GOD'S LOVE THE ORIGIN OF THE GOSPEL

GOD’S LOVE THE ORIGIN OF THE GOSPEL

It is a misconception of the spirit of the gospel to say that God had to be reconciled to man. God required that there should be a propitiation; but, blessed be His name, He provided it Himself. How it must have arrested the ear of John’s disciples when John said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1: 29). God in His infinite grace removes the distance that sin has caused, and which Cain failed to do, though the sin-offering was at the door, or at hand. The sinner was bound to remove the distance, to make restitution for the offence he had committed, but he could not. God then repairs the distance from His own side. He thus showed how He desired to be on terms. He could not forego His holiness, but yet His love is so great the He gives His Son, and He sets Him forth as a propitiation (a mercy-seat really), through faith in His blood. If I had incurred the penalty of death for breaking the most beautiful work my father had made, surely in righteousness I must suffer. But the father repairs the broken work through another, because of his desire that I should be on good terms with him. This in a feeble measure sets forth what God has done. Man, God’s most beautiful work, has incurred death. God cannot forego His righteousness, and man cannot repair the damage he has done. God then in His grace sends His Son. It is now God’s Lamb, not, as under the law, the sinner’s lamb.

In the prayer-book it is always the latter, the sinner pleading Christ’s sacrifice to escape from the Judge. There is no sense at all of the Father’s love; it is only that the sinner can escape from judgment through Christ’s blood. Therefore Christ is regarded as the sinner’s Friend, but God only as a Judge. There is doubtless this side in the gospel, but the other side, the greatest, is left out, even that the sending of the Son sprung from the love of God. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son” (John 3: 16). Christ says of the sheep, “My Father, which gave them me” (John 10: 29). Again, “That he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him” (John 17: 2).