Yes, brethren, we must either take those words, '_I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me_,' as they stand, trying to learn a little of what they mean from the past history of the world, waiting for God to explain them to us more perfectly in the future; we must either confess that there are depths in God's purposes of love which no creature has sounded, heights which no creature has reached, but of which the Cross gives us the fullest glimpse we are capable of; we must either do this, or we must ask just as the Jews did,--'_Who is this Son of man?_' They could dream of a Christ who should exalt the chosen people, who should set them over their enemies. They could anticipate with a kind of faith the coming of such a Christ, and they could be sure that when He came He would abide for ever. But one who identified Himself with men, they would not, could not confess. I use both phrases, for the Bible uses them; St. John uses them at the close of this chapter. There is a hardness of heart, an inhumanity, which makes it _impossible_ for men, for the most apparently religious men, to receive Jesus as the Son of Man. And therefore it is _impossible_ for them really to receive Him as the Son of God, as revealing the mind and character of His Father in heaven. And the Atonement of heaven and earth, of God and man; the Atonement through a sacrifice made once for all; the Atonement by the blood of One who has taken the manhood into God,--who has raised, purified, redeemed, glorified the earthly nature by joining it to the Divine,--is changed into a cold, formal arrangement for delivering certain men from the punishment of a sin which has itself not been purged away. For sin is no longer that root of bitterness, that selfishness, which has poisoned the universe, and poisons the hearts of each one of us--that deadly thing which betrays Christ, and which divides us from the Father; sin becomes the violation of an arbitrary rule, drawing after it the endurance of an arbitrary and infinite penalty. Those who boast of their religion think they can have a Christ who is not a Son of Man; a God who is their Father, and not the Father of men in Christ; a Spirit who sanctifies them, but who does not dwell in the Church,--who is not the witness of a fellowship for all creatures whatever who bear the nature which Christ bore, who die the death which Christ died. Nay, the cross of Christ--of Him who gave up Himself--is actually so presented to men, that they suppose it is the instrument by which self-seeking men may secure the greatest amount of selfish rewards! Then other men, who know that such a scheme must be subversive of all pure morality, abandon the Gospel of God for what they call the Gospel of humanity. They fancy there can be a society of men without a Shepherd who dies for them; without a Father who loves Him because He dies. And the world begins to be divided between those who deny a Son of Man,