Christ’s Beginning Instruction to His Disciples About His Suffering and Dying

Christ and His disciples had come to the coasts of Caesarea, Philippi (verse 13). More and more He was facing opposition, and He left the multitudes behind because He did not want them to make Him king. His kingdom is not of this earth, but it is a spiritual kingdom, and He leads His people into the hidden mysteries of that kingdom. The necessity that God’s Spirit must enlighten the eyes can also be seen by the disciples. Even though they had received much instruction from the highest Prophet and Teacher, they are of yesterday and know nothing; this was shown when they revealed their fleshly desires by asking if they may sit at His right and left hand. Christ begins to prepare His disciples for His suffering and death, and with that He brings their faith into exercise when He not only asks them, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” but He also asks, “But whom say ye that I am?”

Many who are strangers in their heart of the experiential knowledge of Christ and of their misery will give an intellectual answer to this question. Peter, however, could confess, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Here the work of God becomes visible; flesh and blood does not reveal that unto us. It is not a contemplated knowledge but that which has been revealed to him from heaven. If this were a man-made faith, it would perish under the many trials, but God’s people are taught by the Lord Himself, and all those who have heard and learned from the Father come unto Him (John 6:45).

Now Christ begins to separate His disciples from the multitude so that they may be instructed regarding His suffering and death. He had already spoken unto them on a few occasions, saying that He would be taken from them (Matthew 9:15, 12:40), but they had not understood it even though Peter had testified, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” When Christ begins to teach them of the necessity of His suffering and death, Peter rebukes Him.

Christ begins to show His suffering to His disciples, not to the leaders of the people. When He instructs His disciples in the hidden ways of the Lord, we see that they have to be made receptive to receiving heavenly instruction. Likewise, we do not know the way, and in our foolishness reveal enmity against free grace. Over against this Christ reveals His eternal love, herein, that He will humble Himself even unto death. He will foretell those things which will soon come to pass.

He must go this way. They would all forsake Him and He would have to tread the winepress alone. Even though they had walked with Him for a long time, that would now come to an end, but this way is completely hid from them. What Christ was foretelling them would not come upon them suddenly, but it all had to occur to fulfill His godly counsel. Not only His dying but also His resurrection had to take place, and He has accomplished this all as Surety for His entire Church.

How necessary it is to follow in His footsteps, and that means that we must be planted together in the likeness of His death. The disciples had not counted on that, and what an inward sorrow there is when the Lord places before them what they are missing and that they must enter into death with the fruits of their life of grace. These are means in which they are shown that it can go no other way than into death. What fear can rise in our heart when we realize that our tears are not sufficient to satisfy God’s justice, and the ground falls away from under our feet with everything wherein we sought our life—when we do not have a God for our heart, no Surety for our guilt, and there is no hope from our side.

This is the way in which the Lord leads His people so that they may understand the necessity of the death of the Mediator. We are greatly attached to His sensible presence and we wish to hold on to that, but more is necessary; the Church must be restored into God’s communion, and that is only possible in a way wherein God’s justice is completely satisfied. Christ has agreed from eternity to assume this work with His whole heart. He has given Himself as Surety to satisfy for the guilt of the elect, and now their justice demands His death, for Zion must be redeemed by justice. According to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, He has been taken and slain (Acts 2:23).

In that “must” the firmness of the salvation of God’s Church is declared. He has loved His own from eternity and has given Himself for them, but the Father has also delivered Him from eternity and has sent His only begotten Son for the propitiation of the sins of His people, and that propitiation was a complete work. In that work the Father has been well pleased, and in that work the Church receives deliverance through His blood—deliverance of the guilt and punishment of a cursing law and a demanding justice of sin and death. That Christ had to suffer points us, therefore, not only to the fulfillment of God’s counsel but also to the fulfillment of God’s Word. Ought not Christ to have suffered all these things and afterwards also be taken up into glory?

How clearly has Isaiah spoken of the suffering Servant of the Father in the fifty-third chapter of his prophecy. Everything which was foretold in this chapter has been completely fulfilled by Him. Both the prophets and the psalms speak of His suffering and death. The prophecy of His birth was fulfilled as well as that of His suffering and death, for Scripture must be fulfilled; not a word of it will have been spoken in vain. Now God’s Word will be confirmed, but God’s people will also experience and know something of it. They must die to everything of self and all that is outside of Christ.

If we are a stranger of the work of God, of free grace, then we are an enemy which is why the Lord called out to Peter, “Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art an offence unto Me.” May the Lord reveal it unto us if we are constantly busy seeking our own salvation. Then we do not have to look upon those who live on in a deadly tranquility and who mock with the experiences of God’s people. There is also a rejoicing by many in the benefits and a resting upon that which is past, while the discovering light is missing. We need that discovering light so that we may be uncovered to the very foundations.

Let us not build up each other in all kinds of good feelings and pleasantness but pray that you may come to an end in yourself so that Christ may receive the greatest value, also in His suffering and death and that we might thereby gain Christ. Christ not only had to die but also had to be raised the third day. Not only His suffering was necessary but also His resurrection. In His complete offering the heat of God’s wrath is quenched.

Such a complete Saviour is necessary for us, One who had to suffer and to die and who has also become the reason for the eternal salvation of His Church. How deeply miserable we are if we live onward without the least impressions of our sins which have cost the death of the Mediator, and live onward with nothing but a carnal pity such as the daughters of Jerusalem had in days gone by. It is our sins that have made the separation between God and our soul.

Christ foretells His suffering so that His Church may receive instruction and that they may learn, “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.”

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