SPURGEON ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE BY MICHAEL REEVES PART 2

Transcription

1 SPURGEON ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE BY MICHAEL REEVES PART 2

2 The fact that Scripture is the Word of Christ, that its purpose and main theme is Christ, served as a strong melodic line throughout Spurgeon s thought and ministry. By Scripture here, we need to be clear that Spurgeon meant both the Old and New Testaments: from beginning to end, Scripture is the Word of and about Christ. This meant that when his congregation sat to hear him expound an Old Testament passage, they could be quite sure they would hear an explicitly Christian sermon. And it was not just that the prophets prophesied Christ s future comings and that the many types found in the Law and histories (prophets, priests, kings, saviors, sacrifices, etc.) described what he would come to be and do

3 As Spurgeon saw it, the Old Testament did point forward to Christ in those ways- but it did more than that. Old Testament believers would be described as fellow brothers and sisters of the same faith, as friends of Christ. Spurgeon could speak this way because he was insistent and clear that there is no creator or covenant Lord other than Christ, the eternal Son of the Father. Not only was Christ prophesied in the Old Testament; he was actively present in it.

4 Spurgeon s view of the Bible found its purpose and place in the light of Christ. In fact, in his mind, all doctrines found their proper place only in their orbit around Christ In this way, Spurgeon saw theology much like astronomy: as the solar system makes sense only when the sun is central, so systems of theological thought are coherent only when Christ is central. Every doctrine must find its place and meaning in its proper relation to Christ. [Spurgeon said,] Be assured that we cannot be right in the rest, unless we think rightly of HIM where is Christ in your theological system?

5 Thus when, for example, we think about the doctrine of election, we must remember that we are elect in Christ; when we think of adoption, we must remember that we are adopted only in him. And on and on: we are justified in him, preserved in him, perfected, raised, and glorified in him. Every blessing of the gospel is found in him, for he is all the best things in one.

6 You cannot taste the sweetness of any doctrine till you have remembered Christ s connection with it.

7 The most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity. And, whilst humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatory. Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your sorrows? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of grief and sorrow; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead.

8 Reading has a kernel to it, and the mere shell is little worth. In prayer there is such a thing as praying in prayer- a praying that is the bowels of the prayer. So in praise there is a praising in song, an inward fire of intense devotion which is the life of the hallelujah. It is so in fasting: there is a fasting which is not fasting, and there is an inward fasting, a fasting of the soul, which is the soul of fasting. It is even so with the reading of the Scriptures. There is an interior reading, a kernel reading- a true and living reading of the Word. This is the soul of reading; and, if it be not there, the reading is a mechanical exercise, and profits nothing.

9 Being so out of step with the theological climate of his day could easily have made him prickly and clanish, yet for all his unbending theological resolution, Spurgeon was strikingly broad-minded. And it is not hard to see why: Spurgeon was a Puritan and a Calvinist not through adherence to any theological system or tradition as such but because he believed such theology most glorifies Christ.

10 are not to be warped into philosophers, polished into debaters, carved into metaphysicians, fashioned into literati, or even sharpened into critics, they are to be thoroughly furnished unto every good work. The Scriptures must be their chief class-book, theology their main science, the art of teaching their practical study, and the proclamation and exposition of the gospel their first business. With all knowledge they may intermeddle; but upon the knowledge of Christ crucified they must dwell. Books and parchments should be prized, but prayer and meditation should be supreme. The head should be stored, but the heart also should be fed with heavenly food. The tutors should be men of equal learning and grace, sound scholars, but much more sound divines, men of culture, but even more decidedly men of God.

11 Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith; and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, I ascribe my change wholly to God.

12 Some seem to think that we poor souls, who are of the Puritanic school, are cabin d, cribb d, confined by, from which we would gladly escape. They imagine that we have to check every rising aspiration of our nobler selves, so as to preserve the tyranny of a certain iron system. John Calvin is supposed to ride us like a nightmare, and we lead dogs lives under his lash. Brethren, it is far otherwise. Little do these slanderers know of our happiness and peace. If they feel more joy in preaching that we do, their felicity is great; but, from their tone and style, I should greatly question it. Observers will have noticed that the joyous element has gone out of many pulpits.

13 If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord. I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. He only is my rock and my salvation. Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, God is my rock and my salvation. What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ,- the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer?

14 The Arminian holds the unnatural, cruel, barbarous idea, that a man may be God s child, and then God may unchild him because he does not behave himself I do not serve the god of the Arminians at all; The god that saith to-day, and denieth to-morrow; that justifieth to-day, and condemns the next; the god that hath children of his own one day, and lets them be the children of the devil the next, is no relation to my God in the least degree If he hath set his heart upon a man, he will love him to the end. If he hath chosen him, he hath not chosen him for any merit of his own; therefore he will never cast him away for any demerit of his own But, children of God, you may lay your heads upon the covenant, and say, with Dr. Watts,- Then should the earth s old pillars shake/ and all the wheels of nature break/ Our steady souls should fear no more/ Than solid rocks when billows roar.

15 I wish to be called nothing but a Christian.We believe in the five great points commonly known as Calvinistic; but we do not regard those five points as being barbed shafts which we are to thrust between the ribs of our fellow-christians. We look upon them as being give great lamps which help to irradiate the cross; or, rather, five bright emanations from the glorious covenant of our Triune God, and illustrating the great doctrine of Jesus crucified. Against all comers, especially against all lovers of Arminianism, we defend and maintain pure gospel truth. At the same time, I can make this public declaration, that I am no Antinomian. I belong not to the sect of those who are afraid to invite the sinner to Chris. I warn him, I invite him, I exhort him. Hence, then, I have contumely on either hand. Inconsistency is charged against me by some people, as if anything God commanded could be inconsistent; I will glory in such inconsistency even to the end. I bind myself precisely to no form of doctrine. I love those five points as being the angles of the gospel, but then I love the centre between the angles better still.

16 In part, Spurgeon s catholicity reflected a generosity of spirit and a humanity that preferred to treat people as people rather than theological specimens. He had a distaste for bigotry and what Philipp Malanchthon called the rabies theologorum that drive theologians, like dogs, to treat doctrines as bones to bark over. We are not to be always going about the world searching out heresies, like terrier dogs sniffing for rats, and to be always so confident of our own infallibility that we erect ecclesiastical stakes at which to roast all who differ from us.

17 It is love to Christ that is the root of the matter. I am very sorry, my dear brother, if you should hold unsound views on some points; but I love you with all my heart if Jesus is precious to you. I cannot give up believers baptism; it is none of mine, and, therefore, I cannot give up my Master s word I am sure it is Scriptural. I cannot give up the doctrine of election, it seems to me so plainly in the word; but over the head of all doctrines and ordinances, and over everything, my brother, I embrace thee in my heart if thou believest in Jesus, and if he be precious to thee, for that is the vital point. These are the matters of heart work that mark a Christian- nothing else is so true a test. If you cannot say, Jesus is precious to me, I do not care to what church you belong, or what creed you are ready to die for, you do not know the truth of God unless the person of Christ is dear to you.