K 01 The Consequences Sin Man
1. The Consequences of Sin to Man himself. As respects man himself the consequences of sin are these :
(i.) The whole race is subject to suffering, disease, afflic tion, sorrow, and ultimately to physical death. That there 1 Boswell’s Life of Johnson, vol. iv. p. 130. is misery of various kinds in our world, and that no being of our race wholly escapes suffering of some kind is patent to all, and cannot have escaped the notice of the most cursory observer. Few also can fail to see that the physical evils under which men suffer stand connected with that moral evil which affects man, with that guilt of which he is conscious, and must be viewed as the penal consequences of this. It may not be possible in every case to trace the connection between the suffering and the offence, and it behoves us to be very cautious how we connect any calamity into which we ourselves or others may have fallen with any particular sin, or class of sins, we or they may have committed, so as to pro nounce that the special infliction is a divine judgment because of the special offence; for we command so very limited a range of vision, and are such imperfect judges in many things pertaining to such matters, that it becomes us to beware of hasty and rash conclusions on points of this sort, especially in reference to others. Still, as a general rule, we can have no hesitation in saying that temporal evils are the consequence of sin; and we can in so many cases trace the connection between the offence and the suffering, we see the latter so following the former in course by a natural process, that the induction becomes legitimate by which we conclude this to be a principle of the divine administration here, and that as a general fact man is a sufferer because he is a sinner. What natural analogy thus leads us to consider probable, Scripture seems clearly to teach. There it is not only emphatically affirmed that death, under which term all physical evils are included, entered by sin, but it is expressly said that men as sinners shall eat of the fruit of their own way, and be h lled with their own devices (Proverbs 1:31). There sinners are assured that their iniquity will find them out an assertion which has reference to the certainty with which punishment in the shape of suffering follows upon the commission of sin, even though it be hid from the knowledge, and so exempted from the judicial recognition of men. To the same effect is the statement, " His own iniquities shall take the wicked man, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins"
(Proverbs 5:22). So the prophet was commissioned to proclaim, " Woe unto the wicked ! it shall be ill with him; for the reward of his hands shall be given him" (Isaiah 3:11). To the same effect Zophar the Naamathite, after a lengthened enumeration of evils, concludes, " This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed him by God "
(Job 20:29). 1 Of the sufferings that come upon men as the direct conse quence of sin, not the least are those which arise from remorse and self-condemnation. The apostle speaks (Romans 2:15) of men’s consciences bearing witness to the law, and their thoughts accusing them, or else excusing them. By this he intends that men sit in judgment upon themselves, and according as they see their conduct to be in accordance with the divine law, or a violation of it, they commend them selves or condemn themselves. In the latter case a feeling of remorse invades them; they bitterly censure themselves, and a painful sense of guilt, as it were, bites into their soul.
God has made us thus to judge ourselves and thus to feel when we see that we have done wrong; and fallen as man is, he retains his capacity of moral judgment, is able to distin guish right from wrong, has the law written on his heart so that even in the absence of a direct revelation from heaven he can determine the course he ought to pursue, and is thus in a condition to judge himself, and to decide whether he is to be approved or condemned. This judgment he can hardly avoid making of himself, and when he finds that he stands condemned at the bar of his own judgment, he cannot but feel pained, nor can he avoid the dreadful anticipation that the condemnation he pronounces on himself is the prelude to the still severer condemnation of the Almighty Judge. Long indulgence in sin may blunt the edge of this judgment arid feeling, and a habit may be acquired of stifling the convictions of conscience; but this cannot continue for ever; the internal monitor will ere long assert its right to speak, and the attempt that has been made to silence it will only make the remorse more poignant when at length conscience utters its judgment. " The conviction," says Philo Judseus, " which dwells in and is connate with every soul as an accuser, blames, accuses, upbraids, and again, as a judge, instructs, admonishes, exhorts to repentance." 2 So also the Eabbins called the 1 See Butler’s Analogy, Ft. I. ch. ii.
2 DC DecaL, p. 756. conscience ^.PP:*?, "the accuser." A heathen poet 1 could only say, " Hie murus aheneus esto :
Nil eonscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa." Of the agony arising from conscious guilt the Scripture presents us with a striking instance in the case of Judas, who, when he saw the result of his covetousness and treachery, and felt that he had betrayed his Master to death, brought back the price of his treason to the chief priest, saying, " I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood," cast down the money in their presence, and went out and hanged himself. Many instances of a similar kind history records; and those who have had to deal with men under conviction of sin know how often the accusations of conscience so oppress men that they are crushed and overwhelmed thereby, and refuse to receive any comfort or relief. There is every reason to believe that from this the chief agony of the state of iinal retribution will arise.
(ii.) In consequence of sin men are brought into condemna tion, and consequently under liability to punishment in a future state of being. As the present is evidently a prepara tory state, and as we see in the present state that present sin is followed by consequent suffering and punishment, reason teaches us to anticipate that the sins and vices men commit or indulge in now will render the state that is to follow one to them of penal endurance and suffering. As sin is the transgression of a law, and as every law attaches to that which it prescribes the announcement of certain penalties to be incurred by those who transgress it, we are bound to expect that so it will be with the divine law. Now on this head Scripture leaves no room for doubt. The fixed, unalter able principle of the divine administration which it announces is, " The soul that sinneth it shall die." " The wages of sin is death" (Ezekiel 18:4; Romans 6:23). And lest this death should be understood of some mere temporal calamity, our Lord has been careful to assure us that He, " the Son of Man, shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there 1 Horace, Epist., i. 1. 60. shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:41-42). And again in His parable of the talents, He represents the king as saying, concerning the unprofitable servant, " Cast him into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 25:36). In the account also which He gives of the transactions of the last judgment, He says of the wicked, " These shall go away into everlasting punishment "
(Matthew 25:40). In perfect accordance with this are the statements of the apostles. Take, for instance, the detailed statement of the apostle in Eom. 2:516, the more con densed but not less clear and emphatic statement in 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10, or the declaration in Hebrews 10:30-31. Comp. also Matthew 3:12; Luke 3:17; Romans 1:18, Romans 1:32; 2 Thessalonians 2:12; 2 Peter 2:9; 2 Peter 3:7, etc. In consequence of sin all men are thus under legal con demnation, and there lies before them the prospect of legal penalty to be endured by them. In view of this some have contended that it is altogether improper to speak of man s condition here as one of probation. Where, it has been asked, is there place for probation if men are already, because of sin, under condemnation? Now, it is undoubtedly true that if by a state of probation be meant that man is here on his trial whether he shall become guilty or not, the expres sion is incorrect, and one the use of which may grievously mislead. Man is not on his probation in this respect. The issue in this case is already decided; the Scripture hath concluded all men under sin; the sentence has gone forth from the Judge of all; and condemnation already rests upon every individual of our race. It is not a question whether man in his natural state shall be acquitted or condemned when he stands before God at last; this question is already decided; judgment has already gone forth against the workers of iniquity; it is written, " Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them" (Galatians 3:10). But whilst we cannot in this sense speak of man as in a state of probation, I am not prepared to go the length of saying there is no sense in which this may be affirmed of man. It appears to me that we may use this expression both in reference to man as under the religion of nature, and of man as under the offers of the gospel. In a state of nature man is a moral agent, and he is there so far under probation that the character of his condition hereafter will be materially affected by his conduct here. As the punishment will bear a just proportion to the offence, and as all sins are not of the same enormity, it is obviously a man s interest to keep down the amount of his guilt, both as respects the number and as respects the aggravation of his sins, to the lowest possible degree; and of every man it may be said that he is in this respect on his trial here. He has to take care of himself in this respect. He is the subject of a great moral experiment by which his future condition is very seriously to be affected; and the conduct of this experiment is in his own hands. "In the present state," as Butler remarks, "all which we enjoy, and a great part of what we suffer, is put in our own power." We are thus under God’s moral government in a state of probation, even as respects this life; and as our present life has issues in that which is to come, we are here also under probation in reference to the future. Still more distinctly is man in a state of probation for the future when he lives under the offers of the gospel. These come to him as under condemnation with proposals of deliverance; and it is for the man to accept or refuse the offered boon. If he accept, he is pardoned, justified, saved, and blessed; if he reject, his guilt becomes deeper, his condemnation more severe, his doom more awful. Is not this, then, a state of probation? Is not every one who is thus circumstanced one who has, as Butler expresses it, his happiness or misery put very much in his own power? and what is this but to be formally and truly under probation for eternity?
(iii.) In consequence of sin, disorder and pollution have invaded man’s soul. While we object to the assertion that man is born and begins his career with a morally vitiated and poisoned nature, we must hold that sin depraves and pollutes and disorders the inner nature of every one who commits it, and that, as the habit of sinning becomes formed, so the power of depravity increases until it acquires all the force of a second nature. It cannot be otherwise. As the little rift in the instrument mars and ultimately destroys the music, so sin, as a violent infraction of the due order of our nature, cannot but spoil and disarrange and ultimately impair our whole moral constitution. " Given the fact of sin," says Dr. Bushnell, " the fact of a fatal breach in the normal state or constitutional order of the soul follows of necessity. And exactly this we shall see," he continues, " if we look in upon its secret chambers and watch the motions of sin in the confused ferment they raise the perceptions discoloured, the judgments unable to hold their scales steadily because of the fierce gusts of passion, the thoughts huddling by in crowds of wild suggestion, the imagination haunted by ugly and dis gustful shapes, the appetites contesting with reason, the senses victorious over faith, anger blowing the overheated fires of malice, low jealousies sulking in dark angles of the soul, and envies, baser still, hiding under the scum of its green mantled pools, all the powers that should be strung in harmony loosened from each other and brewing in hopeless and helpless confusion; the conscience, meantime, thundering wrathfully above and shooting down hot bolts of judgment, and the pallid fears hurrying wildly about with their brim stone torches, these are the motions of sins, the Tartarean landscape of the soul and its disorders when self-government is gone and the constituent integrity is dissolved." J That in its main lines the picture here given is not over drawn, man’s own consciousness and the experience of the race universally will attest. The testimony of Scripture also is clear and full on this point. In the most emphatic terms it announces the fact of man’s depravity. See Genesis 6:5; Psalms 14:1-2; Isaiah 53:6; Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew 15:19; Ephesians 2:1, Ephesians 2:3; Titus 3:3; Romans 7:18; James 1:14-15.
What is represented in the last passage quoted daily obser vation and experience amply confirm. Every person must see how a man, left to himself, goes on in an ever-deepening course of evil; how the sinner, exempted from restraint, becomes ever more completely drenched in sin; how he abandons himself ever more and more to the dominion of iniquity; how he loses the sense of shame and debasement which the consciousness of guilt first produced upon him; and how he rushes with ever increasing eagerness to enjoy the banquet of sin, until all considerations of decency may be set at naught, and being past feeling, the man gives himself 1 Nature and the Supernatural.
" over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greedi ness." Self being predominant, the natural desire is for that which pleases self, that which gratifies the lusts and passions that domineer over the soul; and this desire, once gratified, becomes impatient of restraint, and demands gratification with ever-increasing impetuosity. Sin once indulged in reacts on the desire which led to it, and this being thereby rendered more imperious and intense, provokes to further and deeper indulgence.
" Crescit indulgens sibi dims hydrops, Nee sitini pellit, nisi causa niorbi Fugerit venis." 1 It is customary to speak of this depravity of man as total. The phraseology is correct, provided it be justly understood.
It is, however, liable to misconception, and not rarely it is wrongly conceived. We shall certainly err if in maintaining man’s total depravity we intend thereby to deny to him the possession of anything that is good. His physical nature, be it remembered, remains essentially what it was before the Fall, when God pronounced it " good; " and though it may be injured and degraded by sinful indulgence, its original faculties and susceptibilities may be preserved entire. So also with man’s intellectual nature; in no case is it so bright and powerful as it would be in a sinless state, and in many cases it becomes enfeebled and marred by sin; but in itself it remains as it was originally, so far as its constitutive qualities and powers are concerned. We must admit also that man is the subject of many affections that are good and lovely, and that he does many things which are not only not morally evil, but are praiseworthy as morally excellent. To deny that there is anything good in man, or, what is equiva lent, to affirm that his nature is wholly corrupted and depraved, would be to exempt him from responsibility. An eye wholly diseased would be incapable of seeing, and no blame could attach to the man whose eye was so diseased if he failed to see what he ought to see. In like mariner, if our whole nature were wholly diseased and corrupted, it would be impossible for us to do what we are required as intelligent and moral agents to do; and thus we should cease to be 1 Horace, Carm., ii. 2. 14. blameworthy for not doing it. If sin could thus destroy our moral responsibility, it would at the same time destroy itself, for where there is no responsibility there can be no sin. The triumph of sin over man would thus be the ending of sin in our race. What, then, is meant by saying that men are totally depraved? All that can be properly intended by this is, that the ruling principle of man’s mind and heart and life is ungodly. The mainspring of his active being is desire, what the apostle calls eVifliyAta, and this has either no moral character at all, or it is positively wrong; or, if right in itself, it is allowed to dominate to the exclusion of purer and nobler affections, and so becomes evil. Man’s will thus comes to be under an ungodly bias. He is like a machine, the parts of which remain unimpaired, but in which the motive power is disordered, so that the whole action of the machine is depraved.
If I say, " My watch is out of order and spoilt," I do not neces sarily mean that every wheel is broken, and that it is utterly incapable of right action; I may intend to intimate merely that the mainspring is under a wrong pressure, which makes the watch work irregularly, so that it does not fulfil the purpose for which watches are made. So is it with man. The mechanism of his nature remains entire, and its working is not wholly for evil; but as in losing love to God he has lost the proper motive power of his soul, man totally fails to fulfil the end for which he was made, and spends his energies on that which is not godly, or is partial, h tful, and irregular in his moral activity. "Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever;" 1 but this end he, from an ungodly bias, either wholly ignores and rejects, or he determinedly sets himself to oppose and frustrate it. He is thus wholly perverted from the right way; as respects the great end of his being, he is wholly depraved.
(iv.) In consequence of sin, man is in a state of spiritual helplessness. He is so both as respects power to deliver himself from guilt and as respects power to deliver from depravity. That man is unable to deliver- himself from guilt must be admitted by all who form any just estimate of what guilt really is. Even where men are so sunk in ignorance as to 1 Shorter Catechism, quest. 1. imagine that by gifts and sacrifices, by penances and mortifi cations, they can procure the favour of God, it is still on the ground that man needs something beyond himself, something that shall relieve his helplessness, something that shall effect what he cannot himself effect, that he expects to obtain deliverance from guilt. He feels that his guilt has to be expiated before it can be forgiven. He feels that he cannot simply go to God and say, " I am guilty; be pleased to forgive me." He feels that something outside of himself must come between him and God ere he can obtain pardon; and the question which ever presses on him is that of old, " Where withal shall I appear before God? " (Micah 6:6). Without something that shall be valid as an expiation, he feels that he cannot stand in the presence of God or expect the cancelling of his guilt so as to escape the penal consequences of sin.
Some, indeed, have thought and taught that man may, by a mental state, so place himself in relation with God that God will, as a matter of course, pardon his sin and receive him into favour. Man, it is said, may sincerely and truly repent of his siri, wholly turn from it, unfeignedly renounce, abhor, and forsake it, and thus be in a state of mind which is right, and which will secure for him pardon and acceptance with God. With many this notion obtains, and it exercises a powerful influence for evil over not a few. As presented in its most plausible form, this doctrine may be stated thus: Man can sincerely repent of his sin, can turn from it, and in the future be good and holy; and as God is omniscient, and can consequently with certainty know when repentance is really genuine and sincere, He can safely, that is, without any risk to His own government and authority, freely forgive the sins of those whom He sees to be truly repentant and reformed.
Now, in the outset, I must remark that I do not see what the element of the divine omniscience has to do here, or how the introduction of it at all affects the question, because the difficulty is not one of fact, such as the divine omniscience can remove, but one of principle, such as is equally grave under an omniscient as under an imperfect government.
1. It is assumed by those who hold the doctrine we are considering, that man may sincerely and perfectly repent, and turn from sin to goodness. Let this in the meantime be conceded: the question we have to decide is, Can perfect repentance and reformation cancel past guilt so as to entitle the penitent to pardon and favour with God? Now, without entering at large into this matter at present, I would remark,
(1.) As God is the perfect moral Governor, and as moral government rests not on force but on perfect rectitude, it is necessary that all His acts should be in righteousness and truth, so as to commend themselves to the moral sense of His intelligent creatures. Now, He has said in His law, under which He administers His government, that sin entitles the transgressor to punishment. His solemn declaration is, " The soul that sinneth, it shall die; " " The wages [the just and adequate reward] of sin is death." This is God’s law; this is His public declaration to the universe of His intelligent creatures. If, therefore, sin is committed, the right and proper thing is that the penalty shall follow; and this sequence can be righteously suspended or set aside only on some ground that shall preserve the rectitude of the Governor unimpeached, in other words, that shall accord with the moral nature He has given to His intelligent creatures. The question then comes to be, Does repentance, presumed to be sincere, appear to the moral sense of man to be a sufficient ground for God, as Governor, setting aside the claims of law and failing to keep His own word by preserving a sequence which He has declared to be certain? To this, I think, the moral sense of the race would reply in the negative. Where guilt, i.e. legal liability to punishment, has been contracted, the fitting sequence is that the penalty incurred should be inflicted on the trans gressor; and where a governor has declared that such is the law under which his subjects live, it would be a departure from rectitude were he to accept repentance on the part of the transgressor as a reason for exempting him from the penalty he has incurred. Mere repentance can never cancel guilt; good conduct in the future can never compensate for violations of law in the past. No judge in any court would for a moment admit such a plea in bar of the sentence which the law required him to pronounce on a criminal. He might be satisfied that the man’s repentance was sincere; he might be convinced that the man so utterly abhorred the crime he had committed that there was every moral certainty that he would never commit it again. But the offence, nevertheless, would remain, and with that the law’s demand that the penalty incurred should be endured; and no judge could ignore or repudiate this without incurring censure and doing injury to the government whose law he was set to administer.
(2.) This consideration is enhanced when what is proposed is not merely the forgiveness of guilt, but along with this the bestowment on the pardoned transgressor of immense benefits, such as even his best efforts, supposing him never to have sinned, could not have secured. If our sense of rectitude revolts from the proposal that God should set aside the claims of His own law and forgive the transgressor, simply because he has turned from his evil ways and resolves henceforth to be a good and obedient subject of the Almighty, surely much more does it revolt from the proposal of such a transgressor being on such grounds introduced to all the privileges of the kingdom of heaven.
(3.) It is to be borne in mind that though we speak of future sinlessness, it is really only the act of repentance or turning from sin in the past that comes into consideration as a ground of forgiveness. The subsequent sinlessness is only what the man is bound to; there is no merit in it that can give it a regressive or retrospective effect. It begins when the pardon is pronounced, and can have no effect in procuring that. For all that has gone before it is dead and inoperative. The question therefore, be it remembered, is restricted to this, Can mere repentance or ceasing to do evil be accepted under a righteous moral government as an adequate reason for the governor departing from his own law and exempting the transgressor from the penalty which, by breaking that law, he has incurred? To this the only answer which the moral sense of man can render is in the negative.
(4.) Those who think repentance a sufficient ground for the pardoning of the sinner must be prepared to maintain that by this the sinner becomes legally and morally entitled to pardon and blessing. The question is one of law and government, and in such a case we can proceed only on the ground of right and title; we ask, not what may be by some possibility, or through some act of sovereignty, but what ought to be and what must be as determined by legal obligation? Now, no one can maintain that mere repentance, however sincere, can entitle a sinner to pardon, so that he can demand of the judge in equity that he shall be acquitted and restored to the enjoy ment of privilege. And yet, if this be not maintained, it is simply foolish to assert that repentance furnishes a sufficient ground on which pardon and acquittal can be granted to the man who has transgressed the divine law and come under condemnation.
2. Even assuming, then, that the sinner can of himself truly repent and turn from sin, it is evident that this alone can never avail to secure for him salvation. But can the sinner of himself repent? That physically he is able to do this we must admit, for were this physically impossible no man could be justly blamed for not repenting. But morally and practically it is impossible. Where the disease of sin has once taken hold of a man there is no recuperative energy by which he can throw it off so as to deliver himself from it. Where sin has become a habit it acquires the strength and tenacity of a second nature, and only some power beyond and above nature can free man from its tyranny. As well might you expect a stream of its own accord to reverse its course and return to the fountain whence it sprung. " Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil" (Jeremiah 13:23).
More than this: Does not the very position that repent ance may secure the pardon of sin involve the impossibility of the sinner’s actually repenting? The repentance, it is assumed, is real and genuine. But genuine repentance is prompted by hatred of the sin, not by the prospect of forgive ness and favour as the reward of repentance. If, therefore, God were to demand repentance as the means or price of forgiveness, He would necessarily prevent its being the result of hatred of sin. Genuine repentance would thus be pre cluded; and so in the very act of offering to the sinner pardon on the ground of his repentance God would subvert the ground on which He asked the sinner to stand so as to obtain pardon.
Thus pardon would be offered on conditions which the very offer would render impossible.
I have referred to man’s inability to deliver himself from sin, as well as his inability to clear himself from guilt and from condemnation. This has also to be distinctly recognised in the consideration of man’s spiritual helplessness. Man is unable to regenerate and renew himself; he is unable to turn from evil to good, from wrong to right, from unholiness to God. He is unable to follow that course of perfect obedience by which alone he can fulfil his obligations as God’s creature and subject; he cannot discern as he ought the things of God; he cannot walk so as in all things to please God. This inability, however, is of a different kind from the other. The inability of man to deliver himself from guilt and condemnation arises from want of power to do what is requisite for the attaining of the object; the inability of man to be good and holy arises from a want of will or inclination to do what he has the power physically to do. Strictly speak ing, the inability in this latter case is simply confirmed indisposition to do what is right, arising from spiritual blind ness and depravity. Man has not lost the capacity to be holy; he has not ceased to be a free agent, choosing what he prefers, and determining his own acts; he is under no external force preventing him from being holy. The spiritual inability under which he lies is that of a mind set against God, desti tute of the principle of spiritual vitality and activity, through carnality and worldliness and sinful indulgence incapable of discerning the beauty of holiness, and so environed and per meated by selfishness that all true love to God is excluded from it. This is a real inability, inasmuch as it hinders and prevents man from being holy, though it does not destroy his capacity for being holy. 1