The Mighty Power Which Creates and Sustains Faith

Spurgeon opens by insisting that what appears to be the simplest thing in the world — simply trusting Christ — is actually the most astonishing display of divine power in the universe, requiring nothing less than the very same omnipotence that raised Christ from the dead, because bringing a proud, dead, opposing sinner to cheerful, childlike faith involves simultaneously a creation (implanting a new spiritual nature that had no prior existence), a destruction (tearing out the old corrupt nature), a transformation (reversing what no human power has ever reversed), and a quickening (raising the spiritually dead to life), any one of which would be beyond angelic or human ability. He then unfolds a sweeping analogy that traces the same divine power through five stages in both Christ and the believer: raised from real death, ascended contrary to the laws of nature, seated at God's right hand in honor and pleasure, exalted far above all angelic principalities, and made head with all things put under his feet — arguing that the same compass that measures Christ's descent into the grave and ascent to the throne measures the believer's descent into spiritual death and ultimate rise to reign with Christ, and that this must be so because a body can only be of the same nature as its Head, and Christ will not enjoy a single Heaven-privilege without his people sharing it. He closes with four practical conclusions: Christians should be astonished at their own dignity rather than despairing in self-contempt, since Omnipotence is personally engaged to bring them home; no sinner should be given up as hopeless, since the power that raised a corpse from a sealed tomb can raise any drunkard, blasphemer, or harlot to faith; no believer should doubt their ultimate security, since nothing can match itself against Omnipotence; and the unconverted should face with open eyes how helpless they actually are, since nothing less than this same irresistible eternal power can save them — a power freely available to anyone who will simply trust Christ now.Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on August 12, 1860.