SUFFERING
Richard J Gray
1 Peter 3: 17-18 (to “… us to God”)
I have been impressed by the number of references that come into Peter’s first epistle as to suffering. I think if you look through the epistle there are perhaps sixteen references. Some of them are references to suffering of believers but at least half of them are references to the sufferings of Christ.
We get it in this verse - “Christ indeed has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”. I want to say something very simply about that, dear hearers. It is an affecting thing to think that if we are to be brought back to God, if we are to know what it is to have our sins forgiven, this has involved suffering for the Lord Jesus. In the first chapter, Peter refers to the fact that these sufferings had been prophesied of in past times. He says, the prophets “prophesied of the grace towards you, sought out and searched out; searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them pointed out, testifying before of the sufferings which belonged to Christ, and the glories after these”, v 10, 11. I was very struck with that. It seems a remarkable thing that the incoming of the Lord Jesus was prophesied about long before it happened. We think of our own situation as sinners away from God; that fact has not caught God unawares, if I can put it like that. God has foreseen what was going to come in and He has provided for it.
I take it each one here would accept that that they are a sinner before a righteous and holy God? If you accept that then it is wonderful news that God has anticipated a need and has brought in the remedy, the answer to it. And it has not been a light or easy matter for your sins to be dealt with. Maybe you do not know yet what it is to have your sins forgiven, perhaps the burden of your sins is still upon you, but I would desire simply to present to you One who has suffered for sins. There is no need for you to suffer for your sins because you can trust in the One who has done the work, and who has suffered for them.
Think of the prophets all those centuries before, prophesying as to Christ. I suppose it would be right to say that they did not always understand what they were prophesying of. They spoke of things which were yet to come, and it says that they searched out what it was they prophesied about and when it was going to come about. Peter says that they were prophesying as to Christ, as to the Lord Jesus. And not only that, but as to His sufferings and as to the glories after these.
In chapter 2 there is a very affecting reference to the Lord Jesus having left us a model. It says, “for Christ also has suffered for you, leaving you a model that ye should follow in his steps”, v 21. And it seems to me, dear hearers, that if you are going to follow in the steps of the Lord Jesus, there must come a point in your soul history when you turn to Him in your need. I trust everyone here has done that. It is not enough to hear about the preaching or to read the Scriptures, but, as many of us have been told in the past, it is necessary that each of us should have a personal transaction with the Lord Jesus. And that means that if you feel the burden of your sins upon you, there is a remedy for it; and you must lay hold of it for yourself through repentance and faith.
The writer goes on in that second chapter to speak of the Lord Jesus suffering at the hands of men. I do not know whether it affects me enough, dear hearers, the greatness of the fact that in order to take up the matter of our sins the Lord Jesus has had to come here. He had to come into this world in which we are, and in doing so He has made known the love of God in all its depth. But it was a suffering pathway. We have been reading locally some of the psalms which refer to the Lord Jesus particularly and especially as to His sufferings. You get an insight in some of them as to the feelings of the Lord Jesus when He was here. What a thing it must have been to the Lord Jesus to come here. One who was perfect and without sin to come into a world which was so far away from God with sin and darkness and misery on every hand. The Lord Jesus came into such a world, and He came in that you and I might be freed from the guilt and the bondage of our sins. But speaking very simply, what a strange world it must have been to the Lord Jesus. He came down from the heights of glory into this poor world, and He had to do with man in all their suffering and need. It was a suffering pathway from beginning to end. Whatever aspect of it you look at, it involved suffering for the Lord Jesus.
Chapter 2 speaks of these particular sufferings at the hand of man. It says, “who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, threatened not”, v 22, 23. How different to ourselves! I would like to present the Lord Jesus to you. I feel that, as I go on in my soul history, He becomes greater; and I think that would be God’s desire in the preaching, that the Lord Jesus in all His glory should come before your soul so that you, as a sinner, might lay hold of Him and His finished work for yourself.
But you think of this, that when He was reviled, He reviled not again. When he was in suffering He did not threaten. It says, “but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously”. That is, that He saw that there were injustices being done to Him but He did not seek to justify Himself; but He left everything in the hands of God. So that the Lord Jesus endured a pathway of suffering from man when He was here, but it led him to the cross where He took upon Himself the judgment that was due to sinners. And so Peter says, “who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, v 24. I would just appeal to each one here that if you are still labouring under the burden of your sins, if you do not know what it is to have the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, if you have never in the history of your soul come to Him in repentance, I appeal to you as to this verse. Can you say that He bore your sins in His body on the tree? What that meant for Him I do not think we can enter into. It has been said that it is in our body that we feel things, and the Lord Jesus bore our sins in His body on the tree. There was no one else who could do it. There was no one else who was perfect before God who could take the matter up on your behalf, but the Lord Jesus has done it. I just simply appeal to all here, especially to some younger ones who do not yet know the Lord Jesus as their Saviour. It says, “in order that, being dead to sins, we may live to righteousness: by whose stripes ye have been healed”. Perhaps you have been under the sound of the gospel many times, but the word comes to you afresh tonight that God has, as it says in Genesis, provided Himself with a sheep for a burnt-offering, chap 22: 8. He has provided the answer to your need in the Lord Jesus.
Now I want to come to this verse in chapter 3. Again, we get a reference to the sufferings of Christ. The context is that Peter says it is better if it is according to God’s will that we should suffer as well-doers than as evildoers. I suppose we might know something in our soul history of suffering as evildoers, but the Lord Jesus was never an evildoer. He was perfect; and you think of Him suffering as a well-doer in His pathway here. And then Peter says that “Christ indeed has once suffered for sins”. Think of that tremendous moment on the cross when He underwent the judgment of God for our sins. I feel very limited in what I can say about it. Indeed, what can we say about it? He was not suffering there on His own account (He was perfect), but for us. It was a matter that happened once, and it did not need to be repeated. I think it is a tremendous thing to lay hold of in our souls that the finished work of Christ is a work which has been done once, and it has satisfied God as to the whole matter of sin.
I linked it in my mind with that passage in Hebrews where it says that there would have been no need to repeat the sacrifices which took place yearly amongst the children of Israel if they could have perfected those who approach; it says in chapter 10: “would they not indeed have ceased being offered, on account of the worshippers once purged having no longer any conscience of sins?”, v 1, 2. The writer says, “For blood of bulls and goats is incapable of taking away sins”. You think of what that must have meant to the children of Israel, that as each year came around the sacrifices had to be offered again because in actual fact they could not take away sins. The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus is the only thing, dear hearers, that can satisfy God as to your sins. I think it is a tremendous matter that as you have to do with God in repentance, the question of the sins which lie upon your conscience can be removed and you can come into God’s presence as totally free to be there because of the finished work of the Lord Jesus. The matter was gone into once, and the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus has not had to be repeated. Think of how He Himself uttered those tremendous words on the cross: “It is finished”, John 19: 30.
So I appeal again as to whether you have accepted in full that the Lord Jesus has suffered for your sins. He has been here - and it was a suffering pathway from beginning to end - but it culminated in the cross. It culminated with Him taking up that great matter, the sin which lies between you and God. What a work the Lord Jesus has accomplished. It says, “for Christ indeed has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust”. You think of the Lord Jesus being the Just One. The note makes it clear that there was one just and there were many unjust. How great the sins that you and I have committed; perhaps we can remember some of them, but many of them we do not even remember, but you think of God remembering every one of them. He does not miss anything, but now as He looks upon the finished work of the Lord Jesus He can look upon you, if you are a believer, as one who is justified.
And I link this reference with what Paul says in the epistle to the Romans. He says, “For as indeed by the disobedience of the one man”, that is Adam, “the many have been constituted sinners, so also by the obedience of the one the many will be constituted righteous”, chap 5: 19. So that, when we preach we are not presenting ourselves, or a creed, or a doctrine, but we are presenting Christ - the Lord Jesus - and His finished work. There is only One that can save you from your sins, and I ask you whether you know Him as your Saviour. Is the Just One your Saviour? How affecting it is that by His righteousness, by what He has done, we can be constituted righteous. It is not in our own works, not what we have done, but by what He has done.
It has impressed me that God is satisfied with what the Lord Jesus has done. You may be in turmoil in your souls as to your own need and what you have done, but you think of God being satisfied with the work that the Lord Jesus has accomplished. How do we know that He is satisfied? Well, we know that the Lord Jesus has been into death but, as it says elsewhere, He “has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father”, Rom 6: 4. So that the Lord Jesus is not in the grave now. Many churches have a figure of the Lord Jesus still upon the cross, but He is not there now. He is not in the grave but He has been raised, and He has ascended to the right hand of God. If there is anyone here not certain as to whether God is satisfied with the work of Christ, consider that the Lord Jesus has been given the highest place in the universe, ascended up to God’s right hand. What a thing it is to think, dear hearers, of the One who has suffered here, who perfectly demonstrated the love of God to needy sinners, and was only given hatred and despisal by men here, that One, that God has given Him the highest place in the universe. And we can know in the reality of our souls that the Lord Jesus, the Saviour, has suffered and died for us, and He has shed His precious blood which cleanses us from every sin. And today He is living at the right hand of God and from that position the gospel goes out. The gospel goes out because the Lord Jesus is risen and ascended, and you can have to do with Him there where He is. If you are a sinner still in your sins, then you can turn to the Lord Jesus and you can have to do with Him about your sins. You will find that He will not turn you away; He will listen to what you have to say, and as you confess your sins to Him you can come into all the blessing, and all the good of His finished work. You can know what it is to have Him as your Saviour and your Lord. How precious these things are!
You say, ‘Well, I do not know whether I am good enough to come into His presence’. Well, this verse goes on that He “suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”. And it has impressed itself upon me, dear hearers, that the object in the glad tidings is not just that you might find relief but that you might be brought back into God’s presence, that you might know what it is to come before Him in all the worth of Christ. God has in His mind the greatest blessings for you and His desire is that you might be brought to Him. I link this reference with what the Lord Jesus says to His own in John’s gospel. He was telling them that He was going away and He says, “I go to prepare you a place; and if I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”, John 14: 2, 3. I feel for myself that I have not taken in sufficiently the greatness of the love of God, and that God has seen us as poor guilty sinners, and He has moved from His own side that He should have us again for Himself.
So as we become believers, as we come to the Lord Jesus, it is not a question of us continuing as before. If I can put it like this, the whole outlook is changed and we have hopes and desires in a different place because we know the Lord Jesus, who is no longer in this place. He is no longer in this world, but He is risen and ascended; and He is at the right hand of God. And He has gone there to prepare us a place. I think it is very affecting that the Lord Jesus should tell His own as He was preparing to leave them that He was going away to prepare them a place and He was going to come again and receive them to Himself. He was going to be in a place where He would be glorified and He wanted His own to be there with Him there. That is open to each one of us, that we can come to Christ, and can have this hope that the Lord Jesus is coming again and that He will receive you to Himself.
How sorrowful to think of only having hopes in this world. I suppose we have known something of it in our own experience to strive for things here because perhaps that is the only hope we had. We seek to build up things in this world but secretly in the depths of our hearts we know that death is going to bring an end to them all. But what a thing to have a hope beyond this world, to have a hope in Christ and to have a hope in His coming again. I was affected by something that someone has said, that he could understand God’s goodness that would take care of his material needs, but to be assured every hour that God liked his company seemed too much to take in, J B Stoney, vol 8 p467. And so it is that when we come to the gospel we find that God actually wants our company. God wants us near to Himself. The end in the gospel is that we should be saved not only from our sins, but that we should know the love of God and that God should have us for Himself, that we should become His property through redemption. As it says, “Do ye not know that … ye are not your own? For ye have been bought with a price”, 1 Cor 6: 19, 20. What a price, dear hearers, has been paid in the shedding of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus so that you and I might be brought back to God, not in our own righteousness, but in the finished work of Christ.
So that the gospel is really very attractive. All the wealth that is in God’s heart is available to us. As we accept the fact that we are sinners, and that the Lord Jesus has suffered for us, then it is really the entrance point into all the blessings of God. God has in mind that we should be brought into a knowledge of Himself. He will give us the gift of the Holy Spirit that we might know that we have a hope beyond death. We can know, even now at the present time, perhaps in smallness and in weakness, a circle where the things of the Lord Jesus are treasured and where He is loved. How precious it is to know something of that: even now as we wait for the return of the Lord Jesus, we can know His love and we can enjoy that with others. There are others who love Him and who have had soul experience with Him; in the reality of their souls they have known what it is to come to Him and to prove His love and to find that He is everything that they need. So the preacher does not know the needs of those in the audience but God knows, and God knows the heart. He is presenting the Lord Jesus to us as the One who has once suffered for sins and who desires that we should be brought back to God.
There are other references in the epistle to the sufferings of Christ but in chapter 5 Peter refers to the fact that he was a witness of the sufferings of the Christ. He says, “who am their fellow-elder and witness of the sufferings of the Christ” and then he says, “who also am partaker of the glory about to be revealed”, chap 5: 1. It is quite striking that those two thoughts seem to go together, that you get suffering and then you get glory. When you come to the second epistle, Peter can say that he was one of those who had “been eyewitnesses of his majesty”, 2 Pet 1: 16. You think of Peter having seen the Lord Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, having seen the Lord Jesus in His glory, and then it says he was a witness of the sufferings of the Christ. I suppose he saw the Lord Jesus being delivered up to the Jews and handed over to Herod, to the Gentile power, and remembered seeing the Lord Jesus being mocked. He was a witness of those things. I suppose that it affected him when he thought of the fact that he had denied the Lord Jesus at that point. Peter was a sinner and he needed a Saviour, and the Lord Jesus was going forward to the cross to meet his need as well. He says he was a witness of the sufferings of the Christ.
And then in the second epistle he can speak of having been an eyewitness of His majesty. As Peter reflected on those things, the greatness of the Lord Jesus and the way that He had gone, the glories that he had seen and the sufferings that he had witnessed would have become deeply impressed upon his soul. And so it is to be with us. I am limited as to what I can say about it but the greatness of the way the Lord Jesus has been is to impress itself upon our souls so that we should not only turn to Him in our need but so that He should become the Object of our affections. What an Object God has provided for us in the Lord Jesus: One who has been here but who is now at the right hand of God. And He suffered for us, “the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God”.
May we be freshly affected by the way that He has been, and too by His present position and that all here, including the young ones, might be certain that they have a link with Him. I desire that you might come to Him in repentance, put your faith and trust in Him and in His finished work. How essential that is that you start there and then as you go on in your soul history you come to a greater appreciation of the Lord Jesus and all that He has done.
May we be freshly encouraged by these things. For the Lord’s name’s sake.
SUNBURY
28 September 2008