many sacrifices of self, to save us from sin. One sacrifice, however great, is insufficient to pay the debt of sin. The atonement requires constant self-immolation on the sinner's part.
That God's wrath should be vented upon His only Son is neither rational nor humane. Such a theory is man-made. This is a hard question in theology; but its more reasonahle explanation is, that suffering is an error of sinful sense, which Truth destroys, and that eventually both sin and suffering will fall at the feet of Love.
Rabbinical lore said, “He that taketh one doctrine, firm in faith, has the Holy Ghost dwelling in him.” This preaching receives a strong rebuke in the Scripture, “Faith without works is dead.”
Faith, if it be mere belief, is as a pendulum swinging between nothing and something, having no fixity. Advanced spiritual understanding, sometimes misnamed faith, is the evidence, gained from Spirit, which rebukes material beliefs, and establishes the claims of God.
In Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English, faith has these two definitions, trustfulness and trustworthiness. One kind of faith trusts all to another. The other kind of faith understands how to work out one's “own salvation, with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”
“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!” expresses the helplessness of a blind faith; whereas, “Believe, and thou shalt be saved!” demands the self-reliant, trustworthy faith which we need, and includes the understanding that confides in God.
The Hebrew verb to believe means to be firm, or to be
