IF " In a large family of evil-doers, where the father and mother are drunkards, the sons jail-birds, and the daughters steeped in
* B. J. Gibbou, Visionaries, p. 114,
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shame, there may be one — a daughter — pure, sensible, sensitive, living in the home of sin like a lily among thorns ; and she makes all the sin of the family her own. The others do not mind it ; the shame of their sin is nothing to them ; it is the talk of the town, but they do not care. Only in her heart do their crimes and disgrace meet like a sheaf of spears, piercing and mangling. The one innocent member of the family bears the guilt of all the rest. Even their cruelty to herself she hides. as if the shame of it were her own. Such a position did Christ hold in the human family." ^
4. There seem to be three demands made by the human
conscience on this great mystery.
1. It must he an act of justice. — How is it that God should punish for the guilty ? If Christ is innocent, and yet is punished, how is this in accordance with any principle of justice ? In the first place, it is certain that we do see every day in our lives the innocent suffering for the guilty, not through any fault of their own, but simply from the circum- stances in which they are necessarily placed. When a pious and saintly mother suffers for a vicious son, you say it is unjust. Well, it is part of the constitution of the world. We cannot alter it. It runs through the whole of God's providence. The innocent man who has done no harm suffers for the profligacy and wickedness of those who are nearest to him. Therefore when Christ our Lord put Himself into our place, He placed Himself in the position of one who, though perfectly innocent — and none of us are perfectly innocent — yet took upon Himself the burden of our guilt and of our sins. This is only an illustration. Of course it is not for one moment maintained that we can fathom all the depth of the meaning of the Atonement. How is that possible, when He who made atonement for us is the Son of God ? How can we explain all His sufferings, or the meaning of all those sufferings ? But surely we can get some glimpse of the love in those sufferings. ^
Why should the world so greatly wonder that we are cleansed from sin by the transfer of our guilt to another ? Surely earthly parents bear the sins of an erring son, both in suffering and in interceding for him. In the act of washing our .
* J. Stalker, Imago Christi,
ISAIAH 317
hands the stain passes into the water and the towel ; in cleansing a garment the dust is transferred to the air or to 'the ground. Why should it be said that God was unjust in letting Christ suffer for us ? Did not Christ willingly undertake . the suffering ? If a friend pays our debts for us, is our creditor unjust in accepting that payment ? And surely God is not unjust in pardoning our sins for Christ's sake, since Christ, as the second ancestor of our race, gives Himself up in the name of us all ; and since no one can appropriate the precious fruits of this death unless he has in faith become spiritually one with the Lamb of God, in order that, in this communion, he may die unto sin.
Could not God forgive without the suffering of Jesus ? There is only one answer : He could not. The reason why He ■ could not is difficult to see, but it is not beyond the under- standing. No earthly parallel is adequate. We can only see \ " through a glass darkly." If a governor pardons a prisoner '[ two interests must be maintained : the government must continue to be antagonistic to crime, and the welfare of the governed must not be overlooked. If God forgives. His own integrity and the interest of His children must be secured. Is this done in the death of Jesus ? Does the death of Jesus make us fear and reverence God more or less than we should do otherwise ? It must be said that it increases our fear of Him. On the other hand, does the suffering of Jesus make it easier or more difficult for us to sin ? It makes it much more difficult. By the death of Jesus God forgives and remains holy, and the people receive an impulse away from sin.
"The Well is deep." The saying is most true:
Salvation's well is deep. Only Christ's hand can reach the waters blue. And even He must stoop to draw it up. Ere He can fill thy cup.
2. It must he an act of love. — Truly this is a great mystery, which we must here contemplate in silent meditation, and which eternity alone can unveil. Every sacrifice was a mystery ; every act of laying, as it were, sin upon the victim was
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mysterious. Infinitely more so was the death of our Lord. Still, Scripture gives us one master-key by which we may penetrate into this as into every mystery — it is love. It was love that could not bear to leave mankind under sentence of death, thus frustrating the object of creation; love could plan out a way of escape, and find means to effect it.