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The contemplation of Christ's sufferings may, or may not, be spiritually beneficial to us. It is possible to occupy our attention with the physical side of the Passion to the exclusion of the moral and spiritual, and to think almost exclusively of the sufferings and scarcely at all of the Sufferer. Such contemplation may work upon our feelings much in the same way as thrilling incidents in a powerful work of fiction, and create a spurious sympathy with the Sufferer which cannot produce the effect which the passion of our Lord ought to have upon our lives. The remedy is to be found mainly in "considering Him that endured" — in keeping before us the personality of the Sufferer. But we shall only rightly consider the Sufferer Himself when we keep in mind the purpose He had in His endurance. He suffers for sinners, as well as from sinners; and He suffers for the direct purpose of removing the contradiction which He endures — to take away sins. And all profitable contemplation of the sufferings of Christ ought to have in it the desire and willingness to have its purpose fulfilled in us. In considering Him we must keep in mind His faultlessness; the entire absence of any justification for the contradiction. He was not only faultless, but good. Although graced with the perfect qualities of human virtue, and rich in the beneficent works of goodness, He endured the contradiction of sinners. Remember, too, that within, and perfectly conjoined to, that holy humanity, was all the fulness of God. In every act of endurance there is the manhood which endures as human, and there is the deeper endurance of God underlying it all. The word "contradiction" is here used to include the whole of the opposition which our Lord experienced from sinners. The Cross was only the climax of a long and varied course of antagonism out of which it sprung, without which it would not have been reached, and by which alone it can be understood and duly estimated. The first contradiction Christ endured was in the unbelief which met Him. He was the True One and the Truth; but they affirmed Him either deceived or a deceiver — utterly untrustworthy. But this contradiction advanced to open condemnation. He was said to be "a gluttonous man," &c. They said His power over evil spirits was due to a league between Himself and the prince of the devils. They charged Him with being the enemy of God and man, a blasphemer and an evildoer. Remember who it was against whom all these false and bitter things were spoken. Consider Him, and see His brave endurance. And there was an element in all this contradiction which added to its painfulness. It was not the result, in general, of a mistake, which could be excused by the Sufferer. It had its root in personal hate (John 15:24). And He knew the cause of that hate. It came out of a conscious moral antipathy. His pure, holy, humble, unselfish life made them conscious of the unreality and hollowness of their assumed excellence. And He endured this hate — He who combined in His own person all that is gracious in God and lovable in man. This antagonism and hate could not fail to proceed to acts of violence if occasion should arise. "They took up stones to stone Him"; and, think you, was it not as if He felt the blows of hardness of heart hurled at Him as He preserved Himself from this attempt upon His life? To Christ the spiritual was not less real than the physical; and in every infliction of suffering and wrong upon Him by the hands of wicked men He felt the spirit of the acts — the sin of the world — going right down deep into His soul. Yes, the painful pressure of the crown of thorns, the piercing of nails and the anguish of the body, were means through which He bore in Himself the contradiction of sinners and of sin. One point more: This endurance of the contradiction of sinners was out of consideration to them. He might have saved Himself, and have made them to feel His contradiction against themselves. But He suffered Himself, instead of making them to suffer. His consideration for them was grounded in love — love to them and to us. In love He endured seeing them the opposite of that which He could love; endured receiving from them the reverse of what He had a right to expect, the opposite of that which His coming had made possible. If He could have hated and despised those who contradicted Him, it would have been less painful to His spirit to endure the contradiction. But the more He loved us, the more bitter became every experience, the more pointed and painful every act of wrong. "Consider Him who endured," etc., and consider Him, with this fact in mind, that in thus enduring He was exhibiting and putting forth His gracious power to save us from sinning against Him. The purpose of His Cross is to reconcile us and all things to Himself; to bring us to harmony of mind and life with Him; to destroy our contradiction by enduring it.

(R. Vaughan, M. A.)

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KJV: For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

WEB: For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don't grow weary, fainting in your souls.