T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S fore, from th e first it was announced, and continued always to be announced, as a discovery of divine revelation, th a t he who was to save sinners, was to save them by dying for th e ir sins. So it was announced in th a t earliest prophecy of mercy, when God said to the serpent, “ I will pu t enm ity between thee and th e woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou sh alt bruise his heel.” From the beginning, also, th e rite of animal sacrifice, the slaying of a lamb, a goat, or a bullock, w ith confession of guilt over its head, proclaimed the same universal, invariable, necessary,- and in dispensable law, th a t “w ithout shedding of blood there is no rem ission.” Sinhers can be saved only by one dying for th e ir sins. The whole Levitical institute, w ith its temple-worship, its vicarious priesthood, its ceremonial ordinances, its continual offering of daily, weekly, monthly, and annual sacrifices of slaughtered victims on behalf of th e unclean— kept up the instinctive sense of th a t righteous ru le of the Divine government which requires penal death for sin, and the hope also th a t ere long th e ru le would have its accomplishment in a worthy ransom be ing found thu s to die. And w ith increasing clearness, as time rolled on, inspired prophets threw light on th is hope, as they told of H im who was “ to grow up before the Lord, as a tend er plant, and as a root out of a dry ground.” (Isaiah 53:2-6,) “He h ath no form, nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty th a t we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted w ith grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from him ; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, sm itten of God, and af-
614 appealling to these old Scriptures as concurring in what he newly and fresh ly preached, th a t “ Christ died for our sins,” he has a higher purpose to serve. He means to indicate the place which th is g reat tru th holds in th a t moral government of God, which it is th e ob ject alike of th e Scriptures of th e Old Testament, and of the apostolic preach ing in the New, to illu strate and un fold. T h at “Christ died for our sins,” is not a fact of local and tem porary signifi cance, like other g reat facts in the world’s history which, however linked on w ith w hat goes before and comes after, may yet be, each in itself, isolated, separately estimated, disposed of, and set aside. Considered simply as a his torical event, the death of Christ has a scene and a date. It took place in P alestine some eighteen centuries and a half ago. It was th a t event which pu t an end to Judaism and originated Christianity. Christ died; and in con sequence of th a t fact, an old religion passed away and a new religion began its course. But th e doctrine— “Christ died for our sins”— lifts th e fact of Christ’s death out of th e category of a mere historical event, having a local scene and a date in past time. I t be comes now th e embodiment, or th e en acting, of a principle in the divine ad m in istration ;— a principle common to all times and places—rcdmm'on th e re fore to all the revelations of God to man. It was “according to th e Scrip tu res” th a t Christ should die for our sins, because it was according to the fixed, unalterable rule of th a t moral government of God to which th e Scrip tu res th roughout are intended to bear testimony. A Necessary Principle" T h at he who would save sinners must save them by dying for th e ir sins, is a necessary law or principle of the divine adm inistration. And, there-
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