At this point Christianity comes professing to reveal to us the Divine plan of salvation. It tells us that God forgives for the sake of Jesus Christ, who is Himself, in His sacrifice, the gift of the Father's love. A debt has been contracted; the insolvent debtor presents in payment the money which a friend has freely contributed for the purpose; the creditor is satisfied. In this way goodness and justice are reconciled. It is Divine love which meets the claim of the Divine Righteousness. The redeemed soul, redeemed by the blood of Christ, is led to obedience by a love which responds to the love which has redeemed him. This last result none can dispute. Does it spring from error? No; it is too pure, too blessed for that. The redemption that produces it is a true principle founded in the nature of God--sublime in its working--like sap, inexplicable, but justified by the beauty of its foliage and the goodliness of its fruits. Let us look a little more closely into this principle of Propitiation. Suppose we were reading the gospel for the first time, free from prejudice, and from the deadening influence of habit; we should be struck with the prominence everywhere given in it to the death of Christ. Ask a Christian child, or an aged saint, "What did Christ come on earth to do?" The answer from each will be, "He came to die for us." The child finds his answer on the very surface of Scripture; the aged man finds it in that same Scripture when he has studied it to its very depths. The one quickly learns that this death of Christ was often predicted by Christ Himself, that it holds the most prominent place in each of the four Gospels, that it is constantly referred to in the Epistles, that it is the text of all the preaching of the apostles, and that it is symbolised in both the sacraments, for "we are buried by baptism into His death," and whenever in the Supper we partake of the bread and wine, we "show forth His death till He come." The mature Christian, in his turn, learns to look upon the death of Christ as the centre and the soul of all the great acts of the great work of our redemption, which seem, whether they preceded or followed, to have been done in direct view of it, and in indissoluble connection with it. The incarnation was designed to open up the way for it. "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." The resurrection was intended to attest its meaning and its value. For Christ was "delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." The object of the ascension was to secure the precious fruits of it. "For He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."