If Mr. Roberts is unsound about the very foundation of the Christian faith, it is not surprising that he should be unsound as to the atoning death of Christ. It is terrible to have to write such words of one, who professed to be a servant of Christ, but his own words leave us in no doubt in the matter. He writes:- "It is a theological habit to represent the death of Christ as an act on his part to appease the wrath of the Father towards sinners. The Scriptures, ON THE CONTRARY, always speak of it as an expression of God's love toward fallen humanity" (page 113). If the Scriptures ALWAYS speak of the death of Christ as an expression of God's love, then according to Mr. Roberts they NEVER speak of it as exhausting the wrath of a sin-hating God, when the blessed Lord took the sinner's place at the cross. Nay, further, he denied that the Lord was the Substitute at the cross. Read his own words: "There is a difference between a representative and a substitute. A representative is not disconnected from those represented. On the contrary, those represented go through with him all that he goes through. But in the case of a substitute it is otherwise. He does his part instead of those for whom he is the substitute, and these are disassociated from the transaction" (page 118). So, according to Mr. Roberts, Christ did not bear the wrath of God when He died upon the cross, nor was He a Substitute for the sinner when He died. Nay, further, if all represented go through with Him all that He goes through, then they are co-Saviors with Him. The gospel is clearly whittled away by such reasoning.
What meant the bitter cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" uttered by Christ upon the cross, if He were not bearing the wrath of God against sin? How could the Apostle Paul write: "Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from WRATH through Him " (Rom. 5:99Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. (Romans 5:9)), if He did not bear that wrath and exhaust it at the cross? Again he writes of the Lord Jesus as the One who "delivered us from the WRATH to come " (1 Thess. 1:1010And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:10)). How could He deliver us from the coming wrath if He had not met that wrath for us on the cross? How can Mr. Roberts say that the death of Christ is not a question of meeting the wrath of God against sin, when we read that " Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures " (1 Cor. 15:33For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; (1 Corinthians 15:3)); that "He [God] hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him " (2 Cor. 5. 21).
It is playing with words, a travesty of all that is true of the gospel, to write of it in the way that Mr. Roberts does. It makes light of sin, and would lead to light ideas of the atonement itself. If we think lightly of sin, we are bound to think lightly of the sacrificial work of the Lord Jesus on the cross.