Can any man see the Son of God expiring upon Calvary, bearing the sin of man, and say that those for whom he died were worthy that Christ should die for them? It is downright blasphemy to connect any idea of merit with a gift so vast and free as the gift of Jesus Christ to redeem us from our sins. Why, sirs, had we every one of us been perfect, and had we kept God’s laws without omission, even as seraphs do in heaven, we should still have only done what was our
duty to have done; and there could have been no merit about our service which could deserve that Christ should die for us. Should the Eternal God ever be thought to be such a debtor to his creatures that he must needs veil his splendor in human form, and be despised and rejected and spat upon?
Shall it be said that the Son of God owes to man that he should bleed and die for him? I shudder while I raise the question or suggest the thought. It must be pure, spontaneous, disinterested mercy that nailed the Savior to the tree. Nothing could have brought him from the throne of glory to the cross of woe but grace, unalloyed, unbounded grace.
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Dei Gratia," delivered October 30, 1870.
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