Bible Truths Illustrated by J. C. Ferdinand Pittman

BIBLE TRUTHS ILLUSTRATED
Christ voluntarily gave Himself a sacrifice for sin. He died,
not merely as a hero, a martyr, but as the world's Saviour.
Mere words fail us whenever an attempt is made to explain
the atonement. It is well that the Christian world is less
inclined than ever to pin its faith to theories concerning the
atonement. It is recognised that the more men attempt definitions
here, the less they understand.
"I cannot understand the woe that Thou wast pleased to bear,
O dying Lamb, I only know that all my hope is there."
It is enough to ponder over Scriptures relating to the atonement.
"Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures"
(1 Cor. 15:3). "How much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish
unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve
the living God?" (Heb. 9:14). "Apart from shedding of blood
there is no remission" (Heb. 9:22). "The blood of Jesus his
Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). "And he is the
propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but also for the
whole world" (1 John 2:2). He (Jesus) is the Lamb "slain
from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8).
37. The central doctrine of Christianity is the atonement.
Take that away, and you obliterate Christianity. If Christianity
were merely the imitation of Christ, why, then, the imitation
of any other good man—the apostle Paul or John—might become
a kind of Christianity. If Christianity were merely martyrdom
for truth, then, with the exception of a certain amount of degree,
I see no difference between the death of Socrates and the death
of Jesus Christ. But Christianity is more than this. It is the
at-one-ment of the soul. It is a reconciliation which the life and
death of Christ have wrought out for this world—the reconciliation
of man to God, the reconciliation of man to man, the
reconciliation of man to self, and the reconciliation of man to
duty. F. W. Robertson.
38. "If you have not found Christ crucified is the foundation
of the whole volume, you have read your Bible to very little
profit. Your religion is a heaven without a sun, an arch without
a keystone, a compass without a needle, a clock without springs,
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