p. 10 | The Greatest Reconciliation by W. E. HASKELL

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 28, 1909

The Greatest Reconciliation

By W. E. HASKELL

—No. 1

God's Justice and Mercy Reconciled

W. E. HASKELL

If God is love, why must sin be punished? and why must the penalty be death? and if death, how can sin be punished and the sinner still live?

God's law is an infinitely perfect way for our highest good. Because it is perfect, it contains all good and no evil.

Then the ways outside of, and apart from, God's way and law, are all evil. God's way is righteousness; all other ways are sin. The freedom of choice—a gift of God's love—makes possible the highest joy and blessing by enabling all to choose God's way because of love to him. But it involves the risk of sin—of choosing our own way in opposition to his. For the wrong choice—sin—there is absolutely no reason or excuse possible. Could a true reason or good excuse be given, it would cease to be sin.

Sin is the cause and source of all evils—the parent of all curses. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” Death is a natural, inevitable consequence

of its operation. And yet because in God's wise plan, all, from the least to the greatest, sinners as well as saints, have an influence, there is a power in the example of one sinner, of even one sin, that tends to lead others in the same evil way. So sin is like a terrible disease, contagious and malignant; like a fearful monster seeking to destroy the children of God. Thus Satan, the author of sin, is represented as a great dragon.

Yet the nature of sin is such that the creature of himself can not discern the end, the full danger, thereof. The first step leads so imperceptibly to the final ruin that only the infinite mind of the Creator could foresee the awful consequences. “It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Only as God's children trust and obey their Father's guidance can they walk in safety.

The power of example may be seen in the likes and dislikes of children, in their joys and sorrows, in their ambitions and ideals, in their inclinations toward right and wrong.

Just as the earliest attitude of children for or against that with which they come in touch is shaped by their parents' attitude toward those things; so before the infinite evil and danger of sin, God's creatures are but as children whose attitude toward sin and righteousness would be most influenced by the example of their Heavenly Father. The child of God obtains his clearest view of the exceeding evil and danger of sin through the clear and full revealing of his Father's attitude toward the same. So, should God merely advise and protest against sin, and yet let it pass unpunished, he would come short of exerting his full power and influence against the evil—would veil and misrepresent his true attitude. Guided and influenced by such an example, his children would have occasion to think that, after all, God does not greatly care if they do choose their own way; that surely there could be no special advantage in their obedience, nor harm or danger in their disobedience. And so in time all would be exposing themselves to the deadly pestilence, would be venturing into the grasp of the awful monster—sin.

If God did not love his children, he would not care if sin did destroy them; but his love for them is manifest in his hatred of sin. As his love for them is infinite, so his hatred of sin must be infinite. The penalty for sin is the channel through which he reveals his infinite hatred thereof. It is the expression in full of his true attitude toward sin. God's children need this as a guide, as a protection.

The punishment of sin is therefore an expression of God's love. It is God's danger signal, and is absolutely essential to the good and safety of God's great family.

Love necessitates the punishment of sin. The greater the love, the more certain will be the punishment for iniquity. God would cease to be perfect in love did he let even one sin pass unnoticed and unpunished. But what would be the only just and fitting punishment of this greatest evil?

As the monster sin—the contagious pestilence—would destroy those whom God loves, love, in their defense, must destroy sin. So the wages of sin, the penalty for the transgression of God's holy, perfect law, is death.

Brayton, Tenn.