Christ's Musts

Alexander Maclaren's sermon "Christ's Musts" examines the language of divine necessity that appears throughout Jesus' recorded words in the Gospels. Delivered during Maclaren's long tenure at Union Chapel in Manchester, this exposition reflects his characteristic approach to textual preaching, drawing together multiple Gospel passages where Christ speaks of what "must" happen or be done. The sermon emerged from Maclaren's conviction that careful attention to Christ's own words about necessity reveals the heart of the gospel message.

Maclaren traces three categories of necessity in Christ's speech: the must of his suffering and death, the must of his resurrection and glorification, and the must of human response to the gospel. He argues that these necessities are not external constraints imposed upon Christ, but flow from his own nature and mission. The necessity of the cross emerges from both divine justice and divine love, while the necessity of resurrection follows from Christ's victory over death. Most pointedly, Maclaren contends that Christ's "musts" create corresponding "musts" for his hearers—the necessity of repentance, faith, and spiritual rebirth that Jesus declares in passages like his conversation with Nicodemus.

The sermon demonstrates Maclaren's gift for expository preaching that remained influential well into the twentieth century, combining careful exegesis with practical application. His approach to Christ's words about necessity offered Victorian congregations a framework for understanding both the inevitability of the gospel events and the urgency of personal response. The work exemplifies the kind of textually grounded, Christ-centered preaching that shaped evangelical pulpits across the English-speaking world.

Who should read this: Preachers seeking models of expository preaching will find Maclaren's textual method instructive, while those interested in how nineteenth-century evangelicals understood divine necessity and human responsibility will discover a clear articulation of these themes. This is not primarily devotional reading but rather a substantive theological exposition requiring attention to scriptural argument.