Word of Salvation – Vol.33 No.09 – March 1988
The Suffering of Christ
Sermon by Rev. M. P. Geluk on Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 15
Reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; 2 Cor. 1:3-11
Singing: Ps.H.36; Ps.H.34; Ps.H.381; Ps.H.60
Congregation of the Lord,
Every time we say the words of the Apostles’ Creed we confess that Jesus Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, and died…!” With these words we just state the facts. In our more detailed confession, the Heidelberg Catechism we go beyond the fact of Jesus’ suffering. Here we try to say what His suffering means.
Suffering!
We people of the world are familiar with it. You probably can recall, like I can, the time when your father or mother was dying of cancer. Or when you were visiting someone in hospital and you saw some awful cases of people all smashed up because of a car accident, or having limbs amputated because of a disease. I cannot remember anymore when I first saw a deformed child but each time I do see such children, or mentally retarded children, then I am struck how different they are from a normal, healthy child. We know of so many different kinds of suffering people in psychiatric wards, refugees, the hungry, orphans, the destitute, the victims of broken marriages, etc. etc. The list is endless. The Lord Jesus also suffered. Among all the sufferers of the world He stands as a “man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering”. These words come from Isaiah 53 where Jesus’ suffering is described so graphically that you would almost think that the prophet Isaiah was actually there when it happened. But Isaiah lived some 700 years before Jesus’ suffered. Yet, his prophecy is completely accurate for when you read the Gospels it was exactly as Isaiah described it.
When we are faced with suffering then we all have asked why. When we see that terribly wasted form of the person dying from cancer, that young deformed body of a child, the fixed stare of the person battling with mental illness, then inside of us there is that cry of anguish. Why must it be like this? Why can’t there be normal health, wholesomeness, completeness, vitality, strength, and sanity? Well, I want to put it before you today that the whole question of human suffering can only be approached meaningfully in the light of Scripture, and especially from the standpoint of Christ’s suffering. I am well aware that the whole question of suffering is a very complex one but it’s when we see why Christ suffered that we begin to understand something of our own suffering. So we have to see the reason for Christ’s suffering. But when we look to Jesus’ suffering then we must very carefully note that Scripture makes the suffering of Christ very unique. Christ’s suffering does some very special things and it’s because of this that human suffering takes on a different meaning. And we will try to find out what that is when we speak of our completing Christ’s suffering.
So we hear the Word of God concerning: The Suffering of Christ.
- Its reason.
- Its uniqueness.
- Its completion.
1 In the first place, let us see the reason for the suffering of Christ.
If we know anything about Christ then we know that the reason for Christ’s suffering is the sin of mankind. Christ suffered because of our sin. We all know that. Ask our children as to why Christ suffered and they will quickly tell you that He suffered so that we can be forgiven of our sins. It’s what Scripture teaches.
Take Isaiah 53 for example. It says: “…he was pierced for our transgressions, 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… my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities… he bore the sin of many.”
The Catechism has drawn from many more Scripture passages and explains that: “Christ sustained in body and soul the anger of God against the sin of the whole human race…. This he did in order that by his suffering, he might get us free, body and soul, from eternal condemnation, and gain for us God’s grace, righteousness and eternal life.”
From Isaiah 53, and the other Scripture passages the Catechism summarized, we see that the purpose of Christ’s suffering was to bear our sins and the guilt of our sin. The Father looked upon the Son as the guilty one. Christ became the sin-bearer. Thus God who is altogether pure and holy and who cannot tolerate sin, made Christ His Son the substitute for our sin and on His Son came down His righteous wrath. Christ was on the receiving end of God’s justice. And He thus saves the sinner, who repents of sin and believes in Christ, from God’s justice. Instead of our being the object of God’s wrath, we have become the object of His love and mercy. Our sins are paid for by Christ’s blood. He suffered and died in our place. The way is open for God to see us as if we had never sinned. We are forgiven and pardoned.
All that is the reason for Christ’s suffering. Now you probably have heard all this many times before but one or two facts may be easily overlooked. Isaiah 53, for example, mentions that Christ’s sufferings brought us peace. It resulted in our being healed. It brought us life and justification. And the Catechism states that the suffering of Christ sets us free, body and soul, from eternal condemnation. The reason then for Christ’s suffering is to save man from eternal condemnation. It is to bring to man peace, healing, life and justification. Now isn’t suffering just the opposite of these? Where there is war, conflict and hate, that’s where suffering is. Absence of peace is suffering. When you experience amongst people, as in the family and in the nation, tensions, bitter quarrelling, strife and trouble, then you have suffering. Where there is no healing and wholesomeness but wounds and brokenness, there you have suffering. Where there is no health, vitality and strength, but disease, weakness and increasing deterioration through ageing, there is suffering. Where there is no life but death, there is suffering.
In Paradise, before sin came, there was no suffering. Upon the new heaven and new earth, which Christ will usher in at His second coming there will be no suffering. Suffering belongs to the time in between, our time. Suffering is the hallmark of a world and its people gone off the rails. In a world where man has rebelled against God, ignored His wise commands and put self in the centre instead of God, 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, rebellion in place of obedience, there you find suffering.
But not all suffering is the direct result of sin. The Christian lady who was dying from cancer had to be corrected when she feared that God was punishing her for her sins. There are many forms of suffering and some people are the innocent victims 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 had sinned. The man was blind for quite another reason. (cf. Jn.9:1-3). In his particular case sin was not the reason. Yet, when we face suffering, whether experienced outwardly or inwardly, then in one way or another we are looking at a creation gone from perfection to imperfection. Frequently sin is the cause but not always. Yet all suffering takes place in a world which has broken away from God. And in one way or another we suffer 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, and grief are the normal things. We know that wholeness, peace, strength, calmness are the things we want and to which we need to return.
God took pity on man’s brokenness and incompleteness and He sent Christ into the world and the Saviour suffered and died in order to bring us wholeness and restoration. He came to redeem us from our fallen state, to bring life where there was death, light where there was darkness, health where there was disease. Yes, to bring us back to God who is good, pure and righteous! 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. He came to put man back into the kingdom of heaven. To make man complete and whole again. We can be absolutely sure of this and therefore should put our faith in Christ. For look at all the miracles He did. He made the lame walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear, demons were cast out, lepers were healed, diseases cured. Yes, miracle upon miracle in order to prove that He was bringing an end to our suffering.
Not all were healed then and not all are healed now. But the signs are unmistakable. The kingdom of heaven will come on earth and all who are put in it will no longer suffer. There will be no more death, crying, mourning or pain anymore. In body and soul, outwardly and inwardly, we shall be complete, whole, perfectly sane, healthy and happy. To bring us there is the reason for Jesus’ suffering. If you can’t see and believe that, then all human suffering will remain. Without faith in Christ it will end in eternal condemnation. And hell is a place where suffering is deepest and fiercest.
- Let us now proceed from the reason for Jesus’ suffering to the uniqueness of His suffering.
When we speak of the uniqueness of Jesus’ suffering then we are saying that it was special. We already mentioned that Jesus came to earth from heaven to willingly suffer for us 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. Suffering came when man let go of God and only Christ the Saviour can bring us back to God. That was His mission when He came to earth. From the moment He entered our planet His suffering began. We must not restrict His suffering to 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 He was saddened by their stubborn resistance to His teaching. 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 people tend to view Jesus’ suffering as being much the same as that of others who suffer. Some see Jesus as someone who had high ideals, fought hard for a noble cause and suffered because not everyone was happy about what He did. So He suffered just like any other hero. 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 favourite champion, like others may see Mohammed or Buddha, or the latest guru, then again Jesus’ uniqueness is not understood.
What then is so special about Jesus’ suffering? Well, He was the sacrificial Lamb who 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? Well, John was of course familiar with the system of sacrifices God had demanded of His Old Testament people. The books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy describe the precise way the sin offering was to be slaughtered and laid out for burning on the altar. And when the covenant people of God in Old Testament times held their Passover feast, 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 sin. And Isaiah the prophet, in describing Jesus’ suffering, said that He was like a lamb that was slaughtered. Like a willing sheep Jesus suffered and died on the cross, not resisting the punishment that He suffered as He carried our sin.
You see, it is 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 all have known separation from God. Sin, guilt, loneliness, grief, pain, sickness – all are conditions in which we suffer – and in them we experience a brokenness, a separation from a perfect life with God as it would have been, had paradise not been lost. Now Christ has stepped into our separation, into our brokenness. The way He did it was as a lamb, sacrificed as a sin offering. 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 came 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 for our brokenness and despair. For in Christ’s suffering and death on the cross the full extent of our sinfulness was paid for.
Human suffering can be deep but it would be a thousand times deeper if man was to suffer the full consequences of his broken relationship with God. And I think hell must be that kind of place. But when we believe in Christ then we are saved from that most extreme form of suffering, for He suffered it for us when He endured the agony of hell. Christ’s sufferings were for us.
Jesus’ suffering during His life, and especially on the cross, is unique for you cannot find a parallel to it anywhere. You cannot just make Jesus’ cross a high point in human achievement, an example of great courage and heroism. It was never meant to be that. Jesus’ suffering was for others, to save them from being forever forsaken by God.
- Having considered the reason and the uniqueness of Jesus’ suffering, let us now finally turn to the completion of Jesus’ suffering.
We do not mean by this that it is necessary for Christians to complete what Jesus already finished. No, Jesus’ suffering is complete for us. It has fully satisfied God’s wrath on sin. Once we are forgiven and pardoned we no longer have to suffer as if that were not the case. Once we have been accepted into the fellowship of God 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 reason is that the full kingdom of God has not yet come. 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 been chosen to be its citizens are actually called into it. Only when all the elect are saved will this present broken world pass away and the new heaven and earth will be established. Now 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.
Completing the Lord’s suffering in the sense of being willing servants of Him in the task of evangelism and missions. Completing the Lord’s suffering in the sense of being a soldier of Christ in the ongoing fight against sin and evil. There are still sinners to be called to Christ and to be shown His salvation. There are still battles to be fought in order to resist the false claims of Satan and to prevent evil men from taking over. If in the work of showing God’s love to others you encounter hardship, ridicule and opposition, then in the suffering that it brings be joyful, for you are helping Christ to complete His work. If in fighting sin and evil you meet with persecution then count it a joy for you are being considered like your Master, Christ Jesus, who faced opposition when He confronted evil men.
Suffering in the service of Christ can also mean pain and discomfort, as the apostles found out as they sat in their prisons or faced death. But they considered 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 things at hand. They knew that if they kept on seeing Jesus, the goals of His saving work, the full kingdom awaiting them, the blessings of seeing sinners turn to God, then they could endure whatever suffering they faced in the present.
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 others what peace a believer may possess in difficult times when he trusts in God.
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 part of this earthly life. For Christ has suffered to end all suffering.
AMEN.