CHAPTER I
THE PLAN OF SALVATION
The world is filled with books, articles and sermons in defense of the so-called Plan of Salvation. Mankind in general has been so impressed by the arguments for its truth and correctness that it is firmly believed to be identical with Christianity. The Scriptures have been so used and quoted that the Plan of Salvation seems to be their legitimate and only explanation. It would seem to be impossible to disentangle truth from error in this case so that men may see that the religion of Jesus does not teach the Plan of Salvation. It will possibly horrify many people to be told that the Plan of Salvation is an invention of man and did not exist until the time of St. Anslem. 1033 to 1109, an Italian ecclesiastic who became Archibishop of Canterbury in England and was later expelled by the king and later wrote his book which developed the theory involved in the so-called Plan of Salvation. This was in 1098. over a thousand years after the Crucifixion.
St. Anselm's position was that of the Roman influenced by the idea of Law and Justice. The idea of the Atonement between God and Man ceased to be thought of as the relationship between a Heavenly Father and His Children and thenceforward became the idea of the relationship between a King and His Subjects. It was thereafter thought of as purely legal and the legalistic idea was profoundly impressed upon Christian teaching, so much so that the idea which the Lord impressed upon mankind in the parable of the Prodigal Son of our Heavenly Father standing with open arms to receive back His children into the haven of His love has been forgotten. In the legalistic idea it was necessary, because of the father's demand, that the elder brother of the prodigal should have come forward and offered himself as an object of punishment. It was necessary that the elder brother should have been duly punished as a substitute for his wayward brother. And as the wages of sin. or of wandering
