Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3530
“We hid, as it were, our faces from Him.” Isaiah 53:3.
You will find in the margin of some of your Bibles that this passage is rendered, “He hid, as it were, His face from us.” The literal translation of the Hebrew would be, “He was as a hiding of faces from him,” or, “from us.” Some critical readers think these words were intended to describe our Lord as having so humbled Himself and brought Himself to such a deep degradation, that He was comparable to the leper who covered his face and cried, “Unclean, unclean!” hiding himself from the gaze of men. Abhorred and despised of men, he was like one put aside because of his disease, and shunned by all mankind. Others suppose the meaning to be that on account of our Lord’s terrible and protracted sorrow, His face wore an expression so painful and grievous that men could scarcely bear to look upon Him. They hid, as it were, their faces from Him—amazed at that brow all carved with lines of anxious thought, those cheeks all plowed with furrows of deep care, those eyes all sunk in shades of sadness—that soul bowed down, exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death! It may be so. We cannot tell. So let it pass. I have a plain, practical purpose to pursue. Here is an indictment to which we must all plead guilty. Let us make the reflection our own, as we humbly bow at the dear pierced feet of our Lord and remember how cruelly we slighted our kindest Friend, when, “We hid, as it were, our faces from Him.”
I. In Cool Contempt of Him
How astounding! How revolting! He, the Lord of Glory, the Creator of Heaven and earth, out of compassion to the children of men, condescended to take upon Himself our nature! Should we, therefore, slight Him? Being found in fashion as a Man, He was subjected to all the pains and miseries of this mortal life and encountered the horrors of death, itself—should we, therefore, revile, or should we not revere Him? He ought surely to be esteemed by all mankind! I have sometimes felt that had He not redeemed my soul, I must reverence Him for redeeming others. Had I never tasted of His love at all, myself, yet the story of His love to His enemies is such that I think I could fall down and worship Him! His Character claims our admiration and appeals to the most tender feelings of our heart. So disinterested was the love of Christ, so self-denying, so unwavering in its constancy, He surpassed every instance on record and excelled any ideal that the most gifted imagination could paint!
Greater love has no man than this, that he laid down his life for his friends. There, creature generosity exhausts itself! Mere human love has reached its limit! But God commends His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And this blessed Man, Christ Jesus, personally shows and makes evident this love to His enemies, His persecutors, His murderers! Still there are those who can revile His name while they scan His history. We can scarcely speak of Him but forthwith the vials of their wrath begin to distil. Strange is it that a fame so lively, and a name so altogether lovely should so commonly set a man against his fellows and become the innocent cause of strife and persecution in the world! That name of Jesus—a name of highest heavenly Glory, a name of profound peace, a name of universal good will, a name to knit all mankind in one common brotherhood—has become, by the perversity of human nature, a by-word and a reproach! Their Savior in every age they have not known! Their day of visitation they have not heeded! Hence His name has excited wrath and opposition among the sons of men, where it should have excited reverence and love! Some show their opposition by attempting to ignore or to tarnish the dignity of His Person. These blatant infidels, I trust, are
getting fewer and fewer. The rough, bullying speech of Tom Paine we sincerely hope will never be heard on earth again! There are thinkers (as they would have us call them) abroad in these days more courteous in their address and far more cautious in their language, than the disbelievers of former times—but too often they are as full of malignity and deadly venoms against the Christ of God as were the coarsest scoffers who uttered their blasphemy before we were born—so persistently is the Person of Christ held in contempt alike by Greek and barbarian!
And are there not others who affect great admiration for Jesus of Nazareth as an example of virtue and benevolence, who, nevertheless, reject His mediatorial work as our Redeemer? As a substitutionary Sacrifice they do not and cannot esteem Him! Isaiah, in the Chapter before us, was holding up Christ as the Lamb led to the slaughter, the Victim of our transgressions, bearing our chastisement. How the anger of some men kindles at this representation of the Gospel! They sneer at the Doctrine of Substitution, Vicarious Sacrifice, Atonement—at the simple fact, indeed, that, “His own Self bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” That He was a true Philanthropist, an admirable Teacher and an Inspired Prophet, they will readily allow—but that our iniquities were laid on Him, that He was punished in our place, that He died, the Just for the unjust—they set aside as though it were an idle tale, a baseless fiction! This noblest of all Doctrines, the grandest of all conceptions is here brought down to the humblest capacity of the most simple understanding. The learned can find no flaw in the logic. But learning and logic have little enough to do with it. The heart that believes it, can tell its worth—“He loved me and gave Himself for me.” Angels have but to hear of it, and they sing of it! Marvel of marvels that there should be men on earth so wise that they hoot at it and count it worthy of nothing but their scorn! They hide, as it were, their faces from the Crucified Savior.