Read Paul's life. Read his epistles. You see at a glance what Christ was to _him_--a Redeemer. And what to him was the very centre of Christian truth? "Christ crucified." He had been so roused as to see clearly the relation between himself and God. The true sense of sin had been awakened within him. No man had made more strenuous efforts to obtain justification by the works of the law than he had; and no man had more deeply realised his helplessness. How does he describe the struggle? "I had not known sin, but by the law.... When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.... Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.... That which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.... I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) there dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.... O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." We all know how God arrested, overcame, and subdued him, by showing him in that same "Jesus Christ our Lord" the mystery of the Divine love. God taught him that he must no longer expect righteousness and eternal life to come from his own works, to be wrought by his own strength. Eternal life is the free gift of God. Look to the cross! Listen to the Spirit! Learn in "the folly of the cross" to adore the wisdom and the power of God--a forgiveness that glorifies justice as well as mercy; a forgiveness that kills sin as well as removes its penalty; a salvation that harmonises man with God as well as forgives him; a salvation that implies a perfect holiness, the motive being love, and the effectual power being that of the Holy Spirit. Deep as his want had been, it was now completely met by the revelation of the Saviour. To that revelation his response was prompt, complete, irrevocable. He says that it was as though scales had fallen from his eyes, this disclosure of the Divine plan of salvation to his mind. It was full of light, full of mercy. The manifestation of the risen Christ was the instrumentality which enlightened him. He saw straightway the nature and purpose of "the cross," the certainty of justification through faith, the believer's completeness in Christ. "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." "There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who