xxxi. 5), only with the most significant addition of the word Father.'

What has been just said, however little light it may throw on the real character of the Atonement, may at least help to explain to us why it is so closely associated in Scripture with our Lord's death. For His death was emphatically the scene of His great struggle with sin in the person of the Evil One. Through death He overthrew and brought to nought him that had the power of death, that is the devil (Heb. ii. 14). He stripped off and put away1 the principalities and powers of evil, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in the cross' (Col. ii. 15). He died indeed and left it for us to die after Him, but in the very act of dying He extracted the sting from death, and left it henceforth half dead itself and quite powerless to harm us. Death is no longer the stronghold of sin that it used to be. It is now a dismantled fortress, and terrible in appearance only. For by conquering it for Himself Jesus Christ has conquered it for us also. As Son of Man, not merely Son of Mary, or Son of David, or Son of Abraham, each of which titles would have confined His relationship to some individual, or family, or race

1 See Bishop Lightfoot's note on this passage.

amongst men, but as Son of Man, and so related equally to all men, He died for all, and conquered death and sin for all.

And so the work which, as Son of God, He had commenced at our creation, was again taken up and carried a step forwards by Him in His new character of Son of Man, under which He accomplished our redemption.

CHAPTER IV.

CHRIST RISEN.

I HAVE already remarked that it is impossible to arrive at the full meaning of any one event in our Lord's earthly history without viewing it in connection with the events which led up to it and those which followed after it. And, as regards our Lord's death, those events which followed upon it are still more important and significant than those which preceded it. The event immediately following upon our Lord's death was the descent of His, for the time, disembodied Spirit into the world of the dead. 6 Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit; in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah' (1 Pet. iii 18-20). And again, 'for this cause was the Gospel preached, even unto the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit' (1 Pet. iv. 6).

The above passages are confessedly very difficult of interpretation. I simply offer what appears to me to be the correct explanation of them, leaving it to every one to form his own judgment

upon it1.

The Apostle then appears to intimate that in the interval between our Lord's death and resurrection His Spirit went where all the dead of all ages had gone and were gathered together before Him. And amongst all this vast multitude special mention is made of those who, from the extreme remoteness of their life on earth and the peculiar circumstances under which they had died, appeared to be the furthest removed from all hope of salvation. They had refused to listen to the great preacher of righteousness in their day, and had in consequence been suddenly swept away by the waters of the flood, in the midst of their unbelief and impenitence. Yet even to these souls Christ came and

1 See Karslake, 'Intimation of Holy Scripture as to the state of Man after Death,' Lecture IV; Farrar, 'Early Days of Christianity,' page 94 (popular edition); Dorner, 'System of Christian Doctrine,' iv. 127 (English translation); Dean Plumptre, 'The Spirits in Prison.' The following is the third of the Articles of 1552: ́As Christ died and was buried for us, so also it is to be believed that He went down into Hell. For the body lay in the sepulchre until the resurrection; but His ghost departing from Him was with the ghosts that were in prison or in Hell; and did preach to the same; as the place of S. Peter doth testify.'

announced to them the way of salvation which had just been laid open by His death, that they too might, if they willed it, become sharers in the blessings then procured for all men.

This, then, it would appear, was the immediate result of our Saviour's death. He died that He might be Lord of the dead, as He rose again that He might be Lord of the living' (Rom. xiv. 9). At the same time, whatever may be the correct explanation of the above two passages in St. Peter's first Epistle, the descent of our Lord's Spirit into Hades is so slightly touched on in Scripture that I pass on at once to the event which is always represented as most closely connected with His death, and that is His rising again from the dead no more to see corruption. And here I scarcely need say that in speaking of our Lord's resurrection I speak of it as including His ascension into heaven as the natural consequence of it, and connected with it by the forty days of transition state between these two events, during which He occasionally' manifested' Himself to His disciples.

It may perhaps appear that, in thus passing on from the subject of our Lord's death to that of His resurrection, we are leaving the subject of the Atonement behind us, accomplished as that was,