Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3404
“And they spit upon Him.” Matthew 27:30.
The night before He had “sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground,” that fair visage, which was “fairer than that of any of the sons of men,” had been marred by agony and grief without parallel. During that night He had no rest—He was dragged away from one tribunal to another. First, He was brought before a council of priests. Soon after He stood before Pilate and now, after the mockery of a trial, He is given up to the soldiers, that they may mock Him before His execution. ‘Tis He—the world’s Redeemer, the long expected Messiah—He is led out as a condemned criminal—condemned as a traitor and given up for blasphemy, that He may die the death! Do you see Him? They bring forth an old stool—they call that a throne—the Monarch who sways the scepter of the universe, is placed thereon! They thrust into His hand a reed to mock that golden scepter, the touch of which has so often given mercy to rebels! And now they play the worshipper before Him. But what is their worship? It consists of ribaldry and jeer. Having made sport of His kingship, they turn to ridicule His Character as a Prophet. They blindfold Him and strike Him in the face, some on one cheek, and some on the other, buffeting Him with the palms of their hands! They pluck His facial hair and then they say, making fools of themselves rather than of Him whom they thought to make a fool of, “Prophesy, who is he that struck You?” “Who is this that just now plucked Your beard?” “Who is it that struck You on the cheek?” Not content with this, they loosen the blindfold and He sees. What a sight is before Him! Faces in every conceivable shape mocking Him— thrusting out the tongue or screwing it into the cheek, calling Him all the names that their low-lived dictionary could summon up, not content with heaping common scorn upon Him, but counting Him to be the very offscouring of all things. Names with which they would not degrade a dog, they use to defile Him! Then, to consummate all, they spit into His face. Those eyes, which make Heaven glad, and cause the angels to rejoice, are covered with the spit of these rascal soldiers. Down His cheek it trickles. That awful brow, the nod or shake of which reveals the everlasting decrees of God, is stained with spit from the mouths of wretches whom His own hands had made, whom He could have dashed into eternal destruction had He willed!
When I muse on this, my soul is filled with sorrow. The very idea that Jesus Christ could ever have been spit upon by one in human shape appalls me! Do you remember what sort of face it was that these soldiers spit into? Shall I read you a description of it? One that loved Him and knew Him well, speaks of Him thus—“My Beloved is white… His Countenance is lovely.” (Solomon’s Song, 5:10, etc.). It was into this dear face, a coarse brutal soldiery must void their vile spit! O Church of Christ, was ever grief like yours, that your Husband should thus be defiled and that, too, for your sake? Was ever love like His that He should suffer these indignities for you? The angels crowd around His Throne to catch a glimpse of that fair Countenance. When He was born, they came to Bethlehem’s manger that they might gaze upon that face while He was yet an Infant! And all through His devious path of sorrow, He was “seen of angels.” They never turned away their eyes from Him, for never had they seen a visage so enchanting! What must they have thought when gathering round their Lord? Surely they would have gladly stretched their wings to have shielded that dear face! What anger must have filled their holy souls, what grief, if grief can be known by beings like themselves, when they saw these wretches, these inhuman creatures, spitting on Perfection! Oh, how they must have grieved when they saw the nasty spit about that mouth which is “most sweet,” trickling down from those eyes which are “like the eyes of doves by rivers of waters,” staining the cheeks which are “as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers,” and falling on those lips which are “like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh.” This is a subject upon which I must meditate, even though I cannot preach. I cannot describe it to you unless your soul can now draw near to your buffeted Master, unless the Holy Spirit shall give you a near and dear—an intimate, quiet, soul-satisfying view and vision of Him. I cannot give it to you. As well might I attempt to hold a candle to show you the sun as to hope, by anything that I can say, to touch your passions or move your hearts towards my dear Lord and Master, if the vision of Him does not move you to grieve for sin, and to love Him because He suffered thus for you. All I propose tonight is to offer just a few thoughts on this startling fact in the history of our Redemption.
“They spit upon Him.” Let us learn here the deep depravity of the human race. When I see Adam in the midst of comfort putting forth his hand to take that one fruit which his Master had reserved for Himself, I see, indeed, sin and arrogance, daring assumption and a heinous crime! But I do not see so much of levity and lawlessness, there, as I do in this, that creatures should spit on the Creator! As I look through the annals of human guilt, I see strange stories of man in reckless, defiant rebellion against his Divine Sovereign. From that first evil hour until now, what strange monsters of guilt has the earth seen! We have heard of rapine and murder, crimes for which new names have been coined to meet the new atrocities which have been committed! Homicide, fratricide, patricide and matricide in which every sanctity of kin has been outraged. We have read of fornication and of adultery, and of lusts worse than bestial. Good God, what is not man capable of? Take but the bit from his mouth and the bridle from his jaws and to what depth of iniquity will he not descend? There is not a filthy dream that Satan ever had in the dark watches of his midnight reverie which man will not embody in act, and carry out in all its grim and dread reality! Strange are those tales that have come from a far-off land, where the heathen worship in their darkness. They not merely bow down to blocks of wood and stone, but degrade themselves with vices into which we could never have imagined humanity could plunge! O God, my heart is heavy as a stone, and smitten with very grief when I think of what an evil thing man is! Why did You not sweep him from the world? How can You permit a viper so obnoxious to nestle in the bosom of Your Providence? Oh, why do You permit such a den of thieves to wander abroad such a cage of unclean birds to swing in ether, and to be carried by Your power round the sun? Why do You not blast it, smite its mountains with desolation and fill its valleys with ashes of fire? Why do You not sweep the race of humans clean away and let their very name become a hissing and a scorn? But, my Brothers and Sisters, bad as man is, I think he never was so bad—or rather, his badness never came out to the full so much—as when gathering all his spite, his pride, his lust, his desperate defiance, his abominable wickedness into one mouthful—he spat into the face of the Son of God, Himself! Oh, this is an act that transcends every other! There are other deeds connected with the Crucifixion quite as malignant, but could there be any so vile? Surely we may say of the men that drove the nails into the Savior’s hands that they did but that which they were ordered to do. They were soldiers, and because they were commanded by their military superiors, therefore, they did it. But this was a gratuitous act—this was done without command, without any pressure! It was the base wickedness of their own hearts. Sin saw Perfection in its power, and it must spit on Perfection’s cheeks! The creature, the erring creature, saw its Creator in the mightiness of His condescension, putting Himself into His creature’s power—and the creature spit upon Him to show how much He hated, how much He loathed, despised, abhorred, detested the very thought of Godhead—even when it was Godhead veiled in human flesh and come into the world to redeem!