Rich Comfort For Lowly Hearts

Our Lord was not merely a child, but a poor child; so poor that his mother when she had to redeem him could not bring a lamb, which was the sacrifice for all who could afford it, but she presented the poorer offering, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons, and so she came as a poor woman, and he was presented to the Lord as a poor woman’s child. Herein also lies rich comfort for lowly hearts, and as they think of it each one may say, “Mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”

When I think of the Prince of glory and the Lord of angels stooping so low as this, that a poor woman bears him in her arms and calls him her babe, surely there must be salvation for the lowest, the poorest, and the most sunken. When the all glorious Lord, in order to be incarnate, is born a babe, born of a poor woman, and publicly acknowledged as a poor woman’s child, we feel sure that he will receive the poorest and most despised when they seek his face.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Thy Salvation," delivered June 2, 1878. Image by Kasia on Flickr under Creative Commons License, without alteration.

He Came To Lift Us Up

The Fall was so grievous that he must come right down into the place of our ruin; he must come to the dunghill that he might lift us out of it. God sat in heaven and said, “Let there be light,” and the darkness fled before him, but he could not sit in heaven and save sinners: he must needs come into the world to do so; down into this polluted creation the eternal Creator must himself descend. Lo, there in Bethlehem’s manger he sleeps, and on a woman’s breast he hangs! He cannot save sinners, so great is their ruin, unless he becomes incarnate and takes upon himself our nature.

And being here, think how dreadful must be the ruin when we see that he cannot return, saying, “It is finished,” until first of all he dies. That sacred head must be crowned with thorns, those eyes must be closed in the darkness of the tomb, that body must be pierced even to its heart, and then must lie a chill, cold corpse in the grave, ere man can be redeemed; and all that shame, and suffering, and death were but the outer shell of what the Savior suffered, for he passed under divine wrath and bare a load such as would have crushed the whole race of men had they been left to bear it.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Faithful Saying," delivered May 26, 1878. Image by Anita Ritenour on Flickr under Creative Commons License, without alteration.

The Incarnation is a Promise

Think of it for a minute. If God loves us so much as to become man, then the blessings which he intends to bestow must be incalculable. The Incarnation is in itself a promise big with untold blessing. Gaze upon the Son of God in Bethlehem’s manger, and you feel sure that if the Infinite has assumed the forum of an infant, his incarnation betokens infinite love, foreshadows intimate intercourse, and foretells unbounded blessedness for the sons of Adam. If Jehovah himself in human flesh walks toilsomely over the acres of Judea, if he bears human sicknesses and sorrows, if he in human form gives his hands to the nails and his heart to the spear, there must be boundless affection in his heart towards the seed chosen from among men. What rivers of blessings must come to us if God himself comes to us, and comes in such a fashion and in such a spirit.

What meaneth the union of Godhead with humanity but this, that though he was rich yet for our sakes he became poor? And what can his purpose be but “that we through his poverty might be made rich”? rich with riches as vast as those which he renounced in order to espouse our nature in all its poverty and degradation? Let us at this time joy and rejoice in the Son of Mary, the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God; let us exult to-day as we believe that Jesus is as truly man as he is truly God.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Rivers Of Water In A Dry Place," delivered July 11, 1875.  Image by Andrew Curtis on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

He stooped to lift us up

To lift us up he stooped. He made the heavens, and yet he lay in Bethlehem’s manger. He hung the stars in their places, and laid the beams of the universe, and yet he became a carpenter’s son, giving up all his rank and dignity for love’s dear sake; and then when he grew up he consented to be the servant of servants, and made himself of no reputation. He took the lowest place; “he was despised and rejected of men;” he gave up all ease and comfort, for he had not where to lay his head; he gave up all health of body, for he bore our sickness, and he bared his back to the smiters that the chastisement of our peace might fall upon him; he gave up the last rag he had, for they took his own raiment from him, and upon his vesture did they cast lots; he gave up for the world all esteem.

They called him a blasphemer. Reproach broke his heart, but he gave that heart up for us; he gave his body to the nails, and his heart to the spear, and he could do no more. When at last he gave his life, “It is finished,” said he; and they took down his mangled body from the tree and laid it in the grave. Self-sacrifice had reached its climax; further he could not go; but he could not have saved us if he had stopped short of that. So lost, so utterly lost we were, that without this extreme self-devotion — till it could be said, "He saved others; himself he could not save" — without this self-devotion, I say, he could not have saved so much as one of us.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Sad Plight And Sure Relief." Image by Pieterjan Vandaele on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

The sin of sins

In order that Jesus Christ, being appointed, should be fit for his office, it was necessary that he should become man. Man had sinned, and man must make reparation to the broken law. God would not accept an angel as a substitute, for the law had to do with man, and as the race had revolted, it must be through one of the race that God’s justice should be vindicated. But Jesus was God: how then could he become our Savior? Behold the mystery! God was manifest in the flesh. He descended to the manger of Bethlehem, he nestled in a woman’s bosom; for as the children were partakers of flesh and blood he himself also took part in the same. Sinner, behold your incarnate God, the Eternal one, dwells among dying men, veiled in their mortal flesh, that he may save men.

This is the greatest fact ever related in human ears. We hear it as a common thing, but the angels have never ceased to wonder since first they sang of it and charmed the listening shepherds. God has come down to man to lift man up to God. Surely it is the sin of sins if we reject a Savior who has made such a stoop in order to be perfectly qualified to save.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Savior You Need," delivered May 10, 1874. Image by Ernst Vikne on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Not merely like a man, but man indeed

Less than God could not have borne your sin so as to put it away; but the infinitely glorious Son of God did actually stoop to become a sin-bearer. I wonder how I can talk of it as I do.

 It is a truth scarcely to be declared in words. It wants flame and blood and tears with which to tell this story of an offended God, the Heaven-Maker and the Earth-Creator, stooping from his glory that he might save the reptiles which had dared to insult his honor and to rebel against his glory; and, becoming one of them, to suffer for them, that without violation of his law he might have pity upon the offending things — things so inconsiderable that if he had stamped them all out, as men burn a nest of wasps, there had been no loss to the universe. But he had pity on them, and became one of them, and bare their sins. Oh, love ye him; adore ye him; let your souls climb up to the right hand of the majesty above, this morning, and there bow down in lowliest reverence and adoring affection, that he, the God over all, whom you had offended, should his own self bear our sins.

Though thus God over all, he became a man like unto ourselves; a body was prepared for him, and that body, mark you, not prepared alone, and made like to man but not of man. No, he was not otherwise fashioned than ourselves, he came into the world as we also come, born of a woman, a child of a mother, to hang upon a woman’s breast; not merely like to man, but man, born in the pedigree of manhood, and so bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, yet without a taint of sin. And he, in that double nature but united person, was Jesus, Son of God and Son of the Virgin; he it was who “bare our sins in his own body on the tree.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Death For Sin, And Death To Sin," delivered November 16, 1873. Image by itslegitx on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

A Miracle of Condescension

What a miracle of condescension is here, that God should manifest himself in flesh. It needs not so much to be preached upon as to be pondered in the heart. It needs that ye sit down in quiet, and consider how he who made you became like you, he who is your God became your brother man. He who is adored of angels once lay in a manger; he who feeds all living things hungered and was athirst; he who oversees all worlds as God, was, as a man, made to sleep, to suffer, and to die like yourselves. This is a statement not easily to be believed. If he had not been beheld by many witnesses, so that men handled him, looked upon him, and heard him speak, it were a thing not readily to be accepted that so divine a person should be manifest in flesh. It is a wonder of condescension!

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Hexapla of Mystery," delivered December 22, 1872. Image by "Vittis from Lithuania" on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

Good Tidings of Great Joy

The joy which this first gospel preacher spoke of was no mean one, for he said, “I bring you good tidings” — that alone were joy: and not good tidings of joy only, but “good tidings of great joy.” Every word is emphatic, as if to show that the gospel is above all things intended to promote, and will most abundantly create the greatest possible joy in the human heart wherever it is received.

Man is like a harp unstrung, and the music of his soul’s living strings is discordant, his whole nature wails with sorrow; but the son of David, that mighty harper, has come to restore the harmony of humanity, and where his gracious fingers move among the strings, the touch of the fingers of an incarnate God brings forth music sweet as that of the spheres, and melody rich as a seraph’s canticle. Would God that all men felt that divine hand.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Joy Born At Bethlehem," delivered December 24, 1871. Image by Caleb Kimbrough under Creative Commons License.

Mystery: Incarnation

My brethren, if you will carefully consider it, this is one of the most extraordinary doctrines that was ever declared in human hearing, for were it not well attested, it would be absolutely incredible that the infinite God who filleth all things, who was and is, and is to come, the Almighty, the Omniscient, and the Omnipresent, actually condescended to veil himself in the garments of our inferior clay.

He made all things, and yet he deigned to take the flesh of a creature into union with himself: the Infinite was linked with the infant, and the Eternal was blended with mortality. That manger at Bethlehem, tenanted by the express image of the Father’s glory, was a great sight indeed to those who understood it. Well might the angels troop forth in crowds from within the gates of pearl, that they might behold him whom heaven could not contain, finding accommodation in a stable with a lowly wedded pair. Wonder of wonders! God over all, blessed forever, became one with a newborn babe which slept in a manger where the horned oxen fed.

From a sermon entitled "The Great Mystery Of Godliness," delivered December 22, 1867. Image by ~My aim is true~ under Creative Commons License.

The Incarnation of the Son

Talk ye of the sun, moon, and stars; consider ye the heavens, the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars that he hath ordained; but all the wonders of the universe shrink into nothing, when we come to the mystery of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a marvellous thing when Joshua bade the sun to stand still, but more marvellous when God seemed to stand still, and no longer to move forward, but rather, like the sun upon the dial of Ahaz, did go back ten degrees, and veil his splendor in a cloud. There have been sights matchless and wonderful, at which we might look for years, and yet turn away and say, “I cannot understand this; here is a deep into which I dare not dive; my thoughts are drowned; this is a steep without a summit; I cannot climb it; it is high, I cannot attain it!” But all these things are as nothing, compared with the incarnation of the Son of God.

I do believe that the very angels have never wondered but once and that has been incessantly ever since they first beheld it. They never cease to tell the astonishing story, and to tell it with increasing astonishment too, that Jesus Christ. the Son of God, was born of the Virgin Mary, and became a man. Is he not rightly called Wonderful? Infinite, and an infant — eternal, and yet born of a woman — Almighty, and yet hanging on a woman’s breast supporting the universe, and yet needing to be carried in a mother’s arms — king of angels, and yet the reputed son of Joseph — heir of all things and yet the carpenter’s despised son. Wonderful art thou O Jesus, and that shall be thy name for ever.

From a sermon entitled, "His Name — Wonderful!," delivered September 19, 1858.