There is yet one other fact to which attention needs to be directed in this connexion. The death of Jesus is evidently dwelt upon by the Evangel- ists with a special sense of solemnity and mj'stery, and there are features in the story of His Passion which deepen this feeling of mystery, and compel us to seek some special explanation. Such features are the mental perturbation which the thought of His death awoke in Jesus ('Now is my soul troubled,' etc., Jn 122^) ; the sore amazement and sorrow even unto death in the Garden (Mk 1433-34) . the sweat as of drops of blood, and words about the Cup (Lk 22^-«, Mt2639) ; the awful words upon the Cross, speaking to a loss of the sense and com- fort of God's presence (Mt 27«, Mk 15^*). We recall M'Leod Campbell's words : ' When I think of our Loi-d as tasting death, it seems to me as if He alone ever truly tasted death ' (Atonement, ch. vii.). Is there nothing which connects itself with Christ's position as sin-bearer here ? It is not thus martyrs are wont to die ; not thus did Stephen, or Paul, or Ignatius die. Why, then, so strange a contrast in the Lord and Master of them all ? On any liypothesis, must we not say that we have here something which takes this death out of the
rank of simple martyrdom ? Let us now take witli this Christ's last cry upon the Cross, 'It is finished' (rer^Xeo-Tat, Jn lO^O), and mark how this most unusual death is followed by a resurrection, and, after the resurrection, by an apparently changed relation of Christ to both God and man ; by commissions and promises which imply that this death has been a turning-point in the history of salvation, the opening of a new dispensation of the Spirit, and of the preaching to mankind of the remission of sins in Christ's name (Mt 28^^20^ Lk 2445-49, Jn 2021-23, Ac 1*-^), and it may be found difficult to deny that, even within the limits of the Gospels, a saving significance is attributed to Christ's death, in perfect consonance with that ascribed to it in the Apostolic gospel.
4. The Apostolic doctrine (Acts, the Epistles, the Book of Bevelation). — (a) It is told by St. Luke that Jesus opened the minds of His disciples to understand from the Scriptures that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name unto all the nations (2446- ^i"). From the first, therefore, we find the Apostles giving prominence to the death and resurrection of Christ as Divinely ordained events, with which salvation was connected (Ac 223-33.36.38 313-18 410-12-) _ j^ would be unreasonable to look for theology in addresses which had for their primary object to bring home to the consciences of the hearers their crime in crucifying ' the Holy and Righteous One' (Ac 3^4). We iieed not wonder, therefore, that we do not find it in these early dis- courses in the Acts. Yet the conviction was plainly there that, in some sense, Christ, as St. Paul says, had 'died for our sins' (1 Co 153), and had been exalted to bestow salvation, and that through faith in Him, and only through faith in His name (Ac 3'^), was the wrath of God averted (221), remission of sins obtained (238 319 io43 1,388.39, etc.), the gift of the Holy Ghost received (2S8 ni6.]7 etc.), and the way prepared for ' seasons of refresh- ing ' and ' the times of restoration of all things ' (319-21). Very early, however, through deeper reflexion and the growing illumination of the Spii'it, there necessarily came to be given a more definite interpretation of this connexion of Christ's death with human salvation. Sacrificial and expi- atory ideas were freely taken over upon it (cf. Ac 2026) ; a new vocabulary sprang up ; there was speech, as in the common doctrine of the Epistles (cf. 1 Co 153 ' that which also I received '), of Christ 'bearing our sins' (1 P 224, He fl28^ cf. 2 Co 521), ' suffering for sins, the righteous for the unright- eous' (1 P 318, cf. Ro 56- 8), 'redeeming us by his blood ' (Eph 1^ 1 P 118- i»,Rev 5^) ; ' offering ' Himself as 'a sacrifice for sins' (He 10^2), 'giving himself a ransom for us ' (1 Ti 2"), becoming a ' propitiation ' (1 Jn 22 410), etc. This more definite mode of con- ceiving of everything in salvation as depending on the redeeming death of Christ led, in turn, to a change in the form of presenting the gospel. In- stead of attention being directed primarily, as in the Gospels, to the nature of salvation, as flowing from the mercy of God, the mind is now turned, above all, to the Person by whom redemption is effected, to His sacrifice as the means of redemp- tion, and to the necessity of faith in Him as the condition of salvation. In this new jjerspective, the whole state of salvation, and every blessing included in it, is viewed as the fruit of Christ's redeeming death. An immediate effect is forgive- ness (Ac 238 1338, Ko 46-8, Eph 1", Col 1", 1 Jn 1^ 2i"2, Rev 1^ etc.). But Christ redeems also 'out of this present evil world' ('delivers,' Gal 14), 'from all iniquity ' (Tit 2^4), 'from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers,' etc. (1 P P*^). St. Paul's special conceptions are referred to