Upon two points we will speak at once. The first is a crowded prison, “The scripture hath
shut up all under sin.” And the second is a glorious jail delivery, “that the promise by faith of Jesus
Christ might be given to them that believe.”
I. Behold THE CROWDED PRISON—“The scripture hath concluded or shut up all under sin.”
The jailer is the Scripture—a lawful authority, for the Scripture is not the word of man, but of the
Spirit of God. If any man reject the Scripture, I have little to say to him at this moment, for I am
speaking mainly to those who accept the Bible as having been written by an infallible pen.
If the Scripture, then, which you admit to be written by God, shut you up in sin, you are shut up by a
lawful authority, against which you cannot rebel
Where the Word of the God is, there is power. The Scripture, when it comes home to the heart, like a
hammer breaks in pieces, and like a fire burns its way. We need not be alarmed when judged of men, but
the voice of the Lord is full of terrible majesty, and awes the spirit which it condemns.
But how does the Scripture confine all men under sin? I reply, first, it has been well-observed by
Martin Luther that the very promises of Scripture shut up all mankind under sin. To begin with the
first—that morning star of promise which shone over this world when first our parents left the gates of
blighted Eden—“The seed of the women shall bruise the serpent’s head.”
Since such a promise was needed, it is clear that the blessing could only come to men through the
Redeemer, the seed of the woman, and that in the case of all men, the serpent’s head must be broken, or
they would remain under his dominion. When a blessing is promised, there must have been a need for it.
Where a deliverer is predicted, there must have been a necessity for Him.
If a blessing could come to men by the way of merit, or in the course of nature, there would be no
need of a promise—a promise implies a want, and the very first promise of deliverance by the woman’s
seed from the power of the serpent implies that men were under that evil power.
The fact is that the very existence of the Gospel, and its provisions of grace, pardon, and so on—the
coming of a Savior, His death upon the tree, and His intercession in heaven—all prove that men were
shut up under sin. If they had not been so, what need of you, O Cavalry? What need of Your five
wounds, O Son of God?
Surely all this vast machinery for redemption is ridiculous if men be not slaves. This wondrous
filling of a fountain with blood is a vain superfluity, if men are not foul. So that the very Scripture which
is brightest with life to the sons of men carries within it convincing evidence that men, apart from the
grace of God, are shut up under sin
There was nothing about the Mosaic economy to say to man, “You are good, or you can be good,
and you can save yourself.” But everywhere the declaration was—“You have rebelled and have not
served the Lord. You cannot come nigh unto Him until you are purged by the blood of the great
sacrifice. God cannot accept you as you are––you are polluted and defiled.”
The sinfulness of all men is abundantly taught in Scripture. Indeed, it is to be found on every page of
it.
I have spoken of the jailer. Now notice His prisoners. “The Scripture hath concluded all under
sin”—all, all.
But you have been very moral, you say. Yes, but you are shut up under sin, for outwardly moral as
you have been, you dare not say that you have never thought of evil so as to long for it, that you have
never indulged wrong imaginations, that you have never spoken a rash word, that you have never sinned
in action.
Surely you dare not say that you have loved God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your
strength? Nor that you have always loved your neighbor as yourself? My friend, you, who are so fair to
look upon when you look in the glass of your own self-adulation—if you could see yourself as God sees
you, would discover that you are leprous from head to foot. Your sins are abundant and loathsome,
though you perceive them not.
And this is true of the most religious of those men who are resting in outward observances. They
have prayed every night and morning since they were children. They have never absented themselves
from assemblies for worship. They have attended to baptism and communion, and the like. Ah, sirs, but
the law takes no account of this. If you have not kept its Ten Commandments perfectly, it accepts no
ceremonies as a recompense. God requires of His creatures that they obey His law completely, without
flaw, and one sin of omission or commission will bring down that dreadful sentence which I have
already quoted, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the
law to do them.” Religious or irreligious, the broken law shuts up all men in the selfsame prison.
Now, notice for a minute the prison itself. It is one from which we cannot escape by any efforts of
our own. Brethren, if we say, “We will never sin again,” we shall sin. And our never sinning again
would make no atonement for past offenses. Suppose we were to resolve from this time forth that we
would suffer mortifications of body, and sorrow of heart, to make atonement for sin? It would be
useless, for the law speaks nothing of repentance.
When a man has broken the law, he must he punished for it—there is no space left for repentance
under the law—and the sure result of our being shut up in the prison of the law, apart from the grace of
God, is to be taken from that prison to execution—and to be destroyed forever by the wrath of God.
There is the prison of the text. There is the jailer and his prisoners.
