So our theme then is the emotional life of our Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ, though sinless, undoubtedly had emotions. Emotions are not in themselves sinful, and the Lord Jesus Christ became truly a man. He took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul. He is called the man of sorrows and this indicates in itself that he experienced emotion. He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. Many of you will be aware that one of the few works on this subject is that of B.B. Warfield and it's tempting simply to give you what Warfield has written, but then many of you will have read Warfield and those who haven't are well able to do so. It is a glorious subject. It's an awesome subject. And whilst not wanting to simply give you what Warfield has said, there is danger in an undue quest for originality that can be a great menace. And the thought of misrepresenting the son of man is one which ought to fill us with horror. And so what I intend to do after introducing the subject in the first point or two is in many ways to simply gather together thoughts upon the subject that I have had over the years and some of which you will recognize from other situations, some of you, and simply to declare what I believe the scriptures teach and to show or to endeavor to show something of the depth of suffering of the Savior on account of the fact that there was indeed an emotional life of our Lord. First of all then, the location of emotion in the one person of Christ. The location of emotion in the one person of Christ. And here under this heading we can consider first of all that there is no fluctuation of feeling in the Godhead. There is no fluctuation of feeling in the Godhead. God does not merely react to events previously unknown to him. He does not react to freshly acquired knowledge or something that he becomes aware of. because God does not become aware of anything. God has eternally known all things and all that could possibly be known. God has always a complete and absolute knowledge of everything. So God never is merely responding to things previously unknown. We reject absolutely open theism with its idea of God, as it were, learning things and responding to them. It is true that you find in scripture that God is spoken of as if he comes to an awareness of things. For example, in Exodus 3 verse 4, and when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and so on. But we must understand that when it speaks of God seeing or God himself saying, I will come down now and see. or God waxing hot, or God hearing, and so on. We must understand these anthropomorphically, that is, of God being spoken of in human terms because of our limited capacity, God accommodating himself to our finite and limited understanding. but God himself is blessed forever. God is blessed forever, always knowing all things and always knowing all his eternally foreordained plan which encompasses everything that comes to pass. God is never surprised or agitated He is always tranquil and perfectly blessed, serene and calm, and there is no disturbance of the blessedness of God. He is the ever-blessed God. Dabney, however, does give us some idea of what he regards as the parallel in God. In Dabney's Lectures in Systematic Theology, page 153, he says, Our confession says that God hath neither parts nor passions. that he has something analogous to what are called in man active principles is manifest, for he wills and acts, therefore he must feel. But these active principles must not be conceived of as emotions in the sense of ebbing and flowing accesses of feeling. In other words, they lack that agitation and rush that change from cold to hot and hot to cold, which constitute the characteristics of passion in us. They are, in God, an ineffable, fixed, peaceful, unchangeable calm, although the springs of volition. That such principles may be, although incomprehensible to us, we may learn from this fact, that in the wisest and most sanctified creatures The active principles have least of passion and agitation, and yet they by no means become inefficacious as springs of action, for example, moral indignation in the holy and wise parent or ruler. That the above conception of the calm immutability of God's active principles is necessary appears from the following. The agitations of literal passions are incompatible with His blessedness. The objects of those feelings are as fully present to the Divine Mind at one time as another, so that there is nothing to cause ebb or flow, and that ebb would constitute a change in Him. When therefore the scriptures speak of God as becoming wrath, as repenting, as indulging his fury against his adversaries in connection with some particular event occurring in time, we must understand them anthropomorphically. What is meant is that the outward manifestations of his active principles were as though these feelings then arose. So then, there are no fluctuations of feeling in the Godhead. And so we can say, secondly under this first point, that emotion was in the human nature of Christ. The emotions of Christ were to be found in his human nature. A human nature is finite, even a sinless human nature, and the feelings are affected by events, by changes. But all emotions, including sinless emotion, is a result of, is a change of feeling. in response to events and in Christ these feelings and changes of feeling and ebbing and flowing must be located within his sinless human nature. As God is without parts and passions, Christ was a divine person. but he suffered in his human nature and his human nature experienced profound and sinless emotion. That brings us to our second main point. Causes of Holy Emotion in Christ. What caused holy emotion in the Lord Jesus Christ. First we can consider causes of joy. Causes of joy. God was his chiefest joy above all else. Psalm 43, to God my chiefest joy, applied perfectly and supremely to Christ. He delighted in God. and he joyed in God. And we are told even while he was in this world that there was a joy set before him. He contemplated joy to come. that is the prospect of exaltation to the Father's right hand. The Lord Jesus loved God. John 14 and verse 31, But that the world may know that I love the Father, And as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do, that the world may know that I love the Father." Now, there is, of course, that perfect love within the three persons of the Godhead. But Christ also, in His human nature, had a sinless, a perfect love to God. And He was supremely the man of prayer. because he delighted in God. The Lord Jesus, in his sinless humanity, spent nights in prayer to the Father, and he delighted in the works of God. In Luke 10, 21 we read, In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes, for so it seemed good in thy sight. He rejoiced in spirit because he loved God, and he loved the works of God. He loved the Word of God. The Lord Jesus supremely was the Man of the Word, the Man of the Scriptures. He lived by the words that proceeded out of the mouth of God. He was the Man of the Word. He loved the fellowship of God's people. He loved the fellowship of God's people. He was the supreme man of fellowship. Luke 22 and verse 15, and He said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Whatever the other reasons, He desired to eat the Passover with them, to have fellowship with them. Even though He was sinless and they weren't, yet there was a fellowship between the perfect holiness of Christ and that measure of holiness which was to be found in His people. He delighted to obey the Father's will. Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O God, yea, thy law is within my heart. Psalm 40 verse 8. It was His meat to do the will of Him that sent Him. He had a delight then in all that was holy. All that is holy, Christ had a delight in it. He delighted in faith because faith is right. Faith glorifies God and we'll see that in a moment. But he delighted in all that was holy. Then the causes of sorrow or anger. The causes of sorrow and of anger. He was angry at sin. He was sorrowful at the effects of sin. Mark chapter 3 and verse 5, And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, the Lord Jesus knew anger, holy, sinless, perfect, pure anger. Our righteous anger is imperfectly righteous. Isn't that one of the struggles of the Christian life that our holy indignation is mixed with unholiness? And we struggle with that, don't we, as Christians? But the Lord Jesus also displayed his anger at the cleansing of the temple when he overthrew the money changers tables, when he made that whip of cords and drove them out of the temple. It was not a rush of uncontrolled fury, it was the holy indignation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Lord Jesus did express displeasure even at His disciples. Mark 10, 14, when the disciples rebuked those that brought the children to Him. But when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto Me. And the Lord Jesus, He was moved with compassion when He saw the effects of sin. His compassion to the multitude entailed sorrow. There are many places where we read that He was moved with compassion and sometimes He declares, I have compassion upon the multitude. No doubt his emotions were affected by physical pain. It is, I think, difficult if not impossible to conceive of physical pain aside from emotion. Real pain affects the emotions. We do not feel pain when we're unconscious. And the Lord Jesus did feel pain. And the Lord Jesus deliberately stayed conscious when he was crucified. Matthew 27, 34. They gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall. And when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. This semi-stupefying potion, he declined it because He had to face his sufferings and death alert and not in a semi-conscious state. And of course, the greatest cause of sorrow to the Lord Jesus was the removal of the comforts of God. We'll look at that more fully in a moment. If God was his chiefest joy, then the removal of the comforts of God was his chiefest sorrow. Then we can look under this point, the occasions of Christ's emotions being affected. The occasions of Christ's emotions being affected. The occasions of Christ being stirred, the emotions of Christ being stirred, there were particular occasions that are recorded. Not that all of his emotional life is recorded in scripture, of course not. But some particular instances are. And his emotions are stirred in response to that which comes about. And his emotions were sinlessly affected by events in two main ways. First, there is the work of the Holy Spirit, the actings of the Holy Spirit upon the soul of Christ. In Psalm 45, he is said to be given the oil of gladness above his fellows. We'll come back to that. And then, events around Christ. Christ in his human nature learned and information came to him. He observed, he saw, he took notice of events and what was happening and this had an effect upon his emotions. In his sinless humanity, the Lord Jesus was not omniscient. In his deity he was omniscient, but in his sinless humanity this was not so. So in Mark 13 verse 32 he says, But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. There the Lord Jesus declares himself to not know the day or the hour of the end. How are we to understand this? Well, we must bear in mind what our Westminster Confession says. Chapter 8, paragraph 7. Christ, in the work of mediation, acteth according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself. Yet by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature." That's not immediately easy to grasp but what it's saying is that Christ is one person Sometimes something is being described that pertains to one nature, but the title used of Christ is one which pertains to the other nature. The proof texts include Acts 20, 28, the reference to the Church of God being purchased with His own blood. Now, God as God does not have blood. But the title refers to the divinity of Christ, but the thing spoken of refers to the humanity of Christ, namely the shedding of His blood. Another example is John 3 and verse 13. John 3 and verse 13. And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. The Son of Man which is in heaven. Now the title, the Son of Man, yes it's a messianic title from Daniel 7, but it's also a reference to his humanity. But his being omniscient and therefore in heaven, while his human form, his body is standing on earth. That's referring to something which is true of his divinity. So again, here we have the reverse. We have a title pertaining to his humanity but that which is spoken of pertains to his divinity. Likewise then, when Christ says of that day and that hour knoweth no man nor the Son, the title the Son refers to his divinity. He is the Son of the Father. But the ignorance that he professes pertains to his human consciousness. And so you have a title that pertains to his divinity but the thing spoken of pertains to his human nature. And in his humanity there was sinless development and there was thought process. So in Luke chapter 2 and verse 46, And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. Then verse 52, and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. So his faculties developed as he grew from infancy. and there were sinless thought processes and acquisition of knowledge. Christ in his human nature received knowledge by two means. First of all from God directly in Isaiah chapter 11. Verse 1. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord, and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth, and so on. Christ's knowledge in his human consciousness was always such as to render him absolutely unerring. And John Owen is of the view that the actings of God upon the human nature of Christ, that these were consistently by the third person of the Godhead, by the Holy Spirit. So Owen, and I'll just give a few extracts the only singular immediate act of the person of the Son on the human nature was the assumption of it into subsistence with himself. And again he says, the only necessary consequent of this assumption of the human nature on the incarnation of the Son of God is the personal union of Christ on the inseparable subsistence of the assumed nature in the person of the Son. Again he says, that all the other actings of God in the person of the Son towards the human nature were voluntary and did not necessarily ensue on the union mentioned, for there was no transfusion of the properties of the one nature into the other, nor real physical communication of divine essential excellencies unto the humanity." He also says, The Holy Ghost is the immediate, peculiar, efficient cause of all external divine operations, for God works by His Spirit, or in Him immediately applies the power and efficacy of the Divine Excellencies unto their operation, whence the same work is equally the work of each person. He also says, The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, no less than the Spirit of the Father. He proceedeth from the Son as from the Father. He is the Spirit of the Son. Galatians 4.6. And hence is He the immediate operator of all divine acts of the Son Himself, even on His own human nature. Whatever the Son of God wrought in, by, or upon the human nature, He did it by the Holy Ghost, who is His Spirit, as He is the Spirit of the Father. the gist of what Owen is saying, that any divine operation upon the human nature, even on behalf of God the Son, upon the human nature he took to himself, was by the Holy Spirit. This means that Christ was received understanding in his human nature of the mind of God. And so, as we read or mentioned earlier, in that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit because of the understanding in His human consciousness of the plan of God to reveal to babes and not to the wise and prudent. Or in Mark chapter 14, Mark chapter 14, And he taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy, and saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death, carry ye here, and watch. This was on account of his knowledge in his human consciousness of that which lay before him and he had that knowledge by the Spirit. So Christ had understanding because he was given the Spirit of knowledge and of understanding and then also He acquired knowledge through normal human reception. There was reception of information by observation and hearing and this affected his emotions. Let me give you some examples. Matthew chapter 9 and verse 36. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd." He saw the multitudes with his human eyes. He saw them and was moved with compassion. Mark chapter 6. Mark chapter 6. And he marveled because of their unbelief. He marveled because of their unbelief. When that unbelief became apparent, his response was that he marveled. Or Mark 10 and verse 21, the rich young ruler, then Jesus beholding him, loved him. It is clear that there was a reaction in his human emotion when he beheld this young man. Or in Luke chapter 7 and verse 9, when Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him. Turned him about and said unto the people that followed him. I say unto you I have not found so great faith. No not in Israel. It's worth mentioning Christ is said to marvel at Faith and unbelief It's just worth keeping that in mind. I think it's a very interesting point but The Lord marveled when He saw this faith. These are not anthropomorphisms. These are the reactions of Christ in His human nature and His human consciousness. In verse 13 of Luke 7, And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. Then in Luke 19 verse 41, And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes." He saw the city and he wept over it. There was a response to what he saw. John chapter 11 and verse 4. When Jesus heard that, He said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God. Then in verse 14 and 15, Then Jesus said unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead, and I am glad, glad, there's emotion, I am glad, for your sakes that I was not there to the intent you may believe. Then later on in the chapter, we have those most moving words. Verse 33, When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? Then they said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Jesus wept. The Son of God incarnate wept. And then in verse 38, Jesus therefore groaning in Himself cometh to the grave. He groaned. He wept. So we have these reactions in the emotions of Christ, in these situations, in response to that which comes to Him. So that He was so amazed, He was very heavy. He began to be very sorrowful and so on. So Christ then was truly a man. though he never ceased to be God. One person, two distinct natures, no mixing, no merging, complete deity, complete humanity. One person, one Christ. Thirdly then, the sufferings of Christ considered in terms of his holy emotions. the sufferings of Christ considered in terms of his holy emotions. As we mentioned in one of the discussions, we consider all Christ's sufferings to be atoning. Why else could a sinless son of man suffer but in satisfying the justice of God as a substitute? But his was a life of suffering. The whole of his life was a life of suffering. Even as a boy, Christ was without sin. None of the other boys were without sin. They were all sinners, all the other children, all the adults, everybody around him. Only Christ was without sin. We often have compared Christ to Lot. Lot. We're told of Lot that his righteous soul was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. Lot. That imperfect, very imperfect, visibly imperfect child of God. that His righteous soul was vexed. What then must it have been for the sinless Son of Man from His youth up to be surrounded by sinners? Christ's whole life must have entailed vexation of soul. And he suffered the miseries of this life. He did not have a fallen nature. He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. But he was without sin, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. But he knew the frailty, the physical frailty Though he had no sin of his own. Thus we read that he was wearied and sat down on the well in John 4 verse 6 where he went on to speak to the woman of Samaria. But he wasn't just pretending to be weary. He was weary. Next time you're weary, Remember, the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, manifest in the flesh, was weary. And that entailed an effect upon his feelings. Suffering presupposes feelings. The unbelief of his brethren. Neither did his brethren believe on him. What was close to him? They didn't believe. Was that not an occasion of great grief to the Lord Jesus? The hatred and unbelief of the Jews, it was an affliction. It was a cause of both indignation and compassion. It provoked in him a holy anger and yet when he saw the city he wept over it. Of course he was not deceived by the early superficial enthusiasm of those who thought he was going to fulfill their wrong, self-righteous idea of the Messiah, that he would come and deliver Israel from their enemies and declare them, show the world that Israel was righteous. He wasn't deceived by their early enthusiasm due to their entertaining a completely wrong idea of the kind of Christ he was. He knew what was in man. He didn't commit himself to them. When they wanted to make him a king, he passed from amongst them. But this turned into, as they began to see the kind of Christ that he was, as they began to realize that he wasn't going to fulfill their completely wrong ideas, The malice of the unrenewed heart boiled up. And that surely was an affliction to the emotions of the Lord Jesus Christ. Judas' betrayal, oh, he knew who would betray him. Nevertheless, part of Psalm 41 was fulfilled. He which ate my bread hath lifted up his heel. My own familiar friend. In Psalm 41 it says, in whom I trusted. But that's not quoted by John. Because although David was deceived by Ahithophel, Christ was not deceived by Judas. But that didn't mean it was painless. The betrayal was still an affliction to the emotions of Christ. the unbelief of His disciples. They were slow of heart to believe. Their sinful self-confidence, Peter with all his bravado, which vanished. The disciples fled. Peter denied Him. Christ was isolated. He looked for comforters, but there were none. And then at Gethsemane, Even then, the disciples, could ye not watch with me for one hour? But Christ's agony, as well as being the deepest of emotions, how are we to understand it? You say, yes, he knew that he had to take the cup that the Father was giving him. his sufferings that caused this agony and the sweating, as it were, great drops of blood. But it is not explicable in terms simply of his physical suffering. His physical sufferings were great and were part of the atonement. But that doesn't explain The greatness of Christ's agony. Mere men have faced great physical suffering without agonizing and sweating great drops of blood. The martyrs particularly. They didn't agonize like this. Oh, some struggled, yes. Others didn't. How are we to understand this then? Why did Christ agonize in the garden when some of his servants have not agonized in such a way? Well, the answer is because His sufferings were not simply physical, great though they were, but that which he anticipated, as Greg was showing us from Psalm 22, was the bearing of the wrath of God in his soul. It was because He was to lose the comforts of the Spirit. He was to be forsaken. And it was this that accounts for His agony. It is this that accounts for the angel of God appearing, strengthening Him, as Luke tells us. Strengthening, that is, we believe, His physical body so that He should not die. until he had borne the wrath of God on the cross of Calvary in its full measure. That explains his agony. And nothing else will explain his agony. You see, the liberals, they don't understand the love of God. The liberals do not understand the love of God. They think that they're the ones who Well, they do talk about the love of God, and they're the ones who give it priority, but they don't understand it, because they don't believe in the wrath of God, and they can't understand the love of God. However much they talk about it, here in His love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. A propitiation, a bearing of wrath. If there's no wrath, Then where is the love in its greatness and its grandeur? So don't think the liberals just don't understand the holiness of God and the wrath of God. That's true, they don't. But the love of God that they talk about, they do not understand at all. And then Christ's trial and crucifixion. What did it do to the emotions of Christ? Keep in mind that Christ Christ was perfectly sin-sensitive. We're not. We're not. We can see sin. And it doesn't affect us as it ought. We aren't vexed as we ought to be. We get complacent and we get used to sin. Especially public, visible sin. Some new form of public sin at first. We're aghast! Give it a few months, it doesn't bother us anymore. But Christ, His holy soul, never got used to sin in that way. His was a perfectly sin-sensitive soul. The contradiction of sinners entailed the contradiction of all that He was, all His officers. There was nothing of Christ's officers that was not contradicted. He is our Prophet, Priest and King. They blindfolded Him and they smote Him on the face. prophesy unto us. Who is it that smote thee if thou be the Christ? They ridiculed his prophetic offers. His priestly offers, they ignored it. Why was Christ on the cross? Because as our great high priest, he was offering himself I ransomed for many. I lay down my life for the sheep. No man taketh it from me. I have power to lay it down and to take it up again. I lay down my life for the sheep. What did His enemies say? If thou be the Christ, come down from the cross and we will believe. They mocked. And his priestly work was not in all their thoughts, even the sympathy of the women of Jerusalem who lamented. It was a sympathy of unbelief. They were treating him as a man suffering, and their feelings were stirred. But it was an unbelieving sympathy. And he said, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. And his kingly office. Above all, perhaps, this was mocked. The men of war, Herod's men of war, they mocked him. Pilate's soldiers, the reed, the mock scepter, the crown of thorns, the robe, the mocking bowing. Jew and Gentile joined together in despising his kingship. Pilate. What did Pilate do with Christ's kingship? He used it to show his contempt for the Jews. They hated Christ. Pilate despised them. And so he says, here's an opportunity for me to tell these Jews what I think. What shall I do with your king then? The superscription, king of the Jews. And they said, oh, put that he said. Oh no, what I've written, I've written. Pilate was using our Lord Jesus to show his contempt for the Jews. And that's why he wouldn't change it. It's also my view that The two thieves on either side were mock attendants. It was part of Pilate's sarcasm. Here's your king. We'll give him a couple of attendants as well. We'll crucify a couple of thieves. And Christ, who was perfectly sin-sensitive, perfectly susceptible to holy vexation by sin, was surrounded by all of this. There was the darkness. The light was created on the first day of creation, the oldest of gifts in time. The darkness was showing that God was judging. They took away his clothes, that earliest of gifts after the fall. The shame. But above all, Christ cried, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I don't want to duplicate what Greg gave us so well yesterday, but this is the climax of Christ's sufferings in his emotions. He cries, my God, my God, as the conscious keeper of the covenant of life, the covenant of works. Why hast thou forsaken me? Because he was the mediator of the covenant of grace. And God was saying, as it were, to the substitute, lo am I, not my people. He was pouring out his wrath. And as Morris mentioned in the discussion at one point, Christ still perfectly loved God. He still, sinlessly, completely loved God with his whole heart and soul and mind and strength and yet he was denied utterly the light of his countenance. We love God feebly as the God of our salvation. We experience his hiding of his face by way of chastening, Christ perfectly loved the God of his damnation, and his chiefest joy was judicially thrusting him away. Never was there such a pure desire so utterly denied. A pure desire utterly denied. The one who had said at the grave of Lazarus, I know that thou hearest me always. Now I cry unto thee, and thou answerest not. There never was in this world sorrow as his sorrow. People foolishly talk about someone suffering hell on earth. Nonsense. Nonsense. The only one who's ever suffered hell on earth was Christ. Others will suffer hell in hell, but Christ suffered hell, the full wages of sin, on this side of the grave. We've been warned to say he suffered the second death before the first, and only Christ has ever done that. There was never anything like this. There never will be. Christ had true emotions. Well now, some points of application very quickly. First of all, the completeness of Christ's humanity must not be neglected. Liberals have attacked his deity continually and we've had to defend that. We all feel the compulsion to rise up with indignation against these ungodly men who deny that the Lord Jesus is Jehovah. But do not neglect His complete humanity, including His emotions. There are several reasons. One is, a less than fully human Christ is not It cannot be a substitute for men. His divinity means that his sufferings are of infinite value, but he's a substitute of men and he must be fully a man in body and soul. That's why this bizarre fundamentalist idea that he had divine blood is a grave error. He had of human blood because he was a man without ceasing to be God. He took not on him the nature of angels. Hebrews 2.16, but he took on the seed of Abraham. Why didn't he become an angel? Well, because he wasn't the savior of fallen angels. He came as the savior of fallen men. That's why he was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death and is now crowned with glory and honor. A savior who became less than fully a man whilst remaining God. If he didn't become fully a man, he couldn't save us. The second thing is an emotionless Christ could not suffer So it's important, the full humanity, including emotions. But thirdly, on this point, we must bring Christ near to sinners in our preaching. We must show Christ in his divine glory, but in his humanity too, including his feeling, his emotions. We must bring Christ near in our preaching and say, this is our beloved, this is our friend, this is what he's like. He must be evidently set forth, crucified amongst us as the object of faith for sinners. If we have indistinct views of Christ, it will show we will be afraid to bring him near Because we're not sure of what we're saying. We need to be clear on these things. A second point of application, the suitability of the Psalms for worship in the New Testament. The inner sufferings of Christ are in the Psalms as nowhere else in scripture. Reproach hath broken my heart, he was singing. The billows of divine wrath going over his soul are described in the Psalms as nowhere else. Because God, who knows the end from the beginning, who has foreordained all things, was able to give a book of praise in the Old Testament that was suitable to sing of the sufferings of the Redeemer even after the event. God can do that. Men can't, but God can. Then thirdly, Christ's continuing sympathy. Christ's continuing sympathy. We are told that Christ learned obedience by the things that He suffered. What does that mean? Not that He learned to obey because He never disobeyed. He was always sinless. But He learned the experience of obedience. And for Him it meant What it'll never mean for us, bearing damnation. No one else, for no one else will obedience to God mean being damned. The wicked don't obey God, they will be damned. But conscious obedience, loving obedience, unto damnation. and God made the captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings. Perfect, that is, not in the sense of morally perfect, he always was, but fully qualified, complete. And so we're told in Hebrews that he is a sympathetic high priest, able to succor them that are tempted. Now, I don't understand, and maybe some of the brethren can help, I don't understand the fact that Christ is sympathetic in his human nature in heaven and yet there is complete blessedness. There can be occasion of joy, the angels of God that is rejoicing in the presence of the angels over a sinner coming to repentance. But the blessedness of heaven How do we square that? For example, the redeemed in heaven, they are aware that they are redeemed and they have been redeemed from sin. Their own sins. And there must be a holy abhorrence of the sins from which they have been redeemed. And yet it must be painless because they are blessed and satisfied. I don't fully understand that. And so with Christ's glorified humanity, He is exalted, He is free from all suffering. And yet the Scriptures teach us that He is a sympathetic High Priest. But understand it or not, the Scriptures teach it, and we're not to be robbed, because we can't understand how everything fit together, or at least I can't on this point, we're not to be robbed of the truth that Christ is a sympathetic High Priest. Even though He is glorified and free from all suffering, Christ's atonement was the only time that sinlessness and sorrow coexisted in one person. And so Christ is a sympathetic high priest. Whether we understand all the aspects of that or not, he is. whether there is something in the heavenly state that makes the compassion of His human nature consistent with complete blessedness. Still, it's the truth. It is that same Jesus who is made both Lord and Christ. And He's still a man. His becoming a man as such was condescension. His being born and that in a low condition was humiliation. The humiliation has finished, but the condescension of being God become man continues. He's got two natures in the one person forever. And he's the same savior. Samuel Rutherford has this, if Christ pities blind eyes, he also pities a blind heart and all the corruptions of our nature and his mercy is the more tender that he sees us wrestling with unbelief and burden, pained and overwhelmed in spirit with a hard heart. Could we lay our spiritual wounds before Christ, he that touched the blind eyes out of tender compassion can touch a blind heart and loose an obdured soul out of its fetters. That thou may say to the prisoners, Go forth, Isaiah 49.9. But is that enough to say, Yes, it is? His word can break through iron chains. And if this were not enough, he is anointed to preach glad tidings to the meek, and there is more than words. He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, This is an alms deed and not a word only, but we do not employ Him. We might be afraid if we thought Christ to be changed and that He were not the old Saviour, but He has the same heart and infinite compassion in heaven that He had in the days of His flesh. He is the old Saviour, the sympathetic Saviour, the compassionate Saviour. Our Lord Jesus is the same Saviour. And then, fourthly, the place of emotion in the Christian life. The place of emotion in the Christian life. This has been called in question. And it is an insult to the Saviour. It is an insult to the Savior to call in question the place of godly emotion in the Christian life. The difference between mysticism and godly emotion is mysticism makes our feelings the determinator of truth. That's mysticism, making our feelings equivalent to revelation. Godly emotion is truth governed or truth led emotion. And the Christian has distinctive joys and sorrows, both that the world knows not of. John 16 verse 20, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice, and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. There are distinctive sorrows for the Christian. There is godly sorrow. Sorrow for his own sins. Sorrow for the cause of truth. Sorrow for the dishonor done to God. Sorrow when we consider the terrible condition and danger of sinners in this world. There are distinctive joys. Joy and peace in believing. Truth led, you see. Truth governed. Joy and peace in believing. Joy in God. Of course, emotion has a place. in Biblical Christianity. And then finally, conformity to Christ's compassion. Conformity to Christ's compassion. That aspect of Christ's emotions on earth, which is most frequently referred to in the Gospels, is his compassion. He's being moved with compassion. He's having pity upon men and women. Reformed Christians should be like Him. Reformed Christians should be Christ-like in their compassion. Reformed people should be known, yes, as people of strict biblical principle. but they should not be known as hard men and hard women. And we have not rightly grasped the truth if we are. There's nothing reformed about being unfeeling. Nothing. And ministers particularly Mark chapter 6 and verse 34. And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people and was moved with compassion toward them because they were a sheep not having a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. On this occasion it doesn't talk about his healing of miracles, though that was an expression of his compassion. He doesn't feed them, that was an expression of his compassion. But he taught them many things. That means that a Christ-like minister is to teach many things out of compassion. We are ambassadors for Christ as if God did beseech you by us, be reconciled to God. Compassion, zeal for God's glory, and compassion to men go together as a holy motive for preaching the truth. The Lord Jesus cried, my God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me? And it was in order that he should say, as he said to Mary, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father, but go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God. Christ cried out, my God, my God, in order that we, if we are his people, should have his God as our God, that we should be heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, so that we should be able to sing in truth, yea, mine own God is he. And that's why Christ became a man, That's why he suffered in his emotions, his intensity of sorrow, his anguish, so that when he cried out, my God, my God, it was in order that we should be able to call God our God. This is our beloved, and this is our friend. Close the tunnel.