[Sidenote: Former Limitations.]

[Sidenote: Ritual Statement.]

[Sidenote: Aim of Christianity.]

[Sidenote: Likeness to God.]

In respect of "Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord," it may, it must, be
said He remains in full and glorious vigor as the Redeemer of mankind.
The marked difference between our time and a half-century ago with
respect to Christ is in the extension, rather than the diminution of His
relation to salvation and the extension of the idea of salvation itself.
In the former days men's eyes were almost wholly fixed on His death and
its relation to salvation in the future life. Seldom indeed was the
value of the following text taken into consideration: "For if when we
were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much
more being reconciled we shall be saved by His life." There is less
disposition to dogmatize as to theories of the atonement. Most, I
think, come to feel that no one view contains the full significance of
Christ's death. Have you noticed how the Ritual puts it in the order of
the Lord's Supper? "Didst give Thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer
death upon the cross for our Redemption; who made there [on the cross]
by His oblation of Himself once offered a full, perfect, and sufficient
sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."
The men who wrote that struggled to interpret His death by every
possible phase of its meaning. In our time we have come to see that the
aim of Christ and Christianity is to develop character and that this
must be gained in time that we may be ready for eternity. Thus the death