death prove His love for us? Obviously, only in one way: by bearing
responsibilities which must otherwise have fallen upon us. There must
be, as Dr. Denney rightly argues, some rational relation between our
necessities and what Christ has done before we can speak of His act as a
proof of His love. If, to borrow the same writer's illustration, a man
lose his own life in saving me from drowning, this is love to the
uttermost; but if, when I was in no peril, he had thrown himself into
the water and got drowned "to prove his love for me," the deed and its
explanation would be alike unintelligible. We must take care when we
speak of the death of Christ that we do not make it equally meaningless.
How Christ Himself thought of it as related to the necessities of sinful
men, the next and last division of this chapter will, I hope, make
plain.


IV


_"The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many;" "This is My
blood of the covenant which is shed for many unto remission of sins."_
These are the two great texts which reveal to us the mind of Christ
concerning the significance of His death. There has been much discussion
of their meaning into which it is impossible here to enter. But whatever
questions modern scholarship may raise, there can be little doubt as to
the sense in which Christ's words were understood by the first
disciples. "His own self," said Peter, "bare our sins in His body upon
the tree." "Herein is love," said John, "not that we loved God, but that
He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." He
"loved me," said Paul, "and gave Himself for me." It is open, doubtless,
to question the legitimacy of these apostolic deductions, and to fall