God's Plan with Men

by T. T. Martin

Nor is Christ suffering as our substitute the Great Exception, as some timid ones have granted. It is in line with God's Plan with Men; it is in line with the best and noblest there is in man; and the opposite teaching, that it is wrong to let the innocent bear the penalty of the guilty, is not only wrong, but horrible and the extreme of heartlessness. Two men passing along the street at night hear groaning in the gutter; striking a match, they see two men lying in the gutter with their faces all gashed and bleeding. In a drunken street fight they have almost killed each other. Who did the sinning? Those two men lying in the gutter; they deserve to suffer the penalty of their sinning. But these other two men join hands, pay for a physician, a nurse and the hospital bill. In principle that is the innocent paying the penalty of the guilty. To say that this is wrong would mean to condemn the community to pass by day after day and see those ghastly, festering wounds, those parched lips and bloodshot eyes, and to listen to those dying groans. And yet in principle that is exactly what those demand for this sinful, sin-injured human race, when they say that it is morally wrong for Jesus the Saviour to suffer the penalty of our sins. A son becomes a drunkard; his drunkenness and debauchery utterly wreck his health. Some night the father finds his drunken son down in the street, a helpless invalid. The son did the sinning; he deserves to suffer the penalty of his sins; but the father takes him to his home and cares for him and supports him. In principle that is the innocent bearing the penalty of the guilty. To say that this is morally wrong would be to condemn that father to pass by day after day and see his son suffering the just consequences of his sin, to see him slowly starving to death, to see him gasping in death, and not be allowed to come to the rescue. Yet when men object to Christ bearing the penalty of the sinner's sins they are, in principle, taking that stand; for in principle Jesus, dying for our sins, did what the father did with the son. A prominent woman in America was dying from lack of blood; back of it somewhere was violation of some law of God, some law of health. Her noble husband had the surgeon join their arteries, and every beat of his noble heart drove his well blood into the body of his dying wife, and he saved her life. These objectors praise that act; they see nothing morally wrong in it. Yet when Jesus, in principle, did the same thing for sinners in order to save them, these same men, with a haughty, scornful tone, say that it is morally wrong for the innocent to suffer in place of the guilty. "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?"—Rom. 9:20. Had the objectors said that it was wrong to force the innocent to suffer the penalty of the guilty, that would have been true, but Jesus was not forced. Listen to Him, John 10:17, 18, "Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again."

Nor is Christ dying for our sins, as taught by the Scriptures, a makeshift, but, rather, a real, full redemption, ransom. Just as a captain can honorably, honestly be given as a ransom for a number of private soldiers in an exchange of prisoners; just as a diamond can redeem a debt of many dollars; just as one man is allowed to pay another's debt; just as one man is allowed to pay another's fine in a courtroom; so our Lord and Saviour "gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity." All illustrations of Deity fall short, but just as a man could ransom all the ants that crawl upon the earth, were they under moral law and had violated it; just as a man could, on account of the vast difference in the scale of being, suffer in his own body all that all the ants upon earth could suffer; so Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, redeemed us from "all iniquity." It was not merely the nails driven through His quivering flesh, nor the physical pangs, but "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Hence, that awful cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He was in the sinner's place, suffering the sinner's penalty for sin. "He hath made him to be sin for us."—2 Cor. 6:21.

Instead of proudly cavilling and warping and trying to avoid the simple, plain meaning of God's word, should you not rather, reader, bow in reverence before such love, realize that it was for you, yes, you, and that through His suffering and in no other way, you may escape the just punishment of your sins and spend eternity in Heaven? The world weeps over the story of the noble fireman who gave his life to rescue a little girl from a burning building, but it coldly scorns and proudly rejects salvation through the redemption of Jesus the Christ. Oh, the pride and wickedness of the human heart! Be not you, reader, of those who sit in the seat of the scornful, but the rather of those who at the last day will sing, Rev. 5:9, "Worthy art thou to take the book and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with thy blood, men of every tribe and tongue and people and nation."

Let us consider carefully what it really means when we are told that "Christ died for our sins,"—1 Cor. 15:3, that He "gave himself for our sins,"—Gal. 1:4; that "his own self bare our sins in his own body upon the tree,"—1 Peter 2:24; that "Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous."—1 Peter 3:18. God's word explains it clearly: "That he might himself be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus."—Rom. 3:26. "That he might be just." Notice it carefully, "That he might be just." Take it in its full meaning, "That he might be just." A question: How could God be just and justify any sinner apart from the fact that "Christ died for our sins," that "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all"? Reader, no man, however learned, will ever answer that question. He may sneer; he may cavil; he may warp; he may try to confuse; but he will never come out in the open and answer that question. He may say that it is morally wrong for the innocent to bear the penalty of the guilty, but that objection is met and answered above in this chapter.

Let us face a trilemma; three, and only three plans, were possible for God with man:—

First, To have been just with man, without any love or mercy; hence, for every sinner to have suffered the just penalty for his sins, without any redemption. That would have meant Hell for every responsible human being, without any Heaven at all.

Second, To have been all mercy and all love and no justice. That would have meant no moral laws; for why have moral laws, if there would be no penalty, no justice? That would have meant a premium on crime. That would have meant the debased, the debauched, the immoral, the drunken, the fiend, on a level with the chaste, the pure, the upright, the true. That would have meant unbridled rein to passion and lust and every other evil inclination, and no penalty following. That would have meant Hell in trying to get rid of Hell.

Third, There was left but one other possible plan, to be just and at the same time extend love to the sinners. In the nature of the case, real redemption, without any makeshift, was the only way this could be done. "Even so must the Son of man be lifted up,"—John 3:14; "that he himself might be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus,"—Rom. 3:26; "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,"—John 3:16; "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."—1 John 4:10.

This leads to another question: How can God be just and not justify "him that hath faith in Jesus"? Again men may quibble and warp, and ridicule, but no one will ever answer the question. And the reason why this question will never be answered leads to another question:

From how many of his sins is the one "that hath faith in Jesus" justified? We have now gotten to the very centre of the whole problem of salvation. Let us give it most careful consideration.