Suffering Without the Camp

“Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own Mood, suffered without the gate.” — Hebrews, xiii. 12.

In one sense sanctification is wholly the work of Jesus Christ, but there is another meaning which is more usually affixed to the term, in which sanctification is the work of God the Holy Spirit. Many disputes have arisen concerning this doctrine, because all men do not distinguish between the two meanings of the same word. Thre is one kind of sanctification which sip;nifies settini? apart, and in that sense God’s people were sanctified from all eternity. They were sanctified in election, before they had a being, foi they were even then set apart from the impure mass, to be vessels of honor fit for the Master’s use. Again, as redemption hath in it much of particularity and specialty, God’s people were sanctified or set apart by the blood of Christ, when on Mount Calvary he offered up himself, an offering without spot or blemish, for the sins of his people. So that it is true that Jesus is not only made unto us wisdom and righteousness, but also sanctification. You will remember, in one of my sermons, the text of which was “Jesus only,” I made that remark — that it was “Jesus only” for sanctification. And I have not had any reason to retract the expression; for there is a sense in which sanctification, as flir as it means setting apart, is an eternal work, and is a work wholly completed for us by the blood of Jesus Christ and the election of the Father; but still sanctification sometimes, and most generally too amongst certain people, signifies another thing. It means the work of the Spirit in us. There is a work which God the Holy Spirit carries on from the first moment of our Spiritual birth to the last moment, when we are complete and taken to Heaven — a work by which corruptions are overcome, lusts restrained, faith increased, love inflamed, hope brightened, and the spirit made fit to dwell with the glorified above. That work is the work of God’s Holy Spirit; and we must remember, that even though it be the work of the Holy Spirit, still Jesus Christ even in this sanctifies his people. For what does the Holy Spirit sanctify them with? Beloved, he sanctifies them with blood. We know that when our Saviour died, his sacrifice had a double object: one object was pardon, the other object was cleansing; and the blood and the water flowed from the same source, to show us that justification and sanctification both spring from the same Divine fountain; and, though sanctification is the work of the Spirit in us, yet the instrument that the Holy Spirit uses is the Holy blood of Jesus, and the sacred water of his atonement applied to our heart, sprinkling us from dead works, and purging us from an evil conscience, that we may serve God without let or hindrance. So, then. Christian, in thy sanctification look to Jesus. Remember that the Spirit sanctifies thee; but he sanctifies thee through Jesus. He doth not sanctify thee through the works of the law, but through the atonement of Christ. And wilt thou remember, that the nearer thou livest to the cross of Jesus, thou wilt under his Heavenly Spirit have more of sanctification, and growth, and increase therein 1 So, then, we see that the text, whatever sanctification may mean, is still true — “Jesus, also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.”

Let us pause here a minute, and let each of us ask this question — How far has Christ’s purpose of sanctifying me been answered in me 1 I know that in one sense I am sanctified completely; in another sense I feel my imperfections and infirmities. How far have I progressed in sanctification during this year? How much has my fixith increased during this year 1 How many of my corruptions have I overcome’? How nmch nearer am I living to Christ now, than on the first Sabbath of the last year? How much more do I know of the Saviour? How much closer do I approach to him 1 Have I more power in prayer? Am I more careful in my life 1 Is my spirit more loving than it used to be? Am I more decisive for right 1 At the same time, am 1 more meek in standing up for it 1 Am I more like my Master? Or, am I going backward? Stand still I cannot; I must either go forward in grace or go back. Which have I been doing this year 1 And I charge thee, O my heart, whatever answer thou hast to give to that, still to remember, that if thou art never so nmch sanctified thou hast not yet attained. I beseech thee forget that which is behind, and press forward toward that which is before, looking still unto this Jesus, who is the Author and the Einisher of faith. The Lord give you grace that you may be sanctified wholly — the body, soul, and spirit; I pray God to preserve you all unto his coming and glory.

But now the principal subject upon which I wish to discourse is the fact, that Jesus Christ suflfered without the gate. You know that when the High Priest offered the sin-offering, because it typified sin, it was so obnoxious to God that it might not be burned upon the great altar, but it was always burned without the camp, to show God’s detestation of sin, and his determination not only to put it away from himself, but also to put it away from his church. Now, when Jesus Christ came into this world to be our sin-offering, it behoved that he should be put outside the camp too, and it is remarkable that Providence provided for the fulfilment of the type. Had our Lord been killed in a tumult he wbuld most likely have been slain in the city; unless he had been put to death judicially, he would not have been taken to the usual Mount of Doom. And it is remarkable yet again, that the Romans should have chosen a hill on the outside of the city to be the common Mount for Crucifixion and for death punishments. We might imagine that they would have selected some Mount in the centre of the city, and that they would have placed their gibbet in as conspicuous a place as our Newgate, that so it might strike the multitude with the greater awe. But through the providence of God it was otherwise; and Christ must not die in a tumult, so that he might not die in the city; and when he gets into the Romans’ hands they are not to have a place of execution within the city, but one outside the camp, that he might be proven to be the sin-offering by dying without the gate.

I have just one or two thoughts to ofFer to you very briefly. Do you know who the people were that lived outside the gate 1 If you could have gone to the great Camp of Israel, you would have seen the tents all placed in order — the standard of Daniel there, of Judah there, of Ephraim there — surrounding the Ark of the Covenant; but you would have seen a few wretched huts far away in the rear, outside the camp; and if you had asked, “Who lives there 1 Who are the wretched people that are put away from kith and kin, who cannot go up to the Sanctuary of the Lord, who cannot join in the songs of holy praise 1” The answer would have been, “The people out there are lepers and unclean people;” and if you had walked alone through some of the shady glens around the City of Jerusalem, you might have heard in the distance the cry, “Unclean! unclean! unclean!” — a bitter wail that sounded like the sighing of despair, as if it came from some poor ghost that had been commanded to walk this earth with restless step for ever. Had you come nearer to the unhappy being who had uttered so mournful a sound, you would have seen him cover his upper lip, and again cry, “Unclean! unclean! unclean!” — to warn you not to come too near him, lest even the wind should blow contagion from his leprous skin. If for a minute he had moved his hand from his mouth, you would have seen, instead of those rows of scarlet that God had put there, those ruddy lips of health, a hot white mark not to be distinguished from his teeth. His lips were unclean, for there the leprosy had discovered itself; and in a minute he would have covered up that lip again that had the white mark of disease upon it, and again he would have cried “Unclean! unclean! unclean!” Who was that leper a type of? He was a picture of you and of me, my brethren, in our natural state; and if the Holy Spirit has quickened us to know our ruined condition, we shall feel that the leper’s cry doth well become our unholy lips. Mayhap I have a hearer within the walls of this house of prayer, who is to-day separate from all mankind. With worldlings he dares not go; the harlots and others with whom he spent his living riotously are not now his companions; he cannot bear their pleasures, for they are dashed with bitterness. With the children of God he dares not go; he feels that they would put him outside the camp, for he hath no hope, no Christ, no faith; he cannot say that Christ hath died for him; he hath no trust in Jesus himself; not so much as one pale ray of hope hath stolen into his poor bedarkened heart; and to-night the inward wail of his now aroused spirit is, “Unclean, unclean, unclean, unclean, and full of sin, from first to last, O Lord, I’ve been; deceitful is my heart.”

Leper, leper! be of good cheer; Christ died without the camp, that thou mightest be sanctified through His blood. 1 see the leper now stealing through the desert places, not daring to sip of the pool that lies in his track, lest he should communicate contagion to the next that drinks, but seeking out some filthy puddle, that there he might satisfy his throat, where none others should drink, lest they should die. I see him covering up his lip. If his father saw him he must run away; if the wife of his own bosom saw him she must shun his presence, for a loathsome disease is in his skin, and in his garments, and in the very air that comes from him there is death. Well, suddenly, as he steals along, he sees a Cross, and on it lifted up one that dies. He standeth there astonished; he thinketh, surely he may come near to a dying man, leper though he be; to the living he must not come, but to the dying he cannot bring a new death. So he •dravveth nigh to him, and the lips of the dying man are opened, and he says, “Verily, I say unto thee, This day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Oh! what joy and rapture rush through his lepered spirit! How his heart, that had long been heavy, and baked like a black coal within him, begins again to burn with lambent light! He smiles: he feels that that man, that marvellous man, has forgiven him, and ere he has begun to feel it the blood falls on him, and the leprosy is cleansed, and he goes his way, for his flesh has come unto him even like unto the flesh of a little child, and he is clean. O leprous sinner! hear it to-night! Look to him that died without the camp, that poor unclean sinners might find a Saviour there. That is my first lesson: if the Lord the Spirit apply it, it will be a precious one to many a sindistracted heart.

But, believer, didst thou never feel as if thou, too, wast unclean and without the camp? Brethren, let me tell you a little of my own heart’s feelings, and let me see whether you have ever felt the like. You have often known yourselves to be children of God; I have felt myself with much joy to be certainly assured of my interest in Christ; suddenly sin has surprised me, some unhappy propensity has developed itself, and I have felt as if I could not meet my God. When I was on my knees in prayer I seemed as if I could not pray; I felt like the unclean one that must be put outside the camp — like Miriam, who though the leprosy was but for a little time, would still be unclean for seven days. And when I have come to the Church of God, I have felt as if the meanest Christians there were so much superior to myself that 1 would have been glad to have been a footstool at their feet. I would have crept into any part of the Church, if I might but have known myself to be the meanest lamb in Jesus’ fold. I have seen the deacon, and I have seen the church member, and oh! I have thought, “Brethren, ye are happy; but my heart is sad, for I am not worthy to be called God’s Son. Father, I have sinned; I have done grievously, and have tiansgressed;” and for a little while faith hath seemed sluggish, and hope hath been dull, and the sense of sin hath rested on us, and we have seemed to be quite put away. We read the Bible; we could get no comfort there. The Heavens seemed like brass above our heads; no shower of Grace fell upon our thirsty souls: both God and man seemed to put us outside the camp. I believe that many times in a Christian’s experience he will have to feel the same. I do not mean mere Christians — little Christians — but I mean the greatest Christians, those that live nearest to their God — God’s Aarons and Miriams, who sometimes have to be put without the camp. Who, then, is there amongst us that will not sometimes be unclean 1 Surely not any of the great ones of Israel could always live without contracting some ceremonial defilement; for you know that under the Jewish law the sitting upon the bed of a leper made a man unclean, you know also there were many things that naturally happened unto men that rendered them unclean for seven days. And who shall wonder if, through the infirmities of our bodies, through the companionships into which we are called, through the evil thoughts of our flesh, we are as often unclean as the Jews were? And who wonders that sometimes the Lord should put us, as it were, out of the camp for a little season, till we have been purged with hyssop and have been made clean — till we have again been washed with water, and have been thoroughly purified by the washing of water through the Word!

Ah! but, brethren, what a mercy it is that when we are out of the gate, Christ is outside the gate too! Oh! poor backslider! doth thy conscience shut thee out of the Church to-day 1 Remember, Christ shut himself out, too. He was “despised and rejected of men.” Dost thou feel to-night as if thou couldst not come to the table — as if thy Master would spurn thee from it “? Remember, if thou be His thou art welcome; for His table is where his Cross is, and his Cross is outside the gate. Come, sinner! Come, backsliding saint! Come, and welcome! God may seem to have put thee away; but it is only seeming; for we know he has written that he hates to put away. Come, thou, and though thou be without the gate, behold thy Lord, who, that he might cleanse the people by his own blood, suffered without the gate.

I have only one more thought. The Apostle says, in the next verse to our text, “Let us go forth, therefore, without the camp, bearing his reproach.” Now, then, if Christ suffered without the camp, let us not be ashamed to suffer there too. I do not think much of the religion of that man who is not put without the camp. If thou canst dwell with the wicked, if thou canst live as they live, and be “hail-fellow well met” with the ungodly, if their practices are thy practices, if their pleasures are thy pleasures, then their God is thy God, and thou art one of them. There is no being a Christian without being shut out of the camp of the world. I can scarce conceive it possible for any man to be sound, at least without being reproached whilst on earth for being too strict, too puritanical, sometimes, mayhap, too melancholy. There must be a grave distinction between a Christian and a man of the world; and where there is no such distinction, or but a slight one, there is most solemn cause for suspicion. When I see a man dress like worldlings, when I hear him talk like worldlings, when I know that all his outward carriage is just like a worldly man’s, when I can detect no difference, when I see no mark, no shibboleth in his speech, whereby he is to be detected from a shibboleth speaking world, when I discover no distinction between him and others, then this I know, “God is not mocked;” that man is in the flesh, and he shall “of the flesh reap corruption.” Nay, I will go further still. I can in this age scarcely imagine it possible for a man to serve his Master well, unless he is sometimes shut out of the camp, even of the Church itself. I do not mean excommunicated — I mean something far different from that: I mean, that the man who serves his God aright will sometimes find himself left in the minority, even in the Church. It is never his business so to act, and so to think that others are obliged to differ from him; it is fully to be singular, except where to be singular is to be right; but so lax hath the Church become, so low in its doctrine, so light in its experience, and sometimes so unholy in its life, that to be a Christian now we must be elect out of the elect — elect out of a Church as well as elect out of the world. What pride, on the one hand; what sloth, on the other; what anger, what distrust, what covetousness, what worldly-mindedness! The mass of us are too much mingled with the world, too much joined unto Egypt; and the man that is firm and loves his Master well is a rare man. The man of a loving spirit, the man of a large heart, and yet the man of a determined zeal, and of a steadfast mind — such a man will have to go without the camp, and he will have to suffer now, even as all have had to suffer who have dared to go into the front of the Sacramental host of God’s elect, and precede the more tardy followers of the Lamb. If any minister dares to be too bold, too plain too honest, he must expect to be traduced. Let him reckon on that, and let him go forth without the camp, for that is where his Master was.

If I turn to the page of history to find out the best men that ever lived, do you know where I find them 1 I never find them among those who were called respectable in their time. There, in the page of history, I see great names, Erasmus and others, mighty and learned men. On one dirty-thumbed page I see the name of Luther associated with such epithets as these: dog, adulterer, beast, and every thing that Rome’s malice could si?ggest; and I say, “Ah! this is the right name, this black name here. This is the man; this is the man that God chose, for he went without the camp.” That list of great divines, and of schoolmen, and of theologians there, wipe them all out! This man without the camp, he is somebody, depend upon it; he is the man that God has blest. Turn to another. There is a respectable list of Bishops, and Archbishops, and Deans, and Rural Deans, and Rectors, and Curates, and no end of odd things; and there they are, all as respectable as possible. Great volumes of sermons published, fourteen to the dozen — found on all the bookshelves now-a-days with the dust of years upon them. I read their names, there is one, the other, the other; at last I find a picture by Hogarth — a caricature of a man preaching, with devils coming out of his mouth, and underneath it written, “Fire and brimstone!” I look at the portrait, and I say, “See, that is Mr. Whitfield.” Ah! there is the man of the age, depend on it; that man, all black, charged with crimes that Sodom never knew: that is the man! Not the Curate in the other ‘“picture, who is preaching to a congregation all asleep, to the text, “Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” Not that one; but this man here that is abused, that is laughed at, that is mocked; this is the man that is somebody. So ye shall go on. Ye shall always find that those intruders, those that the Parliament of parsons don’t like, those that the great mass reject, laugh, and scoff at — those are the very men that God blesses. So you will be in very good company, if you will go outside the camp. The great and holy men of years gone by, have all been put away. If an ungodly throng have thrust out our fathers, and have said, “Get ye gone, we want you not,” it is true, their children build their sepulchres, and then they thrust us out. What if it be so 1 We are content to sleep with so goodly a parentage. We think it a high honor to be thrust out of those gates whose only glory is, that good men once passed through them, and whose great disgrace is, that good men pass through them the wrong way — not into them, but out of them. Be ye content to be cast without the camp.

But mark, going without the camp is nothing; it is suffering without the camp that is the thing. Making myself different from anybody else is nothing; it is suffering for truth’s sake that is something. It is being crucified with Christ that is honorable.

It is not my being a Sectarian or a Separatist. No, Plymouth brethren, it is not your going outside the camp that is any good; it is your suffcrhig without the camp that proves you to be a believer. O Christians, if ye have to do the same, rejoice! And now, when you come to the table, I shall bid you only recollect that word suffered — “suffered without the camp;” and I shall ask you as you sit there to meditate upon that word. Turn it over again and again, and think how body and soul all suffered for you. Then when ye have meditated, will ye be in a fit frame of mind to commune with him who has sanctified you by his own blood, by suffering without the camp. May the God of Mercies give to sinners grace, that, like lepers without the camp, they may look to Jesus crucified for them.