Foreknowledge by Joel Hayes - Library of Theology

Bishop Marvin says that the cross "is a clear proof that sin can never be pardoned as a mere act
of executive clemency." But would not the punishment of one being be as clear a proof of the justice of God
and his hatred of sin as the punishment of a world of intelligent creatures? It is assumed that without the fear
which only the spectacle of eternal suffering could awaken, God could not have created any being who he
knew would not sin, and, conversely, that with such fear the possibility of such a creation is assured. If God,
then, hates sin and wishes it to exist in the least possible quantity, why did he not, after the sin and
punishment of the first one of his creatures, create only those who he knew would not sin? We do not
believe that the creation of even one such being was necessary. We do not see why God could not have
communicated to his intelligent creatures a knowledge of his truth and justice without any such spectacle
of crime and suffering. But, assuming that such a communication was not an object of power, it still seems
to be inconsistent with God's holiness to create a whole world of beings who he knew would sin, and
multitudes of whom would be finally lost.
Great stress is laid by Dr. Bledsoe on the work of Christ as affecting the heavenly intelligences. He
says, "The believer should not, for one moment, entertain the low view, that the atonement confers its
benefits on man alone. The plan of redemption was not an after-thought, designed to remedy an evil which
the eye of omniscience had not foreseen; it was formed in the counsels of infinite wisdom long before the
foundations of the world were laid. The atonement was made for man, it is true; but, in a still higher sense,
17
man was made for the atonement." The believer cannot but entertain the view that the atonement was
made for man. And a grand thing it is for us who have transgressed his law that God so loved us that when
he could save us in no other way he gave his Son for our redemption. It was a wondrous stretch of love to
man, to give the well-beloved Son of his bosom to leave the riches and glory of his Father's throne and
become a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief--a man who, as the Captain of our salvation, took upon
himself our nature and suffered all the ills to which mankind are subject, with the inconceivable agony of the
garden and an ignominious death on the cross-all for man's benefit, because all this was necessary to man's
salvation. But suppose that this or any part of it, say his agony in the garden or his death on the cross, had
not been necessary to man's salvation and highest good, then, so far as man is concerned, it was useless;
it was not a manifestation of love. Indeed, God's love for man appears in Christ's sufferings and death only
as they were necessary to man's redemption, and that necessity was created by man's sin. But, if man was
created for the atonement, then the necessity for redemption existed before man's sin; that is, the thing
created existed before its creator. Evidently, the two parts of Dr. Bledsoe's proposition cannot stand
together. If the atonement was made for man, man was not made for the atonement.
Again, if man was made for the atonement, he was also made for the sin that necessitated the
atonement. He did, therefore, that for which he was made, and he and his Maker were already at one in that
God wanted him to sin and he did it. So, if man was made for the atonement, no atonement could have been
made for man. And yet does not every conceivable good that could result to the universe from the creation
of sinful man come through the atonement? This seems to be the thought of Dr. Bledsoe, Bishop Marvin,
and others. If so, if man was not made for the atonement, the highest good of the universe did not require
his creation as a being who God foreknew would sin.
I am glad to find that Bishop Marvin entertains the "low view" that the atonement was intended for
man alone, though incidentally conferring benefits on the rest of the universe. He says, "What God has done
for man is done for his benefit. Man's case is not a mere stepping-stone to some other end. The cross would
lose its significance, and, consequently, its power, if it only made a convenience of man. The Incarnate Son
is the infinite yearning of God toward man. If it were not this, it could have no such meaning in the eyes of
other beings as I have supposed." 18
17
Theodicy, p. 207.
18
Work of Christ, p. 104.
16