Stephen Charnock On God's Anger Toward His Son On That Cross

The Puritan, Stephen Charnock (1628-1680), got the cross right:

As the Father did not in the time of his humiliation treat him as a son, but as a servant, as a sinner, as one he was angry with, he was exposed to the violences of men, as if he had been utterly neglected and abandoned by his Father . . . ." (The Necessity Of Christ's Death, Exaltation, And Intercession, Page 116)

To demonstrate His goodness to man, in preventing his eternal ruin, He would for a while withhold His goodness from His Son, by exposing His life as the price of our ransom; not only subjecting Him to the derisions of enemies, desertions of friends, and malice of devils, but to the inexpressible bitterness of His own wrath in His soul, as made an offering for sin. The particle so (John 3:16), seems to intimate this supremacy of goodness; He 'so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.' He so loved the world, that He seemed for a time not to love his Son in comparison of it, or equal with it. The person to whom a gift is given is, in that regard, accounted more valuable than the gift or present made to him: thus God valued our redemption above the worldly happiness of the Redeemer, and sentenceth Him to an humiliation on earth, in order to our exaltation in heaven; He was desirous to hear Him groaning, and see Him bleeding, that we might not groan under His frowns, and bleed under His wrath; He spared not Him, that He might spare us; refused not to strike Him, that He might be well pleased with us; drenched His sword in the blood of His Son, that it might not forever be wet with ours, but that His goodness might forever triumph in our salvation; He was willing to have His Son made man, and die, rather than man should perish, who had delighted to ruin himself; He seemed to degrade Him for a time from what He was. (The Complete Works Of Stephen Charnock Vol. 2, Pages 322-323)

More Resources On That Cross

1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book

2. Forsaken, Or Felt Forsaken

3. The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

4. Is It Biblical To Say Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross?

5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Robert Murray M'Cheyne On God's Anger Toward His Son On That Cross

 

Robert Murray M'Cheyne was a pastor in Dundee, Scotland, who died in 1843 at the age of 29. I've been using his yearly Bible reading plan for years. All these quotations are from The Works of The Late Rev. Robert Murray M’Cheyne, Vol. 2. He got the cross right:

But now the wrath of God has all fallen upon Him. The thunder-clouds of God’s anger have spent all their lightnings on his head. The vials of God’s wrath have poured out their last drops upon Him. He is now justified from all the sins that were laid upon Him. He has left them with the grave-clothes. (Page 52)

Oh! how dreadful his Father's anger was in his eyes; for he had known nothing but his infinite love from all eternity. Oh! how could he bear to lie down under that wrath? How could he bear to exchange the smile of his Father's love for the dark power of his Father's anger? How could he bear, for the sake of vile sinners, to exchange the caresses of that God who is love, for the piercings and bruisings of his almighty hand? (Page 257)

"Thine anger is turned away." . . . There is abundant provision for the pardon and peace of the sinner; for God's anger is turned away on the head of Christ. The thing which troubles the conscience of awakened souls is the anger of God. It is this which makes them tremble, by night and by day, in public and in secret. An awakened soul feels that he has broken God's law, and is exposed every moment to his wrath. He can find no rest in his bed, no peace at his meals, no joy in his friends; the heavens are black above his head, the earth is ready to open and devour him. If God be a just and holy God, he will pour out his anger. If he be a true God, he will fulfill all his threatenings. If such a soul would take Christ as his surety, he would find abundant peace. The anger of God has already been turned away on the head of Christ. All the clouds of wrath have been directed, like a water-spout, upon that one head. If you are willing that Christ be your surety, you do not need to fear. (Page 414)

For this end he took on him our nature—became a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. From his cradle in the manger to the cross, the dark cloud of God's anger was over him; and especially toward the close of his life, the cloud came to be at the darkest —yet he cheerfully suffered all. "How am I straitened till it be accomplished!" The cup of God's anger was given him without mixture; yet he said: "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Now, we may be quite sure, that since he was the Son of God, he hath suffered all that sinners should have suffered. (Page 457)

If you believe on Christ, you are one with him-a member of his body; and as sure as Christ your Head is now passed from the darkness of God's anger into the light of his countenance, so surely are you, O believer, passed from darkness into God's marvelous light. (Page 520)

What this love cost him. When Jacob loved Rachel, he served seven years for her; he bore the summer's heat and winter's cold. But Jesus bore the hot wrath of God, and the winter blast of his Father's anger, for those he loved. Jonathan loved David with more than the love of women, and for his sake he bore the cruel anger of his father, Saul. But Jesus, out of love to us, bore the wrath of his Father poured out without mixture . . . it was love that made him not despise the Virgin's womb; it was love that brought him to the manger at Bethlehem; it was love that drove him into the wilderness; love made him a man of sorrows; love made him hungry, and thirsty, and weary; love made him hasten to Jerusalem; love led him to gloomy, dark Gethsemane; love bound and dragged him to the judgment hall; love nailed him to the cross; love bowed his head beneath the amazing load of his Father's anger. "Greater love hath no man than this." "I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Sinners were sinking beneath the red-hot flames of hell; he plunged in and swam through the awful surge, and gathered his own into his bosom. The sword of justice was bare and glittering, ready to destroy us; He, the man that was God's fellow, opened his bosom and let the stroke fall on him. We were set up as a mark for God's arrows of vengeance; Jesus came between, and they pierced him through and through; every arrow that should have pierced our souls, stuck fast in him. He, his own self, bare our sins in his own body on the tree. As far as east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. This is the love of Christ that passeth knowledge. This is what is set before you today in the broken bread and poured-out wine. This is what we shall see on the throne - a Lamb as it had been slain. This will be the matter of our song through eternity: "Worthy is the Lamb!" (Page 544)

He was "a man of sorrows" from his youth. Often, often, he sank under the dark cloud of his Father's anger, till he groaned his last on Calvary. (Page 564)

More Resources On That Cross

1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book

2. Forsaken, Or Felt Forsaken

3. The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

4. Is It Biblical To Say Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross?

5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Christ Jesus Is God’s Son Who Died!

Christ Jesus Is God’s Son Who Died

An Earthquake Shook The Land He Eyed

The Gentile Soldiers Testified

Truly This Was God’s Son He Cried

Forever By His Father’s Side

Well Pleasing, Loved By God, His Pride

Came Down To Save His Sinful Bride

He Bore God’s Wrath And Bled And Died

Then Rose Alive To Life Provide

Saves From All Nations, Saves Worldwide

Saves Men And Women All Abide

In Him By Faith We Come Inside

By Faith Alone We’re Justified

For Christ Is All Because He Died

All Joys In Him Are Now Supplied!

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Richard Sibbes On God's Anger Toward His Son On That Cross

Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) was a puritan pastor and theologian who got the cross right:

That is not all, beloved, but there were immediate sufferings, even of his soul also, which he groaned under. God the Father laid a heavy stroke upon that. He was smitten of the Lord, Isa. 53:4; and when God deals immediately with the soul himself, and fills it with his wrath, no creature in the world is able to undergo the same. None can inflict punishment upon the soul but God only. Satan may urge and press arguments of discouragement, and affright us with God's displeasure; but the inflicting of anger upon the soul issues immediately from the hand of the Almighty. We must here, therefore, consider God as a righteous Judge, sitting in heaven in his judgment-seat, taking the punishment of the sins of all his people upon Christ. There was a meeting together of all the sins of the faithful, from Adam to the last man that shall be in the world, as it were, in one point upon him, and the punishment of all these was laid on his blessed shoulders, who suffered for them in both body and soul. (Christ's Sufferings For Man's Sins, Page 7)

3. Conclusion. But how could Christ be forsaken of God, especially so forsaken as to suffer the anger of his father, being an innocent person? Ans. 1. I answer, first, the Paschal lamb was an innocent creature, yet if the Paschal lamb be once made a sacrifice, it must be killed. Though Christ were never so unblameable, yet, if he will stoop to the office of a surety, he must pay our debt, and do that which we should have done. If a prince's son become a surety, though his father love him and pity him never so much, yet he will say, Now you have taken this upon you, you must discharge it. 2. Secondly, as in natural things the head is punished for the fault of the body, so Christ, by communicating his blessed nature with ours, made up one mystical body, and suffered for us. (Christ's Sufferings For Man's Sins, Pages 7-8)

Oh marvel not at it, but have such conceits of sin as God had when he gave his Son to die for it, and such as Christ had, when in the sense of his Father's anger he cried thus, "My God, my God," (Christ's Sufferings For Man's Sins, Page 12)

Sin also thrust Adam out of paradise, Gen. iii. 23, and made God angry with him and the whole world, so as to destroy it with a flood of water, Gen. vi.13, and will at last make him burn and consume all "with a deluge of fire", 2 Pet. iii.12. Yea, it made him in a sort angry with his own dear Son, when he underwent the punishment of sin as our surety, so that he cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Mat. xxvii. 46. If God thus shewed his anger against sin, in punishing it in Christ our surety, who was made sin for us, and yet had no sin in himself, how will he punish it much more in those who are not in Christ? (The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, Volume 2, Page 336)

More Resources On That Cross

1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book

2. Forsaken, Or Felt Forsaken

3. The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

4. Is It Biblical To Say Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross?

5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Hugh Martin On God's Anger Toward His Son On That Cross

Hugh Martin (1822–1885) was a Free Church of Scotland Presbyterian minister of the Gospel. He got the cross right:

And what, it must be asked, was the cause of the tormenting sorrow and amazement which now so greatly weakened and agitated the Son of God? It is a solemn question, worthy of long and reverent consideration. But doubtless His sorrow arose from the source that His prayer was concerned with—the vivid view and near approach of that cup which the Father was just giving Him to drink. That curse of God, from which He came to redeem His elect people—that sword of the Lord's wrath and vengeance which He had just predicted—the penal desertion on the cross—the withdrawal of all comfortable views and influences—and the present consciousness of the anger of God against Him as the surety-substitute, a person laden with iniquity— these were the elements mingled in the cup of trembling which was now to be put into His hands: and the prospect caused Him deadly sorrow! (The Shadow Of The Calvary, Page 9)

The anger of the invisible God against the invisible soul of the man Christ Jesus could not be beheld by mortal eye. But the world might be constrained to behold it as in a glass. (The Shadow Of The Calvary, Page 99)

More Resources On That Cross

1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book

2. Forsaken, Or Felt Forsaken

3. The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

4. Is It Biblical To Say Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross?

5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Christ Jesus Died, The Earth Did Quake!

Christ Jesus Died, The Earth Did Quake

The Temple's Curtain Opened Break

And People From The Dead Awake

For God, His Son, He Did Forsake

Christ Bore God’s Wrath, The Fiery Lake

And All Our Sins To Hell He’d Take

He Crushed That Head, The Evil Snake

Christ Died And Rose For Us To Make

A Way To God For His Name’s Sake

Into God’s Presence We Partake

Of Joys That Make Us Shout And Shake

And One Day Too We’ll Rise Awake

For Death And Sin We’ll All Forsake

To Be With God Our Holy Ache

For Christ Is All, Make No Mistake

That’s Why The Earth Did Move And Quake!

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Petrus Van Mastricht On Forsakenness, Anger, Damnation, And The Death Of Christ On That Cross

Jonathan Edwards once wrote that Peter van Mastricht’s systematic theology was the best thing ever written in the history of the world, except, of course, for the Bible. Joel Beeke

After reading the chapter in this book, "The Death Of The Mediator", Petrus Van Mastricht has become one of my favorite writers on the cross! He gets the cross right and clear! See more from Joel Beeke on why you should read Van Mastricht here: 3 Reasons Pastors Need to Read Petrus van Mastricht. This is a fascinating interview with Kevin DeYoung and Todd Rester, the man who is translating Van Mastricht from Latin and Dutch into English: Petrus Van Mastricht's Theoretical Practical Theology with Todd Rester.

Jesus Was Truly And Objectively Forsaken By God On That Cross

Don't ever let anyone tell you not to sing: "How deep the Father's love for us . . . how great the pain of searing loss, the Father turns His face away"

Sing it with Petrus Van Mastricht, who described the sufferings of Jesus on that cross as: 

Christ deserted and denied by the whole world, by friends as well as enemies, even by God . . . God stopping his ears to all his [Christ's] supplications, turning his face away from him (Pages 435-436)

Also:

(2) What did he suffer?
What he suffered; not some light affliction, but the greatest of all evils, the highest affliction of all, death, and not only one kind of death, not only natural death, which we sometimes read is sought and desired by men, because it brings them deliverance from pressing evils, and an entrance into a better life (2 Cor. 5:1-2; Phil. 1:23); but in addition spiritual death, wherein deserted by God, exceeding sorrowful, even to death, he walked in darkness and saw no light (Isa. 50:10) (Page 430)

(5) with respect to his soul, into the infernal state and condition (Ps. 88:4-6), wherein he was deserted by God his Father (Matt. 27:46), and tortured with the pains of death, that is, of infernal death (Matt. 26:37-38; Acts 2:24), and he was made the curse itself (Gal. 3:13) (Page 468) 

If (8) anguish of soul and spiritual desertions, his soul was exceeding sorrowful for his own, even to death (Matt. 26:37-38); abandoned by his Father for his own, he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Ps. 22:1; Matt. 27:46). And all these things the Redeemer accepted for this purpose, that he might deliver his own from them all (Isa. 53:5). (Page 643)

God Was Angry With Jesus On That Cross

He sensed that God was in some way alienated from him, & like a judge who was angry with him, & inflicting upon him the truly hellish pains due for our sins. (Page 406)

And what was for God himself the cause of his raging as it were with just cruelty against the inmost parts of his only begotten Son, except human sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Isa. 53:6)? . . . If he burned with such rage against his own Son, who was so beloved by him, for our sins while they still lived, how would he not burn with rage against us, if we spare our sins? (Pages 450-451)

Jesus Was Damned By God On That Cross

(2) What did he suffer?
What he suffered . . . moreover, even eternal or infernal death, which the damned experience in hell, through which he was a curse (Gal. 3:13) (Page 430)

How Jesus Suffered As God And Man On That Cross

He suffered not only as man, nor only as God, but simultaneously as God and man.
XI. All these things the Mediator endured, whether in body or in soul, neither only as man, nor only as God, but as the God-man, simultaneously as God and man, just as, according to the nature of the theandric effects, each nature bestowed its own part to Christ's sufferings: while the human nature alone sustained and suffered them (since passive potency does not occur in the divine nature, Mal. 3:6; James 1:17; and much less death, because the divine nature is incorruptible, Rom. 1:23; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16), the divine nature furnished to his sufferings an infinite weight, value, and price, so that they were God's sufferings (Acts 20:28), and the blood of the Son of God (1 John 1:7), suited to cleanse us from all sin. (Page 415)

Who Ultimately Killed Jesus On That Cross? God Did 

I wrote an article defending the "American Gospel: Christ Crucified" documentary on this point: "American Gospel" Gets It Right. Petrus Van Mastricht said it well:

The supreme cause of Christ's death was God.
XII. Christ had, as the first and chief cause of his entire death, God his own Father, the supreme Judge (Isa. 53:6, 10; Zech. 13:7; 2 Cor. 5:21; Acts 2:23; 4:28), for which reason he laments, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Ps. 22:1). Moreover, God was involved in the sufferings and death of his Son in more than one way, namely: (1) by predetermining them (Acts 2:23; 4:28; Rom. 8:29; Luke 24:26, 46; Acts 17:3); (2) by foretelling them (Ps. 22; Isa. 53; Zech. 13:7; Dan. 9:26); (3) by sustaining him while he suffered them (Ps. 22:11, 24); (4) by permitting his enemies to do them (Acts 4:28); and (5) by limiting them (Acts 4:28; John 19:31-33); (6) by directing them to their predetermined end (2 Cor. 5:21; Isa. 53:5). God had as a moving cause, as it were: (1) his grace and mercy toward the sinner (Rom. 9:23 with 2 Cor. 5:21; Isa. 53:6; Rom. 8:32); (2) avenging justice toward the expromissor, his Son (Rom. 3:22; 8:3); and (3) the glory of both, of grace as well as justice (Rom. 3:25). (Page 415)

On Jesus As The Mediator

The Mediator is in the middle between the offended & offending party. Accordingly, in this matter there is, first the offended party, God (Ps. 51:4: theologically, God three in persons (Isa. 63:9-10), then economically, the Father, insofar as he is the supreme Lawgiver, Lord, & Judge (2 Cor. 5:19). Second, there is the offending party, certainly not each & every person (John 17:9), but all so beloved by the Father that they were given to the Mediator to be redeemed (John 17:11, 24; 3:16). Third, there is the Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 8:6-8; 9:14-15; 12:24), who is in the middle: (1) between the offended persons (Matt. 28:19; 1 John 5:7); (2) between the disputing parties, God & man, as Immanuel (Isa. 7:14 with Acts 10:38), bearing the natures of both equally, as the God-man, God revealed in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16), the middle ladder, joining heaven & earth (Gen. 28:12); (3) by office, pleading the cause of each with the other (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 5:1), first of God with man (2 Cor. 5:20), & in turn of man with God, satisfying & interceding for him (1 John 2:1). Thus not unwisely do many observe that Christ from almost any perspective is viewed as in the middle: he is born, as some think, in the middle of the night; he suffers in the middle of the world, in Jerusalem; he is crucified in the middle of thieves; he died in the middle between heaven & earth; after the resurrection he stands in the middle of his disciples; he promises that where two or three are gathered in his name, there he would be in the middle of them; he walks in the middle of the candlesticks; & like the heart in the middle of his mystical body, he imparts spirit & strength to his members. (Page 61)

More Resources On That Cross

1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book

2. Forsaken, Or Felt Forsaken

3. The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

4. Is It Biblical To Say Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross?

5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Christ Was Forsaken Then He Died!

Christ Was Forsaken Then He Died

Gave Up His Spirit As He Cried

He’s Truly Man The Crucified

He Paid For Each Sin Of His Bride

The Wages Of Our Sin Applied

All Sin Is Dealt With Death Defied

No Charges Stick! We’re Justified!

Christ Rose – He’s LORD Of All Worldwide

We’re Changed For Now Christ Lives Inside

We Live For Him, In Him Abide

With Him Forever By His Side

With Him The Keys Of Death Reside

The Devil’s Crushed And Death It Died

For Christ Fulfilled God’s Word Our Guide

In Paradise He’s Glorified

For Christ Is All And He’ll Provide

All We Need Because He Died!

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Jesus Was So Disfigured That He Did Not Even Look Like A Man

Just as many were appalled at You - His appearance was so disfigured that He did not look like a man, and His form did not resemble a human being . . . . Isaiah 52:14

Petrus Van Mastricht on the horrific physical sufferings of Jesus on His way to and on the cross:

Christ's natural death has, first, its beginning, and in this beginning, besides the mortality inborn in him:

1) Weakening, brought upon him externally by various distresses, being led from place to place, the imposition of the cross, and other things

2) That among the disciples, he was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, deserted by all

3) He was declared by every kind of person, and especially by the leaders, to be a madman, demoniac, Samaritan, reveler, profane man, impostor, blasphemer, seducer, magician, rebel, and invader from another kingdom; he was rejected by the people, valued less than the worst sort of murderer, and crucified in the middle of two thieves

4) He was stripped of his clothing

5) Furthermore, when he was arrested, he was shamefully dragged from court to court, as if he were a thief

6) He suffered the most unjust judgments, as much ecclesiastical, under the priests Ananias and Caiaphas, as political, under Pilate and Herod the Tetrarch

7) He was mocked, spat upon, beaten, mangled with a thorny crown, first before Caiaphas, then before Herod, and finally before Pilate and his officials and soldiers

8) Furthermore, like a villain, with his body stripped naked, in a place of infamy between two thieves, he endured a savage, shameful, and cursed kind of punishment, preceded also by a thousand insults, by a drink steeped with gall and myrrh, and by a sarcastic inscription on the placard

9) Finally, he suffered in all the parts and members of his body: his ears were filled with mockeries, his head battered with a reed, and lacerated with thorns, his body scourged, his mouth given vinegar and gall to drink, his face disgraced with spit, his shoulders burdened with the wood of the cross, his side pierced, his arms extended over the cross, his hands and feet affixed to the cross with nails, his blood from all his veins poured out, his heart melted with anguish, and so forth (Theoretical-Practical Theology, Redemption in Christ, Vol. 4, 2023, page 411).

Jesus endured all of this AND the forsakenness of God, AND the anger of God, AND the damnation of God because of His great love with which He loved sinners so that we might NEVER be forsaken by God, AND NEVER bear God's anger, AND NEVER endure God's damnation, but enjoy God's smile and love for all eternity where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore!

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Helen Roseveare And The Worthiness Of Christ

A powerful story told about missionary Helen Roseveare:

Helen Roseveare grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Helen Roseveare became a skilled surgeon. All her life, both before and after she came to Christ, and she came to Christ during her university days, Helen Roseveare had a motto. And her motto was in the form of a question, and the question was this: “Is it worth it?” Is it worth it? And she would ask and honestly answer that question before she did anything. Before she went out on a day with a guy, she would say, “Is it worth it?” Before she would buy a book at Barnes and Noble and read it, she’d say, “Is it worth it?” Before she took a course in college, she’d say, “Is it worth it?”

And by asking and answering that question honestly, she became a very well-educated, disciplined, young woman physician. And after she graduated from Cambridge and got her hospital training, she gave her life to the Lord for missionary service in the northeast corner of the Belgian Congo in the community of Nobobongo. And she served their in the fifties and sixties eleven solid years of sacrificial, loving service to the African people. She did leprosy work, children’s work, built a hospital, built a Bible school. And then, in 1964 the Simba Uprising took place in the Congo, what we here in distant America called the Congo Rebellion. And the tribal people rose up, and the foreigners were ruthlessly treated.

Helen Roseveare went through that. Now I didn’t know anything about that, I did’t know anything about her, and I’ll never forget the first time I met her. I was a guest teacher for ten weeks at Columbia Bible College in South Carolina. My wife and I and our four kids were living in the men’s dorm in two dorm rooms that they put together in a makeshift little apartment for us. We were living there for ten weeks while I taught several courses in the school. And one night at nine o’clock at night, word came through the men’s dormitory that all the men were to leave their studies, and to go to the central lobby, because a woman missionary was passing through campus that evening, she couldn’t stay for the next day, and so they wanted the men to hear her give a brief word of testimony about her missionary work in Africa. Well, to be real honest with you, none of the boys were very excited, you know. But the school said they had to do it, so we all went to the main lobby of the men’s dorm, and when we got there, the guys were in there, they were draped over the couches, sitting on the floor, and kind of looking like they didn’t want to be there. And, then two of the school administrators walked in with Dr. Roseveare standing between the them, and when we saw her, everybody’s worst fears were well-founded, because she looked like a missionary. Whatever that means.

Simple cotton dress. Gray hair pulled back in a bit of a bun. Very thick, coke-bottle glasses, because her eyesight was not good. & she was tired. So somebody grabbed a gray, folding, metal Samsonite chair & put it in the middle of the floor, & she sat on it, & they said, ah, “Gentlemen, this woman, Dr. Roseveare, has just come through our campus, we just want her to share a little bit of her experience with you tonight.” And so she started to give her testimony. And being the astute woman that she is, about two minutes into her testimony, she knew that most of those guys were not interested at all, and so she stopped. And she said, “You know what, boys, I don’t want to bore you with the details of my life. You’ve probably heard different stories and so forth. So, it’s late, why don’t we just take another five, ten minutes or so and, and I’ll just answer questions. Maybe, you know, you have a question. I’d rather talk about the things you’re interested in.” And this kid immediately stuck his hand up, I feel sorry for him to this day, he stuck his hand up, and he said, “Yeah I’ve got a question,” “You know, we’ve got missionaries coming through here all the time, and they’re always talking about, you know, paying the price and suffering for Jesus – what did you ever suffer for Jesus?” She sat there and looked at him and, without any bitterness or any anger, she said, “Well, during the Simba Uprising, I was raped twice.” Everything got real quiet.

And then she told us about the rape. She told us how the government soldiers came to her bungalow that night, came inside, ransacked it, grabbed her, beat her, threw her to the floor, kicked in all of her teeth. And then two army officers, one at a time, took her to her own bedroom and violated her body by raping her. And then, after the second incident, she was dragged from that bungalow out into a clearing and tied to a tree. And standing around the tree were all the laughing government soldiers. And then, while she was standing there, beaten and humiliated and violated and ridiculed, someone discovered in the bungalow the only existing hand-written manuscript of a book that she had been writing about the Lord’s work in the Congo over an eleven year period. They brought it out, put it on the ground in front of her, and burned it. And as she saw that book go up in smoke, through clenched teeth, she said to herself: “Is it worth it? Is it really worth it? Eleven years of my life poured out in selfless service for the African people and now this.” And then she told those boys in that dormitory room that night as we all sat there spellbound, she said, “And boys, the minute I said that, God’s Holy Spirit settled over that terrible scene, and He began to speak to me, and this is what He said. He said to me: “Helen, my daughter Helen, you’ve been asking the wrong question all your life. Helen, the question is not, ‘Is it worth it?’ The question is: ‘Am I worthy? Am I, the Lord Jesus who gave His life for you, worthy for you to make this kind of sacrifice for me?’”And by her own tearful testimony she told us how God broke her heart, she looked up into the face of Jesus and said, “Oh Lord Jesus, yes, it is worth it, for thou art worthy.”

Hallelujah! What a Savior! Yes, Jesus is worthy: 

Revelation 5:1-10: Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?" And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, "Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals." And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth." 

More On Helen Roseveare

1. A Woman of Whom the World Was Not Worthy: Helen Roseveare (1925-2016) by Justin Taylor

2. A Call for the Perseverance of the Saints by Helen Roseveare at the 2007 Desiring God National Conference

3. Speaker Panel Q and A at the 2007 Desiring God National Conference

God And The Gospel

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