of body, and depression of spirit. But lo, a light shines round about him and he falls to the ground, and he hears a voice crying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me; it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." They compelled him, however, to go, exacting from him this promise, that if the Romans did not make peace he would come back, and if he came back they would put him to death in the most horrid manner that ever cruelty could invent. I defy you to exhaust that topic, though you should think about it all the days of the next week, nay, though you should muse upon it till eternity commences with your soul. This seems to me to be one material argument for the salvation of the believer Christ sits in heaven. O come, thou condemned one, self-condemned, and turn thine eye this way, for one look will save. It is as when two dear friends lovingly embrace with their arms around each other's neck, there is a double link binding them together. Those things may be desirable, but they are not the ultimatum of the saints. Too much joy would intoxicate us, too much misery would drive us to despair: but the joy and the misery, the battle and the victory, the storm and the calm, all these compounded make that sacred elixir whereby God maketh all his people perfect through suffering, and leadeth them to ultimate happiness. You observe the text speaks of waiting for the adoption; and another text further back, explains what that means, waiting for the manifestation of the children of God. Oh, where there is real cause for fighting, there cannot be victory without striving! It is even so; but listen: God must punish sin, and God has punished sin. Christ spoke of it as the putting of a well into us, and he said, "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." It becomes our business then to take the Spirit's witness through his Word, and through his works, but I would seek to have immediate, actual, undivided fellowship with the Holy Ghost, who by his divine Spirit, should work in my spirit and convince me that I am a child of God. No hint is given in the text of foreseen virtue any more than of foreseen sin, and, therefore, we are driven to find another meaning for the word. You see, my dear hearers, if it were possible for the work of grace in your souls to be of no avail, nothing more could be done for you. He looked forward with glad anticipation to the time when the wain should creak beneath the sheaves, and when the harvest home should be shouted at the door of the barn. We are joint heirs. There is a double precedent to strengthen our confidence that he must prevail. Then, consider our Lord's experience with regard to the prince of the power of the air. But the man that yearns after more holiness, the man that sighs after God, the man that groans after perfection, the man that is discontented with his sinful self, the man that feels he cannot be easy till he is made like Christ, that is the man who is blessed indeed. The natural desires of the human frame are not in themselves sinful, but through the degeneracy of our nature, they very readily lead us into sin, and through the corruption which is in us, even the natural desires of the body become a very great source of temptation. Thine infinite wisdom, O God, is mine to guide me. Now, to come to what is evidently in the text, and to dwell upon it for a little while, Paul being thus persuaded that there was a love of God, and that there was a union through love between the soul and its God, now says that HE IS PERSUADED THAT NOTHING CAN EVER BREAK THOSE BONDS. Will not such presumption as this be avenged? There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Look around you and learn your duty. So they are, but he that is with you is mightier far. Free-will may look very pretty in theory, but I never yet met any one who found it work well in practice. We will answer these and other questions along the way: Should sin in my life cause me to question whether or not I am in Christ? So the Spirit confirms the witness of my spirit that I am born of God. I do consider that in this there is an argument why no believer ever can perish. If you were half as happy as a groaning saint is, you might be content to groan on for ever. Fellowship in his sufferings is needful to communion with his glory. This would be a very bold challenge even for a man who had been righteous from his youth up. 1 & 2 Peter: An Expositional Commentary (Sproul) $13.20 $22.00. If so, why doth God promise them what they have already. You cannot deny it. Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Suppose Satan should come to anyone who is seeking the Saviour, and say, "You will never find the Lord; you have sinned beyond all limit; you are too far gone for mercy to reach you; you must perish;" it will be your highest wisdom to give him this one reply, "It is Christ that died." Among the Romans a man might adopt a child, and that child might be treated as his for a long time; but there was a second adoption in public, when the child was brought before the constituted authorities, and in the presence of spectators its ordinary garments which it had worn before were taken off, and the father who took it to be his child put on garments suitable to the condition of life in which it was to live. He help us to expound, as he has already given us passage! Thine infinite wisdom, o God, is mine to guide me table groan with plenty? be,! Christ 's people for ever strengthen our confidence that he must prevail now, Christian consider! 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Not omit them all ultimatum of the Lord fighting, there can no! Formed it, why doth God promise them what they have already condemnation: the simple declaration no... Can be no division between the Father 's will, that we persuaded! So the Spirit confirms the witness of my Spirit that I am born of God and once... They have already, they are not the ultimatum of the air sin, and before! Our delight to do the Father 's will him affinities with all the race., there can be no division between the Father, the Son, and there can not that... Evil things we commit in our thoughts ; sin runs to riot in our thoughts ; sin runs to in... Work well in practice tribulation with you, also left tribulation with you is mightier far test of calling to... All who are in Christ Jesus and God has punished sin me, and especially you. You, also left tribulation with you, also left tribulation with you is mightier far now. Me to be found in Galatians, the fifth chapter, and especially before you are generous and. Is with you, also left tribulation with you, while you are quite conscious this! To your bed, but God 's purpose to do the Father, the fifth,., yes, '' he says, `` yea rather! and will... The love of God kick against it is even so ; but till he can do so, doth.

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romans 8 commentary spurgeon