Cross of Christ

Hell is a rather popular topic of controversy today. In the little that I’ve read in the discussion, most focus on human value and the victory of the love of God, with little seriousness about the sufferings of Christ. On this point in particular, my (dead) friend John Flavel has helped me deeply. C.S. Lewis commented that reading people outside of our own times and controversies helps bring the issues at stake into perspective through the wisdom of those who have gone (and thought) before us.

The sermon I’m quoting from is from The Fountain of Life. In this chapter Flavel is preaching on John 19:28

“After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said–I thirst!“

Of the many things he has to say on this passage (which you can read online for free here), these are the sections that I found most helpful in bring the matter of Hell and the sufferings of Christ into clearer focus.

If our mercies must be pure mercies, and our glory in heaven pure and unmixed glory, then the wrath which lie suffered must be pure and unmixed wrath. (I: 423)

None of the damned had ever so large a capacity to take in a full sense of the wrath of God as Christ had. The larger any one’s capacity is to understand and weigh his troubles fully, the more grievous and heavy is his burden. If a man cast vessels of greater and lesser quantity into the sea, though all will be full, yet the greater the vessel is, the more water it contains. Now Christ had a capacity beyond all mere creatures to take in the wrath of his Father; and what deep and large apprehensions he had of it may be judged by his bloody sweat in the garden, which was the effect of his mere apprehensions of the wrath of God. Christ was a large vessel indeed; as he is capable of more glory, so of more sense and misery than any other person in the world. (I: 423-424)

The sufferings of Christ for sin give us the true account, and fullest representation of its evil. “The law (says one) is a bright glass, wherein we may see the evil of sin; but there is the red glass of the sufferings of Christ, and in that we may see more of the evil of sin, than if God should let us down to hell, and there we should see all the tortures and torments of the damned. If we should see them how they lie sweltering under God’s wrath there, it were not so much as the beholding of sin through the red glass of the sufferings of Christ.”

If we should see and hear all this, it is not so much as what we may see in this text, where the Son of God, under his sufferings for it, cries out, I thirst. For, as I showed you before, Christ’s sufferings, in divers respects, were beyond theirs. O then, let not your vain heart slight sin, as if it were but a small thing! If ever God show you the face of sin in this glass, you will say, there is not such another horrid representation to be made to a man in all the world. Fools make a mock at sin, but wise men tremble at it. (I: 425-426)

A penal thirst, is God’s just denying of all refreshments or relief to sinners in their extremities, and that as a due punishment for their sin. This believers shall never feel, because when Christ thirsted upon the cross, he made full satisfaction to God in their room. These sufferings of Christ, as they were ordained for them, so the benefits of them are truly imputed to them. And for the natural thirst, that shall be satisfied: for in heaven we shall live without these necessities and dependencies upon the creature; we shall be equal with the angels in the way and manner of living and subsisting…Luke 20:6. And for the gracious thirsting of their souls for God, it shall be fully satisfied. So it is promised, Mat. 5:6. “Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled:” They shall then depend no more upon the stream, but drink from the overflowing fountain itself, Psalm. 36:8 “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house, and you shall make them drink of the river of your pleasures: for with you is the fountain of life, and in Your light shall we see light:” There they shall drink and praise, and praise and drink for evermore; all their thirsty desires shall be filled with complete satisfaction. O how desirable a state is heaven upon this account! and how should we be restless until we come there; as the thirsty traveler is until he meet that cool, refreshing spring he wants and seeks for. This present state is a state of thirsting, that to come of refreshment and satisfaction. Some drops indeed come from the fountain by faith, hut they quench not the believer’s thirst; rather like water sprinkled on the fire, they make it burn the more: but there the thirsty soul has enough.

O bless God, that Jesus Christ thirsted under the heat of his wrath once, that you might not be scorched with it forever. If he had not cried, I thirst, you must have cried out of thirst eternally, and never be satisfied. (I: 428-429)

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