God the Father so loved the world, that he sent his Son into the
world, that the world by him might be saved. God the Son so loved
the world, that he came to do his Father's will, and put away sin by
the sacrifice of himself. That is enough for us. Let it be enough;
and let us take simply, honestly, literally, and humbly, like little
children, everything which the Bible says about it, without trying or
pretending to understand, but only to believe.

We can believe that Christ's blood can purge our conscience, though
we cannot explain in any words of our own how it can do so. We can
believe that God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, though
we not only cannot but dare not try to explain so awful a mystery.
We can believe that Christ's sacrifice on the cross was a
propitiation for sin, though neither we, nor (as I hold) any man on
earth, can tell exactly what the words sacrifice and propitiation
mean. And so with all the texts which speak of Christ's death and
passion, and that atonement for sin which he, in his boundless mercy,
worked out this day. Let us not torment our minds with arguments in
which there are a hundred words of man's invention to one word of
Holy Scripture, while the one word of Scripture has more in it than
the hundred words of man can explain. But let us have faith in
Christ. I mean, let us trust him that he has done all that can or
need be done; that whatsoever was needed to reconcile God to man, he
has done, for he is perfect God; that whatever was needed to
reconcile man to God, he has done, for he is perfect man.

Let us, instead of puzzling ourselves as to how the Lamb of God takes
away the sins of the world, believe that he knows, and that he lives,
and cry to him as to the living God,--Lamb of God, who takest away