Is the fact, that a man is a great sinner, any reason why
he may not, and should not, be a partaker of the salvation which is revealed
by the cross of Christ? Some of us have a deep interest in this question,
because some of us, when the book of God's remembrance shall be opened, will
be seen to be among the greatest sinners. "Some sins in themselves, and by
reason of their several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God
than others." There are those who are vile, exceedingly depraved by sin, and
openly and flagitiously wicked in the sight of God and the world. There are
also those who, though not vile in the sight of the world, are vile in their
own eyes, and whose habits of sinning, though not known to men, fill their
own bosoms with reproach and shame, and not infrequently with despair. And
there are not wanting those, who are neither vile in their own eyes, nor in
the view of their fellow-men, who are yet vile in the eyes of God, and whose
wickedness is so masked and veiled under the forms of serious godliness, or
grave morality, that its enormity is naked and open only "unto the eyes of
Him with whom they have to do." Is there relief in the cross of Christ for
such sinners as these? Does it open the door of hope to them? or are the
gates of the heavenly city forever shut against them, so that of all the
multitudes who enter within its walls, not one such grievous offender shall
be found? The answer which the gospel gives to this question is truly a
wonderful answer. Hear it, O earth! "O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of
the Lord!" Glad tidings is it of great joy to all people. It is, that "where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound." It is no fiction, no dream of a
disturbed and enthusiastic imagination. "It is a faithful saying, and worthy
of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,
even the chief." It is, that sins of the highest enormity and deepest die do
not exceed the efficacy of atoning blood. It is, that men whose wickedness
is so flagrant that it would seem the most daring presumption, the most
mortal effrontery, for them to hope for salvation, may find it at the cross.
"And is this the manner of man, O Lord God."
Little as these thoughts may accord with our
self-righteous notions, we shall find them distinctly and most abundantly
revealed in the word of God. The method of salvation devised for men is very
different from that which men would sincerely devise for themselves. Men of
a comparatively harmless and inoffensive life, the self-complacent moralist,
and the punctual and exact observer of all the outward forms of religion,
rest their hopes on something short of the great work of Jesus Christ. If
you could enter into the secret operations of their own minds, you would
find great multitudes who have hope toward God because they are not so bad
as others; or, which is the more true account of the matter, because they
are better than other men. A reliance on some less degree of demerit, is the
same thing with reliance on a greater degree of merit in the sinner. This
whole moral arrangement, in every shape and form, is based upon the single
principle of justification by the deeds of the law. The salvation devised in
the counsels of heaven is a very different method of salvation from this.
Conscience unites with the cross in teaching us, that the man who would find
acceptance with God by his own well-doing, may not be an offender even "in
one point." His obedience must be sinless; he must produce a perfect
righteousness, or be "weighed in the balances, and found wanting." When it
is testified to us, on the truth of Him who cannot lie, that there is a
Surety accepted by God, and a satisfaction rendered by that Surety which is
apart from any obedience of ours, we have the assurance that the
righteousness upon which we are accepted regards us as worthless. When it is
testified to us that grace reigns, "through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord," we have the assurance that, as there is no hope
for an individual of the race because his sins are few and small, so is
there not an individual of the race who is excluded from hope because his
sins are many and great. If his righteousness be not of his own, but of
God's providing—if it be not of his own working, but of God's imputing—then,
at the moment of his believing in Jesus Christ, has he the full remission of
his sins, and a title to eternal life, whether his iniquities are few or
many, small or great. Save upon these terms, there is no hope for the least
sinner; while, upon such terms as these, God will "abundantly pardon" the
greatest. He whose infinite mind alone estimates the turpitude, the
malignity, the pollution, the ingratitude of all sin, and who alone is
capable of measuring the height, and length, and breadth, and depth of it,
allows no reserves and no limitations to be imposed on the all-sufficiency
of his redemption by the number and greatness of man's transgressions. The
blood of sprinkling covers the whole ground of his disobedience, and
cleanses its foulest stains. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be
as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
The great God is infinite. Not more true is it that his
wisdom and power are infinite, than that his mercy is infinite. Everything
about it is infinite. It proceeds from infinite Being, flows through the
medium of an infinite sacrifice, surmounts obstacles that are infinite, and
addresses itself to those who are infinitely unworthy and ill-deserving.
Unlike the cold and inactive compassion of men, it acts itself out in ways
best fitted to gratify and express its plenitude and tenderness. This is its
great motive and impulse. It goes after the lost sheep; it becomes familiar
with the abodes of guilt and shame; it binds up the broken-hearted—it
proclaims liberty to those who, from the deepest dungeon and the most dreary
darkness, are waiting the hour of their execution. Compassion and tenderness
here find something to interest them. "The greater the sin, the greater the
misery and helplessness." The greater the misery and helplessness, the
stronger, the more resistless the appeal to God's tender mercies. Never do
those mercies more truly consult their own intrinsic tenderness, and never
do they more truly act in keeping with their own heavenly nature, than when
their richest bounty is lavished on the greatest sinners. It is not to "call
the righteous" that the Savior came, "but sinners to repentance." The
tenderest expostulations of the Divine mercy are not uttered over the
boasting Pharisee, but over the corrupted and dishonest publican; over the
degraded and ruined; over the pitiable demoniac that dwelt among the tombs;
and over idolatrous Ephraim, abandoned to his paganism, wedded to his lusts,
and offering sacrifice to devils, and not to God. It is over these, and such
as these, that the admonition has so often been poured forth—"How shall I
give you up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver you, Israel? how shall I set you
as Admah? how shall I make you as Zeboim? My heart is turned within me; my
repentings are kindled together—for I am God and not man!"
Human charities are for the most part exhausted on
virtuous suffering. Misery, when self-procured, and the fruit of crime, is
least pitied by men. But such is not the history of the Divine compassion.
"O Israel, you have destroyed yourself, but in me is your help!" Heavenly
mercy has robes for the chilled and emaciated limbs of guilt and ignominy.
The heavenly Physician comes with a remedy for the dying, even though they
have destroyed themselves. He rescues the drowning sinner, though he plunged
himself into the deep waters. The poisoned arrow which the headlong and
reckless transgressor had plunged into his own bosom, he draws gently forth,
and bids him live. These are the deeds of mercy to which the mercy of Heaven
is most inclined, and, were there no other considerations to restrain it,
the very deeds in which it would most abound. If there be one sinner in the
world greater than another—one who is of all others "the farthest from God
and the nearest to hell," and who, if not rescued, will be the most
miserable of the race to all eternity—other things being equal, that is the
sinner in whom the mercy of the cross takes the deepest interest, over whom
it weeps most in secret places, and whom, by every means and every motive,
it would most encourage and allure.
God teaches men by facts. Ordinary minds, and indeed all
minds, are better taught by facts than general principles or argument. When
we look into the Bible, we not only see the calls and invitations of the
cross extended to men of every description of character, but learn that very
many who were justly numbered among the vilest, have actually been brought
to repentance, and found mercy. The Scriptures intentionally record this
fact, and the sacred writers take pleasure in dwelling upon it. They furnish
the names and history of not a few of the vilest ever known among the
generations of men, who have found pardon and peace, and who "washed their
robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Manasseh and Saul of
Tarsus—the former the seducer of his nation into idolatry, and by his
merciless and cruel sword filling the land with the blood of the innocent,
and the latter a bold blasphemer and relentless persecutor of the church of
God—were made monuments of redeeming mercy. "This man receives sinners, and
eats with them," was the proverbial reproach which his enemies cast upon the
Son of God. Publicans and harlots attended on his ministry, and found
cleansing in his blood. Degenerate and apostate Jerusalem, whose "very
temple was turned into a slaughter-house of prophets and holy men," and
whose inhabitants were the ringleaders of that fearful mob that crucified
the Lord of glory, was the spot selected, above all others, where the first
wonders of the Divine mercy were unfolded, and where thousands became
obedient to the faith. The churches of Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, were made
up of men who were once fornicators, adulterers, idolaters, effeminate,
abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, drunkards, revilers and
extortioners; "but they were washed, they were sanctified, they were
justified, "in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."
The book of providence records facts like these on every page of this
world's history. On the deck of yonder slave-ship, was once a foul-mouthed,
profane young man, who knew no law but his guilty passions, and had no
object but gain. That young man was John Newton, afterwards the
distinguished friend of God and his grace, the humble follower and minister
of Christ, and the chosen comforter of his people. In yonder shop was a
low-bred man, who says of himself, that "from a child he had few equals for
cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming the holy name of God," and who
was, to a mournful extent, the victim of debasing lusts and the corrupter of
his fellow-men. It was no other than he whose "Grace Abounding" and
"Pilgrim's Progress" have lighted up the wilderness to so many travelers
toward the celestial city. What the cross was to these, it has been to
thousands and thousands like them. Great sinners there are in hell, but
sinners as great, in great numbers, are also found in heaven; and while the
one show forth the glories of the Divine justice, the other are rivals in
the blessed work of showing forth their obligations to unsearchable grace.
The self-righteous may murmur, and express their envy; they may cast
reproach upon that grace which they reject, and which so many viler than
they humbly and thankfully receive; while it still remains a truth, that the
greatest of sinners may find salvation in the cross. They are not the
amiable and the moral only, to whom this grace is extended, but the wayward
and vicious. It is not to the youthful sinner only, and before his
wickedness has become matured by age, and aggravated by abused privileges,
but to the "hoary scalp" of him who stops in his mad career, even on the
outer verge of human life. It is not to the new-born babe alone, but to the
dying thief.
When the redeemed reach the shores of their long-looked
for eternity, the song they will sing will be, "Unto him that loved us, and
washed us from our sins in his own blood." Great and everlasting honors will
accrue to him for his love to guilty men, and for that wonderful stoop of
condescension which brought him down from heaven to save them from their
sins. No angelic song will ever equal this "new song" from the lips of
Christ's redeemed. And many a tongue will utter it which once cursed him;
and many a voice will swell its harmony which once reveled in debasing
wickedness, and was heard louder than its compeers amid scenes of brutal
dissipation.
This is no doubt among the reasons why there is mercy for
the greatest sinner. The exalted Savior professes to be "mighty to
save"—"able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him." To
prove his sufficiency, and make it known, he saves the vilest and most
hopeless. No matter how black the night of ignorance, or how strong the
bonds of sin, or how damning the guilt; he illuminates the darkness, breaks
the bondage, and, for all the guilt his blood atones. Rigorous as are the
claims of law and justice, he satisfies them. Deep and fresh as are the
wounds in the bleeding conscience, he staunches them. Be the spiritual
maladies ever so desperate and incurable, he has a remedy for them. And
while he thus demonstrates his title to the honors he receives, and in the
ages to come shows forth "the exceeding riches of his grace," he at the same
time demonstrates the all-sufficiency in which he glories. Many a great
sinner, in the last stage of a distressing conviction, has rested his plea
at the throne of grace on this one argument. It was his only hope. And many
an offending child of God, too, has here rested his plea for the restored
light of God's countenance, which he had lost by his wickedness. Not unlike
this, was the argument of the psalmist, when, stained as his hands were with
the double crime of adultery and murder, he ventured to say, "For your
name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great." Strange
argument for pardon, but as effective as it is strange! There is amazing
power and grace in saving the viler sort of men, because there is everything
to oppose and overcome. It is not always safe to rouse the tiger in his
lair. In the language of Bunyan, "Satan is loth to part with a great
sinner," and when his deliverance is accomplished, it is an emphatic triumph
of the Omnipotent Deliverer. Just as the sun shows not his power so much by
shining across the clear sky, as by dissipating the thick and lowering
storm, so the Sun of Righteousness never rises so sensibly with healing in
his beams, as when he scatters the blackening clouds of the approaching
tempest. The grace that reigns by the cross, is never so gracious as when it
holds back the sword of justice from the most vile and worthless, and
rescues its victim as "a brand plucked out of the fire." He who left Pharaoh
an unconverted man, and in his rightful and adorable sovereignty hardened
his heart, that "his name might be known in all the earth," often, to make
his great name known, takes the heart of stone away from the most obdurate
and hardened of our race, that it may turn to him for "a name of joy, a
praise, and an honor before all the nations of the earth."
Another end to be answered by such dispensations of
Divine grace, is to afford encouragement to all men, without exception, to
come to Jesus Christ. If the greatest sinners may be saved, none may
despair. If there be grace for the worst who come to Jesus, then is there
sufficient for all. The spell of the great Deceiver is broken, and he may no
longer hold men in bondage by the fiend-like suggestion, that they are
beyond the reach of mercy. By bringing so many of the most obdurate and
guilty to the cross, God would have the world distinctly understand that
there is no ground and no room for discouragement. No man may say that his
sins are too great to be forgiven. But for what God has said and done in the
acceptance of great sinners, thousands who have, on this account, been
encouraged to seek religion and come to Christ, never would have dared to
approach him. When we hear such a man as Saul of Tarsus say, "It is a
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners, of whom I AM CHIEF," which of us does not feel
the greatest encouragement to repair to the cross? The writer will not
easily forget the impression which the following sentence from the forcible
writer to whom he just now referred, once made on his own mind—"When one
great sinner finds mercy, another great sinner is encouraged to hope that he
may find mercy also." It is a simple thought; but there are states of mind
in which it is unutterably precious. The great mass of awakened and
convinced sinners would be utterly discouraged by a view of their own
ignorance, weakness, darkness and wickedness, were it not for just such
facts and assurances as these. But who shall be depressed, when he looks at
the long catalogue of vile and atrocious offenders, from Adam down to the
present hour! "Oh! I am a reprobate. The measure of my iniquity is full. I
am just fit for eternal burnings. It is not possible there should be hope
for such a sinner!" Who is it that says this? It sounds like a voice from
the caverns of despair, rather than from this world of mercy where Jesus
wept and died. And who is it that is the prompter to such despondency? It is
some dark spirit of the pit. It is not the Spirit of God; it is not the
Savior of men; it is not the Bible; nor is it the prompting of those
multiplied proofs of the power of grace with which heaven has been filled
from our apostate world. God does not save men from tenderness to their own
souls merely, but that, through his mercy to them, others may also find
mercy. Eternity alone can reveal the number of those who have been kept from
sinking into despair, and into hell itself, by those narratives of
conversion which have abounded in this land within the past twenty years. If
Christ "had rather save than damn" that poor drunkard, that vile debauchee,
that hardened infidel, that son of godly parents who has become a very
maniac in wickedness, and every one of these is now hoping in his mercy, and
adorning that hope by a well-ordered life and deportment; what encouragement
is there for me—for you—for all! Never was a truth more fitted to the
condition of our lost world than this. Oh, the unspeakable fullness and
riches, and sovereignty of grace in the cross! What can the guilty sinner
want more? Not until a voice from heaven, calling him by name, and
foretelling his dreadful doom—no, not until he has passed the regions of
this world of hope, and actually made his bed in hell, may he despair of
mercy. Tell me where the vilest sinner is to be found that dwells on God's
footstool; conduct me to his abode of wickedness and gloom; and if it be
anywhere this side the grave, I would assure him in God's name, that he who
was lifted up from the earth came to save just such sinners as he. Question
not the truth of God. Limit not the infinitude of his mercy. Distrust not
his omnipotent power. Reject not his only Son. He is the sinner's Friend,
and his last hope. His language is, "Let him that hears say, Come; let him
that is athirst come; and whoever will, let him take the water of life
freely."
There is one most beautiful feature in this arrangement
of the Divine mercy—it is, the reaction which it exerts upon the mind of the
saved sinner himself. "Simon," said our Divine Lord, "I have somewhat to say
unto you.—There was a certain creditor which had two debtors—the one owed
five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay he
frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him
most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most.
And he said unto him, You have rightly judged." Great sinners who have found
mercy, never forget the love of Christ. They more usually have deeper and
more pungent convictions of conscience and of sin, both before their
conversion and afterwards, than other men, and are very apt to carry these
convictions through all their subsequent life, and with these a befitting
and corresponding sense of God's wonderful love and mercy. David's
convictions of his great sins, as recorded in the fifty-first Psalm, were of
this kind; and when he speaks of God's redeeming mercy, his language
partakes of the same strong and deep feeling. "He brought me up out of an
horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and
established my goings. And he has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to
our God.—Many, 0 Lord my God, are your wonderful works which you have done,
and your thoughts which are to us-ward; they cannot be reckoned up in order
unto you—if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be
numbered." Paul's convictions were also of the same powerful and
overwhelming character. They prostrated him on the ground; shook his whole
frame, and produced such internal conflict and agitation, that when he found
peace and joy in believing, his love was as ardent as his convictions had
been overpowering. Nothing cooled the fervor of his grateful attachment. The
sacred flame that was kindled on his way to Damascus, burned brighter and
brighter, through darkness, through trial, through the floods and through
the flames, until it rose pure from the spot where he received the martyr's
crown, and whence his spirit ascended to receive the crown that fades not
away. Ungrateful as the heart of man naturally is, when subdued by grace it
is not insensible to the love of the cross. To whom much is forgiven, the
same loves much; but "to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little."
Show me a man in whom the singleness of purpose which marked the character
of Paul is manifest, and in whose whole life is discoverable his fixedness
of aim, his all-absorbing consecration, his growing resolution and
activity—superior to discouragement and undaunted by enemies, and never
relinquishing its object until he has lost the power of exertion—and I will
show you the man who, with the buoyant hopes of a Christian, was once a
great sinner. The love of Christ constrains him, as it constrained the great
apostle, and with him he can say, "Of sinners I am the chief."—"By the grace
of God, I am what I am!" Who washed the Savior's feet with her tears, and
wiped them with the hair of her head? It was the Mary who loved much,
because she had much forgiven. What single church in the world was ever so
distinguished for its graces and its conduct, and the light of which shone
so brightly, and so long, as the first Christian church that was gathered at
Jerusalem? And this church was composed of people who had been preeminently
vile, and who had "killed the Prince of life." They were what Bunyan calls
"Jerusalem sinners." Great sinners, when once brought to the knowledge of
Christ, are for the most part the most shining examples of piety, and stand
out before the world for the instruction and comfort of those who fear God
and love his Son. Such instances of conversion in a family, in a
congregation, or in a town, are "monuments and mirrors of mercy," and they
love to "show forth the praises of Him who called them out of darkness into
his marvelous light." Our views of our obligations to the Divine mercy are
always determined by our views of personal sinfulness. It is not to dissever
the remembrance of past sins from the grace that pardons them, and its
consequent claims, that great sinners are so often brought to the cross.
There is a single thought with which I will close the
present chapter. It is one which will bear to be often repeated. No man is
excusable for neglecting so great salvation. It is a great salvation that
saves great sinners through so great a Savior. "If I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin."
What will his excuse be at the day of judgment, who sees so many of the
worst of sinners saved? Will it be that the sin of Adam brought him, without
any actual transgression of his own, into a state of sin and misery? He will
there see that thousands born in sin like himself, and irresistibly prone to
evil, have laid hold of that method of mercy, which, without any consent or
doing of their own, forms a wonderful counterpart to the first apostasy.
Will it be that he was exposed to peculiar snares and temptations? Will it
be that he was depressed, and discouraged by a view of his sins, from
seeking the kingdom of God? Will it be that his sins had gained such amazing
power over his mind, that it was vain for him to think of becoming a
Christian? Will it be that he was so wicked as to be beyond the reach of
mercy? Will it be that God was so severe and inexorable that it was useless
for him to sue for pardon? Will it be that the cross brought no glad tidings
of great joy to such a sinner as he? Will it be that no man who has lived as
he has lived, that has so "sold himself to commit deeds of wickedness," that
has abused such light and such privileges, that has passed through so many
affecting scenes, and for whom so much was done to prevent his falling into
perdition, and all in vain, never obtained mercy? No, it will be none of all
these. Great multitudes, even viler than he, will then be accepted in the
Beloved, while he is cast out. He will see then, that nothing could have
destroyed him if he had returned to God through the cross of Christ. Greater
sinners than he will rise up in the judgment and protest that he might have
been saved as well as they, and upon the same condescending and gracious
terms. And what cutting and bitter reflections will then pass through his
mind! "Oh, why, why did I not flee to the blood of the cross! Why did I not
listen, while it was called to-day! Why did I so often and so long turn a
deaf ear to the counsels of heavenly mercy! I was a great sinner; but so
were those who 'washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb;' and now they are 'before the throne of God, and serve him day and
night in his temple,' and I am a wretched outcast!"
Bitter, most bitter, will be such reproaches. How true it
is that the sinner will be hereafter his own tormentor! He needs no vengeful
storm of almighty wrath to crush him, for he is crushed under the burden of
his own reproaches. Nor can he escape, any more than he can run away from
himself. There will be no mercy for him to think of then, save the mercy he
has abused. Truly, that dismal world will be a world of tears. Sighing and
sorrow will go up from it, and groans will mingle with its inflicted wrath
and anguish.
Think, then, of the cross and his rich mercy, his free,
immeasurable, everlasting mercy, whose blood makes the foulest clean. If you
are the greatest sinner in the world, then have you the greatest need of
Christ, and what is more, the greatest encouragement to come to him. There
is room for the greatest sinner, because there is room for the least. The
least has sinned enough to perish without an interest in the cross, and the
greatest has not sinned so much but the cross may be honored in his
salvation.
"My crimes are great, but don't surpass
The power and glory of your grace—
Great God, your nature has no bound;
So let your pardoning love be found!"