by the Rev. CHARLES G. FINNEY
Modernized
by Cliff Collins
“They have hated me without a cause.” (John 15:25)
These
are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In my two earlier messages on total depravity, I demonstrated that all
impenitent sinners hate God supremely.
And, since I believe that I have established this doctrine beyond doubt
by appealing to matters of fact; it now becomes a very serious and important
question, why do sinners hate God?
If
sinners have good reasons for hating God, then you cannot blame them for hating
God. But, if their reasons aren’t good
reasons, or if they hate God when they should love Him; then they have acquired
tremendous guilt because of their hatred towards God.
In
speaking on this subject, I plan:
I.
To show what is not the reason for their hatred.
II.
What is the reason for their hatred?
III.
Sinners hate God for the same reasons that they should love Him.
I.
What are not reasons why sinners hate God?
1.
It is not because God has constituted or created sinners with some kind of
physical or constitutional aversion toward God. The passage that I read to you today says that sinners have hated
God without a cause. It isn’t because
there is no reason why they hate Him; but there is no good reason why they hate
Him. It isn’t because there is strictly
no cause for their hatred; for every effect must have some cause; but there is
no just cause for their hatred. If God
had created man in such a way physically that he naturally hated his Maker,
this would not only be a cause, but a just cause for hating Him. If, when God created us, He incorporated
into the very substance of our being some kind of constitutional aversion to God,
this would not only be a sufficient reason why we should hate Him, but also why
everyone else on the face of this planet should hate Him.
2.
The sinner’s hatred of God is not caused by anything hereditary, or transmitted
from parents to infants. A disposition
to hate God is hatred. A disposition is
an act of the mind, and it is not a part of the mind itself. It is therefore absurd, to talk about some
kind of hereditary, or some kind of transmitted disposition or desire to love
or hate God, or to love or hate anything else.
It is impossible that a voluntary state of mind can be hereditary or
transmitted from one generation to another.
3.
If any of you here today, believe that a disposition is a tendency, or a
temper; and not an action. If you
believe that this disposition to hate God is something that is not a voluntary
state of mind. If you believe that this
disposition to hate God is a quality or an attribute that is part of the mind
itself, please let me say, that the sinner’s hatred is not caused by any
attribute or property that is a part of a person’s mind. If it were a part of a person’s mind, then
it would have a natural and necessary aversion to God.
4.
You cannot find any just cause for opposing God, in the way that God created
us. Our nature is as it should be. Our powers are as God created them. He has made our powers in the best way that
infinite power, goodness, and wisdom could make them. Our powers are perfectly designed to serve our Creator. If we look at all the complex mechanisms and
the delicate organization of our body, if we scrutinize all the properties, all
the powers, and all the capabilities of our mind, we cannot find any just
reason to complain. On the other hand,
we find infinite reasons to love and adore the great Architect, and exclaim
with the Psalmist, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. (Psalms 139:14)
5.
There is no just cause for hating God, in that good and wise arrangement, by
which we all have descended from Adam; and under which divine arrangement, we
are naturally (not necessarily) influenced; and our characters are modified by
the circumstances under which we came into being. God created our being in such a way, that we naturally influence
each other, and we are highly instrumental in modifying each other’s
character. This is a wise and
benevolent arrangement of the highest importance to the universe. But, like every other good thing, it can be
abused; and the more powerful our influence is to promote virtue when we do
right, the more powerful will be our influence to promote evil when we do
wrong.
6.
There is no reason for the sinner’s hatred in God’s moral government. God’s commandments are not cruel. God’s commandments are not impossible to
obey; nor are they designed to produce misery when we obey them. However, on the other hand, the Bible says
that, “His yoke is easy, and His burden is light”. (Matt 11:30) God’s commandments
are easily obeyed; and obedience naturally results in happiness. If God had established a government, the
requirements of which were so high that it was extremely difficult for anyone
to obey His laws; if His laws were so obscure, intricate, and difficult to
understand, that honest minds were in great danger of mistaking the real
meaning of His requirements; or if His laws were arbitrary and unnecessary; or
if they were enforced by unjust and cruel punishments: if any of these things
were true, sinners would have a just reason to hate God. But not one of these things are true.
The
sinner cannot find any just reason for his hatred in the requirements of the
Gospel. Sinners would have plenty of
good reasons to hate God if the conditions of salvation that are presented in
the Gospel were arbitrary or unjust or if it was impossible for anyone to obey
them. They could justify their hatred
if the terms of salvation were placed so high above them that no one had enough
natural power to obey them, and fulfill the impossible conditions on which
their salvation hangs. If God commanded
sinners to repent when they had no power to repent; if God required sinners to
believe when they had no power to believe; and threatened to send them to hell
for not repenting and believing; then sinners would have a just reason to hate
God. But none of these things are true. The conditions of the Gospel are far from
arbitrary. The conditions of the Gospel
are naturally indispensable to our salvation.
Instead of being placed so high above us that it is impossible for us to
obey, or even difficult for us to comply with the conditions of the Gospel;
they are brought down as low as they possibly can be, without making the
sinner’s salvation impossible.
Repentance and faith are indispensable to equip the soul for the
enjoyment of heaven; and if God should do away with these conditions, and decide
that the sinner should simply remain in his sins, it would make the sinner’s
damnation certain.
Not
only are the conditions of salvation necessary, but also it is easy to comply
with those conditions. It is much
easier to comply with the conditions of salvation than to reject them. Our mental powers are just as well suited to
accept as to reject the Gospel. The
reasons to accept God’s offers of mercy are infinitely greater than the reasons
to reject God’s offers of mercy. So
weighty, indeed are the motives to comply with the conditions of the Gospel,
that sinners often find it difficult to resist them, and they must work to
maintain themselves in impenitence and unbelief.
The
sinner has no just cause for hating God in the way He governs our world providentially!
There
is no reason to doubt that God so administers His providential government that
it produces the highest, most favorable and practical influence in favor of
holiness that is possible. It is clear
that God’s moral laws are guarded by the highest possible rewards and
punishments. Everything has been done,
that a perfect moral government could do, to secure universal holiness in the
world. So it is true, beyond all
reasonable doubt, that God’s physical or providential government is administered
in the wisest possible manner.
God
administers His providential government solely for the benefit, and in support
of His moral government. God’s
providence is designed to bring out and exert the highest moral influence that
a providential government is capable of exerting. Many sinners talk as if they think God could have administered
His moral and providential governments in a way that would be a lot more
judicious and fair, and better designed to secure perfection in the conduct of
His subjects. They seem to think that
because God is almighty, He therefore can do anything He pleases even if it is
absurd or contradictory. They think
that God can secure perfection in moral agents by exercising His physical omnipotence;
and that the existence of sin in our world is conclusive proof, that, although
in some situations, He is opposed to sin, yet on the whole, He prefers its
existence to holiness in its place.
They seem to take it for granted that God’ could have administered His
moral and providential governments in such a way, that He could have produced
universal holiness throughout the universe.
But this is an unwarranted and a very wicked assumption. This is not a proper assumption if you look
at the omnipotence and omniscience of God; and this erroneous assumption is
based on a distorted view of the nature of moral agency and of moral
government.
There
is no reason to hate anything that belongs to God’s character. There is nothing hateful or repelling to any
just mind in any view that they can take of the character of Jehovah. Instead, God’s character understands and
embraces every conceivable, or possible excellence.
There
is no just reason to hate the things that God does. There is no inconsistency between what God does and what He
says. Some people seem to picture God
as a sly, artful, hypocritical being, who says one thing, and means
another. They picture a God Who claims
that He hates sin, yet He conducts Himself and the affairs of His kingdom in
such a way, that sin has to occur, and God does this on purpose. They picture a God who commands men to keep
His law, on pain of eternal death, and yet in reality, He would really rather
have them break the law. They see a God
Who commands all men to repent and believe the Gospel, yet He has made atonement
only for the elect. Their God requires
them to repent, but has made them in such a way that He knows they are unable
to repent. Their God professes to
desire the salvation of all men, and yet their salvation is based on impossible
conditions. Indeed, many seem to
represent what God does and what He says, to always be at odds with each other;
thus making up a complicated pattern of contradictions, absurdities, and
hypocrisies. But all such
representations of God, are a libel on His infinitely fair and upright conduct.
There
is nothing unkind, or unnecessarily severe, in the conduct that God manifests
towards the inhabitants of this world.
Sinners have done a lot of complaining about His conduct. They have often complained that He deals
unjustly or unfairly, and they sometimes ask what they have done to deserve
such severe chastisements from Him. But
all their complaining only proves their own wickedness, and they can never
truly blame their plight on the conduct of God.
II.
Sinners hate God because they are supremely selfish; and God is, as He should
be, infinitely opposed to their selfish goals in life. The first thing that we discover in the
conduct of little children is the fact that they desire self-gratification. At what age their desires become selfish
desires, is impossible for us to say.
The fact, that a proper desire to satisfy an appetite for food, drink,
or to satisfy any of our constitutional appetites is not sinful. This is obvious. These appetites have no moral character all by themselves; and
properly indulging in them is not sinful.
But whenever indulging in them becomes unreasonable; whenever indulging
in our appetites collide with God’s requirements; whenever and wherever we indulge
our constitutional tendencies when we are under an obligation to abstain from
indulging in them, we sin. It is
because, in all these situations, we are selfish. In all these situations, we make our own indulgence the rule that
governs our duty, instead of making the requirement of God our rule of
duty. We consent to indulge ourselves,
at the expense of the public, and in a way that is inconsistent with the glory
of God and the highest good of His universe.
This is the essence and the history of all sin. Now, no matter how old we were when we first
preferred self-gratification to our duty to God, when we first made
self-gratification the supreme object of our choice; at what particular moment
self-gratification came to be the ruling principle of our conduct and the
highest goal of our lives, it is perhaps impossible for us to determine.
But
whenever that happened, it marked the beginning of our moral depravity. It was our first moral act. It constituted the beginning of our moral
character. Before this, nothing that we
had done had any moral character at all.
The Bible assures us, that this occurs so early in our lifetime, that it
may be said, “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as
they are born, speaking lies.” (Psalm
58:3) You cannot take this passage
literally, because we do not speak at all as soon as we are born: but the
wicked speak lies, as soon as they do speak.
Behold says the Psalmist, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and
in sin my mother conceived me.” This
passage is also figurative; for it is impossible that the substance of a
conceived fetus should be sin! This
would contradict God’s own definition of sin.
God says, “sin is a transgression of the law”; but the law prescribes a
rule of action, and does not determine the underlying nature of our
existence. If the substance of a
conceived fetus is sin: if the child itself, before he is born, is a sin, than
God has committed it. The only thing
that scriptures like this one can possibly mean, without making nonsense of the
word of God, without making different passages contradict each other, is that
we were always sinners from the beginning of our moral existence or our moral
birth; that is, from the earliest moment of our moral agency. And to insist on the literal understanding
of passages like these, dangerously perverts the Bible. Adopt the principle of interpretation that
insists that these passages should be interpreted literally, and apply it in
the exposition of the whole Bible, and you can not only prove that sin and
holiness are substances, but also that God is a material being. Indeed, here is where you find the source of
the greatest error on the subject of depravity. The great rule of interpretation, that every passage must be
understood according to the nature of the subject of that passage, has been
overlooked, and the same meaning has often been attached to the same word,
whether it applies to matter or to mind.
For instance, throwing away God’s definition of sin, which says that sin
consists completely in transgressing or breaking the law, and applying those
figurative expressions while totally ignoring God’s own definition of sin,
turns sin into something that is completely different than a voluntary,
willful, or deliberate transgression of the law. It forces the Scripture to contradict itself by overlooking one
of the most important rules of Biblical interpretation.
This
is tampering with God’s word. This is
tempting the Holy Ghost. It is a
stupid, not to mention that it is a willful perversion of God’s truth. Now, the main reason why sinners are opposed
to God is not because there is any defect in their nature that makes their
opposition physically necessary, but because God is irreconcilably opposed to
their selfishness. God is infinitely
opposed to the reason why they do everything they do. Sinners do what they do to obtain happiness in a way that is
inconsistent with God’s glory and the happiness of other beings.
Their
supreme end, their goal in life, is to promote their own happiness in a way
that is inconsistent with the public good.
To this God is infinitely opposed.
Since they have an unholy goal in view whenever they do something, the
means that they use to accomplish their goal is, of course, as wicked as their
goal. Therefore, God is just as opposed
to the means that they use, which they use for the goal that they are trying to
accomplish, which is to satisfy their own selfish desires. These means make up the history of their
lives. Everything they do is designed,
directly or indirectly, to accomplish the all-absorbing goal that the sinner
aims at, the promotion of his own happiness.
God is therefore, as He should be, sincerely, conscientiously, and
infinitely opposed to everything they do or say, as long as they are in an
unrepentant state. Sinners want to make
everything subordinate to their own private interests. God insists that they seek their happiness
in a way that is consistent with, and calculated to promote, the happiness of
everybody. This is, after all, the only
way in which they can truly be happy.
As a result, God determines, with all His heart, to defeat every attempt
that they make to obtain happiness their own way. God is the irreconcilable adversary of all their selfish
schemes. He embitters every cup of
selfish joy, “turns their” selfish “council headlong; and brings down their
violent dealing on their own heads”.
(Job 5:13, Psalms 7:16)
Thus,
you see that sinners hate God because He is so holy. As long as they remain selfish, and He is infinitely unselfish,
their characters, their designs, their desires, and all their ways are totally
opposed to God’s plans and desires, and His plans are opposed to their
plans. They have totally opposite
goals; and until sinners change, it will always be true as God has said, “I
loathe them, and they abhor me”. (Psalm
139:21)
Holiness
is a regard for right. God requires,
under infinite penalties, that every moral being in the universe should do,
feel, and say that which is perfectly right.
Anything less than this, God cannot require without injustice. But sinners are not willing to do
right. They want to be free to consult
their own private interests in everything, and they consider God as an enemy
because He insists on their unqualified obedience to the law of right, no
matter how perfectly it counteracts their selfish schemes.
Sinners
hate God because He is so good. God is
good and does good and promotes the public interest in a way that often
overturns and scatters to the winds all their selfish projects and Babel-towers
that they attempt to climb to heaven with.
God’s heart is so set on doing good, that in the execution of His great
plan, He has often overthrown families and nations that stood in His way. Once, He overwhelmed a world of sinners in a
flood to prevent their mischief, and brought the world back into such a state,
that, through the introduction of the law and Gospel, He might reclaim fallen
humanity and save multitudes from hell.
Sinners
hate God because He is impartial. They
view their own interest as supremely important, and they pour their hearts into
making everything in the universe bend to their selfish interests. If it were possible, they would want the
weather, the winds, and the whole material and moral universe conform to the
great object they have in view: to consummate and perpetuate their own
happiness. But, since God has a goal in
view that is completely different from their goal; since His purpose is to
promote the general happiness and the happiness of individuals only as far as
it is consistent with the happiness and rights of other beings, He continually
thwarts them in their favorite projects.
The very elements of the material universe are so arranged and governed
that it often makes shipwreck of their fondest hopes and annihilates forever
their most fondly cherished expectations.
But
this is not all. Sinners hate God
because He threatens to punish them for their sins. God will not compromise with them; He insists on their obedience
or their damnation. He requests their
repentance and reformation, or the everlasting destruction of their souls. Now, either alternative is supremely hateful
to an impenitent sinner. He is
completely unwilling to repent. He is
unwilling to heartily confess that God is right, and he is wrong. He refuses to take God’s side against
himself and to give up the pursuit of his own happiness as his supreme purpose
in life. He doesn’t want to dedicate
himself with all he is and has to the service of God and the promotion of the
public interest. In spite of the fact
that God insists on it, he will not compromise, but because God demands
unqualified and unconditional submission to His will, or the eternal damnation
of the sinner’s soul; the sinner is completely un-reconciled to either. He considers God as his infinite and
almighty adversary, and makes war on God with all his heart.
III.
Sinners hate God for the same reasons why they should love Him. They are the same reasons why all holy
beings love Him. God’s opposition to
all sin, and to all harmful and damaging conduct of every kind; His high regard
for individual and general happiness; and in short, all those reasons for which
selfish beings are so much opposed to Him, are the foundation of their
obligation to love Him. But these are
the same reasons why reasonable people, who have any regard for true morality
and what is right, feel that it is an infinite right and duty for them to love
their Maker. He deserves to be loved
for these reasons. And it is for these
reasons, and no other reasons that sinners hate Him. They do not hate Him because He deserves their hatred, but
because He deserves their love. It is
not because God is wicked, but because He is good. It is not because they have any good reason to hate Him, but
because they have every possible reason to love Him. I mean exactly what I say.
Sinners not only hate God, in spite of infinitely strong reasons for
loving Him; but for these very reasons.
Not only is it true that these reasons for loving Him do not prevent
them from hating God, but they are the very reasons why they hate Him.
I
will conclude today’s discussion with several remarks.
1.
From this subject you can see the ridiculous hypocrisy of infidels. It is very common for them to claim that
they are partial in their investigations and inquiries. They insist that Christians are already
committed, and are therefore incapable of giving Christianity a candid and
unbiased examination. They say that you
cannot rely on a Christian’s judgment because they are already committed in
favor of Christianity. But infidels think
that they are in circumstances to make up an unbiased and enlightened judgment;
and to examine and decide without prejudice.
But this is completely absurd.
They are not on neutral ground, as they think they are. They are committed against the Bible. The fact that they are the enemies of God is
demonstrated by their conduct. Their
lives are such that anyone who is good, such as God, cannot approve of their
behavior. That God, Who is holy, must
hate their behavior is a plain matter of fact.
You don’t need the Bible to prove this.
Now, the Bible is a book that claims to be a revelation from God. It demands holiness of heart and life from
infidels; and threatens them with eternal death for their sins. Now, is it not absurd? Is it not ridiculous and hypocritical for
these enemies of God, committed as they are against God, and against this
revelation; to set themselves up as the only impartial judges?
True
Christians can sit down to investigate a subject without bias. They are on neutral ground. They feel no such prejudices that would
misguide their judgment. Let us say
that Christians are as much prejudiced in favor of Christianity, as infidels
say they are. Still, unless infidels
are willing to admit that true Christians are perfect, that they are wholly
sinless and entirely devoted to God; it will appear that Christians are not
likely to be as prejudiced in favor of Christianity as infidels are against
it. Infidels are entirely opposed to
God. All impenitent sinners, as I have
shown in my two discussions on moral depravity, are totally depraved; and until
Christians become completely perfect, they will not be as completely biased in
favor of God, as sinners are in favor of the devil. Until then, they will not be as likely to misjudge in favor of
the Bible, as sinners will be against it.
Professing
Christians, who are generally in favor of God, feel strongly attached to the
Bible. But, because they have some
remaining sin about them they are likely to feel many objections to the
strictness of its claims; they are in the best circumstances, and in the most
favorable state of mind of any beings in the world to judge impartially. They are not so wicked as to reject what
they see is true, nor so compliant that they blindly submit to everything that
pretends to have a claim on their obedience.
By this I do not mean that these Christians are better qualified to
judge the truth of the Christian religion than if they were perfect; but I do
mean to repel the absurd assertions of infidels, that the Christian’s faith is
nothing more than a blind faith. There
never was at anytime enough piety in the church, to bear the restraints of pure
Christianity, if the evidence in its favor did not come on them with the power
of demonstration.
2.
From this subject you can see, that the wicked CONDUCT of sinners is no proof
that their NATURE IS SINFUL. The
universal sinful conduct of men has been used to draw the inevitable conclusion
that the nature of man must be sinful all by itself. Many believe and claim that there is no other way to account for
the universal sinful conduct of men.
Many insist, that an effect must have the same nature as its cause; and
since the actions of our nature are effects and these effects are universally
sinful, that therefore the nature or cause must also be sinful.
But,
using this same logic, if an effect must have the same nature as its cause, if
the cause must have the same nature as the effect, then God must be a material
being, for He is the cause of the existence of all matter, and therefore He
must be material. Therefore, the soul
of man must also be material. After
all, our soul acts on our material body, and causes our body to act on other
material things around us, and since our soul is constantly effecting material
changes on every hand, the soul must be material. This would, indeed, be a handy method of doing away with the
existence of all spirits. But who will,
after all, agree with this kind of argument, and adopt as a serious and grave
truth, the absurd teaching that the character of an effect, always decides the
character or nature of its cause.
The
universal sinful conduct of men is easily and naturally accounted for on the
principles I have placed before you today.
We universally adopt from the very beginning, the principle of
selfishness as our supreme rule that directs everything we do, and from the
very laws of our mental constitution, this corrupts all our moral conduct, and
gives a sinful character to every moral action.
Then
how can children universally adopt the principle of selfishness, unless their
nature is sinful? I answer, that they
adopt this principle of self gratification or selfishness because they possess
a human nature, and are born into the peculiar circumstances that all the
children of Adam have been born into since the fall: but not because human
nature is itself sinful. The cause of
their becoming sinners is to be found in their nature being what it is, and
surrounded by the peculiar circumstances of temptation that they are exposed to
in this world of sinners.
All
the constitutional appetites and tendencies of our body and mind are innocent
all by themselves; but when they are strongly excited, they become a powerful
temptation to indulgence in these appetites and tendencies selfishly. So many appeals of temptation are made to
these constitutional appetites and tendencies that they universally lead human
beings to sin. Adam was created a
perfect man. Certainly, he did not have
a sinful nature, and yet, an appeal to his innocent constitutional appetites
led him into sin. Adam was an adult
without a sinful nature. After he
walked and lived in perfect obedience and holiness for a while, Adam was led to
change his mind by appealing to his innocent constitutional tendencies. Infants today possess the same nature that
Adam had before he fell and they are surrounded by circumstances of even
greater temptation. Now, how can the
fact that infants universally fall into sin, prove that their nature is sinful
all by itself? Is such a conclusion
called for? Is such a conclusion
legitimate? What! We have a holy and adult Adam, who is led by
an appeal to his innocent constitution to adopt the principle of selfishness,
and no suspicion is, or can be entertained, that he had a sinful nature. However, if little children under
circumstances of temptation that has been made much worse by the fall are led
into sin, we must assume that their nature is sinful! This is a remarkable philosophy; and what makes the absurdity even
worse is, that in order to admit that our human nature is sinful, we must
believe that sin consists in the substance of our constitution, instead of in
our voluntary action. That’s
impossible!
And
that which makes the conclusion of a sinful nature even worse is, that in
proclaiming that we have a sinful nature, we reject God’s own declaration that
“sin is a transgression of law,” (I John 3:4) and adopt a definition of sin
which is perfectly absurd.
From
the view of depravity that I have presented in these discussions, it is easy to
see in what sense sin is natural to sinners; and what has led people everywhere
to attribute the manifestation of sin to their nature, as if their nature was
itself sinful.
All
experience shows, that from the laws of our constitution we are influenced in
our conduct directly or indirectly by the supreme preference of our minds. In other words, when we desire something
supremely, it is natural for us to pursue the object of our desire. We may also have desires for an object that
we do not pursue. However, we cannot
say that we do not pursue the object of our supreme desire. Supreme desire is nothing more than a
supreme or controlling choice. This
supreme desire is our goal or purpose in life.
And, as certain as our will controls our actions; so certainly, and so
naturally, we will pursue that object which we supremely desire. Therefore, the fact that sinners adopt the
principle of supreme selfishness, makes it certain and natural, as long as
their selfishness continues to be predominant, that they will sin, and only
sin, and this strictly agrees with, or rather it is the result of the laws of
their mental constitution. As long as
sinners maintain their supreme selfishness, obedience is impossible. This is the reason why “the carnal mind is
enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can
be.” (Rom 8:7) therefore, it is no surprise that sinners,
whose supreme preference is selfish, should find it very natural for them to
sin, and extremely difficult to do anything else than sin. This fact, that you can observe all around
you everyday, has led countless millions to attribute the sins of the whole
human race to their nature; and a great deal of the blame is placed on human
nature itself; when the fact is, sin is only an abuse of the powers of our
human nature. Men have very extensively
overlooked the fact that a deep-seated, but voluntary preference for sin, is
the foundation and fountain and cause of all other sins. The only sense in which sin is natural to
men is that it is natural for the mind to be influenced into participating in
sinful behavior because of their supreme selfish preferences or choices. Therefore, it will always be natural for a
sinner to sin, until he changes the supreme preference of his mind, or heart,
and prefers the glory of God and the interests of God’s kingdom to his own
separate and opposing selfish interests.
4.
Here you can see what a change of heart is; its nature, its importance, and the
obligation of the sinner to immediately change his heart. You can also see that the first act that the
sinner will, or can perform, that can be acceptable to God must be to change
his heart, or to change the supreme controlling preference of his mind.
5.
Perhaps someone will object and say, if infants are not born with a sinful
nature, how then can they be saved by grace?
But I ask in return, if they are born with a sinful nature, how are they
saved by grace? How can God create an
infant a sinner, and then call it grace to save him from the sinfulness of a
nature that God Himself created? This
is absurd and blasphemous. What! Represent the ever-blessed God as either
directly creating a sinful nature, or as establishing things in such a way that
a nature, which is sinful all by itself, would physically descend from Adam,
and then call that grace to save that child from that nature which he inherited
with out his permission or consent.
But
let us look at this. Here we have two
doctrines. Our first doctrine maintains
that infants have no moral character at all, until they actually do something
that they know is either right or wrong.
This doctrine maintains that their first moral actions are invariably
sinful, but that before their first moral action they are neither sinful nor holy. Since, until they act morally, they have no
moral character, they don’t deserve either praise or blame, and they don’t
deserve either life or death at the hand of God. God might annihilate them without injustice, or He may bestow on
them eternal life as a free and unearned gift.
The
Second doctrine maintains that infants have a sinful nature that they have
inherited from Adam. The scriptures
maintain that all who are ever saved of the human family must be saved by
grace; and those who maintain the system that the nature of infants is itself
sinful, believe that their system is the only system that allows for the
salvation of infants, who die before they transgress the law, to grace. But let us for a few moments examine these
two doctrines. In the Bible, grace is
clearly used in different ways. It is
sometimes synonymous with holiness. To
grow in grace is to grow in holiness.
Usually, it seems to mean unmerited favor. It is sometimes used in a broader sense, and includes the idea of
mercy or forgiveness.
Now,
when infants die before they actually transgress the law, it is impossible to
ascribe their salvation to grace, in any other sense than that of undeserved,
or unearned favor. If they have never
sinned, it is impossible that they should be saved by grace, if we include in
the definition of grace the idea of mercy or forgiveness. To claim that a child can be pardoned for
having a sinful nature is to talk ridiculous nonsense: and it is only in the
sense of undeserved favor, excluding the idea of mercy or pardon, that an
infant, dying before transgressing the law, can be said to be saved by
grace. In this sense, his salvation is
by grace. He has never earned eternal
life; he has never done anything, by which he has laid God under any obligation
to save him, and God might, without any injustice, annihilate him. But if it pleases God for the sake of
Christ, as I fully believe it does, to bestow eternal life on one whom He might
without any injustice annihilate, it is bestowing on him infinite favor. But let us look at our first doctrine for a
moment. Our doctrine denies that
infants have a sinful nature, and rejects the twisted teaching that God has
created our nature sinful, and then pretends to save infants from a nature of
His own creation by grace, as if the infant deserved damnation for being the
way that God made it.
Those
who believe our doctrine insist that there is as much grace in
the salvation of infants with our view of the subject, as with the impossible
doctrine of a sinful nature. The fact
is, the very existence of the whole race of man is a matter of grace, thanks to
the atonement of Jesus Christ. If it
had not been for the contemplated and anticipated atonement, Adam and Eve would
have been sent to hell immediately, and never would have had any children. Our race could never have existed. There never could have been any infants, or
adults (Adam and Eve excepted), if it hadn’t been for the grace of Christ in
intervening in behalf of man by His atonement.
No doubt, it was in anticipation of Christ’s atonement, and because of
this, that Adam and Eve were spared and the sentence of the law was not
instantly executed on them.
Now
every infant owes its very existence to the grace of God in Jesus Christ, and
if it dies before it transgresses the law, it is just as indebted to Christ for
eternal life, as if it had been the greatest sinner on earth. The grace that saves infants does not
include the idea of pardon with either of these doctrines. But with both of these doctrines, infants
are saved by grace since they owe their very existence to the atonement of
Christ; and in both situations they are delivered from circumstances under
which it is certain that had they lived long enough to form a moral character,
they would have sinned, and deserved eternal death. Therefore, to think, of objecting to the view of depravity that I
have presented in these lectures, because you think that it denies the grace of
God in the salvation of infants, is either to misconceive, or to willfully misrepresent
the opinions that I have shared with you in these recent lectures. I’d like to ask you, is there any more grace
displayed in the salvation of infants under one doctrine than there is under
the other doctrine. Maybe you will say
that if the nature of infants are sinful, grace must change their nature, and
that there is this difference; that although in neither situation does the
infant need a pardon, yet in the one situation his nature needs to be changed,
and not in the other. But if his nature
needs to be changed, I deny that this is an act of grace. If God has made his nature wrong and
incapable of doing anything that is not sinful, if God is just, He is required
to change it. This is justice. It is ridiculous to call this grace. To cause a being to come into existence with
a sinful or defective nature and then call it grace to change this nature and
make it as it should have been all the time, is to trifle with serious things
and talk deceitfully about God.
6.
The hatred of sinners is cruel. It is
as God says, “rendering hatred for My love”.
(Psalms 109:5) God is love, and
this is the reason and the only reason why they hate Him. Notice, it is not because they overlook the
fact that He is infinitely unselfish.
It is not for other reasons they hate Him; but it is because of the fact
that He is loving and unselfish. It is
literally and absolutely rendering hatred for His love. God is opposed to the fact that they harm
each other. He desires their happiness
and is infinitely opposed to the fact that they make themselves miserable. He is infinitely more opposed to their doing
anything that will prove destructive to themselves, than any earthly parent was
to that course of conduct in his beloved child, which he foresaw would ruin
him. His heart yearns with infinitely
more than parental tenderness. He
reasons with sinners and says, “Oh, do not do this abominable thing that I
hate!” (Jer 44:4) “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is
stirred.” (Hos 11:8)
God feels all the warmth of a father’s tenderness, and all the opposition of a father to any course that will injure His offspring. And as children will sometimes hate and revile their parents for opposing their wayward courses to destruction, so sinners hate God more than they hate all other beings, because He is infinitely more opposed to their destroying their own souls.
7.
The better God is, the more sinners hate Him.
The better God is, the more He is opposed to their selfishness: and the
more He opposes their selfishness, as long as they remain selfish, the more
they are provoked with Him.
In
my second discussion on depravity, I showed that men hate God supremely. The only reason is because God’s excellence
is supreme. His goodness is unmingled
goodness, and therefore their hatred is unmingled enmity. If there were any defect in His character,
men would not hate Him so much. If God
were not perfectly, in fact infinitely good, men might not be totally depraved,
I mean, they might not be totally opposed to His character; but because His
character has no blemish, therefore they sincerely, cordially, and perfectly
hate Him.
8.
The more God tries to do them good while they remain impenitent, the more they
will hate Him.
As
long as they cling to their selfishness, all of God’s efforts to restrain them,
to hedge them in, and to prevent them from accomplishing their selfish desires,
are futile. The more He intervenes to
tear away their idols; to wean them from the world, the more He embitters every
cup of joy with which they use to satisfy themselves, the more means He uses to
reclaim, sanctify, and save; if their selfishness remains unbroken, the more
deeply and eternally they will hate Him.
9.
This conduct in sinners is infinitely blameworthy and deserves eternal
death. It is impossible to conceive of
guilt more deep and damning than that of sinners under the Gospel. They sin under circumstances so peculiar,
that their guilt is more aggravated than that of devils. Devils have broken the law and so have you
sinners. But devils never rejected the
Gospel. They have been guilty of
rebellion and so have you. But they
have never rejected the offer of pardon and spurned the offer of eternal life
through the atoning blood of the Son of God.
If you sinners do not deserve eternal death, I cannot conceive that
there is a devil in hell that deserves it.
Yet, strange to tell, sinners often speak as if it were doubtful whether
they even deserve to be damned.
10. It is easy to see from this subject, that saints and angels will be entirely satisfied with the justice of God in the damnation of sinners. They will never take delight in the misery of the damned, but in the display of justice, in the vindication of His insulted majesty and injured honor. In the respect that punishment will create for the law and character of God, they will have pleasure. They will see that the display of his justice is glorious, and will cry halleluiah, while “the smoke of their torment shall ascend up for ever and ever.” (Rev 14:11)