Quiet Talks about Jesus

by S. D. Gordon

This brings out in bold relief the fact that the horrible features of Jesus' dying, the hatred and cruelty, were no part of the plan of salvation, and not necessary to the plan. The cross was the invention of hate. There is no cross in God's plan of atonement. It is the superlative degree of hate, brooded and born, and grown lusty in hell. It was God's master touch that, through yielding, it becomes to all men for all time the superlative degree of love. The ages have softened all its sharp jagged edges with a halo of glory.

It is perfectly clear, too, that Jesus died of His own accord. He chose the time of His death and the manner of it. He had said it was purely voluntary on His part, and the record plainly shows that it was. All attempts to kill Him failed until He chose to yield. There are ten separate mentions of their effort, either to get hold of His person or to kill Him at once before they finally succeeded. He was killed in intent at least three times, once by being dashed over a precipice, and twice by stoning, before He was actually killed by crucifixion. Each time surrounded by a hostile crowd, apparently quite capable of doing as they pleased, yet each time He passes through their midst, and their hooked fingers are restrained against their will, and their gnashing teeth bite only upon the spittle of their hate.

This makes Jesus' motive in yielding explain His death. The cross means just what His purpose in dying puts into it. If we read the facts of the gospel stories apart from Jesus' words, the cross spells out just one word--in large, pot-black capitals--HATE.

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 Passover 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, assured 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 illustration. 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?"