The coldness of heart toward sin is always such a terrible thing. A tragic thing. How is it that our hearts can look at the dying, bleeding Savior and not be broken with such a vision? Perhaps it is because we take it too lightly.
The vision of the God-man, Christ Jesus, bearing the shame of the wrath of men whilst bearing the full weight of the fury of the wrath of God, somehow has tragically become common place in our own hearts.
Indeed, what a terrible thing it is!
Let us go back to where we’ve begun in this Christian life, dear reader. Let us go back in the time of our conversion. Let us remember what burned deep in our hearts, what passions were invoked in a glimpse of the sinless, spotless, Lamb of God who bled and died for sinners like we are.
And I pray much for you, that in His person, by His spirit you might find victory against your bosom sins. That you may weep for hours on end before you would slight even a finger to that very sin that nailed the blessed Savior on the Cross!
And if somehow you are an unsaved soul, reading this entry by His providence, I bid you look! Look at this Savior and trust in Him, for He has purchased a full atonement for those who are His. No matter how vile, and wicked you may be, take heart! For He came to live and die for such as you are. Repent from your sins and believe the Gospel.
The doctrine of the Cross can be used to slay sin, even as the old warriors used their huge two-handed swords and mowed down their foes at every stroke. There is nothing like faith in the sinners’ Friend; it overcomes all evil.
If Christ has died for me, ungodly as I am, without strength as I am, then I cannot live in sin any longer.
I must arouse myself to love and serve Him who has redeemed me.
I cannot trifle with the evil that killed my best Friend.
I must be holy for His sake. How can I live in sin when He has died to save me from it?
There was a day, as I took my walks abroad, when I came near a spot forever engraved on my memory. There I saw this Friend, my best, my only Friend, murdered. I stooped down in sad alarm and looked at Him. I saw that His hands had been pierced with rough, iron nails, and His feet had been torn in the same way.
There was misery in His dead countenance so terrible that I hardly dared to look at it. His body was emaciated with hunger. His back was red with bloody scourges. His brow had a circle of wounds about it; clearly, His brow had been pierced by thorns.
I shuddered, for I had known this Friend very well. He never had a fault; He was the purest of the pure, the holiest of the holy. Who could have injured Him? He never injured any man. All His life He “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38). He had healed the sick; He had fed the hungry; He had raised the dead. For which of these works did they kill Him? He had never breathed out anything but love.
As I looked into the poor, sorrowful face, so full of agony and yet so full of love, I wondered who could have been a wretch so vile as to pierce hands like His. I said to myself, “Where can these traitors live? Who are these who could have killed such a One as this?”
Had they murdered an oppressor, we might have forgiven them. Had they slain one who had indulged in vice or villainy, it might have been his just desert. Had it been a murderer or one who had started a revolt, we would have said, “Bury his corpse; justice has at last given him his due.”
However, when You were slain, my Best, my only Beloved, where lodged the traitors? Let me seize them, and they will be put to death. If there are torments that I can devise, surely they will endure them all. Oh, what jealousy, what revenge I felt! If I could only find these murderers, what I would do to them!
As I looked at that corpse, I heard a footstep, and I wondered where it came from. I listened, and I clearly perceived that the murderer was close at hand. It was dark, and I groped about to find him. I found that, somehow or other, wherever I put out my hand, I could not grab him, for he was nearer to me than my hand would go.
At last, I put my hand on my own breast. “I have you now,” said I.
Yes, he was in my own heart.
The murderer was hiding within my own bosom, dwelling in the recesses of my inmost soul.
Ah, then I wept indeed that I, in the very presence of my murdered Master, would be harboring the murderer. While I bowed over His corpse, I felt that I was very guilty, and I sang that plaintive hymn:
’Twas you, my sins, my cruel sins,
His chief tormentors were;
Each of my crimes became a nail,
And unbelief the spear.Amid the mob that hounded the Redeemer to His doom, there were some gracious souls whose bitter anguish sought vent in wailing and lamentations—fit music to accompany that march of woe. When my soul can, in imagination, see the Savior bearing His cross to Calvary, it joins the godly women and weeps with them.
Indeed, there is true cause for grief—cause lying deeper than those mourning women thought. They bewailed innocence mistreated, goodness persecuted, love bleeding, meekness about to die; but my heart has a deeper and more bitter cause to mourn.
My sins were the scourges that lacerated those blessed shoulders; they crowned those bleeding brows with thorns.
My sins cried, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” and laid the cross upon His gracious shoulders.
His being led forth to die is sorrow enough for one eternity; but my having been His murderer is more, infinitely more, grief than one poor fountain of tears can express.
Why those women loved and wept, it is not hard to guess, but they could not have had greater reasons for love and grief than my heart has.
The widow of Nain saw her son restored (Luke 7:11-15), but I myself have been raised to newness of life.
Peter’s mother-in-law was cured of the fever (Matthew 8:14-15), but I of the greater plague of sin.
Out of Mary Magdalene seven devils were cast (Mark 16:9), but a whole legion out of me.
Mary and Martha were favored with visits from Him (John 11:19-45), but He dwells with me.
His mother bore His body, but He is formed in me, “the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).
Not being behind the holy women in debt, let me not be behind them in gratitude or sorrow.
Love and grief my heart dividing,
With my tears His feet I’ll lave;
Constant still in heart abiding,
Weep for Him who died to save.—C. H. Spurgeoni
Read the rest of Spurgeon’s recollection of his conversion here: My Conversion
Footnotes
- (2000). My Conversion (electronic ed.) (15). Escondito, California: Ephesians Four Group. [↩]
