The Third Epoch In My Religious Life (the Restitution Of All Things)

As I stated in the last chapter, after a few years of exuberant joy in the good news of salvation through Christ — for myself and for those who believed as I did — my heart began reaching outward toward those who believed differently, and especially toward those who, through the providential circumstances of their birth and surroundings, had never had a fair chance in life. I could not help seeing that ignorance of God, and therefore lives of sin, seemed the almost inevitable fate of vast numbers of my fellow human beings. And I could not reconcile it with the justice of God that such unfortunate souls should be doomed to eternal torment for circumstances for which they were not responsible and from which, in the great majority of cases, they could not escape.

The fact that I, who no more deserved it than they, had been brought to the knowledge of the truth while they were left out in the cold became so burdensome to me that I often felt I would gladly give up my own salvation if, by that means, I could bestow it upon those placed in less fortunate conditions than my own.

I began to feel that the salvation in which I had rejoiced was, after all, a narrow and selfish salvation —unworthy of the Creator who has so emphatically declared that His “tender mercies are over all His works,” and even more unworthy of the Lord Jesus Christ, who came into the world for the single purpose of saving the world. I could not believe that His life and death for us were intended to fall so far short of remedying the very evil He came expressly to remedy. I felt it must be impossible that there could be any shortcoming in the salvation He had provided.

I became convi nced that my difficulties had arisen simply from misunderstanding God’s plans, and I set myself earnestly to discover my mistake. As I have said, my first refuge had been the annihilation of the wicked. But this soon seemed unworthy of a wise and good Creator — indeed, a sad confession of failure on His part — and I could not reconcile it with His omnipotence or His omniscience. I began to fear I was going to be disappointed in God.

But one day a revelation came that vindicated Him and settled the whole question forever.

We often had revivalist preachers staying in our home, as we sought every opportunity to help forward what we called “gospel work.” Among them came one who was very much taken up with the idea that it was the privilege and duty of Christians to share, in a special manner, in the sufferings of Christ as well as in His joys. He seemed to think that doing so would somehow help those who knew nothing of salvation in Christ; and he had adopted the practice of making strong appeals on this subject in his meetings. He would ask Christians who were willing, for the sake of others, to take a share of Christ’s sufferings upon themselves, to “come forward” to a front bench in the meeting and pray that such a privilege might be granted them.

Somehow it all sounded very grand and heroic, and it fit so exactly with my own longings to help my less fortunate fellow human beings that, although I did not go forward for prayer at any of his meetings, I did begin privately to pray — blindly and ignorantly — that I might come into the experience, whatever it was.

The result was very different from what I had expected, and far more tremendous.

I had expected to enter into a sense of Christ’s personal sufferings in the life and death He bore for our sakes. Instead, I seemed to receive a revelation, not of His sufferings because of sin, but of ours . I seemed to see the misery and anguish brought upon humanity by the entrance of sin into the world, and Christ’s sorrow— not over His own suffering because of it, but over the suffering of the poor human beings who had been cursed by it.

I seemed to understand something of what His anguish must be at the sight of the awful fate permitted to befall the human race, and of His joy that He could do something to alleviate it. I saw that ours was the suffering, and His was the joy of sacrificing Himself to save us. I felt that if I had been a Divine Creator and had allowed such a dreadful fate to overtake the creatures I had made, I would have been filled with anguish and would have realized that simple justice — even if not love — required that I find some remedy for it. And I knew I could not be more just than God.

Over and over, I found myself repeating in my heart the lines that George MacDonald places on a tombstone in one of his stories: “O h Thou who didst the serpent make, Our pardon give, and pardon take.”

I had heard a great deal about the awfulness of our sins against God; but now I found myself asking: What about the awfulness of our fate in having been made sinners? Would I not infinitely rather that someone commit a sin against me than that I commit a sin against anyone else? Was it not far more dreadful to be made a sinner than to be sinned against?

And I began to see that, since God had permitted sin to enter the world, it must necessarily follow that, in common fairness, He would be compelled to provide a remedy equal to the disease. I remembered mothers I had known whose children suffered from inherited diseases, and who were only too thankful to lay down their lives in self-sacrifice if, in any way, they could undo the harm they had caused by bringing these children into the world under such disastrous conditions. And I asked myself: Could God do less?

I saw that when weighed on the balance of wrong endured, we , who had been created sinners, had infinitely more to forgive than anyone against whom we ourselves may have sinned.

The vividness with which all this came to me can never be expressed. I did not think it, or imagine it, or suppose it. I saw it. It was a revelation of the real nature of things — not according to surface, conventional ideas, but according to the actual underlying facts — and it could not be denied. In every human face I saw, there seemed to be unveiled before me the story of the misery and anguish that had entered the world through sin. I knew that God must see this with far clearer eyes than mine, and therefore His suffering from the sight must be infinitely greater — even though mine already felt nearly unbearable. And I began to understand how the least He could do would be to embrace with untold gladness anything that would help to deliver the beings He had created from such awful misery.

It was an unforgettable insight into the world’s anguish because of sin.

How long it lasted I cannot remember, but while it did, it nearly crushed me. And because it always returned at the sight of a stranger’s face, I found myself forced to wear a thick veil whenever I went out into the streets, so that I might spare myself the terrible impact of that realization.

One day I was riding on a tram-car along Market Street in Philadelphia when two men came in and sat opposite me. I saw them dimly through my veil and felt relieved — dimness meant protection. When the conductor came for my fare, I had to lift the veil to count out the coins. As I raised it, I caught a full view of those two faces, and an overwhelming flood of anguish swept through me. I seemed to receive yet another revelation — clearer and deeper — of the misery sin had brought upon humanity. It was more than I could bear. I clenched my hands and cried out inwardly, “Oh God, how can You endure it? You might have prevented it, but did not. You might even now change it, but You do not. I do not see how You can continue to live and endure such a sight.”

I upbraided God. And I felt justified in doing so.

Then, suddenly, God seemed to answer me. An inward voice spoke in tones of infinite love and tenderness: “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied.”

“Satisfied!” I cried within myself. “Christ is to be satisfied! He will look upon the world’s misery, and then upon the travail He has endured because of it, and He will be satisfied with the result! If I were Christ, nothing could satisfy me unless every human being were ultimately saved. Therefore, nothing less can satis fy Him.”

With that, a veil seemed to be lifted from the plans of the universe. I saw that it was true, as the Bible declares, that “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” As was the first, so was the second. The “all” in one case could not fairly mean anything less than the “all” in the other. I saw, therefore, that the remedy must be equal to the disease — that salvation must be as universal as the fall.

I saw all this that day on the tram-car on Market Street — not merely thought it, or hoped it, or believed it, but knew it. It was a Divine fact. And from that moment, I have never had a doubt about the final destiny of the human race. God is the Creator of every human being; therefore He is the Father of each one, and they are all His children. And Christ died for every one, declared to be the “propitiation not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).

However great the ignorance, however grievous the sin, the promise of salvation is absolute and without limitation.

If it is true that “by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation,” then it is equally true that “by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” To limit the latter “all men” is also to limit the former. The salvation is exactly equal to the fall. There is to be a final “restitution of all things,” when “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow — of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth — and every tongue shal l confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Every knee, every tongue — nothing could be more all-embracing.

The how and the when I could not see. But the essential fact was all I needed: somewhere, somehow, God was going to make everything right for all the creatures He had made. My heart rested in this forever.

I hurried home eager to reach my Bible, to see whether this magnificent truth I had discovered could possibly have been there all along without my noticing it. The moment I entered the house, I did not even remove my bonnet, but rushed to the table where my Bible and Concordance always lay ready. I began to search — and instantly the whole Book seemed illuminated. On every page the truth about the “times of restitution of all things,” of which the Apostle Peter says “God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began,” shone forth, leaving no room for doubt.

I turned eagerly from page to page, laughing aloud for joy at the blaze of light that filled it. It became a new book. It was as though another skin had been peeled off every text, and each verse shone with new meaning — not a different meaning, for the new did not contradict the old, but a deeper meaning, the true meaning hidden within the outward form of words. Nothing in the text needed changing; only my understanding needed to be opened. And now, at last, it was.

I remember soon afterward, in the course of my daily Bible reading, coming to the Psalms and being astonished at the new light thrown upon their most severe — even seemingly bloodthirsty — denunciations. I saw that, when read in the spirit rather than the letter, they were full of the promised and final triumph of good over evil, and were a magnificent vindication of the goodness and justice of God, who will not — and ought not, and cannot — rest until all His enemies, and ours, are placed beneath His feet.

I saw that His kingdom must be inward before it can be outward; that it is a kingdom of ideas, not of brute force; that His rule is over hearts, not over territories; that His victories must occur within before they are visible without. He seeks to rule spirits rather than bodies. No victory could satisfy Him except the victory that wins the heart — the surrender of the free and convinced soul, not the mere capitulation of the conquered slave. As Milton says, “Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe,” and I saw this was true.

Read in this light, the very words that had once filled me with horror now thrilled my soul with praise: “Let God a rise, let His enemies be scattered; let them also that hate Him flee before Him.

As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.”

God’s wrath is against sin , not the sinner; and when His enemies are scattered, ours are scattered with them. His sword is righteousness, which puts sin to death so that the sinner may live. The fire of His anger is the refiner’s fire ; He sits not as the destroyer of the soul but as its purifier, to cleanse it as gold and silver are purified.

“Implacable is love.

Foes may be bought or teased From their malign intent; But He goes unappeased Who is on kindness bent.”

The Psalmist says, “Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of th eir inventions”; and with this key in hand, all the denunciations of God’s wrath— once so cruel and unjust to my ears — were transformed into declarations of His loving determination to make us good enough to live with Him in Heaven forever.

I could multiply examples endlessly of this new illumination that shone in entrancing beauty across every page of Scripture, but these are enough. At last I began to understand what the Apostle Paul meant when he said he had been made a minister of the new covenant, “not o f the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” The things I had once read in the letter and shuddered at, now — read in the spirit — filled me with joy.