“MAN fancies that if he should reform and amend his life, he will be accepted; but there comes a voice from the throne of God—a voice which says, ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die.’ ‘Having sinned, O man,’ says God, ‘I must inflict punishment for thy sin.’ God is so inflexibly just that He has never forgiven, and never will forgive, the sinner without having exacted the punishment for his sin. He is so strictly true to His threatenings, and so unutterably severe in His justice, that His holy law never relaxes its hold upon the sinner till the penalty is paid, and vengeance has exacted its utmost farthing:
“‘Well,’ says the sinner, ‘I cannot redeem the past: what must I do? If I amend for the future, there is the dark catalog of past offenses still pursuing me. Even if I run up no other debts, there are the old accounts. How can I get them paid? How can I get past sins forgiven? How can I find my way to heaven?’ Then he thinks, ‘I will seek to humble myself before God; I will cry and lament, and I hope, by deep penitence and heartfelt contrition, and by perpetual floods of tears, God may be induced to pardon me.’
“O man! though thy tears drop on the black list of thy sins one by one, they will not blot out a single sin. Those sins are engraved in brass. These tears are not a liquid strong enough to burn out what God has thus inscribed. Thou mightest weep till thy very eyes were wept away, and until thy heart were all distilled in drops, and yet not remove one single stain from the brazen tablet of the memory of Jehovah.
‘Could thy tears forever flow,
Could thy zeal no respite know,
All for sins could not atone:
Christ must save, and He alone.’
“There is no atonement in tears or repentance. God has not said, ‘I will forgive you for the sake of your penitence.’ What is there in thy penitence that can make you deserve forgiveness? If you deserved forgiveness you would have a setoff against your guilt. This were to suppose some claims upon God, and there would be no mercy in giving you what you could claim. Repentance, of itself, is not an atonement for sin. What, then, can be done? Justice says, ‘Blood for blood; a stroke for every sin, blood for every crime,’
“Thus saith the Lord, ‘I will by no means clear the guilty.’ The sinner feels within his heart that the judgment is just; like the man to whom I talked some time ago, who said, ‘If God does not damn me, He ought. I have been so great a sinner against His laws that His equity would be sullied by my escape.’ The sinner, when convicted in his own conscience, must own the righteousness of God in his condemnation. He knows that he has been so wicked, he has sinned so much against heaven, that God in justice must punish him. He feels that God cannot pass by his sin and his transgression. Then there must be an atonement, in order to obtain pardon, he thinks. Who shall effect it?
“Speed your way up to heaven. It is vain to ask it on earth. Go up there, where cherubs stand around the throne of God. Ask one by one the brilliant spirits, and say, ‘Can ye offer an atonement?’ God has said, ‘Man must die’; and the sentence cannot be altered. God Himself cannot reverse it, for, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, it is irrevocable. Punishment must follow sin, and damnation must be the effect of iniquity. Thou blazing seraph! wilt thou quench thy glories for a moment and descend to hell? But then it would not be for a moment! for thou shouldst tarry then forever; thou must be eternal ages long in bearing the punishment of only one soul. Therefore, O seraph! I would not ask thee. Besides, thou art not a man; and the Scripture says, ‘It shall die.’ No satisfaction would it yield if thou didst die. Ye angels! I have no hope from you!
“I must turn my eye in another direction. Where shall I find help? Where shall I find deliverance? Man cannot help me; angels cannot. Even Michael the archangel can do naught for us. Where shall we find forgiveness? Where is the priceless prize? The mine hath it not in its depths. Stars have it not in their brilliance. The floods cannot tell me as they lift up their voice; nor can the hurricane’s blast discover to me the mystery profound. It is hidden in the sacred counsels of the Most High. Where it is I know not, until from the throne of God I hear it said, I am the Substitute, ‘Lo, I come, to do thy will, O God.’ And looking up there, I see sitting on the throne a God and yet a man—a man who once was slain! I see His once scarred hands and wounded side. But He is the everlasting God. He says, ‘I have forgiveness; I have pardon; but I purchased it with blood. This heart was riven for it; this precious casket of divinity was broken open for your souls. I had to die, the Just for the unjust. Excruciating agony, pains unutterable, and woes such as ye cannot comprehend, I had to suffer for your sake.’
“And can I say, ‘This amazing grace is mine?’ Has He enrolled my worthless name in the Lamb’s book of life? Do I see the blood mark on the writ of my pardon? Do I know He purchased it with such a price? And shall I refuse to say, ‘Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered,’ for ‘There is forgiveness with Thee’? Nay; I must and will exult, for I have found this jewel, a jewel before which diadems do pale and lose their luster. I have found a pearl of great price, and now I must and will esteem all things but loss for Jesus’ sake; for having found this unpurchaseable mercy, this blessing which could not be bought except with blood—the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, I must shout again. ‘Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.’ For in Him—the Lord Jesus Christ— ‘we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.’ ‘And by him all that believe are justified.’ Yes, ‘there is forgiveness with Thee; that Thou mayest he feared.’”