d, “I too would like to be saved.” We do not wonder that the story of the cross Py SS a powerful effect on the first convert in Greenland. 5. Christ’s death on the cross a satisfaction. The death of Christ did not cause God to love us, but, on the con- trary, was the expression of that love; it did not originate God’s love to man, but, contrariwise, was the effect and evidence of that love; and in accordance with this we read that ‘‘ God go loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” A mighty debt was due to the government, law, and justice of God, as well as to his truth and holiness and purity; that debt was sin, This huge hindrance barred the way of access to com- munion and fellowship with God; but God himself appointed, accepted, and applied the means for the removal of that hindrance and the reopening of the way. Again, the sun is always shining, though we do not always see it; either clouds overspread the sky and cover the fair face of day, or earth rolls round upon its axis, and so during the hours of night we are turned away from the sun. Notwithstanding this, the sun is ever sending out his rays; and when the clouds scatter, or the earth rolls round again, his full-orbed brightness beams upon us, we see him in the splendour of his shining; and “a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.” So the face of God is ever shining, but the clouds of sin darken the sky above us and separate between us and our God ; by the death of Christ those clouds are driven away, and that severance ceases ; we are brought back into the clear light of unclouded day, and bask in the bright effulgence of our heavenly Father’s face. The death of Christ on the cross thus bridged the chasm that sin had made; it spanned the gulf that iniquity had fixed; it opened the new and living way to yon bright world above. By the cross is the way of safety and salva- tion ; for by that cross our sins were expiated, by that cross propitiation was effected, by that cross atonement was made. By that cross, moreover, the Creator and his fallen creature were brought together; by that cross man and his Maker were reconciled; by that cross the offended Sovereign and the rebel sinner were set at one again. In that cross we see the vicarious suffering of one for many, the wondrous substitution of the just for the unjust, the punishment of the sinner inflicted on the Saviour. Through that cross we see the Law magnified, justice satisfied, truth vindicated, government estab~ lished, sin punished, God glorified, our debt cancelled, the handwriting against us blotted out, and the believing sinner saved.
“Thus from the Saviour on the cross A healing virtue flows ; Who looks to him with lively faith Is saved from endless woes.”
6. Double aspect of Christ’s death on the cross. The death of Christ on the cross is a purification as well as a propitiation ; it is the source of sanctification and the ground of satisfaction. In reply to the question of the elder in Revelation, saying, ‘ What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they ?” the answer is returned, “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” So, also, in Heb. ix. 14, “ How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” There is a seeming incongruity in blood purifying. We speak of being defiled with blood or stained with blood, but Scripture speaks of blood cleansing, which is the opposite. We may to some extent illustrate this by certain ceremonies that had to be gone through in olden times by a person who had committed homicide. Among the ancient Greeks the person in question forfeited life. The soul of the slain was supposed to demand life for life, but that life might be redeemed or bought off by the vicarious substitution efavictim, ‘This victim was usually a ram, the slaying of which symbolically denoted the surrender of the guilty man’s own life. This was the ceremony of atonement to appease the soul of the slain, and was called hilasmot. But another ceremony was seeded—a ceremony of purification to fit the man, whose guilt had been atoned by the propitiatory sacrifice just mentioned, for intercourse with his fellow-men. He then stood on the fleece of the ram of atonement or propitiation, in order to come into the closest possible contact and most intimate connection with the victim whieh had, as we have seen, vicariously represented him, when an animal of another kind way
on. xv. 1—47.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 841 ae a eg A
slaughtered as a victim of purification, and slaughtered in such a way that the blood which spurted from the wound fell upon the hands of the homicide, and thus the human blood which still cleaved to his hands was conceived to be washed away by the blood of this second victim. This process was called katharmoi, and thus was he purified. The custom to which we have alluded, borrowed, like so many other heathen customs, from scattered and distorted fragments of Divine truth, shows, among other things, that the idea of cleansing by means of blood was familiar to the ancients, At the same time that we use this illustration we do not understand the blood of the cross in the gross literal sense, but understand by it the death of Christ upon the cross, and, as that was a bloody one, we are not surprised that it should be called in several Scriptures his blood. The death of Christ (1) as a propitiation turns away the wrath
of God, due to sin, from man: this is its propitiatory efficacy. It turns away man from sin: this is its purificatory effect. God loved us with an everlasting love, but sin he hates with an infinite and everlasting hatred. Asa Friend God loves us, but asa Lawgiver he denounces our sin, as a Judge he condemns it, and as a King he must root
it out of his dominions altogether. The love of God is like a mighty river. It has
flowed from eternity in the majesty of its strength and in the glorious fulness of its
stream; but sin rose as a vast obstruction to the current—it lay like a formidable
boom across the stream. At length, in the fulness of time, the cross of Christ broke
through the boom, forced aside the obstruction, and opened up the channel ; and now the
sinner, sheltered beneath the shadow of that cross, can say, “ Though thou wast angry
with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou hast comforted me.” ‘“ God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself.” How? “Not imputing unto men their trespasses;”
not charging us with those offences by which we justly incurred his displeasure and
merited his wrath ; forgiving them, forgetting them, and so reconciled to us, and reeon-