In the Outer Court
57
the crowning evidence of his Messiahship, the signal of the Father
that Jesus had uttered the truth, and was the Son of God. Would the
Jews turn from this testimony of high Heaven? They had once asked
the Saviour, What sign showest thou that we may see and believe?
Innumerable signs had been given all through the ministry of Christ;
yet they had closed their eyes and hardened their hearts lest they should
be convinced. The crowning miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus
did not remove their unbelief, but filled them with increased malice;
and now that the Father had spoken, and they could ask for no further
sign, their hearts were not softened and they still refused to believe.
Jesus now resumed his discourse where he had left it: “Now is the
judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out.
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This
he said, signifying what death he should die.” In the act of Christ dying
for the salvation of man, Heaven was not only made accessible to man,
but God and his Son were justified before all Heaven in dealing with
the rebellion of Satan, and in his expulsion. The blot which Satan had
placed upon Heaven itself was thus to be washed away; and no sin
could ever more enter there to all eternity.
The holy angels, and all created intelligences of the worlds where
sin had not entered, responded in hallelujahs to the judicial sentence
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pronounced upon Satan, applauding the act of Christ which removed
the mortgage Satan held upon the souls of men. The holy angels, as
well as those who are washed by the blood of Christ, are drawn to him
by his crowning act of giving his life for the sins of the world. Christ,
in being lifted up upon the cross to die, opened the way of life to both
Jews and Gentiles, to all nations, tongues, and people.
Alas for the haughty Jews who knew not the day of their visita-
tion! Slowly and regretfully, Christ, with his disciples, left forever the
precincts of the temple.
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