Note, from these collective sayings, our Lord's conception of the manner in which the purpose of His life was to be discharged.
Again I summarise. The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.' I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' To this end came I into the world, to bear witness to the truth.' I am come to send fire on earth.' Now observe that these three last statements of the manner in which He discharges His work--viz, calling sinners to repentance, bearing witness to the truth, and sending fire on earth, are subordinate to the great purpose which was stated in the first of the passages quoted, the Son of Man is come to give His life a ransom for many.' The calling of sinners to repentance, and the bearing witness to the truth, fall mainly under the ministering which He did upon earth. Sending fire on earth is, as His own words abundantly show, only possible as the result of His giving His life a ransom for many. And so we have to regard the manner of His effecting His purpose as falling into two great portions, whereof the one covers the earthly life of ministration, with all the gentle words that drew publicans and harlots, and melted susceptible souls into a passion and a flood of repentance that needed not to be repented of, and with its witness to the truth by all the gracious words that came from His lips, and most chiefly by the witness of His life, which declared God to men, and revealed men to themselves.
But, side by side with that ministration by life, separable from it, and the shining apex of the great pyramid that was raised day by day, and deed by deed, stands His death as the ransom for many.' Brethren, conceptions of Christ's manner of saving the world which put all the emphasis on His witnessing to the truth, or on His gracious ministrations, or even upon His calling sinners to repentance, are truncated and incomplete; and, on the other hand, all these other forms of His activity are most fully operative in His death as our ransom on the Cross. For I would fain know what, in all the gentle beauty of His earthly life, has moulded and drawn hearts to self-abasement and a hearty hatred of, and turning from, their sins, like the pathos and the power of that death? and what, in all the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth, and in all the deeds of beauty with which He wrought for us the living example of duty, has so borne witness to the truth, as that same death? And what is it that kindled the fire of that swift Spirit, poured out upon the world's icy coldness, but the sacrifice which must needs precede it?
Therefore, unless we take the ransom as the chief part of the manner by which He saves the world, we do not go back to Christ,' nor accept His own estimate of Himself. If we do so accept, we must listen to Him saying, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up'; The bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.'
