Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/139

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God thus limits the evil which he permits, by providing that the Millennial reign of Christ shall accomplish the full * tin&ion of evil and also of wilful evil-doers, and usher in an eternity of righteousness, based upon full knowledge and perfect free-will obedience by perfedi beings,

But there are two other objedlions to the plan suggested, of trying each individual separately at first. One Redeemer was quite sufficient in the plan which God adopted, because only one had sinned, and only one had been condemned. (Others shared his condemnation.) But if the first trial had been an individual trial, and if one-half of the race had sinned and been individually condemned, it would have required the sacrifice of a redeemer for each condemned individuaL One unforfeited life could redeem one forfeited life, but no more. The one perfedl man, * the man Christ Jesus," who redeemed the fallen Adam (and our losses through him), could not have been "a ransom [a corresponding price] for ALL** under any other circumstances than those of the plan which God chose.

If we should suppose the total number of human beings since Adam to be one hundred billions, and that only one- half of these had sinned, it would require all of the fifty billions of obedient, perfedt men to die in order to give a ransom [a corresponding price] for all the fifty billions of transgressors ; and so by this plan also death would peas upon all. And such a plan would involve no less suffering than is at present experienced.

The other objection to such a plan is that it would seri- ously disarrange God's plans relative to the geledlion and exaltation to the divine nature of a " little flock/* the body of Christ, a company of which Jesus is the Head and Lord. Cod could not justly command the fifty billions of obedi- ent sons to give their rights, privileges and lives as ifcnsoms for the sinners; for under his own law their obedience would

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