Loneliness of Christ — Charles Leiter

Brother Gilbert Barr was teasing me about hitting that deer. I hear he went after a car. We're very thankful that he's alright. Let's turn in our Bibles to several verses to start us off this morning.

Biblical Foundations for the Loneliness of Christ

Isaiah 59, if you'll hold your place there in Isaiah 59, and turn over to Isaiah 63, and then from Isaiah 63, hold your place, and turn over to John 16. We're just going to read a few verses to set the theme here.

Isaiah 63 and John 16. Isaiah 59, beginning in the middle of verse 15,. Now the Lord saw, and it was displeasing in His sight, that there was no justice. And He saw that there was no man, and was astonished that there was no one to intercede.

Then His own arm brought salvation to Him, and His righteousness upheld Him. He put on righteousness like a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on His head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle.

And over in Isaiah 63, verse 1, it begins with a question. Who is this who comes from Edom with garments of glowing colors from Basra, this One who is majestic in His apparel, marching in the greatness of His strength?

And then the answer, it is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Question. Why is Your apparel red, and Your garments like the one who treads in the winepress? Answer. I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with Me.

I also trod them in My anger, and trampled them in My wrath, and their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, and I stained all My raiment. The day of vengeance was in My heart, and My year of redemption has come.

And I looked, and there was no one, no one to help. And I was astonished, and there was no one to uphold. So My own arm brought salvation to Me, and My wrath upheld Me. And then John chapter 16 and verse 32, Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered each to his own, to leave Me alone.

Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. I am sure you noticed the key words. No man, no one, alone. No man, no one, alone. That came up again and again. No man, no one, alone. I would like to speak to you this morning, Lord willing, on the subject of the loneliness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The loneliness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe I will ask Brother Johnny Carter to pray for us again as we look into the Word. Yes, yes, yes, yes. There are two errors concerning the Lord Jesus Christ that we constantly need to guard against.

Christ’s Full Deity and True Humanity

And both of them have been prominent down through church history. On the one hand, there have been those who denied the true and full deity, Godhood, of the Lord Jesus Christ. And usually they say something along this line.

They say the Lord Jesus Christ was very highly exalted. He was a created being. But He was almost up there to the level of God, just a little bit short of being God. But He was not God. And by saying such things, they prove that they have no concept whatsoever of who God is on the one hand, and who the Lord Jesus Christ is on the other hand.

You see, God is infinite. And infinite does not mean some great, great big quantity. That is not what infinite means. You know, in mathematics, you draw a little thing like this and put a dot on each end.

You say that is a line sigma. But if you draw something like that and put an arrow on each end, you say that is a line. And what is understood is that goes on forever. A line goes on forever that way, and it goes on forever that way.

And in our minds, we say that thing is infinitely long. And what we do, we kind of have a lasso in our minds that goes out and takes that whole thing in, you see. And we say, well, look, it is infinite.

And we feel like it is some great big thing. Now, beloved, that is not the way it is. You go out to the end of your lasso, however big it is, and it keeps on going forever after that. You see, there is no such thing as the finite mind.

We use the word infinite, but we don't know what that means at all. And whenever you start talking about God, think of it in terms of height. How high is God? You know, here is the earthworm down here, and here is the archangel up here.

How high is God above that? You see, the archangel is no closer to reaching the top than the earthworm is. God is just as high above the archangel as He is above the earthworm, because there isn't any top to reach.

He is not any closer to the top. There isn't any top up there. He is infinite, infinitely above everything. In other words, there is an absolute distinction between the creature and the creator. And there is no talk about any created being being almost equal to God.

That is folly. He is infinitely below God, you see. And the Lord Jesus Christ is not a created being. He is the one and only God. He was with God. He was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And in Him, all the fullness of deity. Isn't this incredible? All the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. Isn't that incredible? Well, that is the one side. But on the other side, there is the opposite error, isn't there?

And that is, there has been a tendency to deny Christ's true humanity. That is the other side. And what is said here usually is something to this effect. He just appeared to be man. He was God walking around in a human skin.

And basically what that means is, everything that he encountered was literally a pushover for him. You just picture God walking around in human skin and bang! He hits this and hits that and it just goes flying.

He doesn't feel anything. And that is a denial, you see, of his true manhood. And without intending to, I think a lot of times fundamentalists fall into this snare. They back off of this cliff. Because they are so intent on denying the lie of the liberals that Jesus was not God, and they know that He was God, and they worship Him as God.

Every Christian knows that. They know He is God. But we tend to get embarrassed about the fact that He really was a man. And it is one of the great glories of the Lord Jesus Christ that He was truly and is still a man.

There is now, right now, one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. You remember in Acts 2 .22, was it Peter preaching there? He says, Jesus of Nazareth, you know this Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with miracles and signs and wonders which God did through him.

Do we think of the Lord Jesus like that? A man that God was doing miracles through. You see, there is the other side of it. And as He did His miracles, He did them not just as God walking around in a human skin.

He did them as a man putting his trust in the Father, and God did those miracles through him. Again, in Acts 10 .38, He says, you know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power, and He went about doing good and healing all those who were oppressed of the devil.

For what? For God was with Him. Now, we've got to remember, He was God incarnate, but He was also a man whom God was with. These are mysteries, aren't they? He was truly a man. In Hebrews 2, I love the way that thing is stated there.

In verse 11, He says, both he who sanctifies, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who are sanctified, that's us, that's Christians, are all from one. They're all from one Father. For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren.

And then He quotes some verses from the Old Testament. He says, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. So what was Jesus doing down here in this world? Well, He was declaring the name of the Father to His brothers.

Isn't that amazing? In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. In other words, He says, I'm going to set out in the congregation, along with the rest of you all, and I'm going to sing praise as a man among men.

I'll take my position and sing my praise to God just like you're doing. Isn't that amazing? And again, He quotes another verse. He says, and again, I will put my trust in Him. In other words, the Lord Jesus is saying, I'm going to come down here and put myself in a position where I must put my trust in the Father just like you have to.

I'll put my trust in Him. That's why, and a little bit later in Hebrews, in 4 .15, He says He was tempted in all points like as we are. Yes, that's what it says, in all points like as we are. So then, I say that to say this.

Christ’s Sinless Experience of Loneliness

When we consider the loneliness of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're not dealing with a cardboard figure. We're not dealing with someone who couldn't feel anything. He was tempted in all points like as we are, and surely the Lord Jesus Christ was the loneliest man who ever lived.

And I hope to prove that to you as we go along. We have to be careful here not to get the wrong idea, because a lot of what we call loneliness is a mixture of unbelief and depression and self-pity. He was not lonely in that sense.

I don't want you to get that idea. But He felt the pressure objectively, as far as what pressed upon Him. He had pressing upon Him the greatest weight of loneliness. Or you might say, aloneness, such as no other man has ever felt and ever borne.

Now, somebody might say, well, I don't believe that. Christ was sinless. Sinlessness has nothing to do with it. That doesn't enter the picture at all. Before man ever sinned, beloved, God said it's not good for man to be alone.

It doesn't have anything to do with sin. It has to do with the way man is created. God made man in that way. This thing of loneliness is real. Somebody else might say, well, maybe Christ was the loneliest man that ever lived, but what good is it going to do me to spend the next hour thinking about the loneliness of Christ?

Well, you know what? In one sense, I don't care whether it does you any good or not, because He is worthy in His perfections, in His sufferings, He's worthy to be proclaimed and exalted and thought about and worshipped, regardless of whether we, quote, get anything out of it or not.

He's worthy of that. He needs to be exalted for what He's done. It needs to be thought about. And we don't think about it. A lot of times we just go right through these things. We're too busy feeling sorry for ourselves because we're so lonely.

That's usually what it is, a lot of times. Then again, on the other hand, you might get a lot out of this. All down through the history of the church, God's people have been called to walk some of the loneliest paths imaginable in their following of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You go right through the Scriptures. John the Baptist, the voice of one calling in the wilderness. Not five. The voice of one calling in the wilderness. There he was out there. I mean, it is a lonely path.

Bach Sing, a great Christian in India who died not too long ago. He was converted in the West, went back to India. His wife met him when he got off the boat and spit on him and left him right there. You tell me that isn't hard and lonely.

J .G. Payton, missionary to the cannibals down there in the New Hebrides. His new bride and their newborn baby died. And he built a grave of coral there and knelt around that grave at different times and prayed.

He said it was just the grace of God that kept him from losing his mind. Why did she die? Why did that baby die? Well, he built his house too close to the swamps. And all of that work was wasted and they had to start building that house up higher on the hill.

The natives told him, they said, if we lived down here, we'd die too. And he started building his house higher on the hill in great agony and toiled to move all that coral and everything to build a house.

And meanwhile, back home in the church papers, they were writing about the foolishness and extravagance of this missionary having to build another house. You think that isn't lonely? He was lonely. He felt it.

You know, many of us here are going to be, in the Lord's providence, probably going to happen, we're going to be facing more and more loneliness as time goes on. That's just the way it is. It's true, a lot of us are approaching that.

Some of us are already there and past. Vance Havner, when his wife died, he had a terrible time. Some of you may know about that. And he said the hardest word, the word gone. Gone. Oh, for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still.

Just the longing and the loneliness there. Now, if we're called to walk a lonely road, wouldn't it be helpful to know that the Lord Jesus has already been there before us? And in a way, much deeper and harder than what we're ever going to go through.

And that He triumphed in it. And that there's a way that we can triumph in it, too. Wouldn't it be good to know that? Let's consider, then, the loneliness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the first thing I want to bring out is the loneliness of His absolute holiness.

His absolute holiness. Hebrews 7 .26, it says He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and what? Separate from sinners. He was separate from sinners. Now, if you're a Christian, you know what it's like to be in a whole crowd, a whole big room of rough sinners, and you're the only person there by yourself.

You're alone. You're just alone. There's a feeling and a sense and a reality. You're separated. You don't fit there. You don't belong. And you're repulsed by it and you want to get out of there. Now, beloved, let me suggest to you, that's the way you feel.

How was it for someone who is absolutely pure to come into a world of wicked, sinful men? How alone must he have felt? What must it have been like? We cannot imagine it. We really can't. How much more was he grieved by sin?

How much more sensitive was he to sin? How much more out of place and alone did he feel? In the midst of sinners and what we feel. I'm not just talking about the world out here. Just think of what he had to feel amidst his disciples.

In the upper room the night before he's going to be crucified, they're arguing about who's going to be the greatest. Can you imagine the feeling, how he must have winced to see them so shamelessly sinning in front of him right there before the crucifixion?

He was alone. So, we get used to these things. We're immersed in sin from the time we grow up. But he was different than that. He was totally separate and alone in his holiness. But secondly, consider this.

The Loneliness of Christ’s Greatness

The loneliness, and I don't know any other way to say this. The loneliness of his greatness. In John 16 .12, he says, I have many things. I've got many things to say to you, but you can't bear them. He had all of this in him that could not be said.

It's said that when Einstein came out with the theory of relativity, that there were only three men in the world who could understand him. And one disagreed with him. Now, that's kind of a lonely place, but suppose there hadn't been anybody in the whole world.

Suppose there wasn't anybody in the whole world who could understand it, or who he could share it with, and yet it was true. Think of this. Isn't that a lonely place? What was it like for the Lord Jesus to see wonderful, glorious, profound truth that he could discuss with no human being in the whole world?

There was no man. No one. No one. No one that he could share it with at all. What must it have been like for him to have a vision of his destiny and calling as a teenager and as a young man? Think of him as a young man.

And there was no human being in the entire world that was on a level that he could express any of it to. I'm talking about his humanity now. Now, as Christians, we are going to feel little bits of these things, and we think we're dying when we do.

But think of the Lord Jesus Christ, the loneliness here of his greatness. Luke chapter 2. You remember when he's 12 years old? He's there in the temple, and they come looking for him. They say, how could you do this to us?

He said, don't you understand? They didn't understand. Already when he was 12, they didn't understand. There was no one who knew what was in his heart. As a man, he had no one that he could share it with.

He tried to talk about the most important event in his life, the cross, in Matthew 16. And Peter said, Lord, come on, Lord. That's not going to happen. Far be it from you that that would ever happen to you.

He didn't even have a clue of what he was talking about. He couldn't talk to them about even those things. They didn't understand any of it. In his greatness, he was entirely alone. Well, thirdly, consider this, the loneliness of constant ministry.

The Loneliness of Christ’s Constant Ministry

Notice the word constant here. There was no human being that he could share any burden with. There was no human being that he could go to for any kind of counsel or help whatsoever, or for any kind of ministry.

On the contrary, every person that he saw coming to him from morning till night was somebody that had a need, somebody that was coming that needed help. You know how if you're a pastor, here comes this person, boy, they've got a big need.

Now, how would you feel if every person you saw walk through the door was that way? Every single one. Everybody was constantly coming to him, feeding upon him, drawing from him from morning till night.

Virtue constantly flowing out of him to other men. All men constantly pressing on him and feeding on him and drawing from him and needing him. I say that's a lonely spot. It's a lonely spot if it's 99 out of 100.

What about if it's 1 ,000 out of 1 ,000 or a million out of a million? Every single person that ever came to him was somebody he needed to minister to. They weren't coming to minister to him. Well, I say, fourthly, the loneliness of having no mate.

The Loneliness of Christ’s Lack of a Human Mate

Now, we have a hard time even considering this with relation to the Lord Jesus, but I remind you that when God said it's not good for man to be alone, He said that concerning unfallen humanity. Sin had not entered the picture yet.

In other words, and let me just say it a different way, it is possible and not only possible, it's certain, for a sinless man to feel the pressure of loneliness from this direction because that's the way man is made.

That's part of the makeup of humanity. There's nothing unspiritual about it. It has to do with the way we were created to be. And so the Lord Jesus knew the pressure of loneliness from this direction.

You know, if you're married, you forget sometimes how hard it is to be without a mate, to be unmarried or to have lost your mate. And I can remember some of those days when I was single, I'd go visit a family there in the church on a Sunday afternoon, and you almost didn't want to go because you felt so lonely when you left and went to that empty house.

And you're alone. And one time I remember I was struggling over this thing and praying about it. And I was walking around outside and there were some birds out there, sparrows twittering around, male and female sparrows, obvious.

And I saw them there and I said, Lord, even the birds have mates. And just like that, back to my heart, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.

He said, I willingly, I didn't have to. You're not doing it willingly. I willingly went the lonely path for your sake. He knows what it is. I don't know what your situation is, but Jesus has been there, you see.

That's what it means, that He was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin. He's been right there where you're standing. And He triumphed in it. Number five, the loneliness of temptation. Now, why do I put that in there?

The Loneliness of Christ’s Temptation

Everybody's tempted. Well, because the Lord Jesus was tempted as no man has ever been tempted. He was tempted in all points like as we are, but no one can say, I've been tempted in all points like as He was.

There's nobody. There's nobody that's ever been in that position. There is no mortal man who has ever experienced such an all-out onslaught of the devil upon Him. Nobody. There is no one who's ever experienced such subtleties and wiles of the devil, such intricate workings.

He did everything He could do to bring down the Lord Jesus Christ. As a man. And He had. Now, beloved, think about this. He had no one. There was no one. We're thinking of His humanity. There was nobody who could say, brother, I've been there.

I know. I've been in your shoes. There was no one. He was absolutely alone. There was no one who could sympathize. There was no one who could say, I've been there before you. No one. He was alone in His temptations.

Totally alone. He was out there in the desert alone, and He won the battle in the worst circumstances that Adam lost in the best circumstances. And when it came time for the final battle there in the Garden of Gethsemane, He was alone.

Where were the disciples? All over there sleeping. He was alone. And He not only withstood a heavier blast of temptation than anybody has ever withstood, but He felt it more than anybody has ever felt it.

You may have agonized, fighting against temptation, striving against sin, but I'll guarantee you this, if nobody here has ever sweat drops of blood, He felt it on the inside. I'm telling you, He wasn't just God in a human skin.

You see, it wasn't a pushover. He felt it as no man has ever felt it. And it was a lonely place. He was lonely. Number six, the loneliness of rejection, opposition, and hatred. Now, if we're Christians, we know a little bit about, something about, rejection and opposition and hatred.

Christ’s Rejection, Opposition, and Hatred

You know why you do? Because you've got a little bit of Christ in you. But how about whenever every person that met Him, every bit of hatred and bitterness that they had toward God was perfectly centered toward Him because He was just exactly like God.

He was exactly like the Father. And so what He experienced was the vehement hatred and rejection of every God-hating man. He experienced it to the full. He came to His own place where He should have had a warm reception.

What happened? His own received Him not, even within His own family. They went, you remember in Mark 3, they said He's lost His senses. They went out there to take custody of Him. We're going to have to take Him in for His own protection.

Incredible. His own brothers didn't believe in Him. He was wounded in the house of His friends. He was wounded. And if you wanted to sum up His whole life, you could say this. He was despised and rejected by men.

Have you ever been rejected by somebody or had anybody despise you? This is the summation of His life. He was despised and rejected by men. So when you get rejected in some little way, don't go off and feel sorry for yourself because Jesus has already been there a whole lot worse than anything you're going through.

He was despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The loneliness of being betrayed and forsaken by His friends. There was Judas, first of all, we're told in Psalm 41, verse 9, he says, My own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.

Now, we read over that because we don't believe it. One translation has, my close friend, my own familiar friend. You know, in our minds, Judas has got horns and a tail from the word go. You know, as soon as you read the name Judas, that's what you think of.

That was not the way it was. He may well have been the most winsome and lovable of all the disciples. He may have been. You know, he wasn't like that loudmouthed Peter that's always speaking up. And whenever Jesus said, one of you is going to betray me, they didn't all turn their heads and look at Judas.

They were sick when that happened. When Judas betrayed the Lord, you see, he knew what it was to be betrayed by his friends. And I think that act when Judas did that, it was a shocking, ugly thing when that happened.

They couldn't believe it. Have you ever been betrayed by a friend? Jesus has already been there. But worse than that, we're told in John 16, 32, that all his disciples forsook him and fled. They all forsook him and fled.

And he was left alone. He was left alone. Have you ever been forsaken by all your friends in the hour of your deepest need? But if you had, it still wouldn't have been as bad as what Jesus went through.

The Loneliness of the Cross and Forsakenness

He was forsaken by all his friends. Well, the last one, the loneliness of the cross. Now, this is beyond our comprehension, isn't it? Think of this, beloved, the loneliest place that has ever been or ever could be.

It was up there on that cross. There was absolutely no man. That's what the Bible says. There was no one. No one. But worse than that, the sky starts growing dark. And the Lord Jesus says, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?

There is no one that has ever known such aloneness as the God-man Christ Jesus on that cross. He was absolutely there. That is unique in the history of the world. There never will be, never has been, never will be any loneliness like took place there on that cross.

I don't know how lonely you are, but I know one thing. You don't even hold a candle to that. That was an unbelievable thing. The sky itself grew dark. And He did it alone. He bore the burden to Calvary and suffered and died alone.

He was totally alone, outside the gate, outside the camp, rejected on the refuge pile, alone, and even forsaken by God in His experience as the Father imputed the sins of His people to Him. Now, I say the Lord Jesus Christ was the loneliest man who ever lived, but I want to ask you a question.

How many times did that loneliness defeat Him? How many times did it get Him discouraged and depressed and wallowing around in self-pity? Never did once. How many times did His loneliness cause Him to sin and miss an opportunity to serve God?

It never did once. Never once. What a glory when you start thinking about the excellencies of the Lord Jesus Christ. Start thinking about the man Christ Jesus. Think of this. It's just one little aspect, isn't it?

And you can begin to meditate on the person of Christ. This is just one little thing. Think about this. This is a miracle. This is a miracle of His person. This is one area that as the loneliest man who ever lived, He never sinned once.

How did He keep from it? What did He do? Well, we saw the answer there in John 16, 32, that verse we read. He says, Behold, an hour is coming and has already come for you to be scattered each to his own, and leave me alone, and yet I am not alone.

The Father is with me. Now, that's the way He triumphed all the way through. Faith in God. He's with me. Faith in the fact that God was with Him. And beloved, if you don't remember anything else from this time except the glory of Christ and His loneliness and the fact that you can triumph by believing the truth of the fact that the Father is with you.

And so the next time you're in that situation, whatever it is in any of these things, you say this to yourself. I am not alone. Father is with me. Brother Woodruff, I know he's already learned that lesson a long time ago.

Walking around over there in his house praising God because the Father is with him. That's what Jesus knew. That's what He said to Himself. That's what He believed. That's the truth He believed. When He was in a crowd of rough sinners, He says, I'm not alone.

The Father is with me. When He was being rejected and spit upon and hated by all men, He says, I'm not alone. I'm not alone. The Father is with me. And when He had no companionship and no one He could share with and no one He could talk to, He said, I'm not alone.

The Father is with me. Brethren, many of us need it right now. All of us are probably going to need it eventually. We're going to have to say, I'm not alone. I am not alone. The Father is with me. That's the way I think.

Even on the cross, He was trusting in the goodness of His Father. He knew God was with Him in that sense. He was for Him. And He had never sinned. And He was going to come through triumph. But all the way through, He was trusting in the Father.

Well, may the Lord help us to follow in His steps. Amen.