to wish to go
to Heaven, not to try to go to Heaven, at the expense of God's
justice. Jesus said, John 10:1, 7, "He that entereth not by the door
into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same
is a thief and a robber." "Verily, verily I say unto you, I am the
door." Jesus says, then, that those who confess their sins, and pray
for forgiveness and claim it, and yet reject Him as the door, are
thieves and robbers. God does forgive the redeemed, for they are His
children (Gal. 4:4-7), on confession (1 John 1:9); but for those who
are under the law, His word is plain, "Apart from shedding of blood
there is no remission."--Heb. 9:22.

God's word states plainly how our sins are put away; not by, or
because of, the praying and weeping and confession of the sinner, nor
the praying and weeping and interceding of others for the sinner, for
God to forgive him; "but now once in the end of the world hath he
appeared to put away sin by the _sacrifice of himself_."--Heb. 9:26.
Concerning the justice of putting away sin in this way, see next
chapter. On this point Walker well says, "If the holiness of the law
was not maintained, that sense of guilt and danger could not be
produced which is necessary in order that man may have a spiritual
Saviour."--_Walker, in "The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation."_

Again he says, "When He reveals His perfect law, that law cannot, from
the nature of its author, allow the commission of a single
sin."--_Walker, in "The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation."_

Further, he says, "God ought not to allow one sin; if He did, the law
would not be holy, nor adapted to make men holy."--_Walker, in "The
Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation."_

Equally to the point are the words of James Denny, "It is an immediate
inference, then, from all that we have seen in the New Testament, that
where there is no atonement there is no gospel. To preach the love of
God out of relation to the death of Christ, or to preach the love of
God in the death of Christ, but without being able to relate it to
sin, or to preach that forgiveness of sins as the free gift of God's
love while the death of Christ has no special significance assigned to
it, is not, if the New Testament is the rule and standard of
Christianity, to preach the gospel at all."--_Denny, in "The Death of
Christ."_

III

JESUS THE CHRIST AS SIN-BEARER--GOD'S JUSTICE AND LOVE

"God so loved the world that he gave his only be