IX. Conforming to Christ's Death.

"That I may know Him ... being made conformable unto His death."--Phil. iii. 10.

"Conformable unto His death." At first sight the words are something of a surprise. "His death?" Has not the thought more often before us been to conform to His life? His death seems "too high for us"--so far off in its greatness, in its suffering, in its humiliation, in its strength, in its glorious consequences. How is it possible we should ever be conformed to such a wonder of love and power? And yet, here is the great Apostle, in one of those beautiful and illuminating references to his own experience which always seem to bring his messages right home to us, setting forth this very conformity as the end of all his labours, and the purpose in all his struggles. "What things were gain to me," he says, "those I counted loss for Christ; yea, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him*, having ... the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death."

[Footnote *: Or, as the Revised Version has it in the margin, "not having as my righteousness that which springs from the law; but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God on the condition of faith: ... becoming conformed unto His death."]

There are probably deeps of thought and purpose here which I confess that I cannot hope to fathom; which in the limits of such a paper as this I cannot even suggest. Is it possible, for example, that the sorrow and suffering which fall upon those who are entirely surrendered to God and His work are, in some hidden way, sorrow and suffering for others? Is this what Paul means when he says in his letter to the Colossians: I "fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ, in my flesh, for His body's sake, which is the Church"? It may be so. This would indeed be a glorious and a wonderful "fellowship of His sufferings."

Or, again, consider what an entirely new light might be thrown upon God's dealings with us in afflictions and pain, if it should appear, in the world to come, that, in much which is now most mysterious and torturing to us, we had but been bearing one another's burdens! Every one knows how often love makes us long to bear grief and pain for those dear to us; every one has seen a mother suffer, in grateful silence, both bodily pain and heart-anguish, in her child's stead, preferring that the child should never know. Suppose it should turn out, hereafter, that many of the afflictions which now seem so perplexing and so grievous have really been given us to bear in order to spare and shield our loved ones, and make it easier for them--tossing on the stormy waters--to reach Home at last? Would not this add a whole world of joy to the glory which shall be revealed? And would it not transform many of the darkest stretches of our earthly journey into bright memorials of the infinite wisdom and goodness of our God?

But I pass away from matters of which we have, at best, but a gleam, to those concerning which "he that runs may read."

But if Christ upon His cross is meant for an object-lesson to His people, is it not reasonable to expect that His words spoken in those supreme moments should throw light upon that conformity to His death of which we are thinking? The words of the dying have always been received as revealing their true character. Death is the skeleton-key which opens the closed chambers of the soul, and calls forth the secret things--and in the presence of the "Death-Angel" men generally appear to be what they really are. Our Lord and Saviour was no exception to this universal rule.

To the latest breath, We see His ruling passion strong in death.

His dying words are filled with illuminating truth about Himself, and they throw precious light upon His death. Let us, then, tarry for a few moments before His cross, and look and listen while He speaks.

I.

"Father, forgive them; they know not what they do."

Men were doing the darkest deed of time. Nothing was wanting to make it hateful to God and repulsive to mankind. All the passions to which the human heart is prone, and all that the spirits of Hell can prompt, had joined forces at Calvary to finish off, in victory if possible, the black rebellion which began in Eden. Everything that is base in human nature--the hate that is in man, the beast that is in man, the fiend that is in man--was there, with hands uplifted, to slay the Lamb. The servants of the Husbandman were beating to death the beloved Son whom He had sent to seek their welfare. It was amidst the human inferno of ingratitude and hatred that these words of infinite grace and beauty fell from the lips of Love Immortal. Long nails had just pierced the torn flesh and quivering nerves of His dear hands and feet; and while He watched His murderers' awful delight in His agony, and heard their jeering shouts of triumph, He lifted up His voice and prayed for them, "Father--forgive."

There are thoughts that lie too deep for words. The inner light of this message may be revealed--it cannot be spoken. But one or two reflections will repay our consideration. Here was a consciousness of sin. Here was the suggestion of pardon. Here was prayer for sinners.

A consciousness of sin--of theirs--ours--not His own. Infinite Love takes full account of sin. Boldly recognises it. Straightway refers to it as the source of men's awful acts and awful state. "O My Father, forgive!" On the cross of His shame, in the final grip with the mortal enemy, the dying Christ--looking away from His own sufferings, forgetful of the scorn, and curses, and blows of those around Him--is overflowing with this great thought, with this great fact--that men's first imperative, overwhelming need, is the forgiveness of their sin.

The suggestion of pardon. He prays for it. What a transforming thought is the possibility of forgiveness! How different the vilest, the most loathsome criminal becomes in our eyes the moment we know a pardon is on the way! How different a view we get of the souls of men, bound and condemned to die, given up to selfishness and godlessness, the moment we stand by the cross of Jesus, and realise, with Him, that a pardon is possible! The meanest wretch that walks looks different from us. Even the outwardly respectable and very ordinary person who lives next door, to whom we so seldom speak, is at once clothed with a new interest in our minds, if we really believe that there is a pardon coming for him from the King of kings.

He prays. Yes, this is the great prayer. What an example He has left us! It was not enough to die for the sinful--the ungrateful--the abominable--He must needs pray for them. Dear friend, you may have done many things for the ungodly around you--you may have preached to them, and set them also a lofty example of goodness; you may even have greatly suffered on their behalf; but I can imagine one thing still wanting: have you prayed the Father for them?

Remember, He pleaded for the worst: those very men who said, "Let His blood be on us, and on our children." He prayed even for those, and I do not doubt that He was heard. Indeed, it was, I earnestly believe, His prayer which helped on that speedy revival in Jerusalem; and among the three thousand over whom Peter and the rest rejoiced were some who had urged on and then witnessed His cruel death, and for whom His tender accents ascended to the Throne of God amid the final agony of His cross.

Dear friend, are you "becoming conformed unto His death"?

II.

"To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise."

"

He saved others-He saved others--Himself He cannot save!

" Amidst the din of discordant voices, this taunt sounded out clear and loud, and fell upon the ears of a dying thief. Perhaps, as so often happens now, the Devil over-reached himself even then, and the strange words made the poor criminal think. "

'Others'--'others'--He saves others--then why not me?

" Presently he answered the railing unbelief of his fellow-prisoner; and then, in the simple language of faith, said to the Saviour: "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom."

Jesus Christ's reply is one of the great landmarks of the Bible. It denotes the boundary line of the long ages of dimness and indefiniteness about two things--assurance of salvation in this life, and certainty of immediate blessedness in the life to come. "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise!" There is nothing like it in all the Scriptures. It is as though great gates, long closed, were suddenly thrown wide open, and we saw before our eyes that some one passed in where none had ever trodden before. The whole freedom and glory of the Gospel is illustrated at one stroke. Here is the Salvation of The Salvation Army! To-day--without any ceremonies, baptisms, communions, confirmations, without the mediation of any priest or the intervention of any sacraments--such things would indeed have been only an impertinence there--to-day, "TO-DAY shalt thou be with ME." Indeed the gates are open wide at last!

But the great lesson of the words lies rather in their revelation of our Lord's instant accessibility to this poor felon. His nearness of heart; His complete confidence in His own wonderful power to save; His readiness of response--for it may be said that He leaps to meet this first repentant soul--are all revealed to us. But it is the fact that, amid that awful conflict, His ear was open to another's cry--and such another!--which appeals most to my own heart. With those blessed words of hope and peace in my ears, how can I ever fear that one could be so vile, so far away, so nearly lost, as to cry in vain? Nay, Lord, it cannot be.

III.

"Woman, behold thy son."

When Jesus had spoken these words to His mother, He addressed the disciple He had chosen, and indicated by a word that henceforth Mary was to be cared for as his own mother. Great as was the work He had in hand for the world, great as was His increasing agony, He remembered Mary. He knew the meaning of sorrow and loneliness, and He planned to afford His mother such future comfort and consolation as were for her good.

This tender care for His own is a rebuke, for all time, to those who will work for others while those they love are left uncared for; left, alas! to perish in their sins. If regrets are possible in the Kingdom of Heaven, surely those regrets will be felt most keenly in the presence of divided families. And if anything can enhance the joys of the redeemed, surely it must be that they are "families in Heaven." Who can think, even now, without a thrill of unmixed delight, of the reunions of those who for long weary years were separated here? What, then, will it be--

When the child shall greet the mother, And the mother greet the child; When dear families are gathered That were scattered on the wild!

And what strength and joy it was to Mary. Looking forward to the coming victory, He knew that nothing could so possess her mother-heart with gratitude, and fill her soul with holy exultation as this--that He, the Sacrifice for sin, the Conqueror of Death, and the Redeemer of His people, was her Son. And so He makes it quite plain that He, the dying Saviour, was Mary's Son.

IV.

"It is finished."

There is a repose, a kind of majesty about this declaration which marks it out from all other human words. There is, perhaps, nothing about the death of Jesus which is in more striking contrast with death as men generally know it than is revealed in this one saying. We are so accustomed to regrets, to confessions that this and that are, alas! unfinished; to those sad recitals which so often conclude with the dirge-like refrain, "it might have been," that death stands forth in a new light when it is viewed as the end of a completed journey, and the conclusion of a finished task. This is exactly the aspect of it to which our Lord refers. His work was done.

The suffering, also, was ended. Darkness had had its night of sore trial, and now the day was at hand. Trial and suffering do end. It is sometimes hard to believe it, but the end is already appointed from the beginning. It was so with the Saviour of the world; and at length the hour is come, and He raises His bruised and bleeding head for the last time, and cries in token of His triumph, "It is finished!"

But is there not also here a suggestion of something more? Up to that concluding hour it was always possible for Him to draw back. "I lay down My life for the sheep," He had said; "no man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself." His was, in the very highest and widest sense of the word, a voluntary offering, a voluntary humiliation, a voluntary death. Up to the very last, therefore, He could have stepped down from the cross, going no further toward the dark abyss. But the moment came when this would be no longer possible; when, even for Him, the sacrifice would be irrevocable--when the possibility "to save Himself" was ended, and when He became for ever "the Lamb that was slain," bearing the marks of His wounds in His eternal body. When that moment passed, He might well say, "It is finished."

Is there not something that should answer to this in the lives of many of His disciples? Is there not a point for us, also, at which we may pass over the line of uncertainty or reserve in our offering, saying for ever--it is finished? Is there not an appointed Calvary somewhere, at which we can settle the questions that have been so long unsettled, and, in the strength of God, at last declare that, as for controversy of any kind with Him, "it is finished"? Is there not at this very same cross of our dying Saviour a place where doubt and shame may perish together--crucified with Him, and finished for ever?

This would be, indeed, a blessed conformity to His death.

V.

"I thirst."

This is the first of the three words of Christ which relate specially to His own inner experiences, and which I have placed together for the purpose of this paper.

"I thirst." They gave Him vinegar to drink--or, probably, in a moment of pity the soldiers brought Him the sour wine which they had provided for themselves. He seems to have partaken of it, although He had refused the mixture that had been before offered Him merely to deaden His pain. To bear that pain was the lofty duty set before Him, and so He would not turn aside from it one hair's breadth.

But He humbled Himself to receive what was necessary from the very hands that had been crucifying Him. He, who could have so easily commanded a whole multitude of the heavenly host to appear for His succour, and to whose precious lips, parched in death, the princes of the eternal Kingdom would have so gladly hastened with a draught from celestial springs, condescended to ask the help of those who mocked Him, and to take the support He so sadly needed from His triumphant persecutors.

Oh, you who are proud by nature, who are reserved by nature, who are sensitive in spirit, who feel every wrong done to you like a knife entering your breast, and who, when you forgive an injury, find it difficult to forget, and harder still to humble yourselves in any way to those who, you feel, have wronged you--here for you is a lesson, here for you is an example, a precious example, of the condescension of Love. Yes. to love those who seem to be against you, to love those in whom there always appears to you to be some difference of spirit or incompatibility of temperament, will mean, if you are made conformable unto your Master's death, that you will be able to receive at their hands services, kindnesses, pity, advice, which your own poor, fallen nature would, without divine grace, have scorned and spurned.

VI.

"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

Here is a great mystery. No doubt, to the human nature of our Lord, it did appear as though the Father had forsaken Him, and that was the last bitter drop in the cup of His humiliation and anguish. If men only knew it, the realisation that God has left them will be the greatest agony of the sinner's doom. And here upon the cross, our Lord, undergoing the penalty of sins not His own has yet to experience fully the severance which sin makes between God and the human soul.

But, even to many of those who love and serve God fully, there does come at times something which is very similar to this strange and dark experience of our Lord's. Before the final struggle in many great conflicts, those inward consolations on which so much seems to depend are often mysteriously withdrawn. Why it should be so we do not know; it is a mystery. Some loyal spirits have thought that God withdraws His consolations and His peace, that the soul may be more truly filled with His presence, thus substituting for divine consolation the "God of consolation," and for divine peace the "God of peace." In any case we have this comfort: it was so with our Master. Do not let the servant expect to be above his Lord.

This terrible moment of seeming separation from the Father, and the dark cry which was wrung from our Saviour's broken heart, did not, however, make the final victory any the less. And, if you are one with Him, and have really set your heart on glorifying Him, and if you can only endure, such moments will not take from your victory one shred of its joy. Oh, then, hold on to your cross! hold on to your cross! even if it seems, as it sometimes may, that God Himself has forsaken you, and that you are left to suffer alone, without either the sympathy of those around you, or the conscious support of the indwelling God. Hold on to your cross. This is the way of Calvary--this is becoming conformable to the death of the Lord Jesus.

VII.

"Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."

Here our Lord enters upon the extremity of His humiliation. Death must have been repulsive to Him. If the failure of heart and flesh, the cold sweat, the physical collapse, the last parting, the solitude and separation of the grave are all repelling and painful to us, how much more to Him!

And, indeed, the picture which Christ presents to the outward eye in these last moments is unquestionably one of deep humiliation. The disordered garments--stained with blood and dirt, the distended limbs, the bleeding wound in His side, the face smeared with bloody sweat and dust, the torn brow and hair, and the swollen features, must have combined with all the horrible surroundings to make one of the most gruesome sights that ever man saw. And it was at this moment, in His extremity, that He says: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." "Father, I have done all that I can do; now I leave Myself and the rest to Thee."

Here is a beautiful message--the great message about Death. This is, in fact, the one way to meet the shivering spectre with peace and joy.

But the great lesson of this last word from the cross of Jesus is the lesson of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob: that faith in the Father is the inner strength and secret of all true service. It was, in a very wonderful and real sense, by faith that He wrought His wonders, by faith He suffered, by faith He prayed for His murderers, by faith He died, by faith He made His atonement for the sins of the world. The faith that not one iota of the Father's will could fail of its purpose.

Oh, dear comrade and friend, here is the crowning lesson of His life and death alike--"Have faith in God." Will you learn of Him? In your extremity of grief or sorrow--if you are called to sorrow--will you not trust Him, and say, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my bereaved and bleeding heart"? In your extremity of poverty--if you are called to poverty--Oh, cry out to Him, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my home, my dear ones." In your extremity of shame and humiliation--arising, maybe, from the injustice or neglect of others--let your heart say in humble faith, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my reputation, my honour, my all." In your extremity of weakness and pain--if you are called to suffer weakness or pain--cry out in faith, "Father, into Thy hands I commend this my poor worn and weary frame." In your extremity of loneliness and heart-separation from all you love for Christ's sake, if that be the path you tread, will you not say to your Lord, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my future, my life; lead Thou me on."

Yes, depend upon it, faith is the great lesson of the cross. By faith the world was made; by faith the world was redeemed. If we are truly conformed to His death, we also must go forward in faith with the great work of bringing that redemption home to the hearts of men; and all we aim at, all we do, all we suffer, must be sought for, done, and suffered in that personal, simple faith in our Father and God which Jesus manifested on His cross, in that hour when all human aid failed Him, and when He cried in the language of a little child, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."