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Scientific and Religious Journal.

VOL. 1. OCTOBER, 1880. NO. 10.




LAW AND ATONEMENT.

     "The soul that sinneth it shall die," and it "shall not die."


The first quotation, "The soul that sinneth it shall die," is often
produced in support of the scholastic idea that the law of God was
inexorable, that is absolute or unconditional, not to be moved or its
penalty escaped by reformation or petition.

The language of the text is very definite, and, when viewed aside from
its context as an inexorable law, it certainly follows that every
sinning soul must pay its penalty. Neither can I see how it can be
satisfied by punishing an innocent person in the room of the guilty, for
the innocent one was not the "soul that sinned." Yet this quality of law
is claimed in order to make out the theory of a vicarious punishment
endured by the Savior, that is, that He took the sinner's "law place."
This idea was necessitated by the theory that we all sinned when Adam
transgressed, and lost all ability to do anything for ourselves. So we
must be redeemed by satisfaction to justice, rather than by mercy. This
old Calvinistic system of error lays the penalty of the inexorable law
upon Christ. But Calvinists are not alone in this theory of a "vicarious
punishment," in order to a vicarious atonement. Neither are they alone
in the abuse of the phrase "the law," for our Sabbatarian friends are
constantly asserting that the law of God was, and is, simply the ten
commandments given, they say, to Adam in Eden, and authoritatively
published on Sinai. They assert that all the balance of the five books
of Moses was his law, written by him, but the record justifies us in
saying, that the ten precepts were not the tenth part of the words given
to Moses upon Sinai; neither were they all the words that were written
upon the tables of stone. The tables begin with the sixth verse of the
fifth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, in these words, "I am the Lord
thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of
bondage," and end with the twenty-first verse. But as the sixth verse is
fatal to the Sabbatarian theory it is clipped off along with the
fifteenth verse, which is cut out of the middle of the matter written
upon the tables, and both are gravely divorced from God and handed over
to Moses. Both, however, are in perfect harmony with the second and
third verses, which read thus: "The Lord our God made a covenant with us
in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us,
even us, who are all of us here alive this day." That the sixth and
fifteenth verses were upon the tables of stone is evident from the
reading of the twenty-second verse, which reads thus: "These words the
Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the
fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice. And
He wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto you."

Many persons who claim that the import of the term die, in the sentence
"The soul that sinneth it shall die," was experienced by the Savior upon
the cross dying as a substitute in the law-place of sinners, overlook
several things of first importance. First, infants were not included in
the provisions of a vicarious punishment and atonement unless it can be
shown that they sinned--were sinners. Second, no innocent person can
justly suffer in the law-place of the guilty. In all such cases justice
is dishonored and law violated, for just law limits its penalties to the
guilty.

Our salvation "is not of the law," but "by grace" or favor. Law had
nothing to do with the death of Christ. He, "BY THE GRACE OF GOD, tasted
death for every man." "If it be of the law it is not of grace." Again,
the simple sentence, "The soul that sinneth it shall die," never was
_the law_ of God in any age, but simply a fraction of the law. Did
Christ ever sin? No! Then He never honored this law,