No one can read the New Testament without seeing that its central and most conspicuous fact is the death of Jesus.  Take, for instance, the gospels, and you will find that over one-quarter of their pages are devoted to the story of His death.  Very strange is this indeed, if Jesus was nothing but an illustrious teacher.  A thousand interesting events of His career are passed over, a thousand discourses are never mentioned, in order that there may be abundant room for the telling of His death.  Or take the letters which make up the last half of the New Testament; in these letters there is scarcely a quotation from the lips of Jesus.  Strange indeed is this if Jesus is only the world’s greatest teacher.  The letters seem to ignore that He was a teacher or reformer, but every letter is soaked in the pathos of His death.  There must be a deep and providential reason for all this.  The character of the gospels and the letters must have been due to something that Jesus said or that the Holy Spirit inbreathed.  A study of the New Testament will convince us that Jesus had trained His disciples to see in His sufferings and death the climax of God’s crowning revelation to the world.  The key-note of the whole gospel story is struck by John the Baptist in his bold declaration, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”  In that declaration there was a reference to His death, for the “lamb” in Palestine lived only to be slain.  As soon as Jesus began His public career He began to refer in enigmatic phrases to His death.  He did not declare His death openly, but the thought of it was wrapt up inside of all He said.  Nicodemus comes to Him at night to have a talk with Him about His work, and among other things, Jesus says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so shall the Son of man be lifted up.”  Nicodemus did not know what He meant—­we know.  He goes into the temple and drives out the men who have made it a den of thieves, and when an angry mob surrounds Him He calmly says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  They did not know what He meant—­we know.  He goes into the city of Capernaum, and is surrounded by a great crowd who seem to be eager to know the way of life.  He begins to talk to them about the bread that comes down from heaven, and among other things He says, “The bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”  They did not understand what He said—­we understand it now.  One day in the city of Jerusalem He utters a great discourse upon the good shepherd.  “I am the good shepherd,” He says; “the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”  They did not understand Him—­we do.  In the last week of His earthly life it was reported that a company of Greeks had come to see Him.  He falls at once into a thoughtful mood, and when at last He speaks it is to say that “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.”  The men standing by did not understand what He said—­we understand.  All along His journey, from the Jordan to the cross, He dropt such expressions as this:  “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished.”  Men did not know what He was saying—­it is all clear now.