Conclusion

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. HEBREWS 12:2

Twenty-one chapters can make it seem that Charles Spurgeon taught a great many things. He taught one thing, and everything else is that one thing applied. Salvation is all of grace, and grace is received by looking to Jesus Christ crucified. Follow it through and the whole structure appears. God justifies the ungodly, because Christ bore their sins in His own body. That is why every sermon must end at the cross. Grace is sovereign, so nobody can boast; grace is free, so anybody may come. Faith is simply the hand that takes it, and repentance is its companion, given by the same exalted Christ. The God who gives it does not change, so the promises are cheques drawn on grace; prayer presents them. The Word reveals Christ and the Spirit applies Him. The war with sin is fought by those whom grace has made new, and they persevere because God perseveres. Grace makes them glad, and in the night, grace gives a song. At the Table, grace sets Christ before the eye again. And grace sends the church out to the lost and the poor, makes it contend for the gospel that saved it, and brings it home at last to see the One it has been looking at all along.

The danger of this book

If you have read this far, you are in some danger, and Spurgeon would have been the first to say so. He was surrounded all his life by admirers — people who could quote his sermons, imitate his style, and defend his doctrines, and who had never themselves looked to Christ. It is entirely possible to become an enthusiast for Spurgeon and remain unconverted. It is possible to enjoy his illustrations, collect his sayings and argue for his Calvinism, and never once take the watch that is held out.

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. JAMES 1:22

So the plainest counsel this book can give is the same as in its companion volumes. Go back to the chapter that made you least comfortable, not the one you found most interesting. Take its application points and work at them slowly, over weeks. Then take the next.

Two things to carry

First, look. Whatever your condition — anxious or careless, new to faith or long in it, rejoicing or in the dark — the counsel is the same. Stop looking at yourself, and look to Christ. It is the first thing a sinner must do and the last thing a saint will do, and every day between is meant to be lived the same way.

Second, hold together what Spurgeon held together. He believed in the sovereignty of God and pleaded with sinners as if everything depended on it. He preached justification by faith alone and built orphanages. He contended fiercely for truth and wept over the lost. He knew deep depression and wrote about songs in the night. Most of us manage one half of each pair and neglect the other. He was not always balanced, but he refused to let go of either end.

A last word about the man

We have been honest in these pages about his faults. He could be combative to the point of wounding brethren who deserved better, and the Down-Grade controversy was not conducted without harshness on his side. He could speak dismissively of Christians who read Scripture differently on election or the sacraments. His rhetoric belongs to its age and sometimes grates on ours. His readings of the Old Testament could run past the text. And the sheer volume of what he produced means that a good deal of it is repetitive, and some of it is careless.

None of that has been raised to diminish him. It has been raised because his own gospel requires it. A man who taught that he had not a thread of goodness of his own, and who owed everything to grace, cannot be honoured by pretending he was faultless. He would have hated the pretence. He wanted nobody to look at him.

For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. 2 CORINTHIANS 4:5

He died at Menton, far from the Tabernacle, at fifty-seven, worn out by work, pain and controversy. On his coffin, as it passed through the streets of London, lay his Bible, open at the text that had saved him: Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. That was his whole message, and he preached it to the end. It is still being preached, in languages he never heard, to people he never imagined, and it is still enough.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Return to the sentence you wrote at the start of this book about how a person is saved. How would you change it now?

2. Choose the one chapter that searched you most. Reread it, and commit to its application points for the next month.

3. Name the pair of truths you find hardest to hold together — sovereignty and invitation, grace and works, truth and love — and ask God to help you keep both.

4. Put down this book and pick up one of Spurgeon’s own. All of Grace is the best place to begin.

5. Tell someone else where to look.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, I have read about a man who spent his whole life pointing to You. Do not let me stop at admiring the finger.

I look to You now — not to my feelings, my progress, my doctrine or my failures, but to You, lifted up for me.

Hold together in me what I am so quick to separate: truth and love, grace and good works, Your sovereignty and my urgency.

And keep me looking until faith becomes sight, and I see You as You are. Amen.