For the next few days, I’ll be posting excerpts from Nancy Guthrie’s Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter (Crossway). Join me as I aim to contemplate the cross this passion week.
Today’s meditation is by Charles Spurgeon, from chapter 7 “Then Did They Spit in His Face” (pg. 44-48 of Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross, edited by Nancy Guthrie).
If we want proof of the depravity of the heart of man, I will not point you to the stews of Sodom and Gomorrah, nor will I take you to the places where blood is shed in streams by wretches like to Herod and men of that sort. No, the clearest proof that man is utterly fallen, and that the natural heart is enmity against God, is seen in the fact that they did spit in Christ’s face, did falsely accuse him, and condemn him, and lead him out as a malefactor, and hang him up as a felon that he might die upon the cross….
…But could I feel as I ought to feel in sympathy with the terrible shame of Christ, and then could I interpret those feelings by any language known to moral man, surely you would bow your heads and blush, and you would feel rising within your spirits a burning indignation against the sin that dared to put the Christ of God to such shame as this….
If ever anybody should despise us for Christ’s sake, let us not count it hard, but let us be willing to bear scorn and contempt for him. Let us say to ourselves, “Then did they spit in his face. What then, if they also spit in mine? If they do, I will ‘hail reproach, and welcome shame,’ since it comes upon me for his dear sake.” See, that wretch is about to spit in Christ’s face! Put your cheek forward, that you may catch that spittle upon your face, that it fall not upon him again, for as he was put to such terrible shame, every one who has been redeemed with his precious blood ought to count it an honor to be a partaker of the shame, if by any means we may screen him from being further despised and rejected of men.
May we feel the affront that sin is to Christ’s glory. And may we joyfully desire, like Paul, to share in Christ’s sufferings.