By G.V. Wigram
What are its uses and applications, by the Spirit, in the Scriptures?
The death of the Lord was,
1, the expression of Israel's rejection of Him; and His way of getting by resurrection upon the new ground proper to the church. (Matt. 16: 21.)
2, As connected with the resurrection, it was His secret to the disciples till He took the ground proper to them as the church. (Matt. 17: 9.)
3, It was man's act -- the Gentiles (Mark 10: 34; Luke 18: 33) did it, though the Jews might have first sought it: while His opening of it to His followers was the proof of His love to them. (Matt. 17: 22.)
4, Yea, of His God-like care and sympathy, knowing the while their wretched selfishness. (Matt. 20: 17-19.)
5, The desire of it was mentioned by Him as the proof of the nation Israel's rejection of Him. (Matt. 28: 38.)
6, But it was not the desire of the people only, but the planned counsel of the chief office-bearers both in religion and in state. (Matt. 26: 3, 4.)
7, In the anticipation of what was before Him, His soul was sorrowful even unto death. (Ver. 38.)
8, It was the deep, settled, unwavering desire of the heads of the Government, ecclesiastical and political. (Matt. 27: l.)
9, Though they could find no plea in truth, nor even by false witnesses establish a fair appearance of a plea, but were obliged to make the Lord's grace and truth (that He was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed) the plea for His death. (Mark 14: 55-65.)
10, Against which the judge three times protested, inasmuch as both himself and Herod had found no fault in Him. (Luke 23: 13-22; John 19: 7.)
11, Nevertheless it is hurried to a close, though shown to be under the over-ruling hand of God in that the circumstances were predicted in prophecy, (Luke 23: 32.)
12, Yet He died not by the death of the cross, though He died upon the cross: His suffering was cut short before the wonted time; for this, among other reasons that the scripture might be fulfilled, "not a bone of him shall be broken." (Mark 15: 44; John 19: 33.)
13, Their dread of its being reported He had obtained the victory over the grave and had risen leads them to protect the place where His body is laid by means which become unquestionable evidence of his resurrection. (Matt. 28: 64.)
14, Yet His victory over death and the grave by resurrection is fully evidenced: and that not only by their own guards. but by the disciples, and the angels also by whom it was first communicated to them. (Matt. 28: 7; Luke 24: 5.)
15, Though these disciples had heard, like many now, in vain the Lord's instruction concerning what was coming upon Him. (Luke 24: 20; John 20: 9.)
1. The death of the Lord was the expression of Israel's rejection of Him, and His way of getting, by resurrection, upon that new ground proper to the church -- "From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." (Matt. 16: 21.)
From WHAT time? From the time that, having experimentally discovered that the Jews were prepared to reject their Messiah, He had for the first time declared that "The knowledge of Himself as the Son of the living God, should become the foundation of a new kingdom, to be called the church." (Read vers. 16-20.) His being killed, therefore, is here to be looked at not only as in itself (as ver. 21) the expression of Jerusalem's rejection of Him, and of the hatred entertained against Him by false professors of that day; but also as connected with the church in the resurrection; for it was only by resurrection that Jesus got into a place where He could gather Jew and Gentile unto Him, as now gathered in the church.*
*'The Church,' as spoken of here, does not mean simply "God's true people looked at as individuals." We know that God has always had true worshippers in the world -- for there have always been on earth, since the fall, some that feared and loved God, but they were not called to be united visibly together. Half a dozen Gentiles might have been true worshippers of God and dwelling in Jerusalem, at a time when no Jews really erred about God -- such Gentiles would have been parts of God's elect church, though cut off from the privileges of the outward worship of God's nation, and having no tie to bind them visibly together; for God's accredited worship was that of the Jewish nation. But after Christ died and rose, then God said He would gather together in one in every place those that feared and loved Him, and not accredit any form of worship any more save the union together in one of those who profess to know Jesus. And the church is here used by Christ as the name of this gathering together.
Let persons who think themselves as religious as those around them, see how the great grace of Jesus in being willing to be killed, proclaimed the utter vileness of all that looked fair in the accredited religion of that day. For where and by whom was the Lord slain? Let us observe also the effect its announcement had upon a true-hearted disciple by reason of his ignorance: "Then [ver. 22] Peter took him, and began to rebuke him"!!!*
*How sadly does ignorance always thus unfit us for sympathy with our Lord. There is a striking contrast on this subject, to which I would here revert: in Luke 9: 30, 31, we read, Two men, "Moses and Elias," appeared in glory, and spake of His decease (His exodus) which He should accomplish at Jerusalem, and in Mark 9: 10, it is added -- "they [the disciples] kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean."
In the former of these passages we find the intelligence of heavenly manhood sympathising with the Lord in His bitter portion; and in the second, the want of intelligence of the infantine state finding sorrow and perplexity even in its own portion of glory which was to issue from that His bitter cup.
How gracious of Jesus to open the interests of His God and Father as soon as possible to the disciples! to tell them too the subject exercising His own mind, and to invite them thus to enter with Him into the sorrow into which His faithful service to His Father and tender love toward them was leading Him! Compare Mark 8:31; Luke 9: 22.
2. As connected with the resurrection, it was His secret to His disciples, till He took the ground proper to them as the church. - "As they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead." (Matt. 17: 9.)
The next thing was to show His followers the glory and kingdom; compare Matt. 16: 28, and 2 Peter 1. A foretaste of the rich harvest to be reaped from His humiliation was thus given to them, to cheer and strengthen them in their sympathy with Him, and in their sorrowful anticipation of having themselves likewise to follow Him in it. For Jesus had said plainly (chap. 16: 24-26), that His followers' must share the humiliation with Him. Here, then, having shown them the fruits of His humiliation that they might be the better able to sympathise with Him, He tells them not to tell others of it until his humiliation being past, theirs would have to begin: compare Mark 9: 9. The vision presents the triumph of more than Jesus over death by glory, for Moses and Elias were there in it, as representatives of the church in that day of coming glory, for which we wait, at Christ's second coming. (2 Peter 1: 16-21.)
Surely the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us!
3. It was man's act -- the Gentiles (Mark 10: 34; Luke 18: 33) did it, though the Jews might have first sought it; while His opening of it to His followers was the proof of His love to them. -- "And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry." (Matt. 17: 22.)
Thus did He again remind them of the burden that was upon His soul, and prepare them all for it; while at the same time He confirmed to the three who had been with Him in the mount, His reason for having taken them there, and guarded them all from trusting in man.
In Mark 9: 32, it is added, "But they understood not that saying [They shall kill Him; and after that He is killed, etc.,] and, were afraid to ask him."
In Mark 10: 34, it is said of the Gentiles, They shall mock and scourge, and shall spit upon and shall kill him; showing that the Gentiles are guilty not only of reproaching Him, but of His death; see also Luke 18: 33.
4. Yea, of His God-like care and sympathy, knowing the while their wretched selfishness "And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again." (Matt. 20: 17-19.)
What tender guardian care! what gracious solicitations for sympathy! what fixedness of purpose! what divine self-repose and self-possession is His with whom we have to do. Oh, how unlike to us -- and what patience of love! His eye seeing, while He so spake, the question which was going (ver. 20) to be preferred to Him for the two most honoured seats in His kingdom, and the anger, too, ready to rise in the other ten disciples against the two for whom the pre-eminence was sought -- His own soul meanwhile saw that the glory was the fruit of the humiliation. (Read vers. 20-28.)
5. The desire of it was mentioned by Him as the proof of the nation Israel's rejection of Him. The next passage I would revert to is -- "When the husbandmen saw the son they said . . . . This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him." (Matt. 21: 38; compare Mark 12: 7, 8; Luke 20: 14, 15.)
Having arrived at Jerusalem, in the appointed way (Matt. 21: 9), riding on an ass, He was received there with shoutings, and "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" was rightly among the cries. But a little onward it appears that though the right words were used, they were wrongly used by them, for they used them only in a subordinate sense; for the words in their full import pointed out Jesus as Jehovah of Hosts -- and so shall they hereafter be used; but they used them of Him simply as "the prophet of Nazareth," sent by God, and so come in His name, instead of Jehovah Himself, personally present in His own character and name.
He purges the temple (ver. 12); heals the sick in it (ver. 14.); and when the chief priests begrudge Him even the lower title of Son of David (ver. 15), He will not sleep in the city, but retires from it. (Ver. 17.) On the morrow in the fruitless fig tree, He typically curses Israel (ver. 19); meets and confounds the foolish question put in the temple, "By what authority doest thou these things?" etc.; and then in parables shows, first, the hypocrisy of the religion around Him (ver. 9-8), and then, secondly, its selfish independence and direct opposition to God in the parable whence I have quoted. (Ver. 33.)
Oh, what an awful picture is this of the character of those who have the form of godliness but deny the power of it! And how beautifully does it present the implicit obedience and self-renouncing devotedness of Him who was the true servant of God.
6. But it was not the desire of the people only, but the planned counsel of the chief office-bearers both in religion and in state. - "Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest . . . . Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety, and kill him." (Matt. 26: 3, 4; Mark 14: 1; Luke 22: 2.)
Nothing short of His destruction could satisfy the malice, or still the fears of these, the conductors of His temple worship, and the rulers of His people; -- as His people were in the last quotation shown by Him to be ready to kill Him, so here the same is shown in the chief leaders of the religion of that day.
7. In the anticipation of what was before Him, His soul was sorrowful even unto death. -- "Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here, and watch with me." (Matt. 26: 38; Mark 14: 34.)
Had sorrow killed the Lord here, He would not have been its first victim but though many have died simply from anguish and the fear of coming trials, and though the sorrows of Jesus at this point of time were enough to have killed any man, Him it could not kill; for divine strength was in Him, and death in Him was reserved for a special purpose of grace and love; and though nature might thus faint, its cords could not break till His hour was come, and He said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
8. It was the deep, settled, unwavering desire of the heads of government, ecclesiastical and political. -- "When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death." (Matt. 27: l.)
How painful a proof have we here of the deep, settled, unwavering desire of the chief priests and elders of the people for the Lord's death. And this is always God's way, even to cause such delay to man in his doings and labours as to give him time to see clearly the true character of the principle and motive on which he is acting. And this, I conceive, it is which so strikingly exhibits the patience of God, both in judgment and mercy and leaves those that walk in their own way without excuse, while oft (as doubtless. in this case) it is the preparation in the consciences of many of the transgressors for the outpouring of mercy.
"How unsearchable are his ways, and his judgments past finding out."
9. Though they could find no plea in truth, nor even by false witnesses establish a fair appearance of a plea, but were obliged to make the Lord's grace and truth (that He was the Christ the Son of the Blessed) the plea for His death. -- "The chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none. For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together," etc. (Mark 14: 55-65.) It is deeply instructive, in comparing this with the two citations which will follow, to see how ecclesiastical apostasy is always the leader in insult to God, persecution to the people of God, and bloodthirsty cruelty -- for, in truth, nothing so thoroughly sears the conscience, hardens the mind, and steels the heart, as the form of godliness without the power. The fuss and busy activity of outward religious worship and service, where grace and truth are not the rest of the mind and the stay of the heart, has ever destroyed even the kindlier feelings of humanity.
In this awful scene we have the failure of the attempt of the chief priests and rulers, not only to find any fault in Jesus worthy of death, but to establish even the appearance of it by false witnesses; and then the horrid wickedness of our nature exhibited in their making His true confession, that He was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, the ground of their clamorous concurrence.
Ah! wilful human nature! how wilt thou ever, when left to thyself, turn to thine own condemnation thy hatred of grace and truth: how dost thou hate that in which all that ever was most dear to God is found, that which is the only seed of hope to thyself or others.
10. Against which the judge three times protested, inasmuch as both himself and Herod had found no fault in Him. - "And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, said . . . . Behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: no, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. He said . . . . the third time -- Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him." (Luke 23: 13-22.) "By our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." (John 19: 7.)
It is striking how the want of all semblance of justice in the death of the Lord is brought out at every point. In the last quotation, we had the want of all evidence of guilt proved, in the failure of the ringleaders of the conspiracy in their attempt to get even false witness against Him, which might seem to hang well together. Here, where the conspiracy, in spite of this, is found before the judge, even he is constrained to confess that he can find no fault in Him; no nor even Herod, to whom he sent Him. Yea, and to this, his prisoner's innocence, he is constrained three times to bear witness. Nevertheless, the accusers were clamorous -- and though their charge, as then advanced, was one apparently calculated only to alarm the judge, "that he said he was the Son of God," yet, in spite of all that reason might suggest against the Roman governor acting upon such a charge, or venturing to condemn the innocent One who laid such a claim, He is given up to be murdered. How strangely, in this sinful world, do things almost intuitively combine together against God -- God's Son was in the world, the fallen world, lying under Satan: as its prince, surely neither it nor he would allow God's Son a place in it, in its then state of alienation from God. The intelligence of man, reason, etc., etc., seem to man all important points in connection with man's conduct under given circumstances, but, in fact, these things do but lie upon the surface to beguile those that lean upon their own understandings and judge by the sight of the eye: to faith, the deeper governing principles are open, and it can see how these now, as in the case we are considering, will rule somehow or other, and, so far as this world is concerned, always act against God. The high priests, the elders, the people of Israel, Herod and Pontius Pilate, had each one of them the very strongest reason to pursue the opposite course, but, some in one way, some in another, all had their minds brought round by the master-mind that ruled them to murder the Lord. Poor, blind nature! How blind, though ever boasting of its power of perception and judgment!
11. Nevertheless it is hurried to a close, though shown to be under the over-ruling hand of God, in that the circumstances were predicted in prophecy. -- "There were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death." (Luke 23: 32.)
Two things strike me here -- first, the overruling hand of God in so leading their malice, which was all their own, as that they should fulfil the prophecy in Isaiah 53, in associating Jesus with the malefactors; secondly, the rapidity of the action, He is seized upon unlawfully one night, and, in spite of all Roman law and justice, executed the next day. Barabbas bad not been so treated by man; neither were James, Peter, nor Paul afterwards allowed to be so treated. A longer interval at least was granted to them, though denied to Him who was the Prince of life.
12. Yet He died not by the death of the cross, though He died upon the cross. His suffering was cut short before the wonted time; for this, among other reasons, that the scripture might be fulfilled, "a bone of him shall not be broken" -- "Pilate marvelled if he were already dead, and, calling the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead." (Mark 15: 44.) "When they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs." (John 19: 33.)
Rapid was man's wicked movement in its hurried enmity against the Lord to murder Him! And He yielded Himself to their hands; yet when all was accomplished that man could do, He was content and lingered not for the usual death of the cross -- Having cried with a loud voice, He yielded up the ghost. In Psalm 69: 20, we read, Reproach hath broken my heart; and it seems as though this indeed was the immediate cause of the Lord's death. Sorrow upon sorrow had burst in upon Him, when, having cried with a loud voice, He ceased to breathe. That it was unusual for one crucified so soon to die, is evident from the first of the above quotations. And one reason for its being so is seen in the second; for it was written, "a bone of him shall not be broken" -- so graciously had God, by the predictions of His prophets, set a stamp upon every step of the path through which His beloved was to pass; and thus not only showing how greatly He loved to ponder all those steps of the lonely way of His Son, but how anxiously He desired to give every confirmation possible to them that should draw near to Him through Jesus.
13. "Lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, he is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first." (Matt. 27: 64.)
Was this conscience at work, or was it the deeper plan of the enemy, forecasting what would be the issue, and trying to anticipate the report of the resurrection, and by such an anticipatory report to discredit it when it was really reported? That it was from beneath is too evident -- and how completely in this, as in other things, does evil outwit itself. In guarding against the report of an event they gather witnesses to behold it. Yea, they make the seal fast and the guard sure, in the full complacency, doubtless, of their own minds; but both the one and the other became the unquestionable witnesses against themselves in the result: for it is but a little onward and we read
14. "Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead: and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you." (Matt. 28: 7.) "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" (Luke 24: 5.)
But all their precautions were in vain -- His was the mastery over death and the grave; and no sooner had He lain there the appointed time than its power was broken and the joyful news spread abroad -- He is risen! Welcome news indeed to one who understands the resurrection for in it, as we shall see, the whole proof of the value and acceptance of His sacrifice was presented. It is a sorrowful thing to think how few now know the value and importance of the resurrection. I do not mean that they do not assent to it as a point in their creed -- surely every Christian does -- yet very few see it and know it themselves in the spirit before God, so as for it to be a reality with themselves, as in the presence of God, and not merely a point of mental agreement with men around them.
15. "Our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death." (Luke 24: 20.) "For as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead." (John 20: 9.)
The entire unpreparedness of the disciples for the event of His death, notwithstanding all that Jesus had said to them to prepare them for it, is evidenced by these two passages. Their heads full of Jewish notions and hopes about the land and themselves, there seemed no room for the words of the Lord with them, it was new truth to them, and instead of laying up in their hearts till further light might dawn upon it, it seems to be hardly attended to by them. Surely we may be warned by this; and the more so, as there is not the same excuse for such conduct in us as there was in them -- Jews -- and without that deeper gift of the Spirit proper to us as Christians -- living too in the very day of transition from one dispensation to another -- such a thing in them can be more accounted for than the almost similar state we find now in many, as to those truths which open to them from the word, or may be heard by them from others. Surely the truth which has been brought to light within the last thirty years in England from the word, has brought with it deep responsibility to all that have heard it. May the Lord deliver us from all blindness and hardness of heart!
