Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2131
“For there were many in the congregation that were not sanctified: therefore the Levites had the charge of the killing of the Passover lambs for everyone that was not clean to sanctify them unto the Lord. For a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the Passover contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying “The good Lord pardon everyone that prepares his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he is not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary. And the Lord listened to Hezekiah, and healed the people.” 2 Chronicles 30:17-20.
BRETHREN, it should be much to our joy that we do not serve under the ceremonial Law, nor live within the legal dispensation. The legal economy exhibited to the people a multitude of types and figures and consequently it laid down many rules and rituals—and these were enacted with such solemn and terrible penalties that the people were in constant fear of offending and found obedience irksome by reason of the weakness of their flesh and the unspirituality of their minds. As for our Lord Jesus, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. But concerning the Law, even Peter speaks of it as “a yoke which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear.”
We are now brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God, a liberty which those who had been in the bondage could best appreciate. Those who are still under legal restrictions feel the pressure of them when they see the liberty of others. Sitting at dinner with a Samaritan who considered himself under the Law of the Pentateuch, I noticed that the worthy man refused first one dish and then another, and at length he exclaimed, “Moses very hard,” evidently feeling that the limit upon his diet involved a good deal of self-denial.
Some of us could cheerfully bear such small matters as abstinence from certain meats and drinks, but if we were surrounded with regulations and prescriptions entering into minute details, our life would be full of cares and we should feel ill at ease. We have attained the liberty of the Gospel and we are not called upon to observe days, and months and years—nor to border our garments with a certain color, nor to trim our hair by rule. Neither are we called to practice different washing and purifying, or to observe laws and regulations amounting to a continual round of rites. The “free Spirit” dwells in us—to us every place is hallowed!
Our religion is not of the outward and in the matter of meats we call nothing common or unclean. We have ordinances, it is true, but they are few and simple. They are but two and each of them is instructive and easy. Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, which are for the Lord’s people only, are easy of observance and are for our help and comfort, but are by no means burdensome. These are not laid upon us as yokes but given to us as privileges. Neither are they enforced by such a sentence as this—“The soul that forbears to keep the Passover shall be cut off from among his people.”
Gospel ordinances are choice enjoyments, enjoined upon us by the loving rule of Him whom we call Master and Lord. We accept them with joy and delight. In keeping these commandments there is great reward—but they are not presented to us as matters of servitude. In Baptism we are made to see the burial of our Lord and are helped to enter into spiritual fellowship with Him therein—this is not a burdensome ordinance, but a delight! The Lord’s own Supper is a joyful festival, a feast of fat things—of fat things full of marrow—of wines on the lees well-refined. All is joy and rest about these two ordinances.
In enjoying them we feel that we are not under Law, but under Grace. I would not have you come to this table with the same trembling with which an Israelite ate the Passover, or stand there as the Israelite did, with your loins girt and your staff in your hand, eating in haste and apprehension. No, but you may sit at ease, or even recline to express the rest
which you enjoy at the Lord’s Table and the close communion to which your Redeemer invites you. He has called you His friends and He has honored you to be His table companions, to sit and feast with Him without reserve.
Lest liberty should degenerate into license, I am bound to remind you that we are not left without command and direction. The Law of Love is as binding on us as ever the Law of Works could have been. We are still called to obedience—the obedience of faith. A most strict but most happy service grows out of sonship and no true son wishes to disown it. Should not the son honor his Father? Does not the Lord Himself say, “If I am a father, where is My honor?” There is a service of which we read that God spares such a one, “as a man spares his own son that serves him.”