VII

THE FACT OF CHRIST

WHAT THEN WILL YOU DO WITH JESUS?

"Why, what evil hath He done?"-Matthew xxvii : 23.

"I find in Him no fault at all.”—John xviii : 38.

"What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?"— Matthew xxvii : 22.

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ESUS had been betrayed by Judas. He had been arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin, which condemned Him as a blasphemer; and then carried before Pilate, the Roman governor, in order that the sentence of death by crucifixion might be executed. Pilate reluctantly heard them, and sought to find out the cause of their appeal and complaint against Jesus. After hearing them he again and again sought to dismiss the case. At last, against his better sense, against his sense of justice and his judgment, and even against his inclination, he delivered Him over to be crucified.

The question which he at last put to them: "Why, what evil hath He done?" was both in the nature of a protest and an inquiry. He found no fault in Him, and sought to dissuade them from their furious demand (for he knew that from envy they had delivered Him) and at the same time asked and demanded that they should specify some reason why He should be put to death. Their only answer was a frenzied cry: "Let Him be crucified."

This act of the Jewish authorities was their final act of deliberate unbelief, in the wilful rejection and murder of Christ, their Messiah.

But we must not let our minds stay too long on the action of the Jewish rulers and upon Pilate. The scene and the facts are in the gospels, re-staged before every generation and before every audience and individual to whom the question of "What shall I do then with Jesus?" is put.

The rejection of Jesus as the Christ of God and the Saviour of mankind is as old as His advent. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not!" This was the beginning of that stream of unbelief and rejection which has followed down through all the centuries. This same Jesus is before us to-day as He was before His own people and before Pilate two thousand years ago; and the same questions are being asked you. "What, then, shall I do with Jesus?" And if your answer is "Let Him be crucified," then the question is asked and an answer demanded of you: "Why, what evil has He done?" On what grounds and for what reason do you reject Him? For to reject Jesus is quietly, if not actively, to say: "Let Him be crucified. It is nothing to me."

Our attitude toward Him is the most serious one of life. We may be for or against the war with Germany. We may be for or against the President and his present policy. We may be for or against any given policy of business or politics. You may be right or wrong in your attitude and the consequences may be either good or ill to you. These questions only involve your well-being for time. But your attitude toward Jesus involves your life and death; your final relations to God and your eternal destiny. In this matter you

cannot be neutral. He that is not for Christ is against Him. "He that hath the Son of God hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life and shall not see it." There is no escape from this responsibility. Only and unless it can be shown that Jesus was an impostor and was justly crucified, can you dismiss your responsibility. This is the question I put before you this morning; and ask you to give a reason for your unbelief and rejection of Jesus.

Let us get the matter fairly before us.

He is not a myth. An imaginary being of the human fancy. We do not ask you what you will do with Jesus or why you reject Him as we would ask that double question concerning Jupiter or any of the fancied gods of either Oriental or classic Greek and Roman mythology. Jesus was a real man; as historical as any other person in human history. As real as were the rulers of the Jews who demanded His crucifixion; as real as was Pilate, the Roman governor, who gave Him over to crucifixion; as real as the soldiers who first mocked Him and then at the command of Pilate scourged Him and crucified Him. We are not dealing with fables and imaginary personalities. This is not a question of doctrine or dogma; not a proposition in philosophy or theology. I often speak to people about Jesus and ask them what they are doing with Him or what they are going to do with Him, and they turn upon me and begin to discuss some dogma of theology. It may be the doctrine of election, predestination, heaven or hell; or it may be some question about the Bible and its inspiration; about miracles or about some Biblical character, as for instance, Jacob, or David, or Samson. But we are not now dealing with any of these questions. If Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and the

Saviour of sinners, we can well await the discussion of inspiration, predestination and the miracles, or the character of David and Jacob, until we have settled our relations to Him. If He is not the Son of God and the Saviour of sinners, then, frankly, it does not matter much about the abstract question of human free agency or the moral character of David or Napoleon Bonaparte. These are merely philosophical questions; and both David and Napoleon are dead.

This is not a question of any system of religion or ecclesiastical organisation. When Jesus talked directly with the woman of Samaria about "life" she turned the question, or tried to, away from the vital fact to a question of whether Jerusalem or Samaria was the true centre of worship. And so it is we are often met, by those to whom we present Jesus for acceptance, with some question of Catholicism, or Presbyterianism, or Methodism, or Baptism; but this is not a question of

sect or ecclesiastical organisations. You may be

Romanist or Protestant; Presbyterian or Methodist ; and yet be a rejecter of Christ. These are side issues. Leave them aside; and answer Pilate's question: "What, then, will you do with Jesus?"

Nor is it a question of what you will do with a dead Christ. If Jesus is not alive from the dead, there is no question at all. Nobody asks you what you will do with Socrates, or with Buddha, or with Confucius. These were great and good men and among the world's greatest teachers; but they are dead and gone. At the most we can only study their teachings and weigh them in the balance of our judgment and get what we can out of them. But this is the question not of a dead teacher, but a living Christ. One who, indeed, "was dead, but, behold, He is alive forevermore." If He was

"according to the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God" slain for our redemption; if He was crucified for us; if He was raised again from the dead and is alive forevermore at the right hand of God, where He lives to make intercession for us, He will come again to judge the quick and the dead.

Nor must we heed the objection or difficulty in the minds of some, that He lived and died and was raised again from the dead two thousand years ago, it cannot be a vital question with us to-day. I am sometimes told by persons with whom I talk that, if Jesus were here to-day or had they been present at Jerusalem where He lived and died and was raised again from the dead, then they would feel that the question was a present and vital one; but, it is to them a dead question thought of only as one thinks of other historical events of two thousand years ago. But this is to miss the point in two particulars. First, age or the lapse of time does not invalidate any fact. It is just as true that the battle of Bunker Hill was fought one hundred and forty years ago as it was true the day after that decisive battle. It is just as true to-day that the Declaration of Independence was signed down here in that old Cradle of Liberty as it was while the ink was still wet under the signatures of Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock. And these events will not be less true a thousand years from now than they are now and were a hundred years ago. The "Fact of Christ" differs from such facts as I have mentioned in this, that He is alive from the dead. That we are dealing not with a dead but with a living Christ. This makes Jesus Christ whom Pilate crucified a contemporaneous person. Twenty-five years after His crucifixion Paul, writing to the Galatians, said that Jesus Christ was evidently