Introduction

Luther said that the doctrine of justification, or forgiveness, was the test of a church’s survival or collapse. If right on this, the church could not be very far wrong in anything else; but if wrong here, it was hard to believe she was right about anything. I quote from memory, but this was the idea of that great reformer.1 We agree with him in this as well as in many other views. Emerging from the smoke of the great city of mystical Babylon, he saw as clearly and as far into these matters as anyone could in such a hazy atmosphere. Many of his views only need to be carried out to their logical conclusion, and we would have the ancient gospel as the result.

The doctrine of remission is the doctrine of salvation: to talk about salvation without the knowledge of the remission of sins is to talk without meaning. To give the Jews “a knowledge of salvation by the remission of their sins” was the mission of John the Baptist, as the Holy Spirit said. In this way, he prepared a people for the Lord. This doctrine of forgiveness was gradually revealed to the people during the ministries of John and Jesus, but was not fully developed until Pentecost, when the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven were fully opened to people.

From Abel to the resurrection of Jesus, transgressors obtained remission at the altar, through priests and sin offerings; but it was an imperfect remission as far as the conscience was concerned. “For the law,” says Paul, (more perfect in this respect than the previous system,) “containing only a shadow of the good things to come, and not even the very form of these things, can never, with the same sacrifices which they offer yearly forever, make those who come to them perfect. If it had been offered once, would they not have stopped? Because the worshippers, having been once purified, would no longer have a conscience of sins.”

The good things to come were future during the time of Moses and his institution. They have come; and a clear, full, and perfect remission of sins is the great result of the new system in the consciences of all the citizens of Jesus’ kingdom. The perfection of the conscience of God’s worshippers under Christ is the grand distinguishing feature compared to those under Moses. They have not only clearer views of God, of his love, of his character, and of immortality; but they have consciences that the Jewish and Patriarchal ages could not produce.

If faith alone were the means of this superior perfection and enjoyment, and if striking symbols or types were all that were necessary to provide this assurance and experience of pardon, the Jewish people might have been as happy as the Christian people. They had as true testimony, as strong faith, and as striking emblems as we have. Many of them, through faith, gained a high reputation, were approved by God, and admired by men for their wonderful achievements.

The difference is in the system. They lived under a system of law — we under a system of grace. Before the law, their privileges were even more limited. Under the government of the Lord Jesus, there is an institution for the forgiveness of sins unlike any institution since the world began. It was because of this institution that Christians were so much distinguished at first from the subjects of every previous system.

Our political happiness in these United States is due to nothing other than our political institutions. If we are politically the happiest people in the world, it is because we have the happiest political institutions in the world. So it is with the Christian institution. If Christians were, and can be, the happiest people who ever lived, it is because they live under the most gracious institution ever given to people. The meaning of this institution has been buried under the rubble of human traditions for hundreds of years. It was lost in the dark ages and has only recently been rediscovered. Various efforts have been made, and considerable progress has been achieved; but since the Great Apostasy was completed, until the present generation, the gospel of Jesus Christ has not been presented to humanity in its original plainness, simplicity, and majesty. A veil in reading the New Institution has been on the hearts of Christians, as Paul says it was on the hearts of the Jews when reading the Old Institution toward the end of that system.

The purpose of this essay is to open to the reader’s consideration the Christian institution for the remission of sins; to show by what means a person may have the assurance of a personal and complete remission of all their sins. We will attempt to do this by stating, illustrating, and proving the following twelve propositions: (See next chapter)