ealing with the guilty Jews, it was the historical
fact which the Holy Ghost urged for their conviction: "Ye denied the Holy
One and the Just, and killed the Prince of Life" (Acts 3: 14, 15). In
dealing with us Gentiles, it is rather the theological or evangelical
fact: "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust,
that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3: 18), and you are condemned
that you have not believed on him and confessed him as Saviour and Lord.
It is the same sin in the last instance, but viewed upon its reverse
side, if we may say it. In the one case it is the guilt of despising and
rejecting the Son of God; in the other, it is the guilt of not believing
in him who was despised and rejected of men. Yet if submissively yielded
to, the Spirit will lead us from this first stage of revelation to the
second, since what Andrew Fuller said of the doctrines of theology is
equally true of the convictions of the Spirit, that "they are united
together like chain-shot, so that whichever one enters the heart the
other must certainly follow."

"_Of righteousness, because I go to the Father and {192} ye see me no
more._" Not until he had been seated in the heavenly places had Christ
perfected righteousness for us. As he was "delivered for our offenses
and raised again for our justification," so must he be enthroned for our
assurance. It is necessary to see Jesus standing at the right hand of
God, in order to know ourselves "accepted in the Beloved." How beautiful
the culmination of Isaiah's passion-prophecy wherein, accompanying the
promise that "he shall bear the sin of many," is the prediction that "by
his knowledge _shall my righteous servant justify many_"! But he must be
shown to be righteous, in order that he may justify; and this is what his
exaltation does. "It was the proof that him whom the world condemned,
God justified--that the stone which the builders rejected, God made the
Headstone of the corner--that him whom the world denied and lifted up on
a cross of shame in the midst of two thieves, God accepted and lifted up
in the midst of the throne."[1]

The words "and because ye see me no more," which have perplexed the
commentators, seem to us {193} to give the real clue to the meaning of
the whole passage. So long as the High Priest was within the veil, and
unseen, the congregation of Israel could not be sure of their acceptance.
Hence the eager anxiety with which they waited his