Spurgeon Collection

ORIGINALLY, I have no doubt, these words referred to David. He was chosen out of the people. His lineage was respectable, but not illustrious; his family were holy, but not exalted: the names of Jesse, Obed, Boaz, and Ruth, awoke no royal recollections, and stirred up no remembrances of ancient nobility or glorious pedigree. As for himself, his only occupation had been that of a shepherd-boy, carrying lambs in his bosom, or gently leading the ewes great with young—a simple youth of a right royal soul, and undaunted courage, but yet a plebeian—one of the people. But this was no disqualification for the crown of Judah. In God’s eye the extraction of the young hero was no barrier to his mounting the throne of the holy nation, nor shall the proudest admirer of descent and lineage dare to insinuate a word against the valour, wisdom, and the justice of the government of this monarch of the people.

We do not believe that Israel or Judah ever had a better ruler than David; and we are bold to affirm that the reign of the man “chosen out of the people” outshines in glory the reigns of high-bred emperors, and princes with the blood of a score of kings running in their veins. Yea, more, we will assert that the humility of his birth and education, so far from making him incompetent to rule, rendered him, in a great degree, more fit for his office, and able to discharge its mighty duties. He could legislate for the many, for he was one of themselves—he could rule the people, as the people should be ruled, for he was “bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh ”—their friend, their brother, as well as their king.

However, in this sermon we shall not speak of David, but of the Lord Jesus Christ; for David, as referred to in the text, is an eminent type of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, who was chosen out of the people; and of whom his Father can say “I have exalted one chosen out of the people.”

Before I enter into the illustration of this truth I wish to make one statement, so that all objections may be avoided as to the doctrine of my sermon. Our Saviour Jesus Christ, I say, was chosen out of the people; but this merely respects his manhood. As “very God of very God” he was not chosen out of the people; for there was none save him. He was his Father’s only-begotten Son, “begotten of the Father before all worlds.” He was God’s fellow, co-equal, and co-eternal; consequently when we speak of Jesus as being chosen out of the people, we must speak of him as a man. We are, I conceive, too forgetful of the real manhood of our Redeemer, for a man he was to all intents and purposes, and I love to sing,

“A Man there was, a real Man,

Who once on Calvary died.”

He was not man and God amalgamated—the two natures suffered no confusion—he was very God, without the diminution of his essence or attributes; and he was equally, verily, and truly, man. It is as a man I speak of Jesus this morning; and it rejoices my heart when I can view the human side of that glorious miracle of incarnation, and can deal with Jesus Christ as my brother—inhabitant of the same mortality, wrestler with the same pains and ills, companion in the march of life, and,for a little while, a fellow-sleeper in the cold chamber of death.

There are three things spoken of in the text: first of all, Christ’s extraction—he was one of the people; secondly, his election—he was chosen out of the people; and thirdly, Christ’s exaltation—he was exalted. You see I have chosen three words, all commencing with the letter E, to ease your memories that you may be able to remember them the better—extraction, election, exaltation.

I. We will commence with our Saviour’s EXTRACTION. We have had many complaints this week, and for some weeks past, in the newspapers, concerning the families. We are governed—and, according to the firm belief of a great many of us, very badly governed,—by certain aristocratic families. We are not governed by men chosen out of the people, as we ought to be; and this is a fundamental wrong in our government,—that our rulers, even when elected by us, can scarcely ever be elected from us. Families, where certainly there is not a monopoly of intelligence or prudence, seems to have a patent for promotion; while a man, a commoner, a tradesman, of however good sense, cannot rise to the government. I am no politician, and I am about to preach no political sermon; but I must express my sympathy with the people, and my joy that we, as Christians, are governed by one chosen out of the people.” Jesus Christ is the people’s man; he is the people’s friend—ay, one of themselves. Though he sits high on his Father’s throne, he was “one chosen out of the people. Christ is not to be called the aristocrat’s Christ, he is not the noble’s Christ, he is not the king’s Christ; but he is “one chosen out of the people.” It is this thought which cheers the hearts of the people, and ought to bind their souls in unity to Christ, and the holy religion of which he is the Author and Finisher. Let us now beat out this wedge of gold into leaf, and narrowly inspect its truthfulness.

Christ, by his very birth, was one of the people. True, he was born of a royal ancestry. Mary and Joseph were both of them descendants of a kingly race, but the glory had departed; a stranger sat on the throne of Judah; while the lawful heir grasped the hammer and the adze. Mark ye well the place of his nativity. Born in a stable—cradled in a manger where the horned oxen fed—his only bed was their fodder, and his slumbers were often broken by their lowings. He might be a prince by birth; but certainly he had not a princely retinue to wait upon him. He was not clad in purple garments, neither wrapped in embroidered clothing; the halls of kings were not trodden by his feet, the marble palaces of monarchs were not honored by his infant smiles. Take notice of the visitors who came around his cradle. The shepherds came first of all. We never find that they lost their way. No, God guides the shepherds, and he did direct the wise men too, but they lost their way. It often happens, that while shepherds find Christ wise men miss him. But, however, both of them came, the magi and the shepherds; both knelt round that manger, to show us that Christ was the Christ of all men; that he was not merely the Christ of the magi, but that he was the Christ of the shepherds—that he was not merely the Saviour of the peasant shepherd, but also the Saviour of the learned, for

“None are excluded hence, but those

Who do themselves exclude;

Welcome the learned and polite,

The ignorant and rude,”

In his very birth he was one of the people. He was not born in a populous city; but in the obscure village of Bethlehem, “the house of bread,” the Son of Man made his advent, unushered by pompous preparations, and unheralded by the blast of courtly trumpets.