Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 66, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1913 — A Good Friday Sermon [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Good Friday Sermon

By REV. JAMES M. GRAY. D. D.

Dcu of the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago

TEXT—“Jesus, whep He had cried again with a loud voice' yielded up the ghost.” Matthew xxvii, 50. „ E

Iri one of the older commentaries on the Bible, ye once met the question, Why did Jesus Christ die?, Which was answered by a series of reasons, some of which are remembered and some forgotten, the ‘ whole however, making an impression which was never, lost. This impression 'toas that

..'1 no other explanation of his death is satisfactory, or even possible, than that he suffered as a substitute for guilty men. We have been trying to recall some of these reasons while meditating on the transcendent event commemorated on Good Friday. • (1) Hit death occupies the foremost place in the New Eestament. There are, for example, twenty-eight chapters in the Gospel of Matthew, and eight of them, at least, or more than one-quarter of the whole, is taken up with the story of his’ crucifixion and the events immediately leading up to and following it. About the same proportion is seen in John’s gospel, to say nothing of the emphasis laid upon his-death in the epistles of Paul and the book of Revelations. •

(2) His death awakened the greatest interest in Heaven as well as on earth, since in Peter’s first epistle, Chapter 1, 12, he tells us that “these things the angels desire (to look into.” Moreover, when Moses and Elijah, brought back to earth, were conversing with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, it was about, “His decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.** (Luke ix, 31.)

(3) It was the central object ever present In Christ's own thought and teaching. Men come into the world to live, but he tells us that he came into the world to die. “The son of man, said he, came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Matt, xx, 28.) In another place, with application to himself, he says, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abldeth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John xil, 24.)

(4) His death was voluntary. In John VII, 30, we read that at a certain crisis, “no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come." And again he himself said, “I lay my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay It down, and I have power to take it again.” (John x, 17, 18.) Furthermore, it is specifically said that in his death he “yielded up the ghost.” In other words, the passing out of his spirit from , his body was the act of his own will. (5) At the same time He died with peculiar agony, not merely that of a physical but a spiritual kind, crying out, “My God! My God!, why hast thou forsaken me?” Whoever heard of God forsaking a martyr to his truth? And if Jesus were forsaken in any sense, must it not have been as a substitute for us?

(6> There were wonderful phenomena accompanying his death as of no other man, —“the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went unto the holy city and appeared unto many." '■(Matt, xxvll, 51, 53.) (7) It was a predicted death. A way back in the Garden of Eden It was pointed to in the words addressed to the serpent, “I will put emnity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Gen. ill, 15.) Isaiah, the prophet, spake of Christ seven or eight centuries before his birth, saying, “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (53, 5.) And Daniel said be should be cut off, but not for himself. (9, 26.) (8) It was a predestined death, since Peter says, "Yet are not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold ... but with the preclous blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot; who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world.” (9) Finally, It was a death which has been commemorated by an observance that never can be hid or explained away, namely, the communion of the Lord's supper, in which Christians eat the bread dhd drink the wine tn remembrance of his dying love. This is the reason an inspired apostle is able to say, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved.” (Rom. x, 13.)