08 — In His Humiliation

Chapter 8 THE GLORY OF CHRIST IN HIS HUMILIATION The career of the Son of Man on the earth was drawing to a close. From his wondrous transfiguration on Tabor, he "set his face to go to Jerusalem." The annual Feast of the Passover was at hand, which all the males of the Jewish nation were, by law, required to celebrate. It was their most distinguished festival. Wherever they were dispersed throughout Asia, Europe and Africa, this feast called them together. It has been supposed, that at the celebration of the Passover, there were not far from three millions of people, including Jews and Gentiles; so that the events which here took place, would soon be known throughout the world. One reason why Christ directed his steps from Mount Tabor to Jerusalem, was that he might keep this feast with his disciples: " With desire, have I desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." But he had another and higher object. He was about to consummate his earthly course, and himself to offer that sacrifice for the sins of men, which could never be repeated, and of which the Paschal Lamb was but the prefiguration. Everything that he had done was preliminary to this; all his plans and all his conduct, had been drawing toward the cross as their centre. In some views, his glorious transfiguration might have been the fitting close to his history; but if he had stopped here, he might as well have never come into the world. The most affecting and glorious scene was yet to be unfolded. That scene we propose to contemplate; may we be enabled to contemplate it with deep prostration of spirit! There is an awful sacredness in this deep humiliation of the Son of God. Wherein did his humiliation consist; and in what consists its glory? In the first place. Wherein did his humiliation CONSIST?

Christianity has great peculiarities. That in which it differs from all other religions, is that which constitutes its great excellence. Its great Founder came into the world, not simply as a Teacher, but a Sufferer; not merely to prove his doctrines by his miracles and exemplify them by his life, but to reveal his death as the great doctrine. It was with no small difficulty that his disciples were induced to believe that he would be a Sufferer; it is with greater difficulty, that the tongue, or pen, or thought of man can set forth the intensity of his sufferings. The unaffected and graphic narrative of the Evangelists, has done all in this description, which can ever be accomplished. Calvary seeks no rhetorical adornment; it stands out alone. The Redeemer’s humiliation began when he was born in Bethlehem; nor did it cease until he rose from the grave, and ascended to the right hand of majesty in the heavens. But though he was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs," during the whole term of his Incarnation; yet were there days of deeper humiliation appointed him, than those which occupy the ordinary pages of his mournful history. The scene becomes more tragical, as it gradually draws toward the melancholy catastrophe. There were peculiarities in it that are strongly marked. Of all that have suffered, from the beginning of time to the present hour, there is but this one Sufferer, who did not deserve the sorrows he endured. His humiliation constitutes an anomaly in law, an anomaly in morals, an anomaly in the divine government. The highest becomes the most debased; the most honorable becomes the most dishonored; the loftiest becomes a worm in this world of worms; the holiest is made the most miserable; and he who could claim most from God and man, bears the rage of man, and the curse of God. It is not strange that Lucifer was banished from heaven; nor that Sodom fell; nor that Babylon sunk; nor that man is born to trouble, and that God should bend his bow, and set him a mark for the arrow. But that he who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, should be permitted to die as a malefactor, is a fact that indicates, either that the reins of government have been abandoned by infinite justice, or that some great moral problem is being solved, which demands a tremendous sacrifice. This was the secret of his mighty woes. The fact that " Messiah was cut off not for himself," was ominous of terror. They were strong measures that were resorted to, in order to justify the great Lawgiver, burning, as his throne does with terrors to the guilty, in "justifying the ungodly." And what marvel that an arrangement, which comprised the substitution of the innocent in place of the guilty, when carried into effect, should fill the sufferer with fear and trembling; and that the sacrifice should smoke with God’s heated indignation! Heart-sickening and withering consciousness was that when, in ways unknown to mortals, "the swift and stinging sense of condemnation" for the sins of myriads, forced itself upon him with such intense reality, that no ray of light, no hope, no sympathy of earth or heaven could reach him! He must be mighty to suffer, if he was mighty to save; and since the Deity stood by to inflict the blow, the Deity also stood by, un-severed from his humanity, when the crushing blow fell. The sufferer was no mere man. No mere creature could have girded himself for the mighty conflict which the Son of God then endured. ’No; Mary’s son was not alone. Divinity itself conjoined with humanity, was necessary to consummate this fearful humiliation. Wondrous sufferer! belonging both to heaven and to earth, yet by both disowned! The Rock of Ages united to a fragile reed, and shivered by the storm!

He was in the garden of Gethsemane with Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, when he gave utterance to the words, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death." It was one of the darkest passages in his humbling pilgrimage. He knew not what to think or what to desire. " Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?" He had unequaled courage, but he shrank from the tempest which he saw just about to burst upon his head. Never was his obedience so put to the test as now. It was Satan’s hour and the power of darkness. That pure mind of his was passing under the cloud. Temptation beset him on every side. He grew pale; he trembled in every limb and nerve; he sweat " as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." No mind in the universe but his own knew the horror of those internal agonies. The cup was bitter, and with a transport of terror, agony, and submission, such as never broke from human heart, he could only say, " O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but as thou wilt!"

Judas had betrayed him into the hands of the Jewish priests and Pharisees, and the resolution was taken to execute him as a conspirator against the government. We will not speak of the foul and manifold outrage committed upon his person, and the symbols of indignity he bore, except thus to recall his profound abasement. Pilate delivered him to the Jews to be crucified. It was not lawful to execute him within the city; the soldiers led him without its walls, in solemn procession between two thieves. He was faint from watching, from fasting, from scourging, from solicitude and fear; yet they laid upon him his own cross. Was ever sight more humiliating than the eternal Son of God, thus associated, and bearing his cross to the place of punishment! Well did the daughters of Jerusalem weep when they saw him! What a triumph to the Jews to see him who professed to be their king, thus marching to his crucifixion between two malefactors! To what a low point of ignominy was Christianity then reduced, and what confusion and grief and shame covered the few followers of its Founder! It is scarcely to be wondered at that their faith was shaken; and that, as the victim was thus being led to the altar, his own disciples, if they did not deny him the tribute of their affection and then tears, " all forsook him and fled."

There is remarkable minuteness in the Scriptural narrative of the closing scene. It was on the day of the preparation of the Passover, and at the sixth hour of the day, or at noon, that he was nailed to the cross. He was numbered with the transgressors; the two thieves were crucified with him, and as though he were the greatest of the malefactors, Jesus in the midst. This was humiliation as deep as God could inflict, or the Son of God could feel. There was nothing to mitigate it; not one alleviating incident; no hand of kindness near; no consolatory voice of affection; no tenderness to pillow that aching head, or assuage that burning thirst, except by the vinegar and gall. He was left alone. The Furies were let loose upon him. There was hissing and execration, and blasphemy. The utmost spite of hell was accumulated on that guiltless head. Angels that came to strengthen him in the garden, did not come to his rescue, or his relief on the cross. The presence and smile of Him he most loved were not there. God hid his face and spoke in tones of wrath. He smote his Fellow Shepherd; and when the sword of the Omnipotent fell, the last ingredient in his cup of misery was mingled. It was full; it overflowed. After a few words of blessing for the guilty and intimations of love for those he loved, he uttered that memorable sentence which man may read, but which the lips of man know not how to utter, and his heart sunk within him. One exceeding great and bitter cry, and he gave up the ghost.

They had taken off his garments, and there hung his poor, mangled, bleeding body, uncovered for his enemies to abuse and scoff at. It was an affecting, humiliating spectacle even for the angry clouds to hover over, and satiated fiends to look upon; but it was indignation to the dead. It is impossible for mortals to sound the abyss of these mighty woes. It was the deepest depth of his intense humiliation. Never was there One in whom the prediction was so fulfilled, " I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people."

Behold the man! Was this the Christ? Was this the great Messiah promised long to Jew and Gentile? Was this the expected child, at whose birth angels sang. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and good-will to men! Is this He who was separate from sinners? this the Great Teacher who spake as never man spoke? the great Healer whose fame filled Palestine, and at whose approach the very populace so lately cried Hosannah to the Son of David? Is this He whom angels worship, and to whom the voice was so lately addressed from the excellent glory, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased?" Yes, this is he. Behold the man! How changed from the bright glory that once filled heaven! He has not even the crown of thorns to protect his head, nor the purple robe to conceal his shame. O that lowliness, that indignity, that intense humiliation that covered this eternal Son of God. But there is another side to this mournful picture. We speak of honor in the midst of abasement; of dignity in the midst of shame; of victory and triumph in death; of glory, rich and splendid glory in this deep humiliation. This thought may be amplified by the following illustrations.

Christ was glorious in his humiliation, in the first place, in the abundant attestations it furnished of his un-sinning excellence. There are several interesting circumstances which occurred even at the time of his trial and condemnation which demonstrate the innocence of Jesus. He had been delivered into the hands of his enemies, by bribery, and by one of the members of his own immediate household; betrayed secretly, and amid the darkness of night, and in the seclusion of his own retirement. But no sooner did the traitor perceive that his perfidious design was accomplished, than conscience began her work of retribution, and drove this hardened culprit to despair. He rushed into the presence of the men who employed him in this deed of death, threw down the thirty pieces of silver and exclaimed, " I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood!" And when he learned that it was all in vain, the righteous providence of God would not leave him to any more slow, or less searching trial than his own bloodstained conscience. Never did this vile traitor act a more sincere part than when he made this confession; and inexcusable as the act was, never did he act a more honest part, than when he " went out and hanged himself." And that " potters’ field" where he committed the fearful deed, and which was the price of blood, stood for ages a permanent memorial of the unsullied glory of his Master’s integrity.

Jesus also, stood before the tribunal of Rome, and at an age when Roman law commanded the respect of the world. He was brought before a Roman Judge, one who did not want motives to gratify the hostility of the Jews toward their victim, and one who from his well known character, had no misgivings at the shedding of blood. Pilate was a monster of avarice and cruelty, and had so abused his power in the Province of Judea, that Rome had no subjects more seditious than the Jews. Yet in the criminal process against Christ, this man preserved a moderation and integrity, which, had he persevered in them, would have gone far toward redeeming the honor of his official station. Again and again he bore witness to the faultless character of his prisoner, and expostulated with the Jews for desiring him to convict an innocent man. He conversed publicly with Jesus; he examined him privately; and then protested to his accusers, "I find no fault in this man;" why should "I crucify your King?" When he saw that it was no longer possible to rescue him, and from the tumultuous spirit of the people, unsafe to delay his execution, as though he called heaven and earth to witness that he yielded to their sanguinary demands, not of his own will and judgment, but in obedience to theirs, he took a basin of water, and in sight of them all, washed his hands of the blood they were so eager to shed. It is a remarkable fact, that a wise providence should so have directed the concerns of the Roman Empire during the time of the Saviour’s trial and crucifixion, that such a man as Pontius Pilate should be the Procurator of Judea, and should have borne this uniform and persevering testimony to the Saviour’s innocence. The only tribunal which was legally qualified to pronounce him guilty, thus solemnly pronounced him innocent. And it deserves remark, that this Roman Judge, caused his testimony to be inscribed in deep and legible characters upon the Sufferer’s cross. Christ had confessed himself a King; nor did Pilate take offense at his confession when Jesus had unfolded to him the spiritual nature of his kingdom. And when he was crucified, the title which Pilate directed to be labelled on his cross was, " Jesus OF Nazareth, the King of the Jews," The Jews entreated him to alter it, but the just Roman was immovable. " Write not," said they, " I AM the King of the Jews, but that he said, I am the King of the Jews." Still the imperturbable Judge remained firm. " Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written." And the inscription stood, declaring to all men, that in the judgment of high-minded and impartial Rome, whose eagle then cast its shadow over the world, the crucified One had no claims he had not vindicated. On two occasions in his previous history, at his baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration, a voice from heaven was uttered, declaring, " This is my beloved Son!" There were heavenly voices heard just before Jesus entered the garden, and while he was in immediate apprehension of the bitter cup God himself spoke to him; pronouncing him glorious and glorified in the fulfillment of his great work. Just before the last Passover, the Sufferer had uttered the oppressive thoughts, " Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour! But for this cause came I to this hour. Father, glorify thy name!" The appeal was public. There was wanting, just at this crisis, some strong testimonial of the divine approbation, which should arrest the attention of men, and go with him, and be remembered by them when Satan’s hour should come, and the powers of darkness should prevail. Scarcely had Jesus uttered the words, than a voice from heaven was heard in reply. "The people that stood by, said that it thundered; others said that an angel spake." The herald thunder passed away, and the words were uttered, " I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." The eternal Godhead bowed his heavens to put this visible seal, this divine attestation, to the mission and character of his Son. The wonderful prodigies of nature also, that appeared as he was passing through the deepest valley of his humiliation were attestations too honorable to him, and too emphatic, to be misunderstood. During the whole period in which he hung upon the cross, " from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land, until the ninth hour." The sun would not look upon that scene of ignominy; he turned away and bathed his face in impenetrable clouds. It was his Maker hanging naked on the cross; the Eternal Son of God receiving on his guiltless head the last phial of heaven’s unmitigated wrath. Thick darkness covered the land, and black tempests shook it, when He who is the light of the world was thus enveloped with ignominy. The "veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." Its " massive wails shook to their foundation, and tore that sacred covering from the Holy of Holies," as a man rendeth a garment. There was an earthquake also which filled Jerusalem with terror. "The rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the Holy City, and appeared unto many." They were fearful omens, and might have constrained even the murderers of their Lord to exclaim, this is the finger of God! We cannot attribute them to natural causes, nor account for their concurrent existence at the moment of the Saviour’s giving up the ghost, unless they were miraculously commissioned to attest his glory who hung on the cross. They proclaimed to the astonished millions that the dying Jesus, the dead and lifeless Jesus, would yet shake, not the earth only, but also heaven. It was an invisible hand writing its destiny on the wall of corrupted and decayed Judaism; a voice from heaven consecrating the foundation stone of that kingdom which cannot be moved. The testimony struck that vast populace with awe; it opened their eyes to the innocence and glory of the Son of Man, so that " all they who came together at that great sight, smote upon their breasts." The most unbelieving were convinced, and the most obdurate softened by the Spectacle. The scene was suddenly changed. The shame of the Sufferer became his honor; his humiliation his glory. Admiration succeeded contempt and outrage; dark as the scene was, the day had dawned in which men began even to glory in the cross. In the next place, Christ was glorious in his humiliation, from the heavenly spirit and exalted attributes of character which he there expressed. " Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah! This that is glorious in his apparel, travailing in the greatness of his strength?" What the Prophet here demands concerning Christ as the triumphant Conqueror over his enemies, may with perfect fitness be appropriated to him as the mighty Sufferer. In his lowest degradation, he showed himself to be a mighty Prince; and in his weakness travailing in the greatness of his strength. He was " treading the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with him;" yet was there a moral greatness, a true sublimity of character, which is in vain sought for, except in his own godlike excellence, even when his Godhead was in almost total eclipse. We should never have known his true character but for his humiliation. This is the sphere in which all his loveliness is manifested. His example required the cross to make it perfect. How fair with heaven’s grace and loveliness was he then! What a spectacle of finished moral beauty to look at! What a beautiful portrait of heaven! His Divinity was veiled in clay; his apparel was human; blood was sprinkled upon his garments, and stained all his raiment; yet amid these adumbrations of the Deity, in this low attire, and in this deepest excess of humiliation, he presents the most perfect exhibition of moral greatness and beauty which the world ever beheld. There were gathered around it a loveliness, a splendor, an awfulness of moral virtue, which grew brighter to the last, and which have left behind them a lustre which shall survive the flight of time. This humiliation could not have been imposed upon him without injustice. His life and his blessedness were his own; he had never forfeited them; and he alone had a right to dispose of them. " No man," says he, " taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself." We cannot conceive of a more disinterested and glorious trait of character than that which, in view of the claims of law and justice on the one hand, and the appeal of human helplessness and woe on the other, in order to meet the exigency, freely consented, rather than that man should suffer, to offer up himself on the altar of justice. He who chose the manger for his birthplace, chose the cross for his pillow of death. When they challenged him to " come down," he chose to remain and die. When, by a wish, he could have been rescued by " legions of angels," he preferred to be left under the dominion of his enemies. When he might have arrayed himself in robes of omnipotence, he chose the crushing humiliation. There are other excellencies for which he is beloved and adored by angels and men; but this is his great excellence, and that which renders " his name above every name." It was a thought unutterably precious to him that his heavenly Father loved him for this more than for anything else. "Therefore doth my Father love me, because Hay down my life." Not only did he go thus unreluctantly to the altar, but there was a steadfastness of purpose and zeal in accomplishing it, which had its impulse in his own unconquerable goodness. Never was there a work so great or so difficult; and never was there a mind so perfectly absorbed in it as his. At one time we hear him saying, " I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" And another, to Judas, "What thou doest, do quickly." Mark the unvarying constancy of his purpose, the unabated ardor and resolution that distinguished him to the last; and was there not a moral sublimity in his humiliation, such as the light of heaven has never beheld?

Then mark the spirit the calm and tranquil spirit, the unresisting meekness and love with which he passes through this fiery ordeal. What a state of mind was that when he uttered the words, " Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee!" This was the great thought with which he entered upon his humiliation, and which governed his deportment before the tribunals of Judea and of Rome. When the chief priests interrogated him concerning his disciples and his doctrine; to the question touching his disciples, he answered nothing: he would not expose these timid followers to the gathering storm. To that touching his doctrine, his reply was, " I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou me? Ask them which heard me what I said unto them; behold they know what I said." When one of the officers " struck him in the face," because he thus answered the high priest, Jesus calmly answered, " If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?" When two false witnesses testified against him, and the high priest demanded what he had to say to their testimony, he was silent. When the high priest adjured him by the living God to tell him whether he were the Christ, the Son of God; perceiving at once the object of this demand, and knowing well that such an avowal would seal his death, he at first eluded the question. " If I tell you, ye will not believe and if I question you ye will not answer me, nor let me go." The question was too decisive a one and might be evaded for the purpose of setting the answer in a true light.

Having made this remark, he replies, " It is as thou hast said; I am the Christ." The confession served only to seal his condemnation; and the Sanhedrin at once handed him over to Pilate, praying for sentence against him as a blasphemer. To the inquiries of Pilate he gave direct and unequivocal answers; and so full, that neither Pilate nor the Jews could misunderstand the nature of his claims. " Thou sayest that I am a King, but my kingdom is not of this world." I have no earthly throne, and no power of earthly princes. My kingdom is over the minds and hearts of men, whom I would fain subdue by the force of truth and the power of my grace. It was in the course of this interview, that he made that dignified and noble avowal, " For this end was I born, and for this end came I into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth." Paul in writing to Timothy, alludes to this " good confession" which Jesus Christ thus made before Pontius Pilate. A noble confession it was, and worthy the King of Truth.

Pilate sent him to Herod; but in the presence of the infamous murderer of John the Baptist, he refused to litter a word. Herod asked him many questions, but he "answered him nothing." He would not recognize the murderer’s authority, but would rather quietly submit to his indignities, and meet his doom. Herod sent him back to Pilate, and once more he stood, surrounded by the clamorous Jews, in the Roman Pretorium. Here he was accused openly, but now he " answered nothing." Pilate marvelled greatly at his silence, but " Jesus answered him never a word." He had said enough before. When after this, Pilate scourged him, and the soldiers plaited for him his crown of thorns, and mocked, and smote him; not a word escaped his lips. Pilate expostulated with him; still Jesus gave him no answer! There was profound humiliation in this shameful scene; but there was profound greatness. It was a triumphant hour when the children in the temple honored, and the multitude would have enthroned him; but it was not so triumphant as this hour of his deep adversity and ignominious degradation. He suffered all this outrage, without a tear, without a sigh, without one token of weakness, and with all his glory untarnished. And when from this deep opprobrium, he was being led to Calvary, bearing his own cross; how affecting the scene, and how glorious the fulfillment of the prediction, "The government shall be upon his shoulder!" And when the women of Jerusalem followed him weeping; what beauty, what grandeur was in the thought when he looked back upon them and said, " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but for yourselves and your children!" Numbered too, as he was, with transgressors, he manifested his converting and saving power, and at the same time that inscrutable and adorable sovereignty, by which the crucified One becomes a stumbling-block to those who perish, and to those who are saved, the wisdom of God, and the power of God. Nor did he wait till the remembrance of the injury had passed away, and when it is comparatively easy to forgive; it was while they were driving the nails and affixing him to his cross, that he uttered the prayer, " Father, forgive them; they know not what they do!" He saw at a little distance his mother and his beloved disciple; and what does he say? "Woman, behold thy son; son, behold thy mother; and from that hour, that disciple took her to his own home." His greatness was put to a still severer test, when the insolent rulers and the licentious populace derided him, saying, " He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God, come down from the cross, that we may see and believe!" How easily he could have done this, and how strong the inducements to do it when thus challenged! But well he knew how useless such a demonstration of his power, would be to men who had remained immovable amid all the wonders he had done. If they would not believe what they had seen and now saw, neither would they, though he came down from the cross. The time had not come for his greatest miracle, when he would show that it was more worthy of his character and mission to rise from the sepulcher, than come down from the accursed tree; and a more demonstrative proof of his power to break the chains of death, than to wrench the nails from the cross. Nor did he resign his spirit into the hands of him who gave it, until his work was done, his humiliation complete, and he could say, It is finished! Wonderful Sufferer! Wonderful glory, amid such degradation! As our last general remark, we add, that Christ was glorious in his humiliation, through the fitness of that humiliation to accomplish the end for which he came into the world. God alone is capable of selecting the highest and most worthy end, and so pursuing it, as to justify and demand the means by which it is accomplished. Dark, and perfectly mysterious in some views, as the scene is which has been thus faintly exhibited, it is the heaven-devised arrangement of glorifying God in man’s redemption. Man’s redemption is God’s greatest work. For the wisdom that devised, and the love and power that effect it; for the greatness of its objects, and the extent and compass of the means by which they are attained; for the sin and misery it abolishes, the holiness and blessedness it secures and perpetuates; for the obstacles it surmounts, the enemies it vanquishes, the moral lessons it inculcates, and the augmenting exhibitions it furnishes of the manifested glory of the Godhead; it is God’s mightiest work. Of all that God himself has ever thought of, or ever accomplished, this is his greatest.

It was no ordinary Personage to whom the accomplishment of such a work was entrusted. It was not possible for any finite Being to make those progressive manifestations of the Deity who is infinite; nor was it just and right that in effecting man’s redemption, they should be made in any other way than by his humiliation unto the death of the cross. Nor is there one feature of it, from the treachery of Judas to the last cry on the cross, that could be dispensed with, and that is not worthy of the mighty sufferer. " It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." Expiatory suffering, vicarious satisfaction was emphatically the work to which he was devoted. And while he thus aims at man’s redemption, his very humiliation shows how man’s redemption itself is necessary to unfold the boundless resources and infinite all-sufficiency of that infinite Being who contains within himself the source of all things, and the manifestations of which produce all the forms of created good. Man’s redemption is subordinate to him, and accomplishes its object, only as it subserves his honor and glory, who is before all, above all, and incomparably more worthy than all.

It need not surprise us therefore that the means by which this high end is attained should be among " the deep things of God." Finite minds would never have thought of the humiliation of his son; but it was worthy of God; it existed for God; it speaks for God; it was full of God. And with what glory does this great truth invest this unequaled humiliation. It was a highborn thought, and worthy of a mind and heart like his that by his humiliation, God would be forever exalted in the salvation of men. Anointed and baptized in tears and blood as he was, he is glorious in this apparel. It was a wonderful humiliation — unutterably wonderful. But its language is, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and power, honor and blessing." How little would God have been exalted, but for his suffering Son! Where had been the conformity to him in this wicked world! What one faint ray of this divine resemblance had ever fallen on the minds of benighted men! How little had been known of him, except as a consuming fire? Who would have adored and praised him, and how silent the myriad of voices that now speak forth the honor of his name! Or rather how deep the wailing, and what tones of cursing and blasphemy would have assailed his throne, had they not been silenced at the cross! It was to turn aside this tide of wickedness and woe, and secure that ocean of praise to God and the Lamb, that the Sufferer of Calvary thus humbled himself to the death. How full of meaning are those words we have before recited, which, in the trouble and anguish of his soul, the Sufferer uttered. Father glorify thy name. This was the consummation he desired, and was ready to perfect even at the expense of those bitter agonies and that atoning blood. Glorious Saviour! glorious even in thy humiliation! I mourn and weep when I reflect upon the scoffs and insults that were cast upon him, and the painful and ignominious death he endured, and wonder that he did not blast his murderers by the breath of his mouth. Yet I love to think of them; I see him so glorious in them all, that I glory in a suffering Saviour. He would not have been so exalted, nor so glorious, but for these humiliations. Well may we glory in them, since the greater they were, the more is he honored.

We ask you to receive these truths, and pray that you may receive them under the anointings of his Spirit who has gone up to bleed no more, no more, no more to die. It is from such a reception that you must date the commencement of your religious hopes, your new and spiritual life, your eternal joy. Look, O ye, who love and adore him, at that bloody scene of your Redeemer’s humiliation. Dwell on it; it is a glorious scene. Bloody as it is, it greets you with smiles. Sweet voices are echoed from those dying groans; balmy breezes come across the desert, even from that " place of skulls." "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." Rich are the fruits that spring up from the soil that was watered by the Sufferer’s blood. It was indeed a fearful cup that he drank. " The curse of the law was on it. The wrath of God was on it. The loss of God’s presence and favor was on it." But he drank it, that you might never drink it. It cannot be that his followers should endure the curse, since he endured it for them, and in their place. O what a truth is this, and how precious does it make that glorious Saviour to them that believe! Give me Christ and poverty, rather than all the wealth of the world without him; Christ and a dungeon, rather than no Christ and a sceptre. I have borrowed this thought from another tongue. "Malem," says an ancient writer, " mori cum Christo, quam regnare cum Caesare. Pulchra terra, pulchrum coelum, sed pulcherrimus Dominus Jesus."

Look also, ye who have never loved and adored him, at that bloody scene of your Redeemer’s humiliation! Let the arrogance of human reason take heed how it becomes a scoffer at the suffering Nazarene. Let the vain confidence of the self-righteous take heed how it flatters itself that it has no need of him who is mighty to save. Let the pride of every unsubdued heart take heed lest its contempt be stirred up toward him who is worthy of all confidence and praise. Let unbelief, in all its forms, be ashamed that it is ashamed of Christ, be humbled that it doubts either his power or willingness to save; that it ever gives place to the thought that there is no hope in the bounty of his grace. There is ineffable tenderness in the appeal of his glorious humiliation. A suffering Saviour is the sinner’s refuge, the prisoner’s hope. Away with reasoning pride. Away with scoffing and thoughtlessness. Away with self-righteousness and obduracy. Away with fear and despondency. Away with wickedness. Take the gospel in its simplicity, and be no longer estranged from the suffering Son of God.