Matthew 27:45-54; 1 Thessalonians 4:14, 15
It is impossible, beloved friends, really to disconnect this closing scene from that which gives all its foundation, that on which it rests, that which gives title to all that will be in that transcendent moment, as we believe so near at hand, the moment of Christ’s own joy. For just as surely His crown rests upon His cross, so His joy rests upon His sorrow. Put the two together for a moment: that cry, that marvelous cry, that cry of conscious abandonment that the souls that have trusted Him know but very little of, even blessedness of those wonderful words, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” You could never answer that question, beloved friends. No heart could conceive the answer, and no tongue could convey it, it is unanswerable; and there it remains unanswerable to this moment, excepting this, that it is, blessed be His name, the alone ground of the peace, the joy, the rest, the satisfaction, the present salvation of all who simply believe. Thank God, that is, in some sense, a wonderful answer; that is, shall I say? for poor sinners, a divine answer; that is the answer that meets the heart of God, who gave that blessed One for us, and that is the answer that meets the heart of Him who, though once the Man of sor- rows, is now the Man of patience, and will be the Man of joy in that day when He has all His own, not one absent, not a solitary one missing in that great roll-call which is described so blessedly and consolingly in 1 Thess. 4, when the shout will reach all who have trusted in the blood of the cross. I always, in my own heart, connect the two things together; that cry, with “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,” an utterance of relationship it is, the expression of it between the One that calls and those that will rise to answer to it. All who have trusted and rested in Him, and found their salvation in His death, shall, in that morning so near, answer to that shout.
Now what I desire to set before you briefly and simply this evening, are some of the results, some of the consequences of the victory of Jesus. I mean the victory of the cross. We have been looking at His resurrection on week- night evenings, but I want you to look at two or three of the effects of His victory, the victory of the cross, as they are set forth in this chapter in Matthew.
And the first is, after those three hours of darkness had been passed through and were over, and the Lord had cried with a loud voice, showing that it was not that He was exhausted, as man has been vile enough to say, in order to degrade Him, and to tarnish His glory; it was not that worn- out nature sought its repose in death; it was the cry of a Conqueror, it was not a feeble weak man who had given up the Ghost, vanquished by death, like any other man, it proved He had laid down His life. He gave up the ghost, but He had given it up in full vigor, so that it could not be said for a moment that it was the simple result of nature having run its course, of the terrible death He had suffered, that awful crucifixion, for there never was, I suppose, a death of such frightful torture and agony of body, yet it could not be said that it was that.
There man’s wicked hands set Him, but that was all man could do. Man could nail Him to that cross, but they could not take away His life from Him. What a comfort for you and me that is. “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.” There is a great difference between a person laying down his life and his life being taken from him. When man nailed Jesus to the cross, that was the extent of his power and wickedness, though it was not the extent of his will. He had will enough to have gone to any amount of wickedness, but he could do no more. All that he could do he did do. But when it was all passed and over, when the Lord had gone through that dreadful moment, and borne the judgment, and met God about the question of sin, and borne His people’s sins, and He, in very truth had (in His grace) done both; sin as an offence against God had received its full equivalent in righteousness in the death of Jesus, wonderful thing for our souls to know that! It is not a question of His people’s sins now for a moment, because if we speak of our sins, one speaks of believers, but I speak now in the widest sense of the word—the whole question of sin as a question between God and Christ, and as that which shut God in in His holiness, and barred man out in misery, because that is what it was; that question was settled in the death of Jesus. God was glorified: I do not object to say that the debt was paid, but I object very much to limiting it to the debt being paid, because that is man’s side of it; God was glorified, “I have glorified thee on the earth,” where every other man had come short of God’s glory, and where, as far as man was concerned, God had been outraged.
Now look at the answer to this for a moment, because it synchronized with His death; observe, I say, how it occurred at the same moment as His death. As soon as ever the Lord had borne the judgment, passed through those hours of anguish, had known what it was in His own perfectness and spotlessness, to be forsaken of God, absolutely and perfectly forsaken too, when it was all closed and gone through, and He had cried in all the vigor and power of His strength, un- diminished in any way, and when He yielded up the ghost, at that moment the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. There is the first great fruit of the death of Jesus. And what, beloved friends, did that mean? If you read Ex. 26, you will find a description of that veil, and such a description as connects it at once in type with the body of the Lord Jesus Christ; it was a picture, in that sense of it, of His body, and hence the apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews, says, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.” In Ex. 26 and the Epistle to the Hebrews put together, you have the true meaning of it.
Now this veil was a symbol of two things. It set forth in figure the precious body of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it also set forth, that whilst that literal veil of the temple was still hanging between the holy and most holy place, God’s relations with men were such that God could not come out because of His holiness, out from God, and it shut God in from man. The veil signified the whole order of that dispensation, no man could come to God, there was no way to God; a sinner could not come to God, the way was not open. How foolish people are when they speak of persons coming to God before the death of Christ! why, there was no way. God in wonderful mercy passed over the sins of those who believed in former times—not that they looked on to the sacrifice, there was no such thing, but God looked on; there is a great difference. Forbearance, observe, was the principle of God’s dealing in those days; there was no way to God, God had not been vindicated as to His righteousness in passing over those sins; there never had been one whose sins God had passed over in olden times; that God, so to speak, had not to wait for the declaration of His righteousness in having done so. But now, it is not forbearance, it is accomplished righteousness; God is glorified, and hence He is just, and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. But it is not that Old Testament saints looked on to the sacrifices, it is all a mistake; God looked on, that is the point, and God looking on to that which was yet to be, passed over the sins of those who believed. He did so on the principle of forbearance. We are not standing on the principle of forbearance now; thank God, we are not. It is wonderfully blessed to see that God had a way in those days before the death of Christ, on the ground of which He could act in consistency with His own character; but the public declaration and manifestation that God was just and yet the justifier of him that believes in Jesus, awaited the death of Jesus. You must have the cross and redemption accomplished before you get the whole thing brought out in manifestation.
Now mark how significant this is. Synchronizing with His death, occurring at the same moment as the death of the spotless One, God as it were says, all that order and principle of things is over now; it is no longer a veil between God and man. And mark you (there is nothing new in it, but still it has to be pressed upon people), it was rent in twain from God’s side, from the top to the bottom. It was not rent in twain from man’s side up to God, not from the bottom to the top, but from the top to the bottom, from the side that set forth how it was from God down to our side. And it was not removed. There is a great difference between the veil being removed and the veil being rent. If it had been removed it would indicate that it was simply a temporary respite of the distance it set forth, and that the barrier might yet be set up again. But it was rent, as much as to say, That order of things is at an end; those relationships are closed. Oh, what a wonderful mercy to think there is now a way to God for sinners. Suppose I were speaking tonight (God alone knows it may be so) to the very worst character in London, even if there were in this company the vilest character that could be found in this great city, I can go to that man or that woman and say to each, There is a way to God for you; will you come? You say, What do you mean? I mean this, that Jesus has presented His blood to God, and, God has accepted that blood as a complete and full discharge, and equivalent in righteousness for all His holy claim, a vindication of all His character and a sustainment of all His glory, so that now, in virtue of that, He can receive and accept the vilest sinner. And it is not only that He can receive the vilest sinner in love, but He can receive him in perfect righteousness.
I remember how long that passage tried my heart, for I never could understand it, because I did not understand the fulness of redemption, I mean the scripture where the apostle says, speaking to Christians, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” Now I never could understand how faithfulness and justice were connected with forgiveness. I could understand how love and mercy, or kind- ness and long-suffering, were connected with it, but I never could understand how His being faithful and just were connected with it. God faithful to forgive me? God just to forgive me? I could not understand it. And why? Because I did not see that in the cross every attribute of God was harmonized. As Psa. 85 says, that beautiful and precious psalm which ought to be and which is a familiar psalm to many a heart here tonight, “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
That did not refer to the birth of the Lord Jesus in Bethlehem; incarnation never witnessed to that. Wonderful and blessed as it is to see Jesus coming down here to become a man, and do all this work for God’s glory, I do not see mercy and truth meeting together, nor righteousness and peace kissing each other in the manger at Bethlehem. No; but at Calvary I do; on the cross I do. Was there ever such love, was there ever such righteousness, was there ever such mercy, was there ever such truth? I see it all witnessed to. I see the most intense righteousness with reference to sin; I see the most unbounded love of God to sinners. I see all the hatred of men; I see the full flow of the affection of God there. And therefore now, thank God, I can connect His justice with forgiveness, and I can say, He is just to forgive the believing sinner. And why? Because Christ gave to God in righteousness a full equivalent for all His holy claims. And there I can stand and rest, because that was for me, a poor sinner. Now look what a wonderful thing that is, that you can go to a poor, wretched, vile sinner, and say to him, Christ has presented His blood to God, and there is a way through the rent veil, the flesh of Jesus, through His death, there is a way to God for you as a sinner; will you come?
And another thing I would say affectionately to you. People have their “isms,” and that is what is so destructive to souls as well as of the truth of God; but scripture puts the responsibility where God will have the responsibility, even on man. It is not a question of faith, as to whether it is strong enough or not, this is only the devil seeking to deceive and blind; be assured no man in hell shall ever be able to open his mouth and say to God, There was no salvation for me. No; Christ has glorified God about sin, presented His blood to God, and God has accepted that blood, and there is a way to God for sinners, for all who will come. It is for you if you come. Will you come? Thus you can see how the responsibility is not connected with power, but with will; the devil will persuade you if he can to the contrary. The devil comes and says to a poor sinner, You know you cannot come, you have not the power to come. And why does he do that? Because by it he is concealing the truth, that the will of the man is so opposed that he will not come. Behind it all, the will of the man is not to come, and that is what Satan is keeping in the background, and hence he raises the question of the power. There is no question of power at all, it is a question of will. Will you come, that is the point? There is the way, there is the road open to God for sinners—will you come?
But there is another side in it as well, and this ought to be a comfort to any poor trembling heart here, and it is also one of the fruits of His cross; not only was the veil rent, showing that there was a way to God through the death of Jesus, and that God could come out now in all the love of His heart righteously to sinners, and accept sinners, but all His people’s sins, every one of them, were there borne by Him. There was a perfect transfer of all the sins and all the guilt of all His own to that blessed One on the cross. Now look at this a moment—it matters not how feeble and weak a person may be in their faith—it is sad to think that faith is preached as if it was the meritorious cause of our salvation, and until there is scarcely any faith left in people, what is the preaching which meets souls? No doubt it is Christ, that ministers to faith, here is something that will feed faith, otherwise they do not know what to believe.
But now, take a person that is ever so trembling (and I suppose that there are not many here that are strangers to what that is, yes, even to tremble)—I know what it is to have trembled, and had fears many a day, and yet it was not a question of my sins being forgiven; I knew they were, but I was not in the full complete victory of the cross. And it was not that my faith was weak; no, but I had not the fulness of that victory before my eyes. People always like to refer the thing to something in them. What gives you the strength is the thing that has been accomplished between God and Christ; it is not a question of your faith at all; it is a question of the magnificence of that victory, the fulness and perfection of that victory. Now take a poor, trembling, weak, timid, feeble thing, and I know such, here is their language, “I am not altogether comfortable about myself, I am not altogether sure; sometimes I have got quietness, at other times I get all disturbed, and I do not know how it is; I think I am happy about my sins when I was unconverted, but since I have been converted I have committed sins, and I am not altogether comfortable about them.” The devil harasses poor hearts in that way; Satan is behind that kind of thing; he knows he has got no capital to work on, he knows they are out of his power, and so he will give them no rest. If they belonged to him, he would give them rest: “When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.” When they are out of his power, he says, as it were, I will never give them a moment’s ease if I can effect it; I will never leave off to worry if I can accomplish it. If you belonged to him, he would cater for you, and minister to you, and take care that no sound should reach you to disturb you, as far as he could; but when you are out of his reach, he says, I hate Christ, and I hate you because you are Christ’s and therefore I will worry you, and tempt you, and try you, and harass you. But now see what meets all this, what a simple thing it is. All our sins were laid upon Him, think of that.
I am speaking now to Christians. And observe, it is not as we used to sing in that beautiful little hymn,
“I lay my sins on Jesus,
The spotless Lamb of God”;
for it is God who laid them on Him. And, beloved friends, God did not leave one; God’s memory did not fail with regard to those sins, and with regard to their imputation, and that memory is cleared, He will remember them no more. He remembered them to Jesus on the cross, but He will never remember them any more. “Their sins,” says God, in virtue of this, “and iniquities will I remember no more.” Think of that beloved friends, you that have fears and misgivings, and are not sure about the sins you have committed since you were converted, and are harassed, because the devil plagues you about them, God says, “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more”; just put the two things together which are so precious for our hearts, there is the no more remembrance of our sins, but there is the eternal remembrance of ourselves. Think of that. And hence He says, “Can a mother forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the babe of her womb?” There is no love like a mother’s love; none. I have often said to people, You never can lose a mother but once. No love in nature, no love in this poor, wretched, selfish world like a mother’s love; and therefore the blessed God, in signifying His affection for Israel, takes up the strongest known affection amongst men, and says, “Can a mother forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the babe of her womb? Yea, they may forget”—even nature may break down in its most intense tenderness—“yet will not I forget thee.” God says it to Jerusalem, and in order to bring out the intensity of His remembrance of those that belong to Him, He says, “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”
Now I love those passages, and I will tell you why. There is no need, beloved friends, to put at the top of the Bible what the beloved old translators of this precious scripture that our hearts love have put there; this dear old Book that so many of God’s beloved people have lived and died upon; there is no need I say to put upon the top of it “the blessings and promises of the church,” it is not true; but I will tell you what is true, the divine principles of God’s nature remain the same in changing times and dispensations—that is true. Souls may be in different relationships, as no doubt they are, totally different, but God’s nature is the same, God’s heart is the same, God’s affections are the same, though expressed in different ways. And so it is now, just as it was to Israel in that day. Now if there is one whose sins were laid on Jesus, a poor, trembling, feeble, weak believer (and God knows how many there are in this world, and that there is a kind of confederacy between the world and the devil to keep them in darkness, and ignorant of the true extent of the cross of Christ), now I say, if there be such a poor, worried, tried and tormented heart like that, what a comfort to be able to come and to say to such an one, Every one of your sins were all laid on Jesus, “God who knew them laid them on him”; and they were all borne, and they are all gone, and they are in God’s forgetfulness, and God cannot remember them any more; they will never come up again; no trumpet blast of resurrection shall ever blow over those sins, they are buried in the everlasting oblivion of His forgetfulness. And why? Because Christ bore them on that cross; He suffered infinitely, as no one else could suffer but Himself, His was infinite suffering there, and all the sins imputed to Him are all gone. What a comfort that is.
Now let us look at one or two more fruits of His death here. I have spoken to you of two: first of all, that God was glorified so that He could come out; before He was hidden behind the veil, now He can come out in all the full righteous- ness of His nature and love of His heart to sinners, and a way is made to God for sinners; secondly, that all His people’s sins were by one stroke for ever put away. But now there is something more than that. There is a third victory of Jesus in Matt. 27. There was not a sphere that was not made to express—and visibly too—how that victory operated on all sides. Hence we read here of a quaking earth, rending rocks, and open graves; earth, heaven, the grave, all felt the touch of victory. Think of that. God as it were in righteousness demanded of the grave a giving up. The grave, that up to this moment held and contained man as part of the sentence of God due to sin, the grave feels the victory of Jesus. And now, beloved, how blessed it is for us that know Him and trust Him, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon Him as our hope, and who have really clung to Him as our Savior, what a blessed thing to be able to stand (there is no place that one’s heart delights in more than to stand, as far as that is concerned), beside an open grave of one of God’s people; there is not any spot that brings the victory of Jesus before our souls like that, to be able to stand and put your foot upon the clod, and say, “O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” Oh how blessed! Here, is that which puts that note of triumph into our mouths, that confidence into our hearts, who trust in Christ. It is all the result of the cross, the victory of Christ.
If you see a child of God dying, and you see that person perfectly confident and restful in death, if you say, “What strong faith that person has,” that is a deception, do not say that; but say, “Oh, what a blessed triumph was the cross of Jesus! what a marvelous victory was the victory of Jesus!” That is what does it. Faith avails itself of that, no doubt, but what is faith? A poor, empty, trembling, timid hand that takes hold of the victory, that is all. And as I said last Sunday evening, it does not matter whether it is the right hand or the left hand, as people talk about strong faith and weak faith; do not trouble your mind about that. If you have got the victory, do not mind the hand you have got it in. It is the victory you have got, and it is that which takes the fear out of your heart, and enables you to sing that song at an open grave, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin” (Jesus bore it), “and the strength of sin is the law”(I have died to it in the death of Christ); “but thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. “Wherefore,” the apostle says, “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable”—there is nothing to move you or disturb you, you are standing upon a foundation against which the waves of time and the waters of eternity may roar, and beat, and swell, but it is immovable; nothing can affect it; the pillars of God’s temple were made fast in the cross of Jesus, where God was satisfied and salvation was accomplished. Think of those two things, salvation was accomplished where God was satisfied. Would you like to have it in any other connection? I should not. Thank God for it. When grace awoke my conscience to a sense of my position as a sinner, this is what came to me, you have offended God, you have outraged God, it is God that has to be satisfied, it is God that has to be met, it is God that has to be glorified, it is God’s holy, righteous claims that must be discharged. It would be a very easy thing to discharge what I thought was necessary, for I know all our thoughts of sin are very poor, very shallow indeed, compared with the reality of it according to God, but is God satisfied? that is the point, Is He glorified? Thank God He is satisfied. Has He received a full equivalent? Yes, a full equivalent. Now when I see that God has been satisfied, that God has been glorified, I say, That will do for me, there I rest, I can rest where God has received His fullest claims.
There is one thing more here, though I need not dwell upon that, because we had it before us in speaking of resurrection, and that is, that “the bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of their graves after his resurrection, and appeared unto many”; that is to say, as soon as ever the Lord Jesus was in the circumstances of the firstfruits, for He was “the firstfruits of them that slept,” He must be first in His resurrection of glory, and victory, and triumph, when He arose, then the harvest of which He was the wave-sheaf arose with Him.
But there is one other point I would like to call your attention to here. There was this poor Gentile Roman centurion watching Jesus; he was a heathen, the commander of the guard that watched the scene of the crucifixion. And when he witnessed all those things, heathen and Gentile though he was, how beautiful, how blessed to see that God would give testimony there of the far-reaching desire of His heart for Gentiles as well as Jews now. This poor Gentile says, Well, truly this is the Son of God. And that connects itself exactly with that beautiful scripture in John 12, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” A lifted up Savior, lifted up between the heavens and the earth, became the center of attraction to draw poor hearts to Himself. Here you get this very truth coming out.
O beloved friends, no heart could e’er conceive, or tongue tell the magnificence of these victories of the Lord Jesus. I commend the fruits of it to you tonight; I commend that blessed work which that blessed One there once and for all accomplished on that cross, I commend it to you. You will find there that which will sustain your soul, that which will uphold your soul, and that not merely in prospect of dis- solution, not merely in prospect of the breaking up of everything down here. And mark this, there is not anything on this earth which is not breaking up. Everything is shaking, everything is rocking to its very basis. There is a sort of universal dread, uncertainty hanging about every atmosphere in this world, around the political atmosphere, around the commercial atmosphere, around the domestic atmosphere. Thank God, here is something that never changes, that remains in all its intense immovability. And how blessed to think of this, that though thousands and thousands of sinners have here rested, it will bear the weight of thousands more. I often think of that little hymn that we sing together, that when the Lord shall come,
“Rising millions shall proclaim,
Blessings on the Savior’s name.”
We shall see, beloved, in that scene of glory, thousands and thousands of people whom we never expected to see there, blessed be His name, and the greatest of all wonders, save for His grace, will be that we shall see ourselves there. Whenever the heart gets a sense of its own vileness, and wretchedness, and ruin, and misery, its own complete thorough badness and ruin before God, then we know that nothing but the blood of Jesus could wash away its sin. Thank God, that can, thank God, that does, now and for ever. The moment the blood is applied to my conscience, that blood that has met the claims of a holy God, glorified Him about sin down to the very lowest depths where that blessed One went, and He could not go lower than He went, I say when that blood is applied to the conscience, it is purged from every spot and every stain of sin. And I have it now, and that is what I preach to you tonight—a present salvation, a personal salvation and a permanent salvation. We preach salvation through this cross of Jesus in these three characters—a present salvation for any sinner here tonight that will simply trust in that blessed One; a personal salvation for the sinner that will come; and a permanent salvation, for nothing can undo it; all in virtue of the completeness, the fulness, and the perfection of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on that cross l800 years ago. Will you have it now? Have you got it? That is the question. If you have not got it, what have you got? You might have all the dignities, all the wealth, all the honor, all the glory that this poor wretched world could ever heap upon a poor worm, yet what would it be, beloved friends? Just so much to pile up as a funeral pile; you would have to leave it all then. Just so much to freight your heart with; just so much to sink you down into misery and wretchedness. I never met a man in this world yet that had enough. “Much would have more,” as the saying is; and that is the principle of this world. Increase it, and you increase the desire for more. But oh! thank God, this is what can satisfy, and nothing else can.
it is a miserable thing to me to go about and see the dissatisfied countenances of God’s people. You will bear with me for saying it, but nothing is so grievous I think as to look into the countenance of those that ought to be satisfied and see the elements there of dissatisfaction; it is simply heart- breaking. I am not at all surprised to see a person in the world unsatisfied. I say that person is entitled to have a miserable face, he has no right to be happy. There you are tonight, dear unsaved one, unconverted and unhappy. Do not tell me you are happy; you are unconverted and you are miserable. And your so-called religion is exactly on the principle of insurance; you are paying so many premiums against a certain day—unhappy, uncertain, miserable, nothing settled, afraid, no peace, no rest, no satisfaction.
O, beloved friends, come tonight and taste the blessedness of this salvation of God. Hearken to the words of the blessed God Himself in His gracious pleadings (I think it is so wonderful to see how He pleads), “Wherefore do ye spend your money for that -which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not.” Think of the goodness of God to come down and plead with poor wretched beings like you and me. Your money and your labor are all being expended for what is not bread and what does not satisfy. “Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” That is what suits a poor bankrupt sinner, that is what suits you, that is what suited me in my spiritual bankruptcy and ruin, and salvation for nothing on my side, but a salvation that was infinite in its cost on God’s side. Taste it tonight, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” Come and taste the positive pleasure of trusting in One that is worthy of being trusted, One that invites your trust, one that invites your confidence. Come; if you have never come before, come tonight. The Lord bless you, the Lord meet you here in this very place as you sit upon those seats. Come and trust that blessed One. I was going to say venture, but I cannot say venture, because there is no venture in it. We used to sing,
“Venture on Him, venture wholly,”
but I cannot sing that now. It is no venture, it is a positive certainty. Come and trust Him, and enjoy that certainty this night, through Jesus Christ our Lord.