7. The Mystery of Christ’s Soul Trouble
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The Mystery of Christ’s Soul Trouble1
Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name.
—John 12:27–28
The cause of this soul trouble was for sinners; this was surety2 suffering. The choicest and most stately piece that God ever created and dearest to God, second only to God-man, was the princely soul of Christ. It was a king’s soul. Yet death, by reason of sin, came upon it. It was not a common death, but that which is the marrow3 of death, the firstborn and the strongest of deaths, enduring the wrath of God and the innocent pain of hell, yet void of despair and hatred of God. If I had any hell to endure, I should choose an innocent hell like Christ’s. Better suffer ill a thousand times than sin; suffering is rather to be chosen than sin. It was pain, and nothing but pain. Damned men and reprobate devils are not capable of a godly and innocent hell; they cannot choose to suffer hell and not spit on fair and spotless justice. Because Christ’s blood was to wash away sin, He could not both fully pay and contract debt also.
But if it is so that death, finding so precious a surety as Christ’s princely and sinless soul, made Him obey the law of the land before He escaped from the land, what wonder is it that we who are born in the land of death die? There is no creature that does not travail in pain, with death in its bosom or an inclination to mother-nothing,4 from where it came. Only God stands between the mightiest angel in heaven and nothing. All things under the moon must have been sick from vanity and death if the Heir of all things, coming in among dying creatures, out of dispensation, by law had to die. If the Lord’s soul, and the soul of such a Lord, had to die and suffer wrath, then let the fair face of the world, the heavens, look like the face of an old man, full of trembling, white hairs, and wrinkles (Ps. 102:26). Then let man make for his long home; let time itself wax old and gray-haired. Why should I desire to stay here when Christ had to pass away?
And if this spotless soul that never sinned was troubled, what wonder, then, that there are many troubles for the sinner? Our Savior, who promises soul rest to others, cannot have soul rest Himself. His soul is now sorely tossed on a wheel, and all creatures are on a wheel and in motion. There is not a creature since Adam sinned that sleeps soundly. Weariness and motion is laid on the moon and sun and all creatures on this side of the moon. Seas ebb and flow, and that’s trouble; winds blow, and rivers move. For five thousand years, heavens and stars, except one time, have not had six minutes’ rest.5 Living creatures walk toward death. Kingdoms and cities are on the wheel of changes, up and down. Mankind runs and is troubled by diseases of the body and soul trouble…. Men are motion sick…. The six-day creation has been travailing and shouting in pain, and the child has not been born yet (Rom. 8:22). This poor woman [the whole creation] has been groaning under the bondage of vanity and shall not be brought to bed to give birth until Jesus comes the second time to be midwife. All the great of heaven and earth, since God laid the first stone of this wide hall, have been groaning and weeping for the liberty of the sons of God (Rom. 8:21). The figure of the passing-away world is like an old man’s face, full of wrinkles and foul with weeping (1 Cor. 7:31). We are waiting for the time when Jesus will be revealed from heaven and will come and wipe the old man’s face. All creatures here are on their feet; none of them can sit or lie.
Christ’s soul now is above trouble and rests sweetly in the bosom of God. Troubled souls, rejoice in hope. Soft and childish saints do not take it well when they are not feasted every day with Christ’s love…. But since the fairest piece of the man Jesus, His precious soul, was sick with soul trouble, and since the noble and renowned Head Heir of all, the first of His kingly house, uttered deep groans that pierced skies and heaven and rent the rocks, why should sinners fail to be submissive when Christ is pleased to set children down to walk on foot and hide Himself from them? But they forget the difference between the inns of clay and the home of glory. Our fields here are sown with tears; grief grows in every furrow of this lowland. You shall lay soul and head down in the bosom…of Jesus Christ; that bed must be soft and delicious. It is perfumed with uncreated glory. When Christ shall circle His glorious arm about your head and you rest in an infinite compass of surpassing glory; when glory or ripened grace shall be with you and without you, above and below; when your feet of clay shall walk upon pure surpassing glory, the thoughts of all your soul troubles now shall be as shadows that passed away ten thousand years ago.
1. Christ Dying, 11–13.
2. surety: one who has become legally liable for the debt, default, or failure in duty of another
3. marrow: essence
4. mother-nothing: A phrase coined by Rutherford referring to the fact that all things have been created out of nothing.
5. See Joshua 10:12.