THE CRUCIFIXION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26197, 6 July 1946, Page 3

THE CRUCIFIXION

LOVE THAT ABIDETH Written for the Otago Daily Times. By the Rev. Gardner Miller. There must 'be two ways of looking at the Crucifixion. You and I look at it in one way, the way of sinners who find in the Cross our only hope of pardon and peace and power. But there is God. How did it appear to Him? What were Hi? thoughts as He saw the tragedy 6f the Cross growing nearer and nearer until Calvary became real? No human being can know the thoughts of God. We can explore His mind through the revelations of it He has given us in Nature and in man, but our exploration goes little further than the fringe. God is still the great unknown, ybt the little we know about Him is the greatest knowledge we have. I often think that heaven will be a ceaseless enjoyment of growing knowledge of God. The revelation of God that Jesus has given us is such that we are “ lost in wonder, love and praise ” as we receive it. But even the revelation of Jesus leaves something more to know. It is as if He said to us, take My hand in yours and we will walk together through time and eternity, finding more and more the wonderful niches of life as we daily discover God. To me, however, there is no knowledge of God, in this life, like the knowledge that the Cross reveals. That is the supreme manifestation of the Father. I walk in reverence beside Jesus as He heals the sick, gives sight to the blind and even raises the dead, but I am on my knees when He leads me to the Cross. There on that Cross I see God in a»way that I am always finding impossible to express. I see Him looking through the eyes of Christ, I hear Him speak the words of forgiveness, I see Him refusing to retaliate and I know, beyond words, that God is in Christ. And when I look back from the Cross along the road that Jesus travelled I no longer wonder that God did nothing to stop the horrible events 1 that led to Crucifixion, for God was -in Christ, taking to His heart every hurt that men did to Him and revealing a patience and a love that not even the Cross could destroy. The Way of Reconciliation

Paul sums it up in a most revealing way when he says “ God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself ” (2 Cor. 5: 19). Reconciliation is one of the great words .of the New Testament, and to us personally it may be the greatest word our tongues can utter. To be reconciled means that an enemy has become a friend. Man is the enemy. That is, you and I are estranged from God. If we think of estrangement as between two persons who were firm friends, or estrangement between a husband and wife, we can gain some idea of the sense of separation that exists between us and God. It exists until God removes it. That is the glory of the New Testament God takes the initiative and invades the estranged human heart with love. He turns the enmity into friendship. It is His doing and it is wondrous in our eyes. And it is through Christ we are reconciled to God. And at what a cost! Nobody has ever been able to estimate what that cost is, “for we are redeemed, not with such corruptible things as silver and gold but with the precious blood of Christ I remember hearing the late Campbell Morgan give his answer to a Yorkshire miner who couldn’t quite understand what was meant by salvation being free. “ You are a miner? ” “ Yes.” “And you go down the pit every morning to work and you come up to the surface when your day’s work is done! “ Yes that is so.” “ Does it cost you anything to do that? ” “ N 0,.” the miner replied, “ but see what it cost the owner to supply the gear and the cage so that I can get to my work.’ “Precisely,” said the great preacher, “and see what it cost God to provide your salvation and mine; it cost Him the Cross. It is free to us, but it is free because of an infinite cost to God.” No one will ever know what it meant to God ,to reconcile these estranged human hearts of ours. Paul says something in Acts 20; 28 that pulls me up short. He speaks of the Church of God (which just means sinners saved by grace) as being “purchased by His own blood.” Now- it is of God he is speaking. The blood of God! There’s something there that stops all speculating. Its awesome It indicates something so holy and costly that we can only accept with gratitude; but upon which we dare not put a price. ■ The Last Word

When I look at the Cross I can hear God saying, this is My last word to men There will be no further revelation of God's mind and purpose. Jesus is the final word. Calvary can never be repeated. Not even God can do more for sinful men than what He did on Calvary. He has done all that He can do for men. That makes the message of the New Testament all the more emphatic. Indeed, the New Testament is a gospel for lost souls. I am convinced that to be a Christian or not to be a Christian is a case of life or death. The Cross is the proof of divine love bearing the sin of the world. It can never be repented and so men and women are foolish to put off facing up to the fact of their sin and its atonement. When we take the trouble to think out this matter of salvation, carefully and truthfully, we realise that there is only one problem in the world, for us, and that is the existence of sin. And then we proceed further and realise that there is only one solution of that problem and that is the atonement for sin. And the atonement is the love of God in Christ, bearing our sin, taking it upon itself. It is with such thoughts as these that I comfort myself when I think of the Cross And it is such thoughts and such a sight of the Cross that make me say, “ O Love that wilt not let me go.” f