Part 12 (1/2)
It is violent.
It is penal.
It is an appointed punishment: as it is written: ”It is _appointed_ unto men once to die.” ”By _one_ man sin entered into the world, and death _by sin_; and _so_ death _pa.s.sed_ (literally, pa.s.sed _through, pierced_ man;” the seeds of death entered him for himself and all his posterity). When he dies, therefore, be he never so moral and upright, his death is judicial, his taking off is the execution of a criminal.
He is to be raised from the dead as to his body (in the meantime, his soul is ”dragged” downward to the prison of the underworld, where in conscious suffering he awaits the second resurrection and the judgment hour), he will be raised, judged, found guilty and cast forth into the lake of fire (which is the second death), from whence there will be no resurrection of the body (the body will perish in the fire--for an immortal body belongs only to the sons of G.o.d--the partic.i.p.ants in the First Resurrection); then, as a disembodied spirit--a ghost--he will go forth with an inward, deathless worm, and an inward, quenchless fire, to be like ”a wandering star unto whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever,” an exile from G.o.d, outside the orbit of divine grace, love and life--a hopeless, an eternally hopeless--human derelict, upon the measureless sea of night and s.p.a.ce.
That is the Bible picture of the natural man.
Is that the picture the natural man paints of himself?
I trow not!
Man looks upon himself as a son of G.o.d by nature, having in himself all the elements of divinity, and all the forces necessary to shape his life aright. He is proud of himself, and talks of the dignity of human nature. He describes himself in panegyric, magnifies his virtue and minimizes his vice.
He flatters himself in his own eyes.
The two concepts--that of the Bible and that of the natural man--are as far apart from each other as the heavens are from the earth.
To man, the Bible concept is false, belittling, wholly disastrous and degrading, the death knell to any possible inspiration for human effort and attainment. It is a concept against which he revolts with all the nature in him, and hates with an exceeding great hatred.
In the very nature of the case, then, the Bible concept of man is not due to man; it is not such a concept that he _would_ write if he _could_.
The picture which the Bible paints of sin is not such a picture as the natural man has ever painted.
The Bible declares that sin is something more than fever or disease or weakness, it is high treason against Jehovah, it is a blow at his integrity, a rebellion against his government, a discord to his being and a movement whose final tendency would be to dislodge him from his throne.
The Bible hates sin and has no mercy for it.
The very leaves of the book seem to curl and grow crisp under the fire of its hatred. So fearful is its denunciation that the sinner s.h.i.+vers and hastens to turn away from a book whose lightest denunciation of sin has in it the menace of eternal judgment. Like a great fiery eye it looks into the very recesses of the heart and reveals its intents and purposes. It sees l.u.s.t hiding there in all its lecherous deformity and says, he who exercises it solely in his mind is as guilty in G.o.d's sight as though he had committed the act.
It looks into the heart and sees hate crouching there with its tiger-like fangs and readiness to spring, and says that he who hates his brother is already a murderer.
The Bible has no forgiveness for sin until it has been fully and fearfully punished. In this it simply echoes the law stamped and steeped in nature. Nature never forgives its violated law until it has punished it. The Bible demands satisfaction, complete and absolute, before it offers even the hint of forgiveness. It takes the guilty sinner to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and shows him G.o.d's hatred of sin to be so great, that the moment his holy and spotless Son representatively takes the sinner's place, he smites him and pours out upon him a tidal sweep of wrath in a terror of relentless judgment and indignation so immense, that the earth quivers like an aspen, rocks to and fro, reels in its...o...b..t till the sun of day refuses to s.h.i.+ne, and the moon of night hangs in the startled heavens like a great clot of human blood.
The Bible declares that forgiveness of sin can come to the sinner only by way of the anguish and punishment of the cross; and that no sinner can be forgiven till he has accepted the downpour of the wrath of G.o.d on the cross and the subst.i.tutional agony of the Son of G.o.d as the punishment he himself so justly deserves.
The Bible teaches that in the awful cry, ”My G.o.d, my G.o.d, why hast thou forsaken me?” the sinner should hear the echo of his own agony, as of one forsaken of G.o.d and swept out of his presence forever; and that the only ground of approach to this righteous G.o.d is the atoning blood of his crucified Son; that he who would approach G.o.d, find forgiveness and justification, must claim that crucified Son of G.o.d as his sin-offering, his vicarious sacrifice, his personal subst.i.tute. By the h.e.l.l of the cross alone can he find the heaven of forgiveness and peace.
Is this man's att.i.tude to, and definition of, forgiveness and peace?
It is not.
Man does not hate sin. He loves it. He rolls it as a sweet morsel under his tongue. He condones it in its worst form. To him it is genital weakness or an overplus of animal life--an exuberance of the spirit. It is a racial inheritance and not an individual fault. It is temperamental and not criminal.
The Bible concept and the natural concept of sin contradict each other; both, therefore, cannot have the same author.
The Bible concept of holiness is not the concept of the natural man.
In the Bible, holiness is not goodness and kindness, nor even morality. Holiness as the Bible sets it before us is the correspondence of the soul with G.o.d, the soul reflecting the intent, desire and innermost character of G.o.d; so that, were G.o.d to enter into the soul, he should find himself as much at home as upon his own exalted throne.