Baptists -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 19th century
have been saved from eternal death except an expiation had been wrought
by Jesus' sacrifice. Not one of us could have been quickened into
spiritual life except Christ himself had died and risen from the dead.
Brethren, all the spiritual life that there is in the world is the
result of Christ's death. We live under a dispensation which shadows
forth this truth to us. Life first came into the world by a creation:
that was lost in the garden. Since then, the father of our race is Noah,
and life by Noah came to us by a typical death, burial, and
resurrection. Noah went in unto the ark, and was shut in, and so buried.
In that ark Noah went among the dead, himself enveloped in the rain and
in the ark, and he came out into a new world, rising again, as it were,
when the waters were assuaged. That is the way of life to-day. We are
dead with Christ, we are buried with Christ, we are risen with Christ;
and there is no real spiritual life in this world except that which has
come to us by the process of death, burial, and resurrection with
Christ. Do you know anything about this, dear friends?--for if you do
not, you know not the life of God. You know the theory, but do you know
the experimental power of this within your own spirit? Whenever we hear
the doctrine of the atonement attacked, let us stand up for it. Let us
tell the world that while we value the life of Christ even more than
they do, we know that it is not the example of Christ that saves
anybody, but his death for our sakes. If the blessed Christ had lived
here all these nineteen hundred years, without sin, teaching all his
marvellous precepts with his own sublime and simple eloquence, yet he
had not produced one single atom of spiritual life among all the sons of
men. Without dying he brings forth no fruit. If you want life, my dear
hearer, you will not get it as an unregenerate man by attempting to
imitate the example of Christ. You may get good of a certain sort that
way, but you will never obtain spiritual life and eternal salvation by
that method. You must believe on Jesus as dying for you. You have to
understand that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanses us
from all sin. When you have learned that truth, you shall study his life
with advantage; but unless you recognize that the grain of wheat is cast
into the ground, and made to die, you will never realize any fruit from
it in your own soul, or see fruit in the souls of others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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