"Lord, save me!" Peter shouted as he sank into the waves. This is the testimony of every sinner who has ever received salvation. We could do nothing to save ourselves, but could only look to Jesus who reaches out and raises us from our death. It is this dependence on Christ and the sufficiency of His strong arm to save that Spurgeon spends 128 pages explaining in his work, All of Grace.
Yes, of course, Spurgeon was meant to be here at Reformed Repute. Could it be a Reformed page without Spurgeon's presence? The giant in the world of Reformed theologians is known more for his pastoral ministry than his authorship, but this short book(let) is one of many pieces that Spurgeon wrote that serve as wonderful supplements to the Christian walk and terrific explanations of wondrous Christian doctrines.
Jesus comes, not because we are just, but to make us so; He justifieth the ungodly.
Spurgeon spends the first several chapters (which all number only 3-10 pages each) examining Romans 4:5 and defending the doctrine of Original Sin. This may seem like an odd place to begin for modern Christians, but historical Christianity would support that this is exactly the place that we must begin. As Spurgeon shows, humans must understand their depravity and sinfulness in order to grasp the need that they have for forgiveness from the holy and perfect God. Spurgeon makes this serious discussion very understandable and easy to digest by referring to God's desire to see His creation redeemed. God's work in redeeming sinners is exactly that - meant to redeem sinners. Spurgeon argues that if someone is not able or willing to recognize themselves as sinners in need of a redeemer, they will surely not receive forgiveness through the redeemer that God has provided. Nevertheless, the case is clearly made that it is the will and work of God to redeem, "having chosen some of them before the foundation of the world" saying that God "will not rest till He has justified them and made them to be accepted in the beloved."
How can a just God justify guilty men?
Spurgeon goes on to examine Romans 3:21-26 alongside other passages that speak of the work that God performs in His sovereignty and divine power. Discussing the working of God that leads to our forgiveness and adoption, this discussion could easily come under the heading "Atonement Explained." Take for example, one brief quote: "The Son of God, supremely glorious in His matchless person, undertook to vindicate the Law by bearing the sentence due to me that therefore God is able to pass by my sin..." he goes on, "Son of God and Son of man, there He hangs, bearing pains unutterable, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. The innocent punished! The Holy One condemned! The ever-blessed One made a curse!.." Finally concluding, "Why did He suffer if not to turn aside the penalty from us?" It is this inclusive "us", "we" language that Spurgeon uses to bring the reader in to his own community.
As a pastor, it is easy to look at other ministers, specifically the spiritual giants of ages gone by like Spurgeon, Whitefield, Edwards, Wesley, and others, and think of myself as unworthy of holding the same office. But this inclusivity on Spurgeon's part to level himself down with the sinners and lowly readers of introductory Christianity is masterful humility and a truly instructive method in gaining footing with those who look on you as "other" or "holier-than-thou." Over and over, when Spurgeon extends an invitation to accept the truth of Christ, he uses the words "why not you?" or perhaps, "what prevents you from this?" This language draws us to the conclusion within ourselves, "Were it me or any other, God's arms would be equally extensive with the offer of salvation because it is nothing to do with me - my righteousness (inexistent) is a non-factor. It is God's greatness that reaches out to sinners and justifies us. Including me."
Chapters 7-12 all focus on faith. Spurgeon dives into what faith is, how strong it needs to be (or how weak it is allowed to be), how to gain it or increase it, how to keep it, its purpose, its origin, its destination and purpose, and much more in these chapters. I would say that everything that he writes about faith is incredibly helpful in gaining understandings of the Biblical principle of faith that is the channel through which salvation is brought to us from God's grace. There is one critique that I would like to offer, and it is the only one that I have in the book - that is the 9th Chapter which is entitled "How May Faith Be Illustrated?" This chapter, in my opinion, was brutal to read. There was nothing in it that I found of any addition to the book worthy keeping.
We have all heard the examples given by evangelists (Billy Graham included) that "You had faith when you sat down on the chair you're sitting in! That's faith!" And I may be alone in this, but I truly disdain these sorts of comparisons. I feel that comparing the faith that we place in Christ to the faith we place in furniture on a moment-to-moment basis is degradation of the former to a degree that is simply impermissible. To be quick about my soapbox complaint, the faith we place in furniture is often misplaced! How often have we seen someone sit on a chair with a faulty leg that collapsed or an office chair that decompresses under any pressure at all? How often have we seen someone lean on a wall that was covered in wet paint? How often have we seen someone lose balance and grasp for something insufficiently secured to right their balance, only to tear that thing from its post and bring it tumbling down with them? This sort of faith is not only likely to be misplaced, it is likely to be placed in something blindly. These sorts of incidents happen because we never test these sorts of things prior to placing our faith in them. Christ, however, never expects us to place "blind faith" in Him. For these reasons and others, I always greet illustrations of faith with a heavy groan, because I've yet to hear anyone amply explain what it is like to put trust in Christ in Earthly terms. After all, if I put faith in a chair that fails me, perhaps I fall and embarrass myself. Boo hoo. I may get wet paint on my arm, or be noticeably lower than everyone else at the table as my chair sinks to the ground. But the stakes for putting faith in Christ and finding that faith misplaced are so incomparably high that Paul would say, "If we have trusted in Christ for this life only, we are of all men the most pitiable." Elsewhere he would say that if Christ is not raised, our hope is in vain - essentially telling us that our lives have been wasted. The point is made, and perhaps I've gone too long, but the point is I do not appreciate illustrations of faith that lead people to believe that "they do this sort of thing all the time! What's one more leap of faith?"
No one can be so foolish as to imagine that the Judge of all the earth will put away our sins if we refuse to put them away ourselves.
The conclusion of the book is a wonderful breath of fresh air because it is full of Biblical principles that are so foreign to the modern vernacular that to believe them makes one an ostracized person even in many Christian circles. Spurgeon goes after the person who thinks to make himself a Christian by stating firmly our inability to do it - then he proves through scripture that "while we were without strength" it was God who foresaw our inability and sent Christ to "die for the ungodly." With this in mind, we are relinquished over to the one who has sole ability to save us from our death, give us new life, and give us "repentance and forgiveness" per Acts 5:30-31.
Spurgeon pulls no punches in examining this passage, as he couples these two things inseparably, although not causally. Without repentance, we can rest assured that we have not received forgiveness, not because of the lack of repentance, but by proof of the absence of repentance. If someone claimed to have gone to the Bahamas for 3 months, but was no more tan when they returned than when they left, we might doubt the truth of their trip. Not because it is for a tan that one goes to the Bahamas, but because it is an unavoidable by-product of being there. (Behold the boundlessness of my own hypocrisy that I would follow a criticism of poor illustrations with an illustration that is itself very poor. All the same, here we are!)
The final few chapters of the book focus on defending the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints, and as would be expected, Spurgeon does a faultless job. One point that he makes that I had never heard or considered myself, was that since we are a gift from the Father to the Son (John 6) and the "gifts and callings of God are without repentance" (Rom. 11:29) we can rest assured that the gift that the Father has given (us for our salvation) can never be recalled. What a wonderful scriptural proof of our salvation's security in God's supremacy despite our powerlessness.
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