Forgiveness in the Light of the Sanctuary—A Striking Parable—Actual Not Absolute—Blotting Out Sins and Names.
THIS proposition, already referred to in a previous article, that the pardon, or forgiveness, that we receive as we pass along through our earthly experiences, in spiritual things, is not absolute but only relative and conditional, may have struck the reader as an altogether wild and erroneous idea, because the view is so generally entertained that when the penitent has confessed his sin, and received pardon, that is the end of that matter; that the sin is put away, and can never more appear against the one who perpetrated it. But the representations of the Bible, nevertheless, clearly sustain this proposition, and there are some of its teachings that can not be understood or explained on any other hypothesis. There is one portion of Scripture that very explicitly sets forth the fact of the conditional nature of forgiveness; and there is one great doctrine of the Bible which at once explains and justifies such a supposition.
The statement is found in Matt. 18:23-30; and the doctrine that explains it, is the subject of the sanctuary. The circumstances of the parable in the chapter in Matthew referred to, briefly stated, are these: A king was reckoning with his servants, and found one who owed him ten thousand talents, but had nothing with which to pay it. The king thereupon ordered him to be sold, he and his wife and his children, and payment to be made. This, of course, brought the servant into great distress; and he fell at the feet of his lord, and besought him to bear with him, and have patience, and he would pay him all. His lord, seeing him thus helpless and penitent before him, was moved with compassion toward him, and did not stop with a willingness to have patience and bear with him, as the debtor besought, but went so far beyond it as to forgive the entire debt and release him from the whole obligation. Then the awful prospect that he and his family must be sold into the terrible doom of slavery, was lifted from his soul, and he must have felt exceedingly happy.
But this same debtor went out and found one of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred pence, and he took him by the throat, and demanded that he pay him what he owed him. Then this second servant fell down at the feet of the first, just as he had fallen at the feet of his lord, and besought him that he would have patience with him, and he would pay him all. But this servant would not, but seized him, and cast him into prison, till he should pay him his little debt. The other servants, through the innate sense of justice born in every heart, stirred by the wickedness of this transaction, reported the matter to their lord; and just as soon as he learned what had been done, he withdrew the pardon he had extended to the first debtor, revived his claims, and renewed the sentence at first pronounced against him, and caused him to come under the same condemnation under which he labored in the beginning.
Its Application.
We now have before us the parties and the facts of the parable. Let us consider what they represent: The king who had servants to render their accounts to Him, is God, the Father. The servants are we, His creatures here on the earth. The ten thousand talents represent our obligations to God of every kind, especially the guilt incurred by sin. Touched with a feeling of penitence, we would fain do everything in our power to cancel our debt; but this of ourselves we can never do. We put up our petitions to God, and He forgives us. But some of our fellow-servants commit, or we imagine they commit, a slight trespass against us, and we hold them under condemnation, and refuse to forgive them; and the lesson of fearful import which the parable teaches is that when we thus act toward our fellow-servants, God withdraws the forgiveness He has extended to us; in other words, that the pardon we had received was only provisional, depending for its continuing virtue on conditions to be complied with on our part, in subsequent times. Our condition being illustrated by that of the debtors in the parable, the aggravated nature of our offense is shown in the disparity between the sums owed by the debtors respectively. The one representing our relation to God, owed ten thousand talents. If the gold talent is taken as the measure of value, as is probable, the sum brought to view is over three hundred and thirty-seven millions of dollars; while the other, to whom his fellow-servant refused forgiveness, owed only a hundred pence, which would be about fifteen dollars. For the sake of the illustration, our Lord goes beyond the actual facts of life; for it can not be supposed that any servant would ever be able to incur, or ever be allowed to incur, such indebtedness as that. But it all the more forcibly illustrates the principle. If one freely forgiven so vast an amount would not forgive his fellow-servant the debt of a trifling sum, by what an inconsistent disposition must he have been controlled!
But some one may be prompted to say, Is it not going too far to say that for a failure on our part, so proportionately light, God will bring back upon us the whole sum of our transgressions and obligations, and hold us to an account we can never pay? We might be disposed to think so did not the parable affirm the contrary. It will be noticed that the narrative says expressly that the debtor was loosed from the debt, and the whole vast sum was freely forgiven him. Here, then, were pardon and forgiveness actually bestowed; but when this man turned around and treated his fellow-servant so shamefully, all the pardon he had received was canceled, and his whole indebtedness was rolled back upon him. Then, after a full statement of all these particulars, comes the astounding application, which should make the ears of every guilty person tingle: "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."
The Sanctuary.
We have said there is one doctrine of the Bible which sheds great light on this question, as it does so uniquely on many otherwise puzzling subjects and situations in various portions of the Scriptures; and that doctrine, as already stated, is the doctrine of the sanctuary. In the inspired record we read of "the book of life," and of other "books" in which are kept the records of man's deeds. These are separate books, according to the Bible. Thus it reads: "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." In previous articles a prominent theme has been the blotting out of sins; but there is a blotting out, also, of something besides sins, and that is the blotting out of names from the book of life. On this the statement is very plain: "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels." Rev. 3:5. But if the one in question does not overcome, then the converse of this proposition certainly follows,—that his name will be blotted out of the book of life, which means for him the second death. But this action of blotting out his name is not taken till the close of the person's experience, till his case has been decided, and the question whether he has, or has not, overcome, is determined. But his name may have been in the book of life for a long time, even from the time when he first took upon himself the profession of a follower of Christ. But, tho his course has been such that he fails at last to be an overcomer, yet his name has been retained in the book of life while the problem of his salvation has been working out, and the record of his deeds has been going down in the other book, the book of God's remembrance (Mal. 3:16), waiting for the result which the balance sheet will show at the close.
And what does all this prove?—It proves that the account, so to speak, is kept open, and no decision made till the end; for the individual had, unquestionably, many times repented and been pardoned of his sins; yet the question of his destiny was not decided till a final adjustment; therefore all the pardon he had previously received was only conditional; and while it relieved the individual of all the impediments and handicaps of sin in his spiritual progress, still its final value is left undetermined, till the settlement of individual accounts and the decision of his destiny; that is, all the pardon he receives along the way counts for nothing unless he perseveres and is found an overcomer at the end. This is why there has to be an examination of all cases at last. This is why the books have to be opened, and the records taken into account, to fix the just destinies of all. This is why the sanctuary has to be cleansed of the sins accumulated there, an act which shows that sin is treated as an entity by itself; and this is the key to the whole situation in the parable of Matt. 18:23-35. Thus when the penitent brought his victim to the door of the tabernacle, and confessed over him his sin, the sin was removed from the sinner, and transferred to the offering. Then the offering was slain, and its blood, in which was the life (Lev. 17:11), was, by the ministration of the priest, conveyed and transferred to the sanctuary or some of its vessels; and this removal was the pardon of the sin so far as the sinner was concerned; but the sin itself still remained to be disposed of as to its own inherent evil. Thus sins were considered as accumulated in the sanctuary. But this process could not go on forever. The sin must be followed by retributive judgment till its destruction is secured; so it must be removed from the sanctuary, as it had before been removed from the sinner; and the universe itself will at last be cleansed from its presence by the everlasting5fire prepared for the devil and his angels, in whom was the first inception and outcropping of sin. Into this fire the wicked go at last, because they join their interests and cast their lot with Satan. Matt. 25:41. And here sin and sinners perish together.
But what of those sins which have been removed from the sinner by the provisions of the Gospel, the sins of those who have been forgiven, and who have continued faithful to the end?—Here the sanctuary service points out the way: They are laid upon the head of the antitypical scapegoat, the devil, who is then sent away to his and their destruction. Rev. 20:1-3. Sin must perish at last in devouring fire; and those who cling to it, there perish with it. Those alone escape who, by the kind offices of their Mediator and Redeemer, separate themselves from it. Sin requires too elaborate a process for its destruction to be gone through with every time an individual sin is forgiven. But by this unique process of the sanctuary service it can be removed from the sinner, and yet retained till the final judgment, for its own destruction. But so long as the sins remain, so long as the books are kept open, so long as the account is unsettled, so long the startling contingency that his sins may all come back upon his own head, is ever before the eyes of the sinner, to spur him up to a continuance in well-doing, till the victory is won.
With this view of the matter, the parable of Matt. 18:23-35 is made clear. But, while admiring the harmony and beauty of this subject from a theoretical point of view, let us not forget the practical lessons we are to draw from it, as expressed in these solemn words of our Lord: "So likewise shall My heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."
