It is, therefore, easy to believe that wrath and tribulation will be
continued in the next life until the sinner repents, and turns to God.
The fact that Christ has died for him will be no mitigation of necessary
discipline, any more than it is now. The very fact that in this life we
see the same principle of suffering on the part of God's own children,
is proof enough of the righteousness and wisdom of a similar course
being followed in the next life. The merit of Christ's Atonement does
not avail for shielding sinners from necessary suffering in either life.
But did not Christ at times pronounce forgiveness in such a way as to
mean that it occurred just then, and not before? Take that case of the
paralytic to whom he said, "Thy sins are forgiven." Does it not look as
if the man were forgiven then and there? And yet, how could It be? The
man as yet had not been healed, and so there was nothing to indicate his
saving faith in Christ. Yet the Saviour pronounced his forgiveness. It
seems to me that Christ was rather bearing testimony to the fact that
the man had been forgiven--he did not say when. It may have been that
the poor paralytic was laboring under the fallacy that his suffering was
owing to special sin, and so Christ wished to give him the joy of
conscious pardon.
Or, take the case of the poor penitent in the house of Simon.
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