Thy judgment is in the mute pain of sleepless love;
In the blush of pure hearts;
In the tears of the night of desolation;
In the pale morning-light of forgiveness.
_Rabindranath Tagore._
We are going far with the Christian. Life is indeed a bond; it is
materialism that divides the seekers after truth. The secret materialism
of the Christian and his trust in religious machinery must bring him
into conflict with those who put their trust in other kinds of machines.
We who are trusting life, and are trying not to interpret it in terms of
the logic of things, find ourselves side by side with those Christians
faithful enough to their supreme leader and their own principles to do
the same. So we may walk willingly with them and hear what they have to
say in more intimate talk than there can be when the spirit of community
is wanting.
In this matter of personality and its self-communicating power they have
been beforehand with us, as in so many other matters. Jesus has been for
them a fountain of wisdom and insight, and while they have kept close to
him his wisdom and his insight have been-imparted to them. He has been
in them a well-spring wanting to the negligent world. 'Whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him,' the disciple hears him
say, 'shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be
in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.' That is what
it means to be indwelt by God, 'the fountain of living waters,' as the
older prophet calls him. And we think of what we have learnt about
personality and the inseparability of the spirit from its own content of
knowledge and volition, of love, too, and righteousness, and joy in
beauty and truth. We think of the intercommunication of man with man and
of men with God and his 'Christ'—that is, the man 'whose individuality,'
as a Christian philosopher says, 'is identified with God in the unity of
all his thought and action with the divine knowledge and the divine
purpose.' All these come to mind when we hear of a fountain of living
waters becoming a well-spring for those who drink of it.
But it may be that we turn away with a sigh from such intimate talk,
knowing how far we are ourselves from the union with God which the
Christian depicts. And it may be, too, that there dawns upon us the
thought that when this Christian speaks of 'atonement' he means, most
likely, some process of God by which that union is accomplished, and the
neglect or opposition of men is overcome. What difference is there, we
may be inclined to ask, between divine incarnation, as the Christian
sees it,—God's communication of himself, the fountain of living waters,
to men—and an atonement between him and them? Is not the union of
incarnation the very act and process of atonement? Is not the redemption
of man effected in and through the self-expression of God in him? When
he is one with God he is 'redeemed' from the neglect and opposition of
sin, and of the rejection of God; and then God is manifest and expressed
in him. Is this a question of words? Perhaps, rather, it is a question
of emphasis on one or other side, man's side or God's.
But if, for the moment, we lay emphasis on the side of man and speak of
atonement and redemption instead of speaking of incarnation and our
communion and union with God, there are certainly elements of special
difficulty to be encountered. The explanations of Christians are by no
means as trustworthy as their insight and the knowledge they derive from
their great 'Redeemer.' They explain in legalistic terms, or
materialistic, or in terms of a despotic rule, a process and an act of
life given and received. They are prone to ignore the prophet in favour
of the Scribe or the Pharisee. And once again the prophet may justly put
into the mouth of God the old reproach—'My people have committed two
evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed
them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.' They build
up their inventions and hide beneath them the sublimity of living fact;
and we who ask them concerning the fact are shown the ruins of those
inventions. We ask them for bread and they give us the stones they have
put together. There is hardly a religious problem or question, or fact
and process, more encumbered than this with that tradition which makes
the word of God of none effect. No doubt there are Christians who are
both able and willing to help such men and women as are likely to ask
their help; the difficulty is to find such Christians. Let us see, now,
how we can work out for ourselves an understanding of what is really
meant by atonement between men and God, what Christians really mean when
they express themselves so ill about it, what it really is that really
happens.
Atonement between God and men undoubtedly implies the forgiveness of
sinful men by God. They cannot possibly enter into union with him unless
they are forgiven. When they sin against their fellow-men they cannot be
united or re-united with them on any other condition than that their
fellows forgive them. But, we must insist, it is immoral to forgive them
unless they at least _will_ to cast away their sinfulness. It is always
immoral, too, not to punish, that is, not to condemn, sin and
sinfulness; and therefore (since a man and his activity are one) the
sinner. How then can God at once condemn (or punish) and forgive the
sin, sinfulness and the sinner? Are not condemnation (or punishment) and
forgiveness mutually exclusive? If we condemn or punish do we not fail
to forgive? If we forgive, must we not remit punishment and cease to
condemn?
Now here is a difficulty that reflexion should remove. For it comes of
what happens in the lower stages of man's social relations and spiritual
growth. We think of punishment as somehow the expression of
vindictiveness, while forgiveness alone is the expression of love. So it
is in us beginners. So it begins to cease to be, even in us, as we grow
into new life and a new spirit. Let us think how we should behave to an
evil-doer if we loved him to the utmost of our power of love. Should we
condone his evil-doing by withholding that condemnation which is
expressed in punishment, whether of look or word or deed (as
circumstance demands), and extend to him an artifice of forgiveness in
which the moral disunion between him and ourselves shall be concealed?
Would that truly represent our faithful love for him, that love which
must seek not an appearance but a reality of harmony, and for his sake
tolerate no encouragement, not even the slightest possibility of
deriving encouragement, for his evil doing? Obviously it would not. For
his sake we should unmistakably condemn, making known to him in look or
word or deed our condemnation. It would be the expression of our love
and, with forgiveness, is of the nature and property of love. We should
feel no shadow of vindictiveness. In our relation with him the
forgiveness and the condemnation of love would be one.
We encounter here a false antithesis in a matter of spirit and life.
Forgiveness and punishment in God or in the man of God can neither be
antithetical nor need to be reconciled. In the life of love they are not
divided. God, who is love as he is spirit and life, forgives and
condemns by one consistent act of love. There is no immoral condonation
in his forgiveness, no vindictiveness about his punishment. And this the
Christian knows both by his own experience and by the life and lessons
of his redeeming Lord. 'Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and
scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.' No true Christian would have it
otherwise.
'If forgiveness means—as it properly does—the wise and patient care for
the criminal's welfare, for his regeneration and recovery into the life
of a good society, then there is no distinction whatever between
forgiveness and punishment.' That, precisely, is what forgiveness ought
to be made to mean, and punishment likewise. But again we see in a
mirror darkly and are confused by our history and our own shortcomings.
Therefore even Christians misjudge God, or make for themselves 'broken
cisterns'—a false God who is no fountain of living waters, pouring forth
a never-failing, self-consistent, self-giving love; but a judge, a king,
a despot, after the pattern of the world, a God aloof administering
punishment or forgiveness, both alike unworthy and misplaced. There is
no difficulty at all in this question of punishment and forgiveness if
we remember perfect love and its aim, as Jesus shows them.
Moreover, we must bear in mind, nothing about God who 'is spirit' is
either an artifice or a machine. So his punishments, his expressed
condemnations, are never artificial, never mechanical. They arise
'naturally,' as we say; and in large part we provide them, we men,
ourselves. There are certain 'natural' consequences, miscalled
punishments, which are entailed upon the body as, for instance, when a
child puts his hand into the fire or a man disregards what we call the
'laws' of health. The due and true moral punishment of persons by
persons is just as natural. The nature of persons is spiritual in the
order of their uplifted life, and is one with that life. Their nature
is, in fact, no other than that life and those persons. We cannot
separate, though we may sometimes in word distinguish, between the man
and his nature. Consequently all due and right punishment by persons
(punishment by love, which is the same as forgiveness by love) is wholly
natural. It is a natural consequence of sin, the reaction against sin
with which good persons or a good society must encounter it. There is no
arbitrary infliction of punishment, and no arbitrary forgiveness, by the
good man, the good society, or the good God. Nor should there be in
regard to his own sins or sinfulness by the man who newly rejects them,
the newly penitent man. He, the new man, reacts according to his new
nature, and in one and the same activity should condemn and forgive
himself. He must be penitent but he should not be remorseful. If he does
not forgive himself as well as condemn himself, it may be because he is
not humble enough and penitent enough to bear with the fact that he has
deserved his condemnation.
We must remind ourselves, however, that it is of spiritual nature in
ourselves to _choose_. The activity of love is chosen and determined by
the good man, with its forgiveness and its punishment. And although the
perfection of God must preclude choice between alternatives, although
for perfect wisdom there can never be more than one course open, yet
there is no automatism, there cannot be automatism of the mechanical
kind, in God who, as the Christian maintains, _is_ love. His love is
willed though not chosen. It is of the vital, intelligent, voluntary
activity of a spiritual being. And so both punishment and forgiveness
are willed, in God or in man; and as the man approaches full union with
God so does his choice approach that inevitable wisdom for which there
is no longer consciousness of choice. This is the manner of spirit and
life; that which is personally real in any man, all that is in God, is
not merely consented to or assented to but is always actively willed,
never compulsorily or mechanically apportioned. So it is right and
reasonable to say that God or the man of God punishes and forgives. It
is not right to say that the punishment and forgiveness of either,
though it is wholly natural, is in any kind of way automatic with the
automatism of a machine, or even with that relative automatism of
material things which we speak of as natural law. Without the activity
of love there can be no true punishment and no true forgiveness; there
is only vindictiveness or condonation.
The treatment we have given our wrong-doers in the past is not fitted to
throw clear light on Christian atonement and the ways of God with man.
On the contrary, it has obscured both. But we are learning. Truth,
experience, and the _Gesta Christi_ work for our learning. Or, as the
Christian says, the divine spirit works for it and 'strives' with us,
that is, works with us that we may work out our own salvation.
We have begun to say to the children we are training—'Come now, this is
_wrong_; let's see how we' [_we_, mark you] 'can set it right.' We have
discovered that unless the child works with us our punishment fails, and
our forgiveness fails, of any real effect for goodness. But Christians
knew this from their beginning, though many of them forget they did. In
the last resort it is why Christ died.
When, carrying with us our new method, we have passed from the child to
the criminal, and extend to him that 'wise and patient care' for his
welfare, which is forgiveness and punishment in one, we shall be in a
better position for seeing what Christian atonement really means and
is—how real it is and how it depends on co-operation between the Saviour
and the offender; how, always, the Saviour must win the offender first
if he is to save him. Then we shall read the Gospels of the Christian
with new eyes and a new understanding.
If you want to see punishment and forgiveness both in one, turn to the
parable of the prodigal son. Could any punishment be more salutary or
more piercing to the man whose penitence had shown him his utter
unworthiness? Could forgiveness be more complete, more gracious, than
that which he received? Consider how his penitence must have been
deepened, and his sense of unworthiness increased, when he found himself
in his father's arms, and his father's house, honoured, rejoiced over,
feasted? In proportion to the depth and fulness of penitence do these
two, punishment and forgiveness, given in love, become distinguishable
only by the reaction to them of the penitent. He alone knows how love
hurts and heals in one and the same act and moment.
Then, if you want to learn the many forms punishment may take, seek
further. Look at the story of the woman taken in adultery. 'Hath no man
condemned thee?' ... 'Neither do I condemn thee: go, and _sin no more_.'
Punishment and forgiveness imparted in one profound paradox of love's
judgement. What do you think was its effect on the woman who had looked
into the prophet's eyes as he lifted them from the dust? 'Hath no man
condemned thee?' 'No man, Lord,' she said; and they were the words
humility and shame would choose.
A degree further—consider the picture of a final judgement, with the
'Son of man in his glory' and the nations gathered before him to be
shown their union with him, or their disunion, in a clearness none could
mistake. 'Come, ye blessed,' he says, 'inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world'—the kingdom in which all men are
one with the Holiest, with the living Truth himself and Beauty 'in his
glory'—come with me. For I was an hungred, thirsty, a stranger.... Naked
and ye clothed me, sick, in prison, and ye came unto me.... And yet
these blessed had never known what they did. It was not he, so far as
they knew, that they had succoured. Not for his sake but for love's they
had done it; not even, indeed, at the heart of it, for love's sake, but
because they loved, because in them the well-spring of love streamed
forth and they gave their very selves to those others who had only need
of them. They were of love and were love's own. Love as shown to these
who needed it was not distinguishable, even by their reaction to it,
into punishment and forgiveness. It was but love.
Then those others—'Depart from me,' he says—and there was a vision
painted of the unutterable horrors of a state of separation and
loneliness and self-embittered remorse—'I was an hungred and ye gave me
no meat.' They also, had not known—'Lord, when saw we thee an hungred?'
If they had known they would assuredly have hastened to him with their
meat, asked him to their feasts, lavished all upon him. But for what
sake? For no other than their own. Love had no place in their hearts,
nor had the Lord. Only self-seeking. They were their own Lords and Gods.
And thenceforth they had to know it. In their impenitent, disappointed,
cheated (they would say) and remorseful hearts there was no room for
anything but the sense of punishment. Their inevitable reaction to the
voice of love, as it reproached their lack of love, shut out both
forgiveness and all possibility of the sense of it.
So we come to the extreme of distinction between the ways of the showing
of love. Here is all punishment, it seems, to the sinner. But it is he
who makes love so. It is very love that punishes, a consistent,
unwavering love which, in the sinner's last extremity, shows itself to
the utmost he can receive and in the only way he can receive. What, I
ask you, would a man like this make of a love that should express itself
(if in the nature of love it could thus express itself) as condoning the
want of love and professing oneness in so complete an alienation? Not
only does the nature of love forbid such an expression, but the nature
of the self-worshipper, who cannot receive it.
There is a very marvellous knowledge of the hidden heart shown in these
prophetic teachings. As we converse with the Supreme Person of the
Gospels we feel him searching out our bones and marrow. To him there
lies open the secret of disunion among us personal beings and the secret
of the utmost furtherance, and the means towards furtherance, of the
conversion of our will from self-seeking to love-finding. This utmost
furtherance necessarily falls short of the compulsion love can never
even contemplate or man endure. A man compelled to love is unthinkable.
Words, mere empty words these are that so speak of him. He cannot be. If
he could be compelled he could not be man; if the semblance of love were
forced upon him it would not be love. But the atonement in which the
Christian believes shows the love of God working to further love in man
to an utmost God alone can reach. Punishment and forgiveness work
together as that love, and the life of Jesus and the Cross on which he
died are at once their final showing-forth, their clearest call to man,
and the tremendous acceptance by man of all that they entail and are.
Here, indeed, is the fountain of love in its fulness. We need not wonder
that the disciple, having in mind his living and triumphant Lord, hears
him say to us who desire to drink of the waters of love—'Whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up
into everlasting life.'
Christian atonement means restoration to the only real and full union
and communion of persons, that of divine love.
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