The first part of this sermon, preached on the Sabbath morning of the Dingwall communion season in February 1996, dealt with Christ’s emaciated condition.
Psalms 22:17,18. I may tell all My bones, they look and stare upon Me, they part My garments among them and cast lots upon My vesture.
2. How this affected sinners.
In two verses at the beginning of his Gospel, John tells us of the reaction of men generally, and of Christ’s people in particular: “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” Not known, not recognised, not received. And in our text we see the same attitudes as He was leaving the world at the end of His redeeming work.
Take His own people, the Jews, first of all; they primarily were those who were referred to as “His people”: “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not”. The measure of their ill reception is that they looked and stared upon Him. Now I think we can take it from what is written in the Gospels that at this point – the ninth hour when the darkness that had covered the earth for three hours was lifted – the taunts and the derision and the mockery and all the noises made by men were now past. These were fiendishly-minded men who like animals had bellowed and roared and barked when venting their hatred upon this Person. And we can be almost certain that during the hours of darkness there was more or less a silence because the darkness was awesome. This total darkness at noon and for three hours following was something utterly supernatural. It must have subdued the spectators during that period, when the Father’s wrath was falling upon His dear Son in our nature.
But now at the ninth hour, when the darkness was giving way to the light again, they stare rather than speak. And it is the heartless, insolent stare of men well pleased with their work. They see that their prey is barely alive, that the drunken body is well on its way to becoming dust. They stare and they feast their eyes on what they have achieved. Now we are seeing what you might say is the very depth of human iniquity. We tend to suppose that we could not do such a thing as this, even the worst of us here – and there are various degrees of moral character here. I am just saying that the worst of us here would not believe that he or she was capable of such conduct as this: staring soullessly, staring happily upon the crucifying of the Prince of glory.
Well, we have the wrong idea; we are forgetting about restraining grace, forgetting that it is in this way that people are relatively well behaved, that people can live together, that this world holds together, that its inhabitants are not at one another’s throats. Now violence was one of the marks of the days before the flood, when restraining grace was comparatively slight. There was a danger of these sinners exterminating one another because of their deep wickedness and malice and hatred. We may think that this is true of other people, that Hitler was like this, and Stalin and a host of others – the bad characters of history – but surely not ourselves; surely we cannot be compared to these Jews who looked upon the Saviour at this point and stared at Him.
We could, if the Lord would remove His restraining grace. And what reason we have to praise and thank Him that there is such a measure of it, that we are kept, you might say, so much under control, not doing what we otherwise would! Whether we like it or not, we are associated naturally with these Jews who looked upon Him and stared at Him at this time. When there is respect for a person among civilised people, care is taken not to embarrass that person when his or her body is exposed, or blemished by injury or disease. Hospital beds have screens around them, and right-thinking people do not stare at other people’s abnormalities. But the men that we read about here looked and stared upon Him; there was no respect and no love for Him in their hearts. It is clear in all that went before that they hated Jesus without a cause and it was with the greatest pleasure that they took Him with wicked hands and crucified and slew Him. And now they were calmly viewing what they had done. He is in this state: “I may tell all My bones, they look and stare upon Me”.
Now I ask those who are Christ’s, in the sense that they belong to the Church but lay no claim to faith: What, dear friend, are your feelings towards this Person? Is it the case – now I am putting this most seriously to the unconverted in this congregation at this moment – that on previous occasions, and perhaps on many previous occasions, when you were present at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, you watched and you heard but you were not in the least moved? There was not a spark of pity in your heart as you heard the Word read and listened to the action sermon and saw the symbols of the death of Christ, of His body and His blood, eaten and drunk by His people?
Here is the Lord of glory, the Son of God, who loved the souls of a multitude that no man can number, and here is the cost to Him of that love and of the salvation that He purposed – He must at last have His clothing taken from Him and be nailed to that awful cross. Then there are all the other details of that horrible execution, and you have read this and heard this again and again, and nothing has stirred within you. Now I know that this is what happens in those who are in a state of nature.
If I may just put in this personal remark: there was a time before I, in the mercy of God, was brought to faith in Jesus Christ. I can remember communion Sabbaths in Glasgow and I know that one can read and hear of these matters and not feel a spark of pity for Him who died in this awful way. So, if you have no real sympathy with what was happening here, no real sympathy with Him who suffered in this way, you are in a serious condition indeed. Here is a prime mark of spiritual death: no love to the Saviour. “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema, Maranatha.” You probably have groaned inwardly and shuddered on reading or hearing of dreadful things that happened to some other person, a mere man or woman like yourself. You have been affected, and perhaps wept at the thought, but when it comes to Christ’s sufferings, there is no reaction, and it must be because you have not received Him, any more than these Jews who crucified Him. Your heart is enmity against God and, unless it is changed, what is to become of you? Seek repentance and faith without delay.
Now take those others present, who parted His garments among them and cast lots upon His vesture. Take the men outside the Church, represented here for us by the soldiers; they were the agents used by the murderers. They had no personal interest in this matter; they were really obeying others. The world knew Him not – not only His people but the world – and the Saviour acknowledged this in His words on the cross: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do”. They did not know who they were crucifying, but would they have been any better disposed if they had known? What if He had said to them what John the Baptist said: “Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages”. What would their reaction have been if these words had been addressed to them from the cross? It would have speedily appeared, not only that they were doing their duty, but that they were doing their duty with the greatest willingness and doing it as cruelly as it was possible for them to do.
The ignorant world is the same at heart as the unbelieving section of the Church. As these soldiers saw no value in the Saviour Himself, but some value in His garments that they could attain for themselves, so the lost greedily grasp what the world can give and spare no more than a passing thought for this Person who is still generally regarded as the Saviour. This is another aspect of the deceitfulness of the human heart. You may be here and have no hesitation in thinking of this Person as the Saviour, but there is no connection between you and Him; there is no love in your heart to Him; there is no horror in your heart as you think of what was done to Him. Here we have sin; here we have sinners; here we have clear evidence of the fact that the heart of man “is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”
3. Some observations.
(1.)
The thought of Christ’s emaciated body, which we have seen was a result of His zeal in discharging His redemptive work, should spur those who have been redeemed to strive after a similar God-glorifying spirit. It was to the glory of God that His dear Son in our nature did all that He did and suffered all that He suffered. And in His high-priestly prayer on the night in which He was betrayed, He said, “I have glorified Thee on the earth”. That whole life of glorifying God came, of course, to its climax on the next day, when He was crucified, when He willingly laid down His life for the sinners He loved.
Those who fear God, who appreciate in some way the sufferings of Christ and base their hope for eternity upon these sufferings, should be striving after a God-glorifying spirit. “Ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s”. The love of Christ constrains us to live no longer unto ourselves but unto Him that died for us and rose again. This is the proper attitude of the Lord’s people, those who fear Him and hope in his mercy.
And with the example of the Saviour before us – who was brought in love to His people and in love to His Father to this: “I may tell all my bones” – shall we pamper our bodies and neglect our souls? Shall we avoid cross-bearing, reproach, labour, self-denial? These things form the lot, or part of the lot, of Christ’s faithful followers. Shall our devotions then be more superficial than real or shall we instead willingly and resolutely, by God’s help, take the pilgrim’s desert road of holiness, with whatever it may bring of hardship. Of course, the end of that road is glory itself; “the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads”. And whatever they may suffer in a small way as a result of following Christ, it is something that will have a wonderful end: they shall “come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads”.
(2.)
If we – speaking of the Lord’s people – go to Zion, and the proud, antagonistic world looks coldly or rudely or contemptuously upon us, making it clear even by their looks that they are unfavourable to us, let us remember these staring spectators at Calvary. Then let us rejoice that, to this extent at any rate, we know the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His image. The Saviour said, “All these things will they do unto you for My name’s sake, because they know not Him that sent Me.
(3.)
Let us abhor covetousness, and in the present day we have every reason to think about this matter. It was vice which attached more importance to Christ’s clothing than Himself and made one of His garments the object of gambling. And we know how the Government itself is pushing forward the National Lottery, something that people indulge in who would not think of going to a bookie to bet on a horse or a dog or anything of that sort. Here is something that, in supermarkets and various other places, is open to everyone from 17 years of age upwards. It all manifests clearly that sinners are living for the things of time and sense, and the more they have of money the better they think they will be able to enjoy life in this world. And covetousness is idolatry; that is the description that the Word of God gives of it. Gambling denies the fact of divine providence; it puts chance in the place of God. What unholy things these are, which every Christian should avoid with his whole heart and mind, and he should pray that these things may come to a speedy end.
(4.)
We see here the love of God and the evil of men’s hearts. Here you have the Saviour and the love He had to vile, guilty sinners. Many who have been effectually called have not been dealt with in what we may call a drastic way – they have not been brought almost to despair on account of their sins and their inability to believe on Christ. But when we think of what we are by nature: guilty, defiled, hell-deserving, lost and ruined, haters of God, haters of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost – this is the character we have in the sight of God. And here is the One who came in God’s great name to save, who died the death that was due to sinners but was due to Him as the God-man Mediator.
Here is this Person in His glory, in His kindness, in His love to poor sinners, dying instead of these creatures who would need to be effectually called in order to recognise His love and to benefit from His love. He was dying for sinners who, when they would hear of the death of Christ, would have no interest in it; they would have no pity for the One who died. They sit in the house of God Sabbath after Sabbath, year after year, and are not in the least interested about salvation for sinners. Christ died in the knowledge that even His dying love, when it would come to the knowledge of sinners, would be rejected – that sinners would despise and reject Him although He loved as He did. He was dying with this knowledge of the hatefulness of human hearts – full of hatred, full of evil, full of animosity towards Himself – but He was nevertheless taking their place and dying for them, the just in the room of the unjust.
Is it not the wisdom of anyone in the sinner’s place, anyone in the unforgiven sinners place, to come directly to Him who died in this way, in manifestation of divine love – love that has no end and love that has no limit. The duty of the unforgiven sinner is to come without delay to this Person. We are sure that God receives such people; Christ is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. This is the sinner’s duty. And this is the saved sinner’s duty: to seek, more than he or she has ever done, to love this Person who died in love to these poor, poor souls. It was God’s love, and here we are faced with mystery again. Who among us can imagine what the love of God is? But it is brought before us, and not least powerfully in the Person and work and death of Christ. There we have the fact that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.