Evening, April 23

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"Lo, in the midst of the throne ... stood a Lamb as it had been slain."

  Revelation 5:6

   Why should our exalted Lord appear in his wounds in glory? The wounds
   of Jesus are his glories, his jewels, his sacred ornaments. To the eye
   of the believer, Jesus is passing fair because he is "white and ruddy:"
   white with innocence, and ruddy with his own blood. We see him as the
   lily of matchless purity, and as the rose crimsoned with his own gore.
   Christ is lovely upon Olivet and Tabor, and by the sea, but oh! there
   never was such a matchless Christ as he that did hang upon the cross.
   There we beheld all his beauties in perfection, all his attributes
   developed, all his love drawn out, all his character expressed.
   Beloved, the wounds of Jesus are far more fair in our eyes than all the
   splendour and pomp of kings. The thorny crown is more than an imperial
   diadem. It is true that he bears not now the sceptre of reed, but there
   was a glory in it that never flashed from sceptre of gold. Jesus wears
   the appearance of a slain Lamb as his court dress in which he wooed our
   souls, and redeemed them by his complete atonement. Nor are these only
   the ornaments of Christ: they are the trophies of his love and of his
   victory. He has divided the spoil with the strong. He has redeemed for
   himself a great multitude whom no man can number, and these scars are
   the memorials of the fight. Ah! if Christ thus loves to retain the
   thought of his sufferings for his people, how precious should his
   wounds be to us!


   "Behold how every wound of his

   A precious balm distils,

   Which heals the scars that sin had made,

   And cures all mortal ills.

   "Those wounds are mouths that preach his grace;

   The ensigns of his love;

   The seals of our expected bliss

   In paradise above."