He was more willing to die than they were to put him to death; he suffered not by force, he courted [welcomed] the effusion [shedding] of his blood, when he knew that the hour which his Father appointed, and man needed, was approaching. Neither the infamy [shame] of the cross, nor the sharpness of the punishment, nor the present and foreseen ingratitude of his enemies could deter him from desiring and effecting man's salvation. He went to it, not only as a duty, but [as] an honor; and was content for a while to be [the] sport of devils that he might be the spring [source] of salvation to men.
From the book Christ Crucified by Stephen Charnock, page 57
Monday, October 6, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Excerpts from Christ Crucified - Stephen Charnock
To come with man's wisdom would detract from the strength and excellency of the word, which, as the sun, shines best with it's own beams. The Spirit's eloquence is most piercing and demonstrative, and quickly convicteth a man by it's own evidence. Carnal wisdom charms the ear, but this strikes the heart.
Observe:
(1) All human wisdom must be denied, when it comes in competition with the doctrine of Christ.
(2) Christ and his death is the choicest subject for the wisest ear.
(3) As all Christ, so especially his death, is the object of faith.
(4) As all of Christ, so more especially his death in all the mysteries of it, ought to be the main subject of a Christian's study and knowledge.
He was made sin, not by us, not only by himself and his own will, but by God's ordination; 'He hath made him to be sin for us' (2 Corinthians 5:21) by a divine statute, that is, he was ordained to be put into the state and condition of a sinner in our stead; not into the practical and experimental state of sin, but the penal state of a sinner, to be sacrifice for it, not to be polluted with it.
His death was ordered by God as an act of choicest love.
God at creation beheld man, a godly frame of his own rearing, adorned with his own beautified with his graces, embellished with holiness and righteousness, and furnished with a power to stand. Afterwards God beheld him ungratefully (rebelling against his Sovereign, invading God's rights), and contemning God's goodness, forfeiting his own privileges, courting his ruin, and sinking into misery. So blinded is his mind, as not to be able to find a way for his own recovery. So perverse is his will, that instead of craving pardon of his Judge, he flies from him, and when his flight would not advantage him, he stands upon his own defense, and extenuates his crime; thus adding one provocation to another, as if he had an ambition to harden the heart of God against him, and render himself irrevocably miserable. So God overlooks, as in immense love and grace to settle a way for man's recovery, without giving any dissatisfaction to his justice, so strongly engaged for the punishment of the offense. And rather than this notorious rebel and prodigious apostate should perish according to his desert, God would transfer his punishment (which he could not remit without a violation of his truth, and an injury to his righteousness) upon a person equal to himself, most beloved by him, his delight from eternity, and infinitely dearer to him than any thing in heaven or earth.
Herein was the emphasis of divine love to us, that 'he sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins' (1 John 4:10). It was love that he would restore man after the Fall; there was no more necessity of doing this than of creating the world. As it added nothing to the happiness of God, so the want of it had detracted nothing from it. There was not more necessity of setting up man after his breaking than a new repair of the world after the destructive deluge. But that he might wind up his love to the highest pitch, he would not only restore man, but rather than let him lie in his deserved misery, would punish his own Son, to secure man from it. It was purely his grace which was the cause that his Son 'tasteth death for every man' (Hebrews 2:19).
He was then wounded for our iniquities, and being cast into the furnace of divine wrath, quenched the flames; as a Jonah the type, who being cast into the raging sea quelled the storm.
Observe:
(1) All human wisdom must be denied, when it comes in competition with the doctrine of Christ.
(2) Christ and his death is the choicest subject for the wisest ear.
(3) As all Christ, so especially his death, is the object of faith.
(4) As all of Christ, so more especially his death in all the mysteries of it, ought to be the main subject of a Christian's study and knowledge.
He was made sin, not by us, not only by himself and his own will, but by God's ordination; 'He hath made him to be sin for us' (2 Corinthians 5:21) by a divine statute, that is, he was ordained to be put into the state and condition of a sinner in our stead; not into the practical and experimental state of sin, but the penal state of a sinner, to be sacrifice for it, not to be polluted with it.
His death was ordered by God as an act of choicest love.
God at creation beheld man, a godly frame of his own rearing, adorned with his own beautified with his graces, embellished with holiness and righteousness, and furnished with a power to stand. Afterwards God beheld him ungratefully (rebelling against his Sovereign, invading God's rights), and contemning God's goodness, forfeiting his own privileges, courting his ruin, and sinking into misery. So blinded is his mind, as not to be able to find a way for his own recovery. So perverse is his will, that instead of craving pardon of his Judge, he flies from him, and when his flight would not advantage him, he stands upon his own defense, and extenuates his crime; thus adding one provocation to another, as if he had an ambition to harden the heart of God against him, and render himself irrevocably miserable. So God overlooks, as in immense love and grace to settle a way for man's recovery, without giving any dissatisfaction to his justice, so strongly engaged for the punishment of the offense. And rather than this notorious rebel and prodigious apostate should perish according to his desert, God would transfer his punishment (which he could not remit without a violation of his truth, and an injury to his righteousness) upon a person equal to himself, most beloved by him, his delight from eternity, and infinitely dearer to him than any thing in heaven or earth.
Herein was the emphasis of divine love to us, that 'he sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins' (1 John 4:10). It was love that he would restore man after the Fall; there was no more necessity of doing this than of creating the world. As it added nothing to the happiness of God, so the want of it had detracted nothing from it. There was not more necessity of setting up man after his breaking than a new repair of the world after the destructive deluge. But that he might wind up his love to the highest pitch, he would not only restore man, but rather than let him lie in his deserved misery, would punish his own Son, to secure man from it. It was purely his grace which was the cause that his Son 'tasteth death for every man' (Hebrews 2:19).
He was then wounded for our iniquities, and being cast into the furnace of divine wrath, quenched the flames; as a Jonah the type, who being cast into the raging sea quelled the storm.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Excerpts from The Chief of Sinners Saved - Stephen Charnock
Consider, God knows your sin better than you do, yet He kindly calls to you, and promises you as good a reception as if you'd never sinned.
So, “They say, if a man put away his wife, and she go from him and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? Shall not that land be greatly polluted? But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet return again to me, saith the Lord,” Jer. 3:1. Though you have been a common adulteress, and made all comers, every idol welcome, and been in league with many sins, yet upon your return I’ll claim you as my own; and these are God’s warrants for encouragement.
They who were of darkness were made light in the Lord, which is more than if you saw a black piece of pitch changed into a clear piece of crystal, or a stone ascend into the nature of a glittering star.
Water cannot moisten, fire cannot but burn. So likewise the corrupt nature of man being possessed with an invincible contrariety and enmity to God, will never suffer to comply with God. And the inclinations of a sinner to sin being more strengthened by the frequency of sinful acts, have as great a power over him, and as natural to him, as any qualities are to natural agents: and being stronger than any sympathies in the world, cannot by a man’s own power, or the power of any other nature equal to it, be turned into a contrary channel.
Nothing can act beyond its own principle and nature. Nothing in the world can raise itself to a higher rank of being than that which nature has placed it in; a spark cannot make itself a star, though it mount a little up to heaven; nor a plant endue itself with sense, nor a beast adorn itself with reason; nor a man make himself an angel. Thorns cannot bring forth grapes, nor thistles produce figs because such fruits are above the nature of those plants. So neither can our corrupt nature bring forth grace, which is a fruit above it. Effectus non excedit virtutem suae causae [the effect cannot exceed the power of its cause]: grace is more excellent than nature, therefore cannot be the fruit of nature. It is Christ’s conclusion, “How can you, being evil, speak good things?” Matt. 12:33, 34. Not so much as the buds and blossoms of words, much less the fruit of actions. They can no more change their natures, than a viper can do away with his poison.
Will any man leave his sensual delights and such sins that please and flatter his flesh? Will a man ever endeavour to run away from those lords which he serves with affection? having as much delight in being bound a slave to these lusts, as the devil has in binding him. Therefore when you see a man cast away his pleasures, deprive himself of those comfortable things to which his soul was once knit, and walk in paths contrary to corrupt nature, you may search for the cause anywhere, rather than in nature itself. No piece of dirty, muddy clay can form itself into a neat and handsome vessel; no plain piece of timber can fit itself for the building, much less a crooked one. Nor a man that is born blind, give himself sight.God deals with men in this case as he did with Abraham. He would not give Isaac while Sarah’s womb, in a natural probability, might have borne him; but when her womb was dead, and age had taken away all natural strength of conception, then God gives him; that it might appear that he was not a child of nature, but a child of promise.
So, “They say, if a man put away his wife, and she go from him and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? Shall not that land be greatly polluted? But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet return again to me, saith the Lord,” Jer. 3:1. Though you have been a common adulteress, and made all comers, every idol welcome, and been in league with many sins, yet upon your return I’ll claim you as my own; and these are God’s warrants for encouragement.
They who were of darkness were made light in the Lord, which is more than if you saw a black piece of pitch changed into a clear piece of crystal, or a stone ascend into the nature of a glittering star.
Water cannot moisten, fire cannot but burn. So likewise the corrupt nature of man being possessed with an invincible contrariety and enmity to God, will never suffer to comply with God. And the inclinations of a sinner to sin being more strengthened by the frequency of sinful acts, have as great a power over him, and as natural to him, as any qualities are to natural agents: and being stronger than any sympathies in the world, cannot by a man’s own power, or the power of any other nature equal to it, be turned into a contrary channel.
Nothing can act beyond its own principle and nature. Nothing in the world can raise itself to a higher rank of being than that which nature has placed it in; a spark cannot make itself a star, though it mount a little up to heaven; nor a plant endue itself with sense, nor a beast adorn itself with reason; nor a man make himself an angel. Thorns cannot bring forth grapes, nor thistles produce figs because such fruits are above the nature of those plants. So neither can our corrupt nature bring forth grace, which is a fruit above it. Effectus non excedit virtutem suae causae [the effect cannot exceed the power of its cause]: grace is more excellent than nature, therefore cannot be the fruit of nature. It is Christ’s conclusion, “How can you, being evil, speak good things?” Matt. 12:33, 34. Not so much as the buds and blossoms of words, much less the fruit of actions. They can no more change their natures, than a viper can do away with his poison.
Will any man leave his sensual delights and such sins that please and flatter his flesh? Will a man ever endeavour to run away from those lords which he serves with affection? having as much delight in being bound a slave to these lusts, as the devil has in binding him. Therefore when you see a man cast away his pleasures, deprive himself of those comfortable things to which his soul was once knit, and walk in paths contrary to corrupt nature, you may search for the cause anywhere, rather than in nature itself. No piece of dirty, muddy clay can form itself into a neat and handsome vessel; no plain piece of timber can fit itself for the building, much less a crooked one. Nor a man that is born blind, give himself sight.God deals with men in this case as he did with Abraham. He would not give Isaac while Sarah’s womb, in a natural probability, might have borne him; but when her womb was dead, and age had taken away all natural strength of conception, then God gives him; that it might appear that he was not a child of nature, but a child of promise.
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