A GREATER THAN SOLOMON – Charles Spurgeon
A Greater Than Solomon
“Behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” —Luke 11:31
Our first thought is that no mere man would have said this concerning himself unless he had been altogether eaten up with vanity, for Solomon was, among the Jews, the very ideal of greatness and wisdom. It would be an instance of the utmost self-conceit if any mere man were to say of himself, “A greater than Solomon is here.” Any person who was really greater and wiser than Solomon would be the last man to claim such pre-eminence. A wise man would never think it; a prudent man would never say it! The Lord Jesus Christ, if we regard Him as a mere man, would never have uttered such an expression, for a more modest, self-forgetting man was never found in all our race.
View it on the supposition that the Christ of Nazareth was a mere man, and I say that His whole conduct was totally different from the spirit which would have suggested an utterance like this—“A greater than Solomon is here.” For men to compare themselves with one another is not wise, and Christ was wise—it is not humble, and Christ was humble. He would not have spoken thus if there had not been cause and reason in His infinitely glorious Nature. It was because the Divinity within Him must speak out. For God to say that He is greater than all His creatures is no boast, for what are they in His sight? All worlds are but sparks from the anvil of His Omnipotence! Space, time, eternity—all these are as nothing before Him, and for Him to compare or even to contrast Himself with one of His own creatures is supreme condescension, let Him word the comparison how He may! It was the Divine within our Lord which made Him say and not even then with a view to exalt Himself, but with a view to point the moral that He was trying to bring before the people—“A greater than Solomon is here.”
He did as good as say, “The queen of the south came from a distance to hear the wisdom of Solomon, but you refuse to hear Me. She gave attention to a man, but you will not regard your God. You will not listen to the Incarnate Deity who tells you words of infinite, infallible wisdom.” Our Lord Jesus is aiming at His hearers’ good, and where the motive is so disinterested, there remains no room for criticism. He tells them that He is greater than Solomon to convince them of the greatness of their crime in refusing to listen to the messages of love with which His lips were loaded. Foreigners came from afar to Solomon, but, I, says Jesus, have come to your door and brought infinite wisdom into your very gates, and yet you refuse Me. Therefore the queen of the south shall rise up in judgment against you, for, in rejecting Me, you reject a greater than Solomon.
The second thought that comes to one’s mind is this—notice the self-consciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He knows who He is and what He is, and He is not lowly in spirit because He is ignorant of His own greatness. He was meek and lowly in heart—“Servus servorum,” as the Latins were known to call Him, “Servant of servants,” but all the while He knew that He was Rex Regum, or King of Kings. He takes a towel and He washes His disciples’ feet, and all the while He knows that He is their Master and their Lord. He associates with publicans and harlots and dwells with the common people—and all the while He knows that He is the Only-Begotten of the Father. He sits as a Child in the Temple listening to and asking questions of the rabbis. He stands among His disciples as though He were one of them, conversing with the ignorant and foolish of the day, seeking their good—and He knows that He is not one of them—He knows that He has nothing to learn from them. He knows that He is able to teach senates and to instruct kings and philosophers, for He is greater than Solomon. He wears a peasant’s garb and has nowhere to lay His head, and He knows that whatever the lowliness of His condition, He is greater than Solomon! He lets us perceive that He knows it, that all may understand the love which brought Him down so low.
It is grand humility on Christ’s part that He condescends to be our Servant, our Savior—when He is so great that the greatest of men are as nothing before Him! “He counted it not robbery to be equal with God.” Mark that. And yet “He made Himself of no reputation.” Some people do not know their own worth and so, when they stoop to a lowly office, it is no stoop to their minds, for they do not know their own abilities. They do not know to what they are equal. But Christ did know—He knew all about His own Deity, His own wisdom, and greatness as Man. I admire, therefore, the clear understanding which sparkles in His deep humiliation like a gem in a dark mine. He is not one who stoops down according to the old rhyme—“As needs be must who cannot sit upright,” but He is one who comes down wittingly from His Throne of Glory, marking each step and fully estimating the descent which He is making. The cost of our Redemption was known to Him, and He endured the Cross, despising the shame. Watts well sings—“This was compassion like a God, that when the Savior knew the price of pardon was His blood, His pity never withdrew.”
Brethren, if our Savior, Himself, said that He was greater than Solomon, you and I must fully believe it, enthusiastically admit it, and prepare to proclaim it! If others will not acknowledge it, let us be the more prompt to confess it. If He Himself had to say, before they would acknowledge it, “A greater than Solomon is here,” let it not be necessary that the saying should be repeated, but let us all confess that He is, indeed, greater than Solomon! Let us go home with this resolve in our minds, that we will speak greater things of Christ than we have done! That we will try to love Him more, serve Him better, and make Him in our own estimation and in the world’s, greater than He has ever been. Oh for a glorious high throne to set Him on and a crown of stars to place upon His head! Oh to bring nations to His feet! I know my words cannot honor Him according to His merits—I wish they could. I am quite sure to fail in my own judgment when telling out His excellence. Indeed, I grow less and less satisfied with my thoughts and language concerning Him. He is too glorious for my feeble language to describe Him. If I could speak with the tongues of men and of angels, I could not speak worthily of Him. If I could borrow all the harmonies of Heaven and enlist every harp and song of the glorified, yet were not the music sweet enough for His praises! Our glorious Redeemer is ever-blessed—let us bless Him! He is to be extolled above the highest heavens—let us sound forth His praises! Oh for a well-tuned harp! May the Spirit of God help both heart and lips to extol Him at this hour!
I. Between Christ and Solomon: Points of Likeness
First, then, BETWEEN CHRIST AND SOLOMON there are some points of likeness. When the Savior Himself gives us a comparison, it is a clear proof that a likeness was originally intended by the Holy Spirit, and therefore, we may say without hesitation that Solomon was meant to be a type of Christ. I am not going into detail, nor am I about to refine upon small matters, but I shall give you five points in which Solomon was conspicuously like Christ and in which our Lord was greater than Solomon. O for help in the great task before me!
And first, in wisdom. Whenever you talked about Solomon to a Jew, his eyes began to flash with exultation. His blood leaped in his veins with national pride. Solomon—that name brought to mind the proudest time of David’s dynasty, the age of gold! Solomon, the magnificent—why, surely, his name crowns Jewish history with glory, and the brightest beam of that glory is his wisdom! In the east, and I think I may say in the west, it still remains a proverb, “To be as wise as Solomon.” No modern philosopher or learned monarch has ever divided the fame of the Son of David, whose name abides as the synonym of wisdom.
Of no man since could it be said as of him, “And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart.” He intermeddled with all knowledge and was a master in all sciences. He was a naturalist—“And he spoke of trees, from the cedar trees that are in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springs out of the wall. He spoke, also, of beasts and of fowl and of creeping things and of fishes.” He was an engineer and architect, for he wrote, “I made great works. I built houses. I planted vineyards—I made gardens and orchards and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits. I made pools of water, to water the wood that brings forth trees.” He was one who understood the science of government—politician of the highest order. He was everything, in fact. God gave him wisdom and largeness of heart, says the Scripture, like the sand of the sea. “And Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame was in all nations round about.”
Yes, but our Savior knows infinitely more than Solomon! I want you, tonight, to come to Him just as the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon, only for weightier reasons. You do not need to learn anything concerning architecture or navigation, agriculture or anatomy. You only need to know how you shall be built up a spiritual house and how you shall cross those dangerous seas which lie between this land and the Celestial City! Well, you may come to Jesus, and He will teach you all that you need to know, for all wisdom is in Christ! Our Divine Savior knows things past, present, and future—the secrets of God are with Him. He knows the inmost heart of God, for no one knows the Father except the Son and He to whom the Son shall reveal Him. To Him it is given to take the book of prophetic decree and loose the seven seals! Come, then, to Christ Jesus if you want to know the mind of God, for it is written that He “is made unto us Wisdom.”
Solomon might have wisdom, but he could not be wisdom to others. Christ Jesus is that to the fullest! In the multifarious knowledge which He possesses—the universal knowledge which is stored up in Him—there is enough for your guidance and instruction even to the end of life, however intricate and overshadowed your path may be. Solomon proved his wisdom, in part, by his remarkable inventions. We cannot tell what Solomon did not know. At any rate, no man knows, at this present moment, how those huge stones which have lately been discovered—which were the basis of the ascent by which Solomon went up to the house of the Lord—were ever put into their places. Many of the stones of Solomon’s masonry are so enormous that scarcely could any modern machinery move them! And without the slightest cement, they are put together so exactly that the blade of a knife could not be inserted between them! It is marvelous how the thing was done.
How such great stones were brought from their original bed in the quarry—how the whole building of the temple was executed—nobody knows. The castings in brass and silver are scarcely less remarkable. No doubt many inventions have passed away from the knowledge of modern times, inventions as remarkable as those of our own age. We are a set of savages that are beginning to learn something, but Solomon knew and invented things which we shall, perhaps, rediscover in 500 years’ time. By vehement exertion, this boastful 19th Century, wretched as it is, will crawl towards the wisdom which Solomon possessed ages ago!
Yet is Jesus greater than Solomon! As for inventions, Solomon is no inventor at all compared with Him who said, “Deliver him from going down into the Pit, for I have found a ransom.” O Savior, did You find out the way of our salvation? Did You bring into the world and carry out and execute the way by which Hell should be closed, and Heaven, once barred, should be set wide open? Then, indeed, are You wiser than Solomon! You are the Deviser of salvation, the Architect of the Church, the Author and Finisher of our faith!
II. The Contrast Between Christ and Solomon
Now, secondly, I want to show WHERE THERE CAN BE NO PARALLEL BETWEEN CHRIST AND SOLOMON AT ALL. In His Nature, the Lord Jesus is greater than Solomon. Alas, poor Solomon! The strongest man that ever lived, namely Samson, was the weakest of men—and the wisest man that ever lived was, perhaps, the greatest—certainly the most conspicuous—fool! How different is our Lord! There is no infirmity in Christ, no folly in the Incarnate God. The backsliding of Solomon finds no parallel in Jesus, in whom the prince of this world found nothing, though he searched Him through and through.
Our Lord is greater than Solomon because He is not mere man. He is Man, perfect Man, Man to the utmost of manhood, sin excepted! But still, He is more and infinitely more, than man. “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” He is God, Himself. “The Word was God.” God dwells in Him and He, Himself, is God! As in Nature, He was infinitely superior to Solomon and not to be compared with him for a moment, so was He in Character. Look at Christ and Solomon for a minute as to real greatness of character and you can hardly see Solomon with a microscope—while Christ rises grandly before you, growing every moment till He fills the whole horizon of your admiration!
Principally let me note the point of self-sacrifice. Jesus lived entirely for other people. He had never a thought about Himself. Solomon was, to a great extent, wise unto himself, rich unto himself, strong unto himself and you see in those great palaces and in all their arrangements that he seeks his own pleasure, honor, and emolument. And alas, that seeking of pleasure leads him into sin and that sin into a still greater one! Solomon, wonderful as he is, only compels you to admire him for his greatness, but you cannot admire him for his goodness. You see nothing that makes you love him—you rather tremble before him than feel gladdened by him.
Oh, but look at Christ! He does not have a thought for Himself. He lives for others! How grandly magnificent He is in disinterested love. “He loved His Church and gave Himself for it.” He pours out His heart’s blood for the good of men and, therefore, dear Friends, at this moment, our blessed Lord is infinitely superior to Solomon in His influence. Solomon has little or no influence today. Even in his own time, he never commanded the influence that Christ had in His deepest humiliation! I do not hear of any that were willing to die for Solomon—certainly, nobody would do so now. But how perpetually is enthusiasm kindled in ten thousand breasts for Christ!
They say that if there were stakes again in Smithfield, we should not find men to burn on them for Christ. I tell you, it is not so! The Lord Jesus Christ has, at this moment, a remnant according to the election of His Grace who would fling themselves into a pit of fire for Him—and rejoice to do it! “Who shall separate us”—even us poor pigmies—“from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?” “Oh,” says one, “I do not think I could suffer martyrdom!” You are not yet called to do so, my Brother, and God does not give you strength to do it before the need arises. But you will have strength enough if ever it comes your lot to die for Jesus. Did you hear of the martyr who, the night before he was to be burnt, sat opposite the fire and, taking his shoes off, he held his feet close to the flame till he began to feel the burning of them? He drew them back and said, “I see God does not give me power to bear such suffering as I put upon myself, but I have, none the less, no doubt,” he said, “that I shall very well stand the stake tomorrow morning and burn quick to the death for Christ without starting back.” And so he did, for he was noticed never to stir at all while the flames were consuming him.
There is a great deal of difference between your strength today, and what your strength would be if you were called to some tremendous work or suffering. My Lord and Master, let me tell you, wakes more enthusiasm in human breasts at this moment than any other name in the universe! Napoleon once said, “I founded a kingdom upon force and it will pass away. But Christ founded a kingdom upon love and it will last forever and ever.” And so it will.
III. The Kingdom of Christ
Blot out the name of Christ from the hearts of His people? Strike the sun from the firmament and quench the stars! And when you have achieved that easy task, yet have you not begun to remove the Glory of the indwelling Christ from the hearts of His people! Some of us delight to think that we bear in our body the marks of the Lord Jesus. “Where?” asks one. I answer, it is all over us. We have been buried into His name and we belong to Him in spirit, soul, and body. That watermark which denotes that we are His can never be taken out of us! We are dead with Him, wherein we were buried with Him and are risen again with Him!
And there is nothing at this moment that stirs our soul like the name of Jesus. Speak for yourselves! Is it not so? Have you never heard of one who lay dying, his mind wandering, and his wife said to him, “My Dear, do you not know me?” He shook his head and they brought near his favorite child. “Do you not know me?” He shook his head. One whispered, “Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?” and he said, “He is all my salvation and all my desire.”
Oh, blessed name! Blessed name! Some years ago I was away from this place for a little rest, and I was thinking to myself, “Now I wonder whether I really respond to the power of the Gospel as I should like to do? I will go and hear a sermon and see.” I would like to sit down with you in the pews, sometimes, and hear somebody else preach—not everybody, mark you—for when I hear a good many, I want to be doing it myself. I get tired of them if they do not glow and burn. But that morning I thought I would drop into a place of worship such as there might be in the little town. A poor, plain man, a countryman, began preaching about Jesus Christ. He praised my Master in very humble language, but he praised Him most sincerely. Oh, and the tears began to flow. I soon laid the dust all round me where I sat, and I thought, “Bless the Lord! I do love Him!”
It only needs somebody else to play the harp instead of me, and my soul is ready to dance to the heavenly tune! Only let the music be Christ’s sweet, dear, precious name, and my heart leaps at the sound! Oh, my Brothers and Sisters, sound out the praises of Jesus Christ! Sound out that precious name! There is none like it under Heaven to stir my heart! I hope you can all say the same. I know you can if you love Him, for all renewed hearts are enamored of the sweet Lord Jesus.
“A greater than Solomon is here.” Solomon has no power over your hearts, but Jesus has. His influence is infinitely greater. His power to bless is infinitely greater and so let us magnify and adore Him with all our hearts. Oh, that all loved Him! Alas that so many do not! What strange monsters! Why, if you do not love Christ, what are you? You hearts of stone, will you not break? If His dying love does not break them, what will? If you cannot see the beauties of Jesus, what can you see? You blind bats! O you that know not the music of His name, you are deaf! O you that do not rejoice in Him, you are dead! What are you, that you are spared through the pleading of His love and yet do not love Him?
God have mercy upon you and bring you to delight yourselves in Christ and trust Him! As for us who do trust Him, we mean to love Him and delight in Him more and more, world without end. Amen.