John 19

John 19:19

CHRIST’S TITLES AND WHAT THEY TEACH US John 19:19. JESUS was dead! The world’s spite against immaculate holiness had at last found its long-sought vent! The Cross, made infamous by having taken to its deadly arms the most odious men of the East and West, kept up the appearance of its accustomed character by holding at arms length two criminals indeed—one to His right and one to His left. But that day the character of the Cross was converted. From that hour in which the title of our text was fastened to its wood, this, that terrorized the criminal’s conscience, was suddenly changed into the sinner’s hope; and this, that had filled the nations in which it was used with repulsion, became the object of chiefest attraction to all the world. There was a time when to mention the Cross filled people with that same heartsickness that possessed our fathers at the sight of the gibbet, but now its name starts a song in many souls, and the problem of the ages is the possibility of planting it in every soil beneath the sun.

How poorly Pilate understood the work of his own hands when he put on the accursed tree the title of our text! How little he dreamed that the object of infamy would change to the subject of love and song, because what he wrote was the truth of the ages—the one fact for which the world waited in hope, that “out of Jewry a King had come”.But this title is not so interesting because its touch transformed the Cross, as because its terms fitly describe the Christ, and its words suggest lessons illustrated in His life. To bring some of those lessons is the purpose of this discourse. NEED NOT CHEAT ONE OUT OF THE TITLES OF GENUINE How strange it sounds to hear Jesus of Nazareth called a King! Why associate the loftiest of earth’s titles with a name that is supposed to be of ordinary birth, of medium breeding, and of a despised birthplace? There are several answers to this question, and answers calculated to satisfy those who are willing to see and accept the truth.In the first place, the truest title is not the heritage of blood. There is no need that Joseph sit on a throne in order that Jesus may be called a king. I know there are countries in which all princes are supposed to be born and bred in palaces, but that is not after God’s ordination, nor the customs of our land. When God wanted a King to sway the scepter over His own people, He went not to the home of crowns to find Him, but sent to the humble dwelling of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, to bring thence the boy whose work was lowly, whose name was unknown, and yet in whose soul the truest kingliness shone.

In America, how seldom have the noblest titles been worn by those who came into their possession by way of noble birth! Occasionally some lord or count from other countries takes up permanent residence in our land, but our noblemen are those whose personal worth lends luster to their names, and whose honors come in consequence of valor in conduct, vigor in intellect, or magnanimity of soul.Read the old, yet ever-inspiring story of Abraham Lincoln’s early years.

If wise men had come from the East and had halted at the door of the humble cabin on Nolin Creek, Handin Co., Ky., a strange sight they might have seen—a young woman of sweet face, yet homely dress, sitting at eventide beside her untaught husband, instructing him in the alphabet of his mother’s tongue, and by picking out and putting together easy words, teaching him to read. At their feet, all unconscious of humble birth, wearing already the names of an illustrious pair, Sarah and Abraham played. If our country had been the habitat of kings, what one passing then would have dreamed, “That unwashed urchin will yet take a crown and wear it more nobly than I have done”? How history despises the probable, and discovers the diamonds that are laid hid away in society’s substratum, and brings the noble life to light. A stall is a mean place in which to be born, and coarse blankets are not supposed to become the swaddling clothes of an infant prince, and yet from humblest parents, lowliest birth, commonest breeding, the child that has in him the soul of a king may go straight to noblest titles and loftiest thrones, since Jesus of Nazareth was truly the King of the Jews and will yet become the King of the earth.This leads us to add that titles are not commodities of money purchase. We know that many politicians get “Hon.” attached by means of a liberal expense of money; that some schools sell diplomas; that honorary degrees are often bestowed in compensation for endowment gifts, and even “D.

D’s” are purchasable. It is alleged, and history confirms the charge, that cardinals have bought red hats, and that “His Holiness” has held office at times by revenue only, and yet we affirm that no honorary title can survive a sale.

We talk of money kings, but what do we mean? Only that they are rulers in finance, and we use the term with little thought of their honor. The men who accumulate great fortunes are to be respected for sagacity, energy, and frugality. But the men who inherit the father’s name must win their own laurels in the race of life, or else be the more despised. Young men and women, learn this! If you ever wear the honors, you must win them. Kingliness is not possible to any purchase, save that of well-spent life. Jesus was poor, yet Pilate was right.

He wrote, “The King,” and the Kingliness was His own.One other thing. Paul studied under Gamaliel, the most princely teacher of the times. Jesus of Nazareth never enjoyed such opportunities of intellectual training and development, yet Paul was only an Apostle while Jesus was his Lord. It is difficult to tell when you confront youth what is to be hoped from the individual life.Pastor Stalker, in a foot-note to his paragraph on “The Child Jesus at Church”, has truly said, “No portion of a congregation is more awe-inspiring to a minister than the children. Any Sunday there may be sitting before us one who is already revolving thoughts which will dominate the future and supersede our own.” No man can tell what that child will be. You dare not say, “It will be Edward because his circumstances insure his culture.

It will not be Walter because his poverty forbids it.” It is one thing to have opportunities. It is another thing to discover that power that plucks the last honor from the stingy world.

It is the man that does the latter, not the means of culture which he has enjoyed. We would hesitate to say one word against true learning. Without what few advantages we have had in halls of study, we cannot imagine what life would mean. Nothing so saddens as to meet a young woman or man who is losing the only chance they are ever to have of giving training to the mind. Education in its splendid reach is not half appreciated by the greater part of the civilized world. And, after all, the late Russell Conwell’s words might be sung around the world with profit to many.

In an address in Chicago on what our coming university ought to be, he said, “The worst fool in the world is the educated fool—the person that comes out of college with the idea that he knows everything.” I remember a graduate myself who delivered the valedictory in Latin, with all the polish and scholarship imaginable, and I said to myself, “If he will only make me secretary of the Treasury or something like that when he gets to be President, that is all I will ask!” But years passed by, and in an interior town in New England, where I was lecturing, a man came up and said, “Do you remember me?” “I do not.” Then he explained, “I am the orator,” and I recognized the man who delivered that valedictory. Then visions of the White House appeared.

I said to him as the panorama of mighty enterprises in every land and visions of government passed away, “Where are you now?” and he answered, “I am at the Cooper’s trade.” It takes more than intellectual opportunities to make of a man a king! It takes intellect itself, married to and supported by a great soul.Christmas Evans never enjoyed any culture from the schools, and yet by natural force and spiritual power he came, under God, to move like a monarch among men. So with Dwight Moody. Titles then are not questions of how well a man begins life’s race, but rather of how well he runs it, and how nobly he comes to its end. Jesus of Nazareth was King!Again, learn from this text this: THE TITLE BORN OF MAY BE SO WELL WORN AS TO BECOME A BADGE OF HONOR It appears evident that Pilate believed Christ to be an innocent man, but it is equally evident that he did not understand the full significance of the title which he caused to be nailed overhead. The sentence was as full of derision as an egg of meat. Not that Pilate meant to deride Christ, but that this sentence be caught from the mouths of the Jews who spoke sneeringly of Christ’s claim to be their King. Because it was their term of reproach as applied to the humble Teacher, he put it on the Cross to explain Christ’s offense, and reproach them in turn. How improbable it appears that a term of such ignoble birth could ever become a badge of honor!And yet, they always so become when they are born in consequence of bravery or virtue. How perfectly that thought is illustrated in the name which, among all now worn by any man or woman, is the highest and best—the name “Christian”.

When the people of Antioch first applied that term to the disciples of the Nazarene, it was spoken with a sneer, and intended to convey their utter contempt for the sect. Who is now so mean as to deny the honor of the name?

Protestantism is a term which has seen similar changes. When first employed, it was not the friends of reformation so much as the enemies of God’s Word and free thought. They called dissenters by that name and spoke the word with hissing. The men who were seeking to shake from their necks the yoke of papacy knew full well the reproach of the term. Now they find that it expresses what they love most and return their thanks to intolerant Rome whenever she calls them by that name. It describes character. We did, we do protest. The same change has come to the honorable term “Baptist”.

It used to mean, “The people who are eccentric enough to baptize.” Now it means, “The people who obey their Lord.”So with Abolition! My father came near losing his head seventy years ago for calling a score of men by that term. Now to apply the same word to the same sentiments is to honor the man who held them. Some people are greatly afraid of being derided. You must be careful by what name you call them, for with them the term is everything. But Jesus Christ was not particular about names. He had so many that we may talk about them for an hour every day in the year, yet so vary our terms that no title need receive a second attention. Many of them were once terms of reproach.

But so nobly did He live, that now they whisper in a chorus of a King, for His character lent definition to the names.The English soldiers used to call Blucher, “Old Forwards”. That was not an elegant nickname, but it told the truth of his leadership, and so came to be as honorable as it sounded uncouth.If life refutes all reproach, let men call you what they please and be not distressed. The hardest thing to deride is a noble life. He is a fool to the correction of the stocks who undertakes it. The princes of Babylon can report Daniel’s disobedience to their heart’s content, and yet Daniel will prosper in the reign of Darius while they languish in shame, as all liars must. We are wont to assign Plato a chief place among the sages of the past.

We study his philosophy of life even to this hour. Among the many things attributed to his tongue, there was nothing wiser than a speech which illustrates this phase of my text.

It is reported that on one occasion somebody did Plato the disagreeable service of telling him that he had many enemies who were accustomed to speak ill of him, to which the philosopher replied, “No matter; I shall so live that none will believe in them.” That is the best way to convert terms of derision to badges of honor. That is the explanation of the fact that in our text a sentence spoken in spite 1850 years ago, is whispered in love by a million tongues today. The life refuted the intended lie and confirmed the eternal truth that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Lord.Finally,REAL ROYALTY DOES NOT EXIST IN A NAME There are not a few men in the world who seem to think that the end of living is to get a string of significant letters attached to their names—doctors of this and doctors of that, Col., Capt., Hon., Lord, Prince, Duke and so on. Such titles may mean much or little. If gained by reason of actual merit, and used only to add weight to words, deeds and thoughts that are worthy, all right. But we do well to remember that titles are not always evidence of talent. It is not an unusual thing to meet men whose boast and bigotry remind One of the young man whose talents were not among the noblest, but who was often parading the fact that he had graduated from both Harvard and Cornell. An aged and wise man was present one day when the fellow delicately referred to this fact. Thereupon the old man said, “My young friend, you much remind me of a story I heard of a calf that was fed by two cows.” “How was that?” the egotist asked. “Well,” said the senior, “it turned out to be a big calf.” Office is not honor!“Honor and fame from no condition rise, Act well your part, there all the honor lies.” No life ever so richly illustrated that couplet as did His, over whose head our text first spoke. We all understand that if royalty inhered in a name, then its existence would be at an end when the last breath was out. A fame that lives after men, to effect good above that which has been wrought by life itself, would be impossible. A few years and every king would be humbled to the dust, and his memory forgotten. The eccentric Diagones was once found by Alexander the Great in the charnel house. When he asked the cynic philosopher what he was doing, he answered, “I am seeking for your father’s bones, and those of my slave, but I cannot find them because there is no difference in their dust.” That was true in one sense, exceedingly misleading in another.

There may be no difference in the dust of the dead, but there is as much difference in a dead king and a dead serf as there was in the living ones. Magnanimity never dies!

Noble deeds are as immortal as the soul that purposed and executed them ; and the most royal men wait in confident expectation for their posthumous power to vindicate and honor them. Dr. Hamilton said, “A vulgar mind may thirst for immediate popularity, and very moderate talent dextrously managed may win for the moment the hosannas of the millions, but it is a Horace or a Milton, a Socrates or a Sidney who can listen without bitterness to plaudits heaped on feebler rivals, and calmly anticipate the day when posterity will do justice to the powers or the achievements of which he is already conscious.” Christ fretted not, because many bemeaned Him when on earth. Full well did He know that He would yet rule in every kingdom beneath the sun.Finally, no man can afford to think only of the titles of time when the royalty of eternity is in reach. It is a good thing to rule among one’s fellows, if one’s supremacy is that of mental and spiritual power. But he is short-sighted indeed who sees not the crown beyond.

The cross and the crown come very close together since Christ died. He went, by a single bound, from one to the other.

So we may do if in our hearts is the spirit of our King.There are not many titled, not many noble in the earth, but the New Jerusalem is a city of kings and priests unto God. You never expect to be even a lord here, but you may be above earth’s dukes there. When the eldest son of the Duke of Hamilton was wasting with consumption, he was visited and prayed with by two ministers. When they had finished, he put his thin hand beneath his pillow and drawing out his Testament, read,“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, snail give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His Appearing” (1 Timothy 4:7). As they drew nearer, he called his younger brother to his bedside, and after having bade him an affectionate farewell, he added, “And now, Douglas, in a little time you will be a duke, but I shall be a king.” Glorious hope for every man in whose heart the image of the King of Glory is being fully formed!

John 19:30

THE LAST OF THE CHRIST John 19:30; John 19:41-42. IT is appropriate that we give ourselves to-day to the subject suggested by this text. If we were churchmen instead of plainer Christians, we would call this Palm Sunday, and the week just ahead, Passion Week, with next Sunday for Easter.It is my purpose to address you on the coming Lord’s Day on the subject of “Christ’s Victory Over the Grave”, touching which I entertain convictions as positive, and, I believe, as Biblical as some of those which have recently occurred in print were skeptical and unscriptural.What better preparation, therefore, for the consideration of Christ’s resurrection than to think this day upon His last words, and upon His act in laying down His life?Cunningham Geikie, speaking of this text, says, “With a loud voice, as if uttering His shout of eternal victory before entering into His glory, He cried, ‘It is finished’! And, indeed, I think we shall see that this cry was the shout of the conqueror. For, although “He bowed His head and gave up the ghost”, He had already informed His disciples that if He laid down His life, He would take it up again; and that He had power to lay it down, and that He had power to take it up again.It is a significant thing that when this Gospel of John, which is a record of the life and labors of Jesus, ends, the Book succeeding it opens with these words, “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach” (Acts 1:1). The thirty and three years which He had lived upon earth were but the commencement of His immortal career; and this death, instead of being the end, was only an episode in His history—Divinely appointed, I grant you—with a magnificent purpose, as we shall see; compassing a splendid mission, as we understand; and yet, belonging not to the end of His life, but to the beginning instead.I have selected this text to set before you the thoughts suggested by its language: First, The Sufferings of the Son; second, The Success of the Son; third, The Sepulcher of the Son.THE OF THE SON These involved the whole Man—body, soul, and spirit. His body was broken; His soul anguished, and His spirit was laden with the world’s sin. But His character shines under these circumstances of suffering as it never could have done in an experience wholly prosperous and peaceful.His bodily afflictions were bravely borne. The context here brings out a notable fact. Matthew tells us, “They gave Him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall: and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink” (Matthew 27:34), and we learn that the drink to which Matthew refers was a stupefying potion that Jesus refused. Had He received it, it would have deadened His pain and reduced His suffering by so much.

But the Son of God never thought to escape suffering; He bore His bodily ills, not by drugging the intellect, but through bravery of spirit, and herein He set man an example. How many there are who, if they are sick, instead of looking to God for help, find the morphine habit a quicker way to overcome the affliction; and who, when they come into trouble, instead of conquering by faith, seek the saloon and drown their sorrow instead.The second drink offered Jesus was nothing more nor less than soured water—a refreshing draught which would slake His thirst.

The Son of God who never sought to escape any suffering that He ought to bear, was equally rational in that He never needlessly endured or invited pain. Frederick W. Robertson says, “He would not suffer one drop of the cup of agony which His Father had put into His hand to trickle down the side untasted. Neither would He make to Himself one drop more of suffering than His Father had given.” If it is wicked for a man to render himself temporarily insensible to sorrow or pain by some stupefying potion, it is none the less iniquitous for him to needlessly inflict body, mind, or spirit. Self-martyrdom is nonspiritual and selfish! There are men who think to curry Divine favor by hanging with hooks in the flesh.

Leave that to heathen!His mental torture was met with equal courage. The state of Christ’s mind in the Garden of Gethsemane, who can imagine?

Voltaire reports of Charles IX. that “he died in his thirty-fifth year. His disorder was of a very remarkable kind; the blood oozed out of all his pores.” We know that Charles came into this mental anguish in consequence of his heinous murder of the Huguenots, and with him it was a case of reproaching conscience, making mad. Christ, on the contrary, condemned by no guilt of His own, but so covered over with the load of the world’s sin that the last star of hope seemed for the moment extinguished, cried in agony, “Let this cup pass from Me”. And later, on the Cross, He exclaimed, “My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me”?Dr. Lorimer says, “It was then that ‘He poured out His soul unto death’, and it was then and not until then that ‘He tasted death for every man’.* * By His love and sympathy He takes upon His heart all the pangs, pains and sorrows of the race from the time that Eve wept over the crime of her first-born to the day when the last tear shall be shed and the last sigh shall be breathed.

He carries the afflictions of others just as we do, when, by our deep affections, we make the trials, disappointments, bereavements of our children or our friends our own. But we can only bear a part; He bore all.” It was of this hour that the Psalmist wrote, “All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me”.

And it was in anticipation of this experience that Christ said to the ambitious James and John, “Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with” (Mark 10:38)? I am in perfect accord with the teaching that the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane was not in consequence of the coming Cross, and that when He prayed, “Let this cup pass from Me”, it was not suffering that He was seeking to escape, but the fear of death before He should reach the Cross, that appalled and alarmed Him. Paul puts this very interpretation upon it when he spoke of Christ as One“who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto Him tPiat was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared” (Hebrews 5:7). Courage does not consist in keeping an imperturbed mind, but in rising to meet the Divine demand in spite of any mental despair that may be upon one. And with this definition, Christ in Gethsemane and Christ on the Cross becomes a copy, short of which even the best men fall.The soul anguish was Divinely endured. If a single sin committed at the instigation of another could drive Charles IX. mad, and cause his blood to quit his heart and seek an exit through almost impassable pores, who could imagine what must have been the agony of Christ on the Cross who was bearing every transgression that had been committed, and every sin to come? Who can imagine what it must have meant?Many of us have had sleepless nights and have been in utter despair touching a single transgression, or else a fixed habit, but that is only as a drop to the ocean when compared with what crimes were raised against Him when He hung on the Cross. It is only in recent years that I have seen the meaning of Isa 53:3-6,“He was despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. “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 the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:3-6, R. V.). “The iniquity of us all”! Who can tell what it means to bear it? No wonder Mrs. Sigourney wrote: “Thou who hast power to look Thus at Gethsemane, be still, be still! What are thine insect woes compared with His Who agonizeth there? Count thy brief pains As the dust atom on life’s chariot wheels, And in a Saviour’s grief forget them all.” THE SUCCESS OF THE SON It is voiced right in the midst of this death scene. “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished” (John 19:30). We have already suggested that it was the shout of the victor, and so I believe it was. He did not mean that His sufferings were over; the escape from suffering was not of such concern to Him. He did not mean that His eyes were closing forever from the ugly vision of fiendish persecution, for He was not finishing with them; they rage against Him still. He did mean that His life had come to a noble end. He did mean that His labor of love lacked in nothing; He did mean that His sacrificial mission to the world was complete.His life had come to a noble end.

The people who stood about the Cross that day, as Isaiah said, “esteemed Him stricken, smitten and afflicted of God”. The ignominious manner in which He died; the popular clamor that had nailed Him to the Cross, charges of felony, proof of infamy, seemed like condemnation.

But we cannot tell what a life has been by listening to the judgment of those whose characters have been uncovered by comparison; whose sins have been excoriated by speech. The whole line of noble martyrs died in public disgrace. The mediaeval Pharisees supposed they had done God’s service when they burned Ridley and Latimer; supposed they had rid society of its chief sinners when they sent Huss to the stake and Savonarola to six days’ torture, and then to the gallows and to the flame. When Wyclif is reduced to ashes, it seems to many that only justice is meted out; and yet these men of such bad reputations are marvelous characters of their time, whose noble lives were in conflict with ignoble people and purposes, and whose deaths excite more note in Heaven than the falling of any king of earth from his throne.It does not make so much difference, beloved, what the world thinks of you, as it does what you know yourself to be. They may say, “He is stricken, afflicted of God,” but if in one’s own heart he knows that he is suffering for the sins of the people, then, with the Apostle, he can join in saying, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”.John Watson has said many wonderful things in his volume, “The Mind of the Master”, and among them this: “Without His Cross, Jesus had been poorer in the world this day and might have been unloved. It was suffering that wrought in Him that beauty of holiness, sweetness of patience, wealth of sympathy, and grace of compassion, which constitute His Divine attraction, and are seating Him on His throne.

Once when the cloud fell on Him, He cried, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’; when the cloud lifted, Jesus saw of the travail of His soul— ‘I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me’. In the upper room, Jesus was cast down for an instant; then Iscariot went out to arrange for the arrest, and Jesus revived at the sight of the Cross. ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified’.

Two disciples are speaking of the great tragedy as they walk to Emmaus, when the Risen Lord joins them and reads the riddle of His life. It was not a disaster; it was a design. ‘Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory’? The perfection of Jesus was the fruit of the Cross.”His labor lacked in nothing. When He said, “It is finished”, He meant, touching His own life work, what the contractor means when he turns over to the owner the keys to the completed house. He meant that there was not one thing that ought to have been done that was not done. Other men look back over a single day to see how many Divine calls they have refused; how many Spirit-appointed opportunities they have despised.

Not so with the Son of God. He never slept a single night leaving one duty of the past day undone.

Sometimes the waking hours did not suffice to meet all demands, and He wrought on, praying until the third watch, and then going out on the sea to calm the storm and bring His disciples safe to land. But when He did lie down to rest, there was nothing left undone.I clipped and pasted into my scrapbook this statement from a writer: “I attended a picture exhibit of the life of Jesus, and of the forty-five pictures, thirty-two dealt with His birth, childhood, trial, death and resurrection, while only eleven dealt with His life activities as a reformer, teacher, miracle worker. Of Tissot’s thirty-eight pictures of Christ, thirty-three deal with the former themes and only five with the latter. I am persuaded that these per cents represent the accents put by most preachers and Sunday School teachers on the life of Christ. On the other hand, the inspired writers give emphasis to the latter subjects. Matthew gives ten pages to the former subjects and fifty-two to the latter—his life’s activities; Mark, six to the former, and thirty-two to the latter; John, eleven to the former, and thirty-nine to the latter.” What an appeal in these facts!

No wonder the Psalmist, anticipating his labors, prophecies these words for His lips, “Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God”.He meant His mission was complete. “It is finished”. At His birth, it was said, “Thou shalt call His Name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins”.

He had seen the blood trickle from His hands and from His feet, and had felt it flowing from His face, and He knew that when He poured out His life unto death, He was compassing His ministry, “for without shedding of blood is no remission”. He knew that He was made a curse for us that we might be freed from the curse of the Law. He knew that He had become the end of the Law for righteousness to every man that believeth. He knew that He had suffered, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God; and He also knew that all that the Father gave to Him should come to Him, since He had put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.He did more than complete the plan of salvation, for He is not only the Author but the Finisher of our faith, and those who put their trust in Him will find that He who finished His own ministry on this Cross, having perfected the same, proffers to you and me aid in finishing ours, saying, “My grace is sufficient for thee”. Here is hope for hours of discouragement; here is inspiration for times when one is tempted to despair. Christ said, “It is finished”, and with His speech completed His own labors, and He is not dead but liveth, and works with the same power to help you to bring your ministry to the world to such shapeliness that the same may be said of it.You have heard the story of one of the great masters, how after a long absence, he came back to see how the art students were coming on with their work.

One of these had formed a noble conception, but had tried in vain to put it on canvas. This night, discouraged by his failure and wearied by his efforts, he went to his lodgings.

The master walking through the studio, saw the unfinished work. The touch of genius was upon it, but it would require the master-stroke to fill out the ideal. Taking up the brush, he supplied what was wanting, and then went his way. Next morning the young painter paused before his picture, and seeing that his ideal had been completed, cried, “Oh, the master has come! The master has come!”Beloved, when we shall have wearied with our endeavor to bring out of life whatever we ourselves see in it, attempting in vain to fill up the flaws, we do well to remember that the Christ of this Cross in crying, “It is finished”, spake not alone of His ministry in Galilee, Judea, and Samaria, but His ministry in you and in me—the completion of whose lives, He, with His infinite wisdom and power, has volunteered.THE OF THE SON “Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. “There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand” (John 19:41-42). It was a good man’s gift. Joseph of Arimathea was rich; he was also righteous. This is one of the marvelous combinations that sometimes occur, and in which the Christ finds joy. No man can do so much for the suffering Son of God as a prospered, yet consecrated man. In his hand are powers that can provide a place in which Jesus can rest; or a place from which He can rule. When I meet a man who is rich and increased with goods, and yet loves God, I find in him an ideal for admiration.

A few days since, in another state, I was entertained by one such, and while my converse with Christian hosts is commonly sweet, seldom have I felt such spiritual uplift as I got from ten days’ association with this modern Joseph, who, believing in a Risen Christ, instead of providing a sepulcher for Him, has put His money into the sanctuary; and, through that sanctuary, has sent it to state, and nation, and suffering world. There are no other such tests of goodness as gifts to the Son of God provide.This sepulcher represents Christ’s share in human suffering. He who tasted death for other men drank the dregs of the cup by going also into the grave. Had He stopped short of this, the man approaching burial would feel that the Son of God would only go with him to the last breath; and the mother, compelled to lay her babe in the cemetery, would question whether Jesus knew how deep and dark seemed the grave. When He gave His great commission to the disciples, sent to heathen darkness, He said, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age”. And when men enter Christian experience He says to them, everyone, “Lo, I am with you alway”, even to the limit of life, the utmost of death, including the experience of the grave.

Therefore, we can say,“Oh, love Divine that stooped to share Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear.” But finally, this sepulcher stands for sins pardoned and souls absolved. The last drop of blood did not trickle from His veins merely to be swallowed up by Calvary; it was the day of atonement, the sepulcher receiving the dead Son of God, that spoke exactly the same lesson to a sin cursed world that the slain lamb uttered to Israel. Dr. Lorimer once said, “I can picture to myself that solemn day which was set apart by Israel for reconciliation, and I can see the high priest in his white garments of humility, having slain the victim, entering into the holiest of all to sprinkle the blood of expiation before the mercy seat, while the people, moaning over their sins, are prostrate without. A hush rests on the assembly, broken only by the waitings of the penitent and the heart sobs of the contrite. What does it all mean?

Why do the multitudes rise with so much joy when the priest reappears and extends his hands in benediction? What have they received? In what are they advantaged? Let us ask yonder smiling Hebrew as he is returning to his tent. “Do you not understand?” he inquires, and adds: “This is the day of atonement; our sins have been put away through sacrifice, and the nation is once more at peace with God.”“But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; “How much more shall the Blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God! “And for this cause He is the Mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance” (Hebrews 9:11-15).

John 19:41-42

THE LAST OF THE CHRIST John 19:30; John 19:41-42. IT is appropriate that we give ourselves to-day to the subject suggested by this text. If we were churchmen instead of plainer Christians, we would call this Palm Sunday, and the week just ahead, Passion Week, with next Sunday for Easter.It is my purpose to address you on the coming Lord’s Day on the subject of “Christ’s Victory Over the Grave”, touching which I entertain convictions as positive, and, I believe, as Biblical as some of those which have recently occurred in print were skeptical and unscriptural.What better preparation, therefore, for the consideration of Christ’s resurrection than to think this day upon His last words, and upon His act in laying down His life?Cunningham Geikie, speaking of this text, says, “With a loud voice, as if uttering His shout of eternal victory before entering into His glory, He cried, ‘It is finished’! And, indeed, I think we shall see that this cry was the shout of the conqueror. For, although “He bowed His head and gave up the ghost”, He had already informed His disciples that if He laid down His life, He would take it up again; and that He had power to lay it down, and that He had power to take it up again.It is a significant thing that when this Gospel of John, which is a record of the life and labors of Jesus, ends, the Book succeeding it opens with these words, “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach” (Acts 1:1). The thirty and three years which He had lived upon earth were but the commencement of His immortal career; and this death, instead of being the end, was only an episode in His history—Divinely appointed, I grant you—with a magnificent purpose, as we shall see; compassing a splendid mission, as we understand; and yet, belonging not to the end of His life, but to the beginning instead.I have selected this text to set before you the thoughts suggested by its language: First, The Sufferings of the Son; second, The Success of the Son; third, The Sepulcher of the Son.THE OF THE SON These involved the whole Man—body, soul, and spirit. His body was broken; His soul anguished, and His spirit was laden with the world’s sin. But His character shines under these circumstances of suffering as it never could have done in an experience wholly prosperous and peaceful.His bodily afflictions were bravely borne. The context here brings out a notable fact. Matthew tells us, “They gave Him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall: and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink” (Matthew 27:34), and we learn that the drink to which Matthew refers was a stupefying potion that Jesus refused. Had He received it, it would have deadened His pain and reduced His suffering by so much.

But the Son of God never thought to escape suffering; He bore His bodily ills, not by drugging the intellect, but through bravery of spirit, and herein He set man an example. How many there are who, if they are sick, instead of looking to God for help, find the morphine habit a quicker way to overcome the affliction; and who, when they come into trouble, instead of conquering by faith, seek the saloon and drown their sorrow instead.The second drink offered Jesus was nothing more nor less than soured water—a refreshing draught which would slake His thirst.

The Son of God who never sought to escape any suffering that He ought to bear, was equally rational in that He never needlessly endured or invited pain. Frederick W. Robertson says, “He would not suffer one drop of the cup of agony which His Father had put into His hand to trickle down the side untasted. Neither would He make to Himself one drop more of suffering than His Father had given.” If it is wicked for a man to render himself temporarily insensible to sorrow or pain by some stupefying potion, it is none the less iniquitous for him to needlessly inflict body, mind, or spirit. Self-martyrdom is nonspiritual and selfish! There are men who think to curry Divine favor by hanging with hooks in the flesh.

Leave that to heathen!His mental torture was met with equal courage. The state of Christ’s mind in the Garden of Gethsemane, who can imagine?

Voltaire reports of Charles IX. that “he died in his thirty-fifth year. His disorder was of a very remarkable kind; the blood oozed out of all his pores.” We know that Charles came into this mental anguish in consequence of his heinous murder of the Huguenots, and with him it was a case of reproaching conscience, making mad. Christ, on the contrary, condemned by no guilt of His own, but so covered over with the load of the world’s sin that the last star of hope seemed for the moment extinguished, cried in agony, “Let this cup pass from Me”. And later, on the Cross, He exclaimed, “My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me”?Dr. Lorimer says, “It was then that ‘He poured out His soul unto death’, and it was then and not until then that ‘He tasted death for every man’.* * By His love and sympathy He takes upon His heart all the pangs, pains and sorrows of the race from the time that Eve wept over the crime of her first-born to the day when the last tear shall be shed and the last sigh shall be breathed.

He carries the afflictions of others just as we do, when, by our deep affections, we make the trials, disappointments, bereavements of our children or our friends our own. But we can only bear a part; He bore all.” It was of this hour that the Psalmist wrote, “All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me”.

And it was in anticipation of this experience that Christ said to the ambitious James and John, “Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with” (Mark 10:38)? I am in perfect accord with the teaching that the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane was not in consequence of the coming Cross, and that when He prayed, “Let this cup pass from Me”, it was not suffering that He was seeking to escape, but the fear of death before He should reach the Cross, that appalled and alarmed Him. Paul puts this very interpretation upon it when he spoke of Christ as One“who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto Him tPiat was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared” (Hebrews 5:7). Courage does not consist in keeping an imperturbed mind, but in rising to meet the Divine demand in spite of any mental despair that may be upon one. And with this definition, Christ in Gethsemane and Christ on the Cross becomes a copy, short of which even the best men fall.The soul anguish was Divinely endured. If a single sin committed at the instigation of another could drive Charles IX. mad, and cause his blood to quit his heart and seek an exit through almost impassable pores, who could imagine what must have been the agony of Christ on the Cross who was bearing every transgression that had been committed, and every sin to come? Who can imagine what it must have meant?Many of us have had sleepless nights and have been in utter despair touching a single transgression, or else a fixed habit, but that is only as a drop to the ocean when compared with what crimes were raised against Him when He hung on the Cross. It is only in recent years that I have seen the meaning of Isa 53:3-6,“He was despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. “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 the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:3-6, R. V.). “The iniquity of us all”! Who can tell what it means to bear it? No wonder Mrs. Sigourney wrote: “Thou who hast power to look Thus at Gethsemane, be still, be still! What are thine insect woes compared with His Who agonizeth there? Count thy brief pains As the dust atom on life’s chariot wheels, And in a Saviour’s grief forget them all.” THE SUCCESS OF THE SON It is voiced right in the midst of this death scene. “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished” (John 19:30). We have already suggested that it was the shout of the victor, and so I believe it was. He did not mean that His sufferings were over; the escape from suffering was not of such concern to Him. He did not mean that His eyes were closing forever from the ugly vision of fiendish persecution, for He was not finishing with them; they rage against Him still. He did mean that His life had come to a noble end. He did mean that His labor of love lacked in nothing; He did mean that His sacrificial mission to the world was complete.His life had come to a noble end.

The people who stood about the Cross that day, as Isaiah said, “esteemed Him stricken, smitten and afflicted of God”. The ignominious manner in which He died; the popular clamor that had nailed Him to the Cross, charges of felony, proof of infamy, seemed like condemnation.

But we cannot tell what a life has been by listening to the judgment of those whose characters have been uncovered by comparison; whose sins have been excoriated by speech. The whole line of noble martyrs died in public disgrace. The mediaeval Pharisees supposed they had done God’s service when they burned Ridley and Latimer; supposed they had rid society of its chief sinners when they sent Huss to the stake and Savonarola to six days’ torture, and then to the gallows and to the flame. When Wyclif is reduced to ashes, it seems to many that only justice is meted out; and yet these men of such bad reputations are marvelous characters of their time, whose noble lives were in conflict with ignoble people and purposes, and whose deaths excite more note in Heaven than the falling of any king of earth from his throne.It does not make so much difference, beloved, what the world thinks of you, as it does what you know yourself to be. They may say, “He is stricken, afflicted of God,” but if in one’s own heart he knows that he is suffering for the sins of the people, then, with the Apostle, he can join in saying, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”.John Watson has said many wonderful things in his volume, “The Mind of the Master”, and among them this: “Without His Cross, Jesus had been poorer in the world this day and might have been unloved. It was suffering that wrought in Him that beauty of holiness, sweetness of patience, wealth of sympathy, and grace of compassion, which constitute His Divine attraction, and are seating Him on His throne.

Once when the cloud fell on Him, He cried, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’; when the cloud lifted, Jesus saw of the travail of His soul— ‘I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me’. In the upper room, Jesus was cast down for an instant; then Iscariot went out to arrange for the arrest, and Jesus revived at the sight of the Cross. ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified’.

Two disciples are speaking of the great tragedy as they walk to Emmaus, when the Risen Lord joins them and reads the riddle of His life. It was not a disaster; it was a design. ‘Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory’? The perfection of Jesus was the fruit of the Cross.”His labor lacked in nothing. When He said, “It is finished”, He meant, touching His own life work, what the contractor means when he turns over to the owner the keys to the completed house. He meant that there was not one thing that ought to have been done that was not done. Other men look back over a single day to see how many Divine calls they have refused; how many Spirit-appointed opportunities they have despised.

Not so with the Son of God. He never slept a single night leaving one duty of the past day undone.

Sometimes the waking hours did not suffice to meet all demands, and He wrought on, praying until the third watch, and then going out on the sea to calm the storm and bring His disciples safe to land. But when He did lie down to rest, there was nothing left undone.I clipped and pasted into my scrapbook this statement from a writer: “I attended a picture exhibit of the life of Jesus, and of the forty-five pictures, thirty-two dealt with His birth, childhood, trial, death and resurrection, while only eleven dealt with His life activities as a reformer, teacher, miracle worker. Of Tissot’s thirty-eight pictures of Christ, thirty-three deal with the former themes and only five with the latter. I am persuaded that these per cents represent the accents put by most preachers and Sunday School teachers on the life of Christ. On the other hand, the inspired writers give emphasis to the latter subjects. Matthew gives ten pages to the former subjects and fifty-two to the latter—his life’s activities; Mark, six to the former, and thirty-two to the latter; John, eleven to the former, and thirty-nine to the latter.” What an appeal in these facts!

No wonder the Psalmist, anticipating his labors, prophecies these words for His lips, “Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God”.He meant His mission was complete. “It is finished”. At His birth, it was said, “Thou shalt call His Name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins”.

He had seen the blood trickle from His hands and from His feet, and had felt it flowing from His face, and He knew that when He poured out His life unto death, He was compassing His ministry, “for without shedding of blood is no remission”. He knew that He was made a curse for us that we might be freed from the curse of the Law. He knew that He had become the end of the Law for righteousness to every man that believeth. He knew that He had suffered, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God; and He also knew that all that the Father gave to Him should come to Him, since He had put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.He did more than complete the plan of salvation, for He is not only the Author but the Finisher of our faith, and those who put their trust in Him will find that He who finished His own ministry on this Cross, having perfected the same, proffers to you and me aid in finishing ours, saying, “My grace is sufficient for thee”. Here is hope for hours of discouragement; here is inspiration for times when one is tempted to despair. Christ said, “It is finished”, and with His speech completed His own labors, and He is not dead but liveth, and works with the same power to help you to bring your ministry to the world to such shapeliness that the same may be said of it.You have heard the story of one of the great masters, how after a long absence, he came back to see how the art students were coming on with their work.

One of these had formed a noble conception, but had tried in vain to put it on canvas. This night, discouraged by his failure and wearied by his efforts, he went to his lodgings.

The master walking through the studio, saw the unfinished work. The touch of genius was upon it, but it would require the master-stroke to fill out the ideal. Taking up the brush, he supplied what was wanting, and then went his way. Next morning the young painter paused before his picture, and seeing that his ideal had been completed, cried, “Oh, the master has come! The master has come!”Beloved, when we shall have wearied with our endeavor to bring out of life whatever we ourselves see in it, attempting in vain to fill up the flaws, we do well to remember that the Christ of this Cross in crying, “It is finished”, spake not alone of His ministry in Galilee, Judea, and Samaria, but His ministry in you and in me—the completion of whose lives, He, with His infinite wisdom and power, has volunteered.THE OF THE SON “Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. “There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand” (John 19:41-42). It was a good man’s gift. Joseph of Arimathea was rich; he was also righteous. This is one of the marvelous combinations that sometimes occur, and in which the Christ finds joy. No man can do so much for the suffering Son of God as a prospered, yet consecrated man. In his hand are powers that can provide a place in which Jesus can rest; or a place from which He can rule. When I meet a man who is rich and increased with goods, and yet loves God, I find in him an ideal for admiration.

A few days since, in another state, I was entertained by one such, and while my converse with Christian hosts is commonly sweet, seldom have I felt such spiritual uplift as I got from ten days’ association with this modern Joseph, who, believing in a Risen Christ, instead of providing a sepulcher for Him, has put His money into the sanctuary; and, through that sanctuary, has sent it to state, and nation, and suffering world. There are no other such tests of goodness as gifts to the Son of God provide.This sepulcher represents Christ’s share in human suffering. He who tasted death for other men drank the dregs of the cup by going also into the grave. Had He stopped short of this, the man approaching burial would feel that the Son of God would only go with him to the last breath; and the mother, compelled to lay her babe in the cemetery, would question whether Jesus knew how deep and dark seemed the grave. When He gave His great commission to the disciples, sent to heathen darkness, He said, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age”. And when men enter Christian experience He says to them, everyone, “Lo, I am with you alway”, even to the limit of life, the utmost of death, including the experience of the grave.

Therefore, we can say,“Oh, love Divine that stooped to share Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear.” But finally, this sepulcher stands for sins pardoned and souls absolved. The last drop of blood did not trickle from His veins merely to be swallowed up by Calvary; it was the day of atonement, the sepulcher receiving the dead Son of God, that spoke exactly the same lesson to a sin cursed world that the slain lamb uttered to Israel. Dr. Lorimer once said, “I can picture to myself that solemn day which was set apart by Israel for reconciliation, and I can see the high priest in his white garments of humility, having slain the victim, entering into the holiest of all to sprinkle the blood of expiation before the mercy seat, while the people, moaning over their sins, are prostrate without. A hush rests on the assembly, broken only by the waitings of the penitent and the heart sobs of the contrite. What does it all mean?

Why do the multitudes rise with so much joy when the priest reappears and extends his hands in benediction? What have they received? In what are they advantaged? Let us ask yonder smiling Hebrew as he is returning to his tent. “Do you not understand?” he inquires, and adds: “This is the day of atonement; our sins have been put away through sacrifice, and the nation is once more at peace with God.”“But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; “How much more shall the Blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God! “And for this cause He is the Mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance” (Hebrews 9:11-15).