The Shepherd of the flock smitten

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Observe that it is God the Eternal Father who gives the decree for the smiting of the Shepherd. "Saith the Lord of hosts." We have no sympathy with the unguarded language of those who speak of God as an avenging deity, whose wrath can be appeased and propitiated only by offerings of blood. Love is a thing that cannot be bribed. God's love needed not thus to be purchased. That love was the primal cause of all blessing to His creatures. The manifestation, however, of love on the part of a great moral Governor must be compatible with the exercise of His moral perfections. God's justice, holiness, righteousness must be upheld inviolate. While mercy and truth go before His face, justice and judgment must continue the habitation of His throne. As the Omnipotent, God could do anything. So far as power is concerned, He could easily have dispensed with any medium of atonement. But what God, as the Omnipotent, could do, God, as the holy, just, righteous, true, could not do. He could not promulgate laws and leave the transgressor to mock them with impunity. Was there, then, in the case of guilty man, any possible method by which the honour of God's name and character and throne could be preserved intact, and yet the transgressor be saved? Reason is silent here. The principle of substitution — the innocent suffering for the guilty — is one undreamt of in earthly philosophy. The Shepherd has been smitten. The Divine honour has been upholden. Mercy and truth have been betrothed before the altar of Calvary; God hath joined them together for the salvation of the human race, and that marriage covenant never can be disannulled. Justice is now equally interested with love in the rescue of the fallen.

(J. R. Macduff, D. D.)