What Is The True Christian Religion?/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
THE TRUE METHOD ILLUSTRATED
The question as to how we shall interpret the Bible is solved by taking the book as a whole and thinking of the true and evident nature of God as infinitely and eternally loving, incapable of the weaknesses of hating humanity, and avenging Himself upon them. It seems true to say that God hates sin, but loves the sinner; that his hatred of sin is not because of His fastidious dislike of what is offensive to Him as an individual being, but because of its harmful effect upon the sinner. The God the theologians have invented is a base calumny, an atrocious misrepresentation of a Deity who actually is forever like the father of the Prodigal Son. The real God of the Bible is a Divine Being whose love followed the sinner down into hell itself and overthrew the hells in order to release mankind from the illusions of wickedness and from spiritual death. God is not at all like the God behind the so-called Plan of Salvation. God, manifested in Jesus, did actually come forth into the lowest planes of man's earthly life, and in the inner world of spirit met and fought against and overcame man's deadly enemies, rescuing man from their cruel and malignant power, setting him forever in a place of equilibrium, or balance, between hell and heaven, so that aided by the Lord and His angels, man could freely choose the good and reject the evil. This was the Rescue of mankind, His Redemption; and Salvation is man's choice of the good and rejection of the evil helped by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who is God dwelling with man. ls not this latter Plan of Salvation, if one wishes to call it that, in harmony with the true nature of God as revealed in Old and New Testament?
Is not this the picture of Redemption and Salvation disclosed in the 40th chapter of Isaiah? For example, we have there the picture of John the Baptist as the forerunner of the Messiah who was to prepare the way of Jehovah. Mind you, he was to prepare the way of Him who was Jehovah in the flesh, and in that way Jehovah Himself, of Him in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. John was to make in the desert a "highway for our God." That this was so is shown by the statements which follow where it is told us that "the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." And this coming forth was Jesus—God in the flesh.
And the church revealed respectively as Zion and Jerusalem is commanded to lift up the voice with strength and say unto the cities of Judah, "Behold, your God." It is not the Suffering Servant spoken of in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, but the triumphant, All-Powerful God of heaven, the Creator of all things, who is to be seen in Jesus. "Behold, the Lord God (Jehovah) will come with strong hand, and his arm.—" Jesus in the flesh, seen by the Jews as the Suffering Servant, but seen thus because He took our nature upon Him and and fought for us against the hells and was therefore misunderstood,—"His arm, "Jehovah in the flesh," shall rule for him."
That this picture of Jehovah coming forth for the rescue of mankind from the hells is the revelation of Jesus is shown by the verse which follows: "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." Jesus claimed to be the Good Shepherd here pictured, "I am the Good Shepherd: the Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Yes, He laid down His human life derived from Mary,—not His Godhead,—and so doing He was able to say: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them the me, is greater than all,—"the Divine Love,—"is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one."
Thus he gained the victory for universal mankind, gained for them the power to choose the good and reject the evil. He did not make a propitiation to an angry God up in heaven. The word in the Bible translated "propitiation" means "mercy-seat". There was no God apart from Him, for He was Jehovah come forth to view. There was no other Deity, for God is one and indivisible,-no other Deity demanding thee death of the innocent for the guilty. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.—" became the "mercy-seat". God projected Himself into the world by the assumption of a human nature to face and fight against the enemies of the human race,—became the "mercy-seat" to make God's mercy ever present—but God was not divided into two equal Deities, for God is One being, and indivisible, One God did not accept the death of another God, for God is ONE. His own Arm brought the eternal rescue of mankind and made possible man's salvation. Jesus said plainly, "I lay down my life for the sheep . . . I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself." He did not lay down His life—His human life—because of God's demand to have a bloody sacrifice to satisfy His wrath or His sense of justice, to pay the penalty of man's sins, but to save mankind personally from man's enemies of the underworld by fighting against them in His assumed human and delivering mankind from hopeless subjection to the hells. "In all their affliction he was afflicted—. . . in his love and in his pity he redeemed them."
And yet we heat over the radio daily, and from a thousand pulpits, that people are saved only by "the shed blood of Christ," and that men cannot possibly do anything that is good which contributes to salvation. But still people are urged to repent and be baptized and to surrender their lives to God as ?indispensable to salvation, as if everything depended upon turning away from evil and living as a Christian. It would seem as if there were complete contradiction in these statements.
Let us examine what is meant that we are saved only "by the blood."