CHRIST JESUS said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." The great object of the Christian religion is to redeem the whole world; and nothing can prevent the ultimate accomplishment of this purpose. It may take centuries to do it, but time is no factor in the unfoldment of the purposes of infinite Mind.
Even glimpses of God's manifestations, understood, tend toward higher things. The upward way is preeminently His way, and the elevating spiritual thought His thought. As we read in Isaiah: "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." In the work of spiritual redemption, the wicked must forsake his ways and the unrighteous his thoughts; and they must come to God's way before they can walk in the path of holiness, or wholeness, as portrayed by the Hebrew prophet.
The whole life of Jesus was an upward walk. It began in childhood, and continued to the ascension. As a youth he "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." To him the path was always upward to something higher. He was always moving heavenward. He was always doing the things that were pleasing in his Father's sight. To overcome and to finish his work was the ambition of his earthly life. He said of himself, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work."
