on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of
supplications, and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and
they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall
be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his
firstborn." Jehovah speaks figuratively of the opposition shown to
Himself and His servants as piercing Him with pain, just as we say of
an insult that it cuts to the heart. But in the death of Jesus the
figure became a fact: against the sacred person of the Son of God the
spear was lifted up, and it was driven home without compunction.
Evidently St. John thinks of this rather as the act of the Jewish
people than of the Roman soldier. But the prophecy speaks not only of
the people piercing God, but of their looking at their own work with
shame and tears. At Pentecost this began to be fulfilled; and in every
age since there have been members of the Jewish race who have
acknowledged their guilt in the transaction. The full acknowledgment,
however, still lingers; but the conversion of God's ancient people,
when it comes, must begin with this. Indeed, every human being to whom
his own true relation to Christ is revealed must make the same
acknowledgment. It was the heart not of a few soldiers or of the
representatives of a single people, but of the human race, that
hardened itself against Him. It was the sin of the world that nailed
Him to the tree and shed His blood. Every sinner may therefore feel
that he had a hand in it; and it is only when we see our own sin as
aiming at the very existence of God in the death of His Son that we
comprehend it in all its enormity.

There have been many who have found the reason for St. John's wonder in
the fact that out of the wounded side there flowed blood and water.

From a corpse, when it is pierced--at least, if it has been some time
dead--it is not usual for anything to flow. But whether St. John
reflected on this or not we cannot tell. What fascinated him was
simply the fact that the piercing of the body of the Saviour made it a
fountain out of which sprang this double outflow. When the rock in the
wilderness was smitten with the rod of Moses, there issued from it a
stream which was life to the perishing multitude; but in the double
stream coming from the side of Jesus St. John saw something better even
than that; because to him the blood symbolized the atonement, and the
water the Spirit of Christ; and in t