an innumerable host of angels
who could not say 'Thou hast redeemed us,' but who could bring praise
and glory to Him because He had redeemed men.

IV. And now my last point is that Christ and His Cross is, by the
Gospel, offered to each of us.

Notice how emphatically in this context the Apostle gathers together his
wider thoughts, and focusses them into a point. 'The prophets have
inquired and searched diligently ... of the grace that should come to
_you_.... To them it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but _unto
us_ they did minister the things, which are now reported _unto you_ by
them that have preached the Gospel _unto you_.' And so he would take his
wide thoughts, as it were, and gather all together, to a point, and
press the point against each man's heart.

Dear brethren, these wide views are of no avail to us unless we realise
the individual relation which Christ bears to each one of us. He bears a
relation, as I have been saying, to all humanity. All the ages belong to
Him. 'He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.' From His
Cross there flash up rays of light into the heavens above, and out over
the whole rolling series of the centuries, from the beginning to the
end. Yes; but from His Cross there comes a beam straight to your heart,
and the Christ whom angels desire to look into, of whom prophets
prophesy and Apostles proclaim His advent, who is the Lord of all the
ages, and the Lover of mankind, comes to thee and says 'I am thy
Saviour,' and to thee this wide message is brought. Every eye has the
whole sunshine, and each soul may have the whole Christ. His universal
relations in time and space matter little to you, unless He has a
particular relation to yourself.

And He will never have that in its atoning power, unless you do for
yourself and by yourself the most individual and solitary act that a
human soul can do, and that is, lay your hand on the head of 'the Lamb
... that takes away the sin of the world,' and put your sins there. You
must begin with 'my Christ,' which you can do only by personal faith.
And then afterwards you can come to 'our Christ,' the Christ of all the
worlds, the Christ of all the ages. Go to Him by yourself. You must do
it as if there were not any other beings in the whole universe but you
two, Jesus and you. And when you have so gone, then you will find that
you have 'come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of
angels, to the general asse