He came to endure the penalty, he comes to procure the reward. He came to serve, he comes to rule. He came to open wide the door of grace, he comes to shut to the door. He comes not to redeem but to judge; not to save but to pronounce the sentence; not to weep while he invites, but to smile while he rewards; not to tremble in heart while he proclaims grace, but to make others tremble while he proclaims their doom.

Spurgeon lived during a time when the doctrine of the incarnation was being challenged. With the growth of German higher criticism, the authority and trustworthiness of Scripture were increasingly being questioned. The translation of David Strauss’ The Life of Jesus into English in 1846 led many to adopt a rationalistic understanding of the Gospels, stripping it of its supernatural elements. For them, the incarnation was no longer the miraculous joining of the eternal Son of God with our humanity. Instead, it was simply mythical language pointing to the disciples’ high view of their rabbi. Even as Christmas grew in cultural popularity, its meaning was increasingly lost.
But Spurgeon would have none of this. Even as he led his church in celebrating Christmas, Spurgeon made sure that this was a celebration rooted in doctrine. They rejoiced in the arrival of the Son of God, the miracle of the incarnation for their salvation. Jesus was no ordinary man. He is the Word made flesh. And His first coming lays a claim on our lives because He is coming back again.
On his first Christmas Sunday at the newly-built Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1861, Spurgeon drove this point home as he chose Hebrews 9:27-28 for his Christmas sermon text: “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”
His takeaway was this: to understand Christ’s midnight birth rightly, we must see it in the radiance of his second coming. Even as we adore the Savior-infant in the manger, we must recognize He is also the coming Judge and King. What difference would it make in our Christmas celebration if we kept both advents in view?
Consider, then, four ways his second coming will be different from his first.
“How different I say will be his coming.”
At first he came an infant of a span long; now he shall come— “In rainbow-wreath and clouds of storm,” the glorious one.
Then he entered into a manger, now he shall ascend his throne.
Then he sat upon a woman’s knees, and did hang upon a woman’s breast, now earth shall be at his feet and the whole universe shall hang upon his everlasting shoulders.
Then he appeared the infant, now the infinite.
Then he was born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, now he comes to glory as the lightning from one end of heaven to the other.
A stable received him then; now the high arches of earth and heaven shall be too little for him.
Horned oxen were then his companions, but now the chariots of God which are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels, shall be at his right hand.
Then in poverty his parents were too glad to receive the offerings of gold and frankincense and myrrh; but now in splendor,
King of kings, and Lord of lords, all nations shall bow before him, and kings and princes shall pay homage at his feet. Still he shall need nothing at their hands, for he will be able to say, “If I were hungry I would not tell ye, for the cattle are mine upon a thousand hills.” “Thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field.” “The earth is the Lords, and the fullness thereof.”
“There will be a most distinct and apparent difference in his person.”
He will be the same, so that we shall be able to recognize him as the Man of Nazareth, but O how changed!
Where now the carpenter’s smock? Royalty hath now assumed its purple.
Where now the toil-worn feet that needed to be washed after their long journeys of mercy? They are sandaled with light, they “are like unto fine brass as if they burned in a furnace.”
Where now the cry, “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but I, the Son of Man, have not where to lay my head?” Heaven is his throne; earth is his foot-stool.
Methinks in the night visions, I behold the day dawning. And to the Son of Man there is given “dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him.” Ah! who would think to recognize in the weary man and full of woes, the King eternal, immortal, invisible.
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If we wish to attract and grow genuine disciples, we must offer much more than inspiring civil religion, spiritual pep rallies, and pageantry. We must demonstrate a kind of faith known not for power and “success” but for weakness; scandalous not for hypocrisy but for hardship.
The church stands in need of reformation once again. Our pastors and our people need revival.
I say this as a Lutheran who has never been a fan of the slogan ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda (the church reformed, always being reformed). I do not think churches should always be reforming. Our profession and liturgy are often just right. I’m a rather traditional guy. I think the summaries of Scripture in our Protestant confessions remain relevant today—and, for the most part, true. They’re revisable, of course, based on the Word of God. They do not bear the authority that Holy Scripture does. But only modernists believe we should always be reforming them. Only the most trendy and rootless evangelicals want to reinvent the church incessantly.
I also say this as a historian of Christianity. I teach students all the time about seasons of despair and renewal in the church. I’m not the first to point out problems to God’s people. Church history is full of “prophets” pushing gloom and doom on others, making outsized claims about their generation’s sins.
Our Churches Are in Crisis
Still, our churches have taken a special kind of beating in recent years. And even traditionalists like me think revival is required when so many of us suffer from cheap grace, tribalism, spiritual laziness, and “gospels” that have displaced the cross with self-absorption. Since the time of the Reformation, we have debated when and in what conditions we need change—difficult change that requires hard work and a risky sort of witness. It’s been concluded that in times of acute persecution, when the gospel is at stake, when the church is on the ropes, we must stand up and fight for costly discipleship.
This debate dates back to the mid-16th century row when Lutherans, especially, wondered whether they had arrived at a status confessionis (“a situation of confession”). This is such a time. Many churches are in crisis—especially in the West, but in other places too. Attendance has dropped. An alarming number of young people doubt whether church membership even matters. Some of their elders seem to care more about wealth and power, their status and control of worldly narratives and systems, than about following Jesus. Of course, idolatry is not unique to seniors. Its tentacles are reaching into every generation.
Many Christians, young and old, have misplaced priorities. Many of us spend more time on sports than we do reading the Bible. We make more time for media than meeting others’ needs. We pray very little, and not very hard. Our plans for retirement are mostly R&R. We are hedging our bets regarding life in the world to come, investing more of our free time and excess income in mundane pastimes than in the kingdom of God. Many of us today would pay as much we can afford to extend our worldly lives for just a few more months. To use the language of the Puritans, we don’t seem to have weaned our affections from the world.
This is not lost on others. Many wonder how to account for the discrepancy they see between what Christians profess and what we do with our lives. They wonder just how deeply we believe what we say. And if we don’t believe it, why should anybody else? Maybe churches aren’t worth all the time they require. There are better ways to live our best life now than spending hours per week in institutions that too often apply a thin coat of God-talk and tepid spirituality to weak and rotting boards.
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Micah says God “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” The many shameful things we’ve done and covered up, the evil ruminations, all our caustic words—all these God will cast into the depths of the sea. To the Israelites, if something was thrown into the sea, it was lost and gone forever. The sea was the fearful place of the unknown, a vast and dangerous part of God’s creation. The sea was where you went if you never wanted to be found again.

The gospel knows no exaggerations. God doesn’t simply say, “I forgive your sins”—even though that would be saying enough, because his Word is true.
But in telling us about his mercy, God uses emphatic language, colourful comparisons, and gripping images to portray how in Christ He has fully pardoned our guilt. He is emphatic without ever stepping into overstatement.
Consider these four stunning windows into God’s forgiveness:
1) In Isaiah 38:17, Hezekiah offers this prayer to God, “You have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.”Hezekiah had been sick and near death, but he repented and the Lord restored him. And it was as if the LORD had taken the king’s wickedness and thrown it over his divine shoulder, never to be seen again. Forgiven sin is in a place where it can no longer bring harm to our relationship with him: “You have cast all my sins behind your back.”
2) God declares to his people in Isaiah 43:25, “I am He who blots out your transgressions.”Blotting out: like a scribe who hides a mistake on a scroll with a blotch of ink, or a student who uses correction fluid on his final exam. God has obliterated the sins of his people; in forgiving for Christ’s sake, God has covered, erased, deleted all our offenses, and He remembers them no more.
3) God says in Isaiah 44:22, “I have swept away your sins like a cloud. I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist.”You’ve watched a white fluffy cloud traipse across the blue sky and seen its transience. Here one moment, and when we look up again, it has disappeared. Like that, God has swept away our sins, evaporated our offenses in the presence of his glorious majesty.
God’s forgiving love is shown to be an amazingly powerful love, robustly effective and radical. His forgiveness doesn’t leave any traces of what was there before.
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