Christ must be in us before he can be on us. Grace puts Christ within, and enables us to put on Christ without. Christ must be in the heart by faith, before he can be in the life by holiness. If you want light from a lantern, the first business is to light the candle inside of it; and then, as a consequence, the light shines through, to be seen of men. When Christ is formed in you, the hope of glory, do not conceal your love to him; but put him on in your conduct as the glory of your hope. As you have Christ within as your Saviour, the secret of your inner life, so put on Christ to be the beauty of your daily life. Let the external be brightened by the internal; and this shall be to you that “armour of light” which all the soldiers of the Lord Jesus are privileged to wear. As Christ is your food, nourishing the inner man, so put him on as your dress, covering the outer man.

“Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” It is a very wonderful expression. It is most condescending on our Lord’s part to allow of such an exhortation. Paul speaks the mind of the Holy Spirit, and the word is full of meaning. Oh, for grace to learn its teaching! It is full of very solemn warning to us, for we need a covering thus divinely perfect. Oh, for grace to practise the command to put it on! The apostle does not so much say, “Take up the Lord Jesus Christ, and bear him with you;” but, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and thus wear him as the garment of your life. A man takes up his staff for a journey, or his sword for a battle; but he lays these down again after a while: you are to put on the Lord Jesus as you put on your garment; and thus he is to cover you, and to become part and parcel of your outward appearance, surrounding your very self, as a visible part of your manifest personality.

“Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” This we do when we believe in him: then we put on the Lord Jesus Christ as our robe of righteousness. It is a very beautiful picture of what faith does. Faith finds our manhood naked to its shame; faith sees that Christ Jesus is the robe of righteousness provided for our need, and faith, at the command of the gospel, appropriates him, and gets the benefit of him for it. By faith the soul covers her weakness with his strength, her sin with his atonement, her folly with his wisdom, her failure with his triumphs, her death with his life, her wanderings with his constancy. By faith, I say, the soul hides itself within Jesus; till Jesus only is seen, and the man is seen in him. We take not only his righteousness as being imputed to us, but we take himself to be really ours; and so his righteousness becomes ours as a matter of fact. “By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” His righteousness is set to our account, and becomes ours because he is ours. I, though long unrighteous in myself, believe in the testimony of God concerning his Son Jesus Christ, and I am accounted righteous, even as it is written, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” The riches of God in Christ Jesus become mine as I take the Lord Jesus Christ to be everything to me.

But, you see, the text does not distinctly refer to this great matter, for the apostle is not referring to the imputed righteousness of Christ. The text stands in connection with precepts concerning matters of every-day practical life, and to these it must refer. It is not justification, but sanctification that we have here. Moreover, we cannot be said to put on the imputed righteousness of Christ after we have believed, for that is upon us as soon as we believe, and needs no more putting on. The command before us is given to those who have the imputed righteousness of Christ, who are justified, who are accepted in Christ Jesus. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ” is a word to you that are saved by Christ, and justified by his righteousness. You are to put on Christ, and keep on putting him on in the sanctifying of your lives unto your God. You are every day continually more and more to wear as the dress of your lives the character of your Lord.

I will handle this subject by answering questions. First, Where are we to go for our daily dress? “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Secondly, What is this daily dress? “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Thirdly, How are we to act towards evil when we are thus clad? “And make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” And then I will finish with the consideration of the question, Why should we hasten to put on this matchless dress? For “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us put on the armour of light.”

May the Holy Spirit help us while we, in the first place, answer the inquiry, where are we to go for daily dress? Beloved, there is but one answer to all questions as to our necessities. We go to the Lord Jesus Christ for everything. To us “Christ is all.” “He is made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” When you have come to Christ for pardon and justification, you are not to go elsewhere for the next thing. Having begun with Jesus, you are to go on with him, even to the end; “for ye are complete in him,” perfectly stored in Christ, fully equipped in him. “It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.” Every necessity that can ever press upon you between this Marah in the wilderness and yonder sea of glass before the throne, will be found to be met in Christ Jesus. You ask, What am I to do for a vesture which will befit the courts of the Lord? for armour that will protect me from the assaults of the foe? for a robe that will enable me to act as a priest and king unto God? The one answer to the much-including question is, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” You have no further need. You need not look elsewhere for a thread or a shoe latchet.

So, dear friends, I gather from this, that if we seek an example, we may not look elsewhere than to our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not written, “Put ye on this man or that”; but “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” The model for a saint is his Saviour. We are very apt to select some eminently gracious or useful man to be a pattern to us. A measure of good may result from such a course, but a degree of evil may also come of it. There will always be some fault about the most excellent of our fellow-mortals; and as our tendency is to caricature virtues till we make them faults, so is it our greater folly to mistake faults for excellences, and copy them with careful exactness, and generally with abundant exaggeration. By this plan, with the best intentions, we may reach very sad results. Follow Jesus in the way, and thou wilt not err: let thy feet go down exactly in his foot-prints, and thou canst not slide. As his grace enables us, let us make it true, that “as he was, so are we in this world.” You need not look beyond your Lord for example under any circumstances. Of him you may enquire as of an unfailing oracle. You need never enquire what is the general custom of those about you: the broad road of the many is no way for you. You may not ask, “What are the rulers of the people doing?” You follow not the fashion of the great, but the example of the greatest of all. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ” will apply to each one of us. If I am a tradesman, I am not to ask myself-On what principles do other traders conduct their business? Not so. What the world may do is no rule for me. If I am a student I should not enquire-How do others feel towards religion? Let others do as they will, it is for us to serve the Lord. In every relationship, in the domestic circle, in the literary world, in the sphere of friendship, or in business connections, I am to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” If I am perplexed, I am bound to ask-What would Jesus do? and his example is to guide me. If I cannot conceive of his acting in a certain way, neither must I allow myself to do so; but if I perceive, from his precept, his spirit, or his action, that he would follow such and such a course, to that line I must keep. I am not to put on the philosopher, the politician, the priest, or the popularity hunter; but I am to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, by taking his life to be the model upon which I fashion my own life.

From our text I should also gather that we are to go to the Lord Jesus Christ for stimulus. We want not only an example, but a motive, an impulse and constraining power to keep us true to that example. We need to put on zeal as a cloak, and to be covered with a holy influence which will urge us onward. Let us go to the Lord Jesus for motives. Some fly to Moses, and would drive themselves to duty by the thunders of Sinai. Their design in service is to earn eternal life, or prevent the loss of the favour of God. Thus they come under law, and forsake the true way of the believer, which is faith. Not from dread of punishment or hope of hire do believers serve the living God; but we put on Christ, and the love of Christ constraineth us. Here is the spring of true holiness: “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” A stronger force than law has gripped you: you serve God, not as servants, whose sole thought is the wage, but as children, whose eye is on the father and his love. Your motive is gratitude to him by whose precious blood you are redeemed. He has put on your cause, and therefore you would take up his cause. I pray you, go not to the steep sides of Sinai to find motives for holiness; but hasten to Calvary, and there find those sweet herbs of love, which shall be the medicine of your soul. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Covered with a consciousness of his love, fired with love to him in return, you will be strong to be, to do, or to suffer, as the Lord God may appoint.

Need I say, never find a reason for doing right in a desire to win the approbation of your fellow-men? Do not say, “I must do this or that in order to please my company.” That is poor life which is sustained by the breath of other men’s nostrils. Followers of Jesus will not wear the livery of custom, or stand in awe of human censure. Love of commendation, and fear of disapprobation, are low and beggarly motives: they sway the feeble many, but they ought not to rule the man in Christ. You must be moved by a far higher consideration: you serve the Lord Christ, and must not, therefore, become the lackey of men. His glory is to be your one aim; and for the joy of this you must treat all else as a light thing. Here we find our spur-“The love of Christ constraineth us.”

Beloved, the text means more than this. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ”; that is, find in Jesus your strength. Although you are saved, and are quickened by the Holy Spirit, so as to be a living child of the living God, yet you have no strength for heavenly duty, except as you receive it from above. Go to Jesus for power. I charge you, never say, “I shall do the right because I have resolved to do it. I am a man of strong mind; I am determined to resist this evil, and I know I shall not yield. I have made up my mind, and there is no fear of my turning aside.” Brother, if you rely upon yourself in that way, you will soon prove to be a broken reed. Failure follows at the heel of self-confidence. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I charge you, do not rely upon what you have acquired in the past. Say not in your heart, “I am a man of experience, and therefore I can resist temptation, which would crush the younger and greener folk. I have now spent so many years in persistent well-doing that I may reckon myself out of danger. Is it likely that I should ever be led astray?” O sir, it is more than likely! It is a fact already. The moment that a man declares he cannot fall, he has already fallen from sobriety and humility. Your head is turned, my brother, or you would not talk of your inward perfection; and when the head turns, the feet are not very safe. Inward conceit is the mother of open sin. Make Christ your strength, and not yourself; nor your acquirements or experiences. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ” day by day, and make not the rags of yesterday to be the raiment of the future. Get grace fresh and fresh. Say with David, “All my fresh springs are in thee.” Get all your power for holiness and usefulness from Jesus, and from him alone. “Surely in the Lord have I righteousness and strength.” Rely not on resolves, pledges, methods, prayers; but lean on Jesus only as the strength of your life.

“Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a wonderful word to me, because it indicates that in the Lord Jesus we have perfection. I shall in a moment or two show you some of the virtues and graces which are resplendent in the character of our Lord Jesus Christ. These may be likened to different parts of our armour or dress-the helmet, the shoes, the breast-plate. But the text does not say, “Put on this quality or virtue of the Lord Christ”; but “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” He himself, as a whole, is to be our array. Not this excellence or that; but himself. He must be to us a sacred over-all. I know not by what other means to bring out my meaning: he is to cover us from head to foot. We do not so much copy his humility, his gentleness, his love, his zeal, his prayerfulness, as himself. Endeavour to come into such communion with Jesus himself that his character is reproduced in you. Oh, to be wrapped about with himself: feeling, desiring, acting, as he felt, desired, and acted. What a raiment for our spiritual nature is our Lord Jesus Christ! What an honourable robe for a man to wear! Why, in that case, our life would be hid in Christ, and he would be seen over us in a life quickened by his Spirit, swayed by his motives, sweetened with his sympathy, pursuing his designs, and following in his steps. When we read, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,” it means, Receive the whole character of Christ, and let your whole character be conformed to his will. Cover your whole being with the whole of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonderful precept! Oh, for grace to carry it out! May the Lord turn the command into an actual fact. Throughout the rest of our lives may we be more and more like Jesus, that the purpose of God may be fulfilled wherein we are “predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son.”

Once more, observe the speciality which is seen in this dress. It is specially adapted to each individual believer. Paul does not say merely to one person, “Put thou on the Lord Jesus Christ,” but to all of us, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Can all the saints put on Christ, whether babes, young men, or fathers? You could not all of you wear my coat, I am quite certain; and I am equally certain that I could not wear the garments of many of the young people now present; but here is a matchless garment, which will be found suitable for every believer, without expansion or contraction. Whoever puts on the Lord Jesus Christ has put on a robe which will be his glory and beauty. In every case the example of Jesus is admirably suited for copying. Suppose a child of God should be a king; what better advice could I give to him, when about to rule a nation, than this, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ”? Be such a king as Jesus would have been. Nay, copy his royal character. Suppose, on the other hand, that the person before us is a poor woman from the workhouse; shall I say the same to her? Yes, and with equal propriety; for Jesus was very poor, and is a most suitable example for those who have no home of their own. O worker, put on Christ, and be full of zeal! O sufferer, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and abound in patience! Yonder friend is going to the Sunday-school this afternoon. Well, in order to win those dear children to the Saviour, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” who said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.” In his sacred raiment you will make a good teacher. Are you a preacher, and about to address thousands of grown-up persons? How better can I advise you than that you put on Christ and preach the gospel in his own loving, pleading, earnest style. The preacher’s model should be his Lord. This is our preaching gown, our praying surplice, our pastoral robe-the character and spirit of the Lord Jesus; and it admirably suits each form of service.

No man’s example will precisely fit his fellow-man; but there is this strange virtue about the character of Christ, that you may all imitate it, and yet be none of you mere imitators. He is perfectly natural who is perfectly like Christ. There need be no affectation, no painful restraint, no straining. In a life thus fashioned there will be nothing grotesque or disproportionate, unmanly or romantic. So wonderfully is Jesus the Second Adam of the new-born race, that each member of that family may bear a likeness to him, and yet exhibit a clear individuality. A man advanced in years and wisdom may put him on, and so may the least instructed, and the freshest comer among us. Please remember this: we may not choose examples, but each one is bound to copy the Lord Jesus Christ. You, dear friend, have a special personality; you are such a person that there is not another exactly like you, and you are placed in circumstances so peculiar that no one else is tried exactly as you are;-to you, then, is this exhortation sent: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” It is absolutely certain, that for you, with your personal singularity, and peculiar circumstances, there can be nothing better than that you array yourself in this more than royal robe. You, too, who live in ordinary circumstances, and are only tried by common temptations, you are to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ”; for he will be suitable for you also. “Oh,” cries one, “but the Lord Jesus never was exactly where I am!” You say this from want of knowing better, or from want of thought. He has been tempted in all points like as you are. There are certain relationships which the Lord Jesus could not literally occupy; but then, he took their spiritual counterpart. For instance, Jesus could not be a husband after the flesh. Does anyone demand how he could be an example for husbands? Hearken! “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” He is your model in a relationship which, naturally, he never sustained, but which, in very deed, he has more than fulfilled. Wherever you may be, you find that the Lord Jesus has occupied the counterpart of your position, or else the position is sinful, and ought to be quitted. In any place, at any hour, under any circumstances, in any matter, you may put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and never fear that your array will be unsuitable. Here you have a summer and winter garment-good in prosperity, as well as in adversity. Here you have a garment for the private chamber or the public forum, for sickness or for health, for honour or for reproach, for life or for death. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and in this raiment of wrought gold you may enter into the King’s palace, and stand among the spirits of just men made perfect.

Secondly, trusting to the Holy Spirit, let us enquire what is this daily dress? The Lord Jesus Christ is to be put on. May the Spirit of God help us to do so!

We see how the sacred dress is here described in three words. The sacred titles of the Son of God are spread out at length: “Put ye on the Lord-Jesus-Christ.” Put him on as Lord. Call him your master and Lord, and you will do well. Be you his servant in everything. Submit every faculty, every capacity, every talent, every possession to his government. Submit all that you have and are to him, and delight to own his superior right and his royal claim to you. Be Christ’s man; his servant, under bonds to his service for ever, finding therein life and liberty. Let the dominion of your Lord cover the kingdom of your nature. Then put on Jesus. Jesus means a Saviour: in every part be covered by him in that blessed capacity. You, a sinner, hide yourself in Jesus, your Saviour, who shall save you from your sins. He is your sanctifier driving out sin, and your preserver keeping sin from returning. Jesus is your armour against sin. You overcome through his blood. In him you are defended against every weapon of the enemy: he is your shield, keeping you from all evil. He covers you all over like a complete suit of armour, so that when arrows of temptation fly like a fiery shower, they may be quenched upon heavenly mail, and you may stand unharmed amid a shower of deaths. Put on Jesus, and then put on Christ. You know that Christ signifies “anointed.” Now, our Lord is anointed as Prophet, Priest, and King, and as such we put him on. What a splendid thing it is to put on Christ as the anointed Prophet, and to accept his teaching as our creed! I believe it. Why? Because he said it. This is argument enough for me. Mine not to argue, or doubt, or criticize; the Christ has said it, and I, putting him on, find in his authority the end of all strife. What Christ declares, I believe; discussion ends where Christ begins. Put him on also as your Priest. Notwithstanding your sin, your unworthiness, your defilement, go to the altar of the Lord by him who, as Priest, has taken away your sin, clothed you with his merit, and made you acceptable to God. In our great High Priest we enter within the veil. We are in him; by faith we realize this, and so put him on as our Priest, and lose ourselves in his accepted sacrifice. Our Lord Jesus is also anointed to be King. Oh, put him on in all his imperial majesty, by yielding your every wish and thought to his sway! Set him on the throne of your heart. As you have submitted your thought and understanding to his prophetic instruction, submit your action and your practical life to his kingly government. As you put on his priesthood and find atonement in him, so put on his royalty and find holiness in him.

I now wish to show the description given in Colossians 3 from the twelfth verse. I will take you to the wardrobe for a minute, and ask you to look over the articles of our outfit. See here, “Put on therefore”; you see everything is to be put on; nothing is to be left on the pegs for the moth to eat, nor in the window to be idly stared at: you put on the whole armour of God. In true religion everything is designed for practical use. We keep no garments in the drawer; we have to put on all that is provided. “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness.” Here are two choice things: mercy and kindness-silken robes indeed! Have you put them on? I am to be as merciful, as tender-hearted, as kind, as sympathetic, as loving to my fellow-men as Christ himself was. Have I reached this point? Have I ever aimed at it? Who among us has put on these royal gloves?

See what follows-these choice things come in pairs-“humbleness of mind, meekness.” These choice garments are not so much esteemed as they should be. The cloth of one called “Proud-of-heart” is very fashionable, and the trimmings of Mr. Masterful are much in request. It is a melancholy thing to see what great men some Christians are. Truly, the footman is bigger than his master. How some who would be thought saints can bluster and bully! Is this to put on the Lord Jesus Christ? Point me to a word of our Lord’s in which he scolded, and tyrannized, and overrode any man. He was meek and lowly, even he, the Lord of all: what ought we to be, who are not worthy to loose the latchets of his shoes? Permit me to say to any dear brother who has not a very tender nature, who is naturally hard and rasping, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” my brother, and make not provision for that unfeeling nature of yours. Endeavour to be lowly in mind, that you may be gentle in spirit.

See, next, we are to put on longsuffering and forbearance. Some men have no patience with others: how can they expect God to have patience with them? If everything is not done to their mind they are in a fine fury. Dear me! whom have we here? Is this a servant of Mars, or of the Fire-god? Surely, this fighting man does not profess to be a worshipper of Christ! Do not tell me that the man lost his temper. It would be a mercy if he had lost it, so as never to find it again. He is selfish, petulant, exacting, and easily provoked. Has this man the spirit of Christ? If he be a Christian, he is a naked Christian, and I would urge him to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” that he may be fitly clothed. Our Lord was full of forbearance. “Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied, and faint in your minds.” Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and bear and forbear. Put up with a great deal that really ought not to be inflicted upon you, and be ready to bear still more rather than give or take offence.

“Forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” Is not this heavenly teaching? Put it in practice. Put ye on your Lord. Have you fallen to loggerheads with one another, and did I hear one of you growling, “I’ll, I’ll, I’ll --”? Stop, brother! What will you do? If you are true to the Lord Jesus Christ you will not avenge yourself, but give place unto wrath. Put the Lord Jesus on your tongue, and you will not talk so bitterly; put him on your heart, and you will not feel so fiercely; put him on your whole character, and you will readily forgive, not only this once, but unto seventy times seven. If you have been unjustly treated by one who should have been your friend, lay aside wrath, and begin again; and perhaps your brother will begin again also, and both of you by love will overcome evil. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.” Love is the girdle which binds up the other garments, and keeps all the other graces well braced, and in their right places. Put on love-what a golden girdle! Are we all putting on love? We have been baptized into Christ, and we profess to have put on Christ; but do we daily try to put on love? Our baptism was not true if we are not buried to all old enmities. We may have a great many faults, but God grant that we may be full of love to Jesus, to his people, and to all mankind!

How much I wish that we could all put on, and keep on, the next article of this wardrobe! “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.” Oh, for a peaceful mind! Oh, to rest in the Lord! I recommend that last little word, “Be ye thankful,” to farmers and others whose interests are depressed. I might equally recommend it to certain tradespeople, whose trade is quite as good as they could expect. “Things are a little better,” said one to me; and at that time he was heaping up riches. When things are extremely well, people say they are “middling,” or a “little better”; but when there is a slight falling off, they cry out about “nothing doing, stagnation, universal ruin.” Thankfulness is a rare virtue; but let the lover of the Lord Jesus abound in it. The possession of your mind in peace, keeping yourself quiet, calm, self-possessed, content-this is a blessed state; and in such a state Jesus was; therefore, “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” He was never in a fret or fume. He was never hurried or worried; he never repined or coveted. Had he nothing to worry him? More than you have, brother. Had he not many things to distress him? More than all of us put together. Yet he was not ruffled, but showed a prince-like calm, a divine serenity. This our Lord would have us wear. His peace he leaves with us, and his joy he would have fulfilled in us. He wishes us to go through life with the peace of God keeping our hearts and minds from the assaults of the enemy. He would have us quiet and strong-strong because quiet, quiet because strong.

I have read of a great man, that he took two hours and a half to dress himself every morning. In this he showed rather littleness than greatness; but if any of you put on the Lord Jesus Christ you may take what time you will in making such a toilet. It will take you all your lives, my brothers and sisters, fully to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and to keep him on. For let me again say, that you are not only to put on all these garments which I have shown to you in the wardrobe of the Colossians, but, more than this, you are to put on all else that makes up Christ himself. What a dress is this! “Put on Christ,” says the text.

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ for daily wear. Not for high days and holy days only, but for all time, and every time. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ on the Lord’s-day, but do not lay him aside during the week. Ladies have ornaments which they put on occasionally for display on grand occasions: as a rule, these jewels are hidden away in a jewel-case. Christians, you must wear your jewels always. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and have no casket in which to conceal any part of him. Put on Christ to keep him on. I saw a missionary from the cold north the other day, and he was wearing a coat of moose-skin, which he had worn among the Red Indians. “It is a capital coat,” he said, “there’s nothing like leather. I have worn it for eleven years.” In the arctic region through which he had travelled, he had worn this garment both by night and by day; for the climate was much too cold to allow the taking off of anything. Brethren, the world is far too cold to allow of our taking off Christ even for an hour. So many arrows are flying about that we dare not remove a single piece of our armour even for an instant. Thank God, we have in our Lord a dress which we may always wear. We can live in it, and die in it; we can work in it, and rest in it, and, like the raiment of Israel in the wilderness, it will never wax old. Put it on more and more.

If you have put on something of Christ, put on more of Christ. I dare not say much in commendation of apparel, here in England, for the tendency is to exceed in that direction; yet I noticed, the other day, the remark of a missionary in the South Sea Islands, that as the heathen people became converted they began to clothe themselves, and as they acquired tenderness of conscience, and delicacy of feeling, they gave more attention to dress-wearing more clothes, and of a better sort. However that may be as to dress for the body, it is certainly so as to the arraying of the soul. As we make spiritual progress, we have more graces and more virtues than in the beginning. Once we were content to wear faith only, but now we put on hope and love. Once if we wore humbleness, we failed to wear thankfulness; but our text exhorts us to wear a full dress, a court suit; for we are to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” You cannot wear too much of him. Be covered from head to foot with him.

Put on the Lord in every time of trial. Do not take him off when it comes to the test. Quaint Henry Smith says that some people wear the Lord Jesus as a man wears his hat, which he takes off to everybody he meets. I am afraid I know persons of that kind, who wear Christ in private, but they off with him in company, especially in the company of the worldly, the sarcastic, and the unbelieving. Put on Christ, intending never to put him off again. When tempted, tried, ridiculed, hear in your ear this voice, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Put him on the more as others tempt you to put him off.

My time fails me, and I must hurriedly notice, in the third place, how we are to act in this dress towards evil. The text says, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” By the flesh is here meant the evil part of us, which is so greatly aided by the appetites and desires of the body. When a man puts on Christ, has he still the flesh about him? Alas! it is even so. I hear some brethren say that they have no remaining corruptions. I claim liberty to believe as much as I like of a man’s statements as to his own personal character. When he bears witness concerning himself, his witness may or may not be true. When a man tells me that he is perfect, I hear what he has to say, but I quietly think within myself that if he had been so, he would not have felt the necessity of spreading the information. “Good wine needs no bush”; and when our town once holds a perfect man within its bounds there will be no need to advertise him. Goods that are puffed probably need puffery. Brethren, I fear we have all very much of the flesh about us, and therefore we need be on our guard against it. What does the apostle say? “Make no provision for the flesh.” By this, he means several things.

First, give no tolerance to it. Do not say, “Christ has sanctified me so far; but you see I have a bad temper naturally, and you cannot expect it to be removed.” Dear brother, do not make provision for thus sheltering and sparing one of your soul’s enemies. Another cries. “You know I always was a good deal desponding; and therefore I can never have much joy in the Lord.” Don’t make room for your unbelief. If you find a kennel for this dog, it will always lie in it. “But,” says another, “I was always rather fond of gaiety, and so I must mix up with the world.” Well, if you cook a dinner for the devil, he will take a seat at your table. This is to make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts of it. Do not so; but slay the Canaanites, break their idols, throw down their altars, and fell their groves.

Moreover, give sin no time. Allow no furlough to your obedience. Do not say to yourself, “At all other times I am exact, but once in a year, at a family meeting, I take a little liberty.” Is it liberty to you to sin? I am afraid there is something rotten in your heart. “Ah!” cries one, “I only allow myself an hour or two occasionally with questionable company. I know it does me harm; but we must all have a little relaxation, and the talk is very amusing, though rather loose.” Is evil a relaxation to you? It ought to be worse than slavery. What a trial is foolish talking to a child of God! How can you find pleasure in it? Give no license to the flesh; you cannot tell how far it will go. Keep it always under subjection, and make no space for its indulgence.

Provide no food for it. Carve it no rations. Starve it out; at any rate, if it wants fodder, let it look elsewhere. When you are allotting your provision to the body, the soul, the spirit, allot nothing to the depraved passions. If the flesh says, “What is for me?” say. “Nothing.” Some people like a little bit of reading for the flesh. As some people like a little bit of what they call “rather high” meat, so do these folk enjoy a portion of tainted doctrine, or questionable morality. Thus they make provision for the flesh, and the flesh takes care to feed thereon, and to give its lusts a meal. I have known professors, whom I would not dare to judge, dabble just a little in matters which they would forbid to others, but they think them allowable to themselves, if done in secret. “You must not be too exact,” they say. But the apostle says, “Make not provision for the flesh.” Do not give it a morsel; do not even allow it the crumbs that fall from your table. The flesh is greedy, and never hath enough; and if you give it some provision, it will steal much more.

“Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and then you will leave no place for the lusts of the flesh. That which Christ does not cover is naked unto sin. If Christ be my livery, and I wear him, and so am known to be his avowed servant, then I place myself entirely in his hands always and for ever, and the flesh has no claim whatsoever upon me. If, before I put on Christ, I might make some reserve, and duty did not call, yet now that the Lord Jesus Christ is upon me, I have done with reserves, and am openly and confessedly my Lord’s. “Know ye not,” saith the apostle, “that as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ?” Being buried with him, we are dead to the world, and live only unto him. The Lord bring us up to this mark by his mighty Spirit; and he shall have the glory of it.

If this be the case, and we have indeed “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” we will thank God evermore; but if it be not so, let us not delay to be arrayed in this dress. “Why should we hasten to put on Christ? A moment is all that remains. It is dark. Here is armour made of solid light; let us put on this attire at once; then the night will be light about us, and others beholding us will glorify God, and ask for the same raiment. With so dense a night round about us, a man needs to be dressed in luminous robes; he needs to wear the light of God, he needs thus to be practically protected from the darkness around him.

“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” moreover; for the night will soon be over: the morning will soon dawn. The rags of sin, the sordid robes of worldliness, are not fit attire for the heavenly morning. Let us dress for the sun-rising. Let us go forth to meet the dawn with garments of light about us.

“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” for he is coming, the beloved of our souls! Over the hills we hear the trumpet sounding; the heralds are crying aloud, “The bridegroom cometh! The bridegroom cometh!” Though he has seemed to tarry, he has been always coming post haste. To-day we hear his chariot-wheels in the distance. Nearer and nearer is his advent. Let us not sleep as do others. Blessed are they who will be ready for the wedding when the Bridegroom cometh. What is that wedding dress that shall make us ready? Nothing can make us more fit to meet Christ, and to be with him in his glory, than for us to put on Christ to-day. If I wear Christ as my dress I do great honour to Christ as my Bridegroom. If I take him for my glory and my beauty while I am here, I may be sure that he will be all that and more to me in eternity. If I take pleasure in Jesus here, Jesus will take pleasure in me when he shall meet me in the air, and take me up to dwell with himself for ever. Put on the wedding dress, ye beloved of the Lord! Put on the wedding dress, ye brides of the Lamb, and put it on at once, for behold he cometh! Haste, haste, ye slumbering virgins! Arise and trim your lamps! Put on your robes, and be ready to behold his glory, and to take part in it. O ye virgin souls, go forth to meet him; with joy and gladness go forth, wearing himself as your gorgeous apparel, fit for the daughters of a King. The Lord bless you, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Portions of Scripture read before Sermon-Romans 12; 13:8-14.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-917, 262, 263.

“LAMA SABACHTHANI?”

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, March 2nd, 1890, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”-Matthew 27:46.

“There was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour”: this cry came out of that darkness. Expect not to see through its every word, as though it came from on high as a beam from the unclouded Sun of Righteousness. There is light in it, bright, flashing light; but there is a centre of impenetrable gloom, where the soul is ready to faint because of the terrible darkness.

Our Lord was then in the darkest part of his way. He had trodden the winepress now for hours, and the work was almost finished. He had reached the culminating point of his anguish. This is his dolorous lament from the lowest pit of misery-“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” I do not think that the records of time, or even of eternity, contain a sentence more full of anguish. Here the wormwood and the gall, and all the other bitternesses, are outdone. Here you may look as into a vast abyss; and though you strain your eyes, and gaze till sight fails you, yet you perceive no bottom; it is measureless, unfathomable, inconceivable. This anguish of the Saviour on your behalf and mine is no more to be measured and weighed than the sin which needed it, or the love which endured it. We will adore where we cannot comprehend.

I have chosen this subject that it may help the children of God to understand a little of their infinite obligations to their redeeming Lord. You shall measure the height of his love, if it be ever measured, by the depth of his grief, if that can ever be known. See with what a price he hath redeemed us from the curse of the law! As you see this, say to yourselves: What manner of people ought we to be! What measure of love ought we to return to one who bore the utmost penalty, that we might be delivered from the wrath to come? I do not profess that I can dive into this deep: I will only venture to the edge of the precipice, and bid you look down, and pray the Spirit of God to concentrate your mind upon this lamentation of our dying Lord, as it rises up through the thick darkness-“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Our first subject of thought will be the fact; or, what he suffered-God had forsaken him. Secondly, we will note, the enquiry; or, why he suffered: this word “why” is the edge of the text. “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Then, thirdly, we will consider the answer; or, what came of his suffering. The answer flowed softly into the soul of the Lord Jesus without the need of words, for he ceased from his anguish with the triumphant shout of, “It is finished.” His work was finished, and his bearing of desertion was a chief part of the work he had undertaken for our sake.

By the help of the Holy Spirit, let us first dwell upon the fact; or, what our Lord suffered. God had forsaken him. Grief of mind is harder to bear than pain of body. You can pluck up courage and endure the pang of sickness and pain, so long as the spirit is hale and brave; but if the soul itself be touched, and the mind becomes diseased with anguish, then every pain is increased in severity, and there is nothing with which to sustain it. Spiritual sorrows are the worst of mental miseries. A man may bear great depression of spirit about worldly matters, if he feels that he has his God to go to. He is cast down, but not in despair. Like David, he dialogues with himself, and he enquires, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him.” But if the Lord be once withdrawn, if the comfortable light of his presence be shadowed even for an hour, there is a torment within the breast, which I can only liken to the prelude of hell. This is the greatest of all weights that can press upon the heart. This made the Psalmist plead, “Hide not thy face from me; put not thy servant away in anger.” We can bear a bleeding body, and even a wounded spirit; but a soul conscious of desertion by God is beyond conception unendurable. When he holdeth back the face of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it, who can endure the darkness?

This voice out of “the belly of hell” marks the lowest depth of the Saviour’s grief. The desertion was real. Though under some aspects our Lord could say, “The Father is with me”; yet was it solemnly true that God did forsake him. It was not a failure of faith on his part which led him to imagine what was not actual fact. Our faith fails us, and then we think that God has forsaken us; but our Lord’s faith did not for a moment falter, for he says twice, “My God, my God.” Oh, the mighty double grip of his unhesitating faith! He seems to say, “Even if thou hast forsaken me, I have not forsaken thee.” Faith triumphs, and there is no sign of any faintness of heart towards the living God. Yet, strong as is his faith, he feels that God has withdrawn his comfortable fellowship, and he shivers under the terrible deprivation.

It was no fancy, or delirium of mind, caused by his weakness of body, the heat of the fever, the depression of his spirit, or the near approach of death. He was clear of mind even to this last. He bore up under pain, loss of blood, scorn, thirst, and desolation; making no complaint of the cross, the nails, and the scoffing. We read not in the Gospels of anything more than the natural cry of weakness, “I thirst.” All the tortures of his body he endured in silence; but when it came to being forsaken of God, then his great heart burst out into its “Lama sabachthani?” His one moan is concerning his God. It is not, “Why has Peter forsaken me? Why has Judas betrayed me?” These were sharp griefs, but this is the sharpest. This stroke has cut him to the quick: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It was no phantom of the gloom; it was a real absence which he mourned.

This was a very remarkable desertion. It is not the way of God to leave either his sons or his servants. His saints, when they come to die, in their great weakness and pain, find him near. They are made to sing because of the presence of God: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.” Dying saints have clear visions of the living God. Our observation has taught us that if the Lord be away at other times, he is never absent from his people in the article of death, or in the furnace of affliction. Concerning the three holy children, we do not read that the Lord was ever visibly with them till they walked the fires of Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace; but there and then the Lord met with them. Yes, beloved, it is God’s use and wont to keep company with his afflicted people; and yet he forsook his Son in the hour of his tribulation! How usual it is to see the Lord with his faithful witnesses when resisting even unto blood! Read the Book of Martyrs, and I care not whether you study the former or the later persecutions, you will find them all lit up with the evident presence of the Lord with his witnesses. Did the Lord ever fail to support a martyr at the stake? Did he ever forsake one of his testifiers upon the scaffold? The testimony of the church has always been, that while the Lord has permitted his saints to suffer in body he has so divinely sustained their spirits that they have been more than conquerors, and have treated their sufferings as light afflictions. The fire has not been a “bed of roses,” but it has been a chariot of victory. The sword is sharp, and death is bitter; but the love of Christ is sweet, and to die for him has been turned into glory. No, it is not God’s way to forsake his champions, nor to leave even the least of his children in the trial hour.

As to our Lord, this forsaking was singular. Did his Father ever leave him before? Will you read the four Evangelists through and find any previous instance in which he complains of his Father for having forsaken him? No. He said, “I know that thou hearest me always.” He lived in constant touch with God. His fellowship with the Father was always near and dear and clear; but now, for the first time, he cries, “why hast thou forsaken me?” It was very remarkable. It was a riddle only to be solved by the fact that he loved us and gave himself for us, and in the execution of his loving purpose came even unto this sorrow, of mourning the absence of his God.

This forsaking was very terrible. Who can fully tell what it is to be forsaken of God? We can only form a guess by what we have ourselves felt under temporary and partial desertion. God has never left us, altogether; for he has expressly said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee”; yet we have sometimes felt as if he had cast us off. We have cried, “Oh, that I knew where I might find him!” The clear shinings of his love have been withdrawn. Thus we are able to form some little idea of how the Saviour felt when his God had forsake him. The mind of Jesus was left to dwell upon one dark subject, and no cheering theme consoled him. It was the hour in which he was made to stand before God as consciously the sin-bearer, according to that ancient prophecy, “He shall bear their iniquities.” Then was it true, “He hath made him to be sin for us.” Peter puts it, “He his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” Sin, sin, sin was everywhere around and about Christ. He had no sin of his own; but the Lord had “laid on him the iniquity of us all.” He had no strength given him from on high, no secret oil and wine poured into his wounds; but he was made to appear in the lone character of the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world; and therefore he must feel the weight of sin, and the turning away of that sacred face which cannot look thereon.

His Father, at that time, gave him no open acknowledgment. On certain other occasions a voice had been heard, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”; but now, when such a testimony seemed most of all required, the oracle was dumb. He was hung up as an accursed thing upon the cross; for he was “made a curse for us, as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree”; and the Lord his God did not own him before men. If it had pleased the Father, he might have sent him twelve legions of angels; but not an angel came after the Christ had quitted Gethsemane. His despisers might spit in his face, but no swift seraph came to avenge the indignity. They might bind him, and scourge him, but none of all the heavenly host would interpose to screen his shoulders from the lash. They might fasten him to the tree with nails, and lift him up, and scoff at him; but no cohort of ministering spirits hastened to drive back the rabble, and release the Prince of life. No, he appeared to be forsaken, “smitten of God, and afflicted,” delivered into the hands of cruel men, whose wicked hands worked him misery without stint. Well might he ask, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

But this was not all. His Father now dried up that sacred stream of peaceful communion and loving fellowship which had flowed hitherto throughout his whole earthly life. He said himself, as you remember, “Ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” Here was his constant comfort: but all comfort from this source was to be withdrawn. The divine Spirit did not minister to his human spirit. No communications with his Father’s love poured into his heart. It was not possible that the Judge should smile upon one who represented the prisoner at the bar. Our Lord’s faith did not fail him, as I have already shown you, for he said, “My God, my God”: yet no sensible supports were given to his heart, and no comforts were poured into his mind. One writer declares that Jesus did not taste of divine wrath, but only suffered a withdrawal of divine fellowship. What is the difference? Whether God withdraw heat or create cold is all one. He was not smiled upon, nor allowed to feel that he was near to God; and this, to his tender spirit, was grief of the keenest order. A certain saint once said that in his sorrow he had from God “necessaries, but not suavities”; that which was meet, but not that which was sweet. Our Lord suffered to the extreme point of deprivation. He had not the light which makes existence to be life, and life to be a boon. You that know, in your degree, what it is to lose the conscious presence and love of God, you can faintly guess what the sorrow of the Saviour was, now that he felt he had been forsaken of his God. “If the foundations be removed, what can the righteous do?” To our Lord, the Father’s love was the foundation of everything; and when that was gone, all was gone. Nothing remained, within, without, above, when his own God, the God of his entire confidence, turned from him. Yes, God in very deed forsook our Saviour.

To be forsaken of God was much more a source of anguish to Jesus than it would be to us. “Oh,” say you, “how is that?” I answer, because he was perfectly holy. A rupture between a perfectly holy being and the thrice holy God must be in the highest degree strange, abnormal, perplexing, and painful. If any man here, who is not at peace with God, could only know his true condition, he would swoon with fright. If you unforgiven ones only knew where you are, and what you are at this moment in the sight of God, you would never smile again till you were reconciled to him. Alas! we are insensible, hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, and therefore we do not feel our true condition. His perfect holiness made it to our Lord a dreadful calamity to be forsaken of the thrice holy God.

I remember, also, that our blessed Lord had lived in unbroken fellowship with God, and to be forsaken was a new grief to him. He had never known what the dark was till then: his life had been lived in the light of God. Think, dear child of God, if you had always dwelt in full communion with God, your days would have been as the days of heaven upon earth; and how cold it would strike to your heart to find yourself in the darkness of desertion. If you can conceive such a thing as happening to a perfect man, you can see why to our Well-beloved it was a special trial. Remember, he had enjoyed fellowship with God more richly, as well as more constantly, than any of us. His fellowship with the Father was of the highest, deepest, fullest order; and what must the loss of it have been? We lose but drops when we lose our joyful experience of heavenly fellowship; and yet the loss is killing: but to our Lord Jesus Christ the sea was dried up-I mean his sea of fellowship with the infinite God.

Do not forget that he was such a One that to him to be without God must have been an overwhelming calamity. In every part he was perfect, and in every part fitted for communion with God to a supreme degree. A sinful man has an awful need of God, but he does not know it; and therefore he does not feel that hunger and thirst after God which would come upon a perfect man could he be deprived of God. The very perfection of his nature renders it inevitable that the holy man must either be in communion with God, or be desolate. Imagine a stray angel! a seraph who has lost his God! Conceive him to be perfect in holiness, and yet to have fallen into a condition in which he cannot find his God! I cannot picture him; perhaps a Milton might have done so. He is sinless and trustful, and yet he has an overpowering feeling that God is absent from him. He has drifted into the nowhere-the unimaginable region behind the back of God. I think I hear the wailing of the cherub: “My God, my God, my God, where art thou?” What a sorrow for one of the sons of the morning! But here we have the lament of a Being far more capable of fellowship with the Godhead. In proportion as he is more fitted to receive the love of the great Father, in that proportion is his pining after it the more intense. As a Son, he is more able to commune with God than ever a servant-angel could be; and now that he is forsaken of God, the void within is the greater, and the anguish more bitter.

Our Lord’s heart, and all his nature were, morally and spiritually, so delicately formed, so sensitive, so tender, that to be without God, was to him a grief which could not be weighed. I see him in the text bearing desertion, and yet I perceive that he cannot bear it. I know not how to express my meaning except by such a paradox. He cannot endure to be without God. He had surrendered himself to be left of God, as the representative of sinners must be, but his pure and holy nature, after three hours of silence, finds the position unendurable to love and purity; and breaking forth from it, now that the hour was over, he exclaims, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” He quarrels not with the suffering, but he cannot abide in the position which caused it. He seems as if he must end the ordeal, not because of the pain, but because of the moral shock. We have here the repetition after his passion of that loathing which he felt before it, when he cried, “If it be possible let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” is the holiness of Christ amazed at the position of substitute for guilty men.

There, friends; I have done my best, but I seem to myself to have been prattling like a little child, talking about something infinitely above me. So I leave the solemn fact, that our Lord Jesus was on the tree forsaken of his God.

This brings us to consider the enquiry, or, why he suffered.

Note carefully this cry-“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It is pure anguish, undiluted agony, which crieth like this; but it is the agony of a godly soul; for only a man of that order would have used such an expression. Let us learn from it useful lessons. This cry is taken from “the Book.” Does it not show our Lord’s love of the sacred volume, that when he felt his sharpest grief, he turned to the Scripture to find a fit utterance for it? Here we have the opening sentence of the twenty-second Psalm. Oh, that we may so love the inspired Word that we may not only sing to its score, but even weep to its music!

Note, again, that our Lord’s lament is an address to God. The godly, in their anguish, turn to the hand which smites them. The Saviour’s outcry is not against God, but to God. “My God, my God”: he makes a double effort to draw near. True Sonship is here. The child in the dark is crying after his Father-“My God, my God.” Both the Bible and prayer were dear to Jesus in his agony.

Still, observe, it is a faith-cry; for though it asks, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” yet it first says, twice over, “My God, my God.” The grip of appropriation is in the word “my”; but the reverence of humility is in the word “God.” It is “ ‘My God, my God,’ thou art ever God to me, and I a poor creature. I do not quarrel with thee. Thy rights are unquestioned, for thou art my God. Thou canst do as thou wilt, and I yield to thy sacred sovereignty. I kiss the hand that smites me, and with all my heart I cry, ‘My God, my God.’ ” When you are delirious with pain, think of your Bible still: when your mind wanders, let it roam towards the mercy seat; and when your heart and your flesh fail, still live by faith, and still cry, “My God, my God.”

Let us come close to the enquiry. It looked to me, at first sight, like a question as of one distraught, driven from the balance of his mind-not unreasonable, but too much reasoning, and therefore tossed about. “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Did not Jesus know? Did he not know why he was forsaken? He knew it most distinctly, and yet his manhood, while it was being crushed, pounded, dissolved, seemed as though it could not understand the reason for so great a grief. He must be forsaken; but could there be a sufficient cause for so sickening a sorrow? The cup must be bitter; but why this most nauseous of ingredients? I tremble lest I say what I ought not to say. I have said it, and I think there is truth-the Man of Sorrows was overborne with horror. At that moment the finite soul of the man Christ Jesus came into awful contact with the infinite justice of God. The one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, beheld the holiness of God in arms against the sin of man, whose nature he had espoused. God was for him and with him in a certain unquestionable sense; but for the time, so far as his feeling went, God was against him, and necessarily withdrawn from him. It is not surprising that the holy soul of Christ should shudder at finding itself brought into painful contact with the infinite justice of God, even though its design was only to vindicate that justice, and glorify the Law-giver. Our Lord could now say, “All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me”; and therefore he uses language which is all too hot with anguish to be dissected by the cold hand of a logical criticism. Grief has small regard for the laws of the grammarian. Even the holiest, when in extreme agony, though they cannot speak otherwise than according to purity and truth, yet use a language of their own, which only the ear of sympathy can fully receive. I see not all that is here, but what I can see I am not able to put in words for you.

I think I see, in the expression, submission and resolve. Our Lord does not draw back. There is a forward movement in the question: they who quit a business ask no more questions about it. He does not ask that the forsaking may end prematurely, he would only understand anew its meaning. He does not shrink, but the rather dedicates himself anew to God by the words, “My God, my God,” and by seeking to review the ground and reason of that anguish which he is resolute to bear even to the bitter end. He would fain feel anew the motive which has sustained him, and must sustain him to the end. The cry sounds to me like deep submission and strong resolve, pleading with God.

Do you not think that the amazement of our Lord, when he was “made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21), led him thus to cry out? For such a sacred and pure being to be made a sin-offering was an amazing experience. Sin was laid on him, and he was treated as if he had been guilty, though he had personally never sinned; and now the infinite horror of rebellion against the most holy God fills his holy soul, the unrighteousness of sin breaks his heart, and he starts back from it, crying, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Why must I bear the dread result of conduct I so much abhor?

Do you not see, moreover, there was here a glance at his eternal purpose, and at his secret source of joy? That “why” is the silver lining of the dark cloud, and our Lord looked wishfully at it. He knew that the desertion was needful in order that he might save the guilty, and he had an eye to that salvation as his comfort. He is not forsaken needlessly, nor without a worthy design. The design is in itself so dear to his heart that he yields to the passing evil, even though that evil be like death to him. He looks at that “why,” and through that narrow window the light of heaven comes streaming into his darkened life.

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Surely our Lord dwelt on that “why,” that we might also turn our eyes that way. He would have us see the why and the wherefore of his grief. He would have us mark the gracious motive for its endurance. Think much of all your Lord suffered, but do not overlook the reason of it. If you cannot always understand how this or that grief worked toward the great end of the whole passion, yet believe that it has its share in the grand “why.” Make a life-study of that bitter but blessed question, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Thus the Saviour raises an inquiry not so much for himself as for us; and not so much because of any despair within his heart as because of a hope and a joy set before him, which were wells of comfort to him in his wilderness of woe.

Bethink you, for a moment, that the Lord God, in the broadest and most unreserved sense, could never, in very deed, have forsaken his most obedient Son. He was ever with him in the grand design of salvation. Towards the Lord Jesus, personally, God himself, personally, must ever have stood on terms of infinite love. Truly the Only Begotten was never more lovely to the Father than when he was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross! But we must look upon God here as the Judge of all the earth, and we must look upon the Lord Jesus also in his official capacity, as the Surety of the covenant, and the Sacrifice for sin. The great Judge of all cannot smile upon him who has become the substitute for the guilty. Sin is loathed of God; and if, in order to its removal, his own Son is made to bear it, yet, as sin, it is still loathsome, and he who bears it cannot be in happy communion with God. This was the dread necessity of expiation; but in the essence of things the love of the great Father to his Son never ceased, nor ever knew a diminution. Restrained in its flow it must be, but lessened at its fountain-head it could not be. Therefore, wonder not at the question, “Why hast thou forsaken me?”

Hoping to be guided by the Holy Spirit, I am coming to the answer, concerning which I can only use the few minutes which remain to me. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” What is the outcome of this suffering? What was the reason for it? Our Saviour could answer his own question. If for a moment his manhood was perplexed, yet his mind soon came to clear apprehension; for he said, “It is finished”; and, as I have already said, he then referred to the work which in his lonely agony he had been performing. Why, then, did God forsake his Son? I cannot conceive any other answer than this-he stood in our stead. There was no reason in Christ why the Father should forsake him: he was perfect, and his life was without spot. God never acts without reason; and since there were no reasons in the character and person of the Lord Jesus why his Father should forsake him, we must look elsewhere. I do not know how others answer the question. I can only answer it in this one way.

“Yet all the griefs he felt were ours,

Ours were the woes he bore;

Pangs, not his own, his spotless soul

With bitter anguish tore.

“We held him as condemn’d of heaven,

An outcast from his God;

While for our sins he groaned, he bled,

Beneath his Father’s rod.”

He bore the sinner’s sin, and he had to be treated, therefore, as though he were a sinner, though sinner he could never be. With his own full consent he suffered as though he had committed the transgressions which were laid on him. Our sin, and his taking it upon himself, is the answer to the question, “Why hast thou forsaken me?”

In this case we now see that His obedience was perfect. He came into the world to obey the Father, and he rendered that obedience to the very uttermost. The spirit of obedience could go no farther than for one who feels forsaken of God still to cling to him in solemn, avowed allegiance, still declaring before a mocking multitude his confidence in the afflicting God. It is noble to cry, “My God, my God,” when one is asking, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” How much farther can obedience go? I see nothing beyond it. The soldier at the gate of Pompeii remaining at his post as sentry when the shower of burning ashes is falling, was not more true to his trust than he who adheres to a forsaking God with loyalty of hope.

Our Lord’s suffering in this particular form was appropriate and necessary. It would not have sufficed for our Lord merely to have been pained in body, nor even to have been grieved in mind in other ways: he must suffer in this particular way. He must feel forsaken of God, because this is the necessary consequence of sin. For a man to be forsaken of God is the penalty which naturally and inevitably follows upon his breaking his relation with God. What is death? What was the death that was threatened to Adam? “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Is death annihilation? Was Adam annihilated that day? Assuredly not: he lived many a year afterwards. But in the day in which he ate of the forbidden fruit he died, by being separated from God. The separation of the soul from God is spiritual death; just as the separation of the soul from the body is natural death. The sacrifice for sin must be put in the place of separation, and must bow to the penalty of death. By this placing of the Great Sacrifice under forsaking and death, it would be seen by all creatures throughout the universe that God could not have fellowship with sin. If even the Holy One, who stood the Just for the unjust, found God forsaking him, what must the doom of the actual sinner be! Sin is evidently always, in every case, a dividing influence, putting even the Christ himself, as a sin-bearer, in the place of distance.

This was necessary for another reason: there could have been no laying on of suffering for sin without the forsaking of the vicarious Sacrifice by the Lord God. So long as the smile of God rests on the man the law is not afflicting him. The approving look of the great Judge cannot fall upon a man who is viewed as standing in the place of the guilty. Christ not only suffered from sin, but for sin. If God will cheer and sustain him, he is not suffering for sin. The Judge is not inflicting suffering for sin if he is manifestly succouring the smitten one. There could have been no vicarious suffering on the part of Christ for human guilt, if he had continued consciously to enjoy the full sunshine of the Father’s presence. It was essential to being a victim in our place that he should cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Beloved, see how marvellously, in the person of Christ, the Lord our God has vindicated his law! If to make his law glorious, he had said, “These multitudes of men have broken my law, and therefore they shall perish,” the law would have been terribly magnified. But, instead thereof, he says, “Here is my Only Begotten Son, my other self; he takes on himself the nature of these rebellious creatures, and he consents that I should lay on him the load of their iniquity, and visit in his person the offences which might have been punished in the persons of all these multitudes of men: and I will have it so.” When Jesus bows his head to the stroke of the law, when he submissively consents that his Father shall turn away his face from him, then myriads of worlds are astonished at the perfect holiness and stern justice of the Lawgiver. There are, probably, worlds innumerable throughout the boundless creation of God, and all these will see, in the death of God’s dear Son, a declaration of his determination never to allow sin to be trifled with. If his own Son is brought before him, bearing the sin of others upon him, he will hide his face from him, as well as from the actually guilty. In God infinite love shines over all, but it does not eclipse his absolute justice any more than his justice is permitted to destroy his love. God hath all perfections in perfection, and in Christ Jesus we see the reflection of them. Beloved, this is a wonderful theme! Oh, that I had a tongue worthy of this subject! but who could ever reach the height of this great argument?

Once more, when enquiring, Why did Jesus suffer to be forsaken of the Father? we see the fact that the Captain of our salvation was thus made perfect through suffering. Every part of the road has been traversed by our Lord’s own feet. Suppose, beloved, the Lord Jesus had never been thus forsaken, then one of his disciples might have been called to that sharp endurance, and the Lord Jesus could not have sympathized with him in it. He would turn to his Leader and Captain, and say to him, “Didst thou, my Lord, ever feel this darkness?” Then the Lord Jesus would answer, “No. This is a descent such as I never made.” What a dreadful lack would the tried one have felt! For the servant to bear a grief his Master never knew would be sad indeed.

There would have been a wound for which there was no ointment, a pain for which there was no balm. But it is not so now. “In all their affliction he was afflicted.” “He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Wherein we greatly rejoice at this time, and so often as we are cast down. Underneath us is the deep experience of our forsaken Lord.

I have done when I have said three things. The first is, you and I that are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, and are resting in him alone for salvation, let us lean hard, let us bear with all our weight on our Lord. He will bear the full weight of all our sin and care. As to my sin, I hear its harsh accusings no more when I hear Jesus cry, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” I know that I deserve the deepest hell at the hand of God’s vengeance; but I am not afraid. He will never forsake me, for he forsook his Son on my behalf. I shall not suffer for my sin, for Jesus has suffered to the full in my stead; yea, suffered so far as to cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Behind this brazen wall of substitution a sinner is safe. These “munitions of rock” guard all believers, and they may rest secure. The rock is cleft for me; I hide in its rifts, and no harm can reach me. You have a full atonement, a great sacrifice, a glorious vindication of the law; wherefore rest at peace, all you that put your trust in Jesus.

Next, if ever in our lives henceforth we should think that God hath deserted us, let us learn from our Lord’s example how to behave ourselves. If God hath left thee, do not shut up thy Bible; nay, open it, as thy Lord did, and find a text that will suit thee. If God hath left thee, or thou thinkest so, do not give up prayer; nay, pray as thy Lord did, and be more earnest than ever. If thou thinkest God has forsaken thee, do not give up thy faith in him; but, like thy Lord, cry thou, “My God, my God,” again and again. If thou hast had one anchor before, cast out two anchors now, and double the hold of thy faith. If thou canst not call Jehovah “Father,” as was Christ’s wont, yet call him thy “God.” Let the personal pronouns take their hold-“My God, my God.” Let nothing drive thee from thy faith. Still hold on Jesus, sink or swim. As for me, if ever I am lost, it shall be at the foot of the cross. To this pass have I come, that if I never see the face of God with acceptance, yet I will believe that he will be faithful to his Son, and true to the covenant sealed by oaths and blood. He that believeth in Jesus hath everlasting life: there I cling, like the limpet to the rock. There is but one gate of heaven; and even if I may not enter it, I will cling to the posts of its door. What am I saying? I shall enter in; for that gate was never shut against a soul that accepted Jesus; and Jesus saith, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

The last of the three points is this, let us abhor the sin which brought such agony upon our beloved Lord. What an accursed thing is sin, which crucified the Lord Jesus! Do you laugh at it? Will you go and spend an evening to see a mimic performance of it? Do you roll sin under your tongue as a sweet morsel, and then come to God’s house, on the Lord’s-day morning, and think to worship him? Worship him! Worship him, with sin indulged in your breast! Worship him, with sin loved and pampered in your life! O sirs, if I had a dear brother who had been murdered, what would you think of me if I valued the knife which had been crimsoned with his blood?-if I made a friend of the murderer, and daily consorted with the assassin, who drove the dagger into my brother’s heart? Surely I, too, must be an accomplice in the crime! Sin murdered Christ; will you be a friend to it? Sin pierced the heart of the Incarnate God; can you love it? Oh, that there was an abyss as deep as Christ’s misery, that I might at once hurl this dagger of sin into its depths, whence it might never be brought to light again! Begone, O sin! Thou art banished from the heart where Jesus reigns! Begone, for thou hast crucified my Lord, and made him cry, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” O my hearers, if you did but know yourselves, and know the love of Christ, you would each one vow that you would harbour sin no longer. You would be indignant at sin, and cry,

“The dearest idol I have known,

Whate’er that idol be,

Lord, I will tear it from its throne,

And worship only thee.”

May that be the issue of my morning’s discourse, and then I shall be well content. The Lord bless you! May the Christ who suffered for you, bless you, and out of his darkness may your light arise! Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Psalm 22.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-313, 299, 22 (Part II).