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1. Standing alone, these words might be understood to refer to the Ascension. St. Peter twice applies the expression to that event. But St. John explains the text according to our Lord's own meaning in John 3:14, and John 13:28.

2. The Apostle has preserved the text for the purpose of enforcing his main theme — the Divinity of Christ — whereas the stress in the other Gospels is on the manhood, although neither side of our Lord's Person is overlooked by either. This general difference culminates in the picture of the Crucifixion. To the Three that is the lowest depth of Christ's humiliation, and their task is to train our sympathies with the perfect Man. But to St. John the cross is not a scaffold but a throne; not defeat but victory; not a repulsion but a world-wide attraction.

3. If Christianity had come from man its chief attraction would not have been placed here, but to Christ on the Mount or beyond the stars. The wisdom of the Teacher, the prowess of the Conqueror, the majesty of the King would have been put forward, and a veil drawn over these dark hours. Instead of this, Christianity boasts of that which to human eyes must have appeared a failure. Twenty years after this prediction St. Paul echoes it, "We preach Christ crucified," and implies that that is the compendium of all Christian doctrine and morality, "I determined," etc. Wherein consists this attraction? In —

I. THE MORAL BEAUTY AND STRENGTH OF SELF-SACRIFICE. This fascinates because —

1. It requires a moral effort of the highest kind, and commands admiration exactly proportioned to its intensity.

2. It is rare. The mass of men follow self. The majestic power of keeping well in hand the forces that belong to the life of nature is as rare as it is beautiful. As we admire gems and flowers for their rarity as well as for their beauty, so we are drawn to great examples of self-sacrifice.

3. It is fertilizing. It is not unproductive moral beauty or energy run to waste. All the good done among men is proportioned to the amount of sacrifice employed. To witness sacrifice is to breathe a bracing atmosphere, and to be capable of it is already to be strong. All intense labour, and particularly that which is at the same time unrecognized or discouraged, is sacrifice of a high order. Such has been that of discoverers whose discoveries have been made public after death. Faraday's life was one example of disinterestedness and vast results of sacrificial labour. There are also lives in which sacrifice is pure suffering, undergone for a great cause or truth. The old pagans knew how to appreciate, e.g., the deaths of the three hundred at Thermopylae. And who that has ever witnessed the welcome a man receives who saves a fellow creature from a watery grave, or a burning house, can doubt the empire of sacrifice over every class in society. Our Lord said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." That each gift of what is dear to self adds immeasurably to moral capital is a matter of experience. Wealth consists not in the abundance of things external to ourself but in internal possession, in the force and freedom of the will to do good. That is God-like and Christ-like. Christ surrendered long before all that man cares for most, but on the cross He gave His life. Had He come amongst us without this mark, not doctrine, prowess or majesty would have drawn us to Him.

II. THE SUFFERINGS ENDURED.

1. Life is made up largely of pain of body or mind. Some have not begun to feel it, but all do before life closes. What account can be given of this empire of pain.

(1)  It is a punishment — the advertisement that a deeper evil lies beneath.

(2)  A purification.

(3)  A preventative.

2. Still, an abstract doctrine in justification of pain is not sufficient to support us. We need the sympathy of a fellow sufferer. Now, if Christ had come fenced in among all the comforts of life by a superhuman power, and, after teaching the true theory of pain, had died on a soft bed, He might have been honoured as a great teacher, but would not have drawn all men unto Him. As it is, He is the Universal Sympathizer. "It behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren." Therefore, after a life of varied suffering, He enforces His teaching by a supreme example of an excruciating death.

III. THE ATONEMENT HE OFFERED.

1. The prevalence of sacrifice expresses a truth recognized universally by the conscience, viz., that man carries about him that which is offensive to the purity of heaven. The depth of the sense of sin is proportioned to the soul's vision of moral truth, which becomes clearer as the law of God is more clearly revealed. The law affords a standard of duty, but gives no means of realizing it. Would, then, Christ have drawn all men unto Him had He only left the Sermon on the Mount? Nay, they who have felt the reproaches of the Decalogue would have felt more keenly the reproaches of the Beatitudes.

2. Christ draws all men because He alone offers relief to this our deepest need. The Bible describes three forms which a sense of sin takes, and how Christ crucified relieves us from each.

(1) It tells man that sin is like a tyrant who keeps him fettered, and then points to Christ as paying down a ransom by His death.

(2) It tells us that since God is holy, sin makes God and man at enmity; and that Jesus removes this by an atonement.

(3) It insists that sin once committed is not like a vapour which melts away into the sky, but that it leaves a positive load of guilt behind it, and then it points to Jesus as taking this load and offering for it as a propitiation His supreme act of obedience.

3. Faith unites us with the all-sacrificing Christ. Conclusion:

1. The Cross is the one real principle of unity to the human family.

2. To this common centre we are drawn one by one.

(Canon Liddon.)

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KJV: Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

WEB: Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out.