When Spurgeon defended Calvinism, he defended the gospel. When he took up an argument to defend the TULIP, he was impassioned to focus upon the gospel. The following quote represents how, to him, the two were intertwined and inseparable.
 | "The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox's gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again."—C. H. Spurgeon |
On many points, as Spurgeon does so eloquently argue, I feel as though I can scarce keep myself from shouting AMEN! I too, with Spurgeon, believe that the gospel is affectionately connected to God's absolute sovereignty. I am persuaded that there - on Calvary's Hill - God's sovereignty was never so clear! Please, my reader, let me explain.
Let us consider, firstly, what God did in the life of Joseph. Then let us briefly look at the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, only let it be at the same noteworthy angles in which we just viewed the life of Joseph.
Let us consider, firstly, what God did in the life of Joseph. Then let us briefly look at the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, only let it be at the same noteworthy angles in which we just viewed the life of Joseph.
1) The Life of Joseph
2) The Life of Jesus Christ
2) The Life of Jesus Christ
| Genesis 50:20 "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." |
It was the sin of Joseph’s brethren that they betrayed and sold Joseph to Egypt, even so, but God takes OWNERSHIP of it because it was God’s plan. What sin was in the heart of Joseph’s brethren? How did this come to pass? His brethren began to hate Joseph in their heart, and from this horrid and bitter hatred they conspired to sell him to Egypt. They indeed made a plan in their own wicked heart, nevertheless, read how it was the plan of Joseph’s brothers, while simultaneously, it was the Lord’s plan. Beginning with Genesis 37:4...
| Genesis 37:4 "And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him." |
Thus they (Joseph's brethren) did plan and conspire...
| Genesis 37:18-20 "And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. 19 And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. 20 Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams." |
If God is absolutely sovereign as the Calvinists do affirm, one must believe that God was in control of their hearts (Joseph's brethren) even while they were bent crooked in this wretched conspiracy. Shockingly, Joseph freely and unashamedly confessed to this! Read how all of this was God’s plan as well, yet He is innocent of any unrighteousness, altogether lovely, and pure!
| Genesis 45:5-8 "Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. 6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. 7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. 8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and He hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt." |
Joseph was able to confess this, but can you? Please do not harden your heart against the scriptures simply because they cannot be logically digested. Likewise to Joseph’s confession, the Holy Spirit inspired the psalmist of Psalm 105 to give credit to God in the same way. Again God was in complete, sovereign control!
| Psalm 105:16-22 "Moreover He called for a famine upon the land: He brake the whole staff of bread. 17 HE SENT a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant: 18 Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: 19 Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him. 20 The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the people, and let him go free. 21 He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance: 22 To bind his princes at his pleasure; and teach his senators wisdom." |
By the hands of Joseph’s brethren God sent Joseph; even in their sinful thoughts God was Lord, and He was working a mighty plan of salvation! As God did with the hands of Joseph’s brethren, He did the same thing with Judas, the Jews, and the Romans when they betrayed Jesus Christ, that it might rightly be said that God sacrificed His own Son. The Lord takes OWNERSHIP of this sinful plan of the Jews in a multitude of places throughout scripture. If the Lord did not send Joseph by the hands of his brethren, then He did not crucify His own Son, both would have been the happening of the free will of man. If it was the happening of the free will of man and God merely orchestrated and allowed the circumstances and scenarios to transpire, then it would have been the foreknowledge of God alone that was active in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and that was God’s full part in the matter. It was not singly the foreknowledge of God only but it was the determinate counsel of God as well!
| Acts 2:23 "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain" |
God appointed the men to their disobedient, wicked conspiracy so that God was able to take sure ownership of Christ’s death. In 1 Peter 2:8 it is written that the disobedient were appointed instead of freely choosing, and mind you, we could have known this already by the previous scripture that revealed God’s relationship to the heart of all men (Prov. 16:1, 9, 21:1, 30).
| 1 Peter 2:8 "And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed." |
In Isaiah 53 God takes pleasure in His plan to kill His own Son as an offering for sin, and, He is innocent, again, of all unrighteousness! In Isaiah 53:10, God claims complete ownership and authorship of the plan and its execution; while in Acts 3:13-15 God holds the Jews responsible for this sin, telling them it was their desire of evil, and they will be punished for it if they fail to repent and believe. It is a paradox. Please read carefully – first, Isaiah 53:10, and then Acts 3:13-15:
| Isaiah 53:10 "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He [God] hath put Him to grief: when Thou [God] shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand." Acts 3:13-15 "The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus; Whom ye delivered up, and denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. 14 But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; 15 And killed the Prince of life, Whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses." |
Indeed, “whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth” and “it pleased the LORD to bruise” and crucify His Son (Ps. 135:6, Isaiah 53:10)! God took ownership of the most momentous event in all time! God has provided “gates of righteousness,” and Christ is “this Gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter” (Ps. 118:19-20) – praise God! “Every house is builded by some man; but He that built all things is God,” and “strait is the Gate, and narrow is the Way which leadeth unto life” (Heb. 3:4, Matt. 7:14)! Let everyone praise the LORD as the psalmist says, “I will praise Thee, for Thou has heard me, and art become my salvation” (Psalm 118:21)! Christ has become our salvation by “the LORD’s doing,” when, namely, “the stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the LORD’S doing; it is marvellous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:22-23)! “This is the day which the LORD hath made!” And will you rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24)? The disciples were offended that Christ was smitten by men, but will you be offended that God smote Christ? God said, “I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad” (Matt. 26:31). The Son of Man has gone to the crucifix “as it was determined” of Him, nevertheless God holds men in a simultaneous responsibility, and “woe unto that man by whom He is betrayed” (Lk. 22:22)!
I say again, God took ownership of the most momentous event in all time! This event was the greatest sin of man against God, for they crucified the Lord of glory, but since it was a sovereign work of God it was the greatest display of God’s love to give and kill His Son, likewise the Son willingly laid down Himself under the Father’s death sentence, and more so, this was the greatest display of God’s wrath to require the value of His Own Life as the only capable means to pacify the magnitude of His just anger against sin and sinners. The sovereignty of God behind the crucifixion of Christ is carefully detailed in the book of Romans with much more explanation than Psalm 105, which gave only a snapshot of God’s sovereignty in Joseph’s betrayal, slavery, and rise to power. In Romans, God declares His mysterious purpose behind why He killed His own Son, and how that He did it by blinding His own people. Through the “fall,” “diminishing,” and “casting away” of God’s chosen people Israel (Romans 11:15), the Gentiles are grafted into the Tree of Salvation! God determined that it would be through the “fall” of Israel that the Gentiles would be saved (Rom. 11:11). How can their fall be the casting away of God? Did God cast them away in response to their sin only, or was God the author of this unsearchable plan!? Their fall into sin was that they rejected and crucified Christ, and God was the author and executor of these events through ordination, specifically in that He made them “slumber” in blindness and deafness (Romans 11:8). It was because they were blinded and made deaf that they did reject Christ, thus God’s Sovereign control is the cause and determining factor of sin and righteousness. So when a man is blind or deaf it was God’s election that determined it. In conclusion, my dear reader, there is one single point I am seeking to make clear...
I say again, God took ownership of the most momentous event in all time! This event was the greatest sin of man against God, for they crucified the Lord of glory, but since it was a sovereign work of God it was the greatest display of God’s love to give and kill His Son, likewise the Son willingly laid down Himself under the Father’s death sentence, and more so, this was the greatest display of God’s wrath to require the value of His Own Life as the only capable means to pacify the magnitude of His just anger against sin and sinners. The sovereignty of God behind the crucifixion of Christ is carefully detailed in the book of Romans with much more explanation than Psalm 105, which gave only a snapshot of God’s sovereignty in Joseph’s betrayal, slavery, and rise to power. In Romans, God declares His mysterious purpose behind why He killed His own Son, and how that He did it by blinding His own people. Through the “fall,” “diminishing,” and “casting away” of God’s chosen people Israel (Romans 11:15), the Gentiles are grafted into the Tree of Salvation! God determined that it would be through the “fall” of Israel that the Gentiles would be saved (Rom. 11:11). How can their fall be the casting away of God? Did God cast them away in response to their sin only, or was God the author of this unsearchable plan!? Their fall into sin was that they rejected and crucified Christ, and God was the author and executor of these events through ordination, specifically in that He made them “slumber” in blindness and deafness (Romans 11:8). It was because they were blinded and made deaf that they did reject Christ, thus God’s Sovereign control is the cause and determining factor of sin and righteousness. So when a man is blind or deaf it was God’s election that determined it. In conclusion, my dear reader, there is one single point I am seeking to make clear...
What is absolutely necessary for so magnificent a victory,
Is that God was not carelessly outwitted to lose His Son at the hands of free-will sinners undone!
The free will of man held no priestly knife in this sovereign, eternal, salvific plan!
The Father was the transcending Great High Priest, and He is the author of every chapter of the plan;
In His hand He held the knife to condemn all sin in One Man.
Every finger may have been the finger of man,
But they gripped the knife of salvation to slay the world’s sin in One Sacrificial Propitiation.
The knife in hand, the final blow, was God’s judgment against sin – let all the world know!
His work, His way, He sacrificed His Son for all in one day!
Is that God was not carelessly outwitted to lose His Son at the hands of free-will sinners undone!
The free will of man held no priestly knife in this sovereign, eternal, salvific plan!
The Father was the transcending Great High Priest, and He is the author of every chapter of the plan;
In His hand He held the knife to condemn all sin in One Man.
Every finger may have been the finger of man,
But they gripped the knife of salvation to slay the world’s sin in One Sacrificial Propitiation.
The knife in hand, the final blow, was God’s judgment against sin – let all the world know!
His work, His way, He sacrificed His Son for all in one day!
Related Sermons:
"Salvation Is A Miracle" - by Ryan Ringnald
"Salvation Is A Miracle" - by Ryan Ringnald
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