THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS AND OUR RESPONSE
1 Peter 3:18; Hebrews 2:18; 1 Peter 2:21-23;
Peter affectingly speaks about the sufferings which belong to Christ, indicating that there were certain sufferings attributable to Him which He as the holy Sufferer could alone bear in the perfection of His humanity. John also speaks about Jesus going out “bearing his cross” (John 19:17); there was clearly something distinctive about the cross of Jesus. It was where Jesus suffered and bore our sins. In John’s gospel, there were three persons crucified, one on this side and one on that, “and Jesus in the middle”, John 19:18. There was something evidently distinctive about the cross of Jesus and His place on the cross. His path was, of course, one of infinite suffering. As we know, the staves of the altar of old were made of acacia wood but covered with copper, denoting a capability and a capacity to bear the suffering – a very affecting thing. So it is very wholesome, and is what has been occupying one recently, just to contemplate, and contemplate again, the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, but not only the description of His sufferings – although how deeply affecting that is – but why He suffered, what was the reason for Him suffering.
These scriptures, among others, give us some indication of why He suffered. In 1 Peter, He suffered for sins: a very foundational matter, you might say, to suffer for sins, but then Peter gives the reason, “that he might bring us to God”. Think of that! There we were, “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise” but then “become nigh by the blood of the Christ”, Eph.2:12,13. So the Lord Jesus suffered for sins in order that we might be brought to God. What a very affecting thing that is. He suffered “the just for the unjust”; He was the just One. The centurion himself could testify to that, saying “In very deed this man was just”, Luke 23:47. There Jesus suffered at the hands of men, suffered on account of righteousness. Who bore hatred and scorn, even physical violence, like the Lord Jesus as He suffered on account of righteousness at the hands of men? But greater still was what He suffered from God on account of sin. Isaiah says, “he hath subjected him to suffering”, Isa.53:10. Who can fathom that tremendous statement, that God Himself should subject His well-beloved Son to suffering? What that must have meant to God, when He who had discharged His will so fully, so completely, so perfectly in every detail, should be subjected to suffering by God Himself. What did that entail? How feelingly Isaiah describes it; “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”. “Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath subjected him to suffering” (vv.5,10). Why was that? That we might be brought to God. That was God’s great end in view, that Jesus “has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”.
We see at Calvary, in what happened on the cross, the end in God’s sight of man after the flesh. There Jesus was, crucified at Golgotha, the place of a skull (Mark 15:22). In Numbers 19, the red heifer was taken. It was a female, a very affecting type of the Lord Jesus as unique in His distinctiveness, speaking no doubt of the delicacy, the tenderness of the Lord Jesus but also as a Man totally different from the life of flesh of man in this world. There was the red heifer, without defect, without flaw, without blemish, and it was burnt. All that was left were the ashes. The cedar wood, the hyssop and the scarlet were cast in to the burning; they represent, we might say, the refined characteristics of the flesh, and then the false humility and pride of men, cast into the burning, and all that was left were the ashes. You think of the unmitigated judgment of God that fell on the blessed Saviour at Calvary as made sin for us there, and dealing with the state of sinful flesh in which we were by nature. He bore it all that the way might be opened up for us to come into the presence of God, not in our own righteousness, but on account of His sufferings and death, and His being now in the presence of God Himself. We have been reading in John’s gospel about being born of water, and of Spirit, but too born of God (John 3). Think of that; you and I, fallen creatures after the flesh, but introduced into the family of God. How it affects my soul that God has operated in such tender mercy, in such overwhelming grace. On what basis did He do it? That the Lord Jesus suffered and died for our sins at Calvary.
When we come to Hebrews, there is this further reference, which endears the Lord Jesus to us: “in that himself has suffered, being tempted”. The temptations which the Lord Jesus endured occasioned suffering for Him. What an encouragement for all of us, especially for those who are younger, as confronted by the temptations which abound in this poor world, to understand that the Lord Jesus, our great High Priest, was tempted in all things. It is very hard to contemplate that He was tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart (Heb.4:15). Not a temptation that Satan could bring against Him was omitted. How affecting it is to think of that. There He was in Luke’s gospel, forty days in the wilderness, led there by the Spirit (Luke 4:1), and in these forty days, He was relentlessly tempted of the devil, and at the end of it all, Jesus hungered. Oh, the perfection of His humanity! How He felt things as no other man could feel them. He hungered. After the unrelenting onslaught of the devil with all his blandishments, all his subtleties, it says of the precious Saviour that “he hungered”. He could have said, “If I were hungry, I would not tell thee, for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof” (Ps.50:12), yet in the glory of His humanity, He hungered. So Satan sought to tempt Him with the prospect of bread, sought to allure Him with the promise of power and glory, and to entice Him with the succour of angelic support, but how supremely Jesus repelled the thrust of the devil, as impervious to his deceptive activities. Blessed Man! and yet He suffered, being tempted. What a reassurance for ourselves. Temptations confront us, particularly when young, but the Lord Jesus has been through it all. “For we have not a high priest not able to sympathise with our infirmities, but tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart”, Heb.4:15. Why did He suffer being tempted? It was that He might be able to help those like you and me who are being tempted. How precious and reassuring that is.
When we come to 1 Peter 2, the apostle says “for Christ also has suffered for you”. Why did He suffer in this way? That He might leave us a model that we should follow in His steps, so that we should have an example of how to live our lives as believers. How rich a source of contemplation is the pathway of Jesus that the gospels illuminate. Mr Darby captures it in his poem:
‘My soul in secret follows
The footsteps of His love;
I trace the Man of sorrows,
His boundless grace to prove’ 1
Every footstep of His was trodden in love. How glorious a Person the Lord Jesus is as He suffered so that He might leave us a model that we should follow in His steps. Read the gospels to discover afresh the steps of Jesus. See how He was weary with the way He had come at Sychar’s well (John 4:6). There He was, a blessed Man, “who is over all, God blessed for ever” (Rom.9:5), yet weary with the way He had come to meet that soul-thirsty woman. In His every action, He left us a model to follow, expressing these features, so alien to ourselves as after the flesh, “who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, threatened not”. Everything that God desired in man was there; it was the essence of perfection in a blessed Man. How different to our own behaviour! Not an act of retaliation, not a word of complaint as He stood before Pilate, the Roman representative. Instead, He answered Pilate not so much as one word, ”so that the governor wondered exceedingly”, Matt 27:14. As another has said, ‘In His humiliation, His divine glory was maintained in the unsounded depths of His Person’. We sing:
‘Blessèd Man, and yet divine!’ (Hymn 147)
In Hebrews 13, again we have a reference to the Lord’s sufferings. But then, such suffering of His surely requires from us an answering response. Paul says to Timothy, “Take thy share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ”, 2 Tim.2:3. Here in these verses, it says, “Wherefore also Jesus, that he might sanctify the people by his own blood, suffered without the gate: therefore let us go forth to him without the camp, bearing his reproach”. We read elsewhere that “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin”, 1 John 1:7. How wonderful that is. But here we are told that He suffered that He might sanctify us “by his own blood”. It is another reason why He suffered. He went out of the gate of Jerusalem, He was crucified there, He suffered there as a sacrifice for sin and shed His precious blood that we might be sanctified. We are sanctified by the truth too, but there is an affecting and appealing attractiveness in the fact that we are sanctified by His blood to be set apart from all that is contrary to Him. So the exhortation to us is to go forth to Him outside the camp, which is indicative of the world and its religious systems. There is reproach in that from which we so readily shrink, but the great example is in Jesus; He suffered without the gate. You can envisage the Lord Jesus, according to John, going out of the gate of Jerusalem. What did people see and think? Was it just a man, bearing a cross, a spectacle of derision and abuse? But it was no ordinary Man, it was the Man Christ Jesus, going out to accomplish the work of redemption and to make propitiation, not for our sins alone “but also for the whole world”, 1 John 2:2. We can picture it, the jeering and the taunts as He passed by, the weight of the cross upon Him, going to be crucified. It says “there they crucified him” (Luke 23:33); they crucified Jesus. That is what man did to the blessed Saviour, the Originator of life, slain by lawless hands.
Then we have this great prospect; “for we have not here an abiding city, but we seek the coming one”. What a day that will be! The present scene of suffering, reproach, hostility, adversity – all ended, and we will take our place as citizens in that abiding city. What an incentive to take our share in suffering. Peter again says, “Christ then having suffered for us in the flesh, do ye also arm yourselves with the same mind”, 1 Pet.4:1. It is a deliberate act of mind, a commitment really to arm ourselves with the same mind – that is, the mind to suffer. How we shrink from that kind of thing, but as we contemplate the pathway of Jesus in its perfection and suffering character, as we consider the glory of the holy Sufferer, what an incentive there is to follow in His footsteps here. For His name’s sake.
Word in a meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
19 October 2020
Jim T Brown
SATISFACTION
Ruth 3:7 (to “corn”),15; Leviticus 3:9-11
I was thinking of the matter of satisfaction. We would all be affected by what our brother has brought before us; it would remind us of the result of the Lord’s suffering which is referred to in Isaiah 53; “He shall see of the fruit of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied” (v.11). How great was His suffering – how full the suffering of His soul was, how deep it was. How wonderful it is that the Lord Jesus sees now of the fruit of the travail of His soul. How wonderful it is that He has that view now. Indeed, He will have that view before Him eternally, but He sees now what is for His satisfaction as the product of His death.
We thought of this verse in Ruth on Lord’s day morning, and it gives us some thought of that satisfaction. Here is the Lord Jesus, in type, as satisfied – the heart of Boaz was merry, and there was the heap of corn. Think of what there is for the Lord Jesus in the whole product of His suffering! Think of the fulness of it – the great heap that there is, so much that He no longer has to labour. What labour there has been! What it meant to Him to labour to secure what was for the divine pleasure – for His own pleasure and for His own satisfaction. But now that work has been done, and He can in principle lie down at the end of the heap of corn, satisfied with the fulness of all that has been reaped, all the product of His own work, His own sufferings, His own death and His resurrection too. How blessed it is to see that there is something that satisfies the heart of Christ now. May we be in the enjoyment of the fact that we as believers are for His satisfaction. That does not take away from the moral edge of anything that a prophetic word brings. There is the question of whether we are behaving in a way which is for the divine satisfaction. But still, the Lord Jesus has the product of His suffering and it is a heap – a great quantity:
‘Out of Thy death has sprung
A wondrous living throng’ (Hymn 152).
How blessed to have part in that, and may we be encouraged as we think of it.
It is not only the Lord Jesus who is satisfied; and we see that in the later verse in Ruth 3. Of course, Ruth suggests in the type what there is for His own people, who in due course will come into the blessing of knowing Him as Redeemer. But here, she is someone who we can think of as an individual who has an attachment to Christ. And what a quantity there is for her, and that quantity is according to the capacity of her cloak, according to the measure of herself. Each one of us would therefore be tested as to what measure we might have. But whatever measure we have, there is this sufficiency, this measured amount that is from the hand of the Lord Jesus. Boaz “measured six measures of barley”, speaking of what our brother has brought before us of Christ’s suffering, and the product of it known in resurrection. What satisfaction there would be for our hearts in that, what satisfaction for our souls. May we be helped to be increased in our measure, so that there should be a fuller measure to be filled, but whatever the measure, may we be satisfied with the perfection and the beauty and the glory of Christ.
But then, it is not only what we are satisfied with. I think that we could say that what underlies all of this is that God is satisfied. There is that reference in a hymn which is very fine, a gospel hymn that we can take up in its fulness:
‘Sweetest rest and peace have filled us,
Sweeter praise than tongue can tell;
God is satisfied with Jesus,
We are satisfied as well.’ (Hymn 410).
Our satisfaction depends on God’s satisfaction being first. We think of the fulness and the blessedness of God’s satisfaction with Christ – satisfaction with His path here, satisfaction with His approach to the cross. What affected me especially in Leviticus is the reference to “the food”. Think of God having food: “the priest shall burn it on the altar: it is the food of the offering by fire to Jehovah”. It is God as it were feeding upon Christ, God having His food in that One, God satisfied, continually satisfied, with what was and is there in Christ. The fat would suggest the energy of life, and that relates to the inwards. Think of what was of that character in Christ, which was always for the satisfaction of God. Think of what there was at the cross as He went forward in the energy of life. It says that Jesus “went out, bearing his cross” (John 19:17), and He went forward in the energy of life to be the offering, and God was satisfied. How wonderfully the perfections and the beauties of Christ came out at the cross. There is a hymn which says:
‘Thine offering excelled’ (Hymn 268).
What excellence there was in the offering of Christ at the cross, and God Himself was satisfied with this, “the food of the offering by fire to Jehovah”. So these sufferings which have been spoken about – each in their measure yield something of satisfaction for the heart of God. How blessed it is!
The wonderful thing about this offering, the peace-offering, is that it is not only the offering which was burnt for God’s pleasure, but it is the offering that, in principle, we ourselves can feed upon. In Leviticus 7, there is the suggestion that there is a portion for the priest (vv.32-36). How we would be desirous of being satisfied with Christ as we would approach divine Persons on Lord’s day morning in particular, satisfied so that there should be that in our souls which would give us the energy to be suitably responsive to the heart of God. But then, there is the fellowship to be enjoyed. How wonderful that fellowship was enjoyed as the peace-offering was offered. It would be shared by all, everyone participating in it. So that it is not just an individual satisfaction, not only your satisfaction in having food for yourself, but satisfaction in the enjoyment of what we have together. How we rejoice in the liberty that has to a degree been returned to us to be together again, to feed together upon what there is in Christ. How wonderful that this is what God has in mind, that there should be in the offering what satisfies Himself, as well as our being satisfied by that same Person. Hymn 53 is another gospel hymn which blessedly sets out God’s thought:
‘Triumphant His present position,
Ascended at God’s own right hand,
Attesting God’s full satisfaction;
Accepted in Him now we stand’.
How wonderful to think of that! Christ is there at the right hand of God.
If we have any question in our minds, it has been fully shown that God is satisfied with Jesus because He has given Him that place at His right hand. It is well attested that God is satisfied with Jesus because He has crowned Him with glory and honour, and we are also for the pleasure of God because “he has taken us into favour in the Beloved”, Eph.1:6. We too are there, blessed and in that position of being for God’s own satisfaction. How wonderful are the thoughts that God has in mind for us, and as we enjoy them, we would be in exercise to answer more fully to them in our hearts and lives.
May it be so, for His name’s sake.
Word in a meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
13 October 2020
David C Brown