Too Good To Be True? A Paradox!

Luke 24:36-49 . . . (Later that day) while they were still talking about this (the appearance of Jesus to Peter and to those on the road to Emmaus), Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Too Good To Be True! A Paradox!

A Sermon Delivered December 15, 1861 by Charles Spurgeon (age 27)

This is a very strange sentence, but the Christian is a singularly complex being. He is a compound of the fallen and of the perfect. He detects in himself continually an alternation between the almost diabolical, and the divine. Man himself is a contradiction, but the Christian is that contradiction made more paradoxical.

He cannot comprehend himself, and only those who are like him can understand him. When he would do good, he finds evil present with him. How to will he often finds, but how to perform he finds not. He is the greatest riddle in the universe.

In the case before us, the disciples saw Christ manifestly before their eyes. To a certain extent they believed in His resurrection—that belief gave them joy, and at once that very joy made them unbelieving. They looked again—they believed once more. Soon, a wave of joy rolled right over the head of their faith and then afresh their doubts returned.

What palpitations, what heaving of the heart they had! “It is too good to be true,” said they. This is the summing up of the mental process which was going on within—“It is true—how blessed it is, yet it cannot be true because it is so blessed.”

Tonight, I shall endeavor to address that timid but hopeful tribe of persons who have heard of the greatness and preciousness of the salvation of Christ, and have so far believed, that they have been filled with happiness on account of it, but that very joy has made them doubt, and they have exclaimed—“It cannot be. It’s not possible. This exceeds all my expectations. It is, in fact, too good.”

I remember to have been myself the subject of this temptation. Overjoyed to possess the treasure which I had found hidden in the field, delighted beyond all measure with the hope that I had an interest in Christ, I feared that the gold might be counterfeit, the pearl a cheat, my hope a delusion, my confidence a dream. Newly delivered from the thick darkness, the overwhelming brightness of grace threatened to blind my eyes. Laden with the new favors of a young spiritual life, the excessive weight of the mercy staggered my early strength, and I was for some time troubled with the thought that these things must be too good to be true.

If God had been half as merciful, or a tithe as kind as He was, I could have believed it, but such exceeding riches of His grace were too much—such giving exceeding abundantly above what one could ask or even think, seemed too much to believe.

We will at once attempt to deal with this temptation. First of all, I will try to account for it. Then secondly, to recount the reasons which forbid us to long indulge it. And then, thirdly, turn the very temptation itself into a reason why we should be more earnest in seeking these good things.

I.  To begin, let me account for it. It is little marvel that the spirit is amazed even to astonishment and doubt when you think of the greatness of the things themselves. The sinner says—“My iniquity is great. I deserve God’s judgement. The Gospel presents me with a pardon, full and complete. I have labored to wash out these stains, but they will not disappear. The Gospel tells me that the precious blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin. Year after year have I revolted and gone astray. The Gospel tells me that He is able to forgive all my sins and blot out my iniquities.”

Bowed down with a sense of the greatness of his guilt, you may excuse the sinner if he thinks it must be impossible that all the offenses he has committed could ever be put away. “No,” says he, “a condemned sinner I am, and the promise of a free pardon is too much for me to believe.” “Even more,” says the poor soul, “I am told that God is prepared to justify me, to give me a perfect righteousness, to look upon me as though I had always been a faithful servant, to regard me to all intents and purposes as though I had kept all His laws without any offense, and had obeyed all His statutes without any exception.

According to the Scriptures, I am to be robed with the finished righteousness of Christ, clothed in that garment which He spent His life to work, and I am in that garment to stand accepted in the Beloved. “It is too good to be true.” says the soul. “It cannot be. I, the condemned one, accepted? I, who continually broke God’s law, received as though I had kept it wholly?”

It does startle the soul, and well it may. And when the Gospel goes on to add—“And yes, not only will I justify you, but I will adopt you. You shall be no more a servant but a son, no more a bond-slave but an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ”—the mind cannot grasp the whole of that thought. “Adopted, received into His family! Yet am not worthy to be called God’s son.”

And as the sinner looks upon its former hopeless estate, and looks upward to the brightness of the inheritance which adoption secures to it, it says—“It is impossible,” and like Sarah, he laughs saying, “How can this be? How can it be possible that I should attain to these things?” And then, the Gospel adds—“Soul, I will not only adopt you, but having sanctified you entirely— your whole spirit, soul, and body—I will crown you. I will put a new song into your mouth, and the palm of victory in your hand. Your soul will be deluged with delight, and your spirit shall bathe itself in everlasting and unbroken peace. Heaven is yours, though you deserve hell. God’s glory is yours, though you deserve wrath.”

A reason for doubt may be found in our sense of unworthiness. Note the person who receives these mercies, and you will not wonder that he believes not for joy. “Ah,” says he, “if these things were given to the righteous I could believe it, but to me, an old offender—to me, a hard- hearted despiser of the overflowing love of God; to me who has looked on the slaughtered body of the Savior without a tear and viewed the precious blood of redemption without delight.

“Oh!” says this poor heart, “I could believe it for anyone. I could believe it for the whole world sooner than for myself!”

Brethren, when any of us look back upon our past lives, we can find enough ground for astonishment if God has been pleased to forgive us. Hence, I say, it is not a strange or a singular thing that the poor heart, from an excess of joy, should be unable to believe.

Add to these the strange terms upon which God presents these things to poor sinners. The miracle of the manner equals the marvel of the matter. God comes to the sinner, and He says not to him, “Do penance. Pass through years of weariness. Renounce every pleasure. Become a monk. Live in the woods. Make yourself a hermit. Torture your body. Cut yourself with knives. Starve yourself. Cover yourself with a shirt of hair or wear a girdle of chain about your loins.”

No, if He did, it would not appear so wonderful. But He comes to the sinner and He says, “Sinner, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shalt be saved.” No works are asked of you. No ceremonies does He demand, but simply trust your soul with Christ. Oh, simple words! Oh, easy terms! They are not terms at all, but are gifts —His Spirit enables us to trust in Jesus.

If He had bidden us do some great thing, we should have been very willing to attempt it, but when it is simply, “Wash and be clean”—“Oh,” we say, “that simple thing, which is as well-fitted to the beggar as to the king, as suitable to the prostitute as to the Pharisee—that scheme which adapts itself to the ignorant and the rude as well as to the learned and polite,” our spirit says, “Ah, ’tis a joyous plan,” and yet, from that very joy, one is unable to believe.

And add to this one more thought—the method by which God proposes to work all this. That is to say, He proposes to pardon and to justify the sinner instantaneously. The plan of salvation requires not months nor weeks in which his sin may be put away. It is finished. An instant is enough to receive it and in that instant the man is saved. The moment a man believes in Christ, not some of his sins, but all his sins are gone. Now, this does seem a surprising thing. It is so surprising that when men have heard it for the first time, they have been willing to run anywhere to listen to it again.

This was the secret of Whitefield’s ministry. The Gospel was a new thing in his age to the mass of the people. They were like blind men who, having had their eyes opened, and being suddenly taken out at night to view the stars, could not refrain from clapping their hands for joy. The first sight of land is always blessed to the sailor’s eyes, and the men of those days felt that they saw heaven in the distance and the port of peace. It is no wonder that they rejoiced even to tears. It was glad tidings to their spirits, and there were some then, as there are now, who could not believe by reason of their excessive joy.

II. Having thus tried to account for this state of the heart, may God help while I try to do battle with the evil that is in it, that we may be able to believe in Christ! Troubled heart, let me remind you that you have no need to doubt the truth of the precious revelation because of its greatness, for He is a great God who makes it to you. Did you expect that He, the King of heaven, rich in mercy and abundant in longsuffering, would send little grace, little love, and little pity to the sons of men?

So be it your remembrance that God will not give meanly and stingily, for that were unworthy of Him, but He will give splendidly and magnificently, for this is after His own nature. Expect, therefore, that He will save great sinners in a great and glorious way, and give them great mercies, for the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods.

The riches of His grace are inexhaustible. He is the Father of mercies, and He begets mercies by thousands and by millions to supply His people’s needs. Suppose you meet a poor man, and you are hungry. If he were hospitable, he might say, “Come in, sir, and you may have a part of my crust.” You go in and you find a scanty meal upon the table, and you say, “What you have given me is all you had to give, I thank you for it.”

But what would you think if you waited at the royal door and received a royal invitation, and when you went in, were fed with dry crusts and drops of water? You would think this was not becoming of a king. But God stands at His gate with His tables laden with a rich hospitality. “My oxen and My fatlings are killed, all things are ready, come to the banquet.” Let no low thought of God come in to make you doubt His power to save you.

Suppose you open your eyes in this building tonight, and you see a gas light. “Well,” you say, “it is very good—a very good light in its way, but I can see it is man’s light.” Go out and see the moon’s light—did you ever think that man made that? Or wait till tomorrow morning and look up at the sun. Wait till noonday, when it is shedding down its brightness and gilding the fields with tints of glory, and I think you will say, “Ah! I shall never mistake this for man’s work. It is so exceedingly bright that no illumination man can create can compare to it.”

Thus, the greatness of the light makes you believe in the divinity that ordained it. If you should see tomorrow a heavy shower of rain, you would not believe, I suppose, that it was made with a watering pot. And if you saw the Thames swollen to its banks from a great flood, you would not believe that the London waterworks had filled it to its brim. “No,” say you, “this is God at work in nature. The greatness of the work proves that God is here.”

If you were ever in Cambridge, you might have seen a little mountain which is so small that nobody knows who made it. Some say it is artificial—some say it is natural. Now, I have never heard any dispute about the Alps—nobody ever said that they were artificial. I never heard of any disputation about the Himalayas. No one ever conjectured that human hands piled them up to the skies and clothed them with their hoary snows. So when I read of the mercies of God in Christ, reaching up like mountains to heaven, I am sure they must be divine. I am certain the revelation must come from God. It must be true. It is self-evident.

I might enlarge this argument by showing that God’s works in creation are very great, and therefore unthinkable there would be no great works in grace. Two works which have been made by the same artist always have some characteristics which enable you to see that the same artist made them. In like manner, to us there is one God. Creation and redemption have but one author—the same eternal power and Godhead are legibly inscribed on both.

Now, when I look at the sea, and hear it roaring in the fullness thereof, I see a great artist there. And when my soul examines the ocean of grace, and listens to the echoes of its motion as the sound of many waters, I see the same Almighty artist. And when I see a great sinner saved, then I think I see the same Master-hand which first formed man, and curiously formed his substance, endowing him with powers so great that they baffle our understanding. And when we meet with astounding conversions, with marvelous forgiveness, we are sure this must be God because it is so great and so far beyond all human comprehension.

Furthermore, did you ever think how much food God gives to His creatures every year? How much fine wheat He lays upon the earth that we may feed thereon! Millions upon millions of people and God feeds them. Now, enlarge the thought. There are the fowls of heaven that are countless—did you ever pick up a dead sparrow that had starved to death? I never did. Think of the sharp winters, and the birds, somehow or other, without barn or granary, are fed.

Consider the millions and millions of fish in the sea, searching for their food, and your heavenly Father feeds them all. Look at the innumerable insects creeping upon the earth, or dancing in the summer sunbeam, all supplied. Look at the behemoth, the huge leviathan, the elephant, the crocodile, and those other mighty creatures who go through the deep or through the forests—these He supplies in providence.

And if God be so lavish here, do you think that in the masterpiece of His hands, His grace, He is stinted and narrowed? God forbid! “Oh,” says one, “but I am thinking of my unworthiness and that this does not meet it.” Well, this will meet it. There is a country where there has been a drought, and the land is all parched and chapped. That field of corn there belongs to a good man. That field over yonder belongs to an infidel. That one to a blasphemer. Another one is cultivated by a drunkard. That other one belongs to a man who lives in every known vice.

And then blessed be God, here comes a cloud, which sails along through the sky. Where will it go? It is big with rain. It will make the poor dried-up germ revive. There will yet be a harvest. Which way will it go? “Of course,” you say, “it will only go in the corner where the godly man has his field.” Nay, not so. It spreads its rich mantle over the entire sky, and the shower of mercy falls upon the just and the unjust, upon the thankful and upon the unthankful. It falls just as plenteously where the blasphemer is the possessor as where the gracious man lifts up his heart in prayer.

Now, what does this show? God blesses ungodly men, unthankful men, and I hold that as grace is always in analogy with nature. God is ready tonight to bless blasphemers, graceless men, careless men, drunken men, men who ask not His favor, but who, nevertheless, God is willing to save and if they trust His word they certainly receive His salvation.

We need a great Christ. We want one that can wash away foul offenses. He is just such a one as we need. Trust Him. Trust Him now! Besides, what have we to do with asking questions at all? What God gives us to do, is it not ours to do? He tells us, “Trust My Son and I will save you through His blood.” Be it right or wrong, the responsibility will not rest with us if we will do as God bids us to do.

III. I close by using your very fears as an enticement to believe. If it be so joyous only to think of these things, what must it be to possess them? If it gives such a weight to your spirit only to think of being pardoned, adopted, accepted, and saved, what must it be to really be washed? You cannot make a guess.

But this I can tell you, the first moment I believed in Christ, I had more real happiness in one tick of the clock than in all the years before. Oh, to be forgiven! It is enough to make a man leap. Ay, to leap three times as John Bunyan puts it and go on his way rejoicing. Forgiven! Why, a rack becomes a bed of down, the flames become our friends when we are forgiven.

Justified! No more condemnation! Oh, the joy of that! The happiness of the slave when he lands on freedom’s shore is nothing compared with the delight of the believer when he gets out of the land of the enemy. We speak of the joy of the poor captive who has been chained to the oar by the oppressor and who at last is delivered—the breaking of his chain is not one-half such melodious music to him as the breaking of our chains to us. Speak not of the mirth of the merry, or of the flashes of the ambitious and successful. There is a mirth more deep than these—a joy more intense— a bliss more enduring than anything the world can give. It is the bliss of being forgiven, the bliss of having God’s favor and God’s love in one’s soul.

The bliss of feeling that God is our Father, that Christ is married to our souls, and that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, and will abide with us forever. Let the sweetness of the mercy draw you, poor soul! Let the sweetness of the mercy, I say, entice you! But you say, “May I have it?” Come and welcome, sinner, come and receive it!

When leave today you will see opposite to the Elephant and Castle a fountain. If you are thirsty, go and drink. There is nobody there to say, “You must not come—you are not fit.” It is put there on purpose for the thirsty. And if tonight you want Christ, if you feel in your souls a desire to be partakers of His salvation, He stands there in the highway of the Gospel, and He is free to every thirsty soul. No need to bring your silver cups or your golden vases, you may come with your poverty. No need, my poor friend, to wait until you have learned to read well or have studied the classics, you may come in your ignorance just as you are. No need, my poor erring brother, that you should wait till you should thoroughly reform—you may come to Jesus as you are. He will wash the filthy, clothe the naked, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, enrich the penniless, and raise to glory those who will trust in Him.

Oh! may God draw some tonight, some who have come in here out of curiosity to hear the strange preacher, who only hopes to be strange in seeking to win souls by telling them earnestly God’s simple truth! May the Master lay hold of some tonight! Had I the power to plead as Paul did, could I utter impassioned words like those of the seraphic Whitefield, or could I plead with you as a man pleads for his life, as a mother pleads for her child, I would say to you, and beseech you to be reconciled to God!

My strength fails, the truth has been uttered. Hear it! May you receive it! “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved”—thus spoke our Lord and Master—“He that believeth not shall be condemned.” Believe and make profession of your faith, for whosoever with his heart believes, and with his mouth makes confession, shall be saved. May the Lord bless the joy of the tidings to the rejoicing of our heart, for His dear name’s sake! Amen.