“We all, brethren, as the sons of Abraham, believe that our father David’s Psalm beginning, ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?’ was never written out of his own experience, but was prophetic of some other Person. Now, let me quote you some of the words of that Psalm.”
In clear, succinct language, the speaker, quoting verse after verse of the Psalm, showed how literally the descriptions fitted into a death by crucifixion. Referring to the Gospel narratives of the death on the cross, he showed how they also fitted in with the description of Christ’s death, and how Christ actually took upon His dying lips the cry of the Psalm, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
Then with wondrous clearness he referred to parts of Isaiah liii., and, continuing his theme, showed that it was evident that only one particular type of death could have atoned for the sin of the human race, a death that would render the dying one accursed of the Almighty. The only death that would fully carry out that condition was crucifixion.
“Our race waited for the Messiah,” he cried, “and He came. Our prophet Micah said, ‘Yet thou, O Bethlehem-Ephratah, little as thou art amidst the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall proceed from Me, One who is to be ruler in Israel!”
“The Christ was born at the only time in the world’s history when He could have been executed on a tree—crucified. At a time when the Roman—crucifixion was a Roman punishment—swayed our beloved land of Jewry. So that Paul, the great Jew, chosen of God to be apostle to the Gentiles, wrote after the crucifixion of Jesus, the Nazarene, ‘According to the time, Christ died.’”
For some minutes the speaker appealed to his Jewish hearers with a wonderful power. Then finally addressing not only the Jews, but any Gentiles who might be present, he cried:
“We must know the meaning of sin, brethren, before we can understand the mystery of a crucified Christ. A beheaded, a stoned Christ, could not have atoned for a guilty world, but only a God-cursed death, a tree-cursed death could have done this.
“And Christ was cursed for us—He who knew no curse of His own. Ah! beloved, the guilt of the human race is the key to the cross.
“Times change, customs change, but sin remains, sin is ever the same, and only a living, personal trust in the crucified Christ can ever deliver the unsaved sinner from the wrath of God which abideth on him.”