Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 373
Romans 3:25.
We commenced the services in this place by the declaration that here Christ shall be preached. Our Brother who followed us expressed his joy that Christ was preached herein. He did rejoice, yes, and would rejoice, and our friends must have observed, how, throughout the other services there has been a most blessed admixture not only of the true spirit of Christ, but of pointed and admirable reference to the glories and beauties of His Person. This morning, which is the beginning of our more regular and constant ministry, we come again to the same noble theme. Christ Jesus is today to be set forth! You will not charge me for repeating myself—you will not look up to the pulpit, and say, “Pulpits are places of tautology.” You will not reply that you have heard this story so often that you have grown weary of it, for well I know that with you, the Person, the Character, and the work of Christ are always fresh themes for wonder! We have seen the sea, some of us, hundreds of times, and what an abiding sameness there is in its deep green surface; but who ever called the sea monotonous? Traveling over it as the mariner does, sometimes by the year together, there is always a freshness in the undulation of the waves, the whiteness of the foam of the breaker, the curl of the crested billow, and the frolicsome pursuit of every wave by its long train of brothers. Which of us has ever complained that the sun gave us but little variety—that at morn he yoked the same steeds, and flashed from his car the same golden glory, climbed with dull uniformity the summit of the skies, then drove his chariot downward, and bade his flaming coursers steep their burning hooves in the western deep? Who among us has complained of the monotony of the bread that we eat? We eat it today, tomorrow, the next day; we have eaten it for years passed, and though we have other savory matters therewith, yet still the one unvarying food is served upon the table, and the bread remains the staff of life. Surely I know that as Christ is your food, and your spiritual bread; as Christ is your sun, your heavenly light; as Christ is the sea of love in which your passions swim, and all your joys are found, it is not possible that you as Christian men and women should complain of a monotony in Him, “He is the same yesterday, today and forever,” and yet He has the dew of His youth. He is the manna in the golden pot which was always the same, but He is the manna which came from Heaven which was every morning new. He is the rod of Moses which was dry, and changed not its shape, but He is also to us the rod of Aaron which buds and blossoms and brings forth almonds.
I come then now to preach Christ Crucified, as God has set Him forth to be a Propitiation for us through faith in His blood. To begin at once, then, we shall notice first, what is meant here by God’s setting forth Christ as a propitiation. Secondly, we shall dwell upon the Truth which may very naturally be drawn from the first—Christ the Propitiation, as looked upon by the Believer. And then, thirdly, putting the two together, I mean inverting the two thoughts, we shall look at Christ as set forth by us, andlooked upon by God.
I. First then, the text says ofChrist Jesus, “WHOM GOD HAS SET FORTH TO BE A PROPITIATION THROUGH FAITH IN HIS BLOOD.”
The words, “set forth,” in the original may signify, “foreordained;” but according to eminent critics, it has also in it the idea of setting forth as well as a “foreordaining.” Barnes says, “The word properly means to place in public view; to exhibit in a conspicuous situation, as goods are exhibited or exposed for sale, or as premiums or rewards of victory were exhibited to public view in the games of the Greeks.” So has God the Father set forth, manifested, made conspicuous the Person of the Lord Jesus as the Propitiation of sin. How has He done this? He has done it first by ordaining Him in the Divine Decree as the Propitiation of sin. Christ did not take upon Himself the office of High Priest without being chosen thereunto as was Aaron; as surely as every member of Christ’s body is elect according to the foreknowledge of God; as certainly as in God’s Book all His members were written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them, so certainly was the Head, Himself, ordained the chosen of God. As our poet puts it—
“Christ is My first Elect He said, Then chose our souls in Christ our Head.” Perhaps some might say there could be no election where there was no room for choice. But how do we know that there was no room for choice? We can scarcely imagine that angel or archangel could have been set forth as propitiation for sin. Who can tell whether the Almighty mind might not have devised another plan? Who shall dare to limit the Holy One of Israel? At any rate, there was this choice between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; the Divine Wisdom conjoined with Divine Sovereignty, and chose and appointed and determined that Christ Jesus, the Second of the Mysterious Three, should be the Propitiation for our sins. When Christ comes into the world, He comes as One of whom all eternity had spoken—He is the Child born—born from the womb of destiny; He is the Lamb whom God had appointed from before the foundation of the world. Long before this world was made, or Adam fell, Christ had been set forth; in the volume of the Book, it had been written of Him, “I delight to do Your will, O God.” I think those who are afraid of looking back upon the great decrees of God, because they say they are secrets, have a fear where no fear is appropriate. There is never fear, my Brothers and Sisters, of our meddling with secret things. If they are secret, it is quite certain that we shall not meddle with them! Only let it be announced once and for all, that they are secret, and there is no one who can betray the secrets of God! But things that are revealed belong to us and to our children; and this is one of the things that is revealed; this is the decree and we will declare it, the Lord said unto Christ, “You are My Son, this day have I begotten You, and He has said unto Him moreover, I will make Him My First-Born, higher than the kings of the earth.” And all this that He may be the “Propitiation for our sins by faith in His blood.”