do what His own nature could not do. It is rather, so to speak, an internal means, a transcript of the internal work in the heart of the Godhead, without which we could not have been saved. A sentence like 'But for the Atonement we could not have been saved', really means, 'But for a God who is also an Atoner we could not have been saved.' God, being as He is, could not but bear, could not but yearn, could not but be incarnate in His Word, could not but come into conflict with sin on the earthly stage in this Incarnate One, who as man suffered to the last possibility the action of sin in Himself—a death of agony in body and darkness in soul.

This last sentence brings us to consider whether we can get a little nearer to the heart of this great mystery.

Christ came into this world armed only with moral weapons; determined to fight sin with the sword of righteousness and the spirit, not with the forces of physical or super-physical might. On the Mount of Temptation He definitely renounced these latter, and thus definitely soared away from all Muslim ideas of the kingdom of this world or the way it should be brought about. He saw that moral results could only be brought about by moral means, and He, therefore, definitely renounced the right of physical resistance. For another, even a prophet, for all except the Saviour of the world, this might have been conceivably permissible, in certain circumstances. For the Saviour of the world it was never in any circumstance to be.

To the Muslim this seems the very embodiment of weakness. To the man who knows what moral power is, it seems the very embodiment of strength.

The battle between Him and sin was, therefore, a fair fight in the moral arena. No extraneous weapons were used. Had He summoned the angelic legions in the garden of Gethsemane had He invoked His divine power on the Cross and descended, much more, had He invoked the civil arm successfully, the contest with sin would have been non-moral; for a non-moral element would have been introduced, and the moral salvation of man would have fallen through. Sin would have received no mortal wound, and no decisive defeat. And so He resisted not.

He allowed the sin of man to do against Him its worst. He allowed it to manifest itself on His perfectly holy, righteous Person; to manifest on Him its true and essential nature for all time—as a thing hating God, hating righteousness, loving the death of all that is holy.

But this involved going the whole length—to death. Had He stopped short of this, sin's nature would not have been fully exposed and its issue would not have been fully seen. To reveal its nature he had to bear its nature, namely, the desire to kill all that is good. And to reveal its inevitable doom he had to bear its doom, namely, to perish terribly.

Then, and not till then, could He turn round and triumph. When sin had done its worst, not till