Duffy on "creeping to the cross"

Historian Eamon Duffy describes the late Medieval Good Friday tradition of “creeping to the cross” in English churches and how the Protestant Reformers sought to discourage it:

“Good Friday in the late Middle Ages was a day of deepest mourning. No mass was celebrated, and the main liturgical celebration of the day was a solemn and penitential commemoration of the Passion. The whole of the narrative of St. John’s Gospel was read, with a small dramatic embellishment: at the words ‘They parted my garments among them’ the clerks parted and removed two linen cloths which had been specially placed for the purpose on the otherwise bare altar….”

Later, “The cross was unveiled in three stages….”

“Clergy and people then crept barefoot and on their knees to kiss the foot of the cross, held by two ministers.”

“Creeping to the cross was one of the most frequent targets of Protestant reformers from the 1530s onwards, and there can be no doubt of the place it held in lay piety: well into the Elizabethan period Bishop Grindal would complain on Good Friday ‘some certeyn persons go barefooted and barelegged to the churche, to creepe to the crosse.’”

-The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580, p. 29.

The Vision (3.8.19): The Scourging of Christ

Image: Romans weapons

Note: Devotion taken from sermon on John 19:1-12 on 2.24.19.

Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him (John 19:1).

On the heels of the release of Barabbas (18:38-40), comes the scourging of Christ. The Lord Jesus takes upon him the stripes that Barabbas deserved. The verb for to scourge is mastigao. It can also mean to flog, whip, or beat.

J. C. Ryle observed: “The cruel injury inflicted on our Lord’s body, in this verse, was probably far more severe than an English reader might suppose. It was a punishment which among the Romans generally preceded crucifixion, and was sometimes so painful and violent that the sufferer died under it. It was a scourging with rods, not always with cords, as painters and sculptors represent.”

Another source, however, says that scourging was “a severe punishment using a whip that had bits of bone or metal imbedded at the tip” (Orthodox Study Bible).

In his book Crucifixion, the historian Martin Hengel describes flogging as “a stereotyped part of the punishment” of crucifixion, which “would make the blood flow in streams” (32). He notes that Christ’s loss of blood due to the scourging is what caused him to be so weakened so as not to be able to carry the cross and best explains “his relatively speedy death” when he was crucified (32).

J. C. Ryle continues: “As to Pilate’s reason for inflicting this punishment on our Lord, there seems little doubt. He secretly hoped that this tremendous scourging, in the Roman fashion, with satisfy the Jews; and that after seeing Jesus beaten, bleeding, and torn with rods, they would be content to let him go free.”

Scourging was a graphic and violent punishment, but note that it is relayed discreetly in Scripture. There is none of the gritty detail of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. These simple words are sufficient.

Here is the fulfilment of prophecy: Isaiah 53:5: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

Today we look with admiration at the one who stood in our place, suffered, bled and died for us.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision: The Scale and the Scope of Christ's Death

Image: Ripening blueberries, North Garden, Virginia, July 2018

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on John 11:47-57.

John 11:50 Nor consider that it is expedient that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. 51 And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Christ should die for that nation. 52 And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.

In John 11:50, Caiphas the high priest offers an unwitting prophecy about Christ: “Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.”

What did he mean by that? He was suggesting that Jesus be offered up as a sacrificial lamb, as a scapegoat. We’ll place the blame on him and let him pay the price, so that our freedom can be preserved. It will be a good and to the benefit of many to put this man to death.

We then have the apostle John’s inspired interpretation of Caiphas’ words in vv. 51-52.

John first notes in v. 51 that Caiphas spoke “not of himself.” The sense here is that he was speaking under the Spirit’s direction, even though he did not understand what he was really saying. Calvin says, “a higher impulse guided his tongue.” God can speak even through ungodly men, as he did through Balaam of old (see Numbers 22—23).

John declares the substance of Caiphas’s words: “he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation” (v. 51b). He did not know it, but Caiphas had prophesied the penal substitutionary death of Christ.

Notice John’s further interpretation in v. 52. The death of Jesus will not be “for that nation only, but that he also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.”

John makes clear that Caiphas comprehended neither the scale nor the scope of the benefits of this one man’s death for the many. First on scale: Christ’s death would not merely bring temporal political liberty, but everlasting spiritual liberty. Second, on scope: Christ death would not just be a benefit for Jews in Judea but also for those Jews “scattered abroad” and even for the Gentiles (v. 52).

Calvin says we may infer from John’s words, “that the human race is scattered and estranged from God, until the children of God are assembled under Christ their head.”

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (11.20.14): Why did Christ not have to undergo eternal suffering?

Several weeks ago after I preached from Luke 24:1-12 on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, someone in the congregation approached me with an intriguing question.  Here is a summary of her question:

The Bible teaches that the unsaved who die apart from saving faith in Christ are under the wrath of God for eternity in hell.  If Jesus stood in our place and died for our sins, why did he not have to undergo eternal suffering?  Why was the duration of his suffering under the wrath of God limited in time?

The response I gave in the moment to this question went something like this (with Scripture proofs):

Yes, the Bible does indeed teach that those who die apart from saving faith in Christ are under the wrath of God for eternity in hell.  See, for example:

John 3:36:  He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Matthew 25: 41:  Then he shall say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

It further teaches, however, that Jesus’ suffering on the cross and his sacrificial death, though of a limited duration, made perfect atonement for those who would be saved.  See, for example:

Romans 5:8-9:  8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

1 Corinthians 15:3:  For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

Hebrews 10:12:  But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;

The resurrection of Jesus is evidence of the fact that God the Father was satisfied by the suffering and death of Jesus for sinners.  God the Father accepted the perfect atoning work of Christ and vindicated him by raising him from the dead.  See, for example:

Acts 2:23-24:  23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: 24  Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

Romans 1:3-4:  3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; 4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:

1 Thessalonians 1:10:  And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

We must also remember that Jesus was no ordinary man but the God-man and the Second Adam who, in himself, knew no sin but was made sin for us (see 2 Cor 5:21).  He could satisfy God’s righteous wrath through suffering of limited temporal duration which a sinful, unregenerate man, apart from Christ, can never satisfy even in suffering for an unlimited, eternal duration.

This question also sent me to look through some of my books on systematic theology.  I discovered that not every systematic theology addresses this question, but I did find a few who did.  Here are some insights into how others have addressed this question:

The Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs (c. 1600-1646) addresses this issue in his treatise titled Hope, as seen in this passage:

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the cause of true lively hope in the hearts of the saints.  By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, God has declared that He is fully satisfied for the sins of man, and that the work of redemption is fully wrought out; otherwise Christ must have been held in the prison of the grave forever.

The Calvinistic Baptist pastor John Gill (1697-1771) addresses the question in his A Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity (1767-1770; The Baptist Standard Bearer reprint, 2007) under his discussion of the passive obedience of Christ.  He concludes with these words:

Eternity is not of the essence of punishment; and only takes place when the person punished cannot bear the whole at once; and being finite, as sinful man is, cannot make satisfaction to the infinite Majesty of God, injured by sin, the demerit of which is infinite punishment : and as that cannot be borne at once by a finite creature, it is continued ad infinitum; but Christ being an infinite Person was able to bear the whole at once; and the infinity of his Person, abundantly compensates for the eternity of the punishment (p. 404).

In his Systematic Theology (original 1938; Eerdmans New Combined Edition, 1996), Louis Berkhof addresses the question under his overall discussion of Christ’s “State of Humiliation.”  Following the Heidelberg Catechism, he notes that Christ’s sufferings began during his earthly life.  He then observes:

These sufferings were followed by his death on the cross.  But this was not all; He was subject not only to physical, but also to eternal death, though He bore this intensively and not extensively, when He agonized in the garden and when He cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  In a short period of time He bore the infinite wrath against sin to the very end and came out victoriously.  This was possible for Him only because of His exalted nature (p. 339).

Contemporary New Calvinist theologian Wayne Grudem also provides an extended discussion of this question in his Systematic Theology (Zondervan, 1994) in his chapter on the Atonement.  Under the heading, “Not Eternal Suffering but Complete Payment,” Grudem begins:

If we had to pay the penalty for our own sins, we would have to suffer eternally in separation from God.  However, Jesus did not suffer eternally.  There are two reasons for this difference:  (a) If we suffered for our own sins, we would never be able to make ourselves right with God again.  There would be no hope because there would be no way to live again and earn perfect righteousness before God, and there would be no way to undo our sinful nature and make it right before God.  Moreover, we would continue to exist as sinners who would not suffer with pure hearts of righteousness before God, but would suffer with resentment and bitterness against God, thus continually compounding our sin.  (b) Jesus was able to bear all the wrath of God against our sin and to bear it to the end. No mere man could ever have done this, but by virtue of the union of divine and human natures in himself, Jesus was able to bear all the wrath of God against sin and to bear it to the end (pp. 577-578).

In the end we must confess that we will never be able to touch the bottom of the depths of what God has accomplished for us in Christ.  Still, it is worth the effort to meditate on how in a limited amount of time Christ took our eternal punishment upon himself.  We can thus say with Paul, “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:57).

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Geldenhuys on Luke's restraint in describing Christ's physical sufferings

I introduced last Sunday's sermon on Luke 23:34-38 with another reflection on the simplicity and brevity of Luke's description of the crucifixion in Luke 23:33:  "And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, they crucified him, and the malefactors, one of the right hand, and the other on the left." Again, the crucifixion of Jesus is described with great restraint and with little distracting detail as to the pain and suffering that Jesus endured humanly speaking.  Norval Geldenhuys offers these comments:

Crucifixion was the most agonizing and shameful form of execution ever devised (the Romans confined this form of punishment to slaves and criminals of the lowest type), and yet the physical agony which Jesus had to endure was but the faintest reflection of the spiritual suffering He had to undergo as the Bearer of the sin of lost mankind.  For this reason the Gospels give practically no details of His physical suffering, so that the reader’s attention should not be concentrated upon outward things and thus overlook the deepest essence of His suffering.  What a pity that in so much Christian art His physical sufferings have been brought so greatly into prominence (Luke [Eerdmans, 1951]:  p. 608).

New Word Magazine (7.30.13): Continued Response to Reza Aslan: Defending the Crucifixion

This week's Word Magazine continues my review of the 7.15.13 NPR interview with Reza Aslan on his book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, this time focusing on Aslan's comments on the crucifixion of Jesus.

I also made mention of this article challenging Aslan's scholarly credentials as a historian of early  Christianity and the video below of Aslan's uncomfortable interview with Lauren Given in which she challenged his bias in his biography of Jesus:

Alexamenos worships his God

In last Sunday's message from Mark 15 on Christ's Suffering, I made mention of this crude drawing archaeologists found scratched on a wall in Rome. The photo above comes from Roland H. Bainton's book Faith of Our Fathers (Scribner's, 1944): p. 14. Historian Martin Hengel also makes reference to this graffiti in his classic book Crucifixion (Fortress, 1977) as an example of pagan animosity toward the scandalous preaching of Christ crucified:

There is an admirable illustration of this in the well known caricature of a crucified figure with an ass's head from the Palatine with the inscription 'Alexamenos worships god' (Alexamenos sebete [=sebetai] theon). There should be no doubt that this is an anti-Christian parody of the crucified Jesus. The ass's head is not a pointer to some kind of gnostic Seth-worship, but to the Jewish derivation of the Christian faith. One of the regular themes of ancient anti-Jewish polemic was that the Jews worshipped an ass in the temple (p. 19).

As the Apostle Paul put it:

1 Corinthians 1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: 23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; 24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

JTR