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by PRESIDENT FINNEY[/SIZE] Reported by the Editor
"Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his way and live? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore, turn yourselves, and live ye."--Ezek. 18:23, 32.
"Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel?"--Ezek. 33:11.
In speaking upon these texts, I am to show,
1. What this death is not;
2. What it is;
3. Why God has no pleasure in it;
4. Why he does not prevent it;
5. The only way in which he can prevent it.
1. The death spoken of in our texts cannot be that of the body. "It is appointed to all men once to die, and after this the judgment." I need not say that men die a physical death none the less surely because they turn to God and live.
This cannot mean spiritual death either, for this death is nothing else than a sinful state of mind--a fixed habit and condition of sinning. If this had been the sense of the term death in these passages, they should have read--Why are ye already dead?--not, Why will ye die? The death referred to is manifestly an event yet future.
2. Positively, this death must be the opposite of that life which they would have if they would turn from their evil ways. Throughout the Bible we are given to understand that this is eternal life--life in the sense of real blessedness. By the terms, death, and life, when used of the final rewards of the wicked and of the righteous, the Bible does not mean annihilation and existence. It does not teach that one class shall cease to exist and the other shall simply continue to exist; but most obviously implies that both alike have an immortal existence, which existence, however, is, in the one case, infinite misery; in the other, infinite blessedness.
3. God has no pleasure in the death of the sinner. He avers this, and even takes his solemn oath of it. Surely, it must have been his intention to make himself believed; and certainly he ought to be believed. "When he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself." Such "an oath for confirmation should be an end to all strife" of conflicting opinions.
It is contrary to his very nature that he should take pleasure in the sinner's death. Indeed, such is the nature of all moral beings that none of them can take pleasure in the misery of others, in itself considered. If any of them could, then might devils in hell find happiness in the misery of those whom they have brought into that place of torment. But the very laws of moral nature are such, that it is painful to witness misery. Even the sufferings of the wicked in hell only aggravate, instead of lessening, the misery of the devil. He did not entice them there to enjoy their misery, but to vent his selfish spite against God. Yet, as always must happen, selfishness punishes itself, and the very thing Satan has done out of selfish hatred of God, will only augment his own eternal anguish. It is intrinsically contrary to the moral nature of any moral agent to enjoy the spectacle of suffering, apart from any other collateral source of enjoyment.
On still higher grounds is it contrary to God's nature that he should take pleasure in the sinner's death, for his benevolence forbids it. He takes infinite delight in the happiness of his creatures, and, therefore, cannot take delight in their misery--in itself considered.
It is abundantly manifest that God loves sinners with the tenderest compassion. He pities them. So his word and his nature conspire to show. Christ manifested this towards the wicked Jews in most affecting words and even with tears, when he beheld that doomed city and wept over it, saying --"If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes."
No doubt God will pity sinners in hell forever. He has given the highest evidence that he loves sinners. Think how long he spares them to live in their sins; at how great a sacrifice he sent his Son to die for them, even while they were yet enemies. What proof of love can be greater that this?
It must be that God regards the death of the wicked as a great evil in itself, for it surely is so, and he must regard things as they are, and according to truth. Misery is intrinsically a great evil in itself, and it must seem to him to be so. Nay, more; it must seem a greater evil to him than it can to you or to me, or to any other being besides himself, in the universe. He never could have done what he has to save men if he had not viewed it so.
Again, God can have no pleasure in the sinner's death, because, after the penalty is inflicted, he can show the sinner no more favor forever. Under any efficient administration, after the authorities have passed the sentence of the law, they must not retract. The support of government forbids it. There could be no force in penalty, and no influence in law, if its penalties could be lightly set aside, or could be set aside for any other grounds that such as would amply sustain the dignity and the principles of the administration. Hence, after God has taken the sinner's life, in the sense of our text, he can show him no more favor or mercy forever. This must be a sore trial to his feelings, mercy is so much his delight.
Sinners have had all their good things in this life. So Christ distinctly taught in the account he gives of the scenes after death, in the case of the rich man and Lazarus. He represents Abraham as saying to the rich man "Son, remember that thou, in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things." This, you will bear in mind, was said in answer to his earnest entreaty that Lazarus might be sent to him and might dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, for, said he, "I am tormented in this flame." To this Abraham replied, "Son, remember that thou, in thy life time, receivedst thy good things." It is affecting to think that he had exhausted all his good things so utterly that not one drop of water remained to be given him now--not a drop! It must be greatly trying to God's feelings, after having so much enjoyed doing good to even sinners in this world, that, after death he can do them no more good forever! Yet this is plainly the view which Christ gives of the case. It is the sinner's relations to God's government that preclude so utterly all further manifestation of mercy. He stands before that government in the relation of an enemy, one whom that government must punish, as it would protect the rights and welfare of myriads who depend on it for their happiness. It is truly an awful thought that the sinner must suffer so--so intensely and without the least possibility of mitigation forever; and that God, when the sinner cries for one drop of water, must forever reply--No, NO, I have done you all the good I ever can do. You have had all your good things, even to the last drop of water!
Another reason why God can have no pleasure in the death of sinners is, that their depravity is henceforth unrestrained. To see this working itself out intensely and without restraint, as long as they exist, is sad indeed. Yet so it must be. God has done all he wisely could do to restrain it while yet they lived on the earth, and under all his efforts, it only waxed worse and worse. Now, therefore, he desists from all further efforts forever.
God can take no pleasure in the death of sinners, because, henceforward, their sufferings must be unmitigated and endless. Can God have any pleasure at all in this? What an everlasting accumulation of woe! Sorrow upon sorrow, swelling and expanding, deepening and strengthening, beyond all our powers of estimation or expression;--verily God can take no pleasure in this, and well does he take his solemn oath to this effect--"As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure at all in the death of the wicked.["]
4. Why then, I am next to ask, does he not prevent it?
The answer in one word is, because he cannot and yet be good. In fact, if God could wisely prevent it, he would have done so; else he could not be a good being. What wisdom allows to be done for the relief or prevention of suffering, love requires--else he forfeits his claim to goodness. In order to give virtue its utmost scope for development, moral agents are left free to obey or disobey, and then take the consequences. We cannot see how else a really moral government could be administered. Besides, the fact that God does govern thus, shows what he can wisely do, and all that he can wisely do. For it must be that God acts in accordance with his own sense of what is wise and good;--else he is not wise and good, for to have wisdom and yet not act according to its dictates, is by no means to be wise. So also, to claim to be good, and yet not act according to goodness, is an absurd claim. Hence, if God is really wise and good, we know that all his acts must be in harmony with his own ideas of what is wise and good under the circumstances of every case. Hence, nothing that ever occurs under his government can be wisely prevented. If it could be, he would prevent it. No improvement can be made in his actual administration. You cannot suppose it to be changed for the better.
Hence, God cannot deal with sinners otherwise than he has without violating his own sense of what is wise and good.
Again, the death that sinners die, though so great an evil, is yet a less evil than any change in his government which might be necessary in order to prevent it. For example, it may be said that God could annihilate moral agents, instead of punishing them in hell eternally. To this, I answer, if this were a better way God would certainly have adopted it. Hence, we are driven to the conclusion that it is a less evil to let his government go on, and let penalty take its course. In fact, to annihilate moral agents, for their sin, instead of punishing them in hell, would be to abandon the idea of moral government, administered under law, by rewards and penalties. It would amount to an acknowledgment of a failure under this system.
Again, God knows he can make a good use of the sinner's death. He can turn it to good purpose. Such a manifestation before the universe of the terrible evil of sin, may be indispensable to the best interests of the masses--being the very influence they need to preserve them from falling themselves into sin. Under a government where so much depends upon developing and making all realize the idea of justice, what finite mind can fully estimate the useful results God may educe from the eternal death of sinners? This glorious idea of justice is manifestly most vital to a system of moral agents. Its importance to the universe is such as must greatly over-balance all the evil that can accrue from the punishment of sin.
