Above all, let us never forget, as we read of Christ's death, that He died for our sins, as our Substitute. His death is our life. He died that we might live. We who believe on Christ shall live forevermore, sinners as we are, because Christ died for us, the innocent for the guilty. Sataji cannot drag us away to everlasting death in hell. The second death cannot harm, us. We may safely say, — " Who can condemn me, or slay my soul ? I know well that I deserve death, and that I ought to die, because of my sins. But then my blessed Head and Sub- stitute died for me, and when He died, I, His poor weak mem- ber, was reckoned to die also. Get thee behind me, Satan, for Christ was crucified and died. My debt is paid, and thou canst not demand it twice over." — Forever let us bless God that Christ " gave up the ghost," and really died upon the cross, be- fore myriads of witnesses. That " giving up the ghost " was the hinge on which all our salvation turned. In vain Christ's life and miracles and preaching, if Christ had not at last died for us ! We needed not merely a teacher, but an atonement, and the death of a Substitute. The mightiest transaction that ever took place on earth since the fall of man, was accomplish- ed when Jesus " gave up the ghost." The careless crowd around the cross saw nothing but the common death of a com- mon criminal. But in the eyes of God the Father the prom- ised payment for a world's sin was at last effected, and the kingdom of heaven was thrown wide open to all believers. The finest pictures of the crucifixion that artists have ever painted, give a miserably insufficient idea of what took place when Jesus " gave up the ghost." They can show a suffering man on a cross, but they cannot convey the least notion of what was really going on, — the satisfaction of God's broken law, the payment of sinners' debt to God, and the complete atonement for a world's sin.
The precise physical cause of the death of Christ is a very interesting subject, which must be reverently approached, but deserves attention. Dr. Stroud, in his book on the subject, takes a view which is supported by the opinions of three emi- nent Edinburgh physicians, the late Sir James Simpson, Dr. Begbie, and Dr. Struthers. This view is that the immediate cause of our Lord's decease was rupture of the heart. Dr. Simpson argues that all the circamstances of our Lord's death, — His crying with a loud voice just before death, not like an exhausted person, and His sudden giving up the ghost, — con- firm this view very strongly. He also says that " strong men- tal emotions produce sometimes laceration or rupture of the walls of the heart ; " and he adds, " If ever a human heart was riven and ruptured by the mere amount of mental agony en- dured, it would surely be that of our Redeemer." Above all, he argues that the rupture of the heart would go far to account for the flow of blood and water from our Lord's side, when pierced with a spear. Dr. Simpson's very interesting letter on