Word of Salvation – Vol. 45 No.40 – October 2000

 

God’s Only-begotten Son, The Suffering of Christ

 

Sermon by Rev MP Geluk

on Lord’s Day 15A (Q&A 37 Heid Cat)

Scripture Readings: Mark 15: 12-20; 2Corinthians 1: 3-7

Suggested Hymns: BoW 22A; 398; 206; 381:1, 5, 6, 7

 

Beloved in the Lord.

Following the order of the Apostles’ Creed, the Heidelberg Catechism goes from the birth of Christ to the suffering of Christ.

Among all the sufferers in the world, the Lord Jesus stands “as a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.”  These familiar words come from Isaiah 53 where Jesus’ suffering is described so graphically that you’d think the prophet was actually there in person at the foot of the cross.  But Isaiah lived some 700 years before Christ.  Yet, his prophecy is completely accurate, for when you read in the gospels about Jesus’ suffering, then it’s the way Isaiah described it.

We can only begin to understand suffering, of others and our own, when we see why Christ suffered.  So we have to understand the reason for Christ’s suffering.  But when we look to Jesus’ suffering, then we can’t help but notice that Scripture makes the suffering of Christ very unique.  So we need to look at that.  Then there is the matter of the completion of Christ’s suffering.  We’ll also have to see what that means.  We hear the Word of God, then, about THE SUFFERING OF CHRIST.

1.  The Reason for Christ’s Suffering

If we know anything about Christ, then we know that the reason for His suffering is the sin of mankind.  Christ suffered because of sin.  This is the witness of Scripture in many places.  Take Isaiah 53, for example.  Isaiah says: “…he was pierced for our transgression, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed…  The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

From such a Scripture passage we see that Christ experienced suffering because He became the sin-bearer and the Father looked upon the Son as the guilty One.  God who is altogether pure and holy and who cannot tolerate sin, made Christ His Son a Substitute for us and on His Son came down His righteous anger due to us.  God’s justice condemned Christ because He took on Himself our sin.

He thus saves the sinner from having to face God’s justice.  That sinner can be you and I, or anyone, when there is repentance of sin and faith in Christ as the Saviour.  Instead of you being the object of God’s wrath, you have become the object of His love and mercy instead.  The way is now open for God to see you as if you had never sinned.  You are forgiven and pardoned.

All that is the reason for Christ’s suffering.  Now most of you have heard this many times, but one or two facts are easily overlooked.  Isaiah 53 mentions that Christ’s sufferings brought us peace.  It resulted in us being healed.  It brought us life and justification.  Thus we see Christ’s suffering as being good and positive.  We are, of course, now looking at its results.

Suffering by itself is pain and anguish.  Suffering is where there is hate, conflict, and war – Northern Ireland, Algeria, the Middle East, Indonesia, etc.  Suffering is where there is tension, bitter quarrelling, strife and trouble.  Suffering is where there are wounds of various kinds, in body and mind.  Where there is no health, vitality and strength, but disease, weakness and deterioration through ageing.  And suffering is there where there’s no life but death.  So if suffering has a positive side, then we want to know what it is.

There was no sin in paradise, and therefore no suffering.  And on the new earth, which Christ will usher in at His coming again, there will be no suffering.  Suffering belongs to the time in between.  Suffering is of our time.  Suffering is the result of the world and its people having gone off the rails.  In a world where man has rebelled against God, ignored His wise commands, and put himself in the centre, there you find suffering.  Where the darkness of hell has pushed back the light of heaven, where falsehood has come in place of truth, lewdness in place of purity, lust in the place of love, rebellion in place of obedience, all that brings suffering.

But not all suffering is the direct result of sin.  The Christian believer who was dying of cancer had to be corrected when she feared that her cancer was God’s punishment for the sins she did in her life.  She had forgotten that Christ had already suffered for her sins.  Her illness was a sad fact of an imperfect world where disease and death continue to threaten life.  Some people are the innocent sufferers of the sins and foolishness of others.

The disciples were wrong when they suggested to Jesus that the man born blind had that condition because he had sinned, or his parents had sinned.  The Lord replied that neither he nor his parents were the cause of his blindness.  God had given him blindness for quite another reason (cf.Jn.9:1-3).  In his particular case, sin was not the reason.

Yet, when we face suffering, whether we experience it outwardly or inwardly, then in one way or another, we are looking at a creation gone from perfection to imperfection.  Frequently sin is the immediate cause, but not always.  Yet all suffering takes place in a world which has broken away from God.  And in one way or another, directly or indirectly, everyone faces the consequences.

Moreover, we know that the anguish, pain, disfigurement and distortion that suffering brings is not how things are supposed to be.  No one wants to say that paralysis, smashed bones, bitterness, grief, and death are the normal things.  Some may get used to it, but it’s still not the way life was meant to be.  We know that wholeness, peace, strength, and calmness, are the things we need and want, and to which we must return.

Now God so took pity on man’s brokenness and incompleteness that He sent Christ into the world and the Saviour suffered and died in order to bring us that wholeness.  He came to redeem us from our fallen state, to bring life where there is death, light where there is darkness, peace where there is war, and health where there is sickness.  On the cross Christ cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Forsakenness is suffering, and suffering is feeling forsaken.  And Christ stepped into our suffering and voluntarily became forsaken so that we could be accepted back into the fellowship of God.  He took away our curse that banished us from God’s presence.  He came to put man back into the kingdom of heaven.  To make crooked people complete and whole again.

We can be absolutely sure about this and we therefore should put our faith in Christ.  For look at all the miracles He did.  He made the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear, demons were cast out, and lepers were healed.  Why did Jesus do this?  To be a miracle worker?  To impress the crowd?  To please people?  No!  His miracles took place in order to prove that He was bringing an end to suffering.  Not all were healed then and not all are healed now.  But the signs are unmistakable.

The kingdom of heaven came on earth and Jesus mightily demonstrated what blessings He can give to those who enter His kingdom by the grace of God.  All suffering will not cease immediately.  But the fullness of the kingdom is on the way.  It will arrive when Jesus comes and then there will be no more death, crying, mourning, or pain any more.  In body and soul, outwardly and inwardly, all the children of the kingdom shall be complete, whole, perfectly sane, healthy and happy.  To bring us there, to that glorious destination, that’s the reason for Jesus’ suffering.

Now if you can’t see that, then all human suffering will remain a mystery.  Without faith in Christ all earthly suffering will end in eternal suffering in hell.  And hell is a place where suffering is deepest and fiercest.

2.  The Uniqueness of Christ’s Suffering

When we speak of the uniqueness of Jesus’ suffering, then we are saying that it was of a special kind.  We already mentioned that the Saviour came willingly from heaven to earth in order to end our suffering, and that makes it special.  All our human suffering cannot bring an end to our brokenness.  We cannot earn a reprieve with it.  Our suffering does not take our guilt away.  And yet, how people try to do just that.

In Bernard Shaw’s comedy, ‘Major Barbara’, there is a sad illustration of a man trying to regain peace of mind and acceptance by others by willingly inflicting suffering on himself.  The man, Bill Walker, hears that his girlfriend has been converted and has joined the Salvation Army.  Infuriated, Bill goes to the hostel to get her back.  He finds his way blocked by a girl on duty.

Bill, who has been drinking, begins to argue loudly with the girl to let him through and get his girlfriend out.  When she refuses, he grabs her by the arm and violently throws her to the ground.  An elderly lady tries to intervene but Bill smacks her in the face.  Grabbing the girl on the floor by the hair, he pulls her up, causing pain and screams.  He beats her with more blows and forces her to go and find his girl.  She sobbingly leaves and Bill is left standing in the entrance.

In the few moments he is alone, Bill begins to realise what he has done and guilt and shame start filling his mind.  Major Barbara finds him in this state where he has begun to feel bad about what he had done.  She skilfully makes Bill experience more guilt by making him see his brutality.  Stung and angry Bill yells at the Major to leave him alone.  But the Major persists and tells Bill that he is really struggling against God who is working on his conscience, trying to make a real man out of him and stop him from being a brute to defenceless women.

Not able to face up to the Major, Bill, in his stricken conscience, says he will go and get his own face bashed in by a professional boxer at the pub.  But the boxer refuses to be provoked and Bill returns to the hostel.  Major Barbara again confronts him, now with the poor girl at her side whom Bill had assaulted earlier.

Bill once more begins to rave and rant, but not getting anywhere finally tries to make up by offering to pay the girl some money for the pain he caused her.  The Major won’t have any of it and tells Bill he should be on his knees asking God for forgiveness.  Bill finally leaves, suffering in his guilt and feeling sorry for himself that his attempt to purge his guilt by getting bashed himself and then offering money did not work.  (From “The Mark of Cain” p.69ff).

The Bible’s message is that all our human suffering, either self-inflicted or coming on us uninvited, cannot bring an end to our brokenness.  We cannot purge ourselves with it.  Suffering came when man let go of God and only the Saviour can bring us back to God.

From the moment Christ entered our world, His suffering began.  We must not restrict His suffering to only what happened when He was crucified.  He suffered right through His life.  Time and again He was wounded in His heart and soul when people misunderstood His mission.  Jesus was often angered by the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of His day and many times their stubborn resistance to His teaching saddened Him.

He was deeply hurt when His closest disciples failed to realise why He had to go the way of the cross.  When He was close to the deepest point of His suffering His disciples could still argue about who was going to receive the highest honours in His kingdom.  And daily, during His ministry, the perfect Son of God was deeply moved by the sickness, pain, brokenness and death He encountered.  It saddened Him even more that when people were made whole, the Pharisees failed to be glad and excited; instead they argued endlessly about Jesus breaking their traditions.

But Jesus’ suffering was not just special because He suffered during his whole life on earth.  There is something else about His suffering that stands out.  You see, we have to stress its uniqueness because some people tend to view Jesus’ suffering as being much the same as that of other sufferers.  Some see Jesus as one who had high ideals, fought hard for a noble cause and suffered because not everyone appreciated Him.  So He suffered like any other crusader.  His was simply a martyr’s death, like so many others in history who were prepared to suffer and die for their cause.  But if Jesus is simply your choice of religious leader, as others may choose Mohammed or Buddha, or some guru passing through, then again, Jesus’ uniqueness is not understood.

What then is so special about Jesus’ suffering?  Well, He was the sacrificial Lamb that was slaughtered.  At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, John the Baptist had looked at Jesus and called out, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn.1:29).  Why did John refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God?  John was, of course, familiar, with the sacrificial system God had put in place among the Israelites.  Leviticus and Deuteronomy describe in great detail the precise way God wanted the sin offering slaughtered and laid out for burning on the altar.

And when the Old Testament covenant people of God held their Passover Feasts, then a special lamb was chosen for slaughter and the blood of that lamb indicated that the people were now shielded from God’s anger on their sin.  And then Isaiah the prophet was made to say that Jesus also was like a lamb that was slaughtered.  Willingly Jesus suffered and died, nor resisted the punishment that He suffered as He carried our sin.  You see, it’s the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, as a slaughtered lamb on the altar, that makes His suffering so unique, so special.  It took the extreme suffering of the cross to deliver us from our suffering.

In our human experience we have all known separation from God.  Sin, guilt, loneliness, grief, pain and sickness have brought suffering to us all, and in them we experienced a brokenness, a separation from a perfect life with God as it would have been had paradise not been lost.  But now Christ has stepped into our separation, into our brokenness.  The way He did it was as a lamb, sacrificed as an offering for sin.  For in one way or another it is the sin and the disobedience of man that has brought about the brokenness and separation, and with it comes the suffering.

But in Christ, God Himself has joined us in our suffering.  That makes His suffering unique, it was a payment for God’s wrath on sin.  All the consequences of all evil and separation from God came upon Christ, the sacrificial Lamb, and in Him we find healing to our despair.  For in Christ’s suffering and death the full extent of our sinfulness was paid for.

Human suffering can be deep but it would be a thousand times deeper if we ourselves were to suffer the full consequences of our broken relationship with God.  Hell must be that kind of place.  But when we hear and realise what God has done in Christ for sinners then faith is awakened and by believing in Christ we are saved from that most extreme form of suffering.  Christ’s sufferings were for us.  It is unique.  There is no parallel to be found anywhere.

You can’t, therefore, make Jesus’ cross a high point in human achievement, or an example of great courage.  It was never meant to be that.  Jesus’ suffering was for others, to save them from being forever forsaken by God.

3.  The Completion of Jesus’ Suffering

We do not mean by this that it is necessary for Christians to complete what Jesus already finished.  What Jesus did has fully satisfied God.  We don’t have to add a single thing to that.  Once we are forgiven and pardoned, then we no longer have to suffer for sin as if we were still guilty before God.  Purgatory, therefore, is a totally unbiblical idea.  Once we have been accepted into the fellowship of God, then we do not have to suffer as if we were not accepted.

So why, then, do God’s people still suffer?  Why not perfection now?  Why do we not now already enjoy the full blessings of paradise reclaimed?  The answer is that the kingdom of God has not yet come in full.  The kingdom came with Christ and it has come to everyone who believes in Christ.  But it will not come in full until all those who have chosen to be its citizens have been actually called into it.  Only when all the elect are saved, will this present world make way for the new heaven and earth.

But for as long as it still takes God to call to salvation those elect not yet saved, in that period of time the already saved people of God are called to complete the suffering of Christ – complete the Lord’s suffering in the sense of being willing servants of Him in the task of mission and evangelism; complete the Lord’s suffering in the sense of being a soldier of Christ in the on-going fight against sin and evil.

There are still sinners to be called to Christ and receive His salvation.  There are still battles to be fought in the struggle against the false claims of the devil.  That may bring suffering.  When you show God’s love to others you may meet with rejection, ridicule and opposition.  That’s the kind of suffering we are talking about.  Be joyful about it for you are helping Christ to complete His plan of salvation.  If in fighting sin and evil you experience persecution, then count it a joy, for you are being seen as Christ’s disciple.  He, too, confronted evil men and faced their hatred.

Suffering in the service of Christ can even bring pain and discomfort, as the Apostles found out as they sat in their prisons or faced death.  But they thought it a privilege to be counted worthy to suffer for the sake of Christ.  In the onward march of the all-conquering gospel of salvation, they rejoiced in being used by God in the fulfilment of His purposes.  In the toil and struggle they had to go through, they suffered with dignity and calmly relied on God.  They asked God to keep them from complaining, from only seeing the immediate discomforts.  They even knew that if they kept on seeing Jesus and the goals of His saving work – the salvation of all the elect and the full kingdom – then they could endure whatever suffering they faced.

Oh, Christian, do not avoid the trials that come with godly living, do not feel forsaken when trouble strikes, for God is making you ready to serve Him – yes, to be like Christ, to share in His suffering.  Be steadfast in the ways of righteousness and accept all that God gives you and does with you.  Even times of sickness and poverty will be used by God to show you off to others as to what peace a trusting believer may possess in difficult times.

Complete Christ’s suffering.  Be a willing co-worker of God as He gathers His chosen ones into His church.  Thus when you finally enter into His rest and enjoy the splendour and perfection of heaven, then you will be fully freed from all brokenness that was a part of this earthly life.  For Christ has suffered to end all suffering.

Amen.