Page:Groves - Darbyism - Its Rise and Development and a Review of the Bethesda Question.djvu/84

 Ghost is taken away from us? When the gracious word, “When I see the blood I will pass over you,” spoken by God, can no longer satisfy the burdened soul; when the fact of the cross and the death upon it is removed as the sure and certain, because the only ground of peace and rest, what, we ask, do these writers give us instead? They say the death was necessary, but that it was not enough; they say the atonement rests in this, that Christ suffered in soul as well as in body, under divine wrath. This suffering in soul under divine wrath is thus made a necessary component part of the atonement, and if so, the poor sinner needs to know it ere he can rest in peaceful assurance that atonement has really been made. Now, where in the New Testament are we told that divine wrath came down upon the soul of Christ? Is wrath ever said to come down upon Him? To say the effect of the wrath due to the sinner came on Him would be correct, but to say that divine wrath came down on him, is abhorrent to all we know of Him who was ever the delight of His Father, whether in death or in life; whether in the manger or on the cross; and this is proved in that after the three hours darkness, just before his death, the Lord said, “, into Thy hand I deliver up My spirit.” Some have gone so far astray as to say that atonement was effected before death, and assert as a ground this verse and that other utterance on the cross, “It is finished;” by which argument, John xvii, where Jesus says, “I have finished the work Thou gavest Me to do,” would prove atonement was effected before He came to the cross at all. The consciousness that sin had been laid on Him, took not away from His soul the sweet assurance that the Father was much pleased, or for a moment brought the thought to Him that the wrath of God rested on Him. It could not. It was impossible. He stood there obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, obedient to the will of Him who sent Him. It will be replied, this is held by all. We believe it to be held by all humble and simple-minded believers, but we doubt whether the constant habit of speaking of the wrath of God resting on Christ, has not far and wide, among many of various religious views, undermined that essential truth which we find so frequently brought into prominence in the Word, that Jesus while standing before God as a sin-bearer, stood not there in the first place, on behalf of the sinner and as his servant, but on behalf of God and His servant in reference to Sin. This is the first place occupied by Christ, and as a faithful servant, and a loving obedient child, He bore sin because God put it on Him, and left Him alone and unaided to bear the tremendous load, and hence the awful cry, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me.” The secondary