Is it just or moral to forgive one man his sin because another is sinless? Such a doctrine—the doctrine of Salvation for Christ's sake, and after a life of crime—holds out inducements to sin.
Repentance is only good because it is the precursor of reform. But no repentance can merit pardon, nor atone for wrong. If, having done wrong, I repent, and afterwards do right, that is good. But to be sorry and not to reform is not good.
If I do wrong, my repentance will not cancel that wrong. An act performed is performed for ever.
If I cut a man's hand off, I may repent, and he may pardon me. But neither my remorse nor his forgiveness will make the hand grow again. And if the hand could grow again, the wrong I did would still have been done.
That is a stern morality, but it is moral. Your doctrine of pardon "for Christ's sake" is not moral. God acts unjustly when He pardons for Christ's sake. Christ acts unjustly when He asks that pardon be granted for his sake. If one man injures another, the prerogative of pardon should belong to the injured man. It is for him who suffers to forgive.
If your son injure your daughter, the pardon must come from her. It would not be just for you to say: "He has wronged you, and has made no atonement, but I forgive him." Nor would it be just for you to forgive him because another son of yours was willing to be punished in his stead. Nor would it be just for that other son to come forward, and say to you, and not to his injured sister, "Father, forgive him for my sake."
He who wrongs a fellow-creature wrongs himself as well, and wrongs both for all eternity. Let this awful thought keep us just. It is more moral and more corrective than any trust in the vicarious atonement of a Saviour.
Christ's Atonement, or any other person's atonement, cannot justly be accepted. For the fact that Christ is willing to suffer for another man's sin only counts to the merit of Christ, and does not in any way diminish the offence of the sinner. If I am bad, does it make my offence the less that another man is so much better?
If a just man had two servants, and one of them did wrong, and if the other offered to endure a flogging in expiation of his fault, what would the just man do?
To flog John for the fault of James would be to punish John for being better than James. To forgive James because John had been unjustly flogged would be to assert that because John was good, and because the master had acted unjustly, James the guilty deserved to be forgiven.