The redeemer : being four lectures on the nativity, the baptism, the crucifixion and the ascension of Our Lord

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THE REDEEMER

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The Commercial Printing Compamv

FOR

ANDREW ELLIOT, EDINBURGH

•TAMES NISBET & CO., . . . LONDON

KIPPEX CHURCH.

4

THE REDEEMER

$$tivi8 Jour ILectures

ON

THE NATIVITY, THE BAPTISM, THE CRUCIFIXION,
AND THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD

BY

WILLIAM WILSON

MINISTER OF KIPPEN, AUTHOR OF 'FAMILY PRAYERS'

EDINBUEGH
ANDKEW ELLIOT, 17 PEINCES STEEET

1874

TO

JAMES SCOTT, ESQUIRE,

THE HOLLIES,
TUNBRIDGE WELLS, KENT,

Wxt*t |Cecturc0

ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY

THE AUTHOE.

PREFACE.

HE Author of these Lectures would
neither be stating the whole truth,
nor doing justice to his own feel-
ings, were he merely to say that he took the
occasion of two Memorial Windows being
erected in his Church, to direct the attention
of his flock to those subjects of surpassing
interest and importance which have been so
beautifully and graphically delineated. There
was this, but there was more, as the motive
for delivering these Lectures in the ordinary
course of his pulpit duties, and for now
giving to them a more permanent form.
He wishes them to be a simple expression
of his great respect and affection for the
gentleman to whom they are dedicated, and
who erected the windows in memory of de-
parted worth.

The Author cannot refrain from express-

x PREFACE.

ing his great satisfaction with these windows
— memorials at once so pleasing to his own
sympathies with the sorrow that is mingled
with hope, and so much in accordance with
the opinion he has ever held, that the House
of God should not be without the ornamen-
tation which gives to it becoming dignity,
and gratifies the natural desire of sacred
associations.

As works of art these windows are ad-
mirable examples of the taste and skill of
Messrs Ballantine & Son of Edinburgh, by
whom they have been designed and executed.

The subjects illustrated in the windows
and in the following Lectures, are the
Annunciation of the Birth, the Baptism,
the Crucifixion, and the Ascension of our
Redeemer.

Manse of Kippen,
March 1874.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.

PAGE

The Redeemer — His Nativity, ... 3

LECTUEE IT.

The Eedeemer — His Baptism, . . .35

LECTUEE III.

The Eedeemer — His Crucifixion, . . .75

LECTUEE IV.

The Redeemer — His Ascension, . . .113

'If He is ours,
We fear no powers
Of earth or Satan, sin or death !

Lindemaxv.

echirc Just.

THE REDEEMER-HIS NATIVITY.

' And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in
the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo,
the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the
Lord shone round about them : and they were sore afraid. And
the angel said unto them, Fear not : for, behold, I bring you
good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For
unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which
is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye
shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a
manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude
of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in
the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.' —
Luke ii. 8-14.

LECTURE I.

THE REDEEMER HIS NATIVITY

T is my purpose to deliver a Series
of Lectures on the various subjects
embraced in the Memorial Win-
dows which have lately been placed behind
the pulpit in this Church.

God should receive the best of every-
thing we have. God seeks our best. God
seeks first of all our heart. If that is
withheld from Him, all our efforts toward
refinement or outward adornment, here or
elsewhere, are vain and frivolous. But when
we give our heart to God, when we have
an intelligent apprehension of Christ by
faith, we are in possession of a principle
which prevents us from running into ex-
cesses alike superstitious and dangerous,

4 THE REDEEMER.

and which regulates us in all our efforts
to glorify God.

Art finds its purest and grandest de-
velopments in the service of Christianity.
According to the constitution of our nature,
sacred art awakens within us more or less
the finer sensibilities. Religious thought is
quickened through the medium of the eye
as well as the ear. The principles of Presby-
terianism are in no sense unfriendly to the
adoption of every help which art and genius
can produce to beautify the House of God,
and excite or keep alive holy feelings. I
hail, therefore, these windows with thank-
fulness and satisfaction, and earnestly hope
that they may be useful to you and me,
and to all future ministers and congrega-
tions who shall worship within these walls.

The nativity, the baptism, the crucifixion,
and the ascension of our Lord, embrace the
foundations of our faith. They set before
us the principal grand doctrines which we
hold to be fundamental for our belief, and
essential to the existence and growth of

HIS NATIVITY. 5

the higher life of the soul. There are
truths presented to us here within the com-
prehension of the most unlettered, which, if
accepted and believed, will make him wise
unto salvation ; there are also deeps which the
most cultivated can never hope to fathom.

In every age of the Christian Church
these subjects have given rise to endless
speculations and controversies. Men of the
highest order of mind have spent their lives
in contending about their meaning, and the
principles upon which they are founded.
Much strife and bitterness of feeling have
been engendered. This is greatly to be
deplored. But perfect agreement in reli-
gious doctrine and thought is what we need
scarcely hope to have, so long as human
nature remains under the opposing mysteries
of iniquity and of godliness. Still it is pos-
sible for those who hold different opinions
to maintain them charitably and humbly.

In dealing with the subjects before us, I
shall endeavour to avoid the perilous points
of controversy and the lines of speculative
inquiry, preferring rather to study them

6 THE REDEEMER.

simply and devoutly — striving" to realize their
import, and some of the momentous lessons
which they teach.

The subject which is to engage our atten-
tion to-day is the angel's annunciation of
the Nativity of our Lord to the shepherds.

He is born — the Lord of light and life
— the eternal Son of the Highest has actually
come into the world in the person of a feeble
infant! That is the 'Annunciation.'

In the preceding context the Evangelist
informs us, that in the secluded village of
Nazareth, a virgin called Mary had be-
come betrothed to a man named Joseph.
It was the custom then, as it is still with
Jewish maidens, for the betrothed to re-
main at least twelve months with her
parents prior to the ceremony of marriage.
Shortly after her betrothal an angel, com-
missioned by God, appeared to Mary, and
announced to her that she would conceive
and bring forth a son. The mystery caused
Mary to tremble, but the angel explained —
' The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,

HIS NATIVITY. 7

and the power of the Highest shall over-
shadow thee : therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God.'

A token wras further given to Mary by
the angel whereby she might know that
the announcement meant a reality — viz.,
1 Thy cousin Elizabeth hath also conceived a
son.' Although the distance was consider-
able, Mary immediately set out to Hebron,
one of the cities of Judah, to visit her cousin.
When Elizabeth saw Mary, she at once —
by inspiration — saluted her as the Lord's
mother. After sojourning with Elizabeth
for about three months, Mary returned
home.

These intimations connected with the
Nativity of our Lord are recorded only by
the Evangelist Luke. Turning now to
the Evangelist Matthew, we are told that
Joseph — being troubled about Mary's state
— was minded to put her away privily, — that
is, to dissolve the betrothal, by privately
giving her a written certificate to that effect.
But the angel appeared also to him, and in

8 THE REDEEMER.

a dream removed his doubts. The period
of betrothal, therefore, being concluded,
Joseph took unto him his wife. But the
Son of David, according to prophecy, could
not be born anywhere but in David's city.
A decree of the Roman Emperor that all
the world should be taxed, or more pro-
perly enrolled, — that is, that a census of
the population should be made, — rendered
it necessary that every one should repair to
his own place of extraction for that purpose.
Accordingly, Joseph and Mary, who were
both of the house and lineage of David,
went up from Nazareth in Galilee, to Bethle-
hem in Judea, to fulfil the requirements of
the imperial decree. Thus, in the provi-
dence of God, was it ordered that the Scrip-
tures might be fulfilled. Arrived at Beth-
lehem, they found the inn — indeed, every
available place — full of visitors. They were,
therefore, compelled to take shelter in a
stable, and here the Child was born.

What a transcendent mystery ! The In-
finite coming into the finite ! The eternal
Son of God not merely appearing on the

HIS NATIVITY. 9

earth, but uniting our nature with His own
— blending our manhood with His Divine
essence ! This great mystery of the incarna-
tion surpasses all other mysteries. It occupies
a region, the confines of which we cannot
approach. Still, although remote from our
comprehension, the more reverently and lov-
ingly Ave come to the meditation of it, the
more clearly do we understand the beauty
and glory of the revelation.

It is this mystery, then, of the birth of
our Lord that the angel announced to the
shepherds while they were in the fields
watching their flocks. The Evangelist tells
us that the appearance of the angel and
the accompanying glory struck terror into
their hearts. But the angel addressed them,
saying, ' Fear not : for, behold, I bring you
good tidings of great joy, which shall be
to all people. For unto you is born this
day in the city of David a Saviour, which
is Christ the Lord. And this shall be
a sign unto you ; Ye shall find the babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a
manger.'

10 THE REDEEMER.

These words were no sooner uttered than
there appeared with the angelic messenger
a multitude of the heavenly host praising
God, and singing, ' Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good will
toward men ! '

This revelation was the Divine answer to
the earnest inquiries and longings of men
from the beginning. The time of its utter-
ance is called in the language of Scripture
' the fulness of the time.' Of all others it
was the most momentous time in the history
of the ancient world. For centuries events
the most startling had occurred amongst the
nations. Great dynasties quickly arose, and
almost as quickly passed away. The lan-
guage of Greece had reached a high state of
perfection, and along with it science, and
art, and philosophy in every department.
Moreover, with the advance of Grecian civi-
lization, Rome had risen into influence and
power, and had braced herself up to ' devour
the whole earth, and tread it dowm and
break it in pieces.' As for the Jews, they

HIS NATIVITY. 11

were no longer a separated people. They
had been dispersed amongst the nations,
and, though they had been restored to their
own land after their seventy years' captivity,
the Holy Land was now under the imperial
sway of Caesar. Their dispersion, however,
had been blessed to them. The years they
spent by the rivers of Babylon — where they
hanged their harps upon the willows — had
purged them from all idolatrous tendencies.
But, apart altogether from external cir-
cumstances, there was a peculiar moral fit-
ness in the time, marking this as indeed
' the fulness of the time.' Man had fully
tested his powers. Philosophy had done its
utmost and failed. The world by wisdom
knew not God. Man was unhappy in his
ignorance. There was still a void in his
soul and a yearning for more light. Seek-
ing to appease this craving, the Greek
became a worshipper of beauty, and strove
to embody the beautiful in works of art.
He endeavoured to delineate his ideas of
the Divine in the most exquisite forms of
human loveliness. But after all there were

12 THE REDEEMER.

darkness — impotence — unrest. The pro-
blems of existence remained without solu-
tion— the bitterness of life continued un-
changed.

Again, the Roman felt that his concep-
tions of unity and law were onlv shadows
of something more abiding — some universal
source — some eternal truth. Philosophy
might suggest to him to be reckless of danger,
and might strive even to divert his mind
from sorrow, saying, ( Be strong, and bear it
well ; be brave — be a man ; ' but he could
find no comfort in such cold counsel. His
soul longed after something which nothing
in this world enabled him to attain. Surely,
therefore, this was the emptiness of which
the coming of the ' Desire of all nations ' was
the answering fulfilment.

Even the Jew, who was acquainted with
the one living and true God — who had
erected a temple to His service — who was
in possession of the Scriptures of the Old
Testament — who maintained the ordinances
which God had instituted, and which had
been handed down to him for generations —

HIS NATIVITY.

13

felt that external advantages could not meet
inward necessities — that outward decorum
and regular waiting upon the synagogue and
temple — that the privilege of being the lineal
descendant of Abraham — that punctilious
attention to the courtesies of society in con-
nection with religion — were of no avail with-
out something deeper and more permanent.

Let us now consider the tidings brought
by the angelic messenger, and inquire wherein
they were adapted to meet the wants and
longings of the human heart. ' Unto you
is born this day in the city of David a
Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.' The term
' Saviour ' was one which was familiar to the
Greek and the Roman. It was associated in
their minds, not merely with deliverance from
danger or distress, but with the enjoyment
of every temporal comfort and blessing.
Both the Greek and the Roman frequently
applied the term to their gods, especially
after any signal deliverance. They fur-
ther applied it to their fellows, to whom
they were indebted for any help or succour.

14 THE REDEEMER.

The term ' Saviour ' was also most familiar
to the Jew of our Lord's time. Indeed,
there was a charm for him in the name,
which we in this age cannot fully appreciate.
As in the case of the Greek and Roman,
the term was understood by the Jew in the
double sense of deliverer and protector, and
was associated in his mind with many of
the most glorious episodes in the history of his
forefathers. In Old Testament Scripture this
term is frequently used. Thus it is written:
' The Lord raised up a saviour to Israel;' ' He
shall send them a saviour;' and 'The Lord
gave Israel a saviour.' But while these
passages, and others that might be adduced,
pointed to events of a more immediate and
temporal nature, they had also reference to
something higher. And while the name of
' Saviour ' was applied, as in these instances,
to human deliverers, the most spiritual
amongst the people felt that it was a sha-
dow of some other and greater one to come.
Indeed, the very name of ' Saviour' in
various passages in Old Testament Scrip-
ture is directly applied to the Lord Him-

HIS NATIVITY. 15

self; and there are hints even at the manner
in which salvation was to be accomplished,
by associating with ' Saviour ' the words
' Ransom' and ' Redeemer.'

But, in the message to the shepherds,
the angel not merely announced a Saviour,
but designated who he was — ' A Saviour,
which is Christ the Lord,' — in other words,
a Saviour, who is the Messiah of prophecy
— for Christ and Messiah are equivalent —
being merely the Greek and Hebrew terms
for the anointed one. Anointing with oil
was a religious rite practised among the
Jews from the earliest period, and was
the commonest ceremony of consecration to
a sacred purpose or office. We read, for ex-
ample, that the pillar at Bethel, which Jacob
set up in token of God's love and care, was
anointed with oil. And, when the Mosaic
economy was introduced, Moses anointed
and thereby set apart both the tabernacle
and the furniture to the service of God.
Besides, throughout the history of the com-
monwealth, consecration to the offices of pro-
phet, priest, and king was frequently effected

lfi THE REDEEMER.

by anointing with oil. When, therefore, this
title of ' Christ ' was applied, as in the pas-
sage before us, to the Virgin Mary's Son, it
must be understood that He was duly com-
missioned and consecrated to those offices
which, under the law, were merely types and
shadows.

From the beginning, ere man was driven
from Paradise, the Messiah was foretold as the
seed of the woman who should bruise the
serpent's head, and deliver man from the
curse and penalty of sin. How or when
that was to be accomplished was not re-
vealed. Prophecy after prophecy, however,
was given, and the world prepared for the
Messiah. Thus it was foretold that He should
be of the seed of Abraham, and in the line
of Isaac and of Jacob. It was also dis-
tinctly stated that He should come of the
family of David, and actually appear when the
second temple was in existence, and be born
in Bethlehem ; that He should not be born of
natural generation, but of a virgin ; that His
appearance should be so humble that many
even of His followers should scarcely believe

HIS NATIVITY. 17

in Him ; that He should be as a tender plant,
and as a root out of a dry ground ; that He
should have no form nor comeliness, nor
any beauty for which He should be desired.
Further, the prophecies relating to the Mes-
siah were delivered by different individuals
without any possible collusion, and were
spread over nearly four thousand years.
They were often minute in detail, and some-
times appeared to be opposite and con-
tradictory in nature. For example, we find
it predicted that the Messiah should be man
— nay, a worm, and no man — the very scorn
of men, and the outcast of the people, —
and yet in another passage He is described
as the AVonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty
God, the Father of the everlasting age, the
Prince of Peace ; that He should be exalted,
and yet abased ; that He should be the root,
and yet the offspring of David ; that He
should be a lion, and yet a lamb ; that He
would embody in His person the offices of
prophet, priest, and king.

But the angel in the announcement be-
fore us added yet another characteristic — a

18 THE REDEEMER.

Saviour, who is the Lord. In the Greek —
or, as it is termed, Septuagint — version of the
Old Testament, which was in common use
in our Lord's time, the Hebrew term ' Jeho-
vah ' is almost invariably rendered ' Kurios; '
and our translators have followed this prece-
dent, and rendered the Hebrew ' Jehovah '
and the Greek ' Kurios ' By the English word
' Lord.' The prophet Hosea says, ' I will
have mercy upon the house of Judah, and
will save them by the Lord their God ' — in
the Hebrew, Jehovah their God. Zechariah
says, ' The Lord their God shall save them in
that day as the flock of His people ' — in the
Hebrew, it is Jehovah their God. Again, Jesus
Himself, quoting from Deuteronomy, repels
the Devil's temptation thus — ; It is written,
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God'
— in the Hebrew it is Jehovah, and in the
Greek Kurios. Once more : Saint Peter,
quoting from the same book of the Old
Testament, says, ' For Moses truly said unto
the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your
God raise up unto you of your brethren like
unto me.' Here also the Hebrew is Jehovah,

HIS NATIVITY. 19

and the Greek Kurios. Innumerable other
passages might be cited showing the same
thing. In a word, ' the Lord' is the term
usually applied to God. It would, therefore,
appear that this descriptive title, as applied
by the angel to the Babe of Bethlehem, was
meant to point to His Divine nature. It
corresponds to the Hebrew Jehovah.

But this title of ' Lord,' while it is syno-
nymous with Jehovah, signifies dominion or
power. And as Jesus possessed two natures
— the divine and human — so the dominion
exercised by Him may also be described as
of two kinds --dominion as God, and domi-
nion as man. In the opening page of the
Gospel which bears his name, the Evan-
gelist John says, ' In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God.' The other Evangelists
begin their narratives with the appearance of
Jesus in time, while Saint John traces Him
back before all time. In the beginning the
Word was with God, which implies pre-
vious existence, having a glory with Him
before the world was created — sharing" in

20 THE REDEEMER.

all that the Father possessed. The Word
is said to have come forth from God, even
from His bosom, where He had been from
everlasting. But not only so, the "Word was
God — even the mighty God Himself. He
was therefore correctly named ' Immanuel —
God with us.' The Apostle Paul, moreover,
affirms to the Colossians, that ' by Him all
things were created that are in heaven and
that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones, or principalities, or
powers : all things were created by Him,
and for Him: and He is before all things,
and by Him all tilings consist.'

Again, in His human nature, there was
bestowed on Jesus as Lord a plenary power
over all things. This is implied in the title
Christ, which we have seen means anointed.
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
while tracing the correspondence betwixt
the Jewish and Christian dispensations,
and showing that the latter was the un-
folding and completing of an eternal pur-
pose, quotes the following passage from the
Psalmist David : ' Thou madest Him a

HIS NATIVITY. 21

little lower than the angels. Thou crown-
edst Him with glory and honour, and didst
set Him over the works of Thy hand.
Thou hast put all things in subjection
under His feet.' Now, if the prophetic
intimation to which allusion is here made
was not fulfilled in Jesus Christ, in whom,
it may be asked, was it fulfilled ? What
created being ever experienced such humilia-
tion and exaltation? However exalted, the
angels cannot enter into comparison with
Him who is their Creator and God. In
His human nature Jesus Christ was made
a little lower than the angels. In His
Divine nature He was infinitely above them.
But that Jesus Christ in His human nature
really fulfilled this prophecy, there can be no
shadow of doubt, for the Apostle says of
Him, ' Who, being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with
God, but made Himself of no reputa-
tion, and took upon Him the form of a
servant, and was made in the likeness of
men ; and being found in fashion as a
man, He humbled Himself, and became

22 THE REDEEMER.

obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross; wherefore God also hath highly ex-
alted Him, and given Him a name which
is above every name, that at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow, of things in
heaven, and things in earth, and things
under the earth ; and that every tongue
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to
the glory of God the Father.'

And so the Saviour announced by the
angel is Lord, and has dominion over us,
inasmuch as He became incarnate in order
that He might die for the race. By sin
man lost the Divine image, and became ex-
posed to God's wrath and curse. But pro-
vision had been made in the councils of
Eternity for his salvation ; and it was to
restore in him that lost image, and deliver
him from the doom which he had incurred,
that was the grand object of Christ's mis-
sion. For this He left His Father's bosom,
and became a little child. For this He
lived a life of holy obedience, amidst the
bitterest trials and sorrows, allowing no-
thing to divert Him from the object before

HIS NATIVITY. 23

Him. With a sublime steadfastness of pur-
pose He pursued that object until He ex-
claimed upon the cross, ' It is finished ! '
For this He rose again from the dead, and
ascended up into heaven.

In the affairs of the world, for the
most part, a thing is valued in propor-
tion to the efforts made to procure it.
Now, if this standard be applied to the
subject before us, what is there that can be
compared with the redemption of man ?
That it should have occupied a place at
all in the Divine mind, is a marvel utterly
beyond our comprehension, which not only
attests the transcendent importance of the
work, but bewilders and confounds our in-
tellects. In this sense, therefore, the appli-
cation of ' Lord ' to Jesus Christ must appear
obvious.

This leads us to inquire more particu-
larly into the nature of the announcement
by the angel, and the light in which it
should be received by us : ' Fear not, for
behold I bring you good tidings of great

24 THE REDEEMER.

joy, which shall be to all people.' On
account of sin, man was in a state of aliena-
tion from God. He was wretched and mis-
erable; he could not deliver himself; he
was utterly hopeless; but help was brought.
Intimations regarding the Saviour, we have
seen, were given long before His appearance
in human form. The angelic visitant pro-
claimed His advent. The tidings were essen-
tially good — good tidings of great joy !

I have already remarked that the natural
instinct of the Greek was to embody deity
in the form of humanity. Now, without
unduly magnifying the fact, we cannot help
regarding it as a foretoken of, and a groping
after, the Incarnation of the Son of God.
When there fell, therefore, upon the ear of
the Greek the announcement of a Saviour,
and when he carefully considered His origin
and claims, he could not foil to regard Him
as the one Saviour for whom his soul had
often and earnestly craved — the embodi-
ment of the truth which he had been
feeling after. And if the Greek found
a peculiar satisfaction in such tidings, we

HIS NATIVITY, 25

cannot doubt but that the Roman also dis-
covered in Him the object of his intense
practical longings and desires. And in pro-
portion as he studied Christ's words and
actions, and viewed His anxiety to fulfil
the will of His Father, were the inexpli-
cable cries of his heart answered. Then,
while the Jew possessed privileges superior
to the Greek and the Roman, he had but
vague and indistinct notions regarding God,
and the method of acceptance with Him.
Still the whole structure of his religious
system and polity was hopeful, and had
reference to some great One to come, who
would unite and harmonize the severed rela-
tions betwixt God and man. Thus the an-
nouncement of the angel did not crush or
destroy the cravings or religious instincts of
the race, but rather met and satisfied them.
It could not, therefore, fail to be hailed
with joy.

And so in every age, and amongst all
classes of people, wherever these tidings of a
Saviour have been proclaimed and believed,
through the agency of the Holy Spirit they

D

26 THE REDEEMER.

have produced marvellous results. No tidings
in this world have so answered man's doubts
and deepest wants and longings. They have
come not merely to those who were bowed
down with sorrow and troubled with unrest,
but to those who were lost in the cares and
pleasures of the world, and have proclaimed
to them peace, and opened up visions of
Divine joy and light. In his immortal epic
Milton gives us a lofty idea of God's power,
in the person of Jesus Christ, as scattering
the fallen angels and driving them before
Him:

' Thunder-struck, pursued
With terrors and with furies to the bounds
And crystal wall of heaven, which opened wide,
Eolled inward, and a spacious gap disclosed
Into the wasteful deep.'

But, it might have increased our concep-
tions, perhaps, of Christ's great power, if,
while the rebels were arrayed before Him
in bitter hostility, He had caused every one
to fall prostrate at His feet in love and
adoration. Now this is the victory, glory
be to God, which has been actually achieved

HIS NATIVITY. 27

in all ages amongst men, by the marvellous
story of the Saviour's love and condescen-
sion. Oh ! how many have borne testimony
to the truthfulness of this conquest ! How
many have been lifted from the dust to God,
and, emptied of pride and delivered from
self-willedness, have experienced the con-
sciousness of a present salvation, and there-
fore the enjoyment of perfect peace and

Has the Holy Spirit of God, then, I
inquire, shown Christ to you as your Sa-
viour? Is Christ indeed your Saviour; and
does the thought of Christ as your Saviour
fill you with joy? It is recorded of a
Roman general who had proclaimed liberty
to the states of Greece, that the people,
in transports of joy, cheered him to the echo,
crying, ' A saviour ! A saviour ! ' The race
was under condemnation through sin. Death
had passed upon all men, for that all had
sinned. Before man could be restored, how-
ever, the law which was broken had to be
satisfied and vindicated. And so the eternal
Son of God became man, that He mio-ht

28 THE REDEEMER.

deliver Himself up to death, even the death
of the cross, as a sacrifice of atonement for
the sinful and the lost. How much more,
then, ought Ave to joy in the Lord our
Saviour !

But while redemption was secured for
man through Jesus Christ, salvation is not
secured to you individually, until you bend
your will to believe in Christ, and long and
pray to become a new creature in Him. Be
assured, it is not enough to know that Jesus
is the Messiah. You must give yourselves
up entirely to Him, and seek an interest in
the blessings which He purchased with His
blood. When the Israelites gazed for the
first time upon the newly-fallen manna, they
inquired earnestly, What is this? and, on
making the discovery that it was food, they
at once applied it to the use intended, and
found nourishment and life therefrom. Now,
this is what you must do with the Saviour ;
you must believe in Him, and live on Him
by faith. The Holy Spirit of God testifies
of Christ ; and if you ask the Spirit's aid,

HIS NATIVITY. 29

you shall receive the light of the knowledge
of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The angel and the heavenly host sang
glory to God over the lowly cradle of the
Saviour ; and the Eastern Magi, under the
guidance of the star, came and prostrated
themselves before Him with gifts of gold, and
frankincense, and myrrh. I inquire, What
have you given to Christ — what of your
money — your talents — your time? Why, all
that you have belongs to God. There is
only one thing in the whole world that God
has made but cannot take without your
leave. It is your heart. God will not force
you to give Him your heart. But He pleads
with you for it, nevertheless. He says, ' My
son, give me thine heart.' Only do this
meekly, humbly, trustfully, and you shall be
saved from the power and the guilt of sin,
and be strengthened day by day to repeat
the angel's song. Let your language be —

' Give Thee mine heart, Lord, so I would,
And there's great reason that I should,

If it were worth the having ;
Yet sure Thou wilt esteem that good,

30 THE REDEEMER.

Which Thou hast purchased with Thy blood,

Aud thought it worth the craving.
Give Thee mine heart, Lord, so I will,
If Thou wilt first impart the skill

Of bringing it to Thee.
But should I trust myself to give
Mine heart, as sure as I do live,

I should deceived be.
Yet since my heart's the most I have,
And that which Thou dost chiefly crave,

Thou shalt not of it miss.
Although I cannot give it so
As I should do, I'll offer it though —

Lord, take it, here it is.'

But some of you may refuse to accept
of the good tidings which the angel
brought. What then? What will you put
in their place? You may continue to reject
the Saviour who was born in Bethlehem ;
but where, I ask, will you find another
Saviour? There is no other name under
heaven whereby you can be saved. You
may affect to live without Christ, but you are
deluded by an impossibility. The trials and
disappointments of life, — the events which
are sure to come upon you and oppress your
hearts, — the emptiness and unsatisfactori-
ness of earthly possessions, — thoughts of

HIS NATIVITY. 31

death, and judgment, and eternity, which will
yet intrude more vividly into your minds, —
will discover your need of Christ. Let the
great condescension of Christ, then, move
you to yield to the strivings of the Holy
Spirit of God with you. Oh ! quench not
the Spirit of God!

According to the terms of the good tid-
ings, observe the angel says they are for all
people. Yet let no one presume or pro-
crastinate. Now is the accepted time, now
is the day of salvation. Whatever you are,
however sinful or depraved, hear the good
tidings, — believe them and live. In other
words, confess your sins — cry to God now for
forgiveness — and live. The martyr Cranmer,
in a moment of strong temptation, took his
pen and abjured his faith in Christ. A
short time afterwards, he again abjured his
abjuration ; and when he was dragged to the
stake to die for the truth, he lifted up his right
hand, and exclaimed before his enemies, i This
is the one — this is the hand that signed —
this is the hand that sinned ! ' — and thrust-

32 THE REDEEMER.

ing it amongst the blazing fagots, added,
' Let it perish first!' And so, my unconverted
brother! bring out your sins. Confess them
to God. Implore forgiveness for Jesus Christ's
sake. ' All things are possible to him that
belie veth.' And you will most surely become
possessed with the peace of God which
passeth all understanding, which will keep
your heart and mind, and be filled with joy
unspeakable, and full of glory.

Tfutnxt Sftonb.

THE REDEEMER-HIS BAPTISM.

' Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to
be baptized of him. But John forbad Him, saying, I have
need to be baptized of Thee, and coniest Thou to me? And
Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now ; for
thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he
suffered Him. And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up
straightway out of the water : and, lo, the heavens were
opened unto Ilim, and lie saw the Spirit of God descending
like a dove, and lighting upon Him : And lo a voiee from
heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased.' — Matt. hi. 13-17.

LECTURE II.

THE REDEEMER HIS BAPTISM.

HERE are few facts recorded in the
Gospel narratives regarding the
childhood, and youth, and early
manhood of our Lord. We have glimpses,
it is true, but they are only glimpses, of how
He spent His life at Nazareth. We would
gladly know more, but we cannot. If we
had given us full details of our Lord's
growth, from His birth till He entered
upon His public ministry; if we were told
minutely how He acted during His early
years towards His earthly relations and
amongst His earthly surroundings, curiosity
might be somewhat indulged; but it is not
probable that there would have been any
additional motive afforded for the exercise

3(3 THE REDEEMER.

or increase of faith in Him. There is wis-
dom in the silence as well as in the reve-
lations of Holy Scripture.

While made of a woman, our Lord was
also made under the law, and became sub-
ject to all its rites and ceremonies. And so,
eight days after His birth, He was circum-
cised, and called Jesus by instruction of the
angel; and when forty days were accom-
plished, He was taken to Jerusalem and pre-
sented in the temple. The spirit of pro-
phecy having been quickened, it was revealed
to one named Simeon that he should not
see death before he had seen the Lord's
Christ. This aged saint had waited for
many years on the services of the temple, in
patient and devout expectation of the appear-
ing of the promised One. He had long and
earnestly searched the Scriptures, and studied
the prophetic intimations regarding the
Messiah, whose coming seemed so protracted.
Yet his faith foiled not. At length the
Virgin appeared ; and when Simeon gazed
upon the Child, and saw in Him the ful-
filment of prophecy, he took Him in his

HIS BAPTISM

37

arms, and gave expression to his feelings in
the memorable words, 'Lord, now lettest
Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according
to Thy word ; for mine eyes have seen Thy
salvation, which Thou hast prepared before
the face of all people ; a light to lighten the
Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.'

Simeon had no sooner finished this pro-
phetic hymn, than Anna, an aged pro-
phetess, who served God with fastings and
prayers night and day, entered the temple.
When she beheld the Child Jesus, she also
raised her voice of thanks unto the Lord,
and spake of Him to all them that looked
for redemption in Israel.

Some time thereafter — it is not very
clear how long — a number of pilgrims,
from Persia or Arabia, appeared in Jeru-
salem, inquiring anxiously for Him who
was born King of the Jews. The mystery
of the birth of our Lord had probably been
divinely revealed to those men. We have
the assurance, however, that a special illu-
mination in the heavens had been vouch-
safed to guide their way, for they themselves

38 THE REDEEMER.

added, ' We have seen His star in the east,
and are come to worship Him.' As a people,
the Jews seemed quite unconscious of the
marvellous event that had occurred at Beth-
lehem till those strangers arrested their atten-
tion. The city was immediately filled with
excitement. Herod the king, as might be
supposed, was moved wTith alarm. He there-
fore hastily called the chief priests and
scribes together, and demanded information
regarding the birth-place of Christ — the ex-
pected Messiah of the Jews. Being informed
that, according to the prediction of the pro-
phet, Bethlehem must be His birth-place,
he despatched, without delay, a private sum-
mons to the pilgrims to appear before him.
He then questioned them about the appear-
ance of the star, and expressed the desire
that, after they had found the Child, they
would bring him word, that he too might
come and worship Him. The amount of
sincerity in this request of Herod's may be
gathered from his subsequent wicked com-
mand to slay all the young children of
Bethlehem.

HIS BAPTISM. 39

By means of the star the strangers were
directed to the place where the Child was ;
and on entering they fell down at His feet,
and presented Him with their homage and
their gifts. Being warned of God, they did
not obey Herod's command, but returned
to their own country another way. Enraged
by their non-appearance, and stung with
jealousy, the king sent messengers to slay
all the children in Bethlehem, from two
years old and under, in order to destroy Him
who was called the Messiah. But before
the command could be executed, Joseph,
being divinely warned, was on his way to
Egypt with Mary and the Child. Herod
survived this cruel deed only a few weeks ;
and now Joseph, by the express command
of God, was recalled from Egypt, and re-
turned with the infant Jesus and His
mother into Galilee, to their own city,
Nazareth.

Here a veil drops over that home circle ;
and only once, indeed, for thirty years, has
it been withdrawn. We have the testi-
mony, however, of inspiration, that < the

40 THE REDEEMER.

Child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled
with wisdom ; and the grace of God was
upon Him.'

During the annual visit, on the occasion
of the passover feast, Jesus, at the age of
twelve, accompanied His parents to Jeru-
salem. The solemnity over, Joseph and Mary
returned home. While on their way — a con-
siderable distance — they missed Jesus, and
anxiously inquired at their kinsfolk, and
others who were travelling with them, about
Him. They examined the caravans care-
fully, but to no purpose. Jesus was not
with them. At once, therefore, l they re-
turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking
Him. And it came to pass, that after three
days they found Him in the temple, sitting
in the midst of the doctors, both hearing
them, and asking them questions.' With
mingled feelings of joy and amazement,
Mary addressed Him, saying, ' Son, why hast
thou thus dealt with us ? behold, Thy father
and I have sought Thee sorrowing.' In His
reply Jesus reminded His mother of His
Divine origin. ' How ' — says He — ' How is

HIS BAPTISM. 41

it that ye sought Me ? wist ye not that I
must be about my Father's business?' In
other words, ' You know whence I am, and
the end for which I was sent into the world ;
and you might have known that I would
be properly engaged.' Mary failed to com-
prehend the saying, but she treasured it in
her heart. It is vain for us, even with
clearer light, to conjecture the fulness of the
saying. But withal Jesus acknowledged the
claim of His earthly parents to His filial
obedience. He therefore returned with them
to Nazareth, and was subject unto them,
and ' increased in wisdom and stature, and
in favour with God and man.'

We hear no more of Jesus for eighteen
years. Tradition, however, has striven to
fill up what appeared lacking in the history.
Painters have even represented Him as en-
gaged at the handicraft trade of Joseph.
There is always danger in seeking to be
wise above what is written. Still there
were some grounds for the artists' con-
ception, inasmuch as, by the Jewish law,
it was binding upon every father to teach

42 THE REDEEMER,

his son a trade ; and in every particu-
lar we are assured Jesus obeyed the law
and made it honourable. We have the
testimony, besides, that, during the early
part of the ministry of our Lord, many of
the people who were attracted towards Him
recognised Him not merely as Joseph's son,
but raised the inquiry, ' Is not this the car-
penter ? ' Beyond this Holy Scripture is
profoundly silent.

After those eighteen years, Jesus emerged
from Nazareth, and mingled with the crowd
that was pouring in from all quarters to the
wilderness to wait upon the ministry of the
Baptist. ' Then cometh Jesus from Galilee
to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of
him. But John forbad Him, saying. I have
need to be baptized of Thee, and comest
Thou to me? And Jesus answering said
unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus
it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.
Then he suffered Him. And Jesus, when
He was baptized, went up straightway out
of the water: and, lo, the heavens were
opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of

HIS BAPTISM. 43

God descending like a dove, and lighting
upon Him: and lo a voice from heaven,
saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased.'

The antecedents of the Baptist were
strangely peculiar and grand. Descended
for many generations, by both parents, from
a priestly race, he was foretold by Isaiah,
as ' the voice of one crying in the wilder-
ness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.' His
birth was announced by an angel to Zacha-
rias, his father, while he was engaged in his
priestly functions in the temple. The pro-
phetic intimations regarding his character
and office were also confirmed by the
heavenly messenger, and the name of John
assigned to him. Alarmed at the vision, and
faithless about the communication — and espe-
cially now because of his own and his wife's
advanced age — Zacharias inquired, ' Whereby
shall I know this ? ' The angel replied,
' Thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak
until the day that these things shall be per-
formed ; because thou belie vest not my words,

44 THE REDEEMER.

which shall be fulfilled in their season.' By
the delay, consequent upon the vision, the
people, who were praying without, marvelled
that Zacharias tarried so long in the temple ;
and when he came out he could only beckon
to them. After her conception, Elisabeth
retired to the hill country of Judea, where
she remained for some time, as we saw in
the previous lecture, and was joined by her
cousin Marv. After the child was born, and
when they came to circumcise him, he was
called Zacharias ; but his mother said, ' Not
so, he shall be called John.' And on signs
being made to his father — who was still
speechless — ' he asked for a writing table, and
wrote, saying, His name is John. And they
marvelled all. And his mouth was opened
immediately, and his tongue loosed, and he
spake and praised God.'

Like Him whom he was divinely sent
to introduce, Ave know almost nothing con-
cerning John till he burst upon the world,
over thirty years of age, full of the Holy
Ghost, to commence his mission. Indeed,
the Evangelist Luke, in a single verse, gives

II IS BAPTISM. 45

us all that we know concerning him, viz.,
c The child grew, and waxed strong in spirit,
and was in the deserts till the day of his
showing unto Israel.' The desert was singu-
larly fitted for the exercise of self-denial,
and self-conquest, and communion with God ;
and so, while the Baptist's body w^as fed
and clothed with the productions of the
desert, his soul put on the whole armour
of God. When he came forth, therefore,
to enter upon his official duties, clad in a
strange dress, and having a strange history,
and bearing on his lips the strange message,
* Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is
at hand,' we are not astonished to read that
he attracted many who sought to be bap-
tized of him, confessing their sins.

In contemplating the Baptist and his
relations to Jesus, we are sometimes apt to
forget the man in the godlike energy and
unity of purpose which appeared in every-
thing he said and did. With a sublime
indifference to self, he surrendered himself
entirely to God, and to his work of preparing
the way of the Lord. Devoted to his mis-

46 THE REDEEMER.

sion, he never seemed to forget that he was
not one, but merely the voice of one crying
in the wilderness. Next to our Lord Him-
self, history furnishes us with no character
more truly humble, and therefore great and
noble.

There can be no doubt there was a
general feeling among the Jewish people at
this time that the Messiah was about to
appear. But their ideas regarding Him were
entirely opposed to the true nature of the
kingdom to be established. They expected
a temporal king who would redress their
wrongs, and inaugurate a reign of grandeur
and magnificence, equal, if not superior, to
anything experienced under Solomon. But
Christ's kingdom was not to be of this world.
How then were such false views and deep-
rooted prejudices to be eradicated? Would
Christ by His great power so flash the truth
upon the minds of men, that, when He ap-
peared, they must recognise Him as the Son
of God and the Saviour of the world ; or
would He by His own lips give such ex-
positions of Old Testament Scripture and

HIS BAPTISM, 47

prophecy as would lead the Jews to acknow-
ledge their errors and follies? God's ways
are not as man's ways, nor His thoughts as
our thoughts. Christ adopted neither course,
but raised up the Baptist to make straight
in the desert a highway for Him. It is
important, therefore, to observe, that there
was something more implied in John's dress,
and mode of life, than at first sight ap-
peared. The rude garment of camel's hair
with which he was clothed, and the com-
mon leathern girdle with which his loins
were encircled, as well as the coarse and pre-
carious food in which he found his susten-
ance, had a deep spiritual significance, and
must not only have served as an instructive
contrast to the false notions of the Jews,
but have proved an inarticulate warning
against all their material conceptions of the
Messiah's kingdom.

But if the mere dress and mode of life
of the Baptist were calculated to produce
such an effect, let us try to imagine with
what force his ministry came to those who
gathered around him. His mission was to

48 THE REDEEMER.

preach and baptize, and the general burden
of his sermons or addresses was, Repent ye ;
trust not in rites and ceremonies; seek to
be delivered from your foolish national pre-
judices and carnal affections ; give yourselves
no rest till you obtain a change of heart and
life, for the Messiah is at hand. ' I indeed
baptize you with water unto repentance : but
He that cometh after me is mightier than
I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear :
He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost
and with fire : wdiose fan is in His hand,
and he will throughly purge His floor, and
gather His wheat into the garner; but He
will burn up the chaff with unquenchable
fire.'

There was something very startling in
this doctrine, but in reality it was not new.
The prophets ages before had revealed it
under various types and figures. The people
had only obscured it with tradition. It
came, however, from the Baptist with a
freshness and power hitherto unknown, and
created a new stimulus.

HIS BAPTISM. 49

In my last lecture, I remarked that in
the councils of Eternity provision was made
for the salvation of man, and that the know-
ledge of a Eedeemer was to some extent im-
parted to our first parents ere they passed
out of Eden. But observe, before the Re-
deemer was actually announced by the angel
to the shepherds, the world was prepared
for His advent by a succession of dispensa-
tions. And while each dispensation was
in some special aspects distinguished from
the one preceding it, the Spirit of God
was never wanting in any of them. Under
every dispensation souls were saved. Before
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the
day of Pentecost, the one condition of salva-
tion was faith in God's promise; afterwards
the grand object of faith was revealed —
viz., Christ, and Him crucified. Now, the
mission of John occupied a place betwixt
the Law and the Gospel. It was specially
appointed by God, having for its object, as
expressed by our Lord Himself, the restora-
tion of all things. By this we understand
not the ritual of the Mosaic law, which was

G

50 THE REDEEMER.

about to pass away, but the things of the
kingdom of God.

The rite of baptism had no part what-
ever in the original law. It was only added
to it, as something to be specially observed
by proselytes. But God imparted to it a
fresh and deeper significance in the minis-
try of the Baptist, when He sent him to
baptize all who sought admission to the
Messiah's kingdom. Before inquiring, then,
why our Lord came to John to be baptized
of him, it is of some importance that we
should clearly understand the nature of
John's Baptism, and also the Baptism that
was introduced by Christ — the Baptism with
the Holy Ghost and with fire — and their rela-
tion to Christian baptism which is in daily
observance amongst us, and forms one of
the sacraments of the Christian Church.

In the preceding context we read that
Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region
round about Jordan, were not only startled
by the cry, ' The kingdom of heaven is at
hand,' but were moved to repentance and
faith. They saw that their whole lives had

HIS BAPTISM. 51

been a continued forgetfulness of God, and
rebellion against His holy law, and that they
were exposed to eternal destruction ; they
therefore made public confession, and sought
baptism by water for the remission of sins.
The Baptism of John therefore involved the
grace of justification, which has been the
grand requirement in every age and under
every dispensation. The Baptism of our
Lord, on the other hand, was with the Holy
Ghost and with fire. Our Lord never ad-
ministered baptism by water. But on the
day of Pentecost — some days after He had
ascended to His Father — He sent down the
Holy Ghost, causing Him to rest upon His
waiting disciples in the shape of cloven
tongues of fire. Thus the conditions neces-
sary in the Baptism of John — viz., repent-
ance and faith — were presupposed in our
Lord's Baptism; and the bestowal of Divine
gifts, and not the remission of sins, was the
effect. What relation then, I ask, do the
Baptism of John, and the Baptism of our
Lord, bear to baptism, as understood by us
in the Christian Church ? I answer, they are

52 THE REDEEMER.

both included in the Christian rite. After
the outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the
day of Pentecost, the nature of the Gospel
being more fully understood and believed,
the Baptism of John by water among Jew-
ish and Gentile converts was superseded by
looking to Christ crucified, and having faith
in His blood. With the new dispensation
Baptism had a new signification. It was a
sign and a seal of the righteousness of faith,
or a Christian profession, and is to us in
the Christian Church w^hat circumcision was
under the Old Testament economy.

But in order more fully to understand
the nature of Christian baptism, it is neces-
sary that we should comprehend first of all
what was implied in circumcision, which
it superseded. Circumcision was ordained
to be the token or seal of the covenant
made by God with the patriarch Abraham.
In Egypt and in the wilderness circum-
cision fell into desuetude amongst the Is-
raelites ; but after the promised land was
actually possessed, it was renewed, and con-
tinued to be administered until the cere-

HIS BAPTISM. 53

monial law gave place to the fuller light of
the Gospel. It was incorporated with the
law, and indeed was the initiatory ordi-
nance by which a man became a partaker
of the privileges and blessings of the earlier
dispensation. But while this, in point of
fact, was what circumcision accomplished,
it was not really an essential means of
salvation; for in the Epistle to the Romans
we read that Abraham ' received the sign
of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness
of the faith which he had yet being un-
circumcised.' By the mere fact, how-
ever, of being circumcised, a man, under
the Old Testament dispensation, was laid
under the most solemn obligations to put
away the sins of the flesh, and put on the
fruits of the Spirit — in short, to serve and
obey God. And so in the Epistle to the
Galatians also we find the Apostle saying,
' I testify to every man that is circumcised,
that he is a debtor to do the whole law.'

Circumcision, then, being associated with
a law wThich, in its types and symbols,
found fulfilment in the sacrifice of Christ.

5-4 THE REDEEMER.

it was proper that, along with the cere-
monies of that law, it too should be abol-
ished. But while circumcision, which was
the seal of the covenant made with Abra-
ham, ceased to be observed, the covenant
itself, in its spirit and essence, remained, and
found a new seal in Christian baptism. Bap-
tism is the rite which introduces us to the
advantages aiid blessings of the Christian
dispensation ; and is to us, under the revela-
tion of the Gospel, what circumcision was
to those who lived under the old economy
of the law. If it be admitted, therefore, that
a man, by the initiatory rite of circumcision,
might be introduced to the Old Testament
economy, and still not find salvation, Ave are
bound also to conclude that one may be
introduced by Christian baptism to the privi-
leges of the New Testament Church, and
still remain unsaved. In the same Epistle
to the Galatians, the Apostle puts this be-
yond all dispute when he says, ; In Christ
Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything,
nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.'
It must not be thought, however, for

HIS BAPTISM, 55

one moment, that we account Christian bap-
tism a meaningless ceremony. On the con-
trary, we regard it as one of the profound-
est mysteries of our holy religion. In His
parting address to His disciples, our Lord
instituted this most sacred rite, saying, ' All
power is given unto Me in heaven and
in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost : teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you.'
Throughout the various dispensations of
which we have any knowledge, faith in the
eternal covenant of redemption was always
required of man. And so in connection
with Baptism in the Gospel dispensation
we find it written, ' Repent, and be baptized;'
' If thou believest with all thine heart, thou
mayest be baptized;' ' He that believeth, and
is baptized, shall be saved.'

Baptism is thus a seal of the Christian's
faith. But it is more than that: it is a sym-
bol of the Christian's high and holy calling.
In baptism we are planted in the likeness

56

THE REDEEMER.

of Christ's death. By that is meant the
submission of our will to the will of God in
the same spirit in which Christ submitted to
it. We are also in baptism planted in the
likeness of Christ's resurrection; that is, that
by His resurrection power we may rise to
newness of life. While faith, therefore, is
the pre-requisite of the baptismal covenant,
its one condition is faithfulness. We are
called to take up our cross and follow Christ,
— to renounce our own wills, — to suffer with
Christ, if we would reign with Him, — to die
to self, if we would rise with Christ to
newness of life. The power, observe, of
dying and rising with Christ is given to
us by covenant at baptism. The thing is
done, and yet to do; and the law is, that
in proportion as we become conformable to
the death of Christ, so does He impart
His resurrection power. This is the dis-
tinguishing nature and design of Christian
baptism.

I have said that, under every dispensation,
faith in the eternal covenant of redemption
has always been required on the part of

HIS BAPTISM. 57

man, and that baptism is the seal of the
Christian's faith on the part of Gocl. This
is clearly enough understood with regard
to an adult who seeks to be baptized.
But, it is asked, what of infants? How is
the covenant to be understood as applicable
to them ? Here faith, as a pre-requisite, is
not wanting. The parent, who in our Church
is almost always the sponsor, covenants with
God for his child, and assumes the responsi-
bilities implied in the covenant. If faith,
however, is not exercised, he has no right
whatever to take such a position and assume
such responsibilities. As a believer in Christ,
a parent — or whoever may be sponsor —
undertakes to bring up the child in the fear
and nurture and admonition of the Lord, —
in other words, he promises to lead him to
Christ, to whom in baptism he dedicates
him. And whenever the child is old enough
to understand the obligations undertaken
on his behalf, and personally believes in
Christ, it becomes his duty to assume those
responsibilities, and from that period be-
gins, in the history of the child, what was

H

58 THE REDEEMER

symbolized when he was baptized — viz., con-
formity to Christ's death and resurrection by
renouncing the world, crucifying the flesh,
resisting the devil, and living a godly, right-
eous, and sober life.

All this I have said to make at once
more interesting and more intelligible the
subject of our Lord's baptism by John, to
which I wish nowT especially to direct your
thoughts.

Our inquiry is, Why did Jesus come to
be baptized of John? He could not seek
the Baptism of John as the Baptism of
repentance, because He was Himself abso-
lutely holy — proved by His incarnation,
witnessed to by His whole life. But this
matter is put beyond the possibility of a
doubt by the colloquy between Him and
John, which virtually contains a disclaimer
by our Lord, that He sought John's Bap-
tism for the reasons which moved the mul-
titude to seek it. Whatever darkness there
may have been on the minds of the multi-
tude as to John, considered as the forerunner

HIS BAPTISM. 59

of the Messiah, it is evident, as we have
seen, that they quite understood the preach-
ing and Baptism of repentance. But the
answer of Christ to John's question — ' I
have need to be baptized of Thee, and
comest Thou to me ? ' — viz., ' Thus it
becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,'
plainly points to an exceptional reason for
the coming of Christ to the Baptism of John.
Now, what was that exceptional reason ?
Wherein lay the exceptional position of
Christ in reference to this matter? There
is every good ground for interpreting the
words ' all righteousness ' as meaning every
requirement of the ordinance of God. It is
in this interpretation that we are to see
the meaning of our Lord's resort to the
Baptism of John.

In the first place, we may believe that
our Lord intended that this act of obe-
dience to God's ordinance was becoming in
Him in relation to His mission, which was
throughout one of submission to all Divine
ordinances as man, and as the representative
of man. Let us consider what His whole

60 THE REDEEMER.

life was in this respect. His mission cer-
tainly was of the most exalted character,
yet in nothing did He claim exemption
from the common lot of men — not of humanity
in general merely, but from the common lot
of men in the circumstances in which, by
the Divine appointment, He was placed.
Thus He was contented to bear all that
was implied in the lowly circumstances of
His birth and parentage, — to be poor and
lowly, — to be submissive to His parents, —
to grow as others might do in bodily and
mental strength, — to fulfil all that was re-
quired of Him by the civil state of Jewish
society at the period, — as, for example, when
He paid tribute to the heathen Emperor at
Borne. In all things our Lord conformed to
the requirements of His position, whether
arising out of His natural or civil relations ;
in all things He was obedient to the Divine
ordinance, however that ordinance might be
expressed. Can we wonder, therefore, after
these considerations, that He should have
resorted to the Baptism of John? Was it
not in conformity with all we know of Him,

HIS BAPTISM. 61

that He should have gone forth to Jordan,
and willingly submitted to what we cannot
but believe was regarded by Him as a
Divine ordinance ? That He should do
this was a part of that obedience to the
will of His Father which characterized His
whole life.

This, I believe, is what we must under-
stand to be the meaning of our Lord's own
words, by which He put aside the remon-
strance of John against His coming to a
baptism which was emphatically and openly
understood as a ' Baptism of repentance.'
Our Lord needed no repentance; but sab-
mission was demanded of Him in everything
that man submitted to. Moreover, beyond
this submission to the Divine will, which
was the character of our Lord's whole life,
there seems to have been a special require-
ment for it in these two things, — in His
circumcision, which in one sense was not
needed, but in another — that of His being
1 made under the Law ' — was ; — and in His
baptism, not needed as significant of re-
pentance and remission of sins, but yet im-

62 THE REDEEMER,

perative as expressive of His implicit obedi-
ence to the Divine will. In short, in the
whole character and life of Christ we behold
submission to whatever was demanded by
the ceremonial, or natural, or civil relation-
ships of a human being in the circumstances
in which, by the Divine appointment, He was
placed. Altogether, we can see in this act
of submission the entire character of the life
of Christ, and the meaning of His own
words to the Baptist, ' Thus it becometh
us to fulfil all righteousness ' — every ordi-
nance of God.

Then, secondly, as matter of fact, the
baptism of Christ was the initial act of His
own public ministry. From this time He
ceased to be, as we may say, a private
person, and entered upon what is commonly
called His ' public ministry.' It has been
supposed that, by His baptism, our Lord in-
tended to furnish an example in His own
person of that which He enjoined as the ini-
tiatory rite of the Gospel dispensation. For
His command to His Apostles was, ' Go ye
therefore and teach all nations ; baptizing

HIS BAPTISM. 63

them into the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' However that
may be, there can be no doubt that it formed
the starting-point in His own public ministry;
and it is lawful for us to suppose, that it was
His Divine policy that, from its very com-
mencement, that ministry should have all
the advantage which could arise from the
alarm and agitation which the preaching
and Baptism of John undoubtedly had pro-
duced in the society amongst whom it was
to be exercised. I say it is lawful for us to
believe that the resort of Christ to the Bap-
tism of John had in it this important ele-
ment as a reason. At all events, we can
conceive that His public ministry obtained
an advantage, in its commencement, from
His identification with the work by which
His own forerunner had already created such
extensive popular attention and excitement.
In the third place, on the occasion of
our Lord's baptism by John, a Divine mani-
festation in Christ's favour was made, which
we cannot but pronounce as of incalculable
value in these three respects :

64 THE REDEEMER.

First, To John himself, inasmuch as it
confirmed whatever belief he had in the
Messiahship of Jesus. We read that ' he saw
the Spirit of God descending like a dove,
and lighting upon Him ; and lo a voice
from heaven saying, This is my beloved
son, in whom I am well pleased.' The Bap-
tist possibly understood the words of Jesus
to imply, that by His baptism He was to be
solemnly and publicly inaugurated into His
office, and that His public ministry was to
commence from that time. But the Baptist,
it would appear, had some doubts regarding
Jesus, whether indeed He was the promised
One of whom he was the forerunner. Now,
however, he had the certainty of His Mes-
siahship by the testimony of heaven.

Secondly, It was invaluable to the multi-
tude through John. It was the Baptist's
exalted privilege to introduce the Saviour
to the world, which he did in words with
which we are all familiar : ' Behold the Lamb
of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world.' This was a short time after His
baptism and temptation in the wilderness.

HIS BAPTISM. 65

And the Baptist added to this striking
introduction of Christ the remarkable testi-
mony, ' And I knew Him not : but He
that sent me to baptize with water, the
same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt
see the Spirit descending and remaining on
Him, the same is He which baptizeth with
the Holy Ghost ; and I saw and bare record
that this is the Son of God.' Can we fail
to perceive, how in the Divine arrangements
whereby Christ has become so extensively
known and received as the Lamb of God,
this testimony was most valuable, not only
to John himself, but to those to whom he
spoke, or to whom his words might be re-
ported ? In this view, therefore, the baptism
of Christ must be regarded as a most im-
portant circumstance in the success of His
mission among the people to whom He first
came, and also to the world at large.

And this leads me to say,

Thirdly, That this testimony, on the occa-
sion of Christ's baptism, is invaluable, con-
sidered historically ; that is, to the Church
in all time. We all know how valuable

66 THE REDEEMER.

is the testimony that Christ is the Son of
God, in whom God is well pleased. This
was the witness borne so unequivocally by
the voice from heaven on the occasion of
His baptism; and this witness is all the
more important when we regard it as we
ought to do as our Lord's submission to an
ordinance which, though in its general accep-
tation as the Baptism of repentance, could
have no application to Him, yet in its
accompanying circumstances has been the
support and solace of the Church in all ages
of its history, and will be to the end.

Having said this much to show the rea-
son in our Lord's mind, and the importance,
in every point of view, of this submission
to baptism by His own forerunner, may I
not say now, what a glorious exhibition we
have here of the Trinity of God acquiescing
in the plan of salvation, — the Son in hu-
man form standing in the waters of the
sacred river, — the Spirit of God descending
upon Him in the form of a dove, — and the
Father witnessing with an audible voice

HIS BAPTISM. 67

from heaven, that Jesus is indeed His Son,
in whom He is well pleased?

There are one or two points of a prac-
tical nature which this subject suggests, and
which I would set before you very briefly
in conclusion.

In the first place, look at the Baptist. Is
there anything about you like him? How
devoted he was to his mission, — how humble
withal! When priests and Levites came to
him at Bethabara, asking ' Who art thou ? '
he replied, ' I am not the Christ. I am
not worthy to unloose the latchet of
Christ's shoe.' See him before Herod. Oh,
how faithful — witnessing for Christ even
unto death ! What a splendid character
was John ! Our Lord Himself said of him,
1 Among them that are born of woman there
hath not risen a greater than John the
Baptist.' Is there anything about you like
what was displayed by John ? Do you wit-
ness for Christ?

But further, our Lord adds, ' Notwith-
standing, he that is least in the kingdom

68 THE REDEEMER.

of heaven is greater than he.' We are
living under the economy of the Gospel.
Do we really acknowledge the obligations
of the Gospel? The fact of being bap-
tized into the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, has
brought you into covenant with Christ, and
into the Church in which are great and
precious privileges and promises. But I in-
quire, Are you fulfilling your part of the
covenant? Have you repentance and faith?
— in other words, Do you really believe
in Christ, and are you partakers of the pro-
mises of the Gospel ? The mere fact of
being baptized can avail a man nothing, if
he lives practically as if there were no God,
no Christ, no Holy Spirit, no eternity. Cir-
cumcision under the Old Testament economy
was of no value whatever to the man who
violated the covenant. In his Epistle to
the Romans, St Paul says, ' For he is not a
Jew which is one outwardly ; neither is that
circumcision which is outward in the flesh :
but he is a Jew which is one inwardly ; and
circumcision is that of the heart, in the

HIS BAPTISM 69

spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise
is not of men, but of God.' Now we may
say, with equal truth, that he is not a
Christian who is one outwardly ; neither is
that baptism which is outward in the flesh.
But he is a Christian who is one in-
wardly; and baptism is that of the heart,
in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose
praise is not of men, but of God. There is
often a tremendous inconsistency betwixt the
high and holy doctrines of the Gospel, and
the earthly and unholy lives of many profess-
ing Christians. Inquire at yourselves then,
individually, How is it with me? Have I
only a name to live while I am really dead ?
Called by my baptism into the fellowship
of Christ's people, am I yet walking un-
worthy of my high vocation? In a word,
is my Christian profession a profession only ?
And lastly, under all the dispensations,
life has come to the soul by faith. We are
not called upon to work for life; we are to
receive it. It is a gift purchased by Christ,
and freely offered to us in the Gospel. But
observe, we are to work from life. I would

70 THE REDEEMER.

only be trifling with the soul of an uncon-
verted man were I to say to him, Deny your-
self, my brother ; — take up your cross, and
follow Jesus Christ. But to a man who is
justified by faith, and has peace with God in
Christ, this is precisely what ought to be
said. In a spiritual sense, conversion is
what baptism symbolizes. It makes a man
a Christian really, as baptism does by pro-
fession— not a Christian in the complete
sense, but still a Christian in heart; for
he is born again, and is a true member of
Christ. But after conversion comes faith-
fulness to baptismal engagements — dying to
self, and living unto God through Christ's
indwelling.

See that you realise fully your position
before God as baptized souls. This brief
life of ours is fast passing away, and when
it is passed there is no returning to start
afresh. Let me entreat you to beware of
substituting anything outward for Christ's
hidden life in the soul; or of acknowledg-
ing with your lips your belief in the high
doctrines of the Gospel, while your hearts

HIS BAPTISM. 71

are in the world. Christianity is a life, not
a mere act or observance. Seek for that
life. It comes by the blood of Christ. Pray
for the Holy Spirit to form Christ in you
the hope of glory, and you will most surely
display the fruits of His indwelling. Con-
secrate yourselves to Christ and to His glory.
Pray for the spirit implied in the words —

' To do or not to do, to have

Or not to have, I leave with Thee ;

To be or not to be, I leave :
Thy only will be done in me !

All my requests are lost in one —

Father ! Thine only will be done.

' Welcome alike the crown, the cross !

Trouble I cannot ask, nor peace ;
Nor toil, nor rest, nor gain, nor loss,

Nor joy, nor grief, nor pain, nor ease,
Nor life, nor death ; but every groan —
Father ! Thine only will be done.'

ttttvat Iljtrlt.

THE REDEEMER-HIS CRUCIFIXION.

He bowed His bead, and gave op the ghost.'— John xix. 30.

!■!■! TTT~

■8 l-'-l B tT

LECTURE III.

THE REDEEMER-

HIS CRUCIFIXION

MMEDIATELY after His baptism,
our Lord was led by the Spirit into
the wilderness, where He remained
for forty days. During this period He was
tempted of the devil and overcame him.
He was also ministered unto by angels.
Afterwards He returned to the banks of the
Jordan. The Baptist, when he saw Jesus
coining, directed the attention of his hearers
to Him, saying, ' Behold the Lamb of God
which taketh away the sin of the world;'
and then proceeded to explain how he had
witnessed the Spirit descending upon Him
like a dove from heaven, and how Jesus had
been revealed to him as the Son of God.
Yet no one as vet followed Jesus.

76 THE REDEEMER,

The day after, while in company with
Andrew and another disciple — probably the
disciple whom Jesus loved — the Baptist said
to them again, ' Behold the Lamb of God.'
The two disciples immediately followed Jesus,
and remained with Him that day.

Very soon our Lord began to gather
disciples. Andrew brought his brother Peter.
Jesus Himself, having 'found Philip, bade
him follow Him. And again, Philip brought
Nathaniel, who — despite all his prejudices —
was forced, in the fulness of his conviction,
to acknowledge, ' Master, Thou art the Son
of God, Thou art the King of Israel.'

Thus our Lord commenced His public
ministry, and remained chiefly in the neigh-
bourhood of the Jordan until the Baptist's
imprisonment. He then proceeded northward
to the busy towns of Galilee, with the view
of prosecuting more actively His labours.
During the early part of this period He for-
mally ordained the twelve apostles who were
His personal attendants.

In the previous Lecture I observed that
the Jewish people expected that the Messiah

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 77

would establish a temporal kingdom. While
they recognised Jesus, therefore, as a Rabbi,
and permitted Him to preach in their syna-
gogues ; and while many of them even were
proud of Him as a prophet and a worker of
mighty deeds, yet they refused to acknow-
ledge Him as the Messiah. Everything about
Him seemed at variance with their precon-
ceived notions. His birth, and family, and
station, his meekness and gentleness, were
all stumblingblocks to them. Though His
soul was full of love and benevolence to
man, yet He was misunderstood, and called
a Sabbath-breaker and a blasphemer. His
own brethren even believed not in Him.

Now, one of the grand objects of our
Lord's mission to the earth was to remove,
by personal teaching, the dark shades of
ignorance from the minds of men, by
pointing out the principles of Divine truth
which were needful to be known and be-
lieved. He came to reveal the Father, and
to teach that He was the only commis-
sioned way to the Father, — or, as He Him-
self declared in the Temple, ' I am the light

78 THE REDEEMER.

of the world;' ' I and my Father are one.'
Yet it was very gradually that our Lord
gave indications of His Messiahship.

Our Lord's favourite mode of address
was by parable. Indeed, we are told with-
out a parable spake He not unto the people.
This method of teaching, though simple,
was always attractive, and always attended
with power. The common people heard
Him gladly, and glorified God, saying, that
a great prophet was risen among them, and
that God had visited His people. Even the
officers whom the Sanhedrim sent to arrest
Jesus could not lay hands upon Him ; and,
on being questioned on their return why
they had not brought Him, they replied,
' Never man spake like this man.'

But if our Lord's words came with power,
so also did His works. His miracles were
revelations not merely about the Father, but
manifestations of His Own oneness with the
Father.

Christ manifested His power over nature
and the great enemy. He also showed His
benevolence bv healing disease in all its

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 79

forms, and by raising the dead. A word,
a look even was enough. On one occasion
messengers came to Him from the Baptist
with the inquiry, 'Art thou He that should
come, or look we for another?' Appealing
to His miracles, our Lord replied, ' Go your
way, and tell John what things ye have
seen and heard ; how that the blind see, the
lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf
hear, the dead are raised.'

Still, it was not merely to reveal the
Father, and to give testimony by the mighty
works which He performed, that He Him-
self was the Messiah, — it was not merely
to do this that the Son of God appeared
upon earth. He came to offer up the sacri-
fice of Himself as an atonement for the
sin of the world. From the beginning this
object was kept steadily before His mind. A
few months after He had entered upon His
public ministry, He twice referred to it.
First in the words to Nicodemus — ' As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even
so must the Son of man be lifted up.' Again
in the words to the people — ' Destroy this

80 THE REDEEMER.

temple, and in three days I will build it
up again.' And about a year afterwards,
while He was transfigured upon the Mount,
there talked with Him two men, who were
Moses and Elias — the former the represen-
tative of the law, the latter the representa-
tive of the prophets — and testified that it
was a Messiah who should suffer, whom the
law and the prophets had foretold : ' They
spake of His decease, which He should ac-
complish at Jerusalem/

But the Jewish people, although alive to
a Messiah who should conquer, were blind
to one who should suffer ; yet both were
foretold. At length the time drew nigh, and
our Lord steadfastly set His face to go to
Jerusalem. Knowing how the city swarmed
with enemies, His disciples were alarmed.
But our Lord took the twelve aside, and
said unto them, ' Behold, we go up to Jeru-
salem : and the Son of man shall be be-
trayed unto the chief priests and unto the
scribes ; and they shall condemn Him to
death, and shall deliver Him to the Gen-
tiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 81

Him, and the third day He shall rise again.'
But being still full of the thought of a tem-
poral kingdom and of a conquering Mes-
siah, the disciples even understood none of
these things.

Every step of our Lord's career, which
had been foretold centuries before, was
actually fulfilled by Him. Of this parti-
cular crisis the prophet had written, * Tell
ye the daughter of Zion, Behold thy King
cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an
ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass.' As He
drew nigh to the city, the ass is found, and
the colt with her. The disciples ' brought
him to Jesus ; and they cast their garments
upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon.'
Multitudes followed. Meanwhile Jerusalem
was ringing with the news that the Messiah
was coming. Many therefore left the city,
and met the procession at Bethphage. In
their joy some tore down branches from the
palm trees, and waved them, crying, ' Ho-
sanna!' while others strewed branches, and
spread even their garments on the ground

82 THE REDEEMER.

before Him, — the cry being still repeated,
' Hosanna ! Hosanna ! blessed be the King
that cometh in the name of the Lord.'

But how soon was all this changed ! The
loyalty of the crowd, with the proverbial
fickleness of a crowd, was of brief dura-
tion. Indeed, it immediately wavered in
presence of a suffering Messiah. Thus the
very people who had come with Jesus
to Jerusalem, in whose hearing He had
spoken many marvellous words, and before
whose eyes He had performed many mar-
vellous deeds, — the very people who had,
only a few days before, sung Hosanna,
now began to desert Him. When they
found it was not as a king to sit upon
the throne of David that He had come,
they were filled with disappointment and
resentment, and were just in that frame
of mind in which a spark would set their
passions in a blaze. This, in a great mea-
sure, explains what happened soon afterwards,
when they so readily took up the cry which
His bitter and vindictive enemies put into
their mouth, ' Away with Him ! crucify

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 83

Him ! crucify Him ! ' The conspiracies and
plots of these same enemies — the Scribes,
and Pharisees, and rulers of the people —
were hastening on the momentous end. His
time was come, and their time was come —
the ' hour and the power of darkness.' He
had come to Jerusalem, not to reign as a
king, but to die. The Divine Sacrifice was
ready to be offered up.

Having partaken, therefore, of the pascal
feast with His disciples, and having insti-
tuted the sacramental rite, which was to
continue in His Church in remembrance of
Him until He should come again, our Lord
and His disciples repaired to the Mount of
Olives. Here, in ' dark Gethsemane,' He
poured out His soul to His Father with
strong crying and tears. Here He prayed,
' Father, if Thou be willing, remove this
cup from Me : nevertheless not My will, but
Thine, be done.' And the answer was
an angel from heaven strengthening Him.
Here being in an agony, His sweat was as
it were great drops of blood falling down
to the ground. Then came the kiss of

84 THE REDEEMER.

Judas, and the arrest of Jesus, — the denial
of Him by one disciple, and the desertion
of Him by all, — the unjust trial and con-
demnation in the Jewish and Roman courts,
— the indignities and insults to which He
was subjected — the crown of thorns — the
purple robe — the mock allegiance of the sol-
diers — the scourging, — the words to the
women who bewailed Him while He bent
beneath the weight of His cross, — the parting
of His garments, — the crucifixion, and the
blaspheming taunts of the onlookers, — the
episode of the two thieves who were crucified
with Him, and the reply to one of them
who appealed to Him for help and remem-
brance— ' To-day shalt thou be with Me in
Paradise,' — the darkness of nature, — the cries
of our Lord — His Spirit being in mortal
agony, — and finally, His last exclamation,
uttered with a loud voice, ' It is finished ! '
which proclaimed the victory won — the glo-
rious work accomplished — and * He bowed
His head, and gave up the ghost.'

This subject is beyond all argument.

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 85

Indeed, it is the one of all others which
makes us feel the utter powerlessness of
human words, even imperfectly to deal with
it. Mysteries there are which we can but
dimly grasp, — truths so vast that we can
but faintly comprehend them. The mysteri-
ous truth on which we are now called upon
to meditate seems infinitely to surpass our
powers of conception, and to overwhelm our
capacity of realization. The last act in the
awful drama, at which angels and men stand
amazed, is finished.

The work accomplished by the death
of Christ as our Eedeemer, was in effect
finished from all eternity. Christ was
the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world, although the conditions betwixt
the Father and the Son were not fulfilled
on the part of the latter until He actually
came into the world and died. The cup of
woe was now, however, drained to the very
dregs. ' It is finished,' He said — finished the
glorious pledge and proof of the eternal
longings for man's good — the pain of con-
descending to man's estate — the suffering

86 THE REDEEMER.

in that estate from the cradle to the cross
— the fast and vigil that wore out His
sacred body — all horror and anguish of
soul — all that types foreshadowed and pro-
phets foretold — all miracles — all attestations
of Divine power and of His own divinity — all
prophesyings of man's malice and His own
death — all is finished ! No more shall He
learn obedience by the things He suffered.
No more shall thirst and hunger be His
portion. No more shall His soul be oppressed
by the deepest of all agonies — the withdrawal
of His Father's face. All is over. It is
all finished. ' He bowed His head, and gave
up the ghost.'

We speak of death as the culmination of
a man's life, of his plans and purposes, his
ambitions and rivalries, his hopes and fears,
his joys and sorrows. But this death, of
what was it the culmination? What mar-
vellous purpose and works had in it their
end? Christ died the just for the unjust, that
He might bring us unto God. And His death
was voluntary. Men have tried to show this,
by the very expressions used in the text.

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 87

' He bowed His head,' as if in this He gave
Himself up to the last end ; and ' He dis-
missed His spirit,' as if by this it is shown
that it was not wrung from Him by compul-
sion, but was freely surrendered as a man
might, by his own will breathe out his breath.
But methinks it needs not this to prove that
our Lord died voluntarily. In these expres-
sions there may be this meaning, but we need
not rest the mighty truth on these alone.
There is a wider field on which to rest it, —
Christ's whole mission and character — what
He came to do, and what he actually did —
all moving to this end, not to the will of
others, but by His own will, in submission
to, and in harmony with, His Father's will
from everlasting.

There have been many theories pro-
pounded about the death of Christ. You
know what is the doctrine of our Church
upon this subject — viz., that Christ, as our
Representative and Substitute, gave Himself
an offering and sacrifice to God ; and that
by His death He made a complete atonement
for sin. And I need hardly say, after the

88

THE REDEEMER.

teaching of years from this place, how fully
my own mind has adopted this theory. I
say theory, but I use the word in no dis-
paragement of the doctrine of the Church,
which I hold and value above all price; but
that I may the more distinctly and clearly
express wThat I believe to be the thing — the
essential thing — for you, and me, and all men,
whatever theory may be held — viz., that
Christ died for our sins, — that His death was
the appointment of God for that purpose, —
and that through His death alone can we be
saved. Jesus died for us. This is the great
and glorious truth that we have to rest upon
as sinners, as rational and immortal creatures.
Now observe, in the first place, that the
death of Christ was needed. The very fact
that Jesus died implies the necessity for
dying. Man had fallen, and could not save
himself. In order to establish this, we mast
go back to the time when the relations
betwixt God and our first parents were
severed — when, by their disobedience, they
violated the covenant which God made with
them, and involved themselves and all their

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 89

posterity in utter helplessness and ruin. To
meet this exigency, the eternal purpose was
declared, and in the fulness of time actually
was manifested : ' God sent forth His Son,
made of a woman, made under the law,
to redeem them that were under the law.'
It pleased the Father, in His sovereign
mercy, to send His Son to seek and to
save that which was lost.

But it was not the life of Christ merely
that was needed for the purpose of man's
salvation : it was essentially His death ; and
when I say needed, it must not be under-
stood that the death of Christ was needed
in order to appease the wrath of the Father ;
for is it not written, ' God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish
but have everlasting life ?' Yet it was
not a martyr's death. Emphatically it was
a death for us — for our sins — in what-
ever way you may explain the fact. Men
have yielded up their lives as the necessary
result, as we say, of a life-long struggle for
some great cause. In such cases the death

M

90 THE REDEEMER.

has been the fitting end of a sincere life ; and
we may call it the necessary end, looking
to the hostility amidst which the life-long
advocacy was carried on. But not in this
sense do we pronounce the death of Christ
as necessary. It was needed for an end —
that of man's salvation — which through it
alone could be accomplished. In common
martyrdom, the death of violence has only
a negative character. It is but the end
violently accomplished of the life of which
alone we can predicate the positive. But the
death of Christ had in it all of positive we
can conceive of. It was an act which carried
in its train all of positive that is included
in the words salvation for man — salvation to
the uttermost, — all of blessing, and comfort,
and everlasting happiness which we are accus-
tomed to associate with these words.

Again, secondly, the death of Christ was
the crowning act of submission and obedience to
His Father's will. It was foretold of Christ in
the volume of the Book that He should come
to do the will of God. And when the fulness
of the time was come. He left the adorations

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 91

of heaven, where He had been with the
Father from all eternity, and took upon
Him the form of a servant, and made Him-
self of no reputation. ' He crossed the whole
diameter of existence to bind Himself with
His own opposite.' He was born in a low
estate, wras circumcised, was subject to His
parents, and sought baptism at the hands
of John. He experienced fatigue, and hunger,
and thirst, and privation ; — ' The foxes . have
holes,' He Himself said, ' and the birds of
the air have nests, but the Son of man hath
not where to lay His head.' He was despised
and rejected of men ; a man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief. He submitted to be
buffeted, and spit upon, and called a deceiver,
a gluttonous man, a wine-bibber, and a
sinner. His own words were, — ' My meat
is to do the will of Him that sent me,
and finish His work ; ' — ' I have a baptism
to be baptized with, and how am I strait-
ened till it be accomplished ! ' — ' Now is my
soul troubled; and what shall I say? Fa-
ther, save Me from this hour; but for this
cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify

92

THE REDEEMER.

Thy name ; ' — ' If it be possible, let this cup
pass from Me; nevertheless not My will,
but Thine be clone.' In His life, our Lord
yielded entire submission to the will of the
Father; and in His death we have the crown-
ing act of that submission.

In contemplating the death of Christ, we
are apt, for the most part, to fix our thoughts
upon the bodily sufferings which He endured ;
whereas it was chiefly in His soul that He
experienced anguish and suffering, and sub-
mitted to the wTill of the Father, and made
atonement for sin. The agony of the soul
more than that of the body is the sinner's
portion ; and though our dear Lord could
not really endure what the sinner was
doomed to endure, inasmuch as He could
know nothing experimentally of the stings
of an accusing conscience, the bitterness of
remorse, the anguish of despair, and the like ;
yet the fact is manifest, in whatever way it
may be explained, that His sufferings of soul
were infinitely more intense than those of the
body. It is evident it was not bodily torture
He was suffering, but deep and unutterable

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 93

agony of soul, when in Gethsemane He ex-
claimed, ' My soul is exceeding sorrowful
even unto death ! ' and when ' His sweat was
as it were great drops of blood falling down
to the ground.' It was not the mere suffer-
ing of a painful and ignominious death that
He endured on the cross. Others both before
and since have been subjected to torture of
body at least as great. History furnishes us
with innumerable examples, and in many
cases records the triumphs in which martyrs
have gone to the scaffold and the stake. In
the moment of death they experienced the
presence of God, and were strengthened by
the consolations of the Spirit to give utter-
ance to expressions of transport. The very
place from which they passed to God often
became radiant with heavenly glory. But it
was not thus with Christ in death. There
was something here — sometimes described as
' the hidings of His Father's face ' — which we
are as utterly unable to comprehend as we
are to describe. Who is able to sound the
depths of that mysterious woe and desola-
tion which darkly swept across His soul, and

94

THE REDEEMER.

wrung from Him that great and exceeding
bitter cry, ' My God ! my God ! why hast
Thou forsaken me ? ' Yes, it was in His
soul Christ suffered most; and it was His
making His soul an offering for sin that
above all was the crowning act of submission
and obedience to His Father's will.

But once more the death of Christ was
sufficient. The whole tenor of the apostolical
epistles is without question to the effect that
the death of Christ wras sufficient to deliver
the sinner from the dreadful consequences of
the fall; and moreover, we have the witness
of all Christians, and of the Church in all
ages, in the same direction.

By His death Christ made a full and
perfect atonement for sin. And it is the
very glory of the Gospel that He receiveth
sinners. But while this is true, salvation
depends upon a certain condition, which the
sinner may comply with or not — viz., faith
in Christ, that no flesh may glory in His
presence. Thus, when the sinner believes
in Christ, he accepts the benefits of re-
demption, which were purchased by Him,

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 95

and takes his position before God as a re-
deemed soul. Salvation is offered without
money and without price. It is the office
of the Holy Spirit to convince the world of
sin ; and the more aggravated the guilt, the
more anxiously does the Spirit strive. If
any man, therefore, remains unsaved, the
blame is his own ; he has not with a grateful
heart believed the Gospel, which is the power
of God unto salvation. When we are first
aroused to a sense of our danger, one of
our earliest thoughts is to endeavour to do
something to win the favour of God. In his.
extremity the jailer cried, ' Sirs, what must
I do to be saved?' And it is not until the
awakened soul feels itself powerless — utterly
lost and ruined — that it casts itself in simple
trust into the arms of Christ. We cannot
save ourselves. Indeed, there is no need —
Jesus died for our sins — the atonement is suf-
ficient. Salvation is wrought out for us ; we
have simply to accept of it — we can never
merit it. Oh ! if only the sufficiency of the
death of Christ were clearly understood; — if
only the blessed truth that sin has been

96 THE REDEEMER.

fully atoned for were realized and accepted,
we should soon hear from the one end of the
earth to the other the triumphant shout,
* Unto Him that loved us, and washed us
from our sins in His own blood, be glory
and dominion for ever and ever ! '

But observe further, that Christ's death
was sufficient not merely to deliver us from
the effects of the fall, but to make us one
icith Him, even as He is one with the Father.
By His sufferings and death Christ redeemed
the race. Not with corruptible things, as
silver and gold, but with His own most pre-
cious blood, has He ransomed them from the
power of Satan, that they might serve and
obey Him in newness of life; and that He
might purify unto Himself a peculiar people,
zealous of good works. Thus, while salvation
belongs to us by faith in Christ, the glorious
privilege of oneness with Christ, even as He
is one with the Father, is the result of faith-
fulness ; and in proportion as the saved soul
realizes the truth that he is not his ow^n but
Christ's, by the closest of all possible ties, so
does he deny himself for Christ, and take

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 97

up his cross and follow Christ, and work
out his salvation with fear and trembling.

These three points, then — viz., that the
death of Christ was needed, that it was the
crowning act of submission to the will of
the Father, and that it was sufficient — are
consistent, I take it, with all theories of the
Christian Church upon the death of Christ,
and I recommend them to your most earnest
and devout consideration.

But let me recall you to the scene of the
crucifixion, and the contemplation of the
marvellous spectacle on Calvary.

Death by crucifixion was known and
practised by many of the ancient nations,
and notably by the Romans, at whose hands
our Lord was now suffering. I need not stop
to describe how upon His condemnation the
fierce soldiers — having ruthlessly placed the
body upon the transverse beam — drove the
nails into the hands and feet, and then
placed the cross in the ground.

Over the cross of one crucified it was
customary to place his accusation — the crime

98

THE REDEEMER.

of which he had been accused, and for which
he had been condemned to die — whatever it
Pilate, therefore, wrote a title in He-

was.

brew and Greek and Latin, and put it on
the cross of Jesus : the writing, according
to the Evangelist John, was, ' Jesus of Naza-
reth, the King of the Jews.''

I shall not speak of the six hours of
dreadful agony which our Lord endured
while He hung suspended upon the cross,
nor of the blaspheming taunts which were
hurled towards Him by the chief priests,
and elders, and scribes. I shall not speak of
the Divine portents — the sympathy of all
nature with the Sufferer — the gloom and
darkness which hung over the land. I wish
to fix your thought upon this truth only,
that the great Teacher and Worker of
miracles, the loving Friend and wise Coun-
sellor, is dead. Oh, what a marvellous con-
clusion to a life which throbbed with every-
thing that was kind and good and holy !

It is a striking characteristic of our
nature, that when we gaze upon the dead
form of an earthlv friend, all the love that

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 99

is in us comes forth. How much more
should this be so when we gaze upon Him
who loved us, and who — when we were yet
sinners ■ — gave Himself up to die for us !
What a lesson of love and gratitude do we
gather from the group who are still linger-
ing around Calvary ! How beautiful, while
one disciple betrayed our Lord, and another
denied Him, and all for a time forsook
Him and fled, that one returned and took
up his position at the foot of the cross!
How very beautiful too, and touching, that
the Marys should cling to Him to the last,
and mingle their tears of sorrow and sym-
pathy with His agony of suffering ! What
courage to make their way through the
crowd, and station themselves also at the
foot of the cross ! They were not ignorant
of the danger to which they were exposed,
but nothing could deter them from giving
to their Divine Master even then and there
this pledge of their love. The poet, on
this very subject, has thus expressed him-
self,—

100

THE REDEEMER.

Peruse the sacred volume. Him who died
Her kiss betrayed not, nor her tongue denied;
For while Apostles even left Him to his doom,
She lingered round the cross, and watch'd the tomb.'

It hath been said, that the noblest linea-
ments of woman's nature shine brightest
as the shadows of life grow darker. It is
then — in pain and anguish and woe — that
she rises to the sublime glory of her true
character, and becomes indeed a ministering
angel. What a splendid example we have
of this in the scene before us !

We now come to consider this subject more
directly in its bearing upon ourselves — upon
each of us personally.

What is the great practical lesson to be
learned from this subject? It is this: — that
we may ever be inspired with, and manifest
the spirit in which, Christ died, as the actuat-
ing spirit of our life.

As I have already said, our Lord's suffer-
ings were endured by Him as the ordinance
of God. And in this respect our sufferings are
not different, — thev also are the ordinance of

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 101

God. Without disparagement to what is
usually understood by the words of resigna-
tion, ' The will of the Lord be done,' there
is undoubtedly vastly more implied in them
than a mere submission to the inevitable,
which is often all that is meant by those who
quote them. These words imply — and this is
in truth the highest privilege (ay, and bless-
ing too) of a Christian — suffering in sympathy
with Christ, and in His spirit. This is what
is meant by entering into the fellowship of
Christ's sufferings — sympathising with Him
wThen we think of His sufferings, and desir-
ing, above all things, to be brought to that
blessed frame of mind, when we shall be
enabled to bear our sufferings in the same
spirit in which He bore His.

Consider this thought a little more closely.
What is the profound reason for that in-
terest which for ages men of various edu-
cation, civilization, and habits of thought
have taken in Christ? I answer emphati-
cally, it is because He is presented as a
suffering man. Why is it that the most
gorgeous pageants of kings and conquerors

102 THE REDEEMER.

are read by us with a sensational interest
that lasts hardly longer than our reading
of the record? They leave no trace be-
hind in our interests or our sympathies.
They have left none in the interests or the
sympathies of any people. They pass away
as if they had never been. But suffering !
this remains deep graven in the hearts of
men, moulding and fashioning their permanent
sentiments, and thence their life. Look to
it in the instances of the personages whose
lives and deeds the Bible records. Who cares
aught for the magnificence — and we wrill grant
you the material prosperity — of the reign of
Solomon ? But Joseph and his trials, — Moses
and his trials, — David and his trials, — the
prophets pouring out their wail of sorrow
over a people undone by their sins, denounc-
ing the judgment that must come, laying-
bare their lacerated hearts before their people
— before us, — this is what has moved the
heart of humanity, and moves us, and will
move men to the end of time. And thus
it is with the sufferings of our blessed Lord
and Saviour. I speak not now of the sacri-

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 10.3

ficial element which they involve. I speak
of the moral force which has been in them
for human hearts and lives. For more than
eighteen centuries they have been the mov-
ing power, the grandest, the most effectual,
as to moral issues, in the heart of nations
and of individual men. We cannot think
of them without emotions sublimely un-
selfish— loftily good. We cannot think of
them without desiring that our sentiments
and our lives may ever run in the direction
in which they move us ; and without feeling
that nothing can in any conceivable way be
so good for us, as that our sufferings, which,
as I have said, are the ordinance of God,
may always be borne by us in sympathy with
Christ in His sufferings, and in the spirit of
His meek yet lofty endurance. See how the
Apostle Paul had caught this spirit, as when
he exclaims, ' We glory in tribulations.'
1 Most gladly, therefore, will I glory in mine
infirmities.' On this subject the Apostle
Peter also says, ' For even hereunto were
ye called : because Christ also suffered for
us, leaving us an example.'

104 THE REDEEMER.

Now Christ's example may be expressed
in one word — submission to God. For the
most part this is regarded as something
purely negative, and theologians have drawn
a distinction between the active obedience
and the submission of Christ. I have no
desire to question this distinction. I only
wish to say that the submission of Christ
has always seemed to me to have had
of necessity a distinctly positive character.
He submitted to the will of God ; was it
possible for Him to do so without an
active preference for the will of God, to
what the weakness of His human nature
might have inclined Him to? What virtue
could there be in His submission, unless we
understand it as the positive compliance
with the ordinance of God, however tortur-
ing to flesh and blood? And so of such a
character is all true Christian submission to
any Divine ordinance. If our life is to be
Christ-like, it must be a life of self-denial, of
self-sacrifice; and such a life under any known
Christian condition must denote the positive
exercise of our will against — not such sinless

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 105

weakness as might be in Christ — but against
all sinful desires and affections. All this I
hold to be contained in the exhortations to
crucify the flesh — to give ourselves a living-
sacrifice to God — to die daily unto daily
sin.

And now let us inquire individually, Does
my heart go out in love and gratitude to
Christ Jesus who died for me ? Have I
accepted of Him by a thankful, confiding
act of the soul? Am I trusting in Him,
and in His sacrifice alone? It is a miser-
able and fatal delusion to think, as many
do, that anything else — anything they can
do — can procure or merit salvation. But do
you say — ' I am so wicked ; ' — or, — ' I have
not repented enough ; ' — or, — ' I am doing-
all I can for my soul?' These expressions
may appear to be very good. They may
have even a show of humility, but in reality
they are very bad thoughts, and very dis-
honouring to our heavenly Father. You
may have some general notions regarding
the death of Christ ; but until, by the in-

106 THE REDEEMER.

fluence and power of the Holy Spirit, you
make Christ's death yours, you are still
in the gall of bitterness and in the bond
of iniquity ; whereas, on the other hand,
you may have doubts and difficulties regard-
ing what I might term the minor truths or
doctrines of Holy Scripture, — you may be
regarded as unsound, and called even an
heretic ; but if you hold fast by the truth
that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, died for
you, and if you claim your position as a
redeemed soul before God, you have made
yours what is essential — the one thing need-
ful; you have built upon a rock against
which the gates of hell can never prevail.

My unconverted brother, Jesus loves you !
May the Holy Spirit of God imprint this
truth upon your heart! Jesus loves you!
Can you gaze upon the cross of Jesus and
doubt that He loves you ? In Him, too,
God the Father has done His utmost for
you. You offend and grieve Him by refusing
or neglecting to accept of the atonement of
Christ. But although you have hitherto
refused or neglected Christ, God does not

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 107

abandon you. He loves you still, and mourns
over your obduracy and hardness of heart.
There is one thing above all others that
grieves Him — one thing above all others He
has against you — you have despised and rejected
His Son. Oh ! let this no longer be your
condemnation ! Turn from the error of your
ways. Turn unto the Lord, and He will
have mercy upon you; and to our God, for
He will abundantly pardon. He loves you !
He has proved it by the gift of His Son for
you. He strives with you by His Spirit — by
His providential dealings with you — by His
goodness and severity — by trials and afflic-
tions. Yes, God loves you ! Can you burst
this girdle of holy charity? Can you con-
template Jesus, with arms outstretched in
death, and refuse to yield yourself up to
Him? You have the power to give your-
self. Whatever your temptations and sins
are, you have the power. The Holy Spirit
gives you the power when, with a reso-
lute act of the will, you give yourself up,
in love and gratitude, to Jesus Christ. But
do you say, I can do nothing of myself?

108 THE REDEEMER.

The man with the withered hand knew that
he was powerless to use his hand ; but
when he was commanded by Jesus to stretch
it out he obeyed, and experienced an in-
stantaneous cure. How easy this ! Yet how
difficult it seems to the soul untaught of
God ! But the difficulty is with the sinner
himself, and not with God.

I have heard the humble circumstances —
and especially the shame and cruelty to
which our Lord was subjected in His life
and death — given as a reason for man's
lukewarmness and indifference. But I rather
think it is in consequence of what the adop-
tion of the cross of Christ demands. It is
the doctrine of the cross, and not the cross
itself — the doctrine of salvation by the sacri-
fice of Christ as God's free gift, — it is this
that men stumble at. The sinner will do
anything to obtain salvation rather than
accept it as a free gift.

Oh ! let us put away our wilfulness ! Let
us yield ourselves up to Christ, and let us
cultivate a loving obedience to Him ! This

HIS CRUCIFIXION. 109

is the day of our merciful visitation. It is
drawing to its close. The end may be we
know not how soon. Let us see that we
are not resting our hopes in ourselves, or
upon a mere theory. There is no hope
apart from Christ.

It is curious that men upon their death-
bed, even those who have committed them-
selves most argumentatively to theories about
the death of Christ, find their consolation
and their stay, apart from all theories, in
this one fact, — ' Jesus died for me.' Accept
that blessed truth now, and you will not
rest in the first principles of the doc-
trine of Christ. You will strive after the
higher truths and the higher life. You will
take up your cross and follow Christ. You
will put away from you all pride and self-
seeking and self-pleasing. You will witness
for God. You will cultivate holiness. The
Divine nature will be manifest in your mortal
bodies; and, like your loving Lord, you will
devote yourselves to the spiritual good of
your fellowmen. Everything will be second
to the grand aim — the glory of God. Be-

110 THE REDEEMER.

coming conformed unto Christ, and so drawn
closer and closer to your Father in heaven,
you will be able more and more to compre-
hend His unspeakable love for you, and in
some measure to realise the sentiment em-
bodied in these lines, which is no less true
than beautifully expressed: —

* So near, so very near to God,
Xearer I cannot be ;
For in the person of His Son
I am as near as He.

1 So dear, so very dear to God,
Dearer I cannot be;
The love wherewith He loves His Son,
Such is His love to me.'

*$trtuxt J^urilj.

THE REDEEMER-HIS ASCENSION.

1 And He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up
His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He
blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into
heaven.' — Luke xxiv. 50, 51.

LECTURE IV.

THE REDEEMER HIS ASCENSION,

HE tragedy of the crucifixion con-
cluded, and the darkness cleared
away, the Jews, that they might not
violate a requirement of their law, and to
avoid polluting the Sabbath with the bodies
of the crucified — if left suspended after sun-
set— repaired to Pilate, and sought permis-
sion to break their legs, that death might
be hastened and the bodies interred. The
request was granted. The soldiers, there-
fore, immediately proceeded to break the
legs of the two thieves. Finding, however,
that Jesus was dead already, they brake not
his legs, — thus unconsciously fulfilling the
Scripture, ' A bone of Him shall not be
broken.' But in order, possibly, to make

1 1 4 THE R E DE EME /?.

sure that Jesus was really dead, one of
the soldiers took a spear and thrust it
into His side, and forthwith came there-
out blood and water, — still further fulfilling
what had been prophesied regarding Him,
1 They shall look on Him whom they have
pierced.'

While the soldiers were engaged in what
seemed to them routine duties, another per-
sonage was on his way to solicit an audi-
ence of Pilate, viz., Joseph of Arimathsea.
His request was a bold one — even the body
of Jesus. He knew well that he would be
censured for this act by his friends, — nay,
that he was exposing himself to peril ; but
he was determined to brave all consequences.
After certain inquiries, Pilate yielded to the
request. In this kind devotion to the dead
Jesus, Joseph was joined by Nicodemus — the
same who came on a former occasion to
Jesus by night — bearing a costly offering of
myrrh and aloes. Both these men, though
members of the Sanhedrim, were true be-
lievers. With tender sorrow they therefore
received the mangled and bleeding body,

HIS ASCENSION. 115

and proceeded at once to the performance
of their sad yet affectionate duty.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the
cross there was a garden belonging to Joseph,
and within it a rock-hewn sepulchre, in
which never man was laid before. After
swathing the body in linen, with the spices
which had been provided, they reverently
laid it in the sepulchre, and afterwards
rolled a stone across the entrance, and de-
parted.

The two Marys, who stood by the cross
of Jesus and witnessed all that had passed,
as also the entombment, and who cherished
to the last the thought that the Master
whom they loved so well was indeed He
who should have redeemed Israel, took their
departure also from the sepulchre, with hopes
crushed and hearts sad and sorrowful, to
comply with the requirements of the Sab-
bath.

While the devoted friends of our Lord,
probably on account of their deep revulsion
of feeling, had forgotten their Master's words
about rising from the dead, the chief priests

116 THE REDEEMER.

and Pharisees, having recalled them, repaired
to Pilate and made known to him the say-
ing of Jesus, ' After three days I will rise
again.' To prevent the removal of the body,
therefore, without their knowledge, which
they suggested His disciples might do, and
then say He had risen from the dead, the
stone was sealed, and a guard of soldiers set
to watch the sepulchre. Thus, all that His
enemies could do to secure against decep-
tion was done. And there was no deception.
The third, the appointed day dawned; and
the power of death and the grave, and men
and devils, could no longer hold captive the
Lord of life and glory.

No mortal eye witnessed the resurrection.
Still it is beyond all dispute that, on the third
day, Jesus arose. The Evangelist Matthew
gives some details concerning this most stu-
pendous event in these words : ' Behold, there
was a great earthquake : for the angel of the
Lord descended from heaven, and came and
rolled back the stone from the door, and sat
upon it. His countenance was like light-
ning, and his raiment white as snow : and for

HIS ASCENSION. 117

fear of him the keepers did shake, and became
as dead men.'

But while no one saw our Lord rise from
the dead, still the fact of the resurrection
itself received the testimony of many wit-
nesses.

First of all, Mary Magdalene and several
other women having prepared spices and
ointments to embalm the body, set out for
the sepulchre very early in the morning of
the first day of the week. They had seen
the great stone placed across the door of the
sepulchre by Joseph and Nicodemus ; and, as
they drew near, they inquired amongst them-
selves who should roll it away. Imagine
their feelings, therefore, when they arrived
and found the stone already rolled away !
Mary Magdalene would appear to have in-
stantly surmised that the body had been re-
moved, and at once returned to the city to
bring word to Peter and John. The other
women lingered by the sepulchre, and to them
appeared an angel of the Lord, who addressed
them, ' Fear not ye : for I know that ye
seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not

118 THE REDEEMER.

here : for He is risen, as He said. Come, see
the place where the Lord lay. And go
quickly, and tell His disciples that He is
risen from the dead.' In great astonish-
ment and perturbation of mind, mingled, we
cannot doubt, with a great joy, they hastened
to execute their errand. Meantime Peter
and John, followed by Mary Magdalene, came
with all speed to the sepulchre. Being swift-
est of foot, John reached the sepulchre first,
and, stooping down, saw the linen clothes,
but did not enter. Soon afterwards Peter
arrived, and went in and found the linen
clothes lying, and the napkin which bound
Jesus' head not lying with the clothes, but
wrapped in a place by itself. John now
entered also, and ' he saw and believed. For
as yet they knew not the Scripture that He
must rise again from the dead. Then the
disciples went away again unto their own
home.'

' But Mary stood without at the sepul-
chre weeping ; and as she wept, she stooped
down and looked into the sepulchre, and
seeth two angels in white sitting, the

HIS ASCENSION. 119

one at the head and the other at the
feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.'
' Woman, why weepest thou?' said they.
' Because they have taken away my Lord,
and I know not where they have laid
Him,' was her disconsolate reply. Mary,
we have seen, was with Jesus at His death,
and had witnessed — if not actually taken
part in — His entombment ; and she had
looked forward to the mournful satisfaction
of still testifying her love and gratitude by
anointing the body, but it was gone. Her
passionate sorrow and tears seemed to burst
forth afresh. The intensity of her grief, at
that moment, may be gathered from the
fact, that it was not arrested by the ap-
pearance and words of the angelic visitants.
One all-absorbing thought, and one alone,
possessed poor Mary's bleeding heart — ' They
have taken away my Lord, and I know not
where they have laid Him.' Mary, probably
hearing a footstep behind her, or seeing the
shadow of some approaching figure, or from
some change of look or attitude in the angels,
turned half round from looking into the

120 THE REDEEMER.

sepulchre, and saw Jesus Himself standing,
but knew not that it was He. Jesus saith
unto her, ' Woman, why weepest thou?
whom seekest thou?' She, blinded by tears,
and distracted by the words of the angels,
and supposing Him to be the gardener, saith
unto Him, ' Sir, if thou have borne Him
hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him,
and I will take Him away.' Jesus saith
unto her, c Mary ! ' Oh ! how must the
tones of that well-known voice — pronouncing
her name — have thrilled to her inmost soul !
At once she was at his feet, with the respon-
sive cry of joy, c Rabboni! ' But Jesus saith
unto her, ' Touch me not, for I have not
yet ascended unto my Father; but go to
my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend
unto my Father and your Father; and to
my God and your God.'

Betwixt our Lord's resurrection and as-
cension a period of forty days elapsed. How
these forty days were spent, and where,
Holy Scripture is silent. At intervals during
that period, however, our Lord vouchsafed no
less than ten — more probably eleven — differ-

HIS ASCENSION. 121

ent appearances. These appearances were
frequently sudden and unexpected. Like an
apparition, He came to His disciples, some-
times passing noiselessly through closed doors,
and then vanishing from sight. But while
there was something strange and weird-like
in our Lord's post-resurrection life, His dis-
ciples never lacked proofs of His identity.
Everything about Him — His voice, His
features, His words and deeds — gave evidence
that it was He indeed.

Here I Avish you to notice a circumstance
worthy of our attention. After our Lord's
resurrection, He ceased to have any inter-
course with men in general — I mean with
any but those who were ' disciples.' Even
of the five hundred to whom He appeared
in Galilee, it is said that ' they were breth-
ren.' Now, what did this mean? It could
not mean that He was to be less than
heretofore the Saviour of sinners. The
preaching and waitings of the Apostles —
whom He left to instruct the world in His
doctrine — are sufficient to show that this

Q

122 THE REDEEMER.

could not be His meaning. But He did,
undoubtedly, withdraw Himself from men
in general, within the circle of His own
disciples. There was no more preaching to
miscellaneous audiences, — no more miracles
within sight of the promiscuous multitude.
It was to His own disciples that He showed
Himself after His resurrection. It was to
them He spoke. It was in their presence
that He manifested, on the few occasions
when He did so, His supernatural power. I
ask, What did this mean, but just the ele-
vation of Himself to that Headship of the
Church which He still maintains, as His
characteristic relationship to the children
of men in His exalted state? And may
not this teach us, that, while our Lord may
in isolated instances, even as in the days
of His personal ministry, show Himself the
Saviour of sinners in what we may term
a direct manner, it is mainly through His
Church, as the exponent of His mind and
the treasury of His spirit, that sinners are
to be saved and saints are to be edified?
Observe Him, then, in this brief interval.

HIS ASCEXS10X. 123

lavishing His sympathies entirely upon His
own disciples — the infant Church from which
the grand universal Church of the future
was to be developed, — and say, Is He not
already appearing, as we have always been
wont to regard Him, as Head of His Church?
And has not this a lesson for us, not only
to recognise Christ as our Head, but also
to realise our mission as the Church of
which He is the Head — the mission of evan-
gelization— not by ourselves individually so
much as by the Church, — not by separating
ourselves from the membership which is His
body, and in our individual capacity seek-
ing to bring souls to Him, — not by spas-
modic or eccentric movements, but by com-
pactness— the whole body — each member of
the body being compacted with the rest, —
and thus, by various members or instru-
mentalities, striving to bring souls now far
from Him into union with Him who is our
Head?

I have already recounted our Lord's ap-
pearance to Mary Magdalene. This devoted

124 THE REDEEMER.

woman was honoured above all others in
being the first to see the risen Saviour. The
other women returning from the sepulchre
to the disciples with the news and message
of the angel, were met by Jesus Himself.
On the same day, apparently. He appeared
to Simon Peter alone, as Saint Paul in-
forms us. In the afternoon — also of the
same day — He appeared to Cleopas and an-
other disciple while they journeyed to
Emmaus, a village about seven miles dis-
tant from Jerusalem. Being so bewildered
by the story they had heard of their Master
having risen from the dead, these two dis-
ciples failed to recognise Jesus when He
actually joined them in the way, and con-
versed with them, and upbraided them for
their unbelief, and even when He expounded
to them the types and prophecies of Old
Testament Scripture, showing that the
Messiah must not only suffer, but enter into
glory. Having reached Emmaus and the
house whither they were going, Cleopas and
his fellow-disciple constrained their Com-
panion to tarry with them. At supper, while

HIS ASCENSION. 125

He took bread, and blessed it, and brake and
gave to them, their eyes were opened, and
they knew Him, and He vanished out of
their sight. We can imagine how those
men would gaze with amazement upon the
spot that had so suddenly become vacant !
Kecovering from their astonishment, and
their hearts filled with joy and gladness,
they returned in all haste to Jerusalem with
the news to their friends and fellow-disciples
gathered together in an upper chamber.
Here our Lord vouchsafed His fifth appear-
ance after His resurrection. The place was
full. The apostles were all present save
Thomas. What a meeting ! Deep emo-
tion filled their hearts as incident after in-
cident of their risen Lord was narrated.
While they were engaged speaking, Jesus
Himself appeared in the midst of them with
the words, ' Peace be unto you.' Supposing
He was a spirit, they were terrified; but
Jesus addressed them and said, ' Behold My
hands and My feet, that it is I myself; handle
Me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and
bones as ye see Me have.' Our Lord then,

126 THE REDEEMER.

in the presence of His disciples, partook of
a broiled fish and honeycomb, and afterwards
gave them His blessing.

Eight days later our Lord again appeared
to His followers while they were convened
in the upper room, with the same precious
salutation, ' Peace be unto you.' Thomas,
who had refused to believe that Jesus was
risen, was now present. Addressing him,
therefore, specially, our Lord saith, ' Reach
hither thy finger, and behold My hands ;
and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it
into My side, and be not faithless but be-
lieving.' Overwhelmed by the evidence,
Thomas, in the fulness of his heart, ex-
claimed, ' My Lord and my God ! '

Then w^e have our Lord's appearance to
the seven disciples by the shore of the sea
of Galilee.

Then He appeared to the eleven apostles
on a mountain in Galilee.

We have also His appearance in Galilee
to five hundred brethren at once ; and Saint
Paul informs us, that ' after that He was seen
of James.'

HIS ASCENSION. 127

And finally, we have His appearance to
the eleven, as recorded in the text.

In all these appearances of our Lord there
was, observe, a gradual increase of evidence,
preparing the minds of His disciples to re-
ceive the stupendous truth they were so slow
to believe, and leading them up to the con-
viction that He had fulfilled His promise that
He would rise from the dead. This fact —
the fact of the resurrection of our Lord —
the apostles and the Christian Church in
all ages have ever regarded as the glorious
pledge and proof that God has accepted of
Christ's sacrifice for our salvation.

We have now to consider His ascension,
of which the eleven were witnesses.

Our Lord led them, the Evangelist tells
us, to Bethany — that is, the district of
Bethany or Olivet, on the slope of which the
village of Bethany lay. Bethany ! how many
are the tender and sacred memories associated
with the name ! Weary and worn with the
toils of the day in Jerusalem — the sin and
suffering and misery which everywhere He

128 THE REDEEMER.

witnessed — the bitter hatred and opposition
of His enemies — the indifference of the people
— it was to Bethany He was wont to repair
for the night, and to seek in communion with
His Father, and in the society and sympathy
of His faithful friends, rest and refreshment
for the morrow's work. It was at Bethany
that He had wrought that perhaps most won-
derful of all His miracles — the raising of
Lazarus from the dead. It was in Gethse-
mane, in the district of Bethany, that He
passed through the agony of His passion. It
was in the same district probably that He
was crucified. Here, then, it was at Bethany,
associated, as I have said, with so many
tender and sacred memories, that our Lord
led the eleven to witness His triumphant
ascension into heaven. We feel the solem-
nity of bringing our minds to the contem-
plation of this final and fundamental fact
in the earthly history of our Lord. We are
overwhelmed by the thought that it was
here that Christ the Lord was seen for the
last time — that this was the closing scene
in the great drama.

HIS ASCENSION. 129

Holy Scripture gives us a very brief account
of this momentous event, yet we have all that
it is necessary for us to know. We have the
fact itself — that our Lord journeyed with the
eleven to Olivet, and after silencing their
curiosity about times and seasons, and point-
ing to the spread of His Gospel, repeating
His promise of the Comforter, and bidding
them remain in Jerusalem until the Com-
forter should come, He was parted from them
in the attitude of lifting up His hands to
bless them. How simple, yet how sublime !
No sound was heard — no whirlwind — no
chariot of fire — not even a visible ministra-
tion of angels, — nothing, indeed, to appeal
to the senses, save that calmly and serenely
He parted from them, and passed from their
astonished gaze into a cloud.

Instead of further dwelling upon the mere
fact itself, that our Lord ascended into hea-
ven, let us endeavour to understand its
objects, and to learn the grand and all-im-
portant lessons which the fact was intended
to teach.

R

130 THE REDEEMER.

First, then, our Lord's ascension was to
His disciples and to the world the last and
conclusive proof of the truth of His preten-
sions— the only consistent and harmonious
termination of the great work which He had
just accomplished on earth, and a pledge of
His glorious inauguration into that office
which He was now entering into heaven to
fulfil for His people in all time as their great
Mediator and High Priest. In His most
human manifestations Christ appeared as one
more closely related to the Divine Being
than other men. He asserted His own un-
derived divinity. He said that ' He came
from God, and went to God.' He spoke of
His Father in such a way as no human
being, who was nothing more than a human
being, could speak, or could be conceived
to speak. He prayed to Him as no merely
human being can pray. In short, Christ's
whole history was in perfect harmony with
His pretensions as the Son of God sent into
the world for a specific object; and His
ascension was the final proof of the reality
of these pretensions. And it only requires

HIS ASCENSION.. 131

to be stated, for it cannot but be manifest
to every unprejudiced mind, that there was
no other way in which Christ's great work
on earth could so fittingly terminate, and
the equally great work which He was enter-
ing heaven to carry on, could so fittingly
be inaugurated, as by His glorious ascension
in presence of those whom He was leaving
behind Him to be His witnesses unto all
nations and the apostles of His Gospel.

Again, the ascension of Christ was ne-
cessary to satisfy the heart of man. Wher-
ever there is a human soul, there is a voice
whose cry is after the supernatural. Apart
from revealed truth, this natural instinct is
always erring, and for the most part runs
into the wildest absurdities and excesses. It
shows itself in the most grotesque forms — in
fantastic interpretations of material objects
and forces — in grovelling fears — in monstrous
superstitions, and in horrid cruelties. But
because men have thus shown this craving
in ways foolish and reprehensible, we must
not therefore deny the craving itself, or regard
it as a weakness of our nature. I say it is

132

THE REDEEMER.

an essential element of our nature. Men
yearn to know something more than is attain-
able from the material world which hems
them round. They feel that besides matter
there is spirit. They suspect that beyond
this gross world somewhere there are other
orders of being or intelligences. They never
can be satisfied with what their eyes see or
their ears hear. They never can be satisfied
till they know something of spirit and the
spirit world. Metaphysics alone cannot afford
that knowledge. The greatest intellects have
tried and miserably failed. Their proudly
vaunted discoveries have been but specula-
tions and guesses at truth. There never was
anything in them that met and satisfied the
cravings of the human soul. But the ascen-
sion of Christ throws a flood of light on
the mysteries of the unseen world. In Him-
self— in all He said and did — there was the
revelation of that spiritual world to know
something of which is an object of intense
desire. And His ascension was, in point of
fact, the natural and necessary completion
of that revelation.

HIS ASCENSION. 133

Perhaps we may be able to realise still
more the paramount importance of our Lord's
ascension if we suppose for a moment that it
had not taken place, — that after He rose from
the dead, He lived a few years longer on the
earth, and then died as other men die, and
was buried as other men are buried, and that
His body was resolved into its original ele-
ments,— as is the case with all other human
beings. I ask, would that have satisfied the
instinct — would that have answered the crav-
ings of the human soul to which I have
adverted ?

In contrast with such a supposition, then,
consider our Lord as ascended into heaven,
and sitting at the right hand of God, and
see what the great and glorious fact has done
for you, in the satisfaction it gives to the
longing desire which all men feel to have the
spiritual world not only revealed to them, but
brought close to their sympathies and their
affections.

But further, in connection with the truth
that the ascension of Christ satisfies the heart
of man, we have to consider how much of

134 THE REDEEMER.

that satisfaction we owe to the union of the
divine and human natures in the person of
our Lord. This union is the great essential
fact in His mediatorship. Through His
humanity, in which Christ is one with us,
we are raised to the divine, in which He is
one with God. As our Lord appeared on the
earth, our Brother in our nature, and tempted
in all points like as Ave are, He is able to
sympathise with us — to enter into all our joys
and sorrows — our hopes and fears — our trials
and tribulations ; — in a word, He is One to
be touched with the feeling of all our infir-
mities— and One therefore to whom we can
come with all boldness for mercy and grace
to help in every time of need.

When our Lord left this world, He ceased
to be a sufferer, but He did not denude
Himself of human sympathies. He took our
nature with Him into heaven. He was our
Mediator when He lived upon the earth,
leading us to God, or bearing us in His
heart before God. He is our Mediator still,
because in our humanity — in the true body
and the reasonable soul in which He appeared

HIS ASCENSION. 135

on earth and represented God to man — He
now in the human nature represents man to
God. His mediatorship has not ceased. He
calls us to Himself still, and through Himself
to God, as truly as when He said, ' No man
cometh unto the Father but by Me.' This
day, and all days, then, we think of Christ
not as a man that was, but as a man who
is ; and amid all perplexities, and difficulties,
and trials, we repose in this thought, that
Christ, in the likeness of our nature, brings
us to God by a human hand, and draws from
God Himself the daily help we need for
daily trial and weakness.

This touches upon the question of His
priesthood, to which I would now more par-
ticularly refer.

In the first place, I observe that the
ascension of our Lord was necessary to the
completion of His priestly office. Jesus is
our great High Priest. He comes before us
as the fulfilment of the typical priesthood of
the older dispensation. It may well occur
to us to ask what was the meaning of all
the religious ceremonies which constituted

136 THE REDEEMER.

so much of the religion of the Jew? They
were not empty forms. They did not rest
in themselves. They constituted part of that
education by which the race, as represented
by the favoured nation, were trained into the
expectation of the Deliverer that was to come.
As a special characteristic of those religious
ceremonies, the priest, his functions, his per-
formances, were ever present to the mind
and the eye of the Jewish nation.

On the great day of atonement, which
occurred once a year, the high priest entered
into the holy place bearing the blood of the
sacrifice. And this entering within the veil
was typical — as we are taught — as indeed
were all the offices of the priesthood — typical
of the priesthood of Christ, who is distinctly
called the High Priest of our profession, who
hath entered wathin the veil, having offered
Himself up a sacrifice for our sins. Reading
thus the character of Christ in the light of
those things which we are authoritatively
taught were typical of Him, we obtain this
understanding of His priestly office, that it
consisted of these two essential things — viz.,

HIS ASCENSION. 137

sacrifice and intercession. On the earth, be-
fore sight of all men, Christ gave Himself in
sacrifice for us — just as the sacrifice was
offered in presence of the whole assembly
of Jewish worshippers; and now, even as
the high priest within the veil, alone and
separated from the people, offered interces-
sion to God, it is His, in fulfilment of
His priestly office, to intercede for us with
His Father away from the gaze of men, yet
bearing in His person the evidence of His
sacrifice.

This is what I wish you to see of
meaning in the ascension of Christ. The
cloud that received Him is the veil which
hides Him from our sight. The heavens,
in which He now appears as an Intercessor,
are the fulfilment of that Holy of Holies
which the Jews regarded with reverential
awe, but into which no foot of Jewish man
but that of the typical representative of
the great High Priest of our humanity ever
passed.

Let this be a fixed thought, then, in
your minds, that the intercession of Christ

138 THE REDEEMER.

is an office of His priesthood as essential
to our salvation as was the sacrifice of Him-
self which He offered up. And although
with your bodily eyes you have never seen
Christ's bodily presence, yet wTith the eye
of faith you may behold Him appearing
before the throne on high as your Mediator
and Advocate, and your heart may be filled
with devout thankfulness that He ever
liveth to make intercession for you.

The only other point I wish you to
consider in connection with the ascension
of Christ is of surpassing interest and im-
portance, and one which we cannot ourselves
so well express as in Christ's own words
to His disciples. To them — desolate of heart
and sorrowful, as He foreknew they would
be by His removal from them — He said,
' It is expedient for you that I go away,
for if I go not away the Comforter will
not come unto you; but if I depart I will
send Him unto you.' Now, of all things this
seemed most inexpedient to the disciples.
Their views of Christ being contracted and
unsettled, their thoughts when this declara-

HIS ASCENSION, 139

tion fell upon their ears immediately tra-
velled into the past. They had left all, in-
deed, and followed Christ, and for three years
their hearts had been strangely knit to
His; but it was chiefly, if not entirely, after
the flesh. It was more Christ in His human
aspect that the disciples revered and loved
than Christ in His equality with the Father;
and so their views of Him required to be
enlarged and spiritualized. But this could
only be effected by going away and sending
the Comforter to reveal Him — though in-
visible— as always near.

Besides, the Gospel had to be preached
to every creature ; and one of the grand
and fundamental truths of the Gospel was,
that Christ not only died, and rose again
from the dead, but ascended up into heaven,
and is alive for evermore. To press home
this message, therefore, upon the hearts and
consciences of men is the office of the Holy
Spirit, the Comforter. Herein we see the
expediency of Christ's departure, that the
Comforter might be sent.

And, in connection with this, let me

140

THE REDEEMER.

recall to your remembrance the words also
which the Apostle Paul uttered, not for
himself personally — who perhaps had never
seen the Lord, and certainly had not been
one of His disciples in the days of His
flesh — but speaking collectively for the dis-
ciples,— let me, I say, recall the words
which Paul uttered, ' Yea, though we have
known Christ after the flesh, yet now hence-
forth know we Him no more.' Now, what
does this assertion of the apostle mean,
but just this, that a spiritual Christ was
better for them, and more precious to them,
than any Christ they could know after the
flesh? Some of them had seen Jesus in
His human form. To some of them He had
been related by the ties of earthly kin-
ship. He had been of the nation of the
Jews. But now it was their delight to know
Him, not as a Jew — not even as a kins-
man— but as the representative of all hu-
manity in His spiritual relationship to men
of every clime and country and nation.

At first it may seem a strange thing
that Christ should say to His disciples, ' It

HIS ASCENSION. 141

is expedient for you that I go away;' and
it may give us at first something like a
shock of surprise that Saint Paul should also
say, as a thing to be thankful for, that the
Christians of his day did not know Christ
after the flesh. But when we think the
matter over, we shall be brought to feel the
wisdom of Christ's words, and the reason
for thankfulness which there was in His
apostle's declaration. How could we desire
to think of Christ as being of any earthly
nation or any earthly family ? Is it not our
chief happiness to be assured that He is the
representative of all humanity, and that we
can take Him by faith into our hearts, not
in any sectional relationship, but in that in
which we understand Him to be, the Saviour
of all men ?

There are one or two thoughts of a
practical nature, arising out of these views,
to which I should like to give prominence.

First, of comfort. Christ hath ascended
up where He was before. He hath left this
world, not as other men leave it — the spirit

142 THE REDEEMER.

returning to God, the body resting in the
grave till the resurrection. He has gone to
God in our complete humanity — purified,
ennobled, immortal; yet still in our human-
ity— spirit, soul, and body. We look to Him
— not we alone, but all ends of the earth,
and all generations of men, no matter where,
no matter in what earthly condition, look to
Him by faith as our Eedeemer — as the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever, to all who
look to Him, to all who look for Him in
His second appearing without sin unto sal-
vation. Need I say how favourable all this
is to our peace — to that self-possession in
which alone we can rightly discharge our-
selves of the duties to which God calls us
in this life?

Nor is this the only view of the ascen-
sion of Christ in its more intimate relation
to us. His own declaration to His disciples,
that He was about to go away from them,
was connected with the promise that He
would come again and receive them unto
Himself. And I wish to call your atten-
tion to the bearing which this state of

HIS ASCENSION. 143

things, present and prospective, has upon
Christian activities wherever it is rightly
entertained.

Quite consistently with what I have just
said about mental peace and self-possession,
it is also true that, under the visible absence
of Christ, there is in every Christian believer
a certain uneasiness. In our reason we
feel, as Saint Paul felt, that it is better for
us that Christ should not be here in His
bodily presence ; and yet we feel a wish
— a desire — an earnest longing — sometimes
that it might have been otherwise, that we
might have seen Him as his first disciples
saw Him.

Now, it is this balancing of the mind be-
tween what the reason assents to, and the sym-
pathies are disappointed at, which constitutes
the uneasiness to which I refer. And yet
is not all this wisely appointed in the
providence of God — not so much for our
repose as for our Christian activities ? For is
it not the fact that all human activity —
in whatever direction — is just the seeking
of a relief from some uneasiness or other?

144 THE REDEEMER

What, for example, is much of human
activity to be attributed to, but to ambi-
tions, longings, desires, loves, which have no
real gratification in the present, but impel us
forward, as by an irresistible force, to a gra-
tification which somehow may be realised in
the future ? If Christ had still been with us
in the flesh, we almost fear that, like John
at the last supper, just for the love we bear
to Him, we would have sought our chief de-
light in reposing on His bosom ; and we are
justified, we think, in this belief by the
fact that, so long as Christ remained with
His disciples, they were contented to be re-
cipients of His wisdom rather than labourers
for His cause; and that it was not until
He was gone from them, and the Holy
Spirit the Comforter sent, that they gave
themselves indeed to Christ by faith, and
to those works of love in His name which
have been the admiration of the world ever
since, and in which we find them our ex-
amples fully more than in anything that
is recorded of them while Christ was still
with them.

HIS ASCENSION. 145

The disciples, it is true, mourned an
absent Lord, but it was not the inactive
mourning which men have over a loss which
is irretrievable. They would see Christ again
— not with any lessening, but, as they knew,
with an inconceivable heightening of all
that spiritual communion with Him, for the
sake of which it was needful they should
wait for His visible presence. And so with
labours sublimated by faith, and made ener-
getic by hope, they held on their way, will-
ing to endure, and even to count as gain,
whatever hardships they might encounter.

And this is the state of all true Chris-
tians— of all who have received the invisible
Christ, and are sustained by the hope of
knowing Him, even as they are known.
This is that condition, we believe, out of
which spring the highest and holiest activi-
ties of believers and of the Church. It is
well for us that Christ has gone away. It
is well for us also that we shall one day
see Him where He is in His complete glori-
fied humanity. Meantime, let us seek to
emulate the active lives and the patient

146 THE REDEEMER.

endurance of those who had known Christ
in the flesh, and yet counted it meet that
for a little while they should know Him
thus no more, and lived in the expectation
that, when the demands of duty in this life
were over, they would rejoice with Him
amid enjoyments and activities purer and
loftier than they had ever experienced.

Although much more might be said
on a subject so extensive, I must not omit
finally to call your attention to this one
thought, viz., the ennobling view of man
which we gain by this truth of the ascension
of Christ in our humanity to the right hand
of God, and that not merely as a specu-
lation, but as being fraught in the loftiest
sense with great practical issues.

It may appear to some to be a matter
of indifference, in regard to everyday life
and duty, what the estimate is which men
have of the human nature which they bear;
but we venture to say that nothing can
be more pernicious, not only in the view
of religion, but of the very commonest
morality, than the low and grovelling views

HIS ASCENSION. 147

of man, whether as concerns His origin or
destiny, which are only too common, I am
sorry to say, in the present day. I shall
not further allude to such degrading esti-
mates, but I call you to observe how
greatly the possession of our humanity by
our ascended and glorified Redeemer helps
us to, and sustains us in, those lofty views
of man, by which alone we can reach to
those aims which are necessary to an ex-
alted life.

Think of Christ, I beseech you, as He
now is, not in another nature, but in the
same nature — though spotless and glorified
— which we ourselves bear. Think of our
future as being that in which our nature
purified shall be raised near to His, and, by
fellowship with Him, shall be exalted more
and more throughout eternal ages.

What a dignity does not this give to the
humblest Christian labour ! What nobility
to every prayer for purity ! What a value
to every effort for the suppression of sinful
desires, the enlargement of spiritual capa-
cities, the elevation of holy aims ! What

148 THE REDEEMER.

better thing can we say to you, as well for
your present as for your future good, than
to dwell upon the ascension and exaltation
of your Redeemer — to think of Him, not only
as crucified and slain for you, but as being
still in your humanity in the presence of
God, with all heaven shining upon that
nature which you wear? Habituate your-
selves, I beseech you, daily to the considera-
tion of this glorified manhood, and cherish
the belief, that through all your trials and
sorrows you shall yet be brought very near
to Christ, to be sharers in the same un-
dying light, and the same immortal blessed-
ness.

And now, my Christian brethren, at the
close of these four Lectures, most inadequate
as I feel them to be, there are two things
which I cannot help seeking to impress
upon you, because they have weighed more
and more heavily upon myself as I have
proceeded.

The first is, that what we have been

HIS A SC EN SI OX. 149

exhibiting to you is the received faith of
all Christian Churches. There is no branch
of the Church of Christ which does not
acknowledge the Redeemer under all the
various aspects in which we have presented
Him to you. This is the wide field, with-
out intermediate fences or other obstructions,
which God in great mercy has opened up
before the eye of our faith. Is it not strange
that a prospect so unbroken, as God has
given it to us, should be traversed in so
many directions by distinctions of human
invention, that this fair landscape should be
broken up and enclosed into so many sec-
tions, each surrounded by a wall of separa-
tion so high that the intercourse of Christians
has well-nigh become, and, in not a few
instances, has actually become, an impos-
sibility? We do not wish to speak unrea-
sonably of denominational differences. Let
us grant that they are a necessary result
of that liberty to inquire, which our Pro-
testantism not only permits but enjoins.
Yet surely we may say that they are carried
to the length of sinful excess when they

150 THE REDEEMER.

mar the universality of God's representa-
tion of our Redeemer and our redemption,
when they hinder us from feeling our
brotherhood with every man who holds
Christ as the Elder Brother, and our real
oneness with all the race whom He has
redeemed.

The second is, that what we have been
exhibiting to you is professedly the faith of
all Christian countries. A Divine messenger
has appeared in our nature — has submitted
Himself for our sakes to every ordinance of
God— has died for us a death of ignominy,
a death of inconceivable self-sacrifice; and,
having risen from the dead, has ascended
up into heaven, and is at this moment re-
presenting our humanity before God for the
sake of our redemption. With this mighty
truth before us, let us direct our thoughts
to the world, to what men are saying and
doing in every day of their brief life. I
ask, Is the aspect of the world consistent
with the complexion of that truth which
men say that they believe? I speak not
now of those delinquencies which the world

HIS ASCENSION. 151

itself condemns, but of those things which
the world somehow has come to allow — that
hastening to be rich, — that feverish anxiety
about things temporal, — that excessive value
set upon material progress and prosperity, —
that loose notion of human obligation in
any higher sense than the success of the
present hour, — all of which, it is no exag-
geration to say, the world exhibits to what-
ever side we turn our eyes. I ask, Are
these things consistent, or at all compatible,
with any serious belief in those eternal reali-
ties of which we have been speaking to
you ?

Our Lord Himself speaks of the world
as something distinct from the society which
He came to form ; and although it may be
thought that through the civilisation which
has come indirectly from Christian ideas
and beliefs, the distinction is not now so
marked and broad as when the Jewish and
the Gentile world alike stood aloof from
Christ and His doctrine, yet the spirit of
the world is far from being synonymous with
the spirit of Christ. Let us remember, then,

152 , THE REDEEMER.

the faith which we profess to hold, and the
high vocation wherewith we are called; and
belonging as we do to that society which
Christ came to establish, and ourselves re-
joicing in the blessedness of a present sal-
vation, let it be our daily endeavour and
our daily prayer, that we may use whatever
force may be supplied by our enlightened
conscience, or by the combination of the
Church, to make Christ known to others,
and thus help to moderate and utterly de-
stroy the pernicious spirit of the world. .

Oh ! what glorious results might be
looked for, not only in this parish, but
throughout the entire sphere of our in-
fluence, if we were all truly alive to our
responsibility before God; if we all counted
it our chiefest joy and our highest privilege
to be fellow-workers with God, to witness
for Christ, to labour for the conversion of
souls; if we all obeyed the invitation, and
were cheered by the thoughts embodied in
these lines of the Christian poet —

HIS ASCENSION. 153

1 Come, labour on !
Claim the high calling angels cannot share, —
To young and old the Gospel gladness hear :
Redeem the time; its hours too swiftly fly,
The night draws nigh.

' Come, labour on !
Away with gloomy doubts and faithless fear !
No arm so weak but may do service here ;
By feeblest agents can our God fulfil
His righteous will.

* Come, labour on !
No time for rest, till glows the western sky,
While the long shadows o'er our pathway lie,
And a glad sound comes with the setting sun, —
" ' Servants, well done ! ' "

But though we feel that by our words we
are able to do little for the conversion of
souls, still let us witness for Christ by the
godly, righteous, and sober lives we lead. ' Let
our daily life be an unuttered yet perpetual
pleading with men for God. Let men feel
in contact with us the grandeur of that reli-
gion to whose claims they will not listen,
and the glory of that Saviour whose name
we may not name.'

In all this, so far beyond our unaided

strength, let us be thankful that we have

u

154 THE REDEEMER.

the promise ' Lo ! I am with you alway,'
and that we have the Holy Spirit with us.
Let us pray, then, for the Spirit. Let us
walk in the Spirit, using rightly every faculty
which God has given us. Let us depend
for enlightenment, and strength, and purity,
upon the Spirit, the need of whose office our
Lord Himself declared more emphatically
than we can either declare it or feel it, when
He said, ' It is expedient for you that I
go away; for if I go not away, the Com-
forter will not come unto you; but if I
depart I will send Him unto you.'

0 God, give us Thy Holy Spirit, Fill
us with the Spirit. Holy Spirit of God,
take away from us all that is mean, and
grovelling, and selfish. Make us worthy of
His love who died to redeem us. Increase
our faith in Christ. Purify our thoughts
and affections. Make us holy. Inspire us
to renounce all, and follow Christ. And
unto Thee, with the Father and the Son,
be all the glory, now and evermore. Amen.

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