h masterly forethought, and self-control and
deliberation He had done the thing He had set Himself to do. Never was
yielding so masterful. Never was a great plan carried out so fully
through the set purpose of one's enemies. His every action bears out the
word He had spoken, "No man taketh My life away from Me, I lay it down
of Myself."[125]

So now His great work is done, and thoroughly done. His lips speak the
tremendous word, "It is finished." And He bowed His head and _gave up_
His spirit. It was His own act. The self-restraint was strong upon Him
till all was done that was needed for the great purpose in hand. Then
His head is bowed, His great heart broke under the terrific strain on
His spirit as He allowed His life to go out.

From that moment no indignity touches His body. The Jews with their
wearisome insistence on empty technicalities would have added further
indignity to crucifixion. But that body is sacredly guarded from their
profane hand by unseen restraint. John with solemn simplicity points to
the unmistakable physical evidence, in the separation of blood and
water, that Jesus had actually died; no swooning, but death. And
reverently he finds the confirmation of Scripture.

Only tender love touches that body now. Two gentlemen of highest
official and social standing and of large wealth, brothers in their
faith in Jesus, and also in their timidity, now take steps at once to
have the precious body of their dear friend tenderly cared for without
regard to expense. So He is laid away in a new tomb in a garden among
the flowers of the spring time. The last touch is one of tender love. So
His greatest wooing was done, and begun; the great act done, its
tremendous wooing influence only just begun.

Jesus died deliberately. This is quite clear. It was done of love
aforethought. It was His own act fitted into the circumstances
surrounding Him. This makes His death mean just what He meant it to
mean. Run back through His teachings rather carefully and that meaning
stands clearly out.

He was the Father's messenger; simply this; but all of this. The ideals
of right so insistently and incessantly held up and pressed were the
Father's ideals. His mere presence told the Father's great love for men.
They two were so knit that when the one suffered the other suffered,
too.

It was the love for men in His own heart that drew Him down here and
drove Him along even to the Calvary Hill. He died _for_ men, in their
p