7 AUGUST (1870)

An encouraging lesson from Paul’s conversion

‘But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel; for I will shew him how great things he must suffer.’ Acts 9:15–16
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Acts 2:22–36

We too often forget the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet the power of the church lies in ‘Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.’ Some may remember Jesus, but not in his present personal character. In the Romish church its power over devout minds lies in no small degree in the fact that the person of Christ is much spoken of, loved and reverenced; but you seldom see the Christ of the Romish church in any but two attitudes. As a rule, either he is a babe in his mother’s arms, or dead; scarcely ever is he set forth by them as the living King, Head and Lord. In both of those first aspects let him be reverenced; let the incarnate God and the dying Saviour have your hearts; but there is another fact to be borne in mind: ‘he ever liveth’.

That church which, not forgetting his birth nor his sacrifice, yet most clearly recognises that he still lives, is the church that shall win the day. We must have a living Head to the church. Men will assuredly invent a living head if they overlook the living Christ. They will find some priest or other whom they would gladly gird with the attributes of Deity and set up as the Vicar of Christ. But we have a living Christ, and when he is pleased to appear to any man by his Spirit and reveal himself to man apart from instrumentality—I speak not of miraculous appearances, but of other direct operations of his Spirit upon the spirits of men—then the church discovers yet again that he is in her midst fulfilling his promise: ‘lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’ Still the Lord Jesus exerts a living force in the hearts and consciences of men.

FOR MEDITATION: ‘I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore’ (Revelation 1:18). Without the resurrection our doctrine would be incomplete (Romans 4:24–25), baptism would lack some of its significance (Romans 6:4–5; Colossians 2:12) and Christians would have a dead leader like other faiths (Romans 14:9). We would be wasting our time, misrepresenting God, and the most miserable of people (1 Corinthians 15:14–19). ‘But now is Christ risen from the dead’ (1 Corinthians 15:20).


C. H. Spurgeon and Terence Peter Crosby, 365 Days with Spurgeon (Volume 3), (Leominster, UK: Day One Publications, 2005), 227.
7 AUGUST (1870) An encouraging lesson from Paul’s conversion ‘But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel; for I will shew him how great things he must suffer.’ Acts 9:15–16 SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Acts 2:22–36 We too often forget the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet the power of the church lies in ‘Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.’ Some may remember Jesus, but not in his present personal character. In the Romish church its power over devout minds lies in no small degree in the fact that the person of Christ is much spoken of, loved and reverenced; but you seldom see the Christ of the Romish church in any but two attitudes. As a rule, either he is a babe in his mother’s arms, or dead; scarcely ever is he set forth by them as the living King, Head and Lord. In both of those first aspects let him be reverenced; let the incarnate God and the dying Saviour have your hearts; but there is another fact to be borne in mind: ‘he ever liveth’. That church which, not forgetting his birth nor his sacrifice, yet most clearly recognises that he still lives, is the church that shall win the day. We must have a living Head to the church. Men will assuredly invent a living head if they overlook the living Christ. They will find some priest or other whom they would gladly gird with the attributes of Deity and set up as the Vicar of Christ. But we have a living Christ, and when he is pleased to appear to any man by his Spirit and reveal himself to man apart from instrumentality—I speak not of miraculous appearances, but of other direct operations of his Spirit upon the spirits of men—then the church discovers yet again that he is in her midst fulfilling his promise: ‘lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’ Still the Lord Jesus exerts a living force in the hearts and consciences of men. FOR MEDITATION: ‘I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore’ (Revelation 1:18). Without the resurrection our doctrine would be incomplete (Romans 4:24–25), baptism would lack some of its significance (Romans 6:4–5; Colossians 2:12) and Christians would have a dead leader like other faiths (Romans 14:9). We would be wasting our time, misrepresenting God, and the most miserable of people (1 Corinthians 15:14–19). ‘But now is Christ risen from the dead’ (1 Corinthians 15:20). C. H. Spurgeon and Terence Peter Crosby, 365 Days with Spurgeon (Volume 3), (Leominster, UK: Day One Publications, 2005), 227.
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