The Atonement No. 3 Scriptural Meaning of Death by Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 31, 1874

The Atonement No. 3 Scriptural Meaning of Death

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

The Atonement.—No. 3.

But another difficulty is presented to us by giving an extraordinary definition to death; it is said to mean eternal misery. But on examination of this, the difficulty will be entirely on the side of those who present it. If that definition is correct, there is an insurmountable difficulty, involving the whole doctrine of the atonement, and making it utterly impossible for God to be just, and also the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

First, if the signification of death is “eternal misery,” Christ never died at all; and then all the scriptures that say he died are untrue; and thus the atonement would be proved impossible, and further consideration of it would be useless. But admitting the Scripture testimony, that the wages of sin is death, and that Christ died for sin, we have the scriptural view of the term death, utterly forbidding such an unnatural and forced construction of a plain declaration.

Secondly, if the correct definition of death is eternal misery, the relative terms, first and second, as applied to death before and after the resurrection, are used absurdly. For how can there be a first and second eternal misery? Sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and death passed upon all men. But the very fact that man may be resurrected, released from death, as the Scriptures teach, clearly proves that the Scripture use of the term death is entirely different from the “theological use,” as given above.

And, thirdly, if death means eternal misery, then that is the penalty of the law; but as Christ did not suffer it, and the redeemed will not suffer it, so it follows that justice is never vindicated by the infliction of the penalty, either upon them or a substitute; and thus justice is suspended, not satisfied; and Christ’s death (if it could with any reason be called so) is not truly vicarious. As I have before considered, justice demands the infliction of the penalty of a just law; and as God is unchangeable and infinitely just, the penalty will surely be inflicted upon the transgressor or his substitute. But the above view makes it impossible. According to that, mercy does not harmonize with justice, but supersedes it; and God’s justice is not manifest in justifying the believer. The sum of the matter is this: that if the penalty be eternal misery, then all that have sinned must suffer it, and be eternally miserable, or else the demands of the law are never honored. But the first would result in universal damnation, and the other would degrade the government of God, and contradict both reason and Scripture.

This definition of death has been adopted of necessity to conform to the popular idea of the inherent immortality of man; yet it involves a contradiction in those who hold it. For it is claimed that the wicked are immortal and cannot cease to exist, and therefore the death threatened in the Scripture is something besides cessation of existence, namely, misery. But immortality signifies exemption from death; and if the scriptural meaning of death is misery, and the wicked are immortal, or exempt from death, they are, of course, exempt from misery! The advocates of this theory do not mean to be Universalists, but their position necessarily leads to that result.

It was well said by that great Christian philosopher, John Locke, that “it seems a strange way of understanding law, which requires the plainest and most direct terms, that by death should be meant eternal life in misery.” Life and death are opposites; the first is promised to the justified, the second is threatened and inflicted upon the unjust. But life and misery are not opposites; misery is a condition of life. In everything but “theology” such a perversion of language would not be tolerated, as to make eternal misery and death, or even misery and death, synonymous. Were any one to report that a man was dead because he knew him to be suffering in much misery, it would be looked upon as trifling—solemn mockery. With a cessation of life every condition of life must cease.

There has been much contention over the word “vicarious” in regard to the atonement. We object to the phrase “vicarious atonement” for reasons which will be given; but an atonement must be effected by vicarious death—vicariousness is an essential element in such a transaction. That which is done for another is vicarious; and as Christ died for us, his death was vicarious. He who suffers for his own sins makes no atonement. True, he satisfies the demand of the law, but he is lost. Had all the world been left to perish, the penalty would have been inflicted and justice honored, but there would have been no atonement. An atonement can only be made by one who suffers for another, or others; and this shows the remark to be just, that there can be no atonement where there is no vicariousness.

Those who deny a vicarious death generally reason thus: Justice would not admit of the penalty being inflicted twice for the same offense; therefore if Christ suffered vicariously, or in our stead, we must be released as a matter of justice, and not of pardon or favor; for where the law takes its course there is no pardon. But this reasoning is defective in every respect. It might apply if mercy were the sole object; but where justice and mercy unite, there must be conditions whereby we avail ourselves of the benefits of his death. But his death was voluntary and unconditional: a free-will offering to justice in our behalf. He honors the law whether we will honor it or not; and if we will not accept him, we must bear the consequences. Thus, there was no pardon to him when he was made sin for us; but there is pardon to us through him. But if he did not suffer in our stead, then we must suffer for ourselves, or how is justice administered? A penalty is inflicted for crime; and Christ died for sin. But whose sin? Not his own, but ours. Then he bore the penalty of our sin in our stead. No one can imagine that Christ bore our sins on the tree, except in the sense of suffering in his death the desert of our sins, for death is that desert.

“He hath made him to be sin for us”—not that he was a sinner, for he “knew no sin,” but he was counted a sinner—sin was imputed to him, if you please, for our sake, “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him,” 2 Cor. 5:21, that we might be possessed through faith in him of justification, a remission of sin.

One remark must be made in regard to the error of what is called the commercial view of the death of Christ, that is, that if Christ suffered the penalty due the sinner, then the sinner must be cleared as an act of justice, the debt being paid for him. But crime is not debt. The death of Christ is not the payment of a debt so that the debtor must be unconditionally released, but it is such a satisfaction to the law as makes salvation possible consistently with justice, on certain conditions.

It must be admitted by all that after the death of Christ the sinner is, in himself, as deserving of punishment as he was before that death. It has not lessened his guilt one particle. And, if he should repent and reform, that would not meet the demands of the law in regard to his past life. But the death of Christ so honors the claims of the law that if the transgressor repents, reforms, and accepts the sacrifice of Christ as his own, then the law is vindicated in respect to the past, and the government is secured against further rebellion. For we must always bear in mind that an atonement is in behalf of the government as well as of the sinner. That must be secured in its rights. God will be just even in justifying the penitent. Infinite mercy and love can devise and execute no plan of salvation but such a one as infinite justice can approve. How partial, unscriptural, and dishonoring to the government of God is every system that ignores the element of justice in the gospel, and makes salvation unconditional.

It remains to notice the vicariousness of the death of Christ as shown by the types of the law, and more fully the effect of that death in behalf of the law of God.

J. H. Waggoner.