Son of God to take our nature upon Him.  Do you not see that this was the very ground of His coming into the world?  “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.  And thus death passed upon all” through him, “in whom all men sinned.” (Rom. v., 12.) Was it not to remedy this very thing that “the Word was made flesh”? that “as in Adam all died, so in Christ all might be made alive”?  Unless, then, many had been made sinners by the disobedience of one, by the obedience of one many would not have been made righteous (ver. 18); so there would have been no room for that amazing display of the Son of God’s love to mankind.  There would have been no occasion for His “being obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”  It would not then have been said, to the astonishment of all the hosts of heaven, “God so loved the world,” yea, the ungodly world, which had no thought or desire of returning to Him, “that he gave his Son” out of His bosom, His only begotten Son, to the end that “whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  Neither could we then have said, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself”; or that He “made him to be sin,” that is, a sin-offering “for us, who know no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God through him.”  There would have been no such occasion for such “an advocate with the Father” as “Jesus Christ the Righteous”; neither for His appearing “at the right hand of God, to make intercession for us.”

What is the necessary consequence of this?  It is this:  there could then have been no such thing as faith in God, thus loving the world, giving His only Son for us men, and for our salvation.  There could have been no such thing as faith in the Son of God, as loving us and giving Himself for us.  There could have been no faith in the Spirit of God, as renewing the image of God in our hearts, as raising us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness.  Indeed, the whole privilege of justification by faith could have no existence; there could have been no redemption in the blood of Christ:  neither could Christ have been “made of God unto us,” “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, or redemption.”

And the same grand blank which was in our faith, must likewise have been in our love.  We might have loved the Author of our being, the Father of angels and men, as our Creator and Preserver:  we might have said, “O Lord our Governor, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!” But we could not have loved Him under the nearest and dearest relation, as delivering up His Son for us all.  We might have loved the Son of God, as being the “brightness of his Father’s glory,” the express image of His person (altho this ground seems to belong rather to the inhabitants of heaven than earth).  But we could not have loved Him as “bearing our sins in his own body on the tree,” and “by that one oblation of himself once offered, making a full oblation, sacrifice, and satisfaction for the