Sin and Its Penalty by John Harvey Kellogg

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 23, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 49.

Sin and Its Penalty.

By John Harvey Kellogg

WHAT is the penalty for sin? In the teachings of the Bible there is no uncertainty in this matter. They plainly inform us that "the wages of sin is death;" and that "Christ died for our sins." Rom. 6:23; 1 Cor. 15:3. As sin is the transgression of the law, death, the wages of sin, is its penalty; and as Christ died for our sin, the penalty was laid upon him for our sake. Now that "Christ died" is not only plainly declared in the Scriptures, but it is a fundamental truth in the gospel system; for it is easy to show that, if Christ did not die, there can be no atonement and no redemption. It appears evident, then, that those who assert that Christ did not suffer the penalty of the law do not so assert because the fact is not revealed in the Bible; but as before intimated, because of certain difficulties supposed to lie in the way of that fact. These difficulties are concerning the nature of the penalty, death.

It is assumed that death, the penalty of transgression, is threefold in its nature, consisting of temporal, spiritual, and eternal death. If this assumption were true, I should at once give up the atonement as a thing impossible. Yet it has been advanced by men of eminence, and incorporated into works recognized as standard. Let us examine it.

1. The death of man is temporal only by reason of a resurrection. But the resurrection belongs to the work of Christ, and as his work was not necessary or a subject of promise till after the transgression, it cannot have any place in the announcement of the penalty. When death was threatened to Adam, it was not said that he should die temporally, spiritually, and eternally; nor that he should die a first or second death; nor the death that never dies; but that he should surely die. It was death—simply death. Had not a promise been given afterward, of "the seed" to bruise the serpent's head, it would necessarily have been eternal death. But Christ, introducing a resurrection for Adam and his race, causes it to be temporal. But since this time, this death, temporal, has not been the penalty for personal transgression. This is evident for two reasons: (1) Infants die who never have transgressed; and (2) in the Judgment, we stand to answer for our deeds, and the second death is inflicted for personal sin. But on those who are holy, "the second death hath no power;" the penalty does not reach them. So it appears the death we now die is occasioned by Adam's transgression, and is rendered temporal by the second Adam, and comes indiscriminately upon all classes and ages, thus precluding the idea that it is now a penalty, except as connected with that first transgression, in which we are involved only by representation.

2. Spiritual death cannot be a penalty at all. A penalty is an infliction to meet the ends of justice. But spiritual death is a state of sin, or absence of holiness; and to say that God inflicts unholiness upon man is not only absurd, but monstrous. That is confounding the crime with its punishment. God does not make man wicked or sinful as an infliction; but man makes himself wicked by his own actions, and God punishes him with death for his wickedness.

Again, there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust; for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Now if the penalty upon Adam included spiritual death, the resurrection through the second Adam would be to spiritual life, or holiness; and if all were restored to spiritual life through Christ, there would be none to fall under the second death; for it falls not on the "blessed and holy."

3. The wages of sin is death; and as the death of Adam became temporal by reason of a resurrection, so we may say that the infliction for personal sins, the second death, is eternal, because no resurrection will succeed it. Thus, it appears plain, that from the beginning death was the penalty of the law of God, circumstances determining the duration of it. This view, which is in strict harmony with the Bible, really removes all difficulty in regard to Christ's having suffered the penalty due to sin.

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. Though I am free to confess that if the 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. I say, then, that 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, and 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 Scriptures 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 I to report that a man was dead because I 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. J. H. W.