cup pass from me."[094] As man’s Saviour Jesus was made perfect through suffering.[095] “We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."[096] The world is full of suffering, and He alone can understand and sympathise with it who has experienced it.  It is the knowledge that their Divine Saviour is their Brother-man that gives to believing sufferers boldness and confidence as they draw nigh to the throne of grace.

SECTION 2.—­WAS CRUCIFIED

Prophecy in the sense of prediction is a very interesting and important branch of Christian evidence.  Old Testament prophets foretold minute events in the history of the Lord Jesus Christ, such as His lineal descent, the place and time of His birth, its miraculous character, His death, His burial, His three days’ sojourn in the sepulchre, the casting of lots for His raiment, the piercing of His hands and feet, His last exclamation, His resurrection and ascension.  Whatever view may be taken as to the dates of the various books of Scripture, it must be admitted that the whole body of the Old Testament was in circulation among the Jews hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.  There can be no doubt that these prophecies were separated by great distance in time from the events predicted.  Even the Septuagint Version, which is a Greek translation from the original Hebrew Scriptures, existed at Alexandria about two hundred years before His advent.

One of the most striking features of Old Testament prediction is its bearing upon the closing scenes of Christ’s history.  In its types as well as in its prophecies His death was foreshadowed, and the humiliating and ignominious treatment to which He was subjected minutely described.  The predictions involved events that appeared contradictory and paradoxical until their fulfilment furnished the key.  He Himself told the disciples again and again that He should be crucified.  This form of execution was a Roman punishment reserved for slaves and the vilest criminals; and the fact that Jesus was subjected to it depended on a combination of events which no mere human sagacity could have foreseen.  It required that, though he should be apprehended, accused, tried, and found guilty by Jews, His death-sentence should be inflicted by Gentiles; that the Roman governor of Judaea should, against his better judgment, surrender to the clamorous cry of a mob who demanded that the prisoner should be crucified.  It required that the betrayal and condemnation of Jesus should take place during the Passover week, when it was unlawful for the Jews to put any man to death.  The excuse of the Jewish rulers, that they could not inflict death, did not mean that this power had been withdrawn from them, but that it was against their law to exercise it then.  Had the season been different, had the Jews themselves