The Crucifixion of Christ Modernised
David Gregg, D. D. Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift… To a nature morally sensitive the crucifixion of Jesus Christ' is the crime of all crimes. Although eighteen hundred)ears have passed it is still the most realistic scene in all history. The strokes of the crucificial hammers are heard not only on the mountains of Palestine; they ring throughout the universe. The vividness of the cross comes, in part, from the way the story of Calvary is told. There is nothing elaborate. No attempt at fine writing. Only a few verses. The story is allowed to tell itself. But here is the secret: it is scenic from beginning to end; it speaks in pictures. God Himself emphasised the enormity of the crucifixion of His Son by means of the great wonders by which He marked the event, and by which He proclaimed that all nature was in a sympathetic agony with the agonising Christ. But mark the way God visits the crime of Christ's crucifixion with retribution if you would grasp its enormity. "The Hebrews had for centuries been dreaming of a Messiah, and at last their Messiah came. But how did they receive Him? They received Him with yells of 'Crucify.' At the Cross of Jesus, which consummated their iniquity, the story of their nation ends." Some of those who shared in the scene of Christ's crucifixion, and myriads of their children, shared also in the long horror of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans — a siege which, for its unutterable fearfulness, stands unparalleled in the story of mankind. They had forced the Romans to crucify their Christ, anal they themselves were crucified in myriads by the Romans outside their walls, till room failed for the crosses and wood to make them with. This would be enough to spread before us the enormity of the crime of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ; but this is not all; retribution still follows the nation of His crucifiers. In this year the Jews are an ostracised race in the midst of humanity the world over. To see the enormity of the crucifixion of Christ put by the side of the appalling judgment which followed it an analysis of the crime. The crucifixion of Christ was not a single sin, it was a multifold sin; it was a moral compound. It was a culmination — a climax. A whole series of motives and a whole series of actions were behind it. When we remember this we see that the Cross stands for something upon the part of man. It is an exponent of humanity. It is the work of human nature unregenerated. It shows the extreme of sin to which man will dare to go; he will dare to crucify the Son of God. Is there a point in moral depravity beyond that? If so, what is it? Hundreds and hundreds of typical bands rear the Cross and ply the curcificial hammers and drive the cruel nails of death. I see the hand of the Pharisee; he was a formalist in religion, and could not endure the pure spirituality of Christ's religion. I see the hand of the Elder; be was a traditionalist, and he felt his religion reel before the practical common-sense questions which Christ fired through it, as the gun-boat fires its cannon-balls through a wooden ship. I see the hand of the Sadducee; he was an agnostic, and he hated Christ because He brought to bear against the tenets of his agnosticism the deadly parallelism of the Scriptures. The envy of the Churchmen; the avarice of Judas; the vacillation and cowardice of Pilate; the perjury of the false witnesses; the false shame of those who believed in Christ but who refused to confess Him for fear of the Pharisees; the desertion of His long-instructed followers; the brutality of the mob, who mocked Him as He died — all these were forces which combined to erect the Cross and nail Christ to it. And what had Christ done that He should thus be crucified and made an open shame? He had loved men; He had opened the massive prison doors of error and had given men the liberty of the truth; He had smitten haughty tyrannies and broken the oppressive grip which they had upon humanity; He had taken children into His arms and had blessed them; He had lived a holy life, in which no one could pick a single flaw; He had healed the sick; He had uttered the Sermon upon the Mount and the golden promises and the explanatory parables: That was all He had done. How the enormity of the crime of crucifying Him grows t We congratulate ourselves that we were not at Calvary and that we were spared the trial, the experience, and the doom of those who crucified Christ. My fellow-men of the nineteenth century, the text strikes us while we are right in the midst of our mistaken congratulations. It says in unmistakable language the crime of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which is so enormous, is a crime that is continuous. In the rearm of human disposition and feeling, in the thought-life of the world, there is a perpetual Calvary and a perpetual crucifixion. Christ is being crucified afresh, and the old guilt of the first century is not only being constantly incurred, but it is being constantly increased. The men of the first century, when they crucified Christ, knew not what they did — they sinned in darkness; but the men of the nineteenth century, when they crucify Christ, know what they are doing — they sin against light. What has Christ done that any man in the nineteenth century should crucify Him? He has filled the world with pure principles; He has reproduced Himself in the magnificent men and women of the Christian Church; He has built up the ground institutions of civil and religious liberty; He has shaped and moulded the leading nations of the earth; He has given the world the progress and the triumphs of a Christian civilisation. Do these things make Him worthy of crucifixion? The men of the first century who crucified Him saw only the deeds of a very few years; the men of the nineteenth century who crucify Him afresh see the deeds of 1800 years. They sin against all the centuries of the Christian era. There is no mistaking the text. It is in the present tense, and it speaks of a second act. It was addressed to men thirty years after Jesus had been enjoying the glories of the throne of heaven. He was beyond the reach of the physical touch of man. Paul did not consider the essence of a moral act to lie in the muscular exertion, but in the mental volition. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." This is heaven's idea of moral conduct. The heart-life is the true life. "The Lord looketh upon the heart." Our life includes the unexpressed wishes, the inarticulate longings, and the unwrought purposes of the heart. It includes our moral identifications with our fellow-men. and our sympathies with their actions. You hare now before you the answer of the question, How is it possible to recrucify Christ? The answer is this: It is possible by means of moral identification with the men of Calvary. There is a brotherhood of soul with soul; by continuing in the brotherhood made up of the souls of the Pilates, and of the Pharisees, and of the Judases, and of their kindred, we endorse their deeds and ate held by justice as alike criminal with them. When their spirit is incarnated in our acts we crucify Christ afresh. I tell you that not a single impulse or passion that played a part in the great tragedy has died out of the world. They are all pulsating to-day in the hearts of men. The nineteenth century is but a moral echo of the first century. If you are not morally one with the friends of Christ you will be classified with the crucifiers of Christ. That is the principle which the text enunciates. Jesus Himself enunciates the same principle in the woes which He pronounces against the Pharisees. Moral identification! That is the criterion of character! That is the basis upon which God deals with us in judgment. Moral identification is also the basis upon which man judges man. We saw the play of this principle of judgment during the civil war which tore and distracted our land. The war opened with the Confederates firing upon Fort Sumter. That first act was universally made to test all the North. The way a man looked upon that daring act was made the criterion of his standing, the index of his loyalty or disloyalty. The man who deplored it, and who lifted his hands in hob' horror at the thought of American citizens firing upon American citizens, was identified with the men within the fort who stood by the guns of the nation loyally and courageously; but the man who let the joy of his soul shine out in his face, or embody itself in utterance, was identified with the men who aimed and fired the guns of treason, and who tattered the dear old Stars and Stripes, and trampled them in the dust. The latter man was compelled to leave the North and was treated as a traitor, which he was. The war was closed with the awful tragedy of assassination. The most dastardly act of all that black history was the firing of the assassin's fatal ball by J. Wilkes Booth through the noble frame of Abrabam Lincoln. That act also was made a test. Here and there through the North there were men who applauded the act; but no sooner did the words "Good," "Served him right," fall from their lips than instantly they were riddled by the Minie balls of patriots, or swung out into the air from impromptu gallows. Why? Because everywhere the men of the North looked upon them as assassins, kindred Booths. Why? Because everywhere the men of the North looked upon soul identification with treason as treason, and sympathy with a traitor as making a man a traitor. Moral identification! That is the criterion of character. Both God and man declare it to be the true basis of righteous judgment. If this be so, then the duty of the hour, in view of the theme which occupies our minds, is to question ourselves with regard to our moral identification. Where do you stand with regard to Christ? That is the question. With whom are you classified? Do you crucify Christ afresh? If by your actions you are classified with Pilate you crucify Christ. The historical man Pilate is dead, but his principles have been modernised. Pilateism never dies. It affects friend.-hip; it pays compliments; it shifts and transfers responsibility; it seeks to be on both sides; it makes an orthodox profession, but lives a heterodox life; it virtually acquits but actually executes. With whom are you classified? With Judas, the man who sold his Master? Why did Judas sell Christ? Because he got money. The sale of Christ by Judas was a pure matter of cash. If you sell conscience or principle for money you are a Judas and a crucifier of Christ. If yea are untruthful and dishonest in your business you are a Judas and a crucifier of Christ. With whom are you identified? With the soldiers who robed Him in mock purple, and who platted a crown of thorns and put it upon His brow, and bowed the knee before Him in hypocrisy? If when conscience tells you to perform a certain duty you deliberately re use to obey, what is that but bowing the knee in hypocrisy to Christ as the King of your life, and turning His crown into a crown of thorns, a thing to be jeered at? With whom are you classified? With the disciples who forsook Him and fled? If so, you play a part in Christ's crucifixion. Today the silence and the backwardness and the desertion of Christians may be the cause of the reign of unbelief; the cause of indifference with regard to Christ; the cause also of much of the dishonour that is heaped upon Christ. It is our duty to assort more and claim more for Jesus. With whom are you classified? With the Pharisees, who kept men from espousing the cause of Christ? Do you hinder your friends from making a confession? With whom are you classified? With the Sanhedrin who passed the sentence of death upon Christ? Why did the members of the Sanhedrin sentence Him? Because He claimed to be God; because they said He was a blasphemer; because they denied His deity. Do you deny the deity of Jesus Christ? If so, then there is nothing left for you but to crucify Him. With whom are you identified? I hear a voice saying, "I am identified with no one." "I am neutral." "I neither choose Christ nor Barabbas." "I wash my hands clear of the whole business." That was what Pilate thought he would do; but did he? No; all such talk is the merest moral stuff, Neutrality! To you who have this day heard the gospel of Christ, there is no such thing as neutrality. The Master Himself says, "He that is not for Me is against Me." That settles it. He that is not morally identified with Christ as a follower and friend is morally identified with His enemies and crucifiers. Your attempted neutrality is a crime against light and against infinite love and against the eternity of your own soul. Why should you crucify the Son of God afresh? Why should you nail H,m to the cross of indifference? Is there any difference between crucifying Christ upon the cross of indifference and crucifying Him upon the cross of criticism, or upon the cross of consent, or upon the cross of unbelief? He is crucified all the same. Do you ask me the way out of your sin? I reply, Seek a true knowledge of Christ. In speaking of the first crucifixion Paul tells the Corinthians that had the men of Jerusalem known Christ they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Do you ask me the way out of your sin? I reply, If you would avoid the crucifixion of Christ join in the coronation of Christ. Crown Him with an ardent faith; with a loyal love; with a fearless, manly, constant, and open confession. (David Gregg, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, WEB: For concerning those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit,