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Sufferings of Christ
189
Redeemer of a lost world was suffering the penalty of man’s trans-
gression of the Father’s law. He was about to ransom His people
with His own blood. He was paying the just claims of God’s holy
law. This was the means through which an end was to be finally
made of sin and Satan, and his host to be vanquished.
Oh, was there ever suffering and sorrow like that endured by the
dying Saviour! It was the sense of His Father’s displeasure which
made His cup so bitter. It was not bodily suffering which so quickly
ended the life of Christ upon the cross. It was the crushing weight of
the sins of the world, and a sense of His Father’s wrath. The Father’s
glory and sustaining presence had left Him, and despair pressed its
crushing weight of darkness upon Him and forced from His pale
and quivering lips the anguished cry: “My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken Me?”
Jesus had united with the Father in making the world. Amid
the agonizing sufferings of the Son of God, blind and deluded men
alone remain unfeeling. The chief priests and elders revile God’s
dear Son while in His expiring agonies. Yet inanimate nature groans
in sympathy with her bleeding, dying Author. The earth trembles.
The sun refuses to behold the scene. The heavens gather blackness.
Angels have witnessed the scene of suffering until they can look no
longer, and hide their faces from the horrid sight. Christ is dying! He
is in despair! His Father’s approving smile is removed, and angels
are not permitted to lighten the gloom of the terrible hour. They can
only behold in amazement their loved Commander, the Majesty of
heaven, suffering the penalty of man’s transgression of the Father’s
law.
Even doubts assailed the dying Son of God. He could not see
through the portals of the tomb. Bright hope did not present to Him
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His coming forth from the tomb a conqueror and His Father’s accep-
tance of His sacrifice. The sin of the world, with all its terribleness,
was felt to the utmost by the Son of God. The displeasure of the
Father for sin, and its penalty, which is death, were all that He could
realize through this amazing darkness. He was tempted to fear that
sin was so offensive in the sight of His Father that He could not be
reconciled to His Son. The fierce temptation that His own Father
had forever left Him caused that piercing cry from the cross: “My
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”