Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1042
Delivered on Thursday Evening, February 29th, 1872, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
‘For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.”Hebrews 3:14.
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE for the preacher to say too much about faith, or to extol this grace too highly! It is of vital importance, not at one stage of the Christian’s history only, but throughout the whole of his career, from his setting out even till he reaches the goal where faith is turned to sight. By faith we begin the life of obedience to Christ, and by faith we continue to lead the life of holiness, for ‘the just shall live by faith.’ This is the point of honor and of safety with all the just’the justified ones. The whole compass of their well-being, though it take in the sternest sense of duty and the highest grant of privilege, is to believe simply, to rely implicitly, and to confide cheerfully, in their covenant God. The beginning of their confidence is a hopeful sign. Time will test its value. The result of that profession has yet to be shown. Hence it is necessary that the beginning of their confidence should be held fast, steadfast even unto the end. When we begin in the spirit we do not proceed with a hope to be made perfect in the flesh. We do not start with justification by faith, and then look for perfection by works. We do not lean upon Christ when we are little children, and then expect to run alone when we are men; but we live by drawing all our stores from him, while as yet we are naked, and poor, and miserable. When most enriched by his grace, we still have to say and delight to say it, ‘all my springs are in thee.’ Faith at the beginning and faith at the close; faith all the way through is the one important matter. A failure in this, as we observed in our reading, shut Israel out of the promised land. ‘They could not enter in because of unbelief.’ Unbelief is always the greatest mischief to the saints; hence they have need earnestly to watch against it. Faith is always the channel of innumerable blessings to them: they ought, therefore, most watchfully to maintain it.
We shall have to show the value of faith while we try to open up the text before us, in which I see, first, a high privilege: ‘we are made partakers of Christ;’ and secondly, by implication, a serious question’the question whether or no we have been made partakers of Christ and, then, in the third place, an unerring test. ‘We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.’
I. First, then, here is A VERY HIGH PRIVILEGE. ‘We are made partakers of Christ.’
Observe that the text does not say, ‘we are made partakers with Christ.’ That would be true, a very precious truth too, for we are joint-heirs with Christ, and because all things are his, all things are ours. Christ holds for us the entire heritage of the faithful as our representative, and as we are made partakers with him in the Father’s favor, and in the world’s hatred, so we shall be partakers with him in the glory to be revealed, and in the bliss which endures for ever and ever. But here we have to do with our being partakers of Christ, rather than our being partakers with Christ.
Neither does it say we are made partakers of rich spiritual benefits. That is a fact which we may greet with thorough trust and hearty welcome. But, dear brethren, there is more than that here. To be partakers of pardoning mercy, to be partakers of renewing grace; to be partakers of the adoption, to be partakers of sanctification, preservation, and of all the other covenant blessings, is to possess an endowment of unspeakable value; but to be made ‘partakers of Christ,’ is to have all in one. You have all the flowers in one posy, all the gems in one necklace, all the sweet spices in one delicious compound. ‘We are made partakers of Christ''of himself. ‘It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell,’ and we are made partakers with him of all that he is ordained to be of God unto us”wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.’ We are partakers of him; this is a privilege that no tongue can ever utter, no thought of finite mortal can ever grasp. But ah, it would need more time than we can afford, and far more spiritual teaching than we profess to have attained, to dive into this great and profound utterance, ‘We are made partakers of Christ.’ Still, as we stand spell-bound on the margin, let us venture to sail out just a little upon the surface of this ocean of goodness and of grandeur.
We are made partakers of Christ, beloved, when first of all by faith in him we-procure a share in his merits. Sinful and sad, covered with transgressions and conscious of our shame, we come to the fountain filled with his blood, we washed in it, and were made white as snow. In that hour we became partakers of Christ. Christ is the substitute for sin. He suffered the penalty due from the unjust, for whom he died, to the violated law of God. When we believe in him we become partakers of those sufferings, or rather of the blessed fruit of them. The fact of his having borne what we ought to have borne becomes available to us. We present the memorial thereof at the altar of God, the throne of the heavenly grace, in prayers and professions, and in spiritual worship. The blood pleads our cause. The blood of Jesus, which speaketh better things than that of Abel, intercedes for mercy, not for vengeance. By its rich virtue, its real value, its vital merit, it puts our sins for ever to death and lays our fears for ever to rest. Oh, how blessed to be a partaker of Christ, the sin-atoning sacrifice’to stand before God as a sinner that deserves nothing but damnation in himself, and yet knows by precious faith, that