There was only one way. “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.” That Son, “the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person,” “in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” came into our world.  He came to take the sinner’s place—­to be his substitute.  Though Lord and giver of the law, He put Himself under the law.  He fulfilled it in every jot and tittle.  He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.  Thus He worked out a complete and perfect righteousness.  He did not need this righteousness for Himself, for He had a righteousness far above the righteousness of the law.  He wrought it out not for Himself, but for man, that He might make it over and impute it to the transgressor.  Thus then while man had no obedience of his own, he could have the obedience of another set down to his account, as though it were his own.

But this was not enough.  Man had sinned and was still constantly sinning, his very nature being a sinful one.  As already noted, the divine Word was pledged that there must be punishment for sin.  The Son, who came to be a substitute, said:  Put me in the sinner’s place; let me be the guilty one; let the blows fall upon me.  And thus, He “who knew no sin was made sin (or a sin-offering) for us.”  He “was made a curse,” “bore our sins” and “the iniquity of us all.”  He, the God-man, was regarded as the guilty one, treated as the guilty one, suffered as the guilty one.

He suffered as God, as well as man.  For the Divine and human were inseparably united in one person.  Divinity by itself cannot suffer and die.  But thus mysteriously connected with the humanity it could and really did participate in the suffering and dying.  And who will calculate what Immanuel can suffer?  What must it have been when it crushed Him to earth, made Him cry out so plaintively, and at last took His life!  Our old theologians loved to say, that what the sufferings of Christ lacked in extensiveness or duration, they made up in intensiveness.  Thus there was a perfect atonement. All the punishment had been endured.  A perfect righteousness had been wrought out, and the Father set His seal to it in the resurrection and ascension of His dear Son.  Here, then, was real substitution, and this is the ground for our justification.

It has been asked, on this point, if Christ by His perfect life wrought out a complete righteousness, which He needed not for Himself, but intended for the sinner, why was not this sufficient?  Why was His death necessary?  On the other hand, if His death is a perfect atonement for all sin, why does the sinner, in addition to a full and free forgiveness, procured by the death of Christ, need also the application of the righteousness of the life of Christ?  In a word, why are both the life and death necessary to justify the sinner?

We answer:  By His death or suffering obedience He wrought out a negative righteousness, the forgiveness of sins.  By His life, or active obedience, He wrought out a positive righteousness.  The former releases from punishment.  The latter confers character, standing and honor in the kingdom of God.