3465. The Suffering Christ Satisfied

A Sermon Published On Thursday, July 1, 1915.

He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many. {Isa 53:11}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3465, “Suffering Christ Satisfied, The” 3467}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3554, “Our Magnificent Saviour” 3556}

   Exposition on Ex 29:38-46 Isa 53 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3458, “Redeeming the Unclean” 3460 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Isa 53; 55:1-7 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2534, “Greatest Gift in Time or Eternity, The” 2535 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Isa 53 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2290, “God’s Unspeakable Gift” 2291 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Isa 53 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2499, “Christopathy” 2500 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Isa 53 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2827, “Redeemer Described by Himself, The” 2828 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Isa 53 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2840, “Laying the Hand on the Sacrifice” 2841 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Isa 53 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3436, “Christ Glorified” 3438 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ps 38 Isa 53 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2911, “Cases of Conscience” 2912 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ro 6 Isa 53 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3347, “Things to be Remembered” 3349 @@ "Exposition"}

1. In these words we have God the Father speaking concerning his Son, and declaring that, since he had endured a soul-travail, he would guarantee to him a satisfactory reward. How delightful it is to observe the co-working of the various persons of the sacred Trinity in the matter of salvation! It was so in the creation. It was the Father who said, “Let there be light,” and there was light; but we read, concerning the eternal Son, that “without him nothing was made which was made,” and we find express mention of the Spirit of God, who moved on the face of the waters, and created order out of chaos. Father, Son, and Spirit worked together to make the world, and, in the making of man, we all remember that gracious word, “Let us make man in our own image, with our own likeness.” It is even so in our salvation. The Father has chosen a people for himself. He has given these people to the Son. To these people he has also given the Only Begotten to be their salvation. It is through the abounding grace of the Father that salvation comes to the chosen, but only through Jesus Christ, for everywhere he is the Saviour. We are redeemed by his precious blood. It is he who will bring the many sons to glory, and be the author and the finisher of their faith. Yet not without the Holy Spirit, for the blessed Spirit graciously condescends to take from the things of Christ and show them to us. What God ordains, the Spirit executes. What the Son purchases, the Holy Spirit bestows. It is he who makes us fit to be partakers of the inheritance the saints in light, and when we are ready we are introduced to the inheritance by the hand of the glorious Son, and are led up to the throne of the eternal Father. Brother Christians, live much in contemplation on the God of your salvation. Magnify Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Shun that ministry which dishonours either of these blessed persons, and seek to be fully built up and instructed in the gospel-teaching, which glorifies Father, Son, and Spirit in divine equality, and leads your own hearts into “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.”

2. With that by way of preface, we shall now come to the text at once, taking the words as well as the sense of it. The Father says of the Son that “he shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.”

3. I. The first point of consideration, very briefly, is:—OUR Lord‘S PANGS AND SUFFERINGS, BY WHICH HE MADE AN ATONEMENT FOR OUR SINS.

4. These are described in the text as “the travail of his soul.” You know the meaning of the word “travail.” I will not explain it; I will rather do with it as the painter who drew the picture of Agamemnon and the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia. {a} He painted Agamemnon, but he threw a veil over his face, for he felt he could not express the grief that was in the father’s face, and, therefore, the face was delicately concealed. Let us do the same. It may suffice for us to say that whenever in Holy Scripture a forcible word is required to express fear, overwhelming pain, distraction, and confusion, the word “travail” is used. For example, when the kings looked at Mount Zion, and saw how safe it was from their attacks, “fear took hold on them there, and pain as of a woman in travail”; and in the description which is given by the prophet of the men of Babylon when their city was overthrown, he represents them as being “full of pain as if they were in travail.” It is an unutterable amount of inward grief and trouble, and a swelling of the inner man until it seems as if the whole fabric of nature, being desperately convulsed, would be utterly broken up to its ruin.

5. Observe the text says, “The travail of his soul.” We are not to underestimate the bodily sufferings of Christ, but still it has been well said that “the soul-sufferings of Christ were the soul of his sufferings.” Brethren, there was so much in the outward agony of Christ that my ears have tingled, and my heart burned with wrath, when I have heard certain theologians speak lightly of it. Speak lightly of the sweat of blood in the garden of Gethsemane? Speak lightly of the flagellations by Herod and Pilate, when the bloody scourges made the sacred drops to roll? Think lightly of the shame, and spitting, and the thorn-crown? Oh! sirs, dare you think and speak lightly of the piercing of his hands, and of his feet, and of the fever which those wounds engendered, and that thirst which the fever and the broiling sun together brought on, and the rending of those hands when the feet could no longer support the body, and the iron tore through the nerves?

6. Is nothing or little to be said of all this? God forbid, brethren! We believe that the body of Christ took its full share of the chastisement. By his stripes we are healed. By his scourging and bodily chastisements we get at least a portion of the healing balm which cures the disease of sin. Our sin was with the body, and Christ’s atonement was with the body. Our flesh was sinful, and, therefore, his flesh must suffer. Had we been simply spirits, and only as spirits had sinned, a spirit might have made atonement for us, and a soul bereft of a body might have been a perfect substitute, but we are sons of Adam, and still wear this red earth about us, and just as we sin in the body so must the Saviour, with hands, and feet, and brow, and every member of his blessed body, be made to suffer to make atonement for our guilt. Still, still, the travail of his soul was the chief matter, and this is what the text speaks about. Where shall I find a golden reed with which to measure this city, or where shall I find a plumb-line with which to fathom the depths of agony which I now see before me? Jesus Christ suffered so much that I despair of conceiving his sufferings, or of conveying them to you by any form of words.

7. And yet there are two lines of thought which might help us, and the first is this—the perfection of our Lord’s nature. Just think of this for a minute. Our Lord was utterly and altogether free from sin, or any tendencies to sin, and yet he came into this world, and he lived in the midst of sinners, and he must, as a result of this, have endured a torture to which you and I are utter strangers, except in some small measure. Now think for a moment; inasmuch as Christ was perfect, he was capable of an amount of sympathy at which you and I have only made a guess. What a dreadful thing it is for us sometimes to have to go and walk through the hospital. I know I should feel it to be one of the most painful days in my life if I had to spend a day in the operating room of a hospital. I think I should have to be taken out within the first five minutes, but to be obliged to stay on and see my fellow creatures suffer beneath the knife, even when used most carefully, and tenderly, and wisely, would, I think, be too much.

8. Some of you who have never seen the depths of poverty, if you were obliged to go to those parts and places where men are dying of starvation; if you were taken away just now to Orissa in India, or made to stop in the famine-stricken districts of Algeria, or even compelled to live for a while in some of the very poorest districts of this great, but just now, poverty-beaten city, you would feel it to be a great pain. I tell you, when sometimes there are half-a-dozen poor cases before us, and we have to help them, and then there come half-a-dozen more, and we cannot help them, it is one of the pains of life; it is one of the worst ills a man can have to bear, to be so public as to have all this evil gathered around his feet, and yet be unable to relieve it. Now we will not say that our Saviour was unable to relieve it, but some sufferings which men had brought on themselves by their sin came before him perpetually, and they must have pierced and penetrated his tender and sympathetic heart, riddling it, as it were, with the barbed arrows of grief. Still, he took upon himself our infirmities, and carried our sorrows, all his lifetime.

9. But it was worse than this. Our Lord, being perfect, must have shuddered as he came into daily contact with sinners. Shut a good man up in a den with drunkards, and unchaste people, and swearers, and what worse hell could you devise for him? Might not one prefer to be enclosed in a den of tigers or vipers sooner than with some classes of society? Now that kind of shuddering which comes over a chaste man when he is obliged to listen to the lascivious song, or the holy heart when it is compelled to hear blasphemy and horrible libels against the Most High—that existed to a pre-eminent degree in the pure and sensitive heart of Christ. Wherever he went he either saw the profligacy of the Publican, or the hypocrisy of the Pharisee, or the infidelity of the Sadducee, or the formalism of the scribe. With every step that he took there was something to grieve him. Even his own disciples, not merely by ignorance, but by worse than that, pierced him to the very quick, so that he endured a soul-travail in some respects during his entire life.

10. But the point I want to bring you to is this. He was such a perfect being, and yet sin was actually laid on him, and what must this have been? I should like to express myself cautiously and carefully. Jesus Christ never was a sinner, never could have been one, never was guilty of sin. In him was no sin. Yet the sin of his people was imputed to him, for so I understand the words, “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” What a word! “And he bore the sin of many.” This chapter has the expression, I think, three or four times over that God actually laid on Christ human sin. Now what a load for him to carry! What a pain for sin to come into contact like this with the perfectly holy soul of the blessed Jesus! You do not know what a very hell is included in the thought that sin came to be laid on Christ.

11. Think of it yourselves. You are perfectly innocent tonight of anything like murder. Suppose yourselves arraigned tomorrow morning at the police court, and accused of it. How would you feel? You may tell me that your innocence might, and would, sustain you. I have no doubt it would, but still, what a shame it would be to stand before the common crowd, and to be pointed at as having been guilty of an infamous deed. And suppose that, although you had not committed the deed, you were, nevertheless, unable to plead guiltless, for, for certain reasons, it was necessary that the guilt of the action should lie on you. Can you now conceive what strength you would need to keep your tongue from speaking so as to deny it, and to stand there like the sheep before the shearers—dumb to your own confusion? Can you imagine yourselves being condemned to die, though the sin was not yours, yet out of some great love which you bore for another you are condemned? And you can add another supposition—condemned to die justly, too, although you yourselves had not personally been guilty; can you picture yourselves just coming shuddering up the gallows stairs to face that dreadful throng assembled around the gibbet, with no eye among them all to pity you, but the whole assembled multitude thrusting out the tongue, pointing, mocking, jeering, and saying, “He trusted in God that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, since he delights in him.” Now the mere dying you could bear, as martyrs have done, but not the dying with all that weight of sin legally placed on you. Oh! who can tell what must have been the horror which took hold on the Saviour, and how true must have been his expression when he said, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death”? The holy One in the sinner’s place; angel in a dungeon; the God of heaven veiled in human flesh to be hung on the gibbet as a malefactor—shudder to think of it, and then try to conceive, if you can, what must have been the horror of his soul.

12. But I have another plumb-line with which, perhaps, if the Holy Spirit helps us, we shall be able to fathom the depth better. Think, beloved, of what our sins deserved. It is undoubtedly the teaching of Scripture that a single sin deserves death from God’s hand. The very sparks of sin set hell ablaze, but what do you deserve who have transgressed ten thousand times ten thousand times told? But Christ did not die for you alone. He died for a multitude that no man can number. Will you multiply, then, the punishment for the sin of one human being by that of all the countless myriads who are now before the throne, and the even greater numbers that shall yet be brought there? Now I will not say that Christ suffered precisely and exactly what all these ought to have suffered as the result of their sin, but I will say that what he offered to God was certainly not a less vindication of his justice, but a greater one than all that would have been, for if all the myriads of the elect had laid in hell for ever and ever, their debt would have been no nearer payment after ten thousand times ten thousand years than at the first. And yet this man, by his one offering of himself, has put away all the sin and all the punishment to all the multitudes for whom he shed his blood. Transcendent mystery! Angelic minds shall fail to explore the heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadth of this atoning sacrifice. Can you now guess at it? If you can, yet you cannot tell it, for it surpasses language—the travail of the Redeemer’s soul! I ask you now to think of your Lord in his bitter pangs and tormenting griefs. View him prostrate in the garden. See him sweating great drops of blood for you. Behold him tortured by Pilate and Herod, and then see him, with broken heart, going up to the accursed tree, and there being made a curse for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

13. II. We must now pass on to observe that there are:—CERTAIN RESULTS GUARANTEED FROM THE SUFFERING OF THE Lord.

14. The Eternal Father says, “He shall see the travail of his soul”; that is, he shall see the fruit of it. Jesus is not dead. The travail was enough to kill him, but he remembers no more his travail for the joy of the blessed fruit which is brought into the world by it. He looks down from heaven tonight, and he has been looking down ever since he ascended there, and he beholds the sweet results of all his pangs and griefs. Now attentively observe one thing. It has always seemed to us, and I think it will seem reasonable to you, that if Jesus Christ is to see the travail of his soul, and to be satisfied, then whatever was his intention when he laid down his life will be given to him. This is not far-fetched, because if it is written, “He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied,” how is a man satisfied if he does not have the result, the full result of his labour, above all such labour, labour even to death?

15. If a man does not achieve by his dying all that he died for, then he cannot be satisfied—unless his first intention is amended, which would imply that he had been in error. Do you see the point of this observation? Jesus Christ did not, then, on the tree intend to save every man. It is not true that Jesus Christ died with the intention of saving every man of the human race. But this is true—Christ died so that every man might be spared, and they are spared. You are here tonight as the result of his death, and in that sense he “tasted death for every man.” He died that every man might have the gospel preached to him, that there should be an honest declaration that whoever believes in Jesus Christ shall be saved. I tonight, for the ten thousandth time, announce to you that gospel, that if you believe in Jesus Christ, you shall be saved; and this gospel is to be preached not to some, but to every creature under heaven, and the proclamation of this gospel comes universally to all mankind as the result of Christ’s death, and in that sense he tasted death for every man.

16. But, notice that, he stood as a substitute for none of you, unless you believe in him, or shall believe in him. He suffered for those who trust him, but if you do not trust him, you have no part nor lot in this matter. He had no intention to save you. If he had, neither you nor the devil in hell could have frustrated that intent. But this is his intention, “God so loved the world that whoever believes in him has everlasting life.” This is the mark of the people for whom Christ died, that they come and trust in Jesus. By this “broad arrow” {b} are the blood-bought known, and the blood-redeemed discerned from the unregenerate mass—by their trusting in Jesus. He has redeemed us from among men. He loved his Church, and gave his Son for it. The good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. All whom the Father gives to him shall come to him, and whoever comes to him he will by no means cast out. We know and feel, then that what was Christ’s intention by his death he will certainly accomplish.

17. And oh! what a blessed thought this is for those of us who have to preach the gospel, that the gospel will not be preached in vain, that we do not preach it haphazardly, or randomly, or casting dice, as it were, for men’s souls. He bought them, and he will have them. They were given to him of old in the decree, and he will have them, snatching them from between the lion’s jaws by the power of his own irresistible grace. Christ sees the travail of his soul whenever a sinner touches the hem of his garment and receives the power that comes out of him. He is satisfied as saints advance in grace, as they make progress in the divine life. He is most of all satisfied as, one by one, they pass up the glittering pathway to the gates of pearl and enter into rest. He will be satisfied completely when all the chosen company shall be on the streets of gold like transparent glass, and shall, without the lack of a single voice in the divine choir, sing, “To him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood, to him be glory for ever and ever.”

18. Dear brothers and sisters, comfort each other with these words, that Christ will have his own. He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. Up with the red flag once again! Sound the trumpet, you heralds of the cross! Defy the hosts of hell! You may defy modern rationalism, {c} and modern Popery too. You may despise the sneers of the critics, and the banter of the ignorant, and the threatenings of the persecutors. None of these can trample that flag beneath their feet. The King sits on the throne in Zion, working his way and having his will. Has he said, and shall he not do it? Shall he purpose, and shall it not come to pass? Over your heads there pierces, like the trumpet of doom, the sound of Jehovah’s words, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” He does as he wishes among the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of this lower world. He shall see his seed; he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands.

19. But again we must pass on. One of the results of the Saviour’s passion is now specified in the text, “By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many.”

20. The former part of my discourse has been addressed to believers. I should like to catch the ear of the unbeliever now. Do you know what it means to be justified? It means, very simply, to be made just, to be accepted by God, as if you were always just. You have not been just, but a very long way from it. You have done the things you ought not to have done. Now if ever you are to be saved, you must be, before God, righteous. How can you be made righteous? The only way is the way mentioned in the text—by the knowledge of Christ shall Christ justify many. “What,” one says, “I thought we were to be made holy through what we do?” No, not by what you do, but through what you know. “But I do know a great many things,” one says. Do you know Jesus Christ? You know about him, you say. Do you know this about him, that he came into the world to save sinners? Do you know that you are a sinner, and do you know that, therefore, if you cast yourself on him, he will save you? “Well,” you say, “we do know that.” Well, I want to know whether you know it in your heart, not merely as a common piece of news, but whether you know it by experience in your soul? In other words, do you trust in him? Do you know him so as to believe him? When you know a man well, if he is a good man, you trust him; you cannot help trusting him when you know him. So do you know Christ so as to trust him? If you do, you shall be justified; that is, God will treat you as if you were perfectly just, and look at you as if you never did wrong in all your life, and bless you, and take you to heaven as if you had been an innocent from your mother’s breast. “But am I not to do something?” Nothing. “But am I not to feel something?” Nothing. The doing and the feeling will come afterwards, but the way to be justified is by knowing. “How can I know then?” one says. Well, listen; incline your ear and come to me; listen, and your souls shall live, for faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Attend much where the gospel is preached, and when you hear it do not reject it, but accept it.

21. Oh! my dear hearer, I wish you would accept the gospel now tonight! It all lies in a nutshell. It is just this:—Jesus Christ put himself into the sinner’s place, and whoever will trust him, Christ put himself into that man’s place, and that man’s sins are not his sins any more. They were put on Christ, and Christ’s righteousness belongs to that man. “What, if he has been a drunkard?” Indeed, if he has been a drunkard ever so deep. “What, if he has been a swearer” Indeed, indeed; if he trusts Christ, his blasphemy shall not be imputed to him. It was laid on Christ. Christ suffered on the red cross, where he poured out his life’s blood, suffered for that man’s blasphemies. “Well, but he has been all this afternoon in sin.” I do not care if he has been in sin up until the last tick of the clock; if he comes and casts himself on what Christ has done, with a simple, hearty, earnest faith, he may come in, for his sins, which are many, are all forgiven him. “Will he go and do as he did before?” Not if his sins are forgiven him, for he will love God, and he will so love God that he will hate the things he once loved. He will turn his cups bottom upwards, and he will vomit out his oaths for ever, and he will begin now once and for all to walk in the ways of holiness, serving God, whom he once despised. Yes, yes; it is by knowing Christ that men are justified, and only by this.

22. “Oh!” one says, “I wish I were justified like that!” Well, look at the text, “By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many.” Justify many; then why not you? “Lord, are there few who shall be saved?” and the answer comes, “He shall justify many.” Oh! that he would justify all in this Tabernacle! And why not? The justifying righteousness of Christ has an unbounded efficacy about it, just as his blood has, and he will justify not only many, but all who know him and rely on him shall be found just in the sight of God.

23. The last clause of the text explains the reason for it all, “For he shall bear their iniquities.” Three or four sentences on this will be enough, for the clause is so very plain that it needs no explanation. The reason why Jesus Christ is able to forgive sin, and to make unjust men just, is this—because he bears their iniquities. My dear brothers and sisters, you know that in these modern times it is thought to be very old-fashioned and very ignorant to teach the literal substitution of Christ in the place of sinners, and to say that Christ actually bore our sin, and that we bear Christ’s righteousness is thought to be an absurdity. Well then, absurdity or not, God is responsible for it, for these are his very words, “By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for”—for this very reason—“for he shall bear their iniquities.” Then if Christ did not bear their iniquities, there is no justifying sinners; for this is the very top, and bottom, and basis of Christ’s power to justify; that he himself took the iniquity of those whom he justifies.

24. There are gentlemen we sometimes meet who bring out new theories of the atonement—very pretty and very philosophical ones, and I have sometimes felt inclined to endorse those theories, for there was a great deal of attractiveness and glitter about them, but I now tell you my own experience in the matter. I never find my conscience made peaceful by any theory of atonement, except this, that my sins were actually laid on Christ, and that his righteousness is put on me, and it is only when I firmly believe in that divine exchange and blessed substitution that I find quiet and rest within, and as long as this is the case I shall cling to the old anchorage, and let whoever wishes to try newfangled ways. If Christ really did suffer for sinners, then God is just in not punishing sinners, and if he did not actually suffer for sinners, then there is no atonement, the justice of God is not satisfied, and there is no basis for a sinner to rest on at all.

25. Now what do you say, my hearers? Can you look to Christ on the tree, with a load of sin on him, and can you say, “I lay my guilt there?” Can you look to him in the throes of death, bruised beneath his Father’s rod, and can you say, “He was bruised for me; I have confessed my sins and laid them on him?” Then you are happy. But if there has been no one to bear your sins, then remember, I beseech you, that you will have to bear them yourselves, and if they gave Christ a travail, oh! what will they give to you? Oh! impenitent ones, if the imputed sins that were laid on Christ made him sorrowful, even to death, what will your actual sins do with you when you are made drunken with the wormwood, and God makes you to break your teeth with gravel-stones; when you are cast out into outer darkness, where there are weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth? If the veil were lifted, we might hear tonight the cries of spirits that are banished far from God without a hope. Within an hour that may be your portion, unconverted hearer. In a few more years, which will seem as short as an hour when you have looked back on them, that will be your portion if you die impenitent. And if you do not repent tonight, what reason have you to hope that you will repent tomorrow? Hearts do not soften by delay. Spirits are not rendered more susceptible of gracious influences by procrastination. Christ’s word is “now.” Do not put it off with the devil’s word—“tomorrow.”

26. You must suffer, or Christ must be your surety. What shall it be? Shall it be the hands fastened to the wood over there, or shall your hands be tormented in the flame? Shall it be that tongue which said, “I thirst,” or shall it be your tongue which shall long for a drop of water in vain? Shall it be those feet that were fastened to the tree, or shall it be your members which have been servants to unrighteousness, and which shall be partakers in the divine wrath? As the Lord lives who once was crucified, I ask you to remember that I told you this night in his name to close in with him and trust him. There is no door of hope for you but this—believe and live. So stands the Scripture. But if you laugh at this, if you despise this, if you forget this, if in any way—

   Your ears refuse

      The language of his grace

   And hearts grow hard like stubborn Jews,

      That unbelieving race.

   The Lord, in vengeance drest,

      Will lift his hand and swear—

   “You that despised my promised rest

      Shall have no portion there.”

27. If you do not believe, it will be because you are not one of his sheep, as he said to you. But do not think that you will make void his purpose, or disappoint the bleeding Lamb. Ah! no. If you will not come, others will. If you perish outside the ark, others shall enter and shall be saved. Perhaps your own wife, your own child, shall be made willing, while you still reject him. Oh! then, please pause for a while this Sabbath evening, when the year is going on apace. When we have not long since passed, as it were, through the gates of the spring, and all the flowers are beginning to blossom, and the buds to burst out, just ask whether it is not time for your hearts to open, and your souls to bud, and your spirits to bring out some hope, some love, some obedience to your Lord. And oh! may you do it. His shall be the praise, but yours shall be the great joy, and he shall have joy, too, as he shall see the travail of his soul.

28. I could wish, and I do wish, that some of you would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ before you go home tonight. You may not have to go home many more times. This may be the very last time that you shall ever come here. It will not make you wretched on earth. It will increase your happiness here. It will help you to live, and help you to die. It will make those eyes brighter, and put that heart at greater ease. And as for eternity, this is the true lamp for its darkness; this is the true light for all its gloom. What will you do without Christ? Oh! get him, and you shall be eternally blest! Amen.

{a} In Greek mythology, Iphigenia was a daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and so a princess of Mycenae. Agamemnon offends the goddess Artemis, who retaliates by commanding him to kill Iphigenia as a sacrifice so his ships can sail to Troy. See Explorer "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigenia"
{b} Broad Arrow: The arrowhead-shaped mark, used by the British Board of Ordnance, and placed on government supplies. OED.
{c} Rationalism: Theology. The practice of explaining in a manner agreeable to reason whatever is apparently supernatural in the records of sacred history. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 72:1-16}

“A Psalm for Solomon”—much more for one who is greater than Solomon, the true Prince of Peace.

1. Give the king your judgments, oh God, and your righteousness to the king’s son.

So it is decreed, and so it has been accomplished, that Jesus, who is both a King and a King’s son, should have all judgment delivered into his hand. And now at this time Christ is the judge. It is he who discerns between the precious and the vile. He sits as King in the midst of Zion.

2. He shall judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.

The kingdom of Christ has a special eye for the poor. They are generally passed by and forgotten in the scope of legislature among men, but Christ makes even his poor people—the poor in spirit also—to be the objects of his justice.

3, 4. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.

In the reign of Christ there shall be no treading down of the little by great—no pressure put on the feeble by the strong, but his right hand shall gain the victory for the weakest cause.

5. They shall fear you as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations.

For the kingdom of Christ renews itself. It is never broken in pieces by the power of the enemy, but every piece becomes a new root, and it springs up again. There are some plants of which they say that the more you tread on them the more they will spread, and certainly it is the case with the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. As long as there is a sun in the heavens, and a moon to gladden the night, so shall the kingdom of Christ endure.

6. He shall come down like rain on the mown grass: as showers that water the earth.

Christ shall not come like fire to burn up and to destroy, but his kingdom is one of mercy and grace. When the grass has just been cut with the scythe, he shall come down to bring it refreshment, that it may spring up again. In plentiful showers of grace he shall visit wounded spirits.

7. In his days shall the righteous flourish: and abundance of peace as long as the moon endures.

There have been empires which have been propitious to the flourishing of great wrongs. Some of the worst and vilest of men have flourished under certain empires, which have only recently passed away; but in the empire of Christ only the righteous shall flourish. Everything about him and about his power shall make it go well for them, and his empire is peace the most truly—“abundance of peace as long as the moon endures.”

8. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.

Universal monarchy is to be the monarchy of Christ. This is the fifth great monarchy, and there shall never be another. No king or potentate who shall ever rise can possibly have universal dominion again. We need not fear that, for the fifth empire is that of the Christ of God, and behold he comes to claim it.

9. Those who dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.

The most distant tribes—those that wander and have no settled dwelling-place—shall, nevertheless, bow before him. The Arab boasts that he never knew a master—that even Caesar could not penetrate into his deserts and subdue him; but Christ shall be his Lord, and he will be glad to acknowledge him.

10. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.

We need not be afraid if this Psalm refers to Christ, and we do not doubt that it does. He must reign. The end of the world is not coming until there shall be a conquest for him. He may come before that time, but certainly there shall be no winding up of history until this shall be literally true. “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents.”

11, 12. Yes, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver the needy when he cries; the poor also, and him who has no helper.

The psalmist seems glad to dwell on that. It seems to be the joy-note in his mind—that the great King—the greatest of all kings—will care for the lowly and the humble. Let us rejoice in this, dear friends. Christ is chosen out of the people and exalted by God; and he is the Christ not only ready to save the highest, but to save the lowest. From his kingdom we may say:—

   None are excluded hence but those

      Who do themselves exclude;

   Welcome the learned and polite,

      The ignorant and rude.

13-15. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight. And he shall live,

They say, “Oh king, live for ever.” It can never happen to their kings, but to our King it will happen. “He shall live.”

15. And the gold of Sheba shall be given to him:

He shall have the best the world can find willingly given to him. I am sure that we who know his love think that we have nothing good enough for him. We would render to him all that we have.

15. Prayer also shall be made for him continually;

With the gold shall come the golden prayer—the prayer for Christ. But how can we pray for him? Why, that he may have the reward of his sufferings, and see the travail of his soul—that his kingdom may come, and that his name may be dear in the hearts of men.

15. And daily shall he be praised.

He shall have praise as well as prayer and gold.

16. There shall be a handful of grain in the earth on the top of the mountains; the fruit of it shall wave like Lebanon: and those of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.

It was grain—good seed-grain, but there was only a handful of it. So there were saints in the world, but there were very few of them. And where were they? On the tops of the mountains. A strange place for grain; not a likely place for a harvest. So God’s servants have been pushed into the corners of the earth. There they were in the valleys of Piedmont for many a year fighting for dear life. And, in all lands, those who have been faithful to God have been put away into the corners—driven, as it were, to the mountain tops. But what has come of it, and what will come of it? Why, the fruit shall wave like Lebanon. The golden grain, standing upright in its strength, adorned with its ear, shall wave in the breeze as pleasing a sight even as the cedars of Lebanon.

“The New Theology”

One of the most prominent preachers of the so-called “New Theology” has recently given fresh currency to the old Jewish idea that Isaiah 53 applies to the prophet Jeremiah! The following Sermons by C. H. Spurgeon, all on various verses of this chapter, show what he thought about the matter:—

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1075, “A Root out of a Dry Ground” 1066}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1099, “The Man of Sorrows” 1090}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3033, “Why Christ Is Not Esteemed” 3034}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2499, “Christopathy” 2500}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 834, “The Universal Remedy” 825}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1068, “A Simple Remedy” 1059}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2000, “Healing by the Stripes of Jesus” 2001}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2887, “A Dire Disease Strangely Cured” 2888}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 694, “Sin Laid on Jesus” 685}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 925, “Individual Sin Laid on Jesus” 916}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1543, “The Sheep before the Shearers” 1543}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 173, “The Death of Christ” 166}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 561, “Expiation” 552}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2186, “Our Expectation” 2187}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2963, “Unmitigated Prosperity” 2964}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 458, “The Friend of Sinners” 449}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1385, “Jesus Interceding for Transgressors” 1376}

{See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2070, “Christ’s Connection with Sinners the Source of his glory.” 2071}