Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1163
“You are bought with a price.” 1 Corinthians 6:20. “You are bought with a price.” 1 Corinthians 7:23.
THE same words are found in each place, though a different inference is drawn from them. “You are bought with a price.” This morning’s text was, “Without money and without price,” [#1161] and to the best of my ability I tried to show how freely the blessings of the Gospel are bestowed upon the sons of men. But though they cost us nothing, they cost the Savior dearly. They are without price to us, but what a price He paid! Well did our poet put it in the remarkable verse which we sang—
“There’s never a gift His hand bestows But cost His heart a groan.”
Out of that fact grow certain most weighty practical Truths of God and I have chosen it as the subject of this evening’s discourse that I may urge them upon your minds. May the Holy Spirit work graciously through the Word which you will hear and cause you to live as those who are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ.
First, I shall have to say to you that redemption is our chief blessing—nothing better can be said of you than this, “You are bought with a price.” Then I shall have to remind you that redemption on God’s part becomes His paramount claim upon us. And thirdly, I shall have to show that this claim is remarkably extensive, and I shall urge you to admit it.
I. First, then, “YOU ARE BOUGHT WITH A PRICE.” To every man of whom this may be said, it is the best news he ever heard! An angel sent from Heaven could not bring to any man or woman a more delightful message than this, “You are bought with a price, even with the precious blood of Christ.” “You are Christ’s,” says the Apostle in the chapter we read to you (1 Corinthians 3), and he seemed as if his heart glowed as he said it. He even made it the climax of a remarkable burst of eloquence. “Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”
To be bought with a price is the grandest distinction of our manhood and lifts us above angels themselves! It puts great honor upon the saints, even as the Lord has said, “Since you are precious in My sight, you have been honorable and I have loved you.” Redemption is a greater mercy than creation. It is no mean blessing to have been made and to have been made a man rather than a dog or a toad, or a worm—to have been blest with intellect, with a mind that can soar into the unseen, a judgment which can weigh, a memory which can retain, an imagination which can create and color thoughts of every kind. It is no little matter to be capable of a mental capacity which widens the sphere of existence, beliefs which open up the past and make us see the far-gone ages and hopes which relieve the darkness of the present with lamps borrowed from the future.
It is a great thing to be a man and not a bird—a man with a soul which will never fall by the fowler’s gun. It is a great thing to be an immortal man, to be a creature that shall live on forever, into whom God has dropped a spark of undying flame. It is a grand thing to have a spirit within us and not to be dumb driven cattle. But for all that, although man is highly elevated in the scale of being, and stands even at the very top of being as respects this world, having dominion over all the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths of the sea—yet if you, O created man, are not redeemed, everything about you will only be turned into dust, so that it were better for you that a millstone had been tied about your neck, that you had been thrown into the depths of the sea, or even better for you that you had never been born, if you are not redeemed! “Bought with a price” makes existence life! To be unredeemed would make existence an endless death.
Providence, also, is a short word, calling before our minds a great mass of mercies. But Providence is second in its blessedness to redemption. I would remind you of the inestimable blessings which the Providence of God has brought to many here present. It is no small thing to be in good health, no little thing to have your reason preserved. It is no minor blessing to have bread to eat and raiment to put on—and not to be distressed as many of the poorest of our Brethren are as to where they shall lay their heads—and where they shall find tomorrow’s food. Some of us are surrounded with many comforts, and ought, every time we look at the bed on which we sleep at night, and the room in which we spend our days, sing unto God who has favored us so much—
“Not more than others we deserve, But God has given us more.”
Look around you! Some of you have not only the necessities, but the luxuries of life. You are exceedingly favored in these things. But, oh, if you are not redeemed, what will it matter though you were clothed in scarlet and fine linen, and fared sumptuously each day, like Dives, and then should lift up your eyes in the flames of Hell? What would it matter, though you had the comeliness and majestic appearance of an Absalom, and yet over you a pious father would have to say, “Would God I had died for you! O Absalom, my son, my son!” What would it be to you to have been possessor of the world and to have called the seas your own, if you had no part or lot in the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ and were never saved from wrath through Him? Redemption demands a louder note of gratitude than creation! Sweet as Providence must ever be to the Believer, yet redemption, redemption is the best wine kept unto the last—the last and best work of Heaven—the mirror in which the brightest attributes of Jehovah are most clearly reflected.