DISCOURSE: 970
CHRIST’S BEHAVIOUR UNDER HIS SUFFERINGS
Isaiah 53:7. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened, not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
THE preaching of Christ crucified has in every age been the great means of converting men to God: nor is there any passage of Scripture, which may not, by a judicious exposition of it, be improved either for leading us to Christ, or for instructing us how to honour him in the world. But it is scarcely possible for any one to read the chapter before us, without having his thoughts led to Christ in every part of it. It is rather like a history than a prophecy, since every thing relating to him is so circumstantially described, and, instead of being enveloped in obscurity, is declared with the utmost plainness and perspicuity. The portion of it selected for our present consideration was signally honoured of God to the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch, who, on his return from Jerusalem, was reading it in his chariot: God sent his servant Philip to unfold to him the mysteries contained in it: and Philip, having at his request seated himself in the chariot with him, “began at the same Scripture and preached unto him Jesus [Note: Acts 8:27-28; Acts 8:32; Acts 8:35.].” May the same divine energy accompany our ministrations, while we lead your attention to that adorable Saviour, and point out to you both his sufferings, and his behaviour under them!
I. Let us contemplate the sufferings of Jesus—
At the first view of this passage we should be led to expatiate upon the greatness of our Redeemer’s sufferings: but there is a very important idea contained in it, which, though obscurely intimated in our translation, might with propriety be more strongly expressed: the prophet informs us that Jesus was to be afflicted in an oppressive manner, as a man is, who, having become a surety for another, is dragged to prison for his debts. This sense of the words would more clearly appear, if we were to translate them thus; “It was exacted, and he was made answerable [Note: Bishop Lowth.].”
Agreeably to this idea, instead of dwelling on the intenseness of his sufferings, we shall rather speak of them as vicarious.
We, by sin, had incurred a debt, which not all the men on earth or angels in heaven were able to discharge. In consequence of this, we must all have been consigned over to everlasting perdition, if Jesus had not engaged on our behalf to satisfy every demand of law and justice. When he saw that there was none able or willing to avert from us the miseries to which we were exposed, “his own arm brought salvation to us [Note: Isaiah 59:16.].” As Paul, interposing for the restoration of Onesimus to the favour of his master whom he had robbed, said, “If he hath robbed thee, or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account; I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it,” so did our Lord, as it were, address his Father on our behalf; that a full compensation being made for our iniquities, we might be restored to the divine favour.
Jesus having thus become our surety, our debt “was exacted of him, and he was made answerable” for it. The demands of justice could not be relaxed. However desirous the Father himself was that man should be spared, the honour of his government absolutely required that the violations of his law should be punished. On whomsoever guilt should be found, whether on the principal or the surety, it must be marked as an object of God’s utter abhorrence. Not even his only dear Son, if he should stand in the place of sinners, could be exempt from the penalty due to sin. Hence, when the time was come, in which Jesus was to fulfil the obligations he had contracted, he was required to pay the debt of all, for whom he had engaged; and to pay it to the very utmost farthing.
It was by his sufferings that he discharged this debt. Let us only call to mind the sentence originally denounced against sin, and we shall see that he endured it in all its parts. Were our bodies and our souls doomed to inconceivable misery? He sustained, both in body and soul, all that men or devils could inflict upon him. Was shame to be a consequence of transgression? Never was a human being loaded with such ignominy as he; “the very abjects mocking him incessantly, and gnashing upon him with their teeth [Note: Psalms 35:15-16.].” Were we to be banished from the presence of God, and to have a sense of his wrath in our souls? Behold, Jesus was “bruised by the Father” himself; and experienced such bitter agonies of soul, that the blood issued from every pore of his body; and he who had sustained in silence all that man was able to inflict, cried out by reason of the darkness of his soul, and the inexpressible torment that he suffered under the hidings of his Father’s face. Were we subjected to a curse? He was, by the special providence of God, doomed to a death, which had long before been declared accursed; and was given up into the hands of the Romans, in order that he might, in the strictest sense, “be made a curse for us [Note: Crucifixion was not a Jewish, but a Roman punishment.].” Finally, had the decree gone forth, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die?” He filled up the measure of his sufferings by death, and effected our deliverance by “giving his own life a ransom for us.” It may be said indeed, that we had deserved eternal misery; whereas that which he endured was but for a time. This is true; nevertheless there was no defect in his payment; because his temporary sufferings were equivalent to the eternal sufferings of all the human race; equivalent, as far as related to the ends for which they were inflicted, to the honour of the divine perfections, and the equity of God’s moral government. Indeed, the value of his sufferings infinitely surpassed all that ever could have been endured by man: if the whole world of sinners had been suffering for millions of ages, the demands of the law would never have been satisfied; eternity itself must have been the duration of their torments: but the dignity of Christ’s nature, as God over all, stamped an infinite worth on all that he did and suffered. Hence his death was a full, perfect, and sufficient propitiation for the sins of the whole world: in the hour of his death he “blotted out the handwriting that was against us, nailing it to his cross.” Thus was our debt wholly cancelled; and “there now remains no condemnation to them that believe in him.”
Having this glorious end in view, he exhibited, throughout the whole of his sufferings, the most wonderful magnanimity in,
II.
His behaviour under them—
Nothing can exceed the beauty and propriety of the images, by which our Lord’s patience is here illustrated. As a sheep, when the shearer is stripping it of its clothing, makes neither noise, nor resistance; and as a lamb sports about even while being driven to the slaughter, yea, and licks the very hand that is lifted up to slay it, so our blessed Lord endured all his sufferings silently, willingly, and with expressions of love to his very murderers.
Twice is his silence noticed in the text, because it indicated a self-government, which, under his circumstances, no created being could have exercised. The most eminent saints have opened their mouths in complaints both against God and man. Job, that distinguished pattern of patience, even cursed the day of his birth. Moses, the meekest of the sons of men, who had withstood numberless provocations, yet, at last, spake so unadvisedly with his lips, that he was excluded, on account of it, from the earthly Canaan. And even the Apostle Paul, than whom no human being ever attained a higher eminence in any grace, broke forth into “revilings against God’s high-priest,” who had ordered him to be smitten contrary to the law. But “there was no guile in the lips of Jesus;” nor did he ever once open his mouth in a sinful or unbecoming manner. On one occasion indeed he expostulates with his God and Father, “My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me?” But herein he did not express the smallest degree of impatience, or of murmuring against God. As a man, he could not but feel, and as a good man, he could not but bewail, the loss of the divine presence; and in this complaint he has shewn us the intenseness of his own sufferings, and the manner in which every good man ought to plead with God in an hour of distress and trouble. Nor did he ever utter any vindictive threatenings against his enemies. He foretold indeed the destruction which they would bring upon themselves when they should have filled up the measure of their iniquities: but this he did with tears and sorrow of heart, not to intimidate them, but to express his affection for them. His silence before the tribunal of Pilate was not a stubborn or scornful silence, but a meek and dignified resignation of himself to the will of his blood-thirsty enemies. How easily could he have retorted all their charges upon them, and put both his judge and his accusers to shame! But his time was come; and he would not but that all the prophecies should be accomplished in him. Moreover, when he was smitten unjustly before the very seat of justice, he made no other reply than this; “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?” Thus, in the midst of all the cruelties and indignities that could be offered him, he never once uttered an angry, a vindictive, or an unadvised word.
Indeed there was not only a submission, but a perfect willingness, on his part, to bear all that he was called to suffer. When first he became our surety, and it was proposed to him to assume our nature for that purpose, he replied, “Lo, I come, I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart [Note: Psalms 40:6-8.].” When Peter would have dissuaded him from subjecting himself to the miseries which were coming upon him, our Lord rebuked him with a just severity, as the very first-born of Satan; since none could more effectually do the part of Satan, than he, who should attempt to divert him from his purpose of suffering in the place of sinners. “With great earnestness did he desire to eat the last passover with his disciples,” and “to be baptized with his bloody baptism;” yea, and “was greatly straitened till it should be accomplished.” He might easily have escaped, when Judas with a band of soldiers came to apprehend him in the garden; but, notwithstanding “he knew all things that were coming upon him,” he voluntarily went up to them, and asked them, whom they sought: and, after lie had shewn them by one exercise of his power that he could easily have struck them all dead upon the spot, even as Elijah had done before him [Note: John 18:6.], he gave himself up into their hands, stipulating however for his disciples (as he had long since done in effect with his heavenly Father for us), “If ye seek me, let these go their way.” At the time of his death also, to convince the people that his nature was not exhausted, he with an exceeding loud voice committed his spirit into his Father’s hands, shewing thereby, that no man took his life from him, but that he laid it down of himself: and the evangelist particularly marked this by saying, “He yielded up,” or, as the word means, he “dismissed his spirit [Note: Matthew 27:50. ’Αφῆκε τὸ πνεῦμα.].”
In the midst of all his sufferings he abounded in expressions of love to his very murderers. When he came within sight of that infatuated, that malignant city, instead of feeling any resentment, he wept over it, and pathetically lamented the invincible obstinacy which would shortly involve it in utter ruin. Many, even thousands of its blood-thirsty inhabitants, were interested in that intercessory prayer, which he offered on the very eve of his crucifixion; the blessed effects of which were fully manifested on the day of Pentecost. While he yet hanged on the cross, instead of accusing them to his Father, he prayed for them, and even pleaded their ignorance in extenuation of their guilt; “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” And after he had risen triumphant from the grave, he still manifested the same unbounded compassion, directing his disciples to make the offers of salvation first to that very people, who had treated him with such consummate cruelty [Note: Luke 24:47.]; and to assure them, that the blood which they had shed was ready to cleanse them from the guilt of shedding it.
Such was the behaviour of our blessed Lord, every way suited to his august character, and calculated to promote the great ends of his mission: for while, by his sufferings, he paid the penalty that was due from us, and thus “finished transgression, and made an end of sin,” he fulfilled also the obedience which the law required, and “brought in for sinners an everlasting righteousness [Note: Daniel 9:24.].”
This subject, replete with wonder, affords us,
1.
An occasion for thankfulness—
Let us for a moment endeavour to realize our state before God. We have sinned against him: we have multiplied our transgressions: they are more in number than the stars of heaven, or the sands upon the sea shore. We owe to God a debt of ten thousand talents; and are unable to pay the least farthing towards it. What if we exert ourselves to serve God better in future? If we could live as angels in future, we could make no satisfaction for our past transgressions: the not continuing to increase our debt would not discharge the debt already incurred. But we cannot help adding to the score every day we live. What then should we do, if we had not a surety? Where should we hide ourselves from our creditor? How should we contrive to elude his search, or to withstand his power? Alas! our case would be pitiable indeed. But adored be the name of our God, who has “laid help upon One that is mighty!” Adored be that Jesus, who undertook to pay the price of our redemption, and who says, “Deliver him from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom [Note: Job 33:24.].”
To view our situation aright let us consider ourselves, like Isaac, already devoted to death, and the arm of God himself uplifted to inflict the fatal stroke. When there seemed no prospect whatever of deliverance, mercy interposed to avert the impending ruin: and Jesus, like the ram caught in the thicket, offered himself in our stead [Note: Genesis 22:13.]. And shall we be insensible to all his love? Will not “the very stones cry out against us, if we should hold our peace?” O then “let them give thanks, whom the Lord hath redeemed, and delivered from the hand of the enemy.”
But this subject affords us also,
2.
A pattern for our imitation—
The delivering of us from destruction was by no means the only end of our Saviour’s suffering: he further intended to “leave us an example, that we should follow his steps;” that as he, “when reviled, reviled not again, and when he suffered, threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously; so we and all his disciples, should walk according to the same rule.” And how excellent is such a disposition! how incomparably more glorious does Jesus appear, when “giving his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and when he hid not his face from shame and spitting,” than any of the heroes of antiquity riding in their triumphal car, and dragging captive princes at their chariot wheels! If then we would be truly great, let our first victory be over our own spirit. Let us “possess our souls in patience,” that, “patience having its perfect work, we may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing.” “If our enemy hunger, let us feed him; if he thirst, let us give him drink; that by so doing we may heap coals of fire on his head,” not to consume him, but to melt him into love. Let us “not be overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good [Note: Romans 12:20-21.].” Difficult, no doubt, this conduct is: but can we want an inducement to it, when we reflect how Christ has loved us, and given himself for us? Should we think it much to forgive our fellow-servant a few pence, when we have been forgiven ten thousand talents? Let us remember that all our professions of faith, if we be destitute of this love, are vain and worthless. “If we could speak with the tongues of men and angels, or had faith to remove mountains,” or zeal to endure martyrdom, yet if we wanted the ornament of a meek, patient, and forgiving spirit, we should be “only as sounding brass, or as tinkling cymbals.” God has warned us, that, as the master seized his unforgiving servant, and cast him into “prison till he should pay the utmost farthing;” “so will he also do unto us, if we forgive not from our hearts every one his brother their trespasses [Note: Matthew 18:35.].” Let us then set Christ before our eyes: let us learn of him to forgive, not once, or seven times, but seventy times seven; or, to use the language of the Apostle, let us “be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us [Note: Ephesians 4:32.].”