136. Chapter 2: Necessity For Atonement.
Chapter 2 Necessity For Atonement. The necessity for an atonement is so closely related to the question of its nature that the former might be fully discussed in connection with the latter. Yet its separate treatment, at least so far as our own doctrine is concerned, is in the order of the better method. In our witnessing facts for the reality of an atonement we gave Scripture proofs of its necessity. This necessity, as divinely revealed, is asserted in the most explicit and emphatic terms. It is given with all the force of a logical implication in the requirement of faith in the redeeming Christ as the necessary condition of forgiveness and salvation. It is further verified as the only explanation of the sufferings and death of Christ. The facts of his redemptive mediation are of no ordinary character. Indeed, they are so extraordinary as to require the profoundest necessity for their vindication under a specially providential economy. The incarnation of the Son of God is a marvelous event. Its deeper meaning we read only in the light of his own character and rank. In the form of God, he has a rightful glory in equality with him. This he surrenders, and takes, instead, the form of a servant, in the likeness of men. His estate is in the deepest abasement. He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He bears the reproaches and hatreds of men. His sufferings have unfathomed depths. After the profound self-humiliation in the incarnation he yet further humbles himself and becomes obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Psalms 69:9; Romans 15:3; Php 2:6-8; 1 Timothy 3:18). The will of the Father is concurrent with the will of the Son in this whole transaction. While the Son comes in the gladness of filial obedience and the compassion of redeeming love, the Father sends him forth and prepares for him a body for his priestly sacrifice (Psalms 40:6-8; Hebrews 10:5-9). The infinite sacrifice of this concurring love of the Father and the Son affirms the deepest necessity for an atonement as the ground of forgiveness.
I. Ground Of Necessity Of Moral Government.
Only with the fact of a divine moral government can there be the occasion of any question respecting the necessity for an atonement. If we are not under law to God we are without sin. If without sin, we have nothing to be forgiven. Hence there could be for us no necessary ground of forgiveness.
1. Fact of a Moral Government.—God being God, and the Creator of men, and men being what they are, a moral government is the profoundest moral necessity. We have a moral nature, with the powers of an ethical life. Our character is determined according to the use of these powers. Herein is involved our profoundest personal interest. We also deeply affect each other, and after the manner of our own life. Here is a law of great evil. Nor would the fact be other, except infinitely worse, were we wholly without law from heaven. The less men know of a divine law, with its weightier obligations and sanctions, the lower they sink into moral corruption and ruin. The moral powers and the forces of evil are full of spontaneous impulse. Nor do they await the occasion of a revealed law for their corrupting and ruinous activity. And however the absence of all divine law might change our relation to judicial penalty, our moral ruin would be, nevertheless, inevitable and utter. Now, should we even concede God’s indifference to his own claims upon our obedience and love, it would be irrational, and blasphemous even, to assume his indifference to all the interests of virtue and well-being in us. He cannot overlook us. His own perfections constrain his infinite regard for our welfare. Under the condition of such facts there is, and there must be, a divine moral government over us. The moral consciousness of humanity affirms the fact of such a government.[612] [612]
2. Requisites of a Moral Government.—Within the moral realm subjects may differ: possibly, in some facts of their personal constitution; certainly, in their moral state and tendencies. A wise government must vary its provisions in adjustment to the requirement of such differences. In some facts the divine law must be the same for all. It must require the obedience of all; for such is the right of the divine Ruler and the common obligation of his subjects. It must guard the rights and interests of all. Beyond such facts, yet for the reason of them, the provisions of law, as means to the great ends of moral government, should vary as subjects differ. The same principles which imperatively require a moral government for moral beings also require its economy in adjustment to any considerable peculiarities of moral condition and tendency. This law has special significance, and should not be overlooked in the present inquiry. We are seeking for the necessity of an atonement in the requirements of moral government; and we shall more readily find it in view of our own moral tendencies and needs. The atonement, while directly for man, has infinitely wider relations than the present sphere of humanity. Indirectly it concerns all intelligences, and is, no doubt, in adjustment to all moral interests. Still, in its immediate purpose it is a provision for the forgiveness and salvation of men. The atonement is, therefore, a measure introduced into the divine government as immediately over us, and its special necessity must arise from the interests so directly concerned.
Subjects should know the will of the Sovereign. There are things to be done, and things not to be done. Nor can such things always be known either by reason or experience. This may be true even with the highest in perfection, and with every thought and feeling responsive to duty. Most certainly is it true of us. The mode in which the law of duty shall be given is not first in importance. It is the law itself that is so essential. How God may reveal his will to angels we know not, because we know neither his modes of expression nor their powers of apprehension. In some mode it is made known, and so becomes the law of their duty. And God has made known his will to us. This is chiefly done through revelation, though we have some light through the moral reason and the direct agency of the Holy Spirit. God gave a law to Adam, communicated his will to the patriarchs, wrote the Decalogue on tables of stone for Israel and for man, spake often to the people by the prophets. And Christ summed up the law of Christian duty in the two great commandments. It is not requisite that every particular duty should lie given in a special statute. This would be for us an impracticable code. We have the law of duty, in a far better form, in the great moral principles given in the gospels. And thus we have the divine will revealed to us as the law of our duty. In the highest conceivable perfection, with the clearest apprehension of duty, with every sentiment responsive to its behests, and with no tendency nor temptation to the contrary, obedience would be assured without the sanction of rewards. In such a state, however munificent the divine favors might be to such obedience, penalty could have no necessary governmental function. But when obedience is difficult and its failure a special liability, duty must have the sanction of rewards. They must form a part of the law and have as distinct an announcement as its precepts. Otherwise, government is void of a necessary adjustment to the moral state of its subjects.
Such is the requirement of our moral condition. With us there are many hinderances to duty, and the liability to sin is great. There is moral darkness, spiritual apathy, a strong tendency to evil, and the incoming of much temptation. We deeply need the moral sanctions of law in the promise of good and the imminence of penalty. And however defective the virtue wrought merely under the influence of such motives, they are clearly necessary to the ordinary morality of life. Whether in view of human or divine law, or of the history of the race, every candid man must confess the necessity of such support to the social and public morality, and that without it there could be no true civil life. It was in the conviction of such a truth that the ancient sages asserted the necessity of religion to the life of the State and the well-being of society, and that the ancient lawgivers and rulers maintained religious institutions and services for the sake of the support which the expectation of rewards in a future state gave to law and duty in the present life.[613] And for us as a race there is the profoundest need of penalty as a fact of law. With the vicious, as the many would be without the law, the imminence of penalty is a far weightier sanction of law than the promise of reward.
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3. Divine Determination of Rewards.—It is the prerogative of the divine Euler to determine the rewards of human conduct. No other can determine them either rightfully or wisely. Specially are we void of both the prerogative and the capacity for their proper apportionment. Even in the plane of secular duties and interests, and with the gathered experience of ages, questions of penalty are still the perplexing problems of the most highly civilized States; and surely we should not assume a capacity for the adjustment of law and its rewards to the requirements of the divine government. But God comprehends the whole question, and has full prerogative in its decisions. He knows what measure of rewards is befitting his justice and goodness and required by the interests of his moral government. And, accordingly, he has given us the law of our duty, with its announced rewards of obedience and sin.
4. Measure of Penalty.—God determines the measure of penalty, but not arbitrarily. His infinite sovereignty asserts no disregard of the principles of justice nor of the rights and interests of his subjects. He is a wise and good Sovereign, as he is a just and holy one.
Sin has intrinsic demerit. It deserves to be punished; and God has the exact measure of its desert. So far penalty may be carried. Divine justice, in its distinctive retributive function, has no reason for pause short of this. In its own free course it would so punish all sin. But justice cannot carry its penalties beyond the demerit of sin. Nor can it suffer any interests of moral government to carry them beyond this .limit. Nay, punishment cannot go beyond. Whatever transcends the intrinsic demerit of sin ceases in all that transcendence to be punishment. Hence, while the inherent turpitude of sin is the real and only ground of punishment, its own measure is a limitation of penalty.
It is an important office of penalty to conserve the interests of the government. We here use the term government not in any ideal or abstract sense, but as including the divine Sovereign ruling in its administration, and the moral beings over whom he rules. The rights and glory of God are concerned; the profoundest interests of men are concerned. So far we may speak with certainty, however it may be with other orders of moral beings. Hence the rectoral function of penalty is a most important one. Its importance rises in the measure of the interests which it must conserve.
It must fulfill its rectoral office specially as a restraint upon sin. It must, therefore, be wisely adjusted in its measure to this specific end. Two facts condition its restraining force: one, the strength of our tendency to sin; the other, the state of our motivity to penalty as an impending infliction. Both of these facts deeply concern the measure of penalty required by the highest interests of moral government. With a strong tendency to sin, and a feeble motivity to the imminence of penalty—facts so broadly and deeply written in human history—penalties must be the severer. The interests of moral government may require them even in the full measure of the demerit of sin. Up to this limit, whatever God may see to be requisite to these interests will not fail of his appointment as the penalty of sin. All the fundamental principles which determine his institution of the wisest and best government must so determine him respecting the measure of penalty.
II. Necessity For Penalty. The physical evil and moral wretchedness which follow upon our sinful conduct, but really as consequent to our constitution and relations, are not strictly of the nature of punishment, though such is a very common view. That sin brings misery is in the order of the divine constitution of things. It is not clear that there could be such a constitution of moral beings that suffering would not follow upon sin. Indeed, the contrary is manifest. But what so follows as a natural result, though in an order of things divinely constituted, is not strictly penal. Such naturally consequent evil may have in the divine plan an important ministry in the economy of moral government. But punishment, strictly, is a divine infliction of penalty upon sin in the order of a judicial administration. The necessity for penalty, therefore, is not from necessary causation, but from sufficient moral grounds. Penalty has such a necessity in the interest of moral government, except as its office may be fulfilled by some substitutional measure. In the moral realm there is a divine moral Ruler; and the vital truth of the present question must be viewed in the light of his perfections and rectoral relations. In such light the moral necessity for penalty is manifest.
1. From its Rectoral Office.—Omitting other things for the present, penalty has a necessary office in the good of moral government. Justice itself is directly concerned therein. Nor is any requirement of justice more imperative. Sin must be restrained and moral order maintained for the honor of God and the good of moral beings. The innocent must be protected against injury and wrong. Justice cannot overlook these profound interests. In such neglect it would cease to be justice. It must sacredly guard them. A necessary power for their protection lies in its penalty. This it may not omit, except through some measure equally fulfilling the same rectoral office, while forgiveness is granted to repenting sinners.
2. From the Divine Holiness.—God, as a perfectly holy being, must give support to righteousness and place barriers in the way of sin. He must seek, in the use of all proper means, the prevention or utmost restraint of sin. But in the moral state of humanity penalty is a necessary means for such limitation. Lift the restraint of its imminence from the soul and conscience of men, and, wicked as they now are, they would be immensely worse. Even a presumptive hope of impunity emboldens sin. The divine forbearance in the deferment of merited punishment is made the occasion of a deeper impenitence and a more persistent impiety. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11). And a release from all amenability to penalty would be to many a divine license to the freest vicious indulgence. The divine holiness, therefore, must require the restraint of sin through the ministry of penalty, except as the interest of righteousness may be protected through some other means.
3. From the Divine Goodness.—Nor less must the divine goodness support this office of justice. Sin brings misery. It must bring misery, even in the absence of all infliction of penalty. The race would be far more wretched in the absence of all penalty than it is under an amenability to its rectoral inflictions. While, therefore, God punishes with reluctance, and with profound sympathy for the suffering sinner, yet, as a God of love, he must maintain the office of penalty in the interest of human happiness. The only ground of its surrender, even on the part of the divine goodness, must be found in some vicarious measure equally answering the same end.
4. A Real Necessity for Atonement.—The result is, the necessity for an atonement. Without such a provision sinners cannot be forgiven and saved. The impossibility is concluded by the facts and principles which this chapter unfolds. The necessity for the redemptive mediation of Christ lies ultimately in the perfections of God as moral ruler. It is, therefore, most imperative.
5. Nature of the Atonement Indicated.—We have not yet reached the place for the more formal discussion of the true theory of atonement; yet certain facts and principles have already come into view which so clearly indicate its nature that their doctrinal meaning may properly be noted here.
We have the truth of a divine moral government as the ground-fact in the necessity for an atonement. We have found the facts and principles of such a government strongly affirmative of this necessity. They thus respond to the explicit affirmations of Scripture thereon. Further, we have found this necessity to be grounded in the profoundest interests of moral government, for the protection of which the penalties of the divine justice have a necessary function. Here we have the real hinderance to a mere administrative forgiveness, and, therefore, the real necessity for an atonement. The true office of atonement follows accordingly. The vicarious sufferings of Christ answer for the obligation of justice and the office of penalty in the interests of moral government, so that such interest shall not suffer through the forgiveness of sin. This is, however, not the whole service of the redemptive mediation of Christ, but a chief fact in its more specific office, and one answering to the deepest necessity for an atonement. The nature of the atonement is thus determined. The vicarious sufferings of Christ are a provisory substitute for penalty, and not the actual punishment of sin. He is not such a substitute in penalty as to preserve the same retributive administration of justice as in the actual punishment of sinners. The sufferings of Christ, endured for us as sinners, so fulfill the obligation of justice and the office of penalty in the interest of moral government as to render forgiveness, on proper conditions, entirely consistent therewith. Such is the nature of the atonement.
Such a view fully answers to the relation between God and men as sovereign and subjects, and to the facts of their sinfulness and subjection to his righteous displeasure and judicial condemnation. Sin offends his justice and love, incurs his righteous displeasure, and constitutes in them punitive desert. Such are the facts which the Scriptures so fully recognize. And God as a righteous ruler must inflict merited penalty upon sin, not, indeed, in the gratification of any mere personal resentment, nor in the satisfaction of an absolute retributive justice, but in the interest of moral government, or find some rectorally compensatory measure for the remission of penalty. Such a measure there is in the redemptive mediation of Christ. The conclusion gives us an atonement, not by an absolute substitution in punishment, but by a provisory substitution in suffering.