PROCLAMATION OF ACCEPTANCE AND VENGEANCE – Charles Spurgeon
Proclamation of Acceptance and Vengeance
Introduction
“To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” Isaiah 61:2. We know that this Scripture speaks concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t say this as if we relied upon our own opinion. We know it for sure from the Lord’s own lips, for, reading this passage in the synagogue at Nazareth, He said, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” It is Jesus of Nazareth whom the Lord has anointed to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind! And our text tells us that He was also sent to make a proclamation which should usher in the year of acceptance and the day of vengeance.
Notice well the expression, “to proclaim,” because a proclamation is the message of a king—and where the word of a king is, there is power. The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to announce the will of the King of kings. He says, “I am come in My Father’s name,” and again, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me.” Every word of the Gospel is backed by the authority of “the King eternal, immortal, invisible,” and He who rejects it is guilty of treason against Jehovah, God of All. The Gospel is not of the nature of a commonplace invitation or human exhortation which may be accepted or refused at will without involving guilt—it is a Divine proclamation, issued from the Throne of the Eternal—which none can reject without becoming, thereby, rebels against the Infinite Majesty.
Now if this is so, let us give the Divine edict our most earnest attention and take heed what we hear! When a proclamation is issued by the head of a state, all good citizens gather around to read what has been said to them and to know what the supreme law may be. And so, when God proclaims His will, all right-hearted men desire to know what it is and what bearing it has upon them—what the Lord demands or what the Lord promises and what is their share therein. Beloved Hearers, listening to the Gospel should always be very solemn work since it is listening to the Word of God! Though the voice is that of man, yet the Truth he preaches is of God. I pray you do not trifle with it.
Nor let it be forgotten that a proclamation must be treated with profound respect, not merely by receiving attention to its contents, but by giving obedience to its demands! God does not speak to us by His Son that we may be gratified by hearing the sound of His voice, but that we may yield to His will. We are not to be hearers only, but doers of the Word. We should be quick in obedience to the command of the proclamation, swift in acceptance of its promise and cheerful in submission to its demands! Who shall resist the proclamations of Jehovah? Is He not our Creator and King? Who is stubborn enough to refuse obedience? Or who has a bronze face enough to dispute His sway? Shall not He who made Heaven and earth, and shakes them when He pleases—and will destroy them at His pleasure—be regarded with reverential awe by the creatures of His hands? O Son of God, since it is a Divine proclamation which You do publish, send forth Your Holy Spirit that we may receive it with deepest reverence and lowly obedience, lest, through our neglect, we do despite to You as well as to Your Father!
When a proclamation is not made by an ordinary herald, but when the Prince, Himself, comes forth to declare His Father’s will, then should all hearts be moved to sevenfold attention! It is the Son of God, anointed by the Spirit of God, who acts as herald to us and so by each Person of the Divine Trinity we are called upon to bow a listening ear and an obedient heart to what the Lord proclaims. Attention, then! The Messenger of the Covenant makes proclamation! Attention for the King of kings!
With this as a preface, let me notice that there are three points in the proclamation worthy of our attention. The first is the acceptable year. The next, the vengeance day. And the third, the comfort derived from both—“to comfort all that mourn.”
I. The Acceptable Year of the Lord
Jesus, in the first place, proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord. Take the expression to pieces and it comes to this—the year of the Lord and the year of acceptance. Now, what was the year of the Lord? There can be, I think, very little question that this relates to the Jubilee Year. Every 7th year was the Lord’s year and it was to be a Sabbath of rest to the land. But the seventh 7th year, the 50th year, which the Lord reserved unto Himself, was in a very marked and special sense the Year of the Lord.
Now, our Lord Jesus has come to proclaim a period of Jubilee to the true seed of Israel. The seed of Abraham, now, are not the seed according to the Law, but those who are born after the promise. There are privileges reserved for Israel after the flesh which they will yet receive in the day when they shall acknowledge Christ to be the Messiah. But every great blessing which was promised to Abraham’s seed after the flesh is now virtually promised to Israel after the Spirit—to those who, by faith, are the children of believing Abraham.
Now, Beloved, to all who believe, our Lord Jesus proclaims a year of Jubilee! Let us dwell upon the four privileges of the Jubilee and accept with delight the proclamation which our Lord has made!
In the year of Jubilee, as we read in the 25th Chapter of Leviticus, there was a release of all persons who had sold themselves for servants. Pinched by great poverty and unable to meet their debts, it sometimes happened that men were compelled to say to their creditor, “Take us and our wives and children and accept our services instead of money. We have no goods or chattels and our land has been mortgaged long ago. But here we are—we cannot pay in any other way—give us food and raiment and lodging, and we will put ourselves under apprenticeship to you.” The Law of Moses ordained that such persons were not to be treated harshly, nor regarded as slaves, but as hired servants. But still, it must have been an unpleasant condition of servitude for a freeborn Israelite. How happy, then, was the morning when the Jubilee trumpet sounded and the generous Law came into operation which said, “He shall serve you unto the Year of Jubilee, but then shall he depart from you, both he and his children with him.”
From that moment he owed no more service, however great his debt might have been. He looked upon his wife and children and rejoiced that they were all his own and all free from the yoke so that they could, at once, return to the possession of their fathers, all live in the cottage in which they formerly dwelt and enjoy the piece of land which they formerly called their own. Liberty, that gladsome sound! Liberty had come to them! No matter that they had long been under obligations to the creditor—those obligations ceased on the sound of the sacred trumpet!
Beloved Souls now present, proclamation is made to you in the Lord’s name that if you are under bondage to sin and to sinful habits, there is liberty for you! Faith in Jesus will set you free! If you are in bondage under justice and the broken Law, there is deliverance. If you are under bondage through fear of death, or from the rage of Satan, our Divine Lord and Master has come into the world on purpose to break these bonds and to proclaim liberty to the captives! You need be bound no longer! If you believe in Jesus you are bound no longer and you are set free from all the bondage of the Law, from the slavery of Satan and from the dread of death! Take the liberty which the great Lord freely presents to you and be no longer slaves. Jesus has brought in redemption and finished atonement and Believers are free! Come and rejoice!
The next Jubilee blessing was the redemption of alienated possessions. Every man had his own plot of ground in the Holy Land, but through the pressure of the times it sometimes happened that a man forfeited his property. He might be in need of ready money. His children might need bread to eat and he, therefore, parted with his land. It was gone—the vines and the fig trees, the corn and the oil passed over to another—but it was not gone forever. He had no power to sell beyond the year of Jubilee. When this joyful morning dawned, he went back to his family estate. It was all his, again, clear of all encumbrances. The little homestead, the farmyard, the fields and the garden all had come back to him and none could dispute his right to them.
Just so my Lord and Master declares to all who believe in Him that the estate which Adam forfeited is restored to all for whom the Second Adam died! The alienated heritage is ours again. The great Father’s love, favor and care, yes, all things—whether things present or things to come, or life or death—all are ours and we are Christ’s and Christ is God’s. If we are Believers and we are of the true seed of Israel, this day the Lord Jesus proclaims to us a restoration of all the lost privileges and blessings which originally belonged to manhood! Behold, Believers, all Covenant blessings are yours—rejoice in them! Partake of heavenly blessings freely. Let your soul rejoice in its portion and delight itself in fatness.
II. The Day of Vengeance of Our God
The next Jubilee blessing was the redemption of alienated possessions. Every man had his own plot of ground in the Holy Land, but through the pressure of the times it sometimes happened that a man forfeited his property. He might be in need of ready money. His children might need bread to eat and he, therefore, parted with his land. It was gone—the vines and the fig trees, the corn and the oil passed over to another—but it was not gone forever. He had no power to sell beyond the year of Jubilee. When this joyful morning dawned, he went back to his family estate. It was all his, again, clear of all encumbrances. The little homestead, the farmyard, the fields and the garden all had come back to him and none could dispute his right to them.
Just so my Lord and Master declares to all who believe in Him that the estate which Adam forfeited is restored to all for whom the Second Adam died! The alienated heritage is ours again. The great Father’s love, favor and care, yes, all things—whether things present or things to come, or life or death—all are ours and we are Christ’s and Christ is God’s. If we are Believers and we are of the true seed of Israel, this day the Lord Jesus proclaims to us a restoration of all the lost privileges and blessings which originally belonged to manhood! Behold, Believers, all Covenant blessings are yours—rejoice in them! Partake of heavenly blessings freely. Let your soul rejoice in its portion and delight itself in fatness.
Note the vengeance and the grace combined. The Prophet Isaiah saw our great Champion returning from His last fight and thus spoke concerning Him—“Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Therefore are You red in Your apparel, and Your garments like Him that treads in the wine vat. I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with Me: for I will tread them in My anger, and trample them in My fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon My garments, and I will stain all My raiment. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed is come.” Observe, again, the connection between the day of vengeance and the year of the redeemed. At the Second Advent, Christ will come to be glorified in His saints and they shall be manifested in the fullness of their acceptance. But it will be an overwhelming day of vengeance for all those who have hardened their hearts and continued in their sins. “Behold, the day comes that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yes, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.”
The Day of Vengeance and the Year of the Redeemed
However, I consider that the chief meaning of the text lies in this—that “the day of vengeance of our God” was that day when He made all the transgressions of His people to meet upon the head of our great Surety. Sin with many streams had been flowing down the hills of time and forming, by their dread accumulation, one vast and fathomless lake. Into this, the sinner’s Substitute must be plunged. He had a Baptism to be baptized with and He must endure it, or all His chosen must perish forever! That was a day of vengeance when all the waves and billows of Divine wrath went over His innocent head— “Came at length the dreadful night; Vengeance with its iron rod Stood, and with collected might Bruised the harmless Lamb of God. See, my Soul, Your Savior see, Prostrate in Gethsemane!”
From His blessed Person there distilled a bloody sweat, for His soul was exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. All through the night, He was scourged, buffeted, and spit upon by cruel men! He was tortured and abused! He was rejected, despised, maltreated, and pierced in His inmost soul by man’s scorn and cruelty. Then in the morning, He was taken out to be crucified, for nothing could suffice short of His death. The outward sorrows of crucifixion you know, but the inward griefs you do not know—for what our Lord endured was beyond what any mortal man could have borne! The infinity of the Godhead aided the manhood, but I doubt not Hart was right in saying that He—
The Crucifixion and the Atonement
“Bore all Incarnate God could bear With strength enough but none to spare.”
It was an awful “day of vengeance of our God,” for the voice cried aloud, “Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, against the Man that is My fellow, says the Lord of Hosts.” The doctrine that justice was executed upon our great Substitute is the most important that was ever propounded in the hearing of men! It is the sum and substance of the whole Gospel and I fear that the Church which rejects it is no longer a Church of Christ. Substitution is as much a standing or falling article in the Church as the doctrine of Justification by Faith itself. My Brothers and Sisters, there would never have been an acceptable year if there had not been a day of vengeance! You can be sure of this!
The Year of Jubilee and Atonement
And now let us look at the instructive type by which this Truth of God was taught to Israel of old. The Year of Jubilee began with the Day of Atonement. “Then shall you cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the 10th day of the 7th month, in the Day of Atonement shall you make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.” What did the High Priest do on that day? Read for yourselves the 16th Chapter of Leviticus. On that day he washed himself and came forth before the people, not wearing his breast-plate, nor his garments of glory and beauty, of blue and scarlet and fine linen, but he wore the ordinary linen garments of a common priest. Even thus the Lord, who counted it not robbery to be equal with God, laid aside all His Glory and was found in fashion as a man!
Then the priest took a bullock and, having offered it, went within the veil with the censer full of burning coals of fire, and sweet incense beaten small, with which he filled the inner court with perfumed smoke. After this, he took the blood of the bullock and sprinkled it before the Mercy Seat seven times. Thus our Lord entered within the veil with His own blood and with the sweet incense of His own merits to make Atonement for us! Of two goats, one was killed as a sin offering and his blood was sprinkled within the veil. The other was used for a scapegoat. Upon the head of the scapegoat Aaron laid both his hands and confessed all the iniquities of the children of Israel, “putting them upon the head of the goat,” which was then taken into the wilderness as the type of the carrying away of sin into oblivion.
Christ as the Atoning Sacrifice
Do you not see your Lord and Master bearing your sins away? “As far as the east is from the west, so far it is He removed our transgressions from us.” Is there any wonder that a Jubilee of peace should follow such a taking away of iniquity as our Great High Priest has accomplished? Jesus is entered into the heavens for us—can we doubt our acceptance with God? The bodies of the beasts whose blood was brought into the sanctuary for sin on the Day of Atonement were not suffered to remain in the Holy Place, but were carried forth outside the camp to be utterly consumed with fire, in token that sin is loathsome in the sight of God and must be put away from His Presence. Even thus did our Lord suffer outside the gate and cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” “Christ, also, has once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”
All this was absolutely necessary to a Jubilee. Without Atonement, no rejoicing! Before there can be acceptance for a single sinner, sin must be laid on Jesus and carried away. The blood of Jesus must be shed and must be presented within the veil, for “without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” There can be no pardon or acceptance for any man living under Heaven in any way but by the bloody sacrifice which our Redeemer offered when He bowed His head and gave up the ghost on Calvary. This great Truth of God we must never becloud, nor ever cease to publish so long as we have a tongue to move.
The Connection of Vengeance and Acceptance
The day of vengeance, then, is intimately connected with the year of acceptance. And mark, Beloved, they must be so connected experimentally in the heart of all God’s people by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, for whenever Christ comes to make us live, the Law comes, first, to kill us. There is no healing without previous wounding. Depend upon it, there never will be a sense of acceptance in any man until he has first had a sense of the just and righteous vengeance of God against his sins.
Have you noticed that remarkable parallel to our text in the 35th Chapter of Isaiah where salvation and vengeance are so closely joined? There we read in the 3rd verse and onward— “Strengthen you the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.”
O poor trembling convicted Sinner, God has come with vengeance to you, but His intent is to save you! Every soul that is saved must feel that wrath is deserved and that the death penalty is due on account of sin. When this is known and felt, acceptance by faith will follow. There must be a death blow struck at all self-sufficiency and self-righteousness—and the man must be laid as dead at the feet of Christ before he will look up and find life and healing in the great atoning Sacrifice!
When our Lord puts on the helmet of salvation, He also girds about Him the garments of vengeance—and we must see Him in all His array. (See Isaiah 59:17). The day of vengeance is a necessary companion to the year of acceptance—have they gone together in your experience?
III. I wish Time would occasionally stay his rapid flight, or at least allow us to pluck a feather from his wing while we contemplate such a subject as this! But I must close with the third head, namely the comfort for mourners derivable from both these things. “To comfort all that mourn.” Now, I have no hope of interesting, much less of doing any good, to any in this House of Prayer who do not come under the description of mourners. The sower’s duty is to sow the seed everywhere, but he knows within himself that it will take no root anywhere except where the plow has been first at work. If the Lord has made you a mourner, then the blessed subject of this morning will comfort you! But the Lord never comforts those who do not need comfort. If you can save yourself, go and do it! If you are righteous, “He that is righteous let him be righteous still.” I say it in sarcasm, as you perceive, for you cannot save yourself, nor are you righteous! But if you think so, go your way and try it—vainly try it, for surely when you have fanned your best works into a flame and have walked by the light of the sparks of the fire which you have kindled, you shall have this at the Lord’s hands—you shall lie down in sorrow and be astonished that you were ever so mad as to dream of self-salvation or of justification by your own works!
The Comfort of the Gospel
But oh, you mourners, what joy is here! Joy because this is the year of acceptance and in the year of acceptance, or Jubilee, men were set free and their lands were restored without money! No man ever paid a penny of redemption money on the Jubilee morning—every man was free simply because Jubilee was proclaimed. No merit was demanded, no demur was offered, no delay allowed, no dispute permitted. Jubilee came and the bondman was free!
And now, today, whoever believes in Jesus is saved, pardoned, freed—without money, without merit, without preparation—simply because he believes and God declares that he that believes is justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the Law of Moses. Do you believe? Then you are of the house of Israel and you have God’s guarantee for it—you are free! Rejoice in your liberty! Surely this is sweet comfort for all that mourn! Look not for any marks and evidences, signs and tokens. Look not for any merits or attainments. Look not for any progress in Grace or advancement in piety as a ground of salvation—listen only to the proclamation of the Gospel—and accept the Divine decree which ordains a Jubilee. If you are of the chosen seed, you believe in Jesus and then for you it is an accepted year. Come, bring here your griefs and sorrows and leave them at the Cross, for the Lord accepts you and who shall tell you no?
The Final Comfort
An equal note of joy, however, rings out from the other sentence concerning the day of vengeance. If the day of vengeance took place when our Lord died, then it is over! The day of vengeance was past and gone 1,800 years ago and more— “Now no more His wrath we dread, Vengeance smote our Surety’s head. Legal claims are fully met, Jesus paid the dreadful debt.”
My Heart, do you bleed for sin and mourn because of it? Be it so. But it has ceased to be, for Christ made an end of it when He took it up to His Cross and bore it there in His own body on the tree! O Believer, are you bowed down and troubled on account of past sin? It is right you should repent, but remember, your past sins exist no more! The pen is drawn through them and they are canceled, for the day of vengeance is over! God will not, twice, take vengeance for the same sins. Either the Atonement which Jesus offered was enough, or it was not. If it was not, then woe be to us, for we shall die! But if it were sufficient—if, “It is finished,” was not a lie but a Truth of God—then He has “finished transgression and made an end of sin.” The sin of the Believer is annihilated and abolished and can never be laid to his charge. Let us rejoice that the day of vengeance is over and the year of acceptance has begun!
In another sense, however, it may be that some are mourning because of the temptations of Satan. Here, too, they may be comforted, for Jesus has come to take vengeance on the Evil One. The God of Peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. Are you afraid of dying? Behold, Christ has taken revenge on Death, for He bids you cry, because of His resurrection, “O Death, where is your sting? O Grave, where is your victory?” Are we mourning, today, because our dear ones are not converted? It is a good thing to mourn on that account, but let us take comfort, for this is an acceptable year! Let us pray for them and the Lord will save them. Are we mourning because sin is rampant in the world? Let us rejoice, for our Lord has broken the dragon’s head and the day of vengeance must come when the Lord will overthrow the powers of darkness. Have we been looking with mournful spirit upon old Rome, the Muslim imposters and the power of Buddhism and Brahmanism and other ancient idolatries? Let us be glad! Behold the Avenger comes! He comes a second time and comes conquering and to conquer! Then shall the day of His vengeance be in His heart and the year of His redeemed shall come. From the seven hills, the deceiver shall be torn, no more to curse the sons of men with his pretensions to be the vicar of God! In blackest night shall set forever the crescent of Mohammed which already wanes—its baleful light shall no more afflict unhappy nations. Then shall fall the gods of the Hindus and the Chinese, broken like potters’ vessels by the rod of iron which Jesus wields! At His appearing the whole earth shall acknowledge that He, who was “despised and rejected of men,” is “King of kings and Lord of lords.” Behold, the day comes quickly, let all that mourn be comforted! The day of vengeance, the full year of the millennial glory, the day of the overthrow of error, the year of the acceptance of creation in all her former beauty—the age when God shall be All in All—is near at hand! Come quickly, O Lord! Amen.