Honey From A Lion

C.H. Spurgeon preached this message on April 3rd, 1881, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

It's entitled, Honey from a Lion.

The text is Romans chapter 5 and verse 15.

But not as the offense, so also is the free gift.

For if through the offense of one many be dead,

much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace,

which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

This text affords many openings for controversy.

It can be made to bristle with difficulties.

For instance, there might be a long discussion as to the manner in which the fall of Adam

can justly be made to affect the condition of his posterity.

When this is settled, there might arise a question as to the exact way

in which Adam's fault,

is connected with ourselves, whether by imputation of its sin, or in what other form.

And then there might be further dispute as to the limit of the evil resulting from our

first parent's offense, and the full meaning of the fall, original sin, natural depravity,

and so forth.

There would be another splendid opportunity for a great battle over the question of the

extent of the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Whether it covers, as to persons, the whole area of the ruin of the fall,

whether, in fact, full atonement has been made for all mankind, or only for the elect,

it would be easy in this way to set up a thorn hedge and keep the sheep out of the pasture,

or, to use another metaphor, to take up so much time in pelting each other with the stones

as to leave the fruit untasted.

I have at this time neither the inclination nor the mental strength either to suggest

or to remove the difficulties which are so often the amusement of unpractical minds.

I feel more inclined to chime in with that ancient father of the church, who declined

controversy in a wise and explicit manner.

He had been speaking concerning the things of God, and found himself at length confounded

by a certain clamorous disputant.

He said,

Who shouted again and again,

Hear me, hear me!

No, said the father, I will not hear you, nor shall you hear me.

But we will both be quiet, and hear what our Lord Jesus Christ has to say.

So we will not at this time listen to this side or that, but we will bow our ear to hear

what the scripture itself hath to say, apart from all the noise of sect and party.

My object shall be to find out in the text that which is practically of use to us,

that which may save the unconverted, that which may comfort and build up those of us

who are brought into a state of reconciliation with God.

For I have of late been so shut up in my sick chamber, that when I do come forth,

I must be more than ever eager for fruit to the glory of God.

We shall not, therefore, dive into the deeps with the hope of finding pearls,

for these could not feed hungry men.

But we will navigate the surface of the sea,

and hope that some favoring wind will bear us to the desired haven

with a freight of corn wherewith to supply the famishing.

May the Holy Spirit bless the teaching of this hour

to the creation and nourishment of saving faith.

The first observation from the text is this.

The appointed way of our salvation is by the free gift of God.

We were ruined by the fall, but we are saved by a free gift.

The text tells us that the grace of God and the gift by grace,

which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

Wherein sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Although this doctrine is well known,

and is taught in our synagogues every Sabbath day,

yet this grand essential truth is often enough forgotten or ignored,

so that it had need be repeated again and again.

I could wish that every time the clock struck it said,

By grace are ye saved.

I could wish that there were a trumpet voice ringing out at daybreak,

both on sea and land, over the whole round globe,

the words, By grace are ye saved.

As Martin Luther said of a certain other truth,

So I say of this, you so constantly forget it,

that I feel inclined to take the Bible and beat it about your head,

that you may feel it and keep it in remembrance.

Men do not know.

They naturally love the doctrine of grace,

and therefore they cast it out of their minds as much as possible.

The larger portion of mankind do not believe that salvation is of grace.

Another part of them profess to believe it,

but do not understand its meaning.

And many who do understand it have never yielded to it or embraced it.

Happy are they who belong to the remnant according to the election of grace,

for they know right well the joyful sound,

and they walk in the light of the glory of the grace of God,

which is in Christ Jesus.

Observe that salvation is a free gift.

That is to say, it is bestowed upon men by God

without regard to any merit, supposed or real.

Grace has to do with the guilty.

Mercy in the very nature of things is not,

a fit gift for the righteous and deserving,

but for the undeserving and the sinful.

When God deals out to men His gracious salvation,

they are regarded by Him as lost and condemned,

and He treats them as persons who have no claim on Him whatsoever,

to whom nothing but His free favor can bring deliverance.

He saves them not because He perceives that they have done anything that is good,

or have hopeful traits,

or have great traits of character,

or form resolutions to aspire to something better,

but simply because He is merciful,

and delights to exercise His grace,

and manifest His free favor and infinite love.

It is according to the nature of God to pity the miserable,

and forgive the guilty,

for He is good, and His mercy endureth forever.

God has a reason to forgive,

and He has a reason for saving men.

But that reason does not lie in man's merit in any degree whatever.

This is clear from the fact that He often begins His work of grace

upon those who least of all can be credited with goodness.

It was said of our Lord,

This man receiveth sinners,

and the saying was most emphatically true.

Sovereign grace selects such as Rahab the harlot,

and benignly, and in the same way,

and Saul of Tarsus the mad zealot against Christ,

such as these have been seized upon by grace,

and rested in infinite love,

that in them the Lord might manifest power

and the plenitude of His mercy.

Salvation is a work which is begun

by the pure, unpurchased, free favor of God,

and in the same spirit it is carried on

and perfected.

Pure grace, which lays the foundation,

also brings forth the top stone.

Salvation is also brought to men,

irrespective of any merit which God foresees will be in man.

Foresight of the existence of grace

cannot be the cause of grace.

God Himself does not foresee

that there will be any good in any man,

except what He foresees

that He will do.

He will put it there.

What is the reason, then,

why He determines that He will put it there?

That reason, so far as we are informed, is this.

He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy.

The Lord determines to display His love

and set on active work His attribute of grace.

Therefore doth He save men

according to the good pleasure of His will.

If there be salvation given to men,

upon the foresight of what they are yet to be,

it is clear it is a matter of works and debt

and not of grace.

But the Scripture is most decided

that it is not of works,

but of unmingled grace.

For saith the Apostle,

If by grace,

then is it no more of works,

otherwise grace is no more grace.

But if it be of works,

then it is no more grace,

otherwise work is no more.

Our text is to express

that salvation is the free gift

and that it comes to us

by the grace of God

and the gift by grace

which is by one man,

Jesus Christ.

I go a little further

in trying to explain

how salvation is a free gift

by saying that it is given

without reference to conditions

which imply any desert.

But I hear one murmur,

God will not give grace

to men who do not repent.

I answer,

God gives men grace to repent,

and no man ever repents

till first grace is given him

by which he is led to repentance.

Oh, God will not give His grace

to those who do not believe,

says one.

I reply,

God gives grace to men

by which they are moved to believe

and is through the grace of God

to give them grace.

That they are brought

into the faith of Jesus Christ.

You may say, if you please,

that repentance and faith

are conditions of salvation,

and I will not quarrel with you.

But please remember

that they are not conditions

in the sense of deserving

anything of God.

They may be conditions of receiving,

but they are not conditions

of purchasing,

for salvation is without money

and without price.

We are expressly

told that salvation

is of faith,

that it might be by grace.

For faith is not to be numbered

with works of the law,

to which the idea of merit

may be attached.

Faith is as far as the poles asunder

from claiming anything of God

by way of debt.

Faith comes

as a poor, undeserving thing

and simply trusts

the free mercy of God.

It never attempts

to wear the crown

or grasp a particle of praise.

The believer never can be a boaster,

for boasting is excluded

by the law of faith.

If a Christian should begin to boast,

it would be because

his believing is failing

and his evil nature

is coming to the front.

For faith is of all graces

most self-denying.

Her song is always

non nobis domine,

not unto us,

but unto thy name give praise.

While therefore

the word of God assures us

that except we repent

we shall all likewise perish,

and that if we believe not in Jesus Christ

we shall die in our sins,

it would have us

at the same time know

that there is no merit

in repenting or believing,

but grace reigns

in God's acceptance

of these graces.

We are not to regard

the requirement of faith,

repentance, and confession of sin

as at all militating against

the fullness and freeness

of divine grace,

since in the first place

both repentance, faith,

and true confession of sin

are all gifts of grace.

And in the next place

they have no merit in themselves,

being only such things

as honest men should render

when they know that they have

erred and are promised forgiveness.

To be sorry for my sin

is no recompense

for having sinned,

and to believe God to be true

is no work for which

I may demand a reward.

If then I am saved

through faith,

it is of the pure mercy of God

and of that alone

that pardon comes to me.

Beloved,

so far is God

from giving salvation,

salvation to men

as a matter of reward and debt,

and therefore bestowing it only

upon the good and excellent,

that He is pleased to bestow

that salvation over the head of sin

and in the teeth of rebellion.

As I said before,

mercy and grace

are for the sinful,

where none others need them.

And God's grace comes to us

when we are far off

by wicked works.

God commendeth His love toward us

in that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us.

Free grace breaks forth

like a mighty flood

and sweeps in torrents

over the hills of our transgressions,

rising above the high alps

of our presumptuous sins.

Twenty cubits upward

doth this sea of grace prevail

till the tops of the mountains

of iniquity are covered.

The Lord passeth by

transgression, iniquity, and sin,

and remembereth not

the iniquity of His people,

because He delighteth in mercy.

Almsgiving needs a pauper,

and grace needs a sinner.

There is no opportunity

for forgiveness

where there is no offense.

If men are meritorious,

how can God be gracious to them?

In such a case,

it will be enough for Him

to be just.

When good works can put in a valid claim,

peace and heaven can be obtained

by the rules of debt.

But since it is clear

that eternal life is the gift

of pure favor,

you need not marvel when I say

that grace comes to men

leaping over the mountains

of their iniquities.

Abounding mercy delights

to blot out abounding sin,

and it will never lack opportunity

to do its pleasure.

There is no lack of occasions

for grace in this poor fallen world.

And of all places

where there is most room,

I know of one spot

not far from here

where there is a grand opportunity

for infinite mercy

and superabounding grace

to exercise their power.

Here is the spot.

It is this treacherous,

guilty heart of mine.

I think, my brother,

you know of another spot

that is very like it,

and you, my sister, too,

can say,

Wondrous mercy!

Sure there is room

for all its heights and depths

to be shown

in this sinful soul of mine.

Aye, and it will be shown, too,

if you can but look for it

through Christ Jesus.

For it is the delight

of God's grace

to flow into unlikely places.

Mercy is the glory of God,

and He loves to bestow it

on those who least deserve it.

We are saved by grace

free grace,

pure grace,

grace without regard to merit

or to the possibility of such a thing.

And many of us have been saved

by grace of the most abounding

and extraordinary sort.

Some of us will be prodigies

of divine love,

miracles of mercy

to be wondered at throughout eternity.

We shall be set up in heaven

as monuments for angels

to gaze at,

in which they shall see a display

of the amazing goodness of the Lord.

Some of us, I said,

but I suppose that in each one

of the redeemed

there is some particular development

of grace which will make Him

specially remarkable,

so that the whole body of us,

as one glorified church,

shall be made known

unto angels and principalities

and powers

the manifold wisdom of God.

Oh, what a revelation of grace

and grace of God!

And mercy will be seen

when all the blood-washed race

shall gather safely

around the eternal throne

and sing their hallelujahs

unto Him that loved them

and washed them from their sins

in His own blood.

Note one thing more

concerning this plan of salvation,

that all this grace comes to us

through the one man,

Jesus Christ.

I sometimes hear people

talking about a one man,

one man ministry.

I know what they mean.

But I know also that I am saved

by a one man ministry,

even by one who trod

the winepress alone,

and of the people there was none with him.

I was lost

by a one man ministry

when Father Adam fell in Eden.

But I was saved

by a one man ministry

when the blessed Lord Jesus Christ

bore my sin

in His own body

on the tree.

Oh, matchless ministry of love!

When the Lord from heaven

came into the world

and took upon Himself our nature

and became in all respects human,

being found in fashion as a man,

was obedient unto death,

even the death of the cross.

It is through the one man,

Christ Jesus,

that all the grace of God

comes streaming down

to all the chosen.

Mercy flows to no man

save through the one appointed channel,

Jesus,

the Son of Man.

Get away from Christ

and you leave the highway

of God's everlasting love.

Pass this door

and you shall find no entrance into life.

You must drink

from this conduit pipe

for you must thirst forever

and ask in vain for a drop of water

to cool your parched tongue.

In vain.

In Him dwelleth

all the fullness

of the Godhead bodily.

All the infinite mercy of God

and love of God

and God Himself, His love,

is concentrated in the person

of the well-beloved Son of the Highest.

And unto Him be glory forever.

Sing unto Him, ye angels.

Chant His praise, ye redeemed.

For by the one man, Christ Jesus,

the whole company of the elect

have been delivered from the wrath

to come to God.

To come to the praise

of the glory of the grace of God.

Thus have I tried to set before you

God's way of salvation.

Starting aside, as it may seem,

from the current of our thoughts,

but only with the view

of coming back to it

with a forcible argument,

we next note that it is certain

that great evils have come to us

by the fall.

Paul speaks in this text

of ours as the offense,

which word may be read,

the fall,

which was caused by the stumbling

of our father Adam.

Our fall in Adam

is a type of the salvation

which is in Christ Jesus.

But the type is not able completely

to set forth all the work of Christ.

Hence the apostle says,

But not as the offense,

so also is the free gift.

For if through the offense of one,

many be dead,

much more the grace of God

and the gift by grace,

which is by one man, Jesus Christ,

hath abounded unto many.

It is certain, then,

that we were heavy losers

by the offense of the first father

and head of our race.

I am not going into details

and particulars,

but it is clear that we have lost

the garden of Eden

and all its delights,

privileges, and immunities,

its communities,

and its union with God

and its freedom from death.

We have lost our first honor and health,

and we have become the subjects

of pain and weakness,

suffering and death.

This is the effect of the fall.

A desert now howls

where otherwise a garden

would have smiled.

Through the sin of Adam

we have been born under conditions

which are far from being desirable,

heirs to a heritage of sorrow.

Our griefs have been alleviated

by the bounty of God,

but still we are not born

under such conditions

as might have been ours

had Adam remained in his integrity

and kept his first estate.

We came into the world

with a bias towards evil.

Those of us who have any knowledge

of our own nature

must confess that there is in us

strong tendency towards sin,

which is mixed up

with our very being.

This is not derived solely

from the faults of education

or from the imitation of others,

but there is a bent within us

in the wrong direction,

and this has been there

from our birth.

Alas, that it should be so!

But so it is.

In addition to having

this tendency to sin,

we are made liable to death.

Nay, not liable alone,

but we are sure

in due time

to bow our heads

beneath the fatal stroke.

Two only of the human race

have escaped death,

but the rest have left

their bodies here

to moulder back

into Mother Earth.

And unless the Lord

cometh speedily,

we may expect

that the same thing

will happen

to these bodies of ours.

While we live,

we know that the sweat of our brow

must pay the price of our bread.

We know that our children's

children must be born

with pangs and travail.

We know that we ourselves

must return to the dust

from whence we are taken.

For dust we are,

and unto dust must we return.

O Adam,

thou didst a sad day's work for us

when thou didst hearken

to the voice of thy wife

and eat of the forbidden tree.

The world has no more

a paradise anywhere,

but everywhere it has the place of

wailing and the field of the dead.

Where can you go

and not find traces

of the first transgression

in the sepulchre

and its moldering bones?

Every field is fattened

with the dust of the departed.

Every wave of the sea

is tainted with atoms of the dead.

Scarcely blows a march wind

down our streets,

but it sweeps aloft the dusts

either of Caesar or his slave,

of ancient Britain

or modern Saxony,

for the globe is worm-eaten by death.

Sin has scarred and marred

and spoiled this creation

by making it subject to vanity

through its offense.

Thus terrible evils have come to us

by an act in which we had no hand.

We were not in the garden of Eden.

We did not incite Adam to rebellion.

And yet we have become sufferers

through no deed of ours.

Say what you will about it.

The fact remains

and cannot be escaped from.

This sad truth leads me on to the one

which is the essence of the text

and constitutes my third observation.

From the fall,

we infer the more abundant certainty

that salvation by grace

through Christ Jesus

shall come to believers.

If all this mischief has happened to us

through the fall of Adam,

why should not immense blessing

flow to us by the work of Christ?

Through Adam's transgression

we lost paradise, that is certain.

But if anything can be more certain,

we may with greater positiveness

declare that the second Adam

will restore the ruin of the first.

If through the offense of one

many be dead,

much more the grace of God

and the gift by grace,

which is by one man, Jesus,

Christ, shall abound

and has abounded unto many.

Settle in your minds, then,

that the fall of Adam

has wrought us great damage,

and then be as much assured

that the life, death,

and resurrection of Christ,

in which we had no hand whatever,

must do us great service.

Believing in Christ Jesus,

it becomes beyond all measure

sure to us

that we are blessed in Him,

seeing that it is already certain

that through the fall of Adam

we have become subject

to sorrow and death.

For first,

this appears to be more delightful

in the heart of God.

It must be fully according

to His gracious nature

that salvation should come to us

through His Son.

I can understand that God,

having so arranged it

that the human race

should be regarded as one

and should stand or fall before Him

in one man,

should carry out the arrangement

to its righteous end

and allow the consequences of sin

to fall upon succeeding generations of men.

But yet I know

that He takes no pleasure

in the death of any

and finds no delight

in afflicting mankind.

When the first Adam transgressed,

it was inevitable

that the consequences

of his transgression

should descend to his posterity.

And yet I can understand

and imagine a perfectly holy mind

questioning whether the arrangement

would be carried out.

I can conceive of angels

saying one to another,

Will all men die

through this entrance of sin

into the world?

Can it be that the innumerable sons of Adam

will all suffer from his disobedience?

But I cannot imagine

any question being raised

about the other point,

namely, the results

of the work of our Lord Jesus.

If God has so arranged it

that in the second Adam

men rise and live,

it seems to me

most gloriously consistent

with His gracious nature

and infinite love

that it should come to pass

that all who believe in Jesus

should be saved through Him.

I cannot imagine angels

hesitating and saying,

Christ has been born,

Christ has lived,

Christ has died.

These men have had nothing

to do with that.

Will God save them

for the sake of His Son?

Oh, no!

They must have felt

as they saw the babe

born at Bethlehem,

as they saw Him living

His perfect life

and dying His atoning death.

God will bless those

who are in Christ.

God will save Christ's people

for Christ's sake.

As for ourselves,

we are sure that if the Lord

executes judgment,

which is His strange work,

He will certainly carry out mercy,

which is His delight.

If He kept to the

representative principle

when it involved consequences

which gave Him no pleasure,

we may be abundantly assured

that He will keep to it now,

that it will involve

nothing but good

to those who are concerned in it.

Here, then, is the argument.

For if through the offense of one

many be dead,

much more the grace of God,

and the gift by grace,

which is by one man,

Jesus Christ,

hath abounded unto many.

This assurance becomes stronger still

when we think that it seems

more inevitable that men

should be saved by the death of Christ

than that men should be lost

by the sin of Adam.

It might seem possible that,

after Adam had sinned,

God might have said,

Notwithstanding this covenant of works,

I will not lay this burden

upon the children of Adam.

But it is not possible

that after the eternal Son of God

has become man

and has bowed His head to death,

God should say,

Yet, after all,

I will not save men for Christ's sake.

Stand and look at the Christ

upon the cross

and mark those wounds of His,

and you will become absolutely certain

that sin can be pardoned,

nay, must be pardoned,

to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Those flowing drops of blood

demand with a voice

that cannot be gainsaid

that iniquity should be put away.

If the voice of Abel

crying from the ground was prevalent,

how much more the blood

of the only begotten Son of God,

who through the eternal Spirit

offered Himself without spot!

It cannot be, O God,

that Thou shouldst despise

or forget the sacrifice,

the sacrifice on Calvary.

Grace must flow to sinners

through the bleeding Saviour,

seeing that death came to men

through their transgressing progenitor.

I do not know

whether I shall get into

the very soul of this argument

as I desire,

but to me it is very sweet

to look at the difference

as to the causes of the two effects.

Look now at the occasion of our ruin,

the offense of one,

the one man transgresses,

and you and I and all of us

come under sin, sorrow, and death.

What are we told

is the fountain of these streams of woe,

the one action of our first parents.

Far be it from me to say a word

to depreciate the greatness of their crime,

or to raise a question

as to the justice of its consequences.

I think no one can have

a more decided opinion,

upon that point, than I have.

For the offense was very great,

and the principle which led

to our participation in its results

is a just one,

and what is more is fraught

with the most blessed after-consequences

to fallen men,

since it has left them

a door of hope of their rising

by the same method

which led to their fall.

Yet the sin which destroyed us

was the transgression of a final,

infinite being,

and cannot be compared in power

with the grace of the infinite God.

It was the sin of a moment,

and therefore cannot be compared

for force and energy

with the everlasting purpose

of divine love.

If then the comparatively feeble fount

of Adam's sin sends forth

a flood which drowns the world

in sorrow and death,

what must be the boundless blessing

poured forth from the infinite sin

from the infinite source of divine grace?

The grace of God is like His nature,

omnipotent and unlimited.

God hath not a measure of love,

but He is love.

Love to the uttermost dwells in Him.

God is not only gracious

to this degree or to that,

but He is gracious beyond measure.

We read of the exceeding riches

of His grace.

God is the God of all grace,

and His mercy is great above the heavens.

Our largest conceptions fall far short

of the loving kindness and pity of God,

for His merciful kindness

is great towards us.

As high as the heavens are above the earth,

so are His thoughts above our thoughts

in the direction of grace.

If then, my brethren,

the narrow fount which yielded

bitter and poisonous waters

has sufficed to slay the myriads

of the human race,

how much more shall the river of God,

which is full of water,

even the river of the water of life,

which proceedeth out of the throne

of God and of the Lamb,

supply life and bliss to every man

that believeth in Christ Jesus?

Thus saith Paul,

For if by one man's offense

death reigned by one,

much more they which receive

abundance of grace

and of the gift of righteousness

shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ.

That is the argument of the text,

and to me it seems to be

a very powerful one,

sufficient to dash out

the very life of unbelief

and enable every penitent man to say,

I see what I have lost in Adam,

but I also see how much I obtained

through Christ Jesus my Lord,

when I humbly yield myself to him.

Furthermore, I would have you note

the difference of the channels

by which the evil and the good

were severally communicated to us.

In each case it was by one.

Oh, but what a difference in the persons!

We fell through Adam,

a name not to be pronounced

without reverence, seeing he is

the chief patriarch of the race,

and the children should honor the parent.

Let us not think too little

of the head of the human family.

Yet what is the first Adam

as compared with the second Adam?

He is but of the earth earthy,

but the second man is the Lord from heaven.

He was at best a mere man,

but our Redeemer counts it not robbery

to be equal with God.

Surely then, if Adam,

with that puny hand of his,

could pull down the house of our humanity

and hurl this ruin on our first estate,

that greater man,

who is also the Son of God,

can fully restore us

and bring back to our race the golden age.

If one man could ruin by his fault,

surely an infinitely greater man,

in whom dwelleth all the fullness

of the Godhead bodily,

can restore us

by the abounding grace of God.

And look, my brethren,

what this man did.

Adam commits one fault

and spoils us.

But Christ's works and achievements

are not one,

but many as the stars of heaven.

Look at that life of obedience.

It is like a crown set with all manner

of precious jewels.

All the virtues are in it,

and it is without flaw in any point.

If one sinful action

of our first covenant head destroys,

shall not a whole life of holiness

on the part of our second covenant representative

be accepted for us?

But what is more,

Adam did but eat of the forbidden fruit.

But our Lord Jesus died,

pouring out His soul unto death,

bearing the sin of His people upon Himself.

Such a death must have more force in it

than the sad deed of Adam.

Shall it not save us?

Is there any comparison between

the one act of rebellion in the garden

and the matchless deed of superlative obedience

upon the cross of Calvary,

which crowned a life of service?

Am I sure that the act of disobedience

has done me damage?

Then I am much more certain

that the glorious act of self-sacrifice

must be able to save me,

and I cast myself upon it

without question or misgiving.

The passion of God's only begotten

must have in it infallible virtue

for the remission of sin.

Upon the perfect work of Jesus

my soul hangs at this moment

without a suspicion of possible failure

and without the addition

of the shadow of a confidence

anywhere else.

The good which may be supposed

to be in man,

his best words and holiest actions

are all to me as the small dust

of the balance as to any title

to the favor of God.

My sole claim for salvation

lies in that one man,

the gift of God,

who by His life and death

has made atonement for my sin.

But that one man, Christ Jesus,

is a sure foundation

and a nail upon which we may hang

all the weight of our eternal interests.

I feel the more confidence

in the certainty of salvation by Christ

because of my firm persuasion

of the dreadful efficacy of Adam's fall.

Think awhile,

and it will seem strange,

yet strangely true,

that the hope of paradise regained

should be argued and justified

by the fact of paradise lost.

That the absolute certainty

that one man ruined us

should give us an abounding guarantee

that one glorious man

has in very deed

effectually saved all those

who by faith accept

the efficacy of his work.

Now, if you have grasped my thought

and have drunk into the truth

of the text,

you may derive a great deal

of comfort from it,

and it may suggest to you

many painful things

which will henceforth yield you pleasure.

A babe is born into the world

amid great anxiety

because of its mother's pains.

But while these go to prove

how the consequences of the fall

are still with us,

according to the word of the Lord to Eve,

in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children,

they also assure us

that the second Adam

can abundantly bring us bliss

through a second birth

by which we are begotten again

unto a lively hope.

You go into the arable field

and mark the thistle,

and tear your garments with a thorn.

These prove

the curse,

but also preach the gospel.

Did not the Lord God say,

Cursed is the ground

for thy sake?

Thorns also and thistles

shall it bring forth to thee.

Through no fault of ours,

for we were not present

when the first man offended,

our fields reluctantly yield their harvests.

Well,

inasmuch as we have seen

the thorn and the thistle produced

by the ground because of one Adam,

we may expect to see

a blessing on the earth

because of the second and greater Adam.

Therefore with unbounded confidence

do I believe the promise,

Ye shall go out with joy

and be led forth with peace.

The mountains and the hills

shall break forth before you

into singing,

and all the trees of the field

shall clap their hands.

Instead of the thorn

shall come up the fir tree,

and instead of the briar

shall come up the myrtle tree.

And it shall be to the Lord

for a name,

for an everlasting sign

that shall not be cut off.

Do you wipe the sweat from your brow

of livelihood?

Did not the Lord say,

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread?

Ought not your labor

to be an argument

by which your faith shall prove

that in Christ Jesus there remaineth

a rest for the people of God?

In toiling unto weariness

you feel that Adam's fall

is at work upon you.

He has turned you into a tiller

of the ground, or a keeper of sheep,

or a worker in metals.

But in any case,

he has made you wear a yoke.

Say you then to the Lord Jesus,

Blessed

second Adam,

as I see and feel what the first man did,

I am abundantly

certified as to what thou

canst accomplish.

I will therefore rest in thee

with all my heart.

When you observe

a funeral passing slowly along

the street, or enter the church

yard and notice hillock

after hillock above the lowly beds

of the departed,

you see set forth evidently

before your eyes the results

of the fall. You ask,

Who slew all these?

And at what gate

did the fell destroyer enter this world?

Did the first

Adam through his disobedience

lift the latch for death?

It is surely so.

Therefore I believe

with the greater assurance

that the second Adam can give life

to these dry bones,

and awake all these sleepers,

and raise them in newness of life.

If so weak a man as

Adam by one sin has

brought in death, to pile

the carcasses of men heaps upon heaps,

and make the earth reek

with corruption, much

more shall the glorious Son

of God at his coming call

them again to life and immortality,

and renew them in the

image of God.

How blessed are those words!

Now is Christ

risen from the dead, and become

the firstfruits of them that slept.

For since by man

came death, by

man came also the resurrection

of the dead.

For as in Adam all die,

even so in

Christ shall all be made alive.

The first man is of the

earth earthy, the second

man is the Lord from heaven.

As is the earthy,

such are they also that are earthy,

and as is the

heavenly, such are they

also that are heavenly.

And as we have borne the image

of the earthy, we shall also

bear the image of the heavenly.

Is not this

killing a lion, and finding

honey in its carcass?

Out of the eater came forth

meat, and out of the strong

cometh forth sweetness, when

from the fact of the fall

we derive a strong

assurance of our restoration

by Christ Jesus.

Time fails me,

otherwise I meant to have

dwelt somewhat at length upon the last

head, which can now only

be cursorily noticed.

It seems certain

that if from the fall of Adam

such great results flow,

greater results must

flow from the grace of God

and the gift by grace,

which is by one man, Jesus

Christ. Brethren,

suppose that Adam had

never sinned, and we were at

this moment unfallen beings.

Yet our standing

would have remained in jeopardy,

seeing that at any moment he might

have transgressed, and so

have pulled us down.

Thousands of years

of obedience might not have ended

the probation, seeing there is

no such stipulation in the original

covenant. You and I

therefore would be holding our happiness

by a very precarious tenure.

We could never glorify

the glory and absolute security

and eternal life as we now

do in Christ Jesus.

We have now lost everything

in Adam, and so

the uncertain tenure has come

to an end. Our lease of

Eden and its joys has altogether

expired.

But we that have believed have

obtained an inheritance which

we hold by an indisputable

and never-failing title,

which Satan himself cannot dispute.

All things are

yours, and ye are Christ's,

and Christ is God's.

The Lord Jesus

Christ has finished the work

by which his people are saved,

and that work has been certified

by his resurrection

from the dead. There are no

ifs in the covenant now.

There is not a peradventure in it

from beginning to end.

No chances of failure caused by

unfinished conditions can be found

in it. He that

believeth and is baptized shall

be saved.

Do you say, I believe he shall

be saved, if he do not

dare to add an if where God

has placed none? Remember

what will happen to you if you add

anything to the book of God's testimony.

No.

It is written, He that

believeth and is baptized

shall be saved.

He that believeth in him

hath everlasting life.

There is therefore now

no condemnation

to them that are in Christ Jesus.

Thus we have

obtained a surer standing than

we could have had under the first Adam.

And our hymn

is true to the letter when it sings,

He raised me from

the depths of sin, the gates

of gaping hell,

and fixed my standing

more secure than t'was

before I fell.

Our Lord has not only

undone the mischief of the fall,

but he has given us more

than we have lost, even

as the Psalmist saith,

Then I restored that which

I took not away.

By the great

transgression of Adam,

we lost our life in him,

for so ran the threatening.

In the day that thou eatest

thereof, thou shalt

surely die.

But in Christ Jesus

we live again with a higher and

nobler life, for the new life

being the direct work of the

Spirit, and being sustained by

feeding upon the person of the Lord

Jesus, is higher than

the life of innocence in the garden

of Eden. It is of a

higher kind in many respects,

of which we cannot now

speak particularly.

But this much we may say,

the first Adam was made a living

soul, the second

Adam is a quickening

spirit. The Lord

Jesus has also brought us into

nearer relationship to God

than we could have possessed by any

other means. We were

God's creatures by creation,

but now we are His

sons by adoption.

In a certain narrow sense

we were the offspring of God,

but now by the exaltation

of the man Christ Jesus,

the representative of us all,

we are brought into the

nearest possible relationship

to God. Jesus

sits upon the throne of God,

and manhood is thus

uplifted next to deity.

The nearest

akin to the eternal

is a man, Christ Jesus,

the Son of the Highest.

We are members

of His body, of His flesh, and of His

bones, and therefore we

share His honors and participate

in His triumphs.

In Christ Jesus, man

is made to have dominion over all

the works of God's hands,

and the redeemed are raised up

together with Christ, and made

to sit in the heavenly places with Him,

above all principalities

and powers, and all things

else that be.

For these are the favorites

of heaven, the beloved

of the great King.

No creatures can equal

perfected men. They

rise superior even to the

angels who have never sinned,

for in them the riches

of the glory of God's

grace is more fully seen

than in pure,

fallen spirits.

O beloved,

hath not the Lord Jesus Christ

done much for us? And ought

we not to expect that it should be

so? For the grace

of God, and the gift by grace

by the man, Christ Jesus,

are infinitely stronger

forces than Adam's sin.

There must be much

more sap in the man, the

branch, than in that poor

plant, the one man who was

made from the dust of the earth.

O the bliss which

opens up before us now!

We have lost paradise,

but we shall possess that

of which the earthly garden was

but a lowly type.

We might have eaten of the luscious fruits

of Eden, but now we

eat of the bread which came down

from heaven. We might have

heard the voice of the Lord walking

in the garden in the cool of the day.

But now, like Enoch,

we may walk with God

after a nobler and closer fashion,

we are now capable

of a joy which unfallen

spirits could not have known,

the bliss of pardoned

sin, the heaven of

deep conscious obligation

to eternal mercy.

The bonds which bind

redeemed ones to their God are the

strongest which exist.

What a joy it will be to love

the Lord more than any other of His

creatures. And assuredly

we shall do so.

Do not think that this is an

unwarrantable assertion,

for I feel sure that it is the truth.

Do you not read in the

gospels of a woman who washed the

Savior's feet with tears,

and wiped them with the hairs of her head,

and anointed them with ointment?

Did not the Savior say

that she loved much

because she had much forgiven?

I take it that the

same general principle will apply

to all places,

to eternity as well as to time.

And therefore I believe

that forgiven sinners will have a love

to God and to His Christ

such as cherubim and seraphim

never felt.

Gabriel cannot love Jesus

as a forgiven man will do.

Those who have washed

their robes and made them white in the

blood of the Lamb will be nearer

and dearer to Him, and He will be

nearer and dearer to them

than all the ministering spirits

before the throne.

For He took upon Him our nature

and not theirs.

Glory be unto

thee, O Christ,

as I look into the awful deeps

of Adam's fall, I tremble.

But when I lift my eyes

again to the eternal heights,

whither thou hast raised me

by thy passion and thy resurrection,

I feel strengthened

by the former vision.

I magnify the infinite

grace of God, and believe

in it unstaggeringly.

Oh, that I had the power

to magnify it with fit words,

and proper speech.

But these are not with me.

Accept the feeling

of the heart when the language

of the lip confesses its failure.

Accept it, Lord,

through the well-beloved.

Amen.

This message,

Honey from a Lion,

was preached by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

on April 3, 1881.