Christ’s own words.  The silence is not as absolute as is alleged, as the quotations which I have made, and which might have been multiplied, do distinctly enough show.  Even if it were more absolute than it is, the silence is by no means unintelligible.  Christ had to offer the Sacrifice before the Sacrifice could be preached.  He Himself warned His disciples against accepting His own words prior to the Cross, as the conclusive and ultimate revelation.  ’I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot carry them now.’  There was need that the Cross should be a fact before it was evolved into a doctrine.  And so I venture to say that the unanimity of the preaching is only explicable on the ground of that preaching in both its parts—­its assertion of Jesus’ Messiahship and of His propitiatory death—­being the repetition on the housetop of the lessons which they had heard in the ear from Him.

III.  Note, briefly, the lesson from this unanimity.

Let us distinctly apprehend where is the living heart of the Gospel—­that it is the message of redemption by the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God.  There follows from that incarnation and sacrifice all the great teaching about the work of the Divine Spirit in men, dwelling in them for evermore.  But the beginning of all is, ‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.’  And, brethren, that message meets, as nothing else meets, the deepest needs of every human soul.  It is able, as nothing else is able, to open out into a whole encyclopaedia and universe of wisdom and truth and power.  If we strike it out of our conception of Christianity, or if we obscure it as being the very palpitating centre of the whole, then feebleness will creep over the Christianity that is minus a Cross, or does not see in it the Sacrifice for the world’s sin.  You may cast overboard the sails to lighten the ship.  If you do, she lies a log on the waters.  And if, for the sake of meeting new phases of thought, Christian churches tamper with this central truth, they have flung away their means of progress and of power.

Let me say again, and in a word only, that the considerations that I have been trying to submit to you in this sermon, show us the limits within which the modern cry of ‘Back to the Christ of the Gospels,’ is right, and where it may be wrong.  I believe that in former days, and to some extent in the present day, we evangelical teachers have too much sometimes talked rather about the doctrines than about the Person who is the doctrines.  And if the cry of ‘Back to the Christ’ means, ’Do not talk so much about the Atonement and Propitiation; talk about the Christ who atones,’ then, with all my heart, I say, ‘Amen!’ But put the Person in the foreground, the living-loving, the dying-loving, the risen-loving Christ, put Him in the foreground.  But if it is implied, as I am afraid it is often implied, that the Christ of the Gospels is one and the Christ of the epistles is another, and that to go back to