“Bad leads to worse, and better tends to best.”
Admit one absurd theory, and it will bring others of the same nature to its support.
The doctrine of the vicarious atonement is the centre of gravity which supports the theory that man is a totally depraved creature. Without the former, the latter will fall down on the ground, and break to pieces, and no one would dare regard himself a wholly depraved being. If I hear that a certain man in my city is an infallible physician to cure consumption, I would not feel afraid to call my slight cough by that fatal name—consumption. It troubles me to know what became of the millions of souls born totally sinners, and who died before the blood of the Lamb had been shed. Is it possible that our good Father filled hell with human creatures, who bloomed in their infancy in the garden of creation,—those simple, pure-minded ones, whom “no murder clothed and no murder fed,”—who spent their lives in doing good?
Perhaps some will tell me that Christ died for all; both those who lived before his appearance on earth, and those who lived after. Here is some trouble again.
If I understand rightly, it is said that the mere fact of Christ’s offering himself, would not wash away our sins. We must believe in him in order to receive the benefit of his dying. If so, then, even to-day, there are millions who have no opportunity to hear of Christ; consequently they cannot believe in him and his gracious atonement. St. Paul writes, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?”
The idea of one man’s suffering, or making atonement for the guilt of others, is a strange one. In the world we do not see examples of it. The man who is guilty before the court suffers. His weeping wife, loving children, and kind parents are not called upon to take his punishment, much as they might wish to do it. I am reminded of a poem in the Ramayona. When the god Rama was coming home, the sea stood before his car, in a human form and thus addressed him: “The ten-headed,—Rabona, the great tyrant King of Sunka, or Ceylon, stole away thy wife, and thou didst erect a bridge over, and chain the sea, to reach his kingdom. O Son of Rhaga, nowhere do I hear of such a strange decision,—that one commits a crime, and another suffers for it.”
The total depravity of man’s nature is a doctrine that is not recognized by Scripture. Of course, there are many places in the Bible where the sins of man have been set forth in dark colors; but that does not imply that he is wholly a sinful creature,—born to be so. There are instances too numerous to mention, both in the Bible and in the annals of the world’s history, of men and women living a life of purity and love.
Let us see what the Scripture says,—that God created man in his own image, is an undeniable fact. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” In what sense is man the image of God? Is he the image of God’s person? No, it cannot be so. If we say that, we become pagans, and give a physical form to God. Now, the safest and most rational way to answer is, to say that he is the image of God’s nature, spirit, and love; because we recognize glimpses of these Godly graces in man, more or less. Here comes a proposition that the image of anything must contain the peculiarity, or some likeness of the original, otherwise it would not be an image. If I wish to draw a picture or make an image of the sun, I cannot make it an oblong, triangular, or square figure, I must make it a circular one; otherwise, people would call me a poor artist, and the image a wretched one,—the image of some fanciful object, but not the Sun. God is infinitely pure, holy, perfect in his nature. How, then, could his image be totally depraved? Again, if man be truly a depraved creature in his very nature, our Master, then, must have uttered some sentimental words when he said,“Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
It is hard for us to understand that the image of unbounded Holiness is totally depraved, and that totally depraved creatures should become perfect as their “Father in heaven.” Let theologians call man a born sinner, yet he is not so. The Great Theologian, who knew human nature well, its capacity, its excellence, bade it “come up higher,” and “be perfect.”