without that death there could not be the righteous gathering up again out of the ruin that which is manifestly marred and spoiled by the power of Satan. Again, where without it was the perfect display of what God is? Where else the utmost extent of Christ's suffering and humiliation, and obedience in them? The truth, love, holiness, wisdom, and majesty of God were all to the fullest degree vindicated in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is not a single feature of God but what, though it expresses itself elsewhere in Christ, finds its richest and most complete answer in His death. Here it is the perfect servant, who would not stop short at any one thing, and this not merely in the truest love to us, but absolutely for the glory of God. It is in this point of view that His death is referred to here; and the Spirit of God adds (vv. 9, 10), "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at [in virtue of] the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly, and earthly, and infernal [ones]." It is not merely a question of saints or of Israel, but "every knee shall bow," etc. This takes in angels and saints, and even those who are forever under the judgment of God, for to "under the earth" attaches the worst possible sense. Thus the infernal beings, the lost, come in here; the verse includes those that have rejected salvation, no less than those who confess the Saviour. It is the universal subjection of all to Christ. Jesus has won the title even as man. If unbelievers despised Him as man, as Son of man He will judge them. As man they must bow to Him. The lowly name that was His as Nazarene on the earth must be honoured everywhere; God's glory is concerned in it. In the name of Jesus or in virtue of His name, "every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." v. 11. It is not, again, a question of His being Son (which of course He was from all eternity), but Lord also. We know that the spirit of this is true for the believer now. Every soul that is now born of God bows his knee in virtue of the name of Jesus, and to Jesus. The Christian now confesses by the Holy Ghost that Jesus Christ is Lord; but this homage will be made good to an incomparably larger extent by and by. But then it will be too late for salvation. It is now received by faith which finds blessedness and eternal life in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Neither is there any man that confesses Him to be the Lord by the Holy Ghost but a saved person. But there will be more than this by and by. When the day of grace is past and God is not merely gathering out an elect body, the Church, but putting down all opposing authority, then the name of Jesus will be throughout the universe owned even by those who do it by compulsion, and who by that very acknowledgment confess their own eternal misery. In Ephesians 1:10 we are told of God's purpose for the dispensation of the fullness of times to "gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth." There is not a word, it has often been remarked, about things under the earth, because there it is not a question of universal compulsory acknowledgment of Christ even by the devils and the lost, but very simply of all things being put under the headship of Christ. Neither lost men nor devils will ever stand in