IT Look at the life of Moses, sent as a national redeemer from the curse and yoke of Egypt. He identifies himself with his slave-brethren, and the wrath of the oppressor falls on him as well as on them. This was the first secret of the confidence he won from them. " Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." Then look on further, and see how he was involved in all the consequences of the sins of his people. They, you say, deserved those weary, hopeless years of wanderings in the desert ; but he did not. Yet because he had given himself to them, " he was wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for their iniquities." He had no part nor lot in the sin of idolatry, but he was numbered with the transgressors. He bore more of the burden of shame, humiliation and contrition than they who did the sin.^
2. The possibility of vicarious healing depends, in the second place, upon the power of innocent vicarious suffering. This is an inexplicable law, but equally it is indisputable. That we need for our soul's awakening to see our sin, not in ourselves, but in another, is a strange truth, but truth it is. Yonder young man has never realised his sins, though he has suffered for them. He is callous and careless, but one day he notices d, * C. S. Horiie, The Scnil's Jtcakcning, p. 102,
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look in bis mother's face, and sees the lines of care about the mouth and brow, and the truth flashes upon him, " That is what my sin has done." Her innocent suffering brings him to himself, and with its stripes he is healed. Or let us change the illustra- tion. Christian people will always differ as to the merits of particular wars, but all Christian people are one in the hatred and horror of war. And if one were to go further one would say that it is not in the actual field of battle, where hate and passion are so strongly mingled with heroism and devotion, that its misery is most realised. It is emphatically suffering innocence that kills the war spirit in us. By these stripes we are healed. Soldiers who have kindled with the fierce excite- ment and dark enthusiasm of war, when they have come face to face with suffering innocence, have grown sick and sad, and confessed to an ungovernable revulsion of feeling. All the love of war dies out. By the stripes of suffering innocence they are healed.
IT Yesterday afternoon, as the sun went down, I sat by the bed- side watching the wan face of a wife and mother who had pre- maturely worn out her life in toils for her husband and children, and was even then most absorbed in certain tender parting charges concerning them when she should be no longer able to care for them. "She wouldna be there," said the stalwart but deeply grieved husband, " but for slavin' and slavin' for us." There was an instance of vicarious self-sacrifice. In the annals of womanhood there are many such. And whatever we may think about its justice or expediency, there is something in us which endears to us the person who has obeyed the sacred law, and our pulses beat quicker at a thing which puts fresh honour upon our community.^
1[ Stanley, in one of his books on African travel, tells of the crime of Uledi, his native coxswain, and what came of it. Uledi was deservedly popular for his ability and courage, but having robbed his master, a jury of his fellows condemned him to receive "a terrible flogging." Then uprose his brother Shumari, who said, " Uledi has done very wrong ; but no one can accuse me of wrong-doing. Now, mates, let me take half the whipping. I will cheerfully endure it for the sake of my brother." Scarcely had he finished when another arose, and said, " Uledi has been the father of the boat, boys. He has many times risked his life to save others; and he is my cousin; and yet he ought to be
1 F. W. Luce, in Tht Treasury, September 1902, p. 353.
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punished. Shumari says he will take half the punishment ; and now let me take the other half, and let Uledi go free." ^
3. The Lamb of God on the altar of sacrifice is a deep and dark mystery. How is it possible that my punishment should lie on Him ? What justice can there be in the suffering of the innocent for the guilty ? The prophet anticipates the great misunderstanding of the world : " Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." Thus was Christ judged accord- ing to outward appearance ; it seemed as if He were so grievously smitten on account of His own sin. And although in our days no one goes quite so far, yet the mystery of the atonement by substitution is still a stumbling-block. It is incomprehensible to human intelligence, yet Scripture plainly declares the vicarious nature of Christ's sufferings. This is the stumbling-block of the Cross, which has in all ages been an offence to the world. Many have made shipwreck of their faith on this rock, esteeming Christ not as a sacrifice for us, but merely as a martyr to His own cause, and an example of patient endurance. Consequently millions of Christians keep Good Friday in vain ; they will not accept mysteries which are too vast for human reason. The Lamb of God, the Divine hostage for our guilt, sinks in their idea of Him to a mere man, who left us a perfect example, but did not obtain grace and salvation, righteousness and peace, for us. Not thus did the prophet speak of Christ : " But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was upon him," The words are plain enough. He suffers for our sake and in our stead ; " he carried our sorrows." To this all the apostles bear witness when speaking of Christ as our throne of grace, as the expiation for our sins. St. Peter writes : " Who his own self bare our sius in his own body on the tree." Christ's testimony of Himself is this : " My. flesh, which I will give for the life of the world " ; and the witness borne throughout the New Testament, from that of John the Baptist to the Kevelation, is the same ; wherever Christ appears, it is in a garment dipped in blood.