Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1550
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, July 25, 1880
“Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!” 2 Corinthians 9:15.
PAUL had spoken of the liberality of the Corinthian Believers and he had endeavored to stir them up to a prudent preparation for displaying it. “Now, therefore,” he said, “perform the doing of it, that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance, also, out of that which you have.” He closes his exhortation by this remarkable sentence—“Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!”—intending, no doubt, to thereby give expression to his own hearty thankfulness and also to deliver a master stroke of argument for Christian liberality. Nothing can so excite God’s people as to give to Him, as the remembrance of what God has given to them. “Freely you have received, freely give,” is our Lord’s own argument. Gospel Graces are best stimulated by Gospel motives.
It is wrong to appeal to Believers by reasons drawn from the Law of Works, for they are not under it. Children are to be ruled as children, not as oxen. Appeal should be made to renewed hearts by arguments distilled from the Law of love under which they live! Seeing God has loved them with an infinite love, this love has become the most mighty of forces within them—“The love of Christ constrains us.” Nothing can move a man to complete consecration to God like the fact that He so loved us that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
The Gospel is founded upon giving and its spirit is giving. Buying and selling are unknown in spiritual things, unless we buy without money and without price. Payment is for the Law. Under the Gospel, everything is a gift. God gives us Jesus, gives us eternal life, gives us Grace and glory, gives us everything, in fact, and then, moved by love to Him, we give ourselves back to Him and to His people. As it is the glory of the sun that he gives light and heat to our world, so is it God’s Glory that He gives mercy and peace to the sons of men. And, moreover, as the sun is the author of reflected heat and is all the more valued because his beams can be reflected, so is God glorified by that part of His goodness which we are able to impart to others. God is glorified in the thanksgiving which is excited by the gifts of His people to the poor, as well as by their personal thanksgivings for His own gifts. He gives to us and we thank Him. We give to others and they thank God for the kindness which He has inspired in us. Thus a round of thanksgiving to God is created by the spirit of giving which first of all displayed itself in the unspeakable gift of God! We are as cups filled at the spring and from us the thirsty drink and praise the fountain!
Paul had been boasting of the liberality of the Corinthians and he somewhat feared that by their delay he might be made ashamed. He seemed almost alarmed lest he had said too much about their gifts. He could speak upon that subject and say all that should be said, but he felt that he could not describe the liberality of God. The gifts of the Corinthians were such as he could speak of, but when he thought of what God had given, he could only cry, “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!” You can readily put down in black and white and count up the largest contributions of the most self-sacrificing Believers—but you cannot estimate the gift of God. You cannot estimate the value of God’s own dear Son—you could certainly give no expression to any estimate you had formed if it were in the least degree worthy of the subject. The love which is seen in Jesus is indescribable, infinite, unspeakable.
During this meditation I desire to aid you, as the Holy Spirit shall aid me, for in my case the power to speak of this unspeakable gift must, itself, be a gift. I trust it shall be given me in the same hour in which I shall speak. We will first consider that Christ Jesus is the unspeakable gift —but we are not going to be silent because of this—for our second head is Christ Jesus is a gift to be very much spoken of! The unspeakable gift is to be forever spoken of by way of gratitude—“Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!”
I. First, then, the eternal Son of God given of God unto men, CHRIST JESUS IS THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT and He is so in many ways. To begin with, no man can doctrinally lay down the whole meaning of the gift of Christ to men. The Church has produced thoughtful scholars whom it has called, “Divines,” and described as “eminent theologians.” From these teachers we have, no doubt, received much help in the exposition of the Word of God and yet if we put them all together they have never been able to unfold to us the entire meaning of the gift of the Son of God to men! The devout and studious have, themselves, cried out, “O the depths,” but they have not pretended to fathom this abyss of mystery.