What Is The True Christian Religion?/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
THE DEATH ON CALVARY
The rejection of Jesus by the Jews was a representation of their rejection of the Word of God and of the Divine Being. It is perfectly true that God in Jesus completely identified Himself in His assumed humanity with the human race, taking upon Himself tendencies to sin through his human inheritance, and also bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, and bore our sinful tendencies in his own body on the tree: but he did not suffer as a substitute for us, nor pay the penalty or our sins. His death on the cross represented the rejection of the Divine Being and His Word by the Jewish nation. Jesus was the Word incarnate. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." There was no God in heaven demanding the death of the sinner but willing to be appeased by the death of His son. Jesus was God in the flesh come to earth in a limited humanity in order to share with us our life and overcome our enemies of the underworld and set us free from their ruthless power. He poured out His life for us in that fierce combat against the hells, They had power because the human race had yielded to their suggestions of evil. He died to release humanity from their grasp by overcoming the hells as they tempted Him. And He overcame.
He became sin for us representatively, not actually, for He knew no sin. He did not assume our guilt, for He was a representation of the Divine Innocence, representatively the Lamb of God who bore the sinful tendencies of humanity, but not its sin. There was no other God to appease, for God is one, one in Essence and one in Person,—manifested in the flesh. He that saw Jesus saw the Father as one seeing you sees your soul manifesting itself through your body.
But it was not God that died upon the cross, but the son of Mary, the assumed human. God cannot die. Because we are God's children we cannot die, but our bodies can,—our carnal nature can. He assumed our humanity in order to share our life, in order to meet the hells and overcome in the limitations of that human nature, in order to reveal Himself to us in the only way possible. "He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin." He suffered vicariously for us, but did not become a substitute for us, because there is no such thing in human life or in God's universe as one person becoming guilty for another and suffering for him, substituting for him when it is known that he is not guilty. No court of law would permit it, nor would God do so. In fact, He says expressly in Ezekiel; "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the farther bear the iniquity of the sen. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him; in his righteousness that he hath done shall he live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God; and not that he should return from his ways, and live?"
This means definitely and unmistakably and forever that God will not punish the innocent for the guilty, any more than a human court of law will do so, and that if we turn away from our evils of life, and live according to Divine law, we shall be saved. Each man is responsible for his own character. Jesus confirmed this in Revelation by saying, "Behold. I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be," thus according to his character. No one can be our substitute in acquiring an education or a Christian character. There is no magical process in either. Each means prolonged effort.