To know whether this doctrine of redemption is God’s truth, it is sufficient to know whether the Bible is God’s Word. And here we ask, What will you do with ancient prophecies and their fulfilment? – with confirmations of Bible history which are continually accumulating? – with the conspicuous excellence of the moral teaching and influence which the Bible supplies? – with the sublimity of Christ’s character? – with the miracles He wrought? – with the marvellous effects of Christianity upon the world, notwithstanding the strongest inducements, in human prejudice, to its rejection? Settle such questions as these according to the admitted laws of evidence, and then there will be no reason to contend as to the “why” and the “how” of redemption.
Such, however, is not the method which the unbeliever pursues. He turns away from the Record as a source of instruction. It is hard to convince a man who begins by closing his ears with his own pride. To whatever study a man addresses himself, he will never advance in it in spite of himself. His progress will be proportioned, among other things, to the amount of honest effort he makes to learn. That is, he must feel the fact and the disadvantage of his own ignorance. Who could study mathematics by beginning at the outset to dispute its axioms? Just so with Christian truth. Put aside prejudice and pride. Do not take it for granted that you have light enough in your mind, at starting, to pronounce upon the truth or the falsity, the reasonableness or the unreasonableness, of the doctrine of salvation through the cross of Christ. Listen attentively. Look for more light, and receive it when it comes. We do not say: “Believe before you have read;” but we do say: “Don’t contradict before you have read.”
I have already said that we are not obliged to explain the philosophy of the redemption which is taught in the Scriptures. Let me now say that that redemption is itself the best solution of the great difficulty which is felt by the believer and the unbeliever alike. It is this: Conscience tells us that God is just; the heart tells us that He is good; – how then can a God whose justice and goodness are equal, i. e., both of them infinite, escape from the position in which sinners have placed Him? I put the difficulty in this bold form in order that it may be the more distinctly apprehended. We have sinned, and a just God must punish. We sigh after happiness, and a good God – a God who is infinitely kind – may be expected to bestow happiness upon us. But how can God deal with us in both these ways at one and the same time?
We know instinctively, of course, that there is no real dilemma to God Himself; but those who reject the atonement of Christ are bound to deal with what presents itself as an inevitable dilemma to them.
The unbeliever says: “God is too good to punish.” What then becomes of His justice, since conscience testifies that we are sinners, that sin deserves punishment, that vice and virtue are not one, that God cannot deal in the same way with both without encouraging the vice which needs to be suppressed, and discouraging the virtue which needs to be upheld? Take away the fear of punishment under the pretext that God is good, and you deprive conscience of its meaning and its power.
Shall it be said, then, that God will punish every transgressor? Have the numberless generations which have been upon the earth gone to an inevitable doom? This conclusion is as hard to admit as the other. The instincts of the heart are against it.
No; men do not accept either conclusion to the exclusion of the other. They say God will adopt a mean between His justice and His mercy so as to bring them into harmony. But how? Here is the crucial difficulty. Is it to be solved by the principle of mutual concession?
Let me remind you, again, that the difficulty is not created by God, but by man. In Him, justice and mercy are really one: it is only to us that they are seen to be two; and it is our sin which disturbs and confuses our conception of their union with each other. He might indeed annihilate us, and so leave us no opportunity to complain. But our whole moral and emotional nature repels with horror the thought of such a termination to our sin, as being unworthy of the God who has to govern us. No! when we reflect seriously upon the question, we cannot resist the feeling that God must have some plan of rescuing us from the doom we merit which shall give equal expression to His justice and His mercy.
Men in general, alas! hold justice cheaply, and, lowering the Divine standard of human character, they easily persuade themselves that they may enter heaven through the breach they have made in the Divine attributes. They think that God is indulgent, and will forgive, forgetting that indulgence is weakness. God will forgive, but His forgiveness must stand on safe ground. It cannot apply indiscriminately to all men. Men think they have said all when they have said, “God will forgive.” Such a forgiveness would aim a blow at His justice. No matter; He will forgive! Such a forgiveness is without motive – an effect without a cause. No matter; He will forgive! Such a forgiveness has its root in sentiment, not in reason. It matters not; He will forgive! Such a forgiveness imposes no obligation on the forgiver, and encourages sin. Never mind; He will forgive!
Surely this is the spiritual blindness which comes from the perversion of the conscience and the heart.
Some say, “God forgives; but the condition is that we turn away from sin and live a life of holiness.” There are many answers to this; but I will only ask those who thus speak, “Are you now living in such a way as to have in your present holiness, and on the ground of it, the assurance of your pardon?” That is a question which conscience may be safely left to answer.
At this point Christianity comes professing to reveal to us the Divine plan of salvation. It tells us that God forgives for the sake of Jesus Christ, who is Himself, in His sacrifice, the gift of the Father’s love. A debt has been contracted; the insolvent debtor presents in payment the money which a friend has freely contributed for the purpose; the creditor is satisfied. In this way goodness and justice are reconciled. It is Divine love which meets the claim of the Divine Righteousness. The redeemed soul, redeemed by the blood of Christ, is led to obedience by a love which responds to the love which has redeemed him. This last result none can dispute. Does it spring from error? No; it is too pure, too blessed for that. The redemption that produces it is a true principle founded in the nature of God – sublime in its working – like sap, inexplicable, but justified by the beauty of its foliage and the goodliness of its fruits.
Let us look a little more closely into this principle of Propitiation. Suppose we were reading the gospel for the first time, free from prejudice, and from the deadening influence of habit; we should be struck with the prominence everywhere given in it to the death of Christ. Ask a Christian child, or an aged saint, “What did Christ come on earth to do?” The answer from each will be, “He came to die for us.” The child finds his answer on the very surface of Scripture; the aged man finds it in that same Scripture when he has studied it to its very depths. The one quickly learns that this death of Christ was often predicted by Christ Himself, that it holds the most prominent place in each of the four Gospels, that it is constantly referred to in the Epistles, that it is the text of all the preaching of the apostles, and that it is symbolised in both the sacraments, for “we are buried by baptism into His death,” and whenever in the Supper we partake of the bread and wine, we “show forth His death till He come.” The mature Christian, in his turn, learns to look upon the death of Christ as the centre and the soul of all the great acts of the great work of our redemption, which seem, whether they preceded or followed, to have been done in direct view of it, and in indissoluble connection with it. The incarnation was designed to open up the way for it. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” The resurrection was intended to attest its meaning and its value. For Christ was “delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” The object of the ascension was to secure the precious fruits of it. “For He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.”
The remarkable thing in all this is that in the gospel, the aim of which is to reveal eternal life, the