The Crucifixion Mystery

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 2.?Some Sacrificial Theories. Most people can understand the death of Cyprian, the death of Caesar, the death of Saul, and the death of Socrates readily enough, but it is far less easy to understand the death of Christ. His crucifixion is an instance of religious suffering of so much complexity that it has...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 2.?Some Sacrificial Theories. Most people can understand the death of Cyprian, the death of Caesar, the death of Saul, and the death of Socrates readily enough, but it is far less easy to understand the death of Christ. His crucifixion is an instance of religious suffering of so much complexity that it has been made to appear at once an execution, a sacrifice, a martyrdom, a penance, and, above all, a monstrous crime, and when regarded under these various aspects it has generated much confusion of thought and given rise to endless controversy. Several expounders of the mysterious occurrence have endeavoured of late to make it less difficult by simplification. A majority of Christian theologians at the present day are accustomed to represent it as being both a martyrdom and a sacrifice; but some say that it was a martyrdom alone, and others contend that it was purely a sacrifice. The latter, as it seems to us, take the most correct view of the matter, though we are very far from admitting the truth of the orthodox sacrificial theory. For a person in ancient times to die solemnly before high Heaven as a sacrificial victim, it was requisite that he should not be slain by hostile hands, and we are convinced that this condition was fulfilled in the death of Jesus. Christians in general, however, hold the opinion that he was put to death by his enemies, was cruelly murdered in fact, but was nevertheless immolated for the sins of mankind. Lord Beacons- field denies that the Crucifixion was an act of criminality; he writes as follows: ? Born from the chosen house of the chosen people, yet blending in his inexplicable nature the Divine essence with the human elements, a sacrificial Mediator was to appear, appointed before all time and purifying with his atoning blood themyriads ...