"Till He Come" -- A Word from the Beloved's Own Mouth
"TILL HE COME"
Communion Meditations And Addresses by C.H. Spurgeon, 1896
A Word from the Beloved's Own Mouth.
"And ye are clean." -- John xiii. 10.
As Gideon's fleece was full of dew so that he could wring out the
moisture, so will a text sometimes be when the Holy Spirit deigns
to visit His servants through its words. This utterance of our
Saviour to His disciples has been as a wafer made with honey to
our taste, and we doubt not it may prove equally as sweet to
others.
Observe carefully, dear friends, what the eulogium is which
is here passed upon the Lord's beloved disciples: "Ye are clean."
This is the primeval blessing, so soon lost by our first parents.
This is the virtue, the loss of which shut man out of Paradise,
and continues to shut men out of heaven. The want of cleanness in
heart and hands condemns sinners to banishment from God, and
defiles all their offerings. To be clean before God is the desire
of every penitent, and the highest aspiration of the most advanced
believer. It is what all the ceremonies and ablutions of the law
can never bestow and what Pharisees with all their pretensions
cannot attain. To be clean is to be as the angels are, as
glorified saints are, yea, as the Father Himself is.
Acceptance with the Lord, safety, happiness, and every
blessing, always go with cleanness of heart, and he that hath it
cannot miss of heaven. It seems too high a condition to be
ascribed to mortals, yet, by the lips of Him who could not err,
the disciples were said, without a qualifying word, or adverb of
degree, to be "clean"; that is to say, they were perfectly
justified in the sight of eternal equity, and were regarded as
free from every impurity. Dear friends, is this blessing yours?
Have you ever believed unto righteousness? Have you taken the Lord
Jesus to be your complete cleansing, your sanctification, your
redemption? Has the Holy Spirit ever sealed in your peaceful
spirit the gracious testimony, "ye are clean"? The assurance is
not confined to the apostles, for ye also are "complete in Him,"
"perfect in Christ Jesus," if ye have indeed by faith received the
righteousness of God. The psalmist said, "Wash me, and I shall be
whiter than snow;" if you have been washed, you are even to that
highest and purest degree clean before the Lord, and clean now.
Oh, that all believers would live up to their condition and
privilege; but alas! too many are pining as if they were still
miserable sinners, and forgetting that they are in Christ Jesus
forgiven sinners, and therefore ought to be happy in the Lord.
Remember, beloved believer, that, as one with Christ, you are not
with sinners in the gall of bitterness, but with the saints in the
land which floweth with milk and honey.
Your cleanness is not a thing of degrees, it is not a
variable or vanishing quantity, it is present, abiding, perfect,
you are clean through the Word, through the application of the
blood of sprinkling to the conscience, and through the imputation
of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then lift up your
head, and sing for joy of heart, seeing that your transgression is
pardoned, your sin is covered, and in you Jehovah seeth not
iniquity. Dear friends, let not another moment pass till by faith
in Jesus you have grasped this privilege. Be not content to
believe that the priceless boon may be had, but lay hold upon it
for yourself. You will find the song of substitution a choice song
if you are able to sing it.
"In my Surety I am free,
His dear hands were pierced for me;
With his spotless vesture on
Holy as the Holy One."
Much of the force of the sentence before us lies in the
Person praising. To be certified as clean by the blind priests of
Rome, would be small comfort to a true Christian. To receive the
approving verdict of our fellow-men is consoling, but it is after
all of small consequence. The human standard of purity is itself
grossly incorrect, and therefore to be judged by it is but a poor
trial, and to be acquitted a slender comfort; but the Lord Jesus
judges no man after the flesh, He came forth from God, and is
Himself God, infinitely just and good, hence His tests are
accurate, and His verdict is absolute. I wot whom He pronounces
clean is clean indeed. Our Lord was omniscient, He would have at
once detected the least evil in His disciples; if there had
remained upon the man unpardoned sin, He must have seen it; if any
relic of condemnation had lingered upon them, He must have
detected it at once, no speck could have escaped His all-discerning
eye; yet did He say without hesitation of all but
Judas, "Ye are clean."
Perhaps they did not catch the full glory of this utterance;
possibly they missed much of that deep joyous meaning, which is
now revealed to us by the Spirit; otherwise, what bliss to have
heard with their own ears from those sacred lips, so plain, so
positive, so sure a testimony to their character before God! Yet
our hearts need not be filled with regret because we cannot hear
that ever-blessed voice with these our earthly ears, for the
testimony of Jesus in the Word is quite as sure as the witness of
His lips when He spoke among the sons of men, and that testimony
is, "Whosoever believeth is justified from all things." Yes, it is
as certain as if you, dear friends, heard the Redeemer Himself
speak, that you are free from all condemning sin if you are
looking with your whole heart to Jesus only as your all in all.
What a joy is yours and mine! He who is to judge the world in
righteousness has Himself affirmed us to be clean. By how much the
condemnation of guilt is black and terrible, by so much the
forgiveness of sin is bright and comforting. Let us rejoice in the
Lord, whose indisputable judgment has given forth a sentence so
joyous, so full of glory.
"Jesus declares me clean,
Then clean indeed I am,
However guilty I have been,
I'm cleansd through the Lamb.
"His lips can never lie,
His eye is never blind,
If he acquit, I can defy
All hell a fault to find."
It may cheer us to call to mind the persons praised. They
were not cherubim and seraphim, but men, and notably they were men
compassed with infirmity. There was Peter, who a few minutes after
was forward and presumptuous; and, indeed, it is not needful to
name them one by one, for they all forsook their Master, and fled
in His hour of peril. Not one among them was more than a mere
child in grace; they had little about them that was apostolic
except their commission, they were very evidently men of like
passions with us; yet their Lord declared them to be clean, and
clean they were. Here is good cheer for those souls who are
hungering after righteousness, and pining because they feel so
much of the burden of indwelling sin; for cleanliness before the
Lord is not destroyed by our infirmities, nor prevented by our
inward temptations. We stand in the righteousness of Another. No
measure of personal weakness, spiritual anxiety, soul conflict, or
mental agony can mar our acceptance in the Beloved. We may be weak
infants, or wandering sheep in ourselves, and for both reasons we
may be very far from what we wish to be; but, as God sees us, we
are viewed as washed in the blood of Jesus, and we, even we, are
clean every whit.
What a forcible expression, "clean every whit;" every inch,
from every point of view, in all respects, and to the uttermost
degree! Dear friend, if a believer, this fact is true to you,
even to you. Hesitate not to drink, for it is water out of your
own cistern, given to you in the covenant of grace. Think not that
it is presumption to believe the Word, marvellous though it be.
You are dealing with a wonderful Saviour, who only doeth wonderful
things, therefore stand not back on account of the greatness of
the blessing, but rather believe the more readily because the Word
is so like to everything the Lord doeth or speaketh. Yet when thou
hast believed for thyself, and cast every doubt to the wind, thou
wilt not wonder less, but more, and it will be thy never-ceasing
cry, "Whence is this to me?" How is it that I, who wallowed with
swine, should be made pure as the angels? Delivered from the
foulest guilt, is it indeed possible that I am made the possessor
of a perfect righteousness? Sing, O heavens, for the Lord hath
done it, and He shall have everlasting praise!
"Yes, thou, my soul, e'en thou art clean,
The Lord has wash'd thee white as snow,
In spotless beauty thou art seen,
And Jesus hath pronounced thee so.
"Despite thy conflicts, doubts, and fears,
Yet art thou still in Christ all fair,
Haste then to wipe away thy tears,
And make His glory all thy care."
The time when the praise was given is not without
instruction. The word of loving judgment is in the present tense,
"Ye are clean." It is not, "ye were clean," that might be a
rebuke for purity shamelessly sullied, a condemnation for wilful
neglect, a prophecy of wrath to come; neither is it, "ye might
have been clean," that would have been a stern rebuke for
privileges rejected, and opportunities wasted; nor is it even, "ye
shall be clean," though that would have been a delightful prophecy
of good things to come at some distant period; but ye are clean,
at this moment, in this room, and around this table. Though but
just then Peter had spoken so rudely, yet he was even then clean.
What comfort is here amid our present sense of imperfection!
Our cleanness is a matter of this present hour, we are, just here
in our present condition and our position, "clean every whit." Why
then postpone joy? The cause of it is in possession, let the mirth
be even now overflowing. Much of our heritage is certainly future,
but if there were no other boon tangible to faith in this
immediate present, this one blessing alone should awaken all our
powers to the highest praise. Are we even now clothed with the
fair white linen which is the righteousness of saints? Yes, 'tis
even so, for --
"We are wash'd in Jesu's blood,
We're pardon'd through His name;
And the good Spirit of our God
Has sanctified our frame."
Then let us sing a new song unto Jehovah-Tsidkenu, the Lord
our Righteousness.
May the Holy Ghost now bear witness with every believer, "and
ye are clean."
"Then may your souls rejoice and sing,
Then may your voices sweetly ring,
For if your souls through Christ are clear,
What cause have you to faint or fear?"
Next Sermon: The Believer not an Orphan.
Previous Sermon: Christ and His Table-companions.
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