A few years ago, the company I ran was going to be bought by a very devote Muslim businessman in Britain. I got on well with him, and in general he was upright in business, and generous to a number of charitable causes. At one break in a meeting he was talking about his work. He said ‘I hope that God accepts me for what I’ve done’. I immediately replied ‘Abdul*, I know that God has already accepted me because of what Jesus has done!”.
Who hath despised the day of small things
Adoss Newsletter No 15
December 2014
A Day of Small Things
By Σωσθένης Ὁἀδελφὸς – Sosthenes the Brother
Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,
Focus on Pakistan
We read a lot about problems that Christians face in Muslim countries: Pakistan is as bad as any. There is a sad story about the couple who were burned alive. We wonder what goes through peoples’ minds – we are reminded of Saul of Tarsus. God can make those poor people think.
Then today’s shocking news: 141 killed in a school by the Taliban. Muslims killing Muslims.
My interest in Pakistan goes back to my young days. The sister of one of my friends was at Oxford University. Being a Christian she found herself outside some of the fraternities (or sororities). Another outsider was Benazir Bhutto, whose father was then prime minister. He was assassinated; then in 2007 Benazir herself lost her life too when campaigning for re-election to the same position. There was much corruption – and violence.
In our conurbation of 250,000 people we have only a few who follow Islam. There are, I think, two mosques. However it is important for us to remind ourselves of the sufferings of our brethren in Islamic countries – Satan behind the aggressors – ‘Whom resist, stedfast in faith, knowing that the selfsame sufferings are accomplished in your brotherhood which [is] in [the] world’ (1 Peter 5:9 Darby).
‘Walking in the Light of the Assembly’ in Urdu
A few months ago I was approached by a sister in Pakistan for help in publishing this booklet in Urdu. She provided me with a translation, and during the past month I sent her a number of copies in her native language. (Not an easy job as their books go ‘backwards’). Rabail had had a good job but lost it when she was converted. Recently she has been running an orphanage for which I put her in touch with the Barnabas Fund for financial support.
‘I hope that God accepts Me for what I’ve done’
A few years ago, the company I ran was going to be bought by a very devote Muslim businessman in Britain. I got on well with him, and in general he was upright in business, and generous to a number of charitable causes. At one break in a meeting he was talking about his work. He said ‘I hope that God accepts me for what I’ve done’. I immediately replied ‘Abdul*, I know that God has already accepted me because of what Jesus has done!”.
A few weeks later I was chatting with his son and daughter who ran their company. They wanted me to be a guide to Ismail*. We got talking about the differences between Christianity and Islam. I asked ‘How good to you have to be to pass God’s test? Is it like in an exam, 47%?’ Of course they had no answer. That set me going with the gospel. Ismail* was not really interested, but Faiza* was taking in every word. I believe that secretly she had given her heart to the Lord Jesus. But she sat there in her hijab, and didn’t admit to her faith. I don’t blame her when you consider the possible consequences. Thank God for His deliverance.
Not surprisingly, the next day I received an email from Abdul* terminating the relationship
* Not their real names.
Men and Animals
Billions are spent on proving that we are no better than animals. A probe was sent to a comet to determine if that was the source of life. Of course they came to the conclusion that it wasn’t. They could have saved all that money by reading Genesis 1.
But it is quite amazing to see how intelligent – even ‘religious’ – some animals are. A few days ago I saw a video about a herd of elephants. They knew where new sources of food were and where they would be safe from poachers. On their route they passed some bones of a long-deceased elephant – maybe an ancestor. They stopped and gathered round them very reverentially. They treated it like a shrine.
Are people any different? They speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves (Jude: 10).
But we know, don’t we, that man is special. Created in God’s image, man became a living soul. (Gen 1:27, 2:7)
Christmas
No ADOSS reader believes that Jesus was born on 25 December. So called Christmas has become a season of self indulgence and commercialism where God is left out entirely.
Some of our friends will have nothing to do with Christmas and if that is what they feel, then I respect them for it. Personally we see it as an opportunity to entertain elderly ones who would otherwise be on their one, and to provide something for the children.
So may I take this opportunity of wishing you, and your family, God’s richest blessings at this time – and if the Lord does not come for us, or if we are taken to be with Him – a happy and healthy 2015.
counter the belief, which was taught at that time that Christ became our righteousness, that is that what was due under the law from us, He took on himself. Hence He would help us walk in according to the same law here if we are to follow Him.
A Summary by Sosthenes of a Paper by John Nelson Darby
In this paper Darby sought to counter the belief, which was taught at that time that Christ became our righteousness, that is that what was due under the law from us, He took on himself. Hence He would help us walk in according to the same law here if we are to follow Him. Personally, I have not heard this taught, nor do I know where it is still taught, but any tendency for Christians to place themselves under a legal obligation must have its root in this unscriptural teaching. There is that favourite Easter hymn ‘There is a green hill far away’. It goes on ‘He died to make us good’ and ‘try his works to do’. Oh dear!
Is the righteousness of God legal righteousness?
We should bless God that Christ is our righteousness and that by His obedience we are made righteous. It is the settled peace of our souls.
There are three stages of sin: lust, willful lawlessness (or transgression), and hatred of God. In sovereign grace Christ was made sin for me, and died to put me in a wholly new position. He is the heavenly Man; He is my righteousness and He has set me in the righteousness of God, seated in heavenly places in Him. Christ was the root and spring in life of the redeemed race. We are united to Christ in His new position, where He is the righteous man at the right hand of God. The first is wholly set aside, judged, condemned, and dead. “I am dead to the law, by the body of Christ, being married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead.” (Rom 7:4)
If, as sinful creatures, we were under the law of righteousness, we could only be condemned. “Do this and live” (Luke 10:28) is not written on the gate of heaven. It was written on Sinai, which is not the gate of heaven.
Judaism was flesh under law, and flesh was judged. This was what judgment was pronounced on. It is a mistake if I look to legal obedience, the law reaches the disposition and condition of my heart, when spiritually apprehended. It does not only say, ‘Do’, but ‘Be’. If I say ‘Love and do not lust’ (the two aspects of the law), righteousness is taken out of the sphere of doing. Doing becomes evidence of my state and nature.
The Error of Substituted Righteousness
I know of no scripture which says that a doer of the law was entitled to heaven, or which promises heaven to a doer of the law.
The error put out by a Mr Molyneaux, which JND sought to counter went along the following lines:
No man can enter into the kingdom of heaven unless he is garbed in a perfect robe of righteousness. Over the gate of heaven is written, Do this and live. Though a man is cleansed from his sin in the blood of Christ, and sanctified by the Spirit of God, He cannot go to heaven on that basis. He needs something more still; he must have a perfect obedience. Heaven is suspended on a perfect obedience, God said to Adam, ‘Do this and live.’ He failed. You must present a perfect obedience when you come to God. It is the active righteousness of Christ; it is not His sufferings — that blots out sin; it is not His Spirit — that sanctifies the heart; but it is His perfect righteousness. ‘By his obedience shall my righteous servant justify many’. (Isa 53:11, misquoted) The wedding garment is the righteousness of Christ…To enter into heaven legal righteousness is absolutely required. It may have been very gracious of the Lord to have righteousness provided it for me, but it had to be done.
This doctrine (no doubt unintentionally) denies the extent of sin and the true character of redemption. Nor is Christ’s righteousness a scriptural expression, though no Christian doubts He was perfectly righteous. Law is perfect in its place.
Calvin goes a step farther: I understand, by the righteousness of God, that which can be approved before the tribunal of God; as, on the contrary, men are accustomed to the righteousness of men, what is held and esteemed righteousness in the opinion of men (Rom. 1; 2 Cor. 5) – (I cannot find this quote – Sosthenes). His statement is very poor. He implies that to come short of the glory of God means that we can glory before God in the same shortness. In Romans 10 he makes the righteousness of God that which God gives, and our own righteousness, that which is sought from man.
The great evil of the whole scheme is, that it is a righteousness demanded of man as born of Adam, though another may furnish it. The thing furnished is man’s righteousness. If Christ has done it for me, it is still what I ought to have done. It is meeting the demand on me — ‘Do this and live’.
The Truth of God’s Righteousness
The righteousness of faith is contrasted with that of law. The law says ‘Do this and live’. I do not accept the principle that the requirements of righteousness have been met by another, but righteousness on another principle altogether. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise . . . that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Rom 10:9).
The first Adam, the flesh, is thoroughly and wholly condemned. God looks for nothing from the first. Another, the last, Adam is set up — the Second Man.
To make this clearer — there are two ways I can consider the relationship between God and man. I may take the counsels of God and begin with them. This is Ephesians. Or I may take the actual state of men as responsible children of Adam, and show how grace meets this state – this is Romans. Romans and Ephesians confirm one another, but from a different point of view.
Ephesians
When I read in Ephesians of the counsels of God, I find nothing of the law at all. All is God’s work, and all is in Christ. Man is found dead in sin. All is God’s work from beginning to end. Christ is seen — in order to bring about this blessed counsel in grace — dead; and we, as dead in sin, are brought back to God with and in Him, according to these counsels.
Romans
In Romans we have the ways of God in His moral government met by grace. Man is proved to be dead, dying under the effects of sin and his moral condition as a living responsible being. He is a child of the first Adam, a sinner who has ruined himself, and his responsibility is met by grace. The curse is taken by another; it is not met by another fulfilling it.
I must have righteousness; but I am not under law. If righteousness came by law, Christ died in vain. I am crucified with Him; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. (Gal 2:20). As regards walk, If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under law (Gal 5:8). If we are led of the Spirit, we are going right, but we are not under law. We are not children of the bondwoman.
This is the view taken in the Romans — If I build law after Christ, I am a transgressor. But I through law, am dead to law (i.e., not bound to it), that I might live unto God (which no one under law ever did: it is weak through the flesh); for by works of law shall no flesh be justified, be he Jew, or Christian, or who he may, or whoever may do them. See Rom 3:20
Imputed Righteousness
A believer in Christ is justified through faith – he is reckoned righteous. He has Imputed righteousness. However it is not the value or strength of his faith which is accounted as righteousness and then imputed. Yet righteousness will be imputed if we believe. Abraham was accounted, and we are accounted, righteousness on the ground of believing. That is the meaning of imputed righteousness. It is not a substantive righteousness, apart from the person, and afterwards reckoned to him, but the condition of the person in God’s sight. God views him as righteous, though nothing entitles him to it inherently. It is righteousness reckoned to him, in his standing before God. Hence it is imputed or reckoned.
It is not merely that God does not impute the sin done, but he does not view the believer as in sin, but as in righteousness. It is not a question of innocence. The Greek word is not dikaioma (δικαίωμα, Strong 1345, an act of righteousness), when imputed righteousness is spoken of, but dikaiosune (δικαιοσύνη, Strong 1343, God’s judicial approval) — not an act or sum of things done, but a state. He is reckoned to be in the state of dikaiosune: dikaiosune is imputed to him.
The Quality of Righteousness
The Epistle to the Romans places the individual on the ground of righteousness, and shows us liberty in life, but it does not reach the union of the body with Christ. All the world is guilty before God, but grace meets this. In Romans, I find the responsible man in flesh proved guilty, not dead; but with no remedy for his condition. So death is brought in, providing righteousness: God’s, not man’s. God’s righteousness has its character, quality, and source from God, not from man.
It is not “the righteousness of God”, which is spoken of, but “righteousness of God” — the quality of righteousness. It must first be found in God Himself; or it would not have that essential quality. As a result, we are created in true righteousness and holiness, as to the new man, after God.
God’s Righteousness by Faith
How and why are we accounted righteous? It is the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe (Rom 3:22) – Jew or Gentile. We are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth [to be] a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God (v.24-25). It is plain: God who knew everything, is righteous in remitting the sins of the Old Testament believers, to whom He exercised forbearance, because of the blood of Jesus.
Our Standing
We stand in a known revealed righteousness, not in hope of forbearance, great as the mercy that we have received may be. God is just and the justifier. Here there is an all-important principle: the righteousness of God means just that: God’s own righteousness — He is just. It is not man’s, or any other positive righteousness made up of legal merit.
In His Blood
The righteousness of God is declared or manifested by virtue of the blood of Christ. God is righteous in forgiving and justifying; witness the former saints, who were borne with before His blood was shed. We appreciate it now by faith; we are justified by his blood.(Rom 5:9) Man is a sinner, without law and under law. Now, entirely apart from law (choris nomou, χωρὶς νόμου Strong 5655, 3551), God’s righteousness is displayed in justifying the believer through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and through faith in His propitiating blood. God is righteous and justifies those who believe in Jesus. We understand that God’s righteousness is the quality or character that is in God Himself. We are justified by His grace, through redemption, and righteousness is declared in God’s act of remission.
The Doctrine of Resurrection
Justification by His blood is not all. A very important part of Romans remains — the doctrine of resurrection. He was raised again for our justification, as He was delivered for our offences. How is righteousness set forth? In the resurrection of Christ. But there is more: God has shown His righteousness in setting Christ as Man at His right hand. Christ had a title to be there, and He is there. Righteousness is in heaven. He demonstrates righteousness to the world “because I go to my Father.” (John 16:10)
Christ is our life, and we have received a nature which in itself is sinless. Looked at as born of God, we cannot sin because we are born of God. It is a life holy in itself, as born of Him. But we also have the flesh, though we are not in it, and even though we have this new life, we do not meet the just demands of God. If we should pretend to present the deeds done in the body, we cannot fulfill our responsibility before God. That is, we do not have righteousness by being born again. We need, and have, a perfect righteousness apart from our life, though in Him who is our life. Christ is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. (1 Cor 1:30) We cannot have settled peace any other way. We are accepted in Christ – His perfection, with no diminution of its value. God delighted in His obedience, and we are received in that. What we have done as children of Adam, He took on the cross in grace, and entirely put it away. And this is our acceptance with God. It is needed for us, for otherwise we have no righteousness. For us it is a joy, because we enter, as objects of His grace, into the immediate delight that God has in His own Son.
Abraham believed that God was able to perform what He had promised. We believe that God has raised up our Lord Jesus from the dead, and therefore, like Abraham, our faith is reckoned for righteousness.
The first Adam is set aside. I am not in the flesh (in the state to which the law applies). I have an entirely new status before God in resurrection, by virtue of the work of Christ. The risen Christ is the pattern and character of my acceptance, as He is the cause of it. As He is, so am I in this world. (1 John 4:17)
I Fail
Even though I am not under law, have I not neglected duty? Yes, but this has been atoned for. My responsibility is not to make good the failures of the old or first Adam: I am wholly out of that. In absolute and perfect acceptance in the second before God, I am called to yield myself to God as one that is alive from the dead. The old thing is gone — atoned for.
I should serve, not in the oldness of letter, but in newness of spirit. Instead of satisfying the requirements the law in my old condition under law, I am passed out of it. Christ has borne the curse that I merited. I have passed into another condition — Christ’s — before God, as one alive to God through Him, God having been perfectly glorified.
The Doctrine of Romans 5-8
This is the doctrine of Romans 5, 6 and 7, founded on chapter 4, and the results fully developed in chapter 8. Chapter 5 applies resurrection to justification, founded on His death. Chapter 6 applies resurrection to life. You are justified because you are dead, and have now to walk in newness of life. How can a man dead to sin still live in it? If he does, he is not dead.
Law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. But we are not alive; we are dead. In a word, Christ is alive for me before God, and I am justified, but as having died; and thus I have a place in this blessing. Hence I am dead to sin, and no longer alive in the nature to which law applied. Therefore, Paul says, in Romans 7:5, “When we were in the flesh.” I am married to another, I cannot have two husbands at a time — Christ and law. But, if under law, I have died under it in the body of Christ, and I am free. Through law, I am dead to law.
Law is for the first Adam, for the unrighteous. Righteousness is in the Second man. The law is righteous, but it was given to sinners when in their sins, and never as a law to anybody else. The law imposed the rule. “Thou shalt love” (Deut. 6:5). That is a transcript of the divine mind – It loves sovereignly. Christ here was love, and was perfect in holiness — holy enough in His being to love sinners as above sin, and further — what law cannot do – to give Himself up for sinners.
We are to be “imitators of God as dear children” (Eph 5:1) — “to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3:16). The law knows nothing about this, and law teachers strive against the whole doctrine of Paul, and the righteousness of God.
Where, then, and what is the righteousness of God? God’s righteousness is His perfect consistency with His own perfect and blessed nature.
His sufferings at the hands of men.
His sufferings at the hand of God.
His sufferings in relation to the state of man.
His sufferings in anticipation of His work on the cross
A Summary by Sosthenes of J.N. Darby’s ‘The Sufferings of Christ’
In this paper, written to the Editor of the “Bible Treasury”, Darby outlined four aspects of the sufferings of Christ.
His sufferings at the hands of men.
His sufferings at the hand of God.
His sufferings in relation to the state of man.
His sufferings in anticipation of His work on the cross
We have to distinguish Christ’s sufferings from man and His sufferings from God. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The world hated Him because He bore witness to the fact that the world’s works were evil. It hated Him before it hated His disciples. He was “light,” and he that doeth evil hateth the light, nor comes to the light, because his works are evil. In a word, Christ suffered for righteousness’ sake.
Christ’s Sufferings at the Hand of God.
Upon the cross, Christ also suffered from the hand of God. He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him … It pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief; when He shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed. (Isa. 53:5,10) He who knew no sin was made sin for us, (2 Cor. 5:21) and then. He suffered the just forthe unjust; (1 Peter 3:18). He suffered, not because He was righteous, but because we were sinners, and He was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. As regards God’s forsaking Him, He could say, ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ (Psalm 22:1) In Him there was no cause. We can give the solemn answer: In grace He suffered the just for us, the unjust. He was made sin for us.
Thus at the hands of men, as a living man, He suffered for righteousness; at the hand of God, as a dying Saviour, He suffered for sin. It is most interesting to contrast these two characters of Christ’s suffering as expressed in the Psalms.
Christ’s Suffering for Sin
In Psalm 22 we have both His suffering from the hand of God (v. 1-11) and the sufferings at the hand of men (v. 11-21). At the height of His sufferings, God, His only resource, forsakes Him. This is the great theme of the psalm – the consequence of His bearing our sin, the wrath due to us. But He came to put sin away by the sacrifice of Himself. Hence the result is unmingled grace — nothing else. He drank the cup at His Father’s hand. God heard Him, and raised Him up and gave Him glory, because He had perfectly glorified Him as to sin. He is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father(Rom. 6:4). This name of His God and Father He immediately declares to His brethren, ‘I will declare thy name unto my brethren’(Heb. 2:12).
God’s testimony was now of grace, and Jesus leads the praises of His redeemed. Now we have praise sung in all Israel, the great congregation, (v.25) ; then all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD(v.27).
Such is the effect of the cross. Sin was put away in the suffering and judgment on the cross. The judgment was borne, but passed away with its execution on the Victim. He had in grace substituted Himself; and when we appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, we will appear before the One who put away our sins. Indeed He will have come to fetch us, so that where He is, we may be also (John14:3). In a word, will be the One who suffered for sin, not for righteousness; and the effect, pure grace.
Christ suffered for sin that we never might. We are healed by His stripes. We do not partake in them, Christ suffered alone, as forsaken of God in wrath, so that we never should taste one drop of that dreadful, bitter, and to us insupportable cup.
Christ’s Suffering and Ours
We who believe have been given to suffer for His name. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him (2 Tim. 2:12). If we suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are we, and yet more blessed if we suffer for His name.
The difference of suffering for good and for evil is touchingly contrasted in Peter’s epistle; while both are attributed to Christ, we are warned against the latter. Suffering for righteousness may be our happy portion; suffering for sin, as regards the Christian, was Christ’s part alone.
Christ’s Sufferings in Relation to the State of Man.
We should note two other characters of suffering in our blessed Lord. Firstly, the sufferings in His heart of love due to the unbelief of unhappy man,
in John 11:35, at the tomb of Lazarus, He wept and groaned within Himself at seeing the power of death over the spirits of men, and their incapacity to deliver themselves. He also wept over Jerusalem, when He saw the beloved city about to reject Him in the day of its visitation. All this was the suffering of perfect love in a scene of ruin, where man’s self-will and heartlessness shut every avenue against the love, which was so earnestly working in its midst.
Sin itself must have been a continual source of sorrow to the Lord’s mind. He was calmer than righteous Lot in Sodom. Still He was distressed by sin. He looked about upon them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts (Mark 3:5).
The sorrows, too, of men were His in heart. He bore their sicknesses, and carried their infirmities. (Isa. 53:4) There was not a sorrow nor an affliction that He did not bear on His heart as His own. In all their afflictions He was afflicted. (Isa. 63:9).
Christ’s Sufferings in Anticipation of His Work on the Cross
“Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour.” (John 12:27). The other characteristic was the anticipation, when it was time for Him to look at death. He could not take His part with the excellent of the earth, and bring them into real and permanent blessing, without first going through death – death as the wages of sin, for even the excellent of the earth were sinners.
And for Him death was death — all dark, without one ray of light even from God. Perfect obedience was needed, and (blessed be God) it was found in Him.
We see:
Man’s utter weakness
Satan’s extreme power
God’s just vengeance, alone, without one sympathy
Christ forsaken of those whom He had cherished
The rest of men His enemies
The Messiah delivered to Gentiles and cast down
The judge washing his hands of condemning innocence
The priests interceding against the guiltless instead of for the guilty
Man would not have the Deliverer
He anticipated death, and all it meant to His soul; He looked for deliverance. He could not wish for, nor fail to fear, the forsaking of God and the cup of death that He had to drink. He was heard in that He feared (Heb. 5:7). That was truth, and true piety.
He took the cup just as it was being brought to Him, though He would take it from none but His Father’s hand. The tempter now returns to try Him with all that was dreadful for His soul. Above all, He had persevered in His obedience and work to the end. If the Lord was to effect salvation in the wretched race, He must be, not a mighty living powerful Deliverer, but a dying Redeemer. It was the path of obedience and the path of love.
We find Him with His Father, occupied with the cup He was about to drink, and His obedience shone out in perfection. God was not forsaking Him yet; He was conversing with His Father about the cup of His being forsaken of God. “Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name” (John 12:27).
He got His answer to obedience to death, an answer of real and complete victory. It was the widespread opening out of the God’s revelation of love, even though in it the world had been judged. But all was closing in in Gethsemane. We read of His sweat as drops of blood, and see the power of darkness and the Lord’s deep agony expressed in a few mighty words. But His obedience was perfect. The tempter was utterly foiled; the Name of Jesus sufficed to make his agents go backward and fall to the ground. As far as they were concerned, and as far as Satan’s power went, He was free. But the Father had given Him the cup to drink, and He freely offered Himself to drink it, showing the same unweakened power as ever. He in blessed, willing obedience now takes the awful cup itself from His Father’s hand! Never can we meditate too much upon the path of Christ here.
Love brought Him to the cross, without the present joy of a ministration of love. He was not dealing with man, but suffering in obedience, under the hand of God, in man’s place and for man. He endured unmingled, unmitigated suffering – God’s forsaking. All His sorrow was the direct fruit of love — He felt for others, about others. What must He have felt about those who took away the key of knowledge, and entered not in themselves, and hindered those that were entering? Righteous indignation is not sorrow, but the love that gives birth to it.
Conclusion
He felt the violation of every delicacy that a perfectly attuned mind could feel. What broke in upon every delicate feeling of His nature as a man! Men stood staring at Him as He suffered. Insult, scorn, deceit, efforts to catch Him in His words, brutality and cruel mocking, He bore it all in a divinely patient spirit. He was deserted, betrayed, and denied — “I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none” (Psalm 69:20) Reproach broke His heart. He was the song of the drunkards.
Jehovah knewHis shame, His reproach, and His dishonour. All His adversaries were before Him; but He endured it all. All sorrow was concentrated in His death, where neither the comfort of active love, nor the communion with His Father, could provide any alleviating sweetness, or be for a moment mingled with that dreadful cup of wrath. His royal glories were given up. Now He has been received up with a better and higher glory from His Father’s hand. He always had this glory, but now He has entered into it as Man.
