Let us distinctly apprehend where is the living heart of the
Gospel--that it is the message of redemption by the incarnation and
sacrifice of the Son of God. There follows from that incarnation and
sacrifice all the great teaching about the work of the Divine Spirit
in men, dwelling in them for evermore. But the beginning of all is,
'Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.' And,
brethren, that message meets, as nothing else meets, the deepest
needs of every human soul. It is able, as nothing else is able, to
open out into a whole encyclopædia and universe of wisdom and truth
and power. If we strike it out of our conception of Christianity, or
if we obscure it as being the very palpitating centre of the whole,
then feebleness will creep over the Christianity that is _minus_ a
Cross, or does not see in it the Sacrifice for the world's sin. You
may cast overboard the sails to lighten the ship. If you do, she lies
a log on the waters. And if, for the sake of meeting new phases of
thought, Christian churches tamper with this central truth, they have
flung away their means of progress and of power.
Let me say again, and in a word only, that the considerations that I
have been trying to submit to you in this sermon, show us the limits
within which the modern cry of 'Back to the Christ of the Gospels,'
is right, and where it may be wrong. I believe that in former days,
and to some extent in the present day, we evangelical teachers have
too much sometimes talked rather about the doctrines than about the
Person who is the doctrines. And if the cry of 'Back to the Christ'
means, 'Do not talk so much about the Atonement and Propitiation;
talk about the Christ who atones,' then, with all my heart, I say,
'Amen!' But put the Person in the foreground, the living-loving, the
dying-loving, the risen-loving Christ, put Him in the foreground. But
if it is implied, as I am afraid it is often implied, that the Christ
of the Gospels is one and the Christ of the epistles is another, and
that to go back to the Christ of the gospels means to drop 'died for
our sins according to the Scriptures,' and to retain only the
non-miraculous, moral and religious teachings that are recorded in
the three first gospels, then I say that it is fatal for the Church,
and it is false to the facts, for the Christ of the epistles is the
Christ of the gospels: the difference only being that in the one you
have the facts, and in the other you have their meaning and their
power.
So, lastly, let this text teach us what we ourselves have to do with
this unanimous testimony. 'So we preach, and so ye believed.'
Brother! Do you believe _so_? That is to say, is your conception
of the Gospel the mighty redemptive agency which is wrought by the
Incarnate Son of God, who was crucified for our offences, and rose
that we might live, and is glorified that we, too, may share His
glory? Is that your Gospel? But do not be content with an
intellectual grasp of the thing. 'So ye believed' means a great deal
more than 'I believe that Christ died for our sins.' It means 'I
believe in the Christ who did die for my sins.' You must cast
yourself as a sinful man on Him; and, so casting, you will find that
it is no vain story which is commended to us by all these august
voices from the past, but you will have in your own experience the
verification of the fact that He died for our sins, in your own
consciousness of sins forgiven, and new love bestowed; and so may
turn round to Paul, the leader of the chorus, and to all the
apostolic band, and say to them, 'Now I believe, not because of thy
saying, but because I have seen Him, and myself heard Him.'