Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation: A Book for the Times

by James B. Walker

It was thus that prophets, evangelists, apostles, and the Son of God himself, presented the Divine scheme of human redemption. Christ is the ‘Branch’ by which the vine may recover itself from its prone and base condition: he is the ‘Arm of the Lord’ by which he reaches down and rescues sinful men from the ruins of the fall: ‘through whom,’ says Peter, ‘ye believe in God’ [that is, believe in God manifested through Christ], ‘that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.’ Says Paul, ‘Your life is hid with Christ in God.’ Jesus himself proclaimed that the believer should have within him ‘a well of water, springing up into everlasting life’—that is, he that believeth in Christ crucified, the hard heart within him will be struck by the rod of faith, and in his soul there will be a well of pure and living affection springing up to God for ever. And again: ‘Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me, and he that seeth me seeth him that sent me’—that is, Christ was God acting, developing the Divine attributes through human nature, so that men might apprehend and realise them. God might have been as merciful as he is if Christ had never died; but man could never have known the extent, nor felt the power, of his mercy, but by the exhibition on the cross. His mercy could have been manifested to man’s heart in no other way. And men cannot love God for what he truly is, unless they love him as manifested in the suffering and death of Christ Jesus. ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.’ ‘If ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also; and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.’

6. The preceding views established by reductio ad absurdum.

It is necessary that man should know the character of the true God, and feel the influence of that character upon his mind and heart. But human nature, as at present constituted, could not be made to feel the goodness of God’s mercy unless God—blessed be his name!—should make self-denials for man’s benefit; either by assuming human nature, or in some other way. And is it not true that God could make self-denials for men in no other way than would be plain to their apprehension, except by embodying his Godhead in human nature? Mercy can be manifested to man, so as to make an impression upon his heart, in no other way than by labour and self-denial. This principle is obvious. Suppose an individual is confined, under condemnation of the law, and the governor, in the exercise of his powers, pardons him: this act of clemency would produce upon the heart of the criminal no particular effect, either to make him grateful, or to make him better. He might, perhaps, be sensible of a complacent feeling for the release granted; but so long as he knew that his release cost the governor nothing but an act of his will, there would be no basis in the prisoner’s mind for gratitude and love. The liberated man would feel more gratitude to one of his friends, who had laboured to get petitions before the governor for his release, than to the governor who released him. To vary the illustration: Suppose that two persons, who are liable to be destroyed in the flames of a burning dwelling, are rescued by two separate individuals. The one is enabled to escape by an individual who, perceiving his danger, steps up to the door and opens it, without any effort or self-denial on his part. The other is rescued in a different manner. An individual, perceiving his danger and liability to death, ascends to him, and by a severe effort, and while he is himself suffering from the flames, holds open the door until the inmate escapes for his life. Now, the one who opened the door without self-denial may have been merciful, and the individual relieved would recognise the act as a kindness done to one in peril; but no one would feel that that act proved that the man who delivered the other manifested any special mercy, because any man would have done the same act. But the one who ascended the ladder and rescued, by peril, and by personal suffering, the individual liable to death, would manifest special mercy, and all who observed it would acknowledge the claim; and the individual rescued would feel the mercy of the act, melting his heart into gratitude to his deliverer unless his heart were a moral petrifaction.

What are, in reality, the facts by which alone men may know that any being possesses a benevolent nature? Not, certainly, by that being conferring benefits upon others, which cost him neither personal labour nor self-denial; because we could not tell but these favours would cease the moment they involved the least degree of sacrifice, or the moment they interfered with his selfish interests. But when it requires a sacrifice, on the part of a benefactor, to bestow a favour, and that sacrifice is made, then benevolence of heart is made evidently manifest. Now mark—any being who is prompted, by benevolence of heart, to make sacrifices, may not lose happiness, in the aggregate, by so doing; for a benevolent nature finds happiness in performing benevolent acts. Self-denials are, therefore, not only the appropriate method of manifesting benevolence to men, but they are likewise the appropriate manifestations of a benevolent nature. Now, suppose God is perfectly benevolent; then, it follows in view of the foregoing deductions, in order to manifest his true nature to men, self-denials would be necessary, in order that men might see and feel that ‘God is love.’ It is clear, therefore, that those who reject the Divinity of Christ, as connected with the atonement, cannot believe in God’s benevolence; because God is really as benevolent as the self-denials of Christ (believed in as Divine) will lead men to feel that he is: nor can they believe in the mercy of God in any way that will produce an effect upon their hearts. To say that the human heart can be deeply affected by mercy that is not manifested by self-denial, is to show but little knowledge of the springs which move the inner life of the human soul. Man will feel a degree of love and gratitude for a benefactor who manifests an interest in his wants, and labours to supply them; but he will feel a greater degree of grateful love for the benefactor who manifests an interest in his wants, and makes self-denials to aid him. To deny, therefore, the Divine and meritorious character of the atonement, is to shut out both the evidence and the effect of God’s mercy from the soul.

In accordance with this view is the teaching of the Scriptures. There is but one thing which is charged against men, in the New Testament, as a fundamental and soul-destroying heresy, and that is, not denying the Lord, but ‘denying the Lord that bought them.’ It is rejecting the purchase of Christ by his self-denying atonement which causes the destruction of the soul, because it rejects the truth which alone can produce love to the God of love.

But further: the facts have been fully proved, that God Jehovah, by taking a personal interest in the well-being of the Israelites, and labouring to secure their redemption, secured their affections to himself; and that his acts of mercy produced this effect was manifested by their song after their final deliverance at the Red Sea. ‘I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation.’ In like manner, Jesus Christ secured to himself, in a greater degree, the affections of Christians, by his self-denying life and death, to ransom them from spiritual bondage and misery. The Israelites in Egypt were under a temporal law so severe, that while they suffered in the greatest degree, they could not fulfil its requirements: they therefore loved Jehovah for temporal deliverance. The believer was under a spiritual law, the requirements of which he could not fulfil, and therefore he loved Christ for spiritual deliverance. This fact, that the supreme affection of believers was thus fixed upon Christ, and fixed upon him in view of his self-sacrificing love for them, is manifest throughout the whole New Testament—even more manifest than that the Jews loved Jehovah for temporal deliverance. ‘The love of Christ constraineth us,’ says one: thus manifesting that his very life was actuated by affection for Jesus. Says another—speaking of early Christians generally—‘Whom [Christ] having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.’ The Bible requires religious men to perform religious duties, moved by love to Christ: ‘And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.’ Mark—these Christians were moved in what they did, what they said, and what they felt, by love to Christ: love to Jesus actuated their whole being, body and soul. It governed them.

Now, suppose that Jesus Christ was not God, nor a true manifestation of the Godhead in human nature, but a man, or angel, authorised by God to accomplish the redemption of the human race from sin and misery. In doing this, it appears, from the nature of things, and from the Scriptures, that he did what was adapted to, and what does, draw the heart of every true believer—as in the case of the apostle and the early Christians—to himself, as the supreme or governing object of affection. Their will is governed by the will of Christ; and love to him moves their heart and hands. Now, if it be true that Jesus Christ is not God, then he has devised and executed a plan by which the supreme affections of the human heart are drawn to himself, and alienated from God, the proper object of love and worship: and, God having authorised this plan, he has devised means to make man love Christ, the creature, more than the Creator, who is God over all, blessed for evermore.

But it is said that, Christ having taught and suffered by the will and authority of God, we are under obligation to love God for what Christ has done for us. It is answered, that this is impossible. We cannot love one being for what another does or suffers on our behalf. We can love no being for labours and self-denials in our behalf, but that being who voluntarily labours and denies himself. It is the kindness and mercy exhibited in the self-denial that moves the affections; and the affections can move to no being but the one that makes the self-denials, because it is the self-denials that draw out the love of the heart.

It is still said, that Christ was sent by God to do his will and not his own; and therefore we ought to love God, as the Being to whom gratitude and love are due for what Christ said and suffered. Then it is answered: If God willed that Christ, as a creature of his, should come, and by his sufferings and death redeem sinners, we ought not to love Christ for it, because he did it as a creature, in obedience to the commands of God, and was not self-moved nor meritorious in the work; and we cannot love God for it, for the labour and self-denial were not borne by him. And further: If one being, by an act of his authority, should cause another innocent being to suffer, in order that he might be loved who had imposed the suffering, but not borne it, it would render him unworthy of love. If God had caused Jesus Christ, being his creature, to suffer, that he might be loved himself for Christ’s sufferings, while he had no connection with them, instead of such an exhibition, on the part of God, producing love to him, it would produce pity for Christ, and aversion towards God. So that, neither God, nor Christ, nor any other being, can be loved for mercy extended, by self-denials to the needy, unless those self-denials were produced by a voluntary act of mercy upon the part of the being who suffers them; and no being, but the one who made the sacrifices, could be meritorious in the case. It follows, therefore, incontrovertibly, that if Christ was a creature—no matter of how exalted worth—and not God; and if God approved of his work in saving sinners, he approved of treason against his own government; because, in that case, the work of Christ was adapted to draw, and did necessarily draw, the affections of the human soul to himself, as its spiritual Saviour, and thus alienate them from God, their rightful object. And Jesus Christ himself had the design of drawing men’s affections to himself in view, by his crucifixion: says he, ‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.’ This he said, signifying what death he should die: thus distinctly stating that it was the self-denials and mercy exhibited in the crucifixion that would draw out the affections of the human soul, and that those affections would be drawn to himself as the suffering Saviour. But that God would sanction a scheme which would involve treason against himself, and that Christ should participate in it, is absurd and impossible, and therefore cannot be true.

But if the Divine nature was united with the human in the teaching and work of Christ—if ‘God was in Christ,’ [drawing the affections of men, or] ‘reconciling the world unto himself’—if, when Christ was lifted up, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, he drew, as he said he would, the affections of all believers unto himself; and then, if he ascended, as the second person of the Trinity, into the bosom of the eternal Godhead—he thereby, after he had engaged, by his work on earth, the affections of the human soul, bore them up to the bosom of the Father, from whence they had fallen. Thus the ruins of the fall were rebuilt, and the affections of the human soul again restored to God, the Creator, and proper object of supreme love. Oh the length, and the breadth, and the depth, and the height, of the Divine wisdom and goodness, as manifested in the wonderful plan of salvation! ‘Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.’ Amen. Blessing and honour, dominion, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen and amen.