The Atoning Sufferings of Christ

How was it during those hours of darkness on the cross? Was there any ministering or strengthening angel? Was there any voice from the excellent glory expressing untold delight in His blessed Person? Was there any ray of light from that glory to relieve the awful gloom? No, God had abandoned the Man Christ Jesus. This is an hour that stands alone. There is none like it in the annals of eternity.
But why? God’s Word answers: “He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” He “bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” He “was delivered for our offenses.” “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.” “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” This, then, is the reason. Christ was made sin for us—a sin offering. “Our sins,” “our iniquities,” were laid on Him, and He bore them on the tree. When we were under condemnation, He was “made a curse for us,” to redeem us from the condemnation.
Now, who “made Him to be sin for us”? Who made Him to be “a curse for us”? Who laid our iniquities on Him? Who smote Him? Who bruised Him? Was it man, or was it God? Of course Scripture must answer. Let us then see if Scripture furnishes an answer to these questions.
Who Could Deal With the Sin Question?
It will be seen that it is all connected with the question of sin. I might ask then, in the first place, Who could deal with the question of sin? Of course, God alone could do this. Man neither could nor would. Blessed be God, He Himself has dealt with it in the Person of Christ when He made Him to be a sin offering on the cross.
It was Jehovah that laid our sins on Jesus. He bruised Him, He smote Him.
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord [Jehovah] hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:66All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)).
“It pleased the Lord [Jehovah] to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin.” (v. 10).
The wounding, the bruising, the chastisement, the stripes, the smiting, the forsaking, and, I may add, the indignation and wrath (Psalm 102:1010Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down. (Psalm 102:10)), were all from Jehovah—from God who was dealing with sin as having been laid on Christ at the cross.
You say, “Think of a father who pleased to bruise his own only son.” But, dear brother, we must not set Scripture aside by our feelings and reasonings. It is in this way that an infidel or universalist reasons against the doctrine of eternal punishment.
But I do not think that this expression illustrates truly God’s bruising of Christ. It does not say, “The Father was pleased to bruise His Son.” And Jesus did not say, “My Father, My Father, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” He said, “My God.” And is it not remarkable that this is the only time mentioned in the gospels where He addresses Him as “God”? Always before it was “Father.” This is not without instruction. When you say, “Father,” there is the thought and feeling of relationship. When Jesus uttered the cry on the cross, it was not this. At the cross He took the place of a victim—a sacrifice for sin—to meet the claims of God. And in John 3:1414And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: (John 3:14) Jesus says, “Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up”; while when it is a question of God’s love to the world it is said, “He gave His only begotten Son” (v. 16). In the three hours of darkness on the cross, Jesus was forsaken of God, and that on account of sins, not His own sins, but ours, which had been laid on Him in order that at once God’s majesty and holiness in dealing with sin, and His great love to the world, might be displayed in consistency with His own character.
God’s Delight in His Son
I trust I need hardly say that I believe God was infinitely delighted with His own Son when, as a man, He hung upon the cross, because it was there more than anywhere else that the sweet savor of His perfect obedience was displayed. But the cross was the awful expression of God’s judgment against sin, and that was the reason of the untimely “darkness,” and His forsaking of Christ. Sin was so horrible in God’s sight that, even when it was laid sacrificially on Christ, He had to withdraw the light of His face, and command the sword to awake. As in the flood in Noah’s day, “All the fountains of the great deep” were broken open, “and the windows [floodgates] of heaven were opened”; so one may say, at the cross there were waves from beneath and waves from above, meeting and rolling in upon the holy soul of our blessed Savior. The floods of the ungodly were there, and all God’s waves and billows, in judgment against sin, were there also.
But it was just here that the perfection of Jesus was displayed, and the moral value of His sacrifice. In His sacrifice, the sweet savor of what He was in His own personal perfection, ascended as a cloud of incense to God. This we see in type in Leviticus 16:12-1312And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail: 13And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not: (Leviticus 16:12‑13). Here, there was first the killing of the bullock; then the burning of the incense; and then the sprinkling of the blood. Now, the burning incense and the sprinkled blood both express what was presented to God in the death of Jesus. The incense expresses the personal glory and moral perfections displayed in His death, and the blood, the value of His death for the putting away of sin. Both of these in the type are connected with death.
The Blood and the Incense
As I have said, the first thing was the killing of the bullock. There must be death. Without it there could be no atonement. But the burning incense, and the blood sprinkled on the mercy seat, tell what was presented to God in that death. There must be that which answered to His glory, and which could meet the claims of His glorious majesty. In the type, the incense was burnt on the censer of the high priest with fire from the altar before the Lord. Out of this burning, a cloud arose and covered the mercy seat. It was a cloud of glory rising up and meeting the cloud of glory between the cherubim—glory answering to glory. And then the blood was sprinkled on and before the mercy seat by the high priest under the cover of this cloud of glory which rose out of the fire.
Does not this burning incense, then, typify the sweet savor and personal glory of Jesus ascending up to God in connection with His death on the cross? The holy fire—the fire of God’s judgment— fell upon Him there. The effect of the testing of that fire was the bringing out of the intrinsic glory and moral worth of the Person of Jesus—the bursting forth, as it were, of an incense cloud of glory, answering to the glory and majesty of Him who was there dealing with sin according to the necessity of His own nature and holiness.
A. H. Rule (adapted)