W S Plumer
Redemption is God’s chief work. He has expended more on it than on all His other works, more than in creation and providence. Of Jehovah it is said: “He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His arm brought salvation unto Him; and His righteousness, it sustained Him” (Is 59:16). Jehovah was the sole author of redemption. He alone devised it. He alone executed it. He alone applies it. “Salvation is of the Lord.” Let us notice some particulars.
- God’s wisdom shines out in redemption, as His plan reconciles all His attributes. Redemption must not weaken God’s government, must not impair His honour. God could consent to nothing that might indicate the possibility of Him denying Himself. When human governments pass by offences, it is a confession of weakness. God could ignore no offence. Yet the eternal ruin of all men would have meant that men and angels would never see a single case of mercy being shown to the guilty.
3Duncan Macgregor, Campbell of Kiltearn, Edinburgh, 1874, pp 29,41.
1Another edited extract from Plumer’s The Rock of Our Salvation; it follows last month’s.
“Mercy pleads, If man is ruined, the creation is in vain. Justice pleads, If man is not sentenced, the law is in vain. Truth supports justice and grace abets mercy. What shall be done in this seeming contradiction? Mercy is not manifested if man is not pardoned; justice will complain if man is not punished. Therefore an expedient is found out by the wisdom of God to answer these demands and adjust the differences between them.
“The wisdom of God answers, I will satisfy your pleas. Punishment shall be inflicted, yet pardon shall be bestowed. Justice shall not complain for lack of an infliction of wrath, nor mercy for lack of an exercise of compassion. I will have an infinite sacrifice to meet the demands of justice, and the virtue and fruit of that sacrifice shall be the delight of mercy. The rights of both those attributes shall be preserved, and the demands amicably brought together in punishment and pardon, by transferring the punishment of sinners’ crimes upon their Surety, exacting a recompense from His blood by justice, and conferring life and salvation upon them by mercy without one drop of their own blood being required.
“Thus is justice satisfied in its holy severities, and mercy in its gracious indulgences. The riches of grace are entwined with the terrors of wrath. The glories of divine mercy are wound about the flaming sword of justice; and the sword of justice protects and secures the glories of mercy. Thus is God righteous without being cruel, and merciful without being unjust. His righteousness remains inviolable, and the sinner becomes recoverable. Thus is resplendent mercy brought forth in the midst of all the wrath threatened to the offender.”2
This scheme has no parallel in heaven or earth. Such a suretyship as that of Christ was never before heard of. It stands by itself. Around the cross of Christ were assembled Jews and Gentiles, men and devils; but in the cross of Christ justice and mercy, righteousness and peace, severity and compassion embrace and kiss each other. So that now forgiveness to the believing sinner is no less consistent with justice than is the destruction of the unbelieving reprobate. God is just to forgive sins, and to cleanse from all iniquity. All penitent souls may say, We are “justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” (Rom 3:24,25). God’s rational creatures had never before seen it on this wise. So far from being able to devise or execute such a scheme, man is not able to comprehend it. All he can do – at least the best he can do – is to embrace it, obey its calls, wonder and adore.
2Quoted from Stephen Charnock.