BY submitting to the Word, our consciences being seized by it, and our hearts running in the same current as God's through His lines of truth, it is marvelous the place our souls get into.
There are two lines which go straight through the cross. One is the consequence of the cruelty and wickedness of man, actuated by Satan; the other, of the wrath of God.
The Jews reject their own Messiah, but He does not give them up because they do so; on the contrary, He takes in grace, (voluntarily on His part of course) the very place which they are in, in consequence of their rejection of Him And thus, God's governmental wrath, due to them, is entered into and felt by Him. It is not substitutional for others can be with Him in it, as scriptures declare. (Psa. 90:7-97For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. 8Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. 9For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. (Psalm 90:7‑9); Isa. 63:99In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. (Isaiah 63:9).) This governmental anger of God goes on right through the cross, even whilst atonement is made; but atonement is another thing altogether, and in that, as we know, He must stand alone.
Before entering further into this most wonderful and solemn subject, I would say that there must be no curiosity in looking at it. Fifty thousand and seventy of the men of Bethshemesh were smitten because they had looked into the ark of the Lord-a type of Christ. The shoes must be off the feet. When there, is curiosity the brain is at work. It is intellect, and not the Spirit of God which is guiding, and if we yield to it, we shall bring sorrow upon ourselves. The shoes must be off when we come to the things of God, especially upon such a subject as this, where it is Himself and the full revelation of what He is when evil had come in, that is in question. In order—to combat God's enemies successfully I must know Himself, and Himself in the beloved Son, who has gotten the victory over mine We see in Joshua that it requires the fame holiness to -fight the Lord's battles as was, needed in the working out of redemption., He had to stand as much unshod before the Captain of the Lord's host, as Moses had -to do in the presence of the burning bush, where God was revealing Himself as a God of grace without setting aside His holiness in doing so: for grace 'never contradicts righteousness; and, as has been said, " God never belies His nature to carry out His purposes." It is the knowledge of what He is that gives boldness in the presence of His enemies. May the Lord deliver is from every element that savors of insubjection to His blessed word! For it is sufficient for us, let men say what they like.
We find then from Scripture (Heb. 2:1818For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)), that Christ acquired a capacity down here which enables Him, in a special way, to sympathize with His people now, and there is not a sorrow you may be called to pass through for His sake which has not got an echo in His blessed heart. Moreover, the experiences into. which He 'entered here, will enable Him in a very special manner to sympathize with the suffering remnant of the Jews in their day of unparalleled trial. And it is only as we now, learn, by faith in the Word, to understand this, that we ourselves shall have capacity to enter into it with Him then.
It has been, often. noticed, that wherever others are associated with-Christ-in His sufferings there is no atonement. A child can understand this. In the sixty-ninth Psalm we read: " They talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded;" this Makes it evident that atonement is not in question, for others never could have been associated with Him in that. He said to Peter: " Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterward:" Which means, when Christ had exhausted the waters of judgment then Peter should follow Him dry-shod. Christ has put death as divine judgment and the wrath of God behind Himself for us; therefore death as judgment, and the wrath of God, are as much behind us as they are behind Him.
But there is another kind of agony which, clearly, He' had not entered into until His " hour " had come-an agony produced by Satan's coming to press upon Him the cross with all its deep meaning, and by His entering into a place where His people were, and in which they could be associated with Him, according to their measure-a measure, of course; which could not be compared with His. For instance: "Being in an agony he prayed More earnestly, and his sweat was as it were 'great drops of blood falling down to the ground." The thought in Heb: 5:7, synchronizes with this: " Who, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him out of death," &c.. From death is not a correct translation. It is through, or out of death. God could not save both Him and us from death. Indeed, personally, He needed no salvation from it, not being liable to it; but it was only by His going' through it that we could escape from it.
I know it has been said, that others could not be associated with Him in the sorrows we are now contemplating. But I ask: Do not undelivered souls fear judgment? Will not the Jewish saints in a future day fear judgment and escape it, because He did not? Are not saints said to be under the wrath of. God in the ninetieth Psalm, seventh and ninth-Verses. Are they making atonement?, Why the thought were monstrous.
But let us turn to the garden. Satan having departed froth Him for a season now returns.—" The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." He presses the cup upon Him-the clip of death as the judgment of God, which he held in his power (Heb. 2:1414Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; (Hebrews 2:14)) by God's original sentence: for, if God had deprived Satan of the power of death, He would have annulled His own sentence. But Christ endures. He refuses the attractions in the wilderness: He endures the terrors in the garden.
Moreover He will receive it from silo second cause. He rises up to His Father's purpose and says: " O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me except I drink -it, thy will be done." His being put to the test only brings out His dependence more and more. He takes the cup from His Father's hand, and never gets under the power of Satan-no, not at any time-either throughout His life or on the cross. He was always superior to the enemy; 'the more he presses the cup upon Him, the more closely he presses Him to His Father.
But shrink before it He did; His blessed heart quivered before the thought of the wrath of God. Not to fear it would have been insensibility. “He was heard in that he feared." He was "sore amazed," or “affrighted," as the word is translated elsewhere. (Mark 16:55And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted. (Mark 16:5).) He deprecated that awful cup. In Mark's gospel, where He is the servant, He does not qualify His request. He prays, “Take away this cup from me." But then He adds: " Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt."—And the power that He can exercise in subjection to God is always there: He touched the servant's ear and healed it; but He will only use His power the more to slow His perfect subjection and obedience. This sorrow of His soul was not inflicted judgment. It was the place into which His people had brought themselves through rejecting Jehovah Messiah, and into which He, their King, entered with them instead of giving them up.
We read in Zechariah; “Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." The smiting of God, though exclusively confined to the cross, as to the literal act, was felt by the Lord Jesus before He came to it. The actual smiting had not taken place, but the sense of it was present to Him; and for Scripture language it was there. He felt it so keenly that:, in a sense, it was to Him as though it had been done. He says it is as good as done, for I am going on to it; and He quotes the Scripture which affirms it. The blessed Lord Jesus was no hero. A brave man amongst men would go up to the cannon's mouth, just because of his folly: it would be mere animal courage-w ant of capacity to appreciate the results-want of forethought. The blessed Lord Jesus knew all that He was going into, and " He feared; " He was " affrighted." Think of Him prostrate on the ground, His sweat as it were great drops of blood. An angel was sent from heaven to strengthen Him; but only for an another conflict. Now whom am I learning in that weak Man? The God upon whose love I rest!
Look at the, heart of the Lord Jesus in the midst of such agony. Does He forget One of His own? Not one. See His love to them. “Ye are 'they which have continued with me in my temptations." There is not one single thing which He can record in our favor that He will forget to do. If you could only go behind your own back so to speak, and hear your blessed Savior speak of you-even of a cup of cold water given in His name-your heart would be so broken that you never would say another word in your own favor again. It was when Peter meant his best he found out what a wretched heart he had; it was only when he did his worst he found out what a blessed heart Christ had. If I do something discreditable to Him and I get a look into His heart through the cross, and His eye looks into mine by the Word, how it breaks to, pieces! I am not to make excuses for myself; only leave 'Him to intercede; and let me take the place of hating self If ever I find' an idle thought' seeking to get in a bit of self importance-a 'thought of getting a place beyond another-and I; run to God to take refuge from self, what a safe place I am in! How blessed it 'is for me if I thus learn sin in communion With Himself which stops it from acting, instead of letting it come out and having to learn it in company with the devil, as Peter had to do.
If sorrow comes in and gets between me and Him-for we are but poor things-Well, He will feel for me in the sorrow, and sympathize with me when in a right mind about it; and the very fact of my counting upon His sympathy will prevent the sorrow from getting between me and Himself.
Now turn to the hundred and second Psalm. The commentary which the Holy Ghost gives on this psalm lets us into a wonderful understanding of the sufferings of Him to whom it refers. The first chapter of the Hebrews tells us that the speakers there are the Father and the Son. In the tenth verse of this chapter the Father is said to speak to the Son, as well also as in the eighth verse, which is quoted from the forty fifth psalm. Let us look at the circumstances into which the Son had entered, and which gave occasion for the Father thus to reply and speak, and we shall find this brings us to the garden again.
From the first to the eighth verse of this psalm we find the Lord in the circumstances of a peculiarly solitary man. In the eighth verse the enemies are alluded to; in the tenth verse we find that He who had been raised up as Messiah was now cast down; that is, He will take no casting down from any other hand than His Father's, although done by His enemies: and thus Satan failed to get any power over Him. In absolute self-surrender to the will of His Father He gives up everything Himself. If He had said, you are Satan and I am God, which would have been quite true, and had cast him into the abyss, you and I were lost. If you put your foot on a viper, or crush a wasp, that is no conflict. Instead of destroying the enemy on, that occasion, He gave Himself as the victim, that a victory might be for us, in the value of which God could come out in perfect righteousness, and take us for His own peculiar treasure according to the eternal purpose of His blessed heart.
From the twelfth verse to the end of the twenty-second verse forms a parenthesis, a prophecy of events to take place because Jehovah abides forever, and because His promises cannot fail, although Messiah be cut off. He who was entitled to everything by birth as a man, born King of the Jews-a nation that ought to have governed the world-has now to face the most shameful gibbet. He meets indignation and wrath, "Because of thine indignation and thy wrath." Lifted up as Messiah He is now cast down. He prays, is in conflict; He deprecates death; His only resource is prayer.
And now we get the answer. “Of old thou last laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax Old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art thyself" (or the same) " and thy years shall have no end." The Father says you are the Creator; you are Jehovah yourself; "Thy throne, O God."
There is the Father's answer to the Son. Is there any difficulty in that? None whatever. Faith receives it; faith believes it; just as faith receives atonement. It requires faith as much for the former as it does for the latter; and that is where people go astray, because they dream of An imaginary brain-competency to fathom this divine mystery. But oh! when the heart looks at this revelation it is arrested; it worships without effort; and it adores Him now not only for what He has done, but, for what He is in Himself.
We now turn to the cross, in the twenty-second Psalm. Let me point out characteristic of this psalm before entering into, it. Our blessed Lord now stands alone. He is neither heard nor answered. It is not a question here of His entering into a place where others were; but of His bearing and exhausting the inflicted wrath of God where none could be associated with Him, and from under which no one but the Man God's fellow-could ever come.
The first verses prove Him to be the Son of God. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not; and in the night-season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel."
As we contemplate this great sight, let us never forget that it was you and I who brought the Son of God into that furnace of judgment heated seventy times seven.
There was nothing evil that was not there. Sin, death in its horrors, the judgment of God in its terrors, the hatred of devils, the malice and wickedness of man, and our sins also were all there; yes, all, all, were there. The judgment of God was lending its force to all the accumulated sorrows which man and devils heaped upon that holy Victim. There was nothing which cruelty and Satan's power could do, that was not done: 'nothing that, God could do in judgment to express His -abhorrence of sin that was not done. What a sight! Was it you and I that cost our blessed Master all that? Yes, it was; it was you and I. As a loved saint Once
There is not a 'sin of mine which was not a nail in the Person; or a thorn in the brow, of the Son of God."
But what else was there? Everything that is good was there. Mercy to inners; love to the lost; perfect grace; the triumph of good over evil, of light over darkness; of God over Satan were all there. All that God is His unfolded heart, and the holiness of His nature, were revealed in a Man whose perfect obedience rose higher than divine judgment.
Can you form any idea of God's estimate of that obedience? Indeed, you. cannot. Well, that is the measure of your acceptance by God.
But further, when 'our blessed Lord was forsaken of God, did God cease to inhabit the praises, of Israel? And who was God’s Israel on that occasion? The language of Scripture in giving the expression of Christ's heart at that fearful moment is: "O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." Now the nation was in apostacy; the disciples had all forsaken Him and fled. Who then was this Israel, the praises of whom God was inhabiting? The forty-ninth of Isaiah tells me who God's true Israel was. There we read of Christ: " Thou art 'my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." People think that One forsaken of God could not serve in subjection, suffer in subjection, and vindicate God in manifesting all that He is when evil had come in. That is just the thought of their foolish mind. But it only and clearly proves who He was; for there is no place where Christ so conspicuously showed Himself to be a divine Person. as on the Cross. If He had been less, He must have succumbed. A mere creature forsaken of God would be nothing but' a demon. How could a mere man "stand alone at such time by His own power? But He was abandoned by God, and who then sustained Him?
There is a beautiful scripture which always answers this question for me: " No man knoweth who the Son is but the Father." Here we get the inscrutability of Godhead and manhood in one Person, which must "necessarily be beyond. the capacity of a creature, else he would be more than a creature; he would be the Creator. But the verse continues: "and who the Father is but the Son, and, he to whom the Son will reveal Him." May He never have to say to us as He had to Philip, " Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father!"
As saints of God, we must be on a certain standpoint to get right views of the cross, the like of which there is nothing elsewhere, not even in the glory, save the heart of Him who bled on it. Now this standpoint is looking back in communion with the Father about that Son, in conscious identity with Christ as to acceptance. 'There we learn to adore -Him, and to hate self which caused that agony unknown, save to Himself. That hymn, "The half has not 'been told us," means that I have not intelligence to understand the half; but it has all been told us. Yes, all, all, has been told.
What do you think of that little spot Calvary? What of this little world, which when compared with the universe is as a drop of water to the ocean? People have not eyes to see that on that cross the heart of God has been revealed; the triumph of good `over evil has been established; and the whole strength of the enemy has been broken. The extent of that which is material bears no comparison to the solution of all moral principles. The village of Waterloo was amongst the smallest on the continent of Europe; but at that village the fate of Europe was decided, and it became the most important of any. At the cross all that God Himself is has been revealed when evil had come in: all that Satan is has been unmasked; and all that rebel man is has been brought out, and put away for the believer. It is there I see my judicial end. Woe be to him that refuses it! for the Lord has said, "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins."
One glance more at the twenty-second Psalm. The first half is subdivided into seven: From the first verse to the sixth, expresses the -Lord's feelings when forsaken. From the sixth 'to the eleventh, the reproach of men, and His dependence from His birth up to that time. Twelfth and thirteenth verses, bulls beset Him; that is, the religious nation-the religion of the first man. Fourteenth and fifteenth verses, you get His extreme weakness. There was none ever felt weakness like the Son of God—" poured out like water, all my bones rout of joint."
Take a weak child that never knew strength; such does not know what it is' to feel weakness. Take a strong man who has all his life been able to do feats of strength, and lay him low. He will know something, at least, of what weakness is. But what about Him who never was less than the One who humbled himself to become a man? I ask what must it have been for Him, by whom the whole universe is upheld to say, " My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels? "—" He was crucified through weak-less."
Do I understand it—God and man in one Person? If the finite could reach the infinite there would be neither the one nor the other. Do I doubt it? No. And, as to our fathoming such a mystery, it is our highest delight that it is beyond and above us; for a confiding loving heart always delights to see in the Lord Jesus what we are not.
" Thou has brought me into the dust of death." He will take nothing from any other hand than God's. I know nothing more simple-nothing more soul absorbing- than that Christ will bear everything without a murmur, but receive nothing from any second cause. “Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above."-From the sixteenth to the twentieth verse we get the gentile dogs. Here you and I come in; but thank God we are delivered. Roman soldiers combine against Him. Now they are gambling; that is man In presence of the deepest agony ever known, they are gambling for His clothes. Will He move one finger for Himself? Not one.
In the twenty-first verse, we get the lion's mouth that is Satan himself—the adversary in All-his -hatred to God, and his ability to express it against His beloved Son: Lastly, you get the horns of the unicorns, the agonies of death 'itself,,-from which He is heard having made atonement, and glorified God about sin.
He bows His head and says, "Father"; He never said Father during the three hours- of darkness. He then addressed Him as God, which we never read of his doing all through His 'life. What a sight for angels to behold, but specially for men!
There never was a time when the Father's complacency in the Son was greater than -Hien the obedience of- Jesus rose higher than the wrath of God: And I do believe the happiest moment of our blessed Lord's course was when He said, " Father into thy' hands I commend my spirit." He had put death as judgment and the wrath of God behind Himself for His beloved sheep, and therefore as much behind us, as they are behind Him: And the same righteousness which put -Him in the glory will put you and me-there too; and not until then, will He see the travail of His-soul and be: satisfied.
But having suffered alone, will He praise alone? Indeed He will not, He must have you and me with Him now. In the twenty-second verse He says, " I will declare thy name unto my brethren," which is historically fulfilled in John 20:1717Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (John 20:17). " Go to my brethren.' I want them to know we stand in a like relationship to the Father, now that the corn of wheat has fallen into the ground and died, and no longer abides alone.
It is thus I see God And we shall go and " &dare- that he hath done this." That is what we shall do; and if there is anything that will make us ashamed of self-seeking it is this.
TELL me that this poor world hinders me, that the flesh hinders me, that Satan hinders me, I admit it; but that ought not to blind my eyes to what His mind and purpose ever was, and is: that He will bring us into this glory of Christ, and that He: has wrought us for it already. Do not suppose for a moment that God does not mean you to have the joy of it. The moment I believe that Christ the on of God has died for me on the cross, nothing is too great for me. The question is, what is that worth? People talk of presumption there is nothing too great for me to expect in Christ. Do not let yourselves be persuaded that you cannot have the sense of what God gives. He would have us have " a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us."
(J. N. D.)