Our blessed Lord might have come into this world of sin and sorrow. He might have become a man. He might have been baptized in the Jordan--anointed by the Holy Ghost--tempted of Satan in the wilderness. He might have gone about doing good. He might have lived and labored, wept and prayed, and, at the close, gone back to heaven again, thus leaving us involved in deeper gloom than ever. He might, like the priest or the Levite, in the parable, have come and looked upon us in our wounds and misery, passed by on the other side and returned alone to the place from whence He came. And what if He had? what, reader, but the flames of an everlasting hell for thee and me? For, be it well remembered, that all the living labors of the Son of God--His amazing ministry--His days of toil and His nights of prayer--His tears, His sighs, His groans--the whole of His life-work, from the manger up to, but short of, the cross, could not have blotted out one speck of guilt from a human conscience. "Without shedding of blood is no remission." No doubt, the eternal Son had to become a man that He might die; but incarnation could not cancel guilt. Indeed, the life of Christ, as a man on this earth, only proved the human race more guilty still. "If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin." The light that shone in His blessed ways only revealed the moral darkness of man--of Israel--of the world. Hence, therefore, had He merely come and lived and labored here for three-and-thirty years, and gone back to heaven, our guilt and moral darkness would have been fully proved but no atonement made. "It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul." "Without shedding of blood is no remission," (Heb. ix. 22.) This is a grand foundation-truth of Christianity, and must be constantly affirmed, and tenaciously held. There is immense moral power in it. If it be true that all the life-labors of the Son of God--His tears, His prayers, His groans, His sighs--if all these things put together could not cancel one single speck of guilt; then, indeed, may we not lawfully inquire what possible value can there be in our works--our tears--our prayers--our religious services--our ordinances, sacraments and ceremonies--the whole range of religious activity and moral reform? Can such things avail to cancel our sins and give us a righteousness before God? The thought is perfectly monstrous. If any or all of these things could avail, then why the sacrificial, atoning death of Christ? Why that ineffable and inestimable sacrifice, if aught else would have done?