THE ACCEPTANCE OF DEATH
[p. 358] THE ACCEPTANCE OF DEATH
Mark 16:15,16; Jeremiah 13:1-11
We see in this passage in Mark, which is particularly the preachers’ gospel, the mandate that the eleven had from Christ to preach the gospel to every creature, or to all the creation, and that he that believed and was baptised should be saved. I wish to show from this latter statement that the Lord intended that those who believed the gospel should believe it in all its parts, and particularly that they should accept the necessity for death, of which baptism is a symbol. Baptism signifies that the believer accepts death; first that he accepts it as a penalty upon himself, and secondly, that he accepts the death of Jesus as bearing that penalty. There is therefore, in baptism, a definite acceptance of death, and I believe that the secret of the feeble realisation of salvation which many have, and consequently the small realisation of joy is due to the non-acceptance of death.
It may appear from these remarks as if I were emphasising baptism unduly, especially as Paul says that Christ sent him not to baptise but to preach the gospel, but we must not misconstrue the apostle’s remark; he conveyed by it that he was not one like John the baptist — sent to baptise; he was not a baptist in that sense. In saying that he was not sent to baptise but to preach the gospel, he did not mean that he did not preach baptism, for he did. It is true that in answering the enquiry of the Philippian jailer he said nothing about it; he said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house” (Acts 16: 32). That is what he said; it was one of the most remarkable answers that a sinner could get, especially a sinner who had a household, but then it adds “they spoke to him the word of the Lord”, and the word of the Lord included what I have read, it included that men were to believe and to be baptised; and so the scripture says that the jailer was baptised, he and all his. It is quite obvious that he would not have suggested baptism as left to himself, but he learned from the apostle the significance of it, and he acted on it, and so it says he was baptised and all his straightway; that is to say, the word of the Lord spoken to him by the apostle conveyed to him the necessity of baptism, it conveyed to him the necessity of a definite acceptance, in a public way, of the death of Christ, and he acted upon it.
Now what I have said is in keeping with God’s ways from the beginning, and wherever faith existed in man, death was accepted, and no one can come into salvation unless he accepts death — unless he accepts it first as the penalty from God on account of sin, and secondly in the death of Christ as that which God recognises as meeting the penalty which lay upon him. So you find that the first believer in Scripture — the first taken account of as a believer — is Abel. I have no doubt that Adam believed, but Scripture begins with Abel as heading the list of faith, and it says his faith was evidenced in offering to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. He brought a sacrifice which involved the recognition that death lay upon himself, and I would appeal to every one here at this time as to whether you have accepted death, whether you have realised that a direct penalty from God lies upon you, as it says, “In the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt certainly die” (Genesis 2: 17). That was the penalty, and the first believer in Scripture accepted that, he said virtually, ‘If I have to say to God I must accept that death is upon me and, in accepting that, I bring a sacrifice, I bring a creature that never sinned’, and we see [p. 360] God accepted it, and that he was accepted. He was the first on that line; his death was not that of penalty, it was that of martyrdom, he was honoured; nor will the death of a believer be a penalty, for the penalty, beloved friends, has been executed for the believer. So that whilst Abel was the first to die a literal death, he did not suffer death as a penalty from God, he suffered it as a martyr; he stood for the testimony of God, he stood for the testimony as it was then, and acted upon it, and he died on that line. His was a wonderful death, his blood cried to God from the ground; it was precious, it was the blood, beloved friends, of a believer, one who had been accepted through an offering, through a sacrifice. He had accepted death and right down in the history of faith, you find that wherever faith existed, it was marked by the acceptance of death.
Now you come to Seth; he was to take Abel’s place; he was to be “instead of Abel”. What you find in him is that when his son is born he calls his name “Enosh”, meaning that the child was born to die; Enosh means man as mortal. What light there is in that for parents! Seth is the first parent who furnished light as to one’s children; the first ray of light comes to the household through the farther of Enosh; he recognised that the child was born to die, so he called his name Enosh; in that name there was light, and so men then began to call on the name of the Lord. There was the acceptance of death, and right down the line of Enosh the Holy Spirit justifies Seth in so naming his son by telling us formally that each one of them died; not only Enosh, but Enosh’s sons right down to the sixth generation from Adam died, the Holy Spirit thus confirming Seth’s acceptance of death. No matter however long a man might have lived, eventually he died. We thus see how Scripture emphasises what I am speaking of in those who had faith.
[p. 361] When you come to Noah, he accepts it and rose to it, for he built an ark for the saving of his house; he raised no questions with God, he quarrelled not with the divine sentence, nor with the fact that death was about to be poured out on the world, that the world was to be engulfed in it. Noah accepted it. Have you, beloved friends, accepted the judgment of God? There is a present penalty resting upon every child of Adam, and that penalty cannot be lifted save through the death of Christ; there is also impending judgment that cannot be averted save through the death of Jesus. Have you as yet accepted this penalty? Noah raised no question. The testimony is he prepared an ark for the saving of his house; he accepted the word of God, and he prepared the ark and he went into the ark; such was his submission to the judgment of God, and to the word of God; he entered the ark and he went through the judgment. And so, as I said, we have it right down the line.
Israel accepted death in Egypt; they ate the roast lamb, they were sheltered from judgment, from the destroying angel; the paschal lamb was slain, and its blood sprinkled on the doorpost and lintel. The house was immune, whilst death was all around, but in all the houses of Israel there was a definite acceptance of death. Then we read, “By faith they passed through the Red Sea as through dry land; of which the Egyptians having made trial were swallowed up” (Hebrews 11: 29), and as death was definitely accepted as the principle of faith, Moses and the children of Israel sang. It is the one act on the part of Israel that is said to be an act of faith; God, as it were, signalising that so that we might profit by it. The Egyptians were drowned; they did not accept death, but Israel entered the sea, they trod the bottom of the sea, according to the word of God, and reached the shore on the other side. God said, Speak to the people [p. 362] that they go forward, and they went forward and they reached the other shore; there was the definite acceptance of death and hence the Holy Spirit tells us, “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song” (Exodus 15: 1). That supports what I have remarked, that the secret of the little enjoyment of salvation that there is among the people of God, and the little consequent joy is due to the non-acceptance of death. You may shelter in your house, but then the whole area outside in which you are is under the judgment of God, under death, whereas when you cross over the Red Sea you are not only immune, but the whole area is; you have left behind the area to which death applies, to which judgment applies, and it says they then sang. How often have you sung, and joined with Christ in that song of triumph? There is very little real singing amongst the people of God in the sense of known triumph, of known salvation and of consequent known deliverance. Moses and the children of Israel sang this song: “I will sing unto Jehovah, for he is highly exalted” (verse 1). How much of that singing do we know, dear brethren? It is the portion of the christian to sing, and so Israel sang. When? When death was accepted; when it was definitely accepted by them, then they sang.
Well now, I could furnish other illustrations, from the Old Testament, but I want to dwell on the New Testament for a moment, so that you may see how in the early days believers accepted death in accord with what the Lord enjoins here. Peter is the first preacher of the gospel after Christ went to heaven, and he answers the question asked similar to that which the jailer asked; he had been telling his hearers, in language which the Holy Spirit has recorded, that God had raised Jesus and that He was exalted to His right hand, and that God had made Him both Lord and Christ; and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit He had [p. 363] shed forth this which they now saw and heard. His hearers said to him, “What shall we do, brethren?” Is there one here tonight who asks such a question as that? Has the gospel, as presented to you — that God raised Christ from the dead and made Him Lord and Christ in heaven — raised this question with you? Do you ask what you are to do? Do you say, ‘I would like to have part in that’? Well, we are here tonight that you should have part in it. We know something of it, we know that the Person of the Holy Spirit is really here, that the Holy Spirit is not some theoretical idea, we know that He is a living Person here on earth, and we would love to have you share in the Spirit, and in the joys which the Spirit brings — the knowledge of forgiveness, the knowledge of salvation, and the joy of salvation. And then if you ask what you are to do I answer you in these words — Peter’s words: “Repent, and be baptised, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission of sins, and ye will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2: 38). I call attention particularly to the use of baptism, how Peter brings it in, because it was of moment that his hearers should accept the death of Christ, not merely to believe in Messiah come in flesh, but to believe that He had died; as Paul says, “Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15: 3, 4). This death, this burial, this resurrection of Christ were to be accepted. So Peter says here, “Repent, and be baptised”, answering to the Lord’s command, for whilst baptism is a privilege, it is also a command it reduces you, it takes you out of the world. It is imperative that a believer should be baptised, not only as a mere outward form, but as a definite acceptance of the death of Christ. We find that those who heard and received Peter’s word were baptised.
You see them there on that day in Jerusalem [p. 364] what a day it was! How many questions arise in one’s mind as to detail! Where did they get the water? Who administered the baptism? How many did Peter baptise? What formula did he use! All these enquiries are quite pertinent, but not answered in Scripture, they are unanswered in Scripture; we can well understand what the answers would be, but picture to yourself in that city three thousand persons baptised; it was not done in a corner, it was a public matter. These three thousand converts were believers in Christ, they accepted Him as their Messiah, but they accepted His death, and that is the point; it was a very real thing with them because the rest of the population in Jerusalem was against them. The hostility soon arose against them, but nevertheless they were baptised. The Holy Spirit tells us that one thing; He emphasises that those who received Peter’s word were baptised. Have we all been baptised? and, as baptised, have we accepted it as the death of Christ? It is the death of Christ, it is no less than this. “The like figure”, Peter says in speaking of it; there is the outward form, but there is reality in it, it is the death of Christ accepted for salvation, and so it says, “there were added in that day about three thousand souls” (verse 41). They were added; it does not say who added them, but they were added as baptised to what was already there. They took their places publicly in the presence of bitter opposition as followers of Jesus; they were baptised and they came into salvation, hence the Spirit of God goes on to say that they persevered in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and prayers. There was the christian company; they were brought into the sphere of salvation where the Holy Spirit was, where the authority of Christ was, where fellowship was, where prayers were made, and they were filled with joy praising [p. 365] God. After this beautiful picture presented by the Spirit of God of the baptised ones, we read, “the Lord added to the assembly daily those that were to be saved”.
It was a day of salvation in Jerusalem, and these people were saved, they were obviously saved, saved publicly, they were free from the world, they were free from death as a penalty, they were living, they were in liberty, and in the enjoyment of salvation. What do you know about all this? The Holy Spirit gives us the thing as it was in the beginning on the day of Pentecost, and we are told what God brought about, and what those came into who accepted death. Throughout the Acts you find that where the gospel is received as in the case of the eunuch, death is accepted. The light of the gospel came into his soul through Philip’s preaching, he desired to be baptised, he accepted death, and he went on his way rejoicing.
What a delightful spectacle to heaven these two men presented in the desert as they went down both into the water! Philip knew what baptism meant, that it meant the death of Christ, that it symbolised that. He and the eunuch went down together into the water; the eunuch wished to accept the thing, he wished to be known as a public accepter of the death of Christ. What I am speaking of is of the greatest possible value if accepted practically; a public acceptance of the death of Christ, a definite acceptance before God of it, means deliverance of soul. The eunuch went on his way rejoicing, and it is ever so — there is joy in the soul as it is accepted.
I want now to show in Jeremiah that there were those who did not accept it. The prophet is told by the Lord to buy a linen girdle. “Thus said Jehovah unto me: Go and buy thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins; but dip it not in water”, and Jeremiah got a girdle according, to the word of Jehovah and put it on his loins. Then the word of [p. 366] Jehovah came to him a second time, saying, “Take the girdle that thou hast bought, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock”. But Jehovah had said, “dip it not in water;” it was specified at the outset that the girdle was not to be dipped in water, it was not to symbolise persons who accepted the death of Christ, it was to symbolise persons who had not accepted the death of Christ; it was to symbolise persons who were in outward nearness to God by whatever means or ceremony, who had not accepted death, of whom there are, alas! millions at the present time. It may be there are some here numbered amongst us, who have been brought up in a christian family, brought up in the light of the gospel; it may be you have been baptised as a child, and brought into outward relations with God as born of christian parents, and Scripture regards you as holy, as being in outward relations with God. There may be some near and some perhaps more distant, but in this case so near as to be symbolised as a girdle on a man’s loins.
Think of that! Who is there here in a like case? You attend the meetings, it may be, you have the reputation of being a christian, and not only that, but you are specially connected with God and with Christ, and with the saints — you are in outward nearness to God and have come into the benefits of that, for no one can be near to God with His people without being benefited in some sense, and so this girdle refers to you. But you have never been dipped in water, you have never accepted the death of Christ, you have been near-by. The prophet has to take a long journey to convey this thought of God to your soul; he was told to rise and go to Euphrates. You may think lightly of it, but God would send the archangel Michael from heaven to earth to enlighten your soul. What a God!
If you repent, there is joy in the presence of the [p. 367] angels of God over you. Such is God, such is God’s interest! And so here Jeremiah, who had much to do and much to suffer — he is the weeping prophet — is obliged to take a journey that would be long even by train today — from Jerusalem to the Euphrates. How he did it I do not know; whether he walked it or went by camel I do not know; it is one of the many things that are unwritten, but he went. He had got the girdle and had put it on him, and then went and hid it in the rock, according to the word of Jehovah, all in order that you might be enlightened, that you might know what God thinks about you as in outward relation to Him without in reality belonging to it, without having accepted the death of Jesus for yourself. Think of Jeremiah wending his way across those deserts and rivers to reach the Euphrates, his one thought being to carry out the will of God! He was a servant of God and all the servants of God are yours. I mean, beloved friends, Jeremiah suffered for this — for the light of God to come to us, for he is but a symbol of Jesus who came all the distance, not from Jerusalem to the Euphrates, but from heaven to earth. He came that way, He came by the way of the manger, by the way of Herod’s judgment hall and by the way of Calvary. He came that way to bring the thoughts of God to us here, to bring the love of God to our hearts, to impress us with the fact that God cares for us and would have us. So this remarkable symbol is to convey to you tonight the mind of God about you — that you have been content to be in outward relationship with Him without accepting the death of Christ for yourself, without judging yourself, without confessing your sins, without repenting. What are you? You say I am cultured, I can play and sing, I can earn my living. What does Scripture say? You are “good for nothing”. The girdle when taken out of the hole of the rock was marred, it was good for nothing; in the sight of [p. 368] God, you are good for nothing, your very position in relation to Him is but darkness, you are discrediting the truth, you are discrediting the gospel, you are discrediting your parents who believe in Jesus, you are discrediting the whole profession of christianity, you are good for nothing, you are of no value to God. I am not denying, as men say, that you may be a good father, mother, daughter, brother, sister or servant, but morally you are good for nothing in the sight of God. The question is, what are you for God? What use can God make of you? Men may make much of you, but what use can God make of you? Nothing, nothing — it is very solemn. “For as a girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith Jehovah; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear”. You see that was the divine intent, and that is the divine intent as to you, that you should be near to God, that you should be to Him for a people, and for a praise, and for a glory. How great are the divine thoughts! And, let me say to christians, these divine thoughts apply to every one of us — we are to be to God for a people now, for a praise and for a glory.
But I am speaking more to those who are outwardly with us, who are in the same outward nearness to God and have not been dipped in water. Jehovah says, “dip it not in water”. I have said enough about water to show you what it means here; it means the death of Christ, and one must accept it in one’s soul. In being baptised I accept definitely that I have died with Christ. I have accepted His death as my own; the penalty no longer refers to me, it has been borne by Him, He has been delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. “Therefore”, as we read, “having been justified on the principle of faith, we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5: 1). We have accepted death — His death as our death, His resurrection as ours — as a testimony on God’s behalf that our sins have been disposed of, that they will never come up again; in other words we have been dipped in water. This girdle does not refer to such, it refers to those who are content to remain in heart away from God whilst enjoying certain privileges and outward nearness to God. I beg of you tonight, in the Lord’s name, to attend to the things that matter, and see to it that you have accepted the death of Christ definitely, as Paul says, “he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3: 5). There is no other way, there must be the dipping in water, the definite acceptance of death, first as the penalty upon me, and secondly as that which Jesus has endured, so that it never comes to me. When I come to that, then instead of being good for nothing, only to be consigned to eternal judgment, I am good for something, for every believer is taken up by God, with the definite intent to be for a people, for a name, for a praise, and for a glory. That is God’s mind for us, and He takes us up for it, but if we refuse to accept the death of Christ we are good for nothing — very solemn word. May it appeal to those who have not accepted the death of Christ!