Nov 12
24
The mystery of the Cross
Why was it a necessity for the LORD to lay on Christ the iniquity of His people before bruising Him? All our hope, brethren, is that the judge of all the earth shall do right! (Prov. 17:15). The whole purpose for which the Lord Jesus laid down His life was to declare the righteousness of God. But if iniquity itself had not been laid upon Christ, it had been injustice for the Lord to have bruised him. The mystery of the cross is not that God punished one who was innocent, though Christ knew no sin of himself.
The mystery of the cross is that the Just One willingly submitted himself to the LORD who took the iniquity off his children and laid it upon Christ making him sin so that God was just to pour out wrath upon Christ (I Pet. 2:24; Is. 53:6, 11-12; 2 Cor. 5:21). Then in perfect harmony with holy justice “he was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities.” This amazing faithful act of God’s Servant was both the complete active fulfillment of the law (and the fulfillment of the penalty of the law for the elect of God. Those born of the Spirit of Christ are made partakers of the divine nature so that we believe on Christ in whom we have established the law and by the constraint of his love for us by which Christ has made us complete in him we walk with him daily. Clay Curtis
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CHRIST EVER THE SAME Palms of Elim John MacDuff,1879
“This is the resting place, let the weary rest; and this is the place of repose”—”Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Hebrews 13:8
We may well sit under this shadow of the Beloved with great delight. Human life, outwardly, inwardly, is a “shifting spectacle;” so says the apostle of it. He compares it to the moving scenes or characters in the old Grecian theater—”the fashion” (or the drama) “of this world passes away.” Over the “yesterday” of the past, and the “today” of the present, the clouds of heaven are chasing one another. The waves of its seething, restless sea, are tossing and tumbling in fretful disquietude. And whether these changes have been from prosperity to adversity, or adversity to prosperity; converting life, with some, into a golden bridge, with others, into “a bridge of sighs,” they both lead to the one final goal. The path of sorrow as well as the path of glory “leads but to the grave.”
Believer, amid the fitfulness and uncertainty of earth and earthly things, come and seat yourself under this verdant Palm of a Savior’s unchanging faithfulness. “Trust not in man, who cannot save.” It may be, that some who read these pages may have had, or may be even now having, painful personal proof of that change and uncertainty, that fading and fleeting. You may have felt by experience, how often those joys, which like the bright berries in the summer woods are beautiful to the eye, prove bitter to the taste; how often the loveliest cloud in the life-sky condenses at last into a shower and then falls; how the loveliest rainbow-hue dissolves; how riches take to themselves wings and fly away; capricious fortune forsaking, often just when the golden dream seems most surely realized!
But “HE has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Have you never observed, that while, in the course of a long succession of years, the scenery on a river’s bank may be changed, the river itself remains the same? Formerly it was accustomed, it may be, to flow through secluded woods—its waters, murmuring by forest glades, where the wild deer stole down in the silent eve undisturbed by human step. Now hives of industry are lining its course. Ponderous wheels are revolving and the clang of hammers are resounding, where the woodman’s axe alone was heard a short while ago. But the river itself, unchanged and unchangeable, carries its unfailing tributary-torrent to the main.
So it is with Him who, as “the River of God which is full of water,” rolls its own glorious volume of everlasting love. “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall!” “Behold,” says the same Immutable One, in another metaphor, “I have engraved you on the palms of My hands.” Not on the mountains, colossal as they are, for they shall depart; on no leaf of Nature’s vast volume, for the last fires shall scorch them; not on blazing sun, for he shall grow dim with age; or on glorious heavens, for they shall be folded together as a scroll. But on the hand which made the worlds, the hand which was transfixed on Calvary, the hand of might and love—I have engraved you there. No corroding power can erase the writing, obliterate the name—you are Mine now, and Mine forever!
The travelers come and go in the desert—the canvas tent erected today, is down tomorrow, but the sheltering palms remain. The great Apostle speaks of ‘tribulation’—’distress’—’persecution’—’famine,’ and other adverse forces as so many waves dashing against The Rock—trying to “separate”—gathering their united strength to sweep from the secure shelter. But in vain. They are beaten back in succession with Faith’s challenge—the reproof, not of bold arrogant presumption, but of lowly believing confidence and heavenly trust—”In the name of a Mightier, we bid defiance to your might!” ‘Who shall separate us?’ “I stand upon a Rock,” says Chrysostom, “let the sea rage, the Rock cannot be disturbed.”
Bereaved Christian, you who have been called more specially to experience the sorrows of life; how comforting to know that there is One Prop that cannot give way, One Friend beyond the reach of change, who is working out your soul’s everlasting well-being in His own calm world, far above and beyond the heavings and convulsions of ours. One who is the same in storm and sunshine, births and deaths, marriage bells and funeral knells: of whom you can say, amid the wreck of all human confidences, “They shall perish, but You shall endure!”
“This same Jesus!” Oh how sweetly Fall those words upon the ear,
Like a swell of far-off music In a night-watch still and drear.
“He who spoke as none had spoken, Angel wisdom far above,
All forgiving, ne’er upbraiding, Full of tenderness and love.
“For this word, O Lord, we bless Thee, Bless our Master’s changeless name;
‘Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus Christ is still the same.'”
“Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal.”
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“Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.”—Lamentations i. 12.
Dearest Jesus! I would sit down this evening, and looking up to thee, ask the instructions of thy blessed Spirit, to unfold some of the many tender inquiries wrapped up in this question of my Lord’s. Whatever the mournful prophet’s views were of the churches sorrow, when he wrote his book of Lamentations, surely sorrow never had its full potion poured out, but in the cup of trembling which thou didst drink. And as in all the afflictions of thy people, thou wert afflicted, added to all thine own personal sufferings, their’s also thou didst sustain. And where shall I begin, dear Lord, to mark down the amazing history of thy sorrow? From the manger to the cross, every path was suffering. Indeed thou art, by way of emphasis, called ” the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Thorns and thistles the earth is made to bring forth, to human nature at large; but as in taking away this curse, thou becamest a curse for thy people, none but thyself, dearest Jesus, was ever crowned with thorns; as if to testify the supremacy of thy sufferings. And did all our curses indeed fall upon thee? Was all the Father’s wrath in the full vials of his anger against sin, made to light upon thee? Didst thou wade through all and sustain all, and bear all, on purpose that thy redeemed might be delivered? Did great drops of blood in a cold night (when a fire of coals became needful to warm thy disciples) fall from thy sacred body, from the agony of thy soul’s suffering? Did the Son of God, who from all eternity lay in his bosom, the only begotten and dearly beloved of his affection, indeed die under amazement and exceeding sorrow, and the cry of his soul issue forth of his Father’s desertion? Were these among the sorrows of Jesus? And is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Is it nothing to you, Oh! ye that by disregard and indifference would crucify the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame? Come hither, ye careless and unconcerned; come hither, ye fools, that make a mock of sin; come hither, ye drunkards and defiled of every description and character, whose cups of licentiousness and mirth have mingled for him the wormwood and the gall; behold Jesus, and say, “is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” My soul, bring the question home to thine own heart, and never give over the solemn meditation. It is indeed to thee every thing that is momentous and eternally interesting. Yes! precious Jesus! every wound of thine speaks; every feature, every groan, every cry pleads for me, and with me. If I forget thee, O thou bleeding Lamb! let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; yea, if I prefer not the solemn meditation of Gethsemane and Calvary above my chief joy. Robert Hawker Poor Man’s evening and morning portion.
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Yours! Mine!
Lord, the condemnation was Yours, that the justification might be mine!
The agony was Yours, that the victory might be mine!
The pain was Yours, and the ease mine!
The stripes were Yours, and the healing balm issuing from them mine!
The vinegar and gall were Yours, that the honey and sweet might be mine!
The curse was Yours, that the blessing might be mine!
The crown of thorns was Yours, that the crown of glory might be mine!
The death was yours; the life purchased by it mine!
You paid the price that I might enjoy the inheritance! John Flavel.
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It was His own love that fastened Him there!
(Octavius Winslow, “Morning Thoughts”)
“Jesus fully realized all that was going to happen
to Him.” John 18:4
His voluntariness was not founded on ignorance.
He well knew what the covenant of redemption
involved; what stern justice demanded. The entire
scene of His humiliation was before Him, in all its
dark and somber hues . . .
the manger, the bloodthirsty king, the scorn and ridicule of His countrymen,
the unbelief of His own kinsmen, the mental agony of Gethsemane,
the bloody sweat, the bitter cup, the waywardness of His disciples,
the betrayal of one, the denial of another, the forsaking of all, the mock trial,
the purple robe, the crown of thorns, the infuriated cries, “Away with Him, away
with Him! Crucify Him, crucify Him!” the heavy cross, the painful crucifixion,
the cruel taunts, the vinegar and the gall, the hidings of His Father’s countenance,
the concentrated horrors of the curse, the last cry of anguish, the falling of the head,
the giving up the spirit; all, all was before the omniscient mind of the
Son of God, with vividness equal to its reality. And yet He willingly rushed to the rescue of
ruined man! He voluntarily, though He knew the price of pardon was His blood, gave Himself up thus to the bitter, bitter agony.
And did He regret that He had undertaken the work? Never!
Every step He took from Bethlehem to Calvary did but unfold the willingness of Jesus to die.
Oh, how amazing was the love of Jesus! This, this was the secret why He did not spare
His own life. He loved sinners too well.
He loved us better than Himself. With all our sinfulness, guilt, wretchedness, and poverty;
He yet loved us so much as to give Himself an offering and sacrifice unto God for us. Here was the springhead where these streams of mercy flowed from. This was the gushing fountain
that was opened when He died.
And when they taunted Him and said, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself,” oh, what a reply did His silence give, “I came not to save Myself, but My people. I hang here, not for My own sins, but for theirs. I could save Myself, but I came to give My life a ransom for many.”
They thought the nails alone kept Him to the cross. He knew it was His own love
that fastened Him there!
Behold the strength of Immanuel’s love! Come, fall prostrate, adore and worship Him! Oh, what love was His! Oh the depth! Do not content not yourself with standing upon
the shore of this ocean; enter into it, drink largely from it. It is for you, if you but feel . . .
your nothingness, your poverty, your vileness; this ocean is for you!
It is not for angels, it is for men. It is not for the righteous, but for sinners. Then drink to the full from the love of Jesus. Do not be satisfied with small supplies. Take a large vessel to the fountain. The larger the demand, the larger the supply. The more needy, the more welcome. The more vile, the more fit.