The Cleansing of the Leper

Portraits Of Christ

Spurgeon explains that believers are predestinated to be conformed to Christ's image in three dimensions — in character (humility, diligent service, faithful love, and fervent prayer), in suffering (bearing the reproach and Cross that the world heaps on anyone who truly follows Christ, just as it heaped them on him), and ultimately in glory (for those who bear the image of the crucified will also bear the image of the crowned) — and he argues this is the truest form of imitation, not outward mimicry or cold morality, but an inward transformation of the essential spirit and character. He answers why believers should desire this conformity: it is what was lost in Eden and what Christ restores, it is the very goal of all God's predestinating purposes rather than merely Heaven itself, and it is already the instinctive cry of every regenerate heart — and he adds provocatively that this privilege of becoming like Christ is one even angels cannot share, making the suffering Christian more enviable than Gabriel in some sense. He closes by addressing the seeming impossibility of becoming like the spotless Christ, arguing that none of the three obstacles — the depravity of the material, the corrupting influence of the world, or the height of the ideal — can frustrate a God who decreed it, and that the very act of gazing on Christ in love and longing is itself the chief means by which the Spirit accomplishes the transformation, photographing his image on the soul of all who live in fellowship with him. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on January 13, 1861.

The Cleansing of the Leper

Spurgeon takes the Old Testament law of leprosy as a sustained picture of sin — showing the leper as loathsome in person (like sin's inner corruption), defiling in all his actions (like sin tainting everything the natural man does), shut out from society (like the sinner's alienation from God's people), and excluded from the sanctuary (like the unregenerate soul's distance from God) — and then traces the ceremony of cleansing, noting the great paradox: only the leper covered from head to foot, with no sound flesh remaining, was declared clean, while the one with any healthy patch was still unclean, which pictures the spiritual truth that only the sinner who has nothing to boast of and nothing left to trust but Christ's mercy is ready to receive salvation. He carefully explains that in the ceremony the leper was entirely passive while the priest did everything, typifying how Christ comes down to sinners, sheds his blood, and applies it to the conscience, and he argues that the basis of salvation is not the believer's feelings or realization of being saved but the actual death of Christ, just as a drowning man is saved by the lifeboat and not by his awareness that he is in it — so a sinner's only warrant is to know himself a sinner, since "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." He closes by noting that after the cleansing, the leper was then required to wash, shave, and bring offerings — illustrating that good works, holiness, and the full assurance of the Spirit are all after-fruits of salvation, which the cleansed sinner now pursues not to earn acceptance but in grateful response to a grace that has already fully accomplished everything. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on December 30, 1860.

A Blow at Self-Righteousness

Spurgeon attacks self-righteousness on three fronts: the plea is self-contradicting, since claiming to be without sin is itself a sin (making God a liar), and any claim to comparative righteousness is really a guilty plea in disguise, since a single sin makes one fully guilty before a God who demands a perfect and unblemished righteousness — just as one crack spoils a costly vase entirely. The self-righteous man condemns himself in his own conscience, since deep down every boaster knows his claims are false, as proven by the fact that pride requires noise to drown out conscience's verdict, and at the deathbed and certainly at the Last Judgment the grandest self-defense collapses into speechless horror before the face of God. He closes by showing that self-righteousness in any form — whether crude ("I deserve Heaven"), refined ("I'm better than most"), despairing ("I cannot come until I feel enough"), or even pious ("I trust my faith or my repentance") — is equally fatal, since the only ground of salvation is Christ himself, not any degree of human preparation, and the moment a sinner simply trusts Christ, that sinner stands before God as fully accepted as Christ himself, all sin having been laid on him and all righteousness freely given. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on December 16th, 1860.

Self-Sufficiency Slain

Spurgeon expounds "Without Me you can do nothing" in three directions: to the believer, insisting that this means absolutely nothing rather than merely "almost nothing," since even the smallest acts of grace, the first step of faith, and the daily maintenance of spiritual life all depend entirely on Christ — a truth supported by the unanimous praise of all Scripture's saints, the existence of promises for strength that would be unnecessary if believers already had any, and the very existence of the Holy Spirit's office which becomes pointless if man has any native ability toward good. To the unconverted sinner, he argues this truth is even more urgently applicable, since the saint at least has a renewed nature, whereas the sinner is spiritually dead with no capacity for any spiritual good, and though this incapacity does not remove his moral responsibility or reduce God's demands by a single command, Spurgeon says he actually wants sinners to feel this paralysis deeply, because only when a person truly feels they can do nothing in their own strength will they cry out in despair to God and be truly ready to receive saving grace. He closes by applying the same truth to all who labor for others' souls — ministers, revivalists, Sunday school teachers, and parents — warning that excitement-driven "revivals" built on human enthusiasm produce shallow conversions that evaporate, and that the Church's only real power comes from the Spirit, so her first business in any gospel work must be to confess her total inability and cast herself wholly on God, at which point she will accomplish everything precisely because she attempts nothing in her own strength. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on November 11, 1860.

A Basket of Summer Fruit

Spurgeon takes the vision of the basket of summer fruit — ripe and ready to be consumed — as a picture with three applications: that God's own purposes have a precise ripeness, coming neither too early nor too late, whether in the first advent of Christ, the second advent to come, or the personal timing of each believer's conversion, trials, and deliverances, all of which arrive exactly when divine wisdom ordains. He then applies the image to nations, tracing how Babylon, Greece, and Rome each fell at the precise point when their national sin had ripened to the point of destruction, and warning England to repent of her own national sins before the same judgment overtakes her. He closes with two personal applications — the believer who is ripening day by day in knowledge, experience, spirituality, and kindness through affliction and grace, being made ready for glory like fruit reaching perfect sweetness, and the unconverted sinner who is equally ripening but toward destruction, growing harder, bolder in sin, and more contemptuous of God with each passing year until suddenly gathered into the wrath they have been cultivating — and he pleads urgently for any sinner to turn before the gathering time arrives. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on October 28th, 1860.