He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.
Parallel Translations
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He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.
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He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
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He was despised, and forsaken of men, a man of pains, and acquainted with disease, and as one from whom men hide their face: he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Cross-references (34)
Passages linked to Isaiah 53:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- John 1:10-11 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own, and those who were his own didn’t receive him.
- Matthew 26:67 Then they spat in his face and beat him with their fists, and some slapped him,
- Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days and Yahweh’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.
- Hebrews 12:2-3 looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls.
- Isaiah 49:7 Yahweh, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, says to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to a servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and rise up, princes, and they shall worship, because of Yahweh who is faithful, even the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
- Psalms 22:6-8 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people. All those who see me mock me. They insult me with their lips. They shake their heads, saying, “He trusts in Yahweh. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, since he delights in him.”
- Isaiah 53:4 Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
- Mark 14:34 He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch.”
- Hebrews 5:7 He, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear,
- Luke 9:22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.”
- Isaiah 50:6 I gave my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. I didn’t hide my face from shame and spitting.
- Hebrews 4:15 For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.
- John 11:35 Jesus wept.
- Psalms 69:19-20 You know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonor. My adversaries are all before you. Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none.
- Zechariah 11:12-13 I said to them, “If you think it best, give me my wages; and if not, keep them.” So they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver. Yahweh said to me, “Throw it to the potter, the handsome price that I was valued at by them!” I took the thirty pieces of silver, and threw them to the potter, in Yahweh’s house.
- Luke 16:14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they scoffed at him.
- Matthew 27:39-44 Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads, and saying, “You who destroy the temple, and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!” Likewise the chief priests also mocking, with the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders, said, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself. If he is the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now, if he wants him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ” The robbers also who were crucified with him cast on him the same reproach.
- Luke 8:53 They were ridiculing him, knowing that she was dead.
- Luke 18:31-33 He took the twelve aside, and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be completed. For he will be delivered up to the Gentiles, will be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit on. They will scourge and kill him. On the third day, he will rise again.”
- Psalms 69:10-12 When I wept and I fasted, that was to my reproach. When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. Those who sit in the gate talk about me. I am the song of the drunkards.
- Mark 9:12 He said to them, “Elijah indeed comes first, and restores all things. How is it written about the Son of Man, that he should suffer many things and be despised?
- Mark 15:19 They struck his head with a reed, and spat on him, and bowing their knees, did homage to him.
- Hebrews 2:15-18 and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For most certainly, he doesn’t give help to angels, but he gives help to the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.
- Psalms 69:29 But I am in pain and distress. Let your salvation, God, protect me.
- Micah 5:1 Now you shall gather yourself in troops, daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek.
- Matthew 27:63 saying, “Sir, we remember what that deceiver said while he was still alive: ‘After three days I will rise again.’
- John 8:48 Then the Jews answered him, “Don’t we say well that you are a Samaritan, and have a demon?”
- Acts 3:13-15 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up, and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had determined to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, to which we are witnesses.
- Deuteronomy 32:15 But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation.
- Zechariah 11:8 I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me.
- Matthew 26:37-38 He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and severely troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch with me.”
- Matthew 27:9-10 Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him upon whom a price had been set, whom some of the children of Israel priced, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”
- Luke 23:18-25 But they all cried out together, saying, “Away with this man! Release to us Barabbas!”— one who was thrown into prison for a certain revolt in the city, and for murder. Then Pilate spoke to them again, wanting to release Jesus, but they shouted, saying, “Crucify! Crucify him!” He said to them the third time, “Why? What evil has this man done? I have found no capital crime in him. I will therefore chastise him and release him.” But they were urgent with loud voices, asking that he might be crucified. Their voices and the voices of the chief priests prevailed. Pilate decreed that what they asked for should be done. He released him who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus up to their will.
- Luke 19:41 When he came near, he saw the city and wept over it,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (16 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Which was by God’s singular providence for the comfort…
Which was by God’s singular providence for the comfort of sinners, Heb. 4:15.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men;…
Isa 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were [our] faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Ver. 3. He is despised and rejected of men.] Heb., Desitus virorum, one at whom the nature and name of man endeth; as we would say, the very lift and fag end of mankind, nullificamen hominis, {a} a worm and no man, not held so good as wicked Barabbas, but crucified between two thieves, as worse than either of them, and made nothing of. {Mar 9:12} This is so plainly here set forth that some of the Jewish doctors, Aben Ezra for one, whenas they cannot rightly distinguish between the two comings of Christ, the one in humility and the other in glory, duos construunt Christos, they make us up two Christs, the one the son of Joseph, to whom agree those things which the Scriptures speak of concerning Christ’s meanness and sufferings; the other, the son of David, to whom they apply those things that are written concerning the glory, majesty, and triumphs of Christ. {b}
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A man of sorrows,] q.d., Made up of sorrows. {c} Atque hic mirus artifex est propheta; and here the prophet showeth singular skill in describing Christ’s state of humiliation through all the degrees of it. And faith is much happier in finding out his cross, blood, nails, tomb, and all, than ever Helen was, or any Popish relic monger, and in making use of them too, to better purpose than that Popish convent of friars do, who have hired those places of the Turk, built temples, altars, and silver floors in honour of the passion.
And acquainted with grief.] Heb., Knowing of infirmity, or inured to it. See Heb 4:15. The Greek Litany hath, "By thine unknown sorrows and sufferings, good Lord, deliver us."
And we hid as it were our faces from him.] Or, And he hid as it were the face from us, viz., as one for his loathsomeness, his low condition, ashamed to be seen. The Jews, in the Talmud, {d} question, What is the name of Messiah? Some answer, Hhenara, leprous; and he sitteth among the poor in the gates of Rome, carrying their sicknesses.
He was despised.] Double despised; and for the unworthiness of the things, this is repeated.
And we esteemed him not,] i.e., We contemned and derided him.
{a} Jun., Tertul.
{b} Genebrard.
{c} Ex doloribus conflatus , caused from his sorrows.
{d} Sanhedrin.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain He is despised and rejected of men; accounted as…
He is despised and rejected of men; accounted as the scum of mankind, as one unworthy of the company and conversation of all men.
A man of sorrows; whose whole life was filled with, and in a manner made up of, an uninterrupted succession of sorrows and sufferings.
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Acquainted with grief; who had constant experience of and familiar converse with grievous afflictions; for knowledge is oft taken practically, or for experience, as Gen 3:5; 2Co 5:21, and elsewhere.
We hid as it were our faces from him; we scorned and loathed to look upon him. Or, as others,
he hid as it were his face from us, as one ashamed to show his face, or to be seen by any men, as persons conscious to themselves of any great deformity do commonly shun the sight of men, as lepers did, Lev 13:45.
He was despised, and we esteemed him not: here are divers words expressing the same thing, to signify both the utmost degree of contempt, and how strange and wonderful a thing it was, that so excellent a person should be so despised.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain He is despised, and rejected of men,.... Or, "ceaseth…
He is despised, and rejected of men,.... Or, "ceaseth from men" (f); was not admitted into the company and conversation of men, especially of figure; or ceased from the class of men, in the opinion of others; he was not reckoned among men, was accounted a worm, and no man; or, if a man, yet not in his senses, a madman, nay, one that had a devil: or "deficient of men"; he had none about him of any rank or figure in life, only some few fishermen, and some women, and publicans, and harlots. The Vulgate Latin version renders it, "the last of men", the most abject and contemptible of mankind; despised, because of the meanness of his birth, and parentage, and education, and of his outward appearance in public life; because of his apostles and audience; because of his doctrines, not agreeably to carnal reason, and his works, some of them being done on the sabbath day, and, as they maliciously suggested, by the help of Satan; and especially because of his ignominious sufferings and death:
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: or "known by grief" (g); he was known by his troubles, notorious for them; these were his constant companions, his familiar acquaintance, with whom he was always conversant; his life was one continued series of sorrow, from the cradle to the cross; in his infancy his life was sought for by Herod, and he was obliged to be taken by his parents, and flee into Egypt; he ate his bread in sorrow, and with the sweat of his brow; he met with much sorrow from the hardness and unbelief of men's hearts, and from the contradiction of sinners against himself, and even much from the frowardness of his own disciples; much from the temptations of Satan, and more from the wrath and justice of God, as the surety of his people; he was exceeding sorrowful in the garden, when his sweat was as it were great drops of blood; and when on the cross, under the hidings of his Father's face, under a sense of divine displeasure for the sins of his people, and enduring the pains and agonies of a shameful and an accursed death; he was made up of sorrows, and grief was familiar to him. Some render it, "broken with infirmity", or "grief" (h):
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and we hid as it were our faces from him; as one loathsome and abominable as having an aversion to him, and abhorrence of him, as scorning to look at him, being unworthy of any notice. Some render it, "he hid as it were his face from us" (i); as conscious of his deformity and loathsomeness, and of his being a disagreeable object, as they said; but the former is best:
he was despised, and we esteemed him not; which is repeated to show the great contempt cast upon him, and the disesteem he was had in by all sorts of persons; professors and profane, high and low, rich poor, rulers and common people, priests, Scribes, and Pharisees; no set or order of men had any value for him; and all this disgrace and dishonour he was to undergo, to repair the loss of honour the Lord sustained by the sin of man, whose surety Christ became.
(f) "desiit viris", Montanus, Heb.; "desitus virorum", Piscator; "deficiens virorum", Cocceius; "destitutus viris", Vitringa. (g) "notus aegritudine", Montanus; "notus infirmitate," Cocceius. (h) "Attritus infirmitate"; so some in Vatablus, and R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel. Moed. fol. 96. 1. (i) "velut homo abscondens faciem a nobis", Junius & Tremellius; "et tanquam aliquis qui obtegit faciem a nobis", Piscator; "ut res tecta facie averanda prae nobis", Cocceius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain We hid - We scorned to look upon him.
We hid - We scorned to look upon him.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 3. Acquainted with grief] For וידוע vidua, familiar…
Verse 3. Acquainted with grief] For וידוע vidua, familiar with grief, eight MSS. and one edition have וירע veyada, and knowing grief; the Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate read it ויודע veyodea.
We hid as it were our faces from him - "As one that hideth his face from us"] For וכמסתר uchemaster, four MSS. (two ancient) have וכמסתיר uchemastir, one MS. ומסתיר umastir. For פנים panim, two MSS. have פניו panaiv; so likewise the Septuagint and Vulgate. Mourners covered up the lower part of their faces, and their heads, 2Sa 15:30; Eze 29:17; and lepers were commanded by the law, Le 13:45, to cover their upper lip. From which circumstance it seems that the Vulgate, Aquila, Symmachus, and the Jewish commentators have taken the word נגוע nagua, stricken, in the next verse, as meaning stricken with the leprosy: εν αφῃ οντα, Sym.; αφημενον, Aq.; leprosum, Vulg. So my old MS. Bible. I will insert the whole passage as curious: -
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There is not schap to him, ne fairnesse,
And we seegen him, and he was not of sigte,
And we desiriden him dispisid; and the last of men:
Man of souaris and witing infirmitie;
And he hid his cheer and despisid;
Wherfor ne we settiden bi him:
Verili our seeknesse he toke and our sorewis he bair,
And we helden him as leprous and smyten of God, and meekid;
He forsoth wounded is for our wickednesse,
Defoulid is for our hidous giltis
The discipline of our pese upon him,
And with his wanne wound we ben helid.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain He is despised - This requires no explanation; and…
He is despised - This requires no explanation; and it needs no comment to show that it was fulfilled. The Redeemer was eminently the object of contempt and scorn alike by the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Romans. In his life on earth it was so; in his death it was still so; and since then, his name and person have been extensively the object of contempt. Nothing is a more striking fulfillment of this than the conduct of the Jews at the present day. The very name of Jesus of Nazareth excites contempt; and they join with their fathers who rejected him in heaping on him every term indicative of scorn.
Rejected of men - This phrase is full of meaning, and in three words states the whole history of man in regard to his treatment of the Redeemer. The name ‘The Rejected of Men,’ will express all the melancholy history; rejected by the Jews; by the rich; the great and the learned; by the mass of people of every grade, and age, and rank. No prophecy was ever more strikingly fulfilled; none could condense more significancy into few words. In regard to the exact sense of the phrase, interpreters have varied. Jerome renders it, Novissium virorum - ‘The last of men;’ that is, the most abject and contemptible of mankind. The Septuagint, ‘His appearance is dishonored (ἄτιμον atimon) and defective (ἐκλειπον ekleipon) more than the sons of men.’ The Chaldee, ‘He is indeed despised, but he shall take away the glory of all kings; they are infirm and sad, as if exposed to all calamities and sorrows.’ Some render it, ‘Most abject of men,’ and they refer to Job 19:14, where the same word is used to denote those friends who forsake the unfortunate.
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The word חדל châdêl used here, is derived from the verb חדל châdal, which means “to cease, to leave off, to desist”; derived, says Gesenius (Lexicon), from the idea of becoming languid, flaccid; and thence transferred to the act of ceasing from labor. It means usually, to cease, to desist from, to leave, to let alone (see 1Ki 22:6-15; Job 7:15; Job 10:20; Isa 2:22). According to Gesenius, the word here means to be left, to be destitute, or forsaken; and the idea is, that be was forsaken by people. According to Hengstenberg (Christol.) it means ‘the most abject of men,’ he who ceases from men, who ceases to belong to the number of men; that is, who is the most abject of men. Castellio renders it, Minus quash homo - ‘Less than a man.’ Junius and Tremellius, Abjectissimus virorum - ‘The most abject of men.’ Grotius, ‘Rejected of men.’ Symmachus, Ἐλάχιστος ἀνδρῶν Elachistos andrōn - ‘the least of men.’ The idea is, undoubtedly, somehow that of ceasing from human beings, or from being regarded as belonging to mankind.
There was a ceasing, or a withdrawing of that which usually pertains to man, and which belongs to him. And the thought probably is, that he was not only ‘despised,’ but that there was an advance on that - there was a ceasing to treat him as if he had human feelings, and was in any way entitled to human fellowship and sympathy. It does not refer, therefore, so much to the active means employed to reject him, as to the fact that he was regarded as cut off from man; and the idea is not essentially different from this, that he was the most abject and vile of mortals in the estimation of others; so vile as not to be deemed worthy of the treatment due to the lowest of men. This idea has been substantially expressed in the Syriac translation.
A man of sorrows - What a beautiful expression! A man who was so sad and sorrowful; whose life was so full of sufferings, that it might be said that that was the characteristic of the man. A similar phraseology occurs in Pro 29:1, ‘He that being often reproved,’ in the margin, ‘a man of reproofs;’ in the Hebrew, ‘A man of chastisements,’ that is, a man who is often chastised. Compare Dan 10:11 : ‘O Daniel, a man greatly beloved,’ Margin, as in Hebrew, ‘A man of desires; that is, a man greatly desired. Here, the expression means that his life was characterized by sorrows. How remarkably this was fulfilled in the life of the Redeemer, it is not necessary to attempt to show.
And acquainted with grief - Hebrew, חלי וידוע viydûa‛ choliy - ‘And knowing grief.’ The word rendered ‘grief’ means usually sickness, disease Deu 7:15; Deu 28:61; Isa 1:5; but it also means anxiety, affliction Ecc 5:16; and then any evil or calamity Ecc 6:2. Many of the old interpreters explain it as meaning, that he was known or distinguished by disease; that is, affected by it in a remarkable manner. So Symm. Γνωστός νόσῳ Gnōstos nosō. Jerome (the Vulgate) renders it, Scientem infirmitatem. The Septuagint renders the whole clause, ‘A man in affliction (ἐν πληγῇ en plēgē), and knowing to bear languor, or disease’ (εἰδὼ; φέρειν μαλακίαν eidōs pherein malakian). But if the word here means disease, it is only a figurative designation of severe sufferings both of body and of soul. Hengstenberg, Koppe, and Ammon, suppose that the figure is taken from the leprosy, which was not only one of the most severe of all diseases, but was in a special manner regarded as a divine judgment. They suppose that many of the expressions which follow may be explained with reference to this (compare Heb 4:15). The idea is, that he was familiar with sorrow and calamity. It does not mean, as it seems to me, that he was to be himself sick and diseased; but that he was to be subject to various kinds of calamity, and that it was to be a characteristic of his life that he was familiar with it. He was intimate with it. He knew it personally; he knew it in others. He lived in the midst of scenes of sorrow, and be became intimately acquainted with its various forms, and with its evils. There is no evidence that the Redeemer was himself sick at any time - which is remarkable - but there is evidence in abundance that he was familiar with all kinds of sorrow, and that his own life was a life of grief.
And we hid as it were our faces from him - There is here great variety of interpretation and of translation. The margin reads, ‘As an hiding of faces from him,’ or ‘from us,’ or, ‘He hid as it were his face from us.’ The Hebrew is literally, ‘And as the hiding of faces from him, or from it;’ and Hengstenberg explains it as meaning, ‘He was as an hiding of the face before it.’ that is, as a thing or person before whom a man covers his face, because he cannot bear the disgusting sight. Jerome (the Vulgate) renders it, ‘His face was as it were hidden and despised.’ The Septuagint, ‘For his countenance was turned away’ (ἀπέστρυπταὶ apestraptai). The Chaldee, ‘And when he took away his countenance of majesty from us, we were despised and reputed as nothing.’ Interpreters have explained it in various ways.
1. ‘He was as one who hides his face before us;’ alluding, as they suppose, to the Mosaic law, which required lepers to cover their faces Lev 13:45, or to the custom of covering the face in mourning, or for shame.
2. Others explain it as meaning, ‘as one before whom is the covering of the face, that is, before whom a man covers the face from shame or disgust. So Gesenius.
3. Others, ‘He was as one causing to conceal the face,’ that is, he induced others to cover the face before him. His sufferings were so terrible as to induce them to turn away. So John H. Michaelis.
The idea seems to be, that he was as one from whom people hide their faces, or turn away. This might either arise from a sight of his sufferings, as being so offensive that they would turn away in pain - as in the case of a leper; or it might be, that he was so much an object of contempt, and so unlike what they expected, that they would hide their faces and turn away in scorn. This latter I suppose to be the meaning; and that the idea is, that he was so unlike what they had expected, that they hid their faces in affected or real contempt.
And we esteemed him not - That is, we esteemed him as nothing; we set no value on him. In order to give greater energy to a declaration, the Hebrews frequently express a thing positively and then negatively. The prophet had said that they held him in positive contempt; he here says that they did not regard him as worthy of their notice. He here speaks in the name of his nation - as one of the Jewish people. ‘We, the Jews, the nation to whom he was sent, did not esteem him as the Messiah, or as worthy of our affection or regard.’
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Not. The whole life of Christ was spent in…
Not. The whole life of Christ was spent in the midst of poverty, and contradictions, Hebrews iv. 15. He has thus taught us to despise ourselves.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain rejected--"forsaken of men" [GESENIUS]. "Most abject of men." Literally,…
rejected--"forsaken of men" [GESENIUS]. "Most abject of men." Literally, "He who ceases from men," that is, is no longer regarded as a man [HENGSTENBERG]. (See on Isa 52:14; Isa 49:7).
man of sorrows--that is, whose distinguishing characteristic was sorrows.
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acquainted with--familiar by constant contact with.
grief--literally, "disease"; figuratively for all kinds of calamity (Jer 6:14); leprosy especially represented this, being a direct judgment from God. It is remarkable Jesus is not mentioned as having ever suffered under sickness.
and we hid . . . faces--rather, as one who causes men to hide their faces from Him (in aversion) [MAURER]. Or, "He was as an hiding of the face before it," that is, as a thing before which a man covers his face in disgust [HENGSTENBERG]. Or, "as one before whom is the covering of the face"; before whom one covers the face in disgust [GESENIUS].
we--the prophet identifying himself with the Jews. See HORSLEY'S view (see on Isa 53:1).
esteemed . . . not--negative contempt; the previous words express positive.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 3. Not only did the Servant fail to attract…
3. Not only did the Servant fail to attract his contemporaries (Isa_53:2); there was that in his appearance which excited positive aversion. He is represented as one stricken with loathsome and disfiguring disease, probably leprosy (see on Isa_53:4), so that men instinctively recoiled from him in horror and disgust.
He is despised and rejected of men] Better, Despised and man-forsaken, i.e. one with whom men refuse to associate, or, perhaps, one who renounces the hope of human fellowship. The corresponding verb is used by Job when he complains of the estrangement of his friends: “my kinsfolk have failed” (ch. Isa_19:14).
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For sorrows … grief, read pains … sickness. Although both words may be used tropically of mental suffering, it is plain that in the figure of this verse and the following they are to be taken in their literal sense.
and we hid &c.] More literally, and as one from whom there is a hiding of the face; his appearance was such as to cause men involuntarily to cover their face from the sight of him. The expression is similar to another phrase of Job’s: “I am a spitting in the face” (Isa_17:6). For the idea cf. Job_19:19; Job_30:10. Leprosy is again suggested. The rendering of LXX. and Vulg. “and as one who hid his face from us” is grammatically defensible, but conveys a wrong idea; the Servant “hid not his face from shame and spitting” (ch. Isa_50:6).
esteemed him not] (lit “reckoned him not”), held him of no account.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (3) He is despised and rejected.—Better, for the last…
(3) He is despised and rejected.—Better, for the last word, forsaken. This had been the crowning sorrow of the righteous sufferer of the Old Testament (Job_17:15; Job_19:14). It was to complete the trial of the perfect sufferer of the New (Mat_26:56).
A man of sorrows . . .—The words “sorrow” and “grief” in the Heb. imply the thought of bodily pain or disease. (Comp. Exo_3:7; Lam_1:12; Lam_1:18.) Men have sometimes raised the rather idle question whether the body of our Lord was subject to disease, and have decided on à priori grounds that it was not. The prophet’s words point to the true view, that this was an essential condition of His fellowship with humanity. If we do not read of any actual disease in the Gospel, we at least have evidence of an organisation every nerve of which thrilled with its sensitiveness to pain, and was quickly exhausted (Luk_8:46; Joh_4:6; Mar_4:36). The intensity of His sympathy made Him feel the pain of others as His own (Mat_8:17), the “blood and water” from the pierced heart, the physical results of the agony in Gethsemane (Luk_22:44; Joh_19:34), indicate a nature subject to the conditions of our humanity.
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We hid as it were . . .—Literally, As the hiding of the face from us, or, on our part. The words start from the picture of the leper covering his face from men, or their covering their own faces, that they might not look upon him (Lev_13:45). In Lam_4:15, we have a like figurative application. (Comp. also Job_19:13-19; Job_30:10.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain He is despised; rather, was despised. (comp. Isa_49:7 and…
He is despised; rather, was despised. (comp. Isa_49:7 and Psa_22:6) Men"s contempt was shown, partly in the little attention which they paid to his teaching, partly in their treatment of him on the night and day before the Crucifixion. (Mt 25 Mat_26:29-31 Mar_14:65 15:18, 19, etc.) Rejected of men; rather, perhaps, forsaken of men "one from whom men held themselves aloof" (Cheyne); Job_19:14. Our Lord had at no time more than a "little flock" attached to him. Of these, after a time, "many went back, and walked no more with him". (Joh_6:66) Some, who believed on him, would only come to him by night. (Joh_3:2) All the "rulers" and great men held aloof from him. (Joh_7:48) At the end, even his apostles "forsook him, and fled". (Mat_26:56) A Man of sorrows. The word translated "sorrows" means also pains of any kind. But the beautiful rendering of our version may well stand, since there are many places where the word used certainly means "sorrow" and nothing else. (see Exo_3:7 2Ch_6:29 Psa_32:10 Psa_38:17 Ecc_1:18 Jer_30:15 Jer_45:3 Lam_1:12, Lam_1:18, etc.) Aquila well translates, andra alghdonwn The "sorrows" of Jesus appear on every page of the Gospels. Acquainted with grief; literally, with sickness; but as aeger and aegritudo are applied in Latin both to the mind and to the body, so kholi, the word here used, would seem to be in Hebrew. (see Jer_6:7 Jer_10:19) The translation of the Authorized Version may therefore be retained. We hid as it were our faces from him; literally, and there was as it were the hiding of the face from him. Some suppose the hiding of God"s face to be intended; but the context, which describes the treatment of the Servant by his fellow-men, makes the meaning given in our version far preferable. Men turned their faces from him when they met him, would not see him, would not recognize him. (comp. Job_19:13-17 Job_30:10) Despised. A repetition very characteristic of Isaiah. (see Isa_1:7 Isa_3:12 Isa_4:3 Isa_6:11 Isa_14:25 Isa_15:8 Isa_17:12, Isa_17:13, etc.)
The rejected Saviour.
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"He is desvised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." He! Who? The incarnate Lord, who has grown up in childhood as a tender plant;" who is the one "living root," while all others are the dry soil of a decrepit and degenerate humanity.
I THIS REVEALS TO US WHAT THE HEBREW CHURCH WAS. Christ was the touchstone" of that Church. Its conduct to him made manifest to what a condition they had come. Think of the contrast. Pharisaism was triumphant Christ was despised. The outward, the formal, the ritual, was preferred before the holy, the inward, and the spiritual. Christ was "rejected." They had the first opportunity of welcoming the "Lord from heaven." "To the Jew first." How learned men may be in tradition! how well acquainted with the "Mishna" and the "Gemara," and yet know ail of ancient revelation except its meaning! The great gates of prophecy open wide to lot the true King through; and then treat him as a Pretender, and crown him with thorns.
II THIS REVEALS TO US WHAT CHRIST WAS ON THE HUMAN SIDE. "A Man of sorrows." Think of his exquisite moral sensitiveness in a world of sin. Think of his tender human sympathies in a world of sorrow. "Acquainted with grief." Not in one special form, but in all its spheres, that he might be a Brother born for adversity. Acquainted with it. So that he had daily fellowship with it; not passing through its transient experiences, but familiar with it as the companion of his life. W.M.S.
The Man of sorrows.
We feel that there is but One of our race to whom this title properly belongs; One who may wear it as a crown upon his brow, inasmuch as his sorrows do him higher honour than the most conspicuous success ever conferred on human spirit. It does belong to him, not in virtue of the fact that his outward career involved more cruel hardships than those ever borne before; but in virtue of the fact that his spirit was such as to make his endurance more grievous than that ever experienced by man. It was Jesus Christ"s capacity of sorrow that made all the difference. Capacity to endure rises with the greatness of the spiritual nature; the larger the nature, the greater the possibility and likelihood of suffering. When, therefore, we remember that Jesus Christ, as a perfect Man, had the fullest and keenest possible sensibility of nature, and when we remember that the Divine was so associated in him with the human as immeasurably to deepen and enlarge every faculty of his soul, we shall see that his capacity of sorrow was almost boundless.
I THE SOURCES OF HIS SORROW. These were, among others:
The failure on the part of his own best friends to understand and appreciate him. "They who knew him best could hardly be said to know him;" they entered only a very little way into his purpose, and could not sympathize with him in his deeper disappointments; "he trod the wine-press alone." But for his Father"s presence he often was absolutely alone. (Joh_16:32)
1. The frailty and even the treachery of his disciples. Those who followed him and called him Master had but little care for his truth or love for himself. In a moment of simple perplexity of mind they fell away from him, and abandoned his cause. (Joh_6:66) One of his disciples grieved his spirit by distinct denial, and another pierced his heart by utter and open treachery.
2. The malignity of his enemies. There are men who do not care that their brethren whose confidence they have tried to win are cherishing toward them the bitterest hatred; not such was he of the tender heart and loving spirit.
3. The rejection of the people. He was rejected of men. Several men and women, in most places whither he went, may have flocked to hear him; and the common people heard him gladly, we know. But he had to acknowledge to himself that his principles made no way, that his truth was not apprehended and loved, that citizens did not enrol themselves in his spiritual kingdom. The near presence of human suffering and sorrow. By partaking of our humanity as he did, Jesus came into the closest contact with the pains, the privations, the deformities, the diseases, and the sorrows of mankind. And by the power of an intense and living sympathy he made these his own. (Mat_8:17 Joh_11:33, Joh_11:35) He bore them on his own heart; they weighed upon his spirit as a heavy burden.
4. A deep sense of human sin, culminating in a sacrifice for it. If the near presence of sorrow grieved and troubled him, how much more that of human sin in all its forms! With our lesser purity, we cannot tell how painful to his heart was the sight of all the selfishness, hypocrisy, greed, worldliness, malignity, corruption which he beheld, most of it affecting the language and the bearing of devotion. Yet with all these sources of sorrow, there were not wanting
II SPRINGS OF SACRED JOY IN THE HEART AND LIFE OF OUR LORD.
1. Unbroken communion with the heavenly Father.
2. The sincere attachment of many who, though they were imperfect disciples, yet trusted and loved him as their Teacher and Friend.
3. The gratitude of many whom he healed, and the deeper gratitude of many whom he saved.
4. The consciousness of faithful fulfilment of his great mission.
5. A calm, profound assurance of victory through death and shameJoh 12:24, 32). In the heart of the Man of sorrows were deep springs of joy, such as they who wounded him and triumphed over him knew not of. In our case, as in his, there may be the light of a blessed peace and even of heavenly joy in a soul that moves under darkest skies through a clouded life. C.
Man"s disposition to reject his best blessings.
Philip the evangelist, from this, and the connected passage, preached unto the eunuch Jesus. This is sufficient reason for our associating it with Messiah. The chapter concerns the human life, the sorrowful experience, the shameful death, and the eternal triumph of the Son of God. The story of the Christ can be gathered up and expressed in a sentence," He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." The personification of heathen pride and fear, Herod sought to slay him as a babe. Representatives of the wealth and learning and religion of their age, scribes and Sadducees and Pharisees rejected him, that they might cleave to their traditions. The common people, moved sometimes by the goodness of his words and the graciousness of his deeds, heard him gladly, cast their garments in his way, and waved palm branches with hosannahs; but at another time they hurried him away to cast him headlong from an overhanging cliff, and shouted, "Crucify him!" Even the few who seemed to see his glory, on whom some beams of his Divine splendour rested, even they forsook him in the hour of his need, and fled, or sold him for mere silver, or denied him with oaths and curses. He passed on to Calvary amid rabble-shouts, "His blood be on us and on our children!" and there he hung, despised in the shame of the cross; despised as they passed him by, wagging their heads. Rejected as they cried, "We have no king but Caesar. and chose instead of him a murderer and thief. Now, the world has never known anything so passing strange as that despising and rejecting of God"s greatest and best gift to men. To realize the strangeness or" this tact, consider
I THE PERSON AND THE CREDENTIALS OF THE REJECTED ONE. The world has had many impostors, men with a genius for making claims which there were no facts to support. In the spheres of medicine, education, politics, and religion, there have been many who were found out at last, and rejected of men as untrue and unworthy. No man ever claimed such a position and such rights as Jesus did; but no man ever gave such abundant and satisfactory proof of his claims. He was a Divine Messenger, the appointed Agent for securing the reconciliation of man with God; he was even God himself, manifest in the flesh. But these claims were duly supported. Christ came at a time and in a manner which fitted precisely into the fore-given prophecies, which the people believed. There was perfect accordance between the claims he made and the life he lived, the spirit he manifested and the work he did. His character was so attractive as to win respect, yet so perfect as to excite wonder. He had the power over nature in its various moods, over disease in its various forms, and over death in its various stages, which can be associated only with the Divine Being. And yet he is "despised and rejected of men." Divine, with Divine blessings to bestow; putting forth Divine power, doing a Divine work, and bringing down to men the Divine glory; yet, nevertheless, despised and rejected. Those times have passed away, but the credentials of Christ have only multiplied with the advancing ages. The moral miracles of conversion are far stronger proofs of Divine power than any physical miracles can be; and yet it is still true of many, "He is despised and rejected;" "They hide their faces from him.
II THE FITNESS OF CHRIST TO MEET THE DEEPEST HUMAN NEEDS. The needs of man as man; and the needs of man as fallen, sinful man. There are two things we can think of as left in our nature, relics of the old Eden-glory the wish to know God, and the desire to find what is good. Wherever there is the conception of God there is the inquiry, "Who is he? What is he? Where is he?" The gods many of heathen lands are attempted answers to man"s cry after God. Christ met this want, and he alone has met it. In his Person he brings God down to the sphere of our human scenes, human thoughts, human language, He offers his earth-life to men and says to them, "Behold your God!" You see men pursuing all kinds of ends; they are seeking the supply of the great want of their nature, they are trying to find what is good. But the pure, the true, the self-denying, was never so set before men as in the earthly life of the Lord Jesus. Virtue then clothed herself in human garb. It is only half a truth to say, "He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth," for he was the positive embodiment of all truth and grace and goodness. And, further than this, Christ also met the conditions and needs of man as fallen and sinful. The "Fall" has left on man a sense of separation from God. We have not, now, a consciousness of near relations and happy fellowship with God; Christ came to restore it to us, by taking away the hindrances outside us and in us. When Jesus came to our world, the needs of fallen sinful man were being felt more pressingly than ever before; the world was anxiously looking for a Revealer and Redeemer. Jew and Gentile united in the out-looking: Jews from the helplessness of a ceremonial out of which the life and meaning had gone; Gentiles from the dissatisfaction of multiplying senseless idols. And yet, though Christ brought the supply of the deepest need men knew, the fact remains, "he was despised and rejected of men." Humanity is usually keen in its endeavour to secure its own interests, but here it strangely, sadly fails. It be asked why it fails here, we can only say, because Christ brings the humbling conviction of sin, and the pride of men resists. We are all willing to have our needs met and supplied; but we resist the idea that, as guilty, helpless sinners before God, we must ask for mercy, free, sovereign mercy. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain He is despised and rejected of men
Isa_53:3-7
He is despised and rejected of men
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The mean appearance of the Redeemer foretold
I.
THE WISDOM AND GOODNESS OF GOD IN DETERMINING TO SEND HIS SON INTO THE WORLD IN A STATE OF POVERTY AND AFFLICTION.
1. With regard to His being a teacher, His sufferings set Him above the reach of suspicions. What ends could He have to serve by His doctrine, who met with nothing but misery and affliction, as the reward of His labour?
2. With regard to our Lords being an example of holiness and obedience set before us for our instruction and imitation. His sufferings render the pattern perfect, and show His virtues in their truest lustre, and at the same time silence the pleas which laziness or self-love would otherwise have suggested.
3. With regard to His Divine mission. His sufferings were an evident token that the hand of God was with Him. He only can produce strength out of weakness, and knows how to confound the mighty things of the world by things which are of no account. Add to this the evidence of prophecy, which is so much the stronger by how much the weaker Christ was: so admirably has the wisdom of God displayed itself in this mystery of faith.
II. THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY CONCERNING THE MEAN APPEARANCE OUR LORD WAS TO MAKE.
III. THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE WE HAVE FOR THE COMPLETION OF THESE PROPHECIES. (T. Sherlock, D.D.)
Christ despised and rejected of men
I. IN WHAT RESPECTS IT MAY STILL BE SAID THAT CHRIST IS DESPISED AND REJECTED OF MEN.
1. Men may be said to despise Christ when they do not receive Him as their alone Saviour, the true and only way to the Father.
2. When they practically deny His authority by breaking His Commandments.
3. When they do not give Him the chief room in their hearts, nor prefer Him in their choice to everything else.
4. When they do not publicly, confess Him before men.
II. THE CAUSES OF THIS CONTEMPT.
1. The main cause is a secret unbelief.
2. Love of this would.
3. Ignorance of their own condition.
4. An opinion that they may obtain His aid at what time soever they shall choose to ask it.
III. THE MALIGNITY OF THIS SIN.
1. To despise and reject such a Saviour, is the blackest ingratitude that can possibly be imagined.
2. Your ingratitude is heightened by the most insolent contempt both of the wisdom and goodness of God.
3. By despising and rejecting Christ, you openly proclaim war against the Most High, and bid Him defiance. (R. Walker.)
Designed and rejected
I. CHRIST WAS AN OBJECT OF SCORN AND CONTEMPT.
1. He was despised as an impostor.
2. Despised in His teachings.
3. In his work.
4. In His claims to a righteous judgment at the national tribunal.
II. NOT ONLY WAS JESUS AN OBJECT OF CONTEMPT AND SCORN BUT OF ABSOLUTE REJECTION. If the word had read neglected,--deserted, coldly passed by--this would have revealed an indifference that would have covered His nation and age with reproach, and would have stood out a lasting monument of their base ingratitude. But here is a word conveying the idea of the most inveterate and active hatred. But why this active hostility to Christ? (J. Higgins.)
Despised and rejected of men
In the Gospel we see this rejection in actual occurrence.
I. HE WAS DESPISED AND REJECTED BY THE WORLDLY-MINDED (Joh_6:1-71). Following Christ for the sake of bread may lead to much enthusiastic and self-denying exertion. Here, the very meanest view of Christ is preferred to those lofty and spiritual truths by which He tried to allure and save their souls. In his presence, before His face, while listening to His voice, and with the splendour of the miracle before them--all are passed by for the bread. Is not this the essence of worldly-mindedness? Christianity is the religion of many, not for the sake of the Lord Himself, nor His gracious words, nor even His miracles, but for the bread, for reputations sake, and social character and respectability.
II. HE WAS DESPISED AND REJECTED BY THE RATIONALIST (Mat_13:54-57). It was in His own country. There men thought they knew Him; His family had long dwelt there. Parents, brothers, sisters were all familiarly known--all, down to their very trade: Is not this the carpenter? The facts of the case, as the rationalist is so fond of saying, were all clearly apprehended, and stood forth in their true dimensions. Whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works? Is it real? is it not on the face of it absurd, this mere carpenters son? This is the inmost spirit of rationalism. It rejects everything above the level of visible and tangible fact, everything that cannot be weighed and measured, everything spiritual in Scripture doctrine and supernatural in Scripture history.
III. HE IS DESPISED AND REJECTED BY THE ECCLESIASTIC (Mat_21:15-23). The ecclesiastical temper is not found solely or chiefly amongst those who are ecclesiastics by profession. The religious spirit may be crushed--indeed, has often been; rigid and severe forms may take the place of the easy and graceful motions of vital Christianity. This is the rejection of Christ in the freedom by which His Holy Spirit distributes to every man severally as He will.
IV. HE IS DESPISED AND REJECTED BY MEN OF BRUTE FORCE (Luk_23:11). To some the tenderness of the Gospel religion is an offence. Humanity is a peculiarly Christian virtue, and meekness and resignation. The calm tranquillity of meditation, the tearful eye of compassion, the sublime courage of patience, the dating heroism of forgiveness, excite no sympathy or admiration in some breasts. Theirs is the rejection of Christ; through a false manliness.
V. CHRIST IS DESPISED AND REJECTED BY HIS OWN (Joh_1:11). Some, from a natural sweetness and amiability of disposition, seem in a certain degree adapted to be Christians. The restraining effects of home discipline and generous education have restrained them from open transgression. Yet their rejection of Christ as a Saviour from sin is often most decided and even disdainful. They think the charge of sin inappropriate, for they have no consciousness of it, and no felt need of a Saviour. The sinfulness of rejecting Christ is seen in its being a rejection of the Father (Luk_10:16). It is not possible to reject Christ, and be right with God. (S. H. Tindall.)
Failure
In a life that is lived with the thoughts of eternity, in one aspect failure is inevitable: in another aspect failure is impossible.
1. Failure is inevitable. If I accept for myself an ideal which is beyond the limits of here and now, then manifestly it is impossible that I can here and now realize it. There must be always with me, so long as I am faithful to that ideal, a sense of incompleteness, a ceaseless aspiration, an effort that only the grave can close. He knows if he is faithful that he has before him an eternal career, that the end to which he is moving is likeness to Jesus Christ; that he has to pass into the unveiled presence of God and hold communion with Him. If that be the end, can it be otherwise than that, in the meanwhile, there should be failure, humiliation, penitence, and ceaseless and unwearied discipline of self?
2. Failure, in another aspect, is impossible. Only be sure that deep down at the root of life there is loyalty to God, and then begin where we are placed--in the effort to find Him He will fulfil the search. The miracle of the failure of Calvary is our assurance of that truth. It is this living for the Eternal, as a venture of faith, which has always appealed to the eternal God, which His own nature is pledged to meet. Do we stumble? It is only that we may realize His readiness to help. Are we bewildered? It is only in order that we may find how sure He guides. Are we humiliated by our confessions? It is only that we may realize the readiness of His pardon. Are we conscious and stricken with the sense of our weakness? It is only that we may find His strength perfected within us. If we have only taken sides with Him in the great issues of human life, then He will justify our choice. (C. G. Lang.)
Failure may be welcomed
Our failure in the light of the Cross, our spiritual failures, are things to be welcomed; they prevent the torpor of dull assurance creeping over us like a poison; they prevent our falling under imperfect standards of life, they prove, so long as their are constant with us, that the energy of the Spirit of God has not left us to ourselves; they witness to us that we recognize the truth that our souls can find their rest and satisfaction only in God. (C. G. Lang.)
The despised Saviour
To all God grants some dim vision of what He intends man to be. The holiest men have had the clearest glimpses of that character. One nation was separated to keep the ideal before the world. The majority corrupted the representation, but some prophets saw it clearly.
I. GODS IDEAL FOR MAN, AND ITS REALIZATION IN CHRIST. The majority thought He would be another Solomon, Davids greater son. The prophet saw that He would be a Sinless Sufferer; what it had been intended that the nation should be, that the Suffering Servant would be. The voice of God, which set forth the ideal by the lips of prophets, now speaks through our own highest desires.
II. THE WORLDS RECEPTION OF THE REVEALED IDEAL. Pilate has brought Him forth that His suffering may excite their pity, but His pure and loving life has made them relentless in their hate. There is no beauty that they should desire Him. Barabbas, the bold and reckless, is the peoples choice. While boon companions crowd round him, cold looks and scornful smiles are reserved for Christ. Christ had headed no revolt against the powers that be, and therefore He was not popular. Political emancipation is more popular than spiritual. The path of righteousness ends on Calvary; its crown is one of thorns, its throne a cross.
III. THE MEANING OF THE REVELATION OF THIS IDEAL. The world says, Blessed are the wealthy, the powerful, the great, and the wise. Christ says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, the meek, the mourners, the persecuted. At first we pity Christ, and reserve our indignation for His persecutors. But He was the least pitiable of all that group. Pilate was a pitiable victim, the people were pitiable because carried away by passion, and the priests by desire for revenge. The greatness of apparent weakness is here revealed. Yet we despise weakness. Here is a dramatic representation of weighty decisions made every day in human hearts. When we choose ease and worldly glory in preference to holiness and self-denial, we despise and reject Christ. Here our choice is seen worked out to the bitter end. This is a revelation of the meaning of sin.
IV. THE EFFECT OF THIS REVELATION. The world can never forget that spiracle. In the dark ages, when the Bible was a hidden book, a representation of this scene was to be found in every church. Though obscured by superstition, the ideal was still held up, and was still moulding the minds and stimulating the holy endeavours of men. In an open Bible we have the ideal more truthfully set forth. The love there revealed has been the constraining motive which moved apostles to preach, martyrs to suffer, missionaries to forgo the joys of home, and humble men and women to labour in countless ways to advance the interests of Christ. His patience shames our murmuring: His burning love to us kindles our love to Him. (R. C. Ford, M.A.)
The worlds regard for the outward
The great cause assigned by the prophet for the astonishment of men at the Messiah and for their rejection of Him is, that His real glory is hidden beneath humiliation and sorrow. The world, that is, which always looks at the outward appearance of things, judges them according to their material splendours; having a carnal eye, it can but dimly discern moral beauty. It renders homage to thrones and crowns, and wealth and power, and does not care to see the moral iniquity and the spiritual repulsiveness there may be behind them; it feels pity and contempt for suffering and poverty and obloquy, and does not care to see the moral grandeur that these may cover or indicate. There are few of us so reverent to a poor, godly man, as to a rich godless one. We may not refuse to utter words commending the one and condemning the other, but we utter them very tenderly; the goodness of a rich man causes us to exhaust our expletives, and almost ourselves, in admiring praise; the wickedness of a poor man is denounced by us without mercy; but when the conditions are reversed we have a great deal more reserve. Our praise is a concession that we cannot withhold. We blame with bated breath, and whispering humbleness. The ragged garments of poverty have a wonderful transparency when vice lies behind them; while riches usurp the powers of charity, and hide the multitude of sins. (H. Allen, D.D.)
The art of seeing the spiritual
The Jews did not look for spiritual meaning in their dispensation, but simply at material and mechanical ordinances, and they became Pharisees--regarding religion as a thing of phylacteries and tithes and street prayers: they did not look for spiritual glory in their expected Messiah, or for spiritual blessings in His coming, and they became absorbed in the conception of a temporal prince, and were incapable of seeing anything else in Him; and, because He was not this, in their astonishment and anger, they rejected and crucified Him. The lesson is a universal one; it affects the spiritual education of every soul, our own daily habits of interpreting things. We may look at Gods world until we see nothing of Gods presence in it; nothing but mechanical forces. A scientific or philosophical eye may soon educate itself to see nothing but science and philosophy; a material eye, to see nothing but materialism. We may look upon creation, and see no Creator; upon providence, and see no Benefactor. So we may read the Bible, and see nothing but sacred history, or scientific philosophy--the letter and not the spirit. So we may look at Christian things on their material rather than their spiritual side. We may speculate upon a millennium coming of Christ, until we forget His spiritual presence--even upon heaven itself, until we forget the inward grace, and holiness and Divine communion that chiefly make it heaven. Let us carefully cultivate the Divine art of seeing spiritual aspects and meanings in all things, of judging of all things by their spiritual importance, of valuing them for their spiritual influence, of applying them to spiritual uses. The pure in heart see God; spiritual things are spiritually discerned. (H. Allon, D.D.)
Christ rejected
I. The first reason assigned for the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews was THE GRADUAL AND UNOSTENTATIOUS MANNER OF HIS MANIFESTATION. He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground, etc. The general reference is, no doubt, to His parentage, and His manner of entering the world--so contrasted with the probable expectations of the Jews. Not like a cedar of Lebanon did the world s Messiah appear; not as a scion of a noble and wealthy house; not as the son of a Herod or a Caiaphas--but as a tender plant, as a root, out of a dry ground. It is a repetition of the figure in the eleventh chapter, There shall come forth a Shoot out of the stem of Jesse; and a Scion shall spring forth from his roots. Just as the descendants of the Plantagenets are to be found amongst our English peasantry, the glory of the family had departed. Nothing could be farther from the thought of the carnal Jews than that Messiah the Prince should be a scion of such a forgotten house. How wonderful in its obscurity and helplessness was His childhood; not hastening towards His manifestation, not hastening even towards His ministry to the perishing, but waiting until the fulness of time was come; growing into the child, the youth, the man; for more than thirty years giving scarcely a sign that He was other than an ordinary son of humanity; at first helplessly dependent upon His parents for support and direction, then obediently subject to them, fulfilling all the conditions and duties of childhood, a child with children as well as a man with men; then a youth labouring as an artisan, fulfilling His great mission to the world in a carpenters shop. And then fulfilling His ministry, not amongst the rich, but amongst the poor; not in acts of rule and conquest, but in deeds of beneficence and words of spiritual life; and consummating it by a death on a cross.
II. The second reason for the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews, which the prophet assigns, is HIS UNATTRACTIVE APPEARANCE WHEN MANIFESTED. This he puts both negatively and positively.
1. Negatively, He was destitute of all attractions; He had no form nor comeliness; He was without beauty to make men desire Him.
2. But there were positive repulsions; everything to offend men who had such prepossessions as they had. A Messiah in the guise of a peasant babe--the Divine in the form of a servant and a sufferer. Chiefly, however, weare arrested by the phrase, which, because of its touching beauty, has almost become one of the personal designations of the Messiah--A Man of sorrows--literally, a Man of sufferings, or of many sufferings--One who possesses sufferings as other men possess intelligence, or physical faculty--One who was acquainted with grief, not in the casual, transient way in which most men are, but with an intimacy as of companionship; the utmost bodily and mental sorrow was endured by Him. The emphasis of the description lies not in the fact that one who came to be a Prophet and Reformer was subjected to martyr treatment, for such men have ever been rejected and persecuted by the ignorance, envy and madness of their generation. It is that He who was the Creator and Lord of all things should have submitted to this condition, borne this obloquy, endured this suffering; that the Lord of life and blessedness should appear in our world, not only as a Man, but as so suffering a Man, as that He should be known amongst other suffering men as pre-eminently a Man of sorrows--a Man whose sorrows were greater than other mens sorrows. Now, we cannot think that this designation is given to Him merely because of the bodily sufferings, or social provocations, that were inflicted upon Him. We shall touch but very distantly the true heart of the Redeemers sorrows, if we limit the cause of them to the mere stubbornness of His generation, or to the mere physical agonies of His death. It is doing no wrong to the pre-eminence of the Saviours agonies to say, that many teachers of truth have been opposed and persecuted more than He was, and that many martyrs have endured deaths of more terrible physical agony. If this were all, we should be compelled, I think, to admit that the prophetic description is somewhat exaggerated. How, then, is it to be accounted for? Only by the fact of His having also endured transcendent inward sorrow; sorrow of mind, sorrow of heart, of which ordinary men have no experience; only by His own strange expression in His agony, when no human hand touched Him--My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. Then comes the mystery of such a pure and perfect soul experiencing such a sorrow. If He were only a prophet and martyr for the truth of God, why, as distinguished from all other prophets and martyrs, should He have endured so much inward anguish? Here we touch the great mystery of atonement, and we are bold to say that this alone interprets Christs peculiar sorrow. (H. Allon, D.D.)
Lessons from the manner of Christs appearing
1. Great things may be found in very lowly forms. We judge of things by material magnitudes; the spiritual God judges them by moral qualities. The great forces that have ruled the world have mostly been born in lowly places; they have been moulded to greatness in the school of necessity; trained to greatness in the school of endurance. He who has not to endure can never be great. Let us cultivate the spiritual eye, that can recognize spiritual qualities, everywhere, and neither in others nor in ourselves disparage the day of small things, the germs of virtue and strength; for we know not what they may achieve. The acorn becomes an oak; the solitary monk shakes the world; the Babe of Bethlehem becomes the Christ of Christianity. Your solitary scholar may be the nucleus of a great system of education; your solitary convert may evangelize a nation (Mat_13:31-32).
2. The power of Divine patience. God waits, even in His great redeeming purpose, until the fulness of time is come, and then until the tender plant grows up before Him. We, in our impatience, wish to do all things at once, to convert the world in a day. Our zeal becomes fanaticism the more difficult to check because it takes so holy a form. (H. Allon, D.D.)
Aversion to Christ
The reason for this aversion to Christ may probably be found in the fact of--
1. His sorrowful face.
2. His serious manner.
3. His spiritual teaching.
4. His consecration to His Fathers business.
5. His single walk with God, His habits of retirement and prayer.
Men hate and reject Christ for these characteristics. The worlds spirit and all worldly religion resent these aspects of spiritual life. (G. F, Pentecost, D. D.)
Handels Messiah
Of Handel, it is said, that when composing his Messiah, and he came to these words, he was affected to tears; and well might he weep, for history furnishes no parallel to this case. (J. Higgins.)
A man of sorrows
The causes of Christs sorrows
I. THE DAILY CONTACT OF HIS PURE AND PIOUS SOUL WITH SINFUL AND SINNING MEN. And who may conceive the constancy and intensity of the anguish that would spring from this? There would be the sense of human relationship to a race that had sinned and fallen; they were men, and He was a Man too: He likewise took part of the same; they were His proper brothers; He was allied in blood to men so guilty and degraded. It was as if a vicious brother, a prodigal son, were guilty of nameless and constant crime. The sense of mens guilt, degradation, misery, ingratitude, would bow down His pure soul with unspeakable sorrow and shame. Then there was His daily practical contact with acts and hearts of sin; the touch on every side, and wherever He felt humanity, of what was unloving and unholy; the sight of their hate to His loving Father; of their rebelliousness against His holy law; a sinfulness and unspiritualness that led them to reject and hate Him; to turn away with dislike and determination from His holy words and deeds. His great human love, His perfect human holiness, would wonderfully combine to wring His soul with anguish. The apostle intimates how great this sorrow was, when he says that He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself; that He resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And we can understand the mysterious agony of His soul in Gethsemane only by supposing that it was the sense of the worlds guilt that lay upon it: that made His soul so exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. We have only to think of His pure nature; that He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; and to remember the men that He came into contact with; the world in which He lived; the treatment which His message of holiness and mercy received: to understand how sore the sorrow of His soul would be.
II. THE TEMPTATIONS OF THE DEVIL. He, the pure and perfect Son of the Father, was doomed to listen to polluting and hateful thoughts of distrust and sin: He who so loathed evil was plied with evil.
III. THE GREAT BUT INEXPLICABLE SORROW OF WHATEVER CONSTITUTED HIS ATONEMENT--of whatever is meant by its pleasing the Father to bruise Him--to put Him to grief--to make His soul an offering for sin--to lay upon Him the iniquity of us all--to forsake Him on His cross. These were the chief elements of His sorrow--a sorrow that has had no equal, and that, in many of its ingredients, has had no likeness. (H. Allon, D. D.)
Christ a Man of sorrows
I. IT IS HERE PREDICTED THAT CHRIST SHOULD BE A MAN OF SORROWS, and acquainted with grief. This prediction was literally fulfilled. It has been supposed that His sufferings were rather apparent than real; or, at least, that His abundant consolations, and His knowledge of the happy consequences which would result from His death, rendered His sorrows comparatively light, and almost converted them to joys. But never was supposition more erroneous. His sufferings were incomparably greater than they appeared to be. No finite mind can conceive of their extent. His sufferings began with his birth, and ended but with His life.
1. It must have been exceedingly painful to such a person as Christ to live in a world like this.
2. Another circumstance which contributed to render our Saviour a Man of sorrows was the reception He met with from those He came to save.
3. Another circumstance that threw a shade of gloom over our Saviour s life was His clear view and constant anticipation of the dreadful agonies in which it was to terminate. He was not ignorant, as we happily are, of the miseries which were before Him. How deeply the prospect affected Him is evident from His own language: I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!
II. We have in this prophetic passage AN ACCOUNT OF OUR SAVIOURS CONDUCT UNDER THE PRESSURE OF THESE SORROWS. He was oppressed, etc. He was brought as a Lamb, etc. Never was language more descriptive of the most perfect meekness and patience; never was prediction more fully justified by the event than in the case before us. If His lips were opened, it was but to express the most perfect submission to His Fathers will, and to breathe out prayers for His murderers. Christian, look at your Master, and learn how to suffer. Sinner, look at your Saviour, and learn to admire, to imitate, and to forgive. But why is this patient, innocent Sufferer thus afflicted? He was wounded for our transgressions, etc.
III. Our text describes THE MANNER IN WHICH CHRIST WAS TREATED when He thus came as a Man of sorrows to atone for our sins. Despised and rejected of men. We hid, as it were, our faces, etc. He has long since ascended to heaven, and therefore cannot be the immediate object of mens attacks. But His Gospel and His servants are still in the world; and the manner in which they are treated is sufficient evidence that the feelings of the natural heart toward Christ are not materially different from those of the Jews. His servants are hated, ridiculed and despised, His Gospel is rejected, and His institutions slighted. Every man who voluntarily neglects to confess Christ before men, and to commemorate His dying love, must say, either that He does not choose to do it, or that he is not prepared to do it. If a man says, I do not choose to confess Christ, he certainly rejects Him. (E. Payson, D. D.)
The human race typified by the Man of sorrows
I. THE LOT OF HUMANITY IN THIS WORLD. This is the portrait of the species--A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
II. THE TREATMENT WHICH DEPRESSED HUMANITY COMMONLY EXPERIENCE: We hid, as it were, our faces from Him. (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)
The Man of sorrows
I. A MAN. He who was God, and was in the beginning with God, was made flesh, and dwelt among us. Remembering that Jesus Christ is God, it behoves us to recollect that His manhood was none the less real and substantial It differed from our own humanity in the absence of sin, but in no other respect. This condescending participation in our nature brings the Lord Jesus very near to us in relationship. Inasmuch as He was man, though also God, He was, according to Hebrew law, our goel--our kinsman, next of kin. Now it was according to the law that if an inheritance had been lost, it was the right of the next kin to redeem it. Our Lord Jesus exercised His legal right, and seeing us sold into bondage and our inheritance taken from us, came forward to redeem both us and all our lost estate. Be thankful that you have not to go to God at the first, and as you are, but you are invited to come to Jesus Christ, and through Him to the Father. Then let me add, that every child of God ought also to be comforted by the fact that our Redeemer is one of our own race, seeing that He was made like unto His brethren that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest; and He was tempted in all points, like as we are, that He might be able to succour them that are tempted. The sympathy of Jesus is the next most precious thing to His sacrifice.
II. A MAN OF SORROWS. The expression is intended to be very emphatic; it is not a sorrowful man, but a Man of sorrows, as if He were made up of sorrows, and they were constituent elements of His being. Some are men of pleasure, others men of wealth, but He was a Man of sorrows. He and sorrow might have changed names. He who saw Him, saw sorrow, and he who would see sorrow, must look on Him. Behold, and see, saith He, if there was ever sorrow like unto My sorrow which was clone unto Me.
1. Our Lord is called the Man of sorrows for peculiarity, for this was His peculiar token and special mark. We might well call Him a man of holiness; for there was no fault in Him: or a man, of labours, for He did His Fathers business earnestly; or a man of eloquence, for never man spake like this man. We might right fittingly call Him The man of love, for never was there greater love than glowed in His heart. Still, conspicuous as all these and many other excellencies were, yet had we gazed upon Christ and been asked afterwards what was the most striking peculiarity in Him, we should have said His sorrow. Tears were His insignia, and the Cross His escutcheon.
2. Is not the title of Man of sorrows given to our Lord by way of eminence? He was not only sorrowful, but pre-eminent among the sorrowful. All men have a burden to bear, but His was heaviest of all. The reason for this superior sorrow may be found in the fact that with His sorrow there was no admixture of sin. Side by side with His painful sensitiveness of the evil of sin, was His gracious tenderness towards the sorrows of others. Besides this our Saviour had a peculiar relationship to sin. He was not merely afflicted with the sight of it, and saddened by perceiving its effects on others, but sin was actually laid upon Him, and He was himself numbered with the transgressors.
3. The title of Man of sorrows, was also given to our Lord to indicate the constancy of His afflictions. He changed His place of abode, but He always lodged with sorrow. Sorrow wove His swaddling bands, and sorrow spun His winding sheet.
4. He was also a Man of sorrows, for the variety of His woes; He was a man not of sorrow only, but of sorrows. As to His poverty. He knew the heart-rendings of bereavement. Perhaps the bitterest of His sorrows were those which were connected with His gracious work. He came as the Messiah sent of God, on an embassage of love, and men rejected His claims. Nor did they stay at cold rejection; they then proceeded to derision and ridicule. They charged Him with every crime which their malice could suggest. And all the while He was doing nothing but seeking their advantage in all ways, As He proceeded in His life His sorrows multiplied. He preached, and when mens hearts were hard, and they would not believe what He said, He was grieved for the hardness of their hearts. His sorrow was not that men injured Him, but that they destroyed themselves; this it was, that pulled up the sluices of His soul, and made His eyes oerflow with tears: O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! how often would I have gathered thy children together, etc. But surely He found some solace with the few companions whom He had gathered around Him? He did; but for all that He must have found as much sorrow as solace in their company. They were dull scholars; they were miserable comforters for the Man of sorrows. The Saviour, from the very dignity of His nature, must suffer alone. The mountain-side, with Christ upon it, seems to me a suggestive symbol of His earthly life. His soul lived in vast solitudes, sublime and terrible, and there, amid a midnight of trouble, His spirit communed with the Father, no one being able to accompany Him into the dark glens and gloomy ravines of His unique experience. In the last, crowning sorrows of
His life, there came upon Him the penal inflictions from God, the chastisement of our peace which was upon Him.
III. ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF.
1. With grief he had an intimate acquaintance. He did not know merely what it was in others, but it came home to Himself. We have read of grief, we have sympathized with grief, we have sometimes felt grief: but the.Lord felt it more intensely than other men in His innermost soul. He and grief were bosom friends.
2. It was a continuous acquaintance. He did not call at griefs house sometimes to take a tonic by the way, neither did He sip now and then of the wormwood and the gall, but the quassia cup was always His, and ashes were always mingled with His bread. Not only forty days in the wilderness did Jesus fast; the world was ever a wilderness to Him, and His life was one long Lent. I do not say that He was not, after all, a happy man, for down deep in His soul benevolence always supplied a living spring of joy to Him. There was a joy into which we are one day to enter--the joy of our Lord--the joy set before Him for which He endured the Cross, despising the shame; but that does not at all take away from the fact that His acquaintance with grief was continuous and intimate beyond that of any man who ever lived. It was indeed a growing acquaintance with grief, for each step took Him deeper down into the grim shades of sorrow.
3. It was a voluntary acquaintance for our sakes. He need never have known a grief at all, and at any moment He might have said to grief, farewell. But He remained to the end, out of love to us, griefs acquaintance. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ as a Sufferer
1. Jesus suffered from what may be called the ordinary privations of humanity. Born in a stable, etc. We may not be able to assert that none ever suffered so much physical agony as He, but this is at least probable; for the exquisiteness of His physical organism in all likelihood made Him much more sensitive than others to pain.
2. He suffered keenly from the pain of anticipating coming evil.
3. He suffered from the sense of being the cause of suffering to others. To persons of an unselfish disposition the keenest pang inflicted by their own weakness or misfortunes may sometimes be to see those whom they would like to make happy rendered miserable through connection with themselves. To the child Jesus how gruesome must have been the story of the babes of Bethlehem, whom the sword of Herod smote when it was seeking for Him! Or, if His mother spared Him this recital, He must at least have learned how she and Joseph had to flee with Him to Egypt to escape the jealousy of Herod. As His life drew near its close, this sense that connection with Himself might be fatal to His friends forced itself more and more upon His notice.
4. The element of shame was, all through, a large ingredient in His cup of suffering. To a sensitive mind there is nothing more intolerable; it is far harder to bear than bodily pain. But it assailed Jesus in nearly every form, pursuing Him all through His life. He was railed at for the humbleness of His birth. The high-born priests and the educated rabbis sneered at the carpenters son who had never learned, and the wealthy Pharisees derided Him. He was again and again called a madman. Evidently this was what Pilate took Him for. The Roman soldiers adopted an attitude of savage banter towards Him all through His trial and crucifixion, treating Him as boys torment one who is weak in the mind. He heard Barabbas preferred to Himself by the voice of His fellow-countrymen, and He was crucified between thieves, as if He were the worst of the worst. A hail of mockery kept falling on Him in His dying hours. Thus had He who was conscious of irresistible strength to submit to be treated as the weakest of weaklings, and He who was the Wisdom of the Highest to submit to be used as if He were less than a man.
5. But to Jesus it was more painful still, being the Holy One of God, to be regarded and treated as the chief of sinners. To one who loves God and goodness there can be nothing so odious as to be suspected of hypocrisy and to know that he is believed to be perpetrating crimes at the opposite extreme from his public profession. Yet this was what Jesus was accused of. Possibly there was not a single human being, when He died, who believed that He was what He claimed to be.
6. If to the holy soul of Jesus it was painful to be believed to be guilty of sins which He had not committed, it must have been still more painful to feel that He was being thrust into sin itself. This attempt was olden made. Satan tried it in the wilderness, and although only this one temptation of his is detailed, he no doubt often returned to the attack. Wicked men tried it; they resorted to every device to cause Him to lose His temper (Luk_11:53-54). Even friends, who did not understand the plan of His life, endeavoured to direct Him from the course prescribed to Him by the will of God--so much so that He had once to turn on one of them, as if he were temptation personified, with Get thee behind Me, Satan.
7. While the proximity of sin awoke such loathing in His holy soul, and the touch of it was to Him like the touch of fire on delicate flesh, He was brought into the closest contact with it, and hence arose His deepest suffering. It pressed its loathsome presence on Him from a hundred quarters. He who could not bear to look on it saw it in its worst forms close to His very eyes. His own presence in the world brought it out; for goodness stirs up the evil lying at the bottom of wicked hearts. It was as if all the sin of the race were rushing upon Him, and Jesus felt it as if it were all His own. (J. Stalker, D.D.)
The Man of sorrows
I. THE LANGUAGE DOES NOT DESCRIBE THE CASE OF ONE WHO ENCOUNTERED ONLY THE ORDINARY OR THE AVERAGE AMOUNT OF THE TRIALS WHICH BELONG TO HUMAN LIFE. There is implied in it a pre-eminence in sorrow, a peculiarly deep experience of grief.
II. OF ALL THE MANY GRIEFS OF THE DIVINE REDEEMER IN HIS HUMAN LIFE, THERE WAS NOT ONE WHICH HE HIMSELF EITHER NEEDED OR DESERVED TO BEAR. When the apostle tells us that He was made perfect through suffering, the meaning is that He was by this means made officially perfect as a Saviour, as the Captain of salvation, and the High-Priest of His redeemed, and not that He lacked any moral excellence, to acquire which suffering was needful. So again, when it is said that He learned obedience by the things which He suffered, the meaning obviously is, that by putting Himself in a state of humiliation, and in the condition of a servant under law, He came to know by experience what it was to render obedience to the law, and not at all that He was ever defective in the least, as to the spirit of obedience to the Fathers will. As He had no need of any improvement of His virtues, He had no faults, no sins, which called for chastisement.
III. ALL THE SUFFERINGS OF THE LORD JESUS WERE ENDURED WITH UNWAVERING FORTITUDE.
IV. IN ALL THE GRIEFS AND SORROWS WHICH THE BLESSED SAVIOUR SUFFERED, HIS MIND WAS CHIEFLY OCCUPIED WITH THE GOOD RESULTS IN WHICH HIS SUFFERINGS WERE TO ISSUE. He deliberately entered on His singular career of humiliation and self-sacrifice for the good of man and the glory of God. Practical lessons:
1. If even the Son of God, when on earth, was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, we certainly should not think it strange that days of trial are appointed unto us.
2. If our blessed Lord felt keenly what He suffered, and was even moved to tears, we need not reproach ourselves because we deeply feel our trials, and cannot but weep in the fulness of our grief.
3. If Christ was a willing sufferer, deliberately choosing to suffer for the good of others, we surely should consent to suffer for our own advantage.
4. If our blessed Lord and Saviour made less account of what He suffered than of the good results that were to follow, it is wise at least in us to do the same. (Ray Palmer, D.D.)
Christ the Man of sorrows
While on earth He was surrounded by many sources of pleasure. The earth teemed with every form of life, and the air was melodious with music. The sceneries of His native country suggested the sublimest imagery, and inspired poetry of the highest kind: and had He possessed none of these, He would have been perfectly happy; for He was the Infinite; His sorrows arose from--
I. THE FELT RELATION OF A LOVING BEING TO A RUINED RACE.
II. THE CRUSHING PRESSURE OF HIS MEDIATORIAL WORK.
III. HIS CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE THAT THE RESULT OF HIS MISSION WOULD NOT BE EQUAL TO THE BENEVOLENCE OF HIS WILL. (Evan Lewis, B.A.)
The mystery of sorrow
I. CONSIDER ITS RELATION TO MAN. There are facts which know no frontiers. In the inner life of thought and feeling such is sorrow. It is a universal language, it obliterates space, it annihilates time; it is the great leveller, it ignores rank, it stands head and shoulders above any dignity. Think again, it is too sacred to be only universal. It is also an intimate fact. None can comfort. There may be sweet help, deep and real sympathy, not comfort, no, for none can undo the tragic truth. Yes, there is One. One can come nearest to the feeling, mad, in our eternal life, in a sense He can undo. One, only One, has gathered up the representative experiences of all.
II. The thought gains precision when we remember that IT BEARS A WITNESS FOR GOD. Let Love meet death or trouble, and the result is sorrow. This noblest human sorrow so begotten is a witness to the Source of its being. Love, the love of the creature, is his highest endowment from the Love of God.
III. SORROW GAINS A CLEARER OUTLINE TO ITS FRAIL AND MISTY FORM AS SEEN IN ITS RELATION TO WHAT IS CALLED THE SCHEME OF REDEMPTION; seen, that is, in its place in the awakening and restoring of the human spirit, great though fallen. Sorrow here is a power. It takes varying tints.
1. At the darkest, it is a power of warning, of prophecy. It warns of a stern reality in this world--the dreadfulness of sin.
2. Better, it is a power to transfigure. Repentance is the one path to pardon, and it is a certain path. Whence comes true repentance? It comes from Gods love seen in fairest, saddest image in the Man of sorrows
3. It is a power to purify. Sorrow sends you in on self. Godless sorrow would make self more selfish, working death; not so sorrow from the Cross of Christ. A life searched out, repented of, is a spirit purified. (W. J. KnoxLittle, M.A.)
The suffering Christ
I. THE MATTER, what He suffered.
II. THE MANNER, how He came to suffer.
III. THE REASONS and ends why, for our good. Here are three chief lessons for a Christian to learn:--
1. Patience and comfort.
2. Humility.
3. In the end, love. All this was for you. What will you do for God again? (T. Manton, D..D.)
Sir Noel Patons Man of Sorrows
To the painter ere he sat down to produce this work of art many questions would suggest themselves. Among them, doubtless, would be these:--
1. What shall be the scene? Of course, the artist would naturally think of many scenes in our Lords life more or less appropriate for such a representation. The painter seems to have recognized the great truth which we all must have proved to some extent, that man tastes deepest of sorrow in loneliness, that the cross which weighs heaviest on any shoulder is not the cross which the world can see, but which is borne out of sight, when the heart, and no one else save God, knoweth its own bitterness. Thus Sir Noel Paton has represented The Man of Sorrows as isolated from His fellows, far away from the habitations of men and shut out of the world. The whole picture is one of desolation. In its centre and foreground is represented The Man of Sorrows sitting upon a jagged rock. And, oh, what sorrow is depicted there! Those large, full, liquid eyes brim over with tears; every expression of the countenance is charged with grief; the lips are wan, and a deep furrow crosses that young, manly brow. The swollen veins in the neck and temple, the powerful muscular action in the right hand, as with open fingers it rests heavily upon the rocks and in the left clenched tightly as it presses upon the thigh, and in the feet as they press the earth convulsively underneath--for the Man of Sorrows is represented with head uncovered and feet unsandalled--all these tell the story of an awful tension of a withering sorrow.
2. Closely and inseparably connected with the question of scene is that of the period in our Lord s life in which He can most appropriately be represented as the Man of sorrows. The artist chooses the eve of the Temptation, and thus selects the greatest transitional period of our Saviours life--that beginning with the Baptism and closing with the Temptation. The time of day chosen is the twilight of morning. There is something in the twilight that is consistent not only with solemn, but also with sad thoughts and feelings.
3. What can account for the sorrow! You look to the picture in vain for the solution. The painting is a problem, an enigma. It is purposely so. The painter presents to us the great fact, not its explanation. He goes to Inspired Writ for that, and thus refers the perplexed spectator to the words of Isaiah as supplying the key to the whole painting: He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, etc. (verses 4-6). These are the words which Sir Noel Paton adopts, and practically says, There! that is what I mean. We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. How shall this false estimate of Him be corrected? Look at the picture; that Man of sorrows looks up and holds communion with the skies; see the half-open mouth expressive of expectation, and those eyes so full of tears and yet so full of vision. Verily He is not alone--the Father is with Him; for from the heavens and from a source other than the sun there descends through a rift of the clouds a shaft of light that looks like the light of the Fathers countenance, and rests upon the face of this Sorrowing One. This human countenance thus lit up by the light of the Divine countenance is the painters sublime answer to the old-world estimate of the Man of sorrows. What need of any more! (D. Davies.)
Christs life a model for His people
The more deeply we enter into the meaning of Christ considered as the Divine Man, the more distinctly revealed it becomes to us that what His life was our life is intended to be. There are instincts and there are impulses and ambitions that shrink from coming under the sovereignty of a commitment so cordial and entire. That accounts for the disproportionate emphasis so customarily laid upon the commercial feature of the atonement. It is easier and it is lazier to believe in a Christ that is going to pay my debts for me, than it is to grow up in Christ into a Divine endowment, that shall be itself the cure for insolvency and the material of wealth Divine and inexhaustible. You have really done nothing for a poor man by paying his debts for him, unless in addition to squaring his old accounts you have in such manner dealt with him as to guarantee him against being similarly involved in the time to come. Emphasize as we may the merely ransoming work of Christ, we are not made free men by having our fetters broken off, and we are not made wealthy men by having our debts paid. It is not what Christ delivers us from, but what He translates us into that makes us saved men in Christ. (C. H.Parkhurst, D. D.)
Our Lords life lived in shadow
No fair reading of the narrative of Christs life will leave the impression that sorrow of heart was a grace that Christ cultivated. The pathetic was not a temper of spirit which He encouraged in Himself or in others. Heaviness of mind was not a thing to be sought in and for itself. There is no gain saying the fact that one great object of His mission was to make the world glad. Still for all that He was a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. It needs also to be said that for us to be heavy-hearted merely because Christ was, to be sorrowful by a sheer act of imitation, is distinctly repugnant to everything like Christian sense, and at the farthest possible remove from all that deserves to be called Christian sincerity. Neither can we leave out of the account all those passages, especially in the New Testament, where particular praise is accorded to gladness of heart.
The problems of life involve sorrow
Nevertheless, when all these caveats have been entered and gladness of heart eulogized to the fullest extent, authorized by multitudinous expressions occurring throughout the entire Scriptures, it still remains beyond dispute that our Lords life was lived in shadow, and that He died at last less because of the nails and the spear-wounds, than He did of a broken heart. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
The sorrow of strained powers
He came to interfere with the natural current of event. And it made Him tired. And a man, even a Divine man, is less apt to laugh when He is tired. A good deal of what we call our gladness of heart, if we will care to scrutinize it, is simply the congenial luxury of drifting down the current of event. If you are pulling your boat up-stream you will be sober while you are about it. Strained powers are serious. It is the farthest from our thought to disparage exuberance or even hilarity; nevertheless, it remains a fact that hilarity is feeling out at pasture and not feeling under the yoke. It is steam escaping at the throttle because it is not pushing at the piston. I venture to say that Christ could not shake His purpose off. He was here to stay the downward drift of event; the purpose was too vast to be easily flung aside, and His muscles were too solidly knotted to it to be easily unknotted and relaxed. And we shall have to go on and say that it was an inherent part of Christ to have a purpose and to be mightily bent to its achievement; and not only that, it was an inherent part of Christ as the Saviour of this world to seize upon the current of event and of history and to under take to reverse it. Exactly that was the genius of the Christ-mission. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
The Christ-life in the Christian
You cannot drift down the tide of event and be a Christ man or a Christ woman. The world is to be saved; the tide is to be reversed. Man inspired of God is to do it; and you cannot buckle yourself down to that problem in Christian whole-heartedness and not grow sober under it. Now you see the philosophy of the sober Christ. He flung Himself against forty centuries of bad event, and the Divine Man got bruised by the impact. He stood up and let forty centuries jump on Him; He held His own, but blood broke through His pores in perspiration, and about that there is nothing humorous. The edge of this truth is not broken by the fact that Christ took hold of the work of the worlds saving in a larger way than it is possible for us to do, and that therefore the burden of His undertaking came upon Him in a heavier, wider, and more crushing way than it can come upon us; and that therefore while it overwhelmed Him in sorrow, our smaller mission and lighter task can with entire propriety leave us buoyant and gladsome. All of that conception of the case lacks dignity and reach You cant take hold of a great matter in a small way. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
The sorrow of love
It is but a step now to go on and speak of the saddening effect necessarily flowing from the circumstances under which in this world Christian work has to be done. It was the love which Christ had for the world that made Him sad while doing His work in the world; and the infinitude of His love is what explains the unutterableness of His pain; for the world in which Christ fulfilled His mission was a suffering world. Now a man who is without love can be in the midst of suffering and, not suffer. A loveless spirit grieves over his own pain, but has no sense of anothers pain, and no feeling of being burdened by anothers pain. Love has this peculiar property, that it makes the person whom we love one with us, so that his experience becomes a part of our own life, his pain becomes painful to us, his burdens make us tired. The mother feels her childs pain as keenly as though it were her own pain, perhaps more so. In its Divine relations this is all expressed in those familiar words of Scripture, In all their affliction He was afflicted. Sympathy is the form which love takes in a suffering world. Love is the finest type of communism. (C. H.Parkhurst, D. D.)
Christs great capacity for suffering
The measure of our being is our capacity for sorrow or joy. Captain Conder speaks of the shadow cast by Mount Hermon being as much as seventy miles long at some periods. Was it not the very greatness of Christ that made His joys and His griefs equally unique? (H. O. Mackey.)
We hid as it were our faces from Him
A sad confession
In the margin of your Bibles this passage is rendered, He hid as it were His face from us. The literal translation of the Hebrew would be, He was as a hiding of faces from Him, or from us. Some critical readers think these words were intended to describe our Lord as having so humbled Himself, and brought Himself to such a deep degradation, that He was comparable to the leper who covered his face and cried, Unclean, unclean, hiding himself from the gaze of men. Abhorred and despised by men, He was like one put aside because of His disease and shunned by all mankind. Others suppose the meaning to be that on account of our Lord s terrible and protracted sorrow His face wore an expression so painful and grievous that men could scarcely bear to look upon Him. They hid as it were their faces from Him--amazed at that brow all carved with lines of anxious thought, those cheeks all ploughed with furrows of deep care, those eyes all sunk in shades of sadness, that soul bowed down, exceeding sorrowful, even unto death! It may be so; we cannot tell. I have a plain, practical purpose to pursue. Here is an indictment to which we must all plead guilty.
I. Sometimes men hide their faces from Jesus IN COOL CONTEMPT OF HIM. How astounding! how revolting! He ought surely to be esteemed by all mankind.
1. Some show their opposition by attempting to ignore or to tarnish the dignity of His person.
2. Are there not others who affect great admiration for Jesus of Nazareth as an example of virtue and benevolence, who nevertheless reject His mediatorial work as our Redeemer? As a substitutionary sacrifice they do not and cannot esteem Him.
3. Then they will pour contempt upon, the various doctrines of His Gospel.
4. And with what pitiful disdain the Lord s people are slighted! Do I address anybody who has despised the Lord Jesus Christ? Your wantonness can offer no excuse but your ignorance. And as for your ignorance, it is without excuse.
II. A far more common way in which men hide their faces from Christ is BY THEIR HEEDLESSNESS, THEIR INDIFFERENCE, THEIR NEGLECT.
III. We hid as it were our faces from Him BY PREFERRING ANY OTHER MODE OF SALVATION TO SALVATION BY FAITH IN CHRIST.
IV. After we were quite sure that we could not be saved other than by the one Mediator, do you remember how we continued to hide our face from Jesus BY PERSISTENT UNBELIEF IN HIM.
V. But there are some of us who must plead guilty to another charge; we have hidden as it were our faces from Him since He has saved us, and since we have known His love, BY OUR SILLY SHAME AND OUR BASE COWARDICE.
VI. Many, if not all, of us who are believers will penitently confess that we have sometimes hidden our faces from Christ BY NOT WALKING IN CONSTANT FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM. (C. H. Spurgeon.) We hid as it were our faces from Him. Literally, as one from whom there is hiding of face, as if shrinking from a horrible sight. (Canon Cook.) The impersonal form refers to the men just named, or all those of note and influence. Their faces were averted from Him, as a lunatic, beside Himself, or one possessed, as a deceiver and a blasphemer. (T.R. Birks.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Isa_53:3. He is despised and rejected of men, &c.
THE DESPISED AND REJECTED SAVIOUR
Isa_53:3. He is despised and rejected of men, &c.
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This is a summary of the history of our Lord, as it is recorded by the four Evangelists. His very first hours on earth may be cited in proof of its correctness. No place could be found for Him even in an inn. His life was a life of poverty. Scorn and insult followed Him everywhere. His life closed amid circumstances of unspeakable ignominy. In these facts we have,
I. A reason for not being very strongly desirous of popularity. It is natural to desire the approval of our fellow-men; but no wise and good man will make this the end of his actions. He will seek to do right; if men applaud him for doing so, well; but if not, he will not be greatly grieved. He will not murmur because he is called to drink of the cup that Christ drank of. Shall the servant be above his Lord?
II. A consolation when fidelity to duty exposes us to unpopularity. To be reproached and ridiculed; to have our actions misjudged and our motives misrepresented; to be deserted by those whom we regarded as our friends, to be pursued by the enmity of foes whom we have not wronged, is a bitter trial. But if it should be ours, let us remember that Christ trod the same path of suffering, and sympathises with us.
III. An argument for entire consecration to the service of Christ.—The shame and suffering of which the text speaks, Christ endured for us (2Co_5:14-16).—W. H. Sullivan, M.A.: Parish Sermons, pp. 206–222).
THE MAN OF SORROWS
Isa_53:3. A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.
The subject of the sorrows of the Saviour has proved to be more efficacious for comfort to mourners than any other theme in the compass of revelation, or out of it. Christ is in all attitudes “the consolation of Israel,” but He is most so as a man of sorrows. As Aaron’s rod swallowed up all the other rods, so the griefs of Jesus make our griefs disappear.
I. “A MAN.” We can never meditate too much upon Christ’s blessed person as God and as man. He who is here called a man was certainly “very God of very God;” “a man,” and “a man of sorrows,” and yet at the same time “God over all, blessed for ever.” His manhood was not the less real and substantial. It differed from our own humanity in the absence of sin, but it differed in no other respect. He was no phantasm, but a man of flesh and blood, even as ourselves; a man needing sleep, requiring food and subject to pain, and a man who, in the end, yielded up His life to death (Php_2:7).
This condescending participation in our nature brings the Lord Jesus very near to us in relationship. Inasmuch as He was man, though also God, He was, according to Hebrew law, our goel—our kinsman, next of kin. According to the law, if an inheritance had been lost, it was the right of the next of kin to redeem it. Our Lord Jesus exercised His legal right, and seeing us sold into bondage and our inheritance taken from us, came forward to redeem both us and all our lost estate. A blessed thing it was for us that we had such a kinsman!—It would not have been consistent with Divine justice for any other substitution to have been accepted for us, except that of a man. Man sinned, and man must make reparation for the injury done to the Divine honour.
Sinner, thou mightest well tremble to approach Him whom thou hast so grievously offended; but there is a man ordained to mediate between thee and God (H. E. I. 889).
Every child of God ought also to be comforted by the fact that our Redeemer is one of our own race, tempted in all points like as we are, that He might be able to succour them that are tempted. The sympathy of Jesus is the next most precious thing to His sacrifice. [1617]
[1617] It has been to me, in seasons of great pain, superlatively comfortable to know that in every pang which racks His people the Lord Jesus has a fellow-feeling. How completely it takes the bitterness out of grief to know that it, once was suffered by Him! The Macedonian soldiers, it is said, made long forced marches which seemed to be beyond the power of mortal endurance, but the reason for their untiring energy lay in Alexander’s presence. He was accustomed to walk with them, and bear the like fatigue. If the king himself had been carried like a Persian monarch in a palanquin, in the midst of easy, luxurious state, the soldiers would soon have grown tired; but, when they looked upon the king of men himself, hungering when they hungered, thirsting when they thirsted, often putting aside the cup of water offered to him, and passing it to a fellow-soldier who looked more faint than himself, they could not dream of repining. Every Macedonian felt that he could endure any fatigue if Alexander could. This day, assuredly, we can bear poverty, slander, contempt, or bodily pain, or death itself, because Jesus Christ our Lord has borne it.—Spurgeon.
II. “A MAN OF SORROWS.” The expression is intended to be very emphatic, it is not “a sorrowful man,” but “a man of sorrows,” as if He were made up of sorrows, and they were constituent elements of His being. Some are men of pleasure, others men of wealth, but He was “a man of sorrows.”
Our Lord is called “a man of sorrows,”
(1.) For peculiarity, for this was His peculiar token and special mark. We might well call Him “a man of holiness;” for there was no fault in Him: or a man of labours, for He did His Father’s business earnestly; or “a man of eloquence,” for never man spake like this man. Yet had we gazed upon Christ and been asked afterwards what was the most striking peculiarity in Him, we should have said His sorrows. The various parts of His character were so singularly harmonious that no one quality predominated, so as to become a leading feature. But there was a peculiarity, and it lay in the fact that “His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men,” through the excessive griefs which continually passed over His spirit. Tears were His insignia, and the cross His escutcheon. He was the warrior in black armour, and not as now the rider upon the white horse. He was the lord of grief, the prince of pain, the emperor of anguish, a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”
2. By way of eminence. He was not only sorrowful, but pre-eminent among the sorrowful. All men have a burden to bear, but His was heaviest of all. Common sufferers must give place, for none can match with Him in woe. He who was the most obedient Son smarted most under the rod when He was stricken of God and afflicted; no other of the smitten ones have sweat great drops of blood, or in the same bitterness of anguish cried, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
The reasons for this superior sorrow may be found in the fact that with His sorrow there was no admixture of sin. Sin deserves sorrow, but it also blunts the edge of grief by rendering the soul untender and unsympathetic. We do not start at sin as Jesus did, we do not tremble at the sinner’s doom as Jesus would. His was a perfect nature, which, because it knew no sin, was not in its element amid sorrow, but was like a land bird driven out to sea by the gale. To the robber the jail is his home, and the prison fare is the meat to which he is accustomed, but to an innocent man a prison is misery, and everything about it is strange and foreign. Our Lord’s pure nature was peculiarly sensitive of any contact with sin; we, alas! by the Fall, have lost much of that feeling. Our hands grow horny with toiling, and our hearts with sinning; but our Lord was, as it were, like a man whose flesh was all one quivering wound; He was delicately sensitive of every touch of sin. We go through thorn-brakes and briars of sin because we are clothed with indifference, but imagine a naked man, compelled to traverse a forest of briars—and such was the Saviour, as to His moral sensitiveness. He could see sin where we cannot see it, and feel its heinousness as we cannot feel it: there was therefore more to grieve Him, and He was more capable of being grieved.
Side by side with His painful sensitiveness of the evil of sin, was His gracious tenderness towards the sorrows of others. All men’s sorrows were His sorrows. His heart was so large, that it was inevitable that He should become “a man of sorrows.”
Besides this, our Saviour had a peculiar relationship to sin. Sin was laid upon Him, and He was Himself numbered with the transgressors; and therefore He was called to bear the terrible blows of Divine justice, and suffered unknown, immeasurable agonies. “It pleased the Father to bruise Him, He hath put Him to grief.” behold the man, and mark how vain it would be to seek His equal sorrow.
3. To indicate the constancy of His afflictions. Born in a stable, sorrow received Him, and only on the cross at His last breath did sorrow part with Him. His disciples might forsake Him, but His sorrows would not leave Him. He was often alone without a man, but never alone without a grief.
4. Because of the variety of His woes; He was a man not of sorrow only, but of “sorrows.” All the sufferings of the body and of the soul were known to Him. Affliction emptied its quiver upon Him, making His heart the target for all conceivable woes.
(1.) Our Lord was a man of sorrows as to His poverty. Oh, you who are in want, your want is not so abject as His: He had not where to lay His head, but you have at least some humble roof to shelter you.
(2.) Our Saviour knew the heart-rendings of bereavement. Jesus wept, as He stood at the tomb of Lazarus.
(3.) Perhaps the bitterest of His sorrows were those which were connected with His gracious work. He came as the Messiah sent of God, on an embassage of love, and men rejected His claims. There was no name of contempt which they did not pour upon Him; nay, it was not merely contempt, but they proceeded to falsehood, slander, and blasphemy. There was not a word He spoke but they would wrest it; not a doctrine but what they would misrepresent it: He could not speak but what they would find in His words some occasion against Him. Was there ever man so full of goodwill to others, who received such disgraceful treatment from those He longed to serve?
(4.) His was a lonely life; even when He was with His followers, He was alone. [1620]
(5.) In the last crowning sorrows of His life, there came upon Him the penal inflictions from God, the chastisement of our peace, which was upon Him. The sharpest scourging and severest griefs were all within; while the hand of God bruised Him, and the iron rod of justice broke Him, as it were, upon the wheel.
[1620] Even if they sympathised with Him to the utmost of their capacity, they could not enter into such griefs as His. A father in a house with many little children about him, cannot tell his babes his griefs; if he did they would not comprehend him. What know they of his anxious business transactions, or his crushing losses? Poor little things, their father does not wish they should be able to sympathise with him; he looks down upon them, and rejoices that their toys will comfort them, and that their little prattle will not be broken in upon by his great griefs. The Saviour, from the very dignity of His nature, must suffer alone. The mountain-side, with Christ upon it, seems to me to be a suggestive symbol of His earthly life. His great soul lived in vast solitudes, sublime and terrible, and there amid a midnight of trouble, His spirit communed with the Father, no one being able to accompany Him into the dark glens and gloomy ravines of His unique experience. Of all His life’s warfare He might have said in some senses, “of the people there was none with me;” and at the last it became literally true, for they all forsook Him—one denied Him and another betrayed Him, so that He trod the wine-press alone.—Spurgeon.
III. “ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF.”
1. With grief He had an intimate acquaintance. He did not know merely what it was in others, but it came home to Himself. We have read of grief, sympathised with grief, sometimes felt grief: but the Lord felt it more intensely than other men in His innermost soul; He, beyond us all, was conversant with this black-letter lore.
2. It was a continuous acquaintance. It was indeed a growing acquaintance with grief, for each step took Him deeper down into the grim shades of sorrow. As there is a progress in the teaching of Christ and in the life of Christ, so is there also in the griefs of Christ. The tempest lowered darker, and darker, and darker. His sun rose in a cloud, but it set in congregated horrors of heaped-up night, till, in a moment, the clouds were suddenly rent in sunder, and, as a loud voice proclaimed, “It is finished!” glorious morning dawned where all expected an eternal night.
3. This acquaintance of Christ with grief was a voluntary acquaintance for our sakes. He need never have known a grief at all, and at any moment He might have said to grief, Farewell. But He remained to the end, out of love to us, grief’s acquaintance.
What shall I say in conclusion, but just this: let us admire the superlative love of Jesus. O love, what hast thou done! Thou art omnipotent in suffering. Few of us can bear pain, perhaps fewer still of us can bear misrepresentation, slander, and ingratitude. These are horrible hornets which sting as with fire: men have been driven to madness by cruel scandals which have distilled from venomous tongues. Christ, throughout life, bore these and other sufferings. Let us love Him, as we think of how much He must have loved us.—C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 1099.
“Behold the man!” There is a fascination in His human sympathies, tears, words, that is irresistible. As we toil on our way amid sorrow and distress, we remember Who it is that has power to succour the tempted (Heb_4:15). The Redeemer was emphatically “a man of sorrows.” In the Gospel narrative this is more frequently implied than expressed, although there are not wanting passages in which it is definitely stated (Mar_3:5; Joh_11:35; Mat_26:37-38).
There are various causes for sorrow:—
I. ISOLATION OF SPIRIT.—It is no mere conceit, in which the poet tells us that
“Not e’en the tenderest heart, and next our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh.”
A wiser than he had said: “The heart knoweth its own bitterness,” &c. This solitariness of spirit was the heritage of Christ.
1. There was no spirit on earth that could claim perfect kindred with His spirit. No sympathy—in the true use of the word—could be between Him and sinful souls. The best and holiest could not look upon life from His standpoint, nor enter into His feelings, nor share His aspirations.
2. He was love personified; they were selfish. The affections of His heart were perpetually welling up like an inexhaustible fountain; they were wrapped up in self, and knew no higher delight than self-gratification—no higher principle than love of self.
3. His heart yearned after companionship, and found it not. It called to its fellows, but they understood not its language. Hence He was alone (Isa_63:3).
II. THE CONTEMPLATION OF SORROW IN OTHERS. This was pre-eminently the case with Jesus Christ. When the news of the Baptist’s death was brought to Him, He went into the wilderness, but at the cry of human need He soon came forth again; and as soon as He saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion toward them, and healed their sick. As He journeyed from place to place there were always appeals to His tenderest feelings. Not often was He called to the house of mirth; but He was frequently sought to go to the house of mourning. We find Him once at a marriage feast; once at the table of Simon; twice “eating with publicans and sinners,” and sharing the modest hospitalities of Bethany; but sorrowing hearts were always seeking His comfort and His help.
III. BEREAVEMENT. The world has never heard a more touching story than that at Bethany. For Himself He shed no tears, and gently reproved those who wept for Him but; the sight of misery in others drew floods of tears from His eyes.
IV. DISAPPOINTMENT. Of this Jesus tasted to the full. “He went about doing good;” surely from all the seed He sowed He had a right to expect a bountiful harvest! Yet the seed fell for the most part on unproductive soil (Mat_13:1-9). The nine lepers who returned not to give thanks for their cleansing were but typical of multitudes who selfishly received all and gave nothing in return (Psa_106:13). Thousands followed Him, because “they did eat of the loaves and were filled;” Those who attached themselves to Him were but few, while even these left Him at the last. Was there not something of disappointment in the compassion that moved Him to say, “O Jerusalem,” &c.? (Mat_23:37.) Said not Isaiah truly, He was “a man of sorrows”? Tears were His meat day and night, and He could say: “Reproach hath broken My beart,” &c. (Psa_69:20).—Frederick Wagstaff: Study and Pulpit, New Series (1876), pp. 237–239.
I. The sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. A sanctuary we should enter with reverence, &c.
1. His were chiefly agonies of the soul.
2. The magnitude and intensity of any soul’s sufferings are in proportion to the soul’s greatness. The greater the soul, the greater its capacity for suffering.
3. How the agonies of His soul and body reacted upon each other. The agony of His soul, acting upon the body, produced utter prostration. His physical suffering reacted again upon His soul.
4. We must also take into account their propitiatory character.
II. The relation of His sufferings to those of whom it is here said that they despise and reject Him.
1. The object for which He came was to save them.
2. To despise and reject Him is a poor return for all His love.
3. We may well be ashamed that the Lord of life and glory should receive such treatment in our world. He is despised and rejected still. He that despiseth Christ wrongeth his own soul—deprives it of its highest and only true and enduring bliss. You cannot do without Christ.—L. H. Byrnes, B.A.: The Christian World, June 8, 1866.
How pathetic is the designation here applied to the Messiah, and how truly was it verified in Jesus—“A Man of Sorrows!”
I. The fact that the Lord Jesus was, in His humiliation, a Man of Sorrows. There are minds that resent this description, that deem it incredible that it should apply to a Divine Being, or regard such a picture as marred by an unwholesome sentiment. In fact, the true and full impression of the picture can only be received by those who acknowledge both the Deity and the Humanity of Christ. We recognise several elements in this sorrow.
1. There was personal sorrow when He wept tears of grief, when there escaped Him groans of disappointment.
2. The sorrow of sympathy and compassion, when He grieved for His friends, for His nation, for the disobedient and rebellious, for the sin stricken race of man.
3. Christ’s was progressive sorrow. It gathered thick as a cloud above His head as His ministry advanced. It culminated with life’s close in Gethsemane and on Calvary.
II. How it came to pass that the Lord Jesus was a Man of Sorrows.
1. It was through His contact with sin and with sinners,—to a nature like His how specially painful and distressing.
2. It was also through His conscious bearing of sin; the sins of the whole world having been laid upon Him and assumed by Him.
3. He suffered through His conflict with sin, He endured the contradiction of sinners. Wounds and scars were inflicted upon His sensitive nature in this appalling battle.
III. With what intent the Lord Jesus deigned to become a Man of Sorrows.
1. That He might be the representative man, the Head of an afflicted humanity.
2. That He might be the Saviour—perfect through sufferings, as the Captain of our salvation.
3. That He might be a sympathising High Priest, touched with a feeling of our infirmities. His sorrows were to avert our woes and to procure our bliss.—The Homiletical Library, vol. ii. p. 78.
I. The language of our text does not describe the case of one who encountered only the ordinary or the average amount of the trials which belong to human life. There is implied in it a pre-eminence in sorrow, a peculiarly deep experience of grief.
II. Of all the many griefs of the Divine Redeemer in His human life, there was not one which He Himself either needed or deserved to bear.
III. All the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, so painful, and so entirely unnecessary and undeserved on His own account, were endured with unwavering fortitude, [1623]
[1623] He was to the last moment of His life a willing sufferer. He was moved, deeply moved by sorrow; and He wept—wept often, it is probable. Tears are the innocent, and many times the sweet relief of the distressed. He dreaded suffering, too, like others, when He saw its near approach, and felt the instinctive desire to be saved from its bitter pangs; but, notwithstanding this, His fortitude was steady and unyielding; so that He met the hour of anguish, at all times, with a noble constancy of soul. When human nature, almost overborne by the weight of anguish, prompted the petition, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” the unbending strength of moral purpose, the enduring energy of perfect self-devotion, at once dictated the addition: “Father, Thy will be done.” … Even His last mournful exclamation under the hidings of the Father’s face, in the last affecting scene on Calvary, is no exception to the truth of these remarks; for that was only a testimony to the world of the extremity of the anguish which its Redeemer consented to endure, and not at all the utterance of faltering or failing resolution.—Ray Palmer.
IV. In all the griefs and sorrows which the blessed Saviour suffered, His mind was chiefly occupied with the good results in which His sufferings were to issue (Heb_12:2).
PRACTICAL LESSONS.
1. If even the Son of God, when on earth, was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief, we certainly should not think it strange that days of trial are appointed unto us.
2. If our blessed Lord felt keenly what He suffered, and was even moved to tears, we need not reproach ourselves because we deeply feel our trials, and cannot but weep in the fulness of our grief (P. D. 3287).
3. If Christ was a willing sufferer, deliberately choosing to suffer for the good of others, we surely should consent to suffer for our own advantage (H. E. I. 158; P. D. 3239, 3246).
4. If our blessed Lord made less account of what He suffered than of the good results which were to follow, it is wise at least in us to do the same (H. E. I. 2204–2221, 3678–3704).—Bay Palmer, D.D.: The National Preacher, vol. xxxviii. pp. 25–34.)
THE SUFFERING SAVIOUR
Isa_53:3-5. He is despised and rejected of men. &c.
A deliverer was expected. “The desire of all nations.” What sort of personage was He? He was a disappointment, and was treated as one. For He was a suffering Saviour. Yet this is His glory.
I. A SUFFERING SAVIOUR IN PROPHECY.
The text predicts this. Picture out the kind of career indicated in the text. Men admire grandeur, despise poverty and suffering. But He was “a man of sorrows;” and it is quite possible that He carried in His countenance the marks of inward suffering. Prophecy required that He should be a sufferer: this chapter, and many other passages. There are in fact two classes of prophecies—the one represents Him as a sufferer, the other as a reigning King. If He had not suffered, the proof of His Messiahship would have been fatally defective (Luk_18:31-34; Luk_24:26-27; Luk_24:44-46; Act_3:18).
II. A SUFFERING SAVIOUR IN HISTORY.
“Behold the man,” said Pilate. Was He not rejected, despised, “a man of sorrows”? Fine natures feel such a position as that in which He was placed, coarse natures do not. And there were deeper causes of sorrow than man could fathom. The prospect immediately before Him was sorrowful enough. He had said, “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour.” “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” He had agonised in the garden. He had sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. He had cried out for the cup to pass away. He had felt the bitterness of betrayal. He had been tried by the Jewish court. He had been crowned and scourged by the Roman soldiery. Ere many hours had passed He felt the shame, the pain, the fever of crucifixion. He was forsaken of God. His heart broke. His sufferings ended only with His life.
Such were the facts of history. Such were the requirements of prophecy. Thus—
1. Scripture was fulfilled.
2. His Messiahship was proved.
3. Satisfaction was made for sin. Repentance by itself is no satisfaction for past sin (H. E.
1. 4225–4228). Nor is reformation. Nor is there any force within man’s depraved nature that would impel to repentance. Therefore atonement is needed by another: Himself suitable as being Divine, human, sinless (Isa_53:4).
Such is the Saviour. Thus He suffered. Measuring love by the labour it is willing to undergo, the suffering it is willing to endure, the sacrifices it is willing to make, does the love of Christ burn in our hearts with intensity such as might be expected from our obligations to Him?
Have we indeed all received Him? Do not some, like the Jews, despise and reject Him? Reflect on this.
1. Its ingratitude.
2. Its presumption. In effect it says that God hath done an unnecessary thing in giving His Son: because the end could have been gained without it. Or, that the personal acceptance of Christ, though required in the Gospel, is an unnecessary requirement: because the salvation will be given without it.
3. Its rebelliousness. It is determined love of sin and resistance of God.—J. Rawlinson.
The sufferings of Christ must always be the main subject of the believer’s thought, for no other can compare with this either in the intensity, the universality, or the duration of its interests. Strangers may think the Cross repulsive, for it is to the Greeks foolishness; but to believers it is a revelation of the power and the goodness of God. “We preach Christ crucified,” says St. Paul, and from his day unto our own “Christ crucified” is the only foundation of hope, the only rock of faith, and the only bulwark against death. No wonder, then, that the absorbing enthusiasm of Christianity has been proved able to break mighty empires in pieces, and to subdue to itself the fiercest of human passions! Neither is this a subject of merely local interest. Moses might be compared to one of those desert chiefs whose very name is unheard in civilised lands, but Christ rather resembles those majestic conquerors who have aspired after a universal and enduring kingdom. Not Jerusalem, or Rome, but all the races of mankind, are ransomed by His death. Of this theme the Church will never weary, for, so long as there is a sorrow to heal, a temptation to conquer, or a sin to pardon—so long, in fact, as man continues to be man, so long will there be need of Jesus and the Resurrection. No advancement of knowledge or civilisation can atone for the want of a Saviour. Now that same Saviour on whom we trust was also the hope of the ancient prophets. We look back on an accomplished fact, and they looked forward to a glorious promise.
I. THE SUFFERINGS OF THE LORD’S LIFE. The sorrows of our Saviour’s life are in some respects more completely above our sympathy than those of His death; for, while we can understand the pang of the nail or the thorn, we cannot so easily realise His mental or moral sorrows. Yet these latter are not to be overlooked. There was,
1. Our Lord’s loneliness. Loneliness is the inevitable penalty of greatness. Our Lord’s loneliness may seem unimportant if we look only at His divinity, but He was as perfectly man as He was truly God. Whatever, therefore, is painful to sinless man was equally painful to Christ. Now no proof is needed that man hates to be alone. How lonely was His life! A few friends gathered round Him for a time, but forsook Him in His utmost need. Burdened with the world’s redemption, He was too great and high for human sympathy. The source of all kindness, and the Creator of all families, yet of Him we are compelled to say, “He hath trodden the winepress alone.” (See p. 478.)
2. His uninterrupted self-denial. No doubt an accomplished act of self-denial always produces satisfaction. The very nature of self-denial requires that the painful feelings predominate, otherwise the act would be self-indulgence. What life, then, can compare with the life of Christ? Whatever is pleasant He put far from Him, and whatever is painful He took as His own. Christ lived in sorrow because sorrow was His own free choice. Yet we may gladly remember the suffering Saviour. A Redeemer who lived in pomp and honour, amid the palaces of the state and the triumphs of nations, would be too grand for ordinary men; but when we see Him walking in weariness and in pain, or bitterly mourning at the tomb of a friend, or forsaken by the chosen twelve, then we remember that He was “bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.”
3. Our Lord’s purity and compassion. It may not at first be obvious that the purity of our Lord’s nature should produce sorrow; and yet, when we consider that He gave Himself up to the battle against impurity, we may conceive how He would shrink from contact with it. Contrast the splendid purity of that palace which He forsook, with that foul and loathsome dungeon of pollution which He entered, God’s holiness with our corruption, and then judge whether it was a small thing for Christ to live among men. Sin troubles only the pure, but sorrow appeals to all. Such an emotion always filled our Saviour’s breast. He saw all men, of every race and age, involved in one common ruin, &c. At last the burden of compassion became too heavy even for Him to bear, and He longed for the relief of the shame and agony of the cross (Luk_12:50).
4. The ingratitude and opposition of the Jews. Though no comparison can fully illustrate this subject, yet suppose that, when Satan’s host was cast down from heaven, a blessed spirit compassionated the awful ruin; suppose that, from the sacred light above, he journeys to the guilty darkness below, and there, by his own keen sorrow, he expiates the sin of the lost; yet suppose also that, while this strong spirit was kindling hope even in hell, all the spirits of the lost should agree to curse and torment their benefactor. “Impossible,” you cry; “impossible even in hell!” Alas! it was possible on earth. Count up the miracles of mercy, and then consider how soon indifference became ingratitude, and ingratitude ripened into opposition. We may blush for our humanity. Those who yesterday ate the sacred bread, to-day cry, “Crucify Him!” &c.
II. THE SUFFERINGS OF OUR LORD’S DEATH. We may not press too closely into that mysterious scene of woe. It is rather a topic for thought than speech.
1. Our Lord’s death was bitter and painful. “They pierced,” says the prophet, “my hands and my feet;” and, adds Isaiah, “He was smitten of God and afflicted.” For six hours He hung upon the cross. Yet doubtless His sorest sufferings were mental, for He bore all the sins of all the world. In some mysterious manner, the debt which we could never pay through all eternity, He paid in a moment of time. Yet surely He was supported by Divine consolation? Alas, no! He who stands in my place stands beneath offended justice; and hence, perhaps, that strange, mysterious cry, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Yet, as these sufferings were extreme, so the result of them was excellent. By them He purchased everlasting redemption for man; and equally by them He inspires us with a holy horror of sin.
2. Our Lord’s death was apparently that of a criminal. He was numbered with the transgressors. “We did esteem Him judicially smitten,” says Isaiah, and, adds the Evangelist, “He was crucified between two thieves.” The vilest wretch who dies to-day, amid the horrors of a public execution, is kindlier treated, meets with more sympathy and less contempt than did the Lord of glory. Consider, then, the innocence of His character, and the apparent guilt of His death. How great the contrast!
3. Thus our Lord died amid ignominy and contempt. The Romans considered crucifixion to be a doom too base for any but the vilest slaves, &c.
There is no need to add that these sorrows were the revelation of eternal love. “Herein is love,” herein and nowhere else is it so affectingly, so unequivocally proved, “Not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”—Bamford Burrows: The Methodist Recorder, March 29, 1877.
SYMPATHY WITH THE SUFFERING
(A Hospital Sunday Sermon.)
Isa_53:4. “Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”
This Scripture is quoted in 1Pe_2:24, as expressing the Saviour’s substitutionary suffering on the cross. It is quoted in Mat_8:17, as fulfilled by the Saviour’s healing miracles. It thus at first sight presents a considerable difficulty, which, however, disappears when you remember three things. First, that the scope of this chapter is to exhibit the suffering Saviour. Second, that the thing in the mind of Matthew was the Saviour’s intense sympathy, which took up into Himself the sorrows and sufferings of our fallen nature. Third, that some Scriptures are capable of many fulfilments. A passage may have one main meaning, yet that meaning may contain others within itself, as a tube may contain several tubes, or as a rose may contain many leaves overlapping each other. There is thus in the whole work of Jesus a twofold fulfilment of this important prophecy.
I. THAT WHICH CONSISTED IN HIS ATONING DEATH FOR SIN.
In this sense He took the infirmities and sicknesses of our souls. In the phraseology of the Old Testament the bearing of sin is equivalent to the consequences of its guilt. The Lord Jesus Christ was the great sin-bearer. He took upon Him our nature, not only that He might adequately represent humanity and be an example, but especially that He might bear the sin of man in His death on the cross (1Pe_2:24; 2Co_5:21). When you look for a reason why the Son of God became a man and was crucified, you cannot find it in any breach of law by Him, nor in the circumstance that He had provoked the authorities, and fallen under their power. You can only find it in the fact that His death was the atoning satisfaction for sin, on the ground of which its penal consequences can be removed from the sinner; and in the further fact that it is the fullest condemnation of sin, and the most powerful motive to abandon it. Thousands have believed this, and found peace to their consciences; and not only so, they find that faith in Him crucifies sin, and inspires them with the ardent desire to be free from its power. So that our text contains the three ideas essential to the Saviour’s work: viz.,
1. Suffering.
2. Substitution.
3. Salvation.
But this is not the only fulfilment of this prophecy. There is
II. THAT WHICH CONSISTED IN HIS FEELING FOR, AND HELP IN, MEN’S BODILY SUFFERINGS.
We must bear in mind the close connection between the body and the soul. Sin has affected both. While the seat of sin is the soul, the body, as its instrument, participates in the sin. It suffers in consequence of sin. In Scripture all bodily infirmity, suffering, death in man, is traced to sin. The disease of leprosy was selected by Moses as the representation of this truth. The exclusion of the leper from the congregation, and the ceremonies connected with his re-admission, marked and kept this great truth in memory.
It was therefore fitting that He who came to destroy death and sin should take into His view and into His heart, not only the spiritual, but the physical aspects of the case He had undertaken. Man’s completed redemption will be the redemption of the body at the resurrection. The final state of the glorified is one in which there shall be no more sorrow, nor sickness, nor pain, nor death. How then could He who came to accomplish that redemption be indifferent to the sufferings in which He saw a part of the misery He came to remove?
In this view, what a splendid career was His life on earth! There have been philanthropists, like Howard, and Wilberforce, and Clarkson, who have had compassion on the prisoner and the slave. But who has devoted Himself with such fulness of consecration and such forgetfulness of self? Whoever, in so short a time, accomplished so much, left such a mark behind Him in the grateful memories of those whom He had relieved and cured, and whose dark lives He had made bright by His healing touch? He could not see suffering without compassion, and He could not feel compassion without stretching out His hand to help.
In those works of beneficence He furnished a pre-intimation of the spirit that would characterise His religion. We have heard something about the religion of humanity. Men are to live for man rather than for God. Its practical effect will be nothing, because it takes away the motive power that would impel man to live for man. Nothing but the love of God creates the love of man. The idea is as old as Christianity; it is a part of Christianity, it is essential to it, it is borrowed from it. One of the first principles of practical Christianity is that “none of us liveth to himself.” “We live unto the Lord,” and our life to Him is manifested in living and working for our fellow-men. Christianity inspires its votaries with the desire to communicate it to others. But that is not all. In keeping with the idea that Christ has redeemed the human body as well as the human soul, it interests itself in everything that concerns the wellbeing of man. Wherever it is extended, it improves his material condition. The savage becomes civilised. Slavery has been abolished. Even war has yielded to its influence. There is greater reluctance to engage in it; restrictions are imposed on its conduct; benevolent ministers attend friend and foe alike on the battlefield. Christianity leads men to use their material opportunities to the best advantage; yet it does not encourage its votaries to turn coldly from those who have been unsuccessful in the race of life. The numberless institutions of the present day for the improvement of the material condition of the people, as a rule owe their origination and perpetuation to the humanising influence of Christianity.
And in these works of beneficence the Lord Jesus Christ furnished an example to His followers in all ages. Individually and personally they are called upon. They are to interest themselves in the spiritual and temporal wellbeing of man, as He did. They cannot work miracles. But they can perform the daily duties of life. Husbands, wives, parents, children, masters, servants, can imitate His consideration for others. There can be the visit to the sick and the troubled. The poor cannot perhaps be lifted out of their poverty; but they can be helped in it. It is of advantage to do such work personally as far as possible. But much of it can only, at least can best, be done by means of public institutions and societies. Thus the sending the gospel to the heathen. Thus ministration to the sick and wounded is most effectual by means of hospitals. Catch the spirit of Jesus.
The example is enforced by the unparalleled sacrifices He made to gain His end. Think of the number and variety of diseases and sufferings, and do what you can, like Jesus, to heal.—J. Rawlinson.
THE MYSTERY OF OUR LORD’S SUFFERINGS
Isa_53:4-5. We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, &c.
No man, free from bias and prejudice, can fail to see that in this chapter the Messiah—the suffering Messiah—is referred to. As little can any open-minded man fail to see, that in it the vicarious nature of Messiah’s sufferings is declared. He is the sinless One who bears on His own heart and life the burden of the sins of others. He is the sent One who bears that burden as God, and for Him.
The pathway of shame which the humbled Saviour trod comes into our view. We see the thick clouds gathering over Him. We hear men reviling the seemingly helpless sufferer. We read the stricken heart that for a moment even fears the Divine forsaking. We catch the dying cry, “It is finished! “and the last heart-breaking sigh. And through the blinding, sympathising tears we read, “He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities.”
The mystery of Christ’s sufferings! It may be profitable for us to meditate upon them, asking, What is man’s explanation of them and what is God’s?
I. THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST’S SUFFERINGS,—MAN’S EXPLANATION OF IT.
“We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” And it is impossible to say that this is other than a fair view to take from man’s position and with man’s knowledge.
1. Try and realise the process of thought in a man who was told of Christ’s sufferings and death, but had no knowledge of His personal innocence. To such a man it would be plain that God has established an immediate connection between sin and suffering. Throughout His wide domain God “by no means clears the guilty.” The suffering often comes openly, so that men may see it; sometimes it comes only to the man’s spirit; but it always comes. Upon the basis of this constant union between sin and suffering, the man might fairly argue that there must be a connection between suffering and sin, so that wherever he saw suffering he would suspect that sin was its cause (H. E. I. 4490, 4603–4610).
The discipline of chastisement through which the Christian passes may seem opposed to this view; it is only, however, lifting it up into a higher plane, and treating it with qualifying considerations. All discipline carries the idea of punishment; it is the recognition of some evil in the person on whom it rests. Since then the man is prepared to find sin wherever he finds suffering, he will be ready to explain the mystery of Christ’s sufferings by saying, “Christ had sinned.” and such a man, looking upon Christ as condemned by law, would further recognise God’s hand in His sufferings. For if human laws are to gain the respect of men, they must be regarded as the expression of God’s law. It was perhaps thus that the Jewish bigots thought of the Nazarene malefactor. Yet we know, we feel, that this explanation of the mystery of our Lord’s sufferings is insufficient and incorrect. Worthless—nay, wholly wrong—if He be the spotless Lamb of God.
2. Try to realise the process of thought in a man who has some knowledge of Christ’s life, and especially of His personal innocence. Such a man might say, Christ’s sufferings were a special and extraordinary Divine judgment. “He was smitten of God;” His death was a sad calamity. Calamity, that is, suffering of which the sufferer’s sin is not the immediate cause, is no such uncommon thing in the world. The tower of Siloam fell. The sin was Pilate’s; it did not belong to those whose blood was poured forth. They were smitten of God. The world has known many instances in which the innocent has been treated as the guilty. Such cases are mysteries; man can only say of the sufferers—“Smitten of God.” In the case of Christ, this, too, is insufficient; it is but the beginning of an explanation. A calamity! Yes, but only a seeming calamity, seeing that by dying He conquered death. Man cannot of himself explain the mystery of Christ’s sufferings.
II. THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST’S SUFFERINGS—GOD’S EXPLANATION OF IT. Notice—
1. That God sustains man’s view, that the sufferings of Christ were His appointment; but He further declares that they were an unusual, and altogether singular appointment. They were the voluntary fulfilment of a Divine decree; the carrying out to its completion, whatever that might involve, of a Divine mission (Joh_8:42; Joh_4:34; Joh_6:38). God the Father gave extraordinary witness to Him as His Son and Messenger (Mar_9:7); ancient prophecy represented Christ as saying, “Lo, I come,” &c. (Psa_40:7-8); and apostles firmly declare, “We have seen, and do testify,” &c. (1Jn_4:14). The direct connection of the life-work and the sufferings of Jesus with the redeeming plan and purpose of God, must be anxiously and watchfully maintained. The question of surpassing interest to us is, “What does God think of it all? How does it all stand related to His purposes of grace?”
2. God’s explanation declares that Christ’s sufferings bore no relation whatever to His own guilt. The text gives an explanation which excludes all others. If He had sinned, it is plain that He must have come under the condemnation of the Divine law, and must have been occupied with bearing the penalties of His own sin. But Christ suffered as the representative or substitute for others; His sufferings were wholly “vicarious;” borne in carrying out the great work He had undertaken, of delivering us from the penalty and the power of sin, and securing for us eternal peace with God. This is God’s wonderful solution of the question, “How shall man be just with God?”
CONCLUSION.—In the restoration of man to the Divine favour we can recognise three stages.
1. A loving purpose towards man cherished in the deep heart of the Holy Father.
2. That Divine and loving purpose effectually wrought out by God’s well-beloved and only begotten Song of Solomon 3. The voluntary and hearty acceptance, by the long-sought children, of the redemption thus gloriously wrought for them. The third stage is yet incomplete. For the love of God does not—perhaps we should say cannot—save you against your will. But is it so, can it be so, that you have no will to be saved? Put out the hand of faith. For “all we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”—Rev. Robert Tuck, B.A.: Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv. pp. 8–10.
(Sunday School Address.)
Compare the progress and the unfolding clearness of the Old Testament prophecies of Messiah, to a picture which takes many hands and long years to paint. Picture one man beginning by putting in the bare outline; then another and another comes, and makes the outline more and more complete and clear. Then others come and paint in the figure, form, and dress; and yet others the features and expression of the face. When the picture is complete, behold, it is Jesus of Nazareth: the suffering Saviour.
I. The suffering Saviour. Dwell on the terms in which His sufferings are detailed (see pp. 477–483). Carefully point out that He suffered more in His mind and heart than in His body.
II. The suffering Saviour misunderstood. By those who only look on the surface. By all who have no personal conviction of sin.
III. The mystery of the suffering Saviour revealed. It was vicarious suffering, borne according to the will of God, and borne for us.
IV. The glorious results won by a suffering Saviour. Man’s redemption. His own eternal joy. The triumph of God’s love over man’s sin.—Sunday School Addresses, New Series, p. 157.
THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST
Isa_53:5. But He was wounded for our transgressions, &c.
To any one who seriously contemplates the death and sufferings of Jesus Christ, three things suggest themselves as requiring explanation.
1. An innocent man suffers. All testimonies agree as to the purity and perfectness of the life of Jesus. There is a certain violence done to our sense of justice, when we see Him who boldly demanded, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” and to whose character the Roman judge bears unqualified witness, undergoing the double agonies of an iniquitous trial and a shameful death.
2. The death of Jesus is the apparent defeat and destruction of one who possessed extraordinary and supernatural powers. For Him, whose word could still a tempest, eject a devil, raise the dead, to have escaped the power of the Sanhedrim and of the soldiery would surely have been easy (Mat_26:53). In the suffering of a person so mighty, there is an intellectual inconsistency quite as remarkable as the moral inconsistency already noted.
3. This apparent defeat and ruin, instead of hindering the progress of His work, became at once, and in all the history of the progress of His doctrine has been emphatically, the instrument whereby a world is conquered. The death of Jesus has not been mourned by His followers, has never been concealed, but rather exulted in and prominently set forward as that to which all men must chiefly look, if they would regard Christ and His mission aright. Here, again, is a difficulty for rationalism to overcome. The innocent suffers as if guilty, the mighty is seized as if in helpless weakness, the shame and the failure result in glory and completest success. What is the philosophy of this? We ask impatiently for the explanation of the wonder. Has any ever been given which approaches the Divinely-revealed meaning supplied to us by our text, “He was wounded,” &c.?
We learn here,
I. That the sufferings of Jesus Christ resulted from our sins. Whether absolutely and universally suffering is the result of sin, we need not now inquire. Two things, at least, are certain: a large amount of suffering is the direct consequence of sin, and it is the habit of men to associate the suffering which comes before them, either directly or indirectly, with sin. Broken law everywhere brings unhappiness, pain, and death.—Now, the sufferings of Jesus could not result from His sin, for He was sinless. What He endured was not in accordance with His deserts. He became the passive recipient of what was laid upon Him.—Much of this we may see: the sin of the people who refused Him, of the leaders who conspired against Him, of the judges who condemned Him. And inasmuch as these represent mankind, inasmuch as there is a corporate unity among all men, inasmuch as the sin of each is itself only an expression and even an outcome of the sin of all the individual specific wrongs against Jesus, and finally, inasmuch as these sins are being repeated by every man—wherever we find refusal of the good, blind and wilful rejection of truth, unfaithfulness to duty and right, ingratitude, craven fear, selfishness and pride—there is a profound meaning, even upon the plane of a merely human interpretation, in the words of the prophet, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.” It was sin, human sin, our sin, which slew Jesus (P. D. 459).
II. That the sufferings of Jesus were related to the Divine law. Such an analysis of the sufferings of Christ as we have already indicated may be accepted by the inquirer, but it would suggest the further question, Does not this suffering of the innocent reflect upon the law and power of God? The presence of evil and sin everywhere around us is itself a great and awful mystery; but that the most terrible manifestation of evil should be found in the sufferings of the highest being ever revealed to man—this only adds to the horror of the mystery, and envelops our moral nature, the government of God, and God Himself, in a thicker darkness. Ought such a scene to be possible in a world where goodness is supreme? Either God is careless of the right, or indifferent to suffering, or powerless to prevent either the wrong or the result of it. Such must be the conclusion, if the foregoing analysis be final.
But there is an alternative. God may have permitted, nay, even ordained, the sufferings of His Son. In the sacred unity of their nature, the suffering and death of Jesus may be a part of the will and purpose of the Godhead. That it is so, man can never know unless God reveals it. But what if God has revealed it? What if there be a still deeper meaning in the cross and the grave of Jesus, and that thereby God re-enacts His broken law, reveals the exceeding and awful wickedness of sin, and sets up a vindication of law as against wilfulness and sin more splendid than of nature, more powerful than that of conscience, more persuasive than that which thundered from Sinai? What are the facts? Divine law broken by human sin. Divine mercy willing to pardon, but not by a mere remission—a letting off. The sin of man would have been repeated in such a forgiveness by a God as careless of His law as man was disobedient to it. But behold the Son of God cometh. He meets and overcomes it, obeys law completely, perfectly, sets up a life of surpassing beauty and sweetness, nobler than law itself, and yet suffers and dies—at once the fulfiller of law and the victim of sin—in His obedience illustrating the former, and in His death condemning the latter. Now mercy is free. Mercy herself through Jesus Christ is highest justice. Forgiveness by His grace is not the suspension, the destruction of law, but it is the union of law and love—it is love arrayed in garments more awful than those of law, it is law sweetened and beautified by the lineaments of love. Pardon is declared, mercy is extended, forgiveness spoken, and we know not what words can better set forth the blessed truth than the expression of the prophet, “The chastisement making for our peace was upon Him.”
III. That the sufferings of Jesus became remedial of human sinfulness. A consideration of our Lord’s death which placed it only in its historic relation, as one of the facts of the sad history of human wretchedness, and in its objective relation to the re-establishment of Divine law and the procuring of a free course for mercy, is wholly insufficient. In the death of Jesus there is a moral significance in respect of human character and life altogther unique. Its influence upon man’s heart and conduct is incalculable—indeed so great that many regard only these sides of it and neglect the Divine aspect altogether, and refer to this as a result and outcome of the former.
The elevation of our Lord’s nature, especially as it comes out in the midst of His sufferings, would of itself have been a mighty force for the amelioration of all who contemplated it. All greatness ennobles, and when it is the greatness of the good and the gentle, the heroism of love and the power of self-sacrifice, the soul of man not only admires, but is inspired, emulates the example and joins in a holy fellowship. But Christ’s death was the death of one who loved men, and whose love is revealed to us by that wisdom which alone could fathom it, as being personal and individual. Christ was not a mere philanthropist, but before His infinite intelligence every man stood separate and alone; in His infinite heart every man had a place. Hence His sufferings were sufferings for me, for you; His death was in my place, in yours (P. D. 456).
We find that in Him there gathers not only goodness, patience, all the virtues of which man is capable, there exhibited through hostility and even unto death, but there is love—a personal, direct, and individual love—such as would have been equal to all the claim made upon it, to all the burden which it had to bear even if there were only one soul in the world to be redeemed, and that mine or yours. Let this be realised by each man, and see how his spirit will be affected by that love of Christ. What a price for righteousness! What a hindrance to sin! What a discipline, a culture, is here! How life will be inspired, action directed, victory assured for him who lives with the ever-present thought of the love of Christ! Thus will the sinful character be changed, the wounds be healed, a new heart given, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit who applies these “things of Christ,” the soul is regenerated, sanctified, and at last glorified in the perfect blessedness and holiness of heaven. This is what we need within ourselves—this healing grace; and this is what the prophet declares Messiah will bestow, for “with His stripes we are healed.”
With these thoughts, let us surround the holy table of the Lord. Here is the broken body and the shed blood. Here are we reminded of the sufferings which yet glorified law and obtained forgiveness, and are evermore the power of the love which heals and strengthens and at last completely saves.—Ll. D. Bevan, D.D.
These sufferings constituted the price which the incarnate Son of God had voluntarily engaged to pay for human redemption: they were the atonement due for the accumulated sins of a guilty world, and were required by “the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.”
I. THEIR NATURE.
To form an adequate conception of our Redeemer’s sufferings, we must contemplate Him as forsaken and unsupported, save only by the consciousness of perfect innocence; surrounded by a whole nation of implacable enemies; betrayed by His own treacherous companion; insulted and beaten by a ferocious multitude; dragged, on a perjured accusation, before the judgment-seat; affixed to the accursed tree, where, for six tedious hours of mortal agony, He hangs suspended from His own quivering flesh. Bitter, however, as were the physical sufferings of our Lord, the peculiar agony of His passion did not result solely from that cause. It was the mental anguish that He endured during that awful period; the overwhelming consciousness of God’s anger; the total absence of all aid or consolation from above; the feeling of utter desertion both by God and man, when He approached the tremendous conflict with all the powers of darkness;—it was the pressure of that enormous mass of transferred sin which, as the representative of mankind, He had undertaken to bear. Physically, His sufferings did not differ materially from those of that noble army of Christian heroes who followed His steps to martyrdom and glory; but they had no desertion of the Divine grace and favour to lament—no load of imputed corruption to weigh them down. The Prince of Martyrs felt the unnatural load of His polluted burden; He tottered under its enormous weight, but no assisting hand stretched out to help; alone He had to undergo the tremendous ordeal, without support from His Father, without the comfort and companionship of the Holy Spirit.
Thus was the “Messiah cut off, but not for Himself.” He owed no submission to death, having never fallen under the dominion of sin. The punishment which He underwent was due to us; they were our iniquities for which He was wounded and slain; for our sakes He became as it were the paschal lamb, “sprinkling His blood” for our salvation; for us He consented to be treated like the scapegoat in the wilderness, and to bear in His own person the iniquities of us all. How bitter the ingredients of the cup of which He drank! The annals of mankind can furnish no parallel to the immensity of His sufferings.
II. THEIR OBJECT.
Mankind had been created perfect, but had fallen from their original uprightness into a state of degradation most offensive to the holiness of God. He could not behold His creation, once so happy and sinless, thus corrupted and depraved, without just indignation. Yet in the midst of His wrath He remembered mercy; and, because mankind were too widely alienated from Himself ever to be rescued from the lamentable consequences of the Fall by any exertions of their own, He devised the wonderful expedient of vicarious atonement, by which, through the personal intervention of some friendly mediator, full and perfect satisfaction might be offered, in man’s behalf, to the offended holiness and plighted truth of Heaven. No one could be found sufficient for this purpose but His only SON, who assumed the nature and liabilities of those whom He desired to rescue from destruction. The object for which He came into the world was to redeem mankind—by undergoing the full amount of punishment that had been incurred; by rescuing all that might believe on Him from the dominion of sin and Satan; and by opening a fountain for sin and uncleanness, capable of removing pollution from the entire human race.
These merciful purposes had long been intimated by Divine revelation, and the expectation kept alive by a series of prophecies. The necessity of a real expiation was prefigured by the early institution of blood offerings, in which an innocent victim became an atonement for the sins of the sacrificer, and was supposed to draw down the divine wrath upon itself, and to avert it from the offender. Corresponding intimations were made in all the other types and ordinances of the law, especially in the driving forth of the sin-laden scapegoat into the wilderness, and in the entrance into the holy of holies of the priestly intercessor bearing the blood of sacrifice (Heb_9:7; Heb_9:11-12).
III. THEIR SUFFICIENCY.
The entire value of our Redeemer’s mediation, the whole efficacy of His atonement, depended on His total freedom from sin. The smallest deviation from the perfection of righteousness would have entirely disqualified Him for the office of a Saviour, by degrading Him to the very condition of those whom He purposed to save. He would have become in His own person a debtor to Divine justice, and thus would have required a surety for Himself, instead of becoming a surety for others. But the spotless holiness of the expiation was secured by His inseparable relation to the Deity; and, for the same reason, a redundancy of merit accrued to Him which rendered the atonement He made abundantly efficacious for the redemption of the world (1Pe_2:22-24; H. E. I. 377–381).
The surest proof of the entire sufficiency of our Lord’s sufferings and death as an offering for sin consists in His resurrection from the dead. This was the sign to which He had previously referred the Jews as an evidence of His divine power (Joh_2:19-21); and it was, doubtless, essential that He who claimed a victory over death should exhibit in His own instance the first fruits of that victory by raising Himself from the dead. Had He failed in rescuing Himself, His ability to save others might reasonably have been questioned; but having exercised that power in His own case, much more is He able to raise others from the death of sin to the new life of righteousness and glory. The sufficiency of our Lord’s atonement is still further evident in His public and triumphant ascension into heaven, and in His subsequent fulfilment of the promise that after His departure He would send the Holy Spirit unto them.—George Pellew, D.D.: Sermons, vol. i. pp. 107–124.
Consider I. THE NATURE OF THE REDEEMER’S SUFFERINGS. Physical, but not chiefly so. The physical sufferings of many of the martyrs were greater than His. Mental, and these are harder to endure than physical sufferings. Minds differ in their capacity for suffering; the more capacious and sensitive they are, the greater that capacity (H. E. I. 915). II. THEIR SOURCE: our sins, which He had taken upon Himself. III. THEIR ENDS.
1. That a way of salvation might be opened for all who believe.
2. That a complete triumph over the powers of darkness might be achieved, by the setting up of a kingdom that will never be destroyed (see outlines on Isa_53:10-12).—C. B. Woodman: The British Pulpit, vol. iv. pp. 384–393.
I. In His body and in His soul. Heartache is worse than headache. “The sufferings of His soul were the soul of His sufferings.” II. In His earlier and in His later years. Of the babe—boy—man. III. In personal endurance and by sympathy. Sympathy with all the ills of humanity, and with the woes of individual sufferers. IV. From all orders of being. Men—friends, foes, neutrals; devils; GOD—withdrawal, infliction of penalty.
CONCLUSION.—Can the sufferings of Christ be explained apart from the doctrine of the atonement? Ought not the sufferings of Christ for us to draw forth our faith and love? Should not the sufferings of Christ lead us as believers to confide in His sympathy?—G. Brooks: Outlines, p. 79.
(Sacramental Sermon.)
There is nothing else which ought so to affect our hearts as the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. It brings to mind all our misery, all our salvation. It places before us the august emblems of our crucified Master, and calls us to pronounce over His broken body and shed blood the sacramental vow. It is, therefore, one of the most affecting solemnities in which we shall ever be engaged till we get to heaven. Let us endeavour to prepare our hearts for it, while we attend to the two great ideas of the text—
I. It is proper to enter fully into the consideration of our sins, for unless we come to this sacrament as sinners—penitent, emptied of self—we shall fail of entering into the meaning of our ordinance, or holding communion with our Saviour.
1. The number of our sins. Go back to the years of your childhood and youth. Let busy memory call up from forgotten years the thousand sins which time has almost worn from the brain. As we look back on our life, recollection fails us, and well may we say with the Psalmist, “Who can understand his errors?” Surely our hearts should be affected with the number of our sins. Had we sinned but once, the law of God would have condemned us, and we could not have justified ourselves. But we have sinned times without number! eternity alone can calculate their amount!
2. Their enormity. The undisturbed sinner, moving on in his career of carelessness, does not realise the great evil of the sins he commits. He thinks of transgression against God as a trifle, &c. We should measure the enormity of our sin by the evil of it; and the evil of it by the majesty of the Deity we have offended, and by the eternity of punishment which God pronounces over it (H. E. I. 4477–4490).
3. The motives which induced us to sin. Surely the small motives there are to sin, contrasted with the immense motives to holiness, manifest a guilt of the heart which ought to fill our souls with the deepest contrition.
4. The effect our sins have had on others. Sin is a contagious evil; “one sinner destroyeth much good.” We are so situated in human society that we cannot avoid holding an influence over one another. Had we destroyed ourselves only, the evil would not have been so lamentable. But we have dragged others into the same gulf wherein we have so thoughtlessly precipitated ourselves! (H. E. I. 4565).
II. Penitently consider the sufferings of Jesus Christ to atone for men. “But He was wounded for our transgressions.” Jesus Christ helped us when we could not help ourselves.
1. In the sacrifice of Christ the pardon of sin is secured.
2. The justice of God is satisfied.
3. An everlasting righteousness is procured for the sinner.
4. That grace which subdues the heart has been obtained.—Ichabod S. Spencer, D.D.: Discourses on Sacramental Occasions, pp. 178–196.
VICARIOUS SACRIFICE
Isa_53:5. But He was wounded for our transgressions, &c.
It is generally admitted that this prophecy refers to Christ, and if so, the vicarious nature of His sufferings and death cannot admit of reasonable dispute. If language has meaning in the text, this must be acknowledged. But there is a previous question started by scepticism, to which it is proper to reply. We maintain then—
I. That the principle of vicarious sacrifice is consistent with the Divine perfections. It has been urged that the sufferings of the innocent for the benefit of the guilty, is utterly inconsistent with perfect justice. This we deny. In doing so we are under no obligation to satisfy human scruples, for our ideas of what Divine justice really is must necessarily be very partial and imperfect, so that dogmatically to affirm what may or may not be harmonised with it, beyond what we learn expressly from Divine revelation upon the subject, is impudent presumption. It would be sufficient to know, as a matter of fact, that the law of vicarious suffering is recognised, not only in Scripture, but is also everywhere manifest in the universe.
1. The vicarious principle is a law of physical being.
(1.) The mineral kingdom suffers for the sake of the vegetable; for the vegetable eats upon the mineral, and lives upon its destruction and conversion.
(2.) The vegetable kingdom, in its turn, suffers for the sustentation of the animal.
(3.) Herb-feeding races of animals die to support the life of carnivora. And geological researches show the laws of prey and death were in commission among animals before sin was introduced by our first parents.
(4.) Again, vegetables and animals alike labour and suffer, and die for the benefit of their offspring.
(5.) How beautifully is the vicarious principle evinced in the voluntary cheerful sufferings of the human mother for the sake of her child (H. E. I. 393–396).
2. The vicarious principle is a law of intellectual being.
(1.) The enjoyment experienced by a reader of a masterly treatise, as its profound and brilliant thoughts successively rise, as by enchantment, is the purchase of the wearisome vigilance, and sustained and often painful effort of the author’s mind.
(2.) The repasts upon which many a Christian congregation are Sabbath after Sabbath delighted, are the sweat of the preacher’s brain.
(3.) The civilisation we inherit with our birth, is the result of an incalculable amount of anxious, laborious, and distressing thought on the part of millions now sleeping in the dust.
(4.) What privations do parents voluntarily suffer in order to secure the education of their children!
3. The vicarious principle is a law of moral being.
(1.) It is the very soul of sympathy. Without sympathy society would lose its charm—a community of stoics.
(2.) The philanthropist facing the horrors of disease and wretchedness, &c. The missionary!
(3.) It is virtue which gives value to sacrifice.
A principle thus universally obtaining cannot but harmonize with the justice of the Universal Ruler. The vicarious sacrifice of Christ is the most marvellous and stupendous exemplification of a law everywhere exemplified.
II. A vicarious sacrifice of infinite merit is indispensable to human salvation.
1. Man is found in the attitude of rebellion against God.
2. Divine justice cannot be sacrificed to mercy (H. E. I. 376).
3. Man has no means by which to commend himself to the mercy of God.
(1.) Repentance of no value without an atonement (H. E. I. 4225–4228).
(2.) Man is too depraved of himself to repent (H. E. I. 4250).
4. The only remaining source is in the vicarious principle.
(1.) The vicarious person must be able to suffer the penalty of human sin.
(2.) He must have sufficient merit to procure the enlightening and sanctifying agency of a Divine worker.
III. The requirements of the vicarious principle are met in the sacrifice of Christ.
1. His merits fully realize the Divine ideal.
(1.) He was pure through the miracle of His birth.
(2.) He was righteous in the fulfilment of every requirement of law.
(3.) In His official capacity He was approved by celestial voices, at His baptism and transfiguration, and with reference to His sufferings at Gethsemane and Calvary.
(4.) Hence His exaltation (Joh_17:1-5; Php_2:9-11).
2. Those merits were devoted to our redemption and salvation.
(1.) This is the great doctrine of the text.
(2.) The marrow of the Gospel.
(3.) They have made provision for the renewal of our nature—God cannot change, and therefore we must be changed. The Holy Spirit helps us to repent and believe the Gospel, &c.
CONCLUSION.—
1. Learn the absurdity of seeking salvation by works
2. Learn the obligation to aim at Christian perfection.
(3.) Learn the necessity of the vicarious principle to the Christian life (Mat_16:24-26; 1Jn_3:16-17).—James Alex. Macdonald: Pulpit Analyst, vol. i. pp. 702–705.
HEALED BY HIS STRIPES
Isa_53:5. With His stripes we are healed.
The two great things which the Spirit of Christ in the ancient prophets testified beforehand, were the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow (1Pe_1:11-12). And when Jesus, after His resurrection, expounded to His disciples, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself, He showed the scope and purport of them all to be that “Christ ought to have suffered, and then to enter into His glory.” But in no part of the Old Testament are these two things so fully exhibited as in this chapter, from which many passages are quoted and applied to Christ in the New Testament.
I. THE SUFFERINGS OF THE MESSIAH.
II. THE CAUSE AND DESIGN OF THOSE SUFFERINGS.
III. THE BENEFIT WE OBTAIN BY THEM, AND HOW WE OBTAIN IT. “With His stripes we are healed.” We are healed,
1. Of our inattention and unconcern about divine things. The dignity of our Lord’s person, the intensity of His sufferings, and the end for which He endured them, discover that things of a spiritual and divine nature are of infinite moment. Our ignorance and unbelief respecting these things. His sufferings confirm and seal His doctrine, and show the certain truth and unspeakable importance of it, and the reasonableness of a serious study of it, of laying it to heart, and receiving it in faith.
2. Of the disease of self-righteousness and self-confidence. For, if our own righteousness could have saved us, and if we could safely have trusted therein, Christ needed not to have died.
3. Of our love to sin and the commission of it. For how can we love Him and continue the willing servants of the betrayer and murderer of the Son of God, our Saviour? How can we willingly commit sin, which is so great an evil in its own nature, that it could not be pardoned, unless expiated by the sufferings and death of the Son of God, and Lord of glory? (H. E. I., 4589, 4590).
4. Of our love of the riches, honours, and pleasures of this world. For how can we reasonably desire any of these in a world, where our Lord and Master “had not where to lay His head,” where He “was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”?
5. Of our self-indulgence and self-seeking. Since His sufferings and death show that He did not seek Himself, and He died for us, that we “might not live to ourselves” (2Co_5:14-15).
6. Of our lukewarmness and sloth. For shall we be indifferent about, and slothful in the pursuit of what cost Him His blood?
7. Of our cowardice and fear of suffering (1Pe_4:1).
8. Of our diffidence and distrust with respect to the mercy of God, and His pardoning and accepting the penitent.
9. Of an accusing conscience and slavish fear of God, and death and hell (Heb_9:13-14).
10. Of our general depravity and corruption of nature (Tit_2:14; Eph_5:25-27).
11. Of our weakness and inability. His sufferings have purchased “the spirit of might.”
12. Of our distress and misery, both present and future. For His sufferings bear away our griefs and sorrows; they are an astonishing proof of God’s infinite love to all for whom He undertook; they lay the most solid foundation for the firmest confidence and most lively hope in Him. They show that—
“No man too largely from God’s love can hope,
If what he hopes, he labours to secure.”
Joseph Benson: Sermons, vol. i pp. 232–236.
Ever since the fall, healing has been the chief necessity of manhood. It is a great mercy for us who have to preach, as well as for you who have to hear, that the Gospel healing is so very simple. Our text describes it. These six words contain the marrow of the Gospel.
I. These are sad words. They are part of the mournful piece of music which might be called “the Requiem of the Messiah,”
1. Because they imply disease. This “we” comprehends all the saints, and hence it is clear that all the saints need healing. Those who are to-day before the throne of God, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, were once defiled as the lepers who were shut out of the camp of Israel. Our fathers were fallen men, and so are we, and so will our children be.
(1.) The disease of sin is of the most loathsome character, and it will lead to the most deadly result in due season. It is none the better because we do not feel it. It is all the worse.
(2.) Sin is also a very painful disease when it is known and felt. Those black days of conviction! A man needs no worse hell than his own sin and an awakened conscience.
2. Because it speaks of suffering. “With His stripes.” find that the word here used is in the singular, and not as the translation would lead you to suppose. I hardly know how to translate the word fully. It is read by some as “weal,” “bruise,” or “wound,” meaning the mark or print of blows upon the skin; but Alexander says the word denotes the tumour raised in flesh by scourging. It is elsewhere translated “blueness,” “hurt,” and “spots,” and evidently refers to the black and blue marks of the scourge. The use of a singular noun may have been intended to set forth that our Lord was as it were reduced to a mass of bruising, and was made one great bruise. [1626] By the suffering which that condition indicated we are saved. Our text alludes partly to the sufferings of His body, but much more to the agonies of His soul. He was smitten in His heart each day of His life. He had to suffer the ills of Providence. He had to run the gauntlet of all mankind. Satan, too, struck at Him. Put these things all together as best you can, for I lack words with which fitly to describe these bruises.
[1626] Pilate delivered our Lord to the lictors to be scourged. The Roman scourge was a most dreadful instrument of torture. It was made of the sinews of oxen, and sharp bones were intertwisted here and there among the sinews; so that every time the lash came down these inflicted fearful laceration, and tore off the flesh from the bone. The Saviour was, no doubt, bound to the column, and thus beaten. He had been beaten before; but this of the Roman lictors was probably the most severe of His flagellations. My soul, stand here, and weep over His poor stricken body. Believer in Jesus, can you gaze upon Him without tears, as He stands before you the mirror of agonising love. He is at once fair as the lily for innocence, and red as the rose with the crimson of His own blood. As we feel the sure and blessed healing which His stripes have wrought in us, does not our heart melt at once with love and grief. If we have ever loved our Lord Jesus, surely we must feel that affection glowing now within our bosoms.—Spurgeon.
II. These are glad words.
1. Because they speak of the healing we need. Understand these words. Of that virtual healing which was given you in the day when Jesus Christ died upon the cross. But there is an actual application of the great expiation to us when by faith we receive it individually. To as many as have believed in Jesus, His stripes have given the healing of forgiveness, and it has conquered the deadly power of sin. Men have tried to overcome their passions by the contemplation of death, but they have failed to bury sin in the grave; they have striven to subdue the rage of lust within their nature by meditating upon hell, but that has only rendered the heart hard and callous to love’s appeals. He who once believingly beholds the mystery of Christ suffering for him shakes off the viper of sin into the fire which consumed the great sacrifice. Where falls the blood of the atonement, sin’s hand is palsied, its grasp is relaxed, its sceptre falls, it vacates the throne of the heart; and the spirit of grace, and truth, and love, and righteousness, occupies the royal seat. Behold Christ smarting in your stead, and you will never despair again. It is a universal medicine. There is no disease by which your soul can be afflicted, but an application of the blue bruises of your Lord will take out the deadly virus from your soul.
2. Because of the honour which the healing brings to Christ. Child of God, if thou wouldst give glory to God, declare that thou art healed. Be not always saying, “I hope I am saved.” A crucified Saviour is the sole and only hope of a sinful world.
III. These are very suggestive words. Whenever a man is healed through the stripes of Christ, the instincts of his nature should make him say, “I will spend the strength I have, as a healed man, for Him who healed me.” If you know that Jesus has healed you, serve Him, by telling others about the healing medicine. Tell it to your children; tell it to your servants; leave none around you ignorant of it. Hang it up everywhere in letters of boldest type. “With His stripes we are healed.”—C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 1068.
I. A LAMENTABLE DISEASE ASSUMED
1. The baneful result of transgression.
2. Universal in its prevalency.
3. Hereditary in its descent.
4. Incurable by human agency.
II. AN INFALLIBLE PHYSICIAN SPECIFIED.
1. Infinite in Wisdom
2. Impartial in attendance.
3. Ever easy of access.
4. Gratuitous in His practice.
III. THE REMEDY HE EMPLOYS. “His stripes,” i.e. the atonement.
1. Divine in its appointment.
2. Easy in its application.
3. Universal in its adaptation.
4. Infallible in its efficacy.
IV. THE CURE EFFECTED BY IT.
1. Is now no novelty.
2. Is radical in its nature.
3. Is happy in its influences.
CONCLUSION.—This subject tends,
1. To promote humility.
2. To produce self-examination.
3. To encourage the desponding penitent.
4. To excite fervent gratitude.—Four Hundred Sketches, vol. ii. p. 93.
I. THE MEDICINE WHICH IS HERE PRESCRIBED—the stripes of our Saviour. I take the term “stripes” to comprehend all the physical and spiritual sufferings of our Lord, with especial reference to those chastisements of our peace which preceded rather than actually caused His sin-atoning death: it is by these that our souls are healed.
“But why?” say you.
1. Because our Lord, as a sufferer, was not a private person, but suffered as a public individual, and an appointed representative. Hence the effects of His grief are applied to us, and with His stripes we are healed.
2. Our Lord was not merely man, or else His sufferings could not have availed for the multitude who now are healed thereby.
But healing is a work that is carried on within, and the text rather leads me to speak of the effect of the stripes of Christ upon our characters and natures than upon the result produced in our position before God.
II. THE MATCHLESS CURES WROUGHT BY THIS REMARKABLE MEDICINE. Look at two pictures. Look at man without the stricken Saviour; and then behold man with the Saviour, healed by His stripes.
III. THE MALADIES WHICH THIS WONDROUS MEDICINE REMOVES. The great root of all this mischief, the curse which fell on man through Adam’s sin, is already effectually removed. But I am now to speak of diseases which we have felt and bemoaned, and which still trouble the family of God.
1. The mania of despair.
2. The stony heart.
3. The paralysis of doubt.
4. Stiffness of the knee-joint of prayer.
5. Numbness of soul.
6. The fever of pride.
7. The leprosy of selfishness.
8. The fretting consumption of worldliness. (See also p. 494.)
IV. THE CURATIVE PROPERTIES OF THIS MEDICINE. All manner of good this divine remedy works in our spiritual constitution. The stripes of Jesus when well considered,
1. Arrest spiritual disorder.
2. Quicken all the powers of the spiritual man to resist the disease.
3. They restore to the man that which he lost in strength by sin.
4. They soothe the agony of conviction.
5. They eradicate the power of sin; they pull it up by the root; destroy the beasts in their lair; put to death the power of sin in our members.
V. THE MODES OF THE WORKING OF THIS MEDICINE. How does it work? Briefly, its effect upon the mind is this. The sinner hearing of the death of the incarnate God is led by the force of truth and the power of the Holy Spirit to believe in the mcarnate God. After faith come gratitude, love, obedience, &c. [1629]
[1629] Looking upon the “stripes” of Jesus, one may be led, 1. To think of the awfully malignant nature of sin, which would require for its expiation so great a sacrifice as that of the Son of God, and of the great depravity of his own heart in having been so destitute of love towards one so full of grace and goodness toward him. He is thus brought to tremble for his sin, and to mourn for it with deep contrition. And here is true repentance. 2. The inestimable value of the sacrifice, and the boundless love of God manifested in it, show him also that an atonement of most amply sufficient value has been offered for his sin; that the gracious God must be most mercifully disposed and willing to pardon and save him. Thus a comfortable and satisfying faith is generated in his heart. 3. The apprehension of the favouring mind in God towards him, with all the love manifested in the sufferings of Christ, disposes his heart to the love of God. 4. Seeing also that he owes his renewed being and hopes to his God and Saviour, he is ready to give himself wholly to His service. For he feels the force of the apostle’s words (Rom_12:1; 1Co_14:15). 5. When in the service of Christ he meets with great difficulties and trials, he remembers that Christ bore for him his eternal sufferings, and thinks little of anything he can endure for Him in his short life upon earth. 6. From the contemplation of the humiliation and death of Christ flow endless streams of benevolence, readiness to give, or to do, or endure anything for our neighbour (2Co_8:9; 1Jn_3:16). 7. While that contemplation urges him to devote himself to the service of God and the promotion of his neighbour’s good, it also keeps him humble in his greatest zeal, both by the example of his crucified Saviour, and also by the remembrance that his only hope of mercy rests in his coming as a worthless creature for salvation to Christ, in reliance upon His merits alone. 8. Every one who has been brought to such views of sin as the sufferings of Jesus set forth, feels himself strongly repelled, by those sufferings, from all sin. Shall he add another sin to those by which he has pierced his beloved Saviour with sorrow and pain? Here is a most cogent motive to the resistance of temptation in the true believer. And if he finds difficulty in such resistance, he remembers that his Saviour suffered crucifixion for him, and feels that he must therefore think little of “crucifying the flesh, with its affections and lusts,” or His sake (1Pe_4:1-2).
Thus the due effect of the sufferings of Christ upon man is the entire renovation of his heart. It tends to purify him from all sin, to fashion his soul in the frame of perfect holiness, to urge him to devoted zeal in all ways of piety and charity. The wisdom of God in appointing those sufferings as the means of our salvation, is justified in the beauty of holiness to which those who duly look upon them are thus brought. As the Israelites looked upon the brazen serpent till they were healed, so let us look upon our suffering Saviour till all the disorders of our souls are remedied, and we are restored to the “spirit of love and of a sound mind.”—R. L. Cotton, M.A.: The Way of Salvation, pp. 95–99.
VI. ITS REMARKABLY EASY APPLICATION. There are some materia medica which would be curative, but they are so difficult in administration and attended with so much risk in their operation, that they are rarely if ever employed; but the medicine prescribed in the text is very simple in itself, and very simply received; so simple is its reception that, if there be a willing mind here to receive it, it may be received by any of you at this very instant, for God’s Holy Spirit is present to help you. How, then, does a man get the stripes to heal him?
1. He hears about them.
2. Faith cometh by hearing; that is, the hearer believes that Jesus is the Son of God, and he trusts in Him to save his soul.
3. Having believed, whenever the power of his faith begins to relax, he goes to hearing again, or else to what is even better, after once having heard to benefit, he resorts to contemplation; he resorts to the Lord’s table that he may be helped by the outward signs; he reads the Bible that the letter of the word may refresh his memory as to its spirit, and he often seeks a season of quiet, &c.—Poor sinner, simply trust and thou art healed; backsliding saint, contemplate and believe again.
Since the medicine is so efficacious, since it is already prepared and freely presented, I do beseech you take it.—C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 834.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Isaiah continues describing Yahweh's servant. (See: Isaiah 53:1-2)
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He was despised and rejected by people
This can be stated in active form. AT: "People considered him as nothing and rejected him" (See: Active or Passive)
a man of sorrows
"a man knowing all kinds of sadness"
from whom men hide their faces
"Face" represents a person's attention or fellowship. Hiding one's face means to turn away from someone. AT: "from whom people turn away" (See: Metonymy)
he was despised
This can be stated in active form. AT: "they considered him to be worthless" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
reject
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 53:3 a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief…
53:3 a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief (or a man of pains, acquainted with illness): The servant would fully experience the effects of sin and the Fall. • we did not care: Because people would fail to see how such a weak, insignificant person could do anything beneficial for them, they would be unconcerned about his suffering.
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