The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross-29

6. Here we see the supreme evidence of Christ’s love for us.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). But the greatness of Christ’s love can be estimated only when we are able to measure what was involved in the "laying down" of his life. As we have seen, it meant much more than physical death, even though that be of unspeakable shame, and indescribable suffering. It meant that he had to take our place and be "made sin" for us, and what this involved can only be judged in the light of his person.

Picture a perfectly honourable and virtuous woman compelled to endure for a season association with the vilest and impurest. Imagine her shut up in a den of iniquity, surrounded by the coarsest of all men and women, and with no way of escape. Can you estimate her abhorrence of the foul-mouthed oaths, the drunken revelry, the obscene surroundings? Can you form an opinion of what a pure woman would suffer in her soul amid such impurity? But the illustration falls far short, for there is no woman absolutely pure. Honourable, virtuous, morally pure, yes, but pure in the sense of being sinless, spiritually pure, no. But Christ was pure; absolutely pure. He was the Holy One. He had an infinite abhorrence of sin. He loathed it. His holy soul shrank from it. But on the cross our iniquities were all laid upon him, and sin - that vile thing - enwrapped itself around him like a horrible serpent’s coils. And yet, he willingly suffered for us! Why? Because he loved us: "Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end" (John 13:1).

But more: the greatness of Christ’s love for us can be estimated only when we are able to measure the wrath of God that was poured upon him. This it was from which his soul shrank. What this meant to him, what it cost him, may be learned in part by a perusal of the Psalms in which we are permitted to hear some of his pathetic soliloquizing and petitions to God. Speaking anticipatively, the Lord Jesus himself by the Spirit cried through David:

"Save me, O 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.

Deliver me out of the mire, and Let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the water flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.

Hide not thy face from thy servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily. Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies. Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour: mine adversaries are all before thee. Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none." (Ps. 69:1-3, 14, 15, 17-20)

And again, "Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me" (Ps. 42:7). God’s abhorrence of sin swept forth and broke like a descending deluge upon the Sin-Bearer. Looking forward to the awful anguish of the cross, he cried through Jeremiah, "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger" (Lam. 1:12). These are a few of the intimations we have by which we can judge of the unspeakable horror with which the Holy One contemplated those three hours on the cross, hours into which was condensed the equivalent of an eternal hell. The beloved of the Father must have the light of God’s countenance hidden from him; he must be left alone in the outer darkness.

Here was love matchless and unmeasured. "If it be possible let this cup pass from me," he cried. But it was not possible that his people should be saved unless he drained that awful cup of woe and wrath; and because there was none other who could drink it, he drained it. Blessed be his name! Where sin had brought men, love brought the Saviour.

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"