In considering this solemn matter we must learn to keep wholly separate from it a number of difficult questions which have really nothing to do with it--with which, indeed, we have nothing to do--and the introduction of which can only lead to mischievous confusion and error. What is to become of the countless mult.i.tudes in heathen lands who die without having so much as heard of Christ? How will G.o.d deal with those even in our own Christian land to whom, at least as it seems to us, this life has brought no adequate opportunity of salvation? What will happen in that dim twilight land betwixt death and judgment which men call "the intermediate state"? Will they be few or many who at last will be for ever outcasts from the presence of G.o.d? These are questions men will persist in asking, but the answer to which no man knows. Strictly speaking, they are matters with which we have nothing to do, which we must be content to leave with G.o.d, confident that the Judge of all the earth will do right, even though He does not show us how. What we have to do with, what does concern us, is the warning of Jesus, emphatic and reiterated, that sin will be visited with punishment, that retribution, just, awful, inexorable, will fall on all them that love and work iniquity.
"But why," it may be asked, "why dwell upon these things? Is there not something coa.r.s.e and vulgar in this appeal to men"s fears? And, after all, to what purpose is it? If men are not won by the love of G.o.d, of what avail is it to speak to them of His wrath?" But fear is as real an element in human nature as love, and when our aim is by all means to save men, it is surely legitimate to make our appeal to the whole man, to lay our fingers on every note--the lower notes no less than the higher--in the wide gamut of human life. The preacher of the gospel, moreover, is left without choice in the matter. It is no part of his business to ask what is the use of this or of that in the message given to him to deliver; it is for him to declare "the whole counsel of G.o.d,"
to keep back nothing that has been revealed. And the really decisive consideration is this--that this is a matter on which Christ Himself has spoken, and spoken with unmistakable clearness and emphasis. Shall, then, the amba.s.sador hesitate when the will of the King is made known?
More often--five times more often, it is said[61]--than Jesus spoke of future blessedness did He speak of future retribution. The New Testament is a very tender book; but it is also a very stern book, and its sternest words are words of Jesus. "For the sins of the miserable, the forlorn, the friendless, He has pity and compa.s.sion; but for the sins of the well-taught, the high-placed, the rich, the self-indulgent, for obstinate and malignant sin, the sin of those who hate, and deceive, and corrupt, and betray, His wrath is terrible, its expression is unrestrained."[62] "Jesu, Thou art all compa.s.sion," we sometimes sing; but is it really so? St. Paul writes of "the meekness and gentleness of Christ"; and for many of the chapters of Christ"s life that is the right headline; but there are other chapters which by no possible manipulation can be brought under that heading, and they also are part of the story.
It was Jesus who said that in the day of judgment it should be more tolerable for even Tyre and Sidon than for Bethsaida and Chorazin; it was Jesus who uttered that terrible twenty-third chapter of St.
Matthew"s Gospel, with its seven times repeated "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" it was Jesus who spoke of the shut door and the outer darkness, of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched, of the sin which hath never forgiveness, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come, and of that day when He who wept over Jerusalem and prayed for His murderers and died for the world will say unto them on His left hand, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels." These are _His_ words, and it is because they are His they make us tremble. He _is_ "gentle Jesus, meek and mild"; that is why His sternness is so terrible.
These things are not said in order to defend any particular theory of future punishment--on that dread subject, indeed, the present writer has no "theory" to defend; he frankly confesses himself an agnostic--but rather to claim for the solemn fact of retribution a place in our minds akin to that which it held in the teaching of our Lord. We need have no further concern than to be loyal to Him. Does, then, such loyalty admit of a belief in universal salvation? Is it open to us to a.s.sert that in Christ the whole race is predestined to "glory, honour, and immortality"? The "larger hope" of the universalist--
"that good shall fall At last--far off--at last, to all, And every winter change to spring"--
is, indeed, one to which no Christian heart can be a stranger; yearnings such as these spring up within us unbidden and uncondemned. But when it is definitely and positively a.s.serted that "G.o.d has destined all men to eternal glory, irrespective of their faith and conduct," "that no antagonism to the Divine authority, no insensibility to the Divine love, can prevent the eternal decree from being accomplished," we shall do well to pause, and pause again. The old doctrine of an a.s.sured salvation for an elect few we reject without hesitation. But, as Dr. Dale has pointed out,[63] the difference between the old doctrine and the new is merely an arithmetical, not a moral difference: where the old put "some," the new puts "all"; and the moral objections which are valid against the one are not less valid against the other also. I dare not say to myself, and therefore I dare not say to others, that, let a man live as he may, it yet shall be well with him in the end. The facts of experience are against it; the words of Christ are against it. "The very conception of human freedom involves the possibility of its permanent misuse, of what our Lord Himself calls "eternal sin."" If a man can go on successfully resisting Divine grace in this life, what reason have we for supposing that it would suddenly become irresistible in another life? Build what we may on the unrevealed mercies of the future for them that live and die in the darkness of ignorance, let us build nothing for ourselves who are shutting our eyes and closing our hearts to the Divine light and love which are already ours.
"Behold, then, the goodness and severity of G.o.d;" and may His goodness lead us to repentance, that His severity we may never know. This is, indeed, His will for every one of us: He has "appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." If we are lost we are suicides.
THE END
Footnote 1: J. Stalker, _The Christology of Jesus_, p. 23, footnote.
Footnote 2: "The sources for our knowledge of the actual teaching of Jesus do not lie merely in the Gospel accounts, but also in the literature of the apostolic age, especially in the Epistles of Paul....
Even had no direct accounts about Jesus been handed down to us, we should still possess, in the apostolic literature, a perfectly valid testimony to the historical existence and epoch-making significance of Jesus as a teacher."--H.H. Wendt, _Teaching of Jesus_, vol. i, p. 28.
Footnote 3: _What is Christianity?_ p. 20.
Footnote 4: _Three Essays on Religion_, p. 253.
Footnote 5: _Literature and Dogma_, p. 10.
Footnote 6: See Harnack"s _What is Christianity_? p. 4.
Footnote 7: See A.S. Peake"s _Guide to Biblical Study_, p. 244.
Footnote 8: _Thoughts on Religion_, p. 157.
Footnote 9: _The Kingdom of G.o.d_, p. 50.
Footnote 10: "Christian apologists," says Dr. Sanday, "have often done scant justice to the intensity of this [monotheistic] faith, which was utterly disinterested and capable of magnificent self-sacrifice."--Art.
"G.o.d," Hastings" _Dictionary of the Bible_, vol. ii, p. 205.
Footnote 11: See R.F. Horton"s _Teaching of Jesus_, p. 59.
Footnote 12: A.M. Fairbairn, _Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 244.
Footnote 13: On the subject of this chapter see especially G.B. Stevens"
_Theology of the New Testament_, chap. vi.
Footnote 14: _Christian Doctrine,_ p. 77.
Footnote 15: Bishop Gore, _Bampton Lectures,_ 1891, p. 13.
Footnote 16: J. Denney, _Studies in Theology_, p. 25.
Footnote 17: For an admirable statement of the argument of this paragraph see D.W. Forrest"s _Christ of History and experience_, chap.
i. and note 4, p. 385.
Footnote 18: Cp. Denney"s note on St. Paul"s description of Christ, "Him who knew no sin," in 2 Cor. v. 21: "The Greek negative (mae), as Schmiedel remarks, implies that this is regarded as the verdict of some one else than the writer. It was Christ"s own verdict upon Himself."
Footnote 19: _The Death of Christ_, p. 28.
Footnote 20: _The Philosophy of the Christian Religion_, p. 408.
Footnote 21: John xii. 27, 28; xiii. 31; xvii. 1.
Footnote 22: G.B. Stevens, _Theology of the New Testament_, p. 133.
Footnote 23: I quote once more from Dr. Denney.
Footnote 24: J. Denney, _Studies in Theology_, p. 154.
Footnote 25: See W.N. Clarke"s _Outlines of Christian Theology_, p. 373.
Footnote 26: "It is the Holy Spirit who supplies the _bodily presence_ of Christ, and by Him doth He accomplish all His promises to the Church.
Hence, some of the ancients call Him "Vicarium Christi," "The Vicar of Christ," or Him who represents His person and dischargeth His promised work: _Operam navat Christo vicariam."_--Owen, _Works,_ vol. iii. p.
193.
Footnote 27: "Our sources with the utmost possible uniformity refer to the Spirit in terms implying personality."--Stevens, _Theology of the New Testament_ (p. 215), where the whole question is discussed with great fullness and fairness.
Footnote 28: John Watson, _The Mind of the Master_, p. 321. May we remind Dr. Watson of what he has himself written on the first page of his _Doctrines of Grace_: "It was the mission of St. Paul to declare the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to the nations, and none of his successors in this high office has spoken with such persuasive power. _Any one differs from St. Paul at his intellectual peril_, and every one may imitate him with spiritual profit."
Footnote 29: See, in confirmation of the argument of this paragraph, Orr"s _Christian View of G.o.d and the World_, p. 401 ff., and Art. "The Kingdom of G.o.d," in Hastings" _Dictionary of the Bible_; Denney"s _Studies in Theology_, Lect. VIII.
Footnote 30: J. Watson, _The Mind of the Master_, p. 323.
Footnote 31: F.G. Peabody, _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, pp.
88, 89.
Footnote 32: _Fellowship with Christ_, p. 157.
Footnote 33: See Trench"s _Study of Words_, p. 100.
Footnote 34: The chapter ent.i.tled "Christ"s Doctrine of Man" is one of the most suggestive chapters in Dr. Bruce"s admirable work _The Kingdom of G.o.d_.