There is no plan of salvation at all for man except as a sinner. The plan of salvation necessarily considers man as needing salvation and as being lost. Its very first promise is forgiveness, which implies sin. It begins to talk with man of pardon and justification, which implies guilt and a lack of righteousness. If there is anybody here that is not a sinner, there is nothing in the Bible for him! As old Wilcox well observes, “Christ can save everybody except the self-righteous.” He came into the world to save sinners, but not the righteous. He is the Physician for any form of disease, except that form of disease which consists in not being diseased. “The whole,” says He, “have no need of a physician, but they that are sick.” If you are a sinner, there is some relation between you and Christ. But if you proudly say in your heart, “I am better than other men. I am not as the thief, or the harlot. I need not wash in the fountain which they need so much, for I am clean.” I tell you, man or woman, there is no Christ for you, no pardon for you, no justification for you, no Heaven for you! Your self-righteousness, like an iron bar across the gates of Paradise, shuts you out forever! Your good works can do for you what your sins need not do—they may ruin your soul forever by making you too proud to come to Christ. The plan of salvation appeals to men as sinners! It comes to them on no other terms but as sinners—and thus it is evidently meant to bring down man’s high looks.
Moreover, it not only treats men as sinners, but as dead sinners. There is not a complimentary word to human nature within the covers of the Bible. It says, “You has He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins”—and this was said of New Testament saints who had warm praise from the Apostle Paul! They had been originally dead. If you want an image of human nature, you will find it in the rottenness of Lazarus when he had been dead four days! The Gospel comes to give life to the dead! It comes to deal out everlasting life to those who have lost it and could never have obtained it except as a gift from Heaven. Now, is not this humbling to the high looks of men? What? Must it be so—that I must see, “Death,” written upon all my hopes, upon all my doings, upon all my willings? Must all these be written down as being dead things? It must be so. And if you do not know this, you do not know vital godliness as yet, for the Grace of God deals with you in your natural estate as being lost and utterly ruined and undone!
Another humbling point in the plan of salvation is that it distinctly informs the sinner that the way of salvation is in no sense or manner in himself, but is altogether in Another. It tells him that if he is saved, his salvation is entirely the work of Him who, though He was God, yet condescended to become Man that He might lift manhood up into companionship with Godhead! It says the sinner, when he prostrates himself upon his knees, “Your prayers are well enough, but they avail not with the Eternal Father to put away sin. Blood! Blood! Blood must flow, not tears alone!” It tells the sinner that all his merits and his good works cannot obtain salvation for him. It bids him look to Christ and mark the crimson currents as they spring from those matchless wounds, that mouth of mercy, those gates of Paradise, those fountains of immortality, those sources of all our richest treasure and abiding peace! It tells the sinner that the head that once was crowned with thorns must be crowned with the glory of His salvation, if he is saved at all, and that the Man who was despised and spat upon when here below must be honored and adored above by him as his Savior, and his only Savior, or there is no salvation for him! This, too, has a tendency to bring down the high looks and to lower the haughtiness of man.
Perhaps, however, there is nothing in the Gospel which grates more upon some men’s pride, touching, as it were, the very marrow of their bones, than the Doctrine, not only that man is a sinner, and a dead sinner, and is saved by the work of Another, but that the very will to be saved is determined not so much by himself as by God. I do not know a text that makes a sinner grind his teeth more than this one—“So then, it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.” You remember that amazing expression of the Savior’s, “You will not come unto Me that you might have life.” “You have a will. You are responsible. You are free agents, but that will of yours, you have so wickedly set against Me that you will not come unto Me that you may live! You refuse Me—you will not accept My Grace—you will sooner starve than come to the feast of mercy.” Many a man has turned on his heel and said, “I will not hear this any longer,” and then we are reminded of those who left the Master because of certain Truths of God which He taught, and we say, “Will you also go away?” Oh, you who have had your haughtiness brought down, I believe you will be swept out of that idea and will acknowledge that you never came to Christ of your own free will, but only of Sovereign Grace.
- C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)
taken from: Man Humbled, God Exalted
, Sermon No. 3369, October 4, 1886.
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