DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, APRIL 1, 1888.BY C. H. SPURGEON,AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.“Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom. And the earth did quake and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened. And many bodies of the saints which slept, arose and came out of the graves after His resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared unto many.” Matthew 27:50-53. |
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OUR
Lord’s death is a marvel set in a surrounding of marvels. It reminds one of a
Kohinoor surrounded with a circle
of
gems. As the sun, in the midst of the planets which surround it, far outshines
them all, so the death of Christ is more
wonderful
than the miracles which happened at the time. Yet, after having seen the sun, we
take pleasure in studying the
planets,
and so, after believing in the unique death of Christ and putting our trust in
Him as the Crucified One, we find it
a
great pleasure to examine in detail those four planetary wonders mentioned in
the text, which circle round the great sun
of
the death of our Lord Himself.
Here
they are—the veil of the temple was rent in two. The earth did quake. The rocks
rent. The graves were opened.
I.
To
begin with the first of these wonders. I cannot, tonight, enlarge. I have not
the strength. I wish merely to suggest
thoughts.
Consider THE RENT VEIL, or mysteries laid open. By the death of Christ the veil
of the temple was rent
in
two from the top to the bottom and the mysteries which had been concealed in the
most holy place throughout many
generations
were laid open to the gaze of all Believers. Beginning, as it were, at the top
in the Deity of Christ, down to
the
lowest part of Christ’s manhood, the veil was rent and everything was shown to
every spiritual eye.
1.
This
was the first miracle of Christ after death. The first miracle of Christ in
life was significant and taught
us
much.
He turned the water into wine, as if to show that He raised all common life to a
higher grade and put into all
Truth
a power and a sweetness which could not have been there apart from Him. But this
first miracle of His after death
stands
above the first miracle of His life, because, if you will remember, that miracle
was worked in His Presence. He was
there
and turned the water into wine. But Jesus, as man, was not in the temple. That
miracle was worked in His absence
and
it enhances its wonder. They are both equally miraculous but there is a touch
more striking about this second miracle— that He was not there to speak and make
the veil rend in two.
His
soul had gone from His body and neither His body nor His soul were in that
secret place of the tabernacles of the
Most
High. And yet, at a distance, His will sufficed to rend that thick veil of fine
twined linen and cunning work.
The
miracle of turning water into wine was worked in a private house, amidst the
family and such disciples as were
friends
of the family. But this marvel was worked in the Temple of God. There is a singular sacredness about
it because it
was
a deed of wonder done in that most awful and mysterious place which was the
center of hallowed worship and the
abode
of God. Look! He dies and at the very door of God’s high sanctuary He rends the
veil in two. There is a solemnity
about
this miracle, as worked before Jehovah, which I can hardly convey in speech but
which you will feel in your own
souls.
Do
not forget, also, that this was done by the Savior after His death and this sets
the miracle in a very remarkable
light.
He rends the veil at the very instant of death. Jesus yielded up the ghost and,
behold, the veil of the temple was rent
in
two. For thirty years He seems to have prepared himself for the first miracle of
His life. He works His first miracle after
The
Miracles of Our Lord’s death in the moment of expiring. As His soul departed
from His body our blessed Lord at that same moment laid hold upon the great veil
of His Father’s symbolical house and rent it in
two.
2.
This
first miracle after death stands in such a place that we cannot pass it by
without grave thought. It was very
significant,
as standing at the head of what many call a new dispensation. The miracle of
turning water into wine begins
His
public life and sets the key of it. This begins His work after death and marks
the tone of it. What does it mean?
Does
it not mean that the death of Christ is the Revelation and explanation of
secrets? Vanish all the types and shadows
of
the ceremonial Law—vanish, because fulfilled, and explained in the death of
Christ. The death of the Lord Jesus is
the
key of all true philosophy—God made flesh, dying for man—if that does not
explain a mystery, it cannot be explained.
If
with this thread in your hand you cannot follow the labyrinth of human affairs
and learn the great purpose of
God,
then you cannot follow it at all. The death of Christ is the great veil-render,
the great revealer of secrets.
It
is also the great opener of entrances. There was no way into the holy place till
Jesus, dying, rent the veil. The way
into
the most holy of all was not made manifest till He died. If you desire to
approach God, the death of Christ is the way
to
Him. If you want the nearest access and the closest communion that a creature
can have with his God, behold, the sacrifice of Christ reveals the way to you.
Jesus not only says, “I am the Way,” but, rending the veil, He makes the way.
The
veil of His flesh being rent, the way to God is made most clear to every
believing soul.
Moreover,
the Cross is the clearing of all obstacles. Christ by death rent the veil. Then
between His people and Heaven there remains no obstruction, or if there is
any—if your fears invent an obstruction—the Christ who rent the veil continues
still to rend it. He breaks the gates of brass and cuts the bars of iron in
sunder. Behold, in His death “the breaker is come up before them, and the Lord
on the head of them.” He has broken up and cleared the way and all His chosen
people may follow Him up to the glorious Throne of God. This is significant of
the spirit of the dispensation under which we now live. Obstacles are cleared.
Difficulties are solved. Heaven is opened to all
Believers.
3.
It
was a miracle worthy of Christ. Stop a minute and adore your dying Lord. Does He
with such a miracle signalize
His
death? Does it not prove His immortality? It is true He has bowed His head in
death. Obedient to His Father’s will, when He knows that the time has come for
Him to die, He bows His head in willing acquiescence. But at that moment when
you call Him dead, He rends the veil of the temple. Is there not immortality in
Him though He died? And see what power He possessed. His hands are nailed—His
side is about to be pierced. As He hangs there He cannot protect Himself from
the insults of the soldiery but in His utmost weakness He is so strong that he
rends the heavy veil of the temple from the top to the
bottom.
Behold
His wisdom, for in this moment, viewing the deed spiritually, He opens up to us
all wisdom and lays bare the
secrets
of God. The veil which Moses put upon his face, Christ takes away in the moment
of His death. The true Wisdom
in
His dying preaches His grandest sermon by tearing away that which hid the most
supreme Truth from the gaze of all
believing
eyes. Beloved, if Jesus does this for us in His death, surely, we shall be saved
by His life. Jesus who died is yet
alive
and we trust in Him to lead us into “the holy places made without
hands.”
Before
I pass on to the second wonder, I invite everyone here, who as yet does not know
the Savior, seriously to think
upon
the miracles which attended His death and judge what sort of man He was who, for
our sins, thus laid down His
life.
He was not suffered by the Father to die without a miracle to show that He had
made a way for sinners to draw near
to
God.
II.
Pass
on now to the second wonder—“THE EARTH DID QUAKE.” The immovable was stirred by
the death of
Christ.
Christ did not touch the earth—He was uplifted from it on the tree. He was
dying, but in the laying aside of His
power,
in the act of death, He made the earth beneath Him, which we call “the solid
globe,” itself to quake. What did it
teach?
Did it not mean, first, the physical universe fore-feeling the last terrible
shake of its doom? The day will come
when
the Christ will appear upon the earth and in due time all things that are shall
be rolled up, like garments worn out
and
put away.
Once
more will He speak and then will He shake not only the earth but also Heaven.
The things which cannot be
shaken
will remain but this earth is not one of them—it will be shaken out of its
place. “The earth also and the works
that
are therein shall be burned up.” Nothing shall stand before Him. He alone is.
These other things do but seem to
be—and
before the terror of His face all men shall tremble and Heaven and earth shall
flee away. So, when He died, earth
seemed
to anticipate its doom and quaked in His Presence. How will it quake when He
that lives again shall come with all
the
glory of God! How will you quake, my Hearer, if you should wake up in the next
world without a Savior? How you
will
tremble in that day when He shall come to judge the world in righteousness and
you shall have to face the Savior
whom
you have despised! Think of it, I pray you.
Did
not that miracle also mean this—that the spiritual world is to be moved by the
Cross of Christ? He dies upon
the
Cross and shakes the material world as a prediction that that death of His would
shake the world that lies in the
Wicked
One and cause convulsions in the moral kingdom. Brothers and Sisters, think of
it. We say of ourselves, “How
shall
we ever move the world?” The Apostles did not ask that question. They had
confidence in the Gospel which they
preached.
Those who heard them saw that confidence. When they opened their mouths they
said, “The men that have
turned
the world upside down have come here unto us.”
The
Apostles believed in shaking the world with the simple preaching of the Gospel.
I entreat you to believe the
same.
It is a vast city this—this London. How can we ever affect it? China,
Hindustan, Africa—these are immense
regions.
Will
the Cross of Christ tell upon them? Yes, my Brethren, for it shook the earth and
it will yet shake the great
masses
of mankind. If we have but faith in it and perseverance to keep on with the
preaching of the Word, it is but a matter
of
time when the name of Jesus shall be known of all men and when every knee shall
bow to Him and every tongue
confess
that He is Christ to the glory of God the Father. The earth did quake beneath
the Cross. And it shall again. The
Lord
God be praised for it.
That
old world—how many years it had existed I cannot tell. The age of the world,
from that beginning which is
mentioned
in the first verse of the Book of Genesis, I am not able to compute. However old
it was, it had to shake when
the
Redeemer died. This carries us over to another of our difficulties. The system
of evil we have to deal with is so long-established, hoary and reverent with
antiquity, that we say to ourselves, “We cannot do much against old
prejudices.”
But
it was the old, old earth that quivered and quaked beneath the dying Christ and
it shall do so again. Magnificent
systems,
sustained by philosophy and poetry, will yet yield before what is called the
comparatively new doctrine of the
Cross.
Assuredly
it is not new, but older than the earth itself. It is God’s own Gospel,
everlasting and eternal. It will shake
down
the antique and the venerable, as surely as the Lord lives. And I see the
prophecy of this in the quaking of the earth
beneath
the Cross.
It
does seem impossible, does it not, that the mere preaching of Christ can do
this? And hence certain men must link
to
the preaching of Christ all the aids of music and architecture and I know not
what beside, till the Cross of Christ is
overlaid
with human inventions, crushed and buried beneath the wisdom of man. But what
was it that made the earth
quake?
Simply our Lord’s death and no addition of human power or wisdom. It seemed a
very inadequate means to produce so great a result. But it was sufficient, for
the “weakness of God is stronger than men and the foolishness of God is wiser
than men.”
And
Christ, in His very death, suffices to make the earth quake beneath His Cross.
Come, let us be well content in the
battle
in which we are engaged, to use no weapon but the Gospel, no battle-ax but the
Cross. Could we but believe it, the
old,
old story is the only story that is needed to be told to reconcile man to God.
Jesus died in the sinner’s place, the Just
for
the unjust, a magnificent display of God’s Grace and justice in one single act.
Could we but keep to this only, we
should
see the victory coming speedily to our conquering Lord. I leave that second
miracle—wherein you see the immovable stirred in the quaking of the
earth.
III.
Only
a hint or two upon the third miracle—THE ROCKS RENT. I have been informed that,
to this very day,
there
are at Jerusalem
certain marks of rock-rending of the most unusual kind. Travelers have said that
they are not such
as
are usually produced by earthquake, or any other cause. Upon that I will say but
little. But it is a wonderful thing
that,
as Jesus died, as His soul was rent from His body, as the veil of the temple was
rent in two, so the earth, the rocky
part
of it, the most solid structure of all, was rent in gulfs and chasms in a single
moment.
What
does this miracle show us but this—the insensible startled. What? Could rocks
feel? Yet they rent at the sight
of
Christ’s death. Men’s hearts did not respond to the agonizing cries of the dying
Redeemer but the rocks responded—
the
rocks were rent. He did not die for rocks. Yet rocks were more tender than the
hearts of men, for whom He shed His
blood—
“Of
reason all things show some sign,
But
this unfeeling heart of mine,”
said the poet. And he spoke the truth. Rocks could rend but yet some men’s
hearts are not rent by the sight of the Cross.
However,
Beloved, here is the point that I seem to see here—that obstinacy and obduracy
will be conquered by the death
of
Christ.
You
may preach to a man about death and he will not tremble at its certainty or
solemnity. Yet try him with it. You
may
preach to a man about Hell but he will harden his heart, like Pharaoh, against
the judgment of the Lord. Yet try
him
with it. All things that can move man should be used. But that which does affect
the most obdurate and obstinate is
the
great love of God, so strangely seen in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I
will not stay to show you how it is but I
will
remind you that it is so. It was this, which, in the case of many of us, brought
tears of repentance to our eyes and led
us
to submit to the will of God. I know that it was so with
me.
I
looked at a thousand things and I did not relent. But when “I saw One hanging on
a tree—
“In
agonies and blood,” and
dying there for me, then did I smite upon my breast and I was in bitterness for
Him as one that is in bitterness for his
first-born.
I am sure your own hearts confess that the great Rock-render is the dying
Savior.
Well,
now, as it is with you, so shall you find it with other men. When you have done
your best and have not succeeded,
bring
out this last hammer—the Cross of Christ. I have often seen on pieces of cannon,
in Latin words, this inscription, “The last argument of kings.” That is to say,
cannons are the last argument of kings. But the Cross is the
last
argument
of God. If a dying Savior does not convert you, what will? If His bleeding
wounds do not attract you to God,
what
will? If Jesus bears our sin in His own body on the tree and puts it away and if
this does not bring you to God, with
confession
of your sin and hatred of it, then there remains nothing more for
you.
“How
shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” The Cross is the
rock-render. Brothers and Sisters, go on
teaching
the love of the dying Son of God. Go on preaching Christ. You will tunnel the
Alps of pride and the
granite
hills
of prejudice with this. You shall find an entrance for Christ into the inmost
hearts of men, though they are hard as
adamant.
And this will be by the preaching of the Cross in the power of the
Spirit.
IV.
But
now I close with the last miracle. These wonders accumulate and they depend upon
each other. The quaking
earth
produced, no doubt, the rending of the rocks. And the rending of the rocks aided
in the fourth wonder—“THE
GRAVES
WERE OPENED.”
The
graves opened and the dead revived. That is our fourth head. It is the great
consequence of the death of Christ.
The
graves were opened. Man is the only animal that cares about a sepulcher. Some
persons fret about how they shall be
buried.
That is the last concern that ever would cross my mind. I feel persuaded that
people will bury me out of hatred, or
out
of love and especially out of love to themselves. We need not trouble about
that. But man has often shown his pride
by
his tomb. That is a strange thing. To garland the gallows is a novelty, I think,
not yet perpetrated. But to pile marble
and
choice statuary upon a tomb—what is it but to adorn a gallows, or to show man’s
great grandeur where his littleness
is
alone apparent.
Dust,
ashes, rottenness, putridity and then a statue and all manner of fine things to
make you think that the creature
that
goes back to dust is, after all, a great one. Now, when Jesus died, sepulchers
were laid bare and the dead were exposed— what does this mean? I think we have
in this last miracle “the history of a man.” There he lies
dead—corrupt,
dead
in trespasses and sins. But what a beautiful sepulcher he lies in! He is a
Church-goer. He is a Dissenter—whichever
you
please of the two. He is a very moral person. He is a gentleman. He is a
citizen. He is master of his company. He will
be
Lord Mayor one day. He is so good—oh, he is so
good!
Yet
he has no Divine Grace in his heart, no Christ in his faith, no love to God. You
see what a sepulcher he lies in—a
dead
soul in a gilded tomb? By His Cross our Lord splits this sepulcher and destroys
it. What are our merits worth in the
presence
of the Cross? The death of Christ is the death of self-righteousness. Jesus’
death is a superfluity if we can save
ourselves.
If we are so good that we do not want the Savior, why, then, did Jesus bleed His
life away upon the tree? The
Cross
breaks up the sepulchers of hypocrisy, formalism, and self-righteousness, in
which the spiritually dead are hidden
away.
What
next? It opens the graves. The earth springs apart. There lies the dead man—he
is revealed to the light. The
Cross
of Christ does that! The man is not yet made alive by Divine Grace but he is
shown to himself. He knows that he lies
in
the grave of his sin. He has sufficient power of God upon him to make him lie,
not like a corpse covered up with marble,
but
like a corpse from which the grave digger has flung away the sod and left it
naked to the light of day. Oh, it is a
grand
thing when the Cross thus opens the graves! You cannot convince men of sin
except by the preaching of a crucified
Savior.
The lance with which we reach the hearts of men is that same lance which pierced
the Savior’s heart. We have to
use
the crucifixion as the means of crucifying self-righteousness and making the man
confess that he is dead in sin.
After
the sepulchers had been broken up and the graves had been opened, what followed
next? Life was imparted.
“Many
of the bodies of the saints which slept arose.” They had turned to dust. But
when you have a miracle you may as
well
have a great one. I wonder that people, when they can believe one miracle, make
any difficulty of another. Once introduces Omnipotence and difficulties have
ceased. So in this miracle. The bodies came together on a sudden and
there
they
were, complete and ready for the rising. What a wonderful thing is the
implantation of life! I will not speak of it in
a
dead
man but I would speak of it in a dead heart.
O
God, send Your life into some dead heart at this moment while I speak! That
which brings life into dead souls is
the
death of Jesus. While we behold the Atonement and view our Lord bleeding in our
place, the Divine Spirit works
upon
the man and life is breathed into him. He takes away the heart of stone and
gives a heart of flesh that palpitates with
a
new life. This is the wondrous work of the Cross—it is by the death of our Lord
that regeneration comes to men. There
were
no new births if it were not for that one death. If Jesus had not died, we had
remained dead. If He had not bowed
His
head, none of us could have lifted up our heads. If He had not there, on the
Cross, passed from among the living, we
must
have remained among the dead forever and
forever.
Now
pass on and you will see that those persons who received life, in due time left
their graves. It is written that they
came
out of their graves. Of course they did. What living man would wish to stay in
his grave? And you, my dear Hearers,
if
the Lord quickens you, will not stay in your graves. If you have been accustomed
to strong drink, or to any other
besetting
sin, you will quit it. You will not feel any attachment to your sepulcher. If
you have lived in ungodly company
and
found amusement in questionable places, you will not stay in your
graves.
We
shall not have need to come after you to lead you away from your old
associations. You will be eager to get out
of
them. If any person here should be buried alive and if he should be discovered
in his coffin before he had breathed his
last,
I am sure that if the sod were lifted and the lid were taken off he would not
need prayerful entreaties to come out of
his
grave. Far from it. Life loves not the prison of death. So may God grant that
the dying Savior may fetch you out of
the
graves in which you are still living. And, if He now quickens you, I am sure
that the death of our Lord will make you
reckon
that if one died for all, then all died. And He died for all that they which
live should not live henceforth unto
themselves
but unto Him that died for them and rose again.
Which
way did these people go after they had come out of their graves? We are told
that “they went into the holy
city.”
Exactly so. And he that has felt the power of the Cross may well make the best
of his way to holiness. He will long
to
join himself with God’s people. He will wish to go up to God’s house and to have
fellowship with the thrice-holy God.
I
should not expect that quickened ones would go anywhere else. Every creature
goes to its own company, the beast to its
lair
and the bird to its nest. And the restored and regenerated man makes his way to
the holy city.
Does
not the Cross draw us to the Church of God? I would not wish one to join the
Church from any motive that is
not
fetched from the five wounds and bleeding side of Jesus. We give ourselves first
to Christ and then to His people for
His
dear sake. It is the Cross that does it— “Jesus
dead upon the tree
Achieves
this wondrous victory.”
We
are told—to close this marvelous story—that they went into the holy city “and
appeared unto many.” That is,
some
of them who had been raised from the dead, I do not doubt, appeared unto their
wives. What rapture as they saw
again
the beloved husband! It may be that some of them appeared to father and mother.
And I doubt not that many a
quickened
mother or father would make the first appearance to their children. What does
this teach us but that if the
Lord’s
Grace should raise us from the dead, we must take care to show it? Let us appear
unto many. Let the life that God
has
given us be manifest. Let us not hide it but let us go to our former friends and
make our epiphanies as Christ made
His.
For His Glory’s sake let us have our manifestation and appearance unto others.
Glory be to the dying Savior! All
praise
to the great Sacrifice!
Oh,
that these poor, feeble words of mine would excite some interest in you about my
dying Master! Be ready to die
for
Him. And you that do not know Him—think of this great mystery—that God should
take your nature and become a
man
and die, that you might not die—and bear your sin that you should be free from
it. Come and trust my Lord tonight,
I
pray you. While the people of God gather at the table to the breaking of bread,
let your spirits hasten, not to the
table
and the sacrament but to Christ Himself and His sacrifice.
Amen.
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