Himself He Cannot Save
He saved others; himself he cannot save — Mark xv. 31.
AN proposes, but God disposes. The creatures, with all their faculties, lie in the Creator’s hand, and he employs them as instruments in the accomplishment of his design. He makes the winds his messengers, and flaming fire his ministers. The willing and unwilling are equally under control, and he chooses now one and now another as a rod to smite an enemy, or a shield to defend his own. He makes the wrath of man to praise him, so far as it is permitted to burst forth; while the remainder of that wrath, or the portion he does not need, he restrains. Paul, after his enemies had done their worst, was able to write quietly to the Philippian Christians, that the things which had happened to him had turned out to the furtherance of the gospel. The Lord, who had already in Paul’s conversion turned the heart of the king, had power also to turn the fierce flood of persecution, so that, instead of destroying, it contributed to establish the kingdom of Christ.
God in sovereignty often selects as his instruments those who have no desire to be subordinate to his will. The efforts of rebels to thwart the Sovereign’s plan frequently become the means of accomplishment. Thus the glory of God is more fully declared. This method of the divine government is conspicuously displayed in the history of Joseph. The envious brothers formed and executed a plan for his ruin; but the direct effect of their manoeuvre was to save both Joseph and themselves. Such bright and beautiful representations of God in history are ever and anon thrown off as the wheels of providence move round, and the threads of human experience are woven into the web of the world’s life. If the heavens declare the glory of God, the earth is continually giving back an articulate echo of their testimony. Fear, and sin not: God is everywhere. In him we live, and move, and have our being.
Some passengers on the ship’s deck may be walking forward, and some walking aft, and some standing still; but all, and all alike, are borne onward to their destiny by the breath of heaven in the sails, and according to the will of the pilot who holds the helm in his hand. This world in space is like a ship on the sea. Of the teeming multitudes that crowd its surface, some intelligently and willingly walk in the way of God’s commandments, others violently resist, and others cleave sluggishly to the dust like clods of the earth; but our Father is at the helm, — he will make all subservient to his purpose. Every atom will be compelled to take its place and contribute its own share to the estabhshment of his kingdom and the redemption of his people. The sovereignty of God is a precious doctrine. Providence is sweet to them that believe:” Casting all your care upon him; for he careth
for you.”
Nor is it only the course of history and the actions of men that are thus overruled. The words which flow from human lips, and the thoughts which germinate in human hearts, are compassed and controlled by our Father’s hand. It was a glimpse of true divine light that flowed into David’s heart through the rendings it endured, when he said of Shimei, “L,et him alone, and let him curse; for the Lord hath bidden him.” Curses that go out of a man’s lips defile the man; but curses that come against a man from another quarter may become the means of purging away his own dross, and confirming his faith in God. The thorns which within a field choke the wheat and render it unfruitful, may outside of the field be a
safe-guard.*
In the text you find an example of this feature in the divine administration. A truth is spoken, but it is a truth which the speakers do not know. By this word the railers meant to mock the pretensions of Jesus: by it the Spirit in the Scriptures declares the glory of God in the gospel of his Son. Like Balaam, these false prophets intended to curse; but their lips were overruled, and framed to express the distinguishing feature of redemption.
* For examples of God’s overruling providence, see Numbers xxiv. lo, John xi. 47-52.
Apart from the meaning of their words, the scoffing of these scribes was overruled by God for the accompHshment of his own purpose. By their conduct they unconsciously fulfilled the prophecy of Scripture regarding the Messiah. This reviling constituted one of the marks by ’ which those who waited for redemption in Israel should know the Redeemer when he came. “A root out of a dry ground: no form nor comeliness — no beauty that he should be desired: rejected and despised: they shall look on him whom they have pierced.” Not one jot of these prophecies could fail: the Scriptures must be fulfilled. It was a necessary part of the evidence whereon we in these latter days might lean, that the Messiah when he came should in all points correspond to the Messiah promised to the fathers. Accordingly, while in the wise and powerful providence of God a full accomplishment of prophecy is secured, the enmity of those who rejected Christ is employed as a principal means of accomplishing it. Had Israel with one accord accepted their King, one distinguishing mark of the Messiah would have been wanting. The chief priests and lawyers, when they exclaimed, “Himself he cannot save,” thought they were affixing the stigma of a detected impostor on Jesus of Nazareth in his dying hour; while by that very cry they were unconsciously sealing the truth of his claim to be the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. The biting scorn of these apostate rulers is one of the marks by which the faithful recognize their Lord. The flame of their anger against Christ becomes a beacon-light that guides Christians safely into the harbour. The wound which slanderous tongues inflict becomes the marring whereby the faithful distinguish their beloved one among ten thousand. Through such suffering the Redeemer is made perfect.
Let us examine now more particularly the truth which the revilers articulately declared in contrast with the falsehood which they meant.
What the Jewish leaders understood and intended to say is obvious at a glance. They see their enemy at last in extremities. They had often plotted to take away his life. Galled by the authority which his doctrine and his miracles had acquired for him among the people, they thought they could not be secure in their seat of authority as long as Jesus of Nazareth lived. Now that they have at last compassed the object of their desire — now that they see him ready to expire on the cross, they cannot contain themselves. They must give vent to their exultation. They must triumph over their victory. “He saved others; himself he cannot save.” When they see him dying, they deem the sight a proof of his weakness. They proclaim the fact in order to throw discredit on the miracles which he had performed. They saw him suffering even unto death, — they assumed that he suffered because he had not power to save himself: and seeing that he could not save himself, they assumed that he could not have saved others. They think that if he had saved others, he would also have saved himself; and they flourish the fact of his yielding to death as a proof that his miracles had been impostures.
This word may be read in two ways. The one is darkness, the other light. The one is a He, the other is the truth — the truth on which the saving of the lost depends. The leaders read it thus: We see he does not save himself from death, and thence we infer that he has not power; and whatever appearances may be, he cannot have saved others. The meaning which, under direction of the Spirit, the word in the Scriptures contains for us is, He saved others, as their covenant-substitute, and therefore he cannot also save himself from the obligation which he undertook as mediator. He saved others, and therefore himself he cannot save. His life has been pledged for the life of his people forfeited: they have obtained their life eternal; and therefore his life, so pledged, cannot be saved.
The King’s Son has offered himself as hostage for certain subjects that were held in captivity by a foreign power. He has gone into their place, and they have on the faith of this transaction been set free. Precisely because they have been set free, he cannot now escape. He has saved others by the substitution of himself in their stead, and therefore himself he cannot save.
In order to explain fully how Jesus, having saved others, could not also save himself, we must refer to the history of redemption. Bear in mind that we live under a divine administration that has been well ordered from the beginning. When an architect begins to lay the foundation of a building, he has the perfect plan already before his eye. Although it be only a man’s covenant, it is not carried forward by fits and starts according to the changing circumstances of the times. The design is completed from the first, and its execution is carried forward, it may be from generation to generation, all in accordance with the first design. Much more certain and evident it is that God, who sees the end from the beginning, framed his plan at first, and conducts his administration from age to age according to that plan. The way of salvation for sinful men is not left uncertain, to be modified by the accidents of the day. The gospel does not take its character from passing events. It is, indeed, a transaction between the unchangeable God and errine man; but it takes its character from the Source whence it springs, and not from the objects to which it is directed. It partakes of the immutability of its Author: it has nothing in common with the caprice of men. It has come from heaven to earth, not to receive, but to give an impression. The sun’s rays when they reach the earth meet with a various reception. At one time they are intercepted before they touch its surface by an intervening subordinate orb; at another time the earth itself keeps out the light from that side of it whereon we stand: at one place, even when the rays are permitted to reach us, they stir corruption into greater energy; at another time they paint the flowers and ripen the fruit, stimulating life and gilding the landscape with varied beauty. But whether they are kept at a distance or received, whether when received they make corruption more corrupt, or make beauty more beautiful, the sun’s rays are ever the
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same; they remain true to their celestial character, and are never changed by the changing accidents of earth. They retain all the purity of the heaven they come from, and contract none of the defilement of the earth they come to.
It is thus that the covenant of grace takes character from its Author, and not from the objects to whom it is applied. Some receive it unto life, and some turn the grace of God into lasciviousness; but the grace of God remains ever the same. The covenant has been in heaven settled fast: it is eternal and unchangeable. Christ is the mediator of the covenant, and in him it is complete.
In the matter of salvation, men ever recur, by a species of instinct, to the idea of a bargain — they come at first to God with a price in their hand. Yea, it was indeed a bargain, but not made with them: their redemption is indeed the paying of a price, but it is not a price that they can pay.
From the beginning the Son undertook to pay. The sin of men was foreseen, and a ransom was provided. Before any creature needed mercy, mercy was provided. Before death entered, a way unto life was prepared. Before the debt was incurred, a Surety had bound himself to stand in the debtor’s room. Before any captive was shut up in prison, a ransom price was prepared to buy him off. Before the world was made, the price of its redemption was fixed, and the time set when that price should be paid.
But man fell, and came under condemnation, before the appointed time for paying the redemption price. Some of the sinful were called away to their account before Christ had shed his blood, the just for the unjust. Debtors must go to the great white throne before the Surety had paid their debt. And must they therefore perish? No. As soon as sin entered, saving began. When first man, God’s creature, sinned, the sentence against him was not executed in full. The first hour that they lived on earth after they had rebelled was a salvation, — a salvation by Christ.
Fix your thought on that first hour that creatures made in God’s image lived and breathed and walked about on his world after they had sinned. That must have been a day of wonder among the hosts of heaven. Those morning stars who sang in glad sympathy when man was made, and who were wont to behold how good were all God’s works as they sped on his errands from world to world, must have been stricken with amazement when they saw for the first time what seemed to be an anomaly in God’s creation. Not that the occurrence of sin could have seemed so strange to the angels who kept their first estate; for already they had witnessed a rebellion near the throne. They had seen sin, indeed; but they had seen it followed by immediate punishment. No sooner had the rebellion burst out, than the rebels were punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. In the flame of the pit they could still read the nVhteousness of God, as clearly as they had been wont to read it by the light of heaven. But now appeared a sight that had never been seen before: the guilty were spared. As the barbarians of Malta wondered, not that a viper came out of the fire and fastened on Paul’s hand, but that Paul did not in consequence immediately fall down dead; so when the holy angels saw God’s intelligent creatures sinning against God, it was only what they had witnessed before — they wondered, not that creatures sinned, but that creatures sinning were still spared — that judgment against an evil work was not executed speedily. There must have been then a more intense desire than they ever experienced before to look into the counsels of God, and learn by what means his righteousness would be vindicated. Righteousness they had seen in the happiness of the holy, and righteousness they had seen in the doom of the disobedient; but where is righteousness now, when the sinful are permitted to live?
Searching into these deep things, they must in due time have discovered that what appeared a defect was the brightest exhibition of divine righteousness that had yet been given to the creature. Why was our race not doomed the day they fell y Because Christ had undertaken to become their substitute and pay their ransom. As yet he had not taken our nature, as yet he had not shed his blood; but on the faith of what the Son had promised, a respite was afforded and a pardon offered. There was a bargain, although we had no part in arranging its terms, or in paying the stipulated price. In the covenant before time began, the Son of God undertook to give himself an offering for sin. On the ground of this undertaking, the guilty were spared; and now in the fulness of time the price must be paid. “He saved others; himself he cannot save.”
Further: in the Earliest ages of our race sinners believed, and, departing, entered the inheritance. The sacrifice of Abel was accepted, and Abel by a sudden, stormy passage, entered the eternal rest. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob sat down at the right hand of God in the highest, and as yet no sacrifice had been offered to take away their sin and satisfy divine justice on their account. On the faith of the Redeemer’s undertaking, these all entered into peace before Christ was crucified. He got up beforehand part of his inheritance; but he got it as a part of his covenant. He obtained fruit from the travail of his soul before his soul had travailed as an offering for sin; but when the set time came, the price must be paid. Sinners and their Substitute cannot both escape. If he decline the cup, they must drink it: if it has not been required of them, he must answer. His people have already entered rest, and therefore he must die. If God should break his covenant on one side, what ground could we have to expect that he would keep it on the other .? If he should change, so that the penalty should not be borne by the Substitute, how could we trust that he would not change so as to lay it on ourselves y “He saved others; himself he cannot save.”
“He cannot:’’ this is not to limit the Lord. To say,
God who cannot He, is a greater tribute to his unchanging truth than to say, God who does not He. So, it is greater glory to attribute to Christ that he cannot save himself, than to attribute that he does not save himself. It is of the nature of God that he cannot do wrong. He cannot break a bargain. He cannot break it at that part where Christ must suffer, and he cannot break it at that part which secures that believers shall be saved.
If he had saved himself from humiliation and suffering, we could not have been saved. If the Son of God had treated the world when it fell as the priest and the Levite treated the man who fell among thieves, — if he had looked on us, and passed by on the other side, we should have perished all in our sins.
A traveller in an Asiatic desert has spent his last bit of bread and his last drop of water. He has pursued his journey in hunger and thirst until his limbs have given way, and he has at length lain down on the ground to die. Already, as he looks on the hard dry sky, he sees the vultures swooping down, as if unwilling to wait till his breath go out. But a caravan of travellers with provisions and camels comes up. Hope revives in his fainting heart. They halt and look; but as the poor man cannot walk, they are unwilling to burden themselves, and coldly pass on. Now he is left to all the horrors of despair. They have saved themselves, but left him to die.
A ship has caught fire at sea. The passengers and crew, shut up in one extremity of the burning ship, strain their eyes and sweep the horizon round for sight of help. At length, and just in time, a sail appears and bears down upon them. But the stranger, fearing fire, does not venture near, but puts about her helm, and soon is out of sight. The men in the burning ship are left to their fate. How dreadful their situation, when the selfish ship saved itself from danger, and left them to sink!
Ah! what heart can conceive the misery of human kind, if the Son of God had saved himself from sufferine. and left a fallen world to the wrath of God!
Here are two lessons, or rather, one turned in two ways. Let this word be a two-edged sword, turning every way to keep the gate of life — not to keep it shut, but to keep it open. First, turn it to those who are within, next to those who are without. How sure is the salvation of all who put their trust in Christ! “There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” “Who is he that condemneth t it is Christ that died.”
The bond that keeps these worlds suspended and circling round their centre may break — will break one day, when the heavens and the earth shall pass away; but the bond that unites Christ’s people to their inheritance can never be broken. The death of Christ makes the life of Christ’s people sure. His death is their life. The same link that held him to his suffering, holds them to life eternal. If that link could ever by any strain have been broken, it would have been when it held the beloved Son of the Father to his covenant of suffering for sin. With the same power that it held the Substitute to the suffering, it holds the believer to life and safety. God is righteous in taking vengeance once: he is not unrighteous to lay the guilt on the sinner and his Substitute too. As surely as the Shepherd was smitten, so surely shall the sheep go free.
But a lesson lies in the text for those who live without Christ in the world, — who, occupied with other portions, will have none of him. The text I do not say seals the doom of any sinner in this assembly; for “now is the accepted time.” “To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Flee to the refuge. The flag that flies from its ramparts bears yet, in glad, golden letters, the divinely-dictated motto, “Whosoever will, let him come.” The text I do not say seals the doom of any here; but it certainly determines that they who are not found in Christ at last shall be cast away.
Let me lift from this text and display before the eyes of self-deceivers a warning, that, though a terror of the Lord, may be blessed to persuade men, ere it be too late, to take the Lord’s side.
There are some who, when they examine themselves, cannot think that they are Christ’s. The facts of the case are too plain to admit of deception at this point. They are not converted: they are not new creatures in Christ, walking with him and waiting his call: they are not born to the Lord. But they are not in a state of agony: they continue to enjoy a fair measure of comfort: they hope that something will turn out in their favour.
I learn in this text what will turn out, what must turn out in the great day. When you pass from life without any part in Christ, you are not saved according to the covenant of grace, and God will not come out of his covenant to save those who despised his warning all the day of grace. When his own well-beloved was bearing wrath for sin, when his own beloved cried, ‘* My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me .-*” so firm and sure was the covenant for the redemption of Christ’s people, that it would not, could not yield to save Christ from suffering what was due to sin. Oh ye who, in a life of worldly ambition, cherish a vague hope that Christ will in the end be tender, and not visit you with wrath, I bid you reflect. Christ did not, Christ could not, contrary to the provisions of his covenant, save himself; and he will not, cannot contrary to the provisions of his covenant, save you.