Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors

by James Freeman Clarke

Before attempting to demonstrate any theorem, it is important to define its terms. An accurate definition at first of what we wish to prove would often make a long discussion unnecessary. What is meant by the “attribute of punitive justice”? Does it mean that God's nature is such that he causes happiness to flow from goodness, and suffering from wickedness, in the constitution of the [pg 481] universe? If this is meant, Dr. Thompson will find no one to oppose him; for all this can take place in perfect accordance with divine love to the sinner himself. What he needs is suffering: this is the way by which he is to be cured of that sin which is a greater evil than suffering. Or does the author mean, by “punitive justice,” some attribute of the divine nature which finds pleasure in punishing the sinner, without regard to any good which is to come from it, either to him or to any one else? Apparently, this last is what he means; for he goes on to quote from Pagan authorities and Pagan religions, to show that conscience in man requires that the wicked should be punished, without any regard to any good to result from it. But these authorities only show, that, in the one-sided action of man's nature, the sense of justice acts independently of love. What Dr. Thompson has undertaken to show is, that it can act in God in harmony with love. In man, conscience produces hatred of sin, without regard to the good of the sinner; but the divine conscience acts in no such one-sided way. “Mercy and truth meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” The law is vindicated and the sinner benefited at the same moment.

The atonement of Christ, objectively considered, consisted exactly in this, that he showed a perfect reconciliation, in his own life, of God's hatred to sin, and love to the sinner. No one was ever so averse from sin, no one was ever so in sympathy with the sinner, as Jesus. The power of his life, death, and higher life, lay in this union of holiness and love. This was the objective atonement in Christ, and in this he was God manifest in the flesh. He who has seen him has seen the Father. The Christianized conscience, following Christ, pities the sinner, while it abhors the sin. Christian legislation lays aside the vindictive tendencies of natural law, and seeks at the same time to destroy evil, to protect society, and to reform the criminal. From this gospel view our author remands us to Paganism, and to the dicta of the natural conscience in unregenerate man. These testimonies only show, that conscience, in its unregenerate state, demands that the sinner be punished, and does not care whether that punishment does him good or harm, makes him better or worse. But conscience, when Christianized, does care: it wishes to save the sinner, while it punishes the sin. As far as the natural conscience goes, it speaks truly in saying that evil should follow sin. But why it should follow it, [pg 482] and what shall be the result, it does not say. That was left to Christ to reveal.

Dr. Thompson himself bears witness, unconsciously, to the truth of this distinction. Along with his testimonies from the Heathen conscience, he gives us two testimonies from the Christian conscience. The one is his own feelings on seeing a woman carried to the Tombs. He says he felt sympathy for her, and would fain have saved her from that shame, while he wished her crime to be punished. The other is the testimony of Dr. Bushnell, that the “necessary reason” why wicked people, remaining wicked, should not be in heaven, is, that it would destroy the happiness of heaven. These two Christians, therefore, have consciences which do not testify to punishment proceeding from naked, arbitrary, and vindictive law, such as the Pagan conscience accepts, but punishment having a reasonable end, a benevolent purpose, and accompanied with sympathy for the sinner.

Another position of Dr. Thompson is, however, so extraordinary, that it needs more consideration. His fifth proposition is this: “The high and sacred Fatherhood which the gospel reveals is a Fatherhood in Christ towards those who love him, and not a general Fatherhood of indiscriminate love and blessing for the race.”

A certain want of logical clearness in our author's mind appears in the very statement of this proposition. He joins together a positive and a negative, which have no antithetical relation. We entirely agree with him, that the Fatherhood of God is not one of indiscriminate love and blessing for the race; but we utterly reject the proposition, that the Fatherhood which Christ reveals is only one towards those who love him. The apostle John tells us that “we love him because he first loved us.” And again: “Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” The doctrine of the apostle is exactly opposite to that of Dr. Thompson. The modern divine teaches that God only loves those who first love him; but the ancient divine teaches that only by God's loving us first do we come to love him. Nor is this doctrine peculiar to John. It is a fundamental truth of the New Testament, that God's fatherly love, manifested to the soul, creates an answering love, and that nothing else can create it. Jesus said of the woman, “She loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.” God's forgiving love comes first, and creates a grateful love in return. And [pg 483] again we read (John 3:16), “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son.” He therefore loved the world while it was still alienated from him. And again we are told by the Saviour (Matt. 5:44) to “love our enemies, that we may be the children of our Father in heaven,” who loves his enemies.

Possibly our friend may say, “Yes, God loves the sinner; but he does not love him with a fatherly love, but only with a general love.” Perhaps a copy of the New Testament may be used in the Tabernacle Church, New York, which does not contain the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Only on some such supposition can we account for this assertion of Dr. Thompson, that “the high and sacred Fatherhood which the gospel reveals is a Fatherhood in Christ towards those who love him.” Is that “high and sacred Fatherhood of God” revealed anywhere more fully and plainly than in this parable? and does it not teach expressly that the father loved the son, while he was absent, as a son? Is not his joy at the return of his son the evidence of that love which clung to him while he was away? Even after the son returned, he had not begun to love his father as a son: he did not think he had any right to do so. He did not expect that his father would love him again: he only expected to be as a servant. It is evidently, then, utterly false to say that God's Fatherhood, revealed in the gospel, is only a Fatherhood towards those who love him: it is a Fatherhood to those who hate him and to those who fear him. His love creates theirs, and is not created by it. Such a doctrine as this of Dr. Thompson, if generally believed, would sap the foundations of Christian life, and turn the gospel of reconciling grace into a cold system of retribution.

As a proof of this melancholy opinion,—an opinion which takes the life out of the gospel,—the author relies chiefly on that passage in which Jesus says to the Jews that they were of their father the devil. (John 8:44.) From this he argues that they had no right to regard God as Father, and that no one has that right except pious believers in Christ. But was not God at that very moment their Father, in the same way that the father of the prodigal son was his father while he was yet in the far country? The prodigal son could not see his father's love: while absent from him, he could not tell how much his father loved him. Only when he returned, and came back to his father's house, could he behold that blessed countenance and feel that pardoning love. But none the less did his father love him during all that absence; none the less did he desire his return.

When Jesus said to the unbelieving Jews, “Ye are of your father the devil,” was he describing God's state of mind, or their state of mind? Did he mean that God was alienated from them, or that they were alienated from God? He evidently meant to say that they were in a devilish state of mind; that in their character and feelings they partook of the spirit of the devil, and not of the spirit of God. He was describing their position in relation to God, not God's position in relation to them. The text, therefore, appears to have no direct bearing on the subject. It teaches, indeed, that they could have no truly filial feeling towards God; but it does not show that he might not have a truly parental feeling towards them. If they could not truly say, “Abba, Father,” he could say, “My son, give me thy heart.”

We dwell on this because our author seems to us to have assumed a position injurious, if not fatal, to the most vital force of the gospel. That which subdues and converts the heart, and makes all things new in the soul, is not to be told, that God will be our Father when we love him, but that he is our Father now. “Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us.” “God commends his love toward us, that, while we were sinners, Christ died for us.” But why multiply quotations to prove that which is written on the face of the gospel, and to which all Christian experience bears testimony? It is God's love to us, descending in Christ, while we are estranged and far off, which draws up our affection to him: it is not our love which takes the initiative, and draws his down.

The sixth position argues future retribution from the demerit of sin, and asserts that “no punishment equal to the demerit of sin is, or can be, inflicted in the present life.”