The Determination of Christ to Suffer for His People

The Determination of Christ to Suffer for His People

(No. 2443)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, DECEMBER 15, 1895.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK.

"And they ga ve Him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but He received
it not."

Mark 15:23.

OUR Savior, before He was nailed to the Cross, and on the Cross,
several times had drinks of different sorts offered to Him. While they
were nailing Him to the Cross, they endeavored to make Him drink wine,
or vinegar as it is called, mingled with gall. But when He had tasted
of it–He did taste it–He would not drink it. When He was on the
Cross, the soldiers, mocking Him, offered Him vinegar, or their weak
drink of which they ordinarily partook, pledging Him in their cups with
scorn. And once more, when He said, "I thirst," they took a sponge
filled with vinegar, dipped it in hyssop and put it to His lips.

This occasion of offering the wine mingled with myrrh is, I believe,
different from all the rest. This wine mingled with myrrh was given to
Him as an act of mercy. Matthew Henry seems to think that it was
prepared by those holy women who were known to attend to the
necessities of our Lord. They had followed Him in all His footsteps
wherever He went. It was by their bounty that the bag which Judas kept
was generally as full as it was required to be, so that out of the
store they could go and buy food for their Master and for His
disciples. It was these holy women who prepared the spices to embalm
Him at His burial. And Matthew Henry thinks that these women, prompted
by their compassion for Him, prepared this cup of wine mingled with
myrrh that He might be strengthened for His miseries, and that those
miseries might, in some degree–be alleviated by the partial
stupefaction which a strong draught of wine and myrrh would give Him.

This time our Savior positively declined the cup–"He received it not."
The wormwood He tasted, but this He received not at all. He would have
nothing to do with it. Why? The answer is not to be found in our
Savior's abstemiousness, for He was not abstemious–He was never
self-indulgent, but He certainly was never abstemious. He was "the Son
of Man" who "came eating and drinking." He felt no repugnance to
wine–He, Himself, made it, He Himself drank it. He even earned for
Himself the name–"a gluttonous Man and a winebibber"–not deservedly,
but because, in contrast to John, who abstemiously refrained from
ordinary food, Jesus Christ sat down with publicans and sinners,
feasted with the feasters and ate and drank like other men.

Nor do I think the reason is to be found in any love of pain that
Christ had, nor in any heartless bravado which would lead Him to say,
"I will suffer and I will put the cup away from Me." Far be that from
Christ! He never thrust Himself in the way of suffering when it was
unnecessary. He did not go to give Himself up into the hands of His
enemies before His hour was come. He avoided persecution when the
avoidance of the persecution would not be an injury to His cause. He
withdrew out of Judea and would not walk in that land because of Herod,
who sought to slay Him. I believe that if our Savior had not been the
atoning Sacrifice–if His sufferings had been merely those of a
martyr–He would have quaffed to the very dregs the cup that was
offered Him and would not have left any of it! The reason why He
refused the cup, I think, is to be found in another thing altogether.

There is a glorious idea couched in the fact that the Savior put the
myrrhed wine cup entirely away from His lips. On the heights of Heaven,
the Son of God stood of old, and He looked down and measured how far it
was to the utmost depths of misery. He cast up the sum total of all the
agonies which a man must endure to descend to the utmost depths of pain
and misery. He determined that to be a faithful High Priest and, also,
to be a suffering One, He would go the whole way, from the highest to
the lowest, "from the highest throne in Glory to the Cross of deepest
woe." This myrrhed cup would have stopped Him within a little of the
utmost limit of misery and, therefore, He said, "I will not stop
half-way,

but I will go all the way. And if this cup can mitigate My sorrow, that
is just the reason why I will not drink it, for I have determined that
to the utmost lengths of misery I will go, that I will do, and bear,
and suffer all that Incarnate God can bear for My people, in My own
mortal body."

Now, Beloved, it is this fact that I wish to bring out before you–the
fact that Jesus Christ came into the world to suffer–and that because
the myrrhed cup would have prevented Him from reaching the lowest step
of misery, "He received it not." I shall have to show you, first, that
this was very frequently the case throughout His life–that He would
not take a step which would have diminished His miseries because He was
determined to go the whole length of suffering. Secondly, I shall try
to show you the reason for this determination. Then, thirdly, I shall
close up by speaking of the lesson that we may learn from it.

I. OUR SAVIOR WOULD GO THE WHOLE LENGTH OF MISERY–He would suffer in
every respect like as we suffer. He would bear the whole of the
tortures of Atonement without even the slightest shadow of mitigation
or alleviation. Now, I think I can show you that on many occasions in
Christ's life He determined to be tempted in every point in which men
are tempted and to be tempted to the utmost limit of the power of
temptation. Nor would He accept anything which would have limited the
force of the temptation upon man. I will give you some proofs of this.

First, Christ knew that you and I would be exposed to peril. He,
therefore, determined that He would be exposed to peril, too, and that
He would not by any means, when it was in His power, escape from the
peril. Let me show Him to you high up there, on the pinnacle of the
Temple. There stands our Master and a fiend by His side, on a giddy
eminence, with but little beneath His feet. He stands poised aloft. He
looks down the hill on which the Temple is built into the depths
below–and the enemy says, "Cast Yourself down, commit Yourself to the
care of the angels." It was like this myrrhed cup–"Do not stand in
this peril, cast Yourself upon that promise and risk Yourself upon the
angels' wings, for they shall bear You up in their hands, lest You dash
Your foot against a stone." But like as He would not receive this cup,
so neither would He receive this deliverance from His peril! So there
He stood erect, confident in His God, not using the means of
deliverance which the tempter wished Him to exercise, even as He would
not drink this cup!

Take another case–Jesus Christ knew that many of His people would have
to suffer bodily needs, poverty and woe. He therefore hungered. After
forty days' fast, when He might have delivered Himself from His hunger
by turning stones into bread, one would have said, "It would have been
a very innocent act to turn stones into bread and feed Himself." But,
"No," says Christ to the gnawing pangs of hunger, "I will let you go as
far as you can. I will not turn these stones into bread. I will let
hunger exercise all its power upon Me. I will let My body be gnawed by
its fierce teeth! I will not mitigate its misery." He would not receive
that wine mingled with myrrh that the devil offered Him in the
wilderness when he tempted Him to make the stones into bread–He would
not take the lessening of His misery!

I will tell you another instance. Many men have attempted to have their
lives cut short because they have so much misery and no more hope of
being happy. They, therefore, have wished for death. They have wished
that they might be as the untimely birth, that they might be forever
shut up in the bowels of the earth. They have longed for death and
desired it–and if an opportunity had cast itself in their way in which
they might have died with honor, without having the disgrace of
suicide–how many would have accepted the alternative of death! Here is
our Savior in the same condition, for He is dragged to the brow of the
hill of Nazareth. O Son of Man, Your wisest choice is to be dashed down
the sides of the hill on which the city is built! If You are wise, You
will let them hurl You headlong–that would be an end of all Your
misery, for there are years before You through which You will be
roasted at the slow fire of persecution! And afterwards You will have
to pass through floods of deepest misery! Do you not think the
temptation started up in His mind, "Let Yourself be cast down"? He knew
all about it. Had He been cast down, He would have died an honorable
death like the death of a Prophet slain in his own country–but no,
"passing through the midst of them, He went His way," because, as He
refused the wine cup, so He refused a hasty death which would have
delivered Him from His miseries.

Do you not observe that I have only just given you specimens? You will
find that all through the Savior's life it was just the same. You will
not find Him in one instance working a miracle to lessen His own bodily
fatigue, or to alleviate His own bodily needs and necessities, but
always letting the ills of this life wreak themselves upon Him with all
their fury! He hushed the winds, once, but it was for His disciples,
not for Himself. He lay asleep in the boat and let the waves toss Him
up and down as much as they pleased! He multiplied the loaves and
fishes, but it was for the multitude, not for Himself. He could find
money in a fish's mouth, but it was to pay the tribute, not for
Himself. He could scatter mercies wherever He went–open men's eyes,
and deliver many of them from pains–but He never exercised any of His
skill upon Himself. If the wind blew, He let it spend itself upon His
cheeks and crack them. If the cold was bitter, He let the cold come
round Him as it did in the Garden of Gethsemane. If journeying was
troublesome, He journeyed where He might have traveled as His Father
did–as old Thomas Sternhold says in his fine translation of the
Psalms–

"The Lord descended from above,

And bowed the heavens most high,

And underneath His feet He cast

The darkness of the sky.

On cherub and on cherubim

Full royally He rode,

And on the wings of mighty winds

Came flying all abroad."

So might Jesus, if He pleased, but He journeyed on in weariness. He
might have made the water leap out of the well to His hands, but there
He sat and thirsted, while He had power to make fountains gush even
from the stone on which He sat! On the Cross, "I thirst," was His cry
and yet, if He pleased, He might have opened in Himself rivers of
living water– He had them for others, but He had none for Himself. You
will observe this fact that in all the history of Christ, never once
did He take anything which could have lessened His miseries–He went
the whole length–and as on this occasion He refused the wine drugged
with myrrh and, so never did He receive anything that had a tendency to
prevent Him from going to the requisite lengths of suffering.

II. Now let me show you THE REASON FOR THIS. Was it out of any love to
suffering that He thus refused the wine cup? Ah, no, Christ had no love
of suffering. He had a love of souls, but like we, He turned away from
suffering. He never loved it. We see He did not, for even in the garden
He said, "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me." It was
His Human Nature struggling against suffering, as human nature
rightfully does–God has made us so that we do not naturally love
suffering–and it is not wrong for us to feel some repugnance to it,
for God has implanted that repugnance in us. Christ did not suffer
because He loved suffering. Why, then, did He suffer? For two
reasons–because this suffering to the utmost was necessary to the
completion of the Atonement, which saves to the utmost, and because
this suffering to the utmost was necessary to perfect His Character as
"a merciful High Priest" who has to care for souls that have gone to
the utmost of miseries themselves–that He might know how to succor
them that are tempted.

First, I say it was necessary to make the Atonement complete. I think
that if our Savior had drunk this myrrhed cup, the Atonement would not
have been valid. It strikes me that if He had drunk this wine mingled
with myrrh, He could not have suffered to the extent that was
absolutely necessary. We believe Christ did, on the Cross, suffer just
enough, and not one particle more than was necessary for the redemption
of His people. If, then, this wine cup had taken away a part of His
sufferings, the ransom price would not have been fully complete–it
would not have been fully paid. And if it had but taken away so much as
a grain, the Atonement would not have been sufficiently satisfactory.
If a man's ransom is to be paid, it must be all paid, for though but
one single farthing is left unpaid, the man is not fully redeemed and
he is not yet totally free. If, then, this drinking of the wine cup had
taken out the smallest amount from that fearful price of agony which
our Savior paid, the Atonement would have been insufficient only to a
degree, but even insufficiency to a degree, however small, would have
been enough to have caused perpetual despair, yes, enough to have shut
the gates of Heaven against all Believers! The utmost farthing must be
paid! Relentless Justice has never yet omitted so much as a fraction of
its claim! Nor would it, in this case, have relented in any
measure–Christ must pay it all! The wine cup would have prevented His
doing that, therefore He would suffer and go the whole length of
suffering! He would not stop, but would go through it all.

Again, I say it was that He might be made a compassionate High Priest.
Someone might have said, "When my Master died, He did not suffer much.
He suffered somewhat, but the wine cup prevented much suffering. I dare
not touch the wine cup–at least, I dare not take it so as to alleviate
my sufferings at all–then I must suffer more than He, for that drugged
wine I must not drink. Surely, then, my Master cannot sympathize with
me, if I, for conscientious motives, bear suffering without accepting
alleviations which some think are wrong." "No," said the Master, "no,
you shall never say that! If you have to suffer without a comfort, I
will let you know that I suffered without a comfort, too." You say,
"Oh, if I had some myrrh given me which could mitigate my woe, it would
all be well!" "Ah," says the Savior, "but I have had it offered to Me
and I will not drink it in order that you may see that I suffered woe
without the comfort, without the cordial, without the consolation which
you think would enable you to endure it."

O blessed Lord Jesus, You were "tempted in all points like as we are"!
Blessed be Your name! This myrrh cup could have put a plate of steel
upon Your breast! It would have blunted many darts of suffering and,
therefore, You put it aside that You might, naked, suffer every shaft
to find its target in Your heart! This myrrh cup would have steeled
Your feelings so that You could not be torn by the whips of anguish
and, therefore, You would not take its steeling influence, its
hardening qualities. You, who did stoop to become a poor, weak worm, "a
worm and no man," did bear the agony without making the agony less, or
strengthening Your own body to bear it, O blessed High Priest!

Go to Him, you tried and tempted ones! Go to Him and cast your burdens
on Him–He can bear them! He has borne burdens heavier than yours! Cast
your burden on the Lord, as His shoulders can sustain it! And His
shoulders, that have borne trouble without comfort, can bear your
troubles, though they are comfortless ones, too! Do but tell them to
your Master and you shall never find a lack of sympathy in Him.

III. And now, what have we to say by way of A LESSON for this short
discourse?

When Christ was offered this cup, He would not receive it. Sometimes,
Beloved, it is in your power to escape from sufferings for Christ's
sake–and you may rightly do so if you can escape from them without
injuring the mission upon which your Father has sent you–for as He
sent His Son into the world, even so has He sent you into the world.
You have your mission and there are times when the acceptance of a
cordial, or the reception of an escape from peril, would be a
degradation to your high dignity, an injury to your office and,
therefore, there are times when you should decline even the cup of
consolation, itself. You and I are called to hold fellowship with
Christ in His sufferings. Perhaps our business places us where we have
to hold fellowship with Christ in the suffering of contempt. The finger
is pointed at us. The lips are sometimes protruded in derision.
Sometimes an expression is used towards us, calling us a hypocrite, a
cant, a formalist. You may be apt to think, "Oh, that I could avoid all
this! I wish I could escape." Can you avoid it and serve your Master,
as well? If you can, then drink the myrrh cup, and avoid the misery!
But if you cannot–and if it is proven that your position is one of
duty and one in which you can honor your Master–it is at your peril
that you exchange your situation for an easier one, if you exchange it
for one less useful!

"Oh," says one, "I work among wicked men and I have to bear a testimony
for the Truth of God in their midst. May I not leave the place at once?
I feel that I am doing good, there, but the jeers and taunts are so
hard to bear that the good I do seems to be always counterbalanced by
the misery I suffer." Take care, take care, lest you let the flesh
prevail over the spirit! It would be like a myrrh cup to you, for you
to leave your job and go to another! It would be the removal of your
pain, but ponder a long time before you do it, weigh it well. If your
Maker has put you there, to suffer for His name's sake, come not down
from the cross to which He has nailed you by a daily crucifixion till
you have suffered all! And take not the myrrh cup of an escape until
you have borne all for Christ. I think it was holy Polycarp who, when
the soldiers came to him to take him to prison, made his escape. But
when he found, afterwards, that his doing so had dispirited some
Christians and had been attributed to his cowardice–when next the
soldiers presented themselves and he had an opportunity to escape,
"No," he said, "let me die." It had been foolhardy of him if he had run
into the teeth of men, the first time, in order to be put to death. But
when he saw that he would serve His Master better by His death than by
His life, it would have been an unrighteous thing if He had drunk of
the wine cup–if he had made his escape and not died for his Master's
sake.

O my Brothers and Sisters, I think that there are many cordials which
the world, too, has to offer to the Christian which he must not drink
because if his Master wishes him to have fellowship with Him in His
suffering, it is his to suffer so far as his Master wills! You are,
perhaps, a man or a woman of a sorrowful spirit. You are given to
solitude and loneliness. There are certain amusements which some men
say are harmless–they tell you that they are meant for you and ask you
to go and take them. You think, "Well, in my low state, surely I might
take these things. If I were happy and joyous, I should not need them,
but surely my Father, 'like as a father pities his children,' will pity
me. And if I do these things, I do them merely for temporary comfort,
for my heart seems as though it would break if I had not this little
temporary excitement."

Take care, take care that it is not the wine cup that prevents you, my
Friends! If your Master gives you the wine cup, the golden wine cup
filled with the precious wine of the Covenant, the strong promises and
sweet fellowship in Christ,

drink it without a moment's hesitation! Drink it and be glad, for God
has said, "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish," and
this is the strong drink He gives to you in the golden wine cup of the
Savior's fellowship. Drink it and be happy! But if men offer it to you,
look long and hard before you drink it! It may be you may be right in
drinking it–it may not be a wrong thing–but it may be, too, that even
a thing that is innocent to others, may be wrong to you! And the taking
of that amusement and pleasure into your hands might be like our
Savior's taking the myrrh cup and drinking it. It would be a
stultifying of you, a preventing you from learning all the lessons of
your misery, from going in all the steps of your Redeemer who wishes us
to follow Him through all the miseries which He has ordained for us,
that they may be the means of fellowship with Him in His suffering.

This is the only lesson I desire to give you at this time. If the Lord
impresses it on our minds, it may be of use to us. Only let me say how
many there are who would have drunk this wine cup if it had been
offered to them! Your Savior has taken from you the desire of your eyes
with a stroke! He has robbed you of one who is dear and near to you.
Say, Christian, if you had had the myrrh cup put before you, if it had
been said, "If you like, that loved one of yours shall live." If it had
been offered to you that the life that has been taken away should be
spared–could you, with fortitude, have said, "Not my will, but Yours,
be done"? Could you have put it away and said, "No, my Master, if this
cup may not pass from me except I drink it, Your will be done. And what
is more, if it may pass from me, if I need not the suffering, yet if I
can honor You more by suffering, and if the loss of my beloved one will
serve You and please You, then so let it be. I refuse the comfort when
it comes in the way of Your honor. I reject the favored mercy if it
comes in the teeth of Your Glory. I am willing to suffer– I care not
for Your consolations if I can honor You better without them"?

There are some among you in the time of mourning. Let me just, in
conclusion, note a very beautiful thought of a good man on a passage of
Scripture. Jesus says in His prayer, "Father, I will that they, also,
whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am." Do you know why good
men die? Do you know why the righteous die? Shall I tell you what it is
that kills them? It is Christ's prayer–"Father, I will that they be
with Me." It is that that fetches them up to Heaven! They would stay
here if Christ did not pray them to death! Every time a Believer mounts
from this earth to Heaven, it is caused by Christ's prayer. "Now," says
this good old Divine, "many times Christ and His people pull against
one another in prayer. You bend your knees in prayer and say, 'Father,
I will that they whom You have given me be with me where I am.' Christ
bends His knees and says, 'Father, I will that they whom You have given
Me be with Me where I am.'"

So, you see, one gets hold of him, and the other, too. He cannot be in
both places! The beloved one cannot be with Christ and with you, too!
Now, what shall be the answer? Put the prayers side by side. You are
praying, "Father, I will that they whom you have given me be with me
where I am." And there is your Savior, praying that they may be with
Him where He is. Now, if you had your choice–if the King should step
from His Throne and say, "Here are two supplicants. They are praying
opposite to one another–their prayers are clearly contrary to each
other–I cannot answer them both." Oh, I am sure, though it were agony,
you would start from your feet, and say, "Jesus, not my will, but Yours
be done." You would give up your prayer for your sick husband's life,
for your sick wife's life, for your dying child's life, if you could
realize the thought that Christ was praying in the opposite direction,
"Father, I will that they whom You have given Me be with Me where I
am."

And now we come to the Supper of our Master! Oh, may the Master give us
fellowship with Him! Poor sinners that know not Christ, I have hardly a
moment in which to address you, but remember, the separation which will
be made between you and the Church, tonight, is but a picture of an
awful separation which shall be made between you and the Church at the
Last Great Day! You will sit upstairs, some of you, to look down upon
the solemnity–remember, you may look upon it here, but you will not
look upon it in Heaven unless your hearts are made new by Christ and
unless you are washed in His precious blood!

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MARK 15:15-39; LUKE23:27-49.

We will read two short passages from the Gospels this evening. May the
blessed Spirit, who taught the Evangelists to record the sad story of
our Lord's sufferings and death, help us to fully enter into the
blessed meaning of it while we read it! First turn to Mark 15, verse
15.

Mark 15:15, 16. And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released
Barabbas to them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged Him, to be
crucified. And the soldiers led Him away into the hall, called
Praetorium. The guard room of Herod's palace, where the Praetorian
guards were known to gather.

16-20. And they called together the whole band. And they clothed Him
with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about His head,
and began to salute Him, Hail, King of the Jews! And they smote Him on
the head with a reed, and spit upon Him, and bowing their knees
worshipped Him. And when they had mocked Him. To the utmost, and gone
the full length of their cruel scorn!

20-23. They took off the purple from Him, and put His own clothes on
Him, and led Him out to crucify Him. And they compelled one Simon, a
Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of
Alexander and Rufus, to bear His Cross. And they brought Him unto the
place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. And
they gave Him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but He received it not.
They did for Him what they did for others who were crucified– they
gave Him myrrhed wine, as a stupefying draught–"but He received it
not." He came to suffer and He would bear, even to the end, the full
tale of His suffering.

24-27. And when they had crucified Him, they parted His garments,
casting lots upon them, what every man should take. And it was the
third hour, and they crucified Him. And the superscription of His
accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. And with Him they
crucified two thieves; the one on His right hand, and the other on His
left. They gave Him the place of eminence, as if He were a greater
offender than either of the two thieves!

28. And the Scripture was fulfilled, which says, And He was numbered
with the transgressors. Sinners to the right of Him, sinners to the
left of Him, sinners all round Him–compassed about with those who
sinned in the very highest degree by putting Him to death. "He was
numbered with the transgressors." Oh, that sweet word! It is the hope
of transgressors, now, that He was counted with them! And for His sake
all the blessings of Heaven now descend upon transgressors who accept
Him as their Substitute and Savior!

29. And they that passed by railed on Him. Not only those who sat down
to gloat their cruel eyes upon His miseries, but even the passers-by,
"They that passed by, railed on Him."

29, 30. Wagging their heads and saying, Ah, You that destroys the
Temple, and builds it in three day, save Yourself, and come down from
the Cross. He never said He would destroy the literal Temple. He did,
however, say concerning the Temple of His body, "Destroy this Temple,
and in three days I will raise it up," and He did raise it up in three
days after they had destroyed it!

31. Likewise also the chiefpriests mocking said among themselves with
the scribes, He saved others; Himself He cannot save. What they said in
bitter scorn was true, for mighty love had bound His hands from
self-salvation. Infinite in love, found guilty of excess of love to
men, "He saved others; Himself He could not save."

32, 33. Let Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the Cross,
that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with Him
reviled Him. And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over
the whole land until the ninth hour. A supernatural darkness which
could not have occurred according to the laws of Nature. It did, as it
were, "set a tabernacle for the sun"–the Sun of Righteousness was
canopied for a while in darkness, that no longer might those horrible
eyes gaze upon His terrible anguish!

34. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi,
Eloi, lama Sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, My God,
why have You forsaken Me? There was a denser darkness over His spirit
than was over all the land–and out of that darkness came this cry of
agony!

35. And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold,
He calls Elijah. Ah, me! This was either a cruel jest upon our Savior's
prayer or an utter misapprehension of it!

36. And one ran and filled a sponge full of vinegar, and put it on a
reed, and gave Him to drink, saying, Let Him alone; let us see whether
Elijah will come to take Him down. Jesus did receive this vinegar and
so fulfilled Psalm 69:21–"In My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink."

37. 38. And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And
the veil of the Temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom. Even
as the flesh of Christ, which is the veil of the Incarnate God, was
rent, so now was the veil of mystery taken away! The Temple in her
sorrow rent her veil. The old Ceremonial Law passed away with this
token of grief by the rending of the veil! It was a strong–I might
say, a massive veil–it could not have been torn by any ordinary means,
but when the hand of God takes hold upon the veil of Jewish types, they
readily tear and, into the innermost mystery of the Holy of Holies, we
may gaze, yes, and through it we may enter!

39. And when the centurion, which stood over against Him, saw that He
so cried out, and gave up the ghost, He said, Truly this Man was the
Son of God. Convinced by the Cross! Oh, the triumphs of Christ! The
last word He speaks won this testimony from the centurion in charge of
the Crucifixion! Now we will read part of Luke's narrative.

Luke 23:27-31. And there followed Him a great company of people, and of
women, which also bewailed and lamented Him. But Jesus, turning unto
them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for
yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in
the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that
never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin
to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if
they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?
Our Savior, even amidst the greatest sufferings, seemed almost to
forget His suffering in the deep sympathy that He had for the people
around Him! He pictured in His mind's eye that awful siege of
Jerusalem. Who can read it, as Josephus describes it, without feeling
the deepest horror? Oh, the misery of the women and of the children in
that dreadful day when the zealots turned against each other within the
city and fought to the death! And when the Roman soldiers, pitiless as
wolves, at last stormed the place! Truly did the Savior say of it that
there would be no day like it–neither was there–it was the
concentration of human misery and our Lord wept because He foresaw what
it would be. And He bade these poor women reserve their tears for those
awful sorrows.

32, 33 And there were also two others, malefactors, led with Him to be
put to death. And when they were come to the place, which is called
Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one on the
right hand, and the other on the left. O blessed Master they did not
spare You any scorn! There was no mode of expressing their contempt
which their malignity did not invent! Truly, "He was numbered with the
transgressors." You could not count the three sufferers on Calvary
without counting Him–He was so completely numbered with the others
that He must be reckoned as one of them!

34. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they
do. It was all that He could say in their favor, and He did say that.
If there is anything to be said in your favor, O my fellow Sinner,
Christ will say it! And if there is nothing good in you that His eyes
can light upon, He will pray on His own account–"Father, forgive them
for My sake."

34. And they parted His raiment, and cast lots. His garments were the
executioners' perquisites. Pitilessly they took them from Him and left
Him naked in His shameful sorrow.

35. And the people stood beholding. There was no pity in their eyes.
Not one of them turned away his face because he could not look upon so
disgraceful a deed.

35. And the rulers also with them derided Him, saying, He saved others;
let Him save Himself, if He is Christ, the chosen of God. I have
already reminded you that there was a deep truth hidden away in what
these cruel mockers said, for Jesus must give Himself up as a ransom if
we were to be redeemed.

36-38. And the soldiers also mocked Him, coming to Him, and offering
Him vinegar, and saying, If You are the King of the Jews, save
Yourself. And a superscription also was written over Him in letters of
Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, For these were the three languages known
to the throng, and Pilate invited them all to read in "Greek, and
Latin, and Hebrew."

38,39. THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. And one of the malefactors which
were hanged railed on Him, saying, If You are Christ, save Yourself and
us. Poor man, even though he is dying a felon's death, he must be in
the swim with the multitude! He must keep in with the fashion so
strong, so powerful–it is the popular current with all mankind!

40-42. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Do not you fear
God, seeing you are in the same condemnation? And we, indeed, justly,
for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this Man has done
nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when You come
into Your Kingdom. It was strange that Christ should find a friend
dying on the cross by His side. Nobody else spoke to Him about a
Kingdom. I am afraid that even His former followers began to think that
it was all a delusion. But this dying thief cheers the heart of Jesus
by the mention of a Kingdom and by making a request to Him concerning
that Kingdom even when the King was in His death agony!

43. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto you, Today shall you be
with Me in Paradise. The Master, you see, uses His old phraseology. In
His preaching He had been accustomed to say, "Verily, verily," and here
He is, even on the Cross,

still the same Preacher, for there was such assurance, such confidence,
such Truth, in all His words, that He never had to alter His style of
speaking! "Verily I say unto you, Today shall you be with Me in
Paradise." Well does our poet put it–

"He that distributes crowns and thrones, Hangs on a tree and bleeds and
groans." He was distributing these crowns and thrones even while
hanging on the tree! "Tell it among the nations that the Lord reigns
from the tree," may not be an exact translation of the Psalm, but it is
true, Psalm or no Psalm! 44. And it was about the sixth hour. About
noon, when the sun was at its height.

44. And there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
Three o'clock in the afternoon.

45. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the Temple was rent in
the midst. As if the great light of Heaven and the pattern of heavenly
things were both disturbed. The sun puts on mourning and the Temple
rends her veil in horror at the awful deed enacted on the Cross!

46. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said, Father–Is it
not sweet to see how Jesus begins and ends His prayers on the Cross
with, "Father"?

46-48. Into Your hands I commend My spirit: and having said thus, He
gave up the ghost. Now when the centurion saw what was done, he
glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous Man. And all the
people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which
were done, smote their breasts and returned. A strange ending to that
day, was it not? The three hours' darkness and the death cry of the
Christ had not converted them, but it had convicted them of sin. They
felt that a great and heinous crime had been committed and, though they
had come together as to a mere show or sight, they went away from the
spectacle impressed as they had never been before–"All the people that
came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done,
smote their breasts, and returned."

49. And all His acquaintances and the women that followed Him from
Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things. In these doings on
Calvary you and I have a share–in their guilt, or else in their merit.
Oh, that we may not be condemned with those who were guilty of His
death, but may we be cleansed by that precious blood which puts away
the sin of all who believe on Him!