OUR SAVIOR, after He has risen, allows us a backward look upon the suffering that lay behind Him.
“Ought,” He asked Cleopas and his companion, “ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and thus enter into His glory?” (Luke 24, 26.)
A brief, a synoptic, a quickly spoken word, but in which He, Who had waded through the broad, deep stream of sorrow and death, once more focalized all the woefulness and all the bitter conflict of His soul, to recall it as in one glance to the memory of His disciples.
All these things; how unspeakably much there lay in that brief word! The cup brimful and running over, which had been handed to Him by His own dear Father. That cup which He had drunk draught by draught, at the last drop by drop, till at the end the very dregs had not been spared Him.
All these things; how far this all-embracing word went back for Him, Who “from the beginning of His incarnation,” and “all the days of His life,” had borne the wrath of God against the sin of our human race.
All these things; what bitter remembrance it awoke in Him of what He had suffered already by the single touch upon our in sin and misery lost human race; suffered by what Satan and his demons had machinated against the Holy Child of God and presently against the Teacher in Israel; suffered by what the children of the world in their ignorance, or the men of the world in their malicious purpose had done to Him; suffered of the multitudes that did not understand Him, of the people of Israel, that unwilling to receive Him as their Messiah, wanted to stone Him; suffered of the mighty ones of the earth; and suffered above all of His own, otherwise so faithful, but so often blinded disciples.
All these things; where would you begin and where end, if you would rehearse everything that lies in this comprehensive word from the flight into Egypt to the Eli Lama Sabachthani?
It is such a world, such an unfathomable depth, such an ocean of suffering, which by the wrath of God, for our sakes, had come upon Him, and has surrounded Him on every side, that you can understand how the man of art could place upon the lips of the Man of sorrows the word from the Lamentations: “All ye, that pass by, behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.”
Above all because in addition to this Jeremiah complained: “Like the sorrow, which the Lord hath done unto me, when He afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.”
And of that suffering He, Who endured it all, after it has been struggled through, asks: Ought it not?
Ought not Christ to have suffered all these things? Do you not feel yourselves, and understand, that it could not have been averted, and that therefore it was not averted?
A high, a holy must, was dominant here, deep of significance especially on the lips of Him, from Whose lips the mournful prayer had come: Take, Father, this cup away from me, except I drink it.
And that high, holy must is not like a mystery, which He unveils to His disciples. He does not say: “You could not surmise it, but now, after that it has all been suffered, I tell you what it meant. It had to be so; it could not have been otherwise.”
On the contrary the Victor over death and grave appeals to them themselves; to what they should know about it independently of Him; to what was manifest from the whole Old Testament Scripture, that the Messiah when He came, would be as the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world, and also that He would be as One smitten of God and afflicted, that He might give His soul as an expiatory sacrifice.
Ought not, so Jesus asks, ought not, according to what counts to you yourselves as certain from God’s Word, ought not Christ to have suffered all these things, and only thus enter into His glory?
Yea, stronger still,
Jesus does not say: “Ought not Christ to have suffered?” but: “Ought not Christ to have suffered all these things?” as though He asked them, whether the whole program of His dark, somber way of suffering did not stand outlined beforehand in Moses and the prophets.
Jesus knew well that His suffering had surprised them; His disciples had not been able in advance to enter into it; suddenly it had come upon them, and it had overwhelmed them.
And now that all is over the Lord shows them that this surprise was sinful; that all these things should not have appeared strange to them. That all these things ought rather to have been to them a seal the more to His Messiahship.
O, it would have been altogether different, had they understood the Scripture not merely externally, but also spiritually.
For in all that Scripture it stood so plainly and so clearly written, that so and not otherwise it must occur, and that Christ must suffer all these things, that through the gate of justice He might enter into His glory.
SO this ought refers to Holy Scripture, for beginning at Moses and all the prophets, Jesus expounded unto them that holy ought broadly and clearly from the Word of God.
It ought because it stood so written in Moses and all the prophets.
First the figure of the Messiah had been shown; even before He came upon earth in the flesh.
As it reads in Heb. 1:6, already in the Old Covenant the Lord had brought His Son into the world. Not yet in the flesh, but in image.
It had been shown to Israel beforehand Who and how the Messiah was to be, so that when He came, Israel, comparing this image given from of old with His actual appearance, in holy enthusiasm should exclaim: “Thou art the Son of God, the King of Israel!” and in every place the voice of rejoicing should have been heard: This day in our ears and before our eyes is this Scripture fulfilled.
For this reason Jesus Himself, and the Evangelist and the Apostle continually vie as it were to point out that this also must needs happen to Him, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
Yea, this extends even so far, that when it comes to the It is finished that resounded on Golgotha, the Evangelist understands this also as a fulfillment of prophecy.
In that Holy Scripture, which God’s love had presented to Israel, the Messiah stood portrayed; portrayed in holy symbols; portrayed in a broad series of types and events; portrayed in lyric song and holy prophecy; portrayed in His being; portrayed in His offices; portrayed in the work which He should accomplish; in the triumph which He was to achieve; but portrayed also in the suffering that He was to endure.
In Moses and the Prophets Life’s image and Life’s program both were depicted and clearly outlined.
And now, that this Only Begotten One, Whom God loved, is come, and has exhibited that selfsame prophecied image in flesh and blood, and has fulfilled that awful program of suffering to the end, now He asks His disciples, as with Scripture in hand, whether it ought not thus to have taken place, and whether Christ should not have suffered all these things, and thus enter into His glory.
But of course, not because of that Scripture.
It was not so, that accidentally and unfortunately it stood so written in that Scripture, and that, since it stood so written there, alas, no escape was possible.
It is not with the Scriptures as it was with Pilate’s superscription on the cross, that God should now say: What is written, is written, and therefore must so be accomplished.
It is not as with the law of the Medes and Persians, which for the sake of exalting the sacredness of law, could never be modified, so that for the sake of maintaining the high and holy character of Scripture, Jesus had to be sacrificed, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
To him who takes it in this sense, Scripture is a fetish, and from it no word of eternal life addresses itself to him.
We should never be concerned about that Scripture as Scripture and nothing more; but always and solely about that Scripture as the Word of God.
Around God, and not around that Scripture, the history of sin and grace moves itself as around its eternal center; and never may that Scripture have honor for anything else, than that in it the word of our God comes to us.
Hence with respect to this also Christ ought to have suffered all these things, not because it stood so written in that Scripture, but because for our instruction and left for us to discover, God had thus put it in that Scripture, held it before us and prophesied it.
The necessity that could not be averted, that our Savior, on Whom is founded all our hope, had to suffer all these things, that as a sheep that is dumb before her shearers, submissively and willingly He had to accomplish the sacrifice of Himself; this necessity lay not in that Scripture, but in God.
Because God is God and can not deny Himself, and because with Him there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, therefore it had to be so, and that it had to come to pass in this way and for this reason, is what Holy Scripture reveals unto us.
From the burning bush God had spoken to Moses, saying: I shall be Whom I shall be, that is my Name eternally, and in the fact that the Almighty is Jehovah, lies the necessity, that Jesus must drink the cup, drink it to the last drop.
Not as though there is a law above God, to which God the Lord should be subjected, a certain eternal law, which should likewise bind God.
Determining everything, but determined Himself by nothing save Himself, there is no ought in God, save that which surges up from His own Being.
Against this gloriously high and holy Being our sin had arrayed itself, and against that sin, that He might remain Himself, i. e. God, His Divine wrath operated with all the weight of His almightiness.
And from this came that bitter, that terrible ought, that it could not be otherwise, but that Jesus had to suffer all these things.
For Him there was no escape, that there should be an escape for you.
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