Matthew 27:66

REFLECTIONS

Reader! if there be an interesting moment in the life of Jesus while upon earth, to call forth the tenderest sympathy of his redeemed, in one instance more than another, surely it is here. Who indeed can, dry eyed, or without a weeping heart, follow the Redeemer from the hall of Pilate, to the Mount of Calvary, and behold the Lamb of God in those unequalled hours of suffering, offering his soul an offering for sin? Yea, who that from being enabled by the teaching of God the Holy Ghost, to enter into the suitable apprehension of the mysterious subject, and stands convinced, that all which Jesus suffered, was the sinner's due, and must have been his sufferings to all eternity but for Jesus's interposition, can, unmoved, behold such scenes of sorrow? Reader! let you and I behold the Lamb of God, in this light! Let us listen to the declaration of Jehovah on this point, and while we look up at the cross of Christ, behold what but for his sufferings must have been our own; and then we shall rightly prize the voice of God, when he saith, speaking of Christ; He was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he stricken!

Under these impressions, let us behold the Lord Jesus, the sinner's surety, taken from prison and from judgment. I see him bearing my sins, and my curse due to them; and hurried away to execution. An armed band seizing upon him; he is bound hand and foot as the sacrifice to the altar, The Scribes and Pharisees, like the bulls of Bashan, beset him around. He is made naked to his shame, publicly scourged, and his body torn with thorns, until the blood streamed in every direction. While the shouts of the unfeeling rabble, and the blows of the cruel soldiers, worry the Lamb of God to death. His cries on the cross loudly manifest what were the feelings of his soul; and above all, the frowns of Heaven when he hung upon the accursed tree, made the cup of trembling bitter indeed. Who that hears the words of Jesus, can enter into their full extent of sorrow. Reproach hath broken my heart: I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none: and for comforters, but I found none!

And must all this have been my case, had not Jesus been my surety? Yes! all, and every portion of it, and that forever. For if the holy, and harmless, and undefiled Lamb of God, was made both sin and a curse for his people; certainly but for his taking both upon him, the sinner of every description must have borne the whole for himself And when at death, the unregenerated sinner had received the awful sentence and is hurried away to punishment, that curse will light upon him, and remain upon him undone away to all eternity. Oh! the unspeakable felicity of being found in Christ, and having him as our surety, both now, in this day of grace, and thereafter in the day of judgment. Reader! may the Lord give us the faith of thus looking to the cross of Christ, and there behold Jesus as our surety! Surely shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come, and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.