5. Here, however, it is necessary to meet two common mis- apprehensions. On the one hand, it is often maintained that for any sin, however great, the word of forgiveness and recon- ciliation is enough — a man needs no more; while on the other hand it is averred that the deed once done can never be undone, that the sinner must bear the consequences of his sin, and, what is more terrible, remain for ever associated with the memory of it. As r. W. H. Myers in " Saint Paul " says :
* Horace Bushnell, T?ie Vicarious Sacrifice, 48.
2 COR. V. 21 229
Yes, Thou forgivest, but, with all forgiving, Canst not renew mine innocence again :
Make Thou, 0 Christ, a dying of my living, Purge from the sin but never from the pain.
(1) Why can there not be forgiveness without sacrifice ? The answer is this : Because of that moral necessity in the Nature of God which calls for the condemnation of sin. It cannot be necessary to defend with argument the position of such a moral necessity in the Nature of God as calls for the condemnation of sin. To some extent we are conscious of that moral necessity in ourselves, not only in moments of disgust and loathing following an evil indulgence, but also, and far more surely, in moments of spiritual strength and vision, when, lifted near to God, we have discerned, as from His side, the goodness of good and the sinful- ness of sin. To some extent we are conscious of that moral necessity as confessed in the life of the community and of the nation in its undying struggle after public righteousness, its eternal condemnation of public sin. But when we lift our thought to God the Eighteous, the existence of a moral necessity in His Nature calling for the condemnation of sin becomes an axiom, a self-evident proposition transcending demonstration. Apart from it, God the Eighteous is unthinkable. For there are but four attitudes possible in any being toward sin — ignorance, indifference, consent, condemnation. God the Eighteous cannot be ignorant ; God the Eighteous cannot be indifferent ; God the Eighteous cannot consent; God the Eighteous must condemn, must, under the moral necessity of His Being. But how is con- demnation to be expressed ? In two ways only is it expressible to man on the part of God — through precept and through penalty. When the first fails, there remains only the second. God con- demned sin by precept to the unfallen world : " Thou shalt not eat of it : for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The wrath of God was revealed from heaven against all sin, all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. The judgment of God was known, that they which commit such things are worthy of death. The condemnation of sin through precept was univer- sally published ; it was written in the natural conscience, it was spoken in the Law. God was true to the moral necessity of His
230 THE SINLESS MADE SIN
Nature in openly condemning sin and warning against it. In vain ; the freedom of man challenged the precept of God. " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." The con- demnation of sin by penalty became, therefore, in the failure of precept, a moral necessity in the nature of God the Eighteous. He could not do otherwise. There is nothing of passion, nothing of revenge, nothing of hatred, nothing of sanguinary desire in God's punishment of sin. The punishment of sin is the condemna- tion of sin by penalty, its condemnation by precept having failed. Therefore to suggest forgiveness without sacrifice is to suggest a knowledge of sin on God's part unaccompanied by His condemna- tion of it.
^ The fact of what is meant by original sin is as mysterious and inexplicable as the origin of evil, but it is obviously as much a fact. There is a fault and vice in the race which, given time, as surely develops into actual sin as our physical constitution, given at birth, does into sickness and physical death. It is of this inherited tendency to sin in our nature, looked upon in the abstract and without reference to concrete cases, that I suppose the ninth Article speaks. How can we suppose that such a nature looks in God's eyes, according to the standard of perfect righteousness which we also suppose to be God's standard and law ? Does it satisfy that standard ? Can He look with neutrality on its divergence from His perfect standard ? What is His moral judgment of it as a subject for moral judgment ? What He may do to cure it, to pardon it, to make allowances for it, in known or unknown ways, is another matter, about which His known attri- butes of mercy alone may reassure us ; but the question is, How does He look upon this fact of our nature in itself, that without exception it has this strong efficacious germ of evil within it, of which He sees all the possibilities and all the consequences ? Can He look on it, even in germ, with complacency or indiffer- ence ? Must He not judge it and condemn it as in itself, because evil, deserving condemnation ? I cannot see what other answer can be given but one, and this is what the Article says.'-