September Fifteenth.
THE LORD OF HOSTS OUR REDEEMER.
"As for our Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts is His name."—Isaiah xlvii. 4.
THE word translated Atonement, in the original Greek signifies the reconciliation, or bringing together, of parties once separated; and understood in this sense, the doctrine is a fundamental tenet of Christianity. The atonement is the reconciliation, not of God to man, but of man to God; not of the Creator to His creatures, but of depraved creatures to their Creator. There is not, there cannot be, in the Divine mind, any feelings analogous to anger or wrath, as these exist in the breast of man—"God is love;" He is not merely loving, but love itself, in its very essence. With love there is neither wrath nor fury, nor in the God of Love can these passions have any existence.
How, then, do the Scriptures speak of the wrath of God? In the same sense in which they speak of His grieving and repenting,—as appearances arising from states of the human mind, and not as real passions existing in the Deity. We may illustrate this. The sun of our system always shines with equal light and splendour; yet we speak of his rising and going down, while yet the change is in the position of the earth, not of the sun. So when the mind turns from God. He appears to withdraw; and when it turns towards Him, He appears to arise upon it. When, again, iniquity interposes between the soul and its Maker, God appears as a consuming fire, as the sun
