CAUSES. FORMS. SPIRIT. PURPOSE. RESULT. 

‍

CLOSELY related to our Lord's walking the narrow way are His sufferings. Indeed, while treating of His walking the narrow way, particularly of His endurance of evils incidental to that way, we gave some thoughts on His sufferings. But the sufferings were so very many and varied, and were so insufficiently set forth when we wrote of His endurance of evils as a part of His walking the narrow way, that we are warranted in giving them a more thorough study, which we will now do by God's help. The theme is in itself a rich one; and to the justified it is a holy one; but to the consecrated, especially to the Little Flock, it is most holy; for it brings them into closest touch and deepest sympathy with, as well as into highest appreciation of Him. Let us, therefore, with penitent hearts, because our sins brought upon Him His sufferings, with believing hearts, because His sufferings' merit brings us justification, and with loving hearts, because His sufferings kindle our love, come to Him, the unparalleled Sufferer, and thus in repentance, faith and love meditate upon His sufferings; for in such meditation we will find fresh faith, hope, love and obedience, which will draw us nearer to Him, to His and to our Father, whose boundless love gave Him as God's costly sacrifice on our behalf. 

In considering Jesus' sufferings let us first study their causes. These are, first, His loyalty as a servant of the Truth and, secondly, the enmity of those who opposed the course that His faithfulness, as a servant of the Truth, caused Him to travel. He was a faithful servant of the Truth. Accordingly, His ministry is one of the Truth. He did not serve all kinds of truth.

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

136 

E.g., He did not devote His time, talents, strength and influence to witness to scientific, world-historical, philosophical, philological, artistic, business, archeological, mathematical or political truth, as good as these are in their separate spheres; but He devoted Himself to the ministry of the Divine Truth as it is revealed in the Bible. Hence He testified of doctrinal truth as to God, Christ, the Spirit, the Divine law, creation, the covenants, man, the fall, the curse, redemption, justification, consecration, Spirit-begettal, His Second Advent, the overthrow of Satan's empire, the day of wrath, the Kingdom in its two phases, election, free grace, the Church, resurrection of the just and unjust, restitution, the Millennium, the final trial and final rewards and punishment. He ministered to the Bible's ethical truths, more especially to its duty and disinterested love as to God, Christ, the brethren, the world and one's enemies. Additionally He stressed on ethical lines the other graces, especially the other higher primary graces—faith, hope, self-control and patience. He also testified of the lower primary graces, both those of the selfish and those of the social kind. Many times He taught various of the secondary and tertiary graces, and in these and other ways served the Bible's ethical truths. Much of His teachings consisted of expositions of the promises of the Bible's covenants. Frequently He emphasized the hortatory teachings of the Bible. Not only did He expound prophecies of the Old Testament, but He also gave not a few of the New Testament prophecies. He frequently alluded to historical events given in the Bible, as well as lived out others of them; and repeatedly He alluded to its types, as well as worked out others of them. Thus He gave the antitype of Jacob's ladder (John 1:51), of the manna (6:31-58), of the serpent in the wilderness (3:14, 15), of the flood, of Sodom, etc., of Lot and his wife (Matt. 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-32), etc., as well as lived out new types (John 2:11). 

Christ: His Sufferings. 

137 

He served the Truth by preaching (Matt. 4:23) and by teaching (7:29), as well as by encouraging others to preach and teach it, giving them the necessary instruction and equipment therein and thereto (Matt. 10:5-42; Luke 10:1-12). He did this in the temple (Matt. 21:23), at the seaside (Mark 4:1), in synagogues (Luke 4:15; 6:6), in Galilee, Samaria and Judaea (23:5). He did it by night as well as by day (John 3:2-21; 4:6-21). He did it on the mountain (Matt. 5:7), on the plain (Luke 6:17-49). He did it in private homes (Luke 7:36-48; 19:1-10), as well as in open fields; He did it on mountains, as well as in synagogues and the temple. He preached in boats on the sea (Matt. 13:1-3), as well as on land. He preached in the open desert fields (Matt. 14:13-21; 15:33), and on the wayside (Matt. 20:29-34). In fact perhaps the only available place where He did not preach or teach was in city streets (Matt. 12:19). He frequently taught or preached to single individuals, like Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the rich young ruler, Mary of Bethany, etc. In some cases family circles were so favored, as in the case of Simon the Pharisee, Simon the leper and Zacchaeas; often too, individuals among His disciples, like Peter, Philip, Nathaniel, or two of them, like Peter and John, or three of them, like Peter, John and James, and often all twelve of them, as upon the mountain and in the upper room. At other times He spoke to the 70 and to his unofficial disciples. Then, too, at times He would address small audiences, at times medium-sized audiences and at times audiences of many thousands; for we read of the multitudes of His hearers as being so great as to trample upon one another. He shunned none; He despised none; He neglected none. Wherever He found a hungry heart and a willing mind gladly did He pour into that heart and mind the best tidings that they were capable of receiving. The anointing that was upon Him moved Him to preach good tidings unto the meek, to bind up the hearts broken by earth's tribulations, to proclaim liberty to sin's captives and the 

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

138 

opening of the prison of the tomb for death's sleepers and to proclaim the Gospel Age as the time of the high calling being open to willing sacrificers, making them acceptable through His merit. 

He was a faithful Witness of the Truth. In answer to Pilate's question He assured him that He was born among men and entered the sphere of His ministry in order to bear witness to the Truth, to which those who were of the Truth would give attentive ears (John 18:37). It is testified of Him that He is the faithful and true Witness of God's Truth (Rev. 3:1, 7, 14). His confining His earthly ministry to the Jews was an expression of His faithfulness, since the Truth was not then due to go out to the Gentiles (Rom. 15:8; Matt. 10:5, 6; 15:24). Above all things in His witnessing to the Truth He was faithful to God, whom He regarded and treated as the sole Source of the Truth that He witnessed. Such faithfulness made Him give the message exactly as His Father revealed it to Him, and made Him in every use of it make it reflect credit upon God. Accordingly, He gave a true witness of it with all fidelity, using every power of His Humanity and New Creature in such witnessing. Having consecrated to God all His time, strength, talents, means, influence, reputation, yea, His life, as well as His rights in others, to be used in His ministry as a Witness of the Truth, He employed them to the utmost of His ability in all His opportunities of service, to the Divine pleasing. While He was first of all faithful to God, the Truth and its Spirit, He was next to these faithful to the Church. Hence with special fidelity did He minister the Truth to the twelve Apostles, next to them to the seventy Evangelists, and then to the rank and file of His disciples. His faithfulness made Him make each one of them an individual object of His help; i.e., in fidelity to them He gave each one of them, without stint and most self-denyingly, the help that was best fitted for him to receive according to his needs for himself and for others. He was faithful in His ministry to

Christ: His Sufferings. 

139 

non-disciples according to their needs and heart's attitude. His loving heart went out to the whole race even unto giving Himself up unto and until death on their behalf. He was faithful in the interest of enemies. 

Not one act of unfaithfulness to His ministry as a Witness of the Truth can be justly charged up against Him. His challenge, "Which of you convinceth me [proves me guilty] of sin?" can also be made by Him as to His faithfulness, Which of you can prove Me guilty of unfaithfulness? In every application of the Truth to His Apostles, Evangelists and unofficial disciples, He was faithful to God, the Truth and the brethren. His praise of them, His encouragements of them, His warnings of them, His rebukes of them, were all given in faithfulness. His course toward Peter is a good example of this. The name Peter, given Him in allusion to his confession of the rock truth of Christianity, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, was in praise of Peter's confession. His rewarding him with the privilege of the keys as a result of this confession, to unlock (1) the closed door of access to the high calling to Jews, which He did at Pentecost, and to unlock (2) the closed door of access to that same calling to Gentiles, which he did in Cornelius' home, was an expression of praise for Peter's confession. Faithful was He in reproving Peter as an adversary, when He sought to dissuade Him from faithfulness as to the death on the cross. Faithful was He in warning Peter against His too great self-confidence. Faithful was He in restraining him in the garden, against using the sword. Faithful was He in giving Peter the disapproving look after his denial of Him; and faithful was He in correcting and restoring him on his manifesting true repentance. Faithful was He in praising Nathaniel as an Israelite indeed; in reproving Philip for requesting a physical manifestation of God, all the disciples for each desiring to be first, and John and James with their mother for their ambitious request to be, one on the right, the other on His left in His kingdom. 

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

140 

His course was faithful toward outsiders. He was faithful toward the centurion in healing his young man, toward the Syro-Phoenician woman as to her demonized daughter, toward the sick, the halt, the maimed, the deaf, the dumb and the blind as to their cure, toward the multitude in giving them enlightenment to the degree of their ability of receiving it. Even in hiding the deeper things from the outsiders He was faithful to them; for thereby He did not increase their responsibility in the face of their not being of the faith class, and thus unable to overcome amid faith-exacting conditions. To Mary and Martha and Lazarus His loyalty shines out in His every word and act in relation to them as a Witness of the Truth. His faithfulness toward the scribes and Pharisees is manifest in His treating them mildly at first, then gently reproving their shortcomings, then warning others against their corrupting effects, and finally, when they proved themselves incorrigible, most severely denouncing them to their faces and before the people to curb their evil lives and influences. He was faithful in correcting the Sanhedrin at His trial and in His delicate correction of Pilate. Faithfully did He treat the women of Jerusalem who bewailed Him; and by His silence He faithfully witnessed to the Truth and its Spirit before all His detractors during the last thirteen hours of His life. From every standpoint and toward everybody with whom He had to deal He was a faithful Witness of the Truth. 

And such faithful witness was, first of all, in its reflex effect a cause of His suffering; for it doubtless saddened Him very much that so much of His witnessing had to take the forms of reproofs, rebukes, corrections and warnings. It also was a fruitful means of His suffering the loss of vitality, with its consequent weariness and wakefulness. This reflexly made Him suffer. These features of His sufferings in their cause are amply set forth in certain of the Psalms and Prophets. Thus His course of faithfulness, as a Witness of the Truth, was the first cause of His sufferings. He thereby

Christ: His Sufferings. 

141 

drew down upon Himself certain of His sufferings that He, as the first Sin-offering, had to endure, sufferings inseparably connected with His ministry. 

The second cause of Jesus' sufferings was the enmity of those who opposed the course that His fidelity to the Truth made Him pursue. There was much error taught, which His faithfulness made Him refute. There was much of false rites practiced, which His faithfulness required Him to disclaim. There was much wrong committed against God that His fidelity required Him to rebuke, expose and attempt to set aside. There was much formalism practiced instead of true heart and head religion, which He had to correct and to attempt to reform. The shepherds sought the golden fleece instead of the welfare of the sheep, which His devotion required Him to bring to the light of day. The so-called laity were oppressed by the powerful clergy, which made His zeal seek to set the pertinent evil aside. The religious leaders were full of hypocrisy, conceit and ostentatiousness, which His faithfulness corrected and sought to end. There was much profanation of sacred things and places, which stirred Him up to counteractive speech and acts. The interests of the common people were neglected for the advantage of the hierarchy, which His devoted mind, heart and will severely rebuked. Great stress was laid on tithing the smallest seeds and minute quantities of them at that, while the weightier matters of the Word—the Truth and the Spirit of the Truth—were grossly neglected, all of which stirred His true soul to remonstrance. Their making a pretense of prayer, while in covetousness taking advantage of the poor and weak, stirred up His pure being to resentment and correction. His great popularity with the common people as a Preacher, Teacher and Healer, stirring up the envy of the hierarchy, did not at all ease, rather it made the situation more difficult. In His day the religious world was living on a very low plane, and religious feeling was at a low ebb; and His

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

142 

seeking to reform these conditions brought down upon Him the wrath of the religious leaders and ledlings. 

A few illustrations of the low tide of religion will be in place here. The rabbis had elaborated the 613 rules that Moses gave, into over 10,000, enslaved the people in a bondage that destroyed heart religion, e.g., they set up a rule that limited a Sabbath walk to 1000 yards; but when they desired to go a longer distance all they needed to do so was before Sabbath to deposit some food there, thereby allegedly making it their home, or to have a string tied from their home to the place desired to be journeyed to, which made the two places, they claimed, one place, their home; hence they could walk in their own home back and forth, as much as they pleased, without violating their Sabbath-day journey ordinance! By the same reasoning and in the same ways they overcame their law on not visiting on the Sabbath; for were the two places not made one house by the deposited food or connecting string? And certainly it was not visiting to go from one place to another in one's own house! They had rules as to on what side, left or right, of the body one should arise from sleep. They decided, among other like things, that for a beggar to reach out his hand to receive an alms on the Sabbath was not working on the Sabbath, unless it was reached out of or into a door or window to get it! We recall that they faulted the disciples, when passing through the field hungry, for plucking on the Sabbath ripe grain from the stalks and blowing the chaff therefrom, as harvesting on, and thus violating the Sabbath! Their endless washing of their hands, dishes and pots to avoid ceremonial uncleanness is also noted in the Bible. Verily "they strained out [A.R.V.; not at, A.V.] a gnat and swallowed a camel." No wonder that such sticklers for the letter and neglecters of the spirit took offense at the principles of Jesus, who made religion a matter primarily of the head, heart and will and not in observing vain traditions and man-made, but not God-inculcated, ordinances. Of course, their systems had to go

Christ: His Sufferings. 

143 

down, if His principles were ever generally accepted; and the more they felt this, the more their enmity was aroused against Jesus for the course that faithfulness to the Truth required Him to go. This enmity progressed from faint to outright contradictions, from dislike to hatred, from slight to all-out opposition, from murmuring to bitterest complaint, from suspicion to bold accusation, and from hostility to murder. All of this because of the course that His faithfulness to the Truth, under the then conditions, required Him to go. 

Next we will consider the forms that His sufferings assumed. They may be reduced to three, physical exhaustion, mental sorrow and physical violence, which will be considered in the order just given. First then His sufferings assumed the form of physical exhaustion. This was brought about by a variety of His acts. His constant teaching and preaching, often to large audiences, at times in the open air, which is especially exhausting, were means contributing to His exhaustion. People inexperienced with teaching and preaching do not realize their exhausting effect, especially if the heart is put into them, as Jesus' was. Their exhausting effects can be readily seen, if one knows how vocal sound is produced. Voice is simply an explosion of nerve force on the surface of the throat, combined with some breath. Accordingly, one who is constantly speaking, as Jesus did, is constantly giving off nerve energy, which in time produces nervous exhaustion. Hence this is one of the causes of Jesus' exhausting Himself physically. Jesus' constant watching and prayer combined with heavy loss of sleep were another way in which He, in part, brought physical exhaustion upon Himself. His suffering hunger contributed to the same end. His many journeys by foot over mountain, hill, valley and plane were very wearying on Him, especially in the burning torrid heat of parts of Palestine, in the great heat of all parts of the Holy Land in summer. These journeys were made at 11 seasons of the year, in all kinds of weather and amid inconvenient conditions. 

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

144 

Jesus had no airplanes, coaches, parlor cars, sleeping cars, carriages, autos or buses, not even motorcycles or bicycles, to relieve the toilsomeness and weariness of His journeys. His sandaled feet, made uncomfortable by ever-present sand, were His vehicle of travel. Often He suffered very much from weariness (John 4:6). These conditions conduced to His physical exhaustion. 

Jesus' day was not one replete with time and laborsaving and ease-conducing inventions. Indeed, living conditions in His day were far from convenient. The houses were illy aired, hot in summer, cold in winter, but illy furnished and bent toward the hard rather than the easy life, which was hard on Jesus' vitality. While the Mosaic dietary laws made Israel's diet more healthful than that of the Gentiles, they knew next to nothing of the chemistry of foods, and, of course, could in most cases not plan what was even a fairly balanced dietary, which condition bred ill results on the body, and from which Jesus doubtless suffered some in His vitality. His constant undergoing "the contradiction of sinners" certainly was exhausting on His vitality. Not the least factor contributing to His physical exhaustion was His working miracles, especially those of healing, for these were wrought at the expense of His own vitality. We read in one place of a woman with a years-long infirmity coming to Him in the press of a large throng, and touching the hem of His garment, at the touch receiving the instant cure of her issue of blood. Jesus, knowing that virtue [vitality] had gone out of Him, turning, asked, "Who touched my clothes?" (Mark 5:25-34). Chidingly the disciples asked how He could ask such a question with such a crowd thronging Him. But Jesus was right, and seeing the cured woman, commended her faith and sent her away in peace. On another occasion (Luke 6:19) he cured multitudes of the sick by virtue [vitality] that went out of Him. He cured them by taking out of His own body the vitality necessary to restore their depleted vitality, giving it to them as the remedy of their illnesses. In this sense

Christ: His Sufferings. 

145 

He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses for thereby He suffered the weakness resulting from curing them in this way (Matt. 8:16-18). According to these records Jesus gave up His vitality to effect the cures. Sometimes He spent whole nights in effecting cures, and, as a result, felt very depleted in strength. 

Thus His constant teaching, preaching, watchings, prayings, loss of sleep, hunger, journeys, weariness, plain living, imperfect diet, enduring contradictions, and giving vitality in curing people miraculously, one and all contributed to His physical exhaustion. When Jesus came to Gethsemane, mainly due to these things, He was 99% dead; for He lasted only six hours on the cross, while strong men in their prime have been known to last seven days undergoing crucifixion. His sweating blood in the garden proves that He was suffering from the most extreme form of nervous prostration; for medical science assures us that such extremity of nervous prostration can be experienced by those only who are 99% dead, so far as loss of life-principle is concerned. As we showed above, this extreme form of nervous prostration has only a few times in human history been experienced. When we remember that Adam was 928 years dying under the curse, and when we consider that in His 3½ years' ministry Jesus expended 99% of the vitality that Adam lost in 928 years, we have a most impressive proof of the self-sacrificing love exercised by Jesus in His ministry previous to the last 13 hours of His life, during which suffering was His unmixed portion. How He loved and sacrificed! On earth there has never been such love exercised by another! What self-forgetfulness! What generosity toward the Church and the world! Surely He is "Jesus, lover of my soul," as the poet put it! 

The second form of Jesus' suffering was mental sorrow. This form of His suffering is meant by Isaiah when he speaks prophetically of our Lord as "a Man of sorrows acquainted with grief"—a description that is pathetic in the extreme. Manifold was the mixture of 

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

146 

sorrows poured into the cup of grief for Him to drink. His becoming a human being, and thus degraded in nature, must have caused Him some sorrow after He became conscious of it, though His love for God and man and the hope set before Him must have quickly turned that grief into joy. Missing visible and physical contact with God and the other spirit beings must have made Him feel—what shall we say?—homesick for them, which, too, was overcome as in the preceding case. Having to associate with fellow but fallen humans could not but have been an occasion of sorrow for one so pure and good. Yea, even among the best of humans, as His disciples were such, their selfishness and worldliness, as well as their sinfulness and erroneousness, could not but make Him feel sad over their fallen condition. The many cases of physical depravity that He met, and in many cases cured, did work deeply upon His sympathetic heart, and made it bleed for the open sore of the flesh of His flesh, the blood of His blood and the bones of His bones. The mental ills, in deficient remembering, perceptive, reasoning and imagining powers, especially as seen in demoniacs, appealed deeply to His sympathizing heart, and made it bleed times without number. As He meditated on man's moral depravity and witnessed many examples of it in practice—"man's unkindness to man that has made countless numbers weep"—He was pained to the depth of His holy heart. But worst of all was His grief over man's religious depravity, which He saw exemplified on all sides. No wonder that the Bible tells us that as He saw the people fainting and scattered abroad as sheep without a shepherd, He was moved with deep compassion for them (Matt. 9:36). The Greek word rendered here moved with compassion expresses a deep mingling of sorrow and pity. Etymologically it means a quivering in the intestines caused by a mingling of sorrow and pity. When these two qualities do mingle there is a quivering in one's intestines, felt by the one who undergoes it. 

Other things occasioned Jesus' sorrow. He felt sad

Christ: His Sufferings. 

147 

at the weaknesses of His Apostles. Their unholy ambitions to be chief pained Him. Their inappreciativeness, their slowness to believe, their contentiousness, their dullness of understanding, one and all combined to sadden Him when He thought of them, though the best of humans as more or less sordid. The many evidences of the curse constantly before His eyes could not but distress a loving heart and clear head like His! The contentiousness and the contradictions of the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees must have pained His clear head and kind heart. The fickleness of the multitude, now enthusiastic enough to make Him a king, then inimical enough to demand with insistence His crucifixion, could not but have sorrowed Him. The contemplation of the spoils that death had won in seizing upon Lazarus and bereaving his sisters made tears flow from His eyes. As with prophetic eye He beheld the woes of Jerusalem, both in its present and future blindness and its future desolation, He was so moved in His sympathetic heart that His eyes overflowed with tears. The sorrow of disciples and mother at His death grieved Him. 

But the acme of His grief, greater than that of any others of the children of men, came in the last fourteen hours of His life, evoking our sympathy by the words Gethsemane, Sanhedrin, Praetorium, Via Dolorosa and Calvary. Jesus' agony in the garden lasted an hour (Could ye not watch with me one hour); and from the eight large and small wonderful days we conclude that it began after 1:00 A. M. and ended after 2:00 A. M. While His trial on the cross was particularly that of His humanity, that in the garden was particularly one of His New Creature. St. Paul, in Heb. 5:7, refers particularly to His Gethsemane trial: "Who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard because of his piety." This passage gives us the clue of our Savior's Gethsemane agony. He prayed to be 

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

148 

saved from death; and His prayer was answered. It was, therefore, not from the sacrificial death that He was saved; for He underwent it unto a completion, as His cry, "It is finished," proves. Accordingly, by His resurrection the answer to His prayer was given. Hence He prayed to be saved from the second death, which, had He undergone it, would mean that in some way He had either not done perfectly before coming to Gethsemane or failed to do so thereafter. The expression, "He was heard because of his piety," proves that He had perfectly and flawlessly done the Father's will unto and until death. These considerations of His Gethsemane agony give us the clue as to why "He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears": He feared that in some way He had failed previously to please God perfectly, and that He would be unable to meet flawlessly the harrowing experiences from the garden onward until His death was completed. It was, of course, Satan who shot the sharp arrow into His tender conscience to the effect that He had previously sinned. This thought astounded Him, and for a while nonplussed Him. But soon He was able to shake it off, doubtless by such thoughts as are given in Ps. 16:8 and Is. 53:9 coming to His mind. But the other thought that He would not be able to meet the severe experiences from Gethsemane onward with perfect flawlessness stayed with Him longer. Indeed, it took an hour's struggle, combined with an angel's support and assurance of God's help, for Him to overcome it. 

There were several things that bore down heavily upon His New Creature that made the Gethsemane the severest of all His trials and temptations. He knew that if He should break down, even in the slightest measure, under the sore experiences ahead of Him, He would displease His Father and lose His favor. And loving God supremely and desiring above all else to be pleasing to Him, His very being was filled with the deepest agony of which it was capable of feeling, at the thought of such a calamity. He also knew that such, even the 

Christ: His Sufferings. 

149 

slightest shortcoming from perfection, would vitiate the entire plan, resulting in dishonor to God, in the ruin of the four elect classes, of the penitent angels and of the Jewish and Gentile world and in the triumph of Satan, sin, error, death and hell, and that all due to fault in Him. And He also knew that such a fall on His part would result in His going into the second death. He was in the greatest distress of soul at these three considerations. It was this that, by prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, made His agonized soul plead for an hour with the Father to remove the cup, not of death, but of the peculiar form of His death, that of an excommunicated blasphemer and of a rebellious, convicted outlaw, with all their implied shame and disgrace. No wonder that He sweated blood; no wonder that the weight of His agony nearly crushed out His life, as He said, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even unto death"; no wonder that He cried aloud with many tears; no wonder that His perturbation was so great that He could hardly think soberly and logically; no wonder that three times He sought some comfort from the three disciples whom three times He found asleep, and not watching and praying with Him. But in it all His New Creature was fully submitted to God's will, "Not my will, but thine be done." Never before or afterward did His New Creature experience so severe a trial and temptation; but it was able to triumph after an hour of the severest struggle. Assured of His past faithfulness and of the Father's support in the sufferings of the following 13 hours, and of the fulfillment of the prophecies of His victory, He emerged from His agony the calmest of the calm, ready to drink the cup of shame and disgrace of execution as an excommunicated blasphemer and an outlawed rebel. By all odds His Gethsemane trial and temptation was the keenest mental sorrow that He ever experienced, and was a trial and temptation of His New Creature in the extremest climax of His experiences.

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

150 

Much mental sorrow was felt by Him during the next 13 hours, even as Is. 53:3-11; Ps. 22:1-18 and the four Gospels describing those 13 hours prove. This sorrow was felt mainly by His humanity, as the expression, "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," proves. The acme of His sorrows as a human being was felt by Him when as a human being He felt Himself abandoned by God, and when He expressed this woe in the words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Ps. 22:1; Matt. 27:46, etc.) If He were God this language would be an absurdity—God forsaking God! But the language is clearly explicable as follows: In becoming Adam's substitute as a man, He had to undergo every feature of the punishment that Adam underwent. One of these features were abandonment by God, which Adam had to experience for his sin, the opposite of his fellowship with God enjoyed by him before he sinned. Hence the Man Christ Jesus, in undergoing Adam's penalty for him, had to undergo the experience of being abandoned by God. Jesus' humanity did not taste of this form of the dregs in His cup of woe until just before He died. Up to just before the ninth hour His humanity, hoping for deliverance, as we gather from Ps. 22, felt that God was with Him as a man; but at the ninth hour, feeling Himself surely to be dying and almost dead as a human being, He saw that He was not getting human life for Himself as a reward of keeping the natural and Mosaic law, and thus concluded that, as a human being, He was evidently abandoned by God, which was also true. This filled His human soul, which always before had basked in the Father's smiling face, with the deepest woe that a perfect, sinless human being could feel. The thought drove His humanity into the deepest perplexity, almost to despair; for it could not see why, sinless as it was, God could forsake it. Hence the woeful cry, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? The unutterable woe of being abandoned by God was the bitterest draught from the cup of woe that His humanity drank. 

Christ: His Sufferings. 

151 

Of course, such sorrows as His new creature and His humanity underwent devoured no small part of His life-principle. Sorrow affects injuriously the bodily life, as it often does the mental, moral and religious life; for it, like fear, worry and hurry, turns the body's healthful juices into poison, which attacks the nerves, the blood and the vital organs, causing them injury in their various functions, and that in proportion to its degree and the body's condition. Often it afflicts the body with disease, and in not a few cases kills the victim that it smites. Jesus Himself testifies that His Gethsemane sorrows brought Him to death's door (Matt. 26:38). His sorrows, therefore, endured for 3½ years, and especially those of His last 14 hours, were a major form of His sufferings. But on account of His good character, though injurious to His humanity, they helped Him to the crystallization of character, especially along the lines of obedience, sympathy, pity, mercy, faithfulness, as well as of all the higher primary graces (Heb. 2:10, 17, 18; 4:15, 16; 5:7-9). While the Bible mentions His rejoicing, it never mentions His having laughed; but it does stress His weeping and His many sorrows. At times His face must have been drawn; and though He was but young in years, His face doubtless showed lines of sorrow combined with sympathy. To delineate His face has been a favorite effort of Christian artists. Munkacsy has perhaps best of all painted the expression of unspeakable sorrow and agony in His face, in his picture of Jesus on the cross at the time of His cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Hoffmann's Christ in Gethsemane, which is justly and widely admired and one of the most famous of the paintings of Christ, has not so well depicted the Gethsemane agony in Christ's face. That face pictures forth faith more than submissive agony. While faith was doubtless operating in our Lord at that time, it was more in the background, while submissive agony was in the foreground of His heart. 

As to the subject of physical violence, the third form of Christ's suffering, we gave the essential features of

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

152 

it while discussing Christ's endurance of evil as the seventh step of His narrow way. These features we will not here repeat, though they belong to our subject, since they have already been set forth; but here it will be profitable as belonging to His suffering physical violence, to give a brief explanation of Ps. 22:1-18, except the first clause of v. 1 which was given enough discussion above. Let us remember that these verses give our Lord's reactions as a human being, not as a New Creature, to His crucifixion and its concomitants. His humanity could not then understand why God was so far from delivering Him, and from giving heed to His deepest human feeling expressed in emphatic words (1). In the day and night of His last day His humanity called for help, without a favorable response from God (2). Yet His humanity acknowledged that God was holy, indwelling wisdom, power, justice and love (3). It remembered that God was the object of His ancestors' trust, which trust was honored by God with deliverance (4). As Ancient Worthies they appealed to God for help when in need and obtained it. Their confidence was fixed upon God; and it was not put to shame (5). But by contrast Jesus' humanity was treated as ruthlessly as one treats a worm when he tramples upon it, and was not treated as befitted a human being; for practically everybody reproached and despised Him that day (6). His claims made them laugh at Him as an impostor; their disdain of Him they showed by extended lips; and in disapproval of Him they shook their heads despisingly (7). Mockingly they spoke of Him as one having claimed to trust in the Lord for deliverance. Fully convinced that He was an impostor, in irony they cried out of the Lord, Let Him rescue Him, His alleged favorite, from the death of the cross and we will accept Him (8). 

His humanity calls to mind God's past kindnesses to it from its earliest days, giving it providential care at its birth, caring for it in babyhood's days and giving it hopeful prospects (9). It was made an object of Jehovah's care during its embryo condition and at its 

Christ: His Sufferings. 

153 

birth, even at those times the Lord was its God (10). It now at His crucifixion yearningly besought God not to absent Himself from it, because it was in the climax of human trouble, and it longed for God to be on its side, since human helpers gave it no assistance (11). Powerful ones surrounded it hostilely, yea, the most powerful of God's nominal fleshly Israel, the Sanhedrin, especially its chief priestly members, were these besiegers (12). They opened wide their mouths for its destruction, even as a hungry lion opens its mouth wide in roars while making prey of its victim (13). It felt that its powers and vitality were poured out, even as water discharged from a vessel. The jerk that it felt when the cross with the weight of itself and of His humanity struck the bottom of the hole where it was held standing, dislocated its joint bones in arms, legs and vertebrae. Its heart, suffering paralysis, evidenced by blood and water coming from it at the spear-thrust, dissolved as wax before the fire (14). The fever of crucifixion devoured its strength, leaving it like a broken piece of a potter's vessel. Intense thirst made its tongue stick to its jaws. It, at that time, recognized that, though serving the Lord faithfully, God had forsaken it and was letting it die (15). Sectarians, hungering to devour its flesh, surrounded it; even a reprobate Sanhedrin besieged it. They caused its hands and feet to be pierced by the nails of crucifixion (16). Each of its bones, separate and distinct from one another, because disjointed, so pained it that it could, by their separate pains, count them as separate and distinct from one another. And to these evils was added the fact that it was made a gazing-stock to man's inimical eyes (17). Its few possessions—its clothes—its crucifiers divided among them and threw the dice to determine which of the four crucifying soldiers might have its robe (18). So far is the description of Jesus' experiences as a human being on the cross. And from this description we recognize that it was sinless, despite the sore treatment that it received.

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

154 

It would be well for us to paraphrase the rest of the Psalm, first giving its divisions: Vs. 19-21 describe Jesus' new-creaturely course on the cross; vs. 22-24 His Gospel-Age ministry to the Church; vs. 25, 26 His ministry to the Millennial priests and Levites, and vs. 27-31 to the restitution class. His New Creature longed for and had on the cross the favor of God, who was its support, and for whose speedy help it prayed (19). It prayed for deliverance-from sharp error and from the power of sectarianism (20). It prayed to be saved from Satan's mouthpiece, the Sanhedrin, especially its chief priests, a thing that God could well do, since God had delivered it from the power of Satan himself (21). Throughout the Gospel Age Jesus has manifested to the Church God's plan as due, as a demonstration of God's character which, of course, was a praise of God (22). The Church as Spiritual Jacob, or Israel, as reverencers of God, were by Jesus exhorted to praise God by declaring His Word as that which reflects credit upon God, and which thus glorifies Him (23). They should do this, because God highly esteems Jesus' sufferings as meriting the cancellation of the Adamic sentence and as qualifying Him to be a merciful and faithful High Priest, who as such had God's favor and answers to His prayers (24). Throughout the Millennium Jesus will reflect credit upon God by revealing to the Little Flock, the Great Company and the Ancient and Youthful Worthies, as the great congregation, the Millennial truths, and, before them as God's reverencers, will fulfill His promises to God to carry out the Millennial features of the Plan (25). These four classes, who have in this life proved themselves to be teachable and leadable, will appropriate to themselves the blessings of the elect, and be fully pleased therewith. As seekers after God in this life, they Millennially will reflect credit upon God by declaring His Word, and in this life will develop such characters as will be given eternal life (26). 

The whole race after having then been taught the Word, and remembering its teachings and their past 

Christ: His Sufferings. 

155 

experience with evil and their then experience with righteousness will, for a while, turn to the Lord, and all the families of the earth will for a while serve Him (27), and that because the Kingdom will then be the Lord's; and He will then be the Governor over the nations (28). The love-filled restitutionists everywhere will appropriate the blessing of the Truth and its Spirit with all the blessing of restitution coming with such appropriation; and they will serve the Lord by feeding those hungry for the bread of life, by giving to drink the waters of life to those thirsty therefore, by clothing with the robe of righteousness those naked thereof, by giving the sin-sick the medicines pressed out of the leaves taken from the tree of life, by praying for the return of dead ones from the tomb and by caring for them after their return, until they will be able to care for themselves. All of the dead shall return from the tomb and subject themselves to Christ's rule, i.e., those who by reason of the curse could not keep themselves alive, but submitted to the death process until it brought them down into the death state (29). The Little Flock will be the special ones to serve Jehovah as the Millennial Kings and Priests, by setting aside every feature of the curse and by operating restitution toward the race unto a completion. And this Little Flock will be God's special family enjoying life upon the Divine plane as Christ's Bride and Joint-heirs (30). They in the Kingdom will take their offices and exercise their powers, which will result in their making known to the whole world of mankind through the Millennial Truth, Spirit and providences, the Divine character as perfect in wisdom, power, justice and love, perfect in their blending with one another and perfect in their domination of all God's other attributes, all of which are also perfect. By this course they will regenerate in righteousness and life all of the willing and obedient of mankind. This is a thing that God will accomplish (31). Our study of Ps. 22 reveals the fact that Christ's sufferings (vs. 1-21) would be followed by His Gospel-Age ministry of blessing (22-24), by 

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

156 

His Millennial-Age ministry to the four elect classes (25, 26) and by His and the Church's Millennial Age ministry to the world. With this we bring to a close our discussion of the forms of Jesus' suffering. 

Next we will consider the spirit in which Jesus bore His sufferings. First of all, we would say that the spirit in which He bore His sufferings was one that expressed perfectly every one of the higher primary graces—faith, hope, self-control, patience, piety, brotherly love and charity, each in itself, each in harmony with the other six and in that harmony dominating His other graces. His, certainly, was a life of faith as to God's and His own person, character, word and work. This is very apparent when we consider the mission of study, service, life and endurance that He attempted to, and did carry out, a mission that in great detail was made known to Him during the 40 days of His stay in the wilderness. If ever one had to walk by faith it was Jesus; for He was the pioneer in the High Calling—the Forerunner of all who have followed Him. At every turn He found a new feature of the life of faith opening up before Him; and He entered and passed through it with full assurance. Every step of the narrow way, every feature of His suffering, regardless of whether it was physical exhaustion, mental sorrow or physical suffering, yea, every experience of each one of these three forms of His sufferings required Him to exercise faith, both as mental appreciation and heart's reliance. Hope, too, was a quality characterizing His suffering. In every one of its forms He desired and expected to please God, win the Church as His Bride, ransom the world and become fitted for the glory following His sufferings. Certainly He had every moment of His course to exercise self-control; for He was continually surrounded with circumstances calling upon Him to rule Himself in well-doing, if He were to be an overcomer. Even greater demands were made upon Him to act out patience, the quality whose special sphere of action is amid circumstances of obstacles, hardships and sufferings. He had to endure the oppositions and contradictions 

Christ: His Sufferings. 

157 

of sinners against Himself, and in spite of physical suffering, mental sorrow and physical violence He persevered in the course of well-doing, despite the concomitant difficulties which He cheerfully endured—which is exactly what the Bible means by patience. 

Piety was even a more prominent characteristic of the spirit in which He endured His sufferings; for piety is duty love to God with all the heart, mind, soul and strength; and we are expressly told that amid His sufferings He was heard in His Gethsemane prayers, because of His piety (Heb. 5:7, Diag.). God was to Him all in all. He put God first in all things (Ps. 16:8). Everything that He did or left undone He did or left undone in part because of His piety. Every act of His He did from full love of God; every suffering of His He endured in part because of His all-pervading duty love for God. He reduced all His Acts and sufferings to terms of loyalty to God, first to that form of loyalty which is built upon, flows out of, and is in harmony with supreme duty love to God, and afterward to that form of loyalty which is built upon, flows out of, and is in harmony with supreme disinterested love to God. This piety in part permeated and surcharged every motive, manner and spirit that His sufferings had. Brotherly love played a part in the spirit in which He suffered. By His carnation having become flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone and blood of our blood, His duty love toward His fellow-men cooperated with His other higher primary graces in putting the Lord's Spirit into His sufferings. It was not a main motive therein, as supreme duty love and disinterested love toward God were, yet it cooperated with them therein; for it was not duty love toward His neighbor that moved Him to sacrifice Himself through suffering unto death, yet it was not at all quiescent, but acted a subordinate part therein. It made Him have a fellow feeling for the poor, sin-condemned and lost race. 

The grace that above all others characterized His spirit of suffering was disinterested love—the good will that, based upon a delight in good principles— 

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

158 

harmony with the Truth and its Spirit—delights in and is in fellowship oneness with those in harmony with good principles, sympathizes with those not in harmony with, or treated contrary to, good principles, and from such delight, oneness, and sympathy delights to lay down life to advance those good principles in the blessing of others. First of all, as an expression of disinterested love, He gave it to God in its delight, oneness, sympathy and sacrifice; for God was the chief object of His disinterested love. Next did He give it to the brethren in its delight, oneness, sympathy and sacrifice. To them He gave that form of sympathy that felt with them in the mistreatment that they received and for them in their faults, lacks and mistakes—the latter form of sympathy being one that, for obvious reasons, He did not give to God. And from such delight, oneness and sympathy He sacrificed unto death for them. The third object of His disinterested love was mankind in general. To these He gave such a measure of appreciation as the vestiges of God's image in them that survived the ravages of the fall warranted His giving, e.g., the faith of the centurion and of the Syro-Phoenician woman. But the chief feature of His motivating disinterested love toward them was His pity love for them for their physical, mental, artistic, moral and religious degradation and for the terrible mistreatment that they had received from fallen angels and fallen men. Certainly the ravaging effects of the curse upon them deeply drew on His sympathies and in part characterized His spirit of bearing His sufferings. All of these strongly impelled Him to undergo His sufferings in sacrifice for their good. So, too, disinterested love for His enemies, mainly taking the form of pity and sacrifice, was a quality of the spirit in which He endured evil. His love for truth, righteousness and holiness, and His hatred of error, sin and unholiness, cooperated in constituting the spirit in which He suffered. These higher primary graces, by dominating His other graces—the lower primary, the secondary and the tertiary graces—made 

Christ: His Sufferings. 

159 

them to act, as constituents of the spirit of His sufferings. Thus the spirit in which He suffered was perfect. 

The purpose for which He suffered was many-sided. First of all He designed to serve, please and glorify God. Having consecrated His all to God, He designed to make His all serve God, which He did by furthering God's cause of truth, righteousness and holiness—advancing God's Plan of the Ages. It was His soul's delight to further that cause, because He purposed to please God. And, finally, through such service and pleasing of God He designed to glorify God, whose plan, as a blending of perfect wisdom, power, justice and love, is to effect the salvation of the four elect classes, the penitent fallen angels, obedient Jews and Gentiles—seven classes in all—and by such effect will reflect the greatest possible credit upon God. Thus Godward Jesus' sufferings had most noble and elevated purposes. The second purpose of His sufferings was to redeem the Church in order to make her His Joint-Heir and Bride in the Divine nature. The third purpose of His sufferings was to redeem the other three elect classes: the Ancient Worthies, the Great Company and the Youthful Worthies—in order to fit them to be the companions of Him and the Church in the Millennial and post-Millennial rewards, honors, works and inheritances. His fourth purpose in suffering was to redeem the world from the Adamic curse and to offer them, under favorable conditions, the Millennial blessings of restitution and to reward the faithful of them with perfect everlasting human life in the post-Millennial earth. A fifth purpose of His suffering was to give the fallen angels an opportunity of becoming reconciled with God and actually to effect that reconciliation for those of them who reform. A sixth purpose of His sufferings was to put Him into a position in which He might destroy all evil and all incorrigibly wicked beings. The seventh purpose of His sufferings was to make truth, righteousness and holiness everlastingly to prevail throughout all God's universes. Most praiseworthy are His seven purposes in undergoing sufferings. 

Christ—Spirit—Covenants. 

160 

A word on the results of His sufferings. The first was their effect on Himself, which was twofold. First, they put His humanity into a condition wherein He no longer needed it for His own use, and that made it as a thing of value available to ransom Adam and His race; for His sufferings, by effecting His death as a perfect human being, made its merit all sufficient for the redemption of Adam and the race in him. Second, they developed in Him certain of the graces whose cultivation is in God's creatures inseparable from sufferings. All of His graces received their perfection through His sufferings (Ps. 45:8); but the graces that especially must have sufferings for their cultivation are faith, sympathy, mercy, patience and faithfulness (Heb. 2:10, 17, 18; 4:15; 5:7-9; 1 Pet. 1:7). These graces, with the rest of the higher primary graces, especially fit Him in qualification for His ministry for the elect and non-elect, as well as for the fallen angels. Hence we see that His sufferings were to Him educational for His future work, honor, office and inheritance. The other effects of His sufferings were in the interests of others: God has gotten in Him, thereby and therefrom, a competent Vicegerent; the Church a competent Head, etc.; the other elect classes a competent Leader, etc., the world and the fallen angels a competent Redeemer. And the eventual result will be His successful outworking of God's plans and purposes, not only for the angels and Adam's descendants, but for the new orders of beings that God purposes to bring in the universes' planets unto perfection by Christ as His eternal work, in which the elect, from the human race and from the angels, will be privileged to share. Infinitely fruitful, therefore, will the results of Jesus' sufferings prove, unto the glory of God and the blessing of others. O let us praise God, the source of these wonders; and Jesus, their Agent (Rev. 5:12, 13); and let us trust, love and obey Them for these wonders as our reasonable service!