Zwemer - Glory of the Cross

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THE GLORY OF

THE CROSS

By

SAMUEL M. ZWEMER

Author of

"Tbinlcing Missions Witb Cbrist,"

,tf.

MARSHALL, MORGAN & SCOTT, LTD.

LONDON l'1ND BDINBURGH



PREFACE

WHEN the Portuguese traders, following the trail ofthe great explorer, Vasco da Gama, settled on thesouth coast of China, they built a massive Cathedralon a hill-crest overlooking the harbour. But aviolent typhoon proved too severe, and threecenturies ago the great building fell-all except thefront wall. That ponderous fa<;ade has stood as anenduring monument, while high on its triangulartop, clean cut against the sky, and defying rain,lightning and typhoon, is a great bronze cross.

When Sir John Bowring, then governor of HongKong, visited Macao in 182. j , he was so in1]Jressedby the scene that he wrote the famous hymnbeginning:-

" In the Cross of Christ I glory.Towering o'er th e wrecks of time,

All th e l ight of sacred storyGathers round it s head sublime:'

The builders of that ancient cathedral are

forgotten, but the cross they reared in memory ofthe Crucified remains. China has seen stupendouschanges, old inStitutions have crumbled anddynasties disappeared, but the Cross still stands." A great ruined wall on a misty hill-top; birdsnestling on its hideous gargoyles; the sea and themountains and the sky of China seen through itsgaping doors and windows; and over all the Cross,



PlUlFACB

changing desolation to majesty." So has it been inall lands and in all ages.

The missionary among Moslems (to whom theCross of Christ is a stumbling-block and the atonement foolishness) is driven daily to deeper medita

tion on this mystery of redemption and to a strongerconviction that here is the very heart of our messageand our mission. The secret of the missionarypassion.

I f the Cross ofChrist is anything to the mind, itis surely everything-themost profound reality andthe sublimest mystery. One comes to realize thatliterally all the wealth and glory of the gospelcentres here. The Cross is the pivot as well as thecentre of New Testament thought. It is theexclusive mark of the Christian faith, the symbol of

Christianity and its cynosure.The more unbelievers deny its crucial character,

the more do b e l i e v e ~ find in it the key to themysteries of sin and suffering. We rediscover theapostolic emphasis on the Cross when we read thegospel with Moslems. ~ ~ that a l ~ o u g h ~ offence of the Cross remaInS, ItS magnetic power IS

itresistible.The following chapters are the result ofmedita

tion on the passion of our Lord and His Death on

the Cross in the midst of men who deny thehistoricity of the crucifixion and the necessity of theatonement. But the Moslem is no t alone in hisdenial. The message of the Cross has always beenanoutrage and a scandal, a sUl?erfluity or foolishnessto the worldly-wise.. Yet it IS Christ on the Crosswhowill finally draw all men to Himself. Under theshadow of the Cross is rest and peace. The Glory

PREFACE

of the Cross is· as real as its Shame; and to meditateon the llhame is to see the glory. The ~ o s sinterprets sin and righteousness and love. It IS the

power of God and the wisdom of God. Its shadowIS the longelll: shadow in the world, because it fell

even on the Resurrection morning. "He showedthem His hands and His side." Old He ever showthem to you? Then were the disciples glad whenthey saw the scars of the Risen Lord. "Far be itfrom me .to glory save in the Cross of our LordJesus Christ through which the world hath beencrucified unto me and I unto the world."

.. There was a knight of Bethlehem.His wealth was tears and sorrows:

His men-at-a.nns were little lambs;

His trUmpeters were sparrows.His castle was a wooden crossOn which He hungon high;

His helmet was a crown of thornsWhose crest did touch the sky."

SAlWBL M. ZwmrnR.



•

CONTENTSPAGE

1.-" First of all . . . Christ died" II

11.-"We have not followed cunningly

devised fables" . . 2.3

m.-" They blindfolded Him " 35

IV.-" They bound Him" . . . "They

spat on Him" 47

V.-" They parted His garments among

them" 61

VI.-" My God, my God, why . . .?". . 71

VII.-" Behold the Lamb of God I " 81

VIII.-" They . . . Crucified the Lord of

Glory" 95

IX.-" He showed them His Hands" 109

X.-" ThePower ofHis Resurrection". . 119



ff As tlu,e is only One God so there can be only one Gospel.IfGod has t',ally done something in Christ on which the salvationof the world depends, and i f He h as made it known, then it is aChristian duty to be intolerant of everything which ignores, denies,O'f explains it away. The man who pervert s it is the worst enemyof God and men.. and it is not bad temper or narl'ow-mindednessin St. Paul whi<h e"plains this vehement language (Gal. i. 8). itis the jealousy of God which has kindled in a soul redeemed by

the death of Christ a correspooding jealousy for the Saviour.IntoteYance like this is an essential element in the true religion.Intolerance in this sense has its counte,part in c o m p r e h e n s i o n ~ 'it is when we have the only gospel, and not t il l then, that we havethe gospel for all ."-JAMES DENNEY in The Death of Christ.

'0

CHAPTER I

"FIRST OF ALL •. ' .

CHRIST DIED"

" I DELIVERED unto you first of all," says St. Paulin the First Episde to the Corinthian Church," that which I also received, that Christ died for oursins, according to the Scriptures." The attentivereader will note from the context (as Dr. Moffattdoes most emphatically in his translation) that this isthe heart or Paul's message, the centre of histeaching, his one and only gospel. In the translationmentioned, the word gospel is repeated fout times in

introducing the statement of what the good newsreally is. Paul says he received it not primarily andonly from members of the primitive ChUrch, but bydirect revelation (Gal. i. Ij-19). That Church,therefore, as well as Paul himself, believed that thefirst and fundamental truth of Chrifuanity was thedeath ofChrist for out sin,s; and Paul must havereceived and taught this truth within seven years-according to other chronologies, within even ashorter period-llfter the death of Jesus.

The Greek word translated " first of all" canalso be rendered" before all," or at the forefront ofall truth. The same phrase is used in the Septuagintwhere Jacob places the two maid-servants and theirchildren in the first rank (Gen. xxxiii. z) and whereDavid promises a high reward (z Sam. v. 8) to.. whosoever smiteth the Jebusites first."

The death ofChrist on theCross is to Paulof theII



IZ THE GI,.ORY OF THE CROSS

first importance and the weightie§t article of hisfaith. It is fundamental. It is the keystone of thearch, the cornerstone of the temple of truth. Thatthis.is true is evident from the place the death ofChIlSt occupies in the Scriptures, in the apostolicm e s ~ a g e , in the liturgies of the two sacraments asadlIlln1stered by all branches of the Church and inthe earli,est as ~ e l l as the l ~ t e § t ChIistian hymnody.The eVIdence IS cumulatIve and overwhelming.The. ? : o ~ s is. n,ot ,only ~ h universal symbol ofChIIStIaruty, It IS Its uruversal and unmistakablemessage. It is the very heart of the gospel-theword quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edgedsword; for nothing convicts of sin like the Cross.There we can see" our secret sins in the light of Hiscountenance" whose eyes are as a flame of fire

Listen to BishopLance10tAndrewes as he pours o u his heart in private devotion before the Cross :-

.. Thou who didst deign that Thy glorious head should hewounded :

F o r g i ~ e thereby wbatsoever by the senses of my head I bavesmned;

That,Thy boly hands should be pierced:FOrglve thereby whatever I have done amissBy unlawful touch. or uuIawful act;That Thy precious side should be opened:Forgive thereby whatever I have offendedBy lawless thoughts in the ardour of passion;

That Thy blessed feet should he riven:Forgive thereby whatever I have doneBy the means of feet swift to evil ;That Thy whole body should be exteuded :Forgive thereby whatever iniquity I have committedBy the help of any of my members.And I too, 0 Lord, am wouuded in soul;Behold the multitude, th e length, the breadth, the depth ofmy

wounds;And by Thine heal mine."

FIRST OF ALL ... CHRIST DIED 13

The Closs of ChIist is the searchlight of God.It reveals God's love and man's sin; God's power,and man's helplessness, God's holiness and man'spollution. As the altar and propitiation are " firstof all " in the Old Testament, so the Cross and the

Atonement are" first of all" in the New. There isa straight line from every point in the circumferenceof a circle to the centre. So the Old Testament andthe New Testament doctrine of salvation in all itswide circumference and with all it includes of a newheart and a new society, and a new heaven and a newearth, leads back in a straight line to the centre ofall-The Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.

Consider the place the story of the Crucifixion

occupies in the New T.estament. It is mentioned inevery book save in wee short episdes, Philemonand the Second and Third of John. The synopticgospels devote more space proportionately to itthan to any other aspect of ChIist's life or teaching.Matthew (not to speak of the many passages whereChIist's death is foretold) relates the tragedy in twolong chapters of one hundred and forty-one verses.Mark gives one hundred and nineteen verses to thestory; two chapters and they are the longest out ofsixteen. Luke also devotes two long chapters to

describe the arrest and crucifixion. Nearly one halfof John's Gospel deals with passion week.

In the Book of Acts all the preaching centres inthe death and resurrection of our Lord. This is the" Good News." "He showed Himself alive afterHis passion " (i. 3). The climax of Peter's sermonat Pentecost was Jesus "delivered up by thedeterminatecounsel and the foreknowledge ofGod,"



THE GLORY OF THE CROSS

aucified and slain "by the hand oHawless men."" This Jesus whom ye aucified Godhathmade bothLord and Christ" (ii. 36). Again, in the temple,Peter has the same message: "Ye asked for amurderer ... and killed the Prince of Life."

" All the prophets," Peter claims, "foreshadowedthat Christ would suffer," but " God raised up Hisservant and sent Him to bless you in turning awayevery one of you frotI!- your iniquities" (iii. 18, 2.6).The next day he came back to the theme, " Jesus ofNazareth whom ye aucified" (iv. 10). In the firstritual prayer of the early Church (iv. 2.7) there isagain reference to the passion and death of " Thyholy servant Jesus." The result of such a messag-eh expressed in words that leave no doubt as to Itscontent: "Ye have £lied Jerusalem with yourteaching and intend to bring this man's blood uponus" (v. 2.8). But the apostles answered, " Jesuswhom ye slew, hanging Him on a tree ... Godexalted to be a Prince and a Saviour." Stephen'sdefence had for its peroration the death of Jesus ;followed by his own swift martyrdom (vii. 51-54).Philip opened his mouth and, from J,aiah liii, hepreached the death of Christ to the Ethiopianeunuch. as the good tidings (viii. 35). Comeliusreceived the same message about One" whom they

slew, hanging Him on a tree, whom God raised upthe third day" (x. 40). Paul at Antioch tells ofJesus "who suffered under Pontius Pilate, wasaucified, dead and buried and on the third day roseagain from the dead" (Acts xiii. 2.8, 2.9). At Thessalonica for three sabbaths Paul reasoned fromthe Old Testament Scriptures "that it behovedthe Christ to suffer" and rise again (xvii. 13). At

. FIRST OF ALL . . . CHRIST DIED 15

Athens he }'reached the death and resurrection of, Christ (xvi!. 31); at Corinth he "determined to

know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him aucified."He uses as synonyms for the gospel, " Theword ofthe Cross" (I Cor. i. 18) or ,. the word of

Reconciliation" (2 Cor. v. 19). Festus describesPaul's message as being concemed about "oneJesus who was dead and whom Paul affirmed to beilive" (Acts xxv. 19). In his defence beforeFestus, Paul says that he has no other message, .. tosmall and great, and saying nothing but what theprophets and Moses did say should come, how thatthe Christ must suffer and how that He first, by theresurrection of the dead, should proclaim light bothto the, people and to the Gentiles" (xxvi. zz, 2.3).

In the Epistles of Paul we are embarrassed bythe wealth of evidence and the abundance of proofthat his one message was the Cross and the Atonement. He had been preaching this good news for££teen years before any of his New Testamentepistles were written. We cannot discover anychange of em}'hasis between the earliest and thelatest epistles 1p this respect. It is the heart of hismessage to the Romans as to the Thessalonians.To theGalatian Church he mentions in his }'rologuethat .. Jesus Christ gave Himselffor our sms," and

(after a few sentences) he bursts out with indignation: "Though we or an angel from heavenpreacha gospel to you contravening the gospel which wepreached let him be anathema." That Calvary andnot Bethlehem is the focus of Paul's gospel isevident from all his e]?istles. The incarnation wasin order that there mIght be an atonement. TheCross is supreme and aucial to God, to man, and



16 ITHE GLORY OF THE CROSS FIRST OF ALL ... CHRIST DIED 17

to the universe. "Whilewewere yet sinners Christdied for us all." "Who is he that condemneth?It is Christ that died." " We preach Christcrucified . . ; because the foolishness of God iswiser than men, and the weakness of God isstronger than men." "The Church of God (is)purchased by His blood." All Christians when they(!rink the Cup are "to proclaim the Lord's deathtill He come." "Far be it from me to glory save inthe Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whichthe world hath been crucified unto me and I untothe world." Christ is "the Beloved in whom wehave our redemption through His blood." This isthe mystery of the ages, the manifold wisdom ofGod, and revealed to principalities and powersthrough the Church. Those who are " the enemies

of the Cross ofChrist," Paul tells us with tears, gloryin their shame and their end is perdition. In allt h i n ~ Christ must have the pre-eminence becauseHe 1S our redemption and the forgiveness of oursins (Col. i. 18) through the blood of His Cross.The Cross is the centreof the universe and of history.It will yet witness the reconciliation of all thingsupon the earth or things in the heavens through Hisblood (Col. i. :Lo).

In the Epistle to the Hebrews the death of

Christ (Himself the priest, the victim and the altar)is so prominent that we need give no references.He is the great high priest " once at the end of theages manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice ofHimself." The blood of Jesus is the blood of thecovenant. Jesus is the author and the finisher of ourfaith because He endured the Cross. His blood ofsprinkling speaketh better than that of Abel-it is

the blood of an eternal covenant, shed by the greatshepherd of the sheep.

lleter's epistles echo his earliest preaching andare full of references to the lnlfferings ofChrist" whohis own self bare our sins in his body on the tree

". . . by whose stripes we were healed" (I Pet. ii.24). Finally, in John's epistle and in the Revelation,the Cross is still supreme. Through it Jesus Christis " the propitiation for our sins, and not for oursonlybut also for the whole world." "He laid downHis life for us and we ought to lay down our livesfor the brethren." "Unto Him that loved us andloosed us from our sins by his blood . . . be thewory apd the dominion for ever and ever, Amen."•Behold He" cometh with clouds and every eyeshall see Him, and they that pierced Him."

The two sacraments that are accepted by theEastern and Western Churches both have directreference to the death of Christ for our sins. Thisis evident not only from the words of theirinstitution in the New Testament but from the manyliturgies used in their administration. Here, again,we may say that" first of all " they teach Christ'satoning death. Baptism is. the rite of initiationinto the Christian Church. The New Testamentnowhere speaks of unbaptized Christians, and these

primitive oelievers knew what Paul meant when hesaid that all those "who were baptized werebaptized into His death." The remission of sinsand baptism were closely associated in their mindswith the water and the blood that flowed fromChrist's riven side. Both sacraments were intendedto convey the message of the gospel in unmistakablesymbolism. As long as they hold their place in the

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18 THE GLORY OF THE CROSSFIRST OF ALL ... CHRIST DIED

Church they are, in s ~ i t e of all that has been addedby ritual and superStition, a witness to the savingsignificance of ChIist's death, its vicarious nature,its necessity, and its cmcial character. The earlyChurch " continued steadfast in the breaking of thebread" because by it they desired to proclaim

ChIist's death and the forgiveness of sins thIoughI-;Iis blood. It is the co=union of His body andblood (I COl. x. 16), the shaling of His spirit(I Cor. xii. 13), the remission of sins (Matt. xxvi. z8),the blotting out of debts (Col. ii . 14), the cleansingof all stains (Heb. ix. 14). This made the breaking ofbread so precious to the early Church and to all theChurches for nineteen centuries.

When we turn flOm liturgy to hymnology wehave the same testimony. In the earliest Latin and

Greek hymns, in those of the Coptic and ArmenianChurches, as well as in those of the Churches of theReformation, the Cross is "first of all," and thepassion of our Lord the inspiration. It is in thehymns of the Church that we find a unity and adepth of theology that is sometimes absent even inthe creeds.

"Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain toreceive power and riches andwisdom and might andhonour and glory and blessing." The Lamb is inthe midst of the thIone. Every created thing joinsin the Hallelujah ChOIUS.

Little children in many lands and languages singthe very heart of the gospel :-

If Jesus-loves me, He who diedHeaven's gate to open wide.He will wash awaymy ein.Let His little child come in."

It is the same message that the great mystic,St. Bernard, put in glorious lines : _

.. Propter mortem quam tulistiQuando pro me defecistiCordis meicor dilectumIn te meum fer affectum."

What a l ~ r g e proportion of the hymns of theChurchare paSSlon hymns or an interpretation of theatonement made on the Cross 1 Who can forgetthe rendering into so many languages of " 0 Hauptvoll Bltlt lind Wllnden " or the pathos of its melody assung by German ChIiW.ans? The Stabat MatlrDolorosa belongs not to the Latin Church but to alltrue believers who have stood beside Mary at theCross. "Just as I am without one plea," " When I

survey the wondrous ClOSS," " There is a fountainfilled with blood," " Rock of ages cleft for me " _and many others familiar to us all, make Ctu=ist'sdeath the great t h e m ~ . "Jesus paid it all," " Whatcan wash away my SUl? Nothing but the blood ofJesus."

. . Nothing in my hand I hring,S.mply t o Thy Cross I cling;Naked come to Thee for dressHelpless look to Thee for g r a c ~ ;Foul I to th e fountain fiy,Wash me. Saviour, or I die."

I f J ~ s u s of Nazareth were merely man and not,as J:Ie lS, the Son of God and our Saviour, HistraglC de!1th would still be the greatest event inhuman history. The wealth of detail given in thec o n t ~ m f ' 0 r a n e o u s records of His s u f f e r i n ~ andcmcifixion; the dreadful accompaniments Ul therealm of nature; the seven words from the Cross',



20 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS

the effect on those who saw it and on all ages andall nations,-all these clearly indicate its universaland cosmic import. We must not shift theemphasis. The supreme event in the life of Jesus,and to Jesus Himself, was His death on the Cross

for sin. The words of James Denney are none toostrong: " I f the atonement, quite apart fromprecise definitions of it, is af!Ything t o the mind it is

everything. It is the most profound of all truths andthe most creative. It determines more thananything else our conception of God, of man, of 'history, and even of nature. It determines them, forwe must bring them all in some way into accordwith it. I t is the inspiration of all thought, the keyin the last resort to all suffering. The Atonement is

a reality of such a sort that It can make no compromise. For the modern mind, therefore, as forthe ancient, the attraction and the repulsion ofChristianity are concentrated in the same point .The Cross of Christ is man's only glory or it is hisfinal stumbling-block."

•



.. The Christian religion is a m atter of living, not of mereintellectual knowledge; and' tke just shall live by faith.' Ye t itis no t without i ts value to have the tf'uth of the concomitantcircumstances demonstrated. One must remember that Chris-tianity did not originate in a lie, and that we can and ought todemonstrate this, as well as believe it. The account which it gives

of its own origin is susceptible of being tested on tke pyinciples ofhistorical study, and through the progress of discovery the truth of

that account can be, and has been. in great part p ro ve d. Th er e is,however, mote to do. The evidence is there if we look for i t ."-

SIR WILLIAM M. RAMSAY in Recent Discovery and the Trust-worthiness of the New Testament.

..

CHAPTER II

"WE DID NOT FOLLOW CUNNINGLY DEVISEDFABLES"

THOSE who believe the record God gave ofHis Sonin the Gospels do not doubt the facts there related.They have the witness of the Spirit that the recordis true. They knowwith Peter that all the incidentsgiven of the passion and death of our Lord and Hisglorious resurrection are not "cunningly devised

fables." Peter was an eye-witnessof

the sufferingsof Christ, and Mark was His disciple. John tells ofwhat he heard and saw and witnessed and touchedwith his own hands (1 John i. 1). Matthew was oneof the twelve. Luke tells us how carefully hesought out eye-witnesses for his account " that wemight know the solid truth."

In an age of doubt and historical criticism,however, we must face those who deny the gospelrecords, both their authenticity and their reliabilIty.Some tell us Jesus Christ is a myth and the incidents

of His life story are literally "cunningly devisedfables" which have their origin in the earlier andrival superrutions of Rome and Greece and Egy;pt.The early Gnostics denied the actual death of Christfor dogmatic reasons. The Koran categoricallystates that Jesus was neither killed nor crucified:.. God hath stamped on them (the Jews) theirunbelief for their saying, Verily we have killed the

&3




Messiah Jesus, the Son ofMary, theApostle ofGod;but they did not kill him, they did not crucify himbut a similitude was made for them" (iv. 156).Basing their unbelief on this passage and itsinterpretation by Moslem theologians and com

mentators, orthodox Islam has always denied thehiStoricity of the cruci£xion of Jesus. The commonbelief is that it was Judas Iscariot who suffered thepenalty and that God delivered Jesus from thiscruel death by casting a spell over His persecutors.There are many differences of interpretation but allMoslems agree that Jesus did not die on the Cross.He did not die for our sins. He never arose fromthe dead. His exit from this world to the next wasnot by way of the Cross.

The theory of Strauss and other rationalists that

Jesus' body was taken from the Cross before actualdeath took place and that He revived from thespices in the tomb was eagerly adopted by themodem sect of Ahmadiyas in the Punjaub. Theirleader, Ghulam Ahmed of Qadian, found the sametheory of a resuscitated Jesus the Nazarene, whotravels to India and becomes a teacher there, in abook called" The Unknown Life of Christ," by theRussian novelist Nonovitch. Later he discoveredthe tomb of Jesus in Kashmir and proclaimed

h,imself the new Messiah 1 By eager and cleverpropaganda this sect has Iilled the whole Moslemworld with this new gospel of an Anti-Christ. TheIrish novelist, George Moore, in "The BrookKerith," imagines that Jesus did not really die onthe Cross but ouly swooned-to recover and carryon a wider ministry of social service. So thesetheoriSts at home, and millions of the followers of

•

WE DID NOT FOLLOW ...•

Mohammedabroad, the la-.:er indeedon theauthority.of Allah's revelation, deny that which we believe isprimal and supreme in our message. How shall webe prepared to give them an answer for the faith andthe hope that is in us? We were not eye-witnesses.

" We did no t see Thee lifted highAmid that wild and savage crew,

Nor heard Thy meek imploring cry,Forgive, they know not what they do :

Yet we believe the deed was doneWhich shook th e earth and veiled the sun,"

Why dowe believe it ? Faithmust rest on evidence;and the evidence is overwhelming. It will strengthenour faith to study this fact.To begin with, the death of Jesus on the Cross

was not unexpected but had been clearly foretold

in Jewish prophecy and thefate of such" a righteousman" hinted by Plato. The s u f f e r i n ~ servant ofJehovah in Isaiah, the great MeSSIanic psalmportraying the death of Jesus, the details of Christ'sbetrayal and of His death in other p r o p h e c i e s ~these are commonplaces to the student of theScriptures. The great coming event had cast itsshadow long before. "Behold the Lamb of God,"said John the Baptist; and in these words he sums.up all the significance of theOld Testament teaching

that without the shedding of blood there is noretnission of sin and that the Lamb of God must beslain for the sin of the world. The key to the OldTestament is lost when we deny that " Jesus diedf6r our sins according to the Scriptures." Nay, thekey is lost to the mystery of Blood-sacrifices as apropitiation for human sin among all races and inevery age.




" He was wounded for our transgressions; Hewas bruised for our iniquities; by His stripes weare healed." Those words were written only alittle earlier than the time of Plato, 429 B.C. In hisPo/ilia (VoL IV., p. 74) he tells us of such a

sacrificial redeemer as the world needs to restoreril>hteousness: "The perfectly righteous man, whowlthout doing any wrong may assume the appearance of the grossest injustice; yea, who shall bescourged, fettered, tortured, deprived of his eyesight, and after having endured all possiblesufferings, fastened to a post, must restore again thebeginning and prototype of righteousness." It isimmaterial to ask whence Plato got his idea of ajust man suffering for the unjust to bring them backto God. The idea is there, almost as distinct as inIsaia1l's divine message. No one could live aperfectly righteous life without being a man of

sorrows, despised, rejected, crucified. 'The death on the Cross was not an unexpected

tragedy to Jesus Himself. It was not a disappointment and an eclipse of His hopes. On the contraryHe saw that it was inevitable and repeatedlyannounced the certainty of the dread event . Fromthe outset of His ministry He saw the approachingshadow. At His baptism, He who knew no sin,

numbered Himself with the transgressors. Hedefined discipleship at the outset as cross-bearing.After the confession of His Messia1lship and " fromthat time, Jesus b e ~ a n to show to His disciples thatHe must go up to )erusalem and be killed." "The

Son of Man is delIvered up into the hands of menand they shall kill Him, and when He is killed, afterthree days He shall rise again," That which

WE DID NOT FOLLOW.

.characterised the last months of our Lord's life,according to the synoptic gospels, was a deliberateand thrice repeated attempt to teach His dulldisciples the certainty and the significance of His

approaching violent death.

The details of the crucifixion recorded by thosewho were, in some cases, eye-witnesses, leave nodoubt of the actnal death. They certify to it in themost solemn 'Way as if to anticipate any futureunbelief of the fact. "Jesus uttered a loud cry andgave up the ghost . . . and when the centurionwho stood over against Him saw that He so gaveup the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Sonof God" (Mark xv. 37). John relates how" oneof the soldiers with a spear pierced His side andstraightway there came out blood and water."Then he adds, "He that hath seen hath bornewitness and his witness is true, and he knoweth thathe saith true that ye also may believe." These arenot the words of one who is credulous or selfdeceived. The centurion officially reported the factand confumed Jesus' death to Pilate (Mark xv. 44).Joseph of Arimathea laid the dead Christ in thetomb and there Mary Magdalene and Mary, Hisown mother, saw Him, dead (Mark xv. 47).

Not a single writer in the New Testament but

tells of the actual death of 1esus; not a single voiceis heard in all the record of the Book ofActs raisingany doubt that Jesus was crucified. Not until thel a ~ s e of centuries had men the audacity to doubtthis historic fact and teach their cunuingly devisedfables. After relentless criticismof the documents, ascholar such as Rabbi Joseph Klausner, in his recentbook on Jesus of Nazareth, concludes that the



28 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS WE DID NOT FOLLOW.

synoptic gospels are reliable records and that Jesusliveaand died as they relate. _

Some years ago Samuel E. Stokes collected theevidence -of Jewish and Pagan writers to theauthenticity of the Christian records and possiblythere are those who will give ear to Pliny, Tacitus,Lucian, and Josephus, or even to Celsus, becausethey are all outsiders, in corroboration of the gospelwhich they doubt. Tacitus in recording theburning of Rome (A.D. 64), and of how Nero triedto turn suspicion from himself, says: "Soto stiflethe report, Nero put in his own place as culprits,and punished with every refinement of cruelty, themen whom the common people hated for theirsecret crimes. They called them Christians. Christfrom whom the name was given, had been put to

death in the reign of Tiberius by the procuratorPontius Pilate, and the pestilent superStition checkedfOr a while. Afterwards it began to break outafresh not only in Judea, where the mischief firstarose, but also in Rome, where all sorts of murderand filthy shame meet together and becomefashionable. In the first place, then, some wereseizedandmade to confess, then on their informationa vast multitude were convicted, not so much ofarson as of hatred of the human race. And they

were not only put to death, but put to death withinsults, in that they were dressed up in the skins ofbeasts to perish by the worrying of dogs, or else puton crosses to be set on fire, and when the daylightfailed, to be burnt for use as lights by night"("Annales " xv. 44).

Lucian of Samosata (bom A.D. 100), in his " TheDeath of Peregrinus," states: "The Christians

. still worship that great man who was crucifiedin Palestine because He introduced into thevorld this new religion. . . . These wretched

. people haye persuaded themselves that they areabsolutely deathless, andwill live for ever,fo r whichreason they think slightly of death, and manywillingly surrender themselves. And then theirfirst lawgiver has persuaded them 'that they are allbrothers one of another, when once they havetransgressed and renounced the gods of the Greeks,a;nd wprshipped that.crucified Sophist of theirs, andlive. according to His laws."

The two famous passages in the "Antiquities "of Josephus are well known and are probablygenuine. In any case the whole history of Josephuscorroborates the hiStorical setting of the gospel.

"Herod the great, Archelaus his son, HerodAntipas, Herodias, her daughter Salome, Johnthe Baptist, Annas (Ananus), Caiaphas (Caiphas).Pontius Pilate, Felix, and his Jewish wife, Drusilla,Porcius Festus, Herod A ~ r i p p a , Bernice, Phariseesand Sadducees, all appear lJ l the history of Josephus,and appear in the same relations to each other as wefind them holding in the narrative of the NewTestament." .

Celsus, the Epicurean, was one of the most

bitter opponents of Christianity, about A.D. 170.In his book entitled "The True Discourse," asquoted by Origen in his reply, Celsus "scoffinglyalludes to the agony of Christ, and quotes him assaying: •Oh Father, if it be possible let this cuppass from me'; He calls Christ • the crucifieaJesus,' and speaks of those who slew Him as • thosewho crucified your God.' He attacks the Christian




belief that Christ • endured these sufferings for thebenefit of mankind ' and attempts to disprove thereality of the Resurrection of Christ. He refers tothe angels who appeared at the tomb of Jesus andspeaks of the angel rolling away the stone from thetomb. He tries to show the foolishness of theChristian belief in the resurrection of the body andlaughs at the Christians for saying, • The world iscrucified unto me, and I unto the world,''' Thistestimony to the death and resurrection of our Lordfrom an enemy of the gospel is very significant(" The Gospel According to the Jews and Pagans,"by Samuel Stokes, p. 48).

We cannot help conclude that i f there is evidencefor any event in humanhistory it is for the crucifixionof Jesus Christ. Corroborative testimony is also

found in the ingtitution of the Lord's Supper and inthe observance of the Lord's Day. The breakingofthe bread and the partaking of the cup go back tothe night in which Jesus was betrayed. He Himselfinstituted this sacrament, and itsuniversalobservanceby the whole Christian Church, in spite of thediversities in liturgies and in interpretations of therite, is indirect but convincing proof of the death ofJesus. Such an unbroken tradition is a species ofhi§toric evidence that cannot be gainsaid. Just as

we might use the celebration of the Muharram daytragedy in Islam as proof for the death of Hussain,the martyr of Kerbela, were historic documentsabsent.

Jesus said He was" Lord also of the sabbath,"and proved it by the fact that after His death andrising again the Church immediately began toobserve the first day of the week instead of the

WE DO NOT FOLLOW ...

Jewish seventh day; so the Lord's Day itself isproof of the Lord's death and resurrection. Everyo?,e. of. the great non-Christian religions has itsdistlOcnve symbol, the lotus bud, the swastika, thecrc:scent, etc. .The C r o s ~ is the symbol of ChristianIty. How did that which was a sign of degrada

tion, shame, reproach, guilt, and the agony ofhelplessness, become the symbol of honour, valourmercy and compassionate helpfulness? There is n explanation except through Him who hung on theCross for us and redeemed us and it from the curse.

Finally, i f there be any who still doubt thehi§toricity of the central fact of the New Testamentteaching, we have the witness of the catacombs andof the earliest Christian monuments. These stoneswith their symbolism and references to the Cross

cry out that Jesus died for our sins according to theScriptures.In the correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson

we read that the latter on one occasion recalled somewords spoken by Carlyle at their first interview:"Christ died on the tree: that built DunscoreKirk yonder: that brought you and me together.Time has only a relative existence,"

What need have we of further evidence forfai th? The credulity of unbelief could go to no

greaterl e n ~

that in the theories it has advanced todeny the historicity of Christian teaching on the lifeand death of our Lord and His resurrection.

.Jesus died and rose again according to theScrIptures. The prophets foretold His death. The

. apostles recorded it. All Scripture converges upontlie Atonement. To a dying Saviour and a risenLord bear all the Scriptures witness. The funda-




mental and omnipresent theme that is at the heart ofthe Bible message is the answer to the question, howshall a sinful man be righteous before God? Andthe answer is, through the atoning death of Christ.There is no other way. There is no other gospel.I f this be false, our faith, that is our whole Chris-

tianity, is vain: because the only good news wehave is that Jesus died for our sins and rose againfor our justification.

.. We stood not by the empty tomb

Where late Thy sacred body lay,Nor sat within the upper room,

Nor met Thee in the open way;But we believe the angels said.Why seek the living with th e dead? ..



" By Thy sweat bloody and olotted I Thy soul in agony,Thy head crowned w}-th thorns, bruised with staves,

Thine eyes a jount,!,,,,n of tears,Thine ears full of ' m s u l t ~ , .Thy mouth moistened W1th vmegar and gail,Thy face stained with sPittmg,Thy neok bowed down with the

!>urde':.%fthe ~ r o s i f s ' t h e . .ourge

Thy back ploughed with t.... wheals a,... wounso.

Thy pierced hands and feet,Thy swong 01'y, Eli, Eli,Thy heart pieroed with the sPear,The water and blood thence jlOW1ng.Thy body broken, Thy blood poured out --

Lord forgiv. the iniquity of Thy servant

A."a mvsr aU his sin.'> LANCELOT ANDREWES.

34

CHAPTER II I

" AND THEY BLINDFOLDED HIM"

(l.tIke xxii. 64; Mark xiv. 65 ; Miltt. xxvi. 68.)

HISTORICALLY speaking, the passion of Christ isentire!y in the past. He died for sin once and diethno more; death hath no more dominion over Him.But mystically the passion of Christ is ever present.Mystically it takes place in the core of humanityover and over again. We crucify Him afresh.

Jesus Christ is constantly being betrayed, forsaken,de11ied, blindfolded, spat upon, scoutged, mocked,and then crucified.

Every incident in the story of His sutfering istypical. In a mystical sense we were all there when" He died for Out sins according to the Scriptutes."I was crucified with Christ. " Horatius Bonar

speaks truly for each one of us :

.. 'Twas I that shed the sacred blood,I nai led Him to th e tree;

I cruciJied the Christ of God,I joined the mockery.

Of al l that shoutiug multitudeI feel that I am one;

And in that din of voices rudeI recognize my own.

Around th e Cross the throng I see ,Mocking th e Sufferer's groan ;

Yet stillmy voice it seems to beAs if I mocked alone."

3S




.. And the men that held Jesus mockedHim, andbeat him. And they blindfolded himand asked himsaying, Prophesy: who is he that struck thee?".. And some began to spit on him and to cover hisface andto buffethim and to say untohim, Prophesy.

And the officers received him with blowsof

theirhands."The great painters have put on canvas every

detail of the story of the Passion week save this. .Yet the scene is so typical and so terribly tragic thatone wonders why no artist's brush has made theattempt to portray its deep and lasting significance.It is in the courtyard of the palace of Caiaphas, veryearly before the morning dawn. Full moonlight£leods the scene and the blaze of an open fire thathas been kindled throws fitful lights and shadows

across the court. The blindfolded Christ seated inthe midst of a group filled with blind hatred. Theservants of the Sanhedrin, the hirelings of the highpriest; and all of them probably were Jews ofChrist's own race. Some knew Him and had heardHis words. They had witnessed His miracles. Inthe garden they shrank from His glance. Now theyblindfold Him and mock Him. What darknessbrooded over hearts that could do this or endureseeing it done 1 What insensibility to love and

truth; what blindness to the beauty of holiness;what reprobateminds and seared consciences I Andthis they did to Jesus of Nazareth who in Jerusalemhad opened the eyes of one bom blind. Theyblindfolded Him. Was Malchus among them?Did Caiaphas take part ? Did Peter see anything ofit before he went out and wept bit terly? Afterwards he wrote of that terrible night when he stood

AND THEY BLINDFOLDED HIM H

and warmed himself-but his soul shivered-bythe fire:- .

. . Christ suffered. . . neither was guile found inhismouth. . . he was reviled and revlled not a ~ when he suffered he threatened not but cOlIUIllttedhis cause to him that judgeth righteously . . . bywhose stripes ye were healed." Yes, Peter must haveseen it , at least from afar; the shame and agony ofit smote his heart. The last look of Jesus beforeHewas blindfolded was on Peter, who also had deniedHim before these very servants.

However brief the record, we can read betweenthe lines the cowardice, the cruelty, and the unreasonableness of their hatred toward the Saviour.Why did i t occur to them to blindfold Jesus? Wasit not because His eyes were filled with such a holy

wonder at their unbelief, eyes full of compassion fortheir ignorance and yet £lashing with a light thatsmote their consciences like a £lame of fire. Theycould not bear to look Him in the face and so, asMark says, when .. some began to spit on him,"others .. covered his face and began to buffet him."Their cowardice was only matched by their hatred.They smote Him. They mocked Him. "Andmany other things spake they against him revilinghim." And their hatred was unreasonable. They

demanded evidence where no evidence was needed.They thought to degrade prophecy to the level ofmind-reading and by blows inflicted on the helplessand blindfolded )?risoner have Christ point out

. ~ ~ indiyidual gUllt of their corporate blasphemy.Who 1S he that struck thee? Prophesy." It was

not an individual that smote Him, it was the race ;it was humanity. "He was smitten of God atld



THE GLORY OF THE CROSS AND THEY BLINDFO;LDED HIM 39

aflIicted andwehid as it wereour faces fromHim"-or, when we could not hide our faces we coveredHis face and blindfolded Him.

All the age-long cowardice of infidelity andunbelief is typified in this incident. Somemen havealways been afraid, and therefore unwilling, to lookChrist in the face. Men tr y to escape Jesus inhistoryby declaring that the story is a myth ; or theyrefuse to look Him full in the face. How manypopular hMtories and school text-books blindfoldJesus by an apologetic paragraph utterly inadequateto the subject.

Unbelief blindfolds the Bible by closing itscovers, preventing its message from reachingchildhood or abandoning it on the shelf, a " classicwhich every one talks about but no one reads."

Men blindfold Christ in the pulpit or in the press,and then mock His prophetic office and Messianicglory. When infidelity and agnosticism haveblindfolded the Saviour· then they strike Him in theface. Voltaire, Nietzsche, Renan, Bebel, Paine,Ingersoll, and others, like them in mind and heartalthough not in notoriety, all agreed to first blindfoldJesus before they denied His deity; to hide Hisface before they smote His glory.

Thegnir, the birthplace of Renan, is an old

monastic town with an earnestlyr e l i ~ o u s

population. It stands on a hill overlooking the riverJaudy. On the quay, visible at once to everytraveller, is a white Calvary in stone with life-sizedfigures and the words in three languages at the footof the central cross: "Truly this was the Son ofGod." The Calvary, we are told, was erected as aprotest against the honour conferred on Renan

when his statue was erected in the cathedral squareof his birthplace. .

It is painful to read the gospel record of thisblindfolded Christ, but more of how men haveblindfolded Him again and again for nineteencenturies and then mocked Him. What could besadder than the 'Words of Nietzsche and moreblasphemous: "The gospel died on the cross,"said he, "that which thenceforward was called

gospel was the reverse of that gospel which Christhad lived. It was evil tidings, a dysangel."Although Nietzsche is at times very indulgenttoward Christ and rarely hurls his invectives against" this founder of a little Jewish sect," he hates thevery name of Christianity and of Paul as exponentof its gospel.

The hatred of unbelief is as evident to-day as itwas in the judgment hall ofCaiaphas. Men cannotleave the Christ alone. His face rivets attention.His eyes are a flame of fire. He draws or repels men;as He did then, so now.

.. Is this th e Face that thrills with awe

Seraphs who veil their face above?

Is this the Face without a flaw.The Face that is the Face of Love ?

Yea, this defaced, lifeless clodHath all creation's love snfliced,

Hath satisfied the love of God,This Face, the Face of Jesns Chri.t."

The Old Testament saints longed to see God'sglory in the face of His anointed. This was Moses'r.rayer and David's hope and Isaiah's longin&,, How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? '" Make thy face to shine upon thy servant." "Turn



4° THE GLORY OF THE CROSS AND THEY BLINDFOlDED HIM

not away the face of thine anointed." "Hide not

thy face from me lest I become like them that go

down into thepit." When Isaiah sawHis glory andspoke ofHis suffering he foretold the tragedy of thisawful day. " I gave my back to the smiters andmy

cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid notmy face from shame and spitting ." "A man of

sorrows and acquainted with grief and as one fromwhom tnen hide their faces he was despised." "Butyour iniquities have separated between you and yourGod and your sins have hid his face from you ."" TheyblindfoldedHim " ; thus theword perhaps isfulfilled that was spoken by Isaiah, "Who is blindbut my servant or deaf as my messenger that Isend? Who is blind as he that is made perfect andblind as Jehovah's servant ? "

When we meditate on such words we begin torealize what it meant for Jesus to be blindfoldedand so to experience on Himself and in Himself allthe unreasonableness and blindness of wilfulunbelief, toward God and His messengers. The

incredulity ofunbelief is not of yesterday. All downthe centuries men have demanded proof from thosewho witnessed for God such as they demand fornothing else under heaven. Have faith in Christ :Where are His miracles, what signs does He work?

Why should we believe His word? When haveHis prophecies been fulfilled? "Who hath believedour report and to whom is the arm of the Lordrevealed? "

We turn our faces away from Christ or blindfoldHim; and remain unconvinced and unconvicted.The servants of the high priest saw nothing. ButPeter was smitten in his conscience by one glance.

He could repent because he did not blindfold Jesus.And so it has always been. As Jeremy Taylor wrotein his sermon on the Faith and Patience of theSaints :-

.. He died no t by a singleor a sudden death, bn t He was the

Lamb slain from the beginning of th e world; for He wasmassacred in Abel, saith St. Paulinus ; He was tossed npon thewaves of t he sea in the person of Noah; it was H e t ha t we ntout o f His country, when Abraham was called from Charran,and wandered from his native soil; He was offered up in Isaac.persecuted in Jacob, betrayed in Joseph, bUnded in Samson,affronted in Moses, sawed in Isaiah, cast into the dungeon withJeremiab; for al l these were types of Christ suffering. Andthen His Passion continued after His resurrection. For it is Hethat suffers in a ll His members: it is He that endures . t hecontradiction of all sinners J; it is He that i s . the Lord of lifeand is crucified again and put to open shame' in all thesufferings of His serva nt s a nd sins of rebels and defiances ofapostates and renegadoes and violence of tyrants and injustice

of usurpers and persecutions of His church. It is He that isstoned in St. Stephen, flayed inthe person of St. Bartholomew ;He was roasted upon St. Lawrence's gridiron, exposed to lionsin St. Ignatins, burnt in St . Polycarp, frozen i n t he lake wherestood the forty martyrs of Cappadocia. The sacrament ofChrist's death, said St. Hilary, i& no t to be accomplished butby snffering all the &orrows of humanity."

We need not be surprised, therefore, i f menblindfold our Saviour, buffet Him or put Him to

open shame in ou r day. Mohammed's mission,whatever else it may have been or done, was a

blindfolding of Jesus, an eclipse of the Sun ofRighteousness by the moon of Mecca.Every new religion and philosophy that draws

men away from the gospel can only succeed byblindfolding the Christ. Those who look into Hiseyes need no other light; those who have seen Hisface will follow no other leader. " I f our gospel isveiled, it is veiled in them that perish; in whom the



THE GLORY 9F THE CROSS ANf> THEY BLINDFOLDED HIM 43

God of this world hath blinded the minds of theunbelieving that the light of the gospel of the gloryof Christ who is the image of God Should not dawnupon them. For we preach not ourselves butChrist Jesus our Lord andourselves as your servantsfor Christ's sake. Seeing it is God that said, Lightshall shine out of darkness, who shined in ourhearts to give the lightof the knowledge of the gloryof God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Those who walk in the dark with blinded mindshave often themselves put out the light by firstblindfolding the Christ of God. Whatever thephrase " god of this world" may mean, it surelylllcludes that power of the Evil One which preventsmen from seeing the glory of our Saviour. Thatspirit of the times which includes such floating

opinions, worldly maxims, clever speculations,impure impulses and aims at any time current ascreate an atmosphere of doubt and unbeliefin whichall faith is strangled. Blindness precedes unbeliefand is the cause of it. The blindness is effected bycovering up the gospel, by mystifying God's clearword, and by closing our eyes against thetruth.

" For judgment," said Jesus, "came I into theworld; that they that see not may see and that they

that see may become blind."Look again at the pitiful picture of the blindfolded Christ in the micfst of the group of ruffians ofthe Sanhedrin. Gaze on that face, illumined by theearly morning sun and by imprisoned divimtybleeding, buffeted, blindfolded. "Look upon theface of thy Christ," said the Psalmist-and here wesee that face as the true image of a suffering Saviour.

"Behold the Man I " Bound, exhausted bruised,insulted, and yet silent with the silence of sufferinlZlove. "Prophesy, who is it that struck thee? jj

We must surely find the answer in our ownconsciences.

" Clear, Lord, the brooding night within,And cleanse these hearts for Thine abode;Unlock the spell of sin.Crumble it s giant load."

Bu! Jesus.suffered for us not only to redeem usfrom Slll and Its curse, He also" suffered leaving usan example that we should walk in His footsteps."In every incident of the passion the great Crossbearer of the universe cries in our ears "FollowMe: .Live boldly, dangerously, completeiy, withoutfastidlousness. Accept the mud and the slime the

heat and the misery, the odious rebuff ana' thestinging rebuke. Be silent before your accusers.Endure and dare forMy sakeand the gospel. Do notrefuse to drink with Me the cup of failure which isoften more bitter than the cup of death-the agonyof mockery which precedes the agony of theCross.". When we re?1ember the judgment hall and the

blindfolded ChrIst who endured such contradlClionof sitlllers against Himself, we shall not growweary

nor faint at rebuke or contumely. "Blessed are yewhenmen shall revile you and persecute you and sayall manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.Rejoice be exceeding glad: for great IS yourreward II I heaven; for so persecuted they theprophets that were before you."

It is the last and greatest beatitude. Thebeatitude of those who follow Christ all the way




to the end. From Gethsemane to Gabbatha andGolgotha.

If There is no gain but by a loss,You cannotsave but by a Cross-The com of wheat to multiplyMust fall into the ground and die.

Wherever you ripe fields behold,Waving to God their sheaves of gold,Be sure some com of wheat has diedSome soul has there been crucified ;Some one bas wrestied, wept and prayed,And fonght hell's legions undismayed."



" I l i ~ In. firsl ctmdi#onof " '. . initialion into In. secrel society~ /he Friends of God, that we take ourPlace with Him befo.e tn .JudK"'B!'t seal of /he world; and a.e with Him mocked, patronised,and m.sunderstood by the world's .eligion, the world's cultu.e, 1Mworld's P<noer-all the artificial contrivances Ihal i / sets up ass l a ~ d s by which to, ctmdemn !leali/y. In tn . very momenl inwh.ch we decla.e thal.t cannot g.ve us thal.nlangible Kingdom towhich we aspi.e, we alienate its sympathy, insult its commons'!"e. It goes into tn. judgment seal, prepa.ed to deal wisely

,With In. .ebel .n us,,tole.antly wilh In. fool. Then ignorance,IdlenesS. and c o w ~ , . d J c e t;ondemn us at thei" ease. as tJuy om;e

condemned tM Forsl and Only Fai•."-JOHN CoRDEUER inTn . Palh of 1M Eternal Wisdom.

CHAPTER IV

" T H E Y BoUND HIM"..." AND THEY SPAT

UPON H I M "

I

JESUS carried the Cross as Isaac carried the wood upthe holy mountain. Jesus was bound even as Isaacwas bound before he was laid on the altar. "Andthey came to the place which Go d had told him o f;and Abraham built the altar there and laid the woodin order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the

altar upon the w ood" (Gen. xxii. 9). No t withoutreason has the Jewish mind in the Mishnah seizedupon this incident in the sacrifice of Isaac as of thegreatest significance and made it the centre of theirsolemn annual commemoration of the event thattook place on Mount Moriah. T h e "Ahdah "(Binding) prayer, as usedby orthodox Jews, isfoundin the New Year's Day ritual and is as follows:-

" Remember in our favour, 0 Lord ou r God,the oath which Thou hast sworn to our fatherAbraham on Mount Moriah; consider the bindingof his son Isaac upon the altar when he suppressedhis love in order to d o T hy will with a whole heart IThus may Th y love suppress Th y wrath against us,and through Th y great goodness may the heart ofThine anger be turned away from Th y people, Th ycity and Th y heritage . . . Remember to-day in

mercy in favour o f his seed, the binding of Isaac."

47



THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THEY BOUND HIM ... 49

Dr. Max Landsberg says: " In the course of timeever greater importance was attributed to the

'Ahdah.' The Haggadistic literature is full ofallusions to i t; the claim to forgiveness on itsaccount was inserted in the daily moming prayer ;and a piece called 'Ahdah' was added to theliturgy of each of the penitential days among theGerman Jews."

Was this ~ r a y e r already in use at the time ofChrist? Sacrifices were often bound to the hornsof the altar (ps. exviii. 2.7), and special rites wereobserved in such binding of the victims. Whatevermay have been the custom in regard to the templesacrifices it may have occutted to some of thedisciples when Jesus was being bound in the gardenofGethsemane that the Lamb of God was bet.ng led

to the great sacrifice of which Isaac's deliverancewas the type.

Three of the evangelists make special andrepeated reference to the binding of Jesus in the

garden and before Pilate. John tells of the earlierevent. "So the band and the chief captain and theofficers of the Jews seized Jesus and bound him andled him to Annas first . . . Annas therefore senthim bound unto Caiaphas the high priest." ThereJesus was mocked and buffeted and spat upon, and

later, "when morning was come, all the chiefpriests and the elders of the people took counsela ~ t l e s u s t o put him to death. And they boundhim an led him away and delivered him to Pilatethe governor" (Matt. xxvii. 1-2.). Mark says:" The whole council held a consultation and boundJesus and carriedhim away and delivered him up toPilate."

First, therefore, our Lord stretched His hands tobe bound under the shadow of the olive trees in

Gethsemane. The appearance of resistance madeby Peter's awkward sword blow was enough for theguard. The very hands whose last unfettered taskwas the healing of Malchus' ear, were fastened,probably behind His back, with cords. Then thedisciples forsook Him and fled. So ended the firstscene in the terrible drama of that night.

It was not a long way that the bound Christ washurried forward; by the same gate through whichHe had gone with His disciples after the Paschalsupper, they took Him to the palace of Annas, theex-high priest. There the soldiers left Him, unbinding His fetters, and returned to their quarters; for

no further reference is made to the Roman ~ r d .It was then that Christ before Annas and C:uaphasexperienced all the pent-up envy and hatred of"these bold, licentious, unscrupulous, proud anddegenerate sons of Aaron" whose names wereuttered by their contemporaries with whisperedcurses. Here Jesus received the first blow in Hisface from one of the servile attendants with the palmof the hand or a rod. After the mock trial, beforesuborned witnesses, and the prearranged condemnation to death, as we learn from Luke's Gospel,

revolting cruelties and injuries were perpetrated-onthe helpless prisoner by the ruffian guards and servants of Caiaphas. Yet these insults, taunts and .blows which fell upon the Lonely Sufferer, "notdefenceless but undefending, not vanqnished but

uncontending, not helpless but majestic in Hisvoluntilty self-submission for the highest purposeof love," exhibited humanity at its lowest depth of

D



~ THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THEY BOUND HIM . . , Sf

sin and curse but also retnoved both by letting themfall on Christ the Son of God. All through thisagony of His rejection by His own p e o ~ l e , theircruel contempt and the spewing out ortheir hatred,Jesus stood bound.

No hands like these were ever tied with cords orfetters since the world began. The story of thebound hands in the Old Testament Scriptures wasvivid to the mind of Jesus. Was it to His persecutors? Were Simeon's hands willingly offered whenJoseph bound him as a hostage in order to see hisbrother Benjamin once more? Samson, the strong,was bound again and again but hemocked those thatbound him, with new ropes and with withes, andbroke them" as tow is broken when it toucheth thelire"; onlywhen he forsook God did God forsakehim. Jeremiah, tied with cords, was cast into thedungeon of mire, but the Lord delivered him. Healso delivered the three friends of Daniel cast boundinto the fiery furnace. All these had their handsbound, but their hands were only human hands.Jesus was like the fourth One in the furnace, " a sonof the gods," nay, the Son of God. Look at thehands of Jesus I Charles Bell, in his celebrated" Essay on the Human Hand," as proof of design innature, tells of its wonderful anatomy and its

marvellous adaptability to all the creative skill ofman as distinguished from the paw of the highestbrutes,. But who can describe the hands of Jesus,on which as on every human hand could be read notonly perfect individuality but a perfect character.These bound hands, as an infartt's, once rested onMary's bosom. With these hands Jesus toiled ascarpenter making the yoke easy for sturdy oxen or

fashioning the village plough for the husbandmenof Nazareth. These were the hands stretched out toheal the lepers, the lame, the blind. Hands oftenderness and compassion-hands laid on littlechildren whom He gathered in His arms-fingers

that fondled their cheeks and dark tresses. Thesewere the hands that in the temple court made clayand put i t on the eyes of one born blind, awakeningthe envy and hatred of those who continuedspiritually blind in spite of all Christ's words andwonders. These were the hands that twisted thecords and lifted them in holy indignation againstthose who had made His Father's house a house ofmerchandise and a den of thieves. These were thehands that gave the sop-the tit-bit of orientalhospitality-to the traitor Judas at the last supper.With these hands Jesus, " knowing that the Fatherhad given all things unto his hands and that he cameforth from God and goeth unto God," took a toweland girded Himself and washed the disciples' feet.Also the feet of Judas.

These hands were folded in prayer on lonelymountain tops and last of all clasped in the agony ofintercession in thegarden. Now theywereboundsoon they would be nailed to the Cross.

These were the hands that broke the bread and

lifted the cup of thanksgiving when He said:"Take eat; this is my body . . . Drink yeall of it; for this is my blood of the covenantwhich is poured out for many unto remission ofsins."

NOllJ was to be the fulfilment of this last greatprophecy. His body soon to be broken and Hisblood of the new covenant poured out for sinners.



TH E GLORY OF TH E CROSS

.. And they bound Jesus." .. Father, forgive them,for they know not what they do."

The military tribune knew, when the mobshouted against Paul, that it was not lawful toscourge a man who was a Roman uncondemned andh e " was afraid because he had bound him" (Actsxxii. 29). But these men were not afraid. Thewriter to the Hebrews had heard this story of thebinding of Jesus from eye-witnesses and wrote ofthe men and women of his daywhowere led captivefor their faith: "Remember them that are in bondsas bound with them." But there was no one thatremembered Jesus. Even Peter was ashamed o fHis bonds and said, " I never knew Him."

Who was i t bound the hands of our Saviour,first in the garden and then in0 the court ? Was it

the Roman guard? But they were doing their dutyas soldiers under orders. Did Judas add this touchof fear to his dark treachery? Or did Annassuggest its necessity? We read that afterwards"Annas sent him bound unto Caiaphas the highpriest." Was Pilate gui1dess in leaving thisPrisoner bound and scourging One who had notbeen tried legally, nor condemned, and in Whom hefound no fault?

Ecce Homo / Here is a new Prometheusb o u n d

One who has brought fire and life and light fromheaven without deceit or cunning-0ne whore-creates man and confers on him the richest andmoSt valuable gifts of heaven.

II What was their tal e o f some one on a sum mi tLooking, I think, upon the endless sea, -

One with a f at e, a nd sw or n to overcome it,One who was f et tered a nd who should be free ?

THEY BOUND HIM•

Round him a robe, for shamirig and for searing ::

Ate with empoisonment and stung with fire,He through it all was to his Lord uprearing,

Desperate patience of a brave desire."

Prometheus, however, was delivered by Hercules

from his bonds and torture, after thirty years.Christ was bound by Annasand Caiaphas and Judasand you and me-and is suffering bonds andimprisonments-being crucified afresh these nineteen centuries.

The Christ with the bound hands is with US

to-day. "Wi t h bound hands," says Robert Keable,"does Jesus of Nazareth walk still the streets ofhalf the world. No little crippled child is born of

sin into a world of woe in Hoxton, but Jesus drinksagain of a cup that may not pass away-though in

the end the will of the Father, that not one of theselittle ones should perish, shall be done, and that justbecause He drinks the cup. No maimed and halfblind soul is made to stumble somewhere offPiccadilly, but a ludas has betrayed his Lord againfor a few pieceso t silver. No boastful but frighteneddisciple slts by a fire in Mayfair when Jesus is calledin question, and denies Him at the test, but onceagain that Master is wounded more deeply than byRoman or by Jew, in the house of His friends. And

even more, nowhere is deliberate sin planned andplotted and performed, but some one has ridden bythe Cross on Calvary and stabbed Jesus mockinglyto the heart."

IT.. And they spat upon Him." They spat not on

Him but at Hlffi. The Greek word gives that



THE GLORY OF THE CROSS,

dreadful added emphasis. A different word is usedin all t h gospel passages where Jesus used spittlefor healing the sick or the blind (Mark vii. H 'viii. 2.3; John ix. 6). Spitting is one of the o l d e s ~and most universaf forms of insult. There areanimals that may have taught primitive man the

horrible lesson-the toad, the cat, the viper, thedeadly cobra.One of my colleagues in Arabia laboured for

many years as a medical missionary and won theres'pect and friendship of the Arabs. One day hewassittmg in his clinic when a fanatic Wahhabi fromthe desert came in, not for treatment, but to spit inhis face. With righteous indignation and theapproval of all the patients who saw it , he gave theman a well-deserved lesson in muscular Chtistianity.

There is no deeper insult to an Oriental than this.Instances are f011lld in the Old Testament: "Andthe Lord said unto Moses, if her father had but spitin her face should she not be ashamed seven days? "(Num. xii. 14). "Then shall his brother's wife comeunto him in the presence of the elders and loose hisshoe from his foot and spit in his face andshall answer and say, So shall it be done untothis man that will not build up his brother 'shouse" (Deut. xxv. 9). "They abhor me, theyflee far from me and spare no t to spit in my face"

(Job xxx. 10).To this we must add the prophecy of IsaialI

regarding the MessialI who, full of grace and truth,bears the reproach and scorn of Hisleople: "TheLord hath given me the tongue 0 them that aretaught, that I may know how to sustain with wordshim that is weary. He wakeneth me morning by

THEY BOUND HIM ...

morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as they thatare taught. The Lord Jehovah hath opened mineear and I was no t rebellious neither turned awaybackward. I gave my back to the smiters and mJ cheeksto them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my Jace fromshame and spitting" (Isa. 1. 4-6).

Did not Jesus Himself refer to this ).'rophecywhen He foretold the dreadful tragedy? • Behold,we go to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man shall be

delivered to the chief priests and scribes . . . andthey shall mock him and shall scourge him and shallspit upon him" (Mark x. 33-34).Here we see the most degrading insult offered to

the majestic person of our Saviour. "There areterrible things in man," says Stalker; "there aresome depths in human nature into which it is

scarcely safe to look. It was by the very perfectionof Christ that the uttermost evil of His enemies wasbrought out. As Henow came into close gripswiththe enemy He had come to destroy, it exhibited allits ugliness and discharged all its venom. The clawof the dragon was in His flesh and its foul breath inHis mouth. We cannot conceive what such insultand dishonour must have been to His sensitive andregal mind."

Who was guilty of this repeated horror? The

record seems to show tha t it was first the Jewish

priests and their servants and afterwards thesoldiers of the guard (Matt. xxvi. 67; xxvii. 30).Aryans no less than Semites spat out their futy andcontempt in the holy face of Jesus, Europe as well asAsia, " that everymouthmight be stoppedandall the

world made guilty before God." Yet it was donefirst by His own, by those who knew Him best and




knew the significance of the insult from their ownScriptures.

What a revelation it was of how sin and unbeliefdegrade human judgment and debase character. Tospit is to show spite. The poison of their hate camefrom their own darkened hearts. The scene that isindescribable is drawn in few words; like in someof Rembrandt's pictures the background is dark asnight-the blackness of the human heart, itsdesperate wickedness, its cowardly hatred of thegood and the pure.

They could not spit on His face until they hadbound Him and blindfolded Him. So has it everbeen. History affords many examples of those whospat in thefaceof Jesus or in the face ofHis disciples.Not cruelty only, but insult and contempt are found

on every page of the red book of the martyrs. Paulfelt it when he wrote, "We are made as the filth ofthe world, the off-scouring of all things even untilnow." While Bernard of Oairvaux was singing:

" Jesus. the very thought of TheeWith sweetness fills my breast,"

others were making men blaspheme the name ofChrist by the cruelties of the Inquisition and theCrusades. How many apostates, atheiSts and

infidels have spewed out hatred and scorn againstthe Nazarene. There is no enmity like that of anapostate, from the days of Judas. Nero was cruel inshedding the blood of Christians, but he showednothing like the intensity of rage displayed againstthe followers of Jesus by the apostate Julian, whoonce professed Christ and then renounced Him.Gibbon, who had in turn been a member of the

THEY' BOUND HIM ' . ' .

Protestant and theRoman Catholic Church and thenin turn forsaken them, is another illustration.Nietzschefell so low that he speaks ofChristin termsthat can only be described as spitting: " TheChristian concept of God, as deity of the sick, God

asspider-GOd

as spirit is oneof

the most corruptconcepts of God tliat has ever been attained onearth. Maybe it represents the low-water mark inthe evolutionary ebb of the godlike trpe. Godd e ~ e n e r a t e d into a contradiaion of life Instead ofbeing its transfiguration and eternal yea. I callChristianity the one great curse, the one enormousand innermost perversion, the one great instinct ofrevenge, for which no means are too venomous, toounderhand, too underground and too petty-I callit the one immortal blemish of mankiiJd." Could

human hate go farther?

If Shame tears my soul,. my b od y many a w ou nd ;Sharp nails pierce this, but sharper, that confound,Rep ro ac he s which a re f re e, while I am bound.

Was ever grief lik e min e ? ..

But we notice also in the scene of the insultedChrist the utter impotence of such Satanic maliceand the triumphant self-consciousness of the DivineSaviour, His certainty of victory. "Blessed are

ye,"said

He (did He not feel it too ?), " if men shallrevile you and persecute you and say all manner ofevil against you falsely for my name's sake. Rejoiceand be exceeding glad, for so persecuted they theprophets which were before you."

Ecce Homo / He suffered for us, leaving us anexample that we should walk in His footsteps. Yehave not yet resisted unto blood strivingagainst sin.



~ THE GLORY OF THE CROSS

Think of Him who when He was reviled, revilednot again.

" Qui. patitur ?Christus Verbum

Sapientia PatrisQuid patitur ?

Spinas, verberasSputa., crucem.Sic patiente DeoTu quoque disce pati...•

• Who i. it that suffers? Christ the Word, the Wisdomof the Father.What doci He auffer I- the thorns, the scourge, the Ipitde and the Cross.

Since God 80 BUffers learn thou too to suffer.



.. This which is here shown us is the essence of EternalWisdom, the Secret dwelling at the heart of life: this is that WOl'dwhiGh is through all things everlastingly. Behind the vesture ofnature and of at't, behind l"eligion. knowledge, beauty, love in itsmyriad forms-we are in the last resort, to see this CreativeChivalry, enduring to the utmost: wrung with agony. reduced to

weakness in our interest: sparing itself nothing. i f thereby our

urant souls may have more light. Unsearchable and AbsoluteGodhead within whose thought we dwell, stripped of His vestmentsand exhibited before the uncomprehending eyes of al lHis creatures.loving and loveless, evil and good alike."-JOHN CoRDELIER in

The Pat h of Eternal Wisdom.

60

CHAPTER V

.. THllY PARTED HIS GARMENTS AMONG THEW"

(Ps. xxii. 18; Matt. xxvii. z8, H ; Mark XII. Z4;

Luke xxiii. 34; John xix. z3, Z3)

THll stripping of the Christ I This terrible experi-ence of Jesus OUI SavioUl is referred to by all thefoUl evangelists. By Mark, who himself fled nakedfrom the mob in the garden, and by Matthew, whoobserves that this incident was a direct fulfilment of

the Messianic Psalm, "They part my garmentsamong them, and upon my vestUle do they castlots." John also refers to this Psalm which givesthe most detailed and aCCUlate description of thewhole agony of crucifixion in allliteratUle. .. Theypierced my hands and my feet." . . They look andstare u'pon me." .. I may count all my bones."

This experience must have been one of the mostharrowing to the feelings of the Christ because ofIUs pUlity and the dignity ofHis manhood. .. Theystripped Him,"says John. Naked He came fromHis mother's womb and naked He hangs on the tree.

The first Adam experienced physical and moralnakedness in Paradise by his transgression. Thesecond Adam took upon him the likeness of sinfulflesh and therefore the shame of OUI nakedness wasHis also.

The Word was made flesh and men beheld His

6.



6 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THEY PARTED illS GARMENTS ... 63

glory-md stared on His shame-yet this, too, wasHis glory. The ChriSt of God was stripped. Thisw ~ His utmost humiliation. Stripped that wemight be clothed with white raiment, with Hisrighteousness, and when unclothed by death not be

found naked.All Roman writers on the method of crucifixionagree that the victim nailed to the cross was strippednaked. The Jews, we are told, granted a loin clothto their culprits, and conventional ar t has done thesame in portraying the dreadful scene. Nevertheless,wemust add to the piteous picture this last and mosthonible of all humiliations. The stripping offof theveil of privacy and modesty which the very saintshave feared in their martyrdoms and from whichsome shrank in agony-this Christ endured for us.What Christian women suffered in the Armenianmassacres included this bitterness also, more bitterthan death. Godiva of Coventry "all clad inchastity" still felt each crevice in every wall gazingat her. So Jesus suffered. And we who haveourselves put these lurid tints in the painting mustnot pass it by with indifference.

.. When Jesus came to G<llgotha they hanged Him on a tree,They drave great nails through hands and feet, and made a

Calvary ;They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were Hiswounds and deep.

For those were crude and cruel days. and human flesh wascheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham they simply passed Him by ,

They never hurt a hai ro f Him, they only le t Him die ;For men had grown more tender. and they would not giveHim pain,

They only jus t passed down the street, and left Him i n therain.

Sti ll Jesus cried, .. Forgive them, for they know not wha tthey do,"

And still it rained the wintry rain that drenchedHim throughand through;

The crowds went home and left the streets without a soulto see,

And Jesus crouched against a wall and cried for Calvary."

~ h e r e a ~ two aspects to the honorofcrucifixion,physIcal pamandmental suffering-the agony of thebody and the agony of the soul. The mercilessscourging, the nailing of hands and feet, the thirstof ~ e v e r , the throb of tortured muscles bearing thew e ~ g h t of a ~ r o k e n body and l?nging for release.R e J e ~ e d o His own, reckonedWIth sinners, strippedof His raIment, cursed of men, mocked by Hiscompanions in suffering, a great supernaturaldarkness closing in on the scene.

His b i ~ t e r cry pro.ved to all, and for all time, thatthe suffenngs or HIS soul were the soul of Hissufferings.

.. Ye that pass by, behold th e Man IThe Man of Grief condemned for you,

The Lamb of God for sinners slain,Weeping to Calvary pursue.

His sacred limbs they stretch, they tearWith nails they fasten to the wood .

His sacred limbs exposed and bare, .Or only covered with His blood:'

Three thoughts challenge our attention as wemeditate on this aspect of Christ's death. He wasunveiled to the uttermost on the Cross; the worldstill strips Jesus Christ and then divides Hisgarments, casting lots; the Christian too must bestripped on his cross as we once stripped Him.A penetrative thinker once said, " You cannot loveJesus with impunity; you cannot meet the Cross




with impunity; whether you accept. it or shirk itthe encounter leaves a wound." Surely this is theresult of meditating on this unveiling of Jesus.

The deepest meaning of the Incarnation is seenon Calvary. To St. Paul this was the climax ofChrist's humiliation. "Being found in fashion as a

man He humbled Himself, becoming obedient evenunto death, yea, the death of the ~ r o s s . " Here isone answer to the question of the nghteous on thegreat Judgment Day, "L?rd, when.saw. we .Theenaked?" He hides nothing. Job 10 his mlserysaid "Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him."But'Jesus says, Though they crucify Me, yet will Ishow them all-My hands, My feet, My bleedingside. " I may count all my bones; they look andstare at me."

The King is here not in His glory but in Hisnakedness. To all alike, the soldiers, the rabble, thepriests, the beloved d i : ~ t e , the women, and Hismother-God made m . est in the flesh, but not inineffable glory and honour. Only one who wit-nessed it could havewritten the words in the Epistleto the Hebrews, " They crucify the Son of God. . .and Pllt him to an open shame." No wonder thatthe curtain fell in the midst of the tragedy.

.. Wen might th e sun in darkness hideAnd shut his glory in,

When God the mighty maker diedFor man the creature's sin,"

In His helplessness and agony, Jesus endured theCross not only, but for the joy that was set beforeHim He despised the s h a m ~ . , .

At this moment, according to Luke s gospel, Itwas that Jesus said, " Father, forgive them, for theyknow not what they do."

THEY PARTED HIS, GARMENTS ... 6S

Above His head Pilate's mocking superscription,KING OF THE JEWS. A King without the plUJ?le,His throne a Cross, and beneath it soldiers partingHis garments and casting lots over His vesture.

Howcan anyone after this be ashamed of Jesus,or crucify Him afresh and put Him to an open

shame?The scene was also prophetic. For over

nineteen centuries Christ has been crucified afreshand put to an open shame:

.. This thing; a multitude of worthy folkTook recreation, watched a certain groupOf soldiery intent upon a game,-How first they wrangled. hu t soon fen to play.Threw dice-the best diversion in the world.A word in your ear-they are now casting lots,Ay. with that gesture quaint and cry uncouth.

For the coat of One murdered an hour ago I..

What are the garments of Jesus? " 0 Lord, myGod, thou ar t very great. Thou art clothed withhonour and majesty, who coverest thyselfwith lightas with a garment." The visible universe is the robeof God's majesty. The heavens are the curtain thathides His glory. The clouds are His chariot.Because Jesus is very God of very God, John doesnot hesitate to say, " Without him was not anythingmade that hath been made."

All the marvellous beauty of nature, therefore,is His creation-His seamless robe of splendour andmajesty. Science and art can only discover andcontemplate or imitate the beauty and order whichwere in nature from the beginning because Christput them there. Every red sunset is "the coat ofOne murdered an hour ago."

There isno t a single£ric art-painting, sculpture,I t



66 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THEY PARTED HIS GARMENTS ... 67

.music, architecmre-that is not finer because of theinfluence of the life and death of Jesus. Yet howoften the artist and the musician have stripped HimofHis robes for their own inspiration and then leftHim hanging naked and despised. Darwin's" Origin of Species " tries to explain man's origin

and place in nature but ignores the Son of Man.How about the origin of Jesus i' There is a worldbeyond the visible and tangible to which science hasno key and no access. When we have strippedcreation from the Creator by explaining all its lawswithout Him, are we the richer or the poorer?There goes theman, theymay have said in Jerusalem,who wears the seamless robe of the Nazarene! Butdid he know the way to His heart?

Pure science has no place for moral values.

" I f we adopt sincerely and wholly the popularconceptions of science," says James T. Adams," we really destroy all values in human life. Thearts are already b e ~ g to show this deterioratinginfluence. In fiction, for example, of what use towrite of character if there is no such thing, ifpersonality is a myth, if freedom of action is adream, and if all we are is merely a succession ofstates ofmind having as litrle significance as a glowof phosphorescence over decaying wood? "

And philosophy, too, has stripped Jesus. Thephilosophers, wisely or unwisely, discuss the veryquestions He came to answer and to which He is theanswer, and then leave Him out of their discussions.A recent text-book widely used in Americancolleges is entided "Problems of Modern Philosophy," and the book in its 575 pages makes noreference whatever to Jesus Christ. Yet He cameto answer the fundamental questions of philosophy:

whence are we, why are we here, what is our truenature, whither is our goal, what is life, what isdeath, why the mystery of pain, and what is thehopeof humanity? Spinoza, Hegel, Schopenhauer,Kant, Huxley, Spencer, Bergson and the rest, arethey not casting lots over His seamless robe?

Modem ethics strips Jesus of the Sermon on theMount, but refuses to climb Calvary. Those whohave never entered Gethsemane and witnessed itsagony speak glibly of an Elder Brother and auniversal Fatherhood. They know not its cost.The new Theology, Modern Hinduism, the newIslam and Modern Judaism all eagerly covet andclaim the ethics of Jesus but they deny His Deity.All that is beautiful and true and noble found 10

these ·new religions and philosophies are after all

the Dorrowed garments. "The soldiers, therefore,when they had crucified Jesus, took His garmentsand made four parts, to every soldier a part."

Sociologists preach a social gospel and forgetthat the social gospel was born at Bethlehem andthe rights of humanity were sealed with blood onGolgotha. The Cross, once a symbol of shame andguilt, has become through Him who hung on it thesymbol of compassion and peace and love, ofcourage and devotion and martyrdom. How canwe speak of social service and leave out Christ?When one visits Red Cross hospitals, asylums,homesfor the friendless orwelfare centres, where theChristian spirit is manifest but the Christ and Hismessage are not in evidence, the soul cries out withMary, "They have taken away my Lord and I knownot where they have laid Him." The symbol isthere but He is left outside. There is no room forHim. We send out our Christmas greetings in ever

68 THE GLORY OP THE CROSS



THEY PARTED HIS GARMENTS ... 69

more lavish forms but one misses a distinctivelyAdvent message on the cards that tell of His birth.The garments are there but not the Christ. Mencag[ lots for His vesture while He hangs alone, nakedand forsaken. " A n d when they had mocked himthey took off from him the robe" (Matt. xxvii. 3I).

No wonder that the Fathers of the Greek Church intheir liturgy of the Passion, after they have recountedall the particular pains of our Saviour and by everyone of them called for mercy, close with thispetition: "B y Thine unknown sorrows and sufferingsfelt by Thee on the Cross but not distinctly knownby us, havemercy on us and save us."We need that prayer. The Christian, too, is

stripped on his cross, as He was on His. Thedisciple is not above his Master. Men always see usas we are when we mount our cross. Tribulationworketh experience. Over that awful bridge ofdeath nothing but the naked personality can pass.Carlyle portrays mankind all one, and startlinglyalike, wlien stripped of clothing and ornament-thetags of honour and office and the pride of place thatmake our distinctions. Now there is nothing thatreveals inner character more than suffering. Fireseparates. Cmci£xion reveals. There they hang ;Jesus, Gestas and Desmas, each on his own crossand side by side. One dead in sin, one dead to sin,

the third the death of sin. A blasphemer, a believer,a Saviour. One died and lost his life, one found hislife, One gave His life. On the Cross God and mensee us as we are. Death strips us of everything butour inner soul. All self-hiding drapery is gone.When we stand before the judgment seat we standnaked. "Naked came I out ofmy mother's womb,"

said Job, " and naked shall I return thither." " A l lthings are naked and laid open before the eyes ofhimwithwhomwehave to do," whenwe pass overthe bridge of death.Therefore gazing at the Saviour on the Cross we

long to be " cloth.ed uponwith ~ u habitationwhichis from heaven; if sob e that bemg clothed we shallnot befound naked." "Blessed is he that watchethand keepeth his g3fments l ~ s t he w ~ a k e d andtheyseehisshame' (Rev. XVI. IS). This IS themostneglected of the seven beatitudes in the Book ofthe Revelation. '

"There is no place for the verb to have inheaven' it is annihilated by the verb to be." Weshall n longer possess but be an everlastingpossession. Who are these in w,hite robes? They

are clad in righteousness not theIr own, and at thecentre of the great white m u l t i ~ d e ~ ~ d s One w ~ was stripped on the Cross, bu t IS now clothedWitha garment down to the foot, and girt about thebreasts with a golden girdle." .The painter, G. T. Watts, asked Frederick

Shields to tell him the correct colours for thedraperies of Faith. He replied: "She is theassurance of heavenly things to mortals shut in bysensuous things, therefore the sky's hue is h e r s her mantle and her wings-but her robe is white,unspotted. And this b e ~ a u s e they w ~ seekrighteousness by w o r ~ s fail ?f ~ h a t ~ h i c h onlyFaith gives." Robed In the King s white we sha;11

understand at last the spiritual and propheticmeaning of the words, " They parted His garmentsamong them."



" The Psalm of the Cross begins with •My God, my Godwhy h ~ T h o u . f o " ~ a . k e 1 ! me • and ends, according to some, inthe . ~ g l , n a l rutIn 1t 1,$ fin'tshed.' Fot' plaintive expressionsuprismg from unutterable depths of woe we may say of thispsalm• . there is none like it : It is the photograph of our Lord'ss ~ s t hours, the record of His dying words, the lachrymatory ofH 1 l ~ tears, the memorial ofHis expiring joys. David and hisajJl1,ct",ons may be .keYS in a very mOdified sense, but as the star isc ~ c e a l e d by the hgkt of the ~ n he who sees Jesus will/J1'obably

neither see nor eare to see Dav1,d. Before us we have a descriptionboth.of the darkness and of the glory of the cross, the sufferings ofChnst anti.the glory.which shall follow. Ok for grace to draw nearanti see thIS great sIght I We should read. reverently, putting of f?"r shoes from offour feet as Moses did at the burning bush, fori f there be holy ground anywhere in Scripture it is in this psalm."

-CHARLES H. SPURGBON.

70

CHAPTER VI

"My GOD, My GOD, WHY HAST THOUFORSAKEN ME?"

THIS is the only one of the Seven Words on theCross recorded by both Mark and Matthew; thesame words occur in the opening sentences of theTwenty-second Psalm, yet neither evangelist refersto them as a fu1filment of prophecy. Mter six hoursof agony in body and soul on the Cross this cryescaped our Saviour's .lips. His first word was:" Father, forgive them, for they know not what theydo " - a prayer for pardon. His second word apromise of peace; "To-day shalt thou be with mein Paradise." His third word one of tendersolicitude to and for his mother: "Woman beholdthy son ... Son behold thy mother." Then thethick darkness fell. And before the three last wordsfollowed in rapid succession: " I thirst," "I t isfinished," "Father into thy hands I commend myspirit "-there was the cry of anguish. "My God,my God, why? "

If For none of the ransomed ever knewHow deep were the waters crossed,

Or how dark was th e night that th e Lord passed throughEre He found the sheep that was lost."

That there is something of singular force andfeeling in these words of Jesus on the Cross isevident from the fact that the two evangelists have

71




studiously, and only in this case, given the verywords of the language our Lord used: "Eli, Eli,lama Sabachthani." Nowhere else, moreover, inScripture do we lind this repetition of thewords savein the Messianic Psalm. The cry expresses sufferingthat was never at any other time felt in this world

and never will be again.There is a tradition, referred to by Ludolf the

Carthusian, as early as the fourteenth century, thatour Lord, hanging on the Cross, began repeating thewords of the Twenty-second Psalm and continuedHis meditation until He came to the fifth verse ofthe Thirty-first Psalm: "Into thy hands I commendmy spirit." Aside from this fancy, there is nodoubt that in the Psalms, which were in Christ'sheart and oftenon His lit's, we lind an interpretation

of His life and His MeSSIanic consciousness as in noother book. It is true that we have in this Twentysecond Psalm a description of the crucifixion inlanguage that makes one ask is it history or

prophecy? Strauss and others indeed say the gospelaccount of this incident is therefore ObvIouslymythical, and it never took place but was dragged into prove the fulfilment of another Old Testamentpassage I

To the believer, however, this cry is a revelationof the deep suffering and anguish our Saviour bore,

and a proof of His inlinite love for sinners. Itchallenges us, with all the saints, to be strong to

comprehend "what is the length and breadth andheight and depth of the love of God which passethknowledge."

I f the Cross is the central Truth of the NewTestament, this cry is the heart of this truth and its

WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? "

deepest expression. This is the holy ofholies to thereverent reader of the story of the passion.

Spurgeon righdy says: "We mu.st lay emphasison every word of this saddest of all utterances., Wh?' What is the great cause of such a strangefact as for God to leave His own Son at such a time

and in such a plight? There was no cause in Him,why then was He deserted? 'Hast,' it is done, andthe Saviour is feeling its dread effect as He asks thequestion; i t is surely true, but how mysterious 1I t was no threatening of forsaking which made the~ r e a t Surety cry aloud, He endured that forsaking10 very deed. 'Thou': I can understand whytraitorous Judas and timid Peter should be gone,but Thou, My God, My faithful friend, how canstThou leave Me? This is the worst of all, yea, worse

than all put together. Hell itself has for its fiercestflame the separation of the soul from God., Forsahn ' : i f Thou hadst chastened I might bearit, for Thy face would shine; but to forsake Meutterly, ah I why is this? 'M6': Thine innocent,obedient, suffering Son, why leavest Thou Me to

perish? A sight of self seen by penitence, and ofJesus on the Cross seen by faith will best expoundthis question. Jesus is forsaken because our sinshad separated between us and our God."

To understand what suffering of body and mind

and soul were in that cry of anguish we must recallthe c i r c u m ~ a n c e s . Crucifixion was the mosthideous torture devised by the old world and theextreme penalty of Roman criminal justice. Itincluded physical agony and disgrace. The formerdue to the unnatUral posture of the body, thethrobbini pain of nail-pierced hands and feet,

74 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 7S



feverish thirst and gradual exhaustion and death.The disgrace was doubly so to one of the Jewishrace, for the Cross was an object of horror andtypical of God's curse (Gal. iii. 13; Deut. xxi. .13).Aad to all this the awful contraSt between Christ'sholiness, innocence and divine dignity and the

brutal jeers, mockery and contempt hurled at thehelpless victim by those that stood beneath theCross and even by those who hung at His side(Matt. xxvii. 44; Luke xxiii. 39). The chiefpriestsled in mocking Him: "He saved others, himselfhe cannot save. . . . He trusteth in God, let himdeliver him now." And for answer there camegloom--a supernatural darkness, over all the scenefrom the sixth to the ninth hour. Mter these threehours of darkness and out of the darkness of Hislonely agony Jesus cried with a loud voice: "MyGod, my God, why? . . ."

Melancthon and other Reformers explain thiscry as evidence that Christ experienced in His humansoul the divinewrath against sin. Others say it wasan indication that His political plans had failed, thecry of a deeply disappointed patriot. Oth: rs ,including Schleiermacher, say it was the opentngsentence of the great lamentation psalm with itssublime conclusion, that Jesus uttered as proof ofHis Messiahship. Meyer says that because of the

agony of being rejected ofmen" His consciOHSness ofunion with God was for the moment overcome."Olhausen speaks of " actual, objective, momentaryabandonment by God." Dr. Philip Schaff sees inthis experience ofChrist an intensified. r e n ~ w a l of ~ agony in Geths7mane and the c u l ~ ~ o n of HisVIcarious sufferIngs: "It was a dIVIne human

experience of sin and death in their innerconneaionand universal significance for the race by one whowas perfectly pure and holy, a mysterious andindescribable anguish of the body and soul inimmediate prospect of, and in actual wrestling with,death as the wages of sin and the culmination of all

misery of man, of which the Saviour was free, butwhich He voluntarily assumed from infinite love inbehalf of the race."

Surely it was not, as Moslems often tell us, dueto Christ's fear of death and lack ofmoral courage toface the issue. Even the infidel, Jean JacquesRousseau, knew better and exclaimed: "If Socratesdied like a philosopher, Jesus of Nazareth died likea God."

Without the beliefthat Jesus bore our sins in His

body on the tree, without the acceptance of thevicarious element in His death, the cry on the Crossis inexplicable. But i f Jesus was the Lamb of Godand God laid on Him the iniquity of us all, we havea key to the mystery of such suffering.

I f the death of Christ was only that of a greatmartyr for the truth the cry is strangely out of place.But i f He died, the just for the unjust, i f " He wasmade sin for us," then our own sins and the sins ofthe whole world wrung from our Saviour the cry ofanguish and loneliness. What is the Atonement?" It is the satisfaction rendered to the justice of Godfor man's sin by the substituted penal suffering ofHis well-beloved Son."

I f we dislike such a theological definition we.may find the same great truth expressed in theliturgies of the Church used at the Lord's Supper,when we commemorate His death. What could be

TH E GLORY OF TH E CROSS WHY HAST THOU PORSAKEN ME? 11



more beautiful than the interpretation of theReformed Church of theNetherlands: "W e believethat He suffered His blessed body to benailed on theCross that He might affix thereon the handwritingof our sins; that He also took upon Himself thecurse due to us that He might fill us with His

blessings. And humbled Himself unto the deepestreproach and pains of hell, bothin body and soul, onthe tree of the Cross when He cried out.with a loudvoice, 'M y God, my God, why hast thou forsakenme ? ' that we might be accepted of God and neverbe forsaken of Him."

In the last stanza of Mrs. Browning's poem onthe grave of Cowper, we have the same thought:

U Yes, once Immanuel's orphan cry His universe hath shakenI t went up single, echoless, My God I am forsaken. '

I t went up, from th e holy lips, amid th e lost creation,That of th e lostno son should usethose words of desolation."

" He hath laid on him the iniquities of us all"-the guilt, the stain, the hurt, the remorse. All ou rfailirigs, shortcomings, falls, offences, trespasses,~ a n s g r e s s ! o n s , debts, sins, faults, ignorances, pollutions, unrIghteousness. We must not shrink fromthe awful implications of this fact. We shall never" pour contempt on all our pride" until we realizethat we can only be reconciled to God because" Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on ourbehalf that we might become the righteousness ofGod in him." "Christ redeemed us from the curseof the law, having become a curse for us." It wasnot for our sins only but fo r the sins of the wholeworld that Hewas forsaken of God. All the sin andl!lame of the ages in some sense passed over Him,

all its waves and its billows; deep c:alljng untodeep.The crude lusts and darkness o f ancient races backto primeval time; the long waywardness of Israel;the pride of Nineveh and Tyre; the cruelty ofE ~ and Babylon; the injustice of society; thecrones of themarket, the brothel and the battlefield;

the betrayals of Judas and the denials of Peter andallwho ever forsook Jesus; of Pilate, of Herod andof Caiaphas, the sins of humanity past, present andfuture. In some mysterious way all this pressedupon His soul and gave birth to the cry of anguish.Themindwhich was the very tabemacleof God washaunted in the garden and on Calvary by the awfulspectre of a world of sin. So dark, so absolute, soreal, was the torture of the Cross. The sufferings ofChrist's soul were the soul of His suffering.

. . Wen might th e su n in darkness hideAnd shut his glory in,

When Christ his mightyMaker diedFo r man. th e creature's, sin. U

" The death and suffering of Christ was somethingvery muchmorethan suffering," says Forsyth ;" it was atoning action. At various stages in thehistory of the Church-not the Roman CatholicChurch only but Protestantism also--exaggeratedstress has been laid upon the sufferings of Christ.But it is not a case of what He suffered, but what Hedid. Christ's suffering was so diVine a thing becauseHe freely transmuted it into a great act. It wassuffering acceptedand transfiguredby holyobedienceunder the conditions of curse and blight which sinhad brought upon man according to the holinessof God. The suffering was a sacrifice to God's

THE GLORY OF THE CROSS WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 79



holiness. In so far i t was penalty. But the atoningthing was not its amount or acuteness, but itsobedience, its sanctity."

Yet one shrinks from analysing the cry on theCross. After all has been said that men can say tothrow light on its significance it remains a mystery,

the mystery of the Atonement. In what intelligiblesense could the inEnite and loving Father forsakeHis onlybegottenSon,leavingHimalone in darknessand dire need? There are somewho are quite ready,too ready, to speak of Christ as the object of Divinewrath; and yet without careful qualifications thisremains a thought painful beyond expression.Surely never for a moment can this Divine suffererhave been the object of the Father's displeasure-He that came from heaven t o do His will, to execute

the purpose of inEnite love in the redemption of aruined world at whatever personal cost. Never, onthe contrary, was the thought of the Father fixed onthe Son with more unqualified approbation andintense affection; "Thereforemy Father loveth me,because I lay down my life in order that I mighttake it again." Never can He have been morethoroughly conscious that Hewas doing the Father'swill and must be approved and could never bewholly forsaken.

Also, there was summedup in this cry ofanguishall the loneliness of Jesus in the days ofHis flesh, aloneliness which culminated on the Cross. " I havetrodden the wine-press alone."

Lonely at His birth, lonely in His silent years atNazareth, lonely in the desert and on the mountaintop. His was the loneliness of misunderstanding,the loneliness of leadership, the loneliness of

temptation, the loneliness of prayer. He was lonelyin the crowd, and lonely on the Mount of Transfiguration; lonely in His grief and tears overJerusalem; most of all lonely and alone when inGethsemane, at Gabbatha and on Golgotha. "Thenthey all forsook him and fled." "They hated me

without a cause." "Although he had done noviolence, neither was any deceIt in his mouth, yet itpleased Jehova1l to bruise him; He hath pu t him togrief." It was therefore Christ shared in the hidingof the Father's face which is the essential and thefinal horror of sin. "For he was made sin for us."

" I believe," says Robert Keable, speaking of

this loneliness on the Cross, " that in a real sense Hewas voicing the experience ofHis life, an experienceborne hitherto by theMan of Sorrows in the silence

ofHis heart. No doubt it was intensified on Calvary,but the LonelyMan,who is rejected by earth becauseHe is sinless, is rejected by God because He is sin.Oh, unutterable paradox of love I Oh, triumph ofthe wonder of His loneliness. At that ninth hourJesus our Lord is unutterably alone in the widerange of all that is."

" Pra ise to the Holiest in the height,And in the depths be praise;

In all His words most wonderfulMost sure in all His ways.

o generous love I that He who smoteIn Man, for man, the foe,

The double agony inManFor man should undergo."



.. AnwfII the ancienl inscriplions and painlings on 1M tombsof Ihe hings of Egypl one sees everywhere Ihe symbol of 1M Key ofLife. Slrangely enough il i s i n 1M form of a cross. A s we sal ,nour Round Tables we fell again and again, as in a flash, IhallMcross is 1M Key of Life, lhal here aI Ihe cross we saw i n 1Mdeplhs of lhings; we f ~ / t lhal here 1M Hearl of .IM UnIVerseshowed ilself, and Ihal i f we ovuld catoh Ihe Pass.on lhal beals/yre we would oaIoh Ihe meaning of Life ilself·

.. TM riddle of Ghrisl is 10 be found in His sacrificial spirileulminating in His Cross. To understand this is to unde1'slandGhrisl, 10 undersland Ghrist is 10 undersland God, and 10 under-sland God is 10 undersland 1M meaning of 1M universe and oflife. Ths Gross, llYn, is 1M Key. If I lose Ihis Key, I fumble.TM universe will nol open 10 me. Bul wilh 1M Key in my handand hearl I know I hold its seo. .I."-E. STANLEY JONES in

Ghrisl aI the Round Table.

10

CHAPTER vn. . BEaOLD THE LAMB OF GOD !."

AN exile for Christ, who has laboured long amongMohammedans and poured out her soul for them,writes from her lonely post in Central Asia: "Weare learning here t o put first things first and steercautiously but persistendy to our one aim. And Ithink we must do so in silence as to the outer world,in order to be able to do something in this innerworld into which the Lord has placed us. We nowhave the freedom to witness for Christ, but it may

any moment be taken from us, and so we mustbe

careful to use it aright." May we not ask, as

witnesses for Christ, what is that one aim, what isthe heart of our message, the one indispensabletruth which we must press home? What is ourdistinctive, supreme, impelling message to the non-Christian worfd? Is it not expressed in the words ofJohn the Baptist, that harbinger of a new dispensa-tion to Israel-the Israel with which Islam has somuch in common? That voice crying in thewildemess had one message: "Behold the Lamb

of God."John's freedom to witness for Christ was soon

taken from him. Herod's cruel sword did its work;but while John had freedom, he put first thingsfirst. It was in the fifteenth year of the reign ofTiberius Ca:sar; Pontius Pilate was governor ofJudea; Herod ruled Galilee; Philip and Lysias had

F 8.

82 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD



their tettarchies' Annas and Caiaphas controlledthe temple wor;hip and the daily sacrifice. TheRomanworld was In revolution. There were manysects and parties and philosophies, but they held outno living hope. Therefore the word ofGod came toJohn in the desert, and what he heard he cried:

" Behold the Lamb ofGod."The words, Lamb of God, as a title of our

Saviour, occur twice in the Gospel of John and oncein Peter's First Epistle. But J o ~ s e s ~ h s a ~ etitle, although the word for lamb is In ~ u t l v eform (a little lamb) in theBook of the Revelation, noless than twenty-eight times. A study of t h e ~ epassages will help us to understand how much tlUstitle meant to himwho leaned on Jesus' bosom andknew the secret of His redeeming love ,Perhaps

better than any of the twelv:e apostles. I t 1 in thewitness of John the Baptist to the Christ thatmention is first made of Jesus in these words: "Onthe morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him andsaith Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away thesin of the world." The next day again, at Bethabaraor Bethany beyond Jordan, " John was standingwith two of his disciples and he looked upon Jesusas he walked and saith, Behold the Lamb of God I "

Peter does not use tlUs title directly, but inspeaking of our redemption from sin he says it v:as

not with corruptible silver or. gold " b ~ t Withprecious blood as of a Lamb w l t h o ~ t ~ l e m 1 s h andwithout spot, even the blood of Christ.

In the visionof John on Patm,?s we are sud.den1yintroduced (Rev. v. 50 6) to the LlOn , ~ the tIlbe ?fJuda1l who is also the Lamb ofGod. And I s ~ v : In

the midst of the throne and of the four hVlng

creatures and in the midst of the elders a Lamb,standing as though it had been slain." The four andtwenty elders fall down before tlUs Lamb (v. 8) andsing a new song in which ten thousand times tenthousand voices join: "Worthy is the Lamb thathath been slain to receive the power and riches andwisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing." All creation joins in the antiphonal responseof gloryto the Lamb.

Then we read that the Lamb opens one of theseven seals and God's judgments follow in swiftsuccession, until men cry in terror, asking the verymountains to fall on them and hide them from thewrath of the Lamb (vi. 16). But the redeemed, aninnumerable multitude, stand before the throne andbefore the Lamb arrayed in white and sing His

praise; for theLambinthe midst of thethroneis theirShepherdandGodwipes awayevery tear(vii. 10, 17).A little later we read how they overcame in the

fight, against the accuser of t1le brethren, throughthe blood of the Lamb (xii. II) and because theirnames were written in the Lamb's book of life(xiii. 8). Againwe see theLamb standing onMountZion (xiv. I) and the undefiled follow Him becausethey are the first fruits purchased from among menunto the Lamb (xiv. 4) ; but those who worship thebeast are tormented in the presence of the sameLamb (xiv. 10). The victors sing t1le song of theLamb (xv. 3) but the rebellious war against the Lamb(xvii. 13) who also overcomes them, for He is theLord of lords and King of kings. After this we hearthe voice of a great multitude in heaven singinghallelujahs, for t1le marriage of the Lamb is come(xix. 7). "Blessed are they that are bidden to the

THE GLORY OF THE CROSS BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD



marriage supper of the Lamb." In the finalchapters all the glory is given to the Lamb of Godthat taketh away the sin of the world. The holy cityis " the bride of the Lamb" ; the apostles are " theapostles of the Lamb"; the Lamb is the onlyTemple (xxi. 22); and the Lamb is the only light of

the CIty of glory (xxi. 23). None can enter that holyplace save those who are written in the Lamb's bookof life (xxi. 27). The river of the water of lifeproceeds from the throne of God and of the Lamb,for God's throne is the Lamb's throne (xxii. 1-3);they shall see His face, and His name (the name ofJesus) shall be on their foreheads." "Thou shaltcall his name Jesus for he shall save his people fromtheir sins."

Who can resi§t the cumulative evidence from

these passage that Jesus as the Lamb of God is theSaviour of sinners, the Redeemer of the world, theKing of Glory, the Supreme Judge, the Ruler of thenations, one with the Father, in the essence of Hisbeing, the attributes ofHis power and themajesty ofHis dominion.

And all this was latent in the words that theBaptist first used by the banks of the Jordan whenhe saw the sinless Nazarene, numbered with thetransgressors at His baptism, but crowned with gloryand honour in the voice from heaven: "This is my

beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (Matt.iii. 17).

John surely did not use the words without beingconscious of their significance to those who heardhim. He was not speaking in riddles but alluded to

the Messiah of tfEe and prophecy; most probablyto the Servant of Jehovah, in Isaiah liii., who bears

the iniquity of us all and is led as a lamb to theslaughter. To make the words refer to the gentle-ness and meekness of Jesus (as some modernistsattempt to do in recent writings) without referenceto His atoning sacrifice is doing violence to all theother parallel passages. As Godet remarks: "No

doubt itwas thiscontrast, vividlyfeltbetweenhimselfand Jesus, which, amid all theMessianic designationswhich theOld Testament might have furnished him,led him to prefer this: 'The Lamb of God, whichtaketh away the sin of the world.' It is remarkablethat this title Lamb, under which the evangelistlearned to know Jesus for the first time, is that bywhich the Saviour is designated preferentially in theApocalypse. The chord which had vibrated at thisdecisive hour within the very depths of his being

continued to vibrate within him to his last breath."And the music of that chord was in harmonywith Christ's own and earliest teaching; namely,that He came to giveHis life a ransomfor others andthat even as Moses lifted up the serpent in thewilderness so the Son of Man would be lifted on theCross for our redemption.

No other name of Christ occurs more frequentlyand repeatedly in the liturgies of the Churches:

" 0 Lamb of God: that takest away the s in o f the worldGrant us Thy peace.

o Lamb of God: that takest away the sin of the worldHave mercy upon us."

In Dante's Purgatorio, voices are heard in unisonchanting the same prayer for pardon:

. . Only Agnus Dei were their preludes:One word there was in all and measure one.So that al l concord seemed to be among them,"

86 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD



John the Baptist rivets attention to the person ofChrISt, "Behold I " using the singular numberalthough many were present. Each one of us mustlook to Jesus individually for the removal ofhis own~ t although He taketh away the sin of the world., He is the propitiationfor our sins, and not for ours

only but also for the whole world."Jesus of Nazareth had no regal robes or royalcrown. He was the carpenter's son. But Johnbeheld in Him the glory as of the only begotten ofthe Father, full of grace and truth. He is the LambofGod. It is the genitive oforigin and ofpossession.God sent the Son and God loves Him. In thissacrifice it is not man who offers; it is God whogives His own, His very best.

Ecce Homo! said Pilatepointing to Jesus crownedwith thorns, and the bruises of the scourging

covered with a purple cloak. Ecce Agnus Dei! saidJohn of Jesus just after his baptism and at theopening of His ministry. Behold the man who isthe Lamb of God I

The world has beheld Him ever since; for Hefills the horizon of history. He cannot be hid.Butmengazeon Him and tum away, or gaze onHimand follow Him to the end. It is with deep insightthat Studdert Kennedy describes Jesus as He appearsto the modern world:

"He looks as contemptible as ever with Hisragged rabble of a Church that shouts Hosanna onSundayand runs from theGardenofGethsemane onFriday; that protests like Peter and then. b e t r ~ y ~ ,that disputes who shall be greatest and thinks. 1t 1S

extravagant to wash men's weary feet; with Hiscrowd of wretched parsons, poor human fools like

me, who preach the gospel and cannot live it, whotry to be roving and are not even amiable. He is asridiculous as ever, just the same Christ that sat witha dirty purple horse-cloth on His bleeding back, anda crown of thorns set sideways on His head, with amock sceptre in His hand, and the spittle of a

drunken soldier rolling down His face, just the sameChrist, but I am afraid of Him, as in his heart ofhearts, I believe the modern man, the fiercest of thebeasts of prey, is frightened of Him. He is disturbing, unnerving. He saps self-confidence andmurders pride. He makes men want to go downupon thel! knees, and no strong man should do thatexcept to the Almighty."

Christ is the Lamb which God provides aspropitiation and sacrifice for sin. In Jesus, as theEpistle to the Hebrews teaches so distinctly, wehavefulfilment of all the Old Testament teachingconcerning the blood that atones for sin. Here is

the great antitype to all the sacrificial ordinancesandrites of humanity. The Lamb of God who is thedesire of all nations.

ContraSting the glory of Mount Sinai and thegiving of the moral law with the greater glory thatis found for us in Mount Zion, the writer to theHebrews comes to an astonishing climax. "Ye arecome," he writes, " unto the city of the living God,

the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts ofangels, to the general assembly and church of thefirst born who are enrolled in heaven, and to Godthe judge of all, and to the spirits of just men madeperfect and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenantand to THE BLOOD of sprinkling."

How does the shedding of blood give remission

88 TH E GLORY OF TH E CROSS BEHOLD TH E LAMB OF GOD



of sin? What is the origin of sacrifice? Whenceits universality? Not only in the religion of theSemites but in the sacrificial rites of all nations wefind three fundamental ideas in the propitiation,namely, sublfiitution, satisfaction .and sufficiency.The same is true o f the sacrificeof Jesuson theCross.

Christ died in our stead just as truly as the ram wasthe sublfiitute for Isaac on Mount Moriah. Christ'sdeath gave satisfaction for sin, appeased justice,purchased pardon, more than the blood on the linteldid when the avenging angel slewEgypt's first-born.Christ's death is sufficient. He dieth no more. Hemade on the Cross by His one oblation "a full,perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."

Trumbull, in his interesting study of t h e" Blood

Covenant," gives an excellent summary of earlySemitic teaching, with many parallels from the OldTestament, to show that to these people" withoutthe shedding of blood there was no remission ofpenalty and no peace of reconciliation." To understand what John meant when he called Jesus theLamb of God, we must read the Old TestamentScriptures that are at the basis of all New Testamentthought.

To take a single example from this wide realm ofSemitic religious thought, we find in Islam a

primitive custom, approved by Mohammed, andCalled the' Aqiqa sacrifice. It is well-nigh universal,from Morocco to China, and is based on orthodoxtradition. We read in tradition that Mohammedmade the 'Aqiqa sacrifice not only for his twograndsons, Hasan and Husain, but for himself('Aqiqa 'an nafsihi). The prayer used to-day in this

propitiating sacrifice of lamb or kid presented forthe seven-day old child reads :-

.. 0 God, this is th e 'Aqiqa sacrifice of my son so-and.....it s hlood for his blood, it s flesh for his flesh, it s bonefor hisbone, it s skin for his skin, it s hai r f or his hair. 0 God I makeit a redemption formy son from th e Fire, for truly I have tnmedmy face t o H im who created th e heavens an d th e ear th , a true

believer . And I am no t of those who associate partners withGod. Truly my prayer and my offering, my life an d my death.is to God, th e Lord o f t h e Worlds, who has nO partner, an d thusI am commanded. an d I belong t o t he Moslems."

Among Moslems, as in the case of the Paschallamb, not a bone of this sacrificial victim must be'broken I It is John who refers to this detail in thefu1filment of prophecy at the time of the Crucifixion(John xix. 36) for again he saw on Calvary " t h eLamb of God that taketh away the sin of theworld."

The gospel for the Moslem and for the nonChristian world is contained in that one shortsentence. The Cross of Christ is indeed the missinglink in the Moslem creed. The death of Christ, itsnecessity, its historicity, its implications, its results,its pathos and its power-these things are hiddenfrom the wise and prudent in the world of Islam,but God reveals them unto babes. When theinquirer comes to the Cross and sees the Crucified,he finds an answer to aU his difficulties. Mysticismin Islam at its best always failed to reveal the

mystery of the Cross. This is the tragedy of manya soul's pilgrimage, ever pressing on withoutreaching the goal. Ghazali, Sha'arani, Jala-ud-dinat-Rum!, Ibn-al-Arabi, and many other seekers afterGod, travelled a long and steep way. Their teachingon sin and repentance, forgiveness and the vision ofGod, contains muchthatmay beusedas apreparation

THE GLORY OF THE CROSS BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD



for the gospel, but it never rises to Calvary. Herethe Prodigal Son ofArabia utterly missed the road-

and in consequence led many astray. We too shallmiss the road unless we follow the blood marks allthe way from the earliest promise in Genesis to thefoot of Calvary.

" The apostles," says Principal Forsyth, " neverseparated reconciliation in any age from the Crossand the blood of Jesus Christ. I f we ever do that(and many are doing it to-day) we throw the NewTestament overboard. The bane of so much thatclaims to be more spiritual religion at the presentday is that it simply jettisons the NewTestament andwith it historic Christianity. The extreme critics,people that live upon monism and immanence,rationalist religion and spiritual impressionism, arepeoplewho are deliberately throwing overboard theNew Testament as a whole, deeply as they prize it

in parts."When men speak of redeeming the old order of

society or transforming life from sordidness intosainthood, without the Cross, they follow a forlornhope. Wemay well be optimistswhenwe see God'spurpose of grace for the world being accomplished.When we face new eras and newopportunities. Butwhen John came preaching repentance, the fullnessof time was also at hand. Revolutionary changes

were taking place in the whole Roman Empire andin the JeWlsh Church. There had been muchpreparation. There was great expectancy. Therewas deel;' despair of the old order. But Johnushered In the new epoch by proclaiming a newRedemption: "Behold the Lamb of God thattaketh away the sin of the world."

It is a redemption of the old order that we desire,but it must be redemption by the Blood.

The Cross ofChrist is theonly hope ofthe world.Our constant danger is that we cry, Behold this newopportunity. Behold our new methods. Beholdour human-brotherhood, and forget to cry, Behold

the Lamb of GodI

There is a remarkable painting of Christ on theCross as the only hope of the world; i t startlingly.depicts in vivid colours somethingof the universalItyand efficacy of the atonement in a way that cannot beforgotten. The story of the picture is as follows :-BlaterHeroni, whowas president of theMixed Courtat Adis Ababa in Abyssinia, received his educationin a Swedish mission school. He also prepared ayersion of the New Testament in Amharic and roseto prominence during the war. He was sent to

Paris, representing Abyssinia, at the time of theTreaty of Versailles. Meditating on the future of

world peace the thought occurred to him that onlythrough the sacrifice of Christ was this possible andhis Abyssinian mind conceived the idea of representing this in symbolism. He sought out a Paris artistand ~ a v e him his ideas. The result is the famouspainting of the Crucifixion so weircl in its conception, so real in its symbolic significance, strangelyattractive and compelling in its message. The

Saviour is hanging on a Cross which rests betweentwo globes of the eastern and western hemispheresa ~ a i n s t a cloudy and lurid sky. A halo of comingVIctory already rests above the thorn-crowned headof the Suffererwho looks downupon two worlds forwhich He died. Blood-drops from His piercedhands colour every continent and island red I It is a

9& THE GLORY OF THE CROSS



vision of the whole world redeemed by the blood ofChrist. Underneath the painting one can read inthree languages: "FOR GOD SO LOVED THE

WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY

BEGOTTEN SON THAT WHOSOEVER

BELIEVETH IN HIMSHOULD NOT PERISH

BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE."



H The best work is to preach Chyist crucified. whether amidstcalm or the sounds of controversy. assured that this alone makesway. keal:in:g the. wounded conscience and cleansing the saintfrom

all rematmng S1n ... and the victory is to that Church, in tke oldwlWld and tke new, tn tke homes of our ripest Christianity and inthe d a r k ~ s t outfields of our missions, whick shall most earnestly.u n s w e ~ ' m g l y , devoutly renew that ancient confession: • The LOYdhath l a ~ d on Him the iniquity of us all ,' and shall turn it mostgratefully and jubilantly into song, the song alike of eartk and~ e a v e ~ : • Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sinssn Ht-s. own blood, a n hath made us kings and priests unto Godand H ~ ..Fathe"., to Ht.m be glory and dominion few ever and ever.Amen. -PRINCIPAL JOHN CAIRNS.

94

CHAPTER VIII

"THEY ••• CRUCIFIED THE LORD OF GLORY."

PAUL realized that the preaching of Christ crucifiedis to them that perish foolishness (I Cor. i. 17); thatit was a stumbllng-block to the Jews and foolishnessto the Gentiles (I Cor. i. 2.3), and yet he determinednot to have any other message, although it causedhim searching of heart, weakness, fear and muchtrembling, than Christ and Him crucified (I Cor.ii. 3). This message of the Cross is so great amystery, although it revealed the wisdom and thepower of God, that i t is revealed only through the

Spirit who searches all things even the deep thingsof God (I Cor. i. 10). In this connection of thoughtPaul uses the startling expression regarding therulers of the world, ignorant of God's wisdom, that" had they known it they would not have crucified the Lordoj Glory" (2. Cor. xxii. 8). .

In his address to the elders ofEphesus, Paul useswords that are even bolder and more arres ting:" Take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock, ofwhich the Holy Spirit hath made you overseers, to

feed the Church of God which he purchased withhis own blood" (Acts xx. 2.8). We shrink fromsuch bold and start ling implications, the Lord of

Glory on the Cross, the blood of God-but whenwe try to soften down the words, we find that theGreek text leaves no altemative.

It is true that in the American Revised Version

95

THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THEY ... CRUCIFIED THE!. LORD 9'1



wehave" Lord" substituted for God inActs xx. %8,

but it is wholly unwarranted. Stokes, in theExpositor's Bible, says, .. Some have read Lordinstead of God, others have subftituted Christ for it,but the Revised Version, following the text ofWestcott and Hort [we may add Nesde], have

accepted the strongest fortn of the verse on purelycritical grounds."Ignatius wrote to the Ephesians, fifty years later

than Paul's letter, that believers were" killdled intoliving fire by the blood of God." Tertullian, ahundred years later, uses the same expression .. theblood ofGod," In the other passage also the Greektext is undoubtedly genuine and the words werewritten by Paul twenty-seven yeats after the eventbefore the gospels themselves were current-" Hadthey known it they would not have crucified theLord ofGlory."

"Who is this King of Glory? The Lord ofhosts, he is the King ofGlory" (Ps. xxiv. 10). Bothin the Old and New Testament the Lord of Glorysignifies He whose attribute is glory (Ps. xxix. I;

Acts vii. %; Eph. i. 17, and Jas. ii. I), the Lord towhom glory belongs as His native right. Theexpression is theologically important because itimplies the deity of our Lord. In passages likeI Cor. xi. %0, .. TheLord's death," and I Cor. xi. 2.7,

.. the body and blood of the Lord," the import issimilar but the language less startling. Even in thedays of His flesh, the Saviour was to Paul the Lordto whom all glory belongs as His native right. Tohim, no less than to John, the Word who becameflesh, was .. in the beginning with God; and theWord was God."

There is no mystery In heaven or earth so greatas this-a suffering Deity, an Almighty Saviournailed to the Cross. Yet this is what the wordsimply. It is at the Cross that we see in Christ thefulness of God's love and mercy bodily. It is at thispoint, in the last resort, that we becomeconvinced

as the Centurionwas-ofHis deity. It is a work thatonly God could do, which Christ works there" andthe soul that is won for it is won for God In

Him."Christ is to Paul, through His death and resurtec

tion, manifested as the very centre of the universe.He is the primary source of all creation, its principleof unity, its goal, and the explanation of all itsmysteries (Cof. i. 13-18). No one can read thispassage and deny that it teaches Christ's equality inglory with God. ..,. •

In reference to this same ~ s s a g e on the essentialdeity of" the Son of God's l ~ v e In whom we haveour redemption," the Roman Catholic mystic,John Cordelier, says: " I f the Cross be anything atall it is the ground-plan of the universe. It stretchesfrom Nebula to Nebula linking the furthest limits ofthe worlds, holding out to them the wounded handsof Love. All progress is born of that clash of loveand pain which IS the secret of its heart; itsmysterious torment lies at the root of all our joy.

It is odd indeed that any biologist can be otherthanaChristian, since he finds on every hand Christianity'ssternest symbol scored deep in the very foundationsof the House of Life; finds pain, struggle, and thesacrifice of the individual to be as essential to thediurnal processes of reproduction as to the slowgrowing perfection of the type. Turn to the heights,

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THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THEY ... CRUOFIED THE tORD 99



tum to the deep, tum within, t um , without;everywhere thou shalt find the Cross."

The same thought occurs in Studdert Kennedy'spoem, "The Suffering God" : -

If Father, if He the Christ, were Thy Revealer,Truly the First Begotten of the Lord.

Then Diust Thou be a Sufferer and a HealerPierced t o the heart by the sorrow of the sword.

Then m.ust it mean, not only that Thy sorrowSmote Thee that once upon the lonely tree,

But that to-day, to-night. and on the morrowStill it will come. 0 Gallant God. to Thee.• • • • •

Give me, for light, the sunshine of Thy sorrow;Give me, for shelter, shadow of Thy cross;

Give me to share the glory of Thy morrow,Gone from. my heart the bitterness of loss. II

It is not only that we see in Christ's death thesupreme manifestation of God's love, but also ofHis infinite sorrow and compassion. "Like as aFather pitiethhis children," is in the same Psalm thattells us that " as far as the East is from the West sofar hath He removed our transgressions from us.""Sorrow and love flow mingled down," on theCross-the sorrow of God and the love ofGod.

The whole Christian doctrine of the Atonementis rooted in the doctrine of the deity of Christ. Our

beliefin the latter determines our faith in the former.No mere man can pay the penalty of another man'ssin. All objections to the vicarious sacrifice ofChrist disappear before the tremendous fact of themajesty of the Person of Jesus. " I t is perfectlytrue," says Dr. Gresham Machen, "that the Christof modern naturalistic reconstruction never could

have suffered for the sins of others; but it is verydifferent in the case of the Lord of Glory. And ifthe notion of vicarious atonement be so absurd asmodem opposition would lead us to believe, whatshall be Said of the Christianexperience that has beenbased upon it ? The modern liberal Church is fond

of appealing to experience. But where shall trueChristian experience be found i f not in the blessedpeace which comes from Calvary? That peacecomes only when a man recognizes tha t all hisstriving to be right with God, all his feverishendeavour to keep the law before he can be saved, isunnecessary, and that the Lord Jesus has wiped outthe handwriting that was against him by dyinginstead of him on the Cross. Who can measure thedepth of the peace and joy that comes from thisblessed knowledge? Is it a theory of the atonement,a delusion of man's fancy? Or is it the very truth.of God?"

When Paul speaks of Jesus Christ as suffering onthe Cross in such terms as we have quoted, he dealswith facts so sublime that he calls them "thedepths of God" (I Cor. ii . 10). These matrers areso deep that they are unfathomable to humanphilosophy. So high that they elude the mostpiercing gaze of the intellect. In parts of the greatPacific ocean deep-sea sounding apparatus fails.

There are stellar spaces and nebulas that will notyield their secrets to the largest telescopes. "Thingswhich the eye saw not, and ear heard not, and whichentered not into the heart of man." But Godreveals themevenunto babes by His Holy Spirit, andalthoughwecannot understand it, we can fall downin utrer gratitude and humility.

100 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THEY ... CRUCIFIED THE LORD 101



U When I survey the wondrous CrossOn which the Prince of Glory died.

My richest gain I count but lossAnd pour contempt on all my pride."

There was no separation of the two natures ofour Lord on the Cross. His real humanity and His

real deity were not mixed, nor confounded butdistiJ;tct a n actually,. ~ o t h , wholly present. ,:Godw a In C ~ r l s t reconClling the world unto Himself."The sacrifice was not the human Christ pleasingGod; it was God in the Christ reconciling man andin another sense reconciling Himself. It was notthe death of a heroic man in obedience to God'swill; it was the death of the Son of God for the sinsof the world. Here, if anywhere, in the gospel storyChrist manifested His glory-a glory as of the onlybegotten of the Father full of grace and truth. Theatonement was an act of the whole Godhead. ForGod, the Father, so loved the world that He gave'God the Son laid down His life for others; God t h Holy Spirit filled Jesus with His presence and powerto endure such a death, and overcome it by Hisglorious resurrection (Rom. i. 4).. N o only at Bethlehem but on Calvary we maysing With the angels, " Glory to God in the highestpeace on earth and goodwill to men." ,

"Therefore," says Forsythe, "we press the

words to their fullness of meaning: God was inChrist reconciling, not reconciling through Christ,but actually present as Christ reconciling, doing inChrist His own work of reconciliation. It was doneby G o d h e a ~ itself; and not by the Son alone. Theold theologians were right when they insisted thatthe work of redemption was the work of the whole

Trinity-Father, Son and Holy Spirit; and weexpress it when we baptize into the new life ofreconcilement in the threefold name."

We must, however, go deeper still if we wouldknow something of this mystery. It must no tremain a mere doctrine but become an experience.W, crucified the Lord ofGlory. W, were purchasedby His blood.

Hear St. Anselmmeditating in the night watchesbefore the crucifix: "What hast Thoudone 0 mostsweet Jesus, 0 friend most dear, to be entreatedthus? . . . I am the blow which pained Thee;I the author of Thy death; I that laboured totorture Thee." And then he turns to us with thewords that still ring clearly in our hearts: "Put allthy trust in His death once for all: have noconfidence in anything else: confide wholly in that

death: cover thyself wholly in that alone, wrapthyself wholly up in that death." Hear the leameaand scholarly St. Bernard: "My highest philosophyis to know Jesus, and Jesus crucified." For" Calvary is the meeting place oflovers." Listen tothe prayer ascribed to St. Francis: " 0 my LordJesus Christ, two graces do I beseech Thee to grantme before I die; the first that, during my life-timeI may feel in my soul and inmy body, so far as maybe possible, that pain which Thou, sweet Lord.

didst suffer in the hour of Thy most bitter passion'the second is, that I may feel in my heart, so far a;may be possible, that exceeding love whereby Thou,Son of God, wast enkindled to bear willingly suchpassion for us sinners."

The death of Christ differs, we know, from thedeath of prophets, patriots and martyrs in many

101 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THEY ... CRUCIFIED THE LORD 1° 3

respects. It was foretold in prophecy; it was for to Christ byHis holyandblameless life, His devotion



thep'ropitiation of sin; it was accompanied bymanifestation; it was followed by supernaturalvictory over death and resurrection. But the realf.oint of difference is in the Person who died.•This was none other than the Son of God." InHim dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.The Word was made flesh and crucified for us.

" The blood of God out.poured upou the t ree ISo reads th e Book. 0 mind receive th e thought;Nor helpless murmur, thou hast vainly soughtThought-room within thee for such mystery.Thou foolish mindling I Dost thou hope to see

Undazed, untottering, all that God hath wrought ?Before His mighty ' shal l ' thy little ' ought'Be shamed to silence and hUmility.Come mindling, I will show thee what 'twere meet

That thou shouldst shrink from marvelling and l1eeA$ unbelievable-nay wonderingly

With dazed bu t still with faithful praises greet;Draw near and listen to this sweetest sweet.Thy God, 0 mindling, shed His blood for thee I "

On the Cross of Calvary is manifested thegreatest thing in the world, LoVE; the darkestmystery of the universe, SIN; and the highestexpression of God's character, HOLINESS. .. Hemade Him to be sin for us who knew no sinthat we might be made the righteousness of Godin Him." This manifestation is the atonement.

In a recendy published life of Dr. Kali CharanChatterjee, for forty-eight years one of the leadingpreachers of the Punjab, and a prince of the Churchof India, we read the testimony :-

.. It has often been asked why I renouncedHinduism and became a disciple of Christ. Myanswer is, that I was drawn almost unconsciously

to the will of God and His works of mercy andbenevolence toward suffering humanity. TheexcellenceofHis precepts as ~ i v e n in the Sermononthe Mount and His love of sln1lers won my admiration and my heart. I admired and lovedHim. Theincarnations I have been taught to worship, Rama,

Krishna, Mahadeo and Kill were all incarnations ofpower-they were heroes, sinfulmen of like passionwith ourselves. Christ only appeared to me as holyand worthy to be adored as God. But the doctrinewhich decided me to embrace the Christian religionand make a public profession of my faith was thedoctrine of the vicarious death and sufferings ofChrist. I felt myself a sinnerand found in Christ onewho had died for my sins-paid the penalty due tomy sins. •For by grace are ye saved through faith,

and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.'•Not of works lest any man should boast.' Thiswas the burden of the thought of my heart, Christhas died, and in doing so, paid a debt which mancouldneverjay. This convictionwhich has grownstronger an stronger with my growth in Christianlifeand e ~ e r i e n c e has nowbecomea part of my life.It is the differentiating line between Christianity andother religions. I felt it so when I became aChristian, and I feel it most strongly now."

It is not only the vicarious death of a Saviour forsin that is the distinguishing mark of Christianitycompared with all other religions, but the death ofslI$h a Saviour. Everything depends on the natureand character of the Being who renders thesubfututed satisfaction. Anselm in .. the mostprofound, clear and logical tract of the eleventh

.04 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THEY ... CRUOFIED THE LORD .os



century," Cur DelIS Homo, remarks that" the life ofthe God-Man is so sublime and so precious that it isgreater incomparably than those sins, which areexceeded beyond < all power of estimation by Hisdeath; . . . I would sooner incur the aggregatedguilt and misery of all the sins, past and future, of ,this world, and also of all the sin 111 addition that canpossibly be conceived of, rather than incur the guiltof that one sin of killing the Lord of Glory." OnlyDeity, so he teaches, can satisfy the claims of Deity ;but man has sinned and must render satisfaction forman's sin; consequently the required and theadequate satisfaction must be rendered by a Godman. This may sound like medireval scholasticreasoning, but we find the same profound truthsembodied in the creeds used in public worship, andin the hymns of the Christian Church.

ff There was no other good enoughTo pay th e price of s in ;

He, only, could unlock the gateOf heaven and le t us in,"

The average man rebels at a doetrina1 statement,but there is nothing that will so deepen ourdevotional spirit and save us from superficiality inprayer as meditation on these great truths. Thetheology of the creeds and catechisms when rightly

understood appeals to the heart quite as much as tothe head, to the imagination as well as to theunderstanding. Meditation on "the depths of

God" in the Scriptures is inevitably difficult andmay at first seem dry. But it is like practising scalesin music; sooner or later the notes of dogma willbecome spiritual harmony and he who perseveres

will know something more of "the depth of theriches both of the wisdom and knowledge ofGod."

So we come back to Paul's words (nay to theinspired word of God): "They crucified the Lordof Glory"; "the Church of God which He

purchased with His own blood."In the person of Jesus Christ there are two

natures. The true Deity and true humanity areunited but there is no mixtures of natures. Godsuffered on the Cross, not in God's nature but inman's nature. "When the apostle," remarksHooker, "saith of the J.ews that they crucified theLord of Glory (I Cor. n. 8), we must needs understand the whole person of Christ, who, being LordofGlory, was indeed crucified, but not in that naturefor which He is termed the Lord of Glory.

In like manner, when the Son of Man, being onearth, affirmeth that the Son of Man was in heavenat the same instant (John iii. 13), by the Son ofManmust necessarily be meant the whole person ofChrist, who being man upon earth, filled heavenwith His glorious presence, but not according tothat nature for which the title of Man is givenHim."

Just before He was condemned to death, JesusChr1st Himself before the high priest made the

strongest possible confession of His essentialhumanity and Deity. The account is given in eachof the synoptic gospels (Matt. xxvi. 64 ; Markxiv. 62 ; Luke xxii, 70). "But Jesus held Hispeace. And the high priest stood up and said,Answerest thou nothing? . . . I abjure thee by theliving God that thou tell us whether thou ar t the

106 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THEY ... CRUCIFIED THE LORD 107



Christ the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Tholl

hast said [in Mark's account, I am]; neverthdessI say unto you, Henceforthle shall see the Son ofMan sitting at the right han of Power and comingon the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest renthis garments saying He hath spoken blasphemy

. . . He is worthyof

death. Then they did spiton

His face. . . Whatfurther need have we ofWitness,for we oursdves have heard from His ownmouth."

None of them, wrote Paul, understood, "forhad they known it they would not have crucified theLord ofGlory." "Two natures met together in ourRedeemer," says the great theologian, Leo theGreat, " and while the properties of each remained,so great a unity was made of either substance, thatfrom the time that the Word was made flesh in the

virgin's womb, wemay neither think ofHim as Godwithout this which is man, nor as man without thiswhich is God. Each nature certifies its own realityunderdistinct actions, but neitherdisjoins itselffromconnexion with the other. Nothing is wanting fromeither towards the other; there is entire littleness inmajesty, entire majesty in litdeness; unity does notintroduce confusion, nor does propriety divideunity. There is one thing pas sible, anotherimpassible, yet His is the contumdy whose is the

glory. His is the infumity whose is the power; theselfsame Person is both capable, and conqueror, ofdeath. God did then take on Him whole man, andso knit Himself into him, and him into Himsdf, inpity and in power, that either naturewas in theother,and neither in the other lost its own property."

So in the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross the

human agony and disgrace is converted into a trulydivine sUffering by reason of the divinity that isunited with the human soul and body in the unity ofone sdf-consciousness. The passion is infinitebecause the Person is infinite. The Son of Godloved me and gave Himselffor me. God purchased

the Church With His own blood.



.. Lord, when I am weary with toiling,And burdensome seem Thy commands,

I f my load should lead to complaining,Lo'd, show me Thy Hands,-Thy nail-pierced Hands, Thy cross-torn Hands,My Saviour, show me Thy Hands.

CMist, i f eve. my fOolsteps should fait. .,And I be P.epa. .d fa . . .t. .at,

If deSMt or thorn cause lamenting,

La.d, show me Thy Feet,-Thy bleeding Feet, Thy nail-seaned Feet,My Jesus, show me Thy Feet,

a God, da. . I show TheeMY hands and MY feet."

-BRENTON TUOBURN BADLEY.

CHAPTER IX

.. HE SHOWED THEM H IS HANDs"

Uohn XX , I9-Z9).

IN his Epistle to the Phillippians Paul refers to threestages in the growth of his friendship with Jesus.A knowledge of Christ came first, and camethrough many troubled sources from friend and foe.Then he saw Christ on the road to Damascus andexperienced .. the power of His resurrection," forhim to live was Christ. Lastly he speaks of the.. fellowship of His suffering-" as the final goal ofhis friendship-to become Identified with Him ina life of sacrifice and drinking the cup of Hispassion and death for others.

So the lover of Christ finds the shadow of theCross the longest shadow in the world. It stretchesacross the ages and all lands, and falls even on theResurrection morning.

.. Peace be unto you, and when He had so said

He showed unto them His hands and His side."Jesus Christ never hid His scars to win disciples.He bears in His glorified body the marks of Hispassion. They prove His identity, proclaim Hisvictory and are the badgeofHis authority as Saviourand King. .. Then were the disciples glad whenthey saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again,

109

II O THE GLORY OF THE CROSS HE SHOWED THEM IDS HANDS I I I

Peace be unto you; as my Fatherchath sent me even " My Lord and my God." His scarred hands and



so send I you."T h o ~ a l d s e n , . the great Danish sculptor, por

trayed this scene In marble. In the Vor Fruhe-Kirktat Copenhagen stands his statue of the Risen Christwith outstretched hands bearing the J?rint of thenails and sending His disciples on thetr errand ofpeace. On each side of the church are six figuresrepresenting the twelve apostles, in which groupPaul takes the place of Judas. To see the group ashere presented makes a deep impression on themindand heart. A Protestant Clitist, not on the Cross butready for the throne and yet scarred. The twofoldmessage from his lips according to John's Gospel iscaught by the artist's skill. "Peace be unto you" ." As my Father hath sent me even so send I you.' :The Cross is not only expiatory but exemplary. It

whispers peace within but calls for struggle without.It has a motive as well as a message for the sinner.Those who have once had a vision of the Cross inthe scars of Jesus can never be quite the same again." Christ died for all that they which live should nol o n ~ e r live unto themselves but unto Him who forthetr sakes died and rose again." We have peacethrough His blood, and apostleship through Hisexample.

It is remarkable that His scars were the only

thing Jesus showed His disciples after His resurrection. By His scars they knew Him in the breakingof the ,bread. at Emmaus even when they failed torecogmze His.form and face and speech. By Hisscars He conVinced the ten disciples of His identityand His resurrection life. By His scars Thomas wasconvicted of his unbelief a week later and cried,

sideare the token and seal ofour peace withGod andan irresistible call to service and sacrifice.

The Germanloet, Heine, pictures the gods ofthe ancient worl sitting in their banqueting-hall,throned and triumphant over a subject-world. To

them enters one l?oor peasant staggering beneath aCross. He casts It thundering on the table, and allthe gods of lust and wrong despair and die. Thegods of the ancient world are the false values of thenew. Arid when Christ casts His Cross into a man'slife, all the old false values die, and a wonderful newlife based on eternal values springs into being.

In the gospel records we have a fourfold worldcommission from Christ's own lips. St. Matthew§ives the reason w/[y we are to disciple all nations., All authority is given unto me in heaven and on

earth, Go ye." St. Mark tells where, "Preach thegospel to the whole creation." St. Luke emphasizesthe ortkr of procedure: "Repentance and remissionof sins should be preached in His name unto all thenations beginning from Jerusalem." But St. Johntouches a deeper note, and reveals the spirit that isto dominate and control us : "As my Father hathsent me so send I you." The servant is not greaterthan his Lord. We are to share the same task, underthe same authority, with the same message, and

endure similar suffering. "As He laid down Hislife for us," says John so simply and so startlingly," we ought to lay down our ltves for the brethren."

The Cross is the supreme dynamic for devotion.Jesus only needs to show His scars to win martyrsfor His cause. God pours upon all the spirit ofsacrifice "when they look upon Him whom they

IU THE GLORY OJ! THB CROSS HB SHowED THEM IllS HANDS II3

have pierced." "And one shall say unto him what on the print of the nails and say: "It is enough.



are these wounds in thine hands. Then shall heanswer, Those with which I was wounded in thehouse of my friends" (Zech. xii. 1 0 ; xiii. 6).

When Jesus Christ appeared to Saul on the roadto Damascus he, too, must have seen theprint of thenails and the mark of the spear in Christ's body bythecelestial light that streamed fromheaven. "Whypersecutest thou me? " - " Jesus whom thoupersecutest" . . . " I will show him how manythings he must suffer for my name's sake."

No wonder that Paul uses a strange word whenhe speaks of his apostolic ministry and of Christ'ssuffering. It is used only once again in the NewTestament. In Luke's Gospel we are told of thewidow who cast into the treasury all she had out ofherpenury. Paul uses the same Greek word. "Now

I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill upon my part the penury of the affliCtions of Christ inmy flesh for his body's sake which is the Church."The penury of Calvary 1

To the Jew sufferingwas a problem to be solved.To the Christian it became a privilege to be shared.Saul, the Jew, faced the problem of suffering in thespirit of Job and his three friends, and it was aninsoluble problem. Paul, the Christian, saw thescars of Christ and realized that the Servant of

Jehovah was wounded for our transgressions andbruised for our iniquities. Therefore he writes:" I take pleasure in weakness, in injuries, innecessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ'ssake."

The glory of the Risen Christ for us is torecognize the scars; to put our hands with Thoma!

Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, formine eyes have seen Thy salvation " - " My Lordand my God." Will this not be the supreme delightand the deepest experience of the saints in glory, tokneel and see the scars? Even Mary when sheanointed His feet had no scars to kiss. These thingsthe angels desire to look into, but they veil theirfaces when they behold this mystery of redeeminglove.

.. Crown Him the Lord of Love:Behold His hands and side,

Rich wounds, yet visible aboveIn beauty glorified.

No angel in the skyCan fully bear that sight,

Bu t downward bends his burning eyeAt mysteries so bright."

" He showed them His hands." Did He evershow them to you? St. Francis of Assisi spent suchlong hours of contemplation on the scars of Jesusthat he finally bore in his body the marks of theSaviour. But far more significant than thestigmata on his hands were the evidences ofChrist's cross-bearing in his daily life.

When Bernard of Assisi desired to followSt. Francis, it was decided that they should go to the

bishop's house, and have mass said. "After that,"said Francis, " we shall remain in prayer until terce,beseeching God that by our three times opening themissal, He will show us the way which it pleasesHim that we should choose."

At the first opening appeared these words, whichour Lord said to the young man who asked about

H

II 4 THE GLORY OF TIm CROSS HE SHOWED THEM illS HANbS 111'

the way to perfection: " I f thou wilt be perfect, gosell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and foll?w

and as I entered was earnestly counting his ninety:nine ~ o s a r y - b e a d s , each one representing one of the



me" (Matt. xix. 2. I). At the second ope1l1ngappeared the words which Christ spake to theapostles when He sent them to preach: "Takenothing for your journey, neither staff nor scrip, norbread nor money" (Luke ix. 3). At the thirdopening appeared the words of Mark viii. 34: " I fany man will follow me, let h i deny himself a n take up his cross, and follow me. Then ~ t F r a n ~ l s.said to Bernard, "Behold the advice which ChrIstgives: go then and accomplishwhatyou have read;and blessed be our Lord Jesus Christ, who hasdeigned to show us the way to live in accordancewith His Gos,Pel."

He and his mendicant brothers devoted themselves to rigid asceticism, living in a deserted lazarhouse, visiting the abodes of sickness. a n p o v ~ r t y ,preaching the gospel to an ever wlde1l1ng CIrclewhich fuially included heretics and Mohammedans.In Egypt before Sultan Kamil, Francis gave f e a r l e ~ sproof of his readiness to suffer for his faith. HISfreedom from worldly care, his joy in service, hishumility and child-like confidence, his love of natureand his intense passion for men-these, too, werethe stigmata, the marks of the Lord Jesus.

If Touch with Thy pierced hand

Each common day.

Making this earthly lifeFull of Thy grace,Till in the home of heaven

We find ou r place."

I.oncemet aMoslemSt. Francis. He belonged to

one of the Sufi orders of mystics, lived in poverty,

beautiful names ofAllah. When we spoke togethetof these attributes and their significance to the seekerafter God and how A1 Ghazali and other mysticstaught that we were to meditate on God's characterin order to imitate His mercy, compassion andkindness, he turned to me and said: "Mter all, one

does not need a rosary to count the ninety-ninenames; they are graven on our hands." Then hespread his palms and pointed to the ArabicnumeralsAI (eighty-one) and IA (eighteen) the deep marksin every left and every right hand-the twomakingatotal of ninety-nine. And, said he, "that is whywe spread our hands open in supplication, remindingAllah of all His merciful attributes, as we plead Hisgrace."ThenI told him of the scars of Jesus and how He

bore our sins on the tree. " I will not forget thee. . . behold I have graven thee upon the palms ofmy hands."They pierced His hands and His feet. The scars

remain in His glorified body. They are the call todiscipleship and the test of apostleship to each ofthose who profess to call themselves Christians. Itis hard to be a follower of Christ. His demands areinexorable. Except a man forsake all that he hath hecannot be Jesus' disciple. No cross, no crown.

Jesus did not say He was the troe oakorolive

orcedar, but the " troe vine." It is the only tree thatis tied to a stake and that bleeds to bless. Everybranch needs the pruning-knife, and only where itcuts deep is there promise of a cluster of fruit.

We are called to Christ's fellowship, but it is a

116 THE GLORY OF THE CROSSHE SHOWED THEM InS HANDS 117

fellowship of suffering. Earth is the chosen batdeimprisonments, in tumults, in watchings, ih



ground, from all eternity, for the final conflictbetween the powers of light and darkness.

U For when God f o r m ~ in the hollow of His handThis Ball of earth among His other ballsAnd set it in His shining firmament.

Between the greater and the lesser lights,He chose it for the Star of Suffering,"

The fellowship of His suffering is the realapostolic succession. The blood of the martyrs wasthe seed of the Church in every land and every age." Henceforth," said Paul, " let no man troublo me.I bear in my body the brand-marks, the scars, of theLord Jesus."

.. Christ th e Son of God hath sent me

To th e midnight lands;Mine the mighty ordination

Of the piercM hands."

The life story of David Livingstone, HenryMartyn, Mary Slessor, James Gilmour, and KeithFalconer, all bear the print of the nails. When ourplans are frustrated, our hopes disappointed, ourvisions melt away, our decisions cost blood, ourpleasures become pain and we are in the agony of aGethsemane or a Golgotha, what is it but the

bearing of our Cross after Jesus? The patience ofunanswered prayer, the hidden self-sacrifice, theloneliness of leadership, all these are part of thechastisement whereof all are partakers who are notbastards but sons. "Always bearing about in ourbody the dying of the Lord Jesus. Approvingourlielves as ministers of God in stripes, in

fastings."

U He who ne'er broke his bread with blinding tears,Nor crushed upon his pillow in the night,Wrung out his soul and fought his bitter fight,

He knows not truly joy that conquers fears,"

Heaven has twelve gates and the twelve whosenames appear on the foundations of the Holy Cityall bear the scars of the Master. Every gate is apearl---{\ pearl of sacrifice.

It was a missionary in Kashmir who wrote thiscolleCl: on the human body wholly surrendered toChrist. Can we make the prayer our own ?

"Master, here for Thy service we render toThee, flesh, bone, and sinew, the physical frameThou hast given. Teach us to use it aright for Thyglory; teach us to treat it for Thee as a goodmachine which we hold in trust to be tended andkept for Thy purpose. Teach us to use i t remorselessly, sternly, yet never misuse, and as it slowly or

swifdy wears out, grant us the joy of the knowledgethat it wears out for Thee. Amen."



U Christ our. FcwBrunner conquers Death, pushes open thedouble doors wAtch shut us from Eternity, and lets tke soul pass~ h r o u g h . The Eternal Wisdom, going by way of CI'OSS and grave1,nto the atmosphere of Reality, showed us this path, this secret:

and confided to us the Cosmic Word of Power the' Open Sesame •of jhe spiritual world. '

. "!he Lighl of jhe World had donelillle for us had II failed 10

iJlum'tnate the darkness of the grave, to sanct ify the horror ofwntact between tke wonde,. of flesh and the inexorable tomb

• Venite et ~ ~ e . ~ e locum': tome, see the place where Pet'jectLove has la'l-n. -JOHN CORDEUER in the Path of EternalWisdom.

118

CHAPTER X

" THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION"

THERE is a wonderful painting by Eugene Burnand,entitled Le Samedi Saint (Holy Saturday). Itrepresents the eleven disciples gathered togetherWIth the doors shut for fear of the Jews, but there is

no light of gladness, no smile of hope on their faces.It is the evening of the darkest day in their lives.Jesus lies in the tomb. Their hopes lie buried withHim. " We trusted," they are saying, " that it hadbeen He who should have redeemed Israel." "Wetrusted-but now our trust is gone. In Galilee,beside the Lake, we saw His power and His glory.On Golgotha we heard His bitter cry and saw Hisdying agony. Then joseph of Arimathea tookHis body and we lai it in the tomb. Jesus is

dead."Peter sits with his head in his hands, and Johri,

his face a study of conflicting emotions, is trying tocomfort him but can find no words. Disappointeddiscouraged, perplexed, baffled, bewildered as they

think of the future, each face in the group is anindividual expression of their common experience.Jesus is dead. "We trusted that it had been He whoshould have redeemed Israel. . ."

Thanks be to God I the gospel story does notend with the death of Christ. It does not close with

119

UO THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION U I

His triumphant cry, " It is finished." Nor does the were in a sceptical frame of mind and not ready to



apostolic message. Christ's death was followed byHis resurrection. Jesus was" of the seed of Davidaccording to the flesh," butwas" declared to be theSon of God with power by the Resurrection fromthe dead." He died for our sins and was buried and" hath been raised on the third day according to the

Scriptures." Such is Paul's concise statement. Hebases his belief in the resurrection of Jesus, first, onthe prophecies and promises that He would rise, andthen on the appearances of the living Redeemerbecause He did rise. He catalogues those appearances in order, appeals to his own vision of theRisen Christ on the road to Damascus, and thendraws his conclusion: " I f Christ hath not beenraised your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins.Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ have

perished. If in this life onlywe have hope in Christwe are of all men most pitiable."It is with keen insight into the character of all

evidence, and especially of this evidence, thatSydneyDobell wrote: "The anxiety of Paul to restthe whole value of his preachingon the Resurrectionis a grand evidence. It makes the brain of Paul anevidence. He is surety for a world of unknownfaCts. So of the other aposdes. And the unbelief ofthe aposdes compared with their after-belief and

the selectionof

the Resurrectionas

the master-fact,is inestimable testimony also to unknown evidentialfacts."

One of the most remarkable things about thestory of the resurrection as given in the four gospelsis that all the accounts of these eye-witnessesemphasize the doubts of the Lord's followers. They

accept hearsay evidence. The women "saidnothing to anyone for they were afraid" (Markxvi. 8). When Mary Magdalene told them of hervision of a living Christ" they disbelieved" (Markxvi. II). When they saw Him on the mountain inGalilee someworshippedHim" but somedoubted"(Matt. xxviii. 17). The aposde Thomas kept hisdoubts for a whole week and then he wasconvinced.

The faithof the aposdes in the actual resurrectionof Jesus Christ, therefore, was not a blind faith butopen-eyed and built on accumulative and irresistibleevidence. "He showed Himself after His passionby many infallible proofs, being seen of them fortydays," and the number of those who thus saw Himalive and recognizedHimwas morethan five hundred

(Acts i. 3; 1 Cor. xv. 6). None of the apostolicband had the shadow of a doubt left after Christ'sascension and the great Day of Pentecost. Theywere changed men because Christ was alive for evermore. His resurrection was their living hope. It wasthe dynamic of their message, not only, but of theirdaily eXJ?erience. "Him, God raised up the thirdday," saId Peter, "and showed Him openly. Notto all the people but untowitnesses chosen before ofGod, even to us, who did eat and drink with Him

after He rose from the dead" (Acts x. 40). " ThoughHe was crucified through weakness," writes Paul,"yet he lived by the power of God" (2. Cor. xiii. 4)." Jesus Christ," says John, " is a faithful witness, thefirst begotten of the dead." He is alive for evermore.Death can have no more dominion over Him, forHe hath abolished death and brought life and

I2Z THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION H3

immortality to light in the gosJ1el This is the powerof the new life in Christ. He 1S in every believer the

religions is the universal belief of mankind in afuture state of existence after death and tiJ,e univctJal



hope of glory and the secret of victory over sin.CruciJied with Christ, dead and buried with Him, butnow alive in Him and for Him.

The resurrection morning sheds new light-thelight of eternity-on all things mundane. Every-

thing and every man is different because of thisliving Hope, this manifestation of God's power andGod's victory at the empty tomb. If any man is inChrist he is a new creation. Old things havepassed away, all is new in the new light of theResurrection morning.

" Light of Eternity, Light divine.Into my darkness shine,That the small may appear small,And the Great, greatest of al l :

o Light of eternity shine I ..

When men realize the presence of the livingChrist, all life's values are determined by a newstandard. "Henceforth I will put no value onanything I have or possess save in relation to theKingdom of Christ," said David Livingstone. We

read in John's Gospel that" in the place where Hewas cru,cified there was a garden and in the garden atomb." That garden 'still awaits us. It blossomsred with sacriJice. All the fruit of the Spirit ripensthere. The power of His resurrection enables men

to face the world's deepest sorrows and needsconfident in Christ who knows and cares and cansupply that need.. The human heart hungers for two things,redemption from sin and life eternal. The mostremarkable fact in the comparative history of

attempt to appease the gods, or God, by all mannerof saeriJices and offerings. Christ is the fulfilment ofboth these needs. Although the notions of.thefuture life are crude among primitive races they arereal and have a dominant place in their thoughts.

The very term animism connotes the superiority ofthe soul to the material world. Not only all

primitive religions but all the great ethnic faithsteach immortality and have an instinct for eternalvalues.

Men believe in immortality because of theinttinsic incompleteness of the present life, because _they have observed that character often grows evenwhen the faculties begin to decline, and because ofthe imperative clamour of our affections. Love is

stronger than death. Something within us echoes tothis voice of the universe, and souls are drawnforward irresistibly on this one path to their eternalhome. All things turn towards the heart of God,their source and also their end. "He who proclaimsthe existence of the Infinite," said Louis Pasteur,"and none can avoid it-accumulates in thataffirmation more of the supernatural than is to befound in all the miracles of all the religions; for thenotion of the Infinite presents that double character,that it forces itself upon us and yet is incompre-

hensible. When this notion seizes upon our under-standing, we can but kneel. I see everywhere theinevitable eltpression of the Infinite in the world;through it the supernatural is at the bot tom ofevery heart. " Science speaks of infinite space,infinite time, infinite numbers, infinite life and

IZ4 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS

motion. "He hath set eternity in their hearts"

THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION Ul

" I am the resurrection and the life: whosoever



(Eccles. iii. II).Death is not more universal than the longing of

the human soul for life, more life, abundant life,such as Jesus brought to light through His gloriousresurrection and ascension.

" 'Whatever crazy sorrow saith,No life that breathes with human breatbHatb ever truly longed for death.

'Tis life of which our nerves are scant.'Tis life, no t death, for which we pant,More life. and fuller, that we want.II

This truth is proclaimed in the beliefs of theancient Etruscans; in the Book of theDead (whichwas really a book oflife) by the ancient Egyptians;

in the last book of the laws of Manu on transmigration and final beatitude; in the elaboratepopular eschatologies of Islam; even in thel11terpretation of Nirvana by the best Buddhistscholars.The desireofall nations for life eternal is fulfilled

in Christ and in Christ alone. Because Jesus hasbrought life and immortality to light by His deathand resurrection, He has given us a unique message,one that is suited to the sins and sorrows of

humanity.Earnest seekers after truth in all nations see aninvisible world, hear inaudible voices, and try to layhold of intangible realities; therefore they willnever be attracted by a missionary message that isnot other-worldly. It was at the grave of Lazarusthat Jesus preached the Gospel of the Resurrection.

believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall helive: and whosoever liveth and believeth onmeshallnever die."

This was the heart of Paul's message. Hepreached Christ and the resurrection. He knew no

other gospel."Now,

brothers, I would have youknow the gospel I once preached to you, the gospelyou received, the gospel in which you have yourfooting, the gospel by which you are savedprovided you adhere to my statement of it-unlessl11deed your faith was all haphazard. First andforemost, I passed on to you .what I had !fiyselfreceived, namely, that Christ died for our Sl11S, asthe Scriptures had said, that He was buried, that Herose on the third day as the Scriptures had said ...I f Christ did not rise, t h e ~ our preaching has g ~ n efor nothing, and your faith has gone for nothingtoo. Besides, we are detected bearing false witnessto God by affirming of Him that He raised Christwhom He did not raise, if after all dead men neverrise" (I Cor. xv. 1-3, 14, I l ; Moffatt's Version).Jesus was victor over death. He removes the terrorof the tomb. He has brought life and immortality tolight in the gospel. I f in this life only we had hopein Christ, our message, and we ourselves, would bemost pitable. But we are ambassadors of t h Conqueror of Sin

~ Death, the immortal King ofGlory. Our ~ o s p e l is not for this life only but

concerns eternity, and is therefore of infinite value.All our Christian inStitutions, organizations, equipments, resources and methods are only means to anend. After all ther are but the scaffolding for thehouse not made With hands, eternal in the heavens.

12.6 THE GLORY OF THE CROSS THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION 12.7

!he social gospel has its place and its poweJ:, for Christian world. "For the last thirty years or so,"



Christ came to heal the broken-heartecf and givelibc:ny to the captive. We dare not neglect theethical content ort h gospel message, and its severedemands. But nothing so appeals to the individualas the gospel of the resurrection.

.The gospel is not, as Bolshevists allege, anopIate for the p<?or and miseJ:able, forced down theirthroats by the rich and arrogant. The gospel is theproclamation that the things that are seen are temporal and that the u n s e e ~ ~ h i n ~ s are eternal. NowIn a· world full of lnJustice we may haveto partake C?f t h fello:,"ship of Christ's suffeJ:ing;but by faith In Hun we shall attain untothe r e ~ u r r e c t i , ? n of t ~ ~ e a d . "He will changeour vile bodies, fashiomng them like unto hisglor!ous body according to the working wherebyhe IS able to subdue all things unto himself"(Phil. ill. 10.)

The eternal values, latent for all who believe in!he d e a t ~ a n r e ~ u r r e e t i o n of Jesus Christ, were theJOy and lnspIration of the aposdes and saints andmartyrs of the early Church. They won the worldfor Christ because they despised the world. Theyf o u : u d e ~ .a spir!tual k i n ~ d o m in every land becausetheIr CItIzenship was In heaven. They laid thef o u n d ~ ~ i o ~ s C?f theChurch in every city because they

were pilgruns and s t r a n ~ e r s " and looked for" the city that hath foundations whose buildeJ: andmaker is God."

There is no aspect of Christian truth that needsemphasis to-day more than this. Indeed we areprogressi.ves in t?eology i f we carry this messageof the Risen ChrISt and of eternal life to the non-

says Dr. Deissman, "the discernment of theeschatological character of the Gospel of Jesus hasmore and more come to the front in internationalChristian theology. I regard this as one of thegreatest steps forward that theological enquiry has

eVeJ: achieved. We to-day must lay the strongestpossible stress upon the eschatological character ofthe gospel, which it is the practical business of theChurch to proclaim. Namely, that we mustdaily focus our minds upon the fact· that theKingdom of God is near, that God with His.unconditioned soveJ:eigntycomes through judgmentand redemption, and that we have to prepareourselves inwardly for the Maranatha-" The Lordcometh."

This is indeed our missionary message, the

everlasting Gospel of One who came, who died onthe Cross, who arose from the dead, ascended to

heaven, and who is coming again. From Bethlehemand Calvary, from the empty tomb and from theclouds that hide Him from view, there streams thelight of eternity. The great ellipse that includesthe content of our faith and of our messageto the world may be drawn as widely as possible,but it always has and always will have twofoci-the Death and the Resurrection of Jesus

Christ, and their relation to man's sin andhis eternal destiny. This is the gospel of theResurrection.

U This hath He done and shall we not adoreHim?

This shall He do and can we still despair?Come, let us quickly fling ourselves before Him,Cast at His feet the burthen of our care.

u 8 THE GLORY OF TH E CROSS

F l a sh f r o m ou r eyes th e glow of ou r thanksgiving,

Glad an d regretful, confident an d calm ;



Then through all life a nd w h at is after living.Thrill to th e tireless music of a psa lm.

Ye a thro' life, death, thro' sorrow a n d t h ro ' sinning,He shall suffice me , fo r H e h at h sufficed :

Christ is th e end, for Christ wa s th e beginning,Christ th e beginning, for t h e e n d i s C h r is t ."

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Zwemer - Glory of the Cross