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17). In this sense only, death is escaped by the Christian (John 11:26). For this reason, in the parallel between Adam and Christ (Rom. 5 : 12–21), the apostle passes from the thought of mere physical death in the early part of the passage to that of both physical and spiritual death at its close (verse 21-"as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord"--where "eternal life" is more than endless physical existence, and "death" is more than death of the body).

Gen. 2: 17" in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die"; John 11: 26-" whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die"; Rom. 5: 12-21-"justification of life... eternal life"; contrast these with "death reigned... sin reigned in death."

(c) Eternal death may be regarded as the culmination and completion of spiritual death, and as essentially consisting in the correspondence of the outward condition with the inward state of the evil soul (Acts 1:25). It would seem to be inaugurated by some peculiar repellent energy of the divine holiness (Mat. 25 : 41; 2 Thess. 1:9), and to involve positive retribution visited by a personal God upon both the body and the soul of the evil doer (Mat. 10: 28; Heb. 10:31; Rev. 14 : 11).

Acts 1: 25-"Judas fell away, that he might go to his own place"; Mat. 25: 41-" Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels "; 2 Thess. 1: 9-"who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might"; Mat. 10: 28-"fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell"; Heb. 10: 31-"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God"; Rev. 14: 11-"the smoke of their torment goeth up for ever and ever."

Kurtz, Religionslehre, 67—“So long as God is holy, he must maintain the order of the world, and where this is destroyed, restore it. This however can happen in no other way than this: the injury by which the sinner has destroyed the order of the world falls back upon himself-and this is penalty. Sin is the negation of the law. Penalty is the negation of that negation, that is, the reëstablishment of the law. Sin is a thrust of the sinner against the law. Penalty is the adverse thrust of the elastic because living law, which encounters the sinner."

On the general subject of the penalty of sin, see Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 1 : 245 sq.; 2: 286-397; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 263-279; Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, 194-219; Krabbe, Lehre von der Sünde und vom Tode; Weisse, in Studien und Kritiken, 1836: 371; S. R. Mason, Truth Unfolded, 369–384; Bartlett, in New Englander, Oct., 1871 : 677, 678.

SECTION VII.-THE SALVATION OF INFANTS.

The views which have been presented with regard to inborn depravity and the reaction of divine holiness against it suggest the question whether infants dying before arriving at moral consciousness are saved, and if so, in what way. To this question we reply as follows:

(a) Infants are in a state of sin, need to be regenerated, and can be saved only through Christ.

Job 14: 4" Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one"; Ps. 51: 5-"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me"; John 3: 6-"That which is born of the flesh is flesh "; Rom. 5: 14"Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression"; Eph. 2: 3-"by nature children of wrath "; 1 Cor. 7: 14-"else were your children unclean"-clearly intimates the naturally impure state of infants; and Mat. 19: 14-"Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me "-is not only consistent with this doctrine, but strongly confirms

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it; for the meaning is: "forbid them not to come unto me"-whom they need as a Savior. ing to Christ is always the coming of a sinner, to him who is the sacrifice for sin.

(b) Yet as compared with those who have personally transgressed, they are recognized as possessed of a relative innocence, and of a submissiveness and trustfulness, which may serve to illustrate the graces of Christian character.

Deut. 1: 39" Your little ones... and your children, which this day have no knowledge of good and evil"; Jonah 4: 11-"Six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand"; Rom. 9: 11"for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad"; Mat. 18: 3, 4-"Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." See Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2: 265.

(c) For this reason, they are the objects of special divine compassion and and through the grace of Christ are certain of salvation.

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Mat. 18 5, 6, 10, 14-" Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me; but whoso shall cause one of these little ones which believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea.... See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. . . . Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish "; 19: 14-"Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven"-not God's kingdom of nature, but his kingdom of grace, the kingdom of saved sinners. On the passages in Matthew, see Commentaries of Bengel, De Wette, Lange; also Neander, Planting and Training (ed. Robinson), 407.

Meyer refers these passages to spiritual infants only. So Dr. Kendrick, in S. S. Times: "To infants and children, as such, the language cannot apply. It must be taken figuratively, and must refer to those qualities in childhood, its dependence, its trustfulness, its tender affection, its loving obedience, which are typical of the essential Christian graces.... If asked after the logic of our Savior's words-how he could assign, as a reason for allowing literal little children to be brought to him, that spiritual little childred have a claim to the kingdom of heaven-I reply: the persons that thus, as a class, typify the subjects of God's spiritual kingdom cannot be in themselves objects of indifference to him, or be regarded otherwise than with intense interest. The class that

in its very nature thus shadows forth the brightest features of Christian excellence must be subjects of God's special concern and care."

To these remarks of Dr. Kendrick we would add, that Jesus' words seem to us to intimate more than special concern and care. While these words seem intended to exclude all idea that infants are saved by their natural holiness, or without application to them of the blessings of his atonement, they also seem to us to include infants among the number of those who have the right to these blessings; in other words, Christ's concern and care go so far as to choose infants to eternal life, and to make them subjects of the kingdom of heaven. Cf. Mat. 18: 14-"it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish" those whom Christ has received here, he will not reject hereafter. Of course this is said to infants, as infants. To those, therefore, who die before coming to moral consciousness, Christ's words assure salvation. Personal transgression, however, involves the necessity, before death, of a personal repentance and faith, in order to salvation.

(d) The descriptions of God's merciful provision as coëxtensive with the ruin of the fall also lead us to believe that those who die in infancy receive salvation through Christ as certainly as they inherit sin from Adam.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world"-includes infants. Rom. 5: 14-" death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come = there is an application to infants of the life in Christ, as there was an application to them of the death in Adam; 19-21-"For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. And the law came in beside that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" =as without personal act of theirs infants inherited corruption from Adam, so without personal act of theirs salvation is provided for them in Christ.

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(e) The condition of salvation for adults is personal faith. Infants are incapable of fulfilling this condition. Since Christ has died for all, we have reason to believe that provision is made for their reception of Christ in some other way.

2 Cor. 5: 15" he died for all"; Mark 16: 16-"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned" (verses 9-20 are of canonical authority, though probably not written by Mark).

(f) At the final judgment, personal conduct is made the test of character. But infants are incapable of personal transgression. We have reason, therefore, to believe that they will be among the saved, since this rule of decision will not apply to them.

Mat. 25: 45, 46"Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto me. And these shall go away into eternal punishment "; Rom. 2: 5, 6—" the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his works."

(g) Since there is no evidence that children dying in infancy are regenerated prior to death, either with or without the use of external means, it seems most probable that the work of regeneration may be performed by the Spirit in connection with the infant soul's first view of Christ in the other world. As the remains of natural depravity in the Christian are eradicated, not by death, but at death, through the sight of Christ and union with him, so the first moment of consciousness for the infant may be coincident with a view of Christ the Savior which accomplishes the entire sanctification of its nature.

2 Cor. 3: 18" But we all, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit"; 1 John 3: 2-"We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." If asked why more is not said upon this subject in Scripture, we reply: It is according to the analogy of God's general method to hide things that are not of immediate practical value. In some past ages, knowledge of the fact that all children dying in infancy are saved might have seemed to make infanticide a virtue.

While, in the nature of things and by the express declarations of Scripture, we are precluded from extending this doctrine of regeneration at death to any who have committed personal sins, we are nevertheless warranted in the conclusion that, certain and great as is the guilt of original sin, no human soul is eternally condemned solely for this sin of nature, but that, on the other hand, all who have not consciously and wilfully transgressed are made partakers of Christ's salvation.

See Prentiss, in Presb. Rev., July, 1883: 548-580-"Lyman Beecher and Charles Hodge first made current in this country the doctrine of the salvation of all who die in infancy. If this doctrine be accepted, then it follows: (1) that these partakers of original sin must be saved wholly through divine grace and power; (2) that in the child unborn there is the promise and potency of complete spiritual manhood; (3) that salvation is possible entirely apart from the visible church and the means of grace; (4) that to a full half of the race this life is not in any way a period of probation; (5) that heathen may be saved who have never even heard of the gospel; (6) that the providence of God includes in its scope both infants and heathen." See also Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1: 26, 27; Ridgeley, Body of Divinity, 1:422–425; Calvin, Institutes, II, i, 8; Westminster Larger Catechism, x, 3; Krauth, Infant Salvation in the Calvinistic System; Candlish on Atonement, part ii, chap. 1; Geo. P. Fisher, in New Englander, Apr., 1868: 338; J. F. Clarke, Truths and Errors of Orthodoxy, 360.

PART VI.

SOTERIOLOGY, OR THE DOCTRINE OF SALVATION THROUGH THE WORK OF CHRIST AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

CHAPTER I.

CHRISTOLOGY, OR THE REDEMPTION WROUGHT BY CHRIST.

SECTION I.-HISTORICAL PREPARATION FOR REDEMPTION.

Since God had from eternity determined to redeem mankind, the history of the race from the time of the fall to the coming of Christ was providentially arranged to prepare the way for this redemption. This preparation was two-fold:

I. NEGATIVE PREPARATION,-in the history of the heathen world.

This showed (1) the true nature of sin, and the depth of spiritual ignorance and of moral depravity to which the race, left to itself, must fall; and (2) the powerlessness of human nature to preserve or regain an adequate knowledge of God, or to deliver itself from sin by philosophy or art.

Why could not Eve have been the mother of the chosen seed, as she doubtless at the first supposed that she was? (Gen. 4:1-"and she conceived and bare Cain [i. e. ‘gotten', or 'acquired'], and said I have gotten a man, even Jehovah "). Why was not the cross set up at the gates of Eden? Scripture intimates that a preparation was needful (Gal. 4: 4-" but when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son"). Of the two agencies made use of, we have called heathenism the negative preparation. But it was not wholly negative; it was partly positive also. "Justin Martyr spoke of a Aóyos σñeрμаTIкós among the heathen. Clement of Alexandria called Plato a Moons àтrakiswv-a Greek-speaking Moses. Notice the priestly attitude of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Pindar, Sophocles. The Bible recognizes Job, Balaam, Melchisedek, as instances of priesthood, or divine communication, outside the bounds of the chosen people. Heathen religions either were not religions, or God had a part in them. Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, were at least reformers, raised up in God's providence. Gal. 4:3 classes Judaism with the "rudiments of the world," and Rom. 5: 20 tells us that "the law came in beside," as a force coöperating with other human factors, primitive revelation, sin, etc."

But the positive element in heathenism was slight. Her altars and sacrifices, her philosophy and art, roused cravings which she was powerless to satisfy. Her religious systems became sources of deeper corruption. There was no hope, and no progress. The Sphynx's moveless calm symbolizes the monotony of Egyptian civilization." Classical nations became more despairing, as they became more cultivated. To the best minds' truth seemed impossible of attainment, and all hope of general well-being seemed a dream. The Jews were the only forward-looking people; and all our modern confidence

in destiny and development comes from them. They, in their turn, drew their hopefulness solely from prophecy. Not their "genius for religion," but special revelation from God, made them what they were.

Although God was in heathen history, yet so exceptional were the advantages of the Jews, that we can almost assent to the doctrine of the New Englander, Sept., 1883: 576"The Bible does not recognize other revelations. It speaks of the 'face of the covering that is cast over all peoples, and the vail that is spread over all nations' (Is. 25:7); Acts 14:16, 17- who in the generations gone by suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways. And yet he left not himself without witness' not an internal revelation in the hearts of sages, but an external revelation in nature, 'in that he did good, and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness. The convictions of heathen reformers with regard to divine inspiration were dim and intangible, compared with the consciousness of prophets and apostles that God was speaking through them to his people."

On heathenism as a preparation for Christ, see Tholuck, Nature and Moral Influence of Heathenism, in Bib. Repos., 1832: 80, 246, 441; Döllinger, Gentile and Jew; Pressensé, Religions before Christ; Max Müller, Science of Religion, 1-128; Cocker, Christianity and Greek Philosophy; Ackermann, Christian Element in Plato; Farrar, Seekers after God; Renan, on Rome and Christianity, in Hibbert Lectures for 1880.

II. POSITIVE PREPARATION,-in the history of Israel.

A single people was separated from all others, from the time of Abraham, and was educated in three great truths: (1) the majesty of God, in his unity, omnipotence, and holiness; (2) the sinfulness of man, and his moral helplessness; (3) the certainty of a coming salvation. This education from the time of Moses was conducted by the use of three principal agencies:

A. Law. The Mosaic legislation, (a) by its theophanies and miracles, cultivated faith in a personal and almighty God and Judge; (b) by its commands and threatenings, wakened the sense of sin; (c) by its priestly and sacrificial system, inspired hope of some way of pardon and access to God. The education of the Jews was first of all an education by Law. In the history of the world, as in the history of the individual, law must precede gospel, John the Baptist must go before Christ, knowledge of sin must prepare a welcome entrance for knowledge of a Savior.

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B. Prophecy. This was of two kinds: (a) verbal,-beginning with the protevangelium in the garden, and extending to within four hundred years of the coming of Christ; (b) typical,—in persons, as Adam, Melchisedek, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Jonah; and in acts, as Isaac's sacrifice, and Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness.

Christ was the reality, to which the types and ceremonies of Judaism pointed; and these latter disappeared when Christ had come, just as the petals of the blossom drop away when the fruit appears. Many promises to the O. T. saints, which seemed to them promises of temporal blessing, were fulfilled in a better, because a more spiritual, way than they expected. Thus God cultivated in them a boundless trust-a trust which was essentially the same thing with the faith of the new dispensation, because it was the absolute reliance of a consciously helpless sinner upon God's method of salvation, and so was implicitly, though not explicitly, a faith in Christ.

The protevangelium (Gen. 3: 15) said "it [this promised seed] shall bruise thy head." The "it" was rendered in some Latin manuscripts "ipsa." Hence Roman Catholic divines attributed the victory to the Virgin. Notice that Satan was cursed, but not Adam and Eve; for they were candidates for restoration, The promise of the Messiah narrowed itself down as the race grew older, from Abraham to Judah, David, Bethlehem, and the Virgin. Prophecy spoke of "the sceptre" and of "the seventy weeks." Haggai and Malachi foretold that the Lord should suddenly come to the second temple. Christ was to be true man and true God; prophet, priest, and king; humbled and exalted. When prophecy had become complete, a brief interval elapsed, and then he, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, actually came.

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