Such views of the Saviour as have now been presented to you, are intended and calculated to have an important practical influence on our hearts and lives. If he is the divinely appointed, qualified, commissioned, accredited revealer of the will of God, let us "hear him," him alone, as the authoritative teacher of religious truth. His word is the word of Him that sent him. Let us not disregard it, let us not reject it, let us not mutilate it, let us not adulterate it. Let us believe and obey his word, and humbly submit our minds to the teaching of his Spirit. If he is the divinely appointed, qualified, commissioned, accredited expiator of human guilt, let us rely with unsuspecting confidence on the great sacrifice which, through the Eternal Spirit, he offered, without spot and blemish, to the Supreme Judge, and on the all-prevalent intercession which, on the ground of that sacrifice, he ever lives to make for all coming to God by him. If he is the divinely appointed, qualified, commissioned, accredited King over God's holy hill of Zion, let us seek to know his laws and ordinances, and, knowing them, let us walk in them all blameless, confiding in his power to protect us amid, and to save us from, all our enemies. If he is the righteous one, let us receive him as of God, made to us righteousness." 1 Let us, instead of going about to "establish our own righteousness," seek to "be made the righteousness of God in him;" seek to "win him, and to be found in him;" and, deeply feeling that "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags," let us gladly and gratefully say, "Surely in the Lord have I righteousness: in the Lord am justified, and in the Lord I glory." And let us not forget that, as the righteous One, he is not only the ground of our acceptance, but the pattern for our imitation. Let us seek to be "righteous even as he was righteous." Let it be our desire to be "in the world as he was in the world," having his mind in us, and having "his life manifested in our mortal flesh."2 Did Christ, the righteous One, suffer; and so suffer, for us? How inconceivably malignant must sin be, which made such sufferings, of such a glorious person, necessary to its expiation and pardon; and how inconceivably strong must his love be, which made him willingly undergo such sufferings, rather than that we should be exposed to the tremendous consequences of unexpiated, unforgiven iniquity! O, how should we hate sin! O, how should we love the Saviour! Nothing is better fitted to animate and strengthen these two master principles of christian holiness, the hatred of sin, and the love of the Saviour, than the believing contemplation of His sufferings for sin, in the room of sinners. Under the influence of the truth now stated, let each of us say in his heart, "Herein is love, not that I loved him, but that he loved me, and gave himself to be a propitiation for my I would put that to death in my flesh, which put him to death in the flesh. I would mortify my members which are on the earth, I would crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts; and forasmuch as He has suffered for me in the flesh, borne my sin in his own body 1 1 Cor. i. 30. Rom. x. 3. 2 Cor. v. 21. Phil. iii. 8, 9. Isa. lxiv. 6. to the tree, that I, being dead to sin, might live unto righteousness, I will arm myself with the same mind, that I no longer live the rest of my time in the flesh, to the lusts of men, but to the will of God; and taught by the grace of God, in Christ his Son, the righteous One suffering for my sins, in my stead, I will "deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present world; looking for the blessed hope, the glorious appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.' III-THE NATURE OF HIS SUFFERINGS. We proceed now to call your attention to the account contained in the text, of the nature of these sufferings of "Christ the just One." They were sufferings "for sins," "for the unjust;" on account of sins, in the room of sinners. These two expressions seem plainly to intimate that our Lord's sufferings were PENAL, VICARIOUS, and EXPIATORY; in other and plainer words, that they were the manifestation of the Divine displeasure against sin, against the sin of men, and were intended, and are found effectual, to render the pardon of sin and the salvation of sinners consistent with, and gloriously illustrative of the perfections of the Divine character, and the principles of the Divine government. That is what we mean, when we say these sufferings were penal, vicarious, and expiatory. Let us, shortly, look at these three distinct, but inseparably connected, characters of our Lord's sufferings. § 1.-Penal. First, then, the sufferings of our Lord were penal sufferings. This was their grand, their leading characteristic. They were not disciplinary; intended to perfect his character. This is the view which is consistently enough taken of them by those who deny his divinity, and consider him as a man of our own order, the son of Joseph and Mary; and to which, with less consistency, some countenance has been given by men who held a purer faith. He was, throughout his whole course, holy, harmless, undefiled. His character was perfect from the beginning. He was, in every stage of his mortal life, just what he should have been; entirely conformed to the will of God. His life was not the acquirement, but the manifestation, of excellence. Being perfect in a moral sense, he needed not to be perfected. He, indeed, "learned obedience by the things which he suffered;" 2 but that does not mean, that he was disciplined by his sufferings into obedience. "The rod and reproof" were not necessary to teach him to obey. His Father's law was in his heart; and to obey was as natural to him as to breathe. Neither does it mean, he learned by his sufferings how painful and difficult a thing obedience is; for it was 1 1 John iv. 10. Col. iii. 5. Gal v. 24. 1 Phil. iv. 1, 2. Tit. ii. 12–14. just because it was obedience, that suffering, otherwise intolerable, was readily borne by him. It was "his meat to do the will of him who sent him, and to finish his work." " It means, that by his sufferings he became practically acquainted with the full amount of the obedience, "obedience unto death," which was required of him as the Redeemer of man, and by which he was "perfected," became fully accomplished, as to merit authority and sympathy, for the discharge of all his functions as "the Captain of salvation, leading many sons to glory;" "the Author of eternal salvation to all who obey him."2 Nor was the great design of our Lord's sufferings to give evidence of his Divine mission, nor to afford opportunity for that display of the suffering virtues which was necessary to his being a perfect example to his followers. Both these ends have been gained by his sufferings; but the first of these ends might have been gained without suffering at all; and if the second had been the only or the chief end in view, suffering in degree more like that to which the bulk of mankind are exposed, we are ready to think, would have better served that purpose. There is much, very much, in the nature and in the extremity of our Lord's sufferings, which both these hypotheses leave utterly unaccounted for. The primary object of these sufferings was to manifest the displeasure of God against sin. They were "for sins." They were the very evils which, by Divine appointment, are the result of the violation of his holy, just, and good law. Christ was treated just as if he had been a sinner, a very great sinner, the greatest of sinners. In the kind and degree of his sufferings, there was something that, even to his unreflecting countrymen, marked him as "stricken of God," a doomed person. 3 Nor are we to think of these evils as merely the natural result of the appearing of such a being as the incarnate Son of God in a world peopled by guilty, depraved men, suffering under the partial infliction of the curse which their disobedience has incurred. This character of our Lord's sufferings was the result of express Divine appointment. "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law." "The Lord made to meet on him the iniquity of us all;" so that exaction was made and he answered it. Though he knew no sin, he was "made sin ;" constituted liable to sufferings expressive of God's displeasure against sin. Though he deserved nothing but blessings, he" was made a curse;" that is, he was doomed, divinely doomed, to suffering on account of sin. The peculiar manner of his death marked, and was intended to mark, the penal nature of the whole course of suffering of which it was the close. In the Mosaic law it was provided, that the bodies of all who were put to death, by whatever means, for crime, should be exposed on a gibbet, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Every one whose body was hung on a tree, was thus publicly declared to have paid his life as a forfeit to justice. To the enlightened eye, there is found on the cross another inscription besides that which Pilate ordered to be written there: THE VICTIM OF GUILT. THE WAGES OF ✦ Gal. iv. 4. Isa. liii. 6, margin. 2 Cor. v. 21. Gal. iii. 13. • Isa. liii. 4. • See note A SIN. But how is this? How does, how can, the just One thus die for sins? How is the innocent, the perfect, God-man treated, as if he were a sinner; the chief of sinners? $ 2.-Vicarious. The answer to this questien is to be found in the second character of his sufferings. When the just One died "for sins," he died "for the unjust" in the room of the unjust; in other words, his sufferings were vicarious. By Divine appointment he suffered what sinners deserved, that provision might be made for their being delivered from the sufferings which they had merited, and to which they were doomed. Messiah was cut off, but not for himself." The just One suffered "for sins," but it was "in the room of the unjust." I There is no possibility of reconciling the penal sufferings of the just One with the wisdom, benignity, or justice of the Divine character and government, but on this supposition. The difficulty is great, even if you take the lowest ground that can be taken, the ordinary Socinian ground; for, how are you to account for the benignant and righteous Governor of the world treating, or permitting to be treated, as a sinner, as a great sinner, an innocent and perfect man? But just as you elevate, in your conception, the sufferer in the scale of being, the difficulty increases, till, when the truth is stated, it swells beyond all possibility of being grasped by any created mind; the Son of God in human nature, all excellent, and infinitely beloved of his Father, is treated as if he were a sinner! Wonder, O heavens: be astonished, O earth.” On the supposition that he was the substitute of guilty men, that he voluntarily took their place in accordance with the benignant will of his Father, and, standing in their place met with their desert; the darkness which covers this part of the divine procedure is, in some measure, dispelled. We deserved to endure every kind and degree of suffering. We deserved to die accursed. He, standing in our room, met not with what he personally deserved, but with what we deserved. This account of the matter, it may be said, removes one difficulty; but it is only by creating another: And it is true there is a difficulty, and a great one: How came he to occupy our place? But this difficulty is of a totally different character from that which we have just been considering. In the former case, we were perplexed with an apparent want of wisdom, righteousness, and benignity in the Divine dispensation; but admit, what cannot well be denied, that the Son of God had complete power over that human nature which he had taken into union with his divinity, and all foundation for accusing the Divine government of injustice, for treating him according to the character which he had voluntarily assumed, is obviously removed: and take into consideration the immeasurable glory which was to accrue to the character and government of God, in the prevention of an accumulation of sin and misery through all eternity, which baffles all power of imagination to estimate, and the securing of a corresponding accumulation of holy happiness, which this strange dispensation is fitted to secure, which, so far as we know, could not have been secured in any other way, which we are sure could not have been secured in any other way so well. then, instead of an apparent want, there is an obvious superabundance, of wisdom and benignity in it. We do not cease to wonder,-if possible, we wonder more than ever; but the expression of our wonder is not, "Doth God pervert judgment? Doth the Almighty pervert judgment?" It is, "O the depth of the riches both of the divine knowledge and wisdom, and righteousness and grace. How unsearchable are his counsels, and his ways past finding out!" The difficulty now is, not to reconcile incompatibilities, but to comprehend infinities. There is still a mystery; but it is a bright, not a dark one. It is the mystery of Divine holiness and kindness; and its contemplation at once awes and delights as we fear Jehovah and his goodness. "Thy mercy is in the heavens, Holy, Holy, Holy One. How excellent is thy loving-kindness! Is this the manner of man, O Lord God?" 1 The doctrine of our Lord's substitution has plainly, then, at least this proof of truth-that it, and it alone, accounts satisfactorily for the facts of the case, and leaves the subject free from all difficulties, except such as necessarily arise out of its nature. But this is but a small part of the evidence in its support. The doctrine of the vicarious, as well as penal, nature of our Lord's sufferings, is implied in all those passages of Scripture, and they are very numerous, in which he is represented as having been a sacrifice for sin. The circumstance that the term "sin" is often used in the Hebrew Scriptures to signify a sin-offering, is a very strong proof that the victim was considered as standing in the room of the sinner; and how could the fact be more plainly stated than in the words of the Jewish legislator, "Aaron shall lay his hand on the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat?" When Christ, then, is said to "have had his soul made," or "to have made his soul a sacrifice for sin ;" when he is said to be "a propitiation," that is, a propitiatory sacrifice "in his blood;" when he is said to be "sacrificed for us as our passover;" when he is said to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself; when he is said to have been "offered to bear the sins of many," we are plainly taught that he stood in our room, and bore the penal consequences of our violation of the Divine law." But the doctrine is not only requisite to account for the facts of the case, and necessarily implied in all those passages of Scripture where Christ is represented as a victim, and his death as a sacrifice; but it is frequently stated in the most explicit language in the Holy Scriptures. I shall quote a few passages. Speaking of Jehovah's righteous servant, Isaiah says, "We esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted;" we reckoned him a person punished signally for his own great, though unknown, crimes; "but he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastise 1 Job viii. 3. Rom. xi. 33. Lev. xvi. 21. Isa. liii. 10. Rom. iii. 25. Ouμa, not inílepa, is the proper supplement to Daorhpcov.-1 Cor. v. 7. Heb. ix. 26, 28. |