I pointed out to you that in the Old Testament, for the most part, what faced God was not this prophet or that saint, this king or that particular juncture, but Israel. I said that in the subsequent phases of Jewish religion, indeed, that idea has its detail filled in; and in the later psalms, in many of those psalms which we know could only have been written after the captivity, you have pious individualism sometimes expressing itself very strongly. But there the two warring notes were – new individualism and old collectivism; and between these there never came complete reconcilement until Christ came and Christ’s work. What have we in that great text, John 3:16? “God so loved the world” – the world was the prime object of God’s love – “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Love in the first instance directed upon the world, but directed upon the world in such a way that it should be taken home in every individual experience. Mark the two words, “the world” and “whosoever”. Dwell upon the contrast. God loved not this or that individual, or group of individuals, only. “God so loved the world” that He did something to it in such a way that every individual “whosoever” should receive the benefit, and receive it in the only way which made a world of saved individuals possible. You can never compound a saved world out of any number of saved individuals. But God did so save the world as to carry individual salvation in the same act. The Son of God was not an individual merely; He was the representative of the whole race, and its vis-a-vis, on its own scale. So that, in Ephesians, the Church, in rising to Christ, had to acquire the fullness of a complete and colossal man. No individual prophet of salvation could save the world. He could not be capable of a pity great enough, or a love. The world could only be saved by somebody as large as the world, and indeed larger. If he could not save the world he could make no eternal salvation of any individual. It is universal, eternal salvation every way – universal not by the addition of all units, but in a solidary sense. What we are tempted to think of in our common version of Christianity is a mass of people, great or small, a mass of individuals, each one of whom makes his own terms with God and gets discharge of his sin. It is salvation by private bargain. In conversion every individual makes his own peace with God through Jesus Christ, so that the work of God becomes a mere change of attitude, feeling, or temper of the side of man after man. That is not the New Testament idea.
Again, in speaking of the change in God, Christ has been represented as enabling God to forgive by enabling Him to adjust His two attributes of justice and mercy within Himself. Some theologians of the Reformation – Melancthon for one – spoke of Christ in that fashion. But we have entirely outgrown that way of thinking and talking about it. It has produced much difficulty and sceptism. What does it proceed upon? It proceeds upon a certain definition of an attribute, as though an attribute were something loose within God which He could manipulate – as though the attributes of God were not God Himself, unchangeable God, in certain relations. The attributes of God are not things within Himself which He could handle and adjust. An attribute of God is God Himself behaving, with all His unity, in a particular way in a particular situation. God is a thinking God, let us say. He has the attribute of thought. Does that mean that the attribute of thought could be taken away, that God could divest Himself of it? No. The thought of God is simply God thinking. So also the love of God is not an attribute of God; it is God loving. The holiness of God is not an attribute of God; it is the whole God Himself as holy. There is nothing in the Bible about the strife of attributes. Rather remember 1 John 1:9, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” It is in the exercise of His faithfulness to Himself and His observance of justice that He should forgive. It lies in the very holiness that condemns. There is a similar text in the Psalms, “Thou art merciful; Thou givest to every man according to his work.” He is the faithful and just to forgive. There needed no adjustment of His justice with His forgiveness. So also in Isaiah, “A just God and a Savior.” There can be therefore be no strife of attributes.
