Part 8 (1/2)

What was Jesus' motive or purpose in dying? His own words give the best answer. The earlier remarks are obscure to those who heard, not understood. And we can understand that they could not. At the first Pa.s.sover He speaks of their destroying ”this temple,” and His raising it in three days. Naturally they think of the building of stone, but He is thinking of His body. To Nicodemus He says that the Son of Man must ”be _lifted up_”: and to some critics that when the ”bridegroom” is ”taken away” there will be fasting among His followers.

Later, He speaks much more plainly. After John has gone home by way of Herod's red road, at the time of the feeding of the 5,000 there is the discussion about bread, and the true bread. Jesus speaks a word that perplexes the crowd much, and yet He goes on to explain just what He means. It is in John, sixth chapter, verses fifty-three to fifty-seven inclusive, He says that if a man eat His flesh and drink His blood he shall have eternal life. The listening crowd takes the words literally and of course is perplexed. Clearly enough it is not meant to be taken literally. Read in the light of the after events it is seen to be an allusion to His coming death. Such a thing as actually eating His flesh and drinking His blood would necessitate His death.

We men are under doom of death written in our very bodies, a.s.sured to us by the unchangeable fact of bodily death. Now if a man take Jesus into his very being so that they become one in effect, then clearly if Jesus die the man is freed from the necessity of dying. Through Jesus dying there is for such a man _life_. That is the statement Jesus makes.

In five distinct sentences He attempts to make His meaning simple and clear. The first sentence puts the _negative_ side: there is no life without Jesus being taken into one's being. Then the positive side: through this sort of eating there is _life_. And with this is coupled the inferential statement that they are not to be spared _bodily_ death, because they are to be _raised up_. The third sentence, that Jesus is the one true food of real life. The fourth sentence gives a parallel or interchangeable phrase for eating and drinking, _i.e._, ”_abideth_ in me and I in Him.” A mutual abiding in each other. The food abides in the man eating it. The man abides in the strength of the food He has taken in.

Eating My flesh means abiding in Me. The last sentence gives an ill.u.s.tration. This living in Jesus, having Him live in us as closely as though actually eaten, is the same as Jesus' own life on earth being lived in His Father, dependent upon the Father. And when the crowds take His words literally and complain that none can understand such statements, He at once explains that, of course, He does not mean literal eating--”The flesh profiteth nothing” (even if you did eat it): ”it is the _Spirit_ that gives life:” ”the _words_ ... are _Spirit_ and _life_.” The taking of Jesus through His words into one's life to dominate--that is the meaning.

A few months later, in Jerusalem, He speaks again of His purpose, in John's tenth chapter, ”The good shepherd layeth down His life for the sheep.” ”I lay down my life for the sheep.” The death was for others because of threatening danger. ”Other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also I must lead.” Here is clear foresight of the wide sweep of influence through His death. ”I lay down my life that I may take it again.” The death was _one step_ in a plan. There is something beyond. ”I lay it down of myself. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it again. This commandment I received from my Father.” The dying was voluntary and was agreed to between the Father and Himself. To the disciples He speaks of the need of taking up a ”cross” in order to be followers, and to the critical Pharisee asking a sign, He alludes to Jonah's three days and nights in the belly of the sea monster. Neither of these allusions conveyed any definite idea to those listening.

Then the last week when the Greeks came; ”Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.” The dying was to have great influence upon others.

”And I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto myself.”

The dying was to be _for others_, and to exert tremendous influence upon the whole race.

In that last long talk with the eleven, ”that the world may know that I love the Father and as the Father gave me commandment even so I do.” The dying was in obedience to His Father's wish, and was to let men know of the great love between Father and Son. ”Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This dying was for these friends. And in that great prayer that lays His heart bare, ”for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

The dying is _for others_, and is for the securing in these others of a certain spirit or character. The reference to the dying being in accord with the Father's wish comes out again at the arrest, ”The cup that the Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?”

To these quotations from Jesus' lips may be added a significant one from the man who stood closest to Jesus. Referring to a statement about Jesus made by Caiaphas, John adds: ”being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation; and not for the nation only, but that He might gather together into one the children of G.o.d that are scattered abroad.” As John understood the matter, the death was not simply for others, but for the _Jewish nation_ as a nation, and beyond that for a gathering into one of _all_ of G.o.d's children. Jesus was to be G.o.d's magnet for attracting together all that belong to Him. The death was to be a roadway through to something beyond.

From His own words, then, Jesus saw a _necessity_ for His dying. He ”must” be lifted up. That ”must” spells out the desperateness of the need and the strength of His love. Sin contains in itself death for man as a logical result. And by death is not meant the pa.s.sing of life out of the body. That is a mere incident of death. Death is separation from G.o.d. It is gradual until finally complete. Love would plan nothing less radical than a death that would be for man the death of death. His death was to be _for others_, it was purely _voluntary_, it was by agreement with His Father, in obedience to His wishes, and an evidence of His filial love.

The death is a step in a plan. There is something beyond, growing out of the death.

Jesus plans not merely a transfer of the death item, but a _new_ life, a new _sort_ of life, in its place. The dying is but a step. It is a great step, tremendously great, indispensable, the step that sets the pace. Yet but one step of a number. Beyond the dying is the _living_, living a _new_ life. He works out in Himself the plan for them--a dying, and after that a new life, and a new sort of life. Then according to His other teaching there is the sending of some One else to men to work out in His name in each of them this plan. That plan is to be worked out in each man choosing to receive Him into his life. He will send down His other self, the Holy Spirit, to work this out in each one. Jesus' death released His life to be re-lived in us. Jesus plans to get rid of the sin in a man, and put in something else in its place. The sin must be gotten out, first washed out, then burned out. Then a new seed put in that will bear life. What a chemist and artist in one is this Jesus! He uses bright red, to get a pure white out of a dead black.

In addition to the plan for man individually, the dying is to produce the same result in the Jewish nation. There is to be a national new-birth. A new Jewish people. And then the dying is to have a tremendous influence upon all men. On the cross Jesus would suffer the birth-pains of a new life for man and for the world. Such, in brief, seems to be the grouping of Jesus' own thought about His dying. Its whole influence is manward.

The value of Jesus' dying lies wholly in its being _voluntary_. Of deliberate purpose He _allowed_ them to put Him to death. Otherwise they could not, as is fully proven by their repeated failures. And the purpose as well as the value of the death lies entirely in His _motive_ in yielding. If they could have taken His life without His consent, then that death would have been an expression of their hate, and only that. But as it is, it forever stands an expression of two things. On their part of the intensest, hottest hate; on His part of the finest, strongest love. It makes new records for both hate and love. Sin put Jesus to death. In yielding to these men Jesus was yielding to sin, for they personified sin.

And sin yielded to quickly brought death, its logical outcome.

Jesus' dying being His own act, controlled entirely by His own intention, makes it _sacrificial_. There are certain necessary elements in such a sacrifice. It must be voluntary. It must involve pain or suffering of some sort. The suffering must be _undeserved_, that is, in no way or degree a result of one's own act, else it is not sacrifice, but logical result. It must be for others. And the suffering must be of a sort that would not come save for this voluntary act. It must be supposed to bring benefit to the others. Each of these elements must be in to make up fully a sacrifice. There are elements of sacrifice in much n.o.ble suffering by man.

But in no one do all of these elements perfectly combine and blend, save in Jesus.

To this agree the words of the philosopher of the New Testament writers.

It would be so, of course, for the Spirit of Jesus swayed Paul. The epistle to the Romans contains a brief packed summary of his understanding of the gospel plan. There is in it one remarkable statement of the _Father's_, purpose in Jesus' death. In the third chapter, verse twenty-six, freely translated, ”that He might be reckoned righteous in reckoning righteous the man who has faith.” ”That He might be reckoned righteous”--that is, in His att.i.tude toward sin. That in allowing things to go on as they were, in holding back sin's logical judgment, He was not careless or indifferent about sin or making light of it. He was controlled by a great purpose.

G.o.d's great difficulty was to make clear at once both His love and His hate: His love for man: His hate for the sin that man had grained in so deep that they were as one. For the man's sake He must show His love to win and change him. For man's sake He must show His hate of sin that man, too, might know its hatefulness and learn to hate it with intensest hate.

His love for man is to be the measure of man's hate for sin. The death of Jesus was G.o.d's master-stroke. At one stroke He told man His estimate of man and His estimate of man's sin; His love and His hate. It was the measureless measure of His hate for sin, and His love for man. It was a master-stroke too, in that He took sin's worst--the cross--and in it revealed His own best. Out of what was meant for G.o.d's defeat, came sin's defeat, and G.o.d's greatest victory.

And the one simple thing that transfers to a man all that Jesus has worked out for him is what is commonly called ”faith.” That is, trusting G.o.d, turning the heart G.o.dward, yielding to the inward upward tug, letting the pleasing of G.o.d dominate the life. This, be it keenly marked, has ever been the one simple condition in every age and in every part of the earth.

Abraham _believed_ G.o.d and it was reckoned to him for righteousness. The devout Hebrew, reverently, penitently standing with his hand on the head of his sacrifice, at the tabernacle door, _believed_ G.o.d and it was reckoned to _him_ for righteousness. The devout heathen with face turned up to the hill top, and feet persistently toiling up, patiently seeking glory and honor and incorruption _believes_ G.o.d, though he may not know His name, and it is reckoned to _him_ for righteousness. The devout Christian, with his hand in Christ's, _believes_ G.o.d, and it is counted to _him_ for righteousness.

The devout Hebrew, the earnest heathen, and the more enlightened believer in Jesus group themselves here by the common purpose that grips them alike. The Hebrew with his sacrifice, the heathen with his patient continuance, and the Christian who _knows_ more in knowing Jesus, stand together under the mother wing of G.o.d.