Object. This is much; but is God connected with this? Is He satisfied now in the behalf of sinners by this Man's thus suffering? If He is, then how doth it appear?
First. In that God did admit Him into His presence; yea, receive Him with joy and music, even with the sound of the trumpet, at His ascension into Heaven (Psa 47:5). And Christ makes it an argument to His children that His righteousness was sufficient, in that He went to His Father, and they saw Him no more, "of righteousness," saith He, "because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more" (John 16:10). As if He had said, My Spirit shall show to the world that I have brought in a sufficient righteousness to justify sinners withal, in that when I go to appear in the presence of My Father on their behalf, He shall give Me entertainment, and not throw Me down from Heaven, because I did not do it sufficiently.
Again; if you consider the high esteem that God the Father doth set on the death of His Son, you will find that He hath received good content thereby. When the Lord Jesus, by way of complaint, told His Father that He and His merits were not valued to the worth, His Father answered, It is a light thing that I should give Thee, O My Servant, to bring Jacob again; "I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth" (Isa 49:6). As if the Lord had said, "My Son, I do value Thy death at a higher rate than that Thou shouldst save the tribes of Israel only; behold the Gentiles, the barbarous heathens, they also shall be brought in as the price of Thy blood. It is a light thing that Thou shouldest be My Servant only to bring, or redeem, the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth."
Again; you may see it also by the carriage of God the Father to all the great sinners to whom mercy was proffered. We do not find that God maketh any objection against them to come to Him for the pardon of their sins; because He did want a satisfaction suitable to the greatness of their sins. There was Manasseh, who was one that burned his children in the fire to the devil, that used witchcraft, that used to worship the host of heaven, that turned his back on the Word that God sent unto him; nay, that did worse than the very heathen that God cast out before the children of Israel (2 Chron 33:1-13). Also those that are spoken of in the Nineteenth of Acts, that did spend so much time in conjuration, and the like, for such I judge they were, that when they came to burn their books, they counted the price thereof to be fifty thousand pieces of silver (Acts 19:19). Simon Magus also, that was a sorcerer, and bewitched the whole city, yet he had mercy proffered to him once and again (Acts 8). I say, it was not the greatness of the sins of these sinners; no, nor of an innumerable company of others, that made God at all to object against the salvation of their souls, which justice would have constrained Him to had He not had satisfaction sufficient by the blood of the Lord Jesus. Nay, further, I do find that because God the Father would not have the merits of His Son to be undervalued, I say, He doth therefore freely by His consent let mercy be proffered to the greatest sinners—in the first place, for the Jews, that were the worst of men in that day for blasphemy against the Gospel; yet the Apostle proffered mercy to them in the first place—"It was necessary," saith he, "that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you" (Acts 3:26; 13:46). And Christ gave them commission so to do; for, saith He, Let repentance and remission of sins be preached in My name among all nations, and begin—mark that, "beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47), Let them that but the other day had their hands up to the elbows in My heart's blood have the first proffer of My mercy. And, saith Paul, "For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting" (1 Tim 1:16). As the Apostle saith, those sinners that were dead, possessed with the devil, and the children of wrath, He hath quickened, delivered, and saved. That He might, even in the very "ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us," and that "through Christ Jesus" (Eph 2:7).
Second. It is evident that that which this Man did as a common person He did it completely and satisfactorily, as appears by the openness, as I may so call it, which was in the heart of God to Him at His resurrection and ascension—"Ask of Me," saith He, "and I shall give Thee the" very "heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Psa 2:8). And this was at His resurrection (Acts 13:33). Whereas, though He had asked, yet if He had not given a full and complete satisfaction, justice would not have given Him any thing; for justice, the justice of God, is so pure, that if it be not completely satisfied in every particular, it giveth nothing but curses (Gal 3:10).
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