Mark 15:16-41 - Homilies By J.j. Given

Parallel passages: Matthew 27:27-56 ; Luke 23:26-49 ; John 19:17-37 .—

The closing scene.

I. THE CRUCIFIXION AND ACCOMPANYING EVENTS ,

1 . The words of the Creed. The words of the Creed, "crucified under Pontius Pilate," are familiar to almost every young person who has been trained in the Christian religion. All down the centuries the name of this Roman knight, who was Procurator of Judaea under the Propraetor of Syria, has been associated with the greatest crime that has blotted and blackened the page of history since the beginning of the world. He was a descendant of the great Samnite general, C. Pontius Telesinus, and so belonged to the Pontian gens. His surname, Pilatus, is usually derived from pilum , a javelin, and so means "armed with a javelin;" though others connect it with pileatus , from pileus , a cap worn by manumitted slaves, implying that he had been a freedman, or the son of one. His head-quarters were at Caesarea, on the sea, but during the Jewish feasts, when such crowds assembled in Jerusalem, in discharge of his duty he came up to Jerusalem to keep order. In like manner Herod, whose usual residence was at Tiberias, had come up to Jerusalem to keep the feast, ostensibly in conformity to the Jews' religion, but more especially to conciliate the favor of the Jewish people. It thus happened that the tetrarch and Roman governor were both at Jerusalem at the same time—the former occupying the old Asmonean palace, and the latter Herod's Praetorium a palace of Herod the Great, or perhaps a part of Fort Antonia.

2 . Pilate's embarrassment and earnestness to secure the Savior ' s acquittal. He had offended the Jews by bringing the Roman standards to Jerusalem, and had been obliged to retrace this step; he had quarrelled with them about secularizing the corban, or sacred treasury money, to provide a suitable water-supply for Jerusalem; he had been engaged in a deadly feud with the Samaritans; and had mingled the blood of the Galilaeans with their own sacrifices. He was thus on bad terms with the people of every province in the land, and could not, therefore, afford further to provoke their wrath. On the other hand, he had had three warnings—the voice of his own conscience, the dream of his wife, Claudia Procula, and the announcement of Jesus' mysterious title of "Son of God." On the one side was the fear of the Jews whom he had so deeply offended, and fear also of compromising himself with the emperor, now that his patron Sejanus had fallen; on the other were his remaining sense of justice, his respect for Jesus as an innocent man, perhaps as something more—so that Tertullian says of him, "Jam pro conscientia Christianus"—and the threefold warning already mentioned. In consequence he does his best, in his perplexing circumstances, to have Jesus released; for he sent him to Herod, then offered to release him as a favor, according to an established custom. Next he thought to substitute scourging for crucifixion; and when that had failed, he appealed to their pity. But all to no purpose. What was he to do? Why, assert, as he was bound to do, the power of the Roman law, maintain the cause of justice, and obey the voice of conscience at all hazards. But instead of this he vacillated at the beginning, temporized afterwards, and yielded to his fears in the end. Unhappily, he allowed fear for his personal safety to stifle the voice of conscience.

3 . The crucifixion. Crosses were of different sorts and shapes. There was the crux simplex , or simple cross, which was rather a stake on which the body was impaled; there was the crux decussator , or St. Andrew's cross, in the form of the letter X there was the crux immissa , or Latin cross, in the form of a dagger with point downward † ; there was the cruz commissa , in the form of the letter T. On account of the inscription the form of the cross on which our Lord suffered is generally supposed to have been that of the third sort. And now we are arrived at the last sad scene in that shocking drama. Criminals usually carried their cross, or the cross-beams of it, as they went to execution; hence the term furcifer , or cross-bearer. Jesus, exhausted by all he had previously endured, and crushed beneath that heavy cross, sank by the way. Simon, an African Jew, is impressed into the service ( ἀγγαρεύουσι , send out a mounted courier, from the mounted couriers ready to carry the royal despatches in Persia; then force to do service, compel) and compelled to carry the Savior's cross. Jesus is fastened to that cross; his hands and his feet are pierced with nails; the cross is hoisted, and with a rude and sudden dash it is sunk deep into the earth. There the bleeding Victim hangs, his bones disjointed, his veins broken, his wounds freshened, his skin livid, his face wan, his strength exhausted; blood flows from his head, blood from his hands, blood from his feet, blood from his opened side. There he hangs, wounded, tortured, fainting, bleeding, dying. There he hangs upon that cursed tree, the passers-by reviling him and wagging their heads, soldiers mocking him, rulers deriding him, malefactors railing on him,—a fearful fourfold mockery. He is offered vinegar and gall (or wine and myrrh, i.e. wine myrrhed, or made acid), but, in the first instance, will not drink, lest it should blunt the pain of dying or cloud his faculties; "The cup that my Father gave me, shall I not drink it?" He suffers the withdrawment of his heavenly Father's countenance, and in consequence exclaims, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" At length, with a loud voice, he cries out, "It is finished!" and bows his head in death. We do not marvel at the accompanying circumstances, strange and marvellous as they were. No wonder the sun drew back from the spectacle, and shrouded his glorious rays in darkness, rather than gaze on such a scene. No wonder that dense darkness settled on the land for three long hours. No wonder earth trembled and quaked in horror at the foul deed that had been done. No wonder that rocks rent and graves opened, and the tenants of the tomb came forth as though in consternation, shocked at human sinfulness, and in sympathy with the heavenly Sufferer. No wonder the veil of the temple, strong and thick, is torn in twain from top to bottom, for the humanity of the Savior is torn with thorns, and smitings, and nails, and spear-thrust; while he is pouring out his life unto death.

4 . The inscription. The main part of the superscription, viz. "The King of the Jews," is found in the record of each evangelist—the same in all and correct in each. In one it is completed by the name, "Jesus," which a Roman, proud of the purity of his speech, and jealous of preserving it, naturally enough left out of the Latin title; in another it is supplemented by the name of the place, "Nazareth;" while the words "This is" are only introductory. Otherwise the inscription was trilingual, and exactly recorded as written in the three languages by three of the evangelists respectively, while St. Mark records the actual charge—the superscription of his accusation αἰτίας common to them all; and this was the assumption of royalty.

5 . The time of the crucifixion. The crucifixion really commenced at 9 a.m. The darkness began at noon; death took place at 3 p.m. The apparent discrepancy between the synoptists and John 19:14 is not to be removed by the similarity of the Greek numerals for six and three ( ς and γ ) respectively, and the supposed substitution or rather misreading of the former for the latter in the Johannean Gospel. The reconciliation is more probably effected by a difference of time-reckoning—the synoptists adopting the Jewish and St. John the Roman method. Thus the delivery and preparations began at 6 a.m. according to the latter.

II. THE DESIGN OF THE CRUCIFIXION .

1 . Not for personal chastisement. The design could not in any sense be for personal chastisement, for Jesus had been holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners;" it is expressly stated, too, that he was "cut off, but not for himself." Neither could it be as an example , for the example of One perfectly innocent suffering so severely would only discourage the guilty, and might well drive them to despair; for if this were done to a green tree, what would be done to a dry—if the guiltless suffered so fearfully, what might the guilty expect? Besides, if Christ suffered as an example, what possible good could his example do to those that lived before his day? Neither was it for confirmation of his teaching—to confirm the doctrines which he taught and seal them with his blood; for some of the prophets had done this before him, several of the apostles did so after him, and the martyrs all down the ages have suffered in like manner. And yet, though thus entitled, according to the theory in question, to stand on the same platform with Jesus, of none of them could it ever be asked, with the expectation of an affirmative answer," Was he crucified for you?" Of no one in all the glorious company of the apostles, or in all the goodly fellowship of the prophets, or in all the noble army of martyrs, or in all the holy Church throughout all the world, could it be said, "He was crucified for you." How, then, are we to account for the unparalleled sufferings of the Son of God; for the indescribable distress that overwhelmed him during those sufferings? What reason can we render for the transcendent value ascribed to the gift of God's Son—that unspeakable gift; for the incomparable worth of the boon, so that all other benefits sink into insignificance when placed beside it? How are we to explain the fact that, amid the utmost chariness of human eulogy, we find the highest praises everywhere throughout this Book lavished on the Son of God? How comes it to pass that while we are instructed to "cease from man, for wherein is he to be accounted of?" we are invited to look up with greatest reverence to the Man Christ Jesus, as placed far above the proudest pinnacle of earthly grandeur, and his name raised high above every name, so that in honor of that name "every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father'? Even in heaven the Lamb, in the midst of the throne, as he had been slain, is still the marvel of the universe; while the key-note of the song sung by the redeemed in glory, and ever sounding along the arches of the sky, is," Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing," What is the solution of all this? We have no doubt, and feel no difficulty in giving a decided and definite answer to all questions of the sort proposed, for Scripture itself supplies that answer. It is because he "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many;" it is because he "hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for sweet-smelling savor;" it is because he " bare our sins in his own body on the tree," suffering, "the just for the unjust, to bring us to God;" it is because "he was made sin for us, though he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him;" it is because in him "we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace," Why, again, are there so many Scriptures all bearing on this same subject? Just to exhibit it under its various aspects and from sundry standpoints; just to explain it more clearly and enforce it more fully; and, still more, to awaken our liveliest interest in it, and impress us with a due sense of its supreme and paramount importance.

2 . The sufferings of the cross vicarious. Objections have been urged against the fairness of the holy suffering in the stead of the unholy, and the objectors strive to explain away the fact of such substitution. - To such objectors we reply—If you object to the fairness of the holy suffering in the room of the unholy, and seek to explain it away, we object to the fairness of what you can never explain away—of what you must admit, however reluctant, and cannot deny, however desirous. If you object to the holy suffering in place of the unholy, we object to the holy suffering at all; and yet you are bound to acknowledge that the Holy One has suffered, and cannot venture, so long at least as you credit the Gospel narrative, to gainsay the historic fact. But perfect holiness is justly entitled to happiness, and by the law of Heaven is (as it should be) entirely exempt from suffering; and therefore, unless the Holy One suffered in the room and stead of the unholy, his sufferings would not only be most unjust, but at the same time altogether meaningless.

3 . The doctrine of substitution in both secular and sacred history. Of the very many instances of this doctrine of substitution met with in the pages of both sacred and secular history, a few examples may be here adduced. Judah intreated Joseph that he might be kept instead of Benjamin—a bondman in his room. After an address of most pathetic and powerful pleading, he says, "Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father." In the days of King David an unnatural war broke out. Rebels banded themselves against their sovereign; his son became their leader. A disastrous battle was fought in the wood of Ephraim, and the young man Absalom was slain. One messenger follows on the heels of another, saying, "Tidings, my lord the king;" while his question is once and again the same, "Is the young man Absalom safe?" The king, it is plain, would rather have lost the battle than his son; he would have parted with his kingdom rather than his son; nay, he would have given life itself for his son's life. For now, when he has learnt at length that that fair and favorite son had fallen by the hand of the martial but merciless Joab, "the king," we read, "was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" Even Caiaphas enunciated the doctrine, though ignorant of its true bearing and unconscious of the great truth it involved, when he "gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people." The sins of the whole people laid on the head of the scapegoat, the sins of the individual person transferred to the head of the sin offering,—such acts as these symbolically teach the same. When we turn to the secular classics, we find that one of the sublimest poems and simplest tragedies of antiquity is based on the doctrine of substitution; it represents a deity suffering in the cause of humanity and on account of favors bestowed on man. Another instance, and one containing the most genuine example of conjugal affection in the old Greek drama, represents a wife giving her life a substitute for that of her husband. So familiar was this doctrine to the ancients. The great Theban poet, with wonted power, sketches in a few stirring sentences the loyalty and love of the brave Antilochus defense of his aged parent Nestor, the renowned knight of Pylos. Enfeebled by years and endangered by younger warriors, his horse wounded by the archery of Paris, his chariot impeded, and himself fiercely assailed by the Ethiop Memnon, the old man, in trepidation of spirit, called loudly on his son for succor; nor did he call in vain. Promptly was his call heard and heeded. The faithful son proved his devotion to his sire; he hastened to his side; he defended him from the strong spear of the assailant; he saved that site's life, but not without the sacrifice of his own; he rescued his parent from ruin, but received his own death-blow; he averted the fate that impended over his father, but at the expense of his own heart's blood. Hundreds of years have rolled'. away since that deed of daring and devotedness was done, and still it is enshrined in the immortal verse of the Pindaric muse, and the hero's memory embalmed among the younger men of ancient days as first in affection to his father. Again, we admire the Roman poet's graphic delineation of the battle-scene in which the gallant son of Mezentius fell. We admire still more the filial affection of that son who, when the deadly blow had been aimed at his father, interposed himself in his father's stead, received the blow, lost his own life, but saved his father's. "By thy death I live, my son; by thy wounds I am saved!" the veteran warrior exclaimed. In like manner the Son of God took the sinner's place, and stood in the sinner's room; and in the words of inspiration, the sinner who trusts in him can say, "He was wounded for my transgressions, he was bruised for my iniquities: the chastisement of my peace was upon him; and with his stripes I am healed." For us the Savior hung upon that cross; for us that frame writhed in agony; for us those limbs quivered in torture; for us that ghastly paleness overspread his face; for us those eye-strings broke in death; for us that side was pierced with the rude soldier's spear; for us he suffered and for us he died.

4 . The power of the cross in conversion. The first convert of the Greenland mission was a robber-chief, called Kajarnak. That mission had long been unsuccessful; the missionaries had been sorely tried. At last, disheartened, they were about to leave the country, when one day the bandit, with his followers, came to rob the mission tent. On entering, he saw the missionary writing, and wondered what it meant; the missionary explained to him that, by the marks he was making on the paper, he could tell the thoughts that had passed through the mind of a man called John hundreds of years before. "Impossible I" exclaimed the savage chief. The missionary, who was finishing his translation of the Gospel of St. John, read to these heathen Greenlanders the record of the crucifixion as contained in the nineteenth chapter of that Gospel, on which he was then employed. The chieftain and his men were strangely interested in the narrative. At length Kajarnak, with much emotion, cried out, "What had the man done that they treated him so?" The missionary addressed him in reply, "That man did nothing amiss, but Kajarnak has done much wrong; Kajarnak murdered his wife; Kajarnak has robbed as well as murdered; Kajarnak has filled the land with violence; and that man was bearing the punishment; of Kajarnak's sins that Kajarnak might be saved." Tears rolled down the cheek of the rude robber-chief., and he besought the missionary to read him all that over again, "for," he added, "I too would like to be saved." We do not wonder that the story of the cross had such 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 contrary, 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 so 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 communion 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 splendor 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 you bright world above. By the cross is the way of safety and salvation; 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 Savior. 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 Savior 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 Hebrews 9:14 ," 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 of a victim. 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 hilasmoi. But another ceremony was needed—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 which had, as we have seen, vicariously represented him, when an animal of another kind was 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

III. LESSONS TAUGHT US BY THE CROSS .

1 . God ' s hatred of sin is seen in the cross. We trace the wrath of God in the waters of the flood that swept away the antediluvians; in the sin-ruined cities of which few fragments remain to tell where once they were; in the dreary waters that roll over the desolated plain where Sodom and Gomorrah once stood; in the peeled and scattered and sifted race whose fathers' awful imprecation, "His blood be upon us, and our children," called down the withering curse of Heaven; in that dark abode where the angels that kept not their first estate are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day; in that region of despair where the finally impenitent are doomed to weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and where the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. And yet the wrath of God, we think, is revealed in clearer light and blazoned in more glaring characters in the sacrifice of the cross, because "God spared not his own Son," when that Son undertook the penalty of our sin, "but delivered him up for us all."

2 . The highest morality comes from the cross. No theory of morals is so persuasive, no precepts so powerful, as the picture of dying love exhibited in the cross. "The love of Christ constraineth us," says the apostle; "because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again" (Revised Version); and also, "He gave himself for us, to redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works;" and once more, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Oh, how can we go on in sin if we reflect, as we ought, that sin crucified the Lord of life and glory; if we reflect that it was sin inflicted those wounds upon him; if we remember that sin caused him that agony of soul as well as anguish of body, when, in the language of the prophet, he might well say, "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith Jehovah hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger;" if we consider that our sin was laid upon him and borne by him when "he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," and when "he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself"? The way to purify our fallen humanity and elevate the standard of morality is not by moral lessons, however proper and useful in their own place, but by leading sinners to the foot of the cross, and by pointing to that cross as embodying three arguments, than which there is nothing more potent or more powerfully persuasive in all the universe besides. The first argument which the blood that flowed on that cross embodies is the mercy of God the Father, in reopening the channel of his love which sin had dammed up and closed. The second argument is the love of God the Son, in assuming our nature, in agonizing and sweating, in being smitten and scourged and spit upon and scorned, in being cruelly crowned and crucified; and all to "finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness." The third argument is the grace of God the Holy Spirit, in sprinkling the blood thus shed on the conscience, when he brings home the death of Christ, in the power and demonstration of faith, to the sinner's heart. How is it possible to resist this triple argument? How is it possible to go on in sin, which caused our Lord such suffering, and when such love—the love of the Trinity—is constraining us to abandon it for ever?

3 . The innocence of the Sufferer. Heaven and earth attested his innocence. Friend and foe bore witness to it. A noble Roman lady, wife of the governor, warned her lord, saying, "Have thou nothing to do with that just man." Pilate himself, the judge, informed chief priests and people, "I find no fault in this man." Again a second time, having assembled chief priests and rulers and people, he affirmed publicly and positively Jesus' innocence in the following strong terms :— "Behold, I, having examined him before you, found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: no, nor yet Herod: for he sent him back unto us; and behold, nothing worthy of death hath been done by him" (Revised Version). Once more, for the third time, he asserted his innocence, saying, "Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him." Judas, the traitor, admitted the same thing, saying, "I have betrayed innocent blood." The Roman centurion, who superintended the execution, cried out, "Certainly this was a righteous man;" and again, after he had seen the earthquake and those things that were done, "Truly this was the Son of God." One of the malefactors, his companion in suffering, frankly acknowledged, "This man hath done nothing amiss." The whole record of his trial furnishes the plainest and most positive evidence of his innocence. Satan had tried him, and found nothing in him. God the Father had owned him three times by an audible voice from heaven. He had committed no offense against the religion of the land, no crime against the laws of his country, no sin against God. He went about continually doing good; he was acknowledged to have done all things well; he was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners."

"We held him as condemn'd by Heaven,

An outcast from his God,

While for our sins he groan'd, he bled,

Beneath his Father's rod.

"His sacred blood hath wash'd our souls

From sin's polluted stain;

His stripes have heal'd us, and his death

Revived our souls again."

4. His seven sayings on the cross. Of these three are recorded by St. Luke, other three by St. John, and the remaining one by both St. Matthew and St. Mark. The first of those seven sayings, or seven words, is a prayer for his murderers: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." There is no doubt that they were acting in ignorance and unbelief; yet they were not excusable on that account, for men are accountable for their belief, and especially so when they have abundant means of rectifying their misbelief or removing their unbelief. The spirit of forgiveness which this prayer breathes is truly wonderful. There is an entire absence of revenge and of all vindictiveness, and yet this was only the negative side; there was the positive feeling of love to his enemies, pity for his murderers, and prayer for those who used him so despitefully. Thus he practiced what he preached, and exemplified what he taught in the condition of the petition, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." The second of those words is a promise to the penitent sufferer beside him: "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." At first it would appear that both malefactors had railed upon him, or the plural is used idiomatically for the singular. One became penitent, rebuking the railing of his fellow-sufferer. By faith he looked to the pierced One at his side, and mourned. His faith became marvelously strong in an incredibly short space. The right rendering of his prayer in the Revised Version makes this more manifest: "Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom." The common rendering of into , as if it were εἰς with the accusative, would imply that Jesus passed into his kingdom at the hour of his dissolution, so that faith would not have long to wait; but the expression "in thy kingdom" ( ἐν , with the dative) points not to the immediate future like the former, but to the more distant future when Jesus would come again in his kingdom; and still the faith that prompted the petition patiently looked forward to that far-off day. Thus there is no sinner beyond the reach of mercy; no time too late to seek salvation; and no prayers of faith rejected. The soul united to Jesus is safe in his arms, and admitted to glory soon as separated from the body. The third saying is a provision for his widowed mother in her sore bereavement: "Woman, behold thy son!" and to the disciple he said, "Behold thy mother!" It was to the beloved John the intimation was given to treat the Virgin mother as his own mother, while Mary was to regard and depend on John as her son. The hint was understood by both; the new relationship was accepted, John undertook the responsibility, and Mary confided herself to his care. Jesus, as he hung in agony, was thus mindful of his mother, making careful provision for her. What a lesson of filial love is taught us here! What a lesson of dutifulness to a parent, especially when that parent is bereaved and desolate! The fourth saying is a position of spiritual loneliness: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Here there is faith, but faith wanting the assurance of sense. There is faith in Jesus acknowledging God as his God; but a sense of the Divine presence is absent. The complaint of Divine abandonment is caused by that absence, and the deserted soul is in agony. The condition of the Christian is sometimes similar—when, like Job, he goes forward, but God is not there; backward, but he cannot perceive him; and when he turns himself to every side, but cannot find him. But oh, how great the difference! Such a season of darkness is for the most part occasioned by sin; so in our Savior's case it was indeed for sin, but not his own! The fifth is the pain of bodily suffering: "I thirst." The pain of thirst is worse to bear than that of hunger; when long continued it is distressing in the extreme. Men who have traveled in a desert district or under a tropical sun can realize the severity of this condition. In the case of our Lord there was a peculiar aggravation. Near the cross had been placed a vessel of sour wine ( posca ) for the use of the soldiers, the sight of which would increase the feeling of thirst and pain on the part of the Sufferer. Nor was that all; among the cruel mocking of our Lord in the earlier stage of the crucifixion was the circumstance that the soldiers tantalized him by raising to his lips their jar or sponge of vinegar, and then suddenly withdrawing it, for we read, "The soldiers also mocked him … offering him vinegar." The sixth is the perfection of his work: "It is finished." As has been beautifully said," Finished was his holy life; with his life his struggle, with his struggle his work, with his work the redemption, with the redemption the foundation of the new world."

"''Tis finished!' was his latest voice:

These sacred accents o'er,

He bow'd his head, gave up the ghost,

And suffer'd pain no more.

"''Tis finish'd!' The Messiah dies

For sins, but not his own;

The great redemption is complete,

And Satan's power o'erthrown.

"''Tis finish'd!' All his groans are past

His blood, his pain, and toils,

Have fully vanquished our foes,

And crown'd him with their spoils.

"'Tis finished!' Legal worship ends,

And gospel ages run;

All old things now are pass'd away,

And a new world begun."

The seventh is presentation of his spirit to his Father: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Many a time have these words waked a corresponding sentiment in the dying Christian's breast; many a time have they been used by the dying Christian to express his soul's surrender to God. Similarly the protomartyr's "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Likewise in the language of ancient piety, "Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth." Hence too we infer the immateriality of the soul, and its independence of the body. Here also we learn how to die, yielding our soul into the hand of our heavenly Father.—J.J.G.