"For he said, Surely they are my people… in all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them." Isaiah 63:8-9
Additional readings: Isaiah 63, John 14:1-14, Psalms 19, 20.
During the Lenten season the thoughts of the Christian world are turned to the last days of the Lord's life on earth. As illustrative of the states of mankind at that time the rejection and crucifixion of Christ was the greatest of tragedies. Yet from the Divine, point of view, it was necessary that the Lord fulfill all the prophecies concerning Himself. Only so could the Divine purpose be accomplished.
Isaiah writes, "Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever" (Isaiah 9:7).
This prophecy speaks in terms of an earthly kingdom. The Jews thought that the Messiah, when He should come, would establish them above other nations. And even after the resurrection, when the Lord appeared to the Apostles assembled in Jerusalem, they asked Him, "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom unto Israel?" (Acts 1:6).
His kingdom is in the world but not of it; it is far above all worldly principalities, powers, and dominions in that it is to be established in the minds and hearts of men. Even His closest disciples did not understand this, but with the passing of the years history has made it plain that if the Lord had in His day destroyed the Roman power, He would have destroyed the very means by which His Church was afterwards to spread over the world and His Word be preserved and made known.
There were many things that He could not tell His disciples, as He said, "These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father" (John 16:25).
It is only as the world develops in regeneration that spiritual truths can be revealed. So what are mysteries to one age of the Church become clear to another which is better prepared to understand. When the true purpose of the Lord's Advent is known, when it is known that He came to deliver the souls of men from death, that He came not to save the people of one nation but those of all nations, Jew and Gentile alike, the reason for His suffering and death become clear. It was to overcome evil, to break its power, and to set men free. Evil and falsity are the real enemies of mankind. "Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses" (Isaiah 53:4, Matthew 8:17).
Wrong ideas concerning the Lord's sufferings and His death upon the cross have come from a misinterpretation of Scripture. John writes, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3:16) to save it, and throughout the story of the Lord's life in the world He is frequently called the Son of God. The finite humanity which He assumed through Mary is so distinguished from the Divine Humanity with which He gradually replaced it as He overcame temptations. But He Himself said, "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works," and "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9-10).
At one time it was almost universally believed in the Christian Church that Christ suffered to appease the wrath of an angry God. The teaching of the Church has always been based on Scripture. We read in Isaiah, "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief," and again, "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed," and, "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53bb5-10) These and other similar passages teach that Christ suffered of the Divine will, and that He suffered for the sins of men.
Both of these statements are true. The misinterpretation comes from supposing that Christ and the Father are two different persons. It was God Himself who, from His own love of mankind, took on our nature that He might meet evil and overcome it. In taking on our nature He took upon Himself the inherited evils of the ages, all the evils of which the will of man is capable. So was He laden with all the evils which belong to the loves of self and the world. By taking on our nature with its association with spirits, evil as well as good, He came in contact with the hells. So He was able to fight against them, His struggles and temptations were with these powers of the hells which infested His human nature. From the eyes of the disciples of His day this struggle was hidden because they could neither understand nor help.
In the record of the temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane, the final and greatest temptation was brought to outward view. Peter, James, and John, His closest disciples, were with Him. But they could not understand what was taking place; they fell asleep. Many think that it was fear of the death on the cross at the hands of His enemies which was the cause of the agony at Gethsemane. Yet very ordinary men and women have appeared in every age who not only could not be frightened in the face of a terrible death, but who could not be prevented from offering their lives for a righteous cause. How little then must the thought of physical death have figured in the Lord's suffering at Gethsemane.
He had come to save the world from sin. As a child He recognized and declared His mission when, at His first Passover at the age of twelve, He said, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" (Luke 2:49). His whole life was dedicated to this purpose. It was a task that He set for Himself; no other imposed it on Him. The depths of His inner struggles are hidden from us as they were from the disciples; we can know only something of their nature. When we are tempted, we are assaulted by only one or two evils at a time, and they are also held in check by the divine power of the Lord so that they may not be beyond our ability to resist, but with the Lord the case was different. He says, "I looked, and there was none to help me and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me."
By overcoming He redeemed man. This does not mean that because He overcame we do not have to fight against evils in ourselves. As the Lord said, we must drink of His cup and be baptized with the baptism that He was baptized with, but unless He had overcome, unless He had been "wounded for our transgressions" and "bruised for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:5) we should have been wholly unable to overcome our evils; for from Him who overcame flows forth to us the power to resist and to overcome evil. Had He failed in His great conflict, we could never succeed in our little ones. In that sense He suffered for us, and in that sense only.
There are some who do not like the thought of suffering or temptation. They would like to have life here always easy and pleasant. Such do not realize why this world was created or what we are here for. They think that this world is everything and that the future world is comparatively nothing. Yet our eternal happiness depends upon overcoming in ourselves the loves of self and the world.
To become regenerate, to develop a heavenly character is not accomplished without a struggle. Often we may have to abandon our most cherished plans. We may have to give up that on which we think our happiness depends. And sickness and suffering may overtake us. Yet if such be our lot, it is to make us wise unto salvation. The Lord said, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me… for my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:29-30). This Scripture does not conflict with such passages as "Whosoever does not take up his cross and follow me, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27). The lesson is that until we cease to depend upon ourselves and instead learn to look to the Lord and do His will, until we are willing to be guided by Him alone, we cannot take the first step in regeneration. It is only through this conflict, as we overcome selfish tendencies within ourselves, that we can be formed into the image and likeness of our Creator.
By His life on earth the Lord became the Good Shepherd, ever going before us and defending us from evil. As we study the later days of the Lord's life, we are enabled to see Him more clearly as a God of love, the one God, who in His love and mercy came into the world, that He might be more closely present with us and deliver us from all that hurts and destroys. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
