"It was necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these (animal sacrifices), but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these." -Heb. 9:23

THIS is the heart of God's plan of salvation for man. The Ten Point Statement (Taken up immediately by Central as a promised basis for sound reunion, but later set aside.) issued by the Los Angeles ecclesia in 1940 to fence the Truth against Stricklerism, says:

"It was necessary that Jesus should offer for himself for the purging of his own nature, first, from the uncleanness of death, that having by his own blood obtained eternal redemption for himself, he might be able afterward to save to the uttermost those that come to God by him."

Is this true? It is a clear, simple, easily understood statement. We do not need answers as, "Yes, as interpreted by so-and-so." This has become a standard formula for evasion: "Yes, black is black, as interpreted by so-and-so that black is white." What is really being said is, "No, I do not accept that, except as specially re- interpreted and qualified according to my views."

Anyone with a clear perception of the Truth, as so ably and faithfully presented by brethren Thomas and Roberts, will wholeheartedly say, "Yes!" and will be anxious to do so, and to stand up on the side of Truth. Brethren Thomas and Roberts strongly emphasized this vital truth, appealing to Scripture. It is not only true: it is essential to the Truth.

The question is not whether Christ had "sinful flesh." We believe this is agreed (though sometimes we wonder, in the light of some compromising statements of the past used to bring surface "unity," and now being quoted with approval).

The question is not whether the sinful flesh of Christ required that he die, according to God's law on the race from the beginning. We believe this is agreed.

The question is not whether Christ was "liable" to a "violent death." We understand this to be intended to mean that he deserved being put to death. We are sure all are agreed he did not, and that he was the only one of mankind who did not. "The wages of sin is death," and all except Christ have sinned.

What the question IS, is whether he was one of those who needed a bloodshedding sacrifice for salvation, and were cleansed by it in God's sight.

When we say "need," we mean: according to God's all- wise ordinance. We do not say this was the only way salvation could have been wrought. To say so would be presumptuous for our puny little minds. We can, however, confidently say - because God chose it - that it was the best way for the justification of His eternal principles, and for the accomplishment of His eternal purposes.

God ordained sacrificial blood-shedding for the cleansing of mankind from the defilement brought on the race through Adam.

This was to glorify God and humble man, and so to prepare the ground for God's infinite mercy and man's infinite blessing. This applied to all mankind. If it did not apply to Christ, then he was a substitute for man (as the Apostacy says), and not a representative of man (as brethren Thomas and Roberts so strongly insist).

The scriptures (and brethren Thomas and Roberts) clearly state that Christ, by his sacrificial life and death (they are inseparable) first obtained eternal salvation for himself, so that he might then offer it to those who humbly and self-renouncingly come to God by, and through, and IN him (see Los Angeles Statement above).

Among the passages to which brethren Thomas and Roberts appealed, time and time again, are:

"Every High Priest taken from among men ... for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity. And by reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins" (Heb. 5:1-3).

"Such an High Priest became us ... who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's, for this he did once, when he offered up himself" (Heb. 7:26-27).

"Into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people" (Heb. 9:7).

"By his own blood he (Jesus) entered in once into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption" - for himself, as the reflexive form of the verb requires (Heb. 9:12).

"It was necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these (animal sacrifices), but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices" (v. 23).

"God... brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting Covenant" (Heb. 13:20).

"The Prince shall prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bullock for a sin offering" (Ezek. 45:22).

Brethren Thomas and Roberts strongly emphasized that Christ was the fulfillment of all the shadows of the Law of Moses: that everything in the Tabernacle service (each symbolizing Christ) had to be cleansed by sacrificial blood. Here are some statements by them (and many others could be produced: their writings abound with them):

"The flesh (of Christ) had been purified by the sprinkling of its own blood." -Catechesis, page 12

"When was the Jesus-Altar purified and Jesus- Mercy Seat sprinkled with sacrificial blood? After the veil of his flesh was rent ... Jesus entered the true, through his own blood." - Catechesis , page 14

"The flesh made by the Spirit out of Mary's substance, and rightly claimed therefore as His flesh, is the Spirit's Anointed Altar, cleansed by the blood of that flesh when poured out unto death on the tree. The Spirit- Word made his soul thus an offering for sin, and BY IT sanctified the Altar-Body on the tree." -Eureka II, page 224

"Did Christ offer for his own sins?" Answer: "As antitype of the high priest, who offered first for his own sins and then for the people's, there must have been a sense in which he did, even as Paul says, 'This he did once, when he offered up himself' (same verse)." - Christadelphian, 1873, page 321

"The Son of God ... had to offer for himself ... Jesus had himself to be saved ... 'By his own blood he entered the Holy Place, having (thus) obtained eternal redemption' ('for us' not in original) ... It follows (from Heb. 7:27) that there must be a sense in which Jesus offered for himself, a sense apparent when it is recognized he was under Adamic condemnation." -Christadelphian, 1873, page 404

"The whole system of the Law prefigured Christ ... the whole had to be atoned for once a year ... Jesus was the 'heavenly things'... they had to be purified by his sacrifice." - Christadelphian, 1873, page 407

"Jesus was personally comprehended in his offering for sin ... unfortunately perverted are those who suppose he was not himself included in the entire operation. . . He offered for himself, first, by reason of his participation in Adamic mortality." -Christadelphian, 1873, page 554-5

"He offered 'first' for himself ... He obtained eternal redemption in and for himself, as the verb implies ... He was 'brought from the dead through the blood of the Covenant." -Christadelphian,1875, page 139

"It was for us that he came to be in the position of having first to offer for himself." -Christadelphian, 1875, page 139

"It was 'necessary that ... the heavenly things be purified with better sacrifices' . . . the heavenly things all center in Jesus ... Jesus is the beginning of the purification. Deny the necessity in his case and you displace him from his position .. . and destroy the reason for his being a partaker of our common nature. In fact, you hide the wisdom of God, and substitute the confusion of the sectarian 'atonement' which in past ages has caused many to fall." -Christadelphian, 1877, page 376

"In what way was Christ involved in sin, that his own shed blood was required for his exaltation to the divine nature? By being born of a sin-stricken daughter of Adam." - Christadelphian, 1897, page 63

"Christ's own sacrifice was operative on himself first of all ... Christ should first of all be purified with better sacrifices than the Mosaic." -Law of Moses, chapter 10, page 90

"There must be a sense in which Christ (the antitypical everything) must have been purged by the antitypical blood of his own sacrifice." -Law of Moses, chapter 18, page 170

"He must have been the subject of a personal cleansing in the process by which he opened the way of sanctification for his people." [Brother Roberts quotes Heb. 9:23; 8:3; 5:3; 9:12: "better sacrifices ... so for himself ... by his own blood, etc."] -Law of Moses, chapter 18, page 171

"He did these things for himself first ... it was by doing them for himself that he did them for us. He did them for us only as we may become part of Him." -Law of Moses, chapter 18, page 173

"He 'obtained redemption', but not till his own blood was shed." -Law of Moses, chapter 18, page 173

"Christ himself was included in the sacrificial work...'For himself that it might be for us."' -Law of Moses, chapter 18, page 177

"We see Christ in the bullock, the furniture, the Veil, the High Priest ... all the Mosaic patterns ... All were both atoning and atoned for." -Law of Moses, chapter 19, page 181

"Let me call your attention to the priesthood Christ received, 'He ought, as for the people, so for himself, to offer for sins' (Heb. 5:2-3). If Christ's offering did not comprehend himself, how are we to understand Heb. 7:27? As Christ was the antitype of the high priest who 'offered for himself' (Heb. 9:7), is it not required that his sacrifice should comprehend himself? If you deny this, how do you explain Ezek. 45:22, 'The Prince shall prepare for himself a sin offering'? Do you deny the future age sacrifices are memorial?" -Christadelphian, 1873, page 466

"The Christ of your theory needed no 'purging'. Does it not follow he is not the Christ of Paul, who required purging from the law of sin and death by his own sacrifice? ... It was a necessity that he should offer up himself, for the purging of his own nature." - Christadelphian, 1873, page 468

"Christ required redemption from Adamic nature equally with his brethren; and the mode of redemption which God had ordained was a perfect obedience culminating in a sacrificial death." -Christadelphian, 1895, page 262 (This last quotation is not by brother Roberts but published and approved by him. All the previous quotations are directly by brethren Thomas and Roberts themselves.)

Why are brethren Thomas and Roberts so strongly insistent that Christ needed and was purified by his own blood-shedding sacrifice?

Because that is the heart of the Divine Plan.

Because that is the vital link between him and us.

Because that makes the accomplishment of his sacrifice ("holy work") a reality, and not just one more type or shadow.

Because his whole life's "holy work" (sacrifice) was to destroy the diabolos in himself - to overcome it, to cleanse himself from it - so he could be a pure Ark of safety for all his brethren. And his voluntary, obedient, blood-shedding death on the cross was inseparable from his life of sacrifice. It was the completion, the climax, the victorious culmination of that lifelong "offering" or "holy work."

Because sin had to be actually (not just typically) "condemned" - that is, judged, sentenced, and put to death - IN the body of Christ. And to be put to death there, it had to be there. Christ was not just typifying what had to be done to sin, he was DOING it: fulfilling all the types, once for all. There had been types and shadows for 4000 years. The time had come for the reality to happen: the Diabolos, Sin-in-the-flesh, to be destroyed.

His human flesh was unclean flesh, "Sin's flesh," "filthy garments." This was the tremendous burden he carried, the tremendous battle he fought every moment of his life. Let us not be squeamishly afraid to give the name SIN to the very root of sin: the Diabolos itself. The Scriptures do. Brethren Thomas and Roberts do. If we do not see this, we miss the whole point of Christ's sacrifice. We can juggle words like "metonymy" all we wish. They do not obliterate the facts: they are just a way of attempting to define them. This is not Andrewism: this is TRUTH.

We are told by some that we must not link transgressions and sin-in-the-flesh in the same "category," as two "aspects" of the same basic sin constitution. That is, we must not link "the Devil" (Diabolos) "and his works."

But the Scriptures do. The Devil is inseparable from his works, and the works from the Devil. This is the whole constitution of sin that Christ came to destroy: root (diabolos) and branch (transgressions). To artificially separate these parts of what is one whole in God's sight is to artificially (and fatally) separate Christ from his brethren, and his salvation from theirs, and leave them salvationless. Brother Thomas is very clear on this:

"The word 'sin' is used in two principal acceptations in the Scripture. It signifies, in the first place, the transgression of the law; and in the next, it represents that physical principle of the animal nature which is the cause of all its diseases, death, and resolution into dust...

"Inasmuch as this evil principle pervades every part of the flesh, the animal nature is styled 'sinful flesh,' that is, flesh full of sin." -Elpis Israel, page 126

"SIN could not have been condemned in the body of Jesus if it had not existed there ... the purpose of God was to condemn sin in the flesh, a thing that could not have been accomplished if there were no sin there."-Elpis Israel, p. 127

"Children are born sinners or unclean, because they are born of sinful flesh ... This is a misfortune, not a crime." - Elpis Israel, page 129

"Men are sinners in a two-fold sense: first, by natural birth; and next, by transgression. In the former sense it is manifest they could not help themselves." -Elpis Israel, page 130

"Sin had to be condemned IN the nature that had transgressed ... He took part of the same, that through death he might destroy the Diabolos, or elements of corruption in our nature inciting it to transgression, and therefore called 'Sin working death in us."' -Eureka I, page 106

"Sin is a word in Paul's argument which stands for human nature." -Eureka I, page 247

"This perishing body is 'sin'. Sin, in its application to the body, stands for all its constituents and laws ... the law of its nature is styled the 'law of Sin and Death'." - Eureka I, p. 248

"What is that which hath the power of death? It is the 'exceedingly great sinner SIN' in the sense of the 'Law of Sin and Death' within ALL the posterity of Adam, without exception. This is Paul's Diabolos. -Eureka I page 249

"He (Jesus) was Sin's Flesh crucified, slain, and buried: in which by the slaying, Sin had been condemned; and by the burial, put out of sight." -Eureka II, page 124

All these statements are meaningless, if we must carefully isolate transgression from Sin-in-the-flesh. And if Sin-in-the-flesh (the Diabolos) was the aspect of sin upon which the condemnation of Sin specifically fell (in the crucifixion), then clearly it is no minor or inconsequential aspect. Further, even more importantly, if we separate it from actual transgression, then actual transgression did not get condemned at all for there was no actual transgression in Christ to be condemned.

When God condemned Sin by condemning the Diabolos in the sinless Christ, He inseparably linked all aspects of sin together - or active sin was not condemned.

Brethren Thomas and Roberts taught that the laying of our sins upon Christ was not by mere type or symbol or imputation (like the animal sacrifices), but by an actual reality IN HIS BODY. That is, that our sins were "laid on him" in his being born of our condemned Sin's-flesh race: in his actual partaking of Sin's Flesh, the flesh in which the Diabolos, SIN, resided in every cell and fibre.

And that, having been so born into the condemned race, he himself inseparably from all his brethren - required to come under God's appointed sacrificial cleansing for the race. This is the reality and unity that connects us with him, and makes it righteously possible for his cleansing to purify us. Brethren Thomas and Roberts say:

"The flesh was the 'filthy garments' with which the Spirit Word was clothed: the 'iniquity of us all' that was laid upon him (Isa. 53: 6.)" -Eureka I, page 108

"If the principle of corruption had not pervaded the flesh of Jesus ... SIN could not have been condemned there, nor could he have borne our sins IN his own body." - Eureka I, page 203

"To be 'made sin' for others is to become flesh and blood." -Eureka I, page 247

"The 'filthy garments' of flesh, styled his 'iniquity' (Zech. 3:4)." -Eureka II, page 19

""Iniquities laid on him': this is a figurative description of what was literally done in God sending forth His Son, made of a woman (Adamic), made under the Law (Mosaic), to die under the combined curse . . . This was laid on Jesus in his being made of our nature." - Christadelphian, 1873, page 400

"The ceremonial imposition of sins upon the animals was the type. The real 'putting of sin' on the Lamb of God, in the bestowal of a prepared sin-body wherein to die, is the substance." -Christadelphian, 1873, page 462

Some quote a few statements by brother Roberts purportedly out of harmony with the vast bulk of his writings, as above illustrated. There are no contradictions. Objectors were always trying to get brother Roberts to say what would have happened, or what might have been required "if": IF certain facts about Christ were different; IF he had been entirely alone; IF he alone were to be saved.

This tack is not only unprofitable, but very mischievous and dangerous. Our wisdom is to take the complete Divine pattern of Truth as it is. To speculate on theoretical alternatives is presumption.

Christ cannot possibly be separated from his work for mankind. Immediately we separate him, even "for the sake of argument," we destroy the whole picture, and have nothing profitable to discuss. It is all or nothing: God's way in its completeness, the divine facts as they are - or no way at all.

Let us resolutely refuse to be drawn into the "what if" morass. Brother Roberts strenuously resisted this approach, but sometimes under pressure very guardedly yielded to it to help a confused questioner, or answer a pressing debater. Example:

"QUESTION: What would have been the consequences had Christ died a natural death?

"ANSWER: Had the will of God been so, his resurrection would have followed immediately, and our salvation equally secured. For the triumph lay here: that he rose after dying for sin. But a natural death would not have been the same trial of Christ's obedience ... It does not appear that the mode of death would have made any difference to the result as regards us, except insofar as might have borne on the question of Christ's obedience." - Christadelphian, 1873, page 322

Clearly it is all a matter of Divine appointment. IF God had appointed natural death for the cleansing of sin, it would have sufficed. The way He chose obviously served His purpose better. Note that brother Roberts correctly observes that in such a case, it would have sufficed for the salvation of ALL, not just Christ himself. But it is a profitless supposition. We are concerned with what God DID appoint as the way, not speculation about what He didn't.

But, some insist, by himself, apart from the race, did Christ need a purifying bloodshed sacrifice? It is utterly impossible to consider Christ "by himself, apart from the race." There is no such thing: we are playing with hypothetical nothings.

He was purposely created of the race and IN the race. His whole purpose of existence was to save the race, to represent the race, to BE the race, to incorporate the whole race into himself. He IS the whole human race, as far as God is concerned. And God's view is eternal reality, and the only eternal reality.

We just prattle when we speak of Christ "'apart from the race." His very name tells us this: Christ Jesus, Anointed Savior. Anointed for what? Savior of whom? A man's name, scripturally, is himself: all he is and means. Can he be Christ Jesus at all, apart from the race he was specifically "anointed" to "save"?

But granted, just for a moment, as brother Roberts sometimes very reluctantly did under pressure, to try to make the point clear - granted that we consider Christ "apart from the race." Does he need a purifying sacrifice (bloodshedding)? Or could we say he just needed purifying from mortality (as by simple death)?

The purifying sacrifice was ordained by God from the Garden of Eden to lay a foundation of righteousness; to publicly repudiate and condemn sin; to erect this holy banner and standard, so that God might show mercy to actual sinners, without compromise of His holiness and righteousness.

Now, if we were considering Christ alone (though this is an impossible "if"), then there are no actual sinners to consider; no need to arrange that mercy may be shown; no need to publicly condemn sin and justify God's righteousness. Christ's own perfect obedience would have already sufficiently done that as far as HE was concerned (and there would be no one else to be concerned); and his sinlessness would have obviated any necessity for mercy.

So we see we are immediately in an entirely different constitution of things where a blood-shedding sacrifice would be completely irrelevant. This clearly demonstrates the unprofitability of "if"-ing.

Christ is an essential, inseparable part of the human race. He immediately ceases to be Christ, or to have any meaning, as soon as we attempt to consider him separately. His very sinlessness that makes him Christ was God's work in him for the sake of the race. He is God's creation specifically for the race.

Because of sin, God ordained that the race should be purified by a perfect, obedient, freewill, blood-shedding sacrifice from the race itself: one who would in himself embody the race - a sacrifice to fulfill in reality in himself and for himself what was required of the race; and then to absorb the whole race into himself and into the victory over, and purification from, sin that he had wrought for himself.

His sacrifice was a baptism: "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" - a washing, a purification, a death, a burial - "Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness" -all God's holy requirements, the Divine Purpose, the Divine Will.

As the race's heart, center, kernel, nucleus, embodiment, we cannot separate him from the purifying sacrifice that was for the race.

Christ did not "deserve" the punishment of death, nor any other punishment. This is cloudy orthodoxy. His sacrificial death was in no sense a "punishment" of anybody. It was a triumph, a victory, a voluntary testimony of obedience and love. By life and death (one unit) he perfectly repudiated and subdued the "mind of the flesh," "sin in the flesh," the "law of sin in the members," "the Diabolos" - held it absolutely powerless - and voluntarily joined with God in a final, once-for- all, public condemnation of it on the cross.

Nailing it to the cross was just the consummation of the sacrifice, essential to its completion: bringing the repudiation and overcoming to a final head and climax; terminating the lifelong battle in permanent, irreversible victory; destroying the Diabolos (in himself) once and for all.

God's appointed way to accomplish this was a sacrificial, bloodshedding death; a voluntarily-submitted- to death (which natural death would not be). And therefore such a death was the only way the result could be accomplished for himself, and then extended to all in him.

It was the only way because it was what God appointed. If God had been pleased to appoint another way, then that way would have been the only way.

We are disappointed to see, in other periodicals, the Berean fellowship grossly misrepresented, and - by inaccurate implication - associated with various anonymous "errors." We ask fairminded brethren to judge the Berean fellowship by its own words, and not by unfair innuendo, and vague, evidenceless critical quotations about Bereans extracted from unsound critics of the past.

And we ask that we be judged separately, by ourselves. Articles that indiscriminately lump the Berean fellowship with other groups, and then proceed to knock down straw men (as far as Bereans are concerned) do not help the cause of Truth.

The Berean fellowship does not believe that Christ was "alienated" from God, or was a "child of wrath,"' or was "liable" to a "violent death." If he had been "'liable" to it, he could not have offered himself voluntarily to fulfil God's requirement of the perfect sacrifice ("holy work"). To be the "holy work" that God required as a foundation of righteousness within which others can approach also, it had to be a willing submission to God's appointment, right through to the very end.

Baptism is not only for the remission of sins. That truly is vital and primary, and clears our past. But it is static. By itself, it would not help us. Baptism is to put us into Christ, and into all he stands for and embodies: to take our feet out of the way of death, and to set them in motion in the way of life.

This used to be spoken of as "passing out of Adam into Christ" (Good Confession, Question 10). But since the Andrew perversion of this expression, and the Andrew error built upon that perversion, sound brethren have avoided this expression because of what it now so widely connotes. It is one of the incendiary "red flags," like "'violent death,"' "alienation," "constitutional sinner," etc., that wise and considerate brethren, seeking understanding and not inflammation, win either not use, or will be very, very careful how they use and define.

We have absolutely no sympathy for the Andrew "violent death" theory: that the sentence on Adam was "violent death," averted from the sinning Adam by animal sacrifice, and carried out on the sinless Christ. This is a repulsive theory. Actually, as regards Adam, the distinction between "violent death" (which he allegedly escaped) and "natural death" (which he admittedly suffered) is an artificial distinction. For Adam, who previously was not related to death at all, no death was "natural," and any death would have been "violent" death. The only distinction that might be made would be between a quick or slow "violent" death. But even that distinction is meaningless, for 930 years is lightning "quick," compared to the endless ages of life that lay before him if he were obedient.

We do not particularly like the term "violent death." It is not a scriptural one (though admittedly it may be used to express a scriptural idea). It may have been a useful, and not misleading, expression at one time; but it is now inseparably connected in many minds with the false Andrew theory.

Rather than "violent death," as applied to the death of Christ, we much prefer the scriptural conceptions of (1) the condemning of Sin's Flesh by the voluntary nailing of this flesh to the cross, and (2) purification from all forms and aspects of "Sin" by God's appointed way of the sacrificial blood-shedding of a perfect, voluntary self-offering.

God ordained this for His glory. Christ in love submitted to it, for God's glory and man's salvation. He obediently accepted the position he found himself in as part of the condemned, sin-cursed, sin-defiled, purification-needing race. And he accepted and fulfilled God's required procedure for that cleansing, as the race.

We are told that Jesus himself personally was not "liable" to a "violent death," and that brother Roberts said so. Absolutely true! Utterly beyond any cavil. Jesus certainly was not "liable" to a "violent death." That was the penalty for actual transgression of God's Law, and he never transgressed.

But he - as embodying the race, and bearing the unclean, "filthy garments," "Sin-in-the-flesh" mortality - required with all his brethren, by God's appointment, the cleansing of a perfect bloodshed sacrifice.

Everything related to this unclean mortal condition had, under the Law, to be cleansed by sacrificial blood: not only all the obvious uncleannesses, as sicknesses and diseases, but the normal bodily functions, and even birth itself.

This lesson of the uncleanness of the whole mortal constitution had to be hammered home over and over and over again, century after century, pointing forward in hope to the final redemption. Strange indeed is the suggestion that the one who took upon himself this burden, and who concentered the sins of all the ages IN his own sinstricken body, should not require the age- foreshadowed cleansing.

A sacrifice must be offered at his birth. Why? What did it mean? They were very poor. It was just two common little birds. But what tremendous import! He was one of us, and we are one with him. What was the fulfilled REALITY of that typical, shadowly, forward-pointing offering that Mary made because HE was born of Adam's race? He fulfilled on Calvary the offering made at his birth.

Indeed, the whole typical, sacrificial cleansing process focused specifically on him, primarily and especially.

He himself, for the whole race, must be cleansed in the God appointed way. Not typically and symbolically; not in shadow and figure: but ACTUALLY, in the terrible, perfect life he lived and death he died, even to the moment he could at last triumphantly cry, "IT IS FINISHED!"

It was God's will to "make him perfect through suffering" (Heb. 2: 10). Was not the cross the apex of that suffering? - of that perfecting?

THEN, after first having been made perfect, cleansed by dreadful, actual "baptism" (Lk.12:50) for which his whole life was a preparation, he is NOW able to save them to the uttermost who come to God by, and IN, and as part of, him.

This is the true, scriptural, Christadelphian Christ of brethren Thomas and Roberts. All others are of orthodoxy of one shade or another.

We do not say that Christ's sacrifice was "for himself" as to motive. The entire weight of Scripture is on the side of the glorious fact that his motive was love for God and love for his brethren. The supreme joy of bringing good out of evil, on a universal and eternal scale; of pleasing God and blessing man by removing the barrier between God and man; and opening a way that God and man may be eternally reconciled and eternally at peace in perfect communion; and being forever privileged to observe and rejoice in the consummation of that glorious Divine Purpose - what selfish, personal motive could ever have a fraction of the power of this! Christ was far, far above self-centered motivation - "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; He hath put him to grief ... He shall see his seed ... he shall see the travail of his soul and be satisfied."