Atonement and Remission
PW H lay down another proposition in reference to the conditions under which the subject of this volume should be studied.
The Doctrine of the Atonement ought. not to be discussed apart from a correct view of the exact immediate Olject or Design of the Atonement, to secure, namely, the Remission of sins.
This is not the only object or design of the Atonement of Christ. There are other objects accomplished by it, and, of course, designedly accomplished. Some of these are less immediate than the remission of sins, — of the nature, that is, of a more ultimate end: the great last end, of course, namely, the advancement of the glory of God; as also the “gathering together in one of all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth” (Eph. i. 10). There are less immediate ends also, not in the sense of their being more ultimate, but more subordinate: very specially, for instance, the removal of the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, the “abolition in His flesh of the law of commandments in ordinances,
that He might reconcile both [the commonwealth of
Israel and the aliens therefrom] unto God in one body by the Cross” (Eph. iii. 11-17). Moreover, there are objects or designs of Christ’s death, more exactly co-ordinate with the Remission of sins, such as Redemption and Reconciliation: “He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us” (Titus ii. 14); and “Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God” (1 Peter iii. 18), so that “when we were enemies, we were reconciled unto God by the death of His Son” (Rom. v.10). So that a complete investigation of the more immediate and exact design of the Atonement would require us to prosecute the lines of thought opened up by each of the words, Remission, Reconciliation, and Redemption. In making a selection, however, we fasten on the idea of Remission. And in doing so, we cannot imagine that our choice is fitted either to derange or limit the question, when we bear in mind that in the blessed ordinance of the Supper, our Lord took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
There is not one of those manifestly most reasonable canons or conditions of discussion of this subject which we have already laid down, that the opponents of the Westminster doctrine of the Atonement will not be found habitually violating. And the same thing is true in the present instance also, They will not face consideration of the exact immediate design of the Atonement. They take up with the most general term that they can find in Scripture as descriptive of the design of Christ’s death — the term “sgalvation;” and not examining and explaining it in the light of the more definite and precise ideas which the terms remission, redemption, reconciliation, suggest, they give to the idea of salvation a vagueness for which they themselves, and not the Scriptures of God, are responsible; and many of them are found in the end making it equivalent to mere salvability. Indeed, they cannot possibly escape from the overwhelming temptation thus to attenuate its meaning, if their purpose is to render the Atonement impersonal and indefinite and universal, unless they are prepared to accept the doctrine of universal salvation. This has been demonstrated by so many writers on this subject, that I can add nothing to the demonstration. Piety will always maintain, without an argument, that when our Lord is called - our “Saviour,” it is not meant that He is the author of salvability, but the “Author. of eternal Salvation” (Heb. v. 9). And logic will maintain, by an argument the simplest possible, that if the redemption purchased by Christ is merely salvability; and if we are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ by the effectual application of 7t to us by His Holy Spirit; then we are thereby made partakers merely of salvability: and so, after all that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have done for us, we are only salvable still! The Nature of the Atonement, its Necessity, and its Object, are topics which, when ‘logically treated, are found to run very much into one. For, if we can come to a clear understanding, in the first instance, of the object which the Atonement is primarily designed to accomplish, the Nature of it will inevitably come into view, on the plain principle that it must be fitted and adapted to the attainment of the Object contemplated; while its Necessity will become obvious Ts L a on the equally plain principle, that to the production of an effect the suitable casual efficiency is indispensable.
Now, the question has been frequently asked, and will probably continue to be asked so long as the world standeth, and men are thoughtful as to their prospects for the world to come, — Why ‘should not God remit the sins of men without an Atonement?
It seems to us that a good deal of satisfaction on this question may be obtained from the remarkable and unqualified proposition laid down by the writer to the Hebrews: “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (chap. ix. 22). No doubt, at first sight, this seems merely to allege a fact, without assigning a reason. It séems to intimate nothing more than the historical truth, that in point of fact God never has remitted the sins of men without shedding of blood. But if emphasis is placed on the word Remission, and if a true idea is entertained of the transaction which that word represents, the proposition, “without shedding of blood is no remission,” will be found not merely to allege a fact, but also to assign a reason for that fact — to embody not only the historical verity, but the underlying principle which justifies it, and which only needs to be carefully investigated and apprehended to furnish a satisfactory answer to the question, — Why should not God remit the sins of men without an Atonement?
For, when the inspired writer affirms that without shedding of blood is no remission, it is as if he had said: — You may imagine a forgiveness without shedding of blood, if you will; you may conjecture, or conjure up, some other scheme or principle of pardon; you may conceive of God as dealing with the sinner, and delivering him from the punishment due to his iniquities, without these iniquities being expiated, — without the penalty incurred by them being exacted, — without the law of which they are transgressions being relieved from the stain of dishonor which they had cast upon it, — without any costly sacrifice, any solemn propitiation, any priceless ransom. But whatever this transaction concerning sin might be, it would not be remission. Granting that it were quite possible for God to let the sinner off; to wipe out, by a mere arbitrary decree, and without any satisfaction to divine justice, the debt which the sinner had contracted; to cease from His anger toward His enemies, and return to a state of friendship; to say, Your sins be forgiven you, you have nothing now to fear; — all this, “without shedding of blood,” without any sacrifice, or atonement, or expiation: still, all this, whatever it might amount to, does not amount to remission. Call it what you please; be it what it may; it is not remission, It may be held up as an equivalent for it; it may be in room and lieu of it; it may be all that multitudes care to inquire after, or have ever felt the need of, or troubled themselves to seek. But, however possible it might be on God’s part, however satisfactory it might be on their part, it is not remission. It may look like it. It may seem to carry with it all that the unenlightened have any thought of when thinking of remission; but real remission it is not. Without shedding of blood it is not remission.
What the enlightened conscience of an anxious inquirer longs for, is remission — remission of sin, And what is that? It is removal of guilt; removal of liability to the wrath of God; removal of criminality or ill-desert. It is a sentence of “Not Guilty;” for “God will by no means clear the guilty” (Exod. xxxiv. 7). It is a recognition of blamelessness before the Holy One of Israel; a position and relation toward God, therefore, in which His wrath would be undue, unrighteous, impossible. That would be Remission. And the memorable announcement, “without shedding of blood is no remission,” intimates, not so much that God will not grant this without shedding of blood, as that, whatever God might without shedding of blood grant, it would not be this, but something far short of this, something very different from this. In the very nature of the case, it would not be remission.
It is evident that this consideration opens up to us a thoroughly legitimate train of thought, at once emancipating us from all priort speculations as to what is abstractly possible or impossible for Him who is past finding out, and leaving to us the far plainer task of investigating the conditions under which alone, from the nature of the case, the very definite idea of a true remission can be realized: while it is equally evident that, by attacking the problem, or approaching the question, from this point of view, we blend very much into one topic the three ideas of the Object, the Nature, and the Necessity of the Atonement. Choosing this, then, as our line of thought; renouncing, that is to say, all vague questions as to whether God could not have done some good to miserable man without the death of His Eternal Son as a propitiatory sacrifice upon the cross; and seeking a guiding light in a definite and precise idea of what is implied in remission, we will be in circumstances to enter on some valid investigation of the Scriptural doctrine of the nature and necessity of the Atonement.
There seem to be three aspects of the idea of Remission, conspiring to prove that it is not realizable apart from Atonement, or Satisfaction, or Propitiatory Sacrifice:, IL Remission of sin is an act competent only to the Divine Lawgiver and J udge, and which, therefore, must quadrate with Divine justice. But without shedtling of blood there is no such act of the Divine Judge. z
II. Remission of sin is an act competent ‘only to the Divine Sovereign, and is expressive of special Divine mercy and love. But without shedding of blood there is no evidence of such Divine love and mercy.
III. Remission of sin is an act competent only to the Divine Lord of the conscience acting as such, giving security, peace, and honor to the conscience. But without shedding of blood, there is no such act as that.
Let us take these three views of Remission of Sin. First, It is an act of the Divine Judge; Second, It is an act of Divine love; Third, It gives peace to the conscience, and calls forth purity and honor in the moral nature. But remove the shedding of blood: suppose sin dealt with, and pardoned without the shedding of blood, without an atoning sacrifice: and all these characteristics, or features, of true remission are gone: — no transaction of Divine justice; no gift or evidence of Divine love; nothing to pacify the conscience, or to purify and pique to holy honor the paralyzed moral sense.
We proceed to show that such are the results of supposing sin forgiven without the shedding of blood.
Dart Sirst.
Remission and Law.
Remission — true, valid remission of sin — is an act of the Divine Judge, in His judicial capacity, acting in law and by rule of justice. For God to deal with sin at all, whether to punish or to pardon, is to deal with that which is “transgression of the law.” When God deals with sin, His dealings, like His judgments, must be according to truth. He must deal with sin as sin. He must deal with it as what it is, not as what it is not. And sin is transgression of the law. But to deal with that which is transgression of the law is to act as the Lawgiver and Judge. Who can remit sin but God only? And when He remits sin, He is dealing with the sinner as his most high Lord and rightful Lawgiver, taking cognizance of his disobedience to the Divine law, and dealing righteously concerning it.
There are some who would strip the Almighty God altogether of the office and function of a Lawgiver and Judge. For their part they prefer a more genial view of the relation between God and His creatures. They prefer regarding Him as a Father. And when they see Him dealing with sin in the way of punishing it, they tell us it is in fatherly affection, seeking to correct and chasten and purify His children, — not in execution of vengeance, not to satisfy justice, not to inflict a penalty. Any view of God’s procedure concerning sin that would represent God as acting in the rigid justice of a Judge, whose immediate function is not to benefit the offender, but uphold the law, they represent as harsh, as attributing implacability to God, as robbing Him of the beneficence of His nature, as contradicting the heavenly declaration that “God is love.”
(1.) But the human Conscience testifies that God is a Lawgiver, a Ruler, a Judge. And guilty conscience testifies that I have offended against Him, revolted from Him, injured Him in His claims, repudiated His authority, in that very office and capacity. My most plain and ordinary and commonplace sense of sin is, that I have refused God as my Lawgiver; that I have said, I will not have Him to reign over me; that I have not made his law the rule of my will. My conscience, in accusing me as a sinner, does not depone primarily that I have rejected a Father’s benevolent advice; but that I have rejected a Lawgiver’s rightful authority — that I have done that which God said, “Thou shalt not do.” Even if it testifies that I have despised His beneficence and wronged Him as a Father, it testifies that as a Judge He is clothed with right and power to compel redress of the wrongs which, as a Father, He hath sustained. The very - office of conscience is to testify of God as a Judge.
(2.) Or, turning from the dictates of Conscience to the scheme of Providence. Can any man face the facts of Providence, and maintain that God uniformly punishes sin as a Father, that he only seeks to correct and benefit His erring children, never as a Judge avenging on his enemies the insults offered to His majesty and law? Did the fire that fell from heaven on the cities of the plain chasten, purify, and sanctify their debased inhabitants? Did it not rather avenge the quarrel of the Almighty Judge, vindicate His righteousness, maintain the rigor of His law, and condemn the wicked in an overthrow, making them examples of Divine wrath till the end of time, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire? Did the exterminating waters of the deluge demonstrate the Fatherly beneficence of God? or did they not really express the righteous indignation of an insulted Lawgiver? Conscience and the course of Providence demonstrate that God is clothed with the office of a Ruler and a Judge.
(3.) And the Constitution of Society confirms the demonstration. For there is such a thing as human law — authoritative commandment among men, with penalty annexed for disobedience.. There is the human judge, whose office it is to maintain the honor, and apply the action of law, where disobedience has been perpetrated. There is the solemn scene of the court-room of sacred justice, — the tribunal, the bench, the bar, the criminal, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury; the indictment read; the relative law appealed to; the fact admitted or proven; the penalty pronounced, and, at last, with all the rigor and remorselessness of fate, exacted. Law, government, condemnation, penalty, — are realities among men. And the question is, How does that come to pass? Whence came they? Are they relics of barbarism, — to be purged away before advancing civilization? Or are they component parts of honorable institutions, to be perfected as civilization progresses? Let the breathless interest of millions tell, as they watch some noted trial in their native country, while the outraged sense of righteousness and honor thrills from north to south, from shore to shore, and reverential expectation waits the issue, thanking God that impartial justice, with even balance, and with flashing sword, has her inviolable temple in the land! Yes; it is not one of man’s corruptions, but a relic of hig greatness and moral glory; it is not of human invention, it is of Divine origin, that justice and Judgment, and the sacred office of the judge, have their dwelling among men. But if God is not a judge, it is impossible to account for the existence of that noble and solemn office on earth at all. God might as well create the faculties of sight and hearing in men, without Himself being possessed of ability to see and hear, as He could put it into men’s hearts to maintain judgment in human government, if He were not a lawgiver and judge Himself, “He that formed the eye, shall He not see? He that formed the ear, shall He not hear?” He that clothed man with the office of the judge, and with authority to execute judgment; must not justice and judgment form the habitation of His own throne? Must He not Himself be the judge of all the earth? For what can the office be among men, or how could it ever have originated, were it not a reflection, a derivation, from the same office in God? Nor is it without a flood of light on this theme of sacrifice, as juridical, retributive, and expiatory, that when God did first delegate His function of judgment to man, it was in language which has since been consecrated to the service of the doctrine of propitiation: — By man shall His blood be shed” (Gen. ix. 6)..
And acting in this office, what can come beneath God’s cognizance, waiting His decision concerning it, if not sin? — sin, which is the transgression of His law, the refusal of His Lordship over us, the rejection
of His commandment and authority.
Be it observed then, that in whatever way God may deal with sin, it is as a Judge that He has to deal with it. It is as the righteous Lawgiver, the rightful Ruler of all the universe. It is in no private capacity. It is in the broad public relation in which He stands to. all the universe — the great upholder of law and government. If He executes vengeance on sin, it is in this capacity that He does so. If He remit sin, it is in this capacity that He remits it, — as the administrator of eternal justice. His act in doing so will be an act of high, public, sovereign state; a judicial procedure; an act in administration of justice.
But if sin be forgiven without shedding of blood, there is not the shadow of any such act. The Divine law has been violated, yet no order taken that it be honored. Divine justice offended, yet no procedure adopted to satisfy it: the authority of God assailed, yet no vindication of it achieved: sentence of death incurred, yet not inflicted: a curse entailed, but never executed: a fearful threatening uttered, yet braved and scorned, and proved to be worthy of contempt by its being set aside unfulfilled. It is not even pretended on this scheme, that remission of sin is an act of God, acting as a public lawgiver and judge. He is supposed, as it were, to have a private meeting with the sinner, and to tell him not to be afraid, for He means not to prosecute him for his sin at all, not to bring him into judgment, not to demand a trial. He simply lets the sinner off, and simply lets his sin pass. So benevolent is He said to be, that He seeks no satisfaction to justice, — a step declared to imply implacability and harshness. He will quash all legal and terrible procedure. He will quietly resile from His claims, and be silent considerately concerning His injuries.
But whatever this might be, it is not Remission. It is not the thorough, authoritative, conclusive removal of guilt; for that can be the act of the judge alone. But is he acting as a judge, who arbitrarily sets aside the law and all its penalty; silences the lord high prosecutor, dismisses the witnesses, disbands the jury, and declares that he has made up his mind to forgive the prisoner at the bar? Would that be an act of justice? Would it stand for a valid remission of the criminal’s offence? As little would it be Remission — as little would it be a valid, Judicial, transaction on God’s part — were He “without shedding of blood,” without the introduction of a sacrifice, without demanding an atonement, without providing a propitiation, to clear the guilty, to let the sinner off, to let sin pass unpunished.
Dart Second.
Remission and Love.
Remission is an act of signal and Sovereign Divine Love and Mercy, — but without shedding of blood there is no evidence of any such attributes on God’s part at all.
We conceive of Remission asa transaction of Mercy even more readily than we regard it as an act of justice and judgment. Mercy to the guilty — pure and profound compassion for the miserable — matchless love even to an enemy, are what we naturally imagine to be the moving causes with God in remitting the sins of his people. And Scripture testifies that it is so — even “for His great love wherewith He loveth them” (Eph. ii. 4), even “according to His loving-kindness, and according to the multitude of his tender mercies” (Ps. li. 1). But were God to forgive the iniquities of His people without a ransom,. without shedding of * blood, there would be no such act of loving-kindness on His part — no evidence whatever of His mercy, compassion, and love toward them.
It is confidently affirmed, indeed, that the scheme of forgiveness without Atonement goes to magnify the Divine benevolence; while the doctrine that God forgives no sin without a full satisfaction is said to cloud and conceal that lovely attribute altogether. Nevertheless it is of easy demonstration that apart from the atonement of the Cross there is no proof forthcoming that God is merciful, while it is just the atonement which proves the mercy of the Lord, and moreover proves it to be infinite.
For, if God comes to me, a guilty transgressor of His law, and tells me that He means to let me off; that He means to let my sin pass; that He cannot find it in His heart to inflict upon me the vengeance which He threatened; and so without any more ado, I pass away, free from judgment, free from terror: I soon begin to question whether I am so greatly indebted to Divine beneficence as in the first rapture of my escape J fancied. I begin to consider whether, after all, it is any great token of God’s love to me that I have just obtained. And I argue that, if it was at God’s option, at His mere option, to cast me into hell, or save me from it, without any expiation of my sin, or any satisfaction to His justice; if it was in His power to free me from wrath and woe, without any claim of justice interposing to object, or needing to be met; if there were no imperative call of righteousness demanding my condemnation to eternal death, but God could free me simply if He chose, and no interests of righteousness be injured by His doing so, — why, then, instead of arguing any wonderful benevolence on His part toward me, that He puts forth with infinite ease His will and power to save, the wonder would be that He should abstain from doing so. There is really no marvellous grace; no peculiar amazing compassion, no overwhelming evidence of personal, distinguishing, peculiar love to me, when God stretches forth His hand to save me from a fate which Divine justice was not inflexibly assigning to me, and as to which Divine Justice can in no way object, though’ it be made to pass away from me. I cannot possibly recognize any peculiar stamp, or signature of marvellous Divine mercy, in the act which frees me from a fate which no demands of justice assigned to me. The marvel rather would be if God could have left me to be overtaken by it. It would have been, in such a case, no small ground on which to rest a charge of cruelty if He had: it is little evidence of love that He has not. Contrast the two cases by the aid of illustration. (1.) I see, let us say, a wretched fellow-creature about to expiate, by death, his offence against his country’s laws. Ten thousand onlookers’ around might be my obedient vassals and retainers; and a single glance from my eye might be enough to rouse them for his instantaneous rescue.’ But though it might cost me but a glance or nod, I stand unmoved, and allow the fearful doom to fall. Is there any evidence in this that I am a man destitute of compassion 2 15 *
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None whatever. An inflexible and righteous necessity, a moral and legal necessity interposes. Justice demands the doom, and compassion must look on inactive.
(2.) But again: — I see, let us say, a slanting tower ° toppling over and falling on a little child; and no call of righteousness superseding and paralyzing the action of my compassion here, I rush forward and snatch the little one in safety from the threatened fate. Is there any great evidence in this that I am a man full of compassion? — that peculiar, marvellous, ever-flowing floods of pity swell my bosom always, and stamp my character with radiant signatures of tender loving-
kindness? Surely not. It is mere humanity, the
absence whereof were moral baseness. I would be ashamed to hear my action lauded as any marvel of generous and special love. I would be ashamed of my fellow-men, if I did not think that millions of them were promptly ready to emulate and equal it at any time. Above all, there is nothing in it to show that for this little one in special I entertain an intense, peculiar affection — a distinguishing, endearing love for this particular child, along with a profound and settled interest in all that bears upon its welfare: no evidence of that whatever. Even so, if no inflexible necessity calls for the wrath of God on my iniquity ; — if no claims of justice, no interests of government, no demands of law, and truth, and righteousness, are violated by my sin going unpunished, by God clearing me though I am guilty ; — if He can, apart from atonement, avert eternal ruin from me without violating any of the perfections of His divine nature, or any of the provisions and requirements of His divine government; — if He can altogether rescue me without any satisfaction to Divine justice, or any claim of Divine justice needing to be satisfied: then I cannot see how I ever can come to be convinced that His averting from me that awful, eternal, infinite ruin, in these plain and easy circumstances, evidences to me-ward any marvellous, or special, or tender love. And when, over and above this, Iam told that His whole nature is so beneficent that He recoils from the sight of suffering among His creatures; that He is too kind and merciful to visit their faults-with the damnation of hell, and may be expected at last to deal leniently with every one whose case will at all admit of it; I begin to think that, with a nature so constituted, — so sensitively pained by the sight of pain in others, — it is more out of love to Himself than love to me that He forgives my sin; more that He may Himself escape the pain of seeing my pain, than out of any very marvellous, amazing, personal, peculiar love to me. So little can a forgiveness without shedding of blood demonstrate the mercy and love of God.
But view the question on the other side. I go to God as a guilty and confessed transgressor, a violator of His holy law, an acknowledged enemy of His authority and government. I go to acknowledge that I have rebelled against Him. And I find Him seated on a throne high and lifted up, and His train filleth the temple. Above it stand the seraphim, each one having six wings; with twain they cover their face, and with twain they cover their feet, and with twain they do fly. I hear them worship their God and mine, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of Thy glory.” I look towards that throne whither the angelic beings bend to utter forth their adorations: and as I gaze into the glory that enwraps itself into the light which is inaccessible; and as I tremble before the wondrous majesty of Godhead seated in the throne of righteous and eternal administration, I become conscious of the infinite baseness of doing what this great and holy God — my Lawgiver and my Lord — hath said, “Thou shalt not do.” I need no proof now that sin deserveth God’s wrath and curse. In His holy glorious presence I feel the sentence of death in myself. I feel that my settled neglect of this glorious God is an offence at which all heaven may stand aghast, and I ery, “Woe is me, for I am undone.”
What a shock to all my moral nature, if in this moment of quickened moral sensibility: what a shock and outrage: what a hollow, trifling voice of levity and lies, breaking on my ear: were it now proclaimed unto me: — Do not be afraid, for God can easily clear the guilty; He can let sin pass unpunished; He will let the sinner off! But, on the other hand, how fully in accordance with all my prostrate reverence for the character and sanctity of Godhead, if, in this moment of my deep humiliation, the voice saith, “Holiness becometh Thine house, O Lord, for ever: and the wages of sin is death” (Ps. xciii. 5; Rom. vi. 23). This ratifies the dictate of my own soul within. It tells me, — what I again tell to God, — even that He is just in judging and clear in speaking (Ps. li. 4); that the punishment of sin is an absolute moral necessity; that God is righteous in taking vengeance (Rom. 111. 5).
But when justice has thus assigned to me eternal death, as no harsh, no arbitrary, no optional decree on God’s part, but the very doom which I have myself incurred, and no discretionary act on God’s part can set it aside; and when the setting of it aside, without shedding of blood, could never prove that God loveth me, He hath another proof of love, which eternity will for ever celebrate, but never fully fathom. He does not propose to tolerate my sin; to let it pass; to let me off. He proposes to expiate my sin; to “make an end” of it; to execute all the vengeance due to it; and then bring me near to Himself in holy peace and fellowship for ever. Unto this end He sends forth His own Beloved Son, to link His destiny with mine, to link His person with mine; to take my nature into personal subsistence in Godhead; to take my sins ag His own, and bear them in His own body on the tree, till He satisfy every demand of justice, and destroy death and him that had the power of death. If I stand and gaze again at that throne, and think that the coequal glorious Son of God who sits upon it — by whom were all things made, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers — is Himself freely given by the Father to me, to be in death the ransom of my sin, my redemption, my propitiation, my bleeding sacrifice, my blessed peace; and if I turn from that throne of glory where my Saviour sat adored by angels, as when “Isaiah saw His glory and spake of Him,” to yon cross of shame, where He, the same Divine Person, hung in agony and woe, — crucified by men, tempted and tried by devils, forsaken of God, weighed down by my curse, bearing my
condemnation, yielding His life a ransom for my sin, M a price for my salvation, answering all the claims of righteousness which made me an eternal outcast and a curse from God, achieving my liberty from death, and Satan, and sin, and this present evil world, and bringing in my eternal righteousness, my eternal life,. my right and title to eternal life and blessedness from God: — then I, who erewhile did fail to see any proof of love Divine in God forgiving sin without a sacrifice, find here at last the proof of love, peculiar, matchless, infinitely generous, and unfathomable; and say, “Herein now at last is love; not that we have loved God, but that he hath loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John iv. 10).
It was no proof to me of love on God’s part that He should propose to pardon what Divine justice did not inflexibly demand should be punished — avenged: for to punish where justice does not demand it, savors of cruelty; while to abstain from inflicting what justice does not demand is a poor proof indeed of any great benevolence. But in the shedding of blood — in the sacrifice of Christ — I see the glory of God’s nature as holy, and the inflexible and righteous demand of His justice against sin. And I see, also, a love which proposes to remit an offence, an evil, so great that it deserves eternal woe. I see a love so great as to provide — what justice demands — a full satisfaction to make remission righteous. I see a love so great that for the sake of those for whom remission is to be provided, it spares not an object infinitely precious, in- ‘finitely lovely, love-worthy, and beloved. And I now say, overwhelmed with the full conviction and assurance of God’s love, and the transcendency of that love — love that unto eternity never can be surpassed or equalled — I now say, “HEREBY perceive we the love of God towards us, in that he laid down his life for us” (1 John iii. 16).
It is the shedding of Christ’s blood which proves the love of God. For without shedding of blood there is no such transaction of marvellous, infinite, peculiar, and sovereign love as the true and valid remission of sin — remission in the gift and death of “God manifest in the flesh” — implies.
Dart Third.
Remission and Conscience.
Remission of sin is a Divine act of the Lord of the. conscience, giving security and peace to the conscience. But without shedding of blood there is no such act.
Put this aspect of Remission at once, not into the hands of speculative argument, but to the test of conviction and experience. Awakened, convicted, altogether restless, I go to God concerning my sin; and on the scheme that would administer pardon without propitiation, God simply lets me off; He lets my sin pass.
Does this satisfy me? Does it give me security and peace? Does it tranquillize my conscience, and give me rest? Can I, on the back of such a transaction, take up the joyful and exulting language, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee”? Most assuredly not. My conscience is not satisfied: my case is not met: my sin is not remitted.
For, when I am aroused in conscience to seek remission of sin, what is there in my conscience that must be met and removed? There is, first, a dread of wrath; and, secondly, a sense of ill desert. There are these two things; — a fear that wrath is coming, and a feeling that it ought to come.
(1.) And first, as to the less noble and less holy dread of wrath. Does such a scheme of pardon really, validly, wholly, and finally remove it? It is my sin which leads me to dread the wrath of God, and I go to God concerning it; and without shedding of blood, without executing the penalty my sin deserves, without an expiation or a sacrifice, God says to me, “I will clear you, though you be guilty. Your sin is true: also it is great: but let it pass.”
And so my sin is allowed to pass; and I look after it as it passes; and I begin to ask, Whither will it go? and when may it not return? and how can I get on such terms of confidence with God and love to Him, as to trust Him while my sin still subsists, while my sin that was allowed to pass is still wandering, and may come back to find and claim me, or be called back at any time to confront and to condemn me? What security have I got, what guarantee does the whole procedure afford, that God will not keep my sin in remembrance against me; keep it to be serviceable in schooling and taming me if I should prove refractory or disobedient; keep it as an engine of despotism to wield upon me if necessary; a Damocles’s sword hung over me? The possibility of His doing so is not disproved by His forgiving sin without an atonement. Nay, it is by such a procedure rendered highly’ probable; for He that could say to-day, “The wages of sin is death,” and could say to-morrow, “The wages of sin is not death; sin shall be forgiven without death, without shedding of blood,” may change His mind again on the day following, and falling back on the former declaration, recall my sin and deal with it again in all the unrelentingness I originally dreaded. On such terms, I can have no real security and peace. And without absolute security, — without, at least, a ground for absolute and perfect security seen and rested on, — I can have no confidence, no full assurance of heart toward God, no peaceful liberty, no real rest. Nay, more: were God reserving in His own hand such an engine of power against me, holy honorableness between Him and me would be impossible. My intercourse with Him would be that of trembling obsequiousness and sycophancy. My great ruling motive in all my walk with Him would be to keep off from dangerous ground; to avoid waking up an unfinished controversy. Soul-inspiriting adoration would never stir my spirit. At the best I would be only flattering God with my mouth, being in no steadfast covenant with Him; meanly I would be laboring to avoid provoking Him to fall back upon the power over me which, in my uncancelled, undestroyed sin, He still reserves: my religion would be a poor and pitiful calculation continually as to how I might best succeed in letting God’s memory and my own slumber on a painful topic.
Nor is it at all wonderful that the demoralizing dread of wrath should still torment the conscience; for, —
(2.) Its sense of ill-desert is not met by such forgiveness. ‘The evil conscience is not merely a prophet
of coming evil: it is a true declarator of rightful penalty. It predicts that evil wil? come, but only by protesting that evil ought to come. And hence, till some arrangement be made on God’s part, and apprehended and embraced on mine, by which evil ought no more to come upon me, — till then, conscience is unsatisfied and restless. But a pardon without propitiation never professes or attempts to deal with this demand of the conscience. In fact, it does not deal with man’s conscience or moral nature at all. It appeals to his fear of physical evil dreaded, to his sense of satisfaction in physical evil averted. But to the higher declaration of conscience, that sin deserves the wrath of God, such pardon has nothing whatever to say. It leaves the conscience as it found it.
Let sin pass, you say. Let sin pass; I and my God being face to face, dealing concerning it. Let it pass.
No; I reply, with all the energy of my soul, and all the opposition of conscience; let it not.pass. That will not remove my dread of evil, still less satisfy and quiet my sense of ill-desert. Let it not pass. Let God “make an end of it.” Let it be “put away,” “finished,” “blotted out,” annihilated. That alone will quell my fear of evil. Let it be ended and put away by its righteous penalty being executed — executed on my Surety and Substitute, with whom, by faith, I am united and made one. That alone will meet my sense of right. For I am a sinner; and I take guilt to myself — the guilt of sin, which is the guilt of death. No scheme which prevents me from taking guilt to myself can save me. It must demoralize me. But give me an atoning and dying Substitute and Surety; and make me so thoroughly one with Him in God’s esteem, and by: the Spirit’s work, and by my own faith, as that in taking guilt to myself, I inevitably and immediately lay it on Him; so thoroughly one with Him that I cannot possibly take guilt to Him, but by taking guilt to myself, — which conserves His rights, in that none can surreptitiously or impenitently seize the salvation wrought by Him, and conserves the rights of my moral nature too, in that my faith in my Sin-bearer is my believing confession of sin, — that truth in the inward parts which God desireth and which I also desire. Deal with my sin thus. And then, but not till then, shall my soul return unto her rest. Z’hen will I meet my God with open face, and single eye, and frank and honorable brow, when I know that He keepeth no engine of secret despotism in hand against me, — which it were a devil’s work to do, and a traitor’s doom to dread, — but hath spoiled the principalities of darkness of all their power to concuss and terrify me, destroyed unto eternity the only bond which gave me up to evil, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances which was against me, nailing it to His cross. Then will I meet my God in holy confidence and honor. Then will I meet God’s great and holy law with great and holy courage, with great and holy uprightness, seeing that I am not forgiven at the expense of its glory, but by a sacrifice that magnifies and makes it honorable. Then will I meet my great accuser with holy honorable triumph over him, and he shall no more scorn me on the ground that his own doom is more righteous, and his endurance of it more honorable to him, than is my release to me; for my sin is not quashed and compromised any more than his, but expiated in righteousness, which his will never be.
Deal thus with my sin. Extinguish it for ever. Make a holy, perfect end of it. Finish my transgression. Make reconciliation for mine iniquity. Remove my sin from me as far as the east is distant from the west. Yea, annihilate it: as when the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found. Then am I placed on terms of peace, security, liberty, and honor with my God. All my sense of right gets fullest scope; and all my sense of safety gets fullest satisfaction. I see that God is righteous; I see that God is love; and I see that I am saved. I feel my heart sprinkled from an evil conscience; dreading nothing from His righteousness; filled with His love abundantly. This, this is Remission now. This is true redemption now, even the forgiveness of sins, through Mis blood, which is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature, by whom were all things made, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. Oh! marvellous shedding of blood — “His blood” — by which valid, and holy, and perfect, and eternal Remission is secured! Therefore we sing, with all the heavenly choir, a song in celebration of such Remission so obtained — “Unto Him that loved us, and that washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto the Father; unto Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”