but a record of facts, things that have happened in this world of ours.  But the least part of a fact is the visible part of it, and it is of no significance unless it has explanation, and so Paul goes on to bind up with the facts an explanation of them.  The mere fact that Jesus, a young Nazarene, was executed is no more a gospel than the other one, that two brigands were crucified beside Him.  But the fact that could be seen, plus the explanation which underlies and interprets it, turns the chronicle into a gospel, and the explanation begins with the name of the Sufferer; for if you want to understand His death you must understand who it was that died.  His death is a thought pathetic in all aspects, and very precious in many.  But when we hear ‘Christ died according to the Scriptures,’ the whole symbolism of the ancient ritual and all the glowing anticipations of the prophets rise up before us, and that death assumes an altogether different aspect.  If we stop with ‘Jesus died,’ then that death may be a beautiful example of heroism, a sweet, pathetic instance of innocent suffering, a conspicuous example of the world’s wages to the world’s teachers, but it is little more.  If, however, we take Paul’s words upon our lips, ’Brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached ... how that Christ died ... according to the Scriptures,’ the fact flashes up into solid beauty, and becomes the Gospel of our salvation.  And the explanation goes on, ‘How that Christ died for our sins.’  Now, I may be very blind, but I venture to say that I, for my part, cannot see in what intelligible sense the Death of Christ can be held to have been for, or on behalf of, our sins—­that is, that they may be swept away and we delivered from them—­unless you admit the atoning nature of His sacrifice for sins.  I cannot stop to enlarge, but I venture to say that any narrower interpretation evacuates Paul’s words of their deepest significance.  The explanation goes on, ‘And that He was buried.’  Why that trivial detail?  Partly because it guarantees the fact of His Death, partly because of its bearing on the evidences of His Resurrection.  ’And that He rose from the dead according to the Scriptures.’  Great fact, without which Christ is a shattered prop, and ‘ye are yet in your sins.’

But, further, notice that my text is also Paul’s text for this Epistle, and that it differs from the condensed summary of which I have been speaking only as a bud with its petals closed differs from one with them expanded in their beauty.  And now, if you will take the words of my text as being the keynote of this letter, and read over its first eight chapters, what is the Apostle talking about when he in them fulfils his purpose and preaches ‘the Gospel’ to them that are at Rome also?  Here is, in the briefest possible words, his summary—­the universality of sin, the awful burden of guilt, the tremendous outlook of penalty, the impossibility of man rescuing himself or living righteously, the Incarnation,