The Righteousness of Christ Imputed to Me

As he takes thy sin and lays it upon Christ so he takes Christ’s righteousness and lays it upon thee. He looks at thee as if thou wert as righteous as his Son who represents thee. He treats thee as if thou hadst been obedient to all his law; he looks upon the model man Christ Jesus, the perfect humanity, and he sees in Christ all his people, and treats them accordingly. He looks upon his people as if they themselves had magnified the law and made it honorable by a sinless life. Wondrous doctrine this, but he that believes it shall find rest unto his soul; and it is because of it that we are authorized to come forth this day and declare the day of salvation. The guilt of the believing sinner is put away, for Christ has carried it; and now righteousness belongs to the sinner, for God imputes it to him without works: therefore this is the day of salvation.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Day Of Salvation," delivered January 13, 1878. Image by Paul Bica on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

He Is The Righteous Father

Worldly wisdom talks of “the universal fatherhood of God,” and babbles for ever about that mere dream, that fiction of folly, against which the Bible is a plain and pointed protest. Universal Fatherhood indeed, when our Lord Jesus said, “If God were your Father ye would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” Is it not described as a special wonder of love that we should be called the sons of God? (1 John 3:1.)  Did not the Holy Ghost say by his servant John, “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.”

The philosophic Christian world knows an effeminate, indiscriminate fatherhood, but not “the righteous Father.” It will not bow before the majesty of his justice. According to the tenor of its teaching sin is a misfortune, transgression, a mere trifle, and the souls that suffer for wilful guilt are objects to be pitied rather than to be blamed. The world’s “thinkers” are continually drawing upon our feelings to make us pity those who are punished, but they have little to say in order to make us hate the evil which deserved the doom. Sin according to them does not of itself demand punishment, but penalties are to be exacted or remitted for the general good, if indeed they are to be executed at all. All necessary and inevitable connection between guilt and its punishment is denied. They dare to call justice revenge, and speak of atonement as if were a solatium for private pique. The Christian world does not seem to have learned the truth that “a God all mercy were a God unjust,” and that a God unjust would soon be discovered to be a God without love, in fact, no God whatever. “Righteous Father!” This is the peculiar revelation which is received by those who have been taught of the Holy Spirit, and to this day Jesus Christ may say, “O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee.”

Men kick against the doctrine of the atonement, they quarrel with substitution, they are fierce in their sarcasms against the mention of the precious blood of Christ, and sneer superciliously at those who hold fast the old truth. They stumble at this stumbling stone, and strive evermore to overthrow this rock of truth; and yet, depend upon it, this is the test question by which we shall know whether a man knoweth God aright or knoweth him not.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Righteous Father Known And Loved," delivered October 14, 1877. Image by Jeff Pang on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

In Heaven through His Blood and Righteousness

The day will come when the gospel shall have been preached for the last time, when the chosen of God shall have been all gathered out from among men, and the dispensation shall be fulfilled. Then shall all the saints rise to glory at the call of God. The elect multitude shall be all there, every one according to the purpose of the Father, every one according to the redemption of the Son, every one according to the calling of the Spirit, all there; upon their faces there shall be no spot nor wrinkle, and on their garments no stain nor defilement, for they are without fault before the throne of God. Then as the books are opened, and the transgressions of the ungodly are published under heaven, they shall stand without trembling, for

“Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
Their beauty are, their glorious dress;
‘Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall they lift up their head.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Song Of Songs," delivered June 13, 1875. Image by Gemma Stiles on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

What is the result of your life?

Men are affected by the course which they pursue; for good or bad their own conduct comes home to them. The backslider and the good man are very different, but in each of them the same rule is exemplified — they are both filled by the result of their lives. The backslider becomes filled by that which is within him, as seen in his life, and the good man also is filled by that which grace implants within his soul. The evil leaven in the backslider leavens his entire being and sours his existence, while the gracious fountain in the sanctified believer saturates his whole manhood, and baptizes his entire life. In each case the fullness arises from that which is within the man, and is in its nature like the man’s character; the fullness of the backslider’s misery will come out of his own ways, and the fullness of the good man’s content will spring out of the love of God which is shed abroad in his heart.


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "How A Man's Conduct Comes Home To Him," delivered May 16, 1875. Image by paul bica on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Not relying on my own purity

We differ also from those who place reliance upon moral virtues and spiritual excellencies, and even from those who would have us found our hope upon certain graces supposed to be the works of the Holy Spirit. Had we been the most courageously honest, had we been the most chastely pure, had we never offended against the law of man in any respect whatever, if we could say with the apostle “as touching the law blameless,” and if, like the young man in the gospel narrative, re could say of the commandments, “All these things have I kept from my youth up,” yet would we count our virtues and obediences to be but dross that we might win Christ and be found in him, not having our own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

We dare not hope to be acceptable with God because of anything good that is in us by nature, or may be infused into us by grace: we are accepted in the Beloved, and apart from him we look not to be found acceptable. Even what the Holy Ghost works with us does not furnish us with any merit which we can plead, for it is a gift of grace, and no part of our justifying righteousness. We rest upon Jesus Christ crucified, and not upon our faith, our repentance, our prayers, our conquests of sin, our likeness to Christ. Right away from anything that comes from us or to us we look to Jesus, who is all our salvation, the Alpha and Omega, the author and the finisher of faith.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Salvation By Faith And The Work Of The Spirit," delivered April 11, 1876. Image by wildxplorer on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Keep Preaching the Blood

I am persuaded that no one will ever serve the Lord humbly and devotedly unless he obtains a clear view of the Lord Jesus as his sin offering, and substitute. Some preachers either do not know that truth, or else they think too little of it to make it prominent in their sermons, hence their ministry does not save souls. The great saving truth is the doctrine of atonement by substitution. Without it ministers will keep souls in bondage year after year, because they do not proclaim the finished redemption, nor let men know that sin was laid on Jesus that it might be for ever removed from the believer. “He was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him;” brethren, get that truth clearly into your heads, and intensely into your hearts, and you will become devoted to the Lord. Do not only believe that grand truth, but to the spirit of it serve ye the Lord without weariness, seeing ye have been redeemed with a price far more precious than silver and gold.


From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Consecration of Priests," delivered November 15, 1874. Image by James Jordan on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Do not reject His righteousness

Men think that they are to be saved by keeping God’s commandments. They are to do their best, and they conceive that their sincere endeavors will be accepted, and they will thus save themselves. This self-righteous idea is diametrically opposed to the whole spirit of the gospel. The gospel is not for you who can save yourselves, but for those who are lost. If you can save yourselves, go and do it, and do not mock the Savior with your hypocritical prayers. Go and stumble among the tombs of ancient Israel, and perish as they did in the wilderness, for into rest Moses and the law can never lead you.

The gospel is for sinners who cannot keep the law for themselves, who have broken it, and incurred its penalty, who know that they have done so, and confess it. For such, a living Savior has come that he may blot out their transgressions. Seek not salvation by the works of the law, for by them shall no flesh living be justified. By the law is the knowledge of sin, and nothing more, but righteousness, peace, life, salvation, come by faith in the living Lord Jesus Christ, and by no other means. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;” but if thou goest about to establish thine own righteousness, thou shalt surely perish, because thou hast rejected the righteousness of Christ.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Lord Is Risen Indeed," delivered April 13, 1873. Image by paul (dex) on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

What is conviction of sin?

The Lord shuts us up to hopelessness and helplessness in order that he may come, as a God of grace, and display his abounding mercy. All our hope lies in him, and all other hopes are delusions. The great work in conversion is not to make people better, so that they may come to God on a good footing, it is to strip them completely and lay them low, so that God may come to them when they are on a bad footing, or rather on no footing at all, but down in the dust at his feet. The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost, but it wants* God himself to convince men that they are lost; and the Spirit’s work of soul-humbling is just this - to get man to feel so diseased that he will accept the physician; to get him to feel so poor that he will accept the charity of heaven; to get him to know that he is so stripped, that he will no longer be proud of his fig leaves, but will be willing to take the robe of righteousness which Christ has wrought out.

Conviction is sent to kill the man, to break him in pieces, to bury him, to let him know his own corruption; and all this as a preliminary to his quickening and restoration. We must see the bones in the valley to be dead and dry, or we shall not hear the voice out of the excellent glory, saying, “Thus saith the Lord, ‘Ye dry bones live!’” May God in his mercy teach us what all this means, and may we all experience an old-fashioned conversion.

* - that is, it requires

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "An Old-Fashioned Conversation," delivered March 16, 1873. Image by szeke on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

The Lord Our Righteousness

We were guilty, for are broke the law; God provided a substitute who suffered the penalty of our law-breaking: but, he has done more, he has found a representative who has kept the law for us, so that after washing us he clothes us, after taking away our guilt he makes us positively righteous and praiseworthy before the throne of justice through Jesus Christ, his Son, whose righteousness we wrap about our loins, and in it stand fair and comely before the eyes of infinite purity. Oh, this is right royal and truly divine. Here is blood most precious removing every spot, and a righteousness most glorious conferring a matchless beauty, a beauty such as Adam in his perfection never had for his was but human righteousness, but this day the children of God wear the righteousness of the Lord himself, and this is the name wherewith Jesus is called, “The Lord our Righteousness.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Waters To Swim In," delivered April 25, 1872. Image by zoomion under Creative Commons License.

Trees of Righteousness

We are not only freed from sin through his atonement, but we are rendered acceptable to God through his obedience as our responsible surety. We are “accepted in the beloved,” we are justified through his righteousness. God seeth not us marred in the likeness of the first Adam who sinned, but he seeth us in Christ, the second Adam, remade, redeemed, restored, arrayed in garments of glory and beauty, with the Savior’s vesture on, as holy as the Holy One. He seeth “no sin in Jacob nor iniquity in Israel.” When Jacob learns to trust in the Messiah, and Israel hides behind his representative, the Lord our Righteousness, Jacob ceases to wrestle, for he prevails, and Israel stands in honor, for he is a prince with God. Blessed, thrice blessed, are they who are partakers of Christ in his righteousness.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "A Persuasive to Steadfastness," delivered February 29, 1872. Image by Paul Sapiano under Creative Commons License.

Remembering all God's attributes

The effeminate and sentimental talkers of this boastful age represent God as though he had no attribute but that of gentleness, no virtue but that of indifference to evil; but the God of the Bible is glorious in holiness, he will by no means spare the guilty, at his bar every transgression is meted out its just recompense of reward. Even in the New Testament, wherein stands that golden sentence, “God is love,” his other attributes are by no means cast into the shade. Read the burning words of Peter, or James, or Jude, and see how the God of Sabaoth abhorreth evil! As the God who must do right, the Lord cannot shut his eyes to the iniquities of man; he must visit transgression with its punishment. He has done it, has done it terribly, and he will do it; even to all eternity he will show himself the God that hateth iniquity and sin. What, then, is to become of man? “All we like sheep have gone astray;” sin must be punished; what, then, can become of us? Infinite love has devised the expedient of representation and substitution.

From a sermon entitled "Individual Sin Laid On Jesus," delivered April 10, 1870. Image by Steve Jurvetson on flickr under Creative Commons License.

Beware of Self-Righteousness

...the old way which wicked men have trodden is a way of self-righteousness. Cain, especially, trod that road. He was not an outwardly irreligious man, but quite the reverse. Inasmuch as a sacrifice must be brought, he will bring an offering on his own account. If Abel kneels by the altar, Cain will kneel by the altar also. It was respectable and reputable in that age to pay deference to the unseen God, Cain therefore does the same; but mark where the flaw was in his religion! Abel brought a bloody sacrifice, a lamb, indicating his faith in the great atoning sacrifice, which was to be offered in the end of the world in the person of the Lamb of God, Christ Jesus; but Cain presented an unbloody offering of the fruits of the earth, the products of his own toil, and he thought himself as good as Abel, perhaps better. When the Lord did not accept his service, the envious heart of the self-righteous man boiled over with indignation, and he became a persecutor, ay, a murderer.

None are so bitter as the self-righteous; none so cruelly persecute the righteous as those who think themselves righteous and are not. It was because Saul of Tarsus boasted in a fancied righteousness of his own that he breathed out threatenings against those who found their righteousness alone in Christ. The old way of self-righteousness, then, was trodden by the feet of the first murderer, and it is trodden still by tens of thousands of men. Ah, your church-goings and your chapel-goings, your carings of the sacrament, your baptism, your confirmation, your ceremonies of all sorts and kinds, your gifts to the poor, your contributions to charities, your amiable speeches, and your repetitions of your liturgies, or of your extemporaneous prayers; these, put together, are rested on as the rock of your salvation. Beware, I entreat you, for this is the old way of the Pharisee when he thanked God that he was not as other men; it is the old way of universal human nature which evermore goeth about to establish its own righteousness, and will not submit itself to the righteousness of Christ. As surely as the Pharisees were condemned as a generation of vipers, and could not escape the damnation of hell, so surely every one of us, if we set up our righteousness in the place of Christ’s righteousness, will meet with condemnation, and will be overthrown by God’s sudden wrath. Mark that old way, and I beseech you, men and brethren, flee from it; by God’s grace, flee from it now.

From a sermon entitled "The Old Way Of The Wicked," delivered March 7th, 1869. Image by Geof Wilson under Creative Commons License.

His anger was spent upon Christ

My brethren, what a discovery was that when we learned the secret that we were to be saved not by what we were or were to be; but, saved by what Christ had done for us! The simplicity of the cross is the grandest of all revelations. “Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth.” Why it is as simple as the interpretation which Joseph gave to the dream; but in its simplicity lies a great part of its sweetness. How was it that I was such a fool as not to understand it before, that for every sinner who was truly a sinner, and had no righteousness of his own, Jesus Christ is made righteousness and salvation; and that every sinner who confesses with broken heart that he deserved God’s wrath, may know that Jesus has suffered all God’s wrath for him, and that therefore God is no longer angry with him, for all his anger has been spent upon the person of Jesus Christ.

How sweet it is to understand that all our soul’s terrors and alarms are only meant to bring us to the cross; that they are not intended to make us look at ourselves, to search for comfort there, nor intended to set us upon paving a way to heaven by our own exertions, but to lead us to Jesus.

From a sermon entitled "Have You Forgotten Him?," delivered March 11, 1866. Image by David Blaikie under Creative Commons License.

To wear the righteousness of Christ

Christ has performed a complete obedience to the divine law. He had no need to do this for himself, but he did it for his people. What he did is ours; the perfect obedience of Christ is imputed to every believer. We wrap ourselves about with the garments of Christ, just as Jacob put on the robes of his brother Esau; and our Father gives us the blessing, because he finds us in our brother’s clothes. Oh, this is gracious, for all the righteousness you and I could ever have if we had been perfect would only have been human, but this is divine; Christ is the Lord our Righteousness, and we are sumptuously arrayed in his seamless robe.

Here let me remark that this is matter of experience too, for the believer gets to feel that he can now minister before God without trembling, for he wears Christ’s garments. Oh, how delightful it is to preach, dressed in the robes of Christ, or to pray when you feel you have Christ’s vestments on! Oh, how fair a thing it is to minister at God’s altar, when you know that you are dressed in the white linen, the righteousness of Christ, so clean that even God’s all-seeing eye cannot detect so much as a spot or blemish in it. Pure, lovely, beautiful, without blemish from head to foot in the sight of God, is every justified soul. Oh, Christian, never be satisfied unless you know this, and live in the constant enjoyment of it.

From a sermon entitled "Zechariah's Vision of Joshua the High Priest," delivered January 22, 1865. Image by James Jordan under Creative Commons License.

Jesus understands

“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” — 1 John 2:1.

You and I, who though saved are still sinners, may safely put our case into his hands, for see who he is — “Jesus Christ the righteous.” “Jesus.” Ah! then he is an advocate such as I want, for he loves me and takes an interest in me. Jesus is the name of one who became man for my sake. He knows what sore temptations mean, he understands what trials mean, what afflictions mean. I am glad I have one who will be interested in my welfare, and will plead for me as a friend for a friend, and as a brother for a brother. I thank God that though I sin I still have Jesus who is my
“brother born for adversity,” the friend of sinners, and will therefore plead the sinner’s part.

From a sermon entitled "The Sinner's Advocate," delivered June 21, 1863. Flickr photo by isado; some rights reserved.

Accepted before God

The doctrine of the atonement is very simple. It just consists in the substitution of Christ in the place of the sinner; Christ being treated as if he were the sinner, and then the transgressor being treated as if he were the righteous one. It is a change of persons; Christ becomes the sinner; he stands in the sinner’s place and stead; he was numbered with the transgressors; the sinner becomes righteous; he stands in Christ’s place and stead, and is numbered with the righteous ones. Christ has no sin of his own, but he takes human guilt, and is punished for human folly. We have no righteousness of our own’ but we take the divine righteousness; we are rewarded for it, and stand accepted before God as though that righteousness had been wrought out by ourselves. “In due time Christ died for the ungodly,” that he might take away their sins.

From a sermon entitled "The Old, Old Story," delivered March 30, 1862. Flickr photo by Kevin Law; some rights reserved.

The Strength of Selfrighteousness

Ever since man became a sinner he has been self-righteous. When he had a righteousness of his own he never gloried of it, but ever since he has lost it, he has pretended to be the possessor of it. Those proud words which our father Adam uttered when he sought to screen himself from the guilt of his treason against his Maker, laying the blame apparently on Eve, but really upon God who gave him the woman, were virtually a claim to blamelessness. It was but a fig leaf he could find to cover his nakedness, but how proud was he of that fig-leaf excuse, and how tenaciously did he hold to it. As it was with our first parents so is it with us: self-righteousness is born with us and there is perhaps no sin which has so much vitality in it as the sin of righteous self. We can overcome lust itself, and anger, and the fierce passions of the will better than we can ever master the proud boastfulness which rises in our hearts and tempts us to think ourselves rich and increased in goods, while God knoweth we are naked, and poor, and miserable

From a sermon entitled "A Blow At Selfrighteousness," delivered December 18, 1860. Flickr photo by Eddie Callaway; some rights reserved.

Guiltless in the sight of God

As soon as a repenting sinner is justified, remember, he is justified for all his sins. Here stands a man all guilty. The moment he believes in Christ, his pardon at once he receives and his sins are no longer his; they are cast into the depths of the sea. They were laid upon the shoulders of Christ, and they are gone. The man stands a guiltless man in the sight of God, accepted in the beloved. “What!” say you, “do you mean that literally?” Yes I do. That is the doctrine of justification by faith. Man ceases to be regarded by divine justice as a guilty being; the moment he believes on Christ his guilt is all taken away. But I am going a step further. The moment the man believes in Christ, he ceases to be guilty in God’s esteem, but what is more, he becomes righteous, he becomes meritorious, for, in the moment when Christ takes his sins he takes Christ’s righteousness, so that, when God looks upon the sinner who but an hour ago was dead in sins, he looks upon him with as much love and affection as he ever looked upon his Son. He himself has said it — “As the Father loved me, so have I loved you.” He loves us as much as his Father loved him.

From a sermon entitled "Justification By Grace," delivered April 5, 1857.

Photo by James Jordan ; some rights reserved.

Do we have the repentance that leads to life?

There are many men who when they hear a faithful gospel sermon, are exceedingly stirred and moved by it. By a certain power which accompanies the Word, God testifies that it is his own Word, and he causes those who hear it involuntarily to tremble. I have seen some men, while the truths of Scripture have been sounded from this pulpit, whose knees have knocked together, whose eyes have flowed with tears as if they had been fountains of water. I have witnessed the deep dejection of their spirit, when - as some of them have told me - they have been shaken until they knew not how to abide the sound of the voice, for it seemed like the terrible trumpet of Sinai thundering only their destruction. Well, my hearers, you may be very much disturbed under the preaching of the gospel, and yet you shall not have that “repentance unto life.” You may know what it is to be very seriously and very solemnly affected when you go to God’s house, and yet you may be hardened sinners.

Let me confirm the remark by an instance: Paul stood before Felix with the chains upon his hands, and as he preached of “righteousness, temperance, and of judgment to come,” it is written, “Felix trembled,’’ and yet procrastinating Felix is in perdition, among the rest of those who have said, “Go thy way for this time; when I have a more convenient season I will call for thee.” There are many of you who cannot attend the house of God without being alarmed; you know what it is often to stand aghast at the thought that God will punish you; you may often have been moved to sincere emotion under God’s minister; but, let me tell you, you may be after all a castaway, because you have not repented of your sins, neither have you turned to God.

From a sermon entitled "Repentance Unto Life ," delivered September 23, 1855.

Photo by Kevin Dooley; some rights reserved.

We have a better covenant in Christ

Today believers are not under the covenant of “If thou doest this thou shalt live,” but under that new covenant which says, “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” It is not now “Do and live,” but “Live and do;” we think not of merit and reward, but of free grace producing holy practice as the result of gratitude. What law could not do, grace has accomplished.

We ought never to forget this bottom of everything, this making of all things new by the fashioning of a new covenant, so that we have come out from under the bondage of the law and the ruin of the fall, and we have entered upon the liberty of Christ, into acceptance with God, and into the boundless joy of being saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation, so that we “shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.” You young people, as soon as ever you know the Lord, I exhort you to study well that word “covenant.” It is a key-word opening the treasures of revelation. He that rightly understands the difference between the two covenants has the foundation of sound theology laid in his mind. This is the clue of many a maze, the open sesame of many a mystery. “I make all things new,” begins with the bringing in of a better hope by virtue of a better covenant.

From a sermon entitled "Sermon for New Year's Day," delivered January 1, 1885.

Photo by Chris; some rights reserved.