Page:Jesus of Nazareth the story of His life simply told (1917).djvu/34

 *creed by the Three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that a full and perfect satisfaction or compensation for the evil done should be offered to God. Now, for this two things were necessary. He who was to make the satisfaction must be equal to God, or it would not be infinite and enough; and He must be man, too, because man who had sinned must satisfy for sin.

No Angel, however high, nor all Angels and men together, could make this sufficient atonement. God himself must do it if it was to be done. And God was ready. Not counting the cost, thinking only of our misery and of His own love, the Second Person offered Himself to satisfy fully for our sins—for the first or original sin, which was not our own act, but his who was the origin and father of us all, and for those sins, too, which are our own free act.

All this load of sin which men have heaped up from the beginning against the Majesty of God, which we have each of us helped to increase, the Son of God took upon Himself, to suffer for in our stead, and thus reopen for us the gates of Heaven, which otherwise would have been closed against us forever. In place of Adam who had ruined us, another Head was given us in our dear Lord Jesus Christ. He was to put all right. He was to come and live amongst us a hard, suffering Life, and then to die upon the Cross for each of us one by one. Well may the Church cry out:

"O happy fault that has had such a Redeemer!"