Nor is Christ dying for our sins, as taught by the Scriptures, a makeshift, but, rather, a real, full _redemption, ransom_. Just as a captain can honorably, honestly be given as a ransom for a number of private soldiers in an exchange of prisoners; just as a diamond can redeem a debt of many dollars; just as one man is allowed to pay another's debt; just as one man is allowed to pay another's fine in a courtroom; so our Lord and Saviour "gave himself for us, that he might _redeem_ us from _all iniquity_." All illustrations of Deity fall short, but just as a man could ransom all the ants that crawl upon the earth, were they under moral law and had violated it; just as a man could, on account of the vast difference in the scale of being, suffer in his own body all that all the ants upon earth could suffer; so Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, redeemed us from "all iniquity." It was not merely the nails driven through His quivering flesh, nor the physical pangs, but "the Lord hath laid on him _the iniquity_ of us all." Hence, that awful cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He was in the sinner's place, suffering the sinner's penalty for sin. "He hath made him to be sin for us."--2 Cor. 6:21.
Instead of proudly cavilling and warping and trying to avoid the simple, plain meaning of God's word, should you not rather, reader, bow in reverence before such love, realize that it was for you, yes, _you_, and that through His suffering and in no other way, you may escape the just punishment of your sins and spend eternity in Heaven? The world weeps over the story of the noble fireman who gave his life to rescue a little girl from a burning building, but it coldly scorns and proudly rejects salvation through the redemption of Jesus the Christ. Oh, the pride and wickedness of the human heart! Be not you, reader, of those who sit in the seat of the scornful, but the rather of those who at the last day will sing, Rev. 5:9, "Worthy art thou to take the book and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with thy blood, men of every tribe and tongue and people and nation."
Let us consider carefully what it really means when we are told that "Christ died _for our sins_,"--1 Cor. 15:3, that He "gave himself _for our sins_,"--Gal. 1:4; that "his own self bare our sins in his own body upon the tree,"--1 Peter 2:24; that "Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous."--1 Peter 3:18. God's word explains it clearly: "That he might himself be _just_ and the _justifier_ of him that hath faith in Jesus."--Rom. 3:26. "_That he might be just._" Notice it carefully, "_That he might be just._" Take it in its full meaning, "That he might be just." A question: How _could_ God be _just_ and _justify_ any sinner apart from the fact that "Christ died for our sins," that "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all"? Reader, no man, however learned, will ever answer that question. He may sneer; he may cavil; he may warp; he may try to confuse; but he will never come out in the open and answer that question. He may say that it is morally wrong for the innocent to bear the penalty of the guilty, but that objection is met and answered above in this chapter.