punctuates almost every paragraph with some reference to the cross.
In the first chapter he is talking about sin. "The blood of Jesus
Christ," he says, "cleanses us from all sins." In the second chapter
he is talking about forgiveness, and this leads him to think at once
of Jesus Christ, the righteous, "who is the propitiation for our sins,
and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world." In the
third chapter he is talking about brotherly love. He is urging the
members of the Church to lay down their lives, one for another,
"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for
us." In the fourth chapter he tells of the great mystery of Christ's
love: "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us,
and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." To the beloved
disciple evidently the great fact of the Christian revelation is that
Christ died for our sins.

But it is in the letters of Paul that we find the fullest and most
emphatic assertion of this transcendent fact. It will not be possible
for me to quote to you even a half of what he said on the subject. If
you should cut out of his letters all the references to the cross, you
would leave his letters in tatters. Listen to him as he talks to his
converts in Corinth: "First of all I delivered unto you that which
I also received, how that Christ died for our sins." That was the
foremost fact, to be stated in every letter and to be unfolded in
every sermon. To Saul of Tarsus, Jesus is not an illustrious Rabbi
whose sentences are to be treasured up and repeated to listening
congregations; He is everywhere and always the world's Redeemer.
And throughout all of Paul's epistles one hears the same jubilant,
triumphant declaration, "I live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me."