WHAT IS JUDGMENT?

"And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him." — Luke xv. 14-16 (A.V.).

"And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that country; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have been filled with the husks (marg. Gr. the pods of the carob tree ) that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him." — (R.V.)

When the word Judgment is used in regard to sin, we are too prone to think of the future penalty of sin that God is expected to impose; and men are sometimes tempted to believe that they may by a timely repentance avert that judgment. The use of the term may make the penalty of sin appear as arbitrary and uncertain as are often the sentences of the human law-court. Jesus in this parable makes the penalty follow inevitably on the offence; and it would be well if Christian preachers would lay stress on the fact that the consequences of sin are immediate and inevitable; their character is determined by the nature of the sin. The closeness of this connection Paul indicates when he states that "the wages of sin is death," or even more forcefully in the figure, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." While we should therefore insist that the penalty of sin is causally related to the sin, is its consequence; yet we must not abandon the term judgment; for that would be to substitute an impersonal nature for a living God; and in religion especially it is of primary importance to maintain the sense of personal relation, that man in sinning is distrusting and disobeying God, and that in suffering the consequences of his sin he is enduring the judgment of God. What are the elements of God's judgment on sin that are suggested by the description of the prodigal's state? (1) There is destitution. "When he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want." (2) Next comes degradation. "And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine." (3) Lastly, there is nothing but disappointment. "And he would fain have been filled with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him."

1. Destitution.

(1) The destitution is inward and outward; there is the famine in the land, and there is the want because all has been spent. Without incurring the condemnation of allegorising we may venture to follow out the suggestion that the poverty which is the judgment of sin is not confined to material resources. Both the world around and the soul within are bankrupt because of sin. The world does not and cannot yield the satisfaction to the soul that it once did; and the soul is not rich enough in itself to provide its own satisfaction. It is a known fact that the field of animal appetite and sensual indulgence yields an ever-diminishing return, the longer the cultivation the less the fertility of that soil. The drunkard has less pleasure in his drinking, and the sensualist in his uncleanness, the longer he continues in the evil habit. Even less gross pleasures of sense do not increase in the satisfaction that they afford. The greater the use the smaller the return. For the pleasureseeker the world appears more and more as a vain show, in which there is no enduring substance. How different is it in the culture of the higher interests: the pursuit of truth is ever more rewarding; the effort for holiness is ever bringing a loftier aspiration and also a larger satisfaction. Love increases as it continues.

(2) But if the man who has lived for the lower pleasures turns from the world because "there is a famine in the land," does he find, or can he find, that his own mind is his kingdom with resources greater than any that the world can offer? Assuredly not. He has spent his all; inwardly as well as outwardly he is in want. The capacities of the personality, which legitimately used in the cultivation of the higher interests would have been continuously developed for fuller use, improperly abused in the pursuit of the lower pleasures, deteriorate. The man cannot interest himself in thoughts of truth, or aims of goodness, who has squandered mind and will on self-indulgence, in devising and in providing the means of sensuous joy. Although the reaction is most evident in the gratification of animal appetites, yet in lesser degree whenever a man lives for ends unworthy of his manhood, the world gives him ever less return for all his labour, and he discovers that his own inner resources are diminishing. Could we expect it to be otherwise? This destitution is evidence that we are meant for something higher; for God has made us for Himself, and our hearts must be restless until they find their rest in Him. The child of God made with the infinite need of God will find famine without and want within if he attempts to meet that need with any of the finite pleasures that sense or world can offer. And yet the famine and the want do not at once arrest the downward course of ever more fruitless endeavour to find self-satisfaction in self-indulgence.

2. Degradation.

The actions assigned to the prodigal in the parable indicate a twofold degradation. The Jew held aloof from the Gentile; and for a Jew to join himself in service to a Gentile was surely a degradation. But to be compelled to feed swine, the unclean animals, the use of which for food the law strictly prohibited, was to descend to a still lower depth. In terms of local sentiment this description puts before us a vivid picture of how man degrades himself when he yields to sin. There is not only servitude, but shameful servitude. When we look on the face of the drunkard or the sensualist, do we not see that degradation written in the very face? Can there be a sight more pitiful than the grace of womanhood marked with the tokens of vice! And the change of outward form is but a sign of the change of inward condition. It would be incredible, did we not know it in reality, how polluted the conscience can become, how perverted the affections, how foul the imagination, how uncertain the reason, and how enslaved the will. How the victim of such a degradation often loathes himself, and yet he sees no way of escape. There are sins that do not thus mar the form, and do not thus lower all the powers; and yet in the measure in which any sin asserts itselt and gains the dominion, there is a degradation. The avaricious man estimates all values of art, literature, or even morals and religion, in cash. A minister's worth, for instance, is fixed by the salary that he can command. The writer was some time ago in the midst of a community which was making almost indescribable material progress; and he was being constantly shocked by the almost universal habit of estimating all values by dollars. To the ambitious man, love and friendship even are only the means of self-advancement. The whole man and his whole world are dragged down into the servitude of his tyrannous passion. Again it is man's dignity that measures his degradation. A being of less capacity for progress would be less capable of decadence; the possibility of the rise is the measure of the actuality of the fall. It is the sense of the might-have-been that is the source of the misery and shame of that-which-is. It is the memory of the father's house that makes the far country such a degradation.

3. Disappointment.

(1) This degradation is unrelieved by any satisfaction which it might be endured to secure. The prodigal joined himself to a citizen of the country, and went out to feed swine, but he did not thereby escape either the famine or the want. What he asked was not given to him. Even in the destitution and the degradation there are desires and expectations that, if the best gift cannot any longer be gained, yet the worst need may be escaped; still even this limited anticipation is disappointed. "No man gave unto him." The penalty of self-indulgence is unquenched and unquenchable desire; even although the soul would satisfy itself with the lowest forms of pleasure, it fails to find that satisfaction. The companions in sin do not accept the partnership of misery, if they can avoid it. Those on whom the portion has been squandered do not offer their help in the time of need. When Judas came to the priests with "the price of blood" they had no care or comfort for him. "What is that to us? see thou to that!" The sinner soon discovers the heartless cruelty of sinners. The tool is cast away as soon as its work is done. God has been distrusted and disobeyed that the world, the flesh, the self might be satisfied; but that satisfaction has been denied; less and less becomes the claim on life for any good; but so long as the soul remains in the far country, even the smallest claim is unheeded. "No man gave unto him."

(2) This destitution, degradation, and disappointment were the beginning of the return. The punishment of sin by God is not merely vindictive; it is primarily remedial. Man is allowed to suffer to the uttermost the bitterness of his sin that there may be awakened in him the desire for escape and recovery. The sinner in the most hopeless condition is he who is not reaping as he has sowed. There is a cunning worldly prudence which seems to be able in this life at least to evade the consequences of sin. Some wicked men do appear to prosper in this world. But their lot is not to be envied. Better the crushing grasp of God's judgment which shows He will not let the sinner go, than the loss of even the sense of God in His judgments. The parable does not, and as a story could not, indicate an aspect of the divine judgment on sin that belongs to the complete revelation and redemption in Christ. The father in the parable remains at home waiting the prodigal's return; but we have learned in Christ that the father is with his sinful son in the far country sharing his misery and shame as his very own. God's judgment on sin is expressed not most clearly or fully in what the prodigal suffers, but in the sorrow of the father. The two companion parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin supply an element of truth that is lacking in this story. The shepherd follows the lost sheep, and the woman goes to where the lost coin is. God in Jesus Christ comes into these very conditions of suffering, sorrow, and shame that sin has brought upon mankind, and in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ shares them fully. In that sacrifice there is presented to the human conscience a fuller and clearer judgment on sin than in all the misery and ruin that sinners may bring upon themselves. The contemplation of that sacrifice, the discovery that it was man's sin which brought such sorrow to God, does more to bring man to the broken and the contrite heart than all the woe that sinful men experience as a result of their sin. If God wills that men should so suffer for sin, being love, could He refrain from sharing that suffering; and if He shares it, can anything else so adequately express His judgment upon sin? In view of the fact that in the Christian experience it is the Cross of Christ which makes a more potent appeal for penitence than all the consequences of sin experienced by the individual or exhibited in the history of the race, is it not folly, if not worse, to maintain that, because this parable does not mention an atoning sacrifice, therefore the saving death does not necessarily belong' to the Gospel of Jesus? Is it not much more likely that truth cannot be completely embodied in a tale, than that the most intense and serious Christian experience should be under a delusion in maintaining that we are redeemed by the precious blood of God's own Son.