Chapter 4
What about the Penalty for
Sin?
Someone
will say, "Well what about the penalty for sin?" Jesus is the Savior
because He bore the just penalty for sin. "Because Christ also suffered
for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to
God" (1 Peter 3:18). "Him Who knew no sin He made to be sin on our
behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2
Cor.5:21). "Who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree, that
we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by Whose stripes ye
were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). "And He is the propitiation for our
sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (1 John
2:2).
Paul insists that Christ's death on the cross as a propitiation for sin
manifests the righteous judgment of God upon sin. "Whom God set forth to
be a propitiation, through faith in His blood, to show His righteousness
because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of
God" (Rom.3:25). That is, for thousands of years God did not deal
adequately and completely with sin--He "passed it over." He did not
deal with mankind on the "cash basis," where full payment is required
immediately on each transaction; but He dealt with the race on the "credit
basis," under which method payment in full is expected at a later date.
Now when God made Him "to be sin on our behalf" (2 Cor.5:21),
and "laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa.-53:6), Paul insists
that God dealt fully and righteously with human sin in all its aspects.
Accordingly, whatever debt, or price, or judgment, or penalty should have been
met (call it by any word you choose), He exacted in full from His own Beloved
Son. "In Jesus, God is dealing with the whole sin of the whole universe in
holy love, in righteous judgment, and in redeeming grace." Recognizing
this great fact, our Lord, hanging upon the cross, and ready to give up His
spirit, spoke the word that, in His day, was regularly written across every
receipted bill, "Tetelestai," "Paid in full" (John 19:30;
lit., "It is accomplished"). Christ on the cross demonstrates the
love of God as nothing else ever did or can yet He did more. The holy Son of
mankind was making complete amends to the holy and righteous throne of God.
But notice carefully what price He paid. If the just and ultimate
penalty for sin is eternal torment, then Jesus can never be the Savior
of anyone! Because He is not being eternally tormented. Again, if
the just and ultimate penalty for sin is extermination, then Jesus can never be
the Savior of anyone! But He was not exterminated. Instead, He died for
all; and, He is now in the glory as our advocate!
There are a lot of false ideas about God! John said in 1 John 5:21,
""LITTLE CHILDREN, keep yourselves from idols" (i.e., false
gods, or false ideas of the true God). The most important aspect of the three
proposed doctrines regarding the fate of the wicked is not what their
consequences might be in relation to the wicked but what their consequences
would be in relation to God. The most important thinking in the world is the
thinking men do about God. True ideas of God lead to nobility of life; false
ideas of God lead to the opposite and theology and philosophy mold the life of
the world. For example, a leading factor in the attitudes and beliefs that led
to World War I was the adoption by some of the philosophy of Nietzsche.
Similarly, as in so many lands, it is belief in idols that makes an idolatrous
people. This is so even as it is also true that a Catholic theology makes a
Catholic land and a Protestant theology makes a Protestant land.
Do we have false ideas about God? I fear we do. We say that God is all
wise and all powerful and then turn around and deny it. We say that God is all
loving and then turn around and deny it. We read John 1:1-14, and say that the
Creative Word of God and the Redemptive Word of God are the same but then turn
around and deny it. "God as Creator and God as Redeemer and the God Who acts through
the order of nature and the God Who acts through the order of grace, God in the
law, and God in the gospel are all the one and the same God!" (Edwin
Lewis, in "Philosophy of Christian Revelation"). If only we held true
to such beautiful teaching! Let us look a bit more carefully at our teaching. Though we may
formally affirm that God is all wise and all powerful, we do indeed turn around
and deny this when we fail to unreservedly accept such glorious declarations
as, "Is My hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no
power to deliver? Behold, at My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a
wilderness" (Isa.50:2). "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your
transgressions, and as a cloud, your sins: return unto Me; for I have redeemed
thee" (Isa.44:22). Folks who claim that they are true to the Bible, may indeed affirm that
the Word Who creates, and the Word Who redeems are the same Word of God but
they effectually deny this very affirmation by their attitude toward the
question of ultimate salvation for all men. They have an infinite Creator but a
very little Redeemer. Their Christ is a comparatively helpless and puny Savior
Who is going to lose most of those for Whom He died. He can pay the price for
the sins of the whole world but the stubborn will of man makes it ineffective.
Man's will is mightier than God's will. God is infinite to create yet powerless
to redeem. Again, we say that God is love and then turn around and deny it. We
confidently affirm that God is going to do to His rebellious children what we
would imprison or hang an earthly father for doing to his children. We really
make God less than human. Let me quote again from Ferre in "The Christian
Fellowship": "We of the liberal tradition are still too
empirical in attitude, however, to define love in terms of a historical
revelation which can make love punish eternally the children of its own
creation. God's love to us must at least be as good as the best love we know
and we believe much better. Punishment and hell must be the decree of God's
love. It must be purposive, not [merely] punitive, in nature. If the Christian
love be sufficiently wise and strong, heaven can be heaven only when it has
emptied hell." Even so, beautiful as that idea may seem, some of us could not accept
it merely on the basis of human philosophy. Unless we can find the truth
revealed in God's Holy Word we would still have to reject it. Another factor in our problem is God's relationship to the introduction
of evil and sin into the universe. Some of the theological contortions men go
through in order to relieve God of all responsibility in that field are
pitiful. They are not explanations but evasions. We do not have room here for an extended discussion of
such a subject but a few observations may be in order. Over and over, in different ways, the truth declared in Acts 15:18;
"Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world" is
affirmed. God knew sin would enter His creation. He made preparation for it
ahead of time. The first Christian sermon declares of Jesus, "Him, being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain" (Acts 2:23). If God knew
about it ahead of time then He could have prevented its entry if He had not
wanted sin to get into His universe. But He did know and He did plan beforehand
for just that. "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the
world" (Acts 15:18). Without relieving man of one whit of guilt for sin, it can be stated on
the basis of the Bible that: (1) God provided a Saviour, "slain from the
foundation of the world"; (2) God created Satan, the tempter, and had him on
the doorstep of the world when man first appeared (if God had not wanted Satan
there, surely He could have located him elsewhere, or else restrained him;
"I have created the waster to destroy," Isa.54:16; (3) God planted the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil and put it right at the cross-walk of Eden (hence, it is folly to
assume that Adam is to blame for such factors; (4) God, in His infinite wisdom, wanted sin and
salvation to operate in His universe: "For the creation was subjected to
vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him Who subjected it, in hope
that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption
into the liberty of the glory of the children of God" (Rom.8:20,21). When
we attempt to introduce sin into God's world as an oversight, or a slip-up, or
otherwise somehow as a weakness on God's part, we are thereby destroying any
concept of a Sovereign God, especially One Who is worthy of worship. What we teach about the fate of the wicked is a reflection of our
understanding of God's solution to the Sin Problem. The eternal torment
doctrine gives us a fiendish solution, to say the least. Such a God might well
be feared, but could never be loved. No wonder the little girl who heard her
father preach about such a God wished that God were as kind and good as her
father! Also, the extermination doctrine is a childish solution, at best. If
you planned a house and by some chance, no matter whose fault, a door was put
in the wrong place, or a partition left out, would you burn down the house?
Only children would solve the problem that way! Yet, we confidently affirm that
God is going to do such un God like things in spite of the many places in the
Bible which plainly show, "That in the dispensation of the fullness of
times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in
heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him" (Eph.1:10). See also
Colossians 1:20, Philippians 2:9-11, and other clear statements in the
Scriptures which plainly show that all realms of intelligence will ultimately
be brought under the sway of Christ.
One other factor should be noted. In the eternal torment
doctrine, God is supposed to let the lost suffer in the brimstone for all
eternity without His feeling any concern over their suffering. What a perverse
paternal care for His creatures such a doctrine would entail! And, according to
the extermination doctrine, He would burn up the greater part of His own
creation and then go on forever in perfect peace and heavenly bliss with no
sense of pain or emptiness of heart over the loss of countless millions of the
souls for whom He sent Christ to die for! "Little children, keep
yourselves from false ideas of God!" Either God is all-powerful, or He is
not. Either God is all wise, or He is not. Either God is all loving, or He is
not. Either God's will is sovereign, or it is not. Either God's grace is
infinite, or it is not. Isn't it time for the church of Christ to decide one way
or the other and then make her theology fit her expressed faith? "Little
children, keep yourselves from false ideas of God!"