from the father's home, was death it was indispensable that the elder brother should have suffered the death penalty.
The Plan of Salvation demanded the death penalty for all sin, whatever it was that was done in violation of God's law. There was no escape. All who sinned after the sin of Adam came under this penalty, not merely Adam. It meant as well dill all of his progeny forever would perish. This did not mean merely physical death, but eternal death in hell prepared for the devil and his angels. This meant that the entire human race came under this penalty—innocent little children, infants, as well as all older men and women. God simply had to have His justice satisfied. Law had been broken. There could he no escape. The hideous injustice of such a curse upon the human race was explained as the justice of a Supreme Being who could do whatever He willed, regardless of human ideas of justice Men began to praise God because of His justice in condemning humanity to eternal death as the offspring of Adam. In the Middle Ages men praised God for the sufferings of little children in hell. A more monstrous idea oi the Divine Being could not have been imagined. Moloch, whose priests claimed that the only way to gain the favor of this monster was to place their infants and little children in the attended brazen arms of the idol and then to see the children withdrawn, shrieking with terror, into the burning fiery furnace within the image, was not so cruel. Moloch murdered only a few comparatively; God the human race.
This is the basis of the Plan of Salvation.
The human race was to be saved by the mercy of their Elder Brother, Christ, who would undertake to come no earth after some thousands of years and be murdered, the innocent for the guilty. The idea of the Plan of Salvation was to save mankind by substitution—the innocent Son of God for the wicked human race. It involved the murder of Jesus by the Jewish race. If the Jews had not murdered Jesus, there could have been no penalty paid for Adam's sin. A crime had to he committed in order for God to have mercy. He demanded the death penalty. He could not escape from His own dreadful situation.
