The Sympathy of Christ

 •  14 min. read  •  grade level: 7
 
I would NOW add a little which, I hope, may clear up some minds as to Christ’s sympathy with us. First, I assume that my reader holds, as myself, the true and real humanity of the Lord, both in body and soul; that He was a true living man in flesh and blood.
Christ was a man in the truest sense of the word, body and soul. The question is as to His relation to God as man. We are all agreed that He was sinless. He had true humanity, but united to Godhead. He was God manifest in flesh. Scripture speaks simply, saying, He partook of flesh and blood. That is what the Christian has simply, and as taught of God, to believe. Was His humanity then without a divine spring of thought and feeling? Were it said it was not of or from His humanity, I should have nothing to say; but to say there was none in it, unsettles the doctrine of Christ’s person. There was the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and the divine nature was a spring of many thoughts and feelings in Him. This is not the whole truth; but to deny it, is not truth. If it be merely meant that humanity has not in itself a divine spring, that is plain enough; it would not be humanity. I am equally aware that it will be said, that it was in His person; but to separate wholly the humanity and divinity in springs of thought and feeling, is dangerously overstepping Scripture. Is it meant that the love and holiness of the divine nature did not produce, was not a spring of thought and feeling in His human soul? This would be to lower Christ below a Christian. If so, it is merely a round-about road to Socinianism.—His humanity, it is said, was not sui generis. This too is confusion. The abstract word humanity means humanity and no more: and, being abstract, must be taken absolutely; according to its own meaning. But, if it is meant that, in fact, the state of Christ’s humanity was not sui generis, it is quite wrong, for it was united to Godhead, which no one else’s humanity over was; which, as to fact, alters its whole condition. For instance, it was not only sinless, but in that condition incapable of sinning; and to take it out of that condition is to take it out of Christ’s person. What conclusion do I draw from all this?—That the wise soul will avoid the wretched attempt to settle in such a manner questions as to Him whom no one knoweth but the Father. The whole process of the reasoning is false.
To turn, then, to Scripture, we are told of the sinless infirmities of human nature, and that Christ partook of them. Now, I have no doubt this has been said most innocently; but, not being Scripture, we must learn in what sense it is used. Now, that Christ was truly man, in thought, feeling, and sympathy, is a truth of cardinal blessing and fundamental importance to our souls. But I have learnt thereby, not that humanity is not real humanity, if there is a divine spring of thought and feeling in it; but that God can be the spring of thought and feeling in it, without its ceasing to be truly and really man. This is the very truth of infinite and unspeakable blessedness that I have learnt. This, in its little feeble measure, and in another and derivative way, is true of us now, by grace. He who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit. This is true in Jesus in a yet far more important and blessed way. There was once an innocent man left to himself; the spring of thought and feeling being simply man, however called on by every blessing and natural testimony of God without. We know what came of it. Then there was a man whose heart, alas! was the spring “ from within,” of evil thoughts and the dark train of acts that followed. What I see in Christ is man, where God has become the spring of thought and feeling.1 And, through this wonderful mystery, in the new creation in us, all things are of God. That, if we speak of His and our humanity, is what distinguishes it. Metaphysically to say, “His and our humanity,” is nonsense; because humanity is an abstraction which means nothing but itself, and always itself, and nothing else: just as if I said Godhead; and if I introduce any idea of its actual state, I am destroying the idea and notion the word conveys. But the moment I do associate other ideas, I must introduce the whole effect and power of these ideas to modify the abstract one according to the actual fact. Thus, humanity is always simply humanity. The moment I call it His, it is sui generis, because it is His and in fact humanity sustained by Godhead is not humanity in the same state as humanity un-sustained by Godhead.2 Sinless humanity, sustained in that state by Godhead, is not the same as sinful humanity left to itself.
But Scripture never uses the term that Christ was subject to infirmities. Nor is being in infirmities necessary to sympathy with those in them; but being out of them, though having a nature capable of apprehending in itself the suffering it brings into. The mother sympathizes with the babe in the pain she does not feel.
Further, Christ is contrasted in His priestly sympathies with men having infirmity. The law makes men priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, the Son consecrated for evermore. (Heb. 7:2828For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore. (Hebrews 7:28).) The high priest taken from among men had compassion, for that (while priest, note) he was compassed with infirmity. That was more man’s way of sympathy; for he had to offer for his own sins. Instead of this, Christ in the days of His flesh, when He was not a priest, cried to Him who was able to save Him from death, took the place of lowly, subject, sorrowful man, and received the weight of it in His soul, and then, being made perfect, acts as priest. It is not said that He was infirm like us, but in all points tempted like as we are; and that He suffered, being tempted, and therefore is able to succor them that are tempted. Another important passage, connected with this, is in Matthew. Christ took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. Now, how was this? “And he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.” I do not doubt His whole soul entered into them, in the whole sorrow and burden of them before God, in the full sense of what they were, so viewed, in order to set them aside and bar Satan’s power as to them. But was He sick and infirm because Himself took our infirmities? Clearly not. In a word, it is not being Himself in the state with which He sympathizes which gives the sympathy. Christ partook of flesh and blood; that is what Scripture states, and that is the whole matter. He was a true real man in flesh and blood. That He was truly a man and an Israelite in true flesh and blood, born such, no one questions. But His associations in relationship with God were with the saints in Israel. They no doubt had the thoughts and feelings of an Israelitish saint; that is, Israel’s responsibility, failure, hopes and promises formed the basis, or structure, or character of their feelings as saints; but Christ’s relationship was with them. And this is the distinctive character of the book of Psalms. It takes up Israelitish hopes, and circumstances and conditions, no doubt, but as held by the saints only; and excludes the ungodly as an adverse party. Now, that was Christ’s place. It was association with the holy remnant in their Israelitish condition. Their relationship to God was a holy relationship; and though they might go through every test and trial of the new nature and faith on which it was founded, and acknowledge all the failure and the sin under which they were suffering, their relationship was a holy one with God. Into that Christ enters;3 and, therefore, though He may enter into their sorrows and bear their guilt, He has no need to be in any other relationship to God than a holy one. In that He may feel the effects of another, just as a renewed soul, because it is near God and feels accordingly, feels its former state of sin and guilt; but it is not in it, save where guilt is not yet removed from the conscience, in which position of feeling, clearly, Christ was solely as a substitute. He is not associated with man’s or Israel’s distance, (save as bearing sin,) but with the children’s relationship to God. Because the children partake of flesh and blood, He partook of them. The taking flesh and blood is stated as the consequences of his relationship with the children. Let us quote the passages:
“Both He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified, are all of one.”
“Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren.”
“I and the children which God has given me.” (Compare Isaiah 8.)
“I will put my trust in Him.”
That is, the proof of His being in human nature is godly relationship in man.
It was not, then, that by taking flesh and blood He placed himself in the distance of man; but that, because he associated himself with the children, He partook of flesh and blood, and that is all that is said. The Sanctifier and the sanctified being all of one, He was not ashamed to call them brethren. But His relationship was with the sanctified. His spirit entered into every sorrow, His soul passed through every distress, and He suffered under every temptation; but His relationship with God was never man’s or Israel’s as it then was, unless the cross be spoken of, because, His was sinless, theirs sinful. It was His own. His relative position, that is, His relation to God, was according to what He was, whatever He might take upon Him or enter into in spirit, which included every sorrow and every difficulty felt, according to the full force of truth, and that before God.
This distinctive relationship with the remnant before God, the Psalms specifically show. The Spirit of Christ does not accept the position of Israel as it then stood; but distinguishes (see Ps. 1.) the Godly Man as alone owned or approved of God, and Christ, born in the world, owned as Son, and decreed King in Zion in spite of adversaries. He identifies Himself with the excellent on the earth. (Ps. 16.) God is good to Israel, even to them that are of a clean heart. He is God of Jacob, but a refuge to the remnant alone. With them, Christ in spirit identifies Himself, and abhors the rest, looking for help—judicial help—against an ungodly nation.
The circumstances of His baptism were a remarkable illustration of this. Did the Lord take His place with the Pharisees and scribes who were not baptized? Clearly, not. When does He associate Himself with Israel? In the first movement of the answer of faith to the testimony of God: when the people went to be baptized, Jesus also went. Now, that was the answer of grace to God’s testimony in John, in the remnant in whose hearts He was acting—the first and lowest beginning of it—still, it was the movement of the heart under God’s grace, in answer to the testimony. It was really the gracious part of Israel; it was really the excellent, the godly remnant, with whom Christ identified himself in their godliness. He was fulfilling righteousness.
 
1. Did He hereby cease to be a man ? Not at all. It is, though “according to God,” in man and as man these thoughts and feelings are to be found. And this extends itself to all the sorrows and the pressure of death itself upon His soul in thought. He had human feelings as to what lay upon Him and before him; but God was the spring of its estimate of it all. Besides, the manifestation of God was in His ways. We had known man innocent in suitable circumstances; and, guilty, subject to misery; but in Christ we have perfectness in relation to God, in every way, in infallibly maintained communion in the midst of all the circumstances of sorrow, temptation, and death, by which He was beset―the spring of divine life in the midst of evil, so that His every thought as man was perfection before God, and perfect in that position. This was what marked His state as being down here this new thing.
Hunger, thirst, uneasiness, are not a kind of humanity, but a state of circumstances in which it is placed. That Christ came into these circumstances is undoubted. I have not different humanity when I am hungry and when I am full. But I am placed in a condition in which hunger and starvation may fall upon me if God so permits. Who will say IF Adam had not had food he would not have been hungry? But God had not set him in that condition.―Further, even as to death, there is much misapprehension. No creature is, in itself, in a state which cannot perish. That is the condition of existence of God alone, “who only hath immortality.” If Adam was not mortal before he sinned, it was by God’s continually sustaining power―we may say by Christ’s. By God’s appointment, when man sinned, he passed out of that state of continually sustained existence, arid was not to continue beyond a limited period in his actual condition of existence. This was not humanity, but man’s state, as such, when Christ came. Now, Christ came expressly to die, and took all this sorrow in its full weight upon His soul; He was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death. But His doing this in obedience, “Lo, I come to do thy will,” to glorify God and manifest and accomplish His love, exalt His righteousness, and be the suffering vessel of witness to the claims of this necessity, was infinitely acceptable to God, so that His relationship to God as being in flesh, and by being in it, was one of infinite acceptability to God. But, though He came on purpose to die, because of the ruined condition in which man was; to raise His people, and so was in a capacity of dying, as made lower than the angels, yet it was in such sort that it should be a matter of pure grace in Him to give up His life. He laid it down of Himself. He had authority to lay it down and authority to take it again,―still in obedience, “This commandment have I received of my Father.” That was the real condition of Christ’s death. He came to die, but He came to give His life. He had life in Himself. The condition of His existence here was to lay down, by grace, obediently, but of Himself, His life. He was not, as of God, in a condition of losing it. He was not in Adam’s condition. For Adam could not, as Christ, lay down nor take again his life, nor had he life in himself. To speak of Him as liable to death, if something had happened, is mere irreverence―He was in a Position of commanding His own death and life, but could do this, because of his perfection, only in obedience to His Father’s will: it is nonsense; because in the supposition is denied the condition of His existence, which was to lay it down. And, as I have said, if Adam had so lived under violence, and been hewed in pieces, would he have survived as a living man? The answer was, That was not his condition of existence. When Christ gave Himself up to the appointed consequences of sin, He took the wrath and the consequences. He came with that purpose, so that it was always before Him. His relationship to God in this (yea, because of this) was of infinite acceptance; not only because He was Eternal Son of God, the title of which he did not forego, as towards God, in assuming flesh, but was in its acceptance all through. But the position itself that He assumed was a cause of infinite acceptance, and in that He stood as man even in what He suffered.―” Therefore cloth my Father love me.
This was His relative position as regards even Israel. Any other would have been morally incompatible with His being and proper relationship to God. A saint may feel the guilt―into that Christ could enter―but He could not be in it in His relationship to God, save vicariously.
2. Hunger, thirst, uneasiness, are not a kind of humanity, but a state of circumstances in which it is placed. That Christ came into these circumstances is undoubted. I have not different humanity when I am hungry and when I am full. But I am placed in a condition in which hunger and starvation may fall upon me if God so permits. Who will say IF Adam had not had food he would not have been hungry? But God had not set him in that condition.―Further, even as to death, there is much misapprehension. No creature is, in itself, in a state which cannot perish. That is the condition of existence of God alone, “who only hath immortality.” If Adam was not mortal before he sinned, it was by God’s continually sustaining power―we may say by Christ’s. By God’s appointment, when man sinned, he passed out of that state of continually sustained existence, arid was not to continue beyond a limited period in his actual condition of existence. This was not humanity, but man’s state, as such, when Christ came. Now, Christ came expressly to die, and took all this sorrow in its full weight upon His soul; He was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death. But His doing this in obedience, “Lo, I come to do thy will,” to glorify God and manifest and accomplish His love, exalt His righteousness, and be the suffering vessel of witness to the claims of this necessity, was infinitely acceptable to God, so that His relationship to God as being in flesh, and by being in it, was one of infinite acceptability to God. But, though He came on purpose to die, because of the ruined condition in which man was; to raise His people, and so was in a capacity of dying, as made lower than the angels, yet it was in such sort that it should be a matter of pure grace in Him to give up His life. He laid it down of Himself. He had authority to lay it down and authority to take it again,―still in obedience, “This commandment have I received of my Father.” That was the real condition of Christ’s death. He came to die, but He came to give His life. He had life in Himself. The condition of His existence here was to lay down, by grace, obediently, but of Himself, His life. He was not, as of God, in a condition of losing it. He was not in Adam’s condition. For Adam could not, as Christ, lay down nor take again his life, nor had he life in himself. To speak of Him as liable to death, if something had happened, is mere irreverence―He was in a Position of commanding His own death and life, but could do this, because of his perfection, only in obedience to His Father’s will: it is nonsense; because in the supposition is denied the condition of His existence, which was to lay it down. And, as I have said, if Adam had so lived under violence, and been hewed in pieces, would he have survived as a living man? The answer was, That was not his condition of existence. When Christ gave Himself up to the appointed consequences of sin, He took the wrath and the consequences. He came with that purpose, so that it was always before Him. His relationship to God in this (yea, because of this) was of infinite acceptance; not only because He was Eternal Son of God, the title of which he did not forego, as towards God, in assuming flesh, but was in its acceptance all through. But the position itself that He assumed was a cause of infinite acceptance, and in that He stood as man even in what He suffered.―” Therefore cloth my Father love me.
This was His relative position as regards even Israel. Any other would have been morally incompatible with His being and proper relationship to God. A saint may feel the guilt―into that Christ could enter―but He could not be in it in His relationship to God, save vicariously.
3. This was His relative position as regards even Israel. Any other would have been morally incompatible with His being and proper relationship to God. A saint may feel the guilt―into that Christ could enter―but He could not be in it in His relationship to God, save vicariously.