In our last month’s issue we gave the substance of a conversation between “little Theodore,” and his brother, on the subject of the Lord’s coming; we shall now furnish our readers with a striking reply given by the same dear child to his mamma, on the subject of the atonement. He had been repeating that hymn, “I lay my sins on Jesus,” and his mother said to him, “Darling, have you laid your sins on Jesus?” “No,” said the child, with great emphasis and decision, “I have not laid my sins on Jesus; but God did it.”
Such an answer, coming from the lips of a child only two years and four months old, may teach a valuable lesson to many older heads. There is a vast difference between my laying my sins on Jesus, and God’s doing it. Little T. spoke in perfect accordance with the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which declares that “Jehovah laid on him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all.” And we find the same precious truth stated by the apostle in 2 Cor. 5 where he tells us that, God hath made Christ “to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
This is a point of immense value and importance in the atonement of Christ. It presents God to the soul in a most blessed manner. It shows him acting for us, not only in giving His only begotten Son from His bosom, but also in bruising Him on the cursed tree for us. “It pleased Jehovah to bruise him.” And again, in the twenty-second Psalm, we hear the blessed One saying to His God, “Thou hast brought me into the dust of death.”
Thus, as dear little T. expressed it, “God did it,” blessed forever be His holy Name. He knew what was needed, and He provided it. He knew the demand, and He met it. He knew what was to be done, and He did it. This is the only true foundation of peace. It is not enough to be able to say that “I lay my sins on Jesus.” True enough, no doubt, so far as it goes; but then I do not know the ten thousandth part of my sins. My conscience has never seized the full amount of my liability, the depth of my guilt. Human conscience is one thing, divine righteousness, quite another. God’s estimate of sin is very different from ours. There are thousands of sins that have never come within the range of my conscience—thousands more that have passed clean off the tablet of my memory. What of these? And then the root of all these; what of it? What of the mighty claims of the throne of God—the claims of His nature, the demands of His holiness? Was it not most evident that before ever a divinely awakened soul can find settled peace he must be led into the depth, fullness, and power of that one brief sentence—“God did it?” Such an one must know and believe that God Himself has taken the whole matter into His own bands, and settled it in such a manner as to glorify Himself throughout all ages. He has been glorified with respect to sin, by the infinitely precious sacrifice of Christ. It is He Himself who says, “I have found a ransom.”
Reader, what sayest thou to the answer of “little T.?” Could you give the same answer, if asked the same question? That dear child was called away very suddenly at the age of two years and seven months; but he knew and declared he was going to Jesus. Can you say this? Say, dear friend, art thou ready? Dost thou now heartily believe that God Himself has found a remedy for thy ruin, an atonement for thy guilt—a perfect righteousness in which thou mayest stand before Him? This is the solid foundation of the soul’s peace. Nothing else will do. It is not our works, our alms, our prayers, our religious duties, our church-going or chapel-going, our frames, feelings, or experiences. Not any of these things, nor all of them put together, can give the soul peace. We must know that God has met our case by His own work; that He is perfectly satisfied as to our sins; that He Himself has laid all our sins on Jesus, who bore them and put them away forever, and is gone into heaven without them. This, we repeat, is the true and only foundation of a sinner’s peace, and it is fully and forcibly set forth in those three words of little Theodore: “God did it.”
Himself hath done it—precious, precious words
Himself, my blessed Jesus, Savior, Friend
Whose faithfulness no variation knows;
Who, having loved me, loves me to the end.
And when in His eternal presence blest,
I at His feet my crown immortal cast,
I’ll gladly own, with all His ransomed saints,
Himself hath done it all, from first to last.