"God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."-Gal. 6 :14.

The cross of our blessed Lord may be viewed under different aspects, or in different lights. It is so viewed in the sacred writings. It may be looked at first as that which man, sinful man, gave the blessed Son of God. It was said to the men of Israel, on the day of Pentecost, "Him ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain."Gentiles also took part in the wicked deed. And why did they thus treat Him ?He gave them no cause. He could say, "They hated Me without a cause."He was perfect goodness. He was love, "full of grace and truth."In short, He was what God is. The moral glory of God shone out in Him. In this sense, those who saw Him saw the Father. Therefore, ,in hating Him they hated what God is. They might not, through their wilful blindness, know who Jesus was; for surely, had they known who He was, they would not have dared to crucify the Lord of glory. But, as we have said, they hated what He was ; and in hating what He was, they hated what God is. Hence they really hated God:thus proving, at least in their case, that "the carnal mind," the mind of the flesh, "is enmity against God."

And what was manifestly true of them, is really true of all. Some of us may remember the time when we heard or read of the way Jesus was treated, that we said in thought, and perhaps in word, "If we had lived then, we would not have so treated Him; we would not have preferred Barabbas to Jesus; we would not have joined in the cry, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him." And yet, while thus saying, we were preferring anything and everything to Him. We were virtually saying, "Away with Him "; thus proving that we are "by nature the children of wrath "-that, as the word of God says, "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." " There is no difference, for all have sinned"-all away from God, with a mind enmity to Him. "None righteous; no, not one." "Every mouth stopped." "All the world guilty before God."

But the Cross is to be viewed as God's gracious provision for the meeting of man's need-his deep need as a sinner. Though the Lord Jesus was taken, and by wicked hands crucified and slain, yet we are assured that He was "delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God"; and also that "He was delivered for our offences." Thus the Cross is the gospel of the grace of God. The Lord having said to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again," said, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up," signifying death by crucifixion ; see John 12:32, 33. And for what purpose was He lifted up on the cross? He answers, "That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." The apostle Paul says, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree; that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." The apostle Peter says that Christ "His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed."

Thus man's hatred to God, and God's love to man, met at the cross,-met face to face, and both at their highest point of activity,-man by his hatred telling out his deep need, and God in His love meeting that need-sin thus abounding at the cross, and grace at the same time much more abounding. While we were yet "sinners," "ungodly," "enemies," and "without strength," God loved us, and the Son of His love put Himself in our place, and died the death of the cross as a sacrifice for sin. And as a proof that the atoning work was done, that divine righteousness was fully and forever satisfied, He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; so that God can righteously receive all who avail themselves of this provision of grace. Yes, He is just in justifying the vilest one of Adam's race who believes in Jesus. Poor, weary, burdened soul, trust this moment in the blood of the cross, even in that blood alone, saying from a full heart,

"In my hand no price I bring,
Simply to Thy Cross I cling ";

and, as God and His Word are true, thou art accepted and saved.

It seems suitable, next, to think of the Cross in the relation which believers sustain to it, and the present happy effects of that relation. God's part in the Cross, as we have seen, was a gracious one. And believers are identified with that; and their identification therewith is taught as being most intimate, especially in Paul's writings. He says, in his epistle to the Romans, " Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him." Our old man is ourselves in the old sinful standing; so that the meaning is, we are crucified with Christ. He adds, "Now if we be dead with Him, we believe that we shall also live with Him." He says, in his epistle to the Galatians, " I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I,"-he would not own the old "I," that being gone through the cross ; and every true believer might say the same. In writing to the Colossians, he regards them as "dead with Christ"; and "risen with Christ" He says, "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." In his second epistle to Timothy, he says, "If we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him."

The following words by Gregory of Nazianzum, born 347, and died 390, serve to show that the above expressions and thoughts of the apostle continued to have a place for some time after the apostolic age:" Floods of tears flow from mine eyes, but they cannot wash away my sin. . . . The paschal lamb of the Jews was a type of that of Christians. We have escaped the tyranny of Pharaoh. Crucified with Christ, we are also glorified with Him. He died; we die with Him. He rose; we rise with Him. Let us sacrifice everything to Him who has sacrificed Himself for our redemption." But soon these inspired words of the apostle dropped out of use, and their deep and blessed significance was lost. And how little we find as to believers being dead with Christ and risen with Him in the theological writings of Christendom, since the Reformation! But God has used some who were fully with Him to bring these precious things, and others, to light; and no one was ever gladder in discovering truth than the writer of this was in seeing that, as a believer in Christ, he has died with Him and is risen with Him.

"With Him upon the cross I died,
With Him I there was crucified."

R. H.

(To be continued, D. V.)