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The Fundamentals mission. It would be impossible to summarize all the teach ing of the New Testament on this subject. (The student is referred to Crawford, who gives 160 pages to the texts in the New Testament, and Dale’s “Summary,” pp. 443-458.) It is clear, though, that, to our Saviour’s thought, His cross and passion was not the incidental consequence of His opposition to the degraded religious standards of His day, and that He did not die as a martyr because death was pref erable to apostasy. His death was the means whereby men should obtain forgiveness of sins and eternal life (John 3 :14, 16; Matt. 26:28). The consentient testimony of the New Testament writers, both in the Acts and in the Epistles, is that Christ died no accidental death, but suffered according to the will o f God, His own volition, and the predictions of the prophets, and that His death was substitutionary, sacrificial, atoning, reconciling and redeeming (John 10:18; Acts 2:23; Rom. 3:25; 5:6, 9; 1 Cor. 15:3; 2 Cor. 5:15, 19, 21; Heb. 9-T4, 26, etc., etc.). In proof, it will be sufficient to take the inspired testimony of the three outstanding writers, St. Peter, St. John, and St. Paul. st . peter ’ s witness . To St. Peter’s mind, the death of Jesus was the central fact of revelation and the mystery, as well as the climax, of the In carnation. The shedding of His blood was sacrificial; it was covenanting; it was sin-covering; it was redeeming; it was ransoming; it was the blood of the Immaculate Lamb, which emancipates from sin (1 Pet. 1 :2, 11, 18, 19). In all his post- Pentecostal deliverances he magnifies the crucifixion as a reve lation of the enormity of human sin, never as a revelation of the infinitude o f the Divine love (Dale, p. 115). His death was not merely an example; it was substitutionary. It was the death of the sin-bearer. “Christ also suffered for us,” “He bare our sins,” meaning that He took their penalty and their consequence (Lev. 5:17; 24 ;15; Num. 9:13; 14:32, 34; Ezek.
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