The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-01-19

ship to God, and declares that when Peter
names him the Christ, he speaks by in
spiration of his Father.
2. That Jesus is the Christ is
the Foundation of the Christian
Church,-vs. 1920.
/say unto Mee hiatt art Peter; and
nbon this rock a0iy 6uild my chnrehy,
and the GATES Of Hades shall not prs0aH
against it,
Who was Peter at this moment? Mani
festy the incarnation of the truth that Je-
sus is the Christ. Upon this Peter, liter
orally Rock, Jesus declared that his church
would be built.
Jesus prophesied that his church,-built
upon himself as the Son of Man yet true
witness of God,-would endure through
the ages. The gates of Hades, the power
of Death, would assail in vain. 1t would
be indestructible.
Jesus further declared to Peter as the
pioneer of his church, Whatsoever thou
| shalt bind on earth shall be b0und in
keaven 7Ohatsoe1ey M0U shalt loose on
earth shall be ko0Sed TN hea0en. He thus
told them, in phrasing common to the rab-
bis, that his church should represent to the
world Il e Justice and Mercy of Heaven.
Jesus deemed it prudent to charge the
disciples not yet to proclaim that Jesus
was the Christ. Such an announcement
would have speedily brought the Roman
hordes on his track, and set all the malign
forces in Jerusalem in activity against him.
3. Jesus Instructs his Apostles
in the Peculiar HethOd of his
Ministry,-vs. arg.
Fr0u that time began Jesus to shozO nm
to his disciples ho70 that he must go unto
Jervsalem, and suffer many things Of tie
elders and CHIT Priests and scribes, and
be killed, and the third day be raised nb.
That THE CHRIST, as Jesus had now
declared himself to be, could be literally
subject 10 the indignities CT the enraged
Jerusalem authorities; that Jesus should
himself go up voluntarily to Jerusalem
and deliberately put himself in the grip Of
his revengeful enemies,-were statements
which the disciples could not regard other
wise than with incredulity
His saying that on the third day he
should rise again, after violent death,
was saying as incomprehensible to them
as it would be to any men in their place.
That THE CHRIST could die seemed pos
sible to them only in some fgurative or
poetic sense; and his speaking of rising
from death in three days would tend to
take all literalness out of his strange
prophesies.
| Dafnr haCopoa aua;p N for fha
Twelve: Be it far from tkee, Loya,' this
shall ne0er be unto thee. 1t was friend
ly, yet of course mistaken endeavor, to
dissuade Jesus from going to Jerusalem
and offering himself in martyrdom to the
Gospel
That Peter could see no wisdom in such
choice is to say of him that he judged as
all would Judge who locked at things with
human eyes. What Jesus proposed to do,
by the standard of human experience,
seemed supreme folly. That Peter should
say, literally, GOD haze mercy on Hee;, it
mast net be so unf0 kEee, indicates simply
that the wisdom of this world in the loft
lest ranges then achieved, found utterance
through his tongue.
of the truth on which the Church was to
be built. Now, under the same law, he is
the incarnation of the World-Sprit, in en-
deavoring, with the persuasiveness and
sympathy of fervent love, to dissuade Jesus
from following the path to humiliation and
apparent defeat
The World-Spirit, which Jesus had met
and for the time overcome in the wilder
ness, which had assaulted him again and
again with suggestions that he change his
life-plan, now appears in the loving heart
of his disciple.
But the firm purpose of THE CHRIST,
his moral heroism which could never really
waver, impelled him to say to his kindly
meaning disciple: Get thee 6ehina me,
Satan. MoW art a stumbling block unto
me: fer Hou mindeSt not the things of
God, but tie things Of men.
No eyes at this time save those of Jesus
could discern the wisdom of the cross.