We return to Calvary. Let devout and peaceful recollections possess our minds. We are entering a sanctuary. Is there, generally speaking, anything on earth more solemn and affecting than dying moments, in which time and eternity meet each other, and in the silence of which we seem to hear the striking of the hours of another world? What ought we then to feel at a deathbed, such as that we are now to contemplate, and at the moment in which the Redeemer bows his head and expires? Lift up your eyes. O what a dying bed has been prepared yonder for the Father's beloved Son! No one wipes the perspiration from his brow. No one cheers him with the words of life. No one pronounces the final benediction over him. Whoever left the world more forsaken and involved in deeper shades than he! Yet do not mistake him. It is not a conflict in which we see him engaged, but a sacrificial act. He does not yield to death like us, but devotes himself to it after having previously invested it with the power over his life.
What is death? For thousands of years, as you know, has the gloomy and universally dreaded being, known under that name, been in the world, and carried on in it his dreadful work of destruction. It is not a thing that exists, but is the fate and destiny of our race. The young creation, as it came forth from the hand of the Almighty, knew not this monster. There all was life and harmony, undisturbed by any such discord as death. The gloomy phantom was first known in the world only by the divine threatening connected with eating of the forbidden fruit. In consequence of the fall, it entered upon the stage of reality, in order, thenceforward, as the king of terrors, to subject everything that breathed to his awful scepter. Our first parents were the first who beheld it display its power and majesty on their beloved Abel. O what a terrible object was that which they were called to witness! There lay the blooming youth in the dust. The light of his eyes was extinguished; his lips no longer uttered words of kindness and affection; his limbs, pale as the lily, and stiff as the cold marble. However loudly they called his name, he opened his eyes no more. However much they conjured him with tears to let them hear his voice once more, he was silent, and the floods of tears which they shed over him no longer caused his pulse to beat. And before they were aware, corruption, with leaden weight, and a thousand horrors, took possession of the corpse, and the poor parents, in spite of all their affection, were obliged to turn away their faces from it with horror, and hasten to inter him, who was dear to them as the apple of their eye, beneath the sod as food for worms. They then knew, though only in part, what was meant by death. From that moment, death continued its dreadful sway over the earth, dropped its gall into every cup of joy, surrounded every loving bond with the mourning drapery of the certain prospect, that sooner or later the hour of separation and dissolution would arrive, and overspread all nature with a black funeral pall, even where it bloomed the loveliest. And as he has acted for thousands of years, he does to this day. But he who first became fully acquainted with the monster, and was conscious of the horrors that were hidden beneath its exterior, and learned that the separation of the body from the soul, which it effects, as well as the dissolution of the former in the kingdom of corruption, was only the mildest of its doings, since as God's judicial messenger it has also orders to deliver up the sinner to hell, will fully coincide with the son of Sirach, and say, "O death, how bitter are you!" But certainly he will rejoice only the more loudly when he hears, that there is one who can testify of himself, saying, "I have the keys of hell and of death!" And does such a being exist? you inquire. Yes, my readers, you will now behold his bleeding face.
The payment of the wages of sin is due only from sinners. The Holy One of Israel had nothing in common with death. What is it, then, that we witness on Calvary? Look up! After having uttered the great and triumphant shout, "It is finished!" he again moves his lips to speak. What will follow? A mournful farewell? A plaintive exclamation of, "I must depart hence?" A painfully faltering out of the words, "My senses forsake me. I succumb, and am going the way of all flesh?" O not so! Listen! With a loud voice, and the strength and emphasis of one who does not die from weakness, nor dying pays a forced tribute to a mournful necessity; but as one who is Lord over death, and voluntarily yields himself up to it, he exclaims--and the noise of rending rocks, falling hills, and bursting sepulchers accompany his cry--"Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit!" and after these words, like one whose labor is finished, he bows, self-acting, his bleeding head upon his bosom, and resigns his Spirit, or, as John expresses it, "gives up the spirit." But before we treat of the mighty results which proceed from his death, let us for a moment immerse ourselves in the consideration of the parting word of the Divine Sufferer.
"Father!" he begins. He is, therefore, again conscious of his Father, although at first only by faith. The first word we hear from his lips on earth was his father's name, and it is also the last. All his thoughts and deeds, desires and efforts, ended toward his Father and the glorifying of his name. To accomplish his Father's will was his meat and drink; the love of his Father his delight and bliss; and union with him the summit of all his hopes and desires. With the heraldic and conquering cry, "It is finished!" he turned once more to the world. It was his farewell to earth--a farewell such as beseemed the Conqueror of Death, the Prince of Life, the Governor of all things. He then withdrew himself entirely into connection with his God, and turned his face to him alone.
"Father!" This sound was the utterance of regained and strong filial confidence, but not the exclamation of one who had fully attained to rest in his Father's bosom. We must still regard the words, "Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit," as the war-cry of a warrior, engaged in battle. Hell, which raged around him, did not give up its cause as lost, but continued to assault him in every way, and to distress him with terrific imagery; and the act of death cost him, who was the Life, no small effort. We must, therefore, imagine to ourselves the Savior's dying exclamation as that of one severely oppressed, who is struggling to place his soul in a secure asylum, and flees from a horrid pressure into the hands of the Almighty; and that this taking refuge occurs with the peace and assurance of complete victory. The idea does not even remotely present itself to him, that death could be anything more than a transfer of the Spirit into a different sphere of existence. He is exalted, high as heaven, above the miserable human inquiry, "To be or not to be?" He knows that he falls asleep only to awake on the bosom of God; and in this consciousness, in which he already sees the arms of his Father lovingly extended to receive him, he exclaims, "Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit!" He takes these words from Psalm 31, except that he prefaces them with the word "Father," which gives the appropriate form to his position and dignity, and leaves out the words of the Psalmist which immediately follow, "For you have redeemed me," as not belonging to him who, as the Redeemer of the world, hung upon the cross. But still how significant it is, that he left the world with a passage of Scripture on his lips! He was completely imbued with the word of God, and even dying, gives us a hint respecting what ought to be the nourishment of our inner man.
His last cry is uttered. He then inclines his head, after his well and fully-accomplished work, and the most unheard-of event takes place--the Son of the living God becomes a corpse! We stand affected, astonished, and sink in adoration; and what is left for us but to pour out our hearts in the words of the poet:
"Our spirits join to adore the Lamb. O that our feeble tongues could move In strains immortal as his name, And melting as his dying love!
"In vain our mortal voices strive To speak compassion so divine; Nor can seraphic strains arrive At such amazing love as your."
Where was the Lord Jesus after his departure from the body? Where else than where his desires and longing carried him--in the hands of his Father. Heaven celebrated his triumph; the music of angelic harps saluted his ears; the just made perfect before the throne shouted their adoring and rejoicing welcome; and the new song began, "You are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, for you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and have made us kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign on the earth."--Rev. 5:9, 10.
But it is undeniable that mysterious passages of Scripture intimate that the Prince of Peace, after having laid aside his earthly body, had by no means concluded his mission. For the Apostle Peter says in his first Epistle, 3:19, 20, that Christ went in the Spirit--that is, divested of his bodily personality--"and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the patience of God waited, in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing." And supported by this passage especially, the apostle's creed asserts a descent into hell, immediately after the death of Christ. But the explanation of this passage requires great caution. That to which Peter refers, belongs by no means to any further abasement of the Lord Jesus, much less to his work of atonement. The satisfaction rendered by the Surety was finally completed at the moment of his death. Now, if Christ entered the habitations of those departed spirits of the antediluvian world, it was in order to announce his victory to them, as the words in the original expressly intimate. That it was also in order to preach repentance and offer faith to them, and then to conduct those who believed, as living trophies with him into heaven, we are induced to think, when combining it with those other words of the same apostle, chap. 4:6, "For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit." In every case we must be content with not having reached the conclusion of the exposition of these passages; and hence a veil of mystery continues to rest upon the sojourn of Christ, during the interval between the moment of his death and that of his reunion with the body, as well as upon the correct and full meaning of the words, "He descended into hell."
But the reason of Christ's death stands, on the contrary, fully unveiled before us. Even a superficial consideration suffices to give us, at least, an idea of the cause of it. It must, first of all, appear extremely striking that an individual dies who could testify respecting himself, that he was the Resurrection and the Life; who, at the grave of Lazarus, at the coffin of the young man of Nain, and at the deathbed of the daughter of Jairus, manifested that he was Lord over death, and who had never committed a single sin by which, in accordance with the threatening in paradise, he had forfeited his life. Still more does it surprise us, that he becomes a prey to death, who, because according to his own assertion, no one took away his life from him, only requiring to will it, in order to escape such a catastrophe, and that this man expires under circumstances which would lead one to suppose that he was a malefactor and a rebel, rejected both by God and the world, rather than a righteous man, and even a universal benefactor of mankind.
That he died voluntarily, is evident to every one at first sight. But for what end did he die this voluntary death? Was it to give us the example of a heroic departure from the world? By no means. How do the words he spoke correspond with such an object? "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it is accomplished!" Was it in order to show us that dying is an easy thing? Stephen has certainly given us an instance of this in his exit from the world, but not the man whom we hear moaning in the dark valley, and exclaiming, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It is usual, from these words, to point out the intention of his death, but without rightly knowing what they mean; for Jesus dies, neither in a conflict against Israel's foes, nor in an attempt to deliver from a burning city or a devastating inundation.
Many, again, suppose that he died to confirm his doctrine. But which doctrine did he seal on the cross? Was it this, that God is with the righteous? or this, that "the angel of the Lord encamps about them that fear him, and delivers them?" or this, that "godliness has the promise of the life that now is?" I know not what fresh support these truths have found in the circumstances of his death; sooner should we think we found proof in them to the contrary. Besides, no one doubted of these truths, so as to require a renewed practical confirmation of them. If Christ confirmed anything by his death, it was his assertion on oath, with which he answered the high priest's question, "Are you the Son of the living God?" On account of this affirmation, they nailed him to the cross. But that true to his inmost conviction, he continued firmly to abide by it, he testified by his sanguinary death.
The fact that he died as such, certainly makes the mystery of his death complete; but the seals of this mystery are opened, and its depths revealed. Men enlightened from above, stand ready to afford us every wished-for elucidation. They draw near to us at the cross, from the times of both the old and new covenant, and their statements illumine, like the candlestick in the temple, the darkness of Calvary. One of the divine heralds heads the phalanx with testifying that Christ "restored what he took not away." Another exclaims, "He was wounded for our transgressions, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." A third, "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world!" A fourth, "God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin." And again "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us;" and again, "Christ has reconciled us by the body of his flesh, through death;" and again, "With one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified." And with the testimonies of these messengers of God, are combined these of the Lord himself. For instance, "The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many;" and again, "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone, but if it die, it brings forth much fruit." And more especially, the words of the institution of the sacrament of his body and blood, broken and shed for the forgiveness of sins.
But it may be said, "We hear these words, but are not they which should explain to us this mystery themselves hieroglyphics which require deciphering?" They are so; and in order to understand them it requires a previous consecration, which, however, is not imparted by anointing or laying on of hands in temples of human erection, but in the privacy of the closet, amid grief and tears. Rouse yourselves, therefore, from your delusions: leave the magic circle of deception into which you are banned, and enter into the light of truth; and after having become acquainted with the Eternal, in his nature, as the thrice holy Lord God Almighty, in its whole extent, and having received an impression of the majesty of his law, investigate the nature of sin, reflect in what manner it is odious in the sight of God, then weigh yourselves in the balances in which God will at length weigh you, and, with your estrangement from God, become conscious of your need of reconciliation and redemption, and in a short time, the words you have just read, will burn like flaming torches before you, and the sanguinary and enigmatical exhibition on the cross, will become clear as the day before the eyes of your spirits. You will then behold in the Man of Sorrows, the Mediator between God and you, and rejoicingly embrace in his death, the sacrifice that outweighed all your guilt, and justified you forever in the sight of God.
''Father, into your hands, I commit my Spirit!" O what did he not commit to his Father's hands when uttering these words! "And being made perfect," writes the apostle, Heb. 5:9, "he became the author of salvation to all them that obey him." It was, therefore, necessary that he himself should be perfected, as righteous, by fulfilling the whole law; as holy, by victoriously overcoming every temptation; as Surety, by the payment of all our debts; and as Mediator and Reconciler, by emptying the whole of the cup of curse allotted to us. In all these respects he was perfected the moment he expired, and thus he deposited in his Father's hands, along with his spiritual personality, the basis of the new world, yes, his redeemed Church itself, as purified in his blood, arrayed in his righteousness, a pleasing and acceptable offering in the sight of God.
Now, if we are obedient to the Son of his love, we know that there is a city of refuge for us in every supposable case. Into whatever distress we may fall, we need not be anxious as to its termination. We read in Heb. 10:31, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." We say, no longer fearful, but wholly blissful to those who, after the example of their dying Lord, can believingly resign their spirits into his hands. If the world persecutes, or Satan tempts us, if death alarms us, or anything else excites apprehension, we courageously exclaim, while relying on the merits of Immanuel, "Because I have made the Lord my refuge, even the Most High my habitation, there shall no evil befall me." And we are sure that this high and lofty asylum is every moment open to receive and shelter us.
O the incomparable privileges which are granted us in Christ! Let us make good use of them, and cover the feet of Him, who acquired them for us, with reverential kisses. Let us peacefully go on our way, in the rainbow light which beams upon us from Calvary, and tune the strings of our hearts to gratitude and devoted love.
