Glorying in the cross, and other sermons

BookJl^s^Ls:

CopyrightN0..

COPYRIGHT DEPOSE

Jesse R. Kellems.

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

AND OTHER SERMONS

BY

JESSE R. KELLEMS, A. B. (Orefcon), B. O. (E. B. U.)

A Minister of the Churches of Christ

WITH INTRODUCTION
BY

GEORGE L. LOBDELL, A. M.f D. D.

"When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of fclory died,
My richest &ain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride."

CHRISTIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION
ST. LOUIS, MO.

Copyright, 1914, by
CHRISTIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION

SEP 13 1915

0CLA41O676
*4i

DEDICATION

'T'O my father, Professor David C. Kellems,
of the Eugene Bible University, and my
mother, Louisa Flint Kellems, whose loving
sacrifices have made possible whatever accom-
plishment may have been mine in the service of
Christ, and to my wife, Vera Edwards Kellems,
whose beautiful Christian character and faithful
love have ever inspired me to the highest
endeavor, this little volume, the author's first,
is affectionately dedicated.

Preface

At the earnest and frequent solicitation of my many
friends made in my pastoral and evangelistic work
in Oregon, Washington and California, I have in the
following pages published in permanent form the
four sermons which have been most kindly received
in the various fields in which I have labored. Each
message represents several years of careful thought
and research. My apology for whatever inaccuracies
may be discovered in the technique of expression is the
rightful demand made upon my time by continuous
service in the evangelistic field. In the effort to give
each sermon in as nearly as possible the same words
used in its public delivery, the popular style has been
followed throughout the book.

I desire here to acknowledge my debt to those who
have aided in giving to the work its proper form. To
Professor John Straub, A. M., L,itt. D., Dean of the
College of Literature, Science and Arts of the Uni-
versity of Oregon, and to Eugene C. Sanderson, D. D.,
LL.D., President of the Eugene Bible University. I
am especially indebted for their many kind sugges-
tions relative to the first two sermons. For other
helpful assistance I also gladly mention C. W. Jop-
son, A. B., B. S., minister of the Church of Christ at
Concord, California; George W. Brewster, B. D.,
minister of the Church of Christ at San Jose, Cali-

PREFACE

fornia, and Victor M. Hovis, A. B., minister of the
Church of Christ at Lodi, California. I must also ac-
knowledge my obligation for his help in many ways
to James H. McCallum, my very dear friend, who
was associated with me in my first year of evangelistic
service as soloist and personal worker.

In the hope that this simple little volume may
prove to be a blessing to those who read its pages, the
author joyfully sends it forth.

Jesse R. Keixems.
Nov. 30, 1914.

Contents

Page

Introduction 9

I. Glorying in the Cross 13

II. Heu, 47

III. The Divine Name 75

IV. The Miraculous Christ 105

Introduction

In Paul's second letter to Timothy he exhorts him
to continue in the things which he has learned, know-
ing from whom he has learned them, and he reminds
him that from a child he has known the Holy Scrip-
tures which are able to make him wise unto salvation,
"through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

I am sure that the author of this book of sermons
is like Timothy, mindful of his earliest teaching by a
noble woman of God, who, from his infancy, yea, and
even before he was born, prayed earnestly day and
night that her son should be used mightily of God in
declaring the wonderful gospel of salvation through
Jesus Christ. To his mother he is indebted for his
inborn desire to preach the Word. Neither will he
forget to credit his father with the splendid train-
ing he received from early childhood in the art of
presenting in the most attractive and forceful form,
the great themes of the gospel, that he might be a suc-
cessful winner of souls.

Responding readily to these efficient and godly
teachers, he began preaching at the early age of fifteen
years, and today, while still a boy in his twenties, he
can rejoice with the thousands who have listened to his
fervent proclamation of the gospel message and be-
come obedient followers of King Jesus.

Realizing the value of great faith in the cardinal
doctrines of the early church, he has labored faithfully

INTRODUCTION

to bring to his auditors the well established truths con-
cerning the sonship of Jesus, and hence His power to
fulfill His promises to dying men. His sermon, "Glory-
ing in the Cross," is intended to stimulate faith in the
essential fact of the atonement, without which our
faith would be in vain. His sermon on "Hell" is a
wonderful grouping of facts and logical arguments by
Blackstone and other great men, showing the infallible
proofs of future punishment, which punishment is as
inevitable for the transgressor of God's laws as that
night will follow day. Being early taught with the
writer of Acts that, "there is none other name under
heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,"
he has labored diligently to bring to the minds and
hearts of men the wonderful name of Jesus Christ as
the potent factor in the accomplishment of every
divine purpose. Following this is the climactic sermon,
"The Miraculous Christ," which exalts Christ among
His brethren and reveals Him as God manifest in
the flesh.

I have known this young author and evangelist
from his early childhood and have watched his de-
velopment until today, after a happy experience with
him in one of the greatest meetings ever conducted in
the history of the Stockton Church of Christ, I find
joy in writing the introduction to his first book of
sermons, and am praying that it shall go forth on its
mission of exalting the Christ and stimulating faith
in the hearts of all who read its live message.

G. L. Lobdeix, A. M., D. D.

Stockton, California, Nov. 9, 1914.

I

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

I

Glorying in tKe Cross

"But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world
hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world."
Gal 6:14.

Those to whom this statement was addressed were
a fickle, changeable people. With the hot, impetuous
Gallic blood bounding through their veins, they were
apt to be a people of moods; now enthusiastic, now
plunged into the depths of despondency. Caesar re-
lates that the Galatians, relatives by blood to the Galls,
ancestors of the modern French, were an extremely
credulous people; believing everything that was told
them, no matter how absurd the story might be.
Traveling men were ofttimes detained and requested
to tell the experience of their journeyings. Becoming
acquainted at last with the credulity of the Galatians,
these traveling men enlarged and magnified their nar-
ratives until at last they were telling marvelous tales,
some of them utterly beyond the pale of possibility.
Their listeners, open-mouthed, swallowed down every-
thing that was said and believed it until another story
was told them. With such a people, then, is Paul
dealing in our text. Some Judaizing zealots had come
from Jerusalem and had, by their smooth words, per-

Thirteen —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

suaded the Galatian Christians that Paul was a false
apostle and the gospel which he had with so much
labor taught them, was an incomplete gospel because
it refused to recognize the Christian religion as simply
at sect of Judaism. Bitter was the anguish of Paul
when he heard of their apostasy. In righteous indig-
nation he writes unto them the letter from which our
text is taken. The customary pleasant introduction
with which he prefaces the major portion of his other
letters is here omitted. He plunges at once into a ma-
jestic vindication of his divinely received apostleship,
and scathingly anathematizes anyone and everyone,
even to an angel from heaven, who shall dare preach
any gospel other than that which he has preached unto
them. After his lucid exposition of the relation of
the Law and Grace, in the concluding chapter of this,
the most fiery of all his letters, he utters the splendidly
loyal sentiment of our text, "Be it far from me to
glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
The foolish Galatians may wander as they wish after
strange doctrines, or chase, in their blind folly, delu-
sive phantoms ; but as for Paul, for the cross he must
stand and in the cross must he ever glory. Like a
rock encircled by foam-crested seas he remains, while
the stormy winds of doubtful doctrines lash to
apostasy and ruin his children in that noble faith,
"once for all delivered to the saints/'

One of the most universally recognizable elements
of man's nature is his inherent desire to worship
something. Every nation has its God. Individuals
there have been, but never a nation of infidels. Every

— Fourteen

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

man worships something, whether he be willing to ac-
knowledge that worship or not. If man receives no
revelation of God, he will make for himself a god. If
the true God is unknown to him, he deifies the in-
animate objects around him. He is always striving
to realize the character of God more fully. In im-
patient desire to see God from closer viewpoint, the
Israelites became apostate to their faith and "bowed
the knee to Baal," or made for themselves an idol of
gold. In his attempt to know God, and as showing his
desire for worship, the Athenian filled Athens with
thirty thousand deities, and then in fear lest any should
have been overlooked, he erected an altar, "to the Un-
known God." The African aborigine still fingers his
fetish and mutters his prayer to the god within its
hideous form. The turbaned son of India, and his
brother of China, still philosophize, as did for cen-
turies their fathers before them, concerning the axioms
of Buddha or Confucius. On the dreary wastes of
Arabia, as the blazing sun stands for a moment sta-
tionary at the zenith, the Moslem, with face turned
toward Mecca, murmurs his monotonous prayer to
Allah, the supremely wise and good. The American
Indian has sung of his Great Spirit and the happy
hunting grounds, while his heliolatrous brother to
the south has chanted his weird incantations and
performed his strange rites before his god, the sun.
The Greek has had his Zeus and Hera; the Roman
his Jupiter and Juno. The sacred bulls of Assyria,
the river gods of the Egyptians, the hideously carved
totems of the Alaskan Indians are but still other ex-

Fifteen —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

pressions of a tangible nature of the divinely im-
planted desire in man to know God, to worship him,
"to seek after him if haply they might feel after him
and find him."

Today men worship various, and sometimes even
to themselves unrecognized, gods. I have met men
in my own experience who though they blatantly
denied the very existence of the Christian's Jehovah,
and though they claimed that they had no gods, were
nevertheless the most slavish worshipers of deities of
their own creation.

In a popular magazine one time appeared a cartoon
which exactly illustrated the relation of men today to
the strange gods which exercise such iron rule over
the hearts of so many of them. A long line of
pedestals stretched away into the distance. On the
top of each stood an image. Over the heads in their
order were written the names, Gold, Fame, Fashion,
Family History, Nationality, Intellect and so on, un-
til the names were imperceptible in the distance. Be-
fore these gods kneeled hordes of adoring worshipers
with outstretched hands and eager, bright faces. Oh,
how mad is the worship of strange gods and how al-
luring !

In this address it is our purpose to consider in de-
tail some of these false objects of glory and to inquire
into Paul's reasons for glorying in the cross.

I. False Objects of Glory.

1. Glorying in Men. — Hero-worship has been a
sin of all the ages. Popular heroes arise and an ad-

— Sixteen

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

miring populace accords to them rapturous praise
and burdens them with laurel wreaths. It was hero-
worship that made Caesar a dictator; it was hero-
worship that would have crowned Jesus a temporal
king. As a beloved hero, Peter became the legendary
first pope at Rome. It was hero-worship that shouted
hosannas over Apollos and Cephas, Barnabas and
Paul. It was the same blind admiration that generated
the first seeds of division and discord in the Corin-
thian church, where loving more his apostles and
ministers than they did the Christ, they were heard to
say, "I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas."
(1 Cor. 1:12.) Hero-worship made Napoleon coun-
cillor-dictator, then Emperor of France. Hero-wor-
ship paved a path of glory for him across the sum-
mits of the hoary Alps, crowned him with honor and
victory beneath the frowning gaze of sphinx and pyra-
mids, shielded and protected him from Russia's frozen
plains, and received him with demonstrations of
boundless affection in every hamlet of the Empire. No
sacrifice on the part of even the smallest drummer
boy in the ranks was too great for the "Little Cor-
poral." Defeated, crushed, beaten back from the
lines of red, like broken waves from the foot of granite
cliffs, the white-coated squadrons of the old guard,
though they could not surrender, could die and with
the joyful shout on every lip, "Vive 1' empereur."
For the love of one man France sacrificed her man-
hood, prostituted her virtue and glutted herself to
satiety with the blood of Europe, Africa and Asia.
Upon the altar of an insatiate, wicked and impos-

Seven teen —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

sible ambition she gladly offered her wealth, her
honor and her blood.

While we shudder at the wholesale slaughters of
Napoleon, while we, in our Anglo-Saxon superiority
of blood, condemn the impulsive Frenchman for a
blind hero-worship which would allow a Napoleon to
lead him headlong into the sunken road of Ohain at
Waterloo, are we, after all, free from this sin our-
selves? Have we not exalted our military heroes and
lauded them with praise many times closely akin to
worship ?

If we are not glorying in our political heroes we
glory in our preacher or our leader in religious work.
Some people's faith is pinned to their preacher's coat-
tail. Instances are numerous where upon the removal
of a minister from one place to another, some church
members who had been very devout and attentive
upon every church service at once lost their fervor.
The trouble with such people is that they are wor-
shiping the preacher rather than Christ; they are
glorying in men.

In writing to the Corinthian congregation, that
church so addicted to the sin of worshiping the preach-
er, Paul exhorts, "Wherefore let no one glory in men.
For all things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things pres-
ent, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are
Christ's; and Christ is God's." (1 Cor. 3:21-23.) In
the first part of the same chapter in which he makes
this statement he asks, "Who then is Paul, and who is
Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as

— Eighteen

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

the L,ord gave to every man?" (1 Cor. 3:5.) In the
first chapter of his first Epistle Peter tells us why we
should not glory in men when he writes, "All flesh is
as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of
grass. The grass withereth and the flower fadeth."
(1 Pet. 1 :24.) Man is like the grass; he grows, flour-
ishes for a little time, then the shades of death's night
enfold him and he is gone. James asks, "What is
your life? For ye are a vapor that appeareth for a
little time and then vanisheth away." (James 4:12.)
How soon is one man forgotten ! And compared with
the whole race of man how insignificant is the life
of one individual ! Hero-worship is a false object of
glory because it prevents men from a full and com-
plete reception of Christ, their only hope.

2. While some are glorying in men others are
boasting in party or faction.

Paul might have done this, for he belonged to the
mightiest sect among the Jews. He might have with-
drawn himself in haughty grandeur from others and
walked with the Pharisees alone. To be a Pharisee
was in the eyes of his time, no mean distinction; and
he might, with proper pride, have boasted of his af-
filiation, but not one word of the kind does he utter.

Men today glory in their sects, their parties or
their factions. There are instances where this spirit
has even entered the Church of God. Ofttimes we
find congregations divided up into different cliques
formed along lines of family or social position. When-
ever the clique spirit enters at the front door of a
church the Christ Spirit departs through the back

Nineteen —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

door. The two can never dwell together in harmony.
The party or faction spirit is invariably provocative
of heartache, strife and dissension. Paul says, "For
whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are
ye not carnal and do ye not walk as men?" (1 Cor.
3:4.) No faction church can live, for as the body
without the soul is dead and useless, becoming a
stench in the nostrils of men, so that church without
the Christ spirit of harmony and brotherhood has be-
come a dead carcass, an offense in the sight of God.
The sooner such a church dies and is buried the bet-
ter it will be for the cause of the Redeemer.

3. Another false object of glory is a sinful pride
in family or nationality.

We love to boast of our connection with "the first
families of Virginia" or of the fact that we are "sons
and daughters of the American Revolution," or that
we are "native sons and daughters of the Golden
West." With profound satisfaction we talk of our
"blue blood." To belong to an aristocratic family is
with many the most glorious of all desires and ambi-
tions. For titles and so-called noble blood we sell our
girls to dukes, lords, counts and no-accounts of
Europe's decrepit ari-stuck-up-racy.

To be a member of a noble Christian family, one
honored and revered because of sterling character, is
indeed a distinction not to be lightly esteemed. There
should always be a just feeling of pride accompanying
such honor. One so fortunate should ever put forth
the most strenuous endeavors to exalt his family name
by pure words and noble deeds. When, however, a

— Twenty

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

family pride degenerates into a Pharisaical, aristo-
cratic boastfulness ; when it builds itself into a bar-
rier of caste ; when it becomes destructive of the demo-
cratic brotherly spirit, then it is black sin. Aris-
tocracies there are of blood, of fame, of wealth, of
education, but the noblest of all is the aristocracy of
character, and that one who can remember that his
ancestors have been honest men, clean men, God-
fearing men can delight himself with the conscious-
ness that he belongs to the loftiest and noblest of all
earth's great. Paul was descended from one of the
most famous families of his race, yet he never men-
tioned his family position, as an object of glory.

One other god that many worship is that one who
bears the name nationality or race. By accident of
birth, a matter over which they had absolutely no con-
trol, they are members of an honorable race or citi-
zens of a powerful nation. Paul might have gloried
in his nationality and citizenship, for he was by birth a
Jew, but by citizenship a Roman; a citizen of Tarsus,
and Tarsus was "no mean city." Roman citizenship,
with all that it implied, the protection of the mighty
fleets and unconquerable legions of Caesar, the free-
dom, the distinction, the honor, all were Paul's. But
do we ever find Paul using his good fortune as an
object of glory or boasting above his fellows? Never!
In Jerusalem we do find him crying out before the
Centurion as that officer is preparing to inflict upon
him the terrible lash, "Is it lawful for you to scourge
a man that is a Roman and uncondemned ?" (Acts 22 :
23.) But this use of his citizenship was merely as a

Twenty-one —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

matter of self-preservation, and not an attempt to
glory in it. Before Felix we find him saying, "I am
standing before Caesar's judgment-seat, where I ought
to be judged; to the Jews I have done no wrong, as
thou well knowest. If then I am a wrong-doer and
have done anything worthy of death, I refuse not to
die; but if none of these things is true whereof they
accuse me no man can deliver me up unto them.
'Caesarem appello', I appeal unto Caesar." This use of
his right of appeal to the throne was not, however, for
purposes of glorying in this most precious of all
Roman privileges, but rather that he might be per-
mitted to proclaim the glorious Christ message in the
glittering palace of the emperor himself.

There can be no sin in a man having a proper
pride in his nationality. One ought to be proud of
his blood. Why, in my own case, if I were not Irish
I would be ashamed of myself all the rest of my nat-
ural life. And I have but little respect for anybody
who is not proud of his race. What Englishman is
there who does not feel a patriotic thrill at the ma-
jestic strains of, "God Save the King," or what
Irishman who cannot see the lovely scenes of the
beautiful little green isle as the wailing, weird notes
of "Come Back to Erin" are borne to him? Or what
Frenchman is there whose blood does not run a little
faster and his cheek burn as the martial music of
"The Marseillaise" rings out, recalling deeds of glory
and valor? What German is there who cannot see
the crag-banked river of the Fatherland when his de-
lighted soul expands to the crashing notes of "Die

— Twenty-two

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

Wacht am Rhine?" or feel the hot war blood bound-
ing through his every vein as he hears the ambitious
music of, "Deutschland iiber alles?" Patriotism, love
for the homeland, is innate in every human heart.
The very sight of the national emblem or the music of
the nation's hymn will inspire the grandest emotions
of rapture and delight in the heart of the truly patri-
otic, and will prompt him with the poet to say:

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself has said,
This is my own, my native land?"

Certainly one of the sublimest of emotions is that
patriotism which means a love of country and a fer-
vent desire to make one's homeland better and nobler.
When, however, that patriotism blinds us to the virtues
of other nations and makes us unable to recognize
their services to civilization, then it becomes narrow
and bigoted and loses all of its beauty and power for
good.

As Americans we have long cherished a feeling of
racial superiority, an idea that we were rather the
best people upon the earth, the acme of civilization,
the highest attainment of all the ages of human ex-
perience. In relation to ourselves we arrange other
nationalities upon a perpendicular scale, with the
Englishman next to us, then the German and the
Frenchman, and at the bottom, underneath all of the
rest, we place the poor Chinaman. Every American
boy who has ever gone swimming well remembers that
the first boy in the water was always an American,

Twenty-three —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

the next an Englishman and so on until the last, and
he always wore a pigtail.

We should remember that others have done things
as well as we. England has a larger navy than we
and a greater Empire. Germany's Universities are
more famous than ours and she leads the world in
many phases of manufacture. France still dictates
the fashions to our women, while Italy leads all in
art and music. Even poor old China had lived a
long life as an Empire and had evolved a high state
of civilization long before we were even thought of
as a nation.

The anthropologist, in his comparison of the vari-
ous races, does not arrange them on a perpendicular
scale, but rather on a horizontal ; for to him one race
is just about the equal of another in native ability and
in the services rendered to civilization.

I have often thought that it would be a splendid
lesson for us if we could only see ourselves as others
see us. If we could but get the other fellow's view-
point sometimes we would not be so egotistical about
our racial superiority. The following extracts from
letters written by visiting foreigners will serve to
show us their view of us.

A very cultured gentleman from India, a graduate
of the University of Calcutta, once made a visit to
San Francisco. As he walked the streets he experi-
enced varied and strange sensations. His brilliant
turban and generally peculiar attire provoked great
amusement among the army of small boys which had
quickly gathered about him. Without the least show

— Tzventy-four

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

of politeness they pelted him with stones and made
sarcastic remarks about his attire. This hilarious
and unexpected reception prompted the following
statement in a letter to a friend in India :

"America is a strange country and the Americans
are a strange people. Their treatment of the stranger
is very harsh and inconsiderate. The little boys throw
stones at you as you walk along the street and annoy
you with impolite remarks about your clothing. Let
us not, however, judge them too severely, for America
is but a new country. When the American nation be-
comes as old as India then we will expect that she
will be at least partially civilized." — The view of the
American as expressed by the gentleman from India.

A refined gentleman from Pekin, after an extended
visit to the United States, sent the following descrip-
tion of American customs to his people :

"The Americans are the funniest people in the
world. They tear their food with pronged instru-
ments like the wild beasts. They never use chop
sticks in the cultivated fashion in vogue among us.
In America the order of nature is changed and woman
is exalted to a position of equality with man. Why,
in America I have actually seen women dragged about
the room in the arms of men and to the accompani-
ment of very hellish music." — The view of the Amer-
ican as given by the gentleman from Pekin.

A petty patriotism which causes us to regard
other races and nations as our inferiors is in direct
opposition to the very spirit of the religion of Jesus
Christ. The King's command is, "Go ye therefore and

Twenty- five —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

teach (or make disciples of) all nations, baptizing
them into the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo I
am with you always even unto the end of the world."
(Matt. 28:19, 20.) In his interpretation of the Par-
able of the Sower he says : "The field is the world."
Just before his ascension we hear him saying as re-
corded by Luke, "Thus it is written, and thus it be-
hooved Christ to suffer, and that repentance and re-
mission of sins should be preached in his name unto
all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Luke 24:
46, 47.) Or again, the same message as given in Acts,
"And ye shall receive power after that the Holy
Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my wit-
nesses both in Jerusalem and all Judea, in Samaria
and unto the uttermost part of the earth." (Acts 1 :8.)
In obedience to these words it is recorded of the dis-
ciples after the persecution and scattering which
arose over the stoning of Stephen, that, "those that
were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the
word." (Acts 8:4.) The invitation which they gave
to lost and inquiring sinners by the authority of
their Master was the one which he himself extended
when he said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt.
11:28.) Or "Whosoever will, let him come." The
spirit of Christ was the glorious world-wide spirit of
the story of the cross for all men. How grandly
cosmopolitan are the words used in declaring this
spirit. "All nations! Every creature! Judea, Sa-

— Twenty-six

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

maria, the uttermost part of the earth ! All ye that
labor and are heavy laden ! Whosoever !" Such ma-
jestic words as these recognize no petty racial bar-
riers ; no social walls erected by selfish party or caste.
Most gloriously does Paul describe the whole con-
gregation of those redeemed by the blood of Christ
when he writes to the Galatians : "There is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there
is no male or female, for ye are all one man in
Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:28.) In Christ all men are
to be brothers, no matter what the color of their
skin, the language which they speak or the social
position which is theirs. It is the spirit which "Bobby"
Burns so beautifully portrays when he exclaims :

"Then let us pray that come it may.
As come it will for a' that —
That sense and worth o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree and a' that.
For a' that, and a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man to man the warld o'er,
Shall brothers be, for a' that."

Some men there are who glory not in those false
objects which we have considered, but their god is
the god of gold. They boast in their material pos-
sessions. To such money is the only thing in the
world at all worth while, so they prostitute even the
nobler gifts of the soul, they bend every energy to
the acquiring of gold and silver. As they continue
in their worship so absolute becomes their bondage
that many forget all else in their insatiate mania for
the acquisition of the glittering coins.

Twen ty-seven —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

In France, years ago, an old miser was accustomed
each night to shade the windows of his lonely moun-
tain dwelling and with the light turned low gleefully
count and recount the growing heap of golden coins
which he had acquired by years and years of toil.
As the days went by and the hoard grew, although he
was far from the homes of men, still his suspicious
heart was filled with the constant fear of discovery;
so he descended into his cellar and there in the gloomy
light of a tiny candle he would come every night for
an hour of worship before his beautiful coins. But
day by day the haunting fear grew upon him ; so
he digged a subterranean vault under his cellar and
secured it with a huge iron door. When the evening
shades began to settle down upon the mountains,
stealthily down into the dark vault would he go.
The flickering rays of the candle wavered upon the
great pile of yellow 'metal before him and a golden
gleam flashed back, sending thrills of delight through
his tense nerves. His eyes became hard and bright
as he bathed his bird-like claws in the glowing mass.
As the jingling circles slipped through his trembling
fingers and rolled over his withered arms he hoarsely
croaked, "Aha, my beauties ! My beauties !" Clang !
Like a thunder bolt hurled from the very courts of
heaven the great iron door crashed upon him. Like
to the rich fool of Jesus' day the voice of God seemed
to thunder into his frantic soul, "Thou fool, this
night thy soul shall be required of thee !" A few
years ago beneath the ruins and rubbish of the old
mountain castle the rusty iron door was found. When

— Twenty-eight

GLORYING IN THE GROSS

it was lifted from its decaying hinges, a terrible sight
greeted the gaze of the horrified discoverers as they
bent forward and with their lights entered the direful
pit. One hand of the skeleton still clutched the glit-
tering coins, the other held the remnant of a burned-
out candle. From the heap of bones that topped the
golden pile there flashed a baleful yellow gleam. It
was the old, old picture of the ruin of one who had
sacrificed his life and soul upon the altar of the
heartless god of gold. Nothing but bones ! Nothing
but bones !

Oh, man, insane with the love of money, crazed
with the race for it, stay for a moment your mad rush
and hearken to the words of him, who, though the
heir to marvelous riches of all earth and heaven,
could say, "A man's life consisteth not in the
abundance of the things which he possesseth." Or,
again hear him as he asks, "What shall it profit a
man if he gain the whole world and lose his life?"

As the hundreds lounged or danced upon the
spacious decks of the proud Titanic, or as they drank
or smoked in her luxurious barrooms, or chatted
and laughed in her stately saloons, few of them were
bothering themselves about the eternal things of God.
While the great vessel sped swiftly over the calm,
cold sea, they laughed and sang or talked and drank
without even one thought of approaching danger.
When the sickening crash came and with incredible
rapidity it was reported from man to man, "We have
struck an iceberg," they laughed and said, "What care
we? We ride in an unsinkable ship. We are rich, and

Twenty-nine —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

all that could be done to make us comfortable has
been done ; all that luxury could demand is here. Let
us return to our pleasures, for we are safe." It was
not until the monster throbbing engines had been
forever stilled by the inrushing hungry sea; it was
not until the mammoth prow had begun to settle to-
ward its last, long resting place, and the icy waves
had begun to wash the broad decks that the band of
that huge coffin of fifteen hundred lives played,
"Nearer, my God, to Thee." In those last awful
minutes they remembered God. Oh, how sadly their
trust was misplaced! How disappointing, soul-
damning is the blind worship of "the things which
man possesseth."

There are some men who glory in intellect. They
boast of their so-called learning, of their theories and
philosophies. Paul might have done this, for he was
one of the brightest scholars of his time. He had
been educated in Jerusalem at the feet of the learned
Gamaliel. But we do not find him glorying in this
good fortune. Although thoroughly acquainted with
the philosophies and so-called sciences of his time
we find him writing to the Corinthians, "And I,
brethren, when I came unto you came not with the
excellency of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to
you the testimony of God. For I am determined not
to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and
him crucified." (1 Cor. 2:1-2.) And he was ever firm
in his decision not to glory in his worldly wisdom.

I have met men of the sophomoric age, otherwise
known as the doubting age, who have said to me,

— Thirty

GLORYING IN THB CROSS

"Mr. Kellems, there is no room for faith. With
me everything must be judged at the bar of reason.
If a proposition cannot be satisfactorily demonstrated
to my intellect it will be impossible for me to credit
it as fact. I never accept anything on faith alone."
Time was when such a statement was supposed
to be indicative of brilliancy on the part of the one
making it. We are, however, in this age changing
our opinion of the one who speaks in such terms.
Every proposition which a man credits without him-
self having seen it demonstrated is accepted on faith.
Only those things can wTe know which we have seen;
all others must be credited by faith. We believe that
there was a revolutionary war because the evidence
to support that belief is so conclusive, so unanswer-
able that we must accept it. But it is because of our
faith in the historical accuracy of the man who col-
lected the material and compiled a history of that war
which causes us to believe the accounts given. Some
of us believe in the nebular hypothesis because we
have faith in those who claim that they have demon-
strated the truth of the theory to their own satisfac-
tion. Illustrations of this type might be multiplied
indefinitely, but these are sufficient to convince us
that the vast majority of things that we unquestion-
ably regard as facts are accepted because of faith.
Having faith in some man who we think is more ac-
curately acquainted with a certain branch of knowl-
edge than ourselves, we accept his conclusions con-
cerning those things which we have never investi-

Thirty-one —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

gated. Practically all of science, history, philosophy,
etc., is accepted on faith.

And is there not a reason why we cannot demon-
strate to our own minds all of these things? What
ordinary man has time or opportunity for such demon-
stration? We are so busy in this work-a-day world
earning the bread we eat and the clothes we wear
that we could not do it even if we would. As
Emerson has so aptly described our life, "Things are
in the saddle and do ride mankind." Because of the
dominance of things we are forced to accept these
things on faith if we accept them at all. The ma-
jority of us have neither time nor opportunity to
demonstrate them to our own minds.

Another makes the objection, "Mr. Kellems, the
religion of Christ is so divided and sectarian that it
is almost impossible for anyone to believe in it.
What is he to accept as good and reject as bad from
the conglomerate mass of creeds and beliefs calling
themselves Christian?" In a word, a divided Christen-
dom leaves no room for faith. But even though we
acknowledge and deplore the sad condition of the
church of God, yet Christ's redeemed are not so di-
vided as the illustrious readers of science, and we
still retain our beliefs in science. Division among
scientists does not destroy our faith in science. A
few instances illustrating these disagreements might
here be in place.

In discussing the problem of the origin of life
Sir William Thomson, before the British Associa-
tion, said, "Life came from a meteor." His theory

— Thirty-two

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

lived a year. Concerning the same problem Huxley-
says, "L,ife originated from a sheet of gelatinous liv-
ing matter covering the bottom of the ocean." His
theory lived only a few months.

A few years ago the historians were unanimously
agreed that Troy was a myth. Professor Schlieman's
discoveries have blown up the myth theory and have
established beyond a reasonable doubt that Troy was
really a city and that the reported deeds of valor
enacted there were at least partially true.

The temperature of the interior of the earth is
estimated by some to be 1,530 degrees, by others
equally authoritative 350,000 degrees. Herschel
claims that the mountains on the moon are a half a
mile high, while Ferguson says that they are fifteen
miles high. Some authorities tell us that the height
of the aurora borealis is two and a half miles, while
others, equally famous in their field, claim that it is
one hundred and sixty miles high.

Lyell says that the delta at the mouth of the Mis-
sissippi was 100,000 years in forming, while General
Humphrey, of the United States geological survey,
estimated the age of its formation at 4,000 years.

If there is room for faith in science, even among
the disagreements of men of science, is there not
room for faith also in Christian teachings, even
though sometimes Christian scholars should disagree,
especially when that disagreement is in regard to
mere trifles and not over those beliefs that are truly
fundamental ?

But how foolish is this attitude which says, "I

Thirty-three —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

will accept nothing unless it is demonstrated in a satis-
factory manner to my reason !" How little we really
know and how little of the knowable can we com-
prehend ! How inadequate is reason in the battle
with some of the great problems of the universe !
We cannot comprehend the infinitely great, neither
can we comprehend the infinitely small, When we at-
tempt to explain some of these innumerable problems
we stand confused and stunned.

Consider, for instance, Alpha Centauri, the star
nearest to our earth. The astronomer tells us that
it is twenty billions of miles away. Can one demon-
strate twenty billions of miles? Can he close his
eyes and think out or see that distance? We ex-
perience difficulty, if we try to think out or demon-
strate one hundred miles and when we say twenty
billions we are simply uttering meaningless words.
A man's intellect simply goes smash as does an tgg
against a stone wall, when he trys to think of twenty
billions of miles. What does this enormous number
mean? Light traveling at the rate of 186,300 miles
per second, which would mean that it would traverse
the distance around the earth 7^4 times in a second,
took 4y2 years in making the journey from Centauri
to us. If some gigantic cataclysm should occur by
which Centauri would be destroyed, we would not
be conscious of its destruction until more than the
life-time of a presidential administration had passed.
If you wished to take a little journey to the star, and
if you traveled at the rather rapid rate of sixty miles
per hour, it would take you just 38,051 years to

— Thirty-four

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

reach your destination. Can one reason these things
out? Can one by his intellect master the magnitude
of the distance?

The most distant star which our astronomers have
yet discovered is estimated by them to be 5,000 light
years away. A light year is equal to that number of
miles which a ray of light would travel in a year. If
you will multiply 186,300 by the proper figures you
will find a light year to equal five trillions, eight hun-
dred and seventy-five billions, one hundred and fifty-
six millions, eight hundred thousand miles (5,875,156,-
800,000) ; multiply this number by 5,000 light years,
the distance to the remotest star, and you will have
twenty-nine quadrillions, three hundred and seventy-
five trillions, six hundred and eighty-four billions of
miles, or a number containing seventeen figures
(29,375,684,000,000,000). If you wished to take a
little trip to this star and you travel at the excit-
ing rate of 100 miles per hour, in a little over thirty
billions two hundred and two millions of years you
would be there. Are we able by the puny power of
intellect to grasp this distance?

The physicist tells us that a ray of light vibrates
with quite a marked degree of speed. The exact
number of vibrations per second has not been de-
termined as yet, but it is somewhere between four
hundred million millions and eight hundred million
millions per second. There are a good many stars,
planets and other heavenly bodies in the universe,
as you will readily agree if you have ever tried to
count them. Herschel claims that he counted 116,000

Thirty-five —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

stars as they passed before his telescope in a quarter
of an hour. I knew two boys who got into a fight
once and one of them in the mix-up saw 306,842,300
stars in one second !

The earth is quite old. Some geologists estimate
its age at ten millions of years; others think that it
is a thousand million. The most probable age is
35,000,000. A man 65 years of age isn't even an in-
fant compared with the age of the earth.

We might go on and on, ad infinitum, multiplying
a thousand illustrations of the great problems of the
universe and then scarce exhaust the supply. Can
a man understand them? Can he see them? When
he tries his intellect becomes stunned and dumb. The
expressions of these great problems are to the ma-
jority of us mere meaningless phrases.

But consider some of the problems presented by
some of the smaller objects of this earth. Once I
entered a laboratory and under the lens of a microscope
I placed a single drop of water. As I looked a thrill
of delight shot through me, for there before me
glistened a great pearl, more beautiful beyond com-
parison than anything I had ever seen before. I
changed the slide, placing it this time under another
and more powerful microscope, and as I gazed I fell
back in astonishment, for there before me lay a com-
plete world. A thousand living forms sported in the
limpid depths; perfect organisms they were in a
realm all their own. As awe-struck I looked, I won-
dered, "Are they perplexed about questions of law
and government, capital and labor, church and state,

— Thirty-six

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

as are we ?" Suddenly from behind a great rock there
emerged an animal larger than his companions, and
with his great tusks be began to kill and devour the
terrified inhabitants around him. Beholding the battle
I smiled and said to myself, "The old, old law ob-
tains here, I see, the law of the survival of the fittest."
I wonder if all the drops of the millions of cubic miles
of water upon this earth were added to my drop un-
der the microscope how many animals or insects or
bugs or microbes would we find living, eating, fight-
ing, dying as their so-called big brothers, men ! How
many do you suppose you swallowed this morning,
and with relish, when you partook of that dainty
breakfast which the wife prepared with so much
care? Oh, we might continue forever telling of the
problems, but can we understand them ? No ! No ! A
man can spend a life studying leaves or rocks and
then only dip into the sea of those things which might
be known about them.

Why should a man glory in his intellect? What
does he really know? What is mind? What is mat-
ter? Why, we do not know even the substance of
things ! John Stuart Mill tries to define mind as,
"The permanent possibility of sensation." A very
fine and lucid definition. "The permanent possibility
of sensation!" It reminds one of Mark Twain's defi-
nition of a Kansas cyclone. He said that a Kansas
cyclone was "an acute disturbance of aerial molecules
which is injurious to animal life." Goethe despairs of
defining mind or matter singly but slays, "Matter can
never exist and be operative without spirit, nor spirit

Thirty-seven —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

without matter." With Goethe agrees Schleicher,
"There is neither matter nor spirit in the customary
sense but only one thing, which is at the same time
both." The late Professor Clifford ludicrously at-
tempts a definition of matter in the terms, "Mind-
stuff," and Alexander Fairbairn, in his "Philosophy
of the Christian Religion," well describes the attempt
as, "despairing, but descriptive." The noted Profes-
sor Bain, agreeing with Goethe and Schleicher, says
that matter and mind constitute "one substance with
two sets of properties ; two sides'', the physical and the
mental, a double unity." One learned doctor says
that matter is a combination of molecules which
bump together. But what is a molecule? Oh, a
molecule is "the smallest quantity of an element or
compound which can exist separately." But that does
not define a molecule, and if we are unable to define
a molecule we can't possibly define the substance of
matter. Such a definition as this is the same as if
one were to describe or define the word "mule" as "a
long-eared quadruped with active heels and a re-
sounding bray." What is a book made of? The
chemist tells us that it possesses so many parts oxygen,
so many of hydrogen, etc., but that does not tell us
what it is. The substance of mind and matter we
cannot explain. In our definitions we tell how mind
acts or describe the appearance of matter, but we
fail and are at sea when we try to define the sub-
stance of either. About the be9t definition I have ever
heard was the one given by Professor Edmund S.
Conklin, Ph. D., of the department of philosophy at

— Thirty-eight

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

the University of Oregon. He said, "Mind and mat-
ter are simply terms applied by us to phenomena the
substance of which we cannot comprehend."

And yet knowing so little of things as men do,
will they boast and glory in the power of intellect.
Let him possess a sheepskin tied about with a yel-
low ribbon, and a man is a being of the most profound
learning. Why should we boast of what we know
when what we do not know is of such magnitude that
merely to think of it is enough to stun the intellect?
How finite we are, and how fallible is the mind ! How
absurd is the learning and pride of man when com-
pared to the knowledge of God! Paul wonderingly
writes to the Corinthians, "The foolishness of God
is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is
stronger than men." (1 Cor. 1:25.)

II. Why Paul Gloried in the Cross.

Why did Paul glory in the cross, that blood-
stained instrument of execution and agony ; that which
was to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Greeks fool-
ishness ? Paul was a forward-looking man. He could
see beyond the pride, the egotism, the terrible im-
morality of his day and behold the eternal things of
God. Spurning worldly ambition, pride of intellect,
the so-called learning of men; he boasts he places
his glory in that horrible object of suffering and
death which crowned Calvary's mountain. "God for-
bid," or "far be it from me to glory save in the cross
of my Lord Jesus Christ." And why, oh, battle-
scarred veteran of the King?

Thirty-nine —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

1. Because, in the first place, the cross is the
manifestation of divine character. It is only in the
light of a blood-dripping cross that we can begin to
understand in a measure the statement of Jesus, "For
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not per-
ish, but have eternal life/' "God is love," but never
had man known truly what love meant until he was
willing to make heaven lonely to redeem a world
groaning in awful bondage to sin. The picture of the
dying Lamb in those moments when the Father, un-
able to witness the agony of his son, turns his face
away, leaving the heart-breaking scene in darkness, is
a declaration to all the world and for all time that
our God is a Father of love.

2. Then also Paul gloried in the cross because
it is the measure of Christ's love. Jesus said, "Great-
er love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends." (John 15:15.) But he gave
his life not only for his friends, but for his enemies
as well; those who cursed him and rejected him.
I love to see my Saviour as he weeps at the grave of
Lazarus or as he sits on the hill overlooking Jeru-
salem and cries out over the sin of his beloved city.
I love to see him as he restores the leper or raises to
life the widow's son at Nain. The sight of him bless-
ing the little children is another evidence of his beauti-
ful tenderness. But of all scenes of earth, that
tragedy on the summit of a quaking hill, when the
Master of this world, the Prince of Heaven, hung in
shame between two thieves, with a prayer of for-

— Forty

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

giveness for his enemies upon his dying lips, is the
sublimest, the most magnificent of all. A Saviour
of love, a Redeemer of infinite compassion was he.

Again, Paul gloried in the cross because of its
power. No more powerful story has ever been told
than the story of the cross. To touch hearts, to change
lives, to ever be the instrument of the putting away of
sin, has been its God-designed purpose. To lift up
the drunkard, the adulterer, the man of sin wherever
found, has been the accomplishment of the story of
Calvary's Cross. The Master truly said, "And I, if I
be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself." (John
12 :3.) For wherever that story is told of the Saviour
lifted up from the earth on a Roman cross, men weep
in sympathy, turn in disgust from their sins and joy-
fully follow Him. What a glorious symbol of power
is the blood-spattered cross !

3. Lastly, Paul gloried in the cross because of
its eternal character. With farsighted, God-given
vision, he could look down through the tumultuous,
changing ages and see the triumphant cross an eternal
verity amid the chaos and ruins of man. Far out in
the gleam of its flashing rays his eyes pierced through
the fogs and gloom of ignorance and superstition, sin
and sorrow, and saw the joy and peace everywhere
abounding because of the story of the cross. And
has it not been the one abiding, unchanging fact of
the ages? Where are the proud Athenians, those
sneering philosophers, whose mocking smiles greeted
the words of Paul; those to whom the preaching of
the cross was but foolishness ? Gone ! Into the eter-

Forty-one — •

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

nity of God they have passed and their philosophies and
astrologies, so boasted and dominant as world wis-
dom, remain but a memory in the minds of a verv
few. Verily spoke the Apostle more correctly than
he knew when he said, "God chose the foolish things
of this world that he might put to shame them that
are wise, and God chose the weak things of the world
that he might put to shame things that are strong;
and the base things of the world and the things that
are despised did God choose, yea, and the things that
are not, that he might bring to naught the things that
are, that no flesh should glory before God." (1 Cor.
1:27-30.)

Eternal is the cross ! Where are the glittering
despotism of Assyria and Babylon which flourished
amid pomp and splendor beyond the purple hills of
Palestine? Where are the proud empires of Alex-
ander or the Ptolemies? Where are the mighty le-
gions of the Caesars, at the thunders of whose tramp-
ling a world trembled and was dumb? Where are
1be avalanches of Napoleon? Wrecks and ruins,
heaps of dead stones and countless graves tell the
age-old story of the end of the pomp and pride of
man. But above the wrecks of empires and philoso-
phies, above the shifting chaotic sea of history, shin-
ing, gleaming, beckoning on, like the star of hope and
life, stands the glorified, eternal cross of our victorious
Christ.

As the weary centuries roll on, as the stars of a
thousand civilizations rise and wane, until that day
when over the eastern hills shall gloriously dawn the

— Forty-two

GLORYING IN THB GROSS

morning of eternity, the cross shall lead on, and shine
on, and plead on the marvelous, undying symbol of
divine mercy, love and hope.

Amid the raging seas of life when storm-crested
seas shall dash my bark of Faith toward the jagged
rocks of doubt or on the scorching plains of tempta-
tion, when my grip on right is slackening, or when
the black waters of that deep ever-flowing river roll
over my tired head and sweep me toward that glisten-
ing shore, whence have preceded me innumerable
millions, blood-washed in the fountain of Calvary's
Cross, when mine eyes shall for the last time close
upon loved forms and faces, as my soul shall upward
wing its triumphant flight to the battlements of God,
help me then, my Lord, to sing —

"In the Cross of Christ I glory

Towering o'er the wrecks of time.
All the light of sacred story,

Gathers round its head sublime.
When the sun of bliss is beaming,

Light and love upon my way,
From the Cross new radiance streaming,

Adds new luster to the day.

"When the woes of life o'ertake me
Hopes deceive and fears annoy,
Never shall the Cross forsake me,
Lo, it glows with peace and joy."

Forty-three —

II

HELL

II

Hell

Text: "Law is a rule of action. In the fourth or
vindicatory part of Law consists the main strength
or force. Where there is no law there can be no
wrong or violation; where there is no penalty the
Law is null and void. The principles of right and
justice are fixed and Law is merely an expression
and definition of these rules and the naming of the
penalty for their violation." — Blackstone.

The age in which we live is one characterized by
an effort on the part of many to ignore the great
eschatological teachings of the Word. With some,
this spirit has become so marked that they deny even
the very existence of Heaven and Hell. Those who
by nature look upon the beautiful things of life, those
whose lives are environed by luxuries or by the pro-
tecting care of loved ones, will, as a rule, consider the
subject of hell with a certain degree of abhorrence.
But if such a place or condition exists, whatever the
term used in designating it may be, it certainly be-
hooves us as intelligent men and women to face the
facts just as they are and give them in our preaching
and in our thinking that emphasis which is by right
their due.

Forty-seven —

GLORYIXG IX THE CROSS

Now if hell should exist, let us console ourselves
here in the beginning of this sermon with the knowl-
edge that there is no necessity for any man or woman,
to whom has been granted even the most ordinary
degree of intellectuality, going to that place. God in
his unfathomable love and mercy has prepared the
way of escape. In his son Jesus Christ and because
he has so loved the world, he has granted full and
free pardon for all who will receive it and that par-
don is the only sure hope of man avoiding hell.
Even* sinner that goes to hell walks over the body
of Jesus Christ, tramples "the blood of the covenant"
under his feet and passes unconcerned by the cross
which, as a flaming beacon, stands squarely in the
way of even' Perdition-bent individual. If you go
to hell, my sinner friend, don't blame God or his son.
Everything that divine love and human suffering
could do for you has been done, and if you are lost
you can blame yourself and yourself alone. Not only
has God fortified hell against you by placing the cross
of Christ in your way. but he has made the conditions
upon which you may obtain his pardon so plain and
so easy that there is left to you no excuse for refus-
ing to accept them. Thus not only would a man's
going to hell be against all love and mercy, but it
would be against all reason, for the way of salva-
tion is so plain and easy that "the wayfarer, even
though a simpleton, cannot err therein."

— Forty-eight

HELL

ARGUMENT.

I. The Existence oe Hell.

Man has universally been conscious of sin. The
black monster has coiled his foul length around every
heart. The three thousand of Pentecost cried out in
agony of soul, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
The Philippian jailer, trembling with fear, prostrated
himself before Paul and Silas and asked. "What must
I do to be saved?" Paul, in the throes of the world-
old battle against the, by human strength alone, un-
conquerable adversary, exclaims, as its horrible
stench tills his nostrils. "Oh. who shall deliver me
from the body of this death?" Sin is here, around
us, among us, and in us. Some there are who would
make effeminate the meaning of sin by calling it
merely a disease, thus doing away with any respon-
sibility of man to God for his transgressions. With
such, no longer is the one who purloins your property,
a thief, but a kleptomaniac, who, by a surgical opera-
tion, may be healed. Xo more is the one who be-
comes a besotted beast through the long use of in-
toxicants, a drunkard and one "who shall not inherit
the Kingdom of God;" but with them he is now an in-
valid who may be cured by cutting out his desire for
drink. But the Word knows not sin in this new
dress. Sin is sin and "the soul that sinneth it shall
die." Neither has the universal human consciousness
accepted this weak view, but it has decreed, after
centuries of experience, that sin is transgression of

\-nitic —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

law, and as such is hateful to God, and soul-damning
to man.

There is no use for anyone to try to deny the ex-
istence of sin. It is here in all its myriad polluting
forms. The marble shaft of the cemetery as it points
toward the sky is a mute witness to the existence of
sin. The pages of history, written with the blood of
a thousand nations, no longer existent in the mem-
ory of man, testify that sin is here. The roar of the
cannon, the whiz of the bullet, the horrible crash of
shell, the shrieks of the wounded and dying, are only
the expressions of sin in man. Why, if we intro-
spect our own hearts, we will find the blights and
scars of the monster there ! The greatest and most
easily recognizable fact of our life, here and now, is
the fact of sin. Labor and capital, army and navy,
tenderloin districts, slums, child labor, penitentiaries,
electric chairs, saloons, jails and mad houses, what
are these, and a hundred other kindred terms, but
the names of problems, conditions and institutions
made possible only by sin.

But the consciousness of sin presupposes some-
thing antecedent to sin, namely, law. "Where there is
no law there can be no wrong or violation," the state-
ment of Blackstone in our text might be conversely
stated and still be equally true, "Where there is no
wrong or violation there can be no law" for the very
existence of sin presupposes the existence of law.
John defines sin as the transgression, or the stepping
over, of the law ; thus if there is no law to step over,
there is no sin. For instance, if there be in the uni-

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HULL

verse of God no law against murder, lying, stealing or
committing adultery, it is no sin to murder, lie, steal
or to commit adultery. The existence of sin always
means that there is a law to sin against. Therefore
co-existent with the fact of sin, the fact of law must
be recognized.

For the purposes of this discussion, let us divide
law roughly into two divisions, (1) Civil law, or
that of the nation, state or municipality, and (2)
moral law, or that which even though it may be em-
bodied in the civil law is nevertheless differentiated
from it by its subject matter. To these divisions for
purposes of illustration, might be added a third, the
limits of which are not always easily defined, namely,
natural law or that by which God governs and con-
trols the universe. The spheres of these divisions en-
croach upon one another to such an extent that they
may appear to be somewhat arbitrary, but for the
purposes for which they are here employed they will
be found to be adequate.

Thus far we have taken two steps in our
argument, (1) The existence of sin was established
and (2) coexistent with the existence of sin the fact
of law was acknowledged. Inseparably connected
with these two ideas is a third, and one which must
ever be thought of when either of the others come
to mind. This next idea or step is, Penalty. Our
text reminds us "that where there is no penalty the
law is null and void." For illustration, if there is no
penalty attached to the law forbidding murder, then
that law, by virtue of the very fact that no man is

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ever punished for breaking it, becomes "null and void,"
or worthless. If the state has a law against stealing,
yet when a man steals it says to him, "Go thy way
in peace; we will do nothing to thee," that law be-
comes "null and void," or, in short, ceases to exist.
A law without penalty attached for its violation is in-
conceivable, for the absence of penalty will kill the
law, or cause it simply to become non-existent.

Xow, if we examine some of the so-called "laws
of nature," we find our statement on the insepa-
rability of Law and Penalty strikingly confirmed.
God's natural laws always have penalty attached for
their violation, they always reward the obedient and
sternly and unsparingly punish the transgressor. For
illustration, let us suppose that a man jumps from the
roof of a ten-story building. He will not fly off into
the air, as do the birds, but will be dashed to frag-
ments upon the pavement below, a victim of the
penalty attached to the law of gravitation. If it were
not for this penalty the law of gravity would be non-
existent. It is the very fact that a man is killed when
he disobeys it that makes it a law to him. It makes
no difference what a man may think about it, whether
he may like it or not, the law is absolutely impartial
in its working. Man may obey or transgress, just as
he desires. If he obeys, he will be rewarded; if he
transgresses he will incur the inevitable punishment.

The law of native element also illustrates the harsh
but indisputable fact of penalty. Suppose a man, tir-
ing of the humdrum life of this work-a-day world,
decides to become an amphibian. But let him try

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HULL

as he may he cannot become a fish. Water is not
his native element and he discovers if he attempts a
life therein, that he will meet a fool's death, for death
is the penalty attached for the violation of the law of
native element.

In our partition of law into its three large divi-
sions, we mentioned one as, Moral Law, which, even
though it might be included within the body of the
Civil Law, was nevertheless differentiated from it by
the subjects with which it deals and the circumstances
of its origin. This law began with God. Some
legislative body may have said, "Thou shalt not kill,
or thou shalt not steal," but that did riot make it
wrong to kill or steal. These things were wrong
long before legislatures or parliaments, courts or sys-
tems of government were in existence. Man has al-
ways felt that the doing of these things was sin. Con-
sciousness of these great moral laws as not emanating
from himself, but as God-wrought and God-given,
has ever been one of the most precious heritages of
the race. Precious indeed, for only in their uncom-
promising light can man correctly regulate his con-
duct toward his fellows ; yea, he would not even know
how to deport himself at all were it not for their
projection into his consciousness, and that by some
external power. We might even go farther than the
affirmation of the existence of this consciousness and
say that all of our conceptions of the finer things in
life; of honesty, virtue, marriage, fraternity, are
founded firmly upon our conception of these very
moral laws of God. Upon our attitude toward these

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GLORYING IN THE CROSS

finer things is based our civil law, regulating mar-
riage, protecting virtue and defining man's duties to-
ward man. Thus in reality our civil law itself centers
around, or is based upon, the clearness with which
we comprehend the great moral law. Long before
the law had been forged into commands amid the
mutterings of Sinai, even in that time when the first
family inhabited the vales of Eden, this consciousness
of right and wrong was present. When Cain, in that
hellish fit of jealousy, with foul hands had slain his
trusting brother, in horror at his deed, as the realiza-
tion that it was sin in God's sight came over him, he
brazenly inquires, "Am I my brother's keeper?" To
deny the presence of these laws in the world would
be to destroy the foundations of our institutions; it
would be to divorce man from those splendid qualities
which so clearly lift him above and beyond the realm
of the brute.

In our discussion thus far we have noted that
disobedience to civil law always brings its reward in
the form of penalty, but if there be no penalty at-
tached the law is always null and void. Also in the
case of God's natural law we found that law apart
from penalty was an idea, inconceivable. Now if it
be true in every case that can be found that, "Where
there is no penalty the law is null and void," then
these great moral and spiritual laws formulated and
commanded by the Father, must, if they retain their
character as laws, have penalties attached for their
violation, or they are null and void. If they have no
penalty, then it is no sin to murder; neither is it

— Fifty-four

HULL

morally wrong to lie, steal, or commit adultery. It is
not a sin to cheat or maltreat one's neighbor, for if
there be no penalty, then there is no law ; it has be-
come null and void. If there is no law, then there
can be no wrong, for, "where there is no law there
can be no wrong or violation." That penalty attached
to the moral and spiritual laws of God; that retribu-
tion which comes as the inevitable reward of sin; that
pay day, to which every transgressor must come;
that is hell.

Therefore, as a conclusion of the point concerning
the existence of hell, three powerful and utterly in-
disputable facts must be readily recognized by even
the most indolent intellect, (1) if there is no hell or
penalty, then there is no law, for, "law without penalty
is null and void." (2) If there is no law, then there
is no sin, for, "Where there is no law, there can be
no wrong, or violation." (3) If there is no sin,
then there is no moral or spiritual responsibility;
there is no need for moral or spiritual reformation,
and our manifold institutions which exist for the
avowed end of making men better, our churches, our
schools, our Y. M. and Y. W. C. A.'s, our asylums,
our missions, our W. C. T. U/s ; these, and a hundred
others, kindred in character and purpose, have be-
come utterly foolish and worse than useless.

In a sentence, then, to deny the existence of hell
is to deny both the existence of sin and of law.

"But," says one, "even though I accept the facts
as you have produced them, I cannot see how God
can be just and condemn a man to hell." The trouble

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GLORYING IN THB CROSS

with many people is that they do not comprehend the
meaning of the term, justice. An illustration will
make it clear. Suppose a law in this state against
horse-stealing, with a maximum penalty of two years
in state's prison for the first offense. A man thor-
oughly acquainted with the law, and knowing well
the penalty, having carefully planned the theft, de-
liberately steals a dozen horses. He is captured,
brought to trial and convicted of the crime. Now,
justice demands that he be imprisoned for two years
in the penitentiary. He knew the law; he knew of
the certainty of the punishment if he were captured.
To suffer the penalty attached to the law prohibiting
horse-stealing, which he has deliberately violated,
would be plain, simple justice. Is it in any way un-
just that he should suffer the two years in prison?
Who is responsible for the punishment which is in-
flicted upon him, the law or the law breaker? You
answer, "The lawbreaker." Then, if he is re-
sponsible, he is also accountable, and simple justice
demands that he suffer the penalty. To receive
justice is simply for a man to get what is rightfully
coming to him.

But, now let us suppose that the governor of the
state comes to the man and says to him, "Because of
the helpless condition of your good, old Christian
mother, and because you, as a son, owe her your
support, I am going to give you a pardon. Take it,
and you are free." The pardon in this case would not
represent the justice of the state, but the mercy. Let
us suppose, however, that the man under penalty, or

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HULL

justice, calmly folds his arms, and after looking at
the governor for a moment says, "I don't want your
pardon, and I won't have it." Such an astonishing
and uncalled for action as this would simply mean
that he has spurned the mercy of the state as vested
in, and offered by, its chief executive. Its mercy
having been rejected, what could the state do? There
would positively be nothing that it could do, for it
could not be merciful to the one who refused to be a
recipient of its mercy. There would be nothing left
to the law-breaker save to suffer the penalty of his
crime. The state did all it could for him in offering
him mercy when he deserved justice.

In the Word of God, and by our own consciences,
we are taught that we are sinners before God ; that
for our innumerable transgressions we have fallen
under the penalty of God's laws. There is universal
recognition of this terrible fact, for all have sinned
and have fallen short of the glory of God. But, and
oh, how glorious is the thought, "God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that who-
soever believeth on him should not perish, but have
eternal life." The Father found us lost, condemned
and in ruins. We were without light, without hope.
Penalty hovered loweringly over us. Had we suf-
fered that penalty it would have been just, for it
would have been well deserved. But the Father,
because he so loved us, granted unto us his mercy,
his pardon, in his Son Jesus Christ. The sweat and
blood of Calvary represent the penalty being suffered
for us that we might receive the pardon. It was not

Fifty-seven —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

because it was just that Jesus died, but because of
love, that we might have mercy. Now, suppose a sin-
ner, one under penalty, calmly rejects the pardon of
the Father, saying, "I will have nothing to do with
the Christ.,, He thereby spurns the mercy of God.
Then how can the Father be merciful to the one
who will not accept his mercy? If a man will not
take the pardon there is nothing left but for him to
suffer the justice. God cannot be merciful, but can
only be just to the one who refuses his mercy. The
writer of the Hebrew letter recognizes this when he
says, "A man that hath set at naught Moses' law dieth
without compassion (mercy) on the word of two or
three witnesses, of how much sorer punishment, think
ye, shall he be judged worthy who hath trodden un-
der foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood
of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an un-
holy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of
Grace." (Heb. 10:28-29.) The old law represented
strict justice; the new law justice tempered with
mercy. Heaven has done all for man that could be
done, even to the offering of a pardon, when man in
his guilty state was deserving of nothing but justice.
To reject that pardon is nothing more or less than
spiritual suicide.

II. The Proof that Hell Is Future.

We are not only interested in the question as to
whether or not hell exists, but after demonstrating
this to our satisfaction we want to know when it will

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HULL

be, or the time of its existence. Is hell to be here
or hereafter? is the question. Now, if we can dis-
pose of all theories, which in any way claim that hell
is here and now, we shall have established our point
that it is future by eliminating all other possibilities.
Thus a careful survey and searching analysis of three
theories are indispensable before any direct argu-
ments can be adduced for the futurity of hell.

1. The first theory maintains that the pangs of
a guilty conscience constitute all the hell there is.
Says one, "When I do right my conscience is clear,
and in that I possess such a conscience I am re-
warded for my goodness. When I do wrong my
conscience hurts me, and I am punished with re-
morse and sorrow because of my wrong-doing. Thus
my conscience becomes a hell to me when I sin."

It is a well-known fact to all that the oftener one
does a thing the easier it becomes to do that thing.
The first efforts are always accompanied with more
or less difficulty. The first movements of the pupil
trying to learn to play the piano are usually awk-
ward and labored. Consciousness interposes itself
every time a finger touches a key and says, "Do this"
or "Do that." As time goes on, however, through
constant and faithful practice, useless movements
are inhibited, consciousness ceases to direct as to de-
tails, and the keys seem almost to play themselves.
Analagous to this familiar illustration is the play o:
conscience in the moral life of the individual. When
a sin is first committed difficulty invariably attends.
Conscience intrudes and whispers, "Don't do this or

Fifty-nine —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

that," but as the sin is frequently and regularly com-
mitted these whisperings grow fainter and fainter,
until conscience is inhibited and the sin, attended at
first with such difficulty of soul, finally becomes
habitual. To state it briefly, the more a man sins the
less conscience he has about sin. This being true,
then the worse a man is the less hell he gets, if one
accepts the theory that conscience is all the hell there
is.

Now there are some people whose consciences,
through constant training, have become so acute that
even the most trivial sin will cause them to experi-
ence the most severe anguish of soul. To the first
man the blackest sin in the whole category will not
bring one pang because his conscience has become
seared as with a hot iron; while in the case of the
second the slightest wrong-doing will cause multifold
miseries. Therefore, according to the conscience-
hell theory, the more spiritual, moral and righteous
a man becomes, the more hell he gets, and the more
debased and depraved he becomes the- less hell he
gets.

It should also be noted that if conscience is a
man's hell it must also be his heaven, for heaven and
hell both stand on the same authority in the Bible and
in the light of reason. As a rule, however, those
who believe in this theory do not make it apply to
heaven. The theory is thus one-sided.

2. A second theory claims that we get our
hell here upon this earth. Every time we sin we will
be punished for it here. As far as the Scriptures are

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HULL

concerned, if this idea be correct, then we will get
our heaven here also. But one thing is as a rule
noticeable, and that is the fact that those who believe
that all the hell the sinner gets he gets here, usually
firmly believe that heaven is hereafter. As we have
before remarked, heaven and hell stand upon the
same authority, both in the Scriptures and in the light
of reason; so if we get one here we will get the other
also.

As we study the multiform conditions of life we
are constantly struck by the fact that absolute justice
here is unknown ; also that in this life it is practically
impossible. The innocent are so many times pun-
ished while the guilty go free; the wicked and dis-
solute enjoy the good things of life while the right-
eous are persecuted and receive the hard end of all
things. Nero on the throne, the Christian a prey to
the half-starved beasts of the arena ; labor crushed by
capital, courts brided by tainted money — these are
but grains of sand on the seashore of illustrations of
the absence of absolute justice. But if there be a
counterfeit justice there must somewhere be the true
justice, for there cannot be the shadow without there
be that from which the shadow takes its form; there
cannot be the counterfeit without the genuine, after
the pattern of which it is counterfeited. If there be
no absolute justice here, then it must be after here
or hereafter. Thus hell must be hereafter also, for
only where absolute justice is dispensed can there be
just rewards and punishments.

Another thing noticeable about our existence is

Sixty-one —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

that our lives interact upon one another. Paul ex-
pressed the idea when he said that no man lives or
dies unto himself. If a man dies in our vicinity we
are influenced to some extent by the death, the in-
tensity of the influence depending, of course, upon
the nearness or remoteness of the influencing action.
If it happens a thousand miles from us we read the
account in the newspaper and an involuntary shud-
der passes over us; if it happens in the home across
the street our interest is more intense, but if it takes
place in our own home it breaks our hearts. The
actions of the guilty punish the innocent, yea, the
very existence of the sinner and his sin must of
necessity be a punishment to the righteous. Murders,
thefts, etc., occur, yet it is the man innocent of crime
who by the sweat of his face must build the peni-
tentiaries, erect the gallows, establish and maintain
the madhouse and the home for the feeble-minded, or
the habitation for the aged and infirm. Sin punishes
the innocent as well as the guilty.

An illustration : a good Christian mother possesses
a son who, in his young manhood, because of morally
unhealthy associates, becomes corrupt in his per-
sonal life ; his habits become bad and he seems to care
not at all for things of a religious nature. The
mother, who has slaved that he might have a chance
in the world, and who now, in her old age is deserv-
ing of all the heaven that life has in store, is punished
by every sinful action of her ungrateful son. Shame
and sorrow are heaped upon her by the one who
should be her support and stay. Whether his ac-

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HULL

tions be intended to hurt or not, the punishment
which they inflict is none the less terrible to bear.
Ah, if the story of lives could be written, how many
times over would this illustration be repeated? Ac-
cording, then, to the idea that we get our hell here on
earth, the good Christian mother who, because of her
pure life, deserves heaven, is the recipient of hell
because of the thoughtless follies of her wicked son.

The theory is manifestly an impossible one be-
cause our lives are too closely interwoven for one
to be suffering the horrors of hell while his brother,
with whom he dwells, is enjoying the delights of
heaven, without there being an interaction of one
life upon the other. Or, in a word, heaven, to be
heaven, and hell, to be hell, must be separated, and
separated so far that there can be no influence of
one upon the other. Or, to state it again, heaven to
be reward, and hell, to be justice, must not be in the
same place; for the punishment of the guilty would
likewise become a punishment to the innocent. Even
the very existence of the guilty in the same place
with the righteous would be a punishment to the
latter.

Concluding, then, if hell is not the pangs of a
guilty conscience ; if it cannot, in order to retain its
very character as hell, be here, then it must be after
here, or hereafter, sometime in the future.

But we can determine the time of its existence
even more accurately than to say that it is in the
future. Hell cannot be until this life is over and
time shall be no more, and until there shall be a great

Sixty-three —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

and final judgment. It would be impossible to judge
a man fairly at his death. True, the immediate acts
of his life might be judged; but what about his in-
fluence ? A man does not die at death. His body may
lie mouldering in the tomb, but his influence goes
marching on. Is Ingersoll dead? No, his influence
still blights and ruins. Does Jonathan Edwards still
live? Yes, his splendid influence goes triumphantly
on blessing and uplifting. The after-death influence
of these men accomplishes more for good or ill than
the immediate result of their few years upon the
earth. Truly an impossible task is it to adequately
judge the lives of these men and of all others until
influence itself shall cease, and that can only be when
time shall have been ended by the Father's hand.
Thus the final judgment must be at the end of time.
Hell cannot, in the nature of things, be awarded
to those meriting it until after judgment, and if
judgment be after time has ceased, then hell must also
be after time has become no more. Therefore hell
is in the future, after all time and after the last
great judgment.

III. The Character of Hell.

The next question which naturally arises in the
progress of the discussion is one as to the nature or
character of hell. What kind of a place is it going
to be? Not many decades ago the common idea of
the character of hell was the one very clearly ex-
pressed in the old phrase much used by spellbinding

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HELL

evangelists, as in the fervor of religious excitement
they would describe the unrepentant as, "hair-hung
and breeze-shaken over the flaming pit." Visions of
an immense sea of fire and brimstone from which day
and night ascended the smoke of the eternally tor-
mented were painted in words of terrible descriptive
power, while terrified audiences sat trembling, with
open eyes and mouths.

But, if one will think for a moment, this concep-
tion taxes the credulity of even the most credulous.
Fire and brimstone can have terror but for the ma-
terial body alone. Paul tells us that "flesh and blood
cannot inherit the Kingdom of God." (1 Cor. 15:50),
but that the body will be a new body and spiritual.
Fire and brimstone can have no terrors for the
spiritual form of man when he enters the beyond.

But how can the numerous scriptural descriptions
of hell be explained, for assuredly they abound in
references to fire and brimstone? True, but one law
which can invariably be found to explain these bibli-
cal descriptions is, that wherever Jesus, his apostles,
or any of the inspired writers describe hell, the terms
employed are always figurative. This law may be
illustrated by an explanation of the sense in which
the words Gehenna (Greek) or Hinnom (Hebrew)
was used.

The valley of Hinnom, or Gehenna, bounds Jeru-
salem on the south below Mount Zion, and is the
place which is so often mentioned as the setting of
the awful idolatrous rites practiced by the apostate
kings before the great idol Moloch. When King

Sixty-five —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

Josiah at last succeeded in overthrowing this idolatry,
he denied the valley by casting into it the bones of
the dead, the greatest of all pollutions among the
Jews. From this time on all the refuse of Jerusalem
was cast into it and the combustible parts of it de-
stroyed by fire which was kept forever burning. In
the time of Christ the festering bodies of criminals,
dispatched according to the barbarous fashions of
execution then prevalent, were cast into this terrible
valley, and the smoke of the ever-burning fires carried
their horrid stench mingled with that arising from
the rotting bodies of dead swine, which were to the
Jew the most detested of all animals, to all the val-
ley's immediate environs. It is not to be wondered
at, then, that to the Jews this place was the most
horrible upon the earth. The very mention of the
name Gehenna would provoke within him the most
profound sensations of horror and disgust. Thus it
is that Jesus, in the attempt to make clear to those
unlettered fishermen, who had so often demonstrated
their inability to receive a spiritual lesson, the ab-
horrent character of Hell, uses the familiar and de-
tested term Gehenna as descriptive of that place
"which eternal justice hath prepared for those rebel-
lious." Hell was not to be the valley of Gehenna, but
in that it was to be a place of horror and gloom — it
was to be like Gehenna. Hence the terms employed
are figurative, simply attempts to portray to mortal
man the terrors of spiritual punishment.

But if hell is not a burning pit, a lake of fire and

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HULL

brimstone; what kind of a place is it anyway? Is it
a beautiful place or the abode of perpetual gloom?

When one thinks of heaven, whether that one be-
lieves in hell or not, he tries to imagine a place beau-
tiful beyond the power of human genius, inexperi-
enced in its celestial delights, to paint in feeble words.
The word heaven is to man the symbol of the highest
conception which has ever been his of truth, beauty
and eternal soul-delight. By the law of opposites
which tells us "that if there exists the good there must
also be the bad; if there be white there must be its
opposite black," man has always been made to be-
lieve that hell, the exact opposite in character of
heaven and as far removed as "from the center thrice
to utmost pole," must then be by nature the most
doleful and horrible place in the Universe of God.
And such we are convinced, both by reason and
Scripture, it must be.

Because hell does not consist of a lake of fire and
brimstone let no one deceive himself into considering
it a place of pleasure or a sort of summer resort.
The terrors of hell are not at all minimized by the de-
struction of the ancient and utterly false conception
by which, on pain of excruciating physical suffering,
men were frightened into repentance, but rather do
they become a thousand times more terrible when
the true character of hell is revealed.

In proving the futurity of hell the fact was estab-
lished that hell, to be hell, and reward to be reward,
the two conditions must be separated so far that
there could be no influence of one upon the other,

Sixty-seven —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

for a reciprocal influence would destroy the char-
acter of both. Now all acknowledge it to be scrip-
tural teaching that heaven is the abiding place of
God; that all the beauties and glories of that won-
derful home are emanations from his loving presence.
If, then, heaven and hell are so far separated that
inter-influence is impossible, then hell will be in char-
acter whatever it must mean to be separated from
God. A very slight idea of what this would be is
given to us as we behold the lives of those about us
here, and now who are separated from God. The
drunkard, with his bleared eyes, his seamed and fur-
rowed face, his look of hopeless despair, as he realizes
how utter is his servitude to rum; is he not an aw-
ful picture of the barrenness and bleakness of a life
separated from God? Or look into the cold, hard
eyes of the prostitute ; see the artificial red on lip
and cheek ; behold the complete absence of that which
lends to womanhood its most gracious charm, a
gentle, womanly reserve, and then exclaim in pity-
ing words, "how terrible is the life of that soul that
knows not God !"

And if separation be terrible here, what must it be
hereafter, when to those terrors incident to the life of
sin and without God must be added the consciousness
that through an eternity no hope of change can come.
Lost opportunities, golden moments wasted in sin, oh,
how clearly will they be remembered then, when no
more opportunities or golden moments come ! To be
separated for an interminable eternity from the pres-
ence of God, from hope, from light, into outer dark-

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HULL

ness, "where there shall be weeping and wailing and
gnashing of teeth." "Such place eternal justice hath
prepared for those rebellious."

And think you that this hell will not be a place
of horror? All happiness and every true delight of
this present world is made possible by the existence
of God or his people. The home with all its joys,
political freedom, fraternity; our hospitals, our
schools — are1 not all these, and more, resultants of our
knowledge of the Father? To be separated from him
and from his people, truly this would be a hell terrible
enough for even the most hardened unregenerate !

Another conclusion concerning the awful char-
acter of hell, which, from the nature of the argument
forces itself upon us, is that one which is derived
from the character of hell's occupants. If hell is to
be the abode of liars, thieves, murderers, cut-throats,
adulterers, whoremongers, gossipers, slanderers, the
devil and his angels it will indeed be a terrible place.
The wrangling, the back-biting, the wailings of despair,
the groanings and gnashings of teeth, and that through
an endless eternity, such a hell as this should be
enough to make the sinner's blood run cold. In such
a hell all the wicked of all the ages will be gathered to-
gether and there will be no forgiveness nor any hope
of reformation; but brooding over all there will be an
eternal darkness caused by the absence of God. Such
will be the terrible penalty reserved for those who re-
fuse God's mercy.

Sixty-nine —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS
IV. The Duration of Heu,.

During our argument on future punishment we
have been tacitly assuming that hell was to be of
eternal duration. Is this assumption a reasonable one?
How long will hell last? is therefore the next question
which logically confronts us.

There are those who believe that hell will be
a place where some soul, less guilty than others, will be
boiled, fried or tormented in half a dozen fiendish ways
for a few thousand years ; then when he has been
purged of all his meanness, he will be permitted to
enter the realms of glory. Hell is not a reform
school; hell is penalty attached to law. Hell is not a
place to get ready for heaven. In this life man is to
prepare for the life beyond. The only purgatory that
the Bible teaches is Christ. If we reject him as God's
pardon there is no other opportunity for change.
Punishment will last just as long as man is guilty, un-
der law. If there is no pardon after death, and if
there is, man, as yet, has never received the revela-
tion of it, and if man, at death, is guilty under law,
then punishment must last as long as guilt lasts. If
there is no pardon after death, then guilt would be
eternal. If guilt is eternal, then punishment or penalty
must be eternal, everlasting, never-ending. Punish-
ment never makes a man any better when in that pun-
ishment he is separated from all means of reformation.
In our last division we found that hell was banish-
ment from the presence of God into outer darkness,

— Seventy

HELL

away from light, from joy, from all contact with
righteousness.

"A dungeon horrible on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames no

light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades where peace and rest

can never dwell, hope never comes."

If this is hell, then what chance has man for
reformation? He is far removed from all opportu-
nity of change. No missionary can come to him with
the life-giving message. No prayers of a God-fear-
ing mother can allure him upward. His day of op-
portunity is over. The company in which he finds
himself is not the kind which will work for his bet-
terment. In the life which we live today, even that
one who desires fervently to live the life of purity will
find it impossible to do so if he be continually envi-
roned by sin. In hell, where there is no environment
save that which is low and vile, how can one even
hope for change for the better? Hell in duration is
eternal, a place of doom and despair.

CONCLUSION.

Sad and horrible though the fact of hell may be —
its existence, its futurity, its terrible and eternal char-
acter— yet how human hearts should thrill with joy
because a loving Father has mercifully prepared a way
of escape. When man falls, and by his fall condemns
himself to eternal penalty, the Father, because he so

Seventy-one —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

loved the world, was willing to bankrupt heaven itself
that the pardon might be given. Reject not, then, this
day, that pardon so mercifully offered to us who are
worthy only of justice. Mercy is yours, freedom,
light and hope. Oh, accept it while you may !

— Seventy-two

Ill

THE DIVINE NAME

Ill

The Divine Name

Texts: But, if any man suffer as a Christian, let
him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this
name." (1 Pet. 4:16.)

"Do not they blaspheme the honorable name by
which ye are called." (James 2:7.)

In this sermon on the divine name there is no in-
tention on the part of the author to make an attack
on any individual or communion ; and, although in this
discussion the names of some religious bodies may
be used to a certain extent, the spirit in which they
are employed is meant to be at all times courteous
and charitable. One must, however, be lucid in every
statement in order that the truth may be clearly set
forth before all.

Now, as the Church of Christ is a divine institu-
tion, founded by the Son of God and upon the granite
truth of the deity of that Son, we would expect to
find that the name by which it is to be differentiated
from all other institutions would be a divine name.
We would also expect that the individual members who
constitute the church would be called by a name,
divine, different and infinitely transcending all earthly
names in that it would be bestowed by the Father
himself. In our text James refers to "that worthy name

Seventy -jive —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

by which ye are called," and it is our purpose here to
find out just what that name was, for if the same
conditions which were binding upon the people to
whom James writes are binding today upon us, then
we also should be called by the same name which was
worn by them.

ARGUMENT.

I. Some Objections to Human Names, as Now
Worn by Followers of Christ.

The almost innumerable human names which are
worn by those who profess to be God's people are
open to many serious objections, some of which we
want to consider briefly before we proceed to the dis-
cussion of "that worthy name."

1. In the first place, human names are wrong and
directly antagonistic to the very spirit of the teach-
ing of Christ, because they are divisive in character.
Christ prayed that his people might remain one
people. (John 17.) Paul teaches that if we are
divided we are "carnal and walk as men." (1 Cor.
1 :10-24.) Anything which erects itself as "a wall of
partition," no matter how revered or deeply imbedded
in the memory of a people it may be, is diametrically
opposed to the desire of the Master and his apostles,
that God's people should ever be one. And human
names do divide. The Methodist refuses to be called
a Baptist, or the Presbyterian a Congregationalist.
Each wears his own denominational name and clings
to it with a tenacity born of a prejudice built up by

Seventy-six

THE DIVINE NAME

years of denominational wrangling. Let all party-
names be forgotten, and one of the greatest barriers to
the consummation of a glorious union of God's chil-
dren will be broken down.

2. Again, human names are objectionable because
they honor the wrong person, ordinance, or institu-
tion. To call God's people Campbellites means that
the honor for founding a church is conferred on Mr.
Campbell, even though he firmly denied that he pos-
sessed any authority to organize a church or that he
had ever even thought of founding one. Such names
as Wesleyan and Lutheran are other illustrations of
the attempt to crown with honor men to whose hum-
ble Christian piety such honor was little less than re-
pugnant, because they so clearly recognized that they
were not in any way worthy of it, and because they
knew well to whom that honor belonged. Why honor
them thus? Were they founders of the Church of
God? Who said, "Upon this rock I will build my
church?" (Matt. 16:18.) Who was it who said, "I
go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, there
ye may be also," or "Father, forgive them ; they know
not what they do." Did Luther, Wesley or Campbell
die for our sins? Is it through them that we are
promised a home eternal? If Christ is the founder,
the head, the Saviour, should we not honor him by
wearing his name ? Let us give honor to whom honor
is due. When we wear, as a church name, the name
of one of the great religious leaders we are honoring
the wrong person as the chief one in the church.

If we exalt an ordinance, such as the ordinance

Seventy-seven —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

of Christian baptism, into the prominent position of
a church name, we are again guilty of wrongfully be-
stowing honor. It is not baptism nor our belief in
baptism which we should exalt, neither our belief
in the spiritual oversight of the elders, nor of con-
gregational government, but the founder, the builder,
the head of the church, our Lord Jesus Christ.

3. A third objection to the interminable maze
of human names is that it acts as a stumbling block
to the sinner. Each name represents a distinct people,
or church, and as the sinful man, desirous of being as
near right as possible, wanders from place to place,
his hope of finding the right path becomes deep despair
and he cries aloud, "Oh, what shall I do? Where
shall I go? What name shall I wear?" Many a sin-
sick one has been lost simply because he could not
find the path of God in the maze of humanisms con-
structed through centuries by man.

II. What Name Did Christ's Disciples Wear

After the Establishment of the Church

on the Day of Pentecost?

1. The first place in which we find the divine
name used is in the cosmopolitan city of Antioch.
In Acts 11:26, Luke says that "the disciples were
called Christians first at Antioch." But at once the
question is asked, "Who gave them the name? Is it
not a fact that the name was given to them in de-
rision or as a title of reproach? Was it not a term
employed by the pagan enemies of Christianity to ex-

— Seventy-eight

THE DIVINE NAME

press their contempt of the followers of Christ ?"
Many of our modern denominations have received
their names in precisely this manner. In derision or
as a nickname the term Methodist was used first by
Oxford students concerning the Holy Club of the
University, formed for purposes of prayer and re-
ligious meditation by John and Charles Wesley. From
this Methodical club the Methodist societies were
named, and afterwards the great Methodist Episcopal
Church. Now, did not the disciples receive their name
Christian in much the same manner as a nickname,
or title of ridicule?

About the most accurate and perhaps the only cor-
rect method of determining the answer to this very
widely misunderstood question is to find out the ex-
act meaning of the original Greek verb translated in
our English versions "were called." The verb is
XprjfMiTLiu), from the noun xPYlfmTiO'tX0''s> which means
"an oracle." The verb, therefore, means "to speak
as an oracle, to be divinely warned, to be called or
named from a divine source." Always when the word
is used it is in the sense of a divine call, warning or
command. Whenever the words "to be warned" or "to
be called" are used in a human sense alone the Greek
verbs employed are either KaAew (Matt. 10:13, GaL
5:8, Luke 1:31, Matt. 10:25) or vTroseiKw/xt (Matt.
3 :7, Luke 3 :7, Luke 6 :47, Luke 12 :5, Acts 9 :16, Acts
20:35.) Never in the New Testament are these verbs
used in the sense of a warning or a command or a
calling in the form of the bestowal of a name except
as emanating from human sources. When the divine

Seventy-nine —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

is mentioned as the source of such warnings or com-
mands the verb XPVUXXT^(1) is always used.

Nine times in the New Testament the verb
Xprjfxarilo} is translated with this divine sense clearly
indicated. And if Acts 1 1 :26 were correctly trans-
lated it would be given there also. For purposes of
comparison the places where xPVtMLT^Ui is used are
here listed. The English version referred to is the
American Standard Revised.

Matt. 2:12: — "And being warned of God in a

dream (xPrlfxaTLa'0*VT€$) that they should not return to
Herod, they departed into their own country another
way/'

Matt. 2 :22 : — "But when he heard that Archelaus
was reigning over Judea in the room of his father
Herod, he was afraid to go thither; and being warned

of God in a dream (xP7lfxaT^€L^) he withdrew into the
parts of Galilee."

Luke 2 :26 : — "And it had been revealed to him by
the Holy Spirit (Kex/^^aTwr/AcW) that he should not
see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ."

Acts 10 :22 : — "And they said, Cornelius, a cen-
turion, a righteous man, and one that feareth God, and
well reported of by all the nation of the Jews, was
warned of God by a holy angel (ixprju-aTLo-Oe) to send
for thee into his house, and to hear words from thee."

Romans 7 :3 : — "So then if, while the husband
liveth, she be joined to another man, she shall be
called (xp^/acitiW) an adulteress : but if the hus-
band die, she is freed from the law, so that she is no
adulteress, though she be joined to another man."

— Eighty

THE DIVINE NAME

The sense here in which the woman should be called
an adulteress is clearly the divine sense, in that the
law concerning this case first originates with God.

Romans 11 :4 : — "But what sayeth the answer of
God unto him? (X^/xaTwr/Aos) I have left for myself
seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee
to Baal." In this passage X/o^/xaTioyxo? is used in al-
most identically the same sense as if it were an oracle
speaking.

Heb. 8 :4-5 : — "Now if he were on earth he would
not be a priest at all, seeing there are those who of-
fer the gifts according to the law, who serve that
which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things,
even as Moses is warned of God {KtKp-qfmria-ai) when
he is about to make the tabernacle; for, see, saith he,
that thou make all things according to the pattern that
was showed thee in the mount."

Heb. 11:7: — "By faith Noah, being warned of
God (XprjfULTio-deis) concerning things not seen as yet,
moved with godly fear, prepared an ark to the sav-
ing of his house; through which he condemned the
world and became heir of the righteousness which is
according to faith."

Heb. 12 :25 : — "See that ye refuse not him that
speaketh. For if they escaped not when they re-
fused him that warned them on earth, much more
shall not we escape who turned away from him that

warneth from heaven ( xpvfmT^0VTa) -

Acts 1 1 :26 : — "And it came to pass, that even for
a whole year they were gathered together with the
church, and taught much people ; and that the dis-

Eighty-one —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

ciples were called (xPVfJL0LT^(TaL) Christians first in An-
tioch."

In all of these passages the indisputable meaning
of the word Xprjfw.T^(o is, "divinely called, or called
of God." In Acts 11 :26, however, the meaning is not
made as clear in our English versions as it might be.
If the sentence had been translated just exactly as it
reads, there would have been no doubt about the mat-
ter at all. The part of the verse " Xpry/xarto-ai re ^wto)?

iv 'Avrto^ciarovs fjLadrjras xpLO-Tuxvovs" would then have

been, "and the disciples were divinely called Chris-
tians first at Antioch." Such a rendering as this
would then have corresponded with the translations
given the word xPrlfmT^0) m the other passages in
which it is used. If this correct rendering had been
given, all the questions and disputes as to whether
or not the name was given in derision would obviously
have been impossible.

Meyer's commentary on Acts, which as an author-
ity in this realm has but few peers, concerning Acts
11:26 makes this statement: "There is nothing to
support the view that the term (Christian) was first
used as a title of ridicule." (p. 223.)

Doctor John Straub, Dean of the College of
Literature, Science and Arts, and for thirty-six years
head of the department of Greek at the University of
Oregon, and easily one of the most eminent author-
ities on Greek in the United States, a Presbyterian in
belief, in referring to this verse says, "There is no
good reason why any one should think that the dis-
ciples were called Christians in derision. The very

— Eighty-two

THE DIVINE NAME

meaning of the noun XpTy/xaTtV/Aos from which the
verb XpTy/xaTt^w is derived precludes any such idea."

There is therefore not one iota of doubt from the
original meaning of the word and from the position
occupied by the scholarship of the world that the
disciples were "divinely called" Christians or "called
of God" first at Antioch.

And why first at Antioch? Why should the Lord
choose this place as the one where, for the first time,
the gift of the new name should be bestowed upon his
people? The religion of the Christ was to be a uni-
versal religion, world-wide, cosmopolitan, a gospel
preached "to every creature." All social and racial
barriers were to be leveled and there was to be neither
Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male
nor female, but all were to be one in Christ Jesus.
(Gal. 3:28.)

The Jerusalem church was not a cosmopolitan
church because its membership was made up entirely
of Jews. It was not, therefore, representative of the
world-wide character of the new religion. Its mem-
bers clung fiercely to many of the Jewish customs, not
realizing that the gospel message was to be pro-
claimed to the whole world. The new name could not,
therefore, be properly given to them until they be-
came world-wide in their conception of the divine
message. No church could be truly Christian until
all party spirit had been destroyed and until the eyes
of its membership had been anointed with the glori-
ous missionary visions. The Antiochian church was
the first one under the new dispensation to number

Mighty-three —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

among its constituency both Jews and Gentiles. It
could properly have been said of them that they were
neither Jew nor Greek, but that they were all one in
Christ Jesus. Racial distinctions were forgotten ;
social walls, if not entirely destroyed, were far less
frequently emphasized. This church was also the
first one to realize the world-wide missionary obliga-
tion, and from its doors were sent forth Barnabas and
Saul, the first missionary ambassadors of the King
from the first missionary church to take to the world,
regardless of race or previous religious affiliations, the
joyous evangel of the cross. Antioch was the first
place where the meaning of Christ's statement, "Ye
shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all
Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of
the earth," first became clearly apparent to his dis-
ciples. How befitting, then, that at Antioch, a city
itself the meeting place for all nations, the birthplace
of the first church, truly representative of the new re-
ligion in that in its worship for the first time Jew and
Gentile disciples mingled on the common plane of
brotherhood in Christ, the place from which were sent
forth the first missionaries to all men, that here the
wonderful new name should first be divinely given.

But suppose, for argument's sake, that it should
be granted that the name Christian was given to
Christ's disciples by pagan or heathen peoples as a
term of reproach or ridicule, could a name more ex-
pressive of the spirit of the new religion or of the
redeemed's relation to the Redeemer be given, even
by the Father himself? The whole system is Christ-

— Eighty-four

THE DIVINE NAME

filled. It is founded upon Christ; it is headed by-
Christ. Men are to believe in and be obedient to
Christ in order to be saved from sin. Christ is
Alpha and Omega, beginning and end; he is Lord of
all; Redeemer, Saviour, Sacrifice and Judge. The
whole system is Christ. How glorious, then, that the
saved, the redeemed, the obedient man should be
named a Christ-i-an one ! How wonderfully expres-
sive is the term "Christ-i-an" or "Christ One," of that
marvelously beautiful relation existing between the
saved and the Saviour ! Paul states this relationship
when he says, "For as many of you as were baptized
into Christ did put on Christ." (Gal. 3:27.) "Buried
with him through baptism," we become a part of the
world-wide soul-saving system which is Christ. We
become "one of Christ" or a "Christ-One."

Thus, even were it possible to establish the posi-
tion that the disciples were called Christians first in
derision, yet we would be forced to conclude that in
their choice of a derisive term those pagan or heathen
peoples by whom it was first used in Antioch were
guided by the Father himself.

2. The second use of the term Christian recorded
in the New Testament is in Acts 26 :28. King Agrip-
pa had been listening with intense interest and eyes
wide with wonder to that masterpiece of pleas made
by Paul in defense of his Lord and in the attempt to
persuade the king to follow also the teachings of the
Nazarene. All of Paul's great exhortations were with
the view to persuasion, and on this occasion, which
he recognized as one of life's opportunities, every

Eighty-five —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

natural endowment, emphasized by his pure spirit-
filled soul, glowed in his every word and gesture as
he threw his best self into the effort to bring the love
of Christ into the heart of the dissolute Agrippa.
And the King, touched, wavering on the very verge
of decision, tensely whispers, "Paul, with but little
persuasion thou wouldst fain make me a Christian."
(Acts 26:28.) Then Paul, completely disclosing the
purpose of his masterful plea, as he holds up his
hands bound with the great prisoner's chain, speaks
the generous answer of a noble soul, "I would to God
that whether with little or with much, not thou only,
but also all that hear me this day, were such as I am
except these bonds." (Acts 26:29.)

3. The third and last time that the name Chris-
tian is used in the New Testament is found in Peter's
first epistle, 4:16, "Yet if any man suffer as a
Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glori-
fy God ( ev raj ovo/oum rovTio) in this name." Peter
was here writing by the inspiration of the Spirit. If
he was inspired by the Spirit then he must be giving
the message of the Spirit. If this is the message of
the Spirit, then the words, "Let him glorify God in
this name" must of a truth be the very words of the
Spirit. If, then, even were it true that the disciples
were called Christians in derision, the Holy Spirit
sanctions the term, and not only sanctions it, but tells
us to "glorify God in this name."

But some one objects, saying, "I am a Christian
and I do wear the name, but I am a Baptist, Method-
ist or Presbyterian Christian. If I am a Christian,

— Eighty -six

THE DIVINE NAME

even though I am wearing another name, am I not
glorifying God?" Acknowledging, my brother, that
your intention is good, still to the thinking man even
though you be a Christian, the very fact that before
the world you wear, for instance, the name Methodist,
shows that you are glorifying a nickname rather than
God through the name which is itself a glorification
of his Son. Or if before men you wear the name
Baptist you are glorifying the ordinance of baptism
rather than the one who commanded baptism. If you
wear the name Congregationalist you glorify or ex-
alt a form of church polity rather than the One who
was the author of that form. The one who wears the
name Presbyterian is glorifying the form of church
government by the Presbytery or elders rather than
the Father through the divinely appointed name. We
are commanded to glorify, to exalt and to magnify
the Father in the name Christian. We are to be
known before the world as Christians, and in any and
every way that we can advance the Kingdom of God
we are to do so, wearing this wonderful name. Oh,
glorious name ! Oh, wonderful name ; so proudly
worn by Paul and Barnabas, Peter and John, given
by the Father as a name of honor, sanctioned by the
Holy Spirit as a name of glory and power!

But now what shall we do with the name "dis-
ciple." Are we not disciples of Christ, and, if so,
why not wear that name? Today we read in many of
our papers about the "Disciples of Christ" and in-
variably the word disciples is capitalized. The name
disciple, when so capitalized, is as denominational, and

Eighty-seven —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

therefore as divisive in character as any of those de-
nominational or sectarian names which some of these
very brethren who use the term so ardently oppose.
Let us be consistent. Let us shun sectarianism as
though it were a plague. Let us not condemn others
for doing that of which we may be guilty ourselves.
We are disciples, but we are more. We are obedient
disciples. We are redeemed disciples. A disciple is a
fjLadrp-rjs, a learner. A man may be a /xaOrjT^ or
learner of Christ, and never be a Christian at all.
A Christian is not only a disciple, or learner, but he
is an obedient disciple; he puts into practice what he
learns. Nicodemus was a disciple, or learner, but as
far as we know he never became a "Christ-one/' an
obedient follower of Christ. Joseph, of Arimathaea,
was a disciple, but he did not possess the courage to
become a Christian. The name Christian means so
much more than disciple ! It comprehends all of
the meaning of disciple and more. After the Antioch
church is established and God's people receive for the
first time the vision of a world-wide conquest for the
King, the disciples are the recipients of a new name,
and the Holy Spirit, using Peter merely as the trans-
mitting agency, exhorts us to "glorify God in that
name."

Because the people of the great restoration move-
ment have contended so firmly and uncompromisingly
for those names by which the members of the apostolic
church were called, and because they have preached
that the church, as a body, should wear the names
that were worn by it in the beginning, they have

— Eighty-eight

THE DIVINE NAME

frequently been accused of arrogating to themselves
a monopoly on these very names. The question has
many times been asked of them, "Are you the only
Christians? Do you not consider it selfish to wear
this name? Do you not, by wearing it unChristianize
others ?" Like the Yankee, we would ask our inter-
rogators the question, "Are you the only Baptists?"
We believe in baptism, and practice it. Every man
who baptizes is a baptist. Are you the only Congre-
gationalists ? We use the congregational form of
church polity. Do you not consider it selfish to wear
the name? Do you not uncongregationalize us if you
are Congregationalists ? Are you the only Methodists ?
We are methodical in our work for the Master. Are
you not selfish in wearing the name? Are you the
only Presbyterians ? We believe in the spiritual super-
vision or oversight of the bishops or elders. Do you
not selfishly unpresbyterianize us by wearing the
name?

We have never claimed that we are the only Chris-
tians, but that we are Christians only, and that claim
is the very opposite of selfishness; it is indeed the
very essence of unselfishness. Every obedient believer
in Christ is a "Christ-one" and is so recognized by
us, and just as long as he glorifies God in that name
he is unselfish because it is the name which all true
followers of Christ love. It is a stumbling-block to
none; all are willing to wear it, all are agreed that
it is right, and it never acts as a factor of division.
A man becomes selfish only when he adds to that
name another of human origin, for he thus erects a

Eighty-nine —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

denominational or sectional wall between himself and
his brother. He becomes narrow because he re-
fuses fellowship to him who may already be a Chris-
tian unless that one also upholds the barrier by him-
self wearing a denominational or unscriptural name.
To wear the name Christian is the glorious privilege
of all of God's children, and because I realize it and
appropriate the blessing am I any the less thoughtful
of you? or, because I enjoy it, am I thereby wronging
you? No! No! If you are slighting your God-given
privilege, the blame must attach to yourself, for it is
due to your own neglect and not to any desire to be
selfish on our part. We could not deprive you of it
and if we could do so, we would not. It is yours ;
take it, wear it and in it glorify your God.

"Well," inquires one, "what's in a name, anyway?
I don't think the name makes any difference." It is,
however, very noticeable that those who ask this ques-
tion as a rule flatly refuse to wear any so-called re-
ligious name other than the one which they already
wear. People sometimes fight over their religious
names. A Methodist refuses to be called a Baptist
or a Congregationalist a Mormon. A name means
something; indeed, every name worn by the great de-
nominations emphasizes some doctrine peculiar to
that particular people by which it is worn. And this
is so beautifully true of the name Christian. It ex-
alts a person — Christ — it glorifies the individual be-
cause it makes known to the world that he is a
"Christ-one."

Then again we will agree that most men usually

— Ninety

THE DIVINE NAME

love their own family names pretty well. Although
your name may be good, and even famous, and al-
though the sound of it may be rhythmically beauti-
ful, like the musical name Jones or Smith, yet frank-
ly I prefer the old Irish "Kellems" to either of the
two mentioned. I would not change my name with
George Washington or "Teddy" Roosevelt, or even,
though the temptation might be strong, with William
Jennings Bryan himself. I am satisfied with my own
because it means something to me.

Suppose that some day your wife would come to
you and say, "Now, I like your name pretty well, I
think it is nice and I enjoy the sound of it, and all
that, but I like the name Smith better; so hereafter I
shall be known as Mrs. Smith." In such a case as
that, think you, there would be anything in a name?
Or again, suppose that your rich uncle should die,
leaving a will in which he bequeaths to one John A.
Jones the sum of one million dollars. If your name
was John A. Jones and there wasn't another in the
world, would there be anything in the name?

In God's word a name is considered to be of
value. Jesus says, "Thus it is written, and thus it
behooved Christ to suffer, and that repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in his name unto
all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Luke
24:46-47.) Christ surely considers a name here to
be of importance. We are baptized into a name,
and it certainly makes a difference what name it is.
"Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing
them into the name of the Father, and of the Son,

Ninety-one —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I
am with you always, even unto the end of the world."
(Matt. 28:19-20.) Peter tells us that we are bap-
tized in a name, as he speaks to the multitudes on the
day of Pentecost, "Repent ye, and be baptized every
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remis-
sion of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the
Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:38.) If I, today, were to im-
merse a man in the name of Martin Luther, John
Wesley or Alexander Campbell would it be a valid
Christian baptism? Certainly not. It is made a bap-
tism only when the seal of the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit is affixed. We are baptized only when we are
immersed in and into a name.

When Paul came to Ephesus in one of his later
journeys he found there certain disciples who had been
baptized unto John's baptism. After thoroughly
questioning them about it, he said unto them, "John
baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to
the people that they should believe on Him who should
come after him, that is, on Jesus. And when they
heard this they were baptized into the name of the
Lord Jesus." (Acts 19:4-5.) Their baptism under the
new dispensation was invalid unless it wore the seal
of the Lord Jesus.

Barnabas and Paul risked their lives again and
again for a name. "It seemed good unto us, having
come to one accord, to choose out men and send
them unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,
men who have hazarded their lives for the name of

— Ninety-two

THE DIVINE NAME

our Lord Jesus Christ." (Acts 15:25-26.) Paul tells
us that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess
a name. "Therefore also God highly exalted him
and gave unto him a name which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of
things in heaven, and things on earth, and things un-
der the earth, and that every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father." (Phil. 2:9-11.) Life and salvation are to
be given in one name, and one only. "And in none
other is there salvation; for neither is there any
other name under heaven that is given among men
wherein we must be saved." (Acts 4:12.)

If repentance, forgiveness, remission of sins, life
and salvation are only important when preached in a
name, then there must surely be something in that
name.

The followers of Christ, even though they have
worn human names, have nevertheless always con-
sidered that there was something in the divine name..
Christian. It has ever been to them and is today a
name by which to conjure. When they have wished
to charm the world they have invariably used "that
worthy name."

When that young Congregational pastor, Francis
E. Clark, saw at the close of a great revival in the
church of which he was minister that a society must
be formed to hold the young people and give them a
clearer conception of the opportunities of the Christ-
life, he gave it the name "Young People's Society of
Christian Endeavor." In honor of its founder it might

Ninety-three —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

have been called, "Young People's Society of Congre-
gational Endeavor," but when a name is wanted to
lend enthusiasm to the movement, the name Chris-
tian must be employed. When an organization was
formed to meet, in a practical way, the needs of young
manhood, along moral and spiritual lines, an organiza-
tion in which, under the directions of spiritually-
minded men, young men might enjoy a man's sports
in a man's way, and at the same time receive whole-
some, spiritual nurture, the name given to the organi-
zation was the Young Men's Christian Association."

When among women an organized movement was
launched against the legalized liquor traffic, that which
gave it its first great impetus and caused it to sweep
like an irresistible avalanche over the whole continent
was the charming name which it bore, "The Women's
Christian Temperance Union." Now it might have
been the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian or Congre-
gational Union, but when a name was needed which
would charm and win, that name was found in the
sublime word — Christian.

When the denominational world wanted a name
which would attract attention to the literature which
they wished to send out they found in "Christian" the
name which would make it universally acceptable to
all. The Methodist Church, with its great chain of
"Advocates" stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacif-
ic, might have largely exalted the name "Methodist"
by entitling their paper "Methodist Advocate," but they
wisely chose to honor and glorify the divine name;

— Ninety-four

THE DIVINE NAME

for upon every issue of their magnificent paper we
read with delight the name "Christian Advocate."

Presbyterianism might have emphasized the rule
of the presbytery by applying the name Presbyterian
to their official organ, but they decided far better
when they gave to it a name which would not only
bespeak for it a ready acceptance, but would more
faithfully represent the spirit in which the paper was
issued, "The Christian Observer." When Methodism
sent out to the world a magazine which should be as
undenominational as possible and which should act as
a forum where all alike might give free opinion on
religious questions, it wore the name "Christian
Herald."

Those great weeklies of the restoration movement,
so devoted as they are to glorifying God in the name
Christian, wear names which are highly significant of
the pleas of the people of whom they claim to be rep-
resentative organs, "The Christian Standard," "The
Christian-Evangelist," and the "Christian Century."
If those papers which bear upon their title pages the
name Christian were destroyed, seventy-five per cent
of the world's religious literature would perish. The
great denominations have realized the peculiar power
and charm of the divine name when used upon their
religious literature, even though their individual mem-
bers refuse to wear that name as the only one in
which to glorify God. It is worse than foolish for
any man to say that there is nothing in a name.

Ninety-five —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

III. Five Reasons Why Every Follower of

Christ Should Wear the Name Christian,

and That Alone.

1. The church is declared to be the bride of
Christ, and the bride must always wear the husband's
name. Paul most confidently affirms this when, in
writing to the Corinthian brethren, he says, "I am
jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I espoused
you to one husband that I might present you as a pure
virgin to Christ." (2 Cor. 11:2.) If the church is
the bride of Christ, then let her not wear the name of
others, but let her be true to her husband and wear
his name.

2. Simple and complete obedience to Christ makes
a man a Christian and a Christian only. When we
are baptized into Christ, and by that action put on
Christ, we become "Christ-ones," and any action be-
yond this by which another name is added is an ac-
tion unauthorized by the King. The modern union
revival often furnishes a striking example of this ac-
tion by which a name other than Christian is added.
After the revival is over and six or eight hundred
conversions have been accomplished, if these con-
verts have listened to the gospel and to the very best
of their knowledge have become obedient to that gospel,
what are they? Why, they are Christians, of course.
True, they are Christians. Now, if they are permitted
to remain as they are, what will they be? Without
a doubt they would still be Christians. But if on the
last day of the revival the ministers representing the

— Ninety-six

THE DIVINE, NAME

different denominations which have been so earnestly
co-operating in the union effort to save men, arise,
as they have so many times done, and call out to these
newly made Christians, "All desiring to be Methodists
come with me, or all wishing to be Baptists come with
me," and so on until all have spoken; what process
was it that made the converts Methodists, Baptists,
Congregationalists or Presbyterians? Was it their
obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ? Assur-
edly not, for such obedience made them " Christ-
ones. " Well, then, what was the action? It was one
over and beyond the law of the Teacher. In the
union revival they united to make Christians ; after
it was over, they divided to make sectarians. When
by virtue of faith in Christ, and obedience to his
law, men are made Christian, why not allow them
such to remain?

3. A third obvious reason why every disciple
should wear the divine name and that alone is that
the truly great reformers and leaders of God's people
have desired it and have earnestly entreated their fol-
lowers to wear it. Luther, the majestic marshal of
the forces of German reformation, exhorts his fol-
lowers, "Do not call yourselves Lutherans, but call
yourselves Christians/'

Wesley, brilliant, and still the humble, spirit-guided
Christian, cries out as he sees the impending evil of
division, "I would to God all party names were for-
gotten."

Alexander Campbell, the gifted advocate of the
unification of God's people, urges upon all true lovers

Ninety-seven —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

of God, "Abandon all party names and take the name
Christian."

Paul, veteran of a thousand battles for the name,
deplores schism and contention ; "Now this, I mean,
that some of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of
Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is Christ
divided? Was Paul crucified for you or were ye
baptized into the name of Paul?" (1 Cor. 1:12-13.)
These and others of God's heroes, realizing that they
were unworthy of the grand honor of having the
church named after them, and knowing that such an
action could only result in sectarianism and denom-
inationalism among the people of God, have earnestly
desired that their followers should wear the name
divinely given first at Antioch.

Do we not, therefore, do them injury rather than
honor when we, against their expressed wishes that
we wear the divine name, call ourselves after their
names, which they wore.

4. The name Christian should also be worn by
every disciple ' who loves Christ and desires the ad-
vancement of his kingdom, because it is absolutely
the only name upon which Christian Union can be
consummated, when that time shall come that God's
people, seeing the folly of a divided Christendom, will
join their hands and hearts for the final conquest of
the nations. Christian union is coming. It must
come. The forces of Christ are at last opening their
eyes to the stern fact that union will mean life and
victory; disunion, ruin and death. When that union

— Ninety-eight

THE DIVINE NAME

comes, to it must be given a name, and surely that
name will be the one upon which all of the denomina-
tions agree, and upon "Christian" they agree now.
Concerning it not one dissenting voice is heard.
Every disciple redeemed will acknowledge himself to
be a Christian, although, before the world, he may
wear a name human in origin and divisive in char-
acter. If, then, one desires to see the glorious union
of God's people brought to pass, let him divorce him-
self from everything which will in any way act as a
barrier to the accomplishment of that desire. Hu-
man names are barriers to union; the divine name is
that under which it can and will be brought to pass.
5. The divine name is declared by Paul to be the
great family name. "For this cause I bow my knees
unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven
and on earth, is named." (Eph. 3:14, 15.) Oh, how
beautiful is the thought which he here expresses !
"The whole, or every family in heaven and on earth,"
is called by the wonderful family name. All those
blood-washed throngs whose praises resound through-
out their immortal home; our fathers, our mothers,
our brothers and sisters, our wives and our children,
who have taken the journey before us are members of
that redeemed family of God, the wearers and shar-
ers with us of "that worthy name." As members of
that great family should we not be glad to wear that
name ? It should be to every son of God a delight un-
speakable, a joy unending.

Ninety-nine —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

CONCLUSION.

How glorious is the name ! "If any man suffer as
a Christian let him not be ashamed." And have the
heroes of God ever been ashamed of it, even though
because of it the keenest, most excruciating suffering
that fiendish Roman cruelty could devise were heaped
upon them ? On the arena's red sands, with the howls
of Rome's blood-lustful thousands thundering around
them, they fought for that name, the half-starved
beasts of Numidia's jungles, and as the last drop of
Christian blood dyed the sands a deeper hue, took
their journey home with a smile of heaven's own
giving upon their lips, and a joy eternal in their
hearts. In vats of boiling oil they sang, until, by the
hissing death their voices were forever stilled, the
glories and praises of the name. With the flames of
Caesar's death-fires curling and licking around them,
with the smoke of that fire filling their nostrils, even
to the last choking breath they glorified, they exalted,
they magnified the name of their God. For a name
Peter and John were beaten ; for a name they heard
the clang of prison bars and felt the pressure of the
prisoner's chains. For a name Paul could joyfully
say, even though gloomy dungeon walls greeted every
turn of his eye and with the prospect of an immediate,
horrid death before him, "I have fought the good
fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the
faith, henceforth there is laid up for me the crown
of righteousness which the Lord, the Righteous Judge,
shall give to me at that day, and not unto me only,

— One hundred

THE DIVINE NAMB

but also to all them that have loved his appearing/'
(2 Tim. 4:7, 8.) Oh, what delight should be ours to
be counted worthy to wear that name, the name made
glorious by sweat and blood and ten thousand noble
deaths ! Withered be our tongues and cursed our
lips, if, knowing better, we shall attempt to glorify
our God in any name other than the name "Christian."

One hundred one-

IV
THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

IV
The Miraculous Christ

Text: "Even so, every good tree bringeth forth
good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil
fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,
neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit."
Matt. 7:17, 18.

Modern scientific research has demonstrated the
truth of this simple statement of the Great Teacher
in so many ways that it has been almost universally
accepted as axiomatic. In the old German proverb it
was expressed in the statement, "Der Apfel f'dllt nicht
weit vom Stanim,;" "the apple falls not far from the
trunk," or "like father, like son." To state the truth
in words familiar to even the smallest schoolboy,
"kind begets its kind."

The statement of the text refers not only to trees
and those living forms belonging alone to the vege-
table kingdom, but our modern researches have shown
that it applies to every form of life, from the most
minute until in the mastodon the climax of things
living is reached. Good blood means good stock.
In modern times men begin the education of their
children long before their birth. Pure blood, or a
good tree, never fails to produce the good fruit.
Just as no man has ever seen a stunted, dwarfed tree

One hundred five —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

bring forth ripe, luscious fruit; equally true is it that
in the animal kingdom no dwarfed, stunted animal,
with blood full of poison, ever brought forth off-
spring distinctive because of its power and beauty.
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul states the same
great principle when he says, "Be not deceived ; God
is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap. For he that soweth unto his own
flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that
soweth unto the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap eternal
life." (Gal. 6:7, 8.)

In this day in which we live it seems to be con-
sidered fashionable and indicative of profound
scholarship for one to be skeptical concerning every-
thing in the Bible bordering on the edge of the
miraculous. The purported miracles of Christ, to
this school of men, if not gross fabrications are at
least figments of the imaginations of the so-called
inspired writers, or are simply supernatural powers
attributed to him by the blind hero-worship of his
followers. He did not convert the water into wine
at Cana of Galilee, nor raise from the dead the
widow's son at Nain. The disciples were self-de-
ceived when they thought they saw him walk upon
the water, and the transfiguration upon the green
slopes of snow-crowned Hermon was merely an hal-
lucination brought on by anxiety and weariness. He
did not heal the sick; he gave no sight to the blind;
neither did he restore to the lame the power to walk.
The idea of miracles is absurd and utterly unworthy

— One hundred six

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

of that one who makes any pretensions at all to
scholarship.

Yet, while these men are so complacently deny-
ing the reported miracles of Christ, or claiming that
all forms of miracles are in the nature of this world
impossible, they are living in the presence of the
miraculous every day. The tiny seed is dropped into
the cool earth; the gentle rains water it; the kindly
rays of the sun warm it until, lo! it breaks trium-
phantly forth from its prison into new, and as time
progresses, ever-changing form. Can we explain its
beautiful evolution? What is life? Who can solve
the problem which it presents? The towering
gray pyramids of Egypt standing upon the line be-
tween the desolate wastes of the L,ybian desert and
the fertile valley of the Nile, had held prisoner in
their gloomy hearts some quantities of wheat for
four millenniums. The hands which toiled to build
themselves memorials in those imperishable piles
have long since been crossed in their eternal sleep, and
he by whose command they labored is but a name
soon forgotten; those gigantic despotisms which then
thrived amid all the glories of their boasted arts and
sciences have long ago been buried in the graveyard
of fallen empires, yet these grains of wheat, by which
perhaps the one who planted them in stone hoped to
fortify himself against some unforeseen famine,
when after their four-thousand-years long entomb-
ment, they were dropped into the earth, sprang forth
into plenteous harvest. The germ of life was there;
somewhere in the tiny heart it lay inactive through

One hundred seven —

GLORYING IN -THE CROSS

the lifetime of half a dozen nations only to burst
forth into beauteous new form when earth and air,
sun and rain, united their efforts to bring it to
fruition. Who can explain life? Twentieth century
skill can construct a grain of wheat so identical in
even the minutest detail with those grains discovered
in the Egyptian pyramid that the most critical ob-
server can scarce distinguish a difference, yet when
it is planted in the earth it will not grow And why?
Because the first grain has the germ of life which
only God can give, while in the second, even though
perfect in form and detail, that germ is lacking. Life
itself is a miracle ; unexplained and inexplicable with-
out God.

Not only is life in all its wonderful and multi-
farious manifestations a miracle, but as Stevenson, in
his essay, "Pulvis et Pumba," so aptly says, "It is a
miracle and a wonder that we live at all." We live
ever in the presence of death. In ten myriads of
forms the monster menaces us. As we eat or sleep;
as we work or play; he is solemnly stalking near.
From the moment that the first morning rays peep
over the eastern hills until, the golden circle com-
pleted, he there smiles again, we tread the vale of
death. Wonderful is it that we live at all !

Surrounded as we are by a universe of miracles,
how foolish for one to say that the miraculous is im-
possible. Only a frank and free acknowledgment
of the miraculous can make our universe rational or
understandable. Those who deny that the miracles
of Christ are possible are "straining at a gnat and

— One hundred eight

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

swallowing a camel," because at the same moment
that they make their denial they accept Jesus as a
historical personage; the one who was admittedly
the most astonishing miracle of his time.

The brilliant and versatile Benjamin Disraeli,
astounded at the marvelous influence of Jesus, ex-
claims in a burst of fiery eloquence, "The wildest
dreams of their rabbis have been far exceeded. Has
not Jesus conquered Europe and changed its name
to Christendom? All countries that refuse the cross
wither, and the time will come when the vast com-
munities and countless myriads of America and Aus-
tralia, looking upon Europe as Europe now looks upon
Greece and wondering how so small a space could
have achieved such great deeds, will find music in
the songs of Zion and solace in the parables of
Galilee."

The unhappy and ill-fated Lord Byron, wonder-
ingly comparing Jesus with men in their follies and
miseries, solemnly gives words to the noblest con-
ception of the Man of Galilee which has ever blessed
the mind of man; "If ever man was God, or God
was man, Jesus Christ was both."

PROPOSITION.

My proposition concerning Jesus in this address
is stated in the following form: "The fact that Jesus
was not in any sense or respect a product of his time,
but that he is good fruit, while the tree from which
he sprang, or is supposed to have sprung, by those

One hundred nine —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

who deny his divinity, is evil, is conclusive proof that
he is the Miraculous Christ, "the Word that became
flesh; the only begotten Son of God."

ARGUMENT.
I. An Objection to the Proposition Answered.

Immediately upon the announcement of the above
proposition, our friends, the disbelievers in the mirac-
ulous, file what to them appears to be an insuperable
objection. "The fact that Jesus was not a product
of his time is no proof of his miraculous or deific
character, because there have been many to whom
we have not attributed such nature who have been
products of their respective times, but in thought and
action have been far in advance of the ages in which
they lived. If upon this proposition Jesus is claimed
to be divine, then equally divine are Shakespeare,
Burns, Napoleon, and a score of others, because
neither were they products of the times in which they
lived."

If we consider Shakespeare carefully can this
claim that he is a freak or sport, in no sense the
product of his time, be substantiated? The age of
Shakespeare was one not especially famous for its
moral standards. Liberties almost akin to license,
indifferently accorded to men then, if exercised to-
day, would even cause the man who is but average
in his morals to blush with shame. While misde-
meanors were punished with sterner rigor than like
offenses of our days ; yet the public conscience was

— One hundred ten

THB MIRACULOUS CHRIST

far less lively at their committal than would be the
public conscience of modern men. And was Shakes-
peare here in advance of his age? Ah, sadly must
we answer, he was not even apace with it. He was
not even as good as his time. How sad it is that
history must record of one whose pen seemed afire
with heaven's own wisdom that he was a thief and
a libertine. However deep our admiration may be
for the man whose name so justly stands at the top
of that long list of those whose names have, by their
works of literature, been made immortal, we cannot
erase even by our reverence those dark blots with
which his immoral deeds have dimmed the luster of
that glorious name forever. In his personal life he
was every whit the product of his moral-lax age. Or
yet, if we study him from the viewpoint of his
genius can we rightly affirm that he was not a product
of his time? Were those mighty tragedies which
will ever thrill, inspire and delight all men, the fruits
of that one tremendous brain alone? Or did he not
draw from those great men who had preceded him
years and even centuries before, as well as from his
contemporaries, many of whom were almost as il-
lustrious as he himself? View it as we will, Shakes-
peare was simply the embodiment of the spirit of his
age; its finest, noblest and most representative son.
His was the age of Sidney, Marlow and others whose
names are almost household terms. His was the age
of the brilliant L,ord Bacon. It was pre-eminently
the age of drama. His race was one passionately
fond of literature and productive of the most noble

One hundred eleven —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

and enduring forms of it. If a primitive savage tribe
in the heart of Africa's darkest jungle^ad given to
the world a Shakespeare we would be forced to
acknowledge that the gift was a miracle or the impos-
sible ; that a corrupt tree can bear good fruit. Shakes-
peare was simply the climax, the acme, the snow-
peak of his age, but the product, the son, of all that
was and of all that had gone before him.

And where shall we class Robert Burns? Was
the brilliant Scot, who could see beauty in the tiny-
things of earth, whose pen could exalt them to posi-
tions of dignity and respect, a product of the age in
which he lived? Assuredly he was. Though he
could weep over the ruined home of the little mouse,
the virtue of "the lass that made the bed to me," was
to him as common merchandise. One of the worst
of licentious libertines was Bobby; not even on a
level with the moral standard of his time. In the
Bard's Epitaph, which he wished to be his own, he
confesses his depravity when he mournfully wails,

"The poor inhabitant below,
Was quick to learn and wise to know,

And keenly felt the friendly glow and softer flame,
But thoughtless follies laid him low
And stained his name."

Ah ! You have it right, Bobby Burns ! You have
it right ! 'Twas drink and woman and lust and un-
restrained desire that laid him low, and that fair
name, the very symbol of love for the humble things
of life, unloved ; how much fairer it would have
shone had it not been for just those thoughtless follies.

— One hundred twelve

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

But if the claim of superhuman genius, based
upon our proposition, fails in the case of Shakes-
peare and Burns, does it not still hold good of the
great Napoleon? That one of unparalleled military
genius, who swept like a meteor across Europe's sky,
still reddened by the glare of the French Revolution;
that one at the thunder of whose legions kings pros-
trated themselves, while their subjects quaked with
terrible fear; that one to whom the hoary summits
of the hitherto unconquerable Alps were but the
stepping stones to still more lofty heights of fame !
Say you that this mighty one was the product of his
age? Yes, and in every respect from which his life
may be viewed. As Shakespeare represented an age
at its best in literary excellence, just so Napoleon rep-
resents a world at the highest point of its military
power. His age was a military age; the age of the
French Revolution. His prenatal training was mili-
tary. While she still carried the future emperor in
her womb, I^aeticia Bonaparte heroically endured
the nerve-racking hardships of the march, the camp
and the battle, side by side with her husband, and for
the independence of her beloved Corsica. The babe
was born with the hot war blood bounding feverish-
ly through every vein. The war spirit was sucked
into the tiny form with every intake of the maternal
milk. The first objects upon which his baby eyes
were opened were the dreadful implements of cruel
war ; the uniform, the gun, the sword. His first
and noblest hero was Paoli, the soldier-statesman lead-
er in the cause of Corsican independence. As soon

One hundred thirteen —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

as age permits he is sent to France to receive the
education of a soldier ; an officer of artillery. Hered-
ity, prenatal training, environment, education — all com-
bined in evolving a soldier, a world general and a
dictator. Thus even the Napoleonic genius may be
explained by a knowledge of the tree from which he
as the fruit, sprang; a war age, an age of "blood and
iron."

Consider also the personal life of Napoleon. Was
it better than his age or as good? An age of deceit,
of intrigue, of low standards of virtue among both
sexes, an age trained in horrible cruelties by a quarter
of a century of bloodshed and war, was Napoleon
better than this? No! No! In cruelty he surpassed
even the most cruel. Spurning the body of a French
dragoon, who had died to satisfy an insane ambition,
as it lay stark and cold on the frozen field of Eilau,
the emperor sneeringly remarked to the officer ac-
companying him, "mere rabble, mere rabble." When
talking with some of his officers about the terrific
loss of life among his soldiers, he impatiently ex-
claims, "What care I for the lives of a million men?
I am a soldier." When, by intrigue, he steals the
reins of the French government, he coolly calls it a
"Coup d' etat." Although he promised free govern-
ment along democratic lines to those who had sacri-
ficed so much to obtain it, yet, when that government
had come into his hands it was so despotic that he
might well have said with his kingly predecessor,
Louis XIV, "IS etat c'est moi. (I am the state)."

For virtue he cared nothing; woman was to him

One hundred fourteen

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

merely a plaything, the means for the partial satis-
faction of his insatiate bestial passions. He was the
father of nine illegitimate children. Almost the last
act of his life was the attempt in his autobiography
to delude the people of France by telling them of his
glorious reign, by which France had become the
world's mightiest power. Eight millions of graves
dotted the face of Europe from Russia's bitter plains
to Spain's sunny hills, mute evidences of the benefits
conferred by Napoleon. The flower of French man-
hood perished. And for France ? No ! For Na-
poleon. He whipped them with scorpions ; he blasted
their homes, sacrificed their young men by millions;
and left France poorer and weaker than he had
found her. Still he writes, "When I die bury me
on the banks of the Seine among the French people,
whom I have so loved." Was this brutal, licentious
monster a product of his time? Yes, the blackest
and most wicked son of that black and wicked age.
But as a still further answer to the objection of-
fered, let us quote the words of the emperor him-
self. Even his illimitable egotism would not permit
him to make himself equal with Jesus. In conversa-
tion with General Bertrand, at St. Helena, he says,
"I know men and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a
man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between
Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of
other religions. That resemblance does not exist.
There is between Christianity and other religions the
distance of infinity. Alexander, Caesar and myself
founded empires. But upon what did we rest the

One hundred fifteen —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

creations of our genius? Upon force, sheer force.
Jesus Christ alone founded his empire upon love;
and at this hour millions of men would die for him.
In every other existence but that of Christ how many
imperfections ! From the first to the last he is the
same; majestic and simple; infinitely firm and in-
finitely gentle. He proposes to our faith a series of
mysteries and commands with authority that we
should believe them, giving no other reason than
those tremendous words, 'I am God'."

Where the great proposition which we have taken
relative to the Christ holds firm is in the statement,
"That he was not in any sense or respect the prod-
uct of his time." Intellectually, morally and spirit-
ually, he was not only absolutely different from his
age, but shows no connection whatever with it. If
it could be shown that in one particular he was like
his age, then our proposition would be materially
weakened, but even this one instance cannot be shown.

II. Christ Not a Product of His Time.

1. Intellectually he was not. (1) Christ always
silenced his enemies. Never were they successful in
their numerous and cunning attempts "to ensnare
him in his talk." The hypocritical Pharisees ap-
proached him as recorded in the twenty-second chap-
ter of Matthew, that great trial chapter, fawning be-
fore him and flattering him with the oily words,
"Teacher, we know thou art true and teachest the
way of God in truth, and carest not for anyone: for

— One hundred sixteen

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

thou regardest not the person of man. Tell us, there-
fore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute
unto Caesar, or not?" This question, so cunningly
asked, was ingeniously devised to provoke immediate
interest. The listening Jews will be interested at
once, for if he affirms that it is lawful, then he is a
traitor to all his training as a Jew; he is a friend of
the hated Caesar, the oppressor of Israel. The Romans
will be interested, because if he affirms that it is
unlawful, he is a traitor to Caesar, and as such he is
deserving of a traitor's death. Truly, the dilemma
was an embarrassing one, and to the minds of the
complacently waiting Pharisees, one that could not
fail of its purpose to entrap the Nazarene. What-
ever answer he may give he is bound to make an
enemy of one party or the other. Sneeringly they
awaited his words, quietly rubbing their hands in
fiendish glee at the prospect of his undoing. But
the keen mind of the Saviour was not to be so easily
entrapped, for with his wonderful insight into human
nature, he perceived their wicked intent. Looking
into their eyes until the very souls within them seemed
to shrivel before his purity, he scathingly inquires,
"Why make ye trial of me, ye hypocrites? Show
me the tribute money." And they brought to him a
denarius. And he said unto them, "Whose is the
image and superscription?" They said unto him,
"Caesar's." Even before he answers their question
he has forced them to answer it themselves by ac-
knowledging the ownership of the coin. Then calmly
came his answer, "Atto^otc 0vv ra Kataapos Kaiaapi

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GLORYING IN THE CROSS

koI ra tov I Oeov tw $t<j>" — "Render, therefore, or
pay back, unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,
and unto God the things that are God's." Confused,
amazed, stricken with a sense of guilt, they who were
erstwhile so confident, at this clear answer of their
prey, slink away like beaten dogs. Both Jew and
Roman are answered, and so skillfully that the en-
mity of neither is incurred.

This dilemma was placed one time in all of its
original setting before a company of Brahmans ; a
people who for keenness of perception into the finer
intellectual problems have no superiors and but few
peers. They listened with marked interest to the
question propounded by the Pharisees and the Herod-
ians, it having been explained to them that the Jews
and Romans were at sword's points on this very ques-
tion. When Jesus gave his answer, each turned to
his companion in profound astonishment; then in ad-
miration they shouted as a man, "He has answered
them, he has answered them!"

In the same twenty-second chapter of Matthew
another intellectual battle is recorded, but this time
with the Sadducees, "they that say there is no resur-
rection." They came to Jesus with their stock il-
lustration, one which they had long cherished as being
absolutely unanswerable. "Teacher, Moses said, 'If a
man die, having no children, his brother shall marry
his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.' Now
there were with us seven brethren : and the first
married and deceased, and having no seed left his
wife unto his brother ; in like manner the second, also,

— One hundred eighteen

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

and the third, unto the seventh. And after them all,
the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose
wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her."
(Matt. 22:24-27.) What confidence was theirs as
they hurl this hitherto unanswerable question ! We
can almost feel the sneer, "Aha, Master, now we have
you ! If there is to be a resurrection, how, pray,
will you dispose of this case?" Without one trace of
agitation Jesus answers them, and the answer pro-
duced the effect of an exploded bomb among them.
"Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power
of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry
nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in
heaven." (Matt. 22:29-50.)

Luke in his Gospel, chapter 5:17-27, relates still
another incident showing how quick was the mind of
Jesus in the presence of every enemy. Great multi-
tudes had come "out of every village of Galilee and
Judea." The proud doctors of the law, the hypo-
critically pious Pharisees, and perhaps scores of the
common people, to catch the wonderful words as
they fell from the lips of the Teacher. And upon that
day the power of the Lord was upon Jesus to heal.
As he earnestly taught the eager multitudes they
crowded closer and closer about him, so that the four
bearing, upon his weary couch, the man long sick of
the palsy could find no access to him. Climbing to
the roof they quickly removed the tiles and let the
man down "in the midst before Jesus." Seeing their
great faith, all the compassion of his great heart was
stirred, and he exclaims, "Man, thy sins are forgiven

One hundred nineteen —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

thee." Like the shock of an electric current was the
effect of the words upon the hearers. At once the
Scribes and Pharisees began to murmur fiercely
among themselves and reason concerning this, to
them, terrible statement. All their Jewish training
rebelled against the calm usurpation of that author-
ty which they well knew belonged to God alone. In
anger they questioned, "Who is this that speaketh
blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
But Jesus perceiving their reasonings answered and
said unto them, "Why reason ye in your hearts?
Which is easier to say? Thy sins be forgiven thee, or,
Arise and walk." Not which is the easier statement
to make, as so many have commonly interpreted, but
which statement is indicative of more power on the
part of the one making it? To paraphrase and inter-
pret the question, "If I say, They sins be forgiven
thee; is not that a statement indicating greater power
and authority than to say, Arise and walk?" Sin is
the foundation of all disease, and if the Master could
forgive sin he assuredly could perform the much easier
task of healing disease, the result of sin. Then, to
clinch his argument, he says, "But that ye may know
that the Son of man hath authority on earth to for-
give sins (he said unto him that was palsied) I say
unto thee, Arise and take up thy couch and go unto
thy house." As the man, glorifying God, hilarious
with the joy of renewed strength, arose and de-
parted, carrying his former bed of torture, fear and
amazement took hold of all those who saw and heard,

— One hundred twenty

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

and as they wondered they said, "We have seen
strange things today."

(2) As a philosopher, Jesus was not a product
of his time.

Luke tells us (Luke 2:41) that at the age of
twelve he amazed the doctors in the temple, both by
the questions which he asked them and the percep-
tion which was his, as he listened to their teachings.
Viewed from every standpoint the philosophy of
Jesus was revolutionary and utterly at variance with
all the accepted usages and customs of his day.

(a) Politically it was revolutionary; not in any
respect the product of the political economy of the
time. The Greeks and Romans had almost the same
idea of the state and man's relation to it. To them
the state was the law. There could be no powei
higher. What the state decreed must be right by
virtue of the fact that the state had decreed it. The
modern statement, "My country right or wrong,"
almost exactly describes their attitude, with the ex-
ception that to them the country would never be
wrong. The "Antigone" of Sophocles, or "King
Lear," of Shakespeare, vividly portrays this passion-
ate devotion of the pagan world to the state. The
gravest crimes were not those committed against the
gods or against men, but rather such crimes as trea-
son or rebellion; those committed against the state.
The severest of all severe punishments were heaped
upon those who dared to plot against the welfare of
the state. The idea of the church apart from the
state was not known to the pagan world. The church,

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GLORYING IN THE CROSS

or religion, was merely a part or department of the
state as in modern usage the legislative is but one
branch of government. Zeus, Hera, Jove or Mars
were not separate or apart from the state, but their
interests, their desires, their associations were those
of the earth, and the earth was the state. They were
as much a part of the life of the state as the em-
peror or senate; the army or navy. There was no
line of demarkation drawn. Religion was subserved
to the interests of the state and yet not subserved
because it never intruded objections that might ob-
struct the purposes or movements of the state.
Moral as well as religious standards were determined
by the state and not by the gods.

The Jewish idea of the state; of man's relation to
it and that of the church, was almost the exact op-
posite of the Greco-Roman. To the Jew the state
was merely a department of the great religious order.
The government, departments and laws of the state
were determined by the divine will. When King Saul
is chosen he is selected according to divine direction.
When he rules contrary to the will of Jehovah he is
punished severely by the higher power. David is
anointed by the messenger of God and by the will
and according to the will of Jehovah he must rule.
To the Jew his religion was the state, not the state his
religion.

The political economy of Jesus might be called a
combination of the Jewish and the Greco-Roman, yet
if combination it be, it is different and utterly at
variance with both of them. Concerning man's re-

— One hundred twenty-two

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

lation to the state one of the clearest statements of
his philosophy is that already referred to in the ad-
dress, "Render, therefore, unto Caesar, the things that
are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."
The Christian bears a positive relation to the state.
He is a part of it although his moral and spiritual
standards are not to be determined by that state, but
by the law that cometh from God. Those duties
which man owes to God cannot be rendered by simple
obedience to the state but they must be paid to Je-
hovah himself and in the coin dictated by Him.

Of the relation of the church to the state, Christ
said, "My kingdom is not of this world." His king-
dom was to be spiritual, the kingdom of the heart, and
as such its laws would never interfere with the prog-
ress of the state but would rather exercise an ac-
centuating influence upon all forward movements of
the state. Paul in writing of the fruit of the Spirit
explains the relationship of Christ's kingdom and
the kingdoms of the world when he says, "But the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self con-
trol; against such there is no law." (Gal. 5:22-24.)
The subject therefore in this kingdom is above all
law. He is to be in the world and physically he is
of the world, for he must eat, sleep, live the life in
the flesh as do other men; yet in his allegiance to
the King he is not of the world. Church and state
are to be separated because the activity of each lies
in a totally different realm; the state having to do
with those things which are fundamentally of the

One hundred 'twenty-three —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

flesh and the church with that realm in which lie the
things of the Spirit. Thus in the philosophy of Jesus
the church is within the state but not of the state.
In a word, then, he has given unto us that philosophy
which we so proudly proclaim as distinctively mod-
ern.

(b) The economic and social philosophy of
Jesus is not in any sense a product of his time.

To the pagan world the idea of universal brother-
hood was a shibboleth unthought of and unknown.
Their social systems made such an idea repugnant
to all classes. To the Greek or Roman a man was a
brother if he were so fortunate as to belong to the
same nationality or caste as himself. And even then
the idea was the Buddhistic, "Do not do unto others
what you would not have them do unto you." To
the Jew a brother meant a Jew, or one who belonged
to the same sect as himself, Pharisee, Sadducee or
Herodian. The idea that the Greek or Roman was
his brother was one which had never entered his mind.

But how different is the meaning which Jesus
attaches to the idea. All men are brothers, whether
as Paul says, "they be Jew or Greek, bond or free,
they are all one man in Christ Jesus." Publican or
sinner, Pharisee, Sadducee, Jew, Greek, Roman, how
petty were these barriers to Christ. Man was man
no matter how low his estate or what the color of
his skin. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,"
and that neighbor was the man in need of love and
care, no matter who he might be. Love was to be
the basic principle in the social order in the philosophy

— One hundred twenty-four

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

of Jesus. Love of man for man, not that expressed
by the selfish, inactive "golden rule" of Buddha, "Do
not do unto others what you would not have them
do unto you," but rather the active, positive, "All
things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should
do unto you even so do ye also unto them, for this
is the law and the prophets." (Matt. 7:12.) This
is the most glorious expression of the grandest con-
ception of brotherhood that man has known.
Hospitals, asylums, orphanages, associated charities,
homes for the feeble-minded, and those otherwise un-
fortunate, these and a thousand other institutions
that make for the ennoblement of mankind have been
made possible only when men accept Christ's philoso-
phy of brotherhood. In his peerless sermon on the
mount, the teacher proposes to change the social
order by first making the fundamental change in man.
Coextensive with the conversion and transforma-
tion of the heart the Christian economic and social
philosophy proposes to alleviate suffering and sor-
row by purifying the environment of the sinner.

Will this economic and social philosophy of Jesus
stand the demands made by modern conditions? To-
day, in the multitudinous discussions of the ills that
oppress our social and economic order, the great lead-
ers are more and more being brought to realize that
only a reversion to the Christ ideals ; only a system of
Society founded upon the Christian principle of love
of man for man, can ever attain to the most glorious
heights of perfection or long endure.

Modern? His philosophy is the ever new phi-

One hundred twenty-five —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

losophy, the one ever talked about, and in proportion-
as men accept it in its purity in just that proportion
are they happy and contented. His teaching will
burn out the selfishness from the heart and will re-
place it with a passionate desire to serve men. It
will bring man at last to learn "that it is more blessed
to give than to receive." How glorious would be
that social order based upon brotherly love? Truly
it would be as near an approach to Heaven as could
be experienced in the present life.

Another fact strikingly observable in the intel-
lectual Jesus, and one in which he towers above all
others, is the calm, majestic confidence of his teach-
ing. How changeable are men. Now they believe
one thing and teach it; tomorrow it is a new and
strange doctrine to which they adhere. Jesus is al-
ways the same. There is never one note of hesitancy.
Never does he say, "I think" or "I opine." Not for
a moment does he doubt his message. He always
speaks with authority and, in the words of Napoleon,
"Gives no other reason than those tremendous words,
'I am God'." One of the great quartette of his
biographers aptly said of him, "The multitudes were
astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one
having authority and not as their scribes." As the
cultured, scholarly Nicodemus comes into his pres-
ence he reverently greets him with the words, "Rab-
bi, we know thou art a Teacher come from God."
(John 3:2.) Of all teachers, Jesus was the Master;
of all philosophers he was the Prince.

Intellectually then he is not the product of his

— One hundred twenty-six

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

age. Nothing which preceded him is adequate to
explain the keenness of his mind ; the magnitude of
his mental grasp. The harsh, barren philosophies
which antedated his could in no way have been the
ancestors of those wonderful, hope-inspiring, life-
giving teachings upon which, for two thousand years,
men have been trying to build their orders, social,
economic and political, and by which they have been
endeavoring to regulate life and conduct.

2. Morally Christ was not a product of his time.
It is doubtful if there has ever been an age of his-
tory so immoral and dissolute as the age of Christ.
It is difficult to determine which had fallen the deep-
est into the horrible mire; Jew, Greek or Roman. It
was the day of the revolting, gluttonous, and licentious
revels of the Caesars. It was the age when even
the rites of worship performed at the shrines of the
gods were absolutely unnamable because of their
vileness. It was the Epicurean age; a follower of
the hilarious dictum, '%et us eat, drink and be merry,
for tomorrow we die." Purity was laughed at;
chastity was sneeringly scorned. A brief enumeration
of a few of the crying sins of the time will serve to
emphasize our meaning.

Of the Greeks, pride of intellect was one of the
most petted sins. Oh, how they loved to boast of
their intellectual attainments. How they delighted to
parade their knowledge before the eyes of the world.
The egotistical philosophers of Mars Hill greeting

One hundred twenty-seven —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

Paul with sarcastic questionings are illustrations of
men afflicted with this sin.

Christ, the teacher of teachers, the philosopher of
philosophers, the possessor of the mightiest mind of
the age comes not with words of pomp and the
manner of an egotist but with calm and humble maj-
esty he quietly inculcates the eternal truth of God.

The chief sin of the Roman was pride of power.
He gloried in a mighty army or anything that
showed power and strength. For things intellectual
he cared not a whit. When Christ talks to Pilate
about truth, the Roman indifferently asks, "What is
truth?" In Achaia, Gallio, when importuned by the
Jews to judge concerning Paul's offense, as they
charged against the law, remarks, "I am not
minded to be a judge in these matters." And Luke
goes on to say of him, "Gallio cared for none of these
things." (Acts 18:17.) Matters of truth, art, or
beauty were of but little moment to the Roman; he
was interested rather in those things by means of
which he could increase his empire or enhance his
power. So long as a man obeyed the laws and paid
his taxes, the Romans left him unmolested in matters
of religion and all those things that pertain to the
mind.

And was not Jesus a personage of power? He
who could heal the sick, give sight to the blind, still
the tempest, or raise the dead, if right there be in
pride of power, had he not that right? He who
could suffer the scourge or endure the cross without
a murmur, was he not a man of strength? But

— One hundred twenty-eight

THB MIRACULOUS CHRIST

how happy should be the Christian of this fact; there
is not one word in all the history of Jesus of boast-
ing because of his power. The most profound humil-
ity and simplicity accompanied his every act, whether
it be to still the lashing waves of angry Galilee with
the calm command, "Peace be still," or the cry to
the man in the tomb, "Lazarus, come forth."

Charity was a virtue practically unknown at the
time of Jesus. The unfortunates of earth were out-
casts. For them there was no love or words of cheer
and hope. The treatment of those afflicted with the
dread disease of leprosy illustrates the cruel, harsh
temper of the age. The leper was forced to live
like the wild beasts of the field, in the tombs or other
places far removed from the homes of men. The
weird, wild cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" as the poor
wretch of rotting flesh and decaying bone fled in
terror at the approach of the stranger, was the hope-
less cry of the outcast, the unloved and uncared for.
The blind and the lame were accorded almost as
harsh treatment. The beautiful meaning of charity
and pity to those less fortunate, that virtue which
we today guard as a priceless heritage, was given to
the world, first, by Jesus. The incident of the heal-
ing of the leper as Christ descended from the moun-
tain after the delivery of his memorable sermon is
one of the grandest pictures of sublime charity that
has ever been witnessed. The leper prostrates him-
self before the Saviour with the wailing, pleading
cry, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean!"
What a revolting spectacle he must have presented !

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GLORYING IN THE CROSS

Perhaps one arm gone, or his face so eaten by the
disease that it looked like one great whitened sore;
the hair prematurely white, coarse and long. We
can see the disciples and the multitude shudder and
shrink away, or begin to gather stones to hurl at the
beast and drive him from their midst. But Jesus, the
Matchless Son of Love, the One of perfect com-
passion, leans forward and before the very eyes of
the breath-startled watchers, actually touches the
quivering, frightened form, uttering as he does so
those blessed words, "I will, be thou made clean."

One other incident illustrative of Christ's beauti-
ful charity toward all is the case of the woman taken
in the very act of adultery. As the terrified creature,
writhing in the first agony of detection, is dragged
before the Master, expecting nothing but his censure
and condemnation to death by the brutal method of
stoning, she hears a message which illumines the
darkened caverns of her soul with a new and glori-
ous hope. What a portrait this scene ! The old age
is contrasted with the new ; the dark, unpitying faces
of those hypocritical, lustful Pharisees as they stand
demanding the death of the woman of sin, contrasted
with the beautiful, pitying countenance of the man of
compassion as he shields and protects her.

See those "whited tombs" slink like frightened
curs from the stinging invitation, "Let him that is
without sin among you cast the first stone at her."
(John 8:3-11.) The blind, the lame, the dumb, the
maimed and the leprous; how they hailed, with joy,
the coming of the Man of Galilee, because they knew

— One hundred thirty

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

his ministrations were inspired by a holy compassion
and love. Christ's charity could never have been
the product of his harsh, unsympathetic age.

The caste system with all its attendant evils was
also one of the curses of the age of Christ's advent.
It was the day of Jew and Greek, Barbarian and
Roman; Pharisee and Sadducee; publican and sinner.
And the lines of caste were drawn with a rigidity
which to our democratic age would be incompre-
hensible. The Jew would sooner die than to eat
with the Gentile. The Roman considered the bar-
barian a being almost akin to an animal. When
Jesus comes he transgresses all the laws of caste. He
was pre-eminently the cosmopolite. Fiercely the
Jewish leaders murmured against him, "He eateth
with Publicans and sinners." He could converse with
ease and amazing comprehension with the learned
doctors in the temple or the cultivated Nicodemus ;
or in simple parables he could make known to the
unlettered fishermen the hidden things of God. With-
out a qualm he could talk to the adulterous woman
of Samaria, or in compassion restore to health the
daughter of the gentile Syrophcenician. The petty
barriers of race, sect or caste were to him non-exist-
ent. Man was man, lost and in need of a world
Saviour, no matter what his distinguished racial char-
acteristics might be. Christ was the cosmopolite, the
democrat, "the one man for the all men."

Another of the sins widely prevalent in Jesus' day,
and paralyzing upon the peoples of his time, was the
sin of licentiousness. Domestic infidelity was ram-

One hundred thirty- one —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

pant. Blindness, and every form of decrepitude ex-
isted as the terrible results of promiscuous cohabita-
tion and wicked sexual indulgence. The conscience
of the people had become seared so that the sin was
looked upon with cool indifference. Even great and
noted men kept their concubines without one word
of rebuke from the public which glutted itself with the
same damning sin. The brilliant Socrates could, with
impunity, cohabit in lustful indulgence with the volup-
tuous Athenian courtesan Aspasia without provoking
one word of censure. At the times of the great feasts
the palaces of the Caesars were described as disgust-
ing hells of prostitution. The sacred groves of
Daphne, and scores of other infamous resorts, had,
from places of rest and worship, degenerated into
veritable brothels where the so-called "pure virgins"
ministered to the blistering passions of drink-crazed
men. To be pure was a condition so unknown that
when the Christians met secretly for worship, they
were accused by the Romans of meeting for immoral
purposes, and of eating the children born of these
meetings. The very fact that assemblies met se-
cretly was enough to inspire suspicion. Others did
these things and why not the Christians ? Thus deep-
ly in the filthy mire wallowed the nations at the time
of Christ.

The remarkable purity of the life of Jesus stands
out above the sordid immoralities of his day like a
flashing beacon on hills of darkness. Never has there
been such a life of spotless piety. In admiration and
devotion Emerson says, "Jesus is the most perfect of

— One hundred thirty-two

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

all men that have yet appeared." Even the Pharisees,
so contentious about legalistic matters, could find
nothing impure in his personal life. On one occasion
Jesus asks them, "Which of you convinceth me of
sin?" To the question they vouchsafed no answer,
for they were able to find nothing amiss within him.
Pilate, so well versed in the weighing of evidence,
and the hearing of testimony, after a searching ex-
amination, could only say, "I find no (fault or)
crime in him." Judas, in the throes of remorse for
his awful deed of betrayal, cries wildly as he hurls
the now detested silver at the feet of the priests and
scribes, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed in-
nocent blood." Upon quaking Calvary, as the Christ
breaths his last sigh of agony, the Roman centurion,
the officer of the execution, exclaims with deep con-
viction, "Truly this was the son of God." (Matt.
27 :54. ) His wonderfully immaculate life could not
have been the product of that wicked age in which he
was born; that age so notoriously disregardful of
personal righteousness.

The idea of forgiveness was one foreign to all
classes at the time of Jesus. It was the age of "an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." That man
was effeminate who would allow a slight or insult
to go by unavenged. It was a mark of manly strength
to make an enemy pay for his wrongs, and in his
own blood. The virtue of forgiveness seems not to
have been known.

Jesus taught that not only were men to forgive
wrongs committed by friends, but to go also to the

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GLORYING IN THE CROSS

almost unattainable heights of forgiving our enemies;
those who wrong with intent to wrong and who gloat
with satisfaction at the pain which the wrong inflicts.
Not only did he teach this beautiful, but to the most
of us, hard to receive lesson, but how wonderfully he
exemplified it in his own conduct. With the scorch-
ing Judean sun beating upon his festering wounds,
every one of which had become a dead weight of
agony, with a howling, jeering, brutal-faced mob,
spitting their foul slime upon him; his enemies all of
them, gloating in every moment of his excruciating
suffering, he raises his blood-stained face to the
darkening clouds with the pitying, compassionate en-
treaty, "Father, forgive them, they know not what
they do." A profound astonished silence followed
this wonderful prayer. Wide-eyed each looked into
the face of his neighbor asking, "What did he say?
Did you hear him? Is he praying for us, and we
his enemies?" They could not comprehend his
meaning. That he should pray for his murderers,
those who hated him, was to them the most astound-
ing marvel.

A lengthy enumeration of the shortcomings of
Christ's age might here be listed but these already
mentioned are adequate to illustrate sufficiently
how wicked, depraved, licentious and cruel was the
time. And think you that Christ, so humble while
they were so proud; so charitable while they were
so cruel ; so cosmopolitan, democratic while they
were so caste bound; so spotlessly pure while they
were rotten to the moral vitals; so forgiving while

— One hundred thirty-four

THB MIRACULOUS CHRIST

they were so unforgiving; think you that in his
marvelous life he could have been the product or
child of an age such as his? Every known law of
heredity and environment is silent and inactive in
the case of Jesus. He is unlike his people in every
respect. His tree was evil yet he as the supposed
fruit was good. "An evil tree cannot bring forth
good fruit, neither a good tree evil fruit."

3. Spiritually Jesus was in no respect the product
of his time.

(1) Condition of his time spiritually.

(a) Spirituality among the Greeks was at this
time at a very low ebb. Faith in the old deities was
breaking down, due to the undermining effects of the
continued and determined attacks of Grecian philoso-
phy. The withering blows of Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle and the stoic Zeno, as well as those of the
Epicureans, had well nigh destroyed all belief in the
ancient gods. Religion had become more and more
a matter of form. Sin consisted merely in igno-
rance rather than any overt crime against the higher
powers. Zeus, Hera, Apollo and all the rest of the
inhabitants of Olympus were still revered but rather
as we today reverence our national heroes than
worshiped as gods. Coexistent with the decline of
faith the wickedness of the time increased. Epicur-
ean was the spirit of the age, "Let us have a good
time now, for tomorrow we die."

The spiritual conditions of the Romans was almost
identical with that of the Greeks. Like the Greek,
their religion was, "a polytheistic conception of the

One hundred thirty- five —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

powers of nature based upon a semi-pantheistic con-
ception of the world." They had the same gods and
goddesses as their tutors, bearing, however, different
names. Ever a religion of form anyway, in the time
of Christ it had become even more formalistic due
to the same damaging attacks of Grecian philosophy.
Jupiter, Juno, Jove and the rest were still revered,
but like the Grecian deities as national or historical
characters rather than gods. One of the Roman
orators about this time was vigorously applauded
when he said, "The gods are dead." Religion had
degenerated into simply a formal and faithful per-
formance of the ancient rites. Sin consisted in the
transgression of these formal laws or the failure to
observe ritualism rather than the disobedience of a
moral command.

The Jews were as barren of spirituality as were
either the Greeks or Romans. They were split up
into various warring sects, each jealous for some
peculiar phase of doctrine and all alike careless about
matters of personal life. Like the Greeks and the
Romans they were placing the emphasis upon the
legalistic side of their religion. Their ritualism, their
rites and ceremonies were the most gorgeous. The
priesthood was proud, cultured and aristocratic.
The outward form of piety was the condition most to
be desired. To the Pharisee religion consisted in
making long prayers before men or zealously ob-
serving every law of the Sabbath. His hands must
be washed in accordance with the traditions before he
ate bread; always must he keep himself from the

— One hundred thirty-six

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

contaminating presence of the despised Gentile. To
take in his hard-heartedness the sustenance of widows
and orphans or to commit unnamable impurities, these
were considered entirely permissible, but the forms
of religion must ever and in all places be rigidly ob-
served. The statement of Paul exactly describes
them when he speaks of those who "have the form of
godliness without knowing the power thereof."

How infinitely Jesus differs from his time
spiritually. He relegates form to the background in
all of his teaching. There is no religion known to
men so devoid of formalism as pure Christianity.
The organization of his church was majestically
simple. No senates, councils, episcopacies or ecclesias-
ticisms with dictatorial authority to rule over his
people. He was to be their lawgiver and head. Two
simple ordinances, Christian baptism and the me-
morial supper were to be the only elements of worship
partaking at all of the nature of rites or ceremonies.
Beautiful in its majestic simplicity, wonderful in the
fewness of its legalistic requirements, is the religion
of the Christ. His was to be the religion of the heart ;
the teaching that would transform the wicked life
and rekindle the nobler fires of the soul in the sin-
ner so long smouldering. How vehemently he ut-
tered his woes against the Jews, "Woe unto you
Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye tithe mint and
anise and cummin and have left undone the weightier
matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith, but
these ye ought to have done and not to have left the
other undone. Ye blind guides that strain out the

One hundred thirty-seven —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

gnat and swallow the camel." And in the remainder
of the same chapter it is, Woe ! Woe ! Woe ! "Ye
cleanse the outside of the cup and platter but within
they are full from extortion and excess." He calls
them, "whited sepulchres," outwardly beautiful and
ornate, but within full of hypocrisy and iniquity, or
"serpents and offspring of vipers." (Matt. 23 :23-34.)
On another occasion, in despair, he cries out, "Well
did Isaiah prophesy of you saying, This people honor-
eth me with their lips, but their heart is far from
me." (Matt. 15:8.) With Jesus, religion was to
be a matter of the inside man, of the heart. "Thou
blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, and
of the platter, that the outside thereof may become
clean also" (Matt. 23:26), or "Blessed are the pure
in heart for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8.) Be-
lief in him as the Saviour and King was to purify the
heart and thus by cleansing the source from which
the springs of conduct rise to transform the whole
being. Peter before the Jerusalem council describes
the glorious process when he says, "And he made no
distinction between us and them, (Jew and Gentile)
cleansing their hearts by faith." (Acts 15:9.)
Jesus differed then from those of his time, Jews,
Greeks and Romans, in that while they contended for
the form of religion and practiced unrebuked shock-
ing immoralities, he emphasized the heart change, pur-
ity of life, and not only emphasized it in his teach-
ing but practiced it, lived it. From a world, a desert
as far as spirituality was concerned, this divine ex-
ponent of the life of the Spirit, this one who taught

— One hundred thirty-eight

THE, MIRACULOUS CHRIST

that men must be born anew by the birth of the
spirit could not by any law, that man knows, have
been produced. Such a result would have been as
impossible as for a corrupt tree to bear perfect fruit.

CONCLUSION.

Truly conclusive is our proposition that not in
any sense or respect was Christ the product of his
time, intellectually, morally or spiritually, for in an
age in which all men were conscious of a feeling of
intellectual at-sea-ness, Christ, the calm, resolute,
revolutionary philosopher, speaking with the author-
ity of a God, appears ; in an age above all others char-
acterized by moral dissolution and decay, Christ the
pure and sinless, the "lily of the valley,, and among
ten thousand the fairest, suddenly emerges from the
chaotic whirlpool of moral degradation like a morn-
ing star from the deeps of night; in an age pre-emi-
nently devoid of spirituality and pierced through and
through by the arrows of doubt and skepticism, Jesus
in the form of man with the soul of God arises amid
the crumbling, rotting ruins of humanity as the new
and blessed Hope of life, from the environs of death.

If, according to all the laws of heredity and en-
vironment, Christ is not the product of his time, he is
himself a miracle, the miraculous projection of God's
will and manifestation of his love into his time and
for all time. He is therefore God's son, not a son,
but the "only begotten son," God manifest in human
flesh. There is but one way to consistently deny the

One hundred thirty-nine —

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

deity of Christ and that is to deny that he, as a man,,
lived. If Jesus lived, then he is God's son; if he did
not, then our grandest and noblest institutions are
founded upon the most beautiful conception ever
reached by man. It would take a Jesus to conceive
of a Jesus. To deny Christ's historical character is
as impossible as to deny the existence of night and
day. He is history itself, the center, the point of
convergence. Without him, what has been is but a
hollow shell, impossible to understand or at all to
rationalize. He is the heart and soul of it all, the
Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. Let us
conclude with the vitriol-tongued skeptic of France,
Jean Ernest Renan, as in extolling Jesus, he says :
"All history is incomprehensible without him. He
created the object and fixed the starting point of the
future faith of humanity. He is the incomparable
man to whom the universal conscience has decreed
the title, Son of God, and that with justice. In the
first rank of this grand family of the true sons of God
we must place Jesus. The highest consciousness of
God which ever existed in the breast of humanity was
that of Jesus. Repose now in thy glory, noble
founder! Thy work is finished, thy divinity estab-
lished. Thou shalt become the cornerstone of human-
ity so entirely that to tear thy name from this world
would rend it to its very foundations. Between thee
and God there will be no longer any distinction.
Complete conqueror of death, take possession of thy
kingdom whither shall follow thee by the royal road
which thou hast traced, ages of adoring worshipers.

— One hundred forty

THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

Whatever may be the surprises of the future Jesus
will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young
without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears with-
out end; his sufferings will melt the noblest hearts
and all ages will proclaim that among the sons of
men there is none born greater than Jesus. Even
Paul is not Jesus. How far removed are we all
from thee, dear Master! Where is thy mildness, thy
poetry ? Thou to whom a flower didst bring pleas-
ure and ecstacy, dost thou recognize as thy disciples,
these wranglers, these men furious over their pre-
rogatives, and desiring that everything should be giv-
en to them? They are men; thou art a God."

Finis.

One hundred forty-one —

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