in the world worth more than pleasure, more than fortune, more
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Lhau health itself. I mean devotion, self-dedication to a great end." There is a higher end than scientific research, and to that end Jesus Christ dedicated Himself.
IT In the instructive and profound book on The Religion of the Semites, Dr. Kobertson Smith quotes, as containing the deepest conception of the Atonement, these words of our Lord, uttered as He knelt in prayer by the altar of the supreme sacrifice : " For their sakes I consecrate myself, that they themselves also may be consecrated in truth." Besson writes in his spiritual letters, " It is in His passion that the Saviour shows Himself, like the sun at midday, in all the ardour of His love." And in the shadow of the cross. He who had schooled Himself daily to the repression of feeling spoke the secret of His life and death. He interpreted His whole work as a consecration in the power of love. On the Cross He consecrated Himself as the atoning sacrifice — the absolute oblation for the sins of the whole world. Here is the first aspect of the Cross; its witness to the deep necessity of ' expiation, to the completeness of Christ's oftering for sin. But this doctrine may be stated with a narrow correctness which leaves a world of unknown feeling behind. Before the death of Christ came His life, and that was a long self-sacrifice. It was willingly surrendered hour by hour till all the years were full. Then it was completed — consummated in death.i
The Act of Consecration.
The word " sanctify " is used in the Bible with two distinct significations. The original meaning of the word is to consecrate, to dedicate, to set apart to God and to God's service ; and this is its ordinary meaning in the Old Testament. We commonly mtend by it, to make holy : sanctity and holiness are the same ; sanctification is the growing completeness of the Christian char- acter, the hallowing of the personal life : in this sense the word is often used in the New Testament. Sanctification, in brief, may describe either the purpose or the process of the Christian life.
It is not hard to trace the connexion between these two meanings of the word ; to see how the first meaning passes naturally and necessarily into the other. Perfect consecration
1 W. Robertson NiooU, Ten-Minute Sermmts, 235.
ST. JOHN XVII. 19 295
would be complete and absolute holiness. No purity would be wanting to the motive, no elevation to the character, of one who should be devoted to the Lord his God, with "all his heart, and all his soul, and all his mind, and all his strength." We must lay aside any thought of a native holiness, in man or angel, apart from conformity to God's character and obedience to His will. God alone is holy, in and of Himself ; the source of our sanctity, like the spring of our life, is in God. The charm and energy of the personal holiness even of Christ lay in His constant devotion to His Father's will.
This is at once our Lord's life-purpose, and an ideal for us. "I sanctify myself." I am set apart, consecrated, devoted to Thee and to mankind. Consecrated in thought, word and deed : devoted in motive and in action. I am near Thee in my daily life, in my going out and coming in, in my trials as in my triumphs, in my death as in my life. I am like Thee, revealing Thy character ; having Thy image stamped on me.
1. He concealed His greatness and glory. — The natural dignities of the Son of God had to be hidden from us. John, the beloved disciple, he who knew the Lord more intimately than any other, he who saw most clearly into the depths of that soul, who leaned upon the bosom of the Lord, tells us that he beheld the glory of the Son of God, His face like unto the sun in its strength, His eyes like unto flames of fire ; — and John fell at His feet as dead. Thus was it on the Mount of Transfiguration, when for a moment the innate glory of the Son of God shone through the veil that hid it, and His robes were white and glistering, and again His face was like the sun, and again His eyes were like unto flames of fire, and the disciples, blinded and bewildered by such splendour, hid themselves, afraid, and shrank from that excess of light. Think of Him, then, for our sakes setting apart His glory that He might become our Blessed Brother and Friend, and that all might draw near to Him and be at home with Him ; sitting down with lowly fishermen, welcoming the outcast, gathering to Himself the little children, drawing around Him all the sad and needy of the earth.
Out of this comes the other great temptation that assails Him. " If Thou art the Son of God, if Thou art not bound by these
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laws of humanity, if Thou canst dismay and bewilder Thine enemies by the manifestations of Thy glory, put forth Thy power, assert Thine authority." Think of Him as He stands with out- stretched hand rebuking Peter there in the shadow of Gethsemane, in that night, the full moon of the Passover high in the heavens, about Him the rough crowd gathered with swords and staves ! Judas has betrayed his Lord with a kiss, and the soldiers step forward to lay their hands upon the Saviour, when Peter draws his sword to fight for the Lord. "Thinkest thou," said Jesus, " that I cannot now pray to my Father and he will presently give me more than twelve legions of angels ? " But He sanctified Himself, setting Himself apart for our sakes.