_"The Son of Man came ... to give His life a ransom for
many."_--MARK X. 45.
The death of Jesus Christ has always held the foremost place in the
thought and teaching of the Church. When St. Paul writes to the
Corinthians, "I delivered unto you first of all that which also I
received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures," he is the spokesman of every Christian preacher and
teacher, of the missionary of the twentieth century no less than of the
first. It is with some surprise, therefore, we discover when we turn to
the teaching of Jesus Himself, that He had so little to say concerning a
subject of which His disciples have said so much. It is true that the
Gospels, without exception, relate the story of Christ's death with a
fullness and detail which, in any other biography, would be judged
absurdly out of proportion. But this, it is said, reveals the mind of
the evangelists rather than the mind of Christ. And those who love that
false comparison between the Gospels and the Epistles of which so much
is heard to-day, have not been slow to seize upon this apparent
discrepancy as another example of the way in which the Church has
misunderstood and misinterpreted the simple message of the Galilean
Prophet.
But, in the first place, as I will show in a moment, the contrast
between the Gospels and Epistles in this matter is by no means so
sharply defined as is often supposed. And further, granting that there
is a contrast--that what in the Gospels is only a hint or suggestion,
becomes in the Epistles a definite and formal statement--it is one which
admits of a simple and immediate explanation. Christ--this was Dr.
Dale's way of putting it--did not come to preach the gospel; He came
that there might be a gospel to preach. This must not be pressed so far
as to imply that it is only the death and not also the life of Christ
that has any significance for us to-day; but if that death had any
significance in it at all, if it was anything more to Him than death is
to us, if it stood in any sort of relation to us men and our salvation,
manifestly the teaching which should make this plain would more
fittingly follow than precede the death. And they at least who accept
Christ's words, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot
bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall
guide you into all truth"--they, I say, who accept these words can find
no difficulty in believing that part of the revelation which it was the
good pleasure of the Father to give to us in His Son, came through the
lips of men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Moreover,
when we turn to the Gospels we see at once that the interpretation of
Christ's death was just one of those things which the disciples as yet
were unable to bear. The point is so important that it is worth while
dwelling upon it for a moment. So far were the Twelve from being able to
understand their Lord's death, that they would not even believe that He
was going to die. "Be it far from Thee, Lord," cried Peter, when Christ
first distinctly foretold His approaching end; "this shall never be unto
Thee." When, at another time, He said unto His disciples, "Let these
words sink into your ears; for the Son of Man shall be delivered up into
the hands of men," St. Luke adds, "But they understood not this saying."
And again, after another and similar prophecy, the evangelist writes
with significant reiteration, "They understood none of these things; and
this saying was hid from them, and they perceived not the things that
were said." So was it all through those last months of our Lord's life.
His thoughts were not their thoughts, neither were His ways their ways.
They followed Him as He pressed along the highway, His face steadfastly
set to go up to Jerusalem, but they could not understand Him. Why, if as
He had said, death waited Him there, did He go to seek it? Think what
utter powerlessness to enter even a little way into His thoughts is
revealed in a scene like this: Two of His disciples, James and John,
came to Him to ask Him that they might sit, one on His right hand, and
one on His left hand, in His glory. Jesus said unto them, "Ye know not
what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" And they said unto
Him, "We are able." What could Jesus do with ignorance like
this--ignorance that knew not its own ignorance? He could be "sorry for
their childishness"; but how could He show them the mystery of His
Passion? What could He do but wait until the Cross, and the empty grave,
and the gift of Pentecost had done their revealing and enlightening
work?
At the same time, as I have already pointed out, it is altogether a
mistake to suppose that Christ has left us on this subject wholly to the
guidance of others. From the very beginning of His ministry the end was
before Him, and as it drew nearer He spoke of it continually. At first
He was content to refer to it in language purposely vague and
mysterious. Just as a mother who knows herself smitten with a sickness
which is unto death, will sometimes try by shadowed hints to prepare her
children for what is coming, while yet she veils its naked horror from
their eyes, so did Jesus with His disciples. "Can the sons of the
bride-chamber fast," He asked once, "while the bridegroom is with them?
... But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from
them, and then will they fast in that day." But from the time of Peter's
great confession at Cæsarea Philippi all reserve was laid aside, and
Christ told His disciples plainly of the things which were to come to
pass: "From that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples, how that
He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and
chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised
up." And if we will turn to any one of the first three Gospels, we shall
find, as Dr. Denney says, that that which "characterized the last months
of our Lord's life was a deliberate and thrice-repeated attempt to teach
His disciples something about His death."[19] Let me try, very briefly,
to set forth some of the things which He said.
I
First of all, then, _Christ died as a faithful witness to the truth._
Like the prophets and the Baptist before Him, whose work and whose end
were so often in His thoughts, He preached righteousness to an
unrighteous world, and paid with His life the penalty of His daring.
That is the very lowest view which can be taken of His death. No
Unitarian, no unbeliever, will deny that Jesus died as a good man,
choosing rather the shame of the Cross than the deeper shame of treason
to the truth. And thus far Christ is an example to all who follow Him.
In one sense His cross-bearing was all His own, a mystery of suffering
and death into which no man can enter. But in another sense, as St.
Peter tells us, He has left us by His sufferings an example that we
should follow His steps. It is surely a significant fact that the words
which immediately follow Christ's first distinct declaration of His
death are these, "If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself,
and take up his cross and follow Me." His death was the supreme
illustration of a law which binds us, the servants, even as it bound
Him, the Master. In the path of every true man there stands the cross
which he must bear, or be true no more. Let no one grow impatient and
say this is no more than the fringe of Christ's thoughts about His
death; even the fringe is part of the robe, and if, as the words I have
quoted seem clearly to indicate, Christ thought of His death as in any
sense at all a pattern for us, let us not miss this, the first and
simplest lesson of the Cross.
There are few more impressive scenes in the history of the Christian
pulpit than that in which Robertson of Brighton, preaching the Assize
Sermon at Lewes, turned as he closed to the judges, and counsel, and
jury, and bade them remember, by "the trial hour of Christ," by "the
Cross of the Son of God," the sacred claims of truth: "The first lesson
of the Christian life is this, Be true; and the second this, Be true;
and the third this, Be true."