THE LIFTED CHRIST

 

Dr. H. A. CAMERON

 

 

Wounds, according to the definition of the surgeon, are divisions of the soft parts of the body, by a mechanical force applied externally, and they are classified by their different characters as (1) contused, (2) lacerated, (3) penetrating, (4) perforating, and (5) incised wounds.  It is remarkable that in the simple statement “He was wounded” (Isaiah. 53: 5), there is included each kind of wound.

 

(1) The contused wound: a wound produced by a blunt instrument.  Such would result from a blow by the rod, as foretold in Micah 5: 1: “They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek,” and fulfilled in Matthew 27: 30: “     They took the reed, and smote Him on the head,” and John 18: 22: “One. of the officers struck Jesus with a rod

 

(2) The lacerated wound: a wound produced by a tearing instrument.  Laceration of the tissues was the resuft of scourging, and scourging had become a fine art among the Romans at the tinie of our Lord’s submission to its infliction.  The Roman scourge was a many-tailed lash, each thong tipped with metal or ivory, so that, in the hands of a cruel expert, the        sufferer might truthfully say, “The ploughers ploughed upon my back.  They made long their furrows” (Psalm 129: 3).  Thus the prophetic word of Isaiah 1: 6: “I gave My back to the smiters,” finds its fulfilment, as recorded in Matthew 27: 26, and in John 19: 1, where we read, “Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged Him

 

(3) The penetrating wound:  a deep wound caused by a sharp pointed instrument.  This we have exemplified in the wounds upon the head produced by the crown of thorns.  The Jerusalern thorn, from which that “victor’s crown” was platted, bore spicules four inches long, and, as the soldiers pressed down the cruel diadem upon His head (Matthew 27: 20, John 19: 2), a circlet of wounds ensued, wounds which were deepened by the blow of the reed when they smote Him on the head (Matthew 27: 30).

 

(4) The perforating wound: from the Latin word meaning “to pierce through “They pierced My hands and My feet” (Psalm 22: 16).  The iron spikes were driven between the bones, separating but not breaking these.  Crucifixion was not practised as a means of capital punishment by the Jews, and the words must therefore have puzzled even the writer of the Psalm, but at that early date God was thereby “signifying what death He should die The prophetic question in Zechariah 13: 6: “What are these wounds in Thine hands?” was ever before the Lord.

 

(5) The incised wound: a cut produced by a sharp-edged instrument.  “But one of the soldiers  with a spear pierced the side, and forthwith came there out blood and water” (John 19: 34).  This wound was inflicted by the practised hand of the Roman soldier to make certain that whatever vestige of life was present would be extinguished, but while it did not cause death in His case it is an assurance to all men that death had actually occurred, and it is also a fulfilment of the scripture which saith, “They shall look on Him Whom they pierced And from the wound (so large that Thomas could have thrust his hand into it), “came there out blood and water”: the water that flowed from the pericardium and the blood that flowed from the heart.  The pericardium is a closed sac encasing the heart and lubricated by a small amount of fluid (about a teaspoonful) to facilitate the motion of the heart.

 

‑ The Reaper.