Great Themes of the Bible
Christ 39
He was but a little above thirty years of age He was taken to be near fifty (cf. John viii. 57). Grief was His intimate acquaintance. For He acquainted Himself with others' grievances, and sympathised with them. In His transfiguration He talked about His own decease, and in His triumph wept over Jerusalem.
4. THE SUFFERING SERVANT
(a) He had griefs and sorrows. Being acquainted with them, He kept up the acquaintance, and did not grow shy, no, not even of such melancholy acquaintance. Were griefs and sorrows allotted Him? He bore them and blamed not His lot. He carried them, and did neither shrink from them nor sink under them. The load was heavy, and the way long; and yet He did not tire, but persevered to the end, till He said, "'It is finished'.
(5) He had blows and bruises. He was stricken and smitten and afflicted. His sorrows bruised Him, He felt pain and smart from them. They touched Him in the most tender part, especially when God was dishonoured, and when He forsook Him upon the cross. All along He was smitten with the tongue, when He was cavilled at and contradicted, put under the worst of characters, and had all manner of evil said against Him. At last He was smitten with the hand, with blow after blow.
(c) He had wounds and stripes. He was scourged, not under the merciful restriction of the Jewish law, which allowed not above forty stripes to be given to the worst offender, but according to the usage of the Romans. And His scourging was, doubtless, the more severe, because Pilate intended it as an equivalent for His crucifixion. Yet it proved but the preface to it.
(d) He was wronged and abused. That was laid to His charge of which He was perfectly innocent; that laid upon Him which He did not deserve; and in both He was oppressed and injured. Oppression is a sore affliction, it has made many a wise man mad (Eccles. vii. 7). But our Lord Jesus, though when He was oppressed He was afflicted, yet He kept possession of His own soul.
(e) He was judged and imprisoned. He was proceeded against as a malefactor. He was apprehended and taken into custody and made a prisoner. He was judged, accused, tried, and condemned according to the usual forms of law. God filed a process against Him, judged Him in pursuance of that process, and clapped Him up in the prison of the grave, at the door of which a stone was rolled and sealed.