Christ Bearing Our Sins

1 Peter 2: 24.

*Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.”

As soon as this text is pronounced, the hearer is aware that it is not a singular dedaration of Scripture, but one of a very numerous class. It also speaks a doctrine, which is woven into the very texture of our common Christianity; so that he can scarcely be esteemed other than an infidel, who denies that Christ died for us. It is a doctrine also, which enters into the very vitals of experience, and furnishes the great resting-place of faith. And, what is especially proper to be observed this day, is the truth of all others which we are comino- to celebrate, at the holy Table. Yet it must be acknowledged with i)ain, that it is more easy to profess it in a form oi* sound words, than to believe it; and that it Las been so altered, and diminished and shorn of its genuine dignity and proj)ortions, that we often need to re-examine its meaning, and reassert the foundations of our faith. This particular doctrine, the most precious of all to the pious soul, h.-is been most vehemently impugned, until we find even professors of orthodox Christianity, yielding to the influence of surrounding error, and gradually surrendering all that is essential in the idea of Atonement. — It was a favourite tenet with the Reformers, and continued long to hold its place in all sound orthodox churches. But in our own day, there is a manifest tendency to explain away its import, and to concede undue force to the objections of opponents. These objections have in many instances been aimed at opinions charged upon us, which we do not hold; at exaggerations, perversions, and even caricatures of the truth: and all the changes have been rung on the terms Imputation, Satisfaction, and Substitution; as if these had been found chargeable with inherent injustice or absurdity. The very first thing, therefore,

which we should attempt, is to clear away

certain mists, which have been conjured up

around the Scriptural statement. — Let us,

then, in the way of negation, state briefly

what we do not mean, by Christ’s bearing

our sins.

I.

1. When we assert that Christ bore our sins, we do not mean that he was a sinner. It is a glorious truth, which shines bright on the inspired pages, that ‘4n him was no sin.” “He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.” “He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and seyarate from sinners.” He is by way of eminence, ^’ Jesus Christ the righteous.” Only as such could he ever have cleared away our guilt. Being born by a miraculous intervention, he came into the world infinitely exempt from the lejDrosy of our race. He was hovered over by temptation: but there was in him no original taint, on which temptation could alight. His nature was human, but not peccable. He was as pure as the first Adam, and infinitely more secure. That ‘holy thing’’ which was born f the

Blessed Virgin, was destined never to admit the tarnisli of one sinful compliance. Against a life-long tempest of solicitation, that heavenly Will opposed itself, with the resistance of an infallible constancy. In no sense therefore do we maintain, that the Son of Grod was ever, even for an instant, partaker of our corruptions. He bore our sins, without bearing their power or their pollution. Of their vileness and lawlessness his sacred chaste and lovely soul had no exyerience. And the allegation is one which we reject as nothing short of calumny.

2. When we say that Christ bore our sins, we do not mean that he suffered pain of conscience. Remorse is the necessary consequence of sin, and j)art of its punishment. It is involved in the curse of the law, and in the penalty, which is death; and fearfully is it experienced by transgressors. But He who knew no sin, could know no repentance, no contrition, no personal regrets, no anguish of guilty self-accusation. It was a part of the penalty which flowed directly from personal iniquity, and was inseparable from conscience of the same. In its nature it can oe visited only on the personally offending member. The very holiness, the very Divinity of the Kedeemer forbade that he should drink this bitter ingredient in the penal cup. He could suffer unto weariness, unto shame, unto fear, unto anguish, unto death — but not unto remorse. Even in Gethsemane, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful, and on the cross, when he pierced heaven with his imploring cry, he could no more suffer compunction of conscience, than he could speak falsehood, or blaspheme. We do, therefore, in the face of our adversaries, protest that the Lord Jesus Christ experienced no pang of conscience.

3. We do not mean, that Christ was at any time personally displeasing to God. He bore the wrath of God, but he bore it representatively. The sinner, as such, is infinitely hateful to the holy God, who abhors and detests every measure of his iniquity: he is under his wrath and curse, and liable to the consequences of his unutterable displeasure. But when the Son of God assumed the place of the sinner, he did not, as we have seen, assume any of his unholy taint. In his own person, he was infinitely pure; and it was necessary for him so to be, in order to be the Saviour. What he did, in his humihation, was what God assigned to him to do. When he was made a curse for us, it was because it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He never was more pleasing to God, he never was more righteous, he never was more acceptable and lovely, he never was more intensely and immeasurably fulfilling the will of God, than when he cried JEU^ Eli lama sahacthani! If this exclamation has a difiiculty, it is a difficulty for the adversaries of substitution: let them explain it. For our part, we hold it to be an awfully mysterious expression of the truth, that at that moment of darkness and earthquake, Jesus Christ was so involved in the consequences of our sin, as to sink under the sense of agony, and to feel the absence of all consoling divine influence. But while angels stooped to look into these things, they might have heard from the invisible throne, the words of infinite complacency: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased!’’ The all-holy

Jehovah cannot hate holiness, and could not hate his only- begotten Son, in the exercise of the sublimest holiness which the universe has known. We hold fast to the great and precious truth, that never for a single moment was the Mediator displeasing to his Father in heaven.

4. When we say that Christ bore our sins we do not mean that there was any transfer of personal character. Let it be observed, that the chief strensth of our

7 O

oyposers lies in this fallacy. They charge us with maintaining a transfer of personal attributes, and moral qualities, and easily triumph over the phantom which they have raised. We, as well as they, hold such a transfer to be impossible and absurd: and (be it declared for the thousandth time) it is no such thing which we mean by the imputation of our sin to Christ. Our sins must ever remain our sins and the sins of no one else, as a matter of fact, as a historical verity, as a personal transaction. As deeds, and as connected with sinful motives and desires, they attach to our own persons, and are to be repentcvl oP, and eternally remembered by us as our own. And, on the other hand, Christ’s acts and sufferings, as matter of fact and history, are and cannot but forever be, his own acts and sufferings, and those of no other being in the universe. There is no confounding of personality, nor has such a thing ever been maintained by our theologians, though assiduously and pertinaciously charged, during at least two centuries. We hold indeed an intimate and blessed union between the Head and the members; we hold that our sins were visited on him, and that his lighteousness enures to our benefit, but we repudiate all such commingling of personality as this imagined tenet would convey. — Having therefore settled this preliminary and negative part, we are prepared to come more directly to the state of the question, by declaring, positively, what we mean when we assert that Christ hore our sins: it is the second branch of the discourse.

1. The Lord Jesus Christ hore our nature. It was the all-essential prehminary to his whole work. To be our Head, he became bone of our bone. “The Word was made fl(3sli.” It is the greatest and the most precious of mysteries. He passed by the nature of angels, and took the seed of Abraham. It was necessary to his humiliation. Manhood was demanded, in order that he might suffer, since as God he could not suffer. He was made in the likeness of flesh, and appeared in fashion as a man. And in this descent, he took upon him a humanity, which, though sinless, was so far allied to sin as to have all its infirmities, and all its capacities for pain. Never, I suppose, since the creation, was there a human soul or body so capacious of pain, so sensible of distress, so susceptible of the extremes of agony. The ‘’man Christ Jesus” was not the heroic, blissful man of Eden, but one tempted in all points as we are, sin only excejDted. It was part of his mediatorial humbling and subjugation, that he was “very man;” and it was a prerequisite to all which followed, that he should be capalle of painful endurance and of death. God cannot die; and when the God-man, Jesus Christ died, it was only the human nature, which felt

182 CIIlllST BEARING OUR SINS.

the pang, drank up the suffering, and experienced tie dissolution.

2. Christ actually endured pain. By pain we include all, whether mental or bodily, that is opposed to ease and happiness. It was in this way only that he could bear our sins. It was not now and then, that he was so humbled; but all his life Ions:, till his cross. He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; that is, the fellow, the companion, the familiar of Grief. Sorrow, like a shadow, was always at his side, till he entered into the shadow of death. Time would not allow us to particularize the pains and sorrows of Gethsemane, Jerusalem and Calvary. Every step was marked with tears and blood. Weariness, exhaustion, sighing, shame, exquisite pangs of body, unutterable darkness and anguish of soul, characterized the scene, and filled the cup to the brim. Follow the Son of God, from the table to the garden, from the garden to the high-priest — to Pilate — to Herod — to Golgotha — and you will need no arguments to prove to you that he was a sufferer. Indeed this is one of the points, about which there is no dispute. Those who even deny his divinity, agree with Christians that he was a great Martyr, and therefore a great sufferer. And all who cleave to the least measure of gospel-truth acknowledge that these sufferings were in some way or other for our benefit, and are included in the meaning of the text, whatever else be excluded. Thus far, therefore, in our journey towards the cross of Christ, our adversaries bear us company: but now our paths begin to diverge: for it must be added

3. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered for our sins. It is one of those truths which lie on the very surface of the Scriptures, and which must be twisted into violent metaphor, before it can be robbed of its meaning. To give but a few instances: Is. 53 “He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities” — Rom. 5:6. “Christ died for the ungodly.” — 1 Cor. 15: 3. “Christ died for our sins.” 1 Thes. 5:10. ‘^ Who died for us.” — Hom. 6:10. “In that he died — he died unto sin, once.” 1 Pet. 2:21. “Christ suffered for us.” 3:18. “Christ hath once suffered for sins.” 4:1. ‘’ Christ liatli suffered for us in the flesh.”

You know how easily we could multiply similar 23assages. What we are now to remark in tkem, is, first, that they declare, that Christ’s sufferings were for us, and secondly, that they were for our sins. A friend, a father, a husband, a sister, may suffer, and yet not for us; or these beloved ones may suffer for us, and yet not for our sins. But the suffering of Jesus stands out with this striking peculiarity, that it is always represented as being, not only for our sakes, but for our sins. This has been the concurrent voice of all Christendom which deserves the name. We almost insult the language of the Holy Ghost, to deny it. Ancient and modern believers, the learned student and the unlettered hin<l, have read the words alike; and the text declares the same humbling yet exalting truth, that he “bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” What is true of other sufferings is eminently true of his death. It was the lowest point of descent; it was the last suffering he could endure; it was the greatest suffering; it was that which sinners most dread. The tree, therefore, the cross, is taken as the sum, the representative, the symbol, of all the complicated endurance.

It is hard to conceive how any honest inquirer can turn over even a few pages of the New Testament, without admitting, that (whether that book be true or false) its writers clearly teach that the cause of Christ’s sufferings and death was our sins; that but for our sins, he would not have suffered; and that our sins are in some way connected with all his humiliation and all his pain. And thus far, also, we are accompanied by the vast majority of all who have pretended to the Christian name. But the number is perceptibly lessened, or rather suddenly falls off, when we proceed to examine why Christ suffered? what there was in our sins to make him suffer? or what connexion his sufferings have with our sins? And yet this is the very kernel and gist of the whole inquiry. For he miirht have suffered and even died, in some relation to our sins, far short of what Scriptural expressions bear. For example, he might suffer as an example of virtue.

He might suffer, as a martyr to that truth, which is to purge our sins. He might suffer, to afford us a great motive, to affect our minds, and so aid us in subduing sin. He might suffer, to show how much he hated sin. Or, in some vague and general way, he might suffer, to show to the Universe that sin is a great evil, and that God abhors it. And, in fact, these have been the explanations of the great event, which have been given by numerous theologians, who have borne the Christian name. There is not one of them, however, which does not fall far short of the genuine and precious meaning of the text. Whence, we proceed to affirm that

4. Christ hore our sins in this sense that he hore the penalty of our sins. This is the primary, obvious, and necessary meaning of the words: that which common readers in all ages have derived from them; and which has been received without reluctance by the mind of universal Christianity. The notion is not recondite, but one which a child may apprehend. We were to have been punished: Christ was punished for us. We were to have died:

Christ died for us. It is the plain signification of the expression often rei)eated in Scripture; “Christ died for us,” that is died in our stead.

But here the adversary rejoins, that penalty must always attach to the person; that he who has sinned must be punished; and that the suffering of the innocent cannot benefit the guilty. If this were true, it would at once cut off all our hopes, and put an end to all proper atonement. But, blessed be God, it is not true. The chui’ch in all ages has held first, that sin for its own sake deserves the wrath and curse of God, and secondly, that to redeem us from the law, God sent his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, who in his own person fulfilled those demands, and endured that curse in our stead. And this is so far from violating any of our natural principles of justice, that it is of all things most suited to relieve and pacify the afflicted conscience.

The Scrij)tures represent the penalty as a debt, which our Surety pays for us. We are familiar with substitution of this kind in civil cases, which would not be true, if such commutation were in itself repugnant to the common sense of justice among mankind. Ancient history has strikinor instances of similar substitution in criminal and capital cases. And the reason why this is not admitted in such cases, under modern jurisdiction, is not any injustice in the principle. The case, we admit, must be a jDeculiar one, in which such a substitution can take place; and if ever there was a case thus peculiar, in which the innocent might suffer for the guilty, it is surely this. To make such suffering allowable, the innocent person must be one, who has lordship and dominion over his own life; which men in common life, have not; but which the Son of Grod had: “I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” Again, the innocent surety must assume the place and penalty, of his own free will: which was eminently and gloriously true of the Lord Jesus. Again, he must be able to answer all the demands of the law, for those whom he represented. Again, he must be a1)le to restore himself from death: no mere man could do this,

CHRIST BEARING OUR SINS. 18*J

and therefore if such a substitution were to take place in a capital instance, the state would lose a good citizen. Again, the innocent sufferer must ensure the restoration to holiness of those for whom he dies; which no man on earth can secure for a fellow-man; but which the Lord Jesus triumphantly secures for those who are redeemed. In the substitution, then, of this willing, glorious, triumphant surety, there is no injustice, but infinite grace. They object to us that it is incredible that the holy and just God should charge upon Christ the sins of others, and thus make the innocent suffer in the place of the guilty. But let them answer, is it more credible, or more equitable, that the holy and just God should subject the innocent Redeemer to such sufferings, without any such imputation? Christ suffered and died. This is the admitted fact. Now, did he suffer as a surety for the sinner, taking his place? or did he suffer, without being a surety, as an innocent being, by a mere arbitrary infliction? The difficulty appears then to be altogether with the objectors to atonement. — The truth is, all the ancient sacrifices wrote in letters of blood, the word Suhstitution. For what after all, is the idea of sacrifice, but the innocent dying for the guilty? It was an emblem which the feeblest mind might com[)rehend. There, on the altar, is a spotless lamb — the emblem of innocence Here am I, a polluted sinner. I lay my right hand on the unblemished victim, and straightway it becomes in type a sinner. I should have died — but now the victim dies — it dies for me — it dies in my place. — It was thus the way was prepared for the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. It is not here and there, but everywhere, that the Bible thus represents the method of our salvation. Isaiah 53. “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him.” v. 6. ‘’ The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all:” wherein (to any man who is capable of understanding the words he utters) does this differ from saying ’ he hath imputed to him the iniquity of us all V v. 10. “Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.” V. 11. “He shall bear their iniquities.”

V. 12. “He bare the sin of many.’’ But come to the New Testament. Gal. 3:13.” Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” Who made him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the riahteousness of God in him.” It would occupy all our time to cite the passages, where this doctrine is taught in expressions which cannot be mistaken by an unbiassed mind. And we never find unsophisticated persons, as for example, ignorant inquirers, or our own little children, troubled with those difficulties which have made this doctrine a stumbling-block to Jews and philosophers. They see something intelligible and lovely in Christ’s coming into our place, and dying for us. Especially when a soul is overwhelmed with a sense of sin, and dread of eternal wrath, this truth is the only thing which can give relief. At such an hour, there is a glory in the revelation, that “when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” — that he died for us, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. The victim on the cross is beheld to be the lamb of sacrifice. He suffers what we should have suffered. He bears our sins in his own body on the tree.

5. Finally, Christ so lore our sins as to remove from us all their pe7ial consequences a7ul secure our salvation. By that suffering, he exhausted the penalty, and discharged the debt. His obedience as surety was superadded, to purchase oui title to life; but by his humiliation and death upon the cross, he absolutely canceled all our guilt, removed us from being liable to any measure of the curse of the law; and caused us to stand, in the view of its threatenings as if we had never sinned at all. A proper view of this is needful, in order to a right acceptance of full and sovereign grace. He ‘ho believes does in the very moment of believing, become one with Christ, and graciously entitled to all that Christ has purchased for his people. The death of Christ is not merely a transaction which makes our pardon possible, contingent, or even probable: it secures it. It breaks all the penal force of the law. Whatever chastisements, even death itself, may henceforth befall the be-CHRIST BEARING OUR SINS. ID^

Jiever, none of them can beiill him in the character of iDunishment. The sanction of the law will not be demanded twice. It has been accomplished in his substitute; it will not be visited on him. The cup of indignation, which was mingled and awaiting us, was taken into those blessed hands, and utterly exhausted. The Law is therefore as fully and eternally at jDcace with a justified sinner, as though he had never sinned. And this is the glad news, which first of all brings peace to the soul of a convinced penitent. He beholds the Cross, and sees how God can be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly that belie veth in Jesus. The sword which was descending upon him, has turned aside, and is bathed in the heart’s blood of him who knew no sin. It is the sum and substance of the Gospel. Our position this day is the very one for viewing this great transaction; for we are among its emblems. Christ is visibly set forth, crucified, in the midst of us. We are beside the altar, and ])efore us is the bleeding Lamb of propitiation. Among the reflections which befit the place and the occasion, one or two may deserve special notice.

19i CHRIST BEARING OUR SINS.

1. Wliec we behold Christ bearino: our ams, we should learn to look on sin with shame and horror. O sinner! if there is an argument why you should forsake sin, it is that Christ has died. How intense must that evil be, which demands such a sacrifice! We may be sure, that God, who does nothing without infinite reason, would not consent to expose his only begotten and well-beloved Son to inexpressible torments, if there had been any other way to save the sinner. Here, a full satisfaction is made to divine Justice. For this justice to remain unsatisfied, were the same as foi God to deny himself, that is, to be dethroned. For the sinner to satisfy this justice in his own person, were for him to endure the wrath and curse of God, in eternity. And for the Surety to satisfy this justice, it was necessary, that the Son of God should become man, and should endure the curse of the law, as we have seen. Sin is not the trifle, which you su[)- pose. You indulge in it, and will not part from it; you are so in love with it, that you must remain in its embi’acing arms, days or months or years longer; you post-

])one your repentance — that is you prolong your rebellion; and when Jesus Christ himself invites, you turn away, and make light of it. You make a mock at sin. But O thoughtless and deluded creature! Know you not, that this is the viper, which if indulged, will sting your soul, fatally and eternally? and consider you not that it has already stung to death, tli:it Redeemer, when he met it only in the way of substitution? Admit the convicting power of the Cross. Look on Jesus Christ bearing pin in his own body on the tree. Ask your ungrateful heart what more he can do. Shall he descend once more? Shall he once more be a man of sorrow s? Shall he be crucified again? Alas! were he crucified before your very eyes, the hearts which now resist him, might resist him still. Beloved, but unawakened friends, I charge you to consider this sacrament as a message to you, and as urging on you the love and compassion of a dying Saviour.

2. When we behold Christ bearing our sins, we should see in it the object of savini>: faith. In all the universe of nature and grace, this, this is the point for the eye of a convinced sinner. This is the centre. “Behold,” O condemned, despairing one, ‘’ behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.” Behold him bearing your sins, in his own body on the tree. Behold the arm of divine Vengeance punishing in his person, that sin which you cannot without horror think of as punished in your own. From his cross he cries, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth.” His eye singles you out, as he dies in sacrifice. His arms, extended and bleeding, offer pardon to you. Not even in death, is that gush of love and mercy stanched, which utters itself in the invitation, “Come unto me! come unto me!” — I know you sometimes feel your sins as a heavy mountain, sinking you to hell; like Cain, you are ready to cry, “My j)unishment is greater than I can bear;” ready perha23S, to seek some hiding-place, and even before the time to call on rocks and mountains to cover you. Your terror and anguish are, it may be, too great for tears, and you have nothing ])ut a fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversary. And these convictions, tliougli increased ten tliousand-fold, can go no whit towards a justifying-rigliteousness, nor do they make you any better, or any more fit to receive the grace of God. — But what! (you cry) “would you drive me to despair! would you cut away the last thread which suspends me over the lake of fire 1”’

Sinner — you are at the very door of hope this day. — ‘But what would you have me to do V — Nothing: absolutely nothing, as matter of Doing: the work is done; and you behold it, in that bleeding victim. — ‘How — O how, then, am I to derive the benefit of this obedience of Christ unto death V — By simple acquiescence. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Look away from yourself. Cease to probe that rankling, ulcerous, incorrigible heart. Look simply and directly and instantly at one object — at Christ bearing your sin in his own body. Do you see it? Do you believe it? Do you acknowledge it as a full satisfaction for your sins? Do you recognize it as freely ofl:ered to you, on the pledge and veracity of God? Do you own it is a right, a gooa, a desirable way? Do you humble yourself so far as to forsake all riohteousness of your own? Do you accept of this righteousness? Do you cast yourself upon it? Only believe: all things are possible to him that belie veth. O sinner! O chief of sinners! believest thou that Jesus is able to do this? See him crucified to accomplish it, and doubt no more. — If now, thus beholding, you let go your hold on all besides, within you or without you, and venture the whole weight of your everlasting destiny on his satisfactory death, and simple promise — if, in a word, you believe in him — the contract is consummated, and your sins are washed away.

3. When we behold Christ bearing our sins, we have before us the greatest of all motives to personal holiness. He “died for us, that whether we wake or sleej), we should live together with him.” When temptation comes in like a tide, cast your eyes to the Cross. Nothing has such virtue against our corruptions. If we are believers, we are crucified with Christ: his inter-CHlilST BEARING OUR SINS. ests are ours; his Spirit is ours. Eii brace not that wliicli drove the nails tli rough his sacred hands, and pierced his innocent and loving heart. In every pang and groan and tear of his, and in every drop of his all-precious blood, read an argument against yielding to the tempter. Feel the generous power of the reasoning in the context: ‘’ Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteoifsness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” Sins committed after pardon, are sins under the very cross. They are transgressions against the very sacrifice, and (if any thing can) do crucify the Lord anew. And though it is true that we still sin, and graciously true, that if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father; yet it is the height of heinous ingratitude, and a special grieving of the Son and the Spirit, to indulge our evil nature, because there is access to the fountain’ of pardon. The detestable nature o+^ sin is more apj)arent in the cross, than in hell itself; and the renewed mind will more readily transgress under the very threatening of torment, than under the blood of a dying Redeemer. This is brought most forcibly to our thoughts, in the ordinance we celebrate, which is a visible epitome of the doctrine under consideration. Here, therefore, beloved, you are at the very place, where you may justly bring forth your remaining corruptions to sacrifice; and where you may slay them before the Lord. The hatred of his riofhteous soul is against sin; and the demonstration of this is in his dying for it. Take part with your Saviour against your sins, and (as you handle and receive the bread and wine) look up to him for strength to give the fatal blow to those tempers and indulgences which are contrary to his will. Enter into the spirit of this sacrifice, and you will prove by experience, that the doctrine of gracious salvation gives no encouragement to sin. From the cross, you will go down to the world, more steeled than ever, against its temptations.

A tender fear of offending him who loved you unto death, will make you walk circumspectly; and in remembrance of past transgressions, and wounds of the Spirit, you will offer all you have and are, to him by whose stripes you were healed.