WE do well to remember that though salvation is offered to us without money and without price, in the largeness and liberality of the grace of God, it has been procured at an infinite cost. And this we must realize if we consider that before God could save a sinner He must be able to do it in accordance with His own righteousness and holiness, as well as in the activity of His mercy and love. If God issued a general pardon to all sinners, irrespective of all satisfaction rendered to Him on account of their sins, where would be His truth, His righteousness, His holiness?
God cannot pass over sin in the free and easy way so common among men. He must punish sin; and the great problem which had to be solved before there could be salvation for guilty sinners was how the sin might be judged, and at the same time the sinner be saved; for God loves the sinner, though He hates the sin. How could this be done? In no other way than by the Son of God going to the cross, and there bearing the judgment of God upon sin. I am bold to say, with most profound reverence, that the salvation of a sinner, consistently with divine righteousness, was a work which taxed the utmost resources of God. To accomplish this, the eternal Son must become a man in this world of sin, and He must be lifted up upon the cross. That blessed One must suffer, or He could not save. The throne of grace from which she extends her golden scepter of salvation to repentant sinners does not stand upon the ruins of justice. Grace reigns, indeed, but she reigns through righteousness, and God is just in justifying the ungodly sinner who believes in Jesus.
The holiness of God has found that which met all its claims in the death of Christ, and divine righteousness has been fully vindicated by that one offering whereby the sins of believers were forever put away. But think of the darkness of that midnight noon, which for three hours enwrapped the Saviour in its gloomy shades. Think of the depth of anguish which wrung from His heart that bitter wail of grief, “My God, my God, why halt thou forsaken me?” What untold travail of soul did He pass through before He could proclaim that His great redemption work was “FINISHED.”
As we contemplate that scene—and may we stand in figure, with unshod feet, as we do so; for the ground is thrice holy—we learn something of what sin is in the sight of God. No sacrifice of meaner rank could satisfy the lofty requirements of divine righteousness; the blood of no other victim possessed the needed efficacy to cleanse the sinner from his scarlet stains of guilt.
“Here we have a firm foundation,
Here the refuge of the lost!
Christ’s the rock of our salvation;
His the name of which we boast!”
C. A. C.