Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

It does appear to me that it is absolutely necessary to believe the proper
and essential Godhead of Christ, in order to be convinced that the
sacrifice which has been offered is a sufficient sacrifice. Nothing less
than a sacrifice of infinite merit can atone for the offences of the whole
world, and purchase for mankind an eternal glory: and if Jesus be not
properly, essentially, and eternally God, he has not offered, he could not
offer such a sacrifice. The sacred writers are nervous and pointed on this
subject; nor can I see that any sinner, deeply convinced of his fallen,
guilty state, can rely on the merit of his sacrifice for salvation, unless they
have a plenary conviction of this most glorious and momentous truth. As
eternal glory must be of infinite value, if it be purchased by Christ, or be
given as the consequence of his meritorious death, then that death must
be of infinite merit, or else it could not procure what is of infinite value.
So that, could we even suppose the possibility of the pardon of sin
without such a merit, we could not possibly believe that eternal glory
could be procured without it. It must be granted, if Christ be but a mere
man, as some think, or the highest and first of all the creatures of God, as
others suppose, let his actions and sufferings be whatever they may, they
are only the obedience and sufferings of an originated and limited being,
and cannot possess infinite and eternal merit.
God destroys opposites by opposites. Through pride and selfconfidence
man fell; and it required the humiliation of Christ to destroy
that pride and self-confidence, and to raise him from his fall. There must
be an indescribable malignity in sin, when it required the deepest
abasement of the highest Being to remove and destroy it. The humiliation
and passion of Christ were not accidental, they were absolutely necessary;
and had they not been necessary, they had not taken place. Sinner, behold
what it cost the Son of God to save thee! And wilt thou, after considering
this, imagine that sin is a small thing? Without the humiliation and
sacrifice of Christ, even thy soul could not be saved. Slight not, therefore,
the mercies of thy God, by underrating the guilt of thy transgressions and
the malignity of thy sin.