Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 669
Delivered on Sunday Evening, December 17, 1865
“But as many as received Him, to them ga ve He power to become the sons of God, even to them thatbelieve on His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” John 1:12.
DIVINE Truth is one, but it is many-sided. When you have looked at it from one point of view you may reverse your position, and, though the Truth at which you look will be the same, you will marvel at its freshness as seen from another aspect. This morning we sought to show you how Jesus Christ received sinners [Volume 11, Sermon #665—Open House for All Comers.] Tonight it shall be our endeavor, as the Holy Spirit may enable us, to set forth how sinners receive Christ.
It is perfectly true that the work of salvation lies first and mainly in Jesus receiving sinners to Himself to pardon, to cleanse, to sanctify, to preserve, to make perfect. But, at the same time the sinner also receives Christ. There is an act on the sinner’s part by which, being constrained by Divine Grace, he opens his heart to the admission of Jesus Christ and Jesus enters in and dwells in the heart, and reigns and rules there. To a gracious readiness of heart to entertain the Friend who knocks at the door, we are brought by God the Holy Spirit, and then He sups with us and we with Him.
We shall take, tonight, the view of the subject opened up before us by this text. We shall begin by simply and shortly describing how the sinner receives Christ. Secondly, the privilege, or power, which is conferred as the result of this reception of Christ. And thirdly, the great change which is involved in the fact that the sinner has received Christ, the fact that the sinner has been born again from above, “not of the will of man, but of God.”
I. As briefly, then, as may be, and very simply, indeed, we will describe WHAT IT IS FOR THE SINNER TO RECEIVE CHRIST. This receiving Christ lies in several things. If a man would receive Christ he must, first of all, receive Him in His Person as He is revealed in the Sacred Scriptures. We are taught over and over again in Scripture that Jesus Christ is Immanuel, God with us, God manifest in the flesh, Jehovah’s equal in fashion as a man.
The “WORD”—that “Word” of which it is said, “the Word was God”—was “made manifest” in flesh among men, and they “beheld His glory.” Though He “thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” yet “He made Himself of no reputation, but took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” This was a new and startling doctrine when first preached to heathen sages, that God should take humanity into so intimate a connection with Himself, as really and truly to be Man and God in the same Person.
But it is a doctrine which must be received by you or else you cannot receive Christ. My Master will not be satisfied with the acknowledgment that His Character is lovely, His doctrine pure, and His moral teaching super-excellent. He will not be content with your admission that He is a Prophet greater than any Prophet that ever came before or after Him. He will not rest satisfied with your admission that He is a teacher sent from Heaven, and a Being who, on account of His virtues, is now peculiarly exalted in Heaven.
All this is well, but it is not enough! You must also believe that He, who as Man was born of the Virgin, and was dandled upon her lap at Bethlehem, was as God none other than the everlasting Lord, without beginning of days or end of years. You do not receive Christ in very deed and truth unless you believe in His proper humanity and actual Godhead. Indeed, what is there for you to receive if you do not receive this? A Savior who is not Divine can be no Savior for us! How can a mere man, however eminent, deliver his fellows from sins such as yours and mine? How can he bear the burden of our guilt any more than we can ourselves bear it, if there is no more about him than about any other singularly virtuous man?
An angel would stagger beneath the load of human criminality, and much more would this be the case with even a perfect man. It needed those mighty shoulders—“Which bear the earth’s huge pillars up,” to sustain the weight of human sin, and carry it into the wilderness of forgetfulness! You must receive Christ, in order to be saved by Him, as being God though man. But, my dear Friends, the mere belief of this doctrine will not save anybody! There are many persons who have no need to fear the curses of the Athanasian Creed, nor the test of any other dogmatic way of expressing the fact of the Deity of Christ. But they are, nevertheless, very far from having received Christ Jesus Himself! A man may believe another to be a clever physician, and yet if he has a personal objection to him, he may refuse to receive him as such.
If a man would receive Jesus rightly, he must, in the next place, accept Him in all His offices. Our blessed Lord has three main offices. We find Him spoken of as “Prophet,” “Priest,” and “King,” and men must be willing to take Him in each and all of the three. As a “Prophet” He teaches—what He has received of God He manifests to man. Am I willing to abide by His teaching? Do I take His words, and the words which He delivered by His Apostles, as being my directory and rule? I have a certain “doxy” which some call, “heterodoxy,” but which, perhaps, I think to be “orthodoxy.” Can I sincerely say that Jesus Christ is the Dictator of my orthodoxy?