1. A large number of those who profess and call themselves Christians would fain blot out Calvary from the system of Christian morality. They would tell us that it was only an accident in the onward march of Divine revelation, that the Saviour's sufferings had in them nothing mediatorial, nothing atoning ; and, on the other hand, there are men who would hold so tightly by faith in the power of the Cross of the blessed Saviour as to banish from their minds the idea of an honest, a diligent, and a loving copy of His example. They will say, " Look
JAS.-JUDE — 6
82 A PROPITIATION AND A PATTERN
to the Cross alone, trust in the Cross alone, and all will and must be right." Good people there may be found in these two extremes, but the scribe that is well instructed in the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God will not be satisfied with either one or the other; he must have both together. Like the two inscriptions, like the two faces on a coin, which must be there before it can be -s;:^ made current of the realm, so the Divine truth has these two manifestations, — first the suffering for sin, next the example of godly life,
2. The Antinomian, the man who thinks that all religion is centred in the single grace of faith, looks at Christ as his Saviour, '^ but forgets that He is also his Example. The Socinian professes to follow Jesus as an Example, but rejects Him as a Saviour. The Bible-taught Christian unites these two opposite systems into
^ one. Confessing with St. Peter that " there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved," he also allows with St. Paul that he who would taste of this salvation must " so walk as he walked." In the simple and unmistakable language of the text, believing with all his heart that Christ suffered for him, he has an equally deep conviction that He has left us an example that we should follow His steps.
3. Without the Atonement there would have been little use of the Example. Moses is an example, and Abraham, and Joseph, and David, and every holy man or woman that ever lived — many in our own times and neighbourhood, whom we may ourselves have known. St. Paul, who was the last person in the world to speak presumptuously or vaingloriously, exhorts the Philippians to be followers together of him, and to mark those who walked so as they had him for an ensample. And yet in another Epistle, after calling his readers' attention to the great cloud of witnesses with whom they were encompassed, all of them "examples" of patience, faith, and other heavenly graces, he does not suffer their thoughts to rest there, or on any merely human object, but carries them on with him still further, even to the foot of the Cross, there bidding them look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of their faith ; " who for the joy that was set before him endured ' the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."
I PETER II. 21 83
^ If ever the history of human error comes to be written faithfully and exhaustively, it will be found, I venture to say, that by far the largest proportion of human mistakes, whether in the region of theology or in the region of philosophy, will be found to have their origin, not so much in the abstract grasp of error as in the partial grasp of truth. The danger is inconceivably great of a shallow and imperfect comprehension of the mind and will of God, and in all ages and under all circumstances men have been found taking up this or that or the other statement of God's most holy Word ; emphasizing it and giving to it a dignity and an import- ance, not possibly in itself greater than it deserves, but relatively to the other truths of God's Divine Word. And hence it comes to pass, that amidst the multitudes of divisions and parties and sects and schisms that Christianity presents to-day, and, indeed, has presented in all ages, there is no party or sect or schism that has not in some degree a grasp of some kind of Divine truth and revelation, the mistake and the misfortune being that it esteems this particle and portion equal to the entire, and forgets the dignity and importance of declaring the whole counsel of God.^
I.
The Pkopitiation.
" Christ also suffered for you."
1. The mystery of suffering! Suffering beyond any doubt is the commonest feature of human life. There are none who escape. There are the weird, strange sufferings of childhood, which grow into the sterner sufferings of our manhood ; and these pass into the special sufferings of old age. It reaches every portion of our being. Our body is held in the grip of physical suffering; our minds know the exquisite suffering of intense perplexity, our hearts are continually all but broken in the woes of life and our wills in the spheres of intense suffering, in the intense discipline to which we are called upon to submit in life ; and the inner shrine of our being is the scene of our most exquisite suffering, the spiritual sorrows of children of God. Suffering — it casts its shadow over our life. Looked at upon the surface, all life may seem to be a comedy ; but it is a very weird and pathetic comedy, for beneath this comedy lies the awful tragedy of life.