The Approach

ts.:;: As the load And hid his face within my vesture’s folds Immense, intolerable, of the world’s sin, As if the sight were all too terrible Casting its dreadful shadow high as heaven,« Even for archangelic faith. But now Deep as Gehenna, nearer and more near Once more the agonising Victim moan’d, Grounded at last upon that Sinless Soul Uttering His anguish in one dreadful plaint, With all its crushing weight and killing curse, I thirst; His last: for, when the cooling sponge Then first, from all eternity then first,: Had touch’d His lips, a loud and different cry, From His beloved Son the Father’s face As if of triumph, It ts finished, rang Was slowly averted, and its light eclipsed; Upon our startled ears; and with a child’s And through the midnight broke the Sufferer’s groan, Confiding tender trustfulness, that breathed Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? Father, to Thy hands I commend My Spirit, The echo was the mockeries of hell, He bow’d His head, and yielded up the ghost.” Reverberate in human lips. We heard, — E. H. BICKERSTETH. And shudder’d. Gabriel lean’d on me a space, “Yesterday, To-day, and Forever.”

AND as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to go with them, that he might bear His Cross.

And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, The place of a skull, they gave Him wine to drink mingled with gall: and when He had tasted it, He would not drink. And when they had crucified Him, they parted His garments among them, casting lots; and they sat and watched Him there. And they set up over His head His accusation written, Tus 1s Jesus THE KING OF THE Jews. Then are there crucified with Him two robbers, one on the right hand and one on the left. And they that passed by railed on Him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save Thyself: if Thou art the Son of God, come down from the Cross. In like manner also the chief priests mocking Him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; Himself He cannot save. He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the Cross, and we will believe on Him. He trusteth on God; let Him deliver Him now, if He desireth Him: for He said, I am the Son of God. And the robbers also that were crucified with Him cast upon Him the same reproach.

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani: that is, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? And some of them that stood there, when they heard it, said, This Man calleth Elijah. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink. And the rest said, Let be; let us see whether Elijah cometh to save Him. And Jesus cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up His Spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake; and the rocks were rent; and the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised; and coming forth out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered into the holy city and appeared unto many. Now the centurion, and they that were with him watching Jesus, when they saw the earthquake, and the things that were done, feared exceedingly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God. And many women were there beholding from afar, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto Him: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. — Matt. 27. 32-56.

And they bring Him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. And they offered Him wine mingled with myrrh: but He received it not. And they crucify Him, and part His garments among them, casting lots upon them, what each should take. And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. And the superscription of His accusation was written over, Tue Kine oF THE Jews. And with Him they crucify two robbers; one on His right hand, and one on His left. And they that passed by railed on Him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ha! Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save Thyself, and come down from the Cross. In like manner also the chief priests mocking Him among themselves with the scribes said, He saved others; Himself He cannot save. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the Cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with Him reproached Him.

And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, He calleth Elijah. And one ran, and filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink, saying, Let be; let us see whether Elijah cometh to take Him down. And Jesus uttered a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom. And when the centurion, who stood by over against Him, saw that He so gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God. And there were also women beholding from afar: among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome; who, when He was in Galilee, followed Him, and ministered unto Him; and many other women that came up with Him unto Jerusalem. — Mark 15. 22-41.

And there followed Him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented Him. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the breasts that never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?

And there were also two others, malefactors, led with Him to be put to death.

And when they came unto the place which is called, The skull, there they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left. And Jesus said, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And parting His garments among them, they cast lots. And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also scoffed at Him, saying, He saved others; let Him save Himself, if this is the Christ of God, His chosen. And the soldiers also mocked Him, coming to Him, offering Him vinegar, and saying, If Thou art the King of the Jews, save Thyself. And there was also a superscription over Him, THis Is THE KING OF THE JEWS.

And one of the malefactors that were hanged railed on Him, saying, Art not Thou the Christ? save Thyself and us. But the other answered, and rebuking him said, Dost thou not even fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this Man hath done nothing amiss. And he said, Jesus, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom. And He said unto him, Verily I say unto Thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.

And it was now about the sixth hour, and a darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, the sun’s light failing: and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And Jesus, crying with a loud voice said, Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit: and having said this, He gave up the ghost. And when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man. And all the multitudes that came together to this sight, when they beheld the things that were done, returned smiting their breasts. And all His acquaintance, and the women that followed with Him from Galilee, stood afar off, seeing these things. — Luke 23. 27-49.

They took Jesus therefore: and He went out, bearing the Cross for Himself, unto the place called The place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha: where they crucified Him, and with Him two others, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the Cross. And there was written, Jesus OF NAZARETH, THE Kinc oF THE Jews. This title therefore read many of the Jews, for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city; and it was written in Hebrew, and in Latin, and in Greek. The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but, that He said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written.

The soldiers therefore, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also the coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore one to another,

Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith,

They parted My garments among them,
And upon My vesture did they cast lots.

These things therefore the soldiers did. But there were standing by the Cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by whom He loved, He saith unto His mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold, thy mother! And from that hour the disciple took her unto his own home.:

After this, Jesus, knowing that all things are now finished, that the Scripture might be accomplished, saith, I thirst. There was set there a vessel full of vinegar so they put a sponge full of the vinegar upon.hyssop, and brought it to His mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit.

The Jews therefore, because it was the Preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross upon the sabbath (for the day of that sabbath was a high day), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. The soldiers therefore came, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with Him: but when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead already, they brake not His legs: howbeit one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and straightway there came out blood and water. And he that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that’ye also may believe. For these things came to pass, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken. And again another Scripture saith, They shall look on Him Whom they pierced. — John 19. 17-37.

XX
The Approach

nee is considerable. divergence of opinion as to whether

Jesus was conscious of the full meaning of His mission during

the days of His boyhood and young manhood. A full discussion of this subject is not here attempted. Neither recorded word of His, nor clear statement of Scripture, give any decisive declaration on the point. Believing in the perfection of His unfallen human nature, it would seem as though all the probability were in favour of the opinion that He saw the Cross, and knew through all the quiet processes of preparation, that therein lay the final fact of His wondrous work.

His communion with His Father was perfect, and in unclouded intelligence He would understand the meaning of the sacred writings of His people. It is unthinkable that He shared their blindness as to that portion of the prophetic writings, which had reference to the suffering of the Messiah. His first utterance declares His consciousness of relation to His Father, and understanding of the fact. This in itself would seem to warrant belief that He realised the fact of His Messiahship. If this be so, then there can be no doubt that He also knew that the pathway of the Messiah to the throne was the pathway of suffering and the Cross.

This position is strengthened by His accurate apprehension of the meaning of the symbolism of the Hebrew worship. All the types and shadows of the ceremonial law were luminous to Him. The very calendar of the feasts must have spoken to His heart its true message.

From this study of the approach of Jesus to His Cross, eliminating any further reference to the early years, and confining attention to those of the public ministry, there is no longer room for doubt or uncertainty. It is perfectly certain that from the commencement of His public ministry He was perfectly conscious of the Cross. Through the three years of preaching, of working of miracles, of conflict, and of training of His own, He moved with quiet dignity, and set determination, towards the Cross of His passion.

The present study is an attempt to demonstrate this consciousness by an examination of many of the things He said, while not revealing the fact of the Cross to the men of His age, clearly prove His consciousness of it, in the light of subsequent events. Behind all the teaching and activity of the Master there is evidently a sub-consciousness of the Cross, and on at least five occasions this flames out, declaring itself in unmistakable ways. These may safely be spoken of as the lowlands of sub-consciousness, and the mountain peaks of immediate consciousness. A consideration of each will now be attempted.

I. In the first place then an examination of words of His, ’ which, while not immediately revealing the fact of the Cross, do yet conclusively prove that it was present to His mind, in the midst of all the ceaseless activity of three years of public ministry.

There is a notable silence concerning it as to open declaration until the moment when His Messiahship was confessed by Peter. He then began to speak plainly of the Cross, but yet during all that period of preaching and teaching, it was present to His mind, and is the only explanation of certain things He did, and words He uttered.

In such a study as this, the principal factor is that of careful attention to the Master’s own words. Comments upon them are of minor importance, and will only be made in an attempt to indicate their true meaning.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” 1

The Lord had spoken of Nathaniel as “an Israelite indeed.”2 In response to his evident wonder He makes a statement closely connected with His declaration that this man was a true child of Israel. It calls to mind the revelation made to the patriarch concerning the communication existing between heaven and earth by the ladder, and the ascending and descending angels, and of the fact that in the King of Israel there shall be the fulfilment of all that was

Yohn 1. $1. John 1. 47.

suggested by that dream. How were these words of Jesus fulfilled: Only by the way of His Cross, and resurrection, and ascension.

“Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee Mine hour is not yet come.”!

This is the first of a series of references in the Gospel of John to an hour yet to come. A comparison of them will show that they all refer to the Cross. His mother evidently thought that now at the commencement of public ministry, He would demonstrate His Divine calling, and accomplish His work, and in the first fact she was correct, but her understanding was limited. He wrought the miracle she suggested, and it was His first sign, but His words prove His understanding of the fact that His mightiest work could only be accomplished by the way of the Cross.

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”2

The Pharisees demanded His authority for cleansing the temple, and His answer, which was utterly misunderstood at the time, declared His Cross and resurrection to be the authority.

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son-of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal life.”3

Utterly perplexed by the strange words that have fallen upon his ear, Nicodemus at last said, “How can these things be?” that is to say, granting the truth of the assertion made, by what process can there be accomplishment? The reply of the Lord, almost certainly not then understood by Nicodemus, yet reveals His clear understanding, that life could only be communicated through His uplifting in the sorrows of death.

“My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to accomplish His work.’”’4

In the absence of the disciples He had been dealing with a lost woman, and winning her back with inimitable strength and tenderness to the pathway of virtue. When they, returning, offered Him food, He declared that the very sustenance of His highest life consisted in the doing of God’s will, and the accomplishment of His work. How evidently here His mind was dwelling upon that mighty work by which He would seek and save the lost.

“The Son of Man hath authority on earth to forgive sins.”5

Yohn 2. 4. 2John 2. 19. 3John 3. 14, 15. ‘John 4. 34.
5Matt. 9. 6. (See also Mark 2. 10; Luke 5. 24.)

Here by a miracle of healing, He demonstrated to His critics His power to forgive sins, while His very claim to be able to do this, proves His consciousness of the fact that “His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree,”1 for by this bearing of sin alone has He power to forgive.

“Can the sons of the bride-chamber mourn, as long as the — bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then will they fast.”2

In astonishment at the absence of fasting in the lives of His disciples, men contrasted this fact with the fasting of the disciples of the Baptist, and asked His explanation. In answer He declared that while He was with them, there was no room for mourning, and then there is evident His consciousness of the coming Cross, as He declared that when the bridegroom should be taken away, the sons of the bride-chamber would mourn.

“Even so the Son also giveth life to whom He will.”3

In controversy with His foes He made this sublime assertion of His power to give life to those who are dead, an assertion He could only make in view of His victory over death through the Cross and resurrection.

“And he that doth not take his cross and follow after Me, is not worthy of Me. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.’’4

In these words, uttered when first He commissioned the twelve, there is meaning far deeper than they then understood, or were intended to understand. They were to take up the Cross and follow after Him, and as He uttered the words, most surely there was present to His mind His own Cross. And yet He declared that “he that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.” He knew how afterwards such declaration would find its full explanation and vindication by the way of that Cross, in which He found His life by losing it, and lost His life to find it.

“As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”5

1y Peter 2. 24. *Matt. 9. 15. (See also Mark 2. 19, 20; Luke 5. 34, 35.) 3John 5. 21. 4Matt. ro. 38, 39. 5Matt. 12. 40. (See also Luke 11. 30.)

In answer to the scribes and Pharisees, who sought a sign, He declared that He would give them none save that of Jonah, but He linked that with a coming fact, namely, that of His Cross, and burial, and resurrection. He understood perfectly that no sign He wrought would be final, save that mightiest of all, of a man cast out in death, yet winning his victories by return to life.

“The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls; and having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had; and bought it.”

In the midst of the parables of the kingdom, these have evident reference to His coming passion. The popular interpretation of them fails to discover this, in supposing that lost man sells all to buy the field, and possess the pearl. That is an utter failure to appreciate the essential value of the parable. What has man to sell to buy the pearl of price? He is a bankrupt beggar on life’s highway, and nothing that he has to sell will purchase for him the field of the world, or the pearl of price. It is Christ Who sold all to possess the pearl, and in that double declaration of the cost at which He purchased the field of the world, and the pearl which is the Church, there was evidently present to His mind His Cross. We “were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, ... but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ.”2

“I am the living Bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: yea, and the bread which I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can this Man give us His flesh to eat 2 Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him.’

1Matt. 13. 44-46. 27 Peter 1. 18, 19. 3John 6. 51-56.

In this memorable discourse on the true sustenance of man’s spiritual life, while not declaring in detail, no argument is needed to prove that He was speaking out of the consciousness of that Cross by which He would give His flesh for the meat, and His blood for the drink of the world.

So far the references have been indirect, proving the consciousness of the Cross in His own mind. Those which follow are clearer, because they come after Peter’s confession, and are subsequent therefore to His clear announcement of the Cross as the issue of His work, to His own disciples.

“If any man have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and go unto the mountains, and seek that which goeth astray 2”!

In this most wonderful chapter which deals with the child and the Church, these words clearly reveal His consciousness of the long journey into the uttermost darkness that He must take for the finding and restoration of that which had gone astray.

“Jesus therefore saith unto them, My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you; but Me it hateth, because I testify of it, that its works are evil. Go ye up unto thé feast: I go not up unto this feast; because My time is not yet fulfilled.”2

Here is another reference to the hour that had not yet come, this time spoken to His brethren, as at the first it was addressed to His mother. They were urging Him to manifest Himself, and accomplish something. He declared that the supreme moment had not arrived, knowing perfectly that between Him and any manifestation of real power, there lay the Cross.

“Jesus therefore said, Yet a little while am I with you, and I go unto Him that sent Me. Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me: and where I am, ye cannot come.”3

To the officers sent to arrest Him, He uttered these words, and in common with all those of a like nature, spoken to those outside the immediate circle of His disciples, they prove His consciousness of the Cross, while not openly declaring it.

“Jesus therefore said, When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself, but as the Father taught Me, I speak these things.”4

1Matt. 18. 12. *John 7. 6-8. John 7. 33, 34. ‘John 8. 28.

Here again is the consciousness of limitation until the lifting up of the Cross, after which men shall know.

“I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven.”!

At the return of the seventy, as they recounted the story of their journeying and their work, He uttered these most wonderful words, which, while variously interpreted, certainly indicate the discomfiture and defeat of the enemy which was only wrought in the Cross. The words therefore prove the Lord’s consciousness of that Cross.

“We must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.”2

This declaration of Christ has very often been taken out of its setting and its relation, and has been made to teach that which is undoubtedly true, but what is not here declared. Through John, as has been seen, there is a reference to an hour which was coming. It was to be an hour of darkness, of night; and here He said to His disciples in connection with the healing of the man born blind, “We must work,” and then declared that presently the night was coming in which no man could work. His mind was almost certainly fixed upon that deep, dense, dark night, in which man should be excluded, and God alone should accomplish the redemption of the lost race.

“I am the good Shepherd: the good Shepherd layeth down His life for the sheep.... I lay down My life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.”

No comment is necessary here to prove the Lord’s consciousness of His Cross.

“But I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!’4

Here is an almost startling declaration of His sense of limitation of the work of preaching, and miracle working. He seems to have gazed on towards the dark and awful passion-baptism with eagerness for it, that He might be no longer straitened, but able to accomplish all that could only be accomplished through its mysterious experiences.

“Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I am perfected.’”5

1Luke 10.18. %Johng. 4. ‘John 10.11, 17,18. ‘Luke 12. 50. “Luke 13. 32.

How closely this follows upon, and adds emphasis to, the last quotation. The Pharisees were warning Him of Herod’s hatred and opposition, and in calm and dignified language He declared His present work, and that presently He would be perfected. He looked towards the perfecting by the way of His Cross and resurrection.

“Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple.”!

Here is another instance similar to that recorded in Matthew? in which the value of His word, as subsequent events would prove, was created by the fact of His own Cross.

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it 2. And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.”3

In this wonderful parable of the lost sheep, the lost piece of silver, the lost man, a parable thus indicating the order of the Divine plan of salvation, is the whole Gospel of redemption; the saving of the sheep, illustrative of the work of Jesus, seeking for the silver, illustrative of the work of the Church indwelt by the Spirit, and the welcome of the prodigal, illustrative of the attitude of God to man. At the first in His declaration concerning the Shepherd seeking the wanderer, one finds His Cross and passion.

“Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? Ifa man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.”4

The Master proposed to go to Jerusalem that He might wake Lazarus from sleep, and His disciples protested because of the opposition that had been stirred up against Him, and the certainty they felt that men would lay hands upon Him to kill Him. To their objection He replied in words that are in harmony with some already considered in this Gospel of John, which show His consciousness of a working day, merging into a terrible night; and while His attitude is a revelation of His sense of security until the day’s work be over, it also clearly indicates His consciousness of the Cross.

“But first must He suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.”5

“Luke 14.27. *Matt. ro. 38. ‘Luke 15. 4,5. ‘Johniz.9. ‘Luke 17. 25.

“Behold we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and scribes; and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him unto the Gentiles to mock, ee scourge, and to crucify: and the third day He shall be raised up.

“But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to drink 22

“Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.”’8

Upon these no comment is necessary. Here He was teaching His disciples that second lesson, which they utterly failed to learn, until the accomplishment of the facts.

“For in that she poured this ointment upon My body, she did it to prepare Me for burial.”4

Mary, conscious of some dark sorrow settling over His life, with the keen intuition of a great love, perceiving the very shadow of death upon Him, anointed His feet; and in His recognition of the gracious action there is a revelation of the overwhelming consciousness of the Cross, which was yet unappreciated by the many, and discovered only by Mary.

“But afterwards he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But the husbandmen, when they saw the son, said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and take his inheritance. And they took him, and cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him.... Jesus saith unto them, Did

ye never read in the Scriptures,
The stone which the builders rejected,

The same was made the Head of the corner:
This was from the Lord,
And it is marvellous in our eyes?

Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And he that falleth on this stone shall be broken to pieces: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust.” Thus, in what was probably Christ’s last appearance in the

1Matt. 20. 18, 19. (See also Mark 10. 33, 34; Luke 18. 31-33.) 2Matt. 20. 22. (See also Mark ro. 38.) SMatt. 20.28. (See also Mark 10. 45.) 4Matt. 26.12. (See also Mark 14. 8; John 12. 7.) 5Matt. 21. 37-44. (See also Mark 12. 6-10; Luke 20. 13-18.)

temple, in a parable and an application of Scripture, He openly declared the issue of His ministry to be the Cross.

“Ye know that after two days the passover cometh, and the Son of Man is delivered up to be crucified.... My time is at hand; I keep the passover at thy house with My disciples.... Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me.”!

These Scriptures are the records of His last messages to His disciples, all of them delivered under the very shadow of His Cross, the fact of which is evident to-day; and yet though openly declared to them, it seems as though they-had no clear understanding of its nearness.

Thus we have, in hurried fashion passed over a wide field, and consequently nothing is perfect save the actual Scriptures as recorded. Enough though has surely been done, to show that from the moment when His public ministry began, there was present to His mind its consummation in the Cross. In great love and tenderness He hid it from His disciples until they had learned the first lesson, that, namely, of His Messiahship. And even then, appreciating their weakness and inability to understand perfectly, He seems to have spoken to them seldom concerning it. The pathway of the three years was a pathway ever resolutely trodden towards the Cross, and while the consciousness of its pain was ever upon Him, so was also the sense of its value, for upon the triumph there to be won He based His authority for all the wonders which He wrought, and the blessings which He scattered were in His view made possible

thereby.

II. There is no necessity to do more than tabulate these occasions which have been referred to at the beginning, as the mountain peaks of full consciousness. For the most part they have been considered in connection with their proper setting, and it is not necessary therefore to do more now than indicate them as the occasions upon which Jesus seems to have come through some special circumstance face to face with the fact of His Cross.

The first of these occasions is the baptism. Then, as has been seen, His very consent, nay, His request for baptism, and His insistence upon it, was the outward symbol of His identification

1Matt. 26. 2, 18, 21. (See also John 14-17.)

with sinners, and therefore, moreover, of His identification with all that sin meant. For Him the whelming in the water foreshadowed the passion-baptism.!

The second occasion was that of Peter’s confession, when, having consummated the teaching required to reveal to His disciples His Messiahship, in a few words, startling and comprehensive, He declared the whole pathway to and through the Cross. “From that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples, that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.”2

The third instance of this clear consciousness of, and consent to, the Cross is to be found in His transfiguration. While the light of His human victory illumined the darkness of the night, and He held familiar converse with the lawgiver and the prophet, it was of His Cross and resurrection that they spoke.3

Again for the fourth time at the coming of the Greeks with their request to see Him, it is evident that the sense of the Cross, as one of great sorrow, was upon Him, for He declared that His soul was troubled.- Here again, however, He deliberately chose and asked that His Father’s name should be glorified, whatever the cost might be to Himself, and then declared His conception of what the Cross would mean.4

And lastly in the Garden of Gethsemane, having passed outside the last limit of human comradeship, in awful loneliness He looked into the heart of the great passion, and trembling at the prospect, yet with a strength of purpose that astonishes, and fills man with deep reverence, He chose the will of God, including, as it did, the emptying of this cup of all its bitterness, that He might fill it with the wine of life for the sons of men.5

Thus in deepest sense He is seen to have been “a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”6 Yet though His whole life was based upon conformity to the Divine purpose, even though He knew its issue was this mystery of deep pain, He nevertheless exercised a ministry of beneficence which was ever a magnificent prophecy of final victory by the way of the Cross.

1Matt. 3. 15. 2Matt. 16. 21. 3Luke 9. 31.
4John 12. 27-28. SLuke 22. 39-44. “Tsa. 53. 3.