This witness is distinct that the death of Christ is a
sacrifice, that the death of Christ is man's deliverance from wrath,
that the death of Christ is a present deliverance from the consequences
of transgression.

And was that Paul's peculiar doctrine? Is it conceivable that, in a
letter in which he refers--once, at all events--to the churches in Judea
as their 'brethren,' he was proclaiming any individual or schismatic
reading of the facts of the life of Jesus Christ? I believe that there
has been a great deal too much made of the supposed divergencies of
types of doctrine in the New Testament. There are such types, within
certain limits. Nobody would mistake a word of John's calm, mystical,
contemplative spirit for a word of Paul's fiery, dialectic spirit. And
nobody would mistake either the one or the other for Peter's impulsive,
warm-hearted exhortations. But whilst there are diversities in the way
of apprehending, there are no diversities in the declaration of what is
the central truth to be apprehended. These varyings of the types of
doctrine in the New Testament are one in this, that all point to the
Cross as the world's salvation, and declare that the death there was the
death for all mankind.

Paul comes to it with his reasoning; John comes to it with his adoring
contemplation; Peter comes to it with his mind saturated with Old
Testament allusions. Paul declares that the 'Christ died for us'; John
declares that He is 'the Lamb of God'; Peter declares that 'Christ bare
our sins in His own body on the tree.' But all make one unbroken phalanx
of witness in their proclamation, that the Cross, because it is a cross
of sacrifice, is a cross of reconciliation and peace and hope. And this
is the Gospel that they all proclaim, 'how that Jesus Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures,' and Paul could venture to say,
'Whether it were they or I, so we preach, and so ye believed.'

That was the Gospel that took these heathens, wallowing in the mire of
sensuous idolatry, and lifted them up to the elevation and the
blessedness of children of God.

And if you will read this letter, and think that there had been only a
few weeks of acquaintance with the Gospel on the part of its readers,
and then mark how the early and imperfect glimpse of it had transformed
them, you will see where the power lies in the proclamation of the
Gospel. A short time before they had been heathens; and now says Paul,
'From you sounde