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prophecy, had pointed, in all the ages. Here was the realization of promise and hope and longing, in man's possibility of inter-union with God through a common life-which is oneness of blood; and in man's intercommunion with God, through participation in the blessings of a common table. He who could speak for God here proffered of his own blood, to make those whom he loved of the same nature with himself, and so of the same nature with his God; to bring them into blood-friendship with their God; and he proffered of his own body, to supply them with soul nourishment, in that Bread which came down from God.

Then it was, while they were there together in that upper room, for the consummating of that bloodcovenant of friendship, that Jesus said to his disciples: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you. No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth but I have called you friends [friends in the covenant_of_blood-friendship now]; for all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known unto you."1 A common life, through oneness of blood, secures an absolute unreserve of intimacy; so that neither friend has aught to conceal from his other self. "Abide in me, and I in you; . for

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1 John 15: 13-15.

THE PRAYER OF FRIENDSHIP.

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apart from me ye can do nothing," was the injunction of Jesus to his blood-covenant friends, at this hour of his covenant pledging. "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you."

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Then it was, also, that the prayer of Jesus for his new blood-covenant friends went up: "Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee: even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever [whomsoever] thou hast given him, to them he should give eternal life [in an eternal covenant of blood]. And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send [as the means of life], even Jesus Christ. Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one, Neither for these [here present] only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word; that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst them, 1John 15: 4-7.

even as we are.

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even as thou lovedst me." Here was declared the scope of this blood-covenant, and here was unfolded its doctrine.

It was not an utterly new symbolism that Jesus was introducing into the religious thought of the world: it was rather a new meaning that he was introducing into, or that he was disclosing in, an already widely recognized symbolism. The world was familiar with the shadow of truth; Jesus now made clear to the world the truth's substance. Man's longing to be a partaker of the divine nature had manifested itself through all the ages and everywhere. Jesus now showed how that longing of death-smitten man could be realized. "The appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ . . . abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel "" of his blood

covenant.

But a covenant of blood, a covenant to give one's blood, one's life, for the saving of another, cannot be consummated without the death of the covenanter. "For where [such] a covenant is, there must of necessity be [be brought] the death of him that made it. For [such] a covenant is of force [becomes a reality] where there hath been death [or, over the dead]: for doth it [such a covenant] ever avail [can it be efficient] while he that made it liveth?" Jesus had said,

1 John 17: 1-24.

2 Tim. I: 10.

3 Heb. 9: 16, 17.

THE BREAKING HEART.

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"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."1 Of his readiness to show this measure of love for those who were as the sheep of his fold, he had declared: "I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.

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Therefore

I lay down my life for the sheep. doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself." And again: "I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: yea, and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world." 3 "For my flesh is meat indeed, and blood is drink indeed." my Such a covenant as this could be of force only through the death of him who pledges it.

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The promise of the covenanting-cup, at the covenanting-feast, was made good on Calvary. The pierced hands and feet of the Divine Friend yielded their lifegiving streams. Then, with the final cry, "It is finished," the very heart of the self-surrendered sacrificial victim was broken, and the life of the Son of God and of the

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1 John 15: 13. John 10: 10, 18. 3 John 6: 51. John 6: 55. 5 See Matt. 27: 33-54; Mark 15: 22-39; Luke 23: 33-47; John 19: 17-37.

6" He was ultimately slain,' not by the effects of the anguish of his corporeal frame, but by the effects of the mightier anguish of his mind;

Seed of Abraham was poured out unto death,' in order that all who would, might become sharers in its re-vivifying and saving power. He who was without sin had received the wages of sin; because, that, only through dying was it possible for him to supply that life which would redeem from the penalty of sin those who had earned death, as sin's wages. He who, in himself, had life, had laid down his life, so that those who were without life might become its partakers, through faith, in the bonds and blessings of an everlasting covenant. So the long symbolized covenant of blood was made a reality. "And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life."

IO. THE BLOOD COVENANT APPLIED.

Under the symbolic sacrifices of the Old Covenant, it was the blood which made atonement for the soul. It was not the death of the victim, nor yet its broken body, but it was the blood, the life, the soul, that was

the fleshy walls of his heart-like the veil, as it were, in the temple of his human body-becoming rent and riven, as, for us, he poured out his soul unto death.'" (Sir James Y. Simpson, cited in Appendix to Stroud's Physical Cause of Death of Christ.)

Isa. 53: 12. Comp. Rom. 6: 23; 1 Pet. 3: 18; Isa. 53: 4-6.

31 John 5: 11, 12.

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