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THE KING’S BUSINESS
“His blood be on us, and on our children," and Righteousness responded. Jerusalem soon flowed with it, and like the Rock in the Wilderness (1 Cor. 10:4) the stream follows them. Grace will yet apply the same Blood to the repentant remnant. 3. “And when he had scourged Jesus he delivered him to be crucified."'¿^.Scourg ing before execution was not allowed among the Jews. It was customary with the Romans, and so it was fulfilled that, “the plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows” (Ps. 129:3). But, “T he chastisement of our peace was UPON HIM AND WITH HIS STRIPES WE ARE healed ” (Isa. 53:5). LESSON IX.—November 29.— C h r ist C ruc ified ;'*— Mark 15:21-41 •Luke 23 :39-43. G olden T ext .— Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. —Isa. 53-4. I. O n the W ay to C alvary .
proclaimed a criminal, exposed to insult; taunting and even buffetting of heartless and vengeful bystanders, the shame of it was far greater than that of the gallows. No wonder Cicero said, “The cross should not be so much as named to a Roman.” In the honor now ascribed to the Cross we are apt to forget all this. 3. The Soldiers’ Perquisites. The vic tim’s garments became the property of the executioners. Jesus’ beautiful garments are distributed among us (Eph. 4:7, 8). One seamless robe, the perfect righteousness wrought by Christ is shared by all, “ one body” we wear it, ours not by chance (John 19:23, 24), but by choice. III. I ncidents at the C ross . , 1. The Malefactors. They were divinely appointed to illustrate God’s way with sin ners: (1) “He was numbered with the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12; Mark 15:28), “Jesus in the midst,” as chief of them, and in easy access to them; putting “a differ ence between” them, which was, not by na ture for they both “ railed” (Matt. 29:44) on Him. Sin wa^ in them and (judicially) on them both; all were in “ the same con demnation” (Luke 23:40). One repented: he now feared God, reproved sin and called on the name of the Lord and was saved (Luke 23:40, 41; Rom. 10:13) that very hour. Jesus with no sin in Him bore the thief’s sin (judicially) on Him. 2. The Darkness. The. Passover moon being always full the darkness was preter-
1. Via Dolorosa. ■From Jerusalem to Golgotha is called Via Dolorosa, i. e. The Paith of Sorrow. The women followed weeping for Jesus and blessing Him. “ The milk of human kindness” was not dried in all breasts. Christ has richly repaid wo man that womanly pity. But He bade them not weep for Him. Jesus we may sympa thize with but not pity. 2. Bearing the Cross. John says (John 19:17), “And he bearing his cross .”—We might say, the cross He bare was not the Cross that bare Him. W e may share in the former and Simon (Luke 23:26) types them that bear the cross after Jesus (Col. 1 :24). The Cross on Golgotha was pe culiarly Christ’s. Simon could not share that. No man’s sin is nailed to the saint’s cross. It is pernicious to compare our vicar ious crosses with that of Christ’s. II. T he C rucifixion . 1. The Horror of It. Farrar wrote, “Death by crucifixion seems all that pain and death can have of the horrible and ghastly—dizziness, cramp, thirst, starvation, sleeplessness, publicity of shame, long con tinuance of torment, horror of anticipation, mortification of untended wounds—all in tensified just up to the point at which they can be endured at all, but all stopping just short of the point which would give the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness,” 1 2. The Shame of It. Hanging just above the ground, naked, on the public highway,
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