The Atonement-No. 2 by J. H. Waggoner

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 1, 1876

The Atonement.—No. 2.

By J. H. Waggoner

BY ELD. J. H. WAGGONER.

That man has this innate sense of, and aspirations for, justice, cannot be denied; and that they are not gratified in the present state need not be further argued. My moral nature, my sense of justice, cannot be satisfied to see virtue trodden under foot; to see the libertine mocking over the grave of blighted hopes and a broken heart; to see the priceless treasure of virtuous purity, around which cluster the fondest hopes of earth, sported with as a mere toy of little worth; to see honest toil sink unrequited, and hide itself in squalid poverty and a pauper’s grave; to see the vain, rolling in wealth accumulated by fraud and oppression; to see vice exalted to the pinnacle of fame; to hear the praises of him whose very presence is loathsome by reason of the filthiness of his iniquities. Can I look upon these things with complacency, and say, “This is right; this satisfies my sense of justice”? No; but this is but a mere glance at the facts as they have existed, and will exist in the present state. Why should we pronounce upon the nature or demerit of human actions, if there is no accountability for those actions? Our feelings of responsibility are but the expectations of a great assize in which wrong will be requited, and virtue and justice be vindicated. In this only do we find a vindication of the divine government in respect to the anomalies of the present state.

It cannot be possible that these aspirations, these discriminations of right and wrong, were placed within our breasts to be mocked—to look and long in vain. It cannot be that the Supreme One has placed moral balances in our hands to no purpose; that we are never to see a complete vindication of the principles of justice. We must accept the truth that God has a moral government. Our moral sense is evidence that we are within the limits of such a system. Our consciousness, or self-conviction of wrong, is proof to ourselves of our amenability to such a system. That we discriminate, as all do, between moral and natural laws, is proof of a recognition of the fact that there is a moral government. Thus, to look above nature—to acknowledge God as a moral Governor—is necessary in order to be true to our own natures, to the convictions planted in every breast. In this great truth our aspirations find rest. Here our sense of justice takes refuge; for a government is a system of laws maintained, and the very idea of a moral government leads us to look forward to a vindication of the right principles or laws now trampled upon.

We sometimes find those who, in theory, deny the existence of moral wrong; their denial is founded mostly on the supposed inability of man to act with freedom of will, or except in a prescribed line. But they, as readily as others, condemn the actions of their fellow-men, and complain of any encroachments on their rights. But it is folly and injustice to blame any one for doing that which he cannot avoid. And as these plead for reason and against revelation, it cannot be made to appear reasonable that God bestows upon man a moral sense, and plants within us the monitor, conscience, to lead us to do right, and yet compels us to do wrong. We count the man immoral and degraded who disregards the distinctions of right and wrong; what, then, should we think of a Deity who would frame a system wherein these distinctions could not be preserved? And yet such is the case if man has no freedom to act. All but the utterly debased acknowledge the existence of right and wrong as principles; that it is right to regard our neighbor’s life and property; and hence, that he who disregards them does wrong. And all are conscious that the wrong we do is of ourselves, and no one seeks to throw it back to any other cause until his moral sense is perverted by selfishness and false reasoning.

Akin to the above position is the oft-repeated assertion that God is so loving, so kind, that he will not mark to condemn our aberrations from duty. This is contrary to, and of course a denial of, the declarations of Scripture. But let me ask the objector, laying the Bible aside, Where is your evidence that God so loves us? You surely do not learn from nature that love is the sole attribute of Deity. How came you by the idea that the Deity must possess love? Reflect on this. Whence do you derive your conceptions of love, and of its necessity in the divine character? Can you tell? Your only answer must be that they are intuitive; that you owe this conception to your own consciousness. You have, in a degree, an innate knowledge of the moral fitness of things; and according to this, you clothe the Deity with such attributes as your moral sense determines to be fitting to him. But, in the idea above advanced, you are only partially true to your consciousness or innate sense of right in awarding to Deity only love. Our judgment of the moral fitness of things gives us as definite and clear conceptions of justice as of love. All the propositions established in this argument tend to this point. We are apt to lose sight of justice, and to exalt love, even in the divine character. This is quite natural with all who have any sense of wrong (and who has not?), for we feel the need of love or mercy, and are ever willing or anxious to screen ourselves from justice. But in this, as before remarked, we do violence to our moral sense, to gratify our selfish feelings. Can any one dispassionately reason and reflect upon this subject, and accept the idea of a God of even partial justice? The idea is alike repugnant to reason and to reverence. God must be strictly, infinitely just. Annihilation would be preferable to immortal existence in a universe governed by a being of almighty power, but lacking justice.

But it is humiliating to think that a word is necessary to prove to any human being that moral wrong exists. Must we enter into argument to prove that it is wrong to commit adultery, to steal, or to kill? To argue the question seems but to insult the sense of mankind. The question which invites our attention and which ought to command our earnest interest is, How shall existing evil be disposed of? How may criminals be rescued from the awful consequences of their violations of the law of Him who is infinitely just? The question is not as to how they might stand before a being of limited or partial justice, or even whether it would be possible to rescue them by suspending justice; but how they are to stand when justice is maintained and vindicated on the scale of infinity. In examining this question, only the plainest and most evident principles of government will be recognized, and the attention of all is invited to the examination, in which we think it will be shown that it is not possible to save a sinner without an atonement, unless it be by trampling justice and government under foot; that an atonement, such as is presented to us in the Christian system, is at once reasonable, merciful, and just, and is the only remedy for sin which does not lead to immorality.