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fool, king and clown, all need the same air to breathe, the same water to drink, the same sun for light and warmth, and all need the same Christ for redemption from the same sm. 1\,: safety from the same danger, for snatching from the same deatft. This gospel is a gospel for the world, and for every man in it.
^ Jesus Christ did not die for a few of us. He tasted death for every man. He did not in His great heart think of this little nationality, or that. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. Yonder Man does not think of little pieces or of parts of things ; when He thinks He thinks entireties, when He loves, He loves entireties. No fraction could ever satisfy His infinite love.^
(2) It is also " worthy of all acceptation " in the sense of worthy of being accepted into all a man's nature, because it will fit it all and bless it all. Some of us give it a half welcome. We take it into our head, and then we put a partition between it and our heart, and keep our religion on the other side, so that it does not influence us at all. It is worthy of being received by the imderstanding, to which it will bring truth absolute; of being received by the will, to which it will bring the freedom of submission ; of being received by the conscience, to which it will bring quickening ; of being received by the affections, to which it will bring pure and perfect love. For hope, it will bring a certainty to gaze upon ; for passions, a curb ; for effort, a spur and a power ; for desires, satisfaction ; for the whole man, healing and light.
^ Charles Kingsley, a few hours before his ordination, wrote : " Oh ! my soul, my body, my intellect, my very love, I dedicate you all to God ! And not mine only ... to be an example and an instrument of holiness before the Lord for ever, to dwell in His courts, to purge His temple, to feed His sheep, to carry the lambs and bear them to that foster-mother whose love never fails, whose eye never sleeps, the Bride of God, the Church of Christ." 2
^ Joseph Parker.
* Charles Kingsley : His Letters and Memories of His Life, i. 51.
86 A FAITHFUL SAYING
II.
The Saying.
*' Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
1. To understand this great saying we must first of all look closely at the words.
(1) " Christ Jesus " was a formula with a special significance for Jews. The first name carried the mind away to the long- promised " hope " of Israel, of whom psalmist sang and prophet dreamed, the cherished expectation of the faith- ful. " Christ " is " Messiah," the " Anointed." Their kings in the days of national glory were " Messiahs " anointed with holy oil and set apart to their lofty office. In course of time the name came to be applied specially and exclusively to the expected Prince who should redeem His people from their troubles. As the nation's calamities multiplied and they sank in adversity this hope was maintained with an almost fierce energy; and the Messiah became to the Jew in some respects what el-Mahdy is to the Moslem and el-Hady to the Druze, the Leader or Guide who should deliver them and reduce their oppressors to bondage. "Jesus," Saviour, was also a name of happy augury. It is " Joshua," the name borne by the mighty warrior who led Israel through victory to possession of the promised land. It was an auspicious combination of names. Paul and Timothy rejoice together in the realization of the nation's hope. Messiah has come: the Saviour has appeared. But in the spirit of enlarge- ment begotten by tliis nev/-found joy they give a more generous interpretation of the Messianic functions. He is not a Prince of deliverance to one people alone : His mission is to " sinners." Not the children of Jacob in lonely gladness shall He restore to the land of their fathers. This Joshua shall lead His Israel from every kindred and people to " an inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away."
(2) "Christ Jesus came into the world." This implies that Christ was before He came into the world. Perhaps, indeed, the expression in itself, apart from all similar phrases, torn from the substance and isolated from the analogy of Scripture, would not
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bind us down to attach this sense to it. But we must interpret it as what it is — a general expression of the revelation of God which centres in Christ ; we must look at it in the light of other state- ments plainly kindred to it. Christ came into the world. He came from the bosom of the Father, where He had from eternity been, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In giving us Him, God gave us of His own very self — of His own very substance, His own very life. His own very character. His own very love. " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." And Christ, that Son, came ; He came from God ; He was God ; He came " from the bosom of the Father " to " shew us the Father." He came from out the Infinite fully to meet and satisfy the cry of the creature after God. He came, in whom " dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily," to draw us into a loving communion and trans- forming sympathy with God, through revealing God to us as just and holy, but also as tender and compassionate, gracious and forgivincj.