actually the offering up of our bodies on the Cross. Notice very
carefully the words of St. Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ"
(Gal. ii., 20 R.V.). Not simply, as in the old Authorised Version,
"I am crucified with Christ," but something much more definite and exact.
When Christ ascended the Cross He took up with Him our human nature
collectively, as bound up in Himself by virtue of His Incarnation. Hence
it follows that you, the individual, have been crucified with Him; just
as you, the individual, have been buried with Him, and raised with Him
in your Baptism (Rom. vi., 4). How completely this takes the sting out
of the reproach brought against Christianity, on the ground of the
immorality of the Crucifixion! It is no longer the Innocent one
suffering instead of the guilty, but it is the sinless One taking upon
Himself human nature, with all its guilt and consequent punishment, and
"in His own body on the tree," offering that human nature up to God. He
in us, we in Him, that the redemption of human nature may be complete.
Canon Liddon thus puts it in one of his University sermons, "The
substitution of the suffering Christ arose directly out of the terms of
the Incarnation. The human nature which our Lord assumed was none other
than the very nature of the sinner, only without its sin. Therefore He
becomes the Redeemer of our several persons, because He is already the
Redeemer of this our common nature, which He has made for ever His own."

We have already noticed that it was not the sufferings of Christ which
were acceptable to God the Father. To think this would be to fall back
into the very crudest and most repulsive idea of substitution. No, it
was the offering up of the will of Christ that formed the essence of the
sacrifice. If we may presume to attempt a mere earthly illustration of
so tremendous a matter, let us take the case of a General whose son
meets with a terrible death while leading a forlorn hope. The father's
heart is torn with anguish both for the death and the circumstances of