(1.) First then we have a direct assertion that by enduring pain the believer makes expiation for his soul; that is, that our temporary sufferings satisfy God’s broken law.
If this be true, what occasion was there for the blood of Jesus. Why the stupendous mystery of man’s redemption? Why the agony in the garden? Why the burden of the cross? Why the hiding of God’s countenance? Why the endurance of the curse in our stead? Such a work was surely needless, a mere mistake on the part of Jesus. The atonement is become a fable, if man’s passing pain can make expiation for his sin.
But, again, if pain is expiation, how is it that hell-fire burns for ever? Was ever suffering so intense as that? Was there ever such a scene of woe and misery, of hatefulness and hopelessness, as that? But does it make expiation for the sinner’s sin? Does it blot out the curse? Does the fire burn out its fuel? “It is the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched.” Yea, verily, if the curse of one single sin could be burned out by ten thousand centuries of pain, hell would be no longer hell, for there would be a faint gleam of far distant hope, shining even upon the miseries of the damned.
There is no expiation then in pain. Believers are chastened, but chastening is not atonement. It is God’s gentle discipline by which he prepares his jewels for his crown; and just as the finest gold is wrought most carefully, so the most precious of God’s children are often chastened most heavily, for “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” There must be a melting of the gold, before it can be separated from the ore; there must be a rending of the root, before the tree can be taken from the wilderness and transplanted into the garden of the Lord. And so it is with believers. There must be a melting of the heart, a humbling of the earthly will, a weaning of soul, that they may cleave to Christ alone. And this is the purpose for which, beloved, we are chastened. He does it for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. Affliction has the same effect that Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace had on the three children in captivity. It could not touch their person, but it burnt the bands that bound them, and enabled them to walk more freely with their Lord. But expiation! That is Christ’s work. “He is the propitiation for our sins,” and if suffering in man could expiate for sin in man, then the suffering of Christ were a waste of blood, a waste of agony, a waste of life, a waste of love.
(2.) And this leads us to our second remark, that the doctrine of expiation through purgatorial fire implies an incompleteness in the atonement of our blessed Lord. If expiation be still needful, then in his atonement there must be something wanting. Nor is this the mere conclusion of a bigoted protestant, it is the bold assertion of the Church of Rome herself. Listen to her canon, “If any man shall say that after the gift of Justification has been received, sin is so remitted to any repentant sinner,” (observe it speaks of justified believers and true penitents) “and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out, that there remains no debt of temporary punishment to be endured either in this world or the world to come in purgatory, before a way can be opened into the kingdom of heaven, let him be Anathema.” [47]
I feel utterly at a loss in attempting to speak on such an awful passage. Can they remember that they are speaking of the atonement wrought by the Son of God? He gave his own most precious life to satisfy the law, and can any portion of the debt remain? He purchased us with the price of his own most precious blood: is farther payment needed? The eternal Redeemer was our ransom: are we not free? The well beloved of the Father endured the curse as our substitute: was his work so ineffectual that the curse still hangs over the very men he came to save? Awful dishonour to the Son of God! Now Rome thou must indeed be Antichrist, for thou dost rob Christ of his glory; thou strivest to tarnish the beauty of his diadem. He says “Behold the Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world.” But thou contradictest Christ and sayest that there is a remnant left to be punished in the believer still. He says “I, even I, am he, that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” But thou sayest that the blot is not effaced, that the sin is still remembered, still punished, even in the child of God. He says “I am the way,” “I am the door; by me if any man enter in he shall be saved.” But thou sayest that the door cannot be opened, except it be through purgatorial pain. He says that he has loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God and the Father. But thou sayest the washing was incomplete, for sin must after all be burned out by fire; that love is still defective, for the saints must yet be punished; the inheritance not fully purchased, for, after all that Christ has done, the justified believer has still to make an expiation for his sin. [49]
No! beloved! we will not for a moment admit the thought of any other expiation, than that wrought out for us by the Lamb of God. And as for our dear departed brethren, nothing that Rome can say shall ever rob us of our delightful hope. They have felt no pain since the day we parted; their sainted spirits have been basking in the sunshine of the countenance of God. I myself have parted with a mother, such a mother that I often wonder if the world can ever more behold her equal: so strong in faith; so ardent in her thirsting after God; so pure in spirit; so sensitive to sin; so beaming in her holy loveliness, that you might almost believe you saw the Father’s name written legibly by the Holy Ghost upon her forehead. To this day do I hear the tones of her dying voice, when in answer to my questions respecting her soul’s peace, she replied “I can reverently say with the deepest humility, ‘Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee.’” And I would rather have this arm torn from its socket, I would rather be scorched and scathed in Moloch’s fire, than I would abandon my firm and fixed persuasion that such love has never been interrupted, that her Redeeming Lord has never left her for a moment; my perfect assurance, that while we were weeping in solemn stillness around her bed of death, she was taking her place amongst the company of palm bearers, and is now standing before the throne, having washed her robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
So also for ourselves! dear brethren! for we too must die; our day is hastening on, our time drawing to its close. A few short years and multitudes amongst us must change their faith for sight, the world of flesh for the world of spirits: a few, short, rapid years, and every one, both you and I, shall find ourselves in heaven or in hell. But let us fear nothing. Only let us be found in Christ, justified through his blood, with our name written in his book of life, and the Father’s name engraven by the Holy Ghost on our forehead, and then neither death or hell can ever prevail to hurt us. In Christ we are safe; washed in his blood we are completely pardoned; clad in his righteousness we are completely justified; and kept in his right hand we are completely and for ever safe.
Only let us be found in Christ. Then the outward man may decay; the poor frame may wax faint and feeble; the eye may become dim, even with the dim fixedness of death: and then, when all earthly power has sunk under exhaustion, the eye will open; a new world will spring up before us; attendant angels will hover around the new-born citizen of heaven; and without tears, or fears, or weakness, we shall behold Christ in the brightness of his glory, and cry aloud in the heartfelt thankfulness of unutterable joy, “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb.”