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. The "wicked hands" by which they murdered their Messiah were those of their heathen masters, but the responsibility for the act was all their own. Nor was it the ignorant rabble of Jerusalem that forced the Roman government to set up the cross on Calvary. Behind the mob was the great Council of the nation. Neither was it a sudden burst of passion that led these men to clamour for His death. Hostile sects forgot their differences in deep-laid plots to compass His destruction. The time, moreover, was the Paschal feast, when Jews from every land were gathered in Jerusalem. Every interest, every class, every section of that people shared in the great crime. Never was there a clearer case of national guilt. Never was there an act for which a nation could more justly be summoned to account.
- from pages 73-74, The Silence of God