The Grace of Christ, or,
Sinners Saved by Unmerited Kindness
William S. Plumer, 1853
"We believe it is through the grace of our
Lord Jesus that we are saved." Acts 15:11
No Salvation but by a Redeemer, and no Redeemer but Christ
The Lord is a holy God. He hates all sin, yes, he abhors
it. His aversion to it is infinite. Moreover, he is a Lawgiver and Governor.
In this respect his character must be maintained. God cannot deny himself.
He cannot deny his right to rule. He cannot permit transgression in his
dominions to go unpunished. He cannot but justify the righteous, and condemn
the wicked. When man sinned he fell under the wrath of God, the indignation
of the King Eternal. His ruin was entire. What was to be done in his case?
The following are the only courses, which can be conceived of.
1. God had power and authority, if he had seen fit, to
annihilate the human race. But to this course the objections are numerous
and insurmountable. Dreadful as is annihilation, it has never been shown to
be an adequate punishment for sin. So far as we know, God never has
annihilated, and never will annihilate anything, which he has made. Even the
fires of the last day will but change and not destroy the elements on which
they will kindle. Had God extinguished our race, he would have left this
lower world without an intelligent head. In that case no reasonable service,
no song of thanksgiving could ever have been rendered to the Maker of heaven
and earth by any inhabitant of our globe. Besides, who is the Lord, that he
should repent? Having begun to build he was able to finish, and he
determined to prove that he was neither disappointed nor baffled.
2. A second course, conceivable in our case was that
Jehovah should without delay and without mercy consign the entire human
family to hopeless, endless misery. This would have been just, gloriously
just and right. Our elder brethren, the sinning angels, had received this
doom, and all heaven had pronounced their sentence righteous. But had this
been done in the case of man, not an individual of our entire race of
intelligent beings would have remained a worshiper of the God who made us;
nor would earth have ever resounded with a single hosanna. Like hell our
globe would have sent up only wailings, howlings, blasphemies, and the smoke
of its torment forever and ever. Men would have been solemn monuments of
inexorable justice; but none of them would have ever illustrated God's
long-suffering, or his loving-kindness. Yet the justice of such a doom being
absolute, sentence of eternal banishment pronounced against the entire race
would have wronged no one, and, being what had before fallen. on rebel
angels, could hardly have surprised anyone.
3. The third conceivable course for God to pursue was
entirely to overlook man's sin and rebellion, and take him into the divine
embrace, though steeped in guilt and reeking in pollution. This is
conceivable, but not admissible. For then the universe would have seen the
divine government trampled on, and that with impunity, the eternal law
broken, and the Lawgiver consenting to such rebellion. This course must have
not only shaken but destroyed all confidence in the rectitude of the divine
character. In that case the government of the universe must have been
dissolved, and war and anarchy and rebellion have reigned and rioted
forever. Seriously to suppose that God should ever consent to let sin pass
unnoticed is to conceive blasphemy.
4. The last conceivable course to be pursued in man's
case, was to adopt some method, by which to satisfy the demands of law, and
yet save the sinner; maintain the glory of divine justice, and yet rescue
the criminal offender. What that method of deliverance should be, no
creature could tell. Sin had wrought such mischief, and was in its nature so
deadly and malignant, that God himself is in Scripture represented as
wondering that none could provide a remedy. Our case is well described by
Jehovah: "When I passed by you, and looked upon you, behold your time was
the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your
nakedness; yes, I swore unto you, and entered into a covenant with you, says
the Lord God." A ransom, a Mediator were spoken of, but where a sufficient
Savior could be found, no man, no angel could tell. Who could pay a full, an
adequate redemption price? The law violated and dishonored by transgression,
the law to be satisfied and magnified in man's recovery was glorious in
holiness, absolutely incapable of amendment, and infinitely perfect. It was
suited and intended to be universal, binding every rational creature to all
eternity. The only perfectly happy society that ever existed was a community
wholly conformed to its precepts. The only absolutely miserable and
intolerable state of personal or social existence ever known was where all
the precepts of this law were constantly broken. How could reparation be
made to such a government violated? How could a ransom be provided for such
transgressors?
Suppose man should offer to God all the products of the
earth, all its grain and all its mines, all its fruits and all its cattle.
At the very best, man could offer but some of these, for he must use a part
in order to subsist. The residue he might indeed offer. But if men come with
any decent regard to truth in making such offerings they would say as David
of old: "Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so
willingly after this sort? for all things come of you, and of your own have
we given you." 1 Chron. 29:14. A company of beggars in going to ask alms of
a rich man might drive up his flocks and his herds to stand before him, or
might bring the fruits of his fields and lay them at his feet, but these
were all his before they brought them before him, and so could not purchase
anything from him. So God says, "the earth is mine and the cattle upon a
thousand hills." The gifts we can bring from the store-house of nature all
belong to God already, and so can make no atonement, can be no price which
he will accept as from us.
A citizen of a free and sovereign State lawfully gets
into his possession five million dollars of her funds, and then not only
embezzles the whole amount, but also commits treason and is arrested and
brought to trial. He proposes to stop all legal proceedings by delivering up
all the money except one thousand dollars, which sum he has spent, and has
nothing besides. Can the government accede to his proposal? It may be in
great straits for funds, it may see no way of escaping bankruptcy unless it
can recover the sum lost or near that amount; it may see that without the
consent of the guilty man it can recover nothing. Under these circumstances
it may accept his offer, but when it does, it clearly admits its own
weakness and imperfection. It declares that there are cases of atrocious
crime and novel difficulty, where it cannot bring the law to bear, except by
sustaining a loss too great for its own resources.
But the divine government could never accede to such a
compounding of crime. It would tarnish all its glory. It can bring every
offender to justice. It holds all the wicked in the grasp of its
omnipotence. It knows all their secrets, all their accomplices, all their
hiding-places. It is never in straits. To allow men to redeem themselves by
silver and gold or the fruits of the earth would have been a mockery of all
justice.
Nor could bloody sacrifices of animals have been a
ransom. As property the animals slain belonged to God already: and as
sacrifices they never did nor could have any efficacy in setting aside the
penalty of the moral law. They never were at all acceptable to God—except as
appointed by himself to be the types of the sacrifice of his Son. Viewed in
any other light, "When such people sacrifice an ox, it is no more acceptable
than a human sacrifice. When they sacrifice a lamb or bring an offering of
grain, it is as bad as putting a dog or the blood of a pig on the altar!
When they burn incense, it is as if they had blessed an idol." Isaiah 66:3.
So that it was impossible to make satisfaction in this way.
Nor could man by voluntary suffering, self-inflicted,
work out his own redemption. He cannot do this when he has offended a merely
human government, The murderer found guilty and sentenced to death is never
permitted by total or partial fasting, by sighing and groaning, by beating
himself with rods, or tearing himself with pincers to set aside the penalty
of the law. The reason is that all these sufferings do not satisfy the law.
They are not the penalty provided. So under the government of God voluntary
beating of the body, though in the eyes of the simple they have a show of
wisdom, can never redeem a soul, can never satisfy God's law.
Nor can present or future reformation atone for past
sins. The very best obedience, which can possibly be rendered, is due,
always was due, always will be due to God. He, who owes a thousand dollars,
cannot discharge that debt by being careful to contract no new debts. A man
may have lived a blameless life for half a century. He may then commit
murder; but he cannot plead his former good conduct, nor give the amplest
security for future good behavior, in order to set aside the penalty
incurred by murder. Under God's government all our obedience is God's right,
and to give him his right at one time cannot redeem us from the guilt of
transgression at another.
Nor can one man redeem another. All men are guilty and
have forfeited their lives by their own sins. When two pirates are condemned
to death, one of them cannot die for the other, for the reason that he has
to die for himself. Two manslayers are sentenced for life to close prison.
One cannot take the place of the other, and so let him go free.
Redemption, therefore, by any human means or merits was
absolutely out of the question.
Nor could angels atone for men. Of course the sufferings
of fallen angels, though they are the pains of hell, being due for their own
transgressions, could be no ransom for us. Nor could holy angels make
atonement or bring in righteousness for others. All the obedience they can
render is due for themselves. They can have no surplus of merit beyond their
own needs. Nor could they by suffering ever exhaust the penalty due for
man's sins. An angel is finite. The law violated and the justice offended
are infinite. Sin is therefore an infinite evil. In an angel an
eternity of suffering would be necessary to redeem one man from hell. The
sin of even one man would, if imputed to an angel, send him to prison
forever. Had his mediation been admitted, where would have been the gain in
the happiness of the universe? Then too a sinner pardoned would have been
bound forever to ascribe his redemption not only to a mere creature, but to
that creature ever suffering in hell the penalty due to the ransomed spirit,
whose substitute he had become. In this way no end would ever be made of
transgression. The suffering substitute could never rise triumphant and say,
"It is finished." And the redeemed would have praised in the highest notes
and with the deepest sense of obligation their deliverer, and that deliverer
would have still been enduring the penalty. Such would have been the
confusion, disorder, and idolatry of admitting an angel or angels to
undertake the work of redemption.
Besides, any holy angel must have been forever unfit for
the work of mediation, as he is not able as a days-man to lay his hand upon
both God and man. The highest created angel is infinitely inferior to God.
For him to claim equality with God would have been robbery indeed. He never
could have appeared before God with authority, asserting a right to dominion
over any part of his works. He never could have been admitted into the
counsels of eternity. He would have been looked upon with a righteous
jealousy by God himself as a rival in his kingdom and for his throne. His
intercessions must therefore have failed. He never could have said, "Father,
I WILL," without great presumption.
Nor could any holy angel ever have sympathized with man,
either as a sufferer or as a sinner, to such an extent as would have fitted
him to be a Redeemer. Angels know not what suffering is. In their natures
they are quite ignorant of what are the real feelings of men. They know
nothing by experience of the natural affections of men. They understand not
the hard pressure of poverty, or shame. Being holy and yet finite in their
compassions, no one of them could endure the recital of our offences without
utter dislike to our persons. Before he had learned half of the details and
aggravating circumstances of any one's crimes, he would have turned away
with unspeakable loathing from the shocking tale of human guilt. He would
have said, "Such a sinner ought to perish—must perish—I can have no sympathy
with him."
It is indeed well for us that our salvation does not
depend on the mercies of an angel. If it did, our doom would soon be sealed.
The reason is that our case requires a height, a depth, a length and a
breadth of compassion and grace to be found in but one being in the
universe. "It is of the Lord's mercies," yes, "it is of the Lord's mercies
that we are not consumed." Nor upon any admissible supposition could one
angel have redeemed many souls. Had one of them become a mediator, he could
not have saved any considerable number of the human family. So that still
nearly all the inhabitants of earth must have perished, or there must have
been millions of redeemers, and consequently as many different objects, to
whom loud praises and eternal thanks should have been rendered. And as
redemption is a greater blessing than creation, each person thus saved would
forever have felt himself more indebted to a creature than to the Creator,
inasmuch as the deliverer of each one would in the case supposed have been a
creature.
Such are some of the monstrous results, to which the
admission of a finite mediator would have led. So that we are shut up to the
admission that no finite being could ever fitly or successfully have
undertaken our cause. None of these difficulties lie in the way of Christ's
mediation. Nor could there be any objection to his undertaking our cause,
unless it were one of the following, namely:
1. That God was unwilling to admit any interposition in
our behalf. Such unwillingness would have been no injustice to us. Our
mouths must have been forever stopped, if he had treated us as he treated
rebel angels. But God, ever blessed be his name, pitied us, and was willing
to save us. He rejoiced to send his Son. He delivered him up freely. He so
loved the world that he gave him not grudgingly, nor reluctantly, but freely
and graciously. God, therefore, as the offended Lawgiver, made no objection
to Christ's mediation.
2. Or it would have been a valid objection to Christ's
mediation, if he himself had been unwilling to become our surety. For
eternal justice to have seized upon any innocent victim and led him forth a
reluctant sufferer in the room and stead of others, would have been a
procedure, which we could never justify. The Spirit of God, knowing how this
point would come up before our minds, has mercifully and completely relieved
all our apprehensions on the subject. By the Psaulmist he declares in the
name of Christ, "Lo, I come, I delight to do your will, O my God." And in
the Gospel we are informed by Christ himself that his sufferings were
voluntary. His words are: "I lay down my life that I might take it again. No
man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it
down, and I have power to take it again." John 10:17, 18. If in any sense
Christ was constrained to suffer for us, it was only by his amazing love and
mercy to the lost.
3. Or if the satisfaction rendered, or to be rendered,
had fallen short of what might justly have been required by the law of God,
or by the good of his dominions, this would have been an objection to
Christ's mediation. If Christ's interposition was in any way to diminish the
due force of law, or the just power of government in any province of God's
empire; if, in short, it could be fairly construed as a relaxation of moral
obligation, a concession to iniquity, then indeed there would have been a
valid objection to Christ's undertaking. But the Son of God gave for man's
redemption as heavy a ransom as justice, law, the conscience of man, the
judgment of angels, or the infinite holiness of God demanded. He paid the
full price. He drank the cup of bitterness even to the dregs thereof. He
magnified the law and made it honorable. God's abhorrence of sin is more
clearly expressed in the cross of Christ, than in the flames of hell.
Even the most tender and enlightened conscience of the most guilty man says
of Christ's satisfaction, whenever it is divinely revealed, "This is
enough—I ask no more—I end my quest of atonement here."