The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 396

JUSTIFICATION

356 as a sick person,

After being

bom

who

infected

is

and inoculated with

disease.

again he improves, the infection disappears, the

corruption ceases, and he prospers again. person alone,

how he

is,

But this concerns his and what his prospects are it does not ;

touch the question of right.

The

question of right arises

when

I

see in the sinner a creature

not his own, but belonging to another.

Herein

is all

the difference.

If

man

is to

me

the principal fac-

have nothing else in view but his improvement and deliverance from misery, then the Almighty God is in this whole matter a mere Physician, called in and affording assistance, who receives His fee, and is discharged with many thanks. The question of right does not enter here at all. So long as the sinner is made more holy, all is well. Of course, if he is made perfect, all the better. Clearly understanding, however, that man belongs not to himself, but to another, the matter assumes an entirely different aspect. For then he can not be or do as he pleases, but another has determined what he must be and what he must And if he does or is otherwise, he is guilty as a transgressor: do. guilty because he rebelled, guilty because he transgressed.

tor,

so that

I

Hence when

me

I

believe in the

divine sovereignty, the sinner

an entirely different aspect. As infected and mortally ill, he is to be pitied and kindly treated; but considered as belonging to God, standing under God, and as having robbed God, that same sinner becomes a guilty transgressor. This is true to some extent of animals. When I lasso a wild horse on the American prairies for training, it never enters my mind to punish him for his wildness. But the runaway in the city streets must be punished. He is vicious; he threw his rider; he refused to be led and chose his own way. Hence he needs to appears to

in

be punished.

And man much more so. When I meet him in his wild career I know that he is a rebel, that he broke the reins, threw his rider, and now dashes on in mad revolt. Hence such sinner must be not only healed, but punished. He does not need medical treatof sin,

ment

alone, but before all things he n^Qdis juridical treatment. Apart from his disease a sinner has done evil there is no virtue Supin him; he has violated the right; he deserves punishment. pose, for a moment, that sin had not touched his person, had not corrupted him, had left him intact as a man, then there would have ;

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