penitent wanderer?  Or substitution!  The idea is abhorrent to every

feeling of the heart -- the thing is an impossibility"!

'Now all this is very beautiful; or rather would be so, if only it were

true.  But it is not the view that God's word gives of God.  For that

little sentence or clause, and that parable, of which so much is made,

are really only parts of a whole; and cannot mean anything really

different from the whole itself.  As to some of the features, indeed,

which mark the two cases, the human and the divine, there is, in regard

to feeling and result, a very important analogy.  As to the position of

the parties, and the procedure in the matter of acceptance, the

difference is just as marked.  That imaginary father, I repeat, never

was a law-giver.  His authority at the most is only a delegated thing,

to be exercised by him as the subject of Another -- he himself all the

time being only the fellow -creature and fellow -subject of his own

son.  Such authority, in fact, is only a stewardship, not a lordship; a

trust for the benefit of a minor, not a dominion for the exalting of

the holder.  Such a difference in position will surely make a

difference in practice, when the question comes to be as to the fitting

attitude towards a returning prodigal -- of the earthly father, on the

one hand, and of the heavenly on the other.

'This is one difference; here is another.  That earthly father being no

lord, judge, or magistrate, has never had to take one judicial step, or

utter one word of a judicial kind, against his erring child.  He has

never had the prodigal to his bar, so as to pronounce in his hearing

the word "banishment" or "death".  The heavenly Father has actually

declared "the whole world to be guilty before Him" -- has adjudged

every sinner to the death which is sin's wages.  So far each has been

acting in character, according to his proper nature -- whether as that

of a mortal man, or of the almighty, everlasting Lord.  Will it be

strange if these differences in regard to authority and judgment should

lead to a corresponding difference in regard to reconciliation and

acceptance?  Hence, one difference more.  That earthly father never had

to give a ransom for the forfeited life of a sentenced son -- never had

to harmonize a decision which said, "Thou shalt die" with a heart which

"desired not his death" -- never gave up an elder son that he might

save the younger.  The heavenly Father has done all this -- or rather

something which is but faintly suggested by such ideas -- something (be

it what it may) in consequence of which "He may be just, even when

justifying him that believeth"'.

Secondly, the sturdy sanity of the Puritan, Charnock, may help to

preserve our balance as we think of the wonder of grace, and the enormity of

'The nature of sin is not taken away.  Justification is a relative

change of the person, not of the sin; for though God will not by an act

of His justice punish the person pardoned, yet by His holiness He

cannot but hate the sin, because though it be pardoned, it is still

contrary to God, and enmity against Him.  It is not a change of the

native malice of the sin, but a non -imputation of it to the offender.

Though the person sinning be free from any indictment, yet sin is not

freed from its malitia, and opposition to God.  For though the law doth

not condemn a justified person because he is translated into another

state, yet it condemns the acts of sin, though the guilt of those acts

does not redound upon the person to bring the wrath of God upon him.