[2.] To the execution of God's decree. Wlien sinners are brought to accept of mercy, I count my blood well shed, my bitter agonies well recompensed : here is wages enough for all my toil. There is joy in heaven, in Christ's heart, when a sinner is converted.
I begin with the first ; the travail of his soul. The word for travail noteth the highest degree of labour, such as is tiring and wearisome. The soul is often put for the whole man ; so many souls came out of Egypt, that is, so many persons. So Acts xxvii. 37, ' There were in the ship two hundred threescore and six souls^ So that the travail of his soul is his whole labour and travail. Or properly it may imply his soul-troubles, which were the passion of his passion, the bitterest part of his sufferings : ' Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say ? ' John xii. 27.
The doctrine is, that our salvation cost Christ much travail of soul. He was afliicted in his whole man, but chiefly in his inward man.
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402 A PRACTICAL EXPOSITION UPON [ISA. LIII. 11.
1. As a kind of imaginary person : he suffered in his reputation, which, is another kind of being in the hearts and opinions of otliers. They accuse him of the two highest crimes in either table, blasphemy and sedition ; blasphemy against God, and sedition against Caesar, Luke xxiii. 2. They mock him in all his offices ; his kingly office, by ]>utting a soldier's coat upon him for a royal robe, a reed for a sceptre, and thorns for a crown, and floutingly saying unto him, ' Hail, King of the Jews,' Mat. xxvii. 29. In his prophetical office ; when they liad blindfolded him, they smote him on the face, saying, ' Prophesy who it was that smote thee ; ' scoffing at those who honoured him as a prophet. When he was upon the cross, offering up himself for our sins, they wagged the head, saying, ' Save thyself,' and ' He saved others, himself he cannot save,' JMat. xxvii. 39, 42. There they scoff at his priestly office, while doing the part of a Saviour.
2. Nearer they come to his real person. In his body he suffered in every part, and afflictions were poured in upon him by the conduit of every sense. His feeling was exercised with weariness, and wounds, and scourges ; his ears with their railing and the clamorous noises of popular outrage ; his taste with vinegar and gall ; his sight and smell with Golgotha, the place of skulls and dead men's bones. We have made all our senses inlets of sin, and therefore in Christ they were inlets of sorrow.
But the consummation of his bodily sufferings was at his death, which consisted in the separation of the soul from the body, though both still remained united to the divine nature ; otherwise for a while he would not be God-man, and his resurrection would be a new incarna- tion ; though separate from one another, yet they were both united to the Godhead. As a man drawing his sword holdeth the sword in one hand, and the sheath in the other ; there is a separation between the sword and the sheath, but the same man holdeth both. 0 Chris- tians ! do we believe this, and wonder no more that life itself should die, and Christ be free among the dead ? If any had cause to love his life, Chri.st had ; every man's life is valuable, much more Christ's, which was enriched with the continual presence of God. We are often a burden to ourselves ; we wish for death ; but that Christ should die, whose soul dwelt with God in a personal union, is a wonder.
His death was not a naked death, but the painful, shameful, and accunsed death of the cross. The law pronounced the death of the cross accursed : Deut. xxi. 23, ' He that is hanged is accursed of God.' In the account of all nations it is ignominious. It was cruel and painful, to show that he came to bear not only our curse but our sorrows : Gal. iii. 13, He was ' made a curse for us ; ' Isa. liii. 4, ' Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.' If you follow him to the grave, it was a continuation of his abasement, though not of his pain. Thither Christ went to shut and seal up our sins, that they should no more come into remembrance, as Abraham buried his dead out of his sight. If we look only to what was visible, Christ was a man of .-sorrows; his life was full of sorrows, his death violent, and bloody, and ignominious.
But all this doth not answer the expression, travail of soul. Our
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souls sinned, and therefore Christ must lay down his soul as an offer- ing for sin, Lsa. liii. 10. In Christ's soul-sufferings we may take notice of two things — his desertion and agonies. These have some correspondence with the poena damni et sensus.
1. His desertion: Mat. xxvii. 46, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?' Christ's desertion cannot be meant of outward afflictions, of being left to the rage and violence of men. The word forsaking implieth God's withdrawing : 2 Cor. iv. 9, ' We are perse- cuted, but not forsaken ; ' though given up to the will of men, yet still enjoying the presence of God: but Christ was both persecuted and forsaken.