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High God. Nothing less than deity would suffice to qualify the mediator for
such a position. Had Christ been merely a man, His death on the cross might have
shown us His love and self-devotion and obedience to God's commands even to the
last extremity, but it would not have revealed God's love or even His justice.
For how would it have been just to let an innocent man suffer for the guilty? Or
how would God's love have been manifested in devoting the best of men to
ignominy, torture and death? But when we remember that there is only one God,
that Christ has taught us that He and His Father are one, 1 and that,
as the New Testament says, 'God 2 was in Christ, reconciling the
world unto himself,' then we can in some measure understand the mystery of the
Atonement. God Himself in the person of His Word
(كلمته) suffered for our sins, and
Himself paid the debt due to His infinite justice. In this way His love, His
justice and His mercy are alike manifested; and an appeal is made to the heart
of every man in whom there still dwells even the least possibility of love and
gratitude. Hence those who believe in Christ can say with His beloved disciple
St. John: 'We 3 love, because he first loved us.' 'Herein 4
was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son
into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we
loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for
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our sins.' In this way, too, we learn that God does not stand aloof from our
sorrows and sufferings, but that He himself has in Christ 'borne 1
our griefs, and carried our sorrows.'
If our honoured readers desire to know in what sense the New Testament speaks
of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God
(ابن
الله), and to study more fully the
doctrine of the atonement, he will find more detailed explanations of these
matters in the Key of Mysteries and in the new and revised edition of the
Balance of Truth. 2 Here it will be sufficient to sum up the
teaching of the holy Scriptures on the subject of salvation and remission of
sins through belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and to explain how Christ has
become to His true disciples 'wisdom 3 from God, and righteousness
and sanctification, and redemption.'
Christ is our righteousness because in mind and will and conduct He alone was
without sin and fulfilled God's righteous law 4; and because He, the
Word of God, by His sufferings and death offered Himself up freely and
voluntarily for our sins and transgressions, that He might redeem us with His
own blood. He is the spiritual Head of the human race, and therefore it is
written in holy Scripture, 'As 5 in Adam all die, so also in Christ
shall all be
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