y and by
terror.' But the death of many a hero of tragedy does all that.
And if you want to have the Cross of Christ held upright in its place
as the Throne of Christ and the attractive power for the whole world,
you must not tamper with that great truth, but say, 'He died for our
sins, according to the Scriptures.'

Now, there is a second question that I wish to ask, and that is--

II. How does Christ's death 'commend' God's love?

That is a strange expression, if you will think about it, that
'_God_ commendeth His love towards us in that _Christ_
died.' If you take the interpretation of Christ's death of which I
have already been speaking, one could have understood the Apostle if
he had said, 'Christ commendeth His love towards us in that Christ
died.' But where is the force of the fact of a _man's_ death to
prove _God's_ love? Do you not see that underlying that swift
sentence of the Apostle there is a presupposition, which he takes for
granted? It is so obvious that I do not need to dwell upon it to
vindicate his change of persons, viz. that 'God was in Christ,' in
such fashion as that whatsoever Christ did was the revelation of God.
You cannot suppose, at least I cannot see how you can, that there is
any force of proof in the words of my text, unless you come up to the
full belief, 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.'

Suppose some great martyr who dies for his fellows. Well, all honour
to him, and the race will come to his tomb for a while, and bring
their wreaths and their sorrow. But what bearing has his death upon
our knowledge of God's love towards us? None whatever, or at most a
very indirect and shadowy one. We have to dig deeper down than that.
'God commends His love ... in that Christ died.' 'He that hath seen
Me hath seen the Father.' And we have the right and the obligation to
argue back from all that is manifest in the tender Christ to the
heart of God, and say, not only, 'God so loved the world that He'
sent His Son, but to see that the love that was in Christ is the
manifestation of the love of God Himself.

So there stands the Cross, the revelation to us, not only of a
Brother's sacrifice, but of a Father's love; and that because Jesus
Christ is the revelation of God as being the 'eradiation of His
glory, and the express image of His person.' Friends! light does pour
out from that Cross, whatever view men take of it. But the omnipotent
beam, the all-illuminating radiance, the t