1jo 03v16 He Laid Down His Life For Us
Children of God, this is the foundation of our faith,
the rock of our salvation, and the hope of our souls. Since Christ has died in
the place of his people, they cannot perish. I know that there are men whose
minds are so distorted that they can conceive it possible that Christ died for
men who in the end will be lost in hell. I am sorry to say that there are men
in the pulpits of the church today, whose brains have been so addled by
religious tradition and false doctrine that they cannot see that the doctrine
they hold is both a preposterous lie and a blasphemous error. Their doctrine
is this -Christ dies for a man, and then God punishes that man again;
Christ suffers in the sinner's stead, and then God condemns that sinner after
all! It shocks me to even mention such an error. Were it not so commonly held,
I would pass over it with the contempt that it deserves. That would be a
perversion of justice, a double-cross, and a requirement of double indemnity.
The doctrine of Scripture is this - God is just.
Christ died in the stead of his people, satisfying God's justice; and now, as
God is just, he will never punish one solitary soul for whom the Savior did
shed his blood. Justice will not allow a double payment for the same offense,
first at the hands of Christ, and then from me. The idea that Christ was the
Substitute and Surety for all men is so inconsistent, both with reason and Holy
Scripture, that we are obliged to reject it with abhorrence. We cannot, for the
glory and honor of our Savior, let go of the blessed gospel doctrine of
particular and effectual redemption. To deny the efficacy of Christ's
substitutionary atonement would be, for me, a total denial of the gospel. And
it would rob me of my soul's greatest comfort.