The Atonement

The death of Jesus was a strange and startling event. It was the grandest scene ever marked by the dial of time. If heaven was ever clothed in sackcloth,—if, since the first pulse of time angel choirs suspended their songs of praise, and in silent wonder leaned upon their golden harps, seeking to penetrate the secret depths of divine love,—if a ray of hope ever shot across the dark profound pit of woe,—it was when the deep wail, the agonizing cry of the suffering Son of God rent the air: “My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?” The interests of the moral universe hung upon that single event, and the result was a grand achievement. Then, for the first time in the long and varied history of our world, the whole Godhead, the full divinity, was revealed to earth and heaven; all the divine perfections flashed out in their transcendent splendor.

The sublime work of creation developed one phase of the attributes of power, wisdom, and goodness of the supreme Architect of the Universe; the Mosaic institute taught the infinite purity, justice, and truth of the great Jehovah; but God’s love, condescension, and mercy shone forth in all their grandeur and glory in the death of Jesus.

That “Christ died for our sins,” is that grand truth that lies at the foundation of the scheme of redemption. It is the sub-basis of human hope, the cardinal truth of divine revelation. It is “the sum of every message from God to man, the spirit of every promise, the mark of every prediction, the substance of every ceremony, the burden of every hymn.”

The atonement has been defined at-one-ment—the reconciling of God and man. It is the making at one, or that which makes at one, those who were not one. A breach had been made between God and man—man, as a subject of moral government, on probation. Man, by transgression, had separated himself from his rightful Sovereign. This breach the atonement made by Jesus Christ [158] is adapted to heal, and to restore man back to fellowship and communion with his God.

Notwithstanding man had sinned, and brought ruin upon himself, God still loved him, and was not willing that he should perish. But in order to his recovery from the thralldom of sin in which man had involved himself, conformity to the law of God, in heart and life, was necessary. In order to secure the end proposed—man’s holiness and happiness—it was necessary that this conformity should be perfect and perpetual. The law under which man as a sinner on probation was placed, was in itself right, and anything short of conformity to it would not have been right. Nor could man have become holy except by such conformity. Hence, God could not have required of him less than perfect and perpetual obedience. Such requirement was, moreover, necessary to the well-being of the intelligent universe also on trial. Had God connived at sin in man, it would have encouraged others to depart from the law given to them, and thus caused disorder and confusion, and crime in other departments of God’s vast empire.

“Law, in reference to moral actions, expresses the sense of the lawgiver as to what is right, and as to the value of right.” Hence God could not, consistently with honor and right, connive at sin, and take man back to fellowship with himself, unless his law was honored and justice satisfied. But why could he not? He is the supreme Ruler of the universe, and can do as he pleases, without being called to account for his actions by any one, and was, moreover, disposed to the exercise of compassion. Were God to exercise mercy, were he to forgive transgressors of his law without an atonement, it would indicate that his law was unjust, harsh, rigorous; that he had made unreasonable requisitions of man; that he had demanded more than was right, and that, consequently, man was not so much to blame; that the defect was in the law, and that blame attached more to the excessive demands of the law than to delinquent man. It would appear, moreover, that the law was not adapted to secure the end—man’s holiness; or, at least, that it could be secured by some other method, without disobedience to it. This would indicate that the divine procedure toward man was arbitrary, and, to say the least, unreasonable. [159]

Were God to remit sin without an atonement, it would imply that he is capricious, changeable, and that his law is not the mirror of his character, and that his moral attributes can not be learned by his word. Such a procedure would unsettle and throw into confusion and disorder the entire frame-work of the moral government of the world. Nay more; it would indicate that God’s law was not his will; that it does not express his sense of what is right, and the value of right; and that his will and his sense of right can not be learned and certainly ascertained from his law. It would, moreover, create doubt in regard to his law—whether it is holy, just, and good.

To forgive without an atonement would weaken God’s moral government, cast a shade of suspicion and doubt over the purity of and excellency of his character, and encourage others of his creatures to disregard his law. No intelligent being could consider his government as good, fixed, and durable. All would regard it as unsettled and doubtful. They could not feel reverence for his authority and respect for his laws. This would diminish, if it did not wholly quench their love and respect for the Lawgiver. But God intends that his entire procedure toward man shall “show to principalities and powers” throughout the universe; his “manifold wisdom,” his truth, his justice, and his purity, and convince all of his righteous judgments. He will not, he can not, consistently with honor and right, abate a single iota of the claims of his law upon man. They are founded in wisdom, holiness and love; they are as unchangeable as God himself, and must be honored. The law is as holy as God is holy, and is adapted to secure holiness in man. It can not be trampled upon with impunity.

II.

We do not suppose the atonement was based on a respite granted to man after his first sin; that God stayed the execution of the threatened penalty in view of the atonement. The penalty attached to the primal transgression was executed to the full. That penalty was death—death on the selfsame day of the transgression. The death threatened was separation from God. [160] Accordingly, the day man sinned he driven out of Paradise, and from the presence, favor, and communion with God. This, we take it, was the penalty threatened, and here we see its full execution. How long this separation should continue; whether the breach might be healed; whether man’s exile might terminate; whether a remedy might be found; whether man should wander forever an alien and outcast from God and happiness; these are questions concerning which that law was silent. They made no part of the law to the first pair. The penalty—the whole of it—was inflicted on the day of transgression, and with the infliction of the penalty, the law was satisfied. The remedial economy was instituted, not to avert the penalty of the first transgression, but to restore man back to God from whom he had revolted. It came to man after the penalty of the first transgression was fully executed. It met him when the first law left him. Had the penalty of the violated law been eternal,—had God told the first man, when he placed him under law, that if he violated that precept he should suffer eternal death,—that his separation from God, and happiness should be endless,—that would have been a total end of man’s probation. No room would have been allowed for the introduction of the remedial system. The race could not have been put a second time on trial. No mediator could have intervened; no atonement could have been accepted.

The first trial of moral agency had proved a total failure; and, consequently, that system of moral probation was abolished. The condition of things which supervened opened the way for the introduction of another system.

The race now stood in a new relation to God, and to the moral universe. They were in a state of absence from their Sovereign, and in a condition to become personally guilty of actual sin, which would drive them still further from God and happiness, without the slightest possibility or hope of a better or more favorable condition of things. In this state of despair and wretchedness hope beamed upon the race in the intimation that in process of time the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head.

God, in compassion, gave the race a new trial under new auspices. He inaugurated another system of probation every way [161] adapted to men in their lapsed state. God’s moral government over man continues, but its frame-work is changed—changed to suit the new state of things which had supervened to the apostasy. At the foundation of this remedial economy lies the atonement. It is, indeed, the sub- basis of the entire system; the means whereby God’s “banished be not expelled from him.”

III.

The atonement is an expedient introduced into the moral government of God, as the grounds and means of the restoration of apostate man to the favor and fellowship of God. It is provisional, and the benefits accruing from it are offered to man conditionally. No one can be saved through it, except by a voluntary compliance with the stipulations.

The sufferings of Christ were such, both in kind and degree, as were necessary to maintain the equity of the violated law, the dignity of the divine Lawgiver, respect for his person and character, the purity of his moral government, and to open a channel through which mercy might be extended to the guilty, who voluntarily comply with the stipulated conditions of salvation.

It was necessary, in the nature of things, that the person making atonement should himself be innocent; that he should be a person of distinction; that he should occupy a near relation to both parties—to the party offending and the party offended; that he should be a substitute—that he should substitute his person for the person of those for whom he makes the atonement, and that he substitute his suffering for their suffering. It is required, also, that this substitution be voluntary. The law of the divine economy requires, moreover, that the blood of the substitute should be shed in order to procure the actual remission of sins of such as may avail themselves of the provision made in their behalf. Finally, the substitute must be accepted on the part of God as the moral Governor of the world.

Our first business will be to inquire how far these requisites meet in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God. [162]

IV.

VI.

The Scriptures speak of Jesus in numerous places as the Son of God; and from many considerations, it is manifest that he is the Son of God in a peculiar sense; and those who believe in him at all, must believe him to be the Son of God in a far different and superior sense from that in which any other being can be so called. But in what sense is he the Son of God? This question, we think, may be settled, even by the testimony of his adversaries alone. While [164] he was on earth, his enemies charged him with “blasphemy,” as “making himself God;” “making himself equal with God.” The Jews sought the more to kill him, because he said, God was his Father; making himself equal with God. (John v., 18.) On another occasion, when he said, “I and the Father are one,” the Jews were about to stone him for blasphemy, “because (said they) thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” (John x., 33.)

It is clear that the Jews understood Jesus to teach that he was the Son of God in a peculiar and superior sense,—in a sense higher than could be justly claimed by mortals. They understood him to teach that he was the Son of God, in such a sense as to claim divine honor; in a sense that he who worshiped him worshiped the Father also. And upon his claiming honors due to God only, they adjudged him to be guilty of blasphemy against God; and, consequently, that he deserved to be put to death. But why?

The answer to this question is to be found in the law of Moses (Deut. xiii.), which forbade any to turn or entice the people away from the one true God, and to incite them to worship any other god. Any one who was guilty of this heinous offense was pronounced by the law guilty of blasphemy, and worthy of death. The same law required that he should be instantly put to death; and all the people were required to see that the sentence was duly executed. Such a one was guilty of blasphemy; and it was not proper that he should be suffered to live.

The Jews did unquestionably understand Jesus to claim divine honors; and so must every reader of the teachings of Jesus understand him. He claimed to be the Son of God in such a peculiar sense as to claim worship due to God only. When so charged by the Jews, he did not deny it. He reaffirmed it. This can not be questioned.

When Jesus stood before the high-priest, he was asked two questions: “Art thou the Christ?” and “Art thou the Son of God?” His answer to this last question, according to the Hebrew idiom is, “Thou hast said;” or, It is as you say. Immediately the high-priest rent his clothes, saying: “He has spoken [165] blasphemy; you have heard his blasphemy; what need we any further witness? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.” As soon as he acknowledged himself to be the Son of God, they immediately pronounced him guilty of blasphemy, i.e., seeking to lead the people to pay divine honor to another besides the true God. They convict him on his own testimony (having “heard of his own mouth”) of a crime which they afterward describe to Pilate, “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”

No candid reader can doubt, we think, that the Jews understood him to claim by that title a divine character. And he himself must have known that they so understood him. As little can it be doubted, therefore, that they must have rightly understood him. For he never corrected them. He never told them they had misunderstood him. By his silence he admitted the claim, and consented to die under that charge.

“The whole question, therefore, of his being rightly or wrongfully condemned, turns on the justness of that claim; on his having that character which the Jews understood him to assume. For if he was not such, and yet called himself the Son of God in that sense in which they understood the title, we are at a loss to see on what ground we can find fault with the sentence they pronounced. It does appear, therefore, that the whole question of Christ’s divine mission, and consequently the truth of Christianity and the efficacy of his death, turns on the claim which he so plainly appears to have made to divine honor for himself.”

Jesus, the Christ, then, is the Son of God; the brightness of his Father’s glory; the express image of his person. He claims divine honor, and all intelligences on earth and in heaven are required to honor him even as they honor the Father. Such is the matchless dignity, the transcendental glory, the peerless majesty of our great High-Priest.

VII.

Prior to his incarnation he was called “the Word of God.” As such, he existed from the beginning. The beginning! Ere the [166] first ray of light kissed the earth, or the morning stars sang in concert, or the first angel hymned the new creation, the Word was. He was before all things, and by him all things subsist. His hand fashioned them all for his own glory.

Revelation points us to a period long ere this world was created—to a time when the morning stars were begotten; when, like drops of dew from the fingers of the morning, stars and constellations fell trickling from the hand of God; when, by a word he launched forth ponderous orbs; when, with his own hand, he sent comets, like thunderbolts, wandering through space to find one day, in the lapse of ages, their proper sphere. We go back to years gone by, when worlds were made and systems fashioned, but we have not even approached the beginning yet. Until we go to the time when all the universe slept in the mind of God as yet unborn, until we enter the eternity where God the Creator lived alone, everything sleeping within him—all creation resting in his mighty, gigantic thought, we have not found the beginning. Yet “in the beginning was the Word.” When the unnavigated ether was yet unfanned by the wing of a single angel, when space was shoreless, when universal silence reigned, and not a voice or whisper shocked the solemnity of silence; when there was no being, and no motion, and no time, and naught but God himself alone in his own eternity; when, without the song of an angel, without the attendance of even the cherubim; long ere the living creatures were born, or the wheels of Jehovah’s chariot were finished, even then “was the Word.”

“The divinity of the person of the Son of God is indispensably necessary to the worth, the sufficiency, and efficacy of the atonement. The grandeur of his person preserved unsullied the public honor of God in treating with a daysman for sinners. It not only vindicated the character of the high party proposing reconciliation, but it magnified that character in the whole of the transaction. He is one high enough in rank and personal worth to draw public attention to this amazing expedient in the divine government.” [167]

VIII.

“A mediator for offenders puts himself in their place, and proposes to substitute some expedient instead of their punishment. This is the principle on which Christ has mediated for sinners. Thus did Paul in his interposition for Onesimus. He interceded with Philemon, as ‘being such a one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.’ The principle of substitution is recognized, owned, and acted upon by all men. Every victim that has ever bled on a sacrificial altar, every trouble and expense which it has cost a father to relieve and forgive an offending son, every instance of kindness shown to one for the sake of another, every instance of giving and taking hostages among nations, every honorable exercise of a government’s clemency toward offenders at the intercession of worthy characters, recognizes the principle of substitution.”

Persons who deny the substitution of the atonement of Christ, nevertheless recognize the principle of it by asserting that the repentance of a sinner is a sufficient reason for suspending his punishment; or, in other words, they assert that the repentance of the sinner is a satisfaction to the divine government, supplying to it an honorable ground for his acquittal, and, as such, to be substituted instead of his punishment.

Some persons object to the doctrine of the atonement because they suppose it represents God as changeable, placated and made merciful by the death of Christ. This, however, is an erroneous view of the subject. But the idea that pardon is bestowed upon the sinner in consequence of his repentance without an atonement, is attended with precisely the same difficulty, is involved in the same absurdity. It represents man as influencing God— “the finite, as controlling, by an act of repentance, the unchangeable self-determinations of the Infinite.” It represents God as being influenced by motives and occasions, and as subject to human feelings. But this view is attended with other evils. It tends to weaken our impression of the hatefulness of sin, and encourages indifference in the sinner, by the easy terms on which he [168] is promised forgiveness. It supposes that God is made placable and to be softened by repentance. And what moral fitness, we would ask, has repentance to do away with the guilt or punishment of a past transgression? In whatever degree that which deserves punishment is not punished, in that degree God’s justice is limited in its operation. But of this, more hereafter.

The substitution of Christ was twofold—the substitution of his person instead of the offenders; and a substitution of his sufferings instead of their punishment. Such a substitution implies no transfer of moral character, no commutation of delinquency and responsibility; the nature of things makes such a transfer and commutation impossible. This substitution also excludes the idea of a literal infliction upon the substitute of the identical penalty due to the offender.

The atonement of Christ did not consist in bearing the identical punishment threatened to the sinner. The letter of the law could not have reached the person of Christ with its penalty; for he had kept the whole law, and was honorably entitled to the life which it promised. Except in the single article of dying, there was scarcely anything in the sufferings of Christ the same as the penalty threatened in the law. There was no pang of remorse, no consciousness of demerit, no execration of the authority that inflicted the pains. On the contrary, there was in him a consciousness that he was just, and that the law did not curse him, and an assurance that God approved his sufferings, as obeying his will and doing his pleasure.

IX.

It is an established principle in the remedial constitution, that “without the shedding of blood there is no remission.” This was a part of the original law of pardon, and has been incorporated into the divine law of remission under every succeeding dispensation. God has been pleased to assign his reason for this arrangement.

When flesh was allowed for the food of man, God prohibited the eating of blood. “But the flesh, with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat.” (Gen. ix., 4.) The divine reason for this prohibition of blood, as an article of diet, is to be found in the design of the Lawgiver to attach to blood a peculiar sacredness from its uses in religious worship. This we find expressedly declared in Lev. xvii., 11: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” The full force of this language can not be appreciated without our bearing in mind that the original word for life and soul is the same; so that in saying the life of the flesh is in the blood, and that it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul (i.e., the life), it is virtually said that life goes for life in the great scheme of expiation. Accordingly, we find it prophetically affirmed of Christ, in undoubted allusion to this very language (Isaiah liii., 12), that he should pour out his soul unto death, i.e., should shed his vital blood or give his life. The same original Greek term occurs in John x., 11, 17: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” (See also Lev. xix., 26; Deut. xii., 23; 1 Sam. xiv., 34.)

If the foregoing positions be correct, and we see not how they can be gainsayed, it follows, [171]

1. That the death of Christ was not merely a martyrdom. If he died as a martyr-victim of the wrath of his enemies, and nothing more, then his death does not, any more than the death of Stephen, or any other martyr, procure the salvation of sinners. How is he, then, our Savior? By his example and teachings only. He is a Savior in no other and higher sense than the prophets and apostles were saviors. They taught the truth, and the most of them died for the truth which they taught, and were thus instrumental in bringing thousands to the knowledge and acknowledgment of the truth. And on this hypothesis Jesus did nothing more. Is Christ a Savior only because he preached the truth, and died as a witness for the truth? Then are Peter and Paul, and many others, saviors, for they did the same things; nay, they are greater saviors, for their ministry continued longer, and they were more successful in their labors. This is certainly a very degrading and unscriptural, if not an infidel, view of the death of the adorable Savior.

As a martyrdom, the death of Jesus was the least glorious of all the martyrs. Many of them went in triumph and exultation to the death. They even courted conflict with the last enemy, and hugged the martyr’s stake, and shouted victory in the flames. Jesus, on the contrary, shrank from the contest, and prayed, if it were possible, to be saved from the bitter draught. Hear his wail of woe in the garden of agony. See the tears of bloody sweat that gushed through every pore. Listen to his affecting cry upon the bloody cross: “My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?”

2. Nor was his death merely an example for our imitation. Many have met death with more firmness and greater composure; have been less agitated, less appalled at their approaching dissolution. The trepidation of Jesus is wholly inexplicable on the hypothesis that he died merely as an example for our imitation. Hear his exclamation in view of his approaching dissolution: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death.” This agony, which seems to be the most dreadful which he ever endured, was not inflicted by his enemies. Yet he says: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful.” Men may torture the body, but they [172] can not afflict the soul. But when we read that “his soul was made an offering for sin,” the whole secret of his agony is explained.

It is a distinguishing feature in the death of the martyrs, that they met their fate calmly, and even joyfully. Witness the death of Stephen. How heroic! He bends his knee in prayer; he sees heaven open; and wrapped in beatific vision, he prays for his murderers, commends his spirit to Jesus at the right hand of God, bows his head, and falls asleep! Hear the triumphant exclamation of Paul, who suffered martyrdom at Rome under Nero: “I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me in that day.” How different the emotions of Jesus in prospect of death! He is overpowered with mental agony. Why is this? Is he afraid to die? He sweats as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground. Why is he thus agitated and overwhelmed with agony? Why these emotions, if his was only a martyr-death? But “he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.” This explains it all, and fully accounts for his perturbation and agony.

XI.

“An atonement is a provision introduced into the administration of government, instead of the infliction of the punishment of an offender—any expedient that will justify a government in suspending the literal execution of the penalty threatened; any consideration that fills the place of punishment, and answers the purposes of government as effectually as the infliction of the penalty on the offender himself would; and which thus supplies to the government just, safe, and honorable grounds for offering and dispensing pardon to the offender.” “In the administration of a government an atonement means something that may justify the exercise of clemency and mercy without relaxing the bands of just authority. The head of a commonwealth, or the supreme organ of government, is not a private person, but a public officer. As a private person he may be inclined to do many things which the honor of his office forbids him to do. In order, therefore, to reconcile the exercise of his personal disposition and of his public function, some expedient must be found which will preserve the honor of his government in the exhibition of his clemency and favor. For want of such an expedient, a public organ of government must often withhold his favors. This principle is practically adopted every day in the discipline of children in a family, as well as in the civil administration of public justice. [174]

King Darius had issued a decree that no man should ask any petition of any being save the king himself, during the period of thirty days; and in the event that any should disregard the king’s decree, it was further decreed that he should be cast into a den of lions. Daniel, one of the children of the captivity, a Jew, threw open his window that looked toward Jerusalem, and three times a day prayed to his God. At the expiration of this period, the king’s ministers informed him against Daniel. The king’s heart was set on Daniel, and he labored all day till the going down of the sun to deliver him, but could not. Accordingly, Daniel was cast into the den of lions.

The king’s feelings were altogether favorable toward Daniel, and although he pondered and thought, still he could devise no expedient by which to save him. It may be asked: Could he not have pardoned him? We answer: As a private man he could, and would have done it; but as a king he could not without losing the respect of his subjects for his person, and weakening his government. Self-respect, the high regard he had for his government, and a desire to promote the good of his empire, prevented his pardoning Daniel; prevented him from doing the very thing which his heart inclined him to do. Could he not have repealed the law? Yes; but not with honor to the laws of the Medes and Persians. A repeal of the law would have manifested such fickleness in the king, and uncertainty in the administration of his government, as to encourage others to disregard the king’s decrees, and might lead presidents, princes and satraps to disaffection and treason. Although the king desired to save Daniel, he could devise no expedient by which he could do so consistently with his own honor, the dignity of his laws, and the safety of his empire.

Now, at the very point where Darius failed, God has succeeded; he has found a remedy, and that remedy is the atonement of Jesus Christ. This renders it both honorable and safe for God to pardon the penitent.

In illustration of this single point, we mention another incident recorded in profane history.

Zaleucus, king of the Locrians, to guard the virtue of his [175] subjects, had established a law against a particular crime, the penalty of which was that the offender should lose both his eyes. The first person found guilty of the offence was the king’s own son. While Zaleucus felt as a father toward his son, he had the feelings of a king toward his government. If he, as a father, forgave his son, his laws would not be respected by the rest of his subjects, and his public character would be rendered odious in his punishing any future offender. To repeal the law would be to brand his character with dishonor; for selfishness, in sacrificing the public good of a whole community to his private feelings; for weakness, in publishing a law whose penalty he could never inflict; and for foolishness, in introducing a law the bearings of which he had never contemplated. This would make his authority for the future a mere name, and his laws a nullity.

The case was a difficult one. Though he was an offended governor, he was also a compassionate and tender father. His mind was agitated with conflicting emotions. At the suggestion of love, he employed his wisdom to devise an expedient through the medium of which he would save his son, and yet magnify his law and make it honorable. The expedient was this: The king himself would lose one eye, and the offender should lose another. By this means the honor of his law was preserved unsullied, and the clemency of his heart was extended to the offender. Every subject in the government, when he heard of the king’s conduct, would feel assured that the king esteemed his law very highly; and though the offender did not suffer the entire penalty, yet the clemency shown him was exercised in such a way, that no one guilty of the like offense, would think of escaping with impunity. Every one who should hear of the fact, would say that the king spared not his own eye that he might, with honor, spare his offending child. He would feel that his sacrifice of the king’s eye fully demonstrated the king’s abhorrence of the crime which his son had committed, and as high regard for his law as if the penalty had been literally executed on the sinner himself. The public mind would be impressed with the idea that the expedient of the father was an atonement for the offense of the son, and was a just and honorable ground for pardoning him. [176]

Such an expedient in the moral government of God was the death of Christ. It “magnified the law, and made it honorable.” In consideration of that wonderful event, God can now pardon sinners and still be just, and his law holy, just, and good. It has rendered sin odious in the sight of the intelligent universe, and cuts off all hope of impunity in the transgressor.

XII.

From this view of the atonement, it can very readily be perceived in what sense it may be affirmed that Christ’s death satisfied law and justice; and also in what sense Christ died in the room or stead of sinners. It will appear likewise, that the atonement was an expiation for sin. These are the effects of the death of Christ Godward. We turn attention now to these items, and will consider each of them separately.

In saying that Christ died in our room or stead, we do not mean to affirm that he suffered the exact punishment due to sinners, either in kind or degree; nor yet that the sufferings of the Son of God were substituted in room of the execution of the penalty threatened to offenders. He did not suffer the identical penalty due to them; but his death is a provision introduced instead of the literal infliction of the penalty due to sinners. It is the substitution of another course of suffering, which will answer the same purposes in the divine administration as the literal execution of the penalty on offenders themselves would accomplish. This is precisely what we understand the Scriptures to teach on this subject.

There are persons who can see no propriety whatever in the scheme of redemption through the atonement. “So far from beholding the love of God which shines forth so conspicuously in the cross of Christ, they see in it only an act of injustice and cruelty on the part of God.” To relieve the subject of this dark feature, and to see its intrinsic grandeur and superlative glory, it will be necessary to contemplate it from the proper stand-point.

One difficulty on the subject arises from the improper use of the term punishment; the idea that God punished Jesus Christ instead of sinners. God does not and can not punish the innocent. [177] “The very idea of punishment implies the notion of guilt, or ill-desert in the person upon whom it is inflicted. It is suffering inflicted on an offender on account of his real or supposed personal guilt. Hence, as God regards all things just as they are in themselves, he can not look upon the innocent as guilty; and consequently he can not inflict punishment upon them. And when we speak of the agonies which Christ endured for us, we mean to convey the idea that he suffered these in order to release us from the punishment due to our sins.”

The atonement is not an expedient contrary to law, but above law, and was introduced into the divine government as an adequate satisfaction to law and justice; fully as much so as the actual infliction of the literal penalty on the sinner would be. Let us consider this subject.

There are two kinds of justice, commercial and commutative, and legal. Commercial justice, is rendering an equivalent for an article received, a quid pro quo; it may be in kind, or in some other commodity. There are two sorts of equivalents, one belonging to commercial transactions, and the other to moral and civil affairs. A commercial equivalent is an exchange of one kind of property for another, as between a buyer and a seller, and which particularly defines the kind and quantity to be thus exchanged. A moral or civil equivalent does not regard kind or quantity, but secures the same ends and produces the same effects as the other moral or civil measure instead of which it is substituted.

When we say Christ died to satisfy justice, we do not mean that he endured the identical penalty of the law that was due to sinners; nor that his sufferings were equal in degree to the pains and agonies that would have been endured by the world of mankind if Christ had not died; nor that they were the same in kind that impenitent sinners endure. Remorse is one principle source of suffering of the lost. This implies consciousness of guilt. This Christ could not suffer, because he never sinned. We reject toto cœlo the commercial view of the atonement.

Legal justice has two distinctive significations, which have been designated by the epithets retributive and administrative. By retributive justice is meant that attribute of God which inclines [178] him to punish an offender merely on account of the intrinsic demerit and hatefulness of his offense; and which animadverts upon the evil conduct of a moral agent considered as an individual, and not as a member of the great family of intelligent beings. This attribute seeks to punish sin merely because it deserves punishment, and not because its punishment is necessary to secure the ends of government; and, supposing sin to exist, it would have its object, even if there were only one accountable creature in the universe. The object of public or administrative justice is quite different. It inflicts punishment, not merely because it is deserved, but principally in order to prevent transgression, and to secure the general good, by securing the ends of wise and good government. In the moral government of God, one of the highest objects of this kind of justice is to secure in the hearts of its subjects a cordial approbation of the principles according to which they are governed. This is indispensable to the very existence of moral government.

Now, when we affirm that Christ made satisfaction to divine justice, we do not mean to say that he made satisfaction to the retributive justice of God. For this requires the punishment of the offender, and of no one else. It accepts of no substitute. And hence it is impossible to conceive that it can be satisfied except by the punishment of the offender himself. The object of this sort of justice, as before said, is personal guilt; and hence, as our Savior did not become personally guilty, when he consented to die for us, so it is impossible to conceive that he became liable to the infliction of the retributive justice of God.

“The sinner is just as guilty after the atonement as he was before; and he is just as obnoxious to the infliction of the retributive justice of God. He may still be most justly punished; for as the claims of retributive justice have not been satisfied, so they may be demanded of him without being a second time exacted. He really deserves the wrath of God on account of his sins, although administrative justice has been satisfied; and, hence, when he complies with the terms of remission, all his sins are freely and graciously pardoned. No satisfaction is made to retributive justice. It is the administrative justice of God that has [179] been satisfied by the atonement. As this merely enforces the punishment of the sinner in order to secure the ends of good government, it is capable of yielding and giving place to any expedient by which those ends may be secured.” In other words, it is capable of being satisfied by whatever method God may be pleased to adopt in order to secure the ends of good government, and to accomplish his own glorious designs, without the punishment of the sinner. All this has been most gloriously accomplished by the death of Christ. God can now be just, and yet the justifier of him who is of the faith of Jesus. The grand obstacles which the administrative justice of God interposed to the forgiveness of sin, having been taken out of the way and nailed to the cross, that unbounded mercy from which the provision of such a Savior proceeded can now flow down upon a “lost and ruined world in all the fullness and plenitude of its pardoning and sanctifying power.”

XIII.

Such was the mercy of God, that he could not leave his poor fallen creatures to endure the penalty of the law without giving them an opportunity of avoiding it under a probationary trial; and such, on the other hand, was his regard for the purity and happiness of the intelligent universe, that he could not permit his law to be violated with impunity. If his administrative justice had not stood in the way, the offer of pardon to the sinner would have cost him merely a word. And hence the length, the breadth, and the depth of his love could not have been manifested. But he was the Ruler of the universe, and as such his law stood in the way. He owed it to himself not to permit this to be trampled under foot with impunity, nor its violation to be forgiven until he had provided some way to secure the high and holy ends for which it had been established. Hence, as it was not possible for God to deny himself, he sent forth his beloved Son, who had been the companion of his bosom and his blessedness from all eternity, to take upon himself the form of a servant, and by his teaching, and obedience, and sufferings, and death, to vindicate the majesty of the law, and to render it honorable in the sight of the universe. [180] And it is this wonderful union of the goodness and severity, of the mercy and the justice of God, which constitutes the grand moral tendency and glory of the cross.

The course pursued by the king of the Locrians, in relation to the crime of his son, secured the ends of the law in a much greater degree than they could have been secured by a vigorous execution of its penalty upon the person of his son. It evinced a deep and settled abhorrence of the crime, and an inflexible determination to punish it. It cut off all hope from his subjects that crime would be suffered to escape with impunity. And hence, after such a manifestation of his character as a king, he could permit his son to enjoy the unspeakable blessings of sight, without holding out the least encouragement to the commission of crime.

So, likewise, in relation to the sufferings of Christ. These were not, in strictness, the penalty of the law. This was eternal death; whereas, the sufferings of Christ, inconceivably great as they were, were but temporal; and there can be no proportion between sufferings which know a period, and those which are without end. Hence, as we have before said, Christ did not satisfy the punitive justice of God. But his sacrifice answered all the purposes that could have been answered by the most rigorous execution of the law; and it answered them in an infinitely greater degree than if the human race had been suffered to endure the penalty without remedy.

Since God has given for us his beloved Son while we were yet enemies, we are most firmly persuaded that he will freely give us all things that can possibly conduce to our good. Surely, after such a display of his love, it were highly criminal in us to permit the least shadow of suspicion or distrust to intercept the sweet and cheering and purifying beams of his reconciling countenance. Whatever may be his severity against sin, and whatever terror it may strike into the countenance of evil-doers, we can most cordially acquiesce in its justness; for we most clearly perceive that the penalty of the law was not established to gratify any private appetite for revenge, but to uphold and secure the highest happiness of the moral universe.” The death of Christ, then, was a demonstration of the justice and goodness of God in the [181] forgiveness of sin. To unite mercy and justice in forgiving the sinner was the supreme end in God’s sparing not his own son.

XIV.

That pardon of our sins and our entire salvation is ascribed to the death of Christ is an idea that strikes the mind of every attentive reader of the New Testament, as a fact which will not be questioned. Our salvation is especially and emphatically connected with that wonderful event. “I lay down my life for the sheep.” “He gave himself for us.” “He died the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins.” “We who were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” “Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.” The Son of God came, “to give his life a ransom for many.” “Christ died for us.” “Who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree.” “Much more being justified by his blood.” “We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son;” with innumerable other passages in which, with equal emphasis, the salvation of man is connected with the death of Christ. Now what can be the meaning of these and such like passages, except that he died in our stead? That this is their meaning, we proceed now to prove. The Scriptures teach us that “he died the just for the unjust.” He suffered for us. He died for all. He tasted death for every man. He died for the ungodly. He gave himself a ransom for all, and such like.

The Greek prepositions translated for in the above passages, though they do not always, yet do frequently, mean instead of. This can not be questioned. Take some examples. “It is expedient that one man should die (huper) for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.” Here plainly the meaning is that either Christ or the nation must perish; and that by putting the former to death, he would die instead of the nation. In Rom. v., 6-8, the sense in which Christ “died for us” is indisputably fixed by the context: “For scarcely for a righteous man will [182] 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 (huper) for us.” In this sense is anti also used by the Seventy, 2 Sam. xviii., 33, where David says concerning Absolom: “Would to God I had died for thee.” He could have meant nothing else but to wish he had died instead of Absolom. In the sense of “in the room or stead of,” anti is used also in the New Testament; as, “Archelaus did reign in Judæa (anti) in the room of his father Herod.” “If his son ask a fish, will he (anti) for a fish (instead of a fish) give him a serpent?” When, therefore, the same preposition is used in Mark x., 45, “The Son of man came to give his life a ransom (anti) for many,” it certainly has the same meaning—in the room or stead of.

Under the law, the blood of the slain animal, which was its life, was substituted for the life of the offender. This was typical of the blood of Christ, which made atonement for sinners; “which was shed (peri) for many in order to the remission of sins.”

While the blood or death of Christ was for us, in the sense of in our room or stead, when considered in respect to God, it was designed to expiate sin.

To expiate means “to atone for, to make atonement for.” God said to Moses: “You shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death; but he shall surely be put to death.” “The land can not be cleansed (expiated) of the blood that is shed therein, but the blood of him that shed it.” (Num. xxxv., 33.) “When he (Christ) had expiated our sins,” or made expiation for them. (Macknight.) “Now once in the end of the ages has he appeared to expiate sin.” “Who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter ii., 24), where the apostle evidently quotes from Isaiah liii.: “He shall bear their iniquities;” “He bore the sins of many.” The same expression is used by the apostle Paul (Heb. ix., 28): “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” Similar to this expression of bearing sins is the declaration of Isaiah in the same chapter: “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities;” and then to show in what sense he was wounded and bruised for our [183] transgressions, he adds: “The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.” “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all; he was oppressed and he was afflicted.” In 2 Cor. v., 21, the apostle Paul uses almost the same language: “For he hath made him to be sin [a sin-offering] for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Daniel says: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon the holy city to restrain the transgression, to make an end of sin-offerings—to make a propitiation or reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in an everlasting righteousness.” “Sin-offerings are ended, because reconciliation for iniquity is made, and a justification perfect and complete is brought in.” “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” “He appeared once in the end of the typical ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

The apostle teaches us in the most explicit manner, in his epistle to the Hebrews, that the sacrifices under the law were expiatory offerings for certain offenses against the commonwealth of Israel, and that they were also typical of the great expiatory sacrifice of Christ. “If the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of the heifer, sprinkled upon those who were defiled, made expiation in respect to eternal purity; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God.”

XV.

The mercy-seat under the law was the golden lid or covering of the ark of the covenant, from which were wrought two golden cherubim, between and upon which the divine Majesty was said to dwell. The golden lid, called hilasterion, concealed the two tables of the covenant or law spoken from Sinai. Upon and above it blood was sprinkled on the day of atonement. (Lev. xvi.) This lid or cover was the throne of grace to the Jews. God was addressed as sitting between the cherubim. On the day of [184] atonement the high-priest appeared there, and offered blood, which he sprinkled seven times before the mercy-seat. After which the Lord forgave and blessed the people. Now, as the blood of Aaron’s offering so affected the mercy-seat as to cause the blessing to flow to Israel after the flesh; so the blood of Christ, carried by himself into the true holiest of all, the archetype of the old sanctuary, so affects the throne of God in the heavens as to cause the promised blessings of the new covenant to flow to Israel according to the spirit. But as Jesus is himself the altar, the victim, and the priest, he becomes the mercy-seat only “through faith in his blood.” God, says the apostle Paul, has exhibited him as a mercy-seat through faith in his blood—the solitary instance which the Bible affords of the phrase “faith in his blood.” This makes him a mercy- seat to us. Without faith he is no propitiatory to any one. Blood sprinkled upon the lid and before the lid, made that lid a mercy- seat; and to no other worshiper was it a mercy-seat, but to him whose faith in the call, appointment, and acceptability of the Jewish high-priest and his service brought him to his knees.”—A.C. It is faith in Christ’s blood that makes him to any person a mercy-seat.

To propitiate, says Webster, is “to conciliate; to appease one offended and render him favorable.” In the case before us, the person making the propitiation is Christ; the propitiating offering or sacrifice is his blood. All this is expressed in the most explicit terms in the following passages: “And he is the propitiation for our sins.” “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation in his blood.”

There is a sense, then, in which God is propitiated, pacified, and even reconciled to us.—A.C. See a notable instance of this, Ezek. xvi., 63: “When I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done.” “Many a time he turned his anger away.” Heilasmos, in the sense of propitiation, conciliation, occurs in the following passages in the Septuagint and in the Apocrypha: “He shall offer his sin-offering (hilasmon), saith the Lord.” “And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin-offering.” “The ram of the atonement.” “Now as the high-priest was making atonement.” [185] (Ezek. xliv., 27; xlv., 19; Num. v., 8; 2 Macca. iii., 33.) It is the blood to which is ascribed the power of propitiation. “We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” “Without shedding of blood is no remission.”

To sum up the whole of this subject, we may say that the sacrificial blood is the atonement, or that which makes atonement. This is a grand cause from which proceed many effects, the principal of which are: “Propitiation, as respects God; expiation, as respects sin; reconciliation, as respects the human heart; justification, as respects guilt, or the consciousness of sin; sanctification, as respects his pollution; and redemption, as respects his actual personal deliverance from sin and all its consequences.”—A.C.

The atonement of Jesus Christ did not excite in the bosom of the divine Father the feeling of benevolence and compassion toward the apostate human race, and thus incline him to the exercise of mercy. It propitiated God in no other sense than as it opened a just and honorable way for his grace to be exercised, or as it gave him a justifiable reason to be propitious. No intelligent Christian supposes that God was irreconcilable, cruel, full of vengeance, and inimical to fallen man; and that his Son, our Lord, was more compassionate and more merciful, and died to placate his ire, and to quench the fire of his wrath in his own heart’s blood. God was as much disposed and inclined to grace and mercy without an atonement as with it, provided they could be expressed with honor to the government, and with safety to the public good. Grace and mercy are, as well as justice and truth, attributes essential to the nature and character of God. Hence the Scriptures represent the atonement as the means of expressing, not the cause of exciting, the exercise of any divine perfection. God gave his Son to be an atonement because he loved the world; and redemption is through the blood of his Son according to the riches of his grace. The atonement is never represented in the Scriptures as changing or modifying the nature of any divine attribute. When a change is produced in the aspect of the divine administration, i.e., when God is said to be propitiated through the atonement, it is not meant that the atonement made him propitious, or rendered him favorable and kind; but that the [186] atonement was the ground on which he declared himself propitious, and the medium through which he expressed himself gracious. The actual change is in the state of the sinner. The atonement place him on a favorable ground where the divine administrations may have a favorable aspect on him. And be it observed, that until the sinner personally avails himself of the provisions of the atonement, and in his own behalf, God will not express himself propitiated toward him. God was, indeed, reconcilable and propitious to the three friends of Job, yet he would not express himself propitious, and declare himself reconciled, until they had offered their sacrifices. Then, after a change in them, there was a change in the aspect of the divine dispensations toward them. Their sacrifices produced no change in God, but they are expressive of a change in their moral relations toward him. Just so is the act of the sinner in submitting to the words of the gospel, he thus pleads the atonement of Christ in his personal behalf; his act of faith is expressive of a change in his moral relations toward God.

Thus far we have treated of the effects of the atonement Godward, i.e., we have shown the influences of the death of Christ as an expedient introduced into the divine moral government as it relates to God and his law; and we have seen that the death of Jesus the Christ expiated sin, propitiated the divine Father, and satisfied law and justice in a sense that God can now be just in justifying him who is of the faith of Jesus Christ.

XVI.

XVII.

“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and of the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience [191] from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by reason of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” (Heb. ix., 13-15.) “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.” (Heb. x., 11.)

Taking the above statements of the apostle as our basis, we lay down the following propositions:

1. “The life and death, the blessings and the curse of the law of Moses, were merely fleshly and temporal, and therefore the efficacy of its sacrifices could extend no further than to temporal life and temporal blessings. When, therefore, a Jew had forfeited these, the sacrificial law had no blessings in store for him. (Deut. xxviii., 1-68.)

2. “But until a man had forfeited these, the legal sacrifices accompanied with repentance, and the previous qualifications had efficacy to secure remission of all the penalties of that institution. (Lev. vi., 1-7; xv., 31; Num. xix., 13.)

3. “Salvation under the law, spiritual and eternal, was through faith, repentance, and sacrifice, as it was from Adam to Moses.

4. “No transgression or sin, even that of ignorance, or of mere ceremonial defilement, however trifling, could without sacrifice be forgiven. No repentance or amendment of life, without shedding of blood, could obtain remission.”—A.C.

5. Remission of sins under the law, by means of the blood of animal sacrifices, was remission of sins as committed against the commonwealth of Israel; but as sins against God, they were only passed by through the forbearance of God, not remitted; and no sin against God ever was or can be remitted save through the blood of Christ.

6. All sacrifices, whether before or under the law, were typical of the great sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah.

The sins expiated or atoned for by the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of the heifer, were political sins, i.e., transgressions against the commonwealth of Israel; but as sins against God, they were atoned for by the blood of Christ. Paul tells us that Christ’s death [192] atoned for “two chapters of sins”—those “passed by” before Christ died—during the forbearance of God; and sins committed since his death. The “called” under the former dispensation,—those who under the law obeyed God—were pardoned during the forbearance of God, while as yet there was no “redemption,” no true and full deliverance from the guilt of sin; and those who are now “the called,” who obey the gospel, are pardoned through the same redemption. The atonement of Christ is equally efficacious prospectively and retrospectively. And if there is efficacy in the blood of atonement to cleanse the heart and purify the conscience of those now living, it is equally efficacious for the redemption of the transgressions that under the first covenant were “passed by during the forbearance of God.” The word translated “passed,” in Rom. iii. 25 (sins that are passed through the forbearance of God,) Robinson says, means pre-termitted, remitted in the sense of being overlooked, not punished; and differs from aphesis, which implies pardon, forgiveness. A similar expression is found in Micah vii., 18: “Who is a God like to thee, who pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of thine heritage?” To pass by iniquity is not to punish it. Thus the sins of the ancient saints, from Abel to the death of the Messiah, were passed by till expiated by the redemption that was in the blood of Christ. Hence the atonement of Christ is represented as buying off the punishment due for the sins committed under the former dispensations, and as vindicating the justice of God in forgiving them. The death of Christ was for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant. He was the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” in the sacrifices that were typical of him. (Rev. xiii. 8.) And the apostle Peter says men “are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times for you.” (1 Pet. i., 20.) All, from Adam to the last sinner that shall be reclaimed, will be redeemed by the blood of Christ. Hence the unity of the song in heaven. All will sing: “To Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Clement. [193]

[Volume V: April, 1868]

THE ATONEMENT

II.