Part 64

II. All mankind have broken the law of God. _There is none righteous; no, not one_; Rom. iii. 10. By sinning against God, we have lost all pretence to the reward of life, and immortality, and glory; Rom. iii. 23. _All have sinned and come short of the glory of God._ And we have also subjected ourselves to guilt and punishment; verse 19. _Every mouth is stopped, and all the world becomes guilty before God._ A sentence of wrath and death is _passed upon all men, for that all have sinned_; Rom. v. 12. and the best of saints were by nature _dead in trespasses and sins, and the children of wrath even as others_; Eph. ii. 1-3.

III. God in His infinite wisdom did not think fit to pardon sinful man, without some compensation for his broken law, some recompence for the dishonour done to his government. He did not see it proper to forgive all our guilt without some satisfaction for breaking his holy commands. I will not enter into that curious enquiry, whether God, considered absolutely as a sovereign, could have done it. It is enough for us that he hath, in effect, declared he would not do it, and that probably for such reasons as these:

1. If the Great Ruler of the world had pardoned the sins of men without any satisfaction, then his laws might have seemed not worth the vindicating. It might have been questioned, whether his statutes were so wisely contrived and framed, as to deserve a vindication, if he had freely forgiven all rebels that had broken them, without any consideration, without any satisfaction at all. It becomes a wise lawgiver to see that his wisdom in framing his laws, be not exposed to dishonour; and therefore his laws must be vindicated, when they are broken.

2. Men would have been tempted to persist in their rebellions, and to repeat their old offences continually, if there had been no vindication of the honour of the law, nor any of the threatenings of it had been executed. Therefore God requires a satisfaction for his broken commands, that his subjects might be kept in due obedience, by an awful fear of his governing justice. And it is on this account, _viz._ to deter and fright men from sinning, and breaking his laws, he hath given them an account in what a severe and terrible manner he dealt with _angels that sinned, he spared them not_; 2 Pet. ii. 4. _but delivered them to chains of darkness until the judgment of the great day_; Jude 6.

3. His forms of government among his creatures, might have appeared as a matter of small importance: His threatenings might have been counted a trifling and useless formality, and mere vain terrors, if he had given laws, and took no care whether they were obeyed or no: and if he let those creatures that broke them come off, without any tokens of his displeasure, without any reparation of the honour due to his law and government: Let not sinners deceive themselves with vain hopes, and dress up the great God in their own imaginations, as a being of mere mercy, as an Almighty Creator, that keeps no discipline or authority among his creatures; Gal. vi. 7. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked; He that soweth to the flesh shall reap destruction.”

4. God had a mind to make a very illustrious display, both of his justice and of his grace among mankind, which should be the solemn spectacle and the wonder of other worlds besides this, even the world of angels, principalities and powers; and therefore he hath designed his grace and his justice should mutually set forth each other, in his transactions with sinful man: On this account he would not pardon sin, without a satisfaction; but he thought fit to require and demand that sin be punished, and that the honour of the law be repaired to the full, that his justice might shine in full glory: And at the same time, in order to display his rich mercy, he would find out a way to save multitudes of these rebellious creatures.

These, and other reasons, infinitely superior to all our thoughts, might be in the divine mind, why God would not pardon sinners without a satisfaction.

IV. Man, poor sinful man, is not able to make any satisfaction to God for his own sins, by his utmost labours of future obedience: For all that he can do for time to come, is but mere necessary duty, if he had not sinned at all; and therefore this can never make any recompence to the governing justice of God, for his past transgressions.

It is a most strange vain doctrine of the papists, that some persons are such great saints, that they do works of heroic virtue beyond what they are required to do; and these they call works of supererogation, whereby they can merit some favours at the hands of God, not only for themselves, but for their neighbours too. Strange doctrine indeed, made up of folly, pride, and absurdity! Our best services are so much due to God, that if any man could practise complete righteousness, and fulfil the law of God constantly through all his life, it would not make amends for one past offence, nor merit any favour of God for a criminal creature.

But, alas! man is so far from being able to fulfil perfect righteousness for time to come, that in this fallen state, he can do nothing that is truly good: he broke the law of God in days past, and he goes on to break it daily and hourly. His understanding is grown so dark, his will so perverse, and his affections and appetites so corrupt and vicious, by his departure from God, that he cannot answer the present demands of duty; much less can he bring an offering of righteousness to atone for past iniquities. “We are by nature dead in trespasses and sins.”

V. Neither can this guilty, wretched creature man, make any satisfaction to the broken law of God by his sufferings, any more than by his doings. For the penalty of the law is tribulation and anguish of soul and body, the wrath of God and death: and how far this dreadful sentence reaches, what miseries are implied in it, and how long the execution of it must continue, who can tell? This we know, that God himself, who sees the full evil, and complete desert or demerit of sin, hath, in some places of scripture, threatened eternal punishment of sinners.

And if we may venture to judge concerning the greatness of the guilt, and demerit of our offences against God, by the same rules, by which reason teaches us to judge of the guilt and demerit of an offence against our fellow-creatures, we must say the guilt of sin is infinite; and therefore the punishment due to a sinning creature is everlasting, because he cannot any other way sustain punishment equal to his infinite demerit of sin. Among men the crime is always aggravated in proportion to the person, against whom it is committed: Therefore any offence against a father, or a king, has much more guilt in it, and is more severely punished, than the same offence committed against an inferior, or an equal. An attempt upon the life of a neighbour, is punished With imprisonment or a fine: But an attempt made on the life of a king deserves death.

Now the great God our Creator, being a king of infinite glory and majesty, infinitely superior to his creature man, every offence against this God, has a sort of infinity in it[34]: And God may demand satisfaction equal to the offence, that is infinite, which poor sinful man can never pay, so as to out-live the payment. On this account, he is exposed to the execution of the sentence of God for ever: His punishment has no end. Perhaps this will be counted an old-fashioned argument, and not so generally received in our day, as it was in the days of our fathers: Therefore I have examined it afresh with all the skill I have, and having surveyed the objections which are raised against it, I think they are not hard to be answered: And, after all, so far as I can judge in a may of reasoning upon what scripture has revealed, this argument seems to have weight and strength in it still.

Were it not for the supposition of the infinite guilt and demerit of sin, I do not so plainly see the justice or equity of God in preparing everlasting chains of darkness, and eternal fire, for the devil and his angels, as a proper punishment due to their first act of rebellion against him, and because they _kept not their own first estate_[35]; Jude 6. Nor indeed do I see such evident reason, why sinners among men should be threatened with eternal punishments, and punished with everlasting destruction, as a legal penalty due to past sins; Mat. xxv. 46. and 2 Thess. i. 9. which sins were done perhaps in a few days or hours, unless upon a supposition that all offences committed against the infinite majesty of God, have a sort of infinite demerit in them.

I beg leave to add this one thought more, and that is, if sin has not a sort of infinite demerit in it, I cannot see why man himself, by some years of penal sufferings, might not make full atonement for his own sins: But the language and current of scripture seems to represent sinful man as for ever lost to all hope in himself, and then the necessity of a Mediator appears with evidence and glory.

VI. Though man be incapable to satisfy for his own violation of the law, either by his obedience or his punishment, and so to restore himself to the favour of God, yet God would not suffer all mankind to perish. Therefore out of his abundant mercy, he appointed his own Son to undertake this work. His own, his only begotten Son, who is the brightness of his Father’s glory, and who lay in the bosom of the Father before all worlds, his Son who was one with the Father, by a communion of the godhead, and who is himself, on this account, called God over all, blessed for ever; this well-beloved Son of God is ordained and appointed to be the great Reconciler between God and man.

VII. Because God intended to make a full display of the terrors of his justice, and his divine resentment for the violation of his law; therefore he appointed his own Son to satisfy for the breach of it, by becoming a proper sacrifice of expiation or atonement: Now, both among Jews and heathens, the original notion and design of an expiatory sacrifice, is, when some other creature or person is put in the room or place of the transgressor, and the punishment or pain due to the transgressor is transferred to that other person or creature. Therefore beasts were slain for the offences of men, who were supposed to deserve death. And when any person became a surety for a city or nation that was defiled with sin, among the heathens, that person was substituted in their room, and so devoted to death. So the Son of God became a surety for sinful men: It pleased the Father to make him their sacrifice, and substituted him in their stead: God ordained that he should put himself into their circumstances, as far as was possible, with a due condescendency to his superior character, and that he should sustain, as near as possible, the very same pains and penalties which sinful man had incurred. Since tribulation and anguish of soul and body, a sense of the wrath of God, and death, were the appointed penalties of the sin of man; therefore he determined that his own Son should pass through all these: And since the law curses all that continue not in all the commands of it, therefore Christ _was made a curse for us, that he might redeem us from the curse of the law_; Gal. iii. 10-13. Hereby he gave a most awful and sensible demonstration to this visible world of mankind, and perhaps, much more to the invisible world of angels and devils, how dreadful a thing it is to break the law of a God, what infinite evil is contained in sin, and at what a terrible rate it must be expiated and atoned for.

VIII. The Son of God being immortal, could not sustain all these penalties of the law which man had broken, without taking the mortal nature of man upon him, without assuming flesh and blood: Thus his incarnation was necessary, that he might be a more proper surety, substitute, and representative of man who had sinned; and that he might be capable of suffering pain, and anguish, and death itself, in the room and stead of sinful men. It was because the _children who were_ given to Christ; Heb. ii. 13, 14. because these _children were partakers of flesh and blood, therefore he himself also took part of the same, that through death he might redeem them_, that by his own dying he might make atonement for their sins; Heb. x. 5. _Sacrifice and offering_ of beasts, thou wouldst not accept as equivalent for the sins of men: _But a body hast thou prepared me_, saith our Lord, _that men might be redeemed by the offering the body of Christ, once for all_; ver. 10.

It was in the prospect of the Son of God becoming man, by taking flesh and blood upon him, that God spake thus to David; Ps. lxxxix. 19. “I have exalted one chosen out of the people; that is, out of mankind: I have laid help upon one that is mighty: And when he was found in fashion as a man;” Phil. ii. 10. God laid on him the iniquities of us all by imputation; Is. liii. 5, 6. even as the sins, and iniquities, and trespasses of the children of Israel were laid on the head of the goat of old, by the confession and hand of Aaron; Lev. xvi. 21.

When the guilt was thus transferred to him, as far as it was possible for the Son of God to sustain it, he then became liable to punishment; and indeed that seems to me to be the truest and justest idea of transferred or imputed guilt, _viz._ when a surety is accepted to suffer in the room of the offender, then the pain or penalty is due to him by consent: And as this is the true original and foundation of expiatory sacrifices, as I have shewn before, so this seems to be the foundation of that particular manner, wherein scripture teaches us this doctrine: “He that knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him;” 2 Cor. v. 21. “His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree;” 1 Pet. ii. 24. “The chastisement or punishment of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed;” Is. liii. 5. And in many other places of scripture we read the same sort of language. This doctrine is supported with great strength, by the most learned and pious Dr. Owen, in his short treatise of the satisfaction of Christ.

Upon this account, though God the Father was never truly angry with his beloved Son, yet it pleased the Father to bruise him, when he stood in the room of guilty creatures. The Father himself put him to grief, and made his soul an offering for sin; Is. liii. 10. Then the Son of God began to be sore amazed, and very heavy at the approaching deluge of this sorrow; Mark xiv. 33. The Father forsook him for a season, withdrew his comfortable influences, and gave him some such exquisite sight and sense of that indignation and wrath that was due to sin, as filled his holy soul with anguish, “his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death;” Mat. xxvi. 38. While his body sweat drops of blood in the garden: And at last he poured out his soul to death, and “gave his life a ransom for many: he reconciled us to God by the blood of his cross;” Col. i. 20.

Though we allow the human nature of Christ to be the highest, the noblest, and best of creatures, and in that sense might be worth ten thousand of us: yet if sin has an infinite evil in it, then no mere creature, by all his sufferings, could make complete and equal satisfaction for sin: But when the Son of God, who is one with the Father, takes flesh and blood upon him, and becomes God manifest in the flesh, here God and man are united in one complex person, and hereby we enjoy an all-sufficient Saviour, a Reconciler beyond all exception, a Sacrifice of atonement, equal to the guilt of our transgressions. And so far as I can judge, it is on this account one apostle says; Acts xx. 28. “God redeemed the church with his own blood; and another asserts, Hereby perceive we the love of God, that he laid down his life for us;” 1 John iii. 16.

And I do not yet see sufficient reason why that expression of St. Paul; Heb. ix. 14. may not be referred to the same sense. “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience, &c.” If the eternal Spirit signify the divine nature or godhead, which dwelt bodily in the man Jesus, then the dignity of his complete person is made the foundation of the value of his blood. This dignity of the godhead which was personally united to the man who suffered, spreads an infinite value over his sufferings and merit: And this renders them equal to that infinite guilt and demerit of sin, which would have extended the punishment of man to everlasting ages. The infinite dignity of the person suffering, answers to the infinite dignity of the person offended, and so takes away the necessity of the everlasting duration of it.

Thus our blessed Mediator, the man Jesus Christ, in whom dwells all the fulness of the godhead bodily, fulfilled the righteous demands of the law, and suffered the penalties due to our sins. He magnified his Father’s law in this manner, and made it honourable, beyond what all the sons of Adam could do by their utmost sufferings. Thus the justice of God shines most gloriously in the sufferings of his Son Jesus Christ: Thus the great God vindicated his own character, as a wise and righteous law-giver, before the face of men and angels, in the anguish and death of his own Son: He gave a most awful and formidable assurance, that he was not a God to be trifled with, and that the sin of his creatures should not go unpunished. He that spared not his own Son, when he stood in the room of sinners, will never spare guilty rebels that persist in their rebellions. Thus far we see how Christ became a sacrifice of atonement.

IX. God, the great Ruler of the world, having received such ample satisfaction for sin, by the sufferings of his own Son, can honourably forgive his creature man, who was the transgressor. There is so glorious a reparation made to the honour of his righteous and broken law, that he can pardon sinners without dishonour to himself, and his government. He can glorify his justice and his mercy, at once, in a most exuberant and illustrious manner, since his own Son has become a priest of atonement, and offered up himself as a sacrifice, to make _propitiation for sin_: _He can declare his righteousness, though he passes by a thousand offences that are past, and can shew himself, just to his own law and government, at the same time that he forgives millions of sins; and is a justifier of him who believeth in Jesus_; Rom. iii. 25, 26.

X. I might add in the last place, since my text intimates it, that as the great God in his eternal counsels, appointed his Son Jesus Christ to undertake this difficult and glorious work, for the salvation of sinful men, so in the days of the gospel he has, in the most plain and explicit manner, offered this reconciliation to sinners who return to God by the mediation of Jesus Christ: He has proposed peace to those who are sincerely desirous to be reconciled to God, and to have all enmity done away on both sides; to those who trust in the virtue of the blood of Christ, as the foundation of this divine peace between God and them, or in the language of my text, to those who have faith in his blood.

But let it be remembered, that this desire to be reconciled, must proceed from a painful sense of sin, that makes a separation between God and the soul: This implies sincere repentance in the nature of it. It must be such a faith in Jesus and his sacrifice, as works powerfully by holy love, and produces all the good fruits of religion in the heart and life. All faith is useless to attain peace with God, unless it carries in it the springs and seeds of love and holiness. Though we are justified by faith, yet it must not be a mere bold presumption, but a living faith, which will appear in its fruits.

Thus I have endeavoured to perform the first thing I proposed, and that was to shew in what manner I conceive of the Son of God becoming an atonement for the sins of men. Far be it from me, to imagine that every one must believe these things just after the same order, and in the same manner in which I have learned to conceive of them: Several learned and pious men have explained the manner of this atonement in another way: But they agree in the doctrine of a proper satisfaction for sin. Different persons behold the representation of these great and important things of christianity in different lights: And though, according to my measure of knowledge in the scripture, this manner of conception of the atonement of Christ seems most agreeable to the word of God, yet, I am fully persuaded, God has never made salvation to depend upon a nice exactness of sentiment about the mere order of ranging these divine discoveries, or about the precise logical relations of the sufferings of Christ, to our sins, or to our pardon. Whosoever sincerely confesses and repents of sin, and trusts in the all-sufficient atonement and sacrifice of Christ, to remove the guilt of it, has abundant assurance from scripture, that the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse him from all sin, and that the Son of God has been, and will be his High-priest, to reconcile him to God the Father.