The Ultimate Motives of All God’s Acts Are in Himself; and the Immutable Perfections of the Divine Nature Demand the Punishment of Sin

As our first argument, we will appeal to what the Scriptures teach concerning the nature of God and his principle of action. In doing this, I shall attempt to prove (a) that the scriptural doctrine is that the ultimate motive and end of all God’s actions are in himself; and (6) that the intrinsic and unchangeable perfections of the divine nature, lying back of and determining the divine will, determine him certainly, yet most freely, to punish all sin because of his essential holiness and its essential demerit.

I. Scripture and reason teach us that the ultimate reason and motive of all God’s actions are within him self. Since God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable, that which was his first motive in creating the universe must ever continue to be his ultimate motive or chief end in every act concerned in its preservation and government. But God’s first motive must have been just the exercise of his own essential perfections, and in their exercise the manifestation of their excellence. This was the only end which could have been chosen by the divine mind in the beginning, before the existence of any other object. It is also infinitely the highest end ID itself, and the one which will best secure the happiness and exaltation of the creature himself. It is manifest that a creature cannot be absolutely an end in himself, but only a means to an end. And he is the most exalted when he is made absolutely subservient to that end, which is the highest possible even to the Creator.

The Scriptures are very explicit on this subject. (1.) They directly assert it. “All things were created by him and for him.” “For of him, and through him, and to him are all things.” u Who is over all, God blessed for ever.” “The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.” (2.) The Scriptures always make the glory of God the proper ultimate end of the creature’s action. Peter says (1 Pet. iv. 11), that whatsoever gift a man have, he should exercise it to the end that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ. (3.) They show that, as a matter of fact, God always acts with reference to that end in all his dealings with his creatures. Eph. i. 5, 6: We are predestinated “according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.” Rom. ix. 22, 23: “Wrhat if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that he might make known the riches cf his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.”

The ultimate motive, therefore, for the sacrifice of Christ must have been the divine glory, and not the effect intended to be produced in the creature. But glory is manifested excellence. And moral excellence is manifested only by being exercised. The infinite justice and love of God both find their highest conceivable exercise in the sacrifice of his own Son as the Substitute of guilty men.

II. The great fact concerning the nature of God and his principles of action, which is most certainly and conspicuously set forth in Scripture, is, that he is HOLY, When laying down the law of ceremonial purification, he says (Lev. xi. 44), “Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.” The seraphim which Isaiah saw around the throne in the temple, and which John saw in the same relation in heaven (Isa. vi. 3; Rev. iv. 8), “rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.” This best expresses the sum of the results of their insight into his moral nature.

This, be it observed, is predicated of the unchangeable constitution of the nature of God, and not merely of the divine will. (1.) When God commanded the Israelites to be pure, the reason assigned is not “because I so will it,” but, “for I am holy.” (2.) If moral distinctions are the mere product of the divine will; if they exist only because God wills them to exist, and if they are what they are simply because he wills them to be so, then the proposition that God is holy conveys no meaning. It is only equivalent to saying that he is as he wills to be; and would be just as true when asserted of a wicked as of a holy being. (3.) Although God is most willingly holy, yet holiness is with him no more optional than is existence. Hab. i. 13: “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look oi, iniquity.” 2 Tim. ii. 13: “He cannot deny himself.” Heb. vi. 18: “In which it was impossible for God to lie.” (4.) Our own elementary intuitions give us moral distinctions which are seen to be absolute, eternal and necessary. It is essentially repugnant to their character to conceive of them in any sense as contingent. They have their norm in the eternal and necessary nature of God.

Since God is eternal, his modes of feeling and states of mind are as eternal as his essence. There are in him none of those successions of modes or frames, and alter nations of sentiment and impulse, which characterize our imperfect moral condition. From eternity to eternity he abides the same without change of state or affection. His holiness, therefore, is one infinite perfection of moral excellence, varied only in its outward exercises and manifestations, as it operates upon different objects in different relations.

Now the Scriptures teach us very plainly that this infinite moral perfection or holiness of God stands to sin as immutable and eternal hatred and vindicatory justice; and this not only in some instances arid in some relations, but invariably and under all possible conditions. (1.) God hates sin. He is said to hate all the workers of iniquity, and to be angry with the wicked every day. (Ps. v. 5, and vii. 11.) Both the ways and the thoughts of the wicked are said to be an abomination to the Lord. This is manifested with terrible energy. Although the heart of God remains eternally as calm as it is deep and strong, the egress of his wrath is terrible. Nah. i. 2: “God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.” (2.) God treats sin as essential ill-desert, as intrinsically meriting punishment. Deut. iv. 24: “For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.” Deut.

xxxii. 35: “To me belongeth vengeance and recompense.” Isa. lix. 18: “According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay.” Ex. xxiii. 7: “I will not justify the wicked.” Ezek. xviii. 4: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” 2 Thess. i. 6: “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you.” Paul (Heb. ii. 2) says that under the old dispensation every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward. Rom. i. 32: “Knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death.” Over and over again, the reason assigned for inflicting a penalty is that the transgression is worthy of it (Dent. xvii. 6, and xxi. 22, &c., &c.), and no other reason is assigned. As God hates sin because of its intrinsic hatefulness, having in itself the reason of the hatred it excites, so he punishes it because of its intrinsic demerit, having the reason of its punishment in itself. Sin can no more exist without punishableness than it can exist without hatefulness. As it is inconceivable that God should in a single instance fail to hate sin as pollution, so it is inconceivable that he should in a single instance fail to punish it as demerit. There has often been forgiveness for the sinner, but not a single instance of forgiveness for the sin; and the sinner is never forgiven except on condition of the condign punishment of the sin. Paul (Heb. ix. 22), in reviewing the old law, declared as the sum of the whole that without the shedding of blood there was no remission. It was the blood that made atonement for the soul. Lev. xvii. 11. And in order to the salva- ‘ion of sinful men, it was necessary that Christ should ixpiate sin by his death, to the end that God might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus (Rom. iii. 26); that is, to enable God to pardon the sinner without violating his own essential righteousness, which necessarily antagonizes sin.

To the question, Why God punishes sin, only four distinct answers are possible. (1.) That all punishment is designed for the reformation of the offender. This confounds punishment with chastisement, and is a solution obviously inadmissible in the case of the eternal perdition of the reprobate and of the vicarious sufferings of Christ. (2.) That the reason and necessity of punishment is to be resolved into the sovereign good pleasure of God. This position has been held by Dr. Twisse, prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, and others, but is not held by any prominent party in these days. (3.) That God punishes sin in order to deter the subjects of his moral government from its commission. This is a necessary corollary of the theory that all virtue is comprehended in disinterested benevolence. In that view, justice is one mode of benevolence, prompting God to punish the individual sinner for the sake of the the greater good of the moral universe to be secured thereby. (4.) The true view is, that God is determined, by the immutable holiness of his nature, to punish all sin because of its intrinsic guilt or demerit; the effect produced on the moral universe being incidental as an end, and dependent as a consequence, upon the essential character of punishment, as that which expiates guilt and vindicates righteousness.

This is the centre of the question in debate between ourselves and the advocates of the Governmental and of the Moral Theory o*f the Atonement. Both parties estimate it as a moral question of the utmost importance, and incapable of compromise. Dr. N. W. Taylor* says that to punish sin on account of its intrinsic demerit, or for any other purpose except the promotion of happiness, “is beyond the capacity of infernal malice.” A recent writer in the New Englander declares that our doctrine represents Jehovah as acting upon principles that would disgrace the Jew Shylock. So also Dr. J. Young:” That wild and daring transcendentalism, which, in a greater or less degree, essentially affects evangelical theology at the present hour, is not by any means the most fatal evil. The doctrine of satisfaction to divine justice is

immeasurably worse in its moral tendency This,

beyond all comparison, is the deadliest error.” f There is indeed not room for compromise. What these men blaspheme, the inspired Scriptures and the Christian Church revere and vindicate as an essential element of that holiness which is the crowning glory of our God.

1. Disinterested benevolence is not the whole of virtue. (1.) Some exercises of disinterested benevolence, for example, the natural parental affection, are purely instinctive, and have no positive moral character. (2.) Some exercises of disinterested benevolence, such as the weak yie ling of a judge to sympathy with a guilty man or his friends, are positively immoral. (3.) There are virtuous principles incapable of being resolved into disinterested benevolence, such as a proper prudential regard for one’s Dwn highest good; aspiration and effort after personal excellence, holy abhorrence of sin for its own

* “Moral Government of God,” vol. ii., p. 278. f John Young, LL.D., of Edinburgh. “Life and Light of Men,” pp. 476, 477.

sake, and just punishment of sin in order to vindicate righteousness. Ps. xcvii. 10: “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil.” (4.) The idea of oughtness is the essential constitutive idea of virtue. No possible analysis of the idea of benevolence will give the idea of moral obligation. This is simple, irresolvable, ultimate. Oughtness is the genus, and benevolence one of the species comprehended in it.

These principles, we take pleasure in saying, are clearly stated by Mr. Barnes in his work on the Atonement.* He argues (a) that punishment is not intended, and does not even tend, to secure the reformation of the offender; (6) that the sole end of punishment is not to deter others from a repetition of the offence, and so protect the community; (c) “that punishment is intended as a proper expression of what is due to crime.” “It is inflicted because it is right it should be inflicted. It is inflicted because the offence deserves such an expression.”

2. As the essential and irresolvable characteristic of virtue is oughtness, and of sin its opposite oughtnotness, so it is an intrinsic and immutable attribute of sin that I it ought to be punished. This obligation to punishment is an ultimate fact of moral consciousness; it cannot be resolved into any other principle whatsoever; it is intrinsic in sin without reference to any other principle. (1.) This is involved in every awakened sinner’s consciousness of his own demerit. Ps. li. 4: “I have done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be just when thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest.” In its higher degrees this feeling rises into remorse, and can be *” Atonement,” pp. 186-202.

allayed only by expiation. Thus many murderers have had no rest until they have given themselves up to the law, when they have experienced instant relief. And millions of souls have found peace in the application of the blood of Jesus to their wounded consciences. (2.) All men judge thus of the sins of others. The consciences of all good men are gratified when the just penalty of the law is executed upon the offender, and outraged when he escapes. (3.) This principle is witnessed to by all the sacrificial rites common to all ancient religions, by the penances in some form universal even in modern times, by all penal laws, and by the synonyms for guilt, punishment, justice, &c., common to all languages. (4.) It is self-evident, that to inflict an unjust punishment is itself a crime, no matter how benevolent the motive which prompts it, nor how good the effect which follows it. It is no less self-evident that it is the justice of the punishment so deserved which renders its effect on the community good, and not its effect on the community which renders it just. To hang a man for the good of the community is both a crime and a blunder, unless the hanging is justified by the ill-desert of the man. In that case his ill- desert is seen by all the community to be the real reason of the hanging. (5.) That the Bible teaches the same doctrine has been shown above.

In answer to the foregoing, it is claimed that benevolence is as essential an element of the divine nature as is holy abhorrence of sin. It is asked why the sentiment of justice mitxt, in the case of the elect, be gratified by punishing their sins in Christ, whereas in the case of the tost the sentiment of benevolence remains ungratified?

Why must one sentiment take precedence of the
other?

Nothing can be gained here by refinements of the speculative intellect. The Scriptures, the moral sense, and the common judgments of mankind are our only courts of appeal. Access to them is simple, and their answer certain. The infinite moral perfection of God stands affected as benevolence to all his creatures, considered simply as sentient beings. Without any change in itself, its relations only being changed, it is mercy in respect to all miserable creatures. Just so, itself un changed, it stands affected to all guilty creatures as GRACE. Now it is self-evident that every exercise of grace must be optional. It is a matter of free will. But, on the other hand, holy hatred of sin, and the treatment of sin as that which ought to be punished, is not optional with God. He cannot do otherwise than right, and he cannot exercise grace otherwise than as a matter of sovereign discretion. This is self-evident. There is nothing contradictory here. In the case of the reprobate, God punishes sin in the sinner, and he declines to exercise that grace which never can be a matter of right, but must ever be a matter of choice. And toward the guilty, benevolence has no existence except in the form of grace. In the case of the elect, on the other hand, God exercised both the grace and the justice. The grace, in freely saving the sinner in spite of his want of merit; and the justice, in the self-assumption of the penalty and its satisfaction in the perse n of his Son.