The Surety's Baptism
“I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished !;’ — Luke xii. 50
In this awful utterance of our Substitute, as he looked forward to the cross, we have, —
1. A longing for the baptism. He desired its accomplishment. He knew the results depending on it, and these were so divinely glorious, so eternally blessed, that he could not but long for it, — he could not but be straitened till it was accomplished. The cup was inexpressibly bitter, but the recompence for drinking it was so vast, that he could not but long for the hour when it should be put into his hands. Just as he said at another time, “With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer;” so here he says, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”
2. The consciousness of fear and bitter anguish in contemplating it. He was truly man, both in body and soul. As man he shrunk from pain, he was weighed down with burdens, he was subject to sorrow; he looked on death as his enemy, and he made supplication with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death. His utterances in the Psalms are the fullest intimation of his feelings in these respects. Thus lie cries, “Rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions;” “0 Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure; for thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.”.. “My heart is sore pained within me, and the terrors of death are fallen upon me: fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and terror hath overwhelmed me.”.. u Save me, 0 God, for the waters are come in unto my soul; I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying; my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.” Such are the utterances of his human soul under the pressure of its infinite sorrows. He did not shake off the burden, yet the weight was intolerable. He did not refuse the cup, yet its gall and wormwood were such as to wring from him many an awful cry. He did not turn back from the anguish, or the darkness, or the death, yet he speaks as one overwhelmed with the very thought of them.
If, then, his humanity was thus proved to be true and real, altogether like oar own, in everything save sin, how true and real must have been those sorrows which thus agonized that holy yet true humanity! His burdens were all real; his pangs were all real; his terrors were all real, as were his hunger and his thirst. — real as was his death upon the Roman cross, or his burial in Joseph’s tomb. His divine nature did not relieve him of one grief,. or make his sufferings mere shadows. It fitted him for being filled with more sorrow than any man could be. It conferred on him an awful, we may say a divine, capacity of endurance, and so made him the subject of sharper pain and pro founder grief than otherwise he could have been. So far from his suffering less truly, or to a less degree, because he was the Son of God, he was, in that very way, made capable of an amount of bodily and mental agony of which, as a mere man, he could not have been susceptible.
And as the sorrow was thus all real, — increased, not lessened by his Godhead, — so was his substitution for us as real. “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.” His endurance of our penalty was as true as was his partaking of our sorrow. It was “the chastisement of our peace that was on him.” The more that we contemplate this his suffering, his baptism, the more will the whole reality of his sin-bearing work appear. He, “his own self, bare our sins, in his own body, on the tree.”
3. The straitening in regard to its aceornplishment. Like Paul, he was in a strait between things which pressed in opposite ways, and which must continue to press till the work was done.
(1.) He was straitened between the anticipated pain, and the thought of the result of that pain. How fully was this feeling brought out in that remarkable passage recorded by the Evangelist John (xii. 27), “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name.” Here was the straitening expressed in our text; the same straitening that we find again in the scene of the garden agony.
(2.) He was straitened between grace and righteousness. Till the great sacrifice was offered, there might be said to be conflict between these two things. The reconciliation was not actually accomplished between them. Mercy and truth had not yet met together; righteousness and peace had not yet kissed each other. Between his love to the sinner and his love to the Father there was conflict; between his desire to save the former and his zeal to glorify the latter there was something wanting to produce harmony. He knew that this something was at hand, that his baptism of suffering was to be the reconciliation; and he pressed forward to the cross, as one that could not rest till the discordance were removed, — as one straitened in spirit till the great reconciliation should be effected. “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”
Such was the baptism of the Son of God, and such the straitening of spirit, till it was accomplished. It Yvlas infinite suffering to which He looked forward; suffering from which his soul would naturally shrink; yet he could not rest, till the life- time’s endurance had been completed, and the great work done. He pressed forward in the. path of suffering, nor did he stay, till he had reached its end. The spirit was willing, though the flesh was weak.
And now, as the result of this accomplished baptism, we have forgiveness and salvation proclaimed to us. He has finished transgression, made an end of sin, brought in everlasting righteousness, made reconciliation for iniquity. No second baptism like his is needed now. The one baptism has done the work. No second cross requires to be erected on some new Golgotha. His one cross has completed the great propitiation, and brought redemption to the captive. No second death can be demanded now, by law or righteousness. The one death of the Prince of Life has secured for us the everlasting life, which no other death could have done. The knowledge of this one baptism, this one cross, this one death, is all we need to put us in possession of forgiveness and life, of righteousness and glory.
What, then, remains for us but that we enter into his rest, reaping what he has sown, and gathering fruit from the vine which he has planted? So complete is the Father’s testimony to the accomplished baptism of his Son, the finished work of the Substitute, that, in receiving that testimony, we receive the full measure of blessing purchased for us by that baptism and death,
Nor are the results of this bloody baptism of the Son of God limited or temporary. The whole earth is yet to share them. The eternal ages are yet to know them. There come, no doubt, first the sword, the discord, the persecution, and the fire. All these have been doing their work on earth, and shall do so, yet for a little season. But ere long the sword shall go through earth for the last time; division shall disturb its peace for the last time; persecution shall seize its victims for the last time; the fire shall be kindled for the last time. And then shall come the peace, and the love, and the holiness. Then shall come the deliverance of creation, the reign of peace, the kingdom of glory, the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Then shall He see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. Then shall He reap the fruit of his awful baptism. That baptism will not then seem too bitter or too terrible, when its issue shall be seen to be so glorious and eternal. Nor will the time then seem to have been too long, even though the kingdom should be deferred for many a day; seeing there is to be so infinite a compensation for the sickness of hope deferred, and so blessed a termination of the long, long ages of delay.