Verse 9
But we see Jesus
The coming sovereignty of man
I.
“WE SEE NOT YET ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION TO MAN.” “Not yet”; but we are to see it. It has to come, this sway of man over “things,” over all things--over the material forces of the world, the powers that largely affect, if they do not actually make, life and progress. The key of the energies of the universe hangs at his girdle, and he will one day “be so learned in love” as to know how to use it to open all the doors of all the mansions of nature, and make their treasures supplements to, and continuations of, the spiritual creation. It has to come, this rule of the Spirit over sense and sin and Satan, over all that touches the invisible essence that constitutes the true man, and therefore over Satan, who works through “things” to deceive the nations and destroy souls. This supremacy is the final goal of humanity.
II. “NOT UNTO ANGELS HAS GOD SUBJECTED THE COMING WORLD.” Angels filled and crowded Hebrew thought for a long time, as God’s “mighty ones,” the swift-winged messengers who delighted to do His will; agents of deliverance, as for the imprisoned Peter, and of punishment, as for Sennacherib. But not to these “men in lighter habit clad” had God subjected the coming world of manhood, the advancing goodness and perfecting character and service of the sons of God. Not to them, but to men like ourselves, who have to do with sheep and oxen and the beasts of the field, with cotton and calicoes, with science and art; whose life is as “fragile as the dewdrop on its perilous way from a tree’s summit.” and yet so strong that it destroys itself by sin; men “made a little lower than God, and crowned with the glory” of a present participation in His nature, and therefore by and by to be invested with the “honour” of sharing His rule.
III. BUT IF TO MAN, TO WHAT IS THIS SCEPTRE OF DOMINION FINALLY GRANTED? To all and sundry, and to them all alike, simply as men, or to particular races or one race of men? To whom is the ultimate leadership of the world to be given? God is no respecter of persons or of nations. Colour of skin is nothing to Him. Geography does not determine His choices. The conquering race is the godly race, of any colour, or country, or time. It is the “new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him; where there cannot be”--it is ruled out for evermore” where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian,” African, Hindoo, Chinaman, Briton; “ but Christ is all and in all.” It is the manhood of “kind hearts,” not-f “coronets,” of “simple faith,” and not of “Norman blood.”
IV. Though eighteen centuries have elapsed since that forecast of the destiny of man was quoted, endorsed, and explained by the writer to the Hebrews, amid the wreck and overthrow of Judaism, WE HAVE, ALAS! TO ADOPT THE WRITER’S LAMENT, AND SAY, AS WE LOOK ON MAN AND HIS WORLD TO-DAY, “NOT YET WE SEE ALL THINGS SUBJECTED UNTO HIM’.” Indeed, his mastery “of things,” though advanced and advancing, is woefully incomplete. He is only slowly learning that he is a spirit, and is for large breadths of his time and in wide areas of his life the slave of “ things.” The animal is in command. Prometheus is still bound. “The mystery of waste” and suffering and wrong confronts us day and night with its terrible menace, and the self-multiplying and intensifying power of sin drives us to carry our despair into our facts, until there is neither faith nor hope left in us, and, like the Hebrews, “we fall away from the living God,” and find it impossible “to hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end.”
V. But surely that is not all we see! There is more, much more. On this earth and amongst men--“WE SEE JESUS”; and though, in seeing Him, our first glimpse may only confirm the impression that man has not yet fully entered on his inheritance; yet the deeper look assures us that he is on his way to it, has already been anointed with the oil of joy above his predecessors and contemporaries, and, though suffering, is really ascending by suffering to the throne from which He shall rule for evermore. That sight explains the ages’ long delay; the dissolution and disappearance of the ancient and illustrious Jewish religion, and is the indefeasible pledge and guarantee that the sovereignty of man shall yet be realised, and all things be put under His feet. Seeing Jesus, we see these four paths to the sovereignty of the Christian race, and of the Christian religion through that race; the path of history, of Divine revelation, of saintly character, and of self-suppressing enthusiasm for the welfare of the world.
1. The past rules. It is alive; for many people more alive than the present. In Jesus that past is interpreted; its religious yearning and hope, effort and failure, explained; its programme in law and prophecy filled out; its long and painful discipline vindicated. Now, the case being so, I maintain that the experience the world has had of Christianity forms a piece of logic of irresistible cogency; an argument compact, four-square, fixed deep and for ever in the solid fastnesses of fact, in favour of the success of our present endeavour to save the world by the gospel of Christ; that indeed, as Christ in the conscience is the stronghold of missions, so Christ in the experience of men of like passions and hopes, faiths and fears with ourselves, all through the ages, is an unimpeachable voucher for the triumph of the missionary enterprise; a witness that cannot be denied that the movement is a living, saving, and conquering one, and destined to end in nothing short of the universal establishment of the kingdom of God on the earth.
2. Ideas rule. Thinkers make and mould the ages. Religious revolutions are effected by ideas. In Jesus we see the simplest and highest thought on the highest and most absorbingly vital themes: God and salvation, sin and forgiveness, duty and holiness. Great is the truth as it is in Jesus, and it shall prevail through and over Moses and Isaiah, over Buddha and Mahomet, and make all men free and good. We know the gospel to be the light and conquering message for India and the world. Judging man according to the spiritual necessities of his nature, we are sure this is the only message he can abidingly accept. Treating him, not simply as a keen intellectual thinker, eager to frame a definition of the Divine, and reduce his notions of the Godhead to the cramping boundaries of a four-page catechism--not as a clever and ingenious artist flinging the pictures of his fancy on the canvas, and creating things of perennial beauty and joy--not as a cleverly-constructed money-making machine, but as a man with a fevered restlessness born of sin, and an irrepressible aspiration for righteousness and goodness born of the God that is in him; taking him thus, I declare that no message can soothe him but Christ’s, no medicine heal but the great Physician’s, no good satisfy but that which make him a partaker of the Divine nature, and enables him to escape the corruption that is in the world by lust.
3. This is a moral world; and no rule lasts that is not based on holy character. It is not enough to have the right message; we need also the right method, the method that has conquered from the beginning. Jesus Christ wrote no books. He made men, filled them with His Spirit and trained them in His service, and trusted the founding of His kingdom to them. All the great epochs of revived life and extended power in the history of the Church have been introduced by men of signal goodness, of massive power, of radiant holiness, of unusual faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. When Dr. Judson went amongst the poor and benighted Karens, and passed through their villages and jungles, he was called by the natives “Jesus Christ’s man”! That is it. Nothing can resist that power. A Woolwich steam-hammer is not better adapted for making iron-plated ships than Christ in men as a living experience, and at work in the rescue of the perishing, is fitted for the regeneration of the world.
4. The earliest sovereignty we know is that of love. No monarchy is so sure as a mother’s, none so inward and lasting. “Love never fails.” It is the p-wet that keeps your Christian man fresh, earnest, eager, real, enthusiastic, and hopeful; sustains him at high-pressure in spite of defeat; gives him the power of content, and the victory of joy in his work through, instead of obtaining the common rewards of labour, he suffer the heaped-up scorns and bitter hates of men. David Hume is reported to have said, “Fifty years hence, where will your Christianity be?” Well, where is it? Contrast the dominion of Jesus at this hour, and in the days when the great sceptic spoke. Note our Lord’s conquest since that taunt was flung at His chariot! Where has He not gone? Into what province has He not penetrated? What evils has He not attacked? Assuredly our survey of the past warrants the largest hopefulness and the strongest faith. Now, “Fifty years hence,” we may ask, “where will Christianity not be?”
VI. Disraeli said, “THE YOUNG DO THE REAL WORK OF THE WORLD.” Ruskin writes, “The most beautiful works of all art were done in youth.” Rome was founded by Romulus before he was twenty. Lord Shaftesbury began his fight with social misery in the freshness of his young manhood. William Lloyd Garrison girt himself with the sword of freedom whilst the hot blood of youth was coursing through his veins. Moffat and Livingstone, Comber and Hannington, and an exceeding great army of missionaries said, like young Isaiah in response to God’s summons, “Here am I, send me.” The messenger of the Highest, John the Baptist, finished his work as a young man, and the Christ whom he pioneered was six months his junior. Wherefore, seeing that you are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, shirk no task, seize every opportunity of helping the needy, and run with patience the race of missionary service, “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of the faith.” Hear Carey’s wish, and help to realise it. “I hope,” said he, in 1793, “the Society will go on and increase, and that the multitudes of heathen in the world may hear the glorious words of truth. Africa is but a little way from India, Madagascar but a little way further; South America, and all the numerous and large islands in the Indian and China Seas, I hope will not be passed over. A large field opens on every side, millions of perishing heathens are pleading … with every heart that loves God, and with all the ,hutches of the living God.” Heed that prophetic message, and give to the work of saving the world a daily, d finite, and large place in the thought and prayer and work of your life! (J. Clifford, D. D.)
Manhood crowned in Jesus
One of our celebrated astronomers is said to have taught himself the rudiments of his starry science when lying on the hill-side, keeping his father’s sheep. Perhaps the grand psalm to which these words refer had a similar origin, and may have come from the early days of the shepherd king, when, like those others of a later day, he abode in the field of Bethlehem, keeping watch over his flock by night. The magnificence of the Eastern heaven,, with their “larger constellations burning,” filled his soul with two opposite thoughts--man’s smallness and man’s greatness. I suppose that in a mind apt to pensive reflections, alive to moral truths, and responsive to the impressions of God’s great universe, the unscientific contemplation of any of the grander forms of nature produces that double effect. Thus David felt man’s littleness. And yet--and yet, bigness is not greatness, and duration is not life, and the creature that knows God is highest. So the consciousness of man’s separation from, and superiority to, these silent stars, springs up strong and victorious over the other thought. These great lights are not rulers, but servants; we are more than they, because we have spirits which link us with God. The text, then, brings before us a threefold sight.
I. LOOK AT THE SIGHT AROUND US. “We see not yet all things put under man.” Where are the men of whom any portion of the Psalmist’s words is true? Look at them--are these the men of whom be sings? Visited by God! crowned with glory and honour! having dominion over the works of His hands! Is this irony in fact? Let consciousness speak. Look at ourselves. If that plan be God’s thought of man, the plan that He hangs up for us His workmen to build by, what a wretched thing my copy of it has turned out to bet Is this a picture of me? How seldom I am conscious of the visits of God; how full I am of weaknesses and imperfections--the solemn voice within me tells me at intervals when I listen to its tones. On my brow there gleams no diadem; from in life, alas! there shines at the best but a fitful splendour of purity, all striped with solid masses of blackness. And as for dominion over creatures, how superficial my rule over them, how real their rule over me! I can make machinery, and bid the lightning do my errands, and carry messages, the burden of which is mostly money, or power, or sorrow. But all these, and the whole set of things like thorn, are not ruling over God’s creation. That congests in using all for God, and for our own growth in wisdom, strength, and goodness; and be only is master of all things who is servant of God. If so what are most of us but servants, not lords, of earth and its goods? And so against all the theories of the desperate, school, and against all our own despondent thoughts, we have to oppose the sunny hopes which come from such words as those of our text. Looking around us, we have indeed to acknowledge with plaintive emphasis,” we see not yet all things put under Him”--but, looking up, we have to add with triumphant confidence that we speak of a fact which has a real bearing on our hopes for men--“we see Jesus.”
II. So, secondly, LOOK UPWARDS TO JESUS. Christ is the power to conform us to Himself, as well as the pattern of what we may be. He and none lower, He and none beside, is the pattern man. Not the great conqueror, nor the great statesman, nor the great thinker, but the great love, the perfectly good--is the man as God meant him to be. But turn now to the contemplation of Christ in the heavens, “crowned with glory and honour,” as the true type of man. What does Scripture teach us to see in the exalted Lord?
1. It sets before us, first, a perpetual manhood. Grasp firmly the essential, perpetual manhood of Jesus Christ, and then to see Him crowned with glory and honour gives the triumphant answer to the despairing question that rises often to the lips of every one who knows the facts of life, “Wherefore hast Thou make all men in vain? “
2. Again, we see in Jesus, exalted in the heavens, a corporeal manhood. Heaven is a place as well as a state; and, however, for the present, the souls that sleep in Jeans may have to “wait for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body,” and, being unclothed, may be wrapped about with Him, and rest in His bosom, yet the perfect men who shall one day stand before the Lord, shall have body, and soul, and spirit--like Him who is a man for ever, and for ever wears a human frame.
3. Further, we see in Jesus transfigured manhood. For Him, as for us, flesh here means weakness and dishonour. For us, though not for Him, flesh means corruption and death. For Him, as for us, that natural body, which was adequate to the needs and adapted to the material constitution of this earth, must be changed into the spiritual body correspondent to the conditions of that kingdom of God which flesh and blood cannot enter. For us, through Him, the body of humiliation shall be changed into likeness of the body of His glory. We see Jesus, and in Him manhood transfigured and perfected.
4. Finally, we see in Jesus sovereign manhood. He directs the history of the world, and presides among the nations. He is the prince of all the kings of the earth. He wields the forces of nature, He directs the march of providence, He is Lord of the unseen worlds, and holds the keys of death and the grave. “The government is upon His shoulders,” and upon Him hangs “all the glory of His Father’s house.”
III. Finally, LOOK FORWARD. Christ is the measure of man’s capacities. He is the true pattern of human nature. Christ Is the prophecy and pledge of man’s dominion. It were a poor consolation to point to Christ and say, “Look what man has become, and may become,” unless we could also say, “A real and living oneness exists between Him and all who cleave to Him, so that their characters are changed, their natures cleansed, their future altered, their immortal beauty secured.” He is more than pattern, He is power; more than specimen, He is source; more than example, He is redeemer. He has been made in the likeness of sinful flesh, that we may be in the likeness of His body of glory. He has been made “sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” The fact we know, the contents of the fact we wait to prove. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” Enough, that we shall reign with Him, and that in the kingdom of the heavens dominion means service, and the least is the greatest. Nearness to God, knowledge of His heart and will, likeness to Christ, determine superiority among pure and spiritual beings. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The vision of Jesus in the Church through all ages
Did you ever know the power of a picture, the portrait of some beloved friend, over the life and the heart? Did you ever hang the portrait of some cherished darling in the household room--a departed friend, a mother, a wife, a husband, or a child--some friend especially related to your sympathies and affections? And have you not noticed and felt what a character that portrait gives to the room? If the memory is especially prized, how the eye turns to it as it enters the room, and how the eye out of the portrait seems to follow you, not so much spectrally as spiritually, while in the room! That portrait will quiet the heart when it is in its state of fever, heat, and impulse. Mighty over the heart is the portrait, of the loved departed friend. But what is that compared with the power of the portrait of Jesus hung up in the human soul? For is not the soul, too, a mighty chamber--a room through which the powers and faculties wander and stray? There are some men whose souls are exchanges, money markets, or shops; but holy souls hang up within, the charmed and charming portrait of Jesus, and the, the spirit of the portrait turns the chamber into a palace--say rather into a dear household room. “We see Jesus.”
I. THE WHOLE OF THIS EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IS A TRIBUTE OF HOMAGE TO THE DIVINISED HUMANITY OF OUR LORD. How richly it abounds in “strong consolations” to believing souls, founded on the sympathy of His nature and character! How it meets our human necessities! For, while it is true that we could not do without the strength of the eternal Divinity of our Lord, we feel it to be no less true that we could not do without the tenderness of His humanity; and this is the relation which, throughout the whole of this Epistle, is put by the apostle with such forcible beauty--“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest” (Hebrews 4:14-16; Hebrews 7:24-26 : again, in that magnificent peroration to the Hebrews 11:1-3).
II. AND THIS CONSOLATION PRESSED OUT OF THE SIGHT OF JESUS ARISES FROM THE VARIETIES OF HIS POWER, It is very beautiful to divide His character in His relation to us as it has been divided by Scripture, and by the experience of Christians of all ages into Jesus the Prophet, Jesus the Priest, and Jesus the King. And we receive Him in this order. We see Jesus the Prophet in all the actions of His life as He went about doing good. “Rabbi, I know Thou art a teacher sent from God.” “We see Jesus.” He is our Priest” Harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” At once Priest and Sacrifice. “On Him is laid the iniquity of us all.” I see Him standing vested in the beauties of His own holiness--nor have I any desire to own a righteousness which is nut His; it is not less happy than safe to hide in the foldings of His robe, and to feel that in His purity there is power--power to make “the scarlet crime whiter then snow.” “We see Jesus” as our King. It is our privilege and pride to see Him moving among and over the affairs of the world, “walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks,” and proclaiming, “I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” Thus everywhere, and in all ages, Jesus is power. Oh! what a chronicle is ,flat, the history of things and deeds wrought in “the name of Jesus.” All beings know Jesus. “Jesus we know, and Paul we know, hut who are ye?” There is power in the name of Jesus. There is power in the vision of Jesus. The value of all Christian service is there. The value of all worship rendered is in this: “We see Jesus.”
III. THE EVER-PRESENT POSSESSIVENESS OF THE TEXT, “We See JESUS”--“JESUS CHRIST, THE SAME YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER.” “We See Jesus,” says Paul, perhaps, in prison at Rome. There is something very striking in the contempt expressed by Festus on the trial of Paul: “one Jesus” I said he. Ah, how little a person to poor Festus seemed “one Jesus”; but this “one Festus” has quite passed away from the world’s knowledge, and his name would not be known, his shadow would not be seen if it were not for this “one Jesus” saving it from utter obscurity. Names are the signs of things, and the name of Jesus has survived all shocks; it has passed almost unchanged into all languages. All else seems to perish, it never; like a conservative element it leavens all languages without losing its own identity. (E. Paxton Hood.)
Seeing Jesus
I. WHY FAITH IS COMPARED TO THE SIGHT. IS not sight, in many respects, the noblest of all the senses? To be deprived of any of our senses is a great loss, but perhaps the greatest deprivation of all is the loss of sight. They who lose sight lose the noblest of human faculties.
1. For observe that sight is marvelously quick. How wondrously fast and far it travels! We know not where heaven may be, but faith takes us there in contemplation in a single moment. We cannot tell when the Lord may come; it may not be for centuries yet, but faith steps over the distance in a moment, and sees Him coming in the clouds of heaven, and hears the trump of resurrection. It would be very difficult, indeed it would be impossible for us to travel backward in any other chariot than that of faith, for it is faith which helps us to see the creation of the world, when the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy. Faith takes us to Calvary’s summit, and we stand and see our Saviour as plainly as did His mother when she stood sorrowfully at the cross-foot.
2. Is not faith like sight, too, for its largeness? What a faculty faith has for grasping everything, for it layeth hold upon the past, the present, and the future. It pierceth through most intricate things, and seeth God producing good out of all the tortuous circumstances of providence. And what is more, faith does what the eye cannot do--it sees the infinite; it beholds the invisible; it looks upon that which eve hath not seen, which ear hath not heard.
3. Is not faith wondrously like sight from its power to affect the mind and enable a man to realise a thing? If it is real faith, it makes the Christian man in dealing with God feel towards God as though he saw Him; it gives him the same awe, and yet the same joyous confidence which he would have if he were capable of actually beholding the Lord. Faith, when it takes a stand at the foot of the cross, makes us hate sin and love the Saviour just as much as though we had seen our sins placed to Christ’s account, and had seen the nails driven through His hands and feet, and seen the bloody scourges as they made the sacred drops of blood to fall.
II. FAITH, THE SIGHT OF THE SOUL, IS HERE SPOKEN OF AS A CONTINUOUS THING. “We see Jesus.” It does not say, “We can see Jesus”--that is true enough: the spiritual eye can see the Saviour; nor does it say, “We have seen Him”; that also is a delightful fact, we have seen the Lord, and we bays rejoiced in seeing Him; nor does the text say, “We shall see Him,” though this is our pride and our hope, that “when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is”; but the text says, “We see Jesus”; we do see Him now and continually. This is the common habit of the Christian; it is the element of his spiritual life; it is his most delightful occupation; it is his constant practice. “We see Jesus.” I am afraid some of us forget this.
1. For instance, we see Jesus Christ as our Saviour, we being sinners still. And is it not a delightful thing always to feel one’s ,elf a sinner, and always to stand looking to Christ as one’s Saviour, thus beholding Him evermore?
2. Should not this, also, be the mode of our life in another respect? We are now disciples. Being saved from our former conversation, we are now become the disciples of the Lord Jesus; and ought we not, as disciples, to be constantly with our Master? Ought not this to be the motto of our life, “We see Jesus “? Let us carry Christ on our heart, still thinking of Jesus, seeing Him at all times.
3. Would it not also be very much for our comfort if we were ,o see Jesus always as our Friend in our sojourn here? We should never be alone if we could see Jesus; or at least, if we were it would be a blessed solitude. We should never feel deserted if we could see Jesus; we should have the best of helpers. I know not if we should feel weak if we always saw Him, for He would be our strength and our song, He would become our salvation.
4. Would it not be much better for us if we were to see Jesus as our Forerunner? If our faith could see Jesus as making our bed in our sickness, and then standing by our side in the last solemn article, to conduct us safely through the iron gates, should we not then look upon death in a very different light?
5. If we see Jesus, being always with us, from morn till eve, in life and in death, what noble Christians it will make us! Now we shall not get angry with each other so quickly. We shall see Jesus; and we cannot be angry when that dear loving face is in view. And when we have been affronted, we shall be very ready to forgive when we see Jesus. Who can hate his brother when he sees that face, that tender face, more marred than that of any man? When we see Jesus, do you think we shall get worldly?
III. SOMETIMES OUR FAITH, LIKE OUR SIGHT, IS NOT QUITE CLEAR. Everything that has life has variations. A block of wood is not affected by the weather, but a living man is. You may drive a stake into the ground, and it will feel no influence of spring, summer, autumn, or winter; but if the stake be alive, and you drive it into the soil where there is moisture, it will soon begin to sprout, and you will be able to tell when spring and winter are coming by the changes that take place in the living tree. Life is full of these changes; do not wonder, then, if you experience them.
IV. FAITH, LIKE SIGHT, HAS GREAT GROWTH. Our children, in a certain sense, see as truly when they are a day old as when they are grown up to be twenty years old; but we must not suppose that they see as accurately, for they do not. I think observations would teach us that little children see all things as on a level surface, and that distant objects seem to them to be near, for they have not yet received experience enough to judge of the relative position of things. That is an acquired knowledge, and no doubt very early acquired, but still it is learned as a matter of mental experience. And let me say, though you may not have noticed it, all our measures of distance by the eye are matters which have to be gained by habit and observation. When I first went to Switzerland, with a friend, from Lucerne we saw a mountain in the distance which we were going to climb. I pointed out a place where we should stop half-way up, and I said, “We shall be there in about four hours and a half.” “Four hours and a half!” my friend said, “I’d undertake to walk it in ten minutes.” “No, not you.” “Well, but half an hour!” He looked again and said, “Anybody could get there in half an hour!” It seemed no distance at all. And yet when we came to toil up, the four hours and a half turned into five or six before we reached the place. Our eyes were not accustomed to mountains, and we were not able to measure them; and it is only by considerable experience that you get to understand what a mountain is, and how a long distance appears. You are altogether deceived, and do not know the position of things till you become wiser. And it is just so with faith. Faith in the Christian when he first gets it, is true and saving; but it is not in proportion. Let us ask, then, of the Lord, that He will increase our faith till the mental eye shall become clear and bright, and we shall be made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, to be with Christ, and to see Him as He is. If you have but little faith, remember that that will save you. The little diamond is as much a diamond as the Koh-i-noor. So little faith is as truly the faith of God’s elect as the greatest faith. If you do but see Jesus, though it be but by the corner of your eye, yet if you see Him, you shall be saved; and though you may not see as much of Christ as advanced saints do, yet if you see enough of Him to trust Him, to rely on Him entirely, your sins which are many are forgiven, and you shall yet receive grace for grace, until you shall see Him in His glory.
V. IT IS AT ALL TIMES A VERY SIMPLE THING TO LOOK. If there be life in a look, glory be to God for such a provision, because it is available for each one of us! Sinner, if thou wouldst be saved, there is nothing for thee to think upon but Christ. Do thy sins trouble thee? Go to Him, and trust in Him, and the moment thou lookest to Him thou art saved. “Oh,” says one, “but I cannot do that; my faith is so weak.” Well, when I walk about and see a beautiful sight, very seldom do I think about my own sight; my mind is occupied with the sight, and so let it be with you. Never mind that eye; think more about the vision to be seen. Think of Christ. It would be a pitiful thing if, when there were some great procession in the streets, all you thought about was your own eye; you would see but very little. Think less about your faith, and more about Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The best of all sights
I. Regard the glorious sight of Jesus as a COMPENSATION. We do not yet see Him acknowledged as King of kings by all mankind, and this causes us great sorrow. “But,” saith the apostle, “we see Jesus,” and this sight compensates for all others, for we see Him now, no longer made a little lower than the angels, and tasting the bitterness of death, but “ crowned with glory and honour.” We see Him no more after the flesh, in shame and anguish; far more ravishing is the sight, for we see His work accomplished, His victory complete, His empire secure. He sits as a priest upon the throne at the right hand of God, from hence forth expecting till His enemies are made His footstool.
1. This is a Divine compensation for the tarrying of His visible kingdom, because it is the major part of it. The main battle is won.
2. The compensation is all the greater because our Lord’s enthronement is the pledge of all the rest. The putting of all things under Him, which as yet we see not, is guaranteed to us by what we do see. This is the antidote to all depression of spirit, the stimulus to hopeful perseverance, the assurance of joy unspeakable.
II. Nor is this sight a mere compensation for others which as yet are denied us, it is in itself the cause of present EXULTATION. This is true in so many ways that time would rail us to attempt to enumerate them.
1. “We see Jesus,” and in Him we see our former unhappy condition for ever ended. We were fallen in Adam, but we see in Jesus our ruin retrieved by the second Adam. We weep as we confess our transgressions, but we see Jesus and sing for joy of heart, since He hath finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness.
2. The same is sweetly true of the present, for we see our present condition to be thrice blessed by virtue of our union with Him.
3. We see self, and blush and are ashamed and dismayed; “but we see Jesus,” and His joy is in us, and our joy is full. What a vision is this for you, when you see Jesus, and see yourself complete in Him, perfect in Christ Jesus?
4. Such a sight effectually clears our earthly future of all apprehension. It is true we may yet be sorely tempted, and the battle may go hard with us, but we see Jesus triumphant, and by this sign we grasp the victory.
III. “We see Jesus” with gladdest EXPECTATION.
1. His glorious person is to us the picture and the pledge of what we shall be; for “it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.”
2. Nor may we alone derive comfort as to our future from His person, we may also be made glad by a hope as to His place. Where we see Jesus to be, there shall we also be. His heaven is our heaven. His prayer secures that we shall be with Him, where He is, that we may behold His glory.
3. The glory of Jesus strikes the eye at once, and thus we are made to exult in His position, for it, too, is ours. He will give to us to sit upon His throne, even as He sits upon the Father’s throne. He hath made us kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign for ever and ever. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Of the title Jesus
The apostle had before called Christ the Son of God, the first begotten, God, Lord, which are titles proper to His Divine nature. But here he speaketh of His excellency as man, and thereupon giveth Him that title which setteth out the distinct reason why, being God, He assumed man’s nature: namely, that He might be a fit and able Saviour of man. Fit, as He was man; able, as He was God. Well may this title Jesus, in regard of the signification of it, be given unto Christ. For
1. He was a true Saviour (Hebrews 8:2), not a typical Saviour, as Joshua and other like saviours (Nehemiah 9:27).
2. He was a most free Saviour. According to His mercy He saved us Titus 3:5). Not for price (1 Peter 1:18).
3. He was an all-sufficient Saviour. He satisfieth Divine justice, endured the infinite curse of the law, overcame death, hell, and him that had the power of them (verse 14; Revelation 1:18).
4. He was an universal Saviour. The Saviour of all that ale or shall be 1 Timothy 4:10).
5. He was a total Saviour. He sayeth soul and body (1 Corinthians 15:20).
6. He was an everlasting Saviour. He brings all that believe in Him to everlasting life. As He is, so He was from the beginning, and ever will continue so (Hebrews 13:8; Revelation 13:8; Hebrews 7:24).
7. He was a perfect Saviour (Hebrews 7:25). He leaves nothing simply in the case of salvation for any other to do.
8. He is the only Saviour (Acts 4:12 : Isaiah 63:5).
On these grounds it becomes us
1. To consider the need that we have of a Saviour. This will make us inquire how we may be saved (Acts 16:30).
2. To fly to Christ for salvation. He invites all so to do (John 7:37). He casts away none that come unto Him (John 6:37).
3. To trust on Him (Acts 16:31; 1 Timothy 4:10).
4. To rejoice in Him (Luke 1:47).
5. To bless God for Him (Luke 1:68).
6. To serve Him who sayeth us (Luke 1:74-75).
7. To do all in His name (Colossians 3:17). (W. Gouge.)
Christ’s condescension
In the history of Moravion missions we read of a missionary who undertook to make known the unsearchable riches of Christ to the suffering, despised, and down-trodden slaves of the West Indies. So cruelly we, re they treated, so hard were they worked, so mercilessly were they flogged, that their spirits rankled with bitterest hostility to the more favoured race which doomed them to this hopeless condition. Under these unhappy circumstances the missionary could not get a hearing. It was a grave problem how to reach their hearts, win their sympathies, and thus fulfil the purposes of his mission. At last he saw a way to overcome the difficulty. How? By selling himself into servitude. He because a slave, he shared the same fare, and endured the same privations as his dusky brethren. Thus he won his way to their hearts. Even so, it was needful that God should show sympathy by stooping to our low estate, and making Himself one with us. So Christ the Eternal Word was born in helplessness like us, He hungered and thirsted like us, He toiled and suffered like us, He was tempted and tried like us, He wept and prayed like us. (F. Marts.)
Christ’s condescension
That He might be in a condition to suffer death, this Sun of Righteousness went ten degrees backward, not only below His Father (John 14:28), but below the angels; for man (as man) is inferiort,, the angels. (J. Trapp.)
For the suffering of death crowned
Jesus crowned for death
It is Jesus, Son of Mary, Child of man, whose appearance we hail; not now, as in chap. 1., the Son of God, resplendent in His Father’s glory with His holy angels, sustaining creation by His word. The writer is approaching the Redeemer’s person from the opposite side, and adopting quite a different line of reflection from that with which the Epistle commenced. He will afterwards unite both conceptions in his definition of “our great High Priest, Jesus the Son of God.” We must allow him to work out his argument in his own way. Here is a Man, then, in whom humanity is lifted from the dust, and once more grows conscious of its primal dignity. The advent of Jesus raises immeasurably our conception of the possibilities of human nature, and supplies a new and magnificent answer to the old question, “What is man?” Prophecy is outdone by what we see in Jesus of man’s greatness as the object of the Divine regard. And this Leader of our salvation is “forerunner” of His brethren’s exaltation, both in earth and heaven. On every ground we find ours, lees compelled to refer the predicate “crowned with glory and honour,” to the earthly life and human relationship of our Saviour. Surely it is in this environment that we see Jesus. We to-day “see Jesus” in the story of the Four, as the readers of Ibis letter saw Him in the living words of His eye-witnesses and ministers. And “we see Him for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour.” No words could more fitly express the strange blending of glory and suffering visible throughout the earthly course of Jesus,--glory ever leading on to suffering, and finding in death its climax and hidden purpose. If man’s ideal greatness is the starting-point of the writer’s thought, the death of the cross is always its centre. The former, for sinful (Hebrews 1:3) and death-bound man, can only win its realisation through the latter. Jesus is crowned for death. Willingly would Israel have given Him in life the Messiah’s crown. They could not understand why One so high in the grace of God, so rich in kingly qualities and powers, did not take the last remaining step and mount to David’s throne. Their fury against Him at the last was in the breasts of many who cried, “Away with Him!” the rage of a bitter disappointment. They did not see that the higher He was raised in favour with God and men, the nearer and the more needful became His death. It is enough to refer to the scene of the transfiguration, and of the royal entry into Jerusalem, to show the profound connection which existed alike in the mind of Jesus, in the purpose of God, and in the sequence of history between Christ’s human glorification and His sacrificial death. (G. G. Findlay.)
Exaltation in humiliation
The plain meaning of the text seems to be that Jesus was crowned with glory and honour with reference to the suffering of death, in order that by the grace or favour of God He might taste death for men. This rendering makes the crowning antecedent to death, a fact occurring in the earthly life of Jesus, an exaltation in the humiliation, a higher even in the lower, a glory consummated in heaven b,t begun even on earth. If I am met with the sceptical question, With what glory and honour can the man Jesus be said to have been crowned on earth? I reply, With just such glory and honour as are spoken of in the third and fifth chapters of this same Epistle: with the glory of a Moses and the honour of an Aaron; the glory of being the leader of the people out of Egypt into the promised land, that is, of being the “Captain of Salvation”; the honour of being the High Priest of men, procuring for them, through the sacrifice of Himself, life and blessedness. The glory and honour spoken of as conferred by Jesus may thus quite well be those connected with His appointment to the honourable and glorious office of Apostle and High Priest of our profession. This, accordingly, is the thought I find in this text: Jesus, “crowned for death,” by being appointed to an office whereby His death, instead of being a mere personal experience of the common l-t, became a death for others, and a humiliation, was transmuted into a signal mark of Divine favour. This crowning had a twofold aspect and relation; a subjective and an objective side, a relation to the will of Christ and a relation to the will of God. It would not have been complete unless there had been both an act of self-devotion on the part of Christ and an act of sovereign appointment on the part of God. The subjective aspect is in abeyance here, though it is not forgotten in the Epistle; it receives full recognition in those places where it is taught that Christ’s priestly offering was Himself. Here it is the objective Godward aspect that is emphasised, as appears from the remarkable expression, “by the grace of God,” and from the line of thought contained in the following verse, to be hereafter considered. There was a subjective grace in Christ which made Him willing to sacrifice His individual life for the good of the whole, but there was also conferred on Him by His Father the signal favour that His life, freely given in self-sacrifice, had universal significance and value. Kindred to this famous text, understood as explained, is Christ’s beatitude pronouncing the persecuted for righteousness happy; Paul’s statement to the Philippian Church, “Unto you it is given as a favour (ἐχαρίσθη) in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake”; and Peter’s declaration to the strangers scattered abroad, “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye, for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth on you.” Kindred also in import are all the texts in which Christ speaks of His approaching passion as His glorification, a mode of viewing the Passion very common in the Johannine report of our Lord’s sayings. I only add to these citations a mere reference to the voices from heaven pronouncing Jesus God’s beloved Son when He manifested at the Jordan and on the Mount of Transfiguration His willingness to endure suffering in connection with His Messianic vocation, and in connection therewith to the reflection occurring in the Second Epistle of Peter relating to the latter event, “He received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” With these Divine voices stand in contrast the voices from hell uttered by Satan in the temptation. The God sent voices say in effect, “Thou art My beloved Son because Thou devotest Thyself to the arduous career of a Saviour, and I show My favour unto Thee by solemnly setting Thee apart to Thy high and holy office.” The Satanic voices say, “Thou art the Son of God, it seems; use Thy privilege, then, for Thine own advantage.” God shows His grace unto His Son by appointing Him to an office in which He will have an opportunity of doing a signal service to men at a great cost of suffering to Himself. Satan cannot conceive of Jesus being the Son of God at unless sonship carry along with it exemption from all arduous tasks and irksome hardships, provocations, and pains. God puts a stamp of Divinity on self-sacrifice, Satan associates Divinity with selfishness. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the crowning, as I conceive it, is an idea familiar to the New Testament writers. The only question that may legitimately be asked is, whether the thought I find in the text is relevant to the connection of thought in the passage, and serviceable to the purpose of the Epistle, that of instructing in Christian truth readers who needed to be again taught the merest elements of the Christian faith. To this question I can have little hesitation in giving an affirmative answer. Was it not desirable to show to men who stumbled at the humiliating circumstances of Christ’s earthly lot that there was not merely a glory coming after the humiliation, compensating for it, but a glory in the humiliation itself? This ethical instruction was much more urgently needed than a merely theological instruction as to the purpose and effect of Christ’s exaltation to heaven, viz., that it made His death already endured have universal significance and value. The exaltation needed no apology, it spoke for itself; what was needed was to remove the stigma from the state of humiliation, and such, I cannot but think, is one of the leading aims of the Epistle. The blinded Jew said, “How dishonourable and shameful that death of Jesus; how hard to believe that He who endured it could be Messiah and God’s well-beloved Son!” The writer replies, “Not disgrace, but grace, favour, honour, and glory do I see there; this career of suffering as one which it was honorable for Christ to pass through, and to which it well became the sovereign Lord to subject His Son. For while to taste death in itself was a humiliation to the Son of God, to taste it for others was indeed most glorious.” It is a recommendation of the interpretation here advocated, that under it the crowning is not subsequent to the being made lower than angels, but, as in the Psalm, contemporaneous with it. It scarcely requires to be added that the glory in the humiliation is not exclusive of the glory after it. The full thesis of the Epistle on this theme is: “First lower, then higher; nay, a higher in the lower.” (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)
Crowned with glory and honour
On the ascension of Christ
Who is it that, “for the suffering of death, is crowned with glory and honour”? Undoubtedly the Being in whom existed the wonderful union of the human and the Divine natures. It was not solely the Divinity of the Son returning to its pristine abode. That was never “made lower than the angels.” That being incapable of passion, never tasted “ he suffering of death.” Of the place and state, to which our Redeemer is exalted, we can form no adequate conceptions. Here let us pause and reflect; what glory to the fallen nature of man, that the Eternal Son should assume it, even to dwell in it on earth, and say of its humble offspring, “My brethren are these”! How immeasurably great, then, its honour and advancement when He is exalted in it to the right hand of the Father; “angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him”! While we perceive that it was in our nature our Saviour passed into His glory, our advancement hereby will be more impressive if we consider that in entering upon His joy He “opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.” What surer pledge of our inheritance in heaven can we have than the exaltation of Him, in our nature, to the possession of “all power in heaven and in earth”? But of this interesting and stupendous event of the Ascension, where are the evidences? How shall we believe that this great thing hath been done for us; this thing so wonderful, and of such amazing consequences?
1. Behold, I bring to you the types which “at sundry times, and in divers manners,” God vouchsafed to give of what He would accomplish in the great Redeemer. See Enoch translated to heaven under the Patriarchal dispensation, and Elijah under the Mosaic. See the leaders of Israel, after the sojourning of the people in the wilderness, conducting them through the flood of Jordan to the Canaan of rest and felicity. See the high priest passing through the vail into the holy of holies, after baying made the great expiation with the blood of the sacrifice, there to appear in the presence of God in behalf of the people.
2. Again: I bring to you that venerable evidence which the Almighty hath so often employed in the service of truth--prophecy (see Daniel 7:13, Psalms 24:7; Psalms 68:18). What is this but prophecy on one side of the event, as history on the other, giving evidence to times past, present, and future, of the ascension of men’s Saviour into heaven?
3. This brings me to observe that we have the historical evidence of those who were eye-witnesses of the fact. These were not a few men; they were the whole company of the apostles; these were men worthy of all credit, for they were eminently honest, consistent, scrupulous, explicit, and unvarying.
(1) Our first emotion upon contemplating the ascension of our Lord is amazement. The lustre of His virtue in life, and His sublime equanimity in death, transport us with the perfectibility of our nature.
(2) But from amazement at this precious part of the Christian dispensation let us rouse ourselves to consider our obligations to respect a nature which God has so highly exalted and destined for such n-bin felicity. Are we members of a body of which the Son of God is the head, and shall we not fear to pollute so illustrious a fellowship? Have we a representative in the inmost presence chamber of heaven, and shall we sink into a mean commerce with vice or debase, by folly and wickedness, the nature He has exalted?
(3) We may further observe the wisdom and propriety of raising our affections, and directing our pursuits, to the great realities of the future existence. (Bp. Dehon.)
The coronation of our King
It was long ago predicted that the Lord Jesus should reign in Zion. Of the greatness of His power, of the glory of His majesty, of the extension of His kingdom, of the perpetuity of His government, prophets spake and poets sang. They saw the days of the exalted Messiah afar off, and were glad.
I. THE REGAL CHARACTER OF OUR EXALTED LORD. Much of the happiness of a nation, especially if the authority of a monarch be absolute and his will is the law, depends upon his intellectual and moral character. Let this sentiment be applied with all reverence and humility to our exalted Redeemer, and we shall instantly exclaim, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord of the people, whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance.” To sway the sceptre of universal dominion, the King of Zion possesses every perfection in an eminent degree.
1. “In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” At one comprehensive glance He beholds every creature and every event, past, present, and to come, and can either permit or prevent, excite or restrain, according to the counsel of His unerring will.
2. He is also the Lord of all power and might, whose kingdom cannot be moved, and whose dominions are the unlimited expanse of universal nature.
3. His goodness is equal to His greatness, and forms a material part of it. How unnumbered are its manifestations, how numerous and various its recipients. “The Lord is good to all and His tender mercies are over all His works.”
4. And what shall we say of His grace and love? What king has ever been so ill-required by his ungrateful subjects? And yet, instead of laying righteousness to the line, and truth to the plummet, instead of exerting His authority, and putting forth the thunder of His power in the execution of His justice, and the fulfilment of His threatenings, He laid down His life for us.
5. Nor can we forget His mercy. What crimes it has pardoned, what insults it has endured.
6. And is He not the faithful, compassionate, and unchangeable friend of His people? How near are they to His heart! How tenderly does He pity their afflictions, and sympathise with their sorrows!
7. And who has not been impressed with the Lord’s condescension? Although He is “the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity,” He is nigh unto all that call upon Him in truth. “He dwells with the humble.”
II. THE KINGDOM OVER WHICH HE PRESIDES. In one sense the entire universe is His vast domain, comprehending the numerous worlds which shine in yonder firmament. But we speak now not of His essential government, but rather of His mediatorial authority, as our Redeemer and Saviour, who, having purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. This is a spiritual, not a temporal, jurisdiction, unless it be so far as the latter is subservient to the former. It is a religious dominion i, the soul and among the society of good men, which our Lord came from heaven to establish, and which appears when the enmity of the carnal mind is subdued, and when “grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life” in the conversion of sinners, and in the establishment of the saints upon their holy faith. In this spiritual and restricted sense the regal authority of our Lord includes the church on earth, composed of all His devoted followers of every period of time, of every part of the world, of every name and denomination, of every age and condition--and the church in heaven, constituted of “the spirits of just men made perfect.” To govern this spiritual empire “our Lord hath established His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom ruleth over all.” Upon that throne He sits, receiving the homage of angels, archangels, and glorified spirits, accepting the prayers and praises of His saints on earth; supplying all our wants, guarding, guiding, and governing His people, both in their individual, domestic, and religious capacity; extending and upholding His cause in the world by the agency of His Spirit, His providence, and His servants; and overruling all the movements of nature, all the revolutions of nations, all the occurrences of individuals, families, and churches, for His own glory, for the welfare of the soul, for the success of His gospel, for the subjugation of sin and Satan, and for the accomplishment of His purposes which are all in verity and faithfulness.
III. HIS CORONATION.
1. The period selected for Jesus to be “crowned with glory and honour “ was the termination of His Messiahship upon earth and His ascension to haven.
2. But how shall we describe the diadem which He wears? It is not a wreath of laurels, it is not a garland of flowers which encircled the brow of the heroes of antiquity; nor does it resemble the crowns worn by the monarchs of modern times. These, though costly and splendid, are but corruptible and fading, composed only of burnished metal and polished stones extracted from the recesses of the earth which we tread beneath our feet, whereas the Redeemer’s crown is a beautiful circle of celestial light, a concentration of luminous beams above the brightness of the sun, a crown of glory which fadeth not away.
3. A part of the ceremony of coronation consists of anointing the monarch with holy oil. In concert with this ancient usage, we read prophetically of Jesus being “ anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows”; in allusion to His mediatorial superiority, and to the unmeasured unction of the Holy Ghost, which descended upon Him, for “God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.”
4. How exalted is His throne: the seat of happiness and glory (see Isaiah 6:1-3; Revelation 4:2-4).
5. How untarnished is His sceptre, emphatically called “a right sceptre,” rightly obtained and rightly employed, the rod of universal authority, the staff of mercy surmounted by the dove, and held forth to encourage our approach.
6. Much has been said of the attire of kings at their coronation, but Christ’s are not formed of the frail and lowly produce of the ermine and the silkworm, nor adorned with glittering stars of burnished metal; nor made by human art, nor assailable by the moth or the rust, nor likely to survive the wearer: no, Christ’s robes are vestments of unsullied purity and uncreated light.
7. The last particular to be noticed is the attendants--the spectators of His glory.
They are described as a number that no man can enumerate. In improving this subject
1. Let us join the hallelujahs of the heavenly best, and hail the exaltation and coronation of our Lord.
2. Let us recollect the peculiar privileges of His subjects. They are “fellow citizens of the saints and of the household of God.” As such they have a share in their Lord’s affection, they have constant access to His throne, to His house, to His table; He protects them, He communes with them, supplies their wants, and will make them happy.
3. Let us not forget the duty of His people. It is incumbent on us, if we sustain this honourable appellation, to be very observant of His commands, to be very zealous for His honour, and for the extension of His kingdom upon the earth, and to be very devoted to His fear.
4. What shall we say of the enemies of our Lord the King? What I has He enemies? Is it possible that the Son of God can have a foe? Can He be opposed who laid down His life for us? Yes, there are thousands of adversaries averse to the peaceful and holy reign of the Redeemer. Who are they? I see them, not merely the ranks of avowed infidels and scoffers, but in the character of drunkards, sabbath-breakers, swearers, liars, the lewd, lovers of pleasure more than of God, self-righteous Pharisees, and the like. Oh, throw aside the weapons of)our rebellion, come as penitents to His footstool. (W. B. Leach.)
Crowned with glory of saving life
This crown of Jesus is no glittering gilt rim; this glory is no glare and splendour of a palace, and the honour is no mere courtliness of courtiers and subordinates and pomp of a heavenly state. The great break into cries of praise to Him because He is greater; the grand, because He had done more grandly than they all. Now come with me and let us understand what is Divine glory and honour. Come with me to a great hall in London. It is the anniversary of Homes and Refuges for Boys. Sweeping circles of seats rise on the platform one above another, all full of boys. Before the platform is the hill crossed by multitudes of seats, all filled, crowded with people. In the centre, f the great circles of the boys wonder, and right in the front of the platform, is a little table, behind the table is a chair, and in it sits a peer of the realm. My story begins at the moment when the prizes are given. Now fancy the scene. The earl rises. The table is piled up with articles, and certain boys approach one by one. First comes the winner of the prize for punctuality. Then comes the prize for writing. Its winner advances to the front and receives it. Next came the thrift prize for the boy who had spent the least of his pocket money, and saved the most in his box. His thrift might have been the act of self-denial, but I fear it had in it some element of meanness, for the cheers hast a little of their swing. Others came, and as each carried off his prize hands and voices fell to clapping and shouting, and hearts seemed to bound and sing. Then the next boy came. Suddenly all the joy went out of the place as light goes when the gas is put out. And there was a dead silence. To everybody it seemed as if something was going to happen What was the matter? What we saw was a little figure standing at one end of the table, evidently timid, and screwing up his courage, for he was very pale, and had put out his fingers on to the edge of the table, as it would seem to steady himself. The earl said, “I have now the honour--“and he paused, and drew himself up as if making room for a great swell of feeling, at the same time lifting something up from the table almost reverently (it was a little box). He opened it, and took into his hand a small round medal. The earl continued in a subdued tone, “This boy has saved life!” That boy? A something went right through the place. The audience could restrain itself no longer, and broke out in tumultuous cheers again and again, hands and feet and voice. Handkerchiefs were waved, and hundreds of strong men were in tears. Meanwhile the earl was pinning a medal on the child’s jacket, and the child himself was lifting the hand he had put out to the table, and drawing the backer it across his eyes. He could save life, it seemed, but he could not stand praise, and he quietly sidled away. But his comrades behind thee chair would not allow that. They gave great cries of ,”hurrahs,” which quivered with feelings that had been in no shouts before, standing on the seats, and looking over one another’s heads. And the boys who had won the writing-desks and accordions, as he went by, put them down and clapped him on the back. He had undoubtedly done better than they all. Now those lads felt something of the grand sacred feeling with which all heaven casts down its crowns, and shouts the supreme triumphant glory of Jesus; for that boy had in him some of the glory sacred with the sanctity of God, and which all creatures were made to do homage to, the glory which is the especial glory of the Saviour of the world. (B. Waugh.)
Crowning Jesus
The ancient story runs that when Roman ambassadors paid a visit of ceremony to Ptolemy, king of Egypt, he presented each of his visitors with a crown of gold. But on the morrow the crowns were found on the beads of the various statues of the king which adorned the royal city. The ambassadors thus at once refused personal reward and did honour to the monarch. The dearest joy we have is to put the crown of our ministry on the head of Jesus. The best event that can befall heaven’s promised crown will be that it be accepted of Him. (W. B. Haynes.)
Taste death for every man
Christ tasted death for all
I. Let us consider that the Lord TASTED death. A man may die in a moment, and then he does not taste death. Men may die in a moment of excitement, and, as extremes meet, almost m unconsciousness, or with calmness and intrepidity, with lion-like courage, as many a warrior; but that is not tasting death. The death of our Lord Jesus Christ was a slow and painful death; He was “roasted with fire,” as was prefigured by the Paschal Lamb. Moreover He came, as no other finite creature can come into contact with death. He tasted death; all that was in death was concentrated in that cup which the Lord Jesus Christ emptied on the Cross. Daring His lifetime He felt a burden, sorrow, grief; He saw the sins and sorrows of the people; He had compassion, and wept. There is no substitution and expiation in the garden--the anticipation of the substitution was the cause of His agony; but on the Cross He paid the penalty for the sins of men in His own death. But what was it that He tasted in death? Death is the curse which sin brings, the penalty of the broken law, the manifestation of the power of the devil, the expression of the wrath of God; and in all these aspects the Lord Jesus Christ came into contact with death, and tasted it to the very last.
II. And notice, He tasted death by the grace of God FOR EVERY ONE. We speak about the pardon of sins. We are pardoned, but all our sins have been punished. All our sins were laid upon Jesus, every one was punished. “God condemned sin in the flesh.” He executed judgment upon air our sins, for every one of us, for all the children of God. For each of them Jesus tasted death. Here there is not merely the forgiveness of sin, but there is the actual putting away of all our sins; and the apostle explains to us that this great and marvellous mystery of the death of Jesus as our substitute, bearing our sins, bearing our curse, enduring the penalty of our sins, and overcoming all our enemies (that is the law, and Satan, and death), that this is in order manifest unto us the fulness of the perfection of God. (A. Saphir.)
The humiliation and subsequent glory of Christ
I. THE HUMILIATION OF JESUS CHRIST
1. Presupposes that, in one respect, He was higher then the angels. He is so, as the Son of God (Hebrews 1:5-6).
2. He was made a little lower than the angels as to His condition: a man, a servant (Isaiah 42:1); possessed a true body and a reasonable soul: was the child born (Isaiah 9:6; John 1:14; Galatians 4:4); and but for a little while, living thirty-three years in the form of a servant: and was three days subject to the power of the grave.
3. And this “for the suffering of death.” The Godhead could not suffer, hence “made lower than the angels”; made man, in both parts, body and soul, that He might suffer in both for man. This He has done, and His sufferings were great; for
(1) His sufferings were universal, affecting every part of His frame; all His members and senses.
(2) They were continual; every moment on the rack till He died.
(3) They were without help, without comfort. And as He suffered in His body, so He suffered in His soul. He suffered
(a) The wrath of God, which was awfully impressed on His soul.
(b) It was pure wrath, not any contrary mixture to allay it: no comfort from heaven or earth. “He spared Him not” (Romans 8:32; Isaiah 63:8).
(4) It was the whole of His wrath. It was poured out upon Him to the last Revelation 19:15). And He suffered to “death”; “tasted death,” that is, actually died. His death was
(i) Violent, not natural, through old age, but in the prime of life. He was “cut off” (Isaiah 53:8). He is said to “suffer death,” and to be“put to death” (1 Peter 3:18).
(ii) Painful. It was many deaths contrived in one. The Cross was a rack as well as a gibbet. He was “poured out as water, and His bones were out of joint” (Psalms 22:14-18).
(iii) Shameful. Inflicted only on the basest and vilest of men; upon slaves; and thus He was numbered with transgressors (Isaiah 53:12).
(iv) Cursed. Hence He is said to be a curse for us; “cursed is every one,” &c. (Galatians 3:18, referring to Deuteronomy 21:23).
(v) Lingering. Not despatched at once, or after a few minutes’ Suffering; but endured hours of the most excruciating agony all the time He hung upon the Cross (Luke 23:33).
(vi) And all this suffering for “every man”; He being the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:1).
II. THE REWARD OF HIS MERIT AS IT RESPECTS HIMSELF. “Crowned,” &c.
1. This was done in His resurrection from the dead, in which He was declared to be the Son of God, &c. (Romans 1:3-4).
2. In His ascension: this was glorious and honourable (Psalms 47:5-6; Ephesians 4:8).
3. In His being set down on the right hand of the Majesty on high Hebrews 1:3): has obtained a name above every name (Philippians 2:9); all power in heaven and earth is committed to Him (Mt Isaiah 9:6; John 5:22-23).
III. THE GRAND SOURCE AND SPRING OF THE WHOLE; the “grace of God.” Our salvation is wholly owing to the free mercy and grace of God in Christ Jesus: not to any deserving of ours. It is altogether the effect of Divine love John 3:16; 1 John 4:9-10). It is in the way of mere grace and favour
1. That Jesus humbled Himself to death for us (2 Corinthians 8:9).
2. That we are caned to repentance, faith, holiness, and usefulness in the world, and in the Church (Galatians 1:15).
3. That we are enabled to believe, in order to our salvation (Acts 18:27).
4. That we are pardoned and justified according to the “riches of His grace” (Romans 3:24; Ephesians 1:7).
5. That we are finally saved, and put into possession of the heavenly inheritance (Ephesians 2:5; Zechariah 4:7).
To conclude:
1. Let us cherish humbling and contrite views of ourselves, on account of our sins, which led Jesus to endure such dreadful sufferings on our account Zechariah 12:10).
2. While we entertain the most adoring thoughts of His love to us, let us yield to Him the most entire obedience and love (1 John 4:19). (J. Hannam.)
Our franchise
God, in Christ, forgives sin, and restores the prodigal. In our country at the present time, it is the lot of a favoured few to possess the franchise, or in ether words, the freedom of being recognised citizens of our empire: but Jesus Christ tasted death to give the franchise of heaven’s freedom to every man. He tasted death to make every man a citizen of the Heavenly Jerusalem.
1. Jesus Christ tasted death to give every man THE FRANCHISE OF PARDON. It is the pardon of all sin--full pardon. A young man in an office stole his master’s money, and injured his business very considerably; and the youth, being convicted, was brought before his employer, when he said, “Oh, sir, do forgive me’” The master replied, “Well, I will forgive you as much as I can.” But our good Father has no need to say He forgives us as much as He can. He has power of love to forgive us fully, and blots out our sin from His memory as if it had never happened.
II. Jesus Christ by the grace of God tasted death to extend to every man THE FRANCHISE OF NOBILITY. We say of the ancient aristocracy of our land that they possess the blue blood of nobility. The blood of Christ, when spoken of in the New Testament, often means the life power of our Saviour. He tasted death that every man might receive His life-force. What a splendid position, what a glorious inheritance! And “for every man”! You, perhaps, may say, “It is impossible for every man to become noble!” An ignorant person may tell a gardener that it is impossible to make a red rose grow on that white rose bush; but in two years afterwards, when the gardener has grafted a slip into it, the red rose appears. People may say that it is impossible to make a red rose grow upon a white rose bush. The gardener replies, “Impossible it is done; it is there! “ If you wish to prove whether Christ’s words be true or not, try them by the test of yourself. Believe, and do, what Christ tells you; and if you do not become noble if you do not possess the spirit of godliness, then believe, but not till then, that true nobility is impossible.
III. Jesus also tasted death to give every man THE FRANCHISE OF PRIESTHOOD. Jesus has given every man the right of a free access unto God. Jesus Christ has tasted death in order that the sun of our Father’s love might shine direct upon the heart of every man.
IV. Jesus Christ has tasted death to give us THE FRANCHISE OF ROYALTY. We are joint-heirs with Christ of the Kingdom of God. It is a common saying when we see anybody very cheerful, “He is as happy as a king.” Jesus has tasted death that every man might be happy as only kings unto God can be. He has given us all that is necessary for our enjoyment. Christ has given us power to act kingly. (W. Birch.)
Tasting death for every man
Have you ever remarked how the greatest efforts of the world’s genius seem to bare been called out by the recognition of this tasting death for every man? Shall I speak of poetry? There are times--I do not know whether it is an: improper thing to say--but there are times, it seems to me, that the exquisite music of Miltontouches the deeper springs of my spiritual life. I turn to “ Paradise Regained “ again and again. It puts me into a meditative mood as I see the features of the life of the Redeemer steadily unfolding; they seem, too, by their exquisite simplicity of utterance, to put me to a quiet and calm mood. True, the poet does not hold the views that I hold about Jesus. True, he seems to mar much that he has to say by his Unitarian conception. Nevertheless, as I come under the spell of his words it seems to me that the very noblest and best that was ever called forth even from Milton was called forth as he stands before this Cross of the Redeemer. I would turn to the one that might be called the German Milton, I mean Klopstotk As I have read his “Messias” I have seen how the best he could write has been invoked from him as he comes face to face with the Cross where Jesus is tasting death for every man. He represents for us those three crosses on the hillside. We see the soldier as he rises forth with his spear to pierce the side; we hear the clank of the armour as the soldiers go away after their deed is done; our eyes fall upon the circle of the weeping women, and then for a season one is left alone with the three crosses; and then as I read these words of Klopstock’s again, there is in them the highest poetry; and I am perfectly sure of this, that the highest and best thing that Klopstock did, he did as his eye fell upon this Cross of the Redeemer. And of painting is not the same thing true? Will not great picture after great picture rise before your minds? Perhaps some of you may have heard that touching story in the plains of Lombardy. You step a little out of the ordinary track to a common monastery by the roadside, and there you find it has its little portion of history. You turn within, and you are shown a somewhat faded picture of the crucifixion, and its story is more interesting than the picture. A monk, towards the close of his life, had come to feel that he had a gift of painting, and an order comes to him from his Superior, that after baying embellished cell after cell of his brethren, he should paint a crucifixion for the altar. “No,” he says, “it is beyond my faculty.” However, the order is supreme, and he obeys. He feels it impossible to get the sort of face that he requires, and he finishes the altar-picture--finishes it in unusual form, leaving the face out. In the interval the man becomes seized with epilepsy; so terrible is the thought upon him that one night he was found in the chapel with the picture unfinished, and in the morning he lay dead, and the face looks out there from the canvas. Do you not see how, by the very presence of this great thought of the death of Jesus, man is laid under a tremendous spell? Should I speak of music? You know Bach’s Passion music, decidedly the grandest thing that Bach himself ever wrote. I shall never forget hearing Handel’s “Messiah” for the first time. And to-day is not the same fact true that the one thing that, exercises a spell over humanity in connection with our preaching is this tasting death for every man? For a little season it may be that the great truth of the Atonement has been receding from public view. But I am perfectly sure that in the heart of men there is nothing that it finds so effective about this gospel as this truth of tasting death for every man. It must come to the front, we shall see a further coronation of Jesus as the world recognises that He tasted death for every man. The ground of His kingship is His tasting of death. (A. Cave, D. D.)
Christ tasting death
Thus the tasting of death was no dishonour, but an honour to Christ. By it He brought many to eternal life: for all that He is above the angels and all other creatures whatsoever. Christ hath tasted of death before us, therefore let not us that be Christians be too much afraid of death. There is a potion brought to a sick patient which the eye loathes and the mouth distastes. The poor sick man is loath to drink of it, the physician takes it into his hand, tastes of it before his eyes; by that he is encouraged to receive it; so is it with us, death is a sour cup which nature abhorreth; we are all unwilling naturally to drink of it; but for so much as Christ our loving and heavenly Physician hath tasted of it beforehand, let us not be afraid of it. The godliest men in the world cannot but in some measure fear death; Christ feared it: yet let this be as sugar to sweeten this bitter cup to us; Christ tasted of it and overcame it, so shall we do by His virtue and power. Oh, the wonderful and unspeakable love of Christ I as if a company of traitors were going to the scaffold to be executed; the king’s son should step forth to die for them; what an admirable thing were that! We, by nature, are enemies to God, traitors to His majesty: the S,,n of the King of kings comes from heaven and dies for us. Is not this to be admired of us all? scarce will any die for a righteous man; we were unholy, unrighteous, defiled with the scab of sin in soul and body, yet the Lord Jesus died for us. Life is sweet: who will die for his friend; but will any die for his enemy? (W. Jones, D. D.)
Christ died for every man
1. It is said, He tasted of death; we need not play the critic in the explication of the word “taste”; for the plain meaning is, that He suffered death; and by this is signified all His sufferings, which were many and bitter; the principle and consummation whereof was death, wherein they all ended, and without which there had been no expiation.
2. He suffered death for every man; not that every man should absolutely enjoy the ultimate benefit thereof, for every one doth not: yet every man, as a sinner, hath some benefit by it, because the immediate effect of this death was, that every man’s sin in respect of this death is remissable, and every man savable, because Christ by it made God propitious and placable, in that He had punished man’s sin in Him, and laid on Him the iniquities of us all. And the reason why every man is not actually justified and saved, is not for want of sufficient propitiation, but upon another account.
3. That which moved God to transfer the punishment due to our sins upon Christ, His only begotten Son, was His grace and free love. The end, therefore, why Christ was made lower than the angels was, that He being man and mortal, yet holy and innocent without sin, might suffer death, that our sins might be expiated, Divine justice satisfied, and a way made for mercy to save us. (G. Lawson.)
The Saviour tasting death for sinner
Tasting death! A bitter draught indeed! When Socrates, the wise and good, dwelling amidst the immoralities of Athens, was cruelly condemned to death, he conversed cheerfully with his weeping friends; during the gray and misty hours of morn, concerning the glorious hopes which even he, a poor benighted pagan, had of the soul’s long life, and of coming bliss; and then, with untrembling hand, he took the cup of poisonous hemlock, and drank, and died. The figurative language of the text is borrowed from this common mode of execution in an, lent times. But we read of another who “tasted death,” in comparison with whose simple grandeur, Socrates, and all the philosophers and sages who have ever lived, must hide their diminished heads--the incarnate Son of God, who, out of pity and compassion for our condemned and suffering race, of His own free-will and goodness, “tasted death for every man.” How can any sinner remain unmoved at the contemplation of such a spectacle? “Who tasted death for every man!” Will all, then, be saved? A benevolent individual builds a large and comfortable abode for the poor, and the sick, and the helpless, and freely invites everybody who needs to go in at the open gate. The offer of assistance is quite as extensive as the wants of the suffering. But, suppose that some should be too proud to accept of this free mercy, and others should express a doubt whether the physician in the hospital could do any more than might be accomplished by their own silly quackeries at home, will the benefits of the good man’s liberality be enjoyed by the proud and the unbelieving? No more will those be saved who do not go to Christ, even though He has died for all. We must love Him for His goodness, and gladly obey His commandments, if we hope for a share in the blessings purchased by His precious death. (J. N. Norton, D. D.)
Christ’s title to kingship
The supreme thought in these chapters is the superiority of Jesus Christ. Jesus the Mediator is greater than any angel of the old covenant who had acted as mediator, The angels serve, and serve Jesus. They worship, and worship Jesus Jesus is the King of the new age; the angels are only ministering servants in the age.
I. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE WORDS “ THEY TASTED DEATH FOR EVERY MAN”? The more we think of the Atonement, the more we see its greatness. We are only spelling out the A B C of its meaning. But the thinking man finds out, in every region besides that of religion, his incapacity of thought. Yet incapacity is no plea or reason for giving up thinking. Though the ocean be infinite in depth, yet I will dredge. One thought of Christ stands out prominently in this generation: that He is to us a new life. There may be a danger of accentuating this thought to the exclusion of the “tasting of death.”
1. Death is the penalty of human sin.
2. The penalty of death is pronounced by the pre-existent Christ. The whole Trinity assure us that death is the penalty of sin.
3. Death is more than decease--more than shuffling off this mortal coil. The Biblical idea of death is an evolution of penalty. It begins when the soul turns away from God; it intensifies as the tragic life unfolds, till we come to decease; then it follows on where we cannot interpret--face to face with the second death.
4. The real cause of the penalty--the centre of it--is the withdrawal from man of the Spirit of God. Man chooses to sin, and He whose ermine must not be sullied removes far from him. This eternal withdrawal of God is the second death. In the light of this truth think of Jesus’ death. He tasted to the full the bitterness of the penalty--withdrawal of His Father’s face. For a time there is a chasm between God the Father and God the Son: “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
II. THIS TASTING OF DEATH HAS BECOME CHRIST’S TITLE TO KINGSHIP. “Crowned with glory and honour.” The coronation of Jesus is a royal progress--not a clime nor a century but brings its tribute to Him whose claim is that He tasted death for every man. Literature, music, painting, all crown Him. It is a march of victory. If we would see His coming in power before He comes in glory, this truth must be brought to the front--that He tasted death--and thus we shall see Him crowned with glory and honour. In these days we see the coronation of Jesus going on apace. I rejoice in the spirit of the times. What if we lose our hold on a creed here and there, we need neither star nor moon when the Sun is up. Better anything than stagnation; and on all sides this question raises itself: “What think ye of Christ?” Let us rejoice that God is calling out from this age a new reverence for Jesus, and by and by we shall hear from it the verdict, “I find no fault in this man,” until it advances to “My Lord and my God.” (Principal Cave.)
Extent of the Atonement
It is not like a banquet, accommodated to the tastes and wants of so many and no more. Like a masterpiece of music, its virtues are independent of numbers. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Human thought contracted
We are limited by our creeds; like a beetle crawling on a cabbage leaf and thinking it is the whole world. (Proctor’s Gems of Thought.)
Extent of the Atonement
The apostles understood their commissions to be general and indiscriminate for “every creature”: so they received it fromHim who laid the foundation of such an extensive ministration by tasting death for every man. Accordingly, they went forth on their commission, to preach the gospel to “all the world.” They did not square their message by any human system of theology, nor measure their language to the lines ofProcrustean creeds. They employed a dialect that traverses the length and breadth of the world. They did not tremble for such an unreserved exhibition of the ark and the mercy-seat. They could not bring themselves to stint the remedy which was prepared and intended to restore a dying world; nor would they cramp the bow which God had lighted up in the storm that threatened all mankind. (Dr. T. W. Jenkyn.)
God’s abundant grace
So 1 Timothy 1:14 : The grace of God not simply abundant, but “exceedingly abundant.” If sin flowed like a bottomless pit, an abyss never satisfied, then grace--a stronger and a fuller current, exceeding it in measure--prevailing like the waters of the Flood until the very tops of the highest mountains were covered; it fills a greater sea than the sea of iniquity; more than enough to pardon the sins of the world or of other worlds. This is the salvation which God’s free grace hath brought unto all men. (Proctor’s Gems of Thought.)
The sufferings of Christ should inspire Christians with fortitude
He “endured the Cross,” it is written, “despising the shame”; and can we do less? Nay, can we complain in the midst of our troubles? When Guatimozin, the Mexican emperor, was tortured by the Spaniards, he bore the torment with more than human fortitude. One of his fellow-sufferers of weaker constitution turned his eyes upon the prince and uttered a cry of anguish. “Thinkest thou,” said Guatimozin, “that I am laid upon a bed of roses?” “Silenced by this reproof,” says the historian, “the sufferer stifled his complaints, and expired in an act of obedience to his sovereign.”
The universality of the Atonement
“He tasted death for every man.” “He gave Himself a ransom for all.” “He is a propitiation for the sins of the whole world.” That all are not saved is no objection. It is suggested by a popular expositor that in material nature much goodness seems wasted. Rain and dew descend upon flinty rocks and sterile sands; floods of genial light come tiding down every morning from the sun on scenes where no human foot has trod; flowers bloom in beauty and emit their fragrance, trees rise in majesty and throw away their clustering fruit, on spots where as yet there has never been a man. Wealth sufficient to enrich whole nations is buried beneath the mountains and the seas, while millions are in want. Medicine for half the ills of life is shut up in minerals and plants, whole generations die without knowing of the remedy which nature has provided. It is no objection, therefore, to the universality of the Atonement, that all are not benefited by it. Its benefits one day will be universally enjoyed. There are men coming after us who shall live in those solitary wastes, enjoy the beauty and the light which now seem wasted, appropriate the fruits, the wealth, and the medicine, which for ages have been of no avail. It will be even so with the death of Christ. There ,re men coming after us that shall participate of the blessings of that Atonement, which generations have either ignorantly rejected or wickedly despised. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
For it became Him.
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The scheme of redemption by a suffering Saviour, worthy of God
I. IT IS PROPOSED TO ILLUSTRATE THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST AS THE CAPTAIN OF SALIVATION. This word in the sacred language signifies Prince, Captain, or Chief Leader, and is highly expressive of that distinguishing character which our Redeemer sustains, and of His gracious and powerful agency in the scheme of salvation.
1. He was chosen and appointed to be the Captain of salvation, and to be the head and chief conductor of this glorious scheme.
2. As the Captain of salvation, He purchased salvation for His people, and overcame their spiritual enemies.
3. Christ is the Captain of salvation, as He heads His people in the spiritual warfare, and conducts them to victory and triumph. He possesses infinite skill to devise the most advantageous plans, to discern all the strategems of His enemies, and infinite power to defeat them, and make them recoil with redoubled vengeance upon their heads. He knows the weakness and timidity of those who fight under his banner and conduct, and will afford them strength and courage. He knows their doubts, and can dispel them. He knows their dangers, and can deliver from them, and can enable them to resist the attacks of an host of adversaries. He furnishes them with the various pieces of the spiritual armour--the shield of faith, the helmet of hope, the breast-plate of righteousness, prayer, watchfulness, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. When thus clad in the whole armour of God, He enables them to manage it with spiritual dexterity, so as most effectually to wound their enemies, and defend themselves from their attacks.
II. THAT THE CAPTAIN OF SALVATION WAS MADE PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERINGS. In treating this part of the subject it will be proper first to speak a little concerning the sufferings of Christ, and then show how He was made perfect through His sufferings.
1. Concerning His sufferings, the following observations may be useful.
(1) He suffered, as the surety of His spiritual seed, the proper punishment of their sins.
(2) Though Jesus Christ endured the proper punishment of His people’s sins, the mode of this punishment, and the duration of it, belonged to God the righteous Judge.
(3) The Redeemer suffered an awful suspension of the light of the Father’s countenance, and of the former sweet and endearing sense of His love.
(4) Besides being forsaken by God, and the extreme sufferings of His outward man, He was, in another respect, brought into deep waters, where there was no standing. He endured much positive punishment, arising from the awful views which He had of the sins of His people, and of the wrath which they deserved, and felt all those inward and painful sensations which such views communicated. In these things, more especially, the sufferings of His soul consisted, and they far exceeded His bodily agonies on the Cross, though these also, from the nature of His death, must have been very great.
2. We shall now show how the Captain of salvation was made perfect through sufferings.
(1) Jesus Christ was made perfect through sufferings, as by them He became a perfect Saviour, having finished the work which the Father gave Him to do. It was by fulfilling all righteousness, and perfectly performing the stipulated condition of the new covenant, that He purchased all the blessings of it, acquired a right to hold the possession of them, and to convey them to His spiritual seed.
(2) The Captain of salvation was made perfect through sufferings, as under them His human graces and virtues grew up to perfection, and shone forth with the most amiable lustre and glory.
(3) The Captain of salvation was made perfect through sufferings, as these were the perfect antitype of all that typified them, and as all the predictions concerning them were perfectly fulfilled.
Lessons:
1. Here is a glorious person presented to our view, a Saviour made perfect through sufferings; to whom both saints and sinners may commit their salvation, with the fullest assurance that they shall not be disappointed.
2. Believers may be inspired with courage to persevere in the spiritual warfare, because they fight under the conduct of the Captain of salvation. He possesses every possible accomplishment as a Leader and Commander of His people.
3. Let us study m become more perfect in holiness, under all those sufferings and tribulations appointed for us in the adorable providence of God. The Captain of salvation was made perfect through His sufferings. In this He has furnished us with a noble and excellent pattern for our imitation. (P. Hutchison, M. A.)
Bringing many sons unto glory
I. A FEW OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE MANY SONS THAT ARE TO BE BROUGHT TO GLORY, THROUGH THE SUFFERINGS AND DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST.
1. They are sons who obtain this great privilege. The relation here mentioned is not that natural relation in which men stand to God as their Creator, for that is common to the human race, as they are all His offspring. Neither is it a mere external relation to God, as the members of the visible Church, for thin exterior and visible adoption belongs to all baptized and professing Christians, and equally belonged to the Jewish Church, as a visible body, or nation of men professing the true religion. But the character of sons specified in the text is expressive of a spiritual and saving relation which is peculiar to true believers. This great privilege, like the other blessings of the glorious gospel, lays a foundation for humility and gratitude in all on whom it is bestowed. They can never be too grateful to God for such an honour and blessing, or sufficiently humble under a deep conviction that they do not deserve it.
2. In connection with the privilege they possess the Spirit of adoption. By His saving operations upon them they are endowed with all the graces and tempers which become the children of God, and correspond to their privilege of adoption. They are habitually prepared for all gracious exercises and the acceptable performance of all holy duties.
3. The sons of God to be brought to glory form a vast number. This is a great and consolatory truth; and it should be the concern of all me,, to have this glorious truth realised in their own persons.
4. All the adopted and regenerated sons of God shall be brought to glory. The various griefs and afflictions of believers in the present state of discipline and mortality shall terminate in the felicity of the heavenly state. There the redeemed shall not only be entirely freed from all those sins and temptations, griefs and afflictions, to which they are subjected in this life, but they shall attain perfection in knowledge, holiness, glory, and immortality, together with the full and eternal enjoyment of God.
II. The bringing of many sons to glory, through the sufferings of Christ, Is WORTHY OF GOD, AND BECOMING HIS CHARACTER.
1. The redemption of sinners of mankind, through Jesus Christ, is worthy of Jehovah, as it illustrates, in the highest degree, the glory of His moral perfections. How brightly shines the Divine wisdom in the plan of redemption! In devising this g, eat plan, in connecting and harmonising all its parts, Divine wisdom excels in glory. Here the holiness and justice of God shine forth in the most resplendent glory. His hatred of sin, and the punishment of it in the Cross of Christ, are a far more glorious display of the justice and holiness of His nature than could have been given if mankind had never sinned, or, having sinned, had never been redeemed. Here the love of God is displayed in a manner the most amiable and engaging, in the gift of His only-begotten Son, and in subjecting a person so dear to Him to unparalleled grief, ignomony, and affliction. Here is displayed the Divine goodness in supplying the natural and spiritual wants of good men. Here is exhibited the Divine mercy in the full, free, and everlasting remission of sins.
2. The scheme of redemption, through the sufferings of Christ, is worthy of God, and becoming His character as the moral governor of the world. The Redeemer, in His whole mediation, acted in, a subserviency to the holy law of God; He magnified and made it honourable by rendering to it perfect obedience, as a covenant of works, and by enduring its awful penalty. He furnished His disciples with an amiable and perfect example of that obedience which the Jaw requires of them. He hath also procured and promised the aid and energies of the Holy Spirit, to qualify them for every part of Christian obedience.
3. It was worthy of God, and becoming His character, not to suffer Himself to be deprived of worship and obedience from the whole human race; nor them to be cut off from a participation of His goodness and the enjoyment of Him as their portion.
4. The scheme of redemption is worthy of God because it reflects the highest honour on His adored Son Jesus Christ. He has the honour of repairing the breach which sin had made between God and men, and hath reconciled them to Him by the blood of His Cross. He has the honour of performing the condition of the covenant of grace, whereby all the blessings of it were purchased, and the promises of it ratified and made sure to the heirs of promise. He has the honour of being the grand repository of the covenant-blessings, the administrator of them, and of sending down the Holy Spirit to apply them. He has the honour of being the Head of the Church, and of administering the whole affairs of Divine providence for the good of the Church. He has the honour of beholding a numerous seed as the fruit of His unparalleled labours and sufferings. He will have the honour of presiding in the final judgment, and of awarding the retributions of that solemn and eventful day, both to the righteous and the wicked. And He will be the honoured medium through which all the blessedness of the heavenly state will be communicated to the redeemed for evermore.
5. The method of redemption, by the death of Christ, is worthy of God, because it is, in a variety of respects, more excellent than the constitution established with the first Adam for obtaining life to himself and his posterity. The perfections of God are more glorified by the gospel-method of salvation, and particularly His mercy, for which there was no place under the first covenant. According to that constitution the goodness of God might have free egress towards men while innocent and obedient; but no provision was made in it for the remission of sin or for purification from it, when he became guilty and polluted. By the constitution of grace His law is more magnified; for Adam could only obey it as a mere man, but Christ obeyed it as the Lord from heaven. The sinner’s tide to life by the gospel stands upon a more glorious foundation. Though the covenant of works had been kept, man’s title to life would only have been founded upon a perfect human obedience; but according to the gospel-scheme it rests upon the divinely perfect righteousness of the Son of God. Gospel-holiness is also conveyed into the souls of men in a more excellent channel Adam received the principles of holiness in the channel of creating goodness; but gospel-holiness is communicated as the fruit of the Redeemer’s purchase, in the channel of redeeming love. The worship of the redeemed has something in it more excellent. In the state of innocence man could adore God as his creator, preserver, benefactor, and governor; but the redeemed can worship the adorable Trinity, not only in the above respects, but also in their economical character, in the plan of redemption, as a reconciled Father, a Saviour from guilt and misery, and a Spirit of sanctification and comfort, whose office it is to apply the blessings of redemption and put the chosen of God in possession of them. To all these ideas add that the future happiness of the redeemed will be greater than man’s happiness could have been by the original covenant. For not only will it be conveyed to them through the mediation of Jesus Christ, as purchased by His blood, but they will have more enlarged and endearing discoveries of the perfections of the Godhead as displayed in the scheme of redemption, which will prove an inexhaustible and everlasting source of enjoyment; while they will have the additional felicity of reflecting, that though once they were sinners and sunk in perdition and misery, yet they were rescued from the jaws of destruction by the power and grace of the great Redeemer, and raised to unmerited and undecaying honours and enjoyments. This consideration will sweeten and accent the song of the redeemed, and fill them with joy unutterable, and full of glory.
Lessons:
1. Since the method of salvation, through the sufferings of Jesus Christ, is so worthy of God, it must be worthy of us to embrace it as all our salvation and all our desire.
2. Our hearts should be deeply impressed with this important truth, that the only way of salvation for sinners is through the mediation and sufferings of Jesus Christ.
3. If sinners of mankind can be saved only by the death of Christ, how aggravated is the guilt and how deplorable is the condition of our modern infidels, who with profane mockery and insolent contempt reject the gospel-method of salvation, together with the inspired oracles by which it is revealed and proposed to the acceptance of men?
4. This subject shows us that in subordination to the glory of God it is the great end of the gospel and of the death of Christ to perfect the state, character, and felicity of good men.
5. Let sinners and saints be careful to improve the method of salvation set before them in the gospel.
6. To conclude: Let me call you who are the children of the Most High to adore and admire that unsearchable wisdom which devised a scheme of salvation so worthy of God in all the possible attitudes in which it can be viewed, and so happily adapted to your character and circumstances. (P. Hutchison, M. A.)
Christ appointed Captain of salvation
I. A reason is rendered in the words of what he had asserted in the foregoing verse, namely, that Jesus the Messiah was to suffer death, and by the grace of God to taste of death for all. WHY HE SHOULD DO THUS, ON WHAT ACCOUNT, WHAT GROUND, NECESSITY, AND REASON THERE WAS FOR IT IS HERE DECLARED--it was so to be, “For it became Him,” &c.
II. THE DESIGN OF GOD IS EXPRESSED IN THIS WHOLE MATTER, AND THAT WAS--TO BRING MANY SONS UNTO GLORY.
1. The eternal designation of them to that glory where unto they are to be brought is peculiarly assigned to Him. “He predestinates them to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:28-30).
2. He was the spring and fountain of that covenant (as in other operations of the Deity) that was of old between Himself and His Son, about the salvation and glory of the elect (see Zechariah 6:13; Isaiah 42:1;Proverbs 8:20-30; Isaiah 50:4; Isaiah 53:11-12; Psalms 16:10; Psalms 110:1; Psalms 11:6).
3. He signally gave out the first promise, that great foundation of the covenant of grace, and afterwards declared, confirmed, and ratified by His oath, that covenant wherein all the means of bringing the elect to glory are contained (Genesis 3:15; Jeremiah 31:32-34; Hebrews 8:8).
4. He gave and sent His Son to be a Saviour and Redeemer for them and to them; so that in His whole work, in all that He did and suffered, He obeyed the command and fulfilled the will of the Father.
5. He draws His elect, and enables them to come to the Son, to believe in Him, and so to obtain life, salvation and glory by Him.
6. Bring “reconciled to them by the blood of His Son,” He reconciles them to Himself by giving them pardon and forgiveness of sins in and by the promises of the gospel, without which they cannot come to glory (2 Corinthians 5:18-21).
7. He quickens them and sanctifies them by His Spirit, to “ make them meet for the inheritance of the saints in light,” that is f r the enjoyment of glory.
8. As the great Father of the family He adopts them, and makes them His sons, that so He may bring them to glory. He gives them the power or privilege to become the sons of God (John 1:12), making them heirs and co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:14-17), sending withal “into their hearts the Spirit of adoption, enabling them to cry Abba Father” Galatians 4:6).
9. He confirms them in faith, establisheth them in obedience, preserveth them from dangers and oppositions of all sorts, and in manifold wisdom keeps them through His power to the glory prepared for them (2 Corinthians 1:21-22; Ephesians 3:20-21; 1 Peter 1:5; John 17:11.
10. He gives them the Holy Ghost as their Comforter, with all those blessed and unspeakable benefits which attend that gift of His Matthew 7:11; Luke 11:13; John 14:16-17; Galatians 4:6).
III. THERE IS IN THESE WORDS INTIMATED THE PRINCIPAL MEANS THAT GOD FIXED ON FOR THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THIS DESIGN OF HIS, FOR THE BRINGING OF MANY SONS TO GLORY; IT WAS BY APPOINTING A CAPTAIN OF THEIR SALVATION. All the sons of God are put under His conduct and guidance, as the people of old were under the rule of Joshua, to bring them into the glory designed for them, and promised to them in the covenant made with Abraham. And He is called their Αρχηγος, “Prince, Ruler, and Captain, or Author of their salvation,” on several accounts.
1. Of His authority and right to rule over them in order to their salvation.
2. Of His actual leading and conduct of them by His example, spirit, and grace, through all the difficulties of their warfare.
3. As He is to them “ the Author or cause of eternal salvation,” He procured and purchased it for them.
IV. There is expressed in the words, THE ESPECIAL WAY WHERE BY GOD FITTED OR DESIGNED THE LORD CHRIST UNTO THIS OFFICE, OF BEING A CAPTAIN OF SALVATION UNTO THE SONS TO BE BROUGHT TO GLORY. To understand this aright we must observe that the apostle speaks not here of the redemption of the elect absolutely, but of the bringing them to glory, when they are made sons in an especial manner. And therefore he treats not absolutely of the designation, consecration, or fitting of the Lord Christ unto His office of Mediator in general, but as unto that part, and the execution of it, which especially concerns the leading of the sons unto glory, as Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan. By all the sufferings of the Lord Christ in His life and death, by which sufferings He wrought out the salvation of the elect, did God cons crate and dedicate Him to be a Prince, a Leader, and Captain of salvation unto His people, as Peter declares the whole matter (Acts 5:30-31; Acts 2:36).
1. The whole work of saving the sons of God from first to last, their guidance and conduct through sins and sufferings unto glory, is committed unto the Lord Jesus; whence He is constantly to be eyed by believers in all the concernments of their faith, obedience, and consolation.
(1) With care and watchfulness (Psalms 121:4).
(2) With tenderness and love (Isaiah 40:11).
(3) He leads them with power, authority, and majesty (Micah 5:4).
2. As the manner how, so the acts wherein and whereby this Antecessor and Captain of salvation leads on the sons of God, may be considered; and He doth it variously.
(1) He goes before them in the whole way unto the end.
(2) He guides them and directs them in their way.
(3) He supplies them with strength by His grace, that they may be able to pass on in their way.
(4) He subdues their enemies.
(5) He doth not only conquer all their enemies, but He avenges their sufferings on them, and punisheth them for their enmity.
(6) He provides a reward, a crown for them, and in the bestowing thereof accomplishes this His blessed office of the Captain of our salvation.
(a) To betake ourselves unto Him, and to rely upon Him in the whole course of our obedience, and all the passages thereof.
(b) To look for direction and guidance from Him. (John Owen, D. D.)
And all this should teach usThe expediency and propriety of appointing a suffering Captain of our salvation
When Christianity was first published to the world, the earliest objection that was raised against it arose from the low and suffering state in which its Author appeared. It is then a subject worthy of our contemplation to inquire into the reasons that might move Almighty God thus, in &reef opposition to the prejudices and expectations of both Jews and Greeks, to appoint the Captain of our salvation to be made perfect by a state of sufferings.
I. If we consider our Saviour as THE AUTHOR OF A NEW RELIGION, His appearance in a suffering state frees His religion from an objection which applies with full force to every other religion in the world. Had our Saviour appeared in the pomp of a temporal prince, as the Jews expected Him; had He appeared in the character of a great philosopher, as the Greeks would have wished Him, often had we heard of His power and of His policy, and been told that our religion was more nearly allied to this world than to the other. But when we bear the Author of our faith declaring from the beginning that He must suffer many things in His life, and be put to an ignominious and tormenting death, these suspicions must for ever vanish from our mind. Thus our religion stands clear of an objection, from which nothing, perhaps, could have purged it but the blood of its Divine Author.
II. If we consider our Saviour as A PATTERN OF VIRTUE AND ALL PERFECTION, the expediency of His appearing in a suffering state will further be evident. One great end of our Saviour’s coming into the world was to set us an example, that we might follow His steps. But, unless His life had been diversified with sufferings, the utility of His example had been in a great measure defeated. It is observed by an historian, in relating the life of Cyrus the Great, that there was one circumstance wanting to the glory of that illustrious prince; and that was, the having his virtue tried by some sudden reverse of fortune, and struggling for a time under some grievous calamity. The observation is just. Men are made for sufferings as well as for action. Many faculties of our frame, the most respectable attributes of the mind, as well as the most amiable qualities of the heart, carry a manifest reference to a state of adversity, to the dangers which we are destined to combat, and the distresses we are appointed to bear. Who are the personages in history that we admire the most? Those who ha, e suffered some signal distress, and from a host of evils have come forth conquerors.
III. If we consider our Saviour as A PRIEST, who was to make an atonement for the sins of men, the expediency of His making this atonement by sufferings and death will be manifest. It is one of the doctrines revealed in the New Testament that the Son of God was the Creator of the world. As therefore He was our immediate Creator, and as His design in our creation was defeated by sin, there was an evident propriety that He Himself should interpose in our behalf, and retrieve the affairs of a world which He had created with His own hands. In the work of redemption, therefore, it was expedient that there should be a brighter display of the Divine perfections, and a greater exertion of benevolence than was exhibited in the work of creation.
IV. If we consider our Saviour IN THAT STATE OF GLORY to which He is now ascended, the propriety of His being made perfect by sufferings will more fully appear. Because He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, therefore hath God highly exalted Him, hath given Him a name above every name, and committed to Him all power in heaven and in earth. (John Logan.)
The expediency of Christ’s sufferings
I. TO LEAVE NO ROOM FOR SUSPECTING THE TRUTH OF HIS MISSION.
1. Had the Messiah appeared as a powerful and illustrious prince, the bulk of mankind could not have had an opportunity of freely examining His credentials. Almost none, but the great and the mighty, would have dared to come into His presence; or if they did venture to approach Him, they would undoubtedly have been filled with dread and perturbation. Dazzled with His splendour and His glory, they could not have maintained that calm dispassionate state of mind which is necessary for judging of the pretensions of a messenger from heaven.
2. And had the gospel been ushered into the world in this splendid manner, what a ground of exultation would it have afforded to the infidel and profane! Would they not have long since triumphantly said the Christian faith was not a rational homage to the truth, but a blind submission to earthly influence and authority.
3. But besides, while the mean, afflicted condition of our Lord thus strongly evidences the truth of His religion, it also renders that evidence more palpable and striking by the glory and success with which the religion was afterwards attended.
II. TO EXHIBIT HIM AS A PERFECT PATTERN OF VIRTUE TO HIS FOLLOWERS.
1. When we behold the Saviour of men placed in like circumstances with ourselves, subject to all our sinless infirmities, submitting to the most unmerited indignities, exposed to the most bitter and unrelenting persecution, and even patiently enduring the Cross, despising the shame, acquitting Himself so gloriously, We dwell with delight upon the at once lovely and admirable character, and feel ourselves naturally prompted to give all diligence to make it the pattern of our conduct.
2. And as the sufferings of Christ were thus necessary to make the virtues of His life appear tilted for our imitation, so without, these sufferings there would have been many Divine and heavenly graces, which His life could not have exhibited. Those which are commonly denominated the passive virtues, and which we account the most hard to practise, could then have had no place in His character.
3. But not only were the sufferings of the Messiah requisite to make His example both of sufficient influence and extent, they were requisite also to render that example more exalted and illustrious than it could otherwise have been. They ennobled and perfected the graces of His character; they called forth to public view, in a substantial and living form, that consummate and unshaken integrity which, never before nor since, appeared among men.
III. TO MAKE HIM A PROPER PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS. Had not Christ suffered and died, we could never have reasonably hoped for the remission of sins. For had pardon been dispensed by the Almighty to His offending creatures, without exacting the penalty due to their crimes, how would the glory of the Divine perfections have been displayed, and the majesty of the Divine government maintained? Who would have regarded its authority, or feared to violate its commands? Sinners would have been emboldened to multiply their transgressions, and tempted to suppose that the God of unspotted purity--the God of unchangeable veracity, was altogether such a one as themselves.
IV. TO MAKE ROOM FOR HIS BRINGING MORE FULLY TO LIGHT A FUTURE STATE OF IMMORTALITY AND GLORY.
1. Let us consider their expediency, in order to prepare the way for a fuller demonstration of its existence. What so proper to convince us that the promises of eternal life are true, as to behold Him, who delivered them, Himself coming forth triumphant from the grave, and visibly ascending into heaven before us? Were the most stubborn infidel left to choose for himself a proof of his future existence, would it be possible for him to desire a plainer and a more perfect demonstration? But it is evident, that had not Jesus suffered and expired, this visible, striking demonstration could not have been afforded. For without first dying, how could He have risen from the dead? And had He not risen from the dead, what indubitable security could we have had of life and immortality?
2. But the sufferings and death of Christ were not only expedient to prepare the way for a full demonstration of the existence of a future state of glory, they were expedient also to point out in a more striking manner the way by which that glory is obtained. The object of the Deity seems to be not merely to communicate happiness, but to form His creatures to moral excellence. He hath designed them for a state of immortal felicity; but before they enter upon that state, He hath made it necessary that they shall have acquired virtuous habits; and to acquire again their virtuous habits, He hath ordained them to pass through a painful course of discipline. And the more painful and difficult this course becomes, the purer will be their virtue and the richer their reward.
V. TO GIVE US FULL ASSURANCE HE KNOWS AND SYMPATHISES WITH OUR FRAILTIES AND OUR” SORROWS, AND WILL THEREFORE MERCIFULLY INTERCEDE WITH THE FATHER IN OUR BEHALF. To whom do we in the day of affliction look up for such mercy and compassion, as from those who have been afflicted themselves? From His experience of our trials, we are assured He hath not only the power, hut the inclination to succour us. He knows well where our weakness lies, where our burden presses, and what will prove most proper for supporting and relieving us. Lessons:
1. From the doctrine which we have now illustrated, what reason have we to admire the wisdom of God! We see that it is admirably adapted to confirm our faith, to improve our nature, to comfort our souls, and, in a consistency with the honour of Thy perfections, to bring many returning sinners unto glory.
2. But this subject, while it leads us to admire the wisdom of God, demonstrates to us also in a most striking manner, the deep malignity of sin. For if such a remedy as the sufferings and death of Christ was, in the councils of heaven, deemed necessary to be employed against it, how evil and pernicious must its nature be!--how odious in the sight of God, and how destructive of the order and happiness of the whole creation! Let us then hate sin with a perfect hatred.
3. Did it behove Jesus to be made perfect through sufferings, then let us who are His disciples learn to submit to our sufferings with patience, and consider them as a requisite part of our education for heaven. (A. Savile, M. A.)
The refuting power of truth
I. IT REFUTES THE ERROR THAT THE UNIVERSE IS EITHER ETERNAL OR THE WORK OF CHANCE. The text speaks of One who is the Cause and End of all things.
II. IT REFUTES THE ERROR THAT CHRIST’S SUFFERINGS ARE INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE DIVINE CHARACTER.
III. IT REFUTES THE ERROR THAT GREAT SUFFERINGS, IN THE CASE OF INDIVIDUALS, IMPLY GREAT SINS.
IV. IT REFUTES THE ERROR THAT GREAT HONOURS CAN BE OBTAINED WITHOUT GREAT TRIAL. There is no kingdom for man worth having that is not reached “through much tribulation.”
V. IT REFUTES THE ERROR THAT THE GRAND END OF CHRISTIANITY IS TO CONNECT MAN WITH DOGMATIC SYSTEMS OF ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUTIONS. The end is higher; to bring men not to creeds or churches, but to “glory”--a glory spiritual, divine, ever progressive.
VI. IT REFUTES THE ERROR THAT THERE ARE BUT FEW THAT SHALL BE SAVED. (Homilist.)
The discipline Of suffering
When we ponder these words we shall all come to feel, I think, that they have a message for us on which we have not yet dwelt with the patient thought that it requires, though we greatly need its teaching. The currents of theological speculation have led us to consider the sufferings of Christ in relation to God as a propitiation for sin, rather than in relation to man as a discipline, a consummation of humanity. The two lines of reflection may be indeed, as I believe they are, more closely connected than we have at present been brought to acknowledge I do not however wise now to discuss the propitratory aspect of the sacrifice of Christ’s life. It is enough for us to remember with devout thankfulness that Christ is the propitiation not for our sins only, but for the whole world, without further attempting to define how His sacrifice was efficacious. And we move on surer ground, when we endeavour to regard that perfect sacrifice from the other side, as the hallowing of every power of man under the circumstances of a sin-stained world, as the revelation of the mystery of sorrow and pain. Yes, Christ, though He was Son, and therefore endowed with right of access for Himself to the Father, being of one essence with the Father, for man’s sake, as man, won the right of access to the throne of God for perfected humanity. He learnt obedience, not as if the lesson were forced upon Him by stern necessity, but by choosing, through insight into the Father’s will, that self-surrender even to the death upon the Cross which was required for the complete reconciliation of man wit, God. And the absolute union of human nature, in its fullest maturity, with the Divine in the one Person of our Creator and Redeemer, was wrought out in the very school of life in which we are trained. When once we grasp this truth the records of the Evangelists are filled with a new light. Every work of Christ is seen to be a sacrifice and a victory. Dimly, feebly, imperfectly, we can see in this way how it became God to make the Author of our salvation perfect through sufferings; how every pain which answered to the Father’s will, became to Him the occasion of a triumph, the disciplining of some human power which needed to be brought into God’s service, the advance one degree farther towards the Divine likeness to gain which man was made; how, in the actual condition of the world, His love and His righteousness were displayed in tenderer grace and grander authority through the gab-saying of enemies; how in this sense, even within the range of our imagination, He saw of the travail of His soul and was satisfied. Dimly, feebly, imperfectly we can see how also Christ, Himself perfected through suffering, has made known to us once for all the meaning and the value of suffering; how He has interpreted it as a Divine discipline, the provision of a Father’s love; how He has enabled us to perceive that at each step in the progress of life it is an opportunity’; bow He has left to us to realise “in Him” little by little the virtue of His work; to fill up on our part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in our sufferings, not as if His work were incomplete or our efforts meritorious, but as being living members of His Body through which He is pleased to manifest that which He has wrought for men. For we shall observe that it was because He brought many sons to glory, that it became God to make perfect through sufferings the Author of their salvation. The fitness lay in the correspondence between the outward circumstances of His life and of their lives. The way of the Lord is the way of His servants. He inlightened the path which they must tread, and showed its end. And so it is that whenever the example of Christ is offered to us in Scripture for our imitation, it is His example in suffering. So far, in His strength, we can follow Him, learning obedience as He learned it, bringing our wills into conformity with the Father’s will, and thereby attaining to a wider view of His counsel in which we can find rest and joy. (Bp. Westcott.)
The Godworthiness of salvation
It might be presumptuous to say that God was bound to become a Saviour, but it may confidently be asserted that to save becomes Him. The work He undertook was congruous to His position and character. It was worthy of God the Creator, by whom all things were made at the first, that He should not allow His workmanship in man to be utterly marred and frustrated by sin. The irretrievable ruin of man would have seriously compromised the Creator’s honour and glory. It would have made it possible to charge the Divine Being with failure, to represent Him as overreached by the tempter of man, to suspect Him of want of power or of will to remedy the mischief done by the fall. On this subject Athanasius, in his discourse on the Incarnation of the Word, well remarks: “It would have been an indecency if those who had been once created rational had been allowed to perish through corruption. For that would have been unworthy of the goodness of God, if the beings He had Himself created had been allowed to perish through the fraud of the devil against man. Nay, it would have been most indecent that the skill of God displayed in man should be destroyed either through their carelessness or through the devil’s craftiness. The God-worthiness of the end becomes still more apparent when the subjects of the Divine operation are thought of as, what they are here called, sons. What more worthy of God than to lead His own sons to the glory for which man was originally fitted and destined, when be was made in God’s image, and set at the head of the creation? The title “sons” was possibly suggested by the creation story, but it arises immediately out of the nature of salvation as indicated in the quotation from the eighth Psalm--lordship in the world to be. This high destiny places man alongside of the Son whom God “appointed heir of all things.” “If sons, then heirs,” reasoned Paul; “if heirs, then sons,” argues inversely the author of our epistle. Both reason legitimately, for sonship and heirship imply each other. Those who are appointed to lordship in the new world of redemption are sons of God, for what higher privilege or glory can God bestow upon His sons? And on those who stand in a filial relation to God He may worthily bestow so great a boon. To lead His sons to their glorious inheritance is the appropriate thing for God to do. (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)
God’s glory in giving His Son to die
If we take a view of God’s special properties, we shall find the glory of them so set forth in Christ’s Incarnation and Passion, and the redemption of man thereby, as in nothing more. I will exemplify this in five of them.
1. The power of God hath been manifested by many wonderful works of His since the beginning of the world. The book of Job and book of Psalms do reckon up catalogues of God’s powerful and mighty works; but they are all inferior to those works which were done by the Son of God becoming man and dying; for hereby was the curse of the law removed, the bonds of death broken, the devil and his whole host vanquished. The Son of God did this, and much more, not by arraying Himself with majesty and power, but by putting on Him weak and frail flesh, and by subjecting Himself to death. Herein was strength made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
2. The wisdom of God was greatly set forth in the first creation or all things in their excellent order and beauty, and in the wise government of them; but after that by sin they were put out of order, to bring them into a comely frame again was an argument of much more wisdom, especially if we duly weigh how, by the creature’s transgression, the just Creator was provoked to wrath. To find out a means, in this case, of atonement betwixt God and man must needs imply much mow e wisdom. For who should make this atonement? Not man, because he was the transgressor; not God, because He was offended and incensed: yet God, by taking man’s nature upon Him, God-man, by suffering, did this deed; He made the atonement. God having revealed this mystery unto His Church, every one that is instructed in the Christian faith can say, Thus, and thus it is done: But had not God by His infinite wisdom found out and made known this means of reconciliation, though all the heads of all creatures had consulted thereabout, their counsels would have been altogether in vain. We have, therefore, just cause with an holy admiration to break out and say, “Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” Romans 11:33).
3. The justice of God hath been made known in all ages by judgments executed on wicked sinners, as the punishment of our first parents, the drowning of the old world, the destroying of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone, the casting off the Jews, the casting of wicked angels and reprobate men into heft fire; but to exact the uttermost of the Son of God, who became a surety for man, and so to exact it as in our nature He most bear the infinite wrath of His Father and satisfy His justice to the full, is an instance of more exact justice than ever was manifested.
4. The truth of God is exceedingly cleared by God’s giving His Son to die, and that in accomplishment of His threatening and promises.
(1) For threatening God had said to man, “In the day thou eatest of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). How could God’s truth have been accomplished in this threatening, and man not utterly destroyed, it Christ had not died in our nature?
(2) For promise, the first that ever was made after man’s fall was this, “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s bead” (Genesis 3:15). As this was the first promise, so was it the ground of all other promises made to God’s elect in Christ. Now God having accomplished this promise by giving His Son to death, how can we doubt of His truth in any other promise whatsoever? The accomplishment of no other promise could so set out God’s truth as of this; for other promises do depend on this, and not this on any of them. Besides, this is the greatest of all other promises. We may therefore on this ground say, “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
5. God’s mercy is most magnified by sending His Son into the world to die for man. “The mercies of God are over all His works” (Psalms 145:9). But the glass wherein they are most perspicuously seen is Jesus Christ made man, and made a sacrifice for man’s sin. (W. Gouge.)
“Just like Him”
A missionary, addressing a pious negro woman, said, “Mary, is not the love of God wonderful?” and then, enlarging on its manifestation in the atonement of Christ, he made the appeal, “Is it nut wonderful? “ Mary simply, but we may add sublimely, replied, “Massa, massa, me no rink it so wonderful, ‘cause it is just like Him.” In bringing many sons to glory
The test of sonship
I. A DEFINITION OF GOD. We are told that for Him, and by Him, are all things; for Him--on His account--to manifest His glory--to display His perfections. God hath created all things for Himself. “Well, does not that look selfish? Is that worthy of God?” If we do anything for ourselves, and to show forth ourselves, we do it to show forth something that is finite and imperfect; and in attempting to show forth ourselves, and seek our own ends, we are overlooking the interests of other people. Therefore it is most improper for a creature to do anything chiefly to promote his own glory. But it is otherwise with God, for He is perfect, and the manifestation of Himself is the manifestation of perfection. Would you wish anything else? Shall creation be for any lower end than the exhibition of the Creator? Nor is the manifestation of Himself apart from the highest hope of the universe, for God is love; the manifestation of love and beneficence is, therefore, the diffusion of happiness. There is no greater, more benevolent purpose than the creation of all things for Himself. All things in the universe, however great, are subservient to an end infinitely greater than themselves. However small, they are not so insignificant as not to be employed for the greatest of all ends--for the manifestation of God the infinite.
II. THE GRACIOUS DESIGN OF THIS GLORIOUS, THIS INFINITE BEING. It is to bring many sons unto glory. These many sons are to be brought unto glory from among a rebellious and condemned race.
1. The first step towards this is to make them sons--to convert, to change them from foes to children; for by nature and by practice we are enemies to God, and not subject to the will of God. We are thus constituted sons through an act of God’s free, sovereign, unmerited favour. He pardons all our sins. He puts the spirit of adoption into Us, and as He manifests Himself to us as our loving Father, He enables us to feel to Him as loving and trusting children. We seek Him whom we avoided; we trust Him whom we dreaded; we serve Him against whom we rebelled; we are sons.
2. And, having made us sons, He then brings us to glory. God does not form children for Himself and then forsake them.
III. But what is HIS METHOD? By a Mediator, called in the text the Captain of Salvation. The same word is translated in other passages, the Prince of Life--in others, “the Author and Finisher of faith.” Here it is translated “Captain.” He is our Captain. He goes in advance. He acts as our Champion. He fights our great adversary the devil for us--defeats him--“destroys him that had the power of death, even the devil.” We can do all things through our Captain strengthening us. But we go on to observe that this Captain of Salvation was to be qualified for His office by suffering. He was to be made perfect by suffering. Emphatically He was a man of sorrows. By those sorrows He was made perfect, not as to His Divinity, for that could not be made more perfect, nor as to his moral purity, for that was perfect necessarily; but made perfect--that is, qualified for His office. The suffering was sacrificial. He had to atone for our sins. He had not merely to go before us as our Captain, but to bear the cross. So He was made a sacrifice for us. And He was to be made an example as well as a sacrifice. Men suffer. This is a world of trouble, and He could not have been an adequate example if He had not been an example in that which we are called to endure. He was to be a sympathising friend on whom we could look as understanding our case, as able to feel with us and for us, awed this would be impossible except by suffering. And, therefore, He was fitted to be the Captain and Leader of our Salvation by suffering.
IV. THE GREAT PROPOSITION. It was befitting in Him for whom and by whom are all things, in thus bringing many sons into glory through the mediation of the Captain of Salvation, to make the Captain of Salvation fitted for His work through suffering. It was befitting the Eternal God that His designs should be accomplished; and as suffering was essential to the end He had in view, was it not befitting that God should not spare even His own Son in order that He might be qualified for the work of bringing many sons to glory? (Newman Hall, LL. B.)
The bringing of many sons to glory
I. THE OBJECT TO BE ACCOMPLISHED WAS THE BRINGING OF MANY SONS TO GLORY, A parent deals not with his children on selfish and mercenary principles. He does not, like a lawgiver, merely protect them, and dispense to them according to their merits; or, like a master, merely remunerate their work. He deals with them in love. “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine,” is the language of parental affection. The riches of Divine all-sufficiency are not, like the possessions of an earthly parent, diminished by being shared, affording the less for each that many partake. No; like the light of the sun, each receives the full enjoyment. “He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and 1 will be his God and he shall be My son.” The abode destined to receive them is the heaven of glory, where every object and scene is resplendent with the glory of God and of the Lamb; their inheritance, the kingdom of glory; their portion the God of glory; their associates, His glorious family; their employments and enjoyments are all glorious: and, what is essential to their enjoyment of all is, that they are for ever perfected in personal glory--the glory not merely of celestial splendour, but the moral glory of unsullied holiness--the noblest glory in the eyes of God and of all holy intelligences.
II. THE PLAN ADOPTED FOR THIS END. A leader to glory is appointed, and He is made “perfect through sufferings.” We have a country to possess, a journey and a warfare to accomplish, an enemy to conquer, and a victory to win. Christ is the breaker-up of the way, the leader and commander of the people. In order that the Son of God might fulfil the offices of our Redeemer--in order that He might have a banner to lift up in this character, and a willing hast ranged under it--it was necessary that He Himself should pass through the last extremity of conflict and death, and be thus made perfect through suffering. Let us inquire in what respects, and for what ends, this was necessary.
1. To make an atonement for our sins, and redeem our souls.
2. His sufferings were requisite in order to His perfect adaptation as our pattern and example.
3. His sufferings were endured also in order to His more perfectly identifying Himself by sympathy with His people, and engaging their absolute confidence. (Alex McNaughton.)
Eternal redemption
There is, perhaps, nothing we understand better, in the conduct of others, than what is becoming or unbecoming in their spirit and deportment. We are almost eagle-eyed to discover whatever is worthy or unworthy of a man’s rank and character. This almost instinctive sense of propriety in human conduct might, if wisely employed, enable us to judge wisely of what is becoming m the Divine conduct. For, if we expect wise, good, and great, men to act up to their character and avowed principles, we may well expect that the infinitely wise, great, and good God will do nothing unbecoming His character and supremacy. When, therefore, it is said that it “became” Him to save sinners, only by the blood of the Lamb, it surely becomes us to search in His character and salvation, not for reasons why redemption could not, or should not, be by atonement, but for reasons why it is so. Now, upon the very surface of the case, it is self-evident that an infinitely wise God would neither do too much nor too little for the salvation of man. Less than enough would not become His love; more than enough would not become His wisdom.
I. BRINGING MANY SONS TO GLORY IS GOD’S CHIEF AND FINAL OBJECT, IN ALL THE MERCY AND GRACE WHICH HE EXERCISES TOWARDS MAN.
1. NOW glory, as a place, is the heaven where God Himself dwells and reigns, visibly and eternally. It is His own special temple, resplendent with His presence, and vocal with His worship. It is His own central throne, from which He surveys and rules the universe.
2. Again, glory, as a state of character, is likeness to the God of heaven;--it is to bear the image of His spotless holiness, and to breathe the spirit of His perfect love. This is the glory to which God proposes to bring many sons. Now this heaven is so unlike our earth--where. God is altogether so invisible, and man so unholy and unloving-that, to say the least, a very great change for the better must take place in men before they can be fit for such glory. There are some things in this heaven which are not very agreeable to the natural mind of man, such as universal and eve lasting spirituality and harmony. Such being the sober facts of the case, it surely “ becomes” God to take care that this heaven, which is to be His own eternal temple and throne, shall not be disgraced nor disturbed by the presence of unholy or alienated inhabitants.
II. THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST ARE DECLARED TO BE THE WAY IN WHICH IT BECAME GOD TO BRING MAN TO GLORY.
III. It is declared that, in saving man by the suffering of Christ, GOD HAD A REGARD TO THE RELATION IN WHICH ALL THINGS IN THE UNIVERSE STOOD TO HIMSELF. What He did in making Christ a sacrifice for our sins was what “because” Him to do as the author and end of all things visible and invisible. Now
1. It certainly became God to save man in a way that should not endanger the safety of angels. But this could not have been done by penitential salvation. That would have been to tell all the unfallen universe that tears would repair any injury they might ever do to the honour of God or their own interests. A fine lesson in a universe where even innocence is no safeguard from temptation!
2. It certainly became God to save man in a way which should not impeach His character for not saving fallen angels. But could they have felt thus if the next race of sinners had been pardoned on mere repentance? Eternal happiness offered to one race of sinners, and eternal misery inflicted on another race of sinners, would be an eternal anomaly in the moral government of God but for the atonement made by Christ on our behalf. But now no holy nor wise being can wonder that grace reigns by the blood of the Lamb of God. Nor can they wonder that Satan and his angels are not redeemed, seeing it was by opposing this scheme of redemption they sinned and fell.
3. It became God to redeem man, and confirm angels, in such a way as to leave no possibility of imagining that any higher happiness could be found out than the voluntary gift of God conferred.
4. It became God to redeem man, and to confirm angels, in such a way as to render the impartiality of His love to both for ever unquestionable. Accordingly, it is as sons that He will bring men to glory--the very rank which all the unfallen spirits in all worlds hold. (R: Philip.)
The road to glory
The text seems to represent Almighty God as looking down upon His sinful and rebellious creatures, and taking counsel for their instruction, as we might imagine some father, like him in the parable, made acquainted with the wretchedness of his prodigal son, and devising within himself a way in which he might recover him to goodness and to happiness. Do you observe what is here implied?
1. They who were to be brought to glory were not yet in a fit state for glory. It was a work to be done; something for which provision was to be made--something which was intended, planned, and gradually to be perfected. Alas t it is too true man in his natural state is not prepared for a world of which the description is, that “therein dwelleth righteousness.”
2. Yet are they capable of becoming so. Like the ore not yet cleansed from the worthless earth with which it is miracled, or like the precious stone covered with rust or clay, but of which the skilful eye perceives that it may be purified, and refined, and polished, and “fitted for the master’s use,” even hereafter to fear a place among his treasures. Such was the being for whom God had a design of mercy.
3. But how to accomplish it?
4. Here we perceive a reason why “the Captain of our salvation” was “made perfect through suffering.” Man, who was to be hereafter glorified, was now lying under the penalty of sin; he was in a state of condemnation, as a transgressor of the laws which God has appointed for His creatures. Like the heir of a vast estate, but found guilty of some crime, by which that estate is forfeited, his condemnation lies between him and the inheritance assigned to him. “Why,” perhaps you ask, “might not the Lord freely pardon these His guilty creatures, these His offending sons? “Verily, “the secret things belong unto the Lord our God”; but this we know--the judge here on earth, the magistrate, cannot freely pardon the offender against human laws; they cannot set him free without endangering the whole fabric of society. Therefore was “the Captain of our salvation m ,de perfect through suffering”; therefore through suffering did He accomplish our salvation. Christ died, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
5. Now, then consider man in this stage of his progress towards glory. Much has been done but much remains to do. The slave may be emancipated from chains, but he is not emancipated from base and servile ways, and is altogether unfit for the glories of a throne or the presence of a king. God, therefore, in “bringing many sons to glory,” has other plans of mercy beyond the atonement made. Their corruptions must be purified; the evil of their nature cured. How, then, is this to be effected in a way consistent with that Being with whom we have to do? What must be clone if a benefactor were to approach the slave and show him how a price was paid for his redemption, and that the moment he claims freedom an estate is prepared for him to enjoy, if lie were once fitted for the inheritance. He must be first persuaded of his present wretchedness, willing to be released from it, and to receive the benefit proposed. And in the case of earthly bondage there is no difficulty; the evils of such a state are felt and acknowledged. Not so in the case of Satan’s bondmen; they are too often willing slaves. And this He does for the sons whom He leads to glory. He “convinces them of sin,” that it is their guilt--“of righteousness,” that it is to be found in Christ--“of judgment, the prince of this world is judged”--that this world must be overcome, or they must share its doom. WhenGod was leading the Israelites into the land of Canaan He did not rid the laud at once of its inhabitants, but put them out little by little. And so no doubt He has a merciful purpose in all the difficulties which His people meet with in their progress towards the heavenly Canaan. Here, too, we see--here at least we believe we see--the reason of those troubles which many of God’s faithful people pass through. Is the Christian harassed by the remainder of sin, so that “ when he world do good evil is present with him”? Or is it the straitness of poverty which weighs him down? In all those secret trials which the world sees not, as well as all those which are evident to all, there is one intent which we cannot but see: God is weaning the heart from the present world, and drawing it to Himself. (Archbp. Sumner.)
Bringing many sons to glory
God is here represented as executing a great work--that of “ bringing many sons unto glory.” “Glory” is a grand word--one of the grandest in the vocabulary of human speech; and it is habitually employed in Scripture to denote the “great recompence of reward” which awaits the righteous in the world to come. In the Old Testament it is said: “The Lord will give grace and glory” (Psalms 84:11); Thou shall guide me with Thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory” (Psalms 73:24); and in the New: “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18); “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” (2 Corinthians 4:17); “Christ in you, the hope of glory” Colossians 1:27); “The salvation which is in” Christ, with eternal glory,” (2 Timothy 2:10). Well does heaven realise the brilliant and impressive name of glory. The place--the pursuits--the pleasures--the inhabitants--all are glorious.
1. The place is glorious. Paradise--to which the departing spirits of the righteous pass--is certainly a locality. As the residence of Christ that region of the universe must needs be glorious, having objects adapted to the organisation, and aptitudes, and tastes of his fine humanity. And who can fall but, even when a pure spirit is dissevered from its sister-frame, these objects let in their glory on the soul? But at last, in admirable and exquisite adaptation to the complete humanity of believers, the “new heavens and new earth” will come. It may seem sentimentalism, but it is sober sense, to say: If earth be so fair, how beautiful must heaven be! if the azure skies be so resplendent, holy majestic must be that sublimer world!
2. The pursuits are glorious. The inhabitants of heaven shall “see God.” His Divine Essence, indeed, can never be beheld by human eye (1 Timothy 6:16). But there will probably be an outburst of visible glory from His eternal throne, significant of His presence and His majesty. At any rate, the soul will realise His infinite wisdom, and might, and purity, and love, with such clearness, and vividness, and power, as, in a sublime sense, to behold the invisible God. In heaven they will literally behold His glorious person--they will have Him for their associate and friend--they will gaze intothe deep recesses of His love.
3. The pleasures are glorious. Deep and strong, no doubt, they are, like the mighty and majestic sea--yet, probably, calm and placid, as the b sore of the lake in the sunshine of the summer-sky.
4. The inhabitants themselves are glorious. What an expressive phrase--“the spirits of just men made perfect!” To the scenes, the pursuits, and the pleasures, of the heavenly world, the constitutions and characters of its inhabitants will completely correspond. Such is the glory of heaven. It is summarily denoted by St. Paul in the expression--an “exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). There is a glory of the flowers--there is a glory of the stars-there is a glory of the sun. But each, and all, is far exceeded and outshone b v the glory of the heavens. And what is so bright, and beautiful, and precious, is “eternal;” it shall last for ever--it shall never pass away.
And whom does Jehovah bring to this celestial glory? “Sons” “many sons.”
1. The filial relation of believers to God is often set forth in Scripture. There are two ways in which one person may become another person’s child--birth and adoption. In the writings of St. John and St. Peter, the former--in those of St. Paul, the latter is propounded as the fundamental idea of the believer’s sonship. Starting from either of the two conceptions, we are free to carry out the figure into the collateral and kindred ideas of protection, guidance, instruction, discipline, comfort, pity, and tenderest love, as bestowed by God on His believing people. It is as children that they are brought to glory.
2. The statement that “many sons” are brought to glory is quite consistent with the passages which indicate that comparatively few of the inhabitants of earth are in a state of salvation. Already, a mighty multitude of souls have been ransomed and renewed. In future times foretold in prophecy, “a nation shall be born in a day,” and tribes and tongues shall shout, “Come and let us go up to Jehovah’s house.’,
3. These “many sons “ God is “bringing to glory.” He chose them to this bright inheritance in the depths of the past eternity (Ephesians 1:4-6; 2 Thessalonians 2:13). He sent His Son to win and work out “an eternal redemption” for them (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; Romans 8:32). He arrests them, by His Spirit, amidst the wildness of their wanderings, and adopts them into His cherished family (Romans 5:17; Rom 8:29-30; 2 Corinthians 5:18; Ephesians 2:1-10. Colossians 1:12). He “guides them by His counsel” (Psalms 73:24). He “will never leave them nor forsake them” (Hebrews 13:5). He “keeps them by His power, through faith, unto salvation” (1 Peter 1:5). At last, He receives them to glory Psalms 73:24). He introduces, and bids them welcome, to their paternal home.
4. The “many sons” whom the Father brings to glory are here represented as standing in a rely intimate relation to Jesus Christ. He is “the Captain of their salvation.” Glorious Captain! who would not follow Thee? Yet this Captain had “His sufferings.” From His cradle to His grave, He was “a man of sorrows.” In body, in soul, in circumstances, He suffered grievously Isaiah 53:2-6; Isaiah 53:10; Zechariah 13:7; Matthew 4:1; Matthew 8:20; Matthew 11:19,
26:36--27:50; Luke 19:41; John 4:6; Galatians 3:13; 1Pe 2:21; 1 Peter 3:18; 1 Peter 4:1).
5. But He is also represented as “made perfect through sufferings.” (A. S.Patterson, M. A.)
Make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings
The Captain of salvation
He might conceivably have saved men by a direct act of sovereign power and mercy. But He chose to save by mediation. And this method, if not the only possible one, is at least fitting. It became Him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, to bring His sons to glory in this way.
1. Because He was thereby following the analogy of providence, doing this work of deliverance in the manner in which we see Him performing all works of deliverance recorded in history: e.g. the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt. God led His ancient people from Egypt to Canaan, like a flock, “by the hand of Moses and Aaron.”
2. The method involves that salvation is a gradual process. It is a march under the guidance of a Leader to the promised land. The sons of God arc led to glory step by step. The new heavens and the new earth are not brought in per saitum, but as the result of a development during which the word and history and passion of Christ work as a leaven. Redemption has a history alike in the Leader and in the led. Redemption after this fashion became Him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, better than an instantaneous deliverance. The latter might reveal Divine omnipotence, but the former affords scope for the display of all Divine attributes: power, wisdom, patience, faithfulness, unwearied loving care.
The method of salvation by a Leader involves certain things with reference to the Leader Himself.
1. He must, of course, be a Man visible to men, whom He has to lead; so that they can look unto Him as the Leader and Perfecter of faith, and, inspired by His example, follow Him on the path which leads to glory.
2. Out of this primary requirement naturally springs another. He who in person is to lead the people out of the house of bondage into ,h, promised land must, in the discharge of his duty, encounter hardship and suffering, lie must share the lot of those whom he has to deliver. Neither Moses nor Joshua had an easy time of it. The leadership of Israel was for neither a dilettante business, but a sore, perilous, often thankless toil and warfare. And there never was any real leader or captain of men whose life was anything else than a yoke of care, and a burden of toil and sorrow. They have all had to suffer with those they led, and more than any of the led. What wonder then if the Captain or Leader of the great salvation was acquainted with suffering? Must He be the solitary exception to the rule which connects leadership with suffering? If out of regard to His dignity as the Son He must be exempted from suffering, then for the same reason He must forfeit the position of leader. To exempt from suffering is to disable for leadership. Companionship in suffering is one of the links that connect a leader with those he leads and gaves him power over them. This brings us to a third implicate of the method of salvation by a captain for the Captain Himself.
3. It is, that experience of suffering is not merely inseparable from His office as the Captain of salvation, but useful to Him in that capacity. It perfects Him as Captain. Here at length we reach the climax of the apologetic argument; the final truth in which, when understood, the mind finds perfect rest. If this be indeed true, then beyond all doubt it became God to subject His Son to a varied experience of suffering. To proclaim its truth is the real aim of the writer. For though his direct affirmation is that it became God to perfect His Son by suffering, the really important thing is the indirect affirmation that the Son was perfected by suffering. The writer means to say that Christ was perfected by suffering, in the sense that He was thereby made a perfect leader. The perfecting of Christ was a process resulting in His becoming a consummate Captain of salvation. It was a process carried on through sufferings, taking place contemporanously with these. It was a process begun on earth, carried on throughout Christ’s whole earthly life, reaching its goal in heaven; just as the crowning with glory and honour began on earth and was completed in heaven. The crowning was the appointment of Jesus to the vocation of Saviour, the perfecting was the process through which he became skilled in the art of saving. The theatre or school of His training was His human history, and the training consisted in His acquiring, or having opportunity of exercising, the qualities and virtues which go to make a good leader of salvation. Foremost among these are sympathy, patience, obedience, faith, all of which are mentioned in the course of the epistle. The official perfecting of every ordinary man includes an ethical element. An apprentice during the course of his apprenticeship not only goes through all the departments of his craft and acquires gradually skill in each branch, but all along undergoes a discipline of character, which tends to make him a better man as well as a good tradesman. The supreme qualification for a leader of salvation is the possession and exercise of high heroic virtues, such as those already enumerated. He leads by inspiring admiration and trust; that is, by being a moral hero. But a moral hero means one whose life is hard, tragic. Heroes are produced by passing through a severe, protracted curriculum of trial. They are perfected by sufferings--sufferings of all sorts, the more numerous, varied, and severe the better; the more complete the training, the more perfect the result, when the discipline has been successfully passed through. Hence the fitness, nay, the necessity, that one having Christ’s vocation should live such a life as the gospels depict; full of temptations, privations, contradictions of unbelief, ending with death on the cross; calling into play to the uttermost the virtue of fortitude, affording ample scope for the display at all costs of fidelity to duty and obedience to God, and in the most desperate situations of implicit filial trust in a heavenly Father; and through all these combined furnishing most satisfactory guarantees for the possession of unlimited capacity to sympathise with all exposed to the temptations and tribulations of this world. How can any son of God who m being led through fire and blood to his inheritance doubt the value of a Leader so trained and equipped? (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)
A captain worth a whole brigade
Our Leader inspires confidence. He has never been defeated. Mark you I how He conquered the weaknesses of humanity, pride, self-seeking, avarice, and resentment--how he conquered the Tempter on the Mount; how He conquered death and the powers of hell! We know whom we trust, and that He will lead us to victory. In one of the Napoleonic battles on the Peninsula, a corps of British troops were sorely pressed and began to waver. Just then the Duke of Wellington rode in among them. A veteran soldier cried out: “ Here comes the Duke, God bless him! the sight of him is worth a whole brigade!” So to the equipped warrior under the ensign of the cross, a sight of Jesus, our leader, is a new respiration. He who is for us is mightier than all that be against us. Jesus is able to assure the victory to every redeemed soul who is loyal to Him. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)
Christ perfect through sufferings
I. THE LORD JESUS IS A PERFECT SAVIOUR.
1. For, first, He is perfectly adapted for the work of saving.
(1) The singular constitution of His nature adapts Him to His office. He is God. He is also man. No nature but one so complex as that of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, would have been perfectly adapted for the work of salvation.
(2) And as He was adapted in His nature, so it is very clear to us that He was also adapted by His experience. A physician should have some acquaintance with disease; how shall he know the remedy if he be ignorant of the malady. Our Saviour knew all because “He took our infirmities,” &c.
(3) If you will add to His perfect experience His marvellous character, you will see how completely adapted He was to the work. For a Saviour, we need one who is full of love, whose love will make him firm to his purpose. We want one with zeal so flaming, that it will eat him up; of courage so indomitable, that he will face every adversary rather than forego his end; we want one, at the same time, who will blend with this brass of courage the gold of meekness and of gentleness; we want one who will be determined to deal fearlessly with his adversaries--such an one we have in Christ.
2. Furthermore, as Christ is thus perfectly adapted, so He is perfectly able to be a Saviour. He is a perfect Saviour by reason of ability.
(1) He is now able to meet all the needs of sinners. That need is very great. The sinner needs everything. “More than all in Christ we find”; pardon in His blood; justification in His righteousness; wisdom in His teaching; sanctification in His Spirit. He is the God of all grace to us.
(2) As He has this power to meet all needs, so He can meet all need in all cases. There has never been brought to Christ a man whom He could not heal.
(3) As He can meet all cases, so He can meet all cases at all times.
3. Once more, let me remind you that Christ is a perfectly successful Saviour.
(1) I mean by this that, in one sense, He has already finished the work of salvation. All that has to be done to save a soul Christ has done already.
(2) And, as He has been successful in doing all the work for us, to, in every case where that work has been applied, perfect success has followed.
II. CHRIST WAS MADE A PERFECT SAVIOUR THROUGH SUFFERING.
1. By His sufferings He became perfect as a Saviour from having offered a complete expiation for sin. Sin could not have been put away by holiness. The best performance of an unsuffering being could not have removed the guilt of man. Suffering was absolutely necessary, for suffering was the penalty of sin.
2. Again, if Christ had not suffered He could not have been perfect as a Saviour, because He could not have brought in a perfect righteousness. It is not enough to expiate sin. God requires of man perfect obedience. If man would be in heaven he must be perfectly obedient. Christ, as He took away our guilt, has supplied us with a matchless righteousness.
3. Yet, thirdly, it was necessary that Christ should suffer to make Him a perfect Saviour so far as His sympathy goes.
4. Finally, upon this point; He thus became perfect as our exemplar.
III. CHRIST’S HAVING BEEN MADE PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING WILL ENNOBLE THE WHOLE WORK OF GRACE. “It became Him for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory”--that is the great work “to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.” The whole thing will work for His glory. Oh, how this will glorify God at the last, that Christ, the man, should have been perfect through suffering!
1. How this will glorify Him in the eyes of devils! It was in man that they defeated God; in man God destroys them.
2. How greatly will God be exalted that day in the eyes of lost spirits. You will not be able to say, “My damnation lies at God’s door,” for you will see in Christ a suitable Saviour.
3. Oh, what delight and transport will seize the minds of those who are redeemed! How will God be glorified then! Why, every wound of Christ will cause an everlasting song. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Perfection through suffering
The presence of evil in this earth, and of all the sorrow and suffering that flows from evil, naturally appears to be the one great imperfection that mars the economy of the world. Here, however, the sacred writer boldly faces the mystery, and dares to speak of this great and all-pervading imperfection as the necessary condition of a higher perfection--a perfection so high and glorious as to justify all that has seemed inexplicable in bringing it about. We cannot for a moment doubt that God, being omnipotent, could if He willed bring evil to a summary end. But if He could crush out all evil, and yet does not do so, it is clear that some purpose of benevolence and love higher than would be answered by this procedure must actuate Him to adopt the course that He does. Now we ourselves are in a position to notice that the presence and operation of evil in one form or another calls forth, or perhaps we should say contributes to form, qualities and characteristics such as are not within our own observation and experience otherwise produced. If a man’s temper should never be tried, we cannot see how he can learn self-control; unless a man be exposed to danger or to opposition, how shall he develop courage? If he never has a trial or a pain, how can he become patient? Or we might illustrate the subject thus: Mere exclusion from the conditions of trial and temptation will not transform human character, although it may change human conduct. Suppose that an habitual drunkard migrated to locality where intoxicants could not be obtained, he would become outwardly sober certainly, but would he be a sober man in the moral sense of the work? Supposing that a quarrelsome man were banished to a Juan Fernandez, he would certainly live in peace because he had no one to quarrel with; but are you sure he would not pick a quarrel with the captain of the ship that carried him back to England? No; our observation shows us that something more is needed than mere seclusion from evil to make us truly good. Indeed, it teaches us more than this. It would lead us to conclude that contact with evil in some form or another would seem to be necessary in order to develop the highest form of character. Are any of us disposed to ask, Why cannot the highest form of good be otherwise produced? It is enough to answer that God, so far as we know, invariably works through means. Further, we observe in Nature that each end is the product of certain particular means, or specific combinations of means, and of no other, and reverence and piety lead to the conclusion that in each case the means are the best that could be chosen. But if this be so in the physical world, why should it not be so in the moral? And there rises up before the Divine consideration the vision of the One absolutely perfect Man, who was, in the Father’s foreknowledge, the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. And this highest type is the product of the triumph of militant good over opposing evil; the ideal Man is perfected by suffering. Here, at any rate, the means have produced the end. Hence our text, we observe, speaks of something that we might almost call a Divine necessity; at any rate, it contains a distinct reference to the eternal fitness of things, to the fixed operation of the laws of causation in the spiritual as in the natural world. And yet, lest this should be taken to imply the existence of some superior necessity to which even God Himself is subject--lest we should fall into the old Pagan notion that fate is stronger thanDeity, and that God is the creature rather than the Creator of universal law, the writer attaches to this very reference to the eternal fitness of things one of the most sublime declarations in all literature of the place that God holds in the universe He has made. “It became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.” Let us dwell upon these two revelations of the Divine. All things are for God. He is the great final cause of all that is. “Thou hast created all things,” cry the blessed spirits in the Land of Vision, “and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.” It is manifest that if God Himself existed antecedently to all creation, all creation must exist for Him. And this implies that the potentialities, as well as the original actualities, of life were for Him. He must surely have known what He was calling into existence, and what possibilities would be involved for good or evil when He said, “Let us make man.” And we ourselves are for Him. The prime object of our existence is not to obtain gratification for ourselves, but to answer His purpose concerning us. I am persuaded that one great secret of holiness lies in the recognition of this truth, and of all that is implied in it--I exist for God. In this new view of life, and in the acceptance of God instead of self as our centre of reference, lies the very essence of self-denial. We deny ourselves when, instead of asking, What do I like, we inquire, “Lord, what wouldest Thou have me to do?” And the second revelation is scarcely less important. “By Him are all things.” He is the efficient as well as the final cause in His great universe of all that He designs to be eternal, and of all that contributes to what is eternal. This suggests to our minds the thought, that not only are the ages bound together by one great purpose, but more than this, God must be the best judge of the means by which that great purpose is to be subserved. And if He employs suffering as a means towards this end (and no doubt He is most reluctant to employ such a means), it must be because He sees this to be the means most suited to the end aimed at, indeed the only means that can bring about the specific results desired. Now it is obviously of the greatest practical moment that we should bear in mind that “of Him are all things” in our own personal experience. It is not the devil that is allowed to shape the features of the Christian’s lot. Though he may be the agent in inflicting such sufferings, there is a deeper love underneath that permits them all for the promotion of a higher good. But if all things are for God, and we ourselves are for Him--if He is to derive a special gratification and satisfaction from ourperfection--Then may we not boldly affirm that all things are for us? and may we not confidently trust Him with the selection of means towards the great end that He has in view? It is this thought that will arm us to face trials without apprehension, and keep us from forfeiting the blessings of suffering by yielding to a murmuring spirit. Stoics might teach us to endure tribulation, and Epicureans might advise us to do our best to escape tribulation; but who had ever before thought of the possibility of glorying in tribulation? But the true Christian glories in it. He glories in it because it is a means towards an end. It is one of the “all things” that are of God, and that contribute to what God designs. We glory in that triumphant power of Divine grace which renders even evil the minister of good, and converts what we most shrink from rote the means of inducing what we most desire. But the most surprising part of the text certainly is that in which Christ is represented as being submitted to the same means of development as ourselves in this respect. And our text affirms that it was in accordance with the eternal fitness of things that He should be perfected by suffering like the rest. If God’s method of operation is this, that He produces ends by definite and appropriate means, why should we expect Him to depart from it in a particular ease? If the very highest form of human perfection could be induced, without any employment of means--and painful and unpleasant means--such as we are subjected to, would there not have been ground for the conclusion that these means were in themselves unnecessary? Surely with such premises, it would be difficult for us to draw any other conclusion than that the infliction of all this suffering was gratuitous, and therefore unkind. But Christ came to vindicate the Father’s character and ways. Above all He came to deepen our sense of the Father’s love and benevolence, and therefore it behoved Him to submit to the established law, and to make the highest use of the means which a Father’s love has appointed for the training and perfecting of man. Jesus Christ is not any grander, any more glorious, in the moral sense of the word, even when He sits ca the throne, than He was when He hung in anguish, faint and dying, on a felon’s cross. We can guess at His perfection up yonder in the glory; we can see it on the cross. And it is just the sort of perfection that sanctified sorrow and suffering amongst ourselves is known, in some degree at any rate, to produce. Self-control in its highest form; self-effacement that seems wonderful in its completeness, even in Him of whom we have learnt to expect whatever is highest and noblest; courage that took measure beforehand of all that was to come, and yet never flinched; obedience that would not, that did not, fail when the consequence was torture and death; patience that continued to endure when relief at any moment was within His reach; faith that would not doubt the Father’s love, though all that He was suffering seemed to contradict it; hope that looked on through the horrors of the present to the joy that was set before Him; magnanimity that despised the shame; benignant pity that pleaded for His very murderers; and, above all, changeless and unconquerable love that many waters could not quench nor floods drown--these were amongst the characteristic perfections that have shone upon the world from Calvary, and are shining still. And these are all of them such as sorrow and suffering contribute to form; indeed, it is easy to see that some of these characteristics could not have existed, otherwise than potentially, even in the perfect Man, had He not been exposed to suffering. But it may be asked, How could Jesus Christ be perfected when He was never imperfect? Perfection may be regarded as either relative or absolute. Absolute perfection is the attribute of God, and belonged to Christ in His eternal Godhead from all eternity. But, again, there is such a thing as relative perfection--a perfection, that is to say, that is relative not only to the object and its ideal, but to the conditions to which it is for the time being submitted. There never was a time, then, when Jesus Christ was relatively imperfect. As a mere child no doubt He was all that a child could be; and as a young man I question not, though we know actually nothing of His youth, He presented to His contemporaries a perfect model of youthful manhood. But, as we have seen, there are certain forms of manly and, perhaps I should say, Godlike virtue that are only brought forth to perfection, so far as we know, by trial and suffering; and Jesus Christ could not be the absolutely Perfect Man until these characteristics had been by suffering acquired. For example, we are taught that He learned obedience by the things that He suffered. Now there never was a time when Jesus Christ was disobedient; but obedience, to be perfect, must be submitted to test. You cannot call a child obedient if his obedience has never cost him anything, nor do you know that he will obey when the trial comes unless he has been already put to the test. In this sense, and in this sense only, Christ learnt obedience by the things that He suffered. Alas! the words apply very differently to many of us! We disobey, and we suffer for it, and perhaps suffer severely, and then we begin to think that perhaps obedience is the truer wisdom. But He, on the other hand, learned the habit of obedience without ever tasting the bitter fruits of disobedience. His sufferings came in the path of obedience, and instead of deflecting Him from it confirmed Him in it. His own brethren did not believe on Him. Here were trials at home harder to bear than poverty and want. But from this form of suffering He learned to stand alone, to be the less dependent on man, and the more in the society of His Father; while instead of His affections and sympathies being shrivelled and blighted by this unfavourable atmosphere they seem to have flowed forth all the more freely towards all who felt their value and responded to their advances. Yet another sorrow sprang from the attitude assumed towards Him by the religious world. It is never pleasant to be regarded as a heretic by those who represent a dominant and intolerant orthodoxy. I have known cases in which men have become embittered against and estranged from their fellow-Christians for life because of what they have suffered through practical excommunication. But where we may miss the lesson, Christ learned it. On the one hand, He learnt from all this how little trust was to be reposed in the theories and systems of men. But look again, and observe how all through His ministry He suffered from the contradiction of sinners against Himself, and this suffering contributed to His perfection in two ways. It seems to have deepened and strengthened the intensity of His hatred against sin, and to have taught Him the necessity of using great plainness, and even in some cases severity of speech in convicting sinners, while it also produced in Him a wonderful patience in dealing with sinners. Did He, could He, suffer from temptation, and was He perfected by this also? The writer of this Epistle says so in so many words. We know how much of severe pain temptation often causes; how it sometimes seems as if we were so circumstanced that it must needs lie pain to resist, and probably not less but greater pain to yield. He never had, it is true, a fallen nature, and a bias towards evil such as we have; and many feel as if that must needs have rendered it impossible for Him to be tempted as we are. But are we able to judge how much this advantage may have been compensated by the special trials that belonged to the unique position that He occupied? Who shall alarm that the urgent demands of such an appetite as hunger, aggravated to a scarcely conceivable intensity by the pains of a forty days’ fast, were more easy to deny than the cravings of abnormally-developed lust in the manhood of a confirmed sensualist? And this is only one example out of many that should suffice to prove the reality of the sufferings to which He was exposed by temptation. Where is there another in human history whose temptation was so severe as to wring blood-drops from the agonising body? Never say that Jesus’s temptations were no thing to yours, because He was innocent when you are impure, unless you have passed through such an agony and bloody sweat as fell to His lot in Gethsemane. But here as elsewhere suffering perfected the Man. He learnt how Divine power--the power of the Eternal Spirit--can master and triumph over the strongest claims of nature; and thus through suffering He rose to the very culminating-point of true self-mastery, and was able to lay Himself upon the altar a whole burnt sacrifice. Yes, the self-control of Jesus Christ differs from all other instances of it in these particulars: First, He seems to have been able to take the measure of His sufferings before they occurred--an experience which is happily impossible to us; and, second, all the while that He was enduring them He knew perfectly well that He had only to express a wish and His sufferings would have been at an end. Thus His obedience was made perfect, and with His obedience His h man character. The means produced the end with Him that it might produce the self-same end with us; and from the moment of His perfection by suffering He consecrated suffering as a minister of the Divine purpose, so that His followers might no longer shrink from it and tremble at it, but rather glory in it as a conquered foe that has become our friend. (W. H. M. H. Aitken, M. A.)
Perfect through suffering
I. JESUS WAS MADE PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING.
1. Not
(1) Physically.
(2) Intellectually.
(3) Morally.
2. But in His Saviourhood.
(1) Example.
(2) Expiation.
II. THE FOLLOWER OF JESUS IS MADE PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING.
1. It deepens his humility.
2. It increases his power of endurance.
3. It stimulates his sympathy toward those who suffer.
4. It awakens within his stronger yearnings after a better world. (J. K. Jackson.)
Christ’s perfecting by suffering
I. THE GREAT SWEEP OF THE DIVINE ACTION IN THE GIFT OF CHRIST AS IT IS SET FORTH HERE. It is “bringing many sons unto glory,” wherein there lies, of course, a metaphor of a great filial procession, being led on through all changes of this lower life, steadily upwards into the possession of what is here called “glory.” The same metaphor colours the other expression of our text, “the Captain of our salvation.” This great procession of sons up into glory, which is the object and aim of God’s work, is all under the leadership of Him who is she Captain, the foremost, the Originator, and, in a profound sense, the Cause of their salvation. So, then, we have before us the thought that God brings, and yet Chris, leads, and God’s bringing is effected through Christ’s leadership. Look at the extent of the Divine act. “Many” is used not in contrast to “all,” as if there was proclaimed here a restricted application of Christ’s work in the Divine idea; but “many” is in opposition to “few,” or, perhaps in opposition to the One. There is One Leader, and there is an indefinite number of followers. Then, note, the relationship which the members of that great company possess. The many are being brought as “sons”; under the leadership of the one Son. Then note further, the end of the march. This great company stretching numberless away beyond the range of vision, and, all exalted into the dignity of sons, is steadfastly pressing onwards to the aim of fulfilling that Divine ideal of humanity, long since spoken in the psalm which, in its exuberant promises, sounds like irony than hope. “Thou crownest Him with glory and honour.” They are not only steadily marching onwards to the realisation of that Divine ideal, but also to the participation of the glory of the Captain who is the brightness of the Father’s glory,” as well as “the express image of His person.” So again, the underlying thought is the identity, as in fate here, so in destiny hereafter, of the army with its Leader. He is the Son, and the Divine purpose is to make the “ many” partakers of His Sonship. He is the realisation of the Divine ideal. We see not yet all things put under man, but we see Jesus, and so we know that the ancient hope is not the baseless fabric of a vision, nor a dream which will pass when we awake to the realities, but is to be fulfilled in every one, down to the humblest private in that great army, all of whom shall partake in their measure and degree, in the glory of the Lord. This, then, being the purpose--the leading up out of the world into the glory, of a great company ofsons who are conformed to the image of the Son--we attain the point from which we may judge of the adaptation of the means to the end. The Cross is surplusage if Christ be a prophet only; it is surplusage and an incongruity if Christ be simply the foremost of the pure natures that have walked the earth, and shown the beauty of goodness. But if Christ have come to make men sons of God, by participation of His Sonship, and to blanch and irradiate their blackness by the reflection and impartation of His own flashing glory, then it “ became Him, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”
II. THE PARADOX OF THE METHOD ADOPTED TO CARRYOUT THIS DIVINE PURPOSE. The leader must have no exemption from the hardships of the company. If He is to be a leader, He and we must go by the same road. He must tramp along all the weary path that we have to tread. He must experience all the conflicts and difficulties that we have to experience. He cannot lift us up into a share of His glory unless He stoops to the companionship of our grief. Again, we learn the necessity of His suffering in order to His sympathy. Before Be suffers, He has the pity of a God; after He suffers, He has learnt the compassion of a man. Then we learn, further, the necessity of the Captain’s suffering in order to emancipate us from the dominion of the evil that He bears. No Christ is enough for me a sinner except a Christ whose Cross takes away the burden and the penalty of my transgression. And thus “it became Him to make the Captain of salvation perfect through suffering,” else the design of making men His sons and sharers of His glory could never come to pass.
III. THE HARMONY BETWEEN THE LOFTIEST CONCEPTION OF THE DIVINE CHARACTER AND NATURE AND THESE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS, The writer dwells upon two aspects of God’s relation to the universe. “It became Him for whom are all things, and by or through whom are all things.” That is to say, the sufferings and death of the Christ, in whom is God manifest in the flesh, are worthy of that lofty nature to the praise and glory of which all things contribute. The Cross is the highest manifestation of the Divine nature. Another aspect, closely connected with this, lies in that other clause. Christ’s sufferings and death are congruous with that Almighty power by which the universe has sprung into being and is sustained. His creative agency is not the highest exhibition of His power. Creation is effected by a word. The bare utterance of the Divine will is all that is needed to make the heavens and the earth, and to “preserve the stars from wrong.” The work needs the humiliation, the suffering, the death, resurrection, ascension, and session at the right hand of God, of the Captain of our salvation and the Prince of our life. So, though by Him are all things, if we would know the full sweep and omnipotence of His power, He points us away from creation, and its ineffectual fires that pale before this brighter Light in which His whole self is embodied, and says, “There, that is the arm of the Lord made bare in the sight of all the nations.” Omnipotence has made the world, the Cross has redeemed it. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Perfect through sufferings
1. The first qualification for such a commander is that he be one we can wholly trust. In order to this he must not only have knowledge but experience. To win our faith our Captain had to fight our battle.
2. But more than this: He has to change our whole characters: to wean us from all evil and win us to all good, to change our hearts so that we should seek to be holy. He could not do so without suffering. I have known a mother, tender and pure, with a son once her joy but now her heartbreak, a prodigal, wilful, scornful, and seemingly to all good reprobate. On a certain night she knew he was in an evil place and company. She went forth with the biting sleet and snow drifting upon her. With prayer she closed her ears to foul and ribald speech, with prayer she closed her eyes to shameless sights, with prayer through insult and blasphemy and blows she made her way and stood before her son, torn and bleeding, to plead with his better heart, if any better heart remained in him. A sorrowful and yet a noble sight! As he looked on her, bitter, remorseful thoughts and tender memories of good filled his heart. Never had he seen his sins as he saw them now written on her crushed, broken heart, and it touched and startled him into a new feeling of glory and virtue. That mother’s love became her, and her sorrow perfected her for the work of redeeming her son from the evil of his ways. Even so the Lord Jesus yearned to save His lost ones, and came forth in His purity into the haunts of our sin and degradation, and walked among us, despised and rejected and blasphemed and crucified. If the human heart is not fretted out, if there is truth or truth left in us, the thought of that sorrowful love should fill us with contrition and touch us with a feeling of Divine things again. He was perfected by suffering to make this last appeal to us. If there is anything that will reach and touch and change and melt our hearts, it is the sight of that sorrowing love, wounded for our iniquities, and bruised for our transgressions. (W. C. Smith, D. D.)
Perfect through sufferings
How was it that the discipline of suffering improved the unimprovable Saviour? Not in the way of pruning off tendencies to anything bad: for in Him there never were any. There was no self-conceit there to be purged out: no arrogance to be taken down: no hardness to be softened by experience of pain. No higher degree was possible, in the scale of moral excellence--of purity, kindness, unselfishness, truthfulness. But round this central core of unimprovable perfection, there might gather special qualifications fitting for the fulfilment of His great atoning work, such as not even He could have without passing through that baptism of suffering which was implied by His life and death. Christ was “made perfect through sufferings,” in the sense that He was made more completely equipped and prepared for the work He came to do, by the sufferings He underwent.
I. By His sufferings, HE ATONED FOR SIN, AND TOOK IT AWAY.
II. Another respect in which Christ became through sufferings the Saviour we know Him for--Is IN THE MATTER OF HIS BEING AN EXAMPLE FOR US IN OUR DAYS OF SORROW.
III. Then, again, sufferings perfected our blessed Saviour and made Him what we know Him for, In THE MATTER OF SYMPATHY WITH US. “He has felt the same “: how that brings the Divine Redeemer close to us; as nothing else could!
IV. Now, does the text mean more? Is there an uncomfortable feeling in any mind, that in all this we have been evading a plain statement of God’s Word, because it seems as though it would not fit in with our theology? Does any one think that if we really read the text honestly, IT WOULD CONVEY THAT SUFFERING IMPROVED CHRIST MORALLY, made Him better, just in the same sense in which suffering improves us, and makes us better? The idea is startling. Yet good men and wise men have held it and delighted in it. One such (Archer Butler), a firm believer in our Lord’s Divinity, has maintained that all those long nights of prayer, all that endurance of contradiction, the agony in the Garden, the final struggle on the Cross, had power(I quote his words) “to raise and refine the human element of His Being beyond the simple purity of its original innocence; so that, though ever and equally without sin, the dying Christ was something more consummate still than the Christ baptized in Jordan.” I confess at once, I cannot venture to say so. The Best could never grow better. One cannot bear to exalt even the dying Redeemer by saying what seems to cast a slight on Him who preached the Sermon on the Mount. And yell it as you may in more skilful phrases, it comes to that, when you speak of sorrow as working “a refining and exalting change” upon Christ! Yet perhaps without irreverence it may be said that the human in Him must have learnt, daily, intellectually: and (so joined are they together) in some sense, thus learning, have morally grown. And true it is, doubtless, that “Virtue tried and triumphant ranks above untried innocence.” (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
Christ made perfect through suffering
I. A DESCRIPTION OF THE DIVINE MAJESTY.
1. His absolute superiority and authority.
2. His infinite power and skill. By Him the world was planned, constructed, and is sustained.
II. THE BLESSED WORK WHICH THE DIVINE BEING HAS UNDERTAKEN TO PERFORM.
1. The object: “glory.”
2. The means: “being made sons.”
3. The number: “many.”
III. THE METHOD BY WHICH THE DIVINE BEING WILL ACCOMPLISH THIS WORK.
1. “He has appointed Jesus “the Captain of their salvation.”
2. For this work Christ was prepared. “Perfect through suffering.”
IV. THE APPROPRIATENESS OF BOTH THE WORK AND THE METHOD UNDERTAKEN BY THE DIVINE BEING.
1. It became His truth and faithfulness.
2. It became His holiness and justice.
3. It became His wisdom. (J. Burns, D. D.)
The ministry of suffering
There are few things less understood, or more misrepresented, than human suffering. In too many cases it is regarded as the penal scourge, rather than as the kindly rod that chastens and corrects. Let us inquire
I. HOW THE MINISTRY OF SUFFERING CONTRIBUTED TO THE PERFECTION OF CHRIST. The Scriptures teach us that in Christ there was no moral or spiritual deficiency. How then could a Being so holy be made “ perfect through sufferings “?
1. The perfection of sacrifice. The work of human redemption required not only a sinless, but a suffering agent. The victim must not only be unspotted, but laid on the altar and subjected to the fire of suffering, in order to become a valid offering.
2. The perfection of moral development. The perfection of Christ’s character in later life must have been of a higher description than that of His younger days: the one was the perfection of innocence, the other the perfection of a tested and experienced virtue. His character was always like a piece of pure, unalloyed gold, but it shone with a brighter lustre at the last, because it had been submitted to the friction of pain and sorrow.
3. The perfection of sympathy. One thing necessary to the exercise of true sympathy is the power to forget self. Selfishness must sink before sympathy can rise. Another thing necessary is the personal knowledge of sorrow.
II. THE MINISTRY OF SUFFERING, AS IT CONTRIBUTES TO THE PERFECTION OF BELIEVERS.
1. Suffering to be a blessing, must be rightly borne. In the temper in which we submit to it depends whether it is to be the angel that sweetens or the demon that sours us.
2. There is much unreality often about the best of men. In speech and action we are not always true. There is often a smattering of half-unconscious, half-wilful misrepresentation about our conduct. We sometimes deceive ourselves, and sometimes half-unwittingly try to deceive our God. The ministry of suffering strips us of all this. (The Lay Preacher.)
Fulfilling the pleasure of the Lord
I. A WORK INTENDED.
1. A relationship was to be established: “sons.”
2. A leadership is undertaken: “bringing.”
3. A goal is assigned: “glory.” God’s revelations to His people will be in everlasting crescendo.
II. A METHOD ADOPTED.
1. It was the Divine appointment that those led to “glory “ should have a captain or prince over them.
2. This great Forerunner was perfected as a Captain of salvation through suffering.
(1) Jesus Christ, by atoning for sin, had a righteous basis for undertaking the leadership of souls.
(2) In suffering, Jesus Christ grappled with His enemies and ours and laid them low.
(3) In His suffering, Jesus passed through the various phases of human experience, and thus became qualified to succour those who were following Him.
(4) In Him all conceivable qualities for a perfect Captain of salvation are found.
(5) Nor will the host He leads to glory be small.
III. THE REASON ASSIGNED. “For it became Him,” &c.
i.e., it was suitable for Him, becoming to Him.
1. This plan accords with the yearnings of Infinite Love.
2. This plan accords with God’s righteousness. For thereby He has condemned sin that He might conquer it.
3. God magnifies His wisdom. The Leader adequate to all emergencies.
4. This plan will disclose God’s faithfulness.
5. And manifest His power. (C. Clemance, D. D.)
Perfect through suffering
“Unaccountable this!” said the Wax, as from the flame it dropped melting upon the Paper beneath. “Do not grieve,” said the Paper; “I am sure it is all right.” “I was never in such agony! “ exclaimed the Wax, still dropping. “It is not without a good design, and will end well,” replied the Paper. The Wax was unable to reply at once, owing to a strong pressure; and when it again looked up it bore a beautiful impression, the counterpart of the seal which had been applied to it. “Ah! I comprehend now,” said the Wax, no longer in suffering. “I was softened in order to receive this lovely durable impress. Yes; I see now it was all right, because it has given to me the beautiful likeness which I could not otherwise have obtained.”
Adversity a discipline
James Douglas, son of the banished Earl of Angus, afterwards well known by the title of Earl of Morton, lurked during the exile of his family in the north of Scotland, under the assumed name of James Innes, otherwise “ James the Grieve” (i.e., Reve or Bailiff)
. “And as he bore the name,” says Godscroft, “so did he also execute the office of a grieve or overseer of the lands and rents, the corn and cattle, of him with whom he lived.” From the habits of frugality and observation which he acquired in his humble situation, the historian traces that intimate acquaintance with popular character which enabled him to rise so high in the State, and that honourable economy by which he repaired and established the shattered estates of Angus and Morton. (Sir Walter Scott.)
Perfect through suffering
The people of Verona, when they saw Dante in the streets, used to say, “See, there is the man that was in hell! “ Ah, yes, he had been in hell;--in hell enough, in long severe sorrow and struggle; as the like of him is pretty sure to have been. Commedias that come out divine, are not accomplished otherwise. Thought, true labour of any kind, highest virtue itself, is it not the daughter of Pain ? Born as out of the black whirlwind;-true effort, in fact, as of a captive struggling to free himself: that is Thought. In all ways we are “to become perfect through suffering.” (T. Carlyle.)
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