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- Herausgeber: Darolt Books
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Serie: Hope messages for quarantine
- Sprache: Englisch
The Attraction of the Cross is a message of meditation based on the Bible and written by Gardiner Spring was born in 1785, attended Berwick Academy in Maine and later graduated from Yale University in 1805. In 1806 he married Miss Susan Barney and moved to Bermuda where he worked as a teacher while studying law. By 1808 he left that teaching position to be admitted to the bar in Connecticut, but within a short time came to explore a call to ministry, attending Andover Seminary from 1809 - 1810. His first pastoral call was to the Brick Church of New York City in 1810 and his entire ministerial career of 63 years was served at this post. He was an industrious author, and wrote many works.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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PREFACE
1. The Narrative of the Cross
The story of the cross is related in the Holy Scriptures. They uniformly teach us to look upon Christ's death in a light totally different from that of any other person. They never mention it without emphasis, nor without admiration. When the great Ruler of the world was pleased to accomplish his purposes of mercy toward sinful man, he saw fit to do it in a way that expressed the mysterious fullness of his own eternal nature. God is one in nature, and in three persons. A fundamental article of the Christian religion is, that one of these three Divine persons became incarnate. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." "Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is givenand his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."
"When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." His birth was humble, away from home, and in a manger; but it was announced by angelic voices, "Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy,...for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a SAVIOR, who is Christ the Lord!" Behold the wonder!the immortal Deity clothed with the nature of mortal manthe Everlasting One born in timethe God Omnipotent enveloped in the confines of infancy, and lying in a manger! This was the beginning of the Savior's sorrows. Had he any sense of loftiness to be subdued, any honest pride of character to be wounded, any inbred sentiments of virtuous exaltation to be mortified, it would be in the prospect of such mysterious humiliation as this. No pomp of earth was there; no show of worldly magnificence; no regal splendor; though there slept on that pallet of straw One who "on his robe and thigh was written this Titleking of Kings and Lord of Lords." Judah's crown and scepter might have belonged to his honored parents; and he should of right have been born in the palace of David. But this was ill fitting one who came to pour contempt upon the pride of man; whose "kingdom is not of this world," and who, before he assumed this low attire, foresaw that he should put it off only on the cross.
The tears that flowed in Bethlehem often flowed. In his infancy, he was sought as the victim of Herod's sword; in his youth, he was often obliged to retire from the observation of men, that he might not provoke their rage. But while for thirty years he avoided the scenes of active and public life, his great work of suffering and redemption, in all its parts and consequences, was always present to his thoughts. Wherever he went, and whatever he did and said, he conducted himself like one who felt that he had a great work to perform, and was assiduously hastening it onward to its final catastrophe. He knew what others did not knowthat the hand of violence would cut Him off in the midst of his days; and contemplating his coming sorrows, could often say, "I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!"
In this respect, as well, indeed, as in every other, he differed from all other men. Socrates, though he addressed himself to his fate with great calmness, and spoke of it with wonderful tranquility, and drank the hemlock with unshrinking firmness, did not anticipate his destiny from the beginning of his career, nor even many days before its close. Those there have been who have undertaken enterprises of great toil and peril; but the suffering was uncertain, and many a gladdening, though, perhaps, deceptive hope was mingled with their fears. But the Savior fully knew his miserable career of suffering, as well as its close of agony, from the hour he left his Father's bosom. In the eternal "council of peace," he "gave his life a ransom for many." All his arrangements were directed to this one end; his eye and his course were single; and the farther he went in it, the more steadfastly did he "set his face to go to Jerusalem." Nothing could divert his steps from that melancholy way of tears and blood. To every solicitation his reply was, "The Son of man must go up to Jerusalem, and suffer many thingsand be killed."
Judea, the ancient country possessed by the Hebrew race, lay in the center of the then inhabited globe, and was once the glory of all lands. It was the great thoroughfare between the commercial countries of the west and south-west, and Babylon and Persia on the east, and the trading towns skirting the Black and Caspian seas. Scenes of exciting interest in Judea, and especially in Jerusalem, were thus a spectacle to all the nations of the earth. Jerusalem was the glory of Judea, as Judea was of the world. At the time the Savior drew near and wept over it, it had lost some of its ancient splendor. It had been the object of contention among surrounding nations, and had long suffered all the vicissitudes common to war and a warlike age. It had been pillaged; its inhabitants had been slain, or led into captivity; and the conquerors had erected statues of their own divinities in its temple. Its walls had been alternately demolished and rebuilt, and now it was the servile tributary to a foreign power, and a mere Roman province. Long since has it fulfilled the prediction of the prophet, and been "trodden down by the Gentiles." The proud Moslem, and the turbaned Turk, encamp in the "stronghold of Zion," and the mosque of Omar towers on the mount where once stood the ark of God. "How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow!The adversary has spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things.How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!"
It added interest to the scenes of the crucifixion, that it took place during the annual feast of the Jewish passover. Not only did this selected period call to mind the striking correspondence between the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, and the offering up of the "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world;" but was of special importance, since, by Divine appointment, it called together all the males of the Jewish nation to the national altar at Jerusalem. From all parts of the nation they were here assembled in vast and solemn concourse to this sacred festival, filling "the guest chambers" of the city, and occupying the thousand tents erected on its environed hills and plains. It was the last passover the Savior ate with his disciples. Before another should revolve, what mighty changes were to take place, both in his condition and theirs! He was to be crucified, to rise from the dead, to ascend to his Father and their Father, and enjoy the glory he had with him before the world wasthey, baptized with the Holy Spirit, and cheered with the promise of his presence, were to go forth on the benevolent errand of subduing the nations to the faith of His gospel.
Soon after his arrival in Jerusalem, and just before the festival, he said to his disciples, "With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer." A little before the feast, Judas Iscariot had gone to the chief priests and offered to betray him. This hypocritical traitor had covenanted to sell his Master for "thirty pieces of silver,"the fixed price of a slave according to the Jewish law. While sitting at the passover, Jesus said to his disciples, "Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." And not long after this, as though he would hasten the fearful consummation, and saw that events must now succeed one another with increased rapidity, or they could not be accomplished within the prescribed period, turning to his betrayer, he said, "What you do, do quickly." I am ready; delay no longer. "He then having received the sop went immediately outand it was night." It was a night much to be remembered. The signal was given; and the last scene of our Lord's sufferings began. "When he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him." The great design which he came to accomplish was to be immediately fulfilled.
Near to Jerusalem on the east, and at the foot of the Mount of Olives, where glided the brook Kedron, was the garden of Gethsemane. It was a much loved retreat; and there the Savior was used to resort with his disciples. There are seasons, in the immediate view of trial, when the anticipations of a sensitive mind equal the reality and which, if contemplated with tranquillity, are the surest pledge that the reality, however dreadful, will be encountered with a submissive and determined purpose. For reasons known only to Him who saw near at hand the mighty struggle he was about to endure, such was not the garden of Gethsemane to this great sufferer. He was agitated; cries of bitter suffering escaped his lips, and symptoms of mysterious distress came upon him, too exquisite for the human mind to conceive of. He took with him Peter, James and John, "and he began to be filled with anguish and deep distress." The enraged multitude had not yet scourged him; nor had the nails pierced his hands and feet; nor were the light and love of heaven yet eclipsed. Yet was it an hour of darkness, of temptation, of conflict, of depression too deep to be endured. Agonies of fear were extorted from him, which, even in view of the death by crucifixion, we had not looked for in one so spotless, and whom death in any form could not injure. There was something in this approaching scene which the eye of man did not behold. For even though "the whole strength of Divinity" was put in question for it, yet was he so moved by the apprehension of evils which he foresaw must be encountered, that the sacred historian informs us he "began to be filled with horror and deep distress." It was not the death that he was about to endure, but the concentrated wrath of God which his violated law denounces upon millions. It is no marvel he was afraid.
To all who suffered, and especially to his disciples, he had hitherto been the giver of consolationnow he was the one that needed it. "My soul," said he, "is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." Verily, "he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." There was a burden upon him which, unaided and alone, it was impossible for him to sustain. Thoughts crowded on his mind that filled him with sadness, with fear; and such was his anguish that he was in an agony, "and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." As though at such an hour he did not desire that his communion with heaven should be heard by mortal ears, he withdrew himself from his disciples about the length of a stone's throw, and fell face down on the ground, praying, "My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine." And again he went away the second time and prayed, "O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, your will be done!" And "he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words."
Nor were his cries unheeded. We are told by an apostle that he "was heard in that he feared." His fear was probably excited, not only by the invading sufferings, but by the weakness caused by his unequaled trial. In this fear he was relieved by a special messenger from heaven. "And there appeared an angel from heaven unto him, strengthening him." Fitting service for an angelic heart! Wonderful proof of his humiliation and suffering, that, at such an hour, a creature should appear to minister to his Creator! It was not to lighten the burden of sin and sorrow which he bore, nor to remove the cup. Rather was it to reach it to him undilutedto place it in his hands in all its bitterness. But it was to strengthen him. It would seem as though it were, with heaven's sweetest, most inspiring smile, to say, "Drink it, Son of God! for a world's redemption, drink!"
Centuries before this affecting scene took place, the prophet Isaiah had written, "Behold my servant whom I uphold; my elect in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him;he shall not fail nor be discouraged." Never was there such an dreadful enterprise undertakenin any other hands it would have failed, and every other being in the universe would have sunk under it in hopeless discouragement and dismay. But he did not fail; nor was he discouraged by these prelibations of the bitter cup. The time of prayer was over.
Instructive lesson! unutterably tender encouragement to those whom bitter experience has taught that, if they would reign with Christ they must also suffer with him. There is many a child of God whose fears, like those of his Divine Master, have been allayed by prayer. The angel of mercy has wiped away his tears, and he has come forth calm and collected, not because the dangers he feared can be averted, but because, in the lone garden, and darker night of his affliction, he has found some unusual confirmation of the promise, "As your days, so shall your strength be."
In Gethsemane, the Savior had vanquished fear, and was furnished for the conflict. Mark the tranquil spirit with which he rose from the earth on which he had lain prostrate, and met the traitor who was now coming with a great multitude, with stones and clubs from the chief priests. "Friend! why have you come?" "Hail master!" was the foul betrayer's only reply, and he kissed him. And it was sufficiently significant. The Son of man was betrayed into the hands of his murderers. But this betrayed One was no longer agitated. No fear sat upon his brow; but in its place a calm and unwavering confidence had taken up its abode in his bosom. To the ruffian band who came to seize him, he advanced and said, "I AM HE!" There was something in this avowal so expressive of his supreme dignity and power, that it overwhelmed them, ruffians as they were. "They went backward, and fell to the ground." Jesus asked them, "Whom seek you?" In this inquiry there was a deep meaning, and they were speechlessthey had no words to reply. They seized and bound him, and led him before his mortal enemies. These were to be judges; these were to decide whether the Son of God were a blasphemer, and to be adjudged to death! And here he stood alone. Peter denied him, and the rest of his disciples "forsook him, and fled." Human attachments retired under this dark cloud; Christian affection itself grew cold, and solemn oaths were disregardedthus fulfilling the prediction, "I have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the people there was none with me."
The haste with which his trial was conducted was an outrage upon the very forms of justice and humanity. Caiaphas, the high priest, presiding over the sanhedrin, seemed at once to prejudge the question. He instructed the council, and with prophetic instinct, "that it was expedient that one man should die for the people," that the whole nation should not perish. This was their "hour, and the power of darkness." Having the Savior in their hands, they employed the entire night, not in idle and cruel scrutiny alone, but in hewing reproach and injury upon him whom their severest scrutiny found so irreproachable and pure. It was a night of fatigue and anguish to him; to them of chagrin and malignity. Notwithstanding all the false witnesses they could summon, they utterly failed to substantiate a single charge against him. At length, the high priest called upon him under a solemn oath, to tell them if he was the Son of God. His answer was, "You have said ithereafter shall you see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." This avowal, instead of opening their hearts to truth, or their consciences to apprehension, was just what the rancor of his malignant accusers desired. The angry assembly was now exasperated. It was an inflamed mob making themselves fierce for their desperate purpose, and bore no resemblance to a solemn tribunal to whose hands were committed the sober responsibilities of justice.
The meekness and tranquillity of their prisoner had no effect to abate their fury. When the decisive question was proposed, Is the prisoner guilty? they answered and said, "He is guilty of death!" Then followed a scene of indignity and outrage, in the very sanctuary of justice, that was a fitting prelude to the cross. They "spit upon him;" they "buffeted him;" and others "smote him with their fists," saying, "Prophesy unto us, you Christ, Who is he that smote you!" Yes, the very servants slapped him with the palms of their hands.
The morning had now dawned on that darkest, brightest, most memorable day in the history of time. The power of life and death was not at this time in the hands of the Jews. Early in the morning, therefore, "the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council," the result of which was that Jesus was bound with cords, and carried before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, and a heathen judge, as accused of the crime of treason against the state. Early in the reign of Tiberius, Pilate had been appointed the governor of Judea. He was a cruel devious tyrant, and in every view a man of most odious character, and sufficiently familiar with blood. The unwillingness of a man of his impetuous and inexorable spirit to condemn Jesus, would, one would have supposed, have been proof of his innocence even to the relentless Jews. He was thrice brought before Pilate, and on the first trial formally pronounced innocent. Upon a private interview with his prisoner, on a second trial, Pilate asked him if he were the king of the Jews. Christ acknowledged that he was, but told him that his kingdom was not of this world. Pilate, therefore, persisted in his sentence, and informed the Jews that he found no cause of death in him. The Jews were clamorous; and Pilate, desirous to avoid the responsibility of a final decision, directed them to carry him before Herod, who happened, at that time, to be in Jerusalem, and to whose jurisdiction, as tetrarch of Galilee, the Galilean might properly belong. Herod, after scarcely going through the forms of investigation, clothed him with a purple robe, exposed him to the mockery of his guards, and sent him back through the streets of Jerusalem to Pilate. Pilate, at the instigation of the Jews, consented to institute a third trial. The prisoner was now led into the court, and there contemptuously and cruelly tied to a pillar and scourged, thus giving his "back to the smiters," and his "cheeks to those who plucked off the hair." Still this severe Roman judge affirmed Jesus' innocence. And as a proof that he would have no part in the death of an innocent man, he washed his hands in the presence of the people; until, wearied by their clamors, and impelled by their malice, he gave him up at last to suffer the sentence of the law, while they, in reply, only uttered the fearful imprecation so terribly fulfilled in their subsequent history, "His blood be on us, and on our children!"
The crime of which he was accused before the court of Israel was blasphemy, and the penalty of the Jewish law was death by stoning. But this would not satisfy his blood-thirsty murderers"Crucify him! crucify him!" was their infuriated cry. "To the cross! to the cross!" Before the sentence was executed, Jesus was forced to endure all the scorn and cruelty which the ingenuity of his tormentors could devise. The soldiers derided him; they put a wreath of thorns upon his head; they stripped him, and put a scarlet robe on him; and, having given him a reed for a scepter, they thronged around him, contemptuously bowed their knees, and cried in derision, "Hail, king of the Jews!" Here, too, they spit upon him, and taking the mock scepter from his hand, "smote him on the head."
He was now ready to be offeredsuch a victim as the sun never behelda sacrifice to abolish and swallow up all other sacrificesthe last sin offering. Justice burned with wrathful fury. It was a spectacle to the universe. God beheld it; for God was there. His invisible angels laid by their harps, and were the silent and astonished spectators of the scene. And the dark spirits of hell were there, flitting across and hovering over the scene, and instigating the murderers. They led him a little way out of the city, and there "they crucified him." It was not a sudden and immediate death, but one of agonizing, lingering torment. Nor was it an honorable one, but the most ignominious ever imposed upon the vilest of men. The Jewish law stigmatized it as the foulest and most indelible curse, while the bloody laws of Rome reserved it as the last and bitterest ingredient infused into the cup of misery and shame. They stripped him of his cloak, and then of his coat, and then take off his undergarments, that he may be naked upon the cross. They fasten him by nails driven through his hands and feet, and with him two thieves, Jesus in the midst. "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he has put him to grief." This was the bitter cup, and the last stage of his woeful passion.
There was something in this scene of woe which I know not that the human mind has ever comprehended. Never was there any sorrow like unto his sorrow. Nor do I know that its full weight and measure can be comprehended; and only know that, sustained as the man Christ Jesus was by his union with the Deity, he was overwhelmed. No, more, though the created and uncreated natures were here combined in one person, it shrank and staggered. The commission was executed, "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, the man who is my partner, says the Lord Almighty. Strike down the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered." And when that sword descended, griefs overwhelmed him, that were equivalent to the claims of avenging justice on sinning men, and griefs, in many particulars, resembling those which overwhelm the reprobate in the world of mourning. Guiltless and adorable as he was, He "holds a cup in His hand; it is full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours the wine out in judgment, . . . draining it to the dregs."
The only relief to the gloom of this dark scene is found in the dignity and loveliness of the sufferer. While the infatuated Jews still indulged themselves in their ill-timed and cruel raillery, wagging their heads and saying, "If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross," the sole rebuke he uttered was expressed in the prayer, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!" To the suppliant malefactor who was suspended by his side he said, "Today shall you be with me in paradise." Here too we find one at least, the best beloved of his disciples, and some faithful women, undismayed by the terrors of the scene, and watching him to the last. Near the cross stood Mary, his mother, weeping; and with her, John, the disciple whom he loved. To her he says, "Woman, behold your son;" to him, "behold your mother!"
It was now the ninth hour of the day. The important moment fixed on from eternity for the Author of life to die was at hand. There had been a supernatural darkness over the land from the sixth hour, when this mournful scene began, to the ninth hour. The Father hitherto was used to smile on his beloved Son; but now the sufferer cried, "My God! My God! why have you forsaken me?" The earth trembled; the rocks cleft asunder; the graves yielded up their dead; the veil of the temple, for so many ages undisturbed, was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and Jesus cried with a loud voice, "IT IS FINISHED!" The scene was over. And when he had said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit," he "bowed his head, and gave up the spirit."
The mighty work of man's redemption was finished. The great event on which Christianity turns was now completed. The eternal Son of God had expired on the cross!
And now among that vast multitude which encircled Calvary, the deepest and the most solemn silence prevail. Not a shout is heard even from the embittered Jews. Perhaps their malice is satiated, by a view of the pale and bleeding body of the Nazarene. Perhaps the words still sound in their ears, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," and a secret misgiving holds them mute and speechless. "All the people," says the sacred historian, "that came together to that sight, beholding the things that were done, smote their breasts, and returned." One voice only was heard, breaking the profound stillness, the voice of the pagan centurion, who stood in the garb of a Roman soldier near the cross. "And when the centurion which stood over against him saw that he so cried out, and gave up the spirit, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God!"
Such is the story of the cross. Has it no attractions? Other events there have been of mighty interest; but this outweighs them all. Distinguished in the counsels of heaven above all other scenes ever beheld by angels or men, this tragical event is destined to awaken the attention of a slumbering world. With eager expectation did men look forward to it before it was accomplished; and now that it is past, will they look back upon it to the end of time. The world is full of proof of the intense interest with which the giddy and thoughtless have contemplated the cross, and the devout gloried in it. No minister of the gospel ever rehearsed the narrative without a listening auditory; no mother ever sang it over the pillow of her babe without tenderness; no child ever read it without a throbbing heart. No living man ever perused it with indifference; no dying man ever listened to it without emotion. The cross will be remembered when everything else is forgotten. It has intrinsic power, and God himself has invested it with attractions peculiarly its own. The Scriptures point to the cross, and say, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" The most emphatic announcement they make is, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" The brightest and most wondrous vision of John, of all he beheld on earth when lightened by the glory of the descending angel, and of all he beheld in heaven, was that of which he says, "I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain!"
Nothing will interest you like the cross. Nothing can do for you what the cross has done.
2. The Truth of the Cross
"What is truth?" The poet well replies, "Twas Pilate's question put to Truth itself." There never was but one individual who could stand forth before the world and say, "I AM THE TRUTH!" It was not Socrates, nor Confucius, nor Mohammed; nor yet Luther, nor Calvin, nor Edwards. Yet One there was, in whom all truth was so concentrated that he was truth itself. It was the child of Mary and the Son of God; it was he who was crucified on Calvary.
We may be interested in the narrative of the cross; but what if it should turn out to be fiction? If it is a true narrative, what is its significance, and what are the truths it embodies? Men need a religion which satisfies their intelligence. We affirm that the cross furnishes such a religion; that it is the religion revealed from heaven; the only religion which possesses the attraction of truth and certainty, and in which the most skeptical may have immovable confidence. Religion may venture to more than chasten her faith with hope, and timidly trust that the word of the God of truth has not deceived her. She dwells by the well-spring of life, and draws from it the pure waters of salvation. If men may be certain of anything that is not the mere object of sense, they may put confidence in the truth of the cross. The topics on which it treats are grand and dreadful, as well as inexpressibly interesting and tender; but it has nothing to do with vague conjecture, studied mystery, profuse verbiage without meaning, or laborious trifling without intelligence and instruction. It is not a dim uncertainty that rests upon the views there acquired. They are clear and permanent convictions, because they are true. God approves them; and the Holy Spirit, the Author of truth and peace, gives them a stability and power which delusion and error can never originate.
The NARRATIVE OF THE CROSS IS ITSELF A TRUE NARRATIVE. This is a simple question of fact. Was there, or was there not, such a person as Jesus Christ, who, under the reign of Tiberius Caesar, was accused of treason and blasphemy, found guilty, and put to death? The most full and satisfactory account of this transaction is found in the writings of the four Evangelists; which, by the wonderful care of Divine Providence, after having been distinctly recognized from age to age as the works of those whose names they bear, and as the same uncorrupted works as when they came from the pen of their authors, and after having been circulated throughout the whole Christian world, have come down to us in all genuineness and authenticity. Their authors were either deceived, or deceivers, or honest and true men. They were not deceived, because the events which they narrate never could have been the creatures of imagination. The wildest enthusiast in the world could not have been the subject of such delusion, as to have believed them real, when they were unreal.
Nor were they deceivers. There is every consideration against such an hypothesis which can be furnished by the nature of the case, by their own character and history, and by their published writings. The events and circumstances of the crucifixion are such as never could have been got up by artful and designing men; much less by the illiterate fishermen of the lakes of Judea, who left their nets to announce them to the world. To an impartial mind, their narrative carries the evidence of its verity on the face of it. No impostor ever penned such an account as that in the closing chapters of the four Evangelists, furnishing, as each of them does, in the minuteness of his details, so many continually recurring means of detecting deception if any were practiced. While each narrator speaks for himself, and the variations in his narrative show that each wrote independently, and without any secret collusion with the others, each gives substantially the same account; and the seeming inconsistencies, just enough to test the sincerity and research of the reader, all disappear upon a careful inspection.
Men do not act without a motive. What was the motive of the men who stood before the world as the persevering, unflinching witnesses of the crucifixion, if they were false witnesses? Was it wealth, pleasure, or fame? Was it the poor ambition of being the founders of a false religion, not only at the expense of that which all impostors have ever sought, but in the prospect of poverty, dishonor, suffering and death? Says the celebrated Rousseau, "The history of Jesus Christ has marks of truth so palpable, so striking, so perfectly immutable, that its inventor would excite our admiration more than its hero." Even infidels themselves have not ventured to take refuge in the presumption that the narrative of the cross is not a true history. The events themselves, and the narrators of them, have been canvassed with a severity to which no other facts and no other men have been subjected, for more than eighteen hundred years.
It was, as we have already seen, so ordered in the wisdom of Divine Providence, that these events did not take place in a dark and illiterate age. If the scenes of Calvary were a fable, it is to the last degree absurd to suppose that there was not light, and logical acumen, and learning enough in the Augustan age of Rome, to have demonstrated them to be fictitious. They profess to have taken place at a time and place where strangers of distinction, as well as the entire male population of Judea, were assembled; under the official direction of individuals whose names, character, and history, are of sufficient notoriety to have furnished security against everything in the form of deception. Never was greater opportunity given to the adversaries of Christianity to disprove the narrative, than was given at the time when the event professes to have taken place. The first spot where the apostles were directed to make their first public announcement of it, was in Jerusalem itself, and in the presence of his murderersthe last place where, and the last men before whom, they would present themselves, if their testimony were not true.
Hence the Jews, while they denied the resurrection of Christ, never thought of calling in question his crucifixion; but gloried in it, and triumphantly adhered to the imprecation, "His blood be on us, and on our children!" Nor have enlightened pagans withheld from it their testimony. Suetonius, Tacitus and Pliny, all record it, as a matter of acknowledged history, and, as impartial historians, deemed it an event too important to suppress; while Celsus, Porphyry and Julian, learned and inveterate infidels as they were, confirm the testimony. Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, as was his official duty to do, sent an account of the crucifixion to the emperor Tiberius, and that account was deposited in the archives of the empire. The annals of the pagan world, to this day, preserve this great fact, as well as the miraculous events that attended it, and also a minute account of the Savior's character and miracles. There is abundant evidence of the truth of the scriptural narrative of the crucifixion, independently of the Scriptures themselves; so that "if the narrative of the Evangelists were now lost, all the material facts connected with that memorable scene might be collected from pagan historians, and Jewish and other anti-christian writers."
The question naturally presents itself, How far does this fact avail in proving the truth of that system of religion which is contained in the Holy Scriptures? Here several thoughts deserve consideration. Human reason has never been able to satisfy itself with a religion of its own inventing. It has had every opportunity of doing so, which the most learned age, and the finest minds could furnish; and the result of the experiment has been the grossest darkness, the most foolish absurdities, and the greatest corruption of morals. The proof of this observation is in the history of the past. If you look to Egypt, the cradle of science and the arts; if to Greece, whose genius and literature still constitute the acknowledged standard of taste; if to Rome, the garlands of whose philosophers are still green upon its grave; you see that "the world by wisdom knew not God," and that "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."
If there is a God, infinitely great and good, the Creator and Governor of men, it is reasonable to suppose he would give them a revelation of his will. Men have indeed no right to demand such a revelation, nor may they complain if it be denied. Yet from what they know of God in his works and in his providence, were it not reasonable to hope for it? We know there was a sort of vague, undefinable impression on the minds of many of the heathen, of some approaching day of light, and that this anticipation became very general as the time for the Messiah's advent drew near. And dim as these hopes were, they were not in vain. This floating anticipation became settled, and was realized when"in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son," and this vision of a golden age became a present reality when he expired on the cross.
If the narrative of the cross be a true narrative, the religion that is based upon it is the true religion. Its claims rest upon the truth of this narrative. If there ever were such a person as Jesus of Nazarethone possessing his unblemished character, imbued with the wisdom expressed in his public and private discourses, working the miracles which he wrought, living the life he led, and dying the death he diedthen is Christianity most certainly true. On this basis the apostles themselves rest this sacred structure. "I have delivered unto you, FIRST OF ALL, that CHRIST DIED for our sins according to the Scriptures." This is the sure "corner stone" which is laid in Zion; the Rock on which God builds his church.
Let us look at this thought for a few moments, and inspect some of its bearings. The death of Christ is indubitable witness to the truth of the Old Testament. If this fact be demonstrated, the truth of the Old Testament Scriptures is clearly proved, the Divine mission of Moses and the prophets is confirmed, and the verity of their writings substantiated. To see the force of this remark, we have only to suppose that the crucifixion of Christ had never taken place. In such an event, we must give up the Old Testament Scriptures; we must regard them as erroneous, and look upon them as an uninspired volume. A dark and heavy night would rest upon the whole system of religion which they reveal. They would present an explicable volume, containing many things above the reach of created wisdom, and at the same time unmeaning types and false prophecies. The death of Christ sheds the only light upon them, that they are capable of receiving, and furnishes the only solution of what must otherwise have remained impenetrably mysterious. They would have remained a sealed book had not "the Lion of the tribe of Judah" been worthy "to open the book, and loose the seven seals thereof."
The cross alone solves the mystery of the animal sacrifices of the patriarchal age, and of that bloody ceremony which God instituted among the Jews. Those ancient oracles are speechless, those ancient altars give no instruction to the world, if they do not teach that God requires duty or suffering, obedience or penalty, a perfect righteousness or a perfect payment; and the lesson they read no man can understand, if they tell not of pardon from the cross.
The same may be said of the whole system of PROPHECY contained in the Old Testament. Its great outlines, as well as its wonderfully minute details, all concentrate in the cross, and are there determined with the most perfect precision. There is the forsaken and reproached One; the unresisting and abused One; the One who was "sold for thirty pieces of silver;" the One against whom "the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers took counsel together;" the One who was "cut off not for himself," whose "feet and hands were pierced," and who was "numbered with the transgressors." There is he who was "laughed to scorn;" against whom men "should shoot out the lip and shake the head;" whose garments should be divided between his murderers; who should be forsaken of God; to whom his enemies should give the vinegar and gall; whose bones should remain unbroken, and who should "make his grave with the wicked and the rich in his death." Vast as is the entire system of prophecyreaching from the fall of man to the consummation of all thingsdarkly as its oracle sometimes spoke, and confined as it was to a people from whom the Messiah was to be descended, it is all plain and intelligible when we see it pointing to him who hung on Calvary. In him alone it receives its fulfillment; and it is by their relation to him that a multitude of otherwise unimportant events, of which it speaks, are magnified. Such events multiply and grow upon us the more we become familiar with the sacred writings, each falling in with the great consummation on Calvary, and carrying conviction to the mind, that if the narrative of the cross be true, Christianity cannot be false.
Hence, we find that our Lord and his apostles appeal to the Old Testament in proof of Christianity, and by an induction of so many particulars, and so striking, as to constitute an incontrovertible argument to show that the whole method of salvation by the cross of Christ was foreseen and foretold under the Old Testament, and that its authors were Divinely inspired. And if this be so, the conclusion is equally plain and incontrovertible, that the New Testament Scriptures, in which alone the Old terminate and are fulfilled, are a Divine revelation, and that Jesus came, in accordance with the declared counsel of Heaven, to do and suffer the will of his Father. And this conclusion is corroborated by the fact, that scattered as were the writers of this ancient volume through the centuries that intervened between Moses and Malachi, they all pursued one great end, and were all under the absorbing influence of this one thoughtthe redemption of man by the crucified Son of God.
It is far from the design of these pages to furnish even an outline of the evidences in favor of Christianity. It is but to take a transient view of them while standing by the cross. It is here the Christian loves to view them, and discovers a system of belief of which God is the Author, and sees doctrines and duties which have upon them the image and superscription of the Deity. The cross of Christ has an inseparable connection with all that is peculiar in the religion that is revealed from heaven. The cross and the Bible stand or fall together. You cannot take away the cross without demolishing the whole structure; while, if the cross remain, the whole superstructure remains, "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." Let this link of the chain be broken, and there is nothing to support the whole; let this be supported, and the whole is supported.
The man who reads the Bible nearest the cross, sees most of its high credentials, and feels most deeply that it contains a system of truth every way worthy of God to reveal. The principles which it unfolds, the religion it inculcates, the method of the Divine administration it has introduced, and its wonderful salvation, beheld and contemplated amid the scenes of Gethsemane and Calvary, are fitted to produce the strong, the vivid, permanent impression, that they are too lofty to have been within the reach of human inventiontoo holy and pure to have originated with so polluted a sourcetoo good to be attributed to any but to the Father of lights.
Where the heart feels the influence and power of the cross, it has evidence of the truth of it which nothing else can give; views too clear, and illumined, and transforming, ever to be forgotten, or greatly eclipsed. "He who believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself." The word is sealed to him by the Spirit, who wrote it. His own heart responds to the truth of the cross. He has felt its teachings to be true within his own soul. To him belongs a deeper scriptural wisdom than all scholarship can bestowa wisdom grounded on his perception of the internal evidence, as made known by the adaptations of all the doctrine which is without, to all the "felt necessities of the spirit which is within."
Nor is this any visionary evidence. The great evidence in favor of Christianity is found in Christianity itself; in a character so heavenly, that its moral elements never come into contact with the depraved heart without producing an effervescence that indicates their mutual revulsion; in a power so subduing to that revulsion that we cannot fail to discover in it the finger of God. The cross, therefore, stands out before the world as embodying the great system of revealed truth, in opposition to all false religions, and the evidence by which it commends itself is adapted to every class of mind. Before any man renounces it, let him be well persuaded there is another religion revealed from heaven. Let him undertake to specify the kind and the amount of testimony required to satisfy his own mind, that God has revealed his truth to men, and he may find it all, in all its variety, and in all its effectiveness and tenderness, at the cross.
There is another view of the truth of the cross. The manifestations of God's truth to men have been progressive, just as are the manifestations of his wisdom, power and goodness in the material creation. At one time the earth is clothed with the mantle of winter; then follows the preparation and the promise of the spring; then the warmth and kindliness of summer; until at last autumn pours forth its rich treasures, and the Divine goodness gushes from over-flowing fountains, and runs in ten thousand channels, everywhere distributing fertility and gladness. So with the means of intellectual and moral culture. The cross is far in advance of all other religions revealed from heaven.
The light of truth and mercy had its commencement and progress. At one time, it was like the flickering lamp which appeared to Abraham; at another, like the burning bush which appeared on Horeb; at another, like the pillar and the cloud in the desert; at another, like the Shekinah over the ark of the covenant; at another, like the brighter emanations of that glory in the temple, when the priests and the people could not look upon it for the brightness; and at another, like the splendid vision of the prophet when he beheld the Son of man, the Lord of heaven and earth, high and lifted up, and his train filled the sanctuary, and the whole earth was full of his glory.
This progressive revelation of the truth continued until the crucifixion. The light had been gradually rising ever since the first promise in paradise; and now it was high day. The ancient patriarchs and Jews lived under a comparatively dark dispensation, a dispensation of types and shadows, and which served "unto the example and shadow of heavenly things." It was not a "faultless covenant;" for if it had been, "then should no place have been sought for the second." It was "a figure for the time then present," and never designed to be God's clearest revelation to the world. There is a dispensation which is far in advance of it, and the great High Priest of which has "obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much more also he is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises." The blood of the sacrifice offered by Abel was for himself alone, and had no sufficiency, even as a prefiguration, beyond his own needs. The sacrifices under the Jewish law respected only the Jewish nation. Both patriarchal and Mosaic sacrifices were positive and not moral institutions; they were founded on relations and circumstances that were mutable, and therefore might be, and were, abrogated. These latter were designed to preserve the Hebrew nation distinct from all other nations of the earth, until He came who was God manifest in the flesh, and by whose death the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile was broken down, and glad tidings were announced to all people. This was one of the offensive features of the cross to men who "thought that they were righteous and despised others," and rendered it "to the Jew a stumbling-block." But it is a blessed and glorious feature of it, that it opens this "new and living way," and invites all to draw near without distinction of climate, condition, or character.
It is a revelation that covers a broader surface than any antecedent revelation. Truth here presents her attractions to all the children of men. This was an important advance in the series of Divine revelations. The Jews were not more distinguished from other and Gentile nations, by the truth contained in the oracles of God under the Old Testament dispensation, than are men in Christian lands now distinguished from the ancient Jews by the truth revealed in the gospel of Christ. Christian privileges are less restricted and more spiritual. The hour has come in which neither the mountain of Samaria, nor the temple at Jerusalem, are the only fitting places for worship and devotion. Men may now worship anywhere; erect sanctuaries anywhere; and wherever they are erected, God records his name. Never until Christ came was the promise uttered, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Never before his death, was there such communion between heaven and earth. Never before, was there such a society collected in the world, as that of which he is the Head, and his cross the standard. Scattered as they are, and separated as they are by lines of external organization, all true believers form now one spiritual community and one church, because they have "one Lord," who, "for the suffering of death," is "crowned with glory and honor."
The Sun of righteousness is now pouring a flood of light upon the dark nations. Jesus came down to earth, assumed our nature, and "died the just for the unjust," in order that the worship of God might become the devotion of the world, and the religion of his truth and grace the universal religion. "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell among them!" There is no holy place, no "holy of holies," into which the high priest alone entered once a yearwhere He who sits between the cherubim is invoked; but wherever and whenever men draw near to him by faith in the blood of his Son, then is the hour of communion, and there is his chamber of audience. "You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded: "If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned." The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, "I am trembling with fear." But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." Hebrews 12:18-24
But there is a still more important thought in relation to the truth of the cross. When Jesus stood a prisoner at the bar of Rome, he made the following impressive, exulting avowal"To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth!" The cross was designed to be the most compendious and vivid expression of all religious truth. It is the great witness for the truth of God. The testimony of Christ was the testimony of the Prince of martyrs. Nowhere else does truth utter her voice with such distinctness, such fullness and emphasis. She spoke with power in the death of prophets under the law; in the death of Stephen, and in the triumphs of Paul, under the axe of Nero; but as she never spoke before, she speaks from Calvary. Were an angel to descend from heaven to become the teacher of men, his instructions might well be listened to with eagerness. But the cross is the teacher of angels. It is the Deity himself bearing witness to his own doctrines. It is "the light of the world," and like the apocalyptic "angel standing in the sun," when the whole "earth was lightened with his glory."
Every truth in the Bible brings us at last to the cross, and the cross carries us back to every truth in the Bible; so that the sum and substance of all truth is most impressively proved, illustrated, and enforced, by "Christ and him crucified." A right conception of what is included in the cross, insures a right conception of every important doctrine contained in the Bible. This is the hinge on which the whole system turns, and the great truth by which alone any and all truths can be understood.
Several particulars here deserve to be attended to. Nowhere is the true character of GOD so fully revealed, as in the cross. The works of creation, with all their beauty and magnificence, make no such discoveries; nor do the wondrous ways of Divine Providence, much as they are fitted to arrest the attention of men, and to show them that "truly there is a God who judges in the earth." The revelations made to Moses and the prophets, were very inferior to those made by Jesus Christ on this great article of the Christian faith. God spoke to them from the thick darkness; the brightness of his glory was concealed by the veil that covered the "most holy place;" and not until the Savior exclaimed, "It is finished," and gave up the spirit, was it "torn from the top to the bottom," and the holiness that is untarnished, the justice that is inflexible, the grace that is infinite, the mysterious wisdom, and amiable and dreadful sovereignty and goodness, appeared in such forms that sinful men might look upon them and live.
Here is not only a true and faithful, but a finished portrait of the Divine nature; one which, but for the cross, never would have been known. No view of the Deity is more complete, even though enjoyed by the "spirits of just men made perfect;" for the clearest and brightest perceptions of that upper sanctuary, are those in which He is seen through the cross. We fix our eye on the cross, and feel that "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God;" while, as we dwell more intensely on that ineffably tender scene, do we more satisfactorily discover, that, amid all the agitation of its frightful terrors, it is mainly designed to lead us to a reconciling God, and to impress upon our hearts a sense of his boundless love and mercy.
One would suppose that men need no other instruction upon the great doctrine of human SINFULNESS, except their own experience and observation, and the melancholy light which is cast upon this truth by the pages of history. The fact that men are sinners is indeed here taught with sufficient clearness; but the intenseness of their moral depravity, and the infinite demerit of sin, are taught only by the cross. The self-gratulatory and self-complacent notions which they entertain of themselves and their fellows, the wretched subterfuges for their wickedness, and all their exulting self-righteousness, disappear before the stern and melting rebuke of Calvary. "Christ died for the ungodly." "If one died for all, then were all dead." "The Son of man has come to seek and to save those who were lost." Who does not see that the mighty remedy indicates the malignant and deadly disease? Nothing but the deepest and direst exigency could have demanded, or even justified, such a sacrifice as the death of God's eternal Son. The sufferings of Christ are the most affecting testimony in the universe, of man's unyielding, helpless depravity. Nor do they indicate less clearly his true and proper ill-desert, than the fires that shall never be quenched.
Nowhere are we taught how man can be JUST WITH GOD, but at the cross. If there be one truth taught more emphatically by the cross than another, it is that "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes;" and that "our righteousness" is found only in his finished career of suffering obedience and obedient suffering. Justice and mercy, hatred of sin, and the pardon of the sinner, the threatening of death and the promise of life, irreconcilable as they are by reason and conscience, meet and harmonize in the marvelous fact, that He who knew no sin, was made sin for us, "that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
