SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPAL CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH ATTENDED THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

Although important explanations of the death of Christ are furnished by other portions of Scripture, the principal information respecting the mode in which it happened must obviously be derived from the narratives of the four evangelists, which, in a combined and harmonized form, have now been presented. The whole transaction was extraordinary and peculiar. On this occasion, as on some others which required a decisive evidence of the truth of revelation, the hand of God was displayed in first appointing, and afterwards accomplishing a conjuncture of circumstances so complex and seemingly incompatible, that had it not been actually realized, few persons would have believed its possibility, and none would have ventured to predict its occurrence. Many centuries before the event, the voice of prophecy had proclaimed that the Saviour of mankind would suffer a death at once violent and voluntary, as a criminal, and as a victim, universally approved by God and man, yet loaded with the malediction of both. His death was to be directed by Jewish priests without power, and executed by Gentile rulers without authority, and he was to be condemned on a charge in which, notwithstanding their religious hostility, both parties could unite in attesting and rejecting his claims as the Messiah. He was to suffer the death of the cross, which commonly happened by slow exhaustion, and in Judea was usually hastened by breaking the legs, yet none of his bones was to be broken. His heart was at the same time to be pierced, and he was to die suddenly as a sin-offering by the effusion of his life's blood, the appointed means of atonement, although the former was not essential to the punishment of crucifixion, and the latter was the very reverse of its usual effect. The actual accomplishment of all these intricate, and apparently discordant conditions is formally asserted in various parts of the New Testament, not as a casual coincidence, but as indispensably necessary to the fulfilment of prophecy, the veracity of which would have been forfeited had any one of them failed to take place.

To prevent misapprehension, it is proper to state that in the following investigation the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ is fully acknowledged, but that, in conformity with the dictates both of reason and revelation, the two natures are regarded as totally distinct, the latter only having been susceptible of suffering and death. Hence, in all that concerns the sufferings and death of the Saviour, attention will be exclusively directed to a pure and perfect human nature, subject to those influences and agencies which the circumstances involved, and which the Scriptures represent. With such a nature specially prepared by the Holy Spirit, and fitted to make an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, in the full possession of all his faculties, and in the very prime and vigour of life a little under thirty-five years of age, the Redeemer entered on his sufferings, which were completed within the space of eighteen hours, and actually occupied eight. The discourses and devotional exercises in which he engaged with his apostles after the paschal supper, probably celebrated in a house on Mount Zion, must have been continued till an advanced hour of the night, since they were of considerable length, and it was already late when they began.¹ Hence, it could not have been much before midnight when he arrived in the garden of Gethsemane, at the foot of the Mount of Olives. There, during an hour from which he earnestly prayed to be delivered, he was seized with mental anguish of so peculiar and intense a character as to force from him a bloody sweat; and which, had he not been strengthened by supernatural aid, might very possibly have occasioned his death on the spot. During the ten following hours, the greater part of which was passed before the tribunals of the Sanhedrim and of Pontius Pilate, he evinced the utmost firmness and self-possession; and with the exception of the indignities offered him by the Jewish domestics and the Roman soldiers, his bodily sufferings were chiefly confined to the scourging which generally preceded crucifixion, and in his case was designed to supersede it. Some commentators have imagined that this scourging was unusually severe, but to such a supposition the scriptural narrative gives no countenance, and the respect manifested by Pilate towards a prisoner whom he repeatedly declared to be innocent, and anxiously laboured to release, renders it inadmissible. The crucifixion of Christ occupied the exact interval of six hours, between the times of the morning and evening sacrifice in the temple, on the first day of the paschal festival, having commenced at the third hour of the day, and terminated at the ninth.² From some expressions which fell from him, it is evident that during the latter part of this awful period the peculiar sufferings of Gethsemane were renewed, whilst at the same time his energy of mind and body was displayed by characteristic actions and discourses, and by several loud and pious exclamations uttered immediately before his death, which took place very suddenly, and much earlier than might naturally have been expected. Its speedy and abrupt occurrence accordingly excited the surprise of the centurion who superintended the execution, and of the Roman governor who commanded it. Thus, when Joseph of Arimathea asked permission to remove the body of Jesus for the purpose of interment, Pilate wondered if he were already dead, and it was not until he had ascertained the fact from the centurion, that he granted the request. The two malefactors, crucified at the same time and place, were still living, and in compliance with the customs of the country, were despatched and buried before sunset. When however the soldiers came for a similar purpose to Jesus, as they found him already dead, they did not break his bones; but, as if to remove all possibility of doubt on the subject, one of them pierced his side with a spear, whereupon, as recorded by the apostle John an eye-witness of the scene from its commencement to its close, — "immediately there came forth blood and water." — In opposition to various misrepresentations of this momentous fact, originating either from inadvertence or design, the Scriptures plainly state that Christ died the death of the cross, appointed by the Father, accepted by himself, demanded by the Jewish people, and executed by the Gentile government to which they were then subject. In proof of this assertion many passages might be cited, but two will suffice. When addressing the immense multitude of Israelites assembled at Jerusalem from all parts of the world on the ensuing day of Pentecost, Peter distinctly charged the nation with the murder of Jesus: — "Him, having been delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye took, and by the hands of wicked men crucified and slew;" — and Paul, writing to the Greek church at Philippi, says of the Saviour that, — "although in the form of God, and deeming it no robbery to be equal to God, he stripped himself of his glory, assumed the form of a slave, and was made in the likeness of men, and having been found in aspect as a man, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."³ — No explanation of the fact can therefore be admitted, in which this condition is not fully acknowledged.

1) On mentioning the retirement of Judas Iscariot, which took place after the paschal supper, and before the commencement of Christ's discourses with the other apostles, John states that — "it was night."— Chap. 13, v. 29, 30.

2) Coinciding with nine o'clock in the forenoon, and three in the afternoon, according to modern European computation.

3) Acts, chap. 2, v. 22, 23; chap. 3, v. 13-15; chap. 5, v. 29, 30 chap. 7, v. 51, 52; — Philipp. chap. 2, v. 5-8, &c.