1. has Godward significance; 2. consists in our Lord’s endurance
of death on our behalf; 3. the spirit in which he endured death is
of vital importance to the efficacy of his sacrifice, namely,
obedience.... God gives repentance, yet requires it; he gives
atonement, yet requires it. ‘_Thanks be to God for his unspeakable
gift_’ (_2 Cor. 9:15_).” Simon, in Expositor, 6:321-334 (for
substance)—“As in prayer we ask God to energize us and enable us
to obey his law, and he answers by entering our hearts and obeying
in us and for us: as we pray for strength in affliction, and find
him helping us by putting his Spirit into us, and suffering in us
and for us; so in atonement, Christ, the manifested God, obeys and
suffers in our stead. Even the moral theory implies substitution
also. God in us obeys his own law and bears the sorrows that sin
has caused. Why can he not, in human nature, also endure the
penalty of sin? The possibility of this cannot be consistently
denied by any who believe in divine help granted in answer to
prayer. The doctrine of the atonement and the doctrine of prayer
stand or fall together.”
See on the whole subject, Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 272-324,
Philosophy of History, 65-69, and Dogmatic Theology, 2:401-463;
Magee, Atonement and Sacrifice, 27, 53, 258; Edwards’s Works,
4:140 sq.; Weber, Vom Zorne Gottes, 214-334; Owen, on Divine
Justice, in Works, 10:500-512; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, IV,
2:27-114; Hopkins, Works, 1:319-368; Schöberlein, in Studien und
Kritiken, 1845:267-318, and 1847:7-70, also in Herzog,
Encyclopädie, art.: Versöhnung; Jahrbuch f. d. Theol., 3:713, and
8:213; Macdonnell, Atonement, 115-214; Luthardt, Saving Truths,
114-138; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 605-637; Lawrence, in Bib. Sac.,
20:332-339; Kreibig, Versöhnungslehre; Waffle, in Bap. Rev.,
1882:263-286; Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:641-662 (Syst. Doct.,
4:107-124); Remensnyder, The Atonement and Modern Thought.
_Secondly_,—the Atonement as related to Humanity in Christ.
The Ethical theory of the atonement holds that Christ stands in such
relation to humanity, that what God’s holiness demands Christ is under
obligation to pay, longs to pay, inevitably does pay, and pays so fully,
in virtue of his two-fold nature, that every claim of justice is
satisfied, and the sinner who accepts what Christ has done in his behalf
is saved.
Dr. R. W. Dale, in his work on The Atonement, states the question
before us: “What must be Christ’s relation to men, in order to
make it possible that he should die for them?” We would change the
form of the question, so that it should read: “What must be
Christ’s relation to men, in order to make it not only possible,
but just and necessary, that he should die for them?” Dale
replies, for substance, that Christ must have had an original and
central relation to the human race and to every member of it; see
Denney, Death of Christ, 318. In our treatment of Ethical Monism,
of the Trinity, and of the Person of Christ, we have shown that
Christ, as Logos, as the immanent God, is the Life of humanity,
laden with responsibility for human sin, while yet he personally
knows no sin. Of this race-responsibility and race-guilt which
Christ assumed, and for which he suffered so soon as man had
sinned, Christ’s obedience and suffering in the flesh were the
visible reflection and revelation. Only in Christ’s organic union
with the race can we find the vital relation which will make his
vicarious sufferings either possible or just. Only when we regard
Calvary as revealing eternal principles of the divine nature, can
we see how the sufferings of those few hours upon the Cross could
suffice to save the millions of mankind.
Dr. E. Y. Mullins has set forth the doctrine of the Atonement in
five propositions: “1. In order to atonement Christ became vitally
united to the human race. It was only by assuming the nature of
those he would redeem that he could break the power of their
captor.... The human race may be likened to many sparrows who had
been caught in the snare of the fowler, and were hopelessly
struggling against their fate. A great eagle swoops down from the
sky, becomes entangled with the sparrows in the net, and then
spreading his mighty wings he soars upward bearing the snare and
captives and breaking its meshes he delivers himself and them....
Christ the fountain head of life imparting his own vitality to the
redeemed, and causing them to share in the experiences of
Gethsemane and Calvary, breaking thus for them the power of sin
and death—this is the atonement, by virtue of which sin is put
away and man is united to God.”
Dr. Mullins properly regards this view of atonement as too narrow,
inasmuch as it disregards the differences between Christ and men
arising from his sinlessness and his deity. He adds therefore that
“2. Christ became the substitute for sinners; 3. became the
representative of men before God; 4. gained power over human
hearts to win them from sin and reconcile them to God; and 5.
became a propitiation and satisfaction, rendering the remission of
sins consistent with the divine holiness.” If Christ’s union with
the race be one which begins with creation and antedates the Fall,
all of the later points in the above scheme are only natural
correlates and consequences of the first,—substitution,
representation, reconciliation, propitiation, satisfaction, are
only different aspects of the work which Christ does for us, by
virtue of the fact that he is the immanent God, the Life of
humanity, priest and victim, condemning and condemned, atoning and
atoned.
We have seen how God can justly demand satisfaction; we now show how
Christ can justly make it; or, in other words, how the innocent can justly
suffer for the guilty. The solution of the problem lies in Christ’s union
with humanity. The first result of that union is obligation to suffer for
men; since, being one with the race, Christ had a share in the
responsibility of the race to the law and the justice of God. In him
humanity was created; at every stage of its existence humanity was upheld
by his power; as the immanent God he was the life of the race and of every
member of it. Christ’s sharing of man’s life justly and inevitably
subjected him to man’s exposures and liabilities, and especially to God’s
condemnation on account of sin.
In the seventh chapter of Elsie Venner, Oliver Wendell Holmes
makes the Reverend Mr. Honeywood lay aside an old sermon on Human
Nature, and write one on The Obligations of an infinite Creator to
a finite Creature. A. J. F. Behrends grounded our Lord’s
representative relation not in his human nature but in his divine
nature. “He is our representative not because he was in the loins
of Adam, but because we, Adam included, were in his loins.
Personal created existence is grounded in the Logos, so that God
must deal with him as well as with every individual sinner, and
sin and guilt and punishment must smite the Logos as well as the
sinner, and that, whether the sinner is saved or not. This is not,
as is often charged, a denial of grace or of freedom in grace, for
it is no denial of freedom or grace to show that they are
eternally rational and conformable to eternal law. In the ideal
sphere, necessity and freedom, law and grace, coalesce.” J. C. C.
Clarke, Man and his Divine Father, 387—“Vicarious atonement does
not consist in any single act.... No one act embraces it all, and
no one definition can compass it.” In this sense we may adopt the
words of Forsyth: “In the atonement the Holy Father dealt with a
world’s sin on (not _in_) a world-soul.”
G. B. Foster, on _Mat. 26:53, 54_—“_Thinkest thou that I cannot
beseech my Father, and he shall even now send me more than twelve
legions of angels? How then should the Scriptures be fulfilled,
that thus it must be?_” “On this ‘_must be_’ the Scripture is
based, not this ‘_must be_’ on the Scripture. The ‘_must be_’ was
the ethical demand of his connection with the race. It would have
been immoral for him to break away from the organism. The law of
the organism is: From each according to ability; to each according
to need. David in song, Aristotle in logic, Darwin in science, are
under obligation to contribute to the organism the talent they
have. Shall they be under obligation, and Jesus go scot-free? But
Jesus can contribute atonement, and because he can, he must.
Moreover, he is a member, not only of the whole, but of each
part,—_Rom. 12:5_—‘_members one of another._’ As membership of the
whole makes him liable for the sin of the whole, so his being a
member of the part makes him liable for the sin of that part.”
Fairbairn, Place of Christ in Modern Theology, 483, 484—“There is
a sense in which the Patripassian theory is right; the Father did
suffer; though it was not as the Son that he suffered, but in
modes distinct and different.... Through his pity the misery of
man became his sorrow.... There is a disclosure of his suffering
in the surrender of the Son. This surrender represented the
sacrifice and passion of the whole Godhead. Here degree and
proportion are out of place; were it not, we might say that the
Father suffered more in giving than the Son in being given. He who
gave to duty had not the reward of him who rejoiced to do it....
One member of the Trinity could not suffer without all
suffering.... The visible sacrifice was that of the Son; the
invisible sacrifice was that of the Father.” The Andover Theory,
represented in Progressive Orthodoxy, 43-53, affirms not only the
Moral Influence of the Atonement, but also that the whole race of
mankind is naturally in Christ and was therefore punished in and
by his suffering and death; quoted in Hovey, Manual of Christian
Theology, 269; see Hovey’s own view, 270-276, though he does not
seem to recognize the atonement as existing before the
incarnation.
Christ’s share in the responsibility of the race to the law and justice of
God was not destroyed by his incarnation, nor by his purification in the
womb of the virgin. In virtue of the organic unity of the race, each
member of the race since Adam has been born into the same state into which
Adam fell. The consequences of Adam’s sin, both to himself and to his
posterity, are: (1) depravity, or the corruption of human nature; (2)
guilt, or obligation to make satisfaction for sin to the divine holiness;
(3) penalty, or actual endurance of loss or suffering visited by that
holiness upon the guilty.
Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 117—“Christ had taken upon
him, as the living expression of himself, a nature which was
weighed down, not merely by present incapacities, but by present
incapacities as part of the judicial necessary result of accepted
and inherent sinfulness. Human nature was not only disabled but
guilty, and the disabilities were themselves a consequence and
aspect of the guilt”; see review of Moberly by Rashdall, in Jour.
Theol. Studies, 3:198-211. Lidgett, Spir. Princ. of Atonement,
166-168, criticizes Dr. Dale for neglecting the fatherly purpose
of the Atonement to serve the moral training of the
child—punishment marking ill-desert in order to bring this
ill-desert to the consciousness of the offender,—and for
neglecting also the positive assertion in the atonement that the
law is holy and just and good—something more than the negative
expression of sin’s ill-desert. See especially Lidgett’s chapter
on the relation of our Lord to the human race, 351-378, in which
he grounds the atonement in the solidarity of mankind, its organic
union with the Son of God, and Christ’s immanence in humanity.
Bowne, The Atonement, 101—“Something like this work of grace was a
moral necessity with God. It was an awful responsibility that was
taken when our human race was launched with its fearful
possibilities of good and evil. God thereby put himself under
infinite obligation to care for his human family; and reflections
upon his position as Creator and Ruler, instead of removing only
make more manifest this obligation. So long as we conceive of God
as sitting apart in supreme ease and self-satisfaction, he is not
love at all, but only a reflex of our selfishness and vulgarity.
So long as we conceive him as bestowing upon us out of his
infinite fulness but at no real cost to himself, he sinks before
the moral heroes of the race. There is ever a higher thought
possible, until we see God taking the world upon his heart,
entering into the fellowship of our sorrow, and becoming the
supreme burdenbearer and leader in all self-sacrifice. Then only
are the possibilities of grace and love and moral heroism and
condescension filled up, so that nothing higher remains. And the
work of Christ himself, so far as it was an historical event, must
be viewed, not merely as a piece of history, but also as a
manifestation of that Cross which was hidden in the divine love
from the foundation of the world, and which is involved in the
existence of the human world at all.”
John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:90, 91—“Conceive of the
ideal of moral perfection incarnate in a human personality, and at
the same time one who loves us with a love so absolute that he
identifies himself with us and makes our good and evil his
own—bring together these elements in a living, conscious human
spirit, and you have in it a capacity of shame and anguish, a
possibility of bearing the burden of human guilt and wretchedness,
which lost and guilty humanity can never bear for itself.”
If Christ had been born into the world by ordinary generation, he too
would have had depravity, guilt, penalty. But he was not so born. In the
womb of the Virgin, the human nature which he took was purged from its
depravity. But this purging away of depravity did not take away guilt, or
penalty. There was still left the just exposure to the penalty of violated
law. Although Christ’s nature was purified, his obligation to suffer yet
remained. He might have declined to join himself to humanity, and then he
need not have suffered. He might have sundered his connection with the
race, and then he need not have suffered. But once born of the Virgin,
once possessed of the human nature that was under the curse, he was bound
to suffer. The whole mass and weight of God’s displeasure against the race
fell on him, when once he became a member of the race.
Because Christ is essential humanity, the universal man, the life
of the race, he is the central brain to which and through which
all ideas must pass. He is the central heart to which and through
which all pains must be communicated. You cannot telephone to your
friend across the town without first ringing up the central
office. You cannot injure your neighbor without first injuring
Christ. Each one of us can say of him: “_Against thee, thee only,
have I sinned_” (_Ps. 51:4_). Because of his central and
all-inclusive humanity, he must bear in his own person all the
burdens of humanity, and must be “_the Lamb of God, that_” taketh,
and so “_taketh away, the sin of the world_” (_John 1:29_). Simms
Reeves, the great English tenor, said that the passion-music was
too much for him; he was found completely overcome after singing
the prophet’s words in _Lam. 1:12_—“_Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my
sorrow, which is brought upon me, Wherewith Jehovah hath afflicted
me in the day of his fierce anger._”
Father Damien gave his life in ministry to the lepers’ colony of
the Hawaiian Islands. Though free from the disease when he
entered, he was at last himself stricken with the leprosy, and
then wrote: “I must now stay with my own people.” Once a leper,
there was no release. When Christ once joined himself to humanity,
all the exposures and liabilities of humanity fell upon him.
Through himself personally without sin, he was made sin for us.
Christ inherited guilt and penalty. _Heb. 2:14, 15_—“_Since then
the children are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself in
like manner partook of the same; that through death he might bring
to naught him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and
might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their
life-time subject to bondage._”
Only God can forgive sin, because only God can feel it in its true
heinousness and rate it at its true worth. Christ could forgive
sin because he added to the divine feeling with regard to sin the
anguish of a pure humanity on account of it. Shelley, Julian and
Maddolo: “Me, whose heart a stranger’s tear might wear, As
water-drops the sandy fountain-stone; Me, who am as a nerve o’er
which do creep The Else unfelt oppressions of the earth.” S. W.
Culver: “We cannot be saved, as we are taught geometry, by lecture
and diagram. No person ever yet saved another from drowning by
standing coolly by and telling him the importance of rising to the
surface and the necessity of respiration. No, he must plunge into
the destructive element, and take upon himself the very condition
of the drowning man, and by the exertion of his own strength, by
the vigor of his own life, save him from the impending death. When
your child is encompassed by the flames that consume your
dwelling, you will not save him by calling to him from without.
You must make your way through the devouring flame, till you come
personally into the very conditions of his peril and danger, and,
thence returning, bear him forth to freedom and safety.”
Notice, however, that this guilt which Christ took upon himself by his
union with humanity was: (1) not the guilt of personal sin—such guilt as
belongs to every adult member of the race; (2) not even the guilt of
inherited depravity—such guilt as belongs to infants, and to those who
have not come to moral consciousness; but (3) solely the guilt of Adam’s
sin, which belongs, prior to personal transgression, and apart from
inherited depravity, to every member of the race who has derived his life
from Adam. This original sin and inherited guilt, but without the
depravity that ordinarily accompanies them, Christ takes, and so takes
away. He can justly bear penalty, because he inherits guilt. And since
this guilt is not his personal guilt, but the guilt of that one sin in
which “all sinned”—the guilt of the common transgression of the race in
Adam, the guilt of the root-sin from which all other sins have sprung—he
who is personally pure can vicariously bear the penalty due to the sin of
all.
Christ was conscious of innocence in his personal relations, but
not in his race relations. He gathered into himself all the
penalties of humanity, as Winkelried gathered into his own bosom
at Sempach the pikes of the Austrians and so made a way for the
victorious Swiss. Christ took to himself the shame of humanity, as
the mother takes upon her the daughter’s shame, repenting of it
and suffering on account of it. But this could not be in the case
of Christ unless there had been a tie uniting him to men far more
vital, organic, and profound than that which unites mother and
daughter. Christ is naturally the life of all men, before he
becomes spiritually the life of true believers. Matheson, Spir.
Devel. of St. Paul, 197-215, 244, speaks of Christ’s secular
priesthood, of an outer as well as an inner membership in the body
of Christ. He is sacrificial head of the world as well as
sacrificial head of the church. In Paul’s latest letters, he
declares of Christ that he is “_the Savior of all men, specially
of them that believe_” (_1 Tim. 4:10_). There is a grace that
“_hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men_” (_Tit. 2:11_). He
“_gave gifts unto men_” (_Eph. 4:8_), “_Yea, among the rebellious
also, that Jehovah God might dwell with them_” (_Ps. 68:18_).
“_Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected_”
(_1 Tim. 4:4_).
Royce, World and Individual, 2:408—“Our sorrows are identically
God’s own sorrows.... I sorrow, but the sorrow is not only mine.
This same sorrow, just as it is for me, is God’s sorrow.... The
divine fulfilment can be won only through the sorrows of time....
Unless God knows sorrow, he knows not the highest good, which
consists in the overcoming of sorrow.” Godet, in The Atonement,
331-351—“Jesus condemned sin as God condemned it. When he felt
forsaken on the Cross, he performed that act by which the offender
himself condemns his sin, and by that condemnation, so far as it
depends on himself, makes it to disappear. There is but one
conscience in all moral beings. This echo in Christ of God’s
judgment against sin was to re-echo in all other human
consciences. This has transformed God’s love of compassion into a
love of satisfaction. Holiness joins suffering to sin. But the
element of reparation in the Cross was not in the suffering but in
the submission. The child who revolts against its punishment has
made no reparation at all. We appropriate Christ’s work when we by
faith ourselves condemn sin and accept him.”
If it be asked whether this is not simply a suffering for his own sin, or
rather for his own share of the sin of the race, we reply that his own
share in the sin of the race is not the sole reason why he suffers; it
furnishes only the subjective reason and ground for the proper laying upon
him of the sin of all. Christ’s union with the race in his incarnation is
only the outward and visible expression of a prior union with the race
which began when he created the race. As “in him were all things created,”
and as “in him all things consist,” or hold together (Col. 1:16, 17), it
follows that he who is the life of humanity must, though personally pure,
be involved in responsibility for all human sin, and “it was necessary
that the Christ should suffer” (Acts 17:3). This suffering was an enduring
of the reaction of the divine holiness against sin and so was a bearing of
penalty (Is. 53:6; Gal. 3:13), but it was also the voluntary execution of
a plan that antedated creation (Phil. 2:6, 7), and Christ’s sacrifice in
time showed what had been in the heart of God from eternity (Heb. 9:14;
Rev. 13:8).
Our treatment is intended to meet the chief modern objection to
the atonement. Greg, Creed of Christendom, 2:222, speaks of “the
strangely inconsistent doctrine that God is so _just_ that he
could not let sin go unpunished, yet so _unjust_ that he could
punish it in the person of the innocent.... It is for orthodox
dialectics to explain how the divine justice can be _impugned_ by
pardoning the guilty, and yet _vindicated_ by punishing the
innocent” (quoted in Lias, Atonement, 16). In order to meet this
difficulty, the following accounts of Christ’s identification with
humanity have been given:
1. That of Isaac Watts (see Bib. Sac., 1875:421). This holds that
the humanity of Christ, both in body and soul, preëxisted before
the incarnation, and was manifested to the patriarchs. We reply
that Christ’s human nature is declared to be derived from the
Virgin.
2. That of R. W. Dale (Atonement, 265-440). This holds that Christ
is responsible for human sin because, as the Upholder and Life of
all, he is naturally one with all men, and is spiritually one with
all believers (_Acts 17:28_—“_in him we live, and move, and have
our being_”; _Col. 1:17_—“_in him all things consist_”; _John
14:20_—“_I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you_”). If
Christ’s bearing our sins, however, is to be explained by the
union of the believer with Christ, the effect is made to explain
the cause, and Christ could have died only for the elect (see a
review of Dale, in Brit. Quar. Rev., Apr., 1876:221-225). The
union of Christ with the race by creation—a union which recognizes
Christ’s purity and man’s sin—still remains as a most valuable
element of truth in the theory of Dr. Dale.
3. That of Edward Irving. Christ has a corrupted nature, an inborn
infirmity and depravity, which he gradually overcomes. But the
Scriptures, on the contrary, assert his holiness and separateness
from sinners. (See references, on pages 744-747.)
4. That of John Miller, Theology, 114-128; also in his chapter:
Was Christ in Adam? in Questions Awakened by the Bible. Christ, as
to his human nature, although created pure, was yet, as one of
Adam’s posterity, conceived of as a sinner in Adam. To him
attached “the guilt of the act in which all men stood together in
a federal relation.... He was decreed to be guilty for the sins of
all mankind.” Although there is a truth contained in this
statement, it is vitiated by Miller’s federalism and creatianism.
Arbitrary imputation and legal fiction do not help us here. We
need such an actual union of Christ with humanity, and such a
derivation of the substance of his being, by natural generation
from Adam, as will make him not simply the constructive heir, but
the natural heir, of the guilt of the race. We come, therefore, to
what we regard as the true view, namely:
5. That the humanity of Christ was not a new creation, but was
derived from Adam, through Mary his mother; so that Christ, so far
as his humanity was concerned, was in Adam just as we were, and
had the same race-responsibility with ourselves. As Adam’s
descendant, he was responsible for Adam’s sin, like every other
member of the race; the chief difference being, that while we
inherit from Adam both guilt and depravity, he whom the Holy
Spirit purified, inherited not the depravity, but only the guilt.
Christ took to himself, not sin (depravity), but the consequences
of sin. In him there was abolition of sin, without abolition of
obligation to suffer for sin; while in the believer, there is
abolition of obligation to suffer, without abolition of sin
itself.
The justice of Christ’s sufferings has been imperfectly
illustrated by the obligation of the silent partner of a business
firm to pay debts of the firm which he did not personally
contract; or by the obligation of the husband to pay the debts of
his wife; or by the obligation of a purchasing country to assume
the debts of the province which it purchases (Wm. Ashmore). There
have been men who have spent the strength of a lifetime in
clearing off the indebtedness of an insolvent father, long since
deceased. They recognized an organic unity of the family, which
morally, if not legally, made their father’s liabilities their
own. So, it is said, Christ recognized the organic unity of the
race, and saw that, having become one of that sinning race, he had
involved himself in all its liabilities, even to the suffering of
death, the great penalty of sin.
The fault of all the analogies just mentioned is that they are
purely commercial. A transference of pecuniary obligation is
easier to understand than a transference of criminal liability. I
cannot justly bear another’s penalty, unless I can in some way
share his guilt. The theory we advocate shows how such a sharing
of our guilt on the part of Christ was possible. All believers in
substitution hold that Christ bore our guilt: “My soul looks back
to see The burdens thou didst bear When hanging on the accursed
tree, And hopes her guilt was there.” But we claim that, by virtue
of Christ’s union with humanity, that guilt was not only an
imputed, but also an imparted, guilt.
With Christ’s obligation to suffer, there were connected two
other, though minor, results of his assumption of humanity: first,
the longing to suffer; and secondly, the inevitableness of his
suffering. He felt the longing to suffer which perfect love to God
must feel, in view of the demands upon the race, of that holiness
of God which he loved more than he loved the race itself; which
perfect love to man must feel, in view of the fact that bearing
the penalty of man’s sin was the only way to save him. Hence we
see Christ pressing forward to the cross with such majestic
determination that the disciples were amazed and afraid (_Mark
10:32_). Hence we hear him saying: “_With desire have I desired to
eat this passover_” (_Luke 23:15_); “_I have a baptism to be
baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!_”
(_Luke 12:50_).
Here is the truth in Campbell’s theory of the atonement. Christ is
the great Penitent before God, making confession of the sin of the
race, which others of that race could neither see nor feel. But
the view we present is a larger and completer one than that of
Campbell, in that it makes this confession and reparation
obligatory upon Christ, as Campbell’s view does not, and
recognizes the penal nature of Christ’s sufferings, which
Campbell’s view denies. Lias, Atonement, 79—“The head of a clan,
himself intensely loyal to his king, finds that his clan have been
involved in rebellion. The more intense and perfect his loyalty,
the more thorough his nobleness of heart and affection for his
people, the more inexcusable and flagrant the rebellion of those
for whom he pleads,—the more acute would be his agony, as their
representative and head. Nothing would be more true to human
nature, in the best sense of those words, than that the conflict
between loyalty to his king and affection for his vassals should
induce him to offer his life for theirs, to ask that the
punishment they deserved should be inflicted on him.”
The second minor consequence of Christ’s assumption of humanity
was, that, being such as he was, he could not help suffering; in
other words, the obligatory and the desired were also the
inevitable. Since he was a being of perfect purity, contact with
the sin of the race, of which he was a member, necessarily
involved an actual suffering, of an intenser kind than we can
conceive. Sin is self-isolating, but love and righteousness have
in them the instinct of human unity. In Christ all the nerves and
sensibilities of humanity met. He was the only healthy member of
the race. When life returns to a frozen limb, there is pain. So
Christ, as the only sensitive member of a benumbed and stupefied
humanity, felt all the pangs of shame and suffering which
rightfully belonged to sinners; but which they could not feel,
simply because of the depth of their depravity. Because Christ was
pure, yet had united himself to a sinful and guilty race,
therefore “_it must needs be that Christ should suffer_” (A. V.)
or, “_it behooved the Christ to suffer_” (Rev. Vers., _Acts
17:3_); see also _John 3:14_—“_so must the Son of man be lifted
up_”—“The Incarnation, under the actual circumstances of humanity,
carried with it the necessity of the Passion” (Westcott, in Bib.
Com., _in loco_).
Compare John Woolman’s Journal, 4, 5—“O Lord, my God, the amazing
horrors of darkness were gathered about me, and covered me all
over, and I saw no way to go forth; I felt the depth and extent of
the misery of my fellow creatures, separated from the divine
harmony, and it was greater than I could bear, and I was crushed
down under it; I lifted up my head, I stretched out my arm, but
there was none to help me; I looked round about, and was amazed.
In the depths of misery, I remembered that thou art omnipotent and
that I had called thee Father.” He had vision of a “dull, gloomy
mass,” darkening half the heavens, and he was told that it was
“human beings, in as great misery as they could be and live; and
he was mixed with them, and henceforth he might not consider
himself a distinct and separate being.”
This suffering in and with the sins of men, which Dr. Bushnell
emphasized so strongly, though it is not, as he thought, the
principal element, is notwithstanding an indispensable element in
the atonement of Christ. Suffering in and with the sinner is one
way, though not the only way, in which Christ is enabled to bear
the wrath of God which constitutes the real penalty of sin.
EXPOSITION OF 2 COR. 5:21.—It remains for us to adduce the
Scriptural proof of this natural assumption of human guilt by
Christ. We find it in _2 Cor. 5:21_—“_Him who knew no sin he made
to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of
God in him._” “_Righteousness_” here cannot mean subjective
purity, for then “_made to be sin_” would mean that God made
Christ to be subjectively depraved. As Christ was not made
_unholy_, the meaning cannot be that we are made _holy_ persons in
him. Meyer calls attention to this parallel between
“_righteousness_” and “_sin_”:—“_That we might become the
righteousness of God in him_” = that we might become justified
persons. Correspondingly, “_made to be sin on our behalf_” must =
made to be a condemned person. “_Him who knew no sin_” = Christ
had no experience of sin—this was the necessary postulate of his
work of atonement. “_Made sin for us_,” therefore, is the abstract
for the concrete, and = made a sinner, in the sense that the
penalty of sin fell upon him. So Meyer, for substance.
We must, however, regard this interpretation of Meyer’s as coming
short of the full meaning of the apostle. As justification is not
simply remission of _actual_ punishment, but is also deliverance
from the _obligation_ to suffer punishment,—in other words, as
“_righteousness_” in the text = persons delivered from the _guilt_
as well as from the _penalty_ of sin,—so the contrasted term
“_sin_,” in the text,—a person not only _actually_ punished, but
also under _obligation_ to suffer punishment;—in other words,
Christ is “_made sin_,” not only in the sense of being put under
_penalty_, but also in the sense of being put under _guilt_.
(_Cf._ Symington, Atonement, 17.)
In a note to the last edition of Meyer, this is substantially
granted. “It is to be noted,” he says, “that ἁμαρτίαν, like κατάρα
in _Gal. 3:13_, necessarily includes in itself the notion of
guilt.” Meyer adds, however: “The guilt of which Christ appears as
bearer was not his own (μὴ γνόντα ἁμαρτίαν); hence the guilt of
men was transferred to him; consequently the justification of men
is imputative.” Here the implication that the guilt which Christ
bears is his simply by imputation seems to us contrary to the
analogy of faith. As Adam’s sin is ours only because we are
actually one with Adam, and as Christ’s righteousness is imputed
to us only as we are actually united to Christ, so our sins are
imputed to Christ only as Christ is actually one with the race. He
was “_made sin_” by being made one with the sinners; he took our
guilt by taking our nature. He who “_knew no sin_” came to be
“_sin for us_” by being born of a sinful stock; by inheritance the
common guilt of the race became his. Guilt was not simply
_imputed_ to Christ; it was _imparted_ also.
This exposition may be made more clear by putting the two
contrasted thoughts in parallel columns, as follows:
Made righteousness in him = Made sin for us =
righteous persons; a sinful person;
justified persons; a condemned person;
freed from guilt, or put under guilt, or obligation
obligation to suffer; to suffer;
by spiritual union with by natural union with the
Christ. race.
For a good exposition of _2 Cor. 5:21_, _Gal. 3:13_, and _Rom.
3:25, 26_, see Denney, Studies in Theology, 109-124.
The Atonement, then, on the part of God, has its ground (1) in the
holiness of God, which must visit sin with condemnation, even though this
condemnation brings death to his Son; and (2) in the love of God, which
itself provides the sacrifice, by suffering in and with his Son for the
sins of men, but through that suffering opening a way and means of
salvation.
The Atonement, on the part of man, is accomplished through (1) the
solidarity of the race; of which (2) Christ is the life, and so its
representative and surety; (3) justly yet voluntarily bearing its guilt
and shame and condemnation as his own.
Melanchthon: “Christ was made sin for us, not only in respect to
punishment, but primarily by being chargeable with guilt also
(_culpæ et reatus_)”—quoted by Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk,
3:95, 102, 103, 107; also 1:307, 314 _sq._ Thomasius says that
“Christ bore the guilt of the race by imputation; but as in the
case of the imputation of Adam’s sin to us, imputation of our sins
to Christ presupposes a real relationship. Christ appropriated our
sin. He sank himself into our guilt.” Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:442
(Syst. Doct., 3:350, 351), agrees with Thomasius, that “Christ
entered into our natural mortality, which for us is a penal
condition, and into the state of collective guilt, so far as it is
an evil, a burden to be borne; not that he had personal guilt, but
rather that he entered into our guilt-laden common life, not as a
stranger, but as one actually belonging to it—put under its law,
according to the will of the Father and of his own love.”
When, and how, did Christ take this guilt and this penalty upon
him? With regard to penalty, we have no difficulty in answering
that, as his whole life of suffering was propitiatory, so penalty
rested upon him from the very beginning of his life. This penalty
was inherited, and was the consequence of Christ’s taking human
nature (_Gal. 4:4, 5_—“_born of a woman, born under the law_”).
But penalty and guilt are correlates; if Christ inherited penalty,
it must have been because he inherited guilt. This subjection to
the common guilt of the race was intimated in Jesus’ circumcision
(_Luke 2:21_); in his ritual purification (_Luke 2:22_—“_their
purification_”—_i. e._, the purification of Mary and the babe; see
Lange, Life of Christ; Commentaries of Alford, Webster and
Wilkinson; and An. Par. Bible); in his legal redemption (_Luke
2:23, 24_; _cf._ _Ex. 13:2, 13_); and in his baptism (_Mat.
3:15_—“_thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness_”). The
baptized person went down into the water, as one laden with sin
and guilt, in order that this sin and guilt might be buried
forever, and that he might rise from the typical grave to a new
and holy life. (Ebrard: “Baptism = death.”) So Christ’s submission
to John’s baptism of repentance was not only a consecration to
death, but also a recognition and confession of his implication in
that guilt of the race for which death was the appointed and
inevitable penalty (_cf._ _Mat. 10:38_; _Luke 12:50_; _Mat.
26:39_); and, as his baptism was a prefiguration of his death, we
may learn from his baptism something with regard to the meaning of
his death. See further, under The Symbolism of Baptism.
As one who had had guilt, Christ was “_justified in the spirit_”
(_1 Tim. 3:16_); and this justification appears to have taken
place after he “_was manifested in the flesh_” (_1 Tim. 3:16_),
and when “_he was raised for our justification_” (_Rom. 4:25_).
Compare _Rom. 1:4_—“_declared to be the Son of God with power,
according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the
dead_”; _6:7-10_—“_he that hath died is justified from sin. But if
we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him;
knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more;
death no more hath dominion over him. For the death that he died,
he died unto sin once; but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto
God_”—here all Christians are conceived of as ideally justified in
the justification of Christ, when Christ died for our sins and
rose again. _8:3_—“_God, sending his own Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh_”—here Meyer
says: “The sending does not precede the condemnation; but the
condemnation is effected in and with the sending.” _John
16:10_—“_of righteousness, because I go to the Father_”;
_19:30_—“_It is finished._” On _1 Tim. 3:16_, see the Commentary
of Bengel.
If it be asked whether Jesus, then, before his death, was an
unjustified person, we answer that, while personally pure and
well-pleasing to God (_Mat. 3:17_), he himself was conscious of a
race-responsibility and a race-guilt which must be atoned for
(_John 12:27_—“_Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say?
Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto
this hour_”); and that guilty human nature in him endured at the
last the separation from God which constitutes the essence of
death, sin’s penalty (_Mat. 27:46_—“_My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?_”). We must remember that, as even the believer must
“_be judged according to man in the flesh_” (_1 Pet. 4:6_), that
is, must suffer the death which to unbelievers is the penalty of
sin, although he “_live according to God in the Spirit_,” so
Christ, in order that we might be delivered from both guilt and
penalty, was “_put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the
spirit_” (_3:18_);—in other words, as Christ was man, the penalty
due to human guilt belonged to him to bear; but, as he was God, he
could exhaust that penalty, and could be a proper substitute for
others.
If it be asked whether he, who from the moment of the conception
“_sanctified himself_” (_John 17:19_), did not from that moment
also justify himself, we reply that although, through the
retroactive efficacy of his atonement and upon the ground of it,
human nature in him was purged of its depravity from the moment
that he took that nature; and although, upon the ground of that
atonement, believers before his advent were both sanctified and
justified; yet his own justification could not have proceeded upon
the ground of his atonement, and also his atonement have proceeded
upon the ground of his justification. This would be a vicious
circle; somewhere we must have a beginning. That beginning was in
the cross, where guilt was first purged (_Heb. 1:3_—“_when he had
made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty on high_”; _Mat. 27:42_—“_He saved others; himself he
cannot save_”; _cf._ _Rev. 13:8_—“_the Lamb that hath been slain
from the foundation of the world_”).
If it be said that guilt and depravity are practically
inseparable, and that, if Christ had guilt, he must have had
depravity also, we reply that in civil law we distinguish between
them,—the conversion of a murderer would not remove his obligation
to suffer upon the gallows; and we reply further, that in
justification we distinguish between them,—depravity still
remaining, though guilt is removed. So we may say that Christ
takes guilt without depravity, in order that we may have depravity
without guilt. See page 645; also Böhl, Incarnation des göttlichen
Wortes; Pope, Higher Catechism, 118; A. H. Strong, on the
Necessity of the Atonement, in Philosophy and Religion, 213-219.
_Per contra_, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:59 note, 82.
Christ therefore, as incarnate, rather revealed the atonement than made
it. The historical work of atonement was finished upon the Cross, but that
historical work only revealed to men the atonement made both before and
since by the extra-mundane Logos. The eternal Love of God suffering the
necessary reaction of his own Holiness against the sin of his creatures
and with a view to their salvation—this is the essence of the Atonement.
Nash, Ethics and Revelation, 252, 253—“Christ, as God’s atonement,
is the revelation and discovery of the fact that sacrifice is as
deep in God as his being. He is a holy Creator.... He must take
upon himself the shame and pain of sin.” The earthly tabernacle
and its sacrifices were only the shadow of those in the heavens,
and Moses was bidden to make the earthly after the pattern which
he saw in the mount. So the historical atonement was but the
shadowing forth to dull and finite minds of an infinite demand of
the divine holiness and an infinite satisfaction rendered by the
divine love. Godet, S. S. Times, Oct. 16, 1886—“Christ so
identified himself with the race he came to save, by sharing its
life or its very blood, that when the race itself was redeemed
from the curse of sin, his resurrection followed as the first
fruits of that redemption”; _Rom. 4:25_—“_delivered up for our
trespasses ... raised for our justification._”
Simon, Redemption of Man, 322—“If the Logos is generally the
Mediator of the divine immanence in Creation, especially in man;
if men are differentiations of the effluent divine energy; and if
the Logos is the immanent controlling principle of all
differentiation, _i. e._, the principle of all _form_—must not the
self-perversion of these human differentiations necessarily react
on him who is their constitutive principle? 339—Remember that men
have not first to engraft themselves into Christ, the living
whole.... They subsist naturally in him, and they have to separate
themselves, cut themselves off from him, if they are to be
separate. This is the mistake made in the ‘Life in Christ’ theory.
Men are treated as in some sense out of Christ, and as having to
get into connection with Christ.... It is not that we have to
create the relation,—we have simply to accept, to recognize, to
ratify it. Rejecting Christ is not so much refusal to _become_ one
with Christ, as it is refusal to _remain_ one with him, refusal to
let him be our life.”
A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 33, 172—“When God breathed into
man’s nostrils the breath of life, he communicated freedom, and
made possible the creature’s self-chosen alienation from himself,
the giver of that life. While man could never break the natural
bond which united him to God, he could break the spiritual bond,
and could introduce even into the life of God a principle of
discord and evil. Tie a cord tightly about your finger; you
partially isolate the finger, diminish its nutrition, bring about
atrophy and disease. Yet the life of the whole system rouses
itself to put away the evil, to untie the cord, to free the
diseased and suffering member. The illustration is far from
adequate; but it helps at a single point. There has been given to
each intelligent and moral agent the power, spiritually, to
isolate himself from God, while yet he is naturally joined to God,
and is wholly dependent upon God for the removal of the sin which
has so separated him from his Maker. Sin is the act of the
creature, but salvation is the act of the Creator.
“If you could imagine a finger endowed with free will and trying
to sunder its connection with the body by tying a string around
itself, you would have a picture of man trying to sunder his
connection with Christ. What is the result of such an attempt?
Why, pain, decay; possible, nay, incipient death, to the finger.
By what law? By the law of the organism, which is so constituted
as to maintain itself against its own disruption by the revolt of
the members. The pain and death of the finger is the reaction of
the whole against the treason of the part. The finger suffers
pain. But are there no results of pain to the body? Does not the
body feel pain also? How plain it is that no such pain can be
confined to the single part! The heart feels, aye, the whole
organism feels, because all the parts are members one of another.
It not only suffers, but that suffering tends to remedy the evil
and to remove its cause. The body summons its forces, pours new
tides of life into the dying member, strives to rid the finger of
the ligature that binds it. So through all the course of history,
Christ, the natural life of the race, has been afflicted in the
affliction of humanity and has suffered for human sin. This
suffering has been an atoning suffering, since it has been due to
righteousness. If God had not been holy, if God had not made all
nature express the holiness of his being, if God had not made pain
and loss the necessary consequences of sin, then Christ would not
have suffered. But since these things are sin’s penalty and Christ
is the life of the sinful race, it must needs be that Christ
should suffer. There is nothing arbitrary in laying upon him the
iniquities of us all. Original grace, like original sin, is only
the ethical interpretation of biological facts.” See also Ames, on
Biological Aspects of the Atonement, in Methodist Review, Nov.
1905:943-953.
In favor of the Substitutionary or Ethical view of the atonement we may
urge the following considerations:
(_a_) It rests upon correct philosophical principles with regard to the
nature of will, law, sin, penalty, righteousness.
This theory holds that there are permanent states, as well as
transient acts, of the will; and that the will is not simply the
faculty of volitions, but also the fundamental determination of
the being to an ultimate end. It regards law as having its basis,
not in arbitrary will or in governmental expediency, but rather in
the nature of God, and as being a necessary transcript of God’s
holiness. It considers sin to consist not simply in acts, but in
permanent evil states of the affections and will. It makes the
object of penalty to be, not the reformation of the offender, or
the prevention of evil doing, but the vindication of justice,
outraged by violation of law. It teaches that righteousness is not
benevolence or a form of benevolence, but a distinct and separate
attribute of the divine nature which demands that sin should be
visited with punishment, apart from any consideration of the
useful results that will flow therefrom.
(_b_) It combines in itself all the valuable elements in the theories
before mentioned, while it avoids their inconsistencies, by showing the
deeper principle upon which each of these elements is based.
The Ethical theory admits the indispensableness of Christ’s
example, advocated by the Socinian theory; the moral influence of
his suffering, urged by the Bushnellian theory; the securing of
the safety of government, insisted on by the Grotian theory; the
participation of the believer in Christ’s new humanity, taught by
the Irvingian theory; the satisfaction to God’s majesty for the
elect, made so much of by the Anselmic theory. But the Ethical
theory claims that all these other theories require, as a
presupposition for their effective working, that ethical
satisfaction to the holiness of God which is rendered in guilty
human nature by the Son of God who took that nature to redeem it.
(_c_) It most fully meets the requirements of Scripture, by holding that
the necessity of the atonement is absolute, since it rests upon the
demands of immanent holiness, the fundamental attribute of God.
_Acts 17:3_—“_it behooved the Christ to suffer, and to rise again
from the dead_”—lit.: “_it was necessary for the Christ to
suffer_”; _Luke 24:26_—“_Behooved it not the Christ to suffer
these things, and to enter into his glory?_”—lit.: “_Was it not
necessary that the Christ should suffer these things?_” It is not
enough to say that Christ must suffer in order that the prophecies
might be fulfilled. Why was it prophesied that he should suffer?
Why did God purpose that he should suffer? The ultimate necessity
is a necessity in the nature of God.
Plato, Republic, 2:361—“The righteous man who is thought to be
unrighteous will be scourged, racked, bound; will have his eyes
put out; and finally, having endured all sorts of evil, will be
impaled.” This means that, as human society is at present
constituted, even a righteous person must suffer for the sins of
the world. “Mors mortis Morti mortem nisi morte dedisset, Æternæ
vitæ janua clausa foret”—“Had not the Death-of-death to Death his
death-blow given, Forever closed were the gate, the gate of life
and heaven.”
(_d_) It shows most satisfactorily how the demands of holiness are met;
namely, by the propitiatory offering of one who is personally pure, but
who by union with the human race has inherited its guilt and penalty.
“_Quo non ascendam?_”—“Whither shall I not rise?” exclaimed the
greatest minister of modern kings, in a moment of intoxication.
“Whither shall I not stoop?” says the Lord Jesus. King Humbert,
during the scourge of cholera in Italy: “In Castellammare they
make merry; in Naples they die: I go to Naples.”
Wrightnour: “The illustration of Powhatan raising his club to slay
John Smith, while Pocahontas flings herself between the uplifted
club and the victim, is not a good one. God is not an angry being,
bound to strike something, no matter what. If Powhatan could have
taken the blow himself, out of a desire to spare the victim, it
would be better. The Father and the Son are one. Bronson Alcott,
in his school at Concord, when punishment was necessary, sometimes
placed the rod in the hand of the offender and bade him strike his
(Alcott’s) hand, rather than that the law of the school should be
broken without punishment following. The result was that very few
rules were broken. So God in Christ bore the sins of the world,
and endured the penalty for man’s violation of his law.”
(_e_) It furnishes the only proper explanation of the sacrificial language
of the New Testament, and of the sacrificial rites of the Old, considered
as prophetic of Christ’s atoning work.
Foster, Christian Life and Theology, 207-211—“The imposition of
hands on the head of the victim is entirely unexplained, except in
the account of the great day of Atonement, when by the same
gesture and by distinct confession the sins of the people were
‘_put upon the head of the goat_’ (_Lev. 16:21_) to be borne away
into the wilderness. The blood was sacred and was to be poured out
before the Lord, evidently in place of the forfeited life of the
sinner which should have been rendered up.” Watts, New
Apologetics, 205—“ ‘_The Lord will provide_’ was the truth taught
when Abraham found a ram provided by God which he ‘_offered up as
a burnt offering in the stead of his son_’ (_Gen. 22:13, 14_). As
the ram was not Abraham’s ram, the sacrifice of it could not teach
that all Abraham had belonged to God, and should, with entire
faith in his goodness, be devoted to him; but it did teach that
‘_apart from shedding of blood there is no remission_’ (_Heb.
9:22_).” _2 Chron. 29:27_—“_when the burnt offering began, the
song of Jehovah began also._”
(_f_) It alone gives proper place to the death of Christ as the central
feature of his work,—set forth in the ordinances, and of chief power in
Christian experience.
Martin Luther, when he had realized the truth of the Atonement,
was found sobbing before a crucifix and moaning: “Für mich! für
mich!”—“For me! for me!” Elisha Kane, the Arctic explorer, while
searching for signs of Sir John Franklin and his party, sent out
eight or ten men to explore the surrounding region. After several
days three returned, almost crazed with the cold—thermometer fifty
degrees below zero—and reported that the other men were dying
miles away. Dr. Kane organized a company of ten, and though
suffering himself with an old heart-trouble, led them to the
rescue. Three times he fainted during the eighteen hours of
marching and suffering; but he found the men. “We knew you would
come! we knew you would come, brother!” whispered one of them,
hardly able to speak. Why was he sure Dr. Kane would come? Because
he knew the stuff Dr. Kane was made of, and knew that he would
risk his life for any one of them. It is a parable of Christ’s
relation to our salvation. He is our elder brother, bone of our
bone and flesh of our flesh, and he not only risks death, but he
endures death, in order to save us.
(_g_) It gives us the only means of understanding the sufferings of Christ
in the garden and on the cross, or of reconciling them with the divine
justice.
Kreibig, Versöhnungslehre: “Man has a guilt that demands the
punitive sufferings of a mediator. Christ shows a suffering that
cannot be justified except by reference to some other guilt than
his own. Combine these two facts, and you have the problem of the
atonement solved.” J. G. Whittier: “Through all the depths of sin
and loss Drops the plummet of the Cross; Never yet abyss was found
Deeper than the Cross could sound.” Alcestis purchased life for
Admetus her husband by dying in his stead; Marcus Curtius saved
Rome by leaping into the yawning chasm; the Russian servant threw
himself to the wolves to rescue his master. Berdoe, Robert
Browning, 47—“To know God as the theist knows him may suffice for
pure spirits, for those who have never sinned, suffered, nor felt
the need of a Savior; but for fallen and sinful men the Christ of
Christianity is an imperative necessity; and those who have never
surrendered themselves to him have never known what it is to
experience the rest he gives to the heavy-laden soul.”
(_h_) As no other theory does, this view satisfies the ethical demand of
human nature; pacifies the convicted conscience; assures the sinner that
he may find instant salvation in Christ; and so makes possible a new life
of holiness, while at the same time it furnishes the highest incentives to
such a life.
Shedd: “The offended party (1) permits a substitution; (2)
provides a substitute; (3) substitutes himself.” George Eliot:
“Justice is like the kingdom of God; it is not without us, as a
fact; it is ‘within us,’ as a great yearning.” But it is both
without and within, and the inward is only the reflection of the
outward; the subjective demands of conscience only reflect the
objective demands of holiness.
And yet, while this view of the atonement exalts the holiness of
God, it surpasses every other view in its moving exhibition of
God’s love—a love that is not satisfied with suffering in and with
the sinner, or with making that suffering a demonstration of God’s
regard for law; but a love that sinks itself into the sinner’s
guilt and bears his penalty,—comes down so low as to make itself
one with him in all but his depravity—makes every sacrifice but
the sacrifice of God’s holiness—a sacrifice which God could not
make, without ceasing to be God; see _1 John 4:10_—“_Herein is
love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his
Son to be the propitiation for our sins._” The soldier who had
been thought reprobate was moved to complete reform when he was
once forgiven. William Huntington, in his Autobiography, says that
one of his sharpest sensations of pain, after he had been
quickened by divine grace, was that he felt such pity for God.
Never was man abused as God has been. _Rom. 2:4_—“_the goodness of
God leadeth thee to repentance_”; _12:1_—“_the mercies of God_”
lead you “_to present your bodies a living sacrifice_”; _2 Cor.
5:14, 15_—“_the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus
judge, that one died for all, therefore all died; and he died for
all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves,
but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again._” The effect
of Christ’s atonement on Christian character and life may be
illustrated from the proclamation of Garabaldi: “He that loves
Italy, let him follow me! I promise him hardship, I promise him
suffering, I promise him death. But he that loves Italy, let him
follow me!”
D. Objections to the Ethical Theory of the Atonement.
On the general subject of these objections, Philippi,
Glaubenslehre, iv, 2:156-180, remarks: (1) that it rests with God
alone to say whether he will pardon sin, and in what way he will
pardon it; (2) that human instincts are a very unsafe standard by
which to judge the procedure of the Governor of the universe; and
(3) that one plain declaration of God, with regard to the plan of
salvation, proves the fallacy and error of all reasonings against
it. We must correct our watches and clocks by astronomic
standards.
(_a_) That a God who does not pardon sin without atonement must lack
either omnipotence or love.—We answer, on the one hand, that God’s
omnipotence is the revelation of his nature, and not a matter of arbitrary
will; and, on the other hand, that God’s love is ever exercised
consistently with his fundamental attribute of holiness, so that while
holiness demands the sacrifice, love provides it. Mercy is shown, not by
trampling upon the claims of justice, but by vicariously satisfying them.
Because man does not need to avenge personal wrongs, it does not
follow that God must not. In fact, such avenging is forbidden to
us upon the ground that it belongs to God; _Rom. 12:19_—“_Avenge
not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto wrath: for it is
written, Vengeance belongeth unto me; I will recompense, saith the
Lord._” But there are limits even to our passing over of offences.
Even the father must sometimes chastise; and although this
chastisement is not properly punishment, it becomes punishment,
when the father becomes a teacher or a governor. Then, other than
personal interests come in. “Because a father can forgive without
atonement, it does not follow that the state can do the same”
(Shedd). But God is more than Father, more than Teacher, more than
Governor. In him, person and right are identical. For him to let
sin go unpunished is to approve of it; which is the same as a
denial of holiness.
Whatever pardon is granted, then, must be pardon through
punishment. Mere repentance never expiates crime, even under civil
government. The truly penitent man never feels that his repentance
constitutes a ground of acceptance; the more he repents, the more
he recognizes his need of reparation and expiation. Hence God
meets the demand of man’s conscience, as well as of his own
holiness, when he provides a substituted punishment. God shows his
love by meeting the demands of holiness, and by meeting them with
the sacrifice of himself. See Mozley on Predestination, 390.
The publican prays, not that God may be merciful without
sacrifice, but: “_God be propitiated toward me, the sinner!_”
(_Luke 18:13_); in other words, he asks for mercy only through and
upon the ground of, sacrifice. We cannot atone to others for the
wrong we have done them, nor can we even atone to our own souls. A
third party, and an infinite being, must make atonement, as we
cannot. It is only upon the ground that God himself has made
provision for satisfying the claims of justice, that we are bidden
to forgive others. Should Othello then forgive Iago? Yes, if Iago
repents; _Luke 17:3_—“_If thy brother sin, rebuke him; and if he
repent, forgive him._” But if he does not repent? Yes, so far as
Othello’s own disposition is concerned. He must not hate Iago, but
must wish him well; _Luke 6:27_—“_Love your enemies, do good to
them that hate you, bless them that curse you, pray for them that
despitefully use you._” But he cannot receive Iago to his
fellowship till he repents. On the duty and ground of forgiving
one another, see Martineau, Seat of Authority, 613, 614; Straffen,
Hulsean Lectures on the Propitiation for Sin.
(_b_) That satisfaction and forgiveness are mutually exclusive.—We answer
that, since it is not a third party, but the Judge himself, who makes
satisfaction to his own violated holiness, forgiveness is still optional,
and may be offered upon terms agreeable to himself. Christ’s sacrifice is
not a pecuniary, but a penal, satisfaction. The objection is valid against
the merely commercial view of the atonement, not against the ethical view
of it.
Forgiveness is something beyond the mere taking away of penalty.
When a man bears the penalty of his crime, has the community no
right to be indignant with him? There is a distinction between
pecuniary and penal satisfaction. Pecuniary satisfaction has
respect only to the thing due; penal satisfaction has respect also
to the person of the offender. If pardon is a matter of justice in
God’s government, it is so only as respects Christ. To the
recipient it is only mercy. “_Faithful and righteous to forgive us
our sins_” (_1 John 1:9_)—faithful to his promise, and righteous
to Christ. Neither the atonement, nor the promise, gives the
offender any personal claim.
Philemon must forgive Onesimus the pecuniary _debt_, when Paul
pays it; not so with the personal _injury_ Onesimus has done to
Philemon; there is no forgiveness of this, until Onesimus repents
and asks pardon. An amnesty may be offered to all, but upon
conditions. Instance Amos Lawrence’s offering to the forger the
forged paper he had bought up, upon condition that he would
confess himself bankrupt, and put all his affairs into the hands
of his benefactor. So the fact that Christ has paid our debts does
not preclude his offering to us the benefit of what he has done,
upon condition of our repentance and faith. The equivalent is not
furnished by man, but by God. God may therefore offer the results
of it upon his own terms. Did then the entire race fairly pay its
penalty when one suffered, just as all incurred the penalty when
one sinned? Yes,—all who receive their life from each—Adam on the
one hand, and Christ on the other. See under Union with Christ—its
Consequences; see also Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 295 note,
321, and Dogm. Theol., 2:383-389; Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:614-615
(Syst. Doct., 4:82, 83). _Versus_ Current Discussions in Theology,
5:281.
Hovey calls Christ’s relation to human sin a vice-penal one. Just
as vice-regal position carries with it all the responsibility,
care, and anxiety of regal authority, so does a vice-penal
relation to sin carry with it all the suffering and loss of the
original punishment. The person on whom it falls is different, but
his punishment is the same, at least in penal value. As vice-regal
authority may be superseded by regal, so vice-penal suffering, if
despised, may be superseded by the original penalty. Is there a
waste of vice-penal suffering when any are lost for whom it was
endured? On the same principle we might object to any suffering on
the part of Christ for those who refuse to be saved by him. Such
suffering may benefit others, if not those for whom it was in the
first instance endured.
If compensation is made, it is said, there is nothing to forgive;
if forgiveness is granted, no compensation can be required. This
reminds us of Narvaez, who saw no reason for forgiving his enemies
until he had shot them all. When the offended party furnishes the
compensation, he can offer its benefits upon his own terms. Dr.
Pentecost: “A prisoner in Scotland was brought before the Judge.
As the culprit entered the box, he looked into the face of the
Judge to see if he could discover mercy there. The Judge and the
prisoner exchanged glances, and then there came a mutual
recognition. The prisoner said to himself: ‘It is all right this
time,’ for the Judge had been his classmate in Edinburgh
University twenty-five years before. When sentence was pronounced,
it was five pounds sterling, the limit of the law for the
misdemeanor charged, and the culprit was sorely disappointed as he
was led away to prison. But the Judge went at once and paid the
fine, telling the clerk to write the man’s discharge. This the
Judge delivered in person, explaining that the demands of the law
must be met, and having been met, the man was free.”
(_c_) That there can be no real propitiation, since the judge and the
sacrifice are one.—We answer that this objection ignores the existence of
personal relations within the divine nature, and the fact that the God-man
is distinguishable from God. The satisfaction is grounded in the
distinction of persons in the Godhead; while the love in which it
originates belongs to the unity of the divine essence.
The satisfaction is not rendered to a _part_ of the Godhead, for
the whole Godhead is in the Father, in a certain manner; as
omnipresence = _totus in omni parte_. So the offering is perfect,
because the whole Godhead is also in Christ (_2 Cor. 5:19_—“_God
was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself_”). Lyman Abbott
says that the word “propitiate” is used in the New Testament only
in the middle voice, to show that God propitiates himself.
Lyttelton, in Lux Mundi, 302—“The Atonement is undoubtedly a
mystery, but all forgiveness is a mystery. It avails to lift the
load of guilt that presses upon an offender. A change passes over
him that can only be described as regenerative, life-giving; and
thus the assurance of pardon, however conveyed, may be said to
obliterate in some degree the consequences of the past. 310—Christ
bore sufferings, not that we might be freed from them, for we have
deserved them, but that we might be enabled to bear them, as he
did, victoriously and in unbroken union with God.”
(_d_) That the suffering of the innocent for the guilty is not an
execution of justice, but an act of manifest injustice.—We answer, that
this is true only upon the supposition that the Son bears the penalty of
our sins, not voluntarily, but compulsorily; or upon the supposition that
one who is personally innocent can in no way become involved in the guilt
and penalty of others,—both of them hypotheses contrary to Scripture and
to fact.
The mystery of the atonement lies in the fact of unmerited
sufferings on the part of Christ. Over against this stands the
corresponding mystery of unmerited pardon to believers. We have
attempted to show that, while Christ was personally innocent, he
was so involved with others in the consequences of the Fall, that
the guilt and penalty of the race belonged to him to bear. When we
discuss the doctrine of Justification, we shall see that, by a
similar union of the believer with Christ, Christ’s justification
becomes ours.
To one who believes in Christ as the immanent God, the life of
humanity, the Creator and Upholder of mankind, the bearing by
Christ of the just punishment of human sin seems inevitable. The
very laws of nature are only the manifestation of his holiness,
and he who thus reveals God is also subject to God’s law. The
historical process which culminated on Calvary was the
manifestation of an age-long suffering endured by Christ on
account of his connection with the race from the very first moment
of their sin. A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 80-83—“A God of
love and holiness must be a God of suffering just so certainly as
there is sin. Paul declares that he fills up ‘_that which is
lacking of the afflictions of Christ ... for his body’s sake,
which is the church_’ (_Col. 1:24_); in other words, Christ still
suffers in the believers who are his body. The historical
suffering indeed is ended; the agony of Golgotha is finished; the
days when joy was swallowed up in sorrow are past; death has no
more dominion over our Lord. But sorrow for sin is not ended; it
still continues and will continue so long as sin exists. But it
does not now militate against Christ’s blessedness, because the
sorrow is overbalanced and overborne by the infinite knowledge and
glory of his divine nature. Bushnell and Beecher were right when
they maintained that suffering for sin was the natural consequence
of Christ’s relation to the sinning creation. They were wrong in
mistaking the nature of that suffering and in not seeing that the
constitution of things which necessitates it, since it is the
expression of God’s holiness, gives that suffering a penal
character and makes Christ a substitutionary offering for the sins
of the world.”
(_e_) That there can be no transfer of punishment or merit, since these
are personal.—We answer that the idea of representation and suretyship is
common in human society and government; and that such representation and
suretyship are inevitable, wherever there is community of life between the
innocent and the guilty. When Christ took our nature, he could not do
otherwise than take our responsibilities also.
Christ became responsible for the humanity with which he was
organically one. Both poets and historians have recognized the
propriety of one member of a house, or a race, answering for
another. Antigone expiates the crime of her house. Marcus Curtius
holds himself ready to die for his nation. Louis XVI has been
called a “sacrificial lamb,” offered up for the crimes of his
race. So Christ’s sacrifice is of benefit to the whole family of
man, because he is one with that family. But here is the
limitation also. It does not extend to angels, because he took not
on him the nature of angels (_Heb. 2:16_—“_For verily not of the
angels doth he take hold, but he taketh hold of the seed of
Abraham_”).
“A strange thing happened recently in one of our courts of
justice. A young man was asked why the extreme penalty should not
be passed upon him. At that moment, a gray-haired man, his face
furrowed with sorrow, stepped into the prisoner’s box unhindered,
placed his hand affectionately upon the culprit’s shoulder, and
said: ‘Your honor, we have nothing to say. The verdict which has
been found against us is just. We have only to ask for mercy.’
‘We!’ There was nothing against this old father. Yet, at that
moment he lost himself. He identified his very being with that of
his wayward boy. Do you not pity the criminal son because of your
pity for his aged and sorrowing father? Because he has so
suffered, is not your demand that the son suffer somewhat
mitigated? Will not the judge modify his sentence on that account?
Nature knows no forgiveness; but human nature does; and it is not
nature, but human nature, that is made in the image of God”; see
Prof. A. S. Coats, in The Examiner, Sept. 12, 1889.
(_f_) That remorse, as a part of the penalty of sin, could not have been
suffered by Christ.—We answer, on the one hand, that it may not be
essential to the idea of penalty that Christ should have borne the
identical pangs which the lost would have endured; and, on the other hand,
that we do not know how completely a perfectly holy being, possessed of
super-human knowledge and love, might have felt even the pangs of remorse
for the condition of that humanity of which he was the central conscience
and heart.
Instance the lawyer, mourning the fall of a star of his
profession; the woman, filled with shame by the degradation of one
of her own sex; the father, anguished by his daughter’s
waywardness; the Christian, crushed by the sins of the church and
the world. The self-isolating spirit cannot conceive how perfectly
love and holiness can make their own the sin of the race of which
they are a part.
Simon, Reconciliation, 366—“Inasmuch as the sin of the human race
culminated in the crucifixion which crowned Christ’s own
sufferings, clearly the life of humanity entering him
subconsciously must have been most completely laden with sin and
with the fear of death which is its fruit, at the very moment when
he himself was enduring death in its most terrible form. Of
necessity therefore he felt as if he were the sinner of sinners,
and cried out in agony: ‘_My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?_’ (_Mat. 27:46_).”
Christ could realize our penal condition. Beings who have a like
spiritual nature can realize and bear the spiritual sufferings of
one another. David’s sorrow was not unjust, when he cried: “_Would
I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!_” (_2 Sam.
18:33_). Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 117—“Is penitence
possible in the personally sinless? We answer that only one who is
perfectly sinless can perfectly repent, and this identification of
the sinless with the sinner is vital to the gospel.” Lucy Larcom:
“There be sad women, sick and poor. And those who walk in garments
soiled; Their shame, their sorrow I endure; By their defeat my
hope is foiled; The blot they bear is on my name; Who sins, and I
am not to blame?”
(_g_) That the sufferings of Christ, as finite in time, do not constitute
a satisfaction to the infinite demands of the law.—We answer that the
infinite dignity of the sufferer constitutes his sufferings a full
equivalent, in the eye of infinite justice. Substitution excludes identity
of suffering; it does not exclude equivalence. Since justice aims its
penalties not so much at the person as at the sin, it may admit equivalent
suffering, when this is endured in the very nature that has sinned.
The sufferings of a dog, and of a man, have different values.
Death is the wages of sin; and Christ, in suffering death,
suffered our penalty. Eternity of suffering is unessential to the
idea of penalty. A finite being cannot exhaust an infinite curse;
but an infinite being can exhaust it, in a few brief hours. Shedd,
Discourses and Essays, 307—“A golden eagle is worth a thousand
copper cents. The penalty paid by Christ is strictly and literally
_equivalent_ to that which the sinner would have borne, although
it is not _identical_. The vicarious bearing of it excludes the
latter.” Andrew Fuller thought Christ would have had to suffer
just as much, if only one sinner were to have been saved thereby.
The atonement is a unique fact, only partially illustrated by debt
and penalty. Yet the terms “purchase” and “ransom” are Scriptural,
and mean simply that the justice of God punishes sin as it
deserves; and that, having determined what is deserved, God cannot
change. See Owen, quoted in Campbell on Atonement, 58, 59.
Christ’s sacrifice, since it is absolutely infinite, can have
nothing added to it. If Christ’s sacrifice satisfies the Judge of
all, it may well satisfy us.
(_h_) That if Christ’s passive obedience made satisfaction to the divine
justice, then his active obedience was superfluous.—We answer that the
active obedience and the passive obedience are inseparable. The latter is
essential to the former; and both are needed to secure for the sinner, on
the one hand, pardon, and, on the other hand, that which goes beyond
pardon, namely, restoration to the divine favor. The objection holds only
against a superficial and external view of the atonement.
For more full exposition of this point, see our treatment of
Justification; and also, Owen, in Works, 5:175-204. Both the
active and the passive obedience of Christ are insisted on by the
apostle Paul. Opposition to the Pauline theology is opposition to
the gospel of Christ. Charles Cuthbert Hall, Universal Elements of
the Christian Religion, 140—“The effects of this are already
appearing in the impoverished religious values of the sermons
produced by the younger generation of preachers, and the
deplorable decline of spiritual life and knowledge in many
churches. Results open to observation show that the movement to
simplify the Christian essence by discarding the theology of St.
Paul easily carries the teaching of the Christian pulpit to a
position where, for those who submit to that teaching, the
characteristic experiences of the Christian life became
practically impossible. The Christian sense of sin; Christian
penitence at the foot of the Cross; Christian faith in an atoning
Savior; Christian peace with God through the mediation of Jesus
Christ—these and other experiences, which were the very life of
apostles and apostolic souls, fade from the view of the ministry,
have no meaning for the younger generation.”
(_i_) That the doctrine is immoral in its practical tendencies, since
Christ’s obedience takes the place of ours, and renders ours
unnecessary.—We answer that the objection ignores not only the method by
which the benefits of the atonement are appropriated, namely, repentance
and faith, but also the regenerating and sanctifying power bestowed upon
all who believe. Faith in the atonement does not induce license, but
“works by love” (Gal. 5:6) and “cleanses the heart” (Acts 15:9).
Water is of little use to a thirsty man, if he will not drink. The
faith which accepts Christ ratifies all that Christ has done, and
takes Christ as a new principle of life. Paul bids Philemon
receive Onesimus as himself,—not the old Onesimus, but a new
Onesimus into whom the spirit of Paul has entered (_Philemon 17_).
So God receives us as new creatures in Christ. Though we cannot
earn salvation, we must take it; and this taking it involves a
surrender of heart and life which ensures union with Christ and
moral progress.
What shall be done to the convicted murderer who tears up the
pardon which his wife’s prayers and tears have secured from the
Governor? Nothing remains but to execute the sentence of the law.
Hon. George F. Danforth, Justice of the New York State Court of
Appeals, in a private letter says: “Although it may be stated in a
general way that a pardon reaches both the punishment prescribed
for the offence and the guilt of the offender, so that in the eye
of the law he is as innocent as if he had never committed the
offence, the pardon making him as it were a new man with a new
credit and capacity, yet a delivery of the pardon is essential to
its validity, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It
cannot be forced upon him. In that respect it is like a deed. The
delivery may be in person to the offender or to his agent, and its
acceptance may be proved by circumstances like any other fact.”
(_j_) That if the atonement requires faith as its complement, then it does
not in itself furnish a complete satisfaction to God’s justice.—We answer
that faith is not the ground of our acceptance with God, as the atonement
is, and so is not a work at all; faith is only the medium of
appropriation. We are saved not by faith, or on account of faith, but only
through faith. It is not faith, but the atonement which faith accepts,
that satisfies the justice of God.
Illustrate by the amnesty granted to a city, upon conditions to be
accepted by each inhabitant. The acceptance is not the ground upon
which the amnesty is granted; it is the medium through which the
benefits of the amnesty are enjoyed. With regard to the
difficulties connected with the atonement, we may say, in
conclusion, with Bishop Butler: “If the Scripture has, as surely
it has, left this matter of the satisfaction of Christ mysterious,
left somewhat in it unrevealed, all conjectures about it must be,
if not evidently absurd, yet at least uncertain. Nor has any one
reason to complain for want of further information, unless he can
show his claim to it.” While we cannot say with President Stearns:
“Christ’s work removed the hindrances in the eternal justice of
the universe to the pardon of the sinner, but _how_ we cannot
tell”—cannot say this, because we believe the main outlines of the
plan of salvation to be revealed in Scripture—yet we grant that
many questions remain unsolved. But, as bread nourishes even those
who know nothing of its chemical constituents, or of the method of
its digestion and assimilation, so the atonement of Christ saves
those who accept it, even though they do not know _how_ it saves
them. Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 264-267—“Heat was once
thought to be a form of matter; now it is regarded as a mode of
motion. We can get the good of it, whichever theory we adopt, or
even if we have no theory. So we may get the good of
reconciliation with God, even though we differ as to our theory of
the Atonement.”—“One of the Roman Emperors commanded his fleet to
bring from Alexandria sand for the arena, although his people at
Rome were visited with famine. But a certain shipmaster declared
that, whatever the emperor commanded, his ship should bring wheat.
So, whatever sand others may bring to starving human souls, let us
bring to them the wheat of the gospel—the substitutionary
atonement of Jesus Christ.” For answers to objections, see
Philippi, Glaubenslehre, iv, 2:156-180; Crawford, Atonement,
384-468; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:526-543; Baird, Elohim Revealed,
623 sq.; Wm. Thomson, The Atoning Work of Christ; Hopkins, Works,
1:321.
E. The Extent of the Atonement.
The Scriptures represent the atonement as having been made for all men,
and as sufficient for the salvation of all. Not the _atonement_ therefore
is limited, but the _application_ of the atonement through the work of the
Holy Spirit.
Upon this principle of a universal atonement, but a special application of
it to the elect, we must interpret such passages as Eph. 1:4, 7; 2 Tim.
1:9, 10; John 17:9, 20, 24—asserting a special efficacy of the atonement
in the case of the elect; and also such passages as 2 Pet. 2:1; 1 John
2:2; Tim. 2:6; 4:10; Tit. 2:11—asserting that the death of Christ is for
all.
Passages asserting special efficacy of the atonement, in the case
of the elect, are the following: _Eph. 1:4_—“_chose us in him
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
without __ blemish before him in love_”; _7_—“_in whom we have our
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of his grace_”; _2 Tim. 1:9, 10_—God “_who
saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given
us in Christ Jesus before times eternal, but hath now been
manifested by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who
abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through
the gospel_”; _John 17:9_—“_I pray for them: I pray not for the
world, but for those whom thou hast given me_”; _20_—“_Neither for
these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through
their word_”; _24_—“_Father, that which thou hast given me, I
desire that where I am, they also may be with me; that they may
beheld my glory, which thou hast given me._”
Passages asserting that the death of Christ is for all are the
following: _2 Pet 2:1_—“_false teachers, who shall privily bring
in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought
them_”; _1 John 2:2_—“_and he is the propitiation for our sins;
and not for ours only, but also for the whole world_”; _1 Tim.
2:6_—Christ Jesus “_who gave himself a ransom for all_”;
_4:10_—“_the living God, who is the Savior of all men, specially
of them that believe_”; _Tit. 2:11_—“_For the grace of God hath
appeared, bringing salvation to all men._” _Rom. 3:22_ (A.
V.)—“_unto all and upon all them that believe_”—has sometimes been
interpreted as meaning “unto all men, and upon all believers” (εἰς
= destination; ἐπί = extent). But the Rev. Vers. omits the words
“_and upon all_,” and Meyer, who retains the words, remarks that
τοῦς πιστεύοντας belongs to πάντας in both instances.
Unconscious participation in the atonement of Christ, by virtue of
our common humanity in him, makes us the heirs of much temporal
blessing. Conscious participation in the atonement of Christ, by
virtue of our faith in him and his work for us, gives us
justification and eternal life. Matthew Henry said that the
Atonement is “sufficient for all; effectual for many.” J. M.
Whiton, in The Outlook, Sept. 25, 1897—“It was Samuel Hopkins of
Rhode Island (1721-1803) who first declared that Christ had made
atonement for all men, not for the elect part alone, as Calvinists
affirmed.” We should say “as some Calvinists affirmed”; for, as we
shall see, John Calvin himself declared that “Christ suffered for
the sins of the whole world.” Alfred Tennyson once asked an old
Methodist woman what was the news. “Why, Mr. Tennyson, there’s
only one piece of news that I know,—that Christ died for all men.”
And he said to her; “That is old news, and good news, and new
news.”
If it be asked in what sense Christ is the Savior of all men, we reply:
(_a_) That the atonement of Christ secures for all men a delay in the
execution of the sentence against sin, and a space for repentance,
together with a continuance of the common blessings of life which have
been forfeited by transgression.
If strict justice had been executed, the race would have been cut
off at the first sin. That man lives after sinning, is due wholly
to the Cross. There is a pretermission, or “_passing over of the
sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God_” (_Rom. 3:25_),
the justification of which is found only in the sacrifice of
Calvary. This “_passing over_,” however, is limited in its
duration: see _Acts 17:30, 31_—“_The times of ignorance therefore
God overlooked; but now he commandeth men that they should all
everywhere repent: inasmuch as he hath appointed a day in which he
will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath
ordained._”
One may get the benefit of the law of gravitation without
understanding much about its nature, and patriarchs and heathen
have doubtless been saved through Christ’s atonement, although
they have never heard his name, but have only cast themselves as
helpless sinners upon the mercy of God. That mercy of God was
Christ, though they did not know it. Our modern pious Jews will
experience a strange surprise when they find that not only
forgiveness of sin but every other blessing of life has come to
them through the crucified Jesus. _Matt. 8:11_—“_many shall come
from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven._”
Dr. G.W. Northrop held that the work of Christ is universal in
three respects: 1. It reconciled God to the whole race, apart from
personal transgression; 2. It secured the bestowment upon all of
common grace, and the means of common grace; 3. It rendered
certain the bestowment of eternal life upon all who would so use
common grace and the means of common grace as to make it morally
possible for God as a wise and holy Governor to grant his special
and renewing grace.
(_b_) That the atonement of Christ has made objective provision for the
salvation of all, by removing from the divine mind every obstacle to the
pardon and restoration of sinners, except their wilful opposition to God
and refusal to turn to him.
Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 604—“On God’s side, all is now taken
away which could make a separation,—unless any should themselves
choose to remain separated from him.” The gospel message is not:
God will forgive if you return; but rather: God _has_ shown mercy;
only believe, and it is your portion in Christ.
Ashmore, The New Trial of the Sinner, in Christian Review,
26:245-264—“The atonement has come to all men and upon all men.
Its coëxtensiveness with the effects of Adam’s sin is seen in that
all creatures, such as infants and insane persons, incapable of
refusing it, are saved without their consent, just as they were
involved in the sin of Adam without their consent. The reason why
others are not saved is because when the atonement comes to them
and upon them, instead of consenting to be included in it, they
reject it. If they are born under the curse, so likewise they are
born under the atonement which is intended to remove that curse;
they remain under its shelter till they are old enough to
repudiate it; they shut out its influences as a man closes his
window-blind to shut out the beams of the sun; they ward them off
by direct opposition, as a man builds dykes around his field to
keep out the streams which would otherwise flow in and fertilize
the soil.”
(_c_) That the atonement of Christ has procured for all men the powerful
incentives to repentance presented in the Cross, and the combined agency
of the Christian church and of the Holy Spirit, by which these incentives
are brought to bear upon them.
Just as much sun and rain would be needed, if only one farmer on
earth were to be benefited. Christ would not need to suffer more,
if all were to be saved. His sufferings, as we have seen, were not
the payment of a pecuniary debt. Having endured the penalty of the
sinner, justice permits the sinner’s discharge, but does not
require it, except as the fulfilment of a promise to his
substitute, and then only upon the appointed condition of
repentance and faith. The _atonement_ is unlimited,—the whole
human race might be saved through it; the _application_ of the
atonement is limited,—only those who repent and believe are
actually saved by it.
Robert G. Farley: “The prospective mother prepares a complete and
beautiful outfit for her expected child. But the child is
still-born. Yet the outfit was prepared just the same as if it had
lived. And Christ’s work is completed as much for one man as for
another, as much for the unbeliever as for the believer.”
Christ is specially the Savior of those who believe, in that he exerts a
special power of his Spirit to procure their acceptance of his salvation.
This is not, however, a part of his work of atonement; it is the
application of the atonement, and as such is hereafter to be considered.
Among those who hold to a limited atonement is Owen. Campbell
quotes him as saying: “Christ did not die for all the sins of all
men; for if this were so, why are not all freed from the
punishment of all their sins? You will say, ‘Because of their
unbelief,—they will not believe.’ But this unbelief is a sin, and
Christ was punished for it. Why then does this, more than other
sins, hinder them from partaking of the fruits of his death?”
So also Turretin, loc. 4, quæs. 10 and 17; Symington, Atonement,
184-234; Candlish on the Atonement; Cunningham, Hist. Theol.,
2:323-370; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:464-489. For the view presented
in the text, see Andrew Fuller, Works, 2:373, 374; 689-698;
706-709; Wardlaw, Syst. Theol., 2:485-549; Jenkyn, Extent of the
Atonement; E. P. Griffin, Extent of the Atonement; Woods, Works,
2:490-521; Richards, Lectures on Theology, 302-327.
2. Christ’s Intercessory Work.
The Priesthood of Christ does not cease with his work of atonement, but
continues forever. In the presence of God he fulfils the second office of
the priest, namely that of intercession.
_Heb. 7:23-25_—“_priests many in number, because that by death
they are hindered from continuing: but he, because he abideth
forever, hath his priesthood unchangeable. Wherefore also he is
able to save to the uttermost them that draw near onto God through
him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them._” C. H.
M. on _Ex. 17:12_—“The hands of our great Intercessor never hang
down, as Moses’ did, nor does he need any one to hold them up. The
same rod of God’s power which was used by Moses to smite the rock
(Atonement) was in Moses’ hand on the hill (Intercession).”
Denney’s Studies in Theology, 166—“If we see nothing unnatural in
the fact that Christ prayed for Peter on earth, we need not make
any difficulty about his praying for us in heaven. The relation is
the same; the only difference is that Christ is now exalted, and
prays, not with strong crying and tears, but in the sovereignty
and prevailing power of one who has achieved eternal redemption
for his people.”
A. Nature of Christ’s Intercession.—This is not to be conceived of either
as an external and vocal petitioning, nor as a mere figure of speech for
the natural and continuous influence of his sacrifice; but rather as a
special activity of Christ in securing, upon the ground of that sacrifice,
whatever of blessing comes to men, whether that blessing be temporal or
spiritual.
_1 John 2:1_—“_if any man sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous_”; _Rom. 8:34_—“_It is Jesus
Christ that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who
is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us_”—here Meyer seems to favor the meaning of external and vocal
petitioning, as of the glorified God-man: _Heb. 7:25_—“_ever
liveth to make intercession for them._” On the ground of this
effectual intercession he can pronounce the true sacerdotal
_benediction_; and all the benedictions of his ministers and
apostles are but fruits and emblems of this (see the Aaronic
benediction in _Num. 6:24-26_, and the apostolic benedictions in
_1 Cor. 1:3_ and _2 Cor. 13:14_).
B. Objects of Christ’s Intercession.—We may distinguish (_a_) that general
intercession which secures to all men certain temporal benefits of his
atoning work, and (_b_) that special intercession which secures the divine
acceptance of the persons of believers and the divine bestowment of all
gifts needful for their salvation.
(_a_) General intercession for all men: _Is. 53:12_—“_he bare the
sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors_”; _Luke
23:34_—“_And Jesus said, Father, forgive them; for they know not
what they do_”—a beginning of his priestly intercession, even
while he was being nailed to the cross.
(_b_) Special intercession for his saints: _Mat. 18:19, 20_—“_if
two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they
shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in
heaven. For when two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them_”; _Luke 22:31, 32_—“_Simon,
Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as
wheat: but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail
not_”; _John 14:16_—“_I will pray the Father, and he shall give
you another Comforter_”; _17:9_—“_I pray for them; I pray not for
the world, but for those whom thou hast given me_”; _Acts
2:33_—“_Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and
having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he
hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear_”; _Eph. 1:6_—“_the
glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the
Beloved_”; _2:18_—“_through him we both have our access in one
Spirit unto the Father_”; _3:12_—“_in whom we have boldness and
access in confidence through our faith in him_”; _Heb. 2:17,
18_—“_Wherefore it behooved him in all things to be made like unto
his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high
priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the
sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being
tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted_”; _4:15,
16_—“_For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all
points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore
draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may
receive mercy, and may find grace to help as in time of need_”; _1
Pet 2:5_—“_a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices,
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ_”; _Rev. 5:6_—“_And I saw
in the midst of the throne ... a Lamb standing, as though it had
been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the
seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth_”; _7:16,
17_—“_They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither
shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat: for the lamb that is
in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall
guide them unto fountains of waters of life: and God shall wipe
away every tear from their eyes._”
C. Relation of Christ’s Intercession to that of the Holy Spirit.—The Holy
Spirit is an advocate within us, teaching us how to pray as we ought;
Christ is an advocate in heaven, securing from the Father the answer of
our prayers. Thus the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit are
complements to each other, and parts of one whole.
_John 14:26_—“_But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and
bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you_”; _Rom.
8:26_—“_And in like manner the Spirit __ also helpeth our
infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit
himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be
uttered_”; _27_—“_and he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is
the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the
saints according to the will of God._”
The intercession of the Holy Spirit may be illustrated by the work
of the mother, who teaches her child to pray by putting words into
his mouth or by suggesting subjects for prayer. “The whole Trinity
is present in the Christian’s closet; the Father hears; the Son
advocates his cause at the Father’s right hand; the Holy Spirit
intercedes in the heart of the believer.” Therefore “When God
inclines the heart to pray, He hath an ear to hear.” The impulse
to prayer, within our hearts, is evidence that Christ is urging
our claims in heaven.
D. Relation of Christ’s Intercession to that of saints.—All true
intercession is either directly or indirectly the intercession of Christ.
Christians are organs of Christ’s Spirit. To suppose Christ in us to offer
prayer to one of his saints, instead of directly to the Father, is to
blaspheme Christ, and utterly misconceive the nature of prayer.
Saints on earth, by their union with Christ, the great high
priest, are themselves constituted intercessors; and as the high
priest of old bore upon his bosom the breastplate engraven with
the names of the tribes of Israel (_Ex. 28:9-12_), so the
Christian is to bear upon his heart in prayer before God the
interests of his family, the church, and the world (_1 Tim.
3:1_—“_I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications,
prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all men_”). See
Symington on Intercession, in Atonement and Intercession, 256-308;
Milligan, Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord.
Luckock, After Death, finds evidence of belief in the intercession
of the saints in heaven as early as the second century. Invocation
of the saints he regards as beginning not earlier than the fourth
century. He approves the doctrine that the saints pray _for us_,
but rejects the doctrine that we are to pray _to them_. Prayers
_for_ the dead he strongly advocates. Bramhall, Works,
1:57—Invocation of the saints is “not necessary, for two reasons:
_first_, no saint doth love us so well as Christ: no saint hath
given us such assurance of his love, or done so much for us as
Christ; no saint is so willing to help us as Christ; and
_secondly_, we have no command from God to invocate them.” A. B.
Cave: “The system of human mediation falls away in the advent to
our souls of the living Christ. Who wants stars, or even the moon,
after the sun is up?”
III. The Kingly Office of Christ.
This is to be distinguished from the sovereignty which Christ originally
possessed in virtue of his divine nature. Christ’s kingship is the
sovereignty of the divine-human Redeemer, which belonged to him of right
from the moment of his birth, but which was fully exercised only from the
time of his entrance upon the state of exaltation. By virtue of this
kingly office, Christ rules all things in heaven and earth, for the glory
of God and the execution of God’s purpose of salvation.
(_a_) With respect to the universe at large, Christ’s kingdom is a kingdom
of power; he upholds, governs, and judges the world.
_Ps. 2:6-8_—“_I have set my king.... Thou art my son.... uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession_”; _8:6_—“_madest him to
have dominion over the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all
things under his feet_”; _cf._ _Heb. 2:8, 9_—“_we see not yet all
things subjected to him. But we beheld ... Jesus ... crowned with
glory and honor_”; _Mat. 25:31, 32_—“_when the Son of man shall
come in his glory ... then shall he sit on the throne of his
glory: and before him shall be gathered all the nations_”;
_28:18_—“_All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on
earth_”; _Heb. 1:3_—“_upholding all things by the word of his
power_”; _Rev. 19:15, 16_—“_smite the nations ... rule them with a
rod of iron ... King of Kings, and Lord of Lords._”
Julius Müller, Proof-texts, 34, says incorrectly, as we think,
that “the _regnum naturæ_ of the old theology is
unsupported,—there are only the _regnum gratiæ_ and the _regnum
gloriæ_.” A. J. Gordon: “Christ is now creation’s sceptre-bearer,
as he was once creation’s burden-bearer.”
(_b_) With respect to his militant church, it is a kingdom of grace; he
founds, legislates for, administers, defends, and augments his church on
earth.
_Luke 2:11_—“_born to you ... a Savior, who is Christ the lord_”;
_19:38_—“_Blessed is the King that cometh in the name of the
Lord_”; _John 18:36, 37_—“_My kingdom is not of this world....
Thou sayest it, for I am a king.... Every one that is of the truth
heareth my voice_”; _Eph. 1:22_—“_he put all things in subjection
under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the
church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in
all_”; _Heb. 1:8_—“_of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for
ever and ever._”
Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:677 (Syst. Doct., 4:142, 143)—“All great
men can be said to have an after-influence (_Nachwirkung_) after
their death, but only of Christ can it be said that he has an
after-activity (_Fortwirkung_). The sending of the Spirit is part
of Christ’s work as King.” P. S. Moxom, Bap. Quar. Rev., Jan.
1886:25-36—“Preëminence of Christ, as source of the church’s
being; ground of the church’s unity; source of the church’s law;
mould of the church’s life.” A. J. Gordon: “As the church endures
hardness and humiliation as united to him who was on the cross, so
she should exhibit something of supernatural energy as united with
him who is on the throne.” Luther: “We tell our Lord God, that if
he will have his church, he must look after it himself. We cannot
sustain it, and, if we could, we should become the proudest asses
under heaven.... If it had been possible for pope, priest or
minister to destroy the church of Jesus Christ, it would have been
destroyed long ago.” Luther, watching the proceedings of the Diet
of Augsburg, made a noteworthy discovery. He saw the stars bestud
the canopy of the sky, and though there were no pillars to hold
them up they kept their place and the sky fell not. The business
of holding up the sky and its stars has been on the minds of men
in all ages. But we do not need to provide props to hold up the
sky. God will look after his church and after Christian doctrine.
For of Christ it has been written in _1 Cor. 15:25_—“_For he must
reign, till he hath put all his enemies under his feet._”
“Thrice blessed is he to whom is given The instinct that can tell
That God is in the field when he Is most invisible.” Since Christ
is King, it is a duty never to despair of church or of the world.
Dr. E. G. Robinson declared that Christian character was never
more complete than now, nor more nearly approaching the ideal man.
We may add that modern education, modern commerce, modern
invention, modern civilization, are to be regarded as the
revelations of Christ, the Light of the world, and the Ruler of
the nations. All progress of knowledge, government, society, is
progress of his truth, and a prophecy of the complete
establishment of his kingdom.
(_c_) With respect to his church triumphant, it is a kingdom of glory; he
rewards his redeemed people with the full revelation of himself, upon the
completion of his kingdom in the resurrection and the judgment.
_John 17:24_—“_Father, that which thou hast given me, I desire
that where I am, they also may be with me, that they may behold my
glory_”; _1 Pet. 3:21, 22_—“_Jesus Christ; who is on the right
hand of God, having gone into heaven; angels and authorities and
powers being made subject unto him_”; _2 Pet. 1:11_—“_thus shall
be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ._” See Andrew Murray, With
Christ in the School of Prayer, preface, vi—“_Rev. 1:6_—‘_made us
to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father._’ ” Both
in the king and the priest, the chief thing is power, influence,
blessing. In the king, it is the power coming downward; in the
priest, it is the power rising upward, prevailing with God. As in
Christ, so in us, the kingly power is founded on the priestly:
_Heb. 7:25_—“_able to save to the uttermost, ... seeing he ever
liveth to make intercession_”.
Watts, New Apologetic, preface, ix—“We cannot have Christ as King
without having him also as Priest. It is as the Lamb that he sits
upon the throne in the Apocalypse; as the Lamb that he conducts
his conflict with the kings of the earth; and it is from the
throne of God on which the Lamb appears that the water of life
flows forth that carries refreshing throughout the Paradise of
God.”
Luther: “Now Christ reigns, not in visible, public manner, but
through the word, just as we see the sun through a cloud. We see
the light, but not the sun itself. But when the clouds are gone,
then we see at the same time both light and sun.” We may close our
consideration of Christ’s Kingship with two practical remarks: 1.
We never can think too much of the cross, but we may think too
little of the throne. 2. We can not have Christ as our Prophet or
our Priest, unless we take him also as our King. On Christ’s
Kingship, see Philippi, Glaubenslehre, IV, 2:342-351; Van
Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 586 sq.; Garbett, Christ as Prophet, Priest,
and King, 2:243-438; J. M. Mason, Sermon on Messiah’s Throne, in
Works, 3:241-275.