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The sufferings of Christ were in many respects peculiar:

I. THEY WERE OFFICIALLY UNDERTAKEN AND ENDURED. The designation by which the Redeemer is here distinguished, and the emphatic statement whereby He characterises His sufferings must be taken together — "Christ once suffered for sins." Suffering is no uncommon thing; "Man is born to trouble." But Christ was not an ordinary man. Here then is a marked distinction between His and all merely human suffering. Man was not made man for the purpose of suffering; on the contrary, it is the result, the penalty, of his sin; but the very end for which the Christ became man was that He might suffer. In this sense, therefore, it may be said that He "once suffered" — the entire of His sufferings from the very first lay before Him. To us it is a merciful provision which leaves us in ignorance of future ills. "Christ once suffered." His sufferings stand alone. Where can we find a just comparison for them? Here then is another peculiarity. The statement is that "Christ suffered for sins." Were His sufferings the consequence of His own desert? Had this been so, His bitter enemies would not have failed to convict Him of sin; but His challenge in this respect was never answered. The sufferings of Christ were expiatory, substitutionary and vicarious. What was the doctrine of atonement under the law? Was it not that the innocent suffered for the guilty, and that on account of this suffering the guilty might go free? Hence the care in selecting the sacrificial victims that they might be without blemish or defect. How far from satisfying the requirements of such language as this is the view that would reduce the death of Christ to the mere result of a life of disinterested and self-sacrificing benevolence employed in turning men to righteousness; the seal of His doctrine, and a distinguished example of passive virtue!

II. To set forth the DESIGN of Christ's sufferings, and to aim at its accomplishment in BRINGING MEN TO GOD. Let us reflect upon the connection between sin and suffering, as viewed in relation to Christ's suffering for sins.

1. Apart from personal interest in the sufferings of Christ, suffering regarded as the result of sin — suffering for sin — is a fact, the most terrible and unrelieved in the experience and history of our world. Men may quarrel with the suffering while they hug the sin, but the connection is there. Science may be invoked, and art and artifice may be employed to make sinning physically safe; but all this cannot remove or alter the fact — the goads are there.

2. To those who have a personal interest in His sacrifice, Christ's suffering for sin takes away the sting of suffering.

3. The removal or lessening of sin must ever be the most effectual way of removing or lessening suffering. That is a spurious philanthropy which seeks to depreciate the gospel.

(J. W. McKay, D. D.)

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KJV: For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

WEB: Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;