nd conscientious and thoughtful people
of their time. Nor was it the worst elements in them which impelled
them to class Him as an undesirable, of whom their world ought to be
rid; their loyalties and convictions were involved in that judgment.
They acted in accord with what was considered the most enlightened and
earnest public opinion. We can think of no more high-minded person in
Jerusalem than young Saul of Tarsus, the student of Gamaliel; and we
know how cordially he approved the course the leaders of Israel had
taken in putting Jesus out of the way.

The cross is the point where God and His children, even the best of
them, clash. At Calvary we see the rocky coast-line of men's thoughts
and feelings against which the incoming tide of God's mind and heart
broke; and we hear the moaning of the resisted waves. The crucifixion is
the exposure of the motives and impulses, the aspirations and
traditions, of human society. Its ungodlikeness is made plain. We get
our definition of sin from Calvary; sin is any unlikeness to the Spirit
of Christ, revealed supremely in that act of self-sacrifice. The
lifeless form of the Son of God on the tree is the striking evidence of
the antagonism between the children of men and their Father. Jesus
completely represented Him, and this broken body on the gibbet was the
inevitable result. Golgotha convinces us of the ruinous forces that live
in and dominate our world; it faces us with the suicidal elements in
men's spirits that drive them to murder the Christlike in themselves; it
tears the veil from each hostile thought and feeling that enacts this
tragedy and exposes the God-murdering character of our sin. Sin is
deicidal. When that Life of light is extinguished, we find a world about
us and within us so dark that its darkness can be felt. The fateful
reality of the battle between love and selfishness, knowledge and
ignorance, between God and whatever thwarts His purpose, is made plain
to us in that pierced and blood-stained Figure on the cross. In the
sense of being the victim of the ungodlike forces in human life, Jesus
bore sin in His own body on the tree.

A second and equally clear disclosure is that of a marvellous
conscience. What takes Jesus Christ to that tragic death? It is
perfectly evident that He need not have come up to Jerusalem and
hazarded this issue; He came of His own accord; and we can think of
dozens of reasons that might have induced Him to remain in Galilee,
goin