Man came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.' 'This
is My body broken for you; take, eat, in remembrance of Me.' 'This is
My blood, shed for many for the remission of sins; this do ye, as
often as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.' What possible
explanation, doing justice to these words, is there, except 'Jesus
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures'? And how could
men who had heard them with their own ears, and with their own eyes
had seen Him risen from the dead and ascending into heaven, do
otherwise than eagerly, enthusiastically, at the cost of all, and
with unhesitating voice of unbroken unanimity, 'so preach'?

I quite admit that in Christ's teaching in the gospels you will not
find the articulate drawing out into doctrinal statement of the
principles that underlay, and the conclusions that flow from, the
historical fact of Christ's propitiatory death. I do not wonder at
that, nor do I admit that it is any argument against the truth of the
divine revelation which is made in these doctrinal statements, to
allege that we find nothing corresponding to them in Jesus Christ's
own words. The silence is not as absolute as is alleged, as the
quotations which I have made, and which might have been multiplied,
do distinctly enough show. Even if it were more absolute than it is,
the silence is by no means unintelligible. Christ had to offer the
Sacrifice before the Sacrifice could be preached. He Himself warned
His disciples against accepting His own words prior to the Cross, as
the conclusive and ultimate revelation. 'I have many things to say
unto you, but you cannot carry them now.' There was need that the
Cross should be a fact before it was evolved into a doctrine. And so
I venture to say that the unanimity of the preaching is only
explicable on the ground of that preaching in both its parts--its
assertion of Jesus' Messiahship and of His propitiatory death--being
the repetition on the housetop of the lessons which they had heard in
the ear from Him.

III. Note, briefly, the lesson from this unanimity.

Let us distinctly apprehend where is the living heart of the
Gospel--that it is the message of redemption by the incarnation and
sacrifice of the Son of God. There follows from that incarnation and
sacrifice all the great teaching about the work of the Divine Spirit
in men, dwelling in them for evermore. But the beginning of all is,
'Christ died for our