It was the strangest sermon I have listened to for many years, and all
the stranger for its unimpassioned delivery. He spoke of the Fall of Man
as a certainty[8]. He spoke continually of an offended God. Between
this offended God and His creature Man sin had dug an impassable chasm.
But Christ had thrown a bridge, from heaven's side of that chasm, over
the dreadful gulf. This is why Christ described Himself as the Way. He
is the Way over that chasm, and there is no other.
[Footnote 8: "It is a very singular and important fact that, from the
appearance in Genesis of the account of the creation and sin and
punishment of the first pair, not the faintest explicit allusion to it
is subsequently found anywhere in literature until about the time of
Christ. . . . Jesus Himself never once alludes to Adam, or to any part of
the story of Eden."--ALGER.]
But Christ also described Himself as a door. What is the definition of a
door? It is not enough to say that a door is a thing for letting people
in and letting people out. It is a thing for letting _some_ people in,
and for shutting other people out.
To whom did Christ entrust the key of this door? To St. Peter--to the
disciple who had denied Him thrice. What a marvellous choice! Would you
have thought of doing that? Should I have thought of doing that? Would
any theologian have invented such an idea? But that is what Christ did.
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