The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 2 — Section 295

enemies, There ere men who do not care that their brethren whose confidence they have tried to win nre cherishing toward them the bitterest hatred; not s11ch was he of the tender heart and loving Rpirit. 4. The rejection of the people. He was rejected of men. Several men and women, in most places whither he went, may have flocked to hear him; and the common people beard him gladly, we know. But he bad to acknow- ledge to himself that his principles made no way, that his troth was not apprehender\ and loved, that citizens did not enrol themselves in his spiritual kingdom. 5. The near presence of human suffering and sorrow. By partaking of our humanity as he did, Jesus came into the closest contact with the pains, the privations, the deformities, the diseases, and the sorrows of mankind. And by the power of an intense and living sympathy he made these his own (Matt. viii. 17; John xi. 33, 35). He bore them on bis own heart; they weighed upon bis spirit as a heavy burden. 6. A deep sense of human sin, culminating in a sacrifice for it. If the near presence of sorrow grieved and troubled him, bow much more that of human sin in all its forms! With our lesser purity, we cannot tell how painful to bis heart was the sight of all the selfishness, hypocrisy, greed, worldliness, malignity, corruption which be beheld, most of it aITecting the language and the bearing of devotion. Yet with all these sources of sorrow, there were not wanting- II. Si>RINGS OF SACRED JOY m THE HEART AND LIFE OF OUR LORD. 1. Unbroken com- munion with the heavenly Father. 2. The sincere attachment of many who, though they were imperfect disciples, yet trusted and loved him as their Teacher and Friend. 3. T\le gratitude of many whom he healed, and the deeper gratitude of many whom he saved, 4. The consciousness of faithful fulfilment of his great mission. 5. A calm, profound asEurance of victory through death and shame (John xii. 24, 32). In the heart of the Man of sorrows were deep springs of joy, such as they who wounded him and triumphed over him knew not of. In our case, as in his, there may be the light of a blessed peace and even of heavenly joy in a soul that moves under darkest skies through a clouded life.-C. Vera. 4, 5.-The Divine account of the sufferings of Ghrist. In these words, which remain ever fresh and sacred, though they are so familiar to our hearts, we have- I. A SAD AND STRIKING PICTURE. It is the picture of the Servant of the Lord, wounded, bruised, chastened, stricken, We cannot fail to see in it the sufferings of the holy Saviour. We see him: 1. Wounded in body; not only a-hungered and athirst, not only weary with long-continued lnbours and without the promise of the soft pilluw of rest when the day was done, but suffering, beyond this, the laying on him the hard, rough hand of a brutal soldiery, the cruel smiting and scourging, the piercing of hand and foot with the remorseless nail, the pains aud pangs of crucifixion. But beyond this, immeasurably more serious and more severe than this, we see him: 2. Wounded in spirit; bruised in soul by the shortcoming, the inconstancy, even the treachery of his own friends, by the superficiality and frailty of the outer band of his disciples, hy the iutense and inappeasable malignity of his enemies, by the sight of sickness and sorrow, by the pressure and burden of human sin; all this weight of evil crushing bis holy and tender spirit. II. A NATURAL BUT A FALSE CONOLUSJON. "\Ve did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted," i.e. on ar,count of his own sins. It was natural that meu should think thus; there are facts which go to support thongh they do not justify it. 1. It is true that sin and suffering are very closely and causally connected. All sinners aro, as such, sufferers. 2. It is true that, as a rule, great sinners are great sufferers. Jt was not accidental that Antiochus Epiphanes, Herod the Great, Philip II. of Spain, and other men, who, like them, committed enormities of wrong-doing, eudured terrible pains of body and fearful remorse of spirit. But it does not follow that a very great sufferer is a very great sinner. For it is also true (1) that some of the purest and saintliest of mankind have been visited with severest bodily pains, or have p::LSsed through most trying troubles, or been called to endure heaviest afflictions, (2) And tliat the great Teacher warned us ngninst pushing this doctrine to a perversion of the truth (Luke xiii. 3). (3) And we know that it was wholly inapplicable to the Lord himself. Ha who suffered more than any other of ihe children of men we,s that 011e So11 of man wbo t:84141l-l'J• J;.  306 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH, [on. LIU, 1-12.