It was necessary that the precept of the law should be obeyed, and the penalty of the law endured, in the very nature of its violater. Christ answered the demands of both tables on behalf of his people, in the purity of his life, and the merit of his obedience unto death. He displayed all the fruits of holiness. He loved righteousness and hated iniquity. He paid our debt, a debt which he never contracted; he endured our curse, a curse which he never deserved. He took the cup of the wine of wrath out of our hand, and drained its very dregs upon the cross. In hell, every one drinks his own cup, and can never exhaust its contents; but behold, on Calvary, one man drains the cup of millions, and cries—“It is finished!” Not a drop is left, not a particle of any of its ingredients, for his people. God hath condemned and punished sin in the human nature of Christ, and all who believe are justified freely by his blood. But the author of our salvation is God as well as man. The Divinity often shone out through the humanity, controlling the elements, quickening the tenants of the tomb, and compelling the very devils to obey him. Had he been less than “God manifest in the flesh,” he must have been incompetent to the work of redemption. The Divine nature was necessary to sustain the human nature under its immense burden of sufferings, and render those sufferings sufficiently meritorious to atone for the transgressions of mankind. Christ endured more of the Divine displeasure “from the sixth to the ninth hour,” than all the vessels of wrath could endure to all eternity; {185} and but for the union of the two natures in his person, he could not have borne his unparalleled woes. But while the man suffered, the God sustained. While the God-man offered up his humanity, his Divinity was the altar that sanctified the gift, and rendered it a sacrifice of sweet smelling savor to the Father. It was man that died upon the cross, but it was man in mysterious union with God, so that the two natures constituted but one person, and the dignity of the Godhead gave infinite value to the tears and sweat and blood of the manhood. No wonder that the cross of Christ is the admiration of men and angels; and—“worthy is the Lamb that was slain!” the ultimate theme of earth and heaven!