It was the love for men in His own heart that drew Him down here and drove Him along even to the Calvary Hill.  He died for men, in their place, on their behalf.  This was His one thought.  Through this their bondage to sin and to Satan would be broken and they would be set free.[126] And they would be drawn, their hearts would be utterly melted and broken by His love for them.[127] The influence would reach out until all the race would feel its power and respond; and it would reach into each one’s life who came till the life he lived was of the abundant, eternal sort.

The devil was a real personality to Jesus.  This whole terrific struggle ending at the cross was a direct spirit-battle with that great spirit prince.  So Jesus understood it.  All the bitter enmity to Himself traces straight back to that source.  That enmity found its worst expression in Jesus’ death.  The pitched spirit-battle was there.  But that prince was judged, condemned, utterly defeated and cast out in that battle, and his hold upon men broken.[128]

And so this was the greatest wooing of all.  It was greatest in its intensity of meaning to the Father looking eagerly down.  It revealed His unbending, unflinching ideals of right, and the great strength and tenderness of His love for men.  He would even give His Son.  It was greatest in its intensity of meaning to the Son.  It meant the utmost of suffering ever endured, the utmost of love underneath ever revealed; and it would mean the race-wide sweep of His gracious power.

It was greatest in its intensity of meaning to Satan, the hater of God and man.  It told his utter defeat, and loss of power over man.  So it broke our bonds and made us free to yield to the wooing.  And it was greatest in its intensity of meaning to us men.  For it showed to our confused eyes the one ideal of right standing out clear and full.  It set us free from the fetters of our bondage, gave us the tremendous incentive of love to reach up to the ideal of right, and more, immensely more, gave us power to reach it.

It was the greatest wooing in the out-reach of its influence, for all men of all the earth would be touched.[129] And it was greatest in the in-reach to all the life of each one who came under its blessed influence.  The whole ministry taught this.  It would mean newness of life in body, in mind, in social nature, in spirit, and in the eternal quality of life lived here, and to be lived without any ending.

And all the world has responded to this greatest wooing as they have come to know of it.  That three-languaged inscription on the cross was a world appeal and a world prophecy.  In Hebrew the religious language of the world whose literature told of the one true God, in Latin the language of the masters of the world, in Greek the language of the culture of the world, that message went out to all the world.  This Jesus is our Kinsman-King, our Brother-Ruler, our Love-Autocrat.  He revealed His love for us in His death for us.