The Crucifixion
This was Christ’s great act of obedience; but why was such an act of obedience necessary? Nothing has more staggered thoughtful minds than this question; and, yet, nothing is simpler when the Scriptural elements of the case are all placed together. It is a theological habit to represent the death of Christ as an act on his part to appease the wrath of the Father towards sinners. The Scriptures, on the contrary, always speak of it as an expression of God’s love towards fallen humanity. We read—
“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 iii. 16).
Again, John, in his 1st Epistle, 4th chap., 9th and 14th verses, says—
“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him, . . . and we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.”
Paul expresses the same sentiment in 5th chap. of Romans, ver. 8,
“God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
And again in 2 Corinthians, chap. v., verse 19,
p. 144 “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”
But the question presses: How was God’s love manifested in the death of Christ? Could not divine love have been manifested without so tragic an event? Evidently not. For on the very eve of crucifixion, Christ prayed to the Father in these agonising terms—“If it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done.” The cup did not pass; therefore, it was not possible. He drank it deep, pouring out his soul unto death. Why was the death of Christ indispensable? What did it accomplish? A consideration of the testimony will guide us to an answer which the discarding of the doctrine of natural immortality prepares us to understand. First let us consider the following New Testament allusions to the object of the crucifixion:—
“Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. xv. 3).
“He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah liii. 5).
“He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. ix. 26).
“Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. v. 7).
“God spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Rom. viii. 32).
“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. v. 8).
“We have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Col. i. 14).
“Having made peace through the blood of his cross to reconcile all things” (v. 20).
“He hath reconciled us in the body of his flesh through death” (verse 22).
“His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter ii. 24).
“The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark x. 45).
“The man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim. ii. 5, 6).
“Our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity” (Titus ii. 13, 14.)
“Our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins, that he migh deliver us from this present evil world” (Gal. i. 3, 4).
p. 145 “This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. xxvi. 28).
“Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood” (Rev. v. 9).
These statements affirm a connection between the death of Christ and the restoration of sinful man to divine favour and life. There may not, at first, appear to be a logical connection between the two things; but a consideration of all the facts of the case will reveal the deepest philosophy in the whole arrangement—using the term philosophy in its true sense, in the conviction that absolute wisdom characterises everything with which the mind of Deity has to do—the principles involved in the death of Christ are simple and easily understood. It is the going astray of Christendom from these first principles that has thrown obscurity over the sufferings of the Man of Sorrow. It is of the first importance to get rid of this obscurity. It is not the mere fact of Christ’s transfixion on the cross by the Romans, that constitutes the saving and enlightening truth of the matter; it is the principles involved in the tragedy that constitute the truth to be known.
These principles have been divinely revealed. The first is, “That the wages of sin is death” (Rom. vi. 23). Paul says “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Rom. v. 12). What this means, we have seen. Adam disobeyed a command given to him, and, in consequence of disobedience, WAS CONDEMNED TO RETURN TO THE GROUND FROM WHENCE HE CAME. Hence “sin,” which has become an obscure and unintelligible term, is simply disobedience. It is, in fact, so styled by Paul in the very chapter in which he describes Adam’s act as “sin.” He says “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (Rom. v. 19). If it is used in any secondary sense (such as when Paul speaks of “sin that dwelleth in me”) that secondary sense is covered by, or included in, the major sense of disobedience. Sin being disobedience or transgression (agreeably with John’s definition, “Sin is the transgression of the law”—1 John iii. 4), we are enabled to understand the relation of death to it. This death is not a “state of the soul,” or “peril of eternal damnation in the flames of hell;” both of which are unknown to Scripture, either in word or idea, being pagan corruptions of the truth. The death resulting from Adam’s transgression is a dissolution of being in the grave. Hence Paul puts resurrection by Christ in antithesis to death by Adam. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” This being the nature of death, we are enabled to understand the law which makes it the result of sin. Sin being the transgression or disobedience of the divine law, the perpetrator of it is out of joint with the law of well-being, whether as regards himself, others, or God. p. 146 He cannot have joy of himself, he cannot yield happiness to others, and he cannot yield pleasure to his Creator. Misery is the result of such a state; and it is one of the beneficent ordinances of God that perpetual existence shall be impossible under such circumstances—that death (extinction of being) shall follow in the train of moral pestilence, and wipe its evil results from the face of creation. He will not allow the evil to become permanent. So far from decreeing or countenancing an eternal hell, where sinners shall writhe and devils triumph to all eternity, His law, with jealous and inexorable power, follows close on the heels of sin, and suppresses the very germ of rebellion and misery.
This is the first principle to be apprehended before the crucifixion can be understood. Adam, the father of the race, disobeying in face of the declared penalty of death, brought upon himself the threatened sentence; and his posterity are involved in the same condemnation, for the simple reason that they are but propagations of his own being in all its qualities and relations, and also because they are themselves, every one of them, sinners by actual transgression, and therefore, on their own account, subject to death. Now here is the problem to be solved, and which has been solved in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus: how is condemned human nature to be emancipated from the law of sin and death, in harmony with the righteousness that has brought that law into force? If humanity were left to itself, it would inevitably perish; because it is not only incapable of a perfect righteousness, but it cannot set aside the condemnation in which it already exists. God’s plan in Christ has given us a scheme by which human salvation is achieved without the violation of any of His laws, which are necessary to the maintenance of His supremacy in the universe. Christ meets all the necessities of the case. The first necessity was that the law, both Edenic and Mosaic, should be upheld. The law required the death of the transgressing nature, viz., human nature. He had this nature, and he died—
“Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself took part of the same . . . He took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham” (Heb. ii. 14, 16).
“God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. viii. 3).
But it was also necessary that such a sufferer should be sinless, because sin would have prevented resurrection to life immortal. This necessity for sinlessness in “the Lamb of God” was constantly prefigured under the law by the spotlessness of the beasts offered in sacrifice. Christ as the great antitype fulfilled this condition: “He p. 147 was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” He could triumphantly ask his persecutors “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” (John viii. 46). If Christ had been a son of Adam merely, he would have been a sinner, and, therefore, unfit for sacrificial purposes. On the other hand, if he had been clothed with angelic or immaculate nature, he would have been equally disqualified, inasmuch as it was necessary that the sinning nature should suffer in him. The combination of condemned human nature with personal sinlessness was effected through divine power begetting a son from Mary’s substance. A “Lamb of God” was thus produced, guileless from his paternity, and yet inheriting the human sin-nature of his mother.
It is not possible that “The blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin” (Heb. x. 4), for the reason that appears in view of all these facts. The law would admit of no substitute, but exacted the very nature obnoxious to its penalty. Christ, then, “being found in fashion as a man,” and yet being sinless, was a perfect sacrifice; because being the representative of human nature, he could meet all the claims of God’s law upon that nature, and yet triumph over its operation by a resurrection to immortal life. The Lamb being provided, the sacrifice followed. The “Messiah was cut off.” “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities: . . . God hath laid on him the iniquities of us all.” God dealt with him representatively. There is a great difference between a representative and a substitute. A representative is not disconnected from those represented. On the contrary, those represented go through with him all that he goes through. But in the case of a substitute, it is otherwise. He does his part instead of those for whom he is the substitute, and these are dissociated from the transaction.
Christ suffering as the representative of his people, is one with them, and they are one with him. In what he went through they went through. Hence, Paul says believers were crucified with Christ, and baptised into his death. This death he declares to have been “the declaration of the righteousness of God,” which God required as the basis of the work of reconciliation and forgiveness (Rom. iii. 24-26).
Christ having died, God raised him from the dead to a glorious existence, even to equality with Himself. This was the essential point of the scheme, as appears from 1st Corinthians xv. 17, 20: “If Christ be not risen YOUR FAITH IS VAIN, ye are yet in your sins. But now is Christ risen from the dead;” and being raised, he constitutes the “one name given under heaven whereby men may be saved” (Acts iv. 12). If Christ had been a personal transgressor, the law of sin would have kept him in the grave, and the scheme of salvation would have miscarried at its vital point. The way of salvation could not have been opened through him; a dead Saviour would have been no ark of refuge—no life-giver to the mortal sons of p. 148 men. But Christ, after suffering the natural penalty of disobedience in human nature, having been raised from the dead to live for evermore, he is “the Saviour of all such as come to him.” He has life for bestowal by his own right. “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life IS IN HIS SON. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life” (1 John v. 11, 12). Life is deposited in him for our acceptance, on condition of allying ourselves to him, yea, on condition of our entry into him, and becoming part of him; for Paul says of those who are in Christ, “We are members of his body, and of his flesh, and of his bones,” and the aggregate of such are designated “the Bride, the Lamb’s wife,”—“His body, the church.”
Divine wisdom, which is foolishness with men, has provided a means whereby we get the benefit of the result achieved in Christ. Baptism in water is the ceremony by which believing men and women are united to Christ, and constituted heirs of the life everlasting which he possesses in his own right. This will be demonstrated more particularly in the 17th lecture. Meanwhile, we quote Paul’s words: “As many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. iii. 27). Entering into Christ, we are made one with him, and become heir to the privileges of the position which he has established in himself, after the analogy of the woman who, at her betrothal, obtains a prospective title to that which belongs to the man to whom she is betrothed. In the first Adam, we inherit death without the possibility of retrieving our misfortune, so long as we remain connected with him. In the last Adam (who, however, it must always be borne in mind, ascended to the last Adam position from the first Adam state), we obtain a title to eternal life. Hence the words of the apostle Paul: “As in Adam, all die; so in Christ shall all be made alive,”—that is, the “all” of whom he is speaking, viz., believers of the truth, as may be seen by the context—(1 Cor. xv. 22, 23), and only those who are found worthy at the judgment-seat. He is speaking here of being made alive immortally, not of mere resuscitation of mortal life to judgment, of which many will be the subjects who have never been Christians, but who are among the responsible unjust by reason of their privileges.
By nature we are in Adam. By the gospel and baptism we pass out of Adam into Christ. This is God’s appointment; and we cannot be saved except by compliance with His appointment.
Natural virtue will avail nothing, because, in itself, it is related only to the present, and establishes no right in respect of future existence. Those who are trusting to it, are building their house upon a foundation of sand. There is only one name given under heaven whereby men can be saved; and if we refuse to put on that name, and thus reject Christ, “who is made unto us wisdom, and p. 149 righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians i. 30), there remains nothing for us but the utter worthlessness of our own mortality, which without redemption will perish for ever under the just condemnation of Him who hath already passed the decree in prospect: “whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away, even that he hath.”
O reader, “refuse not Him that speaketh?” Turn not thine ear from the invitation which calls thee to drink of the fountain of the water of life freely? Gladly accept it; humbly comply with its requirements; and thou shalt, in due time, be delivered from the bondage of mortal flesh which lies heavy upon thee, and be promoted to the glorious liberty of the children of God!