Article June 24, 1916 Issue

From Our Exchanges

with contributions from E. W. Barnes, Robert A. Ashworth, W. E. Orchard

[The Advance]

We learn from the Word of God that the at-one-ment is more than atonement for sickness; most Christians have yet to learn that it is more than atonement for sin. Does the Bible say so? It does say so, and that repeatedly. It says that where sin abounded, grace did abound much more exceedingly—did abound, doth abound, shall abound. How can this be possible? It is possible because the atonement is more than an atonement for sin. It is atonement for spiritual growth. It is at-one-ment with God. The sacrifice which is eternal in the heart of God and revealed in the cross of Christ will redeem men in such numbers and into such fulness of life that those large words of Scripture will be justified in which it is said that God willeth not that any should perish and that all shall come unto Him and live. We cannot say that there will be no exceptions to the rule. We cannot promise that no man will succeed in persistently defying God. But we may be sure that God will leave nothing undone that God can rightly do for the saving of all men; and that Christ will see "of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." [Rev. E. W. Barnes in The Church Family Newspaper]

Jesus was of the common people; he preached to the common people. It was they who heard him gladly; it was they who gave him his simple Palm Sunday triumph; and it was because he appealed to the simple, primitive, good instincts of common men that his message won its way. The enduring vitality of that message depends on the response which unsophisticated men and women can always be trusted to give to an appeal to the sense of brotherhood rooted in love; for Christ's ideal is brotherhood rooted in the love which God shows to all men and demands from all men. For him it is brotherhood which is the final expression of service to God. For him brotherhood is the solvent of all human discords, finding its basis in God's scheme of creation and redemption. This is the message which Christ preached to the poor and derelict of Palestine; this is the teaching which all who by position or temperament are close to the great realities of life will instinctively accept. [The Christian Register]

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