Christ’s Unknown Sufferings

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin… – 2 Corinthians 5:21

God cannot look where there is sin with any pleasure, and though as far as Jesus is personally concerned, He is the Father’s beloved Son in whom He is well pleased; yet when He saw sin laid upon His Son, He made that Son cry, “My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?” It was not possible that Jesus should enjoy the light of His Father’s presence while He was made sin for us; consequently, He went through a horror of great darkness, the root and source of which was the withdrawing of the conscious enjoyment of His Father’s presence. More than that, not only was light withdrawn, but positive sorrow was inflicted…What were the pangs, which Christ endured? I cannot tell you. You have read the story of His crucifixion. Dear friends, that is only the shell, but the inward kernel who shall describe? I doubt not that the Godhead within gave a peculiar sensitiveness to the holiness of Christ’s nature, so that sin must have become even more abhorrent to Him than it would have been to a merely perfect man. His griefs are worthy to be described according to the Greek Liturgy as “unknown sufferings.” The height and depth, the length and breadth of what Jesus Christ endured no heart can guess, nor tongue can tell, nor can imagination frame; God only knows the griefs to which the Son of God was put when the Lord made to meet upon Him the iniquity of us all. To crown all there came death itself. Death is the punishment for sin…whatever over and beyond natural death was intended in the sentence, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” Christ felt. Death went through and through Him… “He became obedient to death, even to the death of the cross.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0694.cfm

From Ruin to Restoration

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. – 1 Corinthians 15:22

It seems to me, my brethren, that while substitution is full of grace, it is not unnatural, but according to the laws of everlasting love. Yet there is a consideration that may remove the difficulty of sin being laid upon Christ. It is not only that God laid it there, that Jesus voluntarily took it, and moreover was in such a union with His church that it was natural that He should take it, but you must remember that this plan of salvation is precisely similar to the method of our ruin. How did we fall, my brethren? Not by any one of us actually ruining himself. I grant you that our own sin is the ground of ultimate punishment, but the ground of our original fall lay in another. I had no more to do with my fall than I have to do with my restoration; that is to say, the fall which made me a sinner was wholly accomplished long before I was born by the first Adam, and the salvation by which I am delivered was finished long before I saw the light by the second Adam on my behalf. If we grant the fall, -and we must grant the fact, however we may dislike the principle, -we cannot think it unjust that God should give us a plan of salvation based upon the same principle of federal head-ship. Perhaps it is true, as has been conjectured by many, that because the fallen angels sinned one by one, there was no possibility of their restoration; but man sinning, not one by one in the first place, but transgressing under a covenant head, there remained an opportunity for the restoration of the race by another covenant head-ship. At any rate we, accepting the principle of the federal head-ship in the fall, joyfully receive it as to the restoration in Christ Jesus. It seems right, then, that the Lord should make the sins of all His people to meet upon Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0694.cfm

Christ Volunteered to Bear Our Sins

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

…the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. – Isaiah 53:6

It has been asked, Was it just that sin should thus be laid upon Christ? We believe it was rightly so, first because it was the act of Him who must do right, for “the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Jehovah, He against whom the offense was committed, and who has ordained that the sin of the people spoken of should be laid upon Christ. To impugn this, then, would be to impugn the justice of Jehovah, and I pray that none of us may have the hardihood to do that. Shall the potsherd venture to strive with the potter? shall the thing formed contend with the Creator of all things? Jehovah did it; and we accept it as being right, caring not what men may think of Jehovah’s own deed. Remember, moreover, that Jesus Christ voluntarily took this sin upon Himself. It was not forced upon Him; He was not punished for the sins of others with whom He had no connection and against His will; but He His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, and while bearing it said, “No man taketh My life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.” It was according to His own eternal agreement made with the Father on our behalf; it was according to His own expressed desire, for He had a baptism to be baptized with, and He was straitened until it was accomplished; and therefore whatever of injustice might be supposed, it is removed by the fact that He who was mainly concerned in it was Himself voluntarily placed in such a position. But I would have you remember, beloved, that there was a relationship between our Lord and His people, which is too often forgotten, but which rendered it natural that He should bear the sin of His people. Why does the text speak of our sinning like sheep? I think it is because it would call to our recollection that Christ is our Shepherd. It is not, my brethren, that Christ took upon Himself the sins of strangers. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0694.cfm

The Suffering Person

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed…the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. – Isaiah 53:5,6

Sin was made to meet upon the suffering person of the innocent substitute. I have said “the suffering person” because the connection of the text requires it. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.” It is in connection with this, and as an explanation of all His grief, that it is added, “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” The Lord Jesus Christ would have been incapable of receiving the sin of all His people as their substitute had He been Himself a sinner; but He was, as to His divine nature, worthy to be hymned as “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth;” and, as to His human nature, He was, by miraculous conception, free from all original sin, and in the holiness of His life He was such that He was the Lamb of God, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, and therefore He was on all accounts capable of standing in the room, place, and stead of sinful men. The doctrine of the text is, that Jesus Christ, who was man of the substance of his mother, and who was, nevertheless, very God of very God, most true and glorious Creator, Preserver, did stand in such a position as to take upon Himself the iniquity of all His people, remaining still Himself innocent; having no personal sin, being incapable of any, but yet taking the sin of others upon Himself…”For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0694.cfm

The Sinner’s Friend

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You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

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All Sins Put Upon Our Redeemer

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

…and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. – Isaiah 53:6

Sin I may compare to the rays of some evil sun. Sin was scattered throughout this world as abundantly as light, and Christ is made to suffer the full effect of the baleful rays, which stream from the sun of sin. God as it were holds up a burning glass and concentrates all the scattered rays in a focus upon Christ. That which was scattered abroad everywhere is here brought into terrible concentration; upon the devoted head of our blessed Lord all the sin of His people was made to meet. Before a great storm when the sky is growing black and the wind is beginning to howl, you have seen the clouds hurrying from almost every point of the compass as though the great day of battle were come, and all the dread artillery of God were hurrying to the field. In the center of the whirlwind and the storm, when the lightnings threaten to set all heaven on a blaze, and the black clouds labor to conceal the light of day, you have a very graphic metaphor of the meeting of all sin upon the person of Christ; the sin of the ages past and the sin of the ages to come, the sins of those of the elect who were in heathendom, and of those who were in Jewry; the sin of the young and of the old, sin original and sin actual, all made to meet; all the black clouds concentrated and brought together into one great tempest that it might rush in one tremendous tornado upon the person of the great Redeemer and substitute. As when a thousand streamlets dash down the mountain side in the day of rain, and all meet in one deep swollen lake, that lake the Savior’s heart, those gushing torrents the sins of us all who are here described as making a full confession of our sins… the Lord made to meet on Him the debts of all His people so that He became responsible for all the obligations of every one of those whom His Father had given Him whatsoever their debts might be. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0694.cfm

All We…

Sherry Christian Life 2 Comments

“All 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

“All we like sheep have gone astray.” Not like the ox which “knoweth its owner,” nor even like the ass which “remembers its master’s crib nor even like the swine which if it wandereth all day long cometh back to the trough at night, but “like sheep we have gone astray;” like a creature cared for but not capable of grateful attachment to the hand that cares for it; like a creature wise enough to find the gap in the hedge by which to escape, but so silly as to have no propensity or desire to return to the place from which it had perversely wandered; like sheep habitually, constantly, wilfully, foolishly, without power to return, we have gone astray. I wish that all our confessions of sin showed a like thoughtfulness, for to say that we are “miserable sinners” may be an increase of our sin unless we have really felt it, to use words of general confession without our soul entering into them may be but a “repentance that needeth to be repented of,” an insult and mockery to high Heaven vented in that very place where there ought to have been the greatest possible tenderness and holy fear. I like the confession of the text because it is a giving up of all pleas of self-righteousness. It is the declaration of a body of men who are guilty, consciously guilty; guilty with aggravations, guilty without excuse; and here they all stand with their weapons of rebellion broken in pieces, saying unanimously, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” I hear no dolorous wailings attending this confession of sin; for the next sentence makes it almost a song. “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” It is the most grievous sentence of the three; but it is the most charming and the most full of comfort. Strange is it that where misery was concentrated mercy reigned, and where sorrow reached her climax there it is that a weary soul finds sweetest rest. The Savior bruised is the healing of bruised hearts. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0694.cfm