Selected from: The Edinburgh Christian Instructor, vol. 22, no. 5 (May 1823): 309–315 and no. 6 (June 1823): 365–371. Grange Press is indebted to Mr. Wayne Sparkman, archivist of the PCA Historical Archives, for his generous investment of time in transcribing this sermon.
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30).
The apostle had been, a few verses before this, observing the sovereign and wise manner in which God had dispensed his grace, with regard to the calling of sinful men, as verse 26, “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called,” or are made the instruments of the calling of grace, “but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.” The wise purpose and design is, as in verse 29, “that no flesh should glory in his presence,” as if his own endowments or the advantages of his condition had entitled him to divine grace. In the next following words, which are those of my text, the apostle shows what is the true matter of glorying to a Christian: “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus.” The words represent that there is in Christ all that is needful for the sure and complete salvation of them who believe in him. But previous to this, there is mention of two things ascribed to God his Father, which prove that the whole of our salvation hath its source and original cause in his grace.
1. Of him are ye, not as to being or natural life—that’s not the present view or subject—but of him are ye in Christ Jesus. Our union with Christ, on which our interest in his grace and benefits is immediately founded, is expressed by being in Christ (Rom. 8:1; Phil. 3:9). Is then any sinner brought to the knowledge of Christ and to be truly united to him? This is not of a man himself; if it were of a man himself that he hath come into union with Christ, who is so commonly disallowed of men and rejected, surely he would have something, and that of the most essential importance, whereof to glory in the presence of God.
But ‘tis far otherwise, and a Christian, if he observes well, may recollect many things that may prove to him that it is of God, and wholly owing to his grace that he is in Christ Jesus. He hath perhaps to observe the remarkable providence that brought him in the way of the advantageous means of conversion, or that brought these in his way. Or if he hath been brought up under the most likely means, he may be sensible how long he hath lain as dead among the dead; and like to the wretched multitude, on whom the word of God hath made no effectual impression, he may recollect the time and that word of God that struck special force upon his conscience, and perhaps the remarkable providence, the memorable trouble, the affliction, or danger that awakened him to the serious consideration of his condition.
Then his sins were brought to his remembrance, and the awful and just judgment of God did affright him. He would fain have recovered his wonted ease and peace of mind, and for this end, he inclined to betake him to worldly occupations, as Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and fell to building a city; or to gratify his lust in one form or other, and thereby smother and stupefy his conscience and free himself from the disquiet it gave him. But the Lord disappointed his pernicious purpose and pursued him with his law in his conscience, bringing a fearful charge against him, which he could not answer nor avoid. Then he betook himself to cries and tears, and to works of righteousness. and endeavoured to seek peace and hope out of his penitence and reformation. But the Lord, driving his law which worketh wrath, farther and farther into his conscience and heart, and by the light thereof laying open his heart, and showing his works in a just light, he saw himself wholly as an unclean thing, and even his righteousness as loathsome and filthy rags. Thus the holy and righteous law overthrew all his confidence; as a powerful shower of hail, it swept away the refuge of lies; and as a flood, it overflowed the hiding place.
Then his own stores being spent or destroyed, like Hagar the bondmaid, he wept and despaired, not seeing the well that was hard by, nor able to take any comfort from the gospel of the grace of God that sounded in his ears. He may recollect how, when he was in this deplorable condition, the word of God’s grace entered with light and power into his heart to give relief, giving the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ—how God created the fruit of the lips, peace, peace; diffused comfort through his heart—disposing and enabling him, with his whole soul, to embrace Christ by that faith which united him to him, and brought him to an interest in all his fulness.
Recollecting all this, a Christian may be sensible that the hand of God was remarkable in the first awakening of him out of his wretched and thoughtless security; that thereafter he would often have sat down in a false peace, or have pleased himself with some refuge of lies, if God had not mercifully disturbed his false peace, and destroyed his confidence; and, after supporting him insensibly in his most dark and forlorn condition, led him to Christ, on whom he had laid his help. So that, upon the whole, the Christian may set his seal to the words of our text, “of Him are ye in Christ Jesus;” otherwise, and for anything that could be ascribed to himself, how had he eternally come short of Christ and of union with him!
2. Of God it is that Christ is to us as is here said. Christ was in himself wise, righteous, and holy. But what was all this to us? It is God who hath laid our help upon him for the purpose here mentioned, and for the whole of our salvation. Of God it is that he is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption.
From all this, let sinners, who have a just sense of their condition, and are under a serious concern for their salvation, learn to consider God as favourable to their salvation. Sinners, in those circumstances, are ready to consider God as altogether adverse to them. His holy law represents high wrath for sin, and him as an enemy; and the same law, searching their hearts, shows them to be enemies to him. But, at the same time that they consider God as an offended sovereign and righteous judge, they ought to consider him in the light in which the Gospel represents, as gracious and merciful. He cannot indeed deny his justice, but he hath afforded the price of our redemption, and spared not his own Son. In him he hath provided all that our most wretched condition needed or required. It is of him that Christ is made unto us all that is here said.
On the other hand, as he hath provided a Saviour for us, it is of him that we are brought unto the Saviour—of him are ye in Christ Jesus. Let no sinner think that God is unfavourable to his betaking him to Christ and believing in him. For this is it indeed that God hath been ever dealing with sinners about; even to bring them to Christ by faith, and to union with him. If his threatenings sound terrible in their ears, if awakening providences speak his wrath to them and distress them, yet let them not mistake God’s design. He at the same time sets Christ before them in the Gospel; and his design, by the most terrible things in his law and providence, is not to frighten them away from him into hell, but to excite and determine them to flee for refuge, to take hold of the hope set before them, which is the hope of righteousness through faith (Gal.5:5). For a sinner to betake him to Christ as a Saviour is to fall in with the design of all God’s dealings with him, and is of all works the most acceptable to him. It is a wretched business to see a sinner sweating and labouring hard at every other good work, and neglecting the most acceptable work, without which no work can be acceptable; “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29).
Come we now to view the comfortable light in which the text represents Christ to us, “as made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” One may perhaps say, They surely must be good and worthy persons for whom such provision is made in Christ; they surely have many good marks to distinguish them; what are these now, that I may judge if I am such a one as may look for any benefit by Christ? Answer: I leave to thee to find their good marks. But we learn from the text several ill marks of them. Christ is made wisdom to those who are unwise. If he is made righteousness to any, it is to those who are destitute of righteousness. So is he made sanctification to those who are unsanctified and unholy. If men were previously wise, righteous, and holy, they should not need Christ to be made all these to them.
An awakened soul doth often suggest thus to himself: Alas! I have not wisdom, knowledge, or gifts—so he applies himself to means of light and knowledge. I have no righteousness with which to appear before God—so he labours hard in works of righteousness. I am quite unholy—so he endeavours to sanctify himself and to work up his heart to the appearance of some holy disposition, as if he laboured by rubbing hard to bring heat into a dead body. What is all this to terminate in? If it is not at last thus to address the Saviour; Lord, when I first observed with any attention the Gospel setting thee forth as a Saviour, I found myself altogether unfit to claim or expect any good by thee. But now I have acquired some knowledge and utterance; I am in somewhat a good way for righteousness, and have made some good progress in holiness and devotion. May I not now have confidence to claim interest in thy riches and fulness? I have got over the hardest part of the work, and put things in a good way; now I come unto thee; what remains to make me happy, and to complete my salvation, thou canst the more easily accomplish. But Christ will not have honour as a Saviour by such a soul; and his honour as a Saviour he will not divide with us. But if souls are deeply sensible that they are wretched, and miserable, poor, and blind, and naked, which is their real condition, there is a sufficient store laid up for such a condition in Christ.
He then is made unto us, 1) Wisdom, 2) Righteousness, 3) Sanctification, 4) Redemption. Of these severally as time will permit.
1. Wisdom
If the greatest and most precious stores were provided for men and laid before them, what will they all avail to them if they are not wise enough to perceive their excellency and usefulness, and to use them properly? Therefore, that Christ should be made unto us wisdom was necessary for us; and that he is so made unto us is very properly mentioned in the first place.
Sin hath blinded and deceived mankind and deprived them of true wisdom. Yet the world is full of wisdom, and the men of the world are universally in high conceit of their own wisdom. Under the influence of it, godliness, and they who follow it, are contemptible in their eyes, while they bless themselves in their own carnal course. The self-wise and the self-righteous are in equal opposition to Christ and to true religion.
But there is a sort of wisdom which we may call learned wisdom, or the wisdom of learning and speculation, which hath been in remarkable opposition to the Gospel, and the truths of the word of God, when men, fond of their notions, reasonings, and speculations, set up these and hold them tenaciously against the wisdom and truth of God. This sort of wisdom hath in all ages opposed the truths and grace of the Gospel, and been the source of much pernicious error, never more so than in our times. This wisdom the apostle hath in his eye in our context, in verses 22–23, “the Greeks seek after wisdom” and “Christ crucified … is to the Greeks foolishness.” In opposition to this, by the success of the Gospel are accomplished the words quoted by the apostle in verse 19, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nought the understanding of the prudent.” The power of the Gospel casts down imaginations (reasonings) and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. In opposition to this vain and proud human wisdom, our text says that Christ is made unto us wisdom. He hath by his Spirit in his prophets and apostles revealed all needful truths—the truths concerning God, his nature and counsels; the truth concerning ourselves, our natural condition; the way of salvation provided for us; the whole of our duty, and the blessed hope we are to look for. In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge. For all truths, therefore, let him and his word be the means and rules of knowledge and of faith to us. For this end, let us search the Scriptures, and let the word of Christ dwell richly in us in all wisdom. Let every notion and opinion that is contrary to that light and rule be avoided and rejected by us.
Further, this carnal human wisdom, the wisdom of the world, hath ever had no small pretentions in what regards divine worship and ordinances and the rule of the house of God. It is of the Lord’s mercy that he hath prescribed rules for the regulation of his house and kingdom; that he hath instituted ordinances of worship, and the means of spiritual good to men, on which he hath promised his blessing, this showing us how to seek him, and what worship will be acceptable to him.
But human wisdom hath been ever intruding itself into these matters and claiming a right to order these things according to its own principles and views. This hath ever been the course of things. The Lord marking out to man how he requires to be worshipped, what means he will bless, and how the affairs of his house should be regulated. Men, on the other hand, not satisfied with the simplicity of divine institutions, offering amendments and additions to give more dignity and glory to divine things, and for this giving reasons that sometimes have plausible appearance; if human wisdom had a right to prescribe in these matters in the rule of God’s house and kingdom, human wisdom is ever interfering; it hath its own carnal worldly ends in doing so. Under the direction of this carnal worldly wisdom, men soon fall off from the purity of divine institutions. Seldom is long peace enjoyed, but reformation comes to be needed, to bring men and churches back to right rules. But how difficult is this to be obtained in such circumstances! Human methods come soon to be riveted deeply, and carnal wisdom will ever have a powerful faction on its side. Reformation cannot sometimes be obtained but in consequence of a storm of persecution that drives the mixed multitudes, the mere men of the world, out of the church or subdues them, and further purifies them that are pure, disposes them rightly, and animates them with the zeal of purity. By means of human carnal wisdom hath Satan at all times laboured with masterly, and too often successful device, to alter the right rule of God’s house, and to pollute ordinances, by adapting them to the views, relish, and interests of worldly men, thus poisoning the fountains of Christ’s kingdom.
But when human wisdom pretends to so much power and influence in such matters, is it that they have indeed been left to its direction? By no means—Christ hath been appointed King of Zion. He is the Son over his own house; he hath prescribed the laws and rules of his house, the food of his family, and all the ordinances thereof. In this he was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. When human wisdom obtrudes its authority and direction in these matters, let us remember that Christ is made unto us wisdom, and hold to what his wisdom hath instituted and directed.
Let us now consider how Christ is made unto us as wisdom, in view to men in particular. Sin hath blinded men, and deprived them of true wisdom in what respects their greatest interests. They are, as in Prov. 9:4-6, simple, without understanding, and foolish, incapable of perceiving in a just light things heavenly and spiritual, which can only be spiritually discerned. The world, with the vanities of it, possesses their hearts; they go on in gratifying their carnal, unholy lusts; or, in a course of more specious appearance, they are full of the conceit of their wisdom, righteousness, and good state, truly strangers to God and to Christ. Sinful men, in their natural condition, are deceived and under fearful delusion, and are in danger to be surprised with eternal perdition. But Christ is made unto us wisdom:
1st, When, by the powerful instruction of his word and Holy Spirit, he awakens sinners from their delusion and dreaming—gives them a just view, with deep conviction and impressions, of their forlorn condition, and, enlightening their minds in the knowledge of himself, determines them to flee for refuge to take hold of the hope set before them, which, as hath been observed before, is the hope of righteousness by faith, Gal. 5:5.
2d, By showing us our whole duty, by the most perfect rule and light of his word; and by the same word and Spirit, filling us with the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; and by his own wisdom, supporting and directing us in a course of integrity, through the dark mazes of this world—thus leading the blind in a way they have not known.
3d, By enlightening our minds to perceive, in the most convincing and satisfying manner, the matters of our hope, so as to realize these to our hearts by the faith that is, “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1) and “giving us the spirit of wisdom and of revelation” in greater and greater degree, Eph. 1:17–18, so as that, with most satisfying evidence and light, we may perceive, and more and more “know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” By this he counters and overbalances in our hearts the deluding appearance of the good and evil things of this world, deprives the strongest temptations of their force, gives support under trials and tribulations, and gives strength in the Lord’s ways, whereby we are enabled, as strangers in this world, to hold on in our course towards a better country.
4th, There remains one thing yet, in which the wisdom of Christ is of the utmost avail to us, and that is, by directing and ordering that course in providence that is fittest for bringing us to our rest and inheritance. If our own wisdom had the directing of this matter, we would certainly choose for ourselves a way short, pleasant, and honourable. But our wisdom would certainly mistake what is fittest; and it is good for us that Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, is made unto us wisdom; in this respect also, his methods and ways in providence are often dark—nor can we often account for the reasons of his dealings with us. But we may rest assured that his wisdom will conduct us in the methods and ways that are best.
When Israel went out of Egypt there was a short way to Canaan, but they are brought through the Red Sea into the wilderness. They come, however, in a leisurely way to the borders of the promised land, thence they are brought back; and the pillar of cloud and fire lead them east and west, south and north. And once or twice we find them back again at the Red Sea. Alas! might an Israelite say, “Shall we ever reach our rest? We are here, to all appearance, as far from it as at the first. How can all these marches and counter-marches be accounted for? We are at present as if we had never made a step towards the promised land.” Some such thoughts may occur to a Christian, who may sometimes think, that the ways of providence and divine dispensations, outward and inward, concerning him are far from being like those in which the Captain of salvation would lead one to glory. But as it happened when the Lord’s time came that Israel was brought forward, Sihon king of Heshbon and the giant king of Bashan were defeated, Jordan was divided, and they were comfortably brought into the promised land—so the Christian, after seeing himself led through many dark and rough paths, and thinking himself to have been further going from his rest rather than approaching to it, yet at last, when the Lord’s time hath come, finds himself brought safely to his rest, satisfied concerning the wisdom of the Captain of his salvation, as to all the paths in which he hath led him.
Thus is Christ of God made unto us wisdom.
2. Righteousness
The righteous Lord loveth righteousness. The Supreme Lawgiver and Judge hath, at first, given his law to be the rule of our actions and the condition of life. Perfect obedience thereto was proposed as the just condition of life, and it denounces death and the curse for every transgression. Men deceived by their self-flattering heart, and pleased with some appearance of goodness in themselves, have commonly no apprehension of the consequences of sin, and of a sinful state; they are alive without the law. But when the commandment comes, and enters with due light and energy, it destroys this self-confidence. Then a man sees his need of righteousness, and labours hard in works and duties of righteousness. But the law entering further unto him, searching him, he finds that this righteousness can give no solid peace; he then not only sees himself as an unclean thing, but that even his righteousness, which he thought would cover his uncleanness and justify him before God, cannot itself bear trial, but is loathsome and as filthy rags.
Then, distressed and wounded in his conscience, the law working wrath, the fear and terror of judgment filling his heart, the arrows of the Almighty being within him, the poison whereof drinketh up his spirit, the terrors of God setting themselves in array against him; all within him cries out, as Mic. 6:6–7, “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, … will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams?” All this would not avail, or make a ransom for a guilty soul. Yet the case is not desperate—there is hope in Israel concerning it, and a happy provision is made in Christ for the sad case, as is prophetically set forth, Jer. 23:5–6, “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch; and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute justice and judgment in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name, whereby he shall be called, The Lord (Jehovah) our righteousness.” So, John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” He hath been made sin for us, 2 Cor. 5:21, “For he hath made him to be sin for us,—that we might be the righteousness of God in him.” God himself hath provided and afforded the ransom for us. The blood of life of the Son of God is the price of our redemption. So, Rom. 3:24, we are “justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” This is the righteousness of God. How freely and comfortably may a sinner give up with all pretensions to self-confidence and self-righteousness, desiring not to have his own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith! By this righteousness is solid peace, confidence before God, and assured good hope, as Isa. 32:17–18, “And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.” And Rom. 5:1–2, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Thus is Christ of God made unto us righteousness.
3. Sanctification
Christ is righteousness to us by his obedience and sufferings, by what he hath done for us in his own person. He is sanctification to us by what he worketh by his grace and Holy Spirit within us, through various means with which his grace effectually cooperates.
1. The great external mean of it is his word and the truth of the Gospel, “For their sakes do I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth” (John 17:19). So also Eph. 5:25–26, “Christ … loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.” His holy law sets sin and duty in a true light, and for this is of perpetual use to his people. His gospel representing the glory of God in the face of Christ, and conveying the sense of divine love, with much peace and consolation to the heart, gains it effectually to God, to love and serve him, and to walk with him; to walk in the light, as he is in the light.
2. He is sanctification to us, by having procured and by giving the Holy Spirit to renew and sanctify our nature. By the Spirit’s efficacious concurrence with the word of the gospel are sinners effectually called (1 Cor. 1:9) to the fellowship of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ; and being united to him, engrafted in him, as in a fruitful vine, they become fruitful in all holiness and practical righteousness; and being, through gratuitous justification, brought into a state of grace, the sanctifying Spirit of Christ dwelleth in them, and (John 4:14) shall be in them a well of water springing up unto everlasting life.
3. Christ advances the sanctification of his people by suiting to that purpose his inward and more spiritual dispensations. Do they, after enjoying the comforts of his love, fall into carnal security, become indolent and unfruitful, and stray from the right way? He conveys by his word and Spirit sharp reproofs; he hides his face; the peace and consolations of his grace are darkened; and they are troubled and brought into distress by their own feelings, and the change of their conscience and the various temptations suggested by their own minds, and by Satan, the great enemy of their peace and prosperity. Are they brought low, and thereby greatly weakened in their course and work? He hath the tongue of the learned (Isaiah 50:4) and knows how to speak a word in season to him that is weary; he makes a way for them to escape, and causes his consolations by the divine promises to enter with much efficacy, and strengthens them with strength in their souls. Upon the whole, he sometimes mixes and measures these his spiritual dispensations for humbling them and riveting deeply in them the fear of sin, or for comforting and strengthening them against sin and further engaging them to holiness, that by these various dealings their sanctification is advanced.
4. He advances his people’s sanctification by his outward dispensations. The government of the world is committed to him; God hath committed the kingdom of providence to his administration, and he is head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:22). When he sees it meet he gives them an easy and opulent condition, the abundance of all things, to encourage them to serve the Lord their God with joyfulness and gladness (Deut. 28:47), and to give them the greater opportunity and means of service and usefulness in the world. But as he can use others for public service, he more commonly assigns a low condition to his people, to prevent the ill effects of worldly affluence upon their hearts, to keep them in more close attendance on himself, and to direct their views more to the rest of glory he hath provided for them. Yet he can make a low condition very comfortable, by various inward and outward advantages. However, if by these their hearts become carnal and secure, and they go aside from the path of holiness unto sin, he watchfully attends to them, and to their way, and will, by his outward dispensations, check them and chastise them. His chastisements, though often bitter, heavy, and sharp, yet are properly measured and weighed by him, Isa. 27:8, “In measure, when it shooteth forth, [he] will debate with it; he stayeth his rough wind in the day of his east wind.” He giveth chastisement in the measure suited to their strength, and the particular design of his grace respecting their sanctification. He measures his mercy and his contrary dispensations according to this view and design, so as to make all things to cooperate with his grace for good to them, and to make them partakers of his holiness.
As all things are at his command, if they wax wanton and rebellious, he will bring their enemies upon them, to discipline and correct them. When he hath accomplished his whole work of that sort upon them, (Isa. 10:12), he can, as with a word, call off their enemies, yea, avenge their cause upon them to their destruction. He hath Satan under restraint, yea, he can make his most successful devices subservient to their sanctification, by increasing their humility, their watchfulness, their fear of sin, and their attention to salvation; so as thereby to be but the more to the working out of their salvation with fear and trembling. Thus is Christ made unto us sanctification.
I cannot, however, leave this point altogether, without observing some lessons and instructions concerning it, that arise from the subject itself, and the explications that have been given of it. We see then,
1st, That justification and sanctification are connected by Christ’s being made unto us righteousness. We are justified, forgiven, and brought into a state of favour and grace with God. By his being made sanctification, we are disposed and enabled to walk with God. Both are alike necessary. Christ is not made righteousness to any without being, in consequence thereof, made unto them sanctification. As our sanctification doth not precede justification, so neither is it any ground of our confidence in betaking us to Christ for justification; yet sanctification is a special thing in the view and end of our faith by which we do betake us to him. If any will try his state and prove to himself that, through Christ our righteousness, he is in a state of grace, and that his peace and comfort of being so is well founded, let him try it by this, even his sanctification, and his having that sincerely at heart. For our interest in Christ, as the Lord our righteousness, and our being the righteousness of God in him, is ever, and most certainly, attended with and proven by our holiness and practical righteousness, as 1 John 3:7, “Little children, let no man deceive you; he that doth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.”
2d, Sinful men who become careful about salvation are to learn to have recourse to Christ for their sanctification. When they came first under serious concern about their condition, they laboured hard in all works of righteousness. But the law of God, laying open more and more to them their sinfulness, showed them the vanity of this pretension to a justifying righteousness of their own. The judgment and sentence of the law is pointed and clear to this effect, Gal. 3:10, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” This is more easy, convincing the conscience that a man’s doing his duty (even if he could do it perfectly) cannot atone for his sin, or remove the curse denounced by the law for it. But if a man directs his eye to Christ for justifying righteousness, yet he is conscious that there remains upon him an obligation to the inward and outward practice of holiness. Conscience continues to require this, and both law and gospel concur in ratifying this right of conscience and enforcing its demand. So a serious and sincere soul hath still holiness at heart and labours in it; but with the less comfort and success that he seeks this in himself, without having recourse for it to Christ as he ought. But he should learn and remember, that Christ is made unto us sanctification. Let him, therefore, direct his faith to Christ, as for righteousness,—so for sanctification, and the strength needful for it. According to Isa, 45:24. “Surely shall one say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength”—righteousness to stand before God in the judgment, strength to walk with God. Let this be his comfort and strength in labouring to “cleanse himself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
3d, It appears that true believers should be watchfully careful that, in labouring for holiness, they do not put their sanctification in the place of their justifying righteousness. It has been the wretched error of some, that while they have taken peace and comfort from Christ, as made unto us righteousness, they have neglected holiness, yea, have denied or seemed to deny our obligation to it and the necessity of it—this upon the one hand. On the other hand, as there is of every ill principle and disposition that is natural to man some remainder, or an obnoxiousness to its recurring upon him in the true Christian, so it is as to carnal confidence of his self-righteousness, and when there has been considerable attainment of reformation and holiness, there is special danger of this, that needs to be carefully guarded against. The honour of Christ, as the Lord our righteousness, is to be maintained; it is a part of his honour that he is very jealous of. Yea, our own enjoying solid and permanent peace and comfort that can stand it out against the most dangerous temptations of the enemy is no less concerned in it that our peace should be solely founded on that foundation which God hath laid in Christ for our confidence. We may in this find one main cause why it happens in divine dispensation that the Lord, instead of advancing his children to great satisfaction and high consolation, by the view of very remarkable attainments in holiness, keeps them much down by views of that unholiness and sad filthiness of their hearts, with sorrowful struggles against the evils of it, yea, sometimes leaves them to give sad proofs of unholiness in practice. As he doth, by his wisdom and powerful grace, insensibly advance their sanctification, even by these means, so doth he preserve them thereby in that humility, self-denial, and self-diffidence, which suits their condition, and is safe and profitable for them, and at the same time keeps them living by faith, which is the only true way of living for a sinful man, both as to justifying righteousness and sanctification.
4th, There is matter of great encouragement and comfort to every sincere Christian or believer with regard to his sanctification, from this, that Christ is made unto us sanctification. From this he may justly conclude that his sanctification shall be perfected. The further he goes in holiness, and in the study of it, the more he sees and feels the evils of his heart, and from this he is ready often times to judge that, instead of going forward, he is going backward in holiness, becoming daily worse, and no better; and indeed, from his continued experience, he might well conclude, if the source of his sanctification was not higher than in himself, that it would never come to perfection.
But Christ is made unto us sanctification. If he is made unto us righteousness perfectly, he will not less be made unto us sanctification perfectly, though in a different manner. He is of God made so to us; God his Father charges him with it, even with sanctifying his people, and himself hath undertaken it; nor will he fail in it. A Christian is not to judge of this by his present attainment, nor is it his own feeling that will testify the likelihood of it. It should, under his worst feelings, be matter of faith with the Christian, even of that faith that perceives the security of every good thing to him in Christ. Therefore, when he hath the bitterest feelings from the body of sin and death, he is not to think himself the further from the perfection of sanctification. The old man being already crucified, when the Lord’s time comes, he will strike him quite dead by one blow of grace and power, and will completely fulfill his own undertaking and character of being sanctification to us, by finishing that good work and perfecting it absolutely. As he will present his church, so shall every one to whom he hath been truly made sanctification at all, be presented by him glorious, “not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.”
4. Redemption
This being put in the last place, doubtless it is meant in view to that mentioned in Rom. 8:23, the redemption of our body, which is to happen at the last day, which is therefore called the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30), even of the redemption of the purchased possession (Eph. 1:14). They who are justified and sanctified through and by Christ, do continue in this life under various miseries, and they are here in a state of mortality. As the rivers discharge themselves into the sea, so do also their pains, sickness, and miseries, terminate in death. But if Christ is made unto us righteousness, to take away our guilt and condemnation incurred by sin; if he is made unto us sanctification, to make us free from the power of sin first, and next and at length from the very being of sin in us, surely we shall not be left groaning forever under the miseries which sin hath brought on us. If Christians, or true believers, are now the children of God, it were not to be thought that they should continue always in the condition of wretchedness and disgrace in which they appear in this life. No, they shall appear sometime in a condition every way like the children of the great king.
The Lord hath wisely thought fit that sin and misery should ever accompany one another, and that misery should be in the condition of his own children, so long as any least remainder of sin cleaves to them; and a good mean, under the influence of divine grace, it is against the prevalence of sin in them. But as I was just now saying, that Christ is made unto them sanctification in its perfection, so the perfecting of their sanctification that will put an end to sin in them and their deliverance from misery will happen at once.
Believers come unto a state of grace by the begun application of redemption to them, Eph. 1:7, “In whom we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” The application of redemption to them perfectly comes at last. When Christ was on earth, he said to the man sick of the palsy, Matt. 9:2, “Son be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee,” thus intimating to him that he was cured of his disease. At the great day, the effect of redemption, the forgiveness of sin, in the fulness of consolation, will be intimated to them, so as that they shall, at the same time, find themselves recovered from death, free from all the miseries that preceded it—yea, from all the effects of sin in body, in soul, and in their condition in every respect. None of them “shall say, I am sick; for they shall be forgiven their iniquity.” There will then, in the great day of redemption and thenceforth be no one of God’s people blind, or deaf, or lame, or sick, or pained in soul or body. Their bodies shall be spiritual, heavenly, powerful, and incorruptible, possessed by souls perfectly pure, in which Christ hath perfected sanctification, and fit to bear a part with their souls in all holy and heavenly exercise and enjoyment. The body of sin will not, by any remainder of it, give any annoyance. God will no longer keep his people at a distance, nor they ever more complain of the hiding of his face, Rev. 22:4. There shall be no more curse, nor any effect whatsoever of it, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in the New Jerusalem, and his servants shall see his face. Christ will have no long occasion to mediate between God and his people, priest, or king; the end of these offices being fully attained, and the design of them fully accomplished. Having delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, from thenceforth God himself will be immediately and eternally enjoyed by them, and will be to his people all in all.
How great then the hope of God’s people, against that day when Christ shall redeem them from death into a state free from all the evils which they groaned under in this life, when he shall appear to be redemption to them in its full perfection; who, as they did here bear the image of the earthly man, they shall from thenceforth eternally bear the image of the heavenly, he fashioning ever their vile bodies unto a likeness of his own glorious body, when they shall be fully conformed to the image of the Son of God, as they were predestined to be in holiness, happiness, and glory, and he shall shine as the first born among many brethren. If there is so great consolation by the grace that hath now given them such a hope, how great, comfortable, and glorious the grace that is to be brought unto them at the revelation of Jesus Christ, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in them that believe!
The Lord’s people have, from this subject, wherewithal to support their hearts when the natural course of things, or their particular infirmities, distresses, afflictions, or sufferings are likely to bring them soon to the period of their present course. These do show them that their dissolution approaches. At the same time they show that their redemption likewise approaches. To which is to be applied what the Lord saith to his disciples in Luke 21:28, “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.” It indeed pretty commonly happens too much otherwise, even on the appearance of certain symptoms, that Christians look down, fixing their eyes on the horrors of death, on the darkness and corruption of the grave, so they droop and bow down their heads. It were well to have, in its true light and exercise, the faith that is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence or demonstration of things not seen. This would enable Christians to look up, and lift up their heads, and when they view death, to look beyond it to the redemption that succeeds it, and to the glorious appearance of him who is of God made unto us redemption.
