God's Plan with Men

gotten Son that whosoever believeth on him shoul

and the justifier of him that h

peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have

for our sins.

, who gave himself for

r sins in his own body on

ns once, the righteous for t

nistered unto, but to minister and to giv

men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave h

curse of the law, having beco

imself for us, that he might redeem u

through the offering of the body of J

perfected forever them that

his own blood entered in once for all into the holy

t, which is poured out for many unto

open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God wi

that he loved us, and sent his Son to be t

ed me, and gave himself

t he might himself be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus."-Rom. 3:26. And it was God's love that let Him die for our sins, "for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son."-John 3:16. What you, reader, ought to desire to know, is simply God's way. The Scriptures at

or our sins as our substitute. This friendship between infidelity and professed Christian teachers reminds one of another occasion when our Saviour was set at naught and two became friends with each other that very day (Luke 23:11, 12). Let us face this objection honestly and earnestly, for our eternal destiny turns on this one point. Is it morally wrong for the innocent to bear the sins of the guilty? In the first place it is not morally wrong, because God would not do morally wrong, a

our sins, the just for the unjust,-it is right for the innocent to suffer the penalty of the guilty. To any honest, candid man, which is the correct way to reason? This thing is wrong; God did this thing; the

ng groans. And yet in principle that is exactly what those demand for this sinful, sin-injured human race, when they say that it is morally wrong for Jesus the Saviour to suffer the penalty of our sins. A son becomes a drunkard; his drunkenness and debauchery utterly wreck his health. Some night the father finds his drunken son down in the street, a helpless invalid. The son did the sinning; he deserves to suffer the penalty of his sins; but the father takes him to his home and cares for him and supports him. In principle that is the innocent bearing the penalty of the guilty. To say that this is morally wrong would be to condemn that father to pass by day after day and see his son suffering the just consequences of his sin, to see him slowly starving to death, to see him gasping in death, and not be allowed to come to the rescue. Yet when men object to Christ bearing the penalty of the sinner's sins they are, in principle, taking that stand; for in principle Jesus, dying for our sins, did what the father did with the son. A pr

a courtroom; so our Lord and Saviour "gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity." All illustrations of Deity fall short, but just as a man could ransom all the ants that crawl upon the earth, were they under moral law and had violated it; just as a man could, on account of the vast difference in the scale of being, suffer in his own body all that all the ants upon earth could su

ns and spend eternity in Heaven? The world weeps over the story of the noble fireman who gave his life to rescue a little girl from a burning building, but it coldly scorns and proudly rejects salvation through the redemption of Jesus the Christ. Oh, the pride and wickedness of the human heart! Be not y

at he might himself be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus."-Rom. 3:26. "That he might be just." Notice it carefully, "That he might be just." Take it in its full meaning, "That he might be just." A question: How could God be just and justify any sinner apart from the fact that "Christ died for our sins," that "the Lord hath laid on him the i

e, and only three plans, wer

ner to have suffered the just penalty for his sins, without any redemption. That w

have meant a premium on crime. That would have meant the debased, the debauched, the immoral, the drunken, the fiend, on a level with the chaste, the pure, the upright, the tr

ly way this could be done. "Even so must the Son of man be lifted up,"-John 3:14; "that he himself might be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus,"-Rom. 3:26; "God so love

n Jesus"? Again men may quibble and warp, and ridicule, but no one will ever answer the qu

justified? We have now gotten to the very centre of the whole

53:6); for how many of our sins Christ gave Himself ("Who gave himself for our sins."-Gal. 1:4); for how many of our sins Christ died (1 Cor. 15:3); from how many of his sins the believer is justified, ("that he might himself be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus."-Rom. 3:26). In Lev. 16:21, 22, God gives us a picture, foreshadowing the Saviour, of laying the sins on the substitute: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquity of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins; and he shall put them upon the head of the goat and shall send him away by the hand of a man that is in readiness into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities." "Behold t

s plan; this is God's will; "by the which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."-Heb. 10:10. "For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."-Heb. 10:14. "Nor yet by the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood en

ve. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."-1 John 4:10. "The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."-Gal. 2:20. If God's love is amazing in sending His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10), if the Saviour's

es, love of the world, or secret sin, can be the cause of the reader taking such a fatal step; and fearful will be the consequences of letting any one of these cause the rejection of the only salvation that God's love and justice could provide. The reader cannot plead that God has not given sufficient proof that He has given us a revelation in His word (let the reader go back and read again the Introduction and the reference for further study); nor can he plead that God's word does not make the message plain (let the reader go back and study the Scriptures at the beginning of this chapte

ng Himself for our sins (Gal. 1:4), in Christ redeeming us from all iniquity (Titus 2:14). Expressions from the two

f."-The "Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine. "The outrage offered to the moral justice of God, by

ves with the blood, like a troop of assassins, and pretend to admire

n of Jesus chiefly as providing a ready pardon for all sinners who ask for it and are willing to be forgiven? Does spiritualism find Jesus's death necessary only for the presentation, after death, of the material Jesus, as a proof that spirits can return to earth? Then we must differ from them both." It is not to be wondered at that she takes her stand with Thomas Paine in rejecting the teaching that Christ died for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3), and that He redeemed us from all iniquity (Titus 2:14), when she says, "Does divine love commit a fraud on humanity by maki

ete redemption through Christ dying for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3), redeeming us from all iniquity (Titus 2:14). They thereby deny that He "offered one sacrifice for sin forever,"-Heb. 10:12, and that "by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sancti

"ye were bought with a price,"-1 Cor. 6:20; "worthy art thou to take the book and to open the seals thereof; for thou was

over against the two quoted agai

f He bore all my sin, I had no more sin to bear. My iniquity must be blotted o

for whom that sacrifice had been received. If the believing soul could be condemned, then why a sacrifice? Every believer can claim that the sacrifice was actually made for him: by faith he has lai

the transgressors been sent to Hell. For the Son of God to suffer for sin was a more glorio

ath on which such stress is laid was something to which the unrighteous were liable because of their s

up and in death exhausted the responsibilities of the unrighteous, so tha

responsibility of our sins upon Himself, no word is equal to this which falls shor

of Christ is a great proof of love to the sinful unless there is shown at the same time a rational connection between that death and the responsibilities which sin involves, and from which that death delivers. Perhaps one should beg pardon for using so simple an illustration, but the point is a vital one, and it is necessary to be clear. If I were sitting on the end of a pier on a summer day, enjoying the sunshine and the air, and some one came along and jumped into the water and got drowned to prove his love to me, I should find it quite unintel

ist and in His death has his relation to God once for all determine

the sinful. And if any one says that this was morally impossible, may we not ask again, What is the alternative? Is it no

ly a word of which we do not know the meaning till it is inter

as been achieved independently of us at infinite cost, and to which we are called in a word of minist

, 'If any man makes it his business to subvert this, let him be an

n of the world depends, and if He has made it known, then it is a Christian duty to be intolerant of everything which ignore

ved, which sets the mind to criticise statements of the Atonement. There is such a thing as pride, the last form of

Redeemer, if He had not been God man

its Author, it follows that the thing now necessary, in order that man's affections might be fixed upon the proper object of love and obedience, was, that the Supreme God should, by self-denying kindness, manifest spiritual mercy to those who felt their spiritual wants, and thus draw to Himself the love and worship of mankind. If any other being should supply the need, that being would receive the love; it was therefore necessary that God Himself should do it, in order that the affections of believers might centre upon the proper object." "Now, suppose Jesus Christ was not God, nor a true manifestation of the Godhead in human nature, but a man, or angel, authorized by God to accomplish the redemption of the human race from sin and misery. In doing

t love one being for what another does or suffers on our behalf. We can love no being for labors and self-denials on our behalf, but that being who valiantly labors and denies himself. It is the kindness and

His own; and therefore we ought to love God, as the being to w

those self-denials were produced by a voluntary act of mercy upon the part of the being who suffers them; and no being, but the one who made the sacrifice, could be meritorious in the case. It follows, therefore, incontrovertibly, that if Christ was a creature-no matter of how exalted worth-and not God; and if God approved of His work in saving sinners, He approved of treason against His own government; because, in that case, the work of Christ was adapted to draw, and did necessarily draw, the affections of the human soul to Himself, as its Spiritual Saviour and thus alienated them from God, their rightful object. And Jesus Christ Himself had the design of drawing men's affections to Himself in view, by His crucifixion; says He, 'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.' This He said signifying what death He should die: thus distinctly stating that it was the self-denials and mercy exhibited in the crucifixion that would draw out the affections of the human soul,

earnest thought to the inevitable

from the consequences of its guilt,-by which He Himself could, in some way, suffer and make self-denials for its good; and by His own interposition open a way for the soul to recover from its lost and condemned condition, then the result would follow inevitably, that every one of the human family who had been led to see and feel his guilty condition before God, and who believed