The Witness of the Apostles.
I. St. Peter says of Christ, with whom he had lived in daily intercourse, He "bare our sins in His own body on the tree." Wonderful and unexampled assertion that He whom he called the sacrifice for human sin, the reconciliation of the world, was no person whose name had come down to him from the remoteness of time, but One whom he had himself known! He had known Him, and yet he proclaimed this unutterable mystery about Him. Had our Lord been mere man, do we not know what must have followed a constant, near intercourse with Him? How could a claim to a supernatural spotlessness, as the Lamb of God, had it not been real, have stood such an ordeal? It must have vanished with the light of day and the constant scrutiny of watchful eyes. Yet it was those who had the closest connection with Christ who announced to the world the tremendous mystery which attached to Him, the mystery which, as St. Paul says, had been hid from ages and generations: that He was the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature; that He was before all things, and that by Him all things consist; and that it pleased the Father by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether they be things in heaven or things on earth, having made peace by the blood of His cross.
II. And were the Apostles men whose witness can be set aside upon any ground of weakness, want of judgment and proper strength of mind? I think it may be said that it would be difficult to point out any set of men in history whose judgment, so far as we can gather from their conduct and writings, upon a life and character would be more solid and more competent. Our Lord gathered about Him the choicest specimens of the Jewish mind, strong and vigorous men, as their after-life showed, men of solid character and understanding, who were able when left to themselves to carry on the work which He had begun with power and firmness, with a wise policy as well as an ardent zeal, and who showed themselves able to cope with adversaries and the assailing forces of the world. It was this company of men that surrounded Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry. It was such men who saw in Christ the Man without sin, the undefiled Lamb of God, who took away the sin of the world, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. It was the purpose of God to give us that special guarantee to the supernatural holiness of Christ which was contained in the testimony of such men, who had known Him, and lived with Him, and yet felt this assurance about Him, to show us that the belief in the mystery about Him had gone through the most trying of all ordeals: familiarity with Him.
J. B. Mozley, Sermons Parochial and Occasional,p. 278.
References: 1 Peter 2:24. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iii., p. 202; Homiletic Magazine,vol. xii., p. 301; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xix., No. 1143; G. Calthrop, Pulpit Recollections,p. 133; Archbishop Maclagan, Church of England Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 205. 1 Peter 2:25. Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 222. 1 Peter 3:1; 1 Peter 3:2. R. Tuck, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 180. 1 Peter 3:3; 1 Peter 3:4. H. W. Beecher, Ibid.,vol. xxiii., p. 372; G. Calthrop, Words to my Friends,p. 346. 1 Peter 3:4. Christian World Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 264; Homiletic Magazine,vol. xv., p. 168. 1 Peter 3:6. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvii., No. 1633.