The Passion of Jesus Christ According to Charles Spurgeon

Article #1 on the Passion of Jesus Christ

Preachers today pride themselves in eloquence, simplicity, and brevity. The industrial complex of Seminary instills these “virtues” in its annual graduates. Most Churches are run by these men because formal education is all a part of the planned career path of the up-and-coming Preachers. Everyone knows that the intolerant masses of Christendom cannot endure a long sermon.

Now that pragmatism occupies the pulpit, whatever works is deemed to be the best. Whatever is popular is deemed to be divinely powerful! Therefore, the most critical doctrines of Christianity are presented in a way that would fascinate the curious and satisfy the impatient. Even “the Gospel” becomes piecemeal in a fast-food culture! Of course, many essential doctrines of the Gospel are butchered in the process. Oh! But things were different in former times.

“Readers of old theology will have remarked how constantly the fathers were accustomed to dwell upon the wounds of Jesus slain.” – C.H. Spurgeon, The Water and the Blood

“I would it were more the practice of believers nowadays…to learn the divine lessons which are discoverable in the wounds of Jesus as well as the sacred admonitions bequeathed to us by the words of His mouth.” – C.H. Spurgeon, The Water and the Blood

Charles Spurgeon is widely regarded as a stalwart of fundamentalist doctrine. Arguably, his most profound contribution to theology pertains to the Passion of Jesus Christ. Spurgeon preached, “Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified!”, with riveting insight as if he had been an eyewitness of the whole ordeal! Did you hear him say that there are divine lessons discoverable in the wounds of Jesus Christ? There is much to be seen here: literally, in every bruise and wound that the Son of God physically endured, and in every drop of blood extracted from His sacred body, through the violence of every aggressor in each scene presented to us in the Theater of the Atonement.

“‘Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us!’ Behold it in the sweat of blood which stained Gethsemane! Behold it in the scourging which has made the name of Gabbatha a terror! Behold it in ‘the pains, and groans, and dying strife’ of Calvary! Bow, did I say? Prostrate your spirits!” – C.H. Spurgeon, Christ Made Sin  

“Show and parade cease to attract the soul when once the superlative excellencies of the dying Savior have been discerned by the enlightened eyes! Who seeks for ease when he has seen the Lord Christ?” – C.H. Spurgeon, The Crown of Thorns

Sadly, many people belittle the physical suffering of Jesus Christ, more specifically, the things that the Son of God endured in the process of time from Gethsemane to Calvary. Still more think that these other episodes of suffering are not worthy to be mentioned while preaching the Atonement because it may undermine or distract people from the Cross. Nevertheless, Spurgeon very boldly declared that “the Passion began in Gethsemane” and finished at Calvary in the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

“Yet He is no sooner in Gethsemane than He says to the three especially favored disciples, ‘My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death: tarry you here and watch with Me.’ I do not think that this great conflict arose through our dear Master’s fear of death, nor through His fear of the physical pain and all the ignominy and shame that He was so soon to endure. But, surely, the agony in Gethsemane was part of the great burden that was already resting upon Him as His people’s Substitute–it was this that pressed His spirit down even into the dust of death. He was to bear the full weight of it upon the Cross, but I am persuaded that the Passion began in Gethsemane.

You know that Peter writes, 'Who His own Self bore our sins in His own body on the Tree.' But we are not to gather from that passage that His substitutionary sufferings were limited to the Tree, for the original might bear this rendering–that He bore our sins in His own body up to the Tree–that He came up to the tree bearing that awful load and still continued to bear it on the Tree! You remember that Peter also writes, in the same verse, 'by whose stripes you were healed.' These stripes did not fall upon Jesus when He was upon the Cross–it was in Pilate’s Judgment Hall that He was so cruelly scourged! I believe that He was bearing our sins all His life, but that the terrible weight of with infinite intensity when He was nailed to the Cross–and so forced from Him the agonizing cry, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?'" - C.H. Spurgeon, Christ in Gethsemane

The Passion of Jesus Christ is the immense amount of personal suffering that the Messiah experienced in becoming an Atoning Sacrifice, and ultimately, in dying on the Cross for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn. 2:2, 1 Tim. 4:10). Definitively, the word “passion” in the Greek (πάσχω / πάθω / πένθω) indicates what a person feels. It is translated “passion” or “felt” a total of one time each in the New Testament.

“To whom also He shewed Himself alive after His Passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God:” - Acts 1:3

What did Jesus Christ feel in becoming an Atoning Sacrifice? What did Jesus Christ feel while hanging on the Cross? This is a topic worthy of exploration. Any answers to this question provided in Scripture would prove to be lifechanging. Of course, from a biblical perspective, what Jesus Christ felt was suffering. Therefore, all the other times this word appears in the New Testament, except one, the Greek word is translated into “suffering”, or a derivative thereof (suffer, suffered, suffering, vexed). However, more specifically, the use of the word passion is divinely intended to identify the feeling of the suffering as it was manifest inwardly and outwardly.

“Yet would I exhort you to consider these griefs, that you may love the Sufferer.” – C.H. Spurgeon, The Agony in Gethsemane

Spurgeon would bid us to look at Gethsemane! He believed that this was a unique moment in the Theater of the Atonement. Why? In speaking of it as “the commencement of His Passion sufferings”, Spurgeon was discerning that this was when the awful load of sin was put upon Jesus Christ. Consequentially, an unfathomable horror seized the holy heart of the sinless Son of God.

“the commencement of His Passion sufferings” – C.H. Spurgeon, Jesus in Gethsemane

“the difficulty of this imputation” – C.H. Spurgeon, Christ Made Sin

“Learn next…the matchless love of Jesus, that for your sakes and mine He would not merely suffer in body, but consented even to bear the horror of being accounted a sinner!” – C.H. Spurgeon, The Agony in Gethsemane

“Oh Soul, sin must be an awful thing if it so crushed our Lord! If the very imputation of it fetched bloody sweat from the pure and holy Savior, what must sin, itself, be? Avoid it, pass not by it, turn away from the very appearance of it, walk humbly and carefully with your God that sin may not harm you, for it is an exceeding plague, an infinite pest!” – C.H. Spurgeon, The Agony in Gethsemane

“Yet there was our Master, all stained with His own blood, for His heart’s floods had burst their banks and run all over Him in a gory torrent!” – C.H. Spurgeon, Christ in Gethsemane

Gethsemane was purposefully included in the Gospels to help us discern what was happening to the Son of God inwardly, spiritually, and emotionally during the forthcoming episodes of His physical suffering as a Substitutionary Sacrifice. This is a categorically different kind of suffering than what has been or ever will be experienced outwardly, physically, and biologically in the human body.

“Trouble of spirit is worse than pain of body…” – C.H. Spurgeon, The Agony in Gethsemane

“But still the sufferings of His soul must have been the very soul of His sufferings, and can you tell what they were?” – C.H. Spurgeon, The Sin Offering

However, some people object to this emphasis of suffering in the Atonement. They claim that this kind of suffering depreciates the outward, physical, and bodily suffering of Jesus Christ. Therefore, Spurgeon made a public defense of his position as follows.

“Observe the text says, ‘The travail of His soul.’ We are not to depreciate the bodily sufferings of Christ, but still it has been well said that ‘the soul-sufferings of Christ were the soul of His sufferings.’ Brothers and Sisters, 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 shame, spitting and the crown of thorns? 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? Is nothing or little to be said of all this? God forbid, Brothers and Sisters!

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 as spirits, alone, 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 as we sin in the body, so must the Savior, with hands, feet, brow and every member of His blessed frame, be made to suffer to make Atonement for our guilt! Still, still, the travail of His soul was the chief matter and it is that 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 that I despair of conceiving His sufferings, or of conveying them to you by any form of words.” – C.H. Spurgeon, The Suffering Christ Satisfied

The reason for the inward suffering (the same which was unveiled in Gethsemane) enriches the outward and bodily suffering of Jesus Christ by clarifying the purpose for them both. There is no rivalry. Nevertheless, admittedly, some objections are warranted. It’s sad to say that some Preachers have gone to an extreme on the subject. Even the renowned theologian, Adam Clarke, is one among the number.

“I do not know whether what Adam Clarke supposes is correct, that in the Garden Christ did pay more of the price than he did even on the Cross; but I am quite convinced that they are very foolish who get to such refinement that they think the Atonement was made on the Cross, and nowhere else at all. We believe that it was made in the Garden as well as on the Cross - and it strikes me that in the garden one part of Christ's work was finished, wholly finished, and that was his conflict with Satan.”– C.H. Spurgeon, Gethsemane

Gethsemane is not the climax of the Atonement. No! The Cross of Calvary is the climax of the Atonement. In other words, the greatest price that was paid in the suffering of Jesus Christ was on the Cross of Calvary. Nevertheless, Spurgeon was quite forgiving of Clarke. Why do you think he was so forgiving? I think Spurgeon could empathize with Clarke in his attempt to drive home a major point of doctrine that is largely ignored. Apparently, Adam Clarke was so moved by the unique way that the Passion of Jesus Christ was unveiled in Gethsemane that he was confusing the beginning with the end. While it is apparent that Spurgeon didn’t agree with Clarke, he wasn’t angry with him either. However, Spurgeon was not so forgiving of those who “think the Atonement was made on the Cross, and nowhere else at all”, which is to say that these people deny the merit of Christ’s suffering in every scene presented by the Evangelists from Gethsemane to Calvary.