We understand this subject was written upon in an article, as printed here, by Dr. Hugh Martin, under a pen name. Dr. Martin was the author of The Shadow of Calvary.—EDITOR.
THE most accurate treatment of this question resolves itself ultimately into an exposition of Heb. ii. 14, 15: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” There are one or two passages, such as Hosea xiii. 14, “O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction”; and again, the well-remembered exultation of Paul in writing to the Corinthians, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” But the value of these is chiefly rhetorical. It remains that the theology of this singularly interesting and indeed very glorious topic is laid up in the verses of Hebrews which we have quoted. And to these verses we propose devoting a somewhat careful consideration. Like the gold-dust merchant, with covetous eye and greedy hand, we would fain gather up the most minute particles and finest fibres of thought on a topic so immediately affecting the official glory of the Son of God, and so directly bearing on the eternal destinies of His holy universe. The Church flickers in her Divine life, and becomes shallow in her Divine knowledge, when she thinks she has ascertained all that is implied in the death of Christ. Not without its being the dictate of infinite wisdom did the Redeemer require His Church to “show forth his death until he shall come again.” She ought to be filled with a habitual and holy astonishment in her daily believing contemplations of “that wondrous cross on which the Lord of glory died.” And if we now seek to penetrate a little further than is usually attempted into one of the more immediate effects of the death of Christ, may it not be without somewhat of that light and reverence which He whose office it is to testify of Christ is so willing to supply!
In that remarkable theological utterance of Holy Scripture there are two effects ascribed to the death of Christ—or, more properly, there are two works which Christ, through His death is said to have accomplished. There is a work of destruction, and there is a work of deliverance. On the one hand, there is the destruction of him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; on the other hand, there is the deliverance of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Here also there is a tyrant (that is, the devil); and his slaves (that is, the children, partakers of flesh and blood). The tyrant wields the power of death; the slaves tremble under the fear of death. All the power of the tyrant is included, substantially, in the power of death; all the subjection and misery of his slaves may be run up ultimately into their liability to death and their fear of death. It is clear, also, the death of which the one has the power and the other the dread is the self-same death. In either case it is that unknown and unfathomed abyss of misery of which God spake when He said: “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
This death constitutes the whole power of the tyrant and the whole dread of his slaves. It is, in fact, the entire bond in virtue of which this relation subsists between them—this relation of tyranny on his part, of subjection and bondage on theirs. Against this bond—this death through which the tyrant triumphs, and through the dread of which his miserable subjects tremble—against this bond a Destroyer of the tyrant, a Deliverer of his victims, must manifestly direct his efforts. Against this bond—this death—Christ, in destroying the devil and delivering the children, does direct His efforts: and that in a most singular way. “Through death he destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and delivered them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” He effectually destroys him that had the power of death, and He does so through death—He delivers them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage, and He does so through death. And as we have seen that the death of which the one has the power and the death of which the others have the dread are the same, it seems probable, even at first sight, that the death which Christ dies, the death of which the devil has the power, and the death to which (and to the fear of which) the children are subject, are all three the same. It is, in fact, in their being all three the same that the unloosing of this awful knot is accomplished. By dying that selfsame death of which Satan had the power, and to which sinful men were liable, He destroyed him that had the power of it, and delivered them that had the dread of it.
Let us contemplate, then, this death of Christ as, first, a work of destruction; and then, and therefore, a work of deliverance.
I. Through death Christ destroyed him that had the power of death.
Two preliminary explanations are here called for—first, when the “power of death” is thus assigned on Scriptural, that is Divine, authority to the devil, it is not meant to acknowledge that he possesses any lawful, judicial, and sovereign power of life and death. “God is judge himself.” God is supreme Sovereign. In His hands, as the blessed and only Potentate, are life and death. “I kill, and I make alive.” At His appointment, as the only Judge, are the sentences of life and death. It is He that saith, on the one hand, “Do this and live,” on the other, “The soul that sinneth shall die.” Meantime, mankind having become, through their sin, liable to the sentence of death are by the penal affliction cast out of the household and kingdom and care of God, into that domain of darkness and death of which Satan is the prince. Finding us, by complicity in his own revolt from God, lying under the guilt of death, Satan, the spirit of greatest subtlety and power in the ranks of the fallen—being allowed of God for his greater punishment, and that of all who hold with him, to exercise dominion as the leading principality of the powers of darkness—malignantly, yet, alas! effectually enough wields against us the liability to death, which the righteous curse of God’s law inflicts. The very righteousness of that penalty then becomes Satan’s strength and stronghold. In virtue of that penalty, he claims us as under the curse of God, abandoned of God, exposed helplessly and hopelessly in his power. As in the language of the Psalm (lxxi. 10, 11), “They that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, saying, God hath forsaken him: take and persecute him, for there is none to deliver him.” Thus much for the sense in which Satan has the power of death. The second explanation refers to the sense in which the devil is, by Christ’s death, “destroyed.” It cannot, of course, be supposed that the substance of his being is annihilated, or that his supremacy, as within his own kingdom, is abolished. Personally, he still remains; and he still remains the prince of the devils and the lost. But as having the power of death (in the sense explained)—to that extent, and as one might say officially and in that capacity—he is destroyed. The guilt of death on the children’s part is the sole ground of the “power of death” over them on Satan’s part. Remove that guilt of death on their part, and the power of death on his part is destroyed; or he himself, as wielding that power of death, on his part, is destroyed. As for any influence, any interest, he can assert or maintain in that direction any longer, Satan is as good as annihilated.
Now this Christ achieves “through death.” “Through death he destroyed him that had the power of death.” And a careful examination of the facts of the history, and the implications of the doctrine, reveal these two truths—
(1) That, before dying, Christ defeated him that has the power of death.
(2) That by dying He destroyed him.
Before dying He conquered and routed him; by dying, He pursued and destroyed him. Before dying, Christ in the conflict and victory proved that Satan had no power over Him; and by dying for others He took away the power of death that Satan had over them. The first of these achievements was the defeating of him that had the power of death and driving him from the field. The second was pursuing and destroying him.
Our blessed Lord was not brought to death by him that had the power of death. Vanquishing and overthrowing Satan’s power, He went voluntarily to death. Christ did not meet death passively—with anyone overpoweringly pressing Death upon Him as a doom which He could not evade—exercising over Him the power of death. But He met death voluntarily, actively, by His own positive deed. This great truth has of late almost lapsed out of our theology, inasmuch that not a few are quite conscious of the feeling of novelty and astonishment when it is vigorously put before their minds.
Jesus died voluntarily, not by being overpowered. Nay, that is not enough to bring out the doctrine of Scripture. He actively offered himself to God. He was not a slain Lamb only; He was an active—the acting—Priest.
Thus when the hour appointed of His Father was near—the hour and the power of darkness—Jesus said, “Henceforth I will not talk much with you, for the prince of this world cometh, but hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father, arise, let us go hence.” The prince of this world—the god of this world—that wicked one in whom the world lieth, and who wieldeth over the wicked world the power of death—he “Cometh”; “cometh now as if he had never come before, cometh to his fullest, his fatal, his final assault. But he “hath nothing in me.” In what sense had Satan nothing in Christ? Manifestly in reference to that death which Jesus is now about to die. “He hath nothing in Me by means of which, or by reason of which, he might inflict death on Me, and make Me his victim. I shall indeed be a victim; but it shall be the Father’s victim; an offering of a sweet-smelling savour unto God, all holy to the Lord; no atom, no hair’s-breadth in me of that plague-spot by reason whereof Satan might insert his influence, or make good his claim, or wield his power of death.” “By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin.” “By sin” doth death enter, and the power of death. But in Jesus was no sin. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. “Such an high priest became us.” Mark that—an high priest. We needed a Lamb, and a holy Lamb no doubt. But this Lamb was in the moment of His offering up to be a Priest. He was to be offered by Himself. And as there must be no sin in the Lamb to be offered, there must also a fortiori be none in the Priest. For in the offering up of the dying Lamb the Priest must be living. But sin is death. By sin death entered. But sin had never entered the holy, holy, holy Person of Jesus. He had done no violence, neither was guile found in His mouth. Nothing by which death might enter, or by which the power of death might be fastened, could Satan find in Christ. “He hath nothing in me.” “He cannot lead or drive Me to death. If he could—if he could drag Me as a victim to his altar—little proof would I then be able to afford of love to my Father, love to my Father’s commandment, love to my Father’s eternal covenant, love to my Father’s covenant people. But I go to my Father’s altar; I go to my cross freely. By my own choice, by my own act, I go. And I go out of love to my Father. Yea “that the world may know that I love the Father, arise, let us go hence.” And He went forth with the eleven across the brook Cedron.
But if Christ had no sin of His own, had He not the sins of His people? True; but still Satan had nothing in Christ. Surely it was nothing of his that Christ bare His people’s sins in His own body on the tree! Surely it was nothing of the devil’s that Christ died, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God! It was not a sin in Christ to be made sin for us! It was at an infinite remove from all that is of Satan. It was holiness. It was the most brilliant holiness the world had ever seen. It was holiness burnished bright in the fires of a furnace seven times heated. Ay, it was holiness in Him to be made sin for us. It was love to us. It was love to the Father. It was love to the Father’s government. It was love to the Father’s law—in both tables of it in one. It was love to the Father’s honour and purpose, and sovereignty and grace. It was love to the Father’s will. “Lo, I come to do thy will”: “by the which will we are sanctified through the offering (not merely the sufferings) of the body of Christ once for all.” It was love, love, love; infinite, eternal, and unchangeable love, which many waters could not quench, and the floods could not drown; and it was lovely in the Father’s sight. “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life for the sheep. No one taketh it from me; I lay it down of myself.”
Still did not this commandment of the Father, and this position as Sin-bearer for the children require that He should die? Yes, indeed. But they required that He should die, in the way of “laying down His life,” not of leaving it in the power of him that had the power of death. This substitution of Himself in the room of the guilty required that He should “offer himself without spot to God,” not that He should resign Himself to Satan. The price He should pay as our ransom should be paid, not to Apollyon, the malignant and misanthropic enemy of God and man, saying, “God hath forsaken him, persecute and take him”; but to the righteous judge, to the philanthropic God, saying, “Save from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom.”
If Jesus could not secure this—if He could not baffle, defeat, and put to flight him that hitherto had had the power of death and, with the field thus clear, secure triumphantly the opportunity of freely, unembarrassedly, and by active and positive deed of His own giving Himself in death an offering and a sacrifice unto God—it is clear He must have been baffled and defeated by him that had the power of death; for Satan’s whole aim was to prevent Him from securing this. But it was to secure exactly this that Christ offered up supplications with strong crying and tears. These supplications He offered up “unto him that was able to save him from death”; and we are told “he was heard”—and was saved therefore—and saved “in that he feared.” But in what sense was He saved from death except in this—that in the conflict with him that had the power of death He was strengthened to defeat him—that He was saved from the dominion and power of death—that He was saved, not from dying, but in dying—that though not saved from dying, He was saved from dying per force—that though not saved from dying, He was saved from death, that is, from being passively overpowered by death—that He was strengthened, through the Eternal Spirit, voluntarily, actively, powerfully to die—and so to die as in dying to offer Himself an infinitely acceptable and delightful offering unto God?
This voluntariness and activity in His death, Jesus, in the tenth chapter of John, asserts with great frequency and carefulness; anxious, almost sensitively anxious, if one might say so, to put this truth in a clear and forcible light. “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” “As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.” “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again” (John x. 11, 15, 17). And then, stating the doctrine yet more powerfully, assiduous to prevent the very possibility of misunderstanding, He continues: “No one taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. This commandment received I of my Father” (John x. 18). Thus the very commandment which He received of the Father—that “will of God” of which He said, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God”—turns upon the voluntariness and activity of His death. He receives a commandment from the Father, not so much to die—not to die—but to lay down His life; to lay it down of Himself; to suffer no one to take it from Him; not for a moment to suffer it to lapse out of His own power, but so to retain supreme power over it in all circumstances, and so to lay it down at last of Himself, as to retain and exercise the power of taking it up again. And His Father’s love to Him in the discharge of this work and office turns on this self-same aspect of it. “Therefore doth my Father love me”; not so much because I die; not at all because I die; but, very specially, “because I lay down my life for the sheep.”
Satan had no objection to make to the proposal that Christ should die; but great objection to Christ laying down His life. Great was the difference between these two things; and, to the view of both the combatants, there clearly turned upon it the question of which of them should take command of the great transaction that was in progress. Satan had no objection to assume and exercise over Christ the power of death, and to see Christ die. For Christ thus to die would have been the proof of Christ’s weakness and Satan’s power. But for Christ, of His own accord, and of His own deed, “to lay down his life”—that was a toto coelo different thing; that was a defiance and defeat of Satan—a demonstration of Satan’s weakness and defeat, not His own; and on Christ’s part, nailed as He was to the cross, an act of transcendent power and triumph. Satan’s whole policy was to assume into his own hand the active and positive power of the Cross, and to take command of it himself. He would have been delighted to turn Christ into a passive sufferer; to make Christ in the coarsest sense of the term, a victim—a mere victim. Christ’s priesthood, in that case, would have been destroyed; for it is not the part of a priest passively to suffer, but actively to offer—to offer a sacrifice to God. No doubt Jesus suffered; deeply did He suffer. He suffered from the rage of men, from the assaults of Satan, and from the wrath of God. But even under the wrath of God, which was unspeakably more for the blessed Son to bear than all the efforts of men and devils, He fell not a passive victim. Patiently, positively, powerfully, as a priest fulfilling his course, He presented Himself to all that it was appointed to Him to suffer; and having defeated all the assaults of Satan, and drunk all the cup of his Father’s wrath, there was the triumph of a mighty conqueror in the cry that burst from His lips, “It is finished!” and there was the consciousness of voluntary action and mighty power in consummating the sacrifice when He exclaimed, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” Manifestly He was master of His own life when He thus spake. No one was taking it from Him; He was laying it down of Himself; He was offering Himself to God, presenting His united soul and body to the sword of justice to separate them in death; and in testimony of this it is added that, having thus spoken, “he gave up the ghost”—He dismissed His spirit.
(To be continued.)