Make His Soul Thy Sin-Offering

©To the cross He nails thine enemies — The law that is against thee, and the sins Of all mankind, with Him there crucified — Never to hurt them more, who rightly trust In this His satisfaction.” MILTON.

ISAIAH liii. 10.)

IT is strange, but it is true, that the saddest, darkest day that ever broke upon our world is destined to cure the sadness, and dissipate the darkness for evermore. It is to the passion of the Redeemer that loving hearts turn in their saddest, darkest, most sin-conscious hours to find solace, light, and help. It is for

this reason, doubtless, that Scripture lays such stress on the

wondrous cross; and that prophets and evangelists proceed with such deliberation to tell the story of that death, which is the death of death for all who understand its inner meaning. With what elaborate care the meaning of the cross is wrought out in the chapter under our consideration! As though to obviate the possibility of mistaking its meaning, we are reminded again, and yet again, that the death of the Divine Servant was no ordinary episode; but distinguished from all other deaths, from all martyrdoms and sacrifices, in its unique and lonely grandeur — the one perfect and sufficient sacrifice and oblation for the sins of the whole world. Every form of expréssion is used to accentuate the thought, that its excessive agony was not the symptom of special sin on the part of the Sufferer, as the superficial spectator might be disposed to think; but that He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, stricken with our stripes, and involved in the penalty which we deserved.

The prophet’s thought will become apparent, if we notice, first, the common lot of man; then the one point in which the experience of Jesus was unique; and, lastly, apply the sentiment of the text to our own experience.

I. THE.CoMMON Lot oF MAN. — It may be summed up in three words — suffering, sin, death. (1) Suffering. Nature is fair, but her gladdest scenes lightly cover the suffering that pervades ocean and land. In the woodland glade, where spring has scattered her first wild flowers, you may detect the scream of the rabbit captured by the stoat. From the blue summer sky the eagle swoops down on the pasture lands. The placid surface of the mere is ruffled by the struggles of the minnow to escape the pike. Nature groans and travails in pain; much more human life.

The boys and girls with their merry laugh and frolic to-day, will to-morrow be bending over the cradle where the wee babe is dying; or presently bearing the stern discipline which seems an inevitable part of human destiny. You cannot traverse a street without hearing an infant’s wail, or visit a home on which there is no shadow. Sooner or later each man has to say, Either I must master or be mastered, either I must vanquish or succumb, in this bitter conflict with the mysterious, all-pervasive, impalpable, yet deadly antagonist, suffering — pain — sorrow unto death. “Man is born to sorrow, as the sparks fly upward.” That was the reflection of the wise pensive East, centuries before the wear and tear of modern life began.

(2) Siz. We all know this also — the sense of sin, of discord, of distance and alienation from God. Behind all our suffering we feel there is a secret, which somehow explains and accounts for it. We have scorned and perverted that which was right. We have done things we ought not, or left undone things we ought to have done. Men try to evade this consciousness of sin. They plunge into affairs, travel from land to land, go far afield in search of adventure and ceaseless change, give themselves up to gaiety and dissipation. In fact, they are ever eluding the fixed sad gaze of conscience, and adopting any subterfuge which promises a moment’s cover. But it comes back again and again. The prophet-voice arraigns us; the inerrant sleuth-hound runs us down. “Thou art the man!”

This sense of sin has covered the world with altars, temples, and churches. Wherever men are found, some religious rite betrays the heavy sense of sin, which is prepared to give rivers of oil or flocks of sheep, yea the very fruit of the body, to stay the gnawings at the heart.

(3) Death. The conscience of man connects sin and death by an inevitable sequence. Prior to the writing of the Epistle to the Romans, the older scripture of human experience and observation asserted that death had passed upon all men, for that all had sinned. For this cause, we can never get reconciled to death. Call it by euphemistic titles; talk of it lightly as a transition, a passage, an exodus; speak of the victory which Jesus Christ achieved when He abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light — still we can never dissociate from death the idea of the sin, except for which it need not have been: “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.”

These three are inevitable factors in human life.

II. THE NOTABLE EXCEPTION OF THIS CHAPTER. — The Divine Servant presents a notable exception to the lot of man; not in his sufferings, for He was “a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief”; nor in his death, for He died many deaths in one (9, R.V., marg.); but in his perfect innocence and goodness. ‘He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.” Let us consider this, and the conclusion to be derived from it. There is sorrow in this chapter, as in all the world. The marred face tells a true tale; for the turbid

streams of unknown sorrows have poured into the Sufferer’s heart, until it has brimmed to high-water mark. Despised and rejected, wounded and bruised, led to the slaughter and cut off from the land of the living, amid degradation and cruelty, the Divine Servant has passed through every painful experience; has drunk to its dregs every cup; has studied deeply every black-lettered volume in the library of pain.

In his case, at least, man’s hastily-formed conclusions are falsified. Generally we pass from singular suffering to discover its cause in some hidden or remote transgression. ‘ Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Untold anguish has been inflicted through the indiscriminate application of this method. Myriads, like Job, have winced, as the probing knife, wielded by unsympathizing hands, has searched the most secret passages of life to discover where the wrong lay that was being avenged. And the sufferer has been made to fear lest he had been unwittingly guilty of an offence against the Infinite God, which could only be expiated by the infliction of excessive chastisement.

In the case of Jesus Christ, however, this explanation of his unique sufferings was altogether at fault. His life was searched with microscopic care, to discover a single flaw to justify his condemnation. The most secret passages of his intercourse with his disciples and friends were ransacked by the keen eye of the traitor, with the object of discovering an excuse for his dark deed. But all was in vain. Pilate and Herod asserted his absolute faultlessness. Finally, He, who of all men was most humble and meek, bared his life to the world with the challenge He knew could never be taken up, “Which of you convinceth Me of sin?” Another explanation must, therefore, be forthcoming to account for the sufferings of the innocent and spotless Saviour.

This explanation lay hid, as a secret concealed in a hieroglyph, in the vast system of Levitical sacrifice, which foreshadowed the “offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Year by year, myriads of innocent and spotless victims surrendered their lives prematurely, their life-blood flowing freely for no fault of theirs, but on account of the sins of those who brought them to the altar of God. To the most casual observer, and altogether apart from the disclosures of the Epistle to the Hebrews, it was clear that their sufferings were altogether due to sins not their own. This was a light on the one act of Calvary (Rom. v. 8).

Does not the father suffer for his son, as he strips himself to penury to pay his profligate debts? Does not the physician suffer for the sins of others, when he is stricken down in his effort to rescue another from the incidence of disease caused by violating the elementary laws of health? Have not thousands perished in rescuing others from fire and flood? Such actions as these illustrate, though very imperfectly, that of the sinless Saviour pouring out his soul unto death.

So, under the Divine guidance, men were led from the conclusions of verse 4 to those of verse 5. Instead of accounting Christ as stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, they came to see that He had borne their griefs, carried their sorrows, and died for their sins; that He was the Lamb of God, taking away the sins of the world: that his death was the voluntary substitution of Himself for a world of transgressors. These conclusions, expressed here as the verdict of the human conscience, after scanning the facts in the light of history, are confirmed and clenched by the unanimous voice of the New Testament: “He was made sin for us, though He knew no sin.” “Through His one act of righteousness, the free gift came unto all men to justification of life.”

This is the great exception which has cast a new light on the mystery of pain and sorrow. It may be that there is other suffering, which, in a lower sense and in a smaller measure, is also redemptive, fulfilling Divine purposes in the lives of others; though no sufferer is free from sin as Christ was, and none has ever been able to expiate sin as He. None can ransom his brother’s soul.

III. THE PERSONAL APPLICATION OF THESE TRUTHS. — “Thou must make his soul a’ guilt-offering” (R.V., marg.). This term, “guilt-offering,” occurs in the Book of Leviticus.” If a man committed a trespass in the holy things of the Lord, he was directed to select and bring from his flock a ram without blemish. This was his gwz/t-ofering — the word used here. He was to make a money restitution for his offence; but the atonement was made through the ram. “The priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt-offering, and he shall be forgiven” (Lev. v. 1-16).

Similarly, if a man sinned against his neighbour, either in oppressing him or withholding his dues, or neglecting to restore property which had been entrusted to him, he was not only to make restitution, but to bring his guilt-offering to the Lord — a ram without blemish out of the flock — and the priest made an atonement before the Lord, and he was forgiven concerning whatsoever he had done to be made guilty thereby (Lev. vi. 1-7).

Is there one of us who has not committed a trespass and sinned in the holy things of the Lord? Failures in fulfilling his sacred commissions; in yielding time and thought to the cultivation of his holy friendship; in maintaining inviolate the temple of the soul — these come to mind and stop our mouths, so that we stand guilty before God.

Is there one who has not failed in his obligations to neighbour and friend? .Even if we have not failed in those specific instances named in the old law; even if our conscience does not accuse us of oppression, or withholding dues, or neglecting to restore — still there may have been serious defalcations from the standard of perfect love. It is so easy to say some contemptuous word which robs another of his meed of honour; or to be silent when we ought to speak in defence and vindication of those who are wrongfully accused. Moses taught that this was sin not against man only, but against God. Restitution was to be made to the one; but an atonement had also to be made to Jehovah. Did not this lead David to cry, when his sin had robbed Uriah’s home of its choice jewel, “Against Thee, Thee

only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight”?

How certainly we need to present the guilt-offering! If in his dimmer light the Jew felt his need, how much more we, who know that every sin is not only a mistake but a crime, violating the eternal law of righteousness, and bringing an inevitable penalty, unless it be intercepted and averted by the interposition of another. Explain it how we may, it is a fundamental fact in our inner consciousness, that the sense of sin points to the bar of eternal justice, summons us there, and threatens that we shall not go till we have paid the uttermost farthing. Then we look around for a daysman, a mediator, for one who will not only plead our cause before that high tribunal, but who: will interpose to avert the deserved penalty by receiving it into His own bosom. It is at such times that we make His soul an offering for sin.

When the weight of remembered sin presses thee to the earth; when awful sorrow calls to remembrance the almostforgotten sins of early years; when the search-light of God’s truth shines clear into the dark cave of the soul, revealing the evils that lurk there, as slimy things under the covert of thick darkness; when some terrible fall has mastered thee; when perpetual failure makes thee think that forgiveness is impossible — then approach the mercy-seat, where the uncreated light shines between the cherubim, and make His soul an offering for sin. He poured it out unto death; do thou pour it out unto life.

There is no mention made of the necessity of summoning priestly aid. This is the more remarkable, when we consider the strict Levitical system in which Israel was cradled. It would seem that in the great crisis of its need, the soul of man reverts to an earlier cult, and goes back beyond the elaborate system of the temple to the practice of the patriarchal tent, where each man acted as his own priest, and offered the guilt-offering with his own hand. No third person is needed in thy transactions with God. Jesus is Priest as well as Sacrifice. There is no restriction to thine approach; no barrier against thine intrusion; no veil to be passed by the initiated few. The way into the holiest is made manifest; enter, and make his soul an offering for thy sin.

To do so is to secure peace. The proof of the truth of the Gospel is to be found in the absolute rest which overspreads the soul which avails itself of its provisions, and adjusts itself on its strong and steadfast principles. Let a man believe in Jesus Christ — not about Him, but zz Him; not in his death, but in Him who died and rose again — and he will be instantly conscious of a peace that passeth understanding, arising from the depths of his nature, and overspreading it like an evening calm. The peace of the world is from without and superficial; the peace of God is from within and is all-pervading. If thou wouldst have that peace, make his soul an offering for sin.

In that peace much else is included. Sorrow is not banished from the life, but it becomes radiant with light; suffering is borne with a new resignation and fortitude; pain is welcomed with the blessed conviction that it may have a redemptive quality which shall operate somehow, somewhere; and death is contemplated without alarm. Thus from the darkest day that ever dawned upon our world, have come rays of hope and joy which are ushering in the world in which there is no night, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor pain, nor death; and where God shall wipe the tears from all faces, and destroy the covering cast on all nations.

And that darkest day in the experience of our blessed Lord has won for Him a revenue of gladness, which can never be exhausted: for as each new soul steps up and makes Him its sin-offering, and as the blessed harvest of his tears and blood is reaped by individuals and worlds, He sees his spiritual seed, He finds a multiplication of his life, He realizes that the scheme of redemption, which is also the pleasure of his Father, is prospering in his hands.