093. NOT PUNISHING WOULD IMPUGN JUSTICE

NOT PUNISHING WOULD IMPUGN JUSTICE

All objections to eternal punishment drawn from God’s justice are therefore based upon misunderstanding of what justice is and of what sin is. Justice is that attribute which gives to all their due. It demands in all creatures conformity to the moral perfection of God, and it visits non-conformity to that perfection with penal loss and suffering. Now, can any one doubt that, so long as moral creatures are opposed to God, they deserve punishment? Then it is just in God to visit endless sinning with endless punishment. Not the punishing, but the not punishing, would impugn his justice, for this last would be the withholding from the sinner of that which is his due. There are degrees of human guilt indeed. But as two lines may be equally long, while yet one is thicker than the other, so future punishment admits of degrees, while yet in all these degrees the punishment is endless. The least sin has an enormity, as committed against an infinite God and as containing in itself infinite possibilities of evil, which we cannot measure. It is not possible for the rebel to assign the just limits of his punishment. We know the enormity of sin only by God’s own declarations with regard to it, by the sacrifice he has made to redeem us from it, and by the penalty which he has attached to the commission of it. Hell, as well as the cross, indicates God’s estimate of sin. Nor is this eternal punishment inconsistent with the benevolence of God. Be sure that if God inflicts punishment upon his creatures it will be the means of securing some higher good. Let us remember that the very benevolence of God, as concerned for the general good of the universe, requires the execution of the full penalty of the law upon those who reject his Son. The Scripture intimates that God’s treatment of human sin is matter of instruction to all moral beings. The selfchosen ruin of the few may be the salvation of the many. The example of punished rebellion given upon this little sphere may be one means of keeping myriads of unfallen intelligences true to their allegiance. But we must not attempt to justify eternal punishment upon grounds of mere utility. God is not only benevolent but holy, and holiness is his ruling attribute. The vindication of God’s holiness is the primary and sufficient object of punishment. This constitutes an end which fully justifies the infliction. The sufferings of the lost could have no beneficial effect upon the universe if they were not just in themselves. And if just in themselves, then the reason for their continuance lies in the last analysis, not in any benefit to the universe, or to the sufferers, that may accrue therefrom. The reason for punishment lies in the holiness of God That holiness reveals itself in the moral constitution of the universe. The wrong merits punishment. Is this a doctrine of "pain for pain’s sake "? Ah, no! God "has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth." It is a doctrine of pain for holiness’ sake; the necessary suffering of the transgressor who spurns God’s love; the inevitable reaction against itself of a human nature which was made for purity, but which is now lost to purity; the involuntary vindication, on the part of the sinner, of that holiness of God which constitutes the fundamental attribute of his being.