Chapter 4—The Plan of Redemption
The fall of man filled all heaven with sorrow. The world that God
had made was blighted with the curse of sin and inhabited by beings
doomed to misery and death. There appeared no escape for those
who had transgressed the law. Angels ceased their songs of praise.
Throughout the heavenly courts there was mourning for the ruin that
sin had wrought.
The Son of God, heaven’s glorious Commander, was touched with
pity for the fallen race. His heart was moved with infinite compassion
as the woes of the lost world rose up before Him. But divine love
had conceived a plan whereby man might be redeemed. The broken
law of God demanded the life of the sinner. In all the universe there
was but one who could, in behalf of man, satisfy its claims. Since the
divine law is as sacred as God Himself, only one equal with God could
make atonement for its transgression. None but Christ could redeem
fallen man from the curse of the law and bring him again into harmony
with Heaven. Christ would take upon Himself the guilt and shame of
sin—sin so offensive to a holy God that it must separate the Father
and His Son. Christ would reach to the depths of misery to rescue the
ruined race.
Before the Father He pleaded in the sinner’s behalf, while the host
of heaven awaited the result with an intensity of interest that words
cannot express. Long continued was that mysterious communing—
“the counsel of peace” (
Zechariah 6:13
) for the fallen sons of men.
The plan of salvation had been laid before the creation of the earth; for
Christ is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (
Revelation
13:8
); yet it was a struggle, even with the King of the universe, to yield
up His Son to die for the guilty race. But “God so loved the world,
that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16
. Oh, the mystery
of redemption! the love of God for a world that did not love Him!
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Who can know the depths of that love which “passeth knowledge”?
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