“By His bruising and His stripes, as well as by His death, we are healed. Never divide between the life and the death of Christ. How could He have died if He had not lived? How could He suffer except while He lived?
Death is not suffering, but the end of it. Guard also against the evil notion that you have nothing to do with the righteousness of Christ, for He could not have made an atonement by His blood if He had not been perfect in His life.
He could not have been acceptable if He had not first been proven to be holy, harmless, and undefiled. The victim must be spotless, or it cannot be presented for sacrifice. Draw no nice lines and raise no quibbling questions, but look at your Lord as He is and bow before Him.”
–Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Spitting and the Shame,” in Twelve Sermons on the Passion and Death of Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1971), 133-134. Read online here: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/1486.htm.
