^ J. Parker.
8o THE LAMB OF GOD
separation the next step is easy. It is hostility. Thus the last stage of the world is humanity separated, hostile, rebellious against God. That is sin. That is the sin of the world.
(1) The view of the Baptist embraces the human race. His words are that the Lamb of God "taketh away the sin of the world " ; that is, the whole enormous mass of iniquity which is in the world, which burdens and blights the world; the sin of which original depravity is as it were the root, vicious habits the branches, thoughts, words, and deeds of impiety and injustice the leaves and fruits.
John knew very well the sin of the nation. He had seen unreality and formalism in the religious circles of his day, the scandalous life of Herod, and the terrible effect of such examples upon public morality. He had seen the moral indifference of the Herodian, whom nothing could rouse to contend for the principles on which life is based. He had come in close contact with admitted and regretted sin. He had been roused to indigna- tion, to sorrow, moved to pity, knowing that his brother-men had sought for happiness along the paths which end in misery. But from the sin of a nation he rose to a yet more overwhelming thought, which was the sin of the world. All the collective evil of mankind ; the burden of inherited evil from which our Lord alone is exempt ; the vast innumerable multitude of personal sins from the first rebellion at Eden down to the last evil deed which humanity shall commit : the ghastly retinue of the passions and selfishness of mankind.
^ All holiness and gentleness work for the world's redemption within their appointed field. A refined and loving soul, though without the gifts that attract the attention of the world, takes away the sin of a home or neighbourhood. But the power over men which we describe as greatness extends the influence more widely. The purity and gentleness of Jesus might have been hidden away in the little town of Nazareth, and have been an unseen ripple in the great ocean of the world's affairs. He was, however, not only the Lamb of God, but as He is described else- where, "the lion of the tribe of Judah." Like the monarch of the forest, He had strength. He had that power of command over men which, for good or evil, influences the world. His power was acknowledged and proved by the bitterness of His enemies; and when He was lifted up from the earth, He drew the eyes of nations, and became a beacon-light for succeeding
ST. JOHN I. 29 gi
centuries. And to this day His holiness and gentleness are the mightiest power that we know for taking away the sin of the world. It may still be long before the brute powers are dethroned and the reign of humanity is established, but never was the rule of Christ's spirit higher than it is to-day.^
(2) Perhaps what appeals more forcibly to the sensitiveness of the present age is the suffering of the world, the burden of the anguish which rests upon mankind. And indeed in its collective mass it is, if viewed apart from Calvary, a terrible enigma. And yet incomparably more awful to a conscience really enlightened by penitence and faith would be the appalling, the overwhelming idea of "the sin of the world." That thought has rested with almost intolerable weight upon some of the saintliest of mankind. It rested that day upon St. John.
There was laughter in my father's hall,
Mirth in my mothers bower, When One crept silently up by the wall
In the dim, dull, twilight hour.
How did he pass the faithful guard
Who watch both long and late ? Did he steal through the window strongly barred,
Or slipped he in by the gate ?
What is the name of this fearful guest,
Sorrow or Shame or Sin? I cannot tell, but I know no rest
Since his dread form came in.^
(3) It is not the sins but the sin of the world. The sin of the world, of which the various sins are so many branches and manifestations, is the world's apostasy and alienation from the living God ; the two great evils connected going into one — that we have forsaken Jehovah, the fountain of living waters, and have hewn out to ourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. " Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law : for sin is the transgression of the law." And the law of God is one
^ J. Drummond, Johannine ThmtgMs, 29. 2 Margaret Blaikie, Songs by t?ie Way, 29. ST. JOHN — 6
^2 THE LAMB OF GOD
— multitudes of commandments, but one in its principle, its principle being love to God, and love to all created beings for God's sake. It is one, as flowing all from the same essential purity, justice, and universal moral good — the Divine nature.
^ In what does the sin of the world essentially consist ? It consists in omitting God from its life. It consists in forgetting, ignoring, denying, defying God. Get hold of that truth, and never let it go. The Bible never wavers in representing this as the essence and origin of all sin. We sometimes speak of sin as drunkenness, or lust, or murder, or theft, or covetousness, or lying. These are rather crimes or vices. They are related to sin as the fruit is related to the tree, or the plant is related to the root. They are not so much sin as the last fruitage of sin. Sin itself lies deeper. It lies in " an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." ^