PREFACE

Seven words of Jesus spoken on His cross! You catch the last words of any dying man! You pause with interest at the record, " These be the last words of David!" He that hath an ear, let him hear the voice of the dying Lord!

Beautifully have these seven words been called " The bright lights of heaven shining at intervals through the darkness," " The deep solemn tones which interpret the cross," " The blossoms of the green tree which is in the flames, burning, not consumed."

Seven words! The sacred seven-number of Scripture, denoting completeness. It is the full gospel of salvation from the lips of the dying Saviour. Verily, O Jesus, " grace is poured into Thy lips," and to all eternity we shall "wonder at the gracious words which proceeded out of Thy mouth," when hanging as a curse for us on the tree of Calvary!

O Christ of God! Prophet, Priest, and King! Speak to our hearts from Thy throne now, through these voices from Thy cross!

" O send out Thy light and Thy truth."

***

An excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter:

I.


"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
— Luke xxiii. 34.


"He looks and calls from high,

Art thou to die or live?

He hears the posts and lintels cry,

Forgive, forgive, forgive!"

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Calvary is reached. The soldiers begin the cruel work. They nail the blessed Jesus to a cross between two thieves—" on either side one, and Jesus in the midst." The blood drops from His pierced hands and feet, and the word drops from His lips, " Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

The soldiers hear it. The thieves on the cross hear it. The people that " stand beholding " hear it. The Father in heaven hears it—" Father, forgive them."

I think first of the love of Jesus, the perfect love of the holy Jesus, living on even unto death. Love reigns still, as ever, in that great heart—" Father, forgive them." I think next of the quick utterance of the plea for pardon the moment that atoning blood is shed, as if to say, The way is open now, every barrier removed, the deep channel dug for the outflow of Heaven's pardoning love—" Father, forgive them."

I cannot but turn to the immediate crucifiers of Jesus, to the four soldiers whose hands did the work; and as perhaps they were but instruments in other hands, which had the greater sin, there may have been the loving thought and pleading prayer for them, " They
know not what they do." But the prayer extends beyond these, far beyond, not only to all the others who had any part, direct or indirect, in the crucifixion, but to all in every age, to sinners everywhere whose sins nailed the Son of God to Calvary's cross, whose sins He " bare in His own body on the tree." Thank God, that down the stream of time the blessing of forgiveness comes, which was asked of the Father the first moment that the blood of atonement was shed; for the voice of Jesus asked articulately what the blood itself asked, and asks still while days of mercy last—" Father, forgive them."

I. I point to sin—sin as needing forgiveness.

I take the deep tone of meaning to be—" they know not what they do." They have no idea of the tremendous sin they are committing, they have no idea of the wisdom of God, the hidden wisdom; for " had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory " (1 Cor. ii. 8.). I think that, viewing these soldiers who crucified our Lord as but the type of sinners everywhere, and the prayer of Jesus as offered for all for whom He died, the word tells of the magnitude of the sin, a sin the magnitude of which men only come to know when pardoning love reaches their hearts, a sin which many of the very people who crucified Jesus came to know when, under the preaching of the gospel, " with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven," the light shone in, and the truth flashed on their souls—" We have crucified the Lord of glory; " and the cry came up from the depths of their stricken hearts, " What shall we do?"

We now know what we have done, what shall we do, not to undo it, for that cannot be, but what shall we do to be saved?

Strange scene at Calvary! None know in all its import what is done, save the Man upon the cross Himself, and the Father in heaven to whom He prays!

Strange scene now! A world of gospel-despisers, and none knowing the depth of guilt but the Saviour, the God whom men reject; but looking from His cross on the miserable condition of men as sinners, and drawing a reason from it, urging it as a plea for mercy and pity and pardon, Jesus says—" Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."