THE KING’S. BUSINESS
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of our Lord Jesus .^Christ. The tendency is to make His life and character, His teaching and leadership, the main thing. Christian Science even goes so far as to deny the fact of His. death. To them His supposed death is “an illusion,” it is “only mortal thought,” but the Bible puts the emphasis upon His atoning death. 1. The death of Jesus Christ is men tioned directly more than 175 times in the New Testament. Besides this there are very many prophetic and typical references to the death of Jesus Christ in the Old T estament. When Mr. Alexander and I were hold ing our meetings in the Royal Albert Hall in London, some one took away one of our hymn books and went through it and cut out every reference to the blood, and then sent it back to me through the mail, saying, “I have gone through your hymn book, and cut out every reference to the blood. These references to the blood are foolish. Now sing your hymns with the blood left out and there will be some sense in them.” If any of you should take your Blible and go through it in that way and cut out of the New Testa ment and the Old Testament every pas sage that referred to the death of Christ, or to His atoning blood, you would have only a sadly torn and tattered Bible left, a Bible without a heart and a Gospel without saving power. If I were a mem ber of a church where the pastor said that he preached a system of “religious doctrine, without a devil, without a hell, without an atonement of blood and recompense, with out an infallible Bible,” to use his own language, he would see his audience “melt ing away like snow in the rain” as far as I was concerned. I would either take my hat and get out of that church, or else the pastor would take his hat and get out of the pulpit, for I should know that he was not preaching God’s pure saving gos pel but the devil’s poisonous substitute for the gospel. 2. Not only are the, references to the death of Christ so numerous in Old Testa
ment and New Testament, but we are taught distinctly in Hebrews 2:14 that Jesus Christ became a man for the spe cific purpose of dying, that He became a partaker of flesh and blood in order that He might die. In this passage we read, For as much as the children are par takers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb. 2 J4 ). The meaning of these words is as plain as day. They tell us that the incarnation was for the purpose of the death. They tell us that Jesus Christ’s death was not a mere accident or incident of His human life (as many would have us believe) but that it was the supreme pur pose of it. He became man in order that He might die as man and for man. This is the doctrine of the Bible, and it is true for anybody and for everybody. ' 3. Furthermore, He died for a. specific purpose as a ransom for us. He Himself said so. In Matt. 20:28 He says,“The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” 4. One of the most remarkable scenes recorded in the New Testament is that of the transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah came back from the other world to com mune with Jesus, and what did they talk about in that great moment of human his tory? Luke tells us in the 9th chapter of his Gospel, the 30th and 31st verses, “And behold, there talked with Him (i.e., with Jesus) two men which were Moses and Elijah; who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” His atoning death was the one subject that engrossed the attention of these two who came back from the glory world. We are also told in «1 Peter 10-12 that the death of Jesus Christ is a subject of intensest interest and earnest inquiry on the part of the angels. 3. The death of Christ is1 the central theme of heaven’s song. Rev. 5:8-12 gives us a picture of heaven with its wonderful
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