The Doctrine of the Atonement Emmoral. A SERMON, PREACHED AT ST. GEORGE'S HALL, LANGHAM REV. CHARLES VOYSEY. PSALM CXLV. 17.-" The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works." M FTER the arguments used last Sunday in exposing the fallacy of the Revivalists' Gospel, it might seem altogether superfluous to treat of the doctrine of the Atonement by itself. The very attempt to adduce minor reasons for rejecting it, after shewing that it is manifestly based on a falsehood, reminds one of the barrister who had nine reasons for the non-appearance of his client, the first of which was that the man was dead. But the two cases are not quite parallel; for the doctrine of the atonement though logically standing or falling with the doctrine of endless torment, is nevertheless still heartily believed by many Christians who have renounced the belief that any of our race will be finally and hopelessly dammed. Adopting one of the Pauline texts, they say, "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." atonement has thus for them a new and increased value, since they have been able to see in it a promise of universal The Rev. C. Voysey's sermons are to be obtained at St. George's Hall, every Sunday morning, or from the Author (by post), Camden House, Dulwich, S.E. Price one penny, postage a halfpenny. salvation. Still, for them there must ever stand, as the first and most cogent answer to the doctrine that could be given, the entire falseness of the assumption that mankind ever needed an atonement at all: that the belief, however by comparison lovely and consoling, is utterly needless and groundless; and that in the orthodox sense of the terms, men want neither Salvation nor a Saviour. Into this argument I need not again now enter. I will assume, for the sake of reasoning, that the sins of mankind deserve the awful penalty of hell-fire, from which it is said that the death of Christ on the cross delivered them. I will then endeavour to show that the doctrine of the atonement is unworthy of belief. I. Because it is condemned by the axiom I laid down last Sunday, viz. That every proposition must be false which declares, or implies, that God is unjust. 2. Because, when tested by any principle of just retribution, the atonement was utterly inadequate to the end in view. 3. Because, in so far as it is realised as the exponent of God's mind and character, it must have an immoral effect on the mind and character of man. 4. Because it frightfully exaggerates the guilt of sin, it over-shoots the mark, and actually weakens the sense of human responsibility. 5. Because it presents a false aspect of punishment, or the consequences of sin; for it hinders men from receiving the full moral benefit which they would otherwise derive, if their attention were fixed on the real aspect of punishment and on the actual consequences of sin. There are other grounds besides these on which we might urge that the Doctrine of the Atonement is an immoral doctrine, and therefore unworthy of belief; but these five reasons are more than enough for the time at our disposal, and for proving the point before us. 1. First, we have to consider the atonement as declaring or implying that God is unjust. To assume that the sins of mankind deserved the penalty of endless torment in hell, is equivalent to saying that strict justice demanded this awful penalty. It is most necessary to bear this in mind, owing to the slipperiness of our orthodox antagonists when their own assertions are brought home to them. If they affirm, as they do without scruple, that the sentence of eternal torment was pronounced by God Himself against Adam and his race, then they must be made to say whether it was just or unjust-right or wrong-and they will be driven to say it was just and right on God's part so to sentence mankind. When we press them with the obvious inference that we men ought to try to imitiate God's justice and righteousness in all things according to the old text, "Be ye holy, for I am holy," and ask them whether it would be right in men to treat their rebellious creatures in the same awful way; they at once try to escape by saying that God may do what he pleases, and is above all law; that what is just and right for God to do would not be always just or right in man. Thus, according to their own showing, God in dealing with His creatures acts in a way which, if imitated by man, would be unjust and unrighteous. There is no escaping this awkward conclusion; and the Christian apologists must do one of two things:-Either give up talking of God's justice in the condemnation of sinners to eternal woe, and henceforth say that he is not good enough to be an example for us men to follow; or admit that the sentence cannot be justified on any known and recognised principles of equity, and is therefore untrue. Now in applying this test to the vicarious sufferings of Christ on the cross, as commonly set forth by orthodox Christians, we say it was utterly unfair and unjust to punish the innocent for the guilty. Even supposing Jesus Christ to have been perfectly willing to bear the weight of man's punishment, God ought never to have permitted such an outrage upon the eternal laws of right and justice. The outrage was two-fold. If the penalty was just, it ought not to have been by any means evaded; and whether the penalty was just or not, the infliction of it upon an entirely innocent being was contrary to every principle of right and equity. The nobler the self-sacrifice of the victim, the deeper seem the baseness and unrighteousness of that. Being whose anger was appeased by it. We may be met here by the plea that vicarious suffering is written on every page of human life; that the innocent are perpetually suffering for the guilty; the fathers for the children, and the children for the fathers, and so on in every possible relationship; and therefore the atonement was at least not more unjust than what we observe to be the actual course of nature. To this we reply, a parallel does not exist between the two cases. In the case of vicarious suffering among men a sin committed, like every other action, has its own inevitable consequences in the infliction of some pain and injury on the innocent who may be within the circle of its operation. Sin, in fact, is sin because it injures other people, and in the nature of things this sequence is inevitable; but in the case of the atonement, as it is presented to us in the Gospel, the falling of the penalty of man's sin on Christ is altogether artificial and arbitrary. There was no natural connexion between our sins and his woe on Calvary. It is presented as a made-up contract between two parties infinitely remote from the scene of our transgressions and entirely isolated from the reach of their noxious influence. It is one thing, e.g., if all my family are made unhappy by the disgraceful conduct of one of its members; it is quite another thing if, when that misconduct occurs, I were to flog an innocent child for the offence committed by a guilty one. There are many and good grounds on which natural vicarious suffering can be shown to be both just and kind as a dispensation of Providence, while there is not one ground which can be safely urged to justify the iniquity of the arrangement said to be accepted by God in lieu of man's eternal damnation. If any doubt remained, one has only to conceive an exact imaginary copy of the transaction on the part of a human father, in order at once to see its horrible injustice and cruelty. If then, it was unjust in God to accept the atonement of Christ, or to inflict upon him the punishment due to the guilty, it cannot be true. 2. Secondly, we have to consider the proposition that when tested by any principles of just retribution, the atonement was utterly inadequate to the end in view. This is a more important point than we might at first be inclined to think. Of course if God were at liberty to act in any way He chose without reference to justice or injustice, He might have pardoned all mankind without inflicting any penalty upon any one, innocent or guilty; or He might have accepted some trifling penance from His Son Jesus in heaven without the supposed toil and humiliation and suffering of the life on earth and the death on Calvary; but inasmuch as this atonement is defended by an elaborate display of arguments to prove its absolute justice; as the sermons of Gospel-preachers are always harping upon the text "that God might be just and yet the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus;" and as the reconciliation of God's perfect holiness with His perfect. love is dwelt upon as the strongest evidence to win the assent of the trembling sinner, it is well to point out how absurdly inadequate must have been the pains of Jesus to weigh in the scales of justice against the everlasting torments of the damned. How such a preposterous notion ever took root is indeed simply astounding! One can only account for it upou the ground that the inventors of the theory had lost their powers of reasoning and were simply at the mercy of an over-heated imagination. for a debt is the exact If £10 were owing, you The only equivalent in justice amount due-no more and no less. cannot say the debt is paid when a kind person has paid ten pence on the debtor's behalf, which the creditor has been pleased to accept. The debt of £10 is not paid with ten pence; and it would be irrational to call the ten pence a just equivalent for the ten pounds. The only rational way in which to describe the transaction is to say that the creditor allowed his kindness to over-ride his sense of justice-justice being in such a case very properly defeated for the sake of the exercise of the nobler sentiment of generosity. But in what metaphor is it possible to describe the awful inequality between the sentence of doom against even a single lost soul and the sufferings and death of Jesus, which we are over and over again assured were the exact equivalent for the eternal damnation of all mankind, and absolutely satisfied the claims of Divine justice. Surely nothing less than the eternal torment of Christ himself in hell-fire would have been a just equivalent for the eternal torment of but one lost soul. How then could even that fearful and infinite woe avail to redeem the millions on millions of a lost world? |