Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, July 27th, 1879, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
"I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off
the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting."–Isaiah 50:6.
OF WHOM SPEAKETH THE PROPHET this? Of himself or of some other? We
cannot doubt but what Isaiah here wrote concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ. Is not this one of the prophecies to which our Lord Himself
referred in the incident recorded in the eighteenth chapter of Luke's
Gospel at the thirty-first verse? "Then he took unto him he twelve, and
said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are
written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be
accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be
mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: and they shall
scourge him and put him to death." Such a remarkable prophecy of
scourging and spitting as this which is now before us must surely refer
to the Lord Jesus; its highest fulfillment is assuredly found in Him
alone.
Of whom else, let me ask, could you conceive the prophet to have spoken
if you read the whole chapter? Of whom else could he say in the same
breath, "I clothe the heavens with blackness and I make sackcloth their
covering. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that
plucked off the hair" (vv. 3, 6). What a descent from the omnipotence
which veils the heavens with clouds to the gracious condescension which
does not veil its own face, but permits it to be spat upon! No other
could thus have spoken of Himself but He who is both God and man. He
must be divine: how else could He say, "Behold, at my rebuke I dry up
the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness" (v. 2)? And yet he must at the
same time be a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," for there is
a strange depth of pathos in the words, "I gave my back to the smiters,
and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from
shame and spitting." Whatever others may say, we believe that the
speaker in this verse is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, the
Son of God and the Son of man, our Redeemer. It is the Judge of Israel
whom they have smitten with a rod upon the cheek who here plaintively
declares the griefs which He has undergone. We have before us the
language of prophecy, but it is as accurate as though it had been
written at the moment of the event. Isaiah might have been one of the
Evangelists, so exactly does he describe what our Saviour endured.
I have already laid he fore you in the reading of the Scriptures some
of the passages of the New Testament wherein the scourging and the
shame of our Lord Jesus are described. We saw Him first at the tribunal
of His own countrymen in Matthew 26, and we read, "Then did they spit
in his face, and buffeted him: and others smote him with the palms of
their hands." It was in the hall of the high priest, among His own
countrymen, that first of all the shameful deeds of scorn were wrought
upon Him. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." His
worst foes were they of His own household; they despised and abhorred
Him, and would have none of Him. His own Father's husbandmen said among
themselves–"This is the heir; let us kill him, and let us seize on his
inheritance." This was His treatment at the hand of the house of
Israel.
The same treatment, or the like thereto, was accorded Him in Herod's
palace, where the fingering shade of a Jewish royalty still existed.
There what I might venture to call a pattern mixture of Jew and Gentile
power held court, but our Lord fared no better in the united company.
By the two combined the Lord was treated with equal derision (Luke
23:11). "Herod with his men of war set him at naught, and mocked him,
and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe."
Speedily came His third trial, and He was delivered altogether to the
Gentiles. Then Pilate, the governor, gave Him up to the cruel process
of scourging. Scourging as it has been practiced in the English army is
atrocious, a barbarism which ought to make us blush for the past, and
resolve to end it for the future. How is it that such a horror has been
tolerated so long in a country where we are not all savages? But the
lash is nothing among us compared with what it was among the Romans. I
have heard that it was made of the sinews of oxen, and that in it were
twisted the knucklebones of sheep, with slivers of bone, in order that
every stroke might more effectually tear its way into the poor
quivering flesh, which was mangled by its awful strokes. Scourging was
such a punishment that it was generally regarded as worse than death
itself, and indeed, many perished while enduring it, or soon
afterwards. Our blessed Redeemer gave His back to the smiters, and the
plowers made deep furrows there. O spectacle of misery! How can we bear
to look thereon? Nor was that all, for Pilate's soldier's, calling all
the band together, as if there were not enough for mockery unless all
were mustered, put Him to derision by a mock enthronement and a mimic
coronations and when they had thus done they again buffeted and smote
Him, and spat in His face. There was no kind of cruelty which their
heartlessness could just then invent which they did not exercise upon
His blessed Person: their brutal sport had full indulgence, for their
innocent victim offered neither resistance nor remonstrance. This is
His own record of His patient endurance. "I gave my back to the
smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my
face from shame and spitting."
Behold your King! I bring Him forth to you this morning in spirit and
cry, "Behold the Man!" Turn hither all your eyes and hearts and look
upon the despised and rejected of men! Gaze reverently and lovingly,
with awe for His sufferings and love for His Person. The sight demands
adoration. I would remind you of that which Moses did when he saw the
bush that burned and was not consumed–fit emblem of our Lord on fire
with griefs and yet not destroyed; I bid you turn aside and see this
great sight, but first attend to the mandate–"Put off thy shoes from
off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." All
round the cross the soil is sacred. Our suffering Lord has consecrated
every place whereon He stood, and therefore our hearts must be filled
with reverence while we linger under the shadow of His passion.
May the Holy Spirit help you to see Jesus in four lights at this time.
In each view He is worthy of devout attention. Let us view Him first as
the representative of God; secondly, as the substitute of His people,
thirdly, as the servant of Jehovah; and fourthly, as the Comforter of
his redeemed.
I. First, I invite you to gaze upon your despised and rejected Lord as
THE REPRESENTATIVE OF GOD. In the Person of Christ Jesus, God Himself
came into the world, making a special visitation to Jerusalem and the
Jewish people, but at the same time coming very near to all mankind.
The Lord called to the people whom He had favored so long and whom He
was intent to favor still. He says, in the second verse, "I came" and
"I called." God did in very deed come down into the midst of mankind.
Be it noted, that when our Lord came into this world as the
Representative of God, He came with all His divine power about Him. The
chapter before us says, "Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot
redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up
the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness." The Son of God, when He was
here, did not perform those exact miracles, because He was bent upon
marvels of beneficence rather than of judgment. He did not repeat the
plagues of Egypt, for He did not come to smite, but to save; but He did
greater wonders and wrought miracles which ought far more powerfully to
have won men's confidence in Him because they were full of goodness and
mercy. He fed the hungry, He healed the sick, He raised the dead, and
He cast out devils. He did equal marvels to those which were wrought in
Egypt when the arm of the Lord was made bare in the eyes of all the
people. It is true He did not change water into blood, but He turned
water into wine. It is true He did nor make their fish to stink, but by
His word He caused the net to be filled even to bursting with great
fishes. He did not break the whole staff of bread as He did in Egypt,
but He multiplied loaves and fishes so that thousands of men and women
and children were fed from His bounteous hand. He did not slay their
first-born, but He restored the dead. I grant you that the glory of the
Godhead was somewhat hidden in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, but it
was still there, even as the glory was upon the face of Moses when he
covered it with a veil. No essential attribute of God was absent in
Christ, and every one might have been seen in Him if the people had not
been willfully blind. He did the works of His Father, and those works
bore witness of Him that He was come in His Father's name. Yes, God was
personally in the world when Jesus walked the blessed fields of the
Holy land, now, alas, laid under the curse for rejecting Him.
But when God thus came among, men He was unacknowledged. What saith the
prophet? "Wherefore when I came was there no man? when I called was
there none to answer?" A few, taught by the Spirit of God, discerned
Him and rejoiced; but they were so very few that we may say of the
whole generation that they knew Him not. Those who had some dim idea of
His excellence and majesty yet rejected Him. Herod, because he feared
that He was King, sought to slay Him. The kings of the earth set
themselves, and the rulers took counsel together, against the Lord, and
against His anointed. He was emphatically and beyond all others
"despised and rejected of men." Though, as I have said, the Godhead in
Him was but scantily veiled, and gleams of its glory burst forth ever
and anon, yet still the people would have none of it, and the cry,
"Away with him. away with him, let him be crucified," was the verdict
of the age upon which He descended. He called and there was none to
answer; He spread out His hands all the day long unto a rebellious
people who utterly rejected Him.
Yet our Lord when He came into the world was admirably adapted to be
the Representative of God, not only because He was God Himself, but
because as man His whole human nature was consecrated to the work, and
in Him was neither flaw nor spot. He was untouched by any motive other
than the one desire of manifesting the Father and blessing the sons of
men. Oh, beloved, there was never One who had His ear so near the mouth
of God as Jesus had. His Father had no need to speak to Him in dreams
and visions of the night, for when all His faculties were wide awake
there was nothing in them to hinder His understanding the mind of God;
and therefore every morning when His Father wakened Him He spoke into
His ear. Jesus sat as a scholar at the Father's feet that He might
learn first, and then teach. The things which He heard of the Father He
made known unto men. He says that He spoke not His own words but the
words of Him that sent Him, and He did not His own deeds, but "my
Father," saith He, "that dwelleth in me, he doeth the work." Now, a man
thus entirely agreeable to the mind and will of the great God was
fitted to be the Representative of God. Both the alliance of His
manhood with the Godhead and its perfect character qualified it to he
the fittest dwelling of God among men. Yes, dear friends, our Saviour
came in a way which should at once have commanded the reverent homage
of all men. Even His great Father said, "They will reverence my Son."
Enough of the Godhead was manifested to impress and nor more, lest it
should alarm. With a soul of gentlest mold and a body like our own He
was altogether adapted to be the Representative of God. His errand,
too, was all gentleness and love, for He came to speak words in season
to the weary, and to comfort those that were cast down: surely such an
errand should have secured Him a welcome. His course and conduct were
most conciliatory, for He went among the people, and ate with publicans
and sinners; so gentle was He that He took little children in His arms,
and blessed them; for this, if for nothing else, they ought to have
welcomed Him right heartily and rejoiced at the sight of Him. Our text
tells us how contrary was their conduct towards Him to that which He
deserved instead of being welcomed He was scourged, and instead of
being honored He was scorned. Cruelty smote His back and plucked off
the hair from His face, while derision jeered at Him and cast its
spittle upon Him. Shame and contempt were poured upon Him, though He
was God Himself. That spectacle of Christ spat upon, and scourged
represents what man virtually does to his God, what he would do to the
Most High if he could. Hart well puts it–
See how the patient Jesus stands,
Insulted in his lowest case!
Sinners have bound the Almighty hands,
And spit in their Creator's face.
When our parents broke the command of their Maker, obeying the advice
of the devil rather than the Word of God, and preferring a poor apple
to the divine favor, they did as it were spit into the face of God; and
every sin committed since has been a repetition of the same contempt of
the Eternal One. When a man will have his pleasure, even though it
displeases God, he as good as declares that he despises God, prefers
himself, and defies the wrath of the Most High. When a man acts
contrary to the command of God he does as good as say to God, "This is
better for me to do than what Thou bidst me do. Either Thou art
mistaken, in thy prohibitions, or else Thou dost willfully deny me the
highest pleasure, and I, being a better judge of my own interests than
Thou art, snatch at the pleasure which Thou dost refuse me. I judge
Thee either to be unwise or unkind." Every act of sin does despite to
the sovereignty of God: it denies Him to be supreme and refuses Him
obedience. Every act of sin does dishonor to the love and wisdom of
God, for it seems to say that it would have been greater love to have
permitted us to do evil than to have commanded us to abstain from it.
All sin is in many ways an insult to the majesty of the thrice Holy
God, and He regards it as such.
Dear friends, this is especially the sin of those who have heard the
gospel and yet reject the Saviour, for in their case the Lord has come
to them in the most gracious form, and yet they have refused Him. The
Lord might well say, "I have come to you to save you, and you will not
regard me. I have come saying to you, Look unto me and be ye saved all
the ends of the earth,' and you close your eyes in unbelief. I have
come saying, Let us reason together: though your sins be as crimson,
they shall be as wool,' but you will not be cleansed from your
iniquity. I have come with the promise, All manner of sin and iniquity
shall be forgiven unto men.' What is your reply?" In the case of many
the answer is, "We prefer our own righteousness to the righteousness of
God." If that is not casting spittle into the face of God I know not
what is, for our righteousnesses are well described as "filthy rags,"
and we have the impudence to say that these are better than the
righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Or if we do not say this when we
reject the Saviour we tell Him that we do not want Him, for we do not
need a Saviour: this is as good as to say that God has played the fool
with the life and death of His own Son. What greater derision can be
cast upon God than to consider the blood of atonement to be a
superfluity? He who chooses sin sooner than repentance prefers to
suffer the wrath of God rather than be holy and dwell in heaven
forever. For the sake of a few paltry pleasures men forego the love of
God, and are ready to run the risk of an eternity of divine wrath. They
think so little of God that He is of no account with them at all. All
this is in reality a scorning and despising of the Lord God, and is
well set forth by the insults which were poured upon the Lord Jesus.
Woe's me that it should ever be so. My God! My God! To what a sinful
race do I belong. Alas, that it should treat thine infinite goodness so
despitefully! That Thou shouldst be rejected at all, but especially
that Thou shouldest be rejected when dressed in robes of love and
arrayed in gentleness and pity is horrible to think upon. Do you mean
it, O men? Can you really mean it? Can you deride the Lord Jesus who
died for men? For which of His works do ye stone Him, when He lived
only to do good? For which of His griefs do you refuse Him, when He
died only that He might save? "He saved others, himself he cannot
save," for He had so much love that He could spare Himself. I can
understand your resisting the thunder of Jehovah's power, for I know
your insanity; but can you resist the tenderness of Jehovah's love? If
you do I must charge you with brutality, but therein I wrong the
brutes, to whom such crimes are impossible. I may not even call this
cruel scorning diabolical, for it is a sin which devils never did
commit, perhaps would not have committed had it been possible to them.
They have never trifled with a Redeemer, nor rejected the blood of the
seed of Abraham. Shall the favored race spit upon its friend? God grant
we may be brought to a better mind. But there is the picture before
you. God Himself set at naught, despised, rejected, put to shame,
perpetually dishonored in the Person of His dear Son. The sight should
breed repentance in us. We should look to Him whom we have scourged,
and mourn for Him. O Holy Spirit, work this tender grace in all our
hearts.
II. And now, secondly, I want to set the Lord Jesus before you in
another light, or rather beseech Him to shine in His own light before
your eyes:–AS THE SUBSTITUTE FOR HIS PEOPLE. Recollect when our Lord
Jesus Christ suffered thus it was not on His own account nor purely for
the sake of His Father, but 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." There has risen up a modern
idea which I cannot too much reprobate, that Christ made no atonement
for our sin except upon the cross: whereas in this passage of Isaiah we
are taught as plainly as possible that by His bruising and His stripes,
as well as by His death, we are healed. Never divide between the life
and the death of Christ. How could He have died if He had not lived?
How could He suffer except while He lived? Death is not suffering, but
the end of it. Guard also against the evil notion that you have nothing
to do with the righteousness of Christ, for He could not have made an
atonement by His blood if He had not been perfect in His life. He could
not have been acceptable if He had not first been proven to be holy,
harmless, and undefiled. The victim must be spotless, or it cannot be
presented for sacrifice. Draw no nice lines and raise no quibbling
questions, but look at your Lord as He is and bow before Him.
Understand, my dear brothers and sisters, that Jesus took upon Himself
our sin, and being found bearing that sin He had to be treated as sin
should be treated. Now, of all the things that ever existed sin is the
most shameful thing that can be. It deserves to be scourged, it
deserves to be spit upon, it deserves to be crucified; and because our
Lord had taken upon Himself our sin, therefore must He be put to shame,
therefore must He be scourged. If you want to see what God thinks of
sin, see His only Son spat upon by the soldiers when He was made sin
for us. In God's sight sin is a shameful, horrible, loathsome,
abominable thing, and when Jesus takes it He must be forsaken and given
up to scorn. This sight will be the more wonderful to you when you
recollect who it was that was spat upon, for if you and I, being
sinners, were scourged, and smitten, and despised, there would be no
wonder in it; but He who took our sin was God, before whom angels bow
with reverent awe, and yet, seeing the sin was upon Him, He was made
subject to the most intense degree of shame. Seeing that Jesus stood in
our stead, it is written of the eternal Father that "He spared not his
own Son." "It pleased the Father to bruise him: he hath put him to
grief"; He made His soul an offering for sin. Yes, beloved, sin is
condemned in the flesh and made to appear exceeding shameful when you
recollect that, even though it was only laid on our blessed Lord by
imputation, yet it threw Him into the very depths of shame and woe ere
it could be removed.
Reflect, also, upon the voluntariness of all this. He willingly
submitted to the endurance of suffering and scorn. It is said in the
text, "He gave his back to the smiters." They did not seize and compel
Him, or; if they did, yet they could nor have done it without His
consent. He gave His back to the smiters He gave His cheek to those
that plucked off the hair. He did not hide His face from shame and
spitting: He did not seek in any way to escape from insults. It was the
voluntariness of His grief which constituted in great measure the merit
of it. That Christ should stand in our stead by force were a little
thing, even had it been possible; but that He should stand there of His
own free will, and that being there He should willingly be treated with
derision, this is grace indeed. The Son of God was willingly made a
curse for us, and at His own desire was made subject to shame on our
account. I do not know how you feel in listening to me, but while I am
speaking I feel as if language ought scarcely to touch such a theme as
this: it is too feeble for its task. I want you to get beyond my words
if you can, and for yourselves meditate upon the fact that He who
covers the heavens with blackness, yet did not cover His own face, and
He who binds up the universe with the girdle which holds it in one, yet
was bound and blindfolded by the men He had Himself made; He whose face
is as the brightness of the sun that shineth in its strength was once
spit upon. Surely we shall need faith in heaven to believe this
wondrous fact. Can it have been true, that the glorious Son of God was
jeered and jested at? I have often heard that there is no faith wanted
in heaven, but I rather judge that we shall want as much faith to
believe that these things were ever done as the patriarchs had to
believe that they would be done. How shall I sit down and gaze upon Him
and think that His dear face was once profaned with spittle? When all
heaven shall lie prostrate at His feet in awful silence of adoration
will it seem possible that once He was mocked? When angels and
principalities, and powers shall all be roused to rapture of harmonious
music in His praise, will it seem possible that once the most abject of
men plucked out the hair? Will it not appear incredible that those
sacred hands, which are "as gold rings set with the beryl," were once
nailed to a gibbet, and that those cheeks which are "as a bed of
spices, as sweet flowers," should have been battered and bruised? We
shall be quite certain of the fact, and yet we shall never cease to
wonder, that His side was gashed, and His face was spit upon? The sin
of man in this instance will always amaze us. How could you commit this
crime? Oh, ye sons of men, how could ye treat such an One with cruel
scorn? O thou brazen thing called sin, thou hast, indeed, as the
prophet saith, "a whores forehead"; thou hast a demons heart, hell
burns within thee. Why couldst thou not spit upon earthly splendors?
Why must heaven be thy scorn? Or if heaven, why not spit on angels! Was
there no place for thy spittle but His face? His face! Woe is me! His
face! Should such loveliness receive such shame as this? I could wish
that man had never been created, or that being created, he had been
swept into nothingness rather than have lived to commit such horror.
Yet, here is matter for our faith to rest upon, Beloved, trust
yourselves in the hands of your great Substitute. Did He bear all this
shame? Then there must be more than enough merit and efficacy in this,
which was the prelude of His precious death–and especially in His
death itself–there must be merit sufficient to put away all
transgression, iniquity, and sin. Our shame is ended, for He has borne
it! Our punishment is removed: He has endured it all. Double for all
our sins has our Redeemer paid. Return unto thy rest, O my soul, and
let peace take full possession of thy weeping heart.
III. But time fails us, and therefore we will mention, next, the third
light in which it is our desire to see the Saviour. Beloved, we desire
to see the Lord Jesus Christ AS THE SERVANT OF GOD. He took upon
Himself the form of a servant when He was made in the likeness of man.
Observe how He performed this service right thoroughly, and remember we
are to look upon this third picture as our copy, which is to be the
guide of our life. I know that many of you are glad to call yourselves
the servants of God; take not the name in vain. As Jesus was, so are
you also in this world, and you are to seek to be like Him.
First, as a servant, Christ was personally prepared for service. He was
thirty years and more here below, learning obedience in His Father's
house, and the after years were spent in learning obedience by the
things which He suffered. What a servant He was, for He never went
about His own errands nor went by His own will, but He waited always
upon His Father. He was in constant communication with heaven, both by
day and by night. He says, "He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth
mine ear to hear as the learned." The blessed Lord or ever the day
broke heard that gentle voice which called Him, and at its whisper He
arose before the sunrise, and there the dawning found Him, on the
mountain side, waiting upon God in wrestling prayer, taking His message
from the Father that He might go and deliver it to the children of men.
He loved man much, but He loved His Father more, and He never came to
tell out the love of God without having as man received it fresh from
the divine heart. He knew that His Father heard Him always, and He
lived in the spirit of conscious acceptance. Have you ever noticed that
sometimes a passage will begin, "At that time Jesus answered and said,"
and yet there is no notice that He had been speaking to anybody before,
or that anybody had been speaking to Him? What He said was an answer to
a voice which no ear heard but His own, for He was always standing with
opened ear, listening to the eternal voice. Such service did Jesus
render, and you must render the same. You cannot do your Lord's will
except you live near to Him. It is of no use trying to preach with
power unless we get our message from our heavenly Father's own Self. I
am sure you as hearers know the difference between a dead word which
comes from a man's own brain and lip, and a living word which the
preacher delivers fresh as the manna which fell from heaven. The word
should come from the minister like bread hot from the oven, or better
still, like a seed with life in it; not as a parched grain with the
germ dead and killed, but as a living seed which roots itself in your
souls, and springs up to a harvest. This made our Lord such a good
servant that He listened to His Father's voice and yielded Himself to
the Father's will to perfection.
Our text assures us that this service knew no reserve in its
consecration. We generally draw back somewhere. I am ashamed to say it,
but I mourn that I have done so. Many of us could give to Christ all
our health and strength, and all the money we have, very heartily and
cheerfully; but when it comes to a point of reputation we feel the
pinch. To be slandered, to have some filthy thing said of you; this is
too much for flesh and blood. You seem to say, "I cannot be made a fool
of, I cannot bear to be regarded as a mere impostor"; but a true
servant of Christ must make himself of no reputation when he takes upon
himself the work of his Lord. Our blessed Master was willing to be
scoffed at by the lewdest and lowest of men. The abjects jeered at Him;
the reproach of them that reproached God fell upon Him. He became the
song of the drunkard, and when the rough soldiery detained Him in the
guard-room they heaped up their ridicule, as though He were not worthy
of the name of man.
They bow their knees to me, and cry, "Hail, King":
Whatever scoffs or scornfulness can bring,
I am the floor. the sink, where they it fling:
Was ever grief like mine?
The soldiers also spit upon that face
Which angels did desire to have the grace
And prophets once to see, but found no place:
Was ever grief like mine?
Herod and Pilate were the very dross of men, and yet He permitted them
to judge Him. Their servants were vile fellows, and yet He resigned
Himself to them. If He had breathed upon them with angry breath, He
might have flashed devouring fire upon them, and burned them up as
stubble; but His omnipotent patience restrained His indignation, and He
remained as a sheep before her shearers. He allowed His own creatures
to pluck His hair and spit in His face. Such patience should be yours
as servants of God. We are to be willing to be made nothing of, and
even to be counted as the offscouring of all things. It is pitiful for
the Christian to refuse to suffer, and to become a fighting man,
crying, "We must stand up for our rights." Did you ever see Jesus in
that posture? There is a propensity in us to say, "I will have it out."
Yes, but you cannot picture Jesus in that attitude. I defy a painter to
depict Him so: it is somebody else, and not Christ. No! He said, "I
gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the
hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting."
There is something more here than perfect consecration in the mere form
of it, for its heart and essence are manifest in an obedient delight in
the will of the Father. The words seem to me to express alacrity. It is
not said that He reluctantly permitted His enemies to pluck His hair,
or smite His back, but it is written, "I gave my back to the smiters,
and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair." He could not delight
in it; how could He delight in suffering and shame? These things were
even more repugnant to His sensitive nature than they can be to us; and
yet, "For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross,
despising the shame." He was ready for this dreadful treatment, for He
said, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened
until it be accomplished!" He was ready for the cup of gall, and
willing to drink it to its dregs, though it was bitterness itself to
Him. He gave His back to the smiters.
All this while–now follow me in this next point–there was no
flinching in Him. They spat in His face, but what says He in the
seventh verse. "I have set my face like a flint." If they are about to
defile His face He is resolved to bear it; He girds up His loins and
makes Himself more determined. Oh, the bravery of our Master's silence!
Cruelty and shame could not make Him speak. Have not your lips
sometimes longed to speak out a denial and a defense? Have you not felt
it wise to be quiet, but then the charge has been so excessively cruel,
and it has stung you so terribly that you hungered to resent it. Base
falsehoods aroused your indignation, and you felt you must speak and
probably you did speak, though you tried to keep your lips as with a
bridle while the wicked were before you. But our own beloved Lord in
the omnipotence of His patience and love would not utter a word, but
like a lamb at the slaughter He opened not His mouth. He witnessed a
good confession by His matchless silence. Oh, how might–how gloriously
mighty was His patience! We must copy it if we are to be His disciples.
We, too, must set our faces like flints, to move or to sit still,
according to the Father's will, to be silent or to speak, as most shall
honor Him. "I have set my face like a flint," saith He, even though in
another place He cries, "My heart is like wax, it is melted in the
midst of my bowels."
And do you notice all the while the confidence and quiet of His spirit?
He almost seems to say, "You may spit upon Me, but you cannot find
fault with Me. You may pluck my hair, but you cannot impugn my
integrity; you may lash my shoulders, but you cannot impute a fault to
Me. Your false witnesses dare not look Me in the face: let Me know who
is mine adversary, let him come near to Me. Behold, Adonai Jehovah will
keep Me, who is he that shall condemn me! Lo, they all shall wax old as
a garment, the moth shall eat them up." Be calm then, O true servant of
God! In patience possess your soul. Serve God steadily and steadfastly
though all men should belie you. Go to the bottom of the service, dive
even to the very depth, and be content even to lie in Christ's grave,
for you shall share in Christ's resurrection. Do not dream that the
path to heaven is up the hill of honor, it winds down into the valley
of humiliation. Imagine not that you can grow great eternally by being
great here. You must become less, and less, and less, even though you
should be despised and rejected of men, for this is the path to
everlasting glory.
I have not time to expound the last two verses of the chapter, but they
read you a noble lesson. "He gave his back to the smiters"; if, then,
any of you walk in darkness and have no light, this is no new thing for
a servant of God. The chief of all servants persevered, though men
despised Him. Follow Him, then. Stay yourselves upon God as He did, and
look for a bright ending of your trials. He came out into the light
ultimately, and there He sits in inconceivable splendor at His Father's
right hand, and so shall all the faithful come out of the cloud and
shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Only bear on
with resolute patience, and glory shall be your reward, even as it is
His.
IV. Lastly, I am to set Him forth in His fourth character, as THE
COMFORTER OF HIS PEOPLE; but I must ask you to do this, while I just,
as it were, make a charcoal sketch of the picture I would have painted.
Remember, first, our blessed Lord is well qualified to speak a word in
season to him that is weary, because He Himself is lowly, and meek, and
so accessible to us. When men are in low spirits they feel as if they
could not take comfort from persons who are harsh and proud. The
Comforter must come as a sufferer; He must come in a lowly broken
spirit, if He would cheer the afflicted. You must not put on your best
dress to go and visit the daughter of poverty, or go with your jewels
about you to show how much better off you are than she. Sit down by the
side of the downcast man and let him know that you are meek and lowly
of heart. Your Master "gave his back to the smiters, and his cheek to
them that plucked off the hair," and therefore He is the Comforter you
want.
Remark not only His lowliness, but His sympathy. Are you full of aches
and pains this morning? Jesus knows all about them, for He "gave his
back to the smiters." Do you suffer from what is worse than pain, from
scandal and slander? "He hid not his face from shame and spitting."
Have you been ridiculed of late? Have the graceless made fun of your
godliness? Jesus can sympathize with you, for you. know what unholy
mirth they made out of Him. In every pang that rends your heart your
Lord has borne His share. Go and tell Him. Many will not understand
you. You are a speckled bird, differing from all the rest, and they
will all peck at you; but Jesus Christ knows this, for He was a
speckled bird, too. He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate
from sinners," but not separate from such as you. Get you to Him and He
will sympathize with you.
In addition to His gentle spirit and His power to sympathize, there is
this to help to comfort us–namely, His example, for He can argue thus
with you, "I gave my back to the smiters. Cannot you do the like? Shall
the disciple be above his Master?" If I can but get on the doorstep of
heaven and sit down in the meanest place there I shall feel I have an
infinitely better position than I deserve, and shall I think of my
dear, blessed Lord and Master giving His face to be spit upon, and then
give myself airs, and say, "I cannot bear this scorn, I cannot bear
this pain!" What, does the King pass over the brook Kedron, and must
there be no brook Kedron for you? Does the Master bear the cross, and
must your shoulders never be galled? Did they call the Master of the
house "Beelzebub," and must they call you "Reverend Sir?" Did they
laugh at Him, and scoff at Him, and must you be honored? Are you to be
"gentleman" and "lady" where Christ was "that fellow"? For His birth
they loaned Him a stable, and for His burial He borrowed a grave. O
friends, let pride disappear, and let us count it our highest honor to
he permitted to stoop as low as ever we can.
And, then, His example further comforts us by the fact that He was calm
amid it all. Oh, the deep rest of the Saviours heart! They set Him up
upon chat mock throne, but He did not answer with an angry word; they
put a reed into His hand, but He did not change it to an iron rod, and
break them like potters' vessels, as He might have done. There was no
wincing and no pleading for mercy. Sighs of pain were forced from Him,
and He said, "I thirst," for He was not a stoic; but there was no fear
of man, or timorous shrinking of heart.
The King of Martyrs well deserves to wear the martyr's crown, for right
royally did He endure: there was never a patience like to His. That is
your copy, brother, that is your copy, sister–you must write very
carefully to write as well as that. You had need your Master held your
hand; in fact, whenever children in Christ's school do write according
to His copy, it is always because He holds their hand by His Spirit.
Last of all, our Saviour's triumph is meant to be a stimulus and
encouragement to us. He stands before us this morning as the Comforter
of His people. Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners
against Himself lest ye be weary and faint in your minds; for though He
was once abased and despised, yet now He sitteth at the right hand of
God, and reigns over all things; and the day is coming when every knee
shall bow before Him, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father. They that spat upon Him will rue
the day. Come hither, ye that derided Him! He has raised you from the
dead, come hither and spit upon Him now! Ye that scourged Him, bring
your rods, see what ye can do in this day of his glory! See, they fly
before Him, they invoke the hills to shelter them, they ask the rocks
to open and conceal them. Yet it is nothing but His face, that selfsame
face they spat upon, which is making earth and heaven to flee away.
Yea, all things flee before the majesty of his frown who once gave His
back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.
Be like Him, then, ye who bear His name; trust Him, and live for Him,
and you shall reign with Him in glory forever and ever. Amen.
PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Isaiah l; 53:1-7; Matthew
26:62–68; Luke 23:8–11; Matthew 27:27–30.
HYMNS FROM "Our Own Hymn Book"–327, 937, 268.
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The Prophet Like Unto Moses