The Suffering Christ

by D.J. Kerr, Barrhead | Category: General | May 1968

"He was despised, and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53.3).

There is no doubt that Jesus Christ was Man. He was also God. This unique combination should not conjure up in our minds the idea of a Person who was part man and part God. Neither is it correct to think of Him as sometimes Man and sometimes God. Scripture shows that Jesus Christ was always truly Man and at the same time was very God (John 4.6-14).

In thinking, then, of the sufferings of Christ there could be a tendency to think that in some way, because of His God-nature, these sufferings might have been less real. He could have chosen to be immune from pain as were the three men in the furnace (Daniel 3.27), or to be, like Samson, physically superior to others (Judges 16.3). But Christ did not choose to be like any of these. He was Man in every sense of the word, except in relation to sin. In Him was no sin (1 Peter 1.22).

Among men there are varying circumstances and experiences. The Lord could have been born into the lap of luxury like Rehoboam, a wealthy king's son, or could have chosen to enter humanity in the prime of life like Adam. Neither case would have fulfilled God's purposes. The background and upbringing of Christ were such that no other persons could think of themselves as vastly underprivileged in relation to Him-born in a stable, into a poor family, in a land overrun and occupied by an enemy power. In such a background we now think of Him as "Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief".

All men know sorrow at one time or another. There are different kinds of sorrow. There is the sorrow that Jacob had when he said, "Then shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave" (Genesis 42.38). This was the sorrow of affliction in mourning over the loss of a loved one. The Lord Jesus knew this type of sorrow in His earthly life, as in the case of Lazarus. But the "sorrows" of Isaiah 53.3 go much deeper than this. They were the sorrows of affliction in personal pain. The LORD said of the sorrows of the children of Israel, that He had seen their affliction, heard their cry, and knew their sorrow (Exodus 3.7). One thinks of Calvary as the climax to the Saviour's sorrow. From earliest years He was destined to this. The prophetic scripture had said, "Many a time they have afflicted Me from my youth up" (Psalm 129.1), 50 even in the quiet years of Nazareth, Christ had His share of sorrow. At Calvary, however, His sorrows reached such an intensity that He might have cried with Jeremiah, "See if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow" (Lamentations 1.12).

Christ was a Man of sorrow, but more than that He was acquainted with grief. Grief and sorrow are not exactly the same in this instance. Grief sometimes means sadness or bitterness as in the case of Hannah when she poured out her complaint to Eli (1 Samuel 1.16). It was out of the abundance of her sadness that she spoke. The grief of Christ was not simply sadness. It was the grief of pain or weakness which is normally associated with disease and sickness. While it appears that Christ was not subject to physical disease yet there was a very real sense in which He "took our infirmities and bore our diseases" (Matthew 8.17). As we consider again the climax of Calvary and Christ's grief in anticipation of what it involved, the outward physical evidences of His agony in. the garden indicate that He was affected by grief as we are. Job in his grief reached the limit of endurance. All men are restricted in this way, we have a breaking-point beyond which we cannot go. Some can stand more pain than others but in due course the limit is reached. Only the Saviour could have withstood the intensity of the evil treatment He received. He had no breaking point, and in vain did man provoke His spirit.

Thousands of His people were against Him in mockery and ridicule, added to which was the intense physical pain which we would not attempt to describe. Under less provocation the two thieves were venting their wrath upon Him as an outlet for their distress. They had passed breaking-point-but not He. He absorbed all the pain and affliction without retaliation, "When He was reviled, He reviled not again" (1 Peter 2.23). It is not surprising that so impressed was the centurion that he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God" (Mark 15.39).

As we think about the sorrows and griefs of the Saviour our appreciation deepens when we learn that they were really our sorrows and griefs, for Isaiah also wrote, "Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows" (Isaiah 53.4). In the eternal state it may please God to reveal to us more what the sufferings of Christ involved. In the meantime it is our responsibility to render praise and worship for the majestic provision of the Man who for our sakes was "a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief".

D.J. Kerr, Barrhead | May 1968
General