Thus, even when the poor decide that the method of purchasing salvation
by offering rams and goats or bringing gold to the altar must be wrong
because they cannot afford it, we still do not feel "saved" without a
sacrifice and a victim. In vain do we try to substitute mystical rites
that cost nothing, such as circumcision, or, as a substitute for that,
baptism. Our sense of justice still demands an expiation, a sacrifice,
a sufferer for our sins. And this leaves the poor man still in his old
difficulty; for if it was impossible for him to procure rams and goats
and shekels, how much more impossible is it for him to find a neighbor
who will voluntarily suffer for his sins: one who will say cheerfully
"You have committed a murder. Well, never mind: I am willing to be
hanged for it in your stead?"
Our imagination must come to our rescue. Why not, instead of driving
ourselves to despair by insisting on a separate atonement by a separate
redeemer for every sin, have one great atonement and one great redeemer
to compound for the sins of the world once for all? Nothing easier,
nothing cheaper. The yoke is easy, the burden light. All you have to do
when the redeemer is once found (or invented by the imagination) is to
believe in the efficacy of the transaction, and you are saved. The rams
and goats cease to bleed; the altars which ask for expensive gifts and
continually renewed sacrifices are torn down; and the Church of the
single redeemer and the single atonement rises on the ruins of the old
temples, and becomes a single Church of the Christ.