308
T h e ■ K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
May 1928
Many believe Simon is the " Simeon” of Acts 13 :1, called “N iger" because he was a negro. The names Simon and Simeon were used interchangeably. See Acts IS :14. Note, also, Simeon’s con nection with Lucius o f Cyrene. If this identity is correct, we see in this old negro one of the first fruits o f the heathen world, and an active worker in the early church. , “ They . brought Him unto Golgotha — the place o f a skull" (v. 22). Every detail was significant, yet the actors knew not they were fulfilling Scripture. A grin ning skull is the very type o f ruined humanity. From the place of death the fountain o f life was about to spring up. In taking Jesus out o f the city (Heb. 13:12) the sin offering was being fulfilled according to the Old Testament types (Lev. 4:12, 16, 27; Num. 19:3). They offered Jesus “wine mingled with myrrh,” a narcotic. “He received it not" (v. 23). He would not use any artificial means to modify the sense of His suffer ings' as the Sin-Bearer of the world. “ When they had crucified Him they parted H is garments” (v. 24). His earthly life began with His laying’ âside the gar ments o f divine majesty. It ended by,His being stripped _qf earthly ' garments. Adam, in His sins, stood "naked before God. Jesus, the Second Adam, was stripped that we might be clothed with “ the garments o f salvation,” “ the robes o f righteousness." “ They cast lots” for His clothes.' Be fore the very eyes o f the Jewish-teachers, the prophecies they professed to teach were fulfilled (Psa. 22:18), yet they were blind to it. Mark sets the time o f the crucifixion as “ the third hour" (v. 25.) This was nine o’clock, the very time of the morning sac rifice. The three evangelists agree in placing His death at the ninth hour, the very .time o f the. evening sacrifice. The whole space of six hours (the number of man in his sins) was divided at noon by a miraculous darkness, suggestive of the black sin burden of the world, which was rolling upon the Lamb o f God. “ The King o f the Jews”— thus read the superscription—the first printed Gos pel sermon (v. 26). It was written in three languages—Hebrew, Greek and Latin, the languages o f religion, culture and power. Was it not prophetic of the universality of the gospel of His cross? “ With Him they crucify two thieves”*— (v. 27). Placing Him between the. two was a hellish expedient to hold Him up as the worst o f the three. However, the three crosses have become the continuai emblem of bur world—a dying Saviour and beside Him an unbeliever and a sin ner "saved by grace. There are many still going into eternal darkness from the very side o f the Redeemer of men. How near some get to the gates of heaven, and yet how far off they are ! They passed by thé Lamb o f God who was bearing the sins o f the world, and wagging their heads, called out: “Save thyself; come down from the cross!" (v. 30). It was the final suggestion from the devil. “ Come down?" He had the power to do it! The universe paused for an answer to this challenge. It was" the crisis o f the world. Despair and hope were in the balance. He came to die for the sins o f mankind. Could He come down, and still redeem mankind? Myriads o f hell-bound. souls rose be fore His mind. For this hour He came
into the world. He would not come down from the cross, and with all the sym pathy that the hosts of heaven may have felt for him, not one would have bidden Him descend. Jesus, lifted up upon the cross, was the one hope o f a dying world. If our faces today are not turned toward outer darkness forever, it is only because we have "seen Jesus made our personal Saviour in the darkness- o f Golgotha. “He saved others; Himself He cannot save” shouted the chief priests (v. 31), and it was prophetic. At the sixth hour, " there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour” (v. 33). When He was born into the world, the glory o f the Lord turned mid night darkness into day. A heathen writer o f ancient times records that there was a general belief, when this supernatural darkness occurred, that the god o f nature was suffering. Alas, the darkness that draped the heavens in that hour was the very type of that still deeper darkness that would have settled oil our prospects for ever. His death and resurrection scat ter forever the darkness o f all who re ceive Him; It was the ninth hour. Jesus cried out : “My God, my God, why hast Thou fo r saken me?", (v. 34).- All other sufferings were nothing beside this infinite agony of His soul. His physical .sufferings were from the- hands of men, this was from His Father. ; It was undoubtedly, a real forsaking, -not imaginary. So closely identified was He with the race He came to sairej that He felt the awful burden of its sin'"and cried, as the Representative of humanity, “Forsaken!" The holy God can not look upon sin (Hab. 1 :13). Jesus was “made sin for u s" . We cannot have the faintest conception o f what it was for God’s dear Son to die God-forsaken. Sin separates from God. He was temporarily separated from God that we might not be so eternally. His dying cry was': “It is finished.” It was not a gasp", but-a shout of victory. What a Gospel it is for-us !. FINISHED —put your finger on that! What He has done upon the cross suffices. It cannot be improved upon. What the law requires, He has performed for us. Receive Him! Live for H im ! Heaven is our home! “ The veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom" (v. 38). The priests, right then, were busy before the inner veil of the temple, that strong, thick curtain which separated them from the holy of holies. The earth trembled, the veil split from the top down, and light that for centuries had never entered that sacred enclosure, flooded the place. All its mys teries were open to the gaze o f those out side—the ark with the cherubim above, the mercy seat. The-holy of holies in heaven had been opened to all, through the cross o f Jesus. There'is no further veil or priest. “ Truly this man was the Son o f God” (v. 39). A centurion, who had been watching things closely,,awoke to the fact that something superhuman was •taking place. The power of the cross was being felt. One of the thieves already had been born of God and had given his testi mony to his companion. Thus from two most unlikely quarters, testimony was raised up for Jesus in His last hour. “ I’ve seen men die,” said this centur ion. “This is not mere man! He can be none other than the Son of God.” It was
the death scene o f transcendent love (Jn. 3:16). . What man or woman can study the picture and fair to see that Jesus did not die as an ordinary man, but only as one might who was mysteriously more? ‘ P it h a n d P o in t The. heart o f the gospel is: “H e bore our sins in H is own body' on the. tree” (1 Pet. 2:24). The greatest theme in the world is “ Christ crucified.” It proclaims the great est work ever performed and by the greatest Person. The atonement o f our Lord is the most distinctive thing in thé Bible, for the sake of which, indeed, the Bible was written. The cross and the resurrection of Christ are the answer to all human questions, the minister to all human ills. No doctrine is seen clearly and truly unless it leads to the cross. The laying down of His life was not an accident in the career of Jesus : It was that for which the Son o f God became the Son of man. All God has to say to sinners comes from the cross, as all light and warmth corné from the sun. —o— S u g g estiv e Q u e s t io n s ' / Was Jesus forced to submit to death ? (Jn. 18:4-6.) _Was our Lord’s dying cry an; indica tion of exhaustion? (Mt.. 27:46, 50;) Were our Lord’s mental faculties, alert to the last? :(Jn. 19:28.)- Would our Lord’s /sublime carriage seem to indicate that His was more than a human death? (Jn. 19:30.) . Does a human beingf have the power to dismiss his own spirit.as did our Lord? (Lk. 23:46; cf. Acts 7:59.) Why did not the soldiers have to break the legs o f Jesus as they did those of the two thieves in order to have them out of the way before the- Passover Sabbath? (Jn. 19:31-33.)'* What was there, in the phenomena ac companying the death of Jesus, indicating that His death was supernatural ? ( Mt. 27:51-52.) —o— G o ld en T e x t I l l u s t r a t io n God commendeth H is love, toward us, in that, while' We were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). . Norman McLeod ; tells of a highland mother, a widow, who attempted to take her babe across the mountains, in a snow storm, to the home of relatives. They found her frozen body, stripped. Her dying hands had wrapped the baby in her clothing and placed the baby in a nook where it was sheltered. The son of the minister who conducted this mother’s funeral, was preaching years later and told the story to illustrate God’s love. A stranger was in the church that morning. Several days later, the preacher was sum moned to the bedside o f the stranger, who was dying. “ I am that baby you told about,” he said. “ I never forgot my moth-- er’s love, but I never saw the love of God in giving Jesus for me until you told that story. God led you that morn ing.” No story can illustrate the love that would give all for a world o f beings full of hate or indifference. — o —
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