CHAPTER XI: The last sufferings of Christ coming to his death
preached! Here was the most unjust and unequal proceeding in the world; yet thus they did with Christ, and the disciple is not above his master.
CHAPTER XI
The last sufferings of Christ coming to his death.—Both the shame and torments are to be considered in them.
We have seen our Lord Christ a man of sorrows and sufferings through the whole course of his life; we have seen him betrayed, apprehended, seized on as a criminal, and brought to examination and judgment; and all these were the fruits of his being made sin and a curse. Now the next part and conclusion of the curse, unto which all the other tend, as so many small rivulets into the ocean, is death; and that, 1. Natural, of the body: 'To dust thou shalt return,' Gen. 3:19, which phrase notes out the separation of soul and body. So Eccles. 12:7, it is expounded, 'Dust returns to the earth, and the soul to God that gave it.'
2. Death spiritual, of the soul: 'Thou shalt die the death,' Gen. 2:17, which words intimate a double death, even another death besides that of the body, and beyond it. Now, 1. I shall shew how Christ was made a curse in his enduring a bodily death; the circumstances whereof do all of them yet add unto the curse thereof. You see that death in itself (whether natural or violent) is by God's first sentence on Adam made a curse for sin. And thus is the death of every man who dies not in the Lord. But yet further, whereas there was but one particular kind of death that was in a more eminent manner, of all deaths else, the most accursed—and that was 'hanging upon a tree'—even that did Christ undergo, so that to be sure he might bear the extremity of the curse herein. And that
kind of death was not accursed by God's law and doom only, but was also esteemed to be a curse among the Gentiles. Thus it was among the Romans, who, when they would curse any man unto whom they owed ill will, they expressed it by this, Abi in malam crucem; that is, I would thou wert crucified, or Mayest thou die the death of the tree.
Equivalent to which is that way of cursing taken up by ill tongues among us, when they say, 'Go and be hanged,' &c.
In that his last suffering the death of the cross (which was the epitome of all), two things are eminently to be considered by us:
(1.) The shame of that death, and the circumstances of it.
(2.) The pains of those sufferings, and the death itself, which is the separation of soul and body, and the conclusion of all. And unto these may the chief of those his sufferings, either preparatory unto, or at his death, be reduced. The apostle, in Heb. 12:2, draws them to these two heads:
[1.] Enduring the cross, which includes both the pains of his suffering, and death itself.
[2.] The shame that accompanied it, in those words, 'despising the shame.' And Christ himself, particularly summing up all that was to be done to him, and that was foretold of him by the prophets (as he says), Luke 18:31, 'Behold we go to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.' The main particulars of which, all, he after mentions: ver. 32, 33, he expresseth it in these words, 'The Son of man shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on; and they shall scourge him, and put him to death;' which particulars, if you will reduce them to heads, do fall into these two:
1. The shame, expressed in three particulars: (1.) Mocked. (2.) Spitefully entreated. (3.) Spitted on.
2. The pains, laid down in two things: (1.) Their scourging him. (2.) Their killing him.
And accordingly we find two especial epithets of excellency mentioned of Christ, when his sufferings are mentioned by the apostles, on purpose to aggravate those sufferings from the worth of the person that underwent them:—the first, that 'they killed the Prince of life:' so says Peter, Acts 3:15; the other, that 'they crucified the Lord of glory:' so Paul, 1 Cor. 2:8; the first serving to illustrate his dying, that they should kill the Prince of life; the second, the shame of his death, that they should crucify the Lord of glory—the apostle mentioning his glory, together with his crucifying, so to set out the shame of that death above all other, and also as an evil to be considered in his death, as great as death itself, and greater. And accordingly in respect of death he is called 'the Lamb slain,' Rev.
13:8, and in respect of shame he is called 'a worm and no man,' Ps.
22:6, being trodden on by all men, and his life of so poor a value with them, that they made no more of it to kill him than to tread a worm to death, which to do no man hath the least regret. And accordingly also, Heb. 6:6, the sin of apostates from Christ is set out by their doing (so far as in them lies) that unto Christ, which the Jews, that put him to death, did to him at his crucifying. It is set out by these two things: 1. That 'they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh;' secondly, that 'they put him to an open shame.' And so I reckon this of shame with the curse of his death, because they are thus linked together by the apostles; and also because indeed, in all death, shame is a part of the curse (and therefore it is said, the body is 'sown in dishonour,' 1 Cor. 15:43); but especially in Christ's death, for it was more than dying, the kind of death being the shame-fullest. And though shame be not mentioned in the words of the curse of our first parents, yet the first fruit, and so the first appearance of the curse
(that we read of) even in them, was shame and fear; it is said, 'they were ashamed,' &c. And so I come, 1. To the shame of this death. It is a great question, whether shame or death be the greater evil. There have been those who have rather
chosen death, and have wiped off a dishonour with their blood. So Saul slew himself rather than he would fall into the hands of the Philistines, who would have insulted over him, and mocked him as they did Samson. So that king, Jer. 38:19, rather chose to lose his country, life, and all, than to be given to the Jews, his subjects, to be mocked of them. And we see that many malefactors that are to be condemned to die, and though, dying as malefactors, any sort of death hath shame in it, yet to avoid a degree of shame in death, they out of the greatness of their spirits choose a death that is much more painful, as to be pressed to death, rather than this same hanging on a tree, which unto this day is, in men's esteem, of all deaths else, the most ignoble and ignominious. Yea, confusion of face is one of the greatest miseries that hell itself is set forth unto us by. There is nothing that a noble nature more abhors than shame; for honour is a spark of God's image; and the more of God's image there is in any one, the more is shame abhorred by him, which is the debasing of it; and so the greater and more noble any one's spirit, the more he avoids it. To a base, low spirit, indeed, shame is nothing; but to a great spirit (as to David), than to have his 'glory turned into shame,' as Ps. 4:2, is nothing more grievous. And the greater glory any one loseth, the greater is his shame. What must it be then to Christ, who because he was to satisfy God in point of honour debased by man's sin, therefore of all punishments else he suffered most of shame; it being also (as was said) one of the greatest punishments in hell. And Christ, as he assumed other infirmities of our nature, that made him passible in other things—as to be sensible of hunger, want of sleep, bodily torments, of unkindnesses, contempt—so likewise of disgrace and shame. He took that infirmity as well as fear; and though he had a strength to bear and despise it (as the author to the Hebrews speaks), yet none was ever more sensible of it. As the delicacy of the temper of his body made him more sensible of pains than ever any man was, so the greatness of his spirit made him more apprehensive of the evil of shame than ever any was. So likewise the infinite love and candour of his spirit towards mankind made him take in with answerable grief the unkindnesses and injuries which they heaped upon him. And if to be abhorrent of shame be a spark of God's image,
so as where more of that image or of glory is in any one, the more abhorrent he is of shame; yea, if even those in hell are confounded with it (they there still retaining so much of God's image in them), then what must so much shame and contempt be unto Christ, who was and is 'the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person'? Heb. 1:3. Such an image of him as no mere creature is capable to be; all which he considered and took in, well knowing what and who he was, and this before his sufferings. So John 13:3, and also when he was both at Pilate's and at the high priest's bar. As therefore the highest lights have the deepest shadows, so all his 'glory being turned into shame,' it made his shame the deeper and the greater.
Now if we go over all the particulars of this his shame, never was any shame like unto it. There was nothing but shame, and that the utmost that could be, in all the passages of his sufferings.
This shame I shall set forth to you by these two generals (which will contain several particulars under them):
1. Their mocking and spiteful entreating of him.
2. Other circumstances, that, through God's providence, were ordered to accompany his misusage and death, that served to heighten the shamefulness of them.
1. For their cruel mocking and shameful usage of him, the very words that Christ, in Luke 18:32, expresseth it in the general by, are very emphatical. The one ἐμπαιχθήσεται, which we translate, 'He shall be mocked,' in the derivation of it, signifies 'to make a child of one.'
They made a child or fool of him by their actions and dealings with him. Like unto which is the word that is used of Herod's mocking of him, Luke 23:11, ἐξουθενήσας, 'he made no body,' or 'nothing of him.' The other word, ὑβρισθήσεται, principally respecteth contumelious speeches, and injurious despiteful railing at; ὑβρὶς, noting out the highest kind of injury, and that done out of a despite.
It is the same word whereby the sin against the Holy Ghost is expressed, Heb. 10:29, and is there translated 'doing despite.' Now for him whose name is I am, to whom all beings are but shadows, for him to be made nothing of, for him who is the 'Everlasting Father' and the 'wisdom of God,' for him, I say, to be made a child of, what an intolerable shame is this! 'Died Abner as a fool dies!' said David of him. Truly through their usage of him Christ died no otherwise.
But I rather come to those several particular ways wherein they express their extreme contempt and despiteful mockage of him; as,
(1.) Their putting several apparels upon him in derision; one while arraying of him in purple, another while in white, then shifting him into his own clothes again, thus making him ridiculous to all that saw him. Unmeetness and unsuitableness of apparel is matter of shame.
Jehoshua the high priest appeared in 'filthy apparel,' Zech. 3:3, and so Christ our high priest, being clothed with all our sins. For one to be led about in a fool's coat, what a shame is it! Yet thus was he served.
(2.) Their using jeering and mocking gestures. Because he had said he was a king, they therefore make a May-game king of him; and,
[1.] They crown him with a crown of thorns.
[2.] They put a reed in his hand for a sceptre, (though his sceptre was a 'sceptre of righteousness,' Heb. 1:8), to shew how powerless and weak a king he was, who had a kingdom and sceptre as easily broken as a reed. And therefore, to demonstrate his weakness the more in respect of any such kingdom as he assumed a title unto, they strike him with his own sceptre, which is to a king the same disgrace, and much more ignominious, as for an able scholar to have his own argument retorted on him to his own confuting and confusion; as for a valiant man to have his weapon taken from him, and with it to be beaten.
[3.] They hoodwink and blindfold him, and hide his face. Now covering the face is a gesture of shame; Jer. 14:3, it is said, 'They were ashamed and covered their heads.' Then they smite him, and when they have done it, they in scorn ask him, Who smote him? because he took on him to be a prophet.
[4.] They smite him both with their hands and with their rods: both are mentioned. And majus dedecus est manu feriri quam gladio; no noble spirit can brook a box on the ear, or buffet, but takes it in more disgrace than a wound honourably given. And therefore Micaiah, you know, was smitten on the cheek by the lying prophet, as a token of disdain; for to smite with the hand or fist argues subjection in the party smitten.
[5.] They in mockery kneel to him, and salute him as they did their Cæsar, 'Hail, king of the Jews.' To him whom all the angels (when a child) did worship—'Let all the angels of God worship him,' Heb. 1:6
—to whom 'every knee shall bow, both that is in heaven, and in earth, and under the earth;' to him do they in scorn bow the knee, and then as floutingly salute him with an 'All hail, king,' &c. The greater reverence is given in a disgraceful way, the greater the disgrace is; for shame is glory turned into inglory or shame.
[6.] They spit on him; and it was not one or two of them that did this, but many, as it is said. Now this is the greatest indignity that may be.
If a father spit in his daughter's face (who yet is an inferior to him), 'shall she not be shut up?' (says God, Num. 12:14), in that he hath disgraced her. And Isa. 50:6, Christ is brought in, saying, 'I hid not my face from shame and spitting upon;' they are both linked together. The face is the noblest of the exterior parts of man, as in which God's image doth shine forth, and is therefore called 'the glory of God,' 1 Cor. 11:7. Now therefore for it to have an excrement, with which men will not defile a clean room they tread on, cast upon it, what a disgrace is it? And if so, how much more, then, for that face to be spitted upon, in which the 'light of the glory of God' shines far more immediately and more plentifully, 2 Cor. 4:6. And how
disgraces of this nature must needs work upon a spirit so high and so full of glory as his was, we may see (and yet but a glimpse of it neither) by the heart of that king (one of our own), who, being deposed, and by night removed, was in his journey shaved, to the end he might not be known, and set upon a mole-hill instead of a chair of state, and washed with puddle-water, in the midst of which he burst out into this pathetical speech, 'I will yet have clean water to be washed with;' and forthwith he shed many tears, which in rivulets distilled down his princely cheeks, and cleansed them from that filth wherewith the puddle-water had sullied and besmeared them. What heart would it not affect to read this story of a king? And how much more did it affect his own heart? And yet what was he to Christ, who in the midst of all their misusage of him knew well what a kingdom he was born unto! as himself told Pilate.
[7.] They unbare him and make him naked, and then whip him; and both these to his shame. Nakedness, you know, is shameful; and, therefore, our first parents, when they were naked, were ashamed.
And then for whipping, it was a punishment inflicted upon none but slaves and villains, never upon a free-born Roman. Therefore how afraid were the whippers of Paul when they heard that he was a Roman. And mastigia (or one that is subject to whipping), and a base villain, are all one. Now the reason why they might whip Christ was, that he had taken upon him the form of a servant; and so they whipped him, as we use to do runaways, which Peter alludes to, speaking to servants, and setting before them Christ's example, 'We like sheep had gone astray, and by his stripes were we healed,' 1 Peter
2:24, 25.
[8.] They mock him and abuse him by giving him gall before, and vinegar after he was upon the cross, to quench his thirst with. Which therefore Christ is brought in mentioning, as being sensible of the scorn of it, Ps. 69:21 (which psalm is a psalm of Christ).
[9.] They wag their heads at him when on the cross, and gape with their mouths; which is, first, a gesture of despising: so, Isa. 37:22, it
is said of Sennacherib, that Zion had 'despised him and shaken her head at him.' Secondly, it is a gesture of detestation. So, Jer. 18:16, it is said of Israel, that 'every one that passeth by her shall be astonished and wag his head at her.' Thirdly, it is a gesture of scorn.
So, Lam. 2:15, it is said, 'they hiss and wag their heads' (at Jerusalem), 'and say, Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty, and joy of the whole earth?'
[10.] They mock and jeer him by the most contumelious words that could be—ὑβρισθήσεται 'He shall be opprobriously reviled,' Luke
18:32—yea, they blasphemed him. First, In all his offices: as, first, prophetical; they blindfold him, and smite him, and then bid him prophesy who it was that smote him. Christ will one day tell him that did it who it was. Second, priestly; he saved others (say they), let him save himself. Why, he was even then a-saving others by bearing their misusage; he was then a-doing that for which they mocked him.
Third, kingly; 'If,' say they, 'thou be the king of Israel, then come down,' &c. Thus they mock all his offices. So,
Secondly, His person, and his being the Son of God; 'He trusted in God' (say they), 'and said he was the Son of God; let God now save him if he will have him.' And (which is strange) in these and the like speeches they use the very same words that in Psalm 22 were foretold should be used by them when he should be crucified. For these words of theirs you have there recorded, ver. 8; so that, as Paul afterward told them, they fulfilled the prophecies, whilst they ridiculed him. Yea, Thirdly (Which is an inhumanity unheard of before or since), They mock at his very prayers, which he makes out of the deepest bitterness of spirit that ever creature spake out of, and which were full of the saddest complaints that could be uttered, when he cried out most bitterly, 'Eli, Eli, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' They put it off, and turn it into a scoff, as if they understood it not: 'He calls for Elias,' say they in scorn; as if he had prayed unto a creature, unto Elias, instead of the living God: and 'let us see,' say
they, 'if Elias will come and help him.' In Heb. 11, among other persecutions of the martyrs, cruel mockings are mentioned as none of the least, reproaches being to the soul (as the psalmist expresseth it, Ps. 64:4) as the pricking of a sword. Now was there ever such cruel mockings as these heard of? Christ complains in Ps. 69:26 (for it is a psalm of him), 'They persecute him whom thou hast smitten.' When
God had smitten him, and he in bitterness cried, 'Eli, Eli, My God, my God,' they turn it to Elias. Take the most hateful malefactor that ever was, one that hath been the most flagitious traitor to his prince and country that ever pestered the earth, and so had rendered himself most abominable and odious to all mankind; yet, let him come to die for it, and though the rage and fury of men make them not to compassionate his tortures, as being far less than his desert, yet still for his soul, as it stands in relation to God, they wish well to it, and that it may be saved; their malice rageth not to jeer at the prayers he makes for the salvation thereof. Nay, men are even ready to afford comfort and help unto, and to further such a man's faith, and to join in prayers with, and for him. But these Jews scoff at Christ's very prayers. They speak what they are able to make him despair. If ever the devil was abroad, and the malice of hell in the hearts of men, it was at that day.
In the second place, add unto all these misusages those circumstances that accompanied both his death and mockings, to heighten his shame the more. God contrived all things so to fall out as to make his shame above measure shameful, as our sin had been above measure sinful; he heaped shame upon shame upon him.
The first circumstance here observable is that of time. All this was done to him at the most public time that could be chosen out; even at the passover, when all the males came up to Jerusalem, and many strangers with them, to celebrate that feast—a concourse like our commencement at our universities, or like the most general assembly you can imagine.
Second is, the circumstance of place. Which,
1. For the publicness of it, was at Jerusalem, the head city of Jewry, a stage the most eminent upon which to be made a spectacle to men and angels. 'Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem' (said two of his disciples unto himself), 'and hast not known these things?' Luke
24:18. 'These things were not done in a corner' (as his disciples said).
And when God would shame David, he cast in this circumstance to aggravate it; 'Thou' (says God) 'didst it secretly, but I will punish it before this sun.'
2. (More specially and restrictly) For the infamousness of the place; he was crucified at Golgotha, a place of skulls, as ignominious as our
Tyburn. The place had a reproach in it: therefore, Heb. 13:13, 'Jesus suffered without the gate,' says the apostle; 'let us therefore go forth to him without the camp, bearing his reproach,' namely, of suffering in such a place. It shewed he was an outcast, rejected of men, and as dung cast out.
3. For the persons that mocked him, they were persons of all sorts; kings and rulers, Herod and the elders, the priests and soldiers, together with the multitude of common people that followed him, and that passed by occasionally, yea, the very thieves themselves that were crucified with him. Now the baseness of the persons that contemn one doth add to the contempt. Therefore you shall find Job complaining, Job 30:1–10, that those that were younger than he, and whose fathers he would have disdained to set with the dogs of his flock, did mock him: they are (says he, ver. 8, 9) the children of villains, more vile than the earth they tread on, and now I am their song, yea, their by-word,' &c. 'Reproach' (says Christ in one of the psalms made of him) 'hath broken my heart,' Ps. 69:20.
4. The death itself was also the most shameful; even 'the death of the cross;' which for his disciples to preach and profess, had in the eyes of all the world a shame in it. Therefore Paul, Gal. 5:11, calls it 'the offence or scandal of the cross.' And if that were a shame, to profess a crucified God, what a shame was it then for God himself to suffer such a death.' The cross was so shameful, that therefore none of all
the meanest and basest of the people could be procured so much as to carry it; so that they were fain to compel Simon of Cyrene unto it.
And it was the custom ever after to call such as carried a malefactor's cross, Crucigeri, as a brand of disgrace. And for himself to carry it (as he did), was such an addition of ignominy unto his death, as for a malefactor to go all the way to the gallows with a rope about his neck.
5. All this was aggravated also by the persons that suffered with him, and their saving one of their lives before his. A comparative contempt is more than a simple one. As, (1.) That he should be crucified between two thieves, as if he were the prince of them. It is made an heightening circumstance of his shameful death (in Isa. 53:12), that 'he was numbered amongst the transgressors.' Then, (2.) (Yet further) That Barabbas, the most infamous thief, seditious person and murderer that was in that nation (and so a proclaimed enemy unto that state), should be voted to live by the common voice of all the people, and this when with the same breath they cry, 'Let
Jesus be crucified, let him be crucified.' Pilate put them upon choosing one of these two, and set Jesus in the comparison with Barabbas, on purpose to get Jesus saved, not thinking they would be so shameless as to prefer him to Christ, who was a murderer as well as a thief, and one that had made himself odious unto them all, and whom by their law they were not to pardon or suffer to live. Yet they are content to bring both the blood he had shed (by sparing him), and Christ's also, upon their heads, by crucifying him, rather than to deliver him that was innocent. Thus much for the shame of his death and sufferings.