The cross, at least, will tell you what kind of a God your God is. A good God; a God of love; a God of boundless forbearance and long-suffering. Good God! The folly and madness of men’s hearts, who look on God dying on the cross for them, and begin forthwith puzzling their brains as to how he died for them; how Christ’s blood washes away their sins; how it is applied, and to whom; puzzling their brains with theories of the atonement, and with predestination, and satisfaction, and forensic justification, and particular redemption, and long words which (four out of five of them) are not in the Bible, but are spun out of men’s own minds, as spiders’ webs are from spiders—and, like them, mostly fit to hamper poor harmless flies.
How Christ’s death takes away thy sins, thou wilt never know on earth—perhaps not in heaven. It is a mystery which thou must believe and adore. But why he died, thou canst see at the first glance—if thou hast a human heart, and wilt look at what God means thee to look at—Christ upon his cross. He died because he was love—love itself—love boundless, unconquerable, unchangeable—love which inhabits eternity, and therefore could not be hardened or foiled by any sin or rebellion of man, but must love men still; must go out to seek and save them; must dare, suffer any misery, shame, death itself, for their sake; just because it is absolute and perfect love, which inhabits eternity.
Look at that—look at the sight of God’s character, which the cross gives thee; and then, instead of being terrified at God’s will and decree being unchangeable and eternal, it will be the greatest possible comfort to thee that God’s will is unchangeable and eternal, because thou wilt see from the cross that it is a good will—a will of mercy, forbearance, long-suffering towards thee and all mankind, eternal in the heavens as God himself.
Then let those be afraid who are not afraid; and let those who are afraid, take heart. Let those who think they stand, take heed lest they fall. Let those who think they see, take care that they be not blind. Let those be afraid who fancy themselves right and above all mistakes, lest they should be full of ugly sins when they fancy themselves most religious and devout. Let those be afraid who are fond of advising others, lest they should be in more need of their own medicine than their patients are. Let those fear who pride themselves on their cunning, lest with all their cunning they only lead themselves into their own trap.
But those who are afraid, let them take heart. For what says the high and holy One, who inhabits eternity? ‘I dwell with him that is of a humble and contrite heart, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.’
Let them take heart. Do you feel that you have lost your way in life? Then God himself will show you your way. Are you utterly helpless, worn out, body and soul? Then God’s eternal love is ready and willing to help you up, and revive you. Are you wearied with doubts and terrors? Then God’s eternal light is ready to show you your way; God’s eternal peace ready to give you peace. Do you feel yourself full of sins and faults? Then take heart; for God’s unchangeable will is, to take away those sins and purge you from those faults.
Are you tormented as Job was, over and above all your sorrows, by mistaken kindness, and comforters in whom is no comfort; who break the bruised reed and quench the smoking flax; who tell you that you must be wicked, and God must be angry with you, or all this would not have come upon you? Job’s comforters did so, and spoke very righteous-sounding words, and took great pains to justify God and to break poor Job’s heart, and made him say many wild and foolish words in answer, for which he was sorry afterwards; but after all, the Lord’s answer was, ‘My wrath is kindled against you three, for you have not spoken of me the thing which was right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore my servant Job shall pray for you, for him will I accept;’ as he will accept every humble and contrite soul who clings, amid all its doubts, and fears, and sorrows, to the faith that God is just and not unjust, merciful and not cruel, condescending and not proud—that his will is a good will, and not a bad will—that he hateth nothing that he hath made, and willeth the death of no man; and in that faith casts itself down like Job, in dust and ashes before the majesty of God, content not to understand his ways and its own sorrows; but simply submitting itself and resigning itself to the good will of that God who so loved the world that he spared not his only begotten Son, but freely gave him for us.
FOOTNOTES
[75] Compare Rom. iii. 23 with I Cor. xi. 7. Let me entreat all young students to consider carefully and honestly the radical meaning of the words αμαρτια and αμαρτανειν. It will explain to them many seemingly dark passages of St. Paul, and perhaps deliver them from more than one really dark superstition.
[151] I do not quote the Crishna Legends, because they seem to be of post-Christian date; and also worthless from the notion of a real human babe being utterly lost in the ascription to Crishna of unlimited magical powers.