VII.

GOD'S ONLY SON OUR "DEAD CHRIST."

THE evening of last Lord's Day we contemplated CHRIST AS CRUCIFIED on a Roman cross under sentence of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. This evening, if the Lord will, we are called to behold CHRIST DEAD. "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost." In Mark xv. 38, 39; Matth. xxvii. 50-57 ; Luke xxiii. 46; John xix. 30-42.

To say that these passages of the sacred writers concerning the last hours of Jesus can be explained away, so as not to mean that Jesus really died on the Cross, is to say they have no meaning at all. I hope you will here observe, (1.) The promises and prophecies of the Old Testament, the rites, and types, and sacrifices of the Mosaic dispensation, contemplate and require that the Messiah should suffer, be crucified, and die from crucifixion on the Cross. (2.) The Evangelists give us a narrative of events leading to his crucifixion, and of the results that followed; and, (3.) This narrative has been received by all Christians from the time the records were made-which was soon after the events occurred-to this day as a true history. It is in evidence also, (4.) That our

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history contains an account of things that were most surely believed at the time they are alleged to have taken place, both by friends and enemies. Our Lord's enemies believed that He really died on the Cross, and his friends and followers were so certain of the reality of his death, that they prepared him for his burial, and did actually lay him in a tomb. The truth of this clause of this Article in our Creed is believed by us, then, (1.) Because the other Articles being proved to be true, this one is true also. (2.) It is believed distinctly on account of the tradition of the Church concerning His death both before and subsequent to the crucifixion. (3.) The direct testimony of the narratives. (4.) All the theological arguments that call for the death of the sacrifice offered for sin, and the shedding of blood in order to the remission of sins, call for the death of Christ as our Mediator.

We have considered the sufferings of our Lord. We have witnessed his passion and crucifixion. We have seen the man Christ Jesus after a night of misery and insult; buffeted before the priests; mocked in royal array before Herod; scourged and crowned with thorns by Pilate; betrayed by one of his Apostles and forsaken by them all, and his precious body nailed to the cross. Behold the man! "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger?" But God has mercifully put it beyond the power of the body to endure the extremity of mortal agony for any great length of time, for when the forces of nature are spent, life ceases in death. This law obtained with Jesus. And if any other proof could be wanting for the reality of his death, it is given in his pierced side, when from his heart there came out a mingled flow of blood and water. This

is of itself, without the torturing, the scourging, and crowning with thorns, and the nailing to the cross, quite sufficient to cause his death. And when this witness of blood was given, it was accompanied with such phenomena, that the Centurion cried out, "Truly this was the Son of God." The words of our Creed, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, may seem a useless repetition, and accordingly in some of the ancient copies this Article was expressed by the single phrase, was crucified under Pontius Pilate. And this does indeed comprehend all; still there was a purpose, and an important one, to be served by retaining the four terms, suffered, was crucified, dead and buried. Each one of these terms disclaimed and rejected from the faith of the Church some erroneous conceit or false doctrine concerning the sufferings and death of Christ, and by using them all in the order of the Article, we have a more full and clear statement, affirming the reality of his sufferings, and setting forth the manner and main circumstances and complete effect of his sufferings, which ended in his death on the cross and actual burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. It is a possible supposition in such cases, that, even after crucifixion was commenced, the sufferer might be taken down and live. Such cases are on record in the books. Our Lord's persecutors, in their cruel mockery, spoke of his saving others, now let him save himself by coming down from the cross. But in his case it is plain nothing of the kind was done. Our Lord remained on the cross, and his sufferings continued till they terminated in death. And our surgeons and medical men will all tell you that the wound from the Roman spear in his side would have produced certain death, if there had been no other cause.

Under Pontius Pilate does not exclude his sufferings

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before nor after his arraignment at Pilate's judgment bardoes not deny his sufferings in the garden, and before Herod, and on the way to Calvary, and on the cross. Suffered under Pontius Pilate—¿ñì Пovτíov Пltλárov—is intended to express what He underwent in the way of judicial process, his arrest and arraignment, his sentence from Pilate-that He was treated, prosecuted, condemned and put to death, professedly, according to law as a malefactor. It embraces all the infirmities which He bore for our sake, from his manger-cradle to his last moment on the cross-all the discomforts and sufferings of his infancy, youth, and manhood, of his private and public life-all the pains and sorrows that He underwent and endured in the course of his ministry, and chiefly just previous to his death. Under Pontius Pilate designates the consummation of the judicial process. All before was leading to this, and all after was the effect of his condemnation by the Roman governor, who scourged him and delivered him to be crucified. Suffered, then, is to be taken in the sense of was punished as a malefactor, and so were fulfilled the Scriptures which foretold that Christ should thus suffer. He was stricken and smitten of God for us. God made him sin for us-a propitiation -a sacrifice-made Him, His only Son our Lord, who knew no sin-who was perfectly innocent and free from all sin-made Him sin for us. That is, He was treated as a malefactor in our place, and bore the wrath of God against sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He was numbered among the transgressors.

But while suffered under Pontius Pilate affirms the punishment of death under a professed legal process, inflicted upon him as a condemned malefactor, it remained still to describe the nature, and exact kind and manner of that suffering, which, according to the Scriptures, had

to be most painful and covered with ignominy. Hence, the expressions was crucified and dead were added. It is true, we might suppose was crucified included suffering, for crucifying was the most excruciating kind of suffering, and also that was crucified would mean also that he really died. But it has already been shown, first, that Sabellius held that it was the Father Almighty that suffered and was crucified, and, therefore, the Creed and Catechism affirmed it was Jesus Christ, God's only Son, who suffered and was crucified. And, secondly, that the Docetæ and Basilides, and such like errorists, said that Jesus did not really suffer, but only seemed to suffer.

And Apollinaris conceived the monstrous notion that Christ had no human soul, but that the place of the proper human soul in his body was occupied by his Divinity. Consequently, he denied the possibility of Christ's true and natural death. For if He had no proper soul in union with the body, of course there could be no death, for there could be no separation of body and soul, as when we die. And, thirdly, Mohammed and others said it was Simon the Cyrenian, and not Jesus Christ at all, that "suffered, was crucified, dead and buried.”

The affirmation, therefore, is emphatic, Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate--so suffered that He was crucified even unto death, and that He did actually die, and was buried as a dead man, his body being treated as that of any other dead man. Our Catechism asks: "Wherein did Christ's humiliation consist ?"

"Ans. Christ's humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time." The