“Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” That is the manner in which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews applies the Cross of Christ as an example and an inspiration to Christians. He is exhorting them to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,” and to “run with patience the race that is set before us,” “looking unto Jesus the Author and Perfecter of our Faith, who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the Cross.” It is an aspect of our Saviour’s Cross which it is most important to realize if its significance for ourselves is to be duly appreciated. What was it that brought our Lord to the Cross? Of course, the ultimate cause was that the will of God required that sacrifice to be made for the expiation of human sin. “Him,” said St. Peter, “being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” But God’s counsel and will were worked out by human agencies; and it is of infinite interest to consider what were the motives which led men like the leaders of the Jewish nation to commit the awful crime of putting to death the Son of God, manifested in perfect human nature. The simple explanation is that He “resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” Our Lord strove against sin, and sinners could not endure His antagonism; and the opposition between the two was so intense that one or other of the two antagonists had to be overpowered. That is the substance of the story of our Lord’s life as told by the Evangelists. Our Lord came proclaiming that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand--a Kingdom with higher claims and severer judgments than the Jews could tolerate. It claimed a spiritual perfection instead of a legal one, an obedience of the heart instead of a mere compliance in external acts; it penetrated into the secrets of the conscience; and our Lord further declared that He Himself was the Judge by Whom these claims would be enforced. The Jewish rulers felt that this amounted to superseding themselves and their authority, and they treated our Lord as a usurper who must be suppressed. The tremendous denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees: “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” was an act of open and righteous hostility to the authorities who had rejected His mission and spurned His claims. They felt that He or they must be overthrown, and they used the Roman Government to destroy Him.