54. God's Own Son Offers Himself

God’s Own Son Offers Himself

Then comes One who, from all eternity, has been in the bosom of the Father’s love, and says: “Lo, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God” (Psalms 40:7-8). And as a preparation for the doing of that will, He says: “A body hast thou prepared for me” (Hebrews 10:5). He comes, therefore, clothed in humility as a man, to do the work of a substitute. Does He qualify? As to the first requirement, the testimony concerning Him is that He not only honors the Law as highly as though it had never been broken, He magnifies the Law and makes it honorable (Isaiah 42:21), by putting it, by His perfect obedience, into a place of honor far higher than it otherwise could ever have had, even by the perfect obedience of the whole race, and so justice is not injured, and He qualifies under this requirement. His attitude toward the law or will of His Father comes out at the very beginning of His public ministry, when He teaches His disciples to pray: “Hallowed be thy name,” thus ascribing holiness to the character of God. He puts the honor of God and of His will first in the pattern petition He gives His disciples, for He Himself always put it first in His own life. The holiness of God’s character and the righteousness of His will are above all else to Him. For everything that relates to salvation rests on God’s holiness expressed in His will, the magnifying and honoring of which comes through the perfect obedience of His Son. This is why He could hurl at His traducers such a challenge as no other man ever dared put into words: “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” (John 8:46), and why no man has ever been able to take it up. Only one who could hurl such a challenge and find no one to answer, as this Man did, could ever qualify under this demand as an acceptable substitute for sinners against God’s holy Law. In meeting the second requirement, He suffers the death penalty of the very law to which He gives perfect obedience. Such a death as He died can be accounted for in no way, unless it be on the ground that it was in the place of others beside Himself to whom it was due. For His death was unique. No other death like it has ever occurred or ever can. Consider the reasons why.

Sin and suffering go together. No sin, no suffering. Yet here is One who is “sinless and undefiled” (Hebrews 7:26), suffering such inconceivable agony that He is called: “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), and whose weight of suffering was so heavy that it was followed by extravasation of the heart, or physical heart rupture. Such suffering and agony of a perfectly sinless One can be accounted for in no way, unless it was in substitution for others to whom it was due.