“We must needs recognise the intensely Jewish character of the Pentecostal dispensation. And in this connection we must also apprehend the two-fold aspect of the death of Christ. The Cross was the manifestation of Divine love without reserve or limit; but it was also the expression of man’s unutterable malignity.
Did reverence permit us to give play to imagination on such a subject, we might suppose the death of Christ accomplished by the Roman power in spite of protests and appeals from an aggrieved and downtrodden Jewish people. More than this, we might suppose ‘the King of the Jews’ given up to death on grounds of public policy, yet treated to the last with all respect and homage due to His personal character and royal claims.
And who will dare to aver that the atoning efficacy of the death of our Divine Lord, however accomplished, could be less than infinite? But mark the emphasis which Scripture lays upon the manner of His death. It was ‘the death of the Cross’. No element of contempt or hate was wanting. Imperial Rome decreed it, but it was the favoured people who demanded it.”
(Sir Robert Anderson, The Silence of God; cp. 1978, pp. 72-73)
