in Jesus, that Christ died for our sins, that He gave Himself
for our sins, the just for the unjust,--it is right for the innocent
to suffer the penalty of the guilty. To any honest, candid man, which
is the correct way to reason? This thing is wrong; God did this thing;
therefore, God did wrong? or, God does right; God did let Christ, the
innocent, suffer and die for our sins, to _redeem_ from _all
iniquity_; therefore it is right for the innocent to suffer the
penalty of the guilty?

Nor is Christ suffering as our substitute the Great Exception, as some
timid ones have granted. It is in line with _God's Plan with Men_; it
is in line with the best and noblest there is in man; and the opposite
teaching, that it is wrong to let the innocent bear the penalty of the
guilty, is not only wrong, but horrible and the extreme of
heartlessness. Two men passing along the street at night hear groaning
in the gutter; striking a match, they see two men lying in the gutter
with their faces all gashed and bleeding. In a drunken street fight
they have almost killed each other. Who did the sinning? Those two men
lying in the gutter; they deserve to suffer the penalty of their
sinning. But these other two men join hands, pay for a physician, a
nurse and the hospital bill. In principle that is the innocent paying
the penalty of the guilty. To say that this is wrong would mean to
condemn the community to pass by day after day and see those ghastly,
festering wounds, those parched lips and bloodshot eyes, and to listen
to those dying groans. And yet in principle that is exactly what those
demand for this sinful, sin-injured human race, when they say that it
is morally wrong for Jesus the Saviour to suffer the penalty of our
sins. A son becomes a drunkard; his drunkenness and debauchery utterly
wreck his health. Some night the father finds his drunken son down in
the street, a helpless invalid. The son did the sinning; he deserves
to suffer the penalty of his sins; but the father takes him to his
home and cares for him and supports him. In principle that is the
innocent bearing the penalty of the guilty. To say that this is
morally wrong would be to condemn that father to pass by day after day
and see his son suffering the just consequences of his sin, to see him
slowly starving to death, to see him gasping in death, and not be
allowed to come to the rescue. Yet when men object to Christ bearing
the penalty of the sinner's sins they are, in