What, we asked, did Jesus mean by "lost"? This, above all, that sin cuts a man adrift from God. In the parable of the Prodigal Son this is brought out (Luke 15:11-32). There the youth took from his father all he could get, and then deliberately turned his back on him forever; he went into a far country, out of his reach, outside his influence, and beyond the range of his ideas, and he devoted his father's gifts to precisely what would sadden and trouble his father most. And then came bankruptcy, final and hopeless. There was no father available in the far country; he had to live without him, and it came to a life that was not even human--a life of solitude, a life of beasts. Jesus draws it, as he does most things, in picture form, using parable. Paul puts the same in directer language; sin reduces men to a position where they are "alienated from the life of God" (Eph. 4:18; Col. 1:21), "without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12), "enemies of God" (Rom. 5:10; Col. 1:21); but he does not say more than Jesus implies. Paul's final expression, "God gave them up" (thrice in Rom. 1:24, 26, 28), answers to the Judge's word, in Jesus' picture, "Depart from me" (Matt. 25:41). O Wedding-guest, this soul hath been Alone on a wide, wide sea: So lonely 'twas, that God himself Scarce seeméd there to be. So Jesus handles the problem of sin, but that is only half the story, for there remains the problem of Redemption. The treatment of sin is far profounder and truer than John the Baptist or any other teacher has achieved; and it implies that Jesus will handle Redemption in a way no less profound and effective. If he does not, then he had better not have preached a gospel. If, in dealing with sin, he touches reality at every point, we may expect him in the matter of Redemption to reach the very centre of life.[30] How else can he, with his serious view of sin, say to a man, "Thy sins are forgiven thee"? (Mark 2:5). But it is quite clear from our records that, while Jesus laid bare in this relentless way the ugliness and hopelessness of sin, he did not despair: his tone is always one of hope and confidence. The strong man armed may find a stronger man come upon him and take from him the panoply in which he trusted (Luke 11:21, 22). There is a great gulf that cannot be crossed (Luke 16:26)--yes, but if the experience of Christendom tells us anything, it tells us that Jesus crossed it himself, and did the impossible. "The great matter is that Jesus believed God was willing to take the human soul, and make it new and young and clean again." But the human soul did not believe it, till Jesus convinced it, and won it, by action of his own. "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost"; and he did not come in vain. CHAPTER VIII THE CHOICE OF THE CROSS