Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1555
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, August 29, 1880
“In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His Grace.” Ephesians 1:7.
LAST Sunday morning the subject was redemption, “You are not your own: you are bought with a price.” The sequel to redemption is pardon—the text gives us that doctrine, for it tells us that redemption through the blood of Jesus involves the forgiveness of sins. Our subject, at this time, shall be the forgiveness of sin, the measure, mode, medium and manifestation of it as set forth in the words before us. May the Holy Spirit sweetly open up to us the glories of our sin-forgiving God and cause us to exult in the riches of His Grace.
Beloved Friends, no one can say that we have before us a theme which is unpractical, speculative and fanciful! No one will be able to charge the preacher with discoursing upon a subject with which his hearers have little or nothing to do, or wandering into barren fancies which cannot affect their actual lives. It is true that some sermons are barely human and might as well have been addressed to the inhabitants of Jupiter or Saturn as to ourselves, but such shall not be the case with our discourse. We have no hairlines of metaphysical subtlety before us—our theme runs parallel with the beaten track of everyday life.
Sin is, alas, too familiar with us. We have all committed it; the slime of the serpent has been upon us; we are still affected by it. As an adder in the path, it bites at our heels and it will be our daily trial, like the fiery serpents in the wilderness, till we enter the promised rest. Sin, as a thing of the past, cannot be forgotten. Was there ever a more sore bondage than that with which made us serve it with rigor? Sin, as a matter of affliction for the present, is not to be ignored—was there ever a sterner fight than we have to wage against evil outside and within? Sin, as a danger still ahead, must not be overlooked—were there ever rocks or quicksand more terrible to the mariner than temptations to sin which yet lie before us on our voyage to Heaven? Sin is always around us! Where shall we hasten to escape from its presence? If in holy communion we climb to Pisgah’s top, we stumble even in view of Canaan and slip upon our high places! And if we descend into the lowest deeps, like David, till all God’s waves and billows have gone over us, our despondency and unbelief cause us to sin amid our humiliations! Should I take the wings of the morning and fly unto the uttermost parts of the sea, unless I could escape from myself, even there would sin follow me and its hand would smite me to my sore wounding.
Nothing can be more practical than the doctrine which deals with sin and its removal and no news can be more pleasant than the tidings of remission! Why, the very sound of that word, “Forgiveness of sins” is a joy forever! No marriage bell has more music in its notes. To the guilty, forgiveness is a tone of joy which their jaded ears are able to hear without strain. It ministers refreshment to the weary heart. High joys and rare delights are apt to send forth raised notes which terrified consciences cannot endure—their very sweetness is sharp and distressing to the sorrowful—and their harmony causes a deeper discord in the broken heart!
But forgiveness has a soft, silver sound, mellow and tender and when man’s ears are stunned with the thunder and the terror of the wrath to come, then he is charmed to listen to its soothing melody. The gentle love whispers of Free Grace and dying love and pardons bought with blood are as Heaven’s own sonnets to troubled souls! It is my earnest desire, dear Friends, that many, this morning, may come to believe in the joyful doctrine of the forgiveness of sins! It is an article in the creed, but I want it to be a substantive in your lives. Most men say that they believe it, but their belief is often nominal and a nominal faith, like nominal wealth, only makes the absence of the reality the more deplorable.
In two instances there is clearly no faith in forgiven sin. The first is in the case of those who have never felt that they are sinful. How can he who does not believe in the existence of sin, believe in the forgiveness of it? His whole confession on that matter belongs to the region of fiction. If sin is not a terrible fact to you, pardon will never be more than a no-
tion. A second class of persons who do not believe in forgiveness are those who know the guilt of sin but are not yet able to believe in the Lord Jesus for the remission of their transgressions. They need to be admonished as Luther was by the godly old monk. When he was greatly distressed under conviction of his guilt, the aged man said, “Did you not say this morning in the creed, ‘I believe in the forgiveness of sin’?”
Luther, like many more, had repeated those words, but had never grasped their meaning. Oh, my dear Hearers, do not be theoretical Believers! You believe in sin, believe, also in its pardon! Let the one be as much a Truth of God as the other. You believe in the punishment of sin in the case of the impenitent, be equally sure of the pardon of sin to Believers! You believe in the guilt of your own personal sin, believe, also, in the power of Jesus, at this moment, to blot out all your transgressions and, lo, they shall vanish as a cloud which is driven before the north wind! Forgiveness in Christ Jesus accepted by faith is now to be enjoyed and, with it, perfect rest and peace of heart. God grant it to you at this present moment—then shall my theme be marrow and fatness to you.