Facts like these suggest the naturalness, the humanness, as well as the
God-likeness of the work of atonement that is going on all over the
world, as it climbs and swings slowly up out of the darkness and into
the light of life. Jesus the great atoning sacrifice? Yes, but
thousands on thousands of others atoning in just the same divine way,
just the same human way, just as naturally, just as necessarily. Every
man who does an honest day's work, every man who is kind and loving in
his family, every man who is helpful as a neighbor, every man who
stands faithfully by his convictions of truth, every man who shows that
he cares more for the truth than he does for worldly success, that he
knows that in that truth only is immortality, and that it is greater
and better and sweeter than even life, every man who consecrates
himself in this way is doing his part towards working out the atonement
of human sin, the reconciliation of man with God, the reconciliation of
men with each other.
Let us, then, while loving Jesus, while reverencing him for the
grandeur of his work and the beauty of his life, let us rise and claim
kinship with him, rise to the dignity and glory of the thought that we
are sons of God as he was, and that we may share with him the grandest
service that one man can render to his time, the helping of people to
find and love and serve God, the helping of people to discover and love
and serve each other. The outcome of this atoning work is simply the
coming of that time which we speak of familiarly without half
comprehending it, when the world shall recognize the universal
Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.
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