The period of severance of His soul and body was neither more nor less than three days and three nights. Try our Good Friday. Will it conform to the requirements? Good Friday: First day and night. Saturday: Second day and night. Sunday: Lo and behold the Lord is risen! Now let us put to the same test Maundy Thursday, and see if that day will satisfy the requirements. Maundy Thursday: The Crucifixion. First day and night. Good Friday: Second day and night. Sunday morning: The Resurrection. I take it, then, that we have no alternative but to admit that our Lord was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, and that therefore it was on Thursday in Holy Week that He was crucified, even as it was on a Thursday that He ascended. Now let us see what practical importance this gives to the atoning work of Christ. Where did our Lord's soul go to, and for what purpose? We are apt to forget that He suffered not only for you and me, but for those who sinned before the flood, and for the fallen angels, and to redeem even devils if they would come to Him. The Atonement is not only world, but sphere embracing. Before His spirit fled He gave us some indication of where He was going in the awful, paining cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" "He descended into hell." So says the creed of the Church of England; how many realize its meaning? Be it ever remembered that no Jew, that no Roman, had really power to cause Christ's death; they did their best to murder Him, but Christ voluntarily took the curse, and gave up His own life; man was powerless to take it from Him. "I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” Why was Christ, then, three days and three nights in hell? I answer, to suffer in prison for the sins of mankind, and to set the antediluvian prisoners free. Hear St. Paul: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a cuise for us; for it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."-(Gal. iii. 13.) "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God. Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."- -2 Cor. v. 21.) "Wherefore He saith, when He ascended on high, He Led captivity captive, And gave gifts unto men. (Now this, He ascended, what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth.")-(Eph. iv. 8-10.) "HE DESCENDED INTO Hell." "You, I say, did He quicken together with Him, and He hath taken it (the bond) out of the way, nailing it to the cross; having put from Himself the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Col. ii. 14, 15.) Hear also St. Peter : "David forseeing this spake of the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was He left in hades, nor did His flesh see corruption." (Acts ii. 31.) "Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the Righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God; and being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit; in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. . . the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ; who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him." There is a passage in St. Luke which seems to militate against Christ's descent into hell, and that is His solemn assurance to the loyal faith of his fellowmalefactor:-" And He said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." I cannot doubt for a moment that our Lord took the thief to Paradise, according to His promise; but that the Lord left him in that happy place, and went down Himself on His mission of mercy to the prisoners. "THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK HE ROSE AGAIN." We have still sin in our midst who believe not in the Resurrection, or in the mediatorial kingdom of the Christ until the end. St. Paul's admonishing stands for all time : : "For if the dead are not raised, neither hath Christ been raised and if Christ hath not been raised, your faith is in vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable. "But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of them that sleep. For since by man came death, by Man came also the resurrection of the dead. . . Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign, till He hath put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be abolished is death. . . And when all things have been subjected to Him that did subject all things unto Him, that God may be all in all." (1 Cor. xv. 16-28.) This shows the eternal unity of God the Father, who is essentially one, and to whom the Spirit and Son are subject. Were this eternal verity ever kept in view, Christians might have less cause to deplore the existence of those who call themselves Unitarians. When the mediatorial work of the Son and the sanctifying will of the Mother-Spirit shall have ceased, the all-supremacy of the one First FatherMother God, will be all in all. One word as to what Christ did during the forty days before the Ascension. I cannot but believe that He manifested Himself in His resurrection-body to other parts of the earth, and that that accounts for much of the light in other parts of the world. HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN." Holy Thursday was, until lately, chiefly noted for beating the boundaries. The houses of God are even now closed, and so little is the anniversary of the Ascension heeded that, unlike the minor anniversaries which lead up to it, Ascension Day is not kept as a public holiday, and therefore the people cannot be expected to think so much of it. Of late years there has been a revival of spiritual life, but still by the Church of England there is a tameness and want of life which is inconsistent with deep devotion to an ascended Lord. How surpassing in glory is the psalmist's description of the event : "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands upon thousands: "The Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the sanctuary. "Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led Thy captivity captive: "Thou hast received gifts among men." "Yea, among the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell with them." (Psalm lxviii. 17, 18.) "FROM THENCE HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD." Volumes and volumes have been written upon the Second Advent, and the season of Advent is not neglected by the Church of England as a whole, though, strangely enough, the school which goes by the name of evangelical deprives the people of their house of prayer, and even at this sacred season, despite the Rubric, the house of God is not open for daily service. The reaction of Ritualism can easily be accounted for when we see that school which once did so much to revive spiritual life in the Church set so lightly by their stewardship. There is enough to sober the most frivolous in the contemplation of this event. The Great Judge Himself warns us:— H |