GIFT OF
THOMAS RUTHERFORD BACO^'
THE ATONEMENT.
THE .ATONEMENT.
THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION LECTURE
FOR i8ys*
y\ . O
R. W. DALE, M.A.,
Birmingham.
NEGLIGENTIA MIHI VIDETUR, SI, POSTQUAM CONFIRMATI SCMUS IN FIDB, NON
STUDEMUS QUOD CRECIMUS lliTEL.LlGE&E."~Anseim.
THIfeU Er/ITION.
Eontion :
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCLXXV.
{All rights reserved. )
J>3
UNWIN BROTHERS, IRINTERS BY WATER-POWER.
ADVERTISEMENT
By the Committee of the Congregational Union
OF England and Wales.
nr^HE Congregational Union Lecture has been
-*- established with a view to the promotion of
Biblical Science, and Theological and Ecclesiastical
Literature.
It is intended that each Lecture shall consist of
a course of Prelections, delivered at the Memorial
Hall, but when the convenience of the Lecturer shall
so require, the oral delivery will be dispensed with.
The Committee hope that the Lecture will be main-
tained in an unbroken Annual Series ; but they promise
to continue it only so long as it seems to be efficiently
serving the end for which it has been established, or as
they may have the necessary funds at their disposal.
For the opinions advanced in any of the Lectures,
the Lecturer alone will be responsible.
i8, South Street, Finsbury,
January^ 1874.
272568
J
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGE
Introductory i
LECTURE II.
The History of our Lord J^esus Christ in I^e-
LATION TO THE FaCT OF THE ATONEMENT . 35
LECTURE III.
The Fact of the Atonement : the Testimony of
OUR Lord 65
LECTURE IV.
The Fact of the Atonement: the Testimony of
St. Peter • • • 97
LECTURE V.
The Fact of the Atonement: the Testimony of
St. John and St. J^ames . . • • i49
LECTURE VI.
The Fact- of the Atonement: the Testimony of
St. Paul 191
viii Contents.
LECTURE VII.
General Considerations Confirmatory of the
Preceding Argument 265
LECTURE VIIL
The Remission of Sins 311
LECTURE IX.
The Theory of the Atonement Illustrated by
THE Relation of our Lord Jesus Christ to
the Eternal Law of Righteousness . .353
LECTURE X.
The Theory of the Atonement Illustrated by
the Relation of our Lord Jesus Christ to
the Human Race 399
APPENDIX .441
PREFACE.
THESE Lectures were prepared at the request
of the Committee of the Congregational Union
of England and Wales, and were delivered in the
Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, during the months
of February, March, and April in the present year.
Concerning the method which I have followed,
there is little to be added to the explanations con-
tained in the Lectures themselves. It may, how-
ever, be well to state that in illustrating the
testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His
Apostles to the Fact of the Atonement, my intention
is simply to show that the Death of Christ is con-
ceived and described as being the objective ground
on which we receive the Remission of sins. The
premature attempt to construct a Theory of the
Atonement on the basis of those descriptions of the
Death of Christ which represent it as a Ransom for
us, or as a Propitiation for the sins of the world,
X Preface.
or on phrases in which Christ is described as dying
for us, or dying for our sins, has been the mis-
chievous cause of most of the erroneous Theories by
which the glory of the Fact has been obscured.
Until we have considered the actual relations of
the Lord Jesus Christ, both to the eternal Law of
Righteousness which the sins of men have violated,
and to the human race, — and until we have dis-
covered what light these relations throw upon the
Fact that His Death is the ground on which sin
is forgiven, — it appears to me that we are in no
position to determine with any confidence to what
extent the Death of the Lord Jesus Christ, which
is described as a " Ransom," is analogous to other
ransoms, or to what extent the Death of Christ,
which is described as a " Propitiation," is analogous
to the propitiatory acts by which men are accus-
tomed to allay the anger of those whom they may
have offended, or to the propitiatory sacrifices by
which the heathen have attempted to avert the
displeasure of angry gods. These descriptions can-
not be made the foundation of a theory of the
Atonement, but they are sure tests by which we
may ascertain the accuracy of a theory. Unless our
conception of the Death of Christ gives a natural
explanation of all the forms in which it is repre-
sented by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the writers
Preface, xi
of the New Testament, our conception is either false
or incomplete.
The series of Lectures of which this is the third,
may be regarded as taking the place of another
series, known as the Congregational Lecture,
which commenced in the year 1833, and which was
suspended about i860. The third Lecture in the
earlier series was also on the Atonement. It was
delivered in the Congregational Library, exactly
forty years ago, by the late Rev. Joseph Gilbert,
of Nottingham, who was one of the most learned
and thoughtful theologians among the Congregational
ministers of his time. I read and re-read Mr.
Gilbert's Lectures at a time when my own theolo-
gical convictions were unformed. How much I am
indebted to them it would be difficult to say. They
always seemed to me singularly judicious and able.
To my friends the Rev. Dr. Henry Allon, the
Rev. J. G. Rogers, the Rev. Professor Simon, and
Professor Massie, I am under obligations of various
kinds. That Dr. Allon and Mr. Rogers, notwith-
standing their own heavy engagements, should have
been good enough to assist me in the irksome task
of revising the proofs of this volume, calls for my
most grateful acknowledgments.
Three or four paragraphs which appeared in two
articles on the Atonement, published in the British
xii Preface,
Quarterly Review for October, 1866, and October, 1867,
have been transferred to the text of these Lectures.
Should any of my readers notice this fact, they must
be good enough to accept my assurance that, in
making use of the British Quarterly articles, I am
not guilty of plagiarism.
R. W. DALE.
Birmingham,
May 6, 1875.
LECTURE I.
INTRODUCTORY
LECTURE r.
INTRODUCTORY.
FRANCIS TURRETIN, — the greatest of Cal-
vinistic theologians — in the first of his celebrated
dissertations on the Satisfaction offered by our Lord
Jesus Christ for the sins of men, speaks of the
doctrine of the Atonement as "the chief part of our
salvation, the anchor of Faith, the refuge of Hope,
the rule of Charity, the true foundation of the Chris-
tian religion, and the richest treasure of the Chris-
tian Church." " So long," he says, ** as this doctrine
is maintained in its integrity, Christianity itself and
the peace and blessedness of all who believe in Christ
are beyond the reach of danger ; but if it is rejected,
or in any way impaired, the whole structure of the
Christian faith must sink into decay and ruin." ^
Such words as these are true only of the Atonement
itself; they cannot be justly used concerning any doc-
trine or theory of the Atonement. There are large
numbers of Christian men who have never been able to
discover any direct relation between the Death of Christ
and the forgiveness of sin, and who sometimes protest
I Note A.
4 Introductory. [lect.
with vehement moral indignation against the doctrine
which alone explains the power of the Cross over their
own conscience and heart. It remains true that
Christ's Death — though they know neither how nor
why — has done more than either His teaching or His
life to constrain and enable them to trust in the mercy
of God for the pardon of sin ; and because Christ is the
Propitiation for the sins of the world, God has re-
sponded to their trust, and they are eternally saved.
For it is not the doctrine of the Death of Christ that
atones for human sin, but the Death itself; and great as
are the uses of the doctrine in promoting the healthy
and vigorous development of the spiritual life, the
Death of Christ has such a wonderful power, that it
inspires faith in God, and purifies the heart, though
the doctrine of the Atonement may be unknown or
denied.
Even among those who accept, in their direct
and obvious sense, the explicit declarations of Holy
Scripture, that '' Christ once suffered for sins, the Just
for the unjust, to bring us to God," there are very
many — and perhaps their number is rapidly increasing
— who shrink from the attempt to determine the
precise function of the Death of Christ in human
redemption. Reverence restrains their speculation.
In the presence of the Son of God, dying for the sins of
men, they can only acknowledge with penitence the
greatness of their guilt and adore the infinite ten-
derness and strength of the Divine Love. Or they
beUeve that the mystery of His Death transcends the
i»] Introductory. 5
limits of human intelligence, and belongs to provinces
of the Divine life and thought which are altogether
inacessible to us. Or the history of theological doc-
trine has convinced them that the attempt to form a
theory of the Atonement is not only presumptuous but
perilous, and will inevitably introduce into our con-
ception of the supreme manifestation of the Divine
Mercy elements derived from human imperfection, by
which its moral and spiritual power will be diminished
and its original glory obscured. It is even feared, and
not without reason, that we may so speculate on the
relations between the Death of Christ and the Divine
government of the human race, as to provoke men to
deny that, in any sense, the Lord Jesus Christ died
to atone for the sins of the world. We are warned
that the fact may be rejected, because our explanations
of it are incredible.
No one who has thought much on this doctrine can
be insensible either to the difficulties which encompass
it, or to the grave and complicated evils which a false
conception of it may inflict on the life of the Church.
The difficulties are obvious. In the present condition
of theological thought many of them are insoluble ; and
it is more than doubtful whether some of them will
ever disappear until we have the open vision of God
on the other side of death.
For any comp^pte theory of the Atonement must
include a definition of the eternal relations between
the Son of God and the Father. It is the habit of
6 Introductory, [lect.
some modern theological thinkers to say that the
names by which we know the several Persons of the
Trinity are derived from their revealed relations to
mankind. This may be conceded; but surely these
relations are conditioned by relations deeper than
themselves. We cannot imagine that He whom we
know as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
could have laid aside His glory and assumed the same
relationship to the Son that the Son assumed to Him :
if this were possible, then the relationship as known to
us between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father
would be purely contingent and arbitrary, and would
rest on no eternal fact in the nature of God. What
may be described as the internal and mutual relations
of the Trinity must contain the ultimate solution of
some of the questions suggested by the relation of
Christ in His redemptive work to the Father. But
the development of the doctrine of the Trinity has
been practically arrested for thirteen or fourteen
hundred years ; and in those early centuries when
that doctrine absorbed the theological thought of the
Church, the theory of the Atonement had as yet
assumed so rudimentary and imperfect a form that it
was impossible for theologians to appreciate the close
and profound relations between these two great pro-
vinces of Christian speculation. During the Athana-
sian controversies the construction of the doctrine of
the Trinity suffered very seriously through the absence
of a just theory of the Atonement ; and until the
doctrine of the Trinity has received a much richer and
I-] Introductory, *j
fuller development, there are questions relating to the
theory of the Atonement to which we can give no
reply.
Nor, on the other hand, has the thought of the
Church ever reached a firm, coherent, and permanent
conception of the original relation of the Eternal Word
or Son of God to the created universe, and especially to
our own race — a relation which appears to underlie the
possibility of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and to involve the solution of some of the severest
speculative difficulties connected with the theory of
Redemption. It cannot, indeed, be alleged that the
question has never been seriously investigated. It
was forced upon the consideration of the early Church
by the wild dreams of Gnosticism ; it was partially
illustrated by the profound thought of Athanasius ;
it was not overlooked by the schoolmen of the
Middle Ages; it has occupied a prominent place in
the noblest theological speculation of Germany during
the last half century. But the question has never
passed out of the province of speculation into the
province of faith. It belongs to theologians, and not
to the commonalty of the Church. The great
words of St. Paul — " For in Him were all things
created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible
and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers • all things were created
by Him and for [et? imto'l Him : and He is before
all things, and in Him all things consist"^ — give us
I Col. i. i6, 17.
8 Introductory, [lect.
a glimpse of vast and fruitful provinces of truth which
are almost unknown to us. They have been traversed
from time to time by the solitary path of adventurous
speculation, but the Church has never made her home
there : the golden harvests are unreaped ; not even
a wandering sect has pitched its tents and fed its flocks
on those rich and boundless plains. They belong to a
remote and glorious realm lying far beyond the frontiers
of familiar truth — a realm whose mountain ranges and
whose rivers are laid down in no theological survey
which the Church has accepted as authentic, and
whose wealth has never enriched the common thought
of Christendom. All things were created " in Him,"
"by Him," "for Him;" "in Him all things con-
sist," — these wonderful words are still " dark with
excess of light." They affirm the existence and define
the character of relations between the Divine person-
ality of the Lord Jesus Christ and the universe which
we have never been able to grasp ; but a clear con-
ception of these relations is indispensable to a satis-
factory theory of the Atonement.
There are some other preliminary questions lying
on the border land of philosophy and of theology, of
which at present we appear to have discovered no final
and generally accepted solution, although the solution
has been repeatedly attempted both in ancient and in
modern times. How, for instance, are we to conceive
of the law of righteousness, which we have violated
by the sins for which Christ died ? Is the law the ex-
pression of God's arbitrary will, or is it necessary and
I-] Introductory. g
eternal ? If necessary and eternal, is God so related
to it that His freedom is determined and controlled by
the law, so that the law is supreme and God only its
minister ? Or is there a sense in which, even in
relation to the eternal law of righteousness, He is
**God over all, blessed for evermore"?
These questions, again, involve the nature and ne-
cessity of Punishment. Are we to think of Punishment
as a stern but benignant expedient for the discipline of
God's moral creatures ? Or are the penalties which
vindicate the authority of the Divine law rooted in
principles as necessary and immutable as those which
are expressed in its precepts ?
In the presence of questions like these, which con-
front us on the very threshold of any serious inquiry
into the doctrine of the Atonement, the hardihood of
speculation must be abashed; and it may appear to
many devout minds that the inquiry is not only pre-
sumptuous and perilous, but profane. Some of these
problems are confessedly insoluble in the present con-
dition of theological science ; some of them appear to
lie beyond the farthest range of our intellectual powers.
We can find peace and strength and consolation in the
certainty of the remission of sins for Christ's sake. Is
it not safer to cease to speculate on the mode in which
His Death is related to the Divine government and to
the redemption of our race ? To confess the limitations
of human knowledge is the part not only of devout
humility, but of the highest wisdom. When God de-
scended in clouds and fire and glory on the mountain
10 Introductory, [lect.
in the desert, the people were commanded to stand afar
off, and were warned that if they ventured, at the
impulse of a daring curiosity, to ** break through unto
the Lord to gaze," they would perish. Are we not
guilty of a similar offence in attempting to penetrate
a more august and awful mystery ? The words of
Richard Hooker express the temper which we should
cherish in all our thoughts on the ways of God, and
never is that temper more necessary than when we
are contemplating the very crisis and agony of the
Divine struggle with the sins and miseries of mankind,
the supreme act of the Divine love, the central mystery
towards which all other mysteries converge : " Dan-
gerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far
into the doings of the Most High, whom, although, to
know be life, and joy to make mention of His name,
yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know
Him not as, indeed. He is, neither can know Him; and
our safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence,
when we confess without confession that His glory
is inexplicable. His greatness above our capacity and
reach. He is above, and we upon earth ; therefore it
behoveth our words to be wary and few." '
We may accept the caution, but it is doubtful whether
it lies within our power to remain neutral in the presence
of conflicting theories of the Atonement. The funda-
mental question. Whether the Death of Christ has a
direct relation to the remission of sins, or whether it was
I Ecclesiastical Polity, bk. i. cap. 2 ; Works, vol. i. p. 201.
I.] Introductory. II
simply a great appeal of the Divine love to the human
race — "God's method of conquering the human heart"
— determines the whole attitude of the Christian soul to
Christ. One of these two conceptions we must accept,
one we must reject, not merely as theologians, but as
Christians. One of these two theories is implicated
in every devotional act, in every confession of sin, in
every prayer for forgiveness, in every thanksgiving for
redemption.
If we say that we are sure that the Death of Christ
reveals the infinite love of God, but that we cannot
tell whether it has a direct relation to human sin and
human forgiveness, and that we must be satisfied
to remain in doubt, we do not liberate ourselves from
the responsibility of a decision. Our election between
the rival theories is made, even when we think that
we have refused to make it. What we relegate to
the shadowy region -of uncertainty forms no spiritual
habit and quickens no spiritual affection ; what we
regard as true, becomes one of the active forces of our
spiritual life.
If we go so far as to acknowledge that there are parts
of our Lord's teaching, and of the teaching of His
Apostles, which are perfectly conclusive in favour of
one of these alternatives — the alternative which repre-
sents the almost unanimous faith of Christendom from
the earliest times to our own — it is hardly possible for
us to escape a conception of the Sacrifice of Christ
which will amount to a theory of the Atonement. We
may refuse to speculate on the i^ecessities of the Divine
12 Introductory, [lect.
government or of the Divine nature, which the Death
of Christ has been supposed to satisfy, or on its pre-
cise relation to the exercise of the Divine mercy in
the remission of sin ; but if there is habitual trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Propitiation for the
sins of the world, we shall have a theory, spite of
ourselves.
It seems very difficult to attribute any religious
authority to the New Testament writers and yet to
refuse to accept a theory of the Atonement. The
rudiments of a theory are contained in all the terms
by which they describe the nature and purpose of
the Death of Christ. " Christ died for the ungodly;"
He "suffered, . . . the Just for the unjust;" these
words must either remain non-significant for us, or
else we must make our choice between interpreting
them as meaning that the Death of Christ had a
vicarious, or perhaps a representative, character, or as
meaning nothing more than that in some general way
His death was intended for our advantage ; and if we
accept the last hypothesis we have still to determine
the kind of benefit that we derive fronl it.
The Apostles often represent the Death of Christ as
a '^ransom," and speak of its effect as "redemption."
We can, of course, practically obliterate these expres-
sions by declining to attach any meaning to them ; but
if we feel that to cancel isolated passages in the mere
text of the apostolic writings is a less presumptuous
offence than to cancel ideas which are wrought into
the whole substance of apostolic teaching, we shall
I.] Introductory, 13
endeavour to discover what conception of the Death of
Christ underlies expressions in w^hich it is represented
as being analogous to the price that is paid for the
ransom of slaves.
That the Apostles believed in the existence of a very
intimate relation betw^een human sin and the Sacrifice
of Christ, is indisputable. Not in set and uniform
phrases, but under a considerable variety of forms,
they affirm that it was for our sins that Christ
suffered. It is not easy — it is, perhaps, impossible —
for those who are constantly reading the New Tes-
tament to leave this relation vague and indefinite.
We shall incline either to the theory that Christ
suffered for our sins, because suffering came upon Him
instead of coming on us, or that in the depth and per-
fection of His sympathy with us our guilt seemed to
become His own, or that His Death was simply the
natural result of the antagonism of the human heart to
perfect goodness, and that He therefore " suffered for
sins," just as all good men have suffered who elected
to endure the worst that malice and wickedness could
inflict upon them rather than be unfaithful to God. In
any case, we adopt a theological theory.
There are other forms under which the Death of
Christ is represented in the New Testament which make
it still more difficult to practise a severe abstinence
from all speculation on this great mystery. When, for
instance, St. John affirms that our Lord Jesus Christ
" is the Propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours
only, but also for the sins of the whole world," the
14 Introductory. [lect.
Apostle does not simply affirm that in some undefined
way the Lord Jesus Christ secures for us the Divine
pardon : he expresses a definite conception of the way
in which Christ secures it. We may refuse to analyse
this conception ; we may pronounce it impossible to
determine whether a Propitiation was necessary before
God could forgive us, or how, and in what sense, Christ
was a Propitiation ; but if we admit this conception of
the work of Christ into our minds at all, we surrender
ourselves to a theological theory. The results of re-
fusing to make the theory a definite object of reflection
may be most mischievous. We may come almost un-
consciously to ascribe to God those blind movements
of passion which, among ourselves, are sometimes
exhausted by the infliction of cruel suffering, and some-
times placated by ignominious submission or by still
more ignominious intercession : our idea of God may be
corrupted, and we may involve the Sacrifice of Christ
in the deepest dishonour. To speculate is perilous ;
not to speculate may be more perilous still.
It is very possible for our theory of the Atonement to
be crude and incoherent, but it is hardly possible to
have no theory at all. Some conception, however
vague, of the relations between human sin and the
Death of Christ, and between the Death of Christ and
the Divine forgiveness, will take form and substance in
the mind of every man who is in the habit of reading
the New Testament, and who believes that the teaching
of Christ and of His Apostles reveals the thought of
God.
I.] Introductory, 15
Further, to insist that a due reverence for the awful
greatness of God requires us to accept the fact that
we are forgiven for Christ's sake, but to make no
attempt to discover the principles of the Divine govern-
ment or the perfections of the Divine nature which the
fact illustrates, appears to be inconsistent with the
characteristic spirit of the Christian revelation and a
renunciation of the prerogatives which belong to the
sons of God. " The entrance of Thy words giveth
light : " this is the testimony of one who lived in those
early times when God dwelt apart, when " clouds and
darkness'* were round about Him, and the hearts of
saints were longing for that clearer vision of His glory
which was to be the joy and wonder of later and
happier generations. Even then the Divine Word was
something more than a dark formula in an unknown
tongue. It was not an incantation or a spell. When
it came to men even as a definite law the underlying
principle shone through.
It was necessary, no doubt, in the earlier stages of
the history of our race that the Will should be chas-
tened and disciplined by authoritative commandments ;
for men must be formed to the practice of the ele-
mentary virtues before it is possible for them to recog-
nise the beauty and nobleness and eternal obligation
of Righteousness. But commandments which at first
seemed arbitrary were so transfigured that to devout
souls the Divine "statutes" became "songs" which
filled with music the house of their pilgrimage. When
the heir differed nothing from a servant, though he was
1 6 Introductory, [lect.
lord of all, God relaxed the bonds of mere external
authority for those who had the spirit of children, and
treated them not as slaves, but as sons. Now that
** the fulness of time has come " it is at once our duty
and our blessedness to accept complete emancipation,
and to ** stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free."
This liberty is something more than exemption from
the mere inconveniences imposed by the irksome re-
straints of the ancient law. It is one of the noblest
prerogatives of that higher and more intimate rela-
tionship to the Father into which we have entered
through our union with Christ. It determines the
spirit and form of the whole revelation of God's cha-
racter and will, and it should determine our own
attitude in the presence of that revelation.
The precepts of the Lord Jesus Christ are all of a
kind to enlighten the conscience, and not merely to
control the will. They are useless so long as the
principles of which they are the expression do not
shine in their own light. They are positively mis-
chievous to those who try to obey them as rules instead
of using them freely as aids to the apprehension of
great ethical and spiritual laws. " Give to him that
asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee,
turn not thou away; " ** Take no thought for your life,
what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for
your body what ye shall put on ; " *' Judge not, that ye be
not judged;" — these commandments and many others
are unavailable as mere rules of conduct. They fulfil
!•] Introductory. ly
a higher purpose, and are intended so to exalt and
purify our ideal of perfection that every Christian man
may become a law to himself.
The revelation of Truth in the New Testament
conforms to the same method. It comes to us not as
dogma, but as doctrine. We are " taught of God," and
are not merely required to profess our faith in the
articles of a creed. There are, no doubt, positive
declarations that the Lord Jesus Christ was God
manifest in the flesh, — declarations which have been
built up by theologians into massive arguments for
the defence of the great truth of our Lord's divinity.
But the reverence and worship with which we bow
down before Him who is seated at God's right hand,
*'far above all principality, and power, and might, and
dominion, and every name that is named, not only in
this world, but also in that which is to come," the
loyal homage that we offer to " the King of kings and
Lord of lords" are not the answer of a blind submission
to the "proof-texts" of dogmatic theology. We, too,
have seen " His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten
of the Father," " we have heard Him ourselves, and
know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the
world."
" He that followeth Me " — this was His own promise
— " shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light
of life." He has declared that if we " continue " in
His "Word," we "shall know the Truth." What we
receive at first on His bare authority, we shall come to
know for ourselves — as He knew it ; not, indeed, with
3
1 8 Introductory. [lect.
the same fulness and completeness of knowledge, but
with the same directness of intuition.
If it should be said that this immediate knowledge
of spiritual truth is transcendental, and that even those
to whom it comes in largest measure may be unable to
translate it into the forms of the logical understanding ;
that the vision of God which is promised to *' the pure
in heart " is one thing, and the theory of God which is
attempted by the theological or philosophical intellect
a different thing altogether, I admit it. This admis-
sion, however, can be of little service to those who
contend that the Death of Christ as the Propitiation for
the sins of the world is a mystery of which we can
know nothing, and which we cannot attempt to pene-
trate without presumption. All theological theories,
which are anything more than empirical classifications
of Scripture texts, are imperfect attempts to express in
the language of the intellect what has been imme-
diately revealed to the spirit ; as all scientific theories
are attempts to express in the language of -the intellect
w^hat has been immediately revealed to the senses.
We are related to two worlds — the world of physical
phenomena and the world of spiritual facts and persons.
Of both we have an immediate and direct, though
limited, knowledge. The function discharged by science
for the knowledge which comes to us, we know not how,
of the boundless and incessant flux of colour, and
sound, and form in the material universe, is discharged
by theology for the knowledge which comes to us, we
know not how, of the universe of spiritual life and
I-] Introductory, ig
action. That there should be presumption in the
attempt of sinful creatures like ourselves to look on
the very face of God, I could understand. I could
understand the humility and dread with which devout
men might warn us that so long as the imperfections
of this mortal condition are still upon us, it must be
presumptuous to invoke the illumination of the Holy
Ghost to reveal to us the very thought and life of God as
expressed in the redemptive work of Christ ; but such
warnings cannot be listened to, for it was of this imme-
diate revelation that our Lord was speaking when He
said, " This is life eternal, that they might know Thee,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast
sent." And since we are encouraged to hope and to
pray for this transcendent knowledge, it is difficult to
perceive how we can be guilty of presumption in at-
tempting to give to what has been revealed to us
accurate intellectual expression. And this is what I
mean by a theory of the Atonement.
I propose, therefore, in this series of Lectures to
show that there is a direct relation between the Death
of Christ and the remission of sins, and to investigate
the principles and grounds of that relation. I have
first to establish a Fact, and then to attempt the con-
struction of a Theory.
The proof that in the New Testament our Lord's
Death is represented as the objective ground on which
God absolves us from sin and delivers us from eternal
3^^
20 Introductory. [lect.
destruction has been exhibited with great elaboration
and with a large amount of exegetical learning in many
treatises on the Atonement. All the passages have
been classified and carefully analysed which affirm that
our Lord died for sinners, that He died for our sins,
that He bore our sins, that He was made sin for us,
that He was made a curse for us, that we have re-
mission of sins and deliverance from wrath through
Him, that He gave His life as a ransom for us, that
His death was a Sacrifice, that He is the Propitiation
for the sins of the world/ The collection of passages
seems to be very complete, and I do not know that the
classification can be improved. Nor is there much to
be added to the criticism and illustration of the
separate texts on which the argument is built, for
since the days of Socinus these texts have been
investigated and reinvestigated in the interests of
hostile schools of theology.
It is not my intention, therefore, to present the
argument precisely in this form. The proof as it
stands appears to me to be conclusive, and within the
narrow limits of this series of Lectures it may not be
possible for me to add anything to its cogency. But I
propose to adopt a somewhat different method, which,
if it were properly handled, might, I think, greatly
strengthen the argument.
It must be obvious to every reader of the New
Testament that a mere catalogue of texts in which
any great truth is definitely taught can never give a
I Note B.
1-] Introductory. 21
just impression of the place whicli that truth held in
the thought and faith of the Apostles. This obser-
vation has a special application to texts selected from
the apostolic epistles. For these epistles were for the
most part occasional writings. They were suggested by
accidental circumstances. The space which is given
to the illustration of particular doctrines or duties was
determined, not by the intrinsic and permanent im-
portance of the doctrines or duties themselves, but by
the perils which threatened the Christian faith or the
Christian integrity of the Churches to which they were
written, and by many other circumstances of a tem-
porary character. The exhortations addressed to the
Church at Corinth to contribute liberally to the relief
of the distressed Christians in Judaea fill as many
columns in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians as
the discussion of the doctrine of the Resurrection in
the First Epistle. ' The moral scandals and disorders
in the Corinthian Church occupy as many pages in
the two epistles to that Church as the doctrine of
Justification in the Epistle to the Romans ; and these
disorders and scandals were of a kind which are never
likely to occur except in the transition from a heathen
to a Christian life.
The frequency and distinctness with which a doc-
trine is asserted in the apostolic writings is, therefore,
no test of its importance. It might even be contended
with considerable plausibility that the importance of
a doctrine is likely to be in the inverse ratio of the
number of passages in which it is directly taught; for the
22 Introductory. [lect.
central and most characteristic truths of the Christian
Faith are precisely those which the Churches were least
likely to abandon. These truths were safe, and the
Epistles generally deal with the truths which were in
danger. Even in writing to Churches largely composed
of converts from heathenism, it was not necessary for
St. Paul to dwell at length on the unity of God and to
denounce idolatry, for if a man was a Christian at all,
he had finally abandoned the altars and the divinities
of his heathen countrymen. Nor was it necessary to
reiterate that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God and
the Saviour of men, for unless men had acknowledged
His claims they would have had no place in the
Churches to which the Epistles were addressed.
From the very nature of the apostolic writing:s those
truths which belong to the essence of the Christian
creed are, for the most part, implied rather than
explicitly taught ; they are appealed to and taken for
granted as the recognised motives to Christian living
and the recognised sources of Christian hope and
consolation ; they are frequently the inspiration of
rapturous thanksgiving, and they frequently constitute
the substance and the argument of a prayer.
To make collections of '* proof-texts " is therefore an
unsatisfactory means of arriving at a knowledge of
apostolic faith. We must resort to less easy and less
direct methods. Some of the passages which are most
decisive in the determination of what the Apostles
believed could find no place in such arrangements of
*' proofs " as are common in theological treatises.
"i-] Introductory, 23
An illustration of what I mean occurs in the well-
known passage on the Lord's Supper in the First
Epistle to the Corinthians. Its direct intention is to
rescue the Lord's Supper from dishonour and to se-
cure its reverential celebration. St. Paul uses words
which have caused many devout persons to approach
the Lord's Table with dread. But that in a Church
founded by the Apostle himself a very short time before
the Epistle was written, it should have been possible
for the Lord's Supper to be associated with the dis-
graceful excesses which he rebukes, and that in rebuking
them he makes no use of the awful argument which
would have come at once to the lips of a priest of the
Church of Rome or a Ritualistic priest of the Church
of England, is a proof, from which there can be no
appeal, that St. Paul had never taught and did not
believe that the consecrated bread and wine are
changed into the body and blood of Christ.
To take another illustration. There is no passage
in the New Testament which is more destructive of
the humanitarian theory of our Lord's person than that
in which St. John says that *' every spirit that con-
fesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not
of God ; and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof
ye have heard that it should come; and even now
already is it in the world." ^
As a " proof-text " these words would be alleged in
support of the truth that our Lord was really man ; but
that it should have been necessary for the apostle to
^ I John iv. 3.
24 Introductory, [lect.
assert His humanity with such vehemence is an
absolute- demonstration that the Church had been
taught to regard Him as being infinitely more than
man. In our times the philosophical difficulties of the
Incarnation are often solved by the denial of the super-
human dignity of our Lord ; but this was impossible in
the first century. His superhuman dignity had so filled
the imagination of the Church, that the solution was
sought in the denial of His humanity.
No catena of quotations can adequately represent
the overwhelming evidence that the Apostles believed
in the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. If all the
"proof-texts" usually alleged from the apostolic epistles
in support of this doctrine were cancelled, the proof
would remain almost as strong as before. There is
hardly a page in which it is not clear that to the
founders of the Christian Church, Christ was infinitely
more than an inspired teacher or an example of perfect
holiness. He is never out of their thoughts. All their
teaching centres in Him, and in Him they find the
sanction of every duty and the foundation of every
hope. To the saved He is wisdom and righteousness,
sanctification and redemption; and when He is revealed
from heaven with His mighty angels, and in flaming
fire, the lost are to be punished with eternal destruc-
tion. The history of the world before His Incarnation
was a long and weary waiting for His coming, and with
His second advent the history of the world is to come
to a close. In Him all earthly relations are trans-
figured, and those who are one with Him have already
!•] Introductory. 25
passed into the kingdom of heaven. He is the object
of a reverence which cannot be distinguished from
worship, and of a love as fervent as that which glows
in the anthems of the cherubim and seraphim that
surround the throne of God. In Him the Apostles
** live and move and have their being." His will is
their supreme law; His glory their supreme end; His
approbation their supreme reward. To select a score
of passages in which it is affirmed that Christ is
God, or in which divine attributes, divine preroga-
tives, or divine works are ascribed to Him, and to treat
these quotations as though they constituted the evi-
dence that, to St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John, the
Lord Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh, is to
do injustice to the argument. The real proof lies in the
absolute sovereignty in which Christ is enthroned over
their moral and spiritual life ; and the illustrations of
this can hardly be subjected to logical analysis and
arrangement.
What is true of the Divinity of our Lord is also true
of His Atonement for human sin. That the Apostles
regarded the Death of Christ as a Sacrifice and Propitia-
tion for the sins of the world appears in many passages
which yield no direct testimony to the doctrine. It some-
times determines the form and structure of an elaborate
argument, which falls to pieces if this truth is denied.
At other times it gives pathos and power to a practical
appeal. It accounts for some of the misconceptions
and misrepresentations of apostolic teaching. It ex-
plains the absence from the apostolic writings of very
26 Introductory. [lect.
much that we should certainly have found in them if
the Apostles had not believed that for Christ's sake,
and not merely because of the effect o-n our hearts of
what Christ has revealed, God grants us remission of
sins. It penetrates the whole substance of their theo-
logical and ethical teaching, and is the very root of
their religious life. If, instead of selecting pas-
sages in which it is categorically affirmed that Christ
died for us — died that we might have remission of sins,
died as a Propitiation for sin — we selected those which
would lose all their force and all their significance if this
truth were rejected, it would be necessary to quote a large
part of the New Testament. For reasons which I shall
attempt to explain in the next Lecture, it is equally
impossible to exhibit the testimony of the four Gospels
to this truth by the mere enumeration of those passages
in our Lord's teaching in which He speaks of the
nature and purpose of His Death.
It may appear to some persons that the questions
which I propose to discuss have no longer any real
interest to mankind. It can hardly be said indeed
that the temper of our times is not favourable to
theological investigation. But in this country, at
least, the great race of dogmatic theologians has dis-
appeared, and purely doctrinal controversies, which
once created fierce excitement, and in which the
noblest intellects of Christendom revealed the wealth
of their learning and the splendour of their genius,
have come to be regarded with indifference. But surely
I-] Introductory, 27
the question whether the original teachers of the
Christian Faith represented the Death of Christ as a
Propitiation for the sins of mankind, is invested, at
least, with the greatest historical"^ interest by the vast
and enduring influence which their writings have
exerted, not only on the religious thought, but on the
civilization and political fortunes of the foremost races
of the modern world.
The questions we are to investigate have an in-
terest of another kind ; for in the whole range of prob-
lems which have exercised the genius of men from the
very dawn of philosophy to our own times, there are
none which transcend in majesty, in difficulty, or in
speculative importance, the problems of which a true
theory of the Atonement ought to contain a partial if
not a complete solution.
But it is neither the historical nor the speculative
interest of this subject that has induced me to under-
take to discuss it. The Christian Faith, in the judg-
ment both of its enemies and its friends, is at this
moment threatened by dangers as formidable as any
which it has ever had to confront during the whole
course of its history. For myself I am unable to dis-
cover any signs that its power is decaying, much less
that its glory is destined to early extinction. In our
own days, and after the lapse of eighteen centuries, its
influence is gradually extending among the civilised
populations of Asia; it is redeeming the races of
Central and Southern Africa from barbarism ; it is
giving intellectual culture and a higher morality, as
28 Introductory. [lect.
well as a purer faith, to the scattered tribes of the
Pacific Ocean; and, notwithstanding all adverse appear-
ances, it is, I believe, maintaining its power over the
kindred nations of Europe and America. The very
bitterness and vehemence, the anger and the scorn, the
infinite variety of argument, and the inexhaustible
energy of hostility with which Christianity is assailed,
demonstrate how strongly it is entrenched in the com-
mon faith and common traditions of Christian nations,
and demonstrate, too, the intensity of the devotion
and the depth of the reverence with which it is cherished
in the hearts of innumerable Christian men.
There were times, indeed, when the Christian priest-
hood exerted an authority in the States of Europe
which they have happily lost. The science and learn-
ing of the West were in the hands of the doctors of
the Church, and the priests of Rome inherited the
great traditions and the principles of policy which had
made the Eternal City the mistress of the world. They
laid a strong hand on the vigorous but uncultivated
and superstitious nations which overran the dislocated
provinces of the fallen empire, and governed them by
their sagacity, by their courage, by their knowledge of
the science of legislation, by their general intellectual
superiority, by the compactness of their organization,
and by their lofty pretensions to be the representatives
of the august authority of God and the channels of His
infinite mercy. Those were the days when the wealth
and power of princes were at the command of the Church;
and majestic cathedrals and stately monasteries, en-
I.] Introductory, ' 29
riched with costly marbles, with curious sculpture,
with shrines of silver and of gold, rose towards heaven
in every country of Europe from the North Sea to the
shores of the Mediterranean ; and bishops were the
chancellors and ambassadors of mighty kingdoms, and
great priests outshone the splendour and defeated the
ambition of great nobles. They were *'Ages of Faith;"
but the Faith was not the Faith which listens for itself
to the voice of God, and finds in Him absolution from
guilt, consolation in sorrow, and the hope which
triumphs over death and exults in the vision of an
immortality of glory. It clung to the priest rather
than to Christ, and was filled with awe and wonder
by the power and magnificence of the Church rather
than with devout fear and perfect joy by the majesty
and love of the living God.^ And so, when the rulers
of the Church became luxurious, feeble, and corrupt,
and when the great resources of the races which they
had disciplined and civilised began to be developed, the
Ages of Faith gradually vanished away.
Many causes contributed to that great revolution.
The orators, philosophers, and poets of the ancient
world rising from the tomb of centuries wrested from
priests and monks the intellectual supremacy which
had been a principal element of their power. States-
^ Les ^veques avoient remplacd, pour lui [Clovis], non point les
pretres de la Germanie, mais les idoles dans le culte desquelles il
avoit 6t6 dleve. C'etoient les dveques qu'il servoit, qu'il adoroit,
et il pactisoit avec eux comme un homme accoutum^ k encenscr
des fetiches. — Sismondi, Precis de VHidorie aes FraiigaiJ, voi. i.
page 39.
30 Introductory, [lect.
men and kings, who had learnt the art and prin-
ciples of government from the Church, began to desire
to govern for themselves, and they chafed under the
pretensions of ecclesiastical consuls deriving their
authority from Rome. The schism widened ; the
revolt went on ; every new generation added new ele-
ments of bitterness to the conflict ; and now that a
great part of Europe has finally broken away from the
control of the Church, it has become apparent that
though Christendom had submitted to the ascendency
of the priesthood, it had never really submitted to the
authority of Christ.
The irreligion and the unbelief which were once
suppressed by the power of a vast ecclesiastical organ-
ization, are suppressed no longer ; and the sullen moral
resistance which was offered for centuries to the true
Faith, and which revealed itself in the violent passions,
the coarse vices, and the rude superstitions of an igno-
rant population, reveals itself now in an active and
energetic intellectual antagonism.
There may, however, be as much living Faith in God
in these days of open revolt against the throne of
Christ as in the days when the Church ruled the na-
tions with an uncontested authority. But the revolt is
general. Unbelief has become not only articulate, but
eloquent. It is rich in the old learning, and it claims
for its own the new sciences. It has the audacity of
youth and the restless energy of genius. Its hostility
to the characteristic truths and claims of the Christian
revelation is relentless and uncompromising. I prefer
I.] Introductory, 31
the new conditions of the conflict to the old. We are
stripped of every adventitious advantage. Henceforth
the triumphs of the Church will be real — the triumphs
of the truth of Christ and of the power of the Holy
Ghost.
In this hour — not of peril, but of fierce struggle —
the Church must use all her varied and boundless
resources — her science, her learning, her logic, her
eloquence — and must use them with a patience, a
courage, and an energy corresponding to the great
issues of the strife.
But our true strength lies in those moral and spi-
ritual forces by which, in all ages, the victories of the
kingdom of heaven have been won. We must not be
satisfied with an attempt to demonstrate the authority
of the Christian Faith ; we must so preach it that, even
apart from demonstration, its authority shall be con-
fessed. The consciences of men must be made to appre-
hend the reality of sin, and their hearts must be filled
with dread and with hope by the anger and the mercy of
the living God. The mysterious instinct, suppressed but
not destroyed, which bears witness to the kinship of the
human soul to the Father of spirits, must be quickened
into activity ; and then, without any argument of ours,
men will recognise in the voice of Christ an august
sovereignty to which they cannot refuse to do homage,
and will discover for themselves that in dying, the Just
for the unjust, to bring us to God, He has met the
deepest wants of their spiritual life as well as revealed
the infinite wealth and tendern'jss of the Divme love.
32 Introductory, [lect.
The power of the Spirit of God is with us, and He, in
wonderful ways, finds direct access to the innermost
life of man, piercing through intellectual difficulties
and antagonisms which seemed to create invincible
obstacles to the Truth. The human conscience and
heart are also with us. There is an indestructible
conviction in the human soul that God must be on the
side of righteousness, and that all sin must be intoler-
able to Him. There are vague fears of His displea-
sure which cannot be dissipated ; there is a restless
craving for access to Him ; there is a sense of loneli-
ness and desolation so long as the soul has not found
Him, which no intellectual or sensual excitements can
permanently stifle ; there is a hope, faint and falter-
ing, yet with strange vitality in it, that although God
seems no longer " nigh at hand," He cannot have
forsaken and forgotten us altogether, and that in some
way He will surely return to us.
It is because the great truths and laws, of which the
Atonement of Christ is the highest and most perfect ex-
pression, appeal directly to these central and enduring
elements of the moral life of man, and because the Atone-
ment satisfies what .in every age, and through all the
changes of his intellectual and social condition, is man's
chief necessity, that we in our times should rely upon the
power of the Death of Christ for the triumph of the
Divine Righteousness and Love over the doubt as well
as the sins and sorrows of mankind. We ourselves
may derive inspiration and energy from the truths
which we must preach to others, for the zeal of the
1 1 Introductory. 33
Church has always been kindled into intensest fervour
at the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and the Cross
has always been the symbol of her strength and the
prophecy of her victories.
I may be unable to contribute any additional force
to the evidence that the Death of the Lord Jesus
Christ was an Atonement for sin, and I may fail
to illustrate its relations to the life of God, the life
of man, and the laws of the spiritual universe ; but if
any of those who listen to these Lectures, and any of
those who read them, are drawn to deeper and devouter
thought upon the mystery and glory of His great
Sacrifice, I shall not have written or spoken in vain.
LECTURE II.
THE HISTORY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
IN RELATION TO THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT.
A*
LECTURE IL
THE HISTORY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IN RELATION
TO THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT.
IT is assumed in this series of Lectures that the
Lord Jesus Christ was ** God manifest in the
flesh." The revelation which has come to us through
Him is, therefore, different in kind from that which has
come to us through the Prophets of the Old Testament
and the Apostles of the New.
It is said of Moses that the Lord spake to him " face
to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend," ^ and that
Isaiah " saw His glory." ^ St. Paul declared that the
gospel preached by him was *'not of man ;" — ** I neither
received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the
revelation of Jesus Christ." 3 And St. John describes
his own function, and that of the other Apostles, when
hie says, " The life was manifested, and we have seen
it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal
life which was with the Father, and was manifested
unto us." ^
But the Lord Jesus Christ was Himself the "bright-
ness of [God*s] glory, and the express image of His
' Exod. xxxiii. ii. 2 John xii. 41. 3 Gal. i. 12.
4 I John i. 2.
^8 The History of our Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
person."' And to one of the Apostles, who was
longing for the immediate vision of God, and who
said to Him, " Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us,'*
our Lord replied, " He that hath seen Me hath seen
-fthe Father." =* When Prophets have told us their
visions and Apostles their gospel, their work is done.
They are weak, erring, sinful men like ourselves. They
have seen the Divine glory, and they tell us what they
have seen. They have been taught of God, and they
tell us what they have learnt. But the revelation is
over when they cease to speak. Their personal cha-
racter and history, their relations to their friends and
to their enemies, their occupations, their sorrows and
their joys — all these have only a secondary and human
interest. It is not so with our Lord Jesus Christ. Far
more of God was revealed in what He was, in what
He did, and in what He suffered, than in what He
taught.
The resources of human language had been almost
^ exhausted, before Christ came, in the attempt to cele-
brate the majesty, the holiness, and the mercy of God ;
and although, as a Teacher of religious truth, the Lord
Jesus Christ had a unique power, we misapprehend
the character of the supremacy which He claims, if we
suppose that it is to be illustrated and vindicated by
placing His mere words side by side with the words of
Prophets who preceded Him. I doubt whether He
ever said anything about the Divine compassion more
pathetic or more perfectly beautiful than had been said
^ Heb. i. 3. 2 John xiv. 9.
II.] in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement, 39
by the writer of the hundred-and-third Psalm : " Like
as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth
them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame ; He
remembereth that we are dust." It is not in the words
of Christ that we find a fuller and deeper revelation of
the Divine compassion than in the words of the
Psalmist, but in His deeds.
"There came a leper and worshipped him, saying,
Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And
Jesus ['' moved with compassion :" Mark i. 41] put
forth His hand and touched him " — touched the man,
from whom his very kindred had shrunk ; — " touched
him," — it was the first time that the leper had felt the
warmth and pressure of a human hand since his loath-
some disease came upon him ; — " touched him, and
said, I will, be thou clean." ^
And when the heart of Christ was filled with sorrow
by the news of John the Baptist's death, and He went
into ** a desert place apart," He did not, in the weari-
ness of His grief and the solemn anticipation of His
own end, turn away, vexed and annoyed, from the
people that followed Him into His solitude ; but when
He saw the great multitude. He ** was moved with
compassion, and he healed their sick." *
Every form of human sorrow affected Him. '* He
came nigh to the gate of the city [of Nain], and, be-
hold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son
^ Matt. viii. 2, 3; Mark i. 40, 41; Luke iv. 12, 13. It is re-
markable that every one of the Synoptical Gospels notices the fact
that our Lord " touched " the man. 2 Matt. xiv. 14.
40 The History of our Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
of his mother, and she was a widow." She was a
stranger, and made no appeal to His pity. But "when
the Lord saw her. He had compassion on her, and said
unto her. Weep not. And He came and touched the
bier ; and they that bare him stood still. And He said.
Young man, I say unto thee. Arise. And he that was
dead sat up, and began to speak." Nor is this all.
The story is completed by the simple words, which
suggest a scene of ineffable tenderness: "And He
delivered him to his mother."^
Still more affecting is the narrative of the death
and resurrection of Lazarus. Our Lord had finally
left Galilee, and had come to the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem, to remain there till He was betrayed,
condemned, and crucified. The dark succession of
sorrows through which He was to pass was near, and
He knew it; but when He saw Mary "weeping, and
the Jews also weeping which came with her, He
groaned in spirit, and was troubled." They asked
Him to come with them to the grave, and " Jesus
wept." He was about to raise His friend, but the
actual grief of those whom He loved, almost broke
His heart, and He wept; wept too, perhaps, as has
been suggested, " in .pure sympathy with the sorrows
of humanity, for the myriad myriads of desolate
mourners who could not, with Mary, fly to Him, and
say, * Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my mother —
brother — sister had not died !' " ^ When we read these
I Luke vii. 11-15.
« Henry Rogers: Defence of the Eclipse of Faith, p. 143.
iJj in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement, 41
narratives, and remember His own declaration, " He
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," even the
words of the Psalmist seem to lose all their tenderness
and power.
The point on which I am insisting is so important, and
is so often forgotten in this controversy, that, obvious as
it is, I must venture to illustrate it still more fully.
It is acknowledged even by those who not only
reject the doctrine of the Atonement but deny our
Lord's Divinity, that He revealed the infinite mercy of
God as it had never been revealed before. It is certain
that since His coming, and as the result of His coming,
the Divine mercy has attracted a stronger and a deeper
trust, and that sinful men have had more perfect rest
in God.
But how was the nobler revelation made ? Is it
possible to quote from the discourses of our Lord any
more thrilling representations of the mercy of God than
can be quoted from the Old Testament ? Did He say
more than Nehemiah said : " Thou art a God ready to
pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of
great kindness"?^ Or more than Jonah said, who
shrunk from threatening Nineveh with the Divine
judgments, because he feared that the threatenings
might, after all, never be fulfilled : " Therefore I fled
unto Tarshish ; for I knew that Thou art a gracious
God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kind-
ness, and repentest Thee of the evil *' ? = Did our Lord
say more than Isaiah said : ** Though your sins be as
I Neh. ix. 17. 2 Jonah iv. 2.
42 The History of our Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be
red like crimson, they shall be as wool :" " Let the
wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his
thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He
will have mercy upon him ; and to our God, and He
will abundantly pardon " ? The passages of Scripture
which come to our lips when we wish to acknowledge
in nobler and richer words than our own the long-
suffering of God and His readiness to pardon sin, are
rarely taken from the discourses of Christ ; they are the
words of Psalmists, Prophets, and Apostles.
If it is objected that there is nothing in the Old
Testament, and nothing else in the New, comparable
to the three great parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost
Piece of Money, and the Prodigal Son, the very objec-
tion sustains the position for which I am contending.
These parables were spoken by our Lord in self-
defence. They explained and vindicated what the
Pharisees charged Him with as a crime : " This man
receiveth sinners and eateth with them ;" and to me
even these wonderful parables are a less affecting
illustration of the energy and tenderness of the Divine
mercy than the freedom with which the Son of God,
the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the Holy One
and the Just, sat at table with irreligious and sinful
men, spoke to them as a friend, and encouraged them
to forsake sin and win eternal life and glory. It was
by His assumption of our nature, by the gentleness and
kindness with which He treated those who were guilty
of the worst sins, by His merciful words to repenting
n.] in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement, 43
harlots and publicans, by the look of love and sorrow
which broke the heart of the Apostle who had just
denied Him, and by the large and generous promise,
with which, in the very act of dying, He responded
to the prayer of the penitent thief, and, above all
it was by shedding His blood for the remission of
our sins that He revealed, as Prophets and Apostles
could never reveal, the infinite mercy of God; for,
written in light under every line of the narrative of His
earthly history, we should recognise His own words :
" He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."
To say, therefore, that "the words of the Lord Jesus
Christ must ever be regarded by His disciples as the
central glory of the Bible and the most precious
heritage of humanity;*'^ to describe a classification
of the Sayings of our Lord as " a complete guide
on the great subjects of Christian faith and practice,'*
and as comprehending " the clear, complete, and
authoritative teaching of the Divine Head of the
Church,'** implies a very imperfect conception of the
manner in which Christ has revealed the Father. It
is true that He spake as never man spake, and His
words are ** spirit and life ;" but what He revealed
cannot be exhibited in a catena of quotations from His
teaching. To quote His words only is to leave out the
larger half of the revelation which has come to us
^ Preface to The Divine Teacher; being the Recorded Sayings of
our Lord Jesus Christ during His Ministry on Earth.
2 Preface to The Sure Resting-Placej being Selected Sayings of
our Lord Jesus Christy arranged as a Manual of Faith and
Practice.
44 T^^ History of our Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
through Him. He himself is the truth, the light, as
well as the life of men ; the very Word of God.
It is this which constitutes the glory of the Four Gos-
pels ; they contain the history as well as the teaching
of Him whom we acknowledge as God manifest in the
flesh. They stand alone. They admit neither of com-
parison nor contrast with any other books either in the
Old or the New Testament. St. Paul develops the Chris-
tian idea of Faith as it is not developed in any of our
Lord's discourses; but the power and mercy and authority
of Christ attract and command the Faith whose nature
and functions the Apostle only illustrates. Cancel
every passage in the Gospels in which our Lord insists
on the necessity of Faith in Himself, and you neither
impair the harmony between His teaching and the
teaching of St. Paul, nor do you so impoverish the
theological wealth of the Gospels as to make them in-
ferior in value to the Epistles. St. Paul insists that in
order to be saved I must trust in the Lord Jesus
Christ, but when I see Christ, and know who He is,
I cannot help trusting in Him for salvation. It is not
necessary that He should tell me to believe ; before
He speaks of Faith my heart clings to Him for the
pardon of sin and for the gift of eternal life.
St. John tells us that " God is love." I do not know
that there are any words of our Lord in which this truth
is expressed with such simple and lofty sublimity. But
shall we, therefore, conclude that the disciple is greater
than his Master? Any such conclusion would be
strangely illegitimate. St. John had learnt the truth
n.] Relation to the Fact of the Atonement, 45
from Christ. Christ may never have uttered it in words,
but His whole life was the expression of it. He came
to manifest God, and this is the concise summary and
ultimate result of what was revealed in His personal
character, in His mighty and merciful works, and in
His fastings, temptations, sufferings, and death — " God
is love."
The principle which I wish to maintain, — that the
Truth which Christ revealed is to be found in His his-
tory as well as in His teaching, is of great importance,
not only in relation to the doctrine of the Atonement,
but in relation to the whole Faith and Life of the
Church. It seems to have been overlooked by some
modern writers ; among the rest by the late Rev.
Frederick Robertson, of Brighton.^ After a very just
protest against the opinion of those " who would not
scruple to assert that, in the highest sense of the term,
it [the Sermon on the Mount] is not Christianity at all,
but only preparatory to it — a kind of spiritual Judaism ;
and that the higher and more developed principles of
Christianity are to be found in the writings of the
Apostles," he proceeds to remark that ** it seems ex-
tremely startling to say that He who came to this
world expressly to preach the Gospel, should in the
most elaborate of all His discourses omit to do so : it
is indeed something more than startling, it is absolutely
revolting to suppose that the letters of those who spoke
of Christ should contain a more perfectly developed, a
freer and fuller, Christianity than is to be found in
I Sermons, Third Series, p. 144.
46 The History of our Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
Christ's own words." It would be hardly fair to Mr.
Robertson to criticise too closely statements which
appear to express a vehement indignation rather than a
deliberate theological judgment, or else I might observe
that our Lord does actually omit " in the most elaborate
of all His discourses " some of the highest and most
characteristic elements of His own teaching. The
Sermon on the Mount is not " a kind of spiritual Juda-
ism ; " it is, to use Mr. Robertson's own words, "deeply
and essentially Christian ; " but though it contains very
much of the gospel it does not contain the whole. It
is silent on the New Birth, concerning which our Lord
spoke to Nicodemus ; it is silent on the living and en-
during relation between our Lord and His disciples,
which He illustrated in the parable of the Vine; it does
not explicitly insist on the necessity of Faith in Him-
self as the condition of eternal redemption. But the
whole passage rests on a grave misconception of our
Lord's mission. It is implied not only that Christ
*' came to this world expressly to preach the gospel,"
but that this was the chief if not the only purpose of
His coming. The real truth is that while He came to
preach the gospel, His chief object in coming was that
there might be a gospel to preach.
To me there would be nothing " startling," much
less "revolting," in supposing that there might be in the
writings of the Apostles " a more perfectly developed, a
freer and fuller, Christianity than is to be found in
Christ's own words," any more than in supposing that
there might be a clearer and richer exposition of the
II.] in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement, 47
aesthetic truths and principles illustrated in the Apollo
Belvedere, in a treatise written by a critic who never
handled a chisel than in the recorded conversations, if
we had them, of the great sculptor himself ; or in sup-
posing that a military critic who never commanded a
regiment might give us a more scientific explanation of
the victories of Napoleon than is contained in Napoleon's
own despatches and letters. I am very far, indeed,
from believing that the Epistles are actually richer
in Christian truth than the discourses of our Lord.
The Apostles came very slowly to the apprehension
of some of the simplest and clearest parts of His
teaching ; and I cannot doubt that there are trea-
sures of wisdom in His words which the Apostles
never exhausted, and which remain unexhausted still.
But there is nothing " revolting," nothing even
** startling," in supposing that the Life of Christ may
contain revelations of truth, and revelations of infinite
value, to which He himself never gave a definite form
in language. Much less can there be anything either
"revolting" or "startling," in supposing that when His
great work was finished the Apostles may have dis-
covered that truths of which their Master had rarely
spoken, and to which they had listened unintelHgently
and reluctantly, were invested by His Passion and
Death with exceptional and even supreme importance.
The Lord Jesus Christ did not translate all that He
was and all that He did into words. As "the heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth
his handiwork," as "day unto day uttereth speech, and
48 The History of our Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
night unto night showeth knowledge,*' though " there
is np speech nor language," and "though their voice is
not heard" — so, even in the silence of Christ there is
a revelation transcending all that is contained in the
raptures of Psalmists, the visions of Prophets, and the
wisdom of Apostles.
The highest achievements even of human genius —
paintings, poems, great buildings — must speak for
themselves; "notes and comments" may sometimes
obscure instead of revealing their perfection. Heroic
deeds and the courageous endurance of martyrs, are also
beyond the reach of the most philosophical and eloquent
exposition. The virtues they express are expressed
more perfectly in action and in suffering than in words.
And when God was living among men He was not
always explaining Himself. Complete explanation was
impossible. You cannot translate the Alps into a series
of propositions : and there is no formula for the purple
and golden pomp of a sunset, or for the majesty of a
thunderstorm.
If there are any in our own times who would
contend that there is a sense in which the writings
of the Apostles " contain a more perfectly developed,
a freer and fuller, Christianity than is to be found in
Christ's own words," they only mean to assert that
what appears in the Gospels as History reappears
in the Epistles as Doctrine ; that what appears in the
Life of Christ as Fact appears in the teaching of the
Apostles as Theory. And this assertion is only a partial
statement of a principle which lies at the very root of a
"•] in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement. 49
living and noble and generous theology — that since the
Lord Jesus Christ was the Eternal Word of God, the
brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image
of His person, the revelation of Truth contained in
His Life and Death is infinite : it transcened the
thought of Apostles; it was not exhausted in the dis-
courses by which our Lord Himself illustrated the cha-
racter of His work and the purposes of His mission :
it remains, and will remain for ever, a perpetual fountain
of light and glory. The words of Christ are great, but
Christ Himself is greater still.
I propose, therefore, to consider, first of all, what the
History of our Lord suggests concerning the unique
character of His Death. Even if He had said nothing
— and happily He said much — about the relation of
His Death to the guilt and the redemption of the
human race, it seems to me that the doctrine of the
Atonement developed in the Epistles would be the only
satisfactory explanation of some of the most remarkable
phenomena recorded in the Four Gospels.
It is not undeserving of notice that all the four
Evangelists were agreed about the exceptional import-
ance and significance of our Lord's last sufferings.
Only two of them relate the circumstances of His
Birth, which we might have supposed none of them
would have omitted. Only two tell the story of the
Temptation.^ The Sermon on the Mount appears
I St. Mark simply states the fact that " He was there in the
wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan ; and was with the wild
beasts."— Chap. i. ver. 13.
s
50 The History of our Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
neither in the second Gospel nor in the fourth. St.
John says nothing about the Transfiguration, the
Agony in the Garden, or the institution of the Lord's
Supper. The story of the Resurrection and of the
appearances of the risen Christ to His Disciples
occupies only twenty verses in St. Matthew's narra-
tive ; only twenty — perhaps only nine ^ in St. Mark's;
and St. John appears to have said in thirty verses
all that he intended to say, and to have added
another five and twenty at the request of his friends.
St. Matthew tells us nothing of our Lord's Ascen-
sion into heaven, nor does St. John ; and even if
the closing verses of St. Mark's Gospel came from
his own hand, he tells us nothing more than the
bare fact that the Lord *' was received up into heaven,
and sat on the right hand of God." The time and
the place are left indefinite, and our Lord's parting
words to His Disciples and the vision of angels are
passed over in silence. But the Betrayal, the Arrest,
the appearance before Caiaphas, Peter's denial, the cry
of the people for the release of Barabbas and the
crucifixion of our Lord, Pilate's judgment, the inscrip-
tion fixed on the cross, are contained in all the four
Gospels ; and they all bring the story to a close with
words which indicate that to the veiy moment of our
Lord's Death there was no loss of consciousness or ex-
haustion of strength.
I The last eleven verses of St. Mark's Gospel being of doubtful
genuineness.
II-] in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement, 51
The Evangelists found no precedent for this
elaborate account of the Death of our Lord in the
Old Testament. The death of Moses, of Aaron, of
David, is told with a severe simplicity and brevity;
the writers of the ancient Scriptures felt that it is
to the life of prophets and saints — not to the cir-
cumstances of their death — that the enduring interest
of their history belongs. St. Luke dismisses in one
brief sentence the martyrdom of an Apostle — " And
[Herod] killed James the brother of John with the
sword." And if the martyrdom of Stephen is told at
greater length, it is plainly for the sake of what Stephen
said, rather than for the sake of what he suffered.
It may be suggested that the deep and reverential
love with which the Evangelists regarded our Lord con-
strained them to dwell on the mournful hours in which
His earthly sufferings culminated ; or that they narrated
at great length all that happened in connection with
His Death in order to illustrate the deliberation and
unanimity with which the Jews rejected the Messiah, for
whose coming so many centuries had been hoping ; or
that it was necessary to emphasise the circumstances
of His Death in order to invest His Resurrection with
reality and glory. But a careful examination of the
four Gospels will lead us to prefer a different ex-
planation. In the importance which the Evangelists
attach to the Death of our Lord, they are but following
the line of His own thought.
To Him, His Death — whatever may have been its
significance — was distinctly present from the very
52 The History of our Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
commencement of His ministry, and He constantly
spoke of it as necessary to. the accomplishment of
His misssion.
I wish to illustrate this statement with some fulness.
The manner in which He anticipated His Death
when it was still remote, the increasing terror which it
created in His mind as it gradually drew nearer, and
the mystery of His moral sufferings while on the cross,
appear to require some such explanation as is supplied
by the doctrine of the Atonement.
It seems more than probable that in the hours which
He spent with John the Baptist, about the time of His
Baptism, He had spoken of the Death by which He
was to atone for the sins of men, and that what He had
said suggested the form of John's testimony to Him :
" Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins
of the world." ^ At the first Passover after His public
ministry began He prophesied that, by putting Him to
death, the Jewish people would destroy the sanctity
of their Temple, and that henceforth the true Home
of God would be in Himself and in those who are
spiritually one with Him. ^ A few days later He told
Nicodemus that, " as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted
up." 3 To the people that thronged the synagogue at
Capernaum, and who the day before had wanted to
" take Him by force and make Him King," He spoke
of His Death as necessary to the life of the world.^
I John i. 29. Note C. 2 John ii. 19-21. 3 Ibid. iii. 14.
4 Ibid. vi. 51-56.
II-] in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement, 53
It was " a hard saying," especially in the form in
which He uttered it, and " from that hour many of
His disciples went back, and walked no more with
Him."
Peter made his great confession : " Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God ; " and " from that time
forth began Jesus to show unto His Disciples how that
He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of
the Elders and Chief Priests and Scribes, and be killed
and be raised again the third day."^ He was Trans-
figured, and Moses and Elias " spake of the decease
which He should accomplish at Jerusalem ;" ^ and as
He came down from the mountain He charged Peter
and James and John to " tell no man what things
they had seen till the Son of man were risen from the
dead." ^ While they were in Galilee, after the Trans-
figuration, Jesus repeated the prophecy of His Death. '♦
When He described Himself as the Good Shepherd,
He repeated no less than three times, in the course of
a very few sentences, that He was to lay down His life
for the sheep. As He was going up to Jerusalem for
the last time. He '' took the twelve disciples apart in
the way," and told them again that he was about to be
put to death. ^ When the mother of Zebedee's children
asked that her sons might sit, the one on the right
hand and the other on the left, in the kingdom of
heaven, His Death rose immediately to His thoughts :
I Matt. xvi. 16, 21. 2 Luke ix. 31. 3 Mark ix. 9.
4 Matt. xvii. 22.
5 Ibid. XX. 17-19 ; Mark x. 35-45 ; Luke xviii. 31-34.
54 The History of our Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
*' Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the
cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptised with the
baptism that I am baptised with?" ^ After His great
discourse on the Judgment, He said to His Disciples,
** Ye know that after two days is the Passover, and the
Son of man is betrayed to be crucified."^ When Mary
of Bethany broke the alabaster box and poured the
costly perfume on His head, He justified her against
the murmuring of His Disciples by saying : " She is
come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying." ^
It cannot, I think, be fairly said that these re-
peated intimations of His approaching Death show
nothing more than our Lord's desire to prepare His
Disciples for the catastrophe which seemed for the time
to be the destruction of all their hopes. They indicate
that from the very first His Death had taken possession
of His own mind, that the anticipation of it was con-
stantly recurring to Him, that He lived almost always
under its shadow.
He not only spoke of it: He looked forward to it
with anxiety and fear. There are passages in which
this is very plainly indicated. It was of His Death
that He was thinking when He said, ** I have a bap-
tism to be baptised with, and how am I straitened till
it be accomplished." ^ This was while he was still in
Galilee, twelve months before the final crisis ; but He
saw it afar off, and — if we may venture to say it — was
eager to have it over. When it came near, it filled
Him with agitation and, at last, with terror. In the
I Matt. XX. 22. 2 Ibid.xxvi. 2. 3 Markxiv. 8. 4 Luke xii. 47.
II-] in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement. 55
week which preceded His crucifixion, some Gentiles,
who had come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the
Passover, wished to see the great Teacher whose
miracles and bold antagonism to the ecclesiastical
rulers had created so much excitement in the city.
When He saw them His heart was thrilled with a
sudden joy. They were the representatives of the
"great multitude that no man can number of all
nations and kindreds, and peoples and tongues," who,
through Him, would be rescued from sin and eternal
perdition, and restored to the life and light of God, and
He exclaimed, ** The hour is come that the Son of man
should be glorified."^ But there rose up at once
between Him and that great glory the dark presence
of death. " 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 bringeth forth fruit." ^ And
the vision of death sunk upon Him like a vast and
gloomy cloud, obscuring all the splendour. His heart
was shaken with fear, and He said, " Now is my soul
troubled, and what shall I say ? Father, save me from
this hour." And yet He could not turn aside, for He ^Y
adds, '* But for this cause came I to this hour." ^
At the Last Supper the agitation returned. ** He
was troubled in spirit," ^ and troubled because the
traitor was sitting with Him at the table, and He knew
that the deed of treachery was about to be consum-
mated, and that in an hour or two He would be in the
hands of His enemies. As soon as Judas left, the
I John xii. 27. 2 ibid xii. 24. 3 Ibid. xii. 27. 4 Ibid. xiii. 21.
56 The History of oily Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
agitation seems to have passed away for a time, and
the heart of our Lord recovered its calmness.
He delivered a discourse, in which He revealed all
the tenderness and depth of His love for His disciples
(whom He now called His friends, instead of His
servants), and a wealth of spiritual thought which is
unsurpassed and hardly equalled in any other passage
of His teaching. His whole nature rose to its loftiest
activity. Not a solitary intellectual power was latent ;
not a solitary affection slumbered. The discourse was
followed by a prayer, which is the evidence that He
was in full and conscious communion with the Father.
It is the prayer of One on whom the full glory of
heaven has descended.
He then passed out of the city, crossed the ravine
through which the Kedron flows, and entered into an
olive-orchard, not far, probably, from the garden now
called Gethsemane. The Paschal moon must have been
filling the valley with its light, resting tranquilly on
the olives and palm-trees which then clothed the sides
of Olivet, and making the towers of the Temple and
the walls of the city, on the other side of the ravine,
shine like silver. The whole scene was suggestive of
perfect peace.
But suddenly a great terror came upon Him. Mat-
thew tells us that ** He began to be sorrowful," ^ and
Mark, that " He began to be sore amazed."* And He
said to Peter, James, and John, *' My soul is exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death." ^ He had chosen these
* Matt xxvi. 37. 2 Mark xiv. 33. 3 Matt. xxvi. 38 ; Mark xiv. 34.
"•] in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement. 57
three to be with Him in the trouble which was be-
coming darker every moment, and which He felt
would soon become almost too terrible for H'im to
endure. He clung to the relief and support which
the mere presence of those we love affords us in times
of great distress. But He could not remain with
them. Matthew says, " He went a little further." ^
Luke uses a word which implies that He was restless,
and was unable to stay where He was^ — that He tore
Himself away from them. Then followed a succession
of prayers, which were uttered in what we may,
perhaps, venture to call successive spasms of spiritual
anguish and effort. He was like a great tree, bending
and almost broken under a storm. His resolution to
endure the worst was rooted too deeply and securely
for Him to be torn away from it ; but again and again
it almost seemed as though He must yield to the
tremendous strain. His Death was near; the woe
which had been present to Him from the beginning of
His ministry was descending upon Him, and He shrank
from it, and cried, ** O My Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from Me ; nevertheless, not as I will, but
as Thou wilt." ^
It is not thus that good men have been accustomed
to confront death. St. Paul speaks several times of
his own approaching end, but never with an agitation
' Matt. xxvi. 39.
2 Krti avTog dirttTTrdaOr] cnr' avrdv. Luke xxii. 41. The same word
occurs in St. Luke's account of St. Paul's departure from the elders
of the Ephesian Church, who met him at Miletus (Actsxxi. i).
3 Matt. xxvi. 39.
58 The History of om Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
like this. He had a desire *' to depart, and to be with
Christ ;" and vast numbers of Christian men have con-
fronted cruel torments for Christ's sake with unshaken
fortitude, and have forgotten the sharp pain of the
axe and the sword, and the rage of wild beasts, and the
fierce heat of the fires of martyrdom, in the triumphant
energy of their faith and their passionate longing to
see the face of Christ. But to Christ death rose up in
appalling terror between Himself and His return to
God. He said to His disciples that, if they loved
Him, they would rejoice because He had told them
that He was going to the Father ; ^ but He Himself
could not rejoice. Even before He was nailed to the
cross, He was overwhelmed with a sorrow which
nearly crushed His strength, and under which He
felt that He must die.
I cannot believe that His terror was caused by His
anticipation of the physical tortures of crucifixion.
Crucifixion was a very painful form of death, but while
these indications of our Lord's dismay in anticipation
of His last hours are recorded by the Evangelists, it is
significant that not one of them dwells upon the
physical anguish which He must have endured upon
the cross. Their ample narratives say nothing of the
throbbing pain which He must have suffered from the
nails which were driven through His hands, nothing
of the sharp pangs which must have shot through
every fibre of His frame, nothing of the fever which
must have been kindled in His blood. But they speak
' John xiv. 29.
II.] in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement. 59
of a mysterious spiritual sorrow which forced Him to
utter the most bitter cry that can ever break from a
human heart ; and it was into the dark shadow of
this sorrow that He seems to have come as soon as
He entered into Gethsemane.
The agony of the garden is, indeed, inexplicable
until we see Him on the cross. It was an awful
death — a death of great physical suffering, but the
physical suffering was the least terrible element of
its complicated woe. He had come into the world to
restore men to righteousness and to God, but during
the few hours which preceded His crucifixion there had
been committed a series of atrocious sins, and it must
have seemed to Him that He had been led to His
Death by a dark procession of the basest crimes of
which wicked men can be guilty, and their evil and
malignant forms surrounded Him in His agony, mock-
ing His sufferings and exulting in His shame. Corrupt
and ambitious priests, whose power He imperilled, had
conspired and plotted against His life ; lying witnesses
had charged Him — Him, the Son of God! — with blas-
phemy ; He had been betrayed by a false friend ; the
people who a few days before had rent the air with cries
of *' Hosanna," who had brought to Him their sick,
their blind, their deaf, their dumb, and He had healed
them all, and to some of whom He had given their
dead children alive again — the people, maddened with
resentment because He refused to satisfy their hopes
of secular greatness and glory, savagely cried for His
blood; the Roman governor, after pronouncing Him
6o Tke History of our Lord Jesus Christ, [lect.
innocent of the crime that was charged against Him,
gave Him up to sacerdotal hatred and popular fury.
Those few brief hours had revealed the infirmity of
His friends as well as the relentless wickedness of
His enemies. His very Disciples, as soon as He was
arrested, " all forsook Him and fled." Peter, who had
been most vehement in his protestations of devotion,
denied Him thrice with oaths and cursings. As He
hung on the cross between two criminals, the object of
heartless jests and insults, it seems as though only
a solitary Apostle and a few faithful women remained
near Him.
All this He could have endured; but there came
another and still more appalling sorrow. His fellow-
ship with the Father had been intimate and unbroken.
He had lived in the life of God. Till now He could
always say, *' I am not alone, for the Father is with
me," but He can say it no longer. The light of God's
presence is lost. He is left in awful isolation, and He
cries, ** My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
Me?"^ In the ''hour of great darkness " which has
fallen upon Him He still clings to the Father with
an invincible trust and an immeasurable love, and the
agony of being deserted of God is more than He can
bear. His heart is broken. Death comes upon Him
from within as well as from without ; and He dies as
much from the loss of the sense of God's presence as
from the exhaustion of crucifixion.*
This is not martyrdom.
I Matt. xxvi. 46 ; Mark xv. 14. * Note D.
n.] in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement. Gi
What is it ? He has never sinned. He is the Son of
God, and inherits the infinite love of the Father. In the
hour of His anguish He is consummating the work
which is dearest to the Father's heart ; but He endures
that loss of fellowship with the Divine blessedness, that
exile rom the joys of God's presence, which is the
effect of the Divine wrath in the case of the impenitent.
What is the explanation of this mysterious anguish ?
He has come to make known to sinful men the love of
God, and He Himself, who has never sinned, is forsaken
of God. He has declared that He is the way to the
Father, and that no man cometh to the Father except
through Him — and now, even to Him, access to God is
closed. The Son of God, the only -begotten Son, in
whom the Father is well pleased, is not only the victim
of human malignity ; in the very extremity of His woe.
He is deprived of all Divine consolation ; He declares
that God has forsaken Him!
I decline to accept any explanation of these words
which implies that they do not represent the actual truth
of our Lord's position. There are times when great suf-
fering may force from our lips words about God of which,
when the suffering is over, we repent. We think, we say,
that He has forsaken us, and we charge Him unjustly.
Did Christ repent that He had uttered this cry ? Impos-
sible. There are times when we mistake depression and
gloom, which are the effect of purely physical causes,
for the effect of the withdrawal of God's presence. Did
Christ commit that mistake ? I say, again, Impossible.
r take the words in their clear and unqualified
62 The History of our Lord Jesus Christ [lect.
meaning. It is only by taking them in this way that
very much that is contained in the previous history of
our Lord becomes intelligible. He knew that He was
to die this awful death ; that He was to be forsaken of
God in His last hours. This explains why it was that
his mind was filled with the thought of His Death
from the very first, and why, as it approached, it filled
Him with dismay.
Surely this supreme anguish must have a unique
relation to the redemption of mankind. If not, why
was it that the anticipation of His Death was associated
with some of the greatest moments in His history ?
Why did He speak of it to Peter, when Peter confessed
that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God ?
Why did it occur to Him when the Greeks came to
speak to Him at the Feast ? Why did He institute a
religious rite to commemorate it ?
When I try to discover the meaning of the sorrow of
Christ on the cross, I cannot escape the conclusion
that He is somehow involved in this deep and dreadful
darkness by the sins of the race whose nature He has
assumed. If the dread with which He anticipated His
Death, and if the Divine desertion which made His
Death so awful, are to pass into Doctrine, I can conceive
of no other form in which they can appear than
that which they assume in the ApostoHc Epistles —
" He was delivered for our offences." ^ ** He died for
our sins;"^ He *' suffered, .... the Just for the
unjust ;" 3 " He was made a curse for us." ^
I Rom. iv. 25. 2 I Cor. xv. 3. 3 i Pet. iii. 18. 4 Gal. iii. 13.
"•] in Relation to the Fact of the Atonement, 63
As I look, as I listen, I am driven to exclaim,
*' Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our
sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions and
bruised for our iniquities. The Lord hath laid on Him
the iniquity of us all." ^ In no other way are His
sufferings explicable. To fulfil these words of ancient
prophecy, He can endure no greater, no keener anguish.
If this is not the explanation of His desertion on the
Cross, then the Cross, instead of declaring that God
has not forsaken the human race, notwithstanding all
its crimes, seems to be an appalling testimony to all
nations and to all centuries, that not even the purest
goodness can secure for One who has assumed our
nature the strength and the peace which come from
the perpetual manifestation of God's presence and love.
Instead of revealing the infinite love of God refusing
to forsake those who have sinned, it is an awful proof
that He may forsake in the hour of their utmost and
sorest need those who have perfectly loved and per-
fectly obeyed Him. Either the Death of Christ was
the Atonement for human sin, or else it fills me with
terror and despair.
« Isa. Iv. 4-6
LECTURE III.
THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT : THE TESTI-
MONY OF OUR LORD.
LECTURE III.
THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT : THE TESTIMONY OF
OUR LORD.
WE have now to inquire whether our Lord gave
any account of His Death which at all explains
the mysterious facts which we considered in the previous
Lecture, and to which the Evangelists give so much
prominence.
Had He been silent on the relation of His sufferings
to human redemption, it would have remained true that
His Death was present to His mind from the very com-
mencement of His ministry; that when it came near, it
filled Him with dismay ; and that on the cross He was
forsaken by the Father. But He was not silent. Nor
are we left to discover His inner thought concerning
His Death from obscure allusions to it of ambiguous
meaning, or from words spoken incidentally and sug-
gested by circumstances which we might call accidental,
or from parables which might be of doubtful interpreta-
tion, or from illustrations derived from Jewish institu-
tions about whose precise significance there might be ,
interminable controversy. It was of infinite importance
that there should be no misapprehension of His
meaning, and He therefore selected for the full and
6 -
68 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
final explanation of the nature and intention of His
Death an hour of pathetic solemnity. The explanation
was not drawn from Him by any request of His
disciples or by any taunts of His enemies : it came
altogether from Himself, and as -the result of a de-
liberate purpose. It was veiled under no metaphor.
It was expressed plainly, directly, explicitly. As if to
save it from all the chances and perils which are in-
separable from the transmission of thought to remote
countries and remote generations. He connected it with
the institution of a new and peculiar sacred rite, which
was to be celebrated by His disciples to the end of time.
We have four accounts in the New Testament of the
institution of the Lord's Supper, St. Matthew's, St.
Mark's, St. Luke's, and that given by St. Paul in the
First Epistle to the Corinthians. The variations be-
tween them are neither uninteresting nor unimportant,
but it is unnecessary that I should discuss them.
It was the night before His Passion, the night, as
St. Paul reminds us, in which He was betrayed. Our
Lord and His disciples were celebrating the Passover,^
I The force of the argument in the text is not really affected
if it is contended that the Lord's Supper was celebrated on the
night before the true Passover night. I believe, however, that the
traditional view of the Church is sound, and that our Lord cele-
brated the Passover with His disciples at the time appointed by the
Law, and that during the celebration He instituted the great feast
of the Church, which has taken its place. The question is dis-
cussed at length by all the critical commentators. There is a
useful summary of opinions in Lange's Cofn?nentary on St. Johii^s
Gospel^ vol. iii. p. 347, and an elaborate discussion of the subject
in Wieseler's Syjtopsis of the Four Gospels^ p. 308, seq.
III.] the Testimony of our Lord, 69
and as they were eating, Jesus took bread and gave
thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying,
" Take eat, this is My body which is given [or broken]
for you : this do in remembrance of Me." And He
took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them,
saying, " Drink ye all of it ; for this is My blood of the
New Testament [or covenant] , which is shed for many
[or for you] for the remission of sins : this do ye as oft
as ye drink it in remembrance of Me." ^ It appears,
therefore, that our Lord declared that His Death is
in some way related to " the remission of sins."
He declared, indeed, that it was for the remission of
sins that He was about to die. Other ends might
be accomplished by His Death, but at a time when
we might reasonably suppose that His mind would be
filled with the chief and direct objects of His Passion,
this is the only one of which He speaks. His blood
was shed " for the remission of sins."
He never says that He was tempted " for the re-
mission of sins ;" or that He endured hunger, thirst,
weariness, and poverty, *' for the remission of sins ;" or
that it was for this that He was transfigured, or that it
was for this that He endured the agony of Gethsemane,
or that it was for this that He spoke to men about the
powers and laws and mysteries and glories of the
kingdom of heaven. The whole of His ministry is
a revelation of the righteousness and of the love of
God, an authoritative appeal to the heart and con-
^ Matt. xxvi. 26-28 ; Mark xiv. 22-24 ; Luke xxii. 19, 20
I Cor. xi, 23-25. In the text the four narratives are combined.
70 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
science of the human race, a mighty force constraining
men to repent of sin and to trust in the infinite love of
the Father. And if His Death contributed to our
eternal redemption only by producing in us those dis-
positions which render it right and possible for God to
forgive us, it would be no more intimately related to
the remission of sins than every part of His public
ministry. Men have been filled with terror by His
awful declarations concerning judgment to come and
the final doom of the impenitent, and have entreated
Him to deliver them from '' the worm that dieth not
and the fire that is not quenched.'* The parable of the
Prodigal Son has broken their hearts with sorrow for
sin, and inspired them with trust in the Divine mercy.
I suppose that there is hardly a word of His recorded in
the four Gospels that has not drawn some man nearer to
God. His miracles. His tears — tears shed at the grave
of His friend and over the city of His murderers — all
the incidents of His earthly life, are charged with the
same wonderful power. In an indirect way, it might
be said that His teaching from first to last, all that He
did, all that He endured, was intended to secure for us
the remission of sins. But never, even incidentally —
never, even by implication — does our Lord affirm that
it was for this that He wrought miracles, or revealed
truth, or submitted to the sorrows and pains which
preceded the cross. He does affirm that it was for the
remission of sins that He died. He must have believed
that the relation between His Death and the remission
of sins is different in kind from that which exists
III.] the Testimony of our Lord, 71
between His teaching or His example and the re-
mission of sins.
There is another peculiarity in our Lord's manner
of speaking about His Death. As I have said already,
the four narratives contained in the New Testament of
the institution of the Lord's Supper vary : no two of
them have preserved our Lord's words in precisely the
same form, but the same fundamental conception of
His death appears in them all. St. Matthew and St.
Mark do not tell us that when our Lord broke and dis-
tributed the bread He said that He was about to die
for others ; but they both tell us that when He took the
cup He said, " This is My blood of the New Testa-
ment [or covenant] , which is shed for many." St. Paul
does not tell us that when He took the cup He said
that His blood was to be shed for others ; but he tells
us that when our Lord took the bread He said, " This
is My body which is broken for you." St. Luke alone
represents our Lord as declaring that His Death was a
death for others, both when He broke the bread and
when He passed the wine. The preservation of this
central idea, notwithstanding the variations of the four
narratives, is very impressive.
This was not the only time that He described His
Death as a death for others. That same night, after
the institution of the Supper, He said to His disciples,
*' Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends. Ye are My friends if ye
do whatsoever I command you." '
' John XV. 13.
72 The Fact of the Atonement : [lect.
Three months before, He had claimed to be the
Good Shepherd, and in illustration of His claim He
emphasised in the most remarkable manner His readi-
ness and His intention to die for His flock. He does
not say that He will lead His sheep to the greenest and
most abundant pastures, and to streams which are not
dried up by the summer's heat or swollen by the rains
of winter into dangerous torrents; but He declares
again and again that He will die for them. " I am the
good Shepherd ; the good Shepherd giveth his life for
the sheep." "As the Father knoweth Me, even so
know I the Father: and I lay down My life for the
sheep." ^ Up to this point, however, it remains uncertain
whether He was to die for the flock of God in any other
sense than many faithful shepherds have died for it.
Jewish prophets, Christian apostles, many reformers
and missionaries, and many courageous ministers of the
gospel in evil times, have died rather than betray their
trust. Had our Lord said nothing more, it might have
been possible to interpret His words as meaning that
He was to die as they have died. The shepherd
may lose his own life while he is struggling with the
wolf; the wolf may be killed, or, even if not, the
struggle may give the flock time to escape, though the
shepherd perishes. To prevent any misconception, He
breaks up His illustration. The shepherd that dies
defending his flock does not die voluntarily ; he dies
because the wolf is too strong for him : but our Lord
declares that it is not to be so with Him : ** I lay down
I John X. II, 15.
in.] the Testimony of our Lord, 73
my life. . . . 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." ^ His devotion to men
is as great as that of the shepherd who imperils and
actually loses his life in protecting his flock against the
wolf; He, too, dies for the sheep; but He lays down
His life deliberately and of set purpose : *' no man
taketh it from (Him)." Our Lord's Death is unique.
The parallel fails. He died for men in some other
sense than those have died who have shrunk from no
dangers in the service of the Church and of God. Words
of our Lord, which we have already considered, suggest
a partial explanation of the peculiarity of His death :
His blood was shed " for the remission of sins."
There are other words of His which contribute
additional illustration to the sense in which He laid
down His life " for the sheep." On His way to Jeru-
salem, and a very short time before His death, He
had spoken to Peter and the other Apostles about the
greatness of their future position in the kingdom of
heaven : " Verily I say unto you. That ye which have
followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of man
shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."^
After this, indeed. He had warned them that a great
crisis in His personal history was very near, and that
He was going up to the holy city to die. His words
were very distinct, and so terrible that we might have
supposed that all personal ambition in the hearts of the
^ John X. 17, 18. 2 Matt. xix. 28.
74 ^^^ F^ct of the Atonement: [lect.
disciples would have given place to anxiety and dis-
tress about the sufferings which menaced their Lord.
He had said : " Behold, we go up to Jerusalem ; and
the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief
priests, and unto the scribes ; and they shall condemn
Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles ;
and they shall mock Him, and shall scourge Him, and
shall spit upon Him, and shall kill Him ; and the third
day He shall rise again." ^ But they do not seem to
have believed that He meant exactly what He said.
There was something in His manner which *' amazed "
them, and " as they followed [Him] they were afraid;"^
but that these terrible words were to be literally ful-
filled was incredible. They knew that He was accus-
tomed to speak in parables. His commonest sayings
had often a hidden sense. His thoughts had always
transcended theirs. More than once they had missed
His meaning because they had mistaken the form for
the substance : and now, whatever He meant, He could
not mean that He was to be actually betrayed to His
enemies by one of themselves, and put to death.
Heavy storm-clouds might be gathering about Him,
but He would break through them with victorious
splendour ; and if the final struggle was at hand, the
kingdom of God would immediately appear, and the
*' thrones" He had promised them would be theirs.
They thought it no harm to speculate about how the
honours of His kingdom would be distributed among
them. James and John might have felt that their rank
I Mark x. 33, 34. 2 jbid. x. 32.
III.] ihe Testimony of our Lord, 75
was secure but for those ominous words with which the
Lord had closed what He had said to them about
their coming glory : " Many that are first shall be last,
and the last shall be first." ^ To make their position
certain, they came to Him, or rather their mother
came for them, and asked that He would reserve for
one of them the throne on His right hand, and for the
other the throne on His left hand, in His kingdom.^
In reply. He spoke of His sufferings, and said that
they, too, would suffer; but He gave no promise
that their request would be granted. The rest of
the Apostles, naturally enough, were ** moved with
indignation," and *' much displeased with James and
John." But Jesus called them to Him, and told
them that the law of greatness in the kingdom of God
was unlike that which determined the rank and power
of princes in earthly states : ** Whosoever will be great
among you, shall be your minister : and whosoever of
you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For
even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but
to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." ^
I Matt. xix. 30. 2 Ibid. xx. 20, 21.
3 Mark x. 43-45. " This price of redemption He gave avri, and
not merely virkp, in the wider sense, /. <?., ifistead of, in exchange of,
or as a substitute, Matt. xvii. 27; Heb. xii. 16. This redemption
at the price of His life was made avri ttoWCjv. The expression
many is not intended to indicate a smaller number as compared
with all, — the latter expression occurring in Rom. v. 18 ; i Tim.
ii. 4. In the opinion of the author, the term is intended by way of
antithesis to the One whose life was the ransom of the many. At
the same time the expression undoubtedly indicates not only the
objective bearing, but also the subjective efficacy of the ransom, by
which many are in reality redeemed. Comp. Rom. v. 1 5 ; Matt,
xxvi. 28."— Lange's Gospel of Matthew, vol. ii. p. 254.
76 The Fact of the Atonement : [lect.
As the ethical idea of Sacrifice has become vague
and indefinite to us because we are not familiar with
the original institution, so the ethical idea of Redemp-
tion has lost very much of the sharpness of its outline
because we are not in the habit of paying ransoms.
But to the people of our Lord's time the payment of
ransoms was a familiar custom, and under the Jewish
law ransoms were the subject of very definite regu-
lations. Some of these regulations were probably
obsolete, but they were not unknown. To a Jew a
ransom was the money which a man paid to recover
possession of his inheritance when he had parted with
it ; ^ it was the price he paid when he purchased the
freedom of any that was " nigh of kin to him " who
had become a slave to a stranger ; ^ it was what he
gave in exchange for the life of the first-born of an
unclean animal which he wanted to keep, and which
the law required him either to redeem or to destroy ; ^
it was the five shekels which he had to pay for the life
of his first-born child ; ^ it was the half shekel which
every man over twenty years of age had to pay at
the census, to avert Divine judgments — "atonement
money " — a price which every man paid for his life ; ^
it was the money which the parent, wife, child, or
brother of a man who had been killed by an ox, known
to be vicious or dangerous, claimed from the owner,
and on the payment of which the owner was permitted
I Levit. XXV. 25-27. 2 Ibid, XXV. 47-49.
3 Num. xviii. 15 ; Exod. xiii. 13, xxxiv. 20
4 Num. xviii. 16. 5 Exod. xxx. 12, 13, 16.
III.] the Testimony of our Lord, 77
to live ; ^ it was what the murderer, in accordance
probably with ancient custom, might offer to "the re-
venger of blood," to prevail upon him not to inflict the
penalty of death, but which the Mosaic law in its
just severity forbade him to accept, so that for the life
of the murderer no ransom was possible.^ A ransom,
when given for persons, rescued them from slavery or
from death ; it averted Divine judgments ; it cancelled
the claims which deprived them of freedom, or the
crime by which they had forfeited life. It was in money
that the ransom was usually paid, but there was one
large class of cases in which, by the sacrifice of the
life of one creature, another was redeemed from death. ^
And our Lord had come to "give His life a ransom
for many." It was in this sense, then, that He was to
" lay down His life for " those who were no longer His
servants, but " His friends ; " and in this sense that
the Good Shepherd was to give His life for the sheep.
The explanations which our Lord gave of His Death
are coherent. He gave His life a ransom for us, and
therefore it is that through the shedding of His blood
we receive the remission of sins, and escape eternal
destruction.
The passages which I have quoted, if they stood
alone, would be sufficient to demonstrate that to our
Lord's own mind His Death was something more than
the incidental or even the inevitable consequence of
^ Exod. xxi. 29, 30. 2 Num. xxxv. 31.
3 Ibid, xviii. 15 ; Exod. xiii. 13 ; xxxiv. 20.
78 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
His fidelity to the truth, and of His antagonism to the
corrupt ambition, the hypocrisy, and the evil passions
of the ecclesiastical rulers of the Jewish people ; that
He did not die as martyrs die, because He chose death
rather than apostasy; that His Death has a unique
relation to the redemption of our race ; that whatever
may be effected for the restoration of mankind to God
by His Incarnation, by the fulfilment in Him of the
Divine ideal of human perfection, by the revelation in
His life and character, in His miracles and teaching,
of the Divine holiness and love, the remission of sins is
rendered possible by His Death. But these passages
do not stand alone, there are others which sustain the
general argument.
Why was it that in His conversation with Nicodemus
our Lord insisted on His Death with such singular em-
phasis, and ascribed to it such great results ? The
conversation opens with a declaration of the necessity
of the New Birth. To enter the kingdom of God, a
man must receive the life of God. But to whom is
this Divine and eternal life given ? How is it to be
brought within the reach of those who have transgressed
the Divine laws and provoked the Divine anger ? Is
it enough that the holiness and grace of the Son of
God should fill the hearts of men with shame and grief
for their sin ? that the blessedness of His communion
with the Father should make them passionately desire
to receive the life which dwells in Him, that His blessed-
ness may become theirs ? that His compassion. His
mercy, His "exceeding great and precious promises"
in.] the Testimony of our Lord, 79
should inspire them with trust in the infinite love of
God, and give them courage to appeal to Him for that
supreme gift by w^hich they are to be " made partakers
of the Divine nature," and rendered capable of entering
the Divine kingdom ? This is not the impression that
v^e receive from our Lord's words. That the Divine
life may become ours, the Son of God must die.
** As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so
must the Son of man be lifted up " — His Incarnation is
not enough, His Ministry is not enough, He must die —
" that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have eternal life." ' It is this conception of His
Death that gives form to the words which follow: —
"God so loved the world, that He gave" — did not
merely send, but gave — "His only begotten Son" —
surrendered Him up to all that was involved in the great
work of saving mankind, delivered Him over to the
death which has just been illustrated by a reference to
the lifting up of the brazen serpent — ** that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life." *
I reminded you in the previous Lecture of the con-
flicting joy and dread which agitated the heart of Christ
when certain Gentiles, who had come up to Jerusalem
to celebrate the Passover, wished to see Him just before
the close of His public ministry ; but I did not quote
all that He said to them. The time was approaching
when men of every race would be attracted to Him,
but as yet the nations He had come to save belonged
^ John iii. 14, 15. 2 ibid. iii. 16.
8o The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
to ''this present evil world," and the power of "the
prince of this world " was unbroken. His Death, which
was now so near, was to establish a new and Divine
order. " Now shall the prince of this world be cast
out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto Me."^ His Death, not His birth,
was to be the great crisis in the history of man-
kind. His Death, not His living ministry, was to
reverse the evil fortunes of the human race. His
apparent and temporary defeat was the condition of
His real and enduring victory ; He must die on the
cross in order to become the Prince and Saviour of the
world. Discourses richer in spiritual truth than the
Sermon on the Mount, and more pathetic than His
address to His disciples on the night before His
Passion ; parables of diviner beauty than that of the
Lost Sheep and the Prodigal Son ; manifestations of
sympathy with human suffering more tender than
His tears at the grave of Lazarus; manifestations of
mercy for human sin more generous and more touch-
ing than His lament over the city of His murderers —
all these would be in vain : He must die, if all men
are to be drawn to Him. Other explanations of the
necessity of His Death may be given. I prefer His
own. He gave His life a ransom for many ; His blood
was shed for the remission of sins.
There is a discourse of our Lord's in which His
direct intention is to illustrate the relation of His Death
to the gift of eternal life rather than to the remission o^
' John xii. 32.
III.] the Testimony of our Lord, 8i
sins, but which is not without value in this argument.
It was delivered in the synagogue of Capernaum, in
the very synagogue, perhaps, whose ruins are still to be
seen at Tell Hum, and on a lintel of which is sculp-
tured the pot of manna, the visible symbol and me-
morial to the modern traveller of the discourse delivered
within its walls eighteen centuries ago. On the pre-
vious day He had fed five thousand men, besides
women and children, on five barley loaves and two
small fishes. The miracle was wrought on the other
side of the lake of Galilee, but the crowd had followed
Him to Capernaum. They wanted Him to repeat the
great historical miracle of the wilderness. *' What
sign showest Thou, then, that we may see and believe
Thee ? What dost Thou work ? Our fathers did eat
manna in the desert " — not mere barley loaves and
fish miraculously multiplied — "as it is written. He
gave them bread from heaven to eat."^ Our Lord
replied that He was the true bread from heaven, the
bread of God, the bread of life, and that *' if any man
eat of this bread he shall live for ever.""^ But He went
on to speak of His Death as necessary to the eternal
life of mankind. '* The bread that I will give is My
flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. . . .
Verily, verily, I say unto you, except 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."3
I John vi. 30, 31. 2 Ibid. vi. 51. 3 Ibid. vi. 51, 53, 54.
7
82 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
The people were confounded and the disciples per-
plexed. He at once removed the impression that they
were literally to eat His flesh; for He said that "the
Son of man" was to ** ascend up where He was before ;"
and He added that *' it is the spirit that quickeneth,
the flesh proliteth nothing;" and the spirit was in a
sense and in a measure already theirs. *' The words
that I speak [or have spoken] to you, they are spirit
and they are life."^
But the startling form under which He had repre-
sented His Death as the necessary condition of the
life of the world, He leaves unexplained. The expla-
nation is suggested by the words of the Evangelist
at the commencement of the narrative : " The pass-
over, the [great] feast of the Jews, was nigh." ^
From the manna which fell in the wilderness, our
Lord's mind passed to the lamb that was killed on
the night of the Exodus. When the angel of the Lord
smote the first-born of Egypt, ** from the first-born of
Pharaoh that sat on the throne, unto the first-born of
the captive that was in the dungeon," his terrible
sword had not smitten the first-born of the Jews. They
had been delivered because, in obedience to the com-
mand of God, the blood of the paschal lamb was on
the lintel and door-posts of every house. The lamb
was slain, and the first-born were saved. The blood
of the lamb was sprinkled on the outside of the house,
1 John vi. 62, 63.
2 Ibid. vi. 4. See GODET : Commentaire su?- rEvmigile de S. yean,
vol. ii. 79, 132, seq.
ni.] the Testimony of our Lord. ^-^
the family within ate the flesh. And Christ was the
true Passover Lamb ; His Death averted death from the
true Israel of God, " the church of the first-born ; "
and His flesh was to give new life and strength to
those who received Him.
At the time these words w^ere spoken His meaning
was hidden even from the Apostles. Another pass-
over came, and He celebrated it with them on the
night before He was crucified ; and then ** He took
bread and blessed it, and brake it ; and said, Take,
eat ; this is My body. And he took the cup, and gave
thanks, and gave it to them, saying. Drink ye all of it ;
for this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed
for many for the remission of sins." Even then they
probably failed to grasp His meaning. But after He
had risen again, and when they discovered that He
had accomplished for them a greater deliverance than
Moses had accomplished for their fathers, then doubt-
less they recognised the same wonderful truth in the
"hard saying" which had troubled them in the syna-
gogue at Capernaum, and in the new rite which He
had instituted in the upper chamber in Jerusalem.
Our Lord was the true paschal lamb ; His blood,
" shed for many for the remission of sins," saved them
from death ; His flesh was to be the perpetual support
of their new and free and happy life.^
There is another consideration which appears to
^ " As much as to say the blood of the lamb was shed in Egypt
for the salvation of the first-born of the Israelites. This my
blood is shed for the remission of sins." — Chrysostom : Catena
Aurea, Matt. xxvi. 28.
7*
84 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
have some force. The silence of a great Teacher Hke
our Lord is often as expressive as His speech. He
came to a people that claimed to stand in a nearer
relation to God than the rest of mankind, and He
acknowledged the claim. He recognised the Divine
commission of Jewish prophets, and the Divine autho-
rity of Jewish institutions. He called the temple His
" Father's house." He kept the feasts. He told the
leper whom He healed to go to the priest and to offer
the gift that Moses commanded. Even when con-
versing with a Samaritan, He asserted the prerogatives
of the Jewish race : " Ye worship ye know not what :
we know what we worship : for salvation is of the Jews." ^
He said that the Jewish Scriptures testified of Him.
He declared that He had not come to destroy the law
or the prophets, but to fulfil them ; the fundamental
ideas of the national institutions and the national life
were to reappear, developed and perfected, in the king-
dom of heaven.
Now among the institutions of Judaism, sacrifices
were the most conspicuous ; they stood at the very
centre of the religious thought and service of the nation.
To offer them was the special function of a numerous
and powerful priesthood. The ritual of sacrifice was
governed by the most minute and elaborate regulations.
All the offerings were not of one kind. Some of them
were intended to express, as their chief idea, the perfect
surrender of the soul to God ; others were intended to
be the expression of happy fellowship with God and
^ John iv. 22.
in-] the Testimony of our Lord. 85
hearty thanksgiving. But there was one class of
sacrifices— a class separated into two groups — which
were specifically intended to atone for certain kinds of
offences against the Mosaic law. The offender brought
his sacrifice to the priest, and the offering of the
sacrifice secured forgiveness. Whatever theory we
may form of the Divine idea underlying this symbolic
institution, the Law appeared to affirm that the relation
between the offering of the sacrifice and the remission
of the sin was immediate and direct ; ^ and this was
obviously the belief of the Jews in the time of our
Lord.
It is true that no sacrifices secured forgiveness
for specific moral offences : a Jew who had broken
one of the Ten Commandments could not bring a
sheep or a lamb to the priest, and atone for his sin.
But every year there was a great ceremonial at which
all the sins of the nation were confessed, and in some
sense atoned for. Those who had been trained to con-
nect the remission of a ceremonial offence with the
offering of the sacrifice required by the Law, were cer-
tain to connect the remission of graver offences with
the offering of the sacrifices on the Day of Atone-
ment. The disproportion between the sacrifices of
that day and the guilt of the whole nation prevented
the consciences of those who were troubled by the sense
of sin from finding perfect rest in the ritual ; but the
idea of remission of sins was inseparable from the idea
of a sacrifice for sins.
' Lev, iv.
86 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
Sacrifices for the sins of the whole nation were also
offered at other times — at the beginning of every month
and at the great festivals. Nor was the idea of expia-
tion altogether excluded from the burnt-offerings which
were presented in the temple every day.^
That the Jewish people believed that sacrifice and
remission were directly related to each other, is clear
from the Epistle to the Hebrews.
The writer takes this belief for granted when he illus-
trates the greatness of the sacrifice of Christ by con-
trasting it with the sacrifices of the ancient law.
" Under the law, without shedding of blood, is no re-
mission ; '"* "where remission [of sins and iniquities]
is, there is no more offering for sin." ^ ** Christ was
once offered to bear the sin of many,"'* and " after He
had offered one sacrifice for sins. He for ever sat down
on the right hand of God." ^
It may be alleged that the whole argument of the
anonymous writer of this epistle is nothing more than
a concession to Jewish habits of thought, a kindly and
skilful endeavour to facilitate the transition of Jewish
believers from the old faith to the new ; that it was
necessary to invest Christ with sacerdotal functions,
and to express the significance of His Death by sacri-
ficial symbols, because the Jews had been so long
accustomed to find access to God through a priesthood,
and to connect the remission of sins with the shedding
of blood. Let this hypothesis be granted ; for the mo-
I Note E. 2 Heb. ix. 22. 3 Ibid. x. 18.
4 Ibid. ix. 28. 5 Ibid. x. 12.
in.] the Testimony of our Lord. 87
ment I have no occasion to dispute it. Whether they
were true or false, the ideas which determine the whole
argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews were firmly
rooted in the mind of the Jewish people. If they were
true — if the relation created by the institutions of Juda-
ism between the remission of sins and sacrifice for sins
was the symbolic expression of a Divine law — there is
an end of the controversy : our Lord's Death is the ob-
jective reason on the ground of which God pardons
human transgressions. But if these ideas were false,
how was it that our Lord did not protest against them ?
If the Jewish people had misinterpreted their national
institutions, if God never intended to train them to
the recognition of a direct relation between the offer-
ing of sacrifices and the remission of sin, how can
His silence be explained ? More than once He came
into violent collision with the faith and customs of the
nation. The Scribes and the Pharisees found fault
because His disciples omitted to wash their hands be-
fore eating bread. In itself the custom was not only
harmless, but decent and cleanly : the only harm was
that it had been made a religious obligation. Our Lord
defended His disciples with an unusual vehemence
of indignation, and charged the authoritative religious
teachers of the nation with making the word of God
of none effect through their traditions.^ Again and
again He deliberately provoked the most bitter hostility
by working miracles on the Sabbath day : the healing
of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda on the
^ Mark vii. 1-13.
88 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
Sabbath was indeed the origin of that unrelenting an-
tagonism which at last culminated in the conspiracy
to put Him to death.
But surely mere ceremonial superstitions, and ex-
cessive rigidity in keeping the Sabbath, however
inconsistent with the true idea of a perfect life, were
harmless compared with the error — if it were an error
— involved in the Jewish conception of the functions and
powers of an atoning sacrifice. Those who deny that
remission of sins is granted on the ground of an
objective sacrifice for sins, maintain that the theory
against which they protest obscures the glory of the
Divine mercy, rests on false ideas of the Divine
justice, and exerts a most pernicious influence on the
whole development of religious thought and life. If
the theory which they reject is false, they are right in
the earnestness and energy with which they denounce
it. But this theory penetrated the whole substance of
Jewish thought, and I ask again. How is the silence
of our Lord to be explained ? His silence ! It is no
ordinary silence which has to be accounted for. At the
very commencement of His ministry He received with-
out a protest the testimony of John the Baptist —
* Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin
of the world." ^ His silence was a definite acceptance
of the testimony ; it was an acknowledgment that He
had come to fulfil the idea of the sin-offering of the
Jewish law, and to secure for men the remission of their
sins.
' John i. 29.
III.] the Testimony of our Lord, 89
But He came to "fulfil" **the prophets " as well as
" the law." Demonstrations of Christian doctrine rest-
ing on isolated passages selected from the Jewish
Scriptures are, no doubt, unsatisfactory and incon-
clusive. Nothing can be more uncritical than the use
which theologians have made of the Old Testament.
To discover richer treasures of evangelical truth in the
book of Leviticus than in the four Gospels, in the
minor prophets than in the Epistles of St. Paul,
betrays not only intellectual perversity, but an utter
ignorance of the principles which have determined the
whole course of the Divine procedure in accomplishing
human redemption. There is great interest, indeed, in
watching the gradual brightening of the great hope of
a Deliverer, the development of the Messianic idea in
richer and richer forms, forms suggested as much by
the vicissitudes of Jewish history as by the direct re-
velations which were made to Jewish prophets. The
institutions and Scriptures of the ancient faith have not
become obsolete ; but Truth as well as Grace came by
Jesus Christ our Lord ; history is better than prophecy ;
and facts are greater than symbols.
It is certain, however, that to our Lord Jesus Christ
the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms were
full of Himself.^ He found in the literature and in-
stitutions of Judaism, the hopes which He had come
to fulfil, the cravings which He had come to satisfy,
the ideas which were to be illustrated in His personal
history. Could we have listened while He expounded to
I Luke xxiv. 44.
90 The Fact of the A tonemement : [lect.
the two disciples who were on their way to Emmaus
*' the scriptures .... concerning Himself," or have
sat with the larger company that same evening,
assembled together with shut doors for fear of the
Jews, and heard Him when He " opened their under-
standing, that they might understand the scriptures,
and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it be-
hoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the
third day : and that repentance and remission of sins
should be preached in His name among all nations ; " ^
we should have received large accessions to our know-
ledge concerning the thought of Christ about His own
work and His relation to the history and faith of the
Jewish people.
But on the night preceding His Death He had
definitely connected His last sad hours with a very
memorable passage of Old Testament prophecy. What-
ever maybe our interpretation of the direct and original
reference of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, our Lord
declared that in Him the idea of that chapter was to
be fulfilled : " This that is written must yet be accom-
plished in Me, And He was reckoned with transgressors:
for the things concerning Me have an end." ^
The representations of our Lord's Death which we
have considered in this Lecture throw an intense light
on the sense in which He intended that the prophecy
would be fulfilled in Himself. Our Lord spoke of lay-
ing down His life for His sheep and for His friends ;
and the prophet declares that the Servant of Jehovah,
I Luke xxiv. 26, 27, 45, 46. 2 ibid. xxii. 37,
Ill-] the Testimony of our Lord, 91
whose sufferings he is describing, " was wounded for
our transgressions, was bruised for our iniquities :
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him
He was cut off out of the land of the living : for the
transgression of My people was He stricken" (vv. 5, 8).
Our Lord said that He had come to give His life a
ransom for many : the prophet says, " He hath borne
our griefs and carried our sorrows ; . . . . with His
stripes we are healed" (vv. 4,5). John the Baptist
pointed to Him as the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world : the prophet declares that Jehovah
will make the soul of His Servant " an offering for sin."
The prophet says, *' All we like sheep have gone astray,
and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquities of us all.
.... He bare the sin of many. . . . By His know-
ledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for He
shall bear their iniquities" (vv. 6, 12, 11) ; and Christ
told His disciples that His blood was to be "shed for
the remission of sins." The whole prophecy, in all
its separate parts, finds its parallel in various sayings
by our Lord, in which He describes the character of
His sufferings and their relation to the redemption
of mankind. ^
The results of this investigation of our Lord's testi-
mony concerning His Death are these : —
I. His Death was neither the incidental nor the
inevitable consequence of His collision with the passions
and prejudices of the Jewish people.
I Note F.
92 The Fact of the A tonenient : [lect.
2. The laying down of His life was a voluntary act.
3. To lay down His life was one of the ends for
which He came into the world.
4. His Death is immediately related to the deliver-
ance from condemnation of those who believe in Him,
to the remission of sins, and to the establishment of
His sovereignty over the human race.
5. He accepted the testimony of John the Baptist
that He was the Lamb of God that taketh away the
sin of the world, and He associated His Death with
the sacrifice of the passover lamb on the night of the
Exodus.
6. He described His Death as a death for others, and
more specifically He said that He gave His life a ran-
som for others.
In any adequate theory of the purpose of the Death
of Christ, these various statements must find a place
and an explanation. It is further necessary, in any
theory of His Death, to account for the extent to which
it filled His mind from the commencement of His
ministry, the increasing fear with which He anticipated
it as it came nearer, and the mysterious sorrow He
endured on the cross, a sorrow which compelled Him
to cry, " My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken
Me?"'
Dr. Jowett, in his essay " On Atonement and Sa-
tisfaction," referring to the alleged absence from our
Lord's teaching of any clear and unambiguous passages
I Note G.
in.] the Testimony of our Lord, 93
which can be quoted in support of this doctrine, says :
*• It is hard to imagine that there can be any truer
expression of the Gospel than the words of Christ
Himself, or that any truth omitted by Him is essential
to the Gospel. ' The disciple is not above his master,
nor the servant greater than his lord.' The philosophy
of Plato was not better understood by his followers
than by himself, nor can we allow that the Gospel is to
be interpreted by the Epistles, or that the Sermon on
the Mount is only half Christian, and needs the fuller
inspiration or revelation of St. Paul, or the author of
the Epistle to the Hebrews." ^ I will not stay to insist
on the fundamental error involved in the suggestion
that our Lord's relation to His Apostles has even the
remotest analogy to the relation between Plato and his
followers. What Plato taught contained nearly every-
thing that Plato contributed to the development of the
intellectual and moral life of mankind ; but whatever
may be our theory of the Death of Christ, the larger
part of what Christ revealed of God is contained in
His personal character, in the relations which He sus-
tained to various descriptions of men, in the sufferings
to which He Himself submitted, and in the miracles
by which He relieved the sufferings of others.^ But
Dr. Jowett's reference to the relation between Plato
and his followers suggests the relation between Plato
and his master.
We have two representations of the teaching of
Socrates — one in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, the
I The Epistles of St. Paul, ii. 555. 2 See Lect. ii. pp. 37-49-
94 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
other in the Platonic Dialogues — and the differences
between them are not altogether unlike those which are
alleged to exist between the teaching of the historical
Christ, as it may be ascertained from the Gospels/ and
the theological theories developed in the Apostolic
Epistles. Now, if in the Memorabilia it had been re-
corded that Socrates referred to his approaching mar-
tyrdom in terms at all like those in which it appears
that our Lord spoke of His Death ; if — forgive me if the
hypothesis appears strained and forced — we had learnt
from Xenophon that when Socrates was beginning to
discuss philosophy with the sophists and young men of
Athens, he had accepted testimony which implied that
he was to be sacrificed to the gods for the sins of
the Athenians'; if we learnt that his mind was oppressed
from the very first by the anticipation of the sorrows of
his last hours ; if to those who came to him inquiring
about the Supreme Good he had said that he must die
in order that the Supreme Good might be theirs ; if he
had spoken again and again of laying down his life
for others ; if he had said that his life was not to be
taken from him by the power of his enemies, but that
he would lay it down of himself; if he had declared
that the halfjuwy, to whose voice he always listened,
I The differences between the Synoptists and St. John are of
inconsiderable importance in relation to this argument. The state-
ment of the case would have been only slightly enfeebled if all
allusions to the Fourth Gospel were cancelled. Further, the
characteristic theology of the Fourth Gospel is not of a kind to
create distrust of any testimony it may contain to the Doctrine of
Expiation.
ni.] the Testimony of our Lord, 95
had revealed to him that the very purpose for which he
had been born was that he might give his life a ransom
for many ; if he had deliberately connected the idea of
his own death with expiatory sacrifices which his
countrymen were accustomed to oifer to the gods ; if he
had declared that the lines of an ancient poet, pre-
dicting that the sins of the Athenians were to be laid
upon the head of one of the greatest of Athenian citizens,
were to be fulfilled in himself ; and if during his last
day in prison, and just before the slave brought him
the hemlock, instead of discoursing on immortality,
he had instituted a religious rite to be celebrated by
his friends in commemoration of his death, and said
that he was about to die that his disciples and his
feliow-citizens might receive the remission of sins; —
if, I say, all these things had been told us of
Socrates by Xenophon, and if we believed that they
were the true expression of his own conception of
his martyrdom, Xenophon's testimony alone would
have been sufficient to assure us that Socrates himself
believed that his death was an atonement, a satisfac-
tion, a sacrifice for the crimes of Athens. Plato might
then have written another dialogue ; under the lofty and
beautiful cypresses of the woods consecrated to Jupiter,
he might have assembled Phaedo, Apollodorus, Crito,
Critobulus, Hermogenes, and the other friends of
Socrates who were with him on the day of his mar-
tyrdom ; and he might have developed a theory of the
expiatory power of the death of Socrates even more
elaborate than that which Christian theologians have
96 The Fact of the Atonement, [lect. in.
found of the Death of Christ in the Epistles of St. Paul
and the Epistle to the Hebrews ; and we might have
claimed the authority of Socrates for the theory of
Plato without incurring the reproach which Dr Jowett
directs against evangelical theology, when he reminds
us that " the disciple is not above his master, nor the
servant greater than his lord."
Let the Gospels stand alone, let the testimony of the
Epistles be completely suppressed, and the strong foun-
dations of that conception of the Death of Christ which
has been the refuge of penitents and the joy of saints
for eighteen hundred years will remain unshaken.
The words of Christ, and the words of Christ alone, are
a sufficient vindication of the ancient faith of the
Church.
LECTURE IV.
THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT: THE TESTT
MONY OF ST. PETER,
LECTURE IV.
THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT: THE TESTIMONY OF
ST. PETER.
IN the present Lecture I propose to consider the
testimony to the Atonement contained in the dis-
courses and the First Epistle of St. Peter.
But it may be alleged that the attempt to establish
this doctrine by an appeal to apostolic testimony is pre-
mature, and that the moral objections which have been
urged against the theory that the Death of Christ was
in any sense a Propitiation or Sacrifice for the sins of
the world, ought first to be discussed, and, if possible,
dissipated. The moral objections to the doctrine of
the Atonement are felt by many persons to be far too
grave to be overborne by mere apostolic authority.
These objections may even impair the force of the
argument from the testimony of our Lord in the pre-
vious Lecture. With many who confess that the Lord
Jesus Christ was ** a Teacher sent from God," and who
even acknowledge that He was ** God manifest in the
flesh," the repugnance to the idea of expiation is so
strong, that while they receive the Four Gospels as
containing a fairly authentic account of our Lord's life
100 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect. '
and teaching, they believe that the Apostles could not
have received this idea from Christ Himself, and they
are perplexed that the writers of the Gospels should
have attributed to Him language which appears to
sanction it.
The tendency to discriminate between apostolic
teaching and the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ is,
I believe, very general. To His words — when we are
sure that we have them — absolute authority is con-
ceded; but there are many who hesitate to concede the
same authority to the words of St. Peter or of St. John.
The hesitation does not often assume a very definite
form. It is the result of a spiritual instinct, or of what
seems to be a spiritual instinct, rather than of a theo-
logical theory. Men feel that if Christ were still visibly
present among us, accessible in all hours of difficulty
and doubt, they would infinitely rather trust Him than
trust themselves. If at any time His words seemed to
be in conflict with their own highest conceptions of
moral and spiritual truth, they would feel sure that He
must be right and that they must be wrong. But if it
were only an Apostle that was still living in the world
the case would be different ; they are not quite clear
that the same submission would be due.
If, therefore, we can be certain that Christ Himself
taught the doctrine of the Atonement, it is acknow-
ledged that however strong the objections to the doctrine
may seem to us, we cannot challenge it, and can only
confess that we are in the presence of a great mystery.
But the objections are of such a kind, that those
IV.] the Testimony ofSt.P^ier, ' loi
who feel their force are not willing to accept the
doctrine if it is sustained by apostolic testimony-
alone ; and they are half inclined to believe that the
words in which our Lord is represented as teaching
this doctrine, must have been attributed to Him by
mistake. For the theory of the Atonement is declared
to be inconsistent with all our conceptions of the Divine
Justice, and a travesty of the Divine Mercy, and to be
irreconcilable with the moral and spiritual nature both
of God and man.
I am not about to make any attempt to remove these
objections in the present Lecture. Just now, for a
reason which will appear presently, I am rather anxious
that their full force should be recognised. Perhaps I
have not stated them with sufficient clearness and
energy, and it may therefore be well to quote the most
concise and vigorous statement of them with which I
am familiar. The Rev. James Martineau has expressed
with perfect accuracy, the position not only of those
who, with himself, deny the deity of our Lord, but of
very many who, while rejecting the idea of Atone-
ment, regard the Incarnation as the central and
characteristic fact of the Christian religion.
" Faith in the human conscience," he says, " is necessary to faith
in the Divine perfection, and th's again is the needful prekide to the
beUef in any special revelation This Moral Perfection of
God being assumed as a postulate in the very idea of a Revelation,
no system of religion v/hich contradicts it can be admitted as
credible on any terms. But," he proceeds to say, " the doctrine of
the Atonement involves a plain denial of God's moral excellence.
Theologians speak as if there were some crime, or at least some
weakness in the clemency which freely receives a repentant crea-
103 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
ture into favour." .... But " how is the alleged immorality of
letting off the sinner mended by the added crime of penally crush-
ing the sinless ? " ^
Something, perhaps, of the energy of this protest
was inspired by certain theological theories, for which
I have no occasion to offer apology or defence ; but
the objection is directed against every theory which
affirms that in any sense our iniquities were laid
upon Christ ; that there is a direct relation between
His Death and the remission of sins ; that it is for
Christ's sake that the penitent is received back again
into the light and joy of God. It is the Idea of an
objective Atonement which provokes repugnance, no
matter what may be the form in which that Idea
is represented. The repugnance is so deep that no
system of religion in which the Idea is present ** can
be admitted as credible on any terms.''
In the course of these Lectures I trust it will be-
come apparent that in the Death of the Lord Jesus
Christ as a Sacrifice and Propitiation for the sins
of the world, the Moral Perfections of God find their
highest expression, and the deepest necessities of
man's moral and spiritual life their only complete
satisfaction ; but I have been anxious to state thus
early the principal objection to the doctrine which I
hope to establish, because that objection seems to
suggest a practical solution of the difficulty with
regard to the authority of apostolic teaching.
Let me re-state the difficulty. With those persons
to whom these Lectures are addressed, the authority
"^ Studies of Christianity^ pp. 186-188.
IV.] the Testimony of St, Peter, 103
of the Lord Jesus Christ is absolute. He is God
manifest in the flesh, and in Him the very truth of
the Divine character has been revealed to mankind.
But it is maintained that the Apostles may have mis-
apprehended very much of His teaching. It is- clear
that they did not easily liberate themselves from the
influence of Jewish habits of thought and Jewish
traditions. Their inspiration, whatever it may have
been, did not make them omniscient. There were
many things of which they knew nothing ; there were
some things which they thought they knew, about
which, for a time at least, they were mistaken. Their
authority, therefore, is not decisive. When we are
sure that Christ is speaking, we are sure that we
have the very thought of God, but we cannot determine
the extent of the inspiration of the Apostles ; and it is
alleged that when they are speaking we are not sure
whether what they are telling us came to them from
the teaching of the Holy Ghost, or from their own
erring thoughts about the will and work of their
Master, or even from the common and untrustworthy
conceptions of Divine truth which prevailed among
their fellow-countrymen. It is probable that even in
reporting the words of Christ their report may have
been coloured by religious errors of their own ; it is still
more probable that these errors may have misled them
when they attempted to illustrate and develop Chris-
tian facts and doctrine. Even, therefore, if it can be
shown that the apostles taught that in some sense
the Death of Christ is the ground on which God.
104 ^^^^ P'^ci of the Atonement: [lect.
forgives human sin, it does not follow that they had
learnt it from Christ Himself, or by a special revela-
tion from heaven.
I wish to show that on this particular question we
cannot reject the authority of the Apostles — whether
they were inspired or uninspired — without rejecting the
authority of Christ Himself, and the moral objections
to the Idea of Atonement suggest the proof.
For in the judgment of those who reject this Idea,
as well as in the judgment of those who receive it,
our reception or rejection of it determines our whole
conception of the Divine character. When reading
the impassioned denunciations of the Idea of the
Atonement which are to be found in the pages of
some modern writers, it is hardly possible to resist
the conviction that in their opinion those who receive
it and those who reject it worship different Gods,
and belong to forms of religion which, in their funda-
mental principles and essential spirit, are mutually
antagonistic and destructive.
If there is any measure of truth in this representation
of the gravity of the controversy, it is quite unnecessary
to consider to what extent the inspiration granted to
the apostles secured them from religious error." It is
unnecessary to raise the question whether they re-
ceived any supernatural inspiration different in kind or
degree from that which is granted to the commonalty
of the faithful. The original Apostles were the friends
of Christ, and they were entrusted by Him with the
IV.] the Testimony of St, Peter, 105
task of propagating the Faith of which He was the
Founder. I believe that they had an exceptional form
of spiritual illumination to qualify them for their work ;
but in the present argument I need not insist on
this. Let it be conceded, if the concession is asked
for, that beyond their personal intimacy with the Lord
Jesus Christ — whom I assume to have been the Son
of God — they had no special prerogatives, no surer
access to Divine Truth than any of ourselves, no
greater immunity from religious error. Let it be con-
ceded that the substance as well as the form of their
writings bears traces of their Jewish training, and, if
you will, of their Jewish narrowness, their Jewish pre-
judice, and their Jewish superstition. Still therS must
have been some limits to their possible mistakes. If St.
Peter and St. John, while professing to deliver to man-
kind the revelation which had come to them through
Christ, gave representations of His Death and of its
relations to human redemption, which, to quote the
words of Mr. Martineau, are " an outrage upon the first
principles of rectitude," and betray a " reckless dis-
regard of all moral considerations," from the thought
of which it is a just matter of astonishment " that all
good men do not recoil," ^ He who " spake as never
man spake " must have been the most inefficient of
moral teachers.
On a question of such magnitude and of such broad ,
and practical interest as this, a question vitally affect-
mg the character of God and determining the whole
I Studies of Christianity^ p. 1 88.
io6 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
attitude of the soul in relation to Him, I should be
satisfied to learn what Christ taught from the testimony
of any two or three men of fair intelligence who were
in moral sympathy with Christ, and who had had
sufficient opportunity of learning His mind.
That on this point the teaching of the original
Apostles must have been in harmony with the teaching
of our Lord, is still further demonstrated by the fact
that it was their special commission to fulfil His in-
tention " that repentance and remission of sins should
be preached in His name among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem."^
It is incredible that He should have invested men
with such a commission as this, who were capable of
associating with the infinite mercy of God in the
remission of sins an idea which justly revolts the
conscience of mankind, and ascribes to God Himself a
gross, deliberate, and systematic violation of the prin-
ciples of eternal righteousness. If the idea of Atone-
ment rests upon so appalling a misconception of the
Divine character and of the principles of the Divine
government, and if that idea is present in the teaching
of the Apostles, we have to explain — not how so grave
and fatal an error is consistent with the theory that
they had received supernatural inspiration to qualify
them for becoming the religious teachers of mankind —
but how it was possible for men of the most ordinary
capacity so grievously to pervert and corrupt the
' Luke xxiv. 47.
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter, 107
teaching of their Master. You cannot elude the argu-
ment founded on their testimony by distinguishing
between His teaching and theirs. On a subject of such
gravity, a subject involved in the very substance of
the commission they received from Christ, such dis-
tinctions are unavailing. Whatever moral objections
may be urged against their teaching on a point like
this, are an impeachment of the authority of Christ.
It is unnecessary, for the purposes of the present
argument, to discuss the nature or the limits of apos-
tolic inspiration. The varying forms in which the
Apostles state the relation between the Death of Christ
and the forgiveness of sin may be their own ; but if
their varying statements are harmonious expressions of
the same idea — that the Death of Christ is the im-
mediate ground on which God grants to the penitent
remission of sins — the Apostles must have received the
idea from Christ Himself.
In our times the doctrine of inspiration is in a very
unsettled and even chaotic condition, and many devout
men are unable to determine to what extent the super-
natural illumination of the Holy Ghost protected the
Apostles from religious error. The inquiry has con-
siderable speculative interest, but the solution of it is
practically unimportant in relation to the chief articles
of the Christian Faith. Whether Jesus of Nazareth
died on the cross and rose from the dead, whether
He wrought miracles, whether He appealed to the
Jewish nation with the authority of a Teacher sent
io8 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
from God, whether He claimed a unique relation to
God, whether He condemned sin and taught the
necessity of repentance, whether He asserted the
necessity of a supernatural life as the condition of
entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, whether he
affirmed that the forgiveness of sin and escape from
eternal condemnation depend upon faith in Himself
— these are questions on which the concurrent testi-
mony of His personal friends is decisive. There are
some points on which, apart from special inspiration,
it is quite conceivable that they may have mistaken
their Master's meaning; there are others, and these
the greatest, on which, even apart from inspiration,
mistake was impossible. The importance of the inspi-
ration of the original Apostles may be said to vary in
an inverse ratio with the importance of the religious
doctrines on which they are writing.
In considering, therefore, the testimony of St. Peter,
St. James, and St. John, to the doctrine discussed in
these Lectures, I do not think it necessary to claim
for them any such spiritual illumination as would have
saved them from all religious error. The argument
does not require it. Whatever errors they may have
fallen into, it is inconceivable that they should have
taught that the Death of Christ is the objective
ground on which God forgives human sin, unless they
had learnt it from Christ Himself.
We will consider, first, the discourses of St. Peter
contained in the early chapters of the Acts of the
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter. 109
Apostles ; his address on the day of Pentecost to the
great multitude, composed of devout Jews from many
lands, and speaking many tongues ; his address de-
livered in Solomon's porch to the crowd assembled by
the healing of the lame man who had been accustomed
to ask alms " at the gate of the temple which is called
Beautiful ; " his reply to Annas and Caiaphas, when
the miracle was challenged, and he was asked "by
what power or by what name " it had been wrought ;
his speech when he was brought a second time before
the Council; and his explanation of the gospel to
Cornelius the centurion, and the kinsmen and friends
gathered in his house. These discourses are especially
interesting, because they are among the very few apos-
tolic addresses preserved to us which were delivered
to persons who were not believers in Christ.
The substance of them all is the same. Peter
declared that Jesus of Nazareth, as the Jewish people
knew, was *' a man approved of God by
miracles and wonders and signs which God did by
Him," in the midst of them ;^ that He was the Christ
of whom Moses and the prophets had spoken, and for
whose coming they and their fathers had been waiting
and longing for centuries;^ that in crucifying Him the
people and their rulers had committed a great crime ; ^
that God had raised Him from the dead ; "^ that He was
now reigning in heaven, and was appointed by God to
I Acts ii. 22 ; x. 38.
* Ibid. ii. 30-36 ; iii. 13, 22-26 ; iv. 10 ; v. 31 ; x. 43.
3 Ibid. ii. 23 ; iii. 14, 15 ; iv. 10 ; v. 30 ; x. 39.
4 Ibid. ii. 24, 32 ; iii 15 ; iv. 10 ; v. 31 ; x 40.
no The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
be the Prince and Saviour and Judge of men ; ' that
it was the immediate duty of men to repent of the sin
of rejecting Him, to be baptized into His name, to
acknowledge His authority, and to rely on Him for
salvation ; ^ that if they repented and believed in Him
they would receive remission of sins and the gift of the
Holy Ghost; 3 and that *' through His name," and only
through His name, was remission of sins possible to men/
But St. Peter does not tell the people that our Lord's
Death was an expiatory sacrifice. Dr. Young thinks that
on our theory the omission is inexplicable. He says : —
" The personal friends and companions of Jesus, who had been
most intimately and affectionately associated with Him for three
years, .... who had witnessed His Death, and had seen Him,
and had intercourse with Him after His resurrection ; who, after
His departure, had, at His command, waited in solemn prayer to
God during seven days for that Holy Ghost whom He had pro-
mised to send forth, and on whose souls at last an extraordinary
Divine power had descended, — they certainly must have known
what their Master intended should be preached as His gospel,
and above all must have known that which was most essential
and Divine in it. And when only seven weeks after His Death,
on the day of Pentecost, they assembled in Jerusalem, it is
impossible to doubt that their minds and their hearts must have
been full of Christ, of His teaching, His thoughts, His spirit, and
His very words A noble occasion of disburdening their
full hearts was presented. Jerusalem was crowded with multi-
tudes from all corners of the known world ; a mighty audience
was prepared, and they were not only expected, but invited to
speak. And they did speak. Thoroughly instructed as they were
in the life and death and doctrine of the Lord, glowing with love
^ Acts ii. 33 ; iii. 21 ; v. 31 ; x. 42.
2 Ibid. ii. 38 ; iii. 19, 23 ; v. 11, 12 ; x. 42, 43.
3 Ibid. ii. 38 ; iii. 19 ; v. 31, 32 ; x. 42, 43.
4 Ibid. ii. 38 ; iv. 12 ; x. 43,
IV.] the Testimony of St, Peter, iii
of Christ and love of their yet blinded countrymen, specially
entrusted with the message of salvation, and specially endowed to
proclaim it, they did speak, and with great freedom and fervour
and fulness. But their theme, what was it? The expiation of
human sin, and satisfaction to Divine justice, by the sacrifice and
sufferings of Jesus on the cross ? Pardon obtained from God
through means of that sacrifice and these sufferings ? If ever
there was an occasion, whether we look to the speakers or to the
hearers or to the circumstances, when these announcements,
supposing them to be fundamental and vital, must have been
made, this was that occasion. But they were not made, and
nothing like them was once uttered. Peter's sermon on the day
of Pentecost to the crowding, eager multitudes at Jerusalem, the
first Christian sermon ever preached in this world, contains from
beginning to end nothing of this kind."^
The substance of this criticism is repeated in Dr.
Young's observations on the other discourses and
addresses of St. Peter contained in the early chapters
of the Acts of the Apostles.
The clearness and force with which it is maintained
that the original Apostles " must have known what
their Master intended should be preached as His
gospel, and above all must have known that which
was most essential and Divine in it," are admirable, and
confirm what has been already said on that subject
in the earlier part of this Lecture. But the criticisms
on St. Peter's omission of all reference to the expia-
tory character of the Death of Christ rest partly on
a misconception of evangelical doctrine, and partly
on what appears to me to be a failure to appreciate
the influence which the historical circumstances in
which these discourses were spoken must have had
on their contents and character.
I T/ie Lije and Light of Men^ pp. 349-351.
112 The Fact of the Atonement-: [lect.
As directed against those evangelical theologians
who maintain that there can be no true faith in Christ
where there is not a clear recognition of His Death as
the Propitiation for the sins of the world, Dr. Young's
argument is conclusive. If that position could be
maintained St. Peter's silence would be incapable of
explanation; but that position is no essential part of the
evangelical creed. There is true Christian faith wher-
ever the Lord Jesus Christ is acknowledged as '* Prince
and Saviour," the Founder of the kingdom of heaven,
the Moral Ruler of mankind, the Author of eternal
salvation. That He atoned for sin on the cross is the
explanation of the power which He has received to
forgive sin ; but a penitent heart may rely on Him for
forgiveness, and for restoration to holiness and to God,
without apprehending the relation of His Death to
human redemption. It was St. Peter's immediate
object to prevail upon the Jews to repent of the crime
of rejecting and crucifying the Lord Jesus, and to
persuade them that He was the Messiah of Jewish
prophecy and Jewish hope, through whom, and through
whom alone, it was possible to obtain the pardon of
sin and eternal life and glory. If they repented of their
crime, confessed that Jesus whom they had crucified
was Lord and Christ, and trusted in Him for salvation,
their faith would be true and genuine ; and they would
receive the redemption which Christ had achieved for
them by His Death, though, as yet, they might not
know that only through His Death was their redemp-
tion made possible.
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter. 113
It was but seven weeks before, as Dr. Young reminds
us, that the Jewish people had crucified the Lord Jesus
Christ as an impostor. To have spoken of the ex-
piatory power of His Sacrifice to those who had been
guilty of that supreme offence, or who had condoned it,
would have been useless. It would have been worse
than useless. There was one solitary aspect under
which, for the time, it was indispensably necessary
that they should regard the Death of Christ. In
crucifying Him, they had committed an appalling
crime. It was their immediate duty to repent
of this crime, and to confess its enormity. With
startling boldness and relentless severity St. Peter
insists on all the circumstances which aggravated
their guilt. For a moment he speaks of Christ as
having been " delivered by the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God " ^ — words which show
that already the Apostle regarded the Death of Christ
not as an accidental event, but as entering into the
Divine conception of His mission — but he instantly
returns to his immediate practical purpose, and adds :
" Him ye have taken, and by wicked hands have cruci-
fied and slain." To have explained that the Death of
Christ was a Propitiation for the sins of the world
would have perplexed the minds of those to whom he
was speaking, and broken the force of those terrible
denunciations by which he endeavoured to awaken
their consciences and alarm their fears.
On the evangelical theory of the Atonement this
^ Acts ii. 23.
9
114 The Fact of the Atonement : [lect.
seems to me an adequate explanation, both of the con-
tents and omissions of the Apostle's discourses. But
how are these discourses to be explained on Dr. Young's
own theory? He, too, acknowledges, what indeed it
is impossible for any one who admits in any sense the
authority of the New Testament to deny, that the
Death of the Lord Jesus Christ has even a greater
place in the moral and spiritual redemption of our race
than His life.
" On the cross," he says, " Christ presses into the very centre of
the world's heart, takes possession of it, and there in that centre
preaches^ as nowhere else was possible, the gospel of God's love !
' Be ye reconciled to God,' He cries. * Come back to your Father !
He hath sent Me to call you back! Inflexibly righteous as He is,
He pities, He loves you, and only waits to forgive and welcome.'" ^
True — gloriously true — although it is only part of the
truth! But how was it that St. Peter said nothing
about it ? He and the Apostles had, as we have been
reminded, " a noble occasion of disburdening their
full hearts" on the day of Pentecost. On Dr. Young's
theory, ** the cross, symbol of dishonour and weakness,
is the mightiest power in the universe ; " * it is the last
and most wonderful revelation of the Divine love.
But how was it that the Apostle was as silent about
the revelation of the love of God in the Death of Christ
as about its expiatory purpose ? To Dr. Young the
cross is the ultimate demonstration of the Divine com-
passion and mercy ; but of this those who listened to
the early discourses of St. Peter heard nothing. He
appeals to the cross again and again, not to fill their
I The Life and Light of Men, p. 43. 2 j^id, p. 1^6.
^v.] the Testimony of St. Peter. 115
hearts with hope, but to intensify their anguish and
their terror. The recollection of his cowardice in
denying his Master on the night before the crucifixion
seems to add fire and vehemence to his denuncia-
tions : — " Him ye have taken, and with wicked hands
have crucified and slain :" " God hath made that same
Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ:"
**Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired
a murderer to be granted to you ; and killed the Prince
of life, whom God hath raised from the dead :" "By the
name of Jesus of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom
God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man
stand before you whole : " *' We ought to obey God
rather than men " — and you especially are men whom
we cannot obey if we are to obey Him, for "the God of
our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged
on a tree." The Apostle never misses an opportunity
of representing the crucifixion as the most terrible of
sins. He denounces those who had committed it with
a persistency and boldness which must have shaken
their hearts with fear. He never changes his tone.
From first to last, in these early discourses, the Death
of Christ is never a revelation of the infinite wealth
of the Divine love : it is always a revelation of the
enormity of human sin. It is never appealed to in order
to awaken hope, but always in order to create dismay.
I ask again, How is this to be explained on the
theory of Dr. Young and of those who think with him ?
It can be explained only by such considerations as those
which I have alleged in reply to Dr. Young's criticisms.
9*
ii6 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
And these considerations are less available for Dr.
Young's theory than for our own. For the expiatory
power of the Death of Christ is effective for all who rely
on Him for the forgiveness of sins, even though they may
know nothing of its expiatory intention ; but the power
of the Death of Christ as an appeal of the Divine love
to the human heart cannot be felt unless the Death is
distinctly recognised as a revelation of that love. On
our theory, Peter's silence did not prevent those who
listened to him from obtaining the remission of sins
which the Death of Christ brought within their reach :
if they trusted in Him as their Saviour they were for-
given, though they knew nothing of the relation between
His Death and their forgiveness. But on Dr. Young's
theory the silence of St. Peter was fatal. Dr. Young
maintains in common with all evangelical theologians
that the Death of Christ has a critical importance in
relation to human redemption, but if its whole value lies
in its power over the human heart as a revelation of the
love of God, the Death is absolutely valueless where
that revelation is not seen and understood ; and St.
Peter, by representing the crucifixion exclusively as a
human crime, and saying nothing to suggest that the
Death of Christ was a manifestation of the Divine love,
made "the cross of Christ of none effect."
But I repeat that it was necessary that those
by whom our Lord had been ** crucified and slain "
should be made to feel and confess their guilt ; and
therefore whenever St. Peter in these early addresses
speaks of the Death of Christ, it is to give intensity
IV.] the Testmiony of St, Peter, 117
and energy to the exhortation to repent. He speaks
of it neither as the most wonderful and pathetic
revelation of the love of God, nor as the expiation
for the sins of the human race.
There are two points, however, in these addresses
which require notice — the frequency and earnestness
with which the Apostle declares that men may obtain
the remission of sins, and the manner in which he con-
nects this great blessing with the Lord Jesus Christ.
It does not appear that either the twelve apostles or
the seventy disciples said much about the forgiveness of
sins during our Lord's earthly life. They were com-
missioned to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven was
at hand, and to charge men to repent. The promise of
the remission of sins, if it formed any part of the sub-
stance of their preaching, had only a subordinate place.
How was it that it assumed such prominence imme-
diately after our Lord's Death and ascension into
heaven ? How was it that St. Peter, though he in-
sisted so earnestly on the aggravations of the sin which
the Jewish people had committed in crucifying Christ,
never threatened them with the Divine judgments for
their crime, but repeated incessantly the promise of
forgiveness ?
Nor does he speak of the infinite mercy of God as
the ground on which they might hope for pardon. He
invariably connects the remission of sins with the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ — " Repent, and be baptized
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission
ii8 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
of sins.'*' The impotent man had been made whole
"by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth," and
" there is none other name under heaven given among
men, w^hereby w^e must be saved." ^ It w^as the plain
and urgent duty of men to repent of their sins, but
forgiveness is not represented as the direct result of re-
pentance or as the immediate expresssion of the Divine
mercy — "Through His name, whosoever believeth in
Him shall receive remission of sins."^ The spiritual
order is changed. The old argument of the penitent,
" Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy
lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of Thy
tender mercies blot out my transgressions," passes
into a new form, and the " name " of Jesus Christ is
made the solitary foundation of human hope. To St.
Peter this was the fulfilment of ancient prophecy )^ and
henceforth sinful men were to rest their confidence in
the power and grace of Him whom the Jews had slain
and hanged on a tree, for " Him hath God exalted by
His right hand to give repentance . • . and forgive-
ness of sins."^
These statements do not necessarily imply that by
His Death the Lord Jesus Christ had atoned for human
sin, but they imply that the relation between Him and
the remission of sins is absolutely unique. He has
not simply made a new revelation of the mercy of
God, and so strengthened the grounds of human con-
fidence in the Divine readiness to forgive ; nor has He
I Acts ii. 38. 2 Ibid. iv. 12. 3 Ibid. x. 43.
4 Ibid. X. 43. 5 Ibid. v. 31.
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter. 119
simply originated new motives to repentance. He
is the channel, and the only channel, of the Divine
mercy. For the pardon of sin the faith of the
human race is henceforth to rest on Him. Preaching
of this kind, so far as I know, has never been asso-
ciated with a theology which declares that the whole
purpose of our Lord's life and sufferings was to
produce a moral and spiritual impression on the
nature of man. It rests upon another and wholly
different conception of His work. It does not necessa-
rily imply the theory of expiation, but it trains the
soul to assume precisely that attitude in relation to
Christ which the expiatory theory requires. The faith
of those who believed the gospel as St. Peter preached
it would receive no shock — it would be complemented
and perfected — by the discovery that Christ, in whose
name they trusted for the remission of sins, had atoned,
by His Death, for the sins of the world.
From the early discourses of St. Peter, addressed to
persons none of whom had as yet received the Chris-
tian faith, and some of whom were the bitter enemies
of Christ, we turn to his great epistle, addressed to
persons who were not only Christians, but who were
suffering persecution for Christ's sake. The epistle is
not doctrinal, but hortatory. It was written not to ex-
plain the articles of Christian belief, but to inculcate
Christian duty, and to strengthen and console its
readers in their earthly troubles by reminding them of
the great objects of Christian hope.
120 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
The omissions of the epistle are hardly less instruc-
tive than its contents. St. Peter had been the friend
and companion of Christ for three years. Many of our
Lord's sayings intended to comfort the sorrowful, and
especially to inspire with energy and constancy those
who are *' persecuted for righteousness' sake," must
have been always present to his memory, and must
have been the perpetual solace of his heart. He quotes
none of them. The Christian people to whom he is
writing appear to have been in danger of suffering the
loss of all things through their fidelity to Christ. It
might have assisted to reconcile them to their mis-
fortunes to be reminded that Christ Himself was poor,
and had not where to lay His head. Of the poverty of
Christ St. Peter says nothing. They were in great
distress, and he must have remembered innumerable
scenes in our Lord's earthly history illustrating the
tenderness of His sympathy — scenes which to Christian
people, in every country, and through eighteen cen-
turies, have been unfailing springs of consolation and
hope, sweetening the bitterness of suffering, and sus-
taining faltering faith in the pity and love of God, and
which have touched the hearts of innumerable men to
whom the Christian faith was only a beautiful fiction ;
but to none of these is there any allusion. From the
first line of the epistle to the last there is not a single
sentence from any of our Lord's discourses, public or
private : neither promise nor parable spoken by Him.
is once quoted. Though His resurrection is men-
tioned three or four times, there is not a solitary
IV.] the Testimony of St, Peter. 121
reference to any of His beneficent miracles. But there
are no less than eight passages in which the Apostle
speaks of our Lord's blood, His Death, or His suffer-
ings. The Spirit of Christ in the prophets " testified
beforehand of the sufferings of Christ," ^ and the Apostle
describes himself as *' a witness of the sufferings of
Christ."^ Those to whom he is writing were "elect
. . . unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Christ." 3 They had been *' redeemed . . . with the
precious blood of Christ."* They are reminded that
Christ "suffered for sins," and "bare our sins in His
own body on the tree " ; ^ that He " suffered for sins,
the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God;
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the
Spirit. " ^ They are exhorted to " arm " themselves
" with the same mind" with which Christ suffered,^ and
to rejoice, inasmuch as they are " partakers of Christ's
sufferings."^ No doubt some of these references to our
Lord's sufferings were suggested by the sufferings of
the Christian people to whom the letter was written,
and have very little if any relation to the doctrine of
expiation. But it is significant that St. Peter's whole
interest and thought should seem to have been con-
centrated on the cross and the resurrection.
This subordination — I might almost say suppression
— of the ministry of Christ, this elevation of His Death
and of His triumph over death into a position of
supreme importance, is not peculiar to the Epistle of
MPet. i. II. 2 Ibid. V. I. 3 Ibid. i. 2. 4 Ibid. i. 19.
5 Ibid. ii. 21-24. ^ Ibid. iii. 17. 7 Ibid. iv. i. ^ ibid. iv. 12.
122 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
St. Peter; it is the common characteristic of all the
epistles of the New Testament. How was it that
when the Apostles were enforcing the duty of sub-
mission to human governments, they never appealed
to our Lord's great saying, " Render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that
are God's ** ? How was it that they never spoke to
parents of Christ's love for little children ? How was
it that when they charged children to obey their
parents, they never enforced the precept by reminding
them that Jesus Himself was " subject " to Joseph and
Mary ? How was it that His works of compassion, in
which He seems to have found relief in His own sorrows,
are never mentioned, to confirm by the force of the
highest example the duty of doing good to all men ?
How are we to explain the almost uniform practice of
the Apostles in deriving their motives to the discharge
of Christian duty, their confirmations of Christian hope,
their scla:e for Christian suffering, from the hours of
shame and anguish in which our Lord's earthly history
closed, and from His resurrection and ascension into
heaven ? Some explanation is indispensable if we are
to reconstruct for ourselves the inner faith of the
Apostles, and if we are to interpret their writings
accurately. It was not the habit of the Jewish mind
to dwell in this way on the death of prophets and
saints. It is not the habit of men generally to be
silent on the courage and sanctity and wisdom of
illustrious religious reformers, and to recur perpetually
to their martyrdom.
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter. 12 j
If it be answered that, on any theological theory, the
Death of Christ infinitely transcends in pathos and
power the death of the noblest of those who have
perished through their fidelity to truth, or their zeal for
the good of men, the rejoinder is obvious. His life
equally transcends theirs in moral and spiritual interest
as being the revelation, at once, of the character of
God and of God's idea of human perfection. The
question returns, How was it that St. Peter in this
epistle said nothing about our Lord's life and teaching,
and referred so frequently to His Death ?
It also deserves notice that in the Apostle's references
to the sufferings and Death of Christ in this epistle
there is hardly a trace of the stern and vehement in-
dignation with which, in his early addresses, he had
denounced the crime of the crucifixion. When we do
honour to the memory of martyrs, we usually con-
demn the cruelty and injustice of their persecutors.
But St. Peter, although he speaks so often of the
Death of Christ, expresses no abhorrence — expresses
no censure even — of the treachery and ingratitude and
malice of the Jewish nation and its rulers. The cen-
sure where it is present is only implied ; it was no part
of his intention to make the memory of those who
committed the great offence the object of enduring
hatred. In this, too, he illustrates the common spirit
and habit of the writers of the New Testament. Very
rarely, and even then without any passion and intensity
of resentment, do any of them speak of the sin of Judas,
124 ^^^ P(^<^t of the Atonement: [lect.
or of the high priest, or of the people that clamoured
for our Lord's blood. They trusted in the sacrifice of
Christ for the remission of their own sins, and when
speaking of the cross, it would have been contrary to
the habit and temper which the cross encouraged, to
say hard things about the sins of others. It almost
appears as if the Death of Christ, which expiated before
God the sins of the human race, gradually blotted from
the memory even of those who loved Him best the
crime of His murderers.
The epistle is addressed to Christians who are
described as " the elect strangers of the dispersion,"
living in various countries of Western Asia. It is
probable that they were principally Gentiles. If they
were Jews they were no longer acknowledged by their
countrymen as true children of Abraham : by their
apostacy from Judaism, they were regarded as having
forfeited the great prerogatives and hopes of the elect
race. But to St. Peter, whether they were Jews or
Gentiles, they were the heirs of all the ancient pro-
mises and the direct descendants of the ancient saints.
They were " scattered abroad," and, like the patriarchs,
were " strangers and pilgrims " on earth, belonging to
no worldly kingdom, but citizens of a " heavenly
country." Or, perhaps, and more probably, this
description was suggested by the calamities which
had driven a great part of the Jewish nation out of
the land of their fathers. The "dispersion" was
the ordinary name for those Jews who were living in
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter, 125
heathen countries, and this is the title which St.
Peter gives to the Christians ** scattered throughout
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia."
They, and not the mere descendants of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, according to the flesh, were the " children
of God scattered abroad," who are ultimately to be
brought into an eternal and glorious kingdom. For
them is reserved " the inheritance incorruptible and
undefiled, and that fadeth not away,"^ of which the
land of promise was but a transient prophecy and
symbol. They were the " elect race," the '* consecrated
nation," the " people " that God had made in a special ^
sense His own.^ All the titles which the Jews had
received from God were theirs, and with a nobler
meaning ; all the sacred institutions and prerogatives
of Judaism were theirs, and in a nobler form. They
were themselves the very temple of God ; ^ they were
priests — every one of them — and they had direct access
to the Divine presence ; priests belonging to a more
mysterious and august line than that of Aaron, for
they were a " royal priesthood," "♦ uniting in themselves
the double honours which priestly and regal dignities
separately symbolised.
It is in harmony with all these passages that the
Christian people to whom the letter is written are
described as " elect according to the foreknowledge of
God the Father, unto . . . sprinlding of the blood of jfesus
Christ.''^ The Jewish nation was separated from the
I I Pet. i. 4. 2 Ibid. ii. 9. 3 Ibid. ii. 4.
4 Ibid. ii. 5. 5 Ibid. i. 2.
126 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
rest of mankind, and received into a unique relation-
ship with Jehovah at Mount Sinai, by being sprinkled
with the blood of sacrifices : half of the blood was
sprinkled on the altar, half of it on the people ; and
St. Peter says that the true elect race was separated
from the rest of mankind by being sprinkled with the
blood of Christ. The Death of Christ was therefore a
sacrifice. What does this mean ?
It may be urged that sacrificial language derived'
from the institutions of Judaism is extremely uncertain
in its meaning, and that it is practically unintelligible
to most of us ; that some learned scholars and theolo-
gians have maintained that the Jewish sacrifices were
never supposed to represent the idea of expiation, and
that they expressed nothing more than the complete
surrender to God of the life of the persons who offered
them ; that however this may be, it is incredible that
our apprehension of the true meaning and purpose of
the Death of the Lord Jesus Christ should depend
upon our being able to recover the conceptions which
v/ere current among the Jewish people in the time of
our Lord of the precise intention and character of
their peculiar religious services which have now long
become obsolete ; that if instead of interpreting St.
Peter's sacrificial language by the common sacrificial
conceptions of his Jewish contemporaries, we are re-
quired to interpret it in the light of the original idea
of the Jewish institutions, it is unreasonable to insist
on our mastering a difficult and obscure province of
Jewish learning before we can become simple Christian
IV.] the Testimony of St, Peter. 127
believers. Or it may be maintained that when a Chris-
tian Jew is expressing his conception of the Death of
Christ in language suggested by the institutions of
Judaism, it is impossible for us to distinguish with any
confidence between the Idea and the form under which
the Idea is presented, or to be quite sure whether he
intends us to understand that all the contents of the
temporary symbol reappear in the eternal fact.
Whatever force there may be in these considerations,
there are other passages in this epistle to which they
do not apply — passages which enable us, without any
learned inquiry into the sacrificial institutions of Ju-
daism, to determine in what sense St. Peter used sacri-
ficial language to describe the nature and effect of our
Lord's Death.
Like St. Paul, he thought it necessary to exhort
slaves^ to be obedient to their masters. The free
spirit of the Christian faith made men resent servi-
tude, and but for the earnestness with which the
Apostles protested against any violent and premature
attempt to break up the existing social order, might
have led to all the useless horrors of a servile revolt.
In appealing to them to manifest a spirit of patience
and meekness, he reminds them of what Christ en-
dured, and of how He endured it. By charging them
to imitate so great an Example, he recognises and
vindicates the dignity of which they were conscious,
^ I Pet. ii. 18. The word which St. Peter uses (6i/c«rai) does not
necessarily denote that the persons addressed were slaves. It is a
milder term than that which is usually employed for that purpose ;
but the context shows that their position was really that of slavery.
128 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
and which made them impatient of their wrongs, while
he enforces the duty of submission. " If when ye do
well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is
acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye
called : because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us
an example, that ye should follow His steps : who, when
He was reviled, reviled not again ; when He suffered,
He threatened not; but committed Himself [rather ^ de-
livered over those who inflicted His sufferings] to Him
that judgeth righteously : who His own self bare our
sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead
to sins, might live unto righteousness : by whose
stripes ye were healed"^
What St. Peter affirms in this passage is that Christ
suffered, that is, died *^for'' these Christian slaves.
The phrase is certainly a remarkable one. It cannot
have been used accidentally and without any particular
meaning. It is not a phrase by which the Jewish
writers were accustomed to describe the death of their
prophets who had perished in the service of God and
of the nation. There were martyrs and heroes in their
history who **were tortured, not accepting deliverance,"
who had " trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea,
moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were
stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were
slain with the sword ; " but the sacred books of the
Jews either pass over these sufferings and martyrdoms
in silence, or mention them without any extraordinary
emphasis. It is never said that any of these illus-
I I Pet. ii. 20-24.
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter. 129
trious saints " died for " men. But the phrase is
constantly used to describe the Death of our Lord.
Whether it means that He died in our stead, or as our
Representative, or merely, in a more general sense,
on our behalf, it is not necessary, as yet, to inquire.
Every one of these meanings has been found in the
expression ; every one of them is a fair representation
of the original words vi^hen taken separately from the
context in which they happen to stand. But we may
be quite sure that the fact of the Atonement — if it be
a fact — is neither to be established nor imperilled by
controversies on the force of a Greek preposition, about
whose precise value scholars can have any grave
doubt.'
In what sense, then, does St. Peter intend to say
that Christ died for us ? Or, rather — for this is the
more exact form of the question which the subsequent
part of the passage solves — what was there in the
Death of Christ which made it in any sense the words
can bear a Death "for us" — a Vicarious Death, or a
Representative Death, or a Death on behalf of man-
kind ?
St. Peter appeals to our Lord's sufferings as an
example of patience ; but if this were all, it is difficult
to understand why, like the other writers of the New
Testament, he should speak of Christ's suffering, or
dying, " for us," and never speak of Christ's living " for
us.'* It, was not in His last hours alone that He
translated the Divine law of human perfection into a
I Note H.
10
130 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
human history. In His courage as well as in His
patience, in His compassion for the sufferings of men
as well as in the meekness with which He endured
His own sufferings, He left us an example that we
should follow His steps.
Again, if all that St. Peter meant by Christ's dying
for us, was that we derive a certain religious benefit
from the example of His constancy, it is curious that
neither he nor any of the other Apostles speak of
His having been tempted " for us " in the wilderness ;
or of His having agonised " for us " in Gethsemane ;
or of His having been homeless " for us ; " or of His
having wrought miracles *' for us ; " or of His having
delivered His discourses and spoken His parables
"for us." I do not mean to contend that such ex-
pressions would have been inadmissible. But they
never occur ; and the more earnestly it is maintained
that when the Apostles speak of Christ's dying " for
us," they mean nothing more than that He intended
us to receive, from His voluntary submission to death,
moral and spiritual advantages the same in kind as
those which we receive from His teaching and His
life, their non-occurrence becomes only the more re-
markable and surprising.
But let the phrase Christ " suffered for us *' receive
any interpretation that it will bear ; exclude from it
if you will the remotest suggestion of the Vicarious
or Representative character of His Death; and this
passage still contains insoluble difficulties for those
who imagine that Christ's Death was nothing more
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter, 131
than the most illustrious of martyrdoms. For St.
Peter defines the cause and describes the nature of
the suffering : Christ " bare our sins in His own
body on the tree." Every phrase discloses a separate
element of the Apostle's conception of our Lord's
Death.
" He bare our sins." No language could be less
ambiguous. St. Peter was a Jew, and the meaning
of the phrase was for ever fixed and determined by
its use in the Jewish law. " Whoso curseth his God
shall bear his sin. And he that blasphemeth the
name of the Lord shall surely be put to death.'* ^ The
man who without an adequate reason omitted to
keep the Passover was "to be cut off from among his
people : because he brought not the offering of the Lord
in his appointed season, that man shall bear his sin.""^
The meaning of the phrase is further illustrated by
the words of God to Moses, declaring that the genera-
tion which had sinned in the desert should not enter
the Land of Promise. **As for you, your carcases
they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children
shall wander in the wilderness forty years. . . . After
the number of the days in which ye searched the
land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye
bear your iniquities.'''^ The expression reappears in
the prophets. Ezekiel declares in God's name that
if his contemporaries perished it would be for their
own sins, and not for the sins of their fathers.
" When the son hath done that which is lawful and
I Lev. xxiv. 16. 2 Num. ix. 13. 3 Ibid. xiv. 32, 34.
10 *
133 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
right .... he shall surely live. The soul that
sinneth, it shall die The son shall not hear
the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father
hear the iniquity of the son."^ But what the pro-
phet declares is not to happen between man and man,
the Apostle declares has actually happened between
us and Christ. *' He bare our sins."
"He bare our sins in His own hodyJ" Had St.
Peter meant that Christ " bare our sins " in the sense
in which some modern theologians interpret the
phrase — that He " bore them on His feeling, became
inserted into their bad lot by His sympathy as a
friend,"^ — why did he speak of Christ as bearing our
sins " in His own body " ? It would be contrary
to the principles which should govern our interpre-
tation of writings so informal as the apostolical
epistles to suppose that he intended to affirm that
it was in His body alone that Christ suffered for
us ; but it is equally contrary to the principles on
which writings of any kind should be interpreted to
suppose that St. Peter could have written these words
had he beheved that Christ suffered for us only in
His sympathies. This would be to dissolve all re-
lations between language and thought.^
As if protesting unintentionally and unconsciously
against the theories of later times, the Apostle adds
another clause which ought to have rendered this
misapprehension of his meaning impossible : " He
I Ezek. xviii. 19, 20. 2 BUSHNELL : Vicarious Sacrifice^ p. 9.
3 See British Quarterly Review, October, 1866. Pp. 430-435.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Peter. 133
bare our sins in His own body on the tree.''^ When
we speak of a man ascending the scaffold for crimes
which he has never committed, we should be as-
tonished if any one imagined that we were thinking
of the moral anguish which a good man must endure
when charged with foul and shameful sins. The moral
anguish may be more intolerable than the physical
penalty, and when he appears on the scaffold to suffer
the sentence which has been unjustly pronounced
against him, the sense of his disgrace may become
most vivid, and his recoil from the terrible charge which
has blasted his name most violent; but if we say, with-
out explanation, that with crimes laid upon him of
v/hich others were guilty he went up on to the scaffold,
our Avords could never be legitimately interpreted as
referring to his mental distress. Nor can it have been
merely of any anguish of moral sympathy that St.
Peter was thinking when he wrote that Christ *' bare
our sins in His own body on the tree." If that had
been all, his language would have taken an altogether
different form.
The force of the passage towards the close of the
next chapter — " For Christ also once suffered for sins,
the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to
^ "Vix uno verbo tfKpamg vocis civa<pspeiv exprimi potest. Nota
ferre et offerre. Primo dicere voluit Petrus, Christum portasse
peccata nostra, in quantum ilia ipsi erant imposita. Secundo, ita
tulisse peccata nostra, ut ea secum obtulerit in altari. Respicit ad
auimantes, quibus peccata primo imponebantur, quique deinceps
peccatis onusti offerebantur. Sed in quam aram ? ^vkov ait
Petrus, lignum, h.e. crucem."— Vitringa : quoted by Alford
in loc .
134 ^^^ ^^^^ of the Atonement: [lect.
God " ^ — cannot be fully appreciated unless we con-
nect it with the line of thought in which it occurs.
In the appeal to the sufferings of Christ which I have
already discussed, it was the Apostle's direct purpose
to enforce the duty of submitting patiently, as Christ
submitted, to undeserved evils. Here, the direct in-
tention is different. St. Peter is thinking now, not of
the spirit in which unmerited sufferings should be
endured, but of the estimate which Christian people
should form of them.
He says that it is the law of the Divine government
that well-doing shall be crowned with happiness. ** He
that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his
tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile :
let him eschev/ evil, and do good ; let him seek peace,
and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the
righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers :
but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.
And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers
of that which is good ? '"* Under the Divine order,
peace, safety, wealth, and honour are the inheritance
of righteousness. But that order is disturbed, and
for a time the best men may have to endure great
trouble. Is this a reason for despondency? Should
it discourage the endeavour to keep God's com-
mandments ? By no means. St. Peter has said that
it is the Divine law that men should be the happier
in every way for their righteousness ; but he adds, " If
ye suffer for righteousness' sake," still " ye are blessed.
1 I Pet. iii. i8. 2 ibid. iii. 10-13.
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter. 135
Be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled. . . .
It is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer
for well - doing than for evil doing."^ He then re-
minds them of our Lord Himself. " For Christ
also once suffered." Does the Apostle say " for well-
doing " ? This is what we should have expected ; this is
what the strenuous movement of his previous thought
seems to render inevitable ; this is what seems ab-
solutely necessary in order to make his appeal to
Christ's example effective and even pertinent ; but in-
stead of, this he says *' Christ also once suffered for
sins.'^ It seems as though the intimate relation be-
tween our sins and Christ's sufferings had taken such
complete possession of the Apostle's mind and heart,
that to dissolve or suppress that relation even for a
moment was impossible to him. Even when he is
telling Christian people that it is better, " if the will
of God be so," that they should suffer for " well-doing
than for evil-doing," he cannot add, *'for it was for
well-doing that Christ suffered." The habit of his
'mind does not permit it ; and he therefore says, '' For
Christ also suffered for sins.'' ^
That St. Peter was still thinking, not of the moral
anguish which came upon the soul of Christ from the
depth of His sympathy with our sinful race, is evident
from the words which immediately follow : *' Christ
also once suffered for sins, .... being put to death in
the flesh." He '' suffered for sins " once, and He " suf-
fered for sins " by dying for them.
I I Pet. iii. 14-17. 2 Note I.
136 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
The " sins " for which He died were not sins with
which He was falsely accused by His enemies : this
would have brought His death into the category of or-
dinary martyrdoms for righteousness' sake. We have
ali"eady learnt that " He bare our sins in His own body
on the tree ; " and it is this truth that St. Peter reaffirms
in another form, when, after saying, " For Christ also
once suffered for sin," he adds, " the Just for the unjust, ''
He suffered for us because He suffered for our sins.
He suffered " for " us. Those who deny that His
Death had anything in it of a vicarious or representa-
tive character, are in the habit of changing the pre-
position. They contend that the meaning of this
expression and of others like it is exhausted, when
" [Christ] is conceived to simply come into the corpo-
rate state of evil, and bear it with us, faithful unto
death for our recovery."^ *'Bear it with us." This is
the very symbol of the theory which ascribes the whole
power and value of the sufferings of Christ to their
moral and spiritual influence on the nature of man.
But this is not what St. Peter says ; this is not what
any of the Apostles are in the habit of saying. How is
it that the New Testament writers uniformly avoid the
*' with " when they are speaking of Christ's sufferings
in relation to human sin ? They never tell us that in
the greatness of His love He came to suffer with us
the worst evils which had come upon the race through
sin — that He suffered with us as a loyal wife might
I BUSHNELL : Vicarious Sacrifice^ p. 442. The words quoted are
a comment on Gal. iii. 13, Christ is "made a curse for us."
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter. 137
suffer exile or imprisonment with her husband, or as a
philanthropist might suffer the privations and hard-
ships of a savage race, which he could civilize only by-
sharing the miseries from which he had resolved to
rescue them. This was not their way of thinking
about the work of Christ. If it had been, it is inex-
plicable that they should never have expressed it, even
by accident. St. Peter — ^^nd in this he represents all
the Apostles — says that Christ " suffered for us," not
" with us ; " he does not say that He *' suffered for
sins, the Just with the unjust " — the calamities which
had fallen on the guilty being shared by the Innocent ;
but that He *' suffered, .... the Just /or the unjust,"
a form of expression which suggests a very different
form of thought.^
Christ's ultimate object was to " bring us to God."
It would be perfectly consistent with the apostolic
conception of our Lord's Death, if in these words St.
Peter had intended to describe its effect upon our own
moral and spiritual life, inspiring us with penitence for
sin, and constraining us to trust in the Divine mercy,
and to return to our true home in the Divine presence.
But I doubt whether this would be a legitimate inter-
pretation of his language. " That He might bring us
to God " (iva y/jbdf; Trpoa-aydyr) tm OeoS), suggests the
conferring of a new dignity and privilege, rather than
the creating of a new disposition. It recalls the idea
of St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Ephesians,^ that
I We are said to suffer with Christ, to be crucified with Him ;
but Christ is never said to suffer with us. ^ Ephes. ii. 18.
138 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
through Christ Jew and Gentile " have access {rrjv
TTpocrajcoyrjv) to the Father," an idea expressed in
another form in the Epistle to the Romans.^ " By
whom .... we have access {rrjv Trpoaaycoyrjv) into
this grace wherein we stand." The guilt which hin-
dered our access to God has been atoned for, and we
are no longer excluded from the honour and blessed-
ness of approaching Him.
Both of these passages illustrate, not only the ele-
ments which entered into St. Peter's conception of our
Lord's Death, but the great place which that concep-
tion held in his religious thought. Most readers of the
New Testament probably imagine that the idea of the
Atonement controlled the mind of St. Paul more power-
fully than the mind of St. Peter ; and the whole theory
of expiation is supposed by some theological writers to
have been constructed by the speculative intellect of the
only Apostle who had been trained in the schools of
Jerusalem. St. Paul, so it is alleged, first led away the
faith of the early Church from the simplicity of Christ.
Yet St. Paul could speak of the sufferings and
Death of Christ as an example, without the faintest
allusion to the idea of Atonement : St. Peter could not.
In that noble passage in the Epistle to the Philippians,
in which St. Paul is enforcing " lowliness of mind " and
the duty of caring not for our own interests, but for the
interests of others, he elaborately develops the suc-
cessive stages of our Lord's voluntary humiliation.
^ Rom. V. 2.
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter, 139
He was "in the form of God" and became man ; and
"being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Him-
self" still further, and descended to a lower deep than
that which His assumption of humanity rendered in-
evitable ; for He " became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross." ^ But there is not a word
about His bearing our sins or suffering " for us."
This fact is the more interesting because the con-
ception of our Lord's Death as a vicarious Death, or a
Death on behalf of mankind, which is vividly and re-
peatedly expressed in other parts of St. Paul's writings,
seems to lie in the direct line of his thought. He is
sustaining, by an appeal to the example of Christ, the
exhortation, " Look not every man on his own things,
but also on the things of others," as well as the exhor-
tation to cultivate indifference to personal distinction and
glory. He would have positively increased the energy
of that appeal if He had said explicitly — what he takes
for granted — that the humiliation of Christ was " for
us," that He "became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross," because He was bearing our sins
and achieving our redemption. And yet his mind was
£0 filled with the thought that in His humiliation and
Death Christ had left us " an example that we should
follow in His steps," that he kept clear of the other
purposes which Christ's sufferings accomplished.
But St. Peter, when he was speaking of Christ as
an example, could not speak of Him as an example
only. He seems to forget his immediate purpose;
I Phil. ii. 6-8.
140 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
that Christ " bare our sins," that " He suffered, . . .
the Just for the unjust," constituted no necessary part
of his reference to the Death of Christ as illustrating
the patience with which it is our duty to suffer wrong-
fully. It did not lie in his way to speak of the Death of
Christ in its relation to our sins, but he cannot help
turning aside. This diversion from the line in which
His thought and exhortation were running is a proof
that the conception of Christ's Death as a sacrifice for
the sins of men had such power over his mind and heart
that he could not escape from it, even when the subject
on which he was writing seemed to require him to
represent our Lord's sufferings only under their exem-
plary aspect. Had the Apostles described the Death
of Christ by sacrificial language, only when they were
speaking of the remission of sins, the evidence that
they regarded it as a real and proper sacrifice would
have been greatly diminished. It might have been
alleged that, with their Jewish habits of thought, it was
almost inevitable that they should connect the remis-
sion of sins with a sacrifice ; but since they represent
the Death of Christ as a sacrifice, even when they
appeal to His patience in the endurance of suffering as
an example, it is clear that the sacrificial idea was a
permanent and essential element in their conception
of His Death.
There is an earlier passage in the epistle in which
the same characteristic of St. Peter's habit of thought is
strikingly illustrated. He tells his readers that they
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter, 141
had been " redeemed " from their *' vain conversation
received by tradition " from their fathers, '* not with
corruptible things, as silver and gold, .... but with
the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot."^ Their former life was a
life of moral and spiritual slavery; the ransom by
which they had been liberated was the "blood of
Christ." This, it may be alleged, is mere rhetoric ;
and if the passage stood alone it would, no doubt, be
illegitimate to insist very strongly on the analogy
suggested between the Death of Christ and the price
which is paid to purchase the liberty of captives. But
the rhetoric is of a very singiJlar kind. The Christian
people to whom St. Peter is writing were, at least for
the most part, Gentiles ; ^ they had worshipped idols
instead of the true God, and many of them may have
lived in the immoralities of heathenism. It would
have been natural to remind them that the preachers
of the Christian gospel had taught them " not to think
that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone,
graven by art and man's device ; " or that the greatness
and goodness of God had been revealed to them in the
Life and Ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ ; or that
the nobler morality and glorious hopes of the new Faith
had kindled their imagination, won the homage of their
» I Pet. i. 18, 19.
2 If, as some maintain, they were Jews, and if the "vain conver-
sation " from which they had been " redeemed " consisted in Jewish
formahsm and a rehance on their faithful observance of the ex-
ternal precepts of the ancient faith, and on their loyalty to the
traditions of their fathers, the force of the argument in the text is
not diminished.
142 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
conscience, and touched their hearts ; or that they had
been filled with fear by what they heard about the
wrath to come ; or that the power of the Holy Ghost
had constrained them to repent of their old sins, and
to turn from idols, to serve the living and true God.
Language of this kind would represent our own way
of thinking about the rescue of heathen people from
heathenism. But St. Peter's thought took another
form. They had been delivered by a sacrifice. *' The
blood of Christ" — not the revelation of new truth
concerning God, not the gracious aspects of the gospel
to the poor and the sorrowful, not the promises of
pardon to the sinful and of strength to the morally
weak, not the assurances of a blessed immortality —
but *'the blood of Christ," had accomplished their
deliverance. But for this, no message of peace would
have come to them from the God against whom they
had revolted. But for this, they would have received
no revelation of His glory, and would have been left
to perish in their heathenism. But for this, the dark-
ness which had descended on the heathen world as
the penalty of sin would have become perpetually
deeper as the result of persistence in sin. But for this,
the force of their old and evil life would never have
been broken. But for this, the power of the Holy Ghost
would never have come upon them. They had been
delivered from their old heathen life because Christ had
atoned for their old heathen sins.
The passage is very remarkable. St. Peter is speak-
ing of a great subjective change through which these
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter, 143
Christian people had passed, a change in their faith,
a change in their morality ; but he omits to recognise
both the human agencies and the supernatural spirit-
ual forces which had prevailed upon them to renounce
heathenism and to become Christians, and he ascribes
their emancipation from their fprmer sins and super-
stitions to the sacrifice which has created new rela-
tions between man and God.^ It is sometimes charged
against evangelical theologians, that even if the idea
of Atonement is true, they have given it a supremacy
which it has no right to claim. We can shelter
ourselves under the authority and example of the
Apostle. It would be difficult to produce from the
writings of any of the modern representatives of evan-
gelical theology a passage like this.
We can understand now why it was that St. Peter
thought of Christian believers as an elect race sepa-
rated from the rest of mankind by the " sprinkling of
the blood of Christ ;"^ why it was that when he spoke
of the prophets inquiring and searching diligently
" who prophesied of the grace that should come " to
men in the last days, he added, *' searching what or
what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was
in them did signify when it testified beforehand the
sufferings of Christ ; " 3 and why he describes himself as
" a witness " of those sufferings.^ To him the death of
Christ was the sacrifice for the sins of the world.
^ Note J. 2 I Pet. i. 2.
3 Ibid. i. II. More accurately, "the sufferings destined or ap-
pointed \o Christ." 4 I Pet. v. i.
144 ^^^^ ^^^^ ^f ^^^ Atonement: [lect.
The frequent recurrence of this conception of our
Lord's Death in the epistle is remarkable, because
it seems to have been no part of the Apostle's im-
mediate purpose to strengthen the faith of his readers
in the Divine mercy for the remission of sins. From
the beginning of the epistle to the end, his constant
endeavour is to confirm their hope of immortal glory,
to console them in their temporal sufferings, and to
stimulate them to the imitation of Christ's example.
That he believed that the Death of Christ is rich in
motives to Christian holiness, is obvious from passage
after passage in which it is made the ground of his
practical exhortations. That he also believed that the
ultimate design of the Death of Christ is to secure our
perfect sanctification, is equally obvious. But how is
it that when he appeals to the sufferings of Christ as
an argument for Christian virtue, he says that Christ
suffered for our sins ? How is it that he could not
bring himself to say that Christ suffered for our right-
eousness ? The expression would not have been an
unnatural one. We speak of men suffering for the
freedom of their country, and St. Peter might have
spoken of Christ suffering for the righteousness of the
Church. But this would have been foreign to his
habitual conception of our Lord's Death. Christ suf-
fered for our righteousness by suffering for our sins.
Our sins were the immediate cause of His Death, our
sanctification was to be one of its ultimate effects.
That St. Peter had a larger knowledge of the trans-
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter. 145
cendent significance of the Death of Christ when he
wrote his epistle than when he deHvered the discourses
contained in the .early chapters of the Acts of the
Apostles, can hardly be doubted. Whatever measure
of supernatural light came to him on the day of Pente-
cost, it cannot be imagined that he at once appropriated
the whole contents of the Christian revelation ; and that
neither the sorrows, the sins, the joys and the triumphs
of his personal life, during subsequent years, nor his
apostolic activity, nor the light of God which is the
permanent home of all that are in Christ, did nothing to
enrich and strengthen his original idea of the Christian
redemption. But he knew from the first that the blood of
Christ was shed for the remission of sins, and although
he was silent about this great truth in the discourses
recorded by St. Luke, he uniformly insisted on that
kind of faith in Christ of which this truth is the com-
plete vindication.
The theology of the epistle explains the practical
exhortations of the discourses. In Jerusalem, a iew
weeks after the crucifixion, he had said that the
Messiah had been given over " by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God " to the " wicked
hands " of men, to be *' crucified and slain." ^ They
"slew [Him] and hanged [Him] on a tree."^ In the
epistle, he explains why God surrendered the Christ to
the power of His enemies; *' He bare our sins in His
own body on the tree : " ^ and this was the reason of
I Acts ii. 23. 2 Ibid v. 30. 3 i Pet. ii. 24.
II
146 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
another fact which he had also declared to the Jewish
Council — that having been exalted to the right hand
of God, Christ had power "to give . . . remission
of sins."' To the Jewish rulers St. Peter declared
that " there is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved," than the
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom they had cru-
cified;^ — yes, the Jewish rulers themselves could re-
ceive salvation only through Him who had been the
Victim of their violence and wickedness. The reason
is given in the epistle: Christ had "suffered for sins,
the Just for the unjust, that He might bring" —
them, as well as the rest of mankind — "to God."^
"To Him," said Peter, addressing Cornelius, "give
all the prophets witness, that through His name, who-
soever believeth in Him shall receive remission of
sins.""^ And according to the epistle, when the pro-
phets predicted the salvation which had at last come
to men through Christ, "the Spirit of Christ which
was in them " bore testimony to " the sufferings of
Christ," as well as to "the glory that should follow."^
It is clear that to the very last St. Peter, though a
Christian Apostle, was still a Jew. He had soon learnt
that the Gentiles were to be admitted to the kingdom
of heaven without being required to submit to circum-
cision and to keep the Mosaic law, but his imagination
was always filled with the ancient glories of his race.
I Acts V. 30, 31. 2 Ibid. iv. 12. 3 i Pet. iv. 18.
4 Acts X. 45. 5 I Pet. i. II.
IV.] the Testimony of St. Peter. 147
The wonderful deliverances which God had wrought
for them, the sanctity and majesty of the Temple, the
sacred functions of the priesthood, the mystery of
sacrifice — all these had entered into the very substance
of his moral and religious life. He could not escape
from their spell. He did not try to escape. They
were all transfigured and glorified by the energy of
his Christian faith, and they supplied the intellectual
forms under which he conceived, and the language in
which he expressed, the blessings and prerogatives
which are the inheritance of the Church.
He was a Jew for another reason. He was still
under the power of the characteristic spirit of his
race. By a history of unprecedented glory and of
unprecedented suffering — a history which fulfilled and
yet defeated the expectations created by those great
promises which were their richest inheritance, they
had been disciplined to an invincible confidence in
their national future. The Paradise described in the
earliest pages of their sacred books never seems to
have touched the imagination of their poets: through-
out their whole literature there is nothing like
pathetic regret for its vanished innocence and peace.
For Jewish poets, the golden age was in the Future.
It was to come with the Christ whose power and
righteousness and gentleness were to redress all
wrongs, relieve all sorrows, and bring to those over
whom He reigned perpetual security, honour, and
blessedness. Theirs was a religion of hope.
And St. Peter is the Apostle of Hope, as St. Paul
148 The Fact of the Atonement, [lect. iv.]
is the Apostle of Faith, and St. John the Apostle of
Charity. He is eager for *' the inheritance incorrup-
tible and undefiled,- and that fadeth not away;'* for
'* the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time;"
for " the appearing of Jesus Christ.'* Like all his
race, His eye is on the Future, not on the Past ; and
to him the gospel seems rather a promise than a
history. But with all this, the sufferings of Christ
are never forgotten. The sins which exiled us from
God, Christ ** bare in His own body on the tree, that
we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness ; "
and the glory which will fulfil the new hope which has
come to us through Christ's resurrection is inseparably
and eternally associated with His Death on the cross.
Throughout the history of the Church no other
theory of the Death of Christ than that which re-
presents it as an expiation for the sins of the world
has ever given it the same supreme place in the
religious thought and life of Christian men. It is
among those, and only among those, who have ac-
cepted this theory, that we find the apostolic feeling
about the Death of Christ. It is reasonable to infer
that, substantially, they inherit the apostolic faith.
LECTURE V.
THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT :
THE TESTIMONY OF ST. JOHN AND ST. JAMES.
LECTURE V.
THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT: THE TESTIMONY OF
ST. JOHN AND ST. JAMES.
IN St. Paul's account of his memorable conference
with the Apostles at Jerusalem, after the close of
his first great missionary journey, he appears to divide
the work of evangelising the world between St. Peter
and himself. He and St. Peter are, at least, the
acknowledged leaders and representatives of the whole
movement.^ For St. John, " the disciple whom Jesus
loved," who, in the energy of his moral nature and in
the depth of his devotion to his Lord, equalled, if he
did not surpass, all his brethren, there seems to be left
only a subordinate place.
But if St. Peter was the Apostle of the circumcision,
and St. Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles, St. John may,
perhaps, be justly called the Apostle of the Christian
Church. Apart from the very uncertain tradition that
he preached the gospel among the Parthians, there is no
reason to suppose that any considerable part of his life
was devoted to the conversion either of Gentiles or of
Jews. The contrast between the Fourth Gospel and the
I " When they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was
committed to me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter."
—Gal, ii. 7.
152 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
first three suggests the true character of his work.
The Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke
appear to preserve those discourses and parables of our
Lord, and those passages of His history, which were
perpetually repeated by the early Christian preachers
when addressing persons who had not yet acknowledged
His authority, or who, having submitted to baptism
and entered the Church, required further instruction in
the elementary facts and principles of the Christian
faith. It is quite clear that the Gospel of St. John was
written for those who had long been Christians. His
catholic epistle has the same character. The readers
for whom it was written must either have been born of
Christian parents, or if they were heathens or Jews by
birth, must have lived so long in the atmosphere of the
Church, as to have lost almost all traces of their earlier
habits of life and thought. It was not necessary to
confirm them in their renunciation of Judaism, or to
warn them against continuing in the practice of those
coarse vices into which converts from heathenism were
in constant danger of relapsing.
Nor was the strength of St. John given, like St.
Paul's, to the vindication of Christian truth against
heresies which were possible only in the earliest days
of the Church, and which were soon to become obso-
lete. Here and there we may detect the expression of
St. John's antagonism to speculations — vague and
chaotic in his time — which, in the next century, were
developed into Gnosticism ; but commonly his mind
moves in calm and lofty regions of truth, remote from
V ] the Testimony of St, John and St, James, 153
the agitation of transient controversies. To a thought-
ful person living at the close of the first century^ St.
John, of all the Apostles, would have seemed to be the
one whose teaching was likely most powerfully to
control the movement of Christian speculation, and
to determine both the form and the substance of the
theology of the Church.
But M. Reuss hardly exaggerates the truth when he
says that St. John has been neglected by those who
have organised the dogmatic thought of Christendom ;
that his characteristic theology, happily for itself, has
never been embodied in the systems and creeds of
ecclesiastical orthodoxy. " It has retained its virgin
purity untouched by the scholasticism of the schools,
and has thus escaped the unhappy mesalliance which
has done such deep injury to the theology of St. Paul."^
The fortunes of St. John might have been different
had not the theological development of the Eastern
Church been prematurely arrested. In the West, for
reasons which it is not difficult to discover, the su-
premacy of St. Paul has been almost unbroken from
the days of Augustine to our own.
Among many of those who reject the idea of the
Atonement, there is a strong desire to assert for St. John
his rightful position. It seems to them that he is the
representative of a nobler and more spiritual type of
the Christian Faith than that which appears in the
I Reuss : Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age. Translated
by Annie Harwood. London : Hodder and Stoughton. Vol. ii.
335-
154 ^^^^ P^^i of the Atonement: [lect.
writings of the Apostle of the Gentiles. Those who
contend that *' the true Christian knows no covenant or
mediation with God, but only the old, eternal, and un-
changeable relation, that in Him we live and move and
have our being," are in the habit of thinking that their
faith is the faith of St. John.^ That God is life and
light and love ; that in Christ humanity achieved its
ideal unity with the life of God; and that the Christian
redemption consists in the final restoration of mankind
to union with God in Christ — these it is alleged are the
ideas which constitute the substance of Christianity as
conceived by " the disciple whom Jesus loved," and
they ought to displace the theories of Divine justice,
and of expiation, and of an unreal and technical for-
giveness of sins, which the Church has built up on the
teaching of St. Paul.
It is true no doubt, and should be cordially acknow-
ledged, that Mysticism, which in every age of the Church,
and especially in times of general corruption, has had
so strong an attraction for the purest and most saintly
souls, can place its devotional books — if the perfect
and unearthly beauty of very many of them needs any
apostolic sanction — under the shelter of the great name
of St. John. Even Pantheism, so long as it affirms the
reality of sin and the eternal obligation of the Moral
Law — if any philosophy which fulfils these conditions
can be called Pantheistic — may vindicate its right to
I FiCHTE : Charactetistics of the Present Age. Lecture vii. The
Way towards the Blessed Life. Lecture vi. London : John Chap-
man.
v.] the Testimcmy of St. John and St. James. 155
recognition as a form of speculation not altogether
alien from the Christian faith by an appeal to the same
authority. With still greater reason may those theo-
logians claim to be the representatives and guardians
of one of the principal elements of St. John's teaching,
to whom the Incarnation is the fulfilment of the Divine
idea of human nature, and the assurance and the pro-
phecy to those who are in Christ of their eternal fellow-
ship with the life of God.
For all Christian mystics, therefore, and for all who
maintain that the Incarnation is the fundamental truth of
the Christian revelation, but who on moral and spiritual
grounds are hostile to the idea of Atonement, the appeal
to the authority of St. John is critical. It must, I
think, be admitted that when he wrote his Gospel and
his Epistle he had passed altogether out of the atmo-
sphere of Judaism.^ His thought had taken new forms,
and he had learnt to speak a new language. If in both
his language and his thought we think we can discern the
influence of contemporaneous speculation, there is no
reason to suppose that this influence was friendly to the
idea of an objective Atonement. It is infinitely improb-
I This is true, although the Fourth Gospel is singularly rich in
passages which recognise the Divine authority of Jewish institu-
tions and the Divine presence in Jewish history. St. John has pre-
served many passages in our Lord's teaching, not contained in the
other Evangelists, which show how fully our Lord acknowledged
that Judaism had been a great revelation of God to man . I do not
intend to press the very strong proofs which are supplied by the
Book of the Revelation, not because I am doubtful about its Johan-
nine authorship, but because I am anxious to keep the argument
from the authority of St. John free from entanglement with the
controversies in which that subject is involved.
156 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
able that this idea can receive any sanction from the
writings of St. John's maturer years, if it is really alien
to the Christian faith, inconsistent with the deeper
and more spiritual elements of our Lord's teaching, the
creation of a formal and legal theory of God's relations
to the moral universe, or the result of a determination to
preserve in Christianity the rudimentary conceptions
and language of Judaism.
It is confessed by those who oppose the doctrine of
the Atonement, that St. John is the representative of
the highest and most spiritual form of Christian
thought. Those conceptions of God which are alleged
to be irreconcilable with any theory affirming the ne-
cessity or possibility of any other reason for the exer-
cise of the Divine mercy in the forgiveness of sin than
the repentance of the sinner himself; those conceptions
of the Lord Jesus Christ and of His eternal relations to
mankind which are alleged to be obscured and even
contradicted by the doctrine of an objective Atonement,
whatever form the doctrine may assume ; those concep-
tions of the true nature of the Christian Redemption
which it is alleged can never find any adequate expression
in a theology which rests on the idea that the Death of
Christ was intended to meet any necessities of the
Divine nature or government, instead of being intended
to act as a great spiritual force on the spiritual nature
of man — all these are the very substance and life of St.
John's theology. But, like St. Peter, he insists on the
exceptional and supreme significance of our Lord's
v.] the Testimony of St, John and St. James, 157
Death. It is " the blood of Jesus Christ " which
*' cleanseth us from all sin."^ We come to know the
real nature of love in the Death of Christ, for " He laid
down His life for us. " *
If it is urged that by the cleansing from sin in the
first of these passages is meant our moral purification
only, and that the removal of our guilt is not included,
except as the result of deliverance from sin, it is at
least remarkable that St. John should have attributed
the sanctifying power of Christ exclusively to His
Death — not to His teaching, not to the manifestation
of the Eternal Life through the whole of His earthly
ministry, not to the direct action of the Holy Spirit on
the hearts of those who believe. How are we to ex-
plain this reference to ** the blood of Jesus Christ " ?
The line of thought in which it occurs greatly
augments its significance. St. John has been speaking
of the fellowship of Christian people with the Father
and the Son. ** God is light, and in Him is no dark-
ness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with
Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we
have fellowship one with another, and " — what ? Does
he add that the light in which God dwells, and in
which we dwell with Him, so fills and penetrates and
transfigures our whole nature, that we sin no more ? or
that through our fellowship with God His life becomes
ours, and that therefore we are delivered from all sin ?
This was what might have been expected, and the
5lJohni.7. 2 Ibid. iii. 16.
158 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect:
sudden transition from the high transcendental concep-
tion of the believer's present relation to God to " the
blood of Christ," is startling even to those who habitually
think of His Death as the great crisis in the history of
the human race. But if St. John wished to speak, not
merely of the sanctification of those who " walk in
the light," but also of the remission of the sins into
which they may be still betrayed, the transition is
explained. Even for those who have *' fellowship "
with God the expiatory power of the Death of Christ
continues necessary, for they are not yet beyond the
reach of temptation or the possibility of sin.^
There are two other passages which are inconsistent
with the theory that we receive the remission of sins
through Christ only indirectly, and because He de-
livers us from the power of sin. ** I write unto you,
little children, because your sins are forgiven you for
His name's sake."^ This clearly implies that there is
some objective ground in Christ for the forgiveness of
sin. The Divine forgiveness is not the simple and im-
mediate response of Infinite Mercy to human penitence,
^ **That the forgiveness of sin was present to the Apostle's
mind when he spake of the cleansing efficacy of the blood of Christ,
is evident from what he goes on to say — that ' if we confess our
sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness ;' as well as from what he adds a few verses
thereafter, that 'if any man sin we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ; and He is the propitiation for
our sms/ &c. — Crawford: The Doctrine of Holy Scripture re-
specting the Atonement (first edition), page 50. Cremer {Biblico-
Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek. Edinburgh, T. &
T. Clark. 1872) has a very excellent article on Ka^api^w.
2 I John ii. 12.
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St. James, 159
nor is the sole function of Christ so to reveal God as to
awaken faith in the Divine love, sorrow for sin, and a
desire for restoration to holiness and to the blessedness
of the Divine presence. When these moral and spiritual
effects have been produced by Christ's appeal to the
conscience and the heart, when sin is confessed, and the
troubled soul clings to the mercy of God for salvation,
its *' sins are forgiven ... for His name's sake.''
The same idea of a direct relation between the Lord
Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sin is contained in
an earlier passage in the same chapter : " My little
children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not.
And if any man sin, we have an Advocate {irapdicKrjTov)
with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous " ^
An Advocate with the Father ! One whom we
may call to our help, who will come forward as our
Representative and Patron, to plead our cause ! ^
These are not the words of a morbid and gloomy
fanatic, to whom the infinitely merciful Father seems
a revengeful assertor of personal rights, a stern and
unrelenting and terrible Divinity, whose pity and com-
passion are inaccessible to the tears and prayers of those
who have offended Him, and whose blind wrath must
be placated first by the blood and then by the inter-
cession of a Mediator. Nor are they the words of a
^ I John ii. I.
2 " irapaKKriTOQ^ .... he who has been, or may be called to help
(Helper; ; in Dem. 343, 10, of a legal adviser : .... a pleader,
an advocate ; one who comes forward in favour of and as the
representative of another. Diog. . . Thus Christ also, in i John
ii. I, is termed our Substitute, Intercessor, Advocate."— C REM ER ;
Biblico-Theological Lexicon.
i6o The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
mechanical and unimaginative theologian, to whom
the rigid forms under which human tribunals ad-
minister an imperfect justice are an adequate repre-
sentation of the order of the Divine government, and
who therefore could conceive of no relaxation or
remission of the sentence pronounced on an offender,
apart from a legal argument addressed to the Judge,
demonstrating that the honour of the Law had been
sufficiently vindicated, and the claims of Justice satis-
fied. They are the words of the most Christian of
the Christian Apostles, of the one Apostle who had
most completely escaped from the spirit of Judaism,
which, it is alleged, had represented God as agitated
by the most violent and turbulent of human passions.
Nor in escaping from Judaism had he become a
Roman, with hard and severe conceptions of law,
which he transferred to his theology. Whatever new
elements or forms of thought are found in his epistle,
beyond those which bear witness to the exceptional
intimacy of his communion with his Master, have
some kinship to speculations in which the most
imaginative philosophy of Asia was blended with the
loftiest and most spiritual philosophy of Greece. It is
St. John, — the very Apostle of Love, it is St. John
who in one brief sentence — "God is love" — has
translated into human language all that human lan-
guage can express of what the Eternal Word revealed
of God in a life of transcendent beauty and beneficence;
it is St. John who, in the presence of Infinite Love,
gives courage and hope to the penitent by saying, " We
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St. James, i6i
have an Advocate with the Father." Let these words
mean what they will, they are plainly intended to train
the soul to a faith in Christ of precisely that kind
which the theory of expiation vindicates, but which the
'' moral theory " of the Atonement excludes. Christ,
in some sense, appeals to God for us, and not merely
to us for God. He is the life of our holiness, but there
is also some power or virtue in Him which, if it is to
be known and described by its effects, must be spoken of
as a reason or ground on which God forgives us our sins.
What this power or virtue is, St. John describes in
the next sentence : *' He is the Propitiation for our
sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of
the whole world."*
It has been contended that while the pagan mean-
ing of this word is undoubted, and that while it was
constantly used by pagan writers to m^ark the supposed
effect of sacrifices, in propitiating the gods to whom
they were offered, the Jewish translators of the Hebrew
Scriptures into Greek used the word in a widely dif-
ferent sense, and that while the New Testament writers
used the accepted sacrificial word they did not use
it in the accepted meaning.
" That meaning," says Dr. Young, " as accepted by the pagan
world, was throughout an utter falsity. They were no gods to
whom the pagan sacrifices were offered ; the anger which it was
sought to appease by means of these sacrifices was all unreal, and
the appeasing effect was mere delusion. But the Apostles of
Christianity had something real and true and great to announce
in the room of the falsities and fancies of paganism. There was a
real God, a real hatred of sin, but at the same time a real and
^ I John ii 2.
12
1 62 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
infinite love of the human soul. There was also a real 'propitiation^
but immeasurably far away from that which the bewildered pagan
mind had pictured.'^
" A real Propitiation, but immeasurably far away
from that which the bewildered pagan mind had pic-
tured." Granted. In what then did it consist ?
" Instead of the fiction of an incensed Jupiter or Pluto, there
was seen on earth the image of the brightness of the God of love.
Christ came not to appease anger, for it was owing solely to the
unprompted and unbounded mercy of the Father that He ever
lived, and that at last He died on a cross, but to be the wondrous
medium of reconciling and restoring human hearts to Him from
whom they had revolted. Incarnate love — bleeding, dying love —
is the power whereby God is recovering the world to Himself." ^
This is as true as it is forcible and eloquent ; but is
this a description of a " real Propitiation " ? The idea
of Propitiation, whether among Pagans or Jews, is pre-
cisely inverted. Neither Pagans nor Jews ever spoke of
a " Propitiation for sins " when they intended to speak
of that which changed the disposition of the sinner.
The pagan sense of the term is admitted : '* to offer a
propitiation," was to appease by sacrifice or prayer the
anger of imaginary gods. The Jewish sense of the
term is equally definite. Not a solitary instance can
be alleged in which to propitiate, or any of its deriva-
' tives, when used in relation to the restoration of kindly
relations between man and man, denotes that by which
a change is produced in the disposition of a person
who has committed an offence ; it always refers to
that which changes the disposition of the person who
has been offended; and when used in relation to offences
I Dr. Young : The Life atid Light ofMe?t, pp. 322, 323.
2 Ibid. pp. 323, 324.
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St. James. 163
against the Divine law, it always describes the means
by which the sin was supposed to be covered in order
that the Divine forgiveness might be secured.^ To
suggest that St. John could have used the word in
order to describe the glorious power of Christ over the
heart of a sinner, is to invert the fundamental idea
which the word uniformly conveyed, and to violate the
most obvious principles by which language should be
interpreted.
It is true that " Propitiation " was one thing to a
Pagan, another thing to a devout Jew, and another
thing to a Christian Apostle. It is equally true that
"sin" was one thing to a Pagan, another thing to a
devout Jew, and another thing to a Christian Apostle;
but are we at liberty to argue from this that the word
which had been used by Pagan and Jew to denote sin
may, perhaps, be used by an Apostle to denote righteous-
ness ? Apart from the most decisive evidence of a
change of use, would it be legitimate to suppose that
the original meaning of the word had been absolutely
reversed? It is equally illegitimate to suppose that the
word which had been used both by Pagan and Jew to
denote the means of appeasing Divine anger, or avert-
ing a Divine penalty, is used by an Apostle to denote
the means by which God reconciles and restores hu-
man hearts to Himself. To establish such a change
of meaning, the strongest evidence must be demanded,
and no such evidence has been produced.
It is necessary, no doubt, to avoid that " hard-
» Note K.
12 *
164 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
favoured narrow literalism that lives on proof-texts
made by paying no regard to the poetic genius of
religious language, and by seizing on single clauses
that, in figure, seem to favour a certain point, paying
no regard to other clauses in other figures, that require
to be accepted as qualifiers and correctives ; " and it is
true that " we have no literal language for religious
ideas." ^ But it is also true, and many of those who find
it so difficult to recognise any expiatory character in the
Death of Christ are the last to deny it, that man was
made in the image of God, and that there are deep
analogies between the relations of men to each other
and their relations to Him. Hence the language which
conveys our own moral ideas is not a vehicle altogether
unsuitable for the higher service of conveying the
thoughts of God ; and the terms by which our own
moral acts are described may serve to describe the acts
of God., The language we use is not " literal " when
we speak of God as drawing near to man, stretching
out His hand to help us, listening to our prayers ; but
the expressions are not only sufficiently vivid for the
imagination, and sufficiently accurate for the logical un-
derstanding, but sufficiently true for the higher reason
which alone is directly conversant with religious ideas.
They are the creation of that ** poetic genius " which
has created the language of the affections as well as of
religion, of philosophy as well as of faith, — touching
and etherealising words of mean, material, and sensuous
origin, so as to fit them for the regal uses of the in-
' BUSHNELL: Forgiveness and Law, page 163.
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St. James. 165
tellect and the heart, translating them from their
native home among things seen and temporal, and
making them citizens of the kingdom of heaven. But
there is nothing capricious in the process by which these
transformations are accomplished. The words are
sown in corruption, and raised in incorruption ; sown
in dishonour, raised in glory ; sown in weakness, raised
in power; but through all changes the outlines of
their original form remain, and their identity is pre-
served.
The ** poetic genius of religious language " could not
be pleaded as a reason for suggesting that perhaps we
mean the same thing when we say that God forgives
and when we say that God punishes; when we speak of
God being moved to mercy, and wh^n we speak of the
soul being moved to penitence. Nor can it be pleaded
as a reason for alleging that when Christ is described
as a Propitiation for our sins, it may mean that He
inclines us to forsake them, and so eifects our recon-
ciliation to God. As a Propitiation, His face is turned
towards God, not towards man. Propitiation is the
immediate antecedent — I will not say the indispensable
condition — -of the Divine forgiveness. It is directly re-
lated to the function of the Lord Jesus Christ as our
"'Advocate with the Father," whatever other relation
it may have to His function as the Living Word in
whom the authority and love of God plead with the
heart and conscience of mankind.
Are we then to infer that because St. John uses this
word " Propitiation," he believed that there was re-
1 66 The Fact of the Atonement: lect.]
sentment in the heart of God, like that which the
heathen attributed to their divinities, and which they
endeavoured to allay by prayers and sacrifices ? Must
we not take off what Dr. Bushnell describes as " the
pagan colour of the word," before it is capable of
Christian uses ? " Take off the pagan colour ? " — Yes ;
but leave some trace of its original form and power.
The "pagan colour" had, in fact, been taken off by
the almost uniform use of the word in the Greek trans-
lation of the Old Testament. It was contrary to the
Jewish habit of thought to speak of *' propitiating God,"
either by prayers or sacrifices, as Jacob propitiated
or " appeased " Esau with the present of camels and
goats, and sheep and cattle.^ The heathen *' propitiated"
their gods, for their gods were capricious and revenge-
ful ; but with all the anthropomorphism of Judaism,
something restrained the Jews from describing any
religious acts as being intended to propitiate Jehovah.
Propitiation is spoken of in page after page of the Old
Testament ; it is expressly represented as having a
relation to God, and its purpose is to turn away the
wrath of God ; and yet God is never, except in one
passage,^ the direct object of the act. When any of the
external and ceremonial precepts of the law had been
broken, it is not said that the priest is to celebrate an
expiatory rite in order to " propitiate God," but in order
to make propitiation for the offence or for the offender.
* Gen. xxxii. 20.
2 Zech. vii. 2 : and in this case t^iXdaaaOai is not the representa-
tive of the Hebrew word for which it usually stands.
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St. James. 167
These are the uniform expressions. And when sins were
committed for which the law provided no expiation, and
the anger of the Lord " waxed hot " against the whole
people, the same expression reoccurs. '* Ye have
sinned a great sin," said Moses to the people after
they had worshipped the golden calf, " and now I will
go up unto the Lord ; peradventure I shall make an
atonement [or propitiation] for your sin."^ Though
the terrible words were still in his ears, '' Let Me
alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and
that I may consume them,"^ he does not say, "Per-
adventure I shall propitiate God," but, *' Peradventure
I shall make propitiation for your sin."
The Jews never attributed to Jehovah the unreason-
ing and unreasonable passion which was ascribed to
heathen deities. In Him there is never any causeless
anger to propitiate ; and, therefore, it was their habit
when they spoke of Propitiation to describe it as Pro-
pitiation for sin ; the justice of the Divine displeasure
was always and explicitly acknowledged. The " pagan
colour " of the word had already disappeared. If any
stain was left, it was completely removed by St. John
himself. Christ is indeed our " Advocate with the
Father " and " the Propitiation for our sins ; " but this
is not because the Father is reluctant to forgive and to
save us. , The Advocate is of the Father's own appoint-
ment ; the Propitiation is the Father's own provision.
** Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He
loved us, and sent His Son " — at the impulse of His
I Exod. xxxii. 30. 2 l\i\^, xxxii. 10.
1 68 The Fact of the Atonement: [i^ect.
own infinite mercy — ''to be the Propitiation for our
sins."^
The argument of this Lecture mi.!:;ht be strenj^thened
by adducing those passages from St. John's Gospel in
which our Lord speaks of the relation between His
Death and human salvation, — passages which are as
numerous in the Fourth Gospel as in the first three,
and which while of supreme importance as evidence of
our Lord's own teaching, are available as illustrations
of the theology of the Evangelist himself. But this
would be to go over ground which we have gone over
already. There is, however, one remarkable passage
in which St. John speaks in his own name.
The resurrection of Lazarus had made the claims of
Christ more formidable than ever to those who had
resolved to reject Him. It was a great and startling
miracle. It was wrought in the immediate neighbour-
hood of Jerusalem, and within a few weeks Jerusalem
would be filled with a vast and ungovernable multitude
from all parts of the land and from remote countries.
This last miracle of the Nazarene teacher would be
certain to create universal excitement. It would be
talked about in the streets of the city, and in the courts
of the temple, and on the house-tops, and in every
chamber where the Passover would be celebrated.
Innumerable friends of Jesus from the towns and vil-
I I John iv. lo. The whole of this argument rests on the use of
i\d(Ticofj.ai in the LXX. It is also true that the Hebrew word which
ikdaKOfiat usually represents never refers directly to God, but to the
sin which is to be so " covered" as to cause the anger it had pro-
duced to cease. This " covering " was an IXacr/io'^ .
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St. James. i6g
lages of Galilee, and large numbers of foreign Jews,
would be certain to cross Olivet to Bethany, to see
Lazarus. Jesus Himself, who at former feasts had
spoken openly and without fear to great crowds in the
Temple, would probably appear there again, and He
would have larger crowds than ever to listen to Him.
The man whom He had raised from the dead might be
with Him. It was impossible to tell what might
happen.
And so the chief priests and Pharisees gathered a
council, and said, " What do we ? for this man doeth
many miracles. If we let Him thus alone, all men
will believe on Him ; and the Romans will come and
take away our place and nation. And one of them,
named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year,
said unto them. Ye know nothing at all, nor consider
that it is expedient for us that one man should die for
the people, and that the whole nation perish not. " '
In these words the Evangelist recognized a prophecy
declaring the true significance and purpose of the
Death of Christ.
If any one cares to suggest that to find a prophecy
in the words of such a man as Caiaphas, and at the
very moment that he was counselling a selfish and
atrocious crime, is evidence of an unspiritual and
mechanical conception of Divine inspiration, and
proves that St. John must have been under the con-
trol of a very unintelligent and superstitious reverence
for the chief priest of his race, it is unnecessary for
1 John xi. 47-50.
170 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
the purposes of this argument to offer any reply.
What we are immediately concerned with is St.
John's conception of the Death of Christ, and of this
the passage is conclusive evidence. Nor would any
lingering superstition about the sanctity of the High
Priest, or about the Divine significance of words ut-
tered by men invested with sacerdotal authority, inva-
lidate his testimony to the teaching of his Master.
The "beloved disciple" might not be emancipated
from all the traditions of his country and his age,
and he would yet be a trustworthy witness to what
Christ had taught on so great a subject as the pur-
pose of His sufferings and Death.
But he requires no apology. From the time the
law was given on Sinai, that system of ceremonial
worship of which the High Priest was the centre had
been the divinely - appointed organ and discipline of
the religious life of the Jewish people. The High
Priest was at once the representative of the nation
in the presence of God, and the representative of God
to the nation. He, and he alone, had access to that
mysterious sanctuary which was made awful by the
visible symbol of the Divine Glory. Through him,
in periods of national perplexity and peril. Divine
oracles had spoken. Around him gathered, in these
last and evil times, all the sacred and historic glories
of the elect race. Moses had gone, and left no suc-
cessor. The kings had gone. The prophets had gone.
The High Priest remained, the heir of sixteen cen-
turies of wonder and hope, and mystery and glory.
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St. James. 171
Not yet had he ceased to be ''the Lord's anointed;"
not yet had the temple in which he ministered, and
its altars and sacrifices and festivals, lost the sanctity
they derived from their ori.e^inal institution.
But the hour was approaching when his dignity
and power were to pass away for ever. The sacred
and venerable system over which he ruled, estab-
lished by the authority of God, was on the eve of
dissolution ; soon the incense and the sacrifices would
cease to be acceptable offerings, and the priests
would be dismissed from their service as the con-
secrated ministers of the Most High. In a few hours
the veil of the temple was to be rent by an in-
visible hand, and Jerusalem would no longer be " the
place where men ought to worship.*' And when the
catastrophe was near, in the very hour when the
deed was plotted which made it irrevocable, Caia-
phas, the representative of all the sacred traditions of
Judaism, was compelled — so at least it seemed to St.
John — to bear a final testimony to that great truth
for the disclosure of which Judaism had been a pro-
tracted discipline and preparation. He did not mean
it, but he was still High Priest, and there came upon
him, in the very crisis of his guilt, the power which
had rested on his predecessors in happier days, and
the words in which he counselled the most awful of
crimes became a prophecy — the last of the prophecies
which came through the lips of a descendant of Aaron
■ — the last and also the greatest. He " spake not of
himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied
173 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
that Jesus should 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."^
The ancient light and glory, long obscured, gleamed
forth for a moment in the deepening darkness, and then
it was extinguished for ever.
*' The kingdom of heaven " came at last. The
Prince, whose greatness and majesty had been seen
afar off by prophets and psalmists, was enthroned
at the right hand of God ; He received the heathen
as His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the
earth as His possession. The wider realms over
which He had come to reign were to be governed by
nobler laws than those which had regulated the life
of the Jewish people, and God was now nearer to man
than when He had commanded Moses to erect the
Tabernacle in the desert, and when He had filled the
Temple of Solomon with His glory.
But it was not at once that even those who believed
in the Messiahship of the Lord Jesus discovered that
the old order had vanished and given place to a new.
The sun had gone down, but the light still lingered
on the sacred hills which had been for so many
generations the centre of the faith and hope and joy
of saints ; and long after the authority of the ancient
institutions had passed away, Jewish Christians con-
tinued to venerate and to practise the customs of their
fathers. As might have been expected, it was in the
' John xi, 51, 52.
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St. James. 173
Church at Jerusalem that the traditions of Judaism
had the greatest power. Twenty years after the
Ascension, a strong party in that Church insisted on
the necessity of requiring even Gentile converts to
submit to circumcision.^ Eight or nine years later
there were " many thousands " of those who believed
who were still "zealous of the law."^
Of the Church at Jerusalem, St. James, " the Lord's
brother," was the recognized ruler. To what extent he
continued to conform to the law of Moses, is uncertain ;
but it is extremely improbable that there was anything
in his life to offend even the strictest and most rigid of
the Pharisees who had confessed that Jesus was the
Christ. The Gentiles he was willing to release from
the obligations of the ancient law ; but it seems clear
that in his judgment it was, at least, expedient that
Jews who had become believers should not abandon
the customs of their race. Neither St. Peter, nor even
Barnabas, St. Paul's own friend and companion in
labour, was resolute enough to resist his influence.
At Antioch, " before that certain came from James
[Peter] , did eat with the Gentiles ; but when they
were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing
them which were of the circumcision ; and the other
Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that
Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimula-
tion."3
The general impression produced by thle references
to St. James in the New Testament is confirmed by
I Acts XV, 5. 2 Ibid. xxi. 20. 3 Gal. ii. 12, 13.
174 ^^^ P^^i of the Atonement: [lect.
ecclesiastical tradition. The testimony of Josephus,
as quoted by Eusebius, — that the calamities of the
siege of Jerusalem "avenged James the Just, who
was the brother of Him that is called Christ, and
whom the Jews had slain, notwithstanding His pre-
eminent justice' — if genuine, proves how completely
St. James must have preserved the habits and cus-
toms and spirit of his people, and how perfectly
he fulfilled the Jewish ideal of sanctity. If spurious,
the passage is hardly less significant, for it is quoted
not only by Eusebius, but by Origen, and shows
that traditions which existed in the Church early in
the third century implied that there had never been
any violent breach between St. James and those of
his countrymen who continued to venerate the ancient
law.
The very curious extract from Hegesippus, which
is also given by Eusebius, though the details are
partly unintelligible and partly incredible, must
have had some foundation. St. James is repre-
sented as a Nazarite from his birth, drinking neither
wine nor strong drink, and abstaining from animal
food. No razor ever came upon his head ; he never
anointed with oil ; and he never used a bath. He
spent the greater part of his time in the Temple,
praying for the people, so that his knees became hard
like the knees of a camel. The story of his martyr-
dom — if through the impossible accessories of fable
any substantial fact is accessible — seems to indicate
I Ecc. Hist. ii. 23.
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St. James. 175
that the Jewish rulers were dreading an outburst of
violence among the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth at
a Feast of the Passover, and that knowing the
authority of St. James over the adherents of his sect,
and having confidence in his good sense, moderation,
and freedom from fanaticism, they appealed to him
to maintain order and quietness ; but that from some
cause or another this appeal resulted in a public and
impressive declaration on the part of St. James to
our Lord's Messiahship.^ Whether or not this is the
root of the singular story told by Hegesippus, and
quoted without any apparent consciousness of its
improbability by Eusebius, the story itself is an
evidence of the kind of impression which the early
Church had preserved of St. James's character, and
of his relations to the Jews who did not believe. No
such legend could have sprung up in those early
times in connection with the names of any other of
the Apostles. Origen could not have given as genuine
a passage of Josephus, declaring that in the opinion
of many of the Jews their miseries were a Divine
judgment for their treatment of St. Paul. Nor is
it probable that Hegesippus, writing in the middle
of the second century, would have thought it credible
that the ecclesiastical rulers of Jerusalem lived on
such terms with St. John or even with St. Peter as
to enable them to seek apostolic influence to prevent
tumults among Jewish Christians excited by the convic-
tion that our Lord's second Advent was at hand. But
» Eusebius : Ecc. Hist. ii. 23.
176 The Fact of the Atonement : [lect.
St. James was a Jew to the last. The other Apostles
were scattered over the world, and new scenes and new
conditions of life assisted to emancipate them from
the habits and thoughts of their youth. St. James
never left Jerusalem, and never forsook the Temple.
A new Faith had come to him, and a new Hope ;
but he never passed into the large freedom which
was achieved by his apostolic brethren.
If, therefore, the expiatory forms under which the
other New Testament writers represent the Death
of our Lord Jesus Christ were the result of their
Jewish training; if they speak of His blood in con-
nection with the remission of sins and cleansing from
sin, only because their religious thought found its
most natural expression in language derived from the
altars, the sacrifices, the priesthood, and the temple
of their early religious associations, in the Epistle
of St. James we might expect the constant recurrence
of sacrificial metaphors. Here, surely, we shall have
the eternal truths of the new revelation clothed in the
perishable robes of the ancient ceremonialism. How
else can such a man give shape and colour and sub-
stance to spiritual ideas ?
It is, to say the least, extremely curious that
from the beginning of the Epistle to the end he
never speaks of the Blood of Christ, or of the Sacri-
fice of Christ, or of the Propitiation offered by Christ
for the sins of the world, or of the Redemption of
men through the Death of Christ, or of any of those
priestly functions of Christ v/hich are illustrated at
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St. James. lyy
such length in the Epistle to the Hebrews. He, the
most Jewish of the Apostles, never illustrates the work
of Christ from the institutions of Judaism. He is
so much of a Jew that he describes the assembly of
the Church or its meeting-place as a *' synagogue," ^
and yet we search his epistle in vain for a single
passage to justify us in describing the Death of
Christ as a Sacrifice for sin. The epistle, it is
true, is not a long one. Had he written more, it
is possible that we should have found in it the same
language about the Death of Christ that we find in
the writings of the other Apostles. But to those who
think that the representations of our Lord's Death in
the epistles of St, Paul and St. John are to be ac-
counted for and set aside as being only interesting
illustrations of the enduring power of Jewish insti-
tutions over their religious thought, the absence of any
such representations in the Epistle of St. James must
be remarkable. It is clear that the Apostle whose
whole life was passed in the atmosphere of Judaism,
and who was probably in the courts of the temple
every day, was not absolutely obliged to use Jewish
metaphors when he explained Christian doctrine or
enforced Christian duty. Why then should sacrificial
language, when used by St. Paul or St. John to describe
the Death of Christ, be peremptorily dismissed as being
the accidental result of their Jewish training ?
Perhaps, however, it was just because the Levitical
ritual was constantly before him that he did not exalt
' Jas. ii. 2.
13
17S The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
it to Christian uses. Distance may have been neces-
sary to give it enchantment; it was too near in its
base and material reality to be transfigured. This
explanation is hardly admissible. He was a Jew still,
and yet he had an eye to which some of the character-
istic elements of Judaism shone with altogether a new
light. He could speak of the law of the Christian life
as a " law of liberty." Even the visible and formal
worship of the temple suggested to him a noble con-
ception of the manner in which Christian men are
to serve God. *' Pure religion [Oprjo-Kela] and undefiled
before God and the Father is this : to visit the father-
less and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself
unspotted from the world." "Morality itself" — to
quote the comment of Coleridge — " is the service and
ceremonial {cultus externus. OprjcrKeia) of the Christian
religion. The scheme of grace and truth . . . has
Might for its garment;' its \Qvy robe is righteousness."^
Whatever force there may be in these considerations
as illustrating the untenableness of the theory that
the Apostles spoke of the Death of Christ as a Pro-
pitiation for sin, and of His Blood as the condition
or means of securing the remission of sins, merely
because they were Jews, and could not prevent their
religious thought from running in the old channels, the
epistle throws the strongest light on the position of
St. James and the early Church in relation to the
question underlying the whole of the Atonement con-
troversy.
I Aids to Reflection. Second Edition, page 18.
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St, James. 179
The ultimate question at issue is whether the sole
purpose of the life and Death of Christ was to effect a
change in the moral and spiritual character of men,
and so to restore them to God, or whether there is
a direct relation between His Death and the remission
of sins. It is clear from this Epistle that though
St. James and the early Church may have held the
second of these theories, which is the theory main-
tained in these Lectures, it is impossible that they
could have held the first.
The most important doctrinal passage in the epistle
is that which occupies the second half of the second
chapter, the passage which has occasioned so much
perplexity to Protestant theologians on account of its
superficial and formal inconsistency with St. Paul's
doctrine on Justification. It appears that when St.
James wrote there were persons bearing the Christian
name who supposed that they were certain of salvation
although they lived a very unchristian life. Their case
was much worse than that of the converts from heath-
enism in such Churches as those at Thessalonica and
Ephesus, to whom St. Paul had to write grave warn-
ings against coarse and flagrant vices. Converts from
heathenism sinned through carelessness, through de-
fective moral discernment, through the strength of old
habit, and the influence of the corrupt heathen society
with which they were still in necessary contact. St.
James was writing to Jews who had been trained in
the law of Moses. When they sinned they knew it.
But they had come to think that their sin exposed
13 *
i8o The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
them to no danger, that because they had *' faith " they
were safe, although faith was not perfected in righteous-
ness. This was the heresy with which St. James had
to deal so sharply, a practical heresy of the worst and
most fatal kind.
But such a heresy could never have arisen if the
Church had been taught to believe that the sole pur-
pose for which Christ came into the world was to re-
deem us from eternal ruin by making us better men,
— creating in us reverence for God's authority, and
trust in His love, penitence for sin, and thirst for
righteousness. This conception of the work of Christ
has many great defects, but it has one great merit ; it is
a conception in which the Antinomian heresy can never
take root. The weeds as well as the healthy crops
show the quality and nature of the soil, and if any
theory of the work of Christ renders impossible a heresy
which actually arose in the Churches which Apostles
founded, this is decisive evidence that the theory is not
apostolic.
Had the early Church been taught that the Chris-
tian salvation is only a salvation from sin, or that
whatever else it may be is the result of salvation from
sin, it is inconceivable that any persons bearing the
Christian name could have supposed that they might
be saved by faith without works. The solitary function
of Christ would then have been to discipline men to
righteousness. Salvation and the recovery of holiness
would have been not only inseparable, but identical
blessings. For men to speak of being justified, while
v.] the Testimony of St, John and St, James, i8i
their temper and character remained unchanged, would
have been as impossible as for men to speak of being
free while the fetters are on their limbs and the prison
doors bolted, or to speak of being in health while suffer-
ing the tortures of a painful disease. Some great objec-
tive blessing, a blessing altogether distinct from their
personal sanctification, and conferred in direct response
to faith, must have filled their thoughts, to have made it
possible for them to suppose that they could be justified
by faith without obedience. Salvation must have been
represented to them as something else than a change
in their personal life and character effected by the reve-
lation of God in Christ, and something else than the
natural and necessary result of such a change.
I may be reminded that the error of these Christian
Jews was precisely analogous to that which was
committed by Jews who had not acknowledged the
authority of Christ. Judaism, it may be alleged, was
in its very essence a law requiring righteousness, yet
there were some who regarded the bare possession of a
law, which they did not keep, as the guarantee of the
Divine favour ; and so Christianity, as taught by the
Apostles, might have made the whole value of the
mission of Christ consist in His power to renew and
transform the life and character, and yet their doctrine
might have been so perverted as to invest a barren and
unspiritual faith with the prerogative of justifying.
No illustration could add greater strength to the argu-
ment on which I am insisting. For it was not the
law in itself that gave occasion to the practical heresy
1 82 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
of the Jews. There was a Divine promise given to
Abraham, and " the law, which was four hundred and
thirty years after," could not "disannul" it, so as to
" make the promise of none effect." The promise was
theirs antecedently to any obedience which they could
render to the Divine commandments. The command-
ments were given, because the promise had been given
before ; but they forgot that by disobedience they might
disqualify themselves for receiving the fulfilment of the
promise. The Christians whom St. James rebukes
committed a precisely similar mistake. There were
great hopes assured to faith, free gifts conferred by
God on all who believed in Christ; but they forgot that
without personal righteousness they might be incapable
of continuing in the Divine love and inheriting eternal
glory. The practical heresy bears witness to the truth.
The heresy would have been impossible had the Church
been taught that the sole purpose of the mission of
Christ was to inspire men with the disposition and the
power to keep God's commandments.
The manner in which St. James deals with the heresy
is equally instructive. He does not deny that it is
faith which justifies ; he only insists that faith with-
out works is dead ; in other words, is no faith at all.
Abraham was justified by works — but why ? Because
faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith
made perfect. Curiously enough, Rahab seems to have
been regarded by the Jews of those times as a con-
spicuous example of faith. The writer of the Epistle to
the Hebrews gives her a place in the glorious succession
v.] the Testimony of St, John and St, jf antes, 183
of saints, heroes, and martyrs, who "through faith
subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises," and endured with unshaken fortitude all
that the hatred and power of wicked men could inflict
upon them. St. James also appeals to Rahab, and
there is no real conflict between his account of her and
what is said of her in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The
anonymous writer says : '* By faith the harlot Rahab
perished not with them that believed not, when she had
received the spies with peace." ^ St. James says : " Was
not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she had
received the messengers, and had sent them out another
way?"* Which was it that justified her — faith or
works ? St. James, had he been asked, would have
replied — Both. " Faith wrought with [her] works, and
by works was faith made perfect."
Had St. James believed that there are no great
objective blessings promised to faith, and that Christ
saves us only because He accomplishes a subjective
change in those who receive Him, the whole argument
would have taken a different form. The " moral
theory " of the Atonement would have placed in his
hands weapons for the destruction of Antinomianism
very different from those which he actually employs.
He would have insisted that Christ came for no other
purpose than to incline and to enable us to fulfil ** the
perfect law of liberty ; " that this was the only end of
His Life, His Death, and His Resurrection ; that
whatever may be the blessedness and whatever the
' Heb. xi. 31. 2 Jas. ii. 25.
184 The Fact of the Atonement : [lect.
glory to which Christian men are destined, these are
the results of the personal holiness which Christ came
to produce by revealing the perfect righteousness and
infinite love of God, and by conferring the gift of the
Holy Ghost. In illustrating the necessity of good
works, he would not have limited himself to instances
in which the "works" were such immediate effects
of faith as to be hardly distinguishable from it — to
" works '* which were plainly its necessary expression.
He would have insisted that sin of every kind is itself
the very evil from which Christ came to redeem us,
and that restoration to God is identical with restora-
tion to holiness. Instead of satisfying himself with
maintaining that faith is dead where works are absent,
he would have argued that the power of Christ is
unrevealed — the power of His example, the power
of His love, the power of His sufferings, the power of
His resurrection — where evil habits are not dissolved
and evil passions not destroyed.
Ask any theologian who believes in the " moral
theory " of the Atonement to refute the heresy that
holy living is unnecessary to present justification and
to future happiness; tell him to steep his mind in Old
Testament thought, and to write as the most Jewish
of the Apostles would have written to Jewish Chris-
tians ; and his argument will bear no resemblance to
that of St. James. The existence of the heresy is a
proof that the early Church did not believe that the
whole value of the work of Christ consists in the
power which He had gained by His Incarnation and
v.] the Testimony of St, John and St, James. 185
Death over the human heart; and the proof is com-
pleted by the manner in which St. James combats
the heresy.
That in the heat of the great conflict for the doctrine
of Justification by Faith, Luther should have regarded
this epistle v^ith distrust, and even with antagonism,
is not wonderful; but there is no epistle in the New
Testament which should be read more constantly by
evangelical theologians and by all evangelical Chris-
tians.
Between St. Paul and St. James there is no real
want of harmony. We understand neither of them
aright, if we shrink from taking the words of both in
their broad and obvious meaning, and if we attempt to
" reconcile " them by ingenious and subtle and recon-
dite processes of interpretation. St. Paul speaks as a
theologian, and contends that by faith, and by faith
alone, are men to be justified ; and in this contention he
is but affirming the truth to which the Christian revela-
tion in all its parts bears testimony. We are saved by
God's infinite grace. We love Him because He first
loved us. In God's presence we can urge no claim to
deliverance from sin and eternal perdition, except the
mercy He has revealed through Christ. The preroga-
tives and hopes of the least in the kingdom of heaven
transcend the merits of the greatest of saints. Saint-
liness itself is the effect of the sanctifying power of
the Holy Ghost. The holiest of men, instead of having
most to claim by way of reward, have already received
i86 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
most as the result of grace. To God we can give
nothing : we must receive everything from Him. We
are justified by faith, for faith is the recognition and
acceptance of our true relation to God, which is a re-
lation of dependence from first to last.
St. James speaks, not as a theologian, but as one
who has to deal with the concrete Christian life. He
maintains that works are as necessary to justification
as faith; and in the sphere in which his thought is
moving this is true, let theologians say what they
will. He speaks the language of common life and of
common men. He is not dealing with ideas but with
facts. It is quite true that a man is justified as soon
as he believes in Christ — justified by faith before he
has any chance of doing good works ; it is quite true
that faith is the solitary condition of remission of sins
and entrance into the kingdom of God, but wherever
there is faith there will be works ; and since a man
cannot be justified without faith, he cannot as a matter
of fact be justified without works, which always go
with it.
So long as the question is kept within the limits of
theological science, we must maintain that a man is
justified by faith, and by faith alone, without good
works : as soon as it passes into the province of the
practical Christian life, we must maintain with equal
earnestness that apart from good works justification is
impossible. Evangelical preachers have never hesi-
tated to maintain the absolute necessity of repentance
as an antecedent of faith ; they should not hesitate to
v.] the Testimony of St, John and St, James, 187
maintain the absolute necessity of good works as a
consequent of faith.
No doubt St. James puts the case very strongly.
The works which were present to his mind, and by
which he illustrates his argument, were of a kind
to enable him to travel to the utmost limit of per-
missible language ; they were, as I have already said,
works so immediately resulting from faith as to be
hardly distinguishable from it. He makes no dis-
tinction between the inward principle and the act
which was its necessary effect and expression. " By
works a man is justified, and not by faith only." This
is something more than saying that where there are no
good works there can be no justification ; but prac-
tically, and in all such cases as those to which he
appeals, the one statement is as true as the other, for
the works were literally works of faith.
The remembrance of great controversies which have
shaken Christendom to its foundations may restrain us
even in our strongest and most popular speech within
limits which St. James, in the intensity of his hatred
and scorn for unrighteousness which sheltered itself
under the immunities of faith, was impelled to pass.
But his example should remind us that when we are ^
speaking to the hearts and consciences of men we may
sometimes have to forget the definitions of the schools.
We must sometimes sacrifice the scientific accuracy of
our language in order to make truth intelligible to men
who are not scientific theologians, or who have made
1 88 The Fact of the Atonement : [lect.
their scientific theology a defence against the re-
proaches of their own consciences and the Divine
denunciations of sin. When spiritual truth has to
appear on the common paths of human life, it has
to become incarnate, and must accept the infirmities of
the human medium through which alone it can reveal
itself to mankind.
Especially we should learn from St. James that
one of our chief duties is to insist that obedience to
the law of God is inseparable from real faith in His
love. In our own times, indeed, and in this coun-
try, the practical heresies which, from the days
of the Apostles, have always arisen wherever the
apostolic theology has been vigorously and earnestly
preached, have no considerable strength. They may
be found in obscure places, but they shun the light.
They often, I fear, exist in a vague form in the
minds of persons who have received, without much
active reflection, the traditional evangelical creed, but
they are rarely expressed. Wherever they exist, and
in however indefinite a shape, they poison the air, they
corrupt Christian morality, they enfeeble the fibre and
muscle of the Christian life. They must receive no
toleration, but must be driven away and smitten down
with a relentless hand.
It may be that some Christian people are only
giving an unfortunate and unscriptural expression to
a very noble truth when they speak of being ** clothed
in the imputed righteousness of Christ ; " but if " im-
puted righteousness '* is made a cloak for actual sin,
v.] the Testimony of St. John and St, James, 189
they must be made to feel that they are the modern
successors of those of whom St. Paul said that their
" damnation is just." If the doctrine of the Atone-
ment is so perverted as to lead to the conclusion that
because a man believes in Christ as the Propitiation
for the sins of the world, he will not have to be made
manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, that he
** may receive the things done in his body, according
to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad," ^ the
awful reality of judgment to come must be reasserted
with the energy and sternness of apostolic times ; and
men must be reminded that to St. Paul himself — the
great teacher of Justification by Faith — the final judg-
ment was *' the terror of the Lord," and was one of
the motives which constrained him to fidelity in his
apostolic labours.
We should not, however, transform the gospel of
the grace of God into a mere system of ethics, because
in our times, as in the days of the Apostles, men may
turn the very *' grace of God into lasciviousness." We
should rather recognise in the analogy between the
heresies which sometimes claim to be the legitimate
results of the evangelical creed, and the heresies which
claim to be the legitimate results of apostolic teach-
ing, a fresh testimony and proof that we are the re-
presentatives and heirs of " the faith once delivered
unto the saints." If there is any form of Christian
doctrine which renders it impossible for men to suppose
that they can be saved by faith without works — that
» 2 Cor. V. 10.
IQO The Fact of the Atonement, [leci. v.
the Death of Christ secures no objective blessing, and
has for its solitary purpose the creation of a new nioral
and spiritual life — the Epistle of St. James is a
conclusive demonstration that this is not the doctrine
v^hich was taught by the founders of the Christian
Church.
LECTURE VI.
THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT : THE TESTI-
MONY OF ST. PAUL.
LECTURE VI.
THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT: THE TESTIMONY OF
ST. PAUL.
IN examining the testimony of St. Peter, St. John,
and St. James, to the fact of the Atonement, it
was unnecessary to consider whether they had any
supernatural illumination different in kind or degree
from that which is common to all who have received
the life and light of God. One of them was " the
brother of our Lord ;" the others were His personal
friends, and had lived with Him for two, or perhaps
for nearly three, years. After His resurrection He
had appeared to them all, again and again, and had
spoken to them of " the things pertaining to the
kingdom of heaven."^ St. Peter and St. John He
had elected and appointed to tell the story of His
life. His sufferings, and His resurrection from the
dead, and to preach repentance and remission of sins
in His name among all nations."^ It was impossible
that any of the three should have mistaken His mind
on a question of such capital importance as that of
the ground on which God forgives sin. To establish
their authority on other questions relating to the new
I Acts i. 3. 2 Luke xxiv. 46-48.
14
194 ^^^^ ^^^^ of the Atonement: [lect.
faith, it may be necessary to show that they received
special inspiration ; but, apart from special inspiration,
their authority on this question is decisive.
The authority of St. Paul rests on other grounds. He
had not known Christ during Christ's earthly ministry,
but he had seen — so he said — a " heavenly vision ; "
Christ had appeared to him in a glory brighter than
that of the sun which shines on Damascus at midday;
he had heard the voice of Christ, and had received
from Him a commission to be " a minister and wit-
ness " of supernatural revelations. He was sent es-
pecially to the Gentiles, "to open their eyes, and to
turn them from darkness to light, and from the power
of Satan unto God," that they might " receive for-
giveness of sins and inheritance among them that are
sanctified by faith " in Christ.^ That the miraculous
vision was not the creation of a fevered brain was
proved to the men of his own time by his miraculous
works ; and the truth of what he taught was confirmed
by the Divine power which wrought on the hearts of
those to whom he preached.
He must have been acquainted with the general
outlines of our Lord's earthly history long before he
became an Apostle. He must have known that Jesus
of Nazareth had been crucified, and that His disciples
alleged that He had risen from the dead, and had
ascended to heaven. Within six or seven years after
these things happened, we have evidence that St. Paul
was in Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was ringing with the
I Acts xxvi. 13-18.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 195
controversy between the disciples of the Nazarene
Messiah and their unbeheving countrymen. The new-
sect was rapidly gaining adherents ; " a great com-
pany of the priests were obedient to the faith." ^ He
consented to the death of Stephen, and the false
witnesses that charged the first Christian martyr
with blasphemy " laid down their clothes " at his
feet.^ It was impossible that he should be ignorant
of the story which the friends of the Lord Jesus
were perpetually repeating. After his conversion he
stayed for a short time with the disciples at Damascus,
and must have been present at their meetings for
worship, must have heard their preaching, and must
have talked with them in private about the miracles
of Christ, which some of them had probably witnessed,
and the discourses of Christ, to which some of them
had probably listened.
But he declared that he had not received from man
the gospel which he preached, neither was he taught
it but ** by the revelation of Jesus Christ." I suppose
he meant that the full significance of our Lord's
earthly history, the nature and laws of His eternal
kingdom, were not made known to him by human
teachers, but by the immediate illumination of the
Holy Ghost. These lofty claims, as I have said, were
sustained by miracles. To a Church which he had
not visited he wrote of the '* mighty signs and won-
ders " wrought by the Spirit of God in connection with
his apostolic labours.^ To a Church which he had
I Acts vi. 8. 2 Ibid. vii. 58. 3 Rom. xv. 19.
14*
196 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
founded, but which was disturbed by factious men
who questioned his right to rank himself with " the
brethren of the Lord " and with St. Peter, he declared
that *'in nothing" was he inferior to "the very
chiefest apostles," and he appealed with confidence to
" the signs of an apostle " which had been wrought
among them " in signs and wonders and mighty
deeds." ^
Admitting on such evidence as this the reality of St.
Paul's supernatural commission, we need not, for our
immediate purpose, discuss the limits of his inspiration.
Whether the arguments with which he sustains Chris-
tian doctrine are always logical, whether his use of
the Old Testament is always legitimate, whether in
illustrating the work of Christ he ever mistakes Jewish
myths or legends for facts — these are questions to
which different replies may be given by those who are
agreed in acknowledging that the Lord Jesus Christ
really appeared to him on the road to Damascus, and
called him to the apostleship of the Gentiles. But
that the Gentiles might " receive the forgiveness of
sins " was one of the special ends of his apostolic
ministry.^ Whatever other parts of his religious teach-
ing may be erroneous, when he declares the conditions
and grounds on which sin is forgiven, his teaching is
stamped with the authority of heaven.^
There is another line of proof by which this position
may be established. St. Paul's claims were violently
and persistently opposed. A faction in the Church,
I 2 Cor. xii. 12. 2 Acts xxvi. 18. 3 Note L.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 197
and a very powerful faction, resented his refusal to im-
pose the Jewish law on converts from heathenism.
In the Church at Antioch, which was largely com-
posed of Gentiles, the permanent and universal obHga-
tion of circumcision was debated with great vehemence;
and as the Judaising party refused to acknowledge the
authority of St. Paul and his friends, it was resolved to
refer the question to the original Apostles who were
still in Jerusalem, and to the elders of the Jerusalem
Church. With the exception of one brief visit five
years before,^ at a time when the Church was disturbed
by persecution, and when the Apostles had probably fled
for their lives, he had not been in the sacred city for at
least twelve years. At his earlier visit he had seen St.
Peter and St. James, " the Lord's brother, " but since
then, he seems never to have met any of the Apostles.
It is clear that he anticipated the results of this appeal
to their judgment, with anxiety. Before the Church
was called together he had private conferences with its
leaders. He explained to them the gospel that he had
been preaching during the previous ten or eleven years
to the Gentile Churches which he had founded. A
schism, a misunderstanding, would be infinitely mis-
chievous. When at last the Church met, the conten-
tion seems to have been as sharp as it had been at
Antioch. If there had been any divergence between
St. Paul's teaching and that of the original twelve on
such a subject as the relation of the Death of Christ
I The visit recorded in Acts xi. and xii. I follow the chronology
of CONYBEARE and HowsoN.
198 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
to the forgiveness of sins, it is certain that this diver-
gence would have been alleged to embitter and aggra-
vate the controversy. But there is no trace that any
doctrinal innovations, either on this point or on any
other, were charged against him. His solitary offence
consisted in his firm and immovable determination
that the Christian Church should not be bound and
fettered by the rites of Judaism. When the discussion
was over, St. James, St. Peter, and St. John gave St.
Paul the right hand of fellowship, recognised in him
4.iie same mighty power that wrought in themselves,
and acknowledged that he was divinely commissioned
to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. His faith, there-
fore, was theirs. The original Apostles declared that
the gospel of St. Paul was a true representation of the
doctrine of Christ.
A complete investigation of St. Paul's testimony to
the Atonement is not possible within the narrow limits
of these Lectures. I propose to consider, very briefly,
the accounts of St. Paul's preaching, given by himself
and by St. Luke, and shall then endeavour to deter-
mine his conception of the intention and effect of the
Death of Christ, by considering the relation of that
conception to the most important lines of thought in
three or four of his epistles.
Although he was the Apostle of the Gentiles, he
began his apostolic work among the Jews. According
to Jewish custom, it was not only the official ministers
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 199
who were permitted to speak in the synagogue : liberty
to address the congregation was allowed to every one
who had anything to say ; and to the very last, not-
withstanding the hostility with which the Jews re-
garded him, it was St. Paul's habit to avail himself of
this liberty. In the synagogues of Damascus, imme-
diately after his conversion, he discussed the claims of
Jesus of Nazareth to be received as the Son of God,
and the Messiah of Jewish prophecy.^ Whether in
those early times he was accustomed to speak of the
relation of our Lord's Death to human redemption,
does not appear ; St. Luke gives us no report of the
substance of his teaching. And of all the discourses
which he delivered subsequently in the synagogues of
Asia Minor and of Greece, St. Luke has recorded only
one."* This was delivered at Antioch in Pisidia, and
it may be regarded as illustrating the kind of argument
which he used with his fellow-countrymen, in vindi-
cating the claims of Christ to their obedience and faith.
He begins by recognizing God's election of the
Jewish race ; he recalls the manifestations of God's
goodness to them in the earlier periods of their history,
and especially in the establishment of the Jewish
monarchy, which was the symbol and prophecy of a
diviner kingdom. He reminds them of God's promise
to David, and then declares that ** of this man's seed
hath God .... raised unto Israel a Saviour." He
quotes John the Baptist's testimony to our Lord. He
tells them of the rejection of the Lord Jesus by the
I Acts ix. 20, 22. 2 Ibid, xiii 14-41.
200 The Fact of the Atonement: {lect.
rulers and people of Jerusalem, and of His Death and
burial. He quotes ancient prophecies, which he main-
tains were fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ from
the dead. And then his very first words are these :
** Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren,
that through this Man is preached unto you forgiveness
of sins; and by Him all that beHeve are justified from
all things, from which ye could not be justified by the
law of Moses." ^ Nothing is said about the relation
of our Lord's Death to the forgiveness of sins and
justification; but it seems to be St Paul's intention
to declare that perfect release from the guilt of all
offences against the Divine law is the immediate re-
sult of believing in Christ. Christ is the Saviour
whom God had promised to their fathers — the King for
whose advent they had been waiting and longing — and
" by Him all that believe are justified from all things,"
from which the law of Moses provided no means of
justification. It looks as if the salvation of which St.
Paul speaks were purely objective, and as if it were
immediate : there is nothing to imply that it is to be
the natural result of a subjective change.
Of his discourses to the Gentiles, passing over his
protest against the attempt of the people at Lystra to
offer to himself and Barnabas divine honours, the only
one recorded is the address on Mars' Hill, which is
principally an argument against idolatry, though it
closes with the startling declaration that the day has
been appointed when God " will judge the world in
I Acts xiii. 38, 39.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul, 20i
righteousness," by Jesus Christ ; and that of this God
has "given assurance to all men" in raising^Him from
the dead.^ Repentance is commanded, but nothing is
said about forgiveness. Christ is represented only as
a Judge. This discourse was probably very unlike
those w^hich St. Paul ordinarily delivered to Gentile
audiences. All the circumstances were exceptional,
and these determined both its substance and its form.
The other discourses of St. Paul contained in the
Acts of the Apostles are also of an exceptional charac-
ter. Three of them are narratives of his conversion :
the first, delivered on the stairs of the fortress of An-
tonia, * to the enraged and tumultuous crowd by which
a few minutes before he had been nearly killed ; the
second delivered before Felix at Csesarea, in reply to
Tertullus ; and the third before Agrippa and Festus.
There is also his address to the elders of the Ephesian
Church, who met him at Miletus : this is a charge
exhorting them to fidelity to the flock over which the
Holy Ghost had made them overseers, and he gives
awful solemnity to his appeal by reminding them that
the Church to which they were called to minister, " the
Lord .... had purchased — made His own — with His
own blood." ^ it is from himself that we must learn
the general character of his preaching.
^ Acts xvii. 22-31.
2 Or of the barracks within the fortress. CONYBEARE and How-
SON : SL Paul, vol. ii. 262.
3 Acts XX. 28. In the Atonement controversy, it is of no prac-
tical importance whether the received reading, tov Beow, is adopted,
or the more probable reading, tov Kvpiov, which has the support
of nearly all the modern editors of the text.
202 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
Writing to the Corinthians, St. Paul says : '* Christ
sent me not to baptise, but to preach the gospel;" and
what he meant by preaching the gospel is implied in the
words which immediately follow : " not with wisdom
of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of
none effect."^ The principal subject of his preaching
was the crucifixion of Christ, and it was his duty not
to divert the thoughts of men from that great and
mysterious event by learned speculation or glittering
eloquence. In the next sentence he describes his
preaching as " the preaching of the cross," =" which " is
to them that perish foolishness." A few sentences
fartheron he repeats the description: ''The Jews re-
quire a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom ; but
we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-
block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them
which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the
power of God and the wisdom of God." ^ In the next
chapter he reminds the Corinthians of the time when
He was with them, and when through his ministry
they abandoned their heathenism and became Chris-
tians. '* I brethren, when I came to you, came not
with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring
unto you the testimony of God. For I determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified." ^ How are we to account for the
prominence which is given to the cross ?
The Apostle of the Gentiles knew mankind. He was
as far as possible from being an irrational fanatic. On
I I Cor. i. 17. 2 Ver. 18. 3 Ver. 22-24. * i Cor. ii. 1-3.
VI.] the Testimony of St, Paul. 203
some conspicuous occasions he showed that he could
practise the most courteous and dexterous conciliation
— complimenting Agrippa on his knowledge of Jewish
customs and controversies ; quoting a Greek poet, to
sustain his own doctrine, when addressing Greeks at
Athens ; appealing to the very party spirit of the
Pharisees when he was standing before the Sanhedrim,
protesting that he was ** a Pharisee and the son of a
Pharisee," and that it was concerning " the hope and
resurrection of the dead " that he was " called in
question." ' How was it that he deliberately and per-
sistently spoke of the crucifixion, which, according to
Dean Stanley, '* was and is a scandal to the Jewish
nation, as a dishonour to the Messiah," and which was
regarded " by the educated classes of Greek and
Roman society as a degradation of the [Christian] re-
ligion itself." "* St. Paul wanted both Jews and Gentiles
to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of
God and Saviour of mankind: why did he dwell on
precisely those facts which provoked the disgust both
of Gentiles and of Jews, and confirmed them in their
unbelief?
That the Jews of Jerusalem had rejected the claims
of Jesus of Nazareth and put Him to death was no
reason why Jews in other parts of the world should
acknowledge Him as the Messiah. His rejection at
Jerusalem, where He was known. His condemnation
by the highest authorities of the nation, was prima
^ Acts xxiii. 6.
2 The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians. A. P. Stanley.
Second Edition, page 51.
204 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect
facie evidence that He was an impostor. His Death
must surely have had some very intimate and peculiar
relation to His mission, for St. Paul to have insisted
on it so strenuously.
Nor could His Death have been represented by St.
Paul as having the same character as the death of
any other great teacher or reformer who had been de-
stroyed by the jealousy of governments or by popular
fury. Plato's philosophy was not *' foolishness " to
" the educated classes of Greek and Roman society "
because he told them how Socrates had been put to
death by the Athenians; and the preaching of St. Paul
would not have been " foolishness" to the same classes
had he spoken of Christ's Death simply as a martyr-
dom. In that case their hatred and contempt of the
Jews would have made them regard the crucifixion of
Jesus, notwithstanding the intolerable humiliation of
that particular form of death, as creating some slight
argument in His favour.
Why then, I ask again, did St. Paul give the
cross such prominence in his preaching ? Dean
Stanley, in his brief essay on the " Cross of Christ,"
from which I have already quoted, says : " Its out-
ward form was familiar [to the Greeks] wherever
the Roman law had been carried out against the
slaves and insurgents of the East. It was for
them now to discover its application to themselves." ^
" To discover its application to themselves 1 " If we
^ The Epistles of St. Paul to the Cormthians. A. P. Stanley.
Second Edition, page 50.
yi.] the Testimony of St, Paul, 205
had had nothing more than these brief references to
the supreme place which the cross of Christ held in
St. Paul's preaching, it would no doubt have been
necessary for us in this age to "discover " for ourselves
"its application" to human necessities and human
redemption. But even if St. Paul had been disposed
to announce the bare fact of the crucifixion, without
saying anything about its " application," it is incon-
ceivable that his hearers would have permitted him
to leave it unexplained.
For a year and six months he was " teaching the
word of God " in Corinth,^ and the people whom he
addressed were very unlike the decorous and silent
congregations addressed every Sunday by Christian
preachers in our own times. He was interrupted by
questions ; there was free debate ; he was challenged
by opponents ; he had to solve the difficulties of
friends. This crucifixion of the Son of God, which was
a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks,
would be certain to provoke discussion. He might
say that it was a mystery, but he would be pressed
again and again to explain why it was permitted to
happen, and why he said so little about the teaching
and miracles of Christ, and so much about His Death.
It was impossible that he should be silent, and leave
his hearers " to discover its application to themselves."
We have no reason to suppose that he was un-
willing to speak. In the early part of his Epistle to
the Corinthians he describes his preaching as *' the
^ Acts xviii. II.
2o6 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
preaching of the cross." and tells them that when he
came to them, his whole preaching was about ** Jesus
Christ and Him crucified." Towards the end of the
epistle he recalls to their memory the gospel they had
heard from him, and which they had received ; and,
reciting the chief points on which he had spoken to
them, he says: ''I delivered unto you, first of all (iv
7r/3ft)To/?), that which I also received, how that Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures." ' This
was among the elementary truths that he preached.
He began with this.
The words are remarkable, but they are very in-
telligible. Similar expressions occur often enough in
literature, and in ordinary conversation, and their
meaning is too plain to be misunderstood. We speak
of men being fined for drunkenness, transported for
felony, burnt for heresy, hung for murder, and no one
complains that our language is ambiguous. Sometimes
men have suffered for offences which they did not
commit, have been condemned on false evidence, and
punished by mistake. One man committed the theft,
and another man has been imprisoned for it ; one man
was guilty of the murder, and another man has been
hung for it. From the prison and the scaffold there
have come protestations of innocence. But in the case
of Christ there was no mistake, nor was there any
protest. He died voluntarily ; " died," not because He
had committed any crimes for which He deserved
death, but *'for our sins." We may wonder how it
' I Cor. XV. 3.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 207
should be possible for Him to have died for our sins ;
we may contend that it was unjust ; but that St. Paul
declared that this was one of the fundamental truths
which he had " received" from heaven, to make known
to mankind, is incontestable.
As he believed that Christ " died for our sins," we
cannot be astonished that this was one of the first
truths that he made known to men who were unac-
quainted with the gospel ; nor can we be astonished
that he should have recurred to it so frequently that
his preaching might be described as ** the preaching
of the cross.'* That Christ died for the sins of men,
establishes a personal relationship between every man
and Christ of the most intimate character, a rela-
tionship absolutely unique, and affecting in a very
vital and fundamental manner the whole range of
human hopes and fears and the history and destiny of
the race. It was so strange and so startling a fact, it
was a fact of such infinite practical interest, that it
was inevitable that St. Paul should give it a foremost
place in his preaching.
There was another reason why he made it so promi-
nent. It was one of the great ends of his apostolic
commission that the Gentiles should " receive forgive-
ness of sins; " and if " Christ died for our sins," His
Death must have been intimately connected with our
forgiveness, and to "preach Christ crucified" was
therefore one of his chief apostolic duties.
It appears, therefore, that St. Paul did not simply
announce the fact of the crucifixion, and leave men **to
2o8 The Fact of the Atonement : [lect.
discover its inward application to themselves." His
explanation of the fact was likely to provoke greater
antagonism and repugnance than the fact itself. The
Jews resented religious teaching which denied that their
descent from Abraham was sufficient to avert the
righteous judgment of God. St. Paul maintained that
they were sinners, and that Christ died for the sins of
Jews as well as for the sins of Gentiles, and that
circumcision was no sure guarantee of the Divine
favour. This was his great crime, and this was the
principal reason why to them " Christ crucified " was
" a stumbling-block : " for he asks, '* If I yet preach
circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution ? then
is the offence of the cross ceased."^
" The educated classes of Greek and Roman society,'*
of whom Dean Stanley speaks, resented his teaching
— not merely because the crucifixion was felt to be a
'' degradation " of the new religion, encumbering it
** with associations so low, and addressed, as they would
say, to classes so contemptible as the beggars and
slaves of the Roman empire,"^ — but also because St.
Paul's explanation of the crucifixion degraded them-
selves, ascribed to them a guilt of which they were
unconscious, offered them a forgiveness of which they
felt no need, and on terms which must have seemed in-
tolerable. That a Jewish religious teacher — a young
Galilean peasant — whatever His wisdom and whatever
1 Gal. V. II.
2 The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians. A. P. Stanley.
Second Edition, page 51.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul, 209
His virtues, whose claims had been rejected by His own
countrymen, and who had suffered the most ignomi-
nious death, had really died for their sins, and that they
were to receive forgiveness of sins through Him, must
have seemed to *' the educated classes of Greek and
Roman society" the most preposterous and insane
propositions that Eastern fanatics had ever proclaimed
as messages from heaven. " Christ crucified " was
** unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks
foolishness."
In St. Paul's preaching, then, he maintained that
** Christ died for our sins." This was not a phrase
which he used now and then, accidentally, and without
any very definite meaning. It describes a truth which
gave complexion and character to all his teaching.
Can we find the same truth in his epistles ? Was this
conception of the Death of Christ merely elementary,
necessary in order to convey to uncultivated and igno-
rant minds some rude idea of the new faith, but in-
adequate as a representation of the inner truth of the
gospel ? or does it reappear in letters addressed to
those who were already in the Church, and who had
received the illumination of the Spirit of God? Do
the epistles of St. Paul assert or imply that there is
a great objective element in the work of Christ ? Do
they connect this with His Death ? Do they confirm
the impression that the Death of Christ is directly
related to the forgiveness of sins ? These are the
questions which I now propose to investigate.
^5
210 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
By general consent, the First Epistle to the Thessa-
lonians is the earliest epistle that St. Paul wrote, or
rather the earliest that the Church has preserved. It
was written not many months after he had left the
newly-converted Christians at Thessalonica to them-
selves, and may have been suggested by what he heard
from Timothy about the moral perils which threatened
their Christian integrity, and the speculative questions
which disturbed their Christian faith. The enthu-
siasm with which they had abandoned heathenism, and
** turned to God from idols to serve the living and true
God," appears to have been so remarkable, that the
report of their conversion travelled through the whole
of the country, and the first excitement had not yet
passed away. But their conscience was uninstructed,
and the sobriety and regularity which ought to charac-
terise the Christian life were endangered by the uncon-
trolled fervour of their religious emotion. Most oi
them had been heathens, and St. Paul had to warn
them against continuing to practise the sensual vices
of ''the Gentiles that know not God." ^ He had also
to tell them that while they were waiting for the
glorious coming of Christ they were not to live an idle,
turbulent, and fanatical life, but were to live quietly
and rationally, attending to their secular business
and working at their ordinary trades.^
We can imagine the kind of letter which would have
been written to such a Church by any one who be-
lieved that the redemptive work of Christ is purely
I I Thess. ii. 3-8. 2 ibid. iv. 11.
VI .J the Testimony of St. Paul. 211
subjective. These excited enthusiasts, whose faith
was strong and whose charity was fervent/ but whose
morahty was very defective,^ would have been told
that they were altogether mistaken as to the nature
of the Christian salvation. They would have been
sharply rebuked for permitting their imaginations to
be filled with the second advent of Christ, as though
redemption were in any sense a future and external
blessing. Very much would have been said about sin
as being the only evil from which men need deliver-
ance, and it would have been shown that glory,
honour, and immortality, are simply the natural and
necessary fruit of personal holiness.
But this is not the line that St. Paul follows. He
speaks of " the wrath that is coming," ^ " the sudden
destruction " ^ which is to overtake impenitent and
unbelieving men. From this, the Lord Jesus Christ
delivers all who receive the gospel.^ He enforces the
exhortation that Christian people should live as " the
children of the light and the children of the day," by
adding, " For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but
to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died
for us, that whether we wake or sleep we should live
together with Him."^ There are three conclusions to
be drawn from this epistle.
I. It is clear that St. Paul's own mind was filled
I I Thess. iii. 6, 9, 10. 2 ibid. iv. 3-7. 3 Ibid. i. 10.
4 Ibid. V. 3.
5 Ibid. i. 10. "Jesus which delivered us [our Deliverer, tv
pvoixivov] from the wrath to come." — See Ellicott, i?i he.
6 I Thcss. V. 9, 10.
IS*
212 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
with the conception of the final revelation of the
" wrath " of God against human sin, and that he had
said very much about it to the Thessalonians when
he was with them.
2. It is also clear that he and they were relying
on Christ for deliverance from that ** wrath ; " and
however true it may be that those who are to be
delivered from the coming wrath are first delivered
from present sin, he does not conceive of the future
deliverance as being nothing more than the necessary
result of a present moral and spiritual change.
As yet, the Thessalonian Christians were very far
from having obtained perfect sanctification ; but since
they were in Christ, they were no longer in peril of
that '* sudden destruction," which might come any
day on those that knew not God, and obeyed not the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because they were
in Christ, it might be certain that they would be de-
livered from sin as well as from wrath, but the two
deliverances are conceived of as being co-ordinate.
There is an objective salvation as well as a salvation
from moral corruption.
3. This objective salvation is connected by St. Paul
with the Death of Christ. *' God hath not appointed
us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus
Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep
we should live together with Him." ^ Because Christ
died for us, our destiny is separated from the destiny
of those who will be swept away by the wrath of God,
I I Thess. V. 9, 10.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul, 213
and whether we die before " the day of the Lord "
comes, or whether it finds us still alive, we are to
live together with Christ.
But why should Christ's Death render it possible
for those who believe in Him to escape eternal destruc-
tion, and to share His own eternal life and blessedness?
What relation exists between these two truths, (i) that
Christ died, and (2) that we are to be saved from wrath
by Him ? Some third truth is necessary to mediate
between them. It was too familiar to the Thessa-
ionians to require explicit statement. To them St.
Paul had preached the same gospel that he was
preaching at Corinth when he wrote this epistle : he
had "delivered [to them] first of all that which [he]
also received, how that Christ died for our sins.'* This,
therefore, is what he meant, and what the Thessalo-
nians would know that he meant when he wrote that
Christ " died for us." It is because He died for our
sins, that at His coming, whether we are living or dead,
He will deliver us from the wrath of God, and exalt
us into eternal fellowship with His own blessedness
and glory.
The characteristic of the First Epistle to the Thes-
salonians is the prominence which it assigns to " the
day of the Lord," when the supreme penalty is to be
inflicted upon the impenitent, and when those who
believe are to receive complete and eternal blessedness.
Their deliverance from the penalty, and their inheri-
tance of the blessedness, are associated by St. Paul
with the Death of Christ.
214 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
The Death of Christ is not mentioned accidentally,
or in relation to some subordinate and incidental line
of thought. It stands in immediate connection with
the chief topic of the epistle, and in such a connection
with it, as to show that by dying for us Christ delivered
us from a great objective danger.
The Epistle to the Galatians, which I propose to
examine next, is generally regarded as belonging to a
group of epistles, which also includes the two Epistles
to the Corinthians and the Epistle to the Romans.
All four were probably written about the same time,
and they have certain common characteristics. " They
exhibit," says Professor Lightfoot, ** an unwonted ten-
sion of feeling, a fiery energy of expression, which we
do not find in anything like the same degree in either
the earlier or the later epistles. They are marked by
a vast profusion of quotations from the Old Testament,
by, a frequent use of interrogation, by great variety and
abruptness of expression, by words and images not
found elsewhere, or found very rarely in St. Paul.
They have also their own doctrinal features, . . . due
for the most part to the phase which the antagohism
to the gospel assumed at this time.^
Professor Lightfoot accurately describes the Epistle
to the Galatians as " the typical epistle of the group."*
Indeed, it contains in so intense a form all the agon-
istic elements which appear in the other three, that
1 St. PauVs Epistle to the Galatians. J. B. Lightfoot, D.D.
Second Edition, page 43. 2 ibid.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul, 215
it stands almost alone. The conflict between St. Paul
and the Judaizers had now become a struggle for life or
death. The attempt at conciliation which had been
made at the Council of Jerusalem' had not succeeded.
The compromise, if it had been accepted for a time, and
if it still satisfied the more moderate of those who re-
verenced the ancient customs of the Jewish race, was
now utterly rejected by extreme men. Wherever St.
Paul went these men followed him. They had acknow-
ledged Jesus as the Christ; they claimed to be the
representatives of the faith and practice of the Church
at Jerusalem, and to speak with the authority of the
original Apostles ; and they insisted that it was the
duty of Christian Gentiles to submit to circumcision
and to keep the law of Moses. It was the old heresy
which had troubled the Church at Antioch many years
before, and which had occasioned the appeal to the
Apostles and Elders a. T^usalem. '* Except ye be
circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be
saved." ^
Among the Celtic tribes, which after overrunning the
greater part of Asia Minor had been confined at last to
a strip of high table-land in the centre of the peninsula,
St. Paul had preached the gospel with great success.
The excitable, impetuous people abandoned their idol-
atry, confessed Christ, and received the Apostle '*as an
angel of God." Into these Churches just rescued from
heathenism, the Judaizers flung the fire of controversy,
insisting that so long as men remained uncircumcised
^ Acts XV. i.
2i6 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
they could have no part in the kingdom of God. They
also impugned the apostolic authority of St. Paul, and
succeeded in persuading very many that the man to
whose preaching they owed all their knowledge of
Christ was a person of very secondary importance, and
had no claims to be regarded as an authoritative teacher
of the new faith. ^
Where St. Paul was when the news reached him
that the Judaizers were breaking up the peace of the
Churches of Galatia, and corrupting the simplicity of
their earlier faith, is doubtful. He could hardly have
been still at Antioch f he may have been at Ephesus ;3
or perhaps he was on his way through Macedonia to
Achaia \^ he may even have been at Corinth.^ Wherever
he was, the news greatly astonished him, and provoked
his indignation and scorn. It was a mean and dastardly
act to take advantage of the ignorance and impressi-
bility of these recent converts from heathenism,^ and to
endeavour to make them parties to a controversy con-
cerning the real character and issues of \vhich they had
no means of ascertaining the truth. Why could not these
zealous Judaizers fight out the question at Jerusalem
or at Antioch ? Why did they not meet St. Paul face
1 " Ces Galates ^taient gens faciles k seduire ; le dernier qui
venait leur parler au nom de Jesus etait presque sur d'avoir raison."
— E. Renan: St. Paul, 311.
2 This, however, is M. Kenan's theory. Si. Patd, p. 313, note.
3 This is the common hypothesis.
4 For which Professor Lightfoot argues.
5 The theory of Conybeare and Howson.
6 " L'espece de lachetd qu' il y avait a s'attaquer i. des gens faibles,
dociles, sans defense, et qui ne vivaient que de confiance en leur
mkitre, le rdvolta."— E. Renan : St. Paul, 314.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 217
to face? What manliness, what generosity — to say
nothing of Christian charity — was there in traducing
his character^ and denying his authority behind his
back, and among the very people who had learnt through
him to forsake the temples of heathenism and to serve
the true God ? St. Paul's whole nature was ablaze.
Nor did he wait till the fire went down. At once he
dictated a letter to the Galatian Churches, hot with
indignation against his opponents, and after eighteen
centuries the heat has not gone out of it: it burns still.
He speaks of the Galatians themselves with mingled
feelings ; there is the old affection for them ; there is
pity, passing at times almost into contempt, for their
weakness and inconstancy.
The first two chapters are occupied with the vindica-
tion of the independence and authority of his apos-
tolic commission. At the beginning of the third
he suddenly opens the great controversy as to the per-
manent obligation of the Jewish law, by a rapid succes-
sion of vehement questions. What malignant spells
had been cast upon them that they should have been
perverted from the truth — they of whom it might be
said that they had seen the crucified Christ with their
own eyes, ^ so vividly had He been set before them?
^ " And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet
sufifer persecution ?" (Chap. v. 11.) "At this point the mahcious
charge of his enemies rises up before the Apostle : * Why, you do
the same thing yourself ; you caused Timothy to be circumcised.'
To this he replies : ' What do /, who have incurred the deadly
hatred of the Judaizers, who am exposed to continual persecution
from them, do / preach circumcision ? ' " — LiGHTFOOT, m loc.
2 Professor Jowett paraphrases chap. iii. i : " O senseless Gala-
2i8 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
The full and clear teaching which they had received on
the Death of Christ ought to have rendered it im-
possible for them to have been misled by the Judaizers.
Did they receive the Holy Ghost through keeping the
law of Moses ? or through believing in the Lord
Jesus Christ ? Were the}' so utterly senseless as
to suppose that, having begun by receiving the Spirit
of God, they were to pass on to a higher perfection
through observing mere outward rites ? All that
they had suffered when they had broken with their
heathen fellow-countrymen — the mockery,- the con-
tempt, the annoyance, the positive persecution which
they endured when they first confessed Christ — were
these all in vain ? would they have been endured for
nothing had they not received these new apostles and
submitted to circumcision ? ^ The present manifesta-
tions of the Spirit of God among them — were these asso-
ciated with the mere legal observances which their new
tians ! who hath bewitched you who had such hvely experience of
the truth which now with such levity ye throw, aside ? Of whom
it might be said that ye saw Christ with your own eyes." The
Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, &c. Second
Edition, in loc. It is curious that though laTavpojusvog occupies the
emphatic position in the sentence, Professor Jowett omits all re-
cognition of it in his paraphrase.
1 1 have given in the text what I suppose is generally regarded as
St. Paul's meaning in chap. iii. 4, but it almost seems as though
he meant that they might have escaped all the sufferings incident
to their change of religious faith had they at the very first submitted
to circumcision. In that case their heathen fellow-countrymen
would have regarded them simply as Jewish proselytes, and the Jews
were so numerous in that part of Asia Minor, and had received such
special favour from the Roman Government, that for them to have
become Jews would have brought them into little or "o trouble.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 2ig
teachers maintained were essential to their salvation, or
with that faith in Christ on which St. Paul himself had
insisted with such earnestness and emphasis ?
These questions alone might have been sufficient to
show the Galatians the folly of their new position.
But the Apostle was bent on the utter destruction of
the heresy of the Judaizers. He knew the strength of
their case, knew it better than they knew it themselves,
and could have defended it with keener logic and
ampler learning than theirs. It was not for nothing
that he had been debating for years in Jewish syna-
gogues, nor had he forgotten his own intellectual con-
flicts when he first submitted to the authority of Christ.
With the keen instinct of a practised controversialist
he perceived that the theory of his opponents must be
exploded from within, and he therefore meets them on
their own ground, and appeals to the history and prin-
ciples of Judaism.
He does not deny — he asserts — the Divine authority
of the law. About that, there is no dispute between
himself and his enemies. But he maintains that the
great distinctions and prerogatives of the Jewish race,
of which the Judaizers had made so much, and which
they represented as indissolubly associated with cir-
cumcision and obedience to the law of Moses, were
not conferred upon the Jews because they circumcised
themselves and kept the law. Four hundred and
thirty years before the law was given, Abraham had
received the great promise that in him all nations
should be blessed. That promise was the real foun-
220 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
dation of all the glory of the Jewish people. The
promise could not be disannulled by any subsequent
revelations, nor could any new terms be imposed as
the condition of its fulfilment. It had been given to
Abraham once for all. It had been given to him, not
because he kept the Jewish law, for in his days there
was no Jewish law to keep. He " believed God, and
it was accounted to him for righteousness." Those
who have Abraham's faith — not those who put the
Divine law in the place of the Divine promise, and who
insist that faith such as Abraham had is of no'avail apart
from obedience to external precepts which Abraham never
obeyed — those who have Abraham's faith are Abraham's
true descendants,^ and they will be blessed with him.
The blessing was conferred by promise before the
law, and the Apostle instances several respects in which
the law was inferior to the promise. But his great
point is that the very purpose for which the law was
given made it the very extreme of folly to look to the
law for justification. It was added to the promise " for
the sake of transgressions " {twv irapapda-eoav %a/9fz/
irpoo-eriOr], ver. 19), or as Meyer puts it: "The emer-
gence of sins — namely, in the penal, wrath-deserving,^
moral form of transgressions — which the law brought
about, was designed by God (who must indeed have
foreseen this effect) when He gave the law. . . . The
result which the law, according to experience has on
the whole effected, . . . could not be otherwise than
I ovToi vioi daiv 'A(3padfi. iii. 7. The ovrot is emphatic.
2 Rom. iv. 15.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 221
the aim of God." ^ Abraham had been justified by
faith ; the law came, not to justify, but to make it clear
to men that they were far more sinful than they had
supposed before the law was given.^
This is the very crisis of the Apostle's argument. He
has brought it to an issue which forces the question —
" Is the law then in opposition to the promises of
God ? " The two seem in irreconcilable antagonism.
The promise had given the assurance that in Abraham
all nations should be blessed : the law had subjected
the very descendants of Abraham to a curse, " For it
is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in
all things that are written in the book of the law to do
them." 3 Precisely at this point St. Paul appeals to
the Death of Christ, and in a manner which renders it
impossible to mistake his conception of its character
and purpose. The promise is to stand. And why ?
Why? Because the "curse" — the objective curse which
comes on men for breaking the law — is cancelled by
Christ. Christ redeemed us Jews who were in so evil
a case in consequence of the very law to which the
Judaizers wish to bring you into bondage. He '* re-
deemed us from the curse of the law, being made a
curse for us; for it is written. Cursed is every one that
hangeth on a tree."'^ For you Gentiles, therefore, to be
trying to obtain justification by our law, is utterly
1 Meyer : Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Epistle to
the Galatiajis. In loc.
2 " To give men that consciousness of sin which makes sin to be
what it is."— JowETT, in loc.
3 Gal. iii. 10-12. 4 Ibid. 13.
222 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
irrational. The law, while it lasted, subjected us Jews
to a curse from which we were not redeemed till Christ
** became a curse for us; " and till then, the law was as
much a hindrance to your salvation as to ours, iov you
could not inherit the blessing of Abraham while we,
his descendants, were under the curse, and the Death
of Christ, by which we were redeemed, rendered it pos-
sible for "the blessing of Abraham [to] come on the
Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we" — Jews and
Gentiles alike — "might receive the pr-omise of the
Spirit through faith." ^
Try, if you can, to remove from that passage the idea
that Christ endured the penalty of the law — -the curse —
in order that those who had transgressed the law might
be redeemed from the curse and inherit the promise.
Make the Death of Christ an appeal to the hearts and
consciences of men, and let there be nothing in it
which can be described as a vicarious endurance of
penalty, and what becomes of the whole structure of
the Apostle's argument ? He is discussing with Jews,
or with Judaizers, and the idea of Christ's work is
translated into terms derived from the Jewish law ; but
unless the idea is not only lost, but absolutely mis-
represented in the translation, the Death of Christ is
the ground on which sins are remitted, and it effected
an objective Atonement for sin.*
The success of the Judaizers in perverting the faith
of his Galatian converts revealed to St. Paul the
I Note M. 2 Gal. iii. 15.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul, 223
magnitude of the peril which menaced his apostolic
work. That Christians who were Jews by birth should
still believe in the sacredness of the customs of their
fathers, was not wonderful. Reverence for the institu-
tions of Moses ran in their blood ; it had been con-
firmed and deepened by the personal habits to which
they had been trained from their childhood ; it was
more like a natural instinct than an acquired con-
viction or sentiment, and could hardly be uprooted.
It was strengthened by their familiarity with their
wonderful history. To a Jew, the abandonment of
Jewish customs must have seemed a dissolution of
the external and visible ties which united him to
prophets and saints, and a renunciation of the sacred
prerogatives which had been the noblest inheritance
and chief glory of the Jewish people in the most
prosperous periods of their history, and now consti-
tuted their solitary title to national distinction. It
was hard for a Jew to believe that the advent of the
Jewish Messiah had stripped the Jewish race of its
ancient supremacy.
But the Galatian Churches consisted almost ex-
clusively of converts from heathenism, and even they
had been half persuaded that unless they submitted
to circumcision, and kept the law of Moses, they still
belonged to the profane and evil world from which
Christ had come to deliver them,^ and were excluded
from the kingdom of God.
I " Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from
this present evil world." — Gal. i. 4.
224 ^^^^ ^'^^^ ^f ^^^^ Atonement: [lect.
St. Paul's indignation passed into grave anxiety.
None of the Churches he had founded were safe.
Everywhere his apostoHc authority was certain to be
challenged ; and if it could be challenged successfully
in the Churches of Galatia, it was impossible to rely
on the constancy of any of his converts. He saw that
his opponents were equally zealous and unscrupulous,
and that their hatred of him was bitter and unrelenting.
Their energy was almost equal to his own. They
were numerous, and they had allies in every synagogue
all over the world. They had tracked his steps through
Asia Minor : they had followed him to Greece. He
was intending to visit Rome, but they might be there
before him. He resolved, therefore, to prepare a
comprehensive and complete statement of those great
truths which he believed had been specially committed
to his trust, and to send it forward to Rome at once.
He had many friends there; most of them, probably,
Jews who had been driven from Rome some years
before by a decree of Claudius Caesar, which had now
been repealed or forgotten. He had met them at
Corinth, when he was there a few years before, and at
Ephesus, and at other cities in which he had preached
the gospel, and many of them, perhaps, were his own
converts. To them he resolved to give a full exposi-
tion of the great truths concerning Justification, which
formed the substance of his characteristic gospel, and
also to explain the true relations between the Jewish
race and the Christian Church.
The Epistle to the Romans is not, as some critics
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul, 225
have supposed, a treatise on Justification, with a kind
of supplement on the future destiny of the Jewish
people ; nor is it, as others have contended, a de-
fence of St. Paul's mission to the Gentiles, with an
introduction intended to illustrate his general con-
ception of Christian doctrine. It is equally a misap-
prehension to regard the epistle as a defence of his
teaching and a vindication of his apostolic work. The
Epistle to the Romans was suggested by the success
of the Judaizers in Galatia. St. Paul knew that he
stood almost alone, that his life was uncertain, and
that the knowledge of the Churches he had founded
was very immature : he therefore determined to state,
once for all, the truths on which the security, freedom,
and future extension of the Christian Church depended.
He stated them — not polemically, nor in the way of
self-defence, for there is no reason to suppose that
the controversy had as yet commenced in Rome — but
as systematically as it was possible to state them in
the form of a letter. There are some indications that
while the epistle as it stands was intended to be sent
to Rome, the body of it was intended to be copied and
sent to Churches in other cities. I shall attempt to
ascertain the precise place which St. Paul assigns
to the Death of Christ in the development of doctrine
contained in the first half of the epistle.
The thesis of the whole epistle is contained in the
words, " I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ ;
for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one
16
226 The Fact of the Atonement : [lect.
that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from
faith to faith, as it is written, The just shall live by
faith." ' The precise meaning of these words has been
obscured by controversy, and they had better be left
as they stand, to receive their explanation from St.
Paul's own exposition of them.
There is another revelation, he says, besides the re-
velation of "the righteousness of God." *' The wrath
of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in
unrighteousness." * He means, that to those who
have eyes to see, it is clear that God is not at peace
with sin, and can never be at peace with it. The
world would not be what it is if God were at peace
with it. A few sentences later, he speaks of the con-
dition of heathen nations as proving the reality and
severity of the Divine hostility. As St. Paul tra-
velled from city to city, and from country to country,
it seemed to him that he was living in a world which
God had forsaken. Men had " changed the glory of
the uncorruptible God into an image made like to
corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts,
and creeping things;" they had "changed the truth
of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the
creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for
ever; "3 and therefore God in His anger had left them
1 Rom. i. i6, 17.
2 " Who keep down the truth through immorality, do not let it
develop itself into power and influence on their religious knowledge
and moral condition." — Meyer, ifi loc. 3 Rom. i. 23.
VI. J the Testimony of St. Paul, 227
to drift from sin to sin, from shame to shame, from
misery to misery, from darkness to deeper darkness
still. They had made their choice, and He let them
run their course. He " gave them up to uncleanness,
.... to vile affections, .... to a reprobate mind." ^
Even the restraints of natural instinct v^ere relaxed,
and men committed abominations which cannot be
uttered. There was universal disorder ; all laws were
violated ; the most sacred relations were dissolved.
Men did not keep faith with each other; they were
disobedient to parents ; they were envious, insolent,
heartless, malignant, cruel, implacable; they were
liars, slanderers, murderers. They knew the righteous
judgment of God, that they who commit such things
are worthy of death, and yet they not only com-
mitted them, but were so utterly depraved that they
encouraged each other in sin, and provoked each other
to the worst immoralities.^
But there were some who condemned the gross vices
of which the vast masses of the heathen were guilty.
St. Paul lays hold of this very condemnation, and uses
it with terrible force to establish his position. He
turns suddenly round upon all who agreed with
what he had said about the corruption of heathen
society, and charges them with participation in the
general guilt. He attempts no proof of the. charge,
but appeals directly to their consciences — *' Thou art
inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest :
for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest
' Rom. i. 24-28. 2 Ibid. i. 29-32.
16 *
228 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things." ^
Not by condemning the crimes of others are men to
escape the judgment of God. Those who commit the
very crimes which they condemn, pronounce against
themselves a sentence which cannot be challenged ;
they are treasuring up unto themselves wrath against
the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judg-
ment of God, "who will render 4:o every man according
to his deeds;" — yes, "to every man," whether he
be Jew or Gentile, "for there is no respect of persons
with God." ^ For the Jew to suppose that because he
had received the Divine law he was certain to escape
the Divine wrath, was presumption and folly. Men
are not justified by listening to the law, but by keeping
it. But if thou art a Jew, and proud of the name,
and reliest on the law as the sign and guarantee of
the Divine favour,^ and art glorying in God as the
God of thy race, and knowest whose will it is that
men should obey,'^ and approvest those things that are
morally excellent, being instructed out of the law, and
hast faith in thyself as being the teacher and the
guide of the rest of mankind, the very light of a world
in darkness — well — hast thou nothing to do with the
law except to teach it ? Thou that preachest against
stealing, is preaching enough ? dost thou steal ? Thou
that sayest a man must not commit adultery, dost thou
' Rom. ii. I. 2 Ibid. ii. 5-1 1.
3 " In the law the Jew saw the Magna Charta of his assurance
of salvation." — MEYER, in loc.
4 TO GtXrjua — kut t^ox^v. " Whose vf\\\ it was that was to be obeyed
on the part of man, was obvious of itself." — Meyer, in loc.
VI.] the Testimony of St, Paul. 229
commit adultery ? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost
thou plunder their temples ? Thou that gloriest in the
law, through breaking the law, dost thou dishonour the
God who gave it ? '
As for circumcision, it is the honourable sign of
belonging to a race which stands in a very near rela-
tion to God, and which, because it stands in that
relation to Him, has received the law ; but if the law
is not kept, circumcision is of no avail. If a Gentile
keeps the law, he is justified ; if a Jew breaks it, he is
condemned.^
But what advantage, then, is there in being a Jew,
if a man who is not a Jew may be justified by keeping
the law, and if a Jew cannot be justified without
keeping it ? Advantage ? The advantage is great,
and great on many accounts. First of all, because to
the Jews were committed the oracles of God. For what
if some were unfaithful to the covenant; shall their
unfaithfulness destroy the fidelity of God to His pro-
mises? God forbid. Let every man be false, but God's
truth must stand fast, and the very unfaithfulness of
men does but illustrate more gloriously the faithful-
ness of God. Shall the Jews, then, venture to say
that because the sins of their race had completed the
demonstration of the Divine righteousness, it would be
unjust in God to punish them ? That would render
it impossible for God to judge the world, for His final
judgment of human sin will also illustrate His own
righteousness, and it would even be a reason for saying,
I Rom. ii. 2-24. 2 Ibid. ii. 25-29.
230 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
*' Let us do evil, that good may come;" but whoever
says that, his damnation is just.^ Jews and Gentiles
are alike sinners. The Jewish Scriptures themselves
condemned the sins of which Jews were guilty. For
"there is none righteous, no, not one; . . , they are all
gone out of the way; . . . there is none that doeth
good, no, not one ; . . . their throat is an open sepul-
chre ; . . . their feet are swift to shed blood; . . . there
is no fear of God before their eyes."* It was of Jews
that these terrible words were written. It is not enough,
therefore, for a man to be a Jew in order to escape con-
demnation as a sinner. Every mouth is stopped — the
mouth of the Jew as well as the mouth of the Gentile
— and the whole world must stand guilty before God.
The Jews are in no better case than the Gentiles ;
they have been surrounded by the restraints of the
Divine law, but the law itself condemns them; "for
by the law is the knowledge of sin." ^
This is the line of thought by which St. Paul ap-
proaches the statement which immediately follows, of
the Divine method of redemption through our Lord
Jesus Christ, and it determines, by anticipation, the
Apostle's conception of the character of that redemp-
tion. The point from which he started was very
definite : " The wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness," and he
has been establishing the reality and the justice of that
wrath through the whole course of his argument. His
clear intention is to confirm the necessity of some
I Rom. iii. i-8. 2 \\^\^, iii. 9-18. 3 Ibid. iii. 19,20.
VI.] the Testimony of St, Paul. 231
means of escape from the peril by which " every soul
of man that doeth evil " is menaced.
Yes, it may be replied, and all that he has said
about the crimes of the heathen, and the powerlessness
of the Jewish law to inspire men with the disposition
and the ability to keep it, is a demonstration of the
necessity of a great moral and spiritual change in
human nature. St. Paul believed that this change is
effected by the visible presentation to the enfeebled
conscience and the corrupt heart, of the possible purity
and grace and nobleness of humanity in the faultless
perfection of the character of Christ, and by the irre-
sistible manifestation of the Divine love in His suffer-
ings and Death. By this transformation of character
we are to be delivered from the Divine displeasure, and
from whatever that displeasure involves, -y
That St. Paul believed in the necessity of a new
revelation of God, to produce a moral and spiritual
change in man, is of course admitted. That the facts
on which he insists in the first three chapters of this
epistle prove the necessity of such a revelation, is also
beyond dispute. But that he was intending to prove
this necessity, is an untenable hypothesis. Had this
been his purpose, though he might have used the same
materials, the whole structure of his argument would
have been different. Review the movement of his
thought, and you will discover that at point after point
such a purpose would have given it another direction.
He would not merely have contended with such earnest-
ness that " the invisible things of [God], from the time
232 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
of the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even His
eternal power and Godhead, so that [idolaters] are
without excuse ;" but while alleging that enough had
been revealed of the living and eternal God to render
idolatry inexcusable, he would have emphasised, not
the guilt, but the moral helplessness of the heathen.
He would not have been satisfied with showing that the
law, on which the Jews relied as a proof of the favour
with which God regarded their race, revealed and con-
demned their sins ; he would have spoken of those
ineffectual struggles of men to keep the law which he
describes so vividly and so pathetically later in the
epistle, and would thus have demonstrated the neces-
sity of a new revelation, containing new motives and
new powers, to enable men to break with sin, and to
live a holy life. ^
No ; St. Paul's intention was to demonstrate that
the whole world is exposed to the Divine wrath, and
that if men are to be saved, that wrath must be some-
how averted. That this was his intention, becomes
clearer the more rigorous the examination to which the
whole argument is subjected.
This may be granted, and it may still be alleged
that the Divine anger is provoked by sin, and that to
escape it, a subjective redemption is necessary. Let
men cease to sin, and all the evils and perils in which
sin involves them will cease too ; and the Apostle's
argument may culminate in the declaration that men
are to be delivered from perdition — not by any objec-
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 233
tive atonement — but by being transformed into the
image of God through the power and grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Is it true that the argument culminates in any such
declaration ? If this is St. Paul's theory of the Chris-
tian redemption, he has reached the precise point at
which he is required to state it. He ought now to
speak of those new spiritual forces which will recover
from idolatry and vice those who had failed to recog-
nize the majesty and greatness of God in the shining
heavens, and in the grandeur and loveliness of earth
and sea ; and who, as the result of their idolatry, have
descended into dark depths of shameful and abominable
sin. The time has come for him to speak of the power
over the human heart of the righteousness and love of
God as revealed through Christ — a power equal to the
achievement of the moral and spiritual regeneration
which the law and the prophets had failed to accom-
plish.
But in those passages of the epistle which imme-
diately follow the declaration of the universal guilt of
mankind, is there anything to suggest that the Apostle's
mind was occupied with the spiritual influences which
now act on the heart and conscience of the race — any-
thing to suggest that Christ delivers men from the
Divine wrath solely because He changes their disposi-
tion and character ; and that by the normal action of
*' spiritual laws" men gradually escape from the con-
sequences of sin, as through Christ they are gradually
attracted and disciplined to holiness ? The first few
234 ^^^ P^^^ ^f ^^^ ^ tonement : [lect.
sentences may seem ambiguous. When St. Paul speaks
of " the righteousness of God which is by faith in
Jesus Christ,"^ it is possible to suppose that he is
thinking of that subjective change which is the result
of faith in Christ — a change by which man recovers
the image of the Divine holiness. The ambiguity may
not disappear when he speaks of our *' being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus ;" ^ but the words which immediately
follow, and the contents of the next few pages of the
epistle, are an irresistible proof that as yet St. Paul
had no thought of the moral and spiritual regeneration
which Christ effects in those who believe in Him. He
closes his statement of the method by which we are to
escape the Divine condemnation before he illustrates
either the necessity of ceasing to sin, or the spiritual
powers by which our escape from sin is effected.
At present he is wholly absorbed in the question.
How are we to be delivered — not from sin — but from
guilt, and from the wrath of God, to which our guilt
exposes us ?
His reply to these questions is very explicit. We
are "justified freely by His grace through the redemp-
tion that is in Christ Jesus ;"3 and the justification of
which the Apostle is speaking is the precise antithesis
of condemnation. As condemnation is not the cause,
but the effect of sin, so justification is not the cause,
but the effect of righteousness.^ The attempt to include
I Rom. iii. 22. 2 ibid. iii. 24. 3 Ibid. iii. 24.
4 Condemnation may, no doubt, confirm the moral and spiritual
condition of a man, and render him more desperate in sin than
vi.] * the Testimony of St. Paul. 235
in the conception of justification any other element, and
to make it cover the Divine work by which the disposi-
tion, character, and conduct of men are changed from
sin to hoHness, dislocates the whole organization of the
Apostle's thought in this part of the epistle. What he
meant by our being "justified freely by His grace"
appears in the next chapter. Abraham's justification
was not the effect produced by Abraham's faith on
Abraham's character, but the Divine response to Abra-
ham's faith. ^ '* David also describeth the blessedness
of the man " whom God justifies, *'the man unto whom
God imputeth righteousness without works, saying,
Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose
si7is are covered.'"^ And as Abraham's faith justified him
— not because it made him a better man, but — because
**it was imputed to him for righteousness," 3 our faith
in Christ justifies us in the same way. To us also
faith '' shall be imputed " for righteousness, *' if we
believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the
dead." 4
It is an objective justification that St. Paul is de-
scribing, a justification by virtue of which we are no
longer "guilty before God," and in peril of His wrath.^
But how is this transition from guilt to justification
ever ; and the justification of a sinful man may constitute the turn-
ing-point in his history, giving him hope instead of despair, and
restoring to him those spiritual influences and that access to God
which render it possible for him to overcome sin. But, formally
and strictly, condemnation and justification are related to each
other in the manner described in the text.
I Rom. iv. 1-5. 2 Ibid. iv. 6, 7. 3 Ibid. iv. 22.
4 Ibid. iv. 24. 5 Note N.
236 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect
accomplished? We are "justified freely through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus." ^ The redemp-
tion may include much else, but for the moment the
Apostle is representing it as having for its direct re-
sult the justification in which we are delivered from
guilt and wrath. If we further ask — How is it that this
objective redemption is rendered possible by Christ ?
the answer is given in the words which immediately
follow — ** Whom God hath openly set forth, for Him-
self, as a propitiatory offering (through faith) in His
blood. "^ It is from the Divine condemnation and the
Divine wrath that men need to be delivered. Neither
Jew nor Gentile can urge any ground why the condem-
nation should be revoked and the wrath turned aside,
for ''every mouth [is] stopped, and the whole world [is]
guilty before God." From this just condemnation,
from this righteous wrath, there is redemption in
Christ ; for Christ, " in His blood " — not in His
personal holiness merely — has been placed by God
before the eye and. heart of all mankind as a pro-
pitiatory sacrifice. Sacrifices are not offered to men,
but to God, and the direct intention of this Sacrifice is
to avert that supreme peril which, according to the
preceding argument, menaces the whole race. The
Death of Christ is represented— not as the method by
which God touches the human heart — but as the
ground on which God cancels human guilt, and delivers
the guilty from " the wrath " which threatened them.
1 Rom. iii. 24.
2 Ibid. iii. 25. Meyer's exposition of Rom. iii. 20-25 is singularly-
valuable.
VI.] the Testimony of St, Paul. 237
St. Paul's statement is not yet exhausted. " Propi-
tiation " suggests the idea of an appeal to the infinite
mercy of God to lay aside His wrath ; but the Apostle
proceeds to say that the Sacrifice of Christ is also a
revelation of the righteousness of God ; and the form
in which this statement is made precludes all mis-
apprehension. " God hath openly set forth Christ, for
Himself, as a propitiatory sacrifice, ... in His blood,
. . . for the sake of manifesting His righteousness on
account of the pretermission or [overlooking] in the for-
bearance of God of sins which had passed." '
In the times which preceded the coming of Christ,
God, in His longsuffering, had not revealed His right-
eousness in the adequate punishment of sin. But
this manifestation was made in the Death of Christ
as a Sacrifice for the sins of men.
Christ did not die, therefore, merely to save men of
future ages from sinning ; His Death was something
more than an appeal to the human heart and the
human conscience ; it had been rendered necessary by
the pretermission of sin in ages gone by. He revealed
" the righteousness of God," which had been obscured
by God's forbearance.
But the revelation of righteousness was related to
the future as well as to the past ; for Christ was openly
set forth as a Propitiatory Sacrifice '* for the revelation
of [God's] righteousness in the present time, in order
that He may be just, and the justifier of him that
believeth in Jesus." * The righteousness of God, which
I Rom. iii. 25. * Rom. iii. 26.
2^8 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
might otherwise have been revealed in His punishment
of the sins of former ages, sins w^hich in His forbear-
ance He had passed over, and which would also have
been revealed in His punishment of sinful men whom
He now justifies and saves, is revealed in the Sacrifice
of Christ.
It would be difficult to find words in which the ob-
jective character of the Death of Christ could be more
explicitly asserted. It is from ''wrath" that we need
to be saved, and Christ has been openly set forth as
a Propitiation. The wrath is the antagonism of God's
Righteousness to sin — sin which, in His forbearance,
He had passed over in the times preceding the advent
of Christ — sin which He is now ready to remit in the
case of every man that believes in Christ ; the Right-
eousness which in both cases is withheld from its direct
expression is yet revealed, and it is for the sake of re-
vealing it that Christ dies.
The fourth chapter is a parenthetical vindication of
the doctrine of Justification by Faith against the
possible objection that the doctrine is inconsistent
with the revelation of God to the Jewish race. In-
consistent with that revelation ! St. Paul appeals to
Abraham, from whom the Jews inherited all their
prerogatives. He believed in God, and it was *' counted
unto him for righteousness ; " and descending the line
of Jewish history more than a thousand years, he
invokes the authority of David to sustain the position
that '* God imputeth righteousness without works."
In the fifth chapter he resumes the main line of his
VI.] the Testimony of St, Paul. 239
thought, and develops the results of this Justification.
Even nov^^ he says nothing of any subjective results.
He is still absorbed in those objective blessings which
the Death of Christ, and the Justification w^hich is
effected through it, secure for those v^ho believe.
" Being justified by faith v^e have peace with God." ^
To suppose that the Apostle means that our own
hostility to God's authority and righteous law is
subdued, or that the conflict and confusion of our own
inner life pass into harmony, is to import into his
words ideas which, however true, are foreign to the
province of truth over which his thought has been
travelling, and to destroy the organic relation of this
chapter to all that has preceded it. God is hostile
to sin ; as sinful men, we were in danger of being
swept away by His wrath ; but the danger has passed
by ; He is at peace with us through the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Through Christ, too, " we have had access by faith
into this grace wherein we stand." ^ That which
prevented us from approaching God, and made us
exiles from the light and honour of the Divine
presence, has been removed. God's wrath against sin
repelled us, but Christ is our Propitiation. God's
righteousness, which would have been suppressed had
He invested with privilege and prerogative those who
deserved punishment, has been revealed in Christ's
Death : we have therefore " access into this grace '*
through Him. St. Paul does not intend to say that
I Rom. V. I. 2 Ibid. v. 2.
240 The Fact of the A tonement : ^lect.
we are inclined to approach God, but that what
hindered our approaching Him has disappeared,
through Christ. Nor is this all. " We rejoice in
hope of the glory of God : " ^ we who were looking
forward with dread to " the revelation of the righteous
judgment of God," are now exulting in the confident
expectation of receiving from God eternal glory.
And " we glory in [our present] tribulations also,"
for these do but make the hope stronger and firmer ;
and ''the hope maketh not ashamed."* Why? Does
he say, ** Because the power of the Death of Christ
is already delivering us from sin, and, therefore, we
are sure that we must at last emerge from all the evils
incident to sin, so that ultimately consummate moral
perfection will necessarily be crowned with consum-
mate blessedness " ? No. *' The hope maketh not
ashamed; because the love of God" — His love for
us — " is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost
which is given to us."^ We have no reason to fear
that the fire and hail of God's anger will descend
upon us ; the storm has moved away, or we have
risen above it ; and as the light and heat of the sun
are shed abroad through the heavens at noonday, so
the love of God for us is already shed abroad in our
hearts. This manifestation of the love of God, which
makes the hope of escaping His wrath so confident, is
accomplished by the power of the Holy Ghost, who
illuminates for us the transcendent expression of Divine
mercy in the Death of Christ.
* Rom. V. 2. 2 Ibid. iii. 2. 3 Ibid. v. 5.
n.] the Testimony of St. Paul. - 241
" For when we were yet without strength, in due
time Christ died for the ungodly." ' This is the first
recognition that the epistle contains of the moral
weakness of men, although that moral weakness ought
to have been the dominant theme of the whole argu-
ment had St. Paul believed that the solitary object of
the revelation of God in Christ was to give new energy
to our moral and spiritual life, and to redeem us from
the penalties of sin by restoring us to holiness. While
he is intent upon establishing his original thesis that
through sin men are exposed to the Divine wrath, and
that by sin they incur the hostility of the Divine right-
eousness, while he is moving towards the great state-
ment of the gospel contained towards the close of the
third chapter, that the Death of Christ is at once the
propitiation for the sins of man, and the revelation of
the righteousness of God, he emphasises human guilt,
and appears oblivious of human weakness. As soon
as he speaks of the Death of Christ as a demonstration
of the Divine love, he represents the moral condition of
the race under a new aspect. "When we were yet
without strength, Christ died : " our weakness ap-
pealed to God's pity, though our sin provoked His
anger. The change, however, is only momentary;
the primary reason that Christ died was not that we
were " weak," but that we were guilty, and the Apostle
recurs at once to his old position — "Christ died for
the ungodly" The mention of the Divine love sug-
gested our helplessness : as soon as he speaks of the
I Rom. V. 6.
17
242 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
Death of Christ the idea of our guilt returns, and the
idea of helplessness disappears.
Further, the Death of Christ is a complete and final
proof of God's love for us. Men will hardly die for the
just — to say nothing of the unjust — though, perhaps,
for a good man some would even dare to die ; but,
"while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." ' In
what sense Christ died for us he has already defined :
we were sinners, and therefore exposed to the Divine
wrath, and in danger of suffering whatever evils the
righteousness of God might inflict upon us. Christ's
Death was a propitiation for our sins and a revelation
of God's righteousness. *' Much more then, being now
justified by His blood, we shall be saved." From what ?
From sin ? No ; even now St. Paul has not escaped
from the thought of that tremendous doom which threat-
ened us — the doom which is to descend at the last da.y
upon the unsaved. " We shall be saved from [the]
wrath through Him." ^ He repeats the thought in
another form — *' For if, when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the Death of His Son, much more,
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." ^ This
incessant reappearance of one unvarying conception of
the effect of the Death of Christ is profoundly signifi-
cant. " We were enemies " — God was hostile to us,
and He ceased to be hostile because Christ died as a
Propitiation for our sins. Now that reconciliation has
been effected by the Death of Christ, the living Christ
will not leave us at last unsheltered from the wrath
I Rom. V. 7, 8. 2 Ibid. v. 9. 3 Ibid. v. 10.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 243
which He died to avert. This account of what Christ
has accomplished for us, and accomphshed for us by
His Death, is closed with a triumphant sentence, in
which it is declared that now *' we joy in God " — in the
very God whose laws we had broken and whose anger
we had provoked. But the Apostle cannot even now
repress another reference to that supreme event, on the
ground of which God has ceased to be a terror to us —
" we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by
whom we have now received the reconciliation." ^
Is the proof complete ? — the proof that St. Paul
represented the Death of Christ as being in such a
sense a revelation of the Divine righteousness and a
Propitiation for human sin, that all who believe in Him
are liberated from those dreadful judgments which, had
Christ not died, the righteousness of God would have
inflicted on them as the expression and effect of its
eternal hostility to sin, and from that "wrath of God"
which, had Christ not died, would have consumed
them ?
It is not easy to imagine how the proof can be
strengthened ; but all lingering doubt of St. Paul's
true intention must disappear after reading the next
chapter of the epistle.
The fifth chapter closes with a parallel or contrast
between Adam and the Lord Jesus Christ, and with a
brief reference to the true function of the Mosaic law,
which came in, side by side, with sin, ** that the offence
might abound ;" but St. Paul alleges that the clearer
I Rom. V. II.
17 *
^44 ^^^ P^^^ ^f ^^^ ^ tonement : [lect.
discovery of the greatness of human sin has only illus-
trated the transcendent greatness of the Divine grace.
This suggests the form of the question with which the
sixth chapter opens — a question which might take the
place of volumes of controversial theology on the
Pauline doctrine of justification, and is a decisive
proof that the Pauline conception of the relation be-
tween the Death of Christ and the remission of sins is
irreconcilable with the " Moral Theory " of the Atone-
ment, whatever form that theory may assume.
" What shall we say, then ? " asks the Apostle.
** Shall we continue in sin?" — we who are "justified
by faith," we who " have peace with God," we who
once were " enemies," but who are now " reconciled to
God by the death of His Son " — ** shall we continue in
sin, that grace may abound ? " ' Such a question would
have been irrelevant and impossible if St. Paul had
believed that Justification is a change of character,
and that the reconciliation effected by the Death of
Christ is primarily a removal of man's antagonism to
God and righteousness.
Theologians who maintain that the only purpose for
which Christ died was to appeal to the moral and
spiritual nature of man, and to inspire the human heart
with sorrow for sin and the love of God, do not find it
necessary, after elaborating their theory of Justification,
to discuss any such question as this. For them, the
direct and only intention of the Death of Christ is to
rescue men from sin and to restore them to holiness.
' Rom. vi. I.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul, 245
Even their most bitter and unscrupulous opponents can
never object that the gospel, as they preach it, may
perhaps encourage evil men to continue in their evil
practices; nor can their most ignorant and unintelli-
gent adherents so misapprehend their meaning as to
imagine that they may be ** saved from wrath" through
Christ, and yet continue in sin.
But the theory of St. Paul v/as open to this objec-
tion, and he thought it necessary to avert this mis-
apprehension. He was represented as releasing men
from all obligations to righteousness, as preaching a
salvation which permitted, and even provoked, men to
multiply their crimes, in order that the grace of God
might be glorified : *' We be slanderously reported, and
. . . some affirm that we say. Let us do evil, that good
may come." ^ The report was a slander, but had he
represented the Death of Christ as saving us from
future destruction only because of its moral effect in
saving us from present sin, the slander would have
been impossible. The misrepresentations of a theory
have always some relation to its characteristic spirit
and principles. If a theologian, whose writings are
lost, is denounced by hostile controversialists for ob-
scuring the grace and sovereignty of God, and ascribing
to man all the merit of his own salvation, we may be
certain that he did not insist very strongly on the
Divine decrees; if he is denounced for teaching
fatalism, we may be certain that he did not emphasise
human responsibility, and make the freedom of the
' Rom. iii. 8.
246 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
human will the centre of his theological system. It
was *' slanderously reported" that St. Paul preached a
gospel which did not require men to cease to sin. The
slander throws an intense light on his teaching. He
could not have taught the " Moral Theory " of the
Atonement.
When he first refers to this slander, he does not stay
to discuss it : he repels it with a vehement disclaimer :
If men say, ** Let us do evil, that good may come," their
*' damnation is just." ^ But after closing his statement
of the doctrine of Justification, he returns to the per-
verse inference which his enemies had drawn from his
preaching, and he returns to it for the sake of remov-
ing all mistake from the minds of his friends. The
manner in which he deals with it is extremely in-
structive.
" Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound ? "
It is impossible, as I have said already, that any such
question could be raised, either in the course of develop-
ing the " Moral Theory " of the Atonement, or after the
doctrine of Justification associated with that theory
had been defined and illustrated. But if it were raised,
nothing is easier than to imagine the kind of reply that
the question would receive. It would be said that the
righteousness which comes to us through Christ is real,
and not fictitious ; that for men to be justified through
Christ, means that through Him they are actually
made just ; that if in any sense He died to avert the
Divine wrath and the penalties of sin, He averts them
' Rom. ill. 8.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 247
by redeeming us from sin itself, and in no other way ;
that the peace with God into which we enter through
faith in Christ is the result of the cessation of our hos-
tility to God's authority and the disappearance of our
distrust of His love ; that the reconciliation which
Christ has effected does not remove any antagonism
on God's part towards us, but resolves our will into
harmony with the Divine will ; that the hypothesis of
continuing in sin after Justification involves a contra-
diction in terms, since Justification means nothing
else than deliverance from sin, or the result of that
deliverance.
This, however, is not the reply which is given by St.
Paul. It is not a reply which it was possible for him
to give. He could not have given it without breaking
up his previous argument and reconstructing it on a new
basis. Instead of showing that his idea of Justification
involves the idea of actual holiness in the person who
is justified, or that Christ justifies us in no other way
than by making us holy — which would have been the
most obvious, most direct, and most conclusive answer
to the question, " Shall we continue in sin, that grace
may abound ? " — he moves into a region of truth alto-
gether new. What he has said about Justification he
leaves exactly as it stands, without any explanation,
and his thought takes a new departure. " Continue in
sin, that grace may abound ? God forbid ! " ^ By the
faith in response to which for Christ's sake we are
justified, we are also brought into a mysterious and
^ Rom. vi. 2.
248 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
transcendental union with Christ. We were baptized
into His death ; we were buried with Him ; with Him
we rise to a new life in God. Henceforth we are in a
new world, because our life is new. The evil self, the
root of all our sin, was crucified with Christ : for us to
continue in sin is therefore impossible. ^ The argu-
ment extends through the whole of the sixth and
seventh chapters, and I need not summarise it.
The point to be noticed is this : St. Paul does not
return upon his previous line of thought, and show that
Justification is in itself inconsistent with the idea of
personal sinfulness : he places redemption from sin side
by side with Justification, as another result of the Death
of Christ, a second element of the redemption which
Christ has accomplished for us. In the first five chap-
ters of his epistle he has shown how through Christ we
are delivered from *' the wrath of God [which] is re-
vealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unright-
eousness of men ; " and how we are able, through Christ,
to look forward without terror to " the day of wrath
and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." The
infinite evils to which we were exposed have passed
away because the Death of Christ is an adequate revela-
tion of the righteousness of God, and an adequate Pro-
pitiation for the sins of men. But of our restoration
to holiness he has said nothing. The effect of the
Death of Christ in atoning for human sin is so imme-
diate, so independent of any change in human character,
that he has now to enter on a new line of argument, in
^ Rom. vi. 3-7.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 249
order to show that those who are justified cannot con-
tinue in sin.
Reject the idea of an objective Atonement and of an
objective Justification founded upon it, and you must
not only strain to unnatural and impossible meanings,
words, phrases, and whole sentences in which these
ideas are conspicuously present ; you must do violence
to the plan and structure of nearly the whole of the
first half of the epistle. The statement in the first two
chapters of the grounds on which the intervention of
Christ was necessary is inappropriate ; the critical
declaration in the third chapter, that Christ has been
set forth as ** a Propitiation ... in His blood," is mis-
leading; the conclusion of the argument in the early
verses of the fifth chapter, that '* being justified by faith
we have peace with God," is premature ; the necessity
for discussing the question at the opening of the sixth
chapter, " Shall we continue in sin, that grace may
abound?" is unintelligible; and the discussion which
extends through the sixth and seventh chapters lies far
remote from the most direct and decisive reply with
which the question might have been met. These seven
chapters, if every other passage in his epistles were
doubtful, would constitute a sufficient and impregnable
demonstration that St. Paul believed in an objective
Atonement.
But the Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans
were suggested by the transient exigencies of a sharp
and bitter controversy. Is it not possible that the con-
250 The Fact of the A tonement : [lect.
ception of the Death of Christ which these epistles
contain was a merely transient phase of the Apostle's
thought ? The suggestion is, on many grounds, ex-
tremely improbable ; but let us test it by an appeal to
the epistles of the imprisonment.
Three or four years passed by, and the Apostle was
in Rome, a prisoner — charged by his countrymen with
exciting the Jews in every part of the empire to
sedition, and with the crime of profaning the temple.
He had appealed from the tribunal of a provincial
governor to the Emperor, and, after a long imprison-
ment at Csesarea, had been sent to Rome, to be
acquitted or condemned. The ardent, restless nature
of St. Paul must have chafed at first under the re-
straints of his imprisonment, but perhaps it was well
for him, and well for us, that the exciting and ex-
hausting labours of his apostolic ministry should have
been interrupted by enforced seclusion and rest.
When he reached Rome, more than two years
passed before his case was heard, and these were
among the happiest and most fruitful years of his
life. He had considerable freedom. Some of the
friends to whom he had sent kindly messages in his
Epistle to the Romans were still in the city. He
had a house of his own, and appears to have been
visited by large numbers of persons who were curious
to learn the faith of the new sect from one of its
most eminent teachers. His fierce controversies with
the Judaizers were practically over. There were some
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paid, 251
indeed, even in Rome, who preached Christ of " envy
and strife," and " of contention, not sincerely," think-
ing to add affliction to his bonds ;^ but he does not
seem to have been greatly agitated by their oppo-
sition to him.
His mind vi^as occupied with new thoughts. In the
Churches of Phrygia there began to appear premo-
nitions of a fresh danger to the simplicity of the Chris-
tian faith. A singular blending of the great facts of
the gospel with Jewish asceticism and the wildest
Oriental speculations on the origin and order of the
universe, fascinated the imagination of the Christian
Churches which had been founded in that part of Asia,
and excited in the mind of St. Paul grave appre-
hensions. In the Epistle to the Colossians he op-
posed the true Christian Gnosis to the false philosophy
which was usurping its place ; and the idea of the
Death of Christ as a sacrifice for sin emerges pre-
cisely at those points where, on our theory, we should
expect it to emerge, and the epistle contains some
very important contributions to that conception of the
relation of Christ to the universe which appears in-
dispensable to a true theory of expiation.
Both in the Epistle to the Colossians, and in the
epistle written at the same time and despatched by the
same messengers, and known to us as the Epistle to
the Ephesians, St. Paul passes into a sphere of thought
which he hardly touches in any of his earlier writings.
He was in Rome, the centre and heart of an empire
>Phil. i. 15, 16.
252 Tke Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
whose boundaries seemed destined to include the
human race. Already the authority of the imperial
city extended westwards over Spain and Gaul to the
Atlantic ; northwards to the mountains of Caledonia,
to the Rhine, and the Danube; eastwards to the
Euphrates ; southwards to the borders of the African
desert. The various nations inhabiting these vast
territories — nations differing in their origin, their lan-
guage, their laws, and their customs, separated by
mountains and by seas — had been gradually subdued
by the power of Rome, and were now included in one
mighty and majestic political organization. If for
sixty years the empire had received no considerable ac-
cessions of territory, the influence of Roman manners
and of Roman law had been silently effacing national
distinctions and assimilating heterogeneous and hos-
tile races ; the subject provinces had been gradually
losing the spirit and traditions of independence, and
had been learning to identify their own honour and
prosperity with the renown of the Roman name.
Policy, not the consciousness of weakness, had ar-
rested the extension of the empire ; and it must have
appeared to St. Paul and his contemporaries, that if
occasion arose for attempting new conquests, the tur-
bulent barbarians that inhabited the forests of northern
Europe and the shores of the Euxine, and even the
shadowy monarchies of the remote East, must yield to
the irresistible shock of the legions of Rome.
Is it a mere fancy to suppose that it was the im-
pression produced on the imagination of the Apostle
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul, 253
by the vastness and grandeur of the Roman power,
the symbols of which were perpetually before his eyes,
as well as the boldness of the speculations which
were corrupting the faith of the Church at Colosse,
and, perhaps, of the Church at Ephesus, that led his
thoughts into glorious regions of truth, which he had
before seen afar off, but which now became completely
his own ?
God has " made known to us the mystery of His
will," it being His eternal purpose, a purpose He
resolved to accomplish " in the dispensation of the
fulness of times, to gather together in one all things
in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are
on earth ; even in Him " ^ — in Him who is seated at
the right hand of God, " far above all principality, and
power, and might, and dominion, and every name
that is named, not only in this world, but also in that
which is to come."*
This restoration of the whole universe to perfect
unity in Christ — where was it so likely to take pos-
session of the mind of St. Paul as in the city of Rome,
which through eight hundred years had been gradually
subduing nation after nation, giving them laws, giving
them peace, and organising them into one great
political system, until now it seemed to have within
its grasp the government of the human race ? May
we not imagine that to the Apostle, the empire appeared
a rude and earthly but not ignoble symbol of the final
comprehension of heaven and earth in one august and
» Eph. i. 9, 10. 2 Ibid. i. 20, 21.
254 ^^^ ^^^^ of tlve Atonement: [lect.
blessed and glorious kingdom under the authority of
the Lord Jesus Christ ?
In that Divine and eternal polity all who believe in
Christ — Jews, who belonged to a race which for ages
had been hoping for His coming, Gentiles, who heard
of Him for the first time when the gospel was preached
to them — are alike comprehended ; and St. Paul prays
that the Christians at Ephesus may receive the illu-
mination of the Holy Ghost, that they may know the
future glory of the kingdom into which they have been
received. This glory he associates 'with the " exceed-
ing greatness " of the Divine power, which raised
Christ from the weakness and shame and humiliation
of death to the throne of God, and which is already
working in all that believe, and accomplishing for
them a similar glorification. A great civilising state
changes the face of every country it annexes; drains
the marshes, clears the forests, works the mines, opens
new roads, establishes new forms of industry, builds
stately cities; provinces which were worthless when
it conquered them, it covers with fertility and wealth.
So, according to St. Paul, God, who has made us His
possession and inheritance, will make us worth having.
What His power wrought in the resurrection of Christ,
and the enthronement of Christ at His own right hand,
is the illustration and prophecy of what His power
will ultimately accomplish in us; and only the Spirit
of God can reveal to us what will be " the riches of
the glory of [God's] inheritance in the saints." *
I Eph. i. 1 8.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 255
But there was a time when both Christian Jews and
Christian Gentiles, who are now looking forward to this
great future, and who already share the life and sonship
of the Lord Jesus Christ, were " children of wrath even
as others." ^ The case of the Gentiles seemed, indeed,
more desperate than that of the Jews. For the Jews
had been separated from the rest of mankind by a
symbolic rite, which constituted them, in some sense,
an elect nation. They had received their national polity
from God; their national existence rested on Divine
promises of immeasurable meaning, promises which it
was difficult to believe had been wholly lost, even by the
sins which had provoked the Divine anger. They were
"the children of wrath," and yet they were "nigh"
unto God ; for through all the shameful crimes of their
national history God had never recalled the promises
which He had given to the head and founder of their
race ; and even in the worst times their inspired
prophets and psalmists had consoled them in their
sufferings, and rebuked their sins, by appealing to the
future glory of the Christ who was to be the heir of
the throne of David, and in whom the hopes of the
descendants of Abraham were to be fulfilled. But the
Gentiles were " without Christ." No sure vision of
the Divine Deliverer and King had been the solace and
strength of any Gentile nation ; they were " aliens "
from that " commonwealth " in which the kingdom of
God on earth had already taken a rudimentary form ;
they were " strangers " to those " covenants of pro-
' Eph. ii. 3,
256 The Fact of the Atonement: (lect,
mise *' in which the Jews found assurance of a Divine
interference for their redemption ; the great ** hope '*
was not theirs ; their golden age was in the past, not in
the future ; and while they had vague traditions of days
when heaven was near to earth and the gods dwelt
with men, they were not anticipating a time when the
old glory would return; and they were "without God "
in the world. ^
How had they been recovered from this utter desola-
tion ? " Children of wrath," and excluded even from
that earthly polity which was the transient shadow of
the Divine kingdom, — how had they been restored to
God ? The Apostle replies that by assuming that
nature which is common to Jew and Gentile, and by
bringing to an end the temporary and separate pri-
vileges of the Jewish people, Christ slew the "enmity"
by which Jew and Gentile were divided ; they stood
apart no longer ; and He reconciled both unto God " in
one body by the cross." ^ But was not this a moral re-
demption ? Was it not accomplished by changing the
spirit and character of men; by revealing to the Gentiles
the true and living God, whom they had forsaken to
worship idols; and by revealing to the Jews a wealth of
Divine love which broke their hearts with penitence
for sin, and constrained them to confess that the law
which " came by Moses " was infinitely surpassed by
the " grace and truth " which came by Jesus Christ ?
Read the development of the Apostle's thought, and
you will discover that this is not the form under which
I Eph. ii. 12. 2 Ibid. iii. 16.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 257
he presents the Christian redemption. The " peace "
which Christ brought about between Jew and Gentile
was the result of the removal of the objective cause of
separation, the breaking down of " the middle wall of
partition " between them. The " peace " between man
and God which Christ secured, the reconciliation of Jew
and Gentile to God by the cross, was — not the remova.
of human antagonism to God — but of Divine antagonism
to man. We were ** children of wrath," and Christ
came and "preached the glad tidings of peace^ to you
who were afar oif and to them that were nigh."^ He
proclaimed peace to those who were in peril of the
Divine anger, made known the good news that God was
no longer hostile to them. The image present to the
Apostle's mind is that of an imperial power sending
messengers to provinces with which it had been at war
— messengers whose first business was to make known
that the war was over. And this reconciliation
between God and the human race had been accom-
pHshed " by the blood " and " by the cross " of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, and as the result of
this, reconciliation, both Jew and Gentile have access
by one Spirit to the Father. The restoration of the
universe to an eternal unity in Christ has begun ; the
old division between the descendants of Abraham and
the heathen world has disappeared ; in their religious
life, all Christians of all nations, whatever their tem-
porary and external distinctions, are already one in
Christ ; and in Him they are already parts of that great
I iXOujv ivr]yyi\iaaTO iiprivr]v. 2 Eph. ii. 1 7.
18
258 The Fact of the Atonement : [lect.
temple of which Christ is the corner-stone, and in which
God will dwell. '
What is remarkable in this epistle is that not only
before he enters into these large and wide disclosures
of the eternal purpose of God in relation to the uni-
verse, does St. Paul speak of our having " redemption
through the blood of Christ, the forgiveness of sins,
according to the riches of His grace ; "^ that not only
after he has ended them, and passed into practical
exhortations to Christian morality, does he charge the
Ephesian Christians to " walk in love, as Christ also
loved us, and gave Himself for us ; *' ^ but that in the
very heart of the lofty and fervent statement of his
conception of the Divine thought in relation to the
universe, he recognises the unique and supreme
function of the Death of Christ. For him, the cross
of Christ is the very centre of that Divine movement
which extends as far as his vision can reach, and to
the remotest limits of the created universe, including
alike the obscurest of the sons of men and the regal
powers of the heavenly world. God had resolved to
" gather together in one all things in Christ," and
for the fulfilment of this vast purpose Christ proclaims
that God is at peace with those who had once been
''children of wrath," and the peace is the result of
His own Death on the cross.
We began the investigation of St. Paul's teaching
on the Death of Christ by examining the account he
I Eph. ii. 19, 22. 2 Ibid. i. 7. 3 Ibid. v. 2.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 259
gives of his own preaching : the investigation may be
closed by an examination of a very remarkable passage
in which he gives an account of some of the motives
and forces by which he was sustained in the sufferings
and labours of his apostleship. It would be easy to
construct from his epistles a very complete representa-
tion of the complex and varied elements of his personal
life. Blended with his most strenuous argument,
with his sharpest rebukes, and with all his ethical
teaching, there are constantly-recurring disclosures of
his inward spiritual history. His epistles are veritable
" confessions."
These disclosures cover several successive pages
of his second epistle to the Church at Corinth. He
speaks of the troubles, perplexities, persecutions,
which came upon him in Christ's service, but de-
scribes his great and constant sufferings as "this light
affliction," lasting " but for a moment," and as working
out for him " a far more exceeding and eternal weight
of glory ;"^ he acknowledges that he earnestly longed
for the perfect blessedness of the life to come ; and
that instead of fearing death he was willing, and more
than willing, to die, that he might be at home with
Christ.^ And yet when he anticipated the second
advent of the Lord, which will perfect the glory of
the Church, he was conscious of a certain awe and
fear. He so laboured in his apostolic ministry that
at last he might be accepted of Christ. For he says,
''We must all" — we whose sins God has forgiven
I 2 Cor. iv. 17. 2 Ibid. V. 1-3.
18*
26o The Fact of the Atonement: [lect-
for Christ's sake, as well as the rest of mankind —
we apostles, who have preached the unsearchable
riches of God's grace, as well as those who have
listened to our preaching and rejected it — " we must
all be made manifest before the judgment - seat of
Christ, that every one may receive the things done
in his body according to that he hath done, whether
it be good or bad." ^ That he would have to give an
account of the manner in which he had discharged
his trust, that he would receive reward or suffer loss
according to the measure of his zeal, industry, and
courage, was a motive to fidelity. But it was not only
of the judgment-seat of Christ that he thought.
*' The love of Christ constraineth us." ^ The word
he uses {avve'xei) is singularly expressive. Christ's
love left him no choice as to what he should live for,
brought him under the control of an irresistible yet
most gracious necessity, hedged him in on the right
hand and on the left, controlled him with a con-
stancy like that with which the great forces of the
utiiverse rule the planets and determine the orbit in
which every one of them must move. And it is im-
possible to read his epistles without discovering that
Christ's love had been so revealed to him that it had
taken possession of his thought and of every active
energy of his nature, and stirred the profoundest
depths of his emotion. Sometimes in a long passage
the name of Christ occurs in almost every alternate
line; sometimes he breaks away from an argument
I 2 Cor. V. 10. 2 Ibid. V. 14.
VI.] the Testimony of St. Paul. 261
at the bare mention of Christ's name, unable to govern
the vehement impulse to dv^ell upon Christ's glory and
grace; at other times, just as a ship is gradually
sv^ept out of her direct course by a strong and silent
current in the sea, St. Paul is gradually carried away
from the point for which he seemed to be making,
by the habitual drift of all his deepest affections to-
wards Christ.
And how had the love of Christ been manifested ?
In His incarnation ? In His parables, so bright with
hope to those who have been guilty of the darkest sin ?
In His gracious promises ? In His miracles of kind-
ness? In His merciful words to harlots and publicans?
In the tears He shed when He thought of the calamities
which were coming on the city of Jerusalem ? All
these St. Paul passes over. " The love of Christ con-
straineth us, for we thus judged that if One died for all
then all died." '
According to St. Paul, therefore, the Death of
Christ was something more than the ultimate proof
of the sincerity of His claims and an example of
invincible fidelity to God ; it was something more than
an appeal to the heart and conscience of men. It was
a representative deathc He so " died for all " that the
race died in Him. His Death was the true crisis in
the history of every man. And in His resurrection —
for He both *'died .... and rose again" for us— the
race entered into a new world. This was the Divine
idea. Those who live through Christ have not merely
^ 2 Cor. V. 14.
262 The Fact of the Atonement: [lect.
been brought under the power of new motives to live a
righteous life, they have ascended into a new creation ;
old things have vanished away, behold all things have
become new. New heavens stretch over them; they
walk on a new earth ; they " know .... no man after
the flesh ;" yea, even if they once knew Christ after
the flesh, if they were His personal friends during His
life in the old world, if they were among His kindred,
those transient ties are dissolved ; they have entered
into other relations with Him, determined by the con-
ditions of life in that new creation into which both He
and they have now entered.^
Further, this new creation is " of God," " who
reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and gave
to us the ministry of reconciliation," and the sub-
stance of that ministry was this : " God in Christ
reconciled the world unto Himself." If we ask in
what sense He effected this reconciliation, the reply
is contained in the words which follow — ^^ Not imputing ^
their trespasses unto them " ^ If we further ask
what relation there is between Christ and the non-
imputation to mankind of those trespasses by which
God's righteous condemnation had been merited, the
reply to this further question is given in the boldest
representation of Christ's redemptive work to be found
in the New Testament: God "made Him to be Sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him."^ This was the ultimate
foundation of the Apostle's ministry, and the ground on
I 2 Cor. V. 15, 17. 2 Note O. 3 2 Cor. v. 18-21. Note P.
VI.] the Testimony of St, Paul, 263
which in Christ's stead, and as Christ's ambassador,
he could entreat men to be reconciled to God. God
reconciles us to Himself, according to St. Paul, not in
the first instance by delivering us from sin, but by not
imputing our sins to us : the reconciliation is primarily,
not the removal of our hostility to God, but the ces-
sation of God's hostility to us. The ground of this
reconciliation lies in the fact that God made Christ to
be Sin for us, and its ultimate result is that we are
made the righteousness of God in Him.
I ask again is the proof complete ? St. Paul was a
great preacher, and whatever wealth and variety of
spiritual knowledge appeared in his preaching, the
cross of Christ was the centre of it all, and he taught
that *' Christ died for our sins." He had to maintain
an incessant controversy for many years with those
who were endeavouring to cramp the freedom of the
new and larger faith by imposing on Christian Gentiles
the obligations of the Jewish law ; and he maintained
that the law could never give eternal life, but could
only bring a curse upon all who were under its
authority, but that Christ has redeemed us from the
curse of the law by being made a curse for us. He
was the most illustrious of missionaries, and that he
was " the apostle of the Gentiles " was his proudest
distinction next to that of being the servant, the slave,
of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and to the heathen he
declared that God was at peace with them, because
» Titus ii. 1 1-14. 2 I Tim. ii. 5, 6.
264 The Fact of the Atonement. [lect. vt.
Christ had died. He warned men of the wrath to
come, and told them that they were to obtain salva-
tion by " our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, . . .
that we should live together with Him." The peril
to which the world is exposed is created by its
guilt, and for release from guilt he maintained that
there is no hope except in Him whose Death is
at once the revelation of the righteousness of God
and the Propitiation for the sins of men. He saw
that it was the Divine purpose to gather the whole
universe into one great spiritual polity, and this pur-
pose he affirmed was to be accomplished by Christ,
through whose Death God in His infinite mercy had
made peace between Himself and the human race.
Already those who believed in Christ had been trans-
lated into a Divine kingdom, a new creation, and this
great deliverance was effected by Christ, in whose Death
all died to this present evil world, and in whose resur-
rection all that believe in Him rose to a life in God —
He being made Sin for us, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him.
The Death of Christ, as the objective ground of the
Divine forgiveness of human sin, was the substance of
St. Paul's preaching; it was the central idea of his
theology ; it was the spring of the mightiest motives
by which he was animated in his apostolic work.
LECTURE VJI.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS CONFIRMATORY OF
THE PRECEDING ARGUMENT.
LECTURE VII.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS CONFIRMATORY OF THE
PRECEDING ARGUMENT.
T N the preceding Lectures I have endeavoured to
-*- prove that to the Apostles the Death of our Lord
Jesus Christ was the objective ground of the remission
of sins ; that this conception of His Death is contained
in the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and
that the mysterious sufferings of His last hours, and
the dread with which He anticipated them, are inexplic-
able unless we believe that " He bare our sins in His
own body on the cross," and died as a Sacrifice and
" Propitiation for the sins of the world."
Assuming that the argument is conclusive, we who
confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is God manifest in
the flesh, and who receive the Apostles as trustworthy
representatives of His teaching, must accept the fact
that by His Death He atoned for the sins of men,
although we may be unable to construct a theory of the
Atonement. There are, however, some general con-
siderations by which, perhaps, the impression of the
argument may be strengthened.
There are very many persons who believe that the
268 General Considerations [lect.
idea of an objective Atonement was invented in order
to satisfy the exigencies of rigid theories concerning the
Divine justice. In these days the great theologians of
the Church have an evil name. It is imagined that in
their speculations on the character of God, and on His
relations to mankind, they forgot that He has revealed
Himself as our Father, and that Love is the life and
glory of all His moral perfections. Theology — this
seems to be a common opinion — was merciless in its
judgment of human nature, exaggerated the evil of sin,
and refused to recognize its palliations. It ascribed to
God its own gloomy and uncompassionate spirit, and
conceived of Him as filled with fierce anger against
the human race. Then it became necessary to discover
some means of allaying His wrath, and therefore the
Death of Christ was represented as the ground on which
the sins of the world are forgiven. Or, the formalities
and harsh severities of human law were attributed to
the Divine government of the universe, and the transfer
of the sins of the world to Christ was a clumsy inven-
tion, in order to make it appear that the penalties of the
law are inflicted, although the sins of the guilty are
remitted. Arguments in support of the idea of an
objective Atonement, drawn from the teaching of Christ
and of His Apostles, are regarded as mere special
pleading, intended to sustain a dogma which has been
constructed to satisfy the artificial necessities of cum-
brous and unspiritual theological systems.
All this is precisely the reverse of the truth. Theo-
logians did not invent the Idea of an objective Atone-
vn.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument, 269
ment in order to complete the symmetry of their
theological theories. They have invented theory after
theory, in order to find a place for the Idea. That the ">
Death of Christ is the ground on which sin is remitted
has been one of their chief difficulties. To explain it,
they have been driven to the most manstrous and '
incredible speculations. Had they been able to deny
it, their work would have been infinitely simphfied. ,
The Idea is not the creation of dogmatic theology,
nor does it depend upon dogmatic theology for its hold
on the heart and faith of the Church.
In the age immediately succeeding that of the Apos-
tles, the Christian Church appears to have felt no
curiosity about the manner in which the Death of
Christ accompHshes human redemption ; or, rather,
the forms in which the great truth had been repre-
sented by the Apostles themselves were still sufficiently
fresh and unworn to satisfy the practical necessities
of the Christian life.
Converts from heathenism as well as converts from
Judaism were familiar with the ceremonial of sacrifice,
and it was sufficient for them to know that the Death
of Christ was a sacrifice for their sins. Slaves were
constantly bought and sold and ransomed ; and when
they were told that Christ gave His life a ransom for
them, they had a very vivid apprehension of the great-
ness of the deliverance they owed to Him. The Fact
that Christ died for us, and died for our sins, was
an article of faith, but they had no Theory about it.
270 General Considerations [lect.
Clement exhorts the Corinthians to " reverence the
Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was given for us ; " ^ he
reminds them that —
"On account of the love He bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord
gave His blood for us by the will of God ; His flesh for our flesh,
and His soul for our souls." ^
Rahab, who for some inexplicable reason is selected,
both by the writer of the Epistle to the Heorews
and oy St. James, as an illustrious example of faith,
reappears, and the scarlet cord which she was to
hang in her window is made the symbol and prophecy
of our deliverance from destruction by the blood of
Christ:— ,
" Thus they made it manifest that redemption should flow through
the blood of the Lord, to all them that believe and hope in God." 3
That Rahab's scarlet cord should have been used
as a type of the blood of Christ, is a very striking
proof of the powerful hold which the idea of redemp-
tion through Christ's Death must have had upon the
mind of Clement ; if indeed this fanciful and even gro-
tesque allusion originated with him, and was not one
of the "commonplaces" of Christian thought in his
time.
Polycarp greatly rejoiced that the faith of the Philip-
pians was still strong, and was bringing forth fruit to
" our Lord Jesus Christ, who for our sins suffered even
unto death." ^ He reminds them that their " hope "
and "the earnest of [their] righteousness" is "Jesus
Christ,—
I I Epistle^ c. xxi. 2 j^id. c. xlix. 3 Ibid. c. xii.
4 Epistle to Philippiatis^ c. i.
vii.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument. 271
" WTio bore our sins in His own body on the tree, who did not
sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, but endured all things
for us, that we might live in Him." ^
He charges them also to imitate the fidelity and
patience of Ignatius, and Zosimus, and Rufus, and
of others among themselves who had been martyred
for the faith ; and of St. Paul, and of the rest of the
Apostles, for they " have not run in vain ;" and they
"Are [now] in their due place in the presence of the Lord, with
whom also they suffered. For they loved npt this present world,
but Him who died for us, and for our sakes was raised again by God
from the dead." 2
In the epistle ascribed to Barnabas, but which could
hardly have been written by him, there is language of
the same kind. Once, indeed, he advances a step in
the speculative direction, for he says : —
" If therefore the Son of God, who is Lord [of all things], and who
will judge the living and the dead, suffered, that His stroke might
give us life, let us believe that the Son of God could 7tot have
suffered except for our sakes." 3
What life and force remained in the apostolic con-
ception of the Death of Christ, after the Apostles
had passed away but before the age of speculation
began, may be seen in the noble passage often quoted
from the Epistle to Diognetus : —
" When our wickedness had reached its height, and it had been
clearly shown that its reward, punishment anddeath, was impending
over us ; and when the time had come which God had before ap-
pointed for manifesting His own kindness and love — how the one
love of God, through exceeding regard for men, did not regard
us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor remember our iniquity
I Epistle to Philippians^ c. viii. 2 Ibid. c. ix.
3 Epistle of Barnabas^ c. vii.
272 General Considerations [lect.
against us, but showed great long-suffering, and bore with us— He
himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His
own Son as a ransom for us, the Holy One for transgressors, the
Blameless One for the wicked, the Righteous One for the unrighteous,
the Incorruptible One for the corruptible, the Immortal One for them
that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering
our sins than His righteousness ? By what other One was it possible
that we, the wicked and the ungodly, could be justified, than by the
only Son of God ? O sweet exchange ! O unsearchable operation !
O benefits surpassing all expectation ! that the wickedness of many
should be hid in a single Righteous One, and that the righteousness
of One should justify many transgressors." ^
But it was impossible for the simplicity of the apos-
tolic tradition to continue unaffected much longer by
the rising intellectual activity of the Church. At the
close of the second century, and the beginning of the
third, the attempt was made by Irenasus in the West,
and by Origen in the East, to give some reply to the
questions which were necessarily raised by the language
in which the Church had been taught to speak of the
Death of Christ, and by the faith which that language
expressed. It is no part of my intention to sketch,
even in outline, the wayward and perplexed movements
of speculative thought which then began, and which, at
the end of sixteen hundred years, have not yet arrived
at any satisfactory conclusion. What I am anxious to
illustrate is the fact which is often forgotten, but which
is equally certain and obvious, that the Church did not
come to believe in the objective value of the Death of
I Epistle to Diog7ietus, chap. ix. The translation of this passage,
and of the preceding passages from the Apostolic Fathers, is that
given in vol. i. of the Ante-Nicene Library^ published by Messrs.
Clark, of Edinburgh, and edited by Dr. ALEXANDER ROBERTS
and Dr. James Donaldson.
VII.] Confirmatory cf the Preceding Argument. 273
Christ because the doctrine had been developed in
theological systems, but that theological systems were
constructed in order to explain and justify the doctrine
which the Church already believed.
The theologians soon discovered that the task which
they had undertaken was one of extraordinary difficulty,
and that some of the explanations which first occurred
to them involved conclusions which it was impossible
to accept. Gregory Nazianzen, who was born a few
years after the victory of orthodoxy at the Council of
Nicaea, and who died towards the close of the fourth
century, states, in a well-known passage, with consider-
able force and vivacity, the perplexities into which the
mind of the Church had been plunged, and proposes
his own solution of them.
"To whom," he asks, "and on what account, was the blood
which was shed on our behalf poured out, that precious and illus-
trious blood of Him who was God, and both High Priest and
Sacrifice ? We were held fast by the devil since we were sold as
slaves under sin, and had purchased pleasure by vice. If, now, the
price of redemption is given only to him who has possession of the
captives, then I ask, To whom was this ransom given, and on what
ground ? To the evil one? Oh, what a monstrous outrage ! Then
the robber received not merely a ransom from God, but received
God Himself as the price of our redemption ! Magnificent wages
for his tyranny, on the payment of which justice required him to
spare us ! If, however, the ransom was paid to the Father, how, in
the first place, can this be? for it was not God who had possession
of us. And, in the second place, for what reason should the blood
of His only begotten Son give any satisfaction to the Father, who
did not even accept Isaac when his father [Abraham] offered him,
but changed the sacrifice of a rational being into that of a ram ?
Is it not clear that the Father received the sacrifice, not because
He Himself demanded or needed it, but for the sake of the Divine
19
274 General Considerations [lect.
government of the universe (Si oiKovofiiav) , and because man must be
sanctified through the incarnation of the Son of God." ^
John of Damascus, in the eighth century, expressed
himself with equal vehemence against the theory that
the "ransom" for the deliverance of the human race
had been paid to the devil.
" He who assumed death for us, died and offered Himself to the
Father ; for we had committed wrong towards Him, and it was
necessary for Him to receive our ransom, and we thus be dehvered
from condemnation. For God forbid that the blood of the Lord
should be offered to the tyrant." ^
But notwithstanding protests of this kind, it is clear
that this extraordinary hypothesis exerted a powerful
influence over the thought of the Church down to the
eleventh century, and even later. In the East, Gregory
of Nyssa, early in the fourth century, had stated the
theory in a form which implies that we were saved by a
Divine fraud. He argued that through sin the human
race had come under the dominion of the devil; that
Jesus offered Himself to the devil as a ransom for us ;
that the devil, although ignorant of the real greatness
of Christ, cared more for Him than for all mankind
besides, and accepted the offer. The human race was
therefore released, but the devil discovered that he had
been outwitted, for he could not retain Christ in his
power. Gregory maintains that this was a perfectly
fair proceeding on God's part ; for since the devil had
deceived men for the purpose of seducing them, God
had a right to deceive the devil for the purpose of
I Gregorius Nazi an. : Opera. Cologne, 1680. Vol. i. pp. 691,692.
2 Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine^ vol. ii. 252.
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument. 275
redeeming them.^ In the Western Church, a century
later, Augustine states the theory in a less dramatic
and less offensive way.
"What then," he asks, " is the righteousness by which the devil
was conquered ? What, except the righteousness of Jesus Christ ?
And how was he conquered ? Because when he found in Him
nothing worthy of death, yet he slew Him. And certainly it is
just that we whom he held as debtors should be dismissed free by
believing in Him, whom He slew without any debt. In this way it
is that we are said to be justified in the blood of Christ." ^
A very curious piece of logic ! Had the devil never
done a wrong thing before, never committed any other
great act of injustice, on the ground of which we might
have been released from his power, if his crime in killing
Christ was really the moral reason for our redemption ?
It is clear that when this theory of the Atonement
prevailed, it was not because the Church felt that the
justice of God required Christ to die that the Church
believed that the Death of Christ delivered us from
the penal consequences of sin. Perhaps, indeed, there
was some obscure idea of justice underlying even this
strange conception of a transaction with the devil ; but
the broad fact is that the Church beheved that the
Death of Christ was somehow the reason why we are
delivered from hell, and, for want of a better explana-
tion, supposed that He gave His Hfe to the Evil One
as a ransom for us.
That the theory was still powerful even in the
twelfth century, appears from one of St. Bernard's
I Gregorius Nyss. : Opera. Paris, 1615. Vol. i. 516.
^ On the Trinity,^. -3,-3,0. Works of Augustine. Edited by MAR-
CUS DODS. Edinburgh : Messrs. Clark. Vol. vii.
19 *
276 General Considerations [lect.
vehement attacks on Abelard. Abelard is represented
as saying that all the teachers of the Church since
the Apostles agreed (omnes doctores nostri post apos-
tolos conveniunt) in the opinion that the Death of
Christ had redeemed us from the power of the devil. ^
St. Bernard does not condemn Abelard's statement
as untrue, but he is confounded by the presumption
which permitted him to say : '* All the doctors of the
Church are of this judgment — I think differently."
*' Which," he demands, "is the more intolerable, the
blasphemy or the arrogance of these words ? Which
more damnable, the audacity or the impiety ? " St.
Bernard himself, with great rhetorical fire, maintains
the traditional view.
" The Lord said, * I will save thee and deliver thee ; fear not.'
Thou askest, ' From what power ? ' Thou art not willing that the
devil should have or should have had power over man — nor I,
I confess ; but neither thy will nor mine can hinder it. If thou
wilt not confess nor say it, those who have been redeemed by the
Lord, those whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy,
know it and say it. TAou wouldst not deny it, if thou wert not
still in the enemy's hand ; thou canst not render thanks with the
1 M. Remusat {Abelard, vol. ii. p. 435) says that he has dis-
covered no passage in Abelard's writings in which he makes so
sweeping an assertion as this ; but that there are, on the other
hand, passages in which he refers to the theory of our being
redeemed from the power of the devil as an opinion of not much
importance. He thinks it possible that St. Bernard had found the
statement in a part of the introduction to Abelard's "Book of
Sentences," which has been lost. It is not, however, Abelard's
alleged statement which is so important, as the manner in which
St. Bernard deals with it.
2 S. Bernard : De Erroribus Abaelardi, cap. v. Opera. Lug-
duni, Parissiis, 1845. Vol. ii. p. 57.
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument, 277
St. Bernard afterwards states the theory a little
more calmly. It amounts to this : — The devil had a
certain authority over man, not acquired lawfully, but
criminally usurped, and yet justly permitted. Man
was, therefore, justly held in captivity — the justice
being neither in man nor the devil, but in God. The
devil, though He had no claim on Christ, laid his
hand upon Him, and so we, who were justly in the
devil's hands, are liberated.'
This rude and coarse hypothesis maintained its place
in the Church for nearly a thousand years. Early in
the third century it had been sanctioned by the great
authority of Origen ; in the twelfth century, when
St. Bernard wrote, it must still have been the popular
theory. Is the hypothesis intolerable, monstrous, and
profane ? Granted. But the more intolerable, the
more monstrous, the more profane it is, the more
conclusively it proves the depth and strength of the
faith of the Church in the reality of the objective
element in the Atonement. In the earHest ages
Christian men were quite sure that Christ died to
deliver them from some great objective evil, and that
deliverance from this evil was the immediate effect
of His Death. They were willing to accept even this
preposterous explanation of the manner in which His
Death delivered us, if no better could be found. But
nothing can be more certain than that the idea of an
objective Atonement was not invented to satisfy such
I S. Bernard : De Error ibus Abaelardl, cap. v. Opera. Lug-
duni, Parissiis, 1845. Vol. ii. p. 57.
278 General Considerations [lect.
a theory as this : the theory was a most irreligious
method of illustrating the idea.
It also deserves notice that the idea was so plainly
and incontestably a fundamental part of the Christian
faith, that those who rejected the theory of a transaction
with the devil did not exclude from their conception
of the Death of Christ the objective aspect which that
theory was intended to represent. Gregory Nazianzen,
as we have seen, suggested his own solution of the
mystery. Athanasius speaks of Christ as paying the
debt in our stead which we had incurred by sin.^ And
throughout the whole period during which the theory
that the Death of Christ ransomed us from the power
of the devil retained its ascendency, a far nobler con-
ception of the nature and effect of His sufferings was
continually appearing in the devotional and practical
writings of the Church.^
I See passages in Shedd, vol. ii. p. 243. Athanasius, however,
had far larger and deeper conception of the nature of Christ's
redemptive work than this metaphor would suggest. Some of the
profoundest hints of the true direction in which to look for a theory
of the Atonement occur in his Four Discourses against the Arians,
especially in chapter xxi. He has been most inadequately repre-
sented by the few writers on the history of dogma with whose
works I happen to be acquainted ; and the common impression of
him in England among those who are not adherents of the " Catho-
lic" party — Roman or AngHcan — is extremely unjust. It is un-
fortunate for him that his name should have been given to the
" Athanasian " Creed.
=* See, for instance, the closing paragraphs of the Tenth Book of
Augustine's Confessions,
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument, 279
Towards the end of the eleventh century the ap-
pearance of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo indicated, if it
did not create, a complete change in the movement
of theological speculation. The theory is developed in
a discussion between Anselm himself and one who
professes to hold so firmly the faith of our redemption,
that even if he were unable to comprehend by any
reasoning what he believes, his faith would not be
torn from him. He wishes to learn, however, what
necessity or reason there was that God, since He is
omnipotent, should have taken upon Him the lowliness
and infirmity of human nature in order to its restora-
tion.' Anselm showed considerable controversial art
in throwing his treatise into the conversational form.
It relieved him from the necessity of urging, in his own
name, the objections which appeared to him to be
fatal to the traditional theory that Christ died to re-
deem us from the power of Satan. These objections,
naturally enough, are alleged by Boso, who plays the
part of the inquirer. Boso tells Anselm why it is
that " the reason we are accustomed to give " for the
Incarnation and Death of Christ failed to satisfy him.
He says that both man and the devil belonged to God ;
the devil had persuaded man to forsake their common
Master and go over to him ; the devil, as a traitor, had
received the runaway; as a thief, the devil had re-
ceived his fellow-thief, together with what he had stolen
from his Lord. Instead of being under any kind of
obligation to give Satan a ransom as the price of
' Cur Deus J/omo, cap. ii.
28o General Considerations [lect.
man's deliverance, God had nothing to do but to
punish Satan for getting man into his power, ''for
each of them was a thief, since the one at the other's
persuasion had stolen himself from the Lord."
" If," he says, " God, the Judge of all, were to take man, who is,
as we see. His own possession, out of the power of one who so
unjustly takes possession of him, whether for the purpose of punish-
ing him in some other way than by the instrumentality of the devil,
or for the purpose of sparing him, what injustice would there be in
this ? since although it be just for man to be tormented by the devil,
yet the devil would be unjust in tormenting him ? Man, indeed,
deserved to be punished, and by none more fitly than by him at
whose persuasion he had consented to sin. But the devil never
merited any right to punish him." ^
Boso pursues the argument through two chapters,
without any remonstrance from Anselm. His objec-
tions are left unanswered, and it is clear that Anselm
thought them unanswerable.
The foundation of Anselm's own theory of the
Atonement lies in his conception of the nature of sin.
He argues that —
" Sm is nothing else than not to render to God His due. . . .
The entire will of a rational creature ought to be subject to the will
of God. . . . He who does not render to God this honour which is
due to Him, robs God of what is His own, and dishonours God ;
and this is what it is to sin. . . . Every one who sins [is] bound to
pay back the honour of which he has robbed God ; and this is the
satisfaction which every sinner is bound to pay to God." 2
Further : —
" Nothing is less tolerable in the order of things than that a
creature should rob his Creator of the honour due to Him and not
I Cur Deus Homo, cap. vii. The translation is by " A Clergy-
man," and was published by Messrs. Parker, in 1858.
2 ii^i(j, c. xi.
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument. 281
repay Him that of which He robs Him. ... If nothing be more
great or good than God, nothing can be more just than that which
preserves His honour in the disposing of events, even the Supreme
Justice, which is nothing else than God Himself." ^ " That God
should lose His own honour is impossible ; for either the sinner of his
own will pays what he owes, or God takes it from him against his
will. For either man of his own free will exhibits that subjection
to God which is due from him, whether by not sinning, or by
making amends for his sin, or else God subjects him to Himself
by tormenting him against his will, and by this means shows Him-
self to be his Lord, which the same refuses of his own will to
acknowledge." ^
Anselm shows afterwards that, from the nature of the
case, it was not in man's power to make amends for
his sin. If, he argues, it were necessary either that the
whole world, and whatever is not God, should perish and
be reduced to nothing, or that a creature should do
the very smallest action contrary to the Divine will,
the creature would have no right to sin, even for the
preservation of the whole creation. The satisfaction,
therefore, which is necessary for the slightest sin,
must outweigh in value the whole universe.
No one, however, ought to make satisfaction for the
sin of man except man ; and no one can make this
satisfaction except God Himself.^ He who makes satis-
faction for human sin must therefore be God-man.
The conditions under which Christ, the Son of God
and the Son of man, by whom Anselm has thus
argued that the work of Atonement must be accom-
plished, can make the necessary satisfaction for the
sins of the race, are thus defined : —
' Cur Deus Homo, c. xiii. 2 ibid. c. xiv. 3 Book ii. c. 6.
282 General Considerations [lect.
" Reason has taught us that it is necessary for Him to have some-
thing greater than all things short of God, which He may wilUngly
and not of debt give to God But this cannot be found either
beneath Him or outside Him It must be found, then, in
Himself. .... He is to give, therefore, either Himself or
something out of Himself.^ But He himself and all that he has
belongs to God. This gift then must be understood thus :
that He shall in some way devote to the honour of God, either
Himself, or something coming from Himself, in a way in which He
is not in debt bound to do If we were to say that He shall
give Himself to obey God, so as, by perseveringly keeping His
righteousness, to submit Himself to His will, to give this would not
be to give what God did not require from Him as a debt ; for every
rational creature owes this to God He must, therefore, give
Himself or something out of Himself to God in some other way.
.... But to give His life, or to lay down His life, or to deliver
Himself to death for the honour of God is what — " as a debt — God
would not require of Him ; for since there will be no sin in Him,
He will be under no obligation of dying, as we said before."
Anselm then explains why the Mediator should render
honour to Gcd by dying, and the reason he gives is
consistent with his whole theory, and wholly different
from that which rests the necessity of the Atonement
on the necessity of recognizing and maintaining the
justice of the penalty which is due to sin. He asks : —
" If man sinned by pleasure, is it not consistent that he should
make satisfaction by pain ? And if he were so overcome by the
devil as to dishonour God by sinning with such ease as that he
could not have been more easily overcorne, is it not just that man,
in making satisfaction to God for sin, should overcome the devil
with such difficulty as that greater there could not he? Is it not
^ "Ratio quoquenos docuit, quia oportet eum majus aliquid habere
quam quidquid sub Deo est quod sponte det et non ex debito Deo.
.... Hoc autem nee sub illb nee extra ilium inveniri potest. . . .
In ipso igitur inveniendum est Aut igitur seipsum aut aliquid
de se dabit." — Cur Deus Homo. Schlawitz, Berlin, 1857, pp. 65, 66.
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument, 283
meet that whereas he so stole himself from God by sinning, that
he could not have stolen himself more completely than he did, in
making satisfaction he should so give himself to God as that he
could not possibly give himself more completely?"
Boso acknowledges that nothing can be more reason-
able. Anselm continues : —
" Now, then, man can suffer nothing more painful or with greater
difficulty for the honour of God, willingly and not of debt, than
death ; and in no way can more completely give himself to God than
when he delivers himself to death for His honour.^ But when
Christ bore with calm patience the injuries and insults and the
death of the cross, with the thieves, brought on Him on account of
His righteousness which he obediently kept, He gave an example
to men that they should swerve from the righteousness which they
owe to God for no inconveniences which they may experience. . . .
No man besides Him ever gave to God by dying what he would not
at some time be compelled to lose, or ever paid what he did not
owe. But He of His own accord offered to the Father what He
would not have been compelled to lose, and He paid for sinners
what He did not owe for Himself/'
For this transcendent act of homage to the Father,
Christ must not go without a recompense.
" He who recompenses any one, either gives what that one has not
got, or forgives what may be required of him. Now before that the
Son did so great an action, all things which the Father had were
His ; neither did He ever owe what might be forgiven Him."
To recompense Christ was therefore impossible. But
if the Son wished to give what is due to Him to
another, the Father could not justly prevent Him.
"It is both lawful for the Son to give what is His own, and the
Father cannot pay what He owes Him except to some one else. On
whom," then asks Anselm, concluding the argument, " should He
more consistently bestow the fruit and recompense of His own
death than on those for the sake of saving whom .... He became
I Cur Deus Homo^ c. xi.
284 General Considerations [lect.
Man, and to whom (as we have said) by dying He set an example
of dying for righteousness' sake ; for in vain will they be followers
of Him if they are not partakers of His merits ? Or whom may
He more justly make inheritors of what is due to Him (of which
He is not in want Himself), and of the superabundance of His
fulness, than His own .... brethren, whom He sees encumbered
with so many and such heavy debts, pining away with want in the
depth of misery ; so that what they owe for their sins may be for-
given them, and that of which (by reason of their sins) they stand
in need may be given them." ^
This long account of Anselm's theory in Anselm's
own words was necessary in order to give a sufficiently
clear and strong impression of the idea on which
the theory rests. His mind was filled with the august
greatness of God. " Sin is nothing else than not to
render to God His due." It is an affront to His Infinite
Majesty. It is not regarded as a crime — a revolt
against those moral laws which God is morally bound
to maintain — it is of the nature of a personal offence
against Himself. The Atonement is therefore an act
of homage to God in which His supremacy is recog-
nized — an act of homage having such transcendent
value that it outweighs the sins of mankind, and
creates an adequate reason for remitting them.
The great schoolmen who followed him did not
simply accept and vindicate the theory of Anselm :
they modified it, developed it, and even introduced
into it some foreign elements. Abelard, indeed, went
very far towards the absolute exclusion of all objective
significance from the work of Christ, and maintained
that by His blood
I Cur Deiis Homo^ c. xix.
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument. 285
"We are justified and reconciled to God, because by the singular
grace which God has manifested to us in giving us His Son, who
assumed our nature, and, having become man, persevered even
unto death in instructing us by His teaching and example, God has
more closely attached us to Himself by the bonds of love, and
because true charity, fired by such a gift of God's grace, cannot
shrink from any suffering for His sake." ^
Abelard, however, exerted only a transient and dis-
turbing influence on the development of the theory of
the Atonement in the Middle Ages, and he did nothing
to affect the fundamental principle on which all
Anselm's speculations are built. Throughout the
period of Scholasticism, the Atonement continued to
be regarded as a satisfaction offered to God for the
personal wrong committed against Him by our sin.
In Anselm and in some of his successors the theory
was redeemed from its offensive character by the prac-
tical identification of the eternal law of righteousness
with the Divine will. With God, according to Anselm,
" there is no freedom but to do what is expedient or
what is fitting. ... In that it is said that what He
wills is just, and what He wills not is not just, this is
not to be understood as though if God were to will
anything inconsistent [si Deus vult quodlibet incon-
veniens], it would be just because He willed it. For if
God were to will to lie, it does not follow that it is just
to lie, but rather that he who so wills is not God."^
But the prevalent tendency to conceive of God as the
1 Abaelard : Comment, super Epistol. ad Rom. Opera. Edit
J. P. Migne. Paris, 1855. Page 836. Abelard, however, recog-
nized the objective value of Christ's intercession.
2 Cur Deus Homo^ lib. i. cap. 12.
286 General Considerations [lect.
supreme Personality, on whose will all things depend
carried some later writers to most pernicious conclu-
sions. Duns Scotus, in harmony with the fundamental
position of his philosophy, that the will is superior
to the reason, both in God and man, makes the
moral law the expression of God's arbitrary will.^ All
existing moral distinctions are purely contingent : they
might, if God so pleased, be absolutely reversed.* This
conception of God's relation to the moral law necessarily
involved the degradation of the idea of the Atonement.
With the intenser religious earnestness, and espe-
cially the deeper sense of sin which originated the
Reformation of the sixteenth century, came a third
great movement in theological speculation on the real
nature and purpose of the Death of Christ. Ritschl,
to whom '* the scientifically rounded doctrine of Duns
Scotus" appears a truer expression of the attitude
assumed by Catholic Christendom in the Middle Ages
towards this problem than the doctrine of Thomas
Aquinas,^ has defined very sharply the distinction be-
1 See Ueberweg's History of Philosophy. Translated by
Morris. Hodder & Stoughton. Vol. i. pp. 452-457.
2 Ideo, potest aliam legem statuere rectam, quas si statueretur a
Deo, recta asset quia nulla lex est recta nisi quatenus a Dei volun-
tate acceptatur." Quoted in Julius Muller, On the Christian
Doctrine of Sin (Clark's Translation). Vol. i. p. 97. Miiller adds
that " Scotus recognizes an unconditional necessity in the funda-
mental law of love towards God, and in all which this logically
includes. Divine arbitrariness refers only to the sphere of finite
beings and their relations."
3 A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification
and Reconciliation. By Albert Ritschl. Translated by J. S.
Black. Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas. 1872. P. 60.
vri.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument. 287
tween the doctrine of the schoolmen and the doctrine
of the reformers. He says that " the satisfaction of
Christ was regarded by the schoolme-n as a necessity
arising from the arbitrary will of a mighty possessor of
private rights, while the reformers sought its explana-
tion in the public law of the law-ordered community
in which God and man are constituent parts : in the
one case it is regarded as the arbitrary compensation
for a personal injury, and in the other as the necessary
punishment of a violation of law."^ It is doubtful, I
think, whether the perfect historical truth of this sharp
contrast can be maintained. To Anselm, at least, God
was something more than " a mighty possessor of
private rights ; " nor did Anselm believe that the
Atonement was '* a compensation for personal injury "
exacted by God's " arbitrary will." Anselm himself
would have contended that the only principle and
guarantee of the moral order of the universe are found
in that personal supremacy of God which sin refuses
to acknowledge, and to which the Death of Christ has
rendered awful homage. But Ritschl appears to have
described with singular accuracy the real spirit and
tendency of the mediaeval speculations on this great
mystery. His account of the theories of the reformers
is equally felicitous. At first, indeed, they were not
distinctly conscious that their conception of the Atone-
ment differed from that which had been generally
accepted by the Church, and even some modern writers
* A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification
and Reconciliation. By Albert Ritschl.
288 General Considerations [lect.
on the history of doctrine have represented the Protes-
tant doctrine as being substantially identical with that
of Anselm. The reformers were immediately occupied
with the question of the conditions on which the bene-
fits of Christ's Death become ours, rather than with
the question of the real nature and grounds of the
Atonement which Christ's Death had effected. But
the one question was soon seen to involve the other,
and Protestant theologians gradually came to use
language about the Death of Christ and its relations
to the forgiveness of sins, which, if it was not perfectly
new, had rarely been heard before, and had never been
uttered with the same energy and vehemence. The
rudiments of their theory may be found in earlier
writers, and there had been a special preparation for
it, both in the deeper moral life which began to appear
in some parts of Christendom in the fifteenth century,
and the fresh theological thought which that life
awakened.^
^ Wycliffe taught that " it is a light word to say that God might of
His power forgive this sin [Adam's] without the aseeth [satisfaction]
which was made for it, for God might do so if He would ; but
His justice would not suffer it, but requires that each trespass be
punished, either on earth or in hell. And God may not accept a
person to forgive his sin without satisfaction." {Tracts and
Treatises of WYCLIFFE, page 84.) Wessel says, " The Lord Jesus
is not only Mediator between God and man, but is rather Mediator
for man between the God of justice and the God of mercy ; for
// behoves that the whole law of God^s justice should be fulfilled,
without failure of one jot or tittle, and as this has been achieved by
Jesus," &c. (Ullman's Reformers before the Reformatio7i, vol.
ii. p. 450. See also Ritschl : Critical History of the Christian
Doctrine oj Justification^ &^c. Page 158.)
vii.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument, 289
But it is scarcely possible to imagine anything more
startling, even to those who had retained the principles
of the Cur Deus Homo in their integrity, than such a
passage as that which occurs in Luther's commentary
on Gal. iii. 13: Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of
the law, being made a curse for us,
" The doctrine of the gospel (which of all others is most sweet
and full of singular consolation) speaketh nothing of our works or
of the works of the law, but of the inestimable mercy and love of
God towards most wretched and miserable sinners : to wit, that
our most merciful Father, seeing us to be oppressed and over-
whelmed by the curse of the law, and so to be holden under the
same, that we could never be delivered from it by our own power,
sent His only Son into the world, and laid upon Him the sins of all
men, saying, ' Be Thou Peter, that denier ; Paul, that persecutor,
blasphemer, and cruel oppressor ; David, that adulterer ; that
sinner which did eat the apple in Paradise ; that thief which hanged
upon the cross ; and, briefly, be Thou the person which hath com-
mitted the sins of all men. See therefore that Thou pay and satisfy
lor them.' Here now cometh the law, and saith, I find Him a
sinner, and that such a one as hath taken upon Him the sins of all
men, and I see no sins else but in Him, therefore let Him die upon
the cross ; and so he setteth upon Him, and killeth Him. By this
means the whole world is purged and cleansed from all sins, and so
delivered from death and all evils."
No doubt this is popular rhetoric, and popular rhe-
toric of a very intense and fervent kind. But Luther's
rhetoric is only Luther's creed set on fire by imagina-
tion and passion. To take words like these as though
they were a literal and scientific statement of what
Luther believed about the Death of Christ, would be to
violate the most ordinary principles which must govern
the interpretation of language. But he meant what he
said, and the substance of the passage is this — Christ
20
290 General Considerations [lect.
so assumed the penal responsibilities of mankind, that
all who believe in Him are delivered from the penalties
of sin. The law has inflicted on Him the sufferings
which but for His mercy would have been inflicted
on us.
The conception of the Atonement which suggested
this description of it is the precise antithesis of the
conception in the Ctir Deus Homo, Anselm — though
not with unvarying consistency — represents the volun-
tary submission of Christ to death as a transcendent
act of righteousness and of devotion to the honour of
God, and maintains that God rewarded Christ by for-
giving the sins of men. Luther represents the Death
of Christ as the endurance of the suffering due to the
sins of our race. On Anselm's theory, Christ has
secured our salvation because in His Death He clothed
Himself with the glory of a unique righteousness, for
which God rewards Him. On Luther's theory, Christ
has secured our salvation because in His Death He
clothed Himself with the sins of the human race, so
that God inflicted on Him the sufferings which the sins
of the race had deserved. The theological distance
between the two theories can hardly be measured.
They are alike only in this, that they both affirm that
the Death of Christ is the ground on which our sins
are forgiven.^
The six chapters of Calvin's Institutes, in which he
discusses the doctrine of Redemption,^ deserve very
careful consideration. They show the extent to which,
I Note Q. 2 Book ii. chaps. 12-17.
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument, 291
in the early days of the Reformation, the Protestant
leaders included in their conception of the Atonement
very much that has been imperfectly recognized or
altogether suppressed in the popular theology of Pro-
testantism ; and they also show that Calvin, as well as
Luther, held that forensic idea of the Death of Christ
which is expressed with such fervour in Luther's com-
mentary on the Galatians.
But the truth of Ritschl's representation of the
essential principle of the Protestant theory is best
illustrated by the manner in which the subject is
treated by those theologians who represent the com-
plete and systematic development of the characteristic
theology of the Reformation. Of these, Francis Turre-
tin is perhaps the most distinguished. In his Institutio
Theologice Elencticce he has a chapter in which he dis-
cusses the question — Whether it was necessary that Christ
should satisfy the Divine justice for us ? ^ The reasons
which he alleges, in maintaining the affirmative
against the Socinians, indicate the completeness of the
change which had passed over theological thought
since the time of Anselm. He urges : —
1. That the retributive justice of God is one of His
natural and essential perfections ; that God cannot
divest Himself of it ; and that He cannot refrain from
exercising it.
2, That sin is moral evil, and differs intrinsically
and necessarily from holiness ; and that there is a ne-
» Institutio Theologies Elencticce. Geneva, 1682. Vol. ii. pp.
453-463.
20 *
2g2 General Considerations [lect.
cessary and natural connection between moral evil and
physical evil : that the v^^isdom, the goodness, and the
justice of God all require that sin should be punished.
3. That death is the sanction of the law, and that
what the law threatens must be executed, if the truth of
God is to be maintained.
4. That the gospel declares, as a matter of fact,
that Christ endured a bloody and terrible death for us.
5. That to deny that it was necessary that Christ
should die in order to satisfy the Divine justice, appears
to diminish the greatness of God's love for us in not
sparing His own Son, but freely giving Him up for us
all. If, indeed, justice had created no obstacle to the
free forgiveness of our sin, the grace of God in freely
forgiving us would have been very great ; but it is seen
to be far greater, now that we know that although
justice inexorably demanded that our sin should be
punished, God's desire for our salvation resulted in the
wonderful reconciliation of justice and mercy which
has been illustrated in the Death of Christ.
Turretin then replies to the old objection that to
maintain the necessity of a satisfaction for sin is to
deny the absolute power of God, to limit His freedom,
and to dishonour the infinitude of His mercy. He
closes the argument by contending that while God has
the right to remit sin, the exercise of that right is ne-
cessarily limited by justice ; and that if He remitted
sin without a satisfaction, the majesty of the law would
be violated. The relation in which God stands to the
sinner is not a mere private relation, like that of
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument. 293
a creditor to a debtor, or a master to a slave ; it is not
an arbitrary relation arising out of positive institutions ;
it is not a relation originating in private utility ; it
involves public morality ; it is the relation of a Ruler
and a Judge ; it is founded in the nature of things.
Private rights may be waived at the w^ill and pleasure
of the individual in whom they are vested, but public
rights can be waived only on public grounds.
Mastricht, another of the great Protestant theolo-
gians of the seventeenth century, maintains the neces-
sity of a satisfaction for sin on similar grounds. It
was required (i) by the unchangeable purpose and
decree of God that He will not remit sin without
inflicting its just penalty ; (2) by His veracity, which
has pledged Him to punish sin with death ; (3) by
His original and necessary holiness and justice, which
render it impossible for Him not to hate sin ; and in
Holy Scripture the hatred of God for sin does not
denote the mere sentiment of hatred, but its effect —
the determination to punish it. The necessity of a
satisfaction for sin arises also (4) from the intrinsic
demerit of sin ; those who sin deserve death, and the
Judge of all the earth must be just ; (5) from the
nature of law, which is mere advice unless sustained
by penalties, and these penalties must be not only
threatened, but executed. Again, (6) the wisdom of
God as Moral Ruler would not allow Him to permit
the interests of the universe to be injured by suffering
the law to be violated with impunity. Finally, (7)
the fact that God has permitted His only-begotten and
294 General Considerations [lect.
well-beloved Son to endure the penalties of sin for us,
is a conclusive proof that, apart from the Death of
Christ as a satisfaction for sin, our salvation was
impossible.^
In the same sense in which the true character of
the scholastic theory of the Atonement may be said
to be most perfectly expressed in the exaggerated
and degraded form which it received from Duns
Scotus, the true character of the Reformation theory
may be said to be most perfectly expressed in the
exaggerated and degraded form which it received from
Grotius.
The Atonement, as all Protestants acknowledged,
was not a mere vindication of God's personal claims,
a compensation offered to Him for personal wrongs : it
was demanded by Justice, by the majesty of public
law, which must be maintained by God's authority,
and which sin has transgressed. Grotius grasped
with firmness and tenacity precisely that element in
the theory of the reformers by which it was most
sharply distinguished from the theory of the schoolmen.
He was a jurist, an ambassador, and a statesman; and
to him the Divine administration of the universe was
but a higher form of that political life with which he
was so well acquainted. His theory is developed with
great clearness and fulness in his Defence of the Catholic
Faith concerning the Satisfaction of Christ,^ written in
1 Peter Van Mastricht : Theoretico - Practica Theologia,
Amsterdam. Page 6i6.
2 Defensio Fidei Catholicce de Satisfactione Christi. HUGONIS
Grotii Opera. Vol. iv. Basle, 1732.
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument, 295
reply to Socinus. The ultimate principles on which
the Grotian doctrine rests are laid down in chaps, ii.
and iii., in which the old Socinian conception of punish-
ment is discussed with great acuteness, and completely-
destroyed : unfortunately, the theory by which it is
replaced is almost equally untenable. He argues
(chap, ii.) that God is not to be considered as being
the mere Judge of the moral universe : if He were
nothing more than a Judge, He would have simply to
administer the law, and would have no power to remit
the punishment of the guilty, even if the punishment
were borne by the innocent. Nor, in inflicting punish-
ment, is God to be regarded as the party that has
been injured by sin ; He is not even to be regarded
as the mere representative of the moral universe,
which may be supposed to have been injured by sin.
For, in the first place, the right to punish does not
belong to the party that has received injury from an
offence. No man is a proper judge in his own cause. ^
Nor, secondly, has an injured person — as such — a right
to insist on punishnent; all that he can claim is com-
pensation. Grotius might have said that the law gives
him his remedy in a civil action for damages, not in a
criminal prosecution. Nor, again, when God punishes
sin, is He to be considered as though He were acting
merely as the absolute Owner of the universe, whose
claims on the love and service of His creatures have
not been satisfied. If this were His only relation to us,
I " Est quidem recepta regula neminem esse idoneum in sua
causa judicem." — Page 306.
296 General Considerations [lect.
these claims might be freely remitted. All punishment
has for its end the common good.^
But Grotius argues (chap, iii.) that the penal law may-
be relaxed. While there are some laws which are
eternal and unchangeable, as that God cannot lie, or
deny Himself, or perform evil actions, positive laws
nave not this inflexible character. To the objection
that, in the very nature of things, it is just that the
guilty should be punished according to their deserts,
he replies, that while from the relation of the sinner
to God as the supreme Ruler, his sin naturally and
necessarily makes him liable to punishment, it is not
absolutely and universally necessary that the adequate
punishment should be inflicted. It belongs to the very
nature of things that every sinner deserves punish-
ment, but not that every sinner should be actually
punished.^
There was nothing in the nature of God to prevent
Him from forgiving sin without exacting any atone-
ment for it. But He had to consider the moral effect
which such an exercise of His prerogatives would have
produced on the universe.
The sufferings which are threatened against those
1 " Poena enim omnis propositum habet bonum commune ; ordi-
nis nimirum conservationem et exemplum." — Page 308.
2 " Quod ergo is qui deliquit poenam meretur, eoque punibilis est
hoc ex ipsa peccati et peccatoris ad superiorem relatione necessario
sequitur, et proprie naturale est. Ut vero puniatur quivis peccator,
poena tali quse culpae respondeat, non est necessarium simpliciter et
universaliter : neque proprie naturale, sed naturae satis conveniens."
—Page 310.
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument, 297
who transgress the Divine commandments are a ter-
rible warning against sin : if these sufferings are not
inflicted, the moral interests of the universe require
that the authority of the law should be maintained
in some other way. Grotius contended that this end
is secured by making forgiveness conditional on the suf-
ferings of Christ. He gave up, as Ritschl has said,
** the idea of penal satisfaction for past sins," and
substituted for it the idea of a ** penal example for the
prevention of future sins."' The Grotian theory of the
Atonement has had great influence on the modern
theology of English Nonconformity.
From this brief review of the history of the doctrine,
it appears that for nearly a thousand years many of the
most eminent teachers of the Church were accustomed
to represent the Death of Christ as a ransom by which we
are delivered from captivity to the devil; that for nearly
five centuries the most eminent teachers of the Church
were accustomed to represent the Death of Christ as an
act of homage to the personal greatness and majesty of
God; that during the last three centuries the great Pro-
testant Churches have represented the Death of Christ
as having a relation neither to the devil nor to the
personal claims of God, but to the moral order of the
universe. While the fundamental conception of the
Atonement has been passing through these remarkable
changes, the doctrine has been involved in other con-
troversies of hardly inferior magnitude. There have been
^ RiTSCHL, 313.
298 General Considerations [lect.
controversies as to whether Christ died for all men, or
whether He died for the elect only; or whether, as was
suggested as early as the third century by Origen, the
effects of His Death extend to the whole universe. There
have been controversies as to whether the Death of Christ
was in itself an adequate Atonement for human sin, or
whether its adequacy depends upon God's acceptance
of it as adequate. When the Death of Christ was re-
garded as a kind of concession to the devil, there were
controversies as to whether the concession was neces-
sary in the nature of things, in order to effect our
redemption ; the same controversy was renewed under
other forms when the Death of Christ was regarded as
an act of homage to the Divine Majesty; and it has re-
appeared among Protestants, to whom the Atonement
is neither a concession to the claims of Satan, nor even
an acknowledgment of the personal claims of God.
Whether, if men were to be saved, the Atonement of
Christ was necessary or not ; whether its effects extend
to all mankind or only to the elect; whether it consisted
in His righteousness, which was tested by His sufferings,
or whether the sufferings themselves constituted its
very essence ; whether it was intended to redeem us
from the power of Satan, or to propitiate the injured
majesty of God, or to assert the eternal principles of
the Divine government — all these questions have
divided the Church. The Fathers attempted to explain
why it is that through the Death of Christ we escape
from the penalties of sin, and their explanations were
rejected by the schoolmen. The schoolmen attempted
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument. 299
to explain it, and their explanations were rejected or
modified by the reformers. The reformers attempted
to explain it, and within a century after the Reforma-
tion, Grotius and his successors were attempting to
explain it again. But the faith of the great body of
the Church in the fact that Christ's sufferings came
upon Him because of our sin, and that on the ground
of His sufferings we are delivered from the penalties of
sin, has survived the theories which were intended to
illustrate it.
The Idea of an objective Atonement invented by
theologians to satisfy the exigencies of theological
systems ! It would be almost as reasonable to main-
tain that the apparent motion of the sun was invented
by astronomers in order to satisfy the exigencies created
by astronomical theories. The Idea has perplexed, and
troubled, and broken up successive systems of theo-
logy. It was precisely because they failed to account
for it that theological systems which were once famous
and powerful, and from which their authors hoped
for an immortal name, have perished. If it had been
possible to expel the Idea from the faith of Christ-
endom, the task of theology would have been made
wonderfully easier. The history of the doctrine is a proof
that the idea of an objective A tenement was not invented by
theologians.
But perhaps this Idea was forced upon theologians
by the superstitious dread with which, in all ages,
vast masses of men have regarded the awful powers of
300 General Considerations [lect.
the invisible world. The Jews had their sacrifices,
the heathen had theirs. Is it not possible that the
Death of Christ came to be regarded as having expia-
tory power because the Church itself was slow in
apprehending the infinite love of God, and therefore
insisted that only by suffering could the Divine wrath
be propitiated ?
It is true, and the truth has great significance, that
the craving for a sacrifice for sin is one of the deepest
instincts of the religious life of the race. It is also
true that this craving is satisfied by the Christian
Atonement. But that, apart from the clearest and
most emphatic declarations of Christ Himself and His
Apostles, the Church should ever have supposed that
His Death could be the ground on which God forgives
the sins of mankind, is incredible.
How could such an extraordinary supposition have
originated ?
From the very first, the general outlines of the
history of our Lord Jesus Christ were made known
to all who received the Christian faith; His life and
His Death constituted the very substance of the
gospel, the foundation on which the Apostles rested
all their teaching. The Church knew that the cruci-
fixion was a great crime. The considerations which
might be urged to alleviate the guilt of a barbarous
people in putting to death the teacher of a pure reli-
gious faith, which was hostile to all their habits and
all their traditions, cannot be pleaded in palliation
of this supreme offence. It is true that Jesus of
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument, 301
Nazareth was not the kind of Messiah that the Jewish
nation was expecting and longing for. There was
nothing in His teaching to gratify their hopes of
secular glory, or their passionate desire to avenge the
wrongs and sufferings of many centuries upon their
heathen oppressors.
But He acknowledged the authority of Moses and
the prophets ; He worshipped in the temple ; He kept
the national festivals ; and if sometimes He disregarded
the obligations which were imposed upon the Jewish
people by their rabbinical teachers, He vindicated His
violation of the rules of an artificial and technical
sanctity by appealing to the fundamental principles of
the Divine law. His discourses were rooted in the
national faith, and enriched with illustrations from the
national literature. Those parts of His teaching by
which the people were most offended and perplexed were
placed under the sanction of institutions and events
which were most sacred to the heart of every Jew. It
was precisely when He was asserting what was most
incredible and most irritating to His hearers that He
showed Himself to be in most perfect sympathy with
them in relation to their national history. He spoke to
Nicodemus, for instance, of the redemptive power of
His Death, but He sheltered the truth under an allu-
sion to one of the greatest miracles in the wilderness.
"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of man be lifted up : that whoso-
ever believeth in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.'* He made the manna which kept the
jo2 General Considerations [lect.
nation alive for forty years the symbol of Himself,
when He taught the people of Galilee that they could
have eternal life only in Him. It was at the Feast of
Tabernacles, which commemorated the history of the
wanderings of their fathers in the desert, that He
cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and
drink," in obvious allusion to the water which God
gave to the people from the rock when they were
ready to perish. It was at the same feast that He
made the lofty claim to be " the Light of the world,"
declaring that whoever followed Him should not walk
in darkness, but should have *'the light of life;"
recalling to the crowds that listened to Him the pillar
of fire which shone on the camp of the Israelites during
the night. ^ From first to last our Lord tried to make
it clear to the Jewish nation that He had not come
to rob them of their ancient glories, or to ask them
to renounce the faith or the hopes of their fathers —
that His mission was not to destroy the law or the
prophets, but to fulfil.
His whole policy — if we may venture to use in con-
nection with Him a word which has an evil stain,
from its application to the indirect and selfish courses
of ambitious men — was a policy of conciliation until
conciliation became useless. He endeavoured to make
it easy for the religious authorities of the nation to
receive Him as the Christ. Before He created any en-
thusiasm arnong the people, or provoked among them
I See Cantinentaire sur lEvangile de S, Jean. By F. GODET.
Vol. ii. 1 86, 207.
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument. 303
any distrust of their ecclesiastical rulers, He appealed
to the ecclesiastical rulers themselves, and His appeal
was made in a form to which it ought not to have been
difficult for them to respond. When He drove out the
sheep and the oxen and the traders from the courts of
the temple, He appeared in the character of a Jewish
reformer, and was moving on lines marked out for
Him by the common faith and common sentiments
of the Jewish people. The act implied no revolution
in religious belief or religious ceremonial : it was a
vindication of the sanctity of the temple, and a protest
against those who, in violation of their own avowed
convictions, and for the sake of their own advantage,
consented to its profanation. Any " ruler of the
Jews " with an honest reverence for what he professed
to regard as the very Home of God, would have
recognized in this bold act of the young Galilean
peasant the expression of a devout zeal, would have
accepted with humility the just rebuke which it im-
plied, and would have sympathized with the courage
and piety which prompted it.
Our Lord gave ample time to the ecclesiastical
authorities to consider in what spirit they would re-
spond to this appeal. For nearly a year he seems to
have remained in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.
He did nothing to make it hard for the " rulers "
to recognize His claims. He avoided as much as
possible everything that was likely to create popular
excitement. He does not appear to have spoken often
to great crowds of people until the leaders of the reli-
304 General Considerations [lect.
gious life of the nation had fully resolved to oppose
Him. When their antagonism had been clearly mani-
fested, He did not irritate and intensify it by attempting
to create a hostile "party" for Himself among the people
living in Jerusalem, but went to a remote district, as
if He wished to give the ecclesiastical authorities a fair
opportunity for reconsidering their antagonistic position
and retreating from it. But He came up to the great
festivals, and His presence there was a proof that He
had no desire to create a religious or national schism.
Nor did He wound the hereditary pride and pre-
judice of the rulers of the Jewish people by an imme-
diate appeal to the Gentiles against their jealousy
and injustice. We hear of Him once in the neigh-
borhood of T3Te and Sidon, and once in the neighbour-
hood of Banias, but He made no attempt to secure
Gentile adherents. It is very curious and significant
that although a great part of His time was spent in
the towns and villages on the banks of the Lake of
Galilee, the Gospels never speak of Him as entering
the city of Tiberias, which was chiefly inhabited by
pagans. He told the Syrophenician woman, who
entreated Him to have mercy on her daughter, that
He was " not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house
of Israel ; ^ " and He restricted the mission of the twelve
Apostles to their own countrymen : *'' Go not into the
way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samari-
tans enter ye not : but go rather unto the lost sheep
of the house of Israel." *
I Matt. XV. 24. « Ibid. x. 50.
VII ] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument, 305
He was equally careful to avoid giving any just
alarm to the civil power. He did not attempt to excite
popular passion ; He never seems to have spoken of
the political greatness and splendour of the nation in
former times, nor of the achievements of the patriotic
heroes of the Jewish race. He never denounced the
Roman rule. When on one occasion the people were
in the mood to " take Him by force and make Him
King, He departed again into a mountain Himself
alone." ^
He did not merely avoid giving unnecessary offence
either to the people, the priests, or the civil rulers;
His whole life was an appeal to every lofty and gene-
rous and kindly principle of human nature — an appeal
which only base selfishness, intense religious conceit,
and a deep hostility to moral goodness, could have
altogether resisted.
The history of the development of the hostility
against Him in Jerusalem is remarkable. The first
great outbreak was the immediate effect of His alleged
violation of the Sabbath, in healing the man at the
Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath day. The next was
provoked by a similar transgression — if it was a trans-
gression — of the Sabbatic law, — the healing on the
Sabbath of a blind beggar who seems to have been
well known in the city. On each of these occasions
the original offence was aggravated by the personal
claims which He advanced when challenged to defend
it ; but as the supernatural character of the beneficent
I John vi. 15.
21
3o6 General Considerations [lect.
works which He had wrought does not seem to have
been disputed, it is astonishing that, instead of con-
sidering these claims seriously and earnestly, the very
people who confessed the reality of His miracles were
eager to kill Him. The final determination of the
rulers to put Him to death, was the result of their
fear that a great popular reaction in His favour might
be produced by the resurrection of Lazarus. He did
good and suffered for it. Every one of the more violent
movements against Him originated in a miracle.^
Mr. John Stuart Mill, in discussing the two great
historical instances of judicial iniquity, the condem-
nation of Socrates, and what he describes as " the
event which took place on Calvary rather more than
eighteen hundred years ago,'* expresses the opinion
that " the feelings with which mankind now regard
these lamentable transactions, especially the later of
the two, render them extremely unjust in their judg-
ment of the unhappy actors." " These," he says,
** were to all appearance, not bad men, not worse than
men commonly are, but rather the contrary ; men who
possessed in a full, or somewhat more than a full
measure, the religious, moral, and patriotic feelings of
their time and people ; the very kind of men who, in
all times, our own included, have every chance of
passing through life blameless and respected." ^
The apology cannot be admitted. They did not
1 GODET : Conunejitaire sur VEvangile de S. Jean, vol. ii.
p. 309.
2 On Liberty. Second edition, pp. 48, 49.
vn.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument. 307
know the awful magnitude of their crime, and this
ignorance was alleged by the Divine Sufferer Himself
when He invoked the mercy of God upon His mur-
derers : *' Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do ! '* But if they did not know that their offence
was the greatest of which mankind could be guilty, and
that all subsequent ages would look back upon it with
fear and dismay, as transcending in horror all other
atrocities, they knew that the crime was a great one.
The Apostles and friends of Christ were not in the habit
of using hard words even of those who murdered their
Master; but the accounts which they have given us of
the deeds of those whom Mr. Mill calls '* the unhappy
actors " in this ''lamentable transaction," condemn them
to eternal infamy. The Death of Christ was brought
about by a deliberate conspiracy, in which the con-
spirators were the official leaders of the religious life
of the nation. They purchased the treachery of one
of the most intimate friends of our Lord ; they pro-
duced false witnesses against Him on His trial ; they
paid other false witnesses to declare that the story of
His resurrection was a lie, and that His disciples had
taken away His body while the soldiers slept. Desiring
nothing more themselves than to drive the Romans
from the countr}% they charged Him before Pilate with
treasonable designs against Csesar, and they knew the
charge was false. Pilate, with all the power of Rome
at his back, while he acknowledged that he could find
no fault in the prisoner, gave Him up to the fear and
jealousy of the priesthood and the fury of the people.
3o8 General Considerations [lect.
These are the men who, in Mr. Mill's judgment, were
*' to all appearance, not bad men, not worse than men
commonly are, but rather the contrary ! '*
Whatever they were — good men or bad men — men of
more than average virtue and moral respectability,
according to the judgment of Mr. Mill — or men actu-
ated by base, malignant, and cruel passions, according
to the common judgment of mankind — the history
told by His friends, and received by the Church in
every part of the world, attributes to those who com-
passed the Death of Christ a succession of atrocious
crimes, — crimes atrocious in themselves, apart from
the awful greatness of the Victim. And yet, through
eighteen centuries, with almost unbroken unanimity,
the Christian Church has maintained that the Death of
Christ is the ground on which God grants to mankind
the forgiveness of sin.
Again I ask, How could such an extraordinary idea
have originated ?
We are so familiar with the phrases in which this
idea is expressed, that the strangeness of the idea
itself is hardly apprehended by us. Suppose that,
after the children of Israel had been in the wilderness
for several years, a conspiracy had been formed against
Moses, and that he had been deliberately and: "treaeher-
cmsly tortured and slain, because he refused to renounce
his gfeftt claims as the divinely-commissioned lawgiver
and chief of the nation. Can we imagine that within
a few years after his death the Jewish people could
have come to imagine that on the ground of the death
VII.] Confirmatory of the Preceding Argument, 309
of Moses God was willing to forgive all the sins they
had committed since leaving Egypt ? Can we imagine
that a long succession of religious teachers,; extending
from the time that the descendants of Abraham entered
into the Land of Promise to the final catastrophe in
which their national institutions perished^' would have
told them that whenever they repented of idolatry, or
of any other violation of the Divine law, the death of
Moses would be the Divine reason for pardoning their
offences ? Instead of this, would there not have been
an annual fast, at which, through generation after
generation, the crime would have been confessed and
the Divine mercy implored ? And whenever a prophet
threatened the men of his own times with the Divine
vengeance for their sins, would he not have told them
that they were the true descendants of those who had
hardened their heart against God in the wilderness, and
whose offences — this being the very chief — had pro-
voked God to swear in His wrath that they should not
enter into His rest ?
Had Moses perished at the hands of his inconstant
and ungrateful and rebellious fellow-countrymen, I
can imagine prophet after prophet insisting on his
sufferings and death, in order to inspire the people
with a fidelity to God like that which had been illus-
trated in the martyrdom of their great leader; and
the Church might have made a similar use of the
crucifixion of Christ. It has made a similar use of His
crucifixion. But what we have to account for is the
universal prevalence of the idea that, while those who
310 Considerations of Preceding Argument, [lect. vii.
put Christ to death committed the greatest of human
crimes, His Death was the Propitiation for the sins of
the world. I can account for the prevalence of that
idea in one way, and only in one way. It was a great
and essential element in the original gospel which
the Apostles were charged to preach to all nations.
The Church received it from the Apostles. The Apostles
received it from Christ.
LECTURE VIIL
THE REMISSION OF SINS.
LECTURE VIII.
THE REMISSION OF SINS.
IN the preceding Lectures I have endeavoured to prove
that the sins of men were the cause of the Death of
Christ in a sense in which they were not the cause of
the death of those whose fideHty to truth and to con-
science, to the highest welfare of mankind and to the
authority of God, has provoked the intolerance and
the vengeance of wicked men, and won for them the
glories of martyrdom ; and that on the ground of His
Death the sins of men are forgiven.
The proof has been derived from the history and
teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and from
the testimony of His Apostles, who upon this point, if
upon no other, may be supposed to have known His
mind.
It being assumed that adequate evidence has been
alleged of the existence of a direct relation between the
Death of Christ and the Remission of sins, we have
now to investigate that relation, and to discover, if we
can, the principles and laws which it illustrates. The
Fact that Christ died to make Atonement for sin
having been established, is it possible to construct a
Theory of the Atonement ?
The inquiry upon which we are about to enter is
314 ^/^^ Remission of Sins. [lect.
different in kind from that which is now closed, and
is of inferior importance. It is not the theory of the
Death of Christ that constitutes the ground on which
sins are forgiven, but the Death itself; and the faith,
which is the condition on our side of receiving "re-
demption through His blood," is trust in Christ Him-
self as the Son of God and Saviour of men, not the
acceptance of any doctrine which explains how it is
that salvation comes to us through Him. For this
Trust, it is not necessary that men should acknowledge
even the Fact that the Death of Christ is the propi-
tiation for the sin of the world ; much less is it neces- '
sary that they should receive from others or elaborate
for themselves a Theory of propitiation. It is enough
that the authority and love of Christ have been so
revealed to them that they rely on Him for eternal
salvation.
But if it be true that there is a direct relation between
the Death of Christ and the Remission of sins, the in-
quiry into the grounds of that relation is an inquiry of
transcendent speculative importance, and may possibly
issue in discoveries concerning the character and ways
of God of transcendent practical interest.
On the very threshold of this investigation, we are
met by a grave and startling difficulty : — Is the Re-
mission of sins possible ?
The answer to this question has been anticipated.
Our Lord Himself declared that " the Son of man hath
power on earth to forgive sins." ^ To a man sick of
I Matt. ix. 6.
VIII.] The Remission of Sins. 315
the palsy, whom He miraculously cured, He said, " Son,
be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee; "^ and to
a woman of evil character, who, in her sorrow and
shame, had crept to His feet and washed them with
her tears, He said, " Thy sins are forgiven : . . . . thy
faith hath saved thee : go in peace." ^ He told His
disciples before He suffered, that His blood was to be
** shed for the Remission of sins ; " ^ and after His Re-
surrection, He ** opened their understanding, that they
might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them.
Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer,
and to rise from the dead the third day ; and that re-
pentance and Remission of sins should be preached in
His name." "^ That the Apostles, wherever they went,
spoke to both Jews and heathen of the Remission of
sins, as one of the chief elements of the salvation to be
secured by believing in Christ ; that in their letters to
Christian Churches they spoke of the Remission of
sins as one of the chief elements of the salvation which
those who believed in Christ had already received, is a
fact too familiar to every reader of the New Testament
to require either proof or illustration.
But among those who do not acknowledge that the
Death of Christ is a Propitiation for the sins of the
world, there is a tendency either to deny that the
Remission of sins is possible, or to depreciate its im-
portance ; and this tendency has very much to do
with the rejection both of the Doctrine and of the
I Matt. ix. 2. 2 Luke vii. 48-50. 3 Matt. xxvi. 28.
4 Luke xxiv. 45-47.
3i6 The Remission of Sins, [lect.
Fact of the Atonement. It arises from a theory of
the relation of God to the moral universe in which
the idea of Atonement can find no place.
To attempt a philosophical demonstration of the
possibility of the Remission of sins is not my purpose.
But I propose to examine a theory which, if it were
true, would require us to believe that in the nature of
things sin can never be remitted. In the statement of
this theory I shall freely avail myself of the language
of one of its most effective advocates. Dr. John Young.
Law is defined to be *' the expression of will," and
to have ''its ground in authority." "Authority, sup-
posing adequate power, ultimately rests on rectitude
and wisdom." The laws of the physical as well as of
the spiritual universe are the expression of the will of
God. " In the physical region no resistance is possible,
and law reigns serenely and supremely. But in the
spiritual sphere the created will has run counter to the
Divine will, and darkness and death have supplanted
light and life." *' Human sin, .... so far as it
extends, .... aims to defy established authority " —
the authority of God and of the laws of God — " and to
disown and cast off all subjection." But *' in spite of
what .... seems, but only seems, to trample them
down, .... spiritual laws are mighty, are almighty.
They cannot be violated, cannot even be resisted ; that
is, with impunity, and without exacting an incipient and
immediate satisfaction. The reign of law in all the
departments of the material creation is proclaimed
with extraordinary confidence by those who have devoted
VIII.] The Remission of Sins. 317
themselves to the study of physics : equal and even
greater confidence should be felt in the universality and
supremacy of spiritual law^s." There is a legitimate
presumption that the " invariable sequence " in the
phenomena of the physical universe, which has been
discovered by observation and experiment, "v^^ill in-
definitely continue to be ; " but " no amount of expe-
rience in the past can render a divergence from the
hitherto observed order, however improbable, either
contradictory or impossible — impossible, that is to say,
in the nature of things." *' It is far otherwise, it is
diametrically the reverse with the great laws of the
spiritual universe. They are what they are, of them-
selves, of necessity. Moral good and moral evil are
immutable. . . * The laws of the spiritual universe
do not depend even on the highest will. The great
God did not make them, they are eternal as He is.
The great God could not repeal them, they are immut-
able as He is. In perfect harmony with the Divine
will, they are nevertheless independent even of it ; and
as they were not created, so they cannot be annulled
or altered, even by the Almighty."
** Spiritual laws, widely distinguished from material
laws, are separated by a still vaster difference from
merely human ordinances and arrangements." Human
laws ** must be more or less unwise and unjust."
There is also ** an inevitable uncertainty in them, a
doubtfulness and a degree of untrustworthiness, which
tend to shake confidence, and materially to weaken the
foundations of authority." The innocent are punished,
3i8 The Remission of Sins. [lect.
the guilty escape. On account of these very elements
of imperfection by which the authority of human laws
is menaced, it is indispensable that their majesty should
be asserted, and that, when broken, they should be
vindicated and avenged : if not, the dearest interests
of society will be wantonly sacrificed.
"But on no such grounds as these, nor on any other grounds what-
ever, do spiritual ordinances need or admit of either vindication or
protection, or support from human or Divine hands. Defender or
avenger they have none, and they need none. Withoict aid from
any quarter they avejtge themselves, and exact, and continue with-
out fail to exact, so long as the evil remaijts, the aniouiit of penalty
— visible and invisible — to the veriest jot and tittle, ivhich the deed
of violation deserves. Essentially and perfectly wise and right,
they are irresistible, in the case of the obedient and the rebellious
ahke. Tliere is no formal trial of the criminal, there is no need
for investigating the question and determining the amount of guilt
or of innocence. Without inquiry and without effort, each case
discovers and exposes itself. No judicial verdict is pronounced,
and no officer of justice is appointed to carry out the sentence ; but
at once, punishment or reward, visible or invisible, or both, dis-
penses itself, and in the amount in which either is merited. Spi-
ritual laws are self-acting ; with all their penalties and sanctions
they are immediately self-acting, and without the remotest possi-
bility of failure or mistake. " ^
Dr. Young has given definite and systematic expres-
sion to thoughts which, in a vaguer form, may be re-
cognized in very much of the religious literature of our
times. If this is a true conception of the order of the
moral and spiritual universe, the idea of Atonement
must be given up, and very much besides that most
Christian people would be reluctant to lose.
I John Young, LL.D. : The Life and Light of Men, pp. Zy, 88.
The preceding pages of the text are a summary — Dr. Young's own
words being freely used — of pp. 79-87 of the same work.
VIII.] The Remission of Sins, 319
The idea of Atonement must be given up, for the pur-
pose of Atonement is to create an objective ground on
which Remission of sins may be granted to the penitent.
But on this theory — if I understand it — the Remission
of sins is impossible, unless, indeed, the familiar phrase
is to receive some new and alien meaning.^
For it is alleged that whenever the eternal Law of
Righteousness is violated, the law inflicts " the amount
of penalty — visible and invisible — to the veriest jot and
tittle, which the deed of violation deserves." It is not
from the hand of God that the wicked receive the
punishment of their wickedness, nor is it from the hand
of God that the righteous receive the reward of their
righteousness. — " Punishment or reward, visible or in-
visible, or both, dispenses itself, and in the amount in
which either is merited." God simply looks on. The
vast machine of the moral universe is self-acting. In
no proper sense is He the Moral Ruler or Judge of men.
The old difficulty of the scribes, — " Why doth this
man thus speak blasphemies ? who can forgive sins
but God only?" — reappears in a new form. If God
Himself speaks of forgiving sins, this theory raises the
objection that " the justice of the universe .... is
^ It is only fair to Dr. Young to say that in other parts of this
volume he speaks of God as forgiving sin, without any attempt to
impose any unusual sense on the words. It is no part of the design
of these Lectures, however, to criticise Dr. Young's able treatise ;
and I have quoted the passages which appear in the preceding
pages, only because they express very clearly a tendency of modern
religious thought which is very hostile to the doctrine I have to
illustrate. On Dr. Young's argument and apparent inconsistencies,
see Note R.
320 The Remission of Sins. [lect.
a tremendous fact, an eternal and necessary fact,'*
which God Himself cannot set aside ; ^ and that the
Divine authority, whatever its limits, is as powerless
to forgive sin as it is to reverse or even to modify the
eternal and necessary distinction between good and evil.
The functions of God in relation to the eternal Law of
Righteousness and the government of the moral universe
are, on this theory, precisely similar to our own. All
that He can do for the sinner is to make such appeals
to the sluggish conscience and the corrupt heart as shall
restore to the one its authority and vigour, and inspire
the other with a hatred of sin and a love of goodness.
God has resources for this great work which we cannot
command ; but His work is the same in kind as that
which is being done by all who are striving to make
men better. He is just as unable as we are to say,
*' Thy sins be forgiven thee." The penalty *' must come
down. It lies in the essential nature of things that
it must come down. Ever and ever, justice inflicts
an inevitable penalty, and exacts the completest satis-
faction." ^
To prevent misapprehension, it may be well to state
most explicitly, at the very commencement of this dis-
cussion, that I do not regard the Remission of sins
as being absolutely identical with escape from the
penalties of sin. Sin is sometimes forgiven, although
some of the penalties of sin are not recalled. But the
Remission of sins must be understood to include the
cancelling of at least the severest penalties with which
^ The Life and Light of Men, page 115. * Ibid, page 119.
VIII.] The Remission of Sins. 321
unforgiven sin is justly visited ; and the theory of
Dr. Young, therefore, which asserts that the penalties
of sin, *' to the veriest jot and tittle," are uniformly
and necessarily inflicted, involves the conclusion that
the Remission of sins is impossible.^
It is difficult, I think, to reconcile this theory with
the actual facts of human life. From the dawn of
speculation men have been perplexed by the apparent
confusion and irregularity in the affairs of the world
which obscure those august moral laws whose authority
is declared to be so steadfast, and whose penalties are
alleged to descend in the very moment of transgression,
and to be uniformly exacted " to the veriest jot and
tittle." The penalties of sin, both ''visible and invisible,"
which are alleged to be universally and relentlessly
inflicted " to the veriest jot and tittle," are constantly
evaded, escaped, or alleviated.
Two men are equally guilty of drunkenness and
profligacy. But one of them is a man of robust con-
stitution : he has wealth and leisure. He sins, and
sins flagrantly ; but he shoots in the autumn, hunts
in the winter, and spends the summer in his yacht on
the coast of Scotland or of Norway. The other has
weak health, and is compelled by his circumstances
to live a sedentary life. The one, notwithstanding his
vices, lives till he is seventy, and is vigorous to the
last; the other is the victim of miserable diseases,
I The theory that the penal consequences of sin are justly and
necessarily remitted when sin is followed by adequate repentance,
is not touched in this Lecture. It rests upon a conception of
punishment to which a reply is attempted in Lecture ix.
22
323 The Remission of Sins, [lect.
and dies an ignominious death long before he is fifty.
Where is the equality in the "visible" penalties of sin?
The eternal laws appear to receive the bribes of the
rich and to trample on the helplessness of poverty.
An Englishman is guilty of vicious excesses, and as
soon as the penal suffering comes upon him he receives
relief from the affluent and merciful resources of modern
medical science, and with care and temperance he may
escape from pain, and practically recover all his physical
health. An inhabitant of a barbarous island in remote
seas is guilty of precisely the same excesses, and the
moral blame which attaches to him is less, because
of his inferior moral advantages ; but his strength is
rapidly wasted by disease and suffering, and in a few
years, perhaps in a few months, a horrible death
avenges his crime. Where is the equality in the
" visible " penalties of sin? The eternal laws appear
to be strong to punish the ignorant, but in the struggle
with science they suffer defeat.
By fraud skilfully contrived, and as skilfully con-
cealed, one man creates a fortune. With wealth, the
temptationto dishonesty disappears; hespendshis money
generously, and wins universal honour and affection
for integrity and charity. The penalties " visible and
invisible " with which society would justly have visited
his offence, — penalties so terrible that to most men the
severest physical torture would bring less anguish, —
are altogether escaped. Another man is guilty of the
same fraud, contrived and concealed with equal skill.
But at a critical time the engines of an American
VIII.] The Remission of Sins. 323
steamer break down in the middle of the Atlantic, and
his American remittances are a fortnight late ; or a
clerk on his way to the post-office is knocked down by
a cab, and his Australian letters miss the mail ; and
then comes the fatal discovery. He is ruined for life,
ruined in fortune and ruined in reputation. He is the
object of universal indignation and scorn. His friends
fall away from him. He cannot look his own children
in the face. After he has exhausted the sentence which
human laws have inflicted upon him, he spends the
wretched remainder of his days in some foreign city,
where his name and his evil deed are unknown, and
sinks at last broken-hearted into an obscure grave.
Where is the equality in either the " visible " or the
** invisible" penalties of sin ? Where is the certainty
with which these penalties are exacted ? The eternal
laws appear to be thwarted and deceived by human
cunning, and to be indebted to accident for the vindi-
cation of their authority.
Among the outcasts of every great city, and sunk to
the very lowest depths of moral degradation, you may
find men whose evil fortune and evil character are the
natural and almost inevitable result of a solitary sin
committed so long ago that it has been forgotten by
nearly every one but themselves. They drank too
much, or they told a lie, or they used a few pounds
belonging to their employer. For that one offence
they were punished with the loss of an honourable
position and an adequate income, which would have
been theirs for life. They lost their character, and
22 *
324 The Remission of Sins. [lect.
though they tried hard to be trusted again, no man
would trust them. Their calamities made them des-
perate. They were betrayed into fresh vices. Gradu-
ally all their self-respect perished, and whatever moral
energy they possessed disappeared. They had slipped
into a dark river whose currents were too strong for
them, and they have been swept on to hopeless misery
and shame.
And among the most honourable and prosperous
people living in pleasant houses by which these
wretched outcasts creep in their filth and rags, you
may find men who were guilty of precisely the same
offences, and who for a time seemed to be descending
rapidly to the same ruin. But there was a love which
clung to them with an agony of earnestness for their
salvation ; a love which shrunk from no sacrifice to
give them a chance of recovering all that they had
lost; a love which, by the tenderness of its compassion
and by its patience and constancy, restored to the
despairing heart its vanished faith in the love of God.
At last the victory was won, and those who seemed
destined to wretchedness and disgrace were restored to
virtue and honour. Human love fought against their
evil fate, and conquered it. Where — I ask again — is
the equality in the penalties of sin ? Where is the
certainty with which they are alleged to be exacted ?
In the actual condition of the world, either some
men suffer too much for their sin, or some men suffer
too little. Nor is there any reason to believe that
those who escape from the visible and external penal-
VIII.] The Remission of Sins. 325
ties of their crimes endure an exceptional agony
of self-reproach. The probabilities seem to point to
precisely the opposite conclusion. Physical disease,
loss of property, public dishonour — when these come
upon a man as the result of his vices — often reveal to
him for the first time the magnitude of his guilt, and
his inward humiliation and self-contempt increase with
the increase of his external calamities. Nor, again,
do those whose offences are most numerous and most
aggravated suffer most keenly from the stings of
conscience. Conscience becomes feebler and feebler
as men continue in sin, and those who ought to feel
the greatest shame for wrong doing, feel the least.
With augmented guilt there is almost uniformly dimi-
nished sensibility to the moral sufferings with which
the consciousness of guilt ought to be followed.
The vengeance of these eternal laws, which is said
to be so stern and unrelenting in inflicting the com-
plete penalty of every transgression, appears less
certain and less exacting than the retributive justice
by which the authority of human laws is vindi-
cated. It is soothed and bought off by wealth. It is
averted by science, as the lightning is turned aside
by a lightning-rod from the towers of a palace or the
spire of a church, and buried peacefully in the earth.
It penetrates only by accident through disguises which
conceal and protect the basest crimes. It surrenders
to the pleadings of compassionate love those who had
merited the worst terrors it could inflict. All generous
hearts are in a perpetual confederacy — a confederacy
326 The Remission of Sins, [lect.
extending through all countries, and growing in
strength from one generation to another — to rescue
the guilty from the evils with which these laws justly
menace them, and to alleviate the evils which have
come upon the guilty already. And the most terrible
sufferings which these laws ever inflict — the sufferings
produced by the sharp and vehement reproaches of
conscience — are felt least by the greatest offenders.
The theory that " sin never for an instant fails to
receive its desert," ^ that the full penalty of sin,
*' visible and invisible, to the veriest jot and tittle,"
is always exacted, is contrary to the uniform experience
of the human race.
It is equally contrary to the uniform teaching both
of the Old Testament and the New to represent God as
an otiose Spectator of the moral order of the universe,
having no other function in relation to moral govern-
ment than to watch and to approve the perfect manner
in which rewards and penalties are distributed by self-
acting spiritual laws.
The ancient historical Scriptures are crowded with
illustrations of the energy with which He punished
the wrong-doing both of individuals and nations. It
is impossible to read these books and to suppose that
they were meant to teach that " self-acting " spiritual
laws brought a flood upon the old world, rained fire
upon Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed the first-born
of Egypt, excluded from the Land of Promise Aaron
I The Life and Light of Men^ page 96.
VIII.] The Remission of Sins. 327
and Moses, and nearly the whole generation that
crossed the Red Sea. The idea throughout — what-
ever value may be attached to the history — is too clear
to be misapprehended : it was the Jewish faith that
God is on the side of righteousness, and that posi-
tive punishments are inflicted by His own hand on
those that sin. This was the faith of psalmists and
prophets. Sometimes they appeal to God's compas-
sion to recall the terrible ministers of His righteous
indignation. Sometimes they acknowledge the for-
bearance which delayed the execution of punishment,
that the sinful people might have time to repent.
Sometimes they warn their own countrymen and
heathen nations that, at last, the anger of God will
only be the more terrible, and the calamities it will
inflict the more appalling, if His long-suffering does
not constrain them to forsake their sin and to keep
God's commandments. It is a Living Person, accord-
ing to these ancient books, who punishes the sins
and rewards the righteousness of men.
The New Testament produces the same impression
as the Old. The theory that sin is always punished,
adequately punished, and instantly punished, by " self-
acting " spiritual laws, is in violent antagonism to the
teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His Apostles.
Christ Himself said, " The Father judgeth no man " —
He did not give as the reason of this that " self-acting"
spiritual laws render the judgment of God unneces-
sary; He claims the authority and responsibilities of
judgment for Himself — **but hath committed all
328 The Remission of Sins, [lect.
judgment unto the Son." ^ Instead of telling men
that rewards and punishments are sufficiently dis-
pensed by '* self-acting" spiritual laws, He speaks of
a time when *' the Son of man shall come in the glory
of His Father, with His angels ; and then He shall
reward every man according to his works." * St. Peter
placed the future judgment of the world by Christ
among the most elementary truths which the Apostles
had been appointed to proclaim : *' He commanded us
to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He
who was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and
dead."^ St. Paul warned the Athenians that God
" hath appointed a day in which He will judge the
world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath
ordained ;"'^ and he reasoned with Felix— not about
" self-acting" spiritual laws — but about "judgment to
come." 5 In the epistles, the future judgment is ap-
pealed to as adding fresh solemnity to many Christian
duties : " Why dost thou judge thy brother ? . . . .
we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ:"^
this was the way in which St. Paul enforced the duty
of mutual forbearance and toleration among Christian
brethren. " We must all stand before the judgment-
seat of Christ ; that every one may receive the things
done in his body, according to that he hath done,
whether it be good or bad : "^ the anticipation of that
supreme hour was one of the motives which sustained
St. Paul himself in the faithful and zealous discharge
I John V. 22. 2 Matt. xvi. 27. 3 Acts x. 42. 4 Ibid. xvii. 31.
5 Ibid. xxiv. 25. ^ Rom. xiv. 10. 7 2 Cor. v. 10.
VIII.] The Remission of Sins. 329
of his apostolic ministry. When he charged Timothy
to " preach the word," to " be instant in season,
out of season ; " to " reprove, rebuke, exhort with all
longsuffering and doctrine," St. Paul reminded him
that he would have to give account to Christ of his
ministerial fidelity : " I charge thee before God, and
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and
the dead at His appearing and His kingdom." ^
We are told by the advocates of this theory that
** God has no unsettled accounts, no outstanding
claims."* What, then, is meant by "the riches of
His goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering " ? ^
What is meant by treasuring up " wrath against the
day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment
of God"?* What is meant by the "indignation and
wrath, tribulation and anguish," which are to come at
last "upon every soul of man that doeth evil " ? 5
What is the terror of that manifestation of Christ when
He " shall be revealed from heaven ... in flaming
fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and
obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ " ? ^ If
" self-acting " spiritual laws have already inflicted or
are already inflicting the complete penalty of sin, what
place is there for the awful solemnities of the judg-
ment, and for the fresh woes inflicted on the impeni-
tent by the terrible sentence, " Depart from Me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and
his angels" ?7
^ 2 Tim. iv. I. 2 T/te Life and Light of Men, pa^e 96.
. 3 Rom. ii. 4. 4 Ibid. ii. 5. 5 Ibid. ii. 8, 9.
6 2 Thess. i. 7, 8. 7 Matt. xxv. 41 .
330 The Remission of Sins. [lect.
This plausible theory, which is held vaguely by very
many who have never elaborated it into a definite
philosophical form, and which is exerting a wide and
most mischievous influence on modern theological
thought, rests on the ambiguity of the word "Law."
There are ethical laws, and there are laws of nature :
laws which ask for the free and loyal obedience of the
will, and laws which are illustrated by the unvarying
sequence of antecedents and consequents in spheres
from which freedom is excluded.
What may be described as the structural laws of the
moral and spiritual life of man are of the second kind.
The alternative of obedience and transgression is never
submitted to our choice. Sin is invariably followed by
a deterioration of our moral and spiritual nature. By
repeated acts of transgression evil habits are invariably
strengthened. Evil passions acquire constant acces-
sions of energy if they are not controlled. By wrong-
doing we become less able to discriminate between
good and evil, and those forces of our nature which
refuse to listen to the voice of duty are strengthened
in their revolt ; the sensibility of conscience is di-
minished, and the authority of conscience is impaired.
In other words, the more we sin, the harder it becomes
to forsake sin. These laws are in a very true sense
*' self-acting." They are precisely analogous to the
laws of our physical organisation, and to the laws of
the material universe, and to the laws which belong to
the province of political economy and of sociology. "De-
fender or avenger they have none, and they need none."
VIII.] The Remission of Sins. 331
The laws of hydrostatics are never violated. If the
w^alls of a great reservoir are built of sufficient strength
to resist the pressure of several hundred thousand tons
of water, those laws ensure the safety of the houses
which lie near. If the walls are not strong enough to
resist the pressure, the reservoir bursts, and the houses
are destroyed. In the second case, it is not the laws of
hydrostatics that are violated by the engineer whose
mistake is the occasion of the calamity ; it is not his
business either to obey or to transgress them ; from
him they can ask nothing, and can receive nothing.
The laws which he has violated are laws of a very dif-
ferent kind — laws which are in no sense " self-acting."
He ought to have carefully calculated the pressure of
the water; he ought to have estimated the compara-
tive strength of sloping and of perpendicular walls in
bearing the pressure; he ought to have determined
whether the strength of the reservoir was proportioned
to its depth ; he ought to have taken care that the
material of which the walls were constructed was of a
kind to resist the action of water and frost. These
laws are not ** self-acting." He was at liberty to violate
them, and his violation of them caused all the destruc-
tion of life and property which came from the cata-
strophe he might have averted. To confound the laws
which the engineer ought to obey, but which he some-
times transgresses, with the laws of nature, which are
absolutely uniform in their operation, is an error pre-
cisely similar to that into which Dr. Young has been
betrayed, and which is the foundation of his theory.
332 The Remission of Sins, [lect.
The laws of hydrostatics ''execute themselves, without
the formalities of an inquiry — without the intervention
of a judge." But those other laws which the engineer
violated require vindication. The penalty which he
deserves, if he has been guilty of culpable negligence,
does not descend upon him at once : sometimes it does not
appear to descend upon him at all. The physical results
of his carelessness or ignorance come upon innocent vic-
tims. He may be in another country, beyond the reach of
public indignation. He may be dead. If the causes of
the accident are investigated, the verdict may be false,
or human laws may have no power to punish him.
Obvious and simple as is the distinction which I am
trying to make clear, some additional illustration may
be necessary. If a studious man works too long at his
books, or a statesman at his desk, and takes no exercise,
it is not the laws of nature which are violated. Those
laws retain an undisturbed authority and power. In
due time his heart becomes feeble and his brain
sluggish. His appetite fails, and he is unable to sleep.
The laws which make these consequences of his way of
living absolutely certain are "self-acting;" they are
laws which he can neither obey nor transgress. The
laws which are violated are of another kind. L he
desires to be in health, he ought to play as well as
work; he ought to take sufficient sleep, and take it
regularly ; he ought to walk, run, jump, or ride. These
laws are not " self-acting : " if they were, no student or
statesman would die of brain disease or heart disease
through violating them. A man may obey them or not
VIII.] The Remission of Sins, 333
as he pleases. There are times when it is a clear duty not
to obey them, — when the exigencies of the public ser-
vice, or the interests of science, or the claims of children,
create an obligation to protracted and excessive labour,
even at the cost of incurring painful disease and at the
risk of sinking into a premature grave.
In the same way, the laws of political economy are
** self-acting." If a government imposes protective
duties it fetters the development of industry and makes
the nation poorer. Whether the nation likes it or not,
this is the inevitable result. There may be reasons
which justify a government in saying that higher ends
than national wealth require these duties to be main-
tained. But the law which requires the government to
repeal these duties when they are imposed simply in
the interest of a powerful class is not *' self-acting: " it
needs very vigorous defenders. It may be resisted until
there is danger of revolution.
The sociological law that in states where political
power is vested in the great masses of the people,
popular ignorance is a perpetual menace to public se-
curity, and will certainly entail great public evils, is
another law which is " self-acting ; " but the law which
requires the government to institute an effective and
universal system of popular education is a law of
another kind. It needs the voluntary concurrence of
those who ought to obey it ; its authority may be
defied until the opportunity of saving the nation is lost
for ever ; the results of disobedience may descend on
the innocent instead of the guilty.
334 ^^^^ Remission of Sins, [lect.
Dr. Young's theory ignores the difference between
the laws which ought to guide, but which often fail to
guide the conduct of persons, and the laws which deter-
mine the sequence of phenomena ; between ethical
laws and those laws which in every sphere of man's
individual and social life, from the lowest to the
highest, are the same in kind as the laws of the
physical universe. These latter laws — laws of nature
they may be called — require no ''defender;" for they
cannot be attacked ; no " avenger," for they can never
be insulted ; no " vindication," for they uniformly
assert their authority without the concurrence of the
will. But ethical laws are simply imperative, and they
may be defied and disobeyed. It is a law that men
should be truthful, just, kindly, and devout ; but large
numbers of men are untruthful, unjust, cruel, and pro-
fane.
If it be said that ethical laws are " self-acting "
because disobedience is always followed by an adequate
penalty, this is no reason for classifying them with
natural laws, disobedience to which is impossible.
Nor can the penalty — supposing it to be invariably
exacted — which follows the transgression of an ethical
law be alleged as a proof that the law is " self-acting."
The law requires a man to tell the truth : it cannot be
said that this law is obeyed because if a man lies he
suffers for it. In the very act of suffering, his revolt
against the authority of the law may become more
violent.
The precepts of ethical law are not *' self-acting ; "
VIII.] The Remission of Sins. 335
they require the free concurrence of the human will,
and the human will may determine to resist them.
Nor has it been proved that the penalties of ethical
law are " self-acting; " they may require the free con-
currence of the Divine will: and it seems possible at
least that the Divine will may determine to remit them.
It is admitted that when ethical laws are violated
the violation should be avenged by adequate penalties.
These penalties, as I have already endeavoured to
show, are not instantaneous. Nor in this life do they
appear to be either certain or sufficient. There are
indications of a vast confederacy of most varied
forces on the side of righteousness. But either the
organisation of these friendly powers is incomplete,
or their resources are inadequate, or their action is
restrained by the control of a supreme authority;
or else it was never meant that they should inva-
riably exact the complete penalty due to the violation
of ethical laws. Whatever the explanation may be,
the complete penalty '* to the veriest jot and tittle " is
not immediately inflicted. The theory which affirms
that it is, breaks down. Some more coherent argu-
ment is necessary before we surrender the hope to
which the hearts of men have clung in all ages, that it
is possible to escape from the penalties of wrong-doing.
Nothing that this theory contains can cause us to
hesitate in receiving the declaration of Christ's infinite
love, that He came into the world and died on the cross
in order that the Remission of sins might be actually
conferred upon us.
33^ The Remission of Sins, [lect.
The exigencies of what is called the " moral theory "
of the Atonement have led some of its advocates to
impose upon the phrase "the Remission of sins "a sense
foreign to all the usages of language. The true idea of
Remission, though not suppressed, is relegated to a
position of insignificance, and the Remission of sins is
made to include as its chief element another blessing
of a different order. Forgiveness may include some-
thing more than the cancelling of guilt, if guilt is
defined to be "liability to punishment on account of
sin," ^ and orthodox theologians may have given an in-
complete and unsatisfactory account of this wonderful
and transcendent blessing; but when Dr. Bushnell
says that " in discussing the great question how it is
that God forgives," we are discussing how it is that
He "accomplishes the restoration of fallen character,"
and when he says that these two questions are the
" same," ^ he confounds two inquiries which have been
always recognized as distinct, not only by theologians,
but by the indestructible instincts of human nature;
and he imposes oii the language of Christ and His
Apostles concerning the Remission of sins a sense which
the language was never intended to convey.
That the Remission of sins, if it stood alone, would
leave us unsaved, is one of the commonplaces of
Christian theology; but it does not follow that the
Remission of sins includes the blessings which are
necessary to complete our salvation, or is to be
I " Obligatio ad poenam ex peccato." — Turretin : Institutio
TheologicE Elencticce, vol. i. 654, note.
2 The Vicarious Sacrifice. First (London) edition, page 245,
VIII.] The Remission of Sins. 337
confounded with them. So long as the human heart
is conscious of a twofold misery — the misery of being
under the Divine condemnation, and the misei;^y of
being under the tyranny of evil habits which it
cannot throw off, and of evil passions which it can-
not subdue — it will passionately cry for a twofold
deliverance. It is one thing to receive the Divine
pardon, it is another to recover the Divine image. The
first is the initial grace granted to the penitent sinner,
the second is the glory of the perfected saint. That in
the Divine order the forgiveness of sin, when sin is first
confessed and forsaken, is always associated with the
new birth in which the life of God is given to man, the
,life which is ultimately revealed in the consummate
energy and beauty of moral and spiritual character, is
not only true ; it is so true that their inseparable asso-
ciation as the two great elements of the Christian re-
demption has been asserted, in varying forms indeed,
but with unbroken unanimity and with strenuous
earnestness, by the theologians and preachers of every
Church, of every country, and of every age. They
always go together ; but they go together, and they are
not the same.
Dr. Bushnell identifies or confounds them because he
regards the Remission of sins, in the strict sense, as a
blessing of no considerable value. Remission, he says,
" both in Greek and English, is a popular word, which
signifies in common speech Siletting go; that is, a letting
go of blame, a consenting to raise no impeachment
farther, and to have all wounded feeling dismissed. . . .
23
33^ The Remission of Sins. [lect.
It is only a kind of formality, or verbal discharge, that
carries practically no discharge at all. It says * go,'
but leaves the prison doors shut." ^ It is true that when
a man has a vivid apprehension of what sin really is,
he desires the Divine forgiveness, not only for its own
sake, but because until he receives it the power of the
Divine life cannot be revealed in him and he cannot be
redeemed from moral and spiritual evil. It is not true,
however, that the whole misery of a sinful man's con-
dition lies within the sphere of his own moral and
spiritual nature, and that the Remission of sins in the
proper sense of the words is " only a kind of formality."
Only ** a kind of formality ! " It is no wonder that
the awful reality of the propitiation for the sins of the
world is denied, when the Remission of sins is declared
to be nothing more than this. For a mere " formality "
it would not have been worth while for Christ to die.
The Remission of sins is regarded as *' a kind of
formality " only because it is believed that in no sense
is God hostile to those whose sins are unforgiven, and
because the Divine " wrath " is supposed to be a mere
figure of speech. Perhaps the principal origin of the
modern tendency to reject the idea of an objective
Atonement is to be found in that temper of mind which
indisposes us to believe that there is any anger against
sinful men in the heart of God to be allayed, and in
that conception of His character which excludes the
possibility of His being hostile even to those who are
guilty of the worst offences. It is partly because sin
' T^ Vicarious Sacrifice^ pp. 359, 360.
VIII.] The Remission of Sins, 339
does not provoke our own wrath that we do not believe
that sin provokes the wrath of God. It appears to be
one of the results of modern civilisation that men are
very rarely kindled to fiery passion of any kind. This
is perhaps especially true of modern Englishmen.
Neither in love nor in hatred, neither in admiration nor
in anger, are we so intense and vehement as some other
races. We take fire slowly, and though we are capable,
in time and under favourable circumstances, of great
heat, the heat is mostly without much flame. The cold-
ness which perhaps belongs to our blood is increased
by ooir education and by national sentiment. To our
great injury all strong emotion is discouraged. We are
rather ashamed to let it be seen that we feel strongly
about anything. One of the great things to be desired
for ourselves as a nation — one of the great things to be
desired just now for all the nations of Christendom — is
that we should love more fervently all that is lovable,
hate with an intenser hatred all that deserves to be
hated, admire with a franker and less critical admira-
tion whatever is admirable, and despise and scorn more
heartily what is mean, despicable, and base.''
But apart from the general sluggishness of our pas-
sions, there are other and deeper reasons v^^hy we are
not often indignant at sin. Sin does not seem to us a
very evil thing. We have become accustomed to it.
We have learnt to tolerate it. When our personal
interests or the interests of those we love are injured,
when our pride and vanity are wounded, we occasionally
become hot ; but we are rarely filled with wrath against
23*
340 The Remission of Sins, [lect.
men simply because they have done wrong. Unless we
are in some way made to suffer by their sin, or unless
there is something flagrant and tragic in its circum-
stances, our pulses are not stirred.
We cannot help remembering our own sinfulness,
and this checks our indignation. Who are we, that
we should be angry with our brother because he has
broken God's law ? In condemning him, we con-
demn ourselves.
Perhaps, too, the man who has sinned struggled long
against temptation, and was at last surprised into
wrong-doing when he was weary of struggling, and
when his watchfulness was relaxed. Already he may
be suffering shame and remorse, and the good that is
in him, and which was suppressed for a moment, may
be recovering its ascendency. It is not for us to let
our anger burn against him, but to strengthen him with
our sympathy and love.^
Such thoughts as these almost always come to us
when we meet with particular cases of wrong-doing.
They form us to the habit of regarding those who are
guilty of sin with a feeling very different from indigna-
tion. We think of whatever palliates the crime and
lessens the responsibility of the criminal. We hope
that in the worst man the love of goodness has not
altogether perished, and we instinctively take sides
with his better nature against all that is evil and
hateful in him.
^ See Paley's charming passage on the Sedatives of Anger.
Moral Philosophy J book iii. chap. 6.
viTi.] The Remission of Sins, 341
But sometimes this habit of hopefulness and charity
gives way. The fire breaks out, and is not to be
quenched. When a man who knows better, lies to our
face, lies deliberately, and lies persistently ; when a man
in a position of great trust, and who ought never even
to have felt a temptation to dishonesty, is proved to
have been guilty of elaborate fraud, of fraud extending
through many years, during which he was affecting to
be chivalrously honourable ; when cruel suffering is
inflicted in our presence on the weak and the defence-
less — then the fury long suppressed blazes out. No
words are fierce enough to express our passionate
indignation, and for a moment, or for an hour, we
know something of what it is for wrath to be kindled
against sin. The feeling is a right one. We are angry,
and sin not. We should sin if we were not angry.
We sin because we are not angry in this way oftener.
Anger provoked by moral evil is a just and noble
emotion. It is the attribute of the strongest and most
generous natures. Both in the Old Testament and the
New it is very frequently ascribed to God, and the re-
velation of God in Christ would have been incomplete
if the indignation of Christ had never been provoked by
the sins of men. He came, indeed, to reveal the Divine
love and compassion for our race ; but on one occasion
the malignant spirit of the Scribes and Pharisees pro-
voked His anger, though the Evangelist who tells the
story adds immediately that He was ''grieved for the
hardness of their hearts;'" and after He had wept
^ Mark iii. 5.
342 The Remission of Sins, [lect.
over Jerusalem, as He looked upon it across the valley
of the Kedron from the Mount of Olives, He went into
the city, and in vehement words denounced its crimes
and predicted its destruction. Grief and anger, tears
and indignant threatenings — we must include them all
in a complete conception of what Christ revealed con-
cerning God's thoughts of human sin.
That God is incapable of the groundless irritation
and unreasonable passion of which we are sometimes
guilty, needs no proof. He is equally incapable of
looking upon sin without displeasure; and sin unre-
pented of and unforsaken provokes not mere displea-
sure, but wrath — wrath which will some day be revealed
in all its terrible and fiery energy. From this wrath
Christ came to save us. We are exposed to it no
longer when we receive Remission of sins. To speak
of the Remission of sins as '* a kind of formality " is to
disparage ** the exceeding riches " of that grace through
which those who are " children of wrath " escape their
doom, and become the heirs of immortal blessedness
and glory.
Although the temper of our times makes it difficult
for us to believe that the anger of God against sin,
and against those that are guilty of sin, can ever
become " a consuming fire," it is perhaps easier for
us to believe that He is angry with the sinful and
the impenitent than to believe that, in any real sense,
He is hostile to them. Anger within certain limits is
not inconsistent with love. Indeed, the measure of
VIII.] The Remission of Sins, 343
our love for others is often the measure of our anger
against them when they do w^rong. A comparative
stranger may tell us a lie, and we may feel nothing
but contempt and disgust ; but if our own child, or a
friend for whom we have strong affection, tells us
a lie, there is often intense anger as well as intense
grief. That God should be angry with us though He
loves us, is perfectly intelligible ; and we may even find
it possible to believe that His anger may at last become
so great, that if it were revealed, the revelation would
utterly consume and destroy us. That He should be
hostile to men on account of sin, is not so easy to
believe ; but unless we believe it we must suppress
and reject a large part of the teaching of the New
Testament. God has a great love for mankind. This
is the central truth which has given light and glory
to the long succession of His supernatural revelations
to our race. It has received its highest proof and
illustration in the Life, Death, and Resurrection of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the blessings which
God has conferred upon mankind in Him. . For
eighteen centuries the Church has proclaimed this
truth, with unequal earnestness, but with a firm
and invincible faith. The gloomiest theological sys-
tems have never been able altogether to obscure its
brightness. In the coldest ages it has kindled the
most fervent passion in the hearts of saints ; in ages
of general intellectual depression it has given in-
spiration to poets, and has lighted up the fires of a
glorious eloquence. But to deny that He can be
344 ^^^ Remission of Sins. [lect.
hostile to men on account of sin, is to emasculate
and degrade our conception of Him. He is not a
mere " good-natured " God. His righteousness as well
as His love is infinite.
Take a case: — You have a child who is the light
and joy of your home ; her voice is sweeter to you
than any music, and her face is fairer and brighter
than a summer's morning. Her thoughts are as pure
as mountain air ; her life is as stainless as mountain
snow. She is on the threshold of womanhood, and
the very flower and perfection of her loveliness and
beauty have come. And a wretch, whose crime
human language has no terms black enough to de-
scribe, and human laws no punishment terrible
enough to avenge — deliberately, by hypocrisy, by lying,
by a deep - laid scheme, worked out with elaborate
cruelty — betrays her trust, ruins her virtue, and then
flings her from him on to the streets of a strange city.
He has no compunction for his crime. If the op-
portunity comes to him again he will repeat it. Tell
me now — What ought to be God's relation to such a
man as that ? Ought God to be at peace with him ?
God forbid ! If He were, there would be no justice
in the universe. My hope and strength and consola-
tion in the presence of such a crime as this, come from
the certainty that wherever that man goes, under what-
ever disguises he may live, whatever his wealth may
be, whatever his rank, he is pursued by One who is
the relentless enemy of his sin — and who will be his
relentless enemy if he will not renounce his sin — an
VIII.] The Remission of Sins, 345
enemy from whose grasp he cannot escape, whose
strength he cannot resist, and whose justice and wrath,
if he does not repent, will inflict upon him an awful
penalty. Even to the worst of men indeed God
manifests patience and longsuffering. The Divine
mercy clings to them while there is any hope, and
endeavours to redeem them. It is better, infinitely
better, that they should repent than that they should
suffer. But the Divine hostility becomes more intense
as the Divine grace is resisted, and if they refuse
to repent they are treasuring up unto themselves
"wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the
righteous judgment of God."
An extreme case does but illustrate the real nature
of the sin that is in all of us, and of God's antagonism
to it. The sin may not be developed in a gross form ;
it may not be of a kind to startle our own conscience ;
it may not bring upon us the strong condemnation of
other men ; but God cannot endure sin in any form.
In the vast and awful conflict between righteousness
and sin, which gives tragic interest to the history of
the universe, God is irrevocably on the side of righteous-
ness, and on the side of those who are striving to be
righteous. But for the transcendent work of mercy
consummated by Christ on Calvary, God would be not
only hostile to sin, but hostile to those who take sides
with sin, from the first moment of their revolt against
the eternal law of righteousness. For sin is a personal
act; it has no existence apart from the sinner. <
But it was one of the chief elements of the apostolic
34^ The Remission of Sins. [lect.
gospel that in and through Christ God is ready to he
at peace with us. In a very true sense He is at peace
with us already. His hostility to our sins has received
adequate expression in the Death of Christ, and now
He is ready to confer on us the Remission of sins for
Christ's sake. The Remission of sins is something
more than "a kind of formality." It brings to the
man who has received it a sure and permanent
escape from the hostility and the wrath of God.
To reassert the austere truths on which I have felt
it my duty to insist in this Lecture, and in speaking
of which I have, perhaps, lost the calmness of the
lecturer in the vehemence of the preacher, is one of
the most urgent duties of these times. Until they are
restored to their original place in the thought and faith
of the Church, the Death of Christ, as an Atonement
for the sins of the world, will never awaken in our
hearts the wonder and awe and passionate gratitude
with which it filled the hearts of saints in former
centuries ; our theory of the Atonement will be im-
poverished, and what remains of it will rest on no
sure and firm foundation. While these truths are
relegated to obscurity and silence, even if they are not
consciously and avowedly rejected, we shall not be
likely to have much success in preaching the gospel.
It is of no avail for us to plead that we have an in-
vincible reluctance to speak of them, and that they are
too awful for contemplation, even in our silent and
solitary thought. We are under the most solemn
viii.] The Remission of Sins. 347
obligation to receive ourselves, and to make known to
others, whatever God has revealed concerning the con-
dition and destiny of our race. To refuse to consider
the terrible penalties which menace those who have not
received the remission of sins, will lessen the urgency
of our solicitude for their eternal redemption ; and if
we fail to warn them that while they persist in their
impenitence and unbelief they are exposed to "indigna-
tion and wrath, tribulation and anguish," we cannot
clear ourselves of responsibility for their eternal per-
dition.
Nor is it of any avail to plead that to tell men they
have provoked the Divine hostility and the Divine
wrath, is likely to repel them from Christ, rather
than to attract them to Him. We are bound to
tell them the real facts — concealing nothing, alle-
viating nothing. Christ Himself is responsible for
the revelation He has made to our race. To im-
prove upon it, to suppress what we think is likely
to provoke resentment ; to insist incessantly on what
we think is likely to conciliate, is no part of our duty.
It is for us to " use great plainness of speech," " not
walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God
deceitfully."
I, too, believe that the great function of the Church
is to make known the infinite love of God as revealed
through Christ, and the greatness and glory of the
Christian salvation. But Christ did not come to tell
men that they had incurred no guilt by their revolt
against God's authority, or that their guilt exposed
34^ The Remission of Sins, [lect.
them to no penal sufferings in the world to come, or
that in this world God regarded them with no anger.
If the guilt had not been great, the Remission of sins
which He died to obtain for us would have been an
inconsiderable blessing ; if the penalties which He
professed to avert were unreal, there would be no
reason for being grateful to Him for deliverance from
them ; if there had been no righteous anger in the heart
of God, the propitiation which He made for the sins of
the world would have had no significance or value. One
of the chief reasons why men do not trust in Christ to
save them, is that they do not believe that there is
anything from which they need to be saved.
Nor is it of any avail to plead that if men can be
made conscious of sin, and of their need of redemption
from sin, it is unnecessary to provoke their antagonism
by speaking of the terrors which threaten the im-
penitent. Antagonism ! Is it true that impenitence
justly deserves God's anger and hostility, and will be
justly punished with the pains of the second death ? If
it is, then this antagonism involves guilt; it arises
from an inadequate apprehension of the evil of sin ; so
long as it continues there is revolt against the eternal
Law of Righteousness; latent revolt — if through sup-
pression of the truth concerning the Divine hostility and
wrath, and the future penalties of sin, the antagonism
is not provoked ; active revolt — if the truth produces
resentment, and is rejected as inconsistent with the
character of God.
If it is true that a sinful man needs the Remission of
VIII.] The Remission of Sins. 349
sins, as well as strength to sin no more, and if the Re-
mission of sins is no mere " formality," but a wonderful
manifestation of the Divine mercy, to be received with
devout joy and immeasurable gratitude; then, while
guilt is implicitly denied, though moral and spiritual
weakness is acknowledged, there is an unsettled contro-
versy between man and God, and until this controversy
is terminated, there can be no real reconciliation.
Perhaps we have not sufficiently considered that it is
possible for men to " hunger and thirst after righteous-
ness," and yet to ignore the authority of God ; possible
for them to confess that He is supreme, and yet never
to identify Him with that ideal Law which they know
they have violated, and which they now want to fulfil.
They desire moral and spiritual excellence very much
as they might desire physical vigour and beauty, or
large and varied intellectual accomplishments. They
do not recognize the Divine authority, they care only
for the perfection of their own nature. If they appeal
to God, they do not think of Him as One who has a
right to require them to do His will ; they only rely
upon His mighty and merciful aid to enable them to
be loyal to their own conscience, and to achieve the
ideal sanctity which haunts their imagination and has
won their hearts. They think of Him as having a
fulness of moral and spiritual life from which they may
receive inspiration and strength, but they do no homage
to His awful sovereignty. It is not His law they have
transgressed ; it is not His law they want to obey. It
is His only as it is theirs — His, only because He acknow-
350 The Remission of Sins. [lect.
ledges, as they acknowledge, that it is holy, just, and
good. His most august prerogative — the character-
istic prerogative of Deity — has never been revealed to
them. The awe with which they would regard Him, if
they had discovered that to violate the eternal Law of
Righteousness is to sin against Him, and that therefore
it belongs to God, as it can belong to none besides, to
grant Remission of sins, they have never felt. They
yield Him reverence, but they withhold worship. There
is a homage due to God, different in kind as well as in
degree from that which can be given to any of His
creatures. It is the homage, transferred to a living
Person, which the conscience offers to the authority of
the eternal Law of Righteousness. The refusal to offer
it is often the last expression of man's revolt against
God ; it is encouraged and confirmed by a theology
which maintains that salvation consists exclusively in
deliverance from sinfulness, and which fails to assert
with equal earnestness and energy the necessity of
the Remission of sins.
Will it be urged that to excite the fears of men by
dwelling on the wrath of God and on the terrors of per-
dition, is to condescend to appeal to their coarser pas-
sions, and to do dishonour to the spiritual dignity of
the Christian faith ? I am conscious of no '* condescen-
sion " when I appeal to the same elements of human
nature to which Christ appealed when He warned men
of " the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not
quenched ; " and when He said that " the Son of man
shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of
VIII.] The Remission of Sins, 351
His kingdom all things that offend and them which do
iniquity, and shall cast them in a furnace of fire : there
shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." I am conscious
of doing no dishonour to the spiritual dignity of the
Christian faith when, with St. Paul, I give God thanks
for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, who delivers us
from the wrath to come.
To proclaim the Remission of sins, as well as to make
known the power and grace by which sinful men may
recover the image of God, was one of the chief duties of
the Apostles, and it is one of the chief duties of the
Church in every age. To deny the possibility of Remis-
sion, to depreciate its value, is to " pervert the gospel
of Christ."
In the remaining Lectures I have to attempt to illus-
trate the relation between the Death of Christ and this
great act of the Divine mercy. Whether the attempt
fails or succeeds, I trust that the argument of the pre-
ceding Lectures may enable some to repeat with a
more earnest faith the article of the ancient creed, *' I
believe in . . . the forgiveness of sins," and to look
back with more devout wonder and more fervent grati-
tude upon that mysterious Sacrifice by which the for-
giveness of sins was secured for us.
LECTURE IX.
THE THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT:
ILLUSTRATED BY THE RELATION OF OUR LORD
JESUS CHRIST TO THE ETERNAL LAW OF
RIGHTE US NESS .
LECTURE IX.
THE THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT : ILLUSTRATED BY
THE RELATION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST TO THE
ETERNAL LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
WE are now free to resume the investigation which
was arrested by the theory discussed in the
last Lecture. The Remission of sins is possible. Can
we discover why it is that the Remission of sins is
granted to men on the ground of the Death of Christ ?
It may be thought that a simple and direct reply to
this question is given by the representations of the
Death of Christ contained in the New Testament.
Christ gave His life as a " ransom " for us ; and there-
fore we are emancipated from all the evils which we
had incurred by sin. Christ *'bare our sins," "died for
our sins," " died for us," as an innocent man, if this
were possible, might take upon himself the guilt of a
criminal, and die in his place ; and, therefore, the
penalties of our sin are remitted. Christ is the
" Propitiation for our sins ; " and, therefore. He has
allayed the Divine anger, so that God, for His sake,
is willing to forgive us.
But these representations of the Death of Christ as
a Ransom, as a Vicarious Death, as a Propitiation,
though they illustrate the cause of His sufferings and
24 *
35^ The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
their effect, and contain all that is necessary for faith
do not constitute a theory. As they stand, they are
not consistent with each other. For a good citizen
to bear the punishment of a convicted criminal, is one
thing ; for a generous philanthropist to pay the ransom
of a slave, is a different thing ; for a friend or a relative
of a man who has done wrong to propitiate the anger
of a powerful superior, is a different thing again. In
the first case the intervention is intended to meet the
claims of criminal law; m the second, to purchase
what can be estimated at a definite money value ; in
the third, to soothe wounded feeling. The fundamental
principles on which we should have to construct our
whole theory of the value and efficacy of the Death
of Christ wOuld vary, as we adopted the first or the
second or the third of these illustrations as containing
adequate account of the Atonement.
Nor is it possible by any rough process of combina-
tion to work these heterogeneous illustrations of the
great fact into a coherent conception of it. A slave-
holder who receives a ransom as the condition of
liberating his slave is not propitiated ; he ma}^ have
no resentment that needs propitiation ; he is paid the
commercial value of his property. When there is
righteous anger against a base and ungrateful action,
it cannot be soothed by anything that has the nature
of the money payment which purchases the freedom
of a slave ; nor could righteous anger be propitiated
by the infliction of pain on the innocent instead of the
wrong-doer.
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law, 357
There are difficulties of another kind in trying to
construct a theory on the lines of any of these illus-
trations. If the Death of Christ is sttfposed^o receive
its-fuM interpretation- wfe^flh-deseribed as a Ransom, to
whom was the Ransom paid ? Was it paid, as some
of the Fathers supposed, to the devil ? That hypothe-
sis is revolting. Was it paid to God Himself ? That
hypothesis is incoherent ; God Himself provided the
Ransom, He could not pay it to Himself; and when
we are redeemed, we do not cease to be under the
power of God, for we become His in a deeper sense
than we were before. Was it paid by Christ to rescue
us from the power of the Father ? That hypothesis is
intolerable ; there is no schism in the Godhead; " God ,
commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were
yet sinners Christ died for us." Was the Ransom paid
by the Divine mercy to the Divine justice ? That
hypothesis is mere rhetoric. Was it paid by God to
the ideal Law of Righteousness which we had of-
fended? Criminal law knows nothing of ransoms, and
a ransom cannot be paid to an idea.
If, again, the nature of the Death of Christ is sup-
posed to be completely expressed when it is represented
as a Propitiation, new difficulties emerge, and some of
the same difficulties reappear in a new form. How
can the incidents of propitiation, as known among our-
selves, assist us to understand a propitiation which
originates with the injured person ? Or are we to con-
ceive of God as working down His resentment by
suffering for us, and so propitiating Himself? ^ Or are
I See Dr. Bushnell : Forgiveness and Law^ page 41, seq.
358 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
we to think of Christ as being filled with compas-
sion, and subduing the wrath of the Father by the
perfection of His obedience and the urgency of His
intercession ?
If we adopt the remaining illustration, and attempt
to construct a theory of the Death of Christ on the
hypothesis that it corresponded to what would occur in
the administration of human justice if some illustrious
man, as conspicuous for his virtue and public services
as for his rank, died as a substitute for a number of
obscure persons who had been guilty of treason, we are
confronted at once by an objection which admits of no
reply. Such a substitution could not be admitted. It
would be contrary to the principle of justice, and in
the highest degree injurious to the state.
These illustrations of the nature and effect of the
Death of Christ are illustrations, and nothing more.
They are analogous to the transcendent fact only at
single points. The fact is absolutely unique. The
problem before us is to form some conception of the
Death of Christ which shall naturally account for all
these various representations of it ; and no solution of
the problem is to be found by attempting to translate
these representations^ derived from transient human
institutions and from the mutual relations of men, into
the Divine and eternal sphere to which this great Mys-
tery belongs. The administration of human justice is at
the best imperfect, and can never closely correspond to
the Divine government of the moral universe ; and the
mutual relations of men can never be accepted as ade-
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law, 359
quately illustrating the relations between God and our-
selves.'^
The descriptions of the Death of Christ in the New
Testament, as a Sacrifice, a Propitiation, a Ransom, are
of infinite practical value; but we misapprehend the
true principles and methods and aims of theological
science if we make these descriptions the basis of a
theory of the Atonement. They constitute the autho-
ritative tests of the accuracy of a theory. A theory
is false if it does not account for and explain these de-
scriptions. But to construct a theory we must put
these descriptions aside, and consider the Death of
Christ itself, in its real relations to God and to man. A
theory — worth calling a theory — must rest immediately
on the foundation of fact. For the facts we may have
to rely, partly or altogether, on testimony. Even the
most distinguished scientific inquirers are constantly
obliged to build their theories on observations and ex-
periments which they have not made or verified for
themselves, but which they receive on the testimony of
others. But though facts may be ascertained by testi-
mony, the relation between facts and theories must be
direct. We must endeavour to arrive at our theory of
the Atonement by an investigation of the Death by
which it is alleged that Atonement has been effected.
If our theory contains a true account of the Death of
Christ, all the forms under which it is represented in
the New Testament will be illustrated and explained.
Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself declared that His
360 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
blood was to be " shed for the remission of sins." Can
we discover anything in His Death which promises to
throw Hght on its expiatory power ?
There are three considerations which invest the
Death of Christ with unique and tragic interest.
1. It was the Death of the Son of God, of God
manifest in the flesh.
2. It was a voluntary Death. He came into the
world to die. He declared that He laid down His life
by His own free will, and that no man could take it
from Him.
3. Immediately before His Death He was forsaken
of God. When we remember the original glory in
which He dwelt with the Father, His faultless perfec-
tion, and His unbroken communion with the Father
during His life on earth, this is a great and awful
mystery. That sinful men, even though they have
been transformed into saints, should sometimes lose
the sense of the Divine presence and the Divine love,
is explicable ; but how was it that He, the Son of God,
was forsaken by the Father in the very crisis of His
sufferings ? He Himself had anticipated this desertion
with a fear which sometimes became terror. It seems
not only possible, but probable, and even more than
probable, that the intense and immeasurable suffering
which wrung from him the cry, " My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me?'* was the immediate
cause of His Death. On any hypothesis it accelerated
His Death.
In investigating the connection between this mys-
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 361
terious Death and the remission of the sins of men,
I propose to inquire : —
1. Whether this connection can be explained by the
existence of any original relation existing between the Lord
Jesus Christ and the penalties of sin, or — to state the
question more generally — between the Lord Jesus Christ
and the eternal Law of Righteousness, of which sin is the
transgression ?
2. Whether this connection can be explained by any
original relation existing between the Lord Jesus Christ
and the race whose sins needed remission?
The first inquiry will occupy the present Lecture,
the second inquiry will occupy the next.
What, then, is the relation between the Lord Jesus
Christ and the penalties of sin ? What is the relation
between the Lord Jesus Christ and the eternal law of
righteousness, of which sin is the transgression ?
To these questions we have authoritative replies,
both from Himself and His Apostles. In several of
His discourses He declares that it belongs to Him
to " reward every man according to his works." ^ He
will " send forth His angels, and they shall gather
out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them
which do iniquity ; and shall cast them into a furnace
of fire : there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." ^
His lips are to pronounce the sentence by which the
final and irrevocable destiny of every man will be
determined. He will say to the righteous, " Come,
I Matt. xvi. 27. 2 Ibid, xiii, 41, 42.
362 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world ; " ^ and to the
wicked, " Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."^ " The
Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judg-
ment unto the Son." 3 f^g Apostles, in various forms,
reassert this truth. St. Peter told Cornelius that
Christ " was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick
and dead."'^ St. Paul warned the Athenians that God
had " appointed a day in the which He will judge the
world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath
ordained;" 2 and the great Apostle looked forward
himself to the solemn hour when *' we must all be
manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ ; that
every one may receive the things done in his bod}^
according to that he hath done, whether it be good
or bad."^ The penalties of sin are to he inflicted by
Christ,
The final judgment of the world is, however, only
part of a larger function. After our Lord's resurrec-
tion He said to Plis disciples, " All power (i^ova-ia) is
given unto Me in heaven and in earth ;"7 and on this
claim he rested the apostolic commission to " disciple
all nations, baptizing them into the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; "
teaching them to observe all things that He had
commanded them. St. Peter declared that Jesus
had been exalted to be " Prince " as well as " Sa-
I Matt. XXV. 34. 2 Ibid. xxv. 41. 3 John v. 22. 4 Acts x. 42.
5 Ibid. xvii. 31. ^2 Cor. v. 10. 7 Matt, xxviii. 18.
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 363
viour;"' and that He is "both Lord and Christ."^
St. Paul describes Him as " the Lord both of the dead
and the living ;"3 says that He has received " a name
which is above every name : that at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and
things in earth, and things under the earth ;"^ and
that " He must reign till He hath put all enemies
under His feet."^ The Lord Jesus Christ is the Moral
Ruler of the human race ; moral responsibility is responsi-
bility to Him.
In the argument for the Divinity of Christ these
claims have a great place. It is inconceivable that
God should invest a creature with his function of
judging the world, and that He should transfer to a
creature the moral allegiance due to Himself. The
" kingdom " was received by Christ from the Father,
because Christ had voluntarily laid aside His Divine
glory, and had become man. He was capable of re-
ceiving it, because in His humiliation He had not
ceased to be Divine.
But we may approach the whole subject in another
way. In these Lectures it is assumed that Christ was
the Eternal Word, who **was in the beginning with
God," and that " all things were made by Him, and
without Him nothing was made that was made."^
The question we have to determine is the relation
between God Himself and the eternal Law of Right-
eousness.
I Acts V. 31. 2 Ibid. ii. 36. 3 Rom. xiv. 9.
4 Phil. ii. 9, 10. 5 I Cor. xv. 25. ^ John i. 2, 3.
364 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
All Christians, all theists, acknowledge that God is
the Moral Ruler of mankind and of the whole moral
universe. What does this acknowledgment imply ?
Does it imply that the will of God — using the word
will in the same sense in which we use it when speak-
ing of the will of man — is the origin of the antithesis
between right and wrong, and the ultimate ground of
moral obligation — that goodness is good only because
God commands it, and evil evil only because God
forbids it ? There are many reasons which make this
hypothesis incredible and intolerable.
If it were true, it would be difficult to account for
the recognition of moral obligation where the existence
of God is denied or doubted. A man who is uncertain
whether there is a God or not, may know that he ought
to tell the truth, to act justly, to be kindly and tem-
perate ; and he may recognize the moral evil of false-
hood, injustice, cruelty, and intemperance. It is not
necessary to convince him that there is a God, and that
God has commanded men to be virtuous, before he
can see the distinction between virtue and vice, or
before he can recognize the moral obligation that rests
upon him to be virtuous.
Dean Mansel argues that —
" The fiction of an absolute law, binding on all rational beings,
has only an apparent universality ; because we can only conceive
other rational beings by identifying their constitution with our own,
and making human reason the measure and representative of reason
in general." ^
If the " absolute law binding on all rational beings '*
J Bampton Lecture. Third edition, page iii.
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law, 365
is a *' fiction," and if it has only an *' apparent univer-
sality," because we can only conceive other rational
beings by identifying their constitution v^ith our own,
and making human reason the measure and representa-
tive of reason in general," then even in mathematics
there are no truths which we can affirm to be absolutely
and universally true. On this hypothesis there may
be some rational beings whose " constitution " is so
different from ours, and the laws of whose " reason "
are so unlike the laws by which " human reason " is
governed, that they may legitimately believe that the
three angles of a triangle are equal to three right angles,
though we are compelled to believe that they are equal
to two.
This sceptical philosophy rests on a radical disbelief
in the trustworthiness of the human faculties, a disbelief
which, if its consequences were clearly apprehended
and frankly accepted, would make every exercise of the
human intellect an irrational waste of time, and all
endeavours after righteousness an irrational waste of
strength. We can trust none of our intellectual facul-
ties unless we can trust those which enable us to appre-
hend the truths of pure mathematics as universal and
necessary, and which affirm the distinction between
truths of this order and those which are merely con-
tingent. Nor can we trust any of our faculties — not
even those by which we come to believe in the Divine
existence — unless we can trust those by which we ap-
prehend the universal and necessary obligation of justice
and truth, and which affirm the eternal distinction
366 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
between good and evil. In impeaching the authority
of our moral intuitions, Dean Mansel undermines the
foundations of religious faith.
In answer to Dean Mansel's question, " Why . . .
has one part of our constitution, merely as such, an im-
perative authority over the remainder ? What right has
one portion of the human consciousness to represent
itself as duty^ and another merely as inclination ? " ^ I
reply in the noble words of Butler : —
" There is' a superior principle of reflection or conscience in every
man, which distinguishes between the internal principles of the
heart as well as his external actions ; which passes judgment upon
himself and them ; pronounces determinately some actions to be
in themselves just, right, good ; others to be in themselves evil,
wrong, unjust : which, without being consulted, without being ad-
vised with, magisterially exerts itself, and approves or condemns
him the doer of them accordingly." 2
Butler adds that if " not forcibly stopped," this judi-
cial and imperial faculty "naturally and always of course
goes on to anticipate a higher and more effectual sen-
tence which shall hereafter second and affirm its own."
Perhaps so ; but in the case of vast numbers of men
there is no real recognition of the authority of God,
although there is a very real recognition of the authority
of conscience and of the necessary and immutable
distinction between right and wrong. To very many
who confess that He exists, God is little more than an
hypothesis to account for the origin of the universe,
and their moral life is altogether removed from His
control. If what they suppose to be their faith in God
^Bampton Lecture^ page iii.
2 Sermons on Human Nature, Sermon 2. Works. Vol. i. page 23.
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 367
were to disappear, their intuition of the eternal anta-
gonism between good and evil would not be at all
obscured ; their abhorrence of vice would not be less
vigorous ; their love of virtue would not be less fervent.
But it is unnecessary to pursue this discussion. Butler's
account of the manner in which conscience exercises
its functions, before there is any anticipation of the
corroborative sentence of God, is a complete answer
to Dean Mansel's inquiry as to the right "of one portion
of the human consciousness to represent itself as duty,"
while another is to be regarded as " merely an incli-
nation."
Dean Mansel might as well have asked what right
has one sense to claim authority to reveal to us the
phenomena of vision, while another can reveal only the
phenomena of sound ? There is no schism among the
senses. Every one of them performs its own functions.
The authority of the eye to reveal to us the phenomena
of vision is indisputable ; it actually reveals those phe-
nomena; it alone reveals them. This ends the con-
troversy. And conscience alone lays claim to be the
representative and minister of the law of duty. Incli-
nation endeavours to control the will by force : it is
unable to speak, as conscience actually speaks, in the
name of the eternal Law of Righteousness. The su-
premacy of conscience is, as Butler says in another
passage, *' a constituent part of the idea, that is, of
the faculty itself ; and to preside and govern, from the
very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it.
Had it strength as it had right, had it power as it
368 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
had manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the
world." '
Butler's argument is a vindication of the authority
of conscience ; it is also a vindication of the eternal
and necessary distinction between right and wrong.
For conscience does not invoke the authority of God
before it condemns vice and approves virtue, or before
it affirms that man is bound to obey the Law of Right-
eousness. We know that falsehood, cruelty, and in-
justice are evil things in themselves, and that they
would be evil though no Divine authority had forbid-
den them ; and we know that the opposite virtues are
good in themselves, and that they would be good
though no Divine authority had commanded them.
Righteousness gains an infinite support when it is
known that God requires us to be righteous ; but even
in the absence of that knowledge, conscience confesses
that the Law of Righteousness has an eternal and
necessary authority.
If the will of God is the original fountain of all
moral distinctions ; if righteousness is right only be-
cause He commands it, and if sin is evil only because
He forbids it ; if, therefore, had He so willed, all the
virtues would have merited our moral condemnation,
and all the vices our moral approval ; how is it possible
for us to love and reverence God because of His moral
excellence ? When we do homage to Him because of
His justice, goodness, and truth, we imply that if He
were not just and good and true, He would have no
' Sermons on Hiunan Nature. Sermon 2. Works, i. 27.
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 369
claim to our homage. But there can be no reason for
celebrating the glory of His justice if, had He so
pleased, injustice would have been equally glorious;
and if goodness and truth are not in themselves more
beautiful and noble and right than cruelty and false-
hood, we do Him no honour by confessing that *' His
compassions fail not," and that " His truth endureth
for ever." God can have no moral perfections if the
distinction between good and evil is the creation of the
Divine will.
There is another and insuperable objection to this
theory. Righteousness is the fulfilment of moral
obligations ; but moral obligations can nevej.' be origi-
nated by mere will, even if that will be the will of God.
A mere command can never create a duty unless there
is an antecedent obligation to obey the authority from
which the command proceeds. All the virtues are en-
forced by the authority of God ; but unless before God
has commanded anything all His creatures are bound
to obey Him, His commandments can create nq obli-
gation to be virtuous. His power may make it our
interest to obey Him, but our interest is not our duty.
"Why am I bound to obey ? Am I bound to do God's
will because God has been infinitely kind to me ?
That involves the concession of an eternal moral obliga-
tion to be obedient to One who has shown me infinite
kindness. Because if I am disobedient, I shall incur
punishment ? That involves the concession of an
eternal obligation to avoid suffering. Because, as a
creature, I am naturally subject to God ? That in-
25
370 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
volves the concession of an eternal obligation resting
on the creature to obey the Creator. Duty is incon-
ceivable if moral obligation does not exist antecedently
to the Divine commands.*
The objections which have been urged against the
theory that derives all moral distinctions from the will
of God, may be urged in another form against the
theory that finds the origin of these distinctions in the
nature of God. Conscience does not rest the moral
obligation of justice on the fact that God is just, but
affirms that justice is of universal and necessary
obligation. We do not reverence righteousness merely
because by righteousness men become like God : v^e
reverence God Himself because He is righteous, thus
affirming that righteousness in itself, and not simply
because it is a Divine attribute, is deserving of rever-
ence.
What then is the relation betv^een God and the
eternal Law of Righteousness ? Are we to conceive
of that Law as independent and supreme, claiming
allegiance from the Creator as well as from His
creatures ? Is God Himself subject to its authority,
even as we are ? Is there a throne, even an ideal
throne, loftier and more august than His ? a sceptre,
even an ideal sceptre, by which even He is governed,
and which from eternity to eternity He obeys ?
This hypothesis is as untenable as either of those
which have been already discussed. We instinctively
^ See British Qtiarterly Review, October, 1867. Page 486, and
especially the reference in the note to -Mr. J. S. Mill.
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 371
reject it : even in idea nothing can be higher than
God. There appears to be a conflict for supremacy
between God and the eternal Law of Righteousness.
But such a conflict is impossible. The solution of the
difficulty may perhaps be found in a statement of the ac-
tual history of our ideas of Righteousness and of God.
Conscience in the earliest and most rudimentary
stages of its development recognizes in particular actions
the distinction between good and evil, and affirms that
the idea of goodness involves the obligation to be good.
As conscience acquires clearness and strength of vision,
it discovers what was implicitly contained in its earliest
judgments, that the distinction between good and evil
is not arbitrary, contingent, and mutable, but is the ex-
pression of an eternal and necessary law.
The possession of the moral faculty, however, is not
the only regal prerogative of human nature. We are
capable of knowing God, and when God is revealed we
discover in a living Person the same august and supreme
authority which conscience confessed in the eternal Law
of Righteousness. It is the recognition of this which
appears to be the very root and essential principle of
worship, and which creates the distinction, in kind
and not merely in degree, between the homage we offer
to God, and the love, the reverence, the trust with
which we may regard created perfection. The wonder
with which we witness the manifestations of wisdom
and power greater than our own, does not gradually
approach worship, as the wisdom and the power are
manifested in grander and grander forms. Nor does
25*
ZT^ The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
the love inspired by moral purity and goodness gra-
dually approach worship, as the purity and goodness
rise nearer and nearer to our loftiest ideal of moral
excellence.
Wonder, however profound, and love, however fervent,
never become worship until they are blended with
another element — with a homage to the authority —
not merely the perfections — of God, corresponding to
the homage which conscience offers to the authority
of the moral law. The supremacy of the law is
absolute and irreversible. But when God is truly
known, conscience, without revoking or qualifying the
acknowledgment of this supremacy, confesses that the
authority which it had recognized in an ideal law is
the awful and glorious prerogative of a living Person.
The relation between God and the eternal Law of
Righteousness is, therefore, unique. He is not, as we
are, bound by its authority ; in Him its authority is
actively asserted. To describe Him as doing homage
to it — although a phrase which it may sometimes be
almost necessary to employ — is by implication to strip
Him of His moral sovereignty : the homage which is
due to the law is due to Him. The law does not
claim Him as the most illustrious and glorious of its
subjects ; it is supreme in His supremacy. His rela-
tion to the law is not a relation of subjection but of
identity. Hence *' He cannot be tempted of evil." In
God the law is alive; it reigns on His throne, sways
His sceptre, is crowned with His glory.
It is possible to conceive of the authority of the
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law, 373
eternal Law of Righteousness apart from God. An
Atheist knows the meaning of the word ought, and
may confess that the obligations of duty are absolute.
But apart from the authority of the eternal Law of
Righteousness as expressed in the Divine will, it is not
possible to conceive of God. My conception of God
is not only incomplete, but fatally defective, while I
acknowledge nothing more than that He created all
things; that He sustains all things; that His power is
almighty, and His knowledge without limit; that He
is perfectly just and infinitely good; that He is "glorious
in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders." If I am
to worship Him and to obey Him, — if, in other words,
He is to be my God, — I must recognize His absolute
sovereignty over my moral and spiritual life; and God,
as a living Person, must have the same authority over
my will that conscience acknowledges in the eternal
Law of Righteousness.
We may now consider the relation between God and
the penalties of sin. To discover this relation, we have
to investigate the idea of punishment, and to determine
what is meant by saying that sin is justly punished.
Is punishment to be regarded as a reformatory pro-
cess, a process intended to promote the moral benefit of
the sufferer ? If it were that and nothing more, and if
the justice of punishment consisted in its fitness to
produce a favourable moral impression on the sinner,
God would be free to inflict or to remit the penalties
374 ^^^^ Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
of the Law without regard to any other consideration
than the moral disposition of the person by whom the
precepts of the Law had been violated. The severity of
punishment would have to be measured, not by the
magnitude of the sin for which it is inflicted, but by
the difficulty of inducing the sinner to amend. If even
the greatest sin were immediately succeeded by hearty
repentance, there would be no mercy in withholding
punishment ; for since, on this theory, the justice of
punishment consists in its reformatory power, it could
not be justly inflicted where reformation had been
already produced by other and gentler influences. It
also follows that if there are cases — and such cases
are easily conceivable — in which repentance is less
likely to be awakened by inflicting pain and disgrace
than by conferring new joy and honour, in these cases
the lightest penalty would be unjust, and justice would
require that the life of the sinner should be made
brighter and happier on account of his sin. By a very
slight exercise of ingenuity it might be shown that the
theory which rests the justice of punishment on its
reformatory power, involves the most grotesque con-
sequences, and consequences which are repugnant to
our most elementary moral convictions.
And yet the influence of this conception of punish-
ment may be very distinctly recognized in some modern
speculations on the Atonement. The conception may
be traced far back in the history of theological thought,
but it was made popular by those wise and generous
reformers of our criminal code to whom we owe the
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 375
abandonment of the brutal and brutalising punishments
by which, till very recent times, all European states
endeavoured to secure the protection of life and pro-
perty.
In avenging a solitary crime which might never have
been repeated, the law created a hardened and des-
perate criminal. A change of system was demanded
not only by the merciful instincts of humane hearts,
but by the principles of social expediency ; for the
criminal law was increasing the number of criminals,
and making criminal offences more formidable. But
the popular theory which was alleged in justification of
the change was both false and pernicious. From the
principle that in punishing crime it is both the duty
and the interest of the State to attempt to reform the
criminal, it was inferred that the object of punishment
is the criminal's reformation. This inference, although
no man was irrational enough to carry it out to its
ultimate results, seriously affected the spirit and
temper with which a considerable number of persons
regarded the administration of criminal law. It made
the gaol a philanthropic institution, and the treadmill
an instrument of national education, invented for the
benefit of an exceptionally unfortunate and backward
class of scholars.
The theory was utterly rotten. Society has no right to
send a man to gaol, to feed him on bread and water,
and to make him pick hemp or work the treadmill,
merely because society thinks that a discipline of this
kind would do him good. He must deserve to be
37^ The Theory of the Atonement: [iect.
punished, or the law h?s no right to punish him.
If in punishing him the law can make him a better
man, well and good; but it is the fact that the criminal
deserves to suffer which constitutes the ultimate
foundation of criminal law, and apart from this the
infliction of suffering is a monstrous tyranny and in-
justice.
Between human legislation and Divine, between the
imperfect processes by which the State punishes the
violation of its imperfect laws and the processes of
eternal justice, the analogy is very incomplete. But
when we consider sin as a transgression of the eternal
Law of Righteousness, this principle that the transgres-
sion deserves punishment reappears. The conscience
affirms it vehemently. The fear of punishment is often
the earliest form in which a sinful man acknowledges
the authority of the Law which he has broken. Nor is
the punishment regarded either by the conscience or by
the terror-stricken heart as a painful process to effect
future reformation ; it is the suffering which has been
deserved by past sin. To make it anything else than
this, is to destroy its essential character.
Another conception of punishment represents it as
an expedient for strengthening the authority of the Law
by creating a new motive to obedience. The distinc-
tion between this second conception and the first is
very simple and obvious. According to the first con-
ception, punishment is a painful discipline, intended
to bring a man who has broken the Law to a better state
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law, ^77
of mind and heart. It rests upon the principle that
the criminal must be reformed. According to the
second conception, it is an appeal to the fears of those
who have not yet broken the Law, and is intended to
prevent them from breaking it. Punishment may,
perhaps, make the bad man worse than he was before,
but his sufferings are meant to deter other men from
doing wrong. The pain suffered by the criminal is
inflicted for the sake of confirming the virtue of those
who are as yet free from crime. The theory originated
with jurists and statesmen. When transferred to the
sphere of the Divine government, it requires us to regard
the penalties of sin, not as the righteous retribution of
past offences, but as a severe expedient for preventing
future offences. If, therefore, any more merciful and
equally effective method can be devised for maintaining
the authority of the eternal Law of Righteousness,
punishment may be dispensed with.
But even in relation to human law this theory is
fatally defective. " The suffering of a criminal," it has
been well said, " benefits the public because it is de-
served; it is not deserved because it benefits the
public.'* That human governments are bound to con-
sider whether the specific penalties attached to specific
violations of the law are likely to diminish crime, is no
doubt true ; but the question whether the penalties
are just, is a preliminary question, which cannot be
righteously or safely ignored. The suffering may be
actually inflicted for the sake of protecting the State,
but the State commits a crime unless the criminal has
37^ The Theory of the A tonement : [lect.
deserved to suffer; and if to the conscience of the nation
the severity of the suffering appears to exceed the
magnitude of the crime, the authority of the law is
enfeebled rather than strengthened. On the other
hand, if, when a great crime has been committed, the
criminal is acquitted through some technical defect in
the evidence, or receives a light and inadequate sen-
tence, public indignation is provoked; not because the
opportunity has been lost of giving to citizens who are
tempted to crime an impressive and edifying moral
lesson which would be likely to restrain them from
similar offences, but because justice has been baffled,
and the criminal has not received his deserts.
The idea of retribution, which underlies ordinary
criminal justice, cannot be excluded from our concep-
tion of the penalties which God inflicts upon those who
have sinned. It belongs to the very essence of that
conception. He does not punish some of His creatures
merely because their sufferings will do good to the rest,
but because they deserve to suffer. The penalties which
He inflicts are not affected by the same limitations
which affect the penalties inflicted by human govern-
ments. To punish all moral offences, and in exact
proportion to their varying magnitude, requires other
resources than human legislators possess, and other
powers than human tribunals can command. These
resources and powers belong to God.' Nor is it the
function of human governments to assert throughout
every province of human life all the obligations of the
eternal Law of Righteousness, and to vindicate the
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 379
justice of all its penalties. But this function is in-
volved in the very idea of God. When we are con-
sidering the relation of God to the penalties of sin,
and investigating the question whether, and on what
conditions, they can be remitted, it is unsafe to regard
these penalties as nothing more than an expedient for
preventing sin — an expedient which may, therefore, be
immediately exchanged for any other method which
would secure the same moral result. It is necessary
to remember that the penalties of sin are primarily an
expression of the principle that the sinner deserves to
suffer, and if the penalties are remitted, we have to
inquire whether it is possible for this principle to be
suppressed, or whether it must be asserted in some
other form,
A third conception of punishment represents it as an
effect of God's personal resentment against those who
have offered an insult to His personal dignity, or as the
assertion of His personal claims against those who
have withheld from Him His personal rights. If a ser-
vant who has been treated considerately and generously
is guilty of an habitual and contemptuous disregard of
his master's authority, and malignantly slanders his
master's character, he cannot wonder if his master is
offended and indignant, nor can he complain at being
dismissed from his master's service, though the dis-
missal may involve him in ruin. If a man refuses to
pay his just debts, the creditor may vindicate his claim
by whatever processes of law are open to him, even
380 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
at the cost of the utter destruction of the debtor's pro-
perty.
And it is alleged that sin is of the nature of a per-
sonal offence against the majesty of God, and that
punishment is the expression of God's just resentment.
Or the absolute obedience which God's creatures owe
to Him is alleged to be of the nature of a personal
debt, and when their obedience is withheld, punishment
is a vindication of His personal claims against them.
But the master whose anger has been provoked by
the carelessness or the insolence of a servant may
magnanimously overlook the offence and retain the
offender in his service. The creditor may cancel the
debt. Resentment against those by whom we have
been personally wronged may be just, but there are
innumerable cases in which generosity and compas-
sion are stronger than resentment, and incline us to
forgive. Personal claims — if they are exclusively per-
sonal — may be waived. If this theory of sin and its
punishment were complete, God would be free to inflict
or to remit punishment at His own good pleasure.
But even in such cases as those which I have
selected to illustrate the theory, it sometimes happens
that the inclination to be magnanimous and generous
has to be restrained. A master who has been treated
very badly by his servant may sometimes be morally
obliged to express his resentment in the severest form.
He is the accidental representative of that social au-
thority, the assertion and maintenance of which are
essential to the strength and tranquillity of the organisa-
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 381
tion of society. As an individual, he might be merciful.
As a master, he cannot. A creditor whose claims are
dishonestly resisted may be morally obliged to insist
on the payment of his debt. As an individual, he might
be ready and even anxious to remit the payment ; but
he is the accidental representative of justice, and
though by prosecuting the debtor he may incur a great
loss both of time and money, he cannot decline the
duty which has accidentally fallen to him. There are
other cases in which the obligation to make an offender
suffer for his offence is still more obvious and stringent.
An officer in the army who never inflicted punishment
for disobedience to his orders, a sovereign who never
inflicted punishment for conspiracy and treason against
his authority, would add a second crime to the crime
whose penalties he remitted. It is part of their very
function and duty to punish these offences.
This theory of punishment rests upon a false theory
of the moral authority of God. In a sense it is true
that God has " personal claims " on our reverence and
obedience, but the phrase is an ambiguous one. A
father has personal claims on the love, respect, and
obedience of all his children; he has also personal
claims on those of his children to whom he may have
lent money when they commenced business. These
two sets of claims, however, are not the same in kind.
He can release them from the obligation to repay the
money debt ; he cannot release them from the obliga-
tions of filial respect and obedience. Nor can God
release His creatures from the obligation to reverence
382 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
and obey Him. If He were only the accidental
Representative of the idea of moral authority, or the
official Defender and Minister of the eternal Law of
Righteousness, He would have claims upon us which
He could not waive. But we have seen that He is
very much more than this. The ideal supremacy of
the eternal Law of Righteousness — as Law — and with
all its immutable authority — is revealed to us under
a concrete and personal form, in His personal sove-
reignty over all His moral creatures.
If, therefore, the punishment of sin is to be defined
as a vindication and assertion of the personal rights
and claims of God against those who have sinned, it
must be remembered that the Divine claims which sin
resists, and the Divine rights which sin refuses to
acknowledge, are essentially different from the claims
and rights which are in such a sense personal that
they can be remitted at pleasure. They are claims
and rights which it is morally necessary that God
should maintain. The penalties in which these claims
and rights are vindicated may, perhaps, have something
of the same necessary character ; and it may be just
as impossible for God to decline the assertion of the
principle that those who sin against Him deserve to
be punished, as it is for Him to decline the assertion
of the principle that all His moral creatures are bound
to worship Him and to keep His commandments.
The penalties of sin may be, in a very true sense, a
vindication of the personal claims and rights of God;
but whether these penalties must be relentlessly in-
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law, 383
flicted, or whether, and on what conditions, they may
be remitted, are questions involving principles which do
not at all affect the vindication of personal claims and
rights of a different order.
The easy solution of all difficulties about the Remis-
sion of sins, suggested by the obligation resting on
ourselves to forgive those who have sinned against
us, ignores the fundamental distinction between the
relations of individual men to each other and their
common relation to God. As individuals, we have
no right to punish other men for their sins against us,
because we have no authority over them. The right
to punish is inseparable from the obligations of au-
thority, and the obligations inseparable from authority
may sometimes make the infliction of punishment a
duty.
We conclude, therefore, that the only conception
of punishment which satisfies our strongest and most
definite moral convictions, and which corresponds to
the place it occupies both in the organisation of
society and in the moral order of the universe, is that
which represents it as pain and loss inflicted for the
violation of a law. If the law is a righteous law, if
the severity of the penalty is not out of proportion to
the magnitude of the offence, the punishment is just;
the offender has deserved whatever he suffers. Suffering
inflicted upon a man to make him better in the future
is not punishment, but discipline : to be punishment,
it must be inflicted for evil deeds done in the past.
384 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
Suffering endured for the sake of benefiting society is
not punishment : if accepted voluntarily, it is the
heroism of self-sacrifice; if inflicted by arbitrary au-
thority, it is injustice on the one side and martyrdom
on the other. What a man suffers from the resent-
ment of another is not punishment, but mere persecu-
tion and annoyance, unless the suffering is the effect
of moral indignation provoked by real or imaginary
wrongs committed against the person by whom the
suffering is inflicted : according as the wrongs are
imaginary or real, the punishment is unjust or just.
That the suffering inflicted is deserved is a necessary
element in the conception of punishment. We have
now to determine God's relation to the ill-desert of a
man who has transgressed the eternal Law of Right-
eousness, and to the sufl'ering which may justly come
upon him for his transgression. God cannot be sepa-
rated, even in idea, from the Law which has been
violated, and which affirms the principle that sin
deserves to be punished. Is it necessary, or is it not,
that this principle should be asserted, and asserted by
God Himself?
If it is not asserted, if it is ignored and suppressed,
then the eternal Law of Righteousness can be no longer
perfectly identified with the will of God ; and if the
Law is separated from the will of God, conscience will
vehemently maintain that the Law is supreme ; and in
the case supposed will protest that while on the one
hand the creature has dishonoured the Law by sin, the
Creator has completed the dishonour by refusing to
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 385
acknowledge the ill-desert of sin. Such a separation,
however, between the ideal Law and the Divine Will is
impossible. God would cease to be God if His Will
were not a complete expression of all the contents of
the eternal Law of Righteousness.
Is it then inevitable that God should inflict the pe-
nalties which sin has deserved ? Has he no choice ?
Is it impossible that He should be merciful ? Does
He act as a blind, unconscious force ? Is the moral go-
vernment of the universe a vast and awful mechanism,
dispensing rewards and punishments from eternity to
eternity in exact proportion to righteousness and sin ?
Is there no difference between being under the iron rule
of a Law and being under the rule, gracious as well as
just, of a living God ? To these questions the Christian
revelation and the irrepressible instincts of our moral
and spiritual nature give the same replies.
It is necessary to look a little more closely into the
nature of punishment if we are to discover the solu-
tion of the difficulty in which questions like these
originate.
In common, popular speech, we say that " the sinner
ought to suffer ; '* but this is a very loose expression,
loose even to inaccuracy. When so used, the word
"ought" has a very different force from that which
belongs to it when we say that " a man ought to be
honest and to tell the truth.'* By being honest and
truthful, a man fulfils a duty. But a man who has
committed a sin fulfils no duty by merely suffering for
his sin. His mere suffering is not obedience: while he
26
386 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
suffers, his whole nature may be in fiercer revolt than
ever against the Law which he has transgressed, and
the penalty of which he is enduring. There may be
no more righteousness in him when his suffering is
keenest than there was before his suffering com-
menced : his mere suffering has no virtue in it.
When we use the phrase that a man who has com-
mitted a crime " ought to suffer for it," we generally
mean nothing more than that he deserves to suffer ;
or if anything more than this is meant, we mean that
some one who has the authority and power is under a
moral obligation to make him suffer.
Punishment gives to the sufferer occasion for mani-
festing humility, patience, and a spirit of penitent sub-
mission to the pain which he has deserved by his
offences ; and if he does not manifest these virtues he
incurs fresh guilt. But the duty of manifesting them
arises from the fact that by some external force or
authority he is being made to suffer the just conse-
quences of his past offences. Whatever moral element
there is in punishment itself — as punishment — is derived
from the person or power that inflicts it.
What is meant by the law being more honoured
when a man of high rank suffers imprisonment or
death for his crimes, than when one of the common
people suffers precisely the same penalty ? Something,
perhaps, is to be ascribed to the impression produced
by the contrast between his splendid position and his
miserable fate, and something to the fact that his rank
awakens universal interest both in his offence and in its
TX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 387
punishment. But what is specially significant in his
suffering is this — that justice is felt to overbear all the
common iniluences by which men are sv/ayed. If the
judicial authority or the executive power had been ac-
cessible to fear or to corruption, his illustrious name,
his social influence, his wealth, would have perverted
the course of law, and secured his immunity. When,
therefore, such a man is put on his trial, the fidelity
and courage of the public ministers of justice are
tested; and if they do not swerve from the line of
judicial duty, the law receives unusual homage —
homage derived not from the rank of the criminal who
suffers — but from the steadfast and resolute integrity
which does not permit his rank to shelter him. That
in exceptional cases like this it is the moral effort neces-
sary to inflict the penalties of violated law which con-
stitutes the highest moral element of punishment, is
acknowledged by the common instincts of mankind
and, in all cases, punishment receives its moral sig-
nificance from the fact that the infliction of it is the
active assertion of the principle — either by a person or
a law — that those who have violated a law deserve to
suffer.
Whatever moral significance might attach to the
punishment of sin if punishment were inflicted by
** self-acting " spiritual laws, its moral significance is
immeasurably heightened if, in every case, it is the
immediate or remote effect of a Divine volition. Ac-
cording to the Christian theory of the universe, all the
forces which are in league with the eternal Law of
26*
388 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
Righteousness have received their commission and their
power from God Himself.
It is by the Will of God that man has been so
constituted that his physical health and vigour are
promoted by industry, temperance, and the exercise of
firm restraint on all the violent passions. The same
Will is revealed in the laws which, under every form
of social organisation, and in the rudest as well as in
the most complex conditions of human society, are
more or less obviously on the side of justice, truth-
fulness, purity, and an unselfish devotion to the public
interests. And if, on the whole, the relations of physical
nature to mankind are friendly to virtue; if the very
severities and uncertainties of man's external condition
train him to fortitude, to courage, to the mastery of
his inferior appetites, and to a prudence which is akin
to morality ; if even after the long ages of preparation
which preceded what we have been accustomed to call
the creation of man, and which if it is called by any
other name will retain all its former mystery — if, I say,
even then there remained very much to be done before
many parts of the world could be a safe or pleasant home
for our race ; if pestilential marshes had still to be
drained ; if there were still savage beasts in the forests
and venomous creatures in the grass ; if it was an im-
perative necessity that in order to " replenish the
earth " man must also " subdue it," so that when God
*' rested " from His work man's work began ; and if in
this struggle with the evil and malignant elements of
his position some of the best elements of man's moral
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 389
nature were to receive their most vigorous discipline ; —
in all these provisions for the development of our moral
life we recognize the manifestations of the wisdom, the
goodness, and the righteousness of God. Even the
miseries which are inflicted by causes in the presence
of which human skill and industry and courage are
powerless — the irresistible calamities which come upon
men from protracted drought, from hurricanes, from
volcanic eruptions, from earthquakes — test and in-
vigorate many heroic virtues, and give occasion for
the exercise of those forms of compassion which are
called forth by misfortunes and sufferings in which
there is no trace of guilt. These terrible destructive
forces have also a place in that Divine order which has
for its highest end, not the material comfort, but the
moral perfection of mankind.
The infinitely various evils which by the very con-
stitution of human nature and the irreversible laws of
human society avenge wrong-doing, are also the effect
of the Divine Will. Gross vices are grossly punished.
Those who are guilty of secret and undiscovered sins
are tormented even in this world, and their strength
consumed by a " worm that dieth not " and *' a fire '*
that cannot be " quenched." Falsehood and treachery
bring upon men shame and contempt. The sins of
parents are sharply punished by the sins of their chil-
dren. The wealth and glory of the proudest states are
destroyed by the private vices of the people and the
public crimes of their rulers. And if, on this side of
death, innumerable offences against the eternal Law of
390 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
Righteousness appear to escape detection and penalty,
that revelation which has brought *' life and immor-
tality " to light, is dark with threatenings of the " in-
dignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish," which
will confront the impenitent in the world to come.
From the final judgment of God there can be no escape,
and upon those who have resisted His authority and
rejected His grace He will inflict the just penalties of
their sins.
The sufferings which punish sin in this world, and
the sufferings which will punish it in the next, are the
expression of the irreconcilable antagonism of God to
sin, and to those who persist in sinning. They are an
assertion by God Himself of the principle that those
who sin deserve to suffer. It is this which gives them
their transcendent significance.
There are times when the calamities with which sin
is punished even in this world seem to us so severe
that we are driven to exclaim, " Hath God forgotten
to be gracious ? '* The punishments which menace it
beyond death are so appalling, that though we see them
dimly and afar off, they paralyse us with terror. Yet
the Divine compassion is infinitely more tender than
our own. If God were indifferent to the sufferings of
His creatures, if it cost Him nothing to inflict upon
them now the temporal miseries which are the penalties
of transgression, and to expel them at last, by an irre-
vocable sentence, from the hght and blessedness of
His presence, the profoundest moral element of His
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 391
acts of retributive justice would disappear. The Divine
compassion immeasurably augments the significance
of the punishments v^hich by the Divine volition are
inflicted on sin.
But if the punishment of sin is a Divine act — an act
in which the identity between the Will of God and the
eternal Law of Righteousness is asserted and expressed
— it would appear that, if in any case the penalties of
sin are remitted, some other Divine act of at least equal
intensity, and in which the ill desert of sin is expressed
with at least equal energy, must take its place. ^
The heart of the whole problem lies here. The eternal
Law of Righteousness declares that sin deserves to be
punished. The Will of God is identified both by the
conscience and the religious intuitions of man with the
eternal Law of Righteousness. To separate the ideal
law — or any part of it — from the Living and Divine
Person, is to bring darkness and chaos on the moral
and spiritual universe. The whole Law — the authority
of its precepts, the justice of its penalties — must be
asserted in the Divine acts, or else the Divine Will
cannot be perfectly identified with the eternal Law of
Righteousness. If God does not assert the principle
that sin deserves punishment by punishing it, He must
assert that principle in some other way. Some Divine
act is required which shall have all the moral worth
I As much as i/iz's might be concluded a priori. The form in
which the necessity has actually been met could never have entered
into the mind of man, nor could we have determined whether it was
possible for the necessity to have been met in any other form.
393 The Theory of the Atonement: . [lect.
and significance of the act by which the penalties of
sin would have been inflicted on the sinner.
The Christian Atonement is the fulfilment of that
necessity. The principle that suffering — suffering of the
most terrible kind — is the just desert of sin is not sup-
pressed. It would have been adequately asserted had
God inflicted on man the penalties of transgression. It
is asserted in a still grander form, and by a Divine act,
which in its awful sublimity and unique glory infinitely
transcends the mere infliction of suffering on those who
have sinned. The penalties are not simply held back
by the strong hand of infinite love. He onjwho m the
sins of men had brought the dread necessity of asserting
the principle that they deserved to suffer, and who, as
it seems to us, could not decline to assert it — He
through whose lips the sentence of the eternal Law of
Righteousness must have come, condemning those who
had sinned to exile from the light and life of God — He
by whose power the sentence must have been executed
— He_Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, laid aside His
eternal glory, assumed our nature, was forsaken of God,
died on the cross, that the sins of men might be re-
mitted. It belonged to Him to assert, by His own act,
that suffering is the just result of sT^. He asserts i t,
not by inflicting suffering on the sinner, but by endu ring
suffering^ Himse lf.
Nor is this all. To affirm that, on the cross, the
Moral Ruler of our race endured what He might have
inflicted, is an inadequate representation of the truth.
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law. 393
If God's love for His creatures invests the Divine act
which punishes them with its highest moral value, the
love of the Eternal Father for the Son invests with
infinite moral sublimity the Divine act which sur-
rendered Him to desertion and to death, that the
justice of the penalties of sin might be affirmed before
the penalties were remitted. The mysterious unity o f
t he Father and the Son rendered it possible for God
at once to endur e and to inflict penal suffering, and to
do both under conditions which constitute the infliction
and the endurance the grandest moment in the moral
history of God.
The question of the grounds on which the Moral
Ruler of mankind could so identify Himself with our
race as to assume our nature, and endure suffering
instead of inflicting it on us, is the question to be dis-
cussed in the next Lecture : for the present I must
assume that in this endurance of suffering the Lord
Jesus Christ was acting in harmony with His original
and Ideal relations to mankind. The point we have
reached is this : the moral significance of the suffering
by which sin is punished is derived from the fact that the
suft^ering is inflicted by the Will of God. In the Death
of Christ, He to whom it belongs to inflict suffering
endures suffering instead of inflicting it. In stating the
problem which arises on the hypothesis that God has
resolved to remit the penalties of sin, I said that *' if
God does not assert the principle that sin deserves
punishment, by punishing it, He must assert that
principle in some other way. Some Divine act is re-
394 ^^^^ Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
quired which shall have all the moral worth and sig-
nificance of the act by which the penalties of sin
would have been inflicted on the sinner ; " and I repeat
that " the Christian Atonement is the fulfilment of that
necessity." It was a greater act to submit to such
suffering as Christ endured than to inflict it.
As yet our theory is incomplete. But when the heart
is shaken by fears of future judgment and " the wrath
to come," a vivid apprehension of the Death of Christ,
as the voluntary death of the Moral Ruler and Judge
of the human race, will at once inspire perfect peace.
Without further explanation, the conscience will grasp
the assurance that since He has suffered, to whom it
belonged to inflict suffering, it must be possible for
Him to grant Remission of sins.
This conception of the Atonement contains a com-
plete reply to the question which Mr. Martineau says
has never been answered. He asks —
, " How is the alleged immorality of letting off the sinner mended
by the added crime of penally crushing the sinless ? Of what man
— of what angel — could such a thing be reported, without raising
a cry of indignant shame from the universal human heart ? What
should we think of a judge who should discharge the. felailS fcoflj
th^e prisons of a city because some noble '"ajjd generous citizen
ofiered himself to the executioner instead ? " ^
Mr. Martineau must accept all our facts before he has
a right to bring a moral charge against our doctrine.
He must not discuss the Evangelical theory of the
' Stitdies of Christianity, page i88.
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law, 395
Atonement on the Unitarian theory of the Person of
Christ. But his analogy is doubly false ; false to his
own conception of God, false to our conception of
Christ. On his theory, God can pardon the sins of men
without an atonement, but a judge can only acquit or
condemn — the prerogative of pardon does not belong to
him. On our theory, Christ is infinitely more than the
most ** noble and generous of citizens " who could offer
himself to the executioner instead of the guilty. He is
Hi m self the re^resentativeT-and more_Jhan th e repre -
sentatiye-^qfjthe law . which has been violated. The
question which Mr. Martineau has asked is irrelevant.
The true question is — Whether the act of Christ, in
enduring the suffering which He must otherwise have
inflicted, is an "immorality," "a crime," which
should raise " a cry of indignant shame from the uni-
versal human heart " ?
For an answer to that question I can trust "the
universal human heart " to which Mr. Martineau
appeals. Wherever the real facts have been known,
instead of ** a cry of indignant shame," there has been
a cry of thanksgiving and of worship. Had God insisted
that before He would forgive sinful men, some illustri-
ous saint or some holy angel should endure the agonies
of Gethsemane and the awful sorrow of the cross ; had
He refused to listen to the prayer of the penitent until
His anger had been allayed, or His retributive justice
received what would have been an unreal satisfaction,
through the sufferings of one of His creatures who had
kept all His commandments, then Mr. Martineau's
39^ The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
question could have received no answer. However
voluntary, however eager might have been the sacrifice
on the part of saint or angel, God could not have
accepted it without perplexing and confounding all our
conceptions of His moral character. But is there any
*•' immorality,'* any " crime," anything to provoke ** a
cry of indignant shame," in the resolve of God Himseljf,
in the person of Christ, to endure suffering instead of
inflicting it ? Will any man who confesses that Jesus
Christ is God manifest in the flesh cry " shame " when
He, the Moral Ruler of men, to avoid the terrible
necessity of condemning us to eternal death, assumes
our nature, is tempted in the wilderness, endures the
ingratitude, malignity, and scorn of those whom He
has come to save, submits to be charged with blas-
phemy, spat upon, scourged, nailed to the cross, passes
into that " outer darkness," into which He must
otherwise have driven the human race for its crimes,
and dies of a broken heart through the greatness of His
sorrow ? ** Immorality ! " It is the most wonderful
proof of the infinite love of God. " Crime ! " It is the
supreme manifestation of God's moral perfection. But
for this, we might have thought that self-sacrifi ce,
which is the flower and crown of all human-excellence,
was impossible to God. We see now that every form
of heroic love and mercy by which our hearts are
thrilled in the story of the noblest of men, is but the
shadow of the transcendent and eternal perfection of
the Most High. " An indignant cry of shame ! " It
is this expression of the righteousness and grace of
IX.] Relation of Christ to Law, 397
the Moral Ruler of mankind which has kindled the
most passionate love that has ever glowed in the hearts
of men on earth, and it is this which is celebrated in
the most rapturous anthems which are ever heard in
heaven.
LECTURE X.
THE THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT :
ILLUSTRATED BY THE RELATION OF OUR LORD
JESUS CHRIST TO THE HUMAN RACE,
LECTURE X.
THE THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT : ILLUSTRATED BV'
THE RELATION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST TO
THE HUMAN RACE.
T N the preceding Lecture I endeavoured to illustrate
^ the transcendent significance and value which the
Death of Christ derives from His original relation to
the eternal Law of Righteousness, and especially to the
penalties which menace the transgression of its com-
mandments.
But this account of the Sacrifice of Christ, though
true as far as it goes, appears to be inadequate. It
leaves unexplained some of the most frequent and
familiar forms under which the Death of Christ is
represented in the New Testament, For although the
redemption of mankind is spoken of both by Christ
Himself and by His Apostles as originating in the love
and righteousness of God, the language of the New
Testament seems to imply that in some sense Christ
died in the name of the human race. It is not God
alone who has part in the great Mystery. Christ was
a Sacrifice and Propitiation for «s, though not by our
own choice and appointment. His Death is described
27
402 Tlu Theory of the A tonement : [lect.
as an appeal to God's infinite mercy coming from the
human race itself, or from One who has a right to
speak and act and suffer as its Representative. This
aspect of the Death of Christ has no place in the
partial conception of it which we have reached by
considering the relation of Christ to the eternal Law of
Righteousness.
Again ; this partial conception of it leaves the im-
pression on the mind that the Death of Christ had
something of a dramatic character, and that its value
lies in its dramatic effect. The theory — if I may so speak
—seems to be " in the air." If it can be shown that
the original and ideal relation of the Lord Jesus Christ
to the human race constitutes a reason why He should
become a Sacrifice and Propitiation for our sins, the
conception of His Death illustrated in the preceding
Lecture will rest on more solid and secure founda-
tions. I have now, therefore, to attempt to illustrate
the theory of the Atonement from the original relation
of the Lord Jesus Christ to the human race.
I can hardly hope that the attempt will be very suc-
cessful. For this relation has never yet been clearly
apprehended either by the Christian Church as a
whole, or by any considerable section of it. The Atha-
nasian conception of the Trinity has been incorporated
into the very life of Christendom. The conception
has been differently defined in the East and in the
West ; it has been greatly modified — in Europe at least
— by the philosophical systems which have succes-
sively controlled the speculation of the Church during
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race, 403
the last thirteen or - fourteen hundred years ; but
it was the genuine development and expression of
the Christian consciousness of the early centuries,
and it has become an essential element of the Faith
of the universal Church. That man is justified by
Faith alone, has secured the same kind of consent
among all the great Protestant communities. The doc-
trine is not the exclusive property of theologians, nor
is it merely a dogma imposed by theologians on the un-
learned. It has an intense, and, in the truest meaning
of the words, a vital interest, wherever there is genuine
religious earnestness. It gives to the religious life of
Protestantism its characteristic type. For that con-
ception of the Trinity which the unknown author of
the Athanasian Creed has endeavoured to express in
terms which had been created for him by the fierce
and subtle controversies of many generations, terms
which to us may seem cumbrous, and even profane,
but every one of which is a significant historical
monument, — for that conception of Justification which
is common to all the great Protestant confessions,
hundreds of thousands of men would be ready to suffer
imprisonment and death. As much might be said of
any other doctrine, true or false, that has become a
real power in the religious life of mankind. Men,
women, and children would be hung or burnt in crowds
rather than deny that Christ created the world, and
that He died for it.
But this cannot be said of any doctrine concerning
that relation of Christ to the human race which illus-
27 *
404 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
trates the theory of the Atonement. That in some
sense Christ is the Head and Representative of mankind
is a truth ** which has not been derived from philosophy,
but has lived eternally in the faith of Christendom." ^
This conception of Him is wrought into the very
structure of apostolic doctrine. It has been insisted
upon with great energy in recent years by Mr. Maurice
and his disciples in this country. In Germany it has
held a great place in theological speculation from the
time of Schelling. That Christ is the Head and
Representative of, at least, the elect and regenerate
portion of mankind, is what is meant by orthodox theo-
logians when they say that Christ is the Second Adam ;
and this is the truth which underlies the doctrine of
" imputed righteousness.'* Christian Mysticism has
always earnestly maintained that Christ is the very
life of regenerate souls, and that complete union with
Him is the condition of consummate holiness and
blessedness. This truth has been made the ultimate
ground of theories which assert the mysterious and
supernatural efBcacy of the sacraments.
But no clear and articulate conception of that relation
of Christ to mankind which renders it possible for
Him to sustain a representative character, appears to
have rooted itself in the popular theology, or in the
moral and spiritual life of Christendom. The sense
in which Christ in His redemptive sufferings and work
is the representative of the race, has been illustrated
^ Dr. DoRNER : History of the Development of the Doctrine of
the Person of Christ, Vol. iii. div. 2, p. 232.
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race, 405
or obscured by an appeal to imperfect human analogies.
It seems to have been forgotten that His representa-
tive character is absolutely unique. The general and
growing dissatisfaction with the theory of expiation has
probably arisen partly from this cause, and it will be
impossible for that theory to retain its place in the
theological thought of the Church, unless it can be
shown that the Death of Christ as a Propitiation and
Sacrifice for the sins of men is the highest expression
of an eternal relation between Christ and the human
race, — a relation which, though it might never have
been discovered in the absence of specific revelation,
has nothing in it to offend the higher reason or to
provoke moral antagonism, and is capable of verifica-
tion by the Christian consciousness.
The relation of Christ to mankind is, however, only
part of a larger question — the relation of Christ to the
created universe.
The Church has been content to acknowledge that
Christ created all things, and that in some sense He
upholds all things. It has never felt any keen and
practical interest in the nature of His permanent re-
lation to the universe. In its dread of Pantheism,
and in its eagerness to maintain the freedom and per-
sonality of the living God, it has rather shrunk from
conceiving any other kind of relation between the
Creator and the creation than that which exists between
the builder of a house and the house he has built.
But there are many passages in the New Testament
4o6 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
which are inconsistent with such a conception as this.
In the first chapter of the Fourth Gospel — which con-
tains the Christian idea of creation, as the first chapter
of the book of Genesis contains the Jewish idea — Christ
is identified with the Word, who was in the beginning
with God, and was God, and through whom all things
came into existence. In the opening verses of the
anonymous epistle to the Hebrews, Christ is represented
as the Son of God and heir of all things, the brightness
of Xjod's glory, in whom the eternal splendours of the
Divine nature are revealed, the express image of God's
person, by whom God made the worlds, and the word
of whose power is their perpetual support. St. Paul,
in the Epistle to the Colossians,^ describes our Lord
Jesus Christ as ** the image of the invisible God " —
"the first-born of every creature."^ The antithesis
seems to suggest that Christ is allied — if not in the
same way, yet by relations equally vital — at once with
God and the created universe. In Him ** the image of
the invisible God," the actual perfections of God, are
revealed to the thought of the universe, and in Him
**the first-born of all creation," the ideal perfections
of the universe, are present to the thought of God.
This conception of Christ's relation to the universe
the Apostle proceeds to develop. " For in Him were
all things created that are in heaven, and that are in
earth, visible or invisible, whether they be thrones, or
dominions, or principalities, or powers : all things were
created by [or through] Him and for [or unto] Him.
I Col. i. 15-17. 2 Or, " of all creation."
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race, 407
And He is before all things, and in Him all things
consist."
This remarkable passage contains St. Paul's theory
of the relations between Christ and the universe,
(i) Christ, " the First-born," was — if I may venture to
say it — the eternal prophecy of creation. In Him the
perfection and glory dwelt from eternity which in the
creation have been manifested in time. What the
creation, in its ideal perfection, was to be to the
Father, had from eternity found a transcendent expres-
sion in Christ.^ (2) When, at last, the universe was
created, Christ was the very ground and root of its
existence ; it was the revelation of His thought ; its
life was "in Him." (3) Nor was the creative act
the immediate act of the Father; the Divine power —
if we may use words which only remotely suggest the
truth — travelled through Christ : all things were
created "through Him." (4) Nor, again, was the
universe created for itself: its final cause, its ultimate
end, and its consummate perfection, are to be found
in Christ : all things were created ** for Him " or
" unto Him." (5) And, apart from Him, the universe,
as a universe, could not continue in existence ; it would
fall into disorder and sink back into chaos ; for " in
Him all things consist."
It is probable that the Apostles were led up to this
conception of the relation between Christ and the
universe by their consciousness of the relation between
Christ and themselves, in which they believed that the
' Note S.
4o8 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
ideal relation between Christ and the human race was
receiving its fulfilment. From the relation between
Christ and the human race, the transition to the relation
between Christ and the universe was not difficult. The
whole conception had an ethical and spiritual — not a
merely metaphysical — origin. They reached it, not by
a priori speculation, but by an orderly development of
spiritual thought, controlled and directed by the Holy
Ghost. Their thought took its departure from what they
knew for themselves about their own relation to Christ,
and was enriched at point after point by the constant
remembrance of the great fact that Christ was God
manifest in the flesh. To attempt to illustrate this
conception' of Christ's relation to the universe, would
lead us too far away from the subject of this Lecture.
It will be sufficient for our immediate purpose if we
consider the specific relation of Christ to the human
race.
As I have already suggested, the original and ideal
relation of Christ to all men was probably revealed to
the Apostles through His relation to themselves and
the Church ; and in illustrating the apostolic con-
ception of the original and ideal relation between
Christ and the human race, as that conception was
determined by the actual relation between Christ and
all who believe in Him, it may be well to follow the
order of St. Paul's thought in his account of the re-
lation between Christ and the whole creation.
Christ was " the First-born " among many brethren.
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race. 409
His eternal holiness and wisdom and power and joy
were the ideal forms of that perfection which all who
are born of God are destined to inherit through Him.
Into His " image " all who had been received into
His kingdom were being transformed. And, according
to God's idea of the human race, all men were to
participate in His glory. In a true and deep sense,
Christ is "the First-born of all creation;" all ranks
and orders of created beings, and even the material
works of the Divine power — through whatever is fair
and noble in them — have a relationship to Christ more
or less intimate or remote. Between man and Christ,
according to God's thought, the relationship was meant
to be near and vital.
As the Apostles knew that their Christian life and
all its prerogatives and hopes had come to them
through Christ, and were not the immediate effect of
the Father's power and love, so they believed that all
men were created " through Him.'*
Further, the Apostles knew that Christ was the very
end of their existence. This was their joy and their
glory. They called themselves His slaves, and said
that He had "bought" them— " bought " them, not to
make them free, but to make Himself their Master ;
an'd the only freedom they knew, or desired to know,
was the freedom which they found in His service.
** None of us," they exclaimed, " liveth to himself, and
no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live
unto -the Lord ; and whether we die, we die unto the
Lord : whether we live therefore, or die, we are the
410 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and
revived, that He might be the Lord both of the dead
and the living." ^ The Apostles laboured that they
might " be accepted of Him." * They exhorted their
fellow-Christians to live a good and upright life, that
they might ** adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in
all things." ^ They were " delivered unto death for
Jesus' sake."* And neither in their evangelistic activity,
nor in their personal righteousness, nor in their suffer-
ings, did they suppose that they were proving the vigour
of their own virtue and winning credit for themselves.
Only their weakness, their folly, and their sins were
their own : their strength came from Christ, and to Him
belonged all the glory of their fidelity, their courage,
their holiness, and their zeal.
That they might in this sense become Christ's, it
had been necessary that He should " purchase " them
" with His own blood," and ** give His life " a ran-
som for them. They appeal to the Death of Christ, as
investing His claims upon them with an infinite and
most pathetic urgency. But had the race never sinned
the race would have been His. By His Death He
did but recover what He had lost. The kingdom over
which He reigns had revolted from Him ; but it was
originally His own. Not the Church merely, but the
human race was created " for Him."
But the most important element in their conception
of the original and ideal relation of mankind to Christ
I Rom. xiv. 7-9. 2 2 Cor. v. 9.
3 Titus ii. 10. 4 2 Cor. iv. 11.
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race. 411
— or at least the most important in connection with
the theory of the Atonement — is that which probably
constituted the root of the declaration that " in Him
were all things created," especially when taken in con-
nection with the declaration that " in Him all things
consist." The passages in the apostolic epistles which
describe Christians as being " in Christ " are almost
innumerable. The truth which these passages affirm
had been taught by Christ Himself; it was verified by
the consciousness of the Church.
The forms in which this truth is expressed are ex-
tremely varied. It is said that we were ** created in
Christ Jesus unto good works ; " ^ that God " chose us
in Him before the foundation of the world ; " ^ that we
were "circumcised" in Christ ; ^ that "if One died for
all, then all died " — died in Him ;'* that we are " buried
with Him ;"5 that we are " risen with Him ;"Hhat God
" raised us up together [with Christ] and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," 7 and
" blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places" in Him.^ Conduct that becomes Christians is
described as "good conversation in Christ." ^ Children
are charged to obey their parents "in the Lord."^°
Christian people who have been estranged from each
other are exhorted to " be of the same mind in the
Lord."" Christian Churches are told that their "labour
is not in vain in the Lord." " The grace that is given
I Eph. ii. 10. 2 Ibid. i. 4. 3 Col. ii. 11. 4 2 Cor. v. 14.
5 Rom. vi. 4. ^Col. iii. I. 7Eph. ii. 6. 8 ibid. i. 4.
9 I Pet. iii. 16. 10 Eph. vi. i. " Phil. iv. 2. 12 j Cor. xv. 58.
4ia The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
to us is "given us in Christ Jesus."' St. Paul longs
after his converts at Philippi "in the bov^els of Jesus
Christ ; " ^ and he says to the Galatians, " I have been
crucified with Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet not I,
but Christ liveth in me." ^ Christians who have died
are described as "the dead in Christ." ^ The whole
Church is " the body of Christ," and " as we have
many members in one body, and all members have not
the same office, so we, being many, are one body in
Christ." 5 The Church is "the fulness of Him that
filleth all in all."^
Passages like these, and they might be indefinitely
multiplied, are too numerous and too varied, and they
belong too obviously to the very substance of apostolic
thought, to be dismissed as merely metaphorical. No
doubt they are metaphorical, but metaphors stand for
something ; and metaphors like these affirm the ex-
istence of a very wonderful relation between all the
regenerate and Christ.
The existence of that relation is reaffirmed by the
consciousness of the Christian Church. The extrava-
gances of Mysticism are but the exaggeration of a
truth which is known more or less perfectly to all in
whom the power and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
have been revealed. Christian holiness is nothing else
than a revelation of the inexhaustible energy of the
holiness of Christ. Self-culture, the great law of na-
tural ethics, is unknown in the supernatural life ; or,
I 2 Tim. i. 9. 2 Phil. i. 8. 3 Gal. ii. 20.
4 I Thess. iv. 16. 5 Rom. xii. 4, 5. ^ Eph. i. 23.
X.J Relation of Christ to the Human Race, 413
if known, the law assumes altogether a different form.
The Christian man does not simply develop and
perfect his own life ; he is constantly receiving and
appropriating the life and power of the Son of God.
Christ does not merely exhort us to repent, and reveal
new motives by which we should be constrained to
repent : He gives repentance,^ — inspiring us with His
own sense of the evil of sin. His own sorrow for it,
and His own desire that we should sin no more. We
escape from evil habits and evil passions, — not by the
force of any moral struggles which can be called our
own : sometimes the habits fall away from us at the
touch of Christ, as the chain? foil away from Peter at
the touch of the angel ; sometimes the passions are
expelled by the power of Christ, as evil spirits were
driven out of men by His word ; and if we struggle for
freedom, we are conscious that we are " strong " only
*'in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." ^ Even in the
presence of violent temptation there are some Christian
people to whom it seems that the victory is given them
by Christ rather than achieved by themselves through
Christ's help, and who say that they do but *' stand
still, and see the salvation of the Lord." And though
to others, and perhaps to most, there is real and pro-
longed conflict, their own part in it disappears when
they look back on their triumphs ; and they declare, in
no false humility, but in their desire to express the
exact truth, that if they have rescued their moral
nature from the power of sin, " they got not the land
» Acts V. 31. »2 Tim. ii. i.
414 ^^^ Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
in possession by their own sword, neither did their own
arm save them ; but [God's] right hand and [God's]
arm, and the lig^ht of [God's] countenance, because
[God had] a favour unto them."
In the development of the virtues and perfections of
the Christian Hfe, as distinguished from conquest over
sin, it is, if possible, still more obvious that the life and
power of Christ are revealed in us. We lose our self-
ishness and hardness through receiving, direct from
Him, the spirit of compassion which moved Him to
relieve every form of human infirmity and suffering.
His fervour kindles our zeal. The spirit **of power
and of love " ^ is an inspiration received from Christ.
In none of our "works" can we boast; for **we are
God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good
works, which God before ordained [or prepared] that
we should walk in them." ^ Hence the possibilities of
the Christian life are not to be measured by our native
resources, but by the infinite perfection of Christ Him-
self. We dwell in Him ; He dwells in us ; and He is
the living prophecy of the height and glory of our
holiness — a prophecy never to be fulfilled on earth or
in heaven, but perpetually moving towards fulfilment,
through struggle and sorrow and frequent defeat in this
world, and through endless ages of joy and triumph
in the world to come. This, I suppose, is the ultimate
secret of Christian sanctification — an "open secret,"
a secret of infinite simplicity, and yet hard to learn.
As we never find rest in the mercy of God until we
I 2 Tim. i. 7. 2 Eph. ii. 10.
X.] Relation of Christ to the Hitman Race, 415
discover that neither our penitence, nor our amend-
ment of life, nor our faith, can create any claim to
the Remission of sins, and are willing to receive it
as God's free gift " for Christ's sake ; " so we can
never receive perfect deliverance from sin until we
become so anxious for holiness itself as to care
nothing for winning any personal credit by becoming
holy, — until, renouncing the hope of achieving victory
over sin for ourselves, renouncing even the desire to
achieve it for ourselves, we are willing to accept
victory and freedom as part of that large inheritance
which God has given us in Christ.
Our relation to Christ is absolutely unique. And
yet, perhaps, some imperfect symbol of it may be found
in our relation to the material universe. Man is a
free personality, encompassed by a system of forces
which transcend all the measures of his science. To
these forces, which we now learn are perhaps but
various forms of one great Force which remains con-
stant from age to age, man is mysteriously related,
and from moment to moment he is dependent on them.
In every thought, however light and wayward, that
passes through his intellect; in every emotion, how-
ever transient, which ripples across the surface of his
moral life; in every volition; there is some expenditure
of that part of this universal energy which has been
accumulated in the nerves and tissues of his physical
organisation. Whatever power belongs to man comes
to him from the appropriation of force from without.
In the earHer ages of human history the savage made
4i6 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
some of that force his own by taking food, in which
the force had been accumulated; by breathing free air;
by drinking the water which ran in streams at his feet
or which he procured by painful labour from the rock.
All the vigour of muscle and all the keenness of sense
which he possessed became his because he had re-
ceived into his physical nature, and had laid up there,
some fractional part of the force which surrounded
him. When he struck down his prey at night, he
expended in the blow some of the energy which he
had made part of himself in the morning. When he
began to dig the ground, he was using the energy which
had been given to him by the wild fruits and the wild
creatures on which he had previously lived. His work
was, in a very true sense, not his own ; it was the
revelation of the universal Force, which, in ways of
which he never dreamt, had become the servant of
his will.
The history of the material progress of the race is
the history of the growing power of man, arising from
the gradual extension of his alliances with the forces
which surround him. His proudest achievements are
their work rather than his. He arms himself with the
strength of the winds and the tides. He liberates the
latent energy which has been condensed and treasured
up in coal, transforms it into heat, generates steam,
^nd sweeps across a continent without weariness, and
with the swiftness of a bird. He makes the electric
fluid his messenger, and it carries his words under the
ocean to remote shores. Moving freely among the
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race, 417
stupendous energies by which he is encompassed, he is
strong in their strength, and they give to his volitions
— powerless apart from them — a large and effective
expression.
The history of man's triumphs in the province of his
higher and spiritual life is also the history of the
gradual extension of his alliance with a Force which
is not his own. There is no proportion between the
native strength of his will and the perfection which he
achieves through Christ. Every good work is a mani-
festation of the Divine power, in which alone we can
be strong. Every form of Christian perfection — " love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance," — is a " fruit of the Spirit," an
expression in our personal life of the perfection of
the life of Christ. In the spiritual, as in the material
sphere, man is a free personality surrounded by a vast
and immeasurable Power which is not his own, but
through which his history may become bright with the
glory of the noblest achievements. In Christ we are
"made partakers of the divine nature."^
The parallel is extremely imperfect. At one point
it breaks down altogether, for material forces are un-
conscious, and we make their energy ours without
their voluntary concurrence, while the spiritual Power
which becomes our own is the Power of a free Personal
Life. But though the parallel is imperfect, it may assist
us to grasp one of the fundamental truths of the
Christian faith, and it may suggest the perilous error
1 2 Pet. i. 4.
28
4i8 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
into which we may be betrayed by our very zeal in
advocating that truth. Scientific men, having their
imagination filled with the vastness of that universal
and indestructible energy which they say assumes
varied forms in all material phenomena, have gone on
to affirm that the human will is but one of its Protean
manifestations. Devout mystics, overpowered with awe
and wonder by the energy of the life of God, in which,
and in which alone, they were conscious that they were
living, have gone on to affirm that the will of God is
the only active force in the universe. In ancient and
in modern times materialism has suppressed the per-
sonality and the will of man in the presence of the
awful forces of the physical universe. In ancient and in
modern times mysticism has suppressed the personality
and the will of man in the presence of the living God.
The Christian philosophy of human nature might per-
haps be roughly defined as a form of Pantheism in
which the moral freedom of man and the moral freedom
of God are resolutely and consistently vindicated.
Our Lord Jesus Christ has illustrated in the sim-
plest and most perfect manner the nature of the
relation between ourselves and Him. ** Abide in Me,
and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, except ye
abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches : he
that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth
forth much fruit : for apart from Me ye can do
nothing."^ This is an exhaustive statement of the
J John XV. 4, 5.
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race. 419
truth : to this neither saint nor Apostle can add any-
thing. We truly live only as we live in Christ. Our
highest life is life derived from Him.
Out of this relation to Christ arises our relation to the
Father. There is nothing technical, formal, or artificial
in the prerogative of Divine sonship which is conferred
on all that are in Christ. They are not merely ^^ called
the sons of God.'* The name represents a fact. They
share the life of the Son of God, and no other name
can express the relation to the Father which the
sharing of that life originates.
The Apostles speak of our having " access '* to the
Father *' in Him" and *' through Him." Christ
Himself said, " I am the Way : ... no man cometh
to the Father but by Me."^ This does not mean
merely that because of what Christ has done and
suffered for the salvation of mankind the sins are
remitted which excluded us from the Divine presence.
It is not the Atonement of Christ alone, or the reve-
lation which Christ has made to us of the Divine love,
through which we come to God. Christ Himself is
*'the Way: ... no man cometh to the Father but
by [Him]." That for us sinners Christ might be the
** Way " to the Father, it was necessary — as I hope
to show presently — that He should die as a Sacrifice
for our sins. But He Himself is the " Way." Through
our union with Christ, His trust and joy in the
Father become ours, and the light of God, in which
^ John xiv. 6.
28 *
420 The Theory of the A tonement : [lect.
He dwells, becomes our home. Through Christ's
original, eternal, and unique relationship to the Father
we are raised into a relationship to God whiclt renders
possible a freedom and blessedness of communion with
Him which is ** unspeakable and full of glory."
To bring this discussion to a close : there are two
great laws which are involved in that relation to
Christ which He Himself illustrated in the parable of
the Vine, and to the reality of which the Christian
consciousness bears testimony : —
1. The power and perfection of our moral and
spiritual life are a perpetual revelation of the power
and perfection of the life of Christ. There is no
element of holiness in us that is not derived from Him.
As the life of Christ is being perpetually revealed in us
in richer and nobler forms, the moral and spiritual
glory of Christ is the ultimate ideal to which we are
continually approaching, but which we shall never
reach.
2. Our own relation to the Father is determined by
the relation of Christ to the Father. By no fictitious
imputation or technical transfer, but by virtue of a real
union between the life of Christ and our own life,
His relation to the Father becomes ours. It is ours
with the same qualifications with which His life is
ours. In Him both the life and the relation exist in a
transcendent form.
But these two laws which are involved in the actual
relation to Christ, of all to whom He has given eternal
life and "power to become the sons of Cjd," were
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race. 421
involved in the original and ideal relation of the human
race to Himself. This appears to be implied in the
prologue of St. John's Gospel. " In Him was life " — •
the life of the human race — ** and the life was the light
of men." ^ According to the Divine idea of human
nature, man was to live by perpetual fellowship with
the life of the eternal Word, and in that life was to
inherit all the knowledge, purity, and blessedness of
which " light " is the beautiful symbol. As the life
of the Eternal Word or Son of God was to be the life
of the human race. His relation to the Father was
also to be ours. Had we never sinned, our history
would have been a perpetual ascent towards His
supreme holiness, and even the earliest movements of
our moral and spiritual life would have found their
ideal expression in Him. His relation to the Father
would, therefore, have been ours from the very first.
In the light of this original and ideal relation of the
Lord Jesus Christ to our race, can we discover any
relation between His Death and the Remission of our
sins ? I think we can.
I. On any theory of human redemption it is mo-
rally necessary that, on the part of those who have
sinned, there should be a real and frank consent to the
justice of the penalties from which redemption releases
them. While there is any resentment on our part
against the righteousness of the law by which we are
condemned, our antagonism to God, whose will is in-
I John i. 4,
422 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
separable from that law, remains. In the endeavour to
subdue this resentment, some men have passed through
protracted and convulsive struggles, and have confessed
at last that the resentment was still unsubdued. It
was easy for them to acknowledge that they had
sinned,- but there was an invincible recoil from yield-
ing a perfect moral consent and submission to the
righteousness of the penalties of their sins. We are
conscious that this consent and submission ought to be
given, and that so long as we shrink from it the con-
troversy between God and us cannot be closed. It is an
offence to resent the penalties of the eternal Law of
Righteousness, as well as to transgress its precepts.
That the penalties should be remitted while we recoil
from submitting to the authority of the awful principle
which they vindicate, seems morally impossible.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Moral Ruler of the
human race, instead of inflicting the penalties, has
submitted to them ; He has " died, the Just for the
unjust,'* and has been *' made a curse for us." This
supreme act becomes ours — not by formal imputation
— but through the law which constitutes His life the
original spring of our own. His eternal trust in the
Father, His eternal joy in the Father, His eternal love
for the Father, are the root of the trust and joy and
love of which we are conscious in the Divine presence.
In the strength of His trust we have faith in God ; in
the fulness of His joy we rejoice in God ; and the fires
of our love for God are kindled by the fervour of His
love for the Father, And when we are troubled by the
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race. 423
bitter remembrance of sin, and are almost crushed by
a sense of the magnitude of the just penalties of sin ;
when we are striving to humble ourselves before the
infinite justice of God, and to confess that were these
penalties to be inflicted on us, the Judge of all the earth
would do right ; we find in the Death of Christ the
perfect expression and fulfilment of that submission
which we know ought to be manifested by ourselves.
He did not merely confess our sin ; He did not merely
acknowledge that we deserved to suffer. He endured
the penalties of sin, and so made an actual sub-
mission to the authority and righteousness of the
principle which those penalties express. What we
had no force to do. He has done ; and through our
union with Him, His submission renders our sub-
mission possible. This is but a particular illustra-
tion of the universal law that the moral and spiritual
perfection of Christ is the ultimate root of our own
perfection. The act in which He submitted to the
righteousness of the law by which we were con-
demned, is the very life and vigour of the moral act
in which we in our turn make' the same submission ;
and the moral element which constitutes the signi-
ficance of our own act has already received in His, its
highest possible expression. His submission is, there-
fore, a ground on which our sins may be forgiven.
2. Through His Death, the relation of Christ to
the Father is no longer of a kind to render it untrue
to our relation to God. Sin had introduced an ele-
424 The Theory of the A tonement : [lect.
ment into our life which rendered it impossible,
except on the hypothesis of an amazing and in-
credible fiction, for the original relation of Christ
to the Father to continue to be the ideal of the
relation of the human race to God. In the presence of
God, and in the region to which the spiritual life of man
belongs, fictions can have no place. If, therefore, we
were still to be related to God through Christ, it would
seem to be necessary that there should be included in
His actual relation to the Father an expression of the
truth of that relation into which we had come through
sin. That expression is found in His Death.
He was forsaken of the Father, and He died. His
other sufferings were such as the innocent may endure
in serving the sinful and the wretched. On the cross
He submitted to the actual penalty of sin. I will not
say that it was necessary that He should submit to the
penalty of sin in order that our original and ideal re-
lation to God through Him should be preserved or
recovered, for I shrink from confident a priori specu-
lations on this great mystery ; and if I sometimes
speak of the impossibility of redemption apart from
the Death of Christ, I only mean that by His Death
He has accomplished what we are unable to imagine
could have been accomplished in any other way.
Had He simply made a confession of sin in our
name — the theory advocated by Dr. Macleod Camp-
bell in his very valuable treatise on the Atonement
— He would still have remained at a distance from the
actual relation to God in which we were involved by
X.] Relation of Christ to the Hitman Race. 425
sin. He has done more than this. By submitting to
the awful experience which forced from Him the ciy,
" My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " and
by the Death which followed. He made our real relation
to God His own, while retaining — and, in the very act
of submitting to the penalty of sin, revealing in the
highest form — the absolute perfection of His moral life
and the steadfastness of His eternal union with the
Father.
By His Death, therefore, Christ has rendered it pos-
sible for us, notwithstanding our sins, to retain or to
recover our original and ideal relation to God through
Him ; and since the loss of that relation was one of
the greatest penalties of sin, what Christ suffered
in order that our relation to God through Him might
be maintained or restored, may be justly described as
the ground on which our sins are remitted.
3. There is another way in which the Death of
our Lord Jesus Christ is related to our redemption.
I approach it with great hesitation, because it is in-
volved in great obscurity.
St. Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians,
has these remarkable words, "We thus judge, that if
one died for all, then all died."^ These words, if
they stood alone, might perhaps be fairly regarded
as a strong rhetorical statement of the effect which
ought to be produced on our hearts by the infinite
love of Christ in dying for us. It might be said
^ 2 Cor. V. 14.
426 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
that since He died for us, the greatness of His
love ought to dissolve all our relations to ** this pre-
sent evil world," and bind us in perfect and eternal
loyalty to Himself; that we ought to live as though
death had already separated us from the common
excitements and sorrows and triumphs of mankind ;
for us old things should have passed away, and all
things become new. But in several other of his
epistles he speaks of Christ's Death as though it
were a real event in our own history. In the Epistle
to the Romans ^ he rests two elaborate arguments on
what he takes for granted as known to those to whom
he is writing — the fact that Christ's Death was in some
sense their own death. He argues first, that having
died to sin in the Death of Christ, it is impossible
that we should continue to live in sin. Christ "died
unto sin once," and now He liveth unto God.* We also
died with Him, and in His resurrection we have risen
to a new life. He argues, secondly, that according to
a recognized principle of Jewish theology the Law has
no power over those who have passed into the life
beyond the grave, and that we, having died in Christ,
are therefore under the law no longer.^
The conception which is the foundation of these ar-
guments, and which he assumes to be a recognized
element of Christian faith and consciousness, reap-
pears constantly in St. Paul's writings : it reappears
so frequently, and in such forms, that it cannot be
treated as being nothing more than a rhetorical repre-
» Rom. vi. vii. 2 jbid. vi. 10. 3 Note T.
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race, 427
sentation of the great moral effect which our belief in
the Death of Christ ought to have on our spirit and
character. It seems to have suggested the exhortation
of St. Peter, to which it is difficult to give a very exact
interpretation. " Forasmuch then as Christ hath suf-
fered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with
the same mind : for he that hath suffered in the flesh
hath ceased from sin ; that he no longer should live
the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men,
but to the will of God."'
In his Epistle to the Galatians St. Paul affirms that
he himself had thus died in Christ. ** I am crucified with
Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me."^ And many Christian persons have declared
that they are conscious that in the Death of Christ their
old and evil life perished.
It is far less difficult to apprehend the fact that we
live in the life of Christ, than the fact that we died
in His Death ; but the teaching of St. Paul seems
to be explicit. The destruction of evil within us is
the effect and fulfilment in ourselves of the mystery
of Christ's Death, as the development of our positive
holiness is the manifestation of the power of His life.
This is the Pauline doctrine, and I repeat that it has
been verified in the consciousness of large numbers of
Christian people. I accept this relation between the
Death of Christ and the death of our own evil self as a
fact, though I may be unable to offer any explanation
of it.
' I Pet. iv. I, 2. a GaL ii. 2a
428 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
The fact, however inexplicable, is of great significance.
The prayer of a devout Mahometan — "Give me first, O
Allah ! a death in which there is no life, and then a life
in which there is no death " — expresses a craving which
has been felt by all who have passed through the severer
moral and spiritual struggles which sometimes precede
the consciousness of restoration to God and victory
over sin. How many of us have cried, in the bitterness
of our despair, "There is no redemption possible to us.
We have waited for God, and He has not come to us."
We have meditated on His infinite glory and goodness,
and we have been unable to stir the stagnant affections
of our spiritual life. We have listened to fervent ap-
peals, to which the hearts of other men yielded, and we
remained unmoved. We have read what saints have
written of the blessedness of God's service, and have
not been constrained to serve Him. We have tried to
pray, and our prayers had no devotion in them. We
have thought of the agony of Gethsemane and the
desolation of the cross, but if we were touched for a
moment to penitence, and if for a moment it seemed as
though we were about to break away from our sins, and
to become the loyal servants of Christ, even the love of
Christ soon spent its strength, and we remained as cold
and undevout as before. " Would to God," we have
exclaimed, " that I could cease to be myself; that this
evil nature of mine could be destroyed, and leave nothing
of itself behind ; that I could die, if only I might have
a new life, with better instincts, diviner impulses — that
the passion, the sluggishness, the selfishness, the un-
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race. 429
belief, which seem to constitute my very self, could be
smitten with lightning from heaven, and perish, —
perish utterly, and perish for ever." Yes, the prayer of
the devout Mahometan expresses what has been the
innermost desire of innumerable hearts — " Give me a
death in which there is no life, and a life in which there
is no death."
The prayer receives its answer in Christ; in His Death
our sin dies, and in His life the very life of God is
made our own. How the Death of Christ effects the
destruction of our sin, we may be unable to tell.
Perhaps that great moral act by which Christ consented
to lose the consciousness of the Father's presence and
love — an act different in kind from any to which holy
beings, in their normal relation to God, can be called
— rendered it possible for us to sink to that complete
renunciation of self which is the condition of the perfect
Christian life ; for that renunciation is also unique, and
has no parallel in the normal development of a moral
creature. But it is enough that we know the fact that
in God's idea, and according to the law of the kingdom
of heaven, w^are crucified with Christ. Sometimes
through our union with Him sin may seem to perish
as by a sudden blow. More frequently it dies slowly —
dies as those died who were put to death by crucifixion.
The nails are driven through its hands ; it is tortured
with an unsatisfied thirst; there are convulsive struggles
which last long, and which show that vitality has not
gone out of it. It seems to perish at last by exhaustion.
But it is actually crucified, if only our union with
430 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
Christ is complete, and though it may still live, its
power over us is gone.
No assertion on God's part of the ill desert of sin,
no submission on our part to the justice of the penal-
ties of sin, could have made it morally possible for the
penalties of sin to be remitted in the absence of a
complete security for the disappearance of sin. This
moral security has been created by the sufferings of
Christ on the cross. The Death of Christ is the death
of sin. It is, therefore, a ground on which sin may be
forgiven.
The general outlines of that conception of the re-
lation of the Death of Christ to the Remission of sins
at which we have arrived may be stated in four pro-
positions. The first three have been illustrated in the
present Lecture ; the fourth was illustrated in the
preceding Lecture.
I. The Death of Christ is the objective ground on
which the sins of men are remitted, because it was an
act of submission to the righteous authority of the Law
by which the human race was condemned — a submission
by One from whom on various grounds the act of sub-
mission derived transcendent moral significance, and
because in consequence of the relation between Him
and us — His life being our own — His submission is the
expression of ours, and carries ours with it. He was
not our Representative in a sense which would imply
that because He submitted to the just authority by
which the penalties of sin are inflicted we are released
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race, 431
from the obligations of submission. The_s ujferin gs,
indeed, wergJHLiv that they might noti^be ours ; He
endured them, that we might escape from them. But
the moral act of Christ in submitting to those sufferings,
while it remains for ever alone in its unique and awful
grandeur, involves a similar moral act on the part of all
who have *' access " to God through Him.
A real submission to the righteousness of God in con-
demning us was necessary before the penalties of sin
could be remitted. This submission was made by
Christ ; it was made for us, on our behalf, in our name.
But we have a part in it. In a real and not merely a
technical sense the act is ours. It is ours because
through our relation to Him it has made possible to us,
though in an inferior form, a similar consent to the
righteousness of the penalties which we have deserved.
It is ours, for it is the transcendent expression and act
of that eternal life in which we live, and which is per-
petually revealed in our own character and history.
2. The Death of Christ is the objective ground on
which the sins of men are remitted, because it ren-
dered possible the retention or the recovery of our
original and ideal relation to God through Christ
which sin had dissolved, and the loss of which was
the supreme penalty of transgression.
3. The Death of Christ is the objective ground on
which the sins of men are remitted, because it involved
the actual destruction of sin in all those who through
faith recover their union with Him.
4. The Death of Christ is the objective ground on
432 The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
which the sins of men are remitted, because in His sub-
mission to the awful penalty of Sin, in order to preserve
or to restore our relations to the Father through Him,
there was a revelation of the righteousness of God,
which must otherwise have been revealed in the in-
fliction of the penalties of sin on the human race. He
endured the penalty instead of inflicting it.
That these four propositions include a complete
theory of the relation of the Death of Christ to the
remission of human sin, I am not so presumptuous as
to imagine. But if they can be sustained, they offer
some explanation of the great fact that the Death
of Christ did not merely manifest the infinite mercy
of God, but really effected reconciliation between God
and man.
I believe that the conception of the nature of the
Atonement which is contained in these propositions,
accounts, and accounts naturally, for all the various
expressions which are used by our Lord Himself and
His Apostles in describing the unique character and
the unique effects of His Death. Further, I believe that
this conception justifies those representations of the
Death of Christ, the substantial truth of which receives
strong confirmation from their general acceptance by
the Christian Church during eighteen centuries. V
The Death of Christ may be described as an Expia-
tion for sin, for it was a Divine act which renders the
punishment of sin unnecessary.
It was a Vicarious Death. He died " for us," *' for
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race, 433
our sins," ** in our stead." For the principle that we
deserved to suffer was asserted in His sufferings, that
it might not have to be asserted in ours. He was
forsaken of God, that we might not have to be
-> forsaken. He did not suffer that He might merely
share with us the penalties of our sin, but that the
penalties of our sin might be remitted.
It was a Representative Death, the Death of One
whom the elder theologians were accustomed to
describe as the new Federal Head of the human
race, or of the Church. The technical language of
theologians obscured and even concealed the truth
which it was intended to express. The Lord Jesus
Christ is in very truth, by the original law of the
universe, the Representative of mankind.
It may be described as a Ransom — an act of God
by^ whkh jve^ are delivered or redeemed from the
cj.lamities which threatened us so long as we were
exposed to the punishment of sin, and by which we
are also delivered or redeemed from those moral and
spiritual evils from which there was no escape except
through the restoration to us of the life of God.
It was a Satisfaction to the righteousness of God, in
whatever sense the punishment of the guilty can be
spoken of as a Satisfaction to the righteousness of God.
It was a Sacrifice for sin — an acknowledgment, such
as we could never have made for ourselves, of the great-
ness of our guilt ; an actual submission on our behalf to
the penalty of guilt, and a confession that our very life
had been justly forfeited by our sins.
29
434 ^^^^ Theory of the Atonement : [lect.
It was a Propitiation for sin-^^a Propitiation origin-
ated and effected by God Himself, through which we
are brought into such relations to God, that all moral
reasons for withholding from us the remission of sins
disappear. As an act of submission to the righteous-
ness of the Law by which we were condemned, an
act done in our name, and ultimately carrying our
submission with it, it " has the property " — to quote
the formal definition of a Propitiation given by one
of our own theologians — *' of disposing, inclining, or
causing the judicial authority to admit the expiation ;
that is, to assent to it as a valid reason for pardoning
the offender."'
Or, to state what seems to me to be the complete
truth, the Death of Christ was a Propitiation for the
sins of men because it was a revelation of the righteous-
ness of God on the ground of which He can remit the
penalties of sin ; because it was an act of submission
to the justice of those penalties on behalf of mankind,
an act in which our own submission was really and
vitally included; and because it secured the destruction
of sin in all who through faith are restored to union
with Christ. It is, therefore, the supreme and irre-
sistible argument by which we can now sustain our
appeal to God's infinite mercy to grant us forgiveness
of sin and deliverance from the wrath to come.
'* God is great, and we know Him not." To this
confession we must come at last. We may know
^ Dr. Pye Smith.
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race, 435
enough to inspire us with perfect faith in His right-
'eousness and love, and even in this life " the pure in
heart " may see His face and find in His presence
"fulness of joy;" but when we know most, we can
only exclaim, " O the depth of the riches both of the
wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are
His judgments, and His ways past finding out ! " Even
if we think that some mysteries have been partially
disclosed to us, we often find that we cannot make
clear to others what has become clear to ourselves.
In the history of all who consecrate their chief thought
and strength to meditation on the ways of God to man,
there are times when mist and clouds which have hung
for years over fair provinces of truth are suddenly
broken and scattered by light from the upper heavens.
The vision we have long waited for has come at last,
and we think that we shall be able to'-relieve the
doubts and resolve the perplexities of many hearts.
But we speak, and what we most wanted to say is
unsaid ; we write, and are conscious that there is only
a precarious relation between our real thought and
what we have written. As " the heart knoweth its own
bitterness, neither doth a stranger intermeddle with its
joy," so it seems that our most vivid apprehensions of
truth must remain our own ; they can receive no precise
and adequate expression.
When we are depressed and discouraged by such
thoughts as these — conscious that we ourselves know
very little of the great principles and laws which we
are sure must be illustrated in the Death of Christ,
29 *
43^ The Theory of the Atonement: [lect.
and that what we know we are unable to make plain
to other men, it may be a relief to us to remember that
the triumphs of the Christian faith are won — not by the
symmetry and perfection of theological theories, but by
the great facts of the gospel. If it were otherwise — if
we could say nothing to any purpose of the infinite love
of Him who for us sinners and for our salvation ** was
made flesh and dwelt among us," because we cannot re-
solve the difficulties involved in the Incarnation; nothing
of that supernatural change without which no man can
** see the kingdom of God," because we cannot penetrate
the mysteries of the new birth; nothing of the glory,
honour, and immortal blessedness which are the inheri-
tance of all that are in Christ, because there are in-
numerable questions concerning the life beyond death
to which we can give no reply ; — we should have to
leave undischarged the most sacred duties to which
God has called the Church.
The power of the great Sacrifice for the sins of the
world lies in itself, and not in our explanations of it.
Even when the doctrine of the Church has been most
corrupt, the Death of Christ has continued to appeal to
the hearts of men with unique and all but irresistible
force.
For nearly two centuries the nations of western and
southern Europe were inspired with a common enthu-
siasm and a common purpose. Princes mortgaged
their kingdoms, nobles sold their lands, scholars de-
serted their books, the common people left their homes,
to join the armies of the Cross, and to rescue the Holy
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race, 437
Land from the infidel. The hearts of little children
caught fire, and they gathered in thousands and tried
to make their way across unknown countries, through
dark forests and over great rivers, to share the sanctity
and the glory of the enterprise. And what was the
supreme object of that romantic and heroic struggle ?
It was not to recover the site of the ruined cities in
which Christ had revealed His beneficent and super-
natural power, healing the sick, giving sight to the
blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb, —
nor the village on the eastern slope of Olivet, in which
He had raised Lazarus from the dead, — nor the
mountain on which He was transfigured, — nor the
little town among the limestone hills of Galilee which
was the home of His childhood and His youth. The
sepulchre of Christ was dearer and more sacred to the
hearts of the crusaders than all the scenes of His living
ministry; and while that was in the hands of the
unbelievers, it seemed to them that Christendom was
faithless to the memory of its Lord. They were guilty
of shameful crimes ; but the whole movement is a
singular proof of the strange and mighty power of the
Death of Christ over the imagination and passions of
mankind. Nor can I doubt that in those vast armies,
whose covetousness, and treachery, and cruelty, and
lust made the Christian name infamous throughout
the East, there were multitudes of men of pure life
and noble temper, whose hearts had been inspired by
the Death of Christ with penitence and hope and im-
measurable gratitude ; and who, because they knew of
438 ^^^^ Theory of the Atonement: [leci.
no other way in which they could consecrate their
strength and valour to Christ's service, resolved to
rescue His sepulchre from dishonour.
In modern Jerusalem there isno more affecting sight
than that which is witnessed at every Easter festival in
the chapel erected over the spot on which, according to
the tradition both of the Eastern and of the Western
Church, the Saviour of mankind was crucified. Across
the marble floor, hour after hour, in endless succession,
pilgrims of many nations and of many tongues move
slowly on their knees, with streaming tears and every
manifestation of deep and reverential devotion ; and
when they reach the sacred rock in which they believe
that the cross was fixed, they cover it with passionate
kisses. The tradition is untrustworthy, the devotion
superstitious ; but who can tell what love and faith
and worship Christ may recognize in the hearts of
those who in this rude way are fulfilling His own
words, " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me" ?
Those prostrations, those tears, those vehement
demonstrations of affection and gratitude, are but
pathetic symbols of the invisible and nobler effects
which the power of the cross has produced in every
age and in every land. Its power is still unspent.
The cross is the very symbol of the infinite righteous-
ness and of the infinite love of God. It confirms the
severest condemnation which our consciences can ever
pronounce on our crimes; it reveals a mercy which
transcends all our hopes. The awful yet glorious
fact that the Son of God, the Creator of the heavens
X.] Relation of Christ to the Human Race. 439
and the earth, the Ruler and Judge of our race,
died a cruel death, that we might have the Remis-
sion of sins, will for ever thrill the hearts of men
with wonder and sorrow, with devout reverence and
great joy. The very first disciples that followed
Christ on earth, followed Him on the testimony
of the Baptist, ** Behold the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world;'* and when
long afterwards, heaven was revealed to one of the
two who received this testimony, the " new song "
which he heard from the saints who see the glory of
their Lord was this: — "Thou wast slain, and hast
redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;" and
he tells us that " ten thousand times ten thousand "
angels, and "thousands of thousands," prolonged the cry,
" Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power,
and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and
glory, and blessing ; " and still the rapture spread,
" and every creature which is in heaven and on earth,
and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all
that are in them," caught up the exulting strain, " say-
ing, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power be
unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto
the Lamb for ever and ever." For us, too, we trust
that some day heaven will be opened; and we trust
that all its glory will be ours — not in transient vision —
but as an everlasting inheritance.
Meanwhile, as we listen to the music and the
triumph of those lofty songs in which some day we
hope to join, let us entreat God so to reveal to us
440 The Theory of the Atonement, [lect. x.
the infinite love of Christ, through whose blood we
have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins, that it
may kindle in our hearts on earth the same fervent
and grateful enthusiasm with which it will inspire us
in heaven ; and let those of us who are called to the
ministry of the gospel resolve that henceforth, with
stronger faith and intenser earnestness, we will preach
*' Christ and Him crucified.'*
APPENDIX,
APPENDIX.
Note A. Page 3.
Cum suavissima de satisfactione Christi doctrina, prascipuum sit
salutis nostrae caput, fidei anchora, spei azylum, charitatis norma,
ut sancte monet Athanasius ; atque adeo vera Christianismi basis
pretiosissimumque Christianorum ksiixIj'Kiov ; qua salva et illius
structura constat, et istorum consolatio, et qua rursus vel eversa vel
corrupt^ totius religionis compagem luxatam et dissipatam ruere
necesse est : nihil antiquius divinae veritatis cultoribus esse debet,
quam ut accurato pensiretur examine, et in aperta luce coUocata, ab
omnibus agnosci, firmaque ex verbo dei fiducia constanter retineri
possit." I
Note B. Page 20.
Dr. Crawford, in his admirable volume on TAe Doctrine of
Holy Scripture Respecting the Atonement (Blackwood and Sons,
Edinburgh and London, 1871), has given a complete account of the
Scripture passages in which the various elements of the doctrine of
the Death of Christ appear. As I have attempted no such exhaus-
tive presentation of the usual Scripture argument for the Atone-
ment, and indeed have endeavoured to exhibit the argument in
altogether another form, it may be of service to many readers to have
an outline of Dr. Crawford's classification. I therefore give it,
with some slight changes of form, in this note.
I. Passages which Speak of Christ
(i) As dying for sinners.
" The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minis-
ter, and to give His life a ransom for many." 2
^ Francisci Turretini : De Satisfactions Christi Disputaiiones. Geneva,
1667, Opera, vol. iv. p. i. » Matt. xx. 28.
444 Appendix,
" This is My body which is given for you." ^
" This cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you." 2
" The bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the
life of the world." 3
" I am the good shepherd ; the good shepherd giveth his life
for the sheep .... I lay down My life for the sheep. ... No man
taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power
(authority) to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This
commandment have I received of My Father." 4
" This is My commandment, that ye love one another, as I have
loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends ." 5
" When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ
died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die :
yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But
God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us." ^
" He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us
all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things .? " 7
" If one died for all, then all died ; and He died for all, that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto
Him which died for them, and rose again." 8
" He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 9
" I am crucified with Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but
Christ liveth in me : and the hfe which I now live in the flesh I
live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Him-
self for me." ^^
" Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us." "
" Christ hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour." " Christ loved
the Church, and gave Himself for it." ^2
" God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation
by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us." ^3
* Luke xxii. 19. 2 Ibid xxii. 19, 20. 3 John vi. 51.
4 Ibid X. II, 15, 18. S Ibid xv. 12, 13. ^ Rom. v. 6-8.
7 Ibid, viii, 32. ^ 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. 9 Ibid. v. 21.
^° Gal. ii. 20. " Ibid. iii. 13. " Eph. v. 2, 25. ^3 i Thess. v. 9. 10.
Note B. 445
"There is one God, and one mediator between God and men,
he man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for us." ^
" Our Saviour Jesus Christ gave Himself for us, that He might
redeem us from all iniquity." 2
" We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour, who was made a
little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, that He by
the grace of God should taste death for every man." 3
" Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust,
that He might bring us to God." 4
" Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His
life for us." 5
(2) As suffering for sins.
" He was delivered for our offences."^
" God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." 7
" I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, that
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures." ^
" Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from
this present evil world." 9
" This man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever,
sat down on the right hand of God." ^°
" Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust." ^^
"He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for
our iniquities." " For the transgression of My people was
He stricken." 12
(3) As bearing our sins.
" Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." ^3
"Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the
tree." ^4
" The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." " By His
knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many ; for He shall
bear their iniquities. He was numbered with the transgressors,
and He bare the sin of many." ^5
(4) As being " made sin " a7id " 7nade a curse for us."
^ I Tim. ii. 5, 6. = xitus ii. 13, 14. 3 Heb. ii. 9
4 I Pet. ill. 18. s I John ill. 16. ^ Rom. iv. 25.
7 Ibid. viii. 3. * i Cor. xv. 3. 9 Gal. i. 4.
10 Heb. X. 12. " I Pet. iii. 18. " Isa. liii. 5, 8.
^3 Heb. ix. 28. ^4 I Pet. ii. 24. ^s Isa. liii. 6, 11, 12.
44^ Appendix.
" He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him," ^
" Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us."^
n. Passages which ascribe to the Death of Christ
(i) The removal and remission of sinSy and deliverance from
their penal cottsequences.
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world." 3
"Now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put
away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" 4
" This is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for
many for the remission of sins." 5
" The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." ^
" It behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third
day : and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached
in His name among all nations." 7
" Through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive
remission of sins." ^
"Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of
sins : and by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from
which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." 9
" He hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness ot sins, according
to the riches of His grace." ^o
"Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath
translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son : in whom we
have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins."i^
"Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His
own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His
Father ; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." ^^
"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of man be hfted up : that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the
world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever be-
^ 2 Cor. V. 21. = Gal. iii. 13. 3 John i. 29.
4 Heb, ix. 26. 5 Matt. xxvi. 28. ^ i John i. 7.
7 Luke xxiv. 46, 47. ^Acts x. 43, 9 Ibid. xiii. 38, 39.
^° Eph. i. 6, 7. " Col. i, 13, 14. " Rev. i. 5, 6.
Note B, 447
lieveth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting liie. For
God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world ; but
that the world through Him might be saved." ^
" God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by
our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us." ^
(2) Justification.
" By His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many ; for
He shall bear their iniquities." 3
" God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more, then, being now justi-
fied by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." 4
"Justified freely by the grace of God through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus : whom God hath set forth to be a propitia-
tion through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness,
. . . that He might be just, and the justifier of him who believeth
in Jesus." 5
(3) Redemption.
"The Son of man is come, not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." ^
" Feed the Church of God " (or of the Lord), " which He hath
purchased with His own blood." 7
"All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God ; being justi-
fied freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus : whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith
in His blood." 8
" Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price : therefore
glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." 9
" God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the
law, to redeem them that were under the law." ^°
" In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgive-
ness of sins." i^
"Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood
He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us." ^2
"Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and
* John iii. 14-17. "" i Thess. v. 9, 10. 3 Isa. liii. 11.
4 Rom. V. 8. 9. 5 Ibid, iii. 24-26. * Matt xx. 28.
7 Acts XX. 28. 8 Rom. iii. 23, 24. ' i Cor. vi. 19.
'^ Eph. i. 7. " Col. i. 14. " Heb. ix. 12.
44^ Appendix,
gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers ; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot." ^
*' Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood
out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." 2
(4) Reconciliation to God.
" If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the
death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved
by His life." 3
"And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." 4
"All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by
Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation ;
to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself
not imputing their trespasses unto them ; and hath committed
unto us the word of reconciliation." 5
" Reconciling both (Jews and Gentiles) unto God in one body
by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." ^
"And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your
mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of
His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblamable and
unreprovable in His sight." 7
III. Passages in which the Lord Jesus Christ is repre-
sented
(i) As a Propitiation for sin.
"And He is the propitiation for our sins : and not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world." ^
" Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us,
and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 9
" A merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God
to make reconciliation " (more properly, propitiation or expiation)
"for the sins of the people." ^0
" Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in
His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins." "
(2) As a Priest.
'^ I Pet. 1. 18, 19. 2 Rev. V. 9. 3 Rom. v. 10.
<Rom. V. II. 5 2 Cor. v. 18, 19. ^ Eph. ii. 16.
7 Col. i. 21, 22. 8 1 John ii. 2. 9 1 John iv. 10.
" Heb. ii. 17. " Rom. iii. 25.
Note B. 449
" The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for
ever after the order of Melchisedec." ^
" The high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus." ^
" A merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to
God." 3
" A high priest over the house of God." 4
" A great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the
Son of God." 5
" Such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, unde-
filed, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens." ^
(3) As a Representative.
'* Every high priest taken from among men is ordained /or men
in things pertaining to God." 7
" Surety of the better covenant." ^
" By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. . . . There-
fore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to con-
demnation ; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came
upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's dis-
obedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one
shall many be made righteous." 9
" Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits
of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came
also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so
in Christ shall all be made alive. . . . The first man Adam was
made a living soul ; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
. . . The first man is of the earth, earthy : the second man is
the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that
are earthy : and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are
heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we
shall also bear the image of the heavenly." ^°
IV. Passages WHICH Represent the Sufferings of Christ
(1) As ^^ sacri/icial."
Under this head, " Behold the Lamb of God," &c., should re-
appear. To these may be added —
^ i-'sa. ex. 4. • Heb. iii. t. 3 Ibid. ii. 17.
< Ibid. X. 21. 5 Ibid. iv. 14. * Ibid, vii, 26.
7 Ibid. V. I. 8 ibi(j vii 22. 9 Rom. v. 12, 18, 19.
" I Cor. XV. 20-22, 45-49.
30
450 Appendix,
" Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." ^
" Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given
Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God tor a sweet smell-
ing savour." 2
" These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have
washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day
and night in His temple : and He that sitteth on the throne shall
dwell among them." 3
"Almost all things are by the law purged with blood ; and with-
out shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore neces-
sary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified
with these ; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacri-
fices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places
made with hands, which are the figures of the true ; but into heaven
itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us : nor yet that
He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the
holy place every year with blood of others ; for then must He
often have suffered since the foundation of the world : but now
once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin
by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once
to die, but after this the judgment : so Christ was once offered to
bear the sins of many ; and unto them that look for Him shall He
appear the second time without sin unto salvation." 4
" Every priest standeth daily ministering, and offering often-
times the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But
this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat
down on the right hand of God ; from henceforth expecting till His
enemies be made His footstool. For by one offering He hath per-
fected for ever them that are sanctified." 5
V. Passages which connect our Lord's Sufferings with
His Intercession.
I Tim. ii. 5, 6 ; i John ii. i, 2 ; Rev. v. 6 ; already quoted, reappear,
and —
"He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him,
^ I Cor, V. 7, » Eph. v. ii. 3 Rev. vii. 14, 15.
4Heb. ix. 22-28. sibid. x, 11-14.
Note B. 451
and given Him a name which is above every name : that in the
name of Jesus (not at) every knee should bow." ^
VI. Passages which Represent the Mediation of Christ
(i) As procuring the gracious infiuence of the Holy Spirit.
"Jesus spake this of the Spirit, which they that beUeve on
Him should receive : for the Holy Ghost was not yet given ; because
that Jesus was not yet glorified." 2
"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." 3
" I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter,
that He may abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of ti-uth."4
"The Comforter, . . . whom I will send unto you from the
Father." 5
" The Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name." ^
" Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having
received of the Father the gift of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed
forth this, which ye now see and hear." 7
** Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us : (for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth
on a tree) : that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gen-
tiles through Jesus Christ ; that we might receive the promise of
the Spirit through faith." 8
" Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but accord-
ing to His mercy. He saved us, by the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy GhQst ; which He shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Saviour." 9
(2) As conferring all Christian graces which are fruits of the
Spirit.
"Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." ^o
" Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself, except it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, except ye
abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches : he that abideth
in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit : for with-
out Me ye can do nothing." ^^
^ Phil. ii. 8, 9, 10.
'John vii. 39. 3 Ibid. xvi. 7.
<Ibid. xiv. 16, 17.
5 Ibid. XV. 26. * Ibid. xiv. a^.
7Acts ii. 33.
8 Gal. iii. 13. 14 9 Titus iii. 5, 6.
'° John i
. 16.
"John XV 4, 5.
30 *
452 Appendix,
" 1 thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God
which is given you by Jesus Christ ; that in everything ye are en-
riched by Him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge ; even as the
testimony of Christ was confirmed in you : so that ye come behind
in no gift ." ^
" Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us
wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." 2
"Blesssd be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ : according as He hath chosen us in Him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame
before him in love." 3
" We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good
works." 4
" Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure
of the gift of Christ." 5
" In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye
are complete in Him."^
(3) As delivering us from the dominion of Satan.
" For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that He
might destroy the works of the devil ." 7
" Now is the judgment of this world : now shall the prince of
this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto me." ^
" He took part of flesh and blood, that through death He might
destroy Him that had the power of death, that is, the devil ; and
deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime sub-
ject to bondage." 9
" And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show
of them openly, triumphing over them in it." ^°
(4) As obtaining for us eternal life.
" The Son of man must be lifted up, that whosoever iDelieveth in
Him should not perish, but have eternal life." ^^
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word,
and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and
* I Cor. i. 4-7. ^ Ibid. i. 30. 3 Eph. i, 3, 4.
* Ibid. ii. 10. 5 Ibid. iv. 7, ^ Col. ii. 9, 10.
y I John iii. 8. ^ John xii. 31, 32. 9 Heb. ii. 14, 15.
»o Cr\, ii. IK. "John iii. 14, 15.
Note B. 453
shall not come into condemnation ; but is passed from death
unto life."^
" This is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth
the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life : and I
will raise him up at the last day." «
" Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath
everlasting life." 3
" I am the living bread that came down from heaven : if any man
eat of this bread, he shall live for ever : and the bread which I
shall give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 4
" My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me :
and I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." 5
" In My Father's house are many mansions : if it were not so, I
would have told you. I go to prepare 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." ^
" Father, the hour is come ; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also
may glorify thee : as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that
He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him." 7
" Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound : that as
sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." ^
" For the wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord." 9
" I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they may also ob-
tain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." ^°
" Being made perfect. He became the author of eternal salvation
unto all them that obey Him." "
" He is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of
death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the
old testament, they which are called might receive the promise
of eternal inheritance." ^^
" The God of all grace hath called us unto His eternal glory by
Christ Jesus. " ^3
* John V. 24. ' Ibid. vi. 40. 3 Ibid. vi. 47.
* Ibid. vi. 51. 5 Ibid. x. 27, 28. * Ibid. xiv. 2, 3.
7 Ibid. xvii. i, 2. ^ Rom. v. 20, 21. 9 Rom. vi. 23.
» 2 Tim. ii. 10. " Heb. v. 9. »= Ibid. ix. 15. *3 i Pet. v. 10.
454 Appendix.
" This is' the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and
this life is in His Son." ^
" Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of
our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." 2
VII. Passages which indicate the state of the Saviour's
Mind in the Prospect and in the Endurance of His
Sufferings.
" 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. "3
" I have a baptism to be baptised with ; and how am I straitened
till it be accomplished." 4
" Now is my soul troubled ; and what shall I say } Father, save
Me from this hour : but for this cause came I unto this hour." 5
" Then Jesus cometh 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 sorrowful, even unto death : tarry ye here,
and watch with Me. And He went a little farther, and fell on His
face, and prayed, saying, O My Father, if it be possible, let this
cup pass from Me : nevertheless, 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 in-
deed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the
second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not
pass away 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 away again, and prayed the third time,
saying the same words." ^
" My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.?" 7
VIII. Passages which speak of the Mediation of Christ
IN relation
(i) To the free calls andofers of the gospel.
^ I John V. II. »' Jude 21. 3 John x. T7, 18,
4 Luke xii. £0. 5 John xii. 2j. * Matt. xxvi. 36-44.
7 Matt, xxvii. 46.
Note B. 455
" J am the way, the truth, and the life : no man cometh unto the
Father, but by Me." ^
" Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is
Jesus Christ." 2
"There is one God, and one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus." 3
" Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other
name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be
saved." 4
(2) To /Ae necessity of faith in order to obtain the blessings of
the gospel.
"As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." 5
" He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that
believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son of God." ^
" He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that
believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God
abideth on him." 7
" Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life : he that cometh
to Me shall never hunger ; and he that believeth on Me shall never
thirst." 8
" Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of
sins : and by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from
which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." 9
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." ^o
" I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ : for it is the power
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." ^^
" Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without
the deeds of the law." "
*• Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ : by whom also we have access by faith into
this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of
God." 13
* John xiv. 6. » i Cor. iii. 11. 3 i Tim. ii. 5.
* Acts iv. 12. 5 John i. 13. * Ibid. iii. 18.
7 Ibid. iii. 36. 8 ibjd. vi. 35. 9 Acts xiii. 38, 39.
«> Ibid. xvi. 31. *» Rom. i. i6. » Ibid. iii. 28.
*3 Rom V. 12.
45 6 Appendix.
" Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that
beheveth." '
" In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor
uncircumcision ; but faith which worketh by love." 2
" By grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of your-
selves : it is the gift of God : not of works, lest any man should
boast." 3
IX. Passages which speak of the Mediatorial Work
AND Sufferings of Christ in relation
(i) To His covenant with the Father.
" I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the
will of Him that sent Me. And this is the Father's will that sent
Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but
should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of
Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and
believeth on Him, may have everlasting life." 4
" And the bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give
for the life of the world." 5
(2) To His union with believers.
" Abide in Me and I in you." ^
" If we have been planted together in the likeness of His death,
we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." 7
" Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." ^
" I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but
Christ liveth in me : and the life which I now live in the flesh I live
by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself
for me." 9
" Quickened together with Christ, and raised to sit together in
heavenly places in Christ." 1°
" That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and
the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His
death." "
" Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with
Him." ^2
'■ Rom. X. 4. • Gal. v. 6. 3 Eph. ii. 8, 9.
4 John vi. 38-40. 5 Ibid. vi. 51. ^ John xv, 4.
7 Rom. vi. 5. ^2 Cor. iv. 10. 9 Gal. ii. 20.
*° Eph. ii. 5, 6. " Phil. iii. 10. " Col. ii. 12.
Note B. 457
" Your life is hid with Christ in God." «
X. Passages which speak of the Death of Christ
(i) As a manifestation of the love of God.
" God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have ever-
lasting life."*
" God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us." 3
" He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for
us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things .-* " 4
"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because
that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might
live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that
He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 5
(2) K% furnishing an example of patience and resignation.
*' Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus, . . . who endured the cross, despising the shame. . . .
Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against
Himself, lest we be wearied and faint in our souls." ^
"If when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is
acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because
Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should
follow His steps." 7
" If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take
up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his
life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for Mysake, the
same shall save it."^
(3) As designed to pro?note our sanctification,
" For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be
sanctified through the truth." 9
" By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the
body of Jesus Christ once for all" ^o
"Jesus, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood,
suffered without the gate." ^^
"He died for all, that they which hve should not henceforth live
=■ Col. iii. 3. « John iii. 16. 3 Rom. v. 8.
< Ibid. viii. 32. 5 i John iv. 9, la * Heb. xii. 1-3.
^ I Pet. ii. 20, 21. s L^i^g j^. 23, 24. 9 John xvii. 19.
^^ Heb. X. 10. " Ibid. xiii. 12.
45 S Appendix,
unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose
again." I
"Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from
this present evil world." ^
" Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it; that He might
sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having
spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing j but that it should be holy and
without blemish." 3
" He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all
iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good
works." 4
" Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree,
that we, being dead to sins, might live unto righteousness." 5
Note C. Page 52.
The controversy on the testimony of the Baptist, " Behold the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," turns on two
points: — (i) What was the precise force of the testimony? (2)
How did John come to regard our Lord as the Lamb of God.-*
(i) That John described our Lord as the Lamb of God, because of
the patience and gentleness with which He would endure the evils
which were to come upon Him in fulfilling His mission — an inter-
pretation for which the names of Paulus, Gabler, Kuinol, and
Ewald, are alleged — is inconsistent with the critical words, " which
taketh away the sin of the world." There must be some relation
between the descriptive name which is given to Christ and the work
which is ascribed to Him. A lamb might very naturally be selected
as a symbol of meekness ; but why should Christ because of His
meekness be described as " taking away the sin of the world " ?
So interpreted, the testimony is not homogeneous. John had been
accustomed to describe our Lord as "mightier" than himself; had
he intended to say that the Christ, by the power of His teaching, or
of His character, or of the Spirit with which He would baptise men,
would deliver them from sin, there would surely have been a re-
» 2 Cor. V. 15. " Gal. i, 4. 3 Eph. v. 25-27.
4 Tit. ii. 14. 5 I Pet. ii. 24.
Note C. 459
assertion of our l^ordHs power ; hut power is not an idea associated
with a lamb. Moreover, whenever in other passages the Lord
Jesus Christ is described as a lamb by the sacred writers, when-
ever there is any comparison between Him and a lamb, it is on the
ground of His sacrificial death. It seems unreasonable, therefore?
to exclude the sacrificial idea from the testimony of the Baptist.
Old Testament usage is altogether against interpreting John as
meaning that our Lord — as a "lamb" — was to take away sin by His
moral and spiritual influence. In Exod. xxxiv. 7, we have d(paipufv
dvofiiag applied to God in the sense of removing sin in the way of
forgiveness. In i Sam. xv. 28, Saul appeals to Samuel and says,
" I pray thee pardon my sm " (dpov Srj to dfiaprrjixd fiov). In i Sam.
XXV. 28, Abigail, speaking to David, says, " I pray thee forgive the
trespass {dpov to dvoixriixa) of thine handmaid." If John the Baptist
did not mean that Christ was to lift up from the world the burden of
its sin by forgiving it — an inconceivable hypothesis when He is
described as " the Lamb of God," — John must have meant that He
would lift up the burden of sin by expiating it. The aipiav represents
the sbJ'D of the Old Testament. Had the Baptist followed the usage
of the LXX., which in passages where parts of Sti"'3 denote the bear-
ing of sin — /.<?., the bearing of its punishment — uses corresponding
parts of Xap^dvoj or (pepcj^ he would have failed to convey his precise
idea. He was not thinking so much of our Lord's taking our sins
upon Himself, as of His taking them from us. We might, however,
have used the participle of d^atpw, as the LXX. in Lev. x. 17. The
testimony includes the result as well as the act of expiation.
By the taking away of the sin of the world (6 atjowv Tr\v dfiapHav
Tov K6ap.ov) we must not understand that John meant simply that our
Lord was to bear the sin of the world. What h^ means is that
Christ was to take up the sin of the world to carry it away. The
burden that had been weighing on men so heavily, and which they
had no strength to bear, Christ was to lift up and remove. The sin
was laid upon the Sacrifice, in order to be removed from the sinner.
The sacrificial idea being conceded, there is still some uncertainty
as to the Baptist's meaning. It has been maintained by a long succes-
sion of authorities that St. John intended to describe our Lord as the
true Paschal Lamb. The probability of this interpretation would
be greatly strengthened if the suggestion of Bengel could be
defended, that a Feast of the Passover was near. It appears, how-
460 Appendix.
ever, that two days after the testimony was given our Lord was on
His way to Galilee.^ On " the third day " — whether after the testi-
mony now given, or after the conversation with Nathanael — He was
at Cana: "after that He went down to Capernaum," where He re-
mained for a short time. Then St. John tells us that as " the Jews'
Passover was at hand," Jesus went up to Jerusalem,^ and He seems
to have arrived there before the feast actually began. The time He
spent in Capernaum is doubtful, but had the Passover been near
when the Baptist gave his testimony, it does not seem probable that
our Lord would have gone northward to Galilee instead of south-
ward to Jerusalem. Hengstenberg 3 endeavours to make a strong
point of the fact that, while John the Baptist speaks of Christ as a
sin-offering, lambs were rarely offered as sin-offerings — the great
exception, as he contends, being the lamb of the Passover. That
the paschal lamb was a vicarious sacrifice, and that the Israelites,
in whose houses the paschal lamb had been slain, escaped the doom
which would otherwise have come upon them, is obvious ; but it is
not so clear that the paschal lamb was regarded as being in the
ordinary sense of the term an offering for sin, nor do I know that it
was so described in the Old Testament. In the ritual of the Pass-
over 4 there is nothing said about the confession of sins and the laying
the hands of the offerer upon the head of the victim, in order to
express the transfer of his sins to the sacrifice. Had the Baptist
spoken of Christ as the Lamb of God slain for the redemption of
the world, the allusion to the paschal lamb would have been
obvious : as it is, the allusion seems more than doubtful. Those
who listened to him could hardly have caught it.
Another interpretation, which is also supported by a strong array
of authorities, discovers in the testimony a reference to Isa. liii.
But had the Baptist intended to make a direct reference to this
great prophecy, it seems probable that he would have described
Christ — not as the Lamb of God — but as the Servant oi God. It is
true that in ver. 7 the Servant of God is described as being "brought
as a lamb to the slaughter ;" and it is added that " as a sheep before
her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth ;" but these are
incidental allusions. The prophet does not conceive of the great
* John i. 43, compared with John i. 35. 2 \\y^^ jj, i^.
3 CommeKtary on tke Gospel of St. John, vol. i. ^6.
4 Exod. xii. 21-28 ; Dect. xvi. 1-8
Note C. 461
Sufferer as a sacrificial lamb, but as " a man of sorrows and ac-
quainted with grief," who is not merely sacrificed, as were the
sacrificial victims, with as little pain as possible, but is " stricken,
. . . smitten, . . . afflicted, . . . wounded, . . . bruised : " " chas-
tisement" is inflicted upon Him, and He has to submit to " stripes/
The most natural theory seems to be that John had somehow
come to know that the sufferings of the Messiah predicted in the
Old Testament, sufferings to be endured because of our sins, were
to be endured by Christ, and were to be endured by Him in order
to "take away our sins ;" and that, wishing to describe Him as a
sacrifice for sin, John felt instinctively that among the sacrificial
victims the fittest symbol of the meek and gentle personality of our
Lord was the lamb.
2. But how did John come to think of our Lord as a sacrifice for
sin ? Very much has been written to show that the idea of a suffering
Messiah was not altogether foreign to Jewish thought in our Lord's
time, and that the idea that the death of saints may constitute an
expiation for the sins of the nation, is also to be discovered in un-
inspired Jewish literature.^ It seems, however, extremely doubtful
whether before our Lord's baptism John had any idea that the Christ
whose coming he had been commissioned to announce would atone
by His Death for the sins of men. In the earlier preaching of the
Baptist the Messiah is a Messiah of power and even of terror. He is
to baptise with the Holy Ghost ; He is to burn up the chaff with un-
quenchable fire ; the Baptist himself is not worthy to unloose the
strap of His sandal ; the Messiah is mightier than His forerunner.
After the baptism of our Lord John's testimony included new
elements. Among the rest, it included his description of Christ as
" the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." When
our Lord came to John to submit to baptism, John shrank from
administering it to Him. He had no sins to confess or to forsake —
why should He be baptised? Our Lord said, "Suffer it to be so
now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Is it un-
reasonable to suppose that after the baptism was over, John was
anxious to learn what Jesus meant by identifying Himself with the
extortionate publicans and the rapacious soldiery? Is it un-
reasonable to suppose that our Lord — who in submitting to the rite
» See HengSTENBERG : Christology of the Old Testament, vol. iv. 347-364 ;
Dr. Reynolds : John the Baptist, 374, 375.
462 Appendix,
of baptism, must have had what we may almost venture to describe
as a new consciousness of the terrible nature of the work He had
undertaken — told John that He had come to redeem the world
from sin by making the sin of the world, in some sense. His own.
However clear the meaning of such passages in the Old Testa-
ment as Isaiah liii. may seem to us ; whatever may have been the
speculations of Jewish Rabbis about a suffering and atoning Mes-
siah — a Messiah Ben Joseph, whose death was to be the condition
of the glorious triumphs of the Messiah Ben David,^ — or about the
atoning sufferings of the Messiah in Paradise before His appear-
ance on earth ; 2 or about the atonement which the Messiah was to
accomplish on earth while He was unknown, and befoie He
asserted His claims to the throne of David; 3 there is nothing in
the four Gospels, at least, to suggest that the idea had taken hold
of the popular mind ; and even our Lord's disciples, who knew of
John's testimony, do not seem to have apprehended the prediction
it contained of their Master's sufferings. Had the idea of a suffering
Christ been a really active element in the Jewish mind, it is difficult
to believe that after John had uttered such words as these, the
disciples should have failed to receive any deep impression from our
Lord's repeated references to His Death.
Note D. Page 60.
In A Treatise on the Physical Cause of the Death of Christy by
William Stroud, M.D.,4 the proof that our Lord's Death was
the immediate result of mental agony is elaborated with great
skill and learning. His theory is stated in the following paragraphs
at the commencement of part i. chap. 4 : —
"In the preceding chapter it is presumed to have been demon-
strated that neither the ordinary sufferings of crucifixion, nor the
wound inflicted by the soldier's spear, nor an unusual degree of
weakness, nor the interposition of supernatural influence, was the
immediate cause of the Saviour's Death. The first of these con-
ditions was inadequate, the second followed instead of preceding
^ See Hengstenberg: Christology, vol. iv. 357, seq. '^ Ibid. 362.
3 Ibid. 362. * London : Hamilton and Adams, 1847.
Note D. 463
the effect, and the third and the fourth had no existence. What
then, it will be asked, was the real cause ?
" In confoiTnity with the inductive principles announced at the
commencement of this inquiry, it must have been a known power
in nature, possessing the requisite efficacy, agreeing with all the
circumstances of the case, and by suitable tests proved to have
been present without counteraction. It will be the object of the
ensuing observations to show that the power in which these charac-
ters perfectly and exclusively concurred was AGONY OF mind, PRO-
DUCING RUPTURE OF THE HEART. To establish this conclusion
numerous details will be adduced, but the argument itself is short
and simple. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ endured mental
agony so intense, that had it not been limited by Divine inter-
position, it would probably have destroyed His life without the aid
of any other sufferings ; but having been thus mitigated, its effects
were confined to violent palpitation of the heart, accompanied with
bloody sweat. On the cross this agony was renewed, in conjunc-
tion with the ordinary sufferings incidental to that mode of
punishment ; and having at this time been allowed to proceed to
its utmost extremity without restraint, occasioned sudden death by
rupture of the heart, intimated by a discharge of blood and water
from His side, when it was afterwards pierced with a spear."
The doubts which have been thrown on the genuineness of Luke
xxii. 43, 44 (including the words, " His sweat was as it were great
drops of blood falling down to the ground ") do not affect the force
of the general argument.
Although for many years Dr. Stroud's argument had seemed to
me perfectly conclusive, I was glad to have it confirmed by the
singularly interesting letters from high medical authorities appended
to Dr. Hanna's Last Day of our Lord's Passiott. ^
' Dr. James Begbie, Fellow and late President of the Royal
College of Physicians of Edinburgh, writes : 2 "I cannot help
accepting as correct the explanation which Dr. Stroud rlas offered
— and which you have adopted, and so strikingly applied— of the
physical cause of the death of Christ, namely, rupture of the heart,
and consequent effusion of blood into the pericardium, the investing
sheath of that organ."
* Edinburgh : Edmonston and Douglas, seventeenth edition, 1868.
» Page 333.
464 Appendix,
Dr. J. Y. Simpson, Professor of Medicine and Midwifery in
the University of Edinburgh, regards the theory as having the
strongest probabihties in its favour. He says : ^ " Ever since
reading, some ten or twelve years ago, Dr. Stroud's remarkable
treatise On the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ, I have been
strongly impressed with the belief that the views which he adopted
and maintained on this subject are fundamentally correct. Nor
has this opinion been in any way altered by a perusal of some later
observations published on the same question, both here and on the
Continent.
" That the immediate cause of the Death of our blessed Saviour
was — speaking medically — laceration or rupture of the heart,
is a doctrine in regard to which there can be no absolute cer-
tainty ; but, assuredly, in favour of it, there is a very high amount
of circumstantial probability." He adds : 2 " No medical jurist
would, in a court of law, venture to assert, from the mere symp-
toms preceding death, that a person had certainly died of
rupture of the heart. To obtain positive proof \}[i2X rupture of the
heart was the cause of death, a post-mortem examination of the
chest would be necessary. In ancient times such dissections were
not practised. But the details left regarding Christ's Death are
most strikingly peculiar in this respect, that they offer us the result
of a very rude dissection, as it were, by the gash made in His side
after death by the thrust of the Roman soldier's spear. The effect
of that wounding or piercing of the side was an escape of blood
and water, visible to the Apostle John, standing some distance off ;
and I do not believe that anything could possibly account for this
appearance as described by that Apostle, except a collection of
blood effused into the distended sac of the pericardium in con-
sequence of rupture of the heart, and afterwards separated, as is
usual with extravasated blood, into those two parts, viz., (i) cras-
samentum or red clot, and (2) watery serum. The subsequent
puncture from below of the distended pericardial sac would most
certainly, under such circumstances, lead to the immediate ejection
and escape of its sanguineous contents in the form of red clots of
blood and a stream of watery serum, exactly corresponding to that
description given in the sacred narrative, 'and forthwith came
there out blood and water,' an appearance which no other natural
event or mode of death can explain or account for."
* Pp- 335' 336. 3 Pp. 337. 338.
Note D. 465
The letter of Dr. John Struthers, Lecturer on Anatomy-
Surgeons' Hall, may be given at length.
"Dear Dr. Hanna, — I do not think that any intelligent medical
man will read Dr. Stroud's treatise On the Physical Cause of the
Death of Christy without being satisfied with the explanation.
No other hypothesis will satisfactorily explain the separate escape
of blood and water from a wound in that region, and all the
incidents attending the death of Christ are entirely accounted for
by the hypothesis of rupture of the heart, and the separation of
the watery and the red constituents of the blood within the dis-
tended pericardium, on the puncture of which they would escape
forcibly. The various cases of rupture of the heart from mental
emotion, with similar separation of the watery and the red parts
of the blood, collected by Dr. Stroud, and also his cases of bloody
sweat, form a body of extremely interesting illustration and proof,
and altogether the treatise is a monument of careful research and
cautious reasoning.
" To medical men it has a special additional value, as accounting
for incidents which force themselves upon the medical mind for
explanation. Those of my brethren who have not read Dr. Stroud's
book, must be much puzzled, as I was before I had read it, to
account for the escape of water after, and distinct from, blood, from
a wound in that part of the body — supposing the words ' blood
and water ' to be accepted literally, which there need be no hesita-
tion now in doing. Of course the rupture of the heart is in every
aspect the great point of interest, the escape of the blood and water
being of importance only as an incident which, having been seen,
requires explanation, and as further bearing on the previous rupture
of the heart.
" To all, Dr. Stroud's treatise must be interesting, not as raising
or gratifying curiosity, but as an intelligent explanation of the
incidents themselves, and, still more, as a new illustration of the
awful agony which our Redeemer must have suffered. I was in-
debted to you for first bringing Dr. Stroud's book under my notice,
and I have since repeatedly recommended it to the notice of my
medical friends and students. I find lately that the first edition is
now exhausted, and hope that it will not be long before a new
edition of so valuable a work makes its appearance. — Believe me
\\ith much respect, yours very sincerely, "John Struthers."
3^
466 Appendix,
Note E. Page 86.
For an extremely able and learned account of Jewish sacrifices,
see The Typology of Scripture,'^ by Patrick Fairbairn, D.D.
In The Jewish Temple and Christian Church ^ I have given
a sketch of the various kinds of Levitical sacrifices that had re-
lation to transgressions of the Jewish law, 3 and have discussed
their relation to the Idea of Atonement. In illustration of the
statement in the text that no sacrifices secured forgiveness for
specific moral offences, I extract two or three passages in which
the apparent exceptions to the rule are considered and explained.
" If a man had knowingly failed to bear testimony in a court of
law against men whom he knew to be justly accused of a crime, he
was required to confess his sin and to bring a lamb or a kid for a
sin-offering ; or, if he was poor, two turtle-doves or two young
pigeons, or a small quantity of fine flour ; and then his sin was to be
forgiven . The moral element in this case would generally be very
slight and insignificant. Desirable as it is that all who know any-
thing that would inculpate a guilty man should bear their testimony
at his trial, I suppose that there are many circumstances which
most of us would regard as morally releasing us from the obligation
to vo&nteer adverse evidence ; and many suppose that it was for
the neglect of this that the offering was to make atonement and
obtain pardon. But even if the law refers to the case of one who
has actually been a witness in court, but has been silent on what
would have demonstrated the guilt of the accused, the silence
would commonly be occasioned by natural affection, by friendship,
by generous compassion for the guilty ; and though a sin against
the State would, when morally considered, be a very slight offence,
the telling half the truth when a man had promised to tell all,
equivocation, falsehood, perjury, could not be cancelled by the
offering of a lamb, or by any offering at all. The concealment of
damaging evidence to which the provision of the law points, was
not an act of falsehood, but a want of adequate zeal for the inflic-
tion of just penalties on the guilty. If the man's repentance of his
omission was sufficient to lead him to confess and to provide the
^ Fourth edition. Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark, 1864. Vol. ii. 317-392.
2 Second edition. London : Hodder and Stoughton, 1871.
3 Pp. 186-204.
Note E. 467
sacrifice, his failure might well be forgiven. This law is an indica-
tion of the firmness and resoluteness with which the whole nation
was to unite in the administration of criminal justice, rather than of
any tendency in the Jewish law to relax moral obligations by
promising forgiveness, on the bare ground of a ritual sacrifice, to
what we call sin.
" If a man had sworn an oath to do good or to do evil, the force
of which he did not at the time perceive, or which he was unable,
unwilling, or forbidden by the Divine law to perform, he had to
bring the same sin-offering as in the case last mentioned, and was
assured of forgiveness. Among ourselves, if a man 'pronounce
with his lips' words whose meaning and purpose he does not
apprehend, utters a vow in a state of intoxication, for instance,
utters it under some transitory delusion, utters it under the influ-
ence of deception practised upon him by others, it would not be
considered binding at all. His soul is under no obligation ; his
lips, not his will, have offended. But the Jewish lawgiver, solici-
tous for the sanctity of holy things, does not permit him to retreat
from his oath without acknowledging his involuntary error, and
bringing the appointed sacrifice : then he might retreat and be
forgiven. This cannot be regarded as a case of a moral offence
actually forgiven because a sacrifice has been offered."
Again : " If a man who had received property in trust was guilty
of fraud in relation to it ; or committed a fraud against his partner
in business ; or dishonestly kept lost property which he had found ;
or by an oath unjustly deprived another of property ; or, finally, by
any deception, or by any high-handed wrong-doing, enriched him-
self at another's expense, he was to bring a trespass-offering and
restore the property, adding to it a fifth of its value, and the sin was
to be forgiven. It is rather startling to find that actual pardon was
promised for crimes like these upon making compensation and
bringing the sacrifice ; but a little consideration may perhaps
diminish the surprise. It is clear that the law did not apply to
those whose crimes had been detected by others, or could be
punished by public justice. Severer penalties than these were
inflicted by the magistrate. The thief, if brought before the public
tribunals, had to restore, according to circumstances, twofold, four-
fold, or fivefold what he had taken, or was sold into bondage.
Breach of trust, or denying the possession of property thit had
31*
468 Appendix,
been found, was punished by requiring the restitution of double its
value. But if a man guilty of any of these crimes had not been
brought before the magistrate, or, through defective testimony, or
judicial feebleness or corruption, had escaped the penalty, this law
of the trespass-offering appealed to his conscience to make public
confession of his guilt, to implore God's pardon by sacrifice, and to
make adequate compensation to him who had been wronged. If
conscience responded to this appeal — if he was able to overcome
the natural shame which would prevent him from Dublicly acknow-
ledging his crime, if he restored the property, augmented by a fifth
of its value, his repentance might surely be accepted as genuine.
He could give no further proof of the reality of his sorrow than this
voluntary confession and voluntary restoration. He was therefore
assured of forgiveness.
" But this is not an instance of a crime being pardoned simply on
the ground of a sacrifice being offered. The consequences of the
crime were voluntarily and completely repaired ; a heavy pecuniary
penalty was voluntarily borne, and public shame was voluntarily
endured, in obedience to the Divine law. Nothing is said in the
rubric of the trespass-offering concerning the necessity of repent-
ance to make the sacrifice effectual ; the reality of the repentance
is naturally and justly taken for granted. The object of the law
was to encourage restitution when wrong had been done, and to
remind the wrong-doer that the Divine displeasure had to be
averted, as well as compensation given to the victim of injustice.
"There was one other case in which a trespass-offering was
required. If a man committed adultery with his slave, the crime
was not to be punished by the death of both, as was the law when
both were free ; but there was to be a scourging, not of the woman
only, as our version has it, but perhaps of both, or still more pro-
bably of the man only, and then he was to bring a trespass-offering
and to be forgiven. This assurance of pardon, apart from any
guarantee of repentance for a real crime, stands alone in the Jewish
law : its exceptional position would justify us, I think, in passing it
over in a general estimate of the efficacy and results of animal
sacrifice. Perhaps we ought to regard the provision as primarily
intended not to provide atonement and secure pardon, but as one
of the numerous arrangements by which the Mosaic system en-
deavoured to soften and to elevate the condition of the slave. It is
Note E. 469
clear that the relation of a master to his slaves involved the same
evils in the early ages of the world that it involves now ; and the
Jewish lawgiver, unable to break down the atrocious system by the
force of mere authority, so regulated it as to diminish its hard-
ships, and gradually to develop a recognition of the indestructible
right to personal freedom of every man who has not been guilty of
a crime. The scourging was the physical penalty of the offence ;
the trespass- offering reminded the wrong-doer that he had both
violated the rights of another and provoked the anger of God. But
the difficulty of this case I frankly admit.
" Speaking generally, neither sin-offering nor trespass-offering
could, when offered by an individual, assure forgiveness to the
guilty for any sins committed either against God or man. They
removed ceremonial defilement which had been unavoidably, in-
voluntarily, or unconsciously incurred ; but provided no atonement
and secured no pardon for intentional violation of even ceremonial
precepts. They gave rest to the conscience for unconscious trifling
with holy things, or neglecting to aid in the administration of
justice ; but provided no atonement and secured no pardon for
breaking solemn vows, or disregarding the sanctity of an oath.
They gave assurance of God's forgiveness when, through ignor-
ance, God's claims on property had not been satisfied, and this
only on condition that more was consecrated to Him on the dis-
covery of the offence than the law originally required ; but provided
no atonement and secured no pardon for intentional sacrilege. In
certain special cases of injustice they obtained God's mercy wher
the wrong had been actually undone by voluntary restitution to tht
injured, and the shame of public confession had been voluntarily
endured ; but provided no atonement and secured no pardon for
the innumerable sins against God or against man which cannot
actually be undone by subsequent acts of reparation. The only
moral offences which God forgave on the mere offering of a sacri-
fice, were offences freely acknowledged, offences not symbolically
but actually atoned for and cancelled by voluntary restitution.
God forgave only when by the voluntary act of the guilty the victim
of injustice no longer suffered from the crime. If, when a man had
told a lie, or committed a sensual sin, or intentionally neglected
any religious duty, he had been directed to procure a sacrifice — no
instruction, however clear, however authoritative, however solemn,
470 Appendix,
to the effect that apart from interior repentance and trust in the
Divine mercy the sacrifice would be unavailing, could have pre-
vented men coming to regard the mere ceremonial act as an easy-
means of blotting out the moral offence. Iniquity would have been
established by a law. The moral sense of the nation would have
been enfeebled and paralysed by the natural influence of its reli-
gious institutions."
The ceremonial of the great Day of Atonement is illustrated
on pages 196-201.
Note F. Page 91.
It would be worth while to trace the direct influence of Isaiah
liii. on the mind of our Lord Himself and of His first disciples.
St. Matthew ^ recognises in the miracles of our Lord the fulfilment
of Isaiah liii. 4. St. Mark 2 recognises in His crucifixion between
two thieves the fulfilment of Isaiah liii. 12. St. Luke 3 represents
our Lord as saying that " this that is written of Me must yet be
accomplished, And He was numbered among the transgressors." 4
St. John 5 finds in the unbelief of the Jews the fulfilment of
Isaiah liii. i. Philip ^ finds the eunuch reading Isaiah liii. 7,
and "he began at the same scripture, and preached unto him
Jesus." St. Paul 7 finds in, "Who hath believed our report .^"8
an anticipation of His own sorrowful experience — " They have not
all obeyed the gospel." In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, his
statement that " Christ died for our sins, according to the scrip-
tures," 9 looks like a direct allusion to Isaiah liii. 5, 6, 8. A passage
of some length in St. Peter 1° is partly a quotation and partly a
paraphrase ot Isaiah liii. 5, 6.
Note G. Page-92.
The Rev. Stopford Brooke, in the first of the two sermons
on the Atonement contained in his Freedom in the Church of Eng-
^ Matt. viii. 17. = Mark xv. 28. 3 Liike xxii. 37,
4 Isa. liii. 12. 5 John xii. 38. ^ Acts viii. 32.
'•' Rom. X. 16. ^ Isa. liii. i. 9 i Cor. xv. 3.
^° T. Pet, ii. 22-25.
Note G, 471
land, ^ has given an explanation of our Lord's cry on the cross,
which, if it could be sustained, would go far to invalidate the ar-
gument of Lectures ii. and iii. The explanation is of a kind to be
extremely attractive to many devout persons who shrink from the
expiatory theory of the Atonement.
Mr. Brooke begins by laying down the principle that " this ciy
of Christ's, as all His acts, was at once individual and universal ;
was the cry of a man and the cry of humanity." 2 As the " cry of
a man " — *' a personal utterance," he speaks of its exquisite truth to
human nature, 3 and calls special attention to " the way in which,
unconsciously, He identified His suffering with that of another
man," by making the words of an ancient Jewish psalmist the
expression of His sorrow. 4 As I find no clear explanation in the
earlier pages of the sermon of what it was that forced this personal
cry from our Lord, I am obliged to look for it later on, and in pages
38, 39, there is the following passage : " During those awful hours
Christ was, as perfect man, and sensitive in proportion to His perfect
humanity, face to face with death, and with death accompanied
with torture, with loneliness, with undeserved bitterness of enemies,
with the sense of wrong. It was impossible for Him not to realise
that that which had nailed Him there was the sinfulness of man.
It was impossible for Him not to feel that all this pain and misery
and death itself which He was suffering was caused on earth by
sin, and that these things were the judgment of God on account of
sin. But at the same time He must have also felt that He Him-
self was sinless. No consciousness of personal sin, no remorse
passed across His soul. He was suffering the natural penalties of
sin, and yet He knew that He did not deserve them, and feeling
this — feeling at one with God in spirit, and yet enduring the con-
sequences of man's evil — how could the cry help coming to His lips,
* My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? ' This was the
personal cry, and this we reverently suppose its cause."
I submit that the explanation is inadequate. If this is all, the
cry may be marked by its " exquisite truth to human nature," but
it is not true to the character of Christ or to the facts of the spi-
ritual universe. Could Christ have felt, even for a moment, that
the sufferings inflicted upon Him by the hands of lawless men, the
^ London : H, S. King and Co. Second edition, 1871.
» Page 30. 3 Page 31. •♦ Pp. 31, 32.
472 Appendix,
physical anguish of the cross, the public scorn to which he was
exposed, were in any sense the sign that God had forsaken Him ?
Had He not said to His disciples, "Blessed are ye when men shall
revile you and persecute ; . . . . rejoice and be exceeding glad,
for great is your reward in heaven : for so persecuted they the
prophets which were before you " ? ^ Had He not also told them
that the world would hate them as it hated Him ; and that in
hating Him men had hated the Father also? 2 It is true that
when great trouble has come upon a man, other men have been
very apt to suppose that the sufferer is the special object of God's
anger. But this is what Mr. Brooke, in his second semion on the
Atonement in the same volume, justly calls the world's "stupid
maxim." Mr. Brooke continues : " Suffering does not always
prove God's anger ; " 3 and Christ knew that His own suffering did
not prove God's anger. He knew it, on the cross, as perfectly as
He had ever known it. The world's " stupid maxim," which too
often perverts our thoughts of the sufferings of others, and
which sometimes perverts our thoughts of our own sufferings, had
no place in the mind and heart of Christ. Such an utterance as
that on the cross — had it been the result of the kind of suffering by
which, as a personal cry, Mr. Brooke accounts for it — would have
been altogether inconsistent with the normal character of our
Lord.
But the cry was also " the cry of humanity j " the cry of One who
" felt Himself then as the impersonation of the whole race, who
spoke to God and acted before God as the whole of humanity in
one man." 4 Mr. Brooke conceives Christ as passing through the
channel of His personal sorrow away from it altogether, and iden-
tifying Himself with the same sorrow as felt by all mankmd. What
men in all ages had felt when trials like His own had come upon
them, what, apart from Himself, men in all future ages would feel
under the strain of similar trials, came into the soul of Christ
through His intense sympathy with mankind. " Into the whole
sense of this vast human suffering, Christ, losing the consciousness
of Himself and of His own pain, through the intensity of His
sympathy with us, threw Himself — and so realising it as His
own, oftered it up to the pity and love of God, and cried, as the
^ Matt. V. II, 12. * John xv. 18-23.
3 Page 49. •♦ Page 35.
Note G, 473
expression of all this sorrow of mankind to God, * My God, My
God, why hast Thou forsaken Me, forsaken man ? ' " i
This is an intelligible hypothesis, but as it stands it is imper-
fect, and Mr. Brooke himself supplies its imperfection a page or
two later ; but in completing the hypothesis he destroys it. He
thinks it necessary, indeed, to qualify even this half of his theory
as soon as he has stated it. " We must carefully distinguish the
feeling of being forsaken from the reality." Man hdiS felt that he
was abandoned by God ; but in reality God has never abandoned
him. Christ, he alleges, recognised this, " even when by self-
forgetfulness he had thrown Himself completely into the feeling
of the race, and suffered through sympathy with its pain." Hence
He said, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me 1" Mr.
•Brooke describes these words as " a paradox."
I should prefer an interpretation of them which rendered it un-
necessary to regard them thus. The sense of the entire withdrawal
of the light and joy of God's presence, whatever its cause, whether
it was the psychological result, according to Mr. Brooke's theory,
of an intense sympathy with the feeling of having been forsaken by
God which had been the supreme sorrow of mankind, or whether
it was the direct result of an actual suspension of the free personal
manifestation of the Divine presence to the soul of Christ, is per-
fectly consistent with the continuance of that deep relationship to
God which no loss of the consciousness of God's presence could
destroy.
I object to Mr. Brooke's explanation because it makes our
Lord's cry unreal. According to this explanation, God had neither
forsaken Christ Himself, nor had God ever forsaken humanity ;
and therefore (i) the cry expresses, not what was really true of
Christ Himself, but only what through His sympathy with men
seemed for the moment to become true of Himself; and (2) the
feeling with which Christ sympathised was in itself false. Man
had felt that he was abandoned by God, but God had never really
abandoned him. Why should Christ have endorsed a false in-
ference which human weakness had drawn from the pain and
misery of human life ?
But Mr. Brooke perceived very clearly, that in affirming that
Christ had this deep sympathy with the suffering of the race, he
' Pp- 35 36.
474 Appendix,
was affirming only half the truth which is implicated in the con-
ception of our Lord as " the representative Man ; " and therefore
he completes the explanation by adding that Christ "realised
through His own Death the sense of the death and pain and woe
of all the world, and, with it, the Sin of all the world as their
cause. He lost all thought of self in awful realisation of the Sin
of the whole world." ^ But if so, how was it that He " cried to
God as the voice of all humanity, ' My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken Me, forsaken man ? ' " 2 Realising the sin of the
world, should we not have expected Christ to utter an acknowledg-
ment that God might justly forsake, or had justly forsaken, man .-*
On Mr. Brooke's conception of our Lord's relationship to the
race, it is absolutely necessary to conceive of our Lord as realising
on the cross the sins of men as well as their sorrows ; and if He
realised their sins, He must have had present to Him so vividly
the terrible cause of man's sense of separation from God, that the
cry becomes quite unintelhgible as the cry of the representative
of the race.
While unable to accept his explanation of these mysterious and
awful words, I am too thankful for every recognition of the real
objective value of our Lord's Death not to acknowledge that Mr.
Brooke's theory includes the objective element very distinctly,
though, as I venture to think, in an incomplete form.
The following passage 3 is practically a statement of that side
of the theory which I have endeavoured to illustrate in Lecture x.
" There in Christ all humanity was concentrated ; there all hu-
manity suffered and sacrificed itself; there all humanity recon-
ciled itself to God ; there God saw all humanity die to sin, and
reconciled Himself to it; there all humanity conquered death in
a last struggle with it ; there the whole race united itself to the
life of God, for Christ was not only a man. He was humanity-
All the past of mankind had brought Him to this hour ; all the
future of mankind was anticipated and held in Him in that hour ;
all the present of mankind centered in Him there."
* Page 60. The italics and capitals are not Mr. Brooke's.
2 Page 40. 3 Page 29.
Note H> 475
Note H. Page 129.
It is not quite clear that in any passage in the New Testament
the preposition vTrkp necessarily conveys the idea of substitution as
distinguished from the idea of representation. Representation,
indeed, in many cases implies substitution, but the two ideas are
not identical: practically, the representative may often be spoken
of as a substitute, but not always. When St. Paul says, " Now
then we are ambassadors for Christ {vTrkp xptarov), as though God
did beseech you by us : we pray you in Christ's stead (vnkp
XPtoTov) be ye reconciled to God," ^ he speaks of himself as
Christ's representative, and in representing Christ he takes Christ's
place. This is a case in which representation may be said
to include substitution. Christ does not "beseech," Paul does.
A-gain, when he writes to Philemon concerning Onesimus, " whom
I would have retained with me, that in thy stead (virep aov) he might
have ministered unto me," Onesimus is regarded as the representa-
tive of Philemon, and this involves the substitution of the service
of Philemon for that of Onesimus. Philemon cannot minister to
Paul ; Onesimus ministers in his place. But when St. Paul, writing
to the Cormthians, says, " The love of Christ constraineth us,
because we thus judged that [if] one died for all (vTrep ttolvtiov) then
all died," it is not clear that representation is equivalent to substi-
tution. For St. Paul's precise meaning seems to be, not that Christ
died in our stead, so that His Death takes the place of ours, and
renders it unnecessary for us to die — although when His Death is
considered under other aspects this is true — but that we died in
Him. If the idea of substitution as distinguished from represen-
tation had been in his mind, he would not have written " [if] one
died for all, then all died," but [if] one died for all, then all were
delivered from the necessity oj dying.
That vTzkp may be so used as to be practically equivalent to clvt'i,
is certain. It is so used in two of the passages which I have
just quoted, but it may be fairly contended that it is so used in the
New Testament only when representation necessarily carries with
it the idea of substitution. Its ordinary meaning is "on behalf
of," or " for the benefit of ;" and those passages in which Christ is
* 2 Cor. V. 20.
476 Appendix,
said to have died " for us " can only be alleged in support of the
vicarious or substitutionary character of His Death, because if His
Death had not that character, it is impossible to see how it could
have secured for us the kind of benefits attributed to it.
Winer gives among the meanings of inrep with the genitive, " For
the most part, one who acts on behalf of another, represents him.^
Hence vTrkp is sometimes nearly equivalent to avri instead, loco,
Phil. 13." 2 But in a note he adds, "Still, in doctrinal passages
relating to Christ's deaths it is not justifiable to render vTrep rjfiatv
and the like rigorously by " instead of," merely on account of such
parallel passages as Matt. xx. 28. 'Avri is the more definite of the
two prepositions. 'Yttsjo signifies merely /or, for men, for their
deliverance, leaving undetermined the precise sense in which
Christ died for them. 4
Meyer, discussing the force of v-rrkp in Rom. v. 6, says " that
Paul did not intend by vTrep to convey the meaning instead of, is
shown partly by the fact that while he indeed sometimes exchanges
it for the synonymous Trtpt'.s he does not once use instead of it the
unambiguous avTi, 6 which must nevertheless have suggested itself
to him most naturally ; and partly by the fact that with hithp as
well as with irtpi he puts not invariably the genitive of the person,
but sometimes that of the thmg (anapTiuiv), in which case it would be
impossible to explain the preposition by instead of. 7 It is true that
he has certainly regarded the Death of Jesus as an act furnishing the
satisfactio vicaria, as is clear from the fact ihat this bloody death
was accounted by him as an expiatory sacrifice.^ Comp. avriXvTpov
in I Tim. ii. 6 ; but in no passage has he expressed the substitu-
tionary relation through the preposition. On the contrary, his con-
stant conception is this: the sacrificial Death of Jesus, taking the
place of the punishment of men, and satisfying Divine justice,
took place as such in commodum {vrrep, Trepi) of men, or — which is
the same thing — on account of their sins {in gratiam), in order to
expiate them {-Trtpi, or vTcip dfiapTiCjv). This we hold against Flatt,
^ I Tim. ii. 6 ; 2 Cor. v. 15,
" See in particular, Eurip. Alcesi. 700 ; Thuc. i. 141 ; Polyb. iii. 76,
3 Gal. iii. 13 ; Rom. v. 6-8 ; xiv. 15 ; i Pet; iii. 18, etc.
* Wwl&xs Grammar of the New Testament Idiom. Masson's Trans, p. 401.
5 Gal. i, 4 ; like Matt, xxvi. 20 ; Mark xiv. 25.
fi Matt. XX. 28. 7 Rom. viii. 3 ; i Cor, xv. 3.
8 Rom. iii. 25 ; Eph. v. 2 ; Steiger on i Pet, p. 342, seq.
Note H. 477
Olshausen, Winzer, Reithmayr, Bisping, who take v-n-ep as loco.
That vTrep must at least be understood as loco in Gal. iii. 13 ; 2 Cor.
V. 14 (notwithstanding ver. 15) ; i Pet. iii. 18 (Riickert, Fritzsche,
Philippi), is not correct. ^
Dr. F. C. Baur, while recognising the fact that virsp by itself ^o^s
not carry >;he idea of substitution, goes very far beyond Meyer in
conceding or rather maintaining that the preposition may some-
times, and that it actually does, imply substitution. Dr. Crawford 2
gives the following extract from F. C, Baur's posthumous work: 3
" As the death of Christ in relation to God is an act of satisfaction.,
so in relation to man it is stibstitutionary {stellvertretend). That
Christ died v-Kip riii(hv, is the expression most commonly used by Paul
to indicate the significance of His Death for men. From the pre-
position vTzkp by itself, the notion of substitution cannot indeed be
inferred ; but just as little can the notion be excluded from it. The
two notions, that which was done for men, and that which was done
in their stead, pass over into each other. Among the many places
in which it is said of Christ that He died tia to. TrapaTrToJfxaTa Jifiwv,
or Trepi Tu)v afiapTiiov r'uxaiv, or virkp ToJv anapTio>v t'jfxuiv, 4 the passage in
2 Cor. V. 15 contains most distinctly the notion of substitution.
The Apostle draws from the proposition, etg virip ttclvtwv aTreOavev,
the immediate inference, apa oi Trdvreg ainOavov. Christ not merely
died for them, but also in their stead, as the one in the place of
many, — who, even because He died for them and in their stead,
did not themselves actually die, but are only regarded as dead in
Him their substitute. What happened to Christ happened objec-
tively to all. 5 The idea in this passage is that of a union of Christ
with us, effected by means of the principle of love [.?], in virtue of
which union, that which He has done for us is just the same as if we
had done it ourselves ; as He in His death has identified Himself
with us, and in dying for us has put Himself into our place, so we
must also think ourselves [?] into His place and regard ourselves as
^ Commentary on Epistle to Romans, Vol. i. p. 231. Edinburgh : T. & T.
Clark, 1873.
- The Doctrine of Holy Scripture respectifig the Atonement. Edinburgh and
London : Blackwood & Sons, 1871. Pp. 473, 474.
3 Neutestamentliche Theologie. Pp. 158, 159.
4 Rom. iv. 25 ; V. 6 ; viii. 3 ; Gal. i. 4 ; i Cor. xv. 3.
5 This seems a somewhat different conception of the passage from that in
the previous sentence, and it is a much truer conception. [R. W.D.J
478 Appendix,
dead with Him. This mutual oneness of being, in which the one
lives in the other, in which we are crucified with Christ, because
He was crucified for us, and we live in Him because He lives in
us,^ is the genuine Pauline notion of substitution. This, therefore,
is also the correct meaning of the preposition virtp. It is not the
vague general ' for,' which may stand in all possible relations, but
it expresses the inmost immediate entering (Eingehen) into
another, and putting oneself in his place."
Note I. Page 135.
No doubt St. Peter's thought, if it were fully developed, would
amount to this : — " You are falsely accused of committing sins ol
which you are innocent, and you suffer : it is better for you to sufter
for sins of which you are innocent, than for sins of which you are
guilty, for it was thus that Christ suffered." But the manner in
which this thought is expressed is not the less startling ; for
although in a previous sentence he had said, " They speak evil of
you as evil doers," and had spoken of the false accusations that
were brought against good men, the sentence immediately preceding
the phrase, " Christ also once suffered for sins " {kpIittov yap
dyaQoTTOiovvTag, d Q'tku to Oikrjfxa tov Gtou, Tracrxfi*', j) KraKOTroiouvras),
prepares us for some such sequence as on kuI xpioroc dyadoiroiujv
tiraOs. But to have written this, true as it is, would have been con-
trary to the Apostle's habit of thought.
Note J. Page 143.
I do not imagine that what is said on pages 140-143 is an ex-
haustive explanation of I Pet. i. 17-19. That the conception of the
whole passage is sacrificial, is obvious : the blood of Christ has the
power of the blood of " a lamb without spot," and had redeemed them
from their " vain conversation," But St. Peter doubtless believed
with St. Paul, and there are some intimations of it in this epistle —
that the Death of Christ was the death of sin. The heathen were
to yield themselves to God as those that were alive from the dead,
' Gal. ii. 20.
Note K, 479
because in the Death of Christ sin died. This, however, in no
way enfeebles — perhaps it strengthens — the force of the argu-
ment derived from this passage for an objective Atonement.
Note K. Page 163.
Cremer's articles^ on 'iXaaKOfiai and 'iXao-juoc, are extremely inter-
esting and able.
Dr. BUSHNELL, in his Vicarious Sacrijice,^ tries very hard to
eliminate the idea of Expiation from the Old Testament as well
as the New. In an article on The " Moral View " of the Atone-
menty which appeared in the British Quarterly Review, October,
1866, I endeavoured to reply to his argument. His first two points
are of inconsiderable importance, the rest appear to require dis-
cussion. I do not know that I have anything to add to the follow-
ing passages extracted from the article. 3
"Thirdly, he objects that 'the original of the word atone, or
7nake atonement, in the Hebrew Scriptures, carries no such idea of
expiation. It simply speaks of covering, or making cover for sin,
and is sufficiently answered by anything which removes it, hides it
from the sight, brings it into a state of reconciliation, where the
impeachment of it is gone. . . . Everything turns here, manifestly,
on the meaning of the original Hebrew word ; and as the root or
symbol of this word means simply to cover, we can see for ourselves
that while it might be applied as a figure, to denote a covering by
expiation, it can certainly as well and as naturally be applied to
anything which hides or takes away transgression." But if the
word is almost uniformly used in. a connection which shows that
the * covering ' was effected by ' expiation,' it is to no purpose to
urge that it can * as well and as naturally be applied to anything
which hides or takes away transgression.' Can he give us any
instance in which atonement can possibly mean the awakening of
repentance in the wrong-doer ?
" The true explanation of the word is that it means originally to
' cover ;' that in relation to sin it always means so to cover it as to
avert the penalty due to it ; and that this covering is almost always
"^ Biblico- Theological Lexicon.
* Page 425, seq. 3 Page 442, seq.
4S0 ^ Appendix .
effected by expiation. It is, without exception, an objective effect
that is said to be accomphshed by atonement.
" The fourth point is that ' atonements are accordingly said
to be made where the very idea of expiation is excluded, and
sometimes where there is in fact no sacrifice at all.'
*'He instances first the atonements which were made for the
sanctifying of the altar. The altar could not sin ; and, therefore, no
expiation could be made for its sin. But the ceremony of making
an atonement for the altar, and indeed for ' the holy place ' itself,
was repeated every year on the great Day of Atonement, and
the reason of the ceremony is given in Lev. xvi. 16 : ' He shall
make an atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness
of the children of Israel^ and because of their transgressions in all
their sins.' Kurtz gives a very just interpretation of the ritual
when he says that, ' having been erected in the midst of the sinful
nation, they might be regarded as having been contaminated and
defiled by the impurity of the atmosphere that surrounded them.'
The sanctification of the altar, ' in men's feeling,' was the result of
the atonement for the sins which had defiled it.
" The (5ther case, ' where expiation is excluded because there is
no sacrifice,' is that of the intercession of Moses, who, when the
people had sinned by making and worshipping the golden calf, said,
'Now I will go up unto the Lord, perad venture I shall make an
atonement for your sins.' No more fatal illustration could have
been alleged on behalf of the theory it is quoted to support.
"For (i), according to the 'moral view,' Moses should have
preached to the people, to bring them to a better mind : instead of
this, he went up into the mount, to pray to God. Plainly he must
have thought that the immediate object of atonement was not to
make men better, but to avert God's displeasure. (2) Did Dr.
Bushnell forget the sublime spirit of self-sacrifice which was in the
heart of the great legislator when he went back into the solitudes
of Sinai to meet God ? ' Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin,' he
exclaimed, ' and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book ;'
anticipating the passionate exclamation of St. Paul, ' I could wish
myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen accord-
ing to the flesh.' It is clear that the immediate purpose of Moses
was to obtain Divine pardon for the sins which the people had
already committed, not to keep them from sin in the time to come ;
Note K, 481
and it is even possible that when he spoke to them of ' atone-
ment/ he was meditating an appeal to God that he might himself
be punished in their stead. In any case, he was endeavouring to
* cover ' the sin ; not by leading the idolaters to repentance, but by
interposing something, — perhaps his own vicarious intercession
merely — between the anger of God and the guilt of the people.
" Fifthly, — ' It is a great point that expiations or expiatory sacri-
fices are certainly not offered where we should expect them to be, if
they are offered at all.' He instances again the case of the golden
calf, also the mutiny which followed the judgment of Korah, and
the reformations of Jonah and of Ezra. ' In all such cases,' he says,
* and they are many, we look for expiation, and do not find it ; and
what is quite as remarkable, there is no case to be found where
God's anger in a day of guilt and fear is placated, or ever attempted
to be, by a clearly expiatory sacrifice.'
" The reference to the popular discontent which followed the de-
struction of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, is singularly infelicitous.
' Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer and put fire thereon from
off" the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly into the congrega-
tion, and make an atonement for them.' Dr. Bushnell says, ' It is
never supposed that there is any such thing as expiation by in-
cense.' But (i) what was the object of the act which Moses sug-
gested ? To use Dr. Bushnell's language, ' no one supposes that it
was intended to touch the hearts of the people.' ' There is wrath
gone out from the Lord ; Ike plague is begim;^ and Aaron's direct
and sole purpose was to appeal to the Divine mercy, and to avert
the wrath against the whole nation, which threatened to ' consume
them as in a moment.' If there was no 'expiation,' there was
certainly not ' such a working on the bad mind of sin as ... .
reconciles it to God.' 'The effect' was not what Dr. Bushnell
declares the effect of atonement to be, ' wholly subjective, being
a change wrought in all the principles of life and character, and dis-
positions of the soul.' And (2) the fire is distinctly stated to have
been taken ^ from the altar.^ The burning incense was thus con-
nected with the ritual of expiation.
"It is, however, perfectly true that the Jewish law did not provide
for the expiation by sacrifice of definite moral offences, strictly so
called. This act of Aaron's stands alone, so far as we remember,
in Old Testament history. It was the natural impulse of a moment
32
483 Appendix,
of agony, and the spirit in which the appeal was made to the Divine
mercy was a reason for the Divine response to it : no such use
either of incense or of sacrifices was contemplated in the Levitical
institutions.
" We shall have occasion to speak of the great annual atone-
ment in reply to another passage in Dr. Bushnell's treatise ; but
apart from that ceremonial, prescribed for a particular day once a
year, the Jewish sacrifices did not profess to atone for violations of
the moral law. Only involuntary ceremonial offences, which were
but the symbols of real moral transgressions, could be expiated by
sacrifices which were but the symbols of the real atonement for
sin. Had it been otherwise, the worst and most fatal consequences
would have followed. If when an individual or the whole nation
had committed any moral offence, or intentionally violated any
ceremonial law, the Levitical system had provided a ritual of atone-
ment, nothing qould have prevented the external act from being
regarded as a means, divinely appointed, for cancelling the guilt.
No exhortations about the necessity of repentance would have any
practical effect. * The moral sense of the nation would have been
enfeebled and paralysed by the natural influence of its religious
institutions.' When, therefore. Dr. Bushnell says that ' expiatory
sacrifices are certainly not offered where he should expect them to
be,' he shows that he has failed to recognize a most remarkable
proof of the profound wisdom of the Mosaic legislation. In such
cases as he instances — cases of gross moral offences — expiatory
sacrifices were not offered, because they were not prescribed : to
have prescribed them would have been to inflict the gravest in-
jury on the moral life of the people.
" Sixthly — ' The requirement of the heart, as a condition necessary
to acceptance in the sacrifice, is a very strong presumptive evidence
that no idea of expiation belonged to sacrifice. At first, nothing
appears to be said of the spirit in which the offering is to be made,
though it is not to be supposed that it was ever accepted, in any
but a merely ritual and ceremonial sense, unless coupled uncon-
sciously or implicitly with a true feeling of repentance.'
" A closer investigation of the Jewish sacrificial system would
have led to the cancelling not only of these two sentences, but of
the four or five paragraphs which follow them. For (i) it is a fact
which any one may verify for himself, that though four books of the
Note K, 483
Pentateuch are almost filled with ritualistic laws, there is not a
single line to remind the man who brings a sin-offering to the
priest that its atoning efficacy will depend upon ' the spirit ' in
which the offering is made. (2) The offences which could be ex-
piated by sacrifices were not, generally speaking, such as could
be thought of * unconsciously or implicitly with a true feeling of
repentance ; ' and in the special cases in which acts of injustice
were atoned for by 'trespass-offerings,' the wrong had actually
been undone by voluntary restitution to the injured person, and
the shame of public confession had been voluntarily endured, be-
fore the sacrifice was presented. (3) The denunciations of the
prophets, directed against the hypocrisy and formalism of the
Jewish people, were not intended to show that ceremonial atone-
ments could not expiate involuntary ceremonial offences unless
there was aright 'spirit' in the offerer. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos,
and Micah insist upon the great moral duties which the nation
had neglected, denounce the moral offences of which the kings,
priests, and commonalty were guilty, and in the very spirit of the
ancient legislation maintain that no ritualistic services can com-
pensate for disobeying the moral law.
"A singular use is made of Saul's haste to offer sacrifices at the
commencement of his campaign against the Philistines, and his
sparing of the spoil taken from Agag.
" ' We find that Saul, an overgrown child of superstition, offers a
sacrifice on two several occasions in his own way, disregarding
God's appointed way, and even His special command. In t;he first
instance, because, in going to battle, he wants to " make supph-
cation to the Lord ;" and in the second, because, having gained
a victory, he wants to honour God in a grand ovation of sacrifice.
Whereupon Samuel meets him in sharp rebuke, saying, '* Hath
the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in
obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold (this appears to be an
already accepted proverb), to obey is better than sacrifice, and to
hearken than the fat of rams.' "
" Surely this does not prove that ' the spirit ' in which the offer-
ing was made was essential to whatever expiatory effect the sin-
offerings were supposed to produce. For (i) it is not said that
Saul offered or intended to offer any 'sin-offerings' at all. (2)
Saul committed, in the first instance, ^ moral offence in not
32-*
484 Appendix,
waiting till Samuel came. As Samuel had told the king to wait
for his coming, Saul was guilty of impatience and distrust by
precipitately offering the sacrifice before the prophet's arrival. It
was of the greatest importance that the first human monarch of
the elect nation should recognize God as the true mvisible King,
under whose authority he reigned
( ' ' Ere Saul they chose,
God was their king, and God they durst depose ") ;
but Saul was about to attack the Phihstines without the Divine
directions which Samuel would have given him. ' He disre-
garded/ as Dr. Bushnell says, ' God's special command,' and
did not merely fail to offer his sacrifices in the right ' spirit.' In
the second instance, Saul had already disobeyed ' the voice of the
Lord,' in preserving the spoil which he had been told to destroy.
Samuel does not condemn him for being about to sacrifice 'the
sheep and oxen,' without ' the requirement of the heart,' which
was ' a condition necessary to acceptance in the sacrifices,' but for
rebellion and ' stubbornness.'
" Dr. Bushnell's seventh point, that it was not the death, but the
blood, which was the significant element in the Jewish sacrifice,
and that as ' the blood is the Hfe, so it is life-giving ; a symbol of
God's inward purifying and regenerating baptism in the remission
of sins,' has already been answered. Even if it be true that this
was the meaning of the sprinkling of the blood of the victim, it
only shows that after the death had expiated guilt, and so averted
penalty, the removal of the interior pollution was still necessary.
" Eighthly — It is maintained that ' the passover sacrifice has cer-
tainly nothing of expiation in it,' and that as the ' Christian Supper
which commemorates our Lord's Death is the continuance of this
ceremony,' it is unlikely that the Death of Christ was expiatory.
This argument we can afford to let go : to discuss it, would carry
us far beyond the space to which the present article must be
limited ; but that there was an expiatory value in the blood of the
paschal lamb, is confessed by some who deny that it was properly
a sin-offering.
" Ninthly — Dr. Bushnell cannot believe that the sacrifices were
associated with 'notions of penal sanction for sin,' because all
' the most joyous and grandest ' religious festivals were ' cele-
brated in rivers of blood.' But (i) why should not the Jews rejoice
JSIote K. 485
when their sins had been atoned for ; and especially when by
' burnt-offerings,' between which and ' offerings for sin' Dr. Bushnell
makes no distinction, * they had surrendered themselves afresh to
God ' ? Nehemiah and Ezra checked the grief occasioned by the
reading of the law, and charged the people, at the very time they
were distressed by their long neglect, to ' go their way, eat the fat,
and drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom nothing
is provided.' (2) The day on which the annual atonement was
effected, was not a day of gladness ; there were no ' processions
of music and songs of praise ; ' but the people were to afflict their
souls.
" Finally, it is alleged that * where the rite of sacrifice bears a
look of expiation, and the instances are taken as facts of expiation,
a closer examination shows in every case that the impression is
not supported by the transaction.'
" The sacrifice of Job for his sins is the single historical example
on which Dr. Bushnell relies, and as we believe that in the ' burnt-
offerings ' of patriarchal times, the expiatory idea, if present at all,
was exceedingly obscure, we do not take any exception to the
paragraph in which it is contended that this was at most a suppli-
catory offering.
" We cannot extract, nor indeed is it necessary that we should,
Dr. Bushnell's account of the solemnities of the Day of Atonement.
A single paragraph in which, under the influence of the funda-
mental mistake of his whole argument, he implies that what is
intended to produce a moral effect upon man cannot at the same
time be expiatory before God, will adequately represent his account
of these remarkable ceremonies.
" ' We shall be struck in the review of them, no^ with any dis-
covery of an expiatory element^ but with the fact that everything
is ordered with such a manifestly artistic study and skill, to beget,
in minds too crude for the reflective modes of exercise, a whole
set of impressions answering to those of the Christian doctrine of
salvation, the holiness of God, the uncleanness and deep guilt of
sin, and the faith of God's forgiving mercy.'
" Expiation, as defined by Dr. Pye Smith, ' denotes anything that
may supply an adequate reason for exempting the crimmal from
the penalty due ; ' and it admits of proof that expiation was the
most conspicuous and sometimes the only idea of all the * sin-
486 Appendix.
offerings ' and ' trespass-offerings ' of the Mosaic legislation. The
subjective effect was secured by the presentation of an objective
atonement.
" Dr. Bushnell discovers no ' expiatory element ' in the service on
the great Day of Atonement ; but what was a Jew likely to dis-
cover in it .'^ If the ' moral view ' had been suggested to a devout
worshipper in the tabernacle or the temple, we can imagine him
giving some such reply as this : — ' What atonement is, I know.
More than once, ignorantly and unintentionally, I have broken the
precepts of the law, and when I discovered my offence, I was
troubled by fear of the Divine displeasure. I brought a kid of the
goats to the priest, and he offered it as a " sin-offering," — it was
an expiation for the transgression I did not mean to commit ; when
it was offered, my involuntary offence was blotted out. But I have
been guilty of sins innumerable, for which I could not offer any
expiation. For my ungoverned anger, for my selfishness, for my
want of pity for the poor, for the ingratitude of my heart to Jehovah
for all His goodness to me, the law permits me to bring no sacri-
fice. If my lesser offences can only be forgiven when the priest
has atoned for them, these greater sins must surely need atone-
ment too. My case is that of the whole nation. We have all
sinned and done wickedly ; and though we have expiated involun-
tary transgressions, for our worst crimes no expiation has been
made. But, year by year, we call to mind all our iniquities and
we " afflict our souls." We assemble before the holy place, and
sacrifices are slain for us all. They are called " sin-offerings," —
the very name which is given to the atonements for our inferior
transgressions of the law. We cannot indeed believe, that if one
man must bring a goat to expiate an unintentional breach of one
of God's lighter precepts, these two goats can expiate all the great
offences of which all the people have been guilty ; and yet these
two goats are also a " sin-offering." Over the head of one of them
the high priest confesses "all the iniquities of the children of
Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins." Surely I am
to think of the sacrifices offered for the nation as I think of the
sacrifices which I have offered for myself : when the annual atone-
ment is made, I may look to God to pardon me. God means me
to think of all my sins as expiated by the death of the goat that is
''slain, and as removed from me, " far as the east is from the west,"
Note K. 487
by the goat that is driven into the wilderness. No promise, in-
deed, is given that when the day is over all our iniquities shall be
forgiven ; and in this the law of the great Day of Atonement is
unlike the laws which direct us how to atone individually for our
ceremonial offences. The reason of the difference is plain, for in
other cases a full expiation is made : in this case there is only the
form of an expiation. But it is just because I see on this great
day what exactly corresponds to the common atonements for ce-
remonial transgressions, that I dare to trust in the Divine mercy,
and to hope that God will pardon all my sins. It is only a form ;
it has no real atoning power ; and this prevents me sometimes
from finding perfect peace. But God means that I should think of
my worst sins as expiated, and though sometimes " heart and flesh
fail" when I remember my transgressions, I will believe that He is
willing to forgive them all.'
" Our imaginary Jew's account is, we think, truer to the genius
of the Levitical institutions, and to the ritual of the Day of Atone-
ment itself, than Dr. Bushnell's ; nor would the Jew be at all per-
plexed by the suggestion that the goat ' by which the people are to
be personally cleansed themselves, suffers no death or dying pain at
all, as their substitute ; but having their sins all put upon his head
by the priest's confession, is turned loose alive, and driven off into
the wilderness, so to signify the deportation or clean removal of
their guiltiness.' It is expressly said that the ^zcjo goats consti-
tuted the sin-offering : they cannot be severed. The one is sent
off into the wilderness as a visible sign that the sins confessed over
him are utterly removed, because the other has first been put to
death.
" The idea of a real expiation cannot be separated from the sin-
offerings for individual and ceremonial offences ; the idea of a
symbolic expiation cannot be separated from the sacrifices annu-
ally offered for the sins of the whole people. The institutions of
Judaism, as well as the explicit teaching of Christ and the Apostles
protest against the theory of an Atonement from which the ex-
piatory idea is excluded." '
488 Appendix.
Note L. Page 196.
The question whether St. Paul had received a supernatural reve-
lation, which he was commissioned to make known to mankind,
and the question whether his writings are inspired, are quite dis-
tinct. Revelation and inspiration are very far from being identical.
The Jewish nation at Sinai received a revelation from heaven. To
the crowds that listened to the Sermon on the Mount, God Him-
self, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, directly revealed His
thought and will. But in neither case were those who received the
revelation " inspired." That inspiration is the condition of receiv-
ing certain forms of Divine revelation, is true ; but Divine revela-
tions are possible without it. Those persons to whom the theory of
inspiration is involved in great difficulty, and to whom the doctrine
that the writings of the New Testament are in any sense inspired
writings is especially perplexing, may perhaps find a temporary
foothold for faith in distinguishing between revelations which in
ways unknown to us may have been made to St. Paul and the
inspiration which is claimed for his epistles. In our times many
persons must find their way from doubt to faith by postponing the
question of inspiration until they have settled some other contro-
versies of more immediate interest. The question of inspiration is
one for those who have already arrived at a personal knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Saviour of mankind,
rather than for those who are still doubting whether He has a right
to claim the perfect homage and perfect trust of the human race.
The subject is discussed incidentally and popularly in T/ie
Ultimate Principles of Protestantism^^ by the author of these
Lectures.
Note M, 'Page 222.
The argument in Galatians iii. is immediately directed against
ihose who were looking to the Jewish law for justification, and the
point of it consists in the demonstration that the law, instead of
justifying men, revealed their sin, and declared that because of sin
they were under the curse ; Christ brought deliverance from the
* London : Hodder & Stoughton. 1874.
Note M. 489
curse by being made a curse for us. But it was not for the Jews
alone that Christ died ; nor did He die merely to exhaust the formal
penalty which avenged transgression of the Jewish law. The
Jewish constitution bore witness to the enduring order of the king-
dom of God. The moral precepts of the Jewish law were but the
temporary and imperfect expression of the precepts of that eternal
Law of Righteousness which can never receive adequate expression
in definite commandments ; and its penalties were the visible sym-
bols and prophecies of the final revelation of the righteous judgment
of God. The Death of Christ, while satisfying the merely external
conditions of the temporary law, also satisfied deeper and more
august necessities ; otherwise it could have had no universal or
lasting significance. Hence in this very epistle St. Paul writes that
Christ "gave Himself" — not merely for those transgressions which
were formally forbidden and formally condemned by the Jewish
law, but — " for our sins " — for our transgressions of that other and
higher law of which the Jewish law was but a shadow. And He
" gave himself for our sins " — not merely that He might redeem us
from a formal curse, but — " that He might deliver us from this pre-
sent evil world," ^ separating us now and for ever from that moral
chaos out of which no Divine order can arise, and which is ulti-
mately to perish. He effected this not merely by the moral and
spiritual forces which act directly on the heart and conscience, but
by giving Himself " for our sins." He endured the penalty of sin
for us, that He might lift us out of the " world," which was disor-
ganized by sin and exposed to the wrath of God. Later on in the
epistle the Apostle appropriates Christ's great act of self-sacrifice
to himself: He " loved me and gave Himself for me ; " 2 and later
still he expresses his sense of the infinite worth and power of the
Death of Christ, by exclaiming, " God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has
been crucified to me and I unto the world." 3 The recognition
of the unique function of the Death of Christ in human redemption
is a golden cord woven into the very texture of the epistle.
» Gal. i. 4. ' Ibid. ii. 20. 3 Ibid. vi. 14.
490 Appendix.
Note N. Page 235.
It would be difficult to find in any Christian commentator or
theologian a clearer and firmer apprehension of St. Paul's concep-
tion of Justification ai a single point than that which is given in a
very interesting treatise written by a Jewish rabbi at Leghorn. ^
St. Paul's doctrine of Justification is practically destructive of the
" moral theory" of the Atonement ; for if we were justified through
the Death of Christ only because the Death of Christ makes us better
men, the Pauline theory of Justification would have to be re-cast.
The following passages from Morale Juive et Morale Chretienne,'^
strengthen the argument in the text.
" Christians of every sect, of every party, of every shade, are
agreed on one point — that in the judgment of St. Paul, the great
lawgiver, the great moralist of Christianity, faith justifies without
works. . . . But the principle so stated appeared so confounding,
so opposed to the noblest instincts of the human heart, so contrary
to that emotional morality which Christianity preached, that it was
very soon limited and qualified. While Protestantism, true to
logic and to reason, boldly drew from the principle all that it
involves, and proclaimed that works of morality are useless and
pernicious, faith being the only condition of salvation, Catholi-
cism on the contrary, since it was ruled by an external, social
political authority, which is at once a government, an adminis-
trative system, and a police, shrunk with alarm from these revolu-
tionary conclusions, this moral licentiousness, and it understood
the " works " of St. Paul in their most restricted sense, that is to say,
as the works of the law, as Mosaic practices, and it declared against
the Protestants, in the Council of Trent, the necessity of good works.
This was a return to the ancient Hebraic morality, it was to contra-
dict at every point the Apostle of the Gentiles, it was to diminish
considerably the importance and efficacy of redemption.
" Thus you see Protestants use the same language against the
Catholics as Paul employs against the Pharisees and Judaizing
Christians, and they place the Catholics on the same level as the
Jews. ' The Catholic doctors^ said Mosheim, ^ confound the law
^ Morale Juive et Morale Chrdtlenne. Par E. Benamozegh. Paris. Michel
l.evy, 1867. 2 pp_ 48-53.
Note N. 491
ii'f//i the gospel^ and represent eternal happz7tess as the reward of
good works, ^ Is this the true meaning and the real intention of
St. Paul ? This is the ground upon which the great dispute between
the Catholics and Protestants began, as we have before said. For
ourselves, the doctrine of St. Paul is exactly that which reason and
independent criticism has ascribed to him by the mouth of Protes-
tants. The following passages and expressions of St. Paul are
explicit on this point. He gives us as an example of his principle,
Abraham, Abraham justified not by works, but by faith.^ Now
the works of Abraham, 'which are not weighed in the balance by
God,' according to St. Paul, were not, that I am aware of, the works
of the law, which was not yet given, but in the strictest sense moral
works — charity, justice, hospitality, the love of men, virtue, and mo-
notheism spread among the Gentiles. And yet Abraham was not
justified by his works, but simply by his faith. Would St. Paul
speak thus if he were thinking only of the works of the law .? Further,
I say that if the example chosen by Paul is one of the most con-
clusive, the phrases which accompany it, the consequences which
he draws from it, are in their turn not less decisive. ' For what
saith the scripture ? Abraham believed God, and it was counted
unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the re-
ward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.' ^ Here then every title
to recompense, every meritorious work, is declared worthless.
But this is not all. ' But to him that worketh not, but believeth
on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for right-
eousness.' 3 No doubt about his meaning is possible. Without
works, and however sinful, faith alone in Him who justifies the guilty
is sufficient for salvation. Do we desire more proof .-* Paul goes on
to say : " Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the
man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying,
Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are
covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute
sin." 4 That is to say, according to the meaning given by Paul to
these words of David, the grace of faith brings with it the pardon
of iniquities, the imputation ofrighteousness; and in Rom. iii. 26 the
ground of glorying is placed not in the law of works, but in the
law of faith. Likewise in the Epistle to the Galatians 5 we learn
^ Rom. iv. 1-4, 3 Ibid. iv. 3, 4. 3 ibid. iv. 5.
4 Ibid. iv. 6-8. 5 Gal. ii. 16.
492 Appendix,
that man is not justified by the works of the law (no distinc-
tion being made between different kinds of works), but solely by
faith in Jesus Christ. It is true that in the Epistle to the Romans ^
the Apostle declares that the law is not made void through
faith, but on the contrary it is established. It is also true that in
the Epistle to the Galatians^ he exhorts them not to sin; but it is
because in the first place he was imitating the language of the
Master, who saw in Christianity only what was spiritual and
eternal in the reality and substance of the ancient law; and,
further, because he was conscious himself of all the danger of
his principles, because he saw all the possible consequences,
and the immorality that might be introduced into the world
under the cover of proclaiming that faith is the sole virtue
which justifies. Again, I say, if he condemns immorality, if he is
not willing to accord all the liberty that faith admits of, it is for some
reason of expediency, and for some secondary consideration. For
we know very well that it is not in the name of truth, justice, and
absolute virtue, that Paul does not admit immorality under the
empire of faith ; but it is because faith, being perfectly able to
forgive all vice and crime, it would be very unfitting to make it a
party to sin, an instrument of evil, to make, as he says, Christ the
instrument of sin. See how far Christianity was obliged to descend
to find a support for morahty after having taken away from it its
ancient and natural foundation, the law."
Note O. Page 262.
To interpret 2 Cor, v. 19, as meaning that God in Christ was
subduing the hostihty of men, and so reconciling them to Himself,
is to force upon the words a sense which goes very far to destroy
the coherence of the whole passage in which they occur, and is to
disregard what may be described as the idiom of apostolic thought.
The phrase " not imputing to them their trespasses " is in direct
apposition to "God was reconciling the world to Himself" The
appeal, " Be ye reconciled to God," is based on the fact that God
had already reconciled Himself — as we should say — to mankind.
^ Rom. iii. 30. * ^ Gal. ii. 17.
Note O, 493
Our use of the word misleads us. When we speak of a man being
" reconciled " to another, we always mean that the person who has
received a real or imaginary offence ceases to be angry with the
offender ; and so the Apostle's phrase, " God was reconciling the
world to Himself," naturally conveys the impression that God was
removing the antagonism with which the world regarded Him.
But KaraWdaauj really means the re-establishing of friendly relations
between those who have been antagonistic ; and it is by no means
implied that the antagonism exists in the person who is the direct
object of the active verb, or who, if the passive is used, is said to
be reconciled. This is very clear in the case of the cognate
SiaXkdaau) in Matt. v. 24. Our Lord supposes that a man who has
brought his gift to the altar remembers that his brother has some
cause of complaint against him : the man is to leave his gift before
the altar, and to go to his brother and " be reconciled " to him
{irpCJTov SiaXKdyrjOi r^ d^sX^^ aov). According to the idiom of our own
language, we should say that it is the man who has something
against his brother who must " be reconciled ; " but our Lord puts
it the other way. The man agaiiist whom his brother has a com-
plaint is to be " reconciled." For a man to " be reconciled " to
another may therefore mean — not the removal of antagonism on
his part — but the removal of antagonism on the part of the person
to whom he is reconciled. The word means, as I have said, the
re-establishment of friendly relations between persons who have
been at variance : on which side the antagonism exists is not to be
determined by the word itself or by its grammatical construction-
A may reconcile B to himself — ^not by the removal of the an-
tagonism of B : there may be no antagonism in B to remove, and
the whole process may consist in the removal of A's own anta-
gonism. God reconciled the world to Himself— changed His rela-
tion of antagonism to the world into a relation of friendship — by
sending His Son "to be the propitiation for our sins.' His own
love for the world moved Him to do this ; but until He did it
there was antagonism, which, according to the apostolic thought,
would have ultimately issued in " wrath."
Cremer's articles on KaToKKdaaia and KaraWayri are very valu-
able, and he strongly supports the view contended for in this
note. He defines the word as meaning " to exchange ; then, like
biaWdacuv, KaraXXdcrcrw = avvaWdaaeiv = to reconcile, .... both
494 Appendix,
in onesided and mutual enmity. In the former case the context
must show on which side is the active enmity."^ The whole
article deserves careful study.
Note P. Page 262.
'' He made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin," — and was
morally incapable of knowing sin [iirj yvovra afiapTiav) — " that we
might become the righteousness of God in Him." 2 it is illegiti-
mate to play fast and loose with the word "sin " in this passage,
and to say that in one clause it means *' sin," and in the other a
" sin-offering." When St. Paul says that Christ, who could have no
personal consciousness of sm, was made sin for us, the word
should be taken in the same sense in both clauses. But how was
it possible for God to make Christ sin for us ? Are we to suppose
that St. Paul meant that by a Divine fiction the sins of the world
were imputed to Christ, and that so by imputation He became a
sinner, and suffered in our stead .f* This is virtually to change
"sin" into "sinners," and is no more legitimate than to change
" sin " into " sin-offering." God made Christ " sin for us," not a
" sin-offering," not a " sinner." This is what St. Paul affirms. The
sentence is intensely rhetorical ; literally, it was impossible that
God should make Christ " sin." But the rhetoric stands for some-
thing, and it is our duty to try to find out the actual fact which
rendered possible such a conception of Christ's Death as this.
Great light is thrown on the whole passage by the closing words.
The ultimate end of Christ's redemptive work is that " we may be-
come the righteousness of God in [Christ]." Righteousness is
conceived — not as a mere quality of the redeemed, but as their
very substance and life. It is no longer separable from them, even
in idea. This is the consummation of our holiness. Had we not
been saved, sin would at last have become something more than a
mere quality of our nature ; it would have become our very self ;
it would have become inseparable from us, even in idea. Not
until there is a complete identification between the soul and sin,
does God finally abandon us. While our true self can in any way
^ Cremer : Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek. T. &
T. Clark. 1872. ^ 2 Cor. v. 21.
Notes Q, R. 495
be distinguished from the sin that is in us, He clings to us and
works for our redemption. When sin and self become inseparable,
then God deals with us as He deals with sin ; He cannot do other-
wise. He withdraws Himself from us, and His withdrawal is a
mortal blow — a blow which, on one theory of the future of the
impenitent, inflicts endless torment, which is what is commonly-
understood by " the second death ;" and which on another theory
inflicts agony so sharp and terrible, that it ends in the exhaustion
and destruction of the life of the soul. God made Christ sin for
us ; withdrew from Him, as He must otherwise have withdrawn
from us had we become sin, and this withdrawal brought with it
the Death which atoned for sin. This seems to have been St.
Paul's idea in this passage. I say again that the passage is in-
tensely rhetorical ; the conception is rhetorical as well as the
expression ; but what is of importance to the argument of these
Lectures, is that no such rhetorical conception of the Death of
Christ is possible to those who reject the vicarious or representative
theory of His sufferings.
Note Q. Page 290.
The idea of Merit, as distinguished from that of Satisfaction,
altogether obliterates the unique significance which Christ and His
Apostles attached to His Death. His act in humbling Himself to
become man was a moral act of infinite worth ; and on the hypo-
thesis that Atonement was effected by merit, the Incarnation — apart
from the Death of Christ — would have been a sufficient Atonement
for sin.
Note R. Page 319.
"It is not clear to us that either Dr. Bushnell or Dr. Young
believes in what is commonly understood by the Divine forgiveness.
Their theory of the constitution of the spiritual universe leaves no
place for it. ' In the very act, in the very moment of evil,'
according to Dr. Young, 'the real penalty descends irresistibly,
and in the very amount which is deserved. The sin insures,
because it is its own punishment.' ' Punishment or reward,
visible or invisible, or both, dispenses itself, and in the amount in
4q6 Appendix.
which either is merited.' This is surely 'rectilineal justice.' But
he also says, ' It can readily be shown that rectilineal justice, in
the sense of apportioning exact desert, neither less nor more, is not
an attribute of God at all' ' He does not need to be, and He is
not just, in the human, rectilineal sense at all."
" What, then, are we to believe ? Can the penalties of sin be re-
mitted, averted, or not ? Are we in the power of the ' spiritual
laws' which 'never slumber and are never defrauded for a
moment,' whose ' dire sanction ' ' there is no evading,' from whose
' retributive awards ' there is no escape, which infallibly and
inevitably dispense 'punishment or reward' 'in the amount in
which either is merited ' ? Or are we in the good hands of Him
who is ' more and better than merely just, and acts on the ground
of pure mercy ' ? ' Ever and ever,' says Dr. Young, elsewhere,
'justice inflicts an inevitable penalty, and expects the coinpletest
satisfaction.' And yet ' the whole course of the world, from the
creation till now, and the manifest system of Divine providence
towards the good and towards the bad, are right in the face of
rectilineal justice.
" Into such irreconcilable contradictions is an able man betrayed
when he constructs a theory which begins by affirming the inde-
pendent and immutable authority of the eternal Law of Righteous-
ness, and then denies the necessity of an Atonement as a condition
of Divine pardon. Abelard was more consistent. He rejected the
idea of expiation ; but he also maintained that the Divine will is
the fountain of moral law.
" A reconciliation of these apparently conflicting statements is
attempted in the following passage, which states very concisely
the theory of redemption which is off"ered to us in place of that
which is commonly received in the Church : — ' There is no such
attribute in God [as rectilineal justice]. But the inevitable punish-
ment of moral evil, always and everywhere, is certain nevertheless.
The justice of the universe, in this sense, is a tremendous fact, an
eternal and necessary fact, which even God could not set aside.
There is an irresistible, a real force, springing out of the essential
constitution, whereby sin punishes itself. This is the fixed law of
the moral universe, a law in perfect harmony with the eternal will,
and which never is, and never can be broken. God's mercy in our
Lord Jesus Christ does not in the least set aside this ju'5tice ; what
Note S. 497
it does is to remove and render non-existent the only ground on
which the claim of justice stands. Instead of arbitrarily withdraw-
ing the criminal from punishment, it destroys in his soul that evil
which is the only cause and reason of punishment, and which being
removed, punishment cease of itself."
" Again, we ask, Does God forgive ? Or does He simply change
the condition of a man so that he does not need forgiveness ?
" We further deny that Dr. Young is entitled to affirm that his
theory does not represent God as "arbitrarily withdrawing the
criminal from punishment." If sin is not merely " the only cause
and reason of punishment," but, as is elsewhere maintained, " its
own punishment," — the moral disorder and tendency to evil which
every act of transgression increases being the worst consequence
of disobeying the Divine precepts — is not the punishment, after all,
"arbitrarily withdrawn," if God by a supernatural interference
restores the harmony and purity of the soul "i
" No natural law was violated when, at the Divine word, Lazarus,
after he had been dead four days, left his sepulchre and came back
to Bethany ; for his resurrection was not an abnormal result of the
common forces of the universe whose regular action constitutes the
" order of nature ;" it was the immediate effect of a volition which is
above all natural law. But is the Divine will superior to the laws
of the spiritual universe? Does it move in a region where their
obligation does not bind? Is it absolutely free to dissolve the
connection between sin and its penalty? This passage of Dr.
Young's alleviates no difficulty and creates new confusion." '
Note S. Page 407.
" Not then because He was from the Father was He called the
First-born" [as from the Father He is called the Only-begotten\
"but because in Him the creation came to be ; and as before the
creation He was the Son, through whom was the creation, so also
before He was called the First-born of the whole creation, not the
less was the Word Himself with God, and the Word was God."^
" For it is evident to all, that neither for Himself, as being a
' British Quarterly Review, October, 1866, pp. 423-425.
=» Athanasius : Select Treatises, page 370. Translated by J. H. Newman.
Oxford, J. H. Parker. 1844.
49^ Appendix.
creature, nor as having any connection according to substance with
the whole creation, has He been called First-born of it ; but be-
cause the Word, when at the beginning He framed the creatures,
condescended to things generate, that it might be possible for them
to come to be. For they could not have endured His untemporal
nature, and His splendour from the Father, unless condescending
by the Father's love for man. He had supported them and taken
hold of them and brought them into substance ; and next because
by tfiis condescension of the Word, the creation, too, is made a
son through Him, that He might be in all respects First-born of
it," &c. I
Athanasius also speaks of Christ as the " Offspring from the
Father, in whom the whole creation is created and adopted into
sonship."2
In a note, Dr. Newman says Athanasius " considers that * first-
born ' is mainly a title connected with the Incarnation, and also
connected with our Lord's office at the creation .... In each eco-
nomy it has the same meaning ; it belongs to. Him as the type, idea,
or rule, on which the creature was made, or new-made, and the life
by which it is sustained." He also quotes Augustine as saying,
" Whatever God was about to make in the creature, was already in
the Word, nor would be in the things were it not in the Word."
To develop this idea of Christ's relation to the universe would
require a volume rather than a note. The creation of all things by
and in Christ appears to be the necessary postulate of a true con-
ception of the Incarnation ; and the theory of the Incarnation also
requires that man should be regarded as the crown and flower of
the creation — in whom, under Christ, the creation finds its com-
pletest expression.
Note T. Page 426.
The following passages from a Jewish Rabbi will be read with
interest. What he affirms is a fiction, is verified in the conscious-
ness of the Church : —
"The Hebraism of the Rabbis contained in its doctrine an idea
that was very natural, very common, which it was hardly necessary
^ Athanasius: Select Treatises, page 372. Translated by J. H. Newman.
Oxford, J. H. Parker. 1844. 2 ibjd, 413.
Note T, 499
to inculcate, but one which was needed to control some practices
touching man after his death. Already the Bible, and the Hebrew
prophets, greatly heightening the value of life, had said on in-
numerable occasions that the law, virtue, and God's commandments
end at the gates of the tomb, that the dead no longer praise the
Lord, that the sepulchre sends forth no hymn of gratitude ; pas-
sages which men have wished to interpret in a materialistic sense,
but on which, as we see, orthodox Hebraism put quite a different
meaning. Pharisaism formulated them in one general expression
the terms of which have a pecuhar importance for those who would
enter into the true meaning of very many passages in Christian
writers, and more especially in Paul.
" The Pharisees said : ' With the dead there is freedom ' (verse of
the Psalms). When a man dies he is freed from the command-
ments. Is it not incredible "i This is the one circle in which Paul's
words and thoughts incessantly turn, in a thousand passages where
the freedom of the dead is in question ; this is the origin, this the
ground of one of the boldest and most remarkable fictions that
have ever sprung from human imagination — a fiction, the effects of
which surpassed calculation. Paul would have the faithful identify
themselves with Christ, believe themselves condemned, crucified,
and dead in their flesh with Him. By virtue of this death which
they share with Him, they gain a freedom more precious than any
other, freedom from the Law. Will a man after death be still subject
to the Law? Can the Law stretch forth its sceptre beyond the tomb?
Can it exact from a dead man the fulfilment of its customs, rites,
and ceremonies ? Again, to touch upon another point which will
be raised in the words of Paul himself, what is the Kabbalistic
doctrine with regard to the expiation of original sin, spiritual
regeneration ? Does it not set forth the Law or death as the only
means of making amends for the first sin ? ' Then, said Paul, of
these two methods we have chosen the latter. We died, died com-
pletely with Jesus ; we are in Him, and He in us ; He died for the
whole world. He crucified in himself our sinful flesh ; He has ful-
filled all the law for us in dying on the cross.' Behold us then
returned, perfectly alive, into the precious freedom of spoiless
spirits, and no longer can a dead man be taxed with the non-
fulfilment of the Law. Have we exaggerated the ideas and expres-
si ms of Paul ? Hear what he himself says. ' Our flesh,' says he,
500 Appendix,
* is counted as dead if Christ be in us.' ' He that is dead is freed
from sin.' *
" But this is a far more important passage : * Know ye not brethren
for I speak to them that know the law ' — that is to say, to those
who are not ignorant of the Pharisaic ideas with reference to the
duration of its observance — ' how that the law hath dominion over
a man as long as he liveth } ' ^
" And after quoting the example of the woman who is free to
marry after the death of her husband,3 so, says he, my brethren, *ye
are also become dead to the law by the body of Christ ; that ye
should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the
dead.'4 ' For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which
were by the law, did work in our members ; 5 but now we are de-
livered from the law, having died [here we follow the more trust-
worthy rendering of Diodati] to that wherein we were held. * Nay
more, the sin of Adam, which, as the Kabbalists and Paul hold,
called forth the law, is expiated by the death of Jesus. * He dies
and is buried, and so are his disciples with Him.' ^ ' Our flesh has
been condemned to suffer for all in Jesus. There is therefore
now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the spirit. . . . For what the law could
not do' (give complete liberty, at the same time expiating the
old sin), ' in that it was weak in the flesh, God has done in sending
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin ; and He
has condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law
might be fulfilled in us.' 7
" We will not further multiply quotations. A mere perusal of
Paul's writings will make us better acquainted with the spirit which
dictated them than isolated fragments. But the most prominent
feature throughout is the strange abuse which is made there of
what is simply and solely a fiction, and the conclusion which is drawn
thence with a coolness almost incredible — the abolition of the Law.
But in this tomb wherein you would bury the Law, in this quiescence
which you demand in the dead, do you not see the death and an-
nihilation of something else too— even of morality itself.? Do you
not fear to see this " dead man " release himself from the restraints
I Rom. vi. 7. = Ibid. vii. 1. 3 Ibid. vii. 4.
* Ibid. vii. 5. 5 Ibid. vi. 7. * Ibid. vii. 4.
7 Ibid. viii. 1-4.
Note T, 501
of virtue and from moral obligations, as well as ceremonial ordi-
nances ? Do you not fear lest these members, which are said to be
completely dead and buried, should refuse to discharge the holiest
duties, and lest the spirit on returning into its native liberty should
imagine that there is no yoke to lay upon the flesh by which it is
surrounded, but which is already dead and crucified in Jesus ? But
the fiction goes further still : this believer, dead and buried with
Jesus, rises again with Him ; with Him our flesh too is considered
to have undergone resurrection. We died to the Law that we
might be another's, even His who has raised us from the dead ; and
Jesus, our brother, is the first-born of the dead. There is no room
here for doubt. For Jesus, and for His disciples after Him, the era
of the resurrection, the renovation of the world, the resurrection of
the dead, was just beginning, and for the successors of Jesus, it had
already commenced in their Master's person, in His body which had
risen from the tomb alive, and had become ' the first-born of the
dead.* But it is the resemblance to the doctrines then extant
that gives to this fiction its exceptional importance. What did
Resurrection mean for the Pharisees? Undoubtedly their con-
ception not only comprised the bodies of mankind called to a new
life, and endowed with greater perfection of powers and constitution,
but included also all nature in a universal renovation, in a
Palingenesis which was to change the world's outward semblance ;
and indeed the comparison of this doctrine, with its imitations in
ancient and modern times, would be a task both curious and in-
structive.
"Though unanimous on this point, the Pharisaic school was
divided as to the epoch of the era of the resurrection and its rela-
tion to the Messianic era. In the minds of the one party these two
eras were identical and united in one and the same epoch, and the
Messiah was not only destined to instal Israel in an era of pros-
perity, safety, and liberty, but also to give the signal for the renova-
tion and the regeneration of nature, in which the most solemn and
most startling phenomenon would be the resurrection of the body.
"Others believed that the course of events would be entirely
different. Throwing back to the furthest limits of finke ages the
era of the resurrection, they anticipated nothing in the advent of
the Messiah but a mere social transformation, in which nature's
laws would remain unimpaired, where life would go its ordinary
502 Appendix,
round : or, to sum up all in the formula of the text, ' Nothing will
change except slavery into freedom.'
" It is unnecessary to state to which of these two schools Chris-
tianity adheres. For it no difference, no interval, no distinction
between the Messianic era and that of the resurrection is possible,
and while the contrary doctrine definitely prevailed in Judaism, the
identity of the two epochs alone found support and sympathy in
the heart of Christianity. This prime difference gave rise to a
secondary one. Notwithstanding that the Pharisees extended to
its utmost limits the reign of the Law, they arrested its power at the
threshold of the resurrection. Corresponding to the complete
change which was to take place in the physical constitution, corres-
ponding to the new laws, created by new physical relations, which
were to govern the stars, the suns, and the worlds in their orbits, a
new Law, too, called into being by new social relations, was to super-
sede the ancient religious law. In this new world, on this new
earth, in the midst of new beings, and amid new relations, God's
thought, God's law, remaining still unchanged in essence, with the
very end that it might be permanent, would have varied in its
applications, just as it varies here on earth and in the actual uni-
verse, with different conditions, beings, and relations, according to
the world, sun, or star in which it acts.^
" Here lie the origin and the true meaning of that crowd of argu-
ments, propositions, and parables, where the idea of a new Law, of
a new covenant, of repealed prohibitions, breaks through images
and allegories, weapons with which Jewish orthodoxy has been so
unduly attacked, and which Christian polemics have incessantly
brought against the Rabbis. These were the same ideas which among
the Jewish Christians led them to affirm the abolition of the Law ;
just as, almost universally, everything which has subsequently be-
come a weapon in the hands of Christianity when estabhshed, was
a force and creative power in primitive Christianity. Nothing is
more simple, nothing more inevitable, after all that preceded, than
this abolition of the Law. In the mind of the first Christians the
era of the Messiah was absolutely identical with the era of the
' In the system of the doctors, especially of the Kabbalists, the Law governs
all worlds, from the most distant stars to the smallest atom. There is no star,
no world, no angel, which does not observe it, each in his own way. God
Himself is the chief observer of the Law.
Note T, 503
resurrection, and since the latter had already commenced with the
resurrection of Christ, the first-born of the dead, and the entire
Church was looking for the near and immediate destruction and
renovation of the world, the first conclusion that would be drawn
would be that the Law of Moses was about to give place to another
Law more in harmony with the semi-spiritual state of the new com-
munity. In vain was this expectation proved false day after day,
in vain did the real resurrection ever recede into the far distance,
in vain did impatience prey upon their hearts, as we see it did by
the Epistles. What matters it.? Substitute still, in place of the
true resurrection its shadow, its image, a resurrection entirely
imaginary ; teach that the believer, having died with Jesus, is
raised with Him, that the sovereignty of the resurrection and the
age of the Palingenesis have prevailed down from the resurrection
of Jesus, and the abolition of the Law can still make its way." ^
* E. Benamozegh : Morale Juive et Morale Chritienne. Paris, 1867. Pp.
62-70,
UNWIN BEOTHERS, THF GRESHAM PRESS, CHILWORTH AND tONDOV.
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW
AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS
WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE, THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $!.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.
'■ 'V 21
33
JumK
IW1S76
UCLA
U^fcftllBRAR' ^ '
t©M4
JAN 1 5 1979
Rti;. UK. rtAR — 5^97?
272568
V3
UNIVERSITY OP CALIFORNIA UBRARY