The GOSPEL TRUTH THE
ATONEMENT IN CHRIST
By
JOHN MILEY, D.D.
CHAPTER IV:
SCHEMES WITHOUT ATONEMENT.
I. AFTER THE PENALTY.1. Salvation Excluded.2. Final Happiness not a Salvation.
3. Impossible in Endless Penalty.
II. IN SOVEREIGN FORGIVENESS.
1. An Assumption against Facts.2. Contrary to Divine Government.
3. Subversive of all Government.
III. THROUGH REPENTANCE.
1. Repentance Necessary.2. Only Kind Naturally Possible.
3. Such Repentance Inevitable.
4. Sin Unrealized.
5. True Repentance only by Grace.
IV. SPECIAL FACTS.
1. Forgiving one Another.2. Parental Forgiveness.
3. Parable of the Prodigal Son.
CHAPTER IV: SCHEMES WITHOUT ATONEMENT.
SOME hold the fact of salvation who yet deny a vicarious atonement. Such consistently deny its necessity. There is, in their view, no element of divine justice, nor interest of moral government, which makes it necessary. Sin may be forgiven, or ultimate salvation attained without it. These great blessings have other grounds or modes. In the order of this position, and as consistency requires, certain grounds or modes are alleged as entirely sufficient for our forgiveness or future happiness. Thus we have schemes of salvation without an atonement in Christ, and in the denial of its necessity. It may be proper to test such schemes.
I. AFTER THE PENALTY.
Universalism and Calvinism differ widely in their completed systems--if we may speak of the former as a system. They are infinitely apart respecting the demerit of sin and the measure of its merited penalty. Yet the two are at one in the cardinal principle that sin must be punished according to its desert. We speak of these systems in their more regular form, not in all their phases. But such a principle in Universalism, as in any non-atonement scheme, gives no place for salvation.
1. Salvation Excluded.
In any true sense of the term, salvation is possible only as a real forgiveness of sin, or its substitutional punishment, is possible. Where the penalty is fully suffered by the offender, as Universalism asserts it must be, there is no salvation. When a criminal has suffered the full penalty awarded him, his discharge is no matter of grace, and his further punishment would be an injustice. There is neither forgiveness nor salvation in his releasement. On the scheme of Universalism, the same is true in every instance of divine penalty.
Such a scheme is false to the clearly revealed fact of forgiveness; false to the soteriology of the Scriptures. The fact is deeply wrought into the Gospel of Christ that he is a Saviour through the forgiveness of sin; a Saviour from the punishment of sin; and such a Saviour through an atonement in his blood. These facts have been set forth and verified by the Scriptures, and need not here be repeated.
2. Final Happiness not a Salvation.
The denial of ultimate happiness as a salvation is a logical sequence of this scheme. The same is true whether merited punishment is limited to this life or continues for a greater or less time in the next. There is no salvation in the termination of such a punishment, whether in the present or future world. Justice has no further penal claim. And while the happiness then beginning and flowing on forever might be far above any merit in us, still it would not be a salvation. Certainly it would be Do such a salvation as the Scriptures reveal in Christ. In the truest and deepest sense future happiness is a salvation through his atonement. Hence the scheme which precludes this fact cannot be true.
3. Impossible in Endless Penalty.
A scheme of ultimate and endless happiness, after a full personal satisfaction of justice in penalty, must limit the duration of punishment, however long it may continue in a future state. If penalty be eternal, there can be no afterstate of happiness. Here arises a great question, the discussion of which would lead us quite aside from the subject in hand. We simply note in passing, that the Scriptures express the duration of penalty in terms most significant of its eternity. What seems specially decisive is, that it is so expressed when placed in immediate contrast with the endless reward of the righteous: "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." The same original word -- _______ -- expresses the duration in the two cases; and there is no more apparent reason for its limitation in the former than in the latter. In such a destiny on account of sin there can be no state of happiness after the penalty. Nor can the necessity for an atonement be so set aside.
II. IN SOVEREIGN FORGIVENESS.
The necessity for an atonement is denied on the assumption that God, in mere sovereignty or on a merely personal disposition of kindness, and without regard to the ends of justice in the interest of moral government, may and does freely forgive sin. There are many objections to this view, and such as entirely discredit it.
1. An Assumption against Facts.
That God forgives and saves sinners on a mere arbitrary sovereignty or pleasure, and without regard to the requirements of moral government, is without proof, and the sheerest assumption. Moreover, the facts of a providential history, now stretching away through many centuries, are full in its contradiction. Were the mere pleasure of God, as a kindly personal disposition, his only law, as this position assumes, there would be no instance of punishment. But there are many such. No one can rationally deny it. Now these facts are contradictory to such a mode of forgiveness. As the generations press to their altars with conscience of sin and with sacrifices of atonement, the voice of humanity, in the deepest utterances of its religious consciousness, pronounces against it. Revelation, in words the most explicit and emphatic, confirms the judgment of humanity.
2. Contrary to Divine Government.
There is a moral government. There is such a government as divinely instituted. It is without any provision for a mere administrative forgiveness. Nor can it admit any such forgiveness, because contrary to its own principles and measures. God, in full view of our moral state, and with infinite regard for our good, has instituted his government in adjustment to our duty and welfare. Penalty itself arises out of the requirement and interest of moral government. Hence its suspension without regard to any new provision would be contrary to government as divinely instituted, and also to the divine perfections in so ordering its provisions. Further, it would set the divine administration in direct opposition to the divine word. In clearest terms God has announced the penalties of sin. Now it is presumed that he will sovereignly interfere, and, without regard to any new provision, grant a universal forgiveness. Surely it is a bold assumption that God will so contradict himself, and set his administration against his own law.
3. Subversive of all Government.
If forgiveness is so granted, it must be universal. There could be no other law of salvation. And, otherwise, it would neither answer for our need nor for the divine impartiality. But with such universal forgiveness government really no longer exists. Justice makes no practical distinction between obedience and sin.
A law of duty without a penalty for transgression is a mere advisory rule of life, and for us, void of necessary enforcing sanction. It would virtually say to every man, Do as you please; when it is certain that most men would please to do wrong, and moral ruin be the result. How long could civil government be thus maintained? A partial uncertainty of penalty, a presumptive hope of impunity, emboldens crime. The license of a universal forgiveness would open the floodgates of evil and hasten the social and political ruin.
As a race we are even more propense to the disregard of moral duty and to sin against God. It may be claimed, and freely granted, that the grace of divine forgiveness is a most weighty reason for grateful piety. But the common moral apathy would be insensible to its persuasive force. Facts clearly show that with most men the divine goodness pleads in vain. Even the cross, with the admission of its atoning love, so pleads in vain. Delays of punishment, with salvation for their end, are perverted to a more persistent evil doing. For such a race the free remission of all penalty would be subversive of all government, and whelm in ruin the profound moral interests which the divine government must conserve. Such inevitable consequences utterly discredit the assumption of forgiveness and salvation on mere sovereignty.
III. THROUGH REPENTANCE.
It is specially urged that repentance is a proper and entirely sufficient ground of forgiveness, and, hence, that there is no necessity for an atonement. This is a common position with Rationalistic schemes.
1. Repentance Necessary.
The necessity for a true repentance, in order to forgiveness and salvation, is not only conceded, but firmly maintained in any proper doctrine of atonement. No provision of a redemptive economy could supersede this necessity. Impenitence after sinning is self-justification, and the very spirit of rebellion; while penitence is the only self-condemnation, and the only return to obedience. There must, therefore, be a genuine repentance. There can be neither forgiveness nor any real redemption from sin without it.
2. Only Kind Naturally Possible.
The logic of this question will not concede the gratuitous assumption of a true repentance as possible in the resources of our own nature. A soul with the disabilities of depravity, and under the power of sin, cannot so repent. This accords with the facts of our moral condition as clearly given in the Scriptures, and also with a common experience and observation. There is a certain kind of repentance within our own power. We instinctively shrink from punishment, and, therefore, necessarily regret the sins which expose us to its infliction. But such regret implies no true sense of sin, and constitutes no necessary repentance. It is merely what the Scriptures designate as the sorrow of the world working death, and so discriminate it from a true godly sorrow for sin, working repentance unto salvation. The former repentance, and the only kind naturally possible, is no proper ground of forgiveness. Nor has it any true redemptive power in the moral life.
3. Such Repentance Inevitable.
As the product of an indestructible element of our mental constitution, such a repentance is inevitable, and hence must be universal. As we necessarily shrink from penalty, so we necessarily regret the evil deeds which subject us to its infliction. But what so arises naturally, and without any element of true contrition, can be no sufficient ground of forgiveness. Besides, as a necessary product, and therefore universal, it would involve a universal forgiveness. The result would be the subversion of all government, just as on a universal sovereign forgiveness. With such a policy no civil government could be maintained. Nor could a divine moral government be so maintained.
Nor is there validity in any rejoinder, that as the Gospel freely offers forgiveness on a repentance possible to all, it might hence be universal. This is true, but only in an economy of grace which provides for a true repentance, and gives to the ministry of forgiveness the moral support of the redemptive mediation of Christ.
4. Sin Unrealized.
In the repentance naturally possible, sin is neither felt nor confessed, in a true sense of its intrinsic evil, but only selfishly, on account of its results in personal suffering. It, therefore, can have no real redemptive or reformative power in the moral life. And even were forgiveness permissible on the ground of so defective a repentance, a true salvation is not so possible. Forgiveness so easily granted never could bring the turpitude of sin home to the moral consciousness. To this extent would be the loss of moral benefit. The intenser the sense of sin, and the profounder the grateful love for the mercy of forgiveness, the more thorough is the moral recovery and salvation. It is easy to decide where there are such experiences. They are realized only through the helping and forgiving grace of redemption. As souls gather around the cross, they have the deepest contrition for sin and the most grateful love for the gracious forgiveness. Innumerable facts of religious experience so witness. And even if we could set aside the deeper necessity for an atonement, there is yet a profound moral necessity for the redemptive mediation of Christ in order to the moral recovery and salvation of the soul.
5. True Repentance only by Grace.
The moral disabilities consequent upon depravity and sin render a true repentance impossible in the resources of our own nature. Such a state is one of spiritual blindness, insensibility, impotence, death. So the Scriptures represent it. Hence, they attribute a genuine repentance, both in its privilege and possibility, to the grace of the atonement and the agency of the Holy Spirit so procured. Thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise again, that repentance and remission of sins might be preached in his name. And a special office of the Holy Spirit, in a mission provided through the redemptive mediation of Christ, is to bring the sense of sin home to the conscience in a conviction necessary to a true repentance. So Christ, having redeemed us with his blood, is exalted a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance and remission of sins.
The gracious ability and disposition to a true repentance are through the evangelical mission of the Spirit. Only thus have we an explanation of the mighty work wrought on that memorable day of Pentecost. The Spirit was shed forth, not only upon the apostles in the power of preaching, but also upon the people in the power of religious conviction. And no one who denies this mission of the Spirit as a procurement of the redemptive mediation of Christ, can account for the converting power of the Gospel on this day of Pentecost, or for the work of religious revival in the history of Christianity. Hence it is an utterly futile attempt to supersede the necessity for an atonement with the sufficiency of repentance, while the repentance itself is possible only through the grace of the atonement.
IV. SPECIAL FACTS.
There are a few facts specially urged against the necessity for an atonement which should have a brief notice. They are such as may be presented in a plausible light, but are without logical force as urged in the argument.
1. Forgiving one Another.
We are required to forgive one another, and without any regard to an atonement. Now it is claimed, that if God requires us so to forgive, he will himself thus forgive. Respecting our own duty no issue is made. Such a requirement is clearly given in the Scriptures. But there is nothing, either in the nature or the manner of it, which furnishes any ground for the inference that the divine forgiveness is without regard to an atonement. Indeed, one of the texts given in the reference, and which Worcester cites for his position, is entirely to the contrary: "Forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
Account is also made of texts in which there is a coupling of our forgiving with the divine forgiving. If we forgive, we shall be forgiven; if we forgive not, we shall not be forgiven. But the matter is still our duty of forgiving one another, accompanied, indeed, with its conditional relation to the divine forgiveness, but with no intimation that this is without regard to the atonement in Christ.
There is another view of this case, and decisive against the inference adverse to the necessity for an atonement. This duty of forgiveness is the duty of private persons simply, and without any rectoral prerogative or obligation. One must so forgive, as the offense concerns himself only. Even the Christian ruler must so forgive. But who ever thinks of his carrying this duty into his administration? When the offense is a crime in the law it has public relations, and he has rectoral obligations in the case. What he may and should do in a merely private relation he must not do as a minister of the law. God is moral ruler. Hence our forgiving one another has no such analogy to the divine forgiveness as to be the ground of an inference adverse to the necessity for an atonement.
2. Parental Forgiveness.
There is properly such a forgiveness, yet there must be a limit even here, the disregard of which brings serious evil. Besides, the family circle is small, and rather private than public in its economy. It is constituted in peculiarly intimate and affectionate relations. It is, therefore, eminently a sphere for governing through the moral influences hence arising, or so rendered possible. But what may be fitting here is wholly inadmissible in a government of broad domain, and conditioned by very different influences and tendencies. The economy of the family will not answer for the government of the State, much less for the divine government of the world or the universe. God is ruler in a universal moral realm, and no propriety of mere parental forgiveness can prove that he may consistently forgive without an atonement.
3. Parable of the Prodigal Son.
The attempt to press this beautiful parable into the service of anti-atonement schemes is in the natural movement of Rationalistic thought. "It is remarkable how perfectly this parable precludes every idea of the necessity of vicarious suffering, in order to the pardon of the penitent sinner. Had it been the special purpose of our Lord to provide an antidote for such a doctrine, it is difficult to conceive what could have been devised better adapted to that end." Even Mr. Chubb, certainly without much sympathy with Christianity, has a treatise on this parable, in which he insists that by special design it teaches the sufficiency of repentance as the ground of forgiveness; that the free and gracious forgiveness of this father exemplifies the free and gracious forgiveness of the heavenly Father; and that such is at once the dictate of reason and the Gospel of Christ.
But it is certainly a queer kind of exegesis and logic which will claim a passage of Scripture that is entirely silent upon the atonement as decisive against both its reality and necessity. There is the greater violation of the laws of interpretation, because so many passages do specially treat the atonement, and in a manner decisive of its reality and necessity. Besides, all the freeness of the divine forgiveness which this parable represents, and which we gratefully accept, is in the fullest consistency with the doctrine of a vicarious atonement.
There is in this hasty and illogical method a neglect of vital and determining facts, and the assumption of a completeness of analogy which does not exist. The father in this parable appears and acts simply as such. Had he been a ruler also, and his son a criminal in the law, then, however gracious his fatherly affection, his rectoral obligations would have required recognition and observance. The vicious logic of this hasty method is thus manifest. It wrongly assumes that God's sole relation to moral beings is that of Father. This error utterly vitiates the conclusion. As we have previously noted, God is a moral Ruler as well as a gracious Father. Here is the vital, yet utterly neglected, distinction between the earthly and the heavenly Father. And what God might do simply as a Father, he may not do as moral Ruler.
Nor do these facts rob this parable of its lesson of grace. It is still true that the doctrine of atonement is in the fullest consistency with such a lesson. As this father graciously forgave his repenting son, so does God graciously forgive his repenting children.
The one fact illustrates the other. But the Scriptures decide, and reason accords therewith, that it is through the atonement in Christ that God so forgives. He had no need for an atonement in his fatherly disposition, but only in the requirements of his rectoral obligations. Now that an atonement has been made, he may and does forgive his repenting children in all the fullness of his paternal grace and love. Thus we hold the full meaning of this lesson. We admire its grace. There is one of an infinitely deeper pathos. We read it in the sacrifice of the cross, as the atoning provision of the Father's love, that he might reach us in a gracious forgiveness.
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