2. God Is Judge of All the Earth
Hugh Martin
2 This objection2 to the atonement professedly makes no account of God’s supremacy and office as the Judge of all the earth. The command to us to forgive one another places us on a level towards one another. Some would draw this inference from it which is adverse to the doctrine of a propitiatory sacrifice being the necessary channel of Divine forgiveness, but it really places God on a level with us all. It overlooks His sovereign supremacy and His office as the Supreme Judge. It is not in the capacity of a judge that I am to forgive an offending brother; it is as being myself a brother, standing on equal terms, on an equal footing with him. It is to a mutual forgiveness that he and I are both bound over. The forgiveness that I extend to him I may alternately require to have extended towards myself.
Surely some caution is required in reasoning from a case like this up to that in which the all-holy Godhead condescends from His inviolable majesty to forgive the iniquities of His poor and puny creatures. I am to forgive my brother, considering myself lest I also be tempted. I am to forgive my brother, remembering how soon I may need to be forgiven by him. But the all-perfect God sits on high, the Judge alike of me and my brother, and there is no infirmity and no unrighteousness in Him. Surely it is presumption of the highest kind in me to argue that, because I am to forgive without demanding atonement or satisfaction, therefore the Godhead also must proceed in like manner.
It is as the universal Lawgiver, and as invested with the office of supreme and universal Judge, that God requires atonement and satisfaction for sin. He does not stand towards His creatures in a relation like that in which they stand towards each other. He is their Moral Governor and Judge. It is in this relation that He demands satisfaction for sin and vindicates the sovereignty of law. And when He delegates His office in so far to any of our fellow creatures – when He sets anyone over us as our lawgiver and judge – He commits to him also, in like manner, the function of upholding the honour of law by sanctions and penalties. If I stand as a criminal at a human bar,
1Taken with editing from The British and Foreign Evangelical Review, vol 30 (1881). The first article, last month, examined the difference between divine and human forgiveness.
2In last month’s article, Martin expressed the basis for the objection as follows: “God requires us freely to forgive an offending brother. He requires us to do so without demanding any atonement or satisfaction for the trespass that needs forgiveness. . . . We are to demand no sacrifice. . . . Frankly, freely, fully we are to forgive him.” So, it is objected, why should not God forgive sinners without a sacrifice?
before a human judge, and am brought in guilty, how irrelevant it would be in me to plead to my judge that it is his duty to forgive me freely and to abstain from inflicting a penalty on, or seeking reparation for, my offence!
The case of private trespass between my brother and me is as wide as the poles asunder from the case of my violation of public law, which is decided by the public judge. The classing of these two cases as one overthrows all public law, government and justice. Neither I nor my brother, in our brotherly and equal relation towards each other, is invested with the character and function of a judge. Indeed, in this respect he and I alike are expressly warned against acting towards each other as if we were. “Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?” No, in this relation I am to act as a brother, not a lord, not a lawgiver, not a judge.
If indeed I happen to be invested with the office of a judge in the community, and my brother is brought before my bar, it is not then as a private man and a brother that I am to consider him and deal with him, but as a public criminal, a breaker of public law. The rule of Christian mutual forgiveness does not then apply. It is wholly out of court then. My duty then is not to consider myself lest I also should be tempted; not to deal with him in the remembrance that I also in turn might need his compassion and forbearance. My duty is to uphold the supremacy of the law, to act and deal with the offender as the law requires.
The civil magistrate is invested with the sword, an instrument that has no place between brethren. “And he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” Here he is the representative, the agent, the delegate of God, the Judge of all the earth. And this function he could not wield, he could not receive, he could not have delegated to him, unless primarily and originally it belonged to God Himself. It is for those who deny the righteousness and necessity of propitiatory sacrifice to show the righteousness, the validity, the origin of the office of a judge among men. As wielded among men, it is an office that has no Divine origin and therefore no authority, unless God Himself is a judge. The Most High can delegate no office which is not His own. If He is not a Judge, bearing the sword – a revenger to execute wrath on him that doeth evil – then every human judge is a usurper, an unauthorised oppressor, and his office a barbarism, an unrighteousness, an impertinence. The argument that would overthrow the atonement would subvert human society and abolish all civil government.
It is the introduction of this element into the question on hand which indicates where the analogy between our mutual forgiveness of each other and God’s forgiveness of us ceases. We forgive each other mutually as brethren. He forgives us as the Judge of all the earth. We as brethren forgive our brother. God, as judge and sovereign, forgives our sin. In forgiving a brother we demand no expiation of his offence, because we do not stand to him in the relation of a judge, and do not have the responsibility of maintaining the honour of the law. That belongs unto his Judge and ours; and our God, as Judge, forgives only through an expiation.
For us, in our private capacity as brethren, to demand satisfaction or atonement is impossible consistently with holiness and love. Satisfaction, demanded in such a case, indicates human wrath and passion, “which worketh not the righteousness of God”. It is inconsistent with the love, pity, compassion which brotherly forgiveness implies. And it is the thought that an atonement on God’s part encroaches on the truth and evidence of love and compassion with Him, which has led to the argument and objection we are considering.
But introduce the consideration that God is the righteous Judge and upholder of public law, righteousness and order in the universe, and the notion that an atonement or satisfaction for sin is inconsistent with true compassion on His part vanishes. A public judge among men is never subjected to the imputation of heartlessness, because, in the execution of his office, he pronounces even the awful sentence of death. Personally and privately he may do so with feelings of deepest anguish. His calm and resolute performance of his duty is his glory; and the more so because his heart burns with pity and love towards him whom he nevertheless condemns. Justice is not passion, fury, rage, in the case of a human judge. It is consistent with the most heartfelt interest and compassion for the criminal.
It is equally so – it is infinitely more so – with the Divine Judge. Listen to His solemn oath, the oath of Him who will by no means clear the guilty: “As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked”. There is no malignity in God’s wrath; there is no rage, no fury, no passion, no cruelty, no heartlessness. For He is the Judge, and He is righteous; there is no unrighteousness in Him. I am not my brother’s judge when he offends me. In me, wrath towards him and a demand for satisfaction would indeed be mere unholy rage, cruelty, heartlessness, malignity; for in my private capacity, as no judge, it could not be in vindication of the law, but only in gratification of my revenge, that I should seek a satisfaction or atonement for his offence.
But it is otherwise with God. God is Judge Himself, and with Him an atonement is a satisfaction to justice, not a gratification of revenge. This distinction
is utterly forgotten in the argument and objection against the atonement which we are considering. But let this distinction be introduced; let it be remembered that the Lord is the Lawgiver and Judge; that what is competent and holy with Him would be usurpation and unrighteousness with us; that the demand which, on His part, is satisfaction to justice and perfectly consistent with love, would on our part be gratification of revenge, and clearly indicative of cruelty. Then the utter vanity of this objection becomes manifest.
Godly Sorrow1
W K Tweedie
Zechariah 12:10. They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
Countless crowds never do so. Far from feeling the poignant sorrow which the Holy Spirit here describes, sin occasions no regret, and the Saviour’s anguish no lamentation. No, men are busy piercing Him afresh, as far as they have the power. His love unto death is unheeded. His compassion for the lost and the wretched awakens no corresponding emotion. Men are in spirit ready to cry as of old, “Away with Him”; “Crucify Him, crucify Him”.
But not so all. The Spirit of grace and of supplications is poured out on some. They then discover what it is to have shared in the guilt of crucifying the Saviour, and of adding to the poignancy of His dying agonies. They now understand the strong language of the Spirit: They “shall be in bitterness for Him, as one is in bitterness for his firstborn”. And they feel that the dust is the appropriate bed for them, or sackcloth the appropriate garment.
O my soul, there is an eye upon you which looks you through and through. Conscience may be sharp, but the glance of that eye is keener still. It sees whether you have ever mourned for a Saviour’s agony, or whether you are still as wayward as ever. How then is it with you? Have you felt what it is to be a sinner? Have you seen the enormity of sin as committed against Him whose love was boundless, the report of which has reached even to you?
Then rejoice that some even of those who crucified Him were washed in the blood which they helped to shed, when an apostle preached salvation to them, through Him whom they had crucified and slain. Go with all your sins to Him. Look on Him whom you have pierced; and then, with godly sorrow, lay your hand on your mouth, and your mouth in the dust, crying out, Unclean, unclean. The more lowly your bed, if your humility is such as the Spirit
1Taken with editing from Tweedie’s Glad Tidings of the Gospel of Peace.
of God produces, the brighter may be your hopes, and the higher your exaltation will be. There are many now in glory who were once ashamed even to look to the place where God’s honour dwells.