The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 1 — Section 248

~ cio11s, where there is a rea~ r;en1onsl r~latio'!l to him, whei:e. the adoring cry of TbomBs, 1 My Lord and my God! 1s felt,-in this supreme spmtual affiance we recognize the pressure which constrains to live not to self, in Jesus' love to lose the life for Jesus Bake. It is this pressure which bei<tows a beauty quite unique on the career of a mo~ who has _a place. in the foremost rank of Christian heroes. Exploits brilliant anrl de.ring are assocmted with the name of Gordon. And whether we think of him in Chine. or in Egypt, or in the quiet garrison town, or speeding on the swift dromedary across the desert or shut np in Khartoum, waiting ~or t~e succour_s _that arriverl, too late, and facing denth as one wh~ h~ learned to regard 1t without quru.hng,-there JS always an unmistakable and lofty md1v1dual!Ly. But the crown of the glory is the spiritual elevation of the soul, ~he enthusiasm for God and good which filled the hea.rt. How he believed in God !-not to him a mere sign of some unknown quantity, but the Livincr One the Father in hea'Yen. H~w he believed in Christi-not a mere "apotheosis of hu.mat;ity," but Jesus Christ who 18 to-day what he was yesterday, and of whom he-writes," There would be no one so unwelcome to come and reside in this world as our Saviour, while the world is in the state it now is." How he believed in the government of the world by e. loving and righteous will I To reveal this will; to work out its purpose with all bis might; to raise the down man; to strike the fetter from the slave; to make God's universe a littl,i better, happier, wholesomer ;-for this he lived, for this he died. Died? Nay, verily," the immortal dead live again in minds made better by their presence." He who loses his life for Jesus' sake, he only has saved it. Let this, then, be accepted as the lesson of Jesus' saying: We find the true life, the great, wide, everlastiag Christ- life, only by losing, for his sake, the narrow, small, merely self-life. Shall it be said by any that to speak thus is to speak in parables? that heroics are not for ordinary Christian people living in quiet, ordinary ways? There h1 no parable. The word~ bear on all in all sorts and conditions. Every person is called to settle ou what plan his life shall be built, what manner of person he shall be. He who has no i<leal of conduct is little better than a creatlll'e drifting through his days. The Christian ideal is sketched in this word of the Lord. If any one will come after Christ, let him know this; and let him know further that it is not the circumstances that make the man-he makes his place, works bis ideal out in different kinds of circumstances. General Gordon, in an obscurer lot, in a humbler sphere, might not have developed the same amount of force; but, given the grace of God with him, he would have developed the same kind of force, he would have been the same type of man. And it is faithfulness to this type in the place we occupy, there not elsewhere, that Christ demands. Are we confessing him before men? Day by day, do we take his cross and follow him? Then, no matter what the scene of the life-work may be, we are losing our life for his sake. This is the obligation of that life" which martyred men have made more glorious for us who strive to follow." Vers. 28---36.-The Transfiguratwn. "When, in the desert, be was girding himself for the work of life, angels of life came and ministered to him. Now, in the fair world, when he is girding himself for the work of death, the ministrants come to him from the grave but from the grave conquered-one from that tomb under Aha.rim which bis own h~nd had sealed long ago, the other from the rest into which he bad entered without seeing corruption. • There stood by him Moses and Elias, and spake of hiB decease.' And when the prayer is ended, the task accepted, then first since the star passed over him at Bethlehem the full glory falls on him from heaven, and the testi- ruony is borae to bis everlasting Sonsbip and power-' Hear him I'" Thus beautifully and truly writes Ruskin of the solemn transaction in Jesus' history recorded by the svuoptical evanl!eliP-ts. It is a new anointing of Jesus as the Christ of God, bis instal- ~tion into the last part of bis ministry on the earth. At the baptism, the Spirit descended, and the vuice came from heaven, "My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleasud." This was the general inauguration of the MeBHiahship. Now there comes the special inaugumtion of Christ as "the End of the Law for right"ousnt'SS to every 01,e that believeth." "Moses and Elias appear to bold converse on that sublime event which bad been the great central subject of all their• teaching, and solemnly to consign i1,LO his hand,;, 01Jce and for all, in a symbolical and glorious repre,eotation, their dclegat.t,d and eXlJir~ lJOWer." N uw the: voice is," llear" not Moses a1.11.l 1:lia~, but "wy ea. rx.1-62.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. 249