His Sufferings

The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
~ Deuteronomy 18:15

Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.
~ Zechariah 13:7

Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
~ Psalm 69:20-21

For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
~ Luke 21:22

But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?
~ Matthew 26:54

Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
~ Luke 24:26-27

And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
~ Luke 24:46

But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.
~ Acts 3:18

And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. But God raised him from the dead: And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people.
~ Acts 13:29-31

God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.
~ Acts 13:33

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
~ 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

Christ’s Sufferings Prophesied, by Jonathan Edwards. The following contains an excerpt from his work, “Fulfilment of the Prophecies of the Messiah”.

By the ancient prophecies, the sufferings of the Messiah were to be extremely great. “For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burnt as an hearth. My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave unto my skin. I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert…For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping, Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down” (Psa 102:3-6, 9-10). “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws…I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me” (Psa 22:14-15, 17). “The waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried…Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness” (Psa 69:1-3, 20). “We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.…He was wounded…He was bruised…The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted…It pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief” (Isa 53:4-7, 10).

By the ancient prophecies, the outward meanness, abasement, disgrace, and contempt that the Messiah should be the subject of would be exceeding great, even to the utmost extreme, and that His enemies should greatly mock and deride Him. “But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head” (Psa 22:6-7). “Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face…I became a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak against me; I was the song of the drunkards…Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour…Reproach hath broken my heart” (Psa 69:7, 11-12, 19-20). “I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert…Mine enemies reproach me all the day” (Psa 102:6, 8). “As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” (Isa 52:14). “I hid not my face from shame and spitting” (Isa 50:6). That Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver, and the money given to the potter, is remarkably agreeable to Zechariah 11:12-13.

It was foretold that the Messiah should suffer greatly by the cruelty of men. “Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion…For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet” (Psa 22:12-13, 16). “They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty…Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me…Mine adversaries are all before thee…They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Let their table become a snare before them…For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten” (Psa 69:4, 14, 19, 21-22, 26). “He is despised and rejected of men…He was oppressed” (Isa 53:3, 7), with the context. “They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek” (Mic 5:1).

Jesus being left alone in His suffering, forsaken of all His disciples, and deserted by those that a little before admired Him, crying “Hosanna,” etc., is agreeable to Psalm 22:11: “Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.” “I am become a stranger unto my brethren…I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none” (Psa 69:8, 20). “I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top” (Psa 102:7). These two last places were remarkably verified at the time of His agony when He watched and kept awake alone, and His disciples refused to watch with Him to comfort Him one hour, and when in His great distress, He came to them once and again, seeking to be comforted by their company. But when He looked to His disciples to take pity on Him, when He told them His soul was “exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Mat 26:38), He found none to pity and looked for comforters but found none.

Jesus being compassed round by His enemies in His last sufferings‌—(who made) it their business to reproach, mock, and afflict Him—is agreeable to Psalm 22:12-13, 16: “Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion…For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me.” And His being so compassed about by persons of various nations—Jews and proselytes from all parts of the world, from every nation under heaven, and Herod and his attendants, heathens, Romans, soldiers, and servants, probably of many heathen nations—is agreeable to Psalm 118:10-12: “All nations compassed me about…They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about…They compassed me about like bees.”

That the sufferings of Jesus were such as did in a peculiar manner mar and deform His visage—His countenance being first marred with a bloody sweat, by the spittle of His enemies, and by their wounds buffeting Him, striking Him with a rod on the head, and shedding out His blood on His face by the crown of thorns—I say, these things are agreeable to Isaiah 52:14: “His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.” “Shame hath covered my face” (Psa 69:7). That Jesus was so spit upon by His enemies is agreeable to Isaiah 50:6: “I hid not my face from shame and spitting.” That the enemies of Jesus beat and wounded Him in the head and face with a stick and with their hands is agreeable to Isaiah 50:6: “I gave…my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” “They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek” (Mic 5:1). That Jesus was scourged is agreeable to Isaiah 50:6: “I gave my back to the smiters.”

It was foretold that the Messiah should die, that He should die a violent death, die by the hands of His cruel enemies, and die long before He came to the age of man or in the midst of His days. “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow…smite the shepherd” (Zec 13:7)…“After threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off” (Dan 9:26). “Thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me” (Psa 22:15-16). “My days are consumed like smoke…my days are like a shadow that declineth…He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days. I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days” (Psa 102:3, 11, 23-24). These places in Psalm 102 show that He was to die long before He came to the age of man and that He was to die in the midst of His days. This was exactly fulfilled in Jesus. And verse 8 shows that His death was by the malice and cruelty of His enemies: “Mine enemies reproach me all the day; and they that are mad against me are sworn against me.”

“He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter…He was cut off out of the land of the living…He made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death…thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin…he hath poured out his soul unto death” (Isa 53:7-10, 12). “O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul” (Psa 86:14). “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15). The prophecies of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, which I shall afterwards take notice of, do imply that He should die…

Jesus died by the cruelty of the Jews, His brethren. His being hated and persecuted to death by their malice against Him, excited by His zeal for God—particularly by His vexing (them) by His zeal for the honor of the temple—and their contempt of God is agreeable to Psalm 69:7-9: “Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children. For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.” This prophecy had a remarkable fulfillment in Jesus Christ. The rulers and teachers of…the house of God were prodigiously provoked by Jesus’ severe reproofs for their wicked mismanagements in that…house of God, of which they had the care and charge. Their false teaching, making void the commandment of God through their tradition, corrupting the worship of God’s house; their proud behavior in God’s house, affecting the uppermost seats in the synagogues and setting up themselves in the room of God; their desiring to be called, “Rabbi, Rabbi,” and so reproaching God, Who alone was their master; for shutting up the house of God against men, neither going in themselves and hindering those that were entering; for joining long prayers in God’s house with covetous practices and wicked extortion, devouring widows’ houses and teaching men that if they swear by the temple or by the altar, it is nothing (Matthew 23); and by (Jesus’) going into the temple a little before His crucifixion and casting out all them that sold and bought in the temple, overthrowing the tables of the money-changers and the seats of them that sold doves, charging them with making the temple a den of thieves. By these things, they were enraged and never left until they had imbrued their hands in His blood.

Christ’s dying (was) a very reproachful and ignominious death. “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up (or consumed me, made an end of me)…the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me…Reproach hath broken my heart” (Psa 69:9, 20). This also may be inferred from the prophecies of Christ’s death being so connected with prophecies of His extreme ignominy and reproach (Psa 22, 102; Isa 53).

It was foretold that the Messiah should be condemned to death in a judicial process. “He was taken from prison and from judgment…he was cut off out of the land of the living” (Isa 53:8). “They that sit in the gate speak against me” (Psa 69:12). It was foretold that the Messiah should suffer as a wicked man, be put to death as a vile malefactor, and suffer with such. “He was taken from prison and from judgment…he was cut off out of the land of the living…And he made his grave with the wicked…he was numbered with the transgressors” (Isa 53:8-9, 12). It was foretold that His enemies should put Him to death by piercing His hands and His feet. “Thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet” (Psa 22:15-16).

Christ’s enemies deriding of Him while under His last sufferings, insulting Him for His pretended high favor with God, wagging their heads, is a most exact and wonderful fulfillment of Psalm 22:7-8: “All they that see me laugh to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.” Their giving Jesus gall and vinegar when thirsty is agreeable to Psalm 69:21: “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Their parting Jesus’ garments among them and casting lots on His vesture is a remarkable fulfillment of Psalm 22:18: “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” And what makes the fulfillment of this the more remarkable is that there should be such a special circumstance of Jesus’ raiment that was the occasion of both these being fulfilled: the coat, the principal garment, being seamless, so that the executioners could not have equal shares, obliged them to cast lots for it.

We may conclude that in Jesus’ death there was a remarkable fulfillment of…Psalm 22:14: “All my bones are out of joint.” For He, having His strength exceedingly wasted and the sinews greatly relaxed before His crucifixion by His agony the night before; His watching all night and fasting under constant, cruel sufferings until that time; bearing His cross until He sank under it; and then hanging by His wounded hands, bearing His whole weight on them for three hours together, wasting all the rest of His strength and life and by degrees more and more relaxing and stretching the sinews and ligaments by which the bones were held together, the joints must needs be separated and bones be drawn asunder. It was foretold that the Messiah should die under great sorrow and distress of mind, as well as pain of body. “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death” (Psa 22:14-15). “Reproach hath broken my heart; I am full of heaviness” (Psa 69:20). “My heart is smitten, and withered like grass” (Psa 102:4). “He hath poured out his soul unto death” (Isa 53:12). And indeed, the general tenor of Psalm 22 and 69 and Isaiah 53 shows this.

It is agreeable to the prophecies that God should remarkably withdraw from the Messiah and leave Him destitute of the comforts of His presence under His last sufferings. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent” (Psa 22:1-2).

It was foretold that there should be a special hand of God in the sufferings and death of the Messiah, and that, so that those sufferings should be the fruit of His indignation and wrath. “For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded” (Psa 69:26). “It pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin” (Isa 53:10). “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow…smite the shepherd” (Zec 13:7). “I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one” (Eze 17:22). “Thou hast brought me into the dust of death” (Psa 22:15). “Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down. My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass” (Psa 102:10-11).

It was agreeable to the prophecies that Christ should show Himself remarkably meek under His last sufferings and that He should be silent and speak little amid all the injurious accusations, reproaches, and cruel oppressions of His enemies. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” (Isa 53:7). “My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me” (Psa 22:15-16). So unreasonable and cruel were those that compassed Him about that it rendered it in vain for Him to speak.

It was foretold that the Messiah should be active in His own sufferings and death and that He should voluntarily undergo them. “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death” (Isa 53:12). “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting” (Isa 50:6).

That Jesus in the time of His last sufferings made intercession to His Father for those horribly wicked men, His crucifiers—even at the very time when, in the heat of their cruelty, bloodthirsty malice, and height of contempt, they were nailing Him to the cross and He was pleading for them, saying, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luk 23:34)—was a marvelous expression of the full and perfect submission, patience, and obedience of His soul under those sufferings set before Him. The glorious holiness, grace, and infinitely meritorious excellency of that act of His soul in offering Himself to die for sinners was done with perfect love, humility, meekness, and love to God and sinners under all the trial that He then (went through), both from the sufferings He endured and the sin of men that was then in its blackest color and most trying circumstances. And it was a wonderful fulfillment of that in Isaiah 53:12: “He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” The intercession there spoken of seems to be the intercession He made in His last sufferings: for that is what is spoken of in the context and in this verse. And the intercession here mentioned is spoken of as a meritorious circumstance and concomitant of His last sufferings, and a manifestation of His great and meritorious virtue in suffering on the account of which God would so gloriously reward (Him). The whole verse being thus: “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

It was foretold that though the Messiah should die under circumstances of great contempt as a wicked man and a malefactor, yet God, in some circumstances of His death, would take care to put honor upon Him as a reward of His innocence and merits by being in some respect with the rich in His death. “And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth” (Isa 53:9). This was remarkably fulfilled in Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, being extraordinarily stirred up to come boldly and beg the body of Jesus and give it a very honorable interment in his own new tomb. This rich man was excited thus to honor Jesus’ dead body because he was sensible in his own mind that He suffered wrongfully and that “he had done no violence” (Isa 53:9). (Jesus was not) guilty of any fraud or deceit that should render Him worthy to be thus punished by the magistrate.

It was foretold that the sacrifice of the Messiah should make full satisfaction to God’s justice, such as should make all other sacrifice after that needless. “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness…In the midst of the week (or in the half of the week) he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease” (Dan 9:24, 27). It is evident that in verse 24 “to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness” are various expressions to signify the same glorious and wonderful work that shall be done…The word in the original translated “make reconciliation for iniquity” is the same that is used in the Law for making atonement by sacrifice, so that the words imply that the Messiah should offer such an atonement for sin as should make an end of, or consume, the transgression and seal up sin, i.e., (He would) quite complete the business of reconciliation, so that there should be no further occasion for going about to make reconciliation or offer any further atonement for (sin). So that by these expressions it seems as if sacrifices for sin thenceforward must cease and be made to cease by the Messiah. (In) verse 27, it is expressly said they should (cease) at that very time spoken of in this verse, viz., in the last half of (the) week of the seventy weeks. Putting these things together, we cannot understand those prophecies otherwise than that the Messiah should offer up such a sacrifice to atone for sin as should render all other sacrifices and oblations for sin needless and should put an end to them.

The Old Testament types supply incontrovertible evidence that the gospel was no novel invention of New Testament times. When the risen Savior would make known to His disciples the meaning of His death, we read, “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself ” (Luk 24:27). So far from the evangel of the apostles’ being any (absolutely) new thing, every element in it was revealed long centuries before their birth, not only in words but in visible representations: there was both a wondrous anticipation of and preparation for the gospel. Thus, a reverent contemplation of the types supplies a blessed confirmation of faith, for they attest the divine authorship of both Testaments.

Moreover, they stimulate adoration: even when we know a person, we enjoy looking at his picture; so here. It is Christ that is before us in them.
—A. W. Pink

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