A Plea from the cross - C.H.Spurgeon

A PLEA FROM THE CROSS

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34.

Introduction

To the godly heart, there is a brighter light on Calvary than anywhere else beneath the sun. He who often resorts to Golgotha, if his spirit is right, must be wise. It is the University of Saints! He who would know sin—its heinousness, its penalty—must see the Son of God making expiation for it by His death on the accursed tree. He who would know love—the love which many waters cannot quench, and which the floods cannot drown—must read it in the Savior’s face—or, if you will, written in crimson lines in the Savior’s heart, pierced with the spear. He who would know how he may get his sin forgiven must resort to the cross. There, and there only, is seen the way by which sin can be pardoned and the sinner accepted with God! And he who, finding pardon there, would seek to be useful to his fellow men and bring them into the same condition, must, himself, keep near that cross, that he may speak much of it and, in the power of it, may be able to persuade and to prevail with the sons of men. Abide at the cross, beloved—there is no air so healthy and quickening as that which is breathed there! There was the birthplace of your hope! There its native air! There must be, on earth, the climax of your joy! Live upon a crucified Savior as you live by a crucified Savior!

I. THE SAVIOR’S LOVE TO SINNERS

It is His last hour, but He thinks of them! He had searched for them in His health and strength. He went about doing good. He came to seek and to save the rebellious, and He had spent His active life in their service. He is about to die, but the ruling passion is strong in death. He is still seeking sinners, and if He can preach no more, yet He can pray! And if He will not speak to them, yet He can speak to God for them, and so He continues to show which way His heart runs, by the prayer for those that nailed Him to the wood, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He had been 30 years in their midst and His holy soul had been much vexed by them. He had endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself, but you see He has not cast them off—He has not turned His love to wrath. He is not weary of them, but He still pleads, “Father, oh, forgive them.” What love is this! One would suppose that the pain which He then felt might have distracted His mind from others, and His prayer might have been for Himself, that patience might be given, that strength might be sustained! But no, oblivious of Himself, His only care is still for those He seeks—the sinful sons of men! Just as an arrow from a bow shot forth with such force that it speeds onward to its target, His whole strength and soul speed onward to the mark of the salvation of the sons of men! One thing, one thing only, does He do—He seeks their good! And I say again, if not now by active ministering to them, yet by ministering for them, He prays, “Father, forgive them.”

It is one thing to love persons at a distance and to have philanthropic desires for their good—it is quite another thing to live with them and still have the same fondness towards them. And it is quite another thing by far to receive bad treatment from them—contumely, scorn, and a worse thing even than that, to be about to receive your death from them—and still to pray for them! But such is the perseverance of Jesus‘ love that it cannot be turned aside. They have spit into His face, but still He prays for them. They have scourged Him with their cruel lashes. They have hounded Him along the streets. They have, at last, pierced His hands and feet, and stripped Him! And they now hang Him up upon the cross between heaven and earth—but still nothing can diminish the flame of His love, nor turn aside His heart’s desire from them—it is still for them He lives, for them He dies. “Father, oh, forgive them,” is the sign and proof that He is still holding to the one great work He undertook! Now I would, O sinner, I would that you would learn this lesson. Herein is love, behold what love! Will you not come and share in it? What keeps you back? Can you hold your heart from Immanuel? Can you refuse to love such a dear lover of the sons of men? I think if our hearts were not adamant or worse, they would melt at the sight of the pleading love of Jesus upon the cross. Come, soul, have done with your hardness—let a drop of Christ’s blood melt that heart of yours! Have done with your carelessness—let a spark of love set your heart on fire towards Him! Are you afraid to come, afraid of Him who died for sinners, afraid of love, terrified at mercy? Oh, be not so, but come and welcome! Put your trust in Him who, with His dying breath, proves the strength of His Almighty love by pleading for His foes!

II. HOW LOVE SHOWS ITSELF

How did Jesus prove His love in this last great moment? It was by prayer! Love shows itself in prayer. Prayer, alone, would not be a sufficient proof of love, but He who dies and prays, whose life is a prayer, and whose death is a prayer, proves His love by adding to His life and death the vocal utterance of both in this cry, “Father, forgive them.” If Jesus Christ would prove His love to you, He does it by praying for you. Observe, then, the extreme value of prayer. It is a ripe fruit of the cross. It is, if I may call it so, a golden apple of the cross—intercessory prayer! See, then, sinner, the need there is for you to pray. If Jesus prays and proves His love by prayer, and if the saints on earth who love you pray for you, depend upon it, prayer is no light thing. Bend those knees of yours, lift your eyes to heaven, and let a prayer go up from the depths of your spirit, “Father, forgive me! Your Son has prayed, so pray I. He says, ‘Father, forgive them,’ and I pray, ‘Father, forgive me.’” Ought not this to bring every sinner to his knees? Would it not, if men were in their senses? Would not the sight of a dying Christ pleading for the guilty make the guilty plead? Oh, who can restrain prayer for himself when Jesus leads the way? When He says, “Forgive them,” will you not say, “Amen”? Oh, deserve you not right well to perish if you cannot join your assent to the divine intercession of the pleading Savior! Sinner, I beseech you now, in the secret of your soul, to pray, “Father, forgive me.” “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Is there no woman; is there no man that could pray that now? You need not speak—let but your lips move. But, oh, since Jesus Christ tonight is set forth before you in the delightful attitude of an intercessor praying for the guilty, I implore you pray for yourselves—and may God send you, this night, an answer of peace—may your pardon be signed and sealed to the comfort of your spirit!

III. WHAT IT IS THE SAVIOR ASKS

He asks forgiveness, “Father, forgive them.” If the Savior should pray for all of us here present, He need not amend that prayer. It was suitable to those who nailed Him to the tree. They needed pardon for the murder of their Savior. It was suitable to the clamoring multitude, who had said, “Crucify Him, crucify Him.” They needed forgiveness for that blood which they then brought upon themselves, but it is equally suitable to each one here present, “Forgive them.” May I ask you to look back upon your past lives? Have you been kept from grosser sins? Thank God for it, but your sins of heart, of mind, of tongue, your sins of omission. What? Are these nothing? God grant you may feel them to be something and may you feel, tonight, that what you need is even as if you had been an open offender—you need forgiveness and if, perchance, there are some here who have gone into open sin with a high hand and an outstretched arm, yet, my brother, yet my sister, this prayer needs no enlargement to suit you, “Father, forgive them.” “Father, forgive them,” forgiveness covers all! A man receipts a bill. He puts his name at the bottom. If that bill were for ten thousand pounds or ten pence, it is the same, the receipt has covered all—and Jesus’ hand, when He puts it with the bloody red nail prints upon the great record of our sins, draws a red line down the page and blots out the whole—and leaves not a single sin on the page! “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as wool; though they are red like crimson, they shall be whiter than snow.” Oh, the greatness of that word, “forgiven”! Blessed be the Lord Jesus for praying such a prayer as that! Do you know, I do not think it need be altered for the best man and the best woman here, for even our best things need forgiveness. When you have prayed the best prayer you ever prayed, you might well ask God to forgive it! If you have preached the best sermon you ever preached, you may ask to be forgiven it, for some sin has mingled with your holiest action, so forgiveness is needed at best, and always needed at the worst—needed today, tomorrow and all through life, and needed when the breath leaves the body—always needed that blessed prayer that sweeps the compass of mortal existence—that comprehends so much, “Father, forgive them.”

IV. FOR WHOM IT IS THAT OUR SAVIOR, IN THIS CASE, OFFERED THE PETITION

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Now that little word, “them,” is a great word because it is so little. “Father, forgive them.” The Savior is explicit—He does not mention the names of the four soldiers who pierced His hands and feet. No. He meant them, but He meant more. He does not mention the names of these in the crowd who were gazing upon Him with an insolent stare—He meant them. He does not mention those that had cried, “Crucify Him, crucify Him”—He had meant them. He does not say, “Father, forgive them, for they knew not what they did”—for that would look as if He only prayed for sins that had already been committed. He does not say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they shall do,” for that would look as if He only prayed for sins that would be committed! But He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And putting it thus in the present, it seems as though the petition had one hand to reach out to the past sins of mankind before He died, and another hand to the sins to come of mankind after He had offered the sacrifice. “They know not what they do.” It is put so indefinitely, the “them,” and the “do,” the tense of the verb and the pronoun—they are so indefinite that I bless God for the wide extent of their range! “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Who, then, is included in that word, “them”? I venture to say every man that is willing to be included—every man that feels he is included! Did you slay Christ? Have your sins caused Him to die? Do you know, tonight, that your sins fastened Him to the cruel tree? Could you join in the hymn we sung just now? Then, when Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” He included you in that prayer, and me in that prayer, and tens of thousands besides in that word, “them.”

V. THIS PRAYER WARNS US

I have felt intense pleasure in thinking it over, but at the same time that pleasure has been mingled with great bitterness. There is such a warning there, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” It does not say, as I have already said, that if they did know, Christ would not pray for them, but it does seem to hint that. In the background I see something—not that every sin committed against light is unpardonable—God be thanked that is not so, but some sins committed against light and knowledge so harden the heart that the man never repents! He never will, he will go to hell hardened like steel! And I am afraid some of you are in great likelihood of committing it. Those who have not heard the gospel cannot very readily commit this, unless their conscience has been desperately violated, but some of you who have been hearers often, and perhaps were once professors—who have knowingly chosen the wrong path and have deliberately sacrificed your character for drink or gain or lust—I will not say that you have passed that boundary, but I do tremble as I hear the booming of that text, “There is a sin unto death; I do not say that you shall pray for it,” even as I hear the Master’s words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But these persons knew what they did, did it deliberately, did it over again and again, and again—perhaps went to the Lord’s table and deliberately went to their uncleanness, stood up in public, it may be, and then deliberately went to their filthiness. Or they listened to the sermon on Sunday and they said, “I’ll do better”—and then deliberately went on Monday to their drunken companions again! Oh, man, you may have stood in the street, perhaps, and said to yourself, “Now, which shall it be? I feel as if I were called to serve God, but yet how can I give up such-and-such a darling lust?” There is a point in men’s lives wherein if they deliberately choose the wrong, knowing it is wrong, with the light of God shining on their eyeballs—yet they deliberately give up Christ, heaven, pardon and they choose hell and their own delusions—I fear that with many from that hour the wax is cooled upon their death warrant and it will never be reversed, for this text, though it gently flows from the Savior’s lips and drops like dew, has about it the lightning flash and thunderbolt that startles, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Conclusion

But there are some who know what they do and take the hammer and nail Christ up to the cross! They take a spear and pierce His side and do it knowing what they are doing! And all the while they are glibly talking of religion, taking the Bible to make jokes out of it, taking the very ministers they once professed to love and scoffing them, taking the doctrines of the gospel and making these a cloak for their sins—these men—what will I say of them? God have mercy upon them, but I fear, I fear, that He never will, for they will never seek it, and He will never grant it! Could they seek it, He would give it. While a man can seek, he shall find. While a heart can melt, God will pity. There is never a contrite soul but what God looks with love upon it. But here is the mischief, for these men, who know what they do, repent not, but are seared as with a hot iron—they become wandering stars, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever! But I must close here. This shall be a closing word. At the same time, you see the text woos. It warns, but it woos. How it woos the ignorant, especially! “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Oh, some of you have dropped in here tonight who, perhaps, don’t often listen to the gospel. You have been living a life of sin. You knew it was sin, You knew it was sin, but you did not know that you were nailing Christ to the cross. You sought your own pleasure, you sought your own gratifications. You have been very guilty. You have lived a careless, Godless, Christless life, but still you did not mean to sin against God so as to crucify Christ. You see you have done so—now you feel you are guilty of it—but before, you had not that light of God that you now have. Then Jesus says, “Come to Me, come to Me! My prayer goes up to heaven for you, you ignorant one.” Sinful, but without light, Jesus intercedes! Oh, join your prayer with the prayer of Jesus, and say, “Father, forgive Your ignorant child, Your sinful, wayward child. I do not plead, ‘I knew not what I did,’ but Christ pleads it for me! I plead that Jesus died. Oh, for His sake, have pity! Hear His blood as it drops from His hands and feet; hear it and plead for me, ‘Father, forgive them.’” Oh, if you will seek the Lord, you shall have Him! If you will but turn your eyes to Him upon the cross, you shall live! Whoever among you in this house will but trust Him, shall find Him able and willing to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. Oh, come and welcome, come and welcome! And may God grant that you may come tonight—
“But if your ears refuse The language of His grace, And hearts grow gross like stubborn Jews, That unbelieving race, The Lord in vengeance dressed Will lift His hand and swear, ‘You that despised My promised rest Shall have no portion there.”

God bless you. Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW 27:32-49

Verse 32

And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear His cross. Perhaps they were afraid that Christ would die from exhaustion, so they compelled Simon to bear His cross. Any one of Christ’s followers might have wished to have been this man of Cyrene, but we need not envy him, for there is a cross for each of us to carry. Oh, that we were as willing to bear Christ’s cross as Christ was to bear our sins on His cross! If anything happens to us by way of persecution or ridicule for our Lord’s sake, and the gospel’s, let us cheerfully endure it! As knights are made by a stroke from the sovereign’s sword, so shall we become princes in Christ’s realm as He lays His cross on our shoulders.

Verses 33-34

And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a Place of a Skull, they gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink. Golgotha was the common place of execution for malefactors, the Tyburn or Old Bailey of Jerusalem, outside the gate of the city. There was a special symbolical reason for Christ’s suffering outside the gate, and His followers are bid to “go forth unto Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb 13:11-13). A stupefying draught was given to the condemned, to take away something of the agony of crucifixion—but our Lord came to suffer—and He would not take anything that would at all impair His faculties. He did not forbid His fellow sufferers drinking the vinegar mingled with gall (“wine mingled with myrrh,” Mark 15:23), but He would not drink thereof. Jesus did not refuse this draught because of its bitterness, for He was prepared to drink even to the last dreadful dregs the bitter cup of wrath which was His people’s due.

Verses 35-36

And they crucified Him, and parted His garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted My garments among them, and upon My vesture did they cast lots. There is a world of meaning in that short sentence, “and they crucified Him,” driving their bolts of iron through His blessed hands and feet, fastening Him to the cross and lifting Him up to hang there upon a gallows reserved for felons. We can scarcely realize all that the crucifixion meant to our dear Lord, but we can join in Faber’s prayer—
“Lord Jesus! May we love and weep, Since You, for us, are crucified.” Then was fulfilled all that our Lord had foretold in Chapter 20:17-19, except His resurrection, the time for which had not arrived.

The criminals’ clothes were the executioners’ profits. The Roman soldiers who crucified Christ had no thought of fulfilling the Scriptures when they parted His garments, casting lots, yet their action was exactly that which had been foretold in Psalm 22:18! The seamless robe would have been spoiled if it had been torn, so the soldiers raffled for the vesture, while they shared the other garments of our Lord. The dice would be almost stained with the blood of Christ, yet the gamblers played on beneath the shadow of His cross. Gambling is the most hardening of all vices. Beware of it in any form! No games of chance should be played by Christians, for the blood of Christ seems to have bespattered them all.

Verse 37

And sitting down they watched Him there. Some watched Him from curiosity, some to make sure that He really did die, some even delighted their cruel eyes with His sufferings—and there were some, hard by the cross, who wept and bewailed, a sword passing through their own hearts while the Son of man was agonizing even unto death!

Verse 38

And set up over His head His accusation written, THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS. What a marvelous providence it was that moved Pilate’s pen! The representative of the Roman Emperor was little likely to concede kingship to any man, yet he deliberately wrote, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews,” and nothing would induce him to alter what he had written! Even on His cross, Christ was proclaimed King, in the sacerdotal Hebrew, the classical Greek, and the common Latin, so that everybody in the crowd could read the inscription! When will the Jews admit Jesus as their King? They will do so one day, looking on Him whom they pierced. Perhaps they will think more of Christ when Christians think more of them—when our hardness of heart towards them has gone, possibly their hardness of heart towards Christ may also disappear.

Verse 39-40

Likewise also the chief priests mocking Him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross and we will believe Him. He trusted in God: let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him: for He said, I am the Son of God. The chief priests, with the scribes and elders, forgetting their high station and rank, joined the ribald crew in mocking Jesus in His death pangs! Every word was emphatic—every syllable cut and pierced our Lord to the heart. They mocked Him as a Savior—“He saved others; Himself He cannot save.” They mocked Him as a King—“If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.” They mocked Him as a believer—“He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him.” They mocked Him as the Son of God—“For He said, I am the Son of God.” Those who say that Christ was a good man, virtually admit His Deity, for He claimed to be the Son of God. If He was not what He professed to be, He was an impostor. Notice the testimony that Christ’s bitterest enemies bore even as they reviled Him—“He saved others.” “He is the King of Israel” (R. V.) “He trusted in God.”

Verses 44-45

The thieves, also, who were crucified with Him, cast the same in His teeth. The sharers of His misery, the wretches who were crucified with Him, joined in reviling Jesus. Nothing was lacking to fill up His cup of suffering and shame. The conversion of the penitent thief was all the more remarkable because he had but a little while before been among the mockers of his Savior! What a trophy of divine grace he became!

Verses 46-49

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. Some have thought that this darkness covered the whole world, and so caused even a heathen to exclaim, “Either the world is about to expire, or the God who made the world is in anguish.” This darkness was supernatural—it was not an eclipse. The sun could no longer look upon its Maker surrounded by these who mocked Him. He covered his face and traveled on in tenfold night, in very shame that the great Sun of righteousness should, Himself, be in such terrible darkness.

Verse 50

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is to say, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? In order that the sacrifice of Christ might be complete, it pleased the Father to forsake His well-beloved Son. Sin was laid on Christ, so God must turn away His face from the Sin-bearer. To be deserted of His God was the climax of Christ’s grief, the quintessence of His sorrow! See here the distinction between the martyrs and their Lord—in their dying agonies they have been divinely sustained—but Jesus, suffering as the Substitute for sinners, was forsaken of God! The saints who have known what it is to have their Father’s face hidden from them, even for a brief space, can scarcely imagine the suffering that wrung from our Savior the agonizing cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Verse 51

And straightway one of them ran and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink. The rest said Let Him be, let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him. A person in such agony as Jesus was suffering might have mentioned many pangs that He was enduring, but it was necessary for Him to say, “I thirst,” in order that another Scripture might be fulfilled. One of them, more compassionate than his companions, ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, from the vessel probably brought by the soldiers for their own use, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink. It always seems to me very remarkable that the sponge, which is the very lowest form of animal life, should have been brought into contact with Christ, who is at the top of all life. In His death the whole circle of creation was completed. As the sponge brought refreshment to the lips of our dying Lord, so may the least of God’s living ones help to refresh Him, now that He has ascended from the cross to the throne!

C. H. Spurgeon