The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

This book has been on my unofficial reading list for years. In fact, I started to read it while I was in seminary, but couldn’t finish it because I just didn’t “get it.” I found it once again in my local used book store, bought it, and haven’t been able to put it down since.

Wikipedia describes the book as a Gothic novel because of its use of demons and melancholic tone. As a Presbyterian minister- educated in the theology of the lead character- I disagree. It is a story of a supralapsarian who divorces his own justification from the work of Christ in such a way that he becomes an antinomian.

Being that the previous sentence contains many words only found in a seminary education (and a Presbyterian seminary, at that) let me explain what that means.

Supralapsarianism is a distinction drawn within the doctrine of election. Election is the belief that God chooses some people to eternal life (see Romans 9). There are two ways of viewing this election: that God chose some people to be saved and others to be damned or that God chose some people to be saved while others he left to be damned. The first choice means that God directed all parts of history in order to insure that some would be saved and others be damned, including directing the fall of man under Adam. The second choice means that God allowed Adam to sin but didn’t direct history in this way. The first choice is supralapsarian and the second is called infralapsarian.

The “sinner” in Hogg’s novel is clearly of the first camp, making him a supralapsarian. The belief that God chose him in such a way gives the character much joy and comfort, but perhaps not as much joy as he gets from the suffering of the reprobate (those God predestined to damnation). In fact, his common practice is to only pray for the benefit of the elect and pray the imprecatory psalms (violent portions of the Psalms) for the reprobate.

Because of his election by God the lead character is confident in his justification in God’s eyes. Being justified means that God views him as in the right, not just forgiven but righteous. Here is where the character makes his first mistake (if we consider that his supralapsarianism isn’t wrong): he never mentions Christ when he talks about his justification. Justification solely comes from his election, never through the alien righteousness of Christ that he accepted by faith alone.

This mistake- divorcing justification from Christ- opens the door to antinomianism. Antinomianism is the belief that since our actions do not affect our eternal standing before God we can do whatever we want.

Ironically he uses this belief to justify every one of his horrible actions- from murdering innocent people to siring children and shirking any responsibility for them. While all this is going on he is constantly reassuring himself with prayers and sermons from a particularly good preacher- who happens to be the Devil.

This is the problem of justification without Christ. If we forget the cost and grace behind justification we will never be set free from sin (Romans 6.1-2).

In a sense this novel is the same story (as the book itself says) as the Pharisee and the Publican (or Tax Collector for those of us who grew up on the modern translations) in Luke 18.9-14:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

That is what this novel is about. Far be it from me to disagree with wikipedia and literature professors worldwide, but you have to read this novel in light of Presbyterian theology to really get it. Unfortunately, there are many Presbyterian theologians who could still be described in this way.