Basic HTML Version
The Sins Of The World, August 14
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.
Isaiah 53:5
.
Some have limited views of the atonement. They think that Christ suffered only
a small portion of the penalty of the law of God; they suppose that, while the wrath
of God was felt by His dear Son, He had, through all His painful sufferings, the
evidence of His Father’s love and acceptance; that the portals of the tomb before
Him were illuminated with bright hope, and that He had the abiding evidence of
[209]
His future glory. Here is a great mistake. Christ’s keenest anguish was a sense of
His Father’s displeasure. His mental agony because of this was of such intensity
that man can have but faint conception of it.
With many the story of the condescension, humiliation, and sacrifice of our
divine Lord awakens no deeper interest ... than does the history of the death of the
martyrs of Jesus. Many have suffered death by slow tortures; others have suffered
death by crucifixion. In what does the death of God’s dear Son differ from these?
... If the sufferings of Christ consisted in physical pain alone, then His death was
no more painful than that of some of the martyrs. But bodily pain was but a small
part of the agony of God’s dear Son. The sins of the world were upon Him, also
the sense of His Father’s wrath as He suffered the penalty of the law transgressed.
It was these that crushed His divine soul.... The separation that sin makes between
God and man was fully realized and keenly felt by the innocent, suffering Man of
Calvary. He was oppressed by the powers of darkness. He had not one ray of light
to brighten the future.... It was in this terrible hour of darkness, the face of His
Father hidden, legions of evil angels enshrouding Him, the sins of the world upon
Him, that the words were wrenched from His lips: “My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?” ...
In comparison with the enterprise of everlasting life, every other sinks into
insignificance.
241