Nay, lamb is not so sweet a word, Nor lily half so pure a name ;
Another name our hearts hath stirred, I Kindling them to flame : I ** Jesus" certainly
Is music and melody :
Heart with heart in harmony
Carol we and worship we.^
^ When the great Father came to unveil Himself in the person of His Son, it was a life of Divine gentleness that came to
* J. Drammond, Johaimine Thoughts^ 28. ' C. G. Rossetti, Poems, 158.
ST. JOHN I. 29 87
earth. Jesus was the incarnation of gentleness. When He was reviled He reviled not again. There never was a hfe so mild and yet so firm and strong. Munkacsy, in his famous picture of " Christ before Pilate," has thrown this Divine trait into the face and figure of Christ. All around is strife, hatred, unrest, but in the centre stands the King of majesty and love with the gentle- ness of another world upon Him. They spit upon Him, they taunt Him, they crown Him with thorns, but He is still the " Lamb of God." Even on the cross this greatness abides, as the Saviour reaches the sublimest and Divinest moment of His passion with the prayer : " Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do."i
(3) But what was in St. John's mind when he uttered these words was not so much the character of the Lamb — innocence, holiness, sinlessness, gentleness — it was death. It is beyond all doubt that he connected Christ with the sacrifices of the old dis- pensation. Here at last they found their fulfilment. Here at last the type was completed in the antitype. The Lamb is no unwilling victim. That was the weak spot in all preceding sacrifices. The creature went to death reluctantly. It was forced to its doom. Therefore its death in itself had no moral significance. But the remarkable thing about the death of tlie Lamb of God is that it is purely voluntary. From very early in His career Christ saw where He was going. It was no blind groping that ended accidentally or necessarily in the cross. He carried the cross on His heart long before it was laid on His shoulders.
1[ There are various types of death. There is the death of the good, the death when the soul surrenders itself into the hands of God. There is another kind of death. It is the death of Gordon of Khartum, the death of the hero. There is a third. Literature has never forgotten Socrates in the Agora of Athens. It is a beautiful scene. The Grecian sage has been sentenced to death on a false charge. He is to be his own executioner, and the great old man talks calmly to his disciples, settles his earthly aHUirs, says good-bye to one after another, then takes the cup of poison and drinks it, and all is over. Or yet, once more, yonder in a Chinese town a Chinese Christian sinks beneath the stones of the mob. " Are you sorry ? " asks the missionary. " Sorry ! Oh no," he says. " How glad ! Only sorry that I have done so little for
* J. I. Vance, Royal Manhood^ 63.
SS THE LAMB OF GOD
Jesus." These are the types of death as the world gives them. ^ They are the deaths of the good, the heroic, the sage, the martyr.
* Christ's was not like any of these. Or rather it takes up and comprehends all these. There is one thing common to them all. They had to be. But Christ's was predicted. Christ's was fore- seen. Christ's was dehberately accepted. Death did not choose
* Him. He chose death. He met it at the trysting-place where
* He and not death determined, and He went to the cross, though legions of angels were waiting to bear Him away from it. That makes His death unique in the world.^
3. He is the Lamb of God. For He is provided by God. But the Lamb of God does not mean merely a Lamb appointed or ordained by God. The words have reference to an abiding element in God Himself. The Lamb of God belongs as much to the eternal essence of God as His glory, His righteousness, His truth, and His love. And for us, and perhaps for all worlds, this is the most wonderful and entrancing name of all. The highest praise we can offer to God is to sing, " Worthy is the Lamb ! "
Put emphasis on the words, "of God." There you strike the distinctive feature of this sacrifice, and of the religion which it created. The difiference between Christianity and all other religions lies in these two words. In other religions man provides his sacrifice for his god. In Chiistianity God provides the sacrifice for man. Christ comes forth out of the heart of God. Shall we not indeed say He is God ? Here is where a devastating error has crept in. Men have talked and written as if somehow God and Christ were divided, as if somehow Christ propitiated God, and won Him the mercy. Nowhere in Scripture is there any such statement made. It is a heathen importation. Men are heard saying, " Oh, God will do nothing for us. Our only hope is in Christ." What a dreadful travesty of the truth ! God and Christ are one in this supreme work. The Father sends the Son, and the Son issues forth gladly out of the Father's heart. The two are an absolute unity in working out man's salvation. Here is the everlasting proof of the love of God. Men say God is loving, and therefore He does not need to be propitiated. The New Testament says, " God is love," and therefore He Himself provides a propitiation.