peak, uttered to
His Father a complaint in which the conduct of His enemies was branded
in the terms it deserved, who would have ventured to find fault with
Him? Even in that there might have been a revelation of God; because
in the Divine nature there is a fire of wrath against sin. But how
poor would such a revelation have been in comparison with the one which
He now made. All His life He was revealing God; but now His time was
short; and it was the very highest in God He had to make known.

In this word Christ revealed Himself; but at the same time He revealed
the Father. All His life long the Father was in Him, but on the cross
the divine life and character flamed in His human nature like the fire
in the burning bush. It uttered itself in the word; "Father, forgive
them"; and what did it tell? It told that God is love.

III.

The expiring Saviour backed up His prayer for the forgiveness of His
enemies with the argument--"For they know not what they do."

This allows us to see further still into the divine depths of His love.
The injured are generally alive only to their own side of the case; and
they see only those circumstances which tend to place the conduct of
the opposite party in the worst light. But at the moment when the pain
inflicted by His enemies was at the worst Jesus was seeking excuses for
their conduct.

The question has been raised how far the excuse which He made on their
behalf applied. Could it be said of them all that they knew not what
they were doing? Did not Judas know? did not the high priests know?
did not Herod know? Apparently it was primarily to the soldiers who
did the actual work of crucifixion that Jesus referred; because it was
in the very midst of their work that the words were uttered, as may be
seen in the narrative of St. Luke. The soldiers, the rude uninstructed
instruments of the government, were the least guilty among the
assailants of Jesus. Next to them, perhaps, came Pilate; and there
were different stages and degrees down, through Herod and the
Sanhedrim, to the unspeakable baseness of Judas. But St. Peter, in the
beginning of Acts, expressly extends the plea of ignorance so far as to
cover even the Sanhedrists--"And now, brethren, I wot that through
ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers"--and who will believe
that the heart of the Saviour was less comprehensive than that of the
disciple?

Let us not be putting limits to the divine mercy. It is