I
may here notice another saying of Christ...containing ... a deep
significance, which can only be apprehended when we read it in
connection with Christ's suretyship or representative character. He
said, before leaving the upper room, where He celebrated the last
supper: 'This that is written of Me must yet be accomplished in Me,
And He was numbered among transgressors' (Luke xxil 37). Now, are we
to regard this remark of Christ, which embodies a quotation from
Isaiah's prophecy, as containing nothing more than a description of
the opinion entertained by men respecting Him? Does it mean that He
was treated as if He had been a transgressor, or in a way which might
have led a hasty observer or an undiscerning spectator to conclude
that He was, or might be, a transgressor? No; by no means. Our Lord
plainly takes the words in all their fulness of significance. He uses
them not as denoting a mere as if, but as descriptive of the real
sentence due to transgressors, and of the doom or punishment
consequent on that righteous sentence carried out against
transgressors. That is the meaning of the words; and the rationale is
supplied by the fact, that the expression occurs in a chapter which,
beyond doubt, predicts the vicarious sufferings of Christ, and
repeats again and again the great thought, 'that He bore the sins of
many' (Isa. liii.). No candid interpreter, interpreting simply by
language, can have any other impression than this, that the righteous
servant there named delivers many by a vicarious atonement. And
Jesus, by quoting this statement as awaiting its accomplishment in
Himself, manifestly applies that whole chapter of Isaiah to His own
sufferings and death. We can interpret our Lord's words only in the
sense that He was to be judicially numbered among transgressors, that
is, numbered agreeably to the execution of a judicial sentence with
transgressors. When Mark applies the same quotation to the position
assigned to Christ between the two thieves at His crucifixion (Mark
xv. 28), he brings out its meaning in all its compass of allusion.
But He by no means excludes the preparatory stages of its
accomplishment, or that which preceded the fact adduced as its
fulfilment. The words, 'He was numbered with transgressors,' were
accomplished not only when He shared a common lot with the
malefactors, but also in all that preceded the erection of the three
crosses on Golgotha, and, in fact, from the moment of His delivery
into the hands of men. It was thus a judicial numbering of Christ
with transgressors.
(1)
The ARREST of Christ in the garden as if He were a criminal was the
first step to the accomplishment of the prediction ('He was numbered
among the transgressors'). He was there treated as a seditious man
and as a malefactor in the room of us sinners, who had forfeited our
freedom. We are evil-doers in so far as our relation to the city of
God is concerned, that is, men who had renounced their dependence and
allegiance, and who acted in all things as disobedient subjects. That
arrest by the hand of justice was a real transaction at the hand of
God, — was, in fact, the arrest of the guilty criminal in the
person of the representative. And if the veil had been drawn aside,
it would have been seen that all this was in the room of the sinner
who should have been so apprehended. This is a real, not a symbolical
transaction. And if the representative is seized, they whom He
represented must go free. There is such a meaning in our Lord's
words: 'Let these go free' (John xviii. 8). Our Lord deeply felt,
indeed, the rude arrest in His tender human feelings when He said:
'Are ye come out as against a thief, with swords and with staves to
take Me?' (Mark xiv. 48.) But He well knew, that though personally
sinless, He was there in the room of sinners, and that the officers,
acting as the ministers of God, seized Him as the sinner should have
been seized. But, at the same time, to show how little human power
could have prevailed against Him, unless He had given His consent, it
was deemed fitting to let out some display or outbeaming of His
majesty; and the utterance of the simple words, 'I am He,' prostrated
the officers and band to the ground (John xviii. 6). Though innocent
of the charge of sedition and blasphemy on which He was ostensibly
arrested, His people were not; and hence He must needs be seized and
bound in His capacity as the sinner's representative. When we see the
Son of God bound in chains, what does the transaction exhibit but the
captivity consequent upon our sin, which He had made His own, or the
chain binding the sinner to the judgment of the great day? His arrest
is His people's liberty; His bonds are their release.
(2) Not
to mention all the intermediate points in the successive steps of
Christ's sufferings, we shall notice, next in order, His TRIAL AND
SENTENCE BEFORE THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURT, on the charge of blasphemy.
In this whole transaction, when sentence of death was pronounced by
the high priest, we have but the visible part of the great assize. He
must, as the substitute of sinners, be found innocent, and yet made
guilty, — be proved personally spotless, and yet be treated by the
sentence given as one who was to be regarded as officially worthy of
condemnation. And this anomalous trial brings together at all points
these two things. The sentence by which He was condemned only
indicated or announced the sentence passed by God upon the
sin-bearer. The accusation on which He was tried in the Sanhedrim, AS
brought against us, is not false. Moses accuses us, that the
revelation given in the name of God has been disregarded and
despised, and that the divine perfections have only been blasphemed
by us. The accusation is so true and so undeniable, that there is no
need of witnesses. The representative of sinners in His official
capacity is silent, and puts in no plea in arrest of judgment. But
His personal innocence must be apparent. And it was only His own true
declaration of what He was as a divine person which brought down on
Him, in lack of other evidence, the sentence that He was worthy of
death. He thus appears personally innocent, but representatively
guilty; and unless we carry with us these two ideas as the key to the
whole trial, the narrative will be inexplicable, and the fact in the
moral government of God an impenetrable mystery. That earthly court,
dealing with the charge of blasphemy, or dishonour to the name and
works and word of God, sentenced the sinner's surety, and pronounced
upon our sin, much in the same way as the shadow on the sun-dial
registers the movements taking place in another sphere. He was
personally innocent; but as He stood there for us, He was truly
chargeable with all the accusation which was then adduced. His
silence at that tribunal opens our mouth to cry, 'Abba, Father.'
(3)
The MOCKERY, the shame, and the indignity to which He was subjected,
constituted the next part of His vicarious suffering. They were
undeserved by that meek and patient sufferer, but well merited by us,
in whose name He appeared, and whose person He bore. The wicked
'shall rise to shame and everlasting contempt' (Dan. xii. 2). And
from that merited scorn due to sinners from all holy beings the
sinless substitute was not exempt. He hid not His face from shame and
from spitting.
(4)
Omitting the desertion of His disciples and the denial of Peter, we
advance to the next public act in connection with Christ's
sufferings, — the trial and condemnation at the bar OF THE ROMAN
GOVERNOR, ON A CHARGE OF REBELLION OR SEDITION. This is very much of
the same kind with the trial before the high priest upon a charge of
blasphemy, and is to be considered in a similar light. The course of
our Lord's sufferings may with advantage be traced, as we have
already done, on the sinner's history, and read off from it. The
surety encountered, at each successive step, what should have taken
place in the history of man's relation to God. For the very same
relations, and not merely analogous ones, were occupied by the surety
when He was tried and sentenced and condemned. It is note worthy that
at Pilate's bar Jesus was silent (Matt. xxvii. 14). The explanation
is to be found in the fact, that though personally sinless, He
really, and not nominally, occupied the sinner's place. Hence the
silence. He puts in no plea in arrest of judgment or in self-
vindication. He was there not in His personal capacity, but in His
official capacity, as the representative of sinners and the voluntary
sin-bearer. He has nothing to adduce in extenuation or in
exculpation, since every mouth must be stopped, and the whole world
become guilty before God. He accepts the charge of guilt; and as the
doom is the sinner's, not His, He submits to it as merited. When
Pilate wished to deliver Him, if Jesus would only be aiding in His
own defence, the Lord continued silent before His accusers, amid all
the accusations adduced against Him. He was then making a real
appearance at the bar of God, of which that earthly court of justice
was but the foreground. He was personally innocent, and officially
guilty. Hence His silence.
We
must notice this anomalous trial specially in connection with the
fact that He was sentenced as guilty while pronounced innocent. The
examination of the judge was meant to serve the important purpose of
manifesting the innocence of Jesus. And the startling fact, that a
judge pronounces Him innocent, but condemns Him as guilty, must be
historically brought about in the adorable providence of God, in
order to exhibit the personal and the official in the Lord Jesus; or,
in other words, to discover the sinless one and the sin-bearer. No
man could more emphatically testify to Christ's innocence than
Pilate. He had examined the accusations; he had heard all that the
witnesses could adduce against Him, and was perfectly informed of
everything in the case; and five times he declared that he found no
fault in Him. This was done, too, in public, before His accusers, and
in the presence of the vast multitude. And, not content with that
public announcement, he, when he yielded at last to the clamour for
the crucifixion, confirmed his judicial testimony to His innocence by
the significant symbolical action of washing his hands, and declaring
that he was innocent of the blood of that just man. It was fitting
that all this should be done by a judge, and from the judicial bench,
that Christ's innocence might be made apparent; and next, that the
inference might be drawn that the doom of the guilty was transferred
to Him as standing in a vicarious position. Thus He was personally
innocent, though He was by no means to be accounted so in that
official and vicarious capacity, in which alone He stood at Pilate's
bar. There is no way of elucidating that anomalous trial, which went
through the due forms of law, unless we hold that He was truly
innocent, but officially guilty.
(5)
The last step of Christ's sufferings, the crucifixion, immediately
followed the sentence of Pilate. The intermediate details, such as
the mockery, scorn, and indignity inflicted on Him in many forms, we
shall omit; though these, too, were vicarious, as appears from the
words, 'by His stripes we are healed.' We shall omit, too, the Lord's
words to the daughters of Jerusalem when they wept for Him tears of
sympathy, as He toiled along the public way under the burden of the
cross, — tears which, He shows them, were out of place as shed for
Him. We shall limit ourselves to the crucifixion itself and to the
closing acts of His life.
The
crucifixion, a Roman mode of punishment, was not only peculiarly
painful and ignominious in the sight of man, but was meant to
indicate the amazing fact, that Christ, by being suspended on the
tree, was made a curse. The words of Moses quoted by Paul are express
to this effect (Gal. iii. 13). The Lord Jesus was thus, personally
considered, the beloved Son and the sinless man, but, officially
considered, the curse-bearer in the room of sinners. The Son of God,
truly bearing sin with a view to condemn it in the flesh, was
exhibited as made a curse by the very fact of enduring this
punishment. We have thus to draw the same distinction, as we already
mentioned, between Christ considered personally and Christ considered
officially. If there ever was a spot where sin could be laid without
entailing the inevitable doom of a righteous condemnation, it was
here when it was borne on the sinless humanity of the incarnate Son;
and we see that even there sin was condemned in the flesh and
righteously visited. The surety was tried, sentenced, condemned, and
made a curse for us, that we might not come into condemnation.
During
those awful hours on the cross when made a curse for us, the Lord
Jesus sustained that desertion, which was just the endurance of the
death of the soul, when sin separates between God and the soul, and
when God hides His face from us. To this it is not necessary to refer
further, after what was said in the previous section. The actions of
the Lord Jesus when He hung on the cross, were in the highest degree
momentous and significant. These expiatory sufferings, 'an offering
and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour' (Eph. v. 2), were
so efficacious, that they were made the ground of two signal displays
of grace, even while He was on the cross. The one of these was the
salvation of the dying malefactor, who was made an eminent trophy of
His redemption work, and was enabled to recognise Him as a sufficient
Saviour, even in that deep abasement and humiliation. The other was
the prayer for forgiveness to His crucifiers, whether we regard the
scope of the prayer as comprehending the individuals then before Him,
or as extending to the preservation of the Jewish nation.
After
these hours of inconceivable sorrow and desertion on the cross, under
a darkness which just resembled the blackness awaiting the lost, the
Lord felt that His work was accomplished; and He gave utterance to
that saying which has brought light, rest, and liberty to so many
minds: 'It is finished' (John xix. 30). He meant that the expiatory
sufferings had reached their climax, and were sufficient, that the
guilt of mankind was fully atoned for, and that there was nothing
left undone. He felt that God and man were reunited and reconciled;
and now He had but to resign His spirit into His Father's hands. As
priest and victim, He had only now one act to perform, — to lay
down His life by the priestly act of commending His spirit to God.
Nature was not exhausted, nor did life ooze away; for He still had
power over His own life, and no man took it from Him (John x. 18).
After having done all and endured all, He deemed it fitting, without
more delay, to resign His life or spirit into His Father's hand as an
acceptable sacrifice. It was the High Priest offering up His soul to
God that said, 'Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.' And He
uttered it with a loud voice, to show that strength still remained in
Him, and that, by His own authority, He released the spirit from the
lacerated and wounded body.
The
curse was, 'Thou shalt die;' and now it was exhausted, and sin
annihilated. Now heaven and earth were reunited; God and man were at
one again.
George Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Atonement as Taught by Christ
Himself
