3532. Christ’s Great Mission

A Sermon Published On Thursday, October 5, 1916.

Just as the Son of man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. {Mt 20:28}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 181, “Particular Redemption” 174}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3532, “Christ’s Great Mission” 3534}

1. The mission of Christ to our world was distinct and definite. The ministry of the gospel should be equally clear and transparent. It was only the other day I read a letter from the deacon of a church in which, speaking of his minister, he said, “We ought to understand geology thoroughly, for we usually hear something about it, at least, once every Sabbath day; there is one thing, however, we shall never be likely to understand under our present friend’s ministry; he seems utterly to ignore the doctrine of the atonement; I have not heard him allude to it for the past three months; nor do I know, for certain, whether he believes it or not. Though he sometimes alludes to Jesus Christ as an example, I have neither heard of Christ dying, nor Christ buried, of Christ risen, or Christ pleading in heaven at all. In fact, it seems to me I might as well attend a Socinian {a} chapel.” Well, God forbid that such a reflection should ever be cast on me. Is it not my constant endeavour to bring you back, Sabbath after Sabbath, to the same old, old story of the cross, and of the redemption by blood which was accomplished then and there? This bell has only one note. It may be repeated, I sometimes fear, with too much monotony. Still, the tone is clear. I know that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. There is salvation in no other name under heaven. Only the propitiation which God has presented for human sin is efficacious. There is no remission without blood. Full salvation is to be procured only through the wounds of Jesus slain. There is no salvation in heaven or earth besides. We are coming to that very same story again. It never wearies the believer’s ear, nor does it ever fail to be the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. I want my text to speak this evening.

2. I. Let me, then, begin by expounding it word by word; and after that let me explain the doctrine to which it gives most distinct prominence. Our first point is:—THE PLAIN DECLARATION.

3. “The Son of man!” So our Lord Jesus Christ speaks of himself. In relationship to our fallen humanity, it sounds humble; but in the light of prophecy, it is full of dignity. “The Son of man.” This is none other than the true Messiah—the Son of God, infinite, eternal, co-equal with the Father, and yet he chooses to call himself very often “the Son of man,” perhaps because as it was man who committed sin, it is man who must make an atonement for sin to the broken law of God. Man was the offender, man must suffer the penalty. Just as in one man the whole race died, so in another man they must be made alive, if made alive at all. Jesus tells us that he is a man; thoroughly a man; one like ourselves. The Son of man, a man among men, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; not wearing a fictitious manhood, but a real humanity like our own. We must always bear this in mind; for without it there could be no atonement at all. Jesus is not merely a Son of man, but he is pre-eminently the Son of man foretold in the prophecy of Daniel, and predicted on the threshold of Paradise in the language of the first promise, “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” He is the Man, the second Adam in whom men are made alive. So being found in appearance as a man, and having taken upon himself the federal headship of man, he was qualified to become man’s substitute and to make an atonement for human guilt. Dwell on this blessed truth, my dear hearers; dwell on it, those of you who are not saved; look wistfully at it for the encouragement it offers you. The Person in whom you are admonished to trust is not only God—or his unclouded glory might strike you with awe, and his terrors might justly make you afraid—but he is also man, and this ought to attract you to him, for he is akin to yourselves in nature and sympathy. Sin excepted, he is by no means different from you. Oh! may you not well draw near to him without appalling dread, and with inspiring confidence, since he calls himself the Son of man, and invites the sons of men to come and put their trust under the shadow of his wings?

4. He “came“; that is the next word in our text. “The Son of man came.” Strange is the errand, and unique is the blessed Person who undertook it. Hence to come he stooped from the highest throne in glory down to the manger of Bethlehem; and on his part it was voluntary. We are, as it were, thrust on the stage of action; it is not by our will that we have come to live on this earth. Jesus had no need to have been born of the virgin. It was his own consent, his choice, his strong desire, that made him take upon himself our nature, of the seed of Abraham. He came voluntarily on an errand of mercy to the sons of men. Dwell on this thought for a moment, let it sink into your mind; he who was King of kings and Lord of lords, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, voluntarily, cheerfully descended so that he might dwell among the sons of men, share their sorrows, and bear their sins, and yield himself up a sacrifice for them, the innocent victim of their intolerable guilt. If the angels burst out in song on that first Christmas night, if they made heaven and earth ring with their sweet harmonies, how much more may we who have a share in the redemptive work of the incarnate God burst out into song as the news greets us that heaven descends to earth, that God comes down to man, that the Infinite becomes an infant, that the Eternal, who has life in himself, condescends to dwell among the dying sons of men. Surely a way from earth to heaven will now be opened up, since there is a way from heaven to earth, so sacred, yet so simple. The same golden ladder that brings the blessed Visitant down to our humanity will take us up also to the divinity of God, to see him as our reconciled Father. “The Son of man came.”

5. The next words are startling, for they reveal an exceptional intention, far different from the usual aim and purpose of messages and errands. “The Son of man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister.” Let me give you the exact translation, “Not to be served, but to serve.” That is the nearest approach to a literal rendering I can supply. He did not come to be served, but to serve. He did not have a selfish thought in his soul. Though he had set his heart on being the incarnate God, he had nothing whatever to gain by it. Gain! What could the Infinite God gain? Splendour? Behold the stars; far away they glitter beyond all mortal count. Servants! does he need servants? Behold angels in their squadrons; twenty thousand, even thousands of angels are the chariots of the Almighty. Honour? No; the trump of fame for ever proclaims him King of kings and Lord of lords. Who can add to the splendour of that diadem that makes sun and moon look pale by comparison? Who can add to the riches or the wealth of him who has all things at his disposal? He comes, then, not to be ministered to, but to minister. And you see him in the workshop serving his reputed parent. You see him in his home honouring his blessed mother with all filial obedience. You see him at the noontime of his wonderful career in the midst of his disciples, much more their servant than their Master; though he always maintained precedence by his own sovereign counsel, and by their weak apprehensions. As he takes the basin, and the pitcher, and the towel, and washes his disciples’ feet, you can see the meekness of his disposition. And soon after this you see him giving up himself, his body, his soul, and his Spirit, in order that he might serve us. And what if I say that, even at this very moment, as the Son of man in heaven, he continues a kind of service for his people! For Zion’s sake he does not hold his peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake he does not rest, but still continues to intercede for those whose names he bears on his heart.

6. Hear it, then, all you people, and let everyone who hears hail the gracious fact. Whether saints or sinners, whether saved already, or thirsty for the knowledge of salvation, the thought that Christ’s errand was not to aggrandise himself, but to benefit us, must be welcome. He does not come to be served, but to serve. Does this not suit you, poor sinner—you who never did serve him, you who could not, as you are, minister to him? Well, he did not come to get your service; he came to give you his services; not that you might first do him honour, but that he might show you mercy. Oh! you need him so very much. And since he has not come to look for treasures, but to bestow unsearchable riches, not to find examples of health, but examples of sickness on which the healing art of his grace may operate, surely there is hope for you. I think if I were just now seeking Christ, and very cast down in spirit, it would make my heart beat for joy to think that Jesus came to serve, and not to be served. Perhaps I would say, he knows my case, and he has come to serve me, poor me. Do I not need washing? Why should he not wash me? The dying thief rejoiced to see in his day the fountain which Jesus had opened; why should I not see it too, and have a washing from that precious One who comes to serve the vilest and the basest of the sons of men? Behold! Behold and wonder! Behold and love! Behold and trust! Jesus comes from the right hand of God to the manger, to the cross, to the sepulchre, not to be served, but that he might serve the sons of men.

7. Pass on to the next words, “And to give his life,” or, more correctly, “and to give his soul.” We have no lives to give. Our lives are forfeited; they are due to divine justice. Christ had a life of his own, which was by no means due to God on account of any obligations. He had not sinned, but he gave his life. The death of Christ was perfectly voluntary. Just as he was free to come, or not, so he was not under any constraint to give his life, but he did so, and that of his own accord. The grand object of his coming to this earth was to give his life. Read the text again. “The Son of man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give his life.” Our Lord Jesus Christ did not come into this world merely to be an example, or merely to reveal the Godhead to the sons of men. He came to make a substitutionary sacrifice. He came to give his soul as a ransom. If you do not believe this doctrine, you do not believe Christianity. The very pith and marrow, the very sum and substance of the mission of Jesus Christ is his coming to give his life so that he might stand in the place of those for whom he died. He came on purpose to give his life.

8. Now to give the soul is something more than to give the life. He died, it is true; yet he did more than die; he died by an outpouring of all his life-floods, by the endurance of an anguish such as no ordinary mortal could ever have borne. Of old it was the blood that made atonement. The animal was presented in sacrifice, but the animal was no sacrifice until it was slain, and then when the purple stream ran down the altar’s side, and its bowels were cast on the altar, then it was that the sacrifice was truly presented. Jesus Christ gave up the very essence of his humanity to be a substitutionary sacrifice for us. His spirit was tortured with pangs that are past conception, much more past description. He said, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” He was like a splendid cluster put into the wine-press, and the feet of eternal vengeance trod on him until the sacred wine of his atoning blood streamed out to save the sons of men. He gave his very self, his entire self, his soul, his life, his essential being, to be a ransom for the sons of Adam. Oh! that I could turn your eyes to that great sight! Behold how he gave has life! Oh! that for a moment your thoughts were fixed on those five streaming wounds, those sacred founts of life, and health, of pardon and peace, to dying souls! Oh! that your eyes could only gaze within the wounds, into that heart boiling like a cauldron with the wrath of God, tossed to and fro, heaving within itself, oppressed, burdened, tormented, and filled with very anguish. Oh! that you could see it; oh! that you could understand that he came from heaven to suffer all this, to give himself up like this, that he might be, instead of us, the victim of a vengeance we deserved; that his griefs might avert our ruin, that his pangs might rescue us from destruction. He drank the cup of condemnation dry; not a dreg was left; and, in doing so, he poured out his soul to death.

9. Moreover, his death is our ransom. So it is written, he came to give his life “a ransom.” No one here, I suppose, needs to have explained to him what a ransom means. It may be correctly illustrated by the old Jewish ceremony of the redemption money. Every male person among the Jews belonged to God, and he must be redeemed. There was a settled price. The rich were not to give more; the poor should not give less. The same amount was fixed for everyone. The tithe-drachma was paid by every Jew. Then he was enrolled as one of the Lord’s redeemed, of whom you so often read. Failing that, he would have been cut off from the congregation of Israel. That piece of money stood instead of the man—it was his ransom. He was not to die—he was to live as a redeemed person. That is just what Jesus has done for his people. He has put himself, his soul, his life devoted, {b} his death accomplished, before God in the place of our soul, of our death, of us; and every man who has Christ to be his substitute is a redeemed man; he is one of the Lord’s ransomed people, and shall go to Zion with songs of everlasting joy on his head. But every man who has not accepted Christ remains an unredeemed man, under the curse, and subject to the divine wrath, under the slavery of Satan, and awaiting the sentence of an utter destruction. Jesus Christ came to give his life a ransom. Just as a slave is redeemed by the payment of a price, so Jesus redeems us from the curse of the law under which we were by nature, having himself come under the law. He redeems us from the death which was due to us by himself enduring a death which was a full equivalent in the estimation of God. He gave his life a ransom.

10. Our text says “for many.” We might with greater force and stricter accuracy translate it, “He gave his life a ransom in the place of many.” The word “for” there has a substitutionary meaning, “He gave his life instead of many.” Indeed, this is the point of the sentence—One stood for many. Jesus suffered for many; he put himself into the place of many. Note the word “many.” With this we finish the exposition. It does not say “all.” There are passages which speak of all. They have their meaning. None of them, however, refer to the substitutionary work of Christ. Jesus Christ did not give his life a ransom in the place of all mankind, but a ransom in the place of many men. Who are those many men? Bless God, they are many; for they are not a few. But who are they? God knows. “The Lord knows those who are his.” You may ascertain as much as you need to know by answering a plain question. Do you trust Jesus Christ with your eternal destinies? Do you come, all guilty as you are, and rely on his blood to take that guilt away? Do you confide in Jesus, and only in him? If so, he died for you, and in your place; and you shall never die. This is your comfort, that you cannot die. How can you perish if Jesus was put into your place? If your debt was paid of old by Christ can it ever be demanded of you again? Once paid, it is fully discharged; we have gladly accepted the receipt; and now we can cry, with the apostle, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died; yes, rather who has risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” See here the mainstay of every believer’s confidence. He knows that Christ died for him because he has put his trust in his blessed mediation. If Jesus died for me, then I cannot be condemned for the sins which he expiated. God cannot punish twice for the one offence. He cannot demand two payments for one debt. The believer, therefore, finds sweet solace in the song which Toplady composed:—

   Turn, then, my soul unto thy rest,

   The merits of thy great High Priest

      Speak peace and liberty;

   Trust in his efficacious blood,

   Nor fear thy banishment from God,

      Since Jesus died for thee.

So the Son of man gave his life a ransom in the place of many. And such do I believe to be a fair and honest exposition of the words.

11. II. Now for:—SOME POSITIVE IMPLICATIONS. The main intent of the text is the doctrine of a vicarious or substitutionary atonement by which Christ’s ransom suffices in the place of many. On this let me give to each thought only a sentence or two.

12. It would seem that man is not delivered from the bondage of his sins without a price. No one goes free by the naked mercy of God. Every captive exposed to God’s vengeance must be redeemed before he is delivered, otherwise he must continue a captive. Broad as the statement may appear, I venture to assert by divine warrant that there never was beneath the canopy of heaven a sin forgiven without satisfaction being rendered. No sin against God is pardoned without a propitiation. It is only forgiven through the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. It never can be remitted without the penalty having been exacted. The divine law knows of no exception or exemption. The statute is absolute, “The soul that sins, it shall die.” Every soul that ever sinned, or ever shall sin, must die, die eternally, too, either in itself or in its substitute. The justice of the law must be vindicated. God waives none of the rights of justice in order to give liberty to mercy. Oh! my hearers, if you are trusting in the unconditional mercy of God, you are trusting in a myth. Has someone buoyed you up with the thought of the infinite goodness of God, I would remind you of his infinite holiness. Has he not declared that he will by no means spare the guilty? No debt due to God is remitted unless it is paid. It must either be paid by the transgressor in the infinite miseries of hell, or else it must be paid for him by a substitute. There must be a price for the ransom, and evidently, according to the text, that price must be a soul, a life. Christ did not merely give his body, nor his stainless character, nor merely his labours and sufferings, but he gave his soul, his life, a ransom.

13. Oh! sinner, Almighty God will never be satisfied with anything less than your soul. Can you bear the piercing thought that your soul shall be cast from his presence for ever? If you would escape the dire penalty, you must find another soul to stand in your soul’s place. Your life is forfeited. The sentence is passed. You shall die. Death is your doom. Die you must; for ever die unless you can find another life for a sacrifice in lieu of your life. But know that this is just what Christ has found. He has put a soul, a life, into the place of our souls, our lives. How memorable that text, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission.” Why? Because “the blood is its life.” Until the blood flows, the soul is not separated from the body. The shedding of the blood indicated that the soul—the essence of the being—had been offered. Oh! blessed, for ever blessed be the crowned head of him who once bore the cross! He has offered for his people a soul, a life, a matchless soul, a life unparalleled. No more can justice require; vengeance is satisfied; the price is paid; the redeemed of the Lord are completely free!

14. The question has been asked, “If we are redeemed by the blood of Christ, who receives the ransom?” Some have talked as if Christ paid a price to the devil. A more absurd fiction could never have crossed a human mind. We never belonged to the devil. Satan has no rights in us. Christ never acknowledged that he had any, and would never pay him anything. What then? Surely the ransom price was paid to the Great Judge of all. This is, of course, only a mystical way of speaking. A metaphor is employed to bring out the meaning. The fact is that God had sworn, and would not relent, that sin must be punished. In the very essence of things it was right that transgression should receive its just punishment. There could be no moral government kept up, there could be no unimpeachable governor, unless conviction followed crime and retribution was exacted from the guilty. It was not right, nor could it have been righteous, for any reason, for sin to have been passed over without its having been punished, or for iniquity to have escaped without any infliction. But when Jesus Christ comes and puts his own sufferings into the place of our sufferings, the law is fully vindicated, while mercy is properly displayed. A man dies; a soul is given; a life is offered—the Just for the unjust. What if I say that, instead of justice being less satisfied with the death of Christ than with the deaths of the untold millions of sinners for whom he died, it is more satisfied and it is most highly honoured! Had all the sinners who ever lived in the world been consigned to hell, they could not have discharged the claims of justice. They must still continue to endure the scourge of crime they could never expiate. But the Son of God, blending the infinite majesty of his deity with the perfect capacity to suffer as a man, offered an atonement of such inestimable value that he has absolutely paid the entire debt for his people. Well may justice be content since it has received more from the Surety than it could have ever exacted from the assured. So the debt was paid to the Eternal Father.

15. Once more, what is the result of this? The result is that the man is redeemed. He is no longer a slave. Some preachers and professors aspire to believe in a redemption which I must candidly confess I do not understand; it is so indistinct and indefinite—a redemption which does not redeem anyone in particular, though it is alleged to redeem everyone in general; a redemption insufficient to exempt thousands of unhappy souls from hell after they have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus; a redemption, indeed, which does not actually save anyone, because it is dependent for its efficacy on the will of the creature; a redemption that lacks intrinsic virtue and inherent power to redeem anyone, but is entirely dependent on an extraneous contingency to render it effective. With such fickle theories I have no fellowship. That every soul for whom Christ shed his blood as a Substitute, he will claim as his own, and have as his right, I firmly hold. I love to hold and I delight to proclaim this precious truth. Not all the powers of earth or hell; not the obstinacy of the human will, nor the deep depravity of the human mind, can ever prevent Christ seeing the travail of his soul and being satisfied. To the last jot and tittle of his reward he shall receive it from the Father’s hand. A redemption that does redeem, a redemption that redeems many, seems to me infinitely better than a redemption that does not actually redeem anyone, but is supposed to have some imaginary influence on all the sons of men.

16. Our last question I must leave with you to answer. Did Jesus Christ redeem you? Ah! dear hearer, this is a serious matter. Are you a redeemed soul or not? It is not possible for you to look over the books of destiny and read between the folded pages. Neither do you need wish to do so. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ which is to be preached to every creature under heaven, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved”; therefore, everyone who believes and is baptized, being saved, must have been redeemed, for he could not have been saved otherwise. If you believe and are baptized, you are redeemed, you are saved. Now for your answer to the question—Do you believe? “I believe,” one says, and he begins to repeat what they call the “Apostle’s Creed.” Hold your tongue, sir! That does not matter; the devil believes that, perhaps more intelligently than you do; he believes and trembles. That kind of believing saves no man. You may believe the most orthodox creed in Christendom, and perish. Do you trust—for that is the cream of the word “believe“—do you trust in Jesus? Do you lean your whole weight on him? Do you have that faith which the Puritans used to call “recumbency” or “leaning”? That is the faith that saves—faith that falls back into the arms of Jesus, a faith that drops from its own hanging place into those mighty arms, and rests on the tender breast of the Lord Jesus the Crucified.

17. Oh! my soul, make sure that you could trust him, for you have made sure of everything else when you have made sure of that. Has God the Holy Spirit taught you, my dear hearer, that you cannot safely rely on your own good works? Has he weaned you from resting on mere ceremonies? Has he brought you to look to the cross—only to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? If so, Christ redeemed you; you can never be a slave again. Has he redeemed you, the liberty of the believer is yours now, and after death the glory of Christ shall be your portion too. Remember the words of the dying monk when rejecting the extreme unction and all the paraphernalia of his Church, he lifted up his eyes and said, “Tua vulnera, Iesu! tua vulnera Iesu!” “Your wounds, oh, Jesus! your wounds, oh, Jesus!” This must be your refuge, poor broken-winged dove. Fly there into the clefts of the rock, into the spear-thrust in the Saviour’s heart. Fly there. Rest on him; rest on him; rest with all your weight of sin, with all your blackness and your foulness, with all your doubts and your despairs, rest on him. Jesus wants to receive you; flee to him—flee away to him now:—

   Come, guilty souls, and fly away,

      And look to Jesus’ wounds;

   This is the accepted gospel-day,

      Wherein free grace abounds.

   God loved his Church, and gave his Son

      To drink the cup of wrath;

   And Jesus says he’ll cast out none

      Who come to him in faith.

{a} Socinian: One of a sect founded by Laelius and Faustus Socinus, two Italian theologians of the 16th century, who denied the divinity of Christ. OED.
{b} Devote: To give over or consign to the powers of evil or to destruction; to doom; to invoke or pronounce a curse upon. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Mt 20:1-28}

1, 2. “For the kingdom of heaven is like a man who is a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

It was a fair wage. It was for fair and healthful work which they were to do in the vineyard. They were happy men to be hired so early in the morning. Never do those who serve Christ reject him; and though in this parable some are represented as finding fault with their wages, yet Christ’s true servants do not do so. Their only request is, “Do not dismiss me from your service, Lord.” They feel it to be reward enough to be permitted to go on working. Indeed, this is one way in which we get our wages during the day. If we keep one precept, God gives us grace to keep another. If we perform one duty, God gives us the privilege to perform another. So we are paid well. We work in the work. We do not say “for the work,” for we are unprofitable servants. Yet there is the penny a day.

3. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the market-place,

It was bad for them to be standing there. No good is learned by idlers in idle company. Idle men together kindle a fire that burns like the flames of hell.

4, 5. And said to them; ‘Go also into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did the same.

Much more out of charity than out of any good that he could get from them. This was especially obvious, when it got towards the latter end of the day. So late, so very late, it was very little they could do. Yet for their good he told them to come in.

6. And about the eleventh hour

Why, then, surely the day was over. They were ready to put away their tools and go home. But—

6. He went out, and found others standing idle, and says to them, ‘Why do you stand here all the day idle?’

“Why?” Can you give a reason for it? Why do you stand here in the market-place, where men come together on purpose to be hired? Why do you stand here, you able-bodied ones who still might work? Why do you stand here all the day? That you should be idle for a little while is bad enough. Why do you stand here all the day, and why do you stand here all the day idle, when there is so much work to be done, and such a wage to receive for it?

7. They say to him, ‘Because no man has hired us.’ He says to them, ‘Go also into the vineyard; and, whatever is right, that you shall receive.’

And so the great householder was glad when he had emptied the market-place of the idlers, and brought in from early morning, even until sunset, so many who should be at work—happily at work there. I wonder whether there are any here early in the morning of life who have not yet come into the vineyard. If so, the Master calls you. Are you in midlife? Have you reached the sixth hour, and are you not enlisted in his service? Again the Master calls you. And if you have reached the eleventh hour, where are you? Decrepit—leaning on your staff—leaning downward to your grave; yet if you are not called now, now he calls you and asks you, even at this late hour, to come into the vineyard.

8, 9. So when evening was come, the owner of the vineyard says to his steward, ‘Call the labourers, and give them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.’ And when they came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a penny.

And when souls come to Christ, however late it is, they have the same joy, the same matchless, perfect peace, the same salvation even, as those who have come while they are still young. True, they have lost many days, many hours of happy service. They have permitted the sun to decline, and have wasted much time; but yet the Master gives them the same life within them, the same adoption into the family of God, the same blessing.

10. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they each also received a penny.

Why, there are some of us who have now been in Christ’s vineyard ever since we were boys, but we must not think that we shall receive, or can have, more than those who have just come in. I have heard people say, “Why, here are these people just recently converted, and they are singing and rejoicing; and there are some of the old people who have been following the Lord for years, and do not seem to have half the joy.” No, no; that is true. It is the old story of the elder brother and the prodigal, all over again. But do not—do not let us repeat that for ever and ever. Do not let us get off of the lines of free, rich, sovereign grace, and begin to think that there is some worth in us, some merit in us. Oh! my brothers, I will be glad enough to sit at the feet of the lowliest child of God, if I am only to be numbered in the family—glad enough to have the same salvation which the dying thief obtained, though at the last moment he only looked to Christ. Yet there is this spirit that will grow up—that some who have been longer in the work ought certainly to have more joy, more of everything, than those who have just come in. See the answer to it.

11-16. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, ‘These last have worked for only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden and heat of the day.’ But he answered one of them, and said, ‘Friend, I do you no wrong: did not you agree with me for a penny? Take what yours is, and go your way: I will give to this last man, just as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own? Is your eye evil, because I am good?’ So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many are called, but few chosen.”

The great principle of election in divine sovereignty will crop up, not in one place, but in many. God will have us know that he is Master, and that in the kingdom of grace he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and in the distribution of that grace he will give according to his own good pleasure; and the moment we begin to murmur or set up claims he answers us at once with, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own?”

Yet that unevangelical spirit, that ungospel spirit of imagining that we have some kind of claim or right will come in, and it must be sternly repressed. It is of grace—of grace alone—of grace to begin with, of grace to go on with, of grace to close with: and human merit must not be allowed to put a single finger in anywhere. “Where is boasting, then?” says the apostle. “It is excluded.” It is shut out—the door shut in its face. It must not come in. If you and I serve God throughout a long life, we shall certainly have much greater happiness in life than those can have who come to Christ only at the last. But, as far as the gospel blessing is concerned, which Christ gives, it is the same salvation which the newly-born Christian enjoys as what the most advanced believer is now enjoying. It is to every man the penny, bearing the King’s own impression.

17-20. And Jesus going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside in the way, and said to them, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death. And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again.” Then the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons came to him, worshipping him, and desiring a certain thing of him.

Then, in the most inopportune time in all the world, when Jesus was talking about being mocked and crucified, and put to death, here comes Mistress Zebedee with an ambitious request about her sons.

21. And he said to her, “What do you wish?” She says to him, “Grant that my two sons may sit, the one on your right hand, and the other on the left, in your kingdom.”

He is thinking of a cross, and they are dreaming of a crown. He is speaking of being mocked and put to death, and they have ideas of royalty, that they want to have the chief place in the coming kingdom. Oh! how like ourselves. Our Master thinks of how he can condescend, and we are thinking of how people ought to respect us, and treat us better than they do. Oh! the selfishness that there is in us. May our Master’s example help to suppress it.

22-24. But Jesus answered and said, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drank from the cup that I shall drink from, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They say to him, “We are able.” And he said to them, “You shall drink indeed from my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to those for whom it is prepared by my Father.” And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brothers.

So showing that they were exactly like them, “For,” they said, “look at these two—these James and John—they want to have the preference over us. We will not have it.” It was exactly the same spirit in each one—ambition in them all for priority of honour. Ah! dear friends, it often happens that when we are so intense in our condemnation of others, it is only because we fall into the same sin. Some, I have no doubt whatever, hate the Pope because they have the essence of popery in themselves. Two of a trade will never agree; and one man is very angry with another because he is so angry; and one is quite indignant that another should be so proud. He is not proud. He is proud to say he is humble—he is; by it proving how proud he is. Oh! that those beams in our eyes could be removed. Then the motes in our brothers’ eyes would probably be seen no more.

25-28. But Jesus called them to him, and said, “You know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and those who are great exercise authority on them. But it shall not be so among you: but whoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. And whoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. Just as the Son of man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”