Having died as a sacrificial substitute, death considered as a penalty, and the guilt and demerit of sin which induced the penalty, have been set aside for all for whom his substitution avails. Nor does Christianity leave us long in doubt as to those for whom the substitution obtains. In full and precise statement of doctrine it tells us that this substitution is on the behalf of, and for, all who individually claim our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross as a personal sacrifice for sin, and who by faith offer him to God as the sacrifice and sin offering which God himself has provided. Thus it follows, that for every believer--death as a penalty has been abolished, brought to nought. This is the first great and joyous proclamation of Christianity, _Death has been abolished as a penalty for every believer_. It has been abolished _de jure_, not yet _de facto_. The Christian still dies, but his death is no longer penal, it is providential and provisional. In the hour of death the Christian is not seized as a culprit and hurried away to execution. On the contrary, when the hour of death sounds for him, a voice inspired from heaven assures him that he has reached the threshold of the "far better"; he arises and "departs," that he may be "absent from his home in this body and present at his home with the Lord." His death is not a defeat, but a begun victory, and, inasmuch as both soul and spirit are delivered from the underworld and the shades of death, he has the assurance that the penalty will yet be completely abolished concerning his body: it is both the assurance and the prophecy of it. Christianity is, then, primarily, the good news, and the doctrinal demonstration, that death as a judicial sentence has been abolished for the Christian. But Christianity is something more than the abolition of death--it is-- Second--The bringing in and revelation of life. Through the Gospel, we are told, life has been brought to light. In the nature of the case this cannot mean natural life. There was no necessity that it should be brought into light. It has never been in darkness. It is manifest everywhere. Light and life are synonymous. There is not a condition in which in some form or other it does not exist. While one class of life may not live in a certain environment, there are other forms to which this environment would be as a hotbed for their production. Life is, indeed, universal, and may be said to be omnipresent. You will find it in the deepest depths of earth, and in the highest reaches of air. It expands on the mountain top, it dwells in the sea; it is organized in the infusoria, it exists in the infinitesimal, and reveals itself at last, in the beauty of woman and the strength of man. As natural life has always thus been in evidence; as it has never been in the dark at all, then the life which our Lord Jesus Christ has brought to light is not natural life--it is new life--a life unknown to the world before.