Chapter IV

The Christ of the Bible: His Death; How and Why He Died, and the Results of His Death

Our subject in this Chapter is, The Christ of the Bible: His Death, How and Why He Died, and the Results of His death.

One of the most fundamental facts regarding the Christ set before us in the Bible is the fact of His Death, and one of the most outstanding points at which the Christ of the Bible is most clearly seen to be an entirely different Christ from the Christ of many of our modern romancers and poets and sociologists and moralists and popular preachers and even of many of our “modern” theologians, theologians sometimes in supposedly orthodox seminaries, is in regard to the manner, the purpose and the results of His Death.

Consider fourteen passages from the Word of God.

1 Cor. 15: 1-4:

“Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye hold fast the Word which I preached unto you, except ye believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried; and that He hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures.”

THE CHRIST OF THE SIBER

Heb. 2:14:

“Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil.”

Matt. 207128:

“Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

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“And behold, there talked with Him two men, who were Moses and Elijah; who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”

Rev. 5: 8-12:

“And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sing a new song, saying,

Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests; and they reign upon the earth.

And I saw, and I heard a voice of many angels round about the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a great voice,

Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honor, and glory, and blessing.”

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“For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till He come.”

1sai53 7°5)10:

“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid (made to strike) on Him the iniquity of us all.”

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“For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law, todothem... (13) Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth ona tree.”

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“Him Who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

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“Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, im His blood, to show His righteousness because of the

So passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God.”

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“Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit; in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.”

Matt. 12: 40:

“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale (sea-monster); so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Acts 2: 22-31:

“Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man approved of God unto you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by Him in the midst of you, even as ye yourselves know; Him being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay: Whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden of it. For David saith concerning Him,

I beheld the Lord always before my face;

For He is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:

Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced:

Moreover, my flesh also shall dwell in hope:

Because Thou wilt not leave my soul unto
Hades,

Neither wilt Thou give Thy Holy One to see corruption.

Thou madest known unto me the ways of life; Thou shalt make me full of gladness with Thy countenance.

Brethren, I may say unto you freely of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us unto this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins He would set One upon his throne; he foreseeing this spake of the resurrection of the Christ, that netther was He left unto Hades, nor did Hts flesh see corruption.”

Jno, 13/29:

“On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!”

What I have to say in this chapter will be entirely an exposition of these and other passages of God’s Own Book and God’s Only Book, the Bible, in which the Death of the Christ of the Bible, the true Christ, the only real Christ that ever existed, God’s Own ‘Christ, Christ Jesus, is described and explained. I have no theory of my own regarding the Death of Jesus Christ: I accept in all their fullness and in every detail all the revelations regarding the Death of His Son Jesus Christ, my Saviour and my Lord, that God Himself has been pleased to make in this wonderful Book, the Bible. I have not the slightest desire to speculate at all on the question, but I desire to know aJl that God Himself has been pleased to reveal on the subject. And God has been pleased to reveal a vast deal, far more than most of us know, far more than any of us fully comprehend. We shall still be studying and pondering and ever more and more fully understanding in eternity what God revealed so many centuries ago in this inexhaustible Book of God. All that we have to say will be merely an exposition of what God has so clearly revealed.

Let us group what God has revealed under four heads:

I. The Importance of the Death of the Christ.

II. The Manner of the Death of the Christ.

III. The Purpose of the Death of the Christ.

IV. The Results of the Death of the Christ.

I. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRIST’S DEATH.

First then let us consider the importance of Christ’s Death.

1. In the first place, The fundamental importance of Christ’s Death is seen in the fact that the Death of Jesus Christ is mentioned directly more than one hundred and seventy-five times in the New Testament. Besides this there are very many prophetic and typical references to the Death of Jesus Christ m the Old Testament. Many of these direct references to the death of the Christ in the New Testament and many also of the prophetic and typical references to His death in the Old Testament cover many verses. So we see of what prime importance in that revelation of truth which God has made to us in His Own Word is the Death of Jesus Christ. If we should print in red, the color of blood, every reference to the Death of ae Crh Pre OnGrr hv bi Bik 83

Jesus Christ in the Bible, most of us would be amazed to find how red a Bible we had.

2. Again, We see the importance of the Death of Jesus Christ from the clear and defimte statements made in the Word of God, that the second Person of the Trinity, the Eternal Son of God, became a Man, took upon Himself flesh and blood for the specific purpose of dying. This we are told in the clearest possible language. For example we read in Heb. 2:14:

“Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that (in order that) through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil.”

It is clear from this passage that the incarnation was for the specific purpose that the Christ might die. Jesus Christ’s Death was not, as so many of our “modern” theologians seek to make it out to have been, a mere incident of His human life. It was the supreme purpose for which He became a Man. He became a man “in order that’ He might die as man and for man.

Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself declared to His disciples that He came into this world for the specific purpose that He might die as a ransom. ‘These are His words, in Matt. 20: 28:

“The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

3. Again, We see the fundamental and tremendous and transcendent importance of Christ’s Death in that when Moses and Elijah came back from the other worta to talk with Jesus Christ, the only authentic and indubitable and Divinely approved instance of the dead coming back and having communion with those still living on earth, the one subject about which they talked was the Death of Jesus Christ.

Read it for yourself as it is clearly set forth in Luke Os0 eT

“And behold, there talked with Him two men, who were Moses and Elijah; who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”

Of what tremendous importance the Death of Jesus Christ must be that this was the one thing that those who came back to this earth from the other world talked about in this unparalleled interview that they held with the Lord Jesus Christ while He was here on earth.

4. In the fourth place, We see the great importance of the Death of Jesus Christ in the fact that the Death of the sacrificial Lamb of God is the one central theme of Heaven’s song. This we are told in that wondrously beautiful picture of the Heavenly world given us in Rev. 5: 8-14:

Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

And every created thing which is in the heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and all things that are in them, heard I saying,

Unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, be the blessing, and the honor, and the glory, and the dominion, forever and ever.

And the four living creatures said, Amen. And the elders fell down and worshipped.”

It is evident from this that those who call themselves Christians but do not really believe that the Christ actually died at all, but that His supposed death, and all death, is an “illusion,” or ‘mortal thought,” and those also who believe that He actually died, but that His death was merely a brave martyr’s death, and that we are not redeemed by His shed blood, but by His life and His example, if they get to heaven at all, they will be very lonesome there, and will have no part whatever in Heaven’s song.

5. We see again, The central importance of the Death of Christ in Paul’s clear declaration that there are just two fundamental truths, just two central and all governing facts in the Gospel which he proclaims, and that these two fundamental truths, these two central and all governing facts are first, that the Christ died and was buried, and second that He arose again. Let me read to you Paul’s own “God breathed’’ words, 1. Gor15 31-4: “Now I make known unto you, brethren, the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye hold fast the word which I preached unto you, except ye believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried; and that He hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures.”

6. The immeasurable importance of the death of Christ is also seen in that His death was the one thing about Himself that our Lord Jesus desired to be kept in perpetual remembrance by His disciples after Hts departure. This we clearly see in the words that Jesus Himself spoke in appointing the Lord’s Supper. Read buke2210./20;

“And He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and gave to them, saying, This is My body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of Me. And the cup in like manner after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood, even that which is poured ‘out for you.”

So important was this in our Lord’s eyes that He later made a direct revelation regarding it to the

Apostle Paul. This Paul himself tells us in 1 Cor. II: 23-26:

“For I received of the Lord that which also 1 delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, This is My body, which is for you; this do m remembrance of Me. In like manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood: this do, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till He come.”

7. Once more, We see the fundamental and preeminent importance of the Death of Jesus Christ in all the Spirit controlled thinking of Paul in that he says in another place, in 1 Cor. 2:2:

“For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

It is clear as day from all these considerations that there is nothing else more important, if there is anything else as important in true Christian thinking, and in any theology that has any right whatever to term itself Christian, than correct thinking regarding the Death of Jesus Christ.

Il. THE MANNER OF THE DEATH OF THE CHRIST.

Now let us consider the Manner of the Death of the Christ of God. We shall see as we go on that this also is of great importance, that is, that not only is the fact of His Death important, but also the exact manner of His death is of great importance.

1. First of all under this head, The Bible teaches us that the Death of Jesus Christ, the Christ of God was a real death, and not a mere “apparent death’ or “allusion.” One of the earliest heresies to arise in the church was that of Docetism, as it was called. The word “Docetism” is derived from a Greek word meaning “to appear to be’ or “seem to be.” The pestilent heretics who bore this name taught that the body of Jesus Christ did not really exist, that it only seemed to be, and of course that necessarily involved the thought that His Death was not a real death, but only an apparent Death. Much of John’s wonderful First Epistle is directed against this error, and John uses unmistakable and very vigorous language regarding it which you can read for yourselves in 1 Jno. 4: 1-6. This old, old heresy is revamped and exploited anew in that system that is so prevalent and so active among us to-day called “Christian Science,” which teaches that the Death of Jesus was not a real Death, but only “allusion” or “mortal thought.” It goes further and denies that there is really any such thing as death with anybody: it affirms that all so-called “Death” does not really exist, but is “illusion” or “mortal thought,” that even when Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy herself seemed to die she did not really die, but only mistakenly thought she did, or as one of their great leaders, and Mrs. Eddy’s most intimate friend during her last days, Jacob Fry, declared at the time, “Mother Eddy was in error for a time.” But this “error” on Mother Eddy’s part was so strong that it was deemed wise to bury her seeming body that seemed to die. Mrs. Eddy did not borrow her very ancient heresy directly from the early

Docetists but from Dr. Quimby. In her earlier publications she acknowledged the source of her philosophy, but later saw fit to deny it and said it was a direct revelation. If it was a revelation the source of this revelation is clearly stated in 1 Jno. 4: 1-6, it was a revelation not from God, but from the Devil, whose very existence she denied. But the Bible declares that the Death of Christ Jesus, the Christ of God, was a real Death and not a mere seeming Death. These are Paul’s “God breathed” words found in 1 Cor. 15: 3, 4: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried.”

Paul was evidently determined that no one should mistake the meaning of his words, that all men should understand it was a real death, that He really “died’’ and was really “buried.”

2. In the second place, as to the manner of Christ’s Death, The Death of Jesus Christ was a separation of the spirit from the body. The body of Jesus was laid in Joseph’s tomb and there remained for three days and three nights, but the spirit of Jesus went into Hades (the abode, up to the time of our Lord’s ascension, of all the spirits of those who had died, both good and bad). This we are told again and again in a variety of forms by our Lord Himself, and by His apostles. Listen to what Peter said on the Day of Pentecost, Acts 2: 23-31:

“Him (that is, Jesus of Nazareth, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men go THE CHRIST GE THE ‘BIBLE

did crucify and slay: Whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden of it. For David saith concerning Him,

I beheld the Lord always before my face;

For He is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:

Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced:

Moreover my flesh also shall dwell in hope:

Because Thou wilt not leave my soul unto
Hades,

Neither wilt Thou give Thy Holy one to see corruption.

Thou madest known unto me the ways of life;

Thou shalt make me full of gladness with Thy countenance.

Brethren, I may say unto you freely of the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us unto this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins He would set One upon his throne; he foreseeing this spake of the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was He left unto Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.”

The meaning of these words is as plain as language can make it, namely, that Christ Himself (‘He’), that is, His spirit or “soul” went into “Hades” and His “flesh,” that is His body, was left in the tomb but was not permitted to “see corruption.” This same Peter at a later day, wrote about this in 1 Pet. 3: 18-20:

DHE CORIS POR DHE BIBLE gI

“Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.”

The meaning of this also is plain enough, namely, that Christ was put to death as far as His “flesh,” his body, was concerned, but at the same time His “‘spirit’’ was made alive and departed to Hades. There are other interpretations of this passage made by good men, but they will not bear careful examination, if one is to take these inspired words at their face value.

Our Lord Himself declared to the dying thief a short time before the departure from His body, in Luke 23: 43:

“Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.”

Their bodies still hung on the two crosses dead, but together our glorious Lord and that former thug and assassin — but now penitent and believing and saved sinner — entered “Paradise,” that is that part of Hades where up to our Lord’s ascension all the spirits of the righteous dead went.

Our Lord Jesus says again in Matt. 12: 40:

“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea-monster; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Here we are told that the spirit of Jesus, that is Jesus Himself as distinguished from the house He inhabited (2 Cor. 5:1) (that is, His body), was in Hades, “in the heart of the earth.”

3. In the third place as regards the Manner of His

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death, The Death of the Christ of the Bible was by crucifixion and of a broken heart, a heart broken by the weight of men’s sins. It was so predicted that He would die and it 1s so recorded as a fact of history that He did die.

(1) As to the prediction that He would die by cru-. cifixion, read Isa. 53:5:

“But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.”

The literal meaning of the word here translated “wounded” is “pierced.” The same Hebrew word is so translated in the R. V. of Isa. 51:9 (two chapters back).

Turn now to Zech. 12: 10, II:

“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look unto Me Whom they have pierced.”

You will also find clear prophetic references to His death by crucifixion and some details regarding the circumstances that attended His crucifixion in Psalm 22, for example in verses 14 to 18:

“I am poured out like water,

And all my bones are out of joint:

My heart is like wax;

It is melted within me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd;

And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws;

And Thou hast brought me into the dust of
death.

For dogs have compassed me:

A company of evildoers have inclosed mey;
They pierced my hands and my feet.

I may count all my bones;

They look and stare upon me.

They part my garments among them,

And upon my vesture do they cast lots.”

This same Psalm begins with the cry that our Lord Jesus uttered as He died, as He gave up His spirit on the cross:

“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?”

We have not time to consider the typical prophecies regarding our Lord’s Death by crucifixion, as for example the lifting up of the serpent to which our Lord Himself referred in Jno. 3:14, 15, as a type of His Own lifting up on the cross.

As to the historical account that our Lord died by crucifixion, it is so familiar to us all that it does not need quoting to-day.

(2) As to the prediction that the Christ would die of a broken heart you will note a reference to it in the passage we have just read from the twenty-second Psalm (vs. 14). You will find it explicitly set forth in another Messianic Psalm, Psalm 69, verses 20, 21:

“Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness:

And I looked for some to take pity, but there was none;

And for comforters, but I found none.

They gave Me also gall for my food;

And in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to
drink.”’

As to the historical fulfillment of the prophecy that Christ would die of a broken heart, we find it in John 107/34:

“Howbeit one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and straightway there came out blood and water.”

The coming forth from the pierced side of Jesus of “blood and water’ which John here records, but of which he did not know the significance, and did not explain and could not have explained, is clear proof that our Lord died as it was predicted He would, of a broken heart. When a man dies of a broken heart the blood rushes from the heart into the pericardium, the sac surrounding the heart, there it lies for a little while and then separates into its constituent elements of serum (or, “water’’) and red blood corpuscles (or, “blood” ). This is clearly what occurred in the case of our Lord Jesus, and when some time after His death the Roman soldier drove his spear through His side into the pericardium the serum (or, “water’”) and red blood corpuscles (or, “blood”’) flowed out, and John saw them.

(3) It was necessary that the Christ Who was to be the Saviour of men not only die, but die by the exact mode by which He did die, that is by crucifixion. This is brought out very clearly by Paul in Gal. 3: 10, 12

“For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them... (13) Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” (cf. Denti e7267 211 23):

By dying by crucifixion our Lord, in the most literal way took our place, the place that belonged to you and me, the place of the curse, which we brought upon ourselves by our sin; and the moment we accept Him we step into His place, the place of perfect acceptance before God. As Paul puts it in another place, 2 Cor. Salt:

“Him Who knew no sin He (that is God) made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

The Bible is indeed a wonderful Book; how amazingly what is said in the earliest books of the Bible fits into what is said in the latest books of the Bible. Why is that? The answer to this question is easy and also deeply significant. It is because all the books of the Bible, the earliest as well as the latest, have one author, that is GOD, God speaking through the man who wrote Deut. 21: 23 and also through the man who wrote Gal. 3:10, 13 more than fifteen hundred years later.

Ill). THE PURPOSE OF CHRIST’S DEATH.

We now come to the exceedingly important question, What was the purpose of Christ’s Death? Here is where many who unhesitatingly call themselves Christians differ widely from one another; but it is also where the Bible is unmistakably plain and unhesitatingly definite.

1. In the first place, The Bible clearly and positively

96 CHE CHRIST OFTHE: BIBiIGC

declares that Jesus Christ died because of the sins of

others; that 1s, that it was sin that made His Death

necessary, but that it was not His Own sin but the sin

of others that He bore in His Death. Hts Death was

vicarious, that is, a righteous Person Who deserved to

live dying in the place of unrighteous persons who deserved to die. This we are told over and over again in

the Old Testament, and also in the New Testament.

I will cite only a few of the very many passages in

which this great truth, which is so widely denfed to-day, is set forth. Read first of all Isa. 53:5, 6, 8, 10-12:

“But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His

stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have

gone astray; we have turned every one to his own

way; and Jehovah hath laid (literally, made to

strike) upon Him the iniquity of us all... (8)

By oppression and judgment He was taken away;

and as for His generation, who among them considered that He was cut off out of the land of the

living for the transgression of my people to whom

the stroke was due? ... (10-12) Yet it pleased

Jehovah to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief;

when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for

sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His

days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in

His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul,

and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge of Himself shall My righteous Servant justify many; and

He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I

divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall

LEV CHRIS DOR Mi BIBLE 97

divide the spoil with the strong; because He poured out His soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors: yet He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

In these verses it is repeatedly asserted that the Messiah died because of sin, and not because of His Own sins but because of the sins of others. His death, the death of a righteous person who deserved to live, was substituted for the death of sinners who deserved to die. Turning now to the New Testament read 1 Pet. Rite:

“Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for (in the place of; or, in behalf of) the unrighteous.”

Here it is clearly and distinctly declared that the Christ died for sims, and not His Own sins but the sins of others, “the righteous in behalf of the unrighteous,” a righteous One Who deserved to live, dying in behalf of unrighteous ones who deserved to die. That is to say His Death was vicarious. Read also Rom. 4: 24, 25:

“But for our sake also, unto whom it shall be reckoned, who believe on Him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for (more exactly, because of ) our trespasses, and was raised for (more literally, because of) our justification.”

So again we read in 1 Cor. 15:3:

“Christ died for our sins.”

To quote Peter once more, listen to 1 Pet. 2:24:

“Who His Own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree.”

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If the Bible makes anything as plain as day by clear and definite statement and by constant repetition, it makes it plain as day that the Death of Jesus, the Christ of God, was vicarious, 1.e., a righteous Person Who deserved to live, dying in the place of unrighteous persons who deserved to die. His death was substitutionary, 1.¢., His death substituted for our own death, It the Bible does not teach that, it does not teach anything, and what it really means is such a hopeless riddle it is a waste of time to try to solve it, and the Bible is good for nothing except junk. But the Bible does teach it definitely, plainly, positively, repeatedly, and if you deal honestly with the Bible you cannot fail to see it. Those who deny it begin usually by twisting the Bible to make it mean what it does not say, and end up by discrediting the Bible altogether, and flatly denying its plain statements.

2. In the second place, The Bible clearly and posttively declares that Christ gave His life (or died) AS A RANSOM; that is, His Death was the price paid to redeem others from death. Jesus Christ Himself declares this in no uncertain terms. You will find this plain declaration of our Lord in Matt. 20: 28:

“The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

These words are as plain and unmistakable in their meaning as words can by any possibility be.

3. In the third place, Jesus Christ’s Soul was made a guilt offering for sin, that 1s to say, that it 1s on the ground of His Death that pardon is granted to sinners. This we are told in the Old Testament in Isa. 53: Io:

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“Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering (Hebrew, a trespass offering, or, guilt offering. See R.V. Marg.) for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in His hand.”

What a “guilt offering’ is we are told in Lev. 6:6, 7. If you will read these verses you will see that a “guilt offering’ was an offering of an animal to die on the ground of whose death pardon would be granted. This thought in regard to Christ’s Death is repeated over and over again in the New Testament. For example, we read in Eph. 1:7:

“In Whom we have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.”

Here we are distinctly told that it is on the ground of the shed blood of Jesus Christ that “we” (i.e., believers in Jesus Christ) obtain “the forgiveness of our trespasses,” that is, that Jesus Christ was made a guilt offering for sin, that it was on the ground of His Death that pardon has been granted to us who believe on Him. We see the same thing again in Rom. 5: 10 and Heb. 9: 22 and in various other passages.

4. In the fourth place, Jesus Christ died AS A PROPITIATION for our sins, God set Him forth to be a propitiation by His blood; that is to say, that He, through the shedding of His blood, or Death, 1s that by which the wrath of God against us as sinners 1s appeased. Both John and Paul declare this in the most explicit terms. Read 1 Jno. 4: 10:

“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that

100 THE CHRIST OF viiE Biss

He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

The word translated “‘propitiation” in this passage is defined in Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament as a “means of appeasing,”’ and that is the correct definition of the term. So then we are here told that God sent His Son to be the means of appeasing His Own Holy wrath at sin by taking the penalty of sin upon Himself by dying on the Cross.

Now read Rom. 3:25, 26:

“Whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in His blood, to show His righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of His righteousness at this present season: that He might Himself be just, and the Justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.”

The word translated “propitiation” in this verse is not exactly the same as the one so translated in I Jno. 4: 10, but they are from exactly the same root, differing only in their ending, and mean practically the same thing. Thayer’s definition of the word here translated “propitiation” is, “an expitiatory sacrifice.” Prof. Charles Foster Kent in his demonstrably dishonest “Shorter Bible,’ while he gives as a whole the passage in Romans from which these verses are taken, deliberately and dishonestly cuts out these verses without the slightest pretext of any manuscript evidence for so doing (and there is no manuscript warrant whatever for so doing), and with no other discoverable reason for so doing than that he does not like the plain teaching of these verses. Yet while he does this

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he unblushingly declares in the preface to his “Shorter Bible” that it contains all “those parts of the Bible which are of vital interest and practical value to the present age.” This statement is one of the most shameful lies that was ever uttered by a professedly Christian man, and goes far towards making his “Shorter Bible” the most colossal literary fraud of the twentieth century. The teaching of the Bible is clear as crystal, and this omission of these verses in Kent’s “Shorter Bible’ is a confession that the teaching of the Bible is clear, but as Professor Kent is not willing to face that teaching, he silently omits it with a subtlety worthy of the old serpent himself (Gen. 3:1). The teaching of these verses is, as already said, that Jesus Christ died as a propitiation for our sins, that is, that through the shedding of His blood, through His Death being substituted for our death, the wrath of God against us as sinners is appeased.

The meaning of all this clearly is that God is Holy and must hate sin, that His Holiness and hatred of sin must manifest themselves, that His wrath at sin must strike somewhere, either upon the sinner himself, or upon a lawful substitute, and that His wrath at our sin struck on Jesus Christ. As Isaiah puts it in Isa. 53:6:

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid (literally, made to strike) on Hum the iniquity of us all.”

And as he puts it again in verse eight:

“By oppression and judgment He was taken

away; and as for His generation, who among them considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of My people to whom the stroke was due?”

The “stroke” due to others fell upon Him, and He was consequently “cut off out of the land of the living.’ THE DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST HAD ITS FIRST CAUSE IN THE DEMANDS OF GOD’S HOLINESS. This doctrine is extremely distasteful to the proud natural heart, and to a great many of our “modern’’ theologians, but it is the clear and unmistakable teaching of God’s Word.

5. In the fifth place, Christ died as our Passover Lamb; that 1s, that His shed blood might serve as a ground upon which God would pass over and spare us. This we read in I Cor. 5:7:

“For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ.”’

Just what a passover sacrifice signifies we are told IN SEX TS 53 OTF ie al ee *

“Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household: ... (6,7) and ye shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at even. And they shall take of the blood, and put it on the two side posts and on the lintel, upon the houses wherein they shall eat it.... (12,13) For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Jehovah. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall no plague be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.... (23) For Jehovah will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, Jehovah will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.”

It is clear from these verses that a passover lamb was a lamb upon the ground of whose shed blood God passed over the houses where the blood was sprinkled, and spared the first-born in those houses. So then by saying:

“Our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ,” God declares that Jesus Christ was sacrificed, or died, in order that a ground might be provided, namely, His shed blood, upon which God could and would pass over and spare us.

IV. THE RESULTS OF THE DEATH OF THE CHRIST;

Now let us look at the Results of the Death of the only true Christ, the Christ of the Bible, God’s Own Christ, Christ Jesus, as God Himself clearly sets them forth in His Own Word, the Bible. What the Bible says on this subject is of supreme importance and it is wonderful, far surpassing anything to be found in the most profound and most ingenious and most farsighted and most daring of all man-made philosophies.

We will group what the Bible has to say on this subject under four heads:

First, The Results of Christ’s Death in Relation to Men in General, both Believers and Unbelievers;

Second, The Results of Christ’s Death in Relation to Believers;

Third, The Results of Christ’s Death in Relation to the Devil and the Powers of Darkness;

Fourth, The Results of Christ’s Death in Relation to the Material Universe.

1. ) First: then; THEO RESULTS: ORGGHR IA IGS DEATH IN RELATION TO MEN IN GENERAL, Both Believers and Unbelievers.

(1) First of all, The Bible declares that by the Death of Jesus Christ, by His lifting up on the cross all men are drawn unto Him. This He Himself proclaims in Jno. 12: 32, 33:

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, wull draw all men unto Myself. But this He said, signifying by what manner of death He should die.”

The lifting up of Christ here referred to is His lifting up on the cross, where He died as an atoning sacrifice for sin. John himself declares this in verse thirty-three, “But this He said, signifying by what manner of death He should die.” This verse is often interpreted to mean that if we lift up Christ in our preaching, men will be drawn to Him. Now it is true that if we do lift Him up in our preaching men will be drawn unto Him, but this clearly is not the meaning of the verse. The words of our Lord refer entirely to His being lifted up on the cross to die as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, and by thus dying He does draw all men to Himself. The Death of Christ is the world’s great magnet, drawing men in grateful love to Him Who died in their place. There are many who will resist that drawing, but none the less will they be drawn.

This verse is often taken to teach universal salvation, but if we look at it carefully we see that it teaches nothing of the kind. It says all will be drawn unto Him, it does not say that all will yield to the drawing and come; and we are elsewhere definitely taught that many will not come and therefore will be lost. Furthermore the context clearly shows that the “all men” of the passage does not mean every individual man, but all races of men, both the Jew and the Gentile (Greek).

(2) In the second place, By the Death of Jesus Christ a propitiation is provided for the whole world. This John tells us in I Jno. 2:2:

“He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.”

The propitiation that was made by His atoning Death on the cross was for “the whole world.’ That is to say, by the Death of Christ a basis is provided upon which God can righteously deal in mercy with all mankind, with every member of the human race. The word here translated ‘“‘propitiation” means “a means of appeasing,” and the thought is, by the Death of Jesus, the Christ of God, God’s Holy wrath at the sinner is appeased and a basis provided upon which God can deal in mercy with “the whole world.” All of God’s dealings in mercy with any man are on the ground of Jesus Christ’s Death. This is as true of

106 PAE GHRIS TOF Are BIBETs

God’s dealings in mercy with those who are still unbelievers, or even profane and violent opposers of the truth, as it is of God’s dealings with those who are His children through faith in Jesus Christ. Only on the ground of Christ’s Death can God deal in mercy with any man.

The question will arise at once, “How then did God deal in mercy with those who lived before the time of Jesus Christ’s Death upon the cross?” The answer to this question is very simple. It will be found in Rev. 13; 8) AV2:

“All that dwell upon the earth shall worship Him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

(The change made in this verse in the American Revision is not warranted by the best Greek texts.) The Death of Christ was in God’s sight, an eternal fact. He planned it from the very beginning, even before man fell, and took it into consideration in all His dealings with men from Eden to Calvary. On the basis of the atoning Death of Jesus Christ which He had already purposed and planned, God dealt in mercy with sinners even before that Death became an historic fact.

God is dealing in grace to-day with every member of the human race. He permits the vilest sinner to live and the most blasphemous infidel, and He gives them food and drink and health and countless other blessings, but all of this is on the ground of the Death of that very Son of God Whom the sinner rejects and perhaps despises and slanders and blasphemes. Col.

Robert Ingersoll had many blessings in his life and they were all granted him on the ground of the atoning Death of that very Jesus of Nazareth, “the Christ of the Bible,” Whom he so grossly and so outrageously wronged,

It is to be noted however that the propitiation of Christ bears a different relation to the believer to that which it bears to the world in general. This comes out very clearly in the exact wording of 1 Jno. 2:1, 2, as found in the R.V.:

“And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.”

You will note that it does not say that Jesus Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. He is “a propitiation for our sins,’ that is, for the believer’s sins; but, while not a propitiation for the unbeliever’s sins, He is a propitiation “for the whole world.” The propitiation avails for all; it brings a real blessing to all, but it fully avails only for believers in Jesus Christ. The same thought is set forth in another way in 1 Tim. 4:10:

“God ... is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe.”’

While the propitiation made by Jesus Christ on the cross secures salvation in the fullest sense only for those who accept Him Who made the propitiation, it secures the possibility of salvation, and it secures also merciful dealing, for all, even while they are rejecting the propitiation. If, however, men persist in rejecting the propitiation it will ultimately bring the greater condemnation upon their heads. God clearly declares this in Heb. 10: 28, 29:

“A man that hath set at nought Moses’ law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?”

So we see that that which was intended for a blessing becomes a curse to men through their own abuse of it, as does every blessing of God when abused.

John the Baptist taught the same great truth that is found in I Jno. 2:2 in a little different form in [noSL 20%

“On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!”

The Death of Jesus Christ took the sins of the world out of the way, so that a clear way to God and to pardon and eternal life was opened for everybody, even for the vilest sinner or the most outrageous infidel and blasphemer. The tense of the verb translated “taketh away’’ in this passage is the present tense and denotes a continuous action, that is to say, that Jesus Christ’s Death continuously takes away the sin of the world so that the way to God and pardon is kept open for all.

(3) But even this is not all that the Death of Jesus Christ secures for every member of the human race. By the Death of Jesus Christ justification of life comes to all men. Paul speaking in the Holy Spirit, plainly declares this in Rom. 5:18:

“So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation: even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life.” (R.V.)

The “one act of righteousness” spoken of in the Revised Version, which is the correct translation of this verse, is clearly shown by the context to be that act of righteousness which our Lord Jesus performed by offering Himself in obedience to God as an atoning sacrifice when He laid down His life as an atoning sacrifice for sin on the cross. And we are here told that just as every descendant of Adam by Adam’s sin in Eden received condemnation unto death and so all died (vs. 15), even so also the free gift “to justification of life’ “came unto all men” through Christ’s Death on Calvary. Complete justification is provided for all men by the Death of Christ, and, if we appropriate it by simply believing in Him Who died as our Substitute, that complete justification becomes ours. As Paul puts it two chapters back in Rom. 3: 23-26:

“For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in His blood, to show His righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of His righteousness at this present season: that He might Himself be just, and the Justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.”

But while complete justification, i.e., the putting of God’s perfect righteousness in Jesus Christ to our account, comes only to the believer, “justification of life,” that is resurrection from the dead, comes to every member of the Adamic race, believer and unbeliever, through Christ’s Death.

Paul puts this same thought in another way in La@onnt 521,22:

“For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’

God here plainly tells us that “as” every descendant of Adam lost life by Adam’s sin in Eden, “‘so also” every descendant of Adam gets back in Christ’s Death what they lost in Adam’s sin, they get life again, they get resurrection from the dead. Listen to it again and try to take in the force of every word.

“For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’’

Years ago I thought this passage taught universal salvation, and it is often so used by others even to this day; but when I came to study the passage more closely in its context and in the light of other passages in God’s Book, I found out that what it really taught (and all that it taught) was that all that all men get through Christ’s Death was just what it says, “life,” physical life, resurrection from the dead. The whole chapter in which this passage is found has just one subject and that is, the resurrection of the body, and that is exactly what all men get through Jesus Christ’s Death for all. All men lost life in Adam, physical ie) Obs kh Omr UE by BIBLE III

life, and all men get life (physical life, resurrection from the dead) back again in Christ; the Death of Jesus Christ avails to secure resurrection from the dead for every member of the human race, believers and unbelievers, Every one who dies in Adam gets resurrection from the dead in Jesus Christ. Whether or not the resurrection we get in Jesus Christ shall be a resurrection unto “life” in its fullest sense, or a resurrection unto “condemnation,” “shame and everlasting contempt”? (Dan. 12:3; Jno. 5:28, 29), depends entirely upon what attitude the individual takes towards Jesus Christ Who obtained this resurrection for him.

Let me call attention in passing to the fact that there is a large measure of truth in the teaching of what is called “Conditional Immortality.” The teaching of “Conditional Immortality” is, that life is in Christ alone, that men are naturally mortal and it is only in Christ that they get life. From this they draw the conclusion that those who do not accept Christ will be annihilated — or cease to have conscious existence. The premise is correct, but the conclusion is unwarranted. It is true that life is in Christ and in Christ alone, but all men get life in Christ, believers and unbelievers, or as the Word of God puts it “As in Adam all die so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” So we see clearly that the conclusion of ‘Conditional Immortality,’ which is what they particularly emphasize, that all who do not accept Christ shall be annihilated, or cease to have conscious existence, is not warranted by their premises. Every man gets resurrection from the dead in Jesus Christ, but as we have already said, whether it is a “resurrection unto life” in its fullest tis THE CHRIST OF THE BIBLE

sense or “unto” condemnation, ‘‘shame and everlasting contempt” depends entirely upon the attitude the individual takes towards Jesus Christ through Whom He obtains resurrection from the dead. As our Lord Jesus Himself puts it in Jno. 5: 28, 29: “Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.”

2. Now let us consider, THE RESULTS OF CHRIST’S ‘DEATH IN*®RELATION TOs BELIEVER. These are very many and very wonderful and we cannot take them all up here. I have gone into the matter in detail in my book, “What the Bible Teaches.” Here we will consider only the more important and outstanding results of Christ’s Death in relation to the Believer.

(1) In the first place, Every believer in Jesus Christ is redeemed from the curse of the law of God, which we have all broken. This we are told in Gal. 3:13:

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”

Note carefully the “us” in this verse. The “us” means believers in Christ. For every believer in Christ the penalty of the broken law of God has been fully paid and forever paid by Christ in His death on the cross, and the broken law of God has no longer any claim whatever upon him. Oh, I am so glad. When I study the holy law of God and see how far, how an Ct Ts On aT bi BIBI Pes

very far short I have come of perfectly keeping it, and when I see how it pronounces a curse upon every one who does not perfectly keep it, I would be filled with horror and dismay if it were not for God’s own clear testimony in this Book, that Christ “redeemed me from the curse of the law” by taking that curse upon Himself, by dying on the tree. In the light of that glorious fact instead of being filled with dismay, I am filled with peace and joy and glory. (Cf. Rom. 8:1, R.V.)

(2) In the second place, By the atoning Death of Jesus Christ believers in Him who were once enemies are now reconciled to God. This God tells us in Rom. 5: 10:

“For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.”

All enmity between God and the sinner is done away with, for every sinner who has believed on Jesus Christ. It has already been done away with: Christ hath made peace through the blood of His cross: He hath reconciled believers in the body of His flesh through death. This we are told even more definitely in Col. 1: 20-22:

“And through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of fis cross; through Him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens. And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before Him.”

The story is told of a faithful Church of England vicar who heard that one of his parishioners was very ill and near to death. He called upon this dying saint. He said to her, “They tell me you are very ill.” “Yes,” she said, “I am.” He gently continued, “They tell me you have but a short time to live.” “Ves,” she said, “I know I have but a few hours to live.” Then earnestly but gently he said, “Have you made your peace with God?” “No,” the dying saint replied, “I have not made my peace with God.” “What? said the astonished vicar. “Do you realize how near you are to death, that you probably will not live another day?” ‘Yes, I realize that.” “And you have not made your peace with God?” “No.” “And are you not afraid to meet God?” “No,” she replied, “not in the least.” There was something about the calmness and serenity of the woman’s manner that made the vicar think there must be something underneath her words that he did not understand, and he said, “What do you mean?’ She replied, “I have not made my peace with God. I have no intention of making my peace with God and yet I am not the least afraid to meet God; for I am resting in the peace which Jesus Christ made eighteen centuries ago when He died upon the cross-of Calvary in my place.” Yes, thank God, by His Death on the cross Jesus Christ “made peace through the blood of His cross” and we do not have to make our peace with God, but simply to accept and rest in the peace which He made nearly nineteen hundred years ago.

(3) In the third place, Through the shedding of Christ’s blood, through His atoning death on the cross of Calvary believers in Him have redemption, the forgiveness of their sins. This we are told in Eph. 1:7:

“In Whom we have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.”

Forgiveness is not something which believers have to do something to secure: it is something that has already been secured by the Blood shed upon the cross and all we have to do is to appropriate by faith what the blood of Jesus Christ, His atoning Death, has already secured.

(4) In the fourth place, By (or, “in”’) the blood of Christ, His atoning Death, all believers in Him are justified. This, God declares to us through His servant Paul in Rom. 5:9:

“Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.”

We not only get forgiveness of all our sins through the Death of Christ, we also get justification.

Justification means far more than mere forgiveness of sin. Forgiveness is negative, the putting away of sin; justification is positive, the reckoning righteous. By reason of Christ’s Death there is a complete interchange of positions between Christ and the believer: in His Death on the cross Christ takes our place, the place of the curse, the place of condemnation before God, and the moment we believe in Him we take His place, the place of perfect acceptance before God. Paul brings this out in a way that would amaze us if we were not so familiar with it.

7p a ld A “Him Who knew no sin He (that is God) made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

When Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross He hung where I belonged. He gave up His place of perfect acceptance before God and took my place of condemnation and curse before God, and the moment I accept Him I step into His place of perfect acceptarce before God. As it is put in that familiar couplet,

“Near, so very near, to God,
Nearer I cannot be,
For in the Person of His Son,
I am just as near as He.

Dear, so very dear, to God,
Dearer I cannot be,

For in the Person of His Son,
I am just as dear as He.”

All this is on the ground of the atoning death of Jesus Christ.

(5) In the fifth place, Because of Christ’s Death no one can lay anything to the charge of God’s elect, 1.é., believers in Jesus Christ. This we are told in Rom. 8: 33, 34:

“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It ts Christ Jesus that died, yea, rather, that was raised from the dead, Who is at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us.”

There is absolutely no condemnation to any one who is in Christ Jesus. The substitutionary Death of Jesus Christ has settled all condemnation forever for every believer. As we read in the first verse of this eighth chapter of Romans:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.”

(6) In the sixth place, By the Death of Jesus Christ the whole church and each individual believer in it was purchased unto God, and so we are now His own property. We are told this in a number of passages of Scripture. Take just one illustration, Rev. 5:9, 10:

“And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests; and they reign upon the earth.”

Every believer belongs to God. He is God’s property. God has purchased us at the price of the blood shed in the atoning Death of His Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross of Calvary. Neither the Devil, nor the world, nor we ourselves, have any claim upon us. There is great comfort in this thought, for if we are God’s property we are secure; for God is certainly able to take perfect care of His own property.

The story is told of a godly slave in the antebellum days whose master was a godless man who often tried to confuse and perplex the slave. One day his master asked him, “Sam, what would you do if the Devil should get after you?” and the godly slave replied, “I would simply look up into God’s face and say, ‘Massa, look out for your own property.’”’ And God will look. out for His own property; and, as the blood of Jesus Christ has made us God’s property, I know I am perfectly secure.

(7) In the seventh place, Through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, 1.e., by His atoning Death, all believers in Him are sanctified. ‘This, God tells us Mi riebr TO2:10

“By which will (that is the will of God) we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

We are here told that every believer in Jesus Christ is already sanctified, that is, that the sacrifice of Christ sets him apart for God. Sanctification in this sense is not something we must do something to secure: it is something that the blood of Jesus Christ has already secured for every believer in Him. The blood of Christ separates the believer from the world (cp. Ex. 11:7; Ex. 12:13) and separates him unto God. It is our part to live out in our daily life this separation between us and the world and separation unto God which already exists by virtue of Christ’s Death on the cross. As far as our standing before God is concerned we are already sanctified, but we need to realize in our state that which is already true in our standing.

(8) In the eighth place, By one offering, 1.e., by the offering of His own life on the cross Jesus Christ perfected forever them that are sanctified, i.e., all believers (see verse 10). This we are told in Heb. 10: 14:

“For by one offering He (that is Jesus Christ) hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.”’

The question inevitably arises, In what sense have all believers already been made perfect? The answer to the question is found in verses one and two of this same chapter. Believers in Christ are made perfect in their standing before God: by the Death of Christ the believer is forever cleansed from all guilt. He need have no more consciousness of sins; the blood removes all guilt; all the believer’s guilt is put away forever by the one all sufficient sacrifice. There is nothing that we can do to add to that perfect atoning work and there is nothing that we need to do: it is already done.

(9) In the ninth place, The blood of Christ cleanses the conscience of the believer from dead works to serve the living God. This we are told in Heb. 9:14:

“Ffow much more shall the blood of Christ, Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

Not only does the blood of Jesus Christ relieve the conscience of the believer from all the burden of guilt: it also relieves the conscience of the believer from all his self efforts to atone for sin or please God (which are here called “dead works”). Sin is seen in the Death of Christ as entirely settled by that perfect sacrifice, and now the believer has a conscience free from all guilt and also free from the burden of all his self efforts after righteousness, his own imperfect works, and enters into the service of the living God in the liberty and power of sonship (cf. Rom. 8:15).

There are many to-day who call themselves Christians, who have not permitted the blood of Christ to cleanse their conscience from “dead works.’’ They are constantly under the burden of doing something to atone for sin and to commend them to God. But we have nothing to do: it is all already done, the blood of Jesus Christ has forever commended us to God (2 Cor. Seely dom 22-20 eye

There are three classes of men: first, Those who are not burdened by sin but love it; second, Those who are burdened by sin and seek to get rid of the burden by their own self-efforts, by doing penances or by saying many prayers or by doing some kind of righteous acts, doing something to atone for sin and to commend them to God, “dead works.” No peace can ever be found along this line, nor real love to God, nor service for God; third, Those who believe in Christ and His atoning blood and really believe what God says about the blood, and therefore see their sins settled forever by the Death of Christ (as God says they are), and who therefore have a conscience cleansed from both guilt and “dead works,’ the hearts of all such are filled with love to God and they “serve the living God,’ not in the fear of punishment, but in the freedom of love born of a faith in the cleansing and perfecting blood. They serve God not in order to atone for sin, but out of a great gratitude that all their sins are already perfectly atoned for.

(10) In the tenth place, By His Death upon the cross, Jesus Christ has “blotted out’ and “taken away” and “nailed to the cross’ the Mosaic law. This God tells us through the apostle Paul in Col. 2:14:

“Having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us (which is, of course, the Mosaic law), which was contrary to us: and He hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the CTOSS.

Not only has the curse which the law imposed upon the breaker of it, been settled by the Death of Christ, but the law, itself, has been done away with by the Death of Christ: ) As: Paul puts it im-2)Cor.3:.7, 11:

“But if the ministration of death, written and engraven on stones (this must include the ten commandments which were the only part of the law engraven on stones), came with glory, so that the children of Israel could not look steadfastly upon the face of Moses for the glory of his face; which glory was passing away: ... (11) For if that which passeth away was with glory (that is the Mosaic law), much more that which remaineth is in glory.”

The meaning of these verses is unmistakable if we are to take God’s Word at its face value: Christ has settled all the claims of the law, fulfilled the law, and so done away with it as far as the believer in Christ is concerned. As Paul puts it in another place, Rom. IO: 4:

“Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth.”

This does not mean for a moment that the one who believes in Jesus Christ is at liberty to do the things the ten commandments command him not to do. It means that he is no longer governed by a law outside of him, but by the law of God written in his heart by the Holy Spirit, and his obligation to keep the things written in the law is not to the law but to Jesus Christ, the new Husband. Paul puts it this way in Rom. 721-4, 6:

“Are ye ignorant, brethren (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law hath dominion over a man for so long time as he liveth? For the woman that hath a husband is bound by law to the husband while he liveth; but if the husband die, she is discharged from the law of the husband. So then if, while the husband liveth, she be joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if the husband die, she 1s free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be joined to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that ye should be joined to Another, even to Him Who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God.... (6) But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that wherein we were held; so that we serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.”’

That is, we serve in the power of the Holy Spirit within us Who leads us and empowers us to gladly do the things that are commanded in the law and we are no longer governed merely by the letter of the law without, but by the living Spirit within us. We are no longer debtors to a law but to a Person, even to Jesus Christ Himself. We are made dead to the law through the crucified body of Jesus Christ, to enter into a higher obligation to do the things that are according to the will of God as revealed in His Word, because of our union with Him Who arose from the dead.

I have collated in all twenty-five Results of the Death of Jesus Christ in relation to the believer, but we will stop here on the tenth, the complete number.

3. Now let us consider, THE RESULTS OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST IN RELATION TO THE DEVIL AND THE POWERS OF DARK-NESS. These too are very wonderful and are calculated to fill our hearts with joy.

(1) First of all, Through Christ’s Death the casting out of the Prince of this world (1.e., the Devil) 1s secured. This we are told in Jno. 12: 31:

“Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.”

The context shows that it is because of Christ’s Death that the Prince of this world, the Devil, is cast out. Since Christ’s Death Satan is a usurper, whose ultimate dethronement is secured. The dethronement is an already accomplished fact as far as God’s work is concerned, though it is not yet outwardly manifested and will not be until the return of our Lord.

(2) In the second place, Through the Death of Jesus Christ the Devil is brought to nought, or rendered inoperative. This we are told in Heb. 2:14, R.V.:

The Greek word translated “destroy” in the A.V. and “bring to nought” in the R.V. means literally to “render idle or inoperative,’ “to cause a person or thing to have no further efficiency; to deprive of force, influence or power.’ The Death of Jesus Christ was the death knell of Satan’s power. He could no longer wield the power of death over those who appropriated to themselves the redeeming power that there is in Christ’s Death.

(3) In the third place, In the Death of Christ on the cross God triwmphed over the principalities and the powers and exposed them to open disgrace. ‘This we are told in Col. 2: 14,15:

“Having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; having despoiled the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it’ (that is, in the Cross).

As to what the principalities and powers that are mentioned in this verse are, see Eph. 6: 12:

“For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

Evidently the principalities and powers are Satan and his hosts. It was in the cross of Christ that God fought the decisive battle, and won the decisive victory over the Devil. When Jesus Christ died upon the cross it seemed to be the moment of Satan’s greatest victory, but it was in reality the moment of his most overwhelming defeat. From that moment he has been a conquered foe. He is allowed for some wise purpose of God to still exercise a measure of power, but he is defeated and doomed: in the cross of Christ

God celebrated a triumph over him. The whole meaning of this conflict and victory at the cross will be, I believe, a subject for our contemplation and wonder at the manifold wisdom of God throughout the ages of the eternal world.

4. We come now to a consideration of THE RE-SULTS OF THE DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST IN RELATION TO THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. It has never occurred to many of us, unless we have made a deep and careful study of the subject, that the Death of Christ affects the material universe at all. We know His Death has results as regards man, and we may know that His Death has results regarding the Devil and the powers of darkness arrayed under him, but we have not even dreamed that His Death has any results regarding the material universe. But this wonderful Book declares that it has far reaching results regarding even the material universe. What are those results? This question is plainly answered in the Word of God where we are taught that, Through the Death of Jesus Christ “all things,’ the entire material universe (“all things whether they be things in earth or things in heaven’’), are reconciled unto God. This we are told in Col. 1: 19, 20:

“For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him (that is, in Jesus Christ) should all the fullness dwell; and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens.”

The Bible tells us that the entire material universe has fallen away from God in connection with sin. It tells us in Rom. 8: 20, 21:

“For the creation (that is, the material crea-. tion) was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.”

The same thing is hinted at away back in the first book of the Bible, Gen. 3:18. Not earth only but heaven also has been invaded by sin. We read in Eph. Gide

And we also read in Heb. 9: 23, 24:

“It was necessary therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us.”

Through the Death of Christ, this pollution of heaven as well as the earth through sin, is to be put away. Just as the blood of the Old Testament sacrifices was taken into the Most Holy Place (which is the type of heaven), Christ has taken the blood of His own better sacrifice into heaven itself and cleansed it. “All things... whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven” are now reconciled to God.

Paul tells us that “the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8: 21), and Peter tells us that “we look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet. 3:13).

The atonement of Christ has an immense sweep, far beyond the reach of our petty human philosophies. We have only begun to understand what the blood that was spilt on Calvary means. On the one hand, we see that sin is a far more awful, ruinous and far reaching evil than we have been wont to think; but, on the other hand, we see that the blood of Christ has a power and efficacy, the fullness of which only eternity will disclose.

Here we close our study of the “Death of the Christ” as set forth in God’s Word, but we are far from having said all the Bible says on this question of such fundamental importance in present day thinking and in the thinking of every age. Again we see what a wonderful book the Bible is and how widely its teachings vary from much that passes for advanced and profound thinking to-day, and how immeasurably it transcends the vain philosophies of this superficial age in which we live, an age in which not only “silly women,” but supposedly scholarly men, renowned scientists, philosophers and theologians, are befuddled by the alcoholic vapors of their own boot-leg philosophical booze. But the profound and lofty revelation of this old, but ever new and fresh, Word of God looms up serene, majestic and sublime above the mists and clouds that hang over the miasmatic swamps of twentieth century dreamings. Much of the philosophical and theological thinking of our day is simply an exaggerated case of intellectual autointoxication.

I noticed in last Tuesday night’s paper that a trust had been formed in the house of a well-known financier to rewrite the Bible, in order that it might conform to our present day thinking. Well, the man mentioned is an expert in forming trusts to corral all the material wealth in the world and turn it into a few already overinflated pockets, but he and his associates, in undertaking the improvement of this very ancient but still absolutely peerless Book that is always up to date and ahead of date, have undertaken a job as far beyond them as it would be beyond a bullfrog to swallow down the ocean. Like the other over-inflated bullfrog of /Esop’s fable, they will burst in the attempt.

But, turning away from these fatuous and foolhardy religious derelicts, let us fasten our eyes upon the cross of Christ as it is set before us in the imperishable Word of God, and also fasten our eyes upon Him Who died on that cross, and ponder what wondrous things that Death meant for all mankind, and especially for us who believe in Him, and also what it meant as to the complete overcoming of that dark world of gloom in which Satan reigns, and as to the whole material universe that fell in man’s fall and that “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God” in connection with man’s redemption by the atoning blood of the Christ of God.

Restored from a scan of the 1924 edition, with page headers and numbers removed and words rejoined across line breaks. Scan-derived text, still being proofread; compare the original scan before quoting.