The Fundamentals (1910), Vol.1

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The Fundamentals. ment of the cross. The word “offered” is used in reference to God’s action in giving Him. It would be perfectly correct in­ terpretation to supply the word “offered” by the word “gave;” the word which we have in John’s Gospel, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.” Let us put that word here—“Christ also, having been once given tb bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time.” All through His life He was putting Himself underneath sin in order to take it away. He bore its limitations throughout the whole of His life. In poverty, in sorrow, in loneliness, He lived: and all these things are limitations resulting from sin. When Jesus Christ entered into the flesh, He entered into the limitations which follow upon sin, and He bore sin in His own conscious­ ness through all the years; not poverty only, but sorrow in all forms, and loneliness. All the sorrows of the human heart were upon His heart until He uttered that unspeakable cry, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Having finally dealt with sin, and destroyed it at its very root at His first advent, His second advent is to be that of vic­ tory. He will come again; not to poverty, but to wealth. He will come again; not to sorrow, but with all joy. He will come again; not in loneliness, but to gather about Him all trusting souls who have looked and served and waited. All in His first advent of sorrow and loneliness, of poverty and of sin, will be absent from the second. The first advent was for atonement; the second will be for administration. He came, entering into human nature, and taking hold of it, to deal with sin and put it away. He has taken sin away, and He will come again to set up that kingdom, the foundations of which He laid in His first coming. " ju d g m e n t ” — " sa lv a t io n .” This text declares the purpose of the advent: “It is ap­ pointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment; so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of

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