Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1717
“I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me. This He said, signifying what death He should die.” John 12:32,33.
On an evening when the regular hearers left their seats to be occupied by strangers.
JESUS is the spokesman here. He tells of His own death by crucifixion and of the result which will follow. It appears, then, that our Lord’s power to draw all men to Himself lies mainly in His death. By being lifted up from the earth upon the Cross, He was made to die and He also was made to draw all men unto Himself. There is an attractive power about our Lord’s Person, about His life and about His teaching. But, still, the main attractive force lies in His death upon the Cross! Most certainly this is rare and strange, for when a great religious leader dies, a large measure of his personal power is gone. The charm of the man’s manner, the impressiveness of his personal conviction, the lofty tone of his daily enthusiasm—these are immense helps to a cause while they are with us! But to lose them is a fearful drawback such as makes it perilous for a religious leader to die.
Men may remember a leader’s life for a time after his death—they will do so most emphatically if he has been eminently good. We say of the righteous—“Even in their ashes live their habitual fires.” From many a tomb there rises a silent voice more eloquent than the choicest speech—“He being dead yet speaks.” But there is a measure and boundary to the influence of a mere memory. How often is it the case that, after a little while, the leader having gone, the feebler folk gradually drop away; the hypocritical openly desert; the lukewarm wander and so the cause dies out. The man’s successors desert his principles, or maintain them with but little life and energy and, therefore, what was once a hopeful effort expires like a dying taper. For a man’s work to prosper it is not desirable that he should die.
Is it not strange that what is so often fatal to the influence of other men is a gain to our Lord Jesus Christ? For it is by His death that He possesses His most powerful influence over the sons of men! Because Jesus died, He is, this day, the mightiest ruler of human minds, the great center to which all hearts are being drawn! Remember, too, that our Lord Jesus Christ died by a most shameful death. We have come to use the cross as an ornament and, by some, it is regarded as an object of reverence. But the cross, to speak very plainly, was to the ancients what the gallows are to us—an odious instrument of death for felons—exactly that and no more!
The death on a cross was one never allotted to a Roman citizen except for certain heinous crimes. It was regarded as the death penalty of a slave. It was not only painful, it was disgraceful and ignominious. And to say that a man was crucified was, in our Lord’s time, exactly tantamount to saying in our speech today that he was hanged. It means just that— and you must accept the death of the cross with all the shame that can be connected with the gallows and the tree of death, or else you will not understand what it meant to Jesus and His disciples.
Now, surely, if a man is hanged, there is an end to his influence among men. When I was looking through all the Bible commentaries in the English language, I found one with a title page attributing it to Dr. Coke. But on further examination I perceived that it was the commentary of Dr. Dodd, who was executed for forgery! After He had been hanged, of course the publishers could not sell a commentary under his name and so they engaged another learned doctor to take it under his wing. The man was hanged and, therefore, people would not read his book—and you are not at all surprised that it should be so.
But here is an amazing thing. The Lord Jesus has lost no influence by having been hanged upon the Cross! No, rather it is because of His shameful death that He is able to draw all men unto Himself! His Glory rises from His humiliation! His adorable conquest from His ignominious death! When He “became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross,” shame cast no shame upon His cause, but gilded it with Glory! Christ’s death of weakness threw no weakness into
Christianity! Say rather that it is the right arm of her power! By the sign of suffering unto death, the Church has conquered and will conquer still! By a love which is strong as death, she has always been victorious and must, forever, remain so. When she has not been ashamed to put the Cross in the forefront, she has never had to be ashamed, for God has been with her and Jesus has drawn all men to Himself.
The Crucified Christ has irresistible attractions—when He stoops into the utmost suffering and scorn, even the brutal must relent—a living Savior men may love, but a crucified Savior they must love! If they perceive that He loved them and gave Himself for them, their hearts are stolen away—the city of Mansoul is captured before the siege begins when the Prince Emanuel uncovers the beauties of His dying love before the eyes of the rebellious ones! Let us never be ashamed, dear Friends, to preach Christ Crucified—the Son of God lifted up to die among the condemned! Let those of us who teach in the Sunday school, or preach at the street corner, or in any other manner try to set forth the Gospel, always keep a dying Christ to the front!