Mark 15:33-47

how truly and really our Lord Jesus Christ was made a curse for us, and bore our sins what honor our Lord Jesus Christ has placed on the grave, by allowing Himself to be laid in it.

— Mark 15:33-47

It would be useless to pretend to fathom all the depth of meaning which these words contain. They imply an amount of mental suffering, such as we are unable to conceive. The agony of some of God's holiest servants has been occasionally very great, under an impression of God's favor being withdrawn from them. What then may we suppose was the agony of the holy Son of God — when all the sin of all the world was laid upon His head — when He felt Himself reckoned guilty, though without sin — when He felt His Father's countenance turned away from Him? The agony of that season must have been something past understanding. It is a high thing. We cannot attain to a comprehension of it. We may believe it, but we cannot explain and find it out to perfection.

One thing, however, is very plain, and that is the impossibility of explaining these words at all, except we receive the doctrine of Christ's atonement and substitution for sinners. To suppose, as some dare to do, that Jesus was nothing more than a man, or that His death was only a great example of self-sacrifice, makes this dying cry of His, utterly unintelligible. It makes Him appear less patient and calm in a dying hour than many a martyr, or even than some heathen philosophers. One explanation alone is satisfactory. That explanation is the mighty scriptural doctrine of Christ's vicarious sacrifice and substitution for us on the cross. He uttered His dying cry, under the heavy pressure of a world's sin laid upon Him, and imputed to Him.

Let us observe, lastly, in these verses, that it is possible to be forsaken of God for a time, and yet to be loved by Him. We need not doubt this, when we read our Lord's dying words on the cross. We hear Him saying to His Father, "Why have you forsaken me?" and yet addressing Him as "my God." We know too, that our Lord was only forsaken for a season, and that even when forsaken He was the beloved Son in whom, both in His suffering and doing, the Father was "well pleased."

There is deep experimental instruction in this, which deserves the notice of all true Christians. No doubt there is a sense in which our Lord's feeling of being "forsaken" was peculiar to Himself, since He was suffering for our sins and not for His own. But still after making this allowance, there remains the great fact that Jesus was for a time "forsaken of the Father," and yet for all that was the Father's "Beloved Son." As it was with the Great Head of the Church, so it may be in a modified sense with His members. They too, though chosen and beloved of the Father, may sometimes feel God's face turned away from them. They too, sometimes from illness of body, sometimes from peculiar affliction, sometimes from carelessness of walk, sometimes from God's sovereign will to draw them nearer to Himself, may be constrained to cry, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

It becomes believers who feel "forsaken," to learn from our Lord's experience not to give way to despair. No doubt they ought not to be content with their position. They ought to search their own hearts, and see whether there is not some secret thing there which causes their consolations to be small. (Job 15:11.) But let them not write bitter things against themselves, and hastily conclude that they are cast off forever, or are self-deceivers, and have no grace at all. Let them still wait on the Lord, and say with Job, "Though he slays me, yet will I trust in him." (Job 13:15.) Let them remember the words of Isaiah and David, "Who is among you that fears the Lord — that walks in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disturbed within me! Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him." (Isaiah 50:10. Psalm 42:11.)

This is a fact that in a dying world we should always remember. It is appointed unto men once to die. We are all going to one place, and we naturally shrink from it. The coffin and the funeral, the worm and corruption, are all painful subjects. They chill us, sadden us, and fill our minds with heaviness. It is not in flesh and blood to regard them without solemn feelings. One thing, however, ought to comfort believers, and that is the thought, that the grave is "the place where they Lord once lay." As surely as He rose again victorious from the tomb, so surely shall all who believe in Him rise gloriously in the day of His appearing. Remembering this, they may look down with calmness into the "house appointed for all living." They may recollect that Jesus himself was once there on their behalf, and has robbed death of his sting. They may say to themselves, "the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law — but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. 15:56, 57.)

The great matter that concerns us all, is to make sure that we are spiritually buried with Christ, while we are yet alive. We must be joined to Him by faith, and conformed to His image. With Him we must die to sin, and be buried by baptism into His death. (Rom. 6:4.) With Him we must rise again and be quickened by His Spirit. Except we know these things, Christ's death and burial will profit us nothing at all.