The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-03-29


 Text, For unto you it is given in be-
 half of Christ, not only to believe IT him, but also to suffer for his sake ! Phil. 1:29.
 When Paul sent this message to the church at Philippi from his Roman dun
 geon, nearly a whole generation hao
 passed away since the death of Christ
 He still holds cut to them the privilege
 of a present crucifxion and a fellow
 ship in Christ's suffering, as the test
 and evidence of their belief in Him
 From these words of Paul it would seem that there were some so soon after Christs crucifixion who tried to divorce
 crucifxion for Christianity and belief from a fellowship in suffering. And he says to them, Unto you it is given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake,
 The crucifixion is past, present and on going power in life
 Life was sacrificial before Bethlehem and Calvary. Jesus did not create the law of crucihxion when he lived His crucified life and died His crucified death. He simply laid supreme emphasis upon a crucifiXion which was in life before and is all life. The life of Jesus was then not an unnatural life but the only supremely natural life the world has ever known. Calvary was then the consummation of all the cruci- fixion of the past and the prophecy of the continual crucifixion of the future. Christ Himself could not have been saved except as he entered into the crucifed life. For Him, as for us, to save His life was to lose it and to lose 1t for the service of the world was to save it.
 He gave expression 10 universal law of life when He said If any man will come after Me let him deny himself and enter into daily crucifixion and follow Me-
 Let us remember too that the cruci- fixion was in the heart of God before 1t was in the life of Christ. Christs cru cifixion is not the cause of Gods love, but Gods eternal love is expressed in Christ's crucifixion,
 We have gathered this morning that, on the day of the crucifixion we may enter into the spirit of the Crucifixed One and learn somewhat the fellowship of His suffering.
 What Paul said to the Philippian church thirty years after the death and ascension of Christ we have right to say to the New Haven church 1909 years after His crucifxion. Let us hear those words again and let us hear them not for the church at Phiippi but for the church in New Ha yen Unto you it is given in behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for his sake" Paul speaking again to the same church in more personal way expressed his own longing for deeper fellowship in the continued crucifixion. He says, and this also each one of us may take to him. self, That l may know Him and the power of His resurrection and tile fel- lowship of His suffering, being made comfortable unto His death."
 All life grows out of death. All non- volitional life enters into an involun- tary erucifixion as natural expression of the life of God, Volitional life enters into fellowship with the crucifiXion in willing cooperation with the life of God The perfection of the human body is then the product of a long continued crucifxion through which higher forms  pains and death of lower forms of life Life before it is human enters without choice into the crucified life of God, but life human chooses the crucihed life, or refusing dies without spiritual pos terity.
 Geology, zoology and anthropology teach the same lesson of the continued | crucifxion of life, lower, that life, | higher, may be born
 It must be clearly concluded then | that the crucified life is primarily the | life of God and that he who, having all this unconscious crucifxion gathered up into his life, physical, coming to volun teer being should choose the crucifled life for which all his ancestral life has been an unconscious preparation If | there be in man original selfshness or sin which is opposed to the crucified life there is also original love or cru cfixion, which becomes the perpetual power of God toward righteousness.
 The power of the life of Christ over the world is the power of the cross Christ was called to the cross and the that works by crucifiXion, not by any command of God from with out his life, but by the internal compul- sion of His own love filled life when He has given all the fitness of the divine nature.
 There were two calls to service and that operated in the life of Jesus Christ--The one was the com mand of his own love which expressed the eternal love of God for His human child and then there was the uncon- scious call Of needy men who said by all their unrealized need Come and help us" God said in Christ's sonship "Go and redeem the world" Men said by all their poverty and want and un- known need, Come and help us." Be- tween the internal command compelling him to seek and save the lest and sat isfying the need of men for salvation he found continued crucifixion all the way from Bethlehem to Calvary. His transforming power was the pow er of crucified life. For Him the cru cified life meant salvation; for Him the life of selfishness could have meant pnly to be lost. Jesus could not have been saved by accepting all the king doms of the world of self interest He knew that for Him to leave the way of the unselfsh or crucified life was to leave the fundamental law of the flHH I.NNrn