{Transcript of B. W. Newton's Lecture}
In considering the last two Psalms, beloved friends, looked at the first as representing Christ as the servant of God, standing in the midst of abounding profession of the name of God, not true profession before Him, but the hollowness and deceit of unsound profession of the truth of God; in the other, Christ as the servant of God, contemplating the closing blasphemous iniquity of the latter day, the closing iniquity which will come on at the end of the days in which w live; until that time the Spirit of God must always exercise the souls of the saints in these two things. It is impossible for Him to be as the Spirit of service in us, guiding our actions, influencing our thoughts and judgments, without His leading our consciences to be exercised about the evil around us; and there are two forms of evil: the loose profession of the name of God, or the rejection of that name, so that from the time the Lord Jesus came on the earth, down to the present moment, the Spirit of God in the saints has been exercised or is exercising them about these things. In this there is similarity between Christ and us, for we have received the same Spirit, and are intended like our Master to be exercised in these things, and the more we are, the more blessed it will be for us, we shall learn the blessing of being subdued inwardly by affliction, which is not merely personal; it is better to be taught by personal afflictions than not to be taught at all, but each should desire to be taught by afflictions which come on Him as the servant of the Lord, by being exercised about his Master's business, by being led to sympathize with His feelings, identified with His suffering truth, and the afflictions of His suffering people, and entering into these things according to the love and sympathies of God; then the soul becomes subdued without the painfulness of the rod of personal smiting, and this is a great blessing, seeing judgment must come on our flesh. If we are really used here there must be discipline on our flesh, which God has visited on the cross of Christ; how much better for it to come on us for righteousness sake in the service of our Master, for then it comes sweetly in the power of God, drawing the soul near to God, instead of making it suspect His love, and is in itself fruit which personal afflictions are not; so that it is indeed a great mercy if any of our souls are led by the Spirit to take an interest in the things passing around us, whether of Satan or of God, for God's sake and with Him. This I see is the place of the servant of God in the two preceding Psalms But another interesting and important question is, the manner in which Christ was personally chastened and afflicted, while the servant of God in the earth, for it was not merely the sufferings He had because His soul entered into the condition of things around him, but there was quite another question, the relation of God to Him while thus suffering. "For a person to be suffering here because he serves God is one thing, but the relation of that person to God, and what he is immediately receiving from His hand while serving Him is another; and it is this which the sixth Psalm and many others open to us. They describe the hand of God stretched out as rebuking in anger and chastening in hot displeasure, and remember this is not the scene on the cross. We are so accustomed to think of God as chastening Christ on the cross, and not to feel surprised at that, when He was made a sacrifice for sin, but in this Psalm Christ is not at all standing in the place of sacrifice for sin; there were earlier relations in which he stood to God before the close of His earthly career; it was after He had been proved a lamb without blemish and without spot; after He had in various ways been tried, seen to be the lamb made perfect through suffering, that he gave Himself a sacrifice for sin; this was only one incident in the life of Christ, important indeed to us as involving all out blessings, but in relation to His service to God, it was only the closing incident of His long life of suffering and sorrow; so that to fix our eye simply on that would be to know little what the character of his real suffering were. Now before He came to the cross, there was one great dividing point in His history, and that was, when we first read of Him in the gospels coming to John to be baptized, when He came publicly forward in the sphere of things, as the servant of God, in the sight of Israel and the world, THAT was the great dividing point in the life of Christ, only three and a half years of His life passed after that. He was the public servant of God -three and a half years -a very short time, for He only lived about thirty-three and a half; so that thirty years, by far the greater part of His life, was spent when He was not the public servant, not anointed with the Holy Ghost, as the spirit of power, and sent forth led by the Spirit as the minister of God. In the gospels we have His outward history during those three and a half years, but nothing scarcely respecting the preceding years of His life; they were almost passed over in silence; so we should gain little acquaintance with the character of the Lord's experiences, sufferings, or history, by considering simply what is told us in the gospels, but in the Psalms this is revealed to us: we there see what His relations to God were during those thirty years which passed before His baptism; there we have the record of His sufferings and experience during that time It is a subject which ought to be touched with a cautious and careful hand, one in which it is easy to go wrong, yet amply repaying meditation; and though we may find difficulty in it, and perhaps commit errors, yet it will be found profitable to our souls, to meditate on what the Scriptures reveal respecting this early period of the life of the Lord Jesus in the flesh; it is therefore a subject I would earnestly commend to your regard. In considering Him who thus suffered, we have first to consider who He was. His PERSON: He was only one person, but in that one person there were two distinct natures, He was "the Word made flesh"; "God manifest in the flesh," so there were two distinct natures in His one person, and both were perfect; His human nature was perfect, and His humanity consisted of body, soul, and spirit, into these nothing divine entered; there was no mingling of divine with human, His was strictly a human soul which the word of God had taken into everlasting union with Himself; there was nothing divine in His soul more than in His body; His was strictly a human body, soul, and spirit. It is of great importance to see the true, real humanity of the Lord Jesus. You find it in all the types of His humanity: you never find any metal, gold, or silver introduced into that which typifies His human nature. For example, the veil was rent -it was of purple, and scarlet, and fine linen; but nothing that could not be rent was intertwined in it, and this is strictly preserved through all the types that we may never mingle the thought of Divinity with the humanity of the Lord Jesus. The great importance of this is because Christians are accustomed to lessen the thought of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, by supposing His divine was so mingled with His human nature that He did not feel as we do, that superior powers were given to Him which in a great measure nullified His sufferings; they could not conceive how terrors should take hold of Him as on other persons; they have less difficulty about wrath, because the thought comes in that His being divine in some part lessened His suffering. Now, I apprehend, the case is exactly the reverse there were two things that gave peculiar intensity to the sufferings of Jesus: one was, that He was perfect as man, holy, and all His sensibilities being perfect, He was prepared to feel things with an acuteness that we never do; it gave Him a susceptibility to human sorrow which we never have. The very perfectness and holiness of His humanity increased His power to suffer, and so His near connection with God, seeing it brought all the apprehensions of the Divine sensibilities into the feelings of human nature. The very circumstance of His being the Word made flesh, made the acuteness of those sensibilities which reached Him through His human more lively; so the two things which made Him suffer were the perfectness of His human nature and the feelings of the Divine which became connected with the human. It may be asked, was not the strength of the Divine put forth to deaden or to give power to sustain His sufferings? I answer, generally speaking not at all, the great mystery of the incarnation was that "He emptied himself," and the power of the Divine nature was never put forth to lessen or deaden the sense of His sufferings. He might have put forth the power of the Divine nature, but a part of His obedience was to suffer, not to lessen His sufferings by working miracles or by doing anything to lessen the weight it was intended He should feel as weak man; the only relief granted to Him was, when God was pleased to sustain Him inwardly by internal joy or communication of strength, such as He communicates to us in affliction sometimes, or by an angel; but Christ was dependent on God for this so as never to put forth His own power save as God bade Him or was pleased to strengthen Him; so His being the Word made flesh added to the intensity of His sufferings; His having all the holiness of the sensibilities which attached to God in the midst of evil and sorrow. He was a person born into the world like a plant sensitive and delicate, which because of His own nature was sure to suffer; the very constitution of it made Him peculiarly by birth a sufferer. It is important to keep this in view in reading the Psalms The next question is how did He suffer? The moment He came into the world He was a part of mankind in it; He was born a man; therefore in that sense became a part of the human family. If He had been born in Paradise, He would not have found sorrow, by becoming a part of it, but being born out of it, and seeing He was born into the world under the curse, it brought Him under all the sorrow and affliction which pertain to the human family as such.
Supposing we belonged to a family which was banished to a distant land, and there subject to every hardship and sorrow, and we were to go and form a part of that family, we must of course drink of the same cup and partake of their sufferings; this was what Christ did. I do not refer to what were called his vicarious sufferings, but to His partaking of the circumstances of the woe and sorrow of the human family, and not only of the human family generally, but of a particular part of it -of Israel which for a little while had been a happy part of it when on the banks of the Red Sea they triumphed gloriously, but now the curse had fallen on them. "Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field; cursed shalt thou be in thy basket, and in thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. " These were the character of the curses which had fallen on Israel, because they had transgressed the law, broken the everlasting covenant; so Jesus became a part of an accursed people, a people who had earned God's wrath by transgression after transgression, on whom the prophets too had pronounced their curses; they had rejected the testimony of the prophets, and their testimony therefore was turned into a curse against them, so Jesus became obnoxious to the wrath of God the moment He came into the world, accordingly we find many of the Psalms speaking of this. "From my youth up I suffer thy terrors with a troubled mind, &c. " Psalms which do not apply to the cross or to the period of His manifested service, but which speak of Him as a man living amongst other men, with the terrors of God compassing Him about. I regard this Psalm as one of the earliest experiences of the Lord Jesus. "O Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger, &c." Observe this is chastening in displeasure, not that which comes now on the child of God, which is never in wrath, but this rebuking in wrath, to which He was amenable, because He was a part of an accursed people; so the hand of God was continually stretched out against Him in various ways. He was chastened every morning. "My loins, He said, are filled with a loathsome disease. " Now we do not read of such chastening after He began His public ministry, but before that I doubt not He was often so afflicted. "His eye," in this Psalm, it is said "is consumed because of grief" -Il is visage was marred more than any man's -and His form more than the sons of men"; so that He seemed to be fifty years old when only thirty; for before He entered on His public ministry, He was continually under the pressure of sorrow of this kind from God, and had in this condition to go through the experience of that, proper to man, namely trial here, for "man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upward"; besides that death and hades -death representing that which seizes the body, hades means the place where the souls of the departed went. It. was said of Jesus "thou wilt not leave my soul in hades," so there were these two things before Him, death and hades; the body to be in the grave, the soul in hades. It was not a place of torment for the righteous, but of confinement, beneath, in the bowels of the earth, I believe; which is finally to be cast into the lake of fire the place of confinement, and where there is no power of living unto God. "The dead cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee, they that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth; the living shall praise thee as I do this day"; but He is able to sustain every where, and did sustain the souls of those who were departed, therefore it is said of the Old Testament saints, "through fear of death they were all their life time subject to bondage"; saints NOW go TO HEAVEN, the saints were subject to bondage because God desired that the awe and terror of death and this place of separation might be with their spirits; He treated them as His servants who were to walk peculiarly in the fear of death so it was His desire to leave this feeling of awe on the spirits, and it is His desire to leave on ours the feeling of triumph, and glory, and blessing -of rest, of life, and not death; but then man had not entered into that condition by the resurrection of Christ. Jesus was often made to pass through this awe and terror, though He was continually revived by visitations from God, which enabled Him to say, He should see His goodness in the land of the living, but He really tasted of death in a way we never shall; part of His sufferings was to have a sense of what this hades was, such as never came on the soul of man, for He was made to feel things according to God, and therefore the full truth of such a solemn condition as this, was a part of the cup He had to drink. It was not merely that He had enemies all around him, and saw with horror the condition of the wicked, His soul felt this, and all the responsibilities of service, but in the midst of all this He felt the Lord rebuking Him in hot displeasure because of His connection with these on whom His displeasure rested; and besides that, He had the terrors of death and hades before Him, that place of separation from God, the bars of which He alone was able to break through. If you can conceive a weak, sensitive, spotless, holy, human soul allowed to be under all this pressure and terror, and if you can conceive what it was to have to walk day by day exercised by experiences of this kind, you may see a little what the darkness of the path of the Lord Jesus was; terror before Him, enemies despising Him for His holiness, every tongue against Him, and He under this chastisement from God, which made them despise Him more, because they saw HE WAS SO, and so looked on Him as one cursed from God, because He was under the weigh of this terrible chastisement from Him. It was after having gone through this condition that He found continual relief from God, but we do not find this in every Psalm; there is one which ends in darkness "lover and friend has thou put far from me, &c.," but commonly they end in relief, God strengthening Him by internal hope and joy, given at the moment or anticipatively, but His life through all the thirty years was made up more or less of experiences of this kind, so it must has been a great relief to Him to hear the voice of John the Baptist, saying, "Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Here was a door opened to Israel at once, they might come and be forgiven, so He was glad to hear that word, He heard it with a wise and attentive ear and came to be baptized because He was one with Israel, was in their condition, one of wrath from God; consequently, when He was baptized He took new ground, but Israel would not take it, He stood alone nearly, and the moment He took that ground, the Holy Spirit was sent down, God's seal was set upon Him, "this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." This person who had gone through all this thirty years chastening and rebuking, waiting patiently on God all that time and who, though not employed in outward service, yet never transgressed the commandment of God, often feeling like a sheep that was perishing as He says, "I have wandered as a perishing sheep," like sheep belonging to the heavenly fold, but for a time distanced from it, waiting for the guidance of the Shepherd. "Wandered," here is the same word as where it is said of Abraham, -"Jehovah made him to wander from his country and from his father's house." In a worse sense the Lord Jesus was made to wander from His Heavenly Father's house, so He says, "seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments." That is the history of all Psa. 119; it is the history of Jesus while thus made to wander like a perishing sheep, looking to the Shepherd to feed, direct, and seek Him, seeing He never forgot His commandments all the while. This was his condition during the thirty years of His life, so that it was a relief to Him to be called out to minister, anointed with the Holy Ghost, and sent out to preach and do good to others; He said, "the kingdom of God is come on you." He was able to cure sicknesses and heal diseases, so that the last three and a half years was by, far the happiest in His life, for he was not afflicted by the hand of God as before; there was in great measure relief from the chastisements of the Lord, and now under the guidance of the Holy Ghost He found a new character of affliction as the servant of God, but coming to Him in the ministerial place in which he was set through the power of the Holy Ghost; this place is granted to us the moment we believe, we too are sealed and anointed with the Holy Ghost, we never come under the curse of Israel, but are taken up on the ground of blessing the moment we believe, more than ever Jesus was, because He is now risen, gone home to God, and man is therefore treated as brought nigh to him, and no longer in the distance; we begin where Christ ended, so our life may always be one of ministry -all have received a gift for ministration from God; to minister to each other and to worship before Him; we have received this great relief from suffering and trial, that we are called the moment we believe into a place of service: After this the Lord Jesus had three great scenes to pass through -First, temptation from the devil, brought to Him not in the way of affliction, no horror, but tempting and assailing His soul by seducing gratifications, that was the first trial made by Him when He came publicly forward. He had been a tried servant long before; thirty years He had gone through; so, I suppose, the forty days He was in the wilderness was really a time of joy to the spirit of Christ: when he was peculiarly with God, led there by the Spirit; not till they were over, did He hunger, and then the tempter came; so it is sometimes with us, after a season of spiritual joy, when the soul has found peculiar rest in God, some great trial may come exactly opposite to the condition in which we have been before; we might have been suddenly sustained, and then the sustainment as suddenly with-drawn; then we feel it the more; so during the forty days the Lord Jesus was sustained, so that He felt no hunger, and when the sustainment was withdrawn, and the full power of hunger let loose upon Him, then the tempter came, seeking to persuade Him to put forth His own power to relieve His hunger by turning the stones into bread; if He had done so, He would have ceased to wait on God, and all the righteousness of Psa. 119 would have been lost. In Gethsemane, it was evidently horror of soul; what gives the character to Gethsemane is weak humanity, and all the power of Satan allowed to be brought upon Him; unless we knew what that power was we could not conceive its fearfulness. It was there the hand of Satan coming with all his power to see if he could crush Him. He cried to God with strong crying and tears, but we do not read of any outward power put forth to help Him. He was comforted by the ministration of an angel only. I should regard this as the most terrible hour He ever passed through; we shrink from this more than any other part of His history; it was the only one in which we find Him seeking human sympathy; on the cross, He sought it not, but here He did, as though He felt so oppressed and weak, He would have been thankful to have been relieved by their sympathy and prayers, but they slept: and when it was over so conscious was He that the difficulty was surmounted, that He said to them, "Sleep on now, and take your rest" -that is His word to the church now, we may rest, the difficulties are over, and we may sleep on undisturbed in blessed and happy security and rest, for all is over now. He dreaded not the cross, as He did Gethsemane: the cross was the place where He was made distinctly the sacrifice for sin. He had sought to gather Israel, but Israel would not be gathered; now He had completed the work of redemption, and put it in the hand of God, saying, "Though Israel be not gathered, yet my work is with my God," &c. This is our great blessing; all those various scenes of the past thirty-three years of His holy life, the nature of which, God understood perfectly, all the value of His blood-shedding God has taken into His own hands, and uses it towards us in making us blessed, beautifying us with all the garments of excellency which He has found in. Christ, for Jesus is "made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," though we are so unlike Him, so unworthy of fellowship with Him, yet God uses it towards us, and will by means of it bring us by and by, into a condition fit for full communion with Himself; when we shall have all the perfectness of His humanity and of His power, for in the glory we shall have the same character of humanity and life, although it will not be inherent, but communicated to us, and we shall be made like unto the Son of God. This is the condition in which we have seen Christ placed; as a servant under the heavy pressure of the hand of God. How does this affect us? We have seen how it has been the means of our being crowned with blessing; how it exempts us from using the language of this Psalm, it is never ours to say; "My soul is also sore vexed," &c., as Jesus had when terrified by death and hades; He had to pray against it, and so to gain deliverance from the Lord; we have not; we have no terror of hades, or death, no bones vexed, no souls disquieted; none of these things rest on us; we are chastened, but not in hot displeasure. "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten," there is SOMETHING DISSIMILAR in that; it comes to us as under the dealing of LOVE, and THAT makes A WIDE DIFFERENCE. It is most profitable to meditate on that -you cannot meditate on it too much -it shows the wonderful character of that love that has placed us in circumstances so different from those of Jesus before the cross. These chastisements were not necessary to Him to make Him more obedient to God; but chastisements are to us to make us more conformed to His image; we have much to subdue in us, He had not, and they come to us to make us more obedient; but to Him because He WAS obedient, and to PROVE His perfect obedience, that thought sometimes a little discourages us, we say "if it came on me as on Christ it would not be so bad, I would bear it, but I feel I deserve it"; now even when we have that feeling, we may always say I am under grace, he had to say, I am under law, He was never under grace, so it is bitterness done away, when we turn to Him and to His grace, and when the soul answers to the rebukes of God, it may always turn to Him and find the same fullness of grace which we are to know when brought into the glory, by and bye in the perfectness of Christ, and afflictions so received will work for the blessing of our spirits, then we shall find that even if we have to say they are deserved, they teach our souls some knowledge of God and the depths of His love, which will be for future fruitfulness, so we shall not repent but have to bless Him for all these things.
{J. L. Harris' Strictures on B. W. Newton's Lecture, Sent to C. McAdam.}
MY DEAR BROTHER, I have no objection to your printing my notices on the doctrine contained in a MS. paper, professing to be notes of a lecture by Mr. Newton on Psa. 6. If it was merely a single statement, however erroneous I might regard it, I should object to publicly noticing it; but after making every allowance for imperfect note taking and misapprehension, the doctrine which the lecture teaches is so clearly defined, that it appears to me to be capable of being stated without misrepresenting its meaning; and believing as I do, that the statements put forth in the lecture are subversive of the doctrine of the cross, I do not hesitate to put it before Christians that they may judge for themselves, and I feel called upon to do this because this lecture has been received and read by many as deeply interesting and instructive without their discerning its unscriptural statements.
I desire explicitly to state how the MS. came under my notice. About three weeks since, one of our sisters in Exeter, very kindly lent the notes to my wife, as being Mr. Newton's teaching, from which she had found much interest and profit. When my wife first told me what she had brought home, I did not pay much attention to it, but shortly after I felt it was not right in me to sanction in my house this system of private circulation and I determined to return the MS. unread. Accordingly I wrote a note to the sister who had lent the MS. thanking her for her kindness and explaining my reason for returning it unread. It was late at night when I had finished writing, and I found in the mean time my wife had looked into the MS. so as to get an outline of its contents, which she mentioned to me, especially the expression that "the cross was only the closing incident in the life of Christ." She thought she did not understand the meaning of the author and referred to me for explanation. I then looked into the MS. myself, and on perusing it felt surprised and shocked at finding such unscriptural statements and doctrine, which appeared to me to touch the integrity of the doctrine of the cross. The doctrine in this MS. appeared to me so important as to require investigation, and wishing to have my own judgment corrected or confirmed by consulting with other brethren, I read the paper to you.
In the law of the land there is such a thing as misprision of treason, involving heavy penalties, when any one who has been acquainted with treasonable practices does not give information. In this case I believe the doctrine taught to undermine the glory of the cross of Christ, and to subvert souls, and it seems to me a duty to Christ and to his saints to make the doctrine openly known. The MS. professes to be notes of a Lecture, I suppose a public Lecture. With these notes on Psa. 6 there was given, as accompanying it, notes on Isa. 13; 14, if I recollect aright, with this notice -"this to go with Psa. 6," or some thing to that effect -so that it appears from this title that these MSS. are as regularly circulated among a select few in various parts of England as books in a Reading Society. I had intended to take a copy of this Lecture, and to return the original MS, to the lender -that is, the one that came to my hands. As you expressed a wish to see the original, I gave it into your hands, and you made yourself responsible for detaining it I have hesitated hitherto to obtrude myself in the unhappy controversy relative to the sectarianism and morals of the system of Ebrington St., although on the latter of these two points, I still ponder in my own mind as to the propriety of being silent, but in the present case there is less fear of personal feeling, which often causes us to give our own impression of facts, rather than the facts themselves. But here there are statements defmitely put forth-so that the whole Lecture itself would be a check on any misrepresentation of any of its parts.
The leading thought is, I think, found in such expressions as "the manner in which Christ was personally chastened and afflicted while the servant of God in the earth, for it was not merely the sufferings he had, because His soul entered into the condition of things around Him, but there was quite another question, the relation of. God to him while thus suffering. For a person to be suffering here because he serves God is one thing, but the relation of that person to God is another, and it is this which the 6th Psalm and many others open to us."
Hence follows the startling doctrine:
-That Christ for thirty years of his life suffered the wrath of God, and that not vicariously -such was his "relation to God" for thirty years.
-That the baptism of Christ by John (in His relation to God) is the great dividing point in the life of Christ.
—That instead of the change in "Christ's relation to God" being from favor, delight, and communion -to wrath, and hiding the face, and casting off the soul on the cross; it was from wrath, hiding the face, and casting off the soul -to favor, delight, and communion at the baptism of Christ by John.
—The cross is only one incident in the life of Christ -"in relation to His service to God, only the closing incident of his long life of suffering and sorrow."
This statement relative to the cross being only an incident, is necessary to sustain the teaching of the lecture -for if it were allowed that there was an hour, fixed and settled in the Eternal counsels of the Godhead, for which the Son of God came into the world, and which He had constantly before Him. (Now is my soul troubled: and what shall I say Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour (John 12:27). The hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners (Matt. 26:45)).
The hour that Jehovah was to lay iniquity on Christ -to bruise Him and make His soul an offering for sin -the hour when He would make His sword to awaken against the man His fellow, and smite the Shepherd -then this hour necessarily becomes the dividing point, and the relation of Christ to God is altered not by Christ's submitting to John's baptism, but by enduring the cross an despising the shame -not by Christ personally enduring the wrath of God for thirty years, and then taking "new ground" "in relation to God" by John baptism, but by Christ enduring the wrath of God vicariously for his people, and taking new ground in resurrection.
The doctrine of the lecture tends to depreciate the value of the cross, to obscure the blessed truth of Christ standing before God as the substitute for his people -when "he himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree." For, if it should be admitted that the cry is also a dividing point, which the language of the lecture will not allow, yet, according to the teaching of the lecture, He endured more from God while personally under His wrath and chastisement for thirty year than He did vicariously, when "the chastisement of our peace was upon him." I really tremble to deduce the conclusion. It may be that a new thought not drawn from Scripture, but brought to Scripture to be proven, has led the mind to such alarming statements. But this I do affirm, that the moment the doctrine of substitution is seen, "he gave himself. for us" -the whole fabric of this lecture falls to the ground, because it marks the relation of God to Christ, and of Christ to God, in a way unexampled before or after that period.
And the summing up of the doctrine only shows more clearly what the doctrine is: "The cross was the place where he was made distinctly the sacrifice for sin. He had sought to gather Israel, but Israel would not be gathered; now he had completed the work of redemption, and put it in the hand of God, saying, "Though Israel be not gathered, yet my work is with my God, &c." "This is our great blessing; all these various scenes of the past thirty-three years of his holy life, the nature of which God understood perfectly, all the virtue of his blood-shedding God has taken into His own hands, and uses it toward us in making us blessed, beautifying us with all the garments of excellency which he has found in Christ, for Jesus is "made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," though we are so unlike him, so unworthy of fellowship with him, yet God uses it towards us, and will by means of it bring us by and by, into a condition fit for full communion with himself; when we shall have all the perfectness of his humanity and of is power."
Here, instead of the fixed and inalienable standing of the believer before God, through the death of Christ on the cross, it is all vague and uncertain. Instead of "you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled, in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblamable, and unreprovable in his sight," "it is something which God uses towards us, and will by means of it bring us by and by," &c., as though nothing was certainly and actually done for us now. Substitution and union are not presented to the soul at all, but a certain treasure put as it were into God's hand to deal out towards us, something like (I mean in principle) the works of supererogation dealt out by the Pope. For myself I cannot risk my soul on anything so vague. I need such Scriptures as "he loved me and gave himself for me" -"I lay down my life for the sheep" -"In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins" -and many of the like import, but quite incompatible with the doctrine of the lecture, or I have no rock to stay me. My soul needs such a testimony as, God "hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him," or I know not my standing.
I would now more particularly examine the statement of Christ's baptism by John—
"So it must have been a great relief to him to hear the voice of John the Baptist, saying, Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Here was a door opened to Israel at once, they might come and be forgiven, so he was glad to hear that word, he heard it with a wise and attentive car and came to be baptized because he was one with Israel, was in their condition, one of wrath from God; consequently, when he was baptized he took new ground, but Israel did not take it."
This is plainly the pivot of the doctrine taught in this lecture- "Now before he came to the cross, there was one great dividing point in his history, and that was when we first find him in the gospels coming to John to be baptized, that was the great dividing point."
I desire carefully to examine these statements, for it appears to me that they involve most serious error. Where is the thought suggested to us in the gospels that it was great relief to Jesus to hear the voice of John the Baptist, or that He was glad to hear it. In Matt. 2 we have the flight into Egypt and the return into Galilee. "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene." Thus far this evangelist does inform us of the private history of Jesus before He entered on his public ministry. And the third chapter of Matthew appears to show us Jesus as abiding still at Nazareth when John began his ministry. But before Jesus came to John to be baptized of Him, John bore full testimony to the glory and dignity of his person, "he that cometh after me is mightier than I" -and then we read "cometh Jesus from Galilee unto John to be baptized of him -but John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." Where do we find the idea of relief in this narrative? relief as though a door was opened to Jesus of emerging from the wrath and hot displeasure of God -relief from the wrath of God to which He was obnoxious, because He was in the condition of Israel? By taking "new ground" is not meant that He who had been so long in obscurity, who had grown up before Jehovah as a "tender plant" now came forth publicly as His servant -but that He now took "new ground," as to his standing before God; one no longer of wrath, but of acceptance, no longer of sore displeasure, but God's beloved Son in whom He was well pleased. He took "new ground" as to suffering, "he was not afflicted by the hand of God as before, there was in great measure relief from the chastisement of the Lord, and now under the guidance of the Holy Ghost he found a new character of affliction as the servant of God, but coming to him in the ministerial place in which he was set through the power of the Holy Ghost, and this place is granted to us the moment we believe, &c."
This statement involves the doctrine of redemption without blood-shedding -"Israel did not take it" (the new ground.) "Here was a door opened to Israel at once, they might come and be forgiven." How? surely by believing on Him that should come after Him, "John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after, that is, on Christ Jesus." Now it could not be in this sense that Jesus submitted to John's baptism -He was not the object of faith to Himself. He was righteously exempt from submitting to it, but He would own every righteous requirement of God, an therefore submitted to it. It is a wonderful place to witness Jesus in, but He would justify God. He needed it not personally, and after this act of humiliation on His part, the Holy Ghost came down on Him -the seal of God on Him on account of what He was in Himself, as the Baptist testifies, "Upon whom thou shalt see the Holy Ghost descending and remaining on him -the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, and I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God." The ancient oracle of God was fulfilled -"there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him." Where is the Scripture testimony for his taking "new ground" as to the wrath of God by submitting to the baptism of John? We indeed need deliverance from the wrath to come, through the sufferings of Jesus on the cross, in order to our being sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise -but did He need to get this seal in the same way -"for him hath God the Father sealed." Did the Holy Ghost come on Him because of his own personal intrinsical holiness, or because of his being now brought from under the hot displeasure of God into his favor?
His baptism by John was an important era in the life of Jesus; He came from his obscurity into publicity -hence says Peter, "Wherefore of those men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." But the point is, did it alter his personal relation to God? "we there (in the Psalms) see what his relation to God was during these thirty years which passed before his baptism -there we have the record of his sufferings and experience during that time... terror before him, enemies despising him for his holiness, every tongue against him, and He under this chastisement from God, which made them despise him more because they saw He was so, and so looked on him as one accursed from God, because he was under the weight of this terrible chastisement from him." The doctrine taught in the lecture is, that after his baptism by John, Jesus took "new ground" in His relation to God as to this. "He was glad to hear John say, Repent," &c. -was baptized, "and God's seal war set upon him -this is my beloved Son, in whom I an well pleased."
"It pleased Jehovah to bruise him" -when? all Christians have, I believe, thought alike on this -on the cross. But did Jehovah bruise Him at any other time? -the doctrine of the lecture is, that He did so more or less for thirty years -and then comes a great dividing point -the baptism of the Lord by John -He then took new ground -so that according to this statement, the cross was only one incident in the life of Christ, it was but a brief recurrence to the same kind of sufferings previously endured, for the thirty years of his life, up to his baptism by John -the difference being that the sufferings on the cross were vicarious -his thirty years sufferings were not vicarious but because He was "obnoxious to the wrath of God the moment he came into the world and became part of an accursed people."
And was not wrath and curse his actual relation to God on the cross? so that his relation to God on the cross was identical with his relation to God for the first thirty years of his life, and they were both distinct from his relation to God during his public ministry. If I could receive this statement, which I believe to be without Scripture and contrary to Scripture, derogatory to the person of the Son, and immensely depreciatory of his sufferings on the cross -then I could admit the equally unscriptural statement, that "the forty days he was in the wilderness was really a time of joy to the spirit of Christ, when he was peculiarly with God, led there by the Spirit;" and also that most fearful and extraordinary statement—"he dreaded not the cross as he did Gethsemane."
It is fully allowed that the Lord Jesus knew by experience that which was "proper to man, namely, trial here, for man is born," &c., but this experience cannot apply to this singular class of afflictions of the Lord Jesus till He was thirty years old, because it is as true now of man, as man, as it was in the days of Job -true whether of saint or sinner.
Again, if it be said that Jesus from the first awakening of consciousness after infancy, through youth and manhood, was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, all through, up to the cross -I would not except; and that He had the fear of death before Him in a way that none other had, and that it was constant pressure on his soul, because He knew what death was according to God, and always saw it before Him -as He says, "I have a baptism to be baptized with" -in a word, that "the hour" for which He had come into the world, known to Himself, and Him that sent Him, cast back its dark shade on his earlier years, I see no principle involved in the statement; but the doctrine of the lecture does not allow this -because Jesus took "new ground" at his baptism by John, "he was not afflicted by the hand of God as before." The Old Testament saints, it is said, were, through fear of death, subject to bondage all their life. "God desired that the awe and horror of death and hades might be with their spirits." "Jesus was often made to pass through this awe and terror, though he was continually revived... besides that, he had the terrors of death and hades before him, &c.—" "his life through all the thirty years was made up more or less of experiences of this kind, &c.," and then He took "new ground." So that the doctrine of the tract does not allude to "awe and terror of death and hades" from anticipation of the cross, because the Lord had taken "new ground" at his baptism by John -new, as to his relation to God -new, as to his experience, viz: sufferings in ministry, with comfort from God, instead of suffering from God and the terrors of death and hades. Therefore, it is said, "the last three years and an half were by far the happiest of his life."
Now I do feel clear in my own mind that I am not misrepresenting the doctrine of this lecture. Its tendency is to cast into the shade the sufferings and death of Christ on the cross -so that to contemplate these only, would be "to know little what the real character of his sufferings were. " Certainly it would be so if the doctrine of this lecture relative to the first thirty years of the life of Jesus could be sustained -for it is stated that "Jesus became a part of an accursed people (Israel) a people who had earned God's wrath by transgression after transgression. Was He numbered with the transgressors at his incarnation or on the cross?
"Jesus became obnoxious to the wrath of God the moment he came into the world."
He was rebuked "in displeasure: not that which comes now on the child of God, which is never in wrath, but this is rebuking in wrath, to which he was amenable because he was part of an accursed people; so the hand of God was continually stretched out against him in many ways," "his loins were filled with a loathsome disease," "his eye consumed because of grief," "the terror of death and hades constantly before him—"
all this, besides that which He was suffering from man and Satan, for it is His relation to God which is here spoken of. And if the Psalms referred to as belonging to this period, viz., Psa. 6; 38; 88, do indeed belong to it (which is a point in question and to be proved) then more or less for thirty years He had no rest in his bones by reason of his sin; "for mine iniquities are gone over my head: as an heavy burthen they are too heavy for me" -Psa. 38:3-4. "I will declare mine iniquity," "I will be sorry for my sin," v. 17. Again, in Psa. 88 we have these expressions -"My soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave," "Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves." "Lord, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me -I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up? while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me, thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about me like water; they compassed me about together. Lover and friend has thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness." Now these are stated to be sufferings of Christ, of which "the scene is not the cross." They were not vicarious sufferings, but sufferings arising from the condition into which He came at His incarnation, by reason of His connection with an accursed people. What then must the cross be according to this doctrine -why truly, only "an incident important to us as involving all our blessings, but in relation to (Christ's) service to God, only the closing incident of his long life of suffering and sorrow." Most legitimately may the cross be so regarded if the doctrine of this lecture be true -for there was no new character of suffering in it as regards Christ's relation to God, it only closed his long life of suffering. His sufferings on the cross were of the same kind as those He had endured for the first thirty years of his life -only instead of being thirty years, they were a few hours. The cross closed his sufferings instead of being the hour of such awful and unparalleled sufferings, as He had never tasted before -for although it is stated, as to Gethsemane, in the lecture, "I should regard this as the most terrible hour he ever passed through"; yet the same lecture states the character of Gethsemane "to be weak humanity, and all the power of Satan allowed to be brought against him"; so that suffering from the immediate hand of God did not characterize that "terrible hour." Now I ask any one to read what is said of the relation in which Christ stood to God during the first thirty years of his life, and then, what more bitter ingredient could there be in the cross? Are not Psa. 38 and 88 expressive of intense sorrow and suffering -"fierce wrath and all God's waves and billows afflicting him," "his soul cast off," "God hidden from him," "lover and friend removed from him," "his enemies lively." The 22 Psalm brings out most clearly the awful truth of his desertion by God. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" We know how to apply this Psalm, and surely the 38 and 88 are kindred to it. It is asserted that Jesus took "new ground" in relation to God at his baptism by John -"new ground" before He came to the cross—"he was delivered from the experience of Psa. 38 and 88 at his baptism by John," and, except in Gethsemane, (the character of which it is stated to be Satan let loose against weak humanity, not God pouring out wrath for sin) the lecture does not hint at any other order of suffering or even of more intense suffering of the same character. I do therefore affirm, that such statements do greatly depreciate the value of Christ's sufferings on the cross, by setting up another order of sufffering, of thirty years' duration; and that by means of this, the fact of a new character of suffering on the cross, namely, desertion by God, is quite obscured; I would say, that the cross was not the closing incident, but if I could reverently copy the expression in speaking on such a subject, a solitary incident, disconnected from all His previous sufferings -by Jehovah being against Christ instead of for Him -Jehovah actively against Him in wrath instead of sustaining Him against his enemies. Truly they were let loose against Him on the cross -"this is your hour and the power of darkness" -the insults and blasphemies of men, and malice of Satan all met on the cross in their fullest power, but what gave the cross its character was, desertion of God. And in this, although it is almost impossible to separate Gethsemane from the cross, there was a difference; in Gethsemane there was not desertion of God; on the cross there was.
I have tried, how far successfully you must judge, to bring out the point of the lecture without misrepresentation, because I believe this (to me) novel doctrine of the relation of Christ to God in suffering "terrible chastisement" for the first thirty years of his life, no, only to be without Scripture and against Scripture, but infmitely derogatory to the glory of the cross -a range of sufferings being put forward in prominence, eclipsing the sufferings of the cross. And I cannot discover that any of the qualifying expressions, such as the cross, "being all important to us as involving ai our blessings," "there he was made distinctly the sacrifice for sin," or Gethsemane being "the most terrible hour of the life" of Jesus, interfere with the drift of the lecture. It draws away our souls from the sufferings and death of Christ on the cross, whither the Lord in the gospels led the minds of his disciples after the revelation of the glory of his person by the Father and which is the constant topic of apostolical instruction -to another range of sufferings of which the New Testament affords no information. That this is the point is, I think, clear The prominence is certain given to suffering and experience, previous to His baptism by John, with which we can have no fellowship any more than with his sufferings on the cross, but when he took new ground" at his baptism by John He entered on a range of suffering in which we can have fellowship with Him and follow Him as our example. So that nothing can be more distinct than the leading thought of the lecture, and there is much coherence in its several parts.
"They describe the hand of God stretched out as rebuking in anger and chastening in hot displeasure, and remember this is not the scene on the cross (p. 7)."
We are taught by the apostle that "the spirit of Christ which was in the prophets testified before hand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow"; and therefore it is very legitimate to interpret expressions both in the Psalms and the prophets, as being in their highest and most proper sense, utterances of the experience of Christ in a variety of circumstances and relations to God, provided we get the clue from the Scriptures of the New Testament that He did actually stand in those circumstances and relation to God. That the sufferings of Christ were not all of the same kind is not disputed. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief before the cross, although I think it could hardly be said independently of the cross, because it was known by Himself from the outset to be the termination of His sorrowful career on earth. He "came into the world to save sinners " He was always walking towards the cross, as He Himself says, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished. " In pursuing his sorrowful path towards the cross, as the awful hour approached, so did the trouble of his soul increase at the anticipation of it. The revelation of the glory of His person, by the Father to Peter, afforded Him the first occasion of speaking to His disciples on this solemn subject. It was vividly brought before Him on the occasion of the Greeks desiring to see Him. "Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say Father save me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour." In his last journey to Jerusalem, we find the Lord gathering up His soul for this great work for which He had come. "And it came to pass when the time was come that he should be received up; he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem." It was continually before Him, so that notwithstanding the abundant consolation He had in communion with God, and joy also in ministering blessing to others; the full knowledge of the end must necessarily have marked His path with sorrow here. I believe, therefore, that we are not able to contemplate "the man of sorrows" independently of the cross, although His sufferings on the cross were of an essentially different kind from His sufferings on the way to it. Let it be fully granted that His very person as the Son -Immanuel -God manifested in the flesh -his being from above, made Him more susceptible of human sorrow and suffering. He knew the holiness of God, and sin as the most opposite to it. He knew the wrath of God, what it really was, and that wrath about to come on the world; He knew what death was as the wages of sin, and being "the life" He instinctively shrunk away from death. How must His spotless soul have been vexed at such a scene as this world presented, so contrary to heaven from whence He had come. How must his tender heart have broken at witnessing the total insensibility of man, to His own degradation and danger, as well as to the holiness of God. He found man trifling with death and judgment; He found every one pursuing his own will, Himself alone finding it his meat to do the will of God. This must have been a constant pressure on the spirit of Jesus. Then He had to "endure the contradiction of sinners against himself. " He was "a sign spoken against. " All man's hatred against God was vented against Jesus. "The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen on me. " His claims too were all denied, his actions all misrepresented. His pity to sinners and his deliverance of the wretched captives of Satan provoked the taunt, and the blasphemy, that He was a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, and that He was in concert with Satan.
Far be it from me to speak lightly of the reality and intenseness of the sufferings of Christ before the cross, I fully believe that we cannot conceive of them properly. Let them be duly spoken of and meditated on, but still, let the line be distinctly marked between the sufferings which Jesus endured on the cross and any other sufferings. The sufferings of Jesus before the cross were because of what He was in Himself -on the cross, because of what God had made Him to be for us. Before the cross, He had sustainment from God, -on the cross He was deserted of God. It was on the cross, that God "made him to be sin for us" -that "Jehovah bruised him" and "made his soul an offering for sin" -that "his soul was poured out unto death. " It was on the cross He bore the whole weight and pressure of divine justice -the wrath of God due to sin. The malice of Satan -the cruelty and mockery of men were here indeed not wanting -but it was the wrath of God that characterized the sufferings of the cross -and I would ask any experienced Christian, whether his soul does not shrink from the thought of any sufferings of Christ, being of a penal and judicial kind, from the hand of God, except the sufferings on the cross? Could penal and judicial sufferings from the hand of God be otherwise than vicarious? This lecture teaches that there were a class of penal sufferings endured by the Lord Jesus from the wrath of God -which sufferings were not vicarious, and that these sufferings were distinct from those which He endured after his baptism by John, when "he found a new character of affliction as the servant of God" -and distinct from his vicarious sufferings on the cross-and that it is to this class of sufferings that several Psalms refer; among others, the sixth, thirty-eighth, and eighty-eighth are mentioned in this lecture. Accordingly it is stated -"I regard this Psalm (the sixth) as one of the earliest experiences of the Lord Jesus." It is said, that this Psalm does not refer to the scene on the cross, but to a character of suffering concerning which the New Testament is silent. So that it is a thought without Scripture to prove it, and without argument to support it. I desire to give some reasons which incline me to maintain that this Psalm has reference (assuming it to be the experience of Christ) to the cross. In v. 5, we find deliverance from death sought for, and in vv. 8, 9, His prayer heard and answered. In v. 4, "Save me," and in 8-10, deliverance from all his enemies. Now let us turn to the comment of the Holy Ghost Himself on language of this kind, describing the experience of the soul of Jesus -"who, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared." Did not God hear and answer Him in resurrection? Did God save Him from death in any other way? The lecture does not allow us to think of minor deliverances which Jesus experienced out of the hands of Herod in childhood, or at any other time, but death connected with wrath and sore displeasure. The difficulty of v. 5, as applying literally to death, is attempted to be removed by the statement, that Jesus in his experience very frequently went through the awe and terror of death before His baptism by John, and that He was delivered from time to time by gracious visitations from God, and eventually delivered altogether from this awe and terror of death and hades, by his baptism by John!! I am greatly alarmed at this mysticism. How easy would be the next step -that atonement was in the inward experience of Jesus, and not really in His actual death on the cross. But the death of Christ is spoken of as a real thing in the New Testament; He was "for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor." The Lord constantly speaks of his death in connection with his resurrection. And I do believe it to be most unwarrantable, to speak of the answer of God to the cry of Jesus for deliverance from death, in any other way than by resurrection. But there is triumph also in this Psalm over all his enemies -whose hour and great power was at its height in the scene of the cross -and then, having spoiled principalities and powers -He "made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it" (the cross). If it was stated that this Psalm was the experience of Christ in his earlier years, in anticipation of His actual death on the cross, and that He was comforted from God by anticipating resurrection, I should not demur; but the doctrine of the lecture will not allow this, because it is stated, that Jesus took "new ground" as to this awe and terror of death and hades at his baptism by John. "The sting of death is sin." "In that he died, he died unto sin ONCE. These, and similar texts, appear to me quite sufficient to dispel the mysticism of this lecture as to death and hades, and to prove that when Christ speaks of death, He speaks of it as an actual thing, out of which He was only to be delivered by resurrection. Hence I conclude that this Psalm, assuming it to be the experience of Jesus, has reference to the cross.
Again, "it was after he had been proved a lamb without blemish and without spot -after he had in various ways been tried, seen to be the lamb made perfect through suffering, &c."
I must confess that the language of this paragraph makes me shudder. What a thought! that Jesus had to be proved a lamb without blemish and without spot -how very different from the language of the apostle. "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times for you," &c.
When John the Baptist pointed to Him as He passed, he made no reference to his earlier years, as if He had been proved a lamb without blemish, but he says -"Behold the Lamb of God" -the Lamb provided by God -and the Lamb suitable for God. "God will provide himself a Lamb for a burnt-offering. " It is that which Jesus was in Himself, not that which He was proved to be, which rendered Him alone capable of sustaining the wonderful place of the sin-bearer.
The expression, "seen to be the Lamb made perfect through suffering," may sound to the ear Scriptural. because, the last words are in Scripture applied to Jesus; but in the Scripture they are applied in connection with glory in resurrection -in the lecture, to the period before, "he gave himself a sacrifice for sin," and this period is marked as "new ground" which He took at his baptism by John. He was under probation for thirty years, and that of wrath, and then He is delivered, that He might come forth as the Lamb of God!!! Surely this is not the meaning of the Scripture. "It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings"-surely his sufferings on the cross, and not those before his baptism by John, are here referred to. "Ought not Christ to suffer and to enter into his glory." It is certainly a new and strange doctrine, that after He had been seen to be the Lamb of God made perfect through suffering -suffering under the wrath and displeasure of God -He took "new ground," and for three years and a half "found a new character of affliction," but with the favor of God instead of His wrath, and then He gave Himself a sacrifice for sin. Surely that which qualified Jesus to be the sacrifice for sin, was his being the holy one of God -Immanuel -God with us. The blessed doctrine that "Christ hath once suffered for sins" is here completely obscured, by the thought of previous sufferings of wrath, to qualify Him to be the Lamb of God. Can we assert that Christ twice suffered the wrath of God without infringing on the apostolical canon. "Nor yet that he should offer himself often" -"for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." The doctrine of the Scripture is to fix the attention on Christ's vicarious sufferings once for sin; the doctrine of the lecture is, "that to fix our eye simply on that (the cross) would be to know little of what the character of his real sufferings were."
Surely his sufferings on the cross were real sufferings. That Christ was tried, and proved to stand under every responsibility wherein man had been placed and failed, is a most important truth. "He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross"; "he was made under the law," and perfectly fulfilled it, for the law was in his heart; whereas Israel had broken it. He was in the wilderness, and stood in simple dependance on God; whereas Israel had there tempted God and grieved his Spirit. Thus was He proved -the obedient one -the just one -the faithful one. But God never put any other to stand in the place of the Lamb, as a sin-bearer for others. He Himself provided the Lamb -his own Son -his holy one. Jesus was never tried, whether He could sustain such a wonderful place, save, it may be said, when He hung on the tree. Others had stood under law or in the wilderness only to prove failure-but one alone ever entered into the place of the Lamb.
"This was only one incident in the life of Christ, important indeed to us as involving all our blessings, but in relation to his service to God only the closing incident, &c., so that to fix our eye simply," &c."
Is this the language of Scripture? or is this teaching drawn from Scripture? Is the cross thus to be robbed of its glory and cast into the shade by the baptism of John? Have not the Scriptures plainly revealed to us that when the redeemed are in glory the subject of all absorbing interest, will be the "one incident," "the closing incident," which the language of this lecture appears so to depreciate? The worthiness of the Lamb slain awakens a new song in heaven -Rev. 5. The Lamb slain is in the midst of the throne. Angels ascribe everything to the Lamb slain. The cross is to be the eternal theme of praise and admiration in heaven. But is not the cross in itself important to God -"whom God has set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness, &c.?" Is not the cross here presented to us as the great public act by which the righteous government of God is demonstrated -especially his righteousness in justifying a sinner freely by his grace. The work on the cross was very distinct from all this previous life of service to God.
If Christians become habituated to statements so depreciating to the work of Christ on the cross, they will gradually be prepared for the reception of any error. The safeguard of all is, "Let that, therefore, abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning." Any teaching which does not rivet the soul more firmly in the cross of Christ is greatly to be suspected. But is the cross only important to us as involving all our blessings? Is it not to us the great dividing point as to holiness and true righteousness? "Enemies of the cross of Christ" -they mind earthly things. The apostle determined to know nothing among the Corinthians "but Jesus Christ and him crucified." He started from the cross. "Yea," says he, "though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." The cross was the one great point he guarded with anxious jealousy -he did not preach the Gospel with words of man's wisdom, "lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect" The cross with Him was the pivot on which all turned. He began with it, and like his blessed Master would lead the disciples through the cross into the marvelous range of new and blessed realities into which it opened. From the cross, we can look back and survey all the past; from the cross we can look forward into future glories. And yet, his baptism by John, is spoken of in the lecture as a more important incident to Christ Himself; in his relation to God, than was the cross.
"We should gain little acquaintance with the character of the Lord's experiences by considering simply what is told us in the gospels, but in the Psalms this is revealed to us."
Is it not our wisdom to be content to be in ignorance of that which it has not pleased God to reveal to us in the Scripture. Let us indeed reverentially receive all it teaches. And I believe the testimony of Scripture to be so exact, that the addition of one human thought or a single deduction of human reasoning is sure to be contradicted by some one or other of its plain declarations. There has been no more fertile source of error than speculations on the person of Christ. "No man knoweth the Son but the Father" is our alone safeguard on this point. The Holy Ghost has set up in his later revelation, certain landmarks for the guidance of our understanding as to his earlier revelation, and He Himself is to be honored as the alone guide into that truth which He has revealed in the word. To savor the things of man on the things of God is a very common temptation; and we are especially liable to it, when having taken "a subject," we go to Scripture to prove it, instead of searching the Scripture to find if the subject be there at all. I am alarmed, and my jealousy is roused when I read such language -"it is a subject which ought to be touched," &c. Is the subject of the lecture drawn from Scripture, or is it first advanced and then brought to Scripture for illustration? Is the subject to be found in Scripture at all? The gospels do not touch on it, as the lecture allows. The apostles do not in the epistles refer to this class of sufferings at all, but keep the soul steadily fixed on his sufferings for us -or on those sufferings in which we can have fellowship with Him, and in which we can follow Him as an example. But the sufferings of Christ, which are "the subject" of this lecture, are quite different from either of these kinds of suffering, and yet they are as confidently spoken of as if they were an unquestionable subject of divine revelation—
"so we should gain little acquaintance with the character of the Lord's experiences, sufferings, or history, by considering simply what is told us in the gospels; but in the Psalms this is revealed to us: we there see what His relations to God were during those thirty years before His baptism; there we have the record of his sufferings and experience during that time."
It is admitted that there is no reference in the gospels to such a character of sufferings, as those of which the lecture treats.
In the many references to the Psalms, both in the gospels and in the epistles, there is not a single one referring to the sufferings of Christ, which refers to that class of sufferings which are the subject of this lecture. And is it not bold for any one to presume to give a history of the early life and experience of the Lord Jesus, from the Psalms, as definitely as the inspired writers have given His public history in the gospels, and commented on it in the epistles? Why are the gospels almost silent as to this era in the life of the Lord Jesus? They are very explicit in their statements as to the mystery of the incarnation -and then, after a brief but interesting notice, they present Him to us in His public ministry -the cross -resurrection -and ascension. Where do we get anything in the gospels as to the baptism of John being the great dividing point in the life of the Lord Jesus. There is no question as to the importance of the era when He commenced His public ministry, "the beginning of the gospel" as the evangelist Mark states it to be. But is there any authority from Scripture for asserting the almost deeper importance of the era before His public ministry, so that if we were not acquainted with the experience of the Lord Jesus during that era, which it has pleased the Holy Ghost in great measure to leave unnoticed in the New Testament, we should have little knowledge of the real sufferings of Christ. For the Scriptures of the New Testament do not refer in any way to this extraordinary class of sufferings, which were endured by our Lord previous to his public ministry. Sufferings, not from the chastisement of love as we have, not vicarious, as His sufferings on the cross -but sufferings which were the result of the hot displeasure of God against Him. With the New Testament in my hand, I can turn to Psa. 22 and 69, and say as an infallible truth to any simple-minded Christian, they describe the sufferings of Christ. But has any one the same warrant (and it is the only warrant for an important doctrine), for saying that the 6, 38, and 88. Psalms describe the sufferings of Christ before his baptism by John? For if it be allowable for one teacher to set forth an important doctrine without Scripture, why may not another do the same with another doctrine on the like authority? It is very dangerous ground when the authority of man is made co-ordinate with the authority of Scripture. We know the result -the word of God is made of none effect. But there is another point, and that is, that what the gospels do state concerning the earlier years of the Lord Jesus, is quite incompatible with the doctrine of his being under such a class of sufferings.
St. Luke presents us with the history of the Lord Jesus from the moment of His lying in the manger at Bethlehem, till a cloud received Him out of their sight. And He gives a brief but interesting notice of his youth. "And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast (Luke 2:42-52). This is what the Scriptures of the New Testament do plainly "reveal respecting this early period of the life of the Lord Jesus in the flesh" -and I fully allow that it is a most profitable subject of meditation to our souls. God trained one son; and He grew up before Him in subjection. He learned obedience through the things that He suffered. Here we see what the true principle of education ought to be -it is learning obedience. Here we see what the nurture and admonition of the Lord is. And I have felt it very interesting and instructive, so to put the training of Jesus under the hand of God before the young. But all this is gone, if I accept the doctrine of this lecture. The great principle of subjection could no longer be taught to a little one from the example of Jesus, because He stood in a relation to God at that time -in which no little one can stand now -a relation of wrath -"continually under the pressure of sorrow of this kind from God." Is such the character of God's own nurture and training, which parents are to copy. The example of Jesus in youth is thus taken away from us by the doctrine of this lecture. And if parents were to copy this example of training, they must terrify their children into obedience; for the language of Scripture is, that Jesus learned obedience by the things which He suffered; -the language of the lecture is "a part of His obedience was to suffer," even terrors unto distraction. But it is not to this plain revelation of the Scriptures concerning the early period of the life of Jesus, which the lecture refers us to for meditation; it is to a scene of a very different character indeed, and the Scriptures which are referred to as unfolding it, have yet to be proved that they do belong to this period of the life of Jesus. When there is plain revelation in the Scriptures of the New Testament, concerning the youth and growth of Jesus into manhood, and that of a very distinct character; and yet we are referred to certain Psalms, as containing the history of the same period of a very opposite character -it is certainly not too much to expect some authority to guide our judgment, that these Psalms do refer to this period. I am persuaded that no one can meditate on the above passage of Luke, and on Psa. 6. and 38, and say they refer to the same period.
Assuredly "It is of great importance to see the true, real humanity of the Lord Jesus" -but it is as important not to divide the person as it is not to confound the natures. Does the veil typify the humanity only, or the person of the Lord Jesus -Heb. 10:19, 20. Is it his humanity through which we enter into the holiest, or is it through Immanuel and Him crucified! Was it the dignity of the person who suffered, or his proper humanity, which have given such value to the cross, as to open the holiest of all to us?
That He saw and judged of everything according to God, and was more sensitive than any other, both because to what He Himself was, and because His judgment was formed according to truth, is fully granted. But this, was true of Him all His life; during his public ministry as well as before it. He wept at the grave of Lazarus, He sighed at witnessing deafness, He was grieved on account of the hardness of their hearts.
I would notice, before considering the Psalms referred to in the lecture, what I believe to be a defect in the illustration respecting the relation of Christ to God by incarnation.
"He was born a man -therefore in that sense became part' of the human family." "Supposing we belonged to a family which was banished to a distant land, and there subject to every hardship and sorrow, and we were to go and form part of that family, we must of course drink of the same cup and partake of their sufferings. This was what Christ did. I do not refer to his "vicarious sufferings," &c."
Now although this may illustrate the relation of Christ to the human family, which however, I cannot allow without some qualifications -seeing He was the holy thing even in His mother's womb -it fails to illustrate His relation to God while in the midst of that family. This is the great topic of this lecture -as it is stated For a person to be suffering here because he serves God is one thing, but the relation of that person to God is another -and this is what the sixth Psalm, and many others open to us."
Now this relation the illustration does not touch, for it does not mention this third party; the banisher. The point is His relation to the banisher. Is that altered by His coming among the banished? He partakes of their sorrow and trial indeed, but He stands in quite a different relation to the banisher from what the banished do. They, estranged and alienated from Him -He, delighting in Him in the midst of sorrow and trial. They, dreading His wrath, He, delighting in the light of His countenance. Illustration of Scripture because of our dullness is often serviceable -"I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh," says the apostle when about to use illustration -but no Christian ought to receive an illustration instead of Scripture. And one Scripture touching the point of the relation of Christ, in a certain sense, to the human family, appears to me to lead our thoughts quite in another direction from that in which the doctrine of this lecture would lead them. "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same" -for what? that He might "drink their cup" -I mean, was this the object? is this the way it is presented to us in Scripture? No, another cup rather is looked forward to -the cup which the Father would in due time put into his hand. "That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage." This is a text which appears to me to run counter to very much taught in this lecture.
That Christ, by partaking of the circumstances of the sorrow of the human family generally, and of a particular part of it, of Israel, did thereby necessarily come into their condition to God -one of wrath -is the basis assumed in the doctrine of this lecture. It is assumed, but it is not proved from Scripture. Hence Christ must get from under this condition -one of wrath -and stand in another relation to God -one of favor -before He could enter upon his ministry as the public servant of God; and this was effected by his receiving the gospel of John, and being baptized by Him. That which essentially distinguishes one man from another is not circumstances, but relation to God. The human family, as such, drink indeed of the same cup of suffering and sorrow; meted out, it may be, with a more equal hand, than judging from appearances we might suppose. But, while drinking of the common cup of sorrow, there is an essential difference between those who at the same time are partaking of this common cup. There are those who stand far off from God, and those who are brought nigh to Him. Their essential distinction before God, is their condition to Him, and not the circumstances in which they are. One, far off, another, brought nigh through the blood of the cross -one, under the power of darkness, another, translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. They may alike partake of all that is common to man -and yet their relation to God be essentially different; and it is this relation to God, of distance or nearness, that makes the essential difference; and I would contend, that while the Lord Jesus Christ, by coming into the world, did partake of the cup of human suffering, and by his connection with Israel did come into peculiarity of suffering, as well as under peculiar responsibility (for Israel, at the time of the Lord's incarnation, was a scorn and bye-word and derision among the nations, as Pilate scornfully said, "Am I a Jew?"); yet that his relation to God was essentially distinct (while in the same circumstances) both from that of the human family generally, and from that of Israel, as part of that family; and that this distinction was, because of what He was personally -what He was essentially in Himself, and not from any change in His relation to God, from wrath into favor. I do contend that the Lord Jesus held and maintained this relationship of favor with God, in all circumstances and under every responsibility; and that the only place, where He became identified with our relation to God, as children of wrath; whether speaking of Him as a man, or as an Israelite under the law, was, THE CROSS. He there stood in our relation to God, of wrath; He there felt what the wrath of God was. When God made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, then, and then only, He stood in our relation, of wrath, to God. As man, He then knew death as the wages of sin-as made under the law, He then knew what it was to be under the curse of the broken law, for He bore its curse. And is there in store indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil?" Is this due to man from the righteous judgment of God? Jesus knew the extremity of anguish when Jehovah bruised Him and made his soul an offering for sin -when, separated from the light and joy of God's presence, He cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But in all human circumstances, in His connection with Israel, under all responsibilities, His relation to God was essentially distinct, from that of those among whom He was living. Is He a man among men -"being found in fashion as a man, although He thought it not robbery to be equal with God." He is the only obedient man. Is He a Jew among Jews -"of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, though He was over all, God blessed forever." Ile was the only righteous Jew -the just one -magnifying the law and making it honorable, by being made under the law and rendering it implicit obedience; thus showing the law to be holy, just, and good because it met with a full response from his heart. "I delight to do thy will, yea, thy law is within my heart." Is there to be the trial of faith, and where shall it be tried? The Son of God is led into the wilderness -marvelous contrast to Adam in Eden -and there He is proved to be the faithful one, depending entirely on God.
Now I am persuaded that the more the thought of the Lord Jesus coming into the actual relation, either of man to God, or of Israel to God, because He came into their circumstances and drank of their cup, is examined and tested by Scripture, the more will it appear an unwarrantable assumption. And I am very firmly persuaded, that thus to traverse, as it were, the doctrinal order of the incarnation and the cross-by making the incarnation, as well as the cross, to be a point of Christ assuming our actual relation to God; sullies the glory of both.
That the Lord Jesus Christ was subject to cold, hunger, thirst, and weariness; the consequences of the sin of man, is quite true -although He Himself was distinct and separate from those among whom He dwelt. "Ye," says He, "are from beneath, I am from above. " The testimony of the Baptist is -"he that is of the earth is earthy, he that cometh from heaven is above all. " But the statement made is, that many Psalms describe a range of the sufferings of Jesus, which were neither His vicarious sufferings, nor such chastening as we now know from a Father's love -but terrors, anger, and sore displeasure from God, because He came into the human family, and was especially connected with one part of it, Israel. It is fully granted that He came to his own and His own received Him not -that his mission was especially to the lost sheep of the house of Israel -yea, that by birth He was connected with them. "Of whom as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. " But He was a true Israelite -He was faithful amidst unfaithfulness -the just one -the true righteous Israelite under the law -the holy one of God in the midst of an unclean nation. Was He then under the curse by birth? did the curse fall on Him because of Israel? "of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came? Has not the Scriptures stated most distinctly that Christ has redeemed us (Israel) from the curse of the law being made a curse for us -as it is written "cursed," &c. Is any one so presumptuous, not to say blasphemous, as to predicate of Jesus, what the apostle says of himself as a Jew and others -"were by nature the children of wrath even as other. " Are we to be told without the least warrant from apostolic testimony, that "Jesus became obnoxious to the wrath of God the moment he came into the world, and wherefore? because He became part of an accursed people, on whom the curse -Deut. 28 -had fallen. Could it be said of Jesus personally, that He was cursed when He went out and when He came in. I really tremble to write such language -and the experience of the Lord Jesus under this curse is said to be described in certain Psalms "So Jesus became obnoxious to the wrath of God, &c., accordingly we find many, &c."
But before entering on these Psalms, the question arises, was Israel an actually accursed people. They had broken the law in the wilderness; but when did God visit their sin on them? At the Babylonish Captivity -Acts 7:42, 43. From the days of the golden calf until the Babylonish Captivity, God had dealt with them in many gracious ways but to no purpose, as it is written 2 Chron. 36:15, 16. But there was mercy in store for them, and "the anger and the fury of the Lord" Dan. 9 was turned away from them; but it was turned away only for them to fill up the measure of their iniquity and to bring on themselves more awful wrath; so that their history is almost traced as an uninterrupted course of evil by the Lord Jesus Himself in the parable of the vineyard -Matt. 21:33. God had sought fruit from them by the ministry of his prophets, but got none -"last of all he sent unto them his son. " The curse had not yet lighted on them, the wrath was not yet poured out, it is spoken of as future by our Lord in reference to their rejection of Him; "These be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled," "there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. " In the days of the apostle, the predicted wrath had set in on them (1 Thess. 2:15, 16). The curse of Deuteronomy had laid hold on them. God was acting on their responsibility up to the mission of his Son, and even subsequent to his rejection by the mission of the Holy Ghost -the rejection of his testimony sealed their judgment, and brought judicial blindness on them. It is a very serious thing to affirm, without affording proof, that Jesus by incarnation became "part of an accursed people" -the Scriptures affirm that He was made a curse for them on the cross -and these are two very different things. My whole soul revolts from the thought that it could be said of Jesus, "Cursed shalt thou be in going out," &c., and that at a period when the Scriptures say He was "growing in favor with God and man. " Remember it has to be proved that Israel at the period of the incarnation was "an accursed people" -lying under the curses of Dent. 28 and also that Jesus by incarnation became a part of them, as such, so that He was "personally" under the curses of God before He was vicariously on the cross.
Let us now turn to the Psalm -"accordingly we find many of the Psalms speaking of this" (His being obnoxious to the wrath of God). "From my youth up I suffer thy terrors with a troubled mind. " This is quoted from the authorized version in the Anglican Prayer Book, differing from the authorized version in the Bible. There the verse runs thus -"I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up; while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted. " It would be difficult, perhaps, to decide on the right punctuation, as to which clause of the verse, "from my youth up" properly belongs -at any rate when it is differently punctuated in the two versions -it would not be fair to rest any important statement on it. But it is not criticism which is to decide, but the unction which belongeth even to the babe in Christ; and let the 88 Psalm be read through by such a one, and then let him say what his judgment is; whether it has reference to the cross. What do these strong expressions refer to? "My soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. " "Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. " "Lord, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me? Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off. " Now, would not a simple-minded Christian in turning to the gospels and reading such a passage as this concerning Jesus -"he began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy" -or when He said to his disciples -"My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death" -"I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straightened," &c. Would He not see in such a Psalm as this the inward experience of the soul of Jesus before God, in anticipation of the cross, instead of allowing his imagination without any clue from the gospels to learn from it "the manner in which Christ was personally chastened and afflicted?" According to the statement, the 88 Psalm has no reference to the cross; neither was it applicable to the Lord during his public ministry. If this Psalm, assuming it to be the experience of Christ, has no reference to the cross, but was the personal experience of Christ on account of His connection with Israel, what must be the inference if we dared to draw one? Surely the personal sufferings of Christ were more intense, and of a more awful character than His vicarious sufferings -for God had afflicted Him with all His waves, before He came to the cross. The startling statement is made at the close of the lecture, of Christ, "he dreaded not the cross as he did Gethsemane"; but one might almost gather that He had gone through a more awful experience before He came to Gethsemane.
Let us now turn to Psa. 38, which according to this lecture, was the personal experience of the Lord Jesus, "because he was part of an accursed people," SO "the hand of God was continually stretched out against him in various ways, he was chastened every morning; "my loins, he said, are filled with a loathsome disease." Now we do not read of such chastening after he began his public ministry, but before that I doubt not he was often so afflicted."
Now I do feel this to be a needless shock to our common feeling as Christians; and the reception of such a statement, from which I turn aside with indignation and disgust, would in my mind infinitely lower the value of the work of Christ on the cross. We have the Scripture which cannot be broken, "Jesus increased in favor with God and man." I receive its testimony, and utterly repudiate the thought, that previous to His entrance on his public ministry, God's hand was continually stretched out against Him, or that He often afflicted Him by filling "his loins with a loathsome disease." The holy thing born of the virgin -the holy one of God -Immanuel, often so afflicted, and that personally!! His connection with Israel is granted -God had smitten the Egyptians and He had given Israel a statute -Ex. 16:26. Did not Jesus do what was right in the sight of God; and was not the blessing of this statute His and His alone? The doctrine is, that this Psalm and others of a kindred character describe "the manner in which Christ was personally chastened and afflicted, while the servant of God on the earth," and not his vicarious sufferings. What meaneth then the language, "There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin, for mine iniquities are gone over my head, as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me." Were they His own sins of which He here speaks? Are they the personal sins of Jesus for which Jehovah was rebuking Him in his wrath and chastening Him in his sore displeasure? if so, though I trust none would say it, then, what becomes of the doctrine that Christ has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit." But if we go on to Psa. 40 the next but one to this, we have instruction from the Holy Ghost as to its interpretation. "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins, wherefore when he cometh into the world he saith -Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt-offerings and sacrifice for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first that he may establish the second, by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." It can admit of no dispute that this Psalm has reference to the vicarious sufferings of Christ. In it we read "For innumerable evils have compassed me about; mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head; therefore my heart faileth me" The language of Psa. 38:4, is, "mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me." The language is nearly the same, and the sins are identified with the sufferer in both cases. In the one the Holy Ghost has given us the clue to interpret them, not personally, of Christ, but of sins made his own by imputation of God, and why not in the other also?
That Jesus had a deeper sense of death than any of us can have, as being the life, is most true; that He knew it according to the sentence of God, and instinctively shrunk from it as being "the wages of sin," is readily admitted; and was not this the great conflict of his soul in Gethsemane -was it possible for the cup to pass away without his drinking it. Redemption apart from death according to the divine counsels was impossible. But the statement is that the Old Testament. saints were in bondage, &c., "God desired that the awe and terror of death and this place of separation might be with their spirits... Jesus was often made, &c. -he should see his goodness in the land of the living." (I do not find any allusion to death and hades in Psa. 37), "but he really tasted of death in way we never shall." Blessed truth! -but when did He so taste death? why shall not we? "We see Jesus made a little lower than the angels; for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." The apostle refers His tasting death, so that we should not so taste it, to the cross; the lecture to experience of Jesus before His public ministry. He "became obedient unto death even the death of the cross." The Holy Ghost in the New Testament dwells on this point, as well as the Lord Himself in his own ministry after the revelation of the glory of His person to Peter. The death of Christ on the cross, the Son of man lifted up, is the key given us to open the Scriptures, but the doctrine of this tract is awe and terror from fear of death and hades -chastisement and wrath from God previous to his entering on his public ministry.
This statement about death and hades has reference to the 5th verse of this Psalm -"In death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave, who shall give thee thanks?" Jesus, it is stated, had the awe and terror of this continually before Him till He was thirty years of age -and then He is delivered from it, not by resurrection, but by taking new ground after his baptism by John. But the Lord Himself during his personal ministry, makes His actual death which was before Him the prominent subject of His teaching after the revelation of the glory of His person by the Father to Peter, and after showing three of his disciples his glory in the holy mount. According to the statements of the tract, Jesus had gone through all the terrors of death in spirit before -and what then was his actual death? He had, as it were, a reprieve for the three and a half years after his baptism by John -so that those years were "by far the happiest in his life, for he was not afflicted by the hand of God as before."
Were not death and hades as realities before Him during these three and a half years? did not they press on His soul with deeper intensity as the hour which had no parallel before it, or would have after it, approached? Is it really intended to be taught us that the Lord had previously for thirty years, more or less, so gone through the terrors of death and hades, that the awe of them was gone during his public ministry, and the cross was only "the closing incident" of the life of Jesus, and that He was there "made distinctly (why distinctly?) the sacrifice for sin." Was He any where else, or in any way else, the sacrifice for sin? Were the terrors of death and hades, He had previously undergone according to the statement of this lecture, the wrath and chastisement of God which He had endured more or less for thirty years, and relief from which was granted to Him by the baptism of John, in any sense sacrificial? "Without shedding of blood there is no remission. " "I suppose the forty days he was in the wilderness was really a time of joy to the Spirit of Christ, when he was peculiarly with God, led there by the Spirit (p. 17)."
If words are capable of directly contradicting the plainest statements of the New Testament, these words do so. "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil," and the close of the scene is, "Then the Devil leaveth him, and behold angels came and ministered to him" (Matt. 4:1, 11).
"And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness, and he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan and was with the wild beasts and the angels ministered unto him (Mark 1:12, 13).
"And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the Devil!
"And when the Devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season" (Luke 4:1-13).
Temptation is the characteristic of the scene from first to last for the forty days. It is true that hunger is not mentioned till the end of forty days. And, then, three distinct temptations are noticed. "He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. " "In that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted"; so that this lecture. by perverting the account of the scene in the wilderness, tends, as greatly, to diminish our comfort drawn from the sympathy of Jesus, as it does to subvert our souls by depreciating his sufferings on the cross. But can the doctrine of this lecture be maintained without perverting Scripture? That doctrine is, that most intense sufferings were endured by Christ at the hand of God, concerning which the New Testament is silent; and that unless we meditate on these sufferings we should know little of what the real sufferings of Christ were. It is the object of this lecture to bring these (I hesitate not to say) imaginary sufferings of Christ into strong relief. And hence, the scene in the wilderness, which Christians generally have thought to be one of trial of soul to Jesus, is changed into a season of joy when He was peculiarly with God. "He suffered being tempted" None have ever thought temptation to be a season of peculiar joy to the spirit. For the analogy is drawn in the lecture, between Christ and believers, as to the scene in the wilderness -and the forty days in the wilderness are compared to "a season of spiritual joy, when the soul has found peculiar rest in God."
To be in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan, and to be with the wild beasts, a season of spiritual joy!! Man's dependance and God's faithfulness may be and are proved through temptation. And when we have been carried through the temptation we understand the word. "Blessed is the man which endureth temptation." "God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able to bear, but will with the temptation make a way of escape." However blessed the result of temptation, the process of it is peculiarly painful and the very opposite to a season of spiritual joy. It is surely a very solemn responsibility for any one thus to set aside Scripture by a thought of his own. And if Christians become habituated to such tampering with Scripture; what security have we for the integrity of any doctrine? "He dreaded not the cross as he did Gethsemane (p. 18)." This certainly is a most astounding statement; and the effect must be to turn away the thoughts from the distinct character of the sufferings on the cross. The character of Gethsemane is stated to be weak humanity, and all the power of Satan allowed to be brought upon the Lord Jesus; but in the sacred narrative, is Satan presented to us at all in Gethsemane? "Satan had put it into the heart of Judas to betray him" -but Judas was not there -he came at the close, after the sore trial of Gethsemane was over. Separated from the traitor and the world, the Lord was alone with His select disciples in the garden, and from them, He takes the three who had been the favored witnesses of His glory on the holy mount, to be witnesses of another scene. "He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, thy will be done. And he left them and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, 'Sleep on now, and take your rest; behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners Rise, let us be going: behold he is at hand that cloth betray me.' And while he yet spake, lo, Judas," &c.
The narrative of Mark differs but little from that of Matthew. He "began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy: and saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death -he prayed, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee: take away this cup from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt... it is enough, the hour is come, and immediately while he yet spake, cometh Judas," &c.
The account of Luke commences and ends with warning to the disciples -"Pray that ye enter not int.( temptation" -but it brings in remarkable circumstance, unnoticed by Matthew and Mark. "He was withdraw from them about a stone-cast, and kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him -and being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground; when he rose up from prayer, and was come unto his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow, and said unto them, Why sleep ye, rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. And while he yet spake," &c. Here we have the scene before us, and we may judge of its character. We do indeed see weak humanity that sought comfort even from human sympathy. But was it not the sense of something most awful impending, that thus agitated the blessed Jesus? Was it not the prospect of "the cup" not yet actually in His hand -"the hour" not yet actually arrived, that thus overwhelmed His soul with horror, anguish, amazement, and caused Him to urge the plea, "Take away this cup from me."
St. John's gospel does not give us the scene in the garden but only tells us of Judas and the officers coming by night to take Him; therefore, in this gospel, we find Jesus saying "The cup which my Father hath given me shall I not drink it." The struggle was now over, that most solemn moment of suspense was passed, when for an instant the possibility appeared to be weighed by Jesus, whether He might be spared the extremity of suffering, -a new and as yet untasted anguish -even wrath poured out on Him from God -the hiding of his Father's face, while his soul was made an offering for sin! But when that agonizing suspense is over, He bows in perfect submission to his Father's will, even thus proving it to be His meat and drink to do the will of Him that sent Him and to finish his work. That, which appears to characterize the sufferings of Gethsemane is, the struggle whether "the cup" should be drunk or not. "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." And what was the cup? Surely it was the cross. And it is a solemn as well as important difference, whether the cross is regarded as throwing back its deep sorrow even in anticipation, so as to cause the agony in Gethsemane; or whether Gethsemane be held up to depreciate the sufferings on the cross; for the doctrine of this lecture will not admit that it was a new and strange thing for Christ to suffer the wrath of God on the cross, seeing He had suffered it for the first thirty years of His life. There were two things needed to exhibit the glory of Jesus in connection with the cross; it must be, on His part, an act of obedience to God, and at the same time, it must be an act of willingness. Both were brought out at Gethsemane -"Thy will be done" -and "he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb dumb before his shearers, so opened he not his mouth." He would carry his obedience to death, even the death of the cross, and yet He could say, "I lay down my life of myself." In this we see the wonderful result of the conflict in Gethsemane. And it was after this conflict in Gethsemane was over, when the multitude came with Judas to take Him that He said, "When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour and the power of darkness."
He was now delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. "God spared not his Son, but gave him up for us all" -"he delivered him for our offenses" -this, God had not done before, though often had they attempted to lay hands on Him; but his hour was not yet come.
It is deeply interesting to mark the connection between Gethsemane and the cross, but important to distinguish the interval between them, so that the cross may be marked off into the distinct prominence which it occupies in the writings of the apostles. "Enduring the cross, despising the shame" -there were many bitter accompaniments to the cross, which were not the cross itself; betrayed by one disciple, denied by another, deserted by all; spitting -buffeting -blindfolding -mocking -the crown of thorns -the ribaldry of the soldiers -the blasphemies of the Jews -all these indignities accompanied the cross, both on the way to it and while hanging on it; but though it was "man's hour and the power of darkness," and the malice and cruelty of men and devils did their worst, yet all torment of body and trial of spirit which our blessed Lord went through, was small in comparison of that tremendous, that isolated hour, when God had to do with Him in judgment. "And there was darkness over all the land from the sixth unto the ninth hour." These hours of darkness seem to have been passed in silence by Jesus, and may we not interpret that darkness of nature, as symbolical of the darkness of soul which came over Him, when His Father hid the light of His countenance from Him -when all the waves and billows of God's wrath passed over Him, while He was numbered with the transgressors. It was the rebuke which broke his heart, and caused Him in the bitterness of desertion to break the long silence by that cry of intensest agony -"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Surely this must have been "the most terrible hour" that Jesus ever past -the all-important hour, even when we carry time into eternity.
"And Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost" -the veil was rent, the earth did quake, the rocks rent, the graves were opened. "It is finished." It was on the cross, and not in Gethsemane, that "the difficulty was surmounted."
I have avoided as much as possible adverting to collateral points, however important I may regard them, because I have desired fairly to consider the leading doctrine of the lecture. This is very clearly stated, viz.: that Christ was "obnoxious to" and under the rebuke of the wrath of God -(see pp. 7, 12, 14, 15) -for the first thirty years of His life, and then by His baptism by John He came into a relation to God quite opposite to this. I have well weighed this doctrine, and believe it to be deeply erroneous. An unguarded expression, or even a mistake of the note-taker on some particular points, would not affect the leading doctrine, any more than some qualifying expressions found in the lecture itself.
There are two important points of our common faith seriously affected by this doctrine.—
"1st, By putting Christ under a curse through His life for thirty years, the doctrine of righteousness, as wrought out by Him, is certainly touched, even "the righteousness of one, or the one righteousness which is unto justification of life" (Rom. 5:18). For can we conceive one personally righteous, using the language of the thirty-fourth Psalm -"mine iniquities are gone over my head," in any other sense than vicariously? and this is one of the Psalms referred to as expressing the experience of the Lord Jesus before his baptism by John.
2ndly, The cross loses its distinctive character, as being the place, and the only place in which Christ stood in the relation of wrath to God. By the prominence given to this more protracted period of suffering the wrath and hot displeasure of God, a simple mind might at first be led to conceive that they enhanced the love of Christ to sinners. But not so. These sufferings were not vicarious. No one was benefitted by them. Christ, it is stated, was under this wrath personally, by being connected with Israel, and when He was delivered from it by His baptism by John, His personal relation to God was altered. And so important a subject of meditation are these sufferings of Christ said to be, that by fixing our eye simply on the cross we should know little of what the real sufferings of Christ were. Now, does not this tend to make us think more lightly of those sufferings which Christ had to undergo on the cross in order to accomplish the great end for which He had come into the world?"
I believe I may speak in the name of every babe of Christ, and in the name of the most experienced saint, and claim for the cross that isolated place, which the counsels of eternity have assigned to it, and which the praises of eternity shall celebrate. On this point we cannot be too sensitively jealous. It is the cross which gives peace to the soul, awakened to a sense of sin bythe Spirit of God. It is the cross which sustains the soul under deeper exercise when proving the reality of indwelling sin. It is the cross which is the great expression to us of the love of God. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." And it is the cross which draws forth the response of love from our hearts. Everything is touched if we touch the cross, but I cannot now dwell on this.
I believe the doctrine of this lecture, if received, would subvert the soul. I am sure it would destroy the peace of my own soul; for deeper acquaintance with the loathsomeness of sin, would often raise the doubt of the possibility of being saved -unless that doubt were stayed by the object proposed to our faith -Jesus Christ, the Son of God -Immanuel, crucified. If He, the Lord of glory, has hung on the accursed tree, it is less marvel that a sinner should be saved, than that He should have hung there. And to turn the soul to regard Jesus as under the wrath of God at any other time than the cross, would be to subvert it. And the more the doctrine of Christ suffering the wrath of God (as expressed in the Psalms referred to) otherwise than vicariously, is considered, the more clearly will it be found to be without Scripture and contrary to Scripture. alike derogatory to the glory of the Father and the person of the Son, as well as greatly depreciating the work on the cross.
I can conceive of Christ partaking of the common cup of sorrow, exposed to hunger, thirst, weariness, because the Scriptures so exhibit Him. I can assuredly too accept what is stated in the lecture as to His sufferings from the judgment He must have had of all around Him here, because of what He Himself essentially was, so that He saw everything according to truth. He judged everything according to the light of that blessed region from whence He had come, as He says, "Ye are from beneath, I am from above. " I can understand too His sufferings connected with His service to God, enduring the contradiction of sinners against Himself, and exposed to the malice of Satan, for the Scriptures testify to them. And we do know by the sure word of God, as taught by His Spirit, His sufferings on the cross, when He stood in our place. But I am at a loss to conceive a peculiar class of Christ's sufferings -not resulting from drinking of the cup of human sorrow, nor from his own divine sensibility to the glory of God and dreadful evil of man, neither from the opposition of the powers of darkness, nor from the hatred of man in His arduous service -but a peculiar class of sufferings from the wrath of God, which are not vicarious. And I believe my difficulty to arise from the fact that no such sufferings of Christ are to be found in the Scripture.
"May we still the cross discerning,
There alone for comfort go,
There new wonders daily learning,
More of Jesu's glory know."
Yours affectionately in the Lord, J. L. Harris To Mr. C. McAdam Brampford Speke, June, 1847