The Shark. Yes, that was his name, simply- The Shark. No one knew him by any other name. I was told he was a ruthless tyrant, the number of men he'd sent to prison uncountable. Jonas was going to be one of those countless uncountable, but counted by me because he was known by me. Was I upset that Jonas was to be lost to the depths of the dark, dank cells? No, not really. Truth be told I was relieved. As long as Jonas was gone I couldn't be tormented, not that he'd tormented me as yet but, I knew it was coming. The debt I owed him was little, but not so little that I could repay it in full on the day it was due. Therefore, if Jonas wasn't in a position to collect debts I'd get more time to get together what I owed him for when he was released from prison.
I waited for the news of Jonas' fate and when it came I trembled.
Guilty. He'd been found completely guilty. The debt Jonas owed The Shark was ten thousand times greater than my own debt to him. The debt so great it was expected he'd be tossed into the dark for many years. So, why did I tremble? I had those years to get my debt paid off, more than enough time for sure. But, I didn't. I didn't even have an extra day! Why? Because along with the guilty verdict came the shocking and quite unbelievable sentence.
I was told Jonas cried bitterly on his knees, his face to the dirty floor his tears trailing through the dust towards The Shark's jeweled, sandaled feet. My informant spared no detail. Jonas had begged for the life of his wife, his children and all he owned. He gasped out between choking sobs that he was sorry, that he'd make good his debt if just given more time. If he were spared all, he'd do anything, anything to make things right. Mercy he cried, mercy, mercy! And the wails of anguish were unmatched by any other debtor The Shark had dealt with.
The Shark, I was told, shockingly seemed touched by the heartrending pleas Jonas made and while not completely unheard of, but quite rare, the hard-hearted man softened.
Jonas was forgiven his debt! The entire ten thousand owed was no longer owed and Jonas was released! Just like that, freed!
My informant ended his incredible account by telling me Jonas was looking for me and would be upon me shortly.
I felt fear and yet hope. Jonas who had just been forgiven so much would surely forgive me so little, or would he? With a pat on my back my informant smiled and told me everything was going to be fine, and I let myself believe that was true.
It wasn't true.
He found me easily, I didn't hide. There was no smile on his face just a scowl of the fiercest evil. I wasn't able to get a single word out before my throat was clasped between his crushing fingers and he was hissing out hot spittle fueled words in my face as a struggled to breath.
"Pay me now! Pay me my 100 you owe me, or else!" And so saying he shoved me by my throat to the ground.
I inhaled sharply, my throat on fire. I rasped out hoarsely, "Please, I beg you, please have patience! Please, I'll pay you everything I just need more time!"
"Time! You have no time! Bind him now!" Jonas yelled to his servants, the very servants that had just been restored to him by The Shark forgiving his debt!
"No!" I started, continuing my pleas for mercy, but I was cut short by a blow to my head and rough hands grabbing and dragging me away. I was going to be imprisoned! I would get no mercy!
The bystanders were shocked by what was happening, the informant, my friend, ran to The Shark and was granted audience. Telling all that Jonas had just done not even an hour after being forgiven his debt, The Shark was filled with raging fury! Ordering Jonas to be brought to him immediately, The Shark screamed at him, "You wicked, wicked man! I forgave you everything! I set you free from your debt, all of it! Why did you not do the same to the one who owed you?! Why? I had pity on you! No more… no more pity!"
The Shark, I was told, had Jonas bound, but not just for prison, but for pain, great pain, torment, agony so much worse than one could imagine.
What happened to me, you wonder? I learned that if Jonas had simply forgiven me my debt as he'd been forgiven, his life would not be a tormented one. I learned… and I was given a chance to prove I'd learned, I forgave him for all he'd done to me, and I continue to forgive all whenever I can. I am blessed, I can forgive. My imprisonment was brief, I restored all I owed. I forgive because, I will always need forgiveness for my many debts- monetarily, and otherwise.
Mat 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
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Justification by Faith - J. H. Waggoner
V
The other question to which we referred is this:-
2. If we lose our justification by unfaithfulness, do we then derive any benefit from our past Christian life?
This question ought to be examined in this connection, for we have heard the belief expressed that if a Christian falls from grace and shall be finally lost, his lot will be better for his having been a Christian; because all the sins of hid previous life were forgiven when the Lord accepted him, and those into which he fell during his Christian life would not be counted against him because of his relation to Christ during that time. This is a delusion of the WORST kind. It lulls the conscience and leads to complacent feelings even under the thought of the possibility of apostasy and final and eternal ruin. It springs from erroneous ideas concerning the nature of our service to God. It assumes that justification by faith is a final procedure, when it is not; that the life of the Christian is a life of merit, instead of a life of favor, that forgiveness in probation is absolute, without the possibility of reversal, whereas it is conditional, and the benefit of it may be lost by neglect or rebellion.
The following illustration presents a striking parallel to the case of the sinner: A boy is found in the streets, without home and friends, in abject poverty. A benevolent man of vast wealth takes him up, brings him to his own home, clothes him, with the prospect of making him his heir. He is in the enjoyment of all the privileges of the home and wealth of his benefactor. He is beloved and treated as an own child. For a time he rejoices in the happy change in his fortune, and is thankful and obedient to his new-found father. But after a time he becomes proud in his privileges; he considers them his just due, and becomes haughty and arrogant. At length he shows himself unthankful and disobedient. He carries his rebellion so far that the generous man can no longer tolerate him, as he is abusing his house and demoralizing his household. He is compelled to turn him from his house, and he returns to the degradation from which he was so graciously rescued. After a time he is detected, with others, his evil companions, in robbing the house of his generous benefactor. Now the question arises, Shall this young man be treated more leniently than his fellows because of the kindness which he has received from the man whom ho has robbed? Not at all. In addition to the crime of robbery, which he bears in common with the others, he is guilty of the basest ingratitude, and deserving of sorer punishment than the others.
Take another illustration. We have likened justification by faith to the process of naturalization, and the sinner converted, to a man of foreign birth who has been admitted to the privileges of citizenship. After the foreign-born citizen has enjoyed his privileges a number of years, a war breaks out between our Government and that of the land of his birth, and he enters the army of the latter and fights against his adopted country. In company with others he is taken prisoner, and then claims that he shall be treated with more favor than the other prisoners, because of his former relation to our Government, and of his having served as an officer in it. But the officer in command takes another view of the matter. He treats his captives as prisoners of war-as men engaged in honorable warfare,-except him who had once sworn allegiance to the Government, and he orders that he be promptly executed as a traitor. And all Governments assent to the justice of the proceeding, because the oath of allegiance imposes the most solemn obligation of loyalty, and because the privilege of citizenship is counted one of great favor to the individual. His former position does not serve to mitigate the rigor of his punishment, but to the contrary, increases it.
And if this be true in the case of human Governments, how much more is it true under the Divine Government, where all is of favor or grace to the subject, and where his action cannot possibly be counted as meritorious. Without any merit, by grace alone, is the sinner accepted of God; not for what he has done, or may do, but for what Christ has suffered for him. Grace upholds him in the Christian life; and without this grace he can do nothing.
The gift of grace increases his responsibility and obligation.
To turn away from this grace, once received, is reckoned as treading underfoot the Son of God,
counting the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and doing despite to the Spirit of grace. Heb. 10:29. Or as crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh, and putting him to an open shame. Heb. 6:6.
The renegade, the apostate, dishonors the gospel of Christ far more than the infidel who has never known the joy of the gift of the Spirit of his grace.
By the prophet Ezekiel the Lord said: "When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousness's shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it." Ezc. 33:13.
Now no person has a righteousness by reason of which the Lord says he shall live, except it be the righteousness of faith, received through the Lord Jesus Christ. If such an one turn away and commit iniquity "all his righteousness shall not be remembered:" and if so, he will stand before the Judge as if he had never had faith; as if he had not received favor through Christ. As we have remarked, justification by faith is not a final procedure; it is conditional.
If the one so justified turns away from the Saviour, he is counted as never having been justified. Not fulfilling the conditions-not enduring to the end his former justification avails him nothing; it shall not be remembered. But if his past sins were obliterated in justification by faith, then it would avail him much,-it would be remembered to excellent account. It would then, as a matter of fact,
take the place of the Judgment and entirely supersede it. But the most emphatic negative to the position assumed by the questioner is given by the apostle Peter, as follows:-
"For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto
them." 2 Peter 2:20, 21.
This, as far as any supposed benefit is to be derived from a former religious experience, is conclusive and decisive. Like the naturalized citizen taken in warfare against the land which has adopted him, the sinner who has been accepted through Christ to the service of God, is guilty of the highest treason; he has no cloak for his sin; he can plead no mitigating circumstances in his course;
he crucifies to himself the Son of God afresh, and puts him to an open shame; he has received the assistance of grace, with the promise continued assistance, but he tramples upon it and does despite to the Holy Spirit. Surely it had been better for him never to have been the special subject of divine favor than thus to abuse it. Having had such opportunities of knowing his Master's will, he shall be beaten with many stripes.
The position of an individual justified by faith may be further illustrated thus:
A owes B a sum which he is not able to pay, and C engages to take the responsibility of the debt on certain conditions; and in order to make it sure, C deposits with B sufficient to cover the amount.
Now it is stipulated that if A fulfills the conditions, B shall cancel the debt from the deposit made by C. And as long as A is faithfully fulfilling the conditions, so long is B satisfied in regard to the
debt; and of course he will not trouble A for it, knowing it is secure.
Thus A is accounted just, in the sight of B, though not really just himself, because he fails
to pay a just debt. He is considered as just, or justified through obedience to the conditions of C, who is his surety. But if A refuses or neglects to fulfill the conditions, the deposit of C no longer avails for him; he falls from the favor of B, which he had enjoyed through this arrangement, and the debt stands against him as fully as though C had never engaged to pay it on any condition.
That we have herein presented the true Scriptural view of the subject, that justification by faith, or the pardon we receive while on probation, is a conditional pardon, is proved by our Saviour's words in Matt. 18:23-35, Here is presented the case of a servant who owed his lord ten thousand talents; hut having nothing to pay, and manifesting honesty of intention, "the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt." But this servant met his fellow-servant, who owed him the trifling sum of two hundred pence, and who plead for mercy in the same terms in which the first had so successfully plead before his lord. But this servant would not show mercy; he thrust his fellow servant into prison till he should pay the debt. Hearing of this, his lord called him, and said unto him, "O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him."
This we say is the Bible view of forgiveness in the gospel, or justification by faith, while we are
waiting for the decisions of the Judgment. And on this plain case we are not left to merely draw a conclusion; the Saviour has made the application for us, and from this application there can be no appeal. He says: "So likewise shall my Heavenly Father do unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."
That this is a true representation of the position of the penitent, is evident from the declarations that "the that endureth unto the end"-he that is "faithful unto death"-shall be saved; while he that is justified by faith, may, by disobedience, lose that justification, and his righteousness will not be remembered. The blood of Jesus is the bounteous supply-the rich deposit where all may find a covering for their sins; but whether their sins are actually atoned for and removed by that blood, depends upon their acceptance of it and their faithfulness to the conditions of acceptance.
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