Signifying What Death He Should Die for Me

Ome ancient philosophers of the Eastern world were wont to fable an immense mountain of loadstone that always drew to its foot all men and all things that ever came near it. So extraordinary was the attracting power of that magnetic mountain over certain substances that if ever a passing ship came within sight of that mountain the iron nails that held that ship together were immediately drawn out of it, till the ship was left a heap of loose planks and broken boards on the rocks and the sands around. Such was the fable of some mystical philosophers of the ancient East.

But we do not follow any such cunningly devised fables when we preach to you that Calvary is the true and the only magnetic mountain that this world has ever seen; and that the Cross of Christ is the true and the only loadstone that draws, irresistibly, all men and all things to itself. This is the sure word of our salvation that Mount Calvary, as dear old Goodwin always has it, is the one and the only ‘ rendezvous and refuge for all sinful men.’ Let us listen then this evening, and with all our ears open, to what our Lord says to us about Himself and about His Cross. And may that divine loadstone draw all our hearts to our Saviour to-night for our everlasting salvation!

‘ And I, if I be lifted up.’ ‘ There is a fine touch of pathos in that particle says Alford on the text. ‘ For our Lord though He knew that He would be lifted up on the Cross to-morrow morning; yet, in the true and perfect humanity of His mind and His heart. He puts Himself for a moment into this seeming doubt about the events of to-morrow, and says: indeed, it is so to be.’” But our

own Samuel Rutherford, long before Alford, is still better on this little word ‘ ^.’ ‘ This grammatical

particle,’ says our fellow-churchman, ‘ is not at all a note of doubting; it does not make His crucifixion a matter of contingency or of uncertainty. The Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, is not in any dubiety here. He is not saying. Shall I, indeed, have to go to Calvary to-morrow? or, shall I somehow escape it at the eleventh hour.? No! ’ indiffnantlv exclaims Rutherford, shocked and scandalised at the mere suggestion. ‘ No! our Redeemer is not wavering in His work. Nor is He, for a moment, at all dubious or uncertain about how He is to finish His work. No! this is not the “il” of any uncertainty. But in saying, “I, be lifted up,” He as good as says: “When I am lifted up, such and such things will immediately follow upon that.’”

But, what things.’^ we may well ask. For they would need to be very great things that would at all account for, and that would at all explain and justify, the lifting up of the Son of God on the accursed tree. They would need to be very great wages that would at all adequately indemnify and recompense this Servant of God for the tremendous task He had been sent into this world to perform. It would need to be a very great joy, indeed, that was to be set before Him, for the sake of which He was to endure the Cross, and to despise the shame. Well, hear His own words about His wages and His joy. ‘I,’ He says, ‘if I be lifted up will draw all men unto Me.’ Few and familiar sounding w’ords, perhaps, to our ears. But all the same they are absolutely unfathomable, absolutely unsearchable, and absolutely inexhaustible words; for all Almighty God’s eternal purposes toward the children of men are all in those few words of His Son. All Almighty God’s creating and redeeming and sanctifying decrees are all in those few words of His son. All the divine grace of God the Father, and all the redeeming love of God the Son, and all the renewing and sanctifying work of God the Holy Ghost — all these unspeakably blessed things are wrapped up in those few words of our Saviour. I, if I be lifted up upon the Cross, says the Son of God, I will draw all sinful men to Me for their everlasting salvation. And what all our everlasting salvation means and contains and secures for us, time and eternity, all taken together, will not be able fully to disclose. As one, to whom it was all disclosed, says about it: ‘ Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.’ That is to say: for them that the Son of God will draw to Him, when He is lifted up on His Cross.

‘ And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.’ All manner of sinful men that is. And all manner of sinful men are — as a matter of fact — drawn to the Cross of Christ. For God is in Christ reconciling all manner of sinful men to Himself, so as no longer to impute their trespasses to them. All manner of sinful men meet at the Cross of Christ, and are there reconciled, first to God, and then to one another. The sinner and the sinned against meet at the Cross of Christ: the murderer

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and the murdered meet there; the seducer and the seduced; the slanderer and the slandered; the reviler and the reviled; the oppressor and the oppressed; the heartbreaker and the heartbroken are all drawn to the foot of the Cross; they all meet one another there, and are there reconciled to one another. Look at them! as they come from the east and from the west and from the north and from the south, and from all the ages and generations of sinful men! Who are these that are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they? These are Adam and Eve, with all their sinful children hanging at their girdles. And that is Abel, the first forerimner of Him who for very envy was murdered by His brethren. And these are Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, and Moses, and David, and with them a great multitude, who had not seen the day of Christ; but who would have been drawn to Him, and to His Cross, had they seen His day, and had they had His Gospel preached to them. And of such as had seen Flis day; look at Peter, and James, and John, and Thomas, and the woman of Samaria, and the woman of Syro-Phoenicia, and Mary Magdalene, and the thief on the Cross, and the treasurer of the Queen of Ethiopia, and the jailor of Philippi. And, after them, a multitude from the west and from the north, such as Martin Luther, and Jacob Behmen, and John Bunyan, and Alexander Brodie, and James Fraser; and from still further west, Thomas Shepard, and David Brainerd, and Jonathan Edwards. And he said to me. These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

And then you should know that there is a remarkable ‘ reading’ — as our New Testament scholars call it — a remarkable reading, at This point in some of the most ancient manuscripts. And that remarkable reading is this: ‘ I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men, and all things, unto Me.’ And indeed, it looks almost as if Paul had had that remarkable reading in one of his apostolic parchments; for in writing to the Ephesians concerning the Cross of Christ, and all the rewards thereof, he has these remarkable words: ‘ The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will, in the fulness of the times, gather together, in one, all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him.’ And full of the same glorious prospect he writes to the philosophically-minded Colossians and says to them: ‘ And having made peace by the blood of His Cross; by Him to re¬ concile all things to Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in heaven, or things on earth.’ But this so bold and so all-embracing reading is quite beyond our highest reach in this life. Enough for us to know that we who were sometime alienated and enemies by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled, in the body of His flesh, through death, to present us holy and unblamable and unreprovable in His sight.

But now, after all that, this question arises; and it is a question that cannot be repressed, this question; Has Christ crucified ever drawn you? For, mind you, that is the one question for you, as it is for all men. No other question that either God or man can ever put to you is for one moment to be compared with that question. Well, if Christ lifted up has not yet drawn you, why is that .? Is it that you have gone so far away from Christ, and are at this moment spending your life so far away from Him that He cannot get a hearing from you, nor a hold of you, nor can get near you to bless and save you? Is it that, for some reason, you will not allow your mind to go out at any time in His direction, if you can help it? You know yourself. For one thing, do you ever on a Sabbath night sit down to read a book because it is about His Cross?

You know surely that there are such books in the world. He has seen to that. Well, does He ever see you with one of them in your hand? Or do you pass all such books by because His name is in them? Now God has so made you that even Christ Him¬ self cannot draw you to His Cross, or to Himself, against your will. Well, then, will you not come to Him, and to His Cross to-night? For He has had this text written of old, and has had it preached upon this night, in order that, if never before, this night may be your accepted time, and the happy opportunity of your salvation.

There is no mystery about this matter; nor is there any difficulty in it. You know quite well what it is to be drawn to any one. You say it yourself every day. You say that you feel drawn to such and such a man, or that you do not feel drawn to him. Well, that is exactly what Jesus Christ says in the text; or does He rather say about you, that you will not let Him draw you? Well, let Him say that no longer. Yield yourself up, and at once, to the smallest motion of your heart toward Him to-night.

And, then, let all those who have been already drawn to Christ lifted up, continue to live and die under that same drawing. Let not your great sin¬ fulness ever come between you and His drawing. For He is lifted up on His Cross with a view to your great sinfulness. It is your great sinfulness that will alone account for, and justify, the crucifixion of the Son of God. Let, then, your great sinfulness be for His greater glory in you, and on your account. Let Him see of the travail of His soul in you. And if your great sinfulness drives you every day to His Cross, and if His Cross draws you every day to Him and to it, then you will not only be saved, but you will be saved with a great salvation. Let then your great, and it may be your ever-growing sinfulness only the more shut you up to Christ and to His Cross continually, till you say continually with the apostle Paul that you are being continually crucified with Christ and that all your life and all your hope come to you from His Cross. I will not insist with you that the more sinfulness you have, the better it will be for your salvation. I will not insist upon that, lest you be not able as yet to bear that. But for the comfort of some others I will venture on this illustration of this subject: The more hidden iron there is in any mass of iron-ore, the more powerfully does the load¬ stone draw to itself both the iron and the ore; both the hidden iron and the ore that surrounds it and is mixed up with it. Now, your secret sinfulness is like that hidden iron; and your whole heart and your whole life is like the ore that surrounds the iron and is mixed up with it. And the Cross of Christ is the divine loadstone that draws to itself, first, your sin, and then, with your sin, your whole self; your past sins, your present sinfulness, and your whole self, body, soul, and spirit, are all drawm irresistibly to Christ lifted up.

Now, to bring all that to a point. Let Christ and His Cross draw you, as you sing your closing praise this Sabbath night. ‘ Come, now,’ He says to you, looking straight at you — ‘ come now, and let us reason together. And, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’ And when He says that to you, rise up on your feet, and make this answer to Him on the spot — say ‘ Yes! ’ And say;

Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me.

And that Thou hidd’st me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God, I come.

J ust as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot.

To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,

O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am. Thou wilt receive.

Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,

Because Thy promise I believe,

O Lamb of God, I come.

Just as I am, of that free love,

‘I’he breadth, length, depth, and height to ])rove. Here for a season, then above,

O Lamb of God, I come.’