The Atonement-Part II by J. H. W.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 22, 1863

The Atonement—Part II.

By J. H. W.

(Continued.)

“ALL HAVE SINNED.”

Our present relation to the law is easily ascertained. Though we rest under a perpetual and everlasting obligation to obey the law of the Most High; we have not fulfilled our obligation. On this point the scriptures are very explicit. Rom. iii, 9–23 contains sufficient evidence. Jews and Gentiles are on a level—all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; there is none that doeth good; no not one. The law stops every mouth, and proves all guilty, and subject to the judgment of God.

What is the penalty for sin? I have remarked that government is a system of laws maintained. This is a simple definition that all can understand; and that it is truthful is evident from this, that a government cannot exist without law, and if the law is not maintained the result is anarchy and the subversion of government. It is for this reason that a law without a penalty is a nullity. All the force and sanction of law is its penalty, and whenever the law is violated justice requires the infliction of the penalty. Therefore if we understand the penalty of the law,—the nature of the infliction to be visited upon the sinner or violator of God’s law, we shall of course understand what justice demands for our redemption. I have considered that justice can only be satisfied by the infliction of the penalty, either upon the offender or upon a voluntary substitute. I cannot reconcile with justice, nor with Scripture, the idea so often advanced, that Christ did not suffer the same penalty that the sinner was subject to. If the law itself be strictly just, the penalty of the law neither more nor less, will answer the demands of justice. Many systems of theology have had this error incorporated into them to avoid other apparent difficulties; but to me it is evidence of defects in the systems that demand a conclusion at variance with reason, with justice, and with Scripture.

Dr. Barnes in his work on the atonement says: “It will be impossible for a substitute to endure the same sufferings which the sinner himself will endure in the future world for his sin. There are sufferings caused by sin which belong only to the consciousness of guilt, and these sufferings cannot be transferred to another. The sin itself cannot be transferred; and, as it is impossible to detach the suffering from the consciousness of guilt, it follows that a substitute cannot endure the same kind of sufferings which the sinner would himself endure. Remorse of conscience, for example,—one of the keenest sources of suffering to the guilty, and which will be a most fearful part of the penalty of the law in the future world,—cannot be transferred.” p. 228.

And again; “Remorse of conscience is manifestly a part of the penalty of the law; that is, it is a portion of what the law inflicts as expressing the sense which the lawgiver entertains of the value of the law and of the evil of its violation.” p. 235.

I am fully convinced of the correctness of the positions taken in my remarks on the reasonableness of the atonement, though the above from Dr. Barnes conflicts with them. I am led to the belief that his position is not taken because it is strictly reasonable or scriptural, but because his theory of theology would not admit of any other view. I say this with great respect to him; but there are many differences among theological writers which can be attributed to no other cause.

Remorse of conscience is no part of the penalty of the law. That view, which is indeed the corner stone of Universalism, is as contrary to reason as to scripture, and grows out of the error before noticed of making no distinction between the penalty of the law

and mere consequences. The penalty is a judicial infliction, prescribed by the statute, administered by authority, and its infliction must be subsequent to the judgment. Consequences are various according to circumstances, and not according to desert, and may flow immediately out of the action without any relation to the penalty. The wicked all suffer more or less remorse in this present state, but the Bible informs us that they are reserved “unto the day of judgment to be punished.” 2 Pet. ii, 9.

There are two kinds of sorrow for sin: a “godly sorrow,” and a “sorrow of the world.” 2 Cor. viii, 10. The first is that of the penitent, sorrowing that he has violated a holy law and grieved a holy God. The other is that of the worldling, sorry that he is detected in crime, or in danger of punishment. No one doubts that the sorrow of the God-fearing penitent is deepest; that his remorse is the keenest. Yet the nearer he is to God, the finer his sensibilities, and the deeper his hatred of sin, the stronger will be his remorse for his sin. Therefore if this be part of the penalty of the law, it is evident that this part is inflicted more severely on the penitent than on the impenitent and incorrigible.

Again, Paul speaks of those whose conscience is seared with a hot iron; 1 Tim. iv, 2. That is, they run to such lengths in sin that their sensibilities are blunted, and they feel little or no remorse of conscience.

Now both reason and revelation teach us that the punishment must be proportioned to the guilt; but if remorse of conscience be a penalty, it is executed by inverse proportion; that is, the punishment decreases according to the increase of crime.

But we are led to inquire, Where did Dr. Barnes (or any other person) learn that remorse of conscience is a part of the penalty of the law? As it is the duty and sole prerogative of the governor to reveal his law, so he alone can define the penalty. This he has done in his word, “The wages of sin is death.” Any effort to evade this plain truth, or to make it anything but a plain truth, involves difficulties and contradictions. For it will not obviate the difficulty to spiritualize the term death, so as to make it embrace remorse of conscience; for if that be included in death, whatever will remove the remorse will remove so much of the penalty, or of death, and bring a proportionate degree of life. But sin does this, as the apostle shows; therefore, according to that theory, sin removes a portion of its own penalty; which is absurd.

Dr. Barnes asserts that Christ did not suffer the penalty of the law, but something substituted for the penalty. There is no cause for such a declaration, except it be found, as before said, in his theory.

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. vi, 23. 1 Cor. xv, 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 three-fold 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 can not 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 that 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 that 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 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.

Second, 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 third, If death means eternal misery, then that is the penalty of the law; but as Christ did not suffer it, and as 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.

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 anything 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.

A further examination of this subject might properly be introduced when we come to consider the consequences of rejecting or neglecting the salvation of Christ. For the present I pass it by, satisfied that the death of Christ clearly shows what is the penalty of the law.

J. H. W.

(To be Continued.)