The apostle warns us against saying more than we have made our own by experience. He hints at the solemn difference between empty profession and gracious reality. To have fellowship with God is a great matter; but merely to say that we have fellowship with him is a totally different thing. John warns us that if we say that which our characters do not support, we lie. He leaves it just so, without a word of softening or excuse. Between saying and being, between saying and doing, there may be all the difference in the world. There is a tendency among men, if there be a good experience, to say that they possess it; if there be a high privilege of grace, to say that they are enjoying it. What a folly is this! It is akin to madness. To unsound minds a precious original suggests a desire to fashion an imitation. To the untruthful mind the genuine is an invitation to be the counterfeit. Let us be upon our guard that we do not flatter ourselves into saying more than is true. Let us not stretch our arm beyond our sleeve, nor boast beyond our line. Every profession will be tried with fire; let us, therefore, see to it that we put in no claim which will not endure the severest test.

There were certain in John’s day who said, “We have fellowship with God.” How they had come by it they did not explain; perhaps they claimed to have reached it by philosophical speculation, by exact reasoning, or by long-continued meditation. Whatever the road, they said that they had reached the city of God, and were in communion with the Great Being. John saw that they walked in darkness, rejecting the light of divine revelation from above and the pure light of the Holy Spirit within; he saw also that they themselves were not true, and that their lives were not pure, and therefore he warned them that they were speaking and acting a lie. Their life was a lie, for they were not walking in the truth; and their profession that they had fellowship with God was another lie, for God can have no fellowship with falsehood. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all”; and, therefore, he cannot hold any communion with darkness. John draws the lines very tightly, and judges with unflinching fidelity: he is not inclined to the boasted charity of latitudinarianism, but he curtly dismisses false claims with that plain word “lie.” The disciple whom Jesus loved spoke like the Son of Thunder that he was, when he had to deal with shams. It is the part of true love to be honest, and to expose that which would be injurious to those it loves. He who will gloss over a falsehood loves but in word only. Learn, then, that if men boast of fellowship with God, and do not receive the revelation of his word, they lie, and know not the truth.

Let us now speak of the real thing, the fellowship with God which comes of walking in the light. The Christian life is described as walking, which implies activity. Christian life feeds upon contemplation, but it displays itself in action. Fellowship with God necessitates action: since to be with God we must “walk with God.” The living God is not inactive, motionless, aimless. “My Father,” saith Jesus, “worketh hitherto, and I work.” Chiefly in the character of active workers or in that of willing sufferers we must maintain fellowship with God. Walking implies activity; but it must be of a continuous kind. Neither this step, nor that, nor the next, can make a walk. We must be moving onward and onward, and remain in that exercise, or we cease from walking. Holy walking includes perseverance in obedience, and continuance in service. Not he that begins, but he that continues is the true Christian; final perseverance enters into the very essence of the believer’s life: the true pilgrims of Zion go from strength to strength. From strength to strength, did I say? This suggests that walking implies progress. He that takes one step and another step, and still stands where he was, has not walked. There is such a thing as the goose-step, and I am afraid many Christians are wonderfully familiar with it: they are where they used to be, and are half inclined to congratulate themselves upon that fact, since they might have backslidden. They have not advanced in the heavenly pilgrimage, and how can they be said to walk? My hearer, is your life a walk with God and towards God? If so, our subject has to do with you. May the Spirit of all grace lead us into the heart of it!

The things we shall consider this morning will arise out of the text in the following order: First, the light of our walk: “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light.” Secondly, the communion of our walk: “we have fellowship one with another.” Thirdly, the glory of that communion: “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

Consider, first, the light of our walk. True believers do not walk in darkness; they have found the road, and they see it before them. They know whom they have believed, and why they have believed, and so they go forward intelligently. How unhappy are those who are sure of nothing but a groping for the way, and wandering in endless circles of hope and fear! True believers walk onward, because a light shows them their path, and makes them sure of safety and progress. What is meant by walking in the light? It is somewhat singular that last Sunday morning our subject was “The Child of Light walking in Darkness.” That darkness is very different from the darkness with which we deal this morning. Children of light may for a time walk in the darkness of sorrow; but from the darkness of untruthfulness, ignorance, sin, and unbelief they have been delivered. In these respects the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. Moral darkness is contrary to their new-born nature: they cannot endure it. We must distinguish between things that differ, between the darkness of sorrow and the darkness of sin. A metaphor may be used for many purposes, and that of darkness has a wide range of meaning.

What is this light, then, in which the Christian walks? I answer, first, it is the light of grace. In our natural state we are in darkness, and under the dominion of the Prince of Darkness. The apostle says of us Gentiles, “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” When the grace of God comes, the day-spring from on high visits us. The Holy Spirit brings us out from under the dominion of the old nature by creating within us a new life, and he brings us out from under the tyranny of the Prince of Darkness by opening our eyes to see and our minds to understand celestial truth. The opening of our blind eyes and the pouring in of the light of truth are from the Lord. This is a work in which he is as fully seen in the glory of his Godhead as when in the natural creation he said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. The entrance of God’s word into the mind by the power of the Holy Spirit gives us light as to ourselves, our sin, and our danger. With this comes light as to the way of salvation through Jesus Christ, and light as to the mind of God concerning our sanctification. True knowledge takes the place of ignorance, and a desire for purity becomes supreme over the love of sin. Paul says, “Ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.” We accept the revelation of God in the inspired Book; by the attending witness of the Holy Ghost it becomes a revelation of God to our own hearts; and thus all our position-our past, present, and future-is set in a new light. With the driving out of our natural darkness old things pass away, and with the coming in of the divine light all things become new. Blessed is that man to whom the eternal light has come by the effectual working of the Spirit of God, who bringeth to us the light wherein we see God, and Christ, and life everlasting! This is the secret beginning of all our light: “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

The result of this light is seen in various ways. It causes deep sorrow in the beginning, for its first discoveries are grievous to the conscience. Light is painful to eyes long accustomed to darkness. Anon the light brings great joy, for the soul perceives deliverance from the evils which it mourned. Thus light and gladness in the end go together, as it is written, “Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.” Ever, in each condition, you observe conspicuously that the light of grace is seen as the light of sincerity. Until grace comes into our souls we have no heart for the things of God. We may be fussily religious so far as to be attentive to every outward form of worship; but there is no heart-work, no light of truth in all our devotion. But when once the divine light comes in, then we become intensely real in our dealings with God. Hypocrisy and pretence fly before sincere belief and feeling. “Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners,” no longer passes our lips flippantly and thoughtlessly; but we are indeed miserable on account of sin. When we seek for mercy we mean it, and do not play at confession and repentance. Our eye is single, and our whole body is full of light: we see what we are at, and arouse ourselves to do it in earnest. We know what we are praying about, and there is no question as to the deep sincerity of our cries and tears. We desire with the whole force of our nature to find pardon and acceptance through the precious blood of Christ. We do not merely say that we desire salvation and eternal life; but we feel that we must have them, and cannot be denied. We cease from playing fast and loose with God. We no longer halt between two opinions, but one thing we seek after, desiring it of the Lord: we would be right with God in all respects. The man that is walking in the light is thoroughly sincere. The shadows of pretence have been chased away: he is in downright earnest in all that he does. O my hearers, many of you have never come so far as this; though this alone is not far. By being in a place of worship you show an outward respect to divine things; but are you worshipping God? Did you worship him just now in the prayer and in the praise? You are listening to me while I talk of the highest things that ever occupied the human mind, but do you long to be a partaker of these things? Do you hunger and thirst after righteousness? Those who are walking in the light are free from pretence, and are living in real earnest: is it so with you? Contentment with unreality is a sign of dwelling in darkness. Careful keeping up of shams, diligent puffing out of wind-bags, and constant creation of make-believes-all this is of the night and its dreams; but to be what you seem to be, to be true in all the phases of your life, this is surely seen in those who walk in the light of God? What can God have to do with shams? What cares he for empty professions? Everything must be true which is to come under his eye.

Next to sincerity I regard a willingness to know and to be known as an early result of walking in the light of God. The ungodly come not to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved. There are matters about which they desire no light, but rather say, “Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.” Where ignorance affords them a present peace they count it folly to be wise. Alas! it is too commonly the case that men have no inclination to obtain a knowledge which might involve humiliation, repentance, and a retracing of steps. “Let well alone,” cry they. How many will say, “Well, we have been Christians after our own way for a good many years, why need we question ourselves?” They look upon a faithful preacher with suspicion: he comes a deal too close home. When he begins to deal with the heart and conscience, they look at him as if he were a dog hunting about for a rat. Truly the emblem is not so very unlike; for wherever there is a self-satisfaction which is afraid of light, we suspect that the rat of hypocrisy is not far off. Beloved, we must not rest content with anything which will not bear the light of day. A religion which we will not submit to the test of self-examination cannot be worth much. No one is afraid to have a genuine sovereign submitted to any test: it is the coiner who is afraid. “Look!” says a man, “I hold a certain creed; my grandmother held it; it has come down to me as an heir-loom. You invite me to examine that creed by the Word of God, but I would rather not. I am not disposed to learn anything which might cause me to change. If you speak too strongly I shall go and hear somebody else, for I cannot bear to be disturbed.” This is a foolish prejudice, is it not? Yes, and it may prove the man’s ruin. This is the kind of thing that makes a man go out angrily from a sermon, and say, “I will not listen to that man again; he is too personal, and too severe.” Nay, friend, can anyone who loves your soul be too severe? Do you wish to be flattered? Do you not know that plain-dealing is more precious than rubies? Would you not say to your physician, “Put me under the severest examination, and let me know the truth”? Would you pay him a fee that he might deceive you. As to your soul, do you not desire to know the very worst of your case? If you would rather be comfortable than be safe, then you and I are not of one mind; for I want to walk in the light, free from deception, knowing truly and thoroughly my own place before the heart-searching God. I would rather not cry, “Peace, peace,” where there is no peace. The comfort which grows out of delusion I do not desire. Brethren, we must build on truth, and nothing else but truth.

When men walk in the light they cease to take things for granted, and look below the surface. Certain things have been labelled with the mark of truth, and have passed current; but men who are in the light disregard the labels, and look at the goods themselves. We cannot afford to risk our souls on hearsays: we need personal knowledge. For one, I desire a salvation which will bear the test of the closest examination. I would be saved in such a way that I am neither afraid of conscience, nor of death, nor of the judgment-seat of God. I would be saved in the light. I would be known and read of all men, and I would know even as I am known. We wish to conceal nothing; we can conceal nothing, “for all things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” We would lay bare our bosoms and sincerely cry, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

A still surer evidence of grace is the mind’s perception of revealed truth and its obedience to it. Then has true light shone on a man’s walk when he perceives the truth revealed by the Holy Spirit in sacred Scripture, and receives it into his heart with a child-like spirit. He that receives Christ also receives Christ’s words, and the doctrine which we believe is by no means a matter of indifference. Whatever may be said, brethren, we have received a revelation from God; which we know to be “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” The Lord God has broken through the veil of silence, and has manifested himself to the sons of men. Through the darkness of their minds the carnal cannot see what God has revealed, neither will they believe his truth. The truth of God is spiritual, and the natural man is carnal, and therefore the natural man will not receive the teaching which comes from God. By this test shalt thou know whether the true light is shining upon thee: Dost thou believe what God has revealed in his word? or art thou thine own teacher-maker of thine own faith? He cannot be a disciple who does not learn, but invents. Dost thou hear the teaching of the Lord Jesus, and believe it? I repeat it, thou must not only say that thou believest it, but thou must indeed and of a truth believe the things which God has revealed. By this shalt thou know whether thou be a child of light, or a child of darkness. Are the doctrines of grace essential verities with thee? Whatever God has said about sin, righteousness, judgment to come, art thou ready to accept it at once. Whatever he has revealed concerning himself, his Son, his Holy Spirit, the cross, life, death, hell, and the eternal future, dost thou believe it unfeignedly? This is to walk in the light. All other teaching is darkness.

How many correct and amend, and so betray the gospel! They take the garment of truth, and dip it in the blood of their own thought, till it is so distained that they might almost say unto God himself, “Know thou whether this be thy son’s coat or not?” If thou be one of those who would twist the Scriptures, and force thine own meaning on them, thou art not in the light. If thou wouldst make them mean other than what God intended them to mean, thou art in the darkness, however learned a philosopher thou mayest be. He only is in the light who distrusts his own wisdom, and bows before the wisdom which cometh from above. If thou wilt sit at Jesus’ feet like a child, and hear his words and learn of him, then hath the true light shone upon thee; for he is the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. The Holy Spirit comes not to help us to think out a system of belief of our own, but to lead us into all truth, by taking of the things of Christ and showing them unto us.

Brethren, there is a truth and there is a lie, and no lie is of the truth. Can light commune with darkness, or truth with falsehood? I make no claim of implicit faith for what I say. God forbid that I should ever become so presumptuous; for that were a sort of blasphemy. But I claim implicit faith for what God says. Believing the gospel to be the revelation of God, I claim for it implicit faith. Believing the Lord Jesus to be an infallible teacher, I claim immediate faith in all that he has said. If this implicit faith be refused, it is because there is no light in you. To walk in the light is to know, to love, and to live the truth. To walk in the light of God is to receive our instruction from God. To me the end of all controversy is “Thus saith the Lord.” Only let me know that the Lord hath said this or that, and though the revelation should seem impossible to believe, and though it should come into conflict with all my previous notions, I will bow before it without a question. “The Lord hath said it,” stands to us instead of all reason, and argument, and evidence; yea, we believe God in the teeth of supposed evidence and reason, saying, “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” God will not have fellowship with us if we reject his light; but on the ground of absolute truth he can and will meet us. If we come unto the light, and believe his witness to the truth, then are we where God can walk with us, and where the precious blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.

This, beloved brethren, leads to a transparency and simplicity of character. Walking in the light produces Israelites indeed, in whom is no guile. Those who are full of deceit and craftiness upon any subject are not walking in the light of God. God will not have fellowship with any whose minds are crooked and deceitful. Some persons are so warped that nothing is straight to them; their minds seem to see things crookedly; long practice in untruthfulness has given them an evil bias. This is not the case with the man in whom the light of grace is shining. The man who does in reality what he seems to do; the man who says what he means, and means what he says; the man who is truthful, artless and sincere in all his general dealings both before God and man, he it is whose conduct leads us to hope that the light of grace shines within.

This is very evident in the man’s cessation from all guile towards himself. Remember how David pronounces him blessed “in whose spirit there is no guile.” He knew painfully what it was to be full of guile. See him! He has gone astray most grievously. His mind is in the dark. What does David do? There is a foul sin committed: he tries to make himself believe that it is not so very horrible; he labours to hoodwink his conscience. His sin is likely to be seen, and he tries to cover it. He brings back Bathsheba’s husband. When he declines to go to his house he must be made drunken. The design has failed. David is afraid, but he is not penitent; on the contrary, he hastens to still greater crime. Uriah is in the wars, and there he is wantonly exposed to death, and is slain in battle. His death is ascribed to the fortune of war. David did not see that it was murder, for he was not walking in the light. He was still in darkness, and therefore he kept all this while acting a deceitful part with his God and his own conscience. His conduct would not bear the light, and so his one idea was to keep out of the light. How changed was all this after Nathan had said to him, “Thou art the man”! When the light of heavenly conviction had penetrated the night of his soul, he made no more excuses, he practised no more subterfuges. He stood in the light, ashamed and confounded. Amazed at the sight of his sin, he abandoned all idea of covering it, and fled at once to the mercy of God crying, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness.” In the sobbing and sighing of the fifty-first Psalm he lays bare his heart, and in plainest terms he cries, “Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation.” He is in the light now, for deceit has gone, and now God can speak comfortably to him, and wash him and make him whiter than snow.

The man who is walking in the light, as God is in the light, is full of abhorrence of sin. Sin is practical falsehood; it is moral darkness. The man that abhors evil and injustice; the man that would do good if it cost him his earthly all; the man that would not do wrong though the world should be his reward for doing it-this is the man that walks in the light, and he is the man that shall have fellowship with God, and a sense of cleansing from sin. We cannot attach too great importance to the condition of our minds in reference to sin; for if we wink at it, or take pleasure in it, or persistently practise it, we are abiding in the darkness, and we are under the wrath of God. John says, “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.” Forget not this practical truth.

I fear I have scarcely brought out the fulness of the meaning. They that are in the light will know what I mean: those who are in darkness cannot imagine what life in the light must be.

I come, secondly, to the communion of our walk. Those who are in the light shall not be alone. God himself will be with them, and be their God. The words, “we have fellowship one with another,” constitute a wonderfully condescending expression. John would not have dared to coin such an expression; it must have been minted for him by the Spirit from above. Think of God and his people having mutual intercourse! What honour! What joy is this! Thus is the mischief of the Fall removed, and Paradise is restored.

God in the light and man in the light have much in common. Now are they abiding in one element, for they are dwelling in one light. Now are they both concerned about the same thing, and their aims are undivided: God loves truth, and so do those who are renewed in heart. It has come to pass that the great Lord and his enlightened ones see things in the same light. God with his great vision beholds more than we can, yet he does not see more than the truth; and we with our narrow perceptions see the truth, and falsehood we cannot tolerate. Now we can speak with God, seeing we speak truth; and he can converse with us, seeing we are ready to hear the truth. In prayer and praise we are no longer false, and therefore the Lord can hear us. His word falls also upon an honest mind, and so its meaning is perceived. Now also we can act together: the great God and his poor feeble children are striving together for truth and righteousness. Our poor little work he might overlook if he were not so good; but being infinitely condescending, he works through us whenever he sees that our work is done in truth. If our works were works of darkness, he could not co-operate with us; but now that we walk and work in the light, he is able to make us labourers together with himself.

Now we partake with God in sympathy, having a fellow-feeling with him. Does the great Father mourn his prodigal child? So do we mourn over sinners. Do we see Jesus weeping over Jerusalem? So do we mourn for the perishing who will not be saved. Again, as God rejoices over sinners that repent, so do we rejoice in sympathy with him. By coming into the light of love as well as into the light of knowledge we have received power to enter into sympathy with God. Is not this a very wonderful thing? But it is as clear and true as it is wonderful. We would fain bring the whole world into the light. We daily pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” Our will has grown to be like God’s will according to its measure, seeing we have come into the same light as that in which God dwells.

Do you know, dear brothers and sisters, by experience what it is to be honestly dealing with eternal things, to be no longer playing, and toying, and counterfeiting, but to be in real and blessed earnest with God and spiritual facts? Then you have come into fellowship with the great God, for he is in earnest, and in him there is no trifling nor make believe; but he is acting with intense reality, acting with his whole heart in his contention against sin, his desire for the glory of his Son, his purpose for the salvation of his people.

But now I come, in the third place, to that which strikes me most in the text, and it is this-the glory of this communion: “We have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Here am I a poor creature reading this text. I find that it is possible for men to walk in fellowship with God, the great and ever blessed. I rejoice to learn this, and my heart responds, “If there is any fellowship with God to be known, I will know it. If I can be reconciled to God, and be at friendship with him, I desire it beyond everything. But how can these things be? I see that a great stone lieth at the door. I cannot get out of my prison to begin this walk, because this great stone of sin shuts me in.” Then the Lord comes in, and he says, “I saw that this hindrance was in thy road, and so in this very verse I have shown thee how I have taken it away. Precious words! The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” I gather from the way in which this sentence grows out of the text that this very thing, which looks as if it were the death of all communion with God, is made by infinite grace to be a wide and open channel of communion with him. This stone is rolled away from the door of the sepulchre, and the angel of communion sits down upon it as on a throne. God justifies his people in broad daylight, in a way which defies inspection, and then, by the very method of clearing away their sin, he enters into the nearest and dearest fellowship with them.

To begin with, here is sin! What an evil thing it is! How our soul hates it! It is uncleanness to us: a loathsome and abominable evil. You that are in the light know how every beam of light makes you see more of the heinousness, blackness, and accursed nature of sin. Even to feel a tendency towards it in your members makes you groan out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me.” Listen! You are having fellowship with God in this. In him is no sin, but in him is great abhorrence of sin. If you hate sin, God hates it also; and herein you are agreed. The very thought of iniquity, uncleanness, or falsehood, is abhorred of God. His holy nature detests it; and in proportion as you feel the same loathing and detestation, you have fellowship with God. This comes to you by walking in the light, as God is in the light. “Horror hath taken hold upon me,” saith David, “because of the wicked that forsake thy law.” David was as much in fellowship with God in that horror of sin as he was another day when he could speak of God as his exceeding joy, and rejoice in the mercy which endureth for ever. Yes, beloved, our horror for sin drives us into fellowship with the great Father in that loathing of sin which made him hide his face from his Only-begotten because the sin of man had been made to meet upon him.

Let us go a step further. Sin being once perceived, the next step is that it should be got rid of. “Ah!” say you, “I wish I could be cleansed from it; cleansed from all of it; but how can this be? It is not possible for me to purge away my sin.” I thought I heard you singing just now:-

“Could my tears for ever flow,

Could my zeal no respite show;

All for sin could not atone,

Thou must save, and thou alone.”

This also is God’s thought about sin: he knows how hard it is to remove its pollution. He saw that nothing of ours could remove the horrible blot. Brethren, I know of a surety that all the waters of all the seas might be encarnadined by my scarlet sin, and yet they could not wash out the fatal stain. Not even the fires of hell could burn out the defilement of sin. In this persuasion we have fellowship with the pure and holy God, who saw that there was no means of removing sin but one; he must deliver up his own Son to death, or the sin of man could never be purged away. The sacrifice of the Only-begotten is the unique hope of sinners. The laying of our iniquity upon him who deigned to be the great scape-goat of his people is the sole means for the taking away of the sins of the world. That inward persuasion of the impossibility of the purgation of sin by any doings or feelings of our own, and the consequent perception that in Christ only lies the help of men, has brought us through the light of truth to walk in fellowship with the thrice holy God.

Now go a step further. The glorious Son of God condescends to become the atonement for sin. He is taken to the tree; our sins are made to meet upon his blessed head, and there he dies the just for the unjust. He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Standing by the tree of doom, we look up to that blessed Saviour with all-absorbing admiration and love. We admire him as the masterpiece of divine wisdom, grace, power, and truth; and, admiring, we love him; we pledge ourselves to him. Herein we have entered into fellowship with the great Father indeed and of a truth; for the Father loves his Son infinitely: he greatly delights in him. No thought of Christ that the most rapturous enthusiast ever had can reach half way to God’s thoughts of Christ. See how holy Bernard seems to go into a delirium of love when he talks about his divine Master! O Bernard, thou canst not tell how the Father loves Jesus, how he delights in his sacrifice, how he takes pleasure in his exaltation! In the putting away of sin by the blood of Jesus the Father has an infinite content, and so have we. Beloved, we rejoice in the divine satisfaction for sin; it is a well of divine delight to us. This satisfaction is not accomplished by anything being hushed up and concealed; but, walking in the light, as God is in the light, we have fellowship with God in the one glorious sacrifice. Suppose I could persuade myself that sin is a trifle, I should not be walking in the light, and I should have no fellowship with God. Suppose I said, “Pooh, pooh! sin can easily be forgiven, I am sure it requires no atonement,” I should not be walking in the light, and I should have no fellowship with God. Suppose I said, “Though Jesus died, his death was only the close of his life, and no special reference need be made to it as a sacrifice for sin,” I should not be walking in the light, and I should have no fellowship with God.

A step further. Beloved, many of us have come to Jesus Christ by faith; we have looked to him, and have accepted him as our Saviour cleansing us from all sin. Joy, joy, joy for ever: the brightest day that ever dawned on us was that day when we saw all our sins numbered on our blessed Scapegoat and carried away into the wilderness of forgetfulness! When God saw the blood of old he passed over Israel, for his justice was satisfied; and it is so with Jesus. How glad and content we are to see how Jesus finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness! Brethren, the death of Jesus is a cleansing from sin which will bear the light: it is no hole and corner business, no winking at evil, no suspension of law, no making out that sin is no sin. No, the debt is acknowledged, and what is better far, it is paid. The guilty are punished in their substitute, and in him are thus justly set free. We shall all appear before the judgment-seat; and I am glad it is so, for the stain of our sin is so effectually removed by the blood of Jesus that we are clean every whit, and even the eye of divine justice will see no spot in us. We rejoice in perfect whiteness, for the Lord has made us whiter than snow. Yes, we have fellowship with God in this cleansing, for God accepts us in the Beloved. God that made him to be the Lord our Righteousness, God himself justifies us in his Son. He will in the last great day make the whole universe a witness to the righteousness of the salvation of believers. All intelligences shall see that in Christ all who are in him are truly justified, and most justly saved. How the Lord God and his people will have fellowship in their common joy in the work and person of Jesus, as they see the perfection of it, and the way in which all sin is removed by it! Our salvation in Christ is in the light in the most eminent degree: it will bear the full, fierce light of Sinai to be turned upon it, and yet no flaw will be found in it. This is wonderful! This is glorious! Do you wonder that God is well pleased in him! And are not we well pleased! Blessed be his name. Do you not see how we thus have fellowship one with another. Oh, that I had strength to set forth before you the thoughts which fill my soul!

Brethren, we are now at one with God in his master-purpose. Was it not in his heart to create beings with whom he might have fellowship? He made the heavens and the earth; he made the angels; he made all things; but he could find no companionship in all these things. Our Lord, like Adam, found no help-meet for himself in any of the creatures he had made. He desired to produce and bring to himself an order of beings who could be glorified without danger of pride, who could think and feel as the First-born would do; in fact, would become the friends of the Son of God. How were these creatures to be produced? Not by an immediate fiat of creation. Angels he could speak into being by a word; but in the constitution of these beings there would need to be an experience and a discipline to fit them for their lofty position. Their model was to be the Son of Jehovah’s love. He was to be the First-born among many brethren. It was needful for these creatures to know sin, and yet to hate it more fully than if they had never known it; to know the love of God, and to be bound by it for ever to an unsinning obedience, which would fill them with boundless happiness. Behold the process by which this new creation, this new order of creatures should come forth. Consider the processes which by the Fall, the incarnation, the Cross, and the new birth work out the sacred result! When you have read the past in this light, then gaze into the future. Now we see how throughout eternity we shall walk in the light, as God is in the light, and have fellowship one with another-fellowship culminating in Jesus Christ the Only-begotten, and the cleansing from all sin by his blood. The blood-washed are to be the friends of God, with whom he shall speak face to face, as he speaks with no angel or seraph. With these he will dwell, and he will be their God, and they shall be his people; and in them and through them he will make known the glories of his Son to wondering worlds. This great purpose has been wrought out to a considerable extent by the Lord’s having already made us to walk in the light, as he is in the light, and by washing us in the precious blood; but it doth not even yet appear what we shall be. This much we practically seek after: henceforth we live for Christ! Henceforth our chief glory is the cross! Henceforth our beau-ideal of glory for ourselves is to see Jesus glorified! The torrents have swept us away! We are no longer bound to this earth! We are borne along by the irresistible force of eternal love! God has achieved his purpose in our blood-washed souls; walking in the light we are now in harmony with his master purpose, and we cry: “Father, glorify thy Son”!

I have done; but oh, I wish that all your hearts were brought into the light of God at this moment! Oh, that you would quit the dark ways of self-righteousness, carelessness, thoughtlessness, and sin, and come into the light of truth! Oh, that the light may come to you as to Saul of Tarsus, and at once transform you! May the Spirit of God bring you to know God and his Son Jesus Christ, whom to know is life eternal.

Portion of scripture read before Sermon-1 John 1 and 2.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-425, 484, 289.

“Behold The Lamb of God”

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, October 16th, 1887, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”-John 1:29.

John the Baptist’s one business was to bear witness to Christ. He was the morning star which heralds the rising sun. When the sun appeared he had no more reason for shining. You cannot account for John except by Jesus: the one reason for John’s existence is Jesus. I wish it might be so with us; may we be able to say, “For me to live is Christ.” May our life be such that it cannot be understood apart from Jesus: take him away, and our whole character would become an inexplicable mystery. I am afraid that some professors could be easily interpreted apart from Christ; perhaps could be better accounted for if there were no Christ; but if we are like John, true witnesses to Jesus, we shall find in Jesus the conscious purpose of our being, and his glory will be the clue to all the windings of our lives. For this purpose were we born, and for this end have we come into the world, that we may bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. Search and look, my brethren, whether it has been so with you.

When our Lord was thus set forth by John, it is well to note the special character under which he was declared. John knew much of the Lord Jesus, and could have pictured him in many lights and characters. He might especially have pointed him out as the great moral example, the founder of a higher form of life, the great teacher of holiness and love; yet this did not strike the Baptist as the head and front of our Lord’s character, but he proclaimed him as one who had come into the world to be the great sacrifice for sin. Lifting up his hand and pointing to Jesus, he cried, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” He did not say, “Behold the great Exemplar”; no doubt he would have said that in due season. He did not even say, “Behold the king and leader of a new dispensation”; that fact he would by no means have denied, but would have gloried in it. Still, the first point that he dwells upon, and that which wins his enthusiasm is, “Behold the Lamb of God.” John Baptist views him as the propitiation for sin, and so he cries, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

My brethren, we may depend upon it that this must be a very practical truth, for John was pre-eminently practical. What is the sum and substance of his teaching but, “Repent. Bring forth fruits meet for repentance. The axe is laid unto the root of the trees”? He has a word for everybody that comes: even the Roman soldiers are told to be content with their rations. John is no theorist or quibbler about dogma: he deals with life and character, and demands works meet for repentance; yet he makes a great point of our Lord’s being the sacrifice for sin. This indeed is the text of his life-sermon. Rest assured that there is something wonderfully practical about that truth, and those who becloud it under the notion of being practical are laying aside the best instrument of doing good to men. For the reformation of manners and the overthrow of evil, and the setting up of the kingdom of righteousness throughout the world, there is no truth like that which reveals Jesus as the sacrifice provided by God for removing the sin of men. The stern Baptist, the true Elijah, who grappled hard with sin, and laid the sword of repentance to its throat, saw that nothing could be done unless he pointed out the Lamb of God, by whom the world’s sin is taken away. When repentance is the sermon, Jesus must be the text and the substance of the discourse. He puts life, power, energy into what else would be a dead moral essay. O ye who would save men from sin, take care that ye preach the great sacrifice for sin. It is clear that this doctrine has to do with repentance, for the apostle of repentance introduced it: he whose first word was “Repent,” brought forward Jesus as the great Sin-Bearer; for he saw, what I wish all would see, that there is a very intimate connection between the creation, growth, and purity of repentance and the sin-bearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Brethren, the fact is, the more we have to do with penitent sinners, the more we feel the need of a sin-bearer. O you that have never sinned, and are wrapped up in your own self-righteousness, you imagine that you can enter heaven by your own works; the bearing of sin by the Lamb of God does not seem to you at all needful; but if you once dwelt, as John did, in the midst of a burdened people, who came lamenting and confessing their sins, you would feel that nothing could bring them into reconciliation with God but faith in the appointed atonement. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” is the text which evangelists love, because without it they cannot face the troubled ones who throng around them.

My brethren, in proportion as you wisely love your fellow men you will prize the sacrifice for sin. Your practical dealing with a perishing people will make you prize the Saviour. Oh, what should I do if I were sent to preach to this vast throng, and had no sin-offering to declare to you! Might I not break my heart before a task so useless, so cruel, as to have to denounce sin, and yet to have no pardon to declare, and consequently no hope? Now that I can tell of One who bore in his own body on the tree the transgression, iniquity, and sin of men, I find my task a solemn one, but certainly not hopeless, nor even dreary. Happy indeed am I to be permitted to set forth so blessed a salvation. Blessed are the lips which are allowed to cry, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” You see, then, that the practical character of John’s mission made him all the more at home in setting forth the sacrificial character of our Lord.

If John the Baptist had not felt that the character of our Lord, as a sin-offering, was the chief matter, he might have fitly pointed him out as an example at the time when he delivered the words of our text. The Saviour had not yet revealed to anyone the fact and meaning of his future death: his Passion was as yet a thing in the dim future, while his life was just blossoming out into public observation. He had newly left the holy quiet of the parental roof at Nazareth, and the charm of early holiness was on him. Should not the world now mark him, that his example might be known throughout its entire length? In his retirement his conduct had been such, that the austere and devout Baptist had noticed it, and had felt bound to acknowledge that his younger relative was a worthier person than himself, saying, “I have need to be baptized of thee.” But John does not seem, when he beholds the Lord after his baptism, to think of his godly life already commenced, nor of that holy life which he could foresee in him; but he fastens his eye upon the sacrificial character of that wondrous personage, and dwells on that alone, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Brethren, that age needed an example as badly as ours does; but it needed a Saviour still more, and John sees first that which is first. Let me add that the time was doubly opportune for dwelling upon our Lord’s example, since he had just returned from his famous temptation in the wilderness, wherein he had rehearsed his life-struggles. You cannot, in reading the narrative, piece in the forty days’ temptation in the wilderness anywhere else but just here. We read that our Saviour, after his baptism, was led up immediately into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. Tempted he was, but he yielded in no point. In the threefold battle he vanquished the power of darkness at every point, and now, armed for the fray, in mail which he had tried and proven, the champion stood before John; and it would not have been singular had the man of God cried out, “Behold the perfect One, in whom the prince of this world has no place. Copy his supreme example.” But no, the great Baptist’s eye rests not on that: the blood and wounds of the passion are before his mind’s eye, and beyond all else he sees the sacrificial character of the wondrous Being who now stands in the midst of the throng. The fact that he is the appointed victim for human sin enwraps the whole soul of the preacher, and he cries, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

Brethren, I desire to be in the same case with John the Baptist. I would have my thoughts of Christ concentrated upon his atoning death, henceforth and evermore. During the little time in which I may be spared to lift up my voice in this wilderness, I would bear witness to the Lamb of God. The years may be short in which I may guide this flock, but around the cross shall be to me evermore the place of green pastures, and from the sacrifice of our Lord shall flow the still waters. Many others are dealing with other aspects of our Lord’s work; some, I doubt not, faithfully, and others with evil intent: I may very well leave them to do their best or their worst; for at least one may be allowed to be baptized for the Crucified, separated unto the cross, dedicated to the atonement by blood. I know no atonement but substitution, no substitute but Christ. “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” To the declaration of that fact I set myself apart to life’s end.

To come still closer to our text, I would have you notice, in the first place, that John set forth Christ as a sacrifice with evident personal perception of the fact. When a man says “Behold!” he sees something himself, he sees that something with clearness, and he desires you to see it, and therefore he cries, “Behold! Behold!” John had from his birth been ordained to be the herald of the Christ; but he evidently did not know who the Lamb of God might be. As a babe he leaped in the womb when he came near to the mother of our Lord; but yet he did not know Jesus as the Lamb of God. He says, “I knew him not.” Some suppose that John and Jesus had never met during their early years; but I find it hard to believe it. I see quite another meaning here. John knew Jesus, but did not know him as the Sin-Bearer. I think he must have known the life of the holy child, his near relative, while he grew in favour both with God and man; but he had not yet seen upon him the attesting seal which marked him as the Son of God. John admired the Lord’s character very much, insomuch that when he came to be baptized of him, John said, “I have need to be baptized of thee.” Yet John says, “I knew him not.” He knew him as one of high and holy character, but as yet he saw not the token which the Lord God had secretly given to his servant; for he saw not the Spirit of God descending and resting upon him. John shrewdly suspected that Jesus was the Son of the Highest, of whom he was the forerunner; but a witness must not follow his own surmises, however correct they may be. John, as the Lord’s servant, did not dare to know anything of his own unguided judgment, he waited for the secret sign. Certain preachers tell their people anything they invent out of their wonderful brains; but the true servant of God has no business to put forth his own thoughts or opinions; but he must wait for a word from God. The message should come straight from the Master: “Thus saith the Lord.” John, though he saw about this wondrous Jesus such marvellous traits of character that he was sure he was much greater than himself, yet says, “I knew him not.” He would know nothing but as it was revealed to him by the Lord God who sent him.

But when at last he received that personal token, when he plunged our blessed Master into the waters of the Jordan, and saw the heavens opened and the Dove descend, and heard the voice saying, “This is my beloved Son,” then he knew him, and was henceforth sure. When he afterwards spoke he did not say, “I think this is the Lamb of God,” or, “I am under the impression that this is the Son of God.” No, he boldly cried, “Behold him! See for yourselves. This is the Lamb of God! I speak with the accent of conviction; nothing can shake me. The Master has given the sign, and henceforth I bear confident witness. Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

Henceforth to John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus Christ was more than he appeared to be to any others. To those who looked at the Saviour, he would have seemed to be a plain, humble Jew, with nothing particular to mark him out, except it were the gentleness of his demeanour, and a certain heavenliness of carriage; but to the Baptist he was now before all, and above all. When a person was to be baptized, he confessed his sins to John; but when Jesus came with no sins of his own to confess, did he whisper in John’s ear, “I bear the sin of the world”? I think he did; but in any case, this was true to the Baptist’s mind, and to him Jesus was henceforth the matchless sacrifice, the one atonement for human sin.

This was an extraordinary truth to John. It took a miracle of grace to make a Jew see, “The Lamb, which taketh away the sin of the world.” The Jew thought that the sacrifice of God must be for his chosen people only; but John saw beyond all bounds of nationality and restrictions of race, and clearly perceived in Jesus “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Remember that John was of priestly race; he was familiar with lambs for sacrifice. But as a priest he never saw a lamb for sacrifice in a place far off from the consecrated shrine. There was only one altar, and that was at Jerusalem, and there the lamb of sacrifice must be, and not by Jordan’s lonely stream. Yet John saw, in a place never dedicated in any peculiar manner to the service of God, the one great sacrifice standing in the midst of the people. “Behold,” says he, “this is the Lamb of God.” See how well the Lord had taught him, and how fully he had broken away from natural prejudices!

Beloved, I pray that each one of us may know for himself Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. You were brought up as children to believe that Jesus is the Lamb of God; but all revelation in the Book must again be revealed to the heart, or it will not be really known and perceived. For the life of the truth to enter into our life it must become a matter, not of head-creed only, but of heart-belief. That Jesus is the substitutionary sacrifice, the propitiation for our sins, the expiation for our iniquity, must be taught us by the Holy Ghost. I can truly declare among you that I do not preach this doctrine of vicarious sacrifice as one among many theories, but as the saving fact of my experience. I must preach this or nothing. I know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and him crucified, because I have neither hope nor comfort outside of the great atoning sacrifice. He was made sin for us, even he who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. “He was made a curse for us, as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” I pray that each one of God’s people may have a clear knowledge of Christ as the sin-bearing Lamb, and have it written on his individual consciousness, for then nothing will shake him out of it. When men find their own deliverance from sin, and their own peace with God flowing out of the atoning sacrifice, this great truth becomes a part of their inward experience, and it can never be torn from them. O my brother, when the great sacrifice has saved thee, thou wilt never be able to doubt it; thou wilt sooner doubt thine own existence than doubt this blessed fact, that he bare our sin in his own body on the tree, and that through him we are reconciled unto God. It was a matter with John of personal perception.

Let us advance a little. John set forth our Lord as emphatically the sacrifice: “Behold the Lamb of God.” This is more than John would have said of all the lambs that he had ever heard or read of since the first appointment of sacrifice. He remembered the firstling of the flock which Abel offered, and the sacrifice of a sweet savour which Noah presented; he knew the sacrifices of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; he was familiar with the lamb of the Paschal supper, and those of Israel’s high festivals. He remembered the thousands of offerings that had been presented by David and by Solomon, and by other kings in the great national acts of worship; but passing them all by as if they were all mere shadows, he points his finger to the man Christ Jesus, and he says of him, “This is the Lamb of God.”

In this I think the Baptist comprehended everything that went before. There was the daily lamb of which I read to you in the commencement of the service, from Exodus 29. There had been slain before the Lord a lamb every morning, and a lamb every evening, all the year round throughout the centuries of Israel’s history. Always and ever the continual sacrifice of the lamb was the symbol of Jehovah’s dwelling with his people. But John puts his finger down upon a single sacrifice, and says, “This is the Lamb.” All the other daily lambs had been but prefigurations of this. “Behold the Lamb.”

Let me call your attention also to another wonderful lamb, the Paschal lamb, slain on the night when Israel went up out of Egypt, when each Hebrew smeared the lintel and side-posts of his door with blood, and the sight of that blood sufficed for the deliverance of the family, according to the word of Jehovah, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” These passover lambs were many and sacred to every Jewish mind; but John passes them all over, and says, “Behold the Lamb of God.”

Do you not think he also had in his mind the lamb spoken of by Isaiah, the great evangelical prophet? Had he not in his memory that famous passage, “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter”? John the Baptist cries, “This is he of whom the prophet spake, Behold the Lamb of God.”

Ay, and if John’s eyes had been turned to the future as well as to the past, so that he could have looked adown the centuries, and shared the visions of the seer of Patmos, he would have seen the Lamb in the midst of the throne, and have heard the song unto him that was slain; but after seeing all the visions of the coming glory of the Lamb, he would still have kept his finger pointed towards the blessed Christ of God standing among the people, and would have said, “Behold the Lamb.” All that you read of sacrifice and sin-bearing in the Old or the New Testament, all that you have ever heard, or ever shall hear, of the putting away of sin, if it be true, is all centred in this line, “Behold the Lamb.” It is a great thing when we can focus our testimony upon a single point. Let every servant of God do so, and bear his witness that there is none other name given among men whereby we must be saved. There is no other purgation for sin in the whole universe save that great sacrifice which taketh away the sin of the world.

We will go a step further again: John, in describing our Lord Jesus in his sacrificial character, was very explicit in declaring him to be the sacrifice of god. He says: “Behold the Lamb of God.” These words contain a great depth of meaning. “The Lamb of God.” Did not the Baptist thus recall the day when Abraham walked with Isaac towards the mount that God had told him of? “And Isaac said to his father, My father, behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham answered, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering.” John, standing centuries after, seems to say, “Now is the saying of the Father of the faithful fulfilled. Behold how God provides! Behold the Lamb of God.” Under the old Jewish dispensation, if a man sinned, he said to himself, “I must go and find a lamb”; and he went out to his own flock, or else to his neighbour, and he bought a lamb. That was his lamb which he brought for his own trespass. But you and I have not to go and find a lamb: God has provided a lamb already, and we have only to accept the Lamb of God. And is it not a wonderful thing, that he against whom all sin was levelled, himself provided the sacrifice for sin? Behold the sin of man and the Lamb of God. Jesus is the Father’s best beloved, his choice one, his only one, and yet he delivered him up for us all; and God’s Son became God’s lamb. O my Father, my Father, do I sin, and dost thou find the sacrifice? But if a sacrifice must be found by the Father, why was it found so near his heart? He could find the sacrifice for sin nowhere but in his own bosom. He had but one Son, his Only-begotten; and “God so loved the world, that he gave his Only-begotten Son.” Jehovah gave his only Son to be a sacrifice! Let heaven and earth be filled with astonishment. Beloved, if you think of it, who else could have provided a sacrifice for the sin of the world? None will pretend to such ability. And when God himself provided a sacrifice, what other could he have found but his co-equal Son? Who else could render the honour which was due to the broken law? Who else could offer to divine justice the vindication which it demanded? Justice must be violated, or else man must perish for ever: there remained no way of escape from this dilemma until the Son of the Highest condescended to become a sacrifice, and put away sin by his own death. So, you see, the Lord must himself provide the sacrifice, and that sacrifice must be his Only-begotten Son.

I do not think I can preach more, for a faintness has come over me, nor is there need for more if you will but chew the cud of this one precious truth: Jesus is the Lamb which God provided, and he is the Lamb which God himself presented at the altar. Yet I must rouse myself to say a little more. Who was it that sacrificed the Lamb of God? Who was the priest on that dread day? Who was it that bruised him? Who put him to grief? Who caused him the direst pang of all when he cried, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Was it not the Father himself? This was one point in the hardness of Abraham’s test-“Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him for a sacrifice.” He must himself officiate at the Sacrifice. This the great Father did! He is the Lamb, the Lamb of God. And now to-day the bright side of this truth remains. He is the Lamb that God always accepts, must accept, glories to accept. Bring thou but Jesus with thee, and thou hast brought God an acceptable sacrifice. Thou canst not fail to be forgiven, when thou comest pleading the name of Jesus. If thou shouldest bring the fattest of thy flock, and the choicest of thy herd, thou mightest hear God say, “I will not accept thy sacrifice”! But when thou bringest God’s own sacrifice, he cannot reject thee. Thou art accepted in the Beloved; there is such acceptance of Christ with God that it overlaps thine unacceptableness; it covers thy sin, it covers thee, it makes thee to be dear to the heart of God.

Thus far have we come with this blessed text, even unto “waters to swim in.” “Behold the Lamb of God.”

Lend me your ears a little longer while in the fourth place I show you that John set forth this blessed Saviour as bearing and bearing away our sin. You that have the Revised Version will please notice that the Revisers follow the Authorized Version in the body of the translation, and say, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,” but they have done wisely by putting in the margin, “beareth the sin.” Both meanings are here. In order to the bearing away of sin, there must first be the bearing of it. The Lord Jesus both took sin and took it away. Dwell for a minute on the first fact, that sin was actually laid on Christ. I saw the other day, amongst the abominations of the Stygian Bog, across which I have been compelled to gaze of late, such a foul teaching as this:-that the transference of sin is immoral. Yet is not Scripture full of it? “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Sin was borne by Christ; yes, actually borne by him; “he his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” They may make what they like of it. I am not going to explain or apologize, but I say without hesitation that the sin of the world was laid upon Christ, and he bore it, and bore it away. The heaviest thing in the universe is sin, the earth has been known to open beneath the unbearable load of it. Neither angels nor men can stand under the load of sin, it sinks them lower than the lowest hell. When sin was laid upon the Lamb of God, he bore it; but he sweat as it were great drops of blood, and he was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. To have borne up the weight of the world would have been nothing compared with bearing the sin of the world.

The best of all is, however, that our Lord did not only bear the load, but he took it away. “He taketh away the sin of the world.” The sin which was laid upon Christ did not remain there, he took it away-it remains no more. We read in Scripture many things about sin, as that God forgives it, blots it out, forgets it, casts it into the sea, puts it behind his back, and a great many other expressive figures, but this is in some respects the best of them-he takes it away. Blessed be his name. My hearer, if thou believest in Jesus thou needest not to ask, “Where is my sin?” Jesus took it away. By bearing it he bore it away. It is gone, gone for ever-it is utterly abolished. “The day cometh when the sins of Jacob shall be sought for, and they shall not be found; yea they shall not be, saith the Lord.” Our glory is that by the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross sin was made an end of. He finished transgressions, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness. This is a gospel worth believing, worth living for, worth dying for. Let all teaching be accursed that cometh in opposition to it. This is heaven to a soul whose sins are dragging it down to hell: sin can be forgiven, for Jesus is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” What a sight is this to see! Those eyes can never be sore again that have once seen sin put away by Jesus.

I must, however, call your attention to another point, which is that John represents our Lord as removing sin continually. “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” Behold the sin of the world as one huge mass, and Jesus deals with it as a whole, and takes it away. John does not speak in the past tense, nor in the future, but he speaks in the present-“He taketh away the sin of the world.” Our Saviour’s atoning sacrifice, though it was but once offered, is perpetual in its effect. He must needs die at a certain point of time, and there were reasons why his death should have taken place at the particular moment when it did; yet time does not enter into the essence of it. The sacrifice might have been offered a million years ago, and as the Lamb of God he would still take away sin; or the actual sacrifice might further have been postponed, if infinite wisdom had so chosen, and yet the Lamb of God would now have taken away sin. The date of his death is not the question, his sacrifice is effectual before and after the event. Our Saviour was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, in the purpose, and covenant, and thought of God. His sacrifice saved Adam, and Noah, and Moses, and David, and all the saints, before the name of Calvary had become illustrious. Before he died he stood before John the Baptist, as taking away the sin of the world; and now to-day, though his death is a matter of 1800 years ago, he still “taketh away the sin of the world.” In his person he was ever the Sin-Bearer, and through his death he puts sin away for ever. By one sacrifice he hath for ever put away sin. His eternal merits for ever remain a sweet savour unto the Lord God, and for ever remove the foul offence of human transgression. As the Great Purifier he continually takes away and will continue to take away the sin of the world.

Blessed be God, I have a Saviour to-day as fresh and full of power as if he had been crucified this very morning for my sin. He is now as able to save me as if he were at this hour on the Cross. Those dear wounds of his in effect perpetually do bleed; in his case the print of the nails is the token of an inexhaustible fount of merit, which is always flowing forth for the removal of my guilt, eternally efficacious, ceaselessly sin-cleansing. This is where we rest. It is the grandest fact in the history of all ages that Jesus takes away the sin of the world. We do not know what happened before this solar system was created, and we do not need to know. We cannot prophesy what is going to happen when you sun and moon and stars shall disappear like transient sparks from the anvil of power; but there never will be any new fact which can equal this first of truths-that the Son of God assumed human nature, and in that nature bare sin and bare it away. This is the truth to be looked at beyond all others: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

Although I am too weak to preach to you as I desire; I feel great joy for myself in looking to the Sin-Bearer who hath taken away my sin. How I wish that all of you felt the same! This is the pith and the marrow of my theology. But you must take the Lamb of God for yourselves: you must know him for yourselves, you must believe in him for yourselves, and he will surely take away that sin which now burdens you. He will take it right away, so that it shall never burden you again. He will blot it out: it shall cease to be: you shall be no more under condemnation, but shall be free from it for ever. God help you to know Jesus, of whom I speak to you!

The last point is this-John witnessed to the all-sufficiency of the divine sacrifice: “Which taketh away the sin of the world.” No other in all the world can take away sin but the Lamb of God. There is no sin which he cannot take away. There is no limit to the value of his great sacrifice: he taketh away the sin of the world. There is no other sin-bearer, no other atonement, no other satisfaction. No purgatory in the present nor in the future can avail to take away sin. No supposed remedial pains in hell are possible: neither lapse of years, nor bitterness of regret, can take away sin: Jesus taketh away the sin of the world, and beside him there is no other.

Mark you, “he taketh away the sin of the world”: all manner of sin that was ever done in the world, by all sorts of men, of all races, in all places. He removes sins of long duration, of aggravated criminality, of crying heinousness: any sin that can be compassed within the bounds of the world, Christ taketh away. O repenting sinner, though thy sins should be as many as the hairs of thine head, and each one as black as the midnight of Tophet, yet Christ taketh away each sin. Though thou shouldest have cursed God and slain thy fellow men, yet such sin as this comes within the range of “the sin of the world.” Even as another text puts it, “God so loved the world, that he gave his Only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life;” so is this text to be understood! Jesus so taketh away the sin of the world that whosoever believeth in him shall no longer be guilty of sin, but shall be forgiven, and be justified before God. Dost thou hear this? There is nothing in this text to shut any man out of mercy. Behold, I set before you an open door. There is everything in my text to induce every one of you who is conscious of guilt to come to the Lord Jesus, and accept him as his substitute and sacrifice. Christ shall take away no man’s sin that doth not believe in him. Christ hath so taken away sin that whosoever believeth in him shall live. If thou wilt come now and lay thy hand on this divine sacrifice thou shalt find it all sufficient, whatsoever the nature of thy guilt may be. O delightful gospel! How sweet to preach it!

I have done when I have said this. John the Baptist appears to me to have relieved his mind by the utterance of my text. He was full of weariness because of the scribes and Pharisees, doctors and doubters who had been warring around him. He had been put upon his defence, and had been harried with innumerable questions. First one and then another; this question and that question; and now John ends the wordy duel by pointing to one whose presence was joy to his heart. There stands the Saviour, and John stops his argument, and cries, “There he is! Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” It is to me a supreme joy to turn aside from those who becloud the everlasting gospel, to leap out of the midst of controversy, and to cry to you with exultation-Jesus is the Son of God; he is the sacrifice for sin, he takes it away. Believe on him and live. There is more joy in one sermon than in years of disputation. Oh, that every one in this congregation might believe in Jesus and live! What a refreshment it is to the preacher’s mind to get to his message at last, to get away from the bamboozlement of those who confound plain truth, and to come to matter-of-fact dealing with eternal salvation. There, let them question and quibble-the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanseth us from all sin.

With what certainty the Baptist speaks! He does not for a moment hesitate, or speak with cautious reserve. No debate disturbs the foundation of his confidence. Before his eyes he evidently sees the Sin-Bearer, and he bids others see him as he sees him. To him no doubt remains, for he had seen the heavens opened above the head of Jesus, and he had heard the voice of God himself, saying, “This is my beloved Son.” Dear friends, the marks which prove our Lord Jesus to be the vicarious sacrifice for sin are as clear to me as ever they were to John the Baptist. I dogmatize; because I feel more than sure as to my Lord’s being the great sacrifice for sin. I could not doubt this doctrine if I were to try to do so. My hope, my joy, my very being hinge on my Lord’s substitution. This truth is woven into the warp and woof of my being. Jesus suffered in my stead. A leader in the religious world tells us that we have not yet obtained a satisfactory theory of the atonement. Let him speak for himself. Thousands of us know what we believe, and know what Jesus did for us. Where has the man lived? What comfort in life and death is there for one who cannot see clearly this first of truths? I thank God I have a definition of the atonement which is to me most clear, sure, and full of comfort. Here it is-“He his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” I can live by that, and I can live by that. I am sick to death of the ever-repeated cant about “theory of the atonement”; I have no theory, for I believe in atonement itself. God keep us steadfast in the faith once delivered to the saints, and our consolation will abound.

And yet, once more, there seems to be deep anxiety on John’s part in the words of my text. He says, “Behold the Lamb of God.” And he does so for the sake of those around him. We do not desire others to believe with us because we need them to keep us in countenance. John was not a man cut out of brown paper, in the same shape as thousands of others, but he was an original, self-contained individual. He knew how to see the Lamb of God for himself, whether other people did or did not see him. When I preach to you the doctrine of the vicarious sacrifice, it is not because I am unable to believe this truth alone. Long ago I ceased to count heads. Truth is usually in the minority in this evil world. I have faith in the Lord Jesus for myself, a faith burned into me as with a hot iron. I thank God, what I believe I shall believe, even if I believe it alone. If I am the last man to glory in the substitution of the Lord Jesus, I shall count myself honoured to bear his cross alone. But there is great love to his fellows in the heart of every man who has seen the Lord Jesus Christ as bearing sin. That great deed of love makes the beholder feel that he would have all men look and live. Were you ever half-starved, and did you find bread? Then I know you pitied your famishing brother. Our very instincts lead us to spread the blessing which we have received. Even dogs would do that. A poor dog had his broken leg healed at the hospital, and not many weeks after he brought another lame dog to the same house of mercy. We also long to see men come to Christ, because we have had our broken hearts healed by his tender hand. We love because he first loved us. Brethren, I was ready to perish under a sense of sin; I was all but damned; I felt the wrath of God surging in my soul like a sea of fire, I found no relief or comfort. Even the Word of God did not cheer me. They told me of believing in Jesus; but till I learned that this Jesus was God’s great appointed sacrifice for sin I saw nothing in him to cheer me. When I learned that he had borne the penalty and satisfied justice, then I found out the glorious secret, and my conscience was at rest. Conscience within us reflects, as in a mirror, the facts of the case as God sees them. God causes an awakened conscience to require that which his justice requires. The demand of the conscience is the echo of the demand of the divine government. Conscience requires atonement because the necessity of the case and the nature of God require it. When I learned that there was such an atonement provided, oh, then I rested most sweetly! I wish you all did so. You that have no atoning sacrifice to plead, how can you bear the weight of your sins? What will you do with them when the death-damp is on your brows? You for whom, according to your own creed, no debt was paid, no penalty endured, how will you answer Justice in her great and terrible day? Believers look to Jesus as discharging all their debt, and they are not afraid of the day of account. But where will you look? Oh, what will you do? Do not remain without faith in him who stood in the sinner’s stead. His work is exactly what your mind wants to give it peace. The satisfaction of Jesus will give your mind satisfaction, and nothing else will. Conscience, like the horse-leech, crieth, “Give, give,” and it will never cease its cravings till it meets with Christ, whose one full satisfaction will content it for ever.

“Behold the Lamb of God” I shall meet you all in the day of judgment, and I tremble not to do so, for I have told you all the truth so far as I know it. If you reject the sacrifice for sin, I cannot help it! But, I beseech you, receive it and find that the Lamb of God has taken away your sin. Go in peace. The Lord go with you. Amen.

Portions of Scripture read before Sermon-Exodus 29:38-46; Isaiah 53; John 1:19-51.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-412, 331, 416.