The Atonement by Albert Barnes

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 20, 1861

The Atonement.

By Albert Barnes

BY ALBERT BARNES.

[The following is the conclusion of the chapter commenced in last Review, on the "Objects to be secured by an Atonement." The reader will notice that in this article not only is the same great idea kept prominent, namely, that the Atonement must have respect to the authority and perpetuity of God's law, but also a new point is introduced, which is, that the divine arrangement in relation to pardon, has respect to the future obedience of the subject, showing that he who seeks pardon, does so on the implied condition that he will in future live in obedience to that law, the violation of which has loaded him with guilt, and made a pardon necessary. This throws light upon such passages as Eze. xviii, 24: "But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned; in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die." It appears from this that when a person after repentance relapses into sin, all his righteousness that he hath done avails him nothing, but all his previous transgressions stand against him. This is just; for since a person, when he seeks pardon for past sins, does so on the condition that he will obey the law in future, when he again transgresses he violates the condition on which his forgiveness was based, and has no right to expect the Law-giver to overlook his transgressions committed previous to the time when he sued for pardon. What unjust and limited views of the Atonement must they therefore have, who believe in the abolition of the law? —U. SMITH.]

THE OBJECTS TO BE SECURED BY AN ATONEMENT.

Now it is obvious that if an atonement is made for sin, it must be of such a nature as to secure the object contemplated by the penalty of the law; that is, it must be such as to show the sense entertained by the Great Legislator of the value of the law, and of the evil of violating the law. As the punishment of the offender himself would have secured this, and as this is the very design of the penalty, if an atonement is contemplated in virtue of which the guilty shall be rescued from the infliction of the penalty, it is clear that the atonement must answer the same end or secure the same result. If it can do this, then no objection could arise from this source to the pardon of the offender, whatever might arise from other sources; if it cannot do this, or if the atonement does not do this, then an act of pardon is, in fact, a setting aside of the penalty of the law altogether, and a public proclamation that that penalty is not to be regarded as an expression of the sense entertained by the legislator of the value of law and of the evil of disobedience. A friend of the government of God has a right to expect that an arrangement for an atonement will secure this end; an enemy of that government—a skeptic—has a right to demand that this provision shall be found in that which professes to be an atonement. If such an arrangement is found in any proposed scheme of salvation, it would be so far an evidence of the divine origin of the scheme,—for it is far above the wisdom of all human schemes; if it is not found in a professed revelation, or if the arrangement would not secure this end, it would be a conclusive argument for rejecting the scheme,—for a scheme originating in infinite wisdom must meet what is so radical a defect in all human governments. It is impossible to believe that God would solemnly appoint a penalty to his law, and then in all his dealings with men act so as to set that penalty aside, or so that the fair interpretation of his acts would be that he regards the law as of no value and the violation of it as no evil.

III. The third point in an atonement relates to the offenders in whose behalf an atonement is made,—that it may make their reformation and future good conduct certain.

We have seen that one of the great difficulties of pardon—a difficulty which none of the arrangements in a human administration has been sufficient to remove—arises from the fact that there can be no security of the future good conduct of him who is pardoned, either from professed repentance and reformation, or from the efficacy of the punishment inflicted, or from any influence of the act of pardon itself on the mind of him who is pardoned. We have seen that one of the principal evils which results from the free exercise of pardon arises from the fact that convicts from prisons are sent out without any such evidence of their reformation, to prey again upon the community. We have seen that by no possible arrangement, under a human government, would it be safe to discharge at once all the convicted felons in the penitentiaries in the land.

To render a community secure would be one of the ends of an atonement; and if such an arrangement could be made, it would remove one of the main difficulties in the way of pardon. That arrangement in a human government, if it could be made, would consist essentially in some scheme for securing the reformation and future good conduct of the violators of the law who would thus be discharged.

Not precisely, indeed, for the same reason, but for a reason equally imperative, it is necessary, in a scheme of pardon under the divine administration, to secure the reformation of the guilty, and to obtain a guarantee for their future observance of law. It cannot be supposed that God would discharge the guilty, or release them from the obligation of the penalty of the law, unless there were some ground for believing that they would obey the law in time to come. It is possible that the very stability of the divine administration may depend on this: certainly it would be a reasonable expectation among holy beings that God would not discharge the guilty and demand that they should be received into the goodly fellowship of holy beings, without some evidence that they were thoroughly reformed.

What would heaven be if the hosts of atheists and scoffers, of murderers and seducers, of the profane, the corrupt, and the sensual, that are now upon the earth, were admitted at once to the blessed abodes of holy beings? What security of happiness could there be in those realms were they suddenly peopled with all the polluted and the defiled of earth?

If, therefore, the guilty are to be released on the basis of an atonement, then there must be some provision by which the reformation and the future good conduct of the guilty will be secured. What that is will be the subject of future inquiry. But it is obvious that it must be something quite different from any arrangement which has been made by human laws. It must be something in the atonement itself, or something secured by the atonement,—some power or influence to act on the mind of the guilty to bring them voluntary repentance and reformation,—for there can be no other true repentance and reformation; it must be something that shall extend into all the future—embracing eternity itself—making it certain that the offender who is pardoned will never again revolt from God.

IV. The fourth point relates to the community,—that its rights may be secured, and that it may have nothing to apprehend if the guilty are pardoned. We have seen that one of the difficulties in regard to pardon has respect to the safety of a community. That safety is now protected by the arrangements which have been made for detecting and punishing the guilty. The processes of law are important safeguards in defending the rights and securing the welfare of a community; and each one of those processes, as has been already remarked, constituted, when it was introduced, an epoch in the history of jurisprudence. The rights of person, property, life, reputation, are dependent on the forms of law; on the mode of indictment; on the trial by jury; on the confronting of the accuser and the accused; on the examination of witnesses in open court; on the writ of habeas corpus; on the vigilance of the police and the fidelity of public prosecutors in detecting offenders and bringing them to trial.

Yet, as we have seen, all these are practically set aside by an act of pardon. So far as that goes, all that the community has done to guard its own rights, and to secure public peace and safety, is declared to be of no value by each act of pardon. An offender, though arrested and tried by those forms of law which the community has regarded as of so much importance to its own peace and safety, is again discharged, with no security whatever that the same offense will not be repeated; with nothing to protect the community from the murderer or burglar who is thus set at liberty. Nothing can be introduced into the system that shall secure the community from a repetition of the crime for which he was arrested, tried and sentenced.

Now what, in this respect, is needed in the case of pardon, is some arrangement by which all the interests which it has been the object of the law to secure by the regular processes of trial shall be secured if pardon is extended to the guilty. To make such an atonement admissible, as a part of a just administration, there must be the same security of person, property, reputation and life which the community has sought to obtain by these processes of law. The act of pardon must not be capable of an interpretation by which all these, or any of these, would be set aside. There must be, under an atonement, as much safety as these processes of law have been designed to obtain; and, if this could be done, there would be no objection, on this account, to the discharge of the guilty: that is, to the pardon of one convicted of crime.

What would thus be requisite in a human government must be equally so in the divine administration. If an atonement is made, it must be of such a character that the divine declarations in reference to the evil of sin; that the laws which God has established in the soul itself to show the guilt of transgression, and the arrangements which he has appointed in society to keep up the idea of that guilt; that what he has intended to communicate to man in regard to that guilt by the threatenings of future woe; and that the various influences which he puts forth to detect and punish the guilty here and hereafter, shall not be set aside by that work. There must be the same security on all these points which there would be if they were all carried out, and if the guilty were made to illustrate the value of these arrangements by enduring themselves the penalty of the law. To all these the work of atonement must have reference; and, if these can be secured, the offender may be discharged.

V. The fifth point relates to the character of the law-giver,—that that character may stand fair before the world, and be such as to inspire confidence, if the penalty of the law is remitted. We have seen that one of the difficulties on the subject of pardon has reference to this point. In a case where it should be contemplated that it was never to be extended to the guilty, the character of the sovereign, though it might be just, would be severe, harsh, repellent. A government such as that would be, would make its way over some of the finest feelings of our nature. It would be a government which might inspire cold respect, but never love or esteem.—In the case where it was supposed that pardon would be often extended to the guilty, we have seen that it is impossible so to do it as not to infringe on the arrangements made for securing the regular operation of law.—In a case where pardon should be always extended to the guilty, we have seen that the effect would be to encourage crime, and to render every interest in a community insecure. We have seen also, that in human arrangements it has been found absolutely impossible to blend the two attributes of justice and mercy so that they shall be exhibited in proper proportions; so to dispense pardon, or so to administer justice, that the one shall not cast a shadow over the other.

Now, what is needful, if an atonement is made, is, that there shall be, through that atonement, a proper expression of the character of the law-giver. It must be required and expected that the atonement shall somehow represent him as a just being; as the enemy of transgression; as maintaining the principles of his own law; as confirming all that he has said in that law in regard to its value, and in regard to the evils of its violation. The atonement must make the same representation or impression on this point which the actual infliction of the penalty would do. It would be unjust to the sovereign if it did not; that is, if one representation was made by a revealed law and its threatened penalties, and another by the atonement. In other words, it must be demanded that, for example, the character of God shall not be one thing, as seen in his revealed law and its threatened penalty, and another thing in the atonement; that, in looking at the atonement, we shall not get one impression of the character of God, and another from the threatenings of the law; that in the one, God shall not be represented as just, and in the other as unjust. In like manner, it may be demanded that there shall not be a false impression made by the atonement in regard to the mercy of God. If he is merciful, then the atonement should so represent his character. It should leave that as a fair impression on the minds of all who contemplate it. There should be in that atonement a real and not an imaginary display of mercy. There should not be a mere transfer of guilt; there should not be a mere infliction of wrath on the innocent instead of the guilty; there should not be mere punishment and nothing but punishment,—the punishment of the innocent instead of the guilty; there should not be a mere stern demand of the 'last farthing,' demanded of the offender or of a substitute; there should be real mercy, real forgiveness, a real lessening of the infliction of pain. If this were not so, then, whether a pretended atonement were made or not, the entire representation of the character of God in the case would be that he was only severely and absolutely just, or that there was no mercy blended with justice in his character. If God is merciful, then this would be a wholly unfair representation of what he is. In one word, it is necessary in the work of an atonement, that all the arrangements should be such that the divine character, as far as the atonement goes to illustrate that, should not be susceptible of a misrepresentation, or that it should fairly represent that character on these points: (a) That God is, in fact, just; (b) that he is, at the same time, merciful; (c) that he does not connive at sin; (d) that he is not indifferent to sin; (e) that he actually intends to lessen by the atonement the amount of suffering and sin in the universe, and does not mean merely to transfer them from the guilty to the innocent.

If an atonement can be so made as to furnish in itself a correct representation of the divine character in these respects, it is plain that so far as these points are concerned there can be no difficulty in pardoning offenders. If an atonement could be so made as to furnish a more clear and impressive demonstration than could be made in any other way of what the character of God in these respects is, there would be this additional reason why it might be introduced into the system.

Whether the atonement proposed in the gospel actually is such as to secure these results will be the main subject of inquiry in the remainder of this essay.