carried out the sentence of death, it would have been accomplished not by crucifixion, but by stoning.  Such an execution would not have fulfilled prophecy or have been associated with the ignominy that marked the Roman death-penalty.  Thus the Scripture was fulfilled in Him, “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."[097] There is but one explanation that meets these facts, which is that they were directed by the counsel and foreknowledge of God, and that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

The death of Jesus by crucifixion fulfilled in a wonderful manner the types and figures of the Old Testament.  He applied the type of the brazen serpent to His death on the cross on which He was to be lifted up, and from which He was to exercise His healing power on those whom sin had bitten.  The surrender of Isaac by Abraham, when he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, prefigured the unspeakable gift by the Father, who spared not His own Son, and the self-surrender of the Son, who gave Himself for us.  As Isaac went forth bearing the wood on which he was to be offered, he was a type of Him who went forth from Jerusalem to Calvary bearing His cross.  Had His sentence been any other than death by crucifixion, He would not have come under the doom which required that a prisoner should bear his cross.  The Paschal Lamb, of which not a bone was to be broken, prefigured the Antitype in His exemption from the treatment to which the two thieves crucified with Him were subjected.  In crucifixion He was numbered with the transgressors and associated with accursed criminals, and so prophecy received fulfilment.

It is a standing testimony at once to the reality of Christ’s suffering, and to the power which He exercises over men’s minds and consciences, that from being associated with shame and scorn, the sign of the cross has been elevated to the highest place of honour and dignity.  Through his reverence for Jesus, Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor of Rome, abolished crucifixion.  It is recognised that through Christ’s death upon the cross man obtains all that makes life precious.  Instead of being regarded with scorn, a cross is the coveted emblem now of valour and exalted achievement.  The instrument wherewith capital punishment was inflicted on abandoned criminals has come to be an ornament of monarchs.  Such a change is to be explained only by the fact that it is the sign of Christ’s redeeming sacrifice, and that to multitudes who glory in the Cross, He who suffered the painful death on Calvary is the “power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation.”

SECTION 3.—­DEAD