10 - The Doctrine of Forgiveness
Chapter 10 THE DOCTRINE OF FORGIVENESS "And forgive us our Debts, as we forgive our Debtors" To overlook our wants as sinners in the all absorbing solicitude for our wants as creatures, were as though the sentenced criminal should be mainly anxious for the conveniences and comforts of his dungeon, while he neglects to seek pardon from the Sovereign to whom he has been recommended for mercy. " What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Of how little avail are all the luxuries of this earthly pilgrimage compared with a pacified conscience, and a tranquil hope of pardon! God is the hearer of prayer to the full extent in which the suppliant is a man of prayer. The request that he would "give us day by day our daily bread," may be answered in the supply of every temporal want; while amid all the bounty and munificence of his providence, the sins of nature and of practice may be registered against us, and we remain strangers to the riches of that grace which consigns them to oblivion.
Those who are equal sharers in the enjoyments of the present world, are also equal sharers in the common nature of a fallen humanity. Amid the higher distinctions of wealth and the lower degradations of poverty, neither the children of opulence nor of want are exempted from that sweeping declaration, "There is none righteous, no not one." When they come into the presence of that Being who levels all distinctions, the rich and the poor meet on common ground, and under a deep sense of their necessities as sinners. The day will come when they will no longer have need to ask for their daily bread. Now they are tenants of time, and prisoners of hope. They have wants, and may seek supply; they have sins, and may crave forgiveness. The gracious and condescending Saviour has put the request into their lips, " Forgive us our debts!" The lost condition of men as sinners, as it is the melancholy fact which makes forgiveness necessary, so is it necessary to be understood in order to a right understanding of the doctrine of pardon. All that men are and have, belongs to God. From him they receive their existence; for all things they are dependent on him. To question his claims is to do him wrong; to resist them is rebellion. Sin is the act of robbing God, Men have taken from him that which does not belong to them; they are his debtors; they owe him ample reparation for the wrongs they have done, and are in debt to his equal justice. Every sinner is an infinite debtor, God is under no obligation to him; he is under all obligations to God. " Who hath first given to the Lord, and it shall be recompensed to him again; for of him, and through him, and to him are all things," It is impossible for the offender to make any satisfaction; he has nothing to pay; the debt must be freely forgiven, or he must meet the rightful exactions of the avenging penalty.
Some are greater sinners than others, but all are debtors to God’s justice, and stand in need of forgiveness, " If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquity, O Lord, who shall stand?" The man does not live, who can deny the charge of guilt which a righteous God records against him ; who can excuse or palliate it; who can make any amends for it ; who can escape, or resist, or endure his wrath.
" By one man," says Paul, " sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned," ’’ By the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation." " By one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners." " In Adam, all die." The fact may not be denied, that the character and condition of the race were materially affected by this first apostasy. The ground was cursed, on account of it. Man was doomed, in all following ages, to toil and sorrow; woman to be a sufferer and the race mortal; and everything human to come into existence under the frown of an offended God. Just as the heir is ruined by the father’s debt, was the posterity of Adam brought in debt to divine justice by the fault of their common parent. Just as the citizens of a state are ruined by one false step of their rulers, or of the legislators who represent them, was the posterity of Adam ruined by their divinely appointed representative. No principle is more radical to all social organization than this, nor is there any one that is more universally recognized. Men are responsible in law for the acts of their legal representatives. A false step in the conductors of a corporate institution, is visited upon every member of the body corporate. A national debt descends from generation to generation, and their posterity are rightfully bound to fulfil the obligations of their ancestors. There are also crimes of such enormity, as to extend their legal forfeiture to the children of the criminal, and cut them off from honorable titles and large estate.
If we look around us, we shall see individuals and whole classes of men, acting not for themselves only, but for others, and those who come after them. Their acts are not the acts of others, any more than the act of Adam, in eating the forbidden fruit, is the act of his descendants; yet are others legally bound by them, and the effects of them are as truly theirs as if they themselves had performed them. The posterity of Adam did not appoint him to act for them; that appointment had a higher origin, and is indicative of the wisdom and goodness of its divine source. If the wisdom of human laws may not be impugned for such arrangements; if men deem it essential to the interests of good government to hold one portion of society responsible for the conduct of another; why may not God, in his wisdom, legislating for all men and all ages of the world, thus throw the character and destiny of the race into the hands of their first father? The ground on which men adopt this arrangement, is the common good; the best interests of the community require it. It is the best system of government; nor would it be possible for government otherwise to exert an extensively prospective influence. And the ground on which God adopts it is the same. It is not an arbitrary measure, but a most wise and benevolent one, and consults his own honor, and the best interests of his extended and eternal empire. When he issued the law of Paradise, he was not legislating for the locality of Eden, nor for an individual, nor for a day ; but for the earth on which we dwell, for the race of man, and in all the successive ages of his history. So far from finding fault with this divine arrangement, it is no easy matter to see how it could have been different from what it was, and have been either so equitable or so wise. Had God placed every successive individual of the race on trial for himself, what a world were this which we should have occupied! What numberless solicitudes would have gathered around the destiny of every new-born infant -- nay, what painful uncertainty, what agony indescribable till the question were decided whether he would stand or fall for eternity. And if he fell, how would those solicitudes have been augmented in view of the problem, whether there were or were not any method to be revealed for his recovery! How much more wise, how much more expressive of the divine goodness, that both these questions should be decided in the person of him who was " the figure of Him that was to come;" and by whose fall, the way was prepared for the revelation and introduction of that method of mercy which had a simultaneous and prospective relation to the entire race, because though not practically, yet in the eye of law, they ’’ sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression." It is easy for the mind to involve itself in webs of perplexity by considering the fall of our first parent as an isolated event in the divine government, and the law of Paradise as a mere local statute; but when we regard them as the germ, and foreshadowing of another and more comprehensive dispensation, both based upon the same principle of vicarious responsibility, short-sighted and fallen as we are, we may see enough in this peculiar economy not to silence our murmurings only, but to secure our admiration. The sin of their first parent, therefore, is the first debt which stands charged to his posterity. It is not a personal, but an imputed offence. They did not, they could not commit it; because it was perpetrated before they were born; yet the legal forfeiture of it entails to them, because the Sovereign Lawgiver appointed him to act in their place. And though his act was not their act, nor can they repent of it, because they did not commit it, yet are they all ruined by it — made bankrupts by the defalcations of their first father.
Unsevered from the responsibility of this original sin, there is in all men the inheritance of a morally corrupted nature, constituting their native depravity. All agree that there is a fearful and tremendous visitation of the iniquity of the parent upon the children, call it by what name you will. Adam ’’ begat a son in his own likeness;" not in the likeness of his unfallen, but his fallen nature. There is not merely an utter want of original righteousness in every new-born child of the human family; there are tendencies to evil which no second causes can control; evil desires and evil dispositions which indicate that the mind is dead in sin. There are no instances of exemption from them by virtue of any natural tendency to what is right ; and to whatever extent it may be counteracted, whether by providential restraint, or by gracious influence, that counteraction is always in opposition to the natural bias of the mind. The history of man in all ages shows that good is not natural to the human heart; individual consciousness shows it. The mind is not even indifferent to good and evil; its predilections are in favor of evil. No child needs to be taught, or persuaded, or coerced to what is wrong; while in the adoption and imitation of what is right, instruction, persuasion, the coercion of law, the authority of motives, are not only requisite, but defective and inefficient. The language of revelation on this subject is clear and decisive. ’’ Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ?" " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me !" " The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." " The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth." " Who were by nature the children of wrath even as others."
However the mind may be improved by moral culture, this is its wretched condition until it is " born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Born of man, it is human, and because human it is impure and sinful; " that which is born of the flesh, is flesh." Born of God, it partakes of another nature, a nature that is spiritual and divine; for " that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." If men were not by nature totally sinful, this change would not be necessary. The fountain head is polluted, and the streams are impure. There is no moral conformity of soul to the pure image of its Maker. The understanding is darkened ; the conscience has become a perverted and erring guide ; the heart is corrupt; and the passions are like a stormy sea whose waters cast up mire and dirt. The thoughts are ungoverned and ungovernable; the imagination vain and corrupt; the memory reposes with gratified complacency on scenes of wickedness; the whole mind is alienated from the Author of its being and the true sources of permanent and virtuous joy. And, what is most melancholy proof of this deep seated wickedness, these evil propensities, this antipathy to good and proneness to sin, are never entirely eradicated this side the grave, even in the best of men. When we pray, " Forgive us our debts," we acknowledge that we have incurred this forfeiture. There is a concession in this request that we have no righteousness inherent. How humbling, how prostrating the consideration that we are thus vile!
Inseparable from this corrupt nature, there are unnumbered deeds of wickedness, and overt violations of the divine law, by which men have incurred the still more fearful obligations to punitive justice. We have but to read its precepts and prohibitions and compare our character and conduct with these high claims, in order to be convinced that the amount of our forfeitures is such as to throw us at the foot stool of mercy, and make us the merest beggars for forgiving grace. Everywhere men have other gods beside the living and true God ; they set up idols in their hearts even where they do not worship gods which their own hands have made. They take the name of God in vain; their lips glow with curses and imprecations of evil ; they "set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth." They dishonor that holy Day which God has ordained and blessed; are cold and lukewarm in its duties, and neglect them for their own pleasures. Parents are unmindful of their duty to their children, and children are disrespectful and disobedient to their parents. Rulers are tyrants, and subjects are rebels against good and wholesome laws. Indifference, anger, hatred, and envy, in all the forms of outward unkindness and malignity, take the place of the charity that believeth all things, hopeth all things, beareth all things, and never faileth. Wars and fightings, intemperance and impurity, prodigality and idleness, fraud and falsehood, avarice, cruelty and ambition, all hold a wide place in the character and conduct of men. Added to these are all the forms of ingratitude; the various shades of unbelief; the rejection of the great salvation; the resistance of the Holy Spirit, and the abuse of the divine forbearance; all and every one of them long continued, often repeated, multiplied as the stars of the firmament, and persisted in with great perseverance and obduracy.
If every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse, sins like these give the divine justice imperative and resistless claims upon their perpetrators. They are righteously devoted to punishment. Sin tends to usurp God’s government; he only knows the demerit of it; nor does he ever mistake in appointing the punishment to the crime. No matter how low a man may set the mark of transgression; every sin, even the smallest, involves the nature and essence of all other sins. It is a world of sin in miniature, and only wants time and opportunity to unfold its dark imagery. Nor is the bond that connects sin with punishment a doubtful one; it is inviolable, and full of wrath. The sentence is past; the death warrant is gone forth; and if there be no forgiveness, the transgressor must "depart accursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." It is not sovereignty that punishes, but justice; a justice, which, while it never inflicts more than is deserved, may not inflict less. It is not revenge that punishes, but principle; otherwise it might change its purpose. It is not malice, for then it might be satiated; it is pure, unchanging rectitude, which may not be satisfied until the transgressor receive the full reward of his deeds, or take refuge in some accepted atonement. Not only is he in debt to justice, but his arrears are continually augmented and augmenting. And it is this which unfolds to us the momentous character of the request, ’’Forgive us our debts." For if the claim is enforced, the offender has no other way of liquidating it than by sinking under the burden in that world where the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
Such is man’s need; and it suggests substantially the only true illustration of the doctrine of forgiveness, God is willing to forgive; he is disposed to pardon, from the infinite benevolence of his nature. Who can doubt this, that knows " that he is good and does good, and that his tender mercies are over all his works?" Who can doubt it, who has heard that his name is " Love ?" Yet it may not be affirmed, that in his mere benevolence we have any assurance of his pardoning mercy. Goodness may punish; nay, it must punish the ill-deserving. A good law punishes; a good judge punishes; and the more certainly because they are good. However inclined to forgive the divine Lawgiver may be, and however strongly moved to acts of mercy by the tenderness of his own kind nature, justice has claims as well as clemency and compassion. And what shall countervail these rightful demands? Reason cannot; conscience dare not. The whole history of the divine government is proof that sin cannot go unpunished. The nature of the Deity forbids it; because he is just and righteous, as well as good and kind. His law forbids it, and stands forth a pledge to the universe that it knows no such thing as impunity for crime. It is essential to the character of God as Lawgiver, that wherever the claims of his law are violated, his authority be enforced by the infliction of its penalty; otherwise it is no longer law, and he no longer Lawgiver. The inquiry recurs, therefore, with redoubled emphasis. Is there forgiveness with God? Is there any such method of mercy as does not overlook, but satisfies and honors the demands of justice? Is it possible to indemnify justice, and yet pardon the transgressor? The problem is a dark and difficult one; yet, glory to God in the highest, there is a solution of it. It is possible. There is peace on earth, and good-will to men, in the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. The adorable God, in his unsearchable wisdom, had discovered that the infliction of the punishment upon a competent substitute is, in his gracious method of reckoning, an equivalent to the curse due to transgressors. As such, it is accepted by justice in full satisfaction of all her demands; so that the repentant and believing transgressor is in this way restored to the divine favor, and pardoned through this vicarious sacrifice. The selected system of representation, commenced under the first Adam, is thus completed under the second, the Lord from heaven. The eternal Son, in human nature, " the just for the unjust," is " set forth a propitiation, through faith in his blood." On the revealed and simple condition of receiving him as their Saviour and Lord, his death avails for the pardon of sin. This is God’s method of pardon. Because the wondrous provision for its payment originated with the clemency of the divine Creditor, and flowed from his own exhaustless treasury, the debt is very properly said to be forgiven. To us it is gratuitous; to him it was costly. To us it is grace; to him it was justice. To us it is gift; to him it was ransom — a gift purchased by his own blood. The procuring cause of it is found, not in the sinner, not in what he has done, or can perform, but in what has been done and suffered by another. So far as it respects the divine law, and the wrath of God as its great guardian and protector, the forgiveness of the offender is complete from the moment he repents and believes the Gospel. " Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ;" "there is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." But it is not a forgiveness that frees him from the temporary chastisements of paternal discipline, nor from many a frown of his angry Father. He is not exempted from these even by the law of grace. " If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their iniquity with the rod, and their transgression with stripes." Nor yet is it a forgiveness of which the believer is always conscious. The Mary that washed the Saviour’s feet with her tears, was pardoned before her pardon was declared; she did not know it until it was said to her, " Woman, thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace !" Pardon does not necessarily imply the assurance of pardon. A pardoned sinner may labor under doubts and fears; and because his faith is weak, he may not have the sense of pardon, and the comfortable intimation of it to his own soul. And this, in addition to his daily sins, is a reason why he daily prays for pardoning mercy. He would have the evidence of pardon, the pledge, the healing power of atoning blood.
It is worthy of remark, that in this prayer, the Saviour says nothing of the ground of pardon, or of asking forgiveness in his name. Socinians and Unitarians have not been backward in making use of this circumstance as indicating that there is pardon for the sinner without any atonement for his sins. Yet is there a concession in the petition itself, not only that we have no merit of our own, but that of ourselves we cannot procure it ; we are sinners and have nothing of our own to plead. The Socinian theory must contradict one part or other of Gods word; either the representations of his grace, or his righteousness. With this system, Christianity has not one principle of faith or hope in common; it has neither part nor lot with them. It was of right that God exacted the penalty of his law; of grace that he provided a substitute. To Christ the pardon of his people is a debt; he can claim it as the stipulated compensation for his obedience to the death of the cross. To them it is a debt forgiven, canceled ; it is pure grace. In this petition we cast ourselves upon the mercy of God in Christ. In no one instance in all God’s word is there any promise of forgiveness, either in principle, or fact, except for Christ’s sake. The Saviour at the time he taught them this prayer, left his disciples with the previous teachings, mainly of the Old Testament. The time had not come for clearer and more explicit instructions. It was subsequent to giving them this model of supplication, that he said, " Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name." They had never yet come into the divine presence upon the merit of that Sacrifice actually offered, the blood of that Atonement actually shed, and already fresh and flowing on the altar of justice. This is our privilege; but it was not then theirs. To us the veil of the temple has been rent in twain from the top to the bottom. Our access is indicated by the soldier’s spear, when it rent the divine humanity and perforated the heart of God’s only son. We come, not with the blood of bulls and of goats, but with the blood of his great sacrifice, which never loses its efficacy, which is always as it were newly shed, assuring us that we ask not in vain, when we pray, ’’ Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors !"