WAS THE DEATH OF CHRIST NECESSARY?
By Richard C. Porter
THE account of the creation of man, contained in the first two chapters of Genesis, is a remarkable revelation of God's love in the provision made for the comfort and happiness of His children. The family relation, and the Sabbath,—these two institutions were both intended as means to that end. But after man had fallen under sin, it was written of him: "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good; no, not one." This was the condition into which man was plunged by sin. The whole race, without an exception, was placed where none could do righteousness. Christ said to the young man, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." He also said, "Without Me, ye can do nothing." From the days of old we have the same pleading of God: "O that thou hadst harkened to My commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea." But man sinned, and "the wages of sin is death." In placing His law before man, God showed His love by giving, in that law, only the principles of happiness. These principles were the principles of righteousness, and only in righteousness is happiness and life. So the psalmist says, "All Thy commandments are righteousness." And the wise man declares: "In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death." Prov. 12:28. His laws were ordained to life. Rom. 7:10. Since the fall, can man restore himself without a Saviour? It has ever been the tendency of the human heart, since sin entered, to seek perfection apart from Christ. The history of Israel under the old covenant is but the story of impossibility that lies at the threshold of every attempt to attain righteousness and life without a Saviour. "But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore?—Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law." in order to meet the demands of the law of righteousness?—Every individual is required to live in perfect obedience to every precept of the law from birth to death. This, according to the scriptures above quoted, no man hath done, or can do. Suppose a man were able to commence now, and live the balance of his days in perfect obedience to the law, could he pass, at life's close, before that law as perfect in character during his entire life?—No; because of his past failures, his life would be imperfect. It is also evident to every man that has tried to live a perfect life without Christ, that such a thing is impossible. His own heart's condemnation is but the open declaration that without a Saviour man is lost. Life would have been eternal if righteousness had not been lost. Death came by sin. If man can save himself from sin, he can in like manner save himself from death. As Death steals upon us, and his icy hand is felt clutching at the foundation of natural life, what man can save himself from the grim monster? Since sin entered, the universal verdict is, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Outside of a Saviour, there is no discharge from this fiat. It is as futile for a man to try to save himself from sin without a Saviour, as to seek to save himself from death, which came as the result of sin, without a Saviour. The logic of this conclusion is self-evident. This brings us to the scriptures which declare that Jesus Christ is of the world, for release from both sin and death. "I am the door; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." To him the porter does not open. "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I am come that they might have life." Satan, as a thief, started the claim of the possibility of perfect life outside of Christ. He robbed man of confidence in Christ, and stole from Christ, so far as possible to do, the honor of giving righteousness and life. He came to deprive us of these things, to destroy us. Christ found us under sentence of death, and how can He justly free us from that sentence, since the penalty is just? He could only do so by taking man's place, and living under man's temptations a righteous life for man from birth to death, and dying under man's death sentence as his voluntary substitute. This He did. His life was perfect from birth to death under the very temptations that meet us in life's pathway. This is what is required of each of us, but we have lost it. In and of ourselves it would be impossible to supply perfect obedience; for our lives testify to our imperfections. The perfect One is "Jesus Christ the righteous." To give us full confidence that in Him our salvation is assured, we must know that the death penalty overhanging us is accepted by Him, altho He is innocent and free from the sin which brought death. We find this plain truth declared in Isa. 53:6: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." And again, in the same chapter: "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief; when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin. . . . By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities. . . . He hath poured out His soul unto death; and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." According to these scriptures, Jesus Christ can "be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." He lived for man a perfect life from birth to death. He has therefore a perfect life to offer to the one who believes in Him as a Saviour. Innocent tho He was, He paid the penalty of man's transgression. Having met the death penalty in His own person, for us, he can ask our release from death without lowering the dignity of God's government. So Paul declares, "That God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." To whom, then, were they imputed?—"For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." From this glorious fact the apostle draws the conclusion in Rom. 5:19: "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous." Obedience, perfect and unceasing, is required for every moment of our lives. He has it to offer for us. He is "merciful, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; but He can by no means clear the guilty." To be cleared, man must confess his guilt, accept the righteous life He lived for him, and thus be free from the death penalty. Surely, "There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."