Bible Commentaries
Hebrews 3

Verse 14

A Persuasive to Steadfastness

A Sermon

(No. 1042)

Delivered on Thursday Evening, February 29th, 1872, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

"For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end." Hebrews 3:14 .

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE for the preacher to say too much about faith, or to extol this grace too highly! It is of vital importance, not at one stage of the Christian's history only, but throughout the whole of his career, from his setting out even till he reaches the goal where faith is turned to sight. By faith we begin the life of obedience to Christ, and by faith we continue to lead the life of holiness, for "the just shall live by faith." This is the point of honor and of safety with all the just the justified ones. The whole compass of their well-being, though it take in the sternest sense of duty and the highest grant of privilege, is to believe simply, to rely implicitly, and to confide cheerfully, in their covenant God. The beginning of their confidence is a hopeful sign. Time will test its value. The result of that profession has yet to be shown. Hence it is necessary that the beginning of their confidence should be held fast, steadfast even unto the end. When we begin in the spirit we do not proceed with a hope to be made perfect in the flesh. We do not start with justification by faith, and then look for perfection by works. We do not lean upon Christ when we are little children, and then expect to run alone when we are men; but we live by drawing all our stores from him, while as yet we are naked, and poor, and miserable. When most enriched by his grace, we still have to say and delight to say it, "all my springs are in thee." Faith at the beginning and faith at the close; faith all the way through is the one important matter. A failure in this, as we observed in our reading, shut Israel out of the promised land. "They could not enter in because of unbelief." Unbelief is always the greatest mischief to the saints; hence they have need earnestly to watch against it. Faith is always the channel of innumerable blessings to them: they ought, therefore, most watchfully to maintain it. I. First, then, here is A VERY HIGH PRIVILEGE. "We are made partakers of Christ." Neither does it say we are made partakers of rich spiritual benefits. That is a fact which we may greet with thorough trust and hearty welcome. But, dear brethren, there is more than that here. To be partakers of pardoning mercy, to be partakers of renewing grace; to be partakers of the adoption, to be partakers of sanctification, preservation, and of all the other covenant blessings, is to possess an endowment of unspeakable value; but to be made "partakers of Christ," is to have all in one. You have all the flowers in one posy, all the gems in one necklace, all the sweet spices in one delicious compound. "We are made partakers of Christ" of himself. "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell," and we are made partakers with him of all that he is ordained to be of God unto us "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." We are partakers of him; this is a privilege that no tongue can ever utter, no thought of finite mortal can ever grasp. But ah, it would need more time than we can afford, and far more spiritual teaching than we profess to have attained, to dive into this great and profound utterance, "We are made partakers of Christ." Still, as we stand spell-bound on the margin, let us venture to sail out just a little upon the surface of this ocean of goodness and of grandeur. Moreover, we are partakers of Christ, inasmuch as his righteousness also becomes ours by imputation. We are not only freed from sin through his atonement, but we are rendered acceptable to God through his obedience as our responsible surety. We are "accepted in the beloved," we are justified through his righteousness. God seeth not us marred in the likeness of the first Adam who sinned, but he seeth us in Christ, the second Adam, remade, redeemed, restored, arrayed in garments of glory and beauty, with the Savior's vesture on, as holy as the Holy One. He seeth "no sin in Jacob nor iniquity in Israel." When Jacob learns to trust in the Messiah, and Israel hides behind his representative, the Lord our Righteousness, Jacob ceases to wrestle, for he prevails, and Israel stands in honor, for he is a prince with God. Blessed, thrice blessed, are they who are partakers of Christ in his righteousness. But, is there not a doctrine concealed here of deeper significance? The union of believers with himself was among the latest of all the revelations which our blessed Lord when on earth made known to his disciples. With a parable he showed it, and without a parable he declared it plainly. Every true child of God is one with Christ. This union is set forth in Scripture by several images, to which we will just refer, but upon none of which can we just now enlarge. We are one with Christ and partakers of him as the stone is cemented to the foundation. It is built upon it, rests upon it, and, together with the foundation, goes to make up the structure. So we are built into Christ by coherence and adhesion, joined to him, and made a spiritual house for the habitation of God by the Holy Ghost. We are made partakers with Christ by a union in which we lean and depend upon him. This union is further set forth by the vine and the branches. The branches are participators with the stem, the sap of the stem is for the branches. It treasures it up only to distribute it to them. It has no sap for itself alone, all its store of sap is for the branch. In like manner we are vitally one with Christ, and the grace that is in him is for us. It was given to him that he might distribute it to all his people. Furthermore, it is as the union of the husband with the wife, they are participators the one with the other. All that belongs to the husband the wife enjoys and shares with him. Meanwhile she shares himself, nay, he is all her own. Thus it is with Christ. We are married unto him betrothed unto him for ever in righteousness and in judgment, and all that he has is ours, and he himself is ours. All his heart belongs to each one of us. And then, too, as the members of the body are one with the head, as they derive their guidance, their happiness, their existence from the head, so are we made partakers of Christ. Oh, matchless participation! It is "a great mystery" saith the apostle; and, indeed, such a mystery it is as they only know who experience it. Even they cannot understand it fully; far less can they hope to set it forth so that carnal minds shall comprehend its spiritual meaning. The day cometh when we shall be partakers of Christ to the highest and uttermost degree that symbols can suggest, prophecy forestal, faith anticipate, or actual accomplishment bring to pass; for, albeit, though of all that our Lord Jesus Christ is in heaven we have a reversionary interest to-day by faith, we shall have a share in it by actual participation ere long. The language of the text reminds us that none of us have any title to this privilege by nature. "We are made partakers of Christ." From our first parentage He derived a very different entail. We all of woman born became partakers of the ruin of the first Adam, of the corruption of humanity, of the condemnation common to the entire race. Oh, to be made partakers! This is a work of grace, of sovereign omnipotent grace a work which a man cannot sufficiently admire, and for which he can never be sufficiently grateful. "We are made partakers of Christ." This is the Holy Ghost's work in us, to rend us away from the old wild olive, and to graft us into the good olive, to dissolve the union between us and sin, and to cement a union between our souls and Christ, to take us out of the Egyptian bondage and the Egyptian night in which we willingly sat, and to bring us into the liberty and the light wherewith Christ makes his people free and glad. This is work as grand and godlike as to create a world. For it let the Lord's name be magnified by each one of us if, indeed, we have been made partakers of Christ. If I say; and that "if" leads me to the second point I proposed to consider. Am I made a partaker of Christ? Multiply the question till each individual among you makes it his own. In this congregation there are various classes. There are probably some here who are only hearers hearers about Christ, not partakers of Christ. It is one thing to hear about a banquet, it is quite another thing to be fed at it. It is one thing in the wilderness to hear of rippling streams, and quite another to stoop down and drink the cooling draught one thing for the prisoner by night to dream of liberty, or by day to read of roaming free through his native country, another thing to get rid of the chain one thing to hear of pardon, another thing to be pardoned one thing to hear of heaven, another thing to go there. O my dear hearers! some of you are as familiar with the gospel as you are with the house you live in; yet, though you live in the house, you never live in the gospel, and I fear you never will. You hear it, and hear it, that is all. God grant you may not have to hear of your hearing in another world, where it shall be laid down among the chief of your sins that you were of those who, when they heard did provoke provoke because they rejected what they ought to have received. These are solemn questionings. Many persons are temporary followers of Christ, and outwardly, as far as the human eye can follow, they appear to be real followers of Christ. I believe in the final perseverance of the saints; but I do not know, nor can any man know, how near a man may approach to the likeness of a saint and yet after all apostatise. Nor is any one of us able to say of himself, or of his fellow members, "We never shall fall away." I remember one whose voice I, and many of your heard in prayer, and we enjoyed the exercise of his gifts. The man had been reclaimed from the lowest class of society, and he distinguished himself by his devotion in such a way that he was accepted as a church officer among us. I remember, when the first charge of sin was brought against him, and of very grievous sin, one among us said, "If that man is not a child of God I am not a child of God." The expression seemed to me too strong, but in my heart I almost joined in it. I was ready to pronounce him innocent before I investigated the charges. I felt certain that there could not be in such a man as that the impurity laid at his door; yet it was there, it was all there, and worse than tongue can tell. He repented and though not received into the church because the profession of repentance did not seem to be all we could wish it to be, yet there was a turning aside from sin for awhile. But he went into it again, and he wallowed in it. He died in it. As far as we could any of us judge, he perished in it. He went from bad to worse. I feel I might say without uncharitableness this man carried his iniquity, as far as human judgment could track him. Therefore, without prejudice to the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, which I implicitly believe, I will not venture to say of any among you much less will I venture to say it of myself, that I am sure I am so made a partaker of Christ that I shall hold fast my confidence to the end. I hope so. I rest in Christ, trusting in him. The possibility is that I am deceiving myself; the possibility is that you may be self-deceivers. At any rate, it is so far a possibility that I would beseech you to have no confidence but such as the Holy Ghost gives you; to put no reliance as to the future anywhere but in the eternal arms; have no assurance but that assurance which is based upon the word of God and the witness of the Spirit within your soul. That can give you infallible assurance. Apart from that, I repeat it again, I will say neither of you nor of myself, that I can be sure with all the profession that is made, that you are partakers of Christ. Some go even farther than being temporary followers of Christ, and yet after all perish. They maintain a consistent profession before the eye of men throughout the whole of their lives, as vessels that navigate the whole of the sea and go down in the harbour. There are soldiers that have held out and fought valiantly up to the very moment of victory, and then have run away. And there are professors that have been unexceptional in their lives, whose character has been apparently without a blemish, and even those who knew them in private could not detect any serious flaw in their conduct; yet, for all that, there was a worm at the root; a fly in the pot of ointment; a failure as to the sincerity of their grace. They had not, after all, the true faith which hangs upon Christ, and they did not persevere in heart, though they appeared to persevere in life. The difference between the Christian and the professor is sometimes such as only God can discern. There is a path which the eagle's eye hath not seen, and the lion's whelp hath not traversed a path of life into which God can bring us, end of which it may be said that he knows all who are in it. But, there is a something like it, a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. There is a counterfeit of the true metal of grace so well manufactured, that only omniscience itself can tell which is the reprobate silver and which is the pure shekel of the sanctuary. Grave reason have we, then, for raising the question as to whether we are made partakers of Christ or not. This passage may be read in two ways, neither of which violates the literal meaning of the original, either of which may express to us the mind of the Spirit as we have it in our version, "the beginning of our confidence," or, as I would rather translate it, "the foundation of our confidence," the basis on which our confidence rests. Now, beloved, what was the beginning of our confidence? Well, the beginning of my confidence was, "I am a sinner, Christ is a Savior; and I rest on him to save me." Long before I began with Christ he had begun with me; but when I began with him it was, as the law writers say, "In formâ pauperis," after the style of a wretched mendicant a pauper who had nothing of his own, and looked to Christ for everything. I know when I first cast my eye to his dear cross and rested in him, I had not any merit of my own, it was all demerit. I was not deserving, except that I felt I was hell-deserving: I had not even a shade of virtue that I could confide in. It was all over with me. I had come to an extremity. I could not have found a farthing's worth of goodness in myself if I had been melted down. I seemed to be all rottenness, a dunghill of corruption, nothing better, but something a great deal worse. I could truly join with Paul at that time, and say that my own righteousnesses were dung. A strong expression he used; but I do not suppose he felt it to be strong enough. He says, "I count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him." Well, that is how we began with Christ. We were nothing at all, and Jesus Christ was all in all. Now, brethren, we are not made partakers of Christ unless we hold this fast to the end. Have you got beyond that? Are you something creditable in your own estimation? I am afraid of you. Are you richer now in yourselves that you were then? I am afraid of you, brethren. Do you mind the place you used to stand in? you dared not lift your eyes, to heaven, but cried, "God be merciful to me a sinner." How in Christ you have a far nobler place than that, for you are made to sit with him in the heavenly places. But, I ask you, apart from Christ, have you any different place from that of deep selfabasement? If you have, you have not held the beginning of your confidence fast even until now. Begin to suspect yourself. This is the position always to take "having nothing and yet possessing all things."

"I the chief of sinners am But Jesus died for me."

Such is the beginning of our confidence. Brethren, where else was the beginning of your confidence? May we not say of it that it was only and wholly, entirely and exclusively, in the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ? In the beginning of your confidence you did not rely upon any ceremonies, nor upon priests, nor upon your Bible readings, nor upon your prayings, nor upon your feelings, nor your experiences, nor your orthodoxy, nor your knowledge of doctrine, nor upon your works, nor your preachings, your sanctifications or your mortifications. No, in the beginning of your confidence the one foundation was Jesus only. Nothing save Jesus would I know. Oh, if on that day, I had met with a man who had any trust in his own righteousness, I know I should have quarrelled with him. If he had told me that he hoped that Jesus Christ would help him to save himself I could have wept over him to think he should be such a fool. Why, Christ is all or nothing. He must save us from top to bottom, or we never shall be saved at all. If our foundation is partly on the rock of his finished work, and partly on the sand of our own unworthy doing, the whole house totters and it must come down. Let me call back your thoughts again, beloved, to the love of your espousals, when you acknowledged the Lord and went after him into the wilderness. Did you not then have confidence in Christ of a very humble character? Oh, at that time you did not want to be among the first of God's people to play the part of Diotrephes. When you were at the foot of the cross, and looked up as a poor sinner, you had no notion about being a distinguished man in the church. I know it did not come into my head that day that I should be a leader in God's Israel. Ah no, if I might but sit in the corner of his house, or be a door keeper it had been enough for me. If, like the dog under the table, I might get a crumb of his mercy, were it but flavoured by his hand, because he had broken it off that is all I wanted. That is just how we ought always to live lowly, humbly, gentle, and broken-spirited, and ready to be anything, so that Christ may he glorified. It shows the risings of the old nature when we get to be such consequential people that if anybody should say a hard word, we wonder, or if anybody slanders us, instead of saying, "Ah, if he knew us he could say something a good deal worse," we are in a high and mighty temper because our brilliant character is injured. When we were first made partakers of Christ, we received him very gratefully. How thankful we were for one look from Jesus' eye. Half a promise seemed precious in those days. The sermon, though it was uncouth perhaps, if full of Christ, fed us to the full. Now, alas, how many professors despise precious truth if it does not happen to be clothed in the most polished phrases; they run hither and thither where there is no food for them: not hungering and thirsting after righteousness as of yore, they admire the banquet spread out with all flowers and no fruit: they look after gaudy periods, where pure silver and polished sham do sparkle, though there be no food for the soul to feed on. Did they hold fast the beginning of their confidence they would prize the truth and love the truth, and account that if it were but the truth, it did not matter in what shape it came to them, so long as they could get hold of a promise, have a smile from Christ's face or enjoy one ray of the blessed Spirit's consolation in their souls. But now the starving beggars have become dainty epicures; those who once were glad enough to come and feast on broken crusts from the Master's table, become connoisseurs of their Master's food; their soul "loatheth this light bread," though it is the bread of angels, and drops from the granaries of God. We should suspect ourselves, when we get into that squeamish condition. Such a proud captious state of heart does not evidence that we have been made partakers of Christ at all. FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT= "When we first received our confidence, we were obedient in word and deed. I wish all disciples of Christ had the like scrupulous conscience. I speak my own experience. The first week after I was converted to God, I felt afraid to put one foot before another for fear I should do wrong; when I thought over the day if there had been a failure in my temper, or if there had been a frothy work spoken, or something done amiss, I did chasten myself sorely, and had I known at that time anything to be my Lord's will, I think I should not have hesitated to do it; to me it would not have mattered whether it was a fashionable thing or an unfashionable thing, if it was according to his word. Oh, to do his will! to follow him whithersoever he would have me go! Why, then it seemed as though I should never, never, never be slack in keeping his commandments. Dear brethren, have you held fast the beginning of your confidence? I smite upon my own breast when I remember that, in that respect, I have not held fast the beginning of my confidence. To the cross again! Beloved, if any of you have doubts aroused in your mind by such bitter reflections upon yourselves, do not dispute with your doubts; go to the cross again. Never dispute with the devil. He can always beat you. Go straight to the cross. If he says, "Thou art no saint," say then "Very likely I am not, but there is one thing even thou canst not deny thou canst not say I am not a sinner; a sinner I am. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and if I never trusted him before, I will begin now. If I never yet did know the life of God, I will look to his death forthwith. Oh, if I never was healed of the disease of sin, there is healing in those dear wounds, and I, by faith, will have it while yet it is called to-day." Jesus, I trust thee; I trust thee wholly, and thee alone. I have heard that some years ago there was a coal-pit in work, the shaft of which by some means got blocked up, and the men could not get out of it. They were very nearly perishing. One of them had heard that there was an old working which led to another mine, and though he was afraid it might be blocked up, yet the best thing they could do would be to go along, if, perhaps, they might come to the mouth of another shaft. This old working had not been traversed for some time; it never was very lofty. They had to go along on their hands and knees, and generally needed to crawl lying flat on the ground. At length they came to the mouth of that old shaft, were soon extricated, and they gladly found their way to the upper air again. Peradventure, some of you have been living heretofore by frames and feelings; that experience has been the shaft by which you have been coming and going; and this shaft has been blocked up to-night. Well, I am not sorry for it. Come, now, brethren, let us all go along on our hands and knees where the sinners go. Let us crawl to the old shaft: let us prostrate ourselves, confessing, "Lord, I am vile, conceived in sin. Lord, I am unworthy: Lord, I am earthly, selfish, devilish. Lord, I am a mass of wounds and a mass of loathsomeness. I am unworthy of thy favor and thy love." Let us just creep along in that fashion till we come to Christ, and say,

"Just as I am, without one plea, Save that thy blood was shed for me, And that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come."

You will find that old shaft is not shut up. There is light. Look up! There is the cross above you. Jesus is still willing to receive sinners, still able to save sinners, for he is "exalted" on high "to give repentance unto Israel and remission of sins." O come to him just that way; and, brother, when you get back to Christ in that way by which you went years ago, the advice of the text, with which I will sum up all, is keep on coming to him in that same way always. Keep on coming always. Keep on coming always. Perhaps you have been on the top of a mountain such as the Rigi or as Snowden. You know these mountains do not move. They are good solid rock under your feet. But people erect platforms on the top of them to see the sun rise a little sooner, or something of that sort. From the top of one of those platforms a man may come down with a crash and break his limbs. That is something like our erections which we put up over our simple faith in Christ. Our beautiful frames and feelings and experiences they will come down with a crash some day, for they are rotten stuff; but, when a man stands upon this "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and I am resting upon him: he is all my salvation and all my desire: his precious blood is all my confidence. The love of his heart, the power of his arm, the merit of his plea, here I rest myself," O beloved, there is no fear of that confidence ever giving way beneath your feet. There may you stand and serenely rejoice when worlds shall melt and the pillars of the earth shall reel. God bless you, and keep you ever holding the beginning of your confidence steadfast unto the end. So shall it be proved beyond question that you are partakers of Christ.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON Hebrews 3:0 .

"THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL." Edited by C. H. SPURGEON. Contents for April, 1872.