John 18:12-14
Suggested further reading: Isaiah 53
We see the Son of God taken prisoner and led away bound like
a malefactor, arraigned before wicked and unjust judges,
insulted and treated with contempt. And yet this unresisting prisoner
had only to will his deliverance and he would at once have been
free. He had only to command the confusion of his enemies, and
they would at once have been confounded. He knew all these
things, and yet condescended to be treated as a malefactor without resisting.
To suffer for those whom we love and who are in some
sense worthy of our affections is suffering that we can understand.
To submit to ill-treatment quietly when we have no power to resist
is submission that is both graceful and wise. But to suffer
voluntarily when we have the power to prevent it, and to suffer for a world
of unbelieving and ungodly sinners, unasked and unthanked — this
is a line of conduct which passes man's understanding. Never let
us forget that this is the peculiar beauty of Christ's sufferings,
when we read the wondrous story of his cross and passion. He was
led away captive and dragged before the high priest's bar, not
because he could not help himself, but because he had set his whole
heart on saving sinners, by bearing their sins, by being treated as a
sinner and by being punished in their stead. He was a willing
prisoner, that we might be set free. He was willingly arraigned
and condemned, that we might be absolved and declared innocent.
`He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us
unto God' (1 Peter 3:18). `Though he was rich, yet for our sakes
he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich' (2
Cor. 8:9). `He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him' (2 Cor. 5:21). Surely
if there is any doctrine of the gospel which needs to be clearly
known, it is the doctrine of Christ's voluntary substitution. He suffered
and died willingly and unresistingly, because he knew that he had
come to be our Substitute and by substitution to purchase our salvation.
For meditation: `He himself bore our sins in his body on the
tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his
wounds you have been healed' (1 Peter 2:24).
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