THE SUFFERING OF DEATH
[p. 120] THE SUFFERING OF DEATH
The epistle to the Hebrews contains, I believe, a greater number of direct references to the death of Christ than any other book of the New Testament. I have noticed twenty-eight distinct references. The immense importance of the subject justifies our attention being given to it continually. We shall have nothing more wonderful to engage our hearts in heaven.
The Son of man became such in order that He might die; He came into a condition in which He could die. The first aspect of the death of Christ to which the Spirit calls our attention in this epistle is how it stands in relation to the present place of the Son of man as crowned with glory and honour, and to His future place as set over all creation.
The great design of God with regard to Christ could only be carried out through His death. The object in view in His becoming Man was that He should suffer death, and take up all that was in God’s purpose for Him on that ground. The present and eternal place and glory of the Son of man depend on His having suffered death. This should have a great place in our thoughts. “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?” (Luke 24: 26). The Spirit introduces this aspect of Christ’s death to our notice; it is the way by which He enters into His glory. It is not in Hebrews Messiah’s glory only, but His widest and fullest glory as Son of man. He enters into it all as having suffered death. He has suffered the sentence passed upon the disobedient creature so that the honour and glory with which He is crowned are the result of His having undergone in grace what had come on the creature as characterised by sin. It is something like Revelation 5: 11 - 14. It is His worthiness as having redeemed in verses 9, 10; but in verses 11 - 14 it is what He is worthy to receive as having [p. 121] been slain.
The Son of man is a title which belongs to Christ as becoming Man to take up all that was in God’s thought for man, but when He came in, men were under death, and, on the way to taking up God’s glorious thoughts, He entered on God’s part into what was on the race of man by sin, thus bringing out how God’s heart was towards the fallen man. “What is man, that thou rememberest him ... ?” (Hebrews 2: 6); ‘An active recollection, because the object is cared for’ (see note c, Darby Translation). Death is a dreadful thing, for it is the evidence of God’s displeasure on account of sin, but Jesus has tasted death for every thing so that the whole universe may see how favourable God is to His creatures even when they have come under death. The death of Jesus has a universal bearing. His death is the great expression of the favour of God to every man or thing. The point is to show that God’s favour is greater than sin or death; whatever has come under death through the sin of man, Jesus has tasted death for. So that the sin of man, and the sentence pronounced on it, has given occasion for the favour of God to be expressed in this wonderful way. And the crowning with glory and honour is God’s manifestation of His delight in the One who has thus expressed His favour to men as fallen. God will have that to be known; He will have the universe to admire it; He will place everything in subjection to the One who has by suffering death expressed His grace to all that was under death. In this new and glorious way will God be known throughout eternity.
But then there is another thing, connected with the purpose of God’s love. God in His supremacy is the One for whom are all things and by whom are all things, and He has formed a purpose in His love to bring many sons to glory. The fact that He will have sons shows that His purpose is a purpose of love, and glory is the consummation of all that such a Being can propose for His own satisfaction. In doing this wondrous thing it was becoming to God to do it in a [p. 122] certain way. He would do it by providing a Leader for this company of many sons, and He would make that Leader perfect through sufferings. The divine thought of sonship included that men should be in God’s presence on the ground of God being glorified in love and holiness as to sin. It is not apart from the thought of divine righteousness (2 Corinthians 5: 21). Sonship involves perfect suitability to the holy love of God notwithstanding all that men had been in their former history. They are all to be conformed to the image of His Son; that is, to the image of One glorified after glorifying God here by suffering death. This brings all the value of God being glorified into the place and relationship of the many sons. They are all expressive, and will be eternally, of the holy triumph of God in love where sin had been. What is expressed in Jesus glorified will be expressed in them; it is a position reached by Him after suffering death.
The sufferings of Christ have conferred upon Him complete competency to bring about the great purpose of God’s love. God, in bringing many sons to glory, is doing it by making Christ perfect through sufferings, so as to lead them out of all that they were in before and to put them as sons in glory. He is invested with full competency to do this. The point here is that it is done in a holy way, as is implied in the words “sanctifies” and “sanctified” (verse 11). God in purposing to have sons in glory has in mind that Christ shall have the honour of bringing it about — that He should be made perfect, or ‘consecrated’, to fill that great and wondrous office. So that when the sons are all in glory, they will be there as witnesses to the competency of Christ to lead them there. He was consecrated by the sufferings of the cross so as to be qualified to carry through this great purpose of love in a holy way. God is entitled to have the full satisfaction of His love, and He is able to bring it about, but He has done it in a holy way by making Christ perfect through sufferings, so that He is seen to be supremely glorious as the One who suffered so that He might carry all through.
[p. 123] Every one of the many sons will be an eternal tribute to His glory.
Until Christ had suffered He could not hold the holy office of being the Sanctifier. But He is now with God on the ground that He has glorified God in death about sin, so that He is entitled to set men apart from sin altogether in the holy value of His sufferings. Sanctification in Hebrews is always sacrificial (see chapters 10: 10, 29; 13: 12). But along with this goes the wondrous thought that the Sanctifier and the sanctified are “all of one”. This involves a work of God in the sanctified ones, so that, morally speaking, they have a common origin with Christ, and He is not ashamed to call them His brethren. The thought of “the children” as a special class — “the seed of Abraham” — is distinctly brought before us in this chapter. These are men viewed as objects of the call and work of God, so that they are suited in nature and moral character to be associated with Christ on the wondrous and divinely perfect ground of His own sufferings. The resurrection and glory of Christ are the answer to what He was personally, but the place and glory of the many sons are the answer to His sufferings. He leads into that place as qualified to do so through sufferings. So that while sonship is the gift of sovereign love it is also the precious and eternal fruit of the sufferings of Christ. He leads out all that is here into the blessedness of what is there as consecrated to do so through sufferings. He goes first into that scene of glory in sonship as One whose sufferings have given Him title to lead us there. God brings us into sonship in a way that is morally suitable to Himself.
‘There glory bright and fair
Shines with celestial beam;
For He who suffered once is there,
Its centre and its theme’. (225:5)
The place we have in sonship is based upon God being glorified in relation to sin and death. “He has chosen us in him before the world’s foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love; having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1: 4 - 6). This purpose was formed in sovereign love before sin or death or even the creation of the world, but God could only bring us into it in a way suitable to Himself through redemption wrought in the suffering of death. This makes evident that when we consider sonship in the light of how we come into it, we must think of it as the precious result of redemption (see Galatians 4: 4, 5; Ephesians 1: 7; Romans 8: 23). In this last scripture, sonship is defined as “the redemption of our body”. “The anxious looking out of the creature expects the revelation of the sons of God”: all creation will then be set free from the bondage of corruption. The revelation of the sons is their coming out, but as Leader, Christ leads them in. In being the Leader, He is presented to us as the One in whom God’s great thought is first set out. He was not in that position until He had suffered, but He is now the Pattern of the whole company of many sons.
The children partake of blood and flesh, and as such, they are subject to death, and the devil has the might of death and would keep in bondage by the fear of death if Christ had not become the Liberator. This brings out another great aspect of His death. “He also, in like manner, took part in the same, that through death he might annul him who has the might of death”. He came into the condition of blood and flesh, but He has passed out of it through death. Whatever claim or power Satan might have in regard to men in blood and flesh has been annulled by Christ coming into death as having identified Himself with the children. The devil is annulled so completely that the power of liberation from the fear of death is vested in Christ. He is entitled to liberate the children because He has gone through death on [p. 125] their behalf, though personally exempt from it. He is able to set free all to whom the fear of death brings bondage. This is part of the great liberation which divine grace and love have secured for us in Christ and through His death.