CHRIST OUR ROCK FOUNDATION.
By H. A. St. John
IN Matthew 7, and Luke 6, Jesus taught that the wise man always digs deep and establishes his house on the rock. Only such houses, or characters, as are thus founded, can ever stand. All others are built on the sand, and some day will fall, and great will be the fall. No other foundation can any man lay than that which is laid, and that is Christ. This rock foundation is found by the sinner only by digging deep. Great was the condescension of Christ to become a rock upon which we may build for eternity. From his humble birth in a manger, all through His earthly life He humbled Himself as a man, even to the death on the cross, a crucifixion. He descended into the lower parts of the earth—the heart of the earth; He was bruised for our iniquities; wounded for our transgressions. He made His soul an offering for sin. This Jesus, by descending to the very depths of human wo, became the rock foundation, to which, by humiliation, and repentance, and crucifixion, the sinner may dig. Finding that Rock, he falls upon it, is broken, and healed. Thus was Christ as a lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The experience of the condescension of Christ to constitute Himself the foundation rock, or basis, for man's salvation and elevation, for long centuries was daily and continually typified by the divinely-appointed service of offering animal sacrifices. Only such animals were acceptable as were young, sound, clean, and perfect. Then this desirable and beautiful animal was taken, slain, its blood spilled, its body cut in pieces, eaten in part, and burned. How great, how incomprehensible, the love of God, who gave His beloved Son, the Lamb of God, to die for man, and thus to open the way for man to get a sure footing upon a pathway that leads to everlasting life! Let none deceive themselves by thinking they can climb up to heaven in any other way, for "there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Now when the sinner has found Jesus as the true foundation, when he has been all broken with contrition and godly sorrow for sin, when he has, by that almighty Saviour, been lifted from the mire and clay, and set upon the rock with the new song of praise to God in his mouth, he is now entered safely through the straight gate upon the narrow way; and henceforth he is to pattern after the Christ life, to grow up into Him in all things. For Jesus not only died our sacrifice, thus becoming our Rock-foundation, but He also lived our example and thus becomes the model or the pattern of the building that we are to erect on the Rock. In the parable of the sheepfold, Jesus repre10sents Himself first, as the door to the sheepfold, second, as the sheepfold itself, then third and last, as the Good Shepherd. Likewise in this parable Jesus is the foundation, the model, and also the owner of the building. If at last it is found that our characters are built on Christ as the only true foundation, and are built after the pattern or model of Christ, the only true model, then Christ, the owner, will say to us at last, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, . . . enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."