Page:Heralds of God.djvu/69

THE PREACHER'S THEME In Its essence, it was none of these things. Doubtless it included some of them, but basically it was quite different. It was the announcement of certain concrete facts of history, the heralding of real, objective events. Its keynote was, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you." Declaration, not debate, was its characteristic attitude. The driving-force of the early Christian mission was not propaganda of beautiful ideals of the brotherhood of man; it was proclamation of the mighty acts of God.

What were these historic events thus heralded far and wide? There were two events, which in reality were not two but one. "Christ died for our sins." That was fundamental. At the very heart of the apostles' message stood the divine redemptive deed on Calvary. But this literally crucial event was never in their preaching isolated from the other which crowned and completed it, forming as it were the keystone of the arch. In the terse language of the Book of Acts, they preached "Jesus and the Resurrection." "So we preach," wrote Paul summarily to the Corinthians, "and so ye believed." It is worth remembering that when towards the end he was indicted before Festus and Agrippa, it was this unceasing witness to the Resurrection which formed the major count in the charge his accusers brought against him. All the trouble centred in "one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive." In other words, the Resurrection—so far from being dragged in or tacked 63