DEAR BROTHER, Mere attacks on my statements I should not notice, as I see no Christian profit in it. I leave them, where the will of man is at work in them, to Him whose will is above all human wills. I have always found it a happy course, and the way to be really sheltered from any and every attack. Thou shalt hide them by thy presence from the pride of men, thou shalt keep them secretly in thy tabernacle from the strife of tongues. I am uncommonly thankful that the papers on “The Sufferings of Christ” have awakened the inquiry they have. I have no doubt it was needed when the question once was raised. In itself the raising of it would be a cause of regret to me, for fear of the destruction of holy and reverent affections on such a subject. But we all know that it was raised, and a large class of persons in the Free Church of Scotland and elsewhere were more or less affected by it. The original root, in both England and Scotland, was the deadly wickedness of Irvingism. The attempt to meet that in England by explanation led to the statements which have now become notorious. In Scotland it was a more direct result of softened down Irvingism itself. When the English form of the doctrine being put to shame lost its blasphemous virulence though never given up, it tended to coalesce with the softened and pious remains of Irvingism or semi-Irvingism in Scotland. This is the present phase in winch the influence of this doctrine appears. It has sought to support itself by old opinions and to make use of phrases employed, as is constantly the case, in a general and inaccurate way, when the question was not raised and no such thought was in the mind of the writer, to sustain a system of doctrine which he whose words are quoted never thought of; but its birth and true nature is a distinct, false doctrine as to the relationship of God to Christ, which is not Irvingism, but which affects both the person and work of Christ by views which have flowed from Irvingism, or been the result of contending against it without the Spirit of God.
But my object now is not to pursue these thoughts farther, but to say that when the humblest saint is honestly exercised on the subject or troubled by any statements which it cannot clear up for itself, I ant bound and ready to explain and make the truth, or my own meaning clear, as far as I can. I suppose the replies I have made to your correspondents, C. and another from Manchester, will serve as a general reply to any honest difficulty; but as more than one request for explanation has reached me, I would meet the particular points contained in some of these and clear up what may have been obscurely expressed in my own statements on the subject. The Psalms afforded more especially occasion to that part of the subject which remains obscure to many This is not surprising. The subject is new to most, and the bearing of particular psalms or parts of psalms in many cases new to my own mind; so that, though perfectly clear as to what I reject and what I hold, it is not surprising if I have not made all clear to my readers. Something, doubtless, is my own fault; but much of it the newness of the subject to themselves. I got one paper stating that my language is to the effect that Christ suffered from God apart from atonement. This surprised me somewhat, and I looked at the papers and I found: “but the moment He (Christ) is suffering from God because of atonement for sin, it is exactly the contrary;” and a little further on, “Christ has only drunk that cup, because He suffered from God—entirely apart, totally alone.” Indeed one of the objects of the papers was to show that Christ's suffering from God was a distinct thing, even if at the same time, from His suffering from man-that the former brought grace and redemption to man, the latter judgments, and that this distinction was carefully kept up in the Psalm. In one place it is said, in the preceding articles, that He was smitten of God. This, however, is the language of the psalm, and my remark is introduced in connection with it, though the question may remain how far it applied to Christ, how far to the remnant. No one, I suppose, at least no believer, has ever doubted the general application of the psalm (69th) to Christ. The knowledge of the degree of its application to Him, or its being exclusively so applicable must be, as of all Scripture, the result of divine teaching.
A simple saint is kept, by what he does know with certainty of the truth of God, from being misled by what is obscure; but we may remain ignorant of many such points till God in His grace carry the soul on to farther light and spiritual apprehension. I think it a great mistake to suppose (as is stated, if I remember right, in Horne on the Psalms) because an expression is applicable to Christ or used by Him, that the whole psalm is so applicable. His Spirit speaks in all and throughout each, and in general in reference to the life of a godly Jew. Where an expression served to give utterance to His own perfect piety or sorrow, He could use it, though the whole psalm could by no means be assigned to Him. This is a very important principle to keep fast hold of. There are some psalms, of course, which are positive, personal prophecies of Himself. That, in Psa. 69, Christ is in the mind of the Spirit of God, though not exclusively so, is, I suppose, hardly necessary to prove to Christians, seeing it is one of the Most vivid descriptions of His outward sufferings on the cross. It is in respect to the remarks in my papers on “The Sufferings of Christ,” which arose out of the consideration of this psalm, that difficulties arose in some pious minds. These difficulties I respect, and delight in the jealousy which would not bear anything that they thought touched the divine perfection and relationship with God His Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever expression might throw a cloud on that, or if any did, I condemn it already. I am sure I have no doctrine which does. I hold his cloudless relationship with His Father, save in the act of atonement, to be an essential truth. It was to make this clear that I drew attention to His sufferings from man which brought judgment on man, and His sufferings from God, that is atoning sufferings, which brought forgiveness and peace. This clearly distinguishes a life of communion, and the forsaking and wrath on the cross, and denies distinctly and unequivocally, in whole and in part, the doctrine of Christ's being subject to the displeasure of God as a born Israelite and a born man. He never was but His delight. He was not by birth subject to what He sought to escape and did partly escape from by prayer, obedience, or any other virtue or quality. All this is fundamentally false, makes a false Christ-not the true one at all-let it be vicarious or not vicarious. The former indeed is absurd, if He is subject to the displeasure of God by birth and position as the necessary consequences of these; for He is in it whether He delivers others or not-in it by His own position, not therefore for others. But vicarious or not, it is false; it denies, before the question of vicariousness can arise, the true being of Christ and His true relationship to God, which alone made His gracious work for others possible.
But then another inquiry presented itself. Did these two statements of Christ suffering from man and suffering from God in atonement, explain or rather express all that the Psalms contain in reference to the sufferings of Christ? They do give all that we have to say to as Christians, and hence the difficulty many Christians find in entering into anything further. It is true that in the indirect comfort of a soul under law a certain application of the Psalms may be found. I remember when the only passage in Scripture which comforted me was the 88th Psalm, because no ray of comfort was in it; yet I was sure it was a saint who penned it, and I might be a saint though in like anguish. There is a certain truth in this, but it is needless to pursue it further here. But it is important. to give all its value to Scripture, without in any way turning aside or shrinking from receiving its full force. God is certainly right. And when the saint holds fast the truth which He has been taught of God, and where a passage is obscure waits humbly till God teaches him, he will not go wrong. But to meet effectually a heresy which uses Scripture we must give their full value to the Scriptures of which the heretic avails himself. This frees the spirit of him who respects Scripture, and is troubled, inasmuch as what he cannot receive, because he sees it contradicts known truth, seems to have a foundation in some unexplained passage. It will be found universally that heresies are founded either on some obscure and difficult passage, the true sense of which not being known, it is easy to trouble many minds with some apparent sense of it, or on some truth neglected by the Church. The practical neglect of the true humanity of the Lord, of the presence of the Spirit, and the coming of the Lord, laid the Church open to the wild pretensions and dreadful doctrines of Irvingism. So the true interest which the Lord takes in Israel as God's people being lost sight of, and His sorrows applied only to salvation and to the Church, the Scriptures applicable to Christ's connection with that people remained open to all manner of interpretations.
Christ died not for that nation only, but to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad. But He did die for that nation as such. What God is displaying in that nation-though no blessing can be without atonement-is His government -not the Church's place and portion. These form, besides individual salvation and relationship to God, the two great subjects of Scripture, its heavenly and its earthly part: in heaven the display of infinite grace in the Church; on earth God's government, in result of the display of blessing, under the direct government of the Lord in contrast with man's misrule and Satan's power. The Church is, in union with Christ, the center of the heavenly blessing, and rules with him; the Jews the center of the earthly blessing, the royal nation in the midst of which Christ governs. In all these, individual salvation, the Church, and the earth's resurrection through the fullness of Israel, Christ must have the pre-eminence; but to have it, man being a sinner, He must suffer (Heb. 2:1010For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. (Hebrews 2:10)) and glorify God (John 17) where man has dishonored Him. First of all, everything is based on atonement -the perfect infinite glorifying of God as to good and evil; that which, if it saves us, angels desire to look into. This, as a moral foundation, is the center of all blessing, and makes the blessing dependent on it immutable. It is not the founding of blessing on creation responsibility-as was the case with angels, Adam, and Israel under the law-but on God's having been already perfectly glorified, in respect of every moral question which could be raised. In virtue consequently of this work, man, in the person of Christ, is raised up and set at the right hand of God in power, raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and set over all the works of His hands. Now Christ must glorify God in every respect in which the divine majesty required it and in which He was to take a place in glory, as regards His life. This was done, not by being in distress under God's hand, which would have glorified nobody, but on the contrary would have been the mere subjection of Him who was without sin to the consequence in His soul of the power of evil and divine judgment without a cause, an effacing the divine judgment of good and evil, and confounding altogether what had to be cleared up. He knew all that was due to God in a divinely perfect spirituality in the midst of evil, and walked in it. To meet this with displeasure would have been the contrary of a display of God's way as to good and evil.
God was glorified in Him in life by His maintaining in spite of all temptation, and trial, and sorrow, undeviating communion with His Father, perfect always towards God, and as to the circumstances through which He passed, and equally undeviating obedience to His will.
This God did not visit with His anger and hot displeasure. It would have confounded, as I have said, all good and evil. It was met by what the Lord says, “I knew that thou hearest me always.” Just as angels and men left their first estate, the creature fell untempted, or tempted in the midst of blessing, Christ kept His as man, and in spite of the efforts of the enemy maintained Himself in His place of communion and obedience, though in the midst of sorrow and loneliness of walk. He overcame the strong man, and could spoil his goods, and did, walking sinlessly in communion with His Father. The essence of His position as a living man was, that He did keep that first estate so that He remained that holy thing. Dependence, confidence, communion, and obedience, according to the spirit of holiness, formed His life towards God. As He knows His sheep, and His sheep know Him, so the Father knew Him and He the Father. The very essence of His position in contrast with Adam was, that He was with God, and never got away from Him or the relationship He enjoyed with Him. The question of good and evil was resolved in the world by the power in godliness in life walking in the midst of evil, and overcoming through every temptation, and by goodness dependent on God. But evil and sin had come in; and if any one was to be saved of the evil race, that evil must be dealt with-the true judgment of good and evil maintained according to what God is. This was done in the wondrous work of the cross, where perfect love to the sinner was at the same time displayed. Here, consequently, the very opposite to communion found its place- the forsaking of God. The Lord Jesus drank that dreadful cup, and made atonement for sin and obtained a place for man in the purpose of grace which is displayed in the fullest way in the Church united to Him, though all salvation and every blessing depends on it. His position was the closest relationship of enjoyed favor in life, and forsaking made more terrible by it in death—these formed the two characteristic conditions of the blessed Lord with God and His Father. His faithfulness in all was made good in spite of every obstacle and all the power of evil in man and Satan. So that the whole work was complete.
But there was another side of Christ's service, besides its aspect towards God, glorifying Him in life and in death-the interest He took in His people spiritual or earthly, His sheep or Israel. They, in the path of life, have to go through temptations and trials: His sheep trials of one character; Israel, of another. His sheep have trials of temptation, persecution, sorrow, and the hatred of the world, sustained by communion with God, when in the relationship with God by grace in which Christ Himself stood when on the earth. Chap. 17 of John fully develops this position; indeed chap. 14 partially so too. This, consequently Christ went through. He is their example in it on the one hand, and on the other has the tongue of the learned to know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. We have His sympathies as well as His example. With all this, with more or less clearness, the hearts of His saints are familiar. In general the subjects I have hitherto spoken of are connected with salvation and the Church, rather than with the government of God, although there may be something of this mixed with our sorrows and temptations. But Israel is the center of that government, and in this Christ must have the preeminence too, must secure the glory of God, and comfort His people with His sympathy. The atonement is the basis of this as of every blessing. It has its own unchangeable character. Christ died for the nation. This was towards God for them. His sympathies with them have yet to be inquired into. It is this point that has exercised the minds of some-how he could enter into the sorrows of Israel, when we view them as smitten of God. I have already spoken of, not merely the difference, but the mutually exclusive nature of being subject to those sorrows Himself, as born a Jew, and His entering into them in grace. One is subversive of the other, and they are mutually so. I do not pursue this any farther. My object is to explain how He did enter, how, in a fuller personal sense than was once said of Him as Jehovah, “in all their afflictions He was afflicted.” If they are to be accepted, if they are renewed in heart, and at the same time dread the wrath of God, which they have deserved, and see death before them, and hostility without the fear of God around them-if they trust God, and yet fear what is before them-if Satan's power is to be let loose against them, and death and judgment still press upon their spirit-if all this were from the hand of God, though human beings be the instruments, Christ, to sympathize with them and by His Spirit suggest the right feelings as to it, must pass through their sorrows, not because they are resting on Him in His position, but because they are resting on them; and He will enter into their sorrows. He could say, “Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children, for if these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" Had He need of repentance, or anything to repent of, here He was baptized with the baptism of repentance, in order to walk with the true residue of Israel in the path marked out of them? He was fulfilling righteousness when they were owning sin; but He did come to be so baptized, and it was part of the path of his righteous obedience to do so. He took this place with them and took it because He was not in it. This was its true character-'the gracious and blessed place of answering to God's call, which gave a place and a name to the residue. Still He entered into their position though exactly from another cause, and in the opposite way to theirs. Theirs was confession of sin, His fulfilling righteousness. He came from heaven, having a title to have a will, into obedience, but we from sin, and a will with no title to it; but He came into the path of obedience in which His people had to tread, and walked in it. When they had to be baptized of John, He too, though He had no sin to confess-He would be with them.
This part of the path was indeed quite different in character from what I would now explain. He could walk with them here; when the other part had to be trodden, He must do it alone. They, hereafter, will have the comfort of its being said, “This poor man cried and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his distress.” If their piety will be shown in looking on all as coming from the hand of God, whatever the instrument, so Christ, too, had to receive all at the hand of God and so to look at it as entering into their sorrows, though He were perfectly free in His soul towards God. He bears their sorrows, though He were not the cause of them for Himself, as they had been; and looks at them as coming on them from God- on them from whom He would not be separated till all was accomplished for them.
( To be continued.)-