him; Through the eternal Spirit, he offered himself without spot unto God. And yet it was also expedient that his death should be violent, and so the more penal, to carry the more clear expression of a punishment, and such a violent death as had both ignominy and a curse tied to it, and this inflicted in a judicial way; that he should stand, and be judged, and condemned to death as a guilty person, carrying in that person the persons of so many who would otherwise have fallen under condemnation, as indeed guilty. He was numbered with transgressors, bearing the sins of many. Thus then there was in his death external violence joined with internal willingness. But what is there to be found but complications of wonders in our Lord Jesus? O high inconceivable mystery of godliness; God manifested in the flesh! Nothing in this world so strange and sweet as that conjuncture God-Man! What a strong foundation of friendship and union betwixt the person of man and God, that their natures met in so close embrace in one Person! And then look on, and see so poor and despised an outward condition through his life, yet having hid under it the majesty of God, all the brightness of the Father's glory! And this is the top of all, that he was put to death in the flesh; the Lord of life dying, the Lord of glory clothed with shame! But it quickly appeared what kind of person it was that died, by this; He was put to death indeed in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. Quickened. For all its vast craving mouth and devouring appetite, crying, Give, give, yet was the grave forced to give him up again, as the fish to give up the prophet Jonah. The chains of that prison are strong, but he was too strong a prisoner to be held by them; as our Apostle hath it in his sermon, Acts ii, 24, that it was not possible that he should be holden of them. They thought all was sure when they had rolled the stone and sealed it; that then the grave had indeed shut her mouth upon him; it appeared a done business to them, and looked as if it were very complete in his enemies' eyes and very desperate to his friends, his poor disciples and followers. Were they not near the point of giving over, when they said, This is the third day, and, We thought this had been he that should have delivered Israel? And yet he was then with them, who was indeed the Deliverer and Salvation of Israel. That rolling of the stone to the grave was as if they had rolled it towards the east in the night, to stop the rising of the sun the next morning; much further above all their power was this Sun of Righteousness in his rising again. That body which was entombed, was united to the spring of life, the divine Spirit of the God-head that quickened it. Thus the church, which is likewise his body, when it seems undone, when it is brought to the lowest state, yet by virtue of its mystical union with Jesus Christ, shall be preserved from destruction, and shall be delivered and raised in due time. Yea, as he was nearest his exaltation in the lowest step of his humiliation, so is it with his church when things are brought to the most hopeless appearance, then shall light arise out of darkness. Therefore as we ought to seek a more humble sense of Sion's distress, so we should also be solicitous not to let go this hope, that her mighty Lord, will, in the end, be glorious in her deliverance, and that all her sufferings and low estate shall be as a dark ground to set off the lustre of her restoration, when the Lord shall visit her with salvation; as in the rising of Jesus Christ, his almighty power and Deity were more manifested than if he had not died. And therefore we may say confidently, with the psalmist to his Lord, Psal. lxxi, 20, Thou which hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side. Yea, the church comes more beautiful out of the deepest distress. Let it be overwhelmed with waves, yet it sinks not but rises up as only washed. And in this confidence we ought to rejoice, even in the midst of our sorrows; and though we live not to see them, yet even in beholding them afar off, we ought to be glad dened with the great things the Lord will do for his church in the latter times. He will certainly make bare his holy arm in the eyes of the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. His King whom he hath set on his holy hill shall grow in his con quests and glory, and all that rise against him shall he break with a rod of iron. He was humbled once, but his glory shall be for ever. As many were astonished at him, his visage being marred more than any man, they shall be as much astonished at his beauty and glory. He shall sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him. Thus may a believing soul at the lowest; when, to its own sense, it is given over unto death, yet look up to this Divine power. He whose soul was not left there, will not leave thine there. Yea, when thou art most sunk in thy sad apprehensions and far off to thy thinking, then is he nearest to raise and comfort thee; as sometimes it grows darkest immediately before day. Rest on his power and goodness, which has never failed any who did so. It is he, as David says, who lifts up the soul from the gates of death. Would any of you be cured of that common disease, the fear of death? Look this way, and you shall find more than you seek; you shall be taught, not only not to fear, but to love it. Consider his death; He died. By that, thou who receivest him as thy life mayest be sure of this, that thou art by his death freed from the second death. But especially be looking forward to his return from the grave; this being to those who are in him the certain pledge, yea, the effectual cause, of that blessed resurrection which is in their hopes. There is such a union betwixt them, that they shall rise by the communication and virtue of his rising; not simply by his power, for so the wicked to their grief shall be raised, but by his life as theirs. Therefore is it so often reiterated in John vi, where he speaks of himself as the living and life-giving bread to believers, I will raise them up at the last day. This comfort we have even for the house of clay we lay down; and as for our immortal souls, this his death and rising hath provided for them at their dislodging, an entrance into that glory where he is. Now if these things were lively apprehended and laid hold on, Christ made ours and the first resurrection manifested in us, were we quickened by his Spirit to newness of life, certainly there would not be a more welcome and refresh ing thought, nor a sweeter discourse to us, than that of death. And no matter for the kind of it. Were it a violent death, so was his; was not his death very painful? And was it not an accursed death? And by that curse endured by him in his death, is not the curse taken away to the believer? O how welcome will that day be, that day of deliverance! To be out of this woful prison, I regard not at what door I go out, being at once freed from so many deaths, and let in to enjoy him who is my life. Ver. 19. By which also he went and preached unto 20. Which sometime were disobedient, when once THERE is nothing that so much concerns a Christian to know, as the excellency of Jesus Christ, his person and works; so that it is always pertinent to insist much on that subject. The apostle, having spoken of his Spirit or divine nature, and the power of it, as raising him from the dead, takes occasion to speak of another work of that Spirit, to wit, the emission and publishing of his divine doctrine; and that, not as a new thing following his death and rising, but as the same in substance with that which was, by the same Spirit, promulgated long before, even to the first inhabitants of the world. Quickened by the Spirit in our days, but long before that, by the same Spirit, he went and preached unto the spirits in prison. This place is somewhat obscure in itself, but, as usually happens, made more so by the various fancies and contests of interpreters pretending to clear it. They who dream of the descent of Christ's soul into hell, think it sounds somewhat that way; but, being examined, it proves no way suitable, nor can, by the strongest wresting, be drawn to fit their purpose. Other misinterpretations I mention not, taking it as agreeable to the whole strain of the apostle's words, that Jesus Christ did, before his appearing in the flesh, speak by his Spirit in his servants to those of the foregoing ages, declaring to them the way of life, though rejected by the unbelief of the most part. This is interjected in the mentioning of Christ's sufferings and exaltation after them. And, after all, the apostle returns to that again, and to the exhortation which he strengthens by it; but so as that this discourse taken in is pertinently adapted to the present subject. The apostle's aim in it we may conceive to be this, so to instruct his brethren in Christ's perpetual influence with his church in all ages, even before his incarnation, as that they might see the great unbelief of the world, yea, their opposing of divine truth, and the small number of those who receive it, and so not be discouraged by the fewness of their number and the hatred of the world, finding that salvation in Jesus Christ, dead and risen again, which the rest miss of by their own wilful refusal. And this very point he insists on clearly in the following chapter, ver. 3, 4; and the very ways of ungodliness there specified, which believers renounce, were those that the world was guilty of in those days in which they were surprised by the flood; They ate and drank till the flood came upon them. In these three verses we have three things; I.' an assertion concerning the preaching of Christ, and the persons he preached to; II. the designation and description of the time or age wherein that was, and the particular way of God's dealing with them; III. the adapting or applying of the example to Christians. I. We have the assertion concerning the preaching of Christ, and the persons he preached to, in these words, By the which Spirit he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient. In these words we have a preacher and his hearers. With regard to the preacher, we shall find here his ability, and his activity in the use of it. |