II. A Divine Salvation.
The whole plan from first to last is divine. The world is full of human plans, some of which are successful and some total failures. One man contrives one thing and one another, but God alone planned the great salvation. It was not in the power of ruined nature to restore itself, so in boundless mercy and in His own divine omnipotence He provided a plan of restoration. Thus the purpose is divine, His own eternal purpose before the world was; the mode of reconciliation is divine, the release of the sinner through the imputation of sin to the sin-bearer. The propitiation was divine, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.” [20a] The imputation of righteousness is divine, “For God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” [20b]
The work of sanctification is divine, “Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us . . . sanctification;” [20c] and the final gathering of God’s elect will be divine for “all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth.” [20d]
It is most important to bear this well in mind, for it places the subject beyond the sphere of human speculation. If a man starts a new system of philosophy, or if people advocate any particular system in politics, we are perfectly at liberty to criticise it. What one man does, another man may criticise. But it is a very different thing with the salvation of God. Once admit that it is a divine plan, arranged in divine wisdom and carried out in divine power, and it is then manifestly beyond the reach of human intellect. There may be things in it which seem to us very mysterious; but what else can we expect when the infinite and divine arrangements of God are subjected to the speculations of the finite mind of man? If the whole salvation were of such a character as to present no points of difficulty to the human inquirer, we might almost doubt its divinity, and believe that as it is within the range of man’s mind, so it had its origin in man’s ingenuity. But when we see it beyond the reach of man, then we are taught by our own inability to fathom it, to regard it as a plan above ourselves, for the simple reason that it is divine.