The Burden Loosed at the Cross

Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. 1 PETER 2:24

If you know one scene from The Pilgrim’s Progress, it is probably this one. It takes up barely half a page. Bunyan tells it with such plainness that a child can follow it, and yet it has comforted theologians and dying saints for three centuries. It is the still centre of the whole book.

Up the way called Salvation

Leaving the Interpreter’s house, Christian comes into a highway fenced on either side by a wall, and the wall is called Salvation. Up this way he runs, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back. He runs until he comes to a place somewhat ascending, and on that place stands a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre.

We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. ISAIAH 26:1

The burden falls of itself

Just as Christian comes up with the cross, his burden loosens from his shoulders, falls from his back, and begins to tumble, and goes on tumbling until it comes to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it falls in, and the dreamer sees it no more.

Every word counts. Christian does not untie the burden. He does not throw it off. He does not even pray for it to be removed at that moment. He comes to the cross, and it falls. Goodwill had told him, back at the gate, that it would fall from his back of itself at the place of deliverance, and so it does. The relief of guilt is not something we achieve by effort. It is something that happens when we come to Christ crucified.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. ISAIAH 53:4–5

And it goes into the sepulchre — into the tomb of Christ — and is seen no more. The burden is not merely set down by the road where Christian might pick it up again. It is buried. The dreamer looks for it and cannot find it.

As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. PSALM 103:12

Rest by His sorrow, life by His death

Christian’s first words are among the most beautiful Bunyan ever wrote: “He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death.” In a single sentence he has the whole doctrine of the atonement. Christ’s sorrow is my rest; Christ’s death is my life. There is an exchange at the heart of the gospel, and Christian feels it before he can explain it.

Then he stands still a while to look and wonder, for it is very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looks, and looks again, until the tears run down his cheeks. Bunyan puts Zechariah 12:10 in the margin: they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him.

And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him. ZECHARIAH 12:10

That is a lovely detail. The first response to forgiveness is not a theory but wonder, and the wonder is mixed with tears. Christian is glad and lightsome and merry of heart — and weeping. Joy and grief meet at the cross, as Bunyan says at the close of Grace Abounding: “of all joy, that is the sweetest that is mixed with mourning over Christ.”

The three Shining Ones

As Christian stands weeping, three Shining Ones come to him and greet him with, “Peace be to thee.” The first tells him that his sins are forgiven. The second strips off his rags and clothes him with a change of raiment. The third sets a mark on his forehead and gives him a roll with a seal on it, which he is to look on as he runs and to hand in at the celestial gate.

Bunyan has gathered here, in three simple gifts, the great blessings of the gospel. Forgiveness: the guilt is gone. New clothing: the filthy rags of his own righteousness are exchanged for the righteousness of Christ, as Joshua the high priest was stripped and clothed in Zechariah’s vision. The mark and the sealed roll: the seal of the Spirit and the assurance of acceptance, a certificate he can read on the road and present at the end.

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. PSALM 32:1

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise. EPHESIANS 1:13

Three leaps for joy

Then Christian gives three leaps for joy and goes on singing. His song asks what place this is, and whether this must be the beginning of his bliss, and blesses the cross, the sepulchre, and the Man who was put to shame for him.

The honest questions

There are two honest questions to set beside this scene.

First, why does the burden fall at the cross and not at the gate? Bunyan is describing experience, and his own experience was that assurance of forgiveness came some time after he had first come to Christ. Many believers are like that; many others are not, and find gate and cross in the same hour. The dream does not require a gap. What it requires is that the burden be lost at the cross and nowhere else — not at Legality’s house, not by sweeping the parlour.

Second, does the burden never come back? In the story it does not. But Christian will know fear, doubt and despair again; he will be beaten by Apollyon and imprisoned by Giant Despair. Bunyan knew that the guilt of sin, once buried in Christ’s tomb, is gone for ever, but that the feeling of assurance can come and go. The answer, when it goes, is always the same: go back to the cross and look again.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read Isaiah 53 slowly, aloud if you can, and stand still a while to look and wonder.

2. Write out Christian’s sentence — rest by His sorrow, life by His death — and put your own name in it.

3. Is there a sin you keep digging up again after Christ has buried it? Confess it once more, and then leave it in the sepulchre.

4. Consider the three gifts: forgiveness, new clothing, the seal. Which do you most need to believe today?

5. Find a way this week to express joy in your salvation — a song, a psalm, a gift, a word of thanks to someone.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, I came to Your cross with nothing but my burden, and You took it away. You gave me rest by Your sorrow and life by Your death.

Let me never grow used to that wonder. Let me look, and look again, until my heart is broken and glad together.

Clothe me in Your righteousness, seal me with Your Spirit, and let me read Your promise as I run.

And when my old guilt whispers again, bring me back to the cross and the empty tomb, where it was buried and is seen no more. Amen.