justice; this is one of its designs and results, but it is such a display only by being a satisfaction to the justice of God. It is not a symbol or illustration, but a satisfaction, v. 26.
7. All true doctrine tends to humble men and to exalt God; and all true religion is characterized by humility and reverence, v. 27.
8. God is a universal Father, and all men are brethren, vs. 29, 30.
9. The law of God is immutable. Its precepts are always binding, and its penalty must be inflicted either on the sinner or his substitute. When, however, it is said that the penalty of the law is inflicted on the Redeemer, as the sinner's substitute, or in the language of Scripture, that *' he was made a curse for us," it cannot be imagined that he suflfered the same kind of evils (as remorse, &c.) which the sinner would have suflfered. The law threatens no specific kind of evil as its penalty. The term death in Scripture designates any or all the evils inflicted in punishment of sin. And the penalty, or curse of the law (in the lan- guage of the Bible), is any evil judicially inflicted in satisfaction of the demands of justice. To say that Christ suffered, therefore, to satisfy the law; to declare the righteousness of God, or that he might be just in justifying him that believes in Jesus ; that he bore the penalty of the law, are all equivalent expressions, v. 31.
1. As the cardinal doctrine of the Bible is justification by faith, so the turning point in the soul's history, the saving act, is the reception of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, v. 25.
2. All modes of preaching must be erroneous which do not lead sin- ners to feel that the great thing to be done, and done first, is to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and to turn unto God through him. And all re- ligious experience must be defective which does not embrace distinctly a sense of the justice of our condemnation, and a conviction of the sufl^i- ciency of the work of Christ, and an exclusive reliance upon it as such, V. 25.
3. As God proposes his own glory as the end of all that he does, so ought we to have that glory as the constant and commanding object of pursuit, V. 25.
4. The doctrine of atonement produces in us its proper effect when it leads us to see and feel that God is just ; that he is infinitely gracious; that we are deprived of all ground of boasting; that the way of salvation, which is open for us, is open for all men ; and that the mo- tives to all duty, instead of being weakened, are enforced and multiplied, vs. 25—31.
5. Jn the gospel all is harmonious; justice and mercy, as it regards God ; freedom from the law, and the strongest obligations to obedience, as it regards men, v. 25, 31.