Plan of Redemption
15
Satan had peculiar interest in watching the development of events
immediately after the fall of Adam, to learn how his work had affected
the kingdom of God, and what the Lord would do with Adam because
of his disobedience.
The Son of God, undertaking to become the Redeemer of the race,
placed Adam in a new relation to his Creator. He was still fallen; but
a door of hope was opened to him. The wrath of God still hung over
Adam, but the execution of the sentence of death was delayed, and the
indignation of God was restrained, because Christ had entered upon
the work of becoming man’s Redeemer. Christ was to take the wrath
of God, which in justice should fall upon man. He became a refuge for
man, and, although man was indeed a criminal, deserving the wrath
of God, yet he could, by faith in Christ, run into the refuge provided
[20]
and be safe. In the midst of death there was life if man chose to accept
it. The holy and infinite God, who dwelleth in light unapproachable,
could no longer talk with man. No communication could now exist
directly between man and his Maker.
God forbears, for a time, the full execution of the sentence of death
pronounced upon man. Satan flattered himself that he had forever
broken the link between heaven and earth. But in this he was greatly
mistaken and disappointed. The Father had given the world into the
hands of His Son for Him to redeem from the curse and the disgrace of
Adam’s failure and fall. Through Christ alone can man now find access
to God. And through Christ alone will the Lord hold communication
with man.
Christ volunteered to maintain and vindicate the holiness of the
divine law. He was not to do away the smallest part of its claims
in the work of redemption for man, but, in order to save man and
maintain the sacred claims and justice of His Father’s law, He gave
Himself a sacrifice for the guilt of man. Christ’s life did not, in a single
instance, detract from the claims of His Father’s law, but, through firm
obedience to all its precepts and by dying for the sins of those who
had transgressed it, He established its immutability.
After the transgression of Adam, Satan saw that the ruin was
complete. The human race was brought into a deplorable condition.
Man was cut off from intercourse with God. It was Satan’s design
that the state of man should be the same as that of the fallen angels,
in rebellion against God, uncheered by a gleam of hope. He reasoned