LESSON XXIII.
(Scripture Reading Exercise.)
THE EFFICACY OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT.
ANALYSIS. | REFERENCES. |
I. The Law of Righteousness. | The texts and contexts of the scriptures quoted and cited in the body of this lesson. |
II. Possibility of the Spirit Suffering. | |
III. The Suffering of Men. 1. Because of Their Own Sins. 2. Because of the Sins of Others. 3. With Each Other on Account of Sin. 4. Willingness of Men to Suffer for Others and what it Suggests. | |
IV. Vicarious Suffering the Doctrine of Christ. | |
V. The Reign of Law and Love. |
SPECIAL TEXT: "He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. * * * Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our sins.
"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (I John iv:8-11.)
DISCUSSION.
1. The Law of Righteousness: All sin against moral law is followed by suffering. At first glance that statement may not be accepted without qualification; but it is true. "Sin is transgression of the law," is scripture definition of sin.[A] No difficulty will arise from that definition, but there might arise difference of opinion as to what constitutes "moral law," which to violate would be sin. Of course moral law, varies among different races, and nations; and indeed varies in the same race and nation in different periods of time; but no matter how variant the law may be, between different races or nations; or how variant it may be between individuals, the principle announced that suffering follows sin will hold good. Of course between the Christian whose conscience is trained in the moral law of the doctrine of Christ, and the heathen, "who know not God," there is a wide difference. Many things which are sin to the Christian conscience are not sin to the heathen races, unenlightened by the ethics of the Christian religion; but, nevertheless, what I say is true; and if heathen peoples do not have the same moral standards that prevail in Christian lands, they have some moral standards; and whenever they violate what to them is the "rule of righteousness," it is followed by chagrin, by sorrow, by mental suffering for them; and so with the Christian people who are instructed in the high, moral principles of the Christian religion. When they fall below their ideals, when they consciously violate their rule of righteousness, it is followed by suffering, by sense of shame, by sorrow; and, indeed, the great bulk of the sorrows of this world spring from sin, the transgression of the moral law, and there is no escaping its penalty—suffering.
[Footnote A: I John iii:4; and Rom. iv:15.]
2. Possibility of the Spirit Suffering: It is just as real, this suffering of the spirit for the violation of the moral law, as the suffering of physical pain that comes from the violation of some physical law. The mind no less than the body may be hurt, wounded as deeply as the body, and carry its scars as the evidence of its wounds as long. Mental suffering is as real and poignant as physical pain; and he who sins suffers. "And it often happens," says Guizot, "that the best men, that is, those who have best conformed their will to reason, have often been the most struck with their insufficiency, the most convinced of the inequality between the conduct of man and his task between liberty and law;" and therefore have they suffered most. It is possible, then, for men to suffer because of their own sins.