Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/163

 penalty of Adam's sin by him, under the New Covenant.

There is no unrighteousness with God; hence "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (i John 1:9.) As he would have been unjust to have allowed us to escape the pronounced penalty before satisfaction was rendered, so also he here gives us to understand that it would be unjust were he to forbid our restitution, since by his own arrangement our penalty has been paid for us. The same unswerving jus- tice that once condemned man to death now stands pledged for the release of all who, confessing their sins, apply for life through Christ. "It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died; yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us," Rom, 8:33, 34.

The completeness of the ransom is the very strongest possible argument for the restitution of all mankind who will accept it on the proffered terms. (Rev, 22: 17.) The very character of God for justice and honor stands pledged to it; every promise which he has made implies it; and every typical sacrifice pointed to the great and sufficient sacrifice "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the SIN OF THE WORLD" who is "the propitiation [satisfaction] for our sins [the Church's], and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (John 1:29; i John 2:2.) Since death is the penalty or wages of sin, when the sin is canceled the wages must in due time cease. Any other view would be both unreasonable and unjust The fact that no recovery from the Adamic loss is yet accom- plished, though nearly two thousand years have elapsed since our Lord died, is no more an argument against restitution than is the fact that four thousand years elapsed before his death a proof that God had not planned the redemption be- fore the foundation of the world. Both the two thousand

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