But the objection is raised and pressed with all the force of human ingenuity and scholarship, backed by the prestige of some occupying the highest positions in literary and theological institutions, that it is morally wrong for the innocent to suffer the penalty of the guilty. With a zeal deserving a better cause, many who stand high as professed Christians and teachers join hands with the rankest, most blatant infidels, and press this, to them, unanswerable objection to Christ dying for our sins as our substitute. This friendship between infidelity and professed Christian teachers reminds one of another occasion when our Saviour was set at naught and two became friends with each other that very day (Luke 23:11, 12). Let us face this objection honestly and earnestly, for our eternal destiny turns on this one point. _Is it morally wrong for the innocent to bear the sins of the guilty?_ In the first place it is _not_ morally wrong, because God would not do morally wrong, and God _did_ let the innocent suffer the penalty of the guilty. The language of Scripture teaching that Jesus suffered the penalty of our sins for us is plain and simple, and all efforts to take from the Scripture language its simple, plain, natural meaning are pitiable, and if contempt were ever justifiable, would deserve the contempt of all honest men. Let the reader turn back and read the Scriptures at the head of this chapter and decide for himself as to their obvious, intended meaning.
Now, because God's word tells us plainly that God gave His only begotten Son, that He might be just, and thus the justifier of him who believes in Jesus, that Christ died for our sins, that He gave Himself for our sins, the just for the unjust,--it is right for the innocent to suffer the penalty of the guilty. To any honest, candid man, which is the correct way to reason? This thing is wrong; God did this thing; therefore, God did wrong? or, God does right; God did let Christ, the innocent, suffer and die for our sins, to _redeem_ from _all iniquity_; therefore it is right for the innocent to suffer the penalty of the guilty?