I4 6 7 HE OLIVE LEAP. CHAP. 



us that God in Christ was united to us by blood-relation- 

 ship ; knew all " the things of a man " ; filled all the 

 moulds of our conduct, and passed along all the lines of 

 our experience ? Does it not powerfully proclaim to us 

 the one only method of salvation, to which all other 

 methods, by their weakness and failure, pointed, and for 

 which all other methods prepared the way the personal 

 method of God assuming the very nature that had 

 sinned and suffered, and in that nature bringing back 

 life and holiness and happiness and all that man had 

 lost ? Yes ! we deeply feel that what no authority 

 human or divine, no terrors or promises or entreaties 

 could do, has been done by the Son of God Himself 

 becoming from the beginning and altogether a man ; and 

 thus claiming human nature in its entirety for sonship 

 with God drawing near to us that we might be enabled 

 to draw near to the Father in heaven. " What the law 

 could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, 

 sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and 

 for sin, condemned sin in the flesh ; that the righteous- 

 ness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not 

 after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 



And consider the awful cost of this personal method 

 of salvation. It was with much toil and trouble that 

 Elisha raised the dead child to life. That act involved 

 a great expenditure of heart-sympathy, of spiritual 

 power and of physical warmth. It was through loss to 

 himself that he imparted gain to the mother and child. 

 But his effort and trouble and loss .cannot be compared 

 for a moment with those of the Saviour in rescuing us 



