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 THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT, 
 
 AS TAUGHT BY THE APOSTLES ; OR, THE SAYINGS OF THE 
 APOSTLES EXEGETICALLY EXPOUNDED. 
 
 BY REV. GEORGE SMEATON, D.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY, NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH. 
 
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 embraces." British and Foreign Evangelical Review. 
 
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 THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT.
 
 " IL ne faut point dire : avec beaucoup d'autres verites, il y a celle-la dans 
 1'evangile ; il ne faut pas meme dire : cette verite est la plus importante de 
 1'evangile ; il faut dire : cette verite est 1'evangile meme, et tout le surplus de 
 1'evangile, si je puis dire ainsi, en est ou la forme, ou la traduction, ou 1' appli- 
 cation. Cette verite est partout presente dans 1'evangile, comme le sang est 
 partout present dans le corps humain. Tout la rapelle, tout la reproduit a celui 
 qui a compris la verite capitale ; meme Ih ou tout autre ne la soupconne pas il 
 la voit, il la sent : de quelque cote qu'il regarde, a quelque detail qu'il descende, a 
 quelque application qu'il etende son regard, il rencontre, il reconnait LA CROIX. " 
 VINET.
 
 THE 
 
 DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT 
 
 AS 
 
 TAUGHT BY CHRIST HIMSELF 
 
 OB THE 
 
 0f Jesus (Sxegettctllg drxpounkb anb Classified 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. GEORGE SMEATON, D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOE OF EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY, NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 EDINBURGH 
 
 T. & T. CLAEK, 38 GEOEGE STEEET 
 
 LONDON: HAMILTON & CO. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON & CO. 
 
 1871
 
 MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IT1HE present volume is intended to be the first portion of a 
 -L larger whole, which if completed, will exhibit the entire 
 New Testament teaching on the subject of the atonement. I 
 purposed to survey the whole testimony of our Lord and of His 
 apostles; beginning with the former as fundamental. But as 
 the subject grew in my hands, it was found necessaiy to reserve, 
 in the meantime, the consideration of the apostolic testimony. 
 
 In these pages I have examined, according to the rules of 
 exact interpretation, what Jesus taught on the subject of the 
 atonement, and have given a classification of His sayings and 
 an outline of the doctrine. This seems to be urgently demanded 
 in our times. The necessity of correctly ascertaining, by the 
 only means within our reach, what the Lord actually taught on 
 this point, cannot be overstated, when we direct any measure 
 of attention to modern thought, and to the conflicting views, 
 often as ill-digested by their propounders as perplexing to the 
 minds of others, which are at present given forth on the nature, 
 design, and effect of the Lord's death. The one-sided views on 
 this great theme, held not by scoffers at vital religion, but by 
 earnest men, actually though not willingly deviating from 
 biblical truth, are not to be corrected by any human authority, 
 nor even by an appeal to the Church's past, which yet, as the 
 voice of our mother, is entitled to some amount of deference. 
 They can be effectually confronted and silenced only by the 
 explicit testimony of the Church's Lord. The doctrine will 
 
 1104598
 
 V1U PREFACE. 
 
 stand there, but will stand nowhere else. And every true 
 disciple has this distinctive feature about him, that he hears 
 the voice of Christ, but a stranger's voice will he not follow. 
 
 My task in this work has been simply to determine, by 
 strict exegetical investigation, the import of Christ's words, and 
 to reproduce His thoughts by the exact interpretation of lan- 
 guage. I have no other desire than to ascertain what He did 
 say, and to abide by it. The principle on which alone it is safe 
 to carry on investigations into doctrine on any point, is, I am 
 fully persuaded, to go to the Scriptures, not for the starting- 
 point of thought alone, but for the substance of thought as well, 
 or for the rounded and concrete development of the doctrine in 
 all its elements : and these will be found in Christ's sayings, if 
 we but patiently investigate them. It is not, then, to the 
 Christian consciousness that I appeal with some modern teachers, 
 nor to Christian feeling and Christian reason with others, but to 
 the consciousness and sayings of the Great Teacher, and of His 
 commissioned servants, employed as His organs of revelation to 
 the Church of all time. 
 
 It is the results of exegesis that are here given, rather than 
 the philological process, which would have compelled me to over- 
 load the pages with Greek words. With these discussions on 
 Christ's sayings 1 have been much engaged in my professional 
 work, and here reproduce some of them, with this difference, 
 that I retain only a small portion of the original language, and 
 give somewhat more of elucidation and enlargement than are 
 deemed necessary in the class-room. I have endeavoured to 
 bring out the results of exegetical investigation, not the process, 
 and to put these within the reach of the educated English 
 reader, to aid him in the great work of making himself ac- 
 quainted with the Lord's mind, through the medium of the 
 language of revelation. 
 
 During the preparation of this volume, two things came, of 
 necessity, to be much before my mind. While the main pur- 
 pose, from the nature of the investigation, was to define and
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 fix the true idea of the atonement as surveyed from Christ's 
 own view-point, a second and less direct object, though not 
 without its importance in the present discussions on the person 
 and life of Christ, came to be frequently presented to the mind : 
 the objective significance of His whole earthly life was pre- 
 sented to my mind, in a manner which the modern biographies 
 of Jesus never touch. 
 
 It only remains, that I refer briefly to what has been done 
 on this field by others. In no quarter has the importance of 
 Christ's own teaching on this article been sufficiently recognised, 
 nor its fulness, nor its extent, nor its formative character as 
 regards the apostolic development. To the latter, attention has 
 been mainly and often exclusively directed, as if little could be 
 made of Christ's own teaching on the subject of the atonement ; 
 and nowhere has any attempt been made to arrange and classify 
 our Lord's sayings on the subject. It is true that a certain 
 amount of attention has been directed to our Lord's sayings on 
 the nature of His death by writers of an erroneous tendency, 
 with an obvious desire to get His authority to countenance 
 their opinions; and the following may be named as among the 
 ablest who have discussed a number of those sayings in the 
 tendency opposed to the vicarious sacrifice viz. : Flatt, 1 De 
 Wette, 2 C. L. Grimm, 3 H. Huyser, 4 Hofstede de Groot. 5 A 
 much abler writer than any of these a keen dialectician and 
 an .accomplished exegete V. Hofmann, 6 in a work which may 
 
 1 PhUosophisch-Exegetische untersuchungen uber die LeJire von der Versohnung 
 Gottes mit den Menschen, van M. C. Christ. Flatt, 1798. He reviews a number 
 of the texts, explaining them in a moral sense, according to the principles of the 
 Kantian philosophy. He held that the death of Christ only declared the remis- 
 sion of sins, and only gave an assurance of grace. 
 
 2 De Wette, De Morte Christi Expiatoria, Berl. 1830. 
 
 3 C. L. Grimm, de Joannece Christologi.ee indole, etc., 1833. 
 
 4 H. Huyser, Specimen quo Jesu de Morte sua effata colliguntur el exponuntur, 
 Gron. 1838. 
 
 5 Hofstede de Groot, in the Dutch periodical, Waarheid en Liefde for 1843. 
 
 6 Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, first edition, 1852. This work has called forth 
 replies from Philippi, Thomasius, Ebrard, Delitzsch, "Weber, etc., on the subject 
 of the atonement.
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 be described as a sort of biblical dogmatics, has canvassed the 
 sayings of Christ as part of the Scripture testimony on the atone- 
 ment ; which he expounds in the same tendency with the writers 
 just named, though with far more of the evangelical spirit. I 
 must also mention Prof. Eitschl l of Bonn, who has examined 
 the principal sayings of Christ in the same tendency. One is 
 disposed to say of these writers generally, that, with all their 
 acknowledged learning and ability, they have too much forgotten 
 the simple function of the interpreter, and deposited their own 
 unsatisfactory opinions or the spirit of the age in the texts which 
 they professed to expound. 
 
 But there are others who have discussed the Lord's sayings in 
 a general outline of the Scripture testimony to the atonement, 
 in a better spirit, and with more success. I refer, first of all, to 
 Schrnid, 2 who treats, in a brief but felicitous way, the scope and 
 purport of our Lord's teaching on the subject of His death, only 
 causing us to regret that his Biblical Theology is a posthumous 
 work, and put together from imperfect notes, his own and others. 
 A pretty full collection of Christ's sayings, in a chronological 
 order, and consequently without any attempt to distribute them 
 into classes, was attempted by Prof. Gess 3 of Basel, some years 
 ago, in a series of papers which, with much that is worthy of 
 attention, are defective in two respects. He repudiates the 
 doctrine of the active obedience, and allows it no place as an 
 element in the atonement ; and then his erroneous depotentia- 
 tion-theory of the incarnation renders it necessary for him to 
 assign no influence to the deity of Christ in the matter of the 
 atonement. I must also allude to a discussion of these sayings 
 by two learned Dutch writers, who have written with very- 
 different degrees of merit. Professor Vinke's 4 essay, forming 
 
 I 1 Prof. Eitschl, in the Jahrbiicher fur Deutsche Theologie for 1863. 
 8 C. F. Schmid, Eiblische Theologie, 1859 (pp. 229-250). 
 
 3 Prof. Gess of Basel wrote these articles in the Jahrbiicher fur Deutsche 
 Theologie in 1857 and 1858. 
 
 4 Prof. Vinke of Utrecht, Leer van Jesus en de Apostel aang. zijn Lijden 
 etc., in's Gravenshage, 1837.
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 one of the publications of the Hague Society in defence of the 
 Christian religion, is a valuable collection of most of Christ's 
 sayings, and also of the apostles' sayings, on the subject of the 
 atonement, with brief comments appended, evincing a warm 
 attachment to the true doctrine of the atonement. It is only too 
 brief, from the nature of his plan, and it attempts no classification. 
 The other Dutch writer, Van Willes, 1 whose work was written 
 for the same society, or at least by occasion of the prescribed 
 theme, is Limited to the elucidation of the sayings of Jesus in 
 reference to His sufferings and death. This acute and ingenious 
 writer devotes attention to a number of philological questions 
 connected with the sayings of Jesus, and expatiates, with not a 
 little tact, on the connection between the sayings and the occasion 
 which called them forth. But he does not attempt, in any one 
 case, to bring out the doctrinal import of the sayings which he 
 undertakes to elucidate. He stops short at the very point where 
 we wish him to begin, and gives us nothing but philology or 
 historical construction. It would be going too far to say that he 
 supports a wrong tendency ; but he carefully conceals, throughout 
 this treatise devoted to the sayings of Jesus, what the atonement 
 is, or what it effects. He gives us language, not doctrine, or the 
 exhibition of thought contained in language. These are the 
 principal discussions on the subject under our consideration ; and 
 I have been at pains to analyze them. 
 
 I have only to add, that the preparation of this volume has 
 given me much pleasant meditation ; and I send it forth, with the 
 prayer that the Great Teacher may use it to turn men's minds 
 away from unprofitable speculation, to listen to His own voice. 
 
 GEORGE SMEATON. 
 
 May 1868. 
 
 1 Van Willes, Opheldering van de Gezegden des Heeren betrekkelijk zijn Lijden 
 en steruen voor Zondaren, Amsterd. 1837.
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 SINCE the appearance of this volume in 1868, the task of 
 surveying exegetically the entire New Testament teaching 
 on the subject of the atonement has been completed. The volume 
 entitled THE APOSTLES' DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT, which 
 appeared in 1870, was the second division of the work. The 
 first volume, from the nature of the undertaking, had to lay 
 the foundations of the doctrine, and to exhibit it both as a 
 whole and in its several parts. The second volume, collecting 
 the testimony of -the apostles, is a continuous application of the 
 principles with which the reader is supposed to be familiar from 
 the perusal of the first. The two volumes are thus the comple- 
 ment of each other. 
 
 The changes introduced into this second edition leave the body 
 of the work as it was. Some sections have been added, and some 
 paragraphs filled out, so as to supply what seemed defective ; and 
 the new division into chapters will render the structure of the 
 whole and the connection of the several parts apparent at a 
 
 glance. 
 
 GEOEGE SMEATON. 
 
 21st Oct. 1871.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE IN THE RECORDED SAYINGS OF JESUS, 
 AND THE MODE OF INVESTIGATION. 
 
 FACE 
 
 SECT. I. The Four Gospels the sources of our knowledge as to the 
 
 Sayings of Jesus, ....... 3 
 
 SECT. II. The Number of our Lord's Testimonies to the Atonement, 
 
 and the Circumstances connected with them, ... 9 
 
 SECT. Ill .Whether all the Testimonies of Christ on His Atoning Death 
 
 are recorded, . . . . . . . 13 
 
 SECT. IV. The Method to be followed in evolving the Import of His 
 
 Sayings, . . ..... 15 
 
 SECT. V. The Importance of Biblical Ideas on Christ's Death, . 17 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE POSTULATES OR PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF 
 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 SECT. VI. The Atonement a Divine Provision to put away Sin and all 
 
 its consequences, ....... 20 
 
 SECT. VII. Separate Sayings which affirm or imply the Necessity of 
 
 the Atonement, ....... 22 
 
 SECT. VIII. The Incarnation comes into the Remedial Economy as a 
 
 Means to an End, ....... 39 
 
 SECT. IX. Divine Love providing the Atonement ; or the Love of God 
 
 in Harmony with Justice as the only Channel of Life, . . 44 
 
 SECT. X. Single Phrases descriptive of the Unique Position of Jesus, 
 
 or His Standing between God and Man, .... 51 
 
 SECT. XI. Sayings of Jesus referring to a sending by the Father, . 55 
 
 SECT. XII. Sayings of Christ which assume that He is the Second 
 
 Adam, and acting according to a Covenant with the Father in this 
 
 Atoning work, . . . . '~ . . 63 
 
 SECT. XIII. The Influence of Christ's Deity in the matter of the 
 
 Atonement, ....... 69
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS OP THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SECT. XIV. Christ consciously fulfilling all that was written iu the 
 
 Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms concerning Himself, 79 
 
 SECT. XV. The First Classification of the Sayings into those which 
 
 represent Christ as the Sin-Bearer, and then as the willing Servant, 92 
 
 SECT. XVI. The Baptist's Testimony to Jesus as the Sin-bearer, . 94 
 
 SECT. XVII. The frequently repeated name, the Son of Man, further 
 
 exhibiting Him as the Sin-bearer, . . . . 110 
 
 SECT. XVIII. Christ receiving Baptism as the Conscious Sin-bearer, 128 
 
 SECT. XIX. Christ as the Sin-bearer taking on Him, during His 
 earthly Life and History, the Burdens and Sicknesses of His 
 People, . . . ... . . . 135 
 
 SECT. XX. The Historic Facts of Christ's Sufferings illustrated by His 
 
 Sayings, ........ 142 
 
 SECT. XXI. The Sayings of Christ as the Conscious Sin-bearer in pro- 
 spect of His Agony, and during it, .... 145 
 
 SECT. XXII. Single expressions used by Christ in reference to a Work 
 
 given Him to do, . . . . . . . 160 
 
 SECT. XXIII. Christ the Sin-bearer testifying that He was to be num- 
 bered with Transgressors during His Crucifixion, . . 168 
 
 SECT. XXIV. The Connection between the Lord's Atonement and His 
 
 Resurrection without seeing Corruption, .... 182 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF CHRIST'S DEATH. 
 
 SECT. XXV. The Classification of Christ's Sayings as they represent 
 the Effects of His Death, and, in the first place, as they set forth 
 His Death as the Ground of the Acceptance of our Persons, . 186 
 
 SECT. XXVI. Christ describing Himself as Dying to be a Ransom for 
 
 Many, . . . . . . '. . 190 
 
 SECT. XXVII. The Testimony of Christ, that His Death is the Sacri- 
 fice of the New Covenant for the Remission of Sin, . . 207 
 
 SECT. XX VII I. -Christ Fulfilling the Law for His People, and thus 
 
 bringing in a Righteousness or Atonement for them, . . 224 
 
 SECT. XXIX. Sayings which represent the Death of Jesus as His 
 
 Great Act of Obedience, and as the Righteousness of His People, 241 
 
 SECT. XXX. Christ Offering Himself, that His Followers might be 
 
 Sanctified in Truth, ...... 245 
 
 SECT. XXXI. Sayings relative to the subjective Lifegiving Effects of 
 
 Christ's Death, ....... 254 
 
 SECT. XXXII. Christ Crucified the Antitype of the Brazen Serpent, 
 
 and the Lifegiver, . . . . . . 257 
 
 SECT. XXXIII. Christ Giving His Flesh for the Life of the World, . 270
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RELATION OF THE ATONEMENT TO OTHER INTERESTS IN 
 THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 SECT. XXXIV. Testimonies showing the Relation of the Atonement 
 
 to other Interests in the Universe, .... 283 
 
 SECT. XXXV. The Death of Christ in connection with the Raising of 
 
 the Temple of God, ...... 285 
 
 SECT. XXXVI. The Atonement of Christ deciding the Judicial Pro- 
 cess to whom the "World shall belong, .... 294 
 
 SECT. XXXVII. Christ, by means of His Atonement, overcoming the 
 
 World, . . . . . . . . 300 
 
 SECT. XXXVIII. The Atonement of Christ denuding Satan of his 
 
 Dominion in the World, ...... 304 
 
 SECT. XXXIX. Christ's Vicarious Death taking the Sting out of Death, 
 
 and abolishing it, . . . . . . . 313 
 
 SECT. XL. Christ laying down His Life for the Sheep, and thus be- 
 coming the actual Shepherd of the Sheep, . . . 319 
 
 SECT. XLI. Sayings wbich represent Christ's Dominion, both General 
 
 and Particular, as the Reward of His Atonement, . . 334 
 
 SECT. XLII. The Influence of the Atonement in procuring the Gift of 
 
 the Holy Ghost, ....... 342 
 
 SECT. XLIII. Christ's Abasement as the Second Man opening Heaven, 
 
 and restoring the Communion between Men and Angels, . 351 
 
 SECT. XLIV. Sayings of Jesus which represent the Atonement as 
 
 glorifying God, . . . . . . 356 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ACTUAL EFFICACY OF THE ATONEMENT ; OR THE QUESTION FOR 
 WHOM IT WAS SPECIALLY OFFERED. 
 
 SECT. XLV. The Efficacious Character of the Atonement; or the 
 
 Special Reference of the Death of Christ to a People given Him, . 365 
 
 SECT. XLVI. The Atonement extending to all Times in the World's 
 
 History, and to all Nations, ..... 380 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE APPLICATION OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 SECT. XLV1I. Sayings which particularly relate to the Application of 
 
 the Atonement, ....... 383 
 
 SECT. XL VI 1 1. The Preaching of Forgiveness based on the Atone- 
 ment, and ever connected with the Atonement, . . . 385 
 
 SECT. XLIX. The Place which Christ assigns to the Atonement in 
 
 the Christian Church, ...... 392 
 
 SECT. L. Christ's Sayings which represent Faith as the Organ or In- 
 strument of receiving the Atonement, .... 396
 
 XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE ENDLESS HAPPINESS OR WOE OF MANKIND DECIDED BY ITS 
 RECEPTION OR REJECTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SECT. LI. Endless Happiness or Irremediable "Woe decided by the 
 
 manner in which Men welcome or reject the Atonement, . 401 
 
 SECT. LI I. The Influence of the Atonement, correctly understood, on 
 
 the whole Domain of Morals and Religion, . . . 407 
 
 Appendix of Notes and Historical Elucidations, . . 415 
 
 INDICES. 
 
 I. Index to Texts, ....... 497 
 
 II. Index to Subjects, ...... 499 
 
 III. Index to the Authors adduced, ..... 500 
 
 IV. Index to Greek Words elucidated, .... 502
 
 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 doctrine of the atonement is put in its proper light, 
 *- only when it is regarded as the central truth of Christi- 
 anity, and the great theme of Scripture. The principal object 
 of Eevelation was to unfold this unique method of reconcilia- 
 tion by which men, once estranged from God, might be restored 
 to a right relation, and even to a better than their primeval 
 standing. But the doctrine is simply revealed, or, in other 
 words, is taught us by authority alone. 
 
 Instead of commencing, according to the common custom, by 
 fixing a centre and drawing a circumference, we wish to pro- 
 ceed historically. We shall not select a view-point, and then 
 adduce a number of proof texts merely to confirm it ; and we 
 do so for a special reason. It has always seemed to be a point of 
 weakness in treatises on this subject, that the truth has been so 
 much argued on abstract grounds, and deduced so largely from 
 the first principles of the divine government. The importance 
 of these must be acknowledged, as they rationalize the doctrine, 
 and establish it in the convictions of the human mind, when the 
 fact is once admitted; but they have their proper force and 
 cogency, only when the truth of the doctrine is based and ac- 
 cepted on a ground that is strictly historical We here inquire 
 simply what Jesus taught. We do not ask what one eminent 
 church teacher or another propounded, but what the great 
 Master said. We turn away our eye from every lower source 
 
 A
 
 2 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 of knowledge, whether called Christian consciousness, feeling, 
 or reason, to the truth embodied in the consciousness and words 
 of Jesus. 
 
 The scope we aim at in the following disquisition, is to gather 
 out of the sayings of Christ the testimony which He bears to 
 His own atonement in its necessity, nature, and effect. And we 
 the rather enter on this inquiry, because the subject, as a sepa- 
 rate topic, has never received the prominence due to it; and 
 because, by men of all shades of opinion, the greatest weight 
 must of necessity be laid on those statements which are offered 
 by the Lord Himself in reference to His work. A brief general 
 outline of our investigation, and of the structure of the work, may 
 here be subjoined for the convenience of the reader. The follow- 
 ing eight divisions, constituting so many chapters, subdivided into 
 sections as the subject requires, give a skeleton of the treatise : 
 
 I. The sources of our knowledge in the recorded sayings of 
 Jesus, and the mode of investigation. 
 
 II. The postulates or presuppositions of the whole doctrine. 
 Under this chapter we shall notice, in separate sections, the 
 great fact of sin for which a provision is made, the necessity of 
 the atonement, the harmony of love and justice, the unique 
 covenant-position of Jesus, and the influence of His Deity in 
 the matter of the atonement. 
 
 III. The constituent elements of the atonement, represented 
 under a variety of sections, as consisting of sin-bearing and sin- 
 less obedience. 
 
 IV. The effects or consequences of the atonement on the in- 
 vidual Christian, both in an objective and subjective point of 
 view that is, in respect of the acceptance of His person, and 
 the renovation of his nature by the communication of divine 
 life. 
 
 V. The influence of the atonement on other interests in the 
 universe, in reversing the previous order of things, in the con- 
 quest of Satan, in procuring the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the 
 like.
 
 THE FOUK GOSPELS. 3 
 
 VI. The actual efficacy of the atonement, or the question for 
 whom it was specially offered. 
 
 VII. The application of the atonement. 
 
 VIII. The endless happiness or woe of mankind decided by 
 its reception or rejection ; and the influence exercised by this 
 great event on morals and religion. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE IN THE RECORDED SAYINGS; 
 OF JESUS, AND THE MODE OF INVESTIGATION. 
 
 SEC. L THE FOUK GOSPELS THE SOURCES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE 
 AS TO THE SAYINGS OF JESUS. 
 
 THE Gospels, a record of facts, and of memorable sayings in- 
 tended to explain those facts, are constructed in the way best 
 adapted to set forth the design of the Lord's death. A brief 
 notice of their constituent elements will suffice for our present 
 purpose. 
 
 As no one mind was competent to the task of delineating the 
 divine riches of Christ's life, we have a fourfold mirror presented 
 to us, in order to reflect it on all sides. The four biographies, 
 with each a distinct peculiarity, constitute a perfect harmony andt 
 an adequate revelation of the God-man. This explains why the 
 apostles were, during His public ministry, placed in His imme- 
 diate society. They were to be fitted, according to their divine 
 call, to prepare, as eye-witnesses and ear- witnesses, for the edifi- 
 cation of the church, a faithful record of His deeds and words. 
 And intimations of this occasionally occur before they were fully 
 aware of all that was intended (Matt. xxvi. 13 ; Acts i 21). The 
 precious record was for nearly thirty years suspended on their 
 oft-imperilled lives. But it came forth in due time, when it 
 could be committed to the Church already prepared to welcome
 
 4 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 and appreciate it as part of the oracles of God. Though some 
 men presumptuously talk of the entrance of myths, such a sup- 
 position is forestalled by the circumstances of the case. What 
 was at length transferred to writing had been, for near a genera- 
 tion, orally rehearsed by the apostles in the churches which 
 they founded. The Gospels were the productions of immediate 
 eye-witnesses, or of men who wrote in their society and under 
 their sanction. The fact that the apostles still presided over 
 the churches when the Gospels were issued secured a twofold 
 result the authenticity as well as faultless accuracy of the 
 documents, and their unimpeded circulation. They were simply 
 received as coming from men who had at once the competency 
 and the call to digest them into form. And they have, in every 
 corner of the Christian Church, been reverently preserved as the 
 oracles of God. 
 
 Thus the Gospel of MATTHEW the apostle was received by the 
 Church as the production of an eye-witness : and it has its own 
 peculiarity. As evidently appears from the care with which he 
 digests the Jewish history and traces the genealogy from Abra- 
 ham, in the descending line, Matthew wrote more especially for 
 Jewish Christians. He places the life of Jesus in the light of 
 the Messianic predictions. He does not enter much into detail, 
 considerably less, indeed, than Mark and John. But he 
 groups together a selection of important facts and sayings, with 
 an ever recurring appeal to the fulfilment of prophecy. The 
 Gospel of MARK, again, is commonly called the Petrine Gospel, 
 because it was composed in Peter's society, and embodies 
 Peter's recollections, as Mark was in the habit of hearing them 
 rehearsed in the churches. It is not to be regarded as an epi- 
 tome of Matthew, but as an original Gospel (1 Pet. v. 13). In 
 recent times not a few think they have warrant for represent- 
 ing it as the first published Gospel. Nor is this without very 
 considerable probability. Beginning in the style of Peter's 
 evangelistic discourses (comp. Acts x. 36), it narrates especially 
 the great deeds of Christ; and was fitted to show that the
 
 THE FOUR GOSPELS. 5 
 
 Lord's life made the most powerful impression on all who saw 
 Him. It contains few of Christ's discourses, and has few allu- 
 sions to prophecy. The Gospel of LUKE occupies precisely the 
 same relation to Paul as does that of Mark to Peter, being 
 prepared in Paul's society and issued with his imprimatur. 
 How much it deserves to be regarded as the Pauline Gospel 
 appears by a great variety of topics. Thus, for example, with- 
 out any distinction of Jew and Gentile, it traces up the Lord's 
 genealogy, not to Abraham, but to Adam (Luke iii. 38). 
 The same Pauline spirit comes to light in the manner in 
 which this evangelist reports the Song of Simeon (ii. 32), the 
 insufficiency of works (xvii. 10), the immediate connection of 
 salvation with faith alone (vii. 50). The fourth Gospel, that 
 of JOHN, the beloved disciple and apostle, was written long after 
 the others had passed away, and was intended to be supple- 
 mentary to them. His principal object was to show that Jesus 
 was the Christ, the Son of God (John xx. 31) ; and all this is 
 delineated to a large extent from the Lord's, own consciousness, 
 and in a manner not attempted before. For this peculiar de- 
 scription of Christ's person John had a special gift and aptitude. 
 He does not, like Matthew and Luke, commence with the in- 
 fancy or human descent ; and he does not, like Mark, commence 
 with the public ministry of the Lord. He goes back to the 
 Lord's divine pre-existence and eternal Sonship (John i. 1-19). 
 
 This brings us to the narrative of the historic facts and say- 
 ings in the life of Jesus. 
 
 As to the facts, the history proceeds for the most part in the 
 way of simple narrative in its most objective form. The facts, 
 it is true, to be fully understood, require a certain interpretation 
 or commentary ; and this is supplied by the Lord's sayings or 
 by the doctrinal comments contained in the Epistles. When 
 the incidents in the suffering life of Jesus are read as a narra- 
 tive of suffering without this interpretation, they commonly 
 give rise to nothing beyond sentimental feelings or the idle 
 sympathy which the Lord disclaimed in the days of His flesh
 
 6 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 (Luke xxiii. 28). The facts and sayings are so connected, that 
 had they stood alone neither could have been understood. The 
 narrative would have been an insoluble enigma without the 
 commentary. The historic incidents of the Lord's suffering life 
 supply what may be termed the realism of the atonement, or 
 the exhibition of it in concrete personal form. The rounded 
 doctrine is given in the apostolic Epistles, where the veil is, so 
 to speak, lifted up, and where we see the divine thoughts or 
 the redemption plan which the narrative embodies in historical 
 reality. And when we put together divine thought and divine 
 fact, plan and accomplishment, the coincidence serves to con- 
 firm both. The doctrine renders the history clear. The Gospels 
 are aright studied only when they are read agreeably to this 
 divine plan ; and without this men remain on the mere surface 
 of historic fact, content with the bare example of Christ as a 
 model man, or depositing some meagre arbitrary ideas of their 
 own in narratives pre-eminently full of the vicarious sacrifice. 
 When the history is perused by those who have an eye to trace 
 the cause as well as the elements of the Lord's sufferings, they 
 discern in the sphere of fact every aspect of the doctrine. The 
 Gospels, in a word, exhibit on a foundation of fact all the con- 
 ditions of the atonement, together with all its constituent ele- 
 ments ; and the more the history is examined, the more is the 
 correspondence apparent between the sayings and the facts 
 between the predictions which Jesus uttered and the fulfilment 
 which followed. 
 
 "When we narrowly examine the evangelists' narratives, we 
 find them peculiarly adapted to the design for which they 
 were composed; and they must be perused agreeably to this 
 design. They aim to bring out on a definite plan that Jesus of 
 Nazareth is the suffering Messiah to whom all the prophets bore 
 witness. Accordingly, their history is so arranged as to bring 
 out in some more expressly, in others more indirectly the co- 
 incidence between fact and prophecy, but with no attempt to 
 run a laboured parallel between the two. There is a threefold
 
 THE FOUR GOSPELS. 7 
 
 division of prophecy in the Old Testament bearing on the humi- 
 liations of Messiah. The first may he described as announcing 
 a suffering Surety ; the second, as exhibiting the voluntary sub- 
 jection of Messiah to the sufferings encountered by Him; and 
 the third sets forth how the tenor of His sufferings leads others 
 to repose their trust in Him for salvation. We find a most 
 impressive coincidence between fact and prophecy. 
 
 But still further: the structure of the Gospels, when minutely 
 analysed, brings out all the great elements of the atonement on a 
 basis of historical reality, showing how infinite Intelligence must 
 have presided overtheir composition. No human reproducer of 
 the Lord's life can approach it. Thus the qualities essentially 
 requisite in the atoning Surety were pre-eminently the follow- 
 ing four, and they are all developed on a basis of fact. They 
 must (1) be faultless sufferings, and without challenge, corre- 
 sponding to the character of Him to whom the satisfaction 
 required to be made; they were (2) to be painful and igno- 
 minious to the last degree ; they must (3) have an unlimited 
 worth or value derived from the dignity of the sufferer ; and 
 they must (4) accurately correspond to the declarations of God. 
 
 All these points are brought out in the narrative of the evan- 
 gelists on the foundation of fact in the most remarkable way. 
 As to the first, the declaration of Pilate and of Pilate's wife, of 
 Herod, and of the traitor, may be mentioned as illustrations of 
 the faultless perfection of the sufferer, brought out in the most 
 natural way. The second point receives its elucidation in what is 
 recorded by the writers as to the scorn and mockery inflicted on 
 the Sufferer, in the indignities done to Him, in the false charges 
 on which He was condemned, as well as in the mode in which 
 the sentence was carried out. The third point, relating to the 
 Sufferer's dignity, receives its confirmation in those touches in 
 the historic narrative which describe His sacerdotal prayers 
 and His sacrifice, as well as the benediction pronounced upon 
 the murderer who was crucified along with Him. In the most 
 simple form of narration, the evangelists record His royalty in
 
 8 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 prostrating His enemies and in protecting His disciples, in the 
 inscription which by divine providence Pilate, notwithstanding 
 all opposition, must needs write upon His cross, and in the 
 confession to which the centurion gave utterance : " Truly this 
 was THE SON OF GOD." The fourth point receives the fullest 
 illustration in the original threat of death, in the curse of which 
 suspension on a tree was the obvious evidence and emblem, 
 and in the details of the arrest and trial, the crucifixion and 
 ignominy, the sufferings and death, as foreshadowed and fore- 
 told in the law, the prophets, and the Psalms, and all recalled 
 as by a touch in those brief records supplied by the Gospels ; 
 not to mention little incidents occasionally introduced (John 
 xix. 28, 36). 
 
 As to the SAYINGS, they are the expressions of the Lord's own 
 consciousness ; arid they are accurately given, being retained in 
 the memory of the apostles. These sayings, beyond doubt, utter 
 His own thoughts on the subject of His atoning death; and 
 they announce the design, aim, and motive from which He acted. 
 That the expression of them is according to truth, without over- 
 statement on the one hand, or defect on the other ; that they 
 give not only an objective outline of His work in its nature and 
 results, but also a glimpse of the very heart of His activity, 
 will be admitted by every Christian as the most certain of 
 certainties. In this light these sayings are invaluable, as they 
 disclose His inner thoughts, and convey the absolute truth upon 
 the subject of the atonement, according to that knowledge of 
 His function which was peculiar to Himself, for His work was 
 fully and adequately known only to His own mind. Here, 
 then, we have perfect truth : here we may affirm, unless we are 
 ready to give up all to uncertainty and doubt, that we have the 
 whole truth as to the nature of the atonement, as w r ell as in 
 reference to the design and scope for which He gave Himself 
 up to death for others.
 
 NUMBEK OF OUR LORD S TESTIMONIES. 
 
 SEC. II. THE NUMBER OF OUR LORD'S TESTIMONIES TO THE ATONE- 
 MENT, AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH THEM. 
 
 THE number of these sayings, it is true, is smaller than we 
 should wish ; but the amount of information they convey is not 
 measured by their number, but by their variety, by their fulness, 
 and by their range of meaning. They are not to be numbered, 
 but weighed; to be traced in their wide ramifications, not 
 counted in a series. The comprehensiveness, the force, the 
 pregnancy of meaning which these sayings, taken together, 
 involve, are of more consideration than the frequency with 
 which our Lord touched on the theme. They will be found to 
 contain by implication, if not in express terms, almost every 
 blessing that is connected with the atonement ; and the apostles, 
 who are commonly spoken of as expanding the doctrine, will 
 be found not so much to develop it, as to apply it to the mani- 
 fold phases of opinion and practice encountered by them in the 
 churches. Thus the legalism of the Jewish converts required 
 one application of it in Galatia, and the incipient gnosticism 
 in Colossse and Asia Minor, another and a different. We can- 
 not, in this volume, investigate all the applications of it inter- 
 woven in the Epistles, so as to exhibit on every side this grand 
 doctrine, which, in truth, makes Christianity what it is a 
 gospel for sinners. We single out at present, for separate inves- 
 tigation, the sayings of Christ Himself, a field that demands 
 an accurate survey. 
 
 No one could say beforehand what would be the peculiar 
 nature of Christ's testimony to His sacrifice, nor in what precise 
 form it would be presented to His hearers' minds. His allusions 
 to it are for the most part fitted in to some fact in history, to 
 some type belonging to the old economy, or to some peculiar 
 title or designation, which He appropriated to Himself, and 
 which often had its root in prophecy. They are all pointed 
 and sententious ; they are such as are easily recalled ; and they
 
 10 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 seize hold of the mind by some allusion to ordinary things. 
 He spoke of the atonement according to the docility and free- 
 dom from prejudice, or according to the love of truth and the 
 capacity to receive it, on the part of those who came to hear 
 Him. The case of Mcodemus is an instance of this ; and the 
 instructions communicated to him had the happy effect of pre- 
 paring his mind to understand the nature of the Messiah's death, 
 and to take no offence at it when His hour was come. 
 
 We often think, indeed, that an allusion to His atoning work 
 is necessary at various turns of His discourse ; and we expect 
 to find it. We are surprised that the doctrine which forms 
 the essence of Christianity, and the central topic of the gospel, 
 should be announced with so much reserve. It seems strange 
 that parables, such as that of the publican, that of the two 
 creditors, and the like, meant to teach the gracious way of 
 acceptance, should contain no allusion to the atonement. And 
 hence some, unfavourable to the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, 
 think themselves entitled to draw from this an argument in 
 proof of their position. But a little reflection is enough to 
 satisfy us that He had reasons for the silence. The idea of a 
 suffering Messiah had grown obsolete : His priestly office men- 
 tioned in the Psalm (Ps. ex. 4) was ignored; there was none 
 among the people, with the exception of Simeon, Zachariah, and 
 the Baptist, to whom it seems to have been familiar, or, in the 
 least, acceptable. 
 
 Not only so: He had to go back a step, and to take up 
 opinion at a previous stage, just as the Baptist did to his 
 hearers, in his preparatory ministry. They must first be taught 
 the spirituality of the law, as He did in the sermon on the 
 Mount. He found it of absolute necessity to awaken a spiritual 
 sense for the divine; to arouse conscience, and to preach re- 
 pentance, because the kingdom was at hand; to assail their 
 hollow, external forms, and the neglect of weightier matters; 
 to explode their vain trust in Jewish descent, and the futile 
 expectation that they would enter the Messianic kingdom, on
 
 NUMBEE OF OUK LORD'S TESTIMONIES. 11 
 
 the footing of being Abraham's descendants. He had, in a word, 
 to turn them away from acting to be seen of men, and from the 
 desire to cleanse the outside of the cup and platter. They must 
 learn their needs as sinners; acknowledge their defects; and 
 have awakened in them a desire for pardon, before they could 
 learn much of the nature of His vicarious death, or, indeed, be 
 capable of receiving it. 
 
 He had next to announce the kingdom, of God as having 
 come, and to describe its nature and its excellence, the character 
 of its subjects, and its various aspects in the world. He had 
 to set forth His divine mission, and to prove it by His many 
 miracles ; His more than human dignity ; His divine Sonship ; 
 His being sealed and sent; His unique position in the world 
 as the Great Deliverer and object of promise; and the long- 
 desired one of whom Moses wrote, and whom Abraham desired 
 to see. His first object was to confirm men's faith in Himself as 
 the promised Christ ; to attach them to His person by a bond 
 which should be strong enough to bear a pressure ; and to fore- 
 stall the hazard of their being offended at that to which every 
 Jewish mind was most averse. He sought, in the first place, to 
 bind the disciples to Himself, and to deepen their faith in Him. 
 This was His paramount and fundamental aim in His intercourse 
 with the disciples from day to day. 
 
 But at this point a new difficulty presented itself. The dis- 
 ciples who were attached to His person, and received Him as 
 the Saviour, would hear nothing of His death, they would 
 not believe it, nor take it in. On the occasion when Peter, in 
 the name of the rest, declared his belief in Christ's Messiahship, 
 and in His divine Sonship (Matt. xvi. 16), we should have 
 expected full submission to every part of His teaching; and 
 that the explicit statement from the mouth of the Lord Him- 
 self as to His death, would have been accepted, in this the 
 fittest moment, without any doubt. On the contrary, Peter 
 began to rebuke Him for the language He had held on the 
 subject of His death, so possessed were they with preconceived
 
 12 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 ideas, and so hard was it to direct the Jewish mind into a new 
 channel. They viewed His kingdom as an everlasting kingdom, 
 on which He was to enter at once without that atoning death 
 which was to be its foundation and ground. They dreamed of 
 places of authority, rank, and honour in the kingdom ; and the 
 constant topic of dispute among them, even at the Last Supper, 
 was, who was to be prime minister of state, and nil the post 
 of greatest power. Even His true disciples mingled foreign 
 elements with their conceptions of His kingdom. And hence, 
 to keep His cause free from the risk of those political com- 
 motions, to which an open announcement of His Messiahship 
 would have given rise, in a community where the true idea 
 had been lost ; and for the farther reason that He must suffer 
 death at their hand, we find that our Lord spoke sparingly, and 
 with reserve ; and on one occasion He constrained the disciples 
 to get into a ship, when the excited multitude would have taken 
 Him by force to make Him a king. 
 
 To men thus minded, little could be said on His atonement. 
 The two ideas the Messiahship, and the possibility of death 
 seemed in the highest degree incompatible. They could not 
 suppose that the universal conqueror could be the conquered, 
 even for a moment. They foreclosed inquiry, they showed 
 themselves unqualified for further instruction; nor did they, 
 with teachable minds, apply for the information which He 
 would have willingly supplied. He could leave, therefore, a 
 record in their memory, only in a more indirect and incidental 
 way, by means of His sermons in Galilee, and in Jerusalem 
 (John vi. and x.) ; or by more expressly introducing this truth 
 in connection with events in His own life, or with difficulties 
 in theirs. But it must be allowed on all hands, that while the 
 disciples felt their life was bound up with Him, they evaded 
 the unwelcome fact of His death, although He frequently an- 
 nounced it, by some explanation of their own ; nay, though it 
 formed the one topic of conversation on the Mount of Trans- 
 figuration between Moses, Elias, and Christ, the disciples con-
 
 THE TESTIMONIES NOT ALL RECORDED. 13 
 
 trived, on some plea, to explain away the fact. And when the 
 Lord took them apart, and solemnly announced what was at 
 hand, they were exceedingly sorry ; but, as if they had found 
 out some evasion, they are soon engaged in their old dispute 
 again. And the blank dejection into which they were thrown 
 by the actual fact of His death, shows how little they were pre- 
 pared for it, or understood its meaning. All this tends to prove, 
 that as the disciples could not listen calmly, and without pre- 
 judice, to this topic, till they could look back upon the event as 
 an accomplished fact, so His teaching could not possibly have 
 all the fulness and freedom with which the truth could be 
 treated after His resurrection from the dead. 
 
 SEC. HI. WHETHER ALL THE TESTIMONIES OF CHRIST ON HIS 
 ATONING DEATH ARE RECORDED. 
 
 The question may be put, however, May not Christ have 
 spoken of His atonement more fully and more frequently than 
 is recorded ? As we have not a complete narrative of His words 
 or works, may we not hold that He often alluded to His death, 
 and to the saving benefits connected with it, when He found 
 docile and susceptible minds to whom it could be unfolded ? 
 "We have nothing beyond probabilities to guide us here. Plainly, 
 our Lord did not make His sufferings and death the principal 
 topic of His teaching, or taught in precisely the same way as 
 the apostles did, when they referred to the finished work of 
 Christ, and founded churches under the ministration of the 
 Spirit. But this does not exclude the possibility of a larger 
 number of allusions to His death, when He did meet with 
 minds that could receive it, as Nicodemus did, in private. Pos- 
 sibly, the men of Sychar, who received Him with the utmost 
 docility, heard this doctrine from His lips, a doctrine not 
 withheld from Nicodemus; for they held language in regard 
 to Him as " the Saviour of the world," which seems to imply as 
 much. Not less significant are the words of Christ spoken with
 
 14 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 reference to the act of Mary of Bethany, when she anointed 
 Him with precious ointment : " She did it for my burial " (Matt. 
 xxvi. 12). She seems to have received instruction from Him 
 on the subject of His death, and ingenuously to have accepted 
 the words in their proper sense. Many will have it, that Jesus 
 was merely pleased to represent the matter in such a light, but 
 that the woman designed nothing of that nature. But that 
 comment is not warranted by the language, which rather gives 
 us a glimpse into her heart, and indicates that her whole loving 
 nature was moved. That groundless commentary has been 
 adopted mainly because her faith was simpler, more enlightened, 
 and more direct than that of the disciples. But why should 
 that cause any difficulty, when faith is not always according to 
 the opportunities ? Jesus seems to have instructed her in 
 private as to the nature and efficacy of His death, which she 
 now regards as certain ; and she had credited His words with 
 a simplicity and directness which those who dreamed of posts 
 of honour and distinction did not share. This, then, is almost 
 a proof of His having given further statements on His death 
 than are narrated in the gospels. 
 
 But after His resurrection our Lord held many conversations 
 on His atoning death, which are not preserved. This seems 
 to have been one of the principal objects of His sojourn of forty 
 days. He spake copiously on that theme, to which they would 
 not listen before ; and He said much that is not recorded, when 
 He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things con- 
 cerning Himself, beginning at Moses and all the prophets (Luke 
 xxiv. 27). His words to the two disciples on the Emmaus- 
 road were : " fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the 
 prophets have spoken ! Ought not Christ to have suffered these 
 things, and to enter into His glory ? " (vers. 25, 26). His great 
 design was to unfold the necessity, nature, and design of His 
 vicarious death, and to open their understandings to understand 
 the Scriptures (Luke xxiv. 45) ; and we cannot but conclude, 
 when we put all the hints together, that Jesus must then have
 
 THE METHOD TO BE FOLLOWED. 15 
 
 said more to the disciples on the subject of His death for the 
 remission of sins, than in all His previous communications 
 addressed to them. The work was done, and it could now 
 be fully understood. They knew the fact of His death, and 
 He introduced them into a full acquaintance with its design 
 and efficacy in the light of the Old Testament Scriptures. The 
 full outline of Bible doctrine, as contained in the law, in the 
 Psalms, and in the prophets, concerning Christ, was opened 
 up to their wondering gaze, as it had been fulfilled (Luke xxiv. 
 44). Who has not often wished to possess these unrecorded 
 expositions of the Old Testament Scriptures ? But though 
 they are doubtless embodied in the New Testament, it has not 
 seemed meet to the inspiring Spirit to preserve them in a 
 separate form. The Lord had said, " I have many things to say 
 to you, but ye cannot bear them now " (John xvi. 12) ; and they 
 could bear them then. 1 
 
 SEC. IV. THE METHOD TO BE FOLLOWED IN EVOLVING THE 
 IMPOKT OF HIS SAYINGS. 
 
 Our task will be to expound the import of those sayings 
 which are preserved to us, to collect their import, to set forth 
 what they truly mean. We shall for the present concentrate 
 our attention on the Lord's own testimony to His death for our 
 redemption that is, on His redemption work, active as well as 
 passive. We cannot wholly isolate these sayings from the 
 old economy which pointed to Christ's coming, nor from the 
 apostolic commentary which points back to what He said; 
 but we place ourselves upon the gospels, and occupy our minds 
 with the Eedeemer's thoughts. Of course Moses and the 
 prophets supplied, even to Him, matter which He received 
 into His consciousness, and the practical exhibition of which 
 He embodied in His life; and His words thus received a 
 tincture from the past, as they lend a tincture to that which 
 1 See note A in Appendix.
 
 16 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 was to follow. But still it is the thoughts of Jesus finding 
 expression in words with which our attention -is to be occupied. 
 We will insert nothing, we will deposit nothing unwarranted 
 by the prophetic outline of the scope of His coming or by 
 the apostolic commentary on the accomplished fact, but seek 
 only to evolve the Saviour's meaning, according to the force 
 of language. And we wish to withhold whatever can be re- 
 garded as ideas foreign to the import of the Saviour's words. 
 
 The testimonies of Christ, left to speak for themselves, or 
 only so far elucidated as to bring out their import, will be 
 found to convey such a full and rounded outline of the atone- 
 ment, as to leave almost no corner of the doctrine untouched ; 
 and in discussing th'em, it will be best to distribute them, and 
 then notice them, as far as may be, singly and apart. This is 
 better than to follow the custom of merely giving them in 
 chronological order, without attempting to digest them under 
 any heads or formulae which may classify them, and which may 
 be supposed most accurately to comprehend them. The sayings 
 of Christ, however, on this point, are, from their very nature, 
 so vast and extensive, that they are little capable of anything 
 artificial. Our Lord's own testimonies are not only too compre- 
 hensive to be easily treated in this way, but are put by Him in 
 such a concrete connection with His mission, person, incarna- 
 tion, and design, that they cannot well be crystallized in the 
 same way as any other sayings upon some thread of ours which 
 may promise to hold them together. They are, moreover, very 
 diversified, and may be said to bring before us a new field of 
 inquiry wherever He touches on the subject. They each give 
 the key-note, as it were, to a whole series or class of similar 
 sayings in the apostolic Epistles ; which may be said to take 
 them up and to continue them, according to the practical neces- 
 sities of the churches, or the varying phases of doctrinal opinion 
 which threatened them. The apostles take up those diversified 
 sayings, and apply them in all directions ; and they give them 
 manifold forms of application.
 
 IMPORTANCE OF BIBLICAL IDEAS. 17 
 
 SEC. V. THE IMPORTANCE OF BIBLICAL IDEAS ON CHRIST'S DEATH. 
 
 It is important to form clear and well-defined ideas of the 
 atonement from the Lord's own words. When we reflect that 
 all His statements are the expression of His own conscious- 
 ness, the Christian entering into their meaning will say, as the 
 Christian astronomer did when he discovered certain laws of 
 the solar system : " My God, I think my thoughts with Thee." 
 This cannot he a trifling matter in theology. Yet many in 
 these days who exalt the inner life at the expense of true and 
 proper doctrine, are not slow to say that it is indifferent whether 
 the death of Christ be regarded as the procuring cause and 
 ground of pardon, or as the mere assurance of it. They will not 
 inquire how the atonement was effected; they avoid the de- 
 finition of terms and all biblical precision of thought, as if it 
 could be of little moment to a Christian, whether the death of 
 Jesus is considered as a vicarious sacrifice, or an expression of 
 divine love, whether it display the evil of sin, or merely stand 
 for a solemn revocation of the Old Testament sacrifices. They 
 will have it, that these points are but theological debates or 
 human speculations, from which they do well to stand aloof in 
 the discussion of the doctrine. That is a process of unlearning, 
 or of leaving all in uncertainty, which does not spring from a 
 commendable zeal for truth, but from a wish to blunt its edge ; 
 and it is tantamount to saying, that there is in Scripture no 
 doctrine on the subject. This is the watchword of a tendency 
 which is adverse to clearly -defined views of doctrine or of 
 Scripture truth. 
 
 The very reverse of this is our duty. We must acquire, as 
 much as lies in us, sharply-defined ideas on the atonement from 
 the gospels themselves; which, in our judgment, are by this 
 very topic far elevated above all mere human wisdom. What- 
 ever cannot be asserted from the Scriptures, or is overthrown 
 by their teaching, can easily be spared ; and we are willing to
 
 18 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 dismiss it. But we must collect whatever is really taught, 
 comparing text with text, and the less obvious testimonies with 
 the more easy and perspicuous, if we would think our thoughts 
 with God. 
 
 Nor is it less common for another school to allege in our 
 day, that the death of Jesus was rather His fate or fortune than 
 a spontaneous oblation, in the proper sense. These writers will 
 make Christ fall a victim to His holy and ardent zeal, while 
 preaching religious and moral truth, and discharging a high 
 commission as the Herald of forgiveness. His death thus 
 becomes a merely historical event or an occurrence ; which, 
 however, it is alleged was the occasion of giving a weighty con- 
 firmation to that declaration of absolute forgiveness of which 
 He was the preacher. That is an insipid half truth, which is 
 seemingly right and essentially wrong. It will offer a certain 
 spiritual phase to those who are hostile to the vicarious sacrifice, 
 and who will see nothing but love in God. They view Jesus 
 as a mere preacher or herald of salvation, but not as a veritable 
 Saviour in the full sense of the term. They will go farther 
 than this, and will extol Him as the Prince of Life, and as its 
 Dispenser; but it is life unconnected with the price paid, or 
 the ransom offered. And the prominence given to Christ's ex- 
 ample, or to the pattern of His life, is never free from a certain 
 influence that operates like a snare. We shall try this view, 
 which has many pretensions to spirituality, by the explicit 
 testimonies of our Lord Himself. But, meanwhile, we indicate 
 the danger from which it is not free. It never brings off the 
 mind from legality, from self-reliance, and self-dependence. It 
 perverts the spiritual life and the example of the Lord to be a 
 ground, if not a boldly avowed argument, for fostering a certain 
 self-justifying confidence. That is the vortex, within the attrac- 
 tion of which every school is drawn irresistibly, that offers no 
 objective atonement, or perfect plea on which the soul can 
 lean. Nothing so effectually carries off the mind from self- 
 dependence as the atonement, nothing so exalts grace and
 
 IMPORTANCE OF BIBLICAL IDEAS. 19 
 
 humbles the sinner; and on this account, God appointed that 
 acceptance and forgiveness of sin should not be given without 
 a Mediator, and without a dependence upon His merits. Hence 
 tbe jealousy of the apostles and of all Scripture on this point. 
 The apparent spirituality of any tendency will be no compensa- 
 tion for this hazard. 
 
 Those also who lay the greatest weight of their doctrine on 
 the person of Christ, or on His incarnation, often make light 
 of His cross in the comparison. Some of them, indeed, concede 
 a little, and say, If any find benefit from the terms PENALTY, 
 PRICE, SURETYSHIP, and SATISFACTION to divine justice, let them 
 take the good of them. But that is said only to call in question 
 their necessity. On the contrary, it will be found that in all 
 true progress in spiritual knowledge, men will make advances in 
 the knowledge of His atonement as well as of His person. The 
 history of the disciples before and after His crucifixion is a 
 proof of this. The more fully we enter into Christ's truly 
 human experience, and trace His chequered course of joy and of 
 sorrow, the livelier will be our apprehension of His curse-bearing 
 life, and of His penal death. 
 
 As to the more rationalistic and Socinian phases of opposi- 
 tion to the atonement, they will also be kept in view by us. 
 But we wish to bring out positive truth or edifying doctrine 
 much more than merely polemical discussion, a considerable 
 part of which may competently, and with more propriety, be 
 thrown into the notes. Our object is, rather, positive truth than 
 refutation of error. 
 
 In short, we are not to ask what man holds or has pro- 
 pounded, so much as what Christ has said. The examination 
 of this, and the attempt to enter into His consciousness, must 
 primarily engage our attention.
 
 20 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE POSTULATES OE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF 
 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 SEC. VI. THE ATONEMENT A DIVINE PROVISION TO PUT AWAY SIN 
 AND ALL ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 THE fact of sin with its vast and far-reaching consequences, of 
 which no finite mind can adequately take the dimensions, is seen 
 from every point of our inquiry. The Humiliation of the incar- 
 nate Son was primarily planned in connection with a remedial 
 scheme, and is therefore a provision in the Divine counsels by 
 occasion of sin. They who object, on speculative grounds, to the 
 notion that God ever acts by occasion of anything, and who carry 
 out their theory to the incarnation and its fruits, will find nothing 
 in the Lord's words to lend countenance to this opinion (Luke 
 xix. 10). 
 
 The terrible fact of sin is assumed and adequately provided 
 for in the Divine plan which we have to survey. The omniscient 
 God took the full measure of the evil. No created mind was 
 competent even in idea to fathom the guilt of sin or measure its 
 consequences not to mention our utter inability to expiate the 
 one or reverse the other. The Author of the atonement under- 
 took both ; and He alone fully knew what were His own claims 
 as the moral Governor of the universe. To this I refer the rather 
 because many, falling a prey to the excessive subjectivity of 
 modern theories, have lost sight of their relation as responsible 
 subjects to a personal God, and, saturated with a mystic pietism, 
 repose on God merely as a fountain of influences, and not as an 
 authoritative Lawgiver. That is a widely different element from 
 Christ's teaching. With a vivid sense of the relation in which 
 men stand to the moral Governor, the Biblical doctrine evolves 
 those truths that stand connected with the authority of law and 
 the guilt of disobedience. 
 
 a. As to SIN IN ITS OWN NATURE, it implies the Divine Law>
 
 THE ATONEMENT A DIVINE PROVISION FOE SIN. 21 
 
 and can only be defined as the violation of that law which 
 mankind were under obligation to fulfil. It is either the omission 
 of a duty required and, in this respect, to come short of love to 
 God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the strength, 
 and with all the mind, or of love to our neighbour as ourselves, 
 is a sin of omission or it is the commission of an act which the 
 tenor of the law has forbidden. And there are no sins venial in 
 their own nature. Nay, he who offends in one point is guilty of 
 all ; because the mental state from which the disobedience flows 
 argues an inward contrariety to the nature and will of God (Jas. 
 ii. 10). The only position which can be laid down as to the 
 criminality of sin is this : the guilt of the offence is proportioned 
 to the greatness, the moral excellence, and glory of Him against 
 whom the offence is committed, and who made us for loyal 
 obedience to Himself. Nothing else therefore comes into con- 
 sideration in estimating the enormity of sin but the infinite 
 majesty, glory, and claims of Him against whom we sin. Ac- 
 cordingly, the terms used by the Lord to designate sin are note- 
 worthy. He calls it DAKKNESS (John viii. 12), implying a state of 
 isolation from God, that is an element where God is not. He 
 calls it a TRESPASS (Mark xi. 25), implying a violation of law. 
 He terms it a DEBT (Matt. vi. 12), involving guilt or liability to 
 punishment. He designates it a LIE (John viii. 44), intimating 
 a mental state which either resists or runs counter to divinely- 
 manifested truth. 
 
 b. As to the far-reaching CONSEQUENCES OF SIN, these are so 
 manifold and various that they may be said to be the antithesis, 
 or the opposite column, to all the benefits secured to man by 
 Christ's atonement. It is scarce necessary, therefore, to enume- 
 rate the evil effects or consequences of sin ; because all that is 
 reversed or annihilated by Christ was entailed on us by sin, was 
 caused by sin. When we trace this contrast and look on the 
 different sides, we win breadth and precision of view. Under the 
 effects of sin we may classify a vast number of bitter evils, such 
 as the forfeiture of our right relation or standing before God ; the
 
 22 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 deterioration of our nature and the entrance of death, temporal, 
 spiritual, and eternal ; the departure of the Holy Spirit from the 
 human heart, formed to be His temple ; the tyranny of Satan ; 
 the gulf formed between men and all holy intelligences, and the 
 like. In a word, whatever is restored by Christ was forfeited 
 by sin. 
 
 Thus, when Christ, in a memorable passage in John, describes 
 man as the servant of sin, He says : " He that doeth sin is the 
 servant of sin " (John viii. 34). Commentators, in a somewhat 
 superficial way, expound this statement for the most part as 
 intimating that they who addict themselves to any particular sin 
 become enslaved to it. But while it is true that the habit of sin 
 confirms its dominion and the bondage of its victim, another 
 thought is plainly signified by the context, which brings the Son 
 of God before us in all His office as the Liberator. The import 
 is that the freedom in which man was created, and which was 
 forfeited by sin, can be restored only by the Son (ver. 36). The 
 sinner is a servant under guilt and a servant under justly con- 
 tracted punishment, as well as under the inward pbwer of sin. 
 The words set forth the same personification of sin, as a dreadful 
 potentate, which the Apostle Paul uses throughout three chapters 
 in the Epistle to the Eomans (v. vi. vii.). And when the Lord 
 describes men as they are, or IN THEIR SINS (John viii. 21), He 
 brings out, moreover, that death is the doom, wages, or recom- 
 pense awarded : " Ye SHALL DIE in your sins." 
 
 In a word, there is such a correspondence or similarity in an 
 opposite direction between the effects of sin and the effects of 
 the atonement that the comparison of the two serves to throw 
 light on both. 
 
 SEC. VII. SEPARATE SAYINGS WHICH AFFIRM OR IMPLY THE 
 NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 On several occasions the Lord refers to the necessity of His 
 death, but often stops short at the fact that it had been foretold.
 
 NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 23 
 
 Was there any deeper reason assigned by Him ? Yes : there are 
 various allusions, direct and indirect, to a deep inner necessity 
 for His atoning work, which we must now evolve. And it is the 
 more important to raise the question, why God could not pass 
 over sin without atonement, and to answer it from Christ's own 
 consciousness or subjective point of view, ' because not a few 
 regard the alleged necessity of the atonement in no other light 
 than as a semi-philosophical theory, or as a merely traditional 
 doctrine that has come down to us. The necessity of the 
 atonement, or the reason why in the moral government of God, 
 must, as far as possible, be assigned. 
 
 Our plan leads us to proceed in an exegetical way, and not to 
 argue from general principles or from mere dogmatic grounds, 
 except as the discussion of the words of our Lord conducts us to 
 the confines of that field. Though our object is to investigate in 
 what way our Lord speaks of the necessity of atonement, yet there 
 are some a posteriori arguments which may be noticed at the outset. 
 
 We cannot conceive of such a stupendous economy, if it were 
 not necessary. There could be no other reason sufficiently 
 important for God to abase Himself and to be made in fashion 
 as a man, and suffer on the cross; for God would not subject 
 His Son to such agonies if sin could have been remitted without 
 satisfaction. To suppose that all this was appointed merely to 
 confirm Christ's testimony as a teacher, is a shock to reason ; for 
 that could have been effected by a martyr's death. To hold that 
 it was meant to impress the human mind with a conviction of 
 God's love, is no better ; for the whole historic basis of Chris- 
 tianity would be little better than a mere drama or scenic 
 arrangement, intended to make an inward impression, but nothing 
 real in the moral government of God, if the vicarious sacrifice 
 were not necessary on God's part for the ransom of sinners, and 
 to put away their sin. The facts are too momentous and solemn, 
 and too closely connected with all the attributes of God and all 
 the persons of the Trinity, to be brought down to the level of an 
 imposing representation. To take this roundabout way of making
 
 24 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 a moral impression, if the death of God's Son was not necessary, 
 would be repugnant to the Divine goodness and wisdom. 1 
 
 Our Lord, in addressing a people familiar with the ideas of 
 sacrifice, did not deem it necessary to dilate on the necessity of 
 an atonement, and for the most part narrowed the allusion to the 
 sacrifice of Himself, assuming the necessity as an undoubted 
 truth. God had from the first sought to develop the idea of SIN 
 among the chosen people, and to keep their consciences alive to 
 the fact that it must needs be expiated by propitiatory sacrifices. 
 Many laws were enacted for the purpose of awakening a sense of 
 want : civil and ecclesiastical privileges were withdrawn for the 
 violation of these laws, and many afflictive visitations were sent. 
 The government of God was ever anew violated by sinful deeds 
 or transgressions of the law, and in all such cases fellowship with 
 God was foreclosed. Every Jew was aware that, in consequence 
 of a transgression, he was liable to the penalty which must 
 follow; and, in a word, that there was no enduring covenant, 
 and no free access to the Holy One, without a complete fulfilment 
 of the law. No approach could otherwise be allowed to God's 
 presence in the sanctuary services ; and there was, besides, a 
 conscious guilt, which tended to estrange the sinner from God, 
 and to make him apprehensive. This was an education of the 
 people in the knowledge of sin. 
 
 To meet this deep-felt need of pardon, and as a method of 
 remitting the penalty incurred by a violation of the letter, 
 sacrifices were appointed, which operated on the conscience of 
 the Jew in a peculiar way. They gave him a vivid view of the 
 guilt of sin, and of the rectitude and holiness of the Divine 
 government. The whole Old Testament was thus calculated to 
 bring into prominence the necessity of an atonement, and to 
 sharpen the conviction that sin required a higher sacrifice ; and 
 the sacrifice, presupposing the sinful deed, showed the inviolability 
 of the law and covenant. If the Jewish worshippers neglected 
 
 1 See Witsius, De Economic/, Fcederum (lib. ii. chap, viii.) ; and the Heidelberg 
 Catechism, question 12, with its expounders.
 
 NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 25 
 
 the sacrifices of atonement, they incurred the curses of the law. 
 If they brought the sacrifices, they were purged from their 
 defilement, and had access reopened to God in the sanctuary 
 service, without impediment from without or fear from within. 
 
 With this doctrine of sacrifice the Jewish mind was familiar. 
 They all admitted the necessity of a sacrifice of atonement in 
 order to avert punishment. This was the great idea for the full 
 development of which the nation had been peculiarly separated 
 from other people, and which was to be learned by them in order 
 to be diffused over the earth. They acknowledged these atone- 
 ments as the method of averting the threatened penalty, however 
 much they perverted them from the Divine purpose for which 
 they were appointed by extending their effects to MORAL TRES- 
 PASSES, instead of limiting them, as they should have done, to 
 ceremonial defilement. They held the necessity of expiation; 
 and our Lord, accordingly, in speaking to them, proceeds on this 
 conceded truth. And hence His words take all this for granted, 
 wherever He makes reference to His work. With a deeper 
 reference than was commonly attached to the sacrifices, and 
 sounding the depths which underlay them, He throughout 
 assumed the indispensable necessity of an expiation. All His 
 sayings contain this thought in their deeper relation. Thus, when 
 we read of sin to be borne in a sacrificial sense (John i. 29) ; of 
 a ransom to be paid for the purpose of liberating captives t 
 Divine justice (Matt. xx. 28) ; of the law, both moral and cere- 
 monial, to be embodied in a sinless life and exhibited in a sacri- 
 ficial death (Matt. v. 17) ; of the blood of the covenant which 
 puts men on a new footing, and in a relation of pardon and 
 acceptance, to be dissolved no more (Matt. xxvi. 28) ; all these 
 allusions take for granted that an atonement is indispensably 
 necessary, and that the Divine claims must be discharged in full. 
 
 When we survey our Lord's teaching on the necessity of the 
 atonement, .we find reference to a subjective and objective 
 necessity, or to the conscience of man on the one hand, and to 
 the Divine rights on the other.
 
 26 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 1. Conscience demands a satisfaction or atonement. To this 
 necessity on the side of conscience there are various allusions by 
 our Lord, and all of them full of significance. Thus, when He 
 invites the weary and heavy laden, He plainly alludes to the 
 state of an awakened conscience desiring a satisfaction or atone- 
 ment which the individual is not able to offer (Matt. xi. 28). 
 The thirsty invited to come and drink are those who are in a 
 similar condition (John vii. 37). They who are described in the 
 Sermon on the Mount as. hungering and thirsting after righteous- 
 ness are obviously those who feel the oppression of conscious 
 guilt, and who pant for that immaculate "righteousness," or 
 atonement which alone can fill and satisfy the wants of human 
 nature (Matt. v. 6). Our Lord's words assume that such is the 
 harmony between the voice of conscience and the claims of God, 
 or, in other words, between man made in the image of God and 
 the rights of Him whose image he bears, that nothing will satisfy 
 conscience that does not satisfy the perfections and law of God. 
 As God's representative within, it is taken for granted that con- 
 science will acquit only when God acquits, and possess peace only 
 when God has spoken peace through the finished redemption. 
 There is an inner or subjective necessity which must come to 
 its rights. 
 
 Thus conscience acknowledges that wherever sin is punish- 
 ment ought to be suffered. We see in the old economy the 
 intense longing of the heart after sacrifices, and a conviction of 
 their insufficiency in the ceremonial law. Till the waters of 
 reparation and punishment quench it, guilt burns in the human 
 heart, nay, it would continue to burn in the human heart for 
 ever if there were no sufficient atonement; so that they who 
 would have pardon merely by God's retreating from the demand 
 of satisfaction would be followed, even if they had their wish, by 
 the inward pursuer wherever they went. And as their holiness 
 grew, they would still be haunted by a keener sense of guilt, 
 remembering that they were the same person still, and that no 
 reparation had been made. They would be disturbed by self-
 
 NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 27 
 
 accusations, by shame, and a gnawing conscience, till they would 
 long to have the faculty of memory destroyed. 1 We read that 
 they who went to heaven before the finished redemption rejoiced 
 when Christ's day came (John viii. 56), and that in some sense, 
 and doubtless in this subjective sense, they were made perfect by 
 sharing with us in that which we enjoy (Heb. xi. 40). 
 
 Thus it appears from all history and experience, that con- 
 science is so sensitive, that it will reject everything which may 
 be offered to calm or heal it, till it finds repose and peace in the 
 vicarious death of Christ; and no atonement will avail which 
 is not infinite. Man discovered to himself, and aware of his 
 wants, will fall into despair, if the growing sense of guilt is not 
 stilled by the great redemption of the cross. It is true that 
 mere conscience cannot of itself tell what is an adequate atone- 
 ment ; that it is but a dumb sense of want ; and that it often 
 tries false remedies and vain reliefs. The man is a prisoner 
 under guilt, and knows it. God alone knows and provides the 
 adequate atonement; and the unburdened conscience attests 
 that it is adequate when it is found. But no one can persuade 
 conscience that an atonement is unnecessary. 
 
 2. There is an objective necessity founded on the divine 
 rights and man's creaturehood. It would require a separate 
 treatise to discuss the question of the necessity of the atone- 
 ment against all the impugners of the doctrine, and against the 
 pantheistic leaven of our age, which is to us just what the leaven 
 of the Sadducees was in the days of our Lord, which assumes 
 sin as one of the elements of humanity, and virtually holds 
 
 L Marheinecke, in his Fundamental Doctrines of Christian Dogmatics, p. 284, 
 says : " Man has the choice of committing sin or not, but he has not the choice 
 whether he will possess the consciousness of guilt or not, but himself acknowledges 
 that punishment should be suffered for the sin committed ; and, as is seen in the 
 case of great criminals, he goes out to meet punishment, and feels that he who 
 has sin is not able to free himself from its guilt and punishment." " Even in the' 
 grossest sinner, conscience is so sensitive that it rejects everything that is offered 
 to soothe it as a deliverance from punishment, the clemency of the magistrate, etc. 
 The only thing that man can do is to feel a desire after a satisfaction which he is 
 not able to offer a divine feeling which lives even in the most degraded sinner. "
 
 28 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 " whatever is is right." But as our present undertaking limits 
 our view to what the great Teacher has said, or, at the utmost, 
 to what His words imply and presuppose, it would cariy us 
 into a wholly different field, were we at any length to discuss, 
 on abstract grounds, or in a dogmatic form, the momentous 
 question of the necessity of the atonement. We shall merely 
 glance at some of its elements ; or, as Johnson would have said, 
 " shine on the angles of the thought." 
 
 The divine rights, to which the question of the necessity of 
 the atonement must very much be run up, differ in one import- 
 ant respect from human rights. Men can in many cases recede 
 from the assertion of their rights, whereas the divine rights are 
 inalienable. The Most High cannot allow any infraction of 
 them, any withholding from Himself of that which is His due, 
 or any spoliation of that declarative glory for which the uni- 
 verse exists, and which a personal God has an interest in secur- 
 ing to Himself. The supreme justice, which is no other than 
 the personal God Himself, puts forth its highest exercise in 
 asserting His rights in the universe, which exists not for itself 
 but for its Maker. This follows from the concrete relations of 
 a personal God ; who could not denude Himself of His rights, 
 or be without the exercise of His justice from the moment a 
 created being occupies a relation toward Him as its maker, 
 governor, and upholder. He has from that moment rights of 
 which he cannot denude Himself; for the creature exists not 
 independently of Him, but for Him. 
 
 A right anthropology, that is, a correct conception of the doc- 
 trine of man, also shows the necessity of the atonement. The 
 inquirer must read it off from human duty and human will. 
 So far as the conditions of the problem are concerned, the atone- 
 ment is in reality nothing else than the taking up of man's 
 obligations at the point where the primeval man failed, with, 
 of course, the additional element which his fall had entailed 
 the awful fact of sin. We may well affirm, then, that a correct 
 anthropology, as well as a due conception of the attributes and
 
 NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 29 
 
 rights of a personal God, is indispensable to a correct notion of 
 the necessity of the atonement. This comes to light in the most 
 emphatic manner in certain portions of the Pauline Epistles, 
 where the argument proceeds on the supposition that the second 
 man must needs enter into the position, obedience, and full 
 responsibility of the first man (Rom. v. 12-19). But the same 
 thought is not obscurely exhibited in all those sayings and 
 phrases where our Lord refers to Himself as the Son of Man. 
 He intimates that He entered with a true body and soul into 
 all the conditions of the problem ; that after the revolution of 
 ages He took up the task for the reparation of the wrong, and 
 entered into the conflict where the battle was lost. 
 
 The point at which the discussion must begin is the relation 
 which a personal God occupies to SIN. As the entrance of sin 
 is a spoliation of the tribute or revenue of honour which the 
 intelligent creature should have rendered to the Creator; as 
 man was made to render this homage by a pure nature and a 
 God-glorifying obedience, such as a moral representation of the 
 divine image in this world alone could render, a restoration of 
 this honour to the full, nay, to a still larger degree, is only 
 what supreme justice owes to Himself before salvation can be 
 bestowed. Not that the glory of God essentially is capable 
 either of addition or of diminution. But in reference to His 
 declarative glory in other words, in reference to what He pro- 
 posed to make of human nature, God lost when His rights 
 were denied, and God regains when they are restored. Thus 
 the necessity of the atonement is seen to rest on the divine 
 claims, and on the concrete relations of a personal God to 
 the world. 
 
 But the atonement must not be considered barely in relation 
 to the consequences of sin, but in relation to SIN ITSELF. And 
 this leads us to see its absolute necessity, on the supposition 
 that a redemption was to be effected. Sin in its magnitude and 
 criminality is a fact for which an actual provision must be 
 made in some way, a disharmony in His universe who is the
 
 30 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 God of order and not of confusion, and that must be dealt with 
 in the moral government of God. One grand lesson taught by 
 the Old Testament economy, which was not an education for 
 one people merely, but for mankind in general, through that 
 single people, was that sin is such a tremendous evil or disorder 
 that there is an indispensable necessity for a satisfaction, or for 
 punishment. Unlike those modern phases of opinion which set 
 forth that sin is nothing positive, but only a law of being, and 
 which owe their origin to a period of speculation when the idea 
 of a personal God and His relations to the world were forgotten 
 or disowned, the doctrine of the atonement, as exhibited in the 
 sayings of Jesus, is based on the magnitude and enormity of sin. 
 It is the very reverse of those men's theory, too numerous in 
 our time, who admit imperfection, but not guilt; who ignore 
 the divine claims as well as the holy anger and moral govern- 
 ment of God; who resolve justice into love, and wrath into 
 benevolence. 
 
 The entire elements of this momentous question, therefore, are 
 put in their due place, only when a true conception of SIN and 
 of its infinite evil is adequately apprehended. The atonement 
 is not a mere governmental display before creation, as if the 
 principal end of punishment in the government of God were a 
 mere spectacle to deter from sin. So long as men theorize as to 
 God acting before a created public, only to impress and awe 
 their minds, or seek an object apart from God Himself, they are 
 yielding to a course of thought which only tends to subvert or 
 deny His punitive justice. Such a principle may be called into 
 play in human rule, but has no application in the divine govern- 
 ment, where the only public worthy of regard is God Himself, 
 and the harmony of His attributes. To hold with certain emi- 
 nent writers, such as Michaelis, Seiler, and others, that the in- 
 fliction of punishment, though not absolutely necessary, is yet 
 fitted to serve an important end in deterring other rational 
 beings from sin, is at once destitute of biblical authority, and 
 puts the question on a false foundation. On this supposition,
 
 NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 31 
 
 punishment is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end. 
 On the contrary, as Scripture always puts it, God's moral per- 
 fections demand satisfaction ; justice links the sin and punish- 
 ment together ; and the recompense is uniformly proportioned 
 to what is deserved. We find the statement adduced again and 
 again, both in the Old Testament and in the New : " Vengeance 
 is Mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Rom. xii. 19 ; Heb. x. 
 30). The meaning of that significant statement is, that puni- 
 tive justice belongs essentially to God as a perfection of the 
 divine nature ; that it belongs to no other but to Himself, except 
 in so far as He has been pleased to delegate it in certain special 
 cases to the magistrate acting as His representative ; and that 
 in consequence of this divine perfection, wherever moral evil is 
 committed, natural evil, or punishment corresponding to it, 
 must ensue. 
 
 a. But here we are met by the latitudinarian tendencies of 
 the age, which take exception to the necessity of the atonement, 
 on the ground that we are to view God only as occupying the 
 paternal relation to mankind. Not a few repudiate from this 
 supposed vantage-ground, which seems to have a foothold in 
 Scripture, all the representations otherwise given of God as a 
 lawgiver and a judge. They will have it, that we are to conceive 
 of God only as a source of goodness, or .as a fountain of in- 
 fluences, but not as the sovereign Lord or moral Governor ; that 
 His dominion is only that of a Father; that the divine laws 
 wholly differ from human laws sanctioned by threats and punish- 
 ments ; and that, when God does punish in any case, it is as a 
 father, and not as a judge. By such representations, which are 
 partly the speculations of a false philosophy, partly the after- 
 thoughts of men writing in the interest of a tendency, the 
 modern assailants of the necessity of the atonement would 
 change laws into counsels, and punishments into corrections. 
 They would sunder the link between sin and punishment, on 
 which, as will appear in the sequel, all religion and all morals 
 depend ; for nothing could appear more detrimental to human
 
 32 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 welfare than the circulation of the doctrine that men are 
 irresponsible to a judge. 
 
 The only thing that entitles this speculation to any weight 
 is, that it professes to have a biblical sanction. Far be it from 
 our thoughts to ignore the Fatherhood of God and the tender 
 relation formed by grace between Him and His children ; but 
 when men come into this relationship, which henceforth 
 exempts them from everything properly penal, that is the 
 privilege of saints, not of natural men. It is a gift of grace, 
 not a right of nature nor a universal boon ; for all are by nature 
 the children of wrath (Eph. ii. 3). It cannot be affirmed that 
 it belongs indiscriminately to all men, unless we obliterate the 
 distinction between converted and unconverted men. But God's 
 Fatherhood does not exclude His relation as a lawgiver and a 
 judge. We rather affirm, without entering into a new ques- 
 tion foreign to our undertaking, that the former rests upon the 
 latter. 
 
 But the answer to all these modern theories, which are 
 advocated with the avowed purpose of withdrawing the mind 
 from the judicial relations of God, and so impugning the 
 necessity of the atonement, is, that they run counter to the 
 entire scope and spirit of that ancient revelation in which 
 Jesus was nourished up to manhood, and which He expressly 
 declares He did not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Unless 
 men are prepared to make a violent severance between the 
 Old and New Testament, and bring the one into violent 
 collision with the other, to the obvious injury of both, these 
 notions must be set aside as wholly out of keeping with the 
 Old Testament, and as having no warrant in the New. The 
 expressions which describe divine justice as a perfection proper 
 to the Supreme Being, and prompting Him to punish trans- 
 gressors, are peculiarly emphatic and strong (Gen. xviii. 25 ; 
 Ps. xi. 5-7 ; Ps. xcvii. 2 ; Ps. 1. 21). The divine displeasure at 
 sin, and His holy hatred of it, are forcibly delineated as the 
 impelling cause of punishment (Hab. i. 13; Prov. vi. 16).
 
 NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 33 
 
 When He revealed His name and memorial in all generations, 
 He designated Himself as the God who by no means clears the 
 guilty (Ex. xxxiv. 7) ; and in the immutable law, which is the 
 transcript of His perfections, He is represented as a jealous 
 God, visiting iniquity upon them that hate Him (Ex. xx. 5-7). 
 There are passages which show that God is not only extolled 
 by His saints on earth, but by the saints above, for the exercise 
 of punitive justice (Deut. xxxii. 43 ; Eev. xix. 6). 
 
 &. It is further urged, in the interest of the same tendency, 
 that the visitations commonly called punishments are only the 
 natural consequences of sin. This would indeed overthrow 
 the necessity of the atonement, and also its possibility; for 
 the atonement involves the bearing of positive punishment in 
 the room of others. But the whole Scriptures, from first to last, 
 are replete with instances of positive punishments. The deluge, 
 the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah ; the case of Pharaoh, of 
 Nadab and Abihu, of Korah and his comrades ; the expulsion 
 and destruction of the Canaanites; and, in a word, the whole 
 history of God's transactions with His own people and with 
 other nations, contain the most obvious examples of positive 
 punishments, not the mere consequences or natural con- 
 comitants of a course of conduct. We call these positive punish- 
 ments rather than arbitrary; which is not so suitable an epithet, 
 nor so applicable. 
 
 All the biblical statements argue the existence of positive 
 punishments. Thus, when we read of "the wrath to come" 
 (Matt. iii. 7), which does not follow sin immediately, and by 
 mere natural sequence, we have a proof of positive punish- 
 ment. When we read of forgiveness, what does the term imply 
 but the remission of a certain retributive doom or recompense 
 which is not the mere natural concomitant of sin ? Without 
 the idea of positive punishment emanating from the punitive 
 intervention of God, we could not explain, in any adequate 
 sense, the doctrine of retribution; for how could there be a 
 retribution or recompense of reward, if sin were followed by no
 
 34 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 other consequences than such as are but the natural issues or 
 results of a course of conduct in the direct order of sequence ? 
 Does this not properly begin, in the full sense, after the great 
 judgment ? The evils which are naturally connected with sin, 
 and which are manifold, are, in truth, of a different sort from 
 the punishments which are inflicted by the intervention of the 
 judge. We do not deny that certain results or consequences flow 
 from sin and may be called a penalty. To give the name of 
 punishments, however, to the natural consequences of sin alone, 
 is a fallacious use of language, and contrary to the dictates of a 
 sound understanding. When men express themselves loosely, 
 they may speak of the connection between conduct and ex- 
 perience. But in the strict and proper use of terms we under- 
 stand by punishment the suffering which is directly and 
 expressly awarded by the sentence of a judge, not that which 
 follows by the mere law of sequence. Hence, when punishment 
 is justly inflicted, as in the case of the great retribution awarded 
 by the sentence of the just Judge, it is for sin committed or for 
 injury done, by which the moral Governor is aggrieved. It 
 thus differs from the natural effects of sin. It differs, too, from 
 correction or chastisement, which aims at something prospective 
 in connection with one whom we only seek to impress with a 
 salutary fear, or to deter from a wayward course. 
 
 c. But the same impugners of the necessity of the atonement 
 take exception to the above-mentioned doctrine at a point still 
 further back : they argue that God cannot be said to be wronged 
 or injured. They maintain that this language can be fitly 
 enough held when it is applied to an earthly monarch, whose 
 authority is hurt by the violation of his laws and by the dis- 
 honour done to him, but that the Supreme God is far exalted 
 above wrong or injury. There could not exist two opinions 
 that this is indisputably true, if it were a question of man's 
 goodness extending to God, or of man's rebellion tending to the 
 prejudice of God's essential blessedness; but it is a question 
 of His declarative glory, and of His relation to the world,
 
 NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 35 
 
 existing only to bring back to Him a revenue of praise. The 
 rational intelligences, created to be a mirror of His perfections, 
 bring back this revenue of praise by cordial dependence, by 
 the subjection of their will to the will of God, and by being an 
 eye to trace His wisdom and goodness. Certainly, God cannot 
 be deprived by the sinner of anything that is His. But it does 
 not follow that He does not regard those as offenders who 
 rebel against Him. His relation to the creature is violated 
 by sin, and He cannot be an unconcerned spectator of the con- 
 duct of His reasonable creatures; and sin is in proportion to 
 the person against whom it is committed. There is such a 
 terrible power in a human will that the creature can form plans 
 and execute purposes which God regards as hateful. He can do 
 something that is opposed to the divine will. He can, however 
 insignificant, insult, offend, and wrong God. 
 
 Hence punitive justice, which is an adorable perfection of 
 the divine nature, and worthy of Him who is infinitely perfect, 
 demands satisfaction for sin. It is as eternal and necessary as 
 anything belonging to His self-existing nature. It must be 
 maintained that God punishes sin as a satisfaction which must 
 needs be made to Himself; that He punishes OUT OF LOVE TO 
 His OWN JUSTICE, or because the righteous God loveth righteous- 
 ness (Ps. xi. 7), in other words, that He punishes out of love 
 to Himself. Nor, from the very ground that He is possessed 
 of immaculate justice, can the retribution due to sin be omitted; 
 for of God it may be said that He cannot but punish sin, just 
 as we affirm of Him that He cannot lie. God is thus under 
 obligation to no third party, but to Himself and to His own 
 perfections, to exercise punishment; and He cannot forego 
 or renounce His right to do so unless there be an atonement 
 or vicarious sacrifice. But even then, as we shall show in the 
 sequel, sin is duly punished. 
 
 But we must further add that, in thus speaking of divine 
 justice, we must take in the full import of the word: we must 
 avoid one-sidedness. There is a PRECEPTIVE rectitude, that is,
 
 36 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 justice in that acceptation of it, whereby He demands what is 
 His due, or what He has a right to claim, as well as a judicial 
 rectitude, There is a PUNITIVE justice, according to which He 
 punishes disobedience; and a KEMUNEKATTVE justice, according 
 to which He distributes reward, the two latter being different 
 sides of the same exercise of this perfection. This justice is 
 met in both its aspects in its preceptive as well as judicial 
 phase by the active and passive obedience of Christ, or by a 
 subjection to the law in its precept as well as in its penalty. 
 As the rights of God find their adequate expression in the moral 
 law, it is useful to survey the doctrine under our consideration 
 in the light of the divine law, as well as from the more abstract 
 ground of the divine justice. They cover each other : they ex- 
 plain each other. 
 
 The objection is often uttered: "Where does Scripture ever 
 use the expression current in discussions on the atonement, ' the 
 satisfaction of divine justice?'" But no one can presume to 
 demand authority for a phrase with which the former may be 
 alternated, and say, " Where do we read of the necessity of ful- 
 filling the divine law?" After the Socinian dicussions began, 
 and principally turned on the point of punitive justice, it be- 
 came common to speak out on the necessity of satisfying divine 
 justice with more precision than had been used before. What 
 the rationalistic party repudiated, the evangelical Church 
 asserted as a precious and important truth; and in this way 
 the phraseology found its way into the Church's symbols, and 
 into current use. It came in course of time, however, to con- 
 tract a certain one-sidedness, because the course of discussion 
 was narrowed to the inquiry, whether there was a judicial 
 exercise of justice. But the language ought to comprehend the 
 function of the lawgiver as well as of the judge ; and hence it is 
 important to interchange the expression "the satisfaction of 
 divine justice" with the equivalent, but commonly less re- 
 stricted, phrase, "the fulfilment of the divine law," that is, 
 its fulfilment in the positive precept of love as well as in the
 
 NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 37 
 
 endurance of the curse. This brings in the law as the true and 
 exhaustive expression of the divine rights. It is a biblical 
 phraseology somewhat broader, and entitled not indeed to 
 supersede the use of the former expression, but to be at least 
 alternated with it. 
 
 But we pass now to the inquiry, What express doctrine is 
 there from the mouth of Christ in regard to the necessity of the 
 atonement ? There are various allusions explicit or indirect to 
 the necessity of His atoning death. 
 
 John iii. 14: "So MUST the Son of Man be lifted up." As 
 this text must be considered by itself, we limit our attention 
 at present to the import of the must here uttered by Christ. 
 Plainly, the necessity is not to be referred to the fact that the 
 prophets had foretold it. Though the faithfulness of God must 
 needs be maintained on account of the type, there was a further 
 reason, which must be traced up to the divine decree, and to 
 the divine justice. 1 It was not a mere necessity to fulfil the 
 type, but had its ground in the purpose of redemption, and in 
 the end to be attained. Some, toning down the language, would 
 represent it as arising from the present condition of the world, 
 as if the cross were only an occurrence befalling Him in a 
 world of rebels, and where all was out of course. But that 
 does not approach the meaning ; and the history of Jesus shows 
 that, except in so far as He chose to subject Himself to the 
 course of things, He was exempt from their power, and beyond 
 
 1 Though some interpreters limit the Set to the necessity of fulfilling prophecy, 
 that plainly does not exhaust its meaning. Others, in a still more superficial 
 way, as Hofstcde de Groot, explained it as a moral must, on account of the sinful 
 condition of men. He argues that Set differs from avdyK-rj, according to classical 
 usage. Of course it does : if we were to follow the classical usage in elucidating 
 the difference between the two, &i>dyicr) would bring in the notion of physical 
 necessity or constraint. But according to the language of Revelation, by which 
 alone we are guided in such questions, Set is often used to denote that a thing 
 must be according to the faithfulness or justice of God, or word of God (Matt, 
 xvi. 2; Luke xvii. 25). Valekenaer says in his Scholia in N. T.: "Ab ista 
 ligandi virtute fluxit ea quae vulgo viget in Set significante deed, oportet." 
 Marckius says on Set : "Ex eterno et immutabili decreto" (Hist. Exalt. Christi, 
 lib. i. cap. 10, sec. 15).
 
 38 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 their reach. They could not touch Him till His hour was 
 come. The words here uttered mean, that in order to heal and 
 save, He must needs be crucified, the must indicating a neces- 
 sity flowing from God's justice, and from His decree, if men 
 were to be saved. 
 
 There are other utterances of Christ not less emphatic, though 
 spoken from another point of view. 
 
 Matt. xxvi. 42 : "If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." 
 The argument from this utterance of Christ for the necessity of 
 His atoning work is of the strongest. There can be no reason 
 assigned why the cup did not pass from Him, except that the 
 divine claims required the endurance for the expiation of sin. 
 The only-begotten Son, notwithstanding this request to the 
 Father, who always heard Him, must drink the cup. And to 
 say that the impossibility of removing it did not spring from 
 the divine justice, is plainly untenable. It cannot be supposed 
 that, except on the ground of indispensable necessity, God 
 would be so inflexible as to visit His Son with all that was 
 comprehended in that cup. The suffering was indispensable 
 the atonement was necessary that the cup of suffering might 
 pass from His people. 1 
 
 The same thing is proved by passages which describe the 
 irremediable consequences of neglecting the atoning work of 
 Christ. The result of not believing on the crucified Christ is 
 condemnation (John iii. 18). 
 
 Mark viii. 37: " What shall a man give in exchange [better, 
 what ransom shall a man give] for his soul?" These words occur 
 in a connection which contains an allusion to the rejection or 
 denial of Christ, and are intended to teach that there is a 
 ransom attainable through the reception of Christ, but no 
 ransom to such as neglect the opportunity, or depart this life 
 without finding the only sacrifice. He virtually says, There is 
 no more sacrifice for sin, since they have denied Me, the only 
 ransom or means of deliverance. But this indisputable allusion 
 
 1 See Triglandius, Antapologia, cap. 4, p. 73.
 
 THE INCARNATION A MEANS TO AN END. 39 
 
 to a ransom, takes for granted its necessity, implying that it 
 is only found in Jesus, who has expiated sin, and paid the 
 ransom in the sinner's place. 
 
 The whole question of the necessity of the atonement is 
 also taken for granted in the INTERCESSION of Christ. He pleads 
 on a ground of justice as well as mercy, recognizing a demand 
 which had been made, and pleading a satisfaction which had 
 been rendered. 
 
 John xvii. 25 : " righteous Father, the world hath not known 
 Thee" etc. Our Lord bases His intercession on the rectitude or 
 justice of God, when He prays that they who had been given 
 Him might be with Him in His glory. Though there is a 
 gracious reward conferred upon the saints for every work done, 
 these words of Christ cannot refer to any recompense of that 
 nature, because it is not of strict justice. But our Lord can 
 appeal to justice when He asks the eternal glorification of His 
 redeemed and their fellowship with Him where He is ; for He 
 merited eternal life for them, and at the costly price of His 
 passion. It is righteous that the people of Christ should reign 
 in life with Him and through Him. As the justice of God was 
 displayed on Christ and satisfied by His atonement ; as He had 
 met the demand, " This do, and thou shalt live," He can appeal 
 to the rectitude of God that His people may be put in possession 
 of the reward. And this presupposes on the part of God the 
 necessary demand of an atonement. 
 
 SEC. VIII. THE INCARNATION COMES INTO THE REMEDIAL ECONOMY 
 AS A MEANS TO AN END. 
 
 Having noticed the provision to be made for sin, we come next 
 to the great fact of the Incarnation as the foundation of the whole 
 work of atonement. The Lord's advent in flesh is uniformly set 
 forth as a means for the accomplishment of a great result : not 
 as in itself an end. Thus, in the Lord's own teaching, 'He 
 announces that He came down from heaven for the sake of a
 
 40 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 people given to Him (John vi. 39) ; that He came to save that 
 which was lost (Matt, xviii. 11); that He came to give His life 
 for others (Mark x. 45). We may represent the relation between 
 God and man in this way. Between the INFINITE GOD, possessed 
 of all holiness and justice, and MAN, a rebel and infected with 
 sin, there is the widest conceivable remove in a moral point of 
 view. What can bring them together? Who can terminate 
 the estrangement ? The INCAENATION of the Eternal Son supplies 
 the answer : this fills up the chasm and paves the way to the 
 rectification of man's relation. But it is equally necessary to 
 meet the wants and cravings of the human spirit, which ever 
 and anon exclaims: What would become of me if my Maker 
 were not my Eedeemer ? (Is. liv. 5). 
 
 I purpose to touch on this theme in the briefest way. The 
 modern " Lives of Jesus," though they cannot be accepted as a 
 satisfactory exhibition of the Incarnation, because they are too 
 Humanitarian, have rendered a double service. They have 
 proved that the Incarnation took place in a historic person, and 
 in one only ; and they have established' the fact that Jesus came 
 not to propound an idea, but to do a work, and to become the 
 Head of a company finding redemption and life in Him. For it 
 is not too much to say that wherever thought is fixed on the 
 Incarnation, as the deep ground of union to God and of recon- 
 ciliation and life, a renovating influence will be shed both over 
 doctrine and life. 
 
 Here I find it necessary to say at the outset that, in all my 
 references to the Incarnation, I do not take up the doctrine in 
 the light in which it is presented in too many of the writings of 
 the present day. I do not share the view so largely adopted by 
 Continental divines that the Incarnation would have taken place 
 though no sin had entered to disturb the harmony of the universe. 
 On the contrary, that view seems to me to go far to vitiate every 
 department of truth, because it deduces the Incarnation from the 
 idea of humanity and not from the exercise of free and sovereign 
 love. The doctrine of sin supplies the rationale and ground of
 
 THE INCAKNATION A MEANS TO AN END. 41 
 
 this great truth. But if the Incarnation is represented as the 
 completion of man's creation, or as the realisation of the idea of 
 man, it seems to me that under high-sounding words we introduce 
 a perilous deviation from the truth. If there still remained an 
 extraordinary intervention to supplement the act of creation, 
 this would introduce the most portentous consequences. Man 
 at first would not have corresponded to his idea, and Christ would 
 become the perfected creation. This may suit the Schleiermacher 
 theology, but it reduces all to natural process, and is often meant 
 to avoid the offence of the cross. The Son of God is no longer 
 the Restorer of the lost, but the Perfecter of the imperfect. 1 
 
 On the contrary, according to the tenor of our Lord's teaching, 
 the Incarnation was CONDITIONED BY SIN, and not necessary except 
 on the supposition of redemption. The expiation of sin, the 
 meritorious obedience to be rendered to the law, the vindication 
 of Divine justice, are the objects contemplated by the stupendous 
 fact of the Incarnation, the Incarnation and the cross being 
 inseparable. The words of Scripture announce an incarnation of 
 redeeming love : not of natural process. If we were to accept 
 the latter view, the inevitable result would be that the atonement, 
 instead of being one principal object of the Incarnation, would be 
 reduced to a subordinate and secondary matter in this great 
 transaction. If the Incarnation must be brought about in the 
 course of history, either from a necessity in God, or to give a 
 realization to the idea of humanity, the historic fact in Jesus 
 
 1 This favourite speculation of the modern theology is put by Archbishop Trench 
 in the following plausible way : "In this view, the taking on Himself of our flesh 
 by the Eternal Word was no makeshift to meet a mighty, yet still a particular, 
 emergent need ; a need which, conceding the liberty of man's will, and that it was 
 possible for him to have continued in his first state of obedience, might never 
 have occurred. It was not a mere result and reparation of the Fall, such an act 
 as, except for that, would never have been ; but lay bedded at a far greater depth 
 in the counsels of God for the glory of His Son, and the exaltation of that race 
 formed in His image and His likeness. For against those who regard the Incar- 
 nation as an arbitrary, or as merely an historic event, and not an ideal one as well, 
 we may well urge this weighty consideration, that the Son of God did not, in and 
 after His ascension, strip off this human nature again," &c. Five Sermons before 
 the University of Cambridge, 1837.
 
 42 SAY1XGS OF JESUS OX THE ATOXEMENT. 
 
 would be but one peculiar mode of what must have taken place in 
 any case. And what becomes of Divine free love in the provision ? 
 
 From this view-point we can easily obviate the objection that 
 God never acts by occasion of anything. It is no disparagement 
 to the Incarnation to regard it as brought about by occasion of 
 sin, though it was by no means caused by sin. This greatest work 
 of God is still but a free work or deed, not necessary to the Divine 
 felicity, and therefore on the same footing with creation or any 
 other Divine act toward the universe. But, in point of fact, so 
 far is it from being true that God never acts by occasion of 
 anything, that we have only to survey the history of the Incar- 
 nation from the Fall downwards to see that all the circumstances 
 of it its foreshadowing and prediction, as well as the Lord's 
 actual history were shaped and moulded by occasion of sin. It 
 remains that we view the Incarnation as ushered in to be a MEAXS 
 to an end. And this leads us to survey the great provision or 
 problem from a twofold point of view. 
 
 a. The first desideratum was : How shall a guilty creature 
 appear not guilty, and how shall the partition-wall raised by the 
 Divine wrath on the one side and human rebellion on the other 
 be removed ? A provision was to be made that Divine love 
 might have free course to mankind, and that sinners might again 
 become the habitation of their Maker. This was to be effected 
 in such a manner that God might appear more glorified in saving 
 than in condemning us. All the attributes of God were, without 
 exception, to be magnified, that grace to sinners might be displayed 
 without limit (Matt. ix. 13). To educe so much good from so 
 vast a ruin ; to place man, once estranged, in such a sphere that 
 in harmony with the Divine claims and the honour of the law, 
 he shall bask anew in the beams of Divine love, realizing nearer 
 intercourse and more absolute dependence than if he had never 
 fallen was an end worthy of the Incarnation. The Christian 
 redemption is thus a remedial economy, not a natural process to 
 carry on creation to its completion. Every want was to be met, 
 and a more glorious vessel formed with larger capacities of
 
 THE INCARNATION A MEANS TO AN END. 43 
 
 happiness. The remedial scheme contemplated for man a position 
 of greater nearness than if the Fall had never been (John xvii. 
 20-23). The doctrine of the Divine image, the deep ground- 
 thought of Christianity, is so fully exhibited that the descriptions 
 of Genesis and Eevelatiou seem to touch each other. By the 
 Incarnation the lost image and dominion are restored. 
 
 6. A second desideratum, effected by the Incarnation, was the 
 recapitulating of all under a Head (Eph. i. 10; Col. i. 20). The 
 disunion from God and from each other was the fruit of sin. 
 Every person who has reflected on man's original condition must 
 have come to the conclusion on clear grounds of Scripture (Col. 
 i. 15, 16) that, apart altogether from the Incarnation, humanity, 
 according to the constitution of things, had its standing in the 
 Son of God as its Archetype, Head, and Lord. It may be difficult 
 to assign Adam his place, as the counterpart of the second Adam, 
 while contending for the other side of truth that humanity 
 stood in the Son. We content ourselves with two things too 
 plain to be questioned : (1) the original constitution of all things 
 IN (v) the Son 1 (Col. i. 15); and then (2) that the race was in 
 such a sense in Adam that we are all that one man (Rom. v. 12). 
 Though we do not fashion into a scheme what Scripture leaves 
 indefinite, yet these two points enter into the original constitution 
 of things ; and they are found in a new combination in the second 
 man, the Lord from heaven. This sufficiently proves that man 
 was originally created to be an organic unity in a divine Head. 
 The condition of things into which redeemed men are ushered by 
 the historical Christ implies, inferentially, but surely, that what 
 is restored was once possessed, though mutably, in the creation 
 state. 
 
 That the Incarnation is a means to an end, is the conclusion 
 to which we must arrive. But this is not to be so put in our 
 
 1 Calvin, though condemning the notion of an Incarnation without a Fall 
 (Insti. lib. ii. 12, 4), expresses himself strongly on the necessity of a certain 
 mediatorial relation for man as man: "quamvis ab omni labe integer stetisset 
 homo, humilior tamen erat ejus conditio quum ut sine mediatore ab Deuni pene- 
 traret" (lib. ii. 12, 1).
 
 44 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 scheme of thought as if the end must needs be greater than the 
 means. The Christian consciousness of the Church turning only 
 to two things sin and redemption will not harmonize with 
 the speculative notion to which we have referred, but rather 
 oppose a sure barrier to its spread. 1 
 
 SEC. IX. DIVINE LOVE PKOVIDING THE ATONEMENT ; OE THE LOVE 
 OF GOD IN HAKMONY WITH JUSTICE AS THE ONLY CHANNEL 
 OF LIFE. 
 
 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, 
 that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have 
 everlasting life." JOHN iii. 16. 
 
 To a previous saying on the necessity of the atonement 
 already noticed, this further testimony is subjoined, in order to 
 make known more fully to Nicodemus the fact of the atonement 
 and its source in divine love. That it forms part of our Lord's 
 address, and is not the commentary of the evangelist, is obvious 
 to every one who has remarked the peculiar way in which John 
 appends his commentary on the Master's words. This is never 
 left doubtful (see John vii. 39). The present testimony is intro- 
 duced by the grounding particle for, which shows a continuation 
 of the discourse, and gives a reason for the final clause in the 
 previous verse (ver. 15). 
 
 The allusion to the atonement, with which we have specially 
 to do, is obvious in the phrase, " He gave His Son." Though 
 some have explained this as if it were equivalent to being sent, 
 it rather has the sacrificial sense of being delivered or given up 
 to death. Here it corresponds to the "lifting up" in the pre- 
 vious context. This giving of the Son does not go back to the 
 divine purpose, nor go down to the individual's experience when 
 Christ is given to the believer, but denotes a giving up to death. 
 It is properly the giving up in sacrifice, because the presenta- 
 
 1 See note E in Appendix.
 
 LOVE AND JUSTICE IN HAEMONY. 45 
 
 tion of the victim formed part of the act of sacrifice. The ex- 
 pression, He delivered, or gave, is not infrequent as a description 
 of God's act of giving His Son to a sacrificial death ; and wher- 
 ever it occurs, whether as denoting the Father's act in giving 
 the Son (Bom. viii. 32), or the act of the Son in giving Himself 
 (Matt. xx. 28 ; Gal. i. 4), it is always descriptive of the sacrifice 
 which He offered to God the Father. The mistake as to the 
 import of this phrase is enough to show how much of misunder- 
 standing and debate is often due to an inadequate knowledge of 
 language. It is not unworthy of notice, that some time ago it 
 was made a question whether this phrase was to be understood 
 in the sense of giving into actual possession, or in the sense of 
 giving in the gospel offer. The dispute arose from regarding 
 the phrase as simply intimating a gift, with a bestower and a 
 receiver, apart from the received usage of language in a certain 
 connection. In truth, it has neither the one sense nor the other, 
 when used in connection with the death of Christ. For when 
 God is said " to give His Son," or when the Son is said " to give 
 Himself," the language must be understood in the sacrificial 
 sense. Here, therefore, our Lord has in His eye, not so much 
 His sending or His incarnation, though these are involved, as the 
 sacrifice of Himself, when He was lifted up, 1 and was made a 
 curse for us. 
 
 There are a few points here mentioned in connection with the 
 atonement to which it will be necessary to advert. 
 
 1. The atonement is here described as emanating from the 
 love of God. These words of Christ plainly show that the 
 biblical doctrine on this point is not duly exhibited, unless love 
 receives a special prominence; and that it would be a misre- 
 presentation against which the biblical divine must protest, 
 if, under the influence of any theory or dogmatic prejudice, love 
 
 1 The sacrificial sense of 5w/ce may be proved both by the context and by 
 usage. As to the first, ver. 14, referring to the lifting up of the serpent, is linked 
 to ver. 16 by the logical particle for. As to usage, 1 may refer, e.g. to Gal. i. 4 ; 
 Rom. viii. 33. Hence, Bengel says, gab an das Kreutz (see note in German version) : 
 so too Calvin, Piscator, De Wette, Hengstenberg.
 
 46 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 is not allowed to come to its rights. If even justice were made 
 paramount, the balance of truth would be destroyed. As the 
 text under our notice alludes to both, or describes love as giving 
 the only-begotten Son up to a sacrificial death which is just 
 equivalent to the satisfaction of divine justice, it is here proper 
 to define the two. 
 
 Love, then, may be fitly regarded as the communicative 
 principle of the divine nature, or as the diffusive source of 
 blessing; and it receives different names, according to the 
 modification of the relation in which His creatures stand to 
 Him, or the varied course of action He pursues toward them. 
 Justice, again, may be defined as the conservating principle 
 of the divine nature or the self-asserting activity of God, 
 according to which He maintains the inalienable rights of the 
 Godhead. It is just run up to this, that He loves Himself, and 
 cannot but delight in His own perfections ; and hence, in de- 
 scribing it, the Psalmist says, "For the righteous Lord loveth 
 righteousness" (Ps. xi. 7). In a just conception of the divine 
 attributes, none of them can be said to predominate ; their equi- 
 poise being so perfect that it could not be disturbed without 
 ruin to the universe. It cannot be wondered at, that the 
 opponents of the vicarious satisfaction repudiate this equipoise 
 of justice and love in the work of redemption. They call it 
 " the dualism of the divine attributes," and they would resolve 
 justice into love. But the one can by no means be subsumed 
 under the other. They are as distinct as love to Himself, and 
 love to mankind, or as giving and retaining. He gives Himself, 
 in the exercise of love, to His creatures ; but He does not give 
 up, and He cannot recede from, those rights which belong in- 
 alienably to Himself as God. And the same principle is 
 daily practised by the man of active benevolence made in 
 the image of God, and acting like God in the communication 
 of diffusive goodness. He gives or communicates; but when 
 he communicates, he retains his own proper rights and pre- 
 rogatives.
 
 LOVE AND JUSTICE IN HARMONY. 47 
 
 With regard to the love of God, several modern writers, 1 in 
 describing the divine attributes, avoid calling love an attribute 
 at all ; chosing rather to call it a definition of God in His whole 
 procedure toward men, or the united concurrent action of all 
 the attributes. There seems no ground for this. But, on the 
 other hand, the selection of this one perfection by an inspired 
 apostle as the most descriptive name for God, furnishes suffi- 
 cient ground for giving a central place to it, and for investing 
 it, as it were, with all the other perfections, if we would arrive 
 at the most full and accurate idea that can be formed of God in 
 His relation to His church. Were we to invest love with all 
 the natural and moral attributes, and speak of omnipotent and 
 holy love, wise and omnipresent love, we should not mistake 
 the import of the phrase, GOD is LOVE (1 John iv. 8). Here 
 the love is viewed as self-originated, self-moving, free and in- 
 finite ; the text before us, as Luther well describes it, being a 
 little Bible in itself. The extent of the divine love delineated 
 in these words of Jesus, may be surveyed from the three points 
 here indicated the great Giver, the infinite sacrifice of God's 
 Son, and the unworthy objects. 
 
 But it must be further noticed, that when Jesus here sets 
 forth the divine love in connection with the atonement, it is not 
 stated simply to assure us of the divine love ; for He shows that 
 it mainly consisted in the sacrificial giving of the Son ; and this 
 it is important to apprehend. There is a necessity on God's 
 part, as well as on man's. While the death of Christ, as a 
 costly declaration of divine love, removes the slavish fear and 
 distrust which prompt men to flee from God, it does this only 
 as it meets a necessity on God's part, and provides a vicarious 
 sacrifice for sin. The text exhibits the harmony of justice and 
 love the demand of justice, and the provision of love. 
 
 This it is the more necessary to notice, because it is objected, 
 against any prominence to divine justice, that this is at the 
 expense of divine love. The one, however, by no means 
 1 E.g. Sartorius, Lehre von dcr Liebe.
 
 48 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 excludes the other. If a divine provision is made at all, it 
 could proceed from no other source but love; and the greater 
 the difficulty to be surmounted, and the more inflexible the 
 necessity which insists on a satisfaction to justice, beyond the 
 compass of our own resources, the greater is the display of 
 love. If love is in proportion to the difficulties to be overcome, 
 and if redemption could be effected only at the cost of the 
 humiliation and crucifixion of the Son of God, the love which 
 did not allow itself to be deterred by such a sacrifice was in- 
 finite. Then only does love fully come to light ; and they who 
 do not ackowledge the necessity of the satisfaction can have 
 no adequate conception of love. Thus the cross displayed the 
 love of God in providing the substitute, and was the highest 
 manifestation of its reality and greatness. If the demand or 
 the necessity for such a fact in the moral government of God 
 resulted from the claims of justice, the source from which it- 
 flowed was self-originated love. 
 
 2. But another point made prominent in this text is the value 
 of the sacrifice from the dignity of the only-begotten Son. As 
 the Lord in the previous verses designated Himself the Son of 
 Man, that is, by the title of His humiliation, He here describes 
 Himself by a title which calls up before us His divine dignity ; 
 and it intimates that such a sacrifice was of infinite value, and 
 sufficient to cancel sin, though infinitely great. The divine 
 nature united to the human, incapable of suffering in itself, gave 
 to the suffering of the Mediator an infinite value. The infinite 
 dignity and worth of His suffering, as the atonement of the Son 
 of God, had a perfectly expiatory efficacy for the redemption of 
 all for whom He gave Himself to death. 1 
 
 The design of this saying is to show that the communication 
 of the divine life is attainable only when love and justice coin- 
 cide in securing the acceptance of the person by the expiation of 
 the Son. All this is plainly put in as the preliminary to life. 
 As to the clause, " He gave His only-begotten Son," the allusion, 
 
 1 See below on the influence of Christ's Deity.
 
 LOVE AND JUSTICE IN HAEMONY. 49 
 
 as we have seen, is to the sacrificial death of Christ ; the very 
 idea of which, while it involves the utmost conceivable degree of 
 love, implies that it has the effect of pacifying an offended God. 
 The thought to which all these terms point is, that God cannot 
 forego His inalienable rights when He has been wronged, but neces- 
 sarily punishes, as a satisfaction to Himself; for He cannot deny 
 Himself. This thought is capable of solving several difficulties. 
 
 a. The plain meaning of this clause is repugnant to the notion, 
 too widely current in our time, that pure love, without any tinc- 
 ture of wrath, is the sole principle of the divine action toward 
 man; that we are not to speak of punishment borne, or of 
 vicarious obedience rendered ; that, in a word, it is not God's 
 relation that is to be changed, but man's. The clause under 
 consideration teaches the opposite, and shows us that the love of 
 God peculiarly appears in this, that He provides the very atone- 
 ment which puts Him on a new relation to those whose sins 
 had incurred His anger. The two principles, love to the race, 
 and love to Himself, are so far from being incompatible, that 
 they can be placed together in the atoning work of Christ. 
 Punitive justice, which is just regard for His perfections, called 
 for the penalty : love for our race provided the substitute to 
 bear it. What is there of incompatibility in these two ? 
 
 &. But, it may be further asked, as the atonement is the effect 
 of the divine love according to this testimony, how is it also the 
 cause of the divine favour ? Does not love so great imply that 
 He is already reconciled ? Here we must distinguish between 
 the moving cause and the meritorious cause. If we look at the 
 prime source of the atoning work, then the incarnation and 
 death of Jesus must be regarded as the fruit of love, and not as 
 its cause. But if we look at our actual acceptance, or the enjoy- 
 ment of divine favour, and the new relation on which God 
 stands to the redeemed, the atonement is as much its cause as 
 the counterpart Fall was the cause of divine wrath. 
 
 c. It may be urged yet further, that God does not hate man- 
 kind. But here, again, we must distinguish. It is the sin He
 
 50 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 hates and punishes : He loves the creature so far as it is His 
 workmanship ; but He cannot impart the effects and visitations 
 of His love, while the hindrances caused by sin are unremoved. 
 If men will continue to assert that God, without the interven- 
 tion of any reparation or atonement, can take them into favour, and 
 that He actually does so in the exercise of pure love, they assert 
 what cannot be deduced from the divine perfections, which are 
 ever in full equipoise. They assert, moreover, what is contra- 
 dicted by all the divine actions, in sending His Son, and " in 
 giving" Him that we should not perish. 
 
 The final clause, introduced by the particle of design, (tVa), inti- 
 mates that the channel of divine life is opened only when the 
 divine rights have been secured. It is the same clause which 
 we find in the previous verse, but in a new connection. In the 
 former verse it was placed in relation to the indispensable neces- 
 sity of the atonement ; in the present, it is put in connection 
 with the equipoise or adjustment between love and justice in 
 rectifying men's relation to God ; and this clause indicates that 
 the eternal life flows out of it. It is the more necessary to put 
 this matter in the proper light, because all the parts of modern 
 theology are so disjointed, and so much out of their due setting 
 in respect to the whole doctrine of the communication of the 
 divine life. 
 
 Our Lord and His apostles commonly adduce the redemption 
 or the remission of sins as the immediate end of the death of 
 Christ. But then the ulterior design of that new and adjusted 
 relationship is to secure a further end, the communication of 
 divine life. Thus the removal of the guilt of sin opens the way 
 for the impartation of the eternal life, as a further end ; and yet 
 it is in causal connection with the death of Christ, through the 
 acceptance of the person. The spiritual life is that to which 
 every man has a right who enjoys the remission of sins ; but the 
 immediate link is the acceptance of the person, or the remission 
 of sins, which is in order before the communication of the divine 
 life or the sanctification of the nature.
 
 LOVE AND JUSTICE IN HAKMONY. 51 
 
 It must be kept in view, then, that the design of Christ, in 
 offering Himself a sacrifice, was to free us from the power of sin 
 itself. But it is also true that this end is reached only through 
 the acceptance of the person as the immediate fruit of the atone- 
 ment, and by means of the Spirit of life, for which the death 
 of Christ paved the way. But neither the present, nor any 
 similar passage, represents the spiritual life as the direct and 
 immediate end of the death of Christ. To that a man can 
 possess no right unless the guilt of sin upon the person has 
 been removed. The person is accepted, and then the nature is 
 renewed. 
 
 To deduce from this passage and from others similar, as many 
 do, that life is first in order; and that the acceptance of the 
 man and the remission of his sins do not immediately flow from 
 the redemption- work of Christ, but immediately from the pos- 
 session of life, is to pervert the exposition of language. The 
 final particle used in such phrases is cogent. The argumenta- 
 tion from the tenor of the Old Covenant, " do" and "live," taken 
 up and enforced by the apostles as the competent interpreters of 
 the Eedeemer's words (Eom. v. 17), is conclusive. The opposite 
 opinion, too common and too much in vogue, turns all upside 
 down. These modern writers will not have a reconciliation 
 through Christ, but in Him, that is a reconciliation of a merely 
 mystic nature. They will have it, that God cannot forgive sin 
 but in a way which is in process of effecting its removal. And 
 hence, if the latter has precedence, they argue a previous satis- 
 faction or atonement is superfluous nay, impossible. But this 
 testimony puts the relation between the atonement and the life 
 quite otherwise. 1 
 
 SEC. X. SINGLE PHRASES DESCRIPTIVE OF THE UNIQUE POSITION 
 OF JESUS, OR HIS STANDING BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 
 
 There are phrases and titles used in regard to Himself which 
 argue that He was conscious of a quite unique relation to the 
 
 1 See note C in the Appendix.
 
 52 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 world, or, more strictly, to a flock or people whom He acknow- 
 ledges as His. Of these expressions we shall adduce a few. 
 The terms commonly used in the doctrinal discussion of the 
 atonement, and drawn from Bible phraseology, such as SURETY, 
 MEDIATOR, HIGH PRIEST, ADVOCATE all representing Him as 
 our substitute, who appears in the presence of God for us, and 
 conducts our cause, are not indeed found in the Lord's own 
 words descriptive of Himself. But, beyond question, the thing 
 is there; and He acts as fully conscious that, except through 
 Himself, as Mediator, God could have no intercourse with man, 
 nor man with God. He understands and consults the best 
 interests of His people in every respect: He took flesh, and 
 knows the infirmities of human nature by personal experience, 
 that He may sympathize with their condition, and compassion- 
 ately conduct their concerns : He was lawfully called and ap- 
 pointed to this function. And not only so : the sacrificial 
 language, which we find Him so frequently using, implies a 
 Priest, though he does not expressly appropriate the term. 
 
 These titles, both numerous and various, imply that He had 
 a relation to mankind which is unique ; that He stood between 
 God and man ; that He was not an individual unit of the race, 
 as all the negative theology represents Him ; but acting in a 
 representative capacity for it. He assumes a position that no 
 one but Himself could dare to occupy. Thus, when He calls 
 Himself THE WAY, in the saying, " I am the Way, the Truth, 
 and the Life " (John xiv. 6), He means that He is the exclusive 
 Way ; not only paving the way for others, but constituting, in 
 His own person and work, the only way by which any could 
 have access to God. That this is the meaning is evident from 
 the subjoined words, " No man cometh unto the Father but by 
 Me." Could Christ affirm this of Himself, if He were nothing 
 more than a teacher, an example, or a merely human founder of a 
 new religion ? Certainly not. It could not be maintained that 
 there never was any other teacher, or that Moses, David, and 
 the prophets were in no wise either commissioned or fitted to
 
 UNIQUE POSITION OF JESUS. 53 
 
 point out the way of acceptable worship. Neither could the 
 words hold, if they were interpreted of Jesus as an example or 
 as the founder of a new religion. There are other examples, 
 though by no means so perfect as He ; and were He only, like 
 Moses, the instrument or founder of a new religion, men might 
 accept the religion, and without much injury forget the founder. 
 But the Lord says that He cannot be omitted, forgotten, or 
 superseded, and that from first to last no man approaches God 
 but BY HIM. This shows Him to be a Mediator, a High Priest, 
 or introducer on the ground of His person and work, and cannot 
 be affirmed of any prophet or apostle that ever trod the earth. 
 
 He on the one hand contrasts Himself with all other men ; 
 while on the other He links Himself to the lost and condemned, 
 as their Physician and Deliverer (Matt. ix. 12 ; Luke xix. 10). 
 And to convey the idea of His unique relation to mankind, He 
 declares, in reference to all who set up rival claims : " All who 
 ever came before Me were thieves and robbers " (John x. 8). 
 He stood where no one but Adam ever stood, acting as one 
 for many ; offering a ransom as one for many (Matt. xx. 28) ; 
 shedding His blood as one for many (Matt. xxvi. 28). 
 
 The title of the BRIDEGROOM, which the Baptist ascribed to 
 Jesus, and which the Lord also appropriated to Himself (John 
 iii. 29; Matt. ix. 15), is especially noteworthy, as it exhibits, 
 with definite clearness, the relation which he occupies to the 
 Church, considered as a collective body, as well as to the 
 several individuals who compose it. He is designated the 
 Bridegroom who has the bride, as contrasted with all mere 
 ministers as but ministering to her (John iii. 29) ; and the 
 designation is one which brings out the tender love of Christ to 
 the Church, as exhibited not only in His whole relation and 
 course of action towards her, but, above all, in the fact that He 
 gave Himself for her ; or, in other words, offered Himself sacri- 
 ficially, that he might put her in this relation to Himself, and 
 array her with all the attractive graces of the Spirit. Michaelis 
 thinks himself warranted to maintain, from a text in Leviticus
 
 54 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 (xxi. 4), that the high-priest was called the bridegroom of his 
 people. Were this fully established, we should certainly see a 
 reason why the sacred writers make such frequent use of the 
 figure. But it is not absolutely certain. 
 
 We nowhere find, except in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the 
 term priest explicitly applied to our Lord. But that circum- 
 stance by no means forecloses the inquiry, whether there may 
 not occur, in the course of our Lord's instructions, titles of 
 similar import, or declarations from His lips, where the idea of 
 the priest and of the priestly sacrifice, though not named in 
 express terms, must be held to lie at the foundation of the 
 thought. And that we do find such sayings as unmistakeably 
 imply the one High Priest between God and man is certain. 
 Thus, when He announces that He came to give His soul or life 
 for many, we cannot fail to notice, whether we fix our attention 
 upon the word LIFE or upon the sacrificial phrase TO GIVE, that 
 He indirectly announces Himself as our High Priest (Matt. 
 xx. 28). The same allusion to a priestly function comes out in 
 connection with the saying that the flesh or sacrifice, which was 
 to be eaten by His followers, for the enjoyment of spiritual life, 
 was to be " given " by Himself, or, in other words, was to be 
 offered for the life of the world (John vi. 51). This priestly 
 oblation, in connection with Himself, and in which He was to be 
 at once the Priest and the Victim, is nowhere more distinctly 
 stated than in the words, " For their sakes I sanctify Myself " 
 (John xvii. 19). I only at present notice these passages as 
 testimonies, explicit enough, though indirect, to His priestly 
 function. They will be considered separately in the sequel. 
 
 All the phrases used by Him disclose a full consciousness of 
 His peculiar and unique relation. Thus He represents Himself 
 as standing over against the world, and mediating between God 
 and the world ; in the family as one of it, and yet able, repre- 
 sentatively, to act for it. He is called the "Saviour of the 
 World " a title which the Samaritans must have learned from 
 Himself (John iv. 42) ; the Light of the World (viii. 12) ; the
 
 THE SENDING OF JESUS BY THE FATHER. 55 
 
 Kesurrection and the Life (John xi. 25) ; who came down from 
 heaven with a charge to lose none that the Father had given 
 Him (John vi. 39). And His words indicate that He stood in 
 a representative relation even to the saints who had trod the 
 earth before Him as appears from His discussion with the 
 Jews as to Abraham's relation to Him (John viii. 53). To the 
 question, whether He was greater than Abraham, their common 
 father, He replied, that the patriarch in two ways rejoiced in 
 Him (1) in the far past anticipating His day ; and (2) in Para- 
 dise, when it came. He thus in effect declared that there was 
 no other name given under heaven among men, whether they 
 lived before His day or after it, by which they could be saved ; 
 and that there was salvation in no other. This fact proves that 
 His mediatorial work was retrospective as well as prospective, 
 and therefore, that it must be something else than a mere 
 example, however influential, as the latter can only operate 
 prospectively, or after the event, not conversely. He showed, 
 in a word, by many titles and expressions, that He stood in the 
 position of a MEDIATOR BETWEEN God and man, and that if men 
 did not believe in Him they should perish in their sins (John 
 viii. 24). But He abstains, for obvious reasons, from appropri- 
 ating the title most of all familiar to the Jews, that of MESSIAH. 
 He used it only once among the simple and docile Samaritans 
 (John iv. 26). The Jews had perverted its meaning ; and the 
 use of it among them would not have conveyed the meaning He 
 intended. But not only so : it seems that He could not have 
 used it except at the risk of civil confusion and political compli- 
 cations, from which He would keep His cause clear. 
 
 SEC. XI. SAYINGS OF JESUS REFERRING TO A SENDING 
 BY THE FATHER. 
 
 There are few expressions more frequent in the mouth of 
 Jesus than those which refer to His being sent. We find it 
 used by our Lord in connection with all the three offices with
 
 56 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 which He was invested (John xii. 49 ; Luke iv. 18). But we 
 limit our inquiry, according to the plan prescribed to ourselves, 
 to the sayings which have a reference to His priestly sacrifice, 
 or to His work of atonement; and, considered in this light, 
 it was meant to represent God in the light of the Supreme 
 Director and sole Fountain of the redemption-work. To this 
 view of the sending we shall limit our attention ; and it will be 
 found that, by the use of this phrase, the Lord uniformly inti- 
 mates that He did not assume or arrogate to Himself the dignity 
 or office of being the Eedeemer of sinful men, but that He was 
 appointed to it, or ordained by God to it. 
 
 To show what emphasis the Lord laid on this sending, He 
 says, "He that sent Me is true" (John vii. 28), an epithet 
 which, as the Greek word intimates (dX.i)6tvvs 6 Tre'/^as /*e), does 
 not mean true as contrasted with false, but true as comprehend- 
 ing everything that constitutes sending in the highest sense of 
 the word, or as exhibiting the highest ideal of a sender. It is 
 noteworthy, too, that the title, " The angel of the Lord," literally 
 THE SENT ONE OF JEHOVAH, is just the Old Testament synonym 
 for this expression. And this phrase, in Christ's mouth, will 
 thus intimate, " I am the Angel of His presence, who appeared 
 to the^p'atriarchs, and who spoke to Moses at the bush ;" who 
 was the Director and Guide of Israel's wanderings, the centre 
 of the Old Testament economy, and now made flesh to usher in 
 the new covenant, and the new order of things." 
 
 We do not in this place consider the sending of Christ in 
 connection with the thought that it involves the divine dignity 
 of His person, and thus giving infinite value and efficacy to His 
 whole work of atonement. That latter point is noticed in its 
 proper place. We limit our attention at present to the sending, 
 as evincing that THE EEDEMPTION is OF GOD, and the effect of 
 free, sovereign, and boundless love. 
 
 1. If we put together a few of the expressions used by Christ 
 upon this topic, we shall find that He, first of all, leads us, by 
 means of this phraseology, to the counsel of peace, or compact
 
 THE SENDING OF JESUS BY THE FATHEK. 57 
 
 between the Father and the Son for man's redemption. Thus 
 He says : " Say ye of Him whom the Father hath sanctified and 
 sent into the world, Thou Nasphemest; because I said, I am the 
 Son of God?" (John x. 36). This is quite of the same import 
 with the declaration of Peter, that He was foreordained before 
 the foundation of the world. It is plainly taught there that 
 Christ was appointed by God from eternity to be the Redeemer, 
 or that He was foreordained, and furnished with all that was 
 required for His task. By this phrase He would have men feel 
 that the atonement emanates from God; that it springs from 
 self-moving love; and that He arrogated nothing to Himself 
 when He brought it in. For, on the one hand, it could not have 
 been extorted from God, but must have freely emanated from 
 Him if it was brought in at all ; and, on the other hand, it could 
 not have been procured by any finite intelligence. This realiza- 
 tion of His sending, to which our Lord so often gives expression, 
 was descriptive of His habitual consciousness ; and the phrase 
 implies, that because men were involved in helpless impotence, 
 a divine purpose was formed to deliver them from ruin and con- 
 demnation ; and that, in the execution of the plan which had 
 this end in view, the Father held in His hand the rights of God- 
 head, and sent His Son, in the capacity of a voluntary servant, 
 to perform that work of suffering obedience which was necessary 
 for man's ransom. To the same purpose are all those passages 
 in the apostolic Epistles in which the atonement is immediately 
 referred to God, and represented as emanating from Him, or as 
 an arrangement appointed and ordained by Him, for the accom- 
 plishment of which the Son was sent as the only Mediator. 
 
 2. When we follow the successive steps of this sending and 
 it is important to do so, according to the Lord's description, 
 we find Him, first, alluding to a charge, commission, or obliga- 
 tion, laid upon Him, and which it was incumbent on the surety 
 to discharge : " / came down from heaven not to do My own will, 
 but the will of Him that sent Me " (John vi. 38). This com- 
 mission, as the context proves, was of a very extensive nature,
 
 58 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 comprehending the end as well as the means, the atonement 
 and its application to all who were given to Him. As to the 
 significance of this sending, it is not quite identical with the 
 incarnation, but differs from it as former and latter; for God 
 sent Him to be lorn (John iii. 17) ; while others can only be 
 described as born and sent. According to biblical phraseology, 
 we cannot say that He first received His mission after He was 
 born, and then addressed Himself to its duties ; for God sent 
 His Son that is, one who already was a person, and who was 
 the Son ; His mission being founded upon His eternal genera- 
 tion. And though the designation of "the Sent One" was 
 given to Him anterior to the incarnation for all the appear- 
 ances of the Angel of the Lord, or the Angel of His presence, 
 were only preludes to His coming in the flesh, the title was 
 never used irrespective of that atoning work which was to be 
 brought in by Him in the fulness of time. Not only so : this 
 sending of. the Son implies a divine counsel or covenant and a 
 voluntary condescension, but no real inequality between the 
 sender and the sent. His mission differs from that of His 
 apostles in this, that they were sent out as servants, He as an 
 equal, an ambassador, indeed, but yet with full equality. Nor 
 does it involve local separation from the Father ; for He was 
 STILL IN THE FATHER'S BOSOM, while He trod this world (John 
 i. 18). And the official subordination was not of such a kind 
 as to carry with it a depotentiation in any of His inalienable 
 divine perfections, but was only a means to an end, though an 
 end worthy of such stupendous means. 
 
 3. When we put together some of the many expressions 
 which fell from Christ's lips upon this topic, in the order of 
 natural sequence, we find it next said : " God sent not His Son 
 into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through 
 Him might be saved" (John iii. 17). This statement, taken in 
 connection with the allusion in the former verse to the giving 
 of His Son as a propitiation for sin that is, in the sacrificial 
 acceptation, as the phrase implies, intimates that He was sent
 
 THE SENDING OF JESUS BY THE FATHEK. 59 
 
 to be the atonement, and that by this means men are saved ; for 
 the sending was the cause of that effect. These two verses' 
 mutually explain each other ; for the sending comprehended in 
 it, as its scope or intended object, the sacrificial death. And 
 these two express, when viewed together, the plan or commission 
 given, and the end or purpose contemplated, the giving of His 
 Son for our salvation ; which, as we have already seen, can only 
 be regarded as sacrificial language. 
 
 4. When we advance in the successive steps of this mission, 
 we next find the Lord Jesus declaring that in no part of His 
 redemption- work was He left alone (John viii. 29) : " And He 
 that sent Me is with Me : the Father hath not left Me alone ; for 
 I do always those things that please Him." This remarkable 
 testimony, from Christ's own consciousness, intimates that He 
 was continuously upheld as He went from step to step of His 
 high work; and that the constant assistance, aid, or divine solace 
 imparted to Him stood in an ineffable connection with His sin- 
 less obedience, and, in fact, was a constantly renewed reward 
 for service done. We here get a glimpse into the heart of Christ 
 as the Mediator, and into the perpetual intercourse between Him 
 and the Father, such as we get nowhere else. He was at every 
 step anew rewarded. 
 
 Thus the " sending " intimates that the work of propitiation 
 for our sins was all of God, from first to last. The sanctifica- 
 tion or call of such a person for the purpose of being sent into 
 the world (John x. 36) ; the commandment or obligation imposed 
 upon Him, and which fidelity required Him to fulfil (John 
 vi. 39) ; the divine presence imparted to Him for the full dis- 
 charge of His mediatorial work, lest He should fail or be dis- 
 couraged (John viii. 29 ; Matt. xii. 18) ; the repeated recognition 
 of His obedience at different stages, at His baptism, when His 
 private life lay behind Him, on the mount of the Transfigura- 
 tion, when His public ministry was drawing to its close, and 
 when He must stedfastly set His face to go forward to a cursed 
 death, and in Jerusalem, whither He had come up to die
 
 60 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 (Matt. iii. 17, xvii. 5; John xii. 28) not to mention its final 
 acceptance and endless reward, all elucidate the significance of 
 this sending or mission, the thought of which was never absent 
 from Christ's mind. And what was in His thoughts came often 
 to His lips, as an ever present reality. 
 
 The great truth intimated by all these phrases is, that the 
 redemption is of God ; that the atonement to which the saints 
 looked forward who were saved before His advent, and to which 
 all look back who are saved since, was effected according to the 
 direction or will of Him from whom the world had revolted ; 
 that the sender was the Father personally considered ; and that 
 the grand object of the sending was to atone for sin. The 
 sending is thus an expression of authority, and a manifestation 
 of every divine attribute working together to a definite object. 
 But it is specially an exhibition of unmerited love or grace. The 
 atonement emanated from sovereign grace, and was an expres- 
 sion of the boundless and incomprehensible love of God's heart 
 to sinful men ; and we may affirm, in reference to this sending, 
 that there was a twofold object a proximate and an ultimate, 
 first of all to atone ; and then, by atoning, to secure the end 
 that of all whom the Father had given Him He should lose none 
 (John vi. 39). 
 
 5. But the Lord refers also to the reward awaiting Him after 
 having finished the work given Him to do, when He says, " / 
 go to Him that sent Me" (John vii. 33). This atoning work 
 received its meed of reward in a twofold sense, which, indeed, 
 is one : first, in the personal glory on which He entered ; and 
 next, as He is the forerunner, in that representative capacity 
 which He occupied for the good of others. And it is in this 
 sense that certain expressions are to be explained, which would 
 otherwise be far from obvious ; and He had the reward always 
 in view. 
 
 It may not be inappropriate, in this connection, to give a 
 brief elucidation of a passage of considerable difficulty, and 
 which has received very various expositions. I refer to John
 
 THE SENDING OF JESUS BY THE FATHER. 61 
 
 vi. 57: "As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the 
 Father [or, better, because of the Father], so he that eateth Me, 
 even he shall live by Me [or, better, on My account, because of 
 Me}." An examination of all the Protestant versions, as well 
 as of the patristic commentators, will show the strange per- 
 plexity into which they have all been thrown by this language. 
 The Greek fathers refer the first clauses to the eternal Sonship, 
 and to the divine life proper to the Son, by eternal generation. 
 They thus make these words parallel to John v. 26, which 
 undoubtedly has that sense. The Protestant versions, and com- 
 mentators generally, can make nothing of it, except by altering 
 the force of the Greek preposition, 1 which, when construed with 
 the accusative, means, and can only mean, because of, on account 
 of. But the words will not be found of difficult exposition if 
 we only attend to one point, which has always been missed 
 the priority of this sending to the life here mentioned. The 
 life ascribed to the Lord Jesus in this passage is not that which 
 preceded His being sent, not that divine life, therefore, which 
 belonged to Him as the eternal Son, but that life which followed 
 His being sent ; or, in other words, which is the reward allotted 
 to Him on the consummation of His work. The allusion is not 
 to the divine life prior to His mission, but to the premial life 
 which followed it, and which comes out in the passage, " This 
 do, and thou shalt live." And all the mistakes seem to have 
 been owing to not observing the priority of the sending to the 
 life here referred to, which is certainly taken for granted in our 
 Lord's words. There is thus no occasion, as there can certainly 
 be no authority, for altering the force of a preposition to solve 
 a difficulty. The allusion is to the mediatorial reward. Life 
 
 1 Si<i rbv iraTtpa. The Greek commentators explain it, for the most part, 5ia 
 rb yevvridTJvai IK &VTOS ira.Tp6s. The interpreters since the Reformation, following 
 Beza, have expounded Sia here construed with the accusative, in the same way 
 as they would have done had it been construed with the genitive. Beza appeals 
 to Aristophanes' Plutus, ver. 470. Liicke quotes the Greek scholiast on it, to the 
 effect that sometimes 5td with the accusative has the same force as it has with 
 the genitive. We have given the only tenable explanation.
 
 62 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 is the reward of the sending, or, in other words, of the work 
 accomplished ; and the present tense, / live, is just equal and 
 similar to the present tense in " I go to the Father." The verse 
 intimates that He lives, (1) as the reward of His accomplished 
 mission ; and (2) lives, too, as the source of life to others, who 
 live only on His account. A similar use of the expression SENT, 
 that is, as involving the completion of the redemption-work, 
 will be found in other passages in our Lord's discourses (see 
 John vi. 44), and also in the Epistle of John (1 John iv. 9). 
 
 The phrases, however, referring to the sending of Christ are 
 too numerous to be all noticed in detail ; and they are inter- 
 woven with the texture of Christ's teaching, so that we can 
 refer to them only in general. They all imply, that in the 
 matter of human redemption, two acting parties are presented 
 to our minds ; that the Father deputed, commissioned, or sent 
 the only-begotten Son ; and that the Son, in the exercise of a 
 boundless love, which appears at all points, came to give His 
 life a ransom for many. 
 
 6. When Jesus refers to the acceptance of His mission by the 
 world, He shows that full confidence in the fact of His sending 
 by His Father is of absolute necessity to a due reception of 
 Him and of His salvation : " He that receiveth Me, receivetk Him 
 that sent Me " (Matt. x. 40). If this mission is not credited by 
 those to whom the testimony comes, then they must conclude 
 that He came unauthorized, and that the work on which He 
 entered was planned and executed at His own discretion. He 
 would thus be no Eedeemer, called and competent to atone for 
 men ; for God, in whose hand they are as prisoners, can alone 
 discharge them, as the competent authority, and only in a way 
 glorifying to His perfections or name. Hence the importance 
 of recognising this mission. It is the badge of true discipleship; 
 for they who believe on Him, believe on Him that sent Him 
 (John v. 24). And the object aimed at by the organization, 
 love, and unity of the Christian Church at least one great 
 object outwardly is, as Christ declares, " that the world may 
 believe that Thou hast SENT Me " (John xvii. 21).
 
 THE SECOND ADAM AND THE COVENANT. 63 
 
 SEC. XII. SAYINGS OF CHKIST WHICH ASSUME THAT HE IS THE 
 SECOND ADAM, AND ACTING ACCOEDING TO A COVENANT WITH 
 THE FATHEE IN THIS ATONING WOEK. 
 
 In adducing some of those sayings of Jesus which, bring out 
 the idea of a federal transaction in connection with the atone- 
 ment, I shall limit my attention to those which bear more or 
 less directly on the vicarious sacrifice. The deity of Christ and 
 His personal relation to the Father are of course presupposed 
 in any allusion to the covenant. And here we at once perceive 
 the persons of the Godhead are found acting according to the 
 relation of natural order. A brief allusion to this great paction 
 or counsel of peace will enable us to perceive with greater clear- 
 ness the sphere in which the surety had to walk 
 
 That there is such an agreement between the Father who 
 gave a commission involving duty, promises, rewards, and the 
 Son considered as a public person, who appeared as a represen- 
 tative acting in the name of His people, is put beyond all doubt; 
 for it is referred to in various testimonies by Christ Himself. 
 The life of Christ, it is true, presents to us only the phenomenal 
 part of the mediatorial scheme, as it required certain words to 
 be spoken, or actions to be done. But all this emanates from a 
 covenant which proceeds on the ground that a representative 
 work was absolutely necessary, as man could be saved on no 
 other principle than on that which is found in connection with 
 his fall. It takes for granted, too, the donation of a people in 
 whose name He acted (John vi 37). Jesus, knowing that He 
 came from God and went to God, uses various words which show 
 a commission and announce the second man. 
 
 Though the similarity between the first and second Adam 
 is specially developed by the apostles in the fuller outline of 
 doctrine which they were appointed to give, our Lord's sayings 
 constantly assume an express counterpart or analogy between 
 the first and second man. He appeals to Himself as " the Son
 
 64 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 of Man," a title which, as we shall afterwards show, brings out 
 the idea of the second man with a peculiar modification. He 
 announces that He was come that His people might have life, 
 and that they might have it more abundantly (John x. 10) ; 
 which refers most naturally to that more abundant fulness of 
 divine life which was brought in by the second man, as con- 
 trasted with the forfeiture sustained by the first (Eom. v. 17). 
 
 To this correspondence or counterpart relation between the 
 first and second Adam it is the more necessary to refer, because 
 almost all the difficulties and objections urged against the atone- 
 ment at the present time proceed upon incorrect notions of the 
 primeval constitution given to the human race in a single man, 
 or from a denial of that constitution altogether. The doctrine 
 of the atonement cannot be understood at all, except on the 
 principle that the same constitution is laid at the basis of that 
 economy by which we are saved, as lay at the basis of that 
 economy by which we fell. That constitution was to the effect 
 that one man was regarded as the race, and that the race is still 
 the one, a constitution differing from that which was given to 
 angels, who stood each for himself, or fell each for himself. This 
 seems, clearly enough, deducible from the fact that only a part 
 fell. It does not fall to man to object to such a constitution 
 given to mankind, when it pleased a sovereign God to appoint it 
 for reasons, the wisdom and goodness of which we may not ques- 
 tion. Nor does it become us too curiously to inquire into those 
 reasons : God's will is reason enough ; and we only incur the 
 risk of darkening counsel by words without kowledge, when we 
 venture on a field beyond our scrutiny. 
 
 The objection of self-righteous men against the counterpart 
 provision of the atonement, has generally proceeded from a 
 disposition to challenge the justice or the goodness of that con- 
 stitution which it has pleased a sovereign God to establish. Of 
 course the world could be redeemed only on the same principle. 
 When men, therefore, argue that if their own virtue cannot save 
 them, they cannot be benefited by the work of another, how-
 
 THE SECOND ADAM AND THE COVENANT. 65 
 
 ever excellent, they only misunderstand, or fail to take into 
 account, that peculiar constitution under which the Creator saw 
 meet to place the race. The salvation of many by the righteous- 
 ness or atonement of Christ as the transaction of one for many, 
 is not out of keeping with the primeval constitution, according 
 to which the race stood related to Adam. The right relation 
 of the man, as such, or of the person, is only in a public repre- 
 sentative; and so long as the person is condemned, of what 
 avail are all his actions ? So fully are all the individuals repre- 
 sented by that one man, that we may say there have been but 
 two persons in the world, and but two great facts in human 
 history. 
 
 They who attach themselves to the new theology of this 
 century ignore this constitution given to the race ; or if they 
 nominally acknowledge a representative system, it is of such a 
 character as makes it refer to the NATURE exclusively, not to the 
 PERSON. It comes to be a mere individualism, as if the human 
 race were but a sand-heap or granulated mass, without any public, 
 corporate, or organic unity ; and Christ is the mere Lifegiver by 
 means of a mystic union to Himself, without any deed of meri- 
 torious obedience as the ground or foundation upon which 
 premially God bestows that life. They take no account of the 
 person as such, nor of the man in his relative standing, no 
 account in fact of a moral governor, of law, of guilt, of acceptance 
 through obedience. All that Paul sets forth in the fifth chapter 
 of Eomans is exhibited in the Lord's own sayings, with this ex- 
 ception, that He does not set over against each other, by the 
 same formal comparison, the disobedience of Adam and the 
 surety obedience which He Himself was bringing in. He gives 
 the one side of the parallel, and he leaves us to supplement it, 
 as the apostle has done by the running analogy or counterpart 
 of the other. That we receive the justification of life by Christ, 
 is not once, nor obscurely stated ; and that this is of course to 
 be contrasted with being made sinners by the first man, is 
 readily inferred. By the Son of Man we have the ransom
 
 66 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 (Matt. xx. 28), the remission (Matt. xxvi. 28), and life (John vi. 
 51) ; and this leaves us to infer, as all Scripture teaches, that we 
 have the opposite by Adam. 
 
 The same thing appears from the peculiar engagement or 
 covenant between the three persons of the Godhead, by which 
 one person demands the satisfaction, the second renders it, and 
 the third applies it. According to this counsel they have each a 
 different part to act, and a different relation to the sinner. There 
 was a covenant between the Father and the Son in behalf of a 
 peculiar class, who are described as given to Christ, or committed 
 to Him, with a special charge or command that none of them 
 should be lost. Thus He says : " This is the will of Him that 
 sent Me, that of all that He hath given Me 1 should lose nothing, 
 but should raise it up again at the last day" (John vi. 39). 
 That language implies, beyond all doubt, a commission on 
 certain conditions, whatever name may be employed to describe 
 it covenant, treaty, or compact, the Father on the one side 
 prescribing the duty, and promising the help which should be 
 required ; the Son, on the other side, engaging His heart to 
 appear before God in the capacity of a surety. The Gospel of 
 John is so replete with testimonies to this effect on the part of 
 Christ, that unless we take to our aid the elucidation supplied 
 by the idea of a covenant, there are many passages where we 
 can scarcely apprehend the meaning. The whole of His media- 
 torial commission on the behalf of a multitude given to Him, 
 and whom He is charged to keep (John vi. 39) ; His subjection 
 mediatorially to His Father, who is from this one circumstance 
 called greater than He (John xiv. 29) ; His declaration that He 
 acted from the Father and for His glory (John vii. 16-18) ; His 
 explanation of the engagement which bound Him to bring in 
 others who were not of the Jewish fold (John x. 16) ; and, in a 
 word, His whole intercessory prayer (John xvii.), proceed so 
 much on the idea of a covenant, and of a people given to Him 
 on certain terms, that we cannot understand the language on 
 any other supposition. And it is evident enough, from reasons
 
 THE SECOND ADAM AND THE COVENANT. 67 
 
 drawn alike from God's moral government and from man's 
 inability, that but for such a treaty or agreement on man's behalf, 
 a remedial economy would have been impossible ; for no cove- 
 nant between God and sinners could have been directly formed. 
 Two parties are plainly brought before us in all these testimonies, 
 one party imposing conditions, and a second undertaking to 
 comply with certain terms on behalf of a third party. That such 
 a treaty exists, then, in the counsels of the Godhead, cannot be 
 questioned by any one who will do justice to these words of 
 Jesus. And whatever preconceived opinions may be entertained 
 as to what is fitting or not fitting in the Godhead must be over- 
 ruled, when the word of God, as a sentence in a court of last 
 resort, has actually pronounced upon the point. We must refer 
 to this covenant as His rule of action. 
 
 That covenant rested on this basis, that as God at first had 
 created man under a representative constitution, or under a 
 system which was that of one for many, so the surety must 
 come on a footing precisely similar, nay, enter into the very pro- 
 visions of that first arrangement (Rom. v. 10). Thus Christ and 
 His people stand in the eye of law as one single person. There 
 were, properly speaking, but two persons in the world Adam 
 and Christ, in whom the whole seed, belonging severally to 
 these two, must be considered as contained. On the principle 
 just laid down, that Christ and His seed are viewed as one 
 person, it is plain that the salvation of His people was vir- 
 tually to be wrought out in the obedience and death of the Son 
 of God. The covenant rested on this basis, that the Son of 
 God, condescending to be Son of man, should enter into our 
 covenant of works, and that all who were given to Him should 
 enter into the federal reward. That this may be rendered more 
 clear, it will be necessary to sketch with all possible succinct- 
 ness the various conditions prescribed to Him. 
 
 1. It was necessary, according to that eternal paction, that 
 the Son should take a body as an indispensable preliminary to 
 His subsequent work of obedience, a humanity that should be
 
 68 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 sinless to stand for the sinful, holy to stand for the unholy, and 
 which could thus hide the stain of our original sin, as well as 
 lay a foundation for all the work on which He was to enter. 
 And the Father, who in every part of this great transaction 
 must be viewed as at once the lawgiver and fountain of the 
 covenant, prepared for Him a body (Ps. xl. 6-8). 
 
 2. The next thing prescribed according to the covenant was 
 the peculiar work marked out for the righteous servant. He 
 must be put under the law, and under that law as broken. 
 Some would make it appear that He was not necessarily made 
 under the law in the proper sense. But if it was to be a true 
 obedience on His side, and a true substitution or vicarious 
 action for others, He must stand under our covenant that 
 is, be made under the law of works, both as to precept and 
 penalty. 
 
 3. I pass from the prescription of duty to the promises of 
 assistance in His work, and promises of reward, when the work 
 was completed, for Himself, and for all whom the Father gave 
 Him. These are numerous ; comprehending, among others that 
 might be named, the promise of unction by the Spirit (Isa. 
 Ixi. 1), of a seed to serve Him (Isa. liii. 10), and of complete 
 and final victory (Isa. xlii. 1-4). 
 
 This covenant on which we have but glanced, exhibiting the 
 whole economy as springing from the Father's gracious will, 
 and as a scheme of grace, and nothing but grace, combines in 
 a vivid way all the doctrines of special saving grace. It is 
 peculiarly valuable as affording a bird's-eye view of the whole 
 economy from its commencement to its final consummation. 
 It is the unrolling of the map of God's procedure ; and in 
 putting together plan and execution, fact and theory, as we 
 shall proceed to do, we obtain a juster view of the grace which 
 projected the whole. It is of advantage to study in connection 
 the scheme and the accomplishment ; and when the vast pano- 
 rama passes in review, we gain in comprehensiveness of view 
 by the sublime and affecting spectacle in reference to all the
 
 INFLUENCE OF CHRIST'S DEITY. 69 
 
 work of Christ, and especially in reference to the great work of 
 atonement. 
 
 But the covenant, while glorifying all the persons of the 
 Godhead and all the divine attributes, is peculiarly useful as 
 exhibiting the humanity of Christ in connection with, a work 
 given Him to do. The following sections will exhibit Him 
 filling up this plan or scheme as replenished with the Spirit, 
 and as the perfect representative of what humanity should be. 
 Before the Redeemer's MERITS can be fully seen, they must be 
 read off from the covenant, and be viewed in connection with 
 it ; nay, it may be doubted whether there could be MERIT in the 
 proper acceptation of the term, except on the ground of a com- 
 pact or covenant for the performance of a given work. 
 
 This brief outline of the covenant will bring us to the con- 
 sideration of the other postulates of the atonement. 1 
 
 SEC. XIII. THE INFLUENCE OF CHRIST'S DEITY IN THE MATTER OF 
 THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 So close is the connection between the doctrine of the 
 atonement and that of Christ's deity, that they are always 
 found, as history shows, to be either received together or denied 
 together. The one is necessary to the other; and hence the 
 true Church has always in every age confessed to both. The 
 Lord connects the two as the two " heavenly things," on which 
 He lays the greatest stress in His interview with Mcodemus 
 (John iii. 13, 14). 
 
 It is the person of Christ, or Himself as a divine person, in 
 the performance of a work given Him to do and not His teach- 
 ing, merely, or the republication of lost truth that constitutes 
 the ransom. But one equal to the task of bringing a satisfaction 
 or atonement for millions must needs possess a divine dignity. 
 A mere man could as little redeem the world as he could create 
 
 1 See note D in Appendix.
 
 70 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the world : the Eestorer of man must be the Maker of man. It 
 does not fall to our present task to refer at large to the proof 
 of Christ's deity ; for our doctrine presupposes the reality of the 
 incarnation, that miracle of miracles, and the grand fact of all 
 history. Still less does it lie within our plan to notice the 
 recent negative speculations which look askance on the whole 
 miracle of Christ's life on earth. While they would explode a 
 particular incarnation as the unique fact of history, in order to 
 assert a general one, or an incarnation of the race, as they de- 
 light to phrase it, their deep error utterly mistakes the vast ruin 
 of mankind. And it assumes, too, the possibility of access to 
 God, and of reunion to Him, without a mediator. 
 
 Our Lord, for obvious reasons, lays great stress on His com- 
 ing into the world, or His coming in the flesh to do a work 
 which should at once rectify men's relation and bring life (John 
 v. 24). His entire teaching proceeds on the supposition that 
 the primeval harmony between love and holiness in promoting 
 man's good, which was disturbed by sin, is restored only by 
 His incarnation and death ; not by the incarnation alone 
 for then the grain of wheat would have continued to abide 
 alone, but by His incarnation and death. Not to speak of 
 rationalism, which always assumes that God is willing, without 
 any atoning intervention, to receive back the lost son to favour, 
 the more mystic theories of Christ's work, which lay all the 
 stress upon the fellowship in Christ's life, and the commence- 
 ment of a new humanity, are not greatly different. They 
 presuppose no work for which the incarnation is absolutely 
 necessary, and which could not as well be done without it. 
 They seem to say that the incarnation or the person of the God- 
 man is itself the atonement ; and yet it soon appears that for 
 the production of the new humanity they plead for, the incarna- 
 tion is superfluous. That which places the Church upon Bible 
 Christianity, and severs her from every phase of rationalism, is 
 the firm belief that the atonement was the work of the incarnate 
 Son, and that it is a provision offered by the divine love for the
 
 INFLUENCE OF CHRIST'S DEITY. 71 
 
 satisfaction of the inflexible claims of the divine holiness and 
 justice. 
 
 The point to be noticed here is the influence of Christ's 
 deity in the matter of the atonement. It may seem at first 
 sight that our Lord has said extremely little on the subject of 
 His deity, considered in this light. But the testimonies which 
 touch it are not few when they are all put together ; and He 
 has given the germ of all the subsequent statements made by 
 the apostles. If we examine the history of Christ's life, as 
 written by inspired men, we find that the two sides of His 
 person are brought out together in a quite peculiar way ; and 
 that the scenes which represent Him in His deep abasement 
 always contain, if we only look for them, discoveries or out- 
 beamings of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily. The whole 
 person, as divine and human, is in some way brought out, a 
 peculiarity of the biblical narrative, which is wholly lost in 
 human biographies of Christ. They cannot approach it. 
 
 Any system of doctrine looking with an unfavourable eye on 
 Christ's deity or His divine Sonship cannot have a consistent 
 theory of the atonement, as a few words will suffice to show. 
 This will appear whether we have respect to the Arian, the 
 Sabellian, or the Nestorian view of Christ's person. 
 
 (1.) The Arian scheme destroys all proper conceptions of His 
 satisfaction. If Jesus were not a divine person and infinitely 
 exalted above all law, He could not act for others. He could not 
 put on a lower nature for the purpose of being made under the 
 law ; and there could be nothing of merit in His work for others. 
 Supposing any scheme of attempted satisfaction for others, the 
 mediation of a finite person, it is obvious, could only be of 
 limited value, and could give no peace to a conscience awakened 
 by a sense of sin. With what confidence could we depend on 
 another if He had not power over Himself to give up to death a 
 humanity which He had freely taken into union with Himself, 
 and which was His own ? He could have no merit to give away 
 or to rectify man's disordered relation to His maker.
 
 72 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 (2.) Nor is an atonement possible on the Sabellian or in- 
 dwelling scheme. This theory, too current in our day, does not 
 admit a proper incarnation, and in fact goes no further than a 
 humanitarian theory of Christ's person. Such a person would 
 have nothing to spare, no superabundance of merit beyond 
 what was absolutely necessary for his own wants. By the sup- 
 position of being merely inhabited by God, He is but a creature 
 necessarily subject to the law, and precluded by the nature of 
 the case from acting vicariously. He could not put Himself 
 under the divine law for others. The utmost that could be done 
 would only be His duty. Whatever a creature has or is capable 
 of rendering, He owes already to His maker. 
 
 (3.) Nor is an atonement possible on the Nestorian theory 
 which divides the natures. We meet in all the words of Christ 
 as was to be expected from Him who is one person in two 
 conjoined but distinct natures the utterance of one self- 
 conscious I. It has been happily said by a modern writer : 
 " Considered in a purely exegetical light, there is no more certain 
 or clearer result of Scripture exposition than the position, that 
 the I of Jesus on the earth is identical with the I who was be- 
 fore in glory with the Father. Every sundering of the Son 
 speaking on the earth into two I's, one of whom was the 
 eternally glorious Word, and the other the humanly abased Jesus, 
 is rejected by clear Scripture testimony." 1 We everywhere 
 meet with the conscious utterance of the divine Word made 
 flesh ; and there is a communion between the two natures, of 
 such a kind that the properties of either nature belong to the 
 person. Thus the Son of God knows the human nature as His, 
 and speaks of it as His, while the human nature in like manner 
 speaks to us in the person of the only-begotten Son, and regards 
 the divine nature as its own. Hence all that can be affirmed 
 of the one nature can be said of the whole person. And from 
 this flows the infinite value of all He did and suffered. We are 
 warned by the whole mode of speaking followed by Christ, to 
 1 Liebner, in the Jahrbiicher fur Deutsche Theologie, p. 362. 1858.
 
 INFLUENCE OF CHRIST'S DEITY. 73 
 
 avoid such a notion of the union as thinks of a person who 
 is neither properly God nor man, but an undefined third 
 quantity. 
 
 The works of Jesus, accordingly, are the works of the person. 
 The humanity belonged to the Son of God, not to another ; and 
 the actions He performed were the actions of the Son of God. 1 
 This is assumed in all Christ's words; and this guiding prin- 
 ciple must be carried with us into the interpretation of all 
 His language. If we ascribe, then, to the person what belongs 
 to either nature, as we may and must, more value attaches 
 to the obedience and suffering of the Son of God than to the 
 sinless service of all creation. 
 
 A right view of this important truth will conduct us through 
 all the intricacies of this question ; and it may be well to. put it 
 in a clearer light from His own expressions. Thus He speaks 
 of the human nature as " My flesh, which I will give for the life 
 of the world," or the flesh of Him who came down from heaven 
 (John VL 51) meaning that the humanity is personally united 
 to Himself. If the humanity was not His own flesh, but that 
 of a man existing apart from the Son, and therefore inde- 
 pendently of Him, however sanctified, and however occupied by 
 God, it could avail nothing. There would be no merit of more 
 than creature-value in His obedience, no atonement in His blood 
 equivalent to our infinite guilt. 
 
 A biblical view of this truth is of the greatest importance 
 for our present discussion ; for the foundation of our redemp- 
 tion is overthrown at once by any separation of the natures, 
 or by any Nestorian division of them. When they are looked 
 at apart in this matter, then we may say, as was once said 2 in 
 the hearing of Nestorius: "Mere man could not save: the 
 naked Godhead could not suffer." The humanity of Jesus was 
 not a separate person with a distinct standing, but was taken 
 
 1 As the scholastic writers expressed it : actiones sunt suppositi. 
 * Thus Proclus expressed himself in the large church of Constantinople in the 
 presence of Nestorius.
 
 74 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 into personal union, and existed in the person of the Son, or 
 was the Son made flesh. Hence our Lord commonly expresses 
 Himself in such a way as to show that His humanity was that 
 of the Son of God, and that the actions which were done in 
 it possessed, on this account, an altogether peculiar value. Thus 
 He speaks of "MY body broken for you" intimating that 
 the broken body of such a person alone could meritoriously 
 wash away sin, and save the sinner exposed to deserved punish- 
 ment. If that body did not belong to the Son of God as His 
 own, and as assumed into His person, the suffering involved in 
 the breaking of His body, which was but of brief duration, would 
 not have been an equivalent for sin. Again, when He speaks of 
 His blood as " MY blood," the emphasis laid on the person, and 
 on the blood, as belonging to such a person, and not another, 
 cannot be mistaken. The actions are the actions of the person, 
 and hence the blood was of infinite value, because it was the 
 blood of the Son of God. 
 
 On this point it must be noticed, too, that in the work of 
 atonement, as well as in all other parts of His mediatorial 
 activity, Christ acted according to both natures. They ever 
 acted conjointly, but in their separate spheres. It is important 
 to keep in mind that they never acted apart in anything that 
 came within the mediatorial function. And this it is the more 
 necessary to mention, because the notion has obtained currency 
 in modern times, that the divine nature was for the most part 
 in abeyance during His humiliation, just as it was formerly 
 maintained, under the influence of other theories equally un- 
 scriptural, that the Lord was Mediator only according to one of 
 His natures, not according to both. But it must be laid down 
 as an undoubted axiom, that Christ, from the very fact of the 
 incarnation, did not, in any part of His mediatorial work, act as 
 man simply, nor as God simply, but as God-man. With this 
 concurrence of the two natures, however, to the production of 
 the same result, it was not less one act, because the person was 
 one ; and He is called one Mediator (1 Tim. ii. 5). It ought to
 
 INFLUENCE OF CHRIST'S DEITY. 75 
 
 be further kept in mind, that in all His mediatorial action, the 
 Godhead is the regulating principle ; and that the humanity, as 
 befits the lower nature, is subservient to the divine, to which it 
 is conjoined. This may be illustrated by the analogy of soul 
 and body. As the soul acts principally, and the body becomes 
 the subservient part, or instrument which the nobler part 
 directs, so in all the official work of Christ, the divine nature 
 was the principal cause. 
 
 These are first principles, which must be carried with us to 
 direct the conceptions which are formed, and the phraseology 
 which is used, in regard to any part of Christ's mediatorial 
 action, whether we think of Him during His earthly life, or in 
 His present condition. And hence the atonement is not appre- 
 hended according to His own representation of it, unless it is 
 seen to flow from the efficacy of both natures acting each in its 
 sphere. It is the work of the person, which is one; and the 
 atonement, as one work or act, is the result of the concurrent 
 action of the several natures. 
 
 Thus the sufferings belonged to the Son of God, just as we 
 should say of a person suffering in his hands or feet, that it was 
 borne by the person. The humanity was His, and so was the 
 agony, though the Deity could not agonize nor die. The inti- 
 mate connection of the atoning obedience with Himself may be 
 inferred from a more remote union which He also calls Himself, 
 viz. His redeemed people, who are regarded as His body or His 
 members. They were called so by Himself, when He said to 
 Saul the persecutor: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou ME?" 
 Now, this is a union far less close and intimate than that of the 
 humanity which He put on. Yet even in reference to this He 
 designates His people the joint heirs with Him, as His body, as 
 Himself. But as His humanity is much nearer and more inti- 
 mately joined to Him, we may affirm, as Scripture uniformly does, 
 that the humanity is the body of God's Son ; and that the obe- 
 dience, suffering, and death are also His, and, therefore, possessed 
 of all the value and worth that properly attach to Himself.
 
 76 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 This brings me more particularly to refer to the influence of 
 the deity of our Lord upon His work of atonement. According 
 to the plan we follow, we aim not to go beyond the limits of 
 exegetical investigation, nor beyond the import and significance 
 of Christ's words. We find three consequences derived from 
 the influence of His person, either directly taught, or easily 
 deducible from His words ; and to these we shall allude with as 
 much brevity as shall consist with the exposition of the lan- 
 guage. 
 
 1. As one effect of His incarnation, Jesus had power over His 
 own life : " I have power to lay it down, and I have power to 
 take it again " (John x. 8). Many doubts, insoluble on mere 
 humanitarian grounds, now disappear at once. We apprehend 
 how one could be an atoning surety for millions, and act a part 
 to which no creature was equal. A mere man, however en- 
 dowed, could not act this part ; for he had no right to offer his 
 own life; and a surety must offer his own, not another's. 
 Hence no one can be the master of human nature who is not 
 supreme God, producing and upholding it by his own power. 
 But having such a nature in personal union with Himself, and 
 therefore in a wholly different relation from that of an ordinary 
 man or unit of the species, He had power to lay down His life, 
 in order to satisfy the law in the room of others. He could offer 
 the life over which He had full authority in man's room. 
 
 It is assumed that humanity in this union was exempt from 
 any obligation to punishment or suffering ; and when He did 
 incur it, it evidently flowed from some compact, with a view to 
 obtain an end. He who owes nothing on his own account, and 
 yet pays, must plainly be considered as acting in the room of 
 others for the purpose of relieving the insolvent, or of setting 
 free the captive. The price could be given for others, because 
 it was not required for himself; and it was wrought out by such 
 a person only for this end. Our Lord says in the words ad- 
 duced, that He had authority or right to dispose of His 
 humanity; and He evinced this authority or power when He
 
 INFLUENCE OF CHRIST'S DEITY. 77 
 
 surrendered Himself into the hands of men, and spontaneously 
 breathed out His life on the cross. 
 
 2. As another effect of the incarnation, it must be mentioned 
 that infinite value or merit attaches to Christ's atonement. To 
 this there is an allusion when our Lord says, " God so loved the 
 world that He gave His only-begotten Son " (John iii. 16) ; and 
 the various references to His mission, to His humiliation as 
 the Son of Man, to His coming into the world, point, more or 
 less directly, to the influence of His deity in connection with 
 His atoning work. From this we understand how the obedience 
 of Jesus possessed such a value in His eyes who judges accord- 
 ing to truth, as to effect the remission of our sins, and the accept- 
 ance of the sinner. It was the obedience of the Son of God. 
 Considered in this light, there are several distinct effects which 
 the deity of Christ must be regarded as producing. 
 
 a. Such a knowledge of sin must be acquired as could spring 
 only from a full discovery of all the sins of men, past, present, 
 and to come ; and these must stand before His eye at a glance, 
 with a view to be confessed for us, and expiated in our stead. 
 This argues the omniscience of a divine person. 
 
 b. Not only so : the endurance of the curse or penalty was 
 wholly beyond the resources of mere humanity. Because the 
 sufferer was God-man, He \vas able to make atonement for infi- 
 nitely great sin. This involves the collision of infinitudes 
 infinite wrath for a world's guilt met by infinite endurance ; the 
 curse exhausted in order to be changed into a blessing, things 
 of such a nature that nothing short of omnipotence could be 
 put into the scale against them. The divine nature did not 
 suffer, and could not ; but in virtue of its union to the humanity, 
 the latter was able to encounter and bear more than a mere man 
 could have borne, because it was supported and strengthened 
 for that end. It does not follow, because the divine nature 
 poured out influences to support the human, and to prevent it 
 from giving way, that comforting influences were given in the 
 same proportion. The opposite appears from the events in the
 
 78 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 garden, and from the desertion on the cross. He knew the in- 
 finite hatred of God to sin, and drunk the cup of merited 
 penalty ; but the influence of His divine nature supported the 
 humanity in suffering what must needs be borne. He was de- 
 serted, yet sustained. 
 
 c. But it must be yet further remarked, that the Godhead 
 gave infinite value to the suffering. This was due to His being 
 the God-man. And because His suffering was of infinite value, 
 it was sufficient to satisfy for all whose redemption he aimed at 
 securing. This is the reason why the sufferings and obedience 
 of Christ could satisfy for thousands. If He were a mere man, 
 He could not satisfy for one ; but being very God, the dignity 
 of His person not only put the Lord Jesus in a position of 
 suffering what no mere man could ever suffer, but had an influ- 
 ence on the whole obedience. Scripture accordingly fixes our 
 attention on the person to deduce from it the value of His suf- 
 fering. The sufferings of finite creatures could never offer satis- 
 faction, though their endurance were eternal. But the divine 
 dignity of Christ countervailed the eternal duration of the 
 punishment ; for the element of duration is by no means essen- 
 tial to the satisfaction. He who can bear the infinite weight of 
 God's wrath is not subject to its eternal duration. Thus the 
 infinite value of the obedience is traced up to the divine dignity 
 of His person; the act of the Son of God in offering up His 
 humanity being the culmination of His obedience, and constitut- 
 ing merit for others. 
 
 3. Another effect of the incarnation is, that the party bought 
 must, by the necessary law of purchase, belong to Him who 
 redeems them. But man cannot be the lord of man. To this 
 proprietary right to His own sheep our Lord refers when He 
 calls them His sheep (John x. 2) : He proceeds to argue on the 
 ground of His omnipotence and His Father's dominion, that 
 none shall pluck them out of His hand ; and then subjoins the 
 ever memorable testimony to His divine consubstantiality with 
 the Father as well as to His distinct personality: "I and the 
 Father are one " (John x. 15, 27, 30).
 
 CHRIST FULFILLING THE SCULPTURES. 79 
 
 Thus, according to His own testimony, the influence of Christ's 
 deity in the matter of the atonement appears in all conceivable 
 respects. The Son of God suffered in our humanity: and in 
 that humanity He was vilified, despised, and crucified ; and 
 bore the punishment that must be borne in room of sinners. 
 Thus the Son of God was by the incarnation in the position of 
 sinners for the endurance of the punishment ; the dignity of His 
 person supplying what was awanting in the continuance of suf- 
 ferings limited to thirty-three years, Christ being no ordinary 
 man, but the Son of God. 1 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 SEC. XTV. CHRIST CONSCIOUSLY FULFILLING ALL THAT WAS WRITTEN 
 IN THE LAW OF MOSES, THE PROPHETS, AND THE PSALMS CON- 
 CERNING HIMSELF. 
 
 CONSCIOUS of being the Messiah, the Lord Jesus found allusions 
 in all the Scriptures to Himself. Capable of being influenced 
 by motives, like His people, His sense of the Messianic function 
 was nourished and sustained by all that was recorded in the 
 types, in the prophecies, and in the Psalms ; which, indeed, were 
 written for Him pointing out the sphere in which He was to 
 move and the spirit which He was to breathe as well as recorded 
 for the Church. Certain modern theologians cannot find Christ 
 in the Old Testament : to them the answer is, the Lord Jesus 
 found Himself in all the divisions of the word already named 
 (John v. 46). That He lived in the word can be doubtful to no 
 one who has reflected on the temptation by which He was assailed ; 
 the aim of which was to turn Him away from the word. Nor 
 was this dependence on the word unworthy of the Son of God 
 
 1 See Note E in Appendix.
 
 80 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 condescending to be man, or inconsistent with the personal union. 
 The question, however, to which we now direct attention is : Did 
 the Lord consciously, in the course of His earthly career, fulfil 
 what was written in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets, and in 
 the Psalms concerning Himself? This must be emphatically 
 affirmed. "We shall briefly notice the three divisions as they are 
 .mentioned by the Evangelist in referring to our Lord's interviews 
 with the disciples after rising from the dead (Luke xxiv. 44). 
 
 I. With reference to the types, the Lord, from His boyhood to 
 the close of His career, seems to have wistfully gazed on them 
 with a steady application to Himself (Luke ii. 49 ; Mark xi. 11). 
 An attentive study of the Evangelists will leave little doubt of 
 this on any mind. We find express allusion by Him to the 
 typical character of the manna (John vi. 32), to the brazen 
 serpent (iii. 14), and to the history of Jonah (Matt. xii. 40); 
 clear proofs that He found Himself in the Old Testament. That 
 He did not in express terms expound the sacrifices with reference 
 to Himself may be explained by the circumstance that the dis- 
 ciples were not yet able to bear it. He speaks of Himself and of 
 the work to which He had devoted Himself under representations 
 which, we may affirm, took for granted, in the most indubitable 
 way, that He was at once Priest and Victim (John xvii. 19 ; vi. 
 51-58 ; Matt. xx. 28). But it was only after His resurrection 
 that the nature of His death could be fully expounded and 
 correctly apprehended, in the light of the ancient types. And 
 accordingly we find that the entire typical system by which His 
 own mind had been fed for thirty years was then explained to 
 the disciples (Luke xxiv. 27). We find these comments of our 
 Lord repeated and interwoven in the texture of the apostolical 
 Epistles, but especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which was 
 devoted to this purpose. 
 
 II. As to the prophecies, we find the Lord consciously engaged 
 in fulfilling them to the close of His career. One memorable 
 distinction to be drawn between Christ's fulfilment of the 
 prophecies and the fulfilment which they received at the hand
 
 CHEIST FULFILLING THE SCRIPTURES. 81 
 
 of men and even from His own disciples, may here be specified. 
 He fulfilled them consciously : they were mere unconscious 
 instruments in a higher hand. No one can peruse the record of 
 the Lord's life without being peculiarly struck with the marked 
 distinction in this respect between Him and His disciples. The 
 latter remembered what they had done to Him at a subsequent 
 time, and then saw an accomplishment of prophecy (John xiL 
 16); whereas the Lord Himself, with a wholly different view, 
 consciously connected past prediction and present fulfilment at 
 every step (John xiii. 18 ; Mark xiv. 27). 
 
 The Messianic prophecies were so numerous and express that 
 before this great Person appeared among men no obscurity was 
 left on anything connected with His person, offices, or work. 
 And our Lord, in the exercise of His Messianic consciousness, 
 may be conceived of as living and moving in that sphere marked 
 out for Him by type and prophecy. We shall omit, however, the 
 passages cited by others, and refer to those only which were 
 quoted by the Lord Himself, and, therefore, spoken from His own 
 consciousness. The more general allusions to the Messiah's 
 sufferings may also be omitted (Luke xviii. 31). Two passages, 
 however, are worthy of special notice. 
 
 (1). One of these has reference to the servant of the Lord in the 
 well-known passage which describes the vicarious sufferings of 
 Messiah (Isa. liii. 12). Our Lord's quotation is as follows : " I 
 say unto you that this that is written must be accomplished in 
 Me, And He was numbered among the transgressors ; for the 
 things concerning Me have an end" (Luke xxii. 37). They who 
 persist in interpreting the designation, The Servant of the Lord 
 (Isa. liii. 11), either of Isaiah or the people of Israel, involve 
 themselves in contradictions and insuperable difficulties, and 
 must content themselves with the most forced interpretation. 
 Christ interprets that section of the prophet concerning Himself, 
 and every reverent expositor at once accepts His commentary as 
 decisive ; for the saying is put by Luke in the mouth of the Lord. 
 
 The words, " the things concerning Me have an end," must mean, 
 
 F
 
 82 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 as the best commentators interpret them, the things concerning 
 Me have their issue or accomplishment. They emphatically 
 bring out that Jesus was consciously fulfilling prophecy, and that 
 this was the element in which He lived. 
 
 (2). The second passage, referring to the smitten shepherd, is 
 equally explicit (Zech. xiii. 7 ; Mark xiv. 27). We must 
 repudiate every exposition of this passage which does not refer 
 it to the violent death which the Messiah, the Great Shepherd of 
 the nation, underwent by God's command. An abbreviated 
 quotation, as the Lord gives it that is, taken from the first and 
 last portion of the verse it must be seen in the context ; and 
 thus viewed it sets before us with the utmost clearness One who 
 is at once THE MAN by eminence and yet the FELLOW of the Lord 
 of Hosts. When He is further called MY SHEPHERD, the allusion 
 is to the Messiah as appointed by the Father. It is a violence 
 done to the passage to refer it to the order of shepherds generally. 
 And when the shepherd is represented as about to be pierced by 
 the sword of the Lord, but not in the defeat of battle, the issue, 
 as is further stated, is a temporary scattering of the sheep only 
 to be followed by a gathering together to Him, and by God's 
 protecting as well as collecting hand being extended to the little 
 ones. 
 
 III. The Psalms, the third division of Scripture expounded by 
 our Lord subsequently to His rising, delineate, in a manner not 
 less expressive, His Messianic history and experience. They 
 were a vehicle prepared to hand, in which the sin-bearing 
 Substitute, when He came, found sentiments and utterances 
 suited to His position. His holy nature of itself breathed the 
 same feelings of complaint, prayer, and submission. But for wise 
 reasons the inner exercises were there outlined by the same spirit 
 which filled His pure humanity, and prompted Him to complete 
 the sacrifice. And perhaps no consideration gives such an im- 
 pressive view of the necessity of having the word dwelling richly 
 in the human heart, and of men being held by it in all their 
 mental exercises. It does not fall within my present task to
 
 CHRIST FULFILLING THE SCRIPTURES. 83 
 
 discuss the question, confessedly difficult, how far Christ's expe- 
 rience is reflected in the entire Book of Psalms, and to what 
 extent it is warrantable to accept the position laid down by 
 Horsley, Home, Barclay, and others, that all the Psalms may be 
 so explained. We shall not turn aside to this question : for the 
 plan of investigating the sayings of Jesus limits us to those 
 which He quotes as spoken from His own consciousness. We 
 notice only four Psalms descriptive of Christ's betrayal, and suffer- 
 ings, and entering into details with an accuracy, which only 
 omniscience could have sketched (Ps. cix., Ps. Ixix., Ps. xxii., 
 Ps. xli.). That the speaker in these Psalms is not an ordinary 
 sufferer may easily be proved. Unless the sufferings depicted 
 with such minuteness affected man as man, and related to one 
 who stood in a unique relation to the world, the description 
 would have outrun the reader's sympathy. For why introduce 
 the sorrows of one man, if he were but a man, into the worship of 
 God ? To set them forth with minuteness, as if humanity could 
 take such an interest in any hero, however distinguished, would 
 be too exacting, and would only be repelled, unless the sufferer 
 touched humanity at all points, and his fortunes came home to 
 men's business and bosom in all ages. But the enigma is ex- 
 plained when we rise to the idea that the great sufferer was the 
 substitute of others, and that all centuries, till time shall be no 
 more, have an equal interest in the sorrows He underwent. In 
 His woes men see what rescues them from their own. 
 
 Psalm cix., more than once adduced (John xv. 25 ; Acts i. 20), 
 discovers to us how the Redeemer was affected by the treachery 
 of Judas. That the Psalm treats of Judas is proved by ver. 8, 
 as it was expounded by Peter upon the occasion when he 
 assigned the ground or warrant for electing another to the 
 vacant place in the college of apostles. When one of the 
 apostles died in the Lord, or was removed by martyrdom (Acts 
 xii 2), no election of another ensued, and consequently the 
 number soon passed away. But as there was to be no vacant 
 seat in the twelve thrones occupied by the apostles in the re-
 
 84 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 generation, it was provided that another should be substituted 
 in the room of Judas. The opening words of the Psalm seem 
 to be an allusion to the calumnies and reproaches heaped upon 
 Christ when the treachery was concerted, and the Messiah turns 
 to God as the object of His boast and praise (ver. 1-6). Next 
 follows a delineation of the fate of Judas ; his despair ; the 
 shortening of his days ; the ruin of his family (ver. 9) ; the dis- 
 persion of his ill-gotten substance (ver. 11) ; and Christ's own 
 trust in God (ver. 21). What seems an imprecation against 
 Judas is only the infliction of a righteous doom upon the greatest 
 of sins, and a sublime acquiescence in it. 
 
 Psalm Ixix., quoted no fewer than six times by the New Testa- 
 ment writers, 'presents another memorable outline of Messianic 
 experience. How far the Psalm has a primary reference to 
 David it is scarcely necessary to inquire ; for though that may 
 generally be taken for granted when the tenor of a Psalm does 
 not outrun the writer's experience or the facts of his history, a 
 different canon of interpretation was acted on both by Peter and 
 Paul, when the words of the Psalm transcend all that could be 
 said of David (Acts ii. 29-33; xiii. 35-37). The self-consuming 
 zeal for the house of God (ver. 9) ; the gall and vinegar given 
 Him for food (ver. 21) ; and other elements delineated in the 
 Psalm, have no application to David. The speaker describes 
 Himself as sinking in deep mire, as coming into deep waters 
 which overflowed Him, and continues in this strain to ver. 
 22, setting forth the complaints of Messiah in His last suffer- 
 ings. Perhaps we do not err in assuming with Eoos, that 
 Psalm Ixix. refers to the time preceding the three hours' dark- 
 ness which covered the land, and that Psalm xxii. refers to the 
 period of desertion which followed. This Psalm unfolds to us 
 how the Saviour during His crucifixion reflected on His present 
 and previous sufferings, and how He lamented and prayed. He 
 declares that the reproaches of them that reproached God had 
 fallen upon Him (ver. 9) ; that He had been the song of the 
 drunkard, doubtless when He went about doing good, mighty in
 
 CHRIST FULFILLING THE SCRIPTURES. 85 
 
 deed and word (ver. 12); and that in the exercise of strict 
 severity, though not too severe, a dread doom was impending 
 over those who rejected their Messiah (ver. 23-29). Bright 
 prospects breaking out from behind the terrible gloom of His 
 sorrows, sustain His soul after these complaints (ver. 30-37) ; 
 and there is a joyful end to these sorrows both for the sufferer 
 and for all the earth. Under all these woes He was perfectly 
 innocent, sustaining them for others (ver. 5-6) ; for He restored 
 what He took not away (ver. 4). 
 
 We come next to Psalm xxii., which has this in common with 
 Psalm Ixix., that it begins with deep complaint and closes with 
 the brightest prospects. That Messiah alone is the speaker 
 throughout this entire Psalm must be evident, we think, to any 
 one who, without prejudice, examines the contents. Though 
 David, the penman, was subject to many bitter trials, and though 
 circumstances in his lot may have been the occasion which 
 suggested or prompted the Psalm, it is evident that throughout 
 the whole tenor of this poem bringing before us the fortunes of 
 one person, we have not David but his greater offspring ; one 
 born by a peculiar exercise of Divine power, cast on God from 
 the womb, and occupying a close relation to God (ver. 9, 10). 
 Then we have a description of sufferings unknown to David, for 
 when was David so deserted as to be a worm and no man, reck- 
 lessly as it were trodden under foot ? When were his garments 
 parted among men and lots cast for his vesture (ver. 18) ? 
 When did they revile and sarcastically despise him as a pre- 
 tender or would-be deliverer of the people (ver. 8 ; Matt, xxvii. 43) ? 
 When did they pierce his hands and his feet a well-known 
 description of suspension on a cross ? Our authorised English 
 Version has here done well in so rendering the verse, in deference 
 to the Septuagint and authorities much older than the Maso- 
 retic punctuation, which has, either from mistake or by design, 
 introduced a reading which cannot be vindicated. Besides all 
 these arguments derived from the contents, we have the un- 
 erring authority of the apostles (John xix. 23 ; Heb. ii. 12), and
 
 86 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 of our Lord Himself when He quoted the Psalm amid the gloom 
 of the desertion, as finding its full significance in His experience 
 on the tree. 
 
 When we examine the words, we find Him first of all com- 
 plaining of the sad sense of desertion, and appealing to God to 
 remember the REASON WHY He was in such a case (ver. 1). As 
 the reason of the desertion was not due to any personal cause 
 separating between God and Him, He prayed that it might not 
 go beyond what was indispensably required for the end con- 
 templated, and might take end in His temporal death. It was 
 natural, nay reasonable, to spread out before His Father, more 
 especially as His life hastened to a close, that the cause of His 
 desertion was man's redemption and the Divine glory in con- 
 nection with it, and to ground upon this a conviction of being 
 heard in a way consistent with the Divine rectitude, but leaving 
 the mode of deliverance with God. When it is added that He 
 prayed day and night but was not heard (ver. 2), a difficulty has 
 been started as to the import. But we need go no further than to 
 the simple fact that during the thickening sorrows of the last day 
 of His pilgrimage, He had thus prayed amid the agony of Geth- 
 semane and the increasing desertion of the following day, until, 
 towards the day's decline, He commended His spirit to His Father. 
 
 But how, it is asked, are we to apprehend the argument for 
 deliverance drawn from the fact that He had ancestors in Israel 
 who cried and obtained deliverance ? There is no difficulty as 
 to referring this language to the Lord. He might argue, " I am 
 an Israelite, enrolled as such by the rite of circumcision, and 
 if the fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob hoped, and were 
 delivered, a similar deliverance, will be extended to Me" (ver. 
 4-5) : or it may be an argument from the stronger reason, as 
 follows ; " The believing fathers of our nation, also My fathers 
 according to the flesh, trusted and were not confounded ; and 
 shouldest not Thou deliver Me, Thy beloved Son, who am the 
 ground of all that confidence which the fathers exercised, from 
 this tribulation and perplexity ?"
 
 CHEIST FULFILLING THE SCRIPTURES. 87 
 
 In the sequel of the Psalm the Lord utters a distinct persua- 
 sion as to His death, " And THOU hast brought Me into the dust 
 of death" (ver. 15). When we inquire by whom the Messiah 
 was brought into the humiliation of actual death, we find that 
 though dogs are said to compass Him, that is heathen soldiers 
 acting against Him ; though the assembly of the wicked are said 
 to inclose Him, that is the company of the chief priests and 
 their faction, yet Messiah's death is emphatically ascribed to 
 God Himself ; " THOU hast brought Me." Properly speaking the 
 Lord was not overcome by His enemies. They could have had 
 no power at all to exercise over Him but for His voluntary 
 undertaking, and the consequent judgment exercised upon Him 
 by the righteous Father. This is put beyond doubt by His own 
 reply to Pilate (John xix. 11), and by Peter's exposition (Acts 
 ii. 23). 
 
 As to the concluding portion of the Psalm (ver. 24-32) it 
 means as spoken by the dying sufferer, that subsequently to His 
 resurrection He should be the medium of all the Divine com- 
 munications towards man, and of all the returns of praise to 
 His Father (ver. 25). Then follows a sublime description of 
 the fruits of His atonement in accomplishing the world's salva- 
 tion, in emancipating the nations, and in effecting the conver- 
 sion of the ends of the earth ; and we see how much, in the 
 closing hours of His life, He derived comfort from the clearly 
 perceived fruits of His redemption as enjoyed by His people. 
 They who attentively analyse Psalm xxii. easily discern that the 
 great sufferer who complains of the desertion was one who 
 trusted in God from His birth, and the mention of the seem- 
 ingly incidental parts of the scene, such as the casting lots for 
 His vesture, indicate an extraordinary person, whose fortunes 
 down to their smallest details were foretold, and would touch a 
 chord in human hearts while the world stands. It appears, too, 
 that in all His sufferings God had a hand, and that His enemies 
 did only what God, according to His counsel and foreknowledge, 
 had beforehand determined to be done.
 
 88 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 The three Psalms which we have briefly expounded have 
 much in common, and yet are remarkably different. Psalm xxii. 
 makes little mention of His enemies, and not at all in the way 
 of alluding to the vengeance or recompence awaiting them. 
 The sufferer appears as one forsaken, and pours forth in His 
 Father's ear His complaint as suffering the hiding of His face. 
 Here all the suffering appears as coming from the hand of God, 
 and as but a consequence of the great calamity of desertion, 
 under which all else may be reduced. In the two other Psalms 
 the sufferer adverts to the hostility displayed by His people to 
 His instructions, admonitions, and reproofs ; and to the way in 
 which they requited His love with reproaches, indignities, and 
 betrayal. It is a commentary on the words of John, " He came 
 unto His own, and His own received Him not" (John i. 11). 
 
 These two elements or causes of Christ's sufferings, according 
 to the outline furnished by prophecy, are clearly traced in what 
 befell the Lord. This double aspect of the sufferings of Jesus, 
 that is, sufferings such as were sent direct from God, and such 
 as were mediately inflicted by the hands of man, were closely 
 connected together. If God had not appointed and sent them, 
 men could not have inflicted ought of suffering. He was beyond 
 their reach. But when God made Him to be sin (2 Cor. v. 21), 
 the sin-bearer, and therefore the curse-bearer, He was placed in 
 a position where He, who in Himself was far beyond all created 
 power, could be seized, and treated with indignity and injustice 
 at the hand of man. 
 
 This leads me to notice the prophecy of His betrayal in 
 another Psalm (xli. 9) as quoted by our Lord Himself : " I speak 
 not of you all : I know whom I have chosen : but that the 
 Scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with Me hath 
 lifted up his heel against Me" (John xiii. 19). The tenor of 
 that prophecy implied that among the intimate friends of 
 Messiah a traitor was to be found. Judas was to carry out his 
 purpose that same night ; and the Lord subjoins, that He would 
 have them informed beforehand, that they might not be shaken,
 
 CHEIST FULFILLING THE SCRIPTUKES. 89 
 
 but confirmed, in their faith in His Messiahship. They should 
 see that His delivery into the hands of men was no contingent 
 effect of human malice, but the result of the divine purpose or 
 determinate counsel, which He clearly foresaw and announced 
 before it came to pass. Did Judas understand Him ? Yes : 
 this quotation and the further exposure of him to the rest of the 
 disciples by the sop (John xiii. 26) rendered it impossible for 
 Judas not to understand Him. But Jesus, knowing that God's 
 plan should be executed and the words of prophecy fulfilled, 
 was not solicitous that the traitor's purpose should be abandoned. 
 In like manner He had, in connection with the parable of the 
 wicked husbandmen (Matt. xxi. 42), intimated to the high-priests 
 that their wicked purpose was well known to Him, and that in 
 carrying it out they only fulfilled an ancient prophecy with 
 which they were familiar that the stone which the builders 
 rejected should become the Head of the corner (Ps. cxviii. 22). 
 They understood Him, but remained undeterred in their pur- 
 pose, with the usual blindness of wicked men. 
 
 Here the inquiry suggests itself: How could His fellow 
 countrymen continue so completely ignorant as to His Messiah- 
 ship ? He knew it : His disciples knew it : and the entire 
 nation might have known it. But partly from a perverting 
 legalism, partly from prepossessions as to the earthly nature of 
 His kingdom, partly from ignorance of the actual circumstances 
 of His birth, they concurred in rejecting Him. As to their 
 legalism, they misapprehended the true nature of the law and 
 perverted it from its proper use, mistaking the meaning of the 
 sacrifices, as if men were to be justified by the use of them as 
 meritorious works of law. As to the prophecies of Messiah's king- 
 dom, they regarded these as referring to a temporal dominion 
 over subject nations, instead of viewing it as a kingdom based on 
 His atoning death. And as to the circumstances of Christ's birth, 
 they were at no pains to institute any inquiry. The design of 
 Providence in ordering Messiah's lot so that His death should be 
 brought about as it happened, thus unfolds the wisdom of God.
 
 90 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 The memorable circumstances of Christ's birth were no longer 
 in men's memory. He had been announced by angels to the 
 shepherds of Bethlehem when He was born. He was visited 
 by the shepherds, and they made known abroad the saying 
 which was told them concerning the child (Luke ii. 7). The 
 Magi from the East had been led by the supernatural guidance 
 of a star to the new-born King, and produced at Herod's court 
 an excitement or sensation so great that it was the occasion of 
 convening an assembly of priests and scribes to determine from 
 prophecy where He should be born. When all this is taken into 
 account, it seems to us at first sight inexplicable that events 
 such as these could have passed from men's memory. But thirty 
 years had intervened between the birth in Bethlehem and the 
 public ministry of Jesus, who was only known as the carpenter 
 of Nazareth. Perhaps few except Mary remained to whom the 
 wonders of Bethlehem were known, or the salutation of Simeon 
 and Anna in the temple. The Magi had not returned to Herod 
 to confirm the impression which their visit occasioned. Then, 
 the utmost perplexity as to the fate of the child was caused by 
 the order of Herod to cut off the infant children of Bethlehem ; 
 the tears of Eachel weeping for her children being largely due to 
 this, that all hope seemed cut off. After returning from Egypt, 
 the long sojourn of thirty years in Nazareth, His mean condition, 
 His manual labour, and the fact that there is not the least trace 
 of His having visited Bethlehem or allowing anything to trans- 
 pire that connected Him with it as the place of His birth, all 
 tended to fix attention on Him merely as the man of Nazareth. 
 Hence, though He performed innumerable miracles, they had no 
 other effect among the bulk of the community, educated or 
 illiterate, but to win an acknowledgment of Him as a prophet ; 
 but they who admitted this claim concluded that He could not 
 be the Messiah. Their difficulty would have been removed had 
 they known His birth-place and the facts that so marvellously 
 heralded Him into the world. Besides, Jesus did not speak of 
 His Messiahship in public. Hence, notwithstanding His doc-
 
 CHKIST FULFILLING THE SCRIPTURES. 91 
 
 trine and miracles, He was taken for a prophet, but not for the 
 Messiah. His humiliation, read aright in the light of prophecy, 
 might have served as a proof that He was the long-predicted 
 Christ. But the doctrine of the Jewish Church was so cor- 
 rupted that an idea had been formed of the Messiah which 
 could not be harmonized with His actual appearance ; and all 
 was so ordered, in adorable wisdom, that the nation might do 
 what they would not have done had the princes of this world 
 known Him (1 Cor. ii. 8). These prejudices prevented men from 
 acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah. How little even His own 
 disciples expected His death is evinced by all His history. 
 
 But why was such ignorance and unbelief permitted to pre- 
 vail ? The purpose of God was that He should die as a propi- 
 tiation for sins, and in order to this be the despised and rejected 
 of men. Hence He must be unknown (1 Cor. ii. 8). The Lord 
 Himself avoided everything that might prevent the execution of 
 the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. He neither, 
 in His public instructions, announced His Messianic dignity nor 
 suffered His disciples to make Him known, adding that He must 
 suffer and die (Luke ix. 21). He avowed His Messiahship pub- 
 licly only before Caiaphas, when the avowal hastened the con- 
 summation of His sacrifice. Here, then, we see the infinite 
 wisdom of God. 
 
 But, it may be asked, How could they so treat Jesus regarded 
 merely as a prophet ? The reason is at hand. Not a few took 
 Him for a prophet with an obscure vague impression that He 
 was something more, and that He might yet declare Himself 
 as the Messiah ; but when they heard that He was seized and 
 placed as a criminal at the bar of a human judge, they accepted 
 it as a settled matter that He could have no claim to the Mes- 
 siahship, and that His reply to the High-priest, when adjured to 
 declare Himself, was a strange and inexplicable claim. They 
 who favoured Him as a prophet were stunned, and many who 
 had previously honoured Him, carried away with the chagrin 
 and disappointment of the hour, joined in the cry, " Crucify
 
 92 SAYINGS OF JESUS OX THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Him ! " Xay, the concentrated essence of the reproach which 
 they heaped upon Him took this form : " If He is the Christ, let 
 Him come down from the cross." 
 
 The misconception under which the rulers and people rejected 
 Him may be supposed to excuse their conduct. Undoubtedly 
 this rendered their sin, terrible as it was, capable of forgiveness. 
 For had they rejected Jesus, the Messiah and the Son of God, 
 with a full knowledge of His dignity and a full consciousness of 
 their act, we may unhesitatingly affirm that parties guilty of 
 such a crime could find no salvation. This distinction as to 
 their criminality is warranted by the language of Peter in ad- 
 dressing those Jews who had denied the Prince of Life and 
 preferred a murderer: for as showing that salvation was still 
 attainable, Peter said : " And now, brethren, I wot that through 
 ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers" (Acts iii. 17). Paul 
 speaks of Himself with the same distinction ; calling himself a 
 persecutor, blasphemer, and injurious, but adding that he did it 
 ignorantly in unbelief (1 Tim. i. 13). Hence there yet remained 
 a way of salvation open to Israel ; and the Gospel was for a 
 generation preached to Jerusalem before its overthrow. 
 
 Thus there existed the greatest difference in the amount of 
 knowledge diffused among the people as to the circumstances of 
 the Baptist's birth compared with those relating to the birth of 
 Christ. And in the infinite wisdom of God the Lord's death 
 was brought about by the nation whose Messiah He was, but 
 whom they did not know. 
 
 SEC. XV. THE FIRST CLASSIFICATION OF THE SAYINGS INTO THOSE 
 WHICH REPRESENT CHRIST AS THE SIN-BEARER, AND THEN AS 
 THE WILLING SERVANT. 
 
 There are undoubtedly two sets of sayings, or two closely allied 
 but still distinct views of Christ's earthly career, that > are 
 presented to our minds as descriptive of the nature of the atone- 
 ment in the sayings which we have now to notice. The Lord
 
 CHEIST AS THE SIN-BEAEEE, AND THE WILLING SEEVANT. 93 
 
 represents Himself just as He was represented both before and 
 after His coming, as the curse-bearer, and as the active doer of a 
 work of obedience. Though these two views, as different sides 
 of truth, may be said to presuppose and to imply each other, they 
 must needs be separately apprehended. His position as a 
 sin-bearer is of course involved in the very notion of an atone- 
 ment. But the other side of His mediatorial work His position 
 as an active doer of a work of obedience would have been 
 necessary though man had never fallen ; and the fact of the Fall 
 cannot of course exempt man, or exempt Christ as our surety, 
 from the obligation. These two elements may be and must be 
 distinguished by us in idea, but they cannot be disjoined or 
 isolated in this great transaction, as if they were to be represented 
 as separately meritorious. On the one hand, as the mere active 
 doer of man's primeval work of obedience, His incarnation would 
 not have reached our case, or really have availed us, had He not 
 also been, in the fullest sense of the term, a sin-bearer. And 
 just as little would His vicarious suffering, as the sin-bearer, have 
 availed us without the holy promptitude and the cordial delight 
 of the righteous servant in bearing what His Father imposed 
 according to His divine perfections. The two integral parts of 
 Christ's work are not to be considered as if they were separately 
 meritorious. 1 
 
 The element of substitution, that is, of an exchange of places, 
 constitutes the very core of the atonement ; and this is also the 
 Gospel in a single word. When mankind had lost a due standing 
 before God, there was, and there could be, no relaxation of the 
 Divine claims or of the original idea of man ; and in any scheme 
 of restoration, or method by which grace could be glorified in 
 man's salvation, a mediator must, from the necessity of the case, 
 
 1 These two elements of Christ's work are well delineated in their unity in two 
 recent German works, viz. : Thomasius' Christ i Person und Werk, 3te Theil, 1859 ; 
 and Philippi's Kirchliche Glaubeiislehre, iv., 1863. The work devolving on Christ 
 as the surety of men, and of sinning men, is undoubtedly twofold. And yet the 
 obedience, far from being divided into two distinct achievements, is one obedience 
 in the twofold sphere of action and suffering.
 
 94 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 enter into man's position and come under his responsibilities both 
 as to duty to be done and suffering to be endured. This position, 
 which we lay down with absolute confidence, is not deduced on 
 mere abstract grounds from the Divine perfections. It is 
 grounded on all those expressions of the Lord and His apostles 
 in which it is said that He suffered for others (John x. 15; xi. 
 50-52). The Greek preposition used in all these phrases- either 
 proceeds on the supposition that He put Himself in the room of 
 others or expressly asserts this thought (Mark x. 45). What 
 renders other senses impossible is the fact that this mode of 
 speech is alternated with another, which asserts that He suffered 
 for our sins (1 Cor. xv. 3 ; 1 Pet. iii. 18). And in every instance 
 these allusions to suffering for others are couched in such a way 
 as implies that the action was competent to Christ alone, and 
 the language can be applied to none else. Thus, though apostles 
 suffered for the Church, and some of them were crucified, Paul 
 teaches that it w T ould be incongruous and impious to speak of Paul 
 being crucified for men : " Was Paul crucified for you ? " (1 Cor. 
 i. 13). The same element of substitution is not obscurely to be 
 traced in all the passages which set forth Christ as the great 
 personal Sacrifice, the reality of the Old Testament sacrifices 
 (John i. 29), or apply to Him the language which describes the 
 GOEL or Ptedeemer (Matt. xx. 28). 
 
 And for the discharge of this task the constitution of His 
 person furnished the facility. I shall not recall what has been 
 already said in treating of His Deity except to say, that in virtue 
 of His divine nature He was not only able to render a free 
 obedience and to have power over His own life which no mere 
 creature could possess (John x. 18), but also qualified to bear 
 what no finite creature could have borne, and to give to His 
 atonement an infinite value. In this substitution of one for 
 many the universe for the first time saw perfect sinlessness, the 
 only one of the race who came up to the idea of man. Never 
 did any see aught like it before, and while the present economy 
 lasts never can such a spectacle of moral perfection be expected 
 again.
 
 THE BAPTIST'S TESTIMONY TO JESUS. 95 
 
 But this substitution was no make-believe, no mere semblance, 
 but a true exchange of places the most real of facts. He was 
 accounted as the sinner not by a mere as if He were so, but 
 because He was made sin (2 Cor. v. 21), and hence was treated 
 as a sinner. And all this was not by a mere Divine permission 
 allowing a free rein to human wickedness, but by God's deter- 
 minate counsel. That we may have no doubt of this, we shall 
 have to trace in His soul-trouble a direct infliction from the hand 
 of God. 
 
 As a curse-bearer Christ is first presented to us. This comes 
 out, as we shall see, very clearly in His own consciousness, His 
 language proving that it was never absent from His mind. But, 
 as this was so essential a point, the Baptist's testimony to Him, 
 spoken in His hearing, and as an objective echo of Christ's con- 
 sciousness, was added to show that Jesus appeared as the sin- 
 bearer. We shall begin with this, and next take up Christ's own 
 testimony from His own consciousness. 1 
 
 SEC. XVT. THE BAPTIST'S TESTIMONY TO JESUS AS THE SIN-BEAKER. 
 
 " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away [better, beareth] the 
 sin of the world." JOHN i. 29. 
 
 Here the Baptist, looking upon Jesus coming to Him, points 
 Him out to the multitude as the person concerning whom he 
 had a commission to preach, and directs attention to Him as the 
 heaven-appointed sacrifice that was to expiate the sin, not of the 
 Jews only, but of the world. It is a testimony that stands as a 
 heading to the whole series or class of similar sayings which 
 represents the Lord Jesus as bearing our sins in His own body. 2 
 To whatever occasion we may trace it, whether to the pastoral 
 country where it was uttered, or to the recent baptism of Jesus 
 leading John's mind into a new line of inquiry, or to the passover 
 
 1 See Note B in the Appendix. 
 
 8 E.g. 2 Cor. v. 21 ; Gal. iii. 13 ; Isa. liii. 5 ; 1 Pet. ii. 14.
 
 96 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 near at hand and all these occasions have been conjectured, 
 the thought itself that one was to be a sin-bearer for others was 
 familiar to the ancient Church. The identification of the Lamb 
 of God with Jesus of Nazareth was the only thing in this testi- 
 mony of the Baptist specifically new ; and He is called the Lamb 
 OF GOD, just as He is styled "the Bread OF GOD " (John vi. 33), 
 partly because He was graciously provided by God, partly because 
 He was the truth of the types, or the reality of what was fore- 
 shadowed by the Lamb in the old economy ; or, it may be, the 
 Lamb that belongs to God l that is, which is to be offered as a 
 sacrifice to Him. 
 
 Whether the entire idea is borrowed from Isa. liii. 7, and ver. 
 12, is a moot point. While some affirm this, others call it in 
 question, because Isaiah only likens the servant of the Lord to a 
 lamb led to the slaughter, but does not call Him a sacrificial 
 lamb. It is not an express quotation, and therefore the ques- 
 tion is not one that calls for a decision. If it did, we might 
 perhaps bring the two views together by assuming that it was 
 the sacrificial lamb to which Isaiah too referred; but as it is 
 not a formal quotation, it is unnecessary to pronounce a positive 
 decision upon this point either way. 
 
 The question is raised, What particular lamb had the Baptist 
 in his eye ? Some hold that the allusion is to the paschal lamb, 
 while others have referred it to the daily sacrifice. The words 
 themselves do not decide the question ; and the difficulty 
 encountered in this and in all similar allusions to the lamb is 
 due to the theories of commentators, and may be said to arise in 
 large measure, if not wholly, from the too artificial distribution 
 of the sacrifices to which many expositors have precipitately 
 committed themselves. Thus, under the spell of too much 
 system, one earnest advocate 2 of the atonement answers the 
 
 1 So Storr and Meyer ; the former of whom quotes from the Septuagint, 6v<riai 
 Qeov (Lev. xxi. 16). 
 
 2 Prof. Doedes, in Jaarboecken voor Weteiischavpelijke Tlwologic, p. 305, 
 Utrecht, 1846.
 
 THE SIN-BEAKING LAMB OF GOD. 97 
 
 question what particular lamb is referred to, in this strange way : 
 " Not the paschal lamb," says he, " for that had no relation to 
 the bearing of sin ; not the morning and evening sacrifice, as that 
 was a burnt-offering ; nor could he have thought of a sin-offering 
 generally, as a lamb was but seldom used for that." This em- 
 barrassment, denying precisely what should be affirmed, grows 
 out of the complicated sacrificial system which has been in vogue 
 for a number of years past. On the contrary, the allusion is 
 to all those sacrifices where a lamb was slain. The most natural 
 explanation is, that John alludes not to any one particular offer- 
 ing, but, in a comprehensive way, to all those propitiatory sacri- 
 fices where a lamb was used to bear or to take away the penalty 
 of sin. He first of all included the paschal lamb, which was a 
 sin-offering in the fullest significance of the word. This offering 
 may be viewed, indeed, as the fundamental sacrifice of the 
 covenant people. The blood the principal matter in it 
 primarily referred to sin, and was offered to God to make atone- 
 ment, separating Israel from the world in order to make them 
 a peculiar people. Next, as to the effect or consequences of 
 the sacrifice, it secured the safety of their first-born when 
 divine judgments fell upon the Egyptian idols and their 
 votaries, as well as gained for the Israelites their safe exodus 
 from Egypt. Nor were the subsequent passovers mere com- 
 memorations of what had been : they continued to secure 
 what was at first conferred, and partook of the same character 
 with the first. 
 
 The Baptist in this testimony no less included the lamb of 
 the 'burnt-offering, or the morning and evening sacrifice, which 
 was doubled on the Sabbath. Twice every day a lamb was 
 thus offered in the temple. That the burnt-offering contained 
 an atoning element is clear, since it is said to be accepted for a 
 man to make atonement (Lev. i. 4). As to the difference be- 
 tween it and the sin-offering, it did not lie in this, that the 
 burnt-offering was not expiatory, as is too often said. It lay in 
 this, that the burnt-offering was not offered for some sins in par-
 
 98 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 ticular but for all; 1 and it was either voluntary or according to 
 divine appointment. 
 
 Nor did the Baptist less include the lamb of the trespass- 
 offering, which was offered when some defilement excluded the 
 worshipper from the congregation of the Lord. We read that 
 in certain cases a lamb was to be slain as a trespass- offering 
 (Lev. xiv. 11 ; Num. vi. 12). 
 
 Thus, in the threefold distribution of the sacrifices to which 
 we have adverted, we find that a lamb was offered to obtain a 
 legal purification from ceremonial defilement. The assertion 
 often made and repeated in the interest of a certain tendency, 
 that no lamb was offered in sacrifices which were intended to 
 make an expiation or atonement for sin, is thus destitute of all 
 foundation. 
 
 But the word in this testimony which has the chief emphasis 
 is that which is rendered, "taketh away." The majority of 
 expositors render the phrase, " beareth sin:" some prefer the 
 rendering, " taketh away : " 2 others, and among these is Calvin, 
 comprehend both. But the one thought does not exclude the 
 other. If we render, " that taketh away," we must understand 
 it thus : that taketh away by bearing it. If we render, " that 
 beareth sin," we must understand it thus : that beareth, in order 
 to take away. On either view, it is sacrificial language. We 
 prefer beareth. 
 
 The two clauses of this statement are so closely connected 
 and so mutually interwoven both in point of thought and 
 language, that they cannot be taken apart or construed apart. 
 To give a complete idea, the one clause is necessary to the other; 
 and if we take this guiding principle with us to its interpreta- 
 tion, we shall find that all the one-sided views which tend to 
 alter the true meaning and import of the language can be easily set 
 aside by simply maintaining the connection of the clauses; thus: 
 
 1 See Oehler, in Herzog's Encydop. u. Opfercultus. 
 
 2 On the phrase 6 atpwv, see Meyer on John i. 29, though he prefers the render- 
 ing, " who taketh away. "
 
 THE SIN-BEAKING LAMB OF GOD. 99 
 
 1. Some hold that in this saying we have nothing beyond a 
 figure or comparison, and that the allusion is made simply to 
 the moral innocence and meekness of Jesus. Such a con- 
 struction might perhaps be allowed, if Jesus were likened or 
 compared to a lamb; but the conjunction of these two clauses 
 cannot be limited to the bare notion of purity or innocence. 
 Plainly, the first clause is not a simple comparison, it is the 
 use of a type ; and such a transfer of names or interchange of 
 language, natural enough in a divinely-instituted type, is out of 
 keeping with the language of comparison. The twofold notion 
 here put together that of a lamb and that of a sin-bearer 
 precludes the supposition that we have brought before us 
 nothing beyond the idea of a meek and patient person suffering 
 under indignity and wrong. 
 
 2. Nor can we refer the words to the effects of Christ's in- 
 struction as a good and gentle Teacher. It is not possible, on 
 any principle of interpretation, to regard these two propositions 
 or sayings as equivalent : " Christ bears the sin of the world," 
 and " Christ has pointed out the way to the world to be on its 
 guard against sin for the future." The Baptist could not mean 
 to say that Christ makes men wiser and better by His doctrine, 
 and that in this manner He takes away or bears the sin of the 
 world. But suppose such a sense could, without violent strain- 
 ing, be put upon the latter clause, it must be remembered that 
 it does not stand isolated and apart. If it were for a moment 
 allowed that the Lord Jesus could be said to bear sin or to 
 remove it by directing men to the pursuit of virtue, and by 
 supplying the motives and warnings, the exhortations and 
 encouragements, which are fully sufficient to turn them away 
 from evil, it must not be forgotten that He is said to do this 
 only as the Lamb of God. The language is plainly borrowed 
 from the Mosaic worship ; and it cannot refer to the moral im- 
 provement resulting from the instructions of a teacher. It re- 
 fers to the effect of a sacrifice bearing the merited punishment 
 of sin.
 
 100 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 3. Nor will this union of the two clauses, so necessary to the 
 full sense, permit us to refer the language to inward deliverance 
 from sin. It is a sacrificial deliverance from sin ; and however 
 closely the moral deliverance may stand and will always be 
 found to stand in inseparable connection with it, it is not a 
 subjective deliverance alone. And in point of fact who does 
 not see that experience contradicts that moral interpretation and 
 shows its incorrectness ? In no such sense has Christ taken 
 moral evil from the world, or removed the weaknesses and im- 
 perfections of our fallen nature. 
 
 All these comments throw humanity back upon itself, upon 
 its own strength and resources in the last resort, instead of pre- 
 senting to the mind the adequate object of faith ; and therein 
 lies their danger. 
 
 The Baptist, in speaking of sin, speaks of it in the singular, 
 " the sin of the world." Not that he had in his eye merely the 
 root-sin, 1 the original sin of the race. Rather, the sins of man- 
 kind are viewed as a collective whole, and regarded as a heavy 
 burden ; and the Lamb of God is said to bear whatever has the 
 character of sin, or the whole mass and assemblage of sin ; the 
 term " world" comprehending men who lived before the nativity 
 of Christ as well as after it. Some have indeed taken the 
 word SIN as synonymous with punishment, but the phrase takes 
 in the notion of sin with the guilt and consequences involved 
 in it. 
 
 But the phrase, "to bear sin," demands more particular 
 consideration. Wherever the language occurs, it carries with 
 it the notion of an oppressive burden, or of penal endurance. 
 But let us consider the phrase in examples. It occurs, first, in 
 the sense of living under the frown or punitive hand of God : 
 thus the Israelites " bore their iniquity" according to the num- 
 ber of the days in which they had searched out the land, each 
 day a year (Numb. xiv. 34) : it is used as synonymous with 
 being guilty (Lev. v. 17 ; Num. v. 31) : it is found as equivalent 
 
 1 So Beza unhappily expounds it, referring to Rom. v. 12.
 
 THE SIN-BEARING LAMB OF GOD. 101 
 
 to being cut off (Lev. xx. 17; Num. ix. 13): it occurs in the 
 sense of being punished with death (Num. xviii. 22, 32. Com- 
 pare also Ex. xxviii 43 ; Lev. xxiv. 15). In all these instances 
 it refers to a person bearing his oum sin. Where the reference, 
 again, is to the sins of others, it means to undergo punishment 
 for them, or to feel the penal effects and the unpleasant conse- 
 quences due to the sins of others (Lam. v. 7; Ezek. xviii 19). 
 Hence, if we abide by the usage of language, the phrase can 
 only mean, in this passage, to endure the penal consequences 
 inseparable from the sins of mankind. 
 
 And as to the origin of the figure, it is taken from lifting a 
 burden in order to carry it, or to lay it on one's shoulders. But 
 as the language is sacrificial, it points to the victim bearing the 
 sin which the offerer laid upon it, by the laying on of the hand. 
 The language, rightly understood, can only mean that Jesus was 
 put in connection with sin; that He took SIN AS SUCH, and not 
 the mere consequences of it, or the element of punishment 
 alone ; that He bore sin considered as guilt in its relation to the 
 moral Governor ; that He was made the world's sin, and bore it, 
 thus becoming, not personally but officially, the proper object 
 of punitive justice, and enduring the penalty due to the sins of 
 mankind. The words prove that the work of Christ was a pro- 
 vision for sin as such, that is, for sin considered as demerit and 
 guilt ; and only as the atoning work of Christ is adapted to this 
 end, and divinely accepted, does it reverse the consequences of 
 sin. A canon of easy application is, that the interposition of 
 Christ implies that the burden of sin which was transferred to 
 Him pressed heavily on the world, that mankind could not rid 
 themselves of it, and could do nothing to remove it ; and the 
 language implies that the Lamb of God made it His His heri- 
 tage or property, bearing in His own person what we had com- 
 mitted. 
 
 It must be noticed, further, that the verb beareth, which is 
 in the present tense, is not used as a prophecy, 1 neither as an 
 
 1 So Meyer on the verse.
 
 102 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 allusion to the constant efficacy of the sacrifice, 1 but as indi- 
 cating that Jesus was even then the sin-bearer. He never in 
 fact appeared " without sin " during His humiliation (Heb. ix. 
 28) ; and His coming in the likeness of sinful flesh was at once 
 a proof that sin was borne by Him, and that this was already 
 a part of His satisfaction. He was, even then, bearing sin, and 
 many of the penal effects of it. It is a mistake to say, then, 
 that the thought of the passage is an allusion to the abolition 
 of sin ; for the first idea of a sin-offering was not so much the 
 consuming of moral evil though that undoubtedly follows, and 
 is a necessary consequence at the next remove as the bearing 
 of guilt. And an Israelite dreading divine wrath ever thought 
 of the sin-offering in this light, as liberating him from its burden 
 or its pressure. 
 
 As to the purpose for which the Lamb of God bore sin with 
 respect to mankind, it is not here distinctly stated in express 
 terms ; but it can be easily inferred. With what conceivable 
 object can He be supposed to have placed Himself in men's 
 stead, and to have borne their sin as a piacular victim, but 
 with a view to free or to redeem His people, and to exempt 
 them from their burden, a burden which He bore in their 
 stead ? This is the obvious inference : any other interpretation 
 is intolerable. Nothing can be more forced and unnatural as 
 an interpretation, than to hold that Christ bore the sin of the 
 world for any other object than to set His people free from their 
 merited doom or obligation. The whole burden or penalty and 
 doom of sin must be seen, accordingly, upon the Lamb of God, 
 and as borne by Him for others. He is an adequate and suffi- 
 cient atonement. 
 
 Thus the Baptist, looking into the new economy from his 
 view-point in the Old Testament, fixes attention upon the im- 
 portant place, or rather, the paramount place, which the doctrine 
 of the atonement was to hold in Christianity. To a religious 
 Jew, indeed, looking for the accomplishment of prophecy, and 
 
 1 So Hengstenberg on the verse.
 
 THE SIN-BEAKING LAMB OF GOD. 103 
 
 for " the righteous servant " to be the reality of all the types and 
 shadows, the new economy would not otherwise have commended 
 itself. He could not have accepted it unless it had provided for 
 the expiation of sin, to which the whole Old Testament pointed. 
 As the preparatory arrangement of Judaism provided for the 
 expiation of sin annually, so the Baptist's words pointed to what 
 adequately met this expectation, with this peculiar difference, 
 that it was a provision, not for the Jews only, but for the world. 
 And it was spoken probably in Christ's hearing as well as in 
 His presence. 
 
 The atonement was equally important for all mankind ; and 
 hence it is that the Baptist announces with so much emphasis, 
 that it was a gracious provision, which comprehended a refer- 
 ence to the world at large, without distinction of nationality. 
 Christ and His apostles were soon more clearly to unfold the 
 universality of this expiation, as a provision equally intended 
 for every tribe and country. And the exclamation BEHOLD \ 
 was meant to direct attention to Him, and to invite all who 
 were either burdened by a sense of sin, or expecting a vicarious 
 sacrifice by which it might be borne. This is incontrovertibly 
 the import of the words according to the significance of language 
 and the connection of ideas. 
 
 To all this interpretation, however, a twofold objection has 
 been raised by those who, under the influence of preconceived 
 ideas or philosophical reasonings, have adopted views at variance 
 with the vicarious sacrifice of Christ. One doubt has reference 
 to the supposed extent of the Baptist's knowledge on the subject 
 of Christ's death ; and a second exception is taken to this mode 
 of interpretation, on the ground that this sense cannot be held 
 to be the uniform and constant import of the phrase, " to bear 
 sin." We must consider what force, if any, attaches to these 
 two objections. 
 
 1. As to the first objection, taken up and repeated in many 
 quarters, it amounts to this : that the doctrine of the atonement, 
 as theologians now hold it, could not possibly have been known
 
 104 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 to the Baptist, when so many of his contemporaries were igno- 
 rant of it. To this objection it may suffice to answer, that the 
 vicarious sacrifice of the Messiah was well known to Isaiah, 
 and to all the ancient believers, who apprehended the nature 
 and significance of the types, or who saw the bearing of the 
 prophecies. Not only so : we may argue that John the Baptist 
 was instructed by his father, Zacharias ; and as the redemption 
 of Israel by a mediator was well known to the latter (Luke i. 
 77), the Baptist may well be regarded, on this ground alone, as 
 possessing clearer and more accurate views than were current 
 among the Jews of his day, on the whole subject of the 
 Messiah's person and atonement. Besides, the Baptist must 
 have been well acquainted with the Old Testament Scriptures 
 generally, and with Isaiah's prophecy in particular (Isa. liii.), 
 when his very office was to go before Him as His herald and 
 forerunner. We should have been surprised had no such testi- 
 mony been given by the messenger who was to go before His 
 face, and who, according to Christ's own words, was the greatest 
 of those born of women. It would seem, however, that John 
 understood this truth, not merely by a study of the law, and 
 the prophets testifying to it, but also by special revelation. 
 And though the atonement is not again so expressly mentioned 
 by him except on the following day (John i. 36), yet all his 
 teaching assumes it and presupposes it. Nor can any doubt be 
 drawn from the subsequent message of inquiry, when he sent 
 from the prison where he was confined two of his disciples, to 
 ascertain the Messiahship of Christ from His own lips. The 
 Baptist might desire to meet some new phase of doubt, either in 
 his own mind or in the minds of the disciples, blinded as they 
 were by many prejudices. 
 
 2. The second objection is based upon the alleged want of 
 uniformity or constancy of meaning attaching to the words, 
 " bearing sin," in the fourfold application in which it occurs. 
 Thus we find it applied (1) to the sinner; (2) to the sacrifice; 
 (3) to the priest ; and (4) to God Himself. As to the two first
 
 THE SIN -BEARING LAMB OF GOD. 105 
 
 there is little difficulty. It is common, however, to explain the 
 two latter applications, but especially the last, as denoting " to 
 take away or to pardon sin." With regard to its application to 
 the priest, there is no cause for deviating from its ordinary 
 meaning. They were said to bear sin by eating of the sin-offer- 
 ings 1 (Lev. x. 17) ; and the high priest was said to bear the 
 iniquity of the holy things in virtue of the inscription, HOLINESS 
 TO THE LORD, as shadowing forth the holiness of Christ engraven 
 on the plate worn upon his forehead (Ex. xxviii. 38). The 
 priesthood, holy by separation and by peculiar rites, partook of 
 the flesh of the sin-offering in order to point out that they 
 assimilated or incorporated with themselves the sacrifice or sin- 
 offering laden with the impurity of the worshipper, and which, 
 passing over to the victim, was thus- consumed by being brought 
 into connection with a divinely-appointed priesthood. All this 
 pointed to a time when priest and sacrifice should be one. Thus 
 the phrase, " to bear sin," as applied to the priest, has the same 
 sense as in all the other applications, though a typical one 
 adumbrating a coming reality. 
 
 The main difficulty, however, connected with the phrase " to 
 bear sin," is to determine whether we are able to maintain this 
 uniform sense, or whether we can show cause for abiding by the 
 same import of the phrase when it is applied to God. How can 
 GOD BE SAID TO BEAR SIN ? And yet what warrant have tran- 
 slators and expositors for deviating from the rendering given to 
 the phrase here and in Isa. liii., as well as in many similar 
 passages, with a common consent ? The general interpretation 
 of the phrase when it is applied to God, is, that in such a usage 
 it can only mean, " to forgive iniquity." The Septuagint led the 
 way here, and has been implicitly followed ever since. Alive to 
 the difficulty which presents itself to every mind, they interpreted 
 the expression in this application of it : " to forgive iniquity ; " 
 and all the subsequent expositors and lexicographers in the 
 Protestant churches, as well as among the Fathers, followed in 
 
 1 See Oehler, Herzogs Encyklo. x. p. 649, and Keil on Lev. x. 17.
 
 106 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the same direction. And thus the authorised English version 
 translates the expression, " to forgive iniquity," wherever it occurs 
 in this usage, that is as applied to God. (See Ex. xxxiv. 7; Mic. 
 vii. 18 ; Ps. xxxii. 5, Ixxxv. 3 ; Isa. xxxiii. 24 ; Ex. xxxii. 32.) 
 Now, is that a warrantable interpretation ? Though it is a 
 question which requires to be weighed with the utmost 
 philological nicety, as well as with the utmost caution in a 
 theological point of view, yet it deserves to be seriously pondered 
 whether preconceived notions as to what is a fitting or unfitting 
 mode of speech as applied to God may not in this case have 
 exercised a misleading influence, and whether that fear did not 
 lead to a wrong decision in the present instance. It is possible 
 that the ordinary solution may turn out to be a wrong one, and 
 may yet come to be repudiated with as common a consent as it 
 has been adopted since the Septuagint led the way in in- 
 troducing it. 
 
 On the other hand, it is held by many writers, ancient and 
 modern, who oppose themselves to the vicarious satisfaction by 
 the Socinians of a former day, and by some eminent names l in 
 our own time, that the application of this phrase to God decides 
 upon its import wherever it occurs. They will have a uniform 
 and constant interpretation ; and, on this account, they vehemently 
 urge and maintain that the phrase cannot in any case mean, to 
 bear sin, to expiate iniquity, or to satisfy for it, because God can- 
 not be said to bear sin. The opponents of the vicarious sacrifice 
 or substitution insist on a uniform interpretation, because they 
 think, that by this means they have an incontrovertible argument 
 in their favour. 
 
 Most of those who maintain the doctrine of substitution have 
 felt the difficulty of asserting a uniform and constant interpreta- 
 tion, and have distinguished between the sacrifice and the priest, 
 between the sinner and the pardoner. And even those 2 who are 
 
 1 See Hofmann's Schriftbeweis, vol. ii. p. 285 : ' ' Gott tragt die Siinde, nimmt 
 Sie bin, lasst Sie sich gefallen ohne Sie zu strafen." 
 
 2 See Cocceius' Hebrew Lexicon on the word. Compare, too, Stockii Clavis.
 
 THE SIN-BEAEING LAMB OF GOD. 107 
 
 disposed to abide by some shade of the ordinary meaning, con- 
 clude that in the passages where God is said " to bear sin," it can 
 only mean a forbearance to punish it, as contrasted with taking 
 vengeance, or a patient bearing of the wrong for a time. 
 
 One eminent writer, 1 while discussing the phrase in all its 
 various applications, contends for a uniform and constant sense 
 even in those cases where it is applied to God. CEder holds 
 that, so used in the Old Testament, the phrase must be under- 
 stood as referring to the Son of God, and to His w r ork as the 
 bearer of sin. " Ex. xxxiv. 7 is objected," says he, " to our 
 argument, that the adversaries may not seem to have said 
 nothing. The purport of their statement is : as the words to 
 bear sin, when used respecting God, do not mean that He laid 
 them on Himself to satisfy for them, it follows that when we 
 read the same words respecting Christ, they have not this mean- 
 ing. But if you inquire whether the Socinians themselves 
 believe that the signification of the words take away in John i. 
 29 is the same as at Ex. xxxiv. 7, they will most certainly deny 
 it ; for, say they, God took away sin by forgiving it, Christ by 
 pointing out the way by which we may deliver ourselves. But 
 yet these men are not ashamed to object to us a passage which 
 they themselves understand otherwise. But let us come nearer 
 to the point. I deny, and persist in denying, that the expression, 
 to bear sin, in Ex. xxxiv. 7, and in such like texts, has any other 
 meaning than that which is found in so many passages elsewhere. 
 Nor does that passage treat of God the Father, but of God the 
 Son, who is truly the sin-bearer." "We have consulted and 
 weighed with considerable care all the passages which contain 
 this phrase, and that can be referred to in this sense. They are: 
 Mic. vii. 18 ; Ps. xxxii. 5, with which I would compare verse 1 
 and Isa. xxxiii. 24 ; Ps. Ixxxv. 3 ; Ex. xxx. 32, all which are 
 so beautifully expounded of Christ the sin-bearer, that nothing 
 can be finer." 
 
 This interpretation may not be accepted by all. It may seem 
 
 1 (Eder in his Refutation of the Racovian Catechism (Lat.), p. 802.
 
 108 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 to some an incongruous phraseology to apply to God vicarious 
 language of this nature : and it may appear to others too much 
 of a New Testament view to occur to the believers in the remote 
 past. But some expressions, long treated as strong anthro- 
 pomorphisms, cease to be so when we apprehend them in con- 
 nection with the Messiah, who was not only the angel of the 
 covenant, but Jehovah, God of Israel. Thus the phrase, " they 
 shall look upon Me whom they have pierced," was regarded by 
 the Septuagint as only a figure of speech, or as an obvious 
 anthropomorphism; and, certainly, it would have been so re- 
 garded by every one but for the apostolic commentary l upon it. 
 But John's interpretation leaves to the New Testament Church 
 no room to doubt its literal application to the pierced and 
 wounded Saviour. There are other turns of expression and 
 forms of speech, the full import of which is evolved only by the 
 incarnation and by the atonement ; and this may be one of them. 
 We have only further to add, in connection with this inter- 
 pretation, that when these words are put together, it will be 
 found that the Son of God took sin upon Him, and bore it 
 simultaneously with the taking of the flesh, nay, in a sense bore 
 it even prior to the actual fact of the incarnation. The peculiar 
 character of the Lord's humanity, which was, on the one hand, 
 pure and holy, and yet, on the other, a curse-bearing humanity, 
 plainly show r s that in some sense He was the sin-bearer from 
 the moment of His sending, and, therefore, even prior to His 
 actual incarnation. And when it is said that God sent His Son 
 in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the 
 flesh, we have the very same thing. Therefore we may affirm 
 that the phrase, " to bear sin," in its application to God, treats of 
 God the Son ; or it may suffice to say that it refers to the incarnate 
 one, the God of redemption. There is, I think, ground to hold 
 that the same constant and uniform rendering should be retained 
 even in this connection. This will intimate that sin was borne 
 by the Son of God, not alone in the sense of forbearance, but ir^ 
 
 l See John xix. 37.
 
 THE SIN-BE AKING LAMB OF GOD. 109 
 
 such a sense that it was laid on Messiah as the sin-bearer, to be 
 expiated by a divine fact in the true and proper sense. We 
 assert, then, the constant and uniform sense of this phraseology 
 in all its four-fold application ; and when challenged to go 
 through with our interpretation, we reply that we do go through 
 with it. And certainly this last usage furnishes no loophole 
 through which its proper force can be evaded, as has been so 
 often attempted by Socinianizing writers, in former as well as in 
 more recent times. 
 
 Thus the Lamb of God appeared without inherent sin or taint 
 of any kind, but never without the sin of others. The sin of 
 man was not first imputed to Him or borne by Him when He 
 hung on the cross, but in and with the assumption of man's 
 nature, or, more precisely, in and with His mission. The very 
 form of a servant, and His putting on the likeness of sinful flesh, 
 was an argument that sin was already transferred to Him and 
 borne by Him ; and not a single moment of the Lord's earthly 
 life can be conceived of in which He did not feel the burden of 
 the divine wrath which must otherwise have pressed on us for 
 ever. Hence, " to bear sin " is the phrase in God's word for free- 
 ing us from its burden and punishment. 
 
 Because He bore sin, and was never seen without it, it may 
 be affirmed that the mortality which was comprehended in the 
 words, " Thou shalt surely die" that is, all that was summed 
 up in the wrath and curse of God, was never really separated 
 from Him, though it had its hours of culmination and its abate- 
 ments. Hence, without referring further at present to the char- 
 acter of the suffering, it evidently appears that, as the sin-bearer, 
 He all through life discerned and felt the penal character of sin, 
 that is, the sense of guilt, not personal, but as the surety could 
 realize it. He felt the obligation to divine punishment for sins 
 not His own, but made His own by an official action ; and they 
 who evacuate of their true significance these deep words, " that 
 beareth the sins of the world," allowing Christ to have no con- 
 nection with sin, and only dwelling on His purity and spotless 

 
 110 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 innocence as our example they who will not have Him as a sin- 
 bearer, who took sin to Himself, and wrapped Himself in it are 
 the most sacrilegious of robbers and obscurers of His grace. This 
 deep abasement is the glory of His incarnation. 
 
 If, then, we put together the elements of this testimony to the 
 Lord's atonement, they are these : (1) It was of God's gracious 
 appointment " the Lamb of God ; " (2) it essentially lay in the 
 vicarious element of the transaction, it was the bearing of the 
 sin of others, or of the world ; (3) it was a bearing or a penal 
 endurance ; (4) it was sacrificial, being the truth of the shadows 
 in the previous economy; (5) it was without distinction of 
 nationality. 
 
 It follows, that if Christ bore sin, His people do not need to 
 bear it. It follows, also, that since God has appointed this way 
 of deliverance, there is no other way. 1 
 
 SEC. XVII. THE FKEQUENTLY REPEATED NAME, THE SON OF MAN, 
 FURTHER EXHIBITING HIM AS THE SIN-BEARER. 
 
 This phrase, which has, wherever it occurs, some reference to 
 a work of substitution, is much in our Lord's mouth. Of all the 
 titles He assumed, indeed, it is by far the most frequent. Xo 
 fewer than eighty instances occur, or, if we deduct the repetitions, 
 fifty-five instances where He announces Himself by this title. 
 And it cannot escape observation, that He makes use of this 
 name not less systematically than He abstains from the title 
 Messiah. The reason of this will perhaps be obvious, when we 
 ascertain the true import of the phrase by which, as will appear, 
 He eighty times, either more or less directly, refers to some phase 
 of His representative work in itself, or in respect to its reward. 
 Not to forestall, however, what must be proved, we shall now 
 proceed to investigate its meaning in the contexts, in the light of 
 the very various comments which it has received. We select 
 only a few of the interpretations for special notice. 
 
 1 See note F.
 
 THE TITLE, SON OF MAN. Ill 
 
 1. The expression, Son of Man, cannot be limited to a 
 description of His person, irrespective of His office. The 
 patristic writers, and those who follow them, for the most part 
 stop short at this. But the title will be found to be much wider 
 and more extensive in its meaning. The incarnation is in it ; 
 but that is not all. It may seem, indeed, that when Christ calls 
 Himself Son of Man (John iii. 13), and in the next verses the 
 Son of God, He means merely to describe His whole person by 
 one of His natures, the only way by which the God-man can be 
 spoken of (John iii. 16). But that, though plausible, will be 
 found to be untenable. The phrase, " Son of Man," is more 
 than a designation of His person described by its human side, or 
 by the humanity belonging to it. 
 
 2. Nor is it a mere Hebraism or circumlocution equivalent to 
 the simple expression, Man. This sense, though countenanced 
 by many eminent names of the Reformation age, can no longer 
 be maintained. We find that men and the Son of Man are ideas 
 too clearly distinguished and contrasted in many passages by the 
 Lord Himself, to render this interpretation even probable (John 
 iii. 13 ; Matt. xii. 32). Still less can the phrase be so evacuated 
 of significance as to denote merely a certain man, this man, or 
 the man here present, comments betraying a low exegetical 
 sense, and properly the growth of a rationalistic age. They have 
 only to be repudiated. 
 
 3. Nor can we interpret the phrase as denoting, the man by 
 eminence the most excellent of all men. Modern commen- 
 tators, with whom this is the favourite view, take it for the most 
 part as a title of dignity and distinction ; and they think them- 
 selves warranted to deduce this comment from Daniel's vision, 
 where one like the Son of Man is brought near to the Ancient of 
 days to receive dominion (Dan. vii. 13). But we shall find that 
 it is not properly a title of dignity or eminence at all, though 
 the latter idea is often mentioned in connection with it as a 
 reward. And those who limit the allusion to Daniel's vision of 
 His kingdom lose sight of two things, (1) the foundation on
 
 112 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 which this kingdom is reared His abasement ; and (2) the 
 important rule of interpretation supplied to us by the apostle : 
 " Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended 
 first into the lower parts of the earth ?" (Eph. iv. 9). The first 
 time Jesus called Himself "Son of Man" was, as Bengel 
 remarks, when He had already been recognised by His disciples 
 as the Son of God (John i. 57). Not dignity and eminence, but 
 abasement and meanness, are the ideas expressed by the title. 
 Thus, when God addressed a prophet with the designation " son 
 of man," it was to remind him of his meanness as dust and 
 ashes, lest he should be exalted by the revelations made to him 
 (Ezek. xxx. 2). 
 
 We may here make one or two preliminary observations, as 
 elements for directing our iniquiry, or tending to aid us in 
 arriving at the import of the phrase. 
 
 1. It must strike every one who attentively examines our 
 Lord's use of this title, that we never find it used after His 
 resurrection. The reason seems to be, that it was not descrip- 
 tive of His resurrection state; that it belonged only to the 
 days of His flesh ; and that when He had left behind Him the 
 servant form in which He appeared among men there was no 
 longer any occasion for using it. This is further confirmed by a 
 striking expression which He addressed to the disciples in the 
 hearing of the Pharisees : " The days will come when ye will 
 desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and ye shall not 
 see it" (Luke xvii. 22) ; which can only mean one of those days 
 they then enjoyed, or the days of His flesh. They would wish 
 them back again. This decides on the meaning of our phrase. 
 
 2. Nor does He ever use the expression, Son of Man, in His 
 prayers to God, as if it were not in keeping with the peculiarly 
 close relation subsisting between Him and God the Father. It 
 is descriptive of what is official rather than personal, or of what 
 He became rather than of what He was. 
 
 3. Neither does He use it in His capacity of teacher When 
 announcing any truth, or expounding any principle of duty, He
 
 THE TITLE, SON OF MAN. 113 
 
 says, " Verily, verily, I say unto you." It is no exception to 
 this observation, that we find Him saying in the parable of the 
 tares, " The Sower of the good seed is the Son of Man." For 
 that allusion is not to the function or office of a teacher dealing 
 with all men indiscriminately, but to the efficacious illumination 
 which the Lord dispenses as the head of His Church, on the 
 ground or basis of the priestly work which He had already 
 finished. 
 
 4. Another observation forces itself on the attention of every 
 one who examines the several passages where this phrase occurs. 
 It is a title used almost exclusively by Christ Himself. He is 
 seldom or ever so called by His disciples. He appropriates to 
 Himself the title, Son of Man, as the special definition of His 
 condescending grace ; and as displaying to those who heard Him 
 not the divine relation, which was natural and proper to Him, 
 but the new condition which He had taken to Himself, and into 
 which He had stepped down, for the attainment of an object 
 worthy of such abasement. And when Stephen on one occasion 
 uses the phrase, " Son of Man," he nearly quotes our Lord's own 
 words, before the same council, at His trial (Acts vii. 56). And 
 when John, in Eevelation, says, " I saw one like unto the Son of 
 Man," it may be only a quotation of Daniel. 
 
 As to the origin of the title, there seems no cause to doubt 
 that it has a primary reference to the words in Ps. viii. 4: 
 " What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? and the son of 
 man, that Thou visitest him?" The word for man in the ori- 
 ginal does not signify the high and eminent, but the opposite, 
 the low, despised, and miserable. The same phrase is found in 
 other passages in this acceptation; as, for example, in Ps. xlix. 2, 
 Job xxv. 6. The psalm, as applied to the second man, means 
 that He seemed so utterly neglected and abandoned, that there 
 was no hope of His being ever visited by God or rescued from 
 the doom into which He had sunk as the substitute of others. 
 This is plainly the apostolic comment given in the Epistle to 
 
 the Hebrews (Heb. ii. 9, 10) ; and our Lord's use of the phrase- 
 
 H
 
 114 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 ology is in harmony with it. The sight of His low condition 
 called forth that language from the Psalmist; and when our 
 Lord applies the language to Himself as the most descriptive of 
 all names, it must be understood as akin to the expressions, " I 
 am a worm and no man" (Ps. xxii. 6) ; " A man of sorrows and 
 acquainted with grief" (Isa. liii. 3). The expression intimates 
 that He was not only man of man, but that " He made Himself 
 of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and 
 was made in the likeness of man; and being found in fashion 
 as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death." 
 The phrase, then, is not a mere circumlocution, nor a mere 
 synonym for Jesus : it has a proper significance. We think it 
 will be found, on a full and accurate examination of all the 
 several passages, that the following elements are contained in 
 this title : true humanity or the real assumption of our nature 
 by the Son of God; the idea of the second man or second Adam; 
 the abasement, grief, and shame with which He was acquainted 
 during His earthly lot. 
 
 1. The first of these three ideas is accepted by all evangelical 
 men without hesitation, and we do not require to establish it. 
 To the two latter only we shall allude a little more in detail. 
 
 2. When Jesus called Himself Son of Man, He plainly taught, 
 under a certain measure of disguise, that He was the second 
 man or second Adam, who was to bruise the serpent's head, or, 
 in other words, to destroy the works of the devil. This allusion 
 to the second man, or second representative man, is wider than 
 a mere relation to the Jews, and goes back to the human race as 
 such. He occupies a similar relation to that of the first man to 
 those who lived before as well as after His coming in the flesh. 
 Against this element of the phrase now widely recognised 
 among a good school of commentators, no valid objection has 
 ever been advanced ; we accept it frankly. But by many who 
 accept it, the sense is, we think, unduly extended, so as to take 
 in His glorified state as well. 
 
 3. This brings us to notice the other idea already referred to
 
 THE TITLE, SON OF MAN. 115 
 
 the mean condition or the curse-bearing life, which, we think, 
 is essentially connected with our Lord's expression, and con- 
 tained in it. This idea is perfectly compatible with the other. 
 The two ideas, so far from being discordant, are the complement 
 of one another. He could not, in truth, be the second Adam 
 without being the substitute of sinners. The sense will be then, 
 when we put the three ideas together : the second Adam abased 
 or made a curse for us, and who hid not His face from shame. 
 We cannot but discern this sense in the following passages. 
 
 Mark ix. 12: "And He answered and told them, Elias verily 
 comefh first, and restoreth all things ; and how it is written [or 
 better, interrogatively, how is it written ?] of the Son of Man, that 
 He must suffer many things, and be set at nought." These words 
 set forth, with sufficient clearness, two things : that, as the Son 
 of Man, Christ was the subject of prophecy ; and that, in this 
 light, He was that great sufferer alluded to in the psalms and 
 prophets, whose sorrows alone were of sufficient importance to 
 mankind to be distinctly foretold. There is here an allusion to 
 Isaiah's prophecy, if not an express quotation of the words, 
 " despised and rejected of men" (Isa. liii. 3). Jesus in sub- 
 stance says, I, as the Son of Man, am the man of sorrows of the 
 prophet. 
 
 Matt. viii. 20 :" The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air 
 have nests [better, roosting-places], but the Son of Man hath not 
 where to lay His head." A certain scribe had offered to follow 
 Jesus wherever He went ; and he was told to count the cost, and 
 to dispossess his mind of any secret hankering after worldly 
 wealth or property. Jesus declares that He Himself was with- 
 out a home or fixed abode, and that He might even be contrasted 
 with the foxes and birds of the air, which have a resting-place 
 in this world, but He had none. Now, as this is said in connec- 
 tion with His being the Son of Man, it is impossible not to ob- 
 serve an allusion to His abasement and to His substitution in 
 our room ; for He endured this only as He led a curse-bearing 
 life. He was subjected to the consequences of sin, and was
 
 116 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 treated as a sinner ; because man, having been disinherited, had 
 no claim to ought in the world. He who was rich for our sakes 
 became poor to reinstate us; and thus the Son of Man was never 
 seen without sin while He was here. 
 
 Matt. xx. 28 : " The Son of Man came n'ot to be ministered unto, 
 but to minister." We omit the second clause at present, as our 
 immediate object is to determine the meaning of the phrase, Son 
 of Man. The connection in which it is put with ministering or 
 serving, proves that it is significant of abasement, not of emi- 
 nence. The Lord frowned on the ambition of James and John, 
 who wished the seats of honour in His kingdom, reminding them 
 of His own example, which must be followed ; and that, unlike 
 the kingdoms of men, the fundamental rule of His kingdom was 
 humility. But there is a further thought. Speaking of Himself 
 as the second Adam and the substitute of sinners, He intimates 
 that His work involved the very opposite of ambition, man's 
 sin having been an aspiring to be more than a dependent 
 creature. The second man came in the form of a servant, and 
 to do a servant's work to the souls and bodies of men. Our 
 phrase denotes, then, the abasement of a substitute. 
 
 John v. 27 : " And He [the Father] hath given Him authority 
 to execute jud.gm.ent also, because He is the Son of Man." As a 
 proof how important it is to apprehend this phraseology aright, 
 it may be noticed that this verse has been generally misin- 
 terpreted, because the point of this phrase has been missed. 
 Thus those patristic commentators who construe the verse as we 
 do (for some of them divide it in two, and read the last clause 
 with the following verse), are much at a loss what meaning to 
 attach to it ; for, according to their interpretation of this phrase, 
 as only meaning that He had assumed our nature, it seemed to 
 say that His humanity must get this authority elsewhere. 
 Others have put upon it the sense, that man must be judged by 
 man, or by a judge who can be seen. Others interpret the 
 second clause, as far as He is the Son of Man, as if it inti- 
 mated that He acts as man, but that the action is really that of
 
 THE TITLE, SON OF MAN. 117 
 
 the Father in Him. But that comment misses the import of the 
 causal particle, because. Nor does the verse convey the sense : 
 this man saves men, this man judges men. The true explana- 
 tion is easy when we view the title, " Son of Man," as descrip- 
 tive of abasement. He receives this authority as a reward : the 
 cross is the foundation of the glory ; and the authority to judge, 
 the culminating point of His exaltation, is the recompense of 
 His curse-bearing life. It is just parallel to the words in Philip- 
 pians, " He became obedient to death ; WHEREFORE God also hath 
 highly exalted Him." 
 
 Matt. xi. 19 : " The Son of Man came eating and drinking" 
 This expression is not meant to intimate that our Lord adopted 
 a freer mode of intercourse than the Baptist, as a mere phase of 
 teaching, or as a mere example to His followers ; still less does 
 it indicate, as rationalists will have it, that He had a great relish 
 for the hilarities of life. The phrase, Son of Man, intimates that 
 He went there as part of His humiliation, the sinless amid the 
 sinful, in the execution of His office. He used the world as not 
 abusing it, and, by voluntary abasement, entered into all its 
 spheres, even where temptation was most rife, and God had been 
 so much dishonoured. His presence there was a part of His 
 curse-bearing life, but He never was off His guard ; and so was 
 sanctifying society to His followers. Hence they called him a 
 gluttonous man and a wine-bibber. 
 
 Luke xix. 10 :" The Son of Man is come to seek and to save 
 that which was lost." This title, as has been already noticed, is 
 always significant, and not a mere expletive or circumlocution. 
 But for the peculiar shade of thought derived from this phrase, 
 which brings in the idea of the surety in His abasement, we 
 might have referred the language more to the application of 
 redemption than to its procuring cause. But the title, Son of 
 Man, with the expression, is come to seek, points out what is the 
 design of Christ, and proves that He describes His substitution 
 in the room of others as standing in causal connection with the 
 seeking and saving of the lost : the former is the basis of the
 
 118 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 latter. The allusion then, is, not to the kingly office alone, but 
 to the second man, the humbled substitute in His representa- 
 tive work, the ground and basis of the other. 
 
 Though we cannot adduce all the passages where the expres- 
 sion Son of Man occurs, we do not hesitate to affirm that, where- 
 ever it is found whether referring to His poverty or to His 
 betrayal to His condemnation or to His crucifixion, it alludes 
 to vicarious punishment. The Lord, by means of this expres- 
 sion, utters His own consciousness of appearing in the likeness 
 of sinful flesh, and states that He passed through the various 
 grades of a humiliation, which can only be considered as the 
 steps of a vicarious curse-bearing life. He intimates, by His 
 use of this phrase, that He not only had assumed a true 
 humanity, but stood in the position of the second man; in 
 other words, was the surety self-emptied and abased. "We may 
 put it in many other forms, but this is the sense. 
 
 The same meaning attaches to the expression when the Lord 
 uses it in connection with a present exercise of authority. To 
 some of these cases it may be proper to refer, as they have been 
 considered by some as adverse to the view already given, and as 
 lending countenance to the opposite opinion, that the phrase 
 rather contains the notion of dignity or eminence. A few in- 
 stances will serve to prove that they do not invalidate, but 
 confirm the interpretation above given. 
 
 Matt. ix. 6 : " That ye may know that the Son of Man hath 
 power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of the 
 palsy], Arise." Jesus seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, 
 as soon as they brought him into His presence, Thy sins be 
 forgiven thee ; which only drew down on Him a charge of 
 blasphemy, because He claimed to Himself a power competent 
 to God alone. He uses in reply to them an argument of irre- 
 sistible cogency. As all disease was acknowledged to be the 
 effect of sin (whether there might be any special sin in the 
 present case or not), the instantaneous removal of the effect will 
 prove that He had power to remove the cause ; and He declares
 
 THE TITLE, SON OF MAN. 119 
 
 that He will prove His authority to remit sin, and its actual 
 remission, by making the man perfectly whole. But the style 
 of language which He uses cannot be interpreted, with one 
 expositor, as but referring to the power which has its seat and 
 source in God ; nor can it mean, as another will have it, that 
 He is the authorized representative of God in heaven. The 
 allusion to the Son of Man means something more than the 
 declarative action of a prophet. He means that, as the second 
 man or substitute, He had power on earth, by anticipation or 
 beforehand, to forgive sins, an authority which He possessed, 
 because He was then in process of expiating sin by His abase- 
 ment and death. The connection is one of cause and effect. 
 He had authority not merely to promise forgiveness, but to 
 bestow it. Just as He said in relation to the judgment, that 
 He had authority to exercise it, because He was the Son of Man, 
 so He says in reference to forgiveness, -that He had authority 
 to dispense it even by anticipation, because He was the Son of 
 Man. The one is the reward, the other is the procuring cause, 
 or the merit by which it is effected ; and this is always con- 
 nected in the closest manner with the second man, the Lord 
 from heaven. Not to mention the general analogy of Scripture, 
 which uniformly deduces all the benefits of this nature from 
 Christ's atoning work, the phrase under consideration is in itself 
 decisive to this effect. Christ's suretyship is the meritorious or 
 procuring cause of them all. 
 
 Mark ii. 28 : " The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." 
 Some have explained this verse, on account of the peculiar 
 connection in which it stands, with the previous verse (ver. 27), 
 as intimating that man, as man, is lord of the Sabbath. But 
 to that interpretation there are two objections : (1) There is 
 always in our Lord's style a sharp and well-defined difference 
 between the two terms, man and the Son of Man. (2) It would 
 be no valid argument to reason as follows : The Sabbath was 
 made for man, not man for the Sabbath ; therefore man is lord 
 also of the Sabbath. Man, or, to go back to the class who heard
 
 120 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Him, Israel, was not lord of the Sabbath, but servant of it, and 
 bound to observe it ; whereas Jesus declares that He was Lord 
 of the Sabbath in a sense in which no other shared. From the 
 occasion on which the saying was uttered, the tenor of our 'Lord's 
 words bears, that as the Sabbath was not one of the unalterable 
 moral laws, it might be dispensed with in certain cases of mercy 
 and necessity, for the preservation of life and health ; for these 
 are of paramount importance ; and the Sabbath was made for 
 man, not man for it. That is maintained in the plainest terms. 
 But we find a sudden turn given to the expression in the words 
 of Mark : " Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sab- 
 bath." This train of thought may be easily explained. It is 
 warrantable in cases of necessity to break its rest, on the prin- 
 ciple that man was not made for it, but that it was made for 
 man ; though he cannot on this account be called lord of the 
 Sabbath, because this very permission is from the Lord. But 
 Christ has a dispensing power over it from a ground which is 
 unique and wholly His own, because He is the Son of Man. 
 There is no allusion to the other precepts of the decalogue here ; 
 nor indeed could this dispensing power be exercised in reference 
 to them since they are the expression of His own divine nature 
 and divine will without running counter to Himself and con- 
 tradicting Himself. But as the abased and humbled substitute 
 consulting for men's salvation and for their highest interests, He 
 has been made Lord of the Sabbath. This is His reward. He 
 had authority to alter and adjust the Sabbath, and to exercise a 
 dispensing power in regard to it, as He deemed best, because 
 He was the Son of Man. There is no word of abrogating it, but 
 only of adjusting it, and adapting it in such a way as would be 
 most conducive to the spiritual interests of His disciples. He, 
 and He alone, had this authority in the very same way as He 
 had authority to pardon and authority to exercise judgment, 
 because He was the Son of Man, or the substitute of sinners, 
 and the second man. And He showed that He was such a Lord 
 of it, when He altered the day of the week. He on this occasion
 
 THE TITLE, SON OF MAN. 121 
 
 vindicated the disciples who ate the ears of corn ; and not only 
 so, He had a dispensing power to give them this permission as 
 Lord also of the Sabbath. 
 
 The passages already adduced, and others to be met with as 
 we proceed, demonstrate that the idea uniformly attached to the 
 phrase is humiliation or abasement. Nor is this acceptation 
 refuted by those texts which at first sight seem to run counter 
 to it, and involve an allusion to His glory. On the contrary, 
 they mean that He who then spoke in the abasement of the 
 curse would appear in His mediatorial exaltation ; and, as was 
 natural, His thoughts were much directed to the joy that was 
 set before Him. Thus, when He told the disciples that they 
 should be rewarded " when the Son of Man should sit on the 
 throne of His glory," He intimated that His present poverty 
 and meanness should give place to infinite glory. At His trial 
 before the Sanhedrim, when He declared to the high priest, 
 "Ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of 
 power," we have just the same thing. He first avowed His 
 supreme deity as the Son of God, and then immediately re- 
 verted to the view-point from which He usually spake that 
 of the despised and rejected of men, the bearer of the world's 
 curse. And as they set Him at nought in His abasement, He 
 intimates the majesty and glory in which they should one day 
 behold Him. And the same explanation must be given of all 
 the other passages where this title is found in connection with 
 an allusion to His glory. 1 
 
 The preceding discussion gives us, so to speak, a biography 
 of the Lord Jesus from His own consciousness, and, in fact, a 
 wholly different view of the life of Christ, than we should other- 
 wise have been led to form. This language proves that He was 
 fully aware of the fact that He was the sin-bearer, and called to 
 lead a curse-bearing life, throughout His whole earthly career. 
 The human biographies of Christ, which in too many things 
 betray their incompetence to reproduce that wondrous portrait, 
 
 1 See Note G.
 
 122 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 are specially defective here. They rarely take account of this 
 aspect of Christ's earthly life, or find any allusion to it in the 
 Lord's own words. Without this element, however, our whole 
 view of Christ's life is one-sided, and imperfect in the highest 
 degree. Thus the principal use derived from it by many men, 
 otherwise sound in the faith, is limited to His teaching or to His 
 example, or, at furthest, extended to the mode in which the 
 Prince of Life communicates the spiritual life to men, and unites 
 them to Himself. However true and important all these aspects 
 of His life may be, they are still defective. Seen from the true 
 view-point, or read off from the consciousness of the Lord Him- 
 self, His life is pervaded from first to last with another element. 
 He is conscious of being the sin-bearer and the curse-bearer; and 
 every utterance that falls from His lips as the Son of Man, dis- 
 covers that He realized at every step of His arduous work the 
 position of vicarious suffering and abasement. 
 
 It is important to notice how He came to occupy this position 
 as the substitute of sinful men, and so to act out that exchange 
 of places which His whole atonement presupposes and implies. 
 With a view to bring out the truth on this point, it may be 
 proper to refer, negatively, to some of the theories current and 
 in vogue on this subject, but without entering very largely into 
 their refutation. 
 
 1. He did not first take sin upon Him, or was first made sin, 
 upon the cross. He was not first a man, and at a subsequent 
 period the sin-bearer or the curse-bearer. What has been truly and 
 correctly said as to the assumption of humanity may be equally 
 applied to this. He was not first a man, and then incarnate, or 
 assumed into the personality of the Son; for the humanity never 
 existed but in that personal union. In like manner we may say 
 that the humanity never was without this imputation of sin; for 
 that assumption of sin by which He became the sin-bearer, was IN, 
 WITH, BY, and UNDER the assumption of our nature, though the 
 sin is separable and distinguishable from the humanity. Nay, 
 we should rather say that, according to the order of nature, the
 
 THE TITLE, SON OF MAN. 123 
 
 sin was imputed and assumed simultaneously with His mission, 
 and therefore, in a certain sense, prior to the actual incarnation; 
 though it became His, in point of fact, only with the possession 
 of a common nature. They who limit the sin-bearing to the 
 three hours on the cross a too widely diffused notion have far 
 diverged from biblical language and ideas. 
 
 2. Nor did Jesus become the sin-bearer by any necessity of 
 nature in virtue of taking the flesh. This was the error of 
 Menken and Irving, who thought that He assumed sin simply 
 in virtue of taking humanity; as if sin and humanity were one 
 and the same. Their theory was, that our Lord took to Himself 
 a portion of the lump or mass, and that, in consequence of this, 
 He personally, and not officially, by necessity of nature and not 
 by voluntary consent, came under the obligations of that 
 humanity of which He had assumed a part. This is a confusion 
 of thought, which does not discern the things that differ, as well 
 as perilous theology. But sin is not of the substance of man in 
 such a way that they cannot be disjoined. They are so inter- 
 woven and interpenetrated, indeed, that we may not be able to 
 sunder the workmanship of God, which is good, from the corrup- 
 tion which has tainted it. We can distinguish them, however, 
 in idea; God distinguishes and separates in fact. ^Redemption, 
 it is obvious, implies this separation: regeneration implies it: 
 the incarnation presupposes it. If it were not so, man's nature 
 could not have been a capable subject of redemption. And the 
 fact that the Son of God entered into humanity by a true incar- 
 nation, is a sufficient proof that sin and humanity are not one 
 and the same; for He could not have united Himself to sin. 
 Christ became the sin-bearer by free consent, not by necessity 
 of nature; by voluntary susception, not in consequence of any 
 indispensable condition adhering to Him in virtue of His birth. 
 
 That theory, under any modifications, is a deep untruth, and 
 carries with it consequences that may well repel every Christian 
 mind. Even on the supposition that He took sinless humanity 
 and only assumed the curse, objectively considered, by the
 
 124 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 necessity of nature, it would still be a theory which no biblical 
 divine could admit or endure. His death, on this supposition, 
 would not be an official act, but a personal doom; not a free 
 oblation, but a due punishment. 1 The guilt would be His own, 
 and the curse a necessary debt, which he personally owed. The 
 atonement, if we could still suppose such a transaction, on that 
 principle, would have been for the race, on a principle of univer- 
 salism, without selection or distinction. And to come under the 
 curse in this way, He must needs have been Himself in Adam's 
 covenant, the very thing from which, with all its consequences, 
 the supernatural conception was meant to give Him full exemp- 
 tion. The uniform language of Scripture is opposed to all this, 
 and is a constant testimony to the fact that Christ died solely 
 in the exercise of a priestly oblation, without any personal 
 liability whatsoever. It was as bearing sin not His own in con- 
 sequence of an act of His will, but not by any indispensable 
 necessity, that the Lord encountered death. 
 
 3. It cannot be maintained, however, that the Lord took 
 humanity in all respects as it was in Adam before the fall. 
 That is to ignore all the effects and consequences that man's sin 
 necessarily introduced, and it puts the Lord Jesus outside the 
 family of man. He took human nature distinct and separate 
 from sin, which was no part of its essence; for sin and humanity 
 are separable quantities. He took humanity also apart from 
 the imputed guilt of Adam's covenant, descending to Him indi- 
 vidually, as if He were a mere unit in the race. He came as 
 the second man. But He took humanity in such a way as also 
 to assume, by His voluntary act, and at the same moment, the 
 sin of His people, and the curse, which was its sure attendant; 
 which is just what Paul intimates by " the likeness of sinful 
 flesh," or by His appearing at His first coming with sin, as con- 
 
 1 The Darbyite dogma, on what is called the Adam-life of Christ, is not much 
 different from Irving's, and certainly not better. It is held that on the cross sin 
 attached to the life of Christ. What would become of substitution or imputation 
 if sin, IN ANY SENSE, attached to His life? (See Darby's Synopsis on John xi. 
 vol. iii. p. 454, and Girdle of Truth, p. 298.)
 
 THE TITLE, SON OF MAN. 125 
 
 trasted with His "appearing the second time without sin" (Heb. 
 ix. 28). He must be regarded as bearing the penalty of sin from 
 the first moment of His incarnation, or even from His sending: 
 
 * O 
 
 by the Father. "We cannot survey the meanness and abasement 
 of His birth, made lower than the angels; the poverty of His 
 condition; His manual occupation, earning His bread with the 
 sweat of His brow, according to the doom on all the race; His 
 temptation by the foul spirit; His privations; His endurance of 
 hunger and thirst; the agony and bloody sweat; the arrest; the 
 chains by which He was bound; the trial; the accusation and 
 rejection by His nation; the condemnation pronounced upon 
 Him by the Gentiles; and the shame of a public execution, 
 without the full conviction that all this was included in our 
 doom, and related to our punishment. All these griefs in the 
 Man of Sorrows tended to the satisfaction for sin, and were com- 
 prehended in the primeval threat of death. 
 
 Thus the Lord officially appearing on our world as a sin-bearer, 
 and not such a person as was innocent and without sin, must 
 of necessity take a humanity not as He now has it in heaven, 
 nor even as it was in Adam before the fall : " Because the 
 brethren were partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself like- 
 wise took part of the same" (Heb. ii. 14). He assumed hu- 
 manity in its meanness, abasement, and poverty, assumed, that 
 is, not a mere body and soul, but the form of a servant under 
 sentence of death. The only difference was, that He took our 
 common nature without any of the individual infirmities found 
 in particular men ; that is, without any of the disorderly mental 
 conditions or any of the germs of sickness which are either 
 transmitted or developed in the individual. He was free from 
 disease and free from the incursion of death according to the 
 ordinary course of nature, the exemption from both being due 
 to the fact that sin and its consequences did not belong to Him as 
 a personal thing, but as they were assumed by His voluntary act. 
 
 We now come back to the fact that, as the Son of Man, the 
 Lord Jesus was never from the very first without sin and its
 
 126 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 consequences. He felt all through His life what it is to be made 
 sin and to be reputed a sinner. And who knows what soul- 
 trouble, agony, and desertion He endured when no eye but His 
 Father's and that of worshipping angels saw Him ? These times 
 of agony only, so to speak, crop out here and there in His 
 recorded life ; but He was always as the Son of Man, made sin, 
 and always suffering ; and all this abasement was owing to the 
 fact that He was the Son of Man. 
 
 The Lord's humanity, though derived from Adam through 
 His mother, inherited none of the consequences of sin in itself, 
 because it was not in Adam's covenant. By not distinguishing 
 things that differ at this point, not a little confusion of idea has 
 arisen in certain quarters. Thus some unguardedly have described 
 the common infirmities attaching to the Lord's humanity, when 
 He was among men, as if the sinless consequences of Adam's sin 
 descended to Him, or as if He took by a spontaneous but arbi- 
 trary choice the physical infirmities to which humanity had in 
 all ordinary cases come to be reduced. This is by no means the 
 case, as we never find sickness or bodily disease attaching to Him. 
 Though made like His brethren, or sent in the likeness of sinful 
 flesh (Eom. viii. 3), the common infirmities which we undoubt- 
 edly find in Him abasement, the appearance of greater age 
 (John viii. 5 7), the aspect of a man of sorrows, hunger and thirst, 
 weariness, hornelessness, mortality were not entailed on Him 
 by the necessity of nature, but the effects of another cause. 
 They were the consequences of sin-bearing, and penal therefore 
 in their character, like His other sufferings. The explanation is 
 obvious. Assuming as He did at one and the same moment, 
 that is in the act of incarnation, both our nature and our sin, 
 we have two things distinguishable in idea, but always conjoined 
 during His earthly life. He on the one hand took humanity 
 according to its idea without any PEESONAL connection with sin 
 or its consequences, and on the other hand assumed as our 
 substitute, that is, by His official act, the burden of our sins and 
 their penal consequences in an abased, suffering, mortal humanity.
 
 THE TITLE, SON OF MAN. 127 
 
 From the first hour of His earthly life He thus came before men 
 as the sin-bearer, and therefore the curse-bearer, made like unto 
 His brethren. He came within the consequences of sin only 
 because He took sin itself by imputation. But for this, indeed, 
 He might have appeared in a glorious humanity. 
 
 Having become man in this way by the two-fold assumption 
 of our nature and our sin, He knew all through life the responsi- 
 bilities and sorrows which this substitution involved. The idea 
 of substitution involved this consequence, that the Lord should 
 bear wrath instead of His people, or the penal effects of sin. 
 Hence, through every channel which brought sin under His 
 view or made it present to His soul, He seems to have en- 
 countered some part of the curse, or of soul-trouble. The 
 exhaustion caused by His miracles, and the soul-trouble into 
 which he was ushered at the time when the inquiring Greeks 
 approached Him (John xii. 21-27), may be taken as instances 
 how His soul was exercised; and the penal consequences of sin 
 struck specially upon His soul. 
 
 It does not fall within this topic to describe the nature of 
 this suffering, its ingredients, or its intensity. It may suffice 
 to say, that though the Father while acting the part of a judge 
 did not lay aside the person and relation of a Father, He yet 
 inflicted real suffering, penal suffering, which struck the sub- 
 stitute, because it struck upon the sin which He made His; 
 and there were gradations, too, in this curse-bearing life from 
 the manger to the cross which were just degrees, or descending 
 steps, in His humiliation. The cross was its culminating point ; 
 but it was by no means limited to the cross. Though we read 
 little of His private life, or of the way in which His secret 
 hours were spent, He was no doubt in those intervals fre- 
 quently called to realize, as the Man of Sorrows, that He was on 
 the earth in order to bear the sins of many ; and nothing can 
 be conceived more terrible even to the Son of God than to feel 
 the loss of God the bitterest ingredient in the cup of woe, 
 or to realize that He was, in the sense in which the sinless One
 
 128 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 could be so, the object of the condemnation, loathing, and hatred 
 due to sin, or worthy in any sense of receiving it. The Son of 
 Man was treated as if He were the sinners, with whom He had 
 exchanged places before God. 
 
 We have seen, then, from the title, Son of Man, and from 
 the allusions which He made to Himself, that Christ's life was 
 from first to last a sin-bearing and a curse-bearing life. This 
 is one essential element of the atonement. 
 
 SEC. XVIII. CHRIST RECEIVING BAPTISM AS THE CONSCIOUS 
 SIN-BEARER. 
 
 " Suffer it to be so now : for thus it becometh us to fulfil all 
 righteousness" MATT. iii. 15. 
 
 This testimony is replete with meaning, whether we consider 
 the occasion of it or the import of the terms. It may be called 
 a key to that large class of passages which speak of Christ's 
 obedience as the righteousness of His people, or represent Him 
 as made of God unto us righteousness, because He was first of 
 all made sin for us (2 Cor. v. 21). 
 
 As to the occasion which called forth this saying, we find it 
 uttered on the memorable day of Christ's baptism, when he 
 came to the Baptist, the new Elias, the culminating point of the 
 Old Testament prophecy, and its voice. John may be regarded 
 here as the living expression of the law and of the prophets, 
 which had during many ages witnessed to the coming Messiah, 
 and which now, by their greatest representative, were to intro- 
 duce the Christ into His office. As the Lord Jesus recognised 
 them; so they were to inaugurate Him as the truth of the pro- 
 phecies, and as the substance of the types or shadows. So close 
 in every point of view is the connection, rightly apprehended, 
 of the old and new economy, that the one is incomplete 
 without the other. But though Jesus was fully conscious of 
 His mission from the day when the boy of twelve first trod the
 
 CHRIST RECEIVING BAPTISM AS SIN-BEARER. 129 
 
 courts of the temple, and declared that He must be about His 
 Father's business, He would take no steps towards the public 
 discharge of His office till He was formally inaugurated into 
 it by an authorized prophet on the one hand, and by divine 
 testimony on the other ; and our Lord well knew that John was 
 sent on this very mission, by means of which a something was 
 to be conferred upon Him that He had not before received. 
 
 The Baptist, as a sinner, feeling that it rather became him to 
 exchange places with Jesus, and to be not the giver but the 
 receiver in the interview, refused, for a time, to confer his 
 baptism on the Redeemer. He could not conceive what the 
 Christ had to do with a baptism of repentance for the remission 
 of sins, what it was to Him, or He to it. But that reluc- 
 tance was overcome by the explanation which our Lord sub- 
 joined: "suffer it to be so Now" 1 that is (for the now is 
 emphatic), in my present state of humiliation, and as an action 
 suited only to my state of substitution in the room of sinners. 
 And the plural number, " it becometh us," may either refer, as 
 in some similar cases, to Jesus alone ; or, with a greatly modified 
 sense, may include a reference also to the Baptist. 
 
 But the Lord subjoins an explanation as to the principle and 
 end for which He sought John's baptism: "For thus it be- 
 cometh us to fulfil all righteousness." It is not the special act 
 of baptism to which alone allusion is here made. The language 
 is more general, though the occasion was particular. There is 
 nothing to warrant the limitation of the words, which must be 
 accepted in the full force of the phraseology. The Lord had a 
 public confession to make ; and the words here used furnish a key 
 to the whole action. We must then, first of all, notice the im- 
 port of these His words of confession : it lecometh us to fulfil all 
 righteousness. The Lord virtually says, " It is not unworthy of 
 the Son of God to go down so far ; for it is not a question of 
 dignity or pre-eminence, but of fulfilling all righteousness." 
 The reception of baptism was only a voluntary act, and not a
 
 130 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 service personally necessary or required on His own account ; 
 for He acted of free choice when He became incarnate. But it 
 became Him to fulfil His undertaking, and in doing so He was 
 not free to omit this or any part of His work ; for though he was 
 under no obligation to take the flesh, yet there arose a certain 
 duty from His engagement to the Father, from His mediatorial 
 office, and from the old prophecies. There was a certain hypo- 
 thetical necessity or propriety which required His acting as 
 He now did, if the end was to be gained. It may be thus 
 put: "It becometh me to appear in the likeness of a sinner, 
 and to fulfil all righteousness." 
 
 But, it is further demanded, what significance had baptism for 
 the Christ of God, and what application could it have to Him ? 
 This is the very difficulty which presented itself to the mind of 
 the Baptist, and which is still a difficulty to many an expositor 
 in explaining it. It must be borne in mind, in the first place, 
 that, as the surety, Jesus was made under the law ; and that 
 sacraments, as prescribed by the second commandment, were 
 among the DUTIES with which He complied. But while that 
 side of the question is clear enough, the difficulty lies in the 
 other aspect of a sacrament : how they could be for Him the 
 outward signs by which the divine promises were sealed and 
 the faith of the receiver confirmed ; and they undoubtedly were 
 so to Him. 
 
 In this matter it is obvious we must distinguish between 
 the sinless person or individual and the official duty assigned 
 to the surety; the neglect of which distinction has been the 
 chief cause of the difficulty. When we speak of Christ's parti- 
 cipation of the sacraments, it must always be on the supposition 
 that He was acting as the Mediator between God and man, 
 and that there is a strict limitation of His actions to a sphere 
 that excludes not only all personal taint, but also all the mental 
 exercises corresponding to this condition, which, however, are 
 involved in our use of the sacraments of the Church. Impurity 
 of His own He had none. But He had truly entered into
 
 CHEIST RECEIVING BAPTISM AS SIN-BEARER. 131 
 
 humanity, and come within the bonds of the human family; 
 and, according to the law, the person who had but touched an 
 unclean person, or had been in contact with him, was unclean. 
 Hence, in submitting Himself to baptism as Mediator in an 
 official capacity, the Lord 'Jesus virtually said, " Though sinless 
 in a world of sinners, and without having contracted any per- 
 sonal taint, I come for baptism ; because, in my public or official 
 capacity, I am a debtor in the room of many, and bring with Me 
 the sin of the whole world, for which I am the propitiation." 
 He was already atoning for sin, and had been bearing it on His 
 body since He took the flesh ; and in this mediatorial capacity 
 promises had been made to Him as the basis of His faith, and 
 as the ground upon which His confidence was exercised at 
 every step. 
 
 It is of course obvious that baptism had not, and could not 
 have, the same significance to Him as it has to us. But it had 
 an important significance even to Him, first, officially, and 
 then, as His faith was thus confirmed and established, also per- 
 sonally. Some writers have perplexed and complicated this 
 whole question by drawing a superfluous distinction between 
 the obedience due by Christ as a rational creature and that 
 which He owed as the Mediator or Surety acting in the name 
 of His people, and between the promises made to Him in the 
 one capacity and those which were made to Him in the other. 
 It is only an embarrassing distinction, which should be dis- 
 missed. It is much better to hold that Christ was not made 
 under the law on His own account, and that humanity, existing 
 in the person of the Son of God, came under no law, and was 
 bound to no obedience, except as He spontaneously stooped to 
 become officially the surety of His people. We are not to dis- 
 tinguish here, as some have unduly done, between the man and 
 the Mediator. We meet in this whole scene, an inward offering 
 of Himself, as when the sacrifice was presented at the door of 
 the tabernacle of the congregation (Lev. i. 3), or a full mental 
 dedication to bear the sin of the world, and, in so doing, to fulfil
 
 132 SAYINGS OF JESUS OX THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 all righteousness. The administration of the rite, accordingly, 
 was a symbol of the baptism of agony which He had yet to be 
 baptized with, and which, with the utmost promptitude, He here, 
 and all through His history, offered Himself to undergo : " I 
 have a baptism to be baptized with ; and how am I straitened 
 till it be accomplished !" (Luke xii. 50). This mental dedication 
 ran through all His subsequent career, and gave a tincture to 
 His entire life, till it confronts us afresh as a completed act upon 
 the cross. He had fulfilled all righteousness till now ; and this 
 gives us a glimpse into His purpose and resolve for the future. 
 It consisted of these two parts : that Christ, in the likeness of 
 sinful flesh, should condemn sin, in other words, that He should 
 perfectly fulfil the law of love in heart and action as one for 
 many ; and that, according to the same representative system, 
 man should satisfy for man, by fully entering into the lot of 
 sinners under punitive justice. He avowed His prompt and 
 cordial willingness, as the physician of the sick, to take upon 
 Himself their sicknesses and their diseases, though He well 
 knew that He was now at the threshold of His public ministry, 
 and entering on a scene of conflicts and trouble of which Naza- 
 reth had given Him no experience. 
 
 It might be added, that this merely mental offering of Him- 
 self in His baptism was crowned with a divine recognition 
 (Matt. iii. 16). But on this we do not insist, as it does not 
 come within our immediate purpose. It may suffice to say, 
 that this divine act of recognition showed that not only was His 
 past career well-pleasing, but that this dedication, as a thing 
 that was to be daily renewed, was peculiarly so, and would be 
 at the close most gloriously rewarded. The words which our 
 Lord uses at a later period, " I have a baptism to be baptized 
 with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" dis- 
 covers in what light Christ will have His baptism to be regarded. 
 It was a symbolic representation of those sufferings and sorrows 
 to which He must submit as the voluntary sacrifice in the room 
 of His people, an emblem of the way in which He was to bear
 
 CHEIST RECEIVING BAPTISM AS SIN-BE AKEK. 133 
 
 the floods of wrath in bringing in the everlasting righteousness, 
 or in fulfilling all righteousness. We do not need, then, to 
 make two things out of the baptism, but may rest content with 
 the symbol and the reality. 
 
 To all that has just been said, however, there are two objec- 
 tions, which must now be obviated. It is argued that we cannot 
 class this passage among those which set forth a meritorious 
 obedience for man, and in man's stead, for these reasons : (1) 
 because Christ speaks of Himself and of John together, and the 
 obedience of the latter cannot be held to be meritorious for men; 
 and (2) because it refers principally to baptism, which was not 
 received by Christ in man's stead. These objections are easily 
 met and removed. 
 
 As to the first objection, that Christ speaks of Himself and 
 of John together, and that the obedience of the latter cannot 
 be meritorious, the answer is at hand. It seems to be, as in 
 many other places, the plural of eminence (comp. John iii. 11). 
 But if the words do include a reference to John, in a certain 
 modified sense, the meaning will be, that he, the Baptist, had 
 duly to fulfil the terms of his commission, and not refuse his 
 baptism to one who sought it at his hand, as our Lord now did 
 upon this occasion. 
 
 As to the second objection, I answer ; the allusion is not to a 
 single rite or to any one observance which had been appointed 
 by divine authority, and the observance of which was a right 
 thing. That does not by any means exhaust the meaning. The 
 expression used is, that He must needs fulfil all righteousness in 
 a humiliation of which He was not ashamed, and in which John 
 must acquiesce. It can only refer to the sinless One offering in 
 the room of sinners the great atoning act, or to the whole media- 
 torial righteousness. His greatness and His abasement are 
 equally brought out in the work to be done. 
 
 This will help us to understand in what sense it can be said 
 that Christ, by receiving baptism, " fulfilled all righteousness." 
 This is the point of the passage in reference to the subject for
 
 134 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 which we have adduced it; and it must be precisely appre- 
 hended. The phrase, "to fulfil all righteousness," can only 
 mean, in this connection, as was symbolized in the rite em- 
 ployed, that the Lord Jesus would bring in an approved fulfil- 
 ment of the divine law, the work of one for many ; that there 
 must be an exact correspondence between that which is required 
 and that which is actually rendered, a coincidence between 
 the two. Though it is not necessary to refer to the essential 
 righteousness of God, by which He wills and loves all that 
 agrees with His perfections, further than to say that the crea- 
 ture's righteousness is to be measured on that attribute, or on 
 the law which is the transcript of it, yet it is necessary to bear 
 in mind that this human righteousness is fulfilled only when 
 men reflect the image of their Maker in their heart and nature, 
 in their life and actions. As it was not a divine righteousness, 
 but a creature-righteousness, that was required at our hands, so 
 it was this that the Mediator rendered, in other words, it was 
 the same in kind with ours, though the person who came to 
 bring it in was possessed of a divine dignity, which gave His 
 work a validity and value all its own. It consisted in an obedi- 
 ence to the divine law in precept and in penalty, complete in 
 all its parts, and up to the measure of man's capacity ; for as 
 nothing less was claimed, so nothing less was rendered by the 
 Mediator, who was made under the law as broken, and who acted 
 in the room of others. Thus man satisfied for man, and, further- 
 more, fulfilled the law of love in heart and life. 
 
 We cannot limit the phrase to anything short of full obedience 
 to the law, as the rule of righteousness. And when we look at 
 the terms here used, it will be found, that as the epithet righteous 
 always carries with it the notion that the person so described is 
 approved by a competent tribunal as following a line of conduct 
 which is conformable to the law, so righteousness l is that quality, 
 
 1 This is the meaning of SiKaioafo-r). That the verb Siicaiovv denotes one who if 
 acquitted and accepted, is admitted on all hands ; but the mistake too commonly 
 committed is, that the same meaning has not been carried out to these cognate 
 words, e.g. SiKaioffvvr], Skcuos.
 
 CHRIST BEARING HIS PEOPLE'S BURDENS AND SICKNESSES. 135 
 
 personal or official, which marks one out as the fit object of that 
 approval. The allusion here is to the righteousness due from 
 the creature, and exhibited in the great sacrifice which was here 
 mentally offered by the Mediator in our stead. That this is the 
 meaning is obvious on many grounds. Expositors have pro- 
 pounded various other explanations, which are not tenable. 
 
 We may set aside, then, as faulty and inadequate, (1) the com- 
 ment that the language is equivalent to saying that Christ fully 
 taught the doctrine of true religion, or that He embodied in His 
 example an outline of all He taught to others. As little will it 
 suffice to say, (2) that the phrase means, " it becomes us to do 
 what is right, or to carry out, even to the smallest duty, that 
 which God has appointed." There is as little ground for the 
 explanation, (3) that humility is the principal part of righteous- 
 ness. The defect of all these comments is, that they take no 
 account of Christ's mediatorial position in this act, without which 
 we cannot understand His words, or see their proper scope. He 
 was already in this public act MENTALLY OFFERING the sacrifice of 
 Himself to the Father, and so fulfilling all righteousness. 
 
 SEC. XIX. CHRIST, AS THE SIN-BEARER, TAKING ON HIM, DURING 
 HIS EARTHLY LIFE AND HISTORY, THE BURDENS AND SICKNESSES 
 OF HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 In the Gospels there are several passages to be found which 
 bring out far deeper views on the subject of Christ's curse-bearing 
 and suffering life than have commonly been adopted, or, at least, 
 than have been taken up in earnest in the Church. Most readers 
 who merely read the narrative of Christ's life as they do a 
 common history, see nothing more in these sufferings than the 
 opposition of ungodly men to the cause of God, or limit the en- 
 durance of the curse on the part of Jesus to the hours when He 
 hung upon the cross. But the curse-bearing career of Christ was 
 by no means of that nature, nor limited to that time.
 
 136 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Neither is it enough to say, as the views of others imply, that 
 as Jesus endured the collective elements of the curse on the cross, 
 it serves no purpose to trace it piecemeal and in detail in other 
 spheres and at other times. For on that theory it would not 
 have been necessary for Christ to be an infant, child, youth, and 
 man, if we are to limit attention to the one point which was un- 
 doubtedly the climax both of the obedience and of the curse. 
 His previous life, considered in the double light of sinless purity 
 and of curse-bearing endurance, was not less necessary in the 
 divine economy than the cross, and not less provided for in the 
 wisdom of the divine counsels. His entire life was pervaded by 
 the curse; and He encountered it in every sphere where His 
 people were required to bear it. We may trace from His history 
 how He met it in all those spheres and departments where the 
 bitter effects of sin, beyond doubt, assail mankind. The opposite 
 view may seem to have more simplicity in it ; but it overleaps 
 the significance of the earthly life of Christ. God's wisdom, 
 however, was plainly different. And this endurance of the curse 
 from the commencement of His life to its close, in every one of 
 those departments or spheres where the bitter consequences of 
 sin had entered, must be viewed as necessary, not only in the 
 way of fitting the Lord Jesus to become a merciful and faithful 
 High Priest (Heb. ii. 17), but as a condition in the moral govern- 
 ment of God for the expiation of sin. 
 
 As it is easy to err by excess here, many are content to err by 
 defect. Thus Menken and Irving egregiously erred by bringing 
 Christ into the circle of human nature as it now is. But many, 
 on the other hand, have been deterred, in consequence of their 
 mistake, from even venturing to approach the subject. The 
 regulative principle, however, which is by no means to be lost 
 sight of at any point, and which will guide us in our inquiry 
 here, is, that sin is not of the essence of humanity, and that we 
 can distinguish between it and God's workmanship. 1 While 
 
 1 One important thought in connection with the incarnation, and capable of 
 receiving an application to the case in hand, was brought out during the discus-
 
 CHRIST BEAEING HIS PEOPLE'S BURDENS AND SICKNESSES. 137 
 
 Christ sustained our persons and entered into our position by a 
 legal exchange of places, He was incarnate in a humanity accord- 
 ing to its idea, and not as it now is in us. It was not an 
 exchange of either a physical or moral nature when He officially 
 took our place. The Sinless One took the curse upon Himself, 
 and bore it through life, solely by spontaneous choice, and not 
 by necessity of nature. All this was voluntarily assumed, not 
 taken by the necessity of His incarnation. Hence, viewed in 
 the twofold light of the sin-bearer and of the sinless second man, 
 His entire life was expiatory or atoning. For He was at every 
 moment bearing the curse of that sphere through which He 
 passed, or in which He lived at any given time, and yet fulfilling 
 in it all righteousness, such as man was required to render, or 
 was capable of rendering. He went through all life in a double 
 capacity, and must be regarded at every moment as at once the 
 curse-bearer and the fulfiller of all righteousness. We shall 
 notice some of these spheres, though by no means in an 
 exhaustive way. 
 
 Thus Christ's human development took place within the circle 
 of FAMILY LIFE, where the deepest principles of all that is purely 
 human are called into action. And as the curse lies there as 
 well as upon every other human sphere, He lived in it to bear 
 this curse, and also to sanctify by His sinless purity the domestic 
 constitution to all His followers. There are sides of domestic 
 life which often try the mind and involve a deep conflict, all the 
 
 sions called forth by the theory of Flacius Illyricus, who held that sin had become 
 of the essence or substance of humanity. The churches recoiled in horror from 
 that overdone speculation, and replied that we may and must distinguish between 
 God's workmanship, which is good, and the ruin or deiilement which has invaded 
 it. (See Formula Concordice, de peccato originis.) "We can distinguish in idea, 
 and God distinguishes in fact. If it were not so, there could not have been an in- 
 carnation. Humanity could not have been assumed except on the ground of such 
 a distinction in point of fact. Christ assumed humanity without its taint ; which 
 indeed was not of its substance, nor essential to it. And this assumption of our 
 nature according to its idea, rather than according to what it has become, is quite 
 consistent with the fact that He took on Him, by voluntary susception, not only 
 all the parts of our curse in all the spheres where it is diffused, but also many sin- 
 less infirmities, such as hunger and thirst, weariness and pain, sorrow and death.
 
 138 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 more trying because the relations are so close ; and from this the 
 Lord Jesus was not exempt. Thus we read that His brethren 
 did not believe on Him, and therefore could not comprehend 
 Him (John vii. 1-7). 
 
 He entered also, as we have every reason to conclude, into the 
 PKIMEVAL CURSE OF LABOUR. When we find Him designated not 
 only the carpenter's son, but the carpenter (Mark vi. 3), the 
 language plainly refers to the fact, that during the course of His 
 private life the Lord Jesus followed the occupation of a carpenter. 
 We are constrained, both on exegetical and on dogmatic grounds, 
 to decide for this interpretation. There seems no ground to 
 doubt that Jesus earned His bread by the sweat of His brow, 
 whether we look at the plain words used by the evangelist, or 
 at the necessity devolving on the substitute of sinners of entering 
 into every part of our curse. And He has in consequence trans- 
 formed the curse of labour into a blessing, and sanctified not only 
 manual and mental labour in every form in which it can be 
 viewed, but also the entire earthly calling to all His followers 
 till the end of time. 
 
 During His private life, as well as afterwards in His public 
 ministry, the Lord Jesus, as the sin-bearer, felt, too, in every 
 variety of form, the infliction of the divine wrath. 1 And no 
 mortal man can conceive through what agony and desertion 
 He was called to pass, or what He may have endured on those 
 occasions, when it is said that He went apart, or retired from the 
 society of man, to wrestle .with God in secret. We can only 
 figure to ourselves what it may have been, and warrantably 
 conclude that it was similar to the scenes on record. Nor need 
 
 1 It is the more necessary to notice this aspect of our Lord's earthly life, in- 
 asmuch as the very best among the biographies of Christ circulating among the 
 churches give no prominence to it, if they even allude to it. Their object is to 
 bring out the active sinless life of Jesiis ; and they apprehend this earthly life 
 only on this side, while they ignore the sin-bearing element. The language of 
 Ursinus and Olevianus in the Heidelberg Catechism is happy : " eum toto quidem 
 vitce suce tempore, quo in terris egit, prsecipue vero in ejus extreme, iram Dei 
 ad versus peccatum universi generis humani corpore et anima sustinuisse." (See 
 Quest. 37.)
 
 CHEIST BEAKING HIS PEOPLE'S BURDENS AND SICKNESSES. 139 
 
 I refer to Christ's TEMPTATION in the wilderness, the counter- 
 part of Adam's temptation in the garden, further than to say 
 that the fact of His being the sin-bearer affords the only expla- 
 nation how Satan could obtain such power over Him, or venture 
 into the presence of the Son of God, and appeal to the same 
 elements in human nature, though from a wholly different point 
 of view, in order, if possible, to seduce Him. His position as the 
 curse-bearer can alone explain that marvellous abasement. 
 
 There are many other spheres or departments into which the 
 curse had entered according to the judicial sentence of God, such 
 as poverty and pain, hunger and thirst, weariness, reproach, and 
 sorrow. It may suffice to say, in reference to all these parts of 
 the curse, that as Christ's people had given their members instru- 
 ments to sin, and had deserved to suffer, so Christ stepped down 
 into their place, and bore the wrath of God for them in every 
 variety of form. 
 
 There is one sphere, however, to which I must more particularly 
 advert ; and the rather, because it has not received in any quarter 
 the attention due to its importance. I refer to the sense in 
 which Christ is said to have taken on Him our SICKNESSES AND 
 DISEASES. The question arises : If they are part of the curse, 
 can it be said that He took them on Himself ; did He bear them, 
 to any extent, and in what way ? If diseases are the effect of 
 sin, and part of the woe which sin has brought into our world, 
 in what sense are we to regard Christ's relation to disease, or 
 explain His interference in the performance of His miraculous 
 cures with the due infliction of this penal sentence ? When we 
 examine His miraculous cures, several things are evident. That 
 they not only fatigued Him, but cost Him much in the way of 
 sympathy, and even of endurance, may be inferred from various 
 incidents, and especially from the fact that He often sighed in 
 the performance of the cure (Mark vii. 34), and was troubled 
 (John xi. 33) ; and from the fact that He was sensibly conscious 
 of virtue going out of Him, as if a mutual transfer, in some sort, 
 took place in every instance of a cure (Mark v. 30).
 
 140 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Now, in the first place, there can be no doubt that the 
 miraculous cures were only a result or effect of that ransom 
 which was to be paid in all the extent to which man was made 
 subject to the curse. If Christ was to annihilate sin as the 
 cause, then the effect, as a matter of course, must disappear 
 whenever He spoke His healing word. He thus removed 
 disease by anticipation, because, as the surety of sinners, He 
 undertook their obligations, and satisfied for all that was the 
 cause of the disease. The effect was virtually removed by the 
 removal of the cause, though in no case was the cure effected 
 without the actual exercise of His omnipotent fiat. 
 
 This brings me to notice, in the next place, the additional 
 idea contained in a remarkable apostolic commentary on Christ's 
 miracles. This is exhibited in a somewhat difficult passage in 
 Matthew, where Jesus is said to have taken on Himself our 
 sicknesses. The Lord had, during a day of labour, dispensed 
 blessings to many, and, wearied with incessant activity, He 
 needed rest. But when evening came, instead of a season of 
 repose, there came a new company who had all manner of dis- 
 eases and possessions, and He healed them all. When Matthew 
 narrates this fact, he subjoins a quotation to the effect that all 
 this was the fulfilment of what had been spoken by Esaias the 
 prophet, saying, "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sick- 
 nesses" (Matt. viii. 17). The words of the evangelist must be 
 accepted as an exact quotation of Isaiah's words, and also as a 
 faithful reproduction or transcript of the meaning of the prophet. 
 It is an apostolic commentary, of which the evangelists supply 
 many. The fact that the inspired writer quotes the words in 
 this connection and with his appended explanation, is conclusive 
 as to their meaning. How far the words can bear a wider sense, 
 it does not lie within my present purpose to inquire : but that 
 this is the meaning here, is rendered all the more certain by the 
 formula of quotation, " that it might be fulfilled," which will not 
 admit the application of the theory of accommodation which 
 certain writers use to evacuate a passage of its meaning.
 
 CHRIST BEARING HIS PEOPLE'S BURDENS AND SICKNESSES. 141 
 
 This brings out, then, a new thought, which is quite in harmony 
 with the explanation which has been already given. If diseases 
 were removed by Christ because the sin which was the cause of 
 them was to be expiated by His atoning death, He could say, 
 " Whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, 
 Arise and walk ?" (Matt. ix. 5). This additional thought is quite 
 consistent with that view. The connection between the atone- 
 ment and the cure is further illustrated by the fact, of which 
 there is little doubt, that it cost Him something, in other 
 words, that He suffered in mind and body when He healed all 
 manner of sickness and disease. That He took them upon 
 Himself in some sense, is affirmed by Matthew in that passage. 
 But in what sense ? Perhaps as good an answer as has ever 
 been furnished was offered by Dr. Thomas Goodwin. " Christ," 
 says he, 1 " when He came to an elect child of His that was sick, 
 whom He healed, His manner was, first, by a sympathy and pity 
 to afflict Himself with their sickness as if it had been His own. 
 Thus, at the raising of Lazarus, it is said that ' He groaned in 
 spirit,' etc. ; and so, by the merit of taking the disease upon 
 Himself, through a fellow-feeling of it, He took it off from them, 
 being for them afflicted as if He Himself had been sick. And 
 this seems to be the best interpretation that I have met with of 
 that difficult place in Matt. viii. 16, 17." That Jesus would 
 enter into this department of the curse was only what was to be 
 
 1 See Goodwin's treatise, entitled The Heart of Christ in Heaven to Sinners on 
 Earth, vol. iv. p. 138 ; Edin. Edition. CEder, in his refutation of the Racovian 
 Catechism, p. 806 (Francofurti, 1739), has some striking remarks on this topic : 
 ' ' Hie utinam non esset fatendum, in multas vias itum esse ab interpretibus, 
 nostratibus etiam, ut in concordiam redigunt Prophetam et Evangelistam. 
 Namque ilium primo, de spiritualibus morbis, h. e. peccatis loqui, existimant, 
 turn vero ea ita suscepta esse a Christo, ut proprie ferret, h. e. poenas his debitas 
 sustineret, Matthseum contra et de corporis iniirmitatibus verba facere, et eas non 
 a Christo toleratas seu in ipsuni translatas intelligi velle, sed ablatas sanando, ut 
 medicus non in se transfert febrira, qua medicamentis suis segrotum liberat. Non 
 satisfecerunt, quod sine vituperatione summorum ingeniorum dictum velim, 
 omnes interpretes omnium religionum. " See the best discussion I know of this 
 difficult point in that passage of CEder (pp. 806-820), who maintains that, in some 
 sense, the diseases were transferred by Christ to Himself. The opposite view is 
 maintained by Sebastian Schmid in his commentary on Heb. iv. 15.
 
 142 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 expected, because it fills so large a part of human life in the case 
 of multitudes, and because it extends, in some measure, to every 
 member of the human family. Though disease could not touch 
 Him as it assails mankind in general, in the way of contagion, 
 it needs no proof that this voluntary assumption, or bearing of 
 it, in some sense, in His sinless body, or the transfer of it to 
 Himself, was of the greatest moment to us. It was spontaneous, 
 not constrained. But His miracles alone were so numerous as 
 to make Him acquainted with all manner of sickness and dis- 
 ease. He took them on Himself for us. And may not pious 
 minds derive the highest comfort from the fact that the Saviour 
 took upon Himself not only the sin, which is the cause of 
 disease, but also the DISEASE ITSELF, in some sense, however 
 mysterious and undefinable that may be, just as He took poverty 
 and grief on Himself for us ? (Comp. Heb. iv. 15.) 
 
 SEC. XX. THE HISTOEIC FACTS OF CHKIST'S SUFFERINGS 
 ILLUSTRATED BY HIS SAYINGS. 
 
 The department to which we here allude is too much omitted 
 by those who handle the sayings of Christ, or who discuss the 
 question of the atonement. And yet the FACTS and history of 
 the Lord's passion must needs be correctly apprehended in the 
 light of His sayings. Their full meaning, indeed, cannot be seen 
 from the proper point of view, or thoroughly ascertained, unless 
 the import of His sayings as to the doctrine of the atonement 
 has been correctly understood. On the other hand, the true 
 doctrine of the atonement, by the aid of the key thus furnished, 
 may, and must, be read off from the facts of His suffering and 
 death, if we are to do justice to either. 
 
 When we put together the facts and sayings of Jesus, we find 
 that men are saved in the same way in which sin entered, and by 
 a constitution precisely similar, that of one for many (Eom. v. 19). 
 A way to happiness could be found only by a perfect obedience, 
 and by a provision to bear sin. And an economy of substitution by a
 
 CHEIST'S SUFFEEINGS ILLUSTEATED BY HIS SAYINGS. 143 
 
 competent representative entered in the exercise of infinite wisdom 
 and grace. To apprehend aright what must needs ensue, we have 
 but to trace the history of one who lives and dies impenitent, 
 and compare it with that which the Mediator endured under the 
 penal consequences of sin. Such a man born a child of wrath 
 is subject to many calamities, and encounters through life many 
 miseries, the common lot of mortals. He dies, and the departed 
 soul passes into a separate state, where the memory of His deeds 
 gives rise to much anguish and a dread foreboding of a judgment 
 day. By the union of soul and body the misery is augmented : 
 for the man is raised up to shame and condemnation, and soul 
 and body, which sinned together, are visited together. 
 
 Now, the Son of God becoming man of man, not by the com- 
 mon law of natural birth, but in a way which procured for Him 
 perfect sinlessness, undertook to do all devolving on man accord- 
 ing to His idea, and to suffer what none but He could suffer in 
 the room of others ; thus entering into an analogous position to 
 that of Adam. According to this constitution the guilt of men 
 was charged to His account, and the merit of His obedience was 
 deemed theirs. Sinless, but made their sin (2 Cor. v. 21) ; in- 
 finitely beyond the reach of suffering in Himself, but coming 
 within it, because made a curse for us (Gal. iii. 13), He effected 
 the twofold condition of redemption in the same acts and in the 
 same scenes, all through life. He fulfilled the condition DO AND 
 LIVE, not precisely for Himself ; for in virtue of His divine per- 
 son and His absolutely holy nature, He was already entitled to 
 eternal happiness ; but for the redeemed from among men, who 
 thus have their title in Him. But elect humanity also bore the 
 curse in Him. The soul trouble which came direct from the 
 hand of God ; the power over Him given to ecclesiastical and 
 civil rulers, because He was the sin -bearer, and standing in our 
 stead; the groundless charges of blasphemy and sedition, yet 
 justly preferred against the substitute of sinners ; and the final 
 execution of the sentence, carrying with it tortures from without 
 and desertion from within were only what His people deserved. 

 
 144 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Hence it is that for true Christians the penalty exists no more : 
 nor is there ought of wrath in the sorrows they endure. 
 
 There is a double line of inquiry here presented to us. There 
 is one class of facts of a more subjective character, descriptive 
 of Christ's own feelings, and another class more objective in its 
 character, which seems to contain only incidents or events which 
 were permitted to befall Him. But both assume that Jesus was 
 the conscious sin-bearer ; and can only be correctly understood 
 from this point of view. 
 
 With regard to the more subjective class of facts, we find a 
 few utterances of Jesus in the form of exclamations during His 
 soul-trouble, which bring before us what He felt under the inflic- 
 tion of His Father's hand and the hiding of His Father's face. 
 The whole texture of Christ's life may be said to consist of suf- 
 fering, sorrow, and bitterness. As the curse had diffused itself 
 through every scene of life, not a sphere can be named, nor a 
 moment thought of, in which He did not, as the surety of sinners, 
 feel, more or less, the bitter ingredients of that cup of woe, which 
 must otherwise have oppressed His people for ever. The bare 
 fact of taking our nature was an acknowledgment of the debt ; 
 and as He went about in the likeness of sinful flesh, His entire 
 history was a proof that sin was laid on Him. And these varied 
 sorrows in every sphere in which He moved, and especially in 
 the exclamations of agony which burst from Him on different 
 occasions, only prove that Jesus, in the double capacity of sin- 
 bearer and of sinless second man, was, in part at least, offering 
 the satisfaction in all these scenes, till at last the whole cup of 
 suffering was put into His hand at once. That this is the mean- 
 ing of this class of facts cannot be doubted or denied. 
 
 With regard to the more objective class of facts connected 
 with Christ's experience as the conscious sin-bearer, they are 
 not less significant. We find a series of historic facts connected 
 with the arrest, the trial, the sentence, and execution of the Lord 
 Jesus, which can only be explained on the supposition, that while 
 the Lord was placed before the bar of man, He was really stand-
 
 EXCLAMATIONS OF THE CONSCIOUS SIN-BEARER. 145 
 
 ing before another bar as the sin-bearing representative of His 
 people ; and that the transactions of that earthly court only ex- 
 hibited to the eye of man the foreground of the scene, and gave 
 us the means of apprehending what was taking place, though 
 invisibly, in the court of heaven. 
 
 These two series of historic facts in the course of Christ's 
 passion are in the highest degree significant, and must be cor- 
 rectly apprehended, if we would not lose sight of some of the 
 most essential and indispensable elements in the doctrine of the 
 atonement. 
 
 SEC. XXI. THE FACTS AND SAYINGS OF CHRIST, THE CONSCIOUS 
 SIN-BEARER IN PROSPECT OF HIS AGONY, AND DURING IT. 
 
 The narrative of the evangelists contains many clear proofs 
 that our Lord from the first looked forward with deep solemnity 
 to the period of His sufferings. Nor, in truth, was He ever 
 without some experience of the curse in the numerous spheres 
 through which it had diffused itself, though these sufferings had 
 their ebbs and flows. They were not always equally intense. 
 Thus, in the first stages of His ministry, He speaks of His death 
 with a certain measure of calmness (John iii. 14; John vi. 
 51). There can be little doubt, however, that when He did so 
 speak of His approaching death, there is a certain measure of 
 the same experience which afterwards reached its height in the 
 garden and on the cross. 
 
 At a further stage His statements are delivered with a greater 
 amount of feeling ; and they awaken also more attention among 
 the disciples, as well as a certain degree of fear and awe, be- 
 cause they could not but see a deepening solemnity upon His 
 mind, and the first traces of something more than- a mere anti- 
 cipation of the future (Matt. xvii. 17-22 ; Mark ix. 31). 
 
 It was in the last journey to Jerusalem that He spake out 
 
 with a distinctness and an amount of feeling that impressed His 
 
 K
 
 146 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 disciples with fear (Mark. x. 32). This was owing to the way 
 in which He spoke of His death as a cup that He must drink of, 
 and as a baptism that He must be baptized with (Matt. xx. 22). 
 And when He says, " How am I straitened till it is accom- 
 plished ! " (Luke xii. 50,) He intimates that there was upon His 
 spirit a pressure, anxiety, or straitening, which it may be diffi- 
 cult for us to define, but which must allude to an inner experi- 
 ence akin to the fact that He was the sin-bearer. 
 
 The sufferings of Christ may be distributed into those which 
 were an immediate infliction upon His soul from the hand of 
 God, and those in which soul and body alike shared. To the 
 former belong all those exclamations which fell from Him in 
 society or in solitude, without any infliction of pain from the 
 hands of men. There are at least two of this nature, where we 
 cannot but trace the evidences of mental agony, the soul- 
 trouble manifested in the presence of the inquiring Greeks on 
 the day of His public entry into Jerusalem (John xii. 27), and 
 the agony in the garden of Gethsemane (Matt. xxvi. 38); to 
 which must be added, as a third, the cry of desertion on the 
 cross, which, though accompanied with corporeal suffering, arose 
 mainly from mental distress (Matt, xxvii. 46). One thing is 
 obvious enough in reference to all these three exclamations. 
 They cannot be explained on any supposition which does not 
 fully admit the vicarious death of Christ. We shall notice 
 them separately. 
 
 I. The exclamation of the sin-bearer on His entry into Jeru- 
 salem. The evangelist John alone records this exclamation of 
 agony and soul-trouble: "Now is my soul troubled; and what 
 shall I say ? Father, save Me from this hour : hut for this cause 
 came I unto this hour" (John xii. 27). The trouble of soul here 
 announced by Christ Himself is not to be explained by the mere 
 recoil of sinless nature from the approach of death. It is to be 
 explained by supernatural causes, that is, by the divine anger 
 against sin, as it was borne by the substitute of sinners ; and the 
 allusion to His death in the previous context seems to have
 
 EXCLAMATIONS OF THE CONSCIOUS SIN-BEAEER. 147 
 
 given the occasion for letting in upon His soul, by a special 
 avenue, a sense of the divine wrath. 
 
 The next words, " Save me from this hour," convey, in sub- 
 stance, the same petition that comes before us in the Gethsemane 
 scene. This request discovers nature as at a loss, and embar- 
 rassed under the pressure of the overwhelming trouble due to us 
 for sin. Some read this clause interrogatively, as if Christ were 
 to be regarded as asking whether He should thus pray, and as 
 if His submission to God lay specially in this, that He did not 
 so ask of God. But it is better to read it without the interro- 
 gation, as the latter brings in a train of self-reflection, which is 
 not appropriate to such a scene of vehement emotion. We may 
 suppose one of two explanations. We may either suppose that 
 He does not ask deliverance from the death, but only from the 
 accessories or accompaniments of it, which were so overwhelming, 
 that the horror and anguish seemed to Him insupportable. It 
 will then be a prayer for such a mitigation of the anguish, that 
 He might finish the work of human redemption successfully. 
 Or we may suppose that He prays to be saved from the punitive 
 justice, the cup, or the baptism, within the sphere of which He 
 was now brought. The latter seems the better exposition, 
 though it has far greater difficulties, and brings us up at once to 
 the inscrutable mystery of pure humanity asking with submis- 
 sion, and asking sinlessly, under the stunning sense of present 
 anguish, whether there was no possibility of being saved from 
 that hour. 
 
 But the next clause points out in what way His mind returned 
 to its rest: " But for this cause came I unto this hour." He 
 reverts to the vicarious suffering as the design of His incarnation, 
 as the very end of His coming. Those expositors are much mis- 
 taken who refer the words to His glorification; as if the Lord 
 meant to say that He came into the world for this cause, that 
 He might be glorified. The immediate context is not that He 
 might be glorified, nor that the world might be saved, nor that He 
 might be delivered, all which ideas have been offered by commen-
 
 148 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 tators as the reason for which He is here said to have come into 
 the world. The immediate context is found in " this hour," and 
 the thought is that Jesus came to endure this hour of suffering. 
 
 This whole scene discovers the two great features of the 
 atonement, sin-bearing and sinless obedience. The exclama- 
 tion, beyond doubt, is extorted by the pressure of the divine 
 wrath. JSTor is this invalidated, in any measure, by the fact that 
 the Scripture represents the Lord Jesus as the object of the 
 divine complacency and love; and the more so, because He laid 
 down His life for the sheep (John x. 17). It is urged by those 
 who have inadequate views of the vicarious satisfaction, that the 
 beloved Son could never be the object of the Father's anger, and, 
 therefore, that this exclamation could never arise from any such 
 experience. That objection, urged against the view already 
 given, proceeds on a mistaken view of what is meant, and con- 
 founds the personal with the official relation of the Son of God. 1 
 In His personal capacity He was, and could never cease to be, 
 the beloved Son. But in His official capacity He was the sub- 
 stitute of sinners, the sin-bearer and the curse-bearer, who came 
 into the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; and 
 the personal relation in which He stood to the Father lent to 
 the official all its efficacy and value. Nor is that all. 
 
 Such an exclamation as the present cannot be regarded as 
 worthy of Christ if His sufferings were not vicarious. On the 
 supposition that Christ's death was but a martyr's death, it 
 would be a strange and inexplicable enigma. Suppose the death 
 of Christ to have no higher significance than that of attesting 
 the truth of His doctrine and of serving as an example, we 
 should have expected to find in Him a bright example of forti- 
 tude and magnanimity, of patience and composure, of calmness 
 and triumph, without any tincture of dejection or fear; and the 
 more so, because He was exalted above all other witnesses of the 
 
 1 The modern theology denies that Christ, in any sense, bore the WRATH of 
 God. The question has reference to His official position as the substitute, and 
 raises the previous question Is there (6pyr)) wrath against sin (Rom. ii. 5, Eph. 
 v. 6). On this there is no room for two opinions, if we are ruled by Scripture.
 
 EXCLAMATIONS OF THE CONSCIOUS SIN-BEAEEE. 149 
 
 truth by the greatness of His person. And on that theory of 
 His work, men may well be astonished to find the opposite. 
 Whence so many signs of fainting, when no infliction came from 
 the hand of man, and only a dim anticipation of something 
 looming in the distance hung over Him on the theory in ques- 
 tion? How shall we explain His anguish, dejection, and fear, 
 more than has been evinced by many of His own servants and 
 martyrs ? No satisfactory account can be given of His mental 
 anguish and heaviness if Christ were but a martyr or an example 
 of patience; and this gains force if we add, as we must do on 
 that theory, that divine wisdom. actively devised whatever would 
 make His example worthy of our imitation. 
 
 The only position which we can maintain is, that these excla- 
 mations of Christ argue the conscious sin-bearer and a vicarious 
 suffering. 
 
 II. The exclamation of the sin-bearer in Gethsemane. The 
 second exclamation, which evinces how Christ's soul wrestled 
 with a heaviness and agony greater far than any bodily pain 
 afterwards inflicted, was uttered in Gethsemane. It is thus 
 given by Matthew: " Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place 
 called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, 
 while I go and pray yonder. And He took with Him Peter and 
 the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very 
 heavy. Then saith He unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrow- 
 ful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with Me. And 
 He went a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, 
 my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: neverthe- 
 less not as I will, but as Thou wilt. And He cometh unto the 
 disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What! 
 could ye not watch with Me one hour? Watch, and pray that 
 ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the 
 flesh is weak. He went away again the second time, and prayed, 
 saying, my Father, if this cup may not pass from Me, except I 
 drink it, Thy will be done. And He came and found them asleep 
 again: for their eyes were heavy. And He left them, and went
 
 150 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words" 
 (Matt. xxvi. 36-44). Many theories have been proposed by way 
 of explanation of this scene, some referring the sorrow on 
 Christ's mind to a single cause, others referring it to a variety of 
 concurring causes. It seems more natural to deduce the strong 
 and vehement emotion of Christ from one cause than from 
 several; for experience tells us, as well as a right view of the 
 human mind and of its laws, that very great emotion is never 
 produced by a variety of concurrent causes. 
 
 We must now consider to what the deep agony and sorrow of 
 our Lord are to be traced. Of the great variety of explanations 
 that have been given some of them so shallow and groundless 
 as not to deserve a moment's thought, there are three, in parti- 
 cular, that have much more probability. And among these we 
 must choose. 
 
 1. Some ascribe the agony in the garden to the temptations of 
 Satan. It is argued that Satan, who left Him for a time 1 (Luke 
 iv. 13), or, as it may mean, till the fit time for renewing the 
 attack, returned when He was in the garden. It is thought that 
 there is enough of harmony between the two occasions to lend 
 countenance to this supposition. But then there are no hints or 
 intimations of any such thing in the actual narrative of the 
 evangelists. It does not clearly appear that the tempter, after 
 being so completely foiled in the first encounter, ventured to 
 renew the conflict in the same direct way. It may be so; but 
 it is not recorded. And certainly it would be strange that Luke 
 should mention the appearance of an angel on the scene, to 
 strengthen and confirm our Lord, and make no mention of 
 another agent from the invisible world, if such a hand-to-hand 
 encounter had taken place. Nor does the language of Jesus on 
 the eve of His going out to the garden imply a new conflict of 
 temptation when He says: "The prince of this world cometh" 
 (John xiv. 30). It seems much more correct to say that the 
 prince of this world now came through the instrumentality of 
 
 1 &XP 1
 
 EXCLAMATIONS OF THE CONSCIOUS SIN-BEAKER. 151 
 
 men, imbued with his spirit, and filled with his influence, to 
 crush the Lord Jesus by violence. 
 
 2. Nor can the agony of Christ be traced alone to the vivid 
 view of His approaching crucifixion. This very common expla- 
 nation assumes nothing but a mere foreboding or anticipation of 
 a dread reality near at hand, but without any higher influence. 
 This comment has been propounded in two different forms, 
 neither of which is satisfactory. The lower theory of the two is, 
 that all Christ's sufferings came from the hands of men, and not 
 from any direct infliction at the hand of God; and, consequently, 
 that He was, and must be, the object of God's delight in such a 
 sense that no mysterious extraordinary power could come from 
 God to aggravate His sorrow. 1 On this theory of Christ's agony 
 in the garden it only remains for expositors to appeal to the 
 fact, that a violent death must have been peculiarly awful to 
 Christ's pure and tender and sensitive humanity. And though 
 the further thought may here be added, that death is the divine 
 sentence against sin, and that Christ realized His death in con- 
 nection with the why and wherefore of such a sentence on the 
 world's sin, the whole theory is highly defective. It does not 
 explain the perturbation and sorrow of Christ's mind; it gives 
 no adequate explanation of the bloody sweat; and it fails to give 
 any just account of the other accompaniments recorded in the 
 Gospels. 
 
 The other is a deeper theory, but also insufficient, because it 
 goes no further than a mere anticipation or foreboding. 2 This 
 view takes for granted that the Lord Jesus, without anything 
 beyond the exercises of His own mind, was filled with heaviness 
 and exceeding sorrow even unto death, because a lively view was 
 
 1 This is the view supported in the two prize essays of Riehm and Van 
 Willigen, published in 1831 by the Hague Society for the defence of the Christian 
 religion, aver het Hooggaande lijden van Jesus in Gethsemane. 
 
 2 See the exposition of the agony in the garden on this principle, in a sermon 
 by Principal Edwards, of America, which, though it affords a most striking sketch 
 of the Lord's mental agony, is still defective, inasmuch as he regards it as only 
 prospective, not present.
 
 152 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 presented to Him of the unutterable wrath of God due to sin, 
 which the surety made His own. But this second supposition is 
 also defective, because the whole scene on this theory becomes, 
 to an undue degree, a mere subjective impression. It does not 
 explain the phenomena ; it leads to the inference that the mind 
 of Jesus was overwhelmed by a foreboding, which we can scarcely 
 suppose ever rising to such a climax as threatened to master His 
 perfectly-balanced mind ; it transfers the actual suffering forward 
 to the hours when He hung on the cross, as if He had none 
 before ; and it assigns no adequate reason why an angel came to 
 strengthen Him. The fact of the angel's appearance for such a 
 purpose implies real and not merely apprehended suffering. 
 And His confirming message, of whatever kind it was, would at 
 least bring something objective before Him, and point to the joy 
 set before Him, as well as promise adequate support. 
 
 3. Another and a better explanation than either of the two 
 former is, that the sorrow of Gethsemane was due to the positive 
 privation of the divine presence, or to the loss of God. 1 Of all 
 the ingredients in the agony of those who encounter the penalty 
 of sin, this is by far the worst element in their cup of suffering. 
 The suffering of Christ in His capacity as substitute was the 
 same in its character, so far as outward causes are concerned, as 
 the penal infliction awaiting the finally condemned. It was an 
 objective and positive punishment from the hand of God that 
 fell on the Lord Jesus, who occupied the place of our re- 
 presentative ; and the exclamation proves that He was the con- 
 scious sin-bearer. The agony did not visit Him as a just and 
 holy person, but as He was the surety, made sin by His voluntary 
 act. And it may be added, that these two mental acts the 
 sense of the divine wrath, and the utmost filial confidence, 
 
 1 This was the prevailing and common view in former times. I may refer to a 
 remarkable discussion de agonia et desertione Christi, on this acceptation of it, by 
 Gisbert Voetius in his Selectee Disputationes, vol. ii. pp. 164-188. Among the 
 more modern writers, Saurin, Disc. t. x. p. 251, Seiler, and others, still take the 
 same view. The recent exegetes who are opposed to the vicarious sacrifice, object 
 to it as the vicarious view, just as a former generation objected to it as the super- 
 natural view. But no other is at all tenable, or can be made even plausible.
 
 EXCLAMATIONS OF THE CONSCIOUS SIN-BEARER. 153 
 
 though they are distinct, are by no means incompatible. The 
 one was due to His office as the sin-bearer; the other was 
 expressive of His personal relation. Nor are we to suppose that 
 this penal privation of the divine presence was always equally 
 intense, and that no intervals of relief were allowed to Him ; for, 
 in the present case, the opposite appears from the fact that He 
 returned in such intervals to the disciples, who were heavy with 
 slumber. 
 
 As to the accompaniments of this inscrutable scene, they were 
 the following : (1) A sorrow unto death, a horror and oppressive 
 sense of sinking (a%*ovt'a), till the functions of the mind weie 
 well-nigh suspended. It has been likened to the stopping of a 
 clock, not by any intrinsic defect in its mechanism, but by the 
 application of an outward force suspending its motion. (2) The 
 bloody sweat arising from the inconceivable emotions of sorrow, 
 dejection, and fear, so strong as to turn, in a preternatural way, 
 the current of the blood out of its course. (3) The more earnest 
 prayer (eKTevrre/Dov) occasioned by the amazement and deep 
 perplexity of His soul. All this shows what He endured as the 
 conscious sin-bearer from the hand of an angry God, who, while 
 He ever regarded Jesus at His beloved Son, visited sin, when it 
 was laid on Him, with its adequate recompense. 
 
 Though these sufferings partook of the same elements with the 
 agonies of the finally lost, in as far as the external cause was 
 concerned, there was also a very wide difference. This comes to 
 light, whether we consider His mental exercises or His personal 
 relation to the Father. It was a holy endurance of the penalty 
 without one flaw or taint of imperfection. His agonies were 
 neither eternal nor accompanied with the worm of conscience, 
 ingredients in the cup of the finally condemned. But no one 
 can peruse the scene in Gethsemane, without coming to the con- 
 clusion that Christ there suffered immediately in His soul ; and 
 that the theory which limits those sufferings to His body, 
 whether advocated by Romanists or by Protestants, is destitute 
 of scriptural foundation. The principal part of the agony fell,
 
 154 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 without doubt, upon the soul of the Lord Jesus, and comprehended 
 every element of eternal death that could be endured by such a 
 person, or could justly be exacted from Him. 
 
 It belonged to the divine plan that He should experience the 
 fear of death for us, which we should otherwise have been 
 obliged to wrestle with all our life long. He must have felt the 
 menaced sentence, and the tormenting execution of it, "Thou 
 shalt surely die." The words of Jesus in Gethsemane were 
 uttered under a heaviness and fear which seemed to intimate that 
 body and mind were alike ready to give way, and for ever to be 
 rendered unfit for discharging the task assigned Him with the 
 fortitude and stedfastness, the patience and endurance, that were 
 required. He felt that humanity could bear no higher degree of 
 sorrow. Though His humanity was strengthened secretly by the 
 support of the divine nature, it seemed to Him that His mind 
 and body could not bear more, without dissolution or wholly 
 giving way under the pressure. He needed an objective some- 
 thing; and the angel's appearance seems to have brought l strength 
 both corporeal and mental. 
 
 But the difficulty arises, Why did He pray that the cup might 
 pass from Him ? Did He wish to get rid of His mediatorial 
 office, and repent of His suretyship ? No ; but though He knew 
 that He must suffer, the humanity did not know, without direct 
 and actual experience, either the bitterness of the cup, or the 
 extreme to which it must go. As in the former exclamation, so 
 in this scene in Gethsemane, we may either suppose that He 
 prayed for an abatement of the agony and for a speedy termina- 
 tion to it, or that sinless humanity asked with all submission 
 whether the exaction of punitive justice might not pass from 
 Him. The latter, though confessedly the comment that has by 
 far the most difficulties, seems the best adapted to the occasion. 
 When we ask from whence sprung all that agony that weighed 
 so heavily on the soul of Christ, the answer is : from the sin- 
 
 1 Bengel remarks that it was not exhortation, but a heavenly power that was 
 conveyed to His holy humanity (see note in his German version).
 
 EXCLAMATIONS OF THE CONSCIOUS SIN-BE AEER. 155 
 
 bearing to which He subjected Himself. No drop of wrath could 
 have visited Him on any other ground. It would have been an 
 incongruity, an impossibility in the moral government of God to 
 allow any penal infliction or suffering to fall on Him, except as 
 He assumed the sin of others by His own voluntary act. But 
 when He became the sin of His people, this was the sure and 
 inevitable consequence. 
 
 But how, it is asked, can we maintain the infliction of divine 
 wrath at all when Jesus was the beloved Son? Did He not 
 even here call God FATHER, and pray with filial confidence and 
 affection ? To this there is an easy answer. Jesus occupied, by 
 the very fact of the incarnation, a twofold relation, an official 
 relation as well as a personal relation ; and unless He had come 
 to occupy the place of sinners, there was no indispensably 
 necessary cause for His incarnation at alL The personal, how- 
 ever, is the basis of the official capacity ; and during the course 
 of His career on earth, these two always presupposed each other. 
 They were not mutually exclusive ; they were not incompatible 
 in the one person. On the contrary, Jesus, as the sin-bearer or 
 representative of sinners, regarded God as a righteous judge, who 
 would visit, and could not but visit, for sin. But, at the same 
 time, He was conscious of being the only-begotten Son, and of 
 exercising a filial confidence, which was never abandoned, nor 
 even interrupted, during the severest infliction of wrath due to 
 us for sin. The Gethsemane scene is memorable, just because 
 it brings out these two points so vividly : the exclamation of the 
 sin-bearer, and the unswerving obedience and trust of the Son. 
 His will never turned aside from the straight path of His 
 obedience, but moved in everlasting harmony with His Father's 
 mind and will. But He was very man like ourselves, shrink- 
 ing as we do from pain and agony and woe : we see the recoil 
 of sentient nature, but an unswerving obedience. Nay, the hotter 
 the trial, the more was the obedience developed and expanded. 
 It was always perfect, but sinlessness is capable of progress ; and 
 He learned obedience by the things which He suffered (Heb. v. 8).
 
 156 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 III. The cry of desertion on the cross. The third exclamation 
 of the conscious sin-bearer was the cry, " My God, My God ! why 
 hast Thou forsaken Me ?" (Matt, xxvii. 46.) It was like all His 
 sayings, according to truth ; and it becomes us carefully to 
 investigate its import and significance. Though it does not fall 
 within my present object to refer to the several sayings on the 
 cross in their order, it is noteworthy, that when Christ had given 
 utterance to certain sayings that had reference to others, when 
 He had uttered the comforting promise to the penitent thief, 
 and had prayed for His persecutors, and had commended His 
 mother to the care of the beloved disciple, He next turned to 
 God alone, as if He had now done with man. The remaining 
 space was to be specially occupied with God alone, as if His 
 work with men was now done. 
 
 No sooner were His mind and attention turned away from 
 His relation to men around Him, than a striking phenomenon 
 presented itself. Darkness all of a sudden enveloped the face 
 of nature, and eternal death seemed to seize hold of Him. 
 Whatever view may be given of that darkness, it doubtless 
 stood connected with the chief figure in this whole scene, and 
 with the mental state through which the substitute of sinners 
 was now to pass ; and it must plainly be held to be symbolical 
 as well as miraculous. We have not, it is true, any authorita- 
 tive explanation of its meaning in the Scripture. But as the 
 inner darkness of Christ's soul and that darkness on the face 
 of the earth were simultaneous, no explanation has so much 
 probability as that which regards the menacing gloom, as meant 
 to intimate that our sin had separated between God and the 
 surety, and that our iniquities had hid the Father's face from 
 Him (Isa. lix. 2). That is every way a better explanation than 
 the more current one, that it was meant to convey an impres- 
 sion of the divine displeasure for the indignity offered and the 
 crime committed by the Jewish nation against the Christ. But 
 however we interpret the meaning of this mysterious darkness, 
 it certainly seems to have had one effect. Under the awe which
 
 EXCLAMATIONS OF THE CONSCIOUS SIN-BEAKER. 157 
 
 it produced, there seems to have been diffused among the by- 
 standers a death-stillness, which for the time freed the sufferer 
 from the scoffs and mockery of the mad multitude, and left 
 Him alone, and comparatively undistracted, with God. The 
 silence was broken at last, after an interval, by these words of 
 awful import, " My God, My God ! why hast Thou forsaken 
 Me?" What the Lord Jesus thus uttered was His actual ex- 
 perience ; and as it was from the faithful witness, it was accord- 
 ing to truth. He who was the light of the world was under the 
 hiding of His Father's face. 
 
 The inquiry into the causes of this peculiar mood of mind, 
 substantially the same as in the two former exclamations, need 
 not occupy our minds so long. The question is much more 
 narrowed in this case ; nor is there so much difference of opinion 
 among divines and expositors. The words to which our Lord 
 gave utterance are plainly a quotation from the 22d Psalm, 
 which is unquestionably Messianic, whether it had any im- 
 mediate reference to the Psalmist or not. As to the interpreta- 
 tion, much depends on the question whether we take the word 
 forsake in its full significance, or whether we tone down its 
 meaning to the mere notion of " delay to help." Some even of 
 those who admit that the death of Christ was a propitiatory 
 sacrifice, object to the interpretation that our Lord must be 
 understood as uttering this language as an expression of real 
 desertion, and in a moment of real desertion. And according 
 to them, the words will only mean, "Why leavest Thou Me ?" 
 or, " Why delayest Thou to free Me from My suffering ?" The 
 word why is thus an expression of complaint, but involving a 
 petition. In favour of this interpretation, it is argued that God 
 is said " to forsake " one, or to be far from one, when He does 
 not send help, and to " be near " when He delivers. Thus, 
 according to this interpretation, there will be no particular 
 emphasis on the word forsake. The whole import of the ex- 
 clamation becomes flat and meaningless, according to this 
 exposition.. And the supporters of it, while they do not deny
 
 158 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the atoning sacrifice of Christ, hold merely by one side of the 
 truth, namely, that the Father surely loved the Son Avith 
 unabated love, and could not withdraw His favour from His 
 Son ; nay, that the Son deserved it all the more when He was 
 bringing His obedience through the deepest humiliation to its 
 highest elevation. All that is true, and not to be questioned 
 in any quarter. 
 
 But all this is one-sided, and argues much confusion of idea. 
 It loses sight of the distinction, to which we have already 
 alluded, between the personal and official capacity of our Lord ; 
 and it argues as if the supporters of the penal infliction of the 
 divine wrath on Jesus as the sin-bearer also maintained the 
 removal or withdrawal of the divine favour from Him in a per- 
 sonal point of view. That desertion undoubtedly involved the 
 privation of the sweet sense of divine love and of the beatific 
 vision of God, but no loss of the divine favour, and no with- 
 drawal of the grace resulting from the personal union. It was 
 not accompanied with a dissolution of the principle of joy, 
 though it was accompanied with a suspension of the present 
 experience of joy. It was for a time, not for ever. It was not 
 attended with despair or doubt, but with the full confidence of 
 faith, as is expressed in the words, " My God." To sum up all 
 in a few words : it was borne in our name, and not for Himself, 
 in the capacity of the sin-bearer or surety, and not in that of 
 the beloved Son. It was voluntary, and not enforced ; by the 
 imputation of our sin, and not for anything of His own. It 
 was not because He. had no power to remove it, but out of love 
 to us. And in that desertion He encountered all the elements 
 of eternal death, as far as they could fall on such a sufferer. 
 It involved the removal not merely of the tokens of divine 
 love, but the privation of God, or that loss of God, which is 
 the very essence of the second death, awaiting the finally lost. 
 Though this departure of God is accompanied, in the case of 
 the sinner, with despair and with the worm of an evil con- 
 science, it could be executed in a somewhat different way
 
 EXCLAMATIONS OF THE CONSCIOUS SIN-BEAEEE. 159 
 
 on our sinless Lord. But it must needs be executed, if He 
 was to occupy the place of a real substitute and surety for 
 sinful men. 
 
 The Lord asks why, with a force and significance which bring 
 us to the margin of the inscrutable. It may be wiser to stand 
 and adore than to grope our way into the meaning of this why. 1 
 The language certainly does not mean that the cause of the 
 desertion was unknown to Him as the conscious sin-bearer, 
 who was passing through the naming fire of the divine wrath 
 for our salvation. But the inquiry, so put, seems to utter a 
 desire that He may not be uninformed, but fully acquainted 
 with the absolute necessity of all these pangs and agonies of 
 desertion. He seems desirous to be assured subjectively, or 
 convinced within His inmost soul, that all this must needs be 
 so. He wishes to rest or anchor His mind in that conviction of 
 its indispensable necessity ; and He reminds His Father that it 
 was all endured by a substitute for others, and for the glory of 
 the Father. 
 
 The vicarious position of Christ during all these exclamations 
 cannot, therefore, be doubtful to any one who has duly under- 
 stood them. He bore (1) the soul-trouble, that His people might 
 not bear it ; (2) He drank the cup of the garden, that they 
 might not drink it ; (3) He was forsaken on the cross, that they 
 might never know that desertion. He felt what sin is, and 
 what it is to be severed from God, that we might never taste it ; 
 and He proclaimed with a loud voice the inconceivable agonies 
 of that desertion, that He might convey to those who heard 
 
 1 See Thomasius' Christi Person und Werk, iii. p. 71, and also Philippi's 
 pamphlet in reply to V. Hofmann on the Vers'ohnungs und Rechtfertigunslehre, 
 p. 39, 1856. From the latter I shall quote the following sentences : " Indess 
 die Hb'llenstrafe besteht wesentlich und hauptsachlich in der Gottverlassenheit, 
 und in der positiver Auschliessung und Verstossung ans der Gottesgemeinschaft. 
 Diese objective gottliche That reflectirt sich nur subjectiv bei dem Sunder in dem 
 bbsen Gewissen und der Verzweiflung an der Siindenvergebung, kann aber auch 
 ohne diesen subjectiven, Keflex an dem Heiligen sich Vollziehen. Das warum 
 des 22 Psalmes bekiindet eine unschuldige Gottverlassenheit bei gutem Ge- 
 wissen. "
 
 160 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Him, or who should afterwards peruse His sufferings to the end 
 of time, a due impression of the infinite weight of sin, and of 
 the penal desertion it entails. As to the mental condition of 
 the Son of God. during this penal loss of God, and retribution 
 for the sin which He made His own, it may be safely affirmed 
 that He then experienced the essence of eternal death, or that 
 sense of abandonment which will form the bitterest ingredient 
 in the cup of the finally impenitent. This was the meaning of 
 the sentence, " Thou shalt surely die." 
 
 Had the second Adam been a mere man, there could have 
 been no such vicarious work, because He would have been 
 bound to full obedience on His own account, and that obedience 
 could not have extended to others. But the second man, being 
 the Son of God, rendered a vicarious obedience, and encountered 
 a vicarious suffering, not necessary for Himself, and of infinite 
 value. And, because of His divine person, the brief period of 
 His agony was a fully adequate and perfect satisfaction for the 
 sins of His people, from the infinite dignity and infinite merit 
 of the sufferer. 
 
 SEC. XXII. SINGLE EXPRESSIONS USED BY CHRIST IN REFERENCE 
 TO A WORK GIVEN HIM TO DO. 
 
 Under this section we may put together some other expres- 
 sions which fell from the lips of Christ in reference to the 
 second element of the atonement, that is, to the nature of the 
 atonement as a mediatorial work given Him to do. We refer 
 here to a work of active obedience not coincident with His 
 teaching on earth, or with His life-communicating activity in 
 heaven. For both the teaching and the life-giving activity pre- 
 suppose that mediatorial work, and proceed upon it. 
 
 Such a work of obedience, distinguished from the suffering 
 which He bore, may be called the obverse of the titles to which 
 we have already adverted. It is another element or side of 
 divine truth, and may be regarded as the complement of those
 
 SINGLE EXPRESSIONS OF CHEIST ABOUT HIS WORK. 161 
 
 sayings which represent the Lord Jesus as the sin-bearer. He 
 who bore sin, not on the cross merely, but all His life through, 
 was, regarded in Himself, the sinless doer of a divine work, and 
 one who knew no sin. So little are these two elements dis- 
 joined in fact, though necessarily distinguished in idea, that the 
 sinlessness of the Lord is presupposed in His whole work of 
 sin-bearing and expiation. He must be holy to stand for the 
 unholy, pure for the impure, innocent for the guilty. And these 
 two elements taken together the curse-bearing life on the one 
 hand, and the career of unsinning obedience on the other fur- 
 nish the rounded and complete idea of the atoning work which 
 Christ finished in the days of His flesh. 
 
 It is the more necessary to bring out this side of divine truth 
 in connection with the atonement, because the whole subject of 
 Christ's excellence, as the realized ideal of humanity, has of late 
 received such copious elucidation. The question, indeed, was 
 canvassed in another interest than that which now engages our 
 
 CJ O 
 
 attention. The reality of this historic person, as the moral 
 miracle in our world, has been discussed as the life-question of 
 the Church in our age, in opposition to a negation that would, if 
 possible, call it in question. The victory has been won. The 
 reality of His appearance in our world as the loftiest standard 
 of moral excellence has been established beyond doubt or cavil. 1 
 Men have been compelled to confess that such an ideal could 
 only exist in the conviction of the Church, because the actual 
 reality had appeared. And even minds estranged from the true 
 sense of Christianity have been so overpowered by the moral 
 
 1 We may say that the attacks of Strauss, of the Tiibingen school of Baur, 
 and the weak echo of the same tendency in Renan, have already passed into 
 neglect. The historic truth of Christ's appearance and His ideal moral excellence 
 have been triumphantly established. In the course of the discussion in which 
 Neander, Ullmann, Lange, and many others did good service, the sinless perfec- 
 tion of Christ, and His function as the life-giver, were set in full prominence. 
 (See Ullmann's Sii'ndlosigkeit Jesu, 1846.) But the defect in all these delinea- 
 tions was, that they stopped short at this point, as if it were enough to have a 
 faultless pattern.
 
 162 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 glory of that character as to acknowledge virtue how lovely, and 
 to express their enthusiastic admiration of it. 
 
 But the matter cannot rest there. The character of Christ is 
 not a mere spectacle to be gazed upon as the embodiment of 
 holiness or standard of perfection, without the light of which 
 the world would be dark indeed. Nor is it a mere example to 
 be followed, though the Church of all time will fix her eye upon 
 it, to ennoble, elevate, and purify all her aims. It must be 
 further regarded as underlying all His atonement, and as the 
 work of one for many. The defect in the modern delineations 
 of Christ's character is, that while He is represented as the real- 
 ized ideal of humanity, it is still too much as if He were but a 
 unit in the species. Not so does the Lord describe Himself. 
 It is worthy of notice, that in every context where He mentions 
 His work of obedience, He gives indications, more or less ex- 
 press, that He was conscious of standing in a unique position 
 between God and man, and of mediating between them. And 
 He never leaves His hearers to suppose that He was but one of 
 many. He uniformly speaks of Himself as performing a work 
 in a mediatorial capacity, and acting as one for many. 
 
 Having already referred at large to the utterances of Christ 
 which represent Him as leading a curse-bearing life through 
 His whole course, we have next to notice His sinless obedience 
 through the same extent of time, and in the very same actions. 
 These are the two sides of His one work, and the one is as essen- 
 tial as the other for the expiation of sin. Not that there is a 
 double work, or that these two sides are separately meritorious ; 
 but the sin-bearer was necessarily one who knew no sin, 
 which, however, could not have been had there been any sin of 
 omission or of commission. They concur in the one work of 
 atonement for sin. In entering, then, on this obedience of 
 three-and-thirty years as an indispensable element in the atone- 
 ment, we shall commence at the point where the human con- 
 sciousness of Christ first comes to light, as apprehending His 
 work ; and it is descriptive of His whole private life.
 
 SINGLE EXPRESSIONS OF CHEIST ABOUT HIS WORK. 163 
 
 " Wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business ?" (Luke 
 ii. 49.) This first recorded utterance of the Lord shows that 
 already, at the age of twelve, He knew His peculiar character. 
 The fact that the boy lingered in the temple, occupied with 
 meditations bearing on His office, hearing and asking questions 
 after the parents had set out on their homeward journey, only 
 discovered His exalted mind, from which all boyish things were 
 removed, His deep judgment and quick understanding, and His 
 ardent desire to be prepared for the high destiny before Him. 
 When His mother put Him on His defence, asking, with a 
 certain measure of complaint, why He had so dealt with them, 
 the reply was, that there was a sacred must in it, that His 
 Father's authority was paramount, and that to Him He owed a 
 higher obedience. It does not alter the meaning whether we 
 translate, " in my Father's house," or " in my Father's things," 
 as the one involves the other. This may be taken, then, as the 
 rule or formula of Christ's subjection to man. It was controlled 
 or regulated, sometimes, as in this case, suspended by the 
 higher claims of His Father's service. 1 And He gently reminds 
 the parents that they should have known this : wist ye not ? 
 They might have known it from what had been announced to 
 them, in many ways. He thus showed paramount obedience to 
 His Father above what could be claimed by man, as if He 
 would say, " This is no disobedience to you, but only an act of 
 higher obedience to my Father." It argues holy zeal, an un- 
 reserved devotedness to God, and deep delight in the things of 
 God. 
 
 1. The sinless excellence of Christ was, in one respect, only 
 the evolution or acting out of His inner nature. As man, cor- 
 responding to the idea of man, His nature possessed an intrinsic 
 purity and elevation before any of His deeds were done. There 
 must be being before doing ; and in this light His deeds and 
 words only revealed what He already was. But that by no 
 
 1 This is the view commonly given by the Lutheran divines, as Luther, Chem- 
 nitz, etc. , and by Riggenbach, more recently.
 
 164 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 means exhausts the idea of the Lord's sinless obedience, which 
 takes for granted that He was to be proved and tested; and 
 hence He is described as learning obedience by the things He 
 suffered. 
 
 2. " I seek not mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me " 
 (John v. 30). The single principle that guided that holy life 
 was obedience to the will of God. And never was a step taken 
 or a moment spent but in unconditional subjection to the will 
 of God, which was more to Him than His necessary food (John 
 iv. 34). And, notwithstanding the objection taken by some, 
 and especially by the Eomanists, to the idea that Jesus exer- 
 cised faith, it must be maintained, on the clearest grounds of 
 Scripture, that His whole obedience flowed from faith and love. 
 They were the root of it. Neither are w r e to imagine that, in a 
 world of sin, the sinless obedience of Jesus could be exercised 
 without a certain measure of conflict with natural inclination. 
 Possessor of true humanity, and with feelings far more suscept- 
 ible than are found in ordinary men, He naturally recoiled, as 
 we do, from pain and suffering, agony and woe. But His will 
 was ever in subordination to the Father's will, and in harmony 
 with it, notwithstanding the sinless conflict of natural inclina- 
 tion which may be traced in Gethsemane and elsewhere. It 
 only shows, indeed, that He was very man, with human feelings 
 and susceptibilities. But never was one formed purpose, aspira- 
 tion, or desire either entertained or cherished, that was not in 
 full, everlasting, perfect accord with the will of God. And 
 hence His obedience was ever acceptable and entitled to reward, 
 because it was never a yielding to natural liking, or out of keep- 
 ing with the appointment of His Father. 
 
 3. " 1 seek not mine own glory" (John viii. 56). In this 
 humility lies the foundation of Christ's moral excellence. The 
 humility of Jesus found expression in a constant renunciation of 
 His own honour. It shows that He lived in another element and 
 before another public than that of human opinion, which attaches 
 weight only to that which is ostentatious, or comes recommended
 
 SINGLE EXPRESSIONS OF CHRIST ABOUT HIS WORK. 165 
 
 by success or marked superiority in the race of life. His public 
 before which He acted was not human opinion, but the eye of 
 His Father, before whose perfections all the distinctions of man, 
 as well as all their praise and honour, are little and puny indeed. 
 He did not wish to rise, but to abase Himself : " I am among 
 you as one that serveth." Though so exalted and excellent, He 
 was more humble than any creature in the universe. 
 
 4. " I do always those things that please Him" (John viiL 29). 
 This constant service, uninterrupted in duration and perfect in 
 degree, is described by Him as extending over all the stages of 
 human life, and as filling all its spheres. The history of Jesus 
 of Nazareth brings before us human life in its full-orbed com- 
 pleteness, and in the perfect equipoise of all the virtues. Yet 
 this did not interfere with, but rather helped, the intense activity 
 and energy, in which He passed His life. There was nothing 
 fitful, nothing done by mere impulse ; and even the consuming 
 zeal which led Him to cleanse the temple twice, though it may 
 be called an outburst of zeal, was full of calm, collected majesty. 
 One grace or virtue did not displace or mar another. In the 
 most distinguished saints some graces are more fully developed, 
 while they are for the most part, in a number of points, left far 
 behind by those who have no pretensions to what ennobles them 
 and hence a very different estimate may be made by the Judge 
 of all. But in Christ they are all found, and all complete in 
 measure. The scattered beauties of all the saints are jointly 
 found in Him, tempered, too, and adjusted to each other in 
 such a way that there is free play for all ; and though we dis- 
 cern in His experience a change of mood or of frame from sorrow 
 to joy, from calm repose to soul-trouble, the harmony is not 
 broken, nor the balance permanently disturbed. And when we 
 look at the social relations, we see Him doing the duty of the 
 citizen and discharging the duty of the family, even to the last 
 hour of life. 
 
 5. The moral code required to be embodied in a life, which 
 should not only be an example of virtue to engage and win all
 
 166 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 hearts, but prove a work of which the intrinsic value should 
 redound to our account. The life of Christ and the moral glory 
 of His character are not aright understood, if we merely rest in 
 it as an ideal or creative pattern, though in that light it is the 
 most attractive spectacle ever presented to the world, and for all 
 time. But that life was vicarious as much as His suffering, and 
 must be viewed as ours, the obedience of one for many ; for per- 
 fect obedience in the exercise of holy love was the great task 
 set before man at the first, and that which the Son of God came 
 down from heaven to usher in. 
 
 Christ often expressed Himself as conscious of having such a 
 work or task assigned to Him ; and He ever kept it in view from 
 His first recorded utterance in the temple to the moment when 
 He said, " It is finished." There is a testimony which we shall 
 afterwards consider, and which very emphatically describes that 
 work : " I have glorified Thee on the earth : I have finished the 
 work Thou gavest Me to do" (John xvii. 4). The same thing is 
 taught under other forms. He calls it a work (John iv. 34), a 
 commandment (John x. 18), the will of Him that sent Him 
 (John vi. 39). All these expressions show that the active can- 
 not be separated from' the passive obedience; for voluntary 
 obedience to the Father and ardent love to us concur. This 
 sinless obedience underlies the suffering as the two elements of 
 one work. 
 
 6. It may be noticed that there was one special act or 
 culminating point in the obedience of Christ ; and this had its 
 counterpart in that testing-point in which the whole obedience 
 of Adam was contained, the abstaining from the forbidden tree ; 
 for it would appear that a sinless nature with the law written on 
 the heart must yet have its loyalty tested by some special act of 
 obedience, in which all the elements of submission may be found 
 to meet, and pure nature fitly express its self-denial and alle- 
 giance. "' The special act of positive obedience imposed on the Lord 
 Jesus was, to die, as that imposed on Adam was, to abstain from 
 the tree by an act of self-restraint, all the lines of obedience
 
 CHRIST NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS. 167 
 
 meeting in that one act, the crowning act, and the culminating 
 point of obedience appointed to complete the work. 1 Hence the 
 constant allusion to the death or blood or sacrifice of the Lord. 
 (Comp. John xvii. 19.) 
 
 Having -surveyed the atonement in its constituent elements, 
 it only remains that we define with precision what is meant 
 by a satisfaction to God : and a few words will suffice. 
 
 Scripture often uses typical and figurative terms on this point, 
 and many who have familiarly used the words from their youth, 
 fail to think out the subject to the end, or to keep the point of 
 comparison fully before them. In answer to the inquiry, what 
 is meant by satisfying God, it is not enough to say that the debt 
 is paid, or that His anger is appeased: for the further questions 
 are raised, How far is sin a debt, and how far is anger to be 
 ascribed to God ? nor is it enough to say that by the sufferings 
 of the Lord the divine perfections violated by sin have been 
 glorified, the authority of His law vindicated, and the moral 
 order of the universe maintained. For though all this is true, 
 our explanation, if it went no further, would still place the 
 main scope of the atonement in something external to God. 
 These are ends, but not the sole or the principal ends. 
 
 The question recurs : What moved Him to this ? and the 
 answer is, His own attributes or perfections. In what relation 
 stood the vicarious obedience and sufferings of Jesus to the 
 divine perfections ? This brings up the views propounded by 
 
 1 Our Christian poet Cowper well puts this : 
 
 " The Saviour, what a noble flame 
 
 Was kindled in His breast, 
 When, hasting to Jerusalem, 
 He marched before the rest ! 
 
 " Good- will to man and zeal for God 
 
 His every thought engross ; 
 He longs to be baptized with blood, 
 He pants to reach the cross. 
 
 " With all His sufferings full in view, 
 
 And woes to us unknown, 
 Forth to the task His spirit flew, 
 'Twas love that urged Him on. "
 
 168 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 us in speaking of the necessity of the atonement. The Most 
 High, viewing sin in its true nature, punishes it to satisfy an 
 adorable perfection of His nature. The twofold element of sin 
 as an indelible fact or deed committed against God (Ps. li. 4), is 
 defect of obedience and desert of punishment ; and against sin, 
 so viewed, God from the excellency of His nature, and His 
 relation as moral governor, must direct His glorious attribute of 
 punitive justice. Only when the divine indignation has been 
 discharged against moral evil, and the tribute of obedience due 
 to God has been restored, can men be taken into favour. The 
 Gospel proceeds on this supposition, and the work of the Lord 
 takes it for granted. When this is attained, all the external 
 objects are also secured. This we see ; and further we cannot 
 go : for we cannot give an exhaustive outline of satisfaction no 
 finite mind can define God's representation of sin to Himself. 
 We must guard against a description of the atonement which 
 portrays another public than God Himself, and which makes 
 the satisfaction bear on some other interest than that of God 
 Himself or external to Him, whether we suppose other orders of 
 being, or man's suspicious nature. These are subordinate at 
 most, and, as we shall notice below, God displayed His perfect 
 satisfaction with the work of His Son by raising Him up from 
 the dead ; thus making it evident that they for whom the Lord 
 atoned were viewed as if they had done what He had done 
 (2 Cor. v. 15). 
 
 SEC. XXIII. CHRIST THE SIN-BEARER TESTIFYING THAT HE WAS 
 TO BE NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS DURING HIS CRUCI- 
 FIXION. 
 
 As our plan directs us rather to the doctrine of the atone- 
 ment than to the history of the transaction, so far as man is 
 concerned, we can bring out the actual history of the crucifixion 
 scene in only a few of its salient points ; and in doing so, we 
 shall refer to the cross only in such a way as shall connect the
 
 CHRIST NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS. 169 
 
 fact and the doctrine together. The simple narrative of the 
 scenes of Christ's suffering, as given by the evangelists, is so 
 limited to the bare facts, and so simply historical in its outline, 
 that it requires to be read with the commentary supplied by the 
 prophecy of Isaiah on the one hand (Isa. liii. 1-12), and by the 
 apostolic Epistles on the other. There we find the rationale of 
 the whole suffering career of Christ. 
 
 But even those outward scenes, where we see Jesus face to 
 face with man, must be read off, if we would fully understand 
 them, from the great fact of His substitution in the room of 
 sinners. 1 It must be kept in mind that He was a sacrifice 
 from the very commencement of His earthly life, and that His 
 collective sufferings are to be viewed as belonging to His work 
 of substitution, and as the one discharge of His mediatorial 
 work. Hence, even in those historical events, which put Him 
 in connection with a human judge and with a human court of 
 justice, we are by no means to dismiss the idea of an exchange 
 of persons. He was, even then, truly sustaining the person and 
 occupying the place of the guilty, that is, was the just in the 
 room of the unjust, the sinless in the room of the sinful, the 
 innocent in the room of the guilty. His person was in the 
 room of our persons ; and such was the exchange, that our 
 punishment became His. 
 
 There are several sayings of Christ descriptive of His delivery 
 into the hands of men, and of the treatment to be received from 
 them when so delivered, which proceed upon the supposition 
 of a very deep and peculiar relation. These sayings we now 
 
 1 We have followed the example set by V. Hofmann in introducing a reference 
 to the historical facts of Christ's sufferings. He sees in these only a widerfahr- 
 niss ; we see in them His vicarious work and sacrifice in process of execution. It 
 is well remarked by Weber in his work, Vom Zorne Gottes; Erlangen, 1862 : 
 " Mit den selbstaussagen Jesu von der Bedeutung, seines Leidens und Sterbeus 
 vergleichen wir den geschichtlichen Vollzug desselben. Man hat das friiher bei 
 Ermittlung der Frage, in wiefern Jesus durch sein Leiden und sterben uns mit 
 Got versb'hnt habe, unterlassen : aber mit recht hat V. Hofmann in seiner Dar- 
 stellung des Versbhnungswerkes die Geschichte der Passion vorangestellt : deim 
 an ihr muss es sich bewahren, ob die aussagen iiber die Bedeutung des Leidens 
 Jesu richtig verstanden worden sind " (p. 244).
 
 170 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 investigate. All the attempts made against Him were, up to a 
 definite time, impotent and wholly futile. He eased Him of 
 His adversaries by retiring with majestic ease beyond the reach 
 of their machinations. Thus He withdrew from the infuriated 
 men of Nazareth, His fellow-townsmen, when they attempted to 
 take Him and to cast Him headlong from the brow of the hill 
 whereon their city was built (Luke iv. 29). They could not 
 touch Him till they received divine permission. The rulers also 
 sent officers to seize Him, and they returned paralyzed and con- 
 science-struck, unable to execute the charge (John vii. 32). At 
 another time the assembled crowd whom He addressed took up 
 stones to cast at Him (John viii. 59), and He passed through 
 the midst of them, and so passed by. In a word, till His hour 
 was come, or, in another form of expressing it, till He spontane- 
 ously consented to be apprehended, He had a perfect immunity 
 from all their violence. 
 
 Now the inquiry that confronts us, and which demands an 
 answer, is this : When He was arrested at last, as the first step 
 to the violent death which was to be endured, is this to be 
 ascribed to the ordinary course of events, and to be regarded as 
 His fate ? By no means. That is, in modern theology, a too 
 common mode of speech on the part of those \vho cannot adjust 
 their views to the doctrine of the exchange of places, or to the 
 representative position which Jesus must be regarded as occu- 
 pying. That is the language commonly held at present by the 
 supporters of a tendency. But they who speak of Christ as 
 coming within the ordinary laws of human society and the 
 ordinary incidents of life, and who describe His death as an 
 occurrence in the operation of the common course of history, 
 know not what they say, nor whereof they affirm. They mis- 
 take His position in the world, and they misinterpret the moral 
 government of God. 
 
 He had a double immunity from the common incidents of 
 life. He had an immunity, first, as the sinless man on whom 
 the taint of evil had never fallen ; and next, as the Son of God,
 
 CHRIST NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS. 171 
 
 from all those consequences of sin and those ordinary incidents 
 befalling sinful men in a sinful world. No injury could assail 
 Him till He was judicially delivered up as the sin-bearer. He 
 could be seized only when His hour was come. He was to be 
 delivered up only at the time when, having finished His period 
 of sinless obedience for the space of a generation, as read off 
 from the length of human life, and having ended His public 
 ministry, He voluntarily consented as the surety to take our 
 place, and to sustain our person in His trial and condemnation. 
 It was the sinner who was there brought up for sentence. It 
 was not only for sin in a vague, abstract, indeterminate sense 
 that He was delivered up, but in the room of the sinners given 
 to Him, and whose place He representatively occupied. It was 
 only in their room and stead that Jesus was placed at the bar 
 as a criminal. And this was a real transaction before the 
 tribunal of God, not a semblance of a trial. The sinner was 
 there, but Jesus took his place. And only in this way can we 
 explain either the prophetical sayings which describe Him as 
 wounded for our transgressions (Isa. liii. 5), or those apostolic 
 sayings which represent believers as co-crucified (Gal. ii. 20), 
 as co-dying (Eom. VL 8), and as suffering in the flesh (1 Peter 
 iv. 1), when in point of fact the Lord appears to human view 
 single and alone in the historic narrative of the evangelists. 
 He spontaneously took our place, however, and was acting at 
 every step as a public person, or as the second Adam. 1 
 
 Unless there had been this voluntary self-surrender, no earthly 
 power could have apprehended Him. Not to refer to His own 
 divine dignity, which sufficiently secured Him, while He willed 
 it, there could not have happened in the moral government of 
 God such an anomaly as that of a perfectly pure and sinless 
 person subjected to any kind or measure of suffering, except as 
 He appeared to sustain the person of sinners, and was made 
 
 1 See the remarkable words of Luther on Gal. iii. 13, where he condemns the 
 Sophists ' ' cum segregant Christum a peccatis et peccatoribus, et eum tantum 
 proponunt ut exemplum nobis imitandum."
 
 172 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 sin by His own consent. Nor was this perfect exemption from 
 violence or injury at the hand of men a mere isolated fact. It 
 was part of the general scheme or of the understood relation to 
 human life occupied by Christ. He was not to dash His foot 
 against a stone (Ps. xci.). Disease in the ordinary course, or as 
 it is commonly contracted, could not touch Him, because He 
 did not come within the power of sin in the world ; and hence 
 we never read of His contracting any distemper or disease like 
 other men. Nor could death in any of the thousand forms in 
 which it comes to other men, come to Him, till He consented, 
 by a priestly act of self-oblation, to lay down His life. He who 
 was exempt on His own account from any part of the curse, 
 came within its operation in any sphere only by His own con- 
 sent ; and on this footing He came within the curse in every 
 sphere in which it was diffused. On this general ground, no 
 one, till His hour was come, that is, till the appointed time 
 arrived in the Father's purpose, could put forth a hand to arrest 
 Him. This is repeated again and again, as an explanation 
 why His enemies had no power over Him. A judicial act on 
 His Father's part, and a voluntary surrender on His own part, 
 were necessary before He could be delivered into the hands 
 of men. 
 
 We find that our Lord brought out this truth very emphati- 
 cally in reply to an arrogant remark of Pilate laying claim to a 
 power to crucify Christ or to release Him : " Thou couldst have no 
 power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above " 
 (John xix. 11). This saying puts our Lord's subjection to human 
 power in its true and proper light. It has been very variously 
 interpreted, and sometimes very superficially. It is not a general 
 statement spoken with reference to the magistrate as the minister 
 and deputy of God. Nor is it an allusion to the general question 
 of providence, as if Jesus would intimate that nothing takes 
 place without the direction of divine providence, and that what 
 befalls the true servants of God takes place only by divine 
 permission. Nor is it a statement of the general truth, that in a
 
 CHRIST NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS. 173 
 
 world of sinners the righteous, possessing as they do a sinful 
 nature, receive many a wrong and indignity, because they come 
 within the range of those general laws which operate in the 
 world. None of these comments which regard Christ's reply as 
 referring to a general truth, touch the real point of His answer ; 
 nay, they pervert it. Pilate had spoken, with a specific allusion 
 to Christ, claiming such judicial authority over Him as was 
 competent to one who had Him wholly in his power. Pilate 
 intimated that it was entirely at his discretion to crucify or to 
 release Him; and the answer of Christ is equally specific. 1 The 
 Lord means that Pilate could have no power at all over Him 
 considered in His proper character as the Son of God, and as the 
 sinless man. He signifies that the power which the Eoman 
 governor possessed could be turned against Him, not absolutely, 
 but simply on the ground that our Lord was there in a capacity 
 which properly belonged to others, not to Himself. He intimates 
 not obscurely that He was there as the representative of sinners 
 and as the sin-bearer. Hence the power over Him was given 
 indeed from above to a human judge, but given for an end worthy 
 of such abasement on His part. But because He sustained our 
 person, He is no more to be treated as if He were innocent. 
 Personally sinless, He occupied the place of sinners, and sustained 
 their character by taking their sins and responsibilities upon 
 Himself. We have to notice in this light the arrest of Christ 
 and His trial ; for, as we have already said, no power on earth 
 could touch Him till He gave them permission to proceed. 
 
 I may here notice another saying of Christ quite analogous to 
 the former, and containing also a deep significance, which can 
 only be apprehended when we read it in connection with Christ's 
 suretyship or representative character. He said, before leaving 
 the upper room, where He celebrated the last supper : " This that 
 
 1 The remarks on this passage by the profound Lutheran divine, Gerhard, in the 
 Harmonia Evangelica, the joint work of Chemnitz, Lyser, and Gerhard, 1628, are 
 well worthy of being read and pondered. He justly argues for the specific re- 
 ference.
 
 174 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 is written of Me must l yet be accomplished in Me, And He, was 
 numbered among transgressors " (Luke xxii. 37). Now, are we to 
 regard this remark of Christ, which embodies a quotation from 
 Isaiah's prophecy, as containing nothing more than a description 
 of the opinion entertained by men respecting Him? Does it 
 mean that He was treated as if He had been a transgressor, or in 
 a way which might have led a hasty observer or an undiscerning 
 spectator to conclude that He was, or might be, a transgressor ? 
 No ; by no means. Our Lord plainly takes the words in all their 
 fulness of significance. He uses them not as denoting a mere as 
 if, but as descriptive of the real sentence due to transgressors, 
 and of the doom or punishment consequent on that righteous 
 sentence carried out against transgressors. That is the meaning 
 of the words ; and the rationale is supplied by the fact, that the 
 expression occurs in a chapter which, beyond doubt, predicts the 
 vicarious sufferings of Christ, and repeats again and again the 
 great thought, " that He lore the sins of many " (Isa. liii.). No 
 candid interpreter, interpreting simply by language, can have any 
 other impression than this, that the righteous servant there 
 named delivers many by a vicarious atonement. And Jesus, by 
 quoting this statement as awaiting its accomplishment in Him- 
 self, manifestly applies that whole chapter of Isaiah to His own 
 sufferings and death. We can interpret our Lord's words only 
 in the sense that He was to be judicially numbered among 
 transgressors, that is, numbered agreeably to the execution of a 
 judicial sentence with transgressors. When Mark applies the 
 same quotation to the position assigned to Christ between the 
 two thieves at His crucifixion (Mark xv. 28), he brings out its 
 meaning in all its compass of allusion. But He by no means 
 excludes the preparatory stages of its accomplishment, or that 
 which preceded the fact adduced as its fulfilment. The words, 
 
 1 See some interesting remarks by Weber, Vom Zorne Gottes, p. 259, on the 
 words Sei TeXeffdrjvai tv e/j.ot, as against the notion supported by V. Hofmann, that 
 Christ's sufferings were merely caused by Satan's influence and opposition, and 
 that they were no more than a widerfahrniss, and meant to be but a means zur 
 BewdhrUng.
 
 CHRIST NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS. 1-75 
 
 " He was numbered with transgressors," were accomplished not 
 only when He shared a common lot with the malefactors, but 
 also in all that preceded the erection of the three crosses on 
 Golgotha, and, in fact, from the moment of His delivery into the 
 hands of men. It was thus a judicial numbering of Christ with 
 transgressors. 
 
 1. The ARREST of Christ in the garden as if He were a criminal 
 was the first step to the accomplishment of the prediction. He 
 was there treated as a seditious man and as a malefactor in the 
 room of us sinners, who had forfeited our freedom. We are evil- 
 doers in so far as our relation to the city of God is concerned, 
 that is, men who had renounced their dependence and allegiance, 
 and who acted in all things as disobedient subjects. That arrest 
 by the hand of justice was a real transaction at the hand of God, 
 was, in fact, the arrest of the guilty criminal in the person of 
 the representative. And if the veil had been drawn aside, it 
 would have been seen that all this was in the room of the sinner 
 who should have been so apprehended. This is a real, not a 
 symbolical transaction. And if the representative is seized, they 
 whom He represented must go free. There is such a meaning in 
 our Lord's words : " Let these go free " (John xviii. 8). Our 
 Lord deeply felt, indeed, the rude arrest in His tender human 
 feelings when He said : " Are ye come out as against a thief, with 
 swords and with staves to take Me ? " (Mark xiv. 48). But He 
 well knew, that though personally sinless, He was there in the 
 room of sinners, and that the officers, acting as the ministers of 
 God, seized Him as the sinner should have been seized. But, at 
 the same time, to show how little human power could have 
 prevailed against Him, unless He had given His consent, it was 
 deemed fitting to let out some display or outbeaming of His 
 majesty; and the utterance of the simple words, "I am He," 
 prostrated the officers and band to the ground (John xviii. 6). 
 Though innocent of the charge of sedition and blasphemy on 
 which He was ostensibly arrested, His people were not; and 
 hence He must needs be seized and bound in His capacity as the
 
 176 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 sinner's representative. When we see the Son of God bound in 
 chains, what does the transaction exhibit but the captivity con- 
 sequent upon our sin, which He had made His own, or the chain 
 binding the sinner to the judgment of the great day ? His arrest 
 is His people's liberty; His bonds are their release. 
 
 2. Not to mention all the intermediate points in the successive 
 steps of Christ's sufferings, we shall notice, next in order, His 
 
 TEIAL AND SENTENCE BEFOKE THE ECCLESIASTICAL COUET, ON THE 
 
 CHAEGE OF BLASPHEMY. In this whole transaction, when sentence 
 of death was pronounced by the high priest, we have but the 
 visible part of the great assize. He must, as the substitute of 
 sinners, be found innocent, and yet made guilty, be proved 
 personally spotless, and yet be treated by the sentence given as 
 one who was regarded as officially worthy of condemnation. 
 And this anomalous trial brings together at all points these two 
 things. The sentence by which He was condemned only indicated 
 or announced the sentence passed by God upon the sin-bearer. 
 The accusation on which He was tried in the Sanhedrim, AS 
 BEOUGHT AGAINST us, is not false. Moses accuses us, that the 
 revelation given in the name of God has been disregarded and 
 despised, and that the divine perfections have only been blas- 
 phemed by us. The accusation is so true and so undeniable, that 
 there is no need of witnesses. The representative of sinners in 
 His official capacity is silent, and puts in no plea in arrest of 
 judgment. But His personal innocence must be apparent. And 
 it was only His own true declaration of what He was as a divine 
 person which brought down on Him, in lack of other evidence, 
 the sentence that He was worthy of death. 1 He thus appears 
 personally innocent, but representatively guilty ; and unless we 
 carry with us these two ideas as the key to the whole trial, the 
 narrative will be inexplicable, and the fact in the moral govern- 
 ment of God an impenetrable mystery. That earthly court, 
 dealing with the charge of blasphemy, or dishonour to the name 
 
 1 Weber says, p. 262 : " Mit ihnen hat er allewege niclits zu thun, als das zu 
 bekennen und zu sagen, was sie treiben wird, ihn zu verurtheilen. "
 
 CHRIST NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS. 177 
 
 and works and word of God, sentenced the sinner's surety, and 
 pronounced upon our sin, much in the same way as the shadow 
 on the sun-dial registers the movements taking place in another 
 sphere. He was personally innocent ; but as He stood there for 
 us, He was truly chargeable with all the accusation which was 
 then adduced. His silence at that tribunal opens our mouth to 
 cry, " Abba, Father." 
 
 3. The MOCKERY, the shame, and the indignity to which He 
 was subjected, constituted the next part of His vicarious suffer- 
 ings. They were undeserved by that meek and patient sufferer, 
 but well merited by us, in whose name He appeared, and whose 
 person He bore. The wicked " shall rise to shame and everlast- 
 ing contempt" (Dan. xii. 2). And from that merited scorn due to 
 sinners from all holy beings the sinless substitute was not exempt. 
 He hid not His face from shame and from spitting. 
 
 4. Omitting the desertion of His disciples and the denial of 
 Peter, we advance to the next public act in connection with 
 Christ's sufferings, THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION AT THE BAR 
 
 OF THE ROMAN GOVERNOR, ON A CHARGE OF REBELLION OR SEDITION. 
 
 This is very much of the same kind with the trial before the 
 high priest upon a charge of blasphemy, and is to be considered 
 in a similar light. The course of our Lord's sufferings may with 
 advantage be traced, as we -have already done, on the sinner's 
 history, and read off from it. The surety encountered, at each 
 successive step, what should have taken place in the history of 
 man's relation to God. For the very same relations, and not 
 merely analogous ones, were occupied by the surety when He 
 was tried, sentenced and condemned. It is noteworthy that 
 at Pilate's bar Jesus was silent 1 (Matt, xxvii. 14). The explana- 
 tion is to be found in the fact, that though personally sinless, He 
 really, and not nominally, occupied the sinner's place. Hence 
 the silence. He puts in no plea in arrest of judgment or in self- 
 vindication. He was there not in His personal capacity, but in 
 His official capacity, as the representative of sinners and the 
 
 L " And He answered him to never a word, w<rre 6av/j.dfciv rbv yyefjiova. Xtav." 
 
 M
 
 178 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 voluntary sin-bearer. He has nothing to adduce in extenuation 
 or in exculpation, since every rnouth must be stopped, and the 
 whole world become guilty before God. He accepts the charge of 
 guilt ; and as the doom is the sinner's, not His, He submits to it 
 as merited. When Pilate wished to deliver Him, if Jesus would 
 only be aiding in His own defence, the Lord continued silent 
 before His accusers, amid all the accusations adduced against 
 Him. He was then making a real appearance at the bar of God, 
 of which that earthly court of justice was but the foreground. He 
 was personally innocent, and officially guilty. Hence His silence. 
 We must notice this anomalous trial in connection with the 
 fact that He was sentenced as guilty while pronounced innocent. 1 
 The examination of the judge was meant to serve the important 
 purpose of manifesting the innocence of Jesus. And the start- 
 ling fact, that a judge pronounces Him innocent, but condemns 
 Him as guilty, must be historically brought about in the ador- 
 able providence of God, in order to exhibit the personal and the 
 official in the Lord Jesus ; or, in other words, to discover the sin- 
 less one and the sin-bearer. No man could more emphatically 
 testify to Christ's innocence than Pilate. He had examined the 
 accusations ; he had heard all that the witnesses could adduce 
 against Him, and was perfectly informed of everything in the 
 case ; five times he declared that he found no fault in Him. 
 This was done, too, in public, before His accusers, and in the 
 presence of the vast multitude. And, not content with that 
 public announcement, he, when he yielded at last to the clamour 
 for the crucifixion, confirmed his judicial testimony to His inno- 
 cence by the significant symbolical action of washing his hands, 
 and declaring that he was innocent of the blood of that just 
 man. It was fitting that all this should be done by a judge, and 
 from the judicial bench, that Christ's innocence might be made 
 apparent ; and next, that the inference might be drawn that the 
 
 1 See the Heidelberg Catechism, No. 28, and the numerous expounders of it on 
 the reason why Jesus suffered under Pilate, viz. : " Ut innocens coram judice 
 politico damnatus nos a severo Dei judicio quod omnes manebat, eximerit." See 
 also Calvin on Christ's trial and sufferings.
 
 CHKIST NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS. 179 
 
 doom of the guilty was transferred to Him as standing in a 
 vicarious position. Thus He was personally innocent, though 
 He was by no means to be accounted so in that official and 
 vicarious capacity, in which alone He stood at Pilate's bar. 
 There is no way of elucidating that anomalous trial, which went 
 through the due forms of law, unless we hold that He was truly 
 innocent, but officially guilty. 
 
 5. The last step of Christ's sufferings, THE CRUCIFIXION, 
 immediately followed the sentence of Pilate. The intermediate 
 details, such as the mockery, scorn, and indignity inflicted on 
 Him in many forms, we shall omit ; though these, too, were 
 vicarious, as appears from the words, "by His stripes we are 
 healed." We shall omit, too, the Lord's words to the daughters 
 of Jerusalem when they wept for Him tears of sympathy, as He 
 toiled along the public way under the burden of the cross, tears 
 which, He shows them, were out of place as shed for Him. We 
 shall limit ourselves to the crucifixion itself and to the closing 
 acts of His life. 
 
 The crucifixion, a Roman mode of punishment, was not only 
 peculiarly painful and ignominious in the sight of man, but was 
 meant to indicate the amazing fact, that Christ, by being 
 suspended on the tree, WAS MADE A CURSE. The words of Moses 
 quoted by Paul are express to this effect (Gal. iii. 13). 1 The 
 Lord Jesus was thus, personally considered, the beloved Son and 
 the sinless man, but, officially considered, the curse-bearer in the 
 room of sinners. The Son of God, truly bearing sin with a view 
 to condemn it in the flesh, was exhibited as made a curse by the 
 very fact of enduring this punishment. We have thus to draw 
 the same distinction, as we already mentioned, between Christ 
 considered personally and Christ considered officially. If there 
 ever was a spot where sin could be laid without entailing the 
 inevitable doom of a righteous condemnation, it was here when 
 
 1 The Dutch commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, translated from the 
 Latin papers of A. Schultens by Barueth, on questions 37, 38, 39, gives some 
 striking views upon this point.
 
 180 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 it was borne by the sinless humanity of the incarnate Son ; and 
 we see that even there sin was condemned in the flesh and 
 righteously visited. The surety was tried, sentenced, condemned, 
 and made a curse for us, that we might not come into condem- 
 nation. 
 
 The bitterest ingredient in the Lord's cup was the soul- 
 trouble which He experienced direct from the hand of God. 
 There were indeed actings of His own holy nature which brought 
 with them the deepest sorrow, as may easily be collected from 
 the consideration that One who was inflamed with zeal for His 
 Father's glory, and who breathed the deepest love for holiness, 
 could not but be affected with lively sorrow, when He discerned 
 sin in all its deformity, and furthermore felt that though not His 
 own personally, it belonged in a sense to Him, because it be- 
 longed as a personal property to those who were His. And if a 
 mere sight of sin is often painful and well-nigh overwhelming to 
 us though never called to feel its doom, what a hell it must 
 have been to the holy nature of Jesus to see before Him and 
 upon Him by imputation the sins of all the elect. This made 
 Him the man of sorrows. But the most insupportable part of 
 His sorrows was that He had to encounter the frown of an angry 
 Judge, an agony and a desertion which constitute the ingredients 
 of the second death. He tasted death for every one of the many 
 sons who are to be brought to glory (Heb. ii. 9) ; enduring in a 
 little space what soon overwhelms the lost with unending des- 
 pair. This wrung from Him the cry in the garden already 
 noticed, and made Him offer up prayers and supplications with 
 strong crying and tears (Heb. v. 7) ; pressing from Him the 
 bloody sweat, the preternatural character of which testified to a 
 suffering which no other man suffered and no mere man could 
 have borne. This desertion reached its climax on the cross : but 
 faith was kept in lively exercise in His human soul amidst it all. 
 
 During those awful hours on the cross when made a curse for 
 us, the Lord Jesus sustained that desertion, which was just the 
 endurance of the death of the soul, when sin separates between
 
 CHEIST NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS. 181 
 
 God and the soul, and when God hides His face from us. To 
 this it is not necessary to refer further, after what was said in a 
 previous section. The actions of the Lord Jesus when He hung 
 on the cross, were in the highest degree momentous and signi- 
 ficant. These expiatory sufferings, " an offering and sacrifice to 
 God for a sweet-smelling savour" (Eph. v. 2), were so efficacious 
 that they were made the ground of two signal displays of grace, 
 while He was on the cross. The one of these was the salvation 
 of the dying malefactor, who was made an eminent trophy of 
 His redemption work, and enabled to recognise Him as a 
 sufficient Saviour, even in that deep abasement and humiliation. 
 The other was the prayer for forgiveness to His crucifiers, which 
 had a prevailing efficacy, whether we regard the scope of the 
 prayer as comprehending the individuals then before Him, or as 
 extending to the preservation of the Jewish nation. 
 
 After these hours of inconceivable sorrow and desertion on the 
 cross, under a darkness which just resembled the blackness 
 awaiting the lost, the Lord felt that His work was accomplished ; 
 and He gave utterance to that saying which has brought light, 
 rest, and liberty to so many minds : " It is finished" (John xix. 
 30). 1 He meant that the expiatory sufferings had reached their 
 climax, and were sufficient ; that the guilt of mankind was fully 
 atoned for ; that there was nothing left undone ; that God and 
 man were reunited and reconciled; and now He had but to 
 resign His spirit into His Father's hands. As PRIEST AND 
 VICTIM, He had now only one act to perform, to lay down His 
 life by the priestly act of commending His spirit to God. 
 ^Nature was not exhausted, nor did life ooze away ; for He still 
 
 1 TrrAecrTcu. This cannot refer merely to the fulfilment of all the prophecies, 
 as many yet remained to be fulfilled, but specially to the fulfilling of all the 
 vicarious suffering and meritorious obedience necessary for man's redemption. 
 This is better than the comment of the modern exegetes, of whom the recent 
 lexicographer, Cremer, Worterbuch der N. T. Grdcitat, 1868, may be taken as 
 a representative, and who writes : " TertXearai : welches sich somit auf die 
 Vollstandige ausfiihrung dessen, wodurch die Schrift erfiillt wird bezieht, nicht 
 erfullen." On the contrary, Wolfius, with much more accuracy, said in his Curce, 
 1741 : " Interpretes hactenus omnes verbum illud de consummatione omnium, 
 quae ad salutarem perpessionem pertinebant acceperunt."
 
 182 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 had power over His own life, and no man took it from Him 
 (John x. 18). After having done all and endured all, He deemed 
 it fitting, without more delay, to resign His life or spirit into 
 His Father's hand as an acceptable sacrifice. It was the High 
 Priest offering up His soul to God that said, " Father, into Thy 
 hands I commend my spirit." And He uttered it with a loud 
 voice, to show that strength still remained in Him, and that, by 
 His own authority, He released the spirit from the lacerated and 
 wounded body. 1 
 
 The curse was, " Thou shalt die ; " and now it was exhausted, 
 and sin annihilated. Now heaven and earth were reunited; 
 God and man were at one again. 
 
 SECTION XXIV. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE LORD'S ATONEMENT 
 AND HIS RESURRECTION WITHOUT SEEING CORRUPTION. 
 
 The Lord's Eesurrection, the Christian's boast, the pledge of 
 all our hope, is in a special sense the foundation of our religion, 
 because it is the evidence that the atonement was at once com- 
 plete and accepted. On several occasions the Lord foretold it 
 to gainsayers and to His own disciples to the former as a sign of 
 His divine mission and analogous to that of the prophet Jonas 
 (Matt. xii. 40; John ii. 19) to the latter as an event awaiting 
 Him on His path to glory (Matt. xvi. 21 ; Mark ix. 10). Mark, 
 who accurately reproduces from Peter's recollections many im- 
 pressions and circumstances bespeaking the eye-witness, informs 
 us that the disciples questioned among themselves what the 
 rising from the dead should mean. 
 
 This great fact was always viewed as connected in the closest 
 
 1 The removal of the desertion and the return of light to Christ's soul before 
 He expired are affirmed by many great divines. That return [of light is not 
 improbable, though it is not more than a probability. (See "Weber, Vom Zorne 
 Gottes, p. 266 ; Dods on Incarnation; Hulshoff, Sermons, etc., who affirm it.) 
 The desertion may have terminated with the darkness spread over all nature. 
 But there is one caveat necessary where this is held : the curse was not, and could 
 not be, fully exhausted till death ensued the wages of sin.
 
 CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ATONEMENT AND RESURRECTION. 183 
 
 manner with the expiation necessarily distinguished from it, 
 indeed, but not to he disjoined. The resurrection of the Lord 
 does not enter into the meritorious part of the Eedeemer's work, 
 that is, into the element which divines call the impetration of 
 redemption. A certain class, remarkable for only crude think- 
 ing, have begun to speak of the Lord's resurrection as the ground 
 or basis of justification: but this is an error of the most obvious 
 kind, arising out of an utter misconception of the text on which 
 it professes to be based (viz. Rom. iv, 25), 1 and tending to the 
 subversion of the entire Gospel. The atonement and resurrection 
 stand to each other in the relation of service and reward, of 
 cause and effect. 
 
 "When we examine the interpretation put by the apostles on 
 the fact of the Lord's resurrection, we find it said that He could 
 see no corruption (Acts xiii. 35) ; that He could not be holden 
 of death (ii. 24) ; and that our deliverance is so inseparably 
 connected with it, that if Christ be not raised, our faith is vain, 
 and we are yet in our sins (1 Cor. xv. 17). These three state- 
 ments are so important, that it seems necessary to give an 
 elucidation of them. 
 
 With regard to the statement that the Holy One should not 
 see corruption, it is plain that a return to dust the common lot 
 of fallen humanity could have no place in connection with one 
 who was personally sinless. He could not, in consistency with 
 divine justice, linger in the grave or return to the dust (Ps. xvi 
 10). It is not so with believers whose body is corrupt and unfit, 
 till radically changed, for inheriting heavenly glory. Had Christ 
 returned to dust, the reason would have been that His humanity, 
 like that of other mortals, had been tainted by sin, and in that 
 case He would neither have been competent to act the part of a 
 
 1 The Darhyite doctrine that our justification is not the result of the work 
 which Christ finished on the cross, but is accomplished by union with Him in His 
 resurrection, is a piece of ignorance arising from a mistake of the import of 5ii 
 with the accusative (Rom. iv. 25). (See Apostles' Doctrine of the Atonement, where 
 I have explained it. )
 
 184 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 mediator, nor actually to present Himself as having expiated sin. 
 The legitimate inference would be as follows : if Christ is not 
 raised without seeing corruption, then no atonement has been 
 made. Had He not risen without seeing corruption, His dis- 
 ciples could have had no assurance that sin was annihilated. 
 Nay, on the contrary, they would have had certain evidence 
 that guilt was not taken away. But having expiated sin and 
 put it away, He could see no corruption : for the cause being 
 removed, the effect must cease. He could remain no longer in 
 the grave than for such a period as was necessary to give an 
 assurance to the church of the actual death and actual re- 
 surrection. 1 
 
 As to the second statement that He could not be holden of 
 death we remark that it is rather an allusion to rectitude than 
 to omnipotence. Having satisfied for His Church, and bought 
 the flock of God, He could not remain in the state of death, but 
 must needs be raised by God. The nature of the case required 
 it, as will readily appear to every inquirer. The Lord's humanity 
 being perfectly holy, must be in itself blessed and immortal. 
 To subject a perfectly holy nature to either .misery or death 
 runs counter to the divine rectitude, and could not have occur- 
 red in the moral government of God, except by mutual agree- 
 ment in the prosecution of a great plan. Yet the Lord was a 
 sufferer. He died by His voluntary consent, allowing the sins 
 of His Church to be charged to Himself. Though absolutely 
 holy He was accounted guilty, and treated as guilty by the 
 Supreme Judge. In a word, He came by His own act within 
 the scope of the sentence: tkou shalt surely die (Gen. ii. 17). 
 But when the satisfaction was complete, the sinless Surety must 
 needs rise from the dead : it was not possible that He should be 
 holden of death (Acts ii. 24). 
 
 The last statement which we adduced was : "if Christ be not 
 raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins " (1 Cor. xv. 
 
 1 Another of the crude Darbyite doctrines is, that there was no blood in the 
 Lord's resurrection-body.
 
 CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ATONEMENT AND RESURRECTION. 185 
 
 17). This contains a twofold declaration. When it is said that 
 were the resurrection not a fact our faith would be vain, the 
 import is, that in that case faith would be unavailing or worth- 
 less for the purpose on account of which it is exercised, and the 
 object of that faith would be false. When it is further added, 
 that we should still be " in our sins," this means we should still 
 be under their guilt, or in a state of condemnation. The phrase 
 cannot refer to the lingering remains of sin in the redeemed 
 (1 John i. 8). 
 
 Now the important question here presents itself: On what 
 ground does the apostle thus reason ? What is the connection 
 between the resurrection and those consequences which are 
 deduced from it by Paul ? This will at once appear if we go 
 back a step and survey the principal topics of the Christian 
 system. Of one thing there can be no doubt: the apostle's 
 reasoning would not have force on the supposition that Christ 
 was but a model man, a mere teacher or prophet, or even a 
 head of spiritual influences. For on any of these theories man is 
 supposed to attain his end, by personally conforming to an 
 example, or complying with a prescribed rule and standard, and 
 not by something in the events or fortunes that entered into the 
 history of Jesus. A good or virtuous man, according to these 
 theories, attains his reward by following a rule, or filling up a 
 prescribed course; and how can the objective fact of Christ's 
 resurrection come into account at all ? The reasoning in that 
 case should rather have proceeded according to this tenor : " All 
 depends on a good or virtuous life, and not on the objective fact 
 whether Christ is risen from the dead or not. As God loves all 
 good men, the question whether men are objects of the divine 
 favour, and no more in their sins, depends simply on leading a 
 virtuous life, or complying with the rule to which they must 
 needs be conformed." The apostle's reasoning would not hold 
 on this theory. 
 
 To discover the grounds on which the apostle reasons, we 
 must take to our aid what is said in other passages of the divine
 
 186 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 word. When the whole world had corrupted its way, God ap- 
 pointed a Mediator to do and suffer what the law demanded of 
 man the sinner. He entered into the same relation that Adam 
 occupied, and thus took upon Himself, as the condition of sal- 
 vation, obedience to the law and satisfaction for the penalty. 
 By taking the sins of His people He suffered as the second 
 Adam, and they are supposed to have suffered and died in Him. 
 Hence we are represented as having satisfied in Him, as having 
 suffered and died in Him (John vi. 51-57; Rom. vi. 1-11; Gal. 
 ii. 20). 
 
 This reasoning, as we have brought it out, demonstrates the 
 vicarious character of the atonement. The suretyship of Christ 
 is presupposed, and the argument is : Since He occupied the 
 place of His people, and took their responsibilities, they are 
 justified in their representative, and no more in their sins. Xot 
 only so ; redeemed humanity, raised from the dead in their living 
 Head, and having life judicially awarded to it, cannot be holden 
 of corruption, in soul or in body ; for their whole persons are 
 redeemed, and indissolubly united to Him. But it is premial 
 life. 1 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF CHRIST'S DEATH. 
 
 SEC. XXV. THE CLASSIFICATION OF CHRIST'S SAYINGS AS THEY 
 REPRESENT THE EFFECTS OF HIS DEATH, AND, IN THE FIRST 
 PLACE, AS THEY SET FORTH HIS DEATH AS THE GROUND OF 
 THE ACCEPTANCE OF OUR PERSONS. 
 
 The Lord's sayings describe His death in connection with 
 manifold RESULTS, EFFECTS, or ENDS which it was appointed to 
 
 1 The Darbyite theory is, that in resurrection the Lord had a new life to which 
 righteousness as distinctly attached as did sin to the life He laid down ! But 
 that is not premial life, the only scriptural view of the matter (Rom. vi. 1-12).
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF CHEIST'S SAYINGS. 187 
 
 effect. These effects are either objective and immediate, or sub- 
 jective and mediate ; and we must now consider these in detail. 
 Some refer to the acceptance of our persons, others to the com- 
 munication of inward spiritual life. Without following the pre- 
 cise chronological order in which the testimonies were uttered, it 
 will serve our object best to notice first in order some of those 
 testimonies which bear on the acceptance of our persons ; and 
 after discussing those objective fruits of the atonement as set 
 forth in the first three Gospels, we shall be able to follow more 
 closely, though by no means chronologically, the order in which 
 the other sayings are found in the Gospel of John. 
 
 With regard to the IMMEDIATE and direct effects of the atone- 
 ment, in the first place, they are those which relate to the 
 acceptance of our persons. There are three sayings in particular 
 which may be adduced as peculiarly comprehensive and im- 
 portant : (1) where He speaks of giving Himself a ransom for 
 many ; (2) where He speaks of His blood as the sacrifice of the 
 new covenant for the remission of sins ; (3) where He speaks of 
 the fulfilling of the law for righteousness. All these stand in 
 relation to a counterpart want in man ; and it is important to 
 trace them, if we would see their full significance and adaptation, 
 on the dark background of human misery. 
 
 Upon this question whether any causal connection exists be- 
 tween the Lord's death and the acceptance of our persons, the 
 two schools of theology part company, as they have ever done 
 since the rise of Socinianism. By all biblical divines it was 
 always maintained on sure grounds of Scripture, that the atone- 
 ment is the cause or meritorious antecedent to manifold effects, 
 both relative and internal. The school opposed to substitution 
 allows no such direct or immediate effects of Christ's death as 
 the remission of our sins and the purchase of a people to Him- 
 self (Acts xx. 28.) 
 
 According to this latter theory man is still, as at the Creation, 
 possessed of power and natural resources to render himself 
 acceptable to God by the practice of piety. If he deviates by
 
 188 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 moral trespass, it is not necessary to subject him to punishment, 
 or to insist on any expiation in order to forgiveness. The prin- 
 cipal aim of Christ's mission, according to this school, was to 
 restore natural religion by doctrine or example, and to teach 
 men what duties are to be done. The entire Gospel is conse- 
 quently nothing but the restored law of nature by a divine 
 messenger. It follows, according to this theory, that any effects 
 ascribed to the sufferings of Christ, such as the remission of 
 sins in an objective respect, or the communication of life in a 
 subjective respect, must be taken as mere figurative language, 
 adapted to men's taste, according to the sacrificial worship with 
 which they were familiar. All that Christ did will amount 
 simply to this, that He confirmed the doctrine by His death. 
 This doctrine, sometimes more boldly Socinian and rationalistic, 
 sometimes dressed out in the mystic phraseology descriptive of 
 the divine life, finds many friends and advocates among writers of 
 taste, who, while extolling the ethics of the Gospel and the perfect 
 example of Jesus, subvert the foundations of the atonement. 
 Attention is wholly turned away from that element of the Gospel 
 which represents the Lord as the high priest and sacrifice. 
 
 Before we examine which theory deserves the preference, it 
 may be meet to notice that the doctrine of the atonement not 
 only does no injury to the practice of virtue, or to the comfort 
 of a Christian, but alone effectually secures both. And assuming 
 for a moment though it is not the case that men could ex- 
 pound the sayings of Jesus, according to one or other theory, 
 there would still remain the question, which exposition is most 
 in harmony with the divine purpose, and with the entire economy 
 of God in connection with the Mediator's person and offices. 
 We know that God chooses the best means for the proposed 
 ends. But were the restoration of natural religion or a mere 
 moral redemption as men at present phrase it the only scope 
 of Christ's mission, could we for a moment suppose such a dis- 
 posal of providence as to the fortunes of Jesus, or would this 
 illustrate the divine wisdom ? Were He a mere messenger to
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF CHKIST'S SAYINGS. 189 
 
 inform men of a moral redemption, or the mere medium by 
 whom the spiritual life was to be ushered in, but in no respect 
 its meritorious cause, what need was there for His despised life 
 and ignominious death ? If all this could be absolutely given 
 without purchase, why this costly expenditure of means to an 
 end which could be won without it ? Had this been all, He 
 would have found more access to men's minds by the advantages 
 of birth and the power of working miracles. 
 
 It is alleged indeed (1) that he suffered to awaken His fol- 
 lowers to a patient submission, and also that He might from His 
 own experience learn to exercise sympathy. To this we answer: 
 unless He had been under obligation to suffer from another 
 cause, these ends, confessedly subordinate, could have had no 
 place. Death or suffering could not by possibility have ap- 
 proached the sinless One, apart from sin-bearing. They who 
 adduce this text (Heb. iL 17), omit all those other passages 
 which bring out the scope and effects of His death. It is 
 alleged, too, (2) that He suffered to confirm His doctrine. But 
 on the supposition we impugn that He came only to restore 
 natural religion His mission would have been more confirmed 
 by the evidence of miracles and by being translated, like Elijah, 
 without tasting death. His death was rather a stumbling-block, 
 and must be so till men have come to realize guilt and substitu- 
 tion. But in point of fact the Lord was so far from confirming 
 the principles of natural religion by His death, that there was 
 no dispute between Him and His enemies on that point. 
 Bather, the charge on which He was condemned was His claim 
 to be the Messiah, and His open avowal of it in the council, 
 when the high priest adjured Him to declare Himself. In a 
 word, they who deny substitution and expiation, are wholly at a 
 loss for any tenable explanation of His fortunes. 
 
 But on the other supposition all is plain. The divine justice, 
 wisdom, and goodness, are all equally glorified. And from the 
 ENTIRE EFFECTS or consequences resulting from the atonement, 
 we may argue back TO ITS NATURE. If it effects the remission of
 
 190 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 our sins and the acceptance of our persons, that can only be, 
 because by the nature of the transaction, a substitute occupied 
 our place and discharged the obligations in the same way as a 
 debtor is discharged by another party putting the debt to his 
 own account. It was necessary in order to maintain the glory 
 of the divine perfections, to display justice and truth in visiting 
 sin with adequate punishment : and because man Himself was 
 not in a condition to satisfy divine law and justice, a substitute 
 or mediator entered into our position and obligations, not in 
 name, but in deed and in truth ; that those for whom He obeyed 
 and suffered might have all the effects or consequences which 
 justly followed in the train of expiation. Thus the atonement 
 and the numerous effects or consequences which we now trace 
 in detail from the Lord's sayings, stand related to each other as 
 cause and effect, or as merit and reward. 
 
 SEC. XXVI. CHKIST DESCRIBING HIMSELF AS DYING TO BE A 
 EANSOM FOE MANY. 
 
 " The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto [to be 
 served], but to minister [to serve], and to give His life 
 [His soul] a ransom for [better, in room of] many." 
 (Matt. xx. 28.) 
 
 This saying furnishes a key to a large class of passages descrip- 
 tive of Christ's death as the price or purchase of redemption. 1 
 Though they may seem to be Old Testament allusions, they must 
 also be regarded as based on this text. 
 
 As to the occasion of this condensed saying, we find that our 
 Lord, during His last journey through Perea, took the disciples 
 apart to tell them of the certainty of His death. While He was 
 doing so, the train of His remarks was harshly interrupted by 
 an ambitious request on the part of Salome, to the effect that 
 the two seats of honour in the Messianic kingdom might be 
 
 1 E.g. 1 Pet. i. 18, 19; 1 Cor. vi. 20 ; Gal. iii. 13 j Rev. v. 9.
 
 CHEIST A RANSOM FOE MANY. 191 
 
 given to her two sons, James and John. The Lord Jesus re- 
 plied that the chief places were not to be bestowed on such a 
 principle of arbitrary choice, but on wholly different grounds. 
 Then calling His disciples to Him, He took occasion to refer to 
 His own voluntary abasement, as an example of the spirit to 
 be breathed by His followers, and thus led back the conversa- 
 tion to His death. He sketches, at the same time, a brief but 
 comprehensive outline of the doctrine of the atonement : " The 
 Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His 
 soul a ranson in room of many." Every word in this condensed 
 passage is replete with meaning. 
 
 I shall not dwell on the designation, " Son of Man," which has 
 already been explained as implying that He who was Son of 
 God in His own right condescended to become the abased, 
 curse-bearing second Adam, and the representative of the sinner. 
 I shall not refer to it further than to say that the curse-bearing 
 abasement of this divine person is here emphatically placed in 
 connection with His redeeming work. This thought is the 
 prominent one : that only the Son of Man, or the Son of God 
 incarnate and abased, could in reality give the ransom, and be 
 sufficient to give it. He says that He came not to be ministered 
 to or to receive service at the hand of others, but to render ser- 
 vice, a phrase which comprehends His whole humiliation and 
 His voluntary abasement. The last clause, referring to the 
 nature and purpose of His death, is attached to the first clause 
 in such a way as to interpret to us what that service consisted 
 in viz. that He so ministered or served, that He gave His life 
 for others. As to the word translated life 1 in the authorized 
 version, it may be interpreted SOUL or LIFE or PERSON ; and it 
 matters not in which of the three senses the word is here actually 
 taken. But the rendering " soul " may be fitly enough retained 
 as the literal meaning of the term. 
 
 We must next notice the scope or design of His coming. 
 The commencing words of the sentence, " The Son of Man came,"
 
 192 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 is connected with the last clause, " came to give His life a ran- 
 som," and sets forth in the clearest manner both the fact and the 
 purpose of Christ's coming in the flesh. The great design of the 
 incarnation, or the object which it was intended to subserve, was 
 the expiation or propitiatory death of the Messiah. Though 
 Christ's doctrine comes also within the scope of His mission, He 
 in these words connects His coming with His redemptive death 
 in such a way that we must regard this latter as the principal 
 design of the incarnation, and as the principal object of our faith; 
 for we cannot interpret the words as denoting merely " to expose 
 His life." He could not affirm more unambiguously than He 
 does in this passage that He came into the world to act on the 
 behalf of captives, and with the definite purpose of dying for the 
 redemption of sinners. Thus His death must not be considered 
 as an accident, nor as the result of the miscarriage of another 
 plan, nor as the mere experience of the world's enmity to what is 
 good, but as the very design of His coming. He came to give 
 His life a ransom ; and hence it appears that not our merits but 
 our misery brought Him. 
 
 In this passage the Lord enunciates three weighty truths 
 which, though they are all to be distinctly apprehended by us, 
 must be regarded as only integral parts of one great thought. 
 The elements of the statement are, (1) that of His own free 
 choice He came to give up His soul or His life; (2) that He 
 gave it as a ransom, or in order to have redemptive effects ; (3) 
 that in its true character this surrender of His life was a substi- 
 tution in the room of others. These are the three predicates ; 
 and it is plain that either of the latter two would have sufficed 
 to bring out unmistakeably the great idea of a vicarious death. 
 It would have been enunciated by the use of the term EANSOM 
 singly, or by the preposition IN ROOM OF, 1 as it is here used singly. 
 The combination of these three ideas, however, expresses the 
 doctrine with a fulness, a force, and an emphasis which com- 
 pletely remove every shadow of doubt. We shall first consider 
 them apart, and then combine them. 
 
 1 dvrl.
 
 CHRIST A RANSOM FOR MANY. 193 
 
 1. The Lord came to give His soul or His life. The language, 
 however, implies that He acted from the free bent of His own 
 will, without compulsion or constraint of any kind. And this is 
 a side of truth necessary to give completeness to the doctrine of 
 the atonement, and especially to other passages which speak of a 
 work laid upon Christ, and of the Father's sending Him and 
 giving Him. But what is the precise import of " giving His soul " 
 or His life ? At first sight it seems merely to signify, " to die." 
 But it has a much greater significance when the language is 
 viewed as adapted to the Hebrew ideas. The term soul is 
 emphatic ; and the reason for declaring that He came to give His 
 soul will at once appear from the sacrificial language of the law : 
 " For the soul of the flesh (or the life of the flesh) is in the blood ; 
 and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement 
 for your souls : for it is the blood that rnaketh an atonement for 
 the soul" (Lev. xvii. 11). Thus the reason why the atonement 
 was effected by the blood was, as is stated in the first clause of 
 that verse, because the soul or life was in it ; and, accordingly, 
 whenever the blood was offered, it was understood that the soul 
 of the sacrifice was meant to stand for that of the offerer ; that 
 one soul covered another ; that what was executed on the one 
 was only what the other had incurred. One life was thus offered 
 in the room of another. This was the fundamental idea of 
 sacrifice. The words of Christ, considered in this point of view, 
 represent Him as a Priest, offering to God an atoning sacrifice, 
 and in this vicarious way giving His life for the life of men. 
 There were reasons, doubtless, why our Lord did not directly 
 apply to Himself in express terms the designation Priest during 
 the days of His flesh, while He openly assumed the title of 
 Prophet and King. But in the present passage, and in others 
 similar to it, He beyond question supplied the germs of all the 
 copious sacerdotal phraseology which we find applied to Him in 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews. He speaks of Himself by implication, 
 though not in express terms, as at once the Priest and the Sacrifice. 
 
 2. The giving of His soul or life was intended to be a ransom
 
 194 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 or a price (Xvrpov) paid for the redemption of captives. Thus 
 the idea of a sacrifice passes over into that of a ransom. The one 
 idea becomes a sort of transition to the other ; and it is important 
 to notice this, that we may not confound two things which are 
 certainly distinct. The word does not mean the redemption 
 itself, but the price of it, or the price given to redeem another. 
 And it will be found that the term "ransom," wherever it is 
 used, involves a causal connection between the price paid and 
 the liberation effected that is, a relation of cause and effect. 
 It is deliverance, not by a mere remission, in the absolute sense, 
 but by a redemption-price, that the term invariably suggests 
 wherever it occurs, either among classical or Jewish writers. 
 
 Thus among classical writers the word always denotes the 
 price paid for the liberation of a prisoner of war or the price paid 
 for a slave, on condition that the holder shall forego his rightful 
 authority or claim to the party in his power. Classical usage so 
 indelibly stamped this meaning upon the word, that it became 
 the paramount idea, and could not be separated from it, even 
 when the word was used by Jewish writers. 1 
 
 1 \tirpov. Every diligent student of the Septuagint will readily discover that 
 the translators, in their use of this term, felt themselves controlled by a fixed 
 usage, and used this word only in those cases where the notion of a price could 
 be naturally attached to it. But they resorted to another Greek word when a 
 different idea was to be expressed, even though the original might have the very 
 same term. This is decisive as to the fixed usage of language in this case. They 
 felt that the language woiild not bend. We have referred to this fixed meaning 
 of the word \6rpov, because a great amount of needless discussion and groundless 
 refining has been indulged in by several writers, who, not content with a com- 
 parison of the Septuagint and Hebrew, argue back again from the wider meaning 
 of a Hebrew term, as if that alone could warrant a different acceptation of the 
 Greek Mrpov. On that groundless theory the notion was taken up in certain 
 quarters, especially since Grotius led the way (see Grotius, De Satisfactione Christi, 
 cap. viii.), that the word RANSOM might mean a victim or propitiatory sacrifice. 
 But it does not in any case signify immediately the victim or the sacrifice : it is 
 rather an advance upon the latter idea. The notion of sacrifice rather passes over 
 into that of the ransom. Nor can this theory be argued, as Grotius has done, 
 from the import of the Latin word lustrare (see Grotius, I. c.) ; as if a proof could 
 be drawn from a word of similar origin in a cognate language. Hofmann, in his 
 Schriftbeweis, argues from the Hebrew word 1Q3, which is translated Mrpov by 
 
 the Septuagint in several passages (Prov. vi. 35 ; xiii. 8 ; Ex. xxi. 30), that we 
 may render the Greek word Deckung. And Ritschl, in Jahrbucher fur Deutsche
 
 CHRIST A RANSOM FOR MANY. 195 
 
 Not to speak, then, of the redemption of things (Lev. xxv. 14), 
 and confining our attention to persons, this word, as employed 
 by the Septuagint, is found to be used for " the ransom " by which 
 a maid was redeemed from slavery (Lev. xix. 20) ; for " the 
 ransom '' of a prisoner of war (Isa. xlv. 13) ; for " the ransom " of 
 a person who might go into voluntary servitude and sell himself 
 till the year of jubilee (Lev. xxv. 51) ; for " the ransom" paid to 
 the judges to expiate a fault, of which one very notable instance 
 occurs in the case of the owner of a pushing ox (Ex. xxi. 30). 
 If such an ox occasioned death or happened to kill a human 
 being, the law pronounced death both upon the ox and its owner ; 
 and, to be delivered from the punishment threatened in the law 
 for such a casualty, the owner might, in certain cases, pay " a 
 ransom " or a pecuniary fine to save his life. On the other hand, 
 it was provided that " no ranson " should be accepted for the life 
 of a murderer, nor for one who had fled to his city of refuge 
 (Num. xxxv. 31, 32). 
 
 The same term (Xvrpov) is used to denote the price paid for 
 the liberation of a man from imminent danger, or the money 
 given to induce another to recede from the merited or expected 
 infliction of punishment, injury, or death. Thus it is said, " The 
 ransom of a man's life are his riches " (Prov. xiii. 8) a statement 
 referring to the events of common life, and intimating that, by 
 the payment of "a ransom," the rich not unfrequently free 
 themselves from the dangers, exactions, and oppressions to which 
 they would otherwise be subjected, or that by means of these 
 they procure defenders for themselves in courts of law. Of an 
 
 Theologie, ii. Heft, 1863, maintains that it may be rendered Schutzmittel. But 
 both argue incorrectly from the broader meaning of the Hebrew word, as if that 
 were enough to control the meaning of the Greek \6rpoi>. In point of fact, the 
 Greek word was fixed and inflexible. Just as little can it be argued that the 
 term ransom is capable of being understood of a deliverance which is considered 
 as absolutely irrespective of the idea of a price ; for however men may speculate as 
 to the possibility of such a meaning, no example of that usage of the word is to be 
 found either in a Greek writer or in the Septuagint version. In referring to the 
 Alexandrine translation, therefore, we shall not complicate the inquiry in the 
 manner already mentioned, but limit our references to those passages where the 
 same Greek word (\urpov) is used that is here rendered ransom.
 
 196 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 injured husband, for example, it is said, " He will not regard any 
 ransom " (Prov. vi. 35), meaning that he will not be pacified by 
 any ransom when his resentment is inflamed against the violator 
 of domestic purity and honour. These are instances of the use 
 of the term (Avr/oov) in man's relation to man. 
 
 But the same term, with the same sense, is also used in 
 reference to man's relation to God. The first-born of the family, 
 for instance, was exempted from attendance on the sanctuary 
 only by the payment of " a ransom " of five shekels (Num. xviii. 
 15). So, too, we find that on the occasion when the tribe of Levi 
 was accepted in room of the first-born of Israel, and the attendance 
 of that tribe taken in exchange, " a ransom " was to be paid for 
 all those persons exceeding the number of the Levites who took 
 the place of the first-born. And " a ransom " was paid, accordingly, 
 for 273 persons for whom no substitute was found provided by 
 the 22,000 Levites (Num. iii. 49). But of all the instances of a 
 ransom in money, by far the most significant and familiar was 
 the redemption-money paid by every Hebrew male whose name 
 was registered or entered on the muster-roll or census of the 
 congregation. This ransom was a half-shekel the rich not 
 giving more, and the poor not giving less. It was intended to 
 signify that all who were of age were thus enrolled as the 
 redeemed of the Lord ; and the phrase, " redeemed or ransomed " 
 of the Lord is a common and familiarly used Old Testament 
 phrase (Ps. cvii. 2). It seems to have been paid as an annual 
 tax or tribute in all the best times of Jewish history. Though 
 many writers assert that it was not annually paid, there is no 
 sufficient ground to warrant the opinion of those who would limit 
 it to the first occasion. The allusions to this tribute or didrachma, 
 which our Lord on one occasion was asked to pay, and which He 
 paid (Matt. xvii. 24), suffice to prove that it was claimed from 
 every male annually, or at least once, when he was enrolled 
 among the chosen people (2 Kings xii. 4 ; 2 Chron. xxiv. 9 ; Neh. 
 x. 32). Every Israelite seems annually to have given that half- 
 shekel or didrachma as a ransom for his soul. And we know
 
 
 CHRIST A RANSOM FOR MANY. 197 
 
 that, as a ransom, it averted the Divine displeasure; whether 
 this was owing to the fact that it was set apart for the service of 
 the sanctuary, or as it was a sovereign and independent arrange- 
 ment. And it showed that sinful men could not come nigh a 
 holy God, or stand before Him, except upon the ground of a 
 ransom paid for every worshipper (Ex. xxx. 11). These instances 
 show that a ransom was necessary in that typical economy 
 which was to find its reality in Christ. 
 
 Now, as to the application of this term to Christ, one thing is 
 obvious at first sight. The redemption price is to be traced up 
 to something which is done by another, and not to any personal 
 merit on the part of the redeemed ; and it is described as the act 
 of one for many. There are two questions here to which an 
 answer, if not expressed, is implied : To whom was the ransom 
 paid ? and with what was it paid ? 
 
 1. As to the first question, who is the imprisoning party, or 
 the party demanding the ransom ? the answer is furnished by a 
 correct idea of God's relation to His creature, and of the violated 
 rights and law of God. The captivity is primarily to divine 
 justice, and only in the second instance is it a captivity to Satan, 
 death, and hell; and, accordingly, a satisfaction to God's injured 
 law and honour terminated the bondage, the ransom being paid 
 to God, not to Satan. 1 The captivity presupposed by the use 
 of the term " ransom " has various elements. The Judge, by a 
 just sentence, reduced the sinner to a state of bondage, because 
 every attribute of the Godhead demanded vindication against 
 Him. He was made a captive primarily to divine justice, and 
 then, secondarily, to Satan, death, and hell. The curse affixed 
 to sin was death, or separation from God's countenance and 
 favour. And not only so : Satan obtaining possession of man- 
 kind, and holding them by right of conquest, could be dispos- 
 sessed only when the necessary ransom had been paid to that 
 
 1 With the exception of Hasenkamp and Menken, few moderns have followed 
 Origen and his school in this notion. But it was common among the Fathers, as 
 I have pointed out in Apostles' Doctrine of the Atonement, Appendix.
 
 198 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 primary fountain of justice and law which pronounced the sepa- 
 ration between God and man as right, and left the conqueror to 
 hold his conquest. That captivity is capable of being reversed 
 only by an interposition which, remounting to the original cause, 
 altered the relation on which God stood to sinning man ; and, 
 accordingly, when the law was fulfilled, and the curse exhausted 
 by an adequate ransom, the bondage terminated. The same 
 Judge who had pronounced the sentence awarding captivity, 
 reverses it in the behalf of all for whom that ransom was paid, 
 and who put their trust in it, or in Him who brought it. 
 
 2. As to the second question, viz., with what the ransom 
 was paid, it cannot be every sort of act, but only a vicarious 
 death. The captive was held by the inflexible grasp of justice ; 
 and the ransom could only be a death which should be a proper 
 punishment, or an adequate infliction of all the curse which 
 was comprehended in the divine sentence. In other words, a 
 full equivalent was paid by the Son of God, made the second man, 
 and appointed by the divine commission to act as the represen- 
 tative of man. This is just life for life. The ransom, then, is 
 a penal infliction in its full significance, and spontaneously 
 undergone. No ransom could be found but in the death of 
 Jesus ; or, personally considered, the ransom of the human race 
 is just the dying Saviour representing us and acting in our 
 stead. 
 
 3. The third element in this proposition is, that it is said to 
 be in the room of many (O.VTI TroAAwv). With what are we to 
 construe these last words ? They are referred by some to the 
 acting party, or to the subject or person spoken of. They are 
 connected by others with the object of the proposition, and 
 placed in apposition to the term " ransom." I rather think 
 that there is a threefold idea in the proposition, as has been 
 already hinted, and that the notion (1) of the sacrifice, and (2) 
 of the ransom, must be both connected with the words, " in room 
 of many." As the one idea passes over into the other, as our 
 Lord intimates that He offers a priestly sacrifice, and then adds
 
 CHRIST A EANSOM FOR MANY. 199 
 
 the idea of a ransom which delivers from captivity, it is clear 
 that we must construe the words, " in room of many," with both 
 the ideas. This threefold distribution of the proposition is lost 
 by both the modes of construing the words to which we have 
 above referred. The Lord offered a sacrifice as a priest in the 
 room of many. He paid a ransom also in the room of many. 
 The former thought passes into the other as a"n advance upon it, 
 or an extension of its meaning ; and in both modes of represen- 
 tation the thought unmistakeably is, that the Lord Jesus was 
 acting in a vicarious manner. 
 
 The true import of the phrase here used, as every scholar 
 interpreting by language at once admits, 1 is, in room of many. 
 To adduce a few instances, it may be noticed that it is the same 
 preposition (dvri) occurring in the phrases, " an eye for an eye " 
 (Matt. v. 38) ; " who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright " 
 (Heb. xii. 16) ; " will ye for a fish give him a serpent ?" (Luke 
 xi. 11;) "recompense to no man evil for evil" (Eom. xii. 17); 
 "Archelaus reigned in his stead" (Matt. ii. 22). In these in- 
 stances, and in every other where the preposition is not used to 
 signify against, the notion of substitution is the uniform and 
 undoubted sense of the phraseology. The words here used 
 convey the idea, that Christ gave Himself as a substitute ; that 
 He gave His soul in room of others ; and that this surrender of 
 His life for others was further accepted, or regarded as the price 
 or ransom by which the deliverance was effected. It is not 
 enough to say that the death of Christ was for the good of others 
 in some vague, indefinite, indeterminate sense ; for that is not 
 warranted either by the meaning of the preposition used, or by 
 the connection of the sentence. If we would apprehend the 
 Lord's thought without offering violence to language, we must 
 accept it as conveying the idea of a vicarious provision, and 
 allow that the Son of Man underwent the very death that others 
 
 1 See Meyer's commentary on this preposition as denoting substitution. 
 Hofmann tries to escape from this, by confounding irepl TroXXuw with avrl iro\\wv. 
 (See his Schriftbeweis).
 
 200 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 had incurred ; submitting to the penal infliction which they had 
 deserved, and dying in their room that they might be rescued 
 from the punishment. If it was only for the good of others in 
 a general, indefinite, and abstract sense, the same thing might 
 be said of any apostle or martyr. But if He gave His life vicari- 
 ously, or surrendered His life in the room of others, what else 
 does this convey but that He offered Himself to give death for 
 death, and that He frees others by taking the punishment upon 
 Himself ? The Son of Man, very God and very man, came to do 
 this in the room of many. 
 
 And as to the many referred to in the phrase, it must be 
 noticed that He does not say all, which might have been con- 
 sidered as limited merely to all the disciples present, who were 
 not many. He speaks not of them alone, as if the efficacy of 
 His death were confined to the disciples then present ; nor of 
 their nation alone, but of a seed out of every nation, countless 
 as the stars, or as the sand upon the sea- shore. And He calls 
 them many, either because He contrasts Himself with them as 
 acting one for many and so we find a similar phraseology 
 in Eom. v. 19, or rather because He has His eye upon the 
 multitude out of every tribe and nation who were given Him 
 by the Father ; in other words, to the elect of God, the truly 
 saved, the redeemed from among men, for whom He offered 
 Himself. 
 
 I would now say something by way of obviating the excep- 
 tions taken to the sense which we have just put upon the pas- 
 sage. These objections are principally two, and they are directed 
 either against the reality of the substitution or against the reality 
 of the ransom. 
 
 1. With regard to the objection made to the reality of the 
 substitution or exchange of persons, it is sometimes of a more 
 evangelical strain. Thus one modern writer 1 thinks himself 
 warranted to object to the idea of substitution as not expressing 
 Christ's relation to humanity, because " He is not ' another' 
 
 1 Hofmann, in his Schriftbeweis on the passage.
 
 CHRIST A RANSOM FOR MANY. 201 
 
 alongside of humanity and outside of humanity, but the Son of 
 Man, in whom humanity finds its second Adam." He adds, 
 " It is also not barely a vicarious act by which He reconciled 
 us to God, it is not barely through Him, but in Him, that we 
 are reconciled." This objection may be said to express the 
 strain of the new theology, or the mystic theory of the atone- 
 ment so much in vogue, with all its one-sided and subjective 
 bias. But in the words before us we find the Lord Himself, 
 with unmistakeable precision, declaring that the surrender of 
 His life was a vicarious act in room of many. And a death 
 which redeems another under death, and is declared to be in the 
 room of others, is properly vicarious, if language is to be the 
 interpreter's guide ; and a redemption merely by the communi- 
 cation of the inner life, or by union to the person of Christ, 
 without any provision legitimately to reverse the divine sentence 
 pronounced against sin, or to remove the actual curse, argues a 
 very defective view of the relation occupied to mankind, both 
 by the first and second Adam. It is to make no account of the 
 necessity of personally standing in an accepted righteousness, or of 
 the reversal of the inflicted curse. It is to ignore the objective 
 relation of our persons, which is as necessary as the inner nature, 
 and it merges all that is relative or personal in the spiritual life. 
 The older Socinians, again, with nothing of the evangelical 
 sentiment which we have just mentioned, repudiated the vicari- 
 ous element, or the substitution of Christ, on wholly different 
 grounds. It would be tedious to mention, and to refute in 
 detail, all their overdrawn inferences, and all their exaggerated 
 difficulties. But to some of them we must refer. Thus they 
 argue, that in the exchange of prisoners to which the language 
 must primarily allude, both parties are freed and restored to 
 their friends. This of course is true, when both are in the same 
 condition, and no reconciliation is indispensably required, as is 
 needful in the sinner's case. But we meet all these exaggerated 
 and overdone details at once, by observing, that in all compari- 
 sons, just as in all parables, it is only one point in common, or a
 
 202 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 certain tertium quid, which challenges attention; and in this 
 case it is the exchange of captives. And when it is still further 
 rejoined, that in such an exchange Christ must have remained 
 a captive, the reply is at hand, that He was certainly a captive, 
 nay, all His life long a captive, till the ransom was completely 
 paid, but that He redeemed us in such a way as to lead captivity 
 captive, and to set us free. All these objections are nothing 
 but the urging of inferential exaggerations. 
 
 But the chief argument of this class of writers is, that the 
 question is somewhat different from an exchange of persons, and 
 turns not so much on an exchange of persons as on a commuta- 
 tion between a thing or a price and a person. On the contrary, 
 the preposition here employed, and the whole language of Christ 
 in reference to His death, implies a commutation of one person 
 for another, that is, of one person's suffering for what another 
 should have borne -and suffered. It is the exchange of one 
 person's suffering for another person's suffering, and therefore 
 an exchange of persons, according to that representative system 
 which must be accepted in the mediatorial economy, whether 
 we look at the first Adam or at the second Adam. 1 
 
 2. With regard to the second objection already mentioned, 
 which denies the reality of the ransom, and reduces all to a 
 mere figure of speech, it is easily obviated. It has always been 
 maintained by Socinian expositors that this whole phraseology, 
 which is taken from the redemption of a captive, is only a meta- 
 phorical use of language, derived from the custom of redeeming 
 prisoners of war, but that it means no more than simply this, 
 that we are discharged. To this we give a general and a par- 
 ticular reply. 
 
 As the language used in reference to a ransom or price has a 
 well-defined significance, invariably involving the idea that it 
 was necessary to pay a price for a captive, it were in reality 
 tantamount to evacuating the import of Scripture and the proper 
 
 * See Stillingfleet's sermons, On the True Reason of the Sufferings of Christ, 
 wherein Crellius' Answer to Grotius is considered, pp. 440-450, London, 1669.
 
 CHRIST A RANSOM FOR MANY. 203 
 
 sense of words, to reduce its meaning to a mere figure of speech. 
 And let this principle be fully carried out, as it has been to its 
 legitimate consequences in modern mythism, and it will reduce 
 Christianity to a system of mere ideas, dissociated from fact or 
 from any historic basis in actual reality ; and on this principle 
 of disconnecting Christianity from the underlying facts, all 
 becomes notions and ideas and a mere world of thought. To be 
 consistent, they must hold a figurative or metaphorical Christ, 
 a figurative or metaphorical mediator, a figurative or meta- 
 phorical salvation. On the contrary, there is nothing in the 
 language expressed in the passage that is not literally true. All 
 is reality, not semblance or figure, fact, not comparison or 
 similitude. So much for the general reply to this objection. 
 
 Again, to meet this objection more particularly and more in 
 detail, it must be maintained, that as men are in a real and not 
 a figurative bondage, so they are delivered by a real and not a 
 figurative ransom. If the Redeemer gives His life for others, 
 and gives it, too, as a ransom or as a price for captives, it follows, 
 that if the first is a literal and real captivity, the other is not 
 less a literal and real ransom for their deliverance. HSTor will it 
 avail to argue, that as the language is unmistakeably taken from 
 the ancient sacrifices and only accommodated to Christ, it can- 
 not be pressed any further. To this I reply, the types take 
 their colour from the actual event, or from the reality reflecting 
 its light upon them, not conversely. It was the coming event that 
 cast its shadow before, and gave its colour to the type. It was 
 not the type which gave a metaphorical representation to the fact. 
 
 The allegation is frequently made, too, that the writers of the 
 New Testament use the term ransom for deliverance simply, 
 without the accessory notion of a price ; and warnings are fre- 
 quently addressed to the expositor as to the risk of insisting 
 more upon the figure under which the truth is represented than 
 upon the thing itself. But, plainly, we should run counter to 
 all the canons and guiding principles of strict interpretation, 
 were we to deal with the term ransom either as if it had not
 
 204 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 been used at all, or as if it had no precise and definite meaning. 
 This would introduce the most arbitrary licence of interpretation, 
 and it would make men expound not by language, but by pre- 
 conceived ideas. Some men of name in theology 1 have recently 
 expounded the phrase as if nothing else were to be found in it 
 but an allusion to the influence of Christ's doctrine confirmed 
 by His death. And what is that but to reduce Christ to the 
 level of a mere teacher or prophet ? It is very little different 
 from this to urge, as some others have done, that Christ, in the 
 use of such language, merely points to men's liberation from the 
 bondage of the Mosaic law, and refers to the fact that He was 
 to set up a purer worship, and to preach to all mankind the 
 absolute and unbought forgiveness of sins. The laws of sound 
 interpretation will not allow any man to indulge in such way- 
 ward licence. The usage of language, and the full significance 
 as well as connection of the thought, will allow an allusion only 
 to the actual and real issue of Christ's death. The term ransom 
 denotes not the deliverance itself, but the price of it ; and the 
 thought is, that mankind are discharged from bondage by a 
 vicarious atonement, the bondage and the ransom being equally 
 real. They who contend that the passage announces redemption 
 but without any allusion to a redemption price, while the dis- 
 charge is held to be not less sure than if a price were actually 
 paid, not only violate Christ's doctrine, but also the laws of 
 language. And as to the interpreter's fidelity, it may be added 
 that he has no arbitrary discretion to change the meaning of 
 Christ's words. There is no more arresting thought to him than 
 this, how he shall answer for it at the bar of Christ, if under 
 any influence or tendency he has been led on to pervert the 
 meaning of Christ's teaching, and to evacuate the proper force 
 and import of His language. And many do so on the precon- 
 
 1 See De "Wette, De Morti Christi, p. 139. Kitschl, again, in the Jahrbiicher 
 fur Deutsche Theologie, 1863, p. 222, sees no more in it than a sort of protection 
 against death for those who fulfil the condition under which alone this can be 
 available to them.
 
 CHKIST A HANSOM FOE MANY. 205 
 
 ceived idea that a satisfaction to divine justice is absurd. But 
 I ask, is it absurd to maintain that the divine law must be ful- 
 filled in precept and in penalty, which is all that is implied in 
 that statement that justice must be satisfied ? 
 
 The other objections to the above given interpretation of this 
 verse, are only trifling and sporadic ; and they may be here 
 omitted, as they have been anticipated in the previous exposition 
 of the words. As to the objection, however, that the notion of 
 a ransom is untenable because no one can be shown to whom 
 it was paid and it cannot be supposed now-a-days to have 
 been paid to Satan, the answer is at hand. It is not simply 
 the case of a creditor receiving a pecuniary payment, but 
 that of a criminal guilty of a capital crime, and deserving 
 a penal infliction by which the authority of law is maintained. 
 It is paid to God, the Judge of all. (Comp. Eph. v. 2 ; Heb. 
 ix. 14.) 
 
 We may put together the elements of this passage as follows : 
 (1) the humiliation of a divine person, which gives value to His 
 work ; (2) the priestly act of self-oblation ; (3) the assumption 
 that men are captives to death ; (4) the ransom, with its re- 
 demptive efficacy ; (5) the persons for whom He was a substitute ; 
 (6) the necessary effect, deliverance from death by the death of 
 such a substitute. 
 
 Having determined the import of the ransom, there is little 
 else calling for remark. We may notice, finally, as to the signi- 
 ficance of this testimony, that the notion of delivering a captive 
 by ransom or commutation is not alien to the thinking or 
 customs of any people ; that it underlies all theology ; and that 
 it commends itself to all minds. 
 
 The ransom is described in these words without any ambiguity. 
 The sacerdotal offering of Christ's life as the culmination of His 
 obedience is further represented as the ransom; and it has a 
 direct or causal connection with present and future deliverance 
 from divine wrath. The surrender of life for life is the only price 
 or compensation to be offered for the sinner ; and we are taken
 
 206 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 to hear the expression of Christ's consciousness to this effect from 
 His own lips. There is a causal connection between the ransom 
 paid and the redemption or deliverance effected. This deliverance 
 or redemption has so wide a scope, that believers are " redeemed 
 from all evil," present and to come. The ransom is the meri- 
 torious cause of the deliverance, just as sin or the fall was the 
 meritorious cause of the captivity. 1 
 
 I may add, the entire penal evil consequent on sin is denoted 
 by the term, death, as taken in its full significance. The Lord 
 gave life for life, or, in other words, encountered death in all its 
 breadth of meaning, considered both as temporal and eternal, 
 thus depriving it of its sting. It henceforth ceased to be death 
 in the proper import of the word to those who believe on Him 
 (John viii. 51), that is, because the Sinless One has died. It 
 might seem, indeed, as if the atonement, considered as a ransom 
 from captivity, had no reference to physical evil, because this is 
 still found in the matter of it entailed upon believers after their 
 acceptance as well as upon others. But though physical evil and 
 death are not removed, the change which the atonement merits 
 and actually produces is so great in every respect, that in truth 
 it ceases to be evil when that which is penal is altogether re- 
 moved. The ransom changes the entire relation of the Christian 
 to everything in the moral government of God ; and with regard 
 to our relation to physical evil and temporal death, there is no 
 
 1 It would be tedious to enumerate all the different writers who have discussed 
 this text against the various schools and tendencies which have impugned the 
 proper notion of the atonement. Thus, against the Socinian school I may mention 
 Hoornbeck, Calovius in Socinismus Profligatus, Maresius, Arnold, Essenius, 
 Turretin, Stein, De Satisfactions. In recent times this text has received a very 
 satisfactory treatment from Philippi, Delitzsch on Hebrews (Appendix), Weber, 
 Keil, in the discussions caused by Hofmann's Schriftbeweis. I shall notice it more 
 fully in the Appendix to this volume. But I may here quote the happy words of 
 Tittmann, Opusc. Theol., p. 445 : "Igitur inverbis Christi quando dixit se vitam 
 ponere pretium redemptiouis, tria insunt : (1) Christum mortuum esse nostro loco, 
 nostra vice ; quam dicere solemus mortem Christi vicariam ; (2) Christum mor- 
 tuum esse eo consilio, ut nos redimeret, peccatorumque veniam Christi jure uostro 
 meritoriam appellamus ; (3) Christum solvisse pretium sufficiens, hoc est, mortem 
 Christi sufficere ad impetrandam veniam peccatorum, nee opus esse ut aliquid ad- 
 datur a nobis. "
 
 CHRIST'S BLOOD THE NEW COVENANT. 207 
 
 more curse in them, nay, not a drop of wrath, but only fatherly 
 discipline and a means of education. 1 
 
 SEC. XXVII. THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST, THAT HIS DEATH IS THE 
 SACRIFICE OF THE NEW COVENANT FOR THE REMISSION OF SIN. 
 
 The words of Matt. xxvi. 26-28, Mark xiv. 22-24, Luke xxii. 
 19, 20 (comp. 1 Cor. xi. 23-25), may be harmonized as follows : 
 
 " And as they were eating, Jesus took bread; and having given 
 thanks and Uessed it, He brake it and gave it to the disciples, 
 and said, Take, eat, this is My body which is given (or 
 broken) for you ; this do in remembrance of Me. And in 
 like manner, after supper, He took the cup ; and when He 
 had given thanks, He gave it to them, and said, Drink ye 
 all of it ; and they all drank of it. For, said He to them, 
 this cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for 
 you [and] for many, unto the remission of sins." 
 
 Of all the sayings which our Lord uttered on the subject of 
 His death, there is none which can be regarded as either more 
 important or more express than that testimony which He uttered 
 at the institution of the Supper. He had previously called His 
 death "a ransom;" He had called His crucified flesh "meat in- 
 deed;" and in the present passage He calls His blood a covenant. 
 This phraseology may be considered as a key to all those passages 
 which announce a reconciliation to God through Him ; and also 
 a key to all those passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as 
 well as elsewhere, which speak of a covenant people as separated 
 and sanctified, as saints and holy ones, or speak of the Church of 
 God according to the new covenant relation in which believers 
 stand. 
 
 With regard to the occasion of this saying, it requires no re- 
 mark. As our Lord drew near His death, His language constantly 
 
 1 See note H.
 
 208 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 became more explicit and clear in reference both to the fact of 
 His death and to its nature. A'memorial was to be instituted to 
 commemorate that great fact, which takes Him wholly out of the 
 class of mere instructors, and which gives Him a place apart, and 
 a position wholly unique, among mankind. He used words 
 which, no doubt, recall the language and the position of Moses 
 at the founding of the Sinaitic covenant, but which are of a 
 description such as no mere teacher could ever have ventured to 
 utter. He intimates that all ages onward to the end of time 
 should have an interest in His death still more than in His 
 words ; that He instituted the Supper as the commemoration of 
 a fact which should be fraught with the most important con- 
 sequences ; and that in His death He aimed at an object such as 
 neither His doctrine nor His example contemplated. He deemed 
 this symbolic action so important for all ages, that He did not 
 leave it to His disciples to institute it after His departure, as He 
 left many other things for them to found. He Himself instituted 
 this memorial of His historic life and death. The better to in- 
 form the Church of His design, and to cut off every exception 
 from future cavillers, who are ever ready to affirm that His 
 disciples made several unwarrantable additions to His doctrine, 
 and to declare that some undue and exaggerated importance 
 came to be attached to His death by those who went forth to 
 preach His gospel, our Lord instituted this memorial Himself, 
 with His death full in view, on the night of His betrayal. 
 
 "With respect to the words used at the institution of the 
 Supper, they are four times given, with only slight variations, 
 and should be accurately compared in the form in which they 
 are given by the three evangelists and by Paul, as they convey 
 the most important instruction both on the nature and on the 
 scope of the Saviour's death. They concur with the memorial 
 which was then instituted to set forth the design and the effect 
 of Christ's atoning death. 
 
 The saying is two-fold ; and a certain interval of time must 
 have elapsed between the utterance of the two. This, with
 
 CHEIST'S BLOOD THE NEW COVENANT. 209 
 
 other reasons which might be adduced, serves to show, that 
 while they properly come within the category of parallel 
 passages and under the appellation of parallel passages, there 
 is a somewhat extended sense or further meaning attaching 
 to the last of them. The one prepared the way for the other. 
 Both together, in some sort, interweave a historical reference. 
 The first of the two sayings undoubtedly alludes to the paschal 
 lamb, which was, according to the divine idea, regarded as at 
 once a ransom to redeem, and as a spiritual food to nourish 
 the receiver. This is set forth in the words, This is my 
 body given for you (Luke xxii. 19); broken for you (1 Cor. 
 XL 24). 
 
 This second saying, again, is, This cup is the new covenant in 
 my blood, shed for yov,, and shed for many (Luke xxii. 20). 
 
 This second saying, which adds an additional or further 
 thought, goes back to another event in the history of Israel, 
 posterior or subsequent to the passover, and yet closely con- 
 nected with it. It alludes to the Sinaitic covenant, which was 
 to be superseded, in due time, with all its typical arrangements, 
 and to give place to the better covenant. An obvious enough 
 link of connection bound these two events together the insti- 
 tution of the passover and the founding of the Sinaitic covenant 
 in the history of the chosen people. As the direct issue of 
 the passover, or as the immediate effect consequent upon it, 
 the Israelites, delivered from the destruction which fell on 
 Egypt's first-born, were led on to Sinai to be taken into a 
 covenant relationship as a nation ; or, in other words, to enter, 
 in a manner competent only to a redeemed and cleansed com- 
 munity, into a recognized relation to God, such as none else 
 ever enjoyed. That people was now to be admitted into the 
 privilege and dignity of being the peculiar people of God. 
 That was, on the one hand, a true relation to God, but at the 
 same time, too, a figurative history, which was in both respects 
 to be reproduced. in the fulness of time with a deeper signifi- 
 cance and with a wider and fuller meaning that is, with the
 
 210 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 real sacrifice, and not with the mere type. And it is this 
 second thing that is represented, as well as the first, in the 
 memorial of the Lord's Supper, instituted for the Christian 
 Church. Thus, the sole ground of God's covenant .with men 
 is the great atoning sacrifice by which sin is taken away ; for 
 God could admit no sinner to His fellowship, or to a participa- 
 tion in the standing of His own covenant people, without an 
 atonement or satisfaction for sin. 
 
 Considered in this light, the two sayings are parallel; and 
 yet they are not simply coincident. They do not precisely 
 cover each other. The second is rather an advance upon the 
 first, and passes over into a wider and more enlarged meaning. 
 And the two taken together announce that Christ gave Him- 
 self for the disciples, with the ulterior purpose or design that 
 they might be taken into a new covenant relation and be God's 
 peculiar people. 
 
 As to the first saying, I need not further advert to it, except 
 to say that the words, my body given for you, as it is in Luke, 
 or, my body broken for you, as it is in Paul, must be taken only 
 in the acceptation that it is sacrificial language. We are not to 
 understand this peculiar style of language as merely signifying 
 a gift to us, but to interpret it as denoting a sacrifice given 
 for us, or as denoting a victim delivered up to death for us. No 
 doubt, if we were to expound the proper import of these sacra- 
 mental emblems, and to set forth what is represented in the 
 sacramental invitations, we should have our minds directed 
 to the other point, and find a gift to us. But in the present 
 elucidation of this testimony I purpose not to deviate from the 
 question of the atonement ; and I shall therefore limit my 
 attention to the peculiar import and bearing of the testimony 
 here emphatically borne to it. When Christ speaks, then, in 
 the present passage, of His body given or broken for His 
 disciples, the allusion is obviously to the fact that the Father 
 gave Him for us, and that He spontaneously surrendered or 
 gave Himself, as an atonement or paschal sacrifice, for the
 
 CHRIST'S BLOOD THE NEW COVENANT. 211 
 
 salvation of His people. And once offered, He becomes there- 
 after to His people, onward to the end of time, their spiritual 
 food, as they partake of His crucified flesh by faith. 
 
 It is on the second saying, however, that the chief emphasis 
 may be said to rest in relation to the doctrine of the atonement ; 
 and it is this to which our remarks will be directed. This is 
 the more full and copious saying of the two, describing, as it 
 does, the blood of Christ as the basis or condition of the entire 
 new covenant. The words here used by Christ are peculiarly 
 suggestive, as they recall the blood of sacrifices offered at the 
 dedication of the Sinaitic covenant, when Moses sprinkled both 
 the book and all the people, saying, " Behold the blood of the 
 covenant" (Ex. xxiv. 6). That covenant at Sinai was founded 
 on the blood of a typical atonement, and could have had no 
 place without that blood. And in the far deeper sense con- 
 tained in the reality as contrasted with the type, the one true 
 and perfect sacrifice of the Son of God must be viewed as the 
 foundation of the latter covenant. Christ here describes His 
 blood, then, from a threefold point of view : (1) as shed or 
 poured out for His disciples ; (2) as the procuring cause of 
 remission of sins; (3) as the fundamental condition of the 
 covenant. And we shall briefly advert to each of these points 
 in order. 
 
 1. His blood was shed or poured out for many. Though 
 the Greek construction in Luke is irregular and somewhat 
 peculiar, plainly the participle shed or poured out is connected 
 with the term blood, just as it is put in Matthew and Mark. 
 There can be no doubt that this is the connection in point of 
 thought, if not also in point of language. 1 It is a sacrificial 
 
 1 Luke xxii. 20 : ToOro rb irorfipiov }] KO.IVT) SiaBr/Kr] Iv r a'{fj.arl fj.ov, rb virtp 
 V/JLWV, ei<xvv6fj.fi>oi>. This abnormal structure is differently explained. Thus, some 
 refer the words rb virtp vpuv ticxwo/jifvov to rb -jrofr^piov (Euthymius, Calovius, De 
 Wette, "Winer Gram.). But every one is sensible of the harshness and unnatural- 
 ness of the interpretation, "the cup which is poured out for you." However 
 we explain the grammatical difficulty, there is no doubt that Luke, in point of 
 thought, meant the participle clause, rb {nxwd/Afvov, to be referred to the afytcm,
 
 212 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 phrase, recalling how the -priest was wont to shed the victim's 
 blood, or to pour out the victim's blood, at the ratification of 
 the covenant. Blood was shed on the great occasion when the 
 covenant was first formed, and whenever it was subsequently 
 to be confirmed and upheld, just as 011 the day when it was 
 first founded. It was the blood of sacrifice expiating the sins 
 of others. Some have alleged, indeed, that it is by no means 
 of absolute necessity to view that class of sacrifices as expia- 
 tory which were intended only as the basis of a covenant, and 
 that they may be regarded as but a covenant sacrifice. But 
 the answer is obvious : Whenever an occasion occurred for 
 God to enter into covenant relations with sinful men who 
 were relatively severed and estranged from Him, it always was, 
 and it could only be, upon the footing of a sacrifice of atone- 
 ment. This is based on the relation between sinful men and a 
 holy God. 
 
 We need not here discuss the question whether the best 
 rendering is, shed for many, or, poured out for many ; that is, 
 whether it relates more to the slaying of the victim or to the 
 sprinkling of the blood. We may omit this discussion, because, 
 in point of fact, there was no sacrifice where either of these 
 elements could be omitted ; the sprinkling, as the more advanced 
 step, having a special reference to the application of the atone- 
 ment. And the remission of sins here mentioned plainly shows 
 that the allusion to that latter point of the sacrificial arrange- 
 ments is not excluded, but really comprehended. That which 
 makes the second saying wider and more comprehensive in its 
 scope, however, is the unmistakeable allusion which is contained 
 in it to the Sinaitic covenant, which here gives place to the new 
 and better covenant. 
 
 As to the persons with whom the new covenant is under- 
 stood to be made, they are no further alluded to than merely as 
 
 though, in strict philology, we should have expected -iicxyvofiAv^. (See Bleek, 
 Synoptische Erkldrung der drei Ersten Evangelie.n, vol. ii. p. 415, 1862 ; and 
 Meyer's Commentary.)
 
 CHRIST'S BLOOD THE NEW COVENANT. 213 
 
 they are Christ's recognized disciples. It makes no difference 
 in this respect whether they were directly in His immediate 
 fellowship during His earthly career, or in subsequent times are 
 regarded as belonging to a peculiar company who are His own, 
 His sheep, and here designated MANY. And the Lord says 
 absolutely nothing of any condition to be performed on their 
 side, or of any prerequisite to this covenant relation; thus 
 leaving it to be inferred that the covenant is wholly gracious 
 and unconditional. 
 
 2. The Lord Jesus declares that His blood was shed or offered 
 in order to obtain for others the remission of sins. And in 
 declaring that it was for, or rather unto} the remission of sins, 
 He affirms that His blood, or dying obedience, is the procuring 
 cause, and remission the effect, that the one is the direct 
 result of the other. That these words are genuine, though 
 found only in the narrative of Matthew, is a point beyond sus- 
 picion or challenge, because they occur in every manuscript 
 and ancient version. 2 And since they contain Christ's own 
 declaration as to the scope and effect of His death, they prove 
 that His death was intended to be, and therefore that it truly 
 was, the cause of the remission of sins. This is the undeniable 
 and obvious import of the language, if we are content faith- 
 fully to interpret words. We have only to observe the con- 
 nection and the true force of the preposition unto or for (s), 
 which expresses the object which the Lord had in view, to 
 perceive that remission of sins is the effect, and that the blood 
 of Christ is the cause. And no mind unbiassed and free from 
 prejudice can fail to admit, that according to the natural con- 
 struction of language, a causal connection between the two is 
 signified. 
 
 As to the import of the term remission (s a<riv), it uni- 
 formly refers to the remitting of merited punishment, whether 
 
 1 els &<f>e<riv af 
 
 2 The doubts of rationalists and of the laxer school, on mere subjective grounds 
 (e.g. De Wette, De Morte Christi), are unworthy of any attention.
 
 214 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 that be temporal or eternal. It is a judicial term ; and all the 
 various modifications of phraseology and of expression by which 
 forgiveness is denoted, uniformly bear this sense. The special 
 point to which the phrase relates, is deliverance from all the 
 punishment due to us for sin, rather than deliverance from its 
 inward power, whether past or present. The Greek term 
 rendered "remission" points out much better than our English 
 word the immediate effect of the atonement; implying that 
 the sin was cancelled, and no more found, and that the person 
 upon whom the sentence of acquittal is pronounced is again 
 without guilt or charge, because it was put away, and therefore 
 annihilated by the sacrifice. That the death of Christ is the 
 direct, sole, and immediate cause of the remission of sins, with- 
 out any other intermediate ground, is proved by the general 
 tenor of biblical language on this head, by the analogy of the 
 bloody sacrifices to which this text alludes, and by the express 
 terms of the present passage. 
 
 3. The Lord Jesus, furthermore, speaks of His blood as the 
 new covenant, or as constituting its fundamental condition. 
 The sole ground upon which a covenant in any case is, or can 
 be, constituted, is that of sacrifice; without which a sinner 
 could not be allowed to stand in any friendly relation toward 
 God. We find it was enough to institute a typical sacrifice 
 for the temporary covenant, but the true sacrifice was indis- 
 pensably necessary for the abiding covenant. At the founding 
 of the two covenants, it appears that something similar took 
 place ; and we can easily gather from the peculiarities of the 
 typical covenant, that the blood of Christ must be viewed in 
 the same light and as serving the same purpose that the blood 
 of bulls and goats subserved in the institution of the covenant 
 at Sinai. The blood was not a mere martyr's blood to confirm 
 his testimony, but the blood of sacrifice. It does not merely 
 seal Christ's doctrine as true. There is no allusion, indeed, 
 in these words of Christ either to His doctrine or to the seal- 
 ing of His doctrine; for a covenant is not to be viewed as
 
 CHRIST'S BLOOD THE NEW COVENANT. 215 
 
 consisting in bare doctrine. Rather it is the founding or 
 erection of a new relation between God and man; and in the 
 present case it was a divine economy, order, or arrangement, 
 by which, on the ground of Christ's atoning blood, as shed for 
 the remission of sins, God becomes our God, and we become 
 His people. 
 
 As to the peculiar nature of this covenant, it had its objective 
 foundation and basis in pardon; and in its internal character 
 it is in several passages contrasted with the economy of the 
 outward letter, and is specially delineated in the prophet Jeremiah. 
 The prophet says, " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that 
 I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with 
 the house of Judah ; not according to the covenant that I made 
 with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, 
 to bring them out of the land of Egypt ; (which my covenant 
 they brake, although I w r as an husband unto them, saith the 
 Lord ;) but this shall be the covenant that I will make with 
 the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will 
 put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts ; 
 and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And 
 they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every 
 man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all 
 know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, 
 saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will 
 remember their sin no more." (Comp. Jer. xxxi. 31 with 
 Heb. viii. 8.) 
 
 The special difference between the two covenants, distin- 
 guished into old and new, was, that the Sinaitic covenant did 
 not effectually provide for personal forgiveness ; and that it was, 
 besides, rather national and Jewish than universal, rather mun- 
 dane and external in its blessings and promises than spiritual 
 and transforming. 
 
 This new covenant, so called because replacing a previous 
 one, is not to be regarded as equivalent to the federal trans- 
 action between the Father and the Son. We do not call in
 
 216 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 question the biblical foundation of that valuable scheme of 
 thought. 1 The language before us, however, does not contrast 
 the two Adams, or recall to us, as some say, the difference 
 between one covenant made without blood, or with man in his 
 integrity, and another covenant made with blood, or with man 
 as fallen. Bather it is the twofold method of administering the 
 one covenant to which allusion is made in the words before 
 us, with a special antithesis between the typical or preparatory 
 economy on the one hand, and the reality or truth as come 
 at last on the other. The former had for its object to prefigure 
 or foreshadow the blood of the covenant. The blood of the new 
 covenant is an allusion to a people purified by an atonement, 
 and thus permitted to enter on the enjoyment of full forgive- 
 ness, which constitutes the substance, in no small measure, of 
 the covenant, or at least its basis and its indispensable condition 
 on God's side. It is a covenant of union, or the formation of a 
 new relation, first based upon the privilege of reconciliation, 
 and then involving, as a further step, the inward renovation of 
 the nature, or the writing of the law upon the heart. At the 
 erection of the old covenant there was a manifold and repeated 
 sprinkling of blood, first the paschal blood, and then the blood 
 of bulls and goats at Sinai ; and besides all this, the annual 
 pouring out and sprinkling of blood upon the great day of atone- 
 ment as well as in the daily sacrifice. But the new covenant 
 has but one blood of atonement, or one sacrifice, perfect and 
 complete for ever, by which the covenant is at once founded, 
 maintained, and perpetuated. 2 
 
 I must now, however, obviate the current perversions in refer- 
 ence to both these last-mentioned truths, the remission of sins, 
 and the new covenant. 
 
 1. The first point the remission of sins, as here put has 
 
 1 See before, at sec. xii. 
 
 2 Gess happily refers to the one blood of the new covenant as contrasted with 
 the various forms of blood-shedding, which stood connected with the founding 
 and perpetuation of the old economy. (See his articles in Jahrbucher fur Deutsche 
 Theologie. 1857, 1858.)
 
 CHRIST'S BLOOD THE NEW COVENANT. 217 
 
 the greatest moment in the light of current thought. The Lord 
 Jesus, in thus speaking of the remission of sins as the direct and 
 immediate effect of His death, did not state, as some will have 
 it, that He contemplated only an ethical result, or that He had 
 before His mind no other than a moral redemption. Neither 
 does He say that His religion proclaimed an absolute remission 
 of sins apart from any expiation by blood. He lends no coun- 
 tenance to the supposition that pardon is so dispensed to us, or 
 that His death was meant only to confirm the truth of what He 
 taught, and thus merely to ratify the promise of an absolute 
 forgiveness. For language cannot be more express, that Christ's 
 death was a sacrificial death to obtain for us the forgiveness of 
 sins. Neither can the Lord be represented as laying all the 
 weight of His teaching on the mere possession of spiritual life, 
 while the atonement occupies, in comparison, an altogether sub- 
 ordinate place. Though many put it in that light at present, it 
 cannot be proved that Christ ever spoke as if His dying was 
 not of any further moment than merely as it tended to perfect 
 Him to be the Prince of Life, and to make Him the source of 
 all divine communications to His Church; while remission of 
 sins only comes in at an after stage, and but as an incidental 
 thing or accessory boon, for which no express provision was 
 either made or required. 1 The words of Christ in this passage 
 are so explicit in their announcement of the vicarious sacrifice, 
 that they contain the very opposite of such a notion, and are 
 
 1 Usteri, a follower of Schleiermacher, and a representative of the new theology 
 to which so many now confess, thus puts the remission of sins in connection 
 with inward renovation, or with the power of love in the heart, and not with the 
 sacrificial death of Christ : " Wenn wir nun Keines von beiden annehmen wollen, 
 so kommen wir darauf zuriick, dass die Siindenvergebung sich auf die in der 
 Gemeinschaft Christi und seines Leibes, der Glaubigen (verg. Joh. xx. 23 ; Matt, 
 xvi. 19, xviii. 18), durch die Kraft der LIEBE entweder schon hervorgebrachte 
 oder noch im Werden begriffene Sinnesanderung und Umwandlung (/j-erdvoia und 
 KaraXKajT]), des Menschen beziehe und diesem nach massgabe seiner Liebe (Luke 
 vii. 47), bewusst werde (verg. Schleiermacher's Predigt iiber den Zusammenhang 
 zwischen der Vergebungund der Liebe. Dritte Sammlung, Nr. xi.). In diesem 
 Sinne worden wir also auch das "Wort Christi fassen rmissen, dass sein Blut ver- 
 gossen werde fur Viele zur Verzeihung der Siinden (Matt. xxvi. 28, etc.)." (See 
 Entwiclcdung des Paulinischen Lehrbegriffes, p. 132. 1851.)
 
 218 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 wholly incompatible with it. Far from speaking of the remis- 
 sion of sins according to the defective teaching of that school 
 of modern theology which does not call attention to the accept- 
 ance of the person or the acquittal of the sinner, but only to the 
 communication of life as if pardon were a mere accompani- 
 ment or an attendant blessing which goes along with the later 
 and riper stages of the Christian life, the Lord Jesus here puts 
 remission of sins in immediate and causal connection with His 
 death. He makes remission of sins a boon of primary import- 
 ance, and the first in order; nay, every true partaker of the 
 Supper is supposed to possess this remission of sins, and to be 
 conscious of enjoying it. 
 
 Eemission of sins, then, is not dependent on the renovation 
 of the nature or on Christian love, however closely and insepar- 
 ably they may and must be connected in the human mind. 
 These words of Christ emphatically prove that remission is an 
 immediate and direct fruit of Christ's atoning death, and not an 
 effect procured or caused by those amendments. Eemission of 
 sins rather precedes them as their cause ; for the statement of 
 our Lord, as given in this testimony, explicitly declares that 
 Christ's blood was shed in order to effect remission of sins, and 
 that the latter is the immediate fruit or consequence or purchase 
 of His death. 
 
 We think this conclusion may be safely left to every truth- 
 loving mind, taking Christ's words as they stand, and to the 
 judgment of every unbiassed interpreter desirous only to dis- 
 cover what is the undoubted truth of Scripture. The death of 
 Christ is undoubtedly represented in these words as the imme- 
 diate antecedent or cause of the remission of sins. Nothing 
 even specious has ever been opposed, or can ever be opposed, to 
 this biblical doctrine ; for this is an explanation from Christ's 
 own lips both of the nature and effect of His atoning death. 
 The Lord Jesus was given for this purpose, as the great mani- 
 festation of the divine love and rectitude for the remission of 
 sins; and we find nothing involving any difficulty, when we
 
 CHRIST'S BLOOD THE NEW COVENANT. 219 
 
 deduce from this language that remission of sin is attain- 
 able only through the cross, and that God would not, and 
 could not, confer this pardon but through the expiatory death 
 of Christ, regarded as the appointed and accepted substitute 
 of sinners. 
 
 2. As to the second point, the nature of the new covenant, 
 there are many very superficial comments in circulation as to 
 the foundation of this covenant, many of which are replete 
 with error. Thus it is alleged by some interpreters 1 that the 
 language only implies, "this cup is the new religion in my 
 blood, or that by which I seal the new religion." It is held by 
 not a few averse to the vicarious sacrifice, that Jesus simply 
 meant to say that He died in confirmation of His doctrine. 
 These are all shallow interpretations, and are utterly defective 
 and faulty. They ignore the great idea contained in the Savi- 
 our's words; which intimate, with all the perspicuity with 
 which language can say it, that His blood was shed really, and 
 not typically, to expiate sin ; and that the new covenant was 
 based on His death, or, in other words, causally connected with 
 it. The covenant was founded, then, with all its provisions, in 
 Christ's atoning blood. The blood of Christ is the fundamental 
 condition on which it rests. And they who take the emblems 
 into their hands at the Supper do not view Him as a martyr 
 merely, or as dying simply to confirm His message. They recall 
 the great fact that Christ's atoning blood was offered, not in a 
 vague, general, abstract way, but specially and vicariously for 
 them ; and that they become in consequence a covenant people 
 or peculiar people. 
 
 Thus Christ's blood is the blood of tjie covenant, not simply 
 as it attests or confirms the truth of the Gospel, but as it has 
 an atoning character; and the idea is not that Jesus died 
 to confirm to us the truth of the promises, or to seal them, or 
 to ratify them. Moses did not sprinkle the blood to ratify the 
 promises, but to cleanse the people by his atonements. And 
 
 1 So De Wette, De Morte Christi, p. 141.
 
 220 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the disciples, in like manner, hearing of a new covenant founded 
 and set up by the shedding of blood, naturally and necessarily 
 reverted to the erection of the Sinai covenant. Christ was the 
 mediator of the new covenant in a higher sense than Moses was 
 or could be in that covenant which was but typical and transi- 
 tory; and yet the typical mediatorship was all based on the 
 blood of the covenant (Ex. xxiv. 6). These shallow comments 
 on the new covenant are faulty in two respects. They would 
 make the words convey no more than an allusion to a new way 
 or method of procedure which God introduced among men by 
 Jesus Christ, without any objective ground or basis on which it 
 can be seen to rest. They all tend, too, in a legal or semi-legal 
 way, to throw men back upon themselves and upon their own 
 resources, will, or strength, instead of leading them away from 
 self-dependence. For if the human heart does not lean on 
 Christ's propitiation, it inevitably falls back, in some phase of 
 it, upon self-dependence. Certainly it is but mediaeval mys- 
 ticism at the best without liberty. 
 
 With regard to the purport of this most important testimony, 
 then, we must understand Christ's language in the following 
 way. The means by which the new covenant is formed with 
 any individual or class of persons, is the real introduction of 
 the indispensable condition on which it is based, the true 
 sacrifice for sin, which pacifies the conscience and purifies the 
 heavenly things themselves. For as to the mere cup, it could 
 neither be nor make the covenant. The covenant is here ex- 
 plicity said to be based or set up in the remission of sins, as 
 effected by Christ's blood. God did not found the covenant by 
 merely proclaiming or publishing the promise of pardon, irre- 
 spective of the blood of atonement. It is the latter alone that 
 could put them in the place of a peculiar people or holy nation. 
 This discharges us from the old covenant; and the one true 
 eternal sacrifice for ever keeps up and maintains the covenant, 
 which would otherwise be daily violated. 
 
 This memorable testimony of Christ, then, decides on certain
 
 CHKIST'S BLOOD THE NEW COVENANT. 221 
 
 points of the greatest moment, to which it may be proper to 
 advert a little more fully. 
 
 a. The Lord, speaking from the conscious purpose which was 
 in a few hours to be accomplished, puts the remission of sins in 
 immediate causal connection with His blood or sacrificial death. 
 'What is the biblical idea attached to the phrase, " the remission 
 of sins ?" It will be found to denote, wherever it occurs in 
 the Old Testament, or in the New, deliverance from the due 
 punishment of sin. And all the figurative terms employed to 
 set it forth and they are numerous and varied, such as, " to 
 pass by" (Mic. vii. 18), "to cover" (Ps. xxxii. 1), " to blot out" 
 (Isa. xliv. 22), "to hide His face" (Ps. li. 11), "not to impute 
 sin" (Ps. xxxii. 2), convey the same thought. It implies 
 wrath, or liability to punishment, which would be inflicted if no 
 provision were made such as the sin-offering in the old cove- 
 nant, and the great atonement of the cross in the new covenant 
 to effect the removal of the penalty threatened in the law. 
 Our whole investigation is at present exegetical ; and CL priori 
 reasonings, outside the pale of revelation, do not affect or retard 
 our present inquiry. The cavil only too common in these days, 
 as it was a century ago, that the Deity did not need to be 
 pacified by the bloody death of a victim, does not affect us in 
 simply investigating what the Saviour taught. We abide by the 
 import of His language ; and remission of sins is here described 
 as the design and effect of His death. Nothing is plainer than 
 that the forgiveness of sins is here put in the closest connection 
 with the death of Christ, that is, as effect and cause. 1 That His 
 
 1 The words of Morus on this passage, in his Dissert. Theol. et PMlol., vol. ii. 
 p. 100, 1798, are very striking : " Hsec autem verba . . . hunc sensum habent, 
 eas res fieri hoc consilio, ut fi<e<ns sequatur et contingat : sic usurpatus de hac 
 morte idem loquendi modus eundem sensum teneat necesse est, nisi usum loquendi 
 velimus per arbitrium mutare. Quod si hunc utique sensum ten ere debemus : 
 exstat vere in sacris libris ha?c doctrina, Jesum eo consilio et fructu vitam depos- 
 suisse, ut &<pfffis cum suis bonis sequeretur et contingeret, et hunc una cum suis 
 bonis contingere propter illam mortem cum respectu ad earn. Prseterea haec verba, 
 alfiM eK^vOev eh &(f>efftv ad hanc conclusionem ducunt : ergo ^x ^" T ^l v &<t>w- v 8ii 
 rov ai'/xciTos. Si ex ilia propositione hsec conclusio ducitur : sequitur, ilia pro-
 
 222 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 death is a sacrifice, has been fully proved, and cannot be im- 
 pugned. And when we place ourselves on the view-point of 
 the old sacrificial worship, it cannot be doubted that the for- 
 giveness of sins or the remission of the penalty is effected by 
 Christ's death without any other intervening cause. His blood 
 is the immediate cause of remission, and not a mere mediate 
 cause ; that is, it was not dependent for its efficacy on the 
 amendments which are the concomitants or attendants of a 
 religious life. When Christ, therefore, represents His blood as 
 shed for the remission of sin, He must be understood as saying 
 that He bore the penalty of sin in order to set us free from it 
 as a deserved doom. This remission, consisting in nothing else 
 than in the liberation of the man, or in personal liberation from 
 any liability to punishment, is here meritoriously connected with 
 His sacrificial death as its procuring cause. It is not denied, 
 but rather assumed and implied at every step, that the remis- 
 sion of sins is a benefit to be traced up to God's grace, or to 
 His gratuitous favour. But it is not the less affirmed that it 
 is bestowed only because the atonement was offered by Christ 
 as its procuring or meritorious cause. And remission by this 
 means takes for granted that God was not a mere indifferent 
 spectator of human guilt, but animated by just resentment till 
 sin was expiated by atonement. 
 
 b. But a further inquiry confronts us : How do sufferings and 
 trials that seem to come to us under the guise of punishment, 
 remain after the full and complete remission of sins ? why are 
 the consequences of sin suffered to remain, if sin is thus com- 
 pletely cancelled ? This fact does not invalidate the full remis- 
 sion of sins, which takes place at the moment one believes. 
 The man is perfectly forgiven, and the person fully accepted, 
 and all that is strictly penal in the consequences of sin is 
 brought to an end and terminated for ever. These effects of sin 
 
 positions describi mortem, propter quam sequitur et contingit venia, aut quod 
 idem est, cui hanc acceptam ferimus, sine qua hanc mine quidem, re sic instituta, 
 non nanciscunur, eujus respectu haec contingit. "
 
 CHEIST'S BLOOD THE NEW COVENANT. 223 
 
 are transformed into a course of discipline. The sickness, suffer- 
 ing, and death which come to us in the ordinary course of things, 
 and which could not be~ altered without a miracle, still remain 
 to the Christian, but they are wholly changed in their charac- 
 ter. They are no longer penal, no longer part of the curse, 
 which was quite exhausted on Christ, but means of spiritual 
 improvement, or a part of the Christian's education in patience 
 and hope. Though physical suffering is allowed to remain in the 
 history of the redeemed, it is no longer an infliction of wrath or 
 a channel of vengeance, but a fatherly chastisement or a salutary 
 discipline, and through divine grace richly made available for 
 our growth in holiness. For we must always distinguish 
 between correction and punishment in the proper import of the 
 term ; and constant prosperity is so rarely advantageous, that an 
 alternation with the opposite is found profitable to the Christian. 
 c. Another point demanding attention is, that the remission 
 of sins is here represented as the ground or reason of the other 
 blessings contained in the covenant. This comes out not only 
 in the saying under consideration, but in the words descriptive 
 of the covenant, as they are given both by Jeremiah' and in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews. Forgiving grace is set forth as the 
 source of every other benefit. " This is the covenant that I will 
 make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord ; 
 I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their 
 hearts ; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a 
 people : and they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and 
 every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord : for all shall 
 know Me, from the least to the greatest. Ton 1 I will be merci- 
 
 1 Heb. viii. 12 : Sri ?Xews Zffo/j.cu. On this clause let me refer to the Commen- 
 taries of Seb. Schmidt, Alting, D'Outrein, and Piscator. The latter makes 
 these happy remarks : " Observandum tamen ilia tria apud prophetam proponi 
 ordine inverso. Naturalis autem ordo hie est quod primo omnium Deus electis re- 
 mittit peccata propter satisfactionem Christi; deindedonat eis Spiritum Sanctum; 
 qui primum illuminat mentes eorum cognitione gratise Dei per satisfactionem 
 Christi acquisitas, deinde vero renovat voluntatem ad studium gratitudinis pro 
 beneficio liberationis seu redemptionis per Christum. Etsi enim remissionem 
 peccatorum postremo loco commemorat tamen illam prcecedentibus annectit per 
 conjunctionem causalem inquiens, ero enim,'' etc. SriiXcwj.
 
 224 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 ful to their unrighteousness and their sins, and their iniquities 
 will I remember no more." The use of the grounding particle 
 for (on) intimates that the promise of forgiveness is not ap- 
 pended at the close as an additional blessing. On the contrary, 
 forgiveness is represented as the REASON why the other benefits 
 are conferred, or as the CAUSE, source, and origin from which 
 they flow. It is as if it were said : " The reason or ground of all 
 these other blessings, viz. regeneration, illumination, and fellow- 
 ship, is to be traced to the remission of sins. That is the con- 
 nection ; and it is not hard to trace the link between the two. 
 It was sin that made the separation between God and man 
 (Isa. Ix. 2), and the remission of sin paves the way for the new 
 covenant relation. Before any are received, their sin must be, 
 once for all, forgiven. And not only so; as there are daily 
 sins and violations of the covenant, there must be a provision 
 for a daily reconciliation. 
 
 SEC. XXVIII. CHRIST FULFILLING THE LAW FOR HIS PEOPLE, AND 
 THUS BRINGING IN A RIGHTEOUSNESS OR ATONEMENT FOR THEM. 
 
 " Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets : 
 I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say 
 unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle 
 shall in no wise pass from the law, till all lie fulfilled. 
 Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least com- 
 mandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the 
 least in the kingdom of heaven : but whosoever shall do and 
 teach them; the same shall be called great in the kingdom of 
 heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteous- 
 ness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Phari- 
 sees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven" 
 (MATT. v. 17-20.) 
 
 This passage brings under our notice the active obedience of 
 Christ, to which we already referred in a previous section
 
 CHKIST FULFILLING THE LAW. 225 
 
 (section 22) ; but with this peculiar difference, that it is here 
 put in relation to the divine law, and in connection with the 
 previous economy or arrangements of God. . The former economy 
 was, from the beginning, only a pledge of something yet to 
 come, or an outline unfilled up, whereas the present is its ful- 
 filment. And this saying of Christ implies that for this event 
 the whole previous history of man waited, and the history of 
 Israel was in fact a pledge or preparation for its appearance. 
 He virtually declares that all previous ages looked forward to 
 this day, and that the whole divine economy was constituted 
 and arranged only with a view to it. This saying emphatically 
 shows that the event here referred to the coming of the Son 
 of God to fulfil the law was the centre-point of the world's 
 history, and therefore carrying with it retrospective as well as 
 prospective consequences. 
 
 The testimony under consideration is worthy of attention, 
 too, as expressing from Christ's own consciousness the great 
 design which His incarnation had in view in reference to the 
 law. It proves that if His whole career was, as we have seen 
 it was, a curse-bearing life, it was not less a sinless career, or a 
 life which had for its scope, at every step, to fulfil the divine 
 law by a course of active obedience ; and it was this in a vica- 
 rious sense, or in the room of others. This testimony may 
 therefore be called a key to all those passages, both numerous 
 and varied, which describe Christ as the end of the law (Eom. 
 x. 4), or as the counterpart of Adam in his act of disobedience 
 (Rom. v. 19) ; and also to all those passages which represent the 
 acceptance of our persons as effected by the work of Christ, and 
 as irrespective of the works of the law (Eom. iii. 28). It is a 
 pregnant saying, indicating in few words the distinctive fea- 
 tures or the nature of His whole mediatorial work, which must 
 have been obscure to those who first heard Him, but has now 
 become, since its fulfilment, clear enough to all who can survey 
 it from first to last upon the outline of the divine law and 
 
 prophecy. 
 
 P
 
 226 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 As to the occasion of this testimony, it may be referred rather 
 to the calumnious accusations of Christ's enemies, who regarded 
 His mode of teaching as subversive of the law, than to the 
 neutral state of some of His disciples desirous to escape from 
 the yoke of the law. And the Lord enters upon the subject by 
 a sudden break in the body of His discourse, such as He some- 
 times uses when He breaks the continuity of His discourse and 
 addresses Himself to the state of mind which His omniscient 
 eye detected as prevailing among His hearers. 
 
 When we inquire in what sense the words of this testimony 
 are to be understood, it will be found that the interpretation of 
 them varies according to the idea which may be formed of the 
 authority with which Christ contrasts His own authority, and 
 of the peculiar teaching to which He opposes His own teaching. 
 Thus, it has been held by Socinians and rationalists, with a 
 general consent, that the teaching with which Christ in this 
 passage contrasts His own statements, is that of the Mosaic law 
 itself, or the teaching of Moses. They will have it, that in the 
 sequel of this chapter the Lord Jesus partly corrects, partly 
 cancels and abrogates, the teaching of Moses, and that He puts 
 a better legislation in its place. They would thus make Christ 
 a legislator, not a Saviour, and regard Him as coming to usher 
 in a new law. And, accordingly, they render the 17th verse in 
 in this way : " I am not come to destroy the law or the pro- 
 phets : I am not come to destroy, but to fill out or to expand 
 them." 1 And the same interpretation of the words is held, 
 though sometimes in a considerably modified form, by several 
 English as well as German interpreters, who deserve to be re- 
 Carded generally as interpreters of an evangelical tone and 
 
 1 This very incorrect rendering is supported by Alford, Meyer, De "Wette, Ols- 
 hausen, and others ; as if our Lord only meant to say that He came to set forth 
 the ideal import of the law, or to give a deeper and holier sense to it. This com- 
 ment of the modern school is well refuted by Bleek in his Synoptische Erklcirung, 
 1862, p. 248, and also in the Studien und Kritiken for 1853. Nor can we re- 
 gard with any more favour the comment of Vitringa, who interpreted irXypovv docere, 
 from the usage of a Chaldee-Talmudic word.
 
 CHRIST FULFILLING THE LAW. 22? 
 
 sentiment. They will have it that Christ in this section con- 
 trasted Himself with the confinement and narrow political form 
 of the Mosaic law, or with the stand-point of law as such; 1 and 
 they contend for the translation, " to fill out." 
 
 But that interpretation cannot be maintained, whether we 
 look at the immediate context in which the word occurs, or at 
 the import of language generally ; and a few words will suffice 
 conclusively to show this. 
 
 1. The immediate context is opposed to that interpretation. 
 It would be a flagrant self-contradiction, if in one verse the 
 Lord Jesus were to announce that He did not come to destroy 
 the law, or, in other words, to subvert its authority, and then, 
 in the sequel, proceed to correct and modify it in many points 
 of the greatest importance, nay, go so far as to abrogate and 
 change it both in its principle and in its details. But He sub- 
 verts the teaching to which He refers in the sequel (see ver. 43). 
 That cannot, therefore, be the divine law which He overthrows 
 at so many points and in a way tantamount to destroying it ; 
 for He expressly declares that it was no part of His mis- 
 sion or design to destroy the law, but rather to fulfil it. It 
 must, then, have been the traditions of the elders which He 2 
 overthrows. 
 
 2. The usage of language is opposed to that interpretation 
 which here adopts the rendering, to Jill out, in preference to fulfil 
 (TJ-AT^WO-CU). No example of such a usage can be adduced when 
 the verb is applied to a law or to an express command contained 
 in the spirit of the law ; in which case it uniformly means, " to 
 fulfil." Thus it is said, " He that loveth another hath fulfilled 
 the law " (vo/iov 7rrA?j/3<oKe), (Rom. xiii. 8). The inflexible usage 
 of language rules the sense in such a phrase, to the effect that 
 Christ must be understood to say that He came not to fill out 
 
 1 So Neander puts it. 
 
 2 Lechler shows this from the fact that Jesus does not say in any of the six 
 examples which He adduces, " Moses said, " but always, " ye have heard. " (See 
 Studien und Kritiken for 1854, p. 804.)
 
 228 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 or to supplement the law by additional elements, but to fulfil it 
 by obeying it or by being made under it. 
 
 But there are other arguments, not less strong, which may be 
 urged from different points of view against that mode of render- 
 ing. And it may here be proper to adduce them with as much 
 brevity as we can. 
 
 3. We add, then, as another conclusive argument, which may 
 be adduced against the interpretation already mentioned, that 
 such a sense as "fill out" is inadmissible as applied to the 
 second term or object of the verb ; for Christ did not come to 
 Jill out or to expand the prophecies, but simply to fulfil the 
 prophecies. Wherever, indeed, the word here used is applied to 
 anything prophetical, it is always found in such a connection 
 that it can mean only, " to fulfil ; " and hence we must by no 
 means deviate from that meaning here. 1 
 
 4. Another strong argument may be drawn from the ground- 
 ing verse which follows ; for the 18th verse must be regarded as 
 grounding or giving a reason for the statement in the previous 
 verse. Now, what sort of reason would be given for the 17th 
 verse, if we were to render the connected verses thus : " I come 
 to fill out or to supplement the law ; for verily I say unto you 
 (durjv yap Aeyw), till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle 
 shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled ? " This 
 would be illogical and inconsequent in the highest degree ; and 
 no reverent interpreter will willingly ascribe such logic to the 
 Son of God. 2 The perpetual duration of the law mentioned in 
 the 18th verse could not ground the 17th verse, if we were to in- 
 terpret the latter by the rendering, " to fill out; " and hence that 
 meaning must be held to be untenable. 
 
 5. We may argue to the same effect from the nature and 
 peculiar scope of our Lord's personal ministry. He did not come 
 
 1 Bleek well argues that the rendering, " to fill out," is possible only on the 
 supposition that the -irpo^ras refers to the legal or moral elements in the pro- 
 phetical writings. 
 
 8 See Philippi's treatise, Der thatige GeJwrsam Christi, 1841, p. 30.
 
 CHRIST FULFILLING THE LAW. 229 
 
 in any peculiar sense to preach the law, at least as the main or 
 prominent object of His teaching. But the rendering we impugn 
 would imply that He came on the errand of filling out or en- 
 forcing and expanding the domain of the law, or of making the 
 law the burden of His ministry; whereas His errand was, as 
 every one knows, of a different kind to usher in and to announce 
 an economy of grace. And this very passage, rightly understood, 
 will be found to preach not law, but grace. (See John i. 17.) 
 
 But another inquiry confronts us at this point : What is the 
 LAW here mentioned, and in what sense is it to be distinguished 
 from the prophets ? Many expositors are disposed to take these 
 two words, " the law or the prophets," in the sense of bearing re- 
 ference to the ethical elements of the Old Testament, of which 
 the Decalogue was the source and the prophets the expounders, 
 just as when the Lord Jesus said in regard to an ethical principle, 
 " This is the law and the prophets " (Matt, vii 12). But that is 
 contrary to the peculiar language used, and is here wholly in- 
 admissible ; for here the two terms are not put together in such 
 a way as to comprehend a unity, or as merely indicating the 
 spirit of the law by another word. The two terms are here put 
 together by the disjunctive particle, OR, and therefore must each 
 indicate distinct ideas familiar to the hearers. 1 It has been 
 alleged, indeed, that as there is no further allusion to prophecy 
 as such in the entire Sermon on the Mount, this distinction be- 
 tween the law and the prophets is not to be admitted. But 
 whether we have regard to the proper significance of the terms, 
 to the disjunctive particle which separates them, or to the 
 import of the fulfilling spoken of in these two verses, it is 
 sufficiently proved that prophecy in the proper sense is here 
 meant. And the design of Christ, therefore, was to intimate that 
 
 1 The disjunctive particle tf, disjoining the law and the prophets, is utterly 
 opposed to the notion that we can take the two terms as intimating the moral 
 elements common to the law and the prophets. It is true, "the law AND the 
 prophets " are elsewhere put together in this sense (Matt. vii. 12 ; Luke xvi. 16), 
 but they are here disjoined as distinct ideas.
 
 230 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the whole Old Testament, in all its parts and elements, referred 
 to Himself, and was accomplished in Himself. 
 
 As to the law, again, the Lord means the whole Jewish law. 
 We are warranted to affirm that our Lord and His apostles were 
 not in the habit of distinguishing, as we commonly do, between 
 what was permanent in the law and what was transitory, but 
 that they accepted it as a whole ; the moral law constituting the 
 centre of it, or its core. That the allusion here is to the moral 
 law primarily, may be argued from this, that the subsequent parts 
 of the Sermon on the Mount directly and mainly refer to it. 
 But we must add that the allusion is also to the types or to the 
 law of sacrifice, and specially to the sin-offering ; for it might 
 well have been asked, if there had been no direct fulfilment of 
 the sacrificial types, what had become of all the references in the 
 law to the propitiatory sacrifices generally, and to all the typical 
 system ? If Christ had not fulfilled them and offered the reality, 
 they would have been an unfulfilled prophecy or pledge. The 
 language of sacrifice, in fact, gave, a sort of prophecy or pledge of 
 a coming 'reality. The meaning of the passage, then, is this : 
 The Lord Jesus came to fulfil the law and the prophets by an 
 appropriate deed. It was pledge and type before, but became 
 reality in Christ's obedience. 
 
 Nor must we omit to notice the significance of the phrase, " I 
 am come to fulfil." It must be regarded as setting forth the end 
 of Christ's coming into the world, the design and purpose of the 
 incarnation. This fulfilling of the law was for man an absolutely 
 necessary, though an undischarged duty. To Christ it was a free 
 act. The perfect harmony of the human will with the law of 
 God, or the constant exercise of holy love in the sphere of human 
 obedience, was the great goal which was set before the race of 
 mankind. And to keep this thought alive in the human con- 
 sciousness, we find an express appointment to the effect, that the 
 law which had grown dim and scarcely legible in the human 
 heart should be afresh republished by the hand of Moses. Hence 
 it is that the Lord of Life here announces that, in His capacity
 
 CHEIST FULFILLING THE LAW. 231 
 
 of Mediator, the special end for which He came was to fulfil the 
 law and the prophets. He thus points out the grand design or 
 scope of His whole work, and couches the description in a few 
 simple words, intimating that He stands in the midst of a sinful 
 world as the living law or the embodied law, which might be re- 
 garded, so to speak, as walking before men in the one unique 
 and sinless life that had appeared in the world's history. The 
 law of God has thus, in the person of the incarnate Son, been 
 once fulfilled upon the earth; and this is the one great event 
 which has had a far more important bearing on human destinies 
 than any other that ever occurred, a fact which, though accom- 
 plished in a remote corner of the world, was for all time. All 
 previous ages had looked forward to it, as all after ages lean on 
 it. This FULFILMENT OF THE LAW is the second fact in human 
 history, as SIN was the first, and it is the corrective as well as the 
 counterpart of the dire catastrophe which sin brought in. It 
 underlies the world's renovation ; it is its second creation. 
 
 We may here give a sketch or outline of the sequel of this 
 context before exhibiting the import of the passage in a doctrinal 
 point of view. Our Lord proceeds, then, to declare fully (ver. 
 18), that the law is immutable, and that it must needs be 
 fulfilled ; which was only done, however, by His own obedience, 
 as He indicated in the previous verse (ver. 17). He then sub- 
 joins the statement (ver 19), that whosoever shall break one of 
 these least commandments shall be called the least in the king- 
 dom of heaven, language which implies the perpetual and 
 inflexible obligation of the law during the whole course of the 
 kingdom of heaven. There are two senses or interpretations in 
 which this verse has been taken by expositors. It may either be 
 supposed to mean that one is called the least because he is not 
 deemed worthy to have any part at all or any real inheritance in 
 the kingdom of Christ and of God ; or it may mean that this 
 person shall be contemned, or held in such low repute and estima- 
 tion by the fellow-citizens in the kingdom as to be esteemed and 
 called the least. To this latter comment, which explains it of
 
 232 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the New Testament Church, I rather incline. And if we accept 
 this as the correct interpretation, then this just shows that the 
 teachers and members of the Church or kingdom of heaven shall 
 all imbibe and shall perpetually hold this deep conviction of the 
 immutable nature of the law. 
 
 But the next verse, introduced by a grounding particle (yap), 
 makes an important addition (ver. 20); and the inquiry is, What 
 does it ground ? It may either ground a tacit thought such as 
 this : " and do not think that a pharisaic externalism is any ful- 
 filling of the law ; FOR I say unto you." Or He may append 
 another reason why He came to fulfil the law, a reason taken 
 from the nature of the kingdom into which none could enter 
 without a perfect righteousness. Either of these modes of explain- 
 ing the grounding particle FOR (701/3) may be adopted. One thing 
 is clear, our Lord argues from the nature and demands of His 
 kingdom, that none can enter it without a RIGHTEOUSNESS (St/ccu- 
 oa-vvtj), which shall at once accord with the claims of the law, and 
 be much more abundant than the righteousness of the Pharisees. 
 To what does He refer in the sequel ? That our Lord does not 
 refer to the pure ideal of righteousness, or to the perfect trans- 
 cript of the divine holiness exhibited and taught by the De- 
 calogue itself, but to the low, traditional exposition of the law 
 which was usually given by the Pharisees, as delivered to them 
 by the elders, may be established by many arguments. We shall 
 limit ourselves to the argument that may be derived from the 
 language used. The Lord does not say in any of the six examples 
 which He quotes and amends, " Moses said," but, " ye have heard 
 that it was said by them of old time." 
 
 It must be further noticed that our Lord's great aim in this 
 portion of the Sermon on the Mount is not so much to teach us 
 Christian ethics, or to adduce a number of practical duties, to be 
 followed out under the force of Christian motives, such as we find 
 enumerated at the end of the apostolic Epistles, as to awaken 
 the conscience of these somewhat legal hearers to whom He 
 addressed Himself. Eor while the former use has been legiti-
 
 CHRIST FULFILLING THE LAW. 233 
 
 mately made of the Sermon on the Mount by the Church of all 
 times, our Lord's view-point and scope are somewhat different. 
 It cannot be said that He takes so much for granted; His Church 
 was not yet founded. Eather, He expounds the law on this 
 occasion, as He does in several other passages, in order to con- 
 vince and awaken men to feel their need of a perfect righteous- 
 ness. (Comp. Luke x. 25; Matt. xix. 17.) It was the ignorance 
 of the law that was the true parent or source of Pharisaism, for 
 they claimed to fulfil it in the outward letter; and our Lord in 
 this sermon aims to awaken conscience, by enforcing its true 
 import and requirements. 
 
 It will be found, accordingly, that the Sermon on the Mount 
 perpetually returns to one main thought, which is again and 
 again applied with various modifications and peculiar turns. It 
 aims to awaken in men a sense of need, and to shut them up to 
 the righteousness which is of God. 1 This object could be attained 
 only by the spiritual application of the moral law, or by enforc- 
 ing its inviolable import and the indispensable strictness of its 
 demands. This alone convinces men that they need a righteous- 
 ness which emanates from a divine person, and which much 
 exceeds that of the Pharisees ; and hence, to awaken this sense 
 of need, we find that the Sermon on the Mount returns again 
 and again to this one central thought in many forms and appli- 
 cations which are variously modified. (Comp. Matt. v. 28, v. 44.) 
 
 According to this design, which is the key to the whole dis- 
 course, we may affirm, that the 20th verse is to be regarded as 
 materially or substantially the sum of all that follows. It is the 
 great principle or ultimate goal to which this entire exhibition 
 of the divine law is to be run up. Here, then, the question 
 arises, What is this righteousness (SIKCUOO-WTJ) which our Lord 
 declares must needs be more abundant than that of the Phari- 
 
 1 The'ouly writer known to me who even hints at this view of the Sermon on 
 the Mount is Harnack, in his separate treatise on this text, entitled Jesus der 
 Christ oder der Erfuller des Gesetzes und der Prophetic, 1860. But the longer I 
 reflect on the scope of this discourse of Christ, the more certain does this view 
 become.
 
 234 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 sees ? That the allusion is not to inherent righteousness, but 
 to justifying righteousness, that is, to the righteousness which 
 meets the awakened sense of need, which it is the object of the 
 whole discourse to produce, may be proved by various arguments. 
 Thus (1) the whole phrase plainly refers to ver. 17, and has a 
 very close connection with the statement that Christ came to 
 fulfil the law : (2) it is the righteousness which is spoken of as 
 the necessary condition or ground, on the footing of which a man 
 is to enter the kingdom of heaven ; and therefore it is not the 
 evangelical righteousness which is the fruit of our acceptance ; 
 it is rather the righteousness which is the ground of our ac- 
 ceptance, or the righteousness which is of God by faith : (3) it 
 is that which far exceeds the pharisaic righteousness, and which 
 is much more abundant in dignity, worth, and excellence : (4) 
 it is the same righteousness after which the awakened hunger 
 and thirst ; and therefore it is the surety-righteousness, rather 
 than that which is personal and inward. And if it is alleged, 
 as an argument against this interpretation of the word, that the 
 Lord's purpose in the Sermon on the Mount was not to treat 
 precisely of the article of justification, or to show in what the 
 justifying righteousness peculiarly consists, the answer is ob- 
 vious. 1 Our Lord's words expressly treat of a righteousness 
 which is necessary and indispensable as the ground or condition 
 on which men are to enter this kingdom ; and the entire dis- 
 course, as we have already seen, has, for its object, to produce a 
 sense of need. 
 
 Having elucidated the words and scope of this memorable 
 passage in the Sermon on the Mount, it remains that we put 
 together the doctrinal import of it in relation to the subject of 
 the atonement. 
 
 1. In this fulfilment of the law and of the prophets, the Lord 
 
 1 This interpretation of SiKaiocnjvri, for which, we contend, was maintained by 
 the divines near the Reformation age, such as Calovius, Quensted, Perkins in 
 his Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, Van Til, and others. But it came 
 too soon to give place unduly to the subjective interpretation, which has long 
 become general.
 
 CHRIST FULFILLING THE LAW. 235 
 
 Jesus must be considered as acting in the capacity of a surety 
 or substitute ; and the obedience in both lights was, beyond 
 doubt, vicarious. Hence His active obedience is for us, and 
 reckoned to our account, not otherwise than if we had fulfilled 
 it. The entire obedience of Christ was a compliance with the 
 will of God as expressed in the law. And His conscious aim in 
 His mission, as He here expresses it, was to fulfil the law. If, 
 according to the federal agreement, the law was the special 
 sphere of Christ's earthly work, it is obvious, that without a 
 clear conception of the law, not only in the extent of its claims 
 but also in the extent of the curse which it entails, we cannot 
 adequately know His obedience in our room. Hence we must 
 look at the usual threefold division of human duty, in relation 
 to God, to ourselves, and to our fellow-men, if we would adequately 
 apprehend the extent and breadth of this obedience. 
 
 With regard to the duties towards God, the whole life of 
 Christ shows that He was animated by supreme love to God 
 (John xiv. 31) ; that a desire to glorify God was His grand aim 
 in all things (John xvii. 4) ; and that, from love to His Father, 
 He followed with an undeviating purpose the will of God in all 
 things (John xv. 10). He gives expression to this at the thres- 
 hold of the greatest trial : " But that the world may know that 
 I love the Father ; and as the Father gave Me commandment, 
 even so I do. Arise, let us go hence" (John xiv. 31). The trust 
 which He reposed in the Father, the prayers, and the thanksgiv- 
 ings, recorded in His history, all suffice to show this. 
 
 The second class of duties are those which we owe to our- 
 selves. And these, too, Jesus fulfilled in a perfect purity of 
 conduct, in a self-denial which distinguished Him as the meek 
 and lowly One (Matt. xi. 29), and in that marked feature of His 
 character by which He pleased not Himself (Rom. xv. 3) - . 
 
 As to the third class of duties, again, those toward our neigh- 
 bour, and which are summed up in the love which Paul desig- 
 nates the fulfilling of the law, the Lord Jesus speaks of it when 
 He says, " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
 
 236 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 down his life for his friends" (John xv. 13). This He did; and 
 He went about during all His previous life doing good (Acts x. 
 38). It was in the exercise of this love that He made interces- 
 sion for His own (John xvii. 9), and prayed for His enemies 
 (Luke xxiii. 34). And among these duties must be compre- 
 hended that obedience to His parents to which there is an early 
 allusion (Luke ii. 51), and which shone out so brightly on the 
 cross, just before the earthly relation toward His mother was 
 dissolved for ever (John xix. 26). 
 
 Thus at every step we can trace the most prompt and un- 
 deviating fulfilment of the divine law. It was no common 
 obedience, however, which was necessary to constitute the 
 ground of our acceptance, but one which must needs pass 
 through unparalleled difficulties and sorrows, which we can but 
 faintly conceive of, and which must possess a value, on account 
 of the dignity of His person, such as is nothing short of infinite. 
 The grand commandment laid on Him, and the culmination of 
 His whole obedience, was, to die ; and hence it was in the spon- 
 taneous oblation of His life that the greatness of the obedience 
 was peculiarly displayed. 
 
 2. It is one undivided obedience ; for Scripture knows of 
 only one service or work in which all the elements of submis- 
 sion or obedience meet. It was not a double obedience. The 
 entire life of Jesus must be apprehended as one connected deed. 
 But the obligation was twofold, including the perfect obedience 
 of His life, as well as the suffering of death, or the obedience 
 unto death. The right formula, then, is not "to obey OR 
 suffer;" for the claim to a service of love with all the heart 
 still unalterably devolves upon man as man, just as it did in 
 man's primeval state. Not only so : the person who expiates 
 sin must of necessity accept the curse with the utmost alacrity 
 and adoring love, and with a full sense that the infliction of it 
 is to the glory of God. These two elements enter into the 
 Lord's obedience, and neither could be omitted. Hence only a 
 person free from all moral defilement, and therefore not needing
 
 CHRIST FULFILLING THE LAW. 237 
 
 to satisfy for personal defects, was in a position to undergo the 
 inconceivable suffering due to sin. What He did concurred 
 with what He suffered, to satisfy the divine law, and to place 
 man in the position which he "occupied before the fall, or, rather, 
 in a higher relation, because in a premial state, and in a state 
 of confirmation. 
 
 Had the Church been left to herself without the attacks of 
 error, the two elements of Christ's obedience probably would 
 not have been so much sundered as they have often unduly 
 been. We may distinguish, but not divide, the parts of that 
 obedience which is one. 1 But the obedience of Christ before 
 His final sufferings, and during them, or, as it has been called, 
 the active and passive obedience, may be vindicated, as two 
 distinct but connected elements, in His propitiatory work. 
 The active obedience belongs to the atonement, and is an essen- 
 tial part of the satisfaction to divine justice, in the wide and 
 proper acceptation of the word justice. This is a question that 
 has been canvassed long and earnestly; and we the rather 
 refer to it in connection with this passage, because the tendency 
 to deny the element of the active obedience is so strong in 
 modern theology. The question is not, whether the holiness 
 and active obedience of Christ were necessary to sanctify His 
 sufferings, which no one will call in question, but whether they 
 were available for this alone. Nor is it the question, whether 
 Christ's passive obedience is the ground of our salvation, but 
 whether the one can be regarded as valid or efficacious with- 
 out the other. It is not, whether Christ's holy obedience was 
 necessary to His person as a due prerequisite to that atonement 
 which He offered, but, whether Christ, in His entire obedience 
 as well as in His expiatory work, won an unchallengeable title 
 to life for such as are willing to be dependent on Him, and who 
 
 1 The theory of Karge among the Lutherans, and of Piscator among the 
 Reformed, who both limited the atonement to the sufferings of Christ, and set 
 aside the idea that Christ's active obedience was vicarious, has no biblical war- 
 rant ; and it is based on a false assumption, as we shall notice at the end of 
 this section.
 
 238 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 were unable personally to meet the law's demand: "This do, 
 and thou shalt live." The consequences of denying the active 
 obedience of Christ are these: Either God must be supposed 
 to recede from His rights, which would just be tantamount to 
 saying that He denied Himself, or man must be held to pro- 
 cure a title to heaven by some services of his own, which are 
 imperfect in their nature. Either supposition is inconsistent 
 with the gospel. If, however, we dismiss all scholastic terms, 
 the matter may be put in the following biblical way, to which 
 no exception can be taken : " The law must be kept, and sin 
 must be punished; and divine wisdom and grace provided a 
 man, that is, a God-man, who was in a position to accomplish 
 both, and did so." 
 
 3. Christ's people are thus, through faith in Him, considered 
 as if they had always fulfilled the divine law. This is the 
 SECOND fruit of Christ's satisfaction, as sin-bearing is the FIRST. 
 Thus, according to this essential element of divine truth, the 
 Lord Jesus not only bore sin, but fulfilled all the claims of the 
 divine law, and so put His people in possession of a perfect and 
 immaculate righteousness, and secured for them its due reward. 
 For as God could not have ceased to demand punishment at the 
 hand of sinners, from the very perfection of His nature, so He 
 cannot but confer a reward from the same rectitude of His 
 nature, when His law has been fulfilled for them in so complete 
 a way, and by a person so excellent. 
 
 But to all these biblical views of divine truth not a few objec- 
 tions have been taken, and some of them of a nature that seem, 
 at first sight, plausible and staggering. 
 
 a. Thus, it is asked, Was not Christ, as man, bound, in com- 
 mon with every rational creature, to render obedience to God 
 on His own account? 1 The answer to this is not difficult. A 
 right view of Christ's humiliation will suffice to show that He 
 
 1 This was Piscator's and Karge's argument against the vicariousness of Christ's 
 active obedience. And too many have conceded this first principle, when it is 
 but a fallacy.
 
 CHEIST FULFILLING THE LAW. 239 
 
 did not owe obedience on His own account, and that He was 
 not under the law by any necessity of nature. He owed obe- 
 dience, not precisely because He took humanity, but because 
 He willed to be made under the law for us. The law was not 
 given for the human nature in union with a divine person, 
 except as He condescended to be abased, and was made under 
 it by voluntary susception, as a means to an end. Christ became 
 man for no personal object of His own, but only to be a Medi- 
 ator for others, and in that capacity to fulfil the law. But for 
 this, He would not have come into the world, or have become 
 man. Hence the obedience which He voluntarily discharged 
 was only for His people, not for Himself; and Scripture never 
 deduces His active obedience from any natural or inevitable 
 obligation, but always regards it as the end and scope of His 
 mission. Nor can we regard the Lord Jesus as a mere man. 
 He was still the Son of God, neither bound to assume humanity, 
 nor to submit to the laws of humanity, nor to encounter any of 
 those numerous temptations by which His obedience was to be 
 exercised. And He did all this spontaneously and vicariously 
 in a humanity which He had assumed, not to be a separate 
 person, but merely as a rational and intelligent instrument or 
 organ, by means of which that great work of vicarious obedience 
 could be accomplished. 
 
 &. But it is asked again, How can one be righteous, because 
 another was obedient ? The answer is obvious. The entire 
 constitution of our race, as contradistinguished from that of 
 other orders of being, was of this nature, that it stood or fell 
 in a representative ; and Christ is the second man. Men may 
 quarrel with this arrangement, and destroy themselves by proud 
 and petulant rebellion. But it will stand, notwithstanding. 
 Believers are treated in Christ as perfectly righteous, and as 
 if they had done all that He did. The race is saved on the 
 same principle on which it was placed at first ; and we who 
 believe are the fulfillers of the law in the second man, the Lord 
 from heaven. 1 
 
 1 See note I.
 
 240 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Here I may allude to a crude tenet, of an antinomiau stamp, 
 which finds favour at present in some quarters. The Gentiles, 
 it is said, whether considered before or after conversion, have 
 nothing to do with the law. " Where is it stated," says one of 
 this school, " that I, a sinner of the Gentiles, was bound to keep 
 the law?" 1 To this reckless assertion I allude only as it bears 
 on the atonement. 
 
 The law of nature is still traceable as written on the human 
 heart (Eom. ii. 14, 15). And though the Decalogue was dispen- 
 sationally imposed on the people of Israel, while other nations 
 received it not, it was but the republication of the law originally 
 given to man as man and written on his heart. To affirm that 
 any human being is exempt from the application of the law, 
 either in its precept or its curse, is to betray a sad misconcep- 
 tion of the moral make or primeval constitution given to our 
 race and of the mould in which man was cast. The apostles 
 proceed on the opposite assumption. Thus, when Paul teaches 
 the guilt of mankind, it is brought out that all are condemned 
 by the law (Rom. iii. 19-31), whether they were Israelites or 
 not. The same thing holds true of the doctrine of justification, 
 which in its very nature is forensic, and therefore must have a 
 relation to the law. As to the atonement, the meritorious 
 ground of all God's judicial sentence, this is expressly set forth 
 as the endurance of the curse of the law on the part of Christ 
 (Gal. iii. 13). And when we reflect on the other expressions 
 used by Paul, what can be meant by the Christian being dead to 
 the law if he had never been under any obligation to that from 
 which he is set free ? 
 
 1 This Darbyite doctrine is the antithesis of reformation doctrine, which laid 
 the law at the basis of all theology. See Chemnitz (Loci Communes, ii. p. 20) : 
 "Lex moralis prim6 est aeterna et immota regula justitise in Deo : Secundo" in ipsa 
 creatione mentibus hominum inscripta : tertio ab initio semper in ecclesia voce 
 divina patefacta et repetita : quaestio est non indigna consideratione, Quare Deus 
 post tot annos Decalogum publico et solenni testimonio iteram promulgarit et 
 di<ntis suis describere voluerit ? "
 
 CHRIST'S DEATH THE TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 241 
 
 SEC. XXIX. SAYINGS WHICH REPRESENT THE DEATH OF JESUS AS 
 HIS GREAT ACT OF OBEDIENCE, AND AS THE RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 OF HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 As we noticed in the former section the testimony of Jesus, 
 that He came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to 
 fulfil them, in order to bring in the true righteousness, it is 
 proper to consider, next in order, some of those sayings which 
 set forth the righteousness of God from a somewhat different 
 point of view. There are sayings which connect it with the 
 death of Jesus as His great act of obedience. One testimony, as 
 we have seen, refers it to His fulfilling of the law, while another 
 refers the same benefit to His death. These two modes of re- 
 presentation, however, are by no means inconsistent with each 
 other ; nay, the one presupposes and involves the other when- 
 ever allusion is made to either. And it will be necessary to 
 bring together two classes of sayings, with a view to establish 
 these two distinct but mutually connected truths, that the 
 death of Jesus was the climax of His obedience, and that it was 
 also the true righteousness of His people. 
 
 1. With regard to the first point, that the death of Jesus con- 
 stituted His great act of obedience, it must be borne in mind, 
 that while we trace the element of suffering in the death of the 
 Lord, we are by no means to lose sight of the element of obedi- 
 ence. Willing subjection underlay the whole of His suffering, 
 and that, too, of the most active character. Indeed, suffering in 
 itself, and considered merely as pain, is no obedience ; for a man 
 may suffer, and not be obedient. But when he encounters 
 suffering with his full consent, and evinces, during the course of 
 it, a steadfast and inflexible tenacity of purpose, that cannot be 
 turned aside from the straight path of obedience, what is that 
 active fulfilment of duty or observance of the divine will, but 
 patience ? And no virtue is of a more active character than 
 patience ; while none in the catalogue is more worthy to be
 
 242 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 called the queen of the virtues. 1 We may affirm, respecting 
 obedience generally, that it must needs be tested by some special 
 or positive injunction, whether that may be presented in the 
 form of restraint, or in the form of endurance ; the former being 
 the test imposed on the first man, the latter being the test to 
 which the second Adam was subjected. Thus it appears that 
 even sinless nature, without a taint of defilement or imperfection, 
 can have its obedience tested only in some such way ; and, ac- 
 cordingly, the Son learned obedience by the things He suffered 
 (Heb. v. 8). When the Lord Jesus was required to display the 
 reality and extent of His obedience by His act of self-oblation, 
 and to go through life with this formed and definite resolve in 
 His mind, we see pure humanity, with the divine image inscribed 
 upon it, and with the law in His heart (Ps. xL 8), summoned 
 to its highest act of obedience. The great commandment laid 
 upon Him was, to die, just as Adam's special commandment 
 was, to abstain from the forbidden fruit. 
 
 In speaking of Christ's great act of obedience, we shall not 
 turn aside to the numerous references found in the sayings of 
 Jesus, to the work of teaching also imposed upon Him by the 
 Father (John xii. 49). We here allude only to His redemption 
 work, and to that, too, merely as it is presented to us under the 
 guise and designation of obedience. 
 
 The first saying which we shall adduce in this connection is 
 the announcement just before He went out to Gethsemane : 
 " Hereafter I will not talk 'much with you : for the prince of this 
 world cometh, and hath nothing in Me. But that the world may 
 know that I love the Father, and [that] as the Father gave Me com- 
 mandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence" (John xiv. 30, 31). 
 These words, spoken on the threshold of His arrest, intimate 
 His promptitude and readiness to undergo what lay before Him, 
 or His firm and inflexible resolve to give Himself an offering 
 
 1 See some valuable remarks by Ernesti in his refutation of Tollner's treatise, 
 which was directed against the active obedience of Christ (Ernesti, Ncue T/ieo- 
 logische Bibliothelc, ix. Band, p. 920).
 
 CHRIST'S DEATH THE TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 243 
 
 and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour (Eph. v. 2). 
 He first announces that the prince of this world was approach- 
 ing and on the point of assailing Him with all the violence 
 which united ingenuity and malice could either invent or inflict, 
 through the medium of human power. But He adds, " He hath 
 nothing in Me;" which may mean that Satan would find no- 
 thing which could be called his own, 1 nothing which could be 
 charged against Him, or that could give the adversary any 
 legitimate power over Him; and He intimates that, far from 
 desiring to withdraw from the suffering that awaited Him, He 
 was on the alert to meet and to undergo it. The words, " But 
 that the world may know that I love the Father, and that I do 
 as the Father gave Me commandment," must imply some such 
 tacit thought as the following : " therefore, I will not withdraw." 
 This, or some equivalent supplementary idea, is required for the 
 sense. Jesus intimates that He was about to surrender Him- 
 self to the impending sufferings with His full consent ; and He 
 adds that He did so, in order that mankind might know that He 
 both Joved the Father, and unreservedly complied with His 
 commandment. 
 
 A second testimony to the same effect is found in the declara- 
 tion, that the Father loved Him because He spontaneously laid 
 down His life for the sheep at God's command : " This com- 
 mandment have I received of my Father" (John x. 18). He thus 
 evinced the highest act of obedience, when at the divine com- 
 mand He voluntarily laid down His life. Having fulfilled the 
 whole law to the utmost measure, He closed His career by a 
 priestly act of self-oblation, which was the culmination of His 
 work ; for it is said that He was obedient unto death (Phil. 
 
 1 We nowhere else find this mode of speech either in the Old or New Testa- 
 ment, though we find what some think similar and equivalent phrases, such 
 as i'Xf- v ri KaT a Ti "fa (Matt. v. 23 ; Apoc. iv. 14-20), and ^xei? n irpbsrlva (Acts 
 xxiv. 19, xxv. 19 ; 1 Cor. vi. 1). But here it is, tv tfj.ol OVK % ovSfr. There 
 may, as Calvin thinks, be an allusion not only to Christ's purity, but also to His 
 divine power. We have given, in preference, the happy comment of Olshausen, 
 who says that Jesus means, ' ' Er besitzt in meinem iuneru nichts, er kann nichts 
 sem jiennen. "
 
 244 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 ii 8). Thus the final surrender of His life must be emphatically 
 called the highest act of obedience. This thought, which shines 
 through our Lord's words in many of His sayings, receives its 
 fullest illustration in the memorable antithesis drawn between 
 the disobedience of Adam and the obedience of Christ in the 
 Epistle to the Romans (Rom. v. 19). While we cannot allow 
 that the obedience of Christ as there described is limited to a 
 single act, as is commonly affirmed by those who object to the 
 doctrine, that the whole sinless life of Jesus was vicarious and 
 redounding to our account, it is very evident that the death of 
 Jesus is always represented by Himself and His apostles as the 
 great deed in which the whole lines of His obedience met, and 
 that by which His obedience was tested. This is the truth 
 upon the point. 
 
 2. The second topic to which we must advert is, that the 
 Lord Jesus represents His death as the true righteousness of His 
 people in the following testimony : " And when He is come, He 
 will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judg- 
 ment : of sin, because [better, that, or to the effect that, in respect 
 that 1 ] they believe not on Me; of righteousness, because [better, that] 
 / go to My Father, and ye see Me no more" (John xvi. 8, 10). 
 The interpretation of the phrase, " I go to My Father," must be, 
 first of all, ascertained. And of all the comments that have 
 been given, by far the simplest and most natural is that which 
 explains it of His meritorious sufferings and death as the path- 
 way by which He returned to the Father. 2 That this is a mode 
 of speech by no means infrequent in the Gospels, is proved by 
 many things in our Lord's own style of address, and not least by 
 
 1 The STI is best interpreted here as the 8ri indicative ; that is, as showing 
 wherein the sin and righteousness and judgment consist. (So Liicke, Meyer, 
 Hengstenberg). 
 
 2 Luther's comment, as given by Gerhard on this passage, is, " Demonstrabit 
 per rneum abitum, hoc est per meam passionem, mortem, resurrectionem, etc. , 
 veram fidelibus restitutam esse justitiam." Gerhard adds, "Inter coeteras 
 causas Christus passionem et mortem suam ideo vocat abitum ad Patrem, ut 
 significet, se passione et niorte sua Deum reconciliasse " (Harmonia Uvangelis- 
 tarum, pars tertia, p. 330).
 
 CHRIST'S DEATH THE TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 245 
 
 the fact, that when Moses and Elias conversed with Jesus upon 
 the Mount, they are said to have talked with Him about His 
 departure or exodus, which just means the atoning death "by 
 which He departed to the Father. This language, so understood, 
 proves that the true righteousness of which the Comforter con- 
 vinces men, and which plainly means the divinely-provided 
 righteousness of God by which our persons are accepted, consists 
 in the sufferings and death of Christ. 
 
 Thus, that great act of obedience constitutes the atonement 
 or righteousness of Christians. The great reason why the Lord 
 Jesus assumed our humanity, and offered it by an act of self- 
 oblation, was to bring in this everlasting righteousness; or, 
 to put it in a personal form, more adapted to the phraseology 
 of the last-mentioned saying, the righteousness of Christians 
 is the Son of God dying on the cross and going to the Father. 
 Christ Himself is our righteousness or propitiation, which avails 
 with God for the complete acceptance of our persons. Thus, 
 the righteousness of God, viewed in this personal aspect, coin- 
 cides with the position that the dying or crucified Christ is the 
 righteousness of His people, or made of God unto us righteousness ; 
 and that not by a make-believe, but because what He did, His 
 people are considered to have done in Him. 
 
 SEC. XXX. CHRIST OFFERING HIMSELF, THAT HIS FOLLOWERS 
 MIGHT BE SANCTIFIED IN TRUTH. 
 
 " And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might 
 be sanctified through the truth [better, sanctified in truth, or, 
 truly sanctified.]" (John xvii. 19.) 
 
 This saying brings out another effect of the atonement, which 
 may be said to be supplementary to the former. This effect be- 
 longs to the sphere of worship, or to that peculiar element which 
 may be called the priestly character of Christians. It presup- 
 poses pardon and acceptance ; taking up the thought at the point
 
 246 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 where the reconciled come before God in the free access of true 
 worship. It is thus, in a certain sense, an advance upon the 
 judicial or forensic idea ; presupposing the latter, and also essen- 
 tially comprehending it. Access to Israel's holy God, or wor- 
 ship from a people made nigh through blood, is the great idea 
 with which the whole Old Testament is replete. And as the 
 entire Old Testament was formed to bring a people before God 
 in an act of worship, and as ever-recurring causes of separation 
 necessitated sacrifice, and were ever removed in order to make 
 way afresh for typical access, we naturally expect to find in our 
 Lord's utterances some allusion to the true worship, with the 
 true Priest and the true sacrifice. 
 
 The occasion of this saying was fitly furnished by our Lord's 
 own prayer or act of worship. Nowhere could we expect to 
 find this subject more naturally introduced or more fitly ex- 
 pressed, than when we find Him referring in this last prayer to 
 His followers left behind Him in the world, and interceding for 
 them, that they might be kept apart from the evil in the world. 
 He is thus led, in the first place, to speak of the atonement as 
 that which actually set them apart, or dedicated them as a holy 
 people. The section begins with the appeal, " Holy Father" 
 (ver. 11): the word "sanctify" occurs once and again; but the 
 whole privilege of this priestly separation to God is here based 
 upon Christ's act of self-oblation. We must first investigate the 
 meaning of the phrase, " I sanctify myself for them, or for their 
 sakes," and then consider their sanctification. 
 
 1. The word SANCTIFY, which is properly an Old Testament 
 expression, denotes, in its common acceptation, to set apart, or 
 to dedicate, from a common to a sacred or religious use. Hence 
 arose other significations, such as, " to purify." But the most 
 common signification arising out of that primary idea was, " to 
 offer sacrifice," from the frequent necessity of atonement in the 
 ancient worship. That is the proper signification of the ex- 
 pression here ; and so the Greek exegetes correctly interpret it. 1 
 
 1 Thus Chrysostoin, in his commentary on the passage, puts the question, rl 
 effTiv, ayidfa tfj-avrbv ; and answers the question as follows : irpoo-fapu croi Qvelav.
 
 TRUE SANCTIFICATION BY CHRIST'S DEATH. 247 
 
 It is an expression for Christ's act of self-oblation, He being at 
 once the priest and the sacrifice. Jesus could say with truth of 
 the present activity in which He was engaged, " I sanctify my- 
 self," inasmuch as He was then in the act of executing the work 
 devolved upon Him by the Father ; and He puts it in the present 
 tense, because He was still occupied with it, and because His 
 obedience was to last till it was consummated by death. 
 
 There are other interpretations of a different import, of which 
 we may say in general, that they cannot stand examination. 
 Thus some will have it, that our Lord had merely in His eye His 
 consecration to be a teacher ; l which is obviously quite unten- 
 able, on two grounds. It would represent Him as saying that 
 He came self-commissioned, whereas He always describes Him- 
 self as sent ; and the present tense is thus altogether lost sight 
 of. Nor can the language refer, as others think, to such a 
 sanctification of Himself as should aim at forming men to be 
 apostles and teachers. 2 The great objection to both such com- 
 ments on the ground of language is, that at the present stage, 
 and within a few hours of His death, that teaching work lay 
 behind Him ; and the Lord refers to it in the context only as to 
 a past thing (vers. 11, 14, 18, 21, 23). But this expression in 
 the present tense, while it cannot be referred to the work of 
 teaching or of moulding teachers, with which He had been 
 occupied from the first, may be referred to that sacrifice of Him- 
 self which had just been figured forth by the emblems of the 
 Supper, and which was now filling His mind as near at hand, 
 the climax of His obedience, the priestly self-oblation. And, 
 naturally, it is spoken of as a present thing. 
 
 The expression, " I sanctify myself for them," is thus a 
 priestly word, the same word that many times occurs in the 
 Old Testament ritual. 3 It is to be understood of the sanctifica- 
 tion which the Lord executed in Himself, when He offered to 
 
 1 So Kuinoel. 
 
 2 So Tittman on the passage, and also Nb'sselt. 
 
 3 See J. Alting, Opera Theol. iv. p. 98, who says that it is segregate . . . 
 ut foret hostia pro peccato.
 
 248 SAY13STGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 God the sacrifice of Himself as a sin-offering. The language is 
 by no means rare in the Old Testament. Thus we read of 
 sanctifying the paschal lamb (2 Chron. xxx. 17). And the 
 sanctifying of the first-born of beasts is alternated with another 
 similar expression, that of offering them (Deut. xv. 19-21). The 
 phrase does not intimate that our Lord sanctified Himself for 
 any new work of practical activity in the world ; for that was 
 ended. Rather it means that He sanctified Himself to be made 
 sin, or, in other words, to make an exchange of places with us, 
 and to offer Himself, by an act of self-oblation, as the great sin- 
 offering. 
 
 Here we distinctly perceive the two sides or aspects of truth 
 which we developed at large in former sections, sin-bearing 
 and sinless action ; but not the one without the other, or iso- 
 lated from the other. The one could not avail without the 
 other in this great transaction. They constitute, when taken 
 together, the two essential elements of the atonement, and are 
 inseparably conjoined in the production of one result. Not that 
 we are to represent these two elements as separately meritorious ; 
 for they are, from the very nature of the problem, concurrent. 
 Hence, as sinless nature must, from the liabilities of those in 
 whose room Christ acted as a surety, be subjected to a test, or 
 tried, He learned obedience by the things He suffered (Heb. v. 
 8), the meaning of which remarkable statement is, that His 
 obedience increased ; in other words, that it was not fully ex- 
 panded at the first, but became more energetic and vigorous as 
 the trial advanced. Not that His life wanted the character of 
 obedience at any moment, but it rose with the occasion, till it 
 triumphed over every obstruction and hindrance, as we can dis- 
 tinctly trace in the garden. And all this is in full consistency 
 with His moral perfection, and only proves that His obedience 
 was ever complete, but capable of increase with the trials to which 
 it was subjected. 
 
 Thus the import of the saying on which we are commenting 
 is, that the Lord Jesus sanctified Himself to be made sin, and to
 
 TRUE SANCTIFICATION BY CHRIST'S DEATH. 249 
 
 exchange places with us as the great sin-offering. And we may 
 regard Him, accordingly, as here repeating, in His own words, 
 and in language still more emphatically sacerdotal, what by the 
 mouth of David He had long before announced : " Lo, I come to 
 do Thy will, my God" (Ps. xL 8). The whole tenor of this 
 language, together with the issue to which it leads, is just 
 another mode of announcing that He took our place, that we 
 might be set apart to occupy His place, and to stand in His 
 relation before God. 
 
 The next question is, What is intimated by the preposition 
 here rendered, for their sak.es (wrep avrwv) ? It means, for the 
 good of, for the benefit of. Though the preposition, in point of 
 strict philology, does not exactly mean, in such a construction, 
 in room of, it cannot be denied, that in several passages it not 
 only may but must be accepted, in connection with several ex- 
 pressions employed in reference to the atonement, as denoting 
 instead of. That latter thought, indeed, lies not so much in the 
 preposition itself, as in the whole idea of substitution which is 
 interwoven with the thought in such passages. The phrase, " to 
 do something for one," may be employed to mean, for another's 
 advantage, or, for another's good (Eph. iii. 1). But it cannot be 
 denied by any one acquainted with the phraseology of Scripture, 
 that it never was said of any mere man that he suffered or died 
 for others in the sense, and to the extent, in which Christ is said 
 to suffer and die for us. 
 
 Hence, when the apostle, in one definite passage of much 
 significance, takes occasion to reason on the subject of one dying 
 for another, and concedes what could by possibility occur in 
 common life, he leaves us in no doubt as to the sense in which 
 he would have the preposition to be understood (Rom. v. 7). 
 The idea of spontaneous self-oblation for the sake of others, and, 
 from the nature of the case, in the room of others, is, according 
 to his explanation, plainly contained in that expression ; l and the 
 
 1 Some philologists put this in a form to which no exception can be taken. 
 While they abide by the conclusion, that vrtp means for the benefit of, they admit
 
 250 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 whole phraseology implies that Christ offered Himself, of His 
 own proper motion, not constrained by any outward influence, 
 and not overborne by enemies. Moreover, when the innocent 
 suffers for the guilty, it is plainly with the intention of de- 
 livering the guilty from the penalty which impended over him 
 as his due. Thus substitution is involved. The preposition 
 FOE, or, FOR THE SAKE OF, carries with it, therefore, the following 
 significance : that when the one representative of the children of 
 God died for all, all died in Him, and were all judged to have 
 suffered in Him (2 Cor. v. 15). He did this once for all, and it 
 had everlasting efficacy. 
 
 2. But we now notice the effect of this self-oblation, or the 
 design and end which the Lord had in view in offering it : " that 
 they also might be sanctified in truth." We decidedly prefer 
 this rendering, because the definite article is awanting in the 
 original. 1 The phrase may be regarded as equivalent to TRULY, 
 or, IN TRUTH; and so we find it in other passages (1 John iii. 18; 
 Phil. i. 18 ; John iv. 24). They for whom Christ sanctified Him- 
 self, are thus set apart as the true worshippers of God in the 
 highest sense. 
 
 With respect to the word SANCTIFY as applied to the disciples 
 of Christ, it is necessary to keep before our minds a distinc- 
 tion which is not always observed, and which, in popular theolo- 
 gical language, is too much disregarded. There is a sanctification 
 of the Spirit by which we are inwardly made holy ; and there is, 
 as contradistinguished from the former, the separation or sancti- 
 fication of the person to God by Christ. It is in the latter sense 
 that the word " sanctify " occurs here ; and this unquestionably 
 lays the foundation for the other, which is more subjective, and 
 
 that, from the nature of the transaction, the inrtp implies the avrl. Windisch- 
 mann, in his Commentary on Galatians, 1843, p. 15, says happily : " Man hat 
 sich bemiiht in dem Gebrauch dieser Prapositionen [viz . virtp and irepi] den Begriff 
 eines stillvertretenden Todes, ohne zu bedenken dass dieser in der Sache und nicht 
 bloss in den Worten liegt. 
 
 1 iv &\r)0eiq.. The article, found only in some single MSS. and in a Greek father, 
 has no claim to be inserted in the text.
 
 TRUE SANCTIFICATION BY CHRIST'S DEATH. 251 
 
 follows in the order of nature after it. The question to be 
 clearly settled in connection with this passage is, Whether are 
 we to regard the sanctification here mentioned as the moral and 
 spiritual renovation effected in us by the Spirit, and therefore 
 the same with what is elsewhere called " the sanctification of the 
 Spirit " (2 Thess. ii. 13), or, to interpret it as a direct fruit of the 
 atonement ? Is it objective or subjective ? Is it a part of the 
 Spirit's work, or an immediate fruit of Christ's sacrifice ? It 
 must be specially observed, that in this clause the Lord does 
 not allude to the sanctificatiou of Christians in the moral sense, 
 or in the sense of inward renovation, but according to the ac- 
 ceptation of the word in the old Mosaic worship, and according 
 to its import in the Epistle to the Hebrews 1 (Heb. xiii. 12, ix. 
 13). It would be a wide departure, indeed, from the true 
 meaning of our Lord's words, if we should interpret this clause 
 of the inward renewing by the Spirit. The word SANCTIFY, as 
 it occurs in the Old Testament ritual, has primary reference to 
 those appointed rites used for consecrating the whole people, or 
 any individual, to belong to the theocracy in due form. This 
 was a standing won and retained chiefly by sacrifice. And the 
 apostle to the Hebrews explains that, in like manner, the sancti- 
 fication of Christians, or the dedication of them to belong to the 
 true people of God, and to share in their services and worship, 
 was effected by the sacrifice of Christ. To apprehend the pre- 
 cise meaning of the word "sanctify," it will be necessary to 
 trace its usage in the ancient ritual of Israel. 
 
 The two words frequently occurring in the old worship, 
 sanctify and purify, are so closely allied in sense, that some 
 regard them as synonymous. But a slight shade of distinction 
 
 1 The words of the acute J. Alting, Opera Theol., 1686, vol. iv. p. 98, are very 
 precise and accurate : " Ipse sua ista sanctificatione segregatus fuit, et [ut ?] ipsi 
 quoque segregantur sed diversimode : ipse segregatus est ut esset reatus et pecca- 
 turn: ipsi autem ne essent reatus et peccatum." (Compare Storr, Dissertatio 
 exegetica in Librorum N. T. Historicorum aliquot loca, pars altera, p. 57 ; Lang, 
 Zusatze zu Teller's Worterbuch d. n. Testaments, art. Heiligen.) Schleusner, Lex.
 
 252 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 between the two may be discerned as follows. It is assumed 
 that ever-recurring defilements, of a ceremonial kind, called for 
 sacrifices of expiation ; and the word " purify " referred to those 
 rites and sacrifices which removed the stains which excluded 
 the worshipper from the privilege of approach to the sanctuary 
 of God, and from fellowship with His people. The defilement 
 which he contracted excluded him from access. But when this 
 same Israelite was purified by sacrifice, he was readmitted to 
 the full participation of the privilege. He was then sanctified 
 or holy. Thus the latter is the consequence of the former. We 
 may affirm, then, that the two words, " purify " and " sanctify," 
 in this reference to the old worship, are very closely allied ; so 
 much so, that the one involves the other. This will throw light 
 upon the use of these two expressions in the New Testament 
 (Eph. v. 25, 26; 1 Heb. ii. 11; Tit. ii. 14). All these passages 
 represent a man defiled by sin and excluded from God, but re- 
 admitted to access and fellowship, and so pronounced holy, as 
 soon as the blood of sacrifice is applied to him. That is the 
 meaning of the word " sanctify " in this verse. 
 
 a. Hence, when we trace the connection of sanctification as 
 here used with the atonement, it is a causal connection. It is 
 placed in direct and immediate relation to the atonement. The 
 immediate sequel to a state of personal reconciliation is the 
 sanctification here referred to, or the access to be a people near 
 to God, or to be a theocratic people. Christ is thus said to 
 sanctify us, as He makes His people free from defilement and 
 from the estrangement flowing from defilement, and restores us 
 to the divine friendship ; and His people are said to be " sancti- 
 fied in truth," because reality is contrasted with shadows, and 
 the permanent with the transitory. They are set apart to God, 
 
 1 The two words, ayiafciv and xadaplfclv, both referring to the idea of a sacrifice, 
 and so nearly equipollent that the one involves the other, are put together in the 
 phrase : Trap&WKev 'Lva airrty ayida-r] Kadaptiras (Eph. v. 26). Morus would put 
 into a parenthesis the clause beginning with Ka.6apio-as. But, at all events, the 
 participial force of KaOapiffas in the aorist must be maintained ; and this will 
 sufficiently indicate the relation between the two verbs.
 
 TRUE SANCTIFICATION BY CHRIST'S DEATH. 253 
 
 and made a peculiar people, or a kingdom of priests, by the 
 remission of sins. 
 
 I. Under this head it is necessary to refer a little more to the 
 teaching of the Epistles; for the meaning of this significant 
 phrase is not exhausted, till we add from the Epistles, that they 
 who are thus " sanctified in truth " by the atoning death of 
 Christ are further regarded as consciously near to God. They 
 are described as worshippers once purged, and having no more 
 conscience of sin (Heb. x. 2) ; and it is the same standing which 
 Paul delineates in the Epistle to the Ephesians, when he shows 
 that they who are saved by grace through faith are now made 
 nigh : " But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far 
 off are made nigh by the blood of Christ " (Eph. ii. 13). This 
 is real, not typical nearness. The old Mosaic worship sancti- 
 fied only to the purifying of the flesh (Heb. ix. 13) ; whereas 
 they who have the application of Christ's atoning blood, have 
 their consciences purged from dead works (ver. 14). They are 
 purified, in other words, from an accusing conscience or an evil 
 conscience, in order to be filled with the peace of God, and so 
 brought into a state of conscious nearness to God by the sacri- 
 fice of Christ; or, to quote another form of describing it: " By 
 one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sancti- 
 fied" (Heb. x. 14). Thus, what was typically done in the old 
 Mosaic worship, is now done in truth by the self-sacrifice of 
 Christ. 
 
 c. But, furthermore, it is a nearness to serve, or to act as priests ; 
 and they who so stand before God are purged in conscience to 
 serve the living God (Heb. ix. 14). They are sanctified, or 
 dedicated, as the ancient priests were, to a holy service, by 
 which everything is done as in the sight of God. It must be 
 added, that their dedication to be a people near to God carries 
 with it the further accompaniment, that all life becomes an 
 offering, and all its activity a worship. Thus, a human life may 
 become a hymn of praise, when it is passed in the presence of 
 God, and done to Him, even to its minutest details. This is the
 
 254 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 natural result or sequel of being dedicated in truth. And not 
 only so: the defilement, still inevitably adhering to all the 
 actions of these sanctified ones, is constantly cleansed and 
 covered by Him whose offering dedicated them (1 John ii. 1, 2). 
 Their service as priests unto God is presented faultless, and 
 acceptable unto Him by the continued intercession of our great 
 Advocate on high (1 Pet. ii 5); they live in the holiest into 
 which they have boldness to enter (Heb. x. 19) ; and they stand 
 in the grace into which they have access or introduction (Eom. 
 v. 2). 
 
 Thus it clearly enough appears that this expression on which 
 we have been commenting is not to be interpreted of a moral 
 amendment, or of a spiritual renovation, though that of course 
 immediately follows, but according to the sacrificial and priestly 
 phraseology of the old Mosaic worship. 1 The meaning, as we 
 have seen, is simply this : that the Son of God dedicated Him- 
 self in that act of self-oblation, that they who are far off, aliens 
 and strangers, might be made nigh ; or that He was sanctified 
 and set apart to be a sin-offering, to take our place, in order that 
 we might be put in His place. Thus it is the atonement which 
 sanctifies us in truth, or makes us a people near to God, not 
 typically, but really, or a kingdom of priests to God. 
 
 SEC. XXXI. SAYINGS EELATIVE TO THE SUBJECTIVE LIFE-GIVING 
 EFFECTS OF CHRIST'S DEATH. 
 
 We have already noticed several of the sayings of Jesus 
 which refer to the more objective effects of His death, or which 
 have respect to the acceptance of our persons and the remission 
 of our sins. There is another class of sayings, which we shall, 
 
 1 Compare Zecharise's BiUische Theologie, vol. ii., Verrede, where there are 
 some just remarks on aytdfav, mingled with observations which are questionable ; 
 Vinke, leer van Jesus en de Apostel aang. zijn Ltjden, 1837, p. 76 ; Herwerden on 
 the passage, over het Evangelie van Johannes, 1798 ; Lotze, over hct Hoogepriester- 
 schap van Jesus Christus, 1800, p. 104.
 
 LIFE-GIVING EFFECTS OF CHRIST'S DEATH. 255 
 
 next in order, adduce, referring more to the inward or sanctify- 
 ing fruits of His death. The former, as we have seen, are to be 
 regarded as the immediate results or fruits of the atoning work 
 of Christ ; the latter are rather the mediate effects of His aton- 
 ing death, and presuppose the former. The acceptance of the 
 person, or the right relation of the man, is communicated first 
 in the order of nature; for the "doing," according to the tenor 
 of the law, is in order to the " life" (Eom. x. 5). It is impor- 
 tant to notice, that of all these subjective or sanctifying effects 
 of the atonement in men, there are none which are not to be 
 regarded as following upon the liberation of our persons from 
 the curse of the law. They all presuppose this; so that the 
 spirit of life, which comes to renovate the nature, is sent only 
 on the ground of this acceptance to occupy the heart ; or, to put 
 it in Pauline language, the disciples of Christ are delivered from, 
 or dead to, the law, that they may be married to another, that 
 they may bring forth fruit unto God (Eom. vii. 4). Nor are the 
 inward effects merely those which follow in the way of motive, 
 or as an expression of gratitude. For however powerful the 
 death of Christ is as a motive to influence the heart, there is 
 another ground based upon the merit of His atonement which is 
 much stronger, and exercises an influence, not on the human 
 mind merely, but also on the government of God. 
 
 Among the sayings of Jesus which refer to the subjective 
 effects of the atonement, there are several in John's narrative 
 which speak of life : (1) the allusion to the brazen serpent ; (2) 
 the allusion to His crucified body as the bread of life ; to which 
 might be subjoined another already mentioned, the harmony of 
 love and justice, as opening up the channel for the gift of life 
 (John iii. 16). All these are subjective and mediate effects of 
 Christ's death. The teaching of our Lord and of His apostles 
 proves, that as truly as the fall brought into the world death 
 and bondage, so truly does the atonement bring life ; and that 
 there is thus the closest connection between the atoning death 
 of Christ and the spiritual life of the soul, as the end or object 
 to which the atonement always had respect.
 
 256 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 It is the more necessary to notice this, in opposition to the 
 modern school which puts the life first. They will have it, that 
 the acceptance of the person does not directly flow from the 
 death of Christ as its immediate result, but, conversely, that 
 remission of sin flows from our grateful love. 1 This is a per- 
 version of all Scripture ; it does not make pardon result imme- 
 diately and directly from the cross; and it differs little from 
 mysticism, or legalism, or Popery. On the contrary, the com- 
 munication of life and of growing sanctification is regarded by 
 our Lord as the result which follows at the next remove, or as 
 the further aim of the acceptance of the man, and of the remis- 
 sion of his sins. They who are liberated from the curse of sin 
 are next liberated from the power of sin by the spirit of life. 
 But our Lord's sayings put life in connection with His death, as 
 the reward, fruit, or purchase of the atonement. 
 
 One of Christ's titles frequently mentioned in John is THE 
 LIFE (John xiv. 6) ; presupposing that men are dead in sin. 
 And when we determine from Scripture how life is dispensed, 
 we find that the connection between the atonement and life, or 
 between righteousness and life, is the connection between work 
 and reward. Where no righteousness is, in other words where 
 sin is, which may be taken either as omission or commission, 
 there is death ; but on the other hand, where righteousness is, 
 there is life (Eom. viii. 10). This connection between the 
 atonement and life may be discovered in numerous passages of 
 Scripture (Eom. vi. 1-12; Gal. ii. 19-21; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15; Col. 
 iii. 1-6). There are three distinct conceptions which may be 
 traced in such passages as follows: 
 
 a. The right to life is based on service rendered or atone- 
 ment offered. This is expressed by the apostles under the terms 
 co-crucifixion, co-dying with Christ, or being co-planted with the 
 Lord in His death. This act is viewed as their act, and accord- 
 ingly His people are to reckon themselves to be dead with Him 
 unto sin (Eom. vi. 11). 
 
 1 So Usteri puts the matter, according to the Schleiermacherian representation. 
 Entwickdung des Paulinischen Lclirbegri/cs, p. 131.
 
 LIFE-GIVING EFFECTS OF CHRIST'S DEATH. 257 
 
 b. The redeemed Church, even while conflicting with sin, is 
 sitting with Christ in a risen life (Eph. i. 6), and has a life hid 
 with Christ in God (CoL iii. 3). This carries forward our con- 
 ceptions to the incorruptible life of glory, of which the pledge 
 and warrant are already found in Christ's resurrection-life. 
 The members are one with the Head, and even now live together 
 with Him ; and so joined, as Gambold expresses it, that He will 
 not be in glory and leave them behind. 
 
 c. A further thought is the perpetual supply of spiritual life, 
 because Christ lives in us (Gal. ii. 20). His people are to be 
 replenished with all His fulness ; He ever imparting and they 
 ever receiving (John i. 16). The Lord's design is that His life 
 may reappear anew in His people or be reproduced in them; 
 and that there may be such a symphony, so to speak, that His 
 people shall promote on earth the great object for which He 
 lives in glory. The life of love and active service which He 
 lived on earth is to be renewed and reproduced in all His people. 
 And when we inquire how this is attained, we find that the tide 
 of resurrection life flows into His people, in proportion as they 
 keep before them His abasement, atoning death, and resurrection 
 as the great themes of faith and the great springs of action (GaL 
 ii. 19, last part). Hence, when the Apostles would have us live 
 over again the humility, the forbearing, meek, unretaliating life 
 of Christ, they commonly fix attention on His coming from His 
 pre-existing glory to abasement (Phil. ii. 7), or on His patient 
 endurance as the voluntary sin-bearer (1 Pet. ii 22-24). 
 
 SEC. XXXII. CHRIST CRUCIFIED THE ANTITYPE OF THE BRAZEN 
 SERPENT, AND THE LIFE-GIVER. 
 
 " And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must 
 the Son of Man lie lifted up ; that whosoever believeth in Him 
 should not perish, Imt have eternal life" (John iii. 14.) 
 
 This significant saying points out the inseparable connection 
 between the cross of Christ and eternal life, and the indispen-
 
 258 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 sable necessity of the former to the latter. The occasion on 
 which it was spoken demands particular attention. It forms 
 part of the Lord's address to Nicodemus, when He opened up 
 to him the nature of spiritual religion, step by step meeting the 
 difficulties of the Jewish teacher. After drawing a distinction 
 between "the earthly things," among which the new birth is 
 classified, and which is so named because it is a blessing en- 
 joyed upon the earth, and thus a thing of human experience, 
 and "the heavenly things," so called because they belong to 
 what is divine and heavenly, and which must be regarded as 
 included in the counsel of redemption, He proceeds to name 
 two of the latter His own deity (ver. 13), and His atoning 
 work (ver. 14). They are put in connection with the new birth, 
 and delineated as its indispensable prerequisites on God's part. 
 By means of this type, which was intended to utter a language 
 that should speak to all time, our Lord convinced Nicodemus 
 that He must needs be crucified. And we find, accordingly, 
 that when He actually died on the cross, it was less of a shock 
 to Nicodemus than to any of His immediate disciples ; for he 
 went along with Joseph of Arimathea, who also seems to have 
 been prepared, by means of private intercourse with Jesus, for 
 the fact of the crucifixion, and begged the body of Jesus (John 
 xix. 39). The import of our Lord's words here may be correctly 
 represented as follows : " You see a mean man, or the Son of 
 Man, who must needs be abased still lower, and even lifted up 
 upon the cross, as the antitype of the brazen serpent, for men's 
 salvation" (Num. xxi. 9). 
 
 But the question is raised, Did Christ really refer to His 
 crucifixion when He thus spoke of being "lifted up?" 1 All 
 doubt as to the import of this verb, at least as it is used by John 
 in connexion with the work of Christ, is completely set at rest 
 by the apostolic commentary appended to one of the passages 
 
 1 v\f/6u is ahvays so used by John. It is a Johannine peculiarity ; for we find 
 other sacred writers use the same verb of the exaltation. (Comp. fyuOds, Acts ii. 
 23, v. 31.)
 
 THE BKAZEN SERPENT AND THE LIFE-GIVER. 259 
 
 where it occurs: "This He said, signifying what death He 
 should die" (John xii. 33). Some, and among these Calvin, 
 have expounded the "lifting up" as containing an allusion to 
 the preaching of the gospel, as from a high and elevated place, 
 and in the eye of all. But that comment, though supported by 
 several great names, is forced and far-fetched ; it loses the point 
 of the comparison; and we can only wonder that any have 
 adhered to it, when the Apostle John has explicitly settled the 
 question. Others, again, have expounded the words, " so must 
 the Son of Man be lifted up," as referring to Christ's exaltation 
 to heaven. 1 But that, too, is inadmissible, as it cannot stand a 
 moment against the authoritative apostolic commentary of John, 
 who, speaking with infallible inspiration, tells us what the lan- 
 guage really meant in the mouth of Christ. And even though 
 we should doubt whether Mcodemus at the time fully under- 
 stood the words, such a testimony, based on a fact of Jewish 
 history, otherwise inexplicable, would be afterwards of use to 
 Nicodemus personally, as he doubtless understood it, when the 
 event arrived. 
 
 To this well-known fact, the last of the miracles of Moses, 
 and performed by him at God's command and direction, towards 
 the close of the forty years' wanderings, it is not necessary 
 more specially to refer, except to say that it was meant to be a 
 type, and that our Lord adduces it as such. He does not make 
 it a mere groundwork of a comparison. 2 The word as, with 
 its correlated even so, will not permit us to rest satisfied with 
 the comment, that here we have nothing but a mere similitude 
 or comparison ; for the one is deduced from the other in such 
 
 1 So Beza, Lampe, and some of the fathers mentioned by Suicer in his The- 
 saurus, on this word. That comment is untenable. As little can be said for 
 another explanation supported by Luthardt and Hofmann, that the words only 
 mean that Christ, as crucified and as exalted, should be the object of faith. 
 John's comment is decisive (John xii. 33). 
 
 a This view, that it is only a comparison, supported by Bloomfield, and by 
 Webster and Wilkinson in their notes, is untenable. It wishes to simplify the 
 sense by dismissing the type, but makes a greater difficulty. The Kadus and ourut 
 are opposed to this.
 
 260 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 a way as indicates that, according to divine appointment, the 
 fulfilment must needs be because the future event was shadowed 
 forth, 'and in a manner predicted, by the preparatory type. It 
 was a proper figure of good things to come, having the same 
 relation to the substance that a picture has to the reality. The 
 points of resemblance lay in the things themselves, according 
 to the divine intention. If the reality had not been appointed 
 to appear, indeed, in the fulness of time, we may certainly con- 
 clude, according to the relation between the two, that men 
 should never have seen its shadow or rude outline. It was, 
 like the sacrifice, intended as a foretokening of a coming 
 atonement, though differing from these in one obvious respect 
 that the material was brass, and the whole appointment, in 
 the utmost degree, sovereign, positive, and even arbitrary. The 
 whole arrangement, however, shows the wisdom of God in pro- 
 viding for a clear and accurate idea of the atonement in the 
 fulness of time, and in leading the Jews to hail and welcome 
 the hope of its realization. 1 
 
 The question is not, how many of the Jewish nation rose to 
 such anticipations, nor what ideas were formed of this type by 
 the nation generally ; for God dealt with that elect nation, all 
 through its history, on the principle of a remnant or inner 
 election (Eom. ix. 11). The question is, whether the believers 
 among them were not led to harmonize it with the divine design, 
 as they did in the matter of the sacrifices ; and also, whether 
 it was not in a sense ministered, not so much to them, as to us 
 who have the gospel preached to us (1 Peter i. 12). 
 
 The Lord chose this singular instrument of cure, because the 
 people were to see the sovereign hand of God, and not ascribe 
 the effect to any intrinsic efficacy in outward things, apart from 
 the direct interposition and power of God. They who saw no 
 congruity between the means and the end to be effected, would 
 
 1 See F. Turretinus, Disp. Miscell. Decad. Disp. x. ; Marckius, Exerc. text 
 via. part iv. ; Deyling, Observ. S., part ii. Observ. xv. ; Witsius, Egyptiacorum, 
 lib. i. ix. 6.
 
 THE BRAZEN SERPENT AND THE LIFE-GIVER. 261 
 
 naturally, if they gave the rein to reason, feel a great difficulty, 
 and be disposed even to ridicule the idea of being healed by 
 looking upon a piece of brass. They must necessarily take 
 offence, if they did not bow to the sovereignty of God. But 
 there were also weighty reasons for the commandment given. 
 The people were to see, not only an image of the punishment of 
 sin, but also an image of a vicarious economy. I cannot say 
 whether we find any further allusion to this fact in the Old 
 Testament besides the allusion to the idolatrous perversion and 
 abuse of this relic which had crept in during Hezekiah's reign 
 (2 Kings xviii 4). Isaiah's phrase is not unlike it : " by His 
 stripes we are healed." But we cannot doubt that Jesus, in 
 His interpretation of the type, meant to show that He was 
 appointed to become a vicarious sufferer, to be made a curse, on 
 whom was to be manifested the divine vengeance against sin, 
 that others might escape, and be healed. 
 
 The various points of comparison between the type and anti- 
 type may be enumerated as follows : 
 
 1. The raising of the brazen serpent on the pole or banner- 
 staff, and the lifting up of Christ upon the cross. These two 
 are related as shadow and substance the one being prophetic 
 of the other. Nor is this by any means to be regarded as a 
 subordinate point, as certain expositors suppose. For, in the 
 first place, the repetition of the verb "lifted up" in the two 
 contrasted clauses, and then the correlation of the two particles, 
 as and so, unite to prove that the one is to be viewed as type, 
 and the other as antitype. 1 
 
 2. The two objects here named were, in two different respects, 
 according to the appointment and command of God, to be re- 
 garded with a trustful and confident look. Men were directed 
 to look to them with unhesitating confidence, according to the 
 divine appointment, for salvation. 
 
 1 The use of ica0u>j and oCrwj shows an intended type ; and there are many 
 similar interpretations in the mouth of the Lord, such as the manna and Jonah. 
 The whole fact in Jewish history, in all its details, is conclusively and authori- 
 tatively pronounced to be an intended counterpart or type to His historic work.
 
 262 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 3. The instant effect of that look was to bring deliverance 
 and health. This is the direct and obvious point of comparison, 
 into which the whole statement is naturally to be resolved. It 
 takes for granted believing confidence in the divinely appointed 
 remedy, but implies that there is an instant communication of 
 life in connection with a look at the crucified One. 
 
 4. It is a moot point whether we are to add, as another ele- 
 ment of resemblance, the fact that the brazen serpent was only 
 made like the poisonous serpents, yet without their poison, and 
 that Christ was in all points made like unto His brethren, yet 
 without sin. 1 It is not only warrantable to add this further 
 point of resemblance with many of the best commentators, but 
 it is necessary. It is true, the great point (or the tertium quid} 
 of the comparison is, that the lifting up of the brazen serpent 
 healed the wounded Israelite, and that Christ crucified delivers 
 perishing men from eternal death. But we must also take in 
 this point. The serpent was only in appearance like the noxious 
 creatures that had caused lamentation and woe in the camp of 
 Israel, but not one of them ; and, in like manner, Christ was 
 made in the likeness of sinful flesh, or made in all points like 
 the brethren, yet without sin. Some make the analogy to lie 
 more in the circumstance of the lifting up, than in any accessory 
 or accompanying allusion to the serpent itself. There seems no 
 difficulty, however, in the supposition that the brazen serpent 
 represented Christ in the sense that He took the place of sinners, 
 and specially of the sinner, by whom death and all our woes 
 were disseminated and passed over unto all mankind. It would 
 have been a real difficulty had one of the true serpents, and not 
 the mere resemblance or figure of them, been put upon the pole. 
 
 But, in adding this fourth point of analogy, we must, by all 
 means, be careful to disencumber it of a further allusion to 
 Satan, who is so often described in Scripture as a serpent, and 
 
 1 This was strongly brought out by Luther in his sermons, and in his German 
 comments on John, by many Lutheran divines, such as Chemnitz, after him, 
 and by Gomar among the Eeformed ; also by more recent writers, such as Bengel, 
 Lechler in the Studien und Kritiken, 1854, and others. Liicke opposes it.
 
 THE BRAZEN SERPENT AND THE LIFE-GIVER. 263 
 
 who is supposed by many to be necessarily referred to here. 
 A great difficulty would certainly be presented, if it were neces- 
 sary to accept this- widely received view, that there must be a 
 further reference to Satan, either in the allusion of the original 
 fact, or in our Lord's quotation and reference to it. For how 
 could the crucified Christ in any sense be represented by an 
 emblem of the devil, or be compared in any sense to the serpent 
 with this additional allusion ? It is not denied that ingenuity 
 may discover, and has often satisfied itself with thinking that it 
 has discovered resemblances ; representing men, for example, as 
 the brood of the serpent, and therefore that Christ was made sin 
 in the form of the seed of the serpent. But these are mere 
 fancies that cannot be tolerated here. And there are no traces 
 that Christ meant to teach that the serpent, with this further 
 reference to Satan, was a type of Himself. That is so incon- 
 gruous, that, to avoid it, we must rather make the point of com- 
 parison be merely in the lifting up. But there is no allusion to 
 Satan at all ; and the mistake arose from not discerning that the 
 serpent, in one respect, at least in the brazen figure of it, may as 
 well be employed to represent Christ as the various other ani- 
 mals, which were used to represent substitution, or were offered 
 to God in the way of a typical vicarious sacrifice. 
 
 This brings me to notice another exposition which was much 
 in vogue a century ago, and which is still advocated in some of 
 its phases that we have not here a direct type of Christ, but 
 an allusion to the old serpent triumphed over on the cross. 1 
 
 1 This comment originated with J. D'Espagne, an ingenious French pastor, who 
 laboured in London, 1659, and is found in his Opera, torn. ii. p. 214. It was 
 adopted by the celebrated F. Burmann, Synopsis, lib. iv. cap. 32 ; by Vitringa, 
 Observ. S., lib. ii. cap. 11 ; and it reappears, with some modifications, in Men- 
 ken's treatise, iiber die eherne Schlange, and also in Olshausen's commentary. 
 This interpretation was refuted energetically by Marckius and by Deyling. 
 Lingering remains of this interpretation reappear, and may be traced in the re- 
 marks of even recent exegetes. It arose from the mistaken notion, that, accord- 
 ing to the analogy of Scripture, the serpent must have some reference to Satan, 
 and that therefore there was an obvious impropriety in making the serpent, so 
 viewed, a type of Christ. And there certainly would be, if that accessory notion 
 were included at all, which, however, we have seen, is by no means to be 
 taken in.
 
 264 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 This explanation starts from the same mistaken notion that 
 there must be an allusion to Satan, and was suggested by the 
 obvious impropriety of representing Christ by an emblem of 
 Satan. According to this view, our Lord's words are identical 
 with the apostle's statement, that Christ made a show of him 
 openly, triumphing over him on the cross (Col. ii. 15). That, 
 however, makes a greater difficulty; and, as a comment, it is 
 wholly inadmissible, as will readily appear from the following 
 considerations : 
 
 (1.) The types are not meant to be adumbrations of the adver- 
 sary in any respect, but of Christ; and the notion on which 
 this interpretation proceeds, that the symbols must always have 
 the same allusion in every connection, is not confirmed by fact. 
 Thus the serpent is referred to in a light wholly different, when 
 the Lord tells His disciples to be " wise as serpents." The 
 goats, too, which were used on the day of atonement, were 
 meant to be a representation of the vicarious sacrifice, while 
 they are elsewhere referred to as the emblem of the wicked. 
 And there is nothing, therefore, to prevent the interpretation of 
 the brazen serpent as setting forth a type of Christ, the substi- 
 tute of sinners. 
 
 (2.) The similarity between the type and the antitype is pre- 
 served, only if we regard the brazen serpent as a type of Christ. 
 The condition of the Israelites at that time gives us a vivid picture 
 of the guilt and spiritual misery in which all sinners are in- 
 volved ; and the act of lifting up can only refer with any fitness 
 to Christ, who was lifted up upon the cross in the infliction of 
 an accursed public death. This is one point of analogy; and 
 His body was like the sinner, too, only in fashion, and as having 
 a common nature, but without the life of sin. The analogy 
 consists further, in the fact that He was appointed by God, and 
 that He acted as the one Mediator between God and man. 
 
 (3.) This was not a trophy of victory, but a means of cure. 
 It was not one of the actual serpents, living or dead, but only a 
 resemblance, having nothing in common with them but the form,
 
 THE BRAZEN SERPENT AND THE LIFE-GIVER. 265 
 
 and having wholly different effects. The one wounded, the 
 other healed ; the one killed, the other made alive ; the one 
 destroyed the works of the other; and hence it was not a figure 
 of Satan, but of Christ. 
 
 (4.) The look of the sufferer also was certainly to be directed 
 to Christ alone as its proper object, or to the type of Christ, and 
 not to the adversary ; and as immediate healing was imparted 
 to the wounded dying Israelite by a simple look at the brazen 
 serpent, so life eternal is communicated to every one who turns 
 a believing look to Christ. There was life for a look then, and 
 there is life for a look now. But Satan, from whom we flee, can- 
 not, with any modification of the idea, be regarded as the terminat- 
 ing object of faith. It was not a look at the actual serpents, nor 
 at Moses, nor at the pole, but solely at the figure of the serpent ; 
 and it is solely at Christ, as the true object, that faith now looks. 
 
 To return, then, to the fourth point of similarity, it must be 
 held that the Lord Jesus, the sinless substitute, had an external 
 resemblance to man in all points, or was in all points made like 
 unto the brethren, but was wholly exempt from their life of sin 
 (Heb. ii. 17). It is not without reason that He was typified by 
 the brazen serpent ; for He was a curse-bearer, and yet a Saviour. 
 By this striking type He described to an Israelite, in the most 
 vivid way in which the idea could be put, that He was not come 
 as a mere earthly king, but as a sufferer, and that in His suffer- 
 ings He was not a mere martyr, but the Eedeemer of men, com- 
 ing in the guise and receiving the treatment of the greatest of 
 sinners. They who are not ready to say, that Christ only 
 plays, in the most arbitrary way, with emblems and historic 
 facts, must admit that the brazen serpent is typical. That 
 hideous image of sin and its effects represented the Son of God 
 in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as made sin, to condemn sin 
 in the flesh. The entire type had a deep enigmatic meaning, 
 though it was dark to a Jew, and indeed is obscure to every 
 one ignorant of the substitution of Christ. But it is no more 
 obscure to us who know the vicarious atonement.
 
 266 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Thus the historic fact implies, when considered in its true 
 significance, that men are saved by a method similar to that by 
 which they were undone ; that by man came death, and that by 
 man came the redemption from death. Till the mind is en- 
 lightened by the wisdom of God, this seems a remedy running 
 counter to all natural congruity and fitness ; for who would 
 expect deliverance from a piece of brass fashioned after the shape 
 of the Destroyer ? and, in like manner, who would look for 
 salvation from one carried out to a public execution ? But when 
 we apprehend substitution aright, it is a most significant and 
 suggestive type. 
 
 As we have already noticed the necessity of the atonement or 
 crucifixion, it is the less incumbent to enlarge on the words, " So 
 must the Son of Man be lifted up." The MUST here expressed, 
 bringing out what is indispensable, is not to be limited to the 
 mere carrying out of the type, but has a deeper ground in God's 
 purpose of redemption, and in order to finish the curse. That 
 the punishment of sin must be borne and exhausted on the cross 
 was already indicated centuries before by the brazen serpent 
 raised upon the pole. Plainly, the necessity here alluded to is a 
 deep inner necessity. It is not due merely to the fact that it 
 was foreshadowed : rather it was foreshadowed because it must 
 needs take place on moral grounds. Though the faithfulness of 
 God must be maintained in carrying out the types and prophecies, 
 it was not they that conditioned the crucifixion, but, conversely, 
 the deep necessity in the moral government of God that threw 
 back its shadow upon them. 
 
 As the punitive justice of God, or the necessity for the atone- 
 ment, with the evidence that goes to establish it in our Lord's 
 teaching, has been noticed in a previous section of this volume, 
 we forbear to adduce the evidence which goes to illustrate it. 
 Let it suffice to say that the must here uttered by our Lord is 
 connected with the communication of divine life and perfect 
 healing, and that " no cross, no healing " is the purport of this 
 testimony. When sin entered into the world, God's moral per-
 
 THE BRAZEN SERPENT AND THE LIFE-GIVER. 267 
 
 factions rendered it indispensably necessary that it should receive 
 its recompense of reward, and that a satisfaction for sin should 
 be required before divine life could be diffused through the race. 
 The Most High owes this to Himself it being a must in the 
 Divine government as well as a necessary provision for the relief 
 of mental anxiety and dread. He owes this to Himself, because 
 He loveth righteousness (Ps. XL 7). It was not brought about 
 to make a mere impression on the moral universe, in order to 
 deter them from sin ; and as little was it done because God was 
 acting before a vast public composed of all spiritual intelligences. 
 The necessity of punishment, and of expiation, is irrespective of 
 any aims or considerations that refer to a public apart from 
 Himself. His perfections are the only public before which He 
 acts ; and He punishes sin only because of the demerit of it, as 
 calling for punishment, and because He is under obligation to 
 Himself, or, in other words, from love to His rectitude, which is 
 just love to Himself (Ps. xi. 7). This punitive retribution is 
 commonly called vengeance ; and the Most High claims it as His 
 own prerogative : " Vengeance is mine : I will repay " (Eom. xii. 
 19 ; Deut. xxxii. 35). Hence, when moral evil has been com- 
 mitted, natural evil, suited to it, must needs ensue ; and we may 
 lay down with confidence the position, that the creatures of God, 
 in the moral government of God's world, suffer only what is due, 
 and never more than their due. Hence, to bear this infliction in 
 a manner which should expiate the sin and exhaust the curse, 
 was the reason of Christ's crucifixion, and gives the explanation 
 of the must which He here expresses. 
 
 It must be specially noticed, however, that the atonement was 
 intended, in the divine economy, to open the way for the dis- 
 semination of the life. The words are introduced by a final 
 particle: 1 " that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, 
 but have eternal life ;" and bring out a twofold end, life as the 
 ultimate end, and faith as the intermediate end, or the instru- 
 ment of reception. This much is indisputable, that the death of 
 1 iW is always telic. (See Winer, Fritzsche on Matthew, and Meyer. )
 
 268 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Jesus was an indispensably necessary matter, in order to attain 
 this eternal life. It is to His death, according to Christ's own 
 testimony, that men owe deliverance, healing, and life ; and it is 
 by faith in His crucified person that men are put into the actual 
 possession and enjoyment of these benefits, the faith which 
 presupposes the finished work of Christ, and which relies upon 
 His death, or upon Himself as crucified and lifted up. 
 
 But it is important to notice also, that the atoning death stands 
 in a causal connection, or in a meritorious connection, with the 
 eternal life considered as a present inheritance. This LIFE is 
 spoken of as the end, effect, or reward of the crucifixion. 1 The 
 design of all these passages, which put life and sanctification in 
 connection with Christ's death, is not, as the modern theology 
 will have it, to show that the life is first, and that the accept- 
 ance of a sinner does not flow immediately from the death of 
 Christ, but only mediately from life. That theory is totally 
 without scriptural warrant; and, carried out to its legitimate 
 consequences, it makes another gospel. The life and the pro- 
 gressive sanctification are to be considered only as a reward, or 
 as the further aim, or the consequence of the acceptance of our 
 persons. It is by no means proved by such passages, that we 
 are to regard sanctification, or the communication of the divine 
 life, as the immediate aim and scope of Christ's death. Life is 
 the reward of the atonement, and is always represented by our 
 Lord and by His apostles as premial life, on the ground of a 
 righteousness or atonement (Eom. viii. 10). 
 
 It is the more necessary to apprehend precisely the scope and 
 tendency of this school of interpretation, because it has obtained, 
 in our day, such wide diffusion, and so much acceptance ; and it 
 
 1 Vinke, in his Leer van Jesva en de Apostel aang. Zijn Lijdcn, notices several 
 antitheses in which fwJ? stands ; e.g. : 
 
 fwrj and Kpto-is or 0di>a.Tos (John v. 24). 
 fw?7 and 6pyr) TOV Qeov (John iii. 36). 
 fwr? and dTrwXeia (Matt. vii. 13, 14). 
 fwr? and rb trvp TO aiwviov (Matt, xviii. 8). 
 fwrj and j) ytfvva TOV irvpbs (Matt, xviii. 9). 
 
 luvios and /cdXacrts aiuvios (Matt. xxv. 46).
 
 THE BRAZEN SERPENT AND THE LIFE-GIVER. 269 
 
 has, perhaps, in some degree, its rights, and also its advantages, 
 as against a frigid orthodoxy. But it is no higher than mediseval 
 mysticism ; and its one-sidedness is hurtful, while its exhibition 
 of the gospel is highly defective. 1 It puts life first, and pardon 
 next ; and the former, in a directly ombiblical manner, is made 
 the pathway for the latter. It does not base acceptance directly 
 and immediately on the cross, but on the previous possession of 
 the divine life. The relations of truth are reversed and dis- 
 organized. The whole attention is turned to communion with 
 Christ in His life ; and thus the gospel remedy is turned away 
 from its proper object. The subject-matter is disjointed, and 
 the message is turned upside down. All the great doctrines con- 
 nected with God as an authoritative lawgiver and moral ruler, 
 with guilt and punishment,. with atonement and acceptance, fall 
 into the background, while all prominence is given to the truths 
 which stand connected with Christ as a fountain of life. It is 
 thus an interpretation essentially the same as mediseval mysticism, 
 limiting its view to Christ in His people, but stopping short at 
 the point of giving the prominence which is due to Christ for 
 His people. In a word, this school of interpretation does not 
 connect the communication of the divine life with Christ's 
 vicarious death, or with the righteousness of the law, which is 
 the only purchase or cause of the life, as Paul puts it in the 
 Epistle to the Bomans. Nay, a distinction is attempted between 
 the one as a Johannine, and the other as a Pauline, mode of 
 
 1 This is the mystic theory of the atonement, which, emanating from Menken 
 and the Schleiermacher school, has found champions or adherents in all the vari- 
 ous Protestant Churches. Its one-sidedness appears in this, that it makes the gift 
 of the divine life absolute, and makes no distinction between the person and the 
 nature, or between the relative standing of the man and his inner nature. It has 
 a very defective view of the original constitution given to man in a representative, 
 and it has a tendency to throw men back upon mere mediseval mysticism, and 
 therefore into a semi-legality, most adverse to the doctrine of a free acceptance 
 and to the liberty in Christ, in which the Christian is to stand fast (Gal. v. 1 ). 
 We shall more fully refer to this school in the notes appended to this volume. 
 But all who are in the habit of reading German works should be aware that this 
 is the theory of the atonement maintained by Menken, Hasenkamp, by Schleier- 
 macher and all his school, by Nitzsch, V. Hofmann, Rudolph Stier, Rothe, Lange, 
 Martensen, Baaumgarten, Klaiber, Schb'berlein, etc.
 
 270 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 thought. This whole theology is contradicted, however, by the 
 present passage, and by other sections of John's Gospel. It will 
 be seen that all the communications of the divine life are con- 
 nected, according to the teaching of this section, just as they are 
 in the Pauline statements, with the meritorious obedience, the 
 wounds and the blood of Christ, as the price by which they 
 were purchased. God looks at that purchase, when He imparts 
 the divine life, as the sole exclusive ground of His divine supplies 
 of life. And men, too, must also have regard to that purchase 
 as the foundation of all their confidence, and the meritorious 
 cause of all the daily communications of that divine life which 
 they receive. 1 
 
 SEC. XXXIII. CHRIST GIVING HIS FLESH FOR THE LIFE OF THE 
 
 WORLD. 
 
 " / am the, living bread which came down from heaven. If any 
 man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever : and the bread 
 that I will give is my jie.sk, which I will give, for the life 
 of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, 
 saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat ? Then 
 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ex- 
 cept ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, 
 ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and 
 drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise him 
 up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my 
 blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and 
 drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the 
 living Father hath sent Me, and I live by [on account of] 
 the Father, so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me 
 [on account of Me]." (John vi. 51-57). 
 
 This saying is more explicit than the former as to the con- 
 nection between the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, and the com- 
 
 1 See note K.
 
 
 CHRIST GIVING HIS FLESH FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD. 271 
 
 munication of spiritual LIFE. It plainly announces that the 
 atonement stands in causal connection with life. The crucified 
 flesh of the Lord is represented as possessing a life-giving influ- 
 ence, and constituting the new and sole fountain from which life 
 can be derived. This passage may be regarded as a key to all 
 the numerous texts in the epistles, which delineate the atoning 
 obedience of Christ as the cause of life to others (Rom. v. 18), 
 or which describe co-crucifixion with Him as the procuring 
 cause of life to His people in and with Him (Rom. vi. 1-11), or 
 speak of His living in us (Gal. ii. 20). 
 
 With regard to the occasion of this memorable saying, it may 
 suffice to say that it forms part of a discourse which naturally 
 arose out of the miracle of the loaves. Our Lord had retired 
 from the enthusiastic multitude who were bent on proclaiming 
 Him king, but was again brought in contact with them on the 
 following day in the synagogue at Capernaum, and then led to 
 disclose to them the whole truth. He declares that He should 
 be cut off by violent death, but that His flesh was to be the 
 world's life. They see His meaning, though a certain obscurity 
 was still suffered to rest upon the language, for the obvious pur- 
 pose of letting history take its unimpeded course. He warned 
 them to seek not the perishable bread, but that bread which en- 
 dureth to everlasting life, and which He added was to be found 
 by faith alone (ver. 29). He next proceeded, on the ground of 
 a remark which fell from the multitude, to contrast the temporary 
 manna, which the Israelites partook of in the wilderness, with 
 the true bread, or with Himself. He then described the two 
 main elements of the true or essential bread as compared with 
 that which was typical, showing that (1) it comes down from 
 heaven, and (2) that it gives life to the world (ver. 33). The 
 second element, the life-giving property belonging to it, is further 
 explained as rendering those who eat of it partakers of eternal 
 life, and no more liable to death. This bread is first identified 
 with His own person, and furthermore described as satisfying the 
 hunger of His people, and as quenching their thirst (ver. 35).
 
 272 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Then, after meeting several cavils of the multitude, He takes up 
 the same thought, but makes an advance upon it, by connecting 
 the life with His atoning death (vers. 51-57). He had connected 
 the life with His person ; He next connects it with His atoning 
 work, or with Himself as crucified. The whole section is thus 
 in the highest degree important ; setting forth that the bread of 
 life is the Lord Himself as crucified, or Christ presented to us 
 and received in the capacity of an atoning substitute for others. 
 
 As the exposition of these verses is very various, and discussed 
 in the interest of different tendencies, we must define their im- 
 port. The controversies carried on in reference to the Supper 
 brought them under discussion in a sacramental light from the 
 earliest times. Hence it will be necessary to show, before we ad- 
 vance, wiiat they do not mean, as well as what they do mean, 
 that we may guard against such comments as either unduly limit, 
 or pervert and misstate, the force of the words. 
 
 1. The expressions cannot refer to the Lord's Supper, which, 
 indeed, was not yet instituted. The symbolic language used in 
 both is very similar : the underlying thoughts are also the same ; 
 and therefore the tendency was by no means unnatural, especially 
 at a time when men began to over-magnify the Supper, to de- 
 scribe its symbolic actions as finding their truth here, and coin- 
 ciding with these deep references, which exhibit the spiritual 
 mind acting itself out upon Christ crucified. x But it is by no 
 means probable that Jesus, when He stood before this unbelieving 
 multitude in the synagogue of Capernaum, and replied to their 
 manifold cavils, had the Supper in His view. 
 
 The eating and drinking are adduced as figurative actions, and 
 the terms give no warrant for the exaggeration of sacramental 
 language, as if there was, or could be, any oral eating of the flesh 
 of Christ. The whole previous context is a bold use of apt and 
 significant figures ; and it would be against all the laws of con- 
 nection and analogy, were we to adopt the literal sense at this 
 point, when the discourse flows on continuously. When we com- 
 
 1 This patristic comment has descended through the Greek and Romish churches.
 
 CHRIST GIVING HIS FLESH FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD. 273 
 
 pare these verses with the language held by our Lord at the 
 institution of the Supper, there can be no doubt that they both 
 refer to the vicarious sacrifice, and exhibit that crucified flesh as 
 the food and nourishment of His people. But the allusion here 
 is not to be interpreted in a sacramental sense. 
 
 2. Some refer these words, " I am the living bread," to the 
 doctrine of Jesus. 1 But it needs few words to prove that our 
 Lord, in this passage, is not giving a confirmation of His doctrine, 
 but directly referring to His sacrifice, or to the atonement offered 
 for sin in the room and stead of others. They who view the 
 death of Christ in no other light than as an attestation to the 
 truth, are of course compelled to make the doctrine of Jesus, and 
 not His death, their sole nourishment ; or they add, perhaps, the 
 example of His perfect human life. But, underlying this com- 
 ment, is a low view of Christ's person and mission, and a decided 
 tendency to regard His death as not embraced in the grand pur- 
 pose of redemption, the objective counterpart to our subjective 
 faith, but as the casual result of those efforts which He put forth 
 in His capacity as a great teacher. And an equally shallow 
 notion is entertained as to the LIFE here mentioned, which ought 
 to be interpreted as nothing short of a new creation. To meet 
 all such perversions, it may suffice to state, that, in the context, 
 the Saviour roundly sets forth, not His doctrine, not His example, 
 not His system of ethics, but His flesh offered in sacrifice as the 
 life of the world. 
 
 3. A third interpretation is that which refers this language to 
 the incarnation as the sole channel for the communication of life. 
 Life is thus regarded as the one design of His mission, and as an 
 absolute gift. Those interpreters who maintain that a new 
 principle of life stands connected with the incarnation, will have 
 it, that there is no immediate reference in this passage to the 
 death of Christ, but only an invitation to partake of Him by 
 faith in the entire saving manifestation of Himself in the flesh. 
 
 1 So Grotius on ver. 51. And the argument is taken from the style of the 
 Jewish teachers, who call it doctrine bread. 
 
 S
 
 274 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 According to this view, which is the expression of a widespread 
 modern school, which calls itself believing, Christ's death is not 
 vicarious, "but merely the condition for the communication of the 
 saving efficacy of His divine life. 1 It is only the last step in His 
 own preparation or personal self-sanctification to be the life-giver. 
 Thus, not the death of Christ, but the fulness of the divine life 
 residing in Him, and communicated absolutely, becomes the 
 nourishment of His people to life eternal. According to this 
 interpretation, the language is not an expression for His death, 
 but for His whole appearance in the flesh for the life of the 
 world. And the Lord's death comes into consideration, in no 
 other light than as the climax of His holy dedication to God. 
 But this is opposed to the whole phraseology of the passage, 
 which assumes that there is a violent death, separating flesh and 
 blood. 
 
 4. Having noticed in order these defective interpretations, it 
 remains that we fix the true interpretation of the words, and 
 especially their reference to His atoning work. The Lord opens 
 the section by a phrase, which, in the original, means that some- 
 thing is said in an explanatory way, while yet the statement is 
 marked out as something new. 2 
 
 As the multitude whom our Lord addressed were the same 
 persons who had witnessed His miracle of the loaves, and as 
 they were going up to the passover (v. 4), it is probable that He 
 drew this peculiar style of address from the sacrifice of which 
 they were going to partake. He intimated, in effect, that He 
 was the reality of the sacrifice, that the paschal lamb was but the 
 shadow, and that they must, with much more eagerness than 
 they looked forward to the passover, eat His flesh and drink His 
 
 1 Liicke and De Wette support this interpretation ; and it is held by all who 
 support the mystic theory of the atonement, mentioned by us in the previous 
 section. But they are not entitled to claim Clemens and Origen as supporters of it. 
 
 2 teal 8 has this meaning. See Tholuck, Liicke, Winer. Again, as to the words 
 T)I/ tyu Suffw, which are awanting in Cod. tfBCDTLT, they are not to be sus- 
 pected, as they have sufficient evidence in their favour. The omission of them 
 arose, probably, from the previous dv eyw Swau, some transcriber thinking them a 
 repetition.
 
 CHKIST GIVING HIS FLESH FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD. 275 
 
 blood. The declaration that they must drink His blood must 
 have sounded strange in the ears of a Jewish company, accustomed 
 to look with peculiar awe on blood. But the difficulty is much 
 diminished, when we reflect that they were on their way to offer 
 the paschal sacrifice, and that He virtually said to them, " I am 
 the substance or reality of that type." The passage, thus viewed, 
 conveys a series of arguments as to the connection between the 
 atonement and the divine life. They are to be pondered in their 
 connection as well as in their isolation, as separate statements. 
 The first announces the necessity of eating His flesh (ver. 53); 
 the second shows that it is effectual in every case (ver. 54) ; the 
 third brings out the truth that His crucified body is the true 
 bread, or bread indeed (ver. 55); the fourth portrays, that in con- 
 sequence of eating it, a vital union is maintained between Christ 
 and all His people (ver. 56); and the fifth shows that His disciples, 
 eating of His crucified flesh, enter into His reward, and participate 
 with Him in His premial life (ver. 57). But a few preliminary 
 remarks may be necessary here in order to place the subject of the 
 divine life in its proper light and to trace it in its organic connec- 
 tion with that which must be regarded as its meritorious cause. 
 
 a. The inquiry into the proper import of the term LIFE, as 
 used by Christ, is in the highest degree important, in the 
 present state of exegetical research. That it holds a primary 
 place in Christ's teaching, and belongs to the fundamental truths 
 of Christianity, must be evident to all who have devoted any 
 attention to the words of Christ or His apostles. Little aid, it 
 has been well remarked, is supplied in this investigation by the 
 lexicographers of the New Testament language, as they too 
 much deposit in the words only the opinions of modern times. 1 
 
 1 Thus Olsliausen expresses himself, after pointing out the superficial explana- 
 tions of fwfj given by Schleusner, of whom he says: "At omnino virum 
 doctissimum ignorasse, quid sit farj interpretations passim ab ipso propositse 
 aperte decent." See Olshausen, de notione vocis fwr; in libris N. T., in his 
 Opuscula Theologica, 1834, p. 185 ; also Briickner, de notione vods far) quce in 
 N. T. libris legitur, Comnientatio, Lips. 1858. I may also refer to the brief 
 Exegetisch-Dogmatisehe Entwickelung der N. T. Begriffe von far) dvdffTao-is und
 
 276 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 The doctrine of Jesus, as derived from this and cognate sayings, 
 may be given in a few words, though the subject is too wide to 
 be fully entered upon in the present discussion. He presup- 
 poses man as without life, in the high and proper sense of the 
 term, nay, as alienated from the life of God. The language 
 which Jesus holds on the subject of spiritual life takes for 
 granted that we are involved in death ; the term employed by 
 Him to designate that separation from God which sin involves 
 (John v. 24), and which is denned as the condition where men 
 have not the love of God in them (John v. 42). This leaves 
 the heart vacant for any sinful substitute. The fact that life is 
 procured and imparted by the Lord, presupposes a condition of 
 spiritual death. For, according to a canon, of easy and universal 
 application, constantly applied by Augustin and Calvin in their 
 interpretation of the divine word, whatever is freely provided 
 and bestowed by God, is a something of which man is destitute, 
 considered in himself. 
 
 &. As to this spiritual life which the Lord came to restore, 
 it consists in reunion to God, and in that inward renovation 
 or new creation which is consequent on reunion to God, the 
 fountain of life. The incarnate Son, having life in Himself, as 
 the Father has life in Himself, and able, on this account, to act 
 the part of a mediator (John v. 26), interposed between a dead 
 humanity and its Creator, in order to be a new source of life. 
 The eternal life was manifested (1 John i. 1-3) ; and that which 
 had been intercepted by sin was again communicated. The 
 
 Kplcris, by Dr. A. Maier, Freiburg, 1840 ; and to Eauwenhoffs treatise, De Vita, 
 in homine ceterna, peccato oppressa a Christo restituta, Leidse, 1857. Biit more 
 important and profound than any or all of these is Vitringa's sketch of the 
 spiritual life, in his Typus Theologice practica sive de Vita Spirituali, Franeq. 
 1716. It is the more necessary to refer to these discussions and treatises on this 
 subject, as the whole current of modern theology runs in this direction, and all 
 depends on the true idea of LIFE, which, after all, is of a superficial character in 
 the Schleiermacherian theology. One sentence of Vitringa may be quoted to show 
 how strongly he insisted upon the point ignored by the new theology : " Primus 
 respectus in vita spiritual! est causte ejus meritorise quam Scriptura ostendit esse 
 obedientiam Filii Dei ab ipso secundum leges seterni pacti cum Patre initi prsesti- 
 tam ad mortem, imo ad mortem crucis." (Cap. iii. p. 27.)
 
 CHKIST GIVING HIS FLESH FOE THE LIFE OF THE WORLD. 277 
 
 term LIFE denotes much more than deliverance from misery. 
 It means, as used by our Lord and His apostles, the restoration 
 of something that had been forfeited, nay, something higher than 
 the primeval life of Adam. Nor will it suffice to say that it 
 implies no more than a restored right to life. For though some 
 identify forgiveness and quickening, as used by the sacred writers 
 (CoL ii. 13), an accurate examination of the passages where the 
 words occur, will satisfy every man that life is consequent upon 
 forgiveness, or the reward for a service rendered. It is the 
 accepted person that has passed from death to life (John v. 24). 
 Christ describes Himself as the life (xiv. 6), and as having 
 life in Himself (v. 26). And He has become incarnate for the 
 purpose of imparting the Life which He has and which He is 
 (xii. 50). He describes Himself accordingly as dispensing the 
 bread of life (vi. 35) and the water of life (iv. 10) ; and they 
 who abide in Him and follow Him, are described as having the 
 light of life (viii. 12). He thus nourishes those who partake of 
 the bread of life. But it was not by His incarnation or by His 
 personal appearance alone that He became the Life of the world. 
 He is the resurrection and the life to unnumbered millions of 
 redeemed men (John xi. 25), only as He laid down His life that 
 He might take it again (x. 17). That He might be in a position 
 to give life to those whose persons were under condemnation 
 and whose natures were alienated from the life of God, He must 
 needs give His flesh for the life of the world (vi 51). As the 
 Righteousness and Life, He was able to overcome sin and death : 
 but He must needs subject Himself to the penalty of death by 
 taking on Himself the guilt which had been the cause of sepa- 
 rating between God and man. It is as the Lamb of God that 
 He gives life to the world (i. 29). Only the Good Shepherd 
 who gave His life for the sheep (x. 15) is in a position to bring 
 back life to those who are dead in trespasses and sins. Many 
 are the passages and various are the terms which are used by 
 Him to express the same idea. He has presented Himself to 
 us as the great personal sacrifice who in His twofold capacity as
 
 278 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 priest and sacrifice, sanctified Himself for His own (xvii. 19) ; 
 as the friend who with greater love than human friendship ever 
 knew laid down His life for His friends (xv. 13) ; as the true 
 Paschal Lamb sacrificed for us (xix. 36) ; as the grain of wheat 
 which falling into the ground and dying cannot abide alone 
 (xii. 24) ; as the Saviour of the world (iv. 42) ; as the substi- 
 tute who was in the divine purpose to die not for the Jewish 
 nation alone, but that the children of God might be gathered 
 into one (xi. 51) ; as the only-begotten Son who was given 
 up to death to deliver others from death and bring them to 
 everlasting life (iii. 16). He commends Himself to us as the 
 eternal life personally considered, as the meritorious cause of 
 life, as the dispenser of life ; and he who believes in Him hath 
 everlasting life (John v. 24). Faith is, in one aspect of it, the 
 outcome of this new life, and in another the means or instru- 
 ment by which it is received. Life, in a word, is, in its divine 
 side, nothing but the immanence of Christ, or the abiding presence 
 of Christ in a believing heart ; and the life develops itself in 
 love, and light, joy, and holiness. But this testimony of the 
 Lord emphatically declares that the supply of life, far from 
 being an absolute or an unpurchased gift, was possible only by 
 means of His atonement; that it was secured by a work of 
 obedience; and that it is forfeited no more. Not only the 
 primeval life which was enjoyed in fellowship with God is 
 restored, but the premial life which awaited man after a period 
 of probation, and which would have been conferred had he con- 
 tinued in his first estate, is procured and conferred by the atone- 
 ment of the incarnate Son in the room of sinners. In securing 
 
 o 
 
 this result, the Prince of Life encountered death, and rendered 
 an equivalent for the guilt of mankind ; for the dominion of 
 death could give place to a reign of life in no other w T ay. And 
 they who, through the influence of modern speculations, regard 
 Christ only as a great teacher, or a mere example, have never 
 understood the impediment to be surmounted, nor the reversal 
 of the curse which was required.
 
 CHRIST GIVING HIS FLESH FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD. 279 
 
 The Lord expressly declares, that He GAVE His FLESH by an 
 act of self-oblation for the life of the world ; and the uniform 
 sense of the expression denotes a priestly act of oblation (Gal. 
 i. 4 ; Eph. v. 2). Hence we may say, that, as the fall brought 
 death, so the atonement has brought life ; and that the restora- 
 tion of life, forfeited by sin, was the express design or end of 
 Christ's atoning work. The atonement had specially in view, 
 among other objects contemplated in the divine counsels, to 
 quicken those who were alienated from the life of God, and thus 
 to confer a premial life. Thus God pours in a new life upon 
 dead humanity from the crucified flesh of Christ, to be forfeited 
 no more. 
 
 c. But the Lord Jesus next proceeds to speak of the " eating 
 of His flesh " and of the " drinking of His blood." That the 
 language is metaphorical, scarcely needs to be proved. The 
 expressions, the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood, 
 are used interchangeably with believing in the previous context 
 (vers. 35, 40, 47), and they must be so accepted here. These 
 figurative terms imply that men are to believe on Him as giving 
 His flesh for the life of the world, and that they are to receive 
 the atonement with the same eagerness with which a hungry 
 man partakes of food. The doctrine of Christ's sacrifice is the 
 principal matter in the way of procuring the donation of spiritual 
 life ; and it is never ignored in any of those inward blessings of 
 renovation, love, growth, zeal, and strength, which are compre- 
 hended in the spiritual life, and go to make up our idea of this 
 life. It is unwarrantable, then, to interpret this figurative 
 "eating" as the general reception of the truth, without any 
 special appropriation of the atoning death of Christ. On the 
 contrary, it is Christ's atonement, or His crucified flesh, with 
 which faith is first occupied, for the purpose of attaining this 
 inner life. And the Lord virtually says, " By this sacrifice of 
 mine I procure Life ; and, not only so, I become, the true Bread 
 of Life ; and every one who will live appropriates my atonement 
 as offered for the life of the world."
 
 280 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 This language implies, that the atonement not only holds the 
 most important place in the moral government of God, but that, 
 in an individual point of view, sin must be atoned for, and the 
 person accepted, before there is, or can be, free course for the 
 communication of life. It is not only an expedient in the 
 general scheme of God's moral rule, but a personal necessity as 
 well. And this latter point of view, too much omitted or merged 
 in the general one, is the special truth on which the emphasis 
 is laid in this testimony of our Lord. Thus the words, " eating the 
 flesh and drinking the blood " of Christ for life, announce that we 
 do not bring, but receive ; that we do not work for life, but enter 
 into a finished work, the already accomplished death of Christ. 
 
 But as faith is figuratively represented by eating and drinking, 
 we may ask, How is the analogy between the two to be defined ? 
 It is as follows : As food has a nourishing property, and effec- 
 tually acts upon the life, the crucified Christ stands in the same 
 relation. The most nutritive food cannot avail, unless we 
 partake of it ; and no one is benefited by Christ's death, unless 
 we believe on Him as crucified for us. Faith has, in this way, 
 the same relation to the spiritual life that the eating of bread 
 has to the temporal life ; for faith is the means of receiving and 
 enjoying the life-giving property of His death ; and no figure 
 could more strikingly set forth the necessity of faith. 
 
 Enough has been brought out to show that the atonement of 
 Christ is offered for the life of the world, and that, to have life, 
 men must eat that crucified flesh ; in other words, must believe 
 that redemption and acceptance are effected by His atoning 
 death. This is put in a personal rather than in a general light 
 in the passage under consideration. As to the subsequent verses, 
 as our object was only to gather up this testimony into a focus, 
 we shall but briefly notice them. 
 
 (1.) In the saying, "He that eateth my flesh HATH eternal 
 life," the emphasis is laid specially upon the present tense. The 
 firm and secure possession of life is founded on what He 
 obtained by His atonement for His people.
 
 CHRIST GIVING HIS FLESH FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD. 281 
 
 (2.) This crucified flesh of Christ, and His blood poured 
 out, are designated true bread and drink, or that essential food 
 that comes up to the idea (ver. 55). Or if we apply the allu- 
 sion to the food of the sacrifices, it will mean that He was their 
 great antitype or reality. Whatever can be affirmed of food 
 may be affirmed in a still higher significance of Him ; for if food 
 is the God-appointed means for sustaining natural life, that 
 crucified flesh was the only means for imparting and sustaining, 
 in the higher sense, the spiritual life. 
 
 (3.) This participation, furthermore, brings union of the closest 
 kind (ver. 56). The passage intimates that the Lord becomes 
 united to His people in the same way as he wEo eats is united 
 to the food he eats. And Christ, on His part, most closely 
 unites Himself to them. They are so joined in their life and 
 fortunes as to be for ever one, not only in this world, but in the 
 world to come. Plainly, the figure is continued ; and the allusion 
 intimates that food, so assimilated, sustains the receiver's life. 
 
 (4.) The Lord winds up the passage by the remarkable utter- 
 ance already explained by us in a previous section ; " he that 
 eateth Me, even he shall live on account of Me" (ver. 57). The 
 statement is, that His people live because of Him, or on His 
 account, as the possessor of a premial life, which is conferred 
 upon Him as the due reward of His mission. " He that eateth 
 Me shall live on my account," is the proper translation of the 
 words ; and they will bear no other sense. 
 
 A few words will suffice to exhibit the peculiar character of 
 this life of God. Thus in one passage the Lord puts Life and the 
 knowledge of God in a connection which demands a strict in- 
 vestigation ; " this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the 
 only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent " (John 
 xvii. 3). What does that passage mean ? Many accept it as 
 meaning that the knowledge of God and of His Christ is the 
 way to eternal salvation. They think this exposition simple 
 and obvious, and argue that no reason exists for accepting an- 
 other interpretation of the passage, as it forcibly contrasts
 
 282 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the Christian religion, both with the folly of the Gentiles 
 in worshipping many gods, and with the error of the Jews in 
 refusing to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ. It is not denied 
 that we may give the passage a sufficiently appropriate sense on 
 this acceptation, if we understand a knowledge which produces 
 a salutary influence on the heart and walk. But confessedly 
 this gives no exact meaning to the final particle (IVa). Nay, it 
 ignores the particle of design altogether. Hence another expo- 
 sition may be accepted which is more strict and faithful to the 
 import of the words, as follows : " This is life eternal, that they 
 may (are destined to) know Thee." According to this interpre- 
 tation, which is preferable, we conclude that eternal life consists 
 in a clear and purified knowledge of God, and of His Son who 
 was sent into the world to save sinners. The truth. imperfectly 
 known here shall hereafter be fully perceived by the saved, and God 
 shall be fully glorified by them. The main scope of Christ's labours 
 was to make men know God, and to fill them with the homage 
 and adoration due to Him ; but as this knowledge should ever be 
 defective here, a perfect knowledge of the Father and of Christ, 
 and of the near relation between them, awaits them hereafter. 
 
 This life may be defined on the one side by the in-being of 
 Christ in His people (Eph. iii. 17), and by their inseparable union 
 to Him (John xiv. 20). And to know this in an increasing 
 measure constitutes no small portion of their vital exercise. 
 Ushered into the gracious presence of their God who is the 
 fountain of life, they receive a divine life, which unfolds itself 
 even here below, in an enlightened understanding, in an ardent 
 love, and in a joyful hope. 
 
 The new life is seen in the understanding, the eye of the soul, 
 as it finds scope for unwearied contemplation on the perfections 
 of the Creator, on the person, offices, relations, and works of 
 the Eedeemer, and on the mission of the Comforter. And 
 though at first touching but the surface of things, the mind is 
 step by step enlarged, and led to survey the treasures of wisdom 
 and knowledge in the Lord.
 
 RELATION OF THE ATONEMENT TO OTHER INTERESTS. 283 
 
 Another degree of the divine life may be discerned in the 
 ardent love which fills the soul as with a penetrating flame. 
 This stimulates them to embrace and extol the glorious Father, 
 who Himself is described as love. They come, in part, to live the 
 life of God who is love (1 John iv. 16). 
 
 And from all this arises an unspeakable joy, another aspect of 
 this life in God ; for as sorrow is the death of the soul, so joy 
 unspeakable and full of glory is the soul's life. 1 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RELATION OF THE ATONEMENT TO OTHER INTERESTS IN 
 THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 SEC. XXXIV. TESTIMONIES SHOWING- THE RELATION OF THE 
 ATONEMENT TO OTHER INTERESTS IN THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 HAVING considered the sayings of Christ, which show the 
 effects of the atonement on the individual, both in an objective 
 and subjective point of view, we have next to consider it in its 
 bearing on other interests and relations in the universe. It 
 must be regarded as a narrow and unbiblical theory, which 
 limits the whole effects of the atonement to man. Though the 
 objective acceptance of our persons, and the inward renovation 
 of our natures, together with the provision for a life of worship, 
 which we have already exhibited from particular sayings of 
 Jesus, may be considered as the proximate results, as they may 
 be said to be the first and main concern of sinful creatures, yet 
 these are by no means all the effects that were contemplated by 
 the atonement, or are accomplished by it. It will be found 
 that our Lord constantly spoke, with His eye upon all the 
 relations of the universe, and with the consciousness that His 
 work had a reference to them all. Those utterances from His 
 lips emphatically show that He realized them all, and that He 
 
 1 See the last chapter of Vitringa's excellent treatise, De Vita Spiritvali,
 
 284 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 lived amid these various relations, in a way very little appre- 
 hended by us. 
 
 The atonement the great central fact in the history of the 
 world had a perceptible influence on all the relations which 
 may be said to meet on the earth, or to have any connection 
 with mundane things. Thus, (1) the atonement has an intimate 
 connection with the overthrow of Judaism and the temple- 
 worship, to pave the way for Christ's kingdom being set up in 
 its new form on the earth. The cross is the basis or the sole 
 foundation of His throne ; for it was not upon His teaching, or 
 upon His example, that His kingdom was reared, but upon His 
 atoning work. (2) This atonement was the great foundation of 
 Christ's relation to the sheep ; it giving the Shepherd a flock, 
 and laying the basis of the whole relation between His flock and 
 Him. (3) The atonement makes a pathway for the communi- 
 cation of the Spirit, which a fallen race could not otherwise 
 have possessed. (4) The atonement of the Lord, or the finished 
 work of redemption, glorifies God on the earth, or gives the 
 supreme God the glory due to His name, as the tribute or. 
 revenue from His creatures. (5) The Lord Jesus, by means of 
 His humiliation unto death, opened heaven, and brought men 
 and angels, heretofore separated and estranged, into a new rela- 
 tion. (6) The atonement is called the judgment of the world, 
 and the victory by which the Lord overcame the world. (7) 
 The atoning death of Jesus is declared to have judged and cast 
 out the prince of this world. (8) It overcomes the power of 
 death and the fear of death. 
 
 Thus, the atonement is represented by our Lord as having a 
 most decisive influence upon all these various interests. In a 
 word, it is the central fact of God's present procedure or moral 
 rule in the universe, and that on which all depends. Its effect 
 is felt also to the widest circumference and ramification of 
 mundane relations. The fall and the atonement thus constitute 
 the two facts or pivots of human history, they are the turning- 
 points of the world's destiny ; and as there are but two repre-
 
 THE TEMPLE OF GOD EAISED BY CHRIST'S DYING. 285 
 
 sentative men, as well as two facts in history, and two families 
 under these two heads, the deeds of these two, in their repre- 
 sentative position, may be said to decide upon the fortunes of all 
 connected with them ; that is, may be said conclusively to deter- 
 mine their lot. 
 
 "We shall briefly notice, but not quite in the above-named 
 order, the effect or influence of the atonement on all these other 
 interests in the universe. 
 
 SEC. XXXV. THE DEATH OF CHRIST IN CONNECTION WITH THE 
 RAISING OF THE TEMPLE OF GOD. 
 
 " Destroy [break down] this temple, and in three days I will 
 raise it up." (John ii. 19.) 
 
 The allusions which were made to His death in the early part 
 of our Lord's ministry were, for the most part, darker and less 
 obvious than they afterwards became. It was His aim, during 
 the course of His teaching, not to anticipate unduly the his- 
 toric course of events, but rather to furnish matter which might 
 serve to enable His disciples, after the accomplishment of events, 
 to compare His sayings with the fact of His atoning death. 
 
 The passage under our consideration has not been sufficiently 
 viewed, as it should have been, in connection with the doctrine 
 of the atonement. It will be found, however, when understood 
 aright, to contain a most important testimony, whether we look 
 at the nature or at the effects of Christ's redemption-work. It 
 declares not only that Christ had power to lay down His life 
 and to restore it, but also that His death should found a new 
 theocracy and a new worship. It is much akin, therefore, to 
 the saying, spoken in connection with the institution of the 
 Supper, that His blood, shed for many for the remission of sins, 
 should found the new covenant. These two testimonies have 
 much in common ; and this passage may be called a key to all 
 those sayings, both diversified and frequently recurring, which
 
 286 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 either describe Christ as the head of the corner (Acts iv. 11), or 
 display a spiritual temple (Eph. ii. 21), or set forth a new gospel 
 worship (Heb. viii. 13). But it will be necessary, first of all, to 
 ascertain the exact meaning of the words, and to apprehend the 
 proper point of them, before we consider their import or scope as 
 a testimony to the atonement. 
 
 The occasion which gave rise to this declaration was as follows : 
 The Lord had purified the temple by a very arresting display of 
 holy zeal for His Father's house, the first time He appeared in it 
 after the commencement of His public ministry. The Jews of 
 all classes, as well as the actual desecrators, had been paralyzed 
 and awe-struck by this display of zeal ; but they no sooner re- 
 covered themselves, than they demanded from Him some sign or 
 miracle to warrant this assumption of authority; seeming to 
 indicate that they would not call it in question, if He could show 
 His authorization, or furnish evidence that He came with a divine 
 commission. Our Lord gave them a fit sign, though a future 
 one, a sign not foreign to His Messianic work, but constituting 
 its very essence, and which, when it should occur, would fully 
 vindicate His authority for the step which He had just taken. 
 But He couches the remark in highly typical language, and takes 
 for granted that the hostility of the Jews, then indicated for 
 the first time, would never cease till they had compassed His 
 death. 
 
 This was a saying of which the Jews could never afterwards 
 get rid. They well saw, that though they could not penetrate 
 into its full significance, the statement contained a deeply my- 
 sterious meaning, and one that foreboded the overthrow of their 
 temple. We find that, three years afterwards, the false witnesses 
 at the trial of Jesus bring up this remark in an incorrect form, 
 one witness alleging that He said, " I will destroy" (Mark 
 xiv. 58) ; another representing Him as saying, " I am able to 
 destroy" (Matt. xxvi. 61). A second time we hear it in the 
 taunting words addressed to Him as He hung on the cross : 
 " Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days,
 
 THE TEMPLE OF GOD RAISED BY CHRIST'S DYING. 287 
 
 save Thyself, and come down from the cross" (Mark xv. 29). A 
 third echo of it we discover in the precaution to set a watch at 
 His grave, because He had foretold His resurrection on the third 
 day (Matt, xxvii. 63). A fourth time it is recalled, in connection 
 with the trial and martyrdom of Stephen (Acts vi. 13, 14). In 
 a word, they could not shake it off. And the narrative of John, 
 written subsequently to the other Gospels and filling up what 
 was awanting at many points, gives us the original saying to 
 which all these references are made. 
 
 To these words of the Lord the evangelist appends his inspired 
 commentary : " He spake of the temple of His body ; " which 
 must be held to be conclusive as to the true significance and 
 import of the saying. The perverted meaning or false construc- 
 tion put upon the saying by the Jews would seem to need no 
 refutation as running counter to John's narrative and comment ; 
 and we should have thought that every Christian would at once 
 reject k it. But, strange to say, not a few modern interpreters 1 
 have ventured to go so far as to call in question the correctness 
 of John's comment, to. repudiate his explanation, and to put 
 upon the words of Jesus a meaning which is very much akin to 
 the false interpretation of the Jews, who sometimes blindly, and 
 not unfrequently by design, were wont to pervert His language. 
 But there cannot be two opinions, on the part of any man imbued 
 with adequate ideas of inspiration, as to the authority of John's 
 commentary, as to the unwarrantableness of expounding the 
 Saviour's words after this rationalistic fashion ; that is, of ex- 
 pounding them merely to the effect that He was going to break 
 down the old form of religion, and to erect in its room and stead 
 a better and more spiritual religion within a short space of time. 
 That exposition, to which some devout minds 2 have unhappily 
 adhered, is untenable in every light in which it can be regarded, 
 whether we look at the words themselves, which will not bear 
 
 1 Herder was the first to begin this false interpretation. 
 
 8 This lax view is held by Neander in his Life of Jesus, by Liicke on John, and 
 by Bleek. On the other hand, Oostersee, in his Leven van Jesus, p. 61, strongly 
 maintains the opposite. _,
 
 288 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 it, or at the authority of the evangelist, as a few remarks will 
 suffice to show. (1) The Lord Jesus does not speak of a short 
 space of time, but of the three days between His death and His 
 resurrection ; (2) He does not speak of one temple broken down, 
 and of another and a different one raised up, but of His own 
 body ; and then, (3) as to the accuracy of the evangelist, we 
 must hold that, writing, as he did, under the plenary guidance 
 of the Spirit, he unquestionably gives us the true scope and 
 import of the words. 
 
 But while we must abide most strictly by the comment of the 
 inspired evangelist, as literally accurate, this by no means pre- 
 cludes all other reference to the stone temple as a type ; and 
 this ulterior reference must, we think, be included, if we would 
 expound it aright. There was a one-sidedness in the view of 
 almost all the older commentators, at least thus far, that they 
 forbore to connect any further meaning with the words; and 
 that, while correctly enough expounding them according to the 
 leading thread supplied by John, they stopped short at a point, 
 where the sense is not exhausted. They saw no allusion to the 
 material temple. They satisfied themselves with a supposed 
 metaphor, some accepting it, as did the patristic writers, as a 
 fitting figure or metaphor to portray the incarnation, 1 others 
 bringing together similar phrases descriptive of the human body, 
 either from Jewish or classical antiquity. They thus lost sight 
 of the type, and omitted the link between the shadow and the 
 substance. But we are warranted to hold that the Lord con- 
 nected a further meaning with His words ; and this interpreta- 
 tion is absolutely necessary, if the sign or miracle given to 
 warrant Christ's assumption of authority on that occasion was to 
 have any connection with the act which it was meant to sanc- 
 tion. 2 It will not do to assert that Jesus does not elsewhere call 
 
 1 Thus, in the Nestorian discussions, it was much canvassed whether the person 
 of Christ was only the inhabited temple of God, or v abs. 
 
 2 The modern, commentators are generally disposed to take in this additional 
 idea, e.g. Hengstenberg, Luthardt, Schrnid, Biblische Theologie N. T. p. 223, 
 Lange, Stier, Riggenbach ; and it is necessary to accept some such further refer- 
 ence, from the fact we have stated above.
 
 THE TEMPLE OF GOD EAISED BY CHRIST'S DYING. 289 
 
 His body the temple (see, however, John i. 14). It cannot be 
 forgotten that the one was the type, and the other the reality 
 as much a type as was the lamb, a pledge, too, and a symbol of 
 God's continued habitation in the midst of the Jews, and also of 
 the acceptance of their worship. Thus He said on one occasion : 
 in this place is one greater than the temple (Matt, xii. 6). The 
 fate of that temple, and the fate of the religion that stood con- 
 nected with it, and was, in a manner, based upon it, was decided 
 by the fate of Christ's body. There was a deep connection be- 
 tween the two, though unintelligible to the Jews. 
 
 NOT was this an unheard of consummation, of which no inti- 
 mation had been given. Christ had been foretold in prophecy 
 as the builder of the temple of the Lord (Zech. vi. 12) ; and the 
 present passage shows that He laid its foundation in His atoning 
 death. The atonement stood related to it as cause to effect, 
 no atonement, no temple or dwelling-place of God among men. 
 But here God and man meet here heaven and earth are joined; 
 this is the gate of heaven for man, and this the place of con- 
 descending revelation and communication for God ; for in Christ, 
 as the true temple, dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily 
 (Col. ii. 9). 
 
 All this is made more obvious by the allusions to the 
 tabernacle or temple; which had been a visible pledge of 
 God's covenant relation to Israel, and of His actual residence 
 among them, not indeed in the local sense for in that sense He 
 is not confined to heaven itself, but in the sense of free and 
 gracious manifestation. The temple had been the place of reve- 
 lation, the audience-chamber where He received His people's 
 supplications, and heard them, and to which they turned, when 
 far away from it; the seat of rule from which He governed; 
 the place of worship where His people communed with Him, and 
 He with them. All this had been due to one fact, that there 
 was instituted in it a blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, or propitiatory; 
 and there He dwelt between the cherubim. Now, it is on this 
 same ground, and for this same reason, that Christ is to mankind
 
 290 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the true temple or the dwelling-place of God. His body cruci- 
 fied and risen, is the one medium of communion between God 
 and man, as well as between man and God ; and the acceptance 
 of all gospel worship depends simply on its relation to Him as 
 the sole atonement for sin, and temple of God. 
 
 We have next to notice, however, how far this text may be 
 regarded as supplying a testimony to the atonement, both in its 
 
 NATUKE and EFFECTS. 
 
 1. The words before us, setting forth the voluntary surrender 
 of Christ's life, and the crime of men as accessory to that death, 
 bear witness to the nature of the human instrumentality used 
 in the matter of Christ's atonement. It is not put as a bare 
 future, nor as a merely hypothetical statement, when our Lord 
 says, " destroy," it is a permission, in the course of providence, 
 or a judicial and permissive imperative. That is the true mean- 
 ing, as intimated by the word here used in the imperative, 1 
 " destroy." The meaning is not " if you destroy this temple : " 
 they as a people would not lift a hand against the temple, the 
 centre of their worship. But the meaning is : " Go on in your 
 course of action and accomplish that deed which will prove the 
 overthrow of the theocracy and of the temple, which is its visible 
 symbol and pledge." The theocracy was to go down in the over- 
 throw or dissolution of the temple ; and when we inquire by 
 what act this was to be consummated, the answer is, not by in- 
 creasing and renewed profanations, such as the buying and sell- 
 ing which Jesus checked, but by the rejection of the Messiah. 
 This was intimated in Daniel and Zechariah in terms sufficiently 
 express. Thus Daniel speaks of Messiah being cut off, and the 
 destroying of the city and the sanctuary (Dan. ix. 26). Zechar- 
 iah describes the ruin of the nation under the emblem of de- 
 vouring fire, and the cause of the destruction is there mentioned, 
 the rejection of the Christ, and the price at which they prized 
 
 1 The verb here used, Ma-are, is plainly much more than, if you destroy, 1 will 
 raise up; it is a permissive imperative, like TrX^/jcio-are TO ptrpov (Matt, xxiii. 32), 
 (John. xiii. 27).
 
 THE TEMPLE OF GOD RAISED BY CHRIST'S DYING. 291 
 
 Him (Zech. xi. 1-13). To kill the Prince of Life, and to destroy 
 the theocracy and the temple, were thus synonymous and coin- 
 cident. By cutting off the Messiah, their national covenant- 
 standing was to cease, and the kingdom of God was to be taken 
 from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof 
 (Matt. xxi. 43). 
 
 The whole phraseology implies that the Lord possessed a full 
 and independent dominion over His own life ; that the Jews 
 could not break down that temple of His body without receiving 
 leave or permission from Himself; and that both its dissolution 
 and its re- erection were equally at His own disposal. The argu- 
 ment is cogent, and it is obviously this : If He could raise up 
 that temple by His own divine Sonship, or by the omnipotent 
 fiat of His divine nature, it indisputably follows, that His life, 
 without leave from Himself, could not have been taken from 
 Him. The " I " is necessarily different from the temple, and 
 also distinct from the human soul ; plainly alluding to Him who 
 was in the beginning with God. So voluntary was the Lord, 
 indeed, in every step connected with the atonement, that nothing 
 befell Him, or could befall, which He did not perfectly foresee, 
 and cheerfully consent to undergo. Of all the beings in the 
 universe, He alone had perfect and unchallengeable power over 
 Himself, whether respect is had to His giving up to death the 
 body which He had taken into union with Himself, or to the fact 
 of raising it up again. 
 
 But the words contain, too, a further reference to the flagrant 
 crime of the Jews in putting Him to death. This allusion re- 
 quires no little delicacy and precision in our exposition. To 
 what peculiar phase of Jewish guilt is allusion here made ? 
 Our Lord does not refer in this place to the fact that He was 
 appointed to be cut off by violence at the hand of men as con- 
 trasted with dying on His bed, or with being struck down by 
 the bolt of God. Though the atonement specially consisted in 
 what was inflicted upon the substitute by the hand of God, it 
 is always taken for granted whether we look at the terms of
 
 292 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the first promise in the garden, 1 or at the language of all type and 
 prophecy that He was to die by a violent death, and die by 
 human hands. But that is not to be regarded as the precise 
 idea of the passage. Nor is the remark designed to show merely 
 the enormity or virulence of sin in general ; though the treat- 
 ment of the incarnate Son shows that sin is of such a character, 
 that it rises even to Deicide when a proper occasion occurs, and 
 that instead of hailing perfect virtue in its human ideal, and 
 adoring the fulness of the Godhead bodily, the human heart only 
 discovers all the more its deep enmity. It is true, sin here 
 abounded in its highest conceivable degree, and grace much more 
 abounded in overcoming it. But neither is that the thought. 
 Eather, it is the peculiar sin of the Jewish people in the national 
 rejection of their Messiah, the God of Israel, to which our Lord 
 refers. He intimates a progressive profanation of all that was 
 holy, culminating in the rejection of their divine Messiah ; and 
 He bids them fill up the measure of their profanation. 
 
 We may here trace the various steps of this national rejection. 
 He was the despised and rejected of men, from the very day 
 when He came officially to His own. They could not bear their 
 own theocracy embodied and realized in Jesus. They said, in 
 the language of the parable, " This is the heir; come let us kill 
 Him." This comes out unmistakeably at this first passover, as 
 the context proves. And when Pilate, by a higher guidance, 
 gave a true interpretation or voice to their violence, saying, 
 " Shall I crucify your King ?" they only clamoured the more for 
 His speedy execution, and desired a murderer to be granted to 
 them in preference to their Messiah, the Prince of Life. In this 
 text, then, our Lord, with a full appreciation of their national 
 rejection already indicated and begun, virtually says, " As you 
 have already desecrated the type, go on to break down the reality 
 (Avo-are) ; that is desecrate the temple of your Messiah's body, 
 which is the grand antitype to which the tabernacle and temple 
 
 1 " It shall bruise thy head, and them shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. iii. 15). The 
 same violent death was adumbrated by the sacrifice, which must be killed.
 
 THE TEMPLE OF GOD RAISED BY CHKIST's DYING. 293 
 
 alike pointed, and which gave to this stone temple all its signifi- 
 cance and value." The fate of these two was connected, in the 
 most close and indissoluble manner, as type and antitype ; and 
 hence the rejection of the Christ, ending in His death, was of 
 necessity followed by the outward dissolution of the stone temple, 
 which was now no more the house of God, or the centre of unity for 
 all true worshippers. Our Lord, accordingly, when He took final 
 leave of the temple, to tread its courts no more, calls it their house 
 not His Father's : "your house is left unto you desolate " (Matt, 
 xxiii. 38). But not only so : the fate of that temple was also 
 connected with the national rejection of Israel as the theocratic 
 people who had long been in national covenant with God. Hence- 
 forth, the Sinaitic covenant was to be at an end, and Israel as a 
 nation cast off, till the fulness of the Gentiles should enter (Bom. 
 ii. 25). The kingdom of God was henceforth to be taken from 
 them, and was no more, during the ages of their rejection and 
 dispersion, to have a peculiarly national footing among them. 
 Jerusalem, as well as the Mosaic worship, was to perish in the 
 fall 
 
 2. This passage, moreover, alludes to the effects of the atone- 
 ment, as well as to its nature. With regard to these effects or 
 fruits of Christ's atoning death, they are general as well as per- 
 sonal ; and here we have presented to us a new temple, a new 
 people of God, and a new theocracy, not bounded by the narrow 
 limits of a single nation, but co-extensive with the number of 
 believers out of every tribe and people. The mode of restoring 
 the temple, or of raising it up, must be in keeping with the 
 mode of its dissolution. The temple was the habitation of 
 Jehovah, God of Israel, in a symbolic sense. The Lord's body 
 was the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and therefore 
 the dwelling-place of God in its highest meaning, the meeting- 
 place between God and man. His resurrection body realizes 
 the idea of what was symbolically portrayed in the stone 
 temple. 
 
 Thus the death of Christ, considered as the adequate atone-
 
 294 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 ment for sin, laid tlie true foundation of the universal Church, 
 exploding the narrow particularism of Judaism, and breaking 
 down the middle wall of partition (Eph. ii. 14, 15) ; while the 
 material fabric, though it continued to stand for forty years 
 alongside of the new order of things, had in fact ceased to have 
 any value or validity, and in truth was now become a common 
 place. The person of Christ crucified, the atonement for sin, 
 and risen from the dead, was henceforth to become the great 
 centre of unity, and not the stone temple ; and the Lord virtu- 
 ally said, " I will, by my atoning death, and in my resurrection 
 life, erect the true temple of God, which shall, in the first in- 
 stance, be my risen body, and shall, in the next place (because 
 also called my body), be that great redeemed company of which 
 I am the head and centre." There was thus formed a new 
 temple, and a new people of God, in the midst of which God 
 was henceforth to dwell as in His true sanctuary, and where 
 He was to have His perpetual abode. If the old theocracy was 
 dissolved, and the old national covenant ended as it was made at 
 Sinai, 1 this was only that it might be replaced by a new and a 
 universal one. 
 
 SEC. XXXVI. THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST DECIDING THE JUDICIAL 
 PROCESS TO WHOM THE WORLD SHALL BELONG. 
 
 " Now is the judgment of this world : now shall the prince of this 
 world be cast out." (John xii. 31.) 
 
 This pointed and sententious saying brings out the idea that 
 the atonement was to decide the grand question, or the judicial 
 
 1 Ebrard says (wissenschaftliche Kritik der Evangelischen Geschichte, p. 287) 
 that our Lord understands, by the re-erection, the founding of a new coveiiant 
 effected by His resurrection. I may further add, that this dissolution of the 
 Sinaitic covenant, which was only a temporary economy, did not disamral the 
 promises made to Abraham (Gal. iii. 17), and leaves untouched all the questions 
 as to the constant remnant (Rom. xi. 5), and of their being a holy root (Eom. 
 xi. 17), and beloved (ver. 28), and their final reingrafting, and the new covenant 
 to be made with them (vers. 24-27).
 
 THE ATONEMENT DECIDING CHRIST'S RIGHT TO THE WORLD. 295 
 
 process which had long been pending, as to the party to whom 
 the world should be awarded. It is assumed that this had, as 
 it were, been long under litigation in a court of law, and that it 
 was now to receive its final and irreversible decision in connec- 
 tion with the atonement. 
 
 As to the occasion on which these words were spoken, it was 
 when the Lord made His entry into Jerusalem, and after that 
 soul-trouble by which He had been moved and well-nigh over- 
 borne, a trouble which interrupted His train of thought, and 
 brought home to Him the sense of divine wrath. The terror of 
 death, armed as it was with all the sting and curse of the vio- 
 lated law, and confronted as a very different enemy from what 
 He is to any of His people, could not turn Him aside from the 
 path of obedience. When repose and composure returned, He 
 announced, with the calm consciousness of an already antici- 
 pated victory, that various results or fruits stood in causal con- 
 nection with His death. A whole series of sayings are uttered 
 by Him, not only descriptive of His triumph over the world and 
 over Satan, but also setting forth that His mediatorial dominion 
 and the attractive power by which He should draw sinners to 
 Himself, are all based on His atoning death. Up till now the 
 world had belonged to one who was undoubtedly its lord, and 
 who is called by Christ the prince of this world, in as far as he 
 held it by right of conquest. Not that our Lord, in so speaking, 
 meant to acknowledge His title as either legitimate or irre- 
 versible. He meant that He had succeeded, in virtue of a suc- 
 cessful usurpation, in becoming the world's actual potentate, and 
 in making men His lawful captives. But a new and just adjudi- 
 cation was at hand. This text may be taken as a key to all 
 those passages which represent Christ as the appointed heir of 
 all things (Heb. i 2), and as Lord of all (Acts. x. 36), and as 
 having power over all flesh (John xvii. 2). 
 
 With regard to the expression " the world," we must under- 
 stand it generally. This appears from the fact, that it was 
 uttered by Christ in connection with the arrival of the Greeks
 
 296 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 or Gentiles, who desired to see Him. It is a general name, as 
 here used, taken simply for the world of mankind, irrespective 
 of its condition, or of the usual accessory idea of its being the 
 evil world, whether Jewish or Gentile. Those expositors who 
 limit the allusion to the idea that it is the world rejecting 
 Christ and serving sin, have been swayed by the interpretation 
 which they put upon the word judgment as meaning condemna- 
 tion. But for that interpretation there is no good ground, as 
 we shall immediately show. As the sense depends, however, on 
 an accurate apprehension of the term judgment, we must, first of 
 all, determine its meaning as used in this verse. 
 
 1. Some will have it, that the term judgment in this passage 
 must be taken as denoting condemnation or punishment. 1 They 
 argue, with a certain amount of plausibility, that as Jesus fre- 
 quently uses both the noun and the verb in that acceptation, 
 the word must be so understood in the passage before us (com- 
 pare John iii. 19, John v. 24, John xii. 47, 48). But it must 
 be further observed, that the expositors who so interpret the 
 term are, in great measure, influenced by the sense put upon the 
 conjoined word, " the world," which they regard as the Christ- 
 rejecting world. Sometimes they argue from the word "judg- 
 ment," in order to prove that the term " world " must here mean 
 the Christ-rejecting world. Sometimes, again, they argue from 
 the latter term, understood as has been mentioned above, in 
 order to prove that the judgment must be condemnation. 
 
 2. The judgment here mentioned has been regarded by other 
 expositors as denoting the just sentence executed upon sin, 
 but not upon the sinner himself. 2 An attempt has been made 
 by some able advocates of the atonement, in the true sense, to 
 prove that, in the present passage, the allusion is to the sentence 
 of condemnation upon sin vicariously endured, inasmuch as the 
 death of Christ was in reality a witness of the divine justice, 
 
 1 So Vossius, Vinke, etc. 
 
 2 So Gess, in his article on the atonement. He makes it a display of justice, 
 but on Christ, not on the world.
 
 THE ATONEMENT DECIDING CHRIST'S EIGHT TO THE WORLD. 297 
 
 and He bore sin in His own body on the tree. However true 
 and precious that doctrine is, and however clearly taught in 
 other passages of Scripture, plainly it is not the truth in this 
 verse. Though the sin of mankind was condemned in Christ's 
 flesh during His humiliation, it would be a violence to language, 
 or an imported and deposited idea brought from another connec- 
 tion, were we to force that meaning upon the words here. 
 
 3. Other eminent expositors will have it, that when our 
 Lord speaks of the judgment of the world, He refers to the 
 reformation and deliverance of the world. 1 They argue to this 
 effect from the Hebrew usage of the word, as well as from the 
 fact that the world was to be restored to its legitimate order, 
 and that it was the death of Christ that causally or meritori- 
 ously inaugurated this new state of things. They hold that the 
 allusion, therefore, is not so much to a single and separate result, 
 as to the continuous effect of the death of Christ in all those 
 results connected with the renovation or deliverance which we 
 daily see around us. But, however much this interpretation 
 may approximate to the true meaning, it puts a quite incorrect 
 meaning on the words which our Lord employs. 
 
 4. The true meaning is, that the hour had come, when the 
 grand adjudication of a judicial process was to take place, that 
 should decide at once and for ever the question to whom the 
 world should belong, as its prince. 2 In the judicial process 
 which was pending at that moment before the court of last 
 resort, the great decision or sentence was immediately to be 
 given ; and our Lord in substance says, " It is now to be finally 
 determined to whom this world shall rightfully belong, whether 
 it is to remain in the hand of its present prince, or belong to Me 
 as its owner and its heir for ever. The final award on this 
 
 1 So Calvin, and also Grotius, who says, in libertatem vindicare. 
 
 2 This is Bengel's happy comment, both in his Gnomon and in his notes to his 
 German version of the N. T. In the former he says : " est genitivus objecti ; 
 judicium de hoc mundo, quis post hsec jure sit obtenturus mundum." In the 
 latter, his brief note is: "ein gerichtlicher Process und Urtheil wem die Welt 
 gehbre mir, odcr ihrem bisherigen Fiirsten."
 
 298 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 great process is now to be given." The language is thus un- 
 mistakeably taken from a cause in court, and describes a 
 judicial process, awaiting its final and irreversible adjudication. 
 
 When our Lord says, " Now is the judgment of this world," 
 the immediate context demands consideration. It shows, as 
 may easily be gathered from the passage, that the direct allusion 
 is to the soul-trouble, the commencement of His agony, and the 
 prelude of His death, which was destined to accomplish that 
 result. The now must be taken as referring to His present 
 anguish in connection with the crucifixion. That this is the 
 meaning, and that the decision of this great cause took place at 
 the completion of Christ's vicarious sacrifice, is put beyond 
 doubt by the next clause. In a word, the world passes into 
 other hands ; another prince enters into rightful possession. It 
 is more a question of legitimate title, than of actual possession, 
 to which our Lord here refers; though He received at once 
 power over all flesh when He ascended, that He might exercise 
 unlimited authority in every corner of the globe, for the pro- 
 motion of His cause. The same thing is plainly taught by our 
 Lord in another passage, when He describes the function of the 
 Comforter, who takes of the things of Christ, and shows them 
 unto us : " He shall convince the world of judgment, because 
 [better, to the effect that] the prince of this world is judged" 
 (John xvi. 11). The meaning is: the Comforter, when sent 
 forth by the ascending Jesus, shall convince mankind that Satan 
 has lost his cause, that is, the legitimate power previously be- 
 longing to him, and that he is virtually denuded of all the 
 authority of a prince, which he so long and so universally 
 exercised on the earth. No one is now compelled to remain 
 under his power, unless, with his own resolve and purpose, he 
 chooses darkness rather than the light. The passage intimates 
 that the Comforter convinces men that Satan has lost the cause, 
 that the decision is against him, and that Jesus is the rightful 
 Prince and Saviour, to whom they may and ought to swear 
 allegiance.
 
 THE ATONEMENT DECIDING CHEIST'S EIGHT TO THE WOELD. 299 
 
 This text, then, putting all this result in indissoluble con- 
 nection with Christ's atonement, intimates that the world is no 
 more Satan's, but Christ's ; or, in other words, that the second 
 man has, by His obedience unto death, received a divinely-con- 
 ferred right to be heir of all things. He can claim the world 
 as His own, and dispossess its former prince, because He has 
 endured the curse and fulfilled the conditions which put Him 
 in possession of a claim to the reward. His disciples are free- 
 men in the world, and well aware that they can serve their 
 Prince with a good conscience, in every sphere and in all the 
 positions where they are placed by His providence. This sense 
 is put beyond doubt by the precise and definite language of the 
 next clause : " Now shall the prince of this world be cast out." 
 In a word, the world passes into other hands : one prince yields 
 his dominions, and another enters into rightful possession. 
 Having announced in the present tense " now is the judgment 
 of the world," the Lord adds in the future tense, " now shall the 
 prince of the world le cast out." This ejection begins and 
 advances. Satan must yield ground wherever the atonement 
 takes effect, till he shall resign the whole globe and be cast into 
 the lake of fire. The title which Satan derived from his victory 
 over the first man is lost ; and the new title which is founded 
 on the cross, and exercised by the only begotten Son, is para- 
 mount and irreversible. Not that Christ must be understood as 
 speaking of an immediate de facto occupation: it is more a 
 question of de jure sovereignty. But He has power over all 
 flesh, and exercises unlimited authority in every corner of the 
 globe, according to His sovereign will, for the advancement of 
 His cause. In the other passage, where our Lord delineates the 
 work of the Comforter, the revealer of Christ (John xvi. 11), the 
 meaning is: the Spirit subjectively convinces men of the ob- 
 jective fact alluded to in the saying under consideration that 
 Jesus is now the rightful Prince and Saviour, on the ground of 
 His atoning sacrifice, and that He is the Lord to whom we owe 
 obedience.
 
 300 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 This text, important in many aspects, is capable of being 
 viewed in many applications. It throws a steady light on the 
 great and momentous doctrine, that the world is, in consequence 
 of the vicarious work of Christ, no more Satan's, and that Christ's 
 people are now to be far from the impression that they are only 
 captives in an enemy's territory, and unable warrantably to 
 occupy a place in the world, either as citizens or magistrates. 
 On the contrary, this testimony shows that every foot of ground 
 in the world belongs to Christ, that His followers can be loyal 
 to Him in every position, and that in every country and corner 
 where they may be placed they have to act their part for their 
 Lord. The world is judicially awarded to Christ as its owner 
 and Lord. 
 
 SEC. XXXVII. CHRIST, BY MEANS OF HIS ATONEMENT, OVERCOMING 
 
 THE WORLD. 
 
 " In the world ye shall have tribulation; "but be of good cheer: 
 I have overcome the world" (John xvi. 28.) 
 
 This saying of Jesus, spoken on the night of His betrayal, a 
 little while before He went out to Gethsemane, shows us His 
 victory over the world, from a point of view different from that 
 which was developed in the previous section. It will not be 
 necessary to do more than briefly notice it, as adducing a con- 
 sideration or a motive drawn from the atonement, to confirm the 
 disciples of all ages amid the troubles and persecutions that are 
 to be encountered in the world. The Lord, speaking in the per- 
 fect tense, with a special reference to His atoning sacrifice, says, 
 I HAVE OVERCOME the world and its prince. He reminds us how 
 His disciples may at one and the same time have tribulation and 
 peace tribulation in the world, peace in Him. They may have 
 a peace or good cheer amid the greatest dangers, and even 
 glory in tribulation through the cross (Eom. v. 3). Our Lord 
 does not bring out here a mere example, however animating,
 
 THE WORLD OVERCOME BY THE ATONEMENT. 301 
 
 from which we may learn how to follow His footsteps, but calls 
 attention to an obedience or merit, which has power with God, 
 and constitutes a foundation on which the Christian's faith may 
 lean. We are by no means to view this saying as referring only 
 to the victory subsequently to be achieved in the world by the 
 preaching of the gospel, but rather to consider it as alluding to 
 what was won by Christ for all His people by His atoning death. 
 
 To understand this testimony, then, it must be borne in mind 
 that the allusion is here to Christ's representative act, intimating 
 that His victory is also ours ; in other words, that that act of 
 Christ, comprehending His whole earthly life and work, con- 
 sidered in its vicarious character, avails with God, and emboldens 
 us to fight the good fight of faith. This memorable saying, 
 important as it is to the militant church of all ages, may be 
 regarded as a key to that numerous class of passages which 
 speak of Christians as more than conquerors through Him 
 that loved us (Rom. viii. 37) ; of a world overcoming faith 
 (1 John v. 45) ; and of overcoming by the blood of the Lamb 
 (Kev. xii. 11). 
 
 When we inquire, in the first place, how the Lord Jesus 
 overcame the world, an accurate investigation of the passage 
 will show that the emphasis must specially be placed on the 
 person who speaks. He would have all eyes turned upon Him- 
 self when He says, "/ have overcome." He virtually says, 
 " Turn your eye away from the world's hatred and persecuting 
 rage to the consideration of my person and of my finished work 
 of atonement, as constituting the grand victory over the world." 
 He may be said to have overcome the world, partly as He 
 vicariously and in our stead withstood from day to day the 
 world's allurements and temptations, and was not to be turned 
 aside by them partly as He was faithful in His capacity of 
 surety to His undertaking amid the hatred of the world, that 
 would have sought to put down His cause ; but, above all, as 
 He bought by His obedience not only a people in the world, but 
 that world itself, that He might be the heir of all things.
 
 302 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 This representative act of Christ, then, lies at the foundation 
 of this saying, His act being the act of one for many. Thus 
 all our victory lies in the merit of Christ. It may seem strange, 
 at first sight, that the Lord should direct His followers to take 
 encouragement from the thought that He overcame the world ; 
 which looks much as if a man of large resources should say 
 to the poor and needy, " I am rich and powerful ; " for that 
 seems to bring neither aid nor comfort to others. But the an- 
 nouncement changes its character the moment it is understood 
 that His means are possessed in common with that other, and 
 made available for that other more than for Himself. The Lord 
 bids the disciples realize His act as theirs, and His victory as 
 achieved for them, or, in other words, to take the assurance that 
 He identified Himself with them to such a degree that He 
 overcame the world for them more than for Himself. He vir- 
 tually says : I have by my sacrifice effected this result, That the 
 world, with all its violence, cannot really injure you. The vic- 
 tory of Christ, our High Priest and Head, is ours. 1 Indeed, He 
 needed not, on His own account, to have come down from 
 heaven ; and He acted only for His people, for whom His victory 
 was made available. He virtually says, " I have overcome not 
 for myself, but for you." It is Christ's work that ^constitutes all 
 His people's victory ; and hence, when the Apostle John says, 
 " This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith " 
 (1 John v. 4), the language must not be understood as referring 
 to two victories, but as intimating simply, that in and with the 
 exercise of faith upon the Son of God, this full victory over 
 the world is obtained through means of Christ's victory ac- 
 counted ours. 
 
 Thus, the disciples of Christ accustom themselves to triumph 
 in the triumph of Christ, inasmuch as the true victor did all 
 that was needed to atone for sin, and to open heaven on the 
 behalf of His saints ; and what remains for them but only to 
 enter into His victory ? The battle was won by Him, and they 
 
 1 See Cocceius in loc.
 
 THE WORLD OVERCOME BY THE ATONEMENT. 303 
 
 have but to enter into His work, and so tread death and hell 
 under feet. And as they realize this victory in Him, they are 
 " of good cheer," for they virtually hear Christ say, " I won the 
 fight, and ye reap the victory ; " and thus all the rage, enmity, 
 and persecution of the world are only but the impotent death- 
 struggles of vanquished enemies. 
 
 The Lord here speaks in the near prospect of death, as if the 
 victory were already won for His people, because it was won in 
 His purpose. Hence, while all the powers, ecclesiastical and 
 civil, supposed that He Himself was crushed, and that His cause 
 was in ruins, His own language shows that He was only in pro- 
 cess of leading captivity captive. And when we inquire in 
 what sense Christ's victory is the Church's victory, and how it is 
 fitted to fill Christians with good cheer, several distinct points 
 may at once be named. Thus, He bought a people to Himself; 
 He obtained power over all flesh; He acquired for them the 
 inextinguishable power of the divine life; He puts into them 
 the bold courage of a world-overcoming faith ; and He bridles 
 the power of evil in such a way that it cannot prevail so far as 
 to overwhelm them (1 Cor. x. 13). I shall only notice, however, 
 one or two of those results which directly flow from His re- 
 presentative act. 
 
 1. Christ's people get boldness to overcome the world, and 
 the world's lord, through the blood of the Lamb. They feel that, 
 feeble as they are nay, as sheep killed all the day long they 
 can still say, " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? 
 We are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us" 1 (Eom. 
 viii. 37). The words there used, if we exactly interpret them, 
 will be found to point to Christ's one redemption work as the 
 great procuring cause of His people's victory. The martyrs, 
 loving not their lives unto the death, are said to overcome by 
 the blood of the Lamb (Eev. xii. 11); which means that the 
 death with which they were threatened by their persecutors had 
 
 1 The aorist participle ayair-fiffavTos, as Meyer well observes, marks the eminent 
 act of love which Christ performed by offering up His life.
 
 304 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 no terrors for them who had washed their robes in the blood of 
 the Lamb ; and they were fully aware that, if their lives must 
 needs be forfeited, they could say " we shall sup with Christ 
 to-night." Under this bold assurance and confidence derived 
 from the cross, they felt that the world could as little devour or 
 really injure them as it had been able to swallow up their Lord, 
 and that their more abundant entrance into their rest was only 
 hastened, and their crown made so much the brighter by their 
 martyr-death. What though the w r orld took away life, honour, 
 and goods ? they were going to more than they left. 
 
 2. They get, through the atonement of the cross, the victorious 
 power of a divine life, to rise superior, both to the world's allure- 
 ments and to its frowns. The redeemed Church is assured that 
 she owes all the grace which she receives to the blood of the 
 Lamb ; that the Lamb overcomes His enemies in virtue of His 
 atoning blood, inasmuch as this not only deprives Satan's accu- 
 sations of their point, but brings the power of an invincible 
 divine life into the heart. Our victory depends on the victory 
 of Christ ; and hence the apostle, looking round on all the enemies 
 that threatened Him, bade them, defiance with a bold and joyful 
 confidence, whether they came in one form or another : they 
 could not separate him from the love of Christ (Eom. viii. 35). 
 The faith which appropriates Christ's atonement is thus full of 
 divine strength to overcome the world's allurements, as well as 
 its enmity; and when they conquer through faith in Christ, 
 they overcome by the power of the atonement, or by the blood 
 of the Lamb. 
 
 SEC. XXXVIII. THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST DENUDING SATAN OF HIS 
 DOMINION IN THE WORLD. 
 
 " Now shall the prince, of this world be cast out." (John xii. 31.) 
 
 Our Lord, in His last discourses, makes various allusions to 
 Satan, and three times mentions him under the title of the 
 Prince of this world. That the allusion is to Satan, and not, as
 
 THE ATONEMENT DENUDING SATAN OF HIS SWAY. 305 
 
 some have fancifully thought, to the Jewish high priest, is too 
 obvious to require proof. He comes to the Christ on the last 
 night, but finds nothing in Him ; that is, nothing which pro- 
 perly belongs to him which he can call his, or which is in any 
 way allied to his kingdom (John xiv. 30). He is represented as 
 judged (John xvi. 11) ; and, last of all, it is said that he is 
 about to be cast out. 1 
 
 The Lord's language in reference to the personality of Satan 
 is too express to leave room for doubt. The attempts that have 
 been made, on exegetical grounds, to explain away the import of 
 His words are little worthy of notice. But that we may leave 
 nothing behind us to which exception may be taken, we shall 
 adduce a few testimonies which are unmistakeable. The ques- 
 tion is : is Satan a personification of the principle of evil ? and 
 can our Lord's words be so understood ? a few passages will 
 supply the answer. 
 
 Only a person can be meant when our Lord, in addressing a 
 warning voice to Peter, said : " Satan hath desired to have you, 
 that he may sift you as wheat" (Luke xxii. 31). Here personal 
 feelings, aims, and devices, are ascribed to Him. With as little 
 warrant can any one maintain, that it is a mere personification 
 of evil when our Lord said, " when a strong man armed keepeth 
 his palace, his goods are in peace ; but when a stronger than he 
 shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all 
 his armour" (Luke xi. 21). When our Lord describes the sen- 
 tence to be pronounced by Him at the day of judgment on those 
 at the left hand, He is equally explicit ; " Depart from Me, ye 
 cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his 
 angels" (Matt. xxv. 41). When we turn to the gospel of John, 
 we find language which, in many respects, unmasks and exposes 
 the false spiritualism of our day, which labours hard to trans- 
 mute stern realities into shadows or figures. Our Lord calls 
 Satan the murderer from the beginning (John viii. 44). He 
 describes a personal being, a friend of falsehood, and its author
 
 306 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 who, through all ages from the beginning, has been the mur- 
 derer of the human race, and the lie is his own or native to 
 him. In the passage at the head of this section (John xii. 31), 
 our Lord' speaks of a suit or judicial process carried on against 
 the Prince of this World. This implies a person; 1 for a legal 
 process cannot be carried on against an abstraction, a personi- 
 fication, or a spectre of the mind, as certain modern writers 
 permit themselves to speak in referring to the doctrine of Satan. 
 No man who honestly interprets Scripture as an inspired docu- 
 ment, and takes God's word in earnest, can entertain any doubt 
 as to the personal existence of Satan, and the reality of his 
 kingdom. The doctrine of Satan has an influence on every 
 department of doctrine or ethics. Thus, when we think of the 
 doctrine of man, we may affirm that he is a capable subject of 
 redemption, only as he was the victim of the tempter's lie ; for 
 he is a liar, and the father of it. When we think of the doctrine 
 of sin, it stands out as something absolutely evil in considera- 
 tion of its origin. Wlien we think of redemption, it is described 
 as a proceeding on the part of the Son of God to destroy the 
 works of the devil (1 John iii. 8), not that the ransom was paid 
 to him, as many of the fathers and some modern theologians 2 
 have imagined. But this does not prevent us from maintaining 
 that the Son of God was necessary as the only mediator who 
 could break the power of Satan over the human family by 
 means of His atoning sacrifice. In a word, when we run our 
 eye over the history of Satan from his attempt upon our first 
 parents, to the day when he shall be cast out and shut up in 
 chains of darkness, we see a conflict extending through all 
 earth's history, and the grandeur of a divine plan, destined to 
 put him to shame. We see a personal devil, not a personifica- 
 tion of the principle of evil. 
 
 1 A marked feature of theology during last century was the denial of Satan's 
 personality. The most powerful writer who has assailed it in this century is 
 Schleiermacher. See Sartorius, Philippi, Sander, and others in reply to him. 
 
 2 The school of Origen among the Fathers, and Hasenkamp and Menken among 
 the moderns.
 
 THE ATONEMENT DENUDING SATAN OF HIS SWAY. 307 
 
 This terrible adversary of the human race was overcome by 
 the second man who came into our place, and entered the lists 
 with Satan, where the battle had gone against us before. Satan 
 fell by pride, and infused this poison into our first parents, and 
 the mystery of the incarnation began with abasement. By 
 humility the Lord advanced to all His work of expiation. His 
 meritorious sacrifice, and His willing subjection to suffering, 
 wrested the dominion from Satan, and bruised the serpent's 
 head. Before the work of expiation was accomplished, Satan 
 had a right to man whom he had conquered, and to the world 
 which he had won. But Christ reversed all this, and led cap- 
 tivity captive. 
 
 As to the title here given by our Lord to Satan, " the Prince 
 of this World," it aptly applies to him as the head of all who 
 attach themselves to that natural life which lies in estrangement 
 from God, or who set themselves in banded opposition to the 
 Christ of God. How fitly the name applies to the world in its 
 moral and intellectual condition under ungodly influences which 
 come from the evil one, the first cause and father of corruption, 
 scarcely requires to be pointed out. Thus a kingdom is ascribed 
 to him (Mark iii. 26) ; the wicked are regarded as his children 
 (John viii. 44); the tares in the parable of the sown field, a 
 term by which our Lord means ungodly men, are said to be 
 sown by him among the wheat (Matt. xiii. 38) ; the plucking 
 away of the good seed is his work (Matt, xiii 19) ; the act of 
 Judas in betraying Christ is referred to Satan entering in and 
 taking possession of the man (John xiii. 27) ; and when the 
 ecclesiastical authorities combined to put Him to death, and 
 were allowed to execute their purpose, Jesus said, " This is your 
 hour, and the power of darkness" (Luke xxii. 53). Satan tried 
 subtlety first, and violence afterwards, and was signally baffled 
 in both attempts, as a glance at both will suffice to show. 
 
 1. In the first conflict with our Lord, when he assailed Him 
 with all the resources of cunning and artifice, he was signally 
 defeated. Our Lord took up the combat, as the nature of His
 
 308 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 suretyship required, at the very point where the battle had been 
 lost by the first man, and withstood the adversary, in presenting 
 temptations and allurements, as well as dissuasives, which had 
 everything in common with those seductive baits by which he 
 had made an easy prey of our progenitors. That temptation is 
 by no means to be regarded in the light of a mere example, how 
 to conduct ourselves in similar scenes, and how to meet and 
 overcome him ; for, though it must be regarded as an example, 
 as all Christ's life will ever be to His people, it was also a meri- 
 torious deed in our room and stead, of which His people reap the 
 reward. If we limit it to the mere example, it can inspire but 
 little ardour or confidence of victory into us, in following His 
 footsteps. But the case is altered when we regard Christ as the 
 atoning surety satisfying for Adam's sin, and meritoriously over- 
 coming in our place the tempter that had so easily triumphed in 
 the former case, and held the universal race as lawful captives. 
 Thus the temptation of Jesus stood in necessary connection with 
 His whole atoning work, not in the sense that it was but a 
 preparation for His atoning work, but rather as it was an integral 
 portion of the work itself. The victory won over the adversary 
 was to be in a way of rectitude, not by the mere exercise of 
 power. The Son of God must needs, as man and as a substitute, 
 enter the lists with the adversary, and deliver the race in whose 
 room He stood, and for whom He constantly acted, in a way of 
 right and justice. He took up the controversy just where it had 
 before so disastrously ended. 
 
 To the temptation itself, and the several points of attack com- 
 prehended in it, it is not necessary more particularly to refer. 
 Let it suffice to remark, that the tempter's aim from the begin- 
 ning was directed to the one point of suppressing or of destroy- 
 ing, in the most effective way in which it was possible, the 
 human nature of Jesus, or to render it unavailing as the instru- 
 ment in which man's redemption was to be accomplished. He 
 sought, as much as in him lay, to create a discordance between 
 the two natures of our Lord, and thus to frustrate the design of
 
 THE ATONEMENT DENUDING SATAN OF HIS SWAY. 309 
 
 their union. He would destroy, if possible, the harmonious con- 
 nection between them, by tempting Him, under the influence of 
 his taunting words, to usurp the prerogative of the divine, and to 
 deviate from the lot appointed for Him by God. Then he sought 
 to infuse a false confidence. And when baffled, once and again, 
 in this audacious attempt, he offered Him the world, the subject 
 in dispute between the two, without a trial or a conflict a 
 temptation all the more subtle, as our Lord foresaw, with His 
 enlightened mind, the long and painful conflict before Him. To 
 induce Him to comply, and thus accept the kingdoms of the 
 world, he showed Him how easily the world might be put at 
 His disposal at once. There was a terrible coincidence in this 
 threefold temptation, well fitted, had there been the smallest 
 tinder on which the spark of temptation could fall, to set all 
 within into a conflagration. But it signally failed. 
 
 2. Satan having vainly tried subtlety next tried the fury of 
 persecution. But the Lord was equally proof against both, and 
 learned obedience by the things He suffered (Heb. v. 8). The 
 evil one, by stirring up the hatred of the rulers, and infusing 
 into them the utmost pitch of rancorous malice, thought to make 
 Christ waver and recoil ; or, if he could not draw Him into dis- 
 trust of God and actual rebellion or apostasy, he aimed at least 
 to accomplish an object much desired by him His removal from 
 the world, and so to remain master of the field. He little 
 thought, in the machinations of blind rage, that he was but a 
 tool in the hand of Omniscience, and that he was carrying out, 
 as a passive slave, what the counsel and foreknowledge of God 
 hath determined beforehand to be done (Acts iv. 28). The 
 death by which the Lord should die for men's redemption, was 
 to be a violent or sacrificial death, but, from the peculiar relation 
 He occupied, neither immediately inflicted by the hand of God, 
 nor an immediate resignation of His own life. It must be 
 through the intervention of man. The malice of Satan only 
 served to give effect to this foreappointed purpose ; and the 
 wrath of man was made to praise Him. That violent death was
 
 310 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the way through which the Lord, by a sublime priestly self-obla- 
 tion, was to atone for the human family. By this means divine 
 justice was to be satisfied, a sufficient atonement offered, the 
 divine favour won, and the lawful captive delivered. 
 
 It is noteworthy that our Lord in the two clauses of this verse 
 twice uses the emphatic word now. He refers to the nearness 
 and efficacy of the atonement, within the circle of which He 
 was now come. The language implies that Satan's dominion 
 rested upon the fact of sin. And as he occupied a secure and 
 impregnable position so long as the vicarious sacrifice was not 
 offered, so the vantage ground from which he had long ruled the 
 world was lost the moment divine justice was satisfied. In the 
 first clause of this verse, as was already noticed, the Lord refers 
 to a formal process then pending, which was finally to decide to 
 whom the world should be adjudged, whether to Christ or to 
 Satan, its former prince. When we put the two members of the 
 verse together, the language intimates, that the judicial process 
 as to the right of property, or the legitimate title, was then to be 
 decided. And when sin was expiated, and the curse borne, 
 Satan's right to the sinner was annihilated, and his sovereignty 
 over the world overthrown. The Lord could say, " Now shall 
 the prince of this world be cast out," because the ground of this 
 victory was first to be laid in law and justice, or meritoriously 
 secured by that atoning death which was soon to be undergone, 
 and which was to destroy the sin which gave Satan his dominion 
 in the world. He virtually says : " My death shall be the 
 destruction of Satan's dominion." There are a few separate 
 sayings of Jesus to this effect, demanding more particular elucida- 
 tion ; and to these we shall advert. 
 
 1. The first word by which our Lord sets forth the approach- 
 ing termination of Satan's authority, is, the prince of this world is 
 judged (John xvi. 11). It is plain that our Lord does not intend 
 to speak of a judgment upon Satan for his own fall from God, 
 nor refer to a judicial sentence to be passed on the deceiver, for 
 tempting men at first to become allies with him in his revolt
 
 THE ATONEMENT DENUDING SATAN OF HIS SWAY. 311 
 
 from God. He speaks of a judgment which should strike him 
 as the head of a hostile confederacy in banded opposition to God 
 and His anointed. The meaning is, that the right which Satan 
 had acquired to rule over men, and to treat them as his lawful 
 captives, in consequence of sin, was now to be taken from him, 
 and that his power was now to be broken ; for he is said to be 
 judged, when his legal, though usurped, right to dominion is 
 terminated. 
 
 And how did Christ's sacrificial death subvert hjs empire ? 
 In a twofold way. As sin was put away by the sacrifice of 
 Himself (Heb. ix. 26), and as the curse was fully borne, the 
 supreme Judge discharged the guilty. Nor could the accuser, 
 on any plea of justice, either accuse them, or demand their con- 
 demnation, that is, a doom similar to his own (Bom. viiL 1). 
 Besides, the legitimate authority which the tempter had pre- 
 viously possessed, to keep men in death and spiritual estrange- 
 ment from God, was for ever at an end. The Mediator's death, 
 the winding-up of His active and passive obedience, destroyed 
 him that had the power of death (Heb. ii. 14), and destroyed the 
 works of the devil (1 John iii. 8). The captivity to which men 
 had hitherto been subjected by divine justice, could be reversed 
 only by the death of one who was more than man. By this 
 means Satan was overthrown in point of law, and the way was 
 paved for the annihilation of his sway. 
 
 2. The next saying which we adduce respecting the victory over 
 Satan, mentions the binding of the, strong man, and the spoiling 
 of his goods (Matt. xii. 29). This result follows upon the judg- 
 ment pronounced upon him. Men are called " his goods," the 
 property which belongs to him, and which he is said to hold in 
 peace (Luke xi. 21), till they are effectually called by a high and 
 holy calling. They are then translated into the kingdom of God's 
 dear Son (Col. i. 13). This second step, in the execution of 
 which Christ interposes, as stronger than the strong one, to bring 
 His sheep into the fold, and rescue souls from the grasp of the 
 destroyer, is simply an act of power by which He quickens men
 
 312 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 when dead, enlightens them when blind, and gives near access to 
 those who previously were far off. 
 
 3. It is further said, " the prince of this world shall he cast 
 out." This follows as the legitimate result of that judicial pro- 
 cess which has adjudged the world to Christ. Satan is to he 
 cast out of the world ; and in due time hound in chains, to the 
 judgment of the great day. He is not, even at present, lord de 
 jure of one foot of earth ; but his usurpation lingers, and is per- 
 mitted to continue, on many accounts, into which it is not our 
 present business to inquire. He is to be ejected, in point of fact 
 as well as right, to exercise no more power or authority either 
 over single men or communities of men, by means of any of those 
 systems on which he has expended, for centuries, the utmost 
 refinement of his subtlety. These shall melt away like the mists 
 of the morning. But even now the church has, on the ground 
 of Christ's atonement, to go in and take possession of the world 
 from which its prince has been legally cast out, and from which 
 he will ere long, in point of fact, be fully ejected (Luke x. 18). 
 
 The synonymous phrases which occur in Scripture are numer- 
 ous. Thus it is said of Christ, that He led captivity captive 
 (Ps. Ixviii. 18) ; that He takes a prey from the mighty (Isa. xlix. 
 24) ; that He was appointed to bruise the serpent's head (Gen. 
 iii. 15). This last expression, familiar to the Old Testament 
 Church from the beginning, was the figure under which God 
 was pleased to convey to man the earliest notion of a deliverer, 
 and was, in fact, the first proclamation of the Gospel. The 
 serpent had already overcome our race, and held humanity, not 
 only as it existed in the first pair, but as far as it should be 
 multiplied under his galling yoke. No one could measure him- 
 self against the prince of the world, who was in fact armed with 
 the sharp sting of the divine law, of which he was the execu- 
 tioner. The first promise or primeval gospel intimated the 
 advent of a person of greater power than the conqueror, yet one 
 with true humanity, whose heel could be bruised. That was 
 done upon the cross, and there practically the victory was won
 
 CHEIST'S DEATH TAKING THE STING OUT OF DEATH. 313 
 
 which is carried out in the history of the Church. Satan is now 
 simply dispossessed by power ; a word can conquer him ; and 
 God shall bruise him under the Church's feet shortly. Our Lord 
 does not mean that the kingdom of Satan was to be all at once 
 overthrown ; for the tense, " shall be cast out," intimates a future 
 ejection. 
 
 SEC. xxxix. CHRIST'S VICARIOUS DEATH TAKING THE STING 
 
 OUT OF DEATH, AND ABOLISHING IT. 
 
 Among the sayings of Jesus which set forth the effects of the 
 atonement, there are some which represent Him as the con- 
 queror of death. One class of sayings declares that His people 
 never die (John viii. 51). A second class of sayings represents 
 the vicarious death of Christ as bringing in a more abundant life, 
 which effectually abolishes death, and will in due time swallow 
 it up in every form, corporeal as well as spiritual (John x. 10, 11). 
 That the element of incorruption or of resurrection-glory must 
 be included in the term LIFE, will be admitted by every one who 
 does justice to the interpretation of the word as it is used by 
 our Lord. This, however, is delineated as a fruit or effect of the 
 atonement. 
 
 Our Lord very frequently uses the term DEATH, which He 
 understands as that complete destruction, spiritual and corporeal, 
 which follows upon man's estrangement from God, and which 
 will remain as the inevitable doom of all who reject the provi- 
 sions of divine grace. And no diligent student of Scripture can 
 fail to see that death was a much more terrible fact to mankind 
 in general, and even to believers, previous to the atoning death 
 of Christ, than it has been since. The reason of this is on the 
 surface. It was more formidable than after the death of Jesus, 
 partly because the ancient saints had not, as we ha.ve, the great 
 fact of a dead substitute and surety before their eye, partly 
 because death was not then, as it is now, swallowed up in 
 victory (Job vii. 21; Ps. vi. 6; Isa. xxxviii. 3-14).
 
 314 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Our Lord, as we have above noticed, does not formally con- 
 trast Himself with the first man, in reference to the influence 
 which they severally have on the fact of death in the world 
 (Rom. v. 12 ; 1 Cor. xv. 47-56). An analysis of our Lord's 
 teaching sufficiently shows that ample room is left by Him for 
 the introduction of the other member of the contrast. But He 
 leaves this to His apostles. When we investigate the meaning 
 of the apostle's words, it is evident that the entrance of death to 
 which the apostle refers includes the idea of temporal death. 
 But while we cannot exclude physical death, a limitation of the 
 meaning to that idea must be held to be quite unsatisfactory ; 
 for it comprehends the entire ruin caused by sin, whether spiritual 
 or temporal. The objective existence of death is unmistakeably 
 traced to sin (Eom. v. 12) ; and the destruction of death is no 
 less clearly referred to Christ, who has abolished death, and 
 brought life and immortality to light, by the gospel (2 Tim. i. 9). 
 
 That the redeeming death of Jesus has the effect of destroying 
 death, and depriving it of its sting, is not obscurely indicated in 
 the Lord's own words : " He came to give His life a ransom for 
 many" (Matt. xx. 28). The one death was in room of the death 
 of many, but with the ulterior view of ushering in a reign of life. 
 Nor can we fail to see the same truth in the special connection 
 of the clauses, which bind together another statement in reference 
 to the Shepherd giving His life for the sheep : " I am come that 
 they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. 
 I am the good Shepherd : the good Shepherd giveth His life for 
 the sheep " (John x. 10, 11). The giving of the more abundant 
 life is there, beyond doubt, put in the closest causal connection 
 with the surrender of His own life. The vicarious sacrifice may 
 be regarded as the death of death, and the cause of life ; and thus, 
 by His own deep humiliation, Christ won a triumph over death 
 for all His followers. To obtain this, however, He Himself of 
 necessity became the prey of death, and bruised the serpent's 
 head, by being bruised in His heel 
 
 There are three remarkable sayings of Christ, which agree in
 
 CHRIST'S DEATH TAKING THE STING OUT OF DEATH. 315 
 
 declaring that the Christian's death is not death ; that is, he 
 never sees death, because it is not coupled with eternal death: 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and 
 believeth in Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall 
 not come into condemnation ; but is passed from death unto life " 
 (John v. 24). Again (John viii. 51), " Verily, verily, I say unto 
 you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death" Again 
 (John xi. 25, 26), " I am the resurrection, and the life : he that 
 believeth in Me, though he were dead [better, though he die], 
 yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth, and believeth in Me, shall 
 never die." These three sayings must be applied not only to 
 eternal death, but also in a sense to temporal death. It may 
 be urged : " How do they not die whose bodies we see day after 
 day descending to the tomb, and returning to dust ? " Jesus 
 declares that they never die, not even a temporal death, if we 
 fully fathom the depths of Christ's words. In what sense? 
 Because they are not subjected by temporal death to any such 
 changes as are really their destruction, having the principle and 
 seed of immortality within them. They, in truth, never see 
 death, however much they may seem to men to die. The fear of 
 death, by which they were once haunted and held in bondage, is 
 also removed by the Lord's vicarious death. The phrases used 
 in those verses to which we have referred shall never see death, 
 shall never die, hath passed from death to life intimate, that 
 believers, though passing through temporal death, never undergo 
 death with the dire penal results consequent on it ; that they 
 never encounter death properly so called; that they are al- 
 ready possessed of life, and will be raised up in incorrup- 
 tion. 1 The allusion cannot be to the actual abolition of death, 
 inasmuch as that still continues, and will be the last enemy 
 destroyed. But the fear of death, or death with its sting 
 
 1 It does not fall to us to explain here Christ's profound explanation of the words, 
 " I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob " (Matt. xxii. 32), to the effect that 
 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, and that this relationship secured 
 the final resurrection of the saints. But of course it presupposes the atonement 
 as its ground.
 
 316 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 agonizing the human mind, in reality exists no more to a Chris- 
 tian. This allusion, however, is not to mankind as such ; for 
 the sting, the fear of death, remains with the unbelieving, who 
 receive not the gospel ; and the sting of death is sin, making 
 every unpardoned man afraid to die, while the strength of sin is 
 the law. The words mean, then, that a true disciple never dies, 
 inasmuch as death has ceased to be penal, and is no more 
 dreaded. Not only so : the atonement of Christ requires that 
 the body shall be again associated with the soul, and that death 
 shall thus be swallowed up of life (2 Cor. v. 4). 
 
 There is a memorable passage in which Satan, the Prince of 
 Death, is contrasted with Christ, the Prince of Life (John viii. 
 44). The Lord there tells the Jews that they were of their 
 father the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning. The 
 words are not to be interpreted, as some have done, of Cain, but 
 of Satan, whose seduction of the first pair brought death into 
 the world, and all our woe, and who is therefore said to have the 
 power of death (Heb. ii. 14) a power which he wields, and 
 which must be said to belong to him, in a certain sense, so long 
 as the human race dies, and of which he will be fully denuded 
 at the second advent. On the contrary, the honour conferred on 
 the Lord Jesus by the Father, as a reward for His loyal 
 obedience or humiliation unto death, is that He is constituted 
 the Prince of Life, and that His disciples shall never see death. 
 This is the direct antithesis of all that belongs to him that 
 hath the power of death, and who was a murderer from the 
 beginning. If Satan is a murderer from the beginning, the Lord 
 Jesus, on the contrary, is the Prince of Life ; and His followers 
 receive, as the reward of His abasement undying life, and shall 
 never see death (ver. 51). 
 
 But a difficulty presents itself: why do believers undergo 
 temporal death at all, if divine justice has been fully satisfied ? 
 To this the ready answer is, that the death of the Christian is 
 not in any sense a proper punishment of sin, and that he is as 
 perfectly accepted through the atonement of Christ, as if he had
 
 CHRIST'S DEATH TAKING THE STING OUT OF DEATH. 317 
 
 not committed a single sin. The importance of this question 
 appears from the fact, that whenever the temporal death of 
 believers is regarded as the penalty of sin, in however small a 
 measure, the perfect satisfaction of divine justice by Christ 
 cannot be maintained. It is urged, that as we can judge of the 
 extent of the atonement only by its effects, so, in point of fact, 
 the extent of its effects can only be inferred from its results, and 
 that believers, therefore, are not delivered from all the con- 
 sequences of sin. 1 But that is a very ambiguous mode of pre- 
 senting the question. The one point is : Are the consequences of 
 sin, in the case of true Christians, still to be regarded, as in any 
 sort, a punishment by which they pay something to divine 
 justice ? And the answer must be emphatically in the negative. 
 But again, it is asked : Can there really be a consequence of sin, 
 which is not a punishment of sin ? To determine this, we must 
 consider what reference it has to God, who dispenses it ; and 
 since we find that He sends temporal trials and afflictions as well 
 as temporal death, not in wrath, not as an avenging judge, but 
 as a wise and loving father, they cariuot be termed proper 
 punishments, though they are the consequences of sin; Christians 
 having wholly passed from a state of wrath into a state of grace. 
 The Epistles, accordingly, dwell upon the fact, that Christ, by 
 His death, destroyed him that hath the power of death, and 
 unstinged it for all His people (Heb. ii. 14 ; 1 Cor. xv. 1-58). 
 
 But why, it is still further asked, do the consequences of sin 
 remain, if the acquittal is complete, and justice fully satisfied ? 
 We may explain the anomaly by a parallel case. A rebel may 
 have been arrested and imprisoned, and up to a certain point 
 treated as a criminal worthy of death : he may, through the 
 mediation of another, have obtained a full pardon and discharge, 
 but still have to carry with him, for a considerable time, the 
 wounds inflicted on him during his rebellion, or the sores and 
 bruises of his chains and imprisonment. But, plainly, the latter 
 
 1 So Roellius, in his discussion with Vitringa, put it ; maintaining that the 
 Christian paid a something of the penalty.
 
 318 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 are not any longer regarded in the same light as before, they 
 are not now a part of his punishment, nor a part of what he has 
 to pay to the justice of his country. While they remain, they 
 may remind him, indeed, of what he was ; but they are wholly 
 altered in character, and no more foretokenings of something 
 worse that must ensue. They have, in a word, ceased to be 
 punishments. 1 Such is temporal death to a Christian, and such 
 are all his present trials and afflictions. They are altered in 
 their character ; they have no wrath in them ; they are sahitary, 
 paternal discipline ; they bring him home. 
 
 The Lord's sayings in reference to this point are fully 
 expanded by the apostles. Thus the apostle Paul (1 Cor. xv. 
 54-56) adduces two quotations from the prophets to show that 
 death was swallowed up in victory (Isa. xxv. 8), and that its 
 sting is removed (Hos. xiii. 14). The Pauline theology here 
 brings together in the most striking way DEATH, SIN, and THE 
 LAW, as three enemies which must needs be encountered, but 
 which are now disarmed. The first statement is : " the sting of 
 death is sin ; " an announcement which gives us to understand 
 that had there been no sin death could have had no power to 
 assail us and no terror to alarm us. For what could death do 
 to an innocent and holy man, who was without sin, and there- 
 fore exempt from every part of the curse ? In such a case death 
 could have no weapon, no sting. But when the apostle thus 
 speaks of sin, he seems to have in his view the inward sense of 
 sin which has revived in the soul (Rom. vii. 9), and brought 
 along with the knowledge of its existence an alarm and dread 
 which nothing but the death of a suffering substitute can calm. 
 
 But whence has sin this power ? The apostle adds : " The 
 strength of sin is the law " (v. 56). This means that sin would 
 not awake in this manner were there no law to accuse and con- 
 demn us. But the Lord by His substitution has blotted out the 
 handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and contrary to 
 us, nailing it to His cross ; and now death is unstinged. The 
 
 1 See Vitringa's Dutch reply to Roellius.
 
 CHRIST'S DEATH TAKING THE STING OUT OF DEATH. 319 
 
 Christian sees his death, as he sees his sins, on Jesus, and 
 meets the approach of the last enemy with calm triumph, 
 "because in the cross of Christ death itself has died. It is no more 
 a penalty, no more the expression of the curse, hut the pathway 
 to endless rest. Hence the early Christians, as Athanasius in- 
 forms us, 1 exercised themselves in this arena, and were so con- 
 scious of their victory through Christ's substitution that women 
 and children, in the times of persecution, derided death as dead. 
 There is a further prospect on the same foundation. The 
 Lord has a paramount claim to His people because He pur- 
 chased them with a price (Acts xx. 28). On this ground He will 
 have them to be with Him, that they may behold His glory 
 (John xvii. 24) ; and not only must the most fondly cherished 
 earthly tie, but every sphere of labour terminate here below, 
 when He who has the keys of the invisible world and death 
 asserts His rightful claim. The redeemed are to be for ever 
 with the Lord, and no plea can be weighed in the balance against 
 His will. Hence when life must be resigned, or cherished 
 friends surrendered, His higher rights are paramount: for He 
 bought them with His blood. 
 
 SEC. XL. CHRIST LAYING DOWN HIS LIFE FOR THE SHEEP, AND 
 THUS BECOMING THE ACTUAL SHEPHERD OF THE SHEEP. 
 
 " / am the good Shepherd : the good Shepherd giveth His life for 
 the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shep- 
 herd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, 
 and leaveth the sheep, and Jleeth: and the wolf catcheth 
 
 1 None of the writers of antiquity laid more stress than Athanasius on the sub- 
 ject of death in connection with the atonement. See his entire treatise on the 
 Incarnation. Thus he says (c. 27) : irplv irurre^ffovaiv 6t &v6pwiroL T Xptcrry, 
 <f>ofifpbv rbv Gavarbv optDcrt Kal SeiXtcDcrtc dvrdv. 'EireiSav 8 's TTJC eiceLvov iricmv 
 Kal 8iSa<TKa\iav fj,eT4\6ufft roffovrov Karatftpovovffi. TOV 6a.va.rov, (is Kal irpo6ii/j,ws eir 
 avrdv bpfj.dv Kal /J.dprvpas yiveuffai. The allusions of Luther to the unstinging of 
 death are equally copious and emphatic. See for example his letter ad Hard- 
 mannum a Oronbergh.
 
 320 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because 
 he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the 
 good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. 
 As the Father knoweth Me, even so [better, and] know I the 
 Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other 
 sheep I have, which are not of this fold : them also I must 
 Owing [better, lead], and they shall hear my voice ; and 
 there shall be one fold [better, flock], and one Shepherd. 
 Therefore doth my Father love Me, because I lay down my 
 life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from 
 Me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it 
 down, and I have power to take it again. This command- 
 ment have I received from my Father." (John x. 11-18). 
 
 This saying of Jesus is peculiarly important, because it exhibits, 
 with the utmost vividness, various aspects of the atonement not 
 usually put together, and elucidates the whole transaction as a 
 divine provision, whether we view it with respect to its nature 
 or to the special effects which it produces. This testimony may 
 be considered as the key to all those allusions contained in the 
 apostolic Epistles, which bring before us the office of the Shepherd, 
 as well as the care and watchfulness which- He exercises in that 
 capacity in behalf of the flock (1 Pet. ii. 25, v. 4). While it em- 
 bodies most of the essential truths involved in the atonement, so 
 far as its peculiar character or nature is concerned, the special 
 points which it establishes in connection with the effects- of 
 Christ's death, are these : (1) that it sets forth the deliverance 
 thus effected ; and (2) portrays the legitimate right and claim 
 which Christ acquired, in point of purchase, to become the actual 
 Shepherd of the sheep. 
 
 The occasion on which the Lord uttered this memorable say- 
 ing, was as follows: The Pharisees, who always resisted His 
 teaching, had just evinced the utmost hostility in connection with 
 the cure of the blind-born man, and He was led, by their 
 opposition, to contrast their pretensions with such teachers as are
 
 CHRIST THE SHEPHERD BY THE ATONEMENT. 321 
 
 called and commissioned from above, whom alone the sheep will 
 hear, and, above all, to contrast them with Himself, who is the 
 Shepherd, by way of eminence, or " the good Shepherd " (ver. 11). 
 As these men had not entered by the door, which He explains as 
 equivalent to a belief in Himself, and a commission from Him, 
 and as they were only perverters of the people, Christ describes 
 Himself as the good Shepherd, because He is the ideal of all that 
 the office implies, and the long expected Shepherd whom all the 
 ancient prophecies announced under that title (Zech. xiii. 7 ; 
 Ezek. xxxiv. 23 ; Ps. xxiii.). 
 
 As this memorable section can be apprehended as a testimony 
 to the atonement in its nature and effects, only when its profound 
 phraseology and bearing are fully surveyed, it will be necessary, 
 for the purpose which we have in view, to give a succinct out- 
 line, at least of the salient points, though by no means a full 
 commentary, of the words, in the connection in which they stand. 
 This entire passage yields the most important results for the 
 elucidation of the atonement. According to the classification 
 which we have adopted, it is adduced specially to show that the 
 death of Christ was considered by Himself as giving Him the 
 right to be the actual and legitimate Shepherd of the sheep. But 
 we also notice that the Lord Jesus here enters more fully than in 
 almost any other passage into the nature of the atonement as a 
 voluntary sacrifice; employing language which, from its very 
 nature, implies that one party is rescued by another's death. He 
 states that He not only did not stop short at confronting danger, 
 and exposing Himself to death, which is all that some expositors 
 see in the words, but that He, of His own free choice, subjected 
 Himself to death, because the sheep were to be rescued in no 
 other way. To those who will have it that the section says 
 nothing definite on the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, it may suffice 
 to say that the Shepherd found the sheep in peril, and died to 
 rescue them from it, which was only to be done by a vicarious 
 death (ver. 12). When it is further argued that one acting in 
 
 the capacity of a shepherd does not seek death, but rather avoids 
 
 x
 
 322 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 it, as far as in him lies, and that the same thing must necessarily 
 have been done by Christ, the answer is at hand. Comparisons 
 agreeing in only one point of resemblance must not be too far 
 pressed ; but here the Lord says, in the most express terms, that, 
 far from avoiding danger, as is commonly done, it was not so with 
 the good Shepherd, who spontaneously laid down His life. 
 
 This testimony sets forth the legitimate claim or right which 
 Christ acquired, in point of purchase by the atonement, to be- 
 come the Shepherd of the sheep. It is the key to all those 
 allusions which we find in the apostolic Epistles, and in the New 
 Testament generally, to the office of the Shepherd, as well as to 
 all the assiduous care and watchfulness which He exercises in 
 behalf of the flock (1 Pet. ii. 25, v. 4). In contrast with the 
 Pharisees, He designates Himself "the good Shepherd;" which 
 three words may be thus resolved : (1) a Shepherd, because He 
 evinces the realized ideal of whatever that office signifies ; (2) a 
 good Shepherd, because, whatever can be predicated of good or 
 excellent is found in Him; (3) the good Shepherd, by way of 
 eminence, because He was long expected and predicted in all the 
 ancient prophecies under that title (Zech. xiii. 7 ; Ezek. xxxiv. 
 23 ; Ps. xxiii.). 
 
 The peculiar and distinguishing act, nay, the unique act, 
 which the good Shepherd 1 here mentioned performs, is thus 
 announced : " I am the good Shepherd : the good Shepherd 
 giveth, or lays down, His life for the sheep" (ver. 11). We 
 must, first of all, determine the force of this expression, giveth 
 His life for the sheep, which is again and again repeated in the 
 sequel of this section. That it implies a condition of danger on 
 the part of the flock, is evident from the allusion to the wolf. 
 But w r e by no means interpret the words aright, or exhaust their 
 meaning, if we expound them, with many, as denoting merely 
 that the good Shepherd exposes His life to hazard. The Saviour 
 
 1 6 Troi/iV 6 /caXo'y. Ka\bs intimates, in such phrases, that the person or thing 
 is all that it behoves to be, excellent, pre-eminent in his kind (Geii. i. 4 ; Matt. 
 iii. 10 ; 1 Tim. iv. 6).
 
 CHEIST THE SHEPHERD BY THE ATONEMENT. 323 
 
 means, much more, a self-surrender, a spontaneous oblation. The 
 modern theories, deviating from the full acknowledgment of sub- 
 stitution, or of a vicarious sacrifice, commonly allege that Jesus, 
 from the very nature of His position, must come within the laws 
 of moral evil in the world, and perish by their operation, like 
 ordinary men. That is the current representation given forth 
 with much force at present, both abroad and at home, by all such 
 as are opposed to the vicarious atonement. As the opposite has 
 already been proved, I shall not in this place enforce a second 
 time, either the general arguments or the historic facts presented 
 to us in the life of Christ, which fully disprove that view of God's 
 moral government of the world. But this utterance of Christ 
 may, for all reverent interpreters, be accepted alone as absolutely 
 conclusive : " I am the good Shepherd : the good Shepherd giveth 
 His life for the sheep." He in substance says that His death, 
 though a violent one, and necessarily inflicted by other hands, 
 would not be against His will, but His own spontaneous act; 
 that He could ward it off if He pleased ; but that He would 
 voluntarily submit to it for the sake of His sheep, and to secure 
 His right to them. When He says that He giveth His life for 
 the sheep, He intimates that, in His capacity as a substitute, and 
 as the High Priest, who was called of God, He would lay down 
 His life for His people, by a voluntary act of self-oblation. 1 And 
 He announces in the sequel, as we shall see. that He had full 
 authority ^over Jlimself, and was about to do what was competent 
 to no created intelligence, to none but a divine person, to die for 
 His fellows, or, as He sacerdotally expresses it, to lay down His 
 life for the sheep. 
 
 He intimates that He was not to risk His life merely as does a 
 patriot/in the defence of his country, but actually, and of design, 
 
 1 Compare Matt. xx. 28, which intimates the same thing. (See Tittmann on 
 the passage. ) It does not satisfy the force of this phrase, TTJC ^vxyv rtdriffi, to in- 
 terpret it as meaning, to hazard or expose His life as a hero does for his country. 
 (So Grotius. ) rLOfvai ^vxftv virtp is a Johannine phrase (John xiii. 37). We need 
 not be surprised that the phrase does not occur beyond the pale of revelation, for 
 the idea is not found elsewhere. Matthew has Sowai (Matt. xx. 28).
 
 324 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 to lay it down. That this is the only true import of the phrase, 
 is evident from the subsequent verses, where the Lord, in the. 
 most express terms, contrasts the laying down of His life, and the 
 taking of it again (vers. 17, 18); from which we may argue, that 
 if the latter is to be interpreted as the spontaneous resumption of 
 life, the former can only signify the voluntary resignation of it. 
 Thus the antithesis between the two clauses determines the 
 meaning of the phrase, and puts it beyond all reasonable doubt, 
 that our Lord intends to express a voluntary death, which was 
 to be undergone, in order to obtain the salvation appointed for 
 His people. This phraseology, then, from its very nature, 
 intimates that the Lord Jesus offered up His life, or died, in such 
 a sense that another is delivered in consequence of His substitu- 
 tion. 
 
 This leads me to advert to the preposition here employed : 
 " The good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep." The phrase 
 indisputably means, for their benefit, for their good. Nor must 
 it be omitted, that when the clause in which this expression 
 occurs, denotes instead of which it frequently does this latter 
 idea is to be regarded as rather involved in the nature of the 
 transaction, than derived from the preposition itself. When He 
 says, therefore, that He died or laid down His life for the sheep, 
 the phraseology implies, that from the nature of the case, He 
 suffered in their room and stead. l The statement that He laid 
 down His life for the sheep, carries with it these two important 
 thoughts : that He acted from spontaneous choice, or from His 
 own proper motion, and not necessitated by any outward con- 
 straint; and that this substitution secured the safety of the 
 sheep. Our Lord thus represents Himself as laying down His 
 life to save theirs from the danger and destruction which inevi- 
 tably impended, or as dying to separate His sheep from those 
 that were exposed to the destroyer, and ready to be devoured. 
 From the fact that such a surety laid down His life, it follows, 
 
 1 inrty r&v irpofidTuv. The \nrep implies the avrl, as we noticed before in 
 section xxx.
 
 CHRIST THE SHEPHEED BY THE ATONEMENT. 325 
 
 by necessary consequence, that His people shall be saved with 
 everlasting salvation. 
 
 Not only so : the whole connection of the words on which we 
 have been commenting, leads us to the further thought, that He 
 died to purchase them by His substitution, or to put them under 
 His protection, and to make them His own. They are considered 
 as not only rescued from danger, but as rescued to be His. That 
 this is the full thought, of which we are not to stop short, is 
 evident from a right interpretation of the passage as it stands. 
 And hence, though Christ was called the Shepherd in virtue of 
 His designation to this office, and though they also are designated 
 the sheep in virtue of being given to Him by election, yet, in 
 point of fact, He becomes the Shepherd, and they the sheep of 
 His fold, only in virtue of the accomplished fact of the atone- 
 ment. The Lord acquires an actual or purchased right to them 
 as His sheep by His death. They are bought to be His, only by 
 a price (Acts xx. 28. Compare Eom. xiv. 9). 
 
 As a consecutive commentary on this important passage would 
 require us unduly to extend our remarks under this section, we 
 shall limit our attention to two points : (1) the statements which 
 elucidate the nature and character of the atonement; (2) the 
 effects which are described in connection with it, as procuring for 
 the Lord, not only a purchased right to His people considered as 
 His sheep, but also the actual exercise of all those functions 
 which belong to Him as the Shepherd. The second of these two 
 is represented as the effect, fruit, or reward conferred on the 
 Lord Jesus in virtue of His work of expiation. I shall refer to 
 them both in order. 
 
 1. With regard to the words here used, which more particu- 
 larly elucidate the nature of the atonement as a divine provision 
 on the Father's part, and as a work accomplished on the part of 
 the Son, He fixes our attention, in the first place, on the com- 
 mandment of His Father : " This commandment have I received 
 of my Father." This at first sight seems to run counter to the 
 absolute authority in His own right, to which the previous
 
 326 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 clauses emphatically lay claim ; and this I notice first, as being 
 first in the divine order of action. We have merely to settle 
 the relative position of the two clauses, to discern all the sides 
 of this important truth. How can we harmonize these two 
 things, apparently incongruous the receiving a commandment 
 to lay down His life, and the possession of intrinsic power to 
 dispose of His life as He pleased ? In other cases a command 
 presupposes a want of this authority in him to whom it comes. 
 But it is not so in the case of Jesus. He was at once Lord and 
 servant, one with the Father(John x. 30), and yet obedient to Him. 
 He both fulfilled the commandment and exercised His own 
 inherent authority. It was only because Christ had an inherent 
 divine right to dispose of His humanity at discretion, that He 
 received this commission or command of the Father to lay down 
 His life .in the execution of a paction or covenant, which takes 
 for granted all that inherent right, and proceeds upon it. That 
 is the relation of the two propositions. The converse would 
 involve error of the worst description. The supreme deity of 
 Christ indeed shines through all these sayings. The word COM- 
 MANDMENT, here used, is not to be interpreted authority , as it 
 was by the old Socinians and modern Humanitarians. It refers 
 to that covenant or counsel of peace, according to which the 
 Lord Jesus, as a divine person, was appointed to act an impor- 
 tant part in the restoration of the lost family of man, or required 
 to suffer death for the redemption of the human race. A wide 
 difference obtains, however, between a command imposed upon 
 a creature, and a command imposed on Christ. In the former 
 case, the command is absolute and binding, whether we will or 
 not. In the case of Christ, the commandment applies only on 
 the supposition that a work was to be done according to a divine 
 paction, for the salvation of the human family, and that He, of 
 His own proper motion, undertook to finish it, for the welfare of 
 the Church. The phraseology implies that God ' appointed the 
 arrangement, and is pleased to allow the substitution to redound 
 to the account of others. This commandment He received from
 
 CHRIST THE SHEPHERD BY THE ATONEMENT. 327 
 
 the Father, or, in other words, He came into the world charged 
 with this momentous commission from the Father. 1 
 
 Hence, all that was to be accomplished in our Lord's life after 
 the incarnation, was undertaken and carried on according to the 
 commandment of the Father. Whether we have regard, there- 
 fore, to the surrender of His life, or to the resumption of it, He 
 acted at every step only in obedience to the commandment of the 
 Father, who so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten 
 Son, and required the atonement at His hands. This naturally 
 leads back our thoughts to other statements, to the effect that the 
 Father loved Him on His own account, and then loved Him on 
 this account, that He accomplished the work given Him to do 
 (ver. 17). The present verse raises our thoughts to the origin 
 of the covenant or pact between the Father and the Son for 
 man's redemption ; and the other declaration shows that Christ 
 on account of the fulfilment of the great undertaking, becomes, 
 in a new sense, the object of the Father's love and complacency; 
 and herein especially does God manifest His love to us men, that 
 He gave the commandment, and rewarded the surety for perform- 
 ing it. 
 
 2. The Lord here declares, in the most unconditional and un- 
 restricted use of the terms, that no one took His life from Him, 
 and that the sacrifice was absolutely self-moved and voluntary. 
 No language could be more unambiguous, as addressed to hostile 
 minds before Him, and to all ages, ever ready to take up some 
 imperfect notion as to the spontaneous sacrifice of Christ. He 
 declares that no power from any quarter could exercise any con- 
 straint upon Him ; that He was exempt from the malice and 
 power of men, except in so far as He chose to surrender Him- 
 self into their hands. Immortality belonged to Jesus by a 
 double right. He was immortal, first of all, in virtue of a sin- 
 less and perfect humanity, in which no taint was to be found ; 
 and He was immortal, still further, in virtue of the fact that 
 His humanity was the flesh of the Son of God. 
 
 1 This is the proper meaning of the
 
 328 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 To make this point still more clear and indubitable, He sub- 
 joins the additional statement, that He had power, in His own 
 right, to lay down His life, and to take it again. 1 This saying 
 no merely human personage could arrogate to himself. In the 
 case of a martyr, for instance, who, in a certain sense, lays down 
 his life in attestation to the truth, such an expression would be 
 improper ; for he only discharges an incumbent duty which he 
 owes to God, and has no discretion to conserve or to retain his 
 life an idea which our Lord's words comprehend and imply. 
 The death of Christ was so absolutely voluntary, that He had 
 full power to withhold the sacrifice or to offer it. 
 
 They who do not frankly accept Christ's true deity, are re- 
 duced to the necessity of making reservations as to the proper 
 force of His language. They argue that the words, " to lay 
 down His life," mean "to receive death willingly;" and that 
 " to take it again," is to receive it from the Father's power. 
 But that is not the import of the phraseology. The element of 
 spontaneity and divine authority or power over His humanity 
 must be discerned in both phrases ; and hence there is a wide 
 line of demarcation to be drawn between Christ's position and 
 that of a created being. The words mean that it was in Christ's 
 power, as a divine person, to resign His life, and that it lay 
 within the resources of His omnipotence to resume it at His 
 discretion. All this is contained in the language : " ~No man 
 taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power 
 to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This com- 
 mandment have I received of my Father" (ver. 18). This pas- 
 sage is meant to be an exhaustive exposition of the priestly 
 self-oblation of Christ. We may affirm that all one-sided 
 opinions on the proper nature of the atonement, and especially 
 that the modern theories, are shattered, and go to pieces upon 
 this text ; which uses every form of expression to bring out the 
 
 1 The old Protestant commentators correctly interpreted the t^ovcria. as referring 
 to the power of the Son of God to let the humanity expire, and by the same exer- 
 cise of power to resume it. This is better than the comment of the moderns.
 
 CHETST THE SHEPHEKD BY THE ATONEMENT. 329 
 
 fact that our Lord, on the one hand, acted of His own proper 
 motion, and, on the other, according to a commandment, pact, or 
 agreement with the Father. It may serve to exhibit the full 
 force of this language, if we consider the third proposition. 
 
 3. The Lord next speaks of His reward for His self-oblation : 
 " Therefore doth my Father love Me, because I lay down my 
 life, that I might take it again" (ver. 17). The Jewish nation, 
 already seeking to compass His death, were not to conclude, 
 when they had gained their end, that Jesus was an involuntary 
 sufferer, or that His public execution was fatal to His Messianic 
 claims. They were not to think that He had been abandoned 
 by God. On the contrary, He here declares that, far from 
 incurring the position of one abandoned of God for ever, His 
 voluntary oblation was only the special ground of the Father's 
 love to Him, as is here expressly declared, or the procuring 
 cause of this great reward. The Lord means that He was 
 to be the special object of the divine love, and of the highest 
 possible exaltation, because He was to finish this work of atone- 
 ment in His capacity as surety ; or, in other words, He was to 
 receive this love, and all the reward which that love could confer, 
 and especially the glory and office of being the chief Shepherd, 
 only on this ground. 
 
 But before developing this thought, I must notice that our 
 Lord adds, that He laid " down His life, that He might take it 
 again." His death was, according to the express intention of 
 the offerer, to be succeeded by His resumption of life. This 
 is not the mere result or consequence of His death, the lan- 
 guage expresses design or intention. It is best to understand 
 it as intimating " on the condition that I take it again." 1 It 
 will thus intimate : He who cannot overcome death by tasting 
 death for others that is, he who is not of such dignity as to 
 atone for the sins of men by dying, and yet able to take life 
 
 1 Of all the four different expositions given of this phrase, rlOrifu tva, that of 
 Calvin, hac lege ut, is much to be preferred. It cannot refer to the mere issue 
 or result of His death apart from the intention or design, as iva is the particle 
 employed. "_.
 
 330 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 again, cannot be, or be called, the Shepherd of the sheep. 
 Christ intimates that He, from His own inherent dignity and 
 resources, could do this, and that He laid down life, because He 
 was one who could exhaust the curse, and not be destroyed by 
 it. He alone could give His life, because He alone could take 
 it again. A mere creature could do neither. Tin's was an indis- 
 pensable condition. It was necessary that He should not abide 
 in death, but so lay down His life, that He could take it again ; 
 and He could not have been a Saviour, if He could not have 
 taken His life again. 
 
 But let us return to Christ's reward. It may at first sight 
 seem strange that the beloved Son, who in His own right dwelt 
 from everlasting in the Father's bosom, should here describe 
 Himself as the object of divine love, because He laid down His 
 life. How could He so speak, when He was the Son of His 
 love from all eternity ? But the reward of Christ, to which this 
 language points, is always based on the work of atonement or 
 humiliation to which He stooped, and is correspondent to it; 
 and the love of God, in the sense in which our Lord here 1 uses 
 the term, is peculiarly displayed in advancing Him to the office 
 and dignity of receiving a multitude of redeemed sinners, and of 
 being the chief Shepherd of the sheep. There is the same con- 
 nection between the because and therefore in this saying that we 
 find elsewhere expressed, when a connection is pointed out 
 between Christ's work and His reward. It is the very same as 
 when it is said, for instance, by the Apostle Paul : " He became 
 obedient unto death, the death of the cross ; wherefore God hath 
 highly exalted Him" (Phil. ii. 8, 9). Some, whose opinions 
 lead them to regard the cross as only a display of love, without 
 any other element, regard this utterance as merely intimating 
 that the Father's love to men found its full expression and 
 manifestation on the cross. 1 But that notion is inadmissible on 
 the ground of language which will not admit such an inter- 
 
 1 Thus Stier expounds the words, but incorrectly ; for the 5td TOVTO STI will not 
 bear such a meaning. (See Meyer.)
 
 CHEIST THE SHEPHEKD BY THE ATONEMENT. 331 
 
 pretation, nay, on every ground, whether we have regard to 
 philology or doctrine. The only meaning which the words will 
 admit is, that the Father loved the Son with the love of recog- 
 nition and reward for His voluntary sacrifice, and that He re- 
 warded Him with all that exaltation, authority, and glory 
 which are comprehended in the office of " the great Shepherd of 
 the sheep." The laying down of His life was thus the reason 
 why the Father loved Him in this sense, and made Him the 
 object of His complacence and regard. 
 
 Thus it appears that Christ has won the sheep to be His by 
 right of purchase. Accordingly, His exaltation to be Lord of 
 all is uniformly put in connection with His death, and viewed 
 as the reward of His atonement (comp. Phil. ii. 9). Not to 
 mention the universal dominion which He exercises over all 
 flesh, He has a peculiar authority over the Church, or over that 
 flock for whose welfare He laid down His life, being consti- 
 tuted the Lord of His people, the head of His Church, the 
 Shepherd of the sheep, on the ground of His vicarious death. 
 His dominion is based upon His sacrifice ; and all Scripture, as 
 well as this present section, is one consistent testimony to the 
 fact that He was exalted because He was obedient to the 
 Father's will. 
 
 Thus His death did not redound to the injury of the sheep, 
 as it would have done in the case of the earthly shepherd. On 
 the ' contrary, the surrender of life, and the resumption of it on 
 Christ's part (<ver. 17), were both conducive to the highest wel- 
 fare of the sheep, and gave Him the legitimate right to become, 
 in the full sense of the term, their Shepherd in point of fact. 
 There was no cause to fear, lest, by the death of Christ, the 
 sheep should be deprived of His protection, interest, and 
 care. He took His life again, to be their everlasting Shepherd 
 (ver. 18). 
 
 I may only further refer, for a moment, to the statement 
 made in reference to the sheep. They are described as known 
 by Christ, and as knowing Him (vers. 14, 15). The correct
 
 332 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 mode of construing these two verses, is not to separate them by 
 a full break in the sense, but to connect them by a comma ; l the 
 thought being that the mutual knowledge which obtains between 
 Christ and His people, has its counterpart in the mutual know- 
 ledge between the Father and the Son. The relation between 
 Christ and His people is thus like that which is between the 
 Father and Him. The thought is, that the Lord Jesus knows 
 His sheep, and that He is known of them with a knowledge 
 which has its analogue in the mutual knowledge between the 
 Father and the Son. They are here represented as His, because 
 given to Him from of old, and because bought with a price. 
 Hence He adds, a second time, that He laid down His life as a 
 vicarious sacrifice, in order to gain a right to the sheep (ver. 15). 
 But He adds furthermore: "And other sheep I have, which are 
 not of this fold: them also I must bring [lead], and they shall 
 hear my voice ; and there shall be one fold [better, one flock], 
 and one Shepherd" (ver. 16). When the Lord states that He 
 had other sheep, and that they were equally His, He unmis- 
 takeably refers to the vast outlying Gentile world. Plainly, 
 our Lord does not refer to the danger to which His first dis- 
 ciples were exposed, on the occasion of His arrest and trial. He 
 means that other sheep were given to Him of another fold, and 
 that, in consequence of His atonement, He should lead or feed 
 other sheep, who should be accounted His, wholly irrespective 
 of nationality, and united under Himself as the chief Shepherd, 
 who should feed them all with equal love. The allusion is not 
 to the Jews of the dispersion, but to the gathering together of 
 all nations to Him ; and His death was to be the grand uniting 
 power (comp. Eph. ii. 16). It was God's design and plan to 
 bring them together, and to unite them in one flock, every par- 
 tition wall being broken down, and thus to make, not many 
 flocks, but one, under one Shepherd. 
 
 1 See the translation which we have given at the commencement of this section, 
 The authorized English version, making Kaflcbs begin a new sentence, violently 
 severs the sentence, and loses its point.
 
 CHRIST THE SHEPHERD BY THE ATOXEMENT. 333 
 
 It only remains to add, that the Lord announces two things 
 in this section which deserve special notice, how He acted 
 in respect to the devouring wolf, and next in reference to the 
 sheep. 
 
 a. As to the wolf, by which we must understand the great 
 destroyer of men, the Lord contrasts Himself with the hireling 
 who consults but his own safety, and leaves the sheep to their 
 fate. On the contrary, He would not shun the certain death 
 which He saw before Him, although He easily might have 
 done so in the exercise of His inherent power. He might 
 have found a refuge on earth, or translated His sinless 
 humanity to -heaven (John xii. 24). But He would spontane- 
 ously lay down His life. 
 
 b. As to {-he case of the sheep, to which He next refers, they 
 are His own, known as such and loved as such (ver. 14). Our 
 Lord, in describing this mutual knowledge and acquaintance, 
 compares it to that which subsists between the Father and the 
 Son. What finite mind can adequately measure this analogy, 
 which our Lord announces as a something divinely constituted 
 and actually existing in the sphere of fact ? The knowledge, 
 love, fidelity and care of which the Lord Jesus was the object 
 has its analogue in the Shepherd's relation to His sheep. The 
 terms imply that He is not only acquainted with all their out- 
 ward and inward condition, but that they are the peculiar object 
 of His love and care. He had received them as a donation 
 from His Father, and was at the moment when He spoke in 
 the process of offering the ransom which was to secure their 
 safety. They, again, on their part, knew Him in His relation as 
 Redeemer and Lord, the object of their confidence, the owner to 
 whom it was their privilege to belong for time and eternity; 
 and as they heard His voice they were led out and in to green 
 pastures.
 
 334 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 SEC. XLI. SAYINGS WHICH EEPEESENT CHRIST'S DOMINION, BOTH 
 GENERAL AND PARTICULAR, AS THE REWARD OF HIS ATONE- 
 MENT. 
 
 We shall in this section consider those sayings which describe 
 Christ's unlimited dominion in the universe, as based on His 
 redemption work. So constant are the allusions in the Epistles 
 and in the Acts of the Apostles to the universal lordship of 
 Jesus, and to the fact that the atonement is the basis on which 
 it rests, that we naturally expect to discover some express testi- 
 mony of Jesus to the same effect ; and we find, accordingly, 
 most explicit statements from His own mouth, that the exalta- 
 tion awaiting Him was due to the fact that He was humbled as 
 the surety, and that He became obedient to the Father's will. 
 
 The Lord's dominion rests for its foundation partly on the 
 covenant between the Father and the Son, partly on the price 
 actually paid, or the meritorious obedience of the surety. A 
 brief allusion to these two elements will here suffice. The cove- 
 nant takes for granted that certain conditions are to be fulfilled 
 before the full possession of this dominion is enjoyed. When 
 allusion is made to the actual donation of unlimited authority 
 conferred on the Son, this is clearly described in numerous pas- 
 sages as the result or effect of the covenant. Thus it is said : 
 " The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His 
 hands " (John iii. 35) : " Jesus knowing that the Father had 
 given all things into His hands, and that He was come from 
 God and went to God " (xiii. 3). The divines who maintain the 
 federal theology illustrate this point copiously in all its aspects. 
 
 The actual dominion stands connected with the express ful- 
 filment of the terms or conditions on which the reward was to 
 be conferred. They who dislike . the thought that He bore our 
 penalty, forget that this is the true ground of His mediatorial 
 glory. In order to possess the dominion, the atonement must 
 needs be consummated by the great High Priest ; and the
 
 CHRIST'S DOMINION THE REWARD OF THE ATONEMENT. 335 
 
 deeper the abasement, the greater the real honour. He acquired 
 a title to become the Lord or Euler of a ransomed people only 
 by His blood (Acts xx. 28 ; 1 Cor. vi. 20 ; Eev. v. 9 ; 1 Thess. 
 v. 9). He not only purchased redemption for His people by 
 satisfying for their sins, but obtained a right to the possession 
 of themselves as a peculiar people (Titus ii. 14), that He might 
 be admired in all them that believe. The import of the term 
 LORD as used of Christ implies that He has a purchased right to 
 His people, and that they acknowledge it in the use of this term. 
 Not only so : He has a dominion over all flesh (John xvii. 2), 
 over all rational intelligences (Col. i. 20), being Lord of all 
 King of kings and Lord of lords. 
 
 1. To begin with an early testimony, we hear from Him the 
 announcement that God gave Him authority to execute judg- 
 ment, because He was the Son of Man (John v. 27). The mean- 
 ing of this saying, according to the import of the title Son of 
 Man, as already explained, is, that He should be exalted to the 
 utmost conceivable dignity, and to the authority of pronouncing 
 the irreversible sentence of the judgment day, because He had 
 become, by voluntary abasement, the second man, and the aton- 
 ing surety of sinners. That is the import of the title ; and the 
 whole passage proves that, in virtue of His atonement, Jesus 
 was, in the first place, to be invested with supreme dominion, 
 and to receive the authoritative exercise of all judicial functions, 
 as the climax of His exaltation. 
 
 2. That the atonement is the foundation of Christ's dominion, 
 considered in its particular bearing, will appear still more 
 clearly, if we apprehend correctly the saying of Jesus, where He 
 delineates the merits of His atonement for the conversion of 
 others, by comparing Himself to a grain of wheat, which dies, 
 and brings forth fruit. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except 
 a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but 
 if it die, it Iringeth forth much fruit " (John xii 24). Here the 
 influence of the atonement on the cause of Christ in the world 
 is further described. As to the occasion, we find this saying
 
 336 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 uttered in connection with the request of certain inquiring 
 Greeks, who, under the force of religious impressions, wished to 
 see Jesus, and to be introduced to Him. Their coming was a 
 prelude to the vast multitudes who were soon, to attach them- 
 selves to Him, and constituted a proof or evidence to the Lord, 
 that the hour of His sacrifice was now come. No one can 
 reasonably doubt whether our Lord here alludes to His death ; 
 and the formula, " verily, verily," commonly used when uttering 
 some weighty truth, not finding a ready assent in the mind of 
 His hearers, was meant both to convince His first disciples that 
 it was no earthly dominion that He was setting up, and to show 
 all ages that His death was no fortuitous event, but the great 
 end of His coming, and destined to have decisive issues for 
 multitudes. 
 
 The figure borrowed from nature is intended to display the 
 indispensable necessity of Christ's atoning death, if a people 
 were to be gathered to Him. He represents His death as the 
 sowing of seed-corn, from which a harvest was certainly to be 
 reaped in due time ; and He says, the grain must die first. On 
 the physical fact that a grain of wheat first dies before it fruc- 
 tifies, it is not necessary here to enlarge (comp. 1 Cor. xv. 36). 
 The well-known Haller, who so fully met the exceptions taken 
 by the sceptical writers to this language, points out that the 
 visible parts of the grain, from the moisture of the soil, do suffer 
 decomposition, and die ; and that the germ, which alone lives, 
 receives a new form, as the direct consequence of that decay. 
 But what does our Lord mean by the language here used, when 
 He represents the dying as being the antecedent to the much 
 fruit ? Some expositors will have it that the Lord had His eye 
 on the fruit, which His death would yield to Himself in the 
 glorification which was before Him. Others regard the fruit 
 as the remission of sins, or as the benefits of salvation that 
 accrue to His people. 1 But though these are results of the 
 atonement, according to Scripture, they are, neither of them, the 
 
 1 See Tittmann on the passage.
 
 CHRIST'S DOMINION THE REWARD OF THE ATONEMENT. 337 
 
 truths in this passage. Our Lord plainly refers to the multipli- 
 cation of believers, or to the bringing of many to faith. This 
 is by far the best commentary on the words; it harmonises 
 with the figure. It is confirmed by the circumstances and by 
 the occasion. 1 The meaning will thus be : that if He had not 
 died, He never could have gathered a people to Himself, nor 
 organized a Church; that the vast multiplication of subjects 
 who were soon to come to Him, as these Greeks were already 
 coming by anticipation, was to be the fruit of His atoning death. 
 These words, then, intimate that His death was as indispensable 
 to the erection of His kingdom, as the germination of the grain 
 for the harvest. In a word, without His atoning death, He 
 would have remained alone a solitary unit, a sinless, perfect 
 individual, who would have gone to heaven alone. But there 
 would have been no multitude to follow Him no harvest. 
 
 3. Christ's particular dominion as to its specially attractive 
 power, is founded on His atoning death. This comes out in the 
 words: "And I, if I le lifted up, will draw all men unto Me" 
 (John xii. 31). We may say that this whole section, beginning 
 as it does with the visit of the inquiring Greeks, brings before 
 us a series of sayings descriptive of the effects of the atonement 
 in different points of view. He had just said that, by the 
 adjudication of a pending process, the atonement gave the 
 world to another proprietor or master, the consequence of which 
 should be the ejection of its former prince ; and here He adds, 
 that the atoning sacrifice, now about to be offered, and nigh at 
 hand, was to lay the foundation of His own dominion, and to 
 constitute the ground or warrant of all that attractive power or 
 subduing grace by which He should deliver men from the ser- 
 vice of Satan, and draw them to Himself. The words emphati- 
 cally prove that the cross is the basis of His sway over all whom 
 He brings out of Satan's empire, and draws to Himself, as Lord. 
 The phraseology employed, "and I, if I be lifted up," shows 
 
 1 See Nbsselt, Opvxc. ; Usteri, Entwick. Paul, Lehrleg. p. 231 ; Hengstenberg 
 on the passage. 
 
 T
 
 338 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 plainly enough, as has been already proved, that the Lord has 
 in His eye, not His glorification in heaven, but His abasement 
 on the cross. This is the import of the phrase, " if I be lifted 
 up." But, to obviate all doubt on this head, the evangelist 
 subjoins his own inspired commentary : " This He said, signify- 
 ing what death He should die" (ver. 33). The meaning, then, 
 intended to be conveyed by our Lord, is simply this : that, in 
 virtue of His atoning death, He should draw all nations equally 
 to Himself. When we examine this pregnant passage, a certain 
 measure of reserve is, beyond doubt, apparent in the language, 
 arising not so much from a wish to conceal aught, as from the 
 fact that the persons to whom He spoke could not yet receive 
 the full import of the communication. But several points are 
 made plain, partly by direct statement, partly by implication. 
 
 With respect to Christ's crucifixion, which is here considered 
 in the light of a special and efficacious atonement, He speaks of 
 it as the antecedent or cause of the erection of a kingdom, which 
 is plainly contrasted with that dominion which Satan possessed, 
 and which was to be founded on its ruins. He unmistakeably 
 intimates, too, that the foundation of all that drawing power 
 by which He should bring men to Himself, in His capacity of 
 a King, invested with authority and dispensing divine life, is 
 the propitiatory death of the cross. All this is contained in 
 the connection of the clauses. The antecedent and consequent 
 emphatically intimate this. 
 
 But He next refers to the personal exercise of this drawing 
 power when He says, " / will draw." He thus, clearly enough, 
 intimates that, though crucified, He was not to abide in death, 
 but was soon to live, and set up a kingdom, drawing subjects 
 into it ; that is, that men were to be drawn to Him as the King. 
 He was to draw men, and to draw them to Himself; and when 
 He says all men, this must be interpreted in the light of the 
 visit of these inquiring Greeks, who were Gentiles, or as re- 
 ferring to the totality or definite company of the elect. He 
 rather refers to men of every nationality and culture: "I will
 
 CHRIST'S DOMINION THE REWARD OF THE ATONEMENT. 339 
 
 draw all unto Me." Not that all this was instantaneously to 
 follow the crucifixion; but, as all were to be drawn, so the 
 ground or warrant was, in every case, furnished by the cross. 1 
 
 4. As to the more general dominion of Christ, we find that, 
 subsequently to His resurrection, He reminded the disciples that 
 His sufferings were the pathway to His power : " Ought not 
 Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His 
 glory ?" (Luke xxiv. 26). This was a truth which they might 
 have learned from Isaiah (Isa. Ixii. 14, liii. 12), and from the 
 prophecies and Psalms, which had long before sufficiently ex- 
 hibited both the suffering and glorified Messiah, and set forth 
 that the abasement only paved the way for the glory (Isa. lii. 
 14-53 ; Ps. xxii. ; Ps. ex.). The dominion on which Jesus was 
 to enter, was to be nothing but the reward and fruit of that ex- 
 piation for sin which was offered upon the cross ; and He was 
 crowned with glory and honour, as the reward to which He was 
 entitled. Thus the kingdom of Christ has its foundation, not so 
 much in the truth He taught, as in the humiliation to which He 
 descended, and in the redemption work which He finished. This 
 kingdom was promised to Him as the reward of this finished 
 work, for the world's redemption. On this foundation His king- 
 dom was to be erected; and dominion was actually imparted 
 to Him over His own purchased property, and also over all 
 things, without limitation or exception, for the execution of His 
 wise and gracious designs toward all who obey Him. After 
 the consummation of His work, He received, as a reward for all 
 His previous abasement and indignities, a condition of glory, in 
 which the human nature of Jesus participates in a way which is 
 far above our comprehension. 
 
 Questions are here raised as to the capacity in which Christ 
 
 1 Another striking though little noticed saying of our Lord of the same import 
 is : "No man can come to Me except the Father who hath sent Me draw him" 
 (John vi. 44). The phrase who sent Me is sometimes so broad and comprehensive 
 in its meaning as to include the whole finished work of the commissioned servant. 
 Compare what we said on sending as used by John (John vi. 57 ; 1 John iv. 9). 
 Here the atonement or sending is delineated as the basis of the drawing.
 
 340 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 exercises His dominion, and whether we are to regard Him in 
 this His regal authority as God, or as man, or as Mediator. 
 Some, having regard exclusively to the divine power of the 
 Lord, and to the perfections needed for the due discharge of 
 this dominion, ascribe the kingdom to Him as God. Others, 
 discerning that man's dominion over all nature was his primeval 
 privilege, and that this was a dignity awaiting the second man 
 on the completion of His work, are ready to refer all this rule 
 and authority to Christ as man. But, more correctly, we must 
 view this dominion as His due reward as Mediator : " To this 
 end He both died and rose and revived, that He might be Lord 
 both of the dead and of the living" (Eom. xiv. 9). We are not, 
 then, to separate His human nature from His divine in any act 
 of His dominion. The design to be attained was the world's 
 salvation, and to prevent the sentence of condemnation from 
 swallowing up mankind. 
 
 5. There are numerous sayings of Christ on the subject of His 
 dominion, which delineate a general economy of gracious forbear- 
 ance, during which men are brought to Him as individuals. 
 
 To exhibit the general nature of this dominion in a sinful 
 world in some of its aspects, we must listen to our Lord's de- 
 lineation of it. " The Father judgeth no man, but hath com- 
 mitted all judgment unto the Son " (John v. 22). His dominion, 
 based, as we have seen, on the atonement, allows an economy of 
 forbearance which could not otherwise have existed. How are 
 we to expound, in a manner worthy of God, the words, " the 
 Father hath committed all judgment to the Son?" Plainly, the 
 Father does not recede from His inalienable function as the 
 supreme Lord and Judge of rational beings, for that would be 
 too human a mode of contemplating this transaction. Though 
 we must hold, as a first principle, that there is no will in the 
 Father which is not also in the Son, and conversely, still the 
 kingdom of Christ, or the dominion of grace which is main- 
 tained in the earth, removes the distance between God and man 
 in such a measure that, during the course of this dispensation or
 
 CHRIST'S DOMINION THE REWARD OF THE ATONEMENT. 341 
 
 economy, grace, remission of sins, and invitations to repentance 
 are constantly announced to mankind on the part of God. It is 
 a dominion which can have place only where there are sinners, 
 and which is sustained simply through grace, and aims at the 
 remission of sins ; pointing also to a consummation where the 
 perfections of God shall at last be manifested in a renewed 
 humanity and in a purified earth. It was erected only on the 
 ground of Christ's expiatory death. 
 
 This dominion is, from its peculiar nature, adapted only to the 
 world in its present state of imperfection, and as corrupted by 
 sin. 1 It would be no rule appropriate for heaven, where sin 
 never enters, nor for hell, where forgiveness is never proclaimed, 
 and is only adapted to man in his present condition. Not that 
 Christ's merits only usher in a bare possibility of salvation, 
 while the application of His finished work depends, in whole or 
 in part, upon men themselves ; for where true conversion takes 
 place, this result is ascribed to Christ's merits and to the opera- 
 tion of 'the Spirit. But the representation given of that dominion 
 is to the effect, that when the Lord had by Himself purged our 
 sins, He sat down on the right hand of God, and sent forth the 
 proclamation of remission to all nations in His name. The 
 expiatory death of Christ alone procured and established that 
 kingdom ; and He was crowned with glory and honour, that He 
 might manifest, in the most signal way, a gracious dominion 
 among men, and overthrow the dominion of Satan. Thus God 
 restores many a forfeited privilege, and even prolongs the exist- 
 ence of the race, which, but for the atonement, would have been 
 forfeited, according to God's just sentence. 
 
 The statement has often been made, and still is made by 
 rationalistic writers, that Christ's kingly sway is nothing more 
 than the influence of truth upon the minds of men ; by means 
 of which a new kingdom of truth and virtue is founded in the 
 earth, the members of which are those who embrace the truth, 
 with loyal subjection to its claims. They thus make Him 
 1 See Royaards' De waare aart van Jesus Koningryk, Utrecht, 1799.
 
 342 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 nothing but a king of truth, or a teacher of truth. Nor is that 
 opinion warranted by the passage on which it is professedly 
 based (John xviii. 37), for the Lord does not say that He is called 
 a king only as bearing witness to the truth, and that, besides 
 this, He has no other proper dominion. The Lord, in answer 
 to Pilate's question whether He was a King, roundly affirms it, 
 notwithstanding Pilate's obvious wish to hear Him disclaim such 
 pretensions: "I am a king;" and the subsequent statement 
 grounds His unambiguous and bold confession, as if He would say, 
 " I will not dissemble ; for this end was I born, and came into 
 the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." 1 The 
 passage says nothing, then, about His having no other dominion 
 but a subjective dominion of truth. Nor is that thought in the 
 passage. That interpretation gives Christ no other dominion 
 than such as apostles and teachers would have in common with 
 Him. But to Christ alone is a kingdom ascribed ; and no one 
 shares it, or can share it, with Him, except as He graciously 
 exalts them to sit with Him on His throne. 
 
 Thus the dominion of Christ, whether we view it in one aspect 
 or in another, is founded on the atonement of the cross. 
 
 SEC. XLII. THE INFLUENCE OF THE ATONEMENT IN PROCURING 
 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 There are several sayings of Jesus which point out the close 
 connection between the gift of the personal Holy Ghost and the 
 atonement of Christ. These I purpose briefly to elucidate in the 
 present section. We find the Lord affirming, in a variety of 
 passages, that it was He who, by His vicarious sacrifice, obtained 
 for His Church this great gift. And, in discussing this point, it 
 will be necessary to carry with us the canon of interpretation, 
 which has already been frequently applied, that whatever is 
 
 1 The phrase, "to bear witness to the truth," occurs elsewhere, meaning, to 
 declare the truth (comp. John v. 33) ; and this very passage is adduced by Paul 
 in proof of the fact that Christ witnessed a good confession (1 Tim. vi. ) . It cer- 
 tainly does not mean that Christ is a king of truth, and in no other sense.
 
 THE ATONEMENT PROCUKING THE HOLY GHOST. 343 
 
 graciously conferred on man through Jesus Christ, was wanting 
 in our natural condition. The Spirit, whose absence is thus 
 taken for granted as in the other blessings, forfeited by sin, 
 and no more within the compass of our own resources, is repre- 
 sented as restored or graciously provided by the Mediator be- 
 tween God and man. Our Lord's language, correctly interpreted, 
 announces that the presence and operations of the Spirit were 
 procured by His atoning sacrifice for a fallen world ; and further- 
 more, that He is sent by Christ, and leads men to Christ. Not 
 that the Spirit was unknown in the ages which preceded the 
 incarnation and the redemption of the cross ; for we see that He 
 not only acted as the Spirit of inspiration in the case of spirit- 
 filled men, such as Moses, the Judges, David, and the prophets 
 generally, but came upon many, as an animating power, for the 
 work of conflict or endurance to which they were called. But 
 that preparatory work of the Spirit, as well as the personal 
 enjoyment of forgiveness, was owing to the atonement, which 
 had a retrospective as well as a prospective efficacy, and thus 
 had an influence on all times. That supply of the Spirit en- 
 joyed by the Old Testament saints was dependent on the 
 atonement or meritorious work of righteousness, which was, in 
 due season, to be brought in by the Lord Jesus. And the reason 
 why the Spirit was not more largely given in the previous ages, 
 was because this gift stood in causal connection with the atone- 
 ment, and because the link between the two must unmistakeably 
 be established, and appear in deed as well as in word. The 
 actual effusion of the Spirit, in the fulness which distinguishes 
 the Christian from the Jewish Church, was reserved for the day 
 when Christ sat down on His mediatorial throne, filled with a 
 plenitude of the Spirit, given to Him as the reward of His 
 atoning sacrifice. 
 
 To understand aright our Lord's sayings on this point, it is 
 obvious that we must regard Him as the second Adam. His 
 work, as is everywhere assumed by Himself, and declared by 
 His apostles, was the counterpart of Adam's disobedience ; and
 
 344 SAYINGS OF JESUS OX THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 as the result of the fall appeared, among other things, especially 
 in this, that the Spirit was, in the necessary exercise of divine 
 justice, withdrawn from the human heart, which was thus left 
 not only without its great inhabitant, but a prey to all those 
 influences of a natural and visible kind which, in the absence 
 of the Spirit, inevitably draw the affections away from God, 
 so the atoning work of Christ, not less influential for good than 
 was Adam's act for evil, brought back the Spirit in His fulness 
 to all for whom Christ was accepted as a representative, with 
 this further or additional security, that He was to be forfeited 
 and withdrawn no more. It is in the highest degree important 
 to regard the redemption work of Christ as the ground or meri- 
 torious cause, in virtue of which the Spirit was restored to man. 
 The Spirit was* given only after the atonement was finished. 
 Not only so : He is given in connection with the preaching of 
 Christ crucified (Gal. iii. 3). God has respect to the cross in 
 communicating the Spirit; and believers, and the church in 
 general, in expecting His powerful operations, must fix their 
 undiverted gaze on the cross. 
 
 The sayings of Jesus on this point are explicit enough, and 
 leave no doubt that there is a special connection between His 
 atoning work and the gift of the Holy Ghost such a link, in 
 fact, as is established between merit and reward. The connec- 
 tion in which the effusion of the Spirit stands with the atone- 
 ment of Christ on earth, and with His intercession in heaven, 
 as founded on it, demands a special study; and when this is lost 
 sight of, everything is presented in a false light. Though the 
 Spirit, as a divine person, comes in the exercise of free and con- 
 descending love, He yet comes as the representative of Christ 
 and the Spirit of the risen Surety, according to the tenor of 
 Christ's prevailing intercession, and on the ground of the atone- 
 ment. This intercession is never ineffectual, because it is founded 
 on the work which was finished on the cross ; and it consists in 
 presenting before the Father that crucified humanity, in which He 
 accomplished man's redemption. The mission of the Spirit is
 
 THE ATONEMENT PKOCURING THE HOLY GHOST. 345 
 
 thus the fruit of Christ's atonemeiit, 1 and one of the greatest 
 fruits of His mediation in behalf of a fallen world. 
 
 We shall now notice more particularly a few of Christ's say- 
 ings, which serve to bring out this causal connection between 
 the atonement and the donation of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 1. The first saying of Jesus on this subject was the promise 
 uttered at the feast of Tabernacles, when He invited every one 
 who had the sense of thirst, to come to Him and drink : " He 
 that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly 
 shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake He of the 
 Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive ; for the 
 Holy Ghost was not yet given ; because that Jesus was not yet 
 glorified.)" (John vii. 38, 39.) The special application of this 
 text to Christ's glorification, which is immediately appended by 
 the inspired evangelist, is the point' which here demands our 
 attention. But it will be necessary to ascertain, first of all, 
 what our Lord signified by these words, and the rather because 
 they are so uniformly misapprehended. The rivers of living 
 water, described as flowing from the Christian are commonly 
 understood to mean the communications of the Spirit which one 
 Christian is made the channel of dispensing to another. To that 
 interpretation, however, there are great objections : (1) It intro- 
 duces an idea foreign to that which our Lord had expressed, which 
 was the quenching of thirst ; (2) it represents one Christian, as 
 in some sense a fountain of the Spirit to others, which is not a 
 biblical mode of representation. A better comment, and serving 
 to maintain the unity of the figure, is to view the saying as of 
 the same nature with the promise of Christ as to thirsting no 
 more, for there should be the well of water within, 2 springing 
 
 1 Whether we say with Owen and the Puritans that Christ PURCHASED the 
 operations of the Spirit, or prefer another phrase, every biblical divine must hold 
 that our Lord procured the Spirit by His atonement. 
 
 2 The only exegete known to me who gives this interpretation, is Baumgarten- 
 Crusius, who says, p. 308, " Das heisst sein Gemiith wird aus der Tiefe heraus 
 unendlichfort Erquickung, Befriedigung haben, ganz wieA. 0. 4, 14." Though 
 Meyer condemns it, it is far the preferable comment, and gives consistency to 
 the whole.
 
 346 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 up to everlasting life (John iv. 14). It is thus a promise of full 
 satisfaction and abundant refreshment to the thirsty themselves. 
 This is the best comment on the words. 
 
 John next adds that the Lord spoke of the Spirit, who was 
 not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (ver. 39). 
 The language literally is, " for the Holy Ghost was not yet." 1 
 This of course does not mean that there was no personal Holy 
 Ghost before Christ's ascension, but that He was not yet dis- 
 pensed, as He was afterwards given, to the Church. The com- 
 mentary of John, setting forth the two points, that all who 
 believe should receive the Spirit, and that the Spirit was not 
 yet given, demand some elucidation. The metaphor may refer 
 to the Old Testament prophecies and to the passages in Isaiah, 
 Ezekiel, Joel, and Zechariah, where the gift of the Spirit is 
 frequently expressed under the figure of pouring water on him 
 that is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground. Commentators 
 largely refer these words to the diversity between the two 
 economies in regard to the measure of the Spirit, and to the 
 amount of spiritual liberty or assurance conferred. But that 
 by no means exhausts our Lord's words, even though that 
 antithesis were maintained by the interpreter as the true point 
 of the saying. The language sets forth that the Spirit's presence 
 and operations could only be consequent 2 on Christ's vicari- 
 ous satisfaction, and His exaltation to the mediatorial throne. 
 The word glorified is intended to denote the way and the end, 
 the atonement and the exaltation, but not the latter irrespective 
 of the former. He in fact intimates that the donation of the 
 Spirit is a fruit of the everlasting righteousness brought in, or of 
 the vicarious sacrifice offered, of which this glorification was but 
 the reward and proof. However men may interpret the word 
 
 1 o07rw yap ty Hi>ev/j.a &yiov. Tholuck says this is the irvev/jia. X/j. as contrasted 
 with the irvevfj-a ov\eias. Liicke says that the difference between the Old and 
 New Testament lay in the smaller and larger measure of the Spirit. Olshausen 
 appeals to the relation of the different persons of the Trinity. These do not 
 exhaust the meaning. 
 
 * See the quotation from Gerhard at the end of this section.
 
 THE ATONEMENT PROCURING THE HOLY GHOST. 347 
 
 glorified in this passage, they must comprehend way and end, 
 antecedent and consequent, merit and reward, cause and effect. 
 The best Greek 1 interpreters lay the emphasis on the cross, and 
 many modern interpreters expound it of Christ entering on His 
 glory by means of that vicarious suffering on which the effusion 
 of the Spirit was to follow as a fruit. 
 
 2. Another important saying of Christ on this point is : " It 
 is expedient for you that I go away : for if I go not away, the 
 Comforter will not come unto you ; but if I depart, I will send 
 Him unto you" (John xvi. 7). Various reasons have been 
 assigned by interpreters why it was expedient that Christ should 
 go away, and why the Spirit could not come unless the Lord 
 departed. These reasons have been expressed sometimes in one 
 tendency, sometimes in another, and sometimes on grounds that 
 have little, if anything, to support them. Thus, some have 
 alleged, as the reason why it was expedient that He should go 
 away, that a belief in His divinity could not consist with His 
 visible presence. Others have explained the reason of His 
 departure, from the consideration that the disciples, while they 
 clung so much to Christ's corporeal presence, were not in a state 
 of mind which was fully capable of receiving the Spirit. These 
 grounds are merely of a subjective character, and quite faulty. 
 Another explanation, which is also subjective, alleges that the 
 Comforter could not, in point of fact, act the part of a comforter, 
 if there were no deep necessity for consolation, such as was sup- 
 plied by Christ's departure. It would be tedious to enumerate 
 and to discuss all the various opinions which have been given ; 
 and I shall content myself with stating what seems to be the 
 obvious meaning of the words. 
 
 When Christ speaks, in this passage, "of going away," the 
 
 1 Thus Chrysostom says, So'^av Ka\un> rbv ffravpo'v. So Euthymius, following 
 Chrysostom. Theophylact's beautiful comment to the same effect might be 
 quoted in full, but it is too long. He says, otiirw obv TOV ffravpov ira.'ytvTos oi)5 
 TTJS afiaprtas Karapy-rjOflffTjs ei/co'rws OVK 5o'0r) i] Sa\f/i\rjs TOV Tlve^fjLaros X^P^- To 
 the same purport are Hengstenberg's words on this passage : "in der Thatsache 
 der geschehenen Versbhnung wurzelt die Potenzirung des Geistes." The latter 
 quotes, as a proof, Jer. xxxi. 31 .
 
 348 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 language plainly means His return to heaven, but comprehends 
 a further reference to the expiation of sin, or to that pathway 
 of atonement and obedience by which He was to go. In a word, 
 the Spirit could not come without the vicarious sacrifice of the 
 cross ; and Christ's departing to the Father by such a way 
 that is, in the accomplishment of a course of obedience was 
 indispensably necessary, if the Spirit was to come. It is just 
 another mode of stating that He had merited the donation or 
 supply of the Spirit by His sufferings. 1 He intimates that 
 the gift of the Spirit, who comes as a personal inhabitant to 
 the human heart, and who brings, when He so comes, the com- 
 munications of life, light, and divine supplies, can be received 
 and possessed only when the guilt of sin has been cancelled, 
 and the entire curse under which men were held has been fully 
 and righteously reversed. Thus Christ's return to the Father 
 includes the way as well as the end ; or, in other words, desig- 
 nates His departure by means of the atonement, or expiation of 
 sin, which is thus represented as the only channel by which the 
 supplies of the Spirit could be communicated in every variety 
 and form. 
 
 It must be further noticed, that the Lord in this passage gives 
 the necessary prominence to the Spirit's operations, without re- 
 moving the Church's eye from Himself as the crucified One, and 
 as the Lord our righteousness. What was to accrue to men from 
 this mission of the Spirit, is expressly taught in the words im- 
 mediately subjoined ; intimating that when He is come, He shall 
 convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and judgment. By 
 the first He understands the sin of unbelief, as He explains it 
 
 1 The Greek exegetes, Chrysostom and Theophylact, already quoted on the 
 former saying of Christ, are most explicit to the same effect here. Luther adopts 
 their comment ; and Gerhard, Harmon. Evangel, iii. p. 324, after quoting, with 
 approval, the Greek comments, says : ' ' Quse prsebet utilem doctrinam, quod 
 donatio Spiritus Sancti sit salutaris fructus passionis et mortis Christi ac con- 
 gruit phrasi, qua Christus utitur, quia per abitum suum ad Patrem non tantum 
 intelligit ascensionem in coelos, qua venit ad Patrem, imo ad dextram Patris 
 consedit, sed etiam mam medinm, per quam eo veuit, nempe iter passionis et 
 mortis. "
 
 THE ATONEMENT PEOCURING THE HOLY GHOST. 349 
 
 (ver. 9). By righteousness, He intimates, not the justice of His 
 cause, but, as we already proved, the righteousness which He 
 wrought out, in His atoning death, for His people (ver. 10). By 
 judgment, He understands that the adversary has lost his cause 
 in the great judicial process, and therefore all lawful claim to 
 the property which he formerly possessed. All this is won 
 through the expiation of sin effected by Christ (ver. 11). 
 
 The Lord had promised the Comforter, as the author of a two- 
 fold work: (1) to testify of Himself: and (2) to qualify the 
 disciples for the great office of planting His gospel in the world 
 (John xv. 26, 27). The former was a more immediate work of the 
 Spirit : the latter should be effected through the medium of the 
 Spirit's operations on the minds of the disciples. The former is 
 explained first (John xvi. 7-12): the latter is subjoined, and 
 specially points out how the apostles' minds should be enlightened, 
 regulated, and directed by the Spirit for the work of bearing wit- 
 ness to Christ (y. 12-15). On these points it falls not within 
 our plan to expatiate. Let it suffice to say that the Comforter 
 was promised to lead the disciples into all the truth, and there- 
 fore not only into a clear perception of the rationale and connec- 
 tions of the truth already known, but also into parts of it which 
 hitherto could not have been borne (v. 12, 13). It was further 
 promised that the Comforter should not, like the seducing or 
 erring spirit which leads men's mind astray, speak of Himself, 
 but in fellowship with the Father and the Son (v. 13). What- 
 soever He should hear He was to speak which means that the 
 Spirit, in a way to us inscrutable, hears from the Father and the 
 Son ; knowing the mind of God, and searching the deep things of 
 God. The truth imparted by the Spirit to the disciples was thus 
 to emanate from the Father and the Son : and what was spoken 
 should have special reference to the counsel of peace. He was 
 to take of Christ, that is of His divine dignity and glory, and 
 show them things to come, or make them prophets ; and all the 
 New Testament books are replete with and breathe the pro- 
 phetic spirit.
 
 350 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 To understand the evangelist's references, we must remark, 
 that whenever John adduces our Lord's words as alluding to His 
 departure, or to His return to the Father (John xvi. 28), there is 
 uniformly comprehended in His words such a going or return as 
 is consequent on the accomplishment of the finished work of re- 
 demption. Now, as it was only at the glorification of Christ, 
 that is, at the time when God and men were reunited by the 
 completed work of atonement, or by the payment of the ransom, 
 that the Holy Ghost could be legitimately given to man, and 
 come forth on His mission in the sense described in the New 
 Testament, so the actual sending of the Spirit, as our Lord 
 further shows, is only to be by means of a Mediator who has 
 passed through death, and made an end of sin, and sat down on 
 the throne of glory. 
 
 3. Another saying may be adduced, pointing out the relation 
 in which the gift of the Spirit stands to the death and interces- 
 sion of Christ : " I will pray the Father, and He shall give you 
 another Comforter" (John xiv. 16). When the true High Priest 
 entered heaven, and appeared in the presence of God for us, on 
 the ground of His finished work on earth, one part of that ever- 
 active intercession, as He here declares, was to ask the Spirit for 
 His people, that is, to ask what God had promised to bestow, 
 according to the merit of His death. It was indeed to be no 
 small part of His reward, that He should acquire a right to ask 
 the Spirit, and to send Him, in consequence of giving His life a 
 ransom for many. 
 
 Such is the connection between the gift of the Spirit and the 
 mediation of Christ. They must be apprehended together ; and 
 the isolation of the Spirit's work from the cross and crown of 
 the Redeemer is always of doubtful tendency, and calculated to 
 divest the theology, to which it gives a tone, of its evangelical 
 liberty. It speedily engenders a legal element ; and hence, ac- . 
 cording to this view of the connection between Christ and the 
 Spirit, it is necessary to fix a steady gaze on Christ's cross, as the 
 Lord our righteousness. The living personal Saviour, the true
 
 THE ATONEMENT REUNITING MEN AND ANGELS. 351 
 
 foundation of life to humanity, gives the Spirit, thus won or pro- 
 cured by His death. 
 
 As our object, in this section, is only to point out that the gift 
 of the Spirit has a very dose relation to the great fact of the 
 atonement, it is not necessary to refer specially to the Spirit's 
 work as carried on in the heart. Let it suffice to say that He is 
 called the Spirit of life (Eom. viii. 2), by whom sinners, alienated 
 from the life of God, are quickened and renewed ; the Spirit of 
 Faith (2 Cor. iv. 13), because the author and cause of faith; the 
 Spirit of Adoption, by whose aid the timid come boldly to God 
 (Gal. iv. 6) ; the Leader, by whom the Christian is led (Eom. 
 viii. 14) ; the Helper of their infirmities (Eom. viii. 26) ; the 
 Sealer, who seals them as the inviolable property of Christ, to 
 the day of redemption (Eph. iv. 30) ; the earnest of the inheri- 
 tance (Eph. i. 14) ; the originator of all spiritual fruit, called 
 fruits of the Spirit (Gal v. 22) ; and who abides in them for 
 ever (John xiv. 16). 1 
 
 SEC. XLIII. CHRIST'S ABASEMENT AS THE SECOND MAN OPENING 
 HEAVEN, AND RESTORING THE COMMUNION BETWEEN MEN AND 
 
 ANGELS. 
 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven 
 open [better, opened], and the angels of God ascending and 
 descending upon tlie Son of Man." (John i. 51). 
 
 This saying of Jesus points out the intercourse between angels 
 and men, and the foundation on which it rests. It may be called 
 the key to all those numerous allusions which are found in the 
 
 1 There are two phrases used in reference to the Spirit : irap' V/MV ptvei, and tv 
 vjjuv tcrrai. The phrase, iv vfuv ?<JTCU (John xiv. 17), occurs only once in Christ's 
 sayings, but it significantly represents Him, not as an objectively operating 
 power, but as a subjectively present power, given by God, and for ever dwelling 
 in the Christian. The other phrase, vap' v/juv /*&, seems to refer more to the 
 preparatoiy work of the Spirit before Pentecost ; that is, while Christ was still 
 with them.
 
 352 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Acts, and in the apostolic Epistles, to the ministration of angels 
 (Acts xii. 7 ; Heb. i. 14), and to their being gathered together 
 into one, and recapitualed, along with redeemed men, under one 
 head (Eph. i. 10 ; Col. i. 20). 
 
 As to the occasion of this saying, it was spoken to Nathanael 
 at the time when he was first brought into Christ's presence. 
 Nathanael may have been meditating in secret on the second 
 Psalm, for he uses the two titles of the Lord contained in the 
 Psalm, in giving expression to his sense of Christ's dignity and 
 office, " Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of 
 Israel." The Lord, having given a convincing proof of His more 
 than human knowledge, by referring to exercises probably re- 
 ligious inquiries under the fig-tree, said that he should see 
 greater things than these, which had just called forth his adora- 
 tion and religious homage ; and then, according to His manner, 
 when referring to Himself, He immediately begins to speak from 
 the view-point of His incarnation and humiliation, as the great 
 display of His grace, calling Himself " Son of Man." The ex- 
 planation already given of this title, in a previous section, con- 
 tains sufficient evidence that it uniformly alludes to Christ's 
 abasement as the second Adam, or to some of the fruits or con- 
 sequences arising from that obedience unto death, to which it 
 always refers. 
 
 The centre of the whole announcement is this title of Christ, 
 "The Son of Man." 1 And the promise here expressed, in con- 
 nection with it, shows that there is a causal or meritorious link 
 between the blessing and the humiliation of the second man, the 
 surety of sinners. The title placed in immediate connection 
 with the promise, implies all this. Not only so : the fact that 
 this is the precise title, appropriate to the occasion and utterance, 
 is of itself sufficient to convince us that the promise, whatever 
 
 1 The mistakes in the interpretation of this difficult text come from not appre- 
 hending the phrase, 6 vlbs rov dvOptiirov. Calovius' and Gomar's erudite discus- 
 sion on the passage fail, on this account ; and so, too, Marckius, Exerc. xxv. 1. 
 N. T.
 
 THE ATONEMENT REUNITING MEN AND ANGELS. 353 
 
 may be its special import, refers to an angelic ministry, or an 
 angelic fellowship with men, and that, though it may seem to be 
 directed in the first instance to the Lord Himself, it is more to 
 be referred to the disciples, for whom He acted, in this capacity 
 as the Son of Man. l 
 
 That the words refer to Jacob's vision in some sense is ad- 
 mitted by almost every expositor of any note. On the question 
 whether the ladder indicated Christ, there was little difference of 
 opinion among the older divines, such as Calvin and others, who 
 all affirmed it. Most is to be said in favour of the view, that 
 our Lord referred to Jacob's ladder as the figure of Himself, and 
 therefore, that the Son of Man is the uniting link of heaven and 
 earth. The vision, in its application by Jesus to Himself, im- 
 plies that, as the true Mediator between God and man, He opens 
 a way, and keeps it open, between heaven and earth, by His 
 humiliation unto death. That this is the import of the words, 
 is generally maintained by the best interpreters. But the 
 emphasis which the passage gives to the atoning work of Christ 
 as the foundation of all those blessings delineated in the promise, 
 has not been sufficiently adverted to, from the fact that com- 
 mentators have so much failed to exhibit the proper import of 
 the title, " The Son of Man." 
 
 Another widespread inquiry was propounded, Might not our 
 Lord mean to represent Himself, not as the reality and truth of 
 what was figured forth in the ladder uniting earth and heaven, 
 but rather as the Lord who stood above it ? 2 They who adopt 
 this latter view will have it, that Christ describes Himself as 
 the Lord, not only of men, but of angels. They suppose that 
 this is intimated by the ascending and descending to the Son of 
 Man ; for so they translate the preposition upon (rl).3 The 
 
 1 Meyer incorrectly makes it, " symbolische Darstellung des pennanenten 
 lebendigen Wechselverkers zwischen dem Messias und Gott. " 
 
 2 So the celebrated French preacher, Du Bosc, explained it. See Witsius, 
 Meletem Leidensia de Aperte Ccelo, p. 213 ; and also Muntinghe, Gesclwid. der 
 Menschheid, ix. Aan 41. 
 
 3 The preposition tirl here denotes, not to, but upon, and refers equally to the 
 ascending and the descending. As Liicke well observes, the ascending and descend-
 
 354 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 idea, according to this interpretation, is, that as Jehovah, in 
 Jacob's dream, was seen at the top of the ladder directing the 
 angels to do His pleasure and execute His will, this is Jesus the 
 Son of Man sending forth the angels, whose Lord He is (Heb. i. 
 6). They suppose our Lord to say that He sends the angelic 
 intelligences to execute His commands in all the realms of 
 nature, and in every variety of errand connected with His 
 kingdom, and that this is a greater thing than that which 
 Nathanael had yet seen. Hence, the words are referred by 
 many to the future of the Messianic kingdom, the Millennial 
 period ; or to gathering in the elect at last from the four 
 corners of the globe, or to the carrying of departed spirits home. 1 
 And the more this class of expositors identify -the Son of Man 
 with the Lord, who stood above the ladder in Jacob's vision, the 
 more are they persuaded that it is descriptive of Jesus commis- 
 sioning or sending forth the angels, of whom He is the Lord. 
 But this comment proceeds upon the supposition that " The Son 
 
 ing of the angels is to be comprised in the one idea of uninterrupted intercourse, 
 the ascending standing first both in Genesis and here ; and we may say with 
 Tholuck, that it means, they return to heaven to receive new commissions. "We 
 cannot refer the words to the angelophanies in Gethsemane and at the Lord's 
 resurrection, as Witzius, Grotius, and Chrysostom interpret the words. 
 
 1 There is no good ground for cancelling air' &pri, with Lachmann ; but it must 
 be understood as qualified by the phrase, " Son of Man." Aright understood, it 
 gives no warrant for the argument of Witsius and others, that the reference is to 
 what immediately took place. It refers rather to what follows, or is consequent 
 upon the work of the Son of Man. 
 
 We cannot refer this language to the miracles of Jesus in which He used angels 
 (so Piscator), or make it a vague generality to denote miraculous manifestation 
 (so Lightfoot, Michaelis), or make it mean God's help and providence, which 
 Christ was to experience (Morus). Much more happily, Chemnitz, Harmon. 
 Evangel., p. 239, says : " Docet igitur Christus officium suum esse ccelum aperire, 
 et ccelestia rursus conjungere cum genere humano, quod per peccatum et a Deo 
 et a sanctis angelis avulsum fuerat, ut simus cives sanctorum, et angeli jam 
 descendant super humanam naturam assumptam a Filio Dei, et propter caput 
 etiam jam emittantur, scilicet ad ministerium electorum (Heb. i. 14) : emissio 
 enim ad ministerium per descensum et ascensum describitur. Nam angeli emissi 
 descendunt et rursus sistunt se Deo ascendendo, injuncti ministerii rationem 
 reddituri (Job i. 6 ; Zech. i. 11)." The only thing awanting here, is the connec- 
 tion between this ministry and the title " Son of Man," correctly understood.
 
 THE ATONEMENT KEUNITING MEN AND ANGELS. 355 
 
 of Man" is a title of dignity, whereas we have fully proved that 
 it is a title of humiliation and service. 
 
 The starting-point in this inquiry is, What is the significance 
 of the title Son of Man, which is not used as a mere expletive, 
 but as intimating the foundation or ground on which the angelic 
 agency here mentioned rests ? As this has been discussed and 
 established in a separate section, it is only necessary to refer to 
 the conclusion at which we arrived. The work of the sin-bear- 
 ing second Adam is the point or import of the title ; and one of 
 the effects which that atonement ushers in, as here stated, is the 
 restoration of the long-forfeited intercourse between men and 
 angels, who are brought together as two branches of one family 
 in Christ, or gathered together under one Head the reconciler 
 of all things in earth and heaven (Col. i. 20). If the partition 
 wall between Jews and Gentiles is removed by the cross, and 
 the enmity slain thereby, the same thing holds true in reference 
 to angels and men ; and all that the promise here mentioned 
 contains, stands in causal connection with the abasement of the 
 second man. Moreover, the expression Henceforth, is an incon- 
 trovertible proof that, however far the provisions of this promise 
 extend, and however long they may be carried out, they all took 
 their origin from His surety work and His obedience unto death. 
 
 1. The first part of the promise shows that heaven, once shut, 
 is now opened. It sets forth, according to the canon frequently 
 applied by us, that the opposite obtained before, and that through 
 the humik'ation of Christ there is now an open intercourse with 
 heaven, together with the free supplies and rich communications 
 of divine grace. The heavens were opened at the baptism of 
 Jesus (Matt. ix. 16) ; and again, on the Mount of Transfiguration 
 (Matt. xvii. 3-5), announcing what was soon to be effected by 
 the completion of His atoning work, to which all these scenes 
 pointed ; a third time, when the voice came from God to the 
 suffering Jesus (John xii. 27) ; and at Stephen's martyrdom we 
 see what may be taken as the special privilege of all the 
 Christian Church (Acts vii. 5, 6).
 
 356 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 2. The second part of the promise announces a restored com- 
 munion between angels and men, who had long been widely 
 estranged by sin. Angels were, previous to the death of Christ, 
 separated from all fellowship with our race ; and though w r e read 
 of many Old Testament angelophanies, it is not the less true, 
 that any ministry on which they came, before the incarnation, 
 was based on that atonement which was to be accomplished on 
 the cross. But now, says Christ, Henceforth peace shall be 
 restored between angels and men, the partition wall being broken 
 down. They are now both reduced, or, as it has been rendered, 
 recapitulated under one Head (Eph. L 10), and are only separate 
 departments of one family and household. Thus, all that angelic 
 ministry, which we find so often mentioned in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, and doctrinally set forth in the Epistles (Heb. i. 14 ; 
 CoL i. 20), depends, as this testimony fully proves, on the atone- 
 ment of the cross, or on the fact that the Son of God has 
 become the Son of Man. 
 
 As to the ministration of angels, it is spoken of as a fact, and 
 in such a way as intimates that the Lord sends them forth on 
 various errands during all the Christian's pilgrimage. The 
 two special works recorded as belonging to their ministry, are 
 the conveying of the souls of the departed to their place of 
 bliss, and the final gathering or collecting of the elect on the 
 resurrection day. But these presuppose, as going on at pre- 
 sent, ministrations of every varied description, such as the 
 Scripture records in multitudes of instances ; and Christ's 
 people are warranted to believe that angels encamp around the 
 Church and her individual members; and the foundation of 
 the w r hole is the cross, which makes both the families one under 
 one Head. 
 
 SEC. XLIV. SAYINGS OF JESUS WHICH REPRESENT THE ATONEMENT 
 AS GLORIFYING GOD. 
 
 Various intimations are conveyed in our Lord's sayings, to
 
 THE ATONEMENT GLORIFYING GOD. 357 
 
 the effect that His redemption-work glorified God ; and these 
 demand an accurate examination. To understand them aright, 
 it will be necessary to go back a step, and to read them off from 
 a similar and opposite state of things. We must start from the 
 fact that sin had dishonoured the divine majesty, and robbed 
 Him of the declarative glory due to Him, according to the rela- 
 tions in which a personal God stands to the world. 
 
 It is the more necessary to place this point in a proper light, 
 because it is precisely the element which is too readily dropped 
 or displaced from the prominence that properly belongs to it. 
 I shall not adduce all the sayings that might be collected to- 
 gether on this point, but content myself with a few of the most 
 emphatic. Nor shall 1 inquire whether the glorification to 
 which our Lord's language points, refers more to His conscious 
 design and purpose, or to the effect which His atoning death 
 subserved, and to which it tends ; for, in truth, these two, how- 
 ever capable of being distinguished in idea, were never dissoci- 
 ated in His mind, nor disjoined in His actual walk. In handling 
 those testimonies which represent God as glorified by means of 
 Christ's atonement, it seems to me that there are two different 
 aspects in which this matter is presented, one rather exhibiting 
 Christ's act as the representative of the creature, and a second 
 rather exhibiting the Father's act. They are not to be con- 
 founded, though they must necessarily be united, if we would 
 see the whole matter in a biblical light, and as reflected from 
 Christ's own consciousness. 
 
 1. First of all, I shall notice a remarkable saying belonging to 
 the first class just named, found in the Lord's intercessory prayer : 
 " / have glorified Thee on the earth ; I have finished the work Thou 
 gavest Me to do" (John xvii. 4). The meaning of these two 
 clauses, when put together, is, that the one is the means or path- 
 way to the other, that the glorifying of God on the earth was 
 attained by the work given Him to do, and now finished. That, 
 beyond doubt, is the relation in which the one clause stands to 
 the other, as an examination of the passage will suffice to prove.
 
 358 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 There is in these first verses an allusion to a twofold activity of 
 Christ, and to a double glorification of the Father. Thus the 
 Lord declares that He had glorified the Father (ver. 4), and also 
 intimates that His ascension was to be made the means by which 
 He, the Son, should glorify the Father (ver. 1); which can only 
 refer to the revenue of glory which should redound to God by 
 means of the Gospel, by the existence of a Church, and by the 
 final perfection of the saints : for a tribute of glory redounds to 
 God from all those results which subsequently stand connected 
 with the ascension or the glorifying of the Son (ver. 1). But in 
 this passage which we have quoted, Christ speaks of glorifying 
 the Father by means of a work finished on the earth; and it is the 
 finishing of that work which glorified the Father. 
 
 The interpretation of this language is by no means difficult. 
 From these words some have concluded that all that Christ had 
 to do according to the divine plan, consisted in His instructions 
 as a teacher, or, as it is put in the context, in the manifestation 
 of God's name, and that when that was done, His work was 
 finished. But we cannot limit the words to His work as a 
 teacher, especially when we find that the Lord grounds His re- 
 quest to be glorified with the Father (ver. 5) on His work done, 
 which can only be His priestly self-oblation ; for only when that 
 work was done, could He expect with confidence His due reward. 
 He must suffer and be obedient unto death (Phil. ii. 8) ; He must 
 voluntarily lay down His life according to the commandment 
 received from His Father (John x. 18); and then -be exalted to 
 the place of supreme dominion, and to have power over all flesh, 
 to give eternal life to as many as the Father has given Him. 
 This was His crown of glory and high reward. In this sense we 
 must understand the words; they affirm that He finished the 
 work, and now enjoys the reward. He first makes mention of a 
 work to be done, and then announces that it was finished, or as 
 good as finished, because it was already accomplished in His 
 purpose. It is not difficult to perceive what that work is to 
 which our Lord refers. The description of it, in the first place,
 
 THE ATONEMENT GLORIFYING GOD. 359 
 
 as a work assigned to Him, and then the reward of glorification 
 for which He prays in connection with it (ver. 5), suffice to show 
 that the allusion is to the atonement or vicarious work of the 
 Mediator, so far as it must be finished on the earth. He alludes 
 to the work given Him to do as the surety of others, and which 
 was well-nigh finished. The word here used sometimes means 
 to bring to an end, and at other times denotes the measure and 
 degree of perfection to which a thing is brought. And our Lord 
 could testify of His work, with the greatest emphasis, that it was 
 perfected ; not only that it was brought to an end for He was 
 already mentally offered, but that He perfectly and completely 
 performed it in all its parts, so that it was every way complete 
 and without defect. 1 In other words, there was nothing lacking, 
 nothing left undone in His mediatorial undertaking. And if it is 
 asked, how could He say that His priestly work was done, and 
 perfect in its measure as well as in all its parts, when the most 
 arduous part of His task lay before Him ? the answer is at hand : 
 He was come to the last day of it the morrow would see it 
 done ; and hence He speaks of it as already accomplished and 
 wound up. 
 
 We have adduced the passage, however, to show that the 
 finished or perfected obedience of Jesus, both in action and in 
 suffering, redounded to the glory of God, and this in design, as 
 well as in tendency and effect. The matter of His obedience 
 flowing as it did from a lively sense of God's greatness and 
 perfections, was to the glory of God. There was in the active 
 obedience such a glorifying of God as could not be found in any 
 creature, and which was amply proportioned in point of merit, to 
 procure for men eternal life. 
 
 This view proceeds on a just conception of the divine claims, 
 and presupposes deep views of sin on the one hand, and of the 
 divine adaptation of the atonement as a remedy for sin on the 
 
 1 rb tpyov ereXeiWa ; and the aorist is used, as the Lord views it as already 
 done, or, as Alford well puts it, "looks back on it all as past." (See Gerhard's 
 Harmon. Evangel., and Charnock, ii. p. 184.)
 
 360 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 other. It is a mode of surveying the atonement, which is not 
 only of the utmost importance in itself, but so comprehensive in 
 its range, that it takes in all the more definite statements which 
 may be made on the subject of the divine law. It involves the 
 necessity of the magnifying of the divine law to make it honour- 
 able. We cannot admit, then, when we trace these allusions of 
 our Lord Himself to the restoration of the divine honour, that the 
 theology which grounds itself on this notion is worthy of being 
 called, as it has been called, an outward stand-point of abstract 
 reflection. Nor will it do to say, with such a testimony before 
 us, that the referring of the work of Christ to the divine law, 
 according to the representation current in the evangelical Church, 
 is not only much more conformable to the type of Scripture 
 doctrine, but much more practical, living, and experimental than 
 this reference to the divine honour ; l for in point of fact they do 
 not exclude each other. The one is from the view-point of 
 Christian experience ; the other is from that of the divine throne. 
 The view of the atonement, which surveys it in connection with 
 God's declarative glory, is not only biblical in its import, but 
 necessary in an experimental point of view. 
 
 First, as to the biblical warrant for the position, that the divine 
 honour has been taken away, and must needs be restored as an 
 indispensable condition of forgiveness, the Apostle Paul plainly 
 exhibits it in the broad outline which he gives of redemption in 
 the section of the Epistle to the Eomans, where he brings together 
 two things : the fact that men come short of the glory of God, 
 and the consequent necessity of an expiation for sin (Rom. iii. 
 23). The sense of that passage, when taken in connection with 
 the context, involves incontrovertibly the idea of rendering to 
 God His honour, or the tribute of declarative glory due to the 
 Creator from His intelligent universe. What is the glory of God 
 there spoken of, and of which all men come short ? Of the 
 different modes of exposition which have been given, the com- 
 
 1 Thus Philippi expressed himself against Anselm's principal position in his cur 
 Deus homo. (See Hengstenberg's Kirclunzeitung for 1844.)
 
 THE ATONEMENT GLOEIFYING GOD. 361 
 
 ment which refers the phrase to the divine image once possessed, 
 but lost .by sin, approaches nearest to the apostolic thought. 1 It 
 involves the idea of rendering glory to God, or of giving Him 
 His honour, by a pure nature, and a God-glorifying obedience. 
 When Christ glorified God, He did it as the Mediator represent- 
 ing man, and in the way of creaturehood in its perfection, learn- 
 ing obedience by what He suffered (Heb. v. 8). If it is said of 
 Peter that he was to glorify God by a martyr's death (John xxi. 
 19), and if renewed men are changed from glory to glory (2 Cor. 
 iii. 18), much more did the sinless Mediator glorify the Father 
 by His perfect work. 
 
 And as to the necessity of this view in an experimental 
 respect, conscience cannot be satisfied with any method of atone- 
 ment that does not secure the divine honour. Far from feeling 
 satisfied with a defective scheme, conscience asks with wistful 
 eagerness, whether, by the way propounded, God's honour 
 suffers no eclipse, and His majesty no stain ; and if conscience, 
 as God's vicegerent, is pacified only when God's honour is 
 restored, it is not' difficult to see, that without this view the 
 glorious liberty of the saints would be forestalled, and give place 
 to inextricable bondage. Thus the principle to which we have 
 been referring, far from propounding a mere abstract reflection, 
 is derived from the centre of biblical and experimental truth, 
 and is but an echo of this saying of Christ. This will aid us in 
 perceiving a correct exposition of Christ's words in reference to 
 the glory that redounds to the Father from His work. He 
 undertook to restore the glory due to the divine majesty with- 
 drawn by man's sin, and for which a reparation must be made, 
 although that could not be effected by angels or men; and this 
 
 1 The four interpretations of 5<5 a proposed by different commentators, are these : 
 (1) that it refers to the future glory (so the Greek exegetes, Beza, Bengel) ; (2) 
 glorifying before God (Luther) ; (3) honour, as at John xii. 43 (so Stuart) ; (4) the 
 created image of God (so the old Lutheran expositors, Chemnitz, Calov, Schmidt ; 
 also among the Reformed, J. Alting ; and so, too, Olshausen). This last comment 
 is every way to be preferred, and shows that the image of God is the glory of God, 
 and that this, carried out in all things, is the true and only way in which God can 
 be glorified by a creature.
 
 362 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 part of the Lord's mediatorial obedience had such value and 
 dignity, that it was fully adequate to this end. There was that 
 in the work of Christ which fully satisfied the insulted majesty 
 of God. 
 
 2. A second class of testimonies contains a declaration of that 
 which God does to glorify His name by the atonement. There 
 are two sayings of Jesus which here demand elucidation. 
 
 The first is that passage where He appealed to the Father 
 during His soul trouble or anguish : " Father, glorify Thy name. 
 Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both 
 glorified it, and will glorify it again" (John xii. 28). There is 
 a reference to a past act of glorifying His name on the part of 
 God, and a promise of another yet future. This is very note- 
 worthy ; but what precisely does it import ? Plainly, the 
 words intimate, that up to that moment the human life of 
 Christ, to which the language must refer, had been a continuous 
 glorifying of God, both in purpose and effect ; that as man by 
 his apostasy had trampled under foot the declarative glory of 
 God, not rendering the glory due to His name, so the second 
 man brought what is the due tribute to God. But the words, 
 descriptive as they are of God's own act for the glorifying of 
 His name, intimate, especially in connection with the plan of 
 redemption, that God had already glorified Himself, and that He 
 would do it again, in as far as the events connected with the 
 cross would -exhibit and commend the divine wisdom in the 
 contrivance of redemption, His mercy in sending His Son as 
 the Saviour, His veracity in fulfilling the promises, His justice 
 in requiring the due satisfaction for sin according to His law, 
 and His power in carrying His counsels into execution. Much 
 was already accomplished. But the Father would again glorify 
 His name in completing the work and accepting the sacrifice. 
 In what still remained of His redemption work, God's name 
 should again be glorified to the utmost measure. And the 
 Father says, that as He had glorified His name by Christ's 
 coming into the world, and by the work done in it, so He would
 
 THE ATONEMENT GLORIFYING GOD. 363 
 
 glorify it " again" by the mode of His departure from the world, 
 and by accepting the sacrifice which He offered. 
 
 Another testimony to the same effect was the saying which 
 Jesus uttered in the presence of the disciples, at the moment 
 when Judas went out to betray Him : " Now is the Son of Man 
 glorified; and God is glorified in Him" (John xiii. 21). The 
 title, Son of Man, which, as we have already seen, is uniformly 
 descriptive of Christ as the curse-bearing second Adam, leads 
 our thoughts to a right understanding of His words. In speak- 
 ing of the Son of Man being glorified, He has in His eye that 
 exaltation which was to be the reward of His atonement, or the 
 joy set before Him. Though the opinion of many commenta- 
 tors, that the Lord's glorification may here simply mean His 
 sufferings, is scarcely tenable for His sufferings alone are 
 never presented to us precisely under the notion of His glorifi- 
 cation yet the idea of the atonement, as the foundation and 
 pathway to His glory, is undoubtedly implied. 
 
 First, as to the saying in reference to Himself, "Now is 
 the Son of Man glorified," it is an instance of the endurance 
 to which He submitted for the joy set before Him (Heb. xii. 2), 
 or with His reward in view. He did not use this language 
 when He received the voice from heaven at His baptism (Matt, 
 iii. 17), nor after the transfiguration scene (Matt. xvii. 5), nor 
 after the commendations of the people (Mark vii. 37), nor after 
 the Hosannahs with which He was saluted on His entry into 
 Jerusalem (Matt. xxi. 9), but after Judas' departure to betray 
 Him. 1 The work is, in His purpose at least, and in His volun- 
 tary submission, already a consummated fact, and He grasps the 
 crown as already at hand, and given only for the abasement of 
 the cross. And when He adds, " God is glorified in Him," the 
 allusion is to that exercise of His attributes, or display of His 
 declarative glory, which the Father evinced by means of the 
 atonement. He intimates that His atoning work manifested 
 all the attributes and vindicated all the rights of Godhead, and 
 1 See "Wolfburgius, observations sacrce, on this verb.
 
 364 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 so glorified Him. But how was this ? If we survey the relation 
 of God to His creatures, or take account of His perfections, the 
 mode in which His name was glorified at this time will readily 
 appear. Thus, if we take account of the divine law, it received 
 a greater glory from the subjection of such a person to it than by 
 the faultless obedience of all the universe. The authority of God 
 was more fully disclosed and exercised in connection with the 
 incarnation and abasement of the Son of God than it was, or 
 could be, in any other sphere. The holiness of God, which leads 
 Him to hide His face from sin, and to withdraw from all fellow- 
 ship with it, was exercised and displayed in a more extraordi- 
 nary way, and therefore glorified more fully, by the desertion of 
 His Son, when made sin for us, than in all that exercise of it 
 which will be displayed on the finally impenitent in the black- 
 ness of darkness. The love of God was displayed, and therefore 
 glorified, 1 to the utmost by an infinite gift to creatures most 
 unworthy. His punitive justice, whereby He shows that He 
 cannot bear evil, and must punish it out of love to Himself, was 
 never exercised at such a cost as on Christ. In a word, the 
 divine perfections, that is, all the revealed attributes of God, 
 were exercised, and therefore displayed or glorified, to the utmost 
 by the atonement. 
 
 Thus the redemption, consisting in the obedience and death of 
 Christ, is the great work of God, the centre of all His ways, 
 which most brightly displays all the divine perfections, especially 
 His grace and holiness ; and hence the Lord said, with a peculiar 
 emphasis, " Now is the Son of Man glorified ; and God is glori- 
 fied in Him." 
 
 1 When God glorifies Himself, the action differs little from acting out or exer- 
 cising His own perfections, though the further notion of other beings thinking 
 honourably of Him is not excluded.
 
 THE SPECIAL REFERENCE OF THE ATONEMENT. 365 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE ACTUAL EFFICACY OF THE ATONEMENT, OK THE QUESTION 
 FOR WHOM IT WAS SPECIALLY OFFERED. 
 
 SECTION XLV. THE EFFICACIOUS CHAEACTER OF THE ATONEMENT, 
 OR THE SPECIAL REFERENCE OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST TO A 
 PEOPLE GIVEN HIM. 
 
 THERE is a considerable number of the sayings of Jesus which 
 bring out, with unmistakeable precision, the efficacious character 
 of the atonement, or that the death of Christ had a special re- 
 ference to a people given to Him. The redemptive efficacy of 
 His death is described as taking effect within a given circle, and 
 as bearing upon a given company of persons. What is that 
 circle, or who are the parties described as participating in the 
 fruits of Christ's death ? The Lord's sayings on this point are so 
 express, that we are not left in any doubt whether the atone- 
 ment was offered specially for the persons who receive the benefit 
 of His death. He indicates that they for whom it was offered 
 and accepted, were the persons who had been given to Him, and 
 to whom He had united Himself in the eternal covenant. 
 
 All who have a biblical scheme of doctrine, understand, by 
 Christ's dying for His people, A DYING IN THEIR ROOM AND 
 STEAD. They attach no lower sense than this to the expres- 
 sion. They hold that Christ underwent the penal suffering 
 which was their due, that He occupied their place as the 
 sin-bearer and curse-bearer, and that He rendered the full 
 obedience which was required; and they hold that it was a 
 real and valid transaction as much so as the fall, of which 
 it is the counterpart, and as the curse, of which it is the 
 reversal. This brings us to the real point of the investigation, 
 and away from the disguised, and sometimes fallacious, mode 
 of presenting it. 
 
 The proper nature of the atonement must first be ascer-
 
 366 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 tained before we can advance, with any precision, to define its 
 extent ; and when that point is settled, there is but one step 
 to an accurate definition of its extent. Without entering here 
 into a recapitulation of its constituent elements, as already set 
 forth in the previous sections of this work, let it suffice to 
 state, that the atonement, as a fact in history, is as replete 
 with saving results and consequences, as the fall of man, with 
 which it must ever be contrasted, is replete with the opposite. 
 Its extent coincides with its effects. In the Scripture mode of 
 representing it, we find it placed in causal connection with 
 man's salvation, as a fact not less real than the fall, and not 
 less fraught with consequences (Rom. v. 12-20). The words 
 intimate, that if the fall was fruitful of results for man's con- 
 demnation and death, the atonement is not less so for man's 
 restoration. 
 
 Now this of itself decides on the extent of the atonement. 
 No one doubts that the extent of the fall is coincident with 
 its obvious and manifest effects. If a causal connection obtains 
 between one man's disobedience and the sin, judgment, and 
 death in which the world is now involved, a causal connection 
 obtains, too, between the second man's obedience and the saving 
 benefits in which all Christians participate. If the fall was 
 pregnant with consequences which cannot be gainsaid, and which 
 ramify so widely, that they are everywhere apparent; the atone- 
 ment of Christ in like manner produces, and will continue to 
 produce, results which are as real, and shall ramify as widely, 
 through time and through eternity. 
 
 They who regard Christ in no higher light than as a teacher 
 come from God, as a distinguished pattern of virtue, or as a 
 faithful witness, who did not shrink from confirming His doc- 
 trine by His death, cannot mean that He died, in any sense 
 of the word, for those who lived before His coming. The very 
 idea of an example implies that it is but prospective, and 
 that it is fruitful of consequences or results worthy of the 
 name, only where the knowledge of His doctrine extends. On
 
 THE SPECIAL REFERENCE OF THE ATONEMENT. 367 
 
 that theory of Christ's death, its scope or reference cannot 
 be supposed to go further than the knowledge of His life and 
 character. 
 
 In investigating what Jesus said, we direct attention to the 
 question, whether the Lord's sayings do or do not assign a 
 special reference to His redemption work. The testimonies of 
 this nature, when put together, are by no means few or doubt- 
 ful ; and it is impossible to canvass them with due attention 
 without coming to the conclusion, that He assigned to His atone- 
 ment a definite reference, and that He acted, all through His 
 history, with a special regard to a certain class of men, whose 
 person He sustained. A few of these expressions, or turns of 
 phrase, we shall now adduce. 
 
 1. He calls them many, when He speaks of those for whom 
 His blood was shed, and who were the objects of His redemption 
 work (Matt. xxvi. 28, xx. 28). The natural interpretation of 
 this expression in both passages, as we have already explained 
 them, is, that He refers to those who are elsewhere represented 
 by Him as His own, as given to Him. The mere use of the 
 word many would not suffice to prove this of itself, without the 
 additional circumstance, that they are described by marks which 
 are by no means universally applicable. 1 A theory was pro- 
 pounded, two centuries ago, of a very perilous kind, to serve as 
 a sort of guiding principle, or canon of interpretation, in refer- 
 ence to such phrases. It was held by the Arminian school, who 
 were opposed to the special reference of Christ's death, that 
 when He was said to die for all, the language meant what was 
 done to win or procure redemption ; and that when He was said 
 to die for many, or for the Church, it described the actual par- 
 
 1 The remark of Jerome is happy : "non dixit pro omnibus, "sed pro multis, 
 id est, pro iis qui credere voluerint." I may notice that Amesius' Coronis ad 
 Collationem Hagiensem meets all the arguments of the Arminian school on this 
 point, and on the five points generally, and supplies a most pointed, felicitous, 
 and biblical refutation of that style of thought. See, too, Witsius, de cec. Feed., 
 lib. ii. cap. 9 ; and Gomar's biblical discussion, an Christus pro omnibus et 
 singulis mortuus sit, p. 453.
 
 368 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 ticipation of redemption. It is an artificially contrived theory 
 in the interest of a tendency, and cannot, without violence, be 
 applied to any of these texts. Plainly, our Lord describes the 
 actual offering of the ransom, and not its application alone. 
 The language had its full truth in the actual atonement, and 
 sets forth what was His own and His Father's purpose, when 
 He offered Himself. 
 
 2. Our Lord calls the objects of His atonement His sheep 
 (John x. 15). The same remarks are equally applicable here. 
 They are already called His sheep, because they were given 
 to Him in the divine decree, and known as His own. So 
 necessary was it that some link of connection should be formed 
 between Christ and the objects of redemption, such as obtains 
 between shepherd and sheep, head and members, that with- 
 out it an atonement could not have been made. 1 According 
 to the divine paction, there must be some union or conjunction. 
 This phrase thus involves two things : (1) that Christ did not 
 die in a merely indeterminate way and in uncertainty whether 
 He should have a flock, but with special objects of redemption 
 before His mind, to whom He was already knit by a tie neces- 
 sary for the redemption-work ; (2) that they are also His pur- 
 chased property, the result or fruit of His atonement. This 
 latter truth enables us to obviate the cavil against our inter- 
 pretation, as if it assumed that certain persons were already 
 the sheep of Christ before He died. They were so in the divine 
 purpose, and in Christ's undertaking, though not actually His 
 till the ransom was paid for them. He declares that He died 
 for the sheep, which, as appears from the context, were the 
 elect given to Him (John x. 26). The special reference of the 
 
 1 See Amesius' Coronis, p. 112. It is noteworthy that Grotius, when com- 
 pelled to meet the objection of Socinus that there was no connection between 
 Christ and us, argues with as much point for the affirmative as any Calvinistic 
 divine could use : ' ' dici hie posset, non esse hominem homini alienum, naturalem 
 esse inter homines cognationem et consanguinitatem, carnem nostram a Christo 
 susceptam ; sed longe major alia inter Christum et nos conjunctio a Deo destina- 
 batur. Ipse enim designatus erat a Deo ut caput esset corporis, cujus nos sumus 
 membra." (De Satisfactione Christi, cap. iv.)
 
 THE SPECIAL EEFERENCE OF THE ATONEMENT. 369 
 
 atonement, and the further thought that the vicarious sacrifice 
 secures the conversion of those for whom it was offered, are 
 incontrovertibly intimated in the words, " Other sheep I have 
 which are not of this fold: them also I must bring" (v. 16). 
 They are first called His sheep ; then they are described as the 
 objects of redemption, for whom He laid down His life, that is, 
 for whom the atonement was actually offered ; then they must 
 needs be brought, or rather led, as a shepherd leads his flock. 
 
 3. The persons for whom the atonement is offered are called 
 His people a name which indicates that they were already 
 Christ's in the divine purpose : " Thou shalt call His name 
 Jesus; for He shall save His PEOPLE from their sins" (Matt. 
 i. 21). If He saves His people, they were His by divine gift 
 already; and this obviates the allegation that the atonement 
 would have been equally complete, though no one had been 
 saved. That is plainly incompatible with this text, which 
 declares that He was the Saviour of His people. The objections 
 taken to this interpretation, which involves the special reference 
 of the atonement, are, (1) that the phrase, His people, may be 
 referred to the Jews, and so Calvin interpreted the words ; 1 
 (2) that the language does not refer to the purchase of redemp- 
 tion, but to its application. Both statements are easy of refuta- 
 tion. As to the first, the answer is, that God's people are two- 
 fold, according to the double covenant, the Jews as the people 
 whom He foreknew (Rom. xi. 2), and the true people of God, 
 who belong to the class that are given to the Son (John vi. 37). 
 And as to the second allegation, that the allusion is to the appli- 
 cation of redemption, the answer is, that these were both in the 
 divine purpose and intention. 
 
 4. They are called the children of God scattered abroad (John 
 xi. 52). This phrase occurs in connection with the divine oracle 
 uttered by Caiaphas, and forms part of the inspired commentary 
 of the evangelist. The high priest of the year on which the 
 
 1 Calvin does not limit the phrase to the Jews, but extends it to all nations, 
 who were to be inserted into the stock of Abraham. Vid. in loc. 
 
 2 A
 
 370 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 great atonement was made, was employed, in the marvellous 
 sovereignty of God, to embody the import of the entire Mosaic 
 worship, of the temple, the priesthood, and the sacrifices, when 
 he said, " It is expedient for us that one man should die for the 
 people, and that the whole nation perish not" (John xi. 50). 
 He thus unwittingly prophesied, and gave a voice to Judaism, 
 much in the same way as the Urim and Thummim of old gave 
 forth intimations of the will of God or of His mind. To this 
 oracle the inspired evangelist appends his commentary, to the 
 effect that this was a prophecy, and that it conveyed the im- 
 portant truth that Jesus was to die for that nation ; and not for 
 that nation only, but that also He should gather together in one 
 the children of God that were scattered abroad (ver. 52). Now, 
 the objects of redemption are here called " the children of God 
 scattered abroad," because they were so in the divine purpose, 
 though not yet actually ransomed. The evangelist intimates that 
 they were already the foreappointed children of God, and in 
 some sense worthy of being so called before the death of Christ; 
 then, that they were the objects of the vicarious sacrifice ; and 
 that the atonement was to carry with it the certain issue or 
 result that they should be gathered into one, that is, united to 
 Christ and to one another in Him. The special reference of the 
 atonement cannot be called in question here. 
 
 5. They are called by the Lord His friends, for whom He laid 
 down His life in the exercise of a special love : " Greater love 
 hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his 
 friends " (John xv. 13). Unquestionably, the emphasis falls on 
 the special love which He cherishes toward His people, here 
 termed His friends. The design and end for which He laid 
 down His life are not here mentioned, because the recent insti- 
 tution of the Supper, and the explanation appended to it, that 
 His blood was to be shed for the remission of sins, sufficiently 
 expressed both the purpose and effect of His atoning death ; and 
 as He meant to inculcate on His disciples mutual love, according 
 to His own example, He points to the greatest proof which could
 
 THE SPECIAL KEFEKENCE OF THE ATONEMENT. 371 
 
 be given of His love His vicarious death. 1 But the language 
 clearly enough indicates that His death was to be for the behoof 
 of others, and in their stead. He assumes that it is the case 
 of one offering himself to rescue another from danger. But, 
 apart from the use of the term friend, the special love 2 to 
 which our Lord here refers in connection with laying down His 
 life, comprises these two things, which are always to be viewed 
 together, and not apart that He not only procures salvation, 
 but also applies it. This special love wins its object, finds its 
 object, and rescues its object. 
 
 The answer to the inquiry, who are the special objects of 
 Christ's atonement ? would have been simple, if men had con-- 
 tented themselves with Scripture statements, and with ideas 
 derived from Scripture. Whatever be the infinite value of the 
 atonement, considered as a divine fact, as well as a human trans- 
 action, yet, in point of saving efficacy, it does not extend beyond 
 the circle of those who believe in Christ. Though in intrinsic 
 worth it could save the whole world, and a thousand worlds 
 more, if there had been such worlds of human beings to be saved, 
 yet the redemption- work does not extend, in point of fact, beyond 
 the circle of those who approve of it as a fit and proper method 
 of salvation ; or, in other words, who, by a faith which is the 
 gift of God, are led to accept it as the ground of reconciliation 
 with God. It is simply co-extensive, as to saving effects, with 
 the number of true believers. Of that there can be no doubt 
 
 5 
 
 when we examine the words of Christ, and abide by His teach- 
 ing. And in this conclusion, as the positive truth on the point, 
 all might have rested, and probably would have rested, with 
 perfect satisfaction, but for the theories and philosophical reason- 
 ings of men who, not so much under religious conviction as 
 under speculative tendencies, deemed it necessary to extend the 
 
 1 The rl0r)/j.L does not mean to expose to danger, as Grotius puts it, but to lay 
 down; and the virtp is to be understood as implying the 6.vrl (see above). 
 
 2 Calvin says on the passage : "Christus vitam suam pro alienis exposuit, sed 
 quos jam tune ipse amabat, mortem alias pro ipsis non subiturus.
 
 372 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 atonement to all alike, whether they were saved by it or not, 
 whether they believed it or not. They would not be content 
 with regarding it as co-extensive with its EFFECTS the only 
 true measure by which its reference can be known, and that 
 which makes it the counterpart of Adam's fall, but must needs 
 contend that it was co-extensive with the race, and for all 
 equally. It soon appears, however, that it is in reality a ques- 
 tion as to its nature. This will be evident by a brief allusion to 
 these universalist theories. 
 
 a. Thus, under the influence of plausible reasonings, not a few 
 in various countries go so far as to assert, that in virtue of 
 Christ's work all men will finally be saved. That theory of a 
 universal salvation has at least this in its favour, that it is con- 
 sistent, and is carried through to its logical consequences. It 
 was propounded in early times by Origen, and is, under an 
 evangelical garb, at present more widely diffused than it ever 
 was. 1 It has been principally based on the position that the 
 divine benevolence embraces all alike, and that the actual re- 
 storation will be co-extensive with the ruin. This speculation 
 overlooks divine justice, and looks simply at the point, that the 
 ruin and the remedy may presumably be held to be co-extensive 
 in their actual results, as well as analogous in the provision. 
 Though it is unscriptural, and even directly opposed to Scrip- 
 ture, it is at least consistent, as it goes through with the idea of 
 the universality of the provided remedy. 
 
 b. Much less consistent is another theory of universal grace 
 that of the Arminian and semi-Pelagian school, though tracing 
 its rise to the same speculative reasoning and plausible compari- 
 son between the ruin introduced by Adam and the remedy 
 brought in by Christ. 2 They hold that the atonement made on 
 Christ's side and accepted on God's side was co-extensive with 
 
 1 This is the common doctrine of the Continental rationalistic school, and of 
 some of more biblical sentiments. 
 
 2 What Coleridge so happily said of another scheme of thought, may equally be 
 applied to this : " It is not a religion, but a theory."
 
 THE SPECIAL EEFEEENCE OF THE ATONEMENT. 373 
 
 the human family, whether men believe it or not, whether they 
 reject it or not. They look only at one side of the question, and 
 they undermine , the atonement as a really valid fact. They 
 maintain that on God's side the remedy is as universal as the 
 disease. But what they thus gain in compass or breadth is lost 
 at the centre. The apparent advantage is more than counter- 
 vailed at another point : it is stripped of its efficacy ; and this 
 brings me back to the position, that the true question is no 
 longer, how far does it extend, but is it a real counterpart of 
 the fall, and does it render a perfect satisfaction to every claim 
 of justice, and fulfil the law in the room of any ? 
 
 We find, accordingly, when we examine the opinions of these 
 disputants, and ascertain the sense in which they take the 
 phrase, " to give His life FOE many," that the question turns not 
 so much on the point for whom Christ died, in the sense of a 
 true and valid transaction, as on the point whether He died for 
 any in the proper acceptation of the term. It is not a question 
 as to its extent. Rather it is, What was the design and object 
 which God had in view in giving His Son to die for us, and of 
 the Son, in giving Himself ? It is not whether Christ died for 
 all and every one, but whether He died for any, with valid con- 
 sequences or effects as certain and efficacious as in the great 
 counterpart transaction of man's fall. This will appear to every 
 one who will make a full survey of these opinions. 
 
 The Arminian contends that Christ's death only renders 
 reconciliation possible, and gives God a right to make a new 
 covenant, of which this shall be the tenor: that Christ shall 
 give eternal life to all who obey Him, and persevere to the end. 
 The semi-legality of this opinion is on the surface. It throws 
 men back upon themselves and upon their own resources. Not 
 only so : from the very nature of the theory, he cannot maintain 
 that such a covenant has ever been propounded to all who have 
 lived at any given time ; and obviously it can only be prospec- 
 tive not retrospective. It is not true to itself. 
 
 c. The Amyraldist view, or the theory of universal grace, differs 
 in some respects from the former, but is nothing beyond a half-
 
 374 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 way house. It sets forth that God, moved by a certain love to 
 fallen men, appointed Christ as a mediator for all and every one, 
 and that by this means all barriers on the side of divine justice 
 have been removed. It propounds the theory of salvation made 
 possible, but adds a condition that transfers the application to 
 the sovereign will of God : it is for all if they believe. This, it 
 is obvious, entirely alters the nature of the atonement. The 
 theory sets forth that Christ, according to His own intention and 
 His Father's purpose, died for all and every one ; that a salva- 
 tion was procured for all though not applied to all ; nay, that 
 the atonement, though not actually securing redemption or faith, 
 in the way of causal connection, rendered it possible to bestow 
 salvation on any whom the divine good pleasure might select, 
 and to form a new covenant of grace with mankind in general. 
 It is thus a new expedient which may become effectual in any 
 case where it may seem good to apply it. But it is not a valid 
 transaction in its own nature, involving a covenant or substitu- 
 tion and SECURING its own application. 1 
 
 d. There is still another mode of putting the universality of 
 the atonement, adopted by others in various churches, which is 
 comparatively innocuous amounting, in reality, to little more 
 than a roundabout way of representing the universal call of the 
 gospel. They are content with saying, that Christ died for all, 
 without ever tracing the ramifications of the statement, or 
 thinking out the position to its logical consequences ; and they 
 only mean that the invitation comes to all alike. Thus many 
 good men express themselves in different churches under the 
 somewhat confused and unexamined impression, that the uni- 
 versal call must, in some sense, which they never investigate, 
 have a universal provision equally broad underlying it. They 
 never reflect, as every one thinking out this matter must do, 
 that to the completeness of the atonement, as an accomplished 
 fact, it is indispensably necessary that all the three parties con- 
 cerned in the transaction shall concur the Father, the Surety, 
 and the man needing the salvation. There must be a consent 
 1 See note L in the Appendix.
 
 THE SPECIAL KEFEKENCE OF THE ATONEMENT. 375 
 
 of all the parties concerned; and the exercise of faith on the 
 sinner's part must be viewed as his approval of this method of 
 salvation, and his consent to it. There must needs be such an 
 approval of this provision as may be traced in the Jewish 
 economy, when the worshipper laid his hand on the head of 
 the sacrifice, intimating his consent to this mode of expiation 
 and confessing his sins on the victim. 
 
 The class of divines last named sometimes allege that, to 
 believe in Christ is equivalent to believing that Christ died for 
 us. But these two acts of the mind are by no means to be re- 
 garded as one and the same. The former describes that mental 
 act which apprehends a sufficient Saviour. The latter is an 
 inference, though a sure and certain one. No one is summoned, 
 in the first instance, to believe that Christ died for him, any 
 more than ne is required to believe that his sins are pardoned 
 before he believes. 1 And as to the responsibility of rejecting 
 the gospel, the condemnation consequent on this is due to 
 the fact that the unbeliever will not accept of a sufficient Ee- 
 deemer, nor approve of such a way of salvation. He rejects 
 it in its idea and contrivance, whereas faith is just the ap- 
 proval of it. 
 
 But the sinner must signify his concurrence, before the 
 vicarious death of Christ can be to him an accomplished fact, 
 and faith, therefore, is just that approval and consent by which 
 he signifies his concurrence, though given by the believer 
 after the lapse of centuries. He by faith signifies that he 
 cordially approves of this way of redemption, and wishes to be 
 saved by no other way. Then all parties concur in it. They 
 who plead for an indefinite atonement make the whole a com- 
 pleted transaction, without man's consent ; and we are at a loss 
 to see what conceivable advantage can be gained by making the 
 atonement wider than the number of those who approve of it, 
 and are willing to be saved by it. Of course it is applied to 
 unnumbered millions of infants, who are saved by it in a 
 different way. 
 
 1 See Polanus, Syntag. lib. 6, cap. 18. j
 
 376 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 All these various theories go to pieces when we bring out 
 from the words of Christ the true nature of the atonement ; for 
 in reality, as we have already remarked, it is more a question 
 as to the character of the atonement, as an actual transaction, 
 than as to its extent. Whether we look at the covenant, which 
 lies at its foundation, or at the fact that the purchase and appli- 
 cation of the atonement are co-extensive and necessarily con- 
 nected with each other, or at the nature of Christ's intercession, 
 we are left in no doubt as to its extent. 
 
 1. One proof of this is contained in the nature and provisions 
 of the covenant. 1 I have only to advert to the unity of the 
 Surety and of those whom He represented, to prove the extent 
 of the atonement. It is a unity or oneness so close, that we may 
 affirm of the second man, as well as of the first, " we were all 
 that one man." The thought that lies at the foundation of our 
 participation of the federal blessings, is union, or oneness. We 
 may thus call in the idea of organic union, as well as the idea 
 of a covenant, for they are not exclusive of each other, but 
 rather supplementary. The idea of unity may be said to run 
 through the whole declarations on the subject of Christ's saving 
 work, whether they were given forth by the Lord Himself or by 
 His servants. On this principle, then, that Christ and His seed 
 are viewed as one, just as Adam and his family were one, the 
 redemption work by which we are saved was incontrovertibly 
 finished by His obedience, and must be held to have been at 
 once offered and accepted in the room of all for whom He acted 
 the part of a surety (John vi. 39). This, however, decides on 
 the scope and extent of the atonement. 
 
 2. The purchase of redemption and its application are co- 
 extensive. The salvation is not won for any to whom it is not 
 applied : the Christ will not lose one for whom He died. All 
 our Lord's sayings assume this, and take it for granted (John 
 x. 15). To suppose the opposite, would imply that a costly 
 price had been paid, and that those for whom it was paid derived 
 no advantage from it ; which could only be on the ground that 
 
 1 See before, at sec. xii.
 
 THE SPECIAL REFEKENCE OF THE ATONEMENT. 377 
 
 He wanted either love or power. Not only so : a concurrent 
 action and perfect harmony must be supposed to obtain among 
 the three persons of the Godhead. There can be no disharmony 
 between the election of the Father, the redemption of the Son, 
 and the application of the Spirit. 
 
 3. Christ's intercession is based on the atonement, and could 
 have no validity or ground but as it referred to that finished 
 work of expiation, which needs no repetition. Now, we see 
 from the explicit statement of the Lord, that the intercession is 
 not for the world, but for those whom the Father gave Him : 
 " I pray for them : I pray not for the world, but for them whom 
 Thou hast given Me ; for they are Thine " (John xvii. 9). This 
 decides upon the scope and destination of the atonement for 
 any available purpose ; for it will not be argued by any divine 
 biblically acquainted with the nature of our Lord's priesthood 
 and intercession, that any one ever was or ever will be effectually 
 called but on the ground of that all-prevailing interposition 
 (John xvii. 20). 
 
 To those who allege, in the spirit of the Arminian school, 
 that the. love of Jesus consists only in applying the redemption, 
 but not in procuring it, it is enough to say, that love, in the 
 proper meaning of the term, is anterior to both. It would not 
 be love if it were dissociated from the purpose and design of 
 conferring on its objects every conceivable good which can either 
 be procured or applied. And whenever Scripture speaks of the 
 divine love, either in connection with the Father or with the 
 Son, this is the import of the term. This fact, that love is only 
 love to persons, and that the divine love finds out its objects 
 over all impediments, enables us to obviate the two-fold love, 
 which the Arminian writers suppose, and for which they argue 
 in the interest of their views, one preceding faith, and another 
 following it. The former, they allege, is to all alike, and there- 
 fore cannot be regarded as in itself efficacious to any; 1 the 
 
 1 Many writers have laid, and still lay, stress on the term world, which fre- 
 quently occurs in those passages which describe the death of Christ. It is a
 
 378 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 latter they describe as an increasing quantity, and as a sort of 
 complacential approbation of a state of mind or mental act 
 which is acceptable to God. But the redeeming love of Christ, 
 as the source of all saving benefits, does not, properly speaking, 
 receive additions or increase, though there may be, and doubtless 
 are, ampler manifestations of it, as well as a keener sense of it 
 on the mind. This is emphatically brought out by Paul, when 
 he sets forth the immutable constancy and omnipotent efficacy 
 of the divine love in a remarkable argument a fortiori (Eom. v. 
 5-11). He argues, that if God could set His love on the saints 
 when we were yet sinners and enemies, without strength and 
 ungodly, much more shall that love be continued to them when 
 they are justified. The argument is, that if God's love found an 
 outlet to us when we were aliens and enemies, much more will 
 it be continued now that we are friends. But the foundation of 
 the whole argument is, that His love is special and redeeming 
 love, and directed to individuals, whom God will never abandon 
 or let go. 
 
 The text on which we already commented demonstrates the 
 special love of Christ (John xv. 13). They for whom He died 
 were the objects of supreme and special love, which of necessity 
 secured their ultimate salvation. For them He must be con- 
 sidered as acting at every step ; their names being on His heart 
 in the same way as the names of the tribes of Israel were on the 
 high priest's breastplate. And the same special reference con- 
 fronts us in every form. Thus He is described as loving His own 
 
 term commonly used in contrast with Jewish limitation, and in this usage com- 
 monly designates men of all nationalities. That it is not conclusive as an argu- 
 ment urged in favour of general redemption, will appear from such phrases as 
 these : " The bread of God is He [better, that] which cometh down from heaven, 
 and giveth life unto the world " (John vi. 33) ; " that the world may believe that 
 Thou hast sent Me " (John xvii. 21). As it denotes, (1) either a great multitude 
 (John xii. 19), or (2) men of all nations (Rom. xi. 12), it is plain that no argu- 
 ment can be urged in favour of a universal atonement, from the mere occurrence 
 of this word. Hales tells us that he was carried over to the Arminian opinions 
 at the Synod of Dort, by Episcopius' argument from John iii. 16. But though 
 that is the chief argument of the Arminian school, it is a fallacious argument, 
 and not borne out by the utfus loquendi.
 
 THE SPECIAL REFERENCE OF THE ATONEMENT. 379 
 
 that were in the world (John xiii. 1), which cannot be affirmed 
 of all and every man, without distinction, and in precisely the 
 same form. We have only to recall such phrases as co-suffering 
 (1 Pet. iv, 1), co-crucifixion (Gal. ii. 20), co-dying (Bom. vi 8), 
 co-burying with Christ (Eom. vi. 4), to perceive that He bore the 
 person of a chosen company, who are spoken of as doing what 
 He did at every important turn of His history. It was for His 
 own that He was incarnate (Heb. ii. 14); and He must be 
 regarded, all through His history, as uniting Himself to His own, 
 or as loving His own that were in the world, and loving them to 
 the end (John xiii. 1). This special love, according to which 
 He acted in the name of a chosen company, and laid down His 
 life for them, is a love that finds them out over every impediment 
 or hindrance. And it were to think unworthily of Christ, to 
 suppose such a conjunction established between Him and the 
 objects of redemption, as is presupposed in the very nature of 
 this transaction, without the certain effect that salvation is secured 
 to many by His death. It were as absurd as to suppose a king 
 without subjects, a bridegroom, without a bride, a vine without 
 branches, a head without the members. 
 
 But here a question arises : How is the special atonement to 
 be harmonised with the general invitations of the gospel pro- 
 pounded to mankind indefinitely ? Both these have abundant 
 evidence in Scripture : and sometimes a difficulty has been felt 
 where none should exist. It would be tedious to enumerate all 
 the disputes which have been carried on, sometimes on the one 
 side, and sometimes on the other. Thus it has been made a 
 question, whether God offers the eternal life, or the salvation 
 procured by Christ to all men indiscriminately, or only to those 
 who are the objects of special love ? and then, a further difficulty 
 is started on the ground that an atonement specially provided for 
 some cannot be propounded indefinitely to all. 
 
 These are merely exercises of human reasoning on themes 
 which, from the nature of the case, the finite mind must rather 
 accept as facts than presume exhaustively to explore. The
 
 380 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 sufficiency of the atonement for ALL NATIONS and ALL MEN must 
 be affirmed, and therefore no one can have any doubt as to the 
 possibility of its being extended to them if they have been 
 awakened to a sense of need, and if they penitently wish to share 
 in it. It is as infinite in value as is its divine Author. 1 
 
 That the offer of salvation is to be made to all men is the con 
 elusion to which every one must come who duly considers that 
 Christ so preached. Though He knew all those that were His, all 
 that were given Him by the Father, He yet invited sinners in- 
 discriminately (Joh.vii. 3 7), nay, complained of their reluctance and 
 refusal when they set at nought His proposals of love (Matt, xxiii. 
 37; John v. 40). A special atonement and invitations sincerely 
 made on the ground of it to mankind indefinitely are quite com- 
 patible. They will be found to meet at some point though their 
 junction be beyond our present line of vision. And our Lord and 
 His apostles, by their mode of preaching, give us an example 
 how to proceed. They brought motives and expostulations to 
 bear on men as if no hard question were in the way. 
 
 SEC. XLVI. THE ATONEMENT EXTENDING TO ALL TIMES IN THE 
 WORLD'S HISTORY, AND TO ALL NATIONS. 
 
 The position which Christ ascribed to Himself in the world, 
 sufficiently indicates that His death was, in the divine purpose, a 
 provision for all times and nations, and that there was to be no 
 repetition of the sacrifice. We shall briefly adduce His testimony 
 to both these points. 
 
 1. With respect to all times, the sayings of Christ imply that 
 He was the centre-point of the world's history, to whom all 
 
 1 The memorable language of the Synod of Dort is as follows (c. ii. 3, 4, 5) : 
 mors filii Dei est unica et perfectissima pro peccatis victima et satisfactio infiniti 
 valoris et pretii, ABUNDE SUFFICIENS AD TOTIUS MUNDI PECCATA EXPIANDA. 
 Ceterum promissio Evangelii est, ut quisquis credit in Christum crucifixum non 
 pereat, sed habeat vitam aeternam. Quse promissio OMNIBUS populis et HOMINI- 
 BUS, ad quos Deus pro suo beneplacito mittit Evangelium, promiscue et indis- 
 criminatim annunciari et debet proponi CUM RESIPISCENTIA et FIDEI MANDATO.
 
 THE ATONEMENT EXTENDING TO ALL TIMES AND NATIONS. 381 
 
 previous ages looked forward, and all subsequent ages look back. 
 The saints who lived under the time of the first promise, to whom 
 the advent of the woman's ' seed was revealed, or who expected 
 Abraham's seed, in whom all the families of the earth were to be 
 blessed, were saved by the retrospective efficacy of His atoning 
 death, and not in virtue of a typical expiation, which was but a 
 shadow of good things to come (Gen. iii. 15, xii. 3). The pardon, 
 or, as some have preferred to call it, the preterition, 1 which 
 extended to unnumbered multitudes during the ages preceding 
 the birth of Christ, was due to the blood of atonement about to 
 be shed in the fulness of time. 
 
 The fact that the death of Christ is set forth in its retrospective, 
 as well as in its prospective, influence, shows the vast superiority 
 of the blood of the new covenant as compared with that of the 
 old covenant. The one was merely for the Israelitas, the other 
 was " for many ;" which may be interpreted for men of all times 
 and generations, even for those who were long dead, but had faith 
 on Him who was to come. This may warrantably be held to be 
 there taught by our Lord (see Matt. xx. 28, xxvi. 28 ; John vi. 
 57). I shall not here adduce the statements in the Epistles, to 
 the effect that the atonement had an influence of a retrospective 
 nature, but content myself with saying, that this is set forth with 
 peculiar emphasis in several passages (Eom. iii. 25 ; Heb. ix. 15). 
 Our plan leads us to abide by the sayings of Christ. And we 
 have more than stray hints from the mouth of Christ, that His 
 vicarious death was retrospective as well as prospective in its in- 
 fluence. When we consider how He described Himself in con- 
 trast with all who ever came before Him, and condemned as 
 thieves and robbers such as came with rival claims to His (John 
 x. 1-7); when we hear Him speaking of the necessity of His 
 death for the world's salvation, as well as declaring that Moses, 
 
 1 The distinction between 7r<pe<rts and #0e<rts the former referring to the Old 
 Testament saints, the latter to the New Testament was first made by Beza, and 
 carried out to an extravagant length by Cocceius and his school. Some distinction 
 of a subjective nature, must be allowed, whatever opinion may be formed as to 
 that distinction drawn between rdfffis and &0e<w in Eom. iii. 25.
 
 382 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the prophets, and all the holy oracles testified of Him (John v. 
 39, 46) ; when we find Him here declaring that Abraham rejoiced 
 to see His day (John viii. 56), we have intimations which imply 
 that He was the central figure of both economies, and that His 
 incarnation and death had a relation to them who lived before 
 His coming, and that their salvation was not less due to Christ's 
 atoning blood than ours. The scene on the Mount of the Trans- 
 figuration, moreover, when Moses and Elias appeared to converse 
 with Him on His exodus or decease, about to be accomplished at 
 Jerusalem, affords confirmatory evidence that the scope of that 
 death had an application to all times. It was that on the ground 
 of which they had been saved ; for Christ was the atonement or 
 sin-offering for the transgressions under the first covenant (Heb. 
 ix. 15). 
 
 2. With respect, again, to the bearing of the atonement on 
 men of all nations, Christ gave no dubious announcement that it 
 was not limited to Israel, but had an influence which extended 
 to those who were not of that fold (John x. 11), and that, in a 
 word, it was irrespective of national distinctions. Thus He de- 
 clared, on the occasion of the inquiring Greeks approaching Him 
 with an express desire " to see Jesus," and whose inquiries He 
 regarded as the prelude or first-fruits of the wide in-bringing of 
 the Gentile nations, that if He was lifted up or crucified as an 
 atoning sacrifice, He would draw all nations to Him (John xii. 
 32). The same wide and universal reference of the scheme of 
 redemption to all tribes and nations, wholly irrespective of the 
 narrow limits of nationality, comes out in the other sayings of 
 Christ where He alludes to the world and to the scheme of 
 redemption in its bearing on mankind as such; who are addressed 
 by the Gospel message, and summoned to the exercise of faith 
 just because they are comprehended within the class for whom 
 the atonement has been provided (John iii. 14-16). Hence the 
 Lord directed His disciples to preach, with the most unrestricted 
 universality, the remission of sins to all nations, and to announce 
 it in His name as crucified and risen, in other words, as the
 
 THE APPLICATION OF THE ATONEMENT. 383 
 
 crucified Saviour, who offered an atonement for a people given to 
 Him, without respect to nationality (Luke xxiv. 47). Christ 
 may thus be designated the official Saviour of mankind, as men 
 are contrasted with fallen angels, for whom no such provision is 
 made ; and on this ground the invitations of the Gospel, with all 
 that is comprehended in them, are equally and without distinction 
 made to all nations. Thus, irrespective of national distinctions 
 or class distinctions, the invitation to accept a crucified Saviour 
 applies equally to all tribes and ranks of men, and is offered in- 
 definitely to all to whom the message comes. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE APPLICATION OF THE ATONEMENT. ' 
 
 SEC. XLVII. SAYINGS WHICH PAETICULAELY EELATE TO THE 
 APPLICATION OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 As we endeavoured in the previous sections to distribute the 
 sayings of Jesus according to a classification which seemed the 
 best fitted to give a full outline of the atonement in its nature 
 and effects, it only remains for us to notice such testimonies as 
 refer to the mode in which it is appropriated and applied. A 
 brief and condensed statement of the import of these is all that 
 is now required. 
 
 The previous elucidation of the doctrine renders a very succinct 
 sketch of the mode of applying the atonement quite sufficient. 
 We commenced by exhibiting the presuppositions of the whole 
 question, or the grounds on which this great fact may be said to 
 rest. We next considered the constituent elements of the atone- 
 ment, as consisting of sin-bearing and sinless obedience. We 
 further proceeded to survey the proper effects of this divine fact 
 on the individual Christian, both in an objective and in a sub- 
 jective point of view ; that is, in respect to the acceptance of his
 
 384 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 person and the renovation of his nature. We were next brought 
 in order, to set forth the influence of the atonement upon other 
 interests in the universe, which, as we have seen, are at once 
 numerous and various. We were thus naturally led to discuss 
 the actual efficacy and extent of the atonement, or the question 
 for whom it was rendered. 
 
 These topics pave the way for the only remaining division of 
 our Lord's sayings on the atonement, viz. those which contain an 
 allusion to the mode of its application. These are not so 
 numerous ; and they may be discussed within a limited compass : 
 (1.) This classification of our Lord's testimonies brings under our 
 notice the objective presentation of the atonement, by means of 
 ecclesiastical institutions and ordinances, which are, first of all, 
 based on this accomplished fact, and next intended to commend 
 it to the acceptance of others. (2.) But if there are objective 
 appointments which aim at the application of this divine fact to 
 susceptible minds, there are also means of a subjective character, 
 and especially the exercise of faith, which is the divinely con- 
 stituted instrument, for receiving and appropriating what has 
 been provided. (3.) The responsibility and doom of not accept- 
 ing the provided remedy comes naturally into consideration in 
 this connection. (4.) In addition to all this, the effect of the 
 atonement on all religion and practice is a point of such moment 
 that it cannot fail to attract the attention of every mind that has 
 duly learned to regard the atonement as the grand distinctive 
 peculiarity of the Christian religion. 
 
 On these points, it might be interesting and important to 
 enlarge. But as our object is brevity and condensation, as far 
 as may be consistent with perspicuity and completeness, we 
 shall content ourselves with a brief outline on this division of 
 the subject ; and the rather, because it touches on a department 
 on which it does not precisely fall within our present plan to 
 enter.
 
 THE PREACHING OF FORGIVENESS BASED ON IT. 385 
 
 SEC. XLVIII. THE PREACHING OF THE ATONEMENT AND OF FORGIVE- 
 NESS AS BASED OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 There are sayings of our Lord which bring out a divinely 
 constituted connection between the atonement considered as an 
 accomplished fact, and the proclamation of it by His servants, 
 a connection which it is the part of every Christian, as far 
 as possible, to understand, but which, after all our inquiries, is 
 rather to be apprehended as a fact, than fathomed in its nature 
 and mode. 
 
 When we come to the preaching of forgiveness, we find that 
 the Lord commanded the disciples to preach forgiveness in His 
 name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (Luke xxiv. 47) ; 
 and His ambassadors, faithful to the charge imposed on them, 
 carried the message during their lifetime far and wide through 
 the known world, proclaiming repentance and forgiveness as the 
 two topics which they were to preach in Christ's name, and as 
 the principal elements of the new covenant, repentance on man's 
 side, and forgiveness on God's side. Christ meant to signify by 
 that memorable saying, that the disciples were to preach forgive- 
 ness as a benefit won by His death, and imparted by Him as the 
 Risen One, to all who repent and believe. He intimates that 
 He obtained by His death the authority and right to give the 
 remission of sins. This comes out in connection with the cir- 
 cumstance that the disciples were to preach this message IN His 
 NAME; which may either mean, as many interpret it, at His 
 command, or, according to others, the express naming of His 
 name, in the light in which He is mentioned as the crucified and 
 risen Mediator 1 (ver. 46). The preaching "in His name" could 
 only have place when the expiation was finished. The pro- 
 
 1 eirl T$ 6i>o'/j.a.Ti avrov. Winer, 6th ed. p. 350, makes it refer to Christ's com- 
 mand : "d. h. sich dabei auf ihn als Original! ehrer und Abordner beziehend." 
 Luther, again, interprets the phrase of Christ's merits as the ground of remission ; 
 Meyer and Vinke make the phrase refer to the utterance of Christ's name in 
 preaching as that on which it rests. The two latter views may be combined. 
 
 2 B
 
 386 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 clamation of this message could not have been made if He had 
 not died. The message is announced only on the ground of the 
 finished work. 
 
 There are two points which here summon our attention. The 
 first is, that there is a connection between Christ's death and the 
 immediate remission of sins ; and the second is, that the entire 
 preaching of forgiveness, as well as the office of the ministry itself, 
 presupposes the atonement, and is ever directly connected with the 
 atonement. Both points may be fitly considered under this section. 
 
 1. With regard to the first of these points, we had occasion to 
 notice, in a previous section, that the Lord puts the forgiveness 
 of sins in causal connection with His death. 1 He very em- 
 phatically, at the institution of the Supper, placed the pardon of 
 sin in causal connection with His own atoning death, or with His 
 blood shed for many (Matt. xxvi. 28). The guilt which suspended 
 merited punishment over mankind, and which stood in the way 
 of their acceptance, was removed only by the atonement. This 
 is a point on which His teaching is so unambiguously clear, that 
 if men would come to it without preconceived opinions, mis- 
 takes would at once be obviated. 
 
 It may be proper to define, before we proceed, the sense in 
 which we are to take the term forgiveness, so as to get rid of the 
 confused and incorrect opinions entertained in many quarters as 
 to its meaning. And here I may premise, that a right notion of 
 SIN determines the import of forgiveness. Wherever sin is 
 regarded merely as imperfection or disease, not as guilt or the 
 violation of the divine law, a different notion of forgiveness of 
 necessity prevails. Sin in that case is not considered judicially, 
 or in the light of the divine tribunal ; nor is forgiveness. 2 But, 
 according to the biblical idea, sin always stands related to a 
 lawgiver on the one hand, and to a judge on the other; and as 
 
 1 See before, at p. 207. 
 
 2 This rationalistic idea of forgiveness, common at the beginning of this 
 century, was well refuted by Lotze, over de vergemng der Zonden, 1802. (See 
 Storr also on Hebrews, in Appendix.)
 
 THE PREACHING OF FORGIVENESS BASED ON IT. 387 
 
 God not only threatens positive punishments beyond the mere 
 consequences of actions, considered in their ordinary issues, or 
 according to the natural course of events, but inflicts positive 
 punishment out of love to His perfections, and because He must 
 do so from what He owes to Himself, a wholly different notion 
 of forgiveness must be adopted. When we compare the biblical 
 notion of it as used either in the Old or New Testament, it will 
 be found to involve in every case the idea of deliverance from 
 punishment ; and the notion of deserved punishment for sin is so 
 universally accepted, that it belongs, as the apostle shows, to the 
 beliefs of natural religion, ineradicable from our nature (Rom. 
 i. 32). 
 
 To bring out this fact, we have but to recall any portion of 
 our Lord's teaching where He uses the word forgiveness. Thus 
 the petition, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" 
 (Matt. vi. 12), when we trace how it is more fully explained in 
 the subsequent verses, contrasts our forgiveness of man's offences 
 with forgiveness vouchsafed to us by God. If the one denotes 
 a non-avenging of ourselves upon a fellow-man, or an abstaining 
 to punish an injury inflicted, the other must mean an acquittal 
 on the part of God, or a complete liberation from the punish- 
 ment we deserved. Nor is the phrase ever used in any other 
 sense by our Lord. Thus, when He said to the palsy-stricken 
 man, " Thy sins be forgiven thee" (Matt. ix. 5), we cannot, with 
 some, understand the language as equivalent to his restoration to 
 health. On the contrary, the passage unmistakeably compares 
 two benefits derived from Christ, and asks which of two things 
 it was easier to say. The forgiveness of sins cannot, therefore, 
 be interpreted as intimating no more than recovery or restora- 
 tion from a bodily disease. The cure was meant to prove that 
 He had power to forgive sin ; and the words of Christ must be 
 understood of the man's deliverance from the merited punish- 
 ment of sin. 
 
 Again, when we examine the words of Christ used at the 
 institution of the Supper, it is evident that He intimates a
 
 388 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 meritorious or causal connection between His death and the 
 remission of sins. 1 The words, " My blood shed for many unto 
 the remission of sins," can bear no other sense. Nor could the 
 disciples, accustomed to the idea of sacrifice, understand the 
 words in any other sense than as intimating that He was to 
 die, that He might deliver men from deserved punishment by 
 His death. The forgiveness of sins consists in this, that a man, 
 notwithstanding his real guilt, is treated as if he had not sinned, 
 or, in other words, goes free from punishment. 
 
 Thus, forgiveness is nothing but exemption from punish- 
 ment ; and as to its procuring cause, it is directly effected by 
 the death of Christ. The meaning of this statement, rendered 
 into other words, is simply this : that God exacts no more 
 punishment, because Christ has exhausted it, and offered that 
 on the ground of which God is actually gracious. Our Lord 
 unmistakeably deduces pardon and deliverance solely from His 
 death (Matt. xxvi. 28, xx. 28). If we keep in mind this notion 
 of the sufferings of Christ, we readily understand why He some- 
 times mentions merely the removal of punishment (John iii. 15, 
 16). The atonement of Christ, in a word, aimed at this to 
 change men's relation toward God, and their condition, for 
 eternity. 
 
 And this leads me to add that, as our Lord describes it, the 
 effect of the atonement is by no means limited to those sins 
 which were committed before the reception of the Gospel. 
 When we inquire to what sins the atonement of Christ referred, 
 the answer obviously is, that sins after conversion, as well as 
 before it, were, without exception, expiated by His blood. If, 
 indeed, provision were not made for the remission of all sins, 
 great and small, for daily recurring sins during the course of the 
 Christian's life, as well as for sins committed during the time of 
 
 1 I would refer specially to Storr, in the Appendix to his commentary on 
 Hebrews, to Vinke, and Lotze, for the best demonstration of this immediate 
 causal connection.
 
 THE PREACHING OF FORGIVENESS BASED ON IT. 389 
 
 impenitence, what would the atonement avail? 1 The Lord 
 meant His blood was shed for all sin. 
 
 But we must further inquire, If forgiveness means exemption 
 from punishment, what is the kind of punishment ? The answer 
 is, that punishment is remitted of every kind, and specially 
 future punishment, with all its consequences, because all sin is 
 forgiven. Many of the natural consequences of sin, such as 
 sickness and death, are not at once reversed by the reception 
 of forgiveness ; but a provision is made for their ultimate re- 
 moval, and, as we have already pointed out, they are, from the 
 moment of forgiveness, altered in their character. They become 
 part of a paternal discipline, or of a system of training for the 
 inheritance ; but there is no wrath in them. 
 
 2. But the special topic brought before us in this section is, 
 whether the PREACHING OF FORGIVENESS was to be immediately 
 and directly based on Christ's atoning death. Was it a simple 
 announcement of a free boon, based on the accomplished fact of 
 the atonement, irrespective of any intermediate condition ? The 
 commission there stated shows that the Lord Jesus, in describ- 
 ing His atoning death, required that the preaching of the for- 
 giveness of sins should be connected with it in the closest way ; 
 and the question arises, In what way ? Is it a direct or indirect 
 connection, an immediate or a more mediate connection ? This 
 momentous inquiry goes to the root of the modern tendencies, 
 and divides into two parties or schools the believing divines of 
 the present time, who, according as they maintain a direcfcausal 
 connection between the blood of Christ and pardon, or hold a 
 mediate connection, may be designated biblical expositors, or the 
 adherents of a rationalistic tendency. This question goes very 
 deep into the character of preaching, and it is felt in the inmost 
 experience of the Christian. 2 The subject of the forgiveness of 
 
 1 It is not necessary further to refute the opinions of such men as Lbffler, 
 Bretschneider, Riickert, and Reiche, who limit the pardon to sins prior to conversion. 
 
 2 The whole spirit and style of the pulpit may be said to be conditioned by 
 the opinions entertained on the question, whether forgiveness is to be preached 
 as the very first thing in the Gospel message to sinners. The opinion, which 
 puts life or any thing else first, makes another gospel.
 
 390 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 sins, indeed, stands in the fore-front of the articles of religion 
 as a question closely connected with men's highest interests, and 
 stands in the fore-front of all preaching ; and the subject is kept 
 alive by the constant opposition which it encounters in some 
 form. 
 
 As to the inquiry, whether forgiveness is to be preached as 
 standing in immediate or mediate connection with the death of 
 Christ, it may be affirmed that all who abide by any form of 
 spiritual religion are agreed on one point : that among the grand 
 ends contemplated by the death of Christ, must be pre-eminently 
 classed the spiritual and moral improvement of mankind. But 
 the debate is, whether, according to Christ's testimony, the 
 primary and principal design of His death is to be sought in the 
 spiritual improvement of men, that is, whether the forgiveness 
 of sin is to have place only in so far as that first point is realised ; 
 or, conversely, whether forgiveness is to be preached as a benefit, 
 in the first instance, directly effected by the death of Christ, and 
 whether the moral improvement follows as the inseparable effect 
 of the forgiveness. Not a few in all countries have accepted the 
 theory, flowing from a very inadequate notion of law and sin, that 
 they must preach a message, which lay s stress on th e fact that Christ's 
 design was only to implant a new life among mankind. They 
 speak as if the impediment or difficulty to be overcome did not at 
 all lieon God's side, but only on man's side, who had yielded himself 
 up to selfishness, and whose leading would be completely effected 
 by regaining the inclination or bias to what is holy. They add, 
 that just in the proportion in which their recovery is advanced, 
 does the forgiveness of sin ensue ; for with them sin is a calamity 
 rather than a crime a disease rather than a fault. Though 
 they allow that there are in Scripture passages which appear to 
 derive the forgiveness of sins directly from the blood of Christ, 
 they yet assert that these are counterbalanced by others which 
 connect the design of Christ's death with our moral improve- 
 ment (Gal. i. 4), and that the former are to be explained by the 
 latter; and some of these writers contend that their theory is
 
 THE PREACHING OF FORGIVENESS BASED ON IT. 391 
 
 even more scriptural than the exposition which asserts the direct 
 connection between the death of Christ and pardon. That 
 position is not only exegetically baseless, but makes another 
 gospel (Gal. i. 4-10). 
 
 The twofold answer to all this is obvious. (1) The positive 
 declaration of Christ, that His blood was shed for many for the 
 remission of sins, indisputably points to an immediate connec- 
 tion (Matt. xxvi. 28). On no other ground can we explain the 
 way in which Christ connects His blood with the remission 
 of sins. He announced a direcct causal connection between 
 the two. This appears, too, from another mode of expression. 
 If one dies in another's room, and, by dying, effects deliverance, 
 what can that mean but an immediate and causal connection 
 between the sacrifice and the deliverance or remission ? The 
 Jewish mind was quite familiar with this notion by means of 
 sacrifices, and they easily connected together the victim's death 
 and the worshipper's direct liberation from punishment in virtue 
 of it. (2) The commission as to the way in which this forgive- 
 ness was to be preached proves the same thing. It was to be 
 preached, not sold ; and the simple announcement of His death, 
 and of present forgiveness by means of it, to sinners as they are, 
 was the sum and substance of the commission with which the 
 first teachers of Christianity were invested. 
 
 The whole office of the ministry, as it is here delineated 
 with the commission, given by our Lord, has for its object the 
 proclamation of repentance and forgiveness. And, hence, the 
 apostles describe their office as a ministry of reconciliation 
 (2 Cor. v. 18), and as instituted to tell of Christ's ransom for 
 all (1 Tim. ii. 5-7) ; while the word is called the preaching of 
 the cross (1 Cor. i. 18). 
 
 Thus our Lord emphatically sets forth the immediate con- 
 nection between His blood and forgiveness (Matt. xxvi. 28); 
 and the great work of preaching, as well as the great design of 
 the gospel ministry, is to announce or proclaim this fact.
 
 392 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 SEC. XLIX. THE PLACE WHICH CHKIST ASSIGNS TO THE 
 ATONEMENT IN THE CHEISTIAN CHURCH. 
 
 The prominent rank which our Lord gives to the doctrine 
 of the atonement in the founding of the Christian Church, and 
 in all its solemnities, deserves our particular attention, as a 
 proof of its being a divinely provided fact, and as an evidence 
 of its vast importance. Everything connected with the Church, 
 and with its solemnities or services, presupposes the historical 
 fact of Christ's atoning death. This circumstance takes Christ 
 out of the category of a mere teacher. The influence of the 
 Lord's sacrifice may be traced on every institution, on every 
 doctrine, and on the whole outline of Christian experience. 
 Had our plan led us to indulge in personal reflections, or to 
 expatiate on the practical fruits and consequences of the atone- 
 ment, these might have been set forth at large. But as we 
 limit ourselves to an expository outline or statement of our 
 Lord's sayings, we notice only what He has marked out as the 
 due position of this truth in the institutions and services of 
 the Church, which are all based upon the cross. When we 
 have done this, we shall apprehend correctly in what light the 
 Bible leads us to survey the doctrine. 
 
 1. The blood of atonement is the basis of the entire new 
 covenant. On this point it is the less necessary to enlarge, 
 because we noticed, in a previous section, some of the topics 
 connected with it. 1 Our Lord, in referring to the new cove- 
 nant, so called as contrasted with that national covenant which 
 was made with Israel at Sinai, declares that it was founded in 
 His blood, or on His atonement. This new covenant, into 
 which all believing disciples are taken, whether Jews or 
 Gentiles, rests on the true sacrifice, just as the Sinaitic cove- 
 nant, with which it is contrasted, was founded on the typical 
 sacrifices which must needs be offered at its institution. 
 
 1 See page 207.
 
 PLACE ASSIGNED TO THE ATONEMENT IN THE CHUECH. 393 
 
 I shall not here enlarge again on the nature and provisions 
 of the new covenant, as my present object is only to show that 
 the atonement lies at its foundation. The term covenant does 
 not denote a mere doctrine, but implies an actual relation 
 formed between God and man the atonement being the basis 
 on which it rests. No atonement, then no covenant and no 
 Church. The more precise nature of it will appear when we 
 read it off from the provisions of the typical economy, which 
 preceded it. The blessings were to be individual as well as 
 national, so that, instead of the national theocracy, the members 
 of the new covenant should also be individually in covenant 
 with God, and have the law written on the heart (Jer. xxxi. 31). 
 The new covenant was to stand on the foundation of a full and 
 everlasting remission of sins, which, again, according to Christ's 
 words, was derived only from the blood of atonement. Thus 
 the entire new covenant recognised the death of Christ as its 
 foundation. It may be added, that in this covenant, differing as 
 it did from the former, by being universal, Jews and Gentiles 
 participate in equal privileges, being reconciled to God in one 
 body. On the other hand, the new covenant ceases to have any 
 place where the doctrine of the atonement is not received, either 
 under the influence of philosophical reasonings, or of a legal 
 bias; and the terrible judgment of God, called by our Lord 
 dying in their sins (John viii. 24) a doom much more severe 
 than that of dying for disobeying Moses' law falls upon all who 
 despise the blood of the covenant (Heb. x. 28). This involves 
 more, by many degrees, than the mere neglect of Christ's words 
 or teaching. He was but the prophet or teacher of His own 
 salvation, so that He is rejected in both respects. 
 
 2. The atonement is described as the substance of the 
 sacraments. They have neither significance nor value, except 
 as they presuppose the great fact of a vicarious sacrifice for sin ; 
 and to keep the atonement perpetually before the eye of the 
 Church, as the one fact 'on which our entire salvation rests, 
 not only at the commencement, but also during the course of
 
 394 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 the Christian's pilgrimage, the Lord deemed it fitting to insti- 
 tute these two sacraments in the Church. Thus the Christian 
 disciple sees the atonement everywhere, and finds it in every 
 Church institution. It is the one great fact from which he 
 starts, and to which he ever returns. 
 
 a. We shall notice this fact, first in connection with bap- 
 tism, which is by no means limited to the idea that it is a sign 
 of reception into the Christian Church. If nothing further than 
 this were implied, there could be no reference to the atonement. 
 But it involves much more. Not to adduce the subsequent 
 statements of the apostles, which affirm that they who are 
 baptized into Christ are baptized into His death (Rom. vi. 3), 
 the Lord's own sayings upon the point are not obscure. Thus, 
 when He speaks of His disciples baptizing in His name, as well 
 as in the name of the Father and of the Spirit, He plainly 
 alludes to a peculiar relation to Himself in His official capacity 1 
 (Matt, xxviii. 19) ; and when He said, " I have a baptism to be 
 baptized with ; and how am I straitened till it is accomplished ! " 
 (Luke xii. 50), He gave His own authoritative exposition of the 
 meaning and import of John's baptism, as it was administered to 
 Himself. It was a symbol of the way in which Christ was to 
 pass under the heaviest sufferings; and He submitted to the 
 symbol as a token of the readiness with which He submitted to 
 undergo the reality. The baptismal water was an emblem, in 
 Christ's case, of the punitive justice of God, under which He 
 passed. 2 Christ, the surety, was baptized in His official capacity, 
 and His people are considered to have undergone this punish- 
 ment in Him for the remission of sins. The water of baptism is 
 a symbol of the shed blood of the crucified surety on whom the 
 
 ew rb Kvofia (Matt, xxviii. 19) intimates, in the first place, 
 faith and a confession, and, in the next place, a certain relation, as intimated by 
 els. But what I refer to is, that the name is not an allusion to the mere Trini- 
 tarian relation, but also to the official redemption work, and so to the name of 
 Jesus in this respect as well. 
 
 2 See this idea, developed by the well-known A. Schultens, on the Heidelberg 
 Catechism, as translated from his papers by Barueth.
 
 PLACE ASSIGNED TO THE ATONEMENT IN THE CHURCH. 395 
 
 curse no more rests. It is blood that has passed through death 
 and the application of which takes away the guilt of sin. The 
 symbol can mean nothing else but this, that His death was ours ; 
 the only difference between John's baptism and that of the 
 Christian Church being, that the former was a baptism for a 
 suffering yet future, while the latter is a baptism into that 
 which is finished. Baptism intimates a fellowship with Christ 
 in His death. The grand fundamental idea of baptism, though 
 not to the exclusion of other allusions, is, that His death was a 
 propitiatory death, and that His people died with Him; and 
 this is specially developed by the apostles (comp. Rom. vi. 4; 
 1 Pet. iii. 21). 
 
 I. The same thing holds true of THE LORD'S SUPPER, in- 
 tended to keep alive, through all the ages till the second coming 
 of Christ, the great fact of His expiatoiy death. Its primary 
 design was not to commemorate His office as a teacher, but to 
 commemorate and to symbolize His great sacrifice, when He died 
 to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. The words used 
 by Him in connection with it are so express and clear to this 
 effect, that no doubt as to their meaning remains on any mind 
 interpreting words according to their precise significance. 
 They who have a right to the Supper eat and drink spiritually 
 of the body and blood of the Lord, not as He was still laden 
 with the guilt of sin and still under obligation to fulfil the 
 divine law, but as having purged our sins and now entitled to 
 all the glory which falls to Him and His redeemed as the reward 
 of His agony. They identify themselves with Him as passing 
 through death for them. When Christians receive the bread 
 and wine by faith, they are supposed to be made partakers of 
 His vicarious death, and are regarded as united to Him, and as 
 having undergone, in and with Him, all that He endured. 
 
 Thus, according to the purpose of Christ, both these symbolic 
 actions of the Christian Church refer to the atonement ; and they 
 are meant to attest it, whenever they are solemnized. As they 
 perpetually return in the services of the Christian Church, they
 
 396 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 keep before the eye of believers this great fundamental truth till 
 the Lord come. The meaning of the atonement, its nature, and 
 effects of every kind, the utility of the atonement and its neces- 
 sity, are all proclaimed anew by every repetition of these sacra- 
 ments, which are appropriate to the different stages of the 
 Christian life, the one to its commencement, the other to its 
 progress. These provisions keep up a constant remembrance of 
 the cross, shewing that the eye is never to be turned away from 
 the crucified substitute, and are accompanied with the word 
 given to explain them. Hence we may see the rank and place 
 that belong to the atonement. 
 
 SEC. L. CHEIST'S SAYINGS WHICH EEPRESENT FAITH AS THE 
 ORGAN OR INSTRUMENT OF RECEIVING THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 The relative place of faith becomes evident, when it is viewed 
 as that mental act on which the whole application of redemption 
 on man's side depends. The term faith means a spirit-given 
 trust on the divine mercy and on a personal Saviour, as opposed 
 to man's native self-reliance. This is its uniform signification, 
 according to Scripture usage. Though some have thought that, 
 in a considerable number of passages, it must be taken in an 
 objective sense, denoting the doctrine 1 of the Gospel (as Gal. i. 
 23; 1 Tim. iv. 1; Jude 3), yet the best modern expositors ex- 
 plain these passages in the ordinary sense ; from which, indeed, 
 we are not required to depart in a single instance. 
 
 The important position which faith occupies appears when 
 we consider that it is the means by which redemption is appro- 
 priated. It presupposes Christ's atoning work, which it receives, 
 and is so closely connected with repentance, that the one is 
 never in exercise without the other. It is saving only, as it is 
 receptive of Christ's finished work ; and this is the point to which 
 
 1 The commentators of the Reformation age, and afterwards, took up this idea 
 of irlffTis, or rather inherited it from mediaeval times. It is now given up by all 
 good exegetes. (See Winer, Meyer, De Wette, Fritzsche, passim.)
 
 FAITH THE INSTRUMENT OF RECEPTION. 397 
 
 primary attention must be directed. Faith in its proper nature 
 is the reception of a gift, and saves, not as it involves obedience, 
 but simply as it is receptive of Christ and His redemption. 
 
 There are passages in Scripture, indeed, where we find the 
 phrase, " the obedience of the faith," denoting a compliance 
 with the divine authority in accepting the gift (comp. Acts vi. 7; 
 Eom. i. 5, x. 3). Though these passages have been explained by 
 some as denoting the obedience which follows faith, they really 
 mean obedience in accepting the divine gift. The personal 
 Saviour, as the surety of sinners in the discharge of His official 
 undertaking, which involved an obedience unto death and the 
 acceptance of His work, is the proper object of faith ; which is 
 by no means limited to a bare act of the understanding, but 
 also an exercise of the heart. There are several sayings of our 
 Lord, describing faith as the one means of receiving the atone- 
 ment. Faith, in the sense attached to it by Christ, involves a 
 trust in His person, and gives a relation to His person. It 
 denotes a God-given reliance on an all-sufficient Mediator. Nor 
 is it a reliance on His person irrespective of His office ; for faith 
 uniformly looks to what He officially did and suffered for our 
 salvation. 
 
 To apprehend the connection between faith and the Saviour, 
 we must investigate the sayings of Christ. We shall limit our 
 attention to the function of faith in obtaining the participation 
 of the ransom, the atonement, or righteousness which Christ 
 brought in; as it would turn us away into a line of inquiry 
 different from that we are pursuing, were we to enter on the 
 doctrine of faith in all its aspects and bearings. Our one ob- 
 ject in this section is to set forth from the words of Christ, 
 that a divinely originated faith is the receptive organ or hand 
 by which the believer is made partaker of the atonement. I 
 Shall not refer to those passages where it is interchanged with 
 the phrase, "to receive His testimony" (John iii. 11, 12). I 
 shall omit, too, the frequent use of the term in connection with 
 the miraculous cures wrought on the bodies of men, though, both
 
 398 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 in their conscious need and in the persuasion of Christ's suffi- 
 ciency, this exercise of faith was analogous, though not pre- 
 cisely the same with that which receives the crucified Christ 
 for salvation. 1 In a word, faith is the hand by which the 
 graciously provided ransom is received by the captive, and the 
 complete righteousness is put on by the destitute ; or, to use 
 another mode of representation, it is that bond which attaches 
 us to Christ, and thereby to the Father. It makes Christ and 
 His disciples one, in such a sense that they are no more two, 
 but one person, in the eye of law and before God. By faith, 
 the person is put on a right footing of acceptance ; the standing 
 before God is adjusted; the relation of man towards God is 
 rectified. There is nothing else by which men can be connected 
 with the Saviour. Without it, there is no relation to Jesus, 
 and the atonement would be offered in vain. But when any 
 avail themselves of His mediation, the way, the truth, and the 
 life, they have access to God by Him (John xiv. 6). There is 
 thus an immediate connection, without any intervening steps 
 between faith and the acceptance of the person or the forgive- 
 ness of sins. 
 
 In our Lord's sayings, moreover, it will be found that faith 
 is put in direct antithesis to work of any kind, or to any moral 
 virtue, which might become a ground of confidence before God. 
 His sayings leave us in no doubt that faith leans on the person 
 of Christ alone, with a full repudiation of all the righteousness 
 of works. Thus on one occasion He replied to the self-righteous 
 multitude, demanding, " What shall we do, that we might work 
 the works of God?" in a manner which was fitted to repress 
 such legalism : " This is the work of God, that ye believe on 
 Him whom He hath sent " (John vi. 29). It is only by a kind 
 of paronomasia that He calls faith a work, as if He would say, 
 " If this language is to be introduced at all. this is the work of 
 God, the divinely appointed injunction, that ye believe on Him 
 whom He hath sent." 
 
 1 See an interesting biblical, as well as dogmatic, discussion of this doctrine by 
 Superintendent Cless, uber den N, T. Begriff des Glaubens.
 
 FAITH THE INSTRUMENT OF EECEPTION. 399 
 
 Faith is thus the hand by which we receive all that Christ has 
 done. This will appear, if we recall our Lord's sayings on this 
 point. Thus, in that striking delineation given of faith in His 
 conversation with Nicodemus, He defines it as an exercise of 
 the soul, corresponding to the looking of the wounded Israelite 
 to the heaven-appointed means of cure (John iii. 14, 15). In 
 "both the verses where He speaks of faith as the means of cure, 
 it is spoken of as trust or reliance on the incarnate Son crucified 
 or " lifted up " (ver. 14), or " given " in the sacrificial acceptation 
 of the term (ver. 16). The looking of the wounded Israelite, as 
 the means by which he was healed, is parallel to faith on the 
 crucified Christ. Thus the proper import of the term " faith " is 
 limited to this peculiar relation which is always presupposed 
 between a sinner and a Saviour. As in the case of the Israelite 
 it was not the reception of a moral doctrine, nor fidelity in the 
 observance of the laws of Moses, but a confiding look to the 
 brazen serpent, that constituted the means of cure, so faith is 
 nothing but reliance on the crucified Jesus. For what did that 
 figure serve ? and why was that figure peculiarly selected ? It 
 was for the purpose of showing that faith presupposes the 
 finished work of atonement, a divine provision, and a human 
 want. As human necessities are many and great, faith clings to 
 the crucified Son of God as the God-appointed and sufficient 
 remedy. The atonement is the means of putting sinful men on 
 a right relation to God, a provision for the greatest necessity 
 that can be named ; and as the atoning death of Christ is the 
 centre-point of all His benefits, so faith is the centre-point of 
 Christ's doctrine. 
 
 Our Lord represents the same thing under another figurative 
 description that of eating the bread of life which came down 
 from heaven (John vi. 32-53). To apprehend the force of this 
 figure, we must attend to the point of comparison. Between 
 the bread and the crucified Christ there is one analogy; be- 
 tween the act of eating and the exercise of faith there is a 
 second. With reference to the first of these, the comparison
 
 400 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 must be made only with reference to the nourishing property 
 of food, thus : food has a nutritive quality, and the death of 
 Christ has the same relation to our salvation. His death is the 
 cause of our salvation in the same way as food is the cause of 
 sustaining life. But here the second analogy, or point of com- 
 parison, presents itself. The most nutritious food could not 
 avail to any who did not make use of it ; and, in the same way, 
 the death of Christ will not benefit any who do not believe in 
 Him. According to this simple and perspicuous figure, faith 
 stands to our salvation in the same relation that the partaking 
 of food does to this temporal life. 1 Faith is thus the appointed 
 means, and the only means, by which any man can enjoy the 
 saving efficacy of Christ's atoning death ; and no words could 
 more forcibly point out the indispensable necessity of faith for 
 a participation in the saving efficacy of Christ's atoning sacri- 
 fice. This is the one means of reception. He who believes 
 receives the saving blessings which Christ's death procured, and 
 has a right to the fulfilment of the promise. He who receives 
 with the heart the gift of the crucified Christ, has a right to 
 pardon, and can claim it. 
 
 "We do not here develop the doctrine that faith is an inward 
 work of God, produced by the operation of divine grace ; for we 
 are directed by our theme to faith, as that by which men please 
 God, and find the acceptance of their persons before God. 
 Christ tells us that a man is saved, not by working, but by 
 believing on Him whom the Father sent (John vi. 29). It is as 
 if He said, " Have done with working ; begin by believing on a 
 God-appointed Mediator, as containing in His person and re- 
 demption-work the only sufficient ground of acceptance." Salva- 
 tion is to him who ceases from working; or, as it is put by Paul: 
 "To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifies 
 the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness " (Eom. iv. 5) ; 
 and this proves that faith constitutes the primary, principal, and 
 most important duty. 
 
 1 See Lotze, Hoogepriesterschap van J. C., p. 145.
 
 HAPPINESS OR IRREMEDIABLE WOE HINGING ON IT. 401 
 
 The same thing is proved by those sayings of Jesus, where 
 He declares that they who believe not, perish in their sins 
 (John viii. 24). All depended on this, that they took Him for 
 what He was. That language referred to His person and office, 
 not to His doctrine, and it shows what stood connected with 
 faith on His person, or the opposite. They who would not 
 receive Him as the sin-bearer, or as the Lamb of God, must 
 therefore perish in their sins. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE ENDLESS HAPPINESS OR WOE OF MANKIND DECIDED BY 
 THE RECEPTION OR REJECTION OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 SEC. LI. ENDLESS HAPPINESS, OR IRREMEDIABLE WOE, DECIDED 
 BY THE MANNER IN WHICH MEN WELCOME OR REJECT THE 
 ATONEMENT. 
 
 THOUGH we embrace in this section two opposite classes of 
 sayings, we deem it best to put them together, partly because 
 the one suggests the other, by contrast, partly because men's 
 destiny hinges simply on the acceptance or non-acceptance of 
 Christ's atonement. I shall refer a little more fully to the 
 second point just mentioned, that is, to the remediless doom of 
 those who refuse the propitiation of the cross. 
 
 1. Christ's vicarious sacrifice alone, apart from any acces- 
 sory work or merit of a supplementary description, secured for 
 His people a place in the heavenly inheritance : " I go to pre- 
 pare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, 
 I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I 
 am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the 
 way ye know. Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not 
 whither Thou goest ; and how can we know the way ? Jesus 
 
 saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life : no 
 
 2 c
 
 402 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 man cometh unto the Father, but by Me" (John xiv. 2-6). 
 This saying, understood according to the deep significance 
 which our Lord commonly attached to the words, depart and 
 go away, comprehends not only the departure, but the mode by 
 which He went ; that is, the vicarious sacrifice by which He 
 returned to the Father. This, as we have already proved, is 
 the import of Christ's language in such a connection. The 
 words intimate that heaven, once shut against mankind, is re- 
 opened by the satisfaction of the Son of God, and that His 
 entrance secures that of His people. The text is thus a key to 
 all those passages which describe Jesus as the new and living 
 way (Heb. x. 20), as the leader of our salvation (Heb. ii. 10), 
 as the forerunner who has for us entered (Heb. vi. 20), and 
 also to another class of passages which speak of sitting in 
 heavenly places with Him (Eph. i. 3). 
 
 It is a superficial comment, which interprets the words as 
 referring only to doctrine, and as intimating merely that He 
 pointed out the way to happiness. No mere teacher ever ex- 
 pressed himself as the Lord has here done. It is true the 
 disciples might not at the time discern the full meaning of the 
 words, and might understand Him as if He represented Himself 
 in the light of a traveller, who goes to a certain place Himself, 
 and makes certain preparations also for the reception of His 
 friends. Many interpreters see little beyond this in the words. 
 But they imply much more. They intimate that Jesus was to 
 be the procuring cause and ground of our endless felicity, and 
 not the mere messenger to announce it. He represents Himself 
 as the one cause of man's happiness, and as accomplishing what 
 meritoriously prepared a place for His disciples. He calls His 
 death or vicarious sacrifice a going to the Father, and delineates 
 it as the means or cause of preparing a place for His people 
 among the many mansions. No one is warranted to explain 
 these words in a metaphorical way, when it is evident, from the 
 whole scope and connection of the passage, that He would have 
 them apprehended in their strict and proper import.
 
 HAPPINESS OK IRREMEDIABLE WOE HINGING ON IT. 403 
 
 According to the principle of interpretation which we have 
 applied several times already, the words of Jesus imply that 
 men had forfeited their position in the house of God, and that 
 Christ has restored it by His atoning death. A place was pre- 
 pared for the disciples by Christ, first, by annihilating the cause 
 of the estrangement, or putting away sin by, the sacrifice of Him- 
 self ; and next, by taking possession of the inheritance in His 
 people's name, as their representative and Head. Thus, apart 
 from any supplementary work of man, or any merit of our 
 own appended to the work of atonement, Christ's going to the 
 Father prepared a place for the redeemed ; and His disciples 
 enter heaven simply on the footing of His atoning sacrifice. 
 This is more than a teacher's function, and more than to follow 
 a mere example. 
 
 2. This leads me to consider, in the next place, the opposite 
 class of testimonies, which set forth the irremediable woe and 
 endless punishment awaiting those who reject the redemption 
 work of Christ. The general question of final retribution and 
 of endless punishment of sin as such in all its wide bearings, 
 does not come within our present purpose. But one important 
 aspect of it that connected with the rejection of the atone- 
 ment, or the non-acceptance of the divinely- provided remedy 
 demands attention, as a large number of testimonies uttered by 
 our Lord has express reference to the endless and irremediable 
 misery of those who reject His sacrifice. To these we must 
 refer, and the rather, because at present, doubts as to the eter- 
 nity of future punishment are more widely diffused than at any 
 previous epoch, among those who in other respects accept the 
 truths of Christianity. 
 
 When we consider the constant and uniform teaching of our 
 Lord as to the future destiny of men, we find two periods men- 
 tioned, one of preparation, which is of brief duration; and 
 one of retribution, which is fixed and endless. Thus, faith is 
 required in this life, and urged with the distinct announcement, 
 that otherwise men are condemned already (John iii. 18), and
 
 404 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 that the wrath of God dbideth on them (John iii. 36). The same 
 allusion to the endless endurance of the divine displeasure comes 
 out emphatically in a passage of which the point is much 
 missed. "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and 
 whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what 
 is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his 
 own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for [better, as 
 a ransom-price for] his soul ?" (Matt. xvi. 25, 26). 1 This implies 
 that the payment of a ransom was indispensably necessary in 
 order to liberate men from captivity, but that it has been 
 neglected ; and the point of our Lord's inquiry is, what other 
 expedient or ransom, to satisfy God and to effect man's libera- 
 tion, can be given ? It is tantamount to the declaration that 
 there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, no second ransom, 
 when the soul has been lost by the rejection of the one sole 
 expedient devised for this end. The rejection of Christ's atone- 
 ment is a new transgression, the enormity of which far out- 
 weighs all other sins, whether we think of the greatness of His 
 person or of the fact that it is a sin against the remedy. It 
 shuts the door of mercy. The figurative terms, too, by which 
 these future punishments are expressed such as "the un- 
 quenchable fire " (Mark ix. 45), and the " way that leadeth to 
 destruction " (Matt. vii. 13) convey thoughts that are wholly 
 out of keeping with the idea of restoration or deliverance. 
 
 Before noticing single testimonies, we may adduce, as a ruling 
 instance, the case of Judas Iscariot, of whom our Lord said, 
 " Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed ! it 
 had been good' for that man if he had not been born " (Matt. 
 xxvi. 24). This mode of arguing from a ruling case, employed 
 by Paul, for the establishment of such weighty truths as justi- 
 fication by faith alone (Kom. iv. 1-23), election (Eom. ix. 10-23), 
 and the liberty of those who are children of the promise (Gal. 
 iv. 22-31), may be used to prove the truth of eternal punish- 
 ments. Here is a ruling instance in the moral government of 
 
 1 &VTd\\a.y/j.a rrjs ^vxffi.
 
 HAPPINESS OR IRREMEDIABLE WOE HINGING ON IT. 405 
 
 God. It is noteworthy, that the objection of greatest weight 
 to certain minds is, that it would have been better for such 
 persons that they had not been born ; and that is the very infer- 
 ence drawn by our Lord in respect of Judas. He allows it ; 
 He asserts it. But this language could not have been used if 
 there were any termination to the retribution awarded, or any 
 ulterior felicity and rest ; a proof, this, which cannot be evaded, 
 and before which all must stand silent ! If a pause to suffering 
 should follow, or a period of felicity should enter, to be at last 
 a relief or compensation, such words could not have been used 
 by the omniscient Saviour, whose eye minutely surveyed all 
 future, as well as all present, relations. It would have been 
 good for Judas to be born, if, even after innumerable ages of 
 punishment, however long continued, he should at last enter on 
 the inheritance of rest, peace, and glory; for the intermediate 
 torment, how protracted soever, would bear no proportion to the 
 unending rest of eternity. On the contrary, this case demon- 
 strates that there is no outlet, no repentance, no hope ; and a 
 ruling instance of this sort is conclusive. 
 
 They who doubt the eternity of future punishment must 
 explain away our Lord's words on some preconceived theory, 
 and by a non-natural interpretation (John viii. 24). Certainly, 
 their usual position, that Christ taught nothing but love, is 
 refuted, not only by the woe pronounced upon Chorazin, Beth- 
 saida, and Capernaum (Matt. xi. 21-23), and upon the Scribes 
 and Pharisees (Matt, xxiii. 1-33), but also by the distinct an- 
 nouncement with which He sent forth His apostles : " He that 
 believeth not shall le damned" (Mark xvi. 16). Without going 
 into an exhaustive discussion of this question, 1 it will serve the 
 purpose which we have in view, to adduce one or two sayings 
 
 1 On the subject of eternal punishment, I may refer to the anti-Socinian 
 writers, such as Hoornbeek and Calovius. As against the rationalists I may 
 mention specially Michaelis, iiber Siinde und Genugthuung, p. 260 ; also an able 
 discussion in Mosheim's Sermons, Lampe's Dissertations, Schultens on Heidelberg 
 Catechism, Muntinghe, Van Voorst, etc.
 
 406 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 of Jesus which conclusively establish the fact, that endless woe 
 awaits those who reject His atonement. 
 
 In sending out the twelve on their first evangelistic tour, He 
 said, " Bather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and 
 body in hell" (Matt. x. 28). I shall not refer to the comment 
 given in some quarters to the effect that the person here referred 
 to is Satan ; for that cannot be made even probable. Plainly, it 
 is God to whom our Lord refers as able to destroy both soul and 
 body ; and the words, contain the notion of unending destruction 
 as the second death. Finality is wholly out of keeping with 
 our Lord's words ; for that notion would argue purification and 
 preparation for a better lot, not the destruction of both soul and 
 body in hell, which is affirmed. Not less express is the state- 
 ment in the parable of Lazarus, that there is a great gulf fixed, 
 and impassable, between those in bliss and those in misery, by 
 which they are for ever separated (Luke xvi. 26). The language 
 implies, that if the blessed never fall from their felicity, the lost 
 never escape from their misery. 
 
 The same awful truth is brought out when our Lord speaks of 
 everlasting punishment, using the same word with which He 
 speaks of life eternal (Matt. xxv. 46). To those who argue that 
 a different meaning may be assigned to the same adjective in the 
 two contrasted clauses of the same verse, it is enough to say that 
 the admission of such a diversity of meaning would be to violate 
 all the rules of just interpretation. It is to no purpose to allege 
 that the word here rendered everlasting and eternal sometimes 
 denotes nothing beyond a definite time 1 (Gen. xvii. 13 ; Eph. iii. 
 9). However men may argue from other passages where the 
 word denotes enduring as long as a certain economy or institu- 
 tion continues, that does not touch the antithesis of this verse. 
 It still remains that the same word is equally applied to 
 the heavenly blessedness and to the future misery; and 
 
 1 It is not denied that, in certain connections, curios denotes what lasts during 
 a given epoch, or atciv. (See J. Alting on Rom. xvi. 25. ) But the connection 
 shows, in all languages, what is meant by for ever. I may refer to a discussion 
 by Moses Stuart on aluv and aWftos, in Clark's Biblical Cabinet, vol. 37.
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE ATONEMENT ON MOEALS AND EELIGION. 407 
 
 on no principle of interpretation can an expositor be allowed 
 to give a different sense to the same word in two contrasted 
 clauses. 
 
 One of the strongest proofs for the eternity of future punish- 
 ment is found in the words descriptive of the condemned : 
 "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" 
 (Mark ix. 46). They who contend for the finality of punishment 
 have no refuge from the cogency of this passage, except in the 
 desperate peradventure of annihilation, to which, indeed, with- 
 out any evidence, they sometimes appeal. 
 
 The theme on which we have been commenting is awful in the 
 extreme, and one which no one can approach without a bleeding 
 heart. But the question to be determined, apart from all other 
 considerations, is, What has Jesus said ? does He assert the 
 finality of punishment or proclaim its unending duration ? and 
 no faithful expounder of His words can maintain that He has 
 even left this matter doubtful. As to the further question, On 
 whom does this unending doom strike ? His words are not less 
 clear. They are the men, who, like Judas, or the Jewish nation, 
 or Capernaum, refuse His redemption work, and reject His great 
 salvation (Matt. xxv. 46 ; John iii. 36 ; Matt. iii. 12) ; and the 
 frequency with which our Lord refers to this theme is a merciful 
 forewarning, intended to shut men up to the all-sufficient 
 atonement. 
 
 SEC. LII. THE INFUENCE OF THE ATONEMENT, COEEECTLY UNDEE- 
 STOOD, ON THE WHOLE DOMAIN OF MOEALS AND EELIGION. 
 
 The doctrine of the atonement, which it was our aim to 
 establish in the foregoing pages, and to put in its true light, from 
 the view-point of Christ's consciousness, is so interwoven with 
 all the other essential doctrines of Christianity, that they stand 
 or fall together. Nothing important can keep its ground, if, in- 
 deed, anything of paramount moment can be said to remain,
 
 408 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 where the atonement is abandoned, or no longer held in some 
 form. It is this that gives coherence, meaning, and consistency 
 to the entire fabric, which must otherwise collapse. 
 
 But it is not so much the place of the atonement in Christian 
 doctrine, as its influence on morality and vital religion, to which 
 I here allude. The plan we have pursued does not lead us to the 
 Epistles, where we find perpetually recurring references to the 
 fact of the atonement, and to all the spiritual benefits which 
 stand in intimate connection with it, but to the Lord's own 
 words, as the basis and groundwork of all the applications which 
 the apostles make of it. But we find His own sayings explicit 
 enough on the subject of our present inquiry. 
 
 We shall consider the influence of the atonement on the 
 domain of morals and true piety. The common objection to the 
 method of acceptance by the satisfaction of divine justice, or by 
 the work of another, is that it has a tendency to make men rest 
 in what has been done by a substitute and to be indifferent to 
 purity of heart. This is the old cavil to which the apostle 
 alludes (Rom. vi. 1-7). On the contrary the participation of the 
 saving benefits flowing from the atonement yields the strongest 
 of all motives that can influence the human heart, not to dis- 
 honour, but to glorify, the ineffably -gracious Giver of such 
 blessings. If we were to enumerate the securities for vital 
 religion supplied by the atonement, we should have to distribute 
 them into two classes one having its basis in the moral govern- 
 ment of God, a second in the sphere of motives. To the former, 
 indicated in our Lord's allusions to the premial life consequent 
 on the reception of the atonement (John vi. 51), and fully 
 developed in the apostolic Epistles (Rom. vi. 4; Gal. ii. 20), it is 
 not necessary again to refer, because the subject was under our 
 consideration when we discussed the renovating and transform- 
 ing effects of the divine life, as it takes possession of the human 
 heart. It is only to the motives furnished by the atonement, 
 that it is further necessary to allude. 
 
 A scheme of thought which runs counter to the atonement, if
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE ATONEMENT ON MOEALS AND RELIGION. 409 
 
 carried out to its logical consequences, is destructive to religion, 
 and subversive of morality. The peace and security of mankind 
 depend on a true knowledge of God, not in one attribute, but in 
 all the perfections of His nature. The position too widely main- 
 tained at present, that God is nothing but a fountain of goodness, 
 who sacrifices everything to the happiness of His creatures, 
 destroys all religion, because it takes no account of the subjection, 
 love, and reverence due to God. The thinkers who at present 
 would strike out the atonement from the creed of Christendom, 
 agree in maintaining that love was the only motive in the divine 
 mind in creating the world, and in legislating for it, and that He 
 had no other object or design but the communication of happi- 
 ness. Though this scheme of thought is not formally connected 
 with any philosophy, as it was within the Leibnitzian or Wolfian 
 philosophy, last century, it comes to substantially the same 
 result, viz. that the supreme Being sacrifices everything to human 
 happiness and to the best world. It is argued that He is too 
 highly exalted to be injured by human transgression, or angry 
 at men's impotent opposition ; and that He indulgently connives 
 at this, if they do not injure or destroy themselves. It is held 
 that the Most High never punishes but for men's good, and 
 generally not at all, if they render this unnecessary by repentance. 
 This at once banishes all moral aims from the divine govern- 
 ment, and, in a word, so completely reverses the relations of 
 things, that, on this principle, the creature can scarcely be said 
 to exist for the Creator, but conversely. This theory disconnects 
 happiness from moral excellence, which cannot any longer be re- 
 garded as possessed of intrinsic value. Nay, it gives way at 
 every point where physical happiness is threatened or imperilled. 
 This is a low view of the divine government. On the contrary, 
 God could not rest with complacency in even the happiest world, 
 if men did not seek after their Creator, and acknowledge His 
 rights. And all religion is at once subverted, as well as all 
 right ethical action supported as this is on the natural relation 
 which we bear, as reasonable beings, to the Creator the moment
 
 410 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 men maintain that God aims at the natural happiness of His 
 creatures as the chief end. 
 
 The effect of this theory on morals and religion, if no other 
 elements came in to countervail or check it, is obvious. All 
 those duties, which terminate in God, would fall to the ground, 
 for there would be no motives drawn from our relation to Him. 
 And if some duties would at once fall to the ground, others, 
 such as joy and delight in Him, would be so much deteriorated 
 that they could scarcely be said to partake of a moral character, 
 because they would not differ in kind from joy or delight in 
 insensate things, which please or profit us. God would not be 
 made the end of human action, and self-interest would pre- 
 dominate. 1 
 
 On the contrary, the atonement, as we have developed it from 
 the words of our Lord, is based on the fact that God vindicates 
 His rights, and that He cannot recede from the legitimate claim 
 based not only on His relation as Creator, but also on His 
 own moral excellence to the love and confidence, the reverence 
 and homage, the subjection and adoration, of every creature 
 made in the image of God. He demands this from His intelli- 
 gent universe, and cannot connive at rebellion without the in- 
 fliction of due punishment. This is the first principle of His 
 moral government ; and the atonement is its recognition on the 
 part of the substitute, as well as its enforcement on the part of 
 the Creator. 
 
 The virtue, which takes its tincture from Christ's atonement, 
 is perceptibly different, too, from that which disregards it. Ex- 
 perience shows that the virtues of such persons as plume them- 
 selves on their morality, apart from any dependence on the 
 atonement of Christ, are of a hard, arrogant, and censorious 
 character. On the contrary, where men feel themselves to be 
 imperfect sinning creatures, daily confessing errors, and standing 
 
 1 On the influence of right ideas of the atonement, I may refer to two Dutch 
 champions of the truth: Hulshoff's Philosophische Gcsprekken, 1795> and 
 "VVynpersse, over de Straff'endc Gerechtigheid, 1799.
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE ATONEMENT ON MOEALS AND KELIGION. 411 
 
 before God in a Mediator's merits, they possess a virtue which 
 is mild, meek, patient, humble, and attractive in the comparison. 1 
 
 2. Having already adverted to the influence of the atonement 
 on the whole domain of morals, it remains that we briefly notice 
 its effect on the field of true piety or vital religion in its various 
 phases. To begin with FAITH, the organ or instrument of re- 
 ception, we readily perceive that, without the atonement, it would 
 have wanted its adequate and proper object. Under various 
 modes of representation, metaphors or analogies from common 
 life, it is described as the hand or instrument by which men are 
 made partakers of the atonement (John iii. 15, 16, v. 36). As 
 faith does not merely accept Christ as a teacher or approve of 
 His moral code, but depends on Himself, it could have no object 
 without the atonement. 
 
 Not only so : as many passages in our Lord's teaching connect 
 the atonement more or less directly with almost every spiritual 
 benefit and every phase of vital religion, it is obvious that this 
 central truth, the key-stone of the whole structure of a religious 
 life, cannot be removed without irreparable ruin. Thus, to enu- 
 merate a few of these blessings, we find that our Lord, on the 
 eve of His arrest by the hand of men, spoke of a peace, which 
 He should leave with His disciples as the fruit of the atonement 
 (John. xiv. 24) ; for the whole context indicates that He 
 refers to the peace of conscious reconciliation flowing from His 
 vicarious sacrifice. Many other privileges more numerous, 
 indeed, than can here be mentioned in detail, belonging to the 
 essential elements of true religion stand in precisely the same 
 relation : the freedom with which the Son makes His people free 
 (John viii. 36) ; the hearing of prayer (John xvi. 23) ; rest for 
 the weary and heavy laden (Matt. xi. 28) ; the satisfaction of a 
 felt hunger and thirst (John vi. 35, vii 37) ; a more abundant 
 life (John x. 10) ; and a coming to the Father with boldness of 
 access (John xiv. 6). It may seem, at first sight, as if these 
 
 1 Compare the ethics of Epictetus, Antoninus, or Kant with the delineations of 
 Christian ethics by Melancthon, Mosheim, Fenelon, Sailer.
 
 412 SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 passages stood in no direct connection with the surety-merits 
 and atonement of Christ ; but every one will be constrained so 
 to connect them, when he compares them with the general state- 
 ments of the New Testament, or puts them in their organic 
 connection with the system of biblical doctrine. The titles 
 which Christ assumes, especially that of the Saviour of the lost 
 (Luke xix. 10), elevate Him far above the rank of a teacher or 
 messenger of salvation. 
 
 3. It only remains for us to notice the influence of the atone- 
 ment in the sphere of religious motives. Its influence is as 
 powerful and efficacious in the domain of spiritual motive as 
 we saw it was in the sphere of morals, and first in order. Thus, 
 to adduce a few of the constituent elements of all true piety, the 
 atonement is peculiarly adapted to imbue men with reverence 
 for God. The rational creature can revere and stand in awe of 
 God only when He is known as venerable ; and what can more 
 fill the human mind with reverence than a due discovery of the 
 majesty of God, and of the inviolability of the divine law in the 
 atonement of the cross ? Even in other orders of being, who 
 obtain a knowledge of it, and who look into these things, the 
 same feelings are awakened (1 Pet. i. 12). Then, as to the 
 dread of sin, nothing is so calculated to infuse it, as a right 
 view of the atonement, especially when we apprehend the 
 infinite dignity of the substitute, who must needs be made 
 the object of the divine wrath. With regard, moreover, to the 
 aversion to sin, essential to all true piety, nothing is more calcu- 
 lated to make the memory of sin bitter, and its allurements 
 repulsive, than the agonies of Christ in connection with the sins 
 that caused them. 
 
 Nor does the constraining motive stop short there. We may 
 survey the influence of the atonement over the entire sphere or 
 cycle of man's duty. In reference to grateful love, nothing so 
 much tends to fill the heart with this emotion as the believing 
 realization of Christ's redemption work nothing so melts the 
 heart ; and no purer love to God can 'be imbibed. Nor is this a
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE ATONEMENT ON MOEALS AND KELIGION. 413 
 
 service which either allows room for self-dependence, or warrants 
 men to plume themselves on merit ; for if we should describe it, 
 we could only say that the redeemed are not less jealous of 
 mixing their own holiness with the Redeemer's meritorious pro- 
 pitiation, than afraid of a fruitless faith or dead profession. 
 There is no motive to a holy life so powerful and efficacious as 
 that which is drawn from the propitiatory work of Christ, who, 
 after meeting the demands of the law and bearing its curse, 
 makes that same law a rule to direct our steps ; and Christians 
 learn to take it from the Mediator's hand. 
 
 The manifold and various motives derived from the cross are 
 enforced in all the apostolic epistles. The final purpose which 
 we are there told the atonement was meant to effect, according 
 to the divine plan, becomes to believers a guiding principle in 
 the sphere of motive. Thus when the redeemed apprehend that 
 they are not their own but bought with a .price, they are directed 
 on this very account to glorify God with their body and spirit 
 (1 Cor. vi. 20). When holy fear is inculcated on Christians 
 during the time of their sojourn, it is enforced by the considera- 
 tion that we are redeemed by precious blood (1 Pet. i. 18). The 
 Christian thus falls in with the ways of God. The ground and 
 motive for holy duty, for inflaming and increasing the true fear 
 of God, and for expelling misleading aims or tendencies, as seen 
 in almost every point of practical religion, will be found in the 
 apostolic epistles, traced up to the atonement of Christ. The 
 Christian calls on his soul to remember this, whether he discovers 
 in the death of his Lord indications of divine holiness or of 
 compassionate love. And he contemplates the doctrine of the 
 atonement, in order to find motives for the discharge of sacred 
 duties, for the cultivation of love, fear, and confidence. He 
 investigates the source from which these graces can be most 
 effectually, derived, and he finds all this in the doctrine of recon- 
 ciliation effected by the atoning blood of Christ. 1 
 
 1 See note M in the Appendix.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 OF 
 
 NOTES AND HISTOEICAL ELUCIDATIONS, 
 
 A, p. 15. Number of the Sayings on the subject of His Death. 
 
 IN speaking of the limited number of the Lord's testimonies on the 
 subject of His atoning death, I allude to several elements in the 
 public opinion of the age, which go far to explain the amount of re- 
 serve. Among other circumstances may be mentioned the fact that 
 few of the Jews at that time retained a right idea of the atoning work 
 or function of the Messiah, as it is represented in Isaiah's prophecy 
 (Isa. liii.). 
 
 The Jews in the time of Christ do not seem to have retained the 
 belief of a suffering Messiah, or of His priesthood (Ps. ex. 4). Nay, 
 the prophetical office, too, was swallowed up in the one notion of a 
 temporal prince (see John i. 21, compared with Deut. xviii. 18). 
 BORGER, in his Disputatio contra Eberhardum, quotes writers who 
 assert, and also writers who deny, that the Jews in the time of Christ 
 still had the idea. The evidence from the Gospels, that the idea had 
 well nigh perished from the Jewish community, is almost conclusive. 
 The Jews seem to have expected nothing but a temporal dominion, 
 and a Messiah who should overthrow the power of Rome, and give 
 to the Jewish people an ascendency among the nations. Their words 
 at Jerusalem, " We have heard out of the law, that Christ abideth for 
 ever" (John xii. 34), are decisive. The offence, too, which the multi- 
 tude took at Capernaum, as De Wette and ' Meyer correctly show, 
 must, in a large measure, be ascribed to His declaration, that He was 
 to die as a suffering Messiah (John vi. 60). (See also Vinke, p. 164.) 
 
 The apostles were not exempt from the prejudices of their contem- 
 poraries, but rather shared in them in a double measure. This ap- 
 pears from the fact that they expected to receive places of honour, 
 distinction, and authority in the Messianic kingdom, from their lan- 
 guage, and from incidents in their history. If they understood the
 
 416 APPENDIX. 
 
 import of Christ's words, they misinterpreted His allusions to His 
 death, by foregone conclusions derived from the prophecies which 
 announced that the Messiah should reign for ever, and that His 
 government should have no end (Isa. ix. 7). These prophecies they 
 understood as declaring that He should never die. Christ promised 
 them the Comforter, who was to lead them into all truth, or rather 
 " into all the truth " (rracrav TTJV aA/qfetav), and especially into the full 
 doctrine as to His atoning death, which they could not bear while He 
 was still among them (John xvi. 13, 17). 
 
 These causes go far to explain the reason why our Lord said less on 
 the subject of His atoning death than might have been expected. 
 But the supposition is highly probable, that He uttered many things 
 on the subject of His death which have not been recorded ; for we 
 have only a small portion recorded of what He said and did (John 
 xx. 30, xxi. 25). Thus the Apostle Paul adduces one memorable 
 saying of Christ, not recorded by any of the evangelists (Acts xx. 35). 
 It is a remarkable feature of the Gospels, that we commonly find a 
 narrative of the discourses and actions of the Lord as He appeared in 
 public, and came in contact with those who could not hear the whole 
 truth as to the nature of His mission, history, and fortunes. We have 
 not the record of His private interviews to any large extent, if we except 
 such incidents as His interviews with Mcodemus and with the family 
 of Bethany (Luke x. 38). It would be too much to affirm with Van 
 Willes, that Jesus did not, in the proper sense of the word, publicly preach 
 His sufferings and death ; for, though the allusion to His death in His 
 public discourses is commonly introduced after something else (comp. 
 John vi. and x.), no one with these two chapters before him, as speci- 
 mens of His Galilean ministry and of His ministry in Jerusalem, is 
 entitled to say that He did not, in appropriate and fitting places, make 
 His death and its effects one of the principal points of His preaching. 
 But of His words in private we have very little recorded, such as we 
 now desire to possess. A number of references to His death may have 
 been made on many occasions of which we have no record. The 
 explanation of John as to the mode in which the Gospels were com- 
 posed serves to explain this reserve (John xxi. 25). We may infer 
 that the men of Sychar, who evinced a docility and freedom from pre- 
 judice little found among the Jews, received an outline of the necessity, 
 nature, and effects of His atoning death, such as susceptible minds 
 were in a position to hear and accept from His lips. They call Him 
 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD ; and the words of Christ about Mary of 
 Bethany, who anointed Him for His burial, though exegetes such 
 as Grotius, Kuinoel, and Eritzsche, repudiated the notion of a conscious
 
 NOTE B ON SECTION VII. 417 
 
 purpose on her part, argue a belief in His death, and imply private 
 instruction from Himself on His vicarious sacrifice. Another instance 
 of a secret disciple who seems to have received instructions from our 
 Lord in private on the subject of His death was Joseph of Arimathea, 
 one of the members of the Sanhedrim. The fact that he was not 
 offended by the death of Jesus, but confirmed in his attachment to 
 Him, and went in boldly to Pilate to beg the body (roA^o-as, Mark 
 xv. 43), argues that he must have received instruction on the Messiah- 
 ship of Jesus ; which he could get from only one of two sources the 
 prophecies, or the personal teaching of Jesus. There is much proba- 
 bility in the supposition that he received the information from the 
 Lord Himself, as one of the "many" chief rulers who believed on Him 
 (John xii. 42). He appears to have been more prompt than Nico- 
 demus, though they went in together (John xix. 38). Plainly, he 
 was a disciple before this. Many of the explanations and instructions 
 communicated during the forty days of the resurrection are left unre- 
 corded. In the course of those TEN recorded interviews which they 
 were permitted to enjoy, some of which were more private, while some 
 were more public, their attention was specially directed to the subject 
 of His death, to its nature, rationale, and effects ; and to the types 
 and prophecies which went before (Acts i. 3-8 ; Luke xxiv. 44-49). 
 
 NOTE B, SECT. vu. pp. 36, 94. The Satisfaction to Divine Justice 
 
 necessary. 
 
 At present, when the judicial or forensic aspects of theology are 
 widely impugned, deep importance attaches to the inquiry, whether a 
 satisfaction to divine justice was imperatively necessary. The course 
 of thought on this question is worthy of attention. 
 
 Several patristic, mediaeval, and post-Eeformation divines affirmed, 
 on high transcendental grounds, that God could have given salvation 
 to sinful men without any satisfaction for sin. This speculation was 
 innocuous, so long as they maintained that, in point of fact, salvation 
 was only to be found, according to divine appointment, through the 
 actual incarnation and atonement of the cross. Divines in former 
 centuries sometimes spoke loosely on this point from the view-point of 
 the divine sovereignty, and of the absolute dominion. Thus ATHA- 
 NASIUS ; AUGUSTIN in some passages, though not always; CALVIN (on 
 John xv. 13, where he unhappily says, "poterat nos Deus verbo aut 
 nutu redimere, nisi aliter nostra causa visum fuisset ") ; ZANCHIUS 
 (Incar. iii. 11), and others asserted this position, but they all zealously 
 preached the forensic or judicial side of theology. The same may be 
 said of MUSCULUS, Vossius, Twiss, EUTHERFORD, to whom OWEN 
 
 2 D
 
 418 APPENDIX. 
 
 replied in his treatise on Divine Justice. The arguments were un- 
 doubtedly all in favour of the conclusion, that the exercise of punitive 
 justice was necessary when sin had entered into the world ; but the 
 practical necessity of maintaining this position was not so apparent to 
 them. Hence, when we consult the great divines of the post-Refor- 
 mation period, we find, that in handling the priestly office of Christ, 
 or the meritorious ground of justification, under which section most of 
 them discussed the atonement, they do not raise the question of the 
 necessity of Christ's atonement. They are content with a statement of 
 its reality, with an assertion of the fact, which they call its veritas. 
 This holds true of the Lutherans, GERHARD, QUENSTEDT, BUDDEUS, who 
 scarcely allude to the indispensable necessity of the atonement, while 
 they powerfully assert the reality of the atonement. 
 
 But in proportion as the Socinian leaven spread through the 
 Protestant churches, with its persistent tendency to set aside the 
 satisfaction to divine justice in every form, and with the avowed 
 declaration, uttered by Socinus himself, that if they could get rid of 
 punitive justice, they would overthrow the doctrine of the atonement, 
 divines felt that they must express themselves in a different way. A 
 new attention came to be devoted to the inquiry, whether a satisfaction 
 to divine justice was not absolutely necessary. They now used more 
 caution (see the statements of the Synopsis Purioris Theologies, by 
 Polyander, Eivetus, Walaeus, and Thysius, 1642). They were fully 
 convinced that the question of the atonement must be ultimately run 
 up to the necessity of satisfying divine justice ; and very generally 
 they came to assert, that on the entrance of sin, justice must needs be 
 exercised, and that the atonement was necessary for salvation. 1 
 
 A modified opinion, or an opinion which deserves to be called a 
 middle way, was propounded by GROTIUS in his able work, De 
 Satisfactione. While he strenuously maintained the reality of the 
 atonement, or the fact that it was offered, he put it not on the ground 
 that it was of absolute necessity in order to satisfy divine justice, but 
 on the ground that it was a spectacle calculated to deter other rational 
 intelligences. Ravensperger immediately replied to this part of 
 Grotius' book ; and to him, again, Yossius replied, re-asserting the 
 views of his friend Grotius. In this view, GROTIUS was followed by a 
 very large number in all the Protestant churches during the two last 
 centuries. Thus MICHAELIS, On Sin and the Atonement, Gottingen, 
 1779, and SEILER, iiber der Versdhnungstod Christi, Erlangen, 1782, 
 strongly take up this ground. The view which this theory introduced 
 on the subject of suffering, however, was new, and somewhat startling. 
 1 See our Historical Appendix to the Apostles' Doctrine of the Atonement,
 
 NOTE B ON SECTION VII. 419 
 
 Men began to speculate on the salutary effects of punishment, which 
 was no longer regarded as an end or as a penal infliction, which must 
 be awarded because sin deserved it, and because God owed it to Him- 
 self. It came to be spoken of as a means to an end ; nay, some began 
 to speak of suffering as having a tendency to augment the happiness of 
 the universe. This theory was but a half-way house, and made in- 
 soluble difficulties. Punishment was thus regarded as an arbitrary 
 device, and not as a necessary visitation for a crime, wrong, or insult, 
 which must be avenged by the Divine Majesty. It did not render 
 justice to the word, " Vengeance is mine ; I will repay" (Deut. xxxii. 
 35). The effect of this modified opinion was only to foster doubts and 
 objections, and to lead men step by step to modify and apologise for, 
 and finally to abandon, punitive justice as an attribute unworthy of 
 God, and unnecessary for the vindication of His honour. In a word, 
 wherever punishment is represented as inflicted merely before some 
 other public or some other end than the satisfaction of God's perfections, 
 we may say that the matter in dispute is really given up, and the 
 fortress surrendered into the hands of the enemy. If we maintain 
 with Michaelis and Seiler, sincerely attached though they were to the 
 doctrine of Christ's satisfaction, that the principal end of punishment 
 is to furnish a spectacle to deter men from sin, this is far from satis- 
 factory as applied to the atonement of Christ. Such a principle may 
 be applicable to the government of human states though not 
 universally and absolutely applied as a rule even there, but it cannot 
 be applied to the divine government. On this theory, all the inflic- 
 tions unknown to others such as the anguish of conscience, and the 
 secret consequences of vice, considered as a retribution for sin fall to 
 the ground. But, above all, on this theory, what purpose will punish- 
 ments serve in the future life ? Who are to be deterred by them, if 
 that is their intention] It will not satisfy any one to say with 
 Michaelis : to deter other rational beings. ]STor can any maintain that 
 the deterring punishment, in this life, 'always follows the offence, or 
 that it is uniformly in proportion to the offence. 
 
 As little will another explanation avail, that God punishes for the 
 glory of His justice. This may have two senses : (1) it may mean that 
 God, as supreme ruler, punishes, with a political and prophetic design, 
 or in order to maintain the authority of His government and promote 
 reverence among His subjects an end which cannot be attained with- 
 out severity ; or (2) it may mean that the exercise of punishment takes 
 place, in order to convince men that God will not be regarded as 
 indulgent and tolerant of evil. But this is wholly insufficient ; for the 
 question still arises : Why does God wish to impress this sentiment,
 
 420 APPENDIX. 
 
 and how does it tend to the glorification of His perfections ? We must 
 go further, and affirm something more : for no opinion would glorify 
 Him, if it did not harmonize with truth. And the only position that 
 can be maintained in reference to punishment, is, that punitive justice 
 is an essential, eternal, necessary attribute of God ; that its exercise is 
 necessary on the entrance of sin ; that God is such a Being, that out 
 of love to Himself, and delight in Himself, He loves all that coincides 
 with His perfections, and hates all that is in collision with them ; that 
 His love leads Him to bestow happiness, and His hatred or anger leads 
 Him to send the reverse. The supreme God, insulted by sin, and 
 wronged, if not personally injured, by the irreverence of free creatures, 
 punishes to satisfy the perfection of His nature. This is the reason 
 why He punishes ; and no other explanation is satisfactory to any 
 mind. And hence, due consideration must be given to proper punish- 
 ment, to vengeance, and retribution for ill-desert. (See Hulshoff's 
 Philosophische Gesprekken over de VoMoening, Amst., 1795 an able 
 Dutch writer, and Wynpersse's Betoog dat de Strafoeffende Gerech- 
 tigheid Gode Waardig is, Amst., 1799, who very much follows the 
 former. 
 
 During last century, "the evasions by which the philosophizing 
 divines eluded the arguments for divine justice from the Old Testament, 
 were such as these : that it was a defect in Judaism to regard God, 
 not in the light of a loving Father, but in that of a severe Lawgiver 
 and Judge, who avenged sin, and was to be pacified only by the sight 
 of the blood. The most repulsive language was used against Judaism. 
 on this account, as if it were only an expression of the lowest and most 
 unformed religious sentiments. But Christ, as we have seen, uses the 
 same style of speaking about God. Men may allege that the severe 
 ideas of divine wrath, and sacrifice, of punishment, and atonement, 
 current among the Jews, were erroneous. But they have still to en- 
 counter the question, that Christ holds the same language. If their 
 theory were true, why did Jesus not correct these representations, 
 when the only begotten Son came from the bosom of the Father to 
 reveal Him, and to correct error ? It is in vain to urge, in explanation 
 of this, that it was hard to recall the Jews from these notions, and 
 that it was not attempted. 
 
 On the necessity of satisfying the divine justice, the writers against 
 the Socinians may be consulted that is, the anti-Socinian writers 
 generally who do not take up Grotius' view ; e.g. HOORNBEEK, Contra 
 Socinianos, vol. ii. ; ESSENIUS, De Satisfadione, 1666 ; CALOVIUS, 
 Socinismus Profligatus, 1668 ; STEIN, De Satisfadione, 1755. I may 
 also mention these three writers in Dutch HULSHOFF'S Dialogues,
 
 NOTE B ON SECTION VII. 421 
 
 1795 ; WYNPERSSE, On Justice, 1799 ; VAN VOORST, On Punishments, 
 1796, who have ably written on this point against the philosophizing 
 theology at the close of the last century. But of all who have handled 
 this theme, no writer has more powerfully vindicated divine justice in 
 the matter of the atonement than Anselm, in his celebrated treatise, 
 entitled Cur Deus Homo, written in 1098 during his exile from Eng- 
 land, and intended to meet speculative objections in his day, not un- 
 like those of our age. In an article for The British and Foreign 
 Evangelical Review, October 1859, on Anselm's great work, I gave 
 several passages, literally rendered to exhibit his views, from which I 
 shall give the following extracts : 
 
 " CHAP. xi. WHAT is SIN, AND A SATISFACTION FOR SIN 1 Anselm. 
 We have now to examine by what method God remits men's sins ; 
 and that this may be done with greater clearness, let us first see what 
 it is to sin, and what it is to make a satisfaction for sin. Boso. It is 
 yours to expound, and mine to attend. Arts. If angels and men al- 
 ways rendered to God what they owe, they would never sin. Bo. 
 This cannot be gainsaid. Ans. To sin, therefore, is nothing else but 
 the not rendering to God His due. Bo. What is the debt we owe to 
 God 1 Ans. The entire will of a rational creature should be subject 
 to the will of God. Bo. Nothing surer. Ans. This is the debt 
 which angel and man alike owes to God : he who pays it does not sin; 
 and every one who does not pay it, commits sin. This is the righteous- 
 ness or rectitude of the will which renders men righteous or upright in 
 heart, that is, in will ; this is the sole and whole honour due to God, 
 and which He requires of us. For only such a will, when it is able 
 to work, performs actions acceptable to God ; and when this is not 
 within its power, it is of itself and alone well-pleasing, since there is 
 no acceptable work without it. He who does not render to God this 
 due honour, withdraios from God what is His, and dishonours God; 
 and this is to commit sin. Now, as long as he does not pay what he 
 took away, he abides in guilt. Nor is it sufficient to restore merely 
 what was taken away, but for the indignity inflicted he must render 
 more than he took away ; for as it is not enough for one who does an 
 injury to another's health merely to restore his health, without some 
 recompense for the pain and injury inflicted, even so it is not suffi- 
 cient, when one has hurt a person's honour, merely to restore the 
 honour, without making some satisfactory reparation to him whom he 
 dishonoured, for 1 the pain inflicted by that indignity. Nor must it 
 be forgotten, that in repaying what was unjustly taken away, he ought 
 1 Secundum is here used for pro, a mediaeval usage. (See Vossius.)
 
 422 APPENDIX. 
 
 not to give in reparation something which could already have been 
 required, though he had never committed that injury. Thus, then, 
 every sinner must repay the honour which he took from God; and this 
 is the satisfaction which every sinner must make to God. Bo. In all 
 this, though you somewhat alarm me, I find nothing to which I can 
 take exception. 
 
 " CHAP. xii. WHETHER IT BECOMES GOD, WITHOUT ANY PAYMENT OF 
 
 THE DEBT, TO FORGIVE SIN IN THE MERE EXERCISE OF MERCY. Ans. 
 
 Let us return and consider whether it becomes God, without any re- 
 paration of His violated honour, to remit sin by mere mercy. Bo. I 
 do not see why it is unsuitable. Ans. To remit sin in this manner 
 is nothing else than not to punish it ; and since the due maintenance 
 of order 1 in reference to sin, where no satisfaction is offered, consists 
 solely in its punishment [it follows that], if it is not punished, sin is 
 remitted, without any provision being made for the maintenance of 
 order 2 in the universe. Bo. What you say is reasonable. Ans. 
 But it does not become God to leave anything disordered in His king- 
 dom. Bo. If I were to say anything contrary, I fear it would 
 be sin. 'Ans. Therefore it is not suitable for God to forgive sin 
 thus unpunished. Bo. That certainly follows. Ans. But something 
 further follows, if sin is thus remitted without punishment : the guilty 
 and the innocent will be alike in the sight of God, which is manifestly 
 not befitting God. Bo. It cannot be denied. Ans. Consider this, 
 moreover : every one knows that man's righteousness is under a law 
 by which the measure of the recompense from the hand of God is pro- 
 portioned to its magnitude. Bo. So we believe. Ans. Now, if sin is 
 neither atoned for (solvitur) nor punished, it is subject to no law. 
 Bo. It is not possible to view the matter otherwise. Ans. Then un- 
 righteousness, if remitted by mere mercy, is more free than righteous- 
 ness, which appears to be in the highest degree unbefitting. To such 
 an extent even would this incongruity extend, that it would make 
 unrighteousness like God ; for as God is subject to no law, so would 
 unrighteousness. Bo. I can urge nothing against your argument ; but 
 when God commands us absolutely to forgive those that trespass against 
 us, it seems a contradiction to enjoin us to do what He cannot ivith 
 
 1 This pregnant sentence cannot be rendered literally. Anselm maintains that 
 every sin must be followed by satisfaction or punishment. This is his alterna- 
 tive. Though the phrase is sometimes mistaken, it will be clear that "recte 
 ordinare peccatum sine satisfactione non est nisi punire" is just one side of the 
 alternative. 
 
 2 Inordinatum dimittitur. Vossius shows that inordinatio was used by the 
 mediaeval writers for ara^La, perturbatio ordinis.
 
 NOTE B ON SECTION VH. 423 
 
 propriety do Himself. Ans. In this there is no contradiction ; for 
 God just enjoins us not to arrogate to ourselves what is the prerogative 
 of God alone. For vengeance belongs to none but to Him who is Lord 
 of all ; for when civil authorities exercise this function aright, God 
 Himself, by whom they are ordained for this very purpose, executes it 
 as His own act. Bo. You have obviated the contradiction which I 
 thought involved in it ; but there is another point to which I desire 
 your answer. It is this : since God is so free that He is subject to no 
 law, and to no man's judgment ; and since He is so good that nothing 
 more kind can be conceived ; and since nothing is right and proper 
 but what He wills, it seems strange to say that He from whom we are 
 wont to ask pardon, even for the injuries we do to others, will not, or 
 cannot, remit an injury done to Himself. Ans. All that you state 
 regarding His liberty, His will, His goodness, is true ; but it is reason- 
 able that we should so apprehend them as not to have the appearance 
 of trenching upon His dignity. For the liberty is only for what is 
 advantageous or proper ; nor is that any more worthy of the name 
 of goodness which does what is unbefitting God. Now, when it 
 is affirmed that what He wills is right, and what He does not will 
 is wrong, this is not to be understood as implying that, were God 
 to will anything improper, it would be right because He willed it ; for 
 it would not follow, that if God willed to lie, therefore lying would be 
 right, rather the inference would be, that he who does so is not God ; 
 for a will can by no means be disposed to lie, unless it be a will in 
 which truth has been corrupted, nay, corrupted by abandoning truth. 
 , Therefore when it is said, If God willed to lie, it is just tantamount to 
 saying, If God were of such a nature as willed to lie ; and therefore it 
 would not follow that a lie is right, unless x it be so understood as 
 when we speak of two impossibles : If the one is, so is the other 
 neither the one nor the other being true ; as if one should say, If 
 water is dry, then fire is moist ; for neither is true. Therefore, of 
 those things only, not unsuitable for God to will, can we say with 
 truth, if God wills them, they are right ; for if God will that it shall 
 rain, it is right ; and if God will that a certain person shall be killed, 
 his death is right. Wherefore, if it does not become God to do any- 
 thing wrong, or in violation of order, it does not fall within the sphere 
 of His liberty or goodness or will to discharge unpunished a sinner 
 who does not repay to God what he has taken away. Bo. You remove 
 every objection which I thought could be made to you. Ans. Consider 
 yet another reason why it does not become God to act in this way. 
 Bo. I willingly listen to your discourse. 
 
 1 We think Anselm refers to the whole proposition.
 
 424 APPENDIX. 
 
 " CHAP. xin. THAT THERE is NOTHING MORE INTOLERABLE IN THE 
 
 ORDER OP THE UNIVERSE THAN THAT THE CREATURE SHOULD TAKE AWAY 
 THE HONOUR DUE TO THE CREATOR, AND NOT RESTORE IT. Bo. There 
 
 is nothing more clear. Ans. Now, nothing is more unjust than 
 the toleration of what is most intolerable. Bo. Nor is that doubtful. 
 Ans. I suppose, then, you will not affirm that God should tolerate 
 what would be the summit of injustice, namely, that the creature 
 should not restore to God what it takes away. Bo. Nay, such a posi- 
 tion, I think, should be absolutely denied. Ans. Furthermore, if there 
 is nothing greater or better than God, it follows there is nothing more 
 just than the justice tvhich maintains His hcmoiir in the arrangement 
 of all things the supreme justice, which is nothing but God Himself. 
 Bo, That is certain. Ans. There is nothing which it is more just 
 for God to maintain than the honour of His majesty. Bo. This must 
 be granted. Ans. Do you think He would preserve it inviolate, if He 
 should permit it so to be withdrawn from Him that there should be no 
 reparation, no punishment inflicted on the offender 1 ? Bo. I dare not 
 affirm it. Ans. It is necessary, then, that either the glory 1 withdrawn 
 from Him shall be restored, or punishment ensue, otherwise God will 
 either be unjust to Himself or impotent for both purposes ; which it 
 is impious even to suppose. Bo. I think nothing more reasonable can 
 be said. 
 
 " CHAP. xiv. How PAR THE PUNISHMENT OF THE SINNER is THE 
 HONOUR OP GOD. Bo. But I desire to hear from you, whether the 
 sinner's punishment is His honour, or how far 1 For if the punish- 
 ment of the sinner is not His glory, then God so loses His glory as 
 never to recover it, when the sinner does not repay what He took 
 away, but becomes the subject of punishment ; which seems to stand 
 in opposition to what has been already advanced. Ans. It is impos- 
 sible for God to lose His honour ; for either the sinner voluntarily pays 
 what he owes, or God takes it from him against his will. For either 
 man, by voluntary choice, offers to God due subjection by not sinning 
 at all, or by offering an atonement for the sin he has committed ; or 
 God reduces him to subjection by force, and against his will, thus 
 showing Himself as his Master ; the very thing which the man himself 
 refuses voluntarily to confess. In this matter it deserves consideration, 
 that as man by sinning robs God of what is God's, even so God, by 
 inflicting punishment, robs man of what is man's ; for not only is that 
 said to belong to an individual which he already possesses, but that, 
 
 1 Anselm obviously intends by honour, God's declarative "glory;" and we 
 use them interchangeably.
 
 NOTE B ON SECTION VII. 425 
 
 too, which it lies within his power to possess. As man, then, was so 
 created, that he could attain to hlessedness if he did not sin, and as he 
 is deprived of blessedness and of every benefit on account of sin, he 
 repays, though reluctantly, of his own for the crime which he had 
 committed. For though God does not turn to His own advantage 
 what He takes away, as man converts to his own profit the money 
 taken from another, yet He renders it subservient to His glory, by the 
 very fact of its removal ; for He proves, by that very removal, that 
 the sinner, and all that is his, is subject to Him. 
 
 " CHAP. xv. WHETHER GOD WILL SUFFER His GLORY TO BE TAR- 
 NISHED EVEN IN A SMALL DEGREE. Bo. I assent to what you say ; but 
 there is still another point to which I have to request your answer. 
 For if God must so preserve His honour, as you prove, why does He 
 suffer it to be tarnished, even to a small degree 1 For what is suffered 
 to be hurt to some extent, is not maintained entire or perfect. Ans. 
 The honour of God, as far as relates to Him, is not capable of addition 
 or diminution ; for He is to Himself His own incorruptible and immu- 
 table glory. Put when every creature, whether by natural instinct or 
 rational conviction, maintains its own, and, as it were, its prescribed 
 order, it is said to obey God, and to honour Him ; and this is peculi- 
 arly the case with a rational nature to whom it is given to understand 
 what duty is. When this creature wills as it ought, it honours God, 
 not because it confers anything upon Him, but because it spontaneously 
 subjects itself to His will and disposal, and thus maintains, as far as 
 lies in it, its order in the universe, and the beauty of the universe ; 
 but when it does not will as it ought, it dishonours God, as far as 
 relates to it, because it does not spontaneously submit to His disposal ; 
 and thus disturbs, as far as lies in it, the order and beauty of the uni- 
 verse, though it does not by any means hurt or tarnish the power or 
 dignity of God. For if any of those things, bounded by the circuit of 
 the heaven, wished to be no more under the heaven, or to be removed 1 
 to a distance from the heaven, they could not be but under the heaven, 
 nor remove from the heaven but by again approaching it. For 
 whencesoever, whithersoever, and in whatever way they might go, 
 they would still be under the heaven ; and the further they might 
 remove from any part of heaven, the more would they approach the 
 opposite part. Even so, though a man or evil angel be unwilling to 
 subject himself to the divine will or disposal, yet he cannot flee from 
 it ; for if he would flee from under the preceptive will, he falls under 
 the punitive will of God. And if you inquire in what way he makes 
 the transition, the answer is, only under His permissive will ; and that 
 1 Elongari, a mediaeval usage. (Vossius.)
 
 426 APPENDIX. 
 
 very perverse will and action are made subservient, by supreme wisdom, 
 to the order and beauty of the universe, already mentioned. For, 
 irrespective of the fact that God brings good out of every kind of 
 evil, the very voluntary satisfaction made for perversity, or the ex- 
 action of the punishment from him who offers no satisfaction, occupy 
 their own place in the same universe, and possess the beauty of order. 
 And if these were not added by divine wisdom, when perversity 
 threatens to disturb the right order, there would arise, from the viola- 
 tion of the beauty of order, in that very universe which God must 
 maintain in order, a certain hideous deformity ; and it would bear 
 the appearance as if God failed in carrying out His arrangements. 
 And as these two are as unbefitting God as they are impossible, it is 
 indispensably necessary that every sin should be followed either by a 
 satisfaction or by punishment. Bo. You have satisfied my objection. 
 Ans. It is plain, therefore, that 1 God, as He is in Himself, can neither 
 be honoured nor dishonoured 2 by any one; but an individual seems 
 to do this, as far as lies in him, when he subjects his will to the will of 
 God, or withdraws it from Him. Bo. I do not know what exception 
 can be taken to this. Ans. I have something further to add. Bo. 
 
 Say on ; it will not weary me to listen 
 
 " CHAP, xix. 3 THAT MEN CANNOT BE SAVED WITHOUT A SATISFACTION 
 
 FOR SIN Ans. Let us suppose the case, that a certain 
 
 rich man held in his hand a costly pearl which had never been touched 
 by any defilement, and which no other party, without his permission, 
 could remove from his hand ; and he appoints it to be laid up in his 
 treasury among the dearest and most costly articles in his possession. 
 Bo. I fancy it as it were before us. Ans. If he should suffer that 
 pearl to be struck out of his hand into filth by some envious person, 
 when he could have prevented it, and then taking it from the filth 
 should deposit it, all defiled and unwashed, in a clean and prized spot, 
 to be ever afterwards preserved in such a state, would you account 
 him wise 1 Bo. How could I ? For would it not be better to keep 
 and to preserve his pearl clean than covered with defilement? Ans. 
 Would not God act in a similar way, who held man in His hand in 
 paradise, destined to be associated with the angels, and permitted 
 Satan, inflamed with envy, to cast him down into the filth of sin, 
 though not without His own consent for, had He wished to prevent 
 Satan, the latter could not have tempted man, would He not, I say, 
 
 1 Palam qui ; a later Latin or patristic phraseology. 
 
 2 Exhonorare (see Vossius). 
 
 3 In these omitted chapters, Anselm introduces a fanciful theory, taken from 
 Augustin, about the angels ; but it is an episode.
 
 NOTE B ON SECTION VH. 427 
 
 act in a similar way, were man brought back, at least to the paradise 
 from which he had been driven out, stained with the defilement of 
 sin, and always to continue so without any purification, that is, with- 
 out any satisfaction ? Bo. If God were to act in such a way, I durst 
 not deny the similarity of the two cases ; and therefore I do not con- 
 cur in the notion that He could act in such a way ; for it would wear 
 the appearance, either that He could not execute what He had pur- 
 posed, or that He had repented of His good intention, neither of 
 which can obtain with God. Ans. Therefore hold fast the position 
 that, without a satisfaction that is, without the voluntary repayment 
 of the debt neither could God leave sin unpunished, nor could the 
 sinner come to happiness, even of such a kind as he possessed before 
 he sinned; for in this way man would not be restored even to the 
 condition which he occupied before the entrance of sin. Bo. I can- 
 not at all refute your arguments. But what is the import of that 
 prayer to God, ' forgive us our debts?' and every nation, according to 
 its creed, prays to God to remit their sins. For if we pay ichat we 
 owe, then why do we pray for forgiveness ? Is God unjust, to exact a 
 second time what has been paid already 1 And if we do not pay, why 
 do we vainly request Him to do what He cannot do, because it is 
 unbefitting God? Ans. He who does not repay, in vain cries 
 ' Forgive ; ' while he who does pay, rightly offers prayer, since the 
 very supplication forms part of the payment that is due ; for God is 
 not indebted to any one, but every creature is indebted to Him ; and 
 therefore it is of no avail to deal with God as an equal with his fellow. 
 But on this point it is not necessary at present to give a further 
 answer; for when you shall understand why Christ died, you will 
 perhaps solve the question for yourself. Bo. I am content, then, for 
 the present with the answer you have given to this question. You 
 have so plainly proved, however, the position that no man can come 
 to blessedness with sin, or be released from sin without repaying 
 what he took away by sinning, that I could not, though I would, 
 doubt any longer. 
 
 " CHAP. xx. THAT THE SATISFACTION MUST BE COMMENSURATE WITH 
 
 THE SIN, AND THAT MAN CANNOT BENDER IT OF HIMSELF. Ans. Of this, 
 
 too, I suppose you will not entertain a doubt, that the satisfaction 
 must be proportioned to the measure of sin. Bo. Otherwise sin would 
 remain, in some respects, unreduced to order, 1 which, however, cannot 
 be, if God leaves nothing disordered in His kingdom. But this is 
 fore-ordained, because the smallest thing unbecoming in God is impos- 
 
 1 Inordinatum maneret peccatum.
 
 428 APPENDIX. 
 
 sible. Ans. Say, then, what will you render to God for your sin ? 
 Bo. Repentance, the contrite and humble heart, abstinence and mani- 
 fold bodily labours, acts of mercy in giving and forgiving, and obedi- 
 ence. Ans. In all this, what do you give to God ? Bo. Do I not 
 honour God when, for the fear and love of God, I cast away the joys 
 of time in the exercise of heart-contrition, when I scorn 1 delights and 
 live laborious days of abstinence and toil, when I bestow what is my 
 own in the way of giving and forgiving, and when I subject myself to 
 Him in a course of obedience 1 Aits. When you render something 
 which you already owed to God before you sinned, you must not 
 reckon that as the debt which you owe for sin. Now, all that you 
 have mentioned you owe to God already ; for so great must be the 
 love and the desire cheiished in this earthly life of attaining the end 
 for which you were created, and to which all prayer tends so great 
 the sorrow that you are not yet there, and the fear of not reaching it, 
 that you should feel no joy, except in those things which furnish 
 you either with the help or the hope of reaching that consummation. 
 For you are unworthy of possessing what you do not love and desire 
 for its own sake, 2 and about which you have no feeling of grief, be- 
 cause it is not yet attained, and because, moreover, there is a great risk 
 of losing it. It belongs to this state of mind also to spurn that rest 
 and those worldly pleasures which recall the mind from the true rest 
 and satisfaction, except in so far as you know them to be helpful to 
 your earnest endeavour to reach that consummation. As to giving, 
 again, you must expressly consider this as your duty, as you are aware 
 that what you give is not derived from you, but from Him whose 
 servant you are, just as he is to whom the gift is bestowed ; and nature 
 teaches you to do to your fellow-servant, that is, to do as man to man, 
 what you wish him to do to you ; and that he who will not give what 
 he has, ought not to receive what he has not. With respect to the 
 forgiving of injuries, again, I have briefly to say, that vengeance 
 belongeth not to thee, as we said before ; for neither are you your own, 
 nor is the offender yours or his own you are both servants of one 
 Master, and created by Him out of nothing ; and if you take vengeance 
 on your fellow-servant, you proudly arrogate a judgment upon him, 
 competent only to the Lord and Judge of all. In your obedience, 
 again, what do you give to God which you do not owe Him to whom 
 is due all you are, and have, and can perform 1 Bo. I cannot any 
 longer affirm, that in all these things I could give God what I owe. 
 Ans. What, then, will you pay to God for your sin ? Bo. If I owe 
 
 1 Delectationes et quietem hujus vitse calco. 
 
 2 Non enim mereris habere quod non secundum quod est amas et desideras.
 
 NOTE B ON SECTION VH. 429 
 
 Him myself, and all I can perform, when as yet without sin, that I 
 may not be involved in sin, I have nothing to render Him for sin 
 committed. Ans. What, then, will become of you 1 How shall you 
 possibly be saved ? Bo. If I consider your arguments, I do not see 
 how ? but if I have recourse to my faith, I hope it is possible for me 
 to be saved in the Christian faith, ' which worketh by love,' and 
 because we read, ' If the unrighteous man turn from his unrighteous- 
 ness, and do what is right, all his unrighteousness shall be forgotten.' 1 
 Ans. That is said of those only who either waited for Christ before 
 He came, or who believe on Him since He came. But we assumed 
 that Christ and the Christian faith had never been, when we purposed 
 to inquire by reason alone, whether His advent was necessary to man's 
 salvation. Bo. "We did so. Ans. Let us proceed then, by reason 
 alone. Bo. Though you are leading me into some perplexing difficul- 
 ties, yet I very much desire you to go on as you have begun. 
 
 " CHAP. xxi. THE MAGNITUDE AND WEIGHT OF SIN. Ans. Let us 
 suppose the case, that you did not already owe all that you recently 
 affirmed could be paid by you for sin, and let us consider whether 
 they could suffice for the satisfaction of one sin, so small as a single 
 look contrary to God's will. Bo. Were it not that I hear you pro- 
 posing this as a question, I should suppose that such a sin could be 
 deleted by one single act of contrition. Ans. You HAVE NOT YET CON- 
 SIDERED THE MAGNITUDE AND WEIGHT OF SIN. Bo. Point it Out to me, 
 
 then. Ans. If you considered yourself in the presence of God, and an 
 individual said to you, ' Look in that direction,' and God said, on the 
 contrary, ' I will not have you look,' ask your heart what there is in 
 the entire universe for which you should cast that look contrary to the 
 will of God. Bo. I find nothing for which it should be done, except, 
 perhaps, I may be placed in such necessity as compels me either to 
 do that or a greater sin. Ans. Put aside the case of necessity, and 
 reflect, in reference to this sin alone, whether you could do it even to 
 redeem yourself. Bo. I plainly see that I could not. Ans. Not to 
 detain you longer ; what, if it were necessary that either the whole 
 world, and everything, except God, 2 should perish and be annihilated, 
 or that you should do so small a thing contrary to God's will ? Bo. 
 When I reflect on the action itself, I consider it extremely trifling ; 
 but when I reflect what is involved in its being contrary to the will of 
 God, I regard it as extremely weighty, and not to be compared to any 
 sort of loss ; but we are accustomed sometimes to act against a 
 person's will without incurring blame, that his property may be pre- 
 
 1 Ezek. xxxiii. 14-18, xviii. 27. 
 
 2 Et quicquid Deus non est.
 
 430 APPENDIX. 
 
 served ; and afterwards the step is agreeable to him against whose will 
 we acted. Am. This happens to man, who sometimes does not under- 
 stand what is for his advantage, or who cannot restore what he has 
 lost; but God stands in no need of any man, and could restore all 
 things if they were to perish, just as He created them. Bo. I must 
 needs confess, that even for the preservation of the entire creation, I 
 should not do anything contrary to the will of God. Ans. "What if 
 there were more worlds full of creatures such as this one is 1 Bo. If 
 they were multiplied to infinity, and they were all presented to me in 
 a similar way, my answer would be the same. Ans. You could give 
 no corrector answer ; but consider, too, if it should happen that you 
 cast that look contrary to the will of God, what could you offer as a 
 satisfaction for this sin? Bo. I have nothing greater than what I 
 have already mentioned. Ans. Thus grievously do we sin every 
 time we knowingly do anything, how small soever, contrary to the 
 will of God ; for we are always in His sight, and He always com- 
 mands us not to sin. Bo. "We live, as I hear, all too perilously. Ans. 
 It is evident that God demands a commensurate satisfaction. Bo. It 
 cannot be denied. Ans. Therefore, you give no satisfaction unless you 
 render something greater than all that for which you should not have 
 committed sin. Bo. I see both that this demand is reasonable, and 
 that it is utterly impossible. Ans. God cannot admit any one to 
 blessedness who is in any measure chargeable with the debt of sin, 
 because he should not. Bo. A heavy sentence. Ans. Hear yet an- 
 other ground why the reconciliation of man to God is not less difficult. 
 Bo. If faith did not give me consolation, this alone would drive me 
 to despair. Ans. Yet listen. Bo. Say on. 
 
 " CHAP. xxu. WHAT INDIGNITY MAN DID TO GOD IN PERMITTING 
 
 HIMSELF TO BE OVERCOME BY SATAN, FOR WHICH HE CANNOT RENDER 
 
 SATISFACTION. Ans. Man, created in paradise without sin, was, as it 
 were, placed for God, between God and Satan, that he might conquer 
 Satan, by not consenting to his persuasive allurements to sin. This 
 would have redounded to the justification and glory of God, and to 
 Satan's confusion, when the weaker on earth would not sin after all 
 the persuasion of that very Satan, who, while the stronger, sinned in 
 heaven without any persuasion at all ; and though man might easily 
 have accomplished this, he, though constrained by no force, volun- 
 tarily permitted himself to be overcome by persuasion alone, at Satan's 
 will, and contrary to the will and honour of God. Bo. At what do 
 you aim 1 Ans. Judge for yourself, whether it is not contrary to the 
 honour of God, that man should be reconciled to Him with the 
 reproach of this indignity done to Him, without first restoring to God
 
 NOTE B ON SECTION VII. 431 
 
 His honour, by a victory over Satan, just as he dishonoured God when 
 vanquished by Satan. Again, the victory should be of such a nature, 
 that just as he readily consented to Satan's allurements to commit sin, 
 when strong and arrayed in the power of immortality, and hence justly 
 incurred the doom of mortality, so he should overcome Satan, and 
 resist every temptation to sin in the weakness and mortality which he 
 drew upon himself. This could not be, so long as he was conceived 
 and born in sin, in virtue of the wound of the first sin. Bo. Again, I 
 must say that reason proves your position, and that it is impossible 
 for man as he is. Ans. Hear one thing more, without which man 
 cannot be justly reconciled, and which is not less impossible. Bo. 
 You have already placed before us so many requirements to be done, 
 that whatever you superadd, cannot greatly terrify me. Ans. Yet 
 hear. Bo. I listen. 
 
 " CHAP. xxni. WHAT MAN TOOK AWAY FROM GOD WHEN HE SINNED, 
 AND WHICH HE CANNOT RESTORE. Ans. What did man take away from 
 God, when he permitted himself to be overcome by Satan 1 Bo. Say 
 on, as you have begun, for I know not what could add to the evils 
 you have already unfolded. Ans. DID HE NOT TAKE AWAY FROM GOD 
 
 WHATEVER HE HAD PURPOSED TO MAKE OF HUMAN NATURE? Bo. It 
 
 cannot be denied. Ans. Now direct your attention to strict justice, and 
 judge, according to it, whether man can satisfy God in proportion to 
 the sin unless he shall, by conquering Satan, restore that very thing 
 which was taken from God, in permitting himself to be overcome by 
 Satan ; so that, as by the fact of man's defeat, Satan took away what 
 was God's, and God lost, even so by the fact of man's victory, Satan 
 loses, and God regains. Bo. Nothing can be conceived more strictly 
 just. Ans. Do you suppose that supreme justice can violate this 
 justice ? Bo. I dare not think so. Ans. By no means, then, should 
 man receive, nor can he receive, what God purposed to bestow upon 
 
 him, WITHOUT RESTORING THE WHOLE OF WHAT WE TOOK AWAY FROM 
 
 GOD ; so that God regains by him, as He previously lost by him. 
 This cannot be accomplished in any other way than that as by the 
 vanquished man the whole of human nature was corrupted, and, as it 
 were, leavened by sin, in which God can receive no one to complete 
 His heavenly kingdom ; so by the victorious man, as many men are 
 justified from sin as will fill lip that number for the completion l of 
 which man was made. But that is by no means possible for man, a 
 sinner, because a sinner cannot justify a sinner. Bo. Nothing is more 
 just, but at the same time more impossible; but from all this, the 
 mercy of God, and the hope of man, seem equally to be destroyed, so 
 1 This is the theory of Augustiu, elaborated by Anselm.
 
 432 APPENDIX. 
 
 far as relates to that blessedness for which man was created. Ans. 
 Have patience yet a little longer. Bo. What have you further 1 
 "CHAP. xxiv. THAT so LONG AS MAN DOES NOT RESTORE TO GOD 
 
 WHAT HE OWES, HE CANNOT BE HAPPY NOR IS HIS INABILITY EXCUSABLE. 
 
 Ans. If a man is termed unjust who does not render to his fellow-man 
 what he owes, much more unjust is he who does not render to God 
 His due. Bo. If he can, and does not, render it, he is indeed un- 
 righteous ; but if he cannot, how is he unrighteous 1 Ans. Perhaps 
 he might in some measure be excused, if there were no cause of this 
 inability in him ; but if the guilt is in the very inability, then, as it 
 does not mitigate the sin, it does not exculpate the man who does not 
 render what is due. For if, for instance, one should enjoin a certain 
 piece of work upon his servant, and require him to be upon his guard 
 against casting himself into a certain pit, which he points out to him, 
 and from which there is no escape, and that servant, contemning the 
 charge and warning of his master, should voluntarily cast himself into 
 the pit previously pointed out, so that he cannot do the work enjoined 
 upon him, do you think the inability would in any measure be valid 
 as an excuse why the work enjoined was not performed 1 Bo. Not 
 at all, but rather it would be to the aggravation of the guilt, since he 
 caused his own inability. He doubly sinned, because he did not do 
 what he was commanded, and he did what he was commanded not to 
 do. Ans. Thus man is without excuse, who has voluntarily involved 
 himself in a guilt which he cannot atone for, and by his own fault 
 plunged himself into such an inability, that he can neither pay what 
 he owed before the sin, namely, not to sin, nor what he owes in con- 
 sequence of sin ; for that very inability is guilt, because he ought not 
 to have it (non debet earn habere), nay, ought to be without it (debet 
 non habere)," etc. 
 
 NOTE C, SECT. ix. p. 51. Harmony of Love and Justice in the Atone- 
 ment. 
 
 The principal objections to the atonement at present, however vari- 
 ously expressed in words, commonly resolve themselves into this, that 
 love alone marks all God's relations and ways to men. The Socinians 
 of a former age denied punitive justice, and the modern mystic theory 
 sees only love. I may refer to the history of opinion on this theory 
 of the atonement. 
 
 At the close of last century, as a result of the "Wolfian philosophy, 
 a speculation arose, which laboured to classify or subsume justice under 
 goodness, and denned it as " goodness exercised with Avisdom." Ac-
 
 NOTE C ON SECTION IX. 433 
 
 cording to this theory, divine punishments were only paternal chas- 
 tisements, or wise applications of evil for the improvement of man. 
 (Thus Steinbart, Eberhard, Teller, during last century, expressed them- 
 selves.) This of course struck at the foundation of the vicarious satis- 
 faction, and removed the very ground of the atonement. The effect 
 of these opinions was disastrous in the highest degree, wherever they 
 were adopted in the churches. To make good their position, the most 
 common method was and it has been recently revived to caricature 
 the old doctrine, to supply quotations of extravagant and incautious 
 phrases used by orthodox writers in their practical writings, and to 
 give a violent misrepresentation of the terms " wrath " and " punish- 
 ment," as if that phraseology necessarily represented God as a fierce, 
 vindictive, implacable tyrant. And, contrasted with this, they drew the 
 portrait of an affectionate Father. The great aim of those who assailed 
 the atonement as a vicarious satisfaction in that age, was to overthrow 
 the necessary exercise of divine justice, as if this opinion were merely 
 grounded on a comparison of God with worldly princes. They main- 
 tained that the infinitely good God can do nothing which is to the 
 injury of any ; that He is only love ; and that the evil consequences 
 which follow sin by a natural law, and never as a punishment, are 
 only directed to men's good. This scheme of thought was lasting and 
 disastrous. 
 
 A much more evangelical theory, but agreeing with the former in 
 reference to the divine justice, arose about the beginning of this cen- 
 tury. It enrolled among its defenders some of the most active men 
 who appeared at the close of last century and the beginning of 
 the present such as HASENKAMP, MENKEN, LAVATER; R. STIER, 
 author of the Words of Jesus ; SCHLEIERMACHER and his school ; 
 NITZSCH, V. HOFMANN, of Erlangen ; the GRONINGEN THEOLOGY in its 
 more recent phase ; the followers of M. MAURICE, and much of the 
 BROAD SCHOOL THEOLOGY, in our own country. They agree in one 
 thing, that nothing is to be seen iu the atonement but love. 
 With all their complexional diversities, whether in a more or less 
 advanced stage towards evangelical theology, they hold that God is 
 represented in His redemption work as simply exercising love. They 
 allow no element but love in the atonement. Hence Nitzsch, in his 
 system, calls it " the revelation of holy love to human life." Under 
 the influence of this notion, Schleiermacher announced, as the title of 
 a sermon, " That we have to teach nothing of the wrath of God" (2d 
 vol. of his Sermons, p. 725). 
 
 The elaborate work of J. Macleod Campbell, formerly minister of 
 Row, in the Scottish Established Church, entitled The nature of the 
 
 2 E
 
 434 APPENDIX. 
 
 Atonement, and its Relation to the Remission of Sins and Eternal 
 Life, Cambridge, 1856, strongly supports the same position, from a 
 wholly different starting-point. It is noteworthy that this production 
 should be so much an authority among the adherents of the Broad 
 Church School. Mr. Campbell says : " The first demand which the 
 gospel makes upon us in relation to the atonement, is, that we believe 
 that there is forgiveness with God. forgiveness, that is, love to an 
 enemy surviving his enmity, and which, notwithstanding his enmity, 
 can act towards him for his good, this we must be able to believe 
 to be in God toward us, in order that we may be able to believe in 
 the atonement." He further states : " This is a faith which, in the 
 order of things, must precede the faith of an atonement. If we could 
 ourselves make an atonement for our sins, as by sacrifice the heathen 
 attempt to do, and as, in their self-righteous endeavour to make their 
 peace with God, men are in fact daily attempting, then such an atone- 
 ment mi glit be thought of as preceding forgiveness and the cause of it. 
 But if God provides the atonement, then forgiveness must precede 
 atonement, and the atonement must be the form of the manifestation 
 of the forgiving love of God, not its cause" (pp. 17 and 18). The 
 notion which he has of justice is as disjointed ; he explains it thus : 
 " Justice, looking at the sinner not simply as the fit subject of punish- 
 ment, but as existing in a moral condition of unrighteousness, and 
 so its own opposite, must desire that the sinner should come to be in 
 that condition should cease to be unrighteous should become right- 
 eous ; righteousness in God craving for righteousness in man with a 
 craving which the realization of righteousness in man alone can satisfy" 
 (p. 30). This is tantamount to confounding the divine perfections, 
 instead of exhibiting their harmony in the scheme of human redemp- 
 tion. Nay, Mr, Campbell goes on to say, " How can it be otherwise, 
 seeing that the law is love 1 ?" (p. 31). That is to make a new vocabu- 
 lary, instead of accepting the plain rigorous use of biblical words. I 
 may add, the same scheme of thought comes to light in two works 
 of Mr. Baldwin Brown the first entitled Divine Life in Man, 
 Ward and Co., London ; the second, The Doctrine of the Divine 
 Fatherhood in relation to the Atonement. The praise which he 
 bestows on M. Maurice, and on the Rev. J. Macleod Campbell, of 
 whose work he says that he does not know any book in Avhich the 
 subject is discussed with such deep thought and deep experience, and 
 which he advises his readers to study, sufficiently indicate his view- 
 point and tendency. 
 
 It is obvious that, on this theory, we have no more a legal atone- 
 ment, but only what Mr. Campbell calls " a moral and spiritual atone-
 
 NOTE C ON SECTION IX 435 
 
 ment." Of course these notions sweep away the judicial and forensic 
 side of theology ; and the whole question of the sinner's objective 
 relation towards God, disordered by nature, and calling for reparation, 
 is a total blank in this theology. "We have nothing but mystical repre- 
 sentations of the divine love and of the inner life, and pardon is 
 either made absolute, or regarded as a mere sequel and accompani- 
 ment to the exercises of the spiritual life. 
 
 If man's nature and moral conformation, as originally constituted 
 by God, did not offer a daily protest against any theory which repre- 
 sents God only as a source of influences, and not as a moral Governor 
 or Lawgiver in any sense of the word ; if conscience in men did not 
 loudly reclaim, there would be but one step to a terrible deterioration 
 in religion and morals ; for all religion and morality depend upon a 
 right recognition of authority and law, of divine justice, and a system 
 of punishments and rewards. We do not deny the good connected 
 with the school to which we have referred, that it often depicts the 
 Saviour as the source of spiritual life and light in most glowing terms, 
 and expatiates on the privilege of union to Him. But with all this, 
 it has two deleterious influences wrapped up in it : (1) it throws men 
 back on a certain legality or semi-legality, never taking them beyond 
 themselves ; and (2) it undermines the whole rectoral administration 
 of God, the nature, perpetuity, and sanctions of the divine law, and 
 the wrath of a righteous God against sin. It makes God a source of 
 life or influences, but no moral Governor, Lawgiver, or Judge. 
 
 The glaring imperfections of this school, which neither gives revela- 
 tion its rights, nor man's conscience its place of authority, have driven 
 many to go beyond it, and to advance to better views. Thus CHALY- 
 BJEUS and DORNER, among the German thinkers, have advanced far 
 beyond the mystic and subjective theories of the Schleiermacher 
 school. They maintain that there is in God not only a self-communi- 
 cating element (das selbst-mittheilende), but also a self-maintaining, 
 self-asserting element (das selbst-behauptende) the former being love, 
 the latter justice. This was what was expressed in the scholastic 
 period by the phrase, communicativum mi, the definition of love, and 
 conservativiim sui, the definition of justice. Justice is an attribute 
 worthy of God, and necessary to the welfare of the universe; and 
 they who assail the exercise of justice, really overthrow the founda- 
 tions of the gospel. Punitive justice is, in reality, an amiable attri- 
 bute, worthy of God, and indispensable to the moral welfare of man- 
 kind. 
 
 I shall not notice the arguments of these schools in detail ; nor is it 
 necessary, when the principle on which they are based is overthrown.
 
 436 APPENDIX. 
 
 But I would obviate two of the most common. Thus it is, (1) main- 
 tained, from the parable of the prodigal son (Luke xv.), and of the 
 unmerciful servant (Matt, xviii. 23-35), that God forgives sin abso- 
 lutely out of pure compassion. This is a misrepresentation of the 
 grace-aspect of the gospel, which, it must never be forgotten, is grace 
 to MAN, through a propitiation offered to GOD (coinp. Rom. iii. 24). 
 It is a recognised canon, however, in the interpretation of a parable, 
 that attention is to be fixed on only one point, the tertium quid of 
 comparison ; and that we are not warranted to make a running parallel 
 in all points, as in an allegory. These parables were never meant to 
 teach the ground of forgiveness. The argument from the parable of 
 the prodigal son is not derived from the words, but from the silence or 
 want of reference to satisfaction ; and we are not warranted so to con- 
 strue silence. The Redeemer's object here was not to point out the 
 ground or principle of forgiveness, which He elsewhere does plainly 
 (Matt. xxvi. 28), but to exhibit His love to lost mankind the great 
 thought in the three parables contained in the chapter (Luke xv.). 
 (2.) Again, it is demanded, Can there be love and anger at once in 
 the divine mind, to the same object ? This objection ignores the fact 
 of sin ; whereas man is considered, in a double capacity, as a creature 
 and as a shmer. This meets all difficulties. This has its analogue in 
 a father's relation to a wayward rebellious son, where we trace love 
 and anger at once to the same object. 
 
 It is further argued, that as man must imitate God in the free for- 
 giveness of wrongs, it follows, that God forgives without atonement. 
 That were to overthrow plain texts by a mere inference. But neither 
 is it true that man, in his JUDICIAL KELATION, simply forgives. These 
 divines only speak of man in his social relation to his brother man, or 
 in his paternal relation, forgetting that man, made in the image of 
 God, presents a manifold analogue to the divine relations; that he has 
 the LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIAL as well as paternal relation ; and that if 
 he acted in the latter capacity according to mere mercy, he would 
 neither be God's vicegerent, nor maintain the justice, order, or moral 
 welfare of human society. 
 
 , SECT. xn. p. 69. Christ acting as the second Adam, or accord- 
 ing to a covenant with the Father, in the whole of His atoning work. 
 
 This idea must be carried with us, whether we consider the funda- 
 mental presuppositions of the atonement, as stated in some of the first 
 sections, or discuss the special reference and extent of the atonement,
 
 NOTE D ON SECTION XII. 437 
 
 as exhibited in section xlv. (p. 365). The doctrine of the atonement 
 cannot be understood without the idea of a conjunction between Christ 
 and His people, whether it is called a covenant or not (padum salutis), 
 and whether we use the terms of the federal theology, or prefer others. 
 The whole scheme of thought relating to the covenant occupied at 
 one time an important place in the Reformed Church, and even in 
 some portions of the Lutheran Church, though it never became general 
 in the latter. 
 
 Of various elements which may be said to have concurred, if not to 
 originate, at least to turn attention to this scheme of thought, the two 
 following may be particularly named ; the cavils of Socinus, and the 
 subsequent rise of the Arminian controversy. As to the first of these 
 concurring forces, I may mention that one of the objections against 
 the satisfaction on which Socinus laid stress, was, that there ought to 
 be at least some conjunction between the guilty and him that is 
 punished ; and he would not admit that there was any such con- 
 junction or bond between Christ and us. This drove the defenders 
 of the truth to assert the affirmative, and to define it. They main- 
 tained that Christ was united to us, not only as a partaker of our 
 humanity by becoming one of us, our brother and friend, but also as 
 He entered into a still closer conjunction as the Bridegroom, Head, 
 Shepherd, Lord, King, and Surety of His people. Grotius, in his 
 treatise, De Satisf act tone, chap, iv., is particularly emphatic in assert- 
 ing this close conjunction, on which the possibility of an atonement 
 depends. Thus, in opposition to Socinus, Grotius says, " It might be 
 said here that man is not without relation to man, that there is a 
 natural kindred and consanguinity between men, and between our flesh 
 assumed by Christ. But another much greater conjunction between 
 Christ and us was decreed by God, for He was appointed by God to 
 be the Head of the body of which we are members. And here it 
 must be observed, that Socinus erroneously confined to the flesh alone 
 that conjunction which is sufficient for laying punishment upon one 
 for another's sins, since here the mystical conjunction has no less 
 power. This appears principally in the example of a king and a 
 people. We cited above the history of the Israelites punished for the 
 sin of David." A little afterwards, Grotius adds that this conjunction 
 lays the foundation for vicarious punishment : " Therefore the sacred 
 writings do not at all favour Socinus, declaring, as they do, that God 
 did the very thing which he undeservedly accuses of injustice ; but 
 neither has he any greater defence from right reason, which it is 
 wonderful that he so often boasts of, but nowhere shows. But that 
 all this error may be removed, it must be observed that it is essential
 
 438 APPENDIX. 
 
 to punishment that it be inflicted for sin, but that it is not likewise 
 essential to it that it be inflicted on him who sinned ; and that is 
 manifest from the similitude of 'reward, favour, and revenge, for 
 reward is often wont to be conferred upon the children or relations of 
 a well-deserving person, and favour on the kinsman of him who con- 
 ferred the benefit, and revenge upon the friends of him that offended. 
 Neither do they, on that account, cease to be what they are reward, 
 favour, and revenge. Add to this, that if it were against the nature 
 of punishment, then this very thing would not be called unjust, but 
 impossible. But God forbids a son to be punished by men for the 
 father's fault : but impossible things are not forbidden. Moreover, 
 injustice does not properly happen to a relation (such as punishment 
 is), but to the action itself, such as the matter of punishment is. And 
 here the true distinction must be inquired into, why it is not equally 
 free to all to punish one for another's sin, and to bestow a favour or 
 reward for another's merit or benefit ; for an act which contains in it 
 a reward or favour is a benevolent act, which, in its own nature, is 
 permitted to all ; but an act which has in it punishment, is a hurtful 
 act, which is neither allowed to all, nor against all. Wherefore, that 
 a punishment may be just, it is requisite that the penal act itself 
 should be in the power of the punisher, which happens in a threefold 
 way ; either by the antecedent right of the punisher himself, or by 
 the legitimate and valid consent of him about whose punishment the 
 question is ; or by the crime of the same person. When the act has 
 become lawful by these modes, nothing prevents its being appointed 
 for the punishment of another's sin, provided there be some conjunc- 
 tion between him that sinned and the party to be punished. And this 
 conjunction is either natural, as between a father and a son ; or 
 mystical, as between king and people ; or voluntary, as between the 
 guilty person and the surety. Socinus appeals to the judgment of all 
 nations ; but as to God, the philosophers doubted not that the sins of 
 parents were punished by Him in the children." I shall not quote 
 further from this memorable chapter of Grotius, in which he over- 
 whelms his opponent by the testimony of all classical antiquity. I 
 have adduced this discussion, only to show how men came during 
 the course of it to adopt and maintain a certain necessary conjunction 
 between the Redeemer and the redeemed, which involved something 
 more than a community of the same nature, and, in a word, the 
 elements of a covenant. 
 
 But another cause concurred with the former. When the Arminian 
 debates arose, and the five points were debated, many were led, during 
 the course of this discussion, more and more to the conclusion that
 
 NOTE D ON SECTION XII. 439 
 
 there was a given party in whose "behalf all the provisions of redemption 
 were contrived and carried into effect. Thus Amesius, Coronis, p. 112, 
 expresses himself : " Addam etiam insuper, si nullo modo versabatur 
 ecclesia in mente divina, quum unctus et sanctificatus fuit Christus ad 
 officium suum, turn caput constitutus fuit sine corpora, ac rex sine 
 subditis ullis in praesentia notis, vel omniscio ipsi Deo : quod quam 
 indignum sit thesauris illis divinae sapientiae qui in hoc mysterio 
 absconditi fuerunt, non opus est ut ego dicam. Hoc unum perpendat 
 cordatus Lector satisfactionem illam Christi pro nobis nocentibus sus- 
 ceptam valere non potuisse, nisi aliqua antecedente inter nos et 
 Christum, conjunctione ; tali scilicet qua designatus est a Deo ut caput 
 esset corporis, cujus nos sumus membra ; ut Vir cl. Hugo Grotius, 
 relictis remonstrantibus, quos alibi defendit ingenue concedit. De- 
 fensionis fidei Catholicce, pagina 66." Hence the doctrine of the 
 covenant was the concentrated essence of Calvinism, and appeared 
 especially in a formed and concatenated system, after the Synod of 
 Dort. Cloppenburg maintained it immediately after that Synod. 
 
 Thus these two elements above named led many of the greatest 
 divines of the Reformed Church to bring out, and to lay stress upon, 
 a pactum salutfs, or foedus, as necessary to a full understanding of the 
 atonement. This doctrine has fallen out of the prominence it at one 
 time occupied in theology. But whatever view may be held as to 
 that scheme of thought, there is no room for two opinions as to the 
 scriptural character of the doctrine. There must be a certain conjunc- 
 tion between Christ and the redeemed. 
 
 It is due to the federal theology to state, that it was only meant to 
 ground and establish the undoubtedly scriptural doctrine of the two 
 Adams (Rom. v. 12-20; 1 Cor. xv. 47). These are by no means to 
 be regarded as two different lines of thought, or two mutually exclu- 
 sive modes of representing truth. They proceed on the same principle, 
 and they come to precisely the same result, the one from the view- 
 point of humanity, the other from the counsels of the Trinity. No 
 one can doubt, who examines the federal theology, that the design of 
 those who brought that scheme of thought into general reception in 
 the Reformed Church for two centuries, was principally to ground, 
 and to put on a sure basis, the idea of the two Adams ; that is, to 
 show that there were, in reality, only two men in history, and only 
 two great facts on which the fortunes of the race hinged. The leading 
 federalists were CLOPPENBURG, DICKSON the Scottish divine (who 
 developed it so early as 1625 see Life of Robert Blair, in the 
 Wodrow publications several years before the work of Cocceius, De 
 Fcedere, appeared in 1648), COCCEIUS, BURMANN, WITSIUS, STRONG,
 
 440 APPENDIX. 
 
 PETTO, OWEN, etc. etc. It became a magnificent scheme of theological 
 thought in the hands of these men, and of others who took it up with 
 ardour. That foreign thoughts afterwards came to be introduced into 
 it, and that it became complicated by many additional elements, 
 brought in to give it completeness, but which only lent it an air of 
 human ingenuity and artificial construction, cannot be denied. But 
 as to the point already referred to, there is no doubt that they intended 
 to establish, by this mode of representation, that Christ and His people 
 were to be regarded as one person in the eye of law ; and that, pro- 
 perly speaking, there were only two heads of families, and only two 
 great facts in history the fall and the atonement. 
 
 Against this whole scheme of thought, a reaction set in a century 
 ago. Nor can this be wondered at, when we remember that it was 
 overdone, and that the reaction was only the effort of the human 
 mind to regain its equilibrium as is alwaj'S the case when anything 
 is carried too far. It was overdone, and now it is far too much 
 neglected. 
 
 But it is by no means to be repudiated, or put among the mere 
 antiquities of Christian effort. This, or something like it, whether we 
 adopt the federal nomenclature or not, must occur to every one who 
 will follow out the revealed thoughts uttered by Christ Himself to 
 their legitimate consequences. The only objection of any plausibility 
 is, that the notion of a covenant presupposes a twofold will in God. 
 To meet this objection, springing from an exclusive regard to the 
 unity of the Godhead, it may be remarked, that the supposition of a 
 council or covenant, having man's redemption for its object, has no 
 more difficulty than the doctrine of a Trinity. Each person wills, 
 knows, loves, and exercises acts to one another and to us ; and as 
 they are personally distinct in the numerical unity of the divine 
 essence, so, according to the order of subsistence, they each will, 
 though not apart and isolated. Accordingly, Dr. OWEN remarks 
 against BIDDLE, in his Vindicice : " Because of the distinct acting of 
 the will of the Father, and of the will of the Son, with regard to each 
 other, it is more than a decree, and hath the proper nature of a cove- 
 nant or compact." 
 
 Whatever view may be taken, however, of that scheme of thought, 
 the one important matter on which no doubt can be entertained by 
 any scriptural divine, is, that as Adam was a public person, the 
 representative of all his family, according to the constitution given to 
 the human race, as contradistinguished from that of other orders of 
 being, so Christ, the Restorer, stands in the same position to His 
 family or seed. The world could be redeemed on no other principle 

 
 NOTE E ON SECTION XIII. 441 
 
 than that on which it was at first constituted. Augustin's expression, 
 ille unus homo nos omnes fuimus, as applied to the first man, is perhaps 
 the very best formula ever given ; and the same formula may be 
 applied with equal warrant to the second man, the Lord from heaven. 
 As applied to the atonement, this principle of a covenant, or a con- 
 junction between Christ and His seed, is simple and easily appre- 
 hended. The conditions being fulfilled by the second man, His 
 people enter into the reward. 
 
 Thus Christ was commissioned to do a work for a people who were 
 to reap the reward. The Father laid on Him the conditions given to 
 Adam, with the additional one derived from guilt, and claimed satis- 
 faction from the Son undertaking to act as a surety for a seed given to 
 Him. Man could be redeemed only on the principle or constitution 
 on which God placed him at first, not on one altogether different ; and 
 the one aim of the federal theology was to base or ground this biblical 
 truth. 
 
 NOTE E, pp. 44, 79. The Influence of Christ's Deity or of the 
 Incarnation on the Atonement. 
 
 Less prominence has been given in recent times than in former ages 
 to the doctrine of Christ's deity and of a proper incarnation in con- 
 nection with the atonement ; and various causes will readily occur to 
 explain this fact. 
 
 For the first four or five centuries occupied with discussions on 
 Christ's person, it may seem as if little attention were spared for 
 canvassing the influence of the incarnation on the atonement. But it 
 is not so. The importance attached to the solution of the questions 
 bearing on the person of Christ whether the Docetic, Arian, Sabellian, 
 Nestorian,.or Monophysite controversies arose, in large measure, from 
 the conviction that they had a direct influence on the atonement of the 
 God-man. The patristic divines sought indeed the absolute truth; 
 but their solicitude was largely due to the effect which they saw was 
 exercised by these questions on the actual faith of the Church. This 
 is well brought out by THOMASIUS in his Beitrdge zur Kirchlichen 
 Christologie, Erlangen, 1845. We may take an illustration from the 
 Nestorian and Monophysite discussions. Cyril on the one side, and 
 Theodoret on the other, bring the argument from the atonement 
 into all their debates. Thus Kestorianism was objected to, as leading, 
 when legitimately carried out, to Humanitarianism or Ebionism, and 
 by consequence to the subversion of the atonement, because it was felt 
 that the death of a mere man, however inhabited by God, or made the
 
 442 APPENDIX. 
 
 temple of God (#eo<opos), could have no world-wide significance. 
 Eutycliianism, again, was objected to, because it led, when legitimately 
 carried out, to Docetism a principle on which we could have but the 
 semblance of an atonement (SoK^o-is). Hence the Synod of Ephesus 
 assigned, as the reason for condemning Nestorius, that he ascribed the 
 work of salvation to the humanity of Christ, or to His flesh alone. 
 
 When we come down to the theology of the Reformation, we find, 
 both in the Lutheran and in the Reformed Churches, the greatest 
 emphasis laid on Christ's deity, as absolutely necessary to His work of 
 atonement. They held that Christ's deity was indispensable to the 
 atonement, and that His office as Mediator was correctly understood, 
 only when it was maintained that Christ acted everywhere and in 
 every scene according to both natures. Hence, when Osiander, in 
 order to repel the Romish doctrine, asserted that the Lord Jesus was 
 Mediator only in His divine nature, and Stancarus, on the other hand, 
 in opposing him, asserted, in an equally one-sided way, that Christ was 
 Mediator only in the human nature, the spiritual instincts of the 
 Church, enlightened by the divine word, recoiled from both, and felt 
 that they both deviated from the truth. The position firmly taken up 
 in both divisions of the Protestant Church, was, that Christ, in every 
 meritorious work, acted according to both natures, and that His whole 
 mediatorial activity comprehended both. 
 
 The infinite value of the atonement, viewed in connection with the 
 incarnation of the Son of God, is exhibited forcibly by QUENSTEDT, 
 Systema Theologicum; WESSEL, Nestorianismus confidatus ; and 
 GROTIUS, De Satisfaction*. The latter is peculiarly fresh and clear on 
 this point. Socinus would allow nothing to the dignity of the person; 
 and Grotius says, " We believe otherwise, that this punishment was to 
 be estimated from the fact, that He who suffered the punishment was 
 God, though He suffered not as God." He quotes 1 Cor. ii. 8, 1 Cor. 
 ii. 27, and Heb. ix. 14; and adds, "Socinus objects, because the 
 divinity did not suffer. It is just as if he would say that it is the same 
 thing whether you strike an unknown person or a father, because 
 strokes are directed to the body, not to the dignity of the person ; 
 which gross error Aristotle long since confuted, and the common 
 judgment dissents from Socinus." On this point, see also Seed, 
 Sermons, vol. ii. p. 391. 
 
 The value attached by the Reformation divines to the influence of 
 Christ's deity in the atonement will appear, if we consult the ecclesias- 
 tical confessions of the period, the theological systems and compends, 
 or the catechisms prepared for the churches. I may refer to the 
 Heidelberg Catechism, and its host of expositors (Questions 14, 15,
 
 NOTE E ON SECTION XIII. 443 
 
 16, 17); and the mere fact that Socinianism and Eationalism have 
 always assailed Christ's deity and His atonement together, unmistake- 
 ably shows how inseparably they are connected. 
 
 Two modern theories on the incarnation are in a high degree un- 
 favourable to a full estimate of the influence of Christ's deity on the 
 atonement ; and it is necessary to advert to them both. 
 
 I refer, (1) to the depotentiation theory a widespread tendency or 
 school in modern theology asserting that, during Christ's humiliation, 
 there was an actual self-denudation or depotentiation of His divine 
 attributes on the part of the Logos. To an English mind, untainted 
 by modern speculative tendencies, this appears an impossibility and 
 an absurdity; but it is held by many eminent evangelical theo- 
 logians abroad viz. by SARTORIUS, GESS, EBRARD, LIEBNER, LANGE, 
 SCHMIEDER, STEINMEYER, HAHN, KAHNIS, DELITZSCH, V. HOFMANN, 
 GAUPP, KONIG. The best refutation of this theory will be found in 
 DORNER'S work, On the Person of Christ, and more especially in a 
 paper of his in the Jahrbucher fur Deutsche Theologie, vol. i. An 
 echo of the same theory is found among a class of divines, who, 
 since Irving's days, have confusedly spoken of the divine nature being 
 in abeyance during the Lord's humiliation. Whether surveyed in the 
 German form, or in the English form last mentioned, the theory has a 
 tendency to represent the Lord Jesus in a too humanitarian guise, and 
 as only acting in a humanity replenished and aided by the Holy 
 Ghost ; a truth, but by no means the whole truth. My object in 
 referring to these theories, is to say that they operate unfavourably on 
 the doctrine of the atonement, inasmuch as Christ is not supposed to 
 act as the God-man in His mediatorial works, and is represented too 
 much as the man, and too little as the God-man. In GESS' Articles 
 and Contributions on the Doctrine of the Atonement, accordingly, the 
 writer is silent on Christ's deity in coi nection with the atonement. It 
 could not be otherwise, if he was consistent. He carried out the 
 abeyance theory or the depotentiation theory to its utmost extreme, 
 maintaining that the Lord denuded Himself of His omniscience, omni- 
 presence, and omnipotence, and eternal holiness (see GESS, die Lehre 
 von der Person Christi, Basil, 1856); and hence he is only consistent 
 with himself in making no allusion to the influence of Christ's deity 
 in His work of expiation. His articles on the atonement are good, 
 if we deduct this important omission (see GESS, der Geschichtliclie 
 Entwickelurtgsgang der N. T. Versohnungslehre, in the Jahrbucher fur 
 Deutsche Theologie, 1857, etc.). No man, on his principle, can assert, 
 as must be asserted, that Christ, as Mediator, acted in both His natures 
 in the work of atonement.
 
 444 APPENDIX. 
 
 2. Another theory on the incarnation, which has recently risen to 
 a prominence such as it never before attained in the Church's history 
 is, that the incarnation is irrespective of the fall, and would have 
 taken place apart from the fall. The German divines largely confess 
 to this theory viz. DORNER, EBRARD, MARTENSEN, LIEBNER, LANGE, 
 KOTHE, EHRENFEUCHTER, CHALYB^US. Archbishop Trench, in this 
 country, adopted it, and holds strong language in its defence in 
 Five Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge, London, 
 1837. Its great advocate is DORNER, in his work, On the Person of 
 Christ. I shall not here enter into the discussion of the question, 
 having done so some time ago in The British and Foreign Evangelical 
 Review, Jan. 1861. My object in referring to it here is to say that it 
 imperils the doctrine of the atonement. It puts Christ's mission on 
 new and non-biblical ground. If, according to this theory, we deduce 
 the necessity of the incarnation, either from the nature of God, or 
 from the idea of humanity, and not from God's free and sovereign love 
 to sinners, we deviate from the Scripture representation of it (comp. 
 Matt, xviii. 11 ; Gal. iv. 4; Heb. ii. 14; 1 Tim. i. 15). Scripture 
 exhibits the ATONEMENT for the fallen human race as the chief end, 
 nay, as the one only revealed end, of the incarnation (Matt. xx. 28 ; 
 John iii. 16). We do not by any means need to affirm that no other 
 ends existed in the TroAvTrcnKiAos cro^i'a of God. But this is the only 
 revealed end; and the tendency of this theory, without doubt, is to 
 reduce the atonement to the rank of a subordinate and accidental 
 accompaniment of the incarnation. The atonement is no longer the 
 great end of His coming, the counterpart of the fall of man, the re- 
 adjustment of the disordered universe. The incarnation is thus made 
 an end in itself, not a means to the stupendous end of the world's 
 salvation. The whole effect of the theory is to depreciate the 
 atonement. 
 
 NOTE F, p. 110. The Lamb of God bearing sin. 
 
 Though most of the words in this pregnant saying of the Baptist 
 were noticed in the text, some of the points which could not be con- 
 veniently introduced may be referred to in a supplementary note. 
 
 De Wette and Weiss, on the one hand, maintain that the entire 
 idea contained in this testimony is borrowed from Isa. liii. 7 and 12 : 
 Hengstenberg and Hofmann, on the other hand, hold that this cannot 
 be accepted because the prophet introduces the allusion to the lamb 
 only in the way of a comparison. Perhaps a middle way may be 
 adopted, which is better than either. The prophet may have taken
 
 NOTE F ON SECTION XVII. 445 
 
 his comparison from the sacrificial lamb ; and thus both views may be 
 harmonized. But as there is no formal quotation, no necessity exists 
 for this discussion among exegetes at all. 
 
 As to the question which we found it necessary to discuss, what 
 peculiar lamb is here referred to, I may refer to an excellent note of 
 Huther, in his commentary on 1 Pet. i. 19, which forms a part of H. 
 A. W. Meyer's Kritisch Exeget. Commentar., and also to some com- 
 ments of Cocceius in his Anecdota, vol. ii. p. 457. Both these com- 
 mentators extend the allusion here made to the lamb beyond the 
 paschal lamb, and make it a more general reference. Thus Huther on 
 1 Pet. i. 19 uses these words : " Zu der - Bezeichnung Christi als des 
 Lammes ist der alttestamentliche Typus hier nicht bios das Passah 
 Lamm (wie 1 Cor. v. 7), sondern allgemeiner : das Lamm we es in 
 dem Jiidischen Opferwesen iiberhaupt." Cocceius, too, says: "Chris- 
 tum agnum dici non tan turn indiscriminatim respiciendo ad 'omnia 
 sacrificia expiatoria ; sed etiam in specie ad sacrificium juge, et ilia 
 quae pro delicto offerebantur (nam delictum est peccatum opinor) et 
 holocausta, quae expiatoria esse docet Ps. li. 18, imprimis verb ad 
 agnum paschalem, qui exeuntibus ex ^Egypto instar omnium sacri- 
 ficiorum erat." 
 
 As to the participial clause, 6 a/zvos 6 aipwv, it must be noted that 
 the article and participle in such a phrase uniformly points out a well- 
 known relation, or a noteworthy peculiarity for which one is distin- 
 guished. It corresponds to is qui, quippe qui (see Winer's Grammar, 
 sec. 20, c; Matthias's Grammar, sec. 269, obs.). 
 
 The two words which require an accurate and precise exposition 
 are, aipetv and up.a.prlav. 
 
 (1.) With regard to aipwv, it must be noticed that the verb means, 
 primarily, " to lift up ;" but according as that is done with various 
 intentions, we find derivative senses arising out of it. Thus (1) he 
 who lifts anything upon the way, lifts it, perhaps, to take it for him- 
 self, and so takes it away ; and if one appropriates it, he takes it away 
 from another : hence the meaning, " to take away." But (2) one may 
 lift it also " to carry it," or to bear it as a burden or load. Hence 
 cu/3cr$ai is used by the Greek writers, and CU/DCIV by the Hebraizing 
 writers in the sense of "to bear," "portare." The principal thought 
 is not always that of carrying from place to place, but often that of 
 taking upon one's self a burden or load. And it is in full accordance 
 with this usage of the word, when Christ is regarded as the Lamb. 
 (See an article by Storr in Flatfs Magazine fur Dogmatik und Moral, 
 ii. St. 1797, p. 206.) STEIN, De Sat isf act tone, p. 338, on this point, 
 thus writes : Joan. Georgius Dorscheus, Pentadecad. Dissertat. Disp.
 
 446 APPENDIX 
 
 xi. p.m. 380, sec. 43, loca ultra quadraginta profert ubi TO cu/oav por- 
 tandi signilicationem habet proprie, quod cum primis e loco, 1 Joan, 
 iii. 5, confirmatur." C. L. "W. GRIMM (De Joan. Christologice indole, 
 p. 106) maintains, that though the verb atpetv both in the LXX. and 
 in the N. T. involves the notion of bearing, sustaining, taking on one's 
 self, and occurs particularly in reference to bearing burdens, Gen. xlv. 
 23, Lam. iii. 27, Matt, xxvii. 32, and in Job xxi. 3 (though the reading 
 here is doubtful) ; yet, when it is joined with the word dju,a/cm'av, or 
 its cognate, u/*apr?7/za, it always has the idea of " taking away," 
 " removing," never of bearing, 1 Sam. xv. 25, xxv. 28. To the same 
 effect is the later conclusion of Grimm, in his edition of Wilke's Lexicon 
 of the N. T. The answer to all this is, that the translation of the Septua- 
 gint is no conclusive argument ; and that there is reason to conclude 
 that the same Hebrew phrase was differently given by the Septuagint, 
 because the translators were plainly at a loss to see how a constant 
 rendering could be carried out in all the four applications in which the 
 phrase occurs. They translate in one way when it applied to the 
 sinner or the victim (viz. <e/aeiv, ava^epeiv, Aa/z/3ai/etv), and in another 
 way, when it is used with reference to the priest, or applied to God 
 (d<cupetv, or dc^ieVcu). This whole subject must be discussed afresh. 
 Here I would take occasion to express my conviction, that the Septua- 
 gint rendering of the Hebrew phrase, " to bear sin," demands an 
 ampler and more rigid investigation. These translators draw a line 
 between certain applications of the phrase which they regard as con- 
 veying the meaning " to bear," and certain other applications which 
 they understand as denoting " to take away." In the first of these 
 two translations they render the phrase by these Greek verbs : </>e'/oeiv, 
 dva^epetv, Aa/x/3avetv, vKtytiv (Ezek. iv. 4, xviii. 19; Lam. v. 7 ; Ex. 
 xxviii. 43; Lev. v. 1,17; Num. ix. 13; Lev. vii. 18 ; Num. v. 31 ; Lev. 
 xvii. 16). In the second of these two translations they use the verb, 
 afaipeiv, d(ie'vcu (Ex. xxviii. 38 ; Ps. Ixxxv. 3 ; Ex. xxxiv. 7 ; Lev. 
 x. 17 ; Num. xviii. 1, 23, xiv. 18). Now it is plain, that in deciding 
 on the translation to be given in any given passage, the Septuagint 
 translators were guided by certain a priori considerations which, 
 whether right or wrong, were derived from some other quarter than 
 the bare signification of the language which they translated. They 
 appropriated the rendering <e/3eiv, (1) to the individual worshipper, 
 and (2) to the sacrificial victim ; and they appropriated the other ren- 
 dering, d<ai/3eiv, (1) to the priest, and (2) to God. This is undoubt- 
 edly the conclusion or result to which every thorough investigator into 
 the peculiarities of the Septuagint will be forced to come. 
 
 But as it is by no means a faultless version, the further inquiry
 
 NOTE G ON SECTION XVII. 447 
 
 forces itself on our attention : Were they correct in this interpretation 
 of the language 1 were those d priori grounds, which directed them, 
 and taken from what they deemed fitting and appropriate, correct and 
 unchallengeable 1 The Church of the patristic age and of the Refor- 
 mation age accepted the rendering of the Septuagint, as if in this 
 matter it gave us the ultimate truth. I say that there is a call for a 
 fresh investigation. And whether (Eder, to whom I have referred, 
 has brought out the truth or not in reference to the import of the 
 phrase " to bear sin " in its application to God, of one thing there is 
 no doubt. The priest may be regarded as " bearing sin " (see Keil and 
 Hengstenberg on Sacrifices). Deyling (obs. i. 45, 2) says, "incorpora- 
 bant quasi peccatum populique reatum in se recipiebant ; " and as this 
 takes away one of the renderings of the Septuagint, further investiga- 
 tion may not less convincingly remove the other. 
 
 I have indicated an inclination to accept a uniform translation of 
 the phrase for a plain reason. We are challenged by the Socinians, 
 and by the more erudite and exegetical opponents of the vicarious 
 sacrifice, to accept a uniform rendering, or give up asserting the refer- 
 ence to the phrase aipeiv apapriav to anything like penal suffering. 
 I have said that I think there is sufficient warrant to maintain the uni- 
 form rendering ; and I am ready to abide by it. But one caveat is 
 necessary. The phrase, in the passive voice, naturally assumes a shade 
 of meaning slightly different. This I notice, lest any one should feel 
 the apostle's rendering of the phrase, in the passive voice, as opposed 
 to all that has just been said : pa.Ka.pioi wv a.(f>f6r)o-av al avopiai (Rom. 
 iv. 7). 
 
 (2.) As to apapTia, it denotes sin, with all the demerit and conse- 
 quences involved in it, such as guilt and punishment. The rational- 
 istic Gabler explained a^apria by vitiositas, pravitas, and put this 
 interpretation on the phrase : " He patiently bore the wrongs and 
 injuries of every kind inflicted on Him" (see Meletem. in Joan.}. But 
 had the Baptist intended to express that idea, we should doubtless 
 have had dSi/a'av, or KO.KIO.V, as De Wette, De Morte Christi, has well 
 pointed out. I may notice that Grotius, in a former age, carried exe- 
 gesis very much away in the direction of considering the atonement 
 only in connection with punishment. But while the Bible phraseology 
 takes in all this, it goes deeper, and puts the death of Christ in con- 
 nection with SIN itself. 
 
 NOTE G, p. 121. The Title, Son of Man. 
 The two points discussed in this section are both of great import
 
 448 APPENDIX. 
 
 ance for a right understanding of the doctrine of the atonement, viz. 
 (1) the title, Son of Man; and (2) the peculiar mode in which the 
 Sin-bearer took flesh. Little requires to be added in this place, except 
 a reference to the literature connected with the discussion of the import 
 of the designation or title, " Son of Man." Among the many different 
 views and comments which have been propounded, there are several 
 that demand some further literary notice. 
 
 1. The Fathers, for the most part, saAv in the title nothing beyond 
 an allusion to the fact that He who is Son of God became man ; and 
 they understood it as denoting the whole person as designated by the 
 humanity. Thus Chrysostom, in his commentary on John iii. 13, 
 says : vlov <5e dvOpuirov evravOa, ov T?)V crdpKa eKaAecrev dA/X' UTTO rfjs 
 eAarrovos oimas 6'Aov eavrov, tV OUTWS eiTrw, cuvoyaacre vvv. To the 
 same effect are the comments of most of the other Greek Fathers, 
 when they elucidate the phrase. Thus Theodoret, on Dan. vii. 13, 
 having occasion to expound the precise import of the phrase, says : 
 T)V SfVTfpav crwr^pos kTTKpaveiav Trpo6f<nriu>v vlov p.tv dv0p<airov crac^ws 
 aTTOKaAwi/ oC rjv dveAa/3e fyvcriv. Euthymius Zigabenus says on Matt, 
 xiii. 37 : vlov dvOputtrov eavrov ovo/ua^et Sid rryv ^atvo/ie^v evav^pw- 
 TTTJO-IV avrov. To the same purport are the statements of Epiphanius, 
 Eusebius, Theophylact ; though we occasionally find the word dv6p<o- 
 TTOV interpreted with a more particular reference to Mary, the mother 
 of our Lord. Thus Euthymius Zigabenus, referring to the fact that 
 av$pw7ros may refer to male or female, says on Matt. viii. 20 : av6p<a- 
 TTOV Se vvv Ae'yei, rr)v //./jre/aa avrov- av$p<D7ros ydp Aeyerai ov)( 6 dvrjp 
 p,6vov, dXXd /cat rj yvvij. But we may affirm of the patristic interpre- 
 tation of this phrase, that the Fathers commonly, if not invariably, 
 limited the allusion to the idea of the incarnation, and understood the 
 language as descriptive of the whole person of Christ by one of His 
 natures. The phrase was held to mean, in a word, according to the 
 Fathers, that Jesus is the eternal Son incarnate ; and, in the same way, 
 the phrase is commonly understood by all who, like Suicer, Pearson, 
 Bull, and Waterland, simply content themselves with reproducing the 
 patristic theology in their interpretations of the Scripture phraseology. 
 "We may say with confidence, that this interpretation does not exhaust 
 its meaning, nor explain all the peculiarities connected with our Lord's 
 mode of using the phrase. Thus He never uses it when appealing to 
 His Father. And then this interpretation cannot be said to offer any 
 explanation of the fact that Jesus constantly used it in alluding to His 
 betrayal, rejection, sufferings, and death. 
 
 2. Another interpretation, which obtained currency in the age of the 
 Reformation, was to the effect, that the phrase " Son of Man" intimates
 
 NOTE G ON SECTION XVH. 449 
 
 only that He was man, or that He was in the likeness of man. I 
 might quote Calvin, Bucer, Musculus, Piscator, and many of that age, 
 in proof of this current interpretation. Thus Calvin says on Acts viL 
 56 : " vocat filium hominis, ac si diceret, hominem ilium, quem morte 
 abolitum putatis." Again, Musculus says, on John v. 27 : " esse 
 filium hominis, more Scrip turse nihil est aliud, quam esse hominem ;" 
 and Bucer says, "notandum autem diligentissime, quod Christus filium 
 hominis, id est, hominem (Ebraisnius enim est), sese ubique appellat." 
 Thus Camerarius and Piscator express themselves on Matt. ix. 6. 
 This mode of explanation carries an air of much simplicity ; but it is 
 defective, and cannot serve the purpose of a key to unlock the im- 
 port of all the passages where the phrase occurs, or to explain the 
 peculiarities of our Lord's use of it. It does not explain the fact that 
 Christ alone employed it, and that His followers did not. !Xor does 
 it throw any light on the passages where men and the Son of Man are 
 expressly contrasted and distinguished. And I may add, that the 
 limitation of the phrase to the sense that He was a man, would only, 
 in fact, have announced what no one doubted, what all saw and be- 
 held with their own eyes. 
 
 Other senses allied to that just mentioned, and current in the 
 rationalistic period, are unworthy of being mentioned. Thus even 
 Hess, in his Leben Jesu, interprets it. this man, I who am before you. 
 These shallow comments, which limit it to such senses as a certain 
 man, I, one, some one, are not deserving of notice. It was interpreted 
 the archetypal man by Herder, Xeander, Olshausen. 
 
 3. The interpretation most in vogue among exegetes at present is 
 that which expounds it as a name or title of Messiah glorified, or in 
 His dignity. They deem it equivalent to the title of the reigning 
 Messiah, as if it were taken from the vision of Daniel, where the 
 Messiah appears as the Son of Man in the exercise of authority and 
 dominion. This comment, proposed by Beza, was supported by sub- 
 sequent expositors to a large extent, by Cameron, Capellus, Abresch, 
 Storr; and in recent times, by Stier, Tholuck, Weiss on John's 
 Lehrbegriff, Meyer, and, in a word, the great majority of modern in- 
 terpreters. This is the view advocated by Scholten (in his Specimen 
 Hermeneuticum Theologicum, de appeJlatione rov vlov rov av6pa>Trov, 
 Utrecht, 1809), by Heringa and others, as the only correct view. But 
 this interpretation, however it may explain some of the passages, and 
 especially those which describe Christ as the Son of Man sitting on 
 the right hand of the power of God (Luke xxii. 69), fails to explain 
 the references to His abasement ; and the Messianic glory was but the 
 reward of the humiliation. 
 
 2 F
 
 450 APPENDIX. 
 
 4. A fourth interpretation is that which expounds the phrase of the 
 second Adam. The celebrated philologist Heinsius, who led the way 
 in this interpretation, which has found many supporters, says, (Exer. 
 on Matt. viii. 20) : " cum ubique Dominus servator vios rov 
 dicatur, piimi hominis respectu sine dubio, qui DIN sive 6 
 vocatur. Ut 6 av^pwTros sit homo primus : inos rov avOpwirov, qui post 
 ilium sic eox>s, dicitur, idem qui secundus Adam dicitur." This 
 opinion was followed by Leigh, Lightfoot, Bengel in part, who says on 
 Matt. xvi. 13: "ut Adam us I. cum tota progenie dicitur HOMO, sic 
 Adamus II. (1 Cor. xv. 45) dicitur films hominis, cum articulo 6 vids 
 rov dvdpiairov." The same view was adopted by J. D. Michaelis and 
 Zachariae, and also in substance by Morus. That this view, so far as 
 it goes, is well founded, there seems no ground to doubt. The objec- 
 tion which Scholten makes to it that our Lord never makes the 
 smallest allusion to Adam assumes the whole matter in dispute. 
 This is the allusion. We know that our Lord was wont to go back 
 to man as he was at first, in some of those discussions which He carried 
 on wich the men of His time. Thus, in regard to marriage and divorce, 
 we find Him going back to the beginning (Matt. xix. 6-8); and in this 
 phraseology we have just the same thought that lies at the basis of 
 Paul's comparison of the first and second Adam (Eom. v. 12, 20 ; I 
 Cor. xv.). 
 
 5. Another interpretation is to the effect that the title " Son of Man" 
 denotes the mean, despised, and miserable condition of our Lord in His 
 capacity as surety. This interpretation, propounded chiefly by Grotius, 
 found, in a former age, very considerable acceptance in the Church. 
 The phrase was held by a large class of divines, who in this matter 
 followed Grotius, to refer, not to Christ's dignity, but to His abasement 
 and humiliation. This opinion was adopted by Walaeus, Van Til on 
 Matthew, by Wolfburgius, by Beausobre et L'Enfant, Eosenmuller, 
 and others; by Heumann in 1740, and by Less in 1776, who both, in 
 separate treatises, discussed the title filius hominis in the same line of 
 thought with Grotius, and clearly proved that it is not a title of dignity. 
 Undoubtedly this last thought is contained in the phrase as our Lord 
 employs it. The allusions to His abasement, as we have attempted 
 to prove in the text, are so express and emphatic, that we think they 
 cannot be mistaken. Heumann maintains correctly, that in the Gospel 
 of John, this title is always used as the antithesis of Christ's divine 
 majesty. Let me refer the reader to Scholten's interesting treatise on 
 this title, though its main position has been proved to be untenable. 
 
 The three thoughts contained in the phrase, then, as we sought to 
 bring them out, are these : (1) true humanity; (2) the second Adam;
 
 NOTE H ON SECTION XXVI. 451 
 
 (3) abased curse-bearing humanity. Nor can any one object to this as 
 too composite, because it expresses what the surety must needs be, and 
 what His work must needs embrace. And His one work compre- 
 hended as a unity all these three elements ; and with this phrase, so 
 understood, we can interpret all the passages where the title occurs. 
 
 The next point noticed by us relates to Christ's voluntary susception 
 of the curse. The SECOND thing discussed in this section has reference 
 to the mode in which Christ, as the sin-bearer, took the flesh. The 
 problem here is to show that Christ took sin and the curse along with 
 the assumption of humanity, and that He never appeared without it, 
 Xwpis a/jLaprias (Heb. ix. 28). Our aim here was to show that, in 
 some sense, He was the sin-bearer in, with, and under His assumption 
 of humanity, nay, before the flesh was prepared for Him ; and it in 
 some measure bears the indubitable marks of the curse upon it. Our 
 object was to show that it was not the flesh of sin, and yet kv o/ioi<o/xar6 
 cra/3Kos d/xa/3Ti'as (Rom. viii. 3), not sinful flesh, for that would have 
 incapacitated Him to deliver us, but the likeness of sinful flesh. And 
 all that followed in the way of suffering was entailed on Him, not be- 
 cause He took a portion of the common lump or general mass of 
 humanity, but only as a part of the voluntarily assumed curse taken 
 on Him by His own free susception, or assumption. 
 
 NOTE H, p. 207. The Son of Man giving His life a ransom 
 for many. 
 
 We have so fully canvassed the import of the term Xvrpov, that 
 little here requires to be added. As the notion of redemption, how- 
 ever, by a price paid, or by a ransom oifered to God by Christ, involves 
 the whole notion of an atonement in the room and stead of others, 
 and runs counter to an absolute deliverance, every effort has been 
 made, since the days of Socinus, to make good the point, that redemp- 
 tion may mean deliverance without any price. But as biblical lan- 
 guage contains both the idea of deliverance and of a price, and as they 
 are commonly put together (Eph. i. 7; Col. i. 14; 1 Pet. i. 18, 19), 
 no one can warrantably doubt that we have in these passages the 
 mention of deliverance, and of the ransom as the special way of deli- 
 verance, irrespective of anything done or attempted by men themselves. 
 It is well remarked by Chapman, in his Eusebius, or the True Chris- 
 tian's Defence, 1741, vol. ii. p. 290 : "We have this expressed here as 
 clearly and strongly in the phrases above as the Greek language could 
 express it ; and if it had been the full design of our Saviour and His 
 apostles to express thus much, they could not in Greek have done it
 
 452 APPENDIX. 
 
 in plainer or less ambiguous terms there being no instance, I believe, 
 in antiquity where Sovvai Xvrpov or avri'Xvrpov are used in any other 
 sense ; and therefore, to resolve these words with Socinus or Crellius, 
 by a figure of their own inventing, into a bare deliverance, without 
 any causal price of it, interposed antecedently by Christ, but only such 
 in respect of the reformation of mankind which His doctrine or 
 example or exaltation after death might produce in the world is such 
 trifling and arbitrary expounding of Scripture, without regard to the 
 usage and sense of words, as no reason and criticism will endure. In 
 their way of commenting, besides the total want of authority, there is 
 this further absurdity, that they turn the words Xvrpov and avriXvrpov 
 into metaphor, without making any sort of analogy in the case, there 
 being evidently no proportionable similitude between giving a Xvrpov 
 without any kind of ransom or price, and giving one altogether with 
 it, whereas eveiy true metaphor always carries a plain analogy or 
 proportion between the proper and improper usage of "words ; as 
 Aristotle (Rhet. 3, 10, 11), Tully (Gic. Orat. 3, 38, 39, 40), and 
 Quintilian (Inst. 8, 6), have resolved long ago, and the nature of the 
 thing requires ; and therefore the metaphor which they talk of in these 
 passages is wholly without foundation, and absolutely unwarrantable." 
 
 The exact import of Xvrpov must be ascertained. This is the more 
 imperative, as the notion gained ground in many quarters, especially 
 since the times of Grotius, and was asserted not only during all last 
 century, and up to a recent day, that Xvrpov may be taken in the 
 sense of a sacrifice. That is a sense put on the word, neither in keep- 
 ing with classical usage, nor with the language of the Septuagint. 
 
 1. As to the classical use of the term, we find it used in the singu- 
 lar, but more commonly in the plural, Xvrpa, to denote the price or 
 compensation for which captives are redeemed from those who have 
 taken them prisoner. Thus Thucydides, Book vi. 5, says that Hippo- 
 crates, tyrant of Gela, received the territory of the Camarinaaans as a 
 ransom for some Syracusan prisoners : Xvrpa al^aXwr^v Xa/Swv rrjv 
 yrjv rrjv Ka/zaptvcuW. Xenophon, Hellen. vii. 16, says that the 
 Phliasians gave liberty to Proxenus without a ransom : <ovra Xa/36vres 
 anprjKav avev Xvrpwv. In Demosthenes, 1248, 45, we find eio-evey/ceiV 
 aura) e/ceAeve /AC et's ra Xvrpa : " to contribute to the ransom or price of 
 his deliverance from captivity." 
 
 The undoubted meaning of the term Xvrpov, as it occurs in the 
 classics, is a price paid to deliver a prisoner from captivity, or recover 
 something lost, or perhaps stolen. Though many argue, in the interest 
 of a tendency, that the term may also be taken for any sort of deli- 
 verance, irrespective of the price paid for it, yet no example of such
 
 NOTE H ON SECTION XXVI. 453 
 
 usage is found in point of fact. I shall here quote the accurate state- 
 ment of the meaning of the term given by Bishop Pearson in his 
 Exposition of the Creed, article 10: "What is the true notion of 
 Xvrpov will easily appear, because both the origination and use of the 
 word are sufficiently known. The origination is from Aveiv, solvere, 
 to loose; Xvrpov quasi Xvr^piov, Etymol. Optirrpa ra Open-rripia, 
 Xvrpa TO. XvrrjpLa. Eustath. Afyei Se pern pa. (ita. leg.} TO. 
 K rov dpeirrripia Kara crvyKOTrrjv' o>s Xwypia. Xvrpa } crcoT^pia 
 o-(ao-rpa. Iliad, A, 478. Xvrpov, igitur quicquid datur ut quis solva- 
 tur. 7ri ai'xftaAwTwi' ewve'crecos OIKCIOV TO Xvtcrdai' odev /cat Xvrpa TO. 
 Siapa Aeyoi/Tcu ra els rovro SiSo'/zeva. Eustathius, upon that of Homer, 
 II. A, 1 3, A wo/ievos re Ovjarpa. It is probably spoken of such things 
 as are given to redeem a captive, or recover a man into a free condi- 
 tion. Hesych. iravra ra Sicopfva et's dvaKrrjcriv dvOpwiruv (so I read 
 it not d vct/cA^o-iv). So that whatsoever is given for such a purpose is 
 Xvrpov ; and whatsoever is not given for such an end, deserveth not 
 the name in Greek. As tho, city Antandros was so called, because it 
 was given in exchange for a man who was a captive," etc. 
 
 Thus the Xvrpov or ra Xvrpa was the price of a captive's deliver- 
 ance. The scholiast on Homer renders os arotva <e/Doi by the words 
 6 KOfjiifav ra. Xvrpa. Polybius mentions that Hannibal, after the 
 battle of Cannse, sent ten of the prisoners to Eome to treat irepl 
 Xvrpwv KO.L o-am7/ot'as, making the Xvrpov three mines a man. 
 
 Here I must obviate the statement of Socinus and Crellius, that 
 Xvrpov is properly used only of the redemption of captives. On the 
 contrary, it means whatever deliverance was effected by a gift or 
 service. Thus, if a slave purchased his liberty, the money payment, 
 consisting of his earnings, was called Xvrpa ; whereas a slave obtaining 
 his liberation for good conduct, was said to get it irpotKa. Not only 
 so : the word was used to denote the price of deliverance from punish- 
 ment (Josephus' Wars, ii. 14). 
 
 This is indisputably the meaning of Xvrpov ; and it may be added, 
 that even in the more metaphorical or derivative senses given to 
 Xvrpov by the poets, there is always something corresponding to the 
 idea of a price, or at least of compensation. It is never the absolute 
 idea, irrespective of a price paid. In Pindar we find the metaphorical 
 or secondary sense of the word (see Heine), in the acceptation of a 
 certain compensation for some evil or hardship that men may have 
 endured. Thus the poet calls the marks of honour paid to Tlepolemus, 
 Xvrpov o-v{jL<f>opas olKrpas yXvKv, a sv;eet compensation for his sad 
 disaster (Olymp. 7, 141). He also uses the phrase, Xvrpov tvSogov 
 Kafj-artav, a glorious reicard of toils (Isthm. 8, 1). (See Muntinghe's 
 Geschiedenis der MenscMeid, vol. ix. Anmerk 96.)
 
 454 APPENDIX. 
 
 I may here refer to the passage in Lilian, which Kypke quotes on 
 this verse of Matthew in his Observations Sacrce, as follows : 
 "^Elianus, Hist. An. lib. 10, c. 13. Asserit quod conchse, margaritis 
 exemptis, liberse dimittantur, otovet Xvrpa Sovcrai r^s eavrwi/ O-WTTJ/HCIS, 
 hoc veluti liberations sucepretio data." It is plain that ^Elian describes 
 the pearls which the oysters contain, as in some sense the Xvrpov which 
 is paid to secure their liberty. According to ^Elian's representation of 
 the matter whether true or false, is not the question the oysters are 
 caught, and then, when deprived of their pearls, are liberated, as if 
 the pearl were in some way the ransom or the price of freedom; and 
 he uses an as it were (olovei), to intimate how he would have his 
 language understood. (Comp. Storr's Essay, appended to his com- 
 mentary on Hebrews, p. 436.) We must hold, then, if we are to be 
 guided by the usus loquendi, that Xvrpov designates only a ransom or 
 a price paid to set one free who is a prisoner, or in distress and danger. 
 
 There is thus no ground for the interpretation given by Grotius, that 
 Xvrpov may be held to denote a sacrifice. There is no well-ascertained 
 instance where it is so used. De Wette says, correctly, " at vocabulum 
 Xvrpov neque apud Grsecos, neque in Vers. Alex, de piaculis in usu 
 est." (De Morte Christi, p. 140.) No doubt Kypke quotes the 
 passage from Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, where Ganymede says to 
 Jupiter, " quod si me dimities, polliceor crot KCU aXXov Trap' avrov Kpiov 
 reOva-eo-dai, Xvrpa. vTrep efjiov, tibi et alium arietem ab ipso immolatum 
 iri, in pretium redemption-is pro me." This by no means proves that 
 Xvrpov denotes a sacrifice, as the meaning is not that the sacrifice of a 
 ram is a piacular offering, but that it is the price of his deliverance. 
 The only argument that Grotius can produce for his position, that 
 Xvrpov may mean a sacrifice, is taken from the cognate Latin word 
 lustrum : " Latini veteres quorum lingua tota Grseca? erat depravatio, 
 litera una interposita, Xvrpov lustrum dixerunt et Xvrpovv lustrare. 
 Lustrare ergo urbem est earn a pcena liberare per lustrum, hoc est, per 
 paenam succedaneam, quod et piaculum dicitur." (Grotius, De Satis- 
 factione, cap. 8.) But it is a very uncertain mode of proof, to argue 
 from the meaning of a word of probably cognate origin in one language 
 to the meaning of a word in another. This can never overthrow the 
 usus loquendi as to Xvrpov. On the contrary, the classical usage was 
 so fixed, that it could not bend or pass into any other sense but that 
 of ransom or price in order to deliver a prisoner from captivity. 
 
 2. The usus loquendi of the Septuagint in reference to the term 
 Xvrpov, is equally definite and precise. Though men may speculate as 
 to what might or might not have been, this point is unmistakeably 
 evident, that the word is never used by the Septuagint in any other
 
 NOTE H ON SECTION XXVI. 455 
 
 sense but in that of ransom. The word is uniformly used in the Sep- 
 tuagint, to denote a price, compensation, or payment, with a view to 
 deliver a prisoner from captivity. It is the translation for several 
 words, viz. 133, r6xJ, J1H3 ', an d it is the term used to intimate gene- 
 rally, that something is given -or offered to deliver a person, or to 
 obtain the surrender of a thing (Ex. xxi. 30, xxx. 12 ; Prov. vi. 35 ; 
 Num. xxxv. 31, 32). (Compare Schleusner on the word ; also Borger 
 on GaL, p. 154.) We may confidently conclude, then, that the word 
 Xvrpov does not mean a sacrifice, but carries with it the notion of a 
 price or compensation for a captive. It is an advance on the idea of 
 a sacrifice ; or, more precisely, the one idea passes over into the other. 
 (See (Ehler, under the word Ojofercultus, in Herzog's Real Ency- 
 clopddie, and Keil on Exodus.) 
 
 The notion that Xvrpov may denote deliverance generally, without 
 the idea of a ransom, was often expressed in former days as it is also in 
 modern times ; but it is wholly without foundation. On this point 
 the celebrated Ernesti expressed himself, Neiie Theologische Bibliothek, 
 vol. v., 1764, as follows: "Hiebey macht der Hr. V. eine lange 
 Anmerkung darinne er saget, dass diese Worte entsetzlich libel ver- 
 standen und ausgeleget worden sind, und sich verwundert, dass 
 Manner die griechich verstunden und vorgaben, denken zu kb'nnen, 
 dieses Wort durch eine Erlbsung iibersetzen, und von einer Loskaufung, 
 die durch ein Lbsegeld geschehen, erklaren kb'unen, und durch eine 
 Genugthuung fur di& gottliehe Gerechtigkeit. Wir sagen dagegen, 
 dass wir uns wundern, wie der Hr. Verf. der mit den alten Schrift- 
 stellern so bekannt seyn will, und so viele Jahre sich mit Augslegung 
 derselben abgegeben hat, so iibersetzen uud erklaren konnen, und das 
 ohne alien Beweis aus der Sprache und Parallelstellen. Demi dass er 
 saget : wussten denn die Leute nicht, was die Gerechtigkeit Gottes 
 sei ? Gerechtigkeit bestehet in einer weislich eingerichteten Giite u. 
 s. w., damit ist gar nichts gesaget. Freilich wussten die Leute vor 
 Hr. Wolfen nicht, dass die Gerechtigkeit eine weislich eingerichtete 
 Giite sei; ob sie gleich wohl wussten, dass Gott nicht wider die 
 Gerechtigkeit seine Giite beweise. Aber kann man dagegen sagen, 
 weiss denn der Hr. Verf. nicht, dass aTroAvT/owo-ts nicht Lossprechung 
 heisset, noch heissen kann, und dass es noch kein Socinianer hat 
 beweisen konnen, wie er es auch nie beweisen wird ? Weiss er nicht, 
 dass an andern Orten stehet, diese aTroAuT/awcris sei durch das Blut 
 oder den Tod Christi geschehen, dass sein Tod deswegen avriXyrpov 
 heisset 1 und was soil denn nun dass dvriXvTpov seyn, wenn der Effect 
 davon eine Lossprechung, d. i. eine nachricht von der gbttlichen Los- 
 sprechung ist?"
 
 456 APPENDIX. 
 
 The term Xvprov, therefore, can "be taken in no other sense than in 
 that of a ransom. It must he added that Airrpov, as the translation of 
 the Hebrew copher, is employed in the Septuagint to designate the 
 price paid, in the Mosaic law, to deliver any one from threatened or 
 merited punishment (Num. xvi. 46, "xxxv. 31) ; and our Lord here 
 expresses the very price which He was to give for man's salvation, viz. 
 His life. He could mean nothing else by this saying, hut that the 
 giving of His life is the only price or ransom by which the redemption 
 of His people was effected, just as the liberation of a prisoner of war 
 was effected by the Xvrpov. 
 
 Not to lengthen out this note unduly, let me refer the reader to the 
 expositions of this text that have recently been given by Delitzsch on 
 Hebrews, p. 732 ; by Philippi, in his controversial pamphlet against 
 Hofmann, p. 61 ; by Keil, in his articles on Sacrifices in Zeitschrift 
 fur Lutherische Theologie, 1857, p. 449 ; by Thomasius, Christ i Person 
 und Werk, vol. iii. p. 89. 
 
 I may again refer to Chapman's Eitsebius, or tlie True Christian's 
 Defence, 1739, ii. 4, sec. 9, note E, where he shows, from Greek 
 writers, that kvrpov intimates a special mode of redemption, by the 
 payment of a ransom. He remarks : "if Christ and His apostles had 
 specially intended to declare this with the most appropriate and 
 strongest expressions, they could not have found in the Greek 
 language words more plain and unambiguous than those which they 
 employ." 
 
 NOTE I, p. 239. Christ fulfilling the Laic, and bringing 
 in a Righteousness. 
 
 These two sections were meant to show that the fulfilling of the 
 law, not less than the endurance of the curse, is of the essence of the 
 atonement. Some, under the influence of prejudice or one-sidedness 
 of view, object to imputed righteousness or the vicarious fulfilment of 
 the law, alleging that it is an ecclesiastical conception (so Meyer on 
 Gal. iv. 4) ; others, on the ground that Christ, as man, was under 
 obligation to fulfil the law for Himself (so Piscator) ; others, because 
 the atonement is deemed enough for pardon (so the Wesleyans) ; 
 others, because the law was only for the Jews (so the Plymouthists). 
 These are all one-sided theories, which will at once be exploded by 
 every one who will .either remount to man's primeval position before 
 sin entered at all, and recall the task of obedience which was imposed 
 on him before his confirmation could be conferred, or correctly appre- 
 hend the nature of sin, with which the atonement has to do, as con-
 
 NOTE I ON SECTION XXVIII. 457 
 
 taining the element of omission as well as commission ; for even if 
 the guilt of transgression were removed, there would remain the 
 element of omission, which would equally be sin ; and with hoth 
 elements the Mediator must deal. 
 
 1. Let me first establish the true import of SiKaioo-vvrj. This is all 
 the more necessary, because the precise import of it is now so generally 
 missed. As to the exact meaning of the term, I may notice that the 
 utmost importance attaches to an exact definition of it, because the 
 whole argument in the Epistle to the Romans and Galatians, as well 
 as the import of many other sections of the Pauline Epistles depends 
 on it ; and the true business of an interpreter is accurately to ascertain 
 the force and import of terms as used by the sacred writers, without 
 intermingling foreign elements. To save space, and not unduly to 
 swell this note, let me refer the reader to a discussion of the import of 
 SiKaiocrvvr) Qeov, in an article which I wrote on the Pauline doctrine 
 of the righteousness of faith, in the British and Foreign Evangelical 
 Review for January 1862, in which it is discussed at length. In that 
 article I endeavoured to prove, (1) that the phrase cannot be regarded 
 with Reiche as a description of the divine attribute of righteousness ; 
 (2) that it cannot mean, as Meander, Olshausen, and Lipsius contend, 
 an inward condition of righteousness ; (3) that it cannot denote faith 
 itself as counted to us for a righteousness, as the Arminians, Tittmann 
 the younger, and Nitzsch put it ; nor (4) be interpreted with others, 
 such as Wieseler, Moses Stuart, and Dr. John Brown, as the divine 
 method of justification. On the contrary, it is proved in that paper, 
 by an analysis of Paul's language, that this SIKCUOCTWT/ 0eou is a sub- 
 stantial reality, not less a fact than sin, and not less productive of 
 results in an opposite direction ; that it is a complete, prepared, and 
 perfect righteousness ; that it consists in an obedience to the divine law, 
 which is its standard and measure ; and that it is a righteousness in 
 our stead, or of a vicarious character. I shall not repeat what is there 
 brought out as to the objective and vicarious character of Christ's 
 obedience to the divine law, as that alone by which we are made 
 righteous (Rom. v. 19). 1 
 
 This view of Christ's active and passive obedience, as two concurring 
 elements in one joint work, viewed as a unity, was accepted by all the 
 Protestant Churches as the expression of their Church-consciousness : 
 and more weight attaches to the public symbols and confessions, in 
 which whole Churches embody their convictions, than to the indi- 
 vidual sentiments of any teacher, however eminent. That this view 
 
 l See the section entitled "the Pauline doctrine of the righteousness of God" 
 (p. 106) in the Apostles' Doctrine of the Atonement.
 
 458 APPENDIX. 
 
 of the righteousness may fitly be called the Church-consciousness of 
 all the Protestant Churches, will be evident to every one who will 
 consult the Lutheran symbolic books and the various confessions of 
 the Reformed Churches; and among the latter the articles and homilies 
 of the Anglican Church. (See Art. 11 and Horn, on Faith.) I may 
 also refer to Bishop O'Brien's excellent work on justification, and 
 especially to Note Z, where he appends some well-grounded remarks, 
 philological and doctrinal, in refutation of Mr. Knox's interpretation 
 of SIKCUOCTWTJ. 
 
 Before passing from the philological meaning of SIKCUOCTWIJ, I would 
 refer to the confused and unsatisfactory opinions entertained in many 
 quarters on the meaning of the word from the days of Grotius, who 
 interpreted the SIKCUOCTWTJV Oeou the loving kindness of God, benignitas 
 Dei, on Rom. iii. 5, 25, 26. The same notion was taken up by 
 Schoettgen in his Lexicon, by Schleusner, Koppe on Rom. iii. 25, 
 Michaelis, Carpzovius, Storr, Pott, Tittmann, and others. This is a 
 sense of StKcuoo-i/vrj and of 8i/ccuos, which has no warrant in philology, 
 and which, doctrinally, tends only to bring all into confusion. And 
 no argument of any weight has ever been, or can be, adduced in its 
 behalf. 
 
 But another opinion, not much better, is, that St/ccuocrw^ denotes 
 the Christian salvation itself. This view was supported by the cele- 
 brated Vitringa on Isaiah xlv. 24, lix. 9 ; by J. A. Turretin on Rom. 
 i. 17 ; by Koppe in an excursus on Galatians; by Rosenmuller, and 
 others. But every one who weighs the force of words will discover 
 that, in the Epistles of Paul, o-om/pia is the wider term, and SIKCUOO-W?; 
 the narrower, and that they do not cover each other. (Compare Rom. 
 i. 16, 17, x. 10; Titus iii. 5-7; Rom. v. 9.) Others have supposed 
 that SIKCUOO-WT? may mean remission of sins, and the state of happiness 
 or acceptance. But nothing can be said in defence of this acceptation, 
 save only that it is thought to fit in to some passages. But that is to 
 guess a meaning ; that signification has no warrant in language ; and 
 the Septuagint lends it no countenance. Carrying out these views, 
 which have a close connection with each other, Morus makes it, 
 " favorem et misericordiam Dei quae est in danda venia ; " and J. V. 
 Voorst, in discussing its import in a separate treatise, Annot. in loc. 
 select., 1811, translates it thus, " Singularem benignitatis Dei demon- 
 strationem, sive ex benignitate proficiscentem Dei erga homines 
 favorem." All these views naturally flow from Grotius' deviation 
 from the true sense of the term. 
 
 On the other hand, several exegetes, at the close of last century, 
 adopted a modification of the old Protestant view of Si/ccuoo-w^, by
 
 NOTE I ON SECTION XXVIII. 459 
 
 expounding it, innocence or guiltlessness. Thus Noesselt, Opusc. i. p. 
 74, says, Si/ccuocrvV^v 0eou eam esse quam Deus ita nobis tribuit, ut 
 non tanquam rei, sed innocentes ac justi habeamus. So Heinrichs, 
 Phil. iii. 9, and Doederlein, in his Instit. Theol., sees. 262, 263. 
 That is undoubtedly in the right direction, though it is somewhat too 
 negative. But it cannot be denied by those who intelligently compare 
 the passages where SiKaioa-vvr) occurs, that it is the opposite of reatus 
 or guilt. It is put in such connections as prove it to be a relative 
 term, descriptive of the relation in which man stands to approval or 
 reward, and presupposing obedience as its essence (Rom. v. 19). (1) 
 It is not the divine attribute ; nor (2) is it descriptive of what is 
 merely inward. But it is a relative term, implying a rule or a law, 
 and a conformity to it of such a kind as entitles the SIKOUOS to a re- 
 ward. We do not approximate to a due apprehension of its meaning, if 
 we start either from the classical notion of SIKCUOO-W?; as a human 
 quality, or from the tenets of any philosophical school. The apostle, 
 in announcing that the SiKauxrvvr) was witnessed by both the law and 
 the prophets, carries us back to the Old Testament, and leads us to 
 apprehend that a person who is righteous in the Old Testament sense, 
 is one who not only corresponds to the God-appointed rule, but is 
 recognised as entitled to a reward. Thus the observance of the divine 
 precepts was to be to the Israelite a righteousness (Deut. vi. 25). 
 Very noteworthy is it, that Israel never corresponded to the idea, and 
 that God promised to bring nigh His righteousness (Isa. xlvi. 1 3 ; 
 Jer. xxiii. 6) ; and it is brought in and brought nigh by Him who is 
 the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes 
 (Rom. x. 4). 
 
 2. Christ was vicariously made under the law for His people. The 
 widespread objections to the active fulfilling of the law in our stead 
 can only be obviated by the direct testimony of Scripture ; and for 
 this purpose a single text may suffice : " God sent forth His Son, 
 made of a woman, made under the law, to (tW) redeem them that were 
 under the law, that we (tVa) might receive the adoption of sons " (Gal. 
 iv. 4, 5). If it could be made out, according to an interpretation proposed 
 by Teller and others during last century, that the phrase " made under 
 the law " means no more than " born a Jew " and the same comment 
 is repeated by Meyer, Alford, and Ellicott, an ostensible reason could 
 be given for denying the proof from this text. But that is a very 
 partial and incomplete exhibition of the idea, as a few remarks will 
 show. (1.) The phrase, "to be made under the law," occurring 
 several times in Paul's Epistles, is always equivalent to being subject 
 to the law, with the accessory idea of something burdensome and
 
 460 APPENDIX. 
 
 oppressive connected with it (comp. Eom. iii. 19, vi. 14, 15 ; Gal. iv. 
 5, 21, v. 18; 1 Cor. ix. 20). Thus, in Eom. vi. 14, the ""being 
 under the law " is contrasted with being under grace ; and in 1 Cor. 
 ix. 20 we should have a needless tautology, if nothing more were 
 indicated than "to be bom a Jew." That is mentioned immediately 
 before ; and the manner in which the phrase is introduced in the 
 Pauline phraseology shows all too plainly that it cannot be a mere 
 circumlocution for a Jew. But (2) the connection between the two 
 verses in Galatians is opposed to that exposition. For if the telic 
 particle iva (ver. 5) is connected with yevoyuevov viro vo/zov, and leans 
 on it, more must be contained in the phrase than is conveyed by the 
 idea of being born a Jew, as this would make no relation between the 
 cause or the meritorious means and the purposed end. And that there 
 is such a connection, is obvious enough from the repetition of the 
 same word, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the 
 law. Or if we suppose that the commencing words of ver 5, t'va TOVS vrro 
 VO/JLOV e^ayopacrr/, could be immediately connected with the words, " God 
 sent His Son," then the intervening words would be idle and super- 
 fluous. (3.) To be consistent, they who adopt this mode of exposition 
 should interpret the words in ver. 5, rot's VTTO vo/zov, " to redeem the 
 Jews ;" for if the one clause has that meaning, the second, closely 
 related to it, must have the same. And on that principle, what would 
 be the import of the whole '? It would yield this strange and incom- 
 prehensible thought, as the ultimate end contemplated by the second 
 i'va clause: "Christ was born a Jew, to redeem the Jews, THAT we 
 (the Gentiles) might receive the adoption" thus making the redemp- 
 tion merely affect the Jews, and representing the Jewish redemption 
 as the cause of our adoption. This is a sufficient reductio ad absurdum. 
 On the contrary, the simple meaning is, " God sent His Son, and put 
 Him under the law ; that He might redeem them that were under the 
 law." The Gentiles having the law written on their heart, and being 
 concluded under sin (Gal. iii. 22), are equally with the Jews redeemed 
 by Christ's vicarious subjection to the law. As we were bound to 
 two things (1) to the "do this, and thou shalt live" (Gal. iii. 12); 
 and (2) to the curse of the law as violated He must be regarded as 
 made under the law in both respects. This passage therefore, strictly 
 interpreted, implies that Christ, thus vicariously made under the law, 
 fulfilled all the claims which it had upon us, to the full extent of our 
 relation to the law. 
 
 The point which these sections establish, is simply that Christ's 
 vicarious fulfilment of the law constitutes an essential element in the 
 atonement, in consequence of which His people are treated as if they
 
 NOTE I ON SECTION XXVIII. 461 
 
 had rendered that obedience : and are thus not only exempt from 
 condemnation, hut possessed of a right to the reward. The two ele- 
 ments, not very happily termed the active and passive obedience, are 
 jointly concurring causes in the one atoning work not the one to the 
 exclusion of the other. It would have been well if divines had not 
 been compelled to separate what is represented as one obedience (Phil, 
 ii. 5). But they were challenged to answer the question, " If the 
 Mediator reconciled us to God by His death, of what avail was His 
 active obedience ? " They are not to be sundered, however, as if they 
 were separately meritorious, or represented as if the passive obedience 
 put men anew in the state of innocence, and the active merited the 
 blessings to be earned by men in innocence, by a career of perfect 
 obedience. For though these two ideas are distinguishable, and must 
 be distinguished, the two elements, in point of fact, were always to- 
 gether and inseparable. (See, on this point, Spener's Evangelische 
 Glaubensgerechtigkeit, p. 1135; Seller's Versohungstod, i. p. 274; 
 Philippi's Kirchliche Glaubenslehre, iv. p. 143; Hutter's Lac. Com., p. 
 450; Thomasius, iii. 307; Hollaz, iii. 1, 3, 78; Gerhard, sees. 56, 63.) 
 The fact that sin is not only commission or trespass, but omission, im- 
 plies the necessity of the active as well as of the passive obedience. 
 
 On the text in John xvi. 8-10 in sec. xxv. (p. 202), I refer to Luther's 
 comment. He says (see vol. xii. p. 116, in the Erlangen edition of 
 his German works, 1827): "Was ist nun das fur Gerechtigkeit, oder 
 worin bestehet sie 1 Das ist sie, spricht er, dass ich zum Vater gehe, 
 und ihr mich hinfort nicht sehet. Das heisset ja undeutsch, und vor 
 der Welt lacherlich genug geredet. Und so das erste fremd und 
 dunkel ist, das diess der Welt Siinde sey, dass sie nicht glaubet an 
 ihn: so lautet diess viel seltsamer und unverstandlicher, dass diess 
 allein die Gerechtigkeit sey, dass er zum Vater gehet, und nicht 
 gesehen wird. 
 
 " Denn diess Wort : dass ich zum Vater gehe, begreift das ganze 
 Werk unsrer erlb'sung und Seligung, dazu Gottes Sohn vom Himmel 
 gesandt, und das er fur uns hat gethan, und noch thut bis ans Ende ; 
 namlich sein Leiden, Tod, und Auferstehnng, und gauzes Reich in der 
 Kirche. Denn dieser Gang zum Vater heisst nichts anders, denn das 
 er sich dahin giebt zu einem Opfer, durch sein Blutvergiessen und 
 Sterben, damit fur die Siinde zu zahlen. . . . 
 
 " Siehe das heisst und is nun der Christen Gerechtigkeit vor Gott, 
 dass Christus zum Vater gehet, dass ist, fur uns leidet, auferstehet, 
 und also uns dem Vater versohnet dass wir um seinetwillen Vergebung 
 der Siinde und Gnade haben ; dass es gar nicht ist unsers Werks noch 
 Verdienstes, sondern allein seines Ganges, den er thut um unseit-
 
 462 APPENDIX. 
 
 willen. Das heisset eine fremde GerechtigTceit, darnm wir nichts 
 gethan, noch verdienel haben, noch verdienen konnen, uns geschenket 
 und zu eigen gegeben, dass sie soil unsere Gerechtigkeit sein, dadureh 
 wir Gott gefallen, und seine liebe Kinder und erben sind." 
 
 NOTE K, p. 270. Christ as the Brazen Serpent and Lifegiver; 
 and Christ giving His flesh for the Life of the World. 
 
 These two sections allude to the question which parts the two great 
 schools of theology in our day, viz. whether the life of Christ is given 
 as an immediate and absolute gift, or whether it is purchased by His 
 atoning death. The whole opposition to the vicarious sacrifice of 
 Christ turns at present on this point, just as, a generation ago, it 
 turned on the question whether pardon was absolutely given. The 
 present is, beyond question, the most evangelical phase which op- 
 position to the vicarious satisfaction ever assumed ; and there is little 
 doubt that it will be overcome, as other phases have been, by the 
 word of Christ's testimony. "With much that is said by the adherents 
 of this tendency as to the nature and manifestations of the divine life, 
 as well as in reference to that fellowship with Christ which is repre- 
 sented as its sphere and essence, every spiritual mind will sympathize. 
 There are exceptions, indeed, far from unimportant, to an unreserved 
 approval of the representation of the divine life, given by this school, 
 such as an incorrect idea of a fall ; the universalist features it has 
 contracted; the want of definite allusion to the mental exercises of 
 repentance and conversion connected with the impartation of this life ; 
 and its readiness to ally itself to hierarchical and sacramental views. 
 But no evangelical divine will simply condemn it, but rather accept 
 much that it has of good, and seek to supplement its defects. Its 
 founder was mainly Schleiermacher, whose impress it still bears. And 
 as it arose in a time of prevailing spiritual death, its adherents were 
 more solicitous about the introduction of spiritual life than of orthodox 
 doctrine. Its watchword is the Lebensgemeinschaft mit dem Erloser, 
 or fellowship with Christ in His life ; and the essence of Christianity 
 is not regarded so much as any objective thing, whether it be the 
 Trinity or the atonement, as the communication of a new life with 
 which man's nature must be imbued from its centre, and by which all 
 his powers are to be sanctified and ennobled; and Jesus of Xazareth is 
 represented as communicating that life to sinful humanity. The 
 principal and perilous defect is, that the atonement is not exhibited as 
 the purchase of this life, or as having any causal connection with it. 
 My object in this note is to add some further remarks, which shall
 
 NOTE K ON SECTION XXXII. 463 
 
 bring out the biblical representation of the meritorious connection be- 
 tween the atonement and the life. I shall notice some of those 
 passages where the eternal life stands connected with the performance 
 of a work done, or ivith righteousness as its price ; for life is its 
 promised reward. 
 
 But it may be proper in the first place to point out, in the words of 
 some of the prominent supporters of the new theology, how they 
 describe the communication of the divine life apart from the atone- 
 ment. They ignore the whole forensic side of theology, or deny it. 
 They take no account of the right relation of the person, of his stand- 
 ing or title, and set forth merely the renovation of the nature. Thus 
 V. Hofmann says in his Abioeisung, in reply to his opponent, p. 
 188 : " das Verhaltniss des Vaters zum Sohne nunmehr ein Verhaltniss 
 Gottes zu der im Sohne neu beginnenden Menschheit ist, welches seine 
 Bestimmtheit nicht mehr von der Su'nde des adamitischen Geschlects 
 sondern von der Gerechtigkeit des Sohnes hat." The writer makes 
 the incarnation of the Son to be the immediate reunion of fallen man 
 to God, and the commencement of a new humanity, without any 
 expiation. He asserts the mere exercise of holy love, as producing 
 this result without any atonement, and simply postulates a new start- 
 ing-point, from which the race runs on anew. How like this is to 
 Schleiermacher, who makes Christ the completed creation of the human 
 race, will be apparent to every one. As this entire school owes its 
 rise to Schleiermacher, and repeats his positions, scarcely altering his 
 phraseology, I shall here quote a few sentences from him on his view 
 of the atonement. Schleiermacher says (der Christliche Glaube, vol. 
 ii. p. 94) : " His [Christ's] act in us can only be the act of this sinless- 
 ness and perfection, as conditioned by the in-being of God in Him : 
 hence, both the one and the other must become ours, as otherwise it 
 would not be His act that becomes ours. Now, as the individual life 
 of every man is spent in the consciousness of sin and imperfection, we 
 can find ourselves in communion with the Eedeemer only in so far as 
 we are not conscious of our individual life, but as He gives us the im- 
 pulse to regard the source of His activity as the source of our activity, 
 and as a sort of common possession. This is uniformly the sense in 
 which Scripture speaks of the in-being and life of Christ in us (Gal. ii. 
 20 ; Rom. viii. 10 ; John xvii. 23 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 6), of the death to sin 
 (Rom. vi. 2, 6, 1 1 ; 1 Peter ii. 24), of the putting oif the old man, and 
 putting on the new (Col. iii. 10 ; Eph. iv. 22-24). Now, as Christ 
 can direct His consciousness of God (Gottesbewusstsein) against sin, 
 only in so far as He, by entering into the collective human life, had a 
 consciousness of it as a fellow feeling, and as a something to be overcome
 
 464 APPENDIX. 
 
 by Him, this, too, "becomes the principle of our activity by His work- 
 ing in us. ... 
 
 " If all activity in Christ proceeds from the indwelling of God in 
 Him, and if we know no other activity than the creative, in which 
 the sustaining is included, or, conversely, the sustaining in which the 
 creative is included, we must so regard the agency of Christ. But as 
 we do not exclude the human soul from creation, though it cannot be 
 expected of us to understand the creation of a creature with free 
 agency and liberty in connection with a greater whole, and though we 
 can rather apprehend than comprehend this in our mind, so is it with 
 Christ's creative agency, which has wholly to do with the province of 
 freedom ; for His receptive agency is creative, while that which it 
 produces its entirely free. As, then, the indwelling of God in Him is 
 eternal, while all its manifestations are conditioned by the form of 
 human life, He is able to act on that which is free, only according to 
 the order in which it enters into His sphere of life, and only according 
 to the nature of that which is free. His receptive agency, in taking 
 us into fellowship with Him, is thus a creative production of the wish 
 to receive Him ; or rather for it is only a receptivity of His agency 
 as in communication a consent to the operation of this agency ; and 
 that agency of the Eedeemer is conditioned by the fact, that individuals 
 enter into His historical sphere of action, where they perceive Him in 
 His self-revelation. Now, though this consent cannot be imagined 
 otherwise than as conditioned by the consciousness of sin, yet it is not 
 necessary that this should precede the entrance into the Eedeemer's 
 sphere ; rather, it may just as well arise in it as an effect of the Ee- 
 deemer's self-revelation, as it, at all events, comes to full clearness only 
 through the view of His sinless perfection. The original agency of the 
 Eedeemer will thus be best conceived of under the form of a causal 
 agency, and which is apprehended by its object as an attractive agency 
 from the freedom with which it turns, just as we ascribe an attractive 
 power to every one to whose formative intellectual influence we will- 
 ingly yield ourselves. Now, since all the Eedeemer's activity proceeds 
 from the indwelling of God in Him, and since, at the origin of the 
 Eedeemer's person, the divine creative agency which established itself 
 as the indwelling of God in Him was the only active power, so all the 
 Eedeemer's agency must be considered as a continuation of that divine 
 influence 011 human nature forming His person. For this causal 
 activity of Christ cannot occupy an individual without also becoming 
 person-forming (person-bildend) ; all his actions, nay, all his impres- 
 sions, being different in consequence of the operation of Christ in him. 
 Hence also his personal self-consciousness is different. And as the
 
 NOTE K ON SECTION XXXII. 465 
 
 creation had not a reference to what was individual so that each 
 creation of what was individual was a separate act, but when the world 
 was created everything individual was created in and with the whole 
 and as much for the rest as for itself, so the Eedeemer's agency is 
 formative for the world (welt bildend), and its object is human nature, 
 in which the strong sense of God (Gottesbewusstsein) was to be im- 
 planted as a new principle of life. He takes possession of individuals 
 with a reference to the collective body, when He meets with those in 
 whom His agency will not only remain, but also operate on others 
 through the revelation of His life. And thus the entire operation of 
 Christ is only the continuation of the divine creative act from which 
 the person of Christ took its rise." (Sec. 100, 1, 2.) 
 
 This modern theology to which so many confess in our day, is so 
 unbiblical, that it disconnects the life from the cause of life, expatiat- 
 ing on life apart from the atoning death. Christ Himself puts the 
 matter differently, as we have proved in the above-named sections. 
 To show how widely different this mode of exhibiting the divine life 
 is from that representation with which Scripture in every portion of it 
 makes us familiar, I shall briefly review the allusions to LIFE, both in 
 the law and in the gospel. 
 
 '1. The idea of life was explicitly announced in the law as the pro- 
 mised reward held out to those who should comply with its terms. 
 Thus it is said (Lev. xviii. 5), " Ye shall therefore keep my statutes 
 and my judgments ; which if a man do, he shall live in them : I am 
 the Lord." Compliance with the requirements of the law was the 
 condition or ground on which the promise of life was made, as will 
 appear from the very frequency with which these words were quoted 
 in connections of which the import is not doubtful (E^ek. xx. 11, 13, 
 21 ; Neh. ix. 29). As the legalists, with whom the Apostle Paul had 
 to carry on a controversy as to the way of acceptance, drew their con- 
 fidence from their supposed compliance with the law, and plumed 
 themselves on this legal promise, in the expectation of a reward, we 
 find him appealing, on two several occasions (Rom. x. 5 ; Gal. iii. 11), 
 to this reward of the law. The apostle's design in quoting the legal 
 promise of life in both these passages, was to contrast the legal promise 
 connecting work done with life in prospect, and the economy of grace. 
 Thus He sought to bring out and give prominence to the essential 
 difference between law and grace, works and faith. Life is set forth 
 as the goal in both economies, in the one as an unattainable prospect j 
 in the other, as a free gift. That the law was et's {w^v, is asserted by 
 the apostle (Rom. vii. 10), and proclaimed by Christ Himself (Luke x. 
 28). But that which was unattainable by the law is provided for by 
 
 2G
 
 466 APPENDIX. 
 
 an economy of grace for the helpless. Accordingly, retaining the idea 
 of righteousness as the essential prerequisite or condition, the apostle 
 says (Gal. iii. 21), "If there had been a law given which could have 
 given LIFE, verily righteousness should have been by the law." 
 Without minutely analyzing this language, the broad sense of the 
 passage, obvious to every mind, is a denial that the law can give life, 
 as the promised reward for work done. The very opposite result is 
 ascribed to the law: it was found to be unto death (Rom. vii. 11). 
 That Paul conceives of life as the proposed reward, cannot be doubtful. 
 
 2. But the actual far) comes by a wholly different economy. By re- 
 taining the word righteousness, however, when he speaks of the 
 believer's participation of life, the apostle makes it plain that he still 
 preserves the idea of the legally promised life. Thus, in Rom. v. 18, 
 we find the righteousness of one redounding s SIKCUWO-IV fays. 
 Again, in Rom. v. 21, it is expressly called a righteousness unto life 
 eternal. Again, in Rom. viii. 10, we have the phrase, {'COT) Sta 
 SIKCUOO-UV^S. The apostle thinks of life, then, as the proposed reward, 
 whether he sets forth the terms of the law, or the provisions of an 
 economy of grace. This comes out in the antithesis which he some- 
 times employs between death the penalty of sin, and life by righteous- 
 ness (Rom. v. 17). Nay, so far as the legal Jews connected this 
 glorious life, as the promised reward, with the exact fulfilment of the 
 terms of the law, the apostle does not say that this was a mistake on 
 their part as to the connection between the two, if they were able to 
 comply with the condition : he only denies, that such a result was 
 attainable in the actual condition of men (Rom. viii. 3). But God has 
 made this life accessible to men, as men, without distinction of 
 nationality, by faith (Rom. i. 17; Gal. iii. 11 ; Heb. x. 39, where he 
 quotes Hab. ii. 4). 
 
 3. One great defect of the modern mystic speculation on the atonement 
 is connected with an imperfect recognition of the representative system, 
 by means of the two Adams. Thus they who regard Christ as the 
 Prince of Life, irrespective of any proper atonement or meritorious 
 obedience, have crude and incorrect ideas of the whole representative 
 constitution given to the race. The life they plead for so earnestly, or 
 the new humanity which they suppose to begin with the incarnation, 
 and to run on from that starting-point, ignores any deed of meritorious 
 obedience which secures and obtains that new life. Theirs is a theory 
 not thought out ; and it makes no inquiry how the counterpart of the life 
 (far)} entered into the world, by the previous entrance of SIN (a^apria) 
 as its cause (Rom. v. 12). If death entered by sin, then, in like 
 manner, LIFE entered by RIGHTEOUSNESS (Rom. v. 12-20). Where
 
 NOTE K ON SECTION XXXII. 467 
 
 this is not apprehended, there cannot be a biblical view of the atone- 
 ment. This decides upon the mystic theory so much in vogue at 
 present, which resolves the entire work of Christ into the communica- 
 tion of life. It is forgotten that this life is given to the second Adam, 
 only for a work done, only for a SiKcu'oyia, which is a counterpart of 
 the first man's TrapaTrrw/ia. It is thus an inconsequent speculation to 
 speak of the mere dispensation of life to run on from the incarnation, 
 irrespective of a vTraKor) (Rom. v. 19). 
 
 The Schleiermacher theology, as represented by TJsteri, would 
 indeed have a certain consistency here. (See Usteri, Entwickelung 
 dc.s Paulinisclien Lehrbegriffes). He will have a/xapria refer, not to a 
 primeval deed of sin, but to sinfulness originally deposited in the con- 
 stitution of the first man, that is, to original imperfection. ' And he 
 argues that the Trapd/Sacris or Tra.pa.Kor) was only original imperfection 
 expressed in conscious act, which Usteri supposed to have come into 
 the world, as man was by nature "earthy" (1 Cor. xv. 47). But 
 such a notion of humanity as involves the admission of imperfection 
 in his very nature, is untenable, not only on dogmatic grounds, but on 
 exegetical grounds. The connection of the section (Rom. v. 12-20) 
 shows, indisputably, that we must suppose an active, and not a pas- 
 sive, relation in this matter. The whole language there shows, that it 
 is by one man as sinning that sin came into the world, and not by one 
 man as created with sinfulness. The words TW rov evos TrapaTTTw/jLaTi 
 (ver. 17), and 5ta T^S Trapa/covy? TOU evos dvdpwirov (ver. 19), will admit 
 no other sense. There was no mere passive origin of sin in the race 
 of man, and just as little is there any mere passive derivation or origin 
 of wi) apart from a vTraKor). There is thus a full and express counter- 
 part between the way of the fall by Adam and the way of the recovery 
 by Jesus Christ. This will suffice to show that the mystic theory of 
 the atonement, as emanating from love alone, and consisting in the 
 communication of life alone, is utterly baseless. 
 
 The words of Jesus on the connection between His death and this 
 premial life, are unambiguous ; and they have been so fully discussed 
 in the text that it were superfluous to renew the discussion here. The 
 locus dassicus is John vi. 51, etc., to which John iii. 14 and John x. 
 10 may be added. And when we enter into the Epistles, we find that 
 the connection between the vicarious DEATH and the divine LIFE is so 
 explicitly set forth that no one can question it on exegetical grounds. 
 The connection is one of work and reward, of righteousness and life. 
 This is the key to all the sections in the Pauline Epistles, often much 
 misunderstood, where the Christian is represented as dead, crucified, 
 and buried with Christ, in that one representative act of His. Ful-
 
 468 APPENDIX. 
 
 filling the law and exhausting its curse, He laid the foundation for all 
 that life, regarded as the fruit and reward of His sacrifice, into the 
 possession of which His people enter as their rightful heritage. For 
 if we died with Christ, we shall also live with Him. It is premial 
 life. (Comp. Eom. vi. 1-11, 2 Cor. v. 14, 15, Gal. ii. 20.) 
 
 NOTE L, p. 374. 
 
 I had occasion to describe Amyraldism in the historical sketch 
 appended to the Apostles' Doctrine of the Atonement, and it is unneces- 
 sary to do more in this place than to add a few supplementary remarks 
 on the literature of the subject. The theory, strictly speaking, was 
 an artificial middle way between the sentiments of the Arminians and 
 of the strict Calvinists. But, as commonly happens in such cases of 
 compromise, it betrayed a considerably greater inclination or bias to 
 that party to whom the approximation was to be made, than to the 
 party out of which they came, and to which they still professed to 
 belong. Cameron, who gave rise to the theory, declared in unambiguous 
 terms : " the death of Christ, on condition of faith, belongs EQUALLY 
 to all men" (on Heb. ii. 9). Amyraldus, his scholar and admirer, pro- 
 pounded the same views as Professor of Theology in Saumur, and in 
 two separate treatises on UNIVERSAL GRACE and on PREDESTINA- 
 TION. The theory was but a more subtle form of Arminianism, 
 expressed in somewhat ambiguous phraseology : special efficacious 
 grace was replaced by a vague and plausible universalism. Very con- 
 siderable excitement for a time was occasioned by the new theory. 
 But when the two Synods of Alengon in 1635, and of Charenton in 
 1647, acquitted the advocates of these opinions of heresy, some of the 
 most eminent divines of France, such as Capellus, Testard, Placeus, 
 Dallaaus, Blondel, Le Blanc, Claude, Gautierius, Mestrezat, unhappily 
 adopted them. The consequence of this facility and vacillation on 
 the part of a church, once eminent for the soundness of its doctrinal 
 views and truth, was in the last degree calamitous. The remarks of 
 the late Dr Cunningham on this fact are worthy of consideration. 
 
 " The position of the French Church," says he, " in regard to the 
 great Arminian controversy which raged in the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century, and the Canons of the Synod of Dort, was this : 
 It was desired that the Synod of Dort should represent the whole 
 Reformed Church that is to say, all the Protestant Churches except 
 the- Lutheran. The French Church, therefore, appointed four men to 
 attend the Synod ; but from some misunderstanding, or suspicion, the 
 king would not allow them to leave the country, and they did not
 
 NOTE L ON SECTION XLV. 469 
 
 take a formal part in the Synod. But at the next National Synod, 
 held two years after, in 1620, they unanimously adopted the Canons 
 of the Synod of Dort, and required all members of the Church to 
 make a solemn declaration to maintain them all. "We find however, 
 soon after this, that unsoundness and impurity of doctrine began to 
 show itself in the Church of France. Very soon we find a country- 
 man of our own, Cameron, an able and ingenious man, did a good deal 
 in the way of sowing the seeds of a kind of intermediate system, 
 between Calvinism and Arminianism, which exercised a most injurious 
 influence on the Eeformed Church of France. The truth is, that 
 Cameron and Amyraldus, and the University of Saumur which went 
 with him, occupied very much the same position in regard to the 
 spread of pure doctrine in the French Church, as Professor Simpson 
 and the Divinity Hall of Glasgow occupied in our country. The 
 Synod of 1637 manifested a considerable amount of unfaithfulness to 
 God in connection with these doctrines, and the unfaithfulness did not 
 fail to reappear in the Synod of 1645 the one only seventeen and 
 the other twenty-five years after the solemn adoption by the National 
 Synod of the canons of the Synod of Dort. The National Synods 
 and purity of doctrine seem very much to have gone down altogether ; 
 as it is remarkable that the one became more impure as the other grew 
 rarer. In point of fact, so far had the Synods come short of faithful 
 testimony to the truth of God, that the most elaborate book in defence 
 of the universality of the atonement, in a Calvinistic point of view, by 
 iJaille, is literally entitled as an ' apology for the two Synods.' This 
 impurity of doctrine must be viewed, I think, in connection with the 
 revocation of the Edict of Nantes. That revocation was, no doubt, a 
 great crime on the part of the government, and was attended with 
 most important effects on both the temporal and spiritual condition of 
 France ; but one view ought not to be overlooked among others for 
 there are many others and that is, that it must be regarded also in 
 connection with the growing impurity of doctrine, which, for two gene- 
 rations, had been growing up in the Reformed Church of France, and 
 had been eating into the sound doctrine originally professed, and was 
 God's final and judicial dealing with them 011 that account. With all 
 our abhorrence of Popery, with all our sympathy with the sufferers, who 
 bore their trials in a way that shewed they were not even then with- 
 out a large measure of sound doctrine and true piety, yet in spite of 
 all that, we cannot but regard the subversion of French Protestantism, 
 partly also as a punishment for the large departure of the Reformed 
 Church from purity of doctrine." (Speech in the General Assembly 
 of 1859 on the occasion of the Tricentenary of the French Synod.)
 
 470 APPENDIX. 
 
 The theory which the Saumur divines had contrived formed a very 
 crude and incongruous system, as must be apparent to every one who 
 surveys the impossible task to which they had committed themselves 
 the endeavour to combine universal and special grace. Though by 
 no means holding a uniform language on the atonement, they agreed 
 in the statement that the Lord died for all and every man. They 
 meant by this, as Cameron and Amyraud explicitly declared, that the 
 death of Christ was for all men EQUALLY. But when the Synod of 
 Alen^on forbade that phraseology, that is, discountenanced the doc- 
 trine that Christ died for all men equally, whether they receive Him 
 or reject Him, a new style of language was adopted, but it was equally 
 untenable. They supposed that it might be possible to assert a double 
 and diverse satisfaction, one for all mankind, and one specially for the 
 elect, and in this phase the theory was imported by Polhill into Eng- 
 land, and by Venema into Holland ; but the entire expression to die 
 FOR one comes in this way to be ambiguous and to have a twofold 
 sense. As applied to the elect, it means IN THE ROOM OF ; as applied 
 to the mass of mankind, it means FOR THEIR GOOD. It becomes a mere 
 fencing with words, or a paltering in a double sense. Not only so ; 
 the further question is immediately presented to our minds, What 
 becomes of the three ideas which lie at the foundation of the whole 
 provision for an atonement, viz. the covenant, substitution, and the 
 vicarious endurance of the curse as valid facts ] How could punish- 
 ment light on Christ, except as bearing imputed sin 1 How could justice 
 reach Him except as a surety, a substitute, and a sin-bearer 1 ? The 
 question is, Does the atonement effect anything by its own potentiality, 
 or is it a mere expedient which may or may not become valid by other 
 things extrinsic to itself? The Scriptures represent it as purchasing 
 a people (1 Cor. vi. 20) as purchasing the Church (Acts xx. 28). The 
 analogy between the fall and the atonement, the only two great facts 
 in the world, is conclusive on this point. The one carries terrible con- 
 sequences to mankind wherever they are, the other carries saving con- 
 sequences to all for -whom it ivas offered. The whole Amyraldist theory 
 was without a foundation, and its absurdity was increased by the fact 
 that these divines formed a new arrangement of the divine decrees, 
 making the atonement universal, and the election special. 
 
 My object however, in this note, is rather to refer to the literature 
 connected with the discussion of these questions. Shortly after the 
 publication of Amyraud's work on Predestination, a masterly reply 
 to his main positions appeared from the pen of Rivetus in a work 
 entitled Synopsis de Natura et Gratia (Rivet. Opera, torn. iii. p. 831). 
 In this treatise liivetus reviews the French sermons of Amyraud, as
 
 NOTE L ON SECTION XLV. 471 
 
 well as the topics contained in his formal theological treatise, and 
 also notices the Irenicum of Testard, which was replete with the same 
 views. The great work, however, on this subject, is Frederick Span- 
 heim's exercitations on Universal G-race, 1646. Here every point is 
 calmly and lucidly reviewed, with little of the acrimony of contro- 
 versy. Of this great work an outline or > condensed summary was 
 given to the public by G. Eeveau, under the assumed name of Gre- 
 gorius Velleus. The Dutch divines, as well as the Swiss divines, 
 aware of the danger to which they were exposed, from their proximity 
 to France, showed a great anxiety to keep their churches free from, 
 the contagion of these opinions. Maresius wrote his treatise entitled 
 Epicrisis Tlieologica ad Qucestiones de Gratia et Redemptione Unioer- 
 sali. Francis Turretin, who well knew the corrupting tendency of 
 these opinions from personal observation for he had studied at 
 Saumur, as well as at Geneva, Leyden, Paris, and Montauban ex- 
 posed their groundless and subverting character in the most unsparing 
 manner. His admirable refutation leaves nothing to be desired 
 (Loc. xiv. Quaes. 14). The Formula Consensus Helvetica, the last of 
 the confessional documents, was prepared by the Swiss divines, 
 Heidegger, Hottinger, Turretin, Werenfels, and Zwinger, in 1675, for 
 the express purpose of protecting their churches from the invasion of 
 these universalist opinions. 
 
 Among the testimonies of eminent theologians, I may refer to a 
 very interesting and remarkable letter of Cocceius to the same purport 
 with those already mentioned. Spanheim had sent him a copy of his 
 work on Universal Grace, with a request that he would communicate 
 his sentiments on the important subject, and especially on the new 
 method which Amyraldus had propounded. Cocceius, in reply, 
 (Ep. cxxv.) expresses himself in the most decided manner, first in 
 commendation of Spanheim's work, as written with singular care and 
 remarkable moderation, and next in dissatisfaction with Amyraud's 
 opinions. The letter is too long to translate, but it is admirable as 
 showing the absurdity of an indefinite and conditional suretyship. He 
 says, " This substitution we cannot make common and extend to the 
 reprobate, unless we also make common the suretyship of Christ, or of 
 that will by which we are sanctified, and the grace of the Father and 
 the Son which is sworn to the seed. Wherefore also, that phrase 
 Christ died for men, is by no means to be deflected in its ecclesiastical 
 iisage to be synonymous with the notion : Christ died with the inten- 
 tion that His death should not only be available to the elect for their 
 salvation, but also to others for their great advantage ; or with this, 
 Christ died with the intention that He might be a sufficient Saviour
 
 472 APPENDIX. 
 
 to all and every one, provided they believe (as if Christ procured a 
 CONDITIONAL SALVATION, and not an actual salvation, by the gift of 
 faith) : or with this, Christ died with the intention that He might be 
 the true object of faith, to be required of all men indiscriminately." 
 The great mistake of the entire theory is that it does not represent the 
 death of Christ as securing its own application, or AS OBTAINING THE 
 FAITH which unites men to Himself. 
 
 The Amyraldist type of universal grace was imported into Scotland 
 about the beginning and middle of last century. This tendency was 
 promoted by the posthumous publication, in 1749, of a work on faith, 
 alleged to have been found prepared for the press by the Rev. Mr 
 Eraser of Brea. It found supporters ; but the Marrow men, as they 
 were called, were strenuously opposed to the universalist opinions. 1 
 Along with a firm maintenance of a special atonement, they preached 
 the free invitations of the Gospel to all men indiscriminately. Per- 
 haps the best refutation which is. to be found in English of Amy- 
 raldism, or of the double satisfaction, the one effectual and the 
 other ineffectual, is in Rev. Adam Gibb's display of the Secession- 
 testimony (vol. ii. pp. 131-190, and pp. 273-298). 
 
 M, p. 413. Historical Sketch of Doctrine of Atonement. 
 
 The primitive doctrine of the atonement, as I have elsewhere proved 
 at large from the testimony of the Fathers, 2 was that the immediate 
 design or end contemplated by the death of Christ was the remission 
 of sins. The connection between these two things, the death of the 
 Lord and forgiveness, was from the first accepted as a causal connection. 
 Nor was this ever formally denied during the fifteen centuries that 
 preceded the rise of Socinianism, if we except the theory of Abelard, 
 whose theology was as faulty as his character. Though the constituent 
 elements of the atonement were not for many ages made matter of dis- 
 
 1 Principal Hadow, in his attack on the "Marrow of Modern Divinity," 
 laboured to fasten upon it the oharge of universalism, based mainly on the quota- 
 tion which it gives from Dr. Preston, "Go teach every man without exception 
 here is good news for him, Christ is dead for him " (Mar. p. 120). Riccalton, in 
 his masterly reply, entitled " A Sober Inquiry," meets this as follows (p. 102): 
 " To which one may easily reply by reading out the sentence, Christ is dead for 
 him, (but how ? was it to purchase salvation for him whether he believes or not ? 
 No such thing ; but so far as no man shall ever perish for want of a Saviour to die 
 for them). If he will take Him, dead as He is, and accept of His righteousness, 
 which by His death He has wrought out, he shall Jiave Him." 
 
 2 See Appendix to the Apostles' Doctrine of the Atonement, 1870.
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION III. 473 
 
 cussion, and though the connection between the death of Christ and 
 remission of sins was simply accepted as a fact by all Christians, one 
 thing is certain: the Fathers, with perfect uniformity, considered the 
 death of Christ as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. Christ was 
 regarded as effecting the remission of sins, not by His doctrine alone, 
 nor by His example alone, but by the efficacy of His incarnation and 
 death viewed as a sacrifice. It is true, opinion cannot be said to have 
 been settled or very definite on points which were never subjected to 
 investigation; and this holds true of some parts of their doctrine as to 
 the design and effect of the Lord's death. The Fathers were content 
 to extol the greatness of redemption and its importance, though they 
 did not very minutely canvass the way in which the Saviour effected 
 our redemption. They accepted the statement that He was incarnate, 
 suffered, and died for man's salvation. 
 
 I refer to this fact, because an unfair use has been made of it by 
 some modern writers opposed to the vicarious satisfaction, who wish to 
 find the Fathers speaking their views. This holds true of Bahr's 
 treatise (die Lelire der Kirche vom Tode Jesu in den ersten drei 
 Jahrhnnderten, 1832), in which the writer quotes from most of the 
 Fathers of the first three centuries, as if they held his opinions. 
 Priestley, during last century, attempted in a very unscrupulous and 
 offensive manner to prove that the doctrine of the atonement was one 
 of the corruptions of Christianity. Nothing can be imagined more 
 groundless and unjust. When we examine how Priestley proceeded 
 with the task imposed on himself, we find, that instead of inquiring 
 whether the early Christians believed the doctrine of the atonement or 
 not, whether they asserted the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake, 
 or for the sake of good works, he merely quotes passages where the 
 Fathers speak of holiness, of virtue, and of good works in a way of 
 commendation. He adduces various passages from the Fathers down 
 to Augustin, and after hjm, to prove that they regarded the forgive- 
 ness of sins as flowing from the free mercy of God. But the question 
 is, did they consider forgiveness as obtained independently of Christ's 
 sufferings and merits. If the Fathers considered the sufferings of 
 Christ merely as an example, and if they regarded repentance and con- 
 trition as the sufficient ground of salvation, one would have plainly 
 perceived it in their writings. Many expressions of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures which refer to the doctrine of the atonement must necessarily 
 have been explained by them in a metaphorical way. Basnage, quoted 
 by Priestley, says that the ancients generally speak sparingly on 
 Christ's atonement, and ascribe much to good works. The explanation 
 has been already mentioned. But I must further add, that Priestley
 
 474 APPENDIX. 
 
 was not the man to enter into this field. He only betrayed his 
 ignorance of the Fathers, which Horsley and others sufficiently ex- 
 posed. He quoted passages which served his purpose, and was silent 
 on all the testimonies which ran counter to his preconceived opinions. 
 If we consult the writings of the Fathers, it will be found that they 
 regarded Christ as the meritorious cause of salvation, and alluded to 
 His sufferings as expiatory and vicarious. Anselru, from whose work 
 extracts have already been given, is the sort of transition stage between, 
 the patristic theology and the later ecclesiastical system. 
 
 I. The oldest doctrine accepted in the Church, in a more or less 
 developed form, was, that Christ was the substitute for sinners, who 
 would have been subjected to merited punishment, if a satisfaction 
 had not been offered in their stead. This is undoubtedly the oldest 
 doctrine, and worthy of being called the accepted doctrine of the 
 Church, both in the Greek and Eoman section of it. INo intelligent 
 and honest investigator can entertain any doubt on this point, though 
 the doctrine came to be more developed in the eleventh century, when 
 men were led to discuss the nature of the connection between the death 
 of Christ and the forgiveness of sins. To give an exact statement of 
 the most widely accepted view of this connection, let it be remarked 
 that they held that men were under obligation to bear the punishment 
 which sin deserved ; that Christ took their place to expiate sin ; that 
 His death was a satisfaction to divine justice, and the endurance of the 
 punishment of sin in their stead ; and that this vicarious suffering on 
 the part of Christ, who united the divine and the human nature in 
 His person, icon forgiveness for the guilty. The connection, then, is a 
 meritorious and causal connection. This was the most ancient and the 
 received view, sometimes less fully, sometimes more fully, developed. 
 
 There were subordinate diversities of view among this class. Some, 
 as Anselm and the Reformation theology, deduced this provision more 
 from an absolute inner necessity. Origen, Athanasius, Augustin, and, 
 latterly, Grotius, and those who followed in his track, deduced it more 
 from God's free will, regarding the satisfaction, not as indispensably 
 necessary but as a free and gracious arrangement, adapted to display 
 the faithfulness, wisdom, and love of God. The one placed it more 
 in God, who could not but insist on the satisfaction of His justice; the 
 others placed it more in that which is without God. Anselm and the 
 Reformers insisted on the equivalent ; Grotius and his school allowed 
 an aceepiatio gratuita, or a relaxatio or dispensatio legis. They were, 
 however, at one as to the meritorious or causal connection. Some 
 ascribed all the effects produced by the atonement to the passive 
 obedience of Christ alone, such as Piscator, and those who followed
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION LII. 475 
 
 him in his conclusions; while the great body of the Lutheran and 
 Reformed Churches, ascribed the validity and efficacy of the atone- 
 ment to the active obedience of Christ, as well as to His sufferings, 
 combining both as equally essential to one joint result. There was 
 also a diversity of opinion as to the persons for whom the atonement 
 was offered; the Eeformed Church maintaining that the atonement 
 was for an elect company ; the Lutheran Church making the atone- 
 ment general. But notwithstanding these subordinate points, to which 
 we have adverted in the body of this work, there is a perfect unanimity 
 on the causal connection between the death of Christ and the remission 
 of sins. That is the grand truth which has always been held in all 
 the great sections of the Christian Church, both in the east and west : 
 and to this Protestantism also unequivocally confesses. 
 
 II. Another opinion is, that the death of Christ is only the occasion 
 of forgiveness, not its meritorious cause. Under this division may be 
 classified the distinctive peculiarities of the old Socinian doctrine, as 
 well as the various phases of modern speculation, all uniting in one 
 point, that forgiveness is either given absolutely, or on the ground of 
 some inner amendment or renovation, but that the death of Christ has 
 no causal connection with it. And in one respect they are all identical : 
 they discover no adequate idea of sin. We may say of them as Anselm 
 said to his pupil : " non considerasti quanti ponderis sit peccatum." 
 They who maintain this second opinion, which cannot be said to 
 express the ECCLESIASTICAL CONSCIOUSNESS of any epoch of Church 
 history, appeal to a number of texts. It will be found, indeed, to the 
 surprise of the investigator in this field, that all the biblical testimonies 
 which are adduced in defence of the first and oldest doctrine on the 
 subject of the atonement, are adduced by the defenders of the second 
 view, with a wholly different explanation. The sayings of Jesus, which 
 we have expounded as proper expressions of the true nature, scope, and 
 effect of His vicarious death, they hold to be merely figurative or 
 metaphorical representations, the import, of which must be translated 
 into strict and honest speech, before their meaning can be ascertained. 
 They make the entire language of our Lord a vast magazine of metaphors, 
 which the expositor must distil or filter into proper speech, and exact 
 thought. And when this is done, they maintain that nothing else is 
 taught by all that vast array of testimonies, but simply this, that Jesus 
 died in some indefinite way, which cannot be apprehended or explained, 
 for man's benefit, and to make them partakers of the remission of sins. 
 They explain the death of Christ as a morally operative means of the 
 same nature with His doctrine and example. 
 
 I must now advert to the various shades and modifications of this
 
 476 APPENDIX. 
 
 opinion. While they have their diverging peculiarities, they coincide 
 in asserting the absolute forgiveness of sins, and in rejecting the idea 
 of a vicarious satisfaction to the justice and law of God. Here I 
 would willingly make an intermediate classification for those who 
 maintain Trinitarian sentiments ; for every one who has learned to 
 weigh opinions, will readily admit that a wide line of demarcation 
 separates the Trinitarian from the Unitarian in everything ; that the 
 one is within the pale of biblical Christianity, and that the other has 
 very questionable claims to such a recognition, and that the opinions 
 held by the one differ in their whole character, scope, and tendency 
 from those which are maintained by the other. But I find it impos- 
 sible to make this intermediate classification, partly because a Trini- 
 tarian, such as Mr. Maurice and Mr. Davies, finds a place among the 
 opponents of the vicarious satisfaction, only by extreme inconsistency ; 
 partly because the supporters of this second opinion uniformly allow 
 a veil to rest upon their Trinitarianism at this point ; and partly be- 
 cause in this matter they socinianize, and cannot be sundered from the 
 sentiments and opinions of the school with which they symbolize. 
 
 (I.) The Socinians or Unitarians must first be named in this divi- 
 sion, because, in point of fact, they first asserted the opinion that 
 Christ's death had no causal connection with forgiveness. They were 
 the first to oppose the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction ; and from 
 them, with various modifications, it passed over to other sections of 
 the Church. There are four points which must be noticed as to their 
 mode of explaining the connection between the death of Christ and 
 forgiveness. (1.) They held that He confirmed, by His death, the 
 doctrine or message which He taught, and particularly the promise of 
 the remission of sins contained in it. They were in the habit of 
 appealing to the words which speak of the blood of the new covenant, 
 but affirmed that the message which that martyr-death confirmed, was 
 the message of absolute forgiveness. (2.) Another reason, according 
 to Socinus and his followers, why remission of sins is commended to 
 us in connection with the death of Jesus, was, that He gave us, in His 
 death, a bright example of spotless virtue, that we might follow His 
 steps ; and they appeal to such passages as connect the enforcement 
 of His example with His career of suffering (1 Pet. ii. 21). (3.) A 
 further reason, according to the Socinian school, why remission of 
 sins is put in connection with Christ's sufferings, was, that His death, 
 followed as it was by His resurrection, confirms us in the faith and 
 hope of eternal life. (4.) Another reason is drawn from His resurrec- 
 tion, the frank recognition of which was the only thing that entitled 
 the Socinian or Unitarian body to stand within the pale of Christianity
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION LII. 477 
 
 in any sense of the word. They approximate to Christianity in this 
 one respect that they suppose Him to have won power by His death, 
 to he Lord both of the dead and living (Rom. xiv. 9). The Gospel, 
 according to them, is an enforcement of virtue and a proclamation of 
 absolute forgiveness, independently of any atoning sacrifice. In a 
 word, they hold that the death of Christ confirms our confidence in 
 God's grace, and tends, as a moral means, to form men to virtue. In 
 a word, there is little in the whole system beyond naturalism. Thus 
 Priestley limited himself to the point that the death of Jesus con- 
 firmed our hope of eternal life, and our faith in the resurrection. The 
 author of The Apology of Benjamin Ben Mordecai for embracing Chris- 
 tianity, represents Him as obtaining power to save sinners and bring 
 them to glory, apart from any work of substitution. Wolzogen re- 
 presented Christ as a sacrifice for sin in the strange sense of showing 
 what a punishment was due to sin ; a theory which reduces Chris- 
 tianity to the same rank with the law (Rom. vii. 7). All these writers 
 with one consent repudiate substitution and vicarious punishment. 
 
 There is no necessity to dwell at any length on the Socinian posi- 
 tions, as they are the direct antithesis of what we have asserted 
 throughout this volume. The system goes little further than Deism, 
 and in many of its features is allied to the Mahommedan Mono- 
 theism. The chief point of attack was the position maintained by the 
 Christian Church from the first, that a satisfaction was made to 'divine 
 justice, and that this obtained the remission of sins. Socinus says : 
 " having got rid of this justice, had we no other argument, that human 
 fiction of the satisfaction of Jesus Christ must be thoroughly detected 
 and totally vanish." 
 
 From this first principle all the other positions followed in due 
 course. Though he allowed the threefold offices of Christ, he neutral- 
 ized the priestly office in two ways. He asserted that the Lord 
 exercised only the prophetical office in the days of His flesh ; that He 
 was not a priest on earth ; and that the execution of the office in 
 heaven was coincident with the kingly office, and not different from 
 it (see Socinus, de ojfic. Christi; Racov. Cat. de munere Chriati ; 
 Smalcius, de div. Christ.). The adherents of this school call Christ A 
 SAVIOUR only in the sense that He confirmed the truth of the promises; 
 a theory which would preclude Him from being a Saviour to those 
 who lived before His birth, on the ground of performing a work by 
 which others are accepted. 
 
 When we more particularly inquire into the Socinian objections, 
 they are the following. They maintain that God has power to for- 
 give sins without exacting any satisfaction ; that He is pleased so to
 
 478 APPENDIX. 
 
 act in all cases of pardon ; and that Jesus could not have satisfied 
 divine justice for our sins either by His death or by any other means 
 (see Socin. de Servatore, part 3). Crellius adduces these arguments, 
 and they are refuted by Essenius and P. De Witte. These assertions 
 are deduced from the great error of the system that punitive justice 
 is not necessary in the government of the world. But we have proved 
 that the principal scope of Christ's death was the satisfaction of divine 
 justice by a fulfilment of the law, and by enduring the merited penalty. 
 They permit themselves to say the most harrowing things on this 
 point, as if the ecclesiastical doctrine reflected on the divine perfections, 
 and represented the divine Being as a tyrant or a Moloch ; whereas we 
 have fully proved that it puts Him in the most amiable light. 
 
 But they further argue, What is more unjust than to punish the 
 innocent in stead of the guilty? So far is this from being against the 
 light of nature, that all nations retain something of the idea (see De 
 Moor, 3, 1025). The reason why such a transaction cannot have place 
 in human law is, that no one has power over his own life, and the 
 Judge has no right to take it. The Lord offered Himself willingly 
 (John x. 18) ; having absolute power as God over His own humanity. 
 And when it is further objected that in this case God satisfied Him- 
 self, the answer is at hand. It was in His humanity, properly speaking, 
 that He obeyed the law and bore the penalty, though the Godhead 
 gave infinite value to the satisfaction. The Supreme God in one 
 capacity provided the ransom, and in another accepted it as adequate. 
 And a judge may require compensation, and yet by means of a gift 
 equal to the necessity, provide the satisfaction. (See Hervey's 
 Dialogues.} 
 
 The method of interpretation by which the Socinian writers at- 
 tempted to vindicate their positions, was one that can only be called 
 violent. They invented a vast congeries of metaphor, and hid the whole 
 subject in a dark forest. They took such words as RANSOM, PRIEST, 
 
 SACRIFICE, SIN-BEARING, REMISSION OF SINS BY BLOOD, and the like, in 
 
 a secondary or figurative sense, putting everything to hazard. The 
 salvation became a metaphorical rather than a real thing. They came 
 to Scripture with preconceived ideas and prepossessions, and made it 
 speak their sentiments. Besides, they appealed to reason as the ulti- 
 mate court, when the language of revelation was too explicit to be 
 explained away by any ingenuity. Thus Socinus declares in reference 
 to the theme he so much opposed the Lord's bearing punishment in 
 our stead : " ego quidem, etiamsi non semel sed ssepe id in sacris 
 monumentis scriptum extaret, non tamen ita rem prorsus se habere 
 crederem" (Lib. de Servatore, p. 3, 48).
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION LIT. 479 
 
 We now enter on a brief review of the more recent modifications of 
 the same opinion, all which maintain this in common, that Christ's 
 death was not a substitution in the room of the guilty, or a vicarious 
 satisfaction for sin. Though many may go far in the use of biblical 
 phraseology, and even call His death a sacrifice, and compare it with 
 the Old Testament sacrifices, they will not admit a substitution in 
 either case, but view it as either a casualty in a world of sin, or a 
 sensible representation of the evil of sin, or of the love of God. 
 
 Among the many opinions, complexionally different, but substan- 
 tially identical, in as far as they set aside the vicarious work of Christ 
 as the immediate cause, of remission, perhaps the theory of Taylor of 
 Norwich, though he had no higher than Arian sentiments, makes the 
 nearest approach to what we have called the general orthodox doctrine. 
 This opinion sets in the foreground, not the value of Christ's suffer- 
 ings, but His spotless and unexampled obedience to God, which was 
 so much valued and approved, that it was deemed worthy to be 
 rewarded with the salvation of men. The connection between Christ's 
 death and men's salvation, lies, according to Taylor, in this, that His 
 sublime virtue was deemed worthy of a reward, and was rewarded 
 with the forgiveness of sins, just as an earthly monarch will reward 
 the eminent services of an eminent soldier or citizen upon his family. 
 (See Taylor's Key to the Apostolic Writings, chap, viii., before his 
 paraphrase and notes to the Epistle to the Romans, 1746, and his 
 essay on The Scriptural Doctrine of the Atonement.} His position is, 
 that God had such complacency in the lofty virtue of Jesus, exercised 
 in life and death, that He, on that ground, accepts sinners. This is 
 Taylor's and Purgold's theory ; and it was much followed. But this 
 is not^biblical doctrine. We nowhere find our reconciliation ascribed 
 to the sublime virtue of Jesus, but always traced to His blood or 
 vicarious sacrifice ; His sufferings being considered not as a mere proof 
 of His stedfast virtue, but as a vicarious bearing of sin. Blood cannot 
 be made to mean mere virtue, and we cannot lose sight of the allusion 
 to the Old Testament sacrifices, and of the direct connection of His 
 sacrifice with our redemption. If there is nothing more than an 
 example of lofty virtue and of martyr-stedfastness, approved and com- 
 mended at the divine tribunal, how are we to understand Christ's 
 words, when He speaks of blood shed for the remission of sins (Matt. 
 xxvi. 28) ? There was no reason for maintaining silence on this, when 
 our Lord instituted the memorial of His love, and pointedly referred 
 to His death or blood shed for the remission of sins, if the ground on 
 which God forgives sin is His satisfaction and pleasure in the lofty 
 virtue of Jesus. On the contrary, He makes no allusion to this.
 
 480 APPENDIX. 
 
 When we abandon our own reasonings, and place before us the whole 
 series of passages used by our Lord, we at once see how meagre and 
 unsatisfactory is the idea here presented to us. Vicariousness in His 
 sufferings and death is everywhere His grand theme (John x. 11), 
 and vicarious suffering is the meritorious cause of remission. 
 
 (II.) We have to notice the new phase of the same tendency pre- 
 sented to us in Rationalism which kept the field from about the year 
 1770 till near the middle of the present century, desolating most of 
 the Protestant churches. It differed little from Socinianism, of which 
 it was but a new edition ; it denied the necessity of satisfying divine 
 justice and everything approaching to a transfer of merit. Nay, 
 carrying out its positions to their legitimate consequences, pronounced 
 nationalists, such as Steinbart, Eberhard, Bahrt, Henke, and Weg- 
 scheider, repudiated the notion of positive divine punishment, and also 
 of the remission of sins, considered as a divine act. According to the 
 rationalistic theory, reason was in all matters the court of last appeal ; 
 naturalism always finding expression in rationalism. While there was 
 agreement in these principles, there were various phases or currents of 
 thought among its champions. 
 
 In common with the Sociriians, the great aim of the Rationalists was 
 to attack the ground on which the atonement rests, to represent 
 divine justice as unworthy of God. They defined justice as divine 
 goodness directed by wisdom, and sought to explode every attempt to 
 compare the divine Being with worldly princes or judges. Not only 
 so : they maintained against the plainest axioms of human experience 
 that inflictions are always beneficent or a wise application of physical 
 evil for the improvement of mankind. Alleging as they did that the 
 suprenie Being never presents Himself in any other light than as a 
 loving Father, and that His laws are, properly speaking, but Fatherly 
 counsels, aiming at the benefit of His children, they denied divine 
 punishments in every sense. To remove them would be the removal 
 of benefits. And thus, according to the rationalistic theory, the notion 
 of satisfaction by a surety falls to the ground as destitute of founda- 
 tion. (See Dippel's expressions.) They attempted in this way to 
 explode the redemption as resting on wrong notions of God and of 
 punishment. But in these speculations, they were at war with the 
 innate convictions and common sentiments of mankind. 
 
 Th'e Rationalists have been wont, down to our day, to lay all 
 emphasis on the universal Fatherhood of God, and to repudiate as 
 intolerably severe and terrible every representation of God as a supreme 
 ruler and judge. This one-sided view of theirs has not even its 
 analogy, where they thought to find it, in man made in the image of
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION IU. 481 
 
 God. For among men the paternal relation does not exclude the 
 judicial function, nor the latter the former; and there could be no 
 human society without both. The Rationalists misrepresented God's 
 character by affirming that He was good-natured, rather than good. 
 They spoke of paternal love and tenderness till they annihilated all 
 idea of punitive justice, and described a being indifferent to the moral 
 character of actions. But, said this school, may not God recede from 
 His rights as man ofttimes recedes from his 1 To this the reply, as it 
 is well expressed by Howe, is, God's rights are inalienable, whereas 
 man's are not. But it does not hold true, even in man, in all cases. 
 The individual may forego his right of self-defence : but can a judge 
 recede from his right to punish? (See Hervey, Van Alphen.) When 
 we are challenged to say to whom God would be unjust in remitting 
 punishment, the answer is obvious. The great God cannot for the 
 physical comfort of mankind act in contravention of the moral perfec- 
 tions of His nature. 
 
 But besides this objection, derived from God's relation to man, the 
 rationalistic school, prolific of all manner of cavils and difficulties, 
 adduce others drawn from the dignity and innocence of the Mediator. 
 It would be tedious to enumerate them ; and they have been anticipated 
 under different sections of this volume. Do they allege that it was un- 
 worthy of a sinless being to be treated as a sinner] I answer : Sin-bear- 
 ing differs from personal transgression, and was so divine a work, that 
 it could be consummated only by a God-man. Do they demand, How 
 this could be 1 The answer is : Man was saved by the same constitu- 
 tion and by the same representative system by which he fell. Do 
 they allege that the Lord Jesus was not subjected to proper punish- 
 ment whether we have respect to the corporeal effects of sin, or to the 
 consciousness of guilt 1 I answer, He suffered both in Gethsemane 
 and on Golgotha directly from the hand of God (2 Cor. v. 21); and 
 even what came mediately from the hands of men was for sins not 
 His own (Isa. liii. 1-12; 1 Pet. ii. 22; Gal. iii. 13). Do they 
 allege that the Mediator had not the consciousness of guilt? I 
 answer : We distinguish between what was personal and official in the 
 Lord. And He certainly apprehended, more, vividly than any ever 
 did, the connection between sin and punishment, between guilt and 
 wrath. Personal disquiet of conscience a sinless being had not, and 
 could not have. 
 
 As to a third class of objections propounded by the rationalistic 
 school, based on the condition of those for whom Christ is supposed 
 to have atoned, they are as follows. It is argued that the deliverance 
 from punishment and restoration to divine favour cannot be ascribed 
 
 2 H
 
 482 APPENDIX. 
 
 to the death of Christ, because He has not taken away the natural 
 punishments either as to body or soul. I answer, though sickness, 
 suffering, and death remain for a time, they cease to be punishments. 
 The moral connection between sin and punishment is broken. (See 
 our remarks on the ransom, Matt. xx. 28.) 
 
 Before passing from this rationalistic school, it may be proper to 
 notice a speculation which found much favour both in Germany and 
 Holland. Some maintained that the Lord and His apostles in their 
 teaching, accommodated themselves to the prejudices of the Jews ; that 
 the Jews of that age regarded God as a severe and arbitrary monarch, 
 or a terrible avenger who was easily offended, and who could not for- 
 give without the shedding of blood, which served to propitiate Him. 
 They maintained that our Lord and His apostles accommodated them- 
 selves to these severe ideas of wrath and punishment, atonement and 
 sacrifice, though the great aim kept before them was to represent God 
 as love. This entire theory was well refuted by Storr, Heringa, and 
 Lotse. It implied a reflection, of the most offensive kind, on the 
 Lord. If the world held false and unworthy conceptions of God, 
 however difficult it might be to recall men from them,- the first task of 
 a divine teacher was to correct what was amiss, and not accommodate 
 His teaching to their perverted views, and this our Lord did at all 
 points. How could it be harmonized with the wisdom and fidelity of 
 the Lord that He appointed two sacraments for His Church, the scope 
 of which was calculated to remind Christians of remission by blood, if 
 these ideas were not comprehended in His teaching 1 
 
 Other rationalistic champions maintained that Jesus was commis- 
 sioned to restore the obscured truths of natural religion, and thus 
 became the victim of His own zeal, as He incurred the resentment of 
 an ungodly people. But they would not allow that His death was 
 vicarious or made God more ready to forgive sin ; because they argued, 
 forgiveness is an absolute gift irrespective of atonement. 
 
 (III.) A third school having much in common with the two former, 
 but making a considerable advance upon it, consists of those who take 
 rank as the advocates of THE SPIRITUAL LIFE, or of A MORAL REDEMP- 
 TION, irrespective of the forensic element in theology. It began with 
 Hasenkamp and Menken, and pervades the views of Flatt, Steudel, 
 and Klaiber. But it owes its wide circulation to a far greater name, 
 whose commanding influence, as one of the most bold and original 
 thinkers in the Christian Church, went far to reconstruct the theology 
 of his country. I refer to Schleiermacher, who repudiated all allusion 
 to law or divine wrath, and merged the judicial aspect of theology in 
 the ethical. The watchword of this tendency wherever it extends 
 in Germany, Holland, England, and France, is spiritual life, not
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION LII. 483 
 
 expiation, the renewal of the nature, not the acceptance of the person ; 
 in a word, a mere moral redemption. The thread on which it crys- 
 tallized itself was the principle of fellowship in the Redeemer's life. 
 But it was accompanied with a marked tendency to deny or ignore 
 many precious doctrines ; and it discovered an erratic tendency on the 
 subject of sin, Satan, and the fall of men, on divine justice and the 
 punishment due to us for sin, on a proper substitution and expia- 
 tion, on imputed righteousness, nay, on imputation in any form, as 
 well as on the incarnation, which was more Sabellian than Trinitarian. 
 The Groningen School in Holland, the theory of Maurice and Robert- 
 son of Brighton, and several of Pressense's positions, are but echoes of 
 this German tendency. We must therefore notice more particularly 
 the theory on the atonement emanating from the modern German 
 believing school, which deviates from the teaching of the symbolic 
 books. It belongs to a much higher type than those already men- 
 tioned under this division, both as to the doctrine of CHRIST'S PERSON, 
 and evangelical religion in general. Not a few of them are Trinitarian, 
 though others are no higher than Sabellians or Arians. We may 
 describe their views of the atonement by two marked features, one 
 of which is more prominent in some writers, and the other more pro- 
 minent in others. They coincide in OPPOSING THE VICARIOUS SATISFAC- 
 TION, and in setting aside the forensic side of theology in favour of 
 that which is properly mystical, but lay emphasis on the fellowship of 
 CHRIST'S LIFE, or communion with Christ in His life (Lebensgemein- 
 scliaft rn.it dem Er loser), and on LOVE. (I gave a description of this 
 school, in an article on Neander in the British and Foreign Evan- 
 gelical Review for 1853.) 
 
 a. The theory of Schleiermacher was to this effect, that Christ, as 
 the completed creation of human nature, redeems men by receiving 
 them into the fellowship of His life or blessedness. To exhibit 
 Schleiermacher's opinions, the best method will be to translate a few 
 paragraphs of his dogmatic work, entitled Der Christliche Glaube, 
 1842. He says (sees. 101, 102) : "As the redeeming work of Christ 
 founds for all believers a common collective activity corresponding to 
 the being of God in Christ, so the atoning element, that is, the blessed- 
 ness of the indwelling of God in Him, founds a blessed collective 
 feeling for all believers, and for every one in particular. In this their 
 former personality at the same time expires, so far as it was the isola- 
 tion of feeling in an unbroken life of sense, subordinating to it every 
 sympathetic feeling for others and for the general body. That which 
 still remains of personal identity is the peculiar mode of conception 
 and feeling which works itself as an individualized intelligence into 
 this new common life ; so that as regards this point, too, Christ's
 
 484 APPENDIX. 
 
 agency is person-forming, inasmuch as an old man is put off, and a 
 new man put on." He adds a little below his objection to the view 
 which we have maintained (p. 107) : "Those conceptions of the aton- 
 ing work, which make the impartation of Christ's blessedness indepen- 
 dent of the reception into the fellowship of life with Him, appear 
 only as magical ; that is, the forgiveness of sin is derived from the 
 punishment which Christ underwent, and the salvation of men is 
 represented as a reward which God gives to Christ for that penal 
 suffering. Not as if the thought that our salvation is a rewarding of 
 Christ were wholly to be rejected, just as little as all connection 
 between the sufferings of Christ and the forgiveness of sins is to be 
 denied. But both become MAGICAL as soon as they are not effected 
 by the fellowship of life with Christ ; for in this fellowship the com- 
 munication of salvation, as we have already explained the matter, is 
 natural, while, without it, the rewarding of Christ is but a divine 
 arbitrariness. And even this is somewhat magical, when a matter so 
 absolutely internal as salvation is supposed to be produced from with- 
 out, without being based internally ; for if it is independent of the life 
 of Christ, it can only be in some way infused in each individual, since 
 man has not the source of salvation in himself. The forgiveness of 
 sins is also magically effected, if the consciousness of guilt is thought 
 to cease because another has borne the punishment. "We can suppose 
 that the expectation of punishment might be thus removed. But this 
 is only the external element (sinnliche) of forgiveness ; and there 
 would still remain the properly ethical, the consciousness of guilt, ivhich 
 would thus be removed and charmed away without any ground. How 
 far something of this has passed over into the Church doctrine will be 
 discussed below." 
 
 " If we compare the connection here assigned with the opposite 
 views just mentioned, they certainly lead us to the remark, that in our 
 view no account whatever is taken of the sufferings of Christ ; so that 
 we have not had the opportunity to raise the question, whether or how 
 far they belong to redemption or atonement. But it can only be in- 
 ferred from this delay, that there was no reason to adduce them as a 
 primary element, either in the one place or in the other ; and this is 
 the correct state of the case, because otherwise no perfect reception into 
 the fellowship of life with Christ from which redemption and atone- 
 ment can be fully understood would have been possible anterior to 
 the suffering and death of Christ. As an element of the second order, 
 however, they belong to both, but immediately to atonement, and 
 indirectly to redemption. The agency of Christ in founding the new 
 collective life could only appear in its perfection though the belief in 
 this perfection might have existed without this if it gave way to no
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION LIL 485 
 
 opposition, not even to that which could cause the destruction of the 
 person. The perfection, then, does not properly and directly consist 
 in the suffering itself, but only in the resignation to it ; and of this it 
 is a sort of caricature, when any one, isolating this culminating point, 
 and disregarding the founding of the collective life, regards the resigna- 
 tion to suffering for suffering's sake, as the actual sum of Christ's aton- 
 ing work. But as to the atonement, our representation takes for 
 granted that, in order to effect the reception into the fellowship of His 
 blessedness, the longing desire of such as were conscious of their 
 misery, must be first directed to Christ by the impression which they ' 
 received of His blessedness. The fact is, that the belief in this blessed- 
 ness might have existed without this, but that the blessedness only 
 appeared in its perfection, as it was not overcome by the fulness of 
 suffering." 
 
 He adds (p. 110) : "But that the preceding explanation may serve 
 in every respect as a standard for judging of the ecclesiastical formulas, 
 we must apply it to our general formula of the creation of human 
 nature being completed in Christ, in order to convince ourselves that 
 this, too, is carried out in the twofold agency of Christ. For what is 
 thus received into the fellowship of Christ's life, is received into the 
 fellowship of an activity determined by the vigour of the consciousness 
 of God (Gottesbewustseyn), adapted to all occasions, and exhausting 
 their demands ; and also into the fellowship of a complacency resting 
 in this activity, and that can be shaken by no other movements from 
 what quarter soever. That every such reception is nothing else but a 
 continuation of the same creative act, the temporal manifestation of 
 which began with the person of Christ ; that each intensive advance- 
 ment of this new life is such another continuation in its relation to the 
 diminishing collective life of sin ; and that in this new life the original 
 destiny of man is attained, and that nothing beyond and above this 
 can be conceived or attempted for a nature such as ours, needs no 
 further proof." 
 
 These quotations will show the theory of the atonement held by 
 this remarkable man. He uses language on the sufferings of Christ, as 
 a vicarious sacrifice, which is audacious and repulsive in the last degree. 
 He makes the whole atoning element to consist in the indwelling of 
 God in Him, which Schleiermacher asserted, more in a Sabelliaii than 
 in a Trinitarian way. But the atoning element could not be effected 
 without the human in Christ, as well as the divine. In reference to 
 this notion, Krabbe, die Lehre von der Siinde und vom Tode, 1836 
 (p. 287), says, happily, " Er auf dem Seyn Gottes in Christo seine 
 ganze erlb'sende Thatigkeit ruhen lasst, da wir doch namentlich seine
 
 486 APPENDIX. 
 
 Ueberwindung der Siinde, welche wesentlich zu seiner erlosenden 
 Wirksamkeit gehb'rt, nicht dem Seyn Gottes in ihm beimessen diirfen, 
 sondern dem, was mensch in ihm war." But we must subject this 
 theory to a more particular analysis, chiefly on account of the vast 
 influence exercised by its author over a large class of minds. 
 
 A false conception of SIN which with him is something merely 
 negative vitiated the entire theory. According to Schleiermacher sin 
 is a mere defect of the consciousness of God, and the atonement is a 
 mere readjustment of the natural and divine consciousness of man. 
 Wherever sin is considered as a free personal act by which the majesty 
 of the divine law has been violated and the transgressor is handed over 
 to the award of punitive justice, such a theory can find no place. 
 Schleiermacher would not allow that sin involved any thing penal, in 
 consequence of which the sinner not only forfeits fellowship with God, 
 but becomes a captive needing a ransom to deliver him. Nay, the 
 idea of guilt as an objective fact cannot be said to have had any exist- 
 ence for Schleiermacher. Hence no guilt, no sacrifice of expiation. 
 Sin and redemption were with him alike subjective. Not only so : 
 the sufferings of Jesus, divested of every thing vicarious, had no objec- 
 tive significance ; and he goes so far as to say that these sufferings of 
 the Lord are but a SECONDARY matter. How then did he explain what 
 occupies so large a place in the delineations of the prophets, evange- 
 lists and apostolic epistles 1 He reduced them to the idea of sympathy 
 with human misery. That is much too trivial and evacuating a theory 
 to do justice to the language of Scripture. The SYMPATHY of Christ 
 WITH us is too low and insignificant to explain what Scripture signifies, 
 when it asserts His suffering FOR us and exhibits the various- elements 
 of the agony in Gethsemane and Golgotha. 
 
 On the contrary, the great doctrine of the atonement takes for 
 granted the dread reality of objective guilt, for which it is the divinely 
 provided remedy. There is not only the consciousness of guilt, but 
 objective guilt, demanding an adequate expiation, if destruction is to 
 be warded off. Considered as a revolt from God and the transgression 
 of this law (1 John iii. 4), sin imposes a demand too stern and inflexible 
 to be discharged at the bar of God, or to be silenced in the human con- 
 science by any theory such as this as to a defective consciousness of 
 God. That will not satisfy the divine Judge nor yet the human con- 
 science : for nothing will satisfy the latter that does not pacify the 
 former. There must be expiation in order to remission and a restora- 
 tion to fellowship with God. 1 
 
 The only thing to which Schleiermacher attaches any weight is the 
 
 1 See Schleiermacher's Lehre von der Versohnung by Dr. C. G. Seibert, Wies- 
 baden, 1855.
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION LII. 487 
 
 fellowship of life with. Christ, as if this constituted the redemption, 
 and not, as the Bible everywhere puts it, the result, reward, and fruit 
 of the ransom offered. It is nothing but mysticism, where all the 
 great doctrines connected with God as a Lawgiver and Judge are 
 ignored, and where the restoration of life, absolutely considered nay, 
 such as it was in the person of Christ Himself is supposed to be 
 repeated in every Christian, without any appreciation of the specially 
 meritorious ground of our acceptance before the Judge of all the earth, 
 or any provision made for the expiation of sin. 
 
 b. A second phase of German theology, not excluding the element 
 of spiritual life, but adding something distinctive and peculiar, is the 
 theory that the atonement is only a manifestation of HOLY LOVE. Most 
 of the modern supporters of the mystic theory of the atonement power- 
 fully dilate on love, and will see love alone in the sufferings of Christ. 
 Klaiber, Hasenkamp and Menken express their view of the atonement 
 in this formula : " dass Gott die Liebe ist, und was nicht Liebe ist, 
 auch nicht in Gott ist." (See Menken's Schriften, vi. Band, iiber die 
 Eherne Schlange.) The same view was strongly urged by E. Stier, in 
 his Beitrdye zu Biblischen Theologie, Leips. 1828. He expresses his 
 concurrence with the English mystic, "W. Law. It is well known that 
 Law, while he enforced with great zeal and ardour the spiritual life, 
 held low opinions on the atonement, views, which can only be called 
 disparaging, inasmuch as they assigned it a very secondary importance. 1 
 
 1 As Law has been so much lauded by the supporters of the mystic theory of 
 the atonement in Germany, and especially by Stier, the following reference to him, 
 in the life of the admirable Henry Venn, may be appropriately quoted. "Mr. 
 Law," says the biographer (p. 19), "was, indeed, now his favourite author ; and 
 from attachment to him, he was in great danger of imbibing the tenets of the 
 mystical writers, whose sentiments Mr. Law had adopted'm the latter periods of 
 his life. Many writings of this class discover, indeed, such traces of genuine and 
 deep piety, that it is not at all wonderful that a person of exalted devotional feel- 
 ings should admire them. From a too fond attachment, however, to Mr. Law's 
 tenets, he was recalled by the writings of Mr. Law himself. When Mr. Law's 
 Spirit of Love, or Spirit of Prayer (I am not sure which), was about to be 
 published, no miser waiting for a rich inheritance devolving on him, was ever 
 more eager than he was to receive a book, from which he expected to derive so 
 much knowledge and improvement. The bookseller had been importuned to send 
 him the first copy published. At length the long-desired work was received one 
 evening ; and he set himself to peruse it with avidity. He read till he came to a 
 passage wherein Mr. Law seemed to represent the blood of Christ as of no more 
 avail, in procuring our salvation, than the excellence of His moral character. 
 ' What ! ' he exclaimed, ' does Mr. Law thus degrade the death of Christ, which 
 the apostles represent as a sacrifice for sin, and to which they ascribe the highest 
 efficacy in procuring our salvation ? Then, farewell, such a guide ! Henceforth 
 I will call no man master. ' "
 
 488 APPENDIX. 
 
 c. Frequent reference has been made by us to V. Hofmann's Schrift- 
 beweis by far the ablest attempt ever made on exegetical grounds, 
 by one reputed an evangelical theologian, to overthrow the vicarious 
 satisfaction. It is proper here to give a connected outline of his views. 
 He thus winds up a discussion occupying a large portion of his first 
 volume (p. 332, first edition) : " We have come to an end of our 
 examination of all the apostolic sayings in which the fact of the suf- 
 ferings and death of Jesus is anywhere made use of, and its signifi- 
 cance either mediately or immediately mentioned or delineated in any 
 side, and we have found no passage, to the understanding of which 
 anything else was necessary, or from the exposition of Avhich any- 
 thing else resulted, than what we have gathered from the Gospel 
 history of the sufferings and death of Jesus. We have found that the 
 substance of the apostolic declarations in all the numerous references 
 in which they speak of the death of Christ, whether with or without 
 the use of Old Testament delineations, is always the same as we have 
 expressed in our system, viz., that according to God's purpose the life 
 and work of Jesus issued in an event in which the relation between 
 God and man ceased to be conditioned by sin, because His communion 
 with God stood the test even to the end, even in the uttermost oppo- 
 sition which sin and Satan were able to direct against the work of 
 salvation. Although it does not belong to my task, yet I think I 
 ought not to neglect to show, that the confession of the Church, even 
 when moving in the formulae of a theory which is not contained in 
 the above, yet does not stand in opposition to what has been advanced, 
 nay, more, does not contain or purport ought that is wanting in our 
 exposition. 
 
 " The idea of the Church, when she speaks of Christ's vicarious 
 obedience, active and passive, by which satisfaction was rendered to 
 the righteousness of God offended by sin, will be recognized in the 
 four following propositions : (1) that the state of alienation between 
 God and mankind has been at once and for ever converted into a 
 communion of peace ; (2) that this change is not in the conduct of 
 man, but in the relation of God to man and man to God ; (3) that this 
 change was produced, not by mankind of themselves, but by God in 
 Christ ; and (4) that God effected this change in such a manner, that 
 He manifested in it actually His will of love, and at the same time 
 His hatred of sin. We need scarcely remind the reader that the first 
 three points are contained in our declaration, and that consequently 
 the fundamental doctrine of our Church concerning justification by 
 faith alone is not endangered. But the fourth point is contained in 
 it, as well as in the traditional mode of representation, only with this
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION III. 489 
 
 difference, that in the latter the injured holiness of God demands a 
 corresponding satisfaction which had to be offered first, before God 
 could be gracious; while, according to our view, what was done in 
 Christ combines both elements, the actual manifestation of the love of 
 God to man, and of His hatred of sin, because the creative beginning 
 of a new relation of God to man did not take place without the ter- 
 mination of the previous relation, conditioned by sin. This termina- 
 tion begins, so that the beginner of a new humanity develops His life 
 under the conditions of human nature, which were introduced by sin ; 
 it continued in the righteous One, exercising His life's task in conflict 
 with sin ; and is consummated in His voluntarily enduring whatever 
 the enmity of sin against God determined against Him. The suffer- 
 ings and death of Jesus form the consummation of this termination ; 
 and their essentially destructive significance is this, that in them only 
 was realized the utmost that the Mediator of salvation could endure 
 and do, that the sin-conditioned relation between God and mankind 
 might issue in an end corresponding to it, and to the divine decree of 
 love, and thus compensating for sin. As, according to our mode of 
 viewing the subject, it is not the sinner, or the Son of God in his stead, 
 that performs what had been omitted, or suffers what had been deserved, 
 we are not tempted to present Christ's work as a collective act of the 
 human race, which is not the fact ; and as Christ's work does not ap- 
 pear as a satisfaction for the offence committed against God, which 
 must first be effected, that God might be gracious, the manifestation 
 of God's grace is not merely rendered possible by means of it, but it 
 is itself the realization of the divine will of grace, which it also is. 
 We do not divide human sin into omission and transgression, nor the 
 obedience of Christ into active and passive, in a way which does not cor- 
 respond to reality, but is merely abstract and notional ; but this one 
 termination of sin, as a whole, is the obedience of Christ in work first, 
 and suffering afterwards. Nor are love and righteousness in God 
 separated in such a manner that the demands of the latter are realized 
 separately from the will of the former ; nor do Father and Son ever 
 stand in such opposition that the Son becomes the object of punitive 
 justice ; but what is done, is the one deed of the love of God to man- 
 kind, which is at the same time hatred of sin, and is the united act of 
 Father and Son, for the realization of this will of love, which is a will 
 of hatred to sin. Yet, whether the expression of our system is more 
 appropriate than that of the traditional ecclesiastical, I leave others to 
 judge. I think I have shown that it is more in accordance with 
 Scripture." 
 
 This extract will give a just idea of Hofmann's opinions. In his
 
 490 APPENDIX. 
 
 controversial pamphlets lie acknowledges three deviations from the 
 ecclesiastical doctrine : (1) that He does not speak of Christ's fulfill- 
 ing the law ; (2) that he does not consider Christ as rendering a vica- 
 rious obedience or suffering, but only as verifying His Sonship amid 
 endurance ; (3) that he apprehends the whole history of Jesus, from 
 His incarnation to His death, as the carrying out of the plan to which 
 the three-one God resorted to change or alter the relation of man to 
 Him. He regards the Church doctrine as not having equal claims to 
 recognition, because it leads to an arithmetical reckoning and counter- 
 reckoning between the divine claims and Christ's performance. He 
 thinks, too, that it does not put divine grace in its proper light, to say 
 that sin must be expiated before God can be gracious. 
 
 The whole theory of this able man, who in many points follows 
 Menken and Schleiennacher, proceeds on the supposition that the 
 atonement makes no change on God's relation, but simply on man's. 
 He allows no wrath as a principle of action in God, and acknowledges 
 only love in God. The whole effect of Christ's death, according to 
 him, is to initiate a new humanity, or a new starting-point which shall 
 renovate the nature. Agreeably to this representation, justification is, 
 with him, not a forensic act, and complete at once: it grows and is 
 never perfect. All that he says of the mystic union is good. But as 
 to reconciliation, it is not THROUGH Christ's finished work, but IN .Him. 
 The objective is thus merged in the subjective. 
 
 In a word, it makes another Gospel. All that this theory main- 
 tains is in the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Protestant Confessions, but 
 the converse is not true. All that is in them is not reproduced in 
 Hofmann's theory. He acknowledges Christ's obedience, but it is 
 neither A FULFILMENT OF THE LAW, nor a work performed in OUR ROOM 
 arid stead. (See his controversial Abweisung in reply to Philippi.) 
 It is a mere self-verification as the Son of God : and the sufferings are 
 a fortuitous OCCURRENCE, not a vicarious PUNISHMENT or the endurance 
 of the CURSE in our stead. As compared with the theory of Taylor of 
 Norwich above mentioned, I may say that, as a theory of the atone- 
 ment, it has almost everything in common with it. 
 
 Since the controversy to which Hofmann's work gave rise, nothing 
 of much moment has occurred in German theology bearing on the 
 atonement. On the part of those who will not accept the ecclesiastical 
 doctrine, the chief peculiarity of their position appears in the attempt 
 to explain away THE WRATH OF GOD. Many who have advanced a 
 considerable way, refuse to acknowledge that wrath or PUNITIVE JUSTICE 
 can be affirmed of God from the impression that this would be incom- 
 patible with His Love. This holds true of Kitschl, who makes wrath
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION LII. 491 
 
 only future and contingent on a rejected gospel ; a position which 
 neutralizes substitution (see Ritschl's above-named articles in the 
 Jahrbucher, and his recent work Lehre von der Rechtfertigung 
 und Versohnung, 1870). What this writer wants is a frank recognition 
 of covenant suretyship, of substitution, of imputation, and of the 
 infliction of the curse on the Redeemer. But having advanced so far 
 from the school of Baur, to which he once belonged, it is to be hoped, 
 he will yet come to occupy the only tenable ground. Without naming 
 those who are anchored on well tried Lutheran ground, such as Kahnis 
 in his Lutheran dogmatics, I may remark that some otherwise sound 
 divines seem disposed to lay all the emphasis on divine love. But 
 though that appeals to the human HEART it does not rectify the evil 
 CONSCIENCE. This is only done by a suifering law-fulfilling substitute 
 (Heb. ix. 14). As to Schenkel of Heidelberg he has so unmistake- 
 ably avowed Unitarian sentiments that no theory of the atonement 
 higher than that of Abelard could be expected of him. 
 
 When we trace the influence of German thought on other lands we 
 see that the leaven of their sentiments has spread far and wide. In 
 Holland the Groningen school, while still asserting the spiritual life 
 and fellowship with Christ in His life, is most pronounced in its 
 opposition to substitution and imputation. This will be seen from 
 Doedes' sketch of the school, and more fully from their periodical, 
 Waarheid in Liefde. When we turn to French Protestantism in 
 France and Switzerland, we find the same leaven at work. Thus 
 Pressense" has committed himself to the theory of moral redemption. 
 Though asserting the spiritual life as warmly as could be wished, he 
 allows himself to speak in the style of the new theology, which allows 
 that Christ is only a Redeemer as He has revealed the divine love, and 
 by that revelation kindled in our hearts the flame of love to God. 
 I may here refer to the work of M. Pozzy, Histoire du dogme de la 
 Redemption, 1868, in which he proves against Pressense that the 
 fathers, reformers, and the leaders of the French revival, Vinet, Ad. 
 Monod, and others, were all asserters of the propitiatory sacrifice. 
 
 When we come to our own country, the most eminent advocates of 
 the same views may be said to be Mr. Maurice and Mr. Robertson of 
 Brighton. The former, in his theological essays and in his Doctrine 
 of Sacrifice, the latter in his discourses, which have had a wide circu- 
 lation, permit themselves to speak in the most otfensive way of the 
 satisfaction of divine justice and of Christ's atoning sacrifice in the 
 room of His people ; while, at the same time, they proclaim in a style 
 far from either Socinianism or Rationalism the spiritual life or the 
 moral redemption. With all that is said on this latter point the
 
 492 APPENDIX. 
 
 ecclesiastical doctrine is fully compatible, but they subvert the only 
 foundation on which the spiritual life can be bestowed. It is not 
 necessary to quote from these works, as they are so well known. I 
 may only add that the terms in which they extol the incarnation and 
 the person of the only Son, valuable so far as they go, betray a pro- 
 found insensibility to the infinite evil of sin, the authority of law and 
 the justice of God, and that the views which they advocate only throw 
 men back on a mystic legalism ; a piety which makes no account of 
 the acceptance of the person in the righteousness of another, and no 
 provision for securing Christian liberty. A proof of this may be read 
 in Mr. Maurice's Faith of the Liturgy and the Doctrine of the Thirty- 
 nine Articles, 1860. (See too Rigg's Modern Anglican Theology.} 
 
 IV. A fourth theory in the same direction is THE THEORY OF MORAL 
 INFLUENCE, to which most of the American and English divines con- 
 fess who have deviated from the ecclesiastical doctrine of the vicarious 
 satisfaction. This seems to find favour with the English-speaking 
 errorist, while the previous school finds most acceptance with German 
 minds that have broken with the views of the confessions. Jowett, 
 Bushnell, Young, Davies, Campbell, belong to this tendency fully more 
 than to the former. Thus the death of Christ is only intended to 
 have a subjective effect, and to pacify our fears, by affording a great 
 manifestation of divine love. Reconciliation is something wholly on 
 man's side, not on God's side. It is sometimes said that the Supreme 
 Being needs no reconciliation to Himself. They thus ignore the fact 
 of sin in His universe. They deny that He must deal with it ; for- 
 getting that though justice and mercy are not opposed to each other, 
 as equally attributes in the same all-perfect God, yet the terrible evil 
 of sin brings to light a relation "of a wholly new kind to the creature. 
 This theory of moral influence has many phases, and to some of the 
 most prominent of these we must now refer. 
 
 One phase was to the effect that His death must be considered as an 
 example of God's aversion to sin, and as paving the way for a general pro- 
 clamation of forgiveness. This theory was advocated by Professor Koop- 
 man in the twenty-first volume of the publications of Teyler's Society in 
 Holland. It was argued, that as the ancient sacrifices were meant to 
 imbue the mind with a deep sense of the hatefulness of sin and of its 
 guilt, and to impress the heart of men with reverence, abhorrence of evil, 
 penitence, trust, and an eager pursuit of holiness, so Christ was set forth 
 to be still more fully the means of the same result, and the example of 
 . God's displeasure against sin. This theory opposes the vicarious atone- 
 ment, but insists on an example of the divine displeasure against sin. 
 We may well ask, would it not be an intolerable anomaly in God's moral
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION LII. 493 
 
 government, a contradiction to every divine perfection, to be made an 
 example of God's displeasure against sin, and yet have no sin, per- 
 sonal or by imputation ? That would be a difficulty indeed, which 
 would defy solution. But if examples of indignation had the effect 
 for which this theory pleads, why could not the blood of bulls 
 and goats take away sin 1 ? and amid many examples of the divine 
 displeasure against sin, why do we nowhere read that remission 
 was ascribed to such displays of indignation? But the faith by 
 which we obtain forgiveness extends to the person of Jesus, as the 
 procurer of forgiveness by His death ; and we are not only summoned 
 to receive the forgiveness which is preached, but to have faith in His 
 person as crucified. (See Godgeleerde Bijdrayen, ii. Stuk. 1828.) 
 
 Another theory is, that the death of Christ is a confession of sin. 
 This is the great burden of Mr. MacLeod Campbell's book on the 
 atonement, who holds that Christ's confession of sin was a perfect 
 amen in humanity to the judgment of God on the sin of man (p. 134). 
 He goes on to say, in. the following terms, that a true repentance, and 
 a confession of sin, are all that are required to expiate sin : " That 
 due repentance for sin, could such repentance, indeed, be found, would 
 expiate guilt, there is a strong testimony in the human heart, and so 
 the first attempt at peace with God is an attempt at repentance ; which 
 attempt, indeed, becomes less and less hopeful, the longer and the 
 more earnestly and perseveringly it is persevered in, but that not be- 
 cause it comes to be felt that a true repentance would be rejected even 
 if attained, but because its attainment is despaired of, all attempts at 
 it being found, when taken to the divine light, and honestly judged 
 in the sight of God, to be mere selfish attempts at something that 
 promises safety ; not evil, indeed, in so far as they are instinctive 
 efforts at self-preservation, but having nothing in them of the nature 
 of true repentance, or a godly sorrow for sin, or pure condemnation of 
 it, because of its own evil ; nothing, indeed, that is a judging sin, and 
 confessing it in true sympathy with the divine, judgment upon it" 
 (p. 143). He then goes on to say that Christ in humanity has 
 repented of and confessed our sin ; and this according to Mr. Camp- 
 bell, is all the expiation for sin rendered or required. To show that 
 this is his precise meaning, let me quote his words : " That we may 
 fully realize what manner of an equivalent to the dishonour done to 
 the law and name of God by sin, an adequate repentance and sorrow 
 for sin must be and how far more truly than any penal infliction 
 such repentance and confession of sin must satisfy divine justice, let 
 us suppose that all the sin of humanity was committed by one human 
 spirit, in whom is accumulated the immeasurable amount of guilt,
 
 494 APPENDIX. 
 
 and let us suppose this spirit, loaded with all this guilt, to pass out of 
 sin into holiness." Such change would imply an absolute and perfect 
 repentance, a confession of its sin commensurate with the evil." " We 
 feel that such a repentance as we are supposing, would, in such a case, 
 be the true and proper satisfaction to offended justice, and that there 
 would be more atoning worth in one tear of true and perfect sorrow, 
 which the memory of the past would awaken in this now holy spirit, 
 than in endless ages of penal woe" (p. 144). 
 
 What reply is to be made to this extravagant and strangely consti- 
 tuted theory of Christ's confessing sin, and repenting of it 1 It might 
 be enough to say, without canvassing or discussing it, that it has no 
 warrant or foundation in Scripture, the phraseology and ideas of which 
 alone can direct us in our theological thinking and theological nomen- 
 clature. But it is plain that the author cannot intend the words repen- 
 tance and confession, which are personal acts, to be understood in their 
 ordinary acceptation. Not only so ; anything like vicarious suffering or 
 representative action is wholly opposed to the writer's scheme of thought. 
 The theory explains nothing, and only palters in a double sense. It is 
 only meant to convey to the reader that the action of Christ, though 
 it had no efficacy God-ward, had a something in it calculated to pro- 
 duce a moral influence on men's minds. But the same theory of moral 
 influence comes to light in the writings of others, and with a brief 
 allusion to these I shall conclude this volume. 
 
 Thus Professor Jowett expresses himself (Epistles of Paul, p. 477): 
 "Not the sacrifice, nor the satisfaction, nor the ransom, but the greatest 
 moral act ever done in the world the act, too, 6f one in our likeness 
 is THE ASSURANCE TO us that God in Christ is reconciled to the 
 world." To the same effect writes Bushnell (Vicarious Sacrifice, 
 p. 533) : " The facts are impressive ; the person is clad in a wonderful 
 dignity and beauty ; the agony is eloquent of love, and the cross is a 
 very shocking murder triumphantly met ; and if then the question 
 rises, How we are to use such a history so as to be reconciled by it ] we 
 hardly know in what way to begin. How shall we come unto God 
 by help of the martyrdom 1 How shall we turn it, or turn ourselves 
 under it, so as to be justified and set at peace with God. Plainly 
 there is a want here ; and this want is met by giving A THOUGHT- 
 FORM to the facts which are not in the facts themselves." In a word, 
 the death of Christ has no other effect, according to this theory, except 
 as it is an impressive spectacle to influence men's minds. It effects 
 nothing in reference to God according to Bushnell. 
 
 The same thing appears in the sketch of Dr. John Young (Life and 
 Light of Men. p. 301) : " The sacrifice," says he, " was not offered by
 
 NOTE M ON SECTION LII. 495 
 
 men to God, but was made by God for men and for sin, in order that 
 sin might be for ever put down and rooted out of human nature. This 
 stupendous act of divine sacrifice was God's method of conquering the 
 human heart, and of subduing a revolted world, and attaching it to 
 His throne pure love, self-sacrificing love, crucified dying love." 
 This is the style, and well-nigh the language, in which Stier and 
 Klaiber express themselves on the moral influence of the atonement. 
 It proceeds on the supposition that the reconciliation is only on man's 
 side, and that the death of Christ was meant to calm a groundless fear. 
 
 Reconciliation, it is said, is wholly on man's side, and we must 
 entertain comforting views of God. If that mean that God has no 
 hostility to lay aside, and that we have filled our mind with dark 
 suspicious fears of God, it may be accepted on the footing of an accom- 
 plished expiation for sin. But if it means that no satisfaction was 
 necessary as the ground on which that message of reconciliation is 
 made, which is the meaning of those who propound it, nothing can be 
 more at variance with gospel doctrine ; and the section of the Pauline 
 Epistles which most forcibly exhibits reconciliation, puts it wholly on 
 the ground of an atonement (2 Cor. v. 18-21). When it is further 
 objected that the atonement is always represented as the proof or effect 
 or fruit of God's love, but never as its cause, the answer is at hand. 
 The atonement did not, and could not, originate divine love in God, 
 which is an eternal perfection of the divine nature, seeking an adequate 
 object on which to expend its riches ; the atonement emanated from 
 this divine love (see sec. vi.). But if we speak of the actual exercise 
 of grace to sinful men, or of its manifestation to its actual objects, then 
 the doctrine of the gospel is, that grace is capable of being exercised 
 only through the atonement, and that Jesus is the foundation or meri- 
 torious cause of its exercise to such objects. 
 
 Was the death of Christ merely intended to calm a certain fear, or 
 to satisfy an important moral want in man ? This means, that it was 
 but an assurance of forgiveness, or an imposing manifestation fitted to 
 give peace and confidence. It is said it would be much simpler to set 
 forth the death of Christ as a striking evidence and manifestation of 
 divine love, without maintaining the necessity of any atoning sacrifice. 
 
 I might quote all the texts bearing upon the atonement, and ask : 
 Do they, can they, on any principles of interpretation, convey the idea 
 that the atonement is but an open declaration of divine love, and the 
 removal of the slavish fear of divine wrath ? If the death of Christ 
 did nothing _but convey an idea of God's love, without effecting any- 
 thing more, then our Lord stands on the same footing with any of His 
 apostles, who taught that God is love, and died martyr-deaths in con-
 
 496 APPENDIX. 
 
 firmation of their testimony. But no teacher, however eager to extol 
 forgiving love, could ever pretend to the titles, Saviour, Redeemer, 
 Shepherd, that belong to him. If, according to this theory, the ford's 
 sufferings were merely intended to remove from us a slavish but ground- 
 less fear of punishment, we naturally ask, where is this ever stated in 
 Scripture ? On the contrary, our sins are uniformly referred to as the 
 cause of the death of Jesus (Rom. iv. 25 ; Isa. liii.). And when we 
 hear of redemption from iniquity, and from an actual curse, and from 
 the wrath to come, how can that be a mere deliverance from ground, 
 less fear? The Scripture never represents the death of Christ as 
 intended merely to assure us of divine love. And if according to this 
 theory Jesus has freed us from all our groundless fears of divine punish- 
 ment, and assured us of divine love, how can we explain those terrible 
 threats still connected with impenitence and unbelief (John iii. 18, 36; 
 Eom. ii. 4 ; 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10 ; Heb. x. 29) ?
 
 INDICES. 
 
 I. INDEX TO THE TEXTS MOKE OK LESS ELUCIDATED. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 GENESIS. 
 
 
 NEHEMIAH. 
 
 
 LAMENTATIONS. 
 
 
 iii. 15, . 
 
 381 
 
 x. 32, . 
 
 196 
 
 v. 7, . 
 
 101 
 
 xii. 3, ... 
 
 381 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 JOB. 
 
 
 EZEKIEL. 
 
 
 EXODUS. 
 xxi. 30, . 
 
 195 
 
 vii. 21, .. 
 xxv. 6, . 
 
 313 
 113 
 
 xviii. 19, 
 xxx. 2, . 
 
 101 
 112 
 
 xxiv. 6, 
 
 211 
 
 
 
 
 
 xxviii. 38, 
 xxviii. 43, 
 
 105 
 101 
 
 PSALMS. 
 
 
 DANIEL. 
 viL 13, . 
 
 111 
 
 xxxii. 32, 
 
 106 
 
 vi. 6, . ... 
 
 313 
 
 ix. 26, . 
 
 290 
 
 xxxiv. 7, 
 
 106 
 
 viii. 4, . 
 
 113 
 
 xii 2, . 
 
 177 
 
 
 
 xi. 7, ... 
 
 267 
 
 
 
 LEVITICUS. 
 
 
 xvi. 10, . 
 
 183 
 
 MlCAH. 
 
 
 
 
 xxii., 
 
 81 
 
 vii. 18, . . 106, 
 
 221 
 
 i. 3, 
 i. 4, 
 
 131 
 97 
 
 xxii. 6, . 
 
 114 
 
 
 
 v. 17, . . ! 
 
 100 
 
 xxiii., 
 
 322 
 
 ZECHARIAH. 
 
 
 x. 17, . 
 
 105 
 
 xxxii. 1, 
 
 221 
 
 vi. 12, . 
 
 289 
 
 xiv. 11, 
 
 98 
 
 xii. 9, . . 
 
 88 
 
 xi. 1-13, 
 
 290 
 
 xvii. 11, 
 
 193 
 
 xlix. 2, . 
 
 113 
 
 xiii. 7, . . 82, 
 
 321 
 
 xix. 20, 
 
 195 
 
 li. 4, ... 
 
 168 
 
 
 
 xxii. 17, 
 xxiv. 15, 
 
 101 
 101 
 
 li. 11, . 
 Ixix., 
 
 221 
 84 
 
 MATTHEW. 
 i. 21, . 
 
 369 
 
 xxv. 14, 
 
 195 
 
 Ixxxv. 3, 
 
 106 
 
 ii. 22, . 
 
 199 
 
 xxv. 51, 
 
 195 
 
 cix., 
 
 83 
 
 iii. 15, . 
 
 128 
 
 
 
 ex. 4, . . 
 
 10 
 
 iii. 16, . 
 
 132 
 
 NUMBERS. 
 iii. 49, . 
 v. 31, . 
 ix.13, . 
 xiv. 34, 
 xviii. 15, 
 xviii. 22, 
 
 196 
 100 
 101 
 100 
 196 
 101 
 
 PROVERBS. 
 
 vi. 35, . 
 xiii. 8, . 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 xxxiii. 24, 
 
 196 
 195 
 
 106 
 
 v. 6, . 
 v. 17-20, 
 v. 28-44, 
 v. 38, . 
 vi. 12, . . 21, 
 viii. 17, 
 ix. 4-6, . 
 ix. 6, 
 
 26 
 224 
 233 
 199 
 387 
 140 
 387 
 118 
 
 xxxv. 31, 
 
 185 
 
 xxxviii. 3-14, 
 
 313 
 
 x. 28, . 
 
 406 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 
 xliv. 22, 
 xiv. 13, 
 
 221 
 195 
 
 xi. 19, . 
 
 xi. 28, . 
 
 117 
 411 
 
 xxxii. 35, 
 
 267 
 
 liii. 7, ... 
 
 94 
 
 xi. 21-23, 
 
 405 
 
 
 
 liii. 12, . 
 
 81 
 
 xii. 6, . 
 
 289 
 
 2 KINGS. 
 
 
 liii. 3, ... 
 
 114 
 
 xii. 29, . 
 
 311 
 
 xii. 4, . . 
 
 196 
 
 liii. -12, 
 
 94 
 
 xii. 40, . 
 
 80 
 
 xviii. 4, 
 
 261 
 
 liii. 12, . 
 
 81 
 
 xiii. 38, 
 
 307 
 
 
 
 
 
 xvi. 26, : 
 
 404 
 
 2 CHRONICLES. 
 
 
 JEREMIAH. 
 
 
 xvii. 17-22, . 
 
 145 
 
 xxiv. 9, 
 
 196 
 
 xxxi. 31, . 215, 
 
 393 
 
 xvii. 24, 
 
 196 
 
 
 
 2 I 
 
 

 
 498 
 
 INDEX TO TEXTS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 xix. 17, 
 
 . 233 
 
 iii. 14, . 
 
 37, 257 
 
 xvii. 4, . . 166 
 
 356 
 
 xx. 22, . 
 
 . 146 
 
 iii. 16, . 
 
 44 
 
 xvii. 9, . 
 
 377 
 
 xx. 28, . 
 
 190, 367 
 
 iii. 17, . 
 
 58 
 
 xvii. 19, 
 
 345 
 
 xxiii. 1-33, . 
 
 . 405 
 
 iii. 29, . 
 
 . 53 
 
 xvii. 25, 
 
 39 
 
 xxv. 41, 
 
 . 305 
 
 iii. 36, . 
 
 . 404 
 
 xviii. 8, 
 
 175 
 
 xxv. 46, 
 
 . 406 
 
 iv. 24, . 
 
 . 250 
 
 xix. 11, 
 
 172 
 
 xxvi. 12, 
 
 14 
 
 iv. 33, . 
 
 . 166 
 
 xix. 30, 
 
 181 
 
 xxvi. 26-28, . 
 
 . 207 
 
 v. 22, . 
 
 . 340 
 
 
 
 xxvi. 28, 
 
 . 367 
 
 v. 24, . 
 
 . 276 
 
 ACTS. 
 
 
 xxvi. 36-44, . 
 
 . 150 
 
 v. 26, . 
 
 . 276 
 
 ii. 24, . 
 
 183 
 
 xxvi 42, 
 
 38 
 
 v. 27, . 
 
 . 116, 284 
 
 vi. 13, . 
 
 287 
 
 xxvi. 61, 
 
 . 286 
 
 v. 30, . 
 
 . 164 
 
 x. 36, . 
 
 295 
 
 xxvii. 14, 
 
 . 177 
 
 vi. 29, . 
 
 . 398 
 
 xiii. 35, 
 
 183 
 
 xxvii. 46, 
 
 . 156 
 
 vi. 32, . 
 
 80, 399 
 
 
 
 xxvii. 63, 
 
 . 287 
 
 vi. 37, . 
 
 . 63 
 
 ROMANS. 
 
 
 xxviii. 19, 
 
 . 393 
 
 vi. 38, . 
 
 . 57 
 
 i. 5, 
 
 396 
 
 
 
 vi. 39, . 
 
 . 166 
 
 ii. 14, 15, 
 
 240 
 
 MARK. 
 
 
 vi. 51, . 
 
 60 
 
 iii. 25, 26, 
 
 381 
 
 ii. 27, 28, 
 
 . 119 
 
 vi. 51-57, 
 
 . 270 
 
 iii. 28, . 
 
 225 
 
 iii. 26, . 
 
 . 307 
 
 vi. 57, . 
 
 . 61 
 
 iv. 25, . 
 
 183 
 
 vi. 3, . 
 
 . 138 
 
 vii. 1-7, 
 
 . 138 
 
 v. 2, . 
 
 254 
 
 viii. 37, 
 
 . 38 
 
 vii. 28, . 
 
 . 56 
 
 v. 5-11, 
 
 378 
 
 ix. 12, . 
 
 . 115 
 
 vii. 32, . 
 
 . 170 
 
 v. 12, . 
 
 314 
 
 ix. 41, . 
 
 . 145 
 
 vii. 33, . 
 
 60 
 
 v. 19, . . 142 
 
 , 225 
 
 ix. 45, . 
 
 . 349 
 
 vii. 37,- . 
 
 26 
 
 vi. 1-12, 
 
 256 
 
 x. 32, . 
 
 . 146 
 
 vii. 38, 39, 
 
 . 345 
 
 vi. 1-7, . 
 
 408 
 
 xi. 11, . 
 
 . 80 
 
 vii. 39, . 
 
 . 346 
 
 vi. 8, . . 171 
 
 , 326 
 
 xi. 25, . 
 
 . 21 
 
 viii. 12, 
 
 . 21 
 
 vi. 11, . 
 
 256 
 
 xiv. 22-24, . 
 
 . 207 
 
 viii. 21, 
 
 . 22 
 
 vii. 4, 
 
 225 
 
 xiv. 27, . 
 
 . 82 
 
 viii. 29, 
 
 59, 165 
 
 vii. 56, . 
 
 113 
 
 xiv. 58, . 
 
 . 286 
 
 viii. 34, 
 
 . 212 
 
 viii. 3, . 
 
 126 
 
 xv. 29, . 
 
 . 287 
 
 viii. 36, 
 
 . 411 
 
 viii. 10, . 256 
 
 , 268 
 
 xvi. 16, 
 
 . 405 
 
 viii. 44, 
 
 . 305 
 
 viii. 37, . 301 
 
 , 303 
 
 
 
 viii. 51, 
 
 . 313 
 
 ix. 11, . 
 
 260 
 
 LUKE. 
 
 
 viii. 56, 
 
 . 164 
 
 x. 3, . 
 
 397 
 
 ii. 49, . 
 
 80 
 
 viii. 57, 
 
 . 126 
 
 x. 4, . 
 
 225 
 
 iv. 29, . 
 
 . 170 
 
 viii. 59, 
 
 . 170 
 
 x. 5, 
 
 255 
 
 iv. 13, . 
 
 . 150 
 
 x. 8, 
 
 . 53 
 
 xi. 25, . 
 
 293 
 
 x. 25, . 
 
 . 233 
 
 x. 11-18, 
 
 . 320 
 
 xii. 11, . 
 
 257 
 
 xi. 11, . 
 
 . 199 
 
 x. 15, . 
 
 . 368 
 
 xii. 17, . 
 
 199 
 
 xL 21, . 
 
 140, 305 
 
 x. 18, . 
 
 . 243 
 
 xii. 19, . 
 
 31 
 
 xii. 50, . 
 
 132, 394 
 
 x. 36, . 
 
 . 57 
 
 xiii. 8, . 
 
 227 
 
 xvii. 22, 
 
 . 112 
 
 xi. 52, . 
 
 . 369 
 
 xiv. 9, . 
 
 340 
 
 xix, 10, 
 
 . 117 
 
 xii. 21-27, 
 
 127, 146, 335 
 
 xv. 3, . . 
 
 194 
 
 xxii. 19, 20, . 
 
 . 207 
 
 xii. 28, . 
 
 . 362 
 
 xvi. 11, 
 
 298 
 
 xxii. 31, 
 
 . 305 
 
 xii. 31, . 
 
 295, 304, 337 
 
 xvi. 28, 
 
 300 
 
 xxii. 37, 
 
 81, 174 
 
 xiii. 19, 
 
 . 88 
 
 
 
 xxiv. 26, 
 
 . 339 
 
 xiii. 21, 
 
 . 363 
 
 1 CORINTHIANS. 
 
 
 xxiv. 27, 
 
 14 
 
 xiv. 2-6, 
 
 52, 256, 402 
 
 ii. 8, ... 
 
 91 
 
 xxiv. 47, 
 
 . 385 
 
 xiv. 16, 
 
 . 350 
 
 vi. 20, . 
 
 413 
 
 
 
 xiv. 17, 
 
 . 351 
 
 xi. 23, 25, 
 
 207 
 
 JOHN. 
 
 
 xiv. 24, 
 
 . 411 
 
 xv. 17, . 
 
 184 
 
 i. 16, . 
 
 . 257 
 
 xiv. 30, 31, 
 
 . 243 
 
 xv. 47-56, 
 
 314 
 
 i. 29, . 
 
 . 94 
 
 xv. 13, . 
 
 . 370 
 
 xv. 54-56, 
 
 318 
 
 i. 51, . 
 
 . 351 
 
 xvi. 7, . 
 
 . 347 
 
 
 
 i. 57, . 
 
 . 112 
 
 xvi. 8-10, 
 
 . 245 
 
 2 CORINTHIANS. 
 
 
 ii. 19, . 
 
 . 285 
 
 xvi. 11, . 
 
 . 310 
 
 v. 14, 15, 
 
 256 
 
 iii. 13, . 
 
 . Ill 
 
 xvi. 23, . 
 
 . 411 
 
 v. 15, . 
 
 250 
 
 iii. 13, 14, . 
 
 69, 80 
 
 xvii. 2, . 
 
 . 295 
 
 v. 21, . 
 
 128
 
 IXDEX TO TEXTS. 
 
 499 
 
 CHAP, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 GALATIAXS. 
 
 
 1 TIMOTHY. 
 iv. 1, . 
 
 396 
 
 x. 20, . 
 x. 28, . 
 
 402 
 393 
 
 i. 4, 
 
 279 
 
 
 
 xii. 16, . 
 
 199 
 
 L 23, . 
 
 396 
 
 2 TIMOTHY. 
 
 
 xiii. 12, 
 
 251 
 
 ii. 20, . 171, 257, 
 
 379 
 
 i. 9, 
 
 314 
 
 
 
 iii. 13, . . 143, 
 
 179 
 
 
 
 1 PETER. 
 
 
 
 
 TITTIS. 
 
 
 i. 12, . 
 
 260 
 
 EPHESIANS. 
 
 
 ii. 14, . 
 
 252 
 
 i. 18, 19, 
 
 413 
 
 i. 3, 
 
 403 
 
 
 
 
 ii. 5, ... 
 
 254 
 
 i. 10, 
 
 356 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 
 ii. 22-24, 
 
 257 
 
 * * V 9 
 
 ii. 13, . 
 
 253 
 
 i. 2, . 
 
 295 
 
 iv. 1, . . 171 
 
 , 379 
 
 iii. 17, . 
 
 282 
 
 i. 14, . . 125, 
 
 356 
 
 
 
 v. 2, . 
 
 181 
 
 ii. 9, 10, . 113, 
 
 180 
 
 1 JOHN. 
 
 
 v. 25, 26, 
 
 252 
 
 ii. 11, . 
 
 252 
 
 i. 1-3, . 
 
 276 
 
 
 
 ii. 14, . 
 
 311 
 
 ii. 1, 2, . 
 
 254 
 
 PHILIPPIAXS. 
 
 
 ii. 17, . . 136, 
 
 379 
 
 iii. 8, ... 
 
 311 
 
 i. 18, . 
 
 250 
 
 v. 7, . 
 viii, 8, . 
 
 180 
 215 
 
 iii. 18, . 
 iv. 16, . 
 
 250 
 283 
 
 ii. 7, ... 
 
 257 
 
 ix. 13, . 
 
 257 
 
 
 
 COLOSSIANS. 
 
 
 ix. 14, . 
 ix. 15, . 
 
 253 
 381 
 
 JUDE. 
 
 Ver. 3, . ' . . 
 
 396 
 
 i. 15, 20, 
 
 43 
 
 ix. 26, . 
 
 311 
 
 
 
 ii. 9, ... 
 
 289 
 
 ix. 28, . 
 
 102 
 
 REVELATIONS. 
 
 
 ii. 13, . 
 
 277 
 
 x. 2, . 
 
 253 
 
 iv. 14-20, 
 
 243 
 
 ii. 15, . 
 
 264 
 
 x. 14, . 
 
 253 
 
 v. 9, . 
 
 190 
 
 iii. 1-6, . 
 
 256 
 
 x. 19, . 
 
 254 
 
 xii. 11, .. 
 
 301 
 
 II. INDEX TO SUBJECTS. 
 
 Adam, second, 63. 
 
 Agony of Christ, 153 ; Gethsemane, 
 152 ; on the cross, 156. 
 
 Angels and men restored to fellow- 
 ship, 351. 
 
 All nations and times, atonement for, 
 380. 
 
 Amyraldism, 373, and note L. 
 
 Application of atonement, 383. 
 
 Baptism of Jesus, 128 : showing sin- 
 bearing. 132 ; fulfilling all righteous- 
 ness, how, 133 ; our baptism based 
 on the atonement, 394. 
 
 Bearing sin, 100 ; the fourfold applica- 
 tion of the phrase, 104 ; how applied 
 to God, 105. 
 
 Blood shed for many, 209. 
 
 Character of Jesus, 161 ; all His moral 
 excellence vicarious, 166. 
 
 Covenant, 63 ; nature of, 66 ; condi- 
 tions of, 67. 
 
 Covenant, new, 214, 392. 
 Curse, 135 ; in all scenes, 137 ; of 
 labour, 138; of sickness-bearing, 139. 
 
 Darbyite views, 124, 183, 184, 186. 
 
 Death deprived of its sting, 313 ; how 
 temporal death of believers is re- 
 garded, 316. 
 
 Deity of Christ in atonement, 69 ; 
 necessity of, 71. 
 
 Dominion of Christ, 334 ; particular, 
 335 ; general, 339. 
 
 Facts of Christ's sufferings from man, 
 
 142. 
 Faith, the organ of receiving, 396. 
 
 Glorifying God by the atonement, 356 ; 
 
 God glorifying Himself, 362. 
 God giving, in a sacrificial sense, 45. 
 God wronged by sin, 28; punishing, 
 
 29. 
 Gospels, 3.
 
 500 
 
 INDEX TO SUBJECTS. 
 
 Historical sketch of the doctrine, 
 
 note M. 
 Holy Ghost procured by Christ's death, 
 
 342 ; or going away, 348 . 
 
 Ideas, biblical, importance of, 17. 
 Incarnation, means to an end, 39 ; 
 
 effects of, 73 ; wrong views of Menken 
 
 and Irving, 123. 
 Influence of atonement on morals and 
 
 religion, 407. 
 Intercession of Christ, 39. 
 Judgment of the world, meeting of, 
 
 296. 
 Justice, punitive, 23, 44 ; preceptive, 
 
 31, 35. 
 
 Lamb of God, what, 94 and note F. 
 
 Law fulfilled, 224 and note I. 
 
 Life, eternal, 255 ; nature of it, 257, 
 
 275 ; involves reunion to God, 276 ; 
 
 through the cross, 279. 
 Love, 44 and note C. 
 
 Mediator, 55. 
 
 Moral perfection of Jesus, 161. 
 
 Necessity of atonement, a posteriori, 
 23 ; ideas of sacrifice show it, 24 ; 
 conscience shows it, 26 ; divine rights 
 show it, 27 ; a right anthropology, 
 28 ; the fact of sin shows it, 29. 
 
 Nestorianism, 72. 
 
 Numbered with transgressors, 168. 
 
 Obedience tested, 166 ; one and un- 
 divided, 237 ; objections met, 238. 
 
 Opinions on the atonement, notes L and 
 M. 
 
 Place assigned by Christ to the atone- 
 ment, 92. 
 
 Power given to Pilate, 172. 
 
 Preaching forgiveness by the atone- 
 ment, 385. 
 
 Prophecies, 80. 
 
 Punishment, positive, 33. 
 
 Eansom, 190 ; objections met, 200 and 
 
 note H. 
 
 Eemission of sins, 213. 
 Righteousness, 133 ; nature of, 241. 
 
 Sacrifice, ideas of, 24. 
 
 Sanctify, in the Old Testament sense, 
 247 ; sanctification of the spirit, 251. 
 
 Satan, tempting Christ, 139 ; not al- 
 luded to in the brazen serpent, 262 ; 
 opposition to Christ, 304 ; judged, 
 310 ; bound, 311 ; cast out, 312. 
 
 Sending, 355 ; successive steps of, 57 ; 
 sending prior to the life, 58, 
 
 Serpent, brazen, points of comparison 
 with Christ, 261 ; not Satan as over- 
 come, 262. 
 
 Sheep of Christ, 320 ; secured by His 
 death, 325. 
 
 Socinian view, note M. 
 
 Sickness-bearing, 139. 
 
 Sin, 20 ; in its nature and consequences, 
 21. 
 
 Sin-bearing, when, and how long, 126. 
 
 Sinlessness of Jesus, 162. 
 
 Son of Man, 110 ; different explana- 
 tions, 111 ; true sense, 114 ; ex- 
 hibited from passages, 115 and note 
 G. 
 
 Special reference of the atonement, 365 ; 
 arguments for, 367 ; opposite theo- 
 ries, 372. 
 
 Sufferings of Jesus from man, 169 ; 
 arrest, 175 ; trial, 176 ; condemna- 
 tion, 177 ; crucifixion, 179. 
 
 Temple of God, 285, 293. 
 Testimonies of Jesus to His death, 9. 
 Trinitarianism in connection with the 
 
 atonement, note M. 
 Types, 80. 
 
 Unique position of Jesus, 51 ; titles, 52. 
 
 Woe, endless, if the atonement is re- 
 jected, 403. 
 
 "World, judgment of, 297 ; overcoming 
 of, 300. 
 
 III. INDEX TO AUTHOES MOST FKEQUENTLY ADDUCED. 
 
 Alford, 226, 359. 
 Alting, 223, 251. 
 Amesius, 367, 368. 
 Anselm, note B. 
 Arnold, 206. 
 
 Athanasius, 319. 
 Augustin, 417. 
 
 Baumgarten, 269. 
 Baur, note M.
 
 INDEX TO AUTHOES ADDUCED. 
 
 501 
 
 Bengel, 45, 262. 
 Beza, 100, 259. 
 Bleek, 212, 228. 
 Bloomfield, 259. 
 Briickner, 275. 
 Burmann, 263. 
 
 Calovius, 206, 234. 
 Calviii, 43, passim. 
 Campbell, J. M., note M. 
 Charnoek, 359. 
 Chemnitz, 163, passim. 
 Chrysostoru, 246, passim. 
 Cless, 398. 
 Cloppenburg, 375. 
 Cocceius, 106. 
 Coleridge, 372. 
 Cremer, 183. 
 Crusius Baumgarten, 345. 
 
 Du Bosc, 353. 
 Delitzsch, 206. 
 D'Espagne, 263. 
 Deyling, 260. 
 Dods, 182. 
 Doedes, 96. 
 D'Outrein, 223. 
 Dort Synod, 380. 
 
 Ebrard, 294. 
 Edwards, Principal, 151. 
 Episcopius, 378. 
 Ernesti, 242. 
 Essenius, 206. 
 Euthymius, 211, 347. 
 
 Flacius, 137. 
 
 Formula Concordise, 137. 
 
 Fritzsche, 267. 
 
 Gerhard, 173, passim. 
 Gess, 216. 
 Gomar, 262, 367. 
 Goodwin, Dr., 142. 
 Grotius, 194, passim. 
 
 Harnack, 233. 
 
 Hasenkamp, 269. 
 
 Heidelberg Catechism, 24, passim. 
 
 Hengstenberg, 288, passim. 
 
 Herwerden, 254. 
 
 Hofmann, 106, 259, passim. 
 
 Hofstede de Groot, 37. 
 
 Hoorubeek, 206, passim. 
 
 Horsley, 83. 
 
 Hulshoff, 183. 
 
 Huyser, Preface. 
 
 Irving, E., 123 
 Karge, 238. 
 
 Keil, 105, 206. 
 
 Klaiber, 269 and note M. 
 
 Kuinoel, 205, 247. 
 
 Lampe, 259, 405. 
 Lange, 161, 288. 
 Law, W., note M. 
 Lechler, 227, 262. 
 Liebner, 72. 
 Lightfoot, 354. 
 Lotze, 254, passim. 
 Liicke, 346, passim. 
 Luthardt, 259, 288. 
 Luther, 73, passim. 
 Lyser, 173. 
 
 Maier, 276. 
 
 Marckius, 263, 221, 300. 
 Maresius, 206. 
 Marheinecke, 27. 
 Martensen, 269. 
 Maurice, note M. 
 Menken, 123, 269. 
 Meyer, 96, passim. 
 Michaelis, 354, passim. 
 Moras, 221. 
 Mosheim, 405. 
 Muntinghe, 405. 
 
 Neander, 161, 185, 242. 
 Nitzsch, 269. 
 Nosselt, 337. 
 
 (Eder, 107, 141. 
 (Ehler, 105. 
 Olevianus, 138. 
 Olshausen, 243, passim. 
 Oostersee, 287. 
 Owen, 345. 
 
 Perkins, 234. 
 Philippi, 206, passim 
 Piscator, 223. 
 Polanus, 375. 
 Priestley, note M. 
 
 Quensted, 234. 
 
 Rauwenhoff, 276. 
 Riggenbach, 143, 288. 
 Ritschl, Preface, 204. 
 Rbellius, 317. 
 Roos, 84. 
 Rothe, 269. 
 Royaards, 341. 
 
 Sartorius, 47, 306. 
 
 Saurin, 152. 
 
 Schleiermacher, 217, and note M. 
 
 Schmid, C. F., 288. 
 
 Schmidt, Seb., 223, 361.
 
 502 
 
 INDEX TO GREEK WORDS ELUCIDATED. 
 
 Schleusner, 275. 
 Schoberlein, 269. 
 Schultens, 179, 405. 
 Seller, 152. 
 Stein, 206. 
 Stillingfleet, 202. 
 Stockius, 106. 
 Stier, R. , 288, passim. 
 Storr, 94, passim. 
 Stuart, M., 406. 
 Suicer, 259. 
 
 Taylor, of Norwich, note M. 
 Theophylact, 347. 
 Tholuck, 346. 
 Thomasius, 93, 159. 
 Tittmann, 206. 
 Tbllner, 242. 
 Trench, 41. 
 Triglandius, 38. 
 Turretin, 206. 
 
 TJllmann, 161. 
 Ursinus, 138, 
 
 Usteri, 217, 256, 285. 
 
 Valckenaer, 37. 
 
 Van Til, 234. 
 
 Van Voorst, 405. 
 
 Vinke, Preface, 296, passim. 
 
 Vitringa, 263, 276, 283. 
 
 Voetius, 152. 
 
 Vossius, 296. 
 
 Weber, 169, passim. 
 Webster and Wilkinson, 259. 
 Wette, De, 204, 213, passim. 
 Willes, Van, Preface, 416. 
 Willigen, V. 151. 
 Windischmann, 250. 
 Winer, 211, passim. 
 Witsins, 24, 367. 
 Wolfbnrgius, 363. 
 Wolfms, 181. 
 Wynpersse, 410. 
 
 Zacharia 4 , 254,, 
 Zanchius, 378. 
 
 IV. INDEX TO GEEEK WOEDS ELUCIDATED. 
 
 TOV aya.irricra.vTos, 303. 
 
 ayidfa, 246, 252. 
 
 d8ri/ui,ovla, 153. 
 
 aidtvios, 406. 
 
 d\f]6ivbs, 56. 
 
 dvrdXXayfj-a, 404. 
 
 &<j>ecns, 213. 
 
 atpeiv, 98. 
 
 avrl, 198. 
 
 Apri, 129. 
 
 /Sairrtfw eh, 394. 
 
 yap, 392. 
 
 5e?, 37. 
 
 Sid, 61, 183. 
 
 SiaBriKT), 211. 
 
 SiKaiocrvvTi, 134. 
 
 5L8(>}fu, 45. 
 
 86a, 361. 
 
 iv dXr/Oeia, 250. 
 
 ^roX^j, 327. 
 
 I|o5os, 245. 
 
 tZovaia, 328. 
 
 X" ri, 243. 
 
 ij, 229. 
 
 Ovalai Qeov, 94. 
 
 IVo, 50, 282. 
 
 /ccupos, 150. 
 /caXos, 322. 
 icaeaptfav, 252. 
 Ka.e&s, 261, 282. 
 Kpiffis, 297. 
 Xi^w, \vcrare, 290. 
 \vrpov, 194. 
 &vo/j.a, 385. 
 6pyTj, 148. 
 Srt, 182, 223. 
 STL indicat., 244. 
 oCrws, 216, 261. 
 Trap' lym*, 351. 
 irdpecris, 381. 
 7re/>J, 199. 
 TT/o-rts, 396. 
 228. 
 
 t, 228. 
 
 w, TcreXeorcu, 181. 
 t, 371. 
 
 roO dvGpwTrov, 110. 
 , 249. 
 w, 258. 
 
 , 191, rWevai, 323. 
 ?;, 191, 275. 
 
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