to take that damnation on himself. The Son agreed. For this purpose the
Son came down, took on a human manifestation, and let himself be cru-
cified, thereby transferring the damnation of the human race to himself.
For we read, ‘Accursed is everyone who hangs on the wood of the cross’
[Deuteronomy 21 : 22 – 23 ; Galatians 3 : 13 ]. By interceding and mediating
like this, the Son appeased the Father. Then, moved with love for the Son
and affected by the wretched state he saw him in on the wood of the
cross, the Father proclaimed that he would give pardons, ‘But only,’ he
said, ‘for those to whom I attribute your justice. These children born of
anger and a curse I will turn into children born of grace and a blessing. I
will justify them and save them. The rest remain, as I proclaimed them
before, children born of anger.’ This is our faith; and that is the justice,
added by God the Father to our faith, that enables this faith alone to jus-
tify us and save us.”
[ 3 ] After the angel heard this he was silent for a long time; he could not
help feeling stunned. Eventually he broke his silence and said the following:
“How can the Christian world be that insane? How can it wander
that far from sound reason toward derangement? How can it base its fun-
damental dogma of salvation on paradoxes of this kind?
“Surely anyone can see that those ideas are totally opposite to the
divine essence, meaning the Lord’s divine love and divine wisdom, as
well as his omnipotence and omnipresence. No decent master could treat
his servants that way. Not even a wild animal would treat its offspring or
its young that way. That’s horrible!
“To stop calling out to every member of the human race would go
against the divine essence. It would go against the divine essence to change
the divine design that has been established from eternity—the principle
that all are judged by their own lives. It would go against the divine
essence to take love or mercy away from anyone, let alone from the whole
human race. It would go against the divine essence for the Father to be
brought back to mercy by seeing the Son feeling wretched. Wouldn’t that
be the same as the Father’s being brought back to his own essence, since
mercy is the very essence of God? It is horrendous to think that he ever left
it. From eternity to eternity, he ismercy.
[ 4 ] “Surely it is also impossible to transfer the justice of redemption
to any entity (as you believe). This justice belongs to divine omnipo-
tence. It is impossible to attribute and assign this justice to people, and
pronounce them just, pure, and holy in the absence of any other means.
§134 the lord the redeemer & redemption 187