not only in the Mosaic system or in the scriptural history, but almost
universally established, the system of sacrifice. It is not necessary
to maintain that sacrifice, in its essential idea, was intended to
express the consciousness of sin. Rather, it seems to be, essentially,
the expression of the very opposite of sin, of that relation of man to
God which sin destroyed[218]. It is sometimes said that sacrifice is
the recognition of God's sovereignty, the tribute paid by His
subjects. This is, of course, a necessary element in the conception of
sacrifice, for God is our King; but it does not satisfy the whole
consciousness which man has of his original relation to God. That is a
relation, not of subjection only, but of union at least as close as
that of sons to a Father, a union whereby we derive life from His
life, and render back absolute unquestioning love to Him. Sacrifice
is, in its highest, original meaning, the outward expression of this
love. As human love naturally takes outward form in gifts, and the
closer, the more fervent it is, makes those gifts more and more
personal, till at last it wholly gives itself; so sacrifice should be
the recognition of our union with God, an expression of our love for
Him, giving Him all that we have and all that we are. Submission,
reverence, love are the original feelings which sacrifice was intended
to represent; and it may be called, therefore, the expression of man's
relations to God in their purest form, unmarred and unbroken by sin.
But this is only the original, ideal meaning, for with the intrusion
of sin another element appears in sacrifice; and men attempt, by their
offerings, to expiate their offences, to cover their sins, to wipe out
their guilt, to propitiate Divine wrath. But though this new element
is introduced, the original intention is not altogether lost. The
union has been destroyed by sin, but even in the sin-offerings under
the Law there was expressed the endeavour to regain it, to enter once
more into living relations with God: while the normal sacrifices of
the congregation went beyond this, and represented the exercise of a
right based on union with God, the presentation of the people before
Him. Thus we must recognise in the Mosaic sacrifices--the most
complete and typical form of the sacrificial idea--the twofold aspect
which corresponds to the twofold effect of sin on the human race.
There is the offering, sometimes the bloodless offering, by which was
typified simply man's dependence on God, his submission to Him, his
life derived from Him and therefore rendered back to Him. From this
point of view the sacrifice culminated, not in the slaying and
offering of the victim, but in the sprinkling of the blood, the
'principle of life,' upon the altar. The priestly mediators brought
the blood, which 'maketh atonement by reason of the life,' before God,
and sprinkled it upon the altar, in order that the lost union with God
in the covenant might be restored, and life once more derived from God
as it had been offered to Him. The whole system was indeed only
partial, temporary, external. The Mosaic sacrifices 'sanctified unto
the cleanness of the flesh,' they did not 'cleanse the conscience from
dead works to serve the living God.' So the restoration which the
special sin-offerings accomplished was merely external and temporary,
the reunion of the offender with the congregation of Israel from which
his fault had separated him. But as this excommunication symbolised
the loss, brought about by sin, of life with God, so the reunion with
the congregation typified the reunion of the sinner with God. As a
system, then, the Mosaic sacrifices both corresponded to a deep desire
of the human heart, the desire to recover the lost relation to the
Divine life, and also by their imperfection pointed forward to a time
when, by means of a more perfect offering, that restoration should be
complete, accomplished once for all, and eternal. This is one aspect
of the sacrificial system. But before this typical restoration of
life, there came the mysterious act which corresponded to the sense of
guilt. Leaving aside the lesser offerings of the shew-bread and the
incense, it may be said generally that in every sacrifice the slaying
of a victim was a necessary element. And there is deep significance in
the manner in which the slaying was performed. The hands of the
offerer laid upon the victim's head denoted, according to the
unvarying use of the Old Testament, the representative character of
the animal offered, and thus the victim was, so to speak, laden with
the guilt of him who sought for pardon and reconciliation. The victim
was then slain by the offerer himself, and the death thus became an
acknowledgment of the justice of God's punishments for sin: it was as
if the offerer declared, 'This representative of my guilt I here, by
my own act, doom to death, in satisfaction of the righteous law of
vengeance against sin, for "the soul that sinneth it shall die."' It
was not, therefore, till the sense of personal guilt had been
expressed by the act which constituted the victim a representative of
the offerer, and by the slaying which typified the need of expiation
by suffering for sin, that the sacrifice was fit to be presented
before God by the mediation of the priest, and the blood, 'the life
which had willingly passed through death[219],' could be sprinkled as
a token of restored life in God. A careful study of the Mosaic
sacrifices will shew the twofold character impressed upon them. Both
aspects are necessary, they may even be described as two sides of the
same fact. Before God can be approached by a sinner he must expiate
his sin by suffering, must perfectly satisfy the demands of the law,
must atone for the past which has loaded him with guilt: and then, as
part of the same series of acts, the life so sacrificed, so purified
by the expiatory death, is accepted by God, and being restored from
Him, becomes the symbol and the means of union with Him. Forgiveness
for the past, cleansing in the present, hope for the future, are thus
united in one great symbolic ceremony.
The Mosaic system was only external, 'sanctifying unto the cleanness
of the flesh'; partial, for it provided no expiation for the graver
moral transgressions; temporary, for the sacrifices had to be repeated
'day by day'; provisional, for 'if there was perfection through the
Levitical priesthood ... what further need was there that another
priest should arise after the order of Melchizedek?' In spite,
however, of these obvious defects and limitations in the Mosaic
system, there was a constant tendency among the Jews to rest content
with it, to rely upon the efficacy of these external sacrifices and
ceremonies for their whole religion, to believe that 'the blood of
bulls and goats' could 'put away sin,' and that no inner spiritual
repentance or renovation was required. And the highest minds of the
nation, represented by the prophets, were keenly alive to this danger:
their rebukes and remonstrances shew how strongly they felt the
imperfection of the sacrificial system, how it failed to satisfy the
really religious cravings of spiritual minds. Yet there it was,
divinely ordained, clearly necessary as the expression of the national
religious life, profoundly significant. It could not be dispensed
with, yet it could not satisfy: in its incompleteness, as well as in
its symbolism, it pointed forward, and foreshadowed a perfect
expiation.
(3) This examination of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament is
necessary in a discussion of the doctrine of the Atonement, for
several reasons. The institutions of the Law were, in the first place,
ordained by God, and therefore intended to reveal in some degree His
purposes, His mind towards man. We thus find in them traces of the
fuller revelation which came afterwards, and the two dispensations
throw light on each other. Then again, it was from the Law that the
Jews derived their religious language: their conceptions of sacrifice,
of atonement, of the effects of sin, were moulded by the influence of
the Mosaic ceremonies. For this reason the apostolic doctrine of the
Atonement must be looked at in connection with the ideas inspired by
the Law, although, of course, the life and work of our Lord so
enlarged the religious conceptions of the Apostles as to constitute a
fresh revelation. But it was a revelation on the lines, so to speak,
of the old; it took up and continued the ideas implanted by the Mosaic
religion, and displayed the fulfilment of the earlier promises and
forecasts. It is, therefore, from the Old Testament that we have to
learn the vocabulary of the apostolic writings. As the Messianic hopes
and phraseology throw light upon the apostolic conception of the
Kingdom of Christ, so the sacrificial ceremonies and language of the
Law throw light upon the apostolic conception of the Sacrifice, the
Atonement of Christ. But this is not all. The Mosaic institutions, in
their general outlines, were no arbitrary and artificial symbols, but
corresponded to religious feelings, needs, aspirations that may truly
be called natural and universal. This conception of sin in its twofold
aspect of alienation and of guilt, and this idea of sacrifice as
effecting man's restoration to union with God, and also as expiating
his guilt by suffering, correspond to what the human conscience, when
deeply and sincerely investigated, declares to be its inmost secret.
Every man who has once realized sin, can also realize the feelings of
the Jew who longed to make an expiation for the guilt of the past, to
suffer some loss, some penalty that would cover his sin, and who
therefore brought his offering before God, made the unconscious victim
his representative, the bearer of his guilt, and by slaying it strove
to make atonement. We feel the same need, the same longing. This load
of guilt has to be laid down somehow: this past sinfulness must meet
with a punishment which will make expiation for it: before this lost
union with God can be restored we must be assured of pardon, must know
that the wrath of God no longer abides on us, but has been turned
away, and finds no longer in us the sin which is the one obstacle to
the free course of Divine love. And then we know further that bitter
truth which came to the loftiest minds among the Jews, that no
sacrifice of ours can have atoning value, for God demands the offering
of ourselves, and we are so weakened by sin that we cannot give
ourselves up to Him, so polluted by sin that we cannot be
well-pleasing in His eyes. In order to atone, sacrifice must be no
outward ceremony, the offering of this or that possession, the
fulfilment of this or that externally-imposed ordinance, but the
entire surrender of self to God, and to His law, a surrender dictated
from within by the free impulse of the will. Therefore, just as the
spiritually-minded Jew felt the continual discrepancy between the
external ceremonies which he was bound to fulfil, and the complete
submission to the will of God which they could not effect, and without
which they were wholly inadequate, so every awakened conscience must
feel the fruitlessness of any outward expression of devotion and
obedience so long as there is no complete sacrifice of self.
These, then, seem to be the conditions which must be satisfied before
an atonement can meet the needs of the human heart and conscience,
whether these are inferred from an examination of the Hebrew religious
institutions or are gathered from our own knowledge of ourselves and
of others. There is, first of all, the consciousness of guilt, of an
offended God, of a law transgressed, of punishment impending, to
expiate which some sacrifice is necessary, but no sacrifice adequate
to which can be offered by us as we are. Propitiation is the first
demand of the law, and we cannot, of ourselves, propitiate Him whose
anger we have righteously incurred. Secondly, we long for an abiding
union with Him, and for the full bestowal of the Divine life which
results from that union alone. Propitiation is not enough by itself,
though propitiation is the necessary first step in the process of
reconciliation. Aliens, by our own sinful acts, and by the sin of our
forefathers, from the life of God, we yet long to return and to live
once more in Him. But this is equally impossible for us to accomplish
of ourselves. By sin we have exiled ourselves, but we cannot return by
mere force of will. Both as propitiation, therefore, and as reunion,
the Atonement must come from without and cannot be accomplished by
those who themselves have need of it. But there is a third condition,
apparently irreconcileable with the other two. This same consciousness
of guilt which demands an expiation demands that it shall be personal,
the satisfaction of the sense of personal responsibility, and of the
unconquerable conviction of our own freedom. The propitiatory
sacrifice which is to effect our reunion must, for we are powerless to
offer it, come from without: but at the same time we cannot but feel
that it must come into contact with the will, it must be the inward
sacrifice, the freewill offering of the whole nature that has sinned.
II. If the redemptive work of Christ satisfies these conditions it is
evident that it is not a simple, but a very complex fact. The fault of
many of the theories of the Atonement has been that, though none of
them failed to be partially true, they were limited to one or other of
the various aspects which that mysterious fact presents. It is
certain, again, that of this complex fact no adequate explanation can
be given. At every stage in the process which is generally summed up
in the one word Atonement we are in presence of forces which issue
from infinity and pass out of our sight even while we are
contemplating their effects. And even if the Atonement could be
altogether reduced, so to speak, to terms of human experience, it will
be shewn that man's forgiveness, the nearest analogy of which we have
any knowledge, is an experience of which no logical explanation can be
given, which seems to share, indeed, something of the mystery of its
Divine antitype. But though it is almost blasphemous to pretend to
fathom the depth of the Atonement, to lay out the whole truth so as to
satisfy the formulae of human reason, it is necessary so to understand
it as to discern its response to the imperative demands of the sense
of sin and the desire for forgiveness. Whatever the ultimate mysteries
of the death of Christ may be, it is certain that it has had power to
convince men of forgiveness and to give them a new life. It must
therefore in some way satisfy the conditions which, as we have seen,
are laid down by human consciousness and experience. It is under the
threefold aspect required by those conditions that the doctrine of the
Atonement will be here presented.
1. The death of Christ is, in the first place, to be regarded as
propitiatory. On the one hand there is man's desire, natural and
almost instinctive, to make expiation for his guilt: on the other
there is the tremendous fact of the wrath of God against sin. The
death of Christ is the expiation for those past sins which have laid
the burden of guilt upon the human soul, and it is also the
propitiation of the wrath of God. As we have seen, over against the
sense of sin and of liability to the Divine wrath there has always
existed the idea of sacrifice by which that wrath might be averted.
Man could not offer an acceptable sacrifice: it has been offered for
him by Christ. That is the simplest, and it would seem the most
scriptural way of stating the central truth, which is also the deepest
mystery, of the Atonement, and it seems to sum up and include the
various other metaphors and descriptions of the redemptive work of
Christ. But its mere statement at once suggests questions, the
consideration of which will lead to a fuller understanding of the
doctrine. Thus we have to ask. What is it which is propitiated by
Christ's death? In other words, What is meant by the wrath of God
against sin?
(_a_) It should be remembered that though there is great danger in
anthropomorphism, and though most of the superstition which has ever
been the shadow cast by religion on the world has arisen from an
exaggerated conception of the likeness of God to ourselves, yet there
is, after all, no other way of knowing God than by representing Him
under conceptions formed by our own consciousness and experience, and
this method is pre-eminently incumbent upon us who believe that man is
made 'in the image of God.' We are certain, for instance, that love,
pity, justice, are affections which, however imperfectly they may be
found in us, do make for goodness, and if we may not ascribe these
same affections, infinitely raised and purified, to God, we have no
means of conceiving His character, of knowing 'with whom we have to
deal.'
Our knowledge, even of ourselves, is after all fragmentary[220], and
thus truths of whose certainty we are convinced may seem
irreconcileably opposed to each other. Our conception of love, for
example, is a fragment, and we cannot trace it up to the meeting-point
at which it is reconciled with justice, so that in our moral judgments
we are continually oscillating, as it were, between the two. But this
fact should not hinder us from ascribing to God in their fullest
degree both love and justice, confident that in Him they are
harmonized because we are confident from the verdict of our own
consciences that both are good, and because even in such imperfect
reflections of His image as, for instance, parental love, we see at
least a partial harmony of them. When then a doubt arises as to the
literal explanation of the phrase 'the wrath of God,' the difficulty
must not be met by the simple assertion that we cannot reconcile the
idea of wrath with that of the love of God: we must ask whether wrath,
as it exists in us, is a good and righteous affection, or whether it
is always and entirely evil. To this question there can be but one
answer. We are conscious of a righteous anger, of an affection of
displeasure that a good man ought to feel against sin and evil, and
this is amply justified by the scriptural references to righteous
anger, and by the accounts of our Lord's displays of indignation
against evil. But though we are thus compelled to find room, so to
speak, for anger in our conception of God's character, it is not
therefore necessary to ascribe to Him that disturbance of the
spiritual nature, or that change in the direction of the will, which
are almost invariable accompaniments of human anger. These are the
defects of the human affection, from which arises the sinful tendency
in our anger, and which cannot be thought of in connection with the
all-holy and all-wise God. On the other hand, it is not possible to
limit the conception of the 'wrath of God' to the acts whereby sin is
or will be punished, which was the explanation of some of the Fathers,
or to think of it as in the future only, to come into existence only
on the day of judgment, as has been attempted by some modern
theologians. The scriptural expressions, including as we must the
passages which speak of our Lord's anger, cannot be so weakened. 'The
wrath of God' seems to denote no changeful impulse or passing feeling,
but the fixed and necessary hostility of the Divine Nature to sin; and
the idea must further include the manifestation of that hostility,
whenever sin comes before God, in external acts of vengeance,
punishment and destruction. God's anger is not only the displeasure of
an offended Person: it is possible that this is altogether a wrong
conception of it: it must be further the expression of justice, which
not only hates but punishes. The relation of the Divine Nature to sin
is thus twofold: it is the personal hostility, if we may call it so,
of holiness to sin, and it is also the righteousness which punishes
sin because it is lawless. The two ideas are intimately connected, and
not unfrequently, when we should have expected to find in the Bible
the wrath of God spoken of, the language of judgment and righteousness
is substituted for it. Sin is necessarily hateful to the holiness of
God, but also, because sin is lawlessness, it is judged, condemned,
and punished by Him in accordance with the immutable law of
righteousness, which is the law of His own Nature. Therefore, to turn
from God's wrath against sin to the mode in which that wrath may be
averted, it results that the sacrifice offered for sin must be both a
propitiation and a satisfaction. Anger, so we think, is but a feeling,
and may be ousted by another feeling; love can strive against wrath
and overcome it; the Divine hatred of sin need raise no obstacle to
the free forgiveness of the sinner. So we might think; but a true
ethical insight shews us that this affection of anger, of hatred, is
in reality the expression of justice, and derives from the law of
righteousness, which is not above God, nor is it dependent on His
Will, for it is Himself. 'He cannot deny Himself'; He cannot put away
His wrath, until the demands of Law have been satisfied, until the
sacrifice has been offered to expiate, to cover, to atone for the sins
of the world. The reconciliation to be effected is not merely the
reconciliation of man to God by the change wrought in man's rebellious
nature, but it is also the propitiation of God Himself, whose wrath
unappeased and whose justice unsatisfied are the barriers thrown
across the sinner's path to restoration.
(_b_) But how, we ask further, was this propitiation made by the
Sacrifice on the Cross? Or, to put the question rather differently,
what was it that gave to the death of Christ its propitiatory value?
In attempting to suggest an answer to this question it is necessary to
bear in mind the distinction between the actual event, or series of
events, which constituted the Propitiatory Sacrifice, and that inner
element which was thereby manifested, and which gave to the actual
event its worth. S. Bernard expressed the distinction in the
well-known words 'Not His death, but His willing acceptance of death,
was pleasing to God,' and there can be no doubt that throughout the
New Testament special stress is laid upon the perfect obedience
manifested in the life and death of Christ, upon the accomplishment of
His Father's will which He ever kept in view, and upon the contrast
thus marked between the Mosaic sacrifices and the one atoning
offering. 'Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and
sacrifices for sin Thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein
... then hath He said, Lo, I am come to do Thy will.'
That the perfect obedience displayed in the passion and death of our
Lord was the element which gave to the sacrifice its propitiatory
value will be more readily understood when it is remembered that the
essence of man's sin was from the first disobedience, the rebellion of
the human will against the commands of God. The perfect sacrifice was
offered by One Who, being man with all man's liability to temptation,
that is with all the instruments of sin at His disposal[221], and
exposed to every suggestion to set up His will against that of the
Father, yet throughout His life continued unswervingly bent on doing
'not His own will, but the will of the Father Who sent Him,' and Who
thus displayed the original perfection of human nature, the unbroken
union with the life of God. On the cross the final struggle, the
supreme temptation took place. The obedience shewn throughout His life
was there manifested in death. 'He became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross.' At any moment of the passion a single
acquiescence in evil, a single submission to the law of
unrighteousness, a single swerving of His will from its choice of
absolute obedience, would, we may believe, have ended all the shame
and torture. And therefore there was needed at every moment a real
effort of His human will to keep itself in union with the will of
God[222]; it was not a mere submission at the outset once for all, but
a continuous series of voluntary acts of resignation and obedience.
Here then is the spirit of sacrifice which God demands, and which
could not be found in the sacrifices of the Mosaic law, or in any
offering of sinful man. The essence of the Atonement was the mind of
Christ therein displayed, the obedience gradually learnt and therein
perfected, the will of Christ therein proved to be one with the
Father's will.
But we may discern a further element of propitiation in the death of
our Lord. The law of righteousness, the justice of God, demands not
only obedience in the present, but retribution for the past. 'The sins
done aforetime' had been 'passed over in the forbearance of God' for
His own purposes, which are not revealed to us: this 'passing over'
had obscured the true nature of sin and of the Divine justice. Men had
come to have easy thoughts of sin and its consequences; the heathen
felt but vaguely the burden of guilt, the Jew trusted in the mere
external works of the law. In the death of Christ a manifestation was
made of the righteousness of God, of His wrath, the absolute hostility
of His nature to sin. 'God set Him forth to be a propitiation, through
faith, by His blood, to shew His righteousness, because of the passing
over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God.' But this
manifestation of Divine justice might have been made by mere
punishment: it became a propitiation, in that He, the self-chosen
victim, by His acceptance of it, recognised the righteousness of the
law which was vindicated on the cross. Men had refused to acknowledge
God's justice in the consequences of sin; nothing but the willing
acceptance of suffering, as the due portion of the human nature in
which the sin was wrought, could have so declared the justice of God's
law as to be a propitiation of Divine wrath. The cross was, on the one
hand, the proclamation of God's ordinance against sin, on the other it
was the response of man at length acknowledging the righteousness of
the condemnation[223].