24. 25. 28, 29. 12. life; but the applications of the two terms run parallel. Our Lord's words are emphatic: Verily, verily, I say unto you, he John v. that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation. Here the contrast of life and death eternal is exhibited. Verily, verily, I say unto John v. you, The hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. Here it is the contrast of spiritual life and death. Marvel not at this: for the John v. hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. Here the physical life is made eternal, and the spiritual is between them. It is in the light of these sovereign words that the contested passage of St. Paul must be read: as by Rom. v. one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. Here physical death is the penalty of sin; but spiritual and eternal death cannot be excluded, as is evident from the context which surrounds this text in the Apostle's great chapter of Sin. It closes with the sentence: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign Rom. v. through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. In the earlier part of the chapter which deals with sin generally, before coming to Original Sin, we have four terms that express its whole nature, both in itself and in that penalty of death in its spiritual and its eternal sense from which the Atonement rescues us. Referring expressly to the state in which we were found by redemption, St. Paul calls men generally άuaрrwλoí, transgressors of the law in their very nature; doeßeîs, ungodly and cut off from the favour, presence, and service of God; åσbeveîs, without strength, essentially impotent; and, finally, ex@poí, enemies, the objects of a positive displeasure or wrath of the Supreme which apart from the mediation of Christ will endure for ever. This quaternion of terms must be carried on into the latter part of the chapter where it is shown how the first transgression paved the way for them. In their light sound exposition cannot limit death as the penalty of sin to the death of the body. 21. 4. But this leads at once to the connection between moral evil Sin and and redemption; the consideration of which will clear the path Expiation for the doctrine of Original Sin. In interposing the following VOL. II.-4 united. : section we follow the guidance of St. Paul himself, who passes, in turning from his most complete description of sin generally to his most complete account of its relation to our race, over that sacred bridge we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom Rom.v.11, we have now received the Atonement. Not only he, but every writer of Scripture, as well in the New Testament as in the Old, constantly connects evil with the system of deliverance from it. Sin is always discussed, defined, dwelt upon in all its development and issues, at the foot of the Altar in the old economy, and at the foot of the Cross in the new. It is a fact which has been alluded to already, and will recur hereafter, that many of the Hebrew and Greek terms for sin itself are used also to express the expiation of sin, while in some phrases the bearing of iniquity and its forgiveness are actually one. It is sufficient to quote one instance. In Leviticus it is said: Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin, ND N. Of the Servant of God we read, He Lev. xxiv. 15. Isa liii.12. 22. 5. this, if ;וְהוּא חֵטְא רַבִּים נָשָׂא,Himself bare the sins of many Lev. xvi. compared with the words concerning the scapegoat, to bear upon him all their iniquities to a land not inhabited, shows that the bearing sin was also the bearing it away by atonement. Then Ps. xxxii. we hear the pardoned penitent crying, Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin, ny. Thus the guilt of the utmost sin, the perfect propitiation provided for it, and the assured sense of forgiveness, are all signified by the same profound phrase. Passing by this, however, we must impress on our minds the blessed truth that we at least, as sinners of mankind, never need study sin save in the direct light of redemption. SIN AND REDEMPTION. Under whatever aspect viewed-whether as to the Being offended or the sinner who offends-there is no principle and no hope of redemption in sin itself. But, on the other hand, there is much both in the nature and in the development of human evil that suggests the possibility, probability, and certainty of a redemption from without. And the fact of this redemption gives a special character to the general doctrine of sin in all its branches. I. Sin has in itself no element of redemption, whether we think of the Divine character which makes sin what it is, or the human spirit in which the principle of evil resides. Sin and tion. In the Nature. 29. 1. The Divine nature as holy must eternally abhor and can never be reconciled to it. God is of purer eyes than to behold evil, Hab. i. 13. save to condemn and remove it from His presence. Man's fallen nature itself bears witness to this: its true instinct is Depart from Luke v.8. me, for I am a sinful man! The God of love is a consuming fire to Heb. xii. all that is contrary to His purity; and if that consuming fire becomes a saving destruction of evil, that belongs to the mystery of grace, which is not yet in question. But the Holy Being is also a righteous Lawgiver; His nature and His will are in the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, not only against the Rom. ii. abominable thing itself, but against the soul that doeth evil. wicked man, thou shalt surely die! is an Old-Testament word that finds its New-Testament confirmation: Cursed is every one that con- 8. tinueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do Gal. iii. them. And here again the universal conscience of man finds that book of the law his own heart, where is written or engraven the sentence which, so far as it knows, is irrevocable. God cannot 2 Tim. ü deny Himself; nor does the human spirit deny Him His eternal opposition to sin. The justice of God Himself does not more faithfully guard His law than it is guarded by the conscience of Neither can conscience deny itself. man. O 5, 9. Ezek. xxxiii. 10. 13. 2. Nor has the sinner any power of redemption in himself. In man himself. Repent ance. He has indeed in every age wrestled with the sin that rests upon him, but in vain: wrestled with it, knowing it to be wrong, and under the unconscious influence of a grace of which he knows not naturally the secret. He has striven to expiate its guilt by an endless variety of sacrifices that have never availed to take away the conscience of sin: he has never been satisfied with the propitiation either of his substitutionary offerings or of his own. personal sufferings. His experience has always denied that sin could by its acts or sacrifices or sufferings put away its guilt. He has striven also to redeem himself by the discipline of philosophy and repentance. But equally in vain he has never even professed to find holiness in philosophy, or to be capable of a true repentance. The fact that he has always combined these twothe offerings for expiation and the attempt to mend his own nature has attested the universal consciousness of our fallen race that both are necessary; the fact of universal failure has proved that in himself the sinner has no help. The altars of expiation in the temples of an unknown God, and the schools of philosophy hard by, were heathen anticipations of the Gospel that unites expiation and renewal, by one provision meeting both the guilt and the defilement of transgression. They were most impressive and affecting as such; but in themselves, and as evidences of the inherent hopelessness of sin, supremely monitory. 3. More modern theories, borrowing the light of the Atonement they reject, have argued that Repentance is both expiation and recovery; they have not only appealed to a human instinct that accepts the penitence of an offender, but also to the language of Scripture itself which describes God as always accepting the penitent. Thus they contradict both the propositions which we have been establishing: neither is the nature of God eternally opposed to sin, nor is man's nature incapable of putting it away. As to the former argument, that of the analogy of human tenderness towards repentance, it omits to consider the difference not of degree only but of kind between our offences against each other and our sin against God; it forgets that there is no strict relation of sin but as between the Supreme God and His creature; no human analogy here suffices. As to the latter argument, that Scripture represents our Heavenly Father as always ready to meet 20. His returning prodigal, it neglects to observe that wherever repentance is thus spoken of, an atonement either typical or real is always implied. The parable which brings the Father of spirits and the returning son to a midway place of reconciliation was spoken by Him whose name is the Mediator; His cross is stamped upon it though as yet unseen; and it is recorded in the same Gospel in which the Redeemer says, This cup is the new testament in Lu. xxii. My blood, which is shed for you. If, in St. Luke's Gospel of free grace, the penitent went down to his house justified, after having only cried, God be merciful to me the sinner! we must remember that his very La. xviii. word iáoŋrí pot savours of the propitiatory sacrifice, that he poke his contrition in the presence of the altar of atonement, and that he is justified according to the gracious non-imputation of sin which rested upon a satisfaction for human guilt as yet unrevealed. Both arguments fail to remember that man has no power to repent in the fulness of the meaning of the word; and that repentance is the gift of God, procured by the very Atonement that it is made to supersede: the Atonement of Him who was exalted to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. II. All this being true, it is obvious also that sin and redemption have been intimately bound up together in the history of max Sin exists in God's universe elsewhere; but, as it is found running its course upon earth, it gives tokens of a scheme of deliverance possible, probable, and certain. 13, 14. Acts v. 81 Sin bound up with Redemp tion. έστω Matt. 1. This may indeed be said of all evil, that, if a method of Ei duvard abolishing it can be found which shall be consistent with the Divine perfections, making objective atonement to His justice, and allowing His love subjectively to destroy the sin, it will be found by the Divine wisdom. The same instinct of our nature that assures us of the eternal hatefulness of sin to God teaches us that IF IT BE POSSIBLE it will be removed. It may be said that we are arguing here in a circle: that we are supposing the very redemption that we assume to be à priori contemplated as possible. The objection must be accepted; but it strengthens our position, that there is inwrought by some means or other in the human mind a daring trust that for man at least some infinite resource in God is available. The entire system of revelation teils us that in the internal mystery of the Trinity such a method xxvi. 59. The Trinity. |