WHEN those gloating chief priests and scribes thus jeered, they were unwittingly uttering a profound truth. I wonder If we ourselves have grasped it.
Here is the master principle of redemption: He saved others; ZHimself He cannot save. In the very nature of things, if He would save others, He dare not save Himself. If He had saved Himself (as He easily could have done) He could not have saved others. The self blinded priests and scribes mistakenly supposed that His apparent inability to save Himself proved that He could not be a Saviour of others, whereas the very opposite was the case: His becoming the Saviour of others depended on His not saving Himself. That, indeed, is the binding law of all true service. As our Lord
Jesus says elsewhere: Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it (Matt. 16: 25). That which counts is always that which costs. We must bleed if we would bless. We must lose ourselves if we would save others. Jesus did; and so must we, in our lesser way. What we selfishly retain we lose. What we sacrificially give up we gain. We conquer by yielding. We get by giving. We win by losing. We live by dying. We save others only when self-absorption gives place to compassionate otherism. A contemporary novel describes a certain female thus: Edith was a little country bounded on the north, south, east, and west by Edith. To this we may add, And, behold, the country of Edith was desert. See our Lord, again, on that Cross; then recall His words, Except a seed of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. If our Lord had saved Himself, He could not have saved us. To save us, Himself He could not save. How like or unlike Him are you and I, who call ourselves His followers? All around us are Christless souls. What are we doing to win them? Is it inconvenient? Does it bring rebuff? Does it hurt? Does it cost? Is it tiring ? Well, listen again to those priests and scribes: He saved others ; Himself He cannot save ! And now, finally, in that spiteful sneer-so strangely wicked yet
so strangely true-see the supreme meaning of our Lord's life and death. It was His crucifiers themselves who confessed it- He saved others , or, to translate it more exactly, He has saved others . Yes, He has, in their millions. It was in order to save that He lived and died and rose again. Had Israel's priests and scribes only realised it, even as they
were sarcastically admitting that He had saved others, His very dying was to save them! But, alas, those hard-hearted leaders, by their own use of that word, others , placed themselves outside His saving reach. What they were really saying was, He saved others, but He has not saved us . By that word, others , they excluded themselves. And it is still true that the only ones excluded are the self-excluded. He saved others. He still saves others. If He has saved you and me', let us be out to tell them!
Is it costly? Is it hurtful? Easier far be dumb than brave? Then remember, He saved others, But Himself He would not
Source: ŠJ. Sidlow Baxter: Awake My Heart