Love and
Justice
You will find the basis of our
study this evening in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and the third verse:
"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with
grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we
esteemed him not." In connection with this I will read several other
verses of the same chapter, and also a translation, which will enable us to
obtain the thought more clearly:
"Surely he hath borne our
griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of
God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised
for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his
stripes we are healed." The other translation reads: "Surely he bore
our griefs, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But
he was pierced through by our sins; he was crushed by our misdeeds. The
chastisement of our peace lay upon him, and in his wounds there became healing
for us. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own
way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Another
translation: "The Lord let all our misdeeds come upon him." Verse
eight: "He was taken from prison and from judgment; and who shall declare his
generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the
living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken."
The other translation: "From distress and judgment was he taken; and in
his generation who thought that he should be plucked out of the land of the
living for the misdeeds of my people, punishment to them." Tenth verse:
"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand."
Translation: "It pleased the Lord to let him be crushed; he hath made him
sick; when his soul hath given a trespass offering, he shall see seed and live
long." The thought is clearly enough expressed in the Authorized Version,
but since we are liable sometimes to receive the wrong thought, the translation
helps us to see it more clearly.
The third verse states and vividly
contrasts the true and the false idea of Christ's mission, and of his work, and
of the atonement. One is what was, and the other is what we thought was; one is
truth, the other is falsehood; one is Christianity, the other is paganism. We
would do well to study every thought in that text. "Surely he hath borne
our griefs and carried our sorrows; he was pierced through by our misdeeds, and
God permitted it because in his stripes there was healing for us. But we
esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Whose griefs? Whose
sorrows? - Ours. The grief and the sorrow that crushed the heart of Christ, and
took him from among the living, so that he died of a broken heart, was no
strange, new grief or sorrow. It was not something unlike what we have to bear;
it was not God arbitrarily putting upon him our sins, and thus punishing our sins
in him to deliver us. He took no position arbitrarily that we do not have to
suffer. It was our griefs and our sorrows that pierced him through. He took our
sinful natures, and our sinful flesh, at the point of weakness to which we had
brought it, submitting himself to all the conditions of the race, and placing
himself where we are to fight the conflict that we have to fight, the fight of
faith. And he did this by the same power to which we have access. By the Spirit
of God he cast out devils; through the eternal Spirit he offered himself
without spot; and the Spirit of God rested upon him, and made him of quick
understanding in the things of God. It was our sins that he took; our
temptations.
It is my experience that in nine cases
out of ten, when men consider those temptations in the fourth chapter of
Matthew, which are typical of all his temptations, they fail to recognize their
likeness to our own. They make him tempted in all points like as we are not,
rather than like as we are. Picture to yourselves the wonderful experience that
Christ had at his baptism, when he entered upon his mission, when the Spirit of
God descended upon him with power, and the voice was
heard, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
It would seem that after such an experience as that, it would surely be all
smooth sailing. But out there in the wilderness, when the Saviour
was in apparent weakness and hunger, the devil pressed him, saying, "If
thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." Have we
not had this experience? How many of us can look back to the time when we were
baptized, when we heard God saying to us, This is my beloved son, this is my
beloved daughter, in whom I am well pleased; and we thought we would have
smooth sailing, but soon found ourselves out in some wilderness of temptation,
conscious of our weakness, and the devil came along and said, You are a pretty
servant of God.
Again the devil took him up into a
high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth, and said:
"All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship
me." The circumstances were such as to make it plain that the design of
the devil was to lead him to bow down and support a god of force, instead of making
him the king of the world. He would have him be untrue to his mission. And so
he would have us, by some false method, to think that we may make a great many
more dollars, and to see how much of the world we can get. When he failed with
Christ on these two points, he pressed him farther to get him to presume upon
the mercy of God. Just so he would tempt us to presume upon the mercy of God.
He took our sorrows, our griefs, all
the conflicts of our lives upon him, and was tempted in all points as we are.
He took the injustices of our lives upon him too. It is a fact that you and I
have to suffer for many things for which we are not at fault. All my suffering
is not the result of my sin. Some of it is; but just as long as sin exists,
injustice exists. As long as men sin, men will be sinned against. Just so you
and I will have to suffer for the sins of others; and so God, to show that he
knew and realized all that, let him that was perfectly
innocent, take the injustice and sin of us all. O brethren and sisters, he did
not bear some other grief or some other sorrow, but he bore our griefs and our
sorrows. He was pierced through by them, and the Lord permitted it, because
there was healing in it for us; not that he might appease God, or reconcile him unto us. Every passage of Scripture that
refers to the reconciliation or atonement, or to the propitiation, always
represents God as the one who makes this atonement, reconciliation, or
propitiation, in Christ; we are always the ones atoned for, the ones to be reconciled.
For us it was done, in order that, as Peter says, he might bring us to God.
The only way to do this is by
destroying sin in us. He took our sins upon him in order that he might bring us
to God. It was that he might break down the high middle wall of partition
between human hearts and God, between Jew and Gentile, between God and man;
that he might make us one with him, and one with one another, thus making the
at-one-ment, or the atonement. In Christ Jesus we who
were sometimes afar off were made nigh by the blood of Christ, so that we are
no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of
the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone; in whom all the
building fitly framed together groweth into an holy
temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded
together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." This is as near to
the Lord as we can get. This is the at-one-ment; this
is why he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, that he might do that for us
by breaking down all those things which separate hearts from hearts, both human
and divine. Notwithstanding this, we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God,
and afflicted. That was what we thought about it. We said,
God is doing all this; God is killing him, punishing him, to satisfy his wrath,
in order to let us off. That is the pagan conception of sacrifice. The
Christian idea of sacrifice is this. Let us note the contrast. "God so
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life." That is the Christian idea. Yes, sir. Indifference keeps, hatred
keeps, selfishness keeps, or gives, if at all, but grudgingly, counting the
cost, and figuring on some larger return at some future time. But love, and
love only, sacrifices, gives freely, gives itself, gives without counting the
cost; gives because it is love. That is sacrifice, whether it is the sacrifice
of bulls and goats, or of him who is the Lamb of God. It is the sacrifice that
is revealed throughout the entire Bible. But the pagan idea of sacrifice is
just the opposite. It is that some god is always offended, always angry, and
his wrath must be propitiated in some way.
If it is an ordinary case, the blood
of bulls and goats will suffice; but if it is an extraordinary case, the blood
of some innocent virgin or child must flow; and when the god smells the blood,
his wrath is appeased. We talk of pagan immortality, pagan Sunday, pagan
idolatry, etc.; but it seems to me that the lowest thought is that men have
brought this pagan idea of sacrifice right into the Bible, and applied it to
the sacrifice of the cross. So the Methodist Discipline uses these words: "Christ
died to reconcile the Father unto us;" that is, to propitiate God so that
we could be forgiven - paganism straight out. Why, brethren and sisters, it is
the application of the pagan conception of sacrifice to the sacrifice upon the
cross, so that that wonderful manifestation of divine love, which God intended
should cause all men, all beings in the universe, to wonder and adore, has been
turned around and made a manifestation of wrath to be propitiated in order to
save man. I am glad that we are losing sight of this manner of viewing the
subject, where we do not say that Christ died to reconcile the Father unto us.
Brethren, there is sometimes such a thing as to give up the expression of a
thing, and think we have thus gotten rid of it, when a good deal of it still
lingers and clouds our consciousness of the love of God, and the beauty of his
truth, so that we cannot present a clear gospel to hungry souls that are
waiting to know about God. I pray that God will let the sunlight of his truth
shine into my heart, and into all of our hearts. Surely he hath borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows that he might bring us to him; but we esteemed
him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. That is what we thought; that is
what we esteemed; not what was, but what we thought was. Now, every text in the
Bible that speaks of reconciliation, makes God the one who makes the
reconciliation, - God in Christ. Every text in the Bible that speaks of the
atonement, when we get it right, makes God the one who makes the atonement in
Christ; not Christ simply, but God in Christ; just as God in Christ creates,
redeems, reconciles, he makes the atonement. And every time the atonement,
reconciliation, or propitiation are mentioned, it
leads us right back to the character of God. So I want to begin right here, and
study God a little, and study him as the All Truth. He is the All Truth. He is
love. "God is love." Let us analyze that just a little, and see what
it means.
Does it mean that God is love, and
part something else? - No. The Bible says that God is light, and in him is no
darkness at all. God is truth. Christ says, "I am the truth"; and
again, "I and my Father are one;" so God is truth. He is the All
Truth of the universe made living and personal, and touched with tender, throbbing
love. That is God, and that is Christ too. Yes, he is the light, and in him is
no darkness at all. He is all love and no hatred. Very well.
SOME one says, I know, I know; God
is love, but he is love and justice. Now the minute a man says that, and means
what he says, there is nothing more unjust in this universe than his idea of
justice. Let us think of that for a moment. Is there justice outside of love. Suppose I love A and B. But I love A
more than B. Is it my lack of love to B that prompts my love for A? - No, it is
not. Now is there such a thing as loving a man with an impartial love. Can I be
unjust to anybody? God is just, because he is love.
We talk about the mercy of God. What
is mercy? - Disposition to treat an offender better than he deserves. We talk
about his grace. Grace is unmerited favor. That is the way God does. Shows unmerited favor. All these are moral attributes of
love.
How does righteousness come?
Righteousness, which is the fulfilling of the law, is simply acting out the acts
of love. How am I going to act out the acts of love? Try real hard to love
somebody? It does not come that way. Did you ever try it? No, sir; you cannot
make it that way. But if somebody acts loveable, you love him. And so the
reason God can love everything, and thus act out the acts of love, is because
God is love. He has manifested himself to beget his love in us, and that love
flows out in righteousness. Then the power of God is the power of love. If I
had time I would carry that beyond moral power; it is even the power that
upholds the universe. It is all.
And now a moment
on the omniscience of God. I want to show you that if God should cease to be
all-loving, he would cease to be all-knowing. Can hatred, envy, and jealousy
know and comprehend love? The infinite Love was once in this world, in human
form; and what did they do to him? - They crucified him. What did they crucify
him for? - Because they knew him not. Hatred, envy, and jealousy can look
infinite Love in the face, and not know it. Only love can comprehend love. Love
can also see hatred, envy, and jealousy in their true light, because love seeth, knoweth, and comprehendeth all things. And that is why God can be
omniscient, because he is love. It is one of the attributes of love. But some
one says that God is love and, and -. God is love, and he is not anything but
love. All the attributes of God are the attributes of love.
And then there is the wrath of God
that you read about all through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. I want
to turn and read a text on this point. We can only understand these things that
are brought to view in the Bible, when we see them in the light and the grace
of the revelation of God. The scripture I will read is found in 2Cor.3:12-16:
"Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: and
not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that
the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is
abolished." God had many things to show to them that they could not bear;
and as they could not see the true glory as it was, he had to vail it, so they could take it. "But their minds were
blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old
testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail
is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." And, brethren,
if we want to understand what God has said all through this Book, we
want to turn to him, and we will understand all.
Was there ever a being in this world
that hated sin as Christ hates it? - No. Was there ever a being who loved the
sinner as Christ loved him? - No. Suppose I hate a man, and somebody is trying
to do that man an injury, and I see it, and do not try to prevent it. Do I care
whether that man is injured or not? - No; I am rather glad of it. But suppose I
love that man, and here is a man that is trying to
thrust a dagger into him and kill him. Now the measure of my hatred for that
deed is the measure of my love for that man. I am liable to hate the man that
is doing the deed, too. But I hate the deed, anyway. Now, brethren,
the measure of God's hatred for sin, is the measure of his love for the
sinner.
Sin has been lurking with murderous
intent to take the life of every soul. God's wrath is kindled against the sin.
Is that wrath going to be appeased in any way? O if it were, it would be a bad
thing for us. That wrath of God against sin is to burn on until it consumes
every bit of sin in this universe. Just as long as God loves the sinner, he
will hate the sin, and his wrath against the sin will burn; and, thank God! that wrath against sin is going to burn, unchanged, until
the universe is clean.
But look: the plan of redemption is God's
effort to separate the sin from the sinner, so that he can destroy the sin, and
save the sinner alive forevermore. And only when the sinner inseparably
connects himself with sin, does he have to take the wrath of God. And does the
Lord take delight in that? - No. When you and I have wrath, we have wrath
against the man. But how about God? "As I live,
saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked," but
rather that he turn and repent. Turn ye, turn ye; for
why will ye die. The wrath of God is not against the wicked, even in their
extermination; but because the wicked have inseparably connected themselves
with sin, they have to break it; and the Lord says he does not take any
pleasure in that.
You remember that when Christ
pronounced the doom of
Every one of the attributes of God are the attributes of love. And so we want to stop saying,
God is love and something else. He is love, and love contains everything that
he is.
Now this God of love, whose wrath
burns only against the sin, and not against the sinner - this God of love gave a law for mankind. I have but a moment to spend on
that. That law was not a dead law; it was not an arbitrary law. It was not a
law saying, You do so, and I will let you live; You do
so, and I will kill you. But God in infinite wisdom foreknew every principle of
life and light and joy; and in infinite wisdom he foretold what he foreknew.
This way, my child, is life and joy. Don't you go that way, my child; that way
is death. Every bit of that law is simply the life of
God, which is the love of God. It had the creative power of God in it. It was
not something outside of man that man must do in order to live, but it was
something that God wanted to put in him and leave in him; so many divine
promises, if you please. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
When we have him, we do not want any other. That is a promise. Thou shalt not
steal; thou shalt not kill. These are loving, divine, creative promises, which
God intended to put in us, to carry us to the utmost heights of joy and peace,
and keep us in that path forevermore.
Now man transgressed that law, and
thus cut himself off from the life of God, and hopelessly committed himself to
the downward tendency to evil and death. The very first act of sin put him into
the
Suppose I tell my boy not to do a
certain thing, and he disobeys my command, and no harm comes to him. That
proves that my law is an arbitrary one. But suppose he disobeys my command, and
does get hurt; that proves that my law was not arbitrary at all.
From sin came misery; from misery
came misunderstanding of God; from misunderstanding of God, more hatred of God,
and still more sin, and still more misery and more misunderstanding. And so it went on and on, the environment and heredity increasing
toward evil, and the whole world going hopelessly on, spinning down into the
abyss of sin, hated and hating one another. And so it has been thought
that God's sense of justice and his sense of wrath should be appeased, so that
we could have justice; the thing that was needed was that God should so
manifest himself, his love, as to win us to love, that we might act out the
acts of love. That is the thing that was needed, not that we should so appease
his wrath in some way that we dare come to him, but that he should manifest his
love so that we would come to him.
Suppose here is a man that does a
wrong thing to me; he hates me, and he lies about me, and he injures me, and
misrepresents me. What shall I do? Shall I say, When
you satisfy my sense of justice, and make that thing right, so that I think the
thing is all right, then I will pardon you? I am not godlike when I do that. If
I am godlike, what will I do? What does the Bible say? - "Ye which are
spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of
meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." When that man
wrongs me that way, if I am spiritual, if I am like God, who is a spirit and
the father of spirits, how will I feel about it? - I will feel that the mere
fact of his injuring me is such a small thing, and the fact that he has injured
himself and will go down to death is such a big thing, that the first will sink
out of sight; and I will go to that man, in love, not seeking to set him right
toward me for my sake, but I will seek to restore him for his own sake.
That is what I will do if I am a
Christian; and yet people teach that when we sin against God, and misrepresent
God, he sits back and says, When I get my full satisfaction, I will grow
propitious to you. O, instead of that, God gave his Son, in love, to bring us
to repentance, so that he could pardon us. And just simply to restore us, and
propitiate us who had become fallen in sin, and misunderstood him, and bring us
back to him, and to reconcile us to him, he gave his own life, in his Son, -
just that he might do that thing for us. That is the kind of God he is.
O, but you say, Christ paid the
debt, and set us free. That is true, and every one of those texts in the Bible
is true. When God tells us how he forgives sin, what does he say? Well, a
certain man owed another man five hundred pence, and when he had nothing to
pay, he frankly forgave him. That is the way God forgives sin. Christ is the
price of our pardon; that is true. But let me state it: Jesus Christ is not the
price paid to the Father for our pardon; but he is the price which the Father
paid to bring us to a repentant attitude of mind, so that he could pardon us
freely. O, that is God, brethren. That is the Father
that I love so much. I have not words to tell you how I love him. That is how
God forgives sin - passes by the iniquity of his people. Christ was the free
gift of God, to bring us to the place where he could pardon us freely.
But some one said to me the other
day, Did not Christ have to die to make the Word of
God sure? because God said, If ye sin, ye shall die.
In the first place, what did God mean when he said, If you sin, you will die?
Did that include spiritual, physical, and eternal death? Did Christ die the
spiritual or the eternal death? - No. Then is not that whole thing a fraud? And
every time the Bible speaks of the debt, it is God that paid the debt in
Christ, to propitiate us, to reconcile us. But still, you say, it had to be
done before God could pardon. Yes, that is true; and I want to show you why;
and then to-morrow night we will continue the subject by studying the sacrifice
of Christ, and seeing that it is a larger thing than you have probably thought
it was.
Any pardon and any forgiveness that
would not take away the effect of sin, but that would lead us more and more
into sin, and into the misery that comes from sin, would be worth nothing. If
the law of God was an arbitrary thing, that did not have any penalty attached
to it, the Lord could say, I will pardon you. But when you transgress that law,
it is death; and when you keep the law, it is life and joy and peace.
Now read the seventh verse of the
first chapter of Ephesians: "In whom we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; wherein he hath
abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence." If God had not been wise,
he might have pardoned our sins in an imprudent way. Now, brethren, every
father in this world knows what it is to want to let his children do things
which they would enjoy doing, and he has to restrain that which would bring
present pleasure, restrain that love, because of the evil effects it would
have.
Was sin ever less repentant than at
the foot of the cross? There you have the thing. There was God revealing
himself in Christ on the cross, and there was sin unrepentant, hatred and
mocking at the foot of the cross. How did God feel toward those unrepentant
sinners? - "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
That is how Christ felt, and that is how God felt. He did not have any grudge
against them. He would like to forgive everybody. But why could he not do it? -
It would annul his law, if it was an arbitrary law; but if it were not, it
would lead men to go into sin, and sin and death would result. It would be God
simply taking the place of the imprudent father and spoiling his child. And
therefore, because he could not do that, he set forth Christ to be, not the
propitiation of God's wrath, but the propitiation of our sins, that God might
be just, and still the justifier of them who believe in Jesus; because he would
take the sins away from them if they believed in him, and then he could set
them free, and be just in doing it, for he would not lead anybody else into sin
in doing it.
O, I am so glad that we have a God
whose very nature and disposition is to pardon sin; that we have a Father who
is not holding any grudge against us, but instead of that, is giving his own
life, in his Son, that he may so manifest his love as to bring us back to him,
and so give us the life power as to live his life. It was needed that his life
should be revealed, and his divine life imparted, that we might live that life
on earth; and that is what he did in Christ. O, I am so glad we have such a God
as that, who gives his own life to win us back to him! The love of God is the
one unchanging thing in a universe of change. Just as the waters of a flood
might run high above the mountain tops, but they could not obscure the sun in
the heavens; so the waves of sin might dash high above every
human affection, but they cannot change the heart of God. O brethren, we
have a God that loves sinners, and that forgives sin, and that gives his own
life, in his Son, to bring us to repentance, so that he can forgive us. That is
the kind of God we have. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing our iniquities unto us, and giving
unto us the ministry of reconciliation.
How could God love a sinner? "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son." That word "world" is cosmos; it means order,
harmony, beauty, arrangement. You see the world was out of harmony, out of
order; but God saw underneath the world of evil, the cosmos that was, the order
that was to be, and he loved the cosmos that was, and gave his life to bring
out the harmony.
The Spirit of God brooding over the
chaos - that love of not merely what is, but what is to be, that love of the
possible - O brethren, he broods over the chaos of your life and mine. It is
not simply the chaos in the great big world; but he brings out the possible in
us, and restores us to his image. That is the kind of God we have.
And he has committed to us that same
thing, too, so that when we become like him, we can love all men, coarse though
they be on the outside. And when we have the divine life of God, which sees
beneath the surface, we will see loveliness in every character,
that we long to live out, and long, as God does, to bring out.
With the story which I shall now
relate we will close the subject for this evening. It is the story of the
wonderful legend of the Holy Grail, wrought out into verse by James Russell
Lowell. It has had a wonderful lesson in it for me. Sometimes we try to love
God off into space, hoping it will hit him somehow; but I think God wants us to
love every man all around us; and God wants us to have such keen eyes that we
will see the Christ in every man, and love him.
You know the story runs that Launfal started to find the Holy Grail, and one June
morning he rode, grandly caparisoned, in search of the Holy Grail, to enter
upon his life mission. And as he rode along down there, a beggar was sitting
there, asking alms; and he averted his face as he went by, and flung a coin to
him. And he passed on, and traveled in many lands, and spent years in his
search. But he came back to the old home, unable to find the object of his
search; and riding up that same avenue toward that mansion, a beggar was
sitting there as before. Launfal looked at him, and
he reasoned something like this: His life is a failure; but has not mine been,
too? Here I have been striving and struggling, and failed; and here is a
failure, too. He somehow felt akin to that poor old beggar now. And as he put
his hand in his pocket and passed out a coin, his heart went out to him with
the coin; and instantly, as the legend goes, that beggar was transformed into
the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, for whom he had
been looking.
O brethren, he is near us; he is all
around us. He gave his life to bring us back to him, and he has committed unto
us that same business, too, that same reconciliation. And O may he enable us to
see him in human forms all around us, so that we can feel just as he does,
giving our lives to bring out the image of Christ in the most defaced form there
is around us.
I want to close by saying to every
one, that we have a God that forgives iniquity. The only people that will be
destroyed at last will be those that have their weapons in their hands. He will
forgive you if you will lay down your arms. May God reveal his love to us more
and more, and in us more and more, is my prayer.
~G.E. Fifield, Adventist Pioneer Library, 1897 General Conference Bulletin, sermon 1 (Tuesday Evening, Feb. 9, 1897)