THE PEOPLE’S CHRIST – Charles Spurgeon

THE PEOPLE’S CHRIST

“I have exalted one chosen out of the people.” Psalm 89:19. ORIGINALLY, I have no doubt, these words referred to David. He was chosen out of the people. His lineage was respectable, but not illustrious. His family was holy, but not exalted—the names of Jesse, Obed, Boaz and Ruth awoke no royal recollections and stirred up no remembrances of ancient nobility or glorious pedigree. As for himself, his only occupation had been that of a shepherd boy, carrying lambs in his bosom, or gently leading the ewes great with young—a simple youth of a right royal soul and undaunted courage, but yet a plebeian—one of the people. But this was no disqualification for the crown of Judah. In God’s eyes the extraction of the young hero was no barrier to his mounting the throne of the holy nation, nor shall the proudest admirer of descent and lineage dare to insinuate a word against the valor, wisdom and the justice of the government of this monarch of the people! We do not believe that Israel or Judah ever had a better ruler than David and we are bold to affirm that the reign of the man “chosen out of the people” outshines in glory the reigns of high-bred emperors and princes with the blood of a score of kings running in their veins! Yes, more—we will assert that the humility of his birth and education, so far from making him incompetent to rule, rendered him, in a great degree, more fit for his office and able to discharge its mighty duties. He could legislate for the many, for he was one of themselves—he could rule the people as the people should be ruled, for he was “bone of their bone” and “flesh of their flesh”—their friend, their brother, as well as their king! However, in this sermon we shall not speak of David, but of the Lord Jesus Christ, for David, as referred to in the text, is an eminent type of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who was chosen out of the people. Jesus is He of whom His Father can say, “I have exalted one chosen out of the people.” Before I enter into the illustration of this truth I wish to make one statement, so that all objections may be avoided as to the doctrine of my sermon. Our Savior Jesus Christ, I say, was chosen out of the people—but this merely respects His Manhood. As “very God of very God” He was not chosen out of the people—for there was none except Him! He was His Father’s only-begotten Son, “begotten of the Father before all worlds.” He was God’s Fellow, co-equal and co-eternal—consequently when we speak of Jesus as being chosen out of the people, we must speak of Him as a Man. We are, I conceive, too forgetful of the real Manhood of our Redeemer, for a Man He was to all intents and purposes—and I love to sing— “A Man there was, a real Man Who once on Calvary died.” He was not Man and God amalgamated—the two natures suffered no confusion—He was very God without the diminution of His essence or attributes. And He was equally, verily and truly, Man. It is as a Man I speak of Jesus this morning! And it rejoices my heart when I can view the human side of that glorious miracle of incarnation and can deal with Jesus Christ as my brother—inhabitant of the same mortality, wrestler with the same pains and ills, companion in the march of life and, for a little while, a fellow- sleeper in the cold chamber of death! There are three things spoken of in the text—first of all, Christ’s extraction—He was one of the people. Secondly, His election—He was chosen out of the people. And thirdly, Christ’s exaltation—He was exalted. You see I have chosen three words all commencing with the letter E, to ease your memories that you may be able to remember them the better—extraction, election, exaltation! I.

We will commence with our Savior’s EXTRACTION. We have had many complaints this week and for some weeks past, in the newspapers concerning the families. We are governed—and, according to the firm belief of a great many of us, very badly governed—by certain aristocratic families. We are 2 2 not governed by men chosen out of the people, as we ought to be. And this is a fundamental wrong in our government—that our rulers, even when elected by us, can scarcely ever be elected from us. Families, where certainly there is not a monopoly of intelligence or prudence, seem to have a patent for promotion. While a man—a commoner, a tradesman, of however good sense—cannot rise to the government. I am no politician and I am about to preach no political sermon. But I must express my sympathy with the people and my joy that we, as Christians, are governed by “one chosen out of the people.” Jesus Christ is the people’s Man! He is the people’s friend—yes, one of themselves. Though He sits high on His Father’s throne, He was “one chosen out of the people.” Christ is not to be called the aristocrat’s Christ. He is not the noble’s Christ. He is not the king’s Christ. But He is “one chosen out of the people.” It is this thought which cheers the hearts of the people and ought to bind their souls in unity to Christ and the holy religion of which He is the Author and Finisher. Let us now beat out this wedge of gold into leaf and narrowly inspect its truthfulness! Christ, by His very birth was one of the people. True, He was born of a royal ancestry. Mary and Joseph were both of them descendants of a kingly race but the glory had departed. A stranger sat on the throne of Judah, while the lawful heir grasped the hammer and the axe. Mark you well the place of His nativity. Born in a stable—cradled in a manger where the horned oxen fed—His only bed was their fodder and His slumbers were often broken by their longings. He might be a Prince by birth—but certainly He had not a princely retinue to wait upon Him! He was not clad in purple garments, neither wrapped in embroidered clothing. The halls of kings were not trod by His feet. The marble palaces of monarchs were not honored by His Infant smiles. Take notice of the visitors who came around His cradle. The shepherds came, first of all. We never find that they lost their way. No, God guides the shepherds and He did direct the wise men, too, but they lost their way. It often happens, that while shepherds find Christ, wise men miss Him. However, both of them came, the magi and the shepherds—both knelt round that manger, to show us that Christ was the Christ of all men—that He was not merely the Christ of the magi, but that He was the Christ of the shepherds. They showed us that He was not merely the Savior of the peasant shepherd, but also the Savior of the learned, for— “None are excluded hence, but those Who do themselves exclude. Welcome the learned and polite, The ignorant and rude.” In His very birth He was one of the people. He was not born in a populous city—but in the obscure village of Bethlehem, “the house of bread.” The Son of Man made His advent, unushered by pompous preparations and unheralded by the blast of courtly trumpets! His education, too, demands our attention. He was not taken as Moses was, from his mother’s breast, to be educated in the halls of a monarch. He was not brought up with all those affected airs which are given to persons who have golden spoons in their mouths at their births. He was not brought up as the lordling, to look with disdain on everyone. His father, being a carpenter, doubtless He toiled in His father’s workshop. “Fit place,” a quaint author says, “for Jesus. For He had to make a ladder that would reach from earth to heaven! And why should He not be the son of a carpenter?” Full well He knew the curse of Adam—“in the sweat of your face shall you eat bread.” Had you seen the Holy child Jesus, you would have beheld nothing to distinguish Him from other children, save that unsullied purity which rested in His very countenance. When our Lord entered into public life, still He was the same. What was His rank? Did He array Himself in scarlet and purple? Oh, no—He wore the simple garb of a peasant—that robe “without seam the top to the bottom,” one simple piece of stuff, without ornament or embroidery. Did He dwell in state and make a magnificent show in His journey through Judea? No. He toiled His weary way and sat down on the well of Sychar. He was like others, a poor Man. He had not courtiers around Him. He had fishermen for His companions. And when He spoke, did He speak with smooth and oily words? Did He walk with dainty footsteps, like the king of Amalek? No. He often spoke like the rough Elijah. He spoke what He meant and He meant what He said. He spoke to the people as the people’s Man. He never cringed before great men. He knew not what it was to bow or stoop.

He stood and cried, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Woe unto you, whitewashed sepulchers.” He Sermon #11 The People’s Christ Volume 1 www.spurgeongems.org 3 3 spared no class of sinners—rank and fortune made no difference to Him. He uttered the same truths to the rich men of the Sanhedrin, as to the toiling peasants of Galilee. He was “one of the people.” Notice His doctrine. Jesus Christ was one of the people in His doctrine. His gospel was never the philosopher’s gospel, for it is not abstruse enough. It will not consent to be buried in hard words and technical phrases—it is so simple that He who can spell over, “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved,” may have a saving knowledge of it! Hence, worldly-wise men scorn the science of truth and sneeringly say, “Why, even a blacksmith can preach now-a-days and men who were at the plow tail may turn preachers.” And priestcraft demands, “What right have they to do any such thing, unauthorized by us?” Oh, sad case, that gospel truth should be slighted because of its plainness, and that my Master should be despised because He will not be exclusive—will not be monopolized by men of talent and erudition! Jesus is the ignorant man’s Christ as much as the learned man’s Christ, for He has chosen “the base things of the world and the things that are despised.” Ah, much as I love true science and real education, I mourn and grieve that our ministers are so much diluting the word of God with philosophy— desiring to be intellectual preachers, delivering model sermons. Their sermons are well fitted for a room full of college students and professors of theology, but of no use to the masses—being destitute of simplicity, warmth, earnestness, or even solid gospel matter! I fear our college training is but a poor gain to our churches, since it often serves to wean the young man’s sympathies from the people and wed them to the few of the intellectual and wealthy of the church. It is good to be a fellow citizen in the republic of letters but better far to be an able minister of the kingdom of heaven! It is good to be able, like some great minds, to attract the mighty. But the more useful man will still be he, who, like Whitefield, uses “market language.” It is a sad fact that high places and the gospel seldom well agree. And, moreover, be it known that the doctrine of Christ is the doctrine of the people. It was not meant to be the gospel of a caste, a clique, or any one class of the community! The covenant of grace is not ordered for men of one peculiar grade, but some of all sorts are included. There were a few of the rich who followed Jesus in His own day and it is so now. Mary, Martha and Lazarus were well-to-do and there was the wife of Herod’s steward, with some more of the nobility. These, however, were but a few—His congregation was made up of the lower orders—the masses—the multitude. “The common people heard Him gladly.” And His doctrine was one which did not allow for distinction, but put all men as sinners, naturally, on an equality in the sight of God! One is your Father, “one is your Master, even Christ and all you are brothers and Sisters.” These were words which He taught to His disciples, while in His own person. He was the mirror of humility and proved Himself the friend of earth’s poor sons and the lover of mankind. O you purse proud! O you who cannot touch the poor even with your white gloves! Ah, you with your miters and your staffs! Ah, you with your cathedrals and splendid ornaments! This is the Man whom you call Master—the people’s Christ—one of the people! And yet you look down with scorn upon the people—you despise them! What are they in your opinion? The common herd—the multitude. Out with you! Call yourselves no more the ministers of Christ! How can you be, unless, descending from your pomp and your dignity, you come among the poor and visit them? Unless you walk among our teeming population, and preach to them the gospel of Christ Jesus? We believe you to be the descendants of the fishermen? Ah, not until you remove your grandeur and, like the fishermen, come out—the people’s men and preach to the people— speak to the people, instead of lolling on your splendid seats and making yourselves rich at the expense of your pluralities! Christ’s ministers should be the friends of manhood at large, remembering that their Master was the people’s Christ. Rejoice! O rejoice! You multitudes, rejoice! rejoice! for Christ was one of the people! II. Our second point was ELECTION. God says, “I have exalted one chosen out of the people.” Jesus Christ was elected—chosen. Somehow or other, that ugly doctrine of election will come out. Oh, there are some, the moment they hear that word, election, put their hands upon their foreheads and mutter, “I will wait till that sentence is over, there will be something I shall like better, perhaps.” Some others say, “I shall not go to that place again! The man is a hyper-Calvinist.” But the man is not a hyper- Calvinist—the man said what was in his Bible—that is all. He is a Christian and you have no right to call him by those ill-names, if indeed an ill-name it is, for we never blush at whatever men call us. 4 4 Here it is—“one chosen out of the people.” Now, what does that mean, but that Jesus Christ is chosen? Those who do not like to believe that the heirs of heaven were elect cannot deny the truth proclaimed in this verse—that Jesus Christ is the subject of election—that His Father chose Him and that He chose Him out of the people! As a Man He was chosen out of the people—to be the people’s Savior and the people’s Christ! And now let us gather up our thoughts and try to discover the transcendent wisdom of God’s choice. Election is no blind thing.

God sovereignly chooses but He always chooses wisely. There is always some secret reason for His choice of any particular individual—though that motive does not lie in us, or in our own merits—yet there is always some secret cause far more remote than the doings of the creature. Some mighty reason unknown to all but Him. In the case of Jesus the motives are apparent. And without pretending to enter the cabinet council of Jehovah, we may discover them. 1. First, we see that justice is thereby fully satisfied by the choice of one out of the people. Suppose God had chosen an angel to make satisfaction for our sins—imagine that an angel were capable of bearing that vast amount of suffering and agony which was necessary to our atonement! Yet after the angel had done it all, justice would never have been satisfied, for this one simple reason—that the law declares, “The soul that sins IT shall die.” Now, man sins and therefore man must die! Justice required that as by man came death, by man also should come the resurrection and the life. The law required, that as man was the sinner, man should be the victim—that as in Adam all died, even so in another Adam should all be made alive. Consequently it was necessary that Jesus Christ should be chosen out of the people. For had yon blazing angel near the throne, that lofty Gabriel, laid aside his splendors, descended to our earth, endured pain, suffered agonies, entered the vault of death and groaned out a miserable existence in an extremity of woe—after all that—he would not have satisfied inflexible justice, because it is said, a man must die and otherwise the sentence is not executed! 2. But there is another reason why Jesus Christ was chosen out of the people. It is because thereby the whole race receives honor. Do you know I would not be an angel if Gabriel would ask me? If he would beseech me to exchange places with him, I would not. I would lose so much by the exchange and he would gain so much. Poor, weak and worthless though I am, yet I am a man—and being a man there is a dignity about manhood—a dignity lost one day in the garden of the Fall but regained in the garden of Resurrection! It is a fact that a man is greater than an angel—that in heaven humanity stands nearer the throne than angelic existence! You will read in the Book of Revelation that the 24 elders stood around the throne and in the outer circle stood the angels. The elders, who are the representatives of the whole Church, were honored with a greater nearness to God than the ministering spirits. Why man— elect man—is the greatest being in the universe, except God! Man sits up there; look! At God’s right hand—radiant with glory—there sits a MAN! Ask me who governs Providence and directs its awfully mysterious machinery. I tell you it is a Man—the Man Christ Jesus! Ask me who has, during the past month, bound up the rivers in chains of ice and who now has loosed them from the shackles of winter. I tell you a Man did it—Christ! Ask me who shall come to judge the earth in righteousness and I say a Man. A real, veritable Man is to hold the scales of judgment and to call all nations around Him. And who is the channel of grace? Who is the emporium of all the Father’s mercy? Who is the great gathering up of all the love of the covenant? I reply a Man—the Man Christ Jesus! And Christ, being a Man, has exalted you and exalted me and put us into the highest ranks. He made us, originally, a little lower than the angels and now despite our fall in Adam, He has crowned us, His elect, with glory and honor! And He has set us at His right hand in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. 3. But, my brethren, let us take a sweeter view than that. Why was He chosen out of the people? Speak my heart! What is the first reason that rushes up to you? For heart-thoughts are best thoughts. Thoughts from the head are often good for nothing but thoughts of the heart, deep musings of the soul; these are priceless as pearls of Ormuz! If it is a humbler poet, provided that his songs gush from his heart, they shall better strike the cords of my soul than the lifeless emanations of a mere brain. Here, Christian—what do you think is the sweet reason for the election of your Lord, He being one of the people? Was it not this—that He might be able to be my brother, in the blest tie of kindred blood? Oh, what relationship there is between Christ and the believer! The believer can say— Sermon #11 The People’s Christ Volume 1 www.spurgeongems.org 5 5 “One there is above all others Well deserves the name of friend— His is love beyond a brother’s Faithful, free and knows no end.” I have a great brother in heaven. I have heard boys say sometimes in the street that they would tell their brother and I have often said so when the enemy has attacked me—“I will tell my brother in heaven.”

THE PEOPLE’S CHRIST

“I have exalted one chosen out of the people.” Psalm 89:19.

Introduction: David as a Type of Christ

ORIGINALLY, I have no doubt, these words referred to David. He was chosen out of the people. His lineage was respectable, but not illustrious. His family was holy, but not exalted—the names of Jesse, Obed, Boaz, and Ruth awoke no royal recollections and stirred up no remembrances of ancient nobility or glorious pedigree. As for himself, his only occupation had been that of a shepherd boy, carrying lambs in his bosom, or gently leading the ewes great with young—a simple youth of a right royal soul and undaunted courage, but yet a plebeian—one of the people. But this was no disqualification for the crown of Judah. In God’s eyes, the extraction of the young hero was no barrier to his mounting the throne of the holy nation, nor shall the proudest admirer of descent and lineage dare to insinuate a word against the valor, wisdom, and the justice of the government of this monarch of the people! We do not believe that Israel or Judah ever had a better ruler than David, and we are bold to affirm that the reign of the man “chosen out of the people” outshines in glory the reigns of high-bred emperors and princes with the blood of a score of kings running in their veins! Yes, more—we will assert that the humility of his birth and education, so far from making him incompetent to rule, rendered him, in a great degree, more fit for his office and able to discharge its mighty duties. He could legislate for the many, for he was one of themselves—he could rule the people as the people should be ruled, for he was “bone of their bone” and “flesh of their flesh”—their friend, their brother, as well as their king! However, in this sermon, we shall not speak of David, but of the Lord Jesus Christ, for David, as referred to in the text, is an eminent type of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who was chosen out of the people. Jesus is He of whom His Father can say, “I have exalted one chosen out of the people.” Before I enter into the illustration of this truth, I wish to make one statement, so that all objections may be avoided as to the doctrine of my sermon. Our Savior Jesus Christ, I say, was chosen out of the people—but this merely respects His Manhood. As “very God of very God” He was not chosen out of the people—for there was none except Him! He was His Father’s only-begotten Son, “begotten of the Father before all worlds.” He was God’s Fellow, co-equal and co-eternal—consequently, when we speak of Jesus as being chosen out of the people, we must speak of Him as a Man. We are, I conceive, too forgetful of the real Manhood of our Redeemer, for a Man He was to all intents and purposes—and I love to sing—

“A Man there was, a real Man
Who once on Calvary died.”

He was not Man and God amalgamated—the two natures suffered no confusion—He was very God without the diminution of His essence or attributes. And He was equally, verily and truly, Man. It is as a Man I speak of Jesus this morning! And it rejoices my heart when I can view the human side of that glorious miracle of incarnation and can deal with Jesus Christ as my brother—inhabitant of the same mortality, wrestler with the same pains and ills, companion in the march of life and, for a little while, a fellow-sleeper in the cold chamber of death! There are three things spoken of in the text—first of all, Christ’s extraction—He was one of the people. Secondly, His election—He was chosen out of the people. And thirdly, Christ’s exaltation—He was exalted. You see I have chosen three words all commencing with the letter E, to ease your memories that you may be able to remember them the better—extraction, election, exaltation!

I. Christ’s Extraction

We will commence with our Savior’s EXTRACTION. We have had many complaints this week and for some weeks past, in the newspapers concerning the families. We are governed—and, according to the firm belief of a great many of us, very badly governed—by certain aristocratic families. We are not governed by men chosen out of the people, as we ought to be. And this is a fundamental wrong in our government—that our rulers, even when elected by us, can scarcely ever be elected from us. Families, where certainly there is not a monopoly of intelligence or prudence, seem to have a patent for promotion. While a man—a commoner, a tradesman, of however good sense—cannot rise to the government. I am no politician and I am about to preach no political sermon. But I must express my sympathy with the people and my joy that we, as Christians, are governed by “one chosen out of the people.” Jesus Christ is the people’s Man! He is the people’s friend—yes, one of themselves. Though He sits high on His Father’s throne, He was “one chosen out of the people.” Christ is not to be called the aristocrat’s Christ. He is not the noble’s Christ. He is not the king’s Christ. But He is “one chosen out of the people.” It is this thought which cheers the hearts of the people and ought to bind their souls in unity to Christ and the holy religion of which He is the Author and Finisher. Let us now beat out this wedge of gold into leaf and narrowly inspect its truthfulness! Christ, by His very birth was one of the people. True, He was born of a royal ancestry. Mary and Joseph were both of them descendants of a kingly race but the glory had departed. A stranger sat on the throne of Judah, while the lawful heir grasped the hammer and the axe. Mark you well the place of His nativity. Born in a stable—cradled in a manger where the horned oxen fed—His only bed was their fodder and His slumbers were often broken by their longings. He might be a Prince by birth—but certainly He had not a princely retinue to wait upon Him! He was not clad in purple garments, neither wrapped in embroidered clothing. The halls of kings were not trod by His feet. The marble palaces of monarchs were not honored by His Infant smiles. Take notice of the visitors who came around His cradle. The shepherds came, first of all. We never find that they lost their way. No, God guides the shepherds and He did direct the wise men, too, but they lost their way. It often happens, that while shepherds find Christ, wise men miss Him. However, both of them came, the magi and the shepherds—both knelt round that manger, to show us that Christ was the Christ of all men—that He was not merely the Christ of the magi, but that He was the Christ of the shepherds. They showed us that He was not merely the Savior of the peasant shepherd, but also the Savior of the learned, for—

“None are excluded hence, but those
Who do themselves exclude.
Welcome the learned and polite,
The ignorant and rude.”

In His very birth He was one of the people. He was not born in a populous city—but in the obscure village of Bethlehem, “the house of bread.” The Son of Man made His advent, unushered by pompous preparations and unheralded by the blast of courtly trumpets! His education, too, demands our attention. He was not taken as Moses was, from his mother’s breast, to be educated in the halls of a monarch. He was not brought up with all those affected airs which are given to persons who have golden spoons in their mouths at their births. He was not brought up as the lordling, to look with disdain on everyone. His father, being a carpenter, doubtless He toiled in His father’s workshop. “Fit place,” a quaint author says, “for Jesus. For He had to make a ladder that would reach from earth to heaven! And why should He not be the son of a carpenter?” Full well He knew the curse of Adam—“in the sweat of your face shall you eat bread.” Had you seen the Holy child Jesus, you would have beheld nothing to distinguish Him from other children, save that unsullied purity which rested in His very countenance. When our Lord entered into public life, still He was the same. What was His rank? Did He array Himself in scarlet and purple? Oh, no—He wore the simple garb of a peasant—that robe “without seam the top to the bottom,” one simple piece of stuff, without ornament or embroidery. Did He dwell in state and make a magnificent show in His journey through Judea? No. He toiled His weary way and sat down on the well of Sychar. He was like others, a poor Man. He had not courtiers around Him. He had fishermen for His companions. And when He spoke, did He speak with smooth and oily words? Did He walk with dainty footsteps, like the king of Amalek? No. He often spoke like the rough Elijah. He spoke what He meant and He meant what He said. He spoke to the people as the people’s Man. He never cringed before great men. He knew not what it was to bow or stoop.

He stood and cried, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Woe unto you, whitewashed sepulchers.” He spared no class of sinners—rank and fortune made no difference to Him. He uttered the same truths to the rich men of the Sanhedrin, as to the toiling peasants of Galilee. He was “one of the people.” Notice His doctrine. Jesus Christ was one of the people in His doctrine. His gospel was never the philosopher’s gospel, for it is not abstruse enough. It will not consent to be buried in hard words and technical phrases—it is so simple that He who can spell over, “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved,” may have a saving knowledge of it! Hence, worldly-wise men scorn the science of truth and sneeringly say, “Why, even a blacksmith can preach now-a-days and men who were at the plow tail may turn preachers.” And priestcraft demands, “What right have they to do any such thing, unauthorized by us?” Oh, sad case, that gospel truth should be slighted because of its plainness, and that my Master should be despised because He will not be exclusive—will not be monopolized by men of talent and erudition! Jesus is the ignorant man’s Christ as much as the learned man’s Christ, for He has chosen “the base things of the world and the things that are despised.” Ah, much as I love true science and real education, I mourn and grieve that our ministers are so much diluting the word of God with philosophy—desiring to be intellectual preachers, delivering model sermons. Their sermons are well fitted for a room full of college students and professors of theology, but of no use to the masses—being destitute of simplicity, warmth, earnestness, or even solid gospel matter! I fear our college training is but a poor gain to our churches, since it often serves to wean the young man’s sympathies from the people and wed them to the few of the intellectual and wealthy of the church. It is good to be a fellow citizen in the republic of letters but better far to be an able minister of the kingdom of heaven! It is good to be able, like some great minds, to attract the mighty. But the more useful man will still be he, who, like Whitefield, uses “market language.” It is a sad fact that high places and the gospel seldom well agree. And, moreover, be it known that the doctrine of Christ is the doctrine of the people. It was not meant to be the gospel of a caste, a clique, or any one class of the community! The covenant of grace is not ordered for men of one peculiar grade, but some of all sorts are included. There were a few of the rich who followed Jesus in His own day and it is so now. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were well-to-do and there was the wife of Herod’s steward, with some more of the nobility. These, however, were but a few—His congregation was made up of the lower orders—the masses—the multitude. “The common people heard Him gladly.” And His doctrine was one which did not allow for distinction, but put all men as sinners, naturally, on an equality in the sight of God! One is your Father, “one is your Master, even Christ and all you are brothers and Sisters.” These were words which He taught to His disciples, while in His own person. He was the mirror of humility and proved Himself the friend of earth’s poor sons and the lover of mankind. O you purse-proud! O you who cannot touch the poor even with your white gloves! Ah, you with your miters and your staffs! Ah, you with your cathedrals and splendid ornaments! This is the Man whom you call Master—the people’s Christ—one of the people! And yet you look down with scorn upon the people—you despise them! What are they in your opinion? The common herd—the multitude. Out with you! Call yourselves no more the ministers of Christ! How can you be, unless, descending from your pomp and your dignity, you come among the poor and visit them? Unless you walk among our teeming population, and preach to them the gospel of Christ Jesus? We believe you to be the descendants of the fishermen? Ah, not until you remove your grandeur and, like the fishermen, come out—the people’s men and preach to the people—speak to the people, instead of lolling on your splendid seats and making yourselves rich at the expense of your pluralities! Christ’s ministers should be the friends of manhood at large, remembering that their Master was the people’s Christ. Rejoice! O rejoice! You multitudes, rejoice! rejoice! for Christ was one of the people!

II. Christ’s Election

Our second point was ELECTION. God says, “I have exalted one chosen out of the people.” Jesus Christ was elected—chosen. Somehow or other, that ugly doctrine of election will come out. Oh, there are some, the moment they hear that word, election, put their hands upon their foreheads and mutter, “I will wait till that sentence is over, there will be something I shall like better, perhaps.” Some others say, “I shall not go to that place again! The man is a hyper-Calvinist.” But the man is not a hyper-Calvinist—the man said what was in his Bible—that is all. He is a Christian and you have no right to call him by those ill-names, if indeed an ill-name it is, for we never blush at whatever men call us. Here it is—“one chosen out of the people.” Now, what does that mean, but that Jesus Christ is chosen? Those who do not like to believe that the heirs of heaven were elect cannot deny the truth proclaimed in this verse—that Jesus Christ is the subject of election—that His Father chose Him and that He chose Him out of the people! As a Man He was chosen out of the people—to be the people’s Savior and the people’s Christ! And now let us gather up our thoughts and try to discover the transcendent wisdom of God’s choice. Election is no blind thing.

God sovereignly chooses but He always chooses wisely. There is always some secret reason for His choice of any particular individual—though that motive does not lie in us, or in our own merits—yet there is always some secret cause far more remote than the doings of the creature. Some mighty reason unknown to all but Him. In the case of Jesus the motives are apparent. And without pretending to enter the cabinet council of Jehovah, we may discover them.

1. First, we see that justice is thereby fully satisfied by the choice of one out of the people. Suppose God had chosen an angel to make satisfaction for our sins—imagine that an angel were capable of bearing that vast amount of suffering and agony which was necessary to our atonement! Yet after the angel had done it all, justice would never have been satisfied, for this one simple reason—that the law declares, “The soul that sins IT shall die.” Now, man sins and therefore man must die! Justice required that as by man came death, by man also should come the resurrection and the life. The law required, that as man was the sinner, man should be the victim—that as in Adam all died, even so in another Adam should all be made alive. Consequently it was necessary that Jesus Christ should be chosen out of the people. For had yon blazing angel near the throne, that lofty Gabriel, laid aside his splendors, descended to our earth, endured pain, suffered agonies, entered the vault of death and groaned out a miserable existence in an extremity of woe—after all that—he would not have satisfied inflexible justice, because it is said, a man must die and otherwise the sentence is not executed!

2. But there is another reason why Jesus Christ was chosen out of the people. It is because thereby the whole race receives honor. Do you know I would not be an angel if Gabriel would ask me? If he would beseech me to exchange places with him, I would not. I would lose so much by the exchange and he would gain so much. Poor, weak and worthless though I am, yet I am a man—and being a man there is a dignity about manhood—a dignity lost one day in the Garden of the Fall but regained in the garden of Resurrection! It is a fact that a man is greater than an angel—that in heaven humanity stands nearer the throne than angelic existence! You will read in the Book of Revelation that the 24 elders stood around the throne and in the outer circle stood the angels. The elders, who are the representatives of the whole Church, were honored with a greater nearness to God than the ministering spirits. Why man—elect man—is the greatest being in the universe, except God! Man sits up there; look! At God’s right hand—radiant with glory—there sits a MAN! Ask me who governs Providence and directs its awfully mysterious machinery. I tell you it is a Man—the Man Christ Jesus! Ask me who has, during the past month, bound up the rivers in chains of ice and who now has loosed them from the shackles of winter. I tell you a Man did it—Christ! Ask me who shall come to judge the earth in righteousness and I say a Man. A real, veritable Man is to hold the scales of judgment and to call all nations around Him. And who is the channel of grace? Who is the emporium of all the Father’s mercy? Who is the great gathering up of all the love of the covenant? I reply a Man—the Man Christ Jesus! And Christ, being a Man, has exalted you and exalted me and put us into the highest ranks. He made us, originally, a little lower than the angels and now despite our fall in Adam, He has crowned us, His elect, with glory and honor! And He has set us at His right hand in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus.

3. But, my brethren, let us take a sweeter view than that. Why was He chosen out of the people? Speak my heart! What is the first reason that rushes up to you? For heart-thoughts are best thoughts. Thoughts from the head are often good for nothing but thoughts of the heart, deep musings of the soul; these are priceless as pearls of Ormuz! If it is a humbler poet, provided that his songs gush from his heart, they shall better strike the cords of my soul than the lifeless emanations of a mere brain. Here, Christian—what do you think is the sweet reason for the election of your Lord, He being one of the people? Was it not this—that He might be able to be my brother, in the blest tie of kindred blood? Oh, what relationship there is between Christ and the believer! The believer can say—

“One there is above all others
Well deserves the name of friend—
His is love beyond a brother’s
Faithful, free and knows no end.”

I have a great brother in heaven. I have heard boys say sometimes in the street that they would tell their brother and I have often said so when the enemy has attacked me—“I will tell my brother in heaven.”

“I have exalted one chosen out of the people.” Psalm 89:19.

ORIGINALLY, I have no doubt, these words referred to David. He was chosen out of the people. His lineage was respectable, but not illustrious. His family was holy, but not exalted—the names of Jesse, Obed, Boaz, and Ruth awoke no royal recollections and stirred up no remembrances of ancient nobility or glorious pedigree. As for himself, his only occupation had been that of a shepherd boy, carrying lambs in his bosom, or gently leading the ewes great with young—a simple youth of a right royal soul and undaunted courage, but yet a plebeian—one of the people. But this was no disqualification for the crown of Judah. In God’s eyes, the extraction of the young hero was no barrier to his mounting the throne of the holy nation, nor shall the proudest admirer of descent and lineage dare to insinuate a word against the valor, wisdom, and the justice of the government of this monarch of the people! We do not believe that Israel or Judah ever had a better ruler than David, and we are bold to affirm that the reign of the man “chosen out of the people” outshines in glory the reigns of high-bred emperors and princes with the blood of a score of kings running in their veins! Yes, more—we will assert that the humility of his birth and education, so far from making him incompetent to rule, rendered him, in a great degree, more fit for his office and able to discharge its mighty duties. He could legislate for the many, for he was one of themselves—he could rule the people as the people should be ruled, for he was “bone of their bone” and “flesh of their flesh”—their friend, their brother, as well as their king! However, in this sermon, we shall not speak of David, but of the Lord Jesus Christ, for David, as referred to in the text, is an eminent type of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who was chosen out of the people. Jesus is He of whom His Father can say, “I have exalted one chosen out of the people.”

Before I enter into the illustration of this truth, I wish to make one statement so that all objections may be avoided as to the doctrine of my sermon. Our Savior Jesus Christ, I say, was chosen out of the people—but this merely respects His Manhood. As “very God of very God” He was not chosen out of the people—for there was none except Him! He was His Father’s only-begotten Son, “begotten of the Father before all worlds.” He was God’s Fellow, co-equal and co-eternal—consequently when we speak of Jesus as being chosen out of the people, we must speak of Him as a Man. We are, I conceive, too forgetful of the real Manhood of our Redeemer, for a Man He was to all intents and purposes—and I love to sing— “A Man there was, a real Man Who once on Calvary died.” He was not Man and God amalgamated—the two natures suffered no confusion—He was very God without the diminution of His essence or attributes. And He was equally, verily and truly, Man. It is as a Man I speak of Jesus this morning! And it rejoices my heart when I can view the human side of that glorious miracle of incarnation and can deal with Jesus Christ as my brother—inhabitant of the same mortality, wrestler with the same pains and ills, companion in the march of life and, for a little while, a fellow-sleeper in the cold chamber of death!

There are three things spoken of in the text—first of all, Christ’s extraction—He was one of the people. Secondly, His election—He was chosen out of the people. And thirdly, Christ’s exaltation—He was exalted. You see I have chosen three words all commencing with the letter E, to ease your memories that you may be able to remember them the better—extraction, election, exaltation!

I. EXTRACTION

We will commence with our Savior’s EXTRACTION. We have had many complaints this week and for some weeks past, in the newspapers concerning the families. We are governed—and, according to the firm belief of a great many of us, very badly governed—by certain aristocratic families. We are not governed by men chosen out of the people, as we ought to be. And this is a fundamental wrong in our government—that our rulers, even when elected by us, can scarcely ever be elected from us. Families, where certainly there is not a monopoly of intelligence or prudence, seem to have a patent for promotion. While a man—a commoner, a tradesman, of however good sense—cannot rise to the government. I am no politician, and I am about to preach no political sermon. But I must express my sympathy with the people and my joy that we, as Christians, are governed by “one chosen out of the people.” Jesus Christ is the people’s Man! He is the people’s friend—yes, one of themselves. Though He sits high on His Father’s throne, He was “one chosen out of the people.” Christ is not to be called the aristocrat’s Christ. He is not the noble’s Christ. He is not the king’s Christ. But He is “one chosen out of the people.” It is this thought which cheers the hearts of the people and ought to bind their souls in unity to Christ and the holy religion of which He is the Author and Finisher. Let us now beat out this wedge of gold into leaf and narrowly inspect its truthfulness!

Christ, by His very birth, was one of the people. True, He was born of a royal ancestry. Mary and Joseph were both of them descendants of a kingly race but the glory had departed. A stranger sat on the throne of Judah, while the lawful heir grasped the hammer and the axe. Mark you well the place of His nativity. Born in a stable—cradled in a manger where the horned oxen fed—His only bed was their fodder and His slumbers were often broken by their longings. He might be a Prince by birth—but certainly, He had not a princely retinue to wait upon Him! He was not clad in purple garments, neither wrapped in embroidered clothing. The halls of kings were not trod by His feet. The marble palaces of monarchs were not honored by His Infant smiles.

Take notice of the visitors who came around His cradle. The shepherds came, first of all. We never find that they lost their way. No, God guides the shepherds and He did direct the wise men, too, but they lost their way. It often happens, that while shepherds find Christ, wise men miss Him. However, both of them came, the magi and the shepherds—both knelt round that manger, to show us that Christ was the Christ of all men—that He was not merely the Christ of the magi, but that He was the Christ of the shepherds. They showed us that He was not merely the Savior of the peasant shepherd, but also the Savior of the learned, for—

“None are excluded hence, but those
Who do themselves exclude.
Welcome the learned and polite,
The ignorant and rude.”

In His very birth, He was one of the people. He was not born in a populous city—but in the obscure village of Bethlehem, “the house of bread.” The Son of Man made His advent, unushered by pompous preparations and unheralded by the blast of courtly trumpets!

His education, too, demands our attention. He was not taken as Moses was, from his mother’s breast, to be educated in the halls of a monarch. He was not brought up with all those affected airs which are given to persons who have golden spoons in their mouths at their births. He was not brought up as the lordling, to look with disdain on everyone. His father, being a carpenter, doubtless He toiled in His father’s workshop. “Fit place,” a quaint author says, “for Jesus. For He had to make a ladder that would reach from earth to heaven! And why should He not be the son of a carpenter?” Full well He knew the curse of Adam—”in the sweat of your face shall you eat bread.”

Had you seen the Holy child Jesus, you would have beheld nothing to distinguish Him from other children, save that unsullied purity which rested in His very countenance. When our Lord entered into public life, still He was the same. What was His rank? Did He array Himself in scarlet and purple? Oh, no—He wore the simple garb of a peasant—that robe “without seam the top to the bottom,” one simple piece of stuff, without ornament or embroidery. Did He dwell in state and make a magnificent show in His journey through Judea? No. He toiled His weary way and sat down on the well of Sychar. He was like others, a poor Man. He had not courtiers around Him. He had fishermen for His companions. And when He spoke, did He speak with smooth and oily words? Did He walk with dainty footsteps, like the king of Amalek? No. He often spoke like the rough Elijah. He spoke what He meant and He meant what He said. He spoke to the people as the people’s Man. He never cringed before great men. He knew not what it was to bow or stoop.

Charles Spurgeon