THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS
Mark I Webster
Philippians 2: 5-8
Hebrews 12: 2-3
Mark 7: 31-35
Matthew 26: 36-46; 27: 45-46
I desire to say something about the sufferings of Jesus. I hesitate to do so because it is a very deep and holy matter about which to speak. However, I have read these passages because I thought that it is important, in view of our affections being stimulated, to seek to speak at any rate of some aspects of the sufferings of Jesus. We often speak of His sufferings at the hand of God on the cross, and that is a very solemn yet precious matter, because it was at the cross that the sins of believers were borne and the matter of sin itself was resolved to God’s eternal satisfaction. His sufferings there are consequently peculiarly precious, no doubt, to everyone who believes on Him. But He suffered both on the cross and in His life here amongst men, and these sufferings were extensive and include what He suffered in both His spirit and His body.
I read in Philippians, not to speak in detail from it, but just, as it were, to establish the background of what I desire to address. And this scripture is important in doing so, because the sufferings of Jesus relate to Him as Man; we could not speak of God suffering, that would be wrong, but we can speak of the sufferings of Jesus as Man. Yet this scripture reminds us that the One who suffered as Man was, and remains in His Person, no less than God. It brings out the wonder of the fact that prior to emptying Himself He subsisted in the form of God. Who can comprehend that? None of us can, however intelligent we may be, because we are all creatures, and consequently we are limited in what we can understand. But we can go by the words of Scripture, that the One we speak of freely and affectionately as Jesus, subsisted prior to His incoming here in the form of God. He did not subsist as Man prior to His incoming as a lowly Babe laid in Bethlehem’s manger. He was, is, and ever remains God in His Person. God is a spirit: omnipotent, unseen, beyond the ability of man to comprehend, however intelligent he may be. Men may seek to probe but they find there is that which is impenetrable to their natural minds, the divinity and glory of God Himself. That is who Jesus is; and that is who He has ever been. And He subsisted in that form, but He came into Manhood. The hymn writer puts it so well:
God manifest in flesh, O wonder of His universe!
(Hymn 400)
Consider the wonder of it that the One who was the Creator, by whom God made the worlds (Heb 1: 2), came into that very creation Himself. And He came into conditions of flesh and blood like you and me. He took “his place in the likeness of men”; as another also wrote: “that … which we have seen with our eyes; that which we have contemplated, and our hands handled ...”, 1 John 1: 1. The Lord Jesus was and remains a real Man, and yet He was and remains God. Note how carefully the writer seeks to bring out the reality of His Manhood whilst ensuring that the glory of His Person stays guarded. And He came in, emptying Himself, in order to accomplish what was in the heart of God. Think of that! And the wonder of divine thoughts is that they involve mankind - men, women and young persons of like passions to ourselves. Have you ever considered the blessed matter that you were in God’s heart, and such was the greatness of His thoughts for you, that a divine Person came into Manhood to suffer and die in order that you might be secured for His pleasure, for His glory? We would never have known what was in the heart of God and His love, and know Him, were it not that He has drawn near to us in the One who came into Manhood, Jesus. And He came in order that we might know the heart of God, and that all that stood out against us on account of our sins and our sinful state, should be resolved totally. That involved immense sufferings for Him, our Lord Jesus. It involved that He should take a “bondman’s form” and take up in full obedience the will of His Father, whatever the cost in sufferings to Himself. He entered into that relationship in which He was subject to His Father.
Now the writer here in Philippians does not develop the matter of His sufferings in detail, but what he does write is that Jesus became “obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. He was not obedient to death; Jesus was not subject to death for He was sinless - “in him sin is not” (1 John 3: 5) - but His obedience took Him to death, and that the death of the cross. The writer, as it were, hints at what that obedience involved for Jesus, but does not develop the matter of His sufferings further. But other scriptures, including those I have read, do help us to understand something of the extent of those holy sufferings of His, and thereby to become deeply affected in our souls in the consideration of them.
In the passage that I read in Hebrews, the writer was addressing those who were suffering. They were in danger of becoming weary, fainting in their minds on account of the opposition that as Jewish converts they were facing. He writes to them about the suffering One that they might be encouraged in their souls. He brings out that Jesus as Man here was marked by faith. Jesus set the matter on (see footnote, Acts 3: 15), and the writer was encouraging these dear believers that they too might be marked by faith in a pathway which they were finding to be testing and which involved suffering. And in so doing, he brought before them the matter of the sufferings of Jesus in His pathway here. He writes of the joy that was lying before Him, and how good it is to be reminded that His sufferings are now over and He has entered into His joy. We could not attribute the matter of sorrow or sufferings to Jesus now. That is not to say that He does not enter into the sufferings and sorrows of His own for He does; He is able to sympathise. As this epistle brings out, He has experienced everything that His beloved people experience in a world that is hostile to them. He is able to sympathise with our infirmities as an earlier passage in the epistle records, as One who was: “tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart”, chap 4: 15. How wonderful that is, that we have One who is sympathetic. He is now above, in glory, and He is marked by joy, the joy that was lying before Him. He is no longer in death; He is no longer in a suffering pathway. The same blessed Man is now in glory. I trust that everyone here knows Him for themselves as their Saviour who is now in glory.
Now the writer refers in this passage to what Jesus endured: He endured the cross. My impression is that in the context of this scripture what the writer had particularly in His mind was that which Jesus experienced at the hands of men in relation to the cross. He endured it and He “despised the shame”. The writer seems to be bringing out the public setting of the cross, and the shame of it. We sometimes sing:
Man the cross to Him awarded,
Man the Saviour crucified;
(Hymn 404)
How true that is true. They awarded Him a cross of greatest shame. Consider that. The Romans reserved death on a cross for the worst of criminals, not solely to enhance the physical suffering but by making it public to demonstrate the shame, and no doubt to act as a deterrent to others. And that is where men put Jesus. He endured it; He despised the shame. The two robbers crucified with Jesus should have felt the shame, for unlike Jesus they were guilty sinners who deserved to be punished for their crimes, as one of them recognised: “we indeed justly….”, Luke 23: 41. The shame was theirs. The shame of the cross had no personal application to Jesus for He was holy; but as going to the cross He despised it. He was put there by man, you might say, as a common criminal, and yet He was One who had done no evil. The robber crucified with Him added to what he had already said: “… but this man has done nothing amiss”, and a true lover of Him could write “… who did no sin”, 1 Pet 2: 22. It was impossible for Him to do so. The Pharisees, with all their knowledge of the law and their intelligence, could bring nothing to justly bear upon Him. They tried and failed, and ended up falsely accusing Him. Their accusations bore no substance; they could not stand up in a court of law. And they did not before Pilate; he had to say, “I find in him no fault whatever”, John 19: 4. What a remarkable thing that was that he said. In a court of law in this country, people are found either guilty or not guilty of the crime of which they are accused. If they are found not guilty it means no more than that there was no evidence, or insufficient evidence, to find them guilty. But in what he said, Pilate had to recognise that with Jesus there was no source of evil whatsoever; it was impossible for Him to sin. The terms guilty and not guilty never applied to Jesus, for He was sinless; rather He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners” (Heb 7: 26), the “holy one of God”, John 6: 69. And yet, despite that, men awarded Him the cross. What holy sufferings were His as the One who endured the cross and despised the shame. To us is given to “consider well him who endured so great contradiction from sinners”.
Every kind of sinful man was opposed to the Lord Jesus. The religious persons of whom I have spoken were opposed to Him, but without a cause. Jesus could say that, “They hated me without a cause”, John 15: 25. There was no just reason for their hatred, but what brought it out was that the Lord Jesus, in all that He was, and in all that He said, exposed what they were. They were sinners like you and me. And He endured contradiction from them. They were hypocritical, of course; they said one thing and they did another. The Lord Jesus exposed all that. In His very presence, in all that He was and all that He said, He exposed the true character of all that they were. And we find that too, do we not? As we get into the presence of Jesus, all that we are and what we have done becomes exposed to Him. We may not be exposed to others, but we are to Him. As believers on Him, we have found that He does not condemn us; but for these unbelieving persons who opposed Him the exposure brought out the flesh in them; it brought out the sinful character of man, that which is in every kind of man. Consider that; the religious men of the day, the Roman soldiers, all who opposed Him; their opposition caused the sufferings that our blessed Saviour, the righteous One, endured from them.
As to the Roman soldiers, they took Him, they mocked Him, they spat upon Him, they put a crown of thorns upon His head, they gave Him blows on the head. Does that not affect you, dear fellow believer, that your Saviour was treated like that? Callous, unnamed men, sinners like you and me, treated the sinless One, the Lord of glory, my precious Saviour and yours if you believe on Him, in such a way. He was the One “who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when reviled, reviled not again;” 1 Pet 2: 22-23. He bore the suffering meekly. If you and I suffer, particularly if unjustly, then there is a strong tendency for it to bring out the flesh in us, but there was no such flesh to be brought out in Jesus. The very sufferings that He endured from men brought out the holy character of that perfect Man. They also brought out the love of God in forgiveness to men. Jesus said, as men did their worst to him, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23: 34. We sometimes say, and how true it is, that God hates sin but He loves the sinner. Well, that was fully expressed in Jesus when He was here. Those persons who treated Him in that despicable way, did He rebuke them? No, He demonstrated the kindness and love of God to all. It is a wonderful matter. The very hatred and mockery and callousness of men caused Him to suffer, but He bore it all in His spirit, and in His body too. The sufferings affected Him in His spirit, yet they brought nothing out in retaliation. What a blessed Man! The very sufferings themselves served to bring out the holy perfection of His manhood.
I read the passage in Mark because it serves to illustrate for us how the Lord Jesus felt things in His spirit, His suffering in spirit, as He came into contact with persons affected by the ravages of sin. The passage records: “they bring to him a deaf man who could not speak right”. What does that mean? I think it simply means that he was a sinner. Well, you might say, he had a physical deformity. But the passage reads that “he could not speak right”. That it is interesting, is it not, that the writer has seen fit to put it that way, that he “could not speak right”? And that is what leads me to say that he was a sinner. That is the case, is it not, with sinners; we find that in our sins we cannot “speak right”? The Lord Jesus dealt with the problem. How wonderful that is, that in His grace He dealt with the problem in this poor man, as He is resolving the problems of sinners in His grace today, all in view of them being healed and secured, as this man was. “The band of his tongue was loosed and he spoke right”. What a change! There was no gradual recovery. Mark does not record what is gradual; that the man slowly began to talk correctly - oh no! One moment he could not speak right, the next it says that he spoke right. How wonderful that is. That is the effect of having to do with Jesus in faith, is it not? The little company of believers here this afternoon is part of an immense company who can testify that as coming to Jesus in our need, as having to do with Him in faith, He resolves the problem of our sinnership for us immediately.
But this passage also records as to Jesus that “he groaned”; that is remarkable as to the Lord Jesus. I think it brings out, if you follow the note through, that the depths of His feelings were expressed in that. He felt in His spirit the effects of sin upon man. He felt it as only He, the righteous, sinless One, could. It entered into the sufferings that He endured in His spirit; those that He endured as He had to deal with persons here, suffering persons, suffering in their sins, and as He saw the devastation that sin had caused amongst men. He had to deal with every age group, as we know; the gospels record that. Persons in need, persons just like you and I were in our sins. What it must have felt to Jesus. How He must have suffered in His spirit as in His grace He dealt with the needs of men. It says He groaned. In another passage, in relation to the death of Lazarus, the scripture records that He wept, John 11: 35. I think that the weeping of Jesus brought out the depth of His feelings and sufferings as He saw the consequences of what sin had brought in, the terrible state of man, and man’s inability to deliver himself from it and the consequences of it. For the wages of sin is death; the evidence of it was there before all. It says, “Jesus wept”. Here in Mark it records, “he groaned”. Well, I feel I cannot say more about it, it is an intensely holy matter.
And then there are other aspects of His suffering in His spirit. Consider how He must have felt the rejection by His earthly people, those whose cry as expressed in prophecy through David was, “When will he die, and his name perish?”, Psalm 41: 5. Consider too how He must have felt the betrayal by Judas, the one who delivered Him up. Again, the prophetic writer brought out His feelings, “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I confided, who did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me”, Ps 41: 9. What that must have meant to Him. A brother drew our attention in a preaching here many years ago to what the writer records, in John 8: 57, that the Jews said of Jesus, when He was probably only just above thirty years old, that He had “not yet fifty years”. It perhaps brings out for us how the effect of all that He bore sufferingly in His spirit was seen in His visage, as One here in flesh and blood conditions just like you and I, sin apart; “… his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the children of men”, Isa 52: 14.
Now in Matthew 26 He “began to be sorrowful and deeply depressed”. With us, and I can only speak from experience, depression is often the result when something goes against our fleshly will. But that could not be the case with Jesus, He who had laid aside the right to exercise His own perfect will as taking up and fulfilling the will of another, His God and Father. Rather, I think it brings out the depths of His feelings. He began to be sorrowful and deeply depressed; think of that. The One who had been here amongst men bearing their griefs and carrying their sorrows (Isa 53: 4), was at this point Himself sorrowful and deeply depressed. What a contrast to what He had experienced in the joy of communion with his Father in His pathway here. What a life of joy that would have been. But now the enemy, Satan, the one who had “departed from him for a time” (Luke 4: 13), the one who held the power of death (Heb 2: 14), returned and brought to bear upon the soul of Jesus the awfulness, the terror of death itself. What that must have meant to Him, that He, the One upon whom death had no claim, would, in obedience to God’s will, go into death itself. What sufferings Jesus must have experienced in the anticipation of it here in Gethsemane, as Satan did his worst to bring the horror of death to bear upon Him. No doubt the enormity of what it meant to our Lord Jesus is, as it were, emphasised for us in that, on three occasions recorded in this gospel He speaks to His Father, in the first saying, “if it be possible let this cup pass from me”. “If it be possible”; the Lord Jesus would have fully known and understood that it was not possible; but His holy suffering feelings were entering into the matter. But then He says, “Sleep on now and take your rest; behold, the hour has drawn nigh, and the Son of Man is delivered up into the hands of sinners”, Matt 26: 45. He overcame Satan, and delivered Himself up to those who came to seize Him in full obedience to the will of His God and Father. He was bound in love and obedience to that will; He could not be separated from it, whatever the pressure, cost and sufferings for Himself. He was truly “… obedient even unto death …”. The scripture records here that His sweat became as great drops of blood. Now when we come under pressure we sometimes sweat, to be very simple about it. You see someone under pressure - perhaps they may not be physically exerting themselves, but they are sweating - it means they are under pressure, unless they are ill. With Jesus, the pressure was so great, it says, “his sweat became as great drops of blood”, Luke 22: 44. Think of the intensity of the feelings of Jesus, that it should be so. What sufferings were His! And yet those sufferings here in the intensity of such pressure, and faced with every effort of Satan to divert and overcome Him, only brought out His obedience in love, never turning aside, not for one moment. Oh, what a One you and I have, dear fellow believer, as our Saviour and Lord.
Now in chapter 27, the words of the Lord Jesus, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, at the end of the three hours of darkness show to us the intensity of what He suffered and endured as forsaken of God when He became the Sin-bearer. The Lord Jesus was on the cross longer than three hours, but these were three hours on which everything rested if the thoughts in love of God were to be realised, if men were to be saved, brought into blessing and secured for His pleasure and service eternally. They involved His suffering at the hand of God. In the earlier period on the cross before He died, the Lord Jesus suffered from men; He endured their reviling, the shaking of their heads, their mocking tones as they uttered, amongst others, those words, “He saved others; himself he cannot save”; Mark 15: 29-31. How He must felt it all. But then in the three hours of darkness He suffered at the hand of God. God clothed the land in darkness. None could see what transpired there. None could penetrate that darkness, when that blessed Man, that holy precious One, was made sin. He was made that which He was not, in order that He might bear God’s judgment. He bore the judgment in relation to sin in the three hours of darkness; that is an important thing to understand. He bore it and He exhausted it. The Lord Jesus bore the sins too, of all who trust in Him. He took our sins upon Himself as if they were His own and bore them in His body there upon the tree. He faced God as to them; He faced the judgment of God in relation to them. Think of that, our sins! Mine, and yours dear hearer, if you believe in Him and His precious shed blood. He alone was able for it. What it must have meant to Him. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. That was not a question to which the Lord Jesus did not know the answer. It was the cry of One who had been forsaken. What a matter that was. It would have been impossible for Him to have been forsaken unless He had become the Sin-bearer. That necessitated the forsaking of God, for God is holy. And God poured His wrath upon Him there. That sweet communion with His Father, that which had sustained Him and given Him joy at every moment of His life, was suspended during those three hours when He, as Man, was forsaken by God. There was nothing; He was truly alone, the Lord Jesus. There was none to comfort Him, none to support Him. What that must have meant to Him. It was a feeling matter: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. And He then, His sufferings over, He committed His spirit into the hands of His Father and went into death, and shed His precious blood.
Well the sufferings of Jesus are a precious matter to consider; they bring out for us His holy perfection and feelings as Man and the depth and fulness of His unchanging love; love for His God and Father, whose will He fulfilled whatever the suffering that this involved for Him, and His love for you and me. May we grow in our appreciation of Him. His sufferings are over; He is out of death; the Victor over it, risen in triumph and ascended. He is now in glory. Our part and place, if we are believers on Him, is with Him there. That is a wonderful thing - we can enter into His joy and have part with Him there, as we will eternally. No tear-filled eye there; no suffering will be known in that scene. We feel the sorrows, the pressures and sufferings that He allows us to pass through but they are all for our gain; yet none can compare with the enormity of that which he experienced here in holy perfection.
May our affections be nurtured as we consider Him and His sufferings, for His Name’s sake.
Buckhurst Hill
27th September 2020