The Fifteenth Lord’s Day

15 The Fifteenth Lord’s Day
1 Peter 3:18
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.
An argument is brought in these words, whereby all Christians may be persuaded that undeserved afflictions are to be patiently born. The argument is taken from the greater to the lesser, in which is also contained the force and nature of a simile or example, and also of some dissimilitude. For such Logical assertions are often joined together in the same thing, as they make for the same purpose. The argument is this: if Christ who was just, has suffered for sins and for unjust men, then much more should we suffer afflictions imposed upon us — the first is true, and therefore the latter also. Christ considered in himself is the greater, and his sufferings are the greater; and so the argument is from the greater. But considered as our head and Saviour, he has the place and nature of a simile or example to be imitated by us in tolerating afflictions; so it is an argument from a likeness, or from an example. Lastly, considered as just, suffering for the sins of others that are unjust, he is altogether unlike us; and so some force and emphasis of this argument is also taken from the unlikeness.
They are ordered in this enunciation in which, as the assumption of the Syllogism,1 the cause is contained in the effect: Christ with his suffering. For though suffering of its own nature is an adjunct of the sufferer, yet because it is voluntarily accepted and undertaken, it is an effect. Yet these arguments are so ordered, that they have mixed with them the affection or property of the argument from diversity. For Christ and his passions of their own nature are dissentaneous.2 Therefore, when it is said, Christ suffered, it is as if he had said, Though Christ was the Son of God, yet he was not free from suffering. So that this may be better understood, it is to be known that suffering in this passage and in others like it, is attributed to Christ by the trope3 of Synecdoche4 —the more general for the special; and it signifies the special suffering of a grievous evil. Then these two are very dissentaneous between themselves, that Christ should suffer a great evil. Now he is said to have suffered for sins, and for the unjust; the particle for designates the cause of his suffering, and that is threefold: a meritory or material cause, a formal cause, and a final cause. The meritory cause, because Christ suffered for the things which the sins of unjust men deserved, or merited. The formal cause, because for our sins Christ was induced, as the form, as of divine imputation—as of that which was imputed by God—so too of the suretyship undertaken by Christ, or that form which was undertaken by Christ, or accepted to be accounted his, when he underwent these sufferings. Lastly, also the final cause, because Christ suffered for this end which was set before him, or for this very purpose, so that he might take away the sins of unjust men, and make them just, and thus might bring them to salvation.
1 Syllogism: deductive reasoning in which a conclusion is derived from two premises or assumptions. 
2 Dissentaneous – disagreeing; contrary; differing.
3 Trope – language used in a figurative or non-literal sense.
4 Synecdoche – a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as hand for sailor), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing made from it (as steel for sword).
Doctrine 1. Christ the Lord suffered all these evils of punishment, which were due us for our sins.
This is not to be understood as if he had undergone all the evils in kind and particularly, but only in value and generally — in the sum or upcast of all, and in what was equivalent and equipollent1 to all — and so he is said to have suffered all the evils of punishment.
Reason 1 . Because he generally suffered all sorts of evil: spiritual, in the agony and horror of his mind, as well as corporal in his body; and he suffered the extreme, positive as well as privative, both in a kind of loss, and in a kind of sorrow or feeling.
Reason 2 . Because he suffered from all those from whom any evil could be inflicted. He suffered from men, Jews as well as Gentiles, foreigners as well as his own people; he suffered from the powers of darkness and Hell, which were murderers from the beginning, and the authors of these evils which Christ suffered from them and their instruments; lastly, he suffered from God himself, whose cup full of wrath he drank.
Reason 3 . Because he suffered in every part of himself, in every way that he could suffer. For he suffered horrors and unspeakable sorrows in his soul; he suffered hunger, thirst, nakedness, wounds, spitting, lashes, and pummeling in his body, and whatever conceivable malice and cruelty could devise.
Use 1 . Of Direction: that in continually meditating on the passion of Christ, we may look upon the singular and incomprehensible goodness, grace, love, mercy, justice, and wisdom of God by which he sent his eternal Son to suffer such things for us, and for our salvation; and together also, look upon the abundant grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who was willing to do it, and who suffered so many and so grievous things for us.
Use 2 . Of Exhortation: that from the consideration of this suffering of our Lord and Saviour, we strive to stir up ourselves powerfully, that we may daily have more faith and hope about grace and our salvation to be perfected by Christ; and that our hearts may be kindled with greater heat of love towards God and Christ, and with greater zeal of the glory of his name; lastly, that with more courage, constancy, and patience, we bear all the troubles of this life for Christ’s sake, who suffered all things for us.
Doctrine 2. Christ suffered all these things, neither out of any necessity of nature, nor by constraint, nor by casualty and chance, but of his own free choice of wisdom and will.
This is gathered from the Text in that it is put among Christ’s praises, as an example of obedience, that he thus suffered. But there is no place for praise nor obedience in such things as one suffers out of necessity or chance, without the free consent of the will.
Reason 1 . Because this was the will of the Father to which he would conform his will in all things, so far as he laid this charge upon him. 
Reason 2. Because this was the very thing for which Christ came into the world, according to the form of covenant made between the Father and the Son, Isaiah 53:10.1
1 Having equivalent signification and reach; expressing the same thing, but differently.
Reason 3. Because in this consisted the most perfect obedience, which is the way to the most perfect glory, Php_2:8-9.2
Objection: Every evil of punishment is against the will of the sufferer; but what Christ suffered for us were very great evils of punishment. They were therefore suffered against his will. Answer: That evils of punishment are said always to be against the will of the sufferer:
First, Because they are against his natural inclination. Therefore punishment is only evil because it tends to destroy our nature, and so it is against the inclination of nature, whereby everything seeks the preservation of itself.
Secondly, The evil of punishment is against the will of the sufferer, conditionally; namely, if the sufferer can attain his wished end by no other means; but it is not always absolutely against his will. The first had a place in Christ, because these passions were against the inclinations of nature since otherwise they would have brought him no pain; and they were also against his conditional will, as it appears by these words: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.3 But they were not against his deliberate, determinate, and absolute will. The reason is because he suffered it all out of obedience to the Father, and out of love for us, and for our salvation.
Use 1 . Of Instruction: how we may from this ground arm our minds against those temptations that usually come by the occasion of Christ’s sufferings. For in this respect, Christ was a stumbling stone to the Jews, and foolishness to the Grecians.4 But if we weigh well with ourselves, that Christ suffered all these things not out of coaction, or out of any necessity, or any external force, but from the obedience of love towards mankind, and that he might give us a most perfect pattern of obedience in his own person. We would be so far from finding any stumbling block, or foolishness in these sufferings, that on the contrary, nothing could be found that was or is more suitable to the Saviour of the world.
Use 2 . Of Exhortation: that calling seriously to mind this grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, out of thankfulness to and mutual love for him, we may be ready, with all willingness and cheerfulness of mind, to undergo all sufferings and afflictions for his sake.
Doctrine 3. Christ’s sufferings were an expiatory Sacrifice for our sins.
This is what is said in the Text, That he suffered for sins, for the unjust. That is, he had the virtue to take away the punishment from us, the guilt also, and the spot, and to acquire for us the favour of God, and righteousness, and eternal life. It is what is usually signified by satisfaction, by merit, by redemption, by restitution, or restoration made by Christ.
1 Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
2 Php_2:8-9 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name...
3 Luke 22:42. 
4 1 Corinthians 1:23.
Reason 1 . Because this was the covenant between the Father and the Son, that if he would undergo that obedience for us, then we would be freed from our disobedience and death, and would live through him, Isaiah 53:10. For this suffering was the perfecting of all his obedience.
Reason 2 . Because by his suffering, Christ made satisfaction to divine justice, and repaid God as much of his honour in our name, as he had suffered in it by our sins. Therefore God’s justice is now appeased; the grace of God has had its free course, so that it may derive all good upon us.
Reason 3 . Because Christ now, by virtue of his passion and consummate obedience, as it were of his own right that he acquired, makes intercession with the Father for us, so that we may be, and live with him, John 17:24.1
Use 1 . Of Consolation: to the faithful against the guilt of their sin, and terrors of their conscience that arise from sin. For in Christ and his sufferings, we have a remedy against these wounds that are otherwise deadly.
Use 2. Of Admonition: that we would detest all sins as things that brought our Saviour to death, and would have brought a thousand deaths upon us, if he had not turned them away from us. 1 John 17:24 “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.