Our Sins; Their Pardon and Their Blotting Out.
By G.
THE proposition we shall endeavor to prove under this head is, that though sins are pardoned in the present tense, they are not blotted out till the close of Christ's priestly work in Heaven, and that when the hour of final settlement arrives, whatever character the person is then found maintaining, all the acts of his life which go to make up that character, are placed to his credit or condemnation. Thus, if he is found righteous, only the righteousness of his life is held in remembrance, his sins being all blotted out, and remembered no more; and if he is found wicked, all the sins of his lifetime, notwithstanding he may many times have received pardon, still stand to his account. This may be to many a startling declaration, and it may seem, at first thought, impossible that a sin once pardoned, should ever again enter into the sinner's account. In illustration it is asked, if we incur a bill of indebtedness at a merchant's, and that debt is forgiven, is not that the end of it? So when our sins are pardoned is not that the last of them? If the question could be allowed to stand thus, the illustration would be hard to meet. But as it is, it is not fairly put; it is incomplete. For suppose the merchant in question should forgive our indebtedness only on the condition that we should never become indebted to him again; and suppose that thereafter we did again run into debt to that man: the conditions upon which our former indebtedness was canceled would thus be violated on our part, and of course the original debt would then stand against us. This is a fair illustration of the question of our sins between us and God. Sins are pardoned only on conditions. There never was an acceptable petition offered for the pardon of sin, without a condition being implied, on the performance of which the granting of the request depends. This may never have occurred to many who daily offer up their petitions to God for the forgiveness of their sins. Yet a moment's thought will make it plain to any mind. For a person to ask God to forgive any of his sins, while yet he feels no sorrow for them, but cherishes a purpose in his heart still to go on transgressing in those same particulars, would be most solemn mockery. Every sincere petition, therefore, which we offer to God for pardon, implies a vow on our part, to no longer transgress in those things for which we ask forgiveness. On this condition we receive pardon. That is, as we view it, in those books of remembrance wherein all our deeds are written, Rev. xx, 12, ever against our sins, is inscribed the word pardon, on the condition implied. Suppose now that by breaking our vow, and again transgressing, we destroy the condition on which our forgiveness was suspended; do not our former sins still remain against us? And thus matters must stand through an individual's entire probation. As all depends on the carrying out on our part of our pledge of future obedience, when we fail in that, our transgressions revive against us in all their force. If this principle is correct, then a part of our proposition already stands vindicated, that is, that sins are pardoned without being blotted out, this latter work being reserved to the time when the final adjustment of each individual case takes place. But we do not propose to rest the question on this ground alone. The Scriptures have something to say upon the point, which we will now consider. The Lord by the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel speaks as follows: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." Eze. xviii, 20. It will here be noticed that it seems to be the righteousness and the wickedness of an entire lifetime, and not any limited portion thereof, that is taken into account. And the record continues: "But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him; in his righteousness that he hath done shall he live." Verses 21, 22. And concerning the righteous, in verse 24 we read, "But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned; in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die." It would hardly seem possible to apply this language to any person in whose experience there may have been several successive points of time up to which his previous sins and transgressions had met with a definite and final disposition. The Lord, it will be noticed, speaks in the one case of all the transgressions not being remembered, and in the other of all the righteousness not being mentioned; not transgressions and righteousness from certain points of time, up to which transgressions had all been pardoned, and righteousness imputed. And although it is not here directly stated that when a man turns from his sins to righteousness, and then relapses into sin again, that all his former sins are remembered against him, yet enough is said to justify this conclusion. The only inference we can draw is, that it is the sum total of the righteousness or transgressions of a lifetime, and not any limited portion thereof, that come under the rule here laid down by the Lord through the prophet. But in the teachings of our Lord, we have a still more definite exhibition of this doctrine. It is found in the parable of the king and his wicked servant, recorded in Matt. xviii, 23-35. But to quote the language entire, to which the reader is requested to turn, the facts of the case may be summoned up as follows: A servant found himself indebted to his lord, to the amount of ten thousand talents. He had nothing to pay, and was about being sold with his wife and children to meet the demand. But by earnest entreaty he gained the compassion of his lord, and even procured the forgiveness of his debt. "The lord of that servant," it is said, "loosed him and forgave him the debt." The same servant then went out and finding one of his fellow-servants who owed him a trifling sum, refused him the mercy he had just received at the hands of his lord, but cast him into prison till he should pay him all. At this conduct the lord of that servant was wroth, he called him to account, re-instituted against him the claim of that debt which he had once forgiven him, and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay him all that was due him. In making the application of this parable, our Lord plainly and definitely says: "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." Here is an enunciation of the doctrine too explicit to be for a moment questioned that though our sins may have once been forgiven, if we afterward become transgressors, the original debt returns upon us, and we shall be held responsible to the uttermost farthing. We offer these thoughts more especially on account of the beautiful harmony they present with the subject of the sanctuary. We there behold the records of the race unerringly kept, and a day of final adjustment coming when the sins of the perseveringly penitent will be blotted out, and the sins of those who are found transgressors at last, will be left to bear their witness against them, and crush them with their fearful load, and their names be blotted out of the book of life. The objection against our views of the sanctuary with its final work of atonement and blotting out of sins, which some attempt to raise on the ground that the pardon of our sins, as we receive it day by day, is the final disposition of them, in the light of the above argument is entirely removed. The great decision of the sanctuary is approaching. Then he that is holy will be holy still, and he that is filthy will be filthy still. In which company, reader, will you then be found, the righteous or the wicked? The Mighty Convulsion at the Flood.
MR. THOMAS DICK, the "Christian Philosopher," while speaking of earthquakes as one means which God sometimes uses to chastise the inhabitants of the earth for their wickedness, has the following remarks in reference to the convulsion the globe received at the flood: “We have also an experimental proof, that there are physical principles in the constitution of our globe, sufficient to give it a shock throughout every part of its solid mass, and that such a shock, at one period, is actually received. When the wickedness of man became great upon the earth, ‘when every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,’ the fountains of the great deep were broken up, the cataracts of heaven were opened, and the whole solid crust of our globe received such a shock as rent the mountains assunder, and hurled them into the plains; the effects which are still visible, in every Alpine district, and in the subterraneous caverns of the earth. Of all the millions of the race of Adam that then existed, only eight individuals, after having been tossed for seven months on the tremendous billows of a boundless ocean, survived, to tell to their posterity the tidings of this universal wreck. The dreadful scenes of horror and consternation which must have been presented at this awful crisis, the stupendous forces which must have been in operation in the atmosphere above, and in the foundations of the earth beneath, and the tremendous clash of elemental war which must have ensued, throughout every region of earth, air, and sea,—it is beyond the power of the human imagination to depict, in all their terrific grandeur. But we have every reason to conclude, that the bottom of the ocean was lifted up to the level of the loftiest mountains, that disruptions of the mountains and of the densest rocks ensued, that dreadful explosions resounded throughout the whole expanse of nature, and that the mighty waters hurled their billows with resistless fury in every direction, rolling immense rocks and forests from one continent to another, and whirling the wrecks of different regions to the opposite extremities of the globe.”—Philos. of Religion, p. 33.
Confirmatory of this, we present the following paragraphs from Spiritual Gifts, Vol. iii, pp. 69, 70. The reader will be gratified to see the unanimity between the two records. “But upon the eighth day the heavens gathered blackness. The muttering thunders, and vivid lightning flashes began to terrify man and beast. The rain descended from the clouds above them. This was something they had never witnessed, and their hearts began to faint with fear. The beasts were roving about in the wildest terror, and their varied voices seemed to mourn out their own destiny and the fate of man. The storm increased in violence until water seemed to come from heaven like mighty cataracts. The boundaries of rivers broke away, and the waters rushed to the valleys. The foundations of the great deep also were broken up. Jets of water would burst up from the earth with indescribable force, throwing massive rocks hundreds of feet into the air, and then they would bury themselves deep in the earth. The people beheld the destruction, first of the works of their hands. Their splendid buildings, their beautifully arranged gardens and groves, where they had placed their idols, were destroyed by lightning from heaven. Their ruins were scattered everywhere.”
“The violence of the storm increased, and there were mingled with the warring of the elements, the wailings of the people who had despised the authority of God. Trees, buildings, rocks, and earth, were hurled in every direction. The terror of man and beast was beyond description. . . . Some in their desperation sought to break into the ark, but that firm made boat resisted all their efforts. Some clung to the ark until borne away with the furious surging of the waters, or their hold was broken off by rocks and trees that were hurled in every direction. Those who had slighted the warning of Noah, and ridiculed that faithful preacher of righteousness, repented too late of their unbelief. The ark was severely rocked and157tossed about. The beasts within expressed by their varied noises the wildest terror, yet amid all the warring of the elements, the surging of the waters, and the hurling about of trees and rocks, the ark rode safely. Angels that excel in strength guided the ark and preserved it from harm.”
It is ever a source of gratification to see divine truth confirmed by the historian, the philosopher, or the man of science. And the foregoing we simply present as an instance of such corroboration. G.