Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors

by James Freeman Clarke

(b.) To say that repentance and good works are enough, will not remove it.

(c.) To say that God is merciful, will not remove it; for the difficulty lies in the conscience, which declares that every sin is,—

1. An injury done to God.

2. An injury to the moral universe; inasmuch as it is an example of evil, and a defiance of right.

3. An injury to ourselves, by putting us away from God, the source of life, and alienating us from him.

Now, it is true that the New Testament says, “Repent, and be converted, and your sins shall be blotted out;” “Believe, and be saved.” It is true that if we will believe ourselves forgiven, we shall be forgiven. But how can we believe it, when the inward voice of conscience is always saying that God ought not to forgive us without some reparation made for the injury done to himself, to the universe, and to ourselves?

We need something to believe in—some manifestation, some object. Something we need done by God to assure us [pg 249] that he is in earnest in desiring us to come and be reconciled to him.

Now, the sufferings and death of Christ seem to be this object: they enable us to believe in forgiveness, and so to be forgiven; they meet the difficulty of the conscience, and relieve it of its threefold embarrassment. For, in regard to the injury done to God, Christ's sufferings are substitution, or vicarious suffering. I do not say vicarious punishment. The innocent cannot be punished in the place of the guilty; but he can suffer, and constantly does suffer, in the place of the guilty. These two laws are announced in the Old Testament: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die;” “The wickedness of parents shall be on the children.” If a man is alone, he must bear all the consequences of his sins; but if he have friends and children, they will relieve him of some by their self-sacrificing kindness: their sufferings take the place of his punishment. How often a wife does this!—interposing her sufferings between her husband's sins and their penalty. And what a profound impression is made by it of the evil of sin! It torments innocent women and children; it shipwrecks the peace of a family. What an effect is produced on the man himself! What a reproach and tender rebuke to him is this! The sufferings of Christ are substituted in this way for ours, according to this law; and this divine substitution is continued in the sacrifices of Christians. Missionaries and martyrs, by their zeal, patience, and generosity, carry out the sacrifice of Christ. This is God in Christ working in us and in the Church, and working for sinners.

Then, as to the injury to the world by the contempt sin does to the law, the sufferings of Christ are satisfaction: they satisfy the divine law; they make an impression of the importance of the law. But here, again, it is not merely Christ alone who does it, but God in Christ, and Christ in the Church, who honor the divine law by the respect produced [pg 250] for it. They bring us to repentance; they make us feel the sinfulness of sin; show us the misery it causes to those who love us,—how it pains God, pains Christ, pains the good, and pains our friends. So we feel it, and show it by true penitence, and so honor the law. The law is satisfied when the sufferings of Christ and his followers, caused by sin, lead men to abhor sin, and love righteousness.

As to the injury which sin does to a man himself by separating him from God's love, and making him at enmity with God, and God's wrath on him, the sufferings of Christ are reconciliation. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” Why was God alienated from man? Because he is holy. How can an unholy person be at one with a holy God? The answer is this: God comes into his heart by Christ, to form Christ within him, and to make him holy as Christ was holy. He sees that when united with Christ his sinfulness is killed in its roots, and a seed of perfect purity is planted in his soul; and so God is able to be at one with him through his union with Christ: “I in them, and thou in me, that we may be perfectly at one.” A love for Christ in the heart forms Christ within us. He is our life, our motive power, our aim; and so he casts out the root of our sin, and brings us to God.