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II. Redemption by Christ is represented as having for its object salvation from final perdition.
IF upon the failure of all which is done in redemption to save men, they are to be subjected to another probation after death, there are powerful reasons to think that the surest way to effect their recovery is, to let them know beforehand that God will give them a second trial. For this is manifestly the way in which God proceeded with the Hebrew people, whose reformation in this *world, and whose allegiance, he was seeking to secure. In foresight of their apostasy and punishment, they were told beforehand that they should have a second probation. The following words are an explicit declaration to this effect, and are an instance of divine wisdom which man would never have devised, from fear of consequences. After telling Israel of the happy fruit which would attend their obedience, and the direful effects of their apostasy, instead of leaving them in doubt whether the will have a second probation, God expressly tells them that they shall be again restored. “ When thou art in tribulation and all these things are come upon, thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice, (for the Lord thy God is a merciful God,) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto thee.”
It might have been argued with much plausibleness that such an announcement would be inexpedient; that it would have a direct effect to make men careless and presumptuous. But infinite wisdom judged otherwise, and proceeded at different times to say: '' If his children forsake my law, then will I visit their transgressions with the rod; -- nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him.” And again: ''If my covenant be not with day and night, then will I cast off the seed of Jacob; -- for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy upon them.” Again: “ I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not forever.”
What principle in moral natures is there which makes this announcement, to sinners, of future clemency and restoration, wise and expedient? The obvious answer is, Hope. Whether or not there can ever be repentance without hope, it is certain that hope is a powerful means of repentance. “ How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and say unto him. Father, I have sinned.” -- The promise of a future trial, the explicit avowal of relenting in his displeasure, with a view to the final recovery of the transgressors, was deemed by the Most High to be essential in the exercise of his administration in ancient times. The admixture of hope in his threatenings, the line of light in the horizon below the coming tempest, was regarded by Jehovah as a necessary means of effecting the ultimate restoration of the Jews, so that, to this day, provision is made for hope to fasten its hand upon exceeding great and precious promises, the moment that the thought arises of turning to God. He would have the sinners think, in their deep distress under the chastising rod, that he would be found of them, if they returned and sought him, and that he made provision for hope even while the terrible blow was about to descend. In offering pardon and salvation to men through the sufferings and death of Christ, and in setting forth the consequences of neglecting so great salvation, if God does not intimate that, nevertheless, the wicked shall not be utterly cast off, surely it is not because it would be inconsistent with the principles of moral government thus to mingle hope with chastisement. We have seen that intimations of future mercy were made to men who were abusing the most signal acts of divine favor; and that to secure their future repentance, God judged it wise and prudent to prevent the ill effect which wrath and punishment might have upon them, by so ordering it that they should recollect amidst their punishment that even long before the moment of descending wrath, he remembered mercy, and that, accordingly, when about to cast them off, he said, “ How shall I give thee up? -- my heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.” And the anointed prophet said in his name, “ He will return, he will have mercy upon US; and thou wilt cast their iniquities into the depths of the sea.” All this, it will be remembered, was not a sudden relenting; it was part of a plan announced so long beforehand as to give evidence of special design.
We, therefore, say, that if no such foretokens of far distant mercy and forgiveness are now made to those who reject Christ, it cannot properly be argued that it would be unsuitable, and that wisdom and prudence forbid. On the contrary, such promises would be in accordance with those former dealings of God with men in which he has manifested the most peculiar love for transgressors. It would be analogous to his former conduct should he intimate, in immediate connection with his threatenings, that if we neglect our present opportunity and means of salvation, and subject ourselves necessarily to a long and fearful discipline of sorrow, nevertheless the time will come when he will return and be pacified towards us for all which we have done. If no such intimations are given, we have strong presumptive evidence that it is because the condition of the wicked at death is final.
For, as we read the threatenings against Edom, and Babylon, and Egypt, and Tyre, we find no words of promise mingled with the predictions of their doom. Probation for them is past; hence, when God is declaring his vengeance against them, not one word is uttered which, in the hour of their downfall, would come to their memories as a ray of hope. The utter ruin and desolation of those kingdoms show the reason for withholding every promise of future mercy; it was intended that their destruction should be final. But it may be said, Ts God under any obligation to disclose all his future purposes with regard to the wicked? Surely not; but certainly he will not deceive us; he is not obliged to tell us anything; but if he tells us a part, he will not make false impressions. But some will say, It may now be wise in God to vary his plan, and suffer the wicked to “ depart “ with the full expectation that their doom is forever; and then he may interpose and save them. Who will deny that this is possible?
It is evidently the object of the gospel to save men here from their sins, and to rescue them from future misery, limited or endless. Is it honest, or would it not be like '' false pretences,” to make the impression that there is to be no further probation after deatli, if the idea is utterly inconsistent with the character of God?
We know what is thought of one who offers his wares as positively the last, and then produces more. The question is simply this: Would God seek to save men by making them think that this is their only chance of pardon, when he knows that it is not to be the last? But if God intended that we should believe this to be the last, who among the sons of the mighty is entitled to the merit of having undeceived us? It is impiety to assert that there is a future probation, against the plain declarations of the Bible, if such declarations are made.
Now let us examine the inspired record. At the very close of the Bible we read: “He that is unjust let him be unjust still, and he that is filthy let him be filthy still, and he that is righteous let him be righteous still, and he that is holy let him be holy still.” As the “unjust” and “filthy” never could be directed to refrain, in this world, from efforts to become good, (unless their day of grace were past,) these words are obviously a declaration that character is unchangeable after death. In faithful consistency even to the last with the great distinguishing feature of the Christian religion, viz, regard for the individual, the closing words of the Bible have reference to each accountable member of the human family, “And behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be.” Here is the place where we should look for intimations, if any could be made, of future probation. Here is the promontory which runs down to the unfathomable main, looks forth on “ that ocean we must sail so soon; “and as it terminates all earthly efforts after salvation, does it give us one hint about some future method of recovery? Are there signals prepared on this cape and headland, indicating to the eye of despair, afar off, that the cross of Christ holds out proposals of reconciliation still, to those who trampled it under foot, on their way to eternity? On the contrary, everything makes the impression on the vast majority of readers ever since these words were written, that the results of life are to be final. No hopeful class of probationers are represented as without,” when the righteous have entered through the gates into the city. All the sublime images in the last chapters of this book come thronging down to that shore where inspiration lays aside its pen and looks towards the shoreless waste beyond time. It has been said that the Old Testament ends with a curse. This is a mistake. It ends with a promise of turning the hearts of fathers and children, to avert a curse. But no prediction of any turning of hearts in eternity occurs at the close of that book which gives us the last information respecting the future. Its silence is as impressive as its few decisive words.
We can imagine how Christ would have drawn the picture of retribution had he followed the Old Testament, in doing so, in its hopeful and prophetic intermingling of light with the darkness. Making the prospect terrific, at first, beyond all human power of description, to enforce the duty of immediate repentance, and to deter from sin, then appealing to our sense of propriety, our magnanimity, our shame, he would have told us how in the future, more or less remote, God would visit his erring and perverse children with his remonstrances; how he himself would weep over them and repeat the offers of pardon; and in view of all this we can imagine how he would expostulate. Such a procedure would accord with the principles of human nature and of the divine government, as illustrated in the history of Israel. Is the Saviour less compassionate and ready to forgive than the God of the Old Testament? -- for we see God listening to catch the first sigh of repentance; and when he hears it, he proclaims: “I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus: Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; turn thou me and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God.” Not one word like this do we hear from the lips of him who was the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person. Where is prophecy, with her glowing tongue, foretelling, at the hour of captivity, the sinner's final return? The opening of hell, and the final release of Satan and his angels, and of wicked men, would have been an anticipation sublime beyond most other visions; and, if allowable, it could not have failed to excite the imagination of seers and prophets. But where are the Isaiahs, stretching their vision beyond time and the captivity of hell, saying. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to the cursed, and say unto them that their warfare is accomplished, that their iniquity is pardoned; for they have received of the Lord's hand double for all their sins. Can it be that not even from you, beloved John, is there a vision or a word of hope for sinners after death?
You saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, the books opened, and another book, which is the book of life. You saw the judgment, and the doom; the lake of fire was first prepared by casting death and hell into it, and when all was ready, whosoever was not found written in the book of life, you saw him cast into the lake of fire. No syllable of mercy? No visit from the angel that talked with thee, saying. Come up hither, to see, from a higher point, beyond that lake? Have you no yearning look? -- not even one slightly musical dark saying upon the harp, to keep us from suspecting that God can ever be implacable? In the Old Testament he relents and repents. '' His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.” “ How shall I make thee as Admah! How shall I set thee as Zeboim! My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.” Is that Old Testament, which is represented by scoffers as ''cruel,” “sanguinary,” ''vindictive,” actually more merciful in its expressions towards rebellious Israel than the New Testament is towards men who died in their sins?
How strange that He, who wept over Jerusalem, could say, “ Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,” and let fall no expressions of commiseration or word of hope, nor leave some elliptical “notwithstanding,” -- an unfinished sentence, a place with asterisks, a chance even for a guess that all would not be forever determined for the wicked, at the last day!
Mark the altered language, the different tone and manner of the Saviour towards the wicked in the other world, compared with his words and behavior towards our sinful race when he was on earth. “ The master of the house has risen up, and shut to the door.” They knock; he says, “ I tell you I know you not, whence ye are. Depart from me.” The direction is, “Bind him, hand and foot.” They “ cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion,” not with candidates for heaven, under discipline, but “with the hypocrites.” He is '' thrust out.” Christ uses the expressions, “ lose his soul; “ “be cast away; ““salted with fire;” “grind him to powder;” “son of perdition”; “ “slay them before me; ““ seek me and not find me; “ “ gather the good, and cast the bad away;” “great gulf fixed;” “die in your sins;” “where I am ye cannot come.” In various parts of the Bible we meet with phrases of the like tenor, -- such as “ wrath to come; “ “ shame and everlasting contempt; ““ torment us before the time; “ “ reap corruption; “ “ wages of sin is death; “ “ more tolerable for Sodom in the day of judgment; “ “mist of darkness forever and ever.” Indeed, these incidental expressions, interwoven everywhere throughout the Bible, assume that the doctrine of future, endless punishment for sin is a matter of course. The common mode of referring to the future implies it. “ Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke; ““then a great ransom will not deliver thee.” “I will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh.” The numerous passages of this tenor do not suggest any idea of future clemency.
Paul thus declares the end of the wicked, “ The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that knew not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe, for our testimony among you was believed in that day.” That this does not apply to the destruction of Jerusalem, as the Papists and some Protestants would have us think, appears from the next chapter, in which the Thessalonians are told that “ that day “ is not “ at hand,” because the “man of sin” was first to be revealed.
Then Peter follows him, and says, “ But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
Thus, while the Bible satisfies us that the redemption made by Christ is a final effort to save men, we do not wonder that those who reject the Godhead of Christ and his sacrifice for sin, reject also the idea of endless punishment. There is no adequate necessity for a divine Saviour with his vicarious sacrifice, if there be no such penalty annexed to the law of God. Every man is then his own redeemer, either by obedience or by suffering. But the evangelical believer looks into the. manger and upon the cross, and sees there his God incarnate. He sees, in that Christ, a sacrifice for his sins. The world laugh him to scorn.
They demand whether he believes that his God is dying; and every form of intellectual ridicule is poured upon him. He steadfastly maintains that “ the Word was God,” that “ the Word was made flesh,” that this incarnate Word was on the cross, “ a ransom for many,” “ a propitiation through faith in his blood,” his sufferings a substitute for the sinner's punishment. The believer looks to find some necessity for such an incarnation, and for the sacrificial death of such a being. He cannot find it in the need of example, moral suasion, or representation of the divine interest in him; but, in the declaration that Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, he sees the appropriateness of the incarnation to give a divine worth and efficacy to sufferings which are to atone for sin. There is no revelation to be compared with this: “ God was manifest in the flesh,” and, he “was manifested to take away our sins.” By all the methods of imagery, symbolism, predictions, and most minute, pathetic delineations of his coming, his life, death, and resurrection; by appeals from his own lips, and those of men “ in Christ's stead; “by that perpetual memorial of him, and of his sacrifice, the Lord's supper, men are admonished, and, “ as though God did beseech them,'* urged to accept pardon through this infinite provision made for the forgiveness of sin. This produces the effect, generally, upon the mind, of a last effort.
It might have been supposed that the work of Christ would suffice for the present dispensation, and that men rejecting or neglecting it would, in a future state, be approached by those influences which belong peculiarly to the work of the third person in the Godhead. But Christ said, ''It is expedient for you that I go away; for, if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.” Something more than ordinary divine influence is meant here by the Comforter; for the Saviour's being in the world would not of course keep divine influence out of it, or prevent the disciples from receiving comfort in God. A special, divine agency is here recognized, and, by all the laws of language, a special, divine, personal agent. His object is to reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. All which is implied in the idea of moral omnipotence is thus made to bear upon the hearts and minds of men, to effect their reconciliation to God, through Christ.
Resistance to these efforts in a certain way, it is declared, shall have the effect, however long a time before death it may be made, to consign the sinner to hopeless condemnation; for '^ whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”
It does not seem easy to explain how any one who ''hath never forgiveness,” “ neither in this world, neither in the world to come,” is to be saved; nor by what moral distinctions it can be made to appear that some who commit one particular sin are justly condemned to a hopeless, unforgiven state, and that all the rest of mankind are to be restored. The work of the Holy Spirit, and the unpardonable sin against him, convince us that the effort of mercy to save men ends with life. Such words as these from Christ, “hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation,” admit of no appeal. In this connection let it be observed that evangelical Christians regard the work of the Holy Spirit as of equal importance with the death of Christ, and as essential a part of the work of redemption. It is from sin that we are to be redeemed; it is to holiness that we are to be restored; hell and heaven are a consummation, respectively, of sin and holiness. But we notice that those who reject 'the idea of future punishment dwell much on sin and holiness as being the sole objects of redemption, irrespective of the future state to which they lead. Olshaiisen says: '' The Scriptures know no such pretended divestment of all egoism, that man needs as motives neither fear nor hope, whether of damnation or eternal happiness; -- and rightly; for it (z. e, this notion) exhibits itself either as fanatical error, as in Madame Guyon, or, which is doubtless most common, as indifference and torpidity.”^ However some may regard it as a narrow and selfish thing to make so much, as evangelical Christians do, of “ salvation “ and “ safety,” we find that the New Testament sets us the example. Its chief burden is holiness, likeness to God; but it appeals to our love of happiness and dread of pain; sentimental philosophy would substitute for these instincts a perception of the “ good, the beautiful, and the true;” the gospel insists on these, but the way to reach them is through the natural constitution which God has given us.
Inspiration does not disdain to say, “ God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” “He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.” '' We shall be saved from wrath through him.” '^ Who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope se-t before us.”
“ What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? “The attempt to show that all this is unworthy of our “noble aspirations,” is only professing to be wise; but “ the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” The work of the Holy Spirit in applying the redemption by Christ to the souls of men has for its object not only to save them from sin, but from its “ wages,” which is “death.”
All having failed, and men going from under the concentrated influences of redeeming mercy into a future state, if then the God who has provided such a plan of redemption, is to meet them, and, rather than have them perish^ abandon all his terms, and admit them to heaven upon their own conditions, rather than see them suffer; if he who became flesh and died for them, will then consent that punishment shall try to effect that which love and earthly discipline, together, failed to accomplish, and punishment proves to be the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation, and sinners will therefore have more powerful means of grace in hell than under the gospel, we, for our part, need another revelation to inform us of it, and then to explain its consistency with our present Bible.