MY REDEEMER LIVETH"
by Charles Spurgeon
 Continually
have I spoken to the reader concerning Christ crucified, who is the great
hope of the guilty; but it is our wisdom to remember that our Lord has
risen from the dead and lives eternally.
You
are not asked to trust in a dead Jesus, but in One who, though He died for
our sins, has risen again for our justification. You may go to Jesus at
once as to a living and present friend. He is not a mere memory, but a
continually existent Person who will hear your prayers and answer them. He
lives on purpose to carry on the work for which He once laid down His
life. He is interceding for sinners at the right hand of the Father, and
for this reason He is able to save them to the uttermost who come unto God
by Him. Come and try this living Saviour, if you have never done so
before.
This
living Jesus is also raised to an eminence of glory and power. He does not
now sorrow as "a humble man before his foes," nor labor as "the
carpenter's son"; but He is exalted far above principalities and power and
every name that is named. The Father has given Him all power in Heaven and
in earth, and he exercises this high endowment in carrying out His work of
grace. Hear what Peter and the other apostles testified concerning Him
before the high priest and the council:
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus,
whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right
hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and
forgiveness of sins (Acts 5:30, 31).
The
glory which surrounds the ascended Lord should breathe hope into every
believer's breast. Jesus is no mean person—He is "a Saviour and a great
one." He is the crowned and enthroned Redeemer of men. The sovereign
prerogative of life and death is vested in Him; the Father has put all men
under the mediatorial government of the Son, so that He can quicken whom
He will. He openeth, and no man shutteth. At His word the soul which is
bound by the cords of sin and condemnation can be unloosed in a moment. He
stretches out the silver scepter, and whosoever touches it lives.
It
is well for us that as sin lives, and the flesh lives, and the devil
lives, so Jesus lives; and it is also well that whatever might these may
have to ruin us, Jesus has still greater power to save us.
All
His exaltation and ability are on our account. "He is exalted to be," and
exalted "to give." He is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, that He may
give all that is needed to accomplish the salvation of all who come under
His rule. Jesus has nothing which He will not use for a sinner's
salvation, and He has nothing which He will not display in the aboundings
of His grace. He links His princedom with His Saviour-ship, as if He would
not have the one without the other; and He sets forth His exaltation as
designed to bring blessings to men, as if this were the flower and crown
of His glory. Could anything be more calculated to raise the hopes of
seeking sinners who are looking Christward?
Jesus
endured great humiliation, and therefore there was room for Him to be
exalted. By that humiliation He accomplished and endured all the Father's
will, and therefore He was rewarded by being raised to glory. He uses that
exaltation on behalf of His people. Let my reader raise his eyes to these
hills of glory, whence his help must come. Let him contemplate the high
glories of the Prince and Saviour. Is it not most hopeful for men that a
Man is now on the throne of the universe? Is it not glorious that the Lord
of all is the Saviour of sinners? We have a Friend at court; yea, a Friend
on the throne. He will use all His influence for those who entrust their
affairs in His hands. Well does one of our poets sing:
He ever lives to intercede
Before His Father's face;
Give Him, my
soul, Thy cause to plead,
No doubt the Father's grace.
Come,
friend, and commit your cause and your case to those once pierced hands,
which are now glorified with the signet rings of royal power and honor. No
suit ever failed which was left with this great Advocate.
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