AN OBJECTION AND A REPLY.
By J. B. F.
Dear Bro. Smith: I received Testimony No. 17. I will quote a few sentences from her vision, and append a few thoughts as they present themselves to my mind, and send them to you for your consideration: Testimony No. 17, page 5: “The sins of the world were upon him. He was suffering in man's stead as a transgressor of his Father's law. The wrath that would have fallen upon man, was now falling upon Christ. The sins of a lost world were upon him, and overwhelmed him.” Page 11: “The glorious Redeemer of a lost world was suffering the penalty of man's transgressions of his Father's law. He was paying the just claims of God's holy law.” Page 12: “The sin of the world, with all its terribleness, was felt to the uttermost by the Son of God. The displeasure of the Father for sin, and its penalty, which was death,” &c. Page 13: “Salvation has been purchased for them [sinners] by the suffering and death of the Son of God. Their [the sinners'] wages, which is the wrath of God and eternal death.” Page 17: “Some have limited views of the atonement, and think that Christ suffered only a small portion of the penalty of the law of God,” &c. Page 18: “The sins of the world are upon him. * He suffered the penalty of the law,” &c. REMARKS.—If the wrath of God and eternal death are to be the wages of sin, and if Jesus suffered the penalty of his Father's law in the room and stead of sinners, to the full extent, to purchase their salvation, then Christ must have suffered eternal death. And if this be true, then Christ is still dead, and must eternally remain dead, in the second death. But this is not the fact, Jesus having risen from the dead. Therefore he did not die the death of the sinner in his room and stead, the second death. And, furthermore, if Jesus has suffered the full penalty of the Father's law, as a substitute for the punishment of the sins of the whole world, and if sinners have to finally suffer the punishment due (or rather not due) for the same sins, then sins are punished twice: first, in the substitute, and secondly, by the transgressors themselves. And thus the debt of punishment is paid twice to divine justice. And what reason is there for all this? Answer. Because the sinner did not believe and obey the law of God. For these were the conditions. I will try to illustrate this by a simple supposition. Suppose a man commits murder under laws where he must suffer death. Suppose an innocent substitute should offer to die in his stead, and were accepted by the legal authorities, and thus he hanged by the neck till dead. Then because the offender would not believe that the innocent man could have been so good as to do this for him, they should hang him also. Would this be right? J. B. F.