CHAPTER [Pag tomo our first argument, we will appeal to what vel Ye =the Scriptures teach concerning the nature of God and his principle of action. In doing this, I shall attempt to prove (a) that the Scriptural doctrine is that the ultimate motive and end of all God’s actions are in himself; and (0) that the in- trinsic and unchangeable perfections of the divine nature, lying back of and determining the divine will, determine him certainly, yet most freely, to punish all sin because of his essential holiness and its essential demerit. Ultimate 1. Scripture and reason teach us that the ultimate tee reason and motive of all God’s actions are within him- actions gelf, Since God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, himse, that which was his first motive in creating the universe must ever continue to be his ultimate motive or chief end in every act concerned in its preservation and government. But God’s first motive must have been just the exercise of his own essential perfections, and in their exercise the manifestation of their excellence. This was the only end which could have been chosen by the divine mind in the beginning, before the existence of any other object. It is also infinitely the highest end
in itself, and the one which will best secure the happiness -
and exaltation of the creature himself. It 1s manifest that a creature cannot be absolutely an end in himself,
THE DIVINE NATURE DEMANDS PUNISHMENT. 47
but only a means to an end. And he is the most exalted when he is made absolutely subservient to that end, which is the highest possible even to the Creator.
The Scriptures are very explicit on this subject. ai They directly. assert:,1t.' | Col. 1/1620 All: things were created by him, and for him.” Rom. xi. 36: “ For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things.” Rom. ix. 5: “Who is over all, God blessed for ever.” Prov. xvi. 4: “The Lorp hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.” (2.) The Scriptures always make the glory of God the proper ultimate end of the creature’s action. Peter says (1 Pet. iv. 11), that whatsoever gift a man have, he should exer- cise it to the end “that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” (3.) They show that, as a matter of fact, God always acts with reference to that end in all his dealings with his creatures. Eph. i. 5, 6: We are predestinated “according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.” Rom. ix. 22, 23: “ What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.”
The ultimate motive, therefore, for the sacrifice of Christ must have been the divine glory, and not the effect intended to be produced in the creature. But glory is manifested excellence. And moral excellence is mani- fested only by being exercised. The infinite justice and love of God both find their highest conceivable exercise in the sacrifice of his own Son as the Substitute of guilty men.
II. The great fact concerning the nature of God and his principles of action, which is most certainly and con- spicuously set forth in Scripture, is, that he is HOLY. When laying down the law of ceremonial purification,
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CHAPTER IV.
CH EIN
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The Scrip- tures pre- dicate holiness of the divine nature as well as of the divine will.
48 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
he says (Lev. xi. 44), “Ye shall be holy ; for J am holy.” The seraphim which Isaiah saw around the throne in the temple, and which John saw in the same relation in heaven (Isa. vi. 3; Rev. iv. 8), “rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God. Almighty.” This best expresses the sum of the results of their insight into his moral nature.