han any of the sons
of men, and all the more truly humanly Personal, because He was Divinely
Personal, the Word in the image of Whom man was made.

The immense significance of these truths in regard to our redemption is
this, that a separate individuality cannot be imparted to us, but a
common nature can. And that nature which the Eternal Word assumed of the
Virgin Mary, and in which He conquered sin and death, is communicated to
us by His Spirit, above all, in the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy
Communion. Here is the heart of the Atonement.

That victory over sin and death is mine, and yet not mine. That is the
splendid paradox which lies at the very root of Christianity. It is
mine, because I share in that Human Nature, which by its perfect
obedience, the obedience unto death, "triumphed gloriously" upon the
Cross. It is not mine until, by a deliberate act of my will, in self-
surrender to Christ, I have made it my own. By grace and by faith, not
by one of these without the other, we become one with Him Who died and
rose again. It is faith, the hand of the soul stretched out to receive,
which accepts and welcomes grace, the Hand of God stretched out to give.

These great thoughts we will pursue in our next address. But meanwhile,
we have at least seen that the Cross is both victory and attainment:
victory over the sin by which I have been so long held in bondage;
attainment of all I can be, all I long to be, all I was made by God to
be. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

VII
REDEMPTION (CONTINUED)

"He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath life
eternal."--JOHN VI. 54.

We were made for holiness, union with God, eternal life. These are but
different expressions for one and the same thing. For holiness is the
realisation of our manhood, of that Divine Image which is the true self,
expressing itself and acting, as it does in us, through the highest of
animal forms. That perfect self-realisation is not merely dependent
upon, but is union with God, at its beginning, throughout its course, and
in its final consummation. And the life of self-realisation or holiness,
which is the life of union with God, is eternal. Eternal life is not, as
in the popular idea of it, an endless and wearisome prolongation of mere
existence. Primarily, the idea is of the quality, not the duration of
life. In the teaching of the New Testament, eternal life is a present
possession o