“He Died for Us”

Come with, brethren, into the fifth chapter of the first Thessalonian letter and rest yourselves for a little while on these verses: “God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us. That, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him” – “who died for us that we should live together with him” (I Thess. 5:9-10). It is this that we have come to celebrate. It follows therefore that what we have come to do is solemn and holy, Solemn because death is always solemn, and holy because the death of the Son of God must be holy.

The unseen is most important

This celebration, then – solemn and holy – is the very center point of our faith. The external things are but tokens of something deeper and no­bler. The material things are here to be seen, but it is our part not only to see them, but to see through them to the spiritual things. And in the final analysis, the privilege of being here is the token that a man is in fellowship with the church of God.

Quite evidently, because this is so solemn and so holy and so important, true participation in it is more than eating and drinking. Indeed, it will be a poor thing indeed if true participation in this service meant but mastication and digestion. It goes far beyond that, else the apostle would not have said, “he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself’ (I Cor. 11:29). It is possible for a man to eat and drink and never to participate. What is it then that constitutes true participation in this service?

The key is feeling thankful

Go back once again and rest upon those words of I Thess. 5:10 “Who died for us.” I put it to you that true participation is achieved when we feel absolute thankfulness to God for the facts and forces which underlie those words: “Who died for us, that, we…should live together with him.” True participation is achieved if we can feel heartfelt gratitude for the things which have been accomplished by the Son of God for us.

And notice brethren I said if we can feel, and I stress the word feel because ere long we shall pray, and with bowed heads and with hushed spirits two of our brethren will take us in spirit into the Lord’s presence and will speak words of thanksgiving on our behalf. And our brethren will speak, but we shall participate only if we feel the thankfulness which they will seek to express in words.

But then being thankful is a personal thing. It is felt by each individual. The brother next to you or next to me cannot feel thankful for me, but only for himself. Full participation is that personal apprecia­tion of what God has done through His Son for me. Though Christ died for all men, and especially those who believe, the apostle Paul thinks of it in this personal way and says “he loved me, and gave himself for me.” But then when we speak in this personal way, we immediately come up against a difficulty in that, whilst it is fairly easy to speak in this way—we can say that Christ died for me, and my sins have been laid upon him, and for my transgression he was bruised; yet to feel it to be true is very much more difficult.

At least I think it is.

Do you find it difficult to feel this personal responsibility for the death of Christ? We certainly have sinned, but we’ve never wanted Christ to die or to suffer. But when we can feel this kind of thankfulness, for pardon, and salvation, and the things which Christ has done for us; when we can feel it to be true in a personal sense, then I think quite evidently our gratitude will be intensified.

Feeling thankful is not easy

But it is difficult to feel; it is easy to say but difficult to feel. Let me illustrate what I mean. Supposing this evening at the lecture I were to say to you that all men are sinners and that includes you. You would not, I think, be offended. You would not be angry with me, hardly at all. But supposing when the lecture was over, I leave the platform and come down into the hall, and say to one of you personally that you are a sinner, and put my finger on one of the sins I al­lege you have committed. The chances are that your reaction will be very different then. You will feel like telling me to mind my own business, and would be very annoyed indeed. Very angry perhaps. Now the differ­ence in the two reactions illustrates the difference between feeling one’s self to be a sinner amongst a few million other sinners (it means hardly anything at all), and then, feeling one’s self to be a sinner – a lone sinner. That is to say, a real sinner. The matter has moved, you see, from the general to the particular, from the universal to the personal. In other words, it has become real, because it has become personal.

Now it seems to me that this principle is true when we seek to appreciate the sacrifice of Christ. It becomes real when it becomes personal. To say that Christ died for the sins of the whole world is very true. But it leaves us very largely unmoved. We feel no direct responsibility. And therefore, feeling no direct responsibility, we don’t feel so much direct gratitude. But let us say, nay let us feel, that he died for us personally, and in some way our sins added to his condemna­tion, and in some way our iniquities caused his death. And if we can feel that to be true, then our appreciation I think must be intensified.

Christ the victim of sin

But let us go back and reflect for a moment on the idea that Christ died for all men. We say he was the victim of sin for all; to use the peculiar phrase of the apostle Paul “he died unto sin.” That means he was the victim of sin. He died by sin. Sin slew him.

When we recall the life of Christ, we remember there was hardly a form of evil under which he did not suffer in some way or other. Sin in all its forms came against him. He was a victim of false friendship and ingratitude, the victim of bad government and injustice, the victim of jealousy and envy. He fell as sacrifice to the vices of all kinds of people, not just one class, but many. The selfishness of the rich and fickleness of the poor, the pride of the priesthood, the arrogance of the conqueror, intolerance, formalism, skepticism, self satisfaction, hatred of goodness, hardness, indifference. These were the foes which came against him and which at last slew him.

And in the proper sense of the word, breth­ren, he was a victim. He was never a man who hid away from the facts and re­alities of life, shunning its re­sponsibilities. He did not, as some men have done, adroitly wind his way through life, sidestepping the issues and avoiding the dif­ficult situations, as we should say dodging the dangers. He never remained silent when it was Godly to speak, because that which was against God was against him. Con­fronted with sin, face to face and front to front he met it, defied it, rebuked it. And therefore, because he was just, and good, and true, he awakened against himself the rage of injustice and wickedness and hypocrisy and falsehood; because he was pure, impurity was awakened against him. He endured the contradiction of sinners against himself.

Now, you see, these were the forces which came against him and which in the end brought him to his death. And the details of that condemnation and death we know well enough. We have read it many times.

And it happened a long time ago, brethren, in a remote corner of the world, a long way from here. Within the space of a few years it happened, and the persons concerned in that great drama were but few, compared with the rest of mankind. And yet, somehow, when we read the words of God in the Bible, we cannot escape the conclusion that in some way, this sin which was committed against the Son of God, was the sin of every man.

Our responsibility for our Lord’s death

He died because of your sins, and my sins. In some way, we do have a responsibility for his death. He died for us. And that means not only that we have benefited from his death like every other person in the world may benefit, but that in some way we have caused it (so help us God).

But brothers and sisters I say, this is a difficult thing to feel. We can say it, but to feel it to be true in our hearts, we cannot. It is unnatural. We shudder at the thought. After all, we did not betray him; that was Judas. It was Peter who denied him, not us. It was Thomas – he was the honest doubter, not us. The apostles it was who fled and left him alone. It was the priests who misrepresented him, the unknown witnesses who told the lies. It was Pilate who was weak and pronounced sentence. It was some un­known Roman soldier who drove in the nails. We did not seek to circumvent him; that was the scribes. We did not hinder his teaching; that was the Pharisees. We have not disputed whilst he was in danger; that was the thoughtless disciples. It would seem there is no way we can be involved in the complicity of this guilt.

Yet, when we read the words of God, we cannot escape the conclusion that in some way at least, this Christ felt the weight of your sins, and of mine. There is a way, somewhere, in which we have a responsi­bility for his death.

For an answer, come with me to the occasion in the life of Jesus when he said that the Pharisees of his day were guilty of the blood of Zacharias the prophet, who lived long before their day – and guilty also of the blood of righteous Abel, and all the proph­ets who fell before Jesus Christ. He said these Pharisees who lived in his day and faced him were guilty of the blood of these men, who lived long before them. Now they did none of those things to the prophets; they had no hand in killing the prophets. It happened a long time before they ever came on the scene. Indeed they honored the prophets, and built their sepulchres.

Yet Jesus tells them that they were guilty, and he explains why. He said they were guilty because they were the children of those who slew the prophets. Children that is to say not in the sense that they were descended from those who slew the prophets by natural descent – not that. But this: they were children in the sense that they had shown the spirit of their fathers. They opposed God’s goodness in the form it was manifested in their day just as their fathers had opposed God’s goodness in the form in which it was manifested in their father’s day. And Jesus was saying, in effect, that they belonged to the same confederacy of evil. Al­though they were separated by time, they had, by their same spirit, identi­fied themselves with their guilty fathers.

Sin as a world principle

Now in a certain sense, this is how the New Testament views the great sin against the son of God. It was the world’s sin. The apostle John in his writings views sin as one great connected world principle; it is a single spirit that pervades the world. It was in this way that the disciple Stephen looked upon the act of his murderers. When he was dying and God’s glory was streaming on his face, he testified that what they were doing, these people, was not just simply the violence of a mob in an ob­scure corner of the world. It was the outbreak of the great principle of world sin. Stephen saw in their act the resurrection of the same spirit that had slain the prophets, that had opposed Moses, and that had crucified the Lord.

It seems to me brethren that in a similar way, we have a responsibility for the death of the Lord. He died for us. Because of us he died. It was Caiaphas who engineered his death. It was Judas who betrayed him. It was Peter who denied him. It was the thoughtless disciples who disputed, and added to his anguish. But these were the forces through whom sin was manifested, the personalities through whom the deeds were done. These people were but enlargements of ourselves. It was really hatred and jealousy and covetousness and prejudice and self righteousness and envy and pride and selfishness which actually caused his death.

And in so far as we have been a false friend, or a skeptic, or a cowardly disciple, or selfish, or indifferent, or unkind, or envious, or jeal­ous, or have been willing to consent to the downfall of some other man to save ourselves, then to that degree we have partaken in the forces which came against him. And if you think this to be an outrageous suggestion, then I beg you to remember two things in the Bible which support it.

One is in the words of the writer of Hebrews 6 where he tells us that disciples who turn back to willful sinning after they have been cleansed crucify again to themselves the Son of God and put him once again to a mockery.

Or think of Matthew 25, where the king is sat upon his throne, and before him are gathered peoples out of all nations, to whom he tells some that the sins they committed against their brothers were committed against the Son of God. They reply that they never willfully wanted ever to harm the Lord. And he said, be­cause you harmed your brother, and my other children, you harmed me.

Yes, it was Peter who denied him. Peter, and every other disciple who has disowned him for the sake of expediency; or has kept silence rather than confess that they belong to him. Yes, it was the apostles who disputed in the hour of his need; they and any other man who cared more for his own glory than for the Lord’s high purpose.

Yes, it was the disciples who forsook him and fled; they and all others who when the fight became hard, turned back and abandoned his cause. Yes it was Judas who was the traitor – Judas and also any other man who, wearing the livery of discipleship, nevertheless secretly nurses in his life the very things against which his Lord is fighting.

Brethren, there is not one of us who is not in some way blameworthy in these things. He died for us: because of sins you commit and sins that I do. He was bruised for our iniqui­ties, by his stripes we have been healed, and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.

Feel this to be true

Now if we can feel this to be true – and I stress the word feel it – I propose to you that when we handle these emblems, our thanksgiving will be intensified. God hath not appointed us to wrath. Therefore hear the word of the lamb of God: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” It tells us that the very center of this memorial is pardon for every man and every woman. It means we have come with all our bruises and all our weaknesses and all our impoverishment, because where sin abounded (and it did), grace did much more abound, exceedingly.

We have come to the green hill today, as men and women who stand in need of pardon. And if we do not feel that to be true, brethren, we ought not to be here. But in the very moment that each one of us seeks the pardon, if it is sought truly and contritely, so it is granted – thank God! God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who died for us, that we might live together with him.

The exhortation of forgiveness

There is one last word to be spo­ken. And it is the word of exhortation for living tomorrow. A pardoned man is a man under obligation to do better: a man who is under obligation to become mastered by love and governed by truth because he is par­doned.

Have you heard the story of the man condemned to die because he was a murderer? But he had a brother, and his brother had been a hero, and had saved many lives. And this brother pleaded for the murderer before the high court, and for the sake of the brother who had saved lives, they consented to pardon the brother who had taken life. And so the brother who had pleaded went to the condemned man with the pardon, to his cell; but before he disclosed it to him, he said to the prisoner his brother, “supposing you were par­doned and set free – what would you do?” And the prisoner said, with hatred in his eyes and in his voice, “If I could find that judge and the chief witness, I would kill them.” And the brother said nothing about the re­prieve, but left the cell and its pris­oner, and kept the pardon in his pocket and destroyed it.

Every one of you in your heart knows he did right. A real pardon is for the man who is willing, given the power, to quit sinning and to seek goodness. So the pardon we have received asks for a life tomorrow, seeking the high and holy enterprise of doing the will of God, who gives us pardon today.

Now if we can feel this to be true – and I stress the word feel — if we can feel it to be true, I do not think we will participate today unworthily. He died for us.