(Part 2.)
“THIS day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:2121And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. (Luke 4:21)). Yes, in due time, Messiah came. From that day in Nazareth onward, the things written of old concerning Him continued being fulfilled—seen and heard in the life of the Lord Jesus.
No work is left undone
Of all the Father willed; His toil,
His sorrows, one by one.
The Scriptures have fulfilled.
At length, He is led to the cross. Nails have pierced His hands and feet. In the midst of the assembly of the wicked, He is their scorn and derision. Rude hands have stripped off His clothing; rude eyes stare upon Him. His garments are divided among the soldiers crucifying Him, to every soldier a part. For His seamless body coat they cast lots; it is too good to be torn. The words of mockery that assail Him are the very words of Psalms 22:8: —
“He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him; for He said, I am the Son of God. The thieves also, which were crucified with Him, cast the same in. His teeth. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama, sabachthani?’ that is to say, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’” (Matt. 27:43-4643He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. 44The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. 45Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. 46And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:43‑46)).
How oppressively the minutes of those three hours of darkness must have weighed on the crowd, while fear grew as to what it could portend. Anxiety must have been felt by every bystander at the cross, and by every inhabitant of Jerusalem. What general relief came when light returned! It was then about the ninth hour, that Jesus cried, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
The darkness was not a portent, it was a token. No presage of coming evil, but the only sign given, to uncomprehending men of judgment executed then and there. As night invaded noonday, so all “horror of great darkness,” “outer darkness,” closed in upon Him Who is Light. The darkness was a veil to strike with awe those who were outside of, but so near to, the hidden dealings of the sanctuary not made with hands. The darkness passed: another veil, that of the temple was rent. The earthly house of God was left desolate, the heavenly one forever opened. The redeeming work of the Son of God was finished
Was it only Martyrdom?
Lest we miss what is peculiar to the atoning death of the Lord Jesus, and fall into the error that His was only a martyr’s death, let us recall some who braved death as witnesses, noting how differently from Him they bore themselves. Nebuchadnezzar put the three companions of Daniel into the furnace of fire. Free from concern for themselves, and full of courage, they go forward to death. They are preserved; one like the Son of God walks with them in the fire; they emerge scathless (Dan. 3:2727And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them. (Daniel 3:27)). Daniel himself maintains a courtier’s demeanour even in the den of lions; better still, a living and understanding faith is in his heart. He knew why they did not hurt him, “forasmuch as before Him (my God) innocency was found in me” (Dan. 6:2222My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt. (Daniel 6:22)).
Stephen’s joy is unclouded in face of death, or rather in full view of an opened heaven. There were no terrors for him then. His was a peace steadfast and unfluctuating, while enemies surrounded, reviled, and stoned him (Acts 7).
Paul’s anticipations of death were triumphant: he sees nothing but joy in being “offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith” (Philipp 2:17).
The Lord Jesus, on the other hand, is sore amazed and very heavy, full of anguish of soul, praying if it were possible to be spared. Spared what? In this cry, which we are considering, is the answer. He is forsaken by God in His death. This is without parallel, and marked Him out as Sin-Bearer just as clearly as His resurrection declared Him to be Son of God.
It was His glory to glorify God, and proclaim the Name of the Father. The zeal of God’s house consumed Him. Sin and rebellion are the cause of all forsaking by God; why then is His Holy One forsaken? His trust in God is so well known as to be the subject of mockery in this very hour. Nothing in God has failed; nothing in Christ Himself has brought down wrath. Nothing could have produced that effect even in His case, but that one cause. Forsaking was the effect, sin the cause. That “exceeding bitter cry,” has only one possible explanation, “[God] hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2. Cor. 5:21). Yet nothing could have brought righteous judgment into action, but His perfect suitability as the Victim, the Lamb of God without spot or blemish, and His being on the altar in compliance with every particular of the will of God. He had respect to Jesus, offering Himself. On Him the fire from heaven, the searching, unrelenting wrath of God, fell. Therein God glorified His own Name, even as He did in Elijah’s day it was at the same ninth hour when Elijah’s sacrifice was in the same fashion distinguished; his typically, Christ as the one true Propitiation for eternal redemption. And in the temple the evening sacrifice was burning.
The forsaking for a measurable time.
The darkness came and passed. It lasted three hours. We do not know if the forsaking exactly coincided as to its duration, but we know it had its period. Before and after we may view Him in the sunshine of His Father’s love. Before, He prayed, “Father forgive them,” and dispensed mercy to the dying thief. Afterward, but first announcing, “It is finished,” He committed His spirit to His Father. When He had delivered up His spirit, there was no suffering more. He was “in paradise,” the paradise of God, and “this day,” little of it as there was left.
We may not compare the eternity of a creature’s banishment with that forsaking, only once and for a brief time, of the Son of God. Let us rather consider that He, Who created all, died for those whom He created. He, Who suffered is the Eternal, the fountain of life and light and grace for men. For Him to be forsaken at all, meant atonement beyond computation, eternal redemption. Time measures cannot define the incalculable worth of His obedience to death, Who is the Word made flesh in order that, as Man for men, He might offer Himself a sacrifice for sin.
The forsaking real, not mistakenly supposed.
Many have the unhallowed idea that, in the hour of His woe, the Lord Jesus felt Himself to be forsaken, when, in reality, it was not so. Others might misconceive the attitude of God towards them, and especially in deep trouble, but never He Who dwelt in His bosom and knew Him as none other could. The dishonoring thought referred to would make Him inferior to His followers, which cannot be. It would pronounce the sent One of God at fault, where those who look to Him for salvation have triumphed. How can faith entertain for a moment such a thought of Him Who is the Truth? Not merely speaks truth, but is it—which means that His being, behavior, and actions, as well as words, and in all circumstances, are truth, pregnant and precise, spread before us in these varied forms. This cry of abandonment was no exception. He was drinking the cup offered in Gethsemane. It was the cup of wrath against sin. He could never desire it nor feel anything but shrinking from it, else He would not be holy. He could not refuse it, or He would be disobedient. And it was His glory as the Sacrifice to be most holy and obedient, even unto the death on the cross. He could not dash that cup away, or His love would not be satisfied. So He must suffer. In His sufferings His soul registered (may we say?) wholly true impressions of the attitude of His God toward Him.
The suffering was infinite.
“Through the eternal Spirit [He] offered Himself, without spot, to God” (Heb. 9:1414How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:14)). “When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin” (Isa. 53:1010Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. (Isaiah 53:10)). The first of these inspired statements is made in contrasting His offering with that of dumb beasts led to the altar. Christ willingly offered Himself. In what perfect communion of purpose with God He moved on to do His will in suffering for sinners, full of understanding and might through the eternal spirit! Only of one Man could it appropriately be said, “through the eternal Spirit.” The self-offering after this manner of the Man Christ Jesus, Who is the Eternal, surpassed all finite values. This occurs in a context where the teaching is based on the visible details of sacrifice, that is, the body and blood, as familiar to Hebrew readers. The second quotation, however, is taken from a context where these, details are not mentioned, though plainly the language of sacrifice is there. He pours out His soul unto death; He shall see of the travail of His soul; though He is Jehovah’s perfect Servant, His delight, His Arm, “yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him”... to “make His soul an offering for sin.”
In communion with God He had always felt, as God, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the tragedy of death. He had wept at Lazarus’ grave, and over a rebellious Jerusalem. This holy concord was unbroken up to the act of “giving Himself.” But in His abandonment there was a total breach of all communion with God. What travail it must have been for His soul to be made sin, treated in judgment as the abominable thing itself that God hated. The spotlessness of His soul, His love of the Father, His willing obedience of spirit, His divine and infinite goodness opposed to evil, His full knowledge of its depths, His Own precious and inviolable excellence—in a word, all within Him, combined to weight the agony beyond the endurance of any but Himself.
All other hours were suffused with joy, “His joy,” though sorrow mingled, for He was in fellowship with the Father and passing through those hours dispensing the Father’s grace to save and bless the lost. But in this hour, and in that place of judgment, there were no others to be pitied or helped. In this hour there was none to pity Him or help; He was bearing our sins in His Own Body on the tree (1 Peter 2:2424Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)); alone, “made sin” by God on account of Whom He lived (John 6:5757As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. (John 6:57)). The obedience that had always been joy and communion to Him brought Him to this hour when sorrow was overwhelming and solitude absolute’ by which all solid and eternal blessing was to be secured for sinners whom He had hitherto served in every way but this. Then God’s attitude towards sin was God’s attitude towards Him, utterly cut off. In this lay all the bitterness and horror. The sight of sin and of its lesser consequences was always grief to Him; what was His Own bearing of it, and all its full demerits and the resulting wrath from God?
It is impossible for sinners fully to understand and sympathize with a sinless experience in any circumstances. How then can they judge of the experience of uncorrupted and incorruptible holiness in these circumstances—judge, that is, of the sufferings of the Holy One of God in the hour when He made expiation for sin? None can know; one can only learn somewhat of it as a believing listener to His words.
The holiness of the Victim.
His offering was sinless as righteousness required. May we not say it was more? God Himself was not more holy than the Victim. Christ’s holy abhorrence of sin matched that of the throne. In Him was an infinite capacity of holy sensibility, to realize in suffering as a Man, under God’s Hand, all that God could inflict which was expressive of His nature and antagonism against sin. In the type, the oblation was “most holy” by divine ordinance, for He was most holy before Whom it was offered (Lev. 6:17, 2517It shall not be baken with leaven. I have given it unto them for their portion of my offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as is the sin offering, and as the trespass offering. (Leviticus 6:17)
25Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering: In the place where the burnt offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord: it is most holy. (Leviticus 6:25); Isa. 6:33And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. (Isaiah 6:3)); in the antitype it was so in reality as well. God be praised for our most holy Kinsman-Redeemer.
The severity of the infliction.
Blessedness in the highest ruled even on earth in the fellowship of the Father and the Son. Yet nothing of divine wrath against sin was spared the Man Christ Jesus. Had He had been sin personified, no deadlier cup could have been given Him than that which He drank. Let our own conscience say what was it only that could come between to cause Jesus to say, Why hast Thou forsaken Me? The absoluteness and infinity of that breach derive from who the Persons were, and what the burden was. Sin laid upon His own Son came before the holy God for judgment. God inflicting, Christ suffering, so that we may say (and how great is the mystery!) all the cost was His Own. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:88But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)). God was glorified as to sin in pouring out all His abhorrence of it so that He who was one with Him tasted all the bitterness of the cup He mixed. Neither their most blessed relationship, nor Christ’s intrinsic and ineffable human merit brought any alleviation. Judgment is ever God’s strange work; what was it then?
What are we to learn from His question, Why?
The question, Why hast Thou forsaken Me? spoken from the lips of Him Who is the truth, is in its interrogative form, as well as in its substance, a perfect expression of the truth. It proclaimed the real feelings of His soul. Though its form is a question, it is not an inquiry the answer to which was unknown to Him. For when the Greeks approached wishing to see Him (John 12:20-2720And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: 21The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. 22Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. 23And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. 24Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. 25He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. 26If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honor. 27Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. (John 12:20‑27)), His soul was troubled, His prayer arose to be saved from “this hour.” Yet He added, “But for this cause came I unto this hour.” He had explained “this cause” as being that the Son of Man should be glorified, falling as a corn of wheat into the, ground and dying, so as to bring forth much fruit. That there was no other way is enforced by the word “Except,” thus confirming the inevitableness of death for Him Who came to save sinners, and death in such wise as should be burden and horror to His holy soul. “Except a corn of wheat... die, it abideth alone.”
As in the festal throng by day, so in Gethsemane in that dreadful night in which He was betrayed. “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt” (Matt. 26:3939And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. (Matthew 26:39)). The same shrinking of holiness from bearing sin, the same submission to the suffering necessary for our salvation are there. Enlargement in the narrative is forbidden by the spirit of holiness, but the words “this hour,” this cause,” “this cup,” interpret one another. They disclose fully and clearly how well He knew that He should be forsaken and why.
To God, an irresistible appeal.
A question is often used as an appeal or entreaty to God as may be seen again and again in the Psalms. Psalms 74:1,1<<Maschil of Asaph.>> O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? (Psalm 74:1) for instance, in the interrogative form makes the same plea in substance as Psalms 60:1,1<<To the chief Musician upon Shushan-eduth, Michtam of David, to teach; when he strove with Aram-naharaim and with Aram-zobah, when Joab returned, and smote of Edom in the valley of salt twelve thousand.>> O God, thou hast cast us off, thou hast scattered us, thou hast been displeased; O turn thyself to us again. (Psalm 60:1) and further illustrates that the question was not one to which the answer was unknown. The Holy One of God in the unique circumstances of substitutionary and atoning suffering cries, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Is not this Why? an appeal to infinite Holiness, wrung from His soul in these unfathomable depths; expressing His consciousness, in a way most holy, of the proper unnaturalness and absolute incongruity of that forsaking, Why hast THOU forsaken ME? More—did it not demand an answer (and was He not always heard, even from the horns of the unicorns)? Was it not the predicted form, the only form in which He could pray under that load? Was it not in spirit and essence the same prayer as He uttered in presence of the Greeks, “Father glorify Thy name,” and after the paschal supper, “Father the hour is come, glorify Thy Son”? May we not say reverently that its poignancy and agony put eternal holiness to the challenge? To its urgency the Father, straightway answered. Only, the Scriptures must be fulfilled. Christ’s heart sought His Father’s word. Though the answer might be delayed and to men inaudible, it came to Him. What an, answer it was Why? “Because Thou has borne sins that they may be purged away. Thou hast been forsaken that none of those I have given Thee may be lost; that those for whom Thou hast requested may be redeemed and sanctified; that in resurrection Thou mightest be Captain of their salvation.”
The appeal to you.
Inasmuch as the question was uttered in the hearing of men, was it not an appeal to their conscience, too? Have-you sought an answer? Reader, look to the Lord Jesus in prayer, believing, taking with you words and saying, Thou hast forsaken of God, as only Thou couldest be, for sin. Yet.
sin, Lord, not Thine, but mine. I went astray like a lost sheep, Jehovah laid on Thee my iniquity.
Payment God will not twice demand,
First at my bleeding Surety’s Hand,
And then again at mine.
T. D.