touch, cast out devils with a word, and command the waves and winds to obey Him, in great agon}7 and conflict of spirit. Now bow can this be explained ?
To say, as some do, that the only cause of our Lord's trouble was the prospect of His own painful death on the cross, is a verj7 unsatisfactory explanation. At this rate it might justly be said that many a martyr has shown more calmness and courage than the Son of God. Such a con- clusion is, to say the least, most revolting. Yet this is the conclusion to which men are driven if they adopt the mod- ern notion, that Christ's death was only a great example of self-sacrifice.
Nothing can ever explain our Lord's trouble of soul, both here and in Gethsemane, except the old doctrine, that He felt the burden of man's sin pressing Him down. It was the mighty weight of a world's guilt imputed to Him and meeting on his head, which made Him groan and agonize, and cry, " Now is my soul troubled." Forever let us cling to that doctrine, not only as untying the knot of the passage before us, but as the only ground of solid comfort for the heart of a Christian. That our sins have been really laid on our Divine Substitute, and borne by Him, and that His righteousness is really imputed to us and accounted ours, — this is the real warrant for Christian peace. And if any man asks how we know that our sins were laid on Christ, we bid him read such passages as that which is before us, and explain them on any other prin- ciple if he can. Christ has borne our sins, carried our sins, groaned under the burden of our sins, been " troubled " in soul by the weight of our sins, and really taken away our sins. This, we may rest assured, is sound doctrine : this is Scriptural theologj^.
We have, secondly, in these verses, a great mystery unfolded. That mystery is the possibility of much inward conflict of soul without sin.