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The writing and correspondence of Hastings Rashdall: The early years - to 1905

HastingsRashdall.org.uk

Sermon preached "on a weekday in Lent" on Penitence and Penitential Seasons

Extracts:

So far, then, we may say that the Christian teaching about sin agrees with the thought of the higher and the deeper moralists and thinkers of ancient and of modern times. And all theories of the Atonement which really deny these truths may he boldly thrown to the winds as caricatures and obscurations of the true and original Christian teaching. I mean all theories which represent that an angry God has to be propitiated, or that a past has to be blotted out, by some elaborate and mysterious transaction.

The whole sermon may be downloaded here - in .pdf format

I will not pretend intellectually to explain St. Paul's theory of justification by faith in a phrase or two; but we may feel, I think, that the part of it which is most precious and most permanent was just this very recognition – that it is the present state of the heart which matters, and that is just what the traditional theories of the Atonement have so often obscured or denied.
About sin. What this common-sense moralising is apt to forget is that a sin does not disappear simply because the particular bad act is past, and has not been and perhaps is not likely to be repeated. The truth which all the crude, exaggerated language of popular religious teaching really does represent, is that the sin reveals a defect of character, and that the defect remains until the character is really altered. And if the character be really altered, the alteration must show itself in genuine hatred and abhorrence of the past sin. That hatred is at once the condition and the expression of real change of character. That hatred should be ever growing deeper and deeper as the love of goodness grows stronger and stronger.

Back to "Explore the writings of Rashdall - The Early Years to 1905"

Forgiveness of sins is not (as I have tried to show) an arbitrary remission of a purely external penalty, to be submissively accepted merely on the authority of a supernatural revelation. God must forgive the past if it be indeed true that, though the past acts and many of their consequences remain, the character has been changed, the man has been made better. The true prayer for forgiveness is identical with the prayer to be made better. It is because Christ is the greatest power in the world to make men better that we pray to be forgiven through Christ, “for Christ's sake.” So long as the punishment will make a man better, there may be forgiveness even while the punishment lasts; but when the sinner does wholly hate the sin and has wholly changed his character (here or hereafter), then there can be no further need for punishment, if indeed it be true that God is what Christ made men feel Him to be. The forgiveness of sins is simply an element, a corollary of the fundamental Christian truth that God is love.

The writing and correspondence of Hastings Rashdall: The early years - to 1905			HastingsRashdall.org.uk
Sermon preached "on a weekday in Lent" on Penitence and Penitential Seasons
Extracts:
So far, then, we may say that the Christian teaching about sin agrees with the thought of the higher and the deeper moralists and thinkers of ancient and of modern times. And all theories of the Atonement which really deny these truths may he boldly thrown to the winds as caricatures and obscurations of the true and original Christian teaching. I mean all theories which represent that an angry God has to be propitiated, or that a past has to be blotted out, by some elaborate and mysterious transaction.			The whole sermon may be downloaded here - in .pdf format
	I will not pretend intellectually to explain St. Paul's theory of justification by faith in a phrase or two; but we may feel, I think, that the part of it which is most precious and most permanent was just this very recognition – that it is the present state of the heart which matters, and that is just what the traditional theories of the Atonement have so often obscured or denied. About sin. What this common-sense moralising is apt to forget is that a sin does not disappear simply because the particular bad act is past, and has not been and perhaps is not likely to be repeated. The truth which all the crude, exaggerated language of popular religious teaching really does represent, is that the sin reveals a defect of character, and that the defect remains until the character is really altered. And if the character be really altered, the alteration must show itself in genuine hatred and abhorrence of the past sin. That hatred is at once the condition and the expression of real change of character. That hatred should be ever growing deeper and deeper as the love of goodness grows stronger and stronger.
Back to "Explore the writings of Rashdall - The Early Years to 1905"		Forgiveness of sins is not (as I have tried to show) an arbitrary remission of a purely external penalty, to be submissively accepted merely on the authority of a supernatural revelation. God must forgive the past if it be indeed true that, though the past acts and many of their consequences remain, the character has been changed, the man has been made better. The true prayer for forgiveness is identical with the prayer to be made better. It is because Christ is the greatest power in the world to make men better that we pray to be forgiven through Christ, “for Christ's sake.” So long as the punishment will make a man better, there may be forgiveness even while the punishment lasts; but when the sinner does wholly hate the sin and has wholly changed his character (here or hereafter), then there can be no further need for punishment, if indeed it be true that God is what Christ made men feel Him to be. The forgiveness of sins is simply an element, a corollary of the fundamental Christian truth that God is love.