Reading “Now My soul is deeply troubled.” John 12:27
Soul sorrow was our Lord’s greatest suffering.Compared with this, the lingering, excruciating tortures of the cross, the extended limbs, the quivering nerves, the bleeding wounds, the burning thirst, were as nothing. This was physical, the other spiritual. Let a vessel traversing the ocean keep afloat, and she may still plough the deep and brave the tempest; but let the proud waves burst in upon her and she sinks. So long as our blessed Lord endured outwardly the gibes and insults and calumnies of men, not a complaint escaped His lips; but, when the wrath of God, endured as the surety-head of His people, entered within His holy soul, then the wail of agony rose strong and piercing: ”Save me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to my neck. Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire … and the floods overwhelm Me” (Psalm 69:1–3).
How true is God’s word: ”The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit, who can bear?” Such was Christ’s. And why was His soul troubled? One rational answer alone can be given, He was now bearing sin and, consequently, the punishment of sin, the wrath of God overwhelming His soul.Divine justice, finding the sins of God’s elect meeting on His holy soul, exacted full satisfaction and inflicted the utmost penalty. And thus a glorious gospel truth shines out of this terrible cloud of Jesus’ soul sorrow, that is, the substitutionary character and the atoning nature of His sufferings and death.
Believer in Jesus, yours is, perhaps, soul sorrow.A sense of sin troubles you, the consciousness of guilt distresses you, and you begin to think you know nothing of God’s pardoning love. Oh, what would you not give to be quite surethat your sins were all forgiven for Jesus’ sake! Or, your soul is in sorrow, perhaps, from the painful loss of the evidences of your salvation and adoption. Or, you are perhaps in soul-distress in consequence of the corroding doubts and distressing fears which assail you; and instead of going on your heavenly way rejoicing, forgetting the things that are behind, and pressing on towards those things that are before, your time is spent in searching for Christian evidences and in battling with unbelieving doubts and fears. Or perhaps your soul may be in sorrow because you discern so little love to God, so faint a resemblance to the Saviour, and so little real, vital, operative religion in your life. In a word, your spiritual life is beating with a pulse so sickly and faint that your soul is cast down within you.
One word of encouragement: be thankful to God for this soul sorrow. It is a sure evidence of spiritual life. A soul dead in sin is insensible to any real distress because of sin; a heart destitute of love to God feels no distress because it does not love Him. A graceless sinner never longs for grace, an unrenewed person never thirsts for holiness, and a dead soul never breathes after life. Take heart, then, O believer, for your soul sorrow is the prelude to your soul’s eternal joy.
But see to it that Christ has alone to do with your present sorrow. Take it only to Him. It will prove the greatest, the holiest joy of your life, if it makes you better acquainted with Jesus. O sweet and welcome sorrow, which He who changed the water into wine changes into a joy unspeakable and full of glory.
Taken from Consider Jesus: Thoughts for Daily Duty, Service, and Suffering by Octavius Winslow, 1870 (public domain).
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