unto Me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted Me in the day of His fierce anger.' (Lam. i. 12.)

This SUBSTITUTION of the infinitely Righteous One for the finite and Sinful, was the Eternal purpose of the love of God. 'According as He hath

chosen us in Him before the foundation of the World, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in Love.' (Eph. i. 4.) 'He hath made Him to be Sin for us Who knew no Sin, that we might be made the Righteousness of God in Him.' (2 Cor. v. 21.)

In every nation under Heaven where 'Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ' is not known, we find the Sin-convinced soul trying to appease an offended Deity; or, with an instinctive feeling of the Fall, striving by a life of self-devotion, to raise itself to some distant and vague union with Him who inhabiteth Eternity. It is only where the wondrous truth is made known, by the Gospel of Glad Tidings, that God was in Christ, reconciling the World unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them' (2 Cor. v. 19), that slavish fear is changed into filial love, and the effort is no longer to appease an angry God, but to please, in all things, a Heavenly Father in Christ Jesus. Then, instead of going about to establish its own righteousness, the desire of the soul is to be found in Christ, having the Righteousness which is of God by faith; to know Him and the power of His Resurrection,

and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His Death. (Philip. iii. 7–14.)

He of whom the Roman Governor exclaimed, 'BEHOLD THE MAN!' was the wondrous 'DAYSMAN ’ for whom the Patriarch longed when, in the sense of God's exceeding Holiness, and his own exceeding Sin, he uttered the mournful lament, If I wash myself with snow-water, and make my hands never so clean, yet shalt Thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me! For He is not a man as I am, that I should answer Him, and we should come together in Judgment. Neither is there any DAYSMAN betwixt us, that might lay His Hand upon us both.' (Job, ix. 30-33.) BEHOLD THE MAN! His Hand of Deity is clasped in the Hand of the Eternal Father; 'I the Lord have called Thee in Righteousness, and WILL HOLD THINE HAND, and will keep Thee, and give Thee for a Covenant of the People.' (Isa. xlii. 6.) His Hand of Manhood holds ours; I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.' (Isa. xli. 13.) Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.' (Heb. vii. 25.) Therefore the glorious utterance of Faith given by the Spirit of God to every believing Soul is,-'I am persuaded that neither Death nor Life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor things Present, nor things to Come, nor Height, nor Depth, nor, any other Creature, shall

be able to separate us from the Love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' (Rom. viii. 38, 39.)

BEHOLD THE MAN! He stands for man. Behind Him lies the World of Sinners. Above Him the broken Law of God, proclaiming its dread Sentence, "The Soul that Sinneth it shall die.' (Ezek. xviii. 20.) Beneath Him yawns the bottomless Pit, the final dwelling-place of every Sin-defiled being. Before Him rise the joys of Heaven, the Glory that He had with the Father before the World was. Through the Universe of God His Prayer is breathing, 'The Glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them; that they may be One, even as we are One. I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in One. and that the World may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me.' (John, xvii. 22, 23.) And as we hear the voice of the Heathen Judge proclaim, 'Behold the Man! another voice, a voice crying in the wilderness, proclaims, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the Sin of the World.' (John, i. 29.)

IT IS FINISHED! Himself hath said it! Man in his Sin vainly sought to hide himself amongst the Trees of Eden. But now the Sinless Curse-Bearer 'hath borne our Sins in His own Body on the Tree, that we, being dead to Sins, should live unto Righteousness.' (1 Pet. ii. 24.)

70

CHAPTER VIII.

RESURRECTION.

'I AM COME THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE LIFE, AND THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE IT MORE ABUNDANTLY.'-JOHN, X. 10.

He who made this Promise of Life, and Life more abundant, entered Himself the Gates of Death. It is written of Him, 'His visage was so marred, more than any man, and His form more than the Sons of men.' (Isa. lii. 14.) With what awe must we listen to the lone breathings of Death from Him who utters this sublime declaration of Life! The Holy Spirit gives us Messiah's utterance on the Cross.

'I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels. 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 about, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.' (Ps. xxii.) Again, in Ps. lxix. we hear the

Mediator's awful Cry, 'Save Me, O God, for the Waters are come in unto my Soul! I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing. I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying, my throat is dried, mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head; they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty; then I restored that which I took not away.' It was He, the Eternal Word, by whom all things were made. He had made man 'a Living Soul'—that Life of Immortality He took not away; man had cast it from him, sold it to the Destroyer for the false Promise of an unknown gain. Christ had come to restore the priceless Blessing in uncreated glory. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.' 'God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet Sinners, Christ died for us.' (Rom. v. 8.)

The Gates of Death dare not open to receive Him of their own accord. How should the 'likeness of sinful flesh' (Rom. viii. 3), the garb of frail mortality, conceal from Death's dread angel the Lord of Life who gave him Immortality? The Holy Law that had gone forth from the Eternal Throne could. not require that Righteous Soul to be surrendered up in Death's dark agony. The Redeemer had said, Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He shall presently give me more than