ATONEMENT 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL FACT OF 
 CHRISTIANITY
 
 ^ATONEMENT/" * 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL FACT OF 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 NEWMAN HALL, LL.B.; D.D. (EoiN.) 
 
 AXTTHOR OF ' COME TO JESUS,' 'THE LORD'S 
 ' GETHSEMANE,' ETC., ETC. 
 
 1 We preach Christ crucified ' 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 
 
 The Religious Tract Society .London
 
 tfc Carfon (press 
 
 *7 J > *73 Macdougal Street, New York
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAF. 
 
 PREFACE ' 
 
 I. THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS 9 
 
 II. ATONEMENT MORE THAN MORAL INFLUENCE . 14 
 
 III. JEWISH SACRIFICES l8 
 
 IV. PROPHECY 2 3 
 
 V. JOHN THE BAPTIST a8 
 
 VI. THE WORDS OF JESUS 33 
 
 VII. THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS 39 
 
 VIII. THE APOSTLE PETER 4 
 
 IX. THE APOSTLE JOHN 5 1 
 
 X. THE APOSTLE JAMES 5 8 
 
 XL THE APOSTLE PAUL ^i 
 
 XII. THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 7 2 
 
 XIII. THE APOSTLES AS A WHOLE . . 77 
 
 XIV. THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT 8 3 
 
 XV. MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS . . 9 2 
 XVI. ATONEMENT A POWER FOR PURITY . . .121 
 
 XVIL JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION . . .13 
 
 XV1IL THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE . . . *37 
 
 INDEX l &1
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE study of the Bible and the personal experience 
 of sixty years, more than fifty of which have been spent 
 in the ministry of the Gospel, have convinced me with 
 a constantly increasing assurance, that salvation through 
 the Atoning Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ is not 
 merely an important, but the essential and characteristic 
 feature of Christianity nay, more, its Fundamental Fact. 
 This has been interwoven with every sermon I have 
 preached, and every book I have written, from Come to 
 Jesus to my Jubilee volume, Divine Brotherhood. 
 
 At the time when the views of the Rev. Frederick 
 Maurice seemed likely to unsettle the faith of some, 
 I selected as the subject of my sermon at the anni- 
 versary of the London Missionary Society, in 1856, the 
 great theme of our Missionaries to the Heathen 'We 
 Breach Christ crucified.' The sermon, published under 
 the title of Sacrifice, or Pardon and Purity through the 
 Cross, has been many years out of print. Opinions 
 expressed in some pulpits and periodicals of the present 
 day have convinced me that there is more need now 
 than formerly for presenting this truth free from exag- 
 gerated or inadequate statements., with replies to mis- 
 representations and objections. I therefore resolved to 
 re-write my booklet. But during two years, the leisure 
 of which has been devoted to the congenial task, further
 
 8 PREFACE. 
 
 study of Scripture and careful reading of recent volumes 
 on the same subject have resulted in this little book, the 
 object of which is to present the subject in a simple, 
 condensed, and popular form, so as to assist in its study 
 those who have not access to more learned and elaborate 
 works, or leisure for the perusal of them. 
 
 Among such works, to which more or less I gratefully 
 record my obligation for valuable suggestions, and for 
 conscious quotations which in every case I have dis- 
 tinctly acknowledged, are the following : 
 
 t The Nature of the Atonement. JOHN M'LEOD CAMPBELL, P.P., 
 
 -2 1856. The Atonement : its Delation to Pardon, ENOCH MELLOR, 
 
 > P.P., 1859. Christ and His Salvation, HORACE BUSHNELL, P.P., 
 
 ' 1871. John the Baptist (Congregational Lecture), HENRY R. 
 
 ' REYNOLDS, D.P., President of Cheshunt College, 1874. Forgive- 
 
 <fness and Law, HORACE BUSHNELL, P.P., 1874. The Atonement: 
 
 f ""*** the ligRT 0} Modern Difficulties (Hulsean Lectures foTfSS^lSSj.'X 
 
 fck Rev. J. J. LIAS, M.A., 1884. Doctrine of the Atonement, Professor 
 
 "7 LEWIS EDWARDS, P.P., 1886. Doctrine of Holy Scripture respect- 
 
 * ing the Atonement, Prof. T. J. CRAWFORD, P.P., 1888. The 
 
 Q Redemption of A fan, Prof. P. W. SIMON, Ph. P., 1889. The Atone- 
 
 f.mtnt, W. L!. MAGEE, P.P., Archbishop of York, 1889. The Scrip- 
 
 I tural Doctrine of Sacrifice and Atonement, Principal ALFRED CAVE, 
 
 ' P.P., 1890 : and especially The Atonement (Congregational Lecture 
 
 ' /for 1875), 8vo. and thirteenth EdTcrown 8vo., R. W. DALE, P.P., 
 
 1891. 
 
 May the blessing of the ever-living Propitiation attend 
 this humble contribution to the great work of strengthen- 
 ing intelligent belief in a doctrine which I increasingly feel 
 to be the * Fundamental Fact of Christianity.'
 
 ATONEMENT: 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL FACT OF 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS. 
 
 ' JESUS CHRIST and Him crucified,' was the 
 theme of the first Missionary of the Gospel to 
 Europe. 
 
 The world was in a state of moral stagnation. 
 Judaism, divinely ordained, having fulfilled its pur- 
 pose, had become shell without kernel, body with- 
 out life. Philosophy might be beautiful, but was 
 powerless to purify. St. Paul, coming over from 
 Asia to preach to Europe, proclaimed salvation 
 for a ruined world through a Man who had been 
 crucified as a malefactor, but whom the missionary 
 affirmed to be the Son of God and the only 
 Saviour. He asserted, not simply that this Bene- 
 factor had suffered martyrdom, but that this mar- 
 tyrdom was the grand object for which He lived,
 
 10 ATONEMENT 
 
 by which alone salvation was secured, without 
 which mental culture, philosophy, ethics, cult, or 
 creed could not avail to save mankind from sin, and 
 give assurance of the favour of God and eternal 
 life. 
 
 Jews, who were dwelling in every city, and to 
 whom the missionary, as a Jew, made his first 
 appeal, were offended by being told to recognise 
 their promised Messiah in a poor mechanic, trained 
 at no college, invested with no dignity, His chief 
 followers poor fishermen, and Himself put to the 
 most shameful death as a felon. That by Him 
 alone, and not by their own Law of Moses, they 
 could be saved, was to them a 'stumbling-block.' 
 
 The Jews 'required a sign'; a miracle so stu- 
 pendous as to forbid all doubt. Their old religion 
 had been thus certified. Christ performed many 
 quiet miracles of benevolence on earth, but they 
 demanded a 'sign from heaven.' When He fed 
 the multitudes and raised Lazarus they thought 
 that as a Leader He might supply His armies with 
 food, heal the wounded, and restore the slain. 
 Then they wanted to make Him their king. But 
 when He meekly submitted to be bound and 
 condemned, they were disappointed, and in their 
 provocation shouted, ' Crucify Him ! ' They wanted 
 a carnal Christ, a worldly king : and so the cross 
 became a symbol of delusion, disgrace, defeat, 
 'a stumbling-block.' 
 
 Not less did it appear 'to the Greek foolishness.'
 
 THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS II 
 
 They despised the Jews as a petty, bigoted, ex- 
 clusive, troublesome tribe of barbarians, in a narrow 
 strip of country, lost to view in the great Empire 
 that ruled them. That a peasant member of this 
 despised race was to be accepted by them as supe- 
 rior to their own Plato or Socrates, be honoured 
 as Ruler as well as Teacher, be trusted as sole 
 Saviour of men, and worshipped as the one and 
 only true incarnation of the Deity this, to the 
 Greek, was the extravagance of ' foolishness.' 
 
 Earliest records tell us that the people generally 
 accounted those to be ' fools who gave rank to One 
 crucified.' They said that ' they who worshipped 
 a crucified man deserved to hang on the cross they 
 adore.' In Rome is a fragment of plaster from 
 the ruins of the barracks of the Praetorian guard 
 which bears traces of a rough caricature, as if 
 scratched by the point of a sword. On a cross is 
 suspended the figure of a man with the head of an 
 ass, before which a soldier is on his knees ; and 
 below is the inscription, ' Aleximenos worships his 
 god.' 
 
 The Apostolic Missionary was sober in his en- 
 thusiasm, and did not needlessly provoke oppo- 
 sition. 'I am become all things to all men, that 
 I may by all means save some ' (i Cor. ix. 20-22). 
 Unless essential to his mission, he would not em- 
 phasize what was likely to hinder it, and close the 
 ears of those he came to teach. Did he therefore 
 keep the fact of the Atoning Sacrifice in the
 
 12 ATONEMENT 
 
 background, or reserve it for future unfolding ? On 
 the contrary, he made it prominent, and at once. 
 It was his dominant theme, the message he felt 
 directed by God to convey. Men might deride, 
 oppose, persecute, but all the more boldly he pro- 
 claimed it, emblazoned it on his standard, gave it 
 trumpet-voice, declaring to the cultured Corinth- 
 ians, ' I determined not to know anything among 
 you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified' (i Cor. 
 ii. a). This was his boast, not his shame. ' Far be 
 it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ ' (Gal. vi. 14). The Jews might demand 
 celestial signs, and the Greeks worldly wisdom, but 
 he was determined to ' preach Christ crucified, 
 Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God ' 
 (i Cor. i. 22-25). 
 
 History, lauding its heroes of freedom, science, 
 and religion, has taught us to honour rather than 
 be ashamed of those who have endured suffering 
 and scorn for the sake of principle. But that God, 
 incarnated, should stoop so low ; that nothing less 
 than the cross should suffice for man's salvation ; 
 that all classes should be placed on a common 
 level, needing the same Atonement, by which the 
 most degraded criminal will be accepted, side by 
 side with the seemingly blameless religionist, on 
 repentance and faith; and that whatever we do 
 that is commendable is accepted on the basis of 
 what Christ did and suffered this is too humbling 
 for human pride.
 
 THE OFFENCE OF THE CROSS 13 
 
 As breakers of law we are disposed to under-rate 
 the claims of law. Sinners naturally make light of 
 sin, framing excuses for it, sometimes defending it, 
 lessening the peril of it, or altogether denying both 
 its guilt and penalty. ' The unsearchable riches of 
 Christ,' revealed in His sufferings on our behalf, 
 imply a destitution on our part greater than we are 
 willing to acknowledge. Are our stains of so deep 
 a dye that ' the blood of Jesus Christ ' is needed 
 to cleanse us? Is our distance from God so great 
 that we can only 'be made nigh in the blood of 
 Christ ? ' Offence is thus taken at the doctrine of 
 Atonement, which is either denied, or explained as 
 one among other moral influences by which man's 
 sinfulness may be overcome, and he be reconciled 
 to God by amendment of life. Thus salvation is 
 regarded as self-reformation, and not as forgiveness 
 through faith in Him who died for our sins. In 
 many publications and in some pulpits, the Gospel 
 is represented as Moral Influence alone. The object 
 of this book is to enforce the Truth that the Gospel 
 is Atonement for guilt, the basis and the power of 
 righteousness of life.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ATONEMENT MORE THAN MORAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 WE do not undertake to support all that has 
 been urged in defence of forgiveness through 
 Atonement, as true to Scripture, honouring to God, 
 -s^y or useful to men. As ' science ' is not Nature, but 
 only man's conception of it, and therefore liable to 
 error, though the facts of Nature abide unchanged : 
 so* theology is only man's conception of revealed 
 truth, and may be open to revision, while its 
 fundamental facts remain stedfast ; as the stars, 
 unchanged by the theories which profess to explain 
 their motions. c Let knowledge grow from more to 
 more'; but let it be knowledge, and not mere 
 opinion ; and with opinion let ' sense of reverence 
 in us dwell,' that we exalt not opinion above 
 revelation. 
 
 Dr. Dale has forcibly distinguished between the 
 
 U Atonement as a fact and as a theory. The fact is 
 
 that in connexion with the life and death of Christ 
 
 sinners are saved, whatever the theory to explain 
 
 the fact. There are two distinct methods of
 
 ATONEMENT MORE THAN MORAL INFLUENCE 15 
 
 viewing this fact * 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 sin 1 .' 
 As strongly as. any who hold the view of moral * 
 influence alone, the advocates of Atonement hold 
 that Christ came to draw men God-ward ; but they 
 also hold that He came to do a work of God man- 
 ward; reconciling God to us as the basis and 
 influence for reconciling us to God : so that forgive- 
 ness by the cross, and the resultant change in our 
 condition as regards God, is precedent to and the 
 instrument of our change in character. 
 
 The object of this treatise is to repeat and re-echo 
 in brief and simple form what has been more learn- 
 edly and exhaustively set forth by others that 
 salvation by Atonement is the central doctrine, we 
 hesitate not to say the essential fact, of Christianity. 
 We consider that on this, as its strong foundation, 
 stands the Church of God. We build on sand if 
 we build elsewhere. This is the groundwork of our 
 assurance of pardon, the source of our spiritual life. 
 This, by the influence of the Divine Spirit, breaks 
 the chains of wickedness, and transforms the slave 
 of the devil into a child of God. This lures us from 
 our guilty hiding-places, to seek the face of Him we 
 shunned, and to cry, ' Abba ! Father ! ' Our plea in 
 
 1 The Atonement, by R. W. Dale, D.D. Lect. V.
 
 l6 ATONEMENT 
 
 prayer, our theme in praise, the fountain of our joy, 
 the motive of our obedience, the subject of our 
 preaching, the incentive of our zeal, the bond of our 
 X union with God and with men, our victory over 
 death, the basis of our everlasting hopes, is Jesus 
 Christ ' sacrificed for us.' 
 
 My theme therefore has no novelty, being as old 
 as the Gospel itself, being in truth the very essence 
 of that Gospel. It is fundamental to individual 
 piety, and to all true Christian philanthropy. We 
 live and we labour ' by faith in the Son of God, who 
 loved us, and gave Himself for us.' The purity, 
 perseverance and success of our efforts for others, 
 will ever be in proportion to the influence which 
 this truth exerts on our hearts, and to the place 
 which it occupies in our teaching. Our zeal will 
 soon cool unless it is inflamed by the sacred fire 
 which burns on this altar ; and our ministry, whether 
 at home or in heathen lands, will be but as ' sound- 
 ing brass/ unless it is the simple, earnest, heartfelt 
 proclamation of the ' faithful saying, and worthy of 
 all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the 
 world to save sinners.' All the refinements of 
 philosophy, arrayed in all the fascinations of genius, 
 and urged with all the persuasiveness of eloquence, 
 will be ineffectual in purifying the heart either of 
 civilized or of savage man ; while the preaching of 
 the cross will ever be found, in its soul-transforming 
 effects, to be ' Christ, the power of God and wisdom 
 of God.'
 
 ATONEMENT MORE THAN MORAL INFLUENCE 17 
 
 ' This is the central truth, the denial of which 
 throws the whole fabric of spiritual truth into dis- 
 integration and collapse. It sustains the functions 
 of the heart to every other verity in the Christian 
 scheme, giving to it life and power. It is the sun 
 in the heavens of revelation, around which other 
 doctrines revolve, and from which they derive their 
 light. If God has not revealed this fact that we 
 are saved through the substitutionary work of 
 Christ He has revealed nothing, or the revelation 
 has been clothed in such deceptive language as to 
 necessitate bewilderment and mistake, and that 
 which should have been a steady lamp to our feet 
 and light to our path, only leads us into quagmires 
 of error and despair V 
 
 Let us then appeal 'to the Law and to the 
 Testimony.' 
 
 1 The Atonement ; its relation to Pardon, p. 4. Enoch Mellor, 
 D.D.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WITNESS OF JEWISH SACRIFICES. 
 
 SINCE both Old and New Testaments reveal the 
 mind of the same God, we cannot expect that they 
 teach two methods of salvation totally distinct. As 
 the Creator has in Nature developed His one plan 
 progressively, from lower to loftier types, so we 
 might expect that His method of salvation should 
 be one in all ages, though gradually unfolded. If 
 then substitutionary sacrifice is the great fact and 
 theme of the Gospel, we may expect intimations of 
 it in preceding dispensations ; just as we find 
 anticipations of existing forms of vegetable and 
 animal life in the strata of the earth. 
 
 The proofs are abundant. Soon after man had 
 fallen by sin Abel offered the firstlings of his flock 
 in sacrifice, ' and the Lord had respect unto Abel 
 and to his offering ' (Gen. iv. 4). May not He Him- 
 self have ordained a sacrifice, so unlikely to have 
 been of human invention ? ' Noah builded an altar 
 unto the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings,' in
 
 WITNESS OF JEWISH SACRIFICES 19 
 
 deprecation of the displeasure of that holy God 
 who had swept away a wicked race. Its efficacy 
 was indicated in the response 'I will not again 
 curse the ground any more for man's sake ' (Gen. 
 viii. 31 ). Job ' rose up early in the morning, and \ 
 offered burnt-offerings according to the number ofNjK 
 them all : for Job said, It may be that my sons 
 have sinned. Thus did Job continually ' (Job i. 5 ; 
 xlii. 7, 8). Abraham, wherever he pitched his tent, 
 1 builded an altar unto the Lord.' At Moriah, Isaac .// 
 as one familiar with such oblations, inquired, ' Where / 
 is the lamb for a burnt-offering ? ' and when Abra- 
 ham was preparing to offer Isaac, God provided a 
 ram as a substitute. Jacob built altars of sacrifice 
 (Gen. xii. 7, 8 ; xiii. 18 ; xxii. 1-14 ; xxxv. 1-3, 7). 
 
 On occasion of the Exodus, a lamb was slain in 
 every Israelitish family, and the blood was sprinkled 
 on the door-post, so that the Angel of Destruction 
 passed over such houses, when he slew the first- 
 born of Egypt. This offering of the Paschal lamb 
 was celebrated evermore in the great annual feast 
 of the nation, until Christ^ who was put to death at 
 the Passover, changed it into the Holy Supper to 
 commemorate a far greater deliverance. 'Our'' 
 Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ' 
 (Ex. xii. 1-30 ; i Cor. v. 7). 
 
 In the elaborate ritual of the Tabernacle, sacrifice 
 
 was prominent. It is unnecessary to prove that 
 
 all the Levitical sacrifices were piacular, it is 
 
 sufficient to show that some of them were so, and 
 
 B 3
 
 20 ATONEMENT 
 
 were regarded as atonement for sin. On occasion 
 of the worship of the golden calf, ' Moses said unto 
 the people, Ye have sinned a great sin : and now I 
 will go up unto the Lord ; peradventure I shall 
 make atonement for your sin.' ' Moses said unto 
 Aaron, Take thy censer, and put fire therein from 
 off the altar, . . . and make atonement for them, for 
 there is wrath gone out from the Lord. . . . And he 
 stood between the dead and the living; and the 
 plague was stayed* (Ex. xxxii. 30; Num. xvi. 
 jf 46, 48)- The Hebrew word rendered Atonement 
 
 -/ ' means to cover sin, in such a way thaf^od 
 
 regards it as neutralised, disarmed, inoperative to 
 
 arouse His anger V It is employed in numerous 
 
 V other passages in connexion with sacrifice. ' The 
 
 \ priest shall offer for his sin a young bullock, and he 
 shall lay his hand on the head of the bullock and kill 
 the bullock before the Lord. . . . And the priest 
 shall make atonement for him' (Ex. xxix. 36; 
 xxx. 10 ; Lev. i. 4 ; iv. 3-6 ; 22-26 ; 35 ; v. 10-18). 
 On the great ^Day of Atonement two goats were 
 
 ) selected 'for a sin-ottering"^; one of which was 
 killed, and its blood sprinkled upon the mercy-seat 
 to 'make atonement because of all their sins.' 
 Then Aaron was commanded to ' lay both his 
 hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess 
 over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, 
 putting them upon the head of the goat ; and the 
 
 1 Scriptural Doctrine of Sacrifice. Prof. Cave. D.D.
 
 WITNESS OF JEWISH SACRIFICES 21 
 
 goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a 
 land not inhabited ' (Lev. xvi). Here the nature of 
 sacrifice is fully expressed : first there is the death / 
 of the victim as the medium of forgiveness, and 
 then the forgiveness itself, symbolized by sending 
 away to the wilderness the Hving_goat i on the head 
 of which the sins of the people had been em- 
 blematically placed. 
 
 The Jews thus instructed, regarded sacrifice as 
 a means whereby punishment could be averted. 
 Thus, when the pestilence was raging, David the 
 king went forth, ' and built an altar unto the Lord, 
 and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings. So 
 the Lord was entreated for the land, and the plagu 
 was stayed from Israel ' (2 Sam. xxiv. 1 8-25). 
 
 We prove that the Levitical sacrifices were 
 divinely appointed, and were piacular. We infer 
 that the sacrifices which preceded them, having 
 been approved by God, resembled them both in 
 authority and in fjpgiprp. Thus successive genera- 
 tions offered animal sacrifices, in token of contrition 
 and as a medium of pardon. Not merely ' a con- 
 fession of dependence and trust ' ; but also a 
 confession of sins, and of faith that in connexion 
 with the substitution of an animal-victim those 
 sins might be forgiven. 
 
 Those worshippers might not understand how 
 pardon and sacrifice were connected, yet relying 
 on the divinely appointed medium, they were 
 delivered from the fear which guilt produces, and
 
 23 ATONEMENT 
 
 brought into that condition of filial confidence and 
 self-surrender, which requires such assurance of 
 pardon as its antecedent and its cause. The Book 
 of Leviticus obviously teaches what the writer of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews deduces from it, that 
 ' without shedding of blood there is no remission.' 
 The worshipper who confessed his sin over the head 
 of the victim, the blood of which was then sprinkled 
 on the altar, not merely professed his return to 
 obedience, but also primarily sought deliverance 
 from the burden of guilt, as essential to renewed 
 obedience.. How can I with confidence yield my- 
 self to God, unless I am assured that God is 
 willing to accept me? The sacrifice was therefore 
 needed, not merely as a profession of repentance, 
 but as a medium and assurance of the divine 
 mercy. 
 
 If sacrifices only signified living surrender, there 
 was incongruity between the sign and the thing 
 signified. Though the blood was the life, the 
 shedding of that blood did not express living 
 service. If blood represents life, blood shed is life 
 ended. But if this indicated that the worshipper 
 deserved to suffer for the sins confessed over the 
 victim's head, then the death of the lamb, as the 
 type, corresponded with the death of Christ, as the 
 antitype ' the Lamb of God.'
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WITNESS OF PROPHECY. 
 
 OUR Lord and His Apostles interpreted many 
 prophecies as fulfilled in Himself. Philip said, 'We 
 have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and 
 
 /the prophets, did write Jesus of Nazareth ' (John 
 i. 45). Our Lord said to the Jews, ' Search the 
 ; Scriptures . . . they bear witness of Me ' (John v. 39). 
 He might have summoned angels to His rescue, 
 but ' How then should the Scriptures be fulfilled ? ' 
 (Matt. xxvi. 54). After His resurrection, * Begin- 
 ning from Moses and from all the prophets, He 
 interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things 
 concerning Himself.' Just before His ascension, 
 * These are My words which I spake unto you, how 
 that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are 
 written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and 
 the Psalms, concerning Me. Then opened He 
 their mind, that they might understand the Scrip- 
 tures ' (Luke xxiv. 25-27 ; 44-47). 
 
 St. Peter at Pentecost said, 'The things which
 
 24 ATONEMENT 
 
 God foreshewed by the mouth of all the prophets, 
 that His Christ should suffer, He thus fulfilled.' 
 Moses, ' and all the prophets from Samuel and them 
 that followed after, told of these days,' in which 
 'God, having raised up His Servant, sent Him 
 to bless you, in turning away every one of you 
 from your iniquities' (Acts iii. 18-26). St. Paul 
 wrote of 'the righteousness of God through faith 
 in Jesus Christ,' as having been ' witnessed by the 
 law and the prophets ' (Rom. iii. 21, 22). Before 
 Agrippa he pleaded that he had taught nothing 
 but what * the prophets and Moses did say should 
 come ; how that the Christ must suffer, and how 
 that He first, by the resurrection of the dead, 
 should proclaim light both to the people and to the 
 Gentiles.' At Rome he persuaded the Jews ' from 
 the law of Moses and from the prophets, from morn- 
 ing till evening ' (Acts xxvi. 22, 23 ; xxviii. 23). 
 
 What did those prophets foretell concerning 
 Christ? 
 
 When our first parents fell, the promise was 
 given that the seed of the woman was to bruise 
 the serpent's head (Gen. iii. 15). Moses testified, 
 ' The Lord said unto me, I will raise up a Prophet 
 from among their brethren like unto thee, and will 
 put My words in His mouth' (Deut. xviii. 17, 18). 
 Christ said, ' If ye believed Moses, ye would be- 
 lieve Me, for he wrote of Me.' ' The words which 
 Thou gavest Mel have given unto them ' (John v. 
 46 ; xii. 49 ; xiv. 10 ; xvii. 4, 8).
 
 WITNESS OF PROPHECY 25 
 
 The Psalmists. ' Thou wilt not suffer Thy Holy 
 One to see corruption ' is interpreted of Christ by 
 St. Peter (Acts ii. 25-28). Ps. xxii predicts the 
 piercing of the hands and dividing of the raiment, 
 as fulfilled at the crucifixion (John xix. 24). 
 Ps. xlv. 6 is interpreted of Christ, in Heb. i. 8. 
 Ps. ex. i is quoted by St. Peter as fulfilled in * this 
 Jesus whom ye crucified ' (Acts ii. 34-36). Ps. ex. 4 
 is applied to Christ, who 'hath His priesthood 
 unchangeable ' (Heb. v. 6-10; vii. 1-24). 
 
 ZECHARIAH'S prophecy, 'Behold thy King 
 cometh riding upon an ass ' (ix. 9) was claimed by 
 .St. Matthew as fulfilled at Christ's entry into Jeru- 
 salem (Matt. xxi. 1-5). Our Lord interpreted of 
 Himself the prediction, Zech. xiii. 7, ' All ye shall 
 be offended in Me this night : for it is written, I ^^ 
 will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock 
 shall be scattered ' (Matt. xxvi. 31). JOEL ii. 28-32 
 was quoted by St. Peter at Pentecost as fulfilled by 
 the risen Christ ' I will pour out My Spirit upon 
 all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall 
 prophesy/ &c. (Acts ii. 17-21). MALACHI was 
 quoted by Christ as predicting His forerunner 
 ' This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send 
 My messenger before Thy face ' (Mai. iii. i ; Matt. 
 xi. 10). 
 
 ISAIAH has been well termed the Evangelical 
 Prophet, so frequently does he prophesy of Christ, 
 as interpreted by the Apostles. ' Behold, a virgin 
 shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His
 
 26 ATONEMENT 
 
 name Immanuel' (Is. vii. 14), is quoted by St. 
 Matthew in his narrative of the Nativity (Matt. 
 i. 23). Is. vi. 9, 10; viii. 14; xxviii. 16, are 
 quoted by St. Paul as fulfilled in Christ ' As it is 
 written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling,' 
 &c. (Rom. ix. 33); and by St. Peter 'a chief 
 corner stone,' &c. (i Pet. ii. 6). John the Baptist 
 quoted Is. xl. 3, as referring to his own testimony 
 of Christ (Matt. iii. 3). Is. xlii. 1-3 is referred 
 by St. Matthew to Christ, 'A bruised reed shall 
 He not break,' &c. Matt. xii. 17-21). Is. Ixi. 1-3 
 was read at Nazareth by Jesus, who added, ' To- 
 day hath this Scripture been fulfilled in your ears ' 
 (Luke iv. 17-21). 
 
 ISAIAH liii. might seem to be a statement of ac- 
 complished fact, so circumstantially does it describe 
 the sufferings of the Messiah. It also sets forth the 
 purpose and results of those sufferings so explicitly 
 that it may well be claimed as an emphatic witness 
 to the Atonement. 
 
 Verse i. St. John writes, 'These things said 
 Isaiah, because he saw His glory ; and he spake of 
 Him ' (John xii. 38-41). So also St. Paul (Rom. 
 x. 16). Verse 4 is quoted in Matt. viii. 17, ' That it 
 might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the 
 prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and 
 bare our diseases.' Verse 5, ' He was wounded for 
 our transgressions ; and with His stripes we are 
 heftled,' is applied to Christ (i Pet. ii. 24). Verse 6, 
 ' The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all ' :
 
 WITNESS OF PROPHECY 27 
 
 this must mean suffering the penalty. ' The son 
 shall not bear the iniquity of the father' (Ezek. 
 xviii. 20), i.e. shall not suffer for it. But Christ 
 does this for us ; ' His own self bare our sins in His 
 body upon the tree' (i Pet. ii. 24). Verse 7, 'as 
 a lamb that is led to the slaughter,' was applied to 
 Christ by Philip, when by special commission from 
 God he instructed the Ethiopian, and ' beginning 
 from this Scripture, preached unto him Jesus ' (Acts 
 viii. 26-40). St. Peter, alluding to this prophecy, 
 wrote, ' Christ suffered for you, who, when He was 
 reviled, reviled not again' (i Pet. ii. 23). Verse 12 
 is quoted by the Saviour Himself: 'This which 
 is written must be fulfilled in Me, And He was 
 reckoned with transgressors ; for that which con- 
 cerneth Me hath fulfilment' (Luke xxii. 37). 
 
 Prior to the death of Christ and during two 
 centuries afterwards, the Jews interpreted this 
 chapter as relating to a personal Messiah ; but 
 when Christianity triumphed and used this predic- 
 tion in evidence, they changed their interpretation 
 from a person to the nation. Those who accept 
 Christ only as a moral reformer naturally reject an 
 interpretation adverse to their theory. They may 
 question the application of such prophecies, the 
 infallibility of the Apostles, and even of their Master, 
 or the accuracy of reporters and transcribers, but 
 they cannot deny that the Apostles, as represented 
 in the New Testament, taught that these predictions 
 were fulfilled in Christ.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WITNESS OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 
 
 JESUS said, 'The Law and the Prophets were 
 until John: from that time the gospel of the 
 kingdom of God is preached' (Luke xvi. 16). He 
 was the last prophet of the okjcovenant, and the 
 herald of the new; the divinely constituted link 
 between the two dispensations, proclaiming the 
 advent of Him who fulfilled the foregoing types 
 and predictions. The long shadow projected by 
 the sun from the approaching traveller gave place 
 to the actual presence which verified the dim out- 
 line. John, a second Elijah, pointed from the 
 shadow to the Substance, and in the name of all 
 the prophets did homage to the Messiah by 
 baptizing Him, a greater than all. 
 
 He was ' sent from God, that he might bear 
 witness of the Light, that all might believe through 
 Him.' He said, ' I am the voice of one crying in 
 the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, 
 as said Isaiah the prophet ' (John i. 7, 23). Thus
 
 WITNESS OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 29 
 
 divinely commissioned, he bore testimony that 
 Jesus was the Son of God who came to bring 
 mercy and the knowledge of salvation. ' John 
 beareth witness of Him, and crieth, Grace and truth 
 came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at 
 any time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the 
 bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.' He 
 
 \*A j* 
 
 also testified that Jesus would bestow the Holy 
 Spirit, who changes the sinful heart and produces 
 holiness of life. ' He that sent me to baptize with 
 water, He said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou 
 shalt see the Spirit descending, the same is He 
 that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit And I have 
 seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of 
 God ' (John i. 15-34). 
 
 Thus the Baptist bore testimony to the Saviour 
 as the Author and Giver of spiritual grace to purify 
 the heart and life. This is one aspect of salvation, 
 its subjective influence. The other is the pro- 
 viding an Atonement to cover guilt and save from 
 penalty. This was testified of Christ when the 
 Baptist, looking towards Him, said ' Behold the 
 Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
 world.' The next day he re- affirmed the title 
 which implied the purpose ' Behold the Lamb of 
 God ' (John i. 29, 36). 
 
 It is quite true that when, by the Holy Spirit 
 given by Christ, a sinner renounces his sinful 
 practices, sin is taken away ; but is this the mean- 
 ing here? It is the meaning of the promise that
 
 
 30 ATONEMENT 
 
 Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit ; and if 
 it were also the meaning here we might expect to 
 read ' Behold the great Teacher of holiness, its 
 perfect Exemplar, the Giver of the Spirit, who 
 thus, by influencing the heart of man, enables him 
 to cease from sinning.' But what relation is there 
 between a Lamb and such reformation of life, 
 unless that which is suggested by the sacrificial 
 Lamb of the Jewish worship? He did not say, 
 ' Behold Him who illustrates in His character the 
 gentleness and purity of a lamb ' ; not, ' Behold the 
 Lamb who will teach men to become good ' ; but 
 who taketh away sin ; not the sins of individuals, 
 but ' the sin of the world.' 
 
 The word ' means taketh away by bearing or 
 carrying the thing that is taken away . . . imply- 
 ing that Christ took on Himself the burden of 
 our sin, and in this way removed it from us. It 
 is never used in Scripture to signify removing sin 
 by instruction, authority, or example ; but always 
 to denote expiating sin or bearing its punishment. 
 Had the Baptist's words been, " Behold the Light 
 of the world," there might have been some greater 
 plausibility in the suggestion that " the sin of the 
 world " is here said to be removed through His in- 
 structions. But we cannot reasonably suppose that 
 any other mode of removing sins is indicated, than 
 that of making expiation or atonement for them V 
 
 The Baptist instructed his hearers to recognise 
 
 1 Scriptural Doctrine of Atonement, pp. 47, 48. Prof. Crawford.
 
 WITNESS OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 31 
 
 the true Sacrifice of which the lambs offered on 
 the altar were but figures. Here is the reality; 
 provided not by men, but by God Himself; the 
 fulfilment of type and prophecy; by whom the 
 curse is removed not merely from the Jewish race, 
 but from the whole world. 
 
 'The Baptist in a striking metaphor condenses 
 the whole sacrificial system into a burning word 
 based on Isaiah's oracle touching the suffering 
 servant of Jehovah. . . . The Paschal Lamb was a sin 
 offering, and freed Israel from the curse that fell on 
 the first-born of Egypt. Twice every day a lamb 
 was presented as a burnt offering, and accepted by 
 God to make atonement for sin. . . . The lamb of 
 the trespass offering was slain for atonement. . . . 
 On the Day of Atonement the high priest took the 
 blood of the bullock of sin offering into the holy 
 place to make atonement, because* of their " trans- 
 gressions in all their sins." . . . God's Lamb is 
 portrayed in terms which the writers of the New 
 Testament regarded as a sufficient exposition of 
 the meaning of the death of their Lord. . . . John 
 the Baptist perceived with an intensity which 
 plainly amounted to divine inspiration, that Jesus 
 was not only the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, 
 but the Lamb of God V 
 
 This witness borne by the Baptist was certified 
 by Jesus Himself ' Verily I say unto you, Among 
 them that are born of women there hath not arisen 
 1 John the Baptist, Lect 6. H. R. Reynolds, D.D.
 
 32 ATONEMENT 
 
 a greater than John the Baptist. . . . Ye have sent 
 unto John, and he hath borne witness unto the 
 truth' (Matt. xi. n ; John v. 33). Combine with 
 this designation of the Lamb of God the words of 
 the Prophet, ' He humbled Himself and opened not 
 His mouth, as a lamb that is led to the slaughter' 
 (Is. liii. 7) ; and those of the Apostle, ' Ye were 
 redeemed with precious blood, as of a lamb without 
 blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ ' 
 (i Pet. i. 19); and the vision of Jesus in the 'midst 
 of the throne, a Lamb standing, as though it had 
 been slain'; with the celestial anthem, 'Worthy is 
 the Lamb that hath been slain to receive glory and 
 blessing. . . . Unto Him that sitteth on the throne, 
 and unto the Lamb ; who loveth us, and loosed us 
 from our sins by His blood, be the glory for ever 
 and ever. Amen' (Rev. i. 5, 6 ; v. 6, 12).
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WITNESS OF THE WORDS OF JESUS. 
 
 IT has been said that Christ Himself never 
 taught Atonement for sin as the object of His 
 mission ; but that His simple moral teaching and 
 martyr-death were misrepresented by Jewishly pre- 
 judiced followers, who attributed to Him their false 
 interpretations. If Christ did indeed thus keep 
 silent on this theme, it is replied that His great 
 mission was to make the Gospel rather than to 
 proclaim it. ' He came not to preach it so much, as 
 that there might be a Gospel to preach. . . . The life 
 of Christ was more than His words. His actions 
 revealed the Father. He did not translate all He 
 did into words. This the Apostles did. As " day 
 unto day uttereth speech," though their voice is not 
 heard, so even in the silence of Christ there is a 
 revelation which transcends all that is contained in 
 the rapture of Psalmists, the visions of Prophets 
 and the wisdom of Apostles. . . . When God was 
 living among men He was not always explaining 
 
 C
 
 34 ATONEMENT 
 
 Himself. You cannot translate the Alps into a 
 series of propositions ; and there is no formula for 
 the golden pomp of a sunset or for the majesty of 
 the Matterhorn V 
 
 But if His great object was to save by death, and 
 if ' out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
 speaketh,' it would have seemed strange if He had 
 kept silence on a subject so important, and had 
 never ratified the designation of the Baptist. 
 
 Ponder some of His words. 'As Moses lifted up 
 the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son 
 of Man be lifted up ; that whosoever believeth may 
 in Him have eternal life.' ' This is the will of My 
 / Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and 
 believeth on Him, should have eternal life.' ' I 
 give unto them eternal life, and they shall never 
 perish.' ' Whosoever believeth on Me shall never 
 die.' 'No one cometh unto the Father but by 
 Me' (John iii. 14, 15; vi. 40, 51; x. 38; xi. 36; 
 xiv. 6). 
 
 Such exclusive claim implies exclusive qualifi- 
 catiqn. He claimed to save ; He qualified Himself 
 by dying. ' I am the living bread which came 
 down from heaven. The bread I will give is My 
 flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. 
 If any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever. 
 I am the Bread of Life. I, if I be lifted up from 
 the earth, will draw all men unto Myself. This 
 He said signifying what death He should die.' ' The 
 1 The Atonement. R. W. Dale, D.D.
 
 WITNESS OF THE WORDS OF JESUS 35 
 
 Son of Man came to minister, and to give His 
 life a ransom for many.' 'The good Shepherd 
 layeth down His life for the sheep. Therefore 
 doth My Father love Me because I lay down My 
 life.' ' The Son of Man came to save that which 
 was lost.' ' Greater love hath no man than this, 
 that a man lay down his life for his friends.' 
 (Matt. xi. 27, 28 ; xx. 28 ; Luke xix. 10 ; John 
 ii. 19; vi. 32-40; 48-5 1 ; viii. 28; x. 14, 15, 17 ; 
 xii. 23-28, 32 ; xv. 13 ; xvi. 23 ; xvii. 1-5.) 
 
 The Jews whom Christ addressed understood by 
 ransom, not moral influence, but substitution in 
 place of penalty ; or a price to secure a benefit ; 
 the half-shekel for every one at a census, ' a ran- 
 som for his soul unto the Lord,' &c. (Ex. xxx. 
 1 2-1 6). No substitution for the life of a murderer 
 was to be accepted. In this sense Christ gave His 
 life e a ransom for many.' Thus our Lord taught 
 that the eternal life He had promised was linked 
 with the surrender of His own life (Ex. xxx. 12-16 ; 
 Lev. xxv. 25 ; Num. xviii. 15, 16 ; xxxv. 32). 
 
 No action in our Lord's ministry was more solemn 
 than the institution of the Holy Supper, whereby 
 He fulfilled the type of the Passover, which was now 
 superseded by the commemoration of His death. 
 ' He took bread, and when He had given thanks, 
 He brake it, and said, This is My body which is 
 for you : this do in remembrance of Me. And in 
 like manner also the cup, saying, This cup is the new 
 covenant in My blood ' ; ' even that which is poured 
 C a
 
 36" ATONEMENT 
 
 out for you.' Had He come merely to exert moral 
 influence, why not refer to His teaching, miracles, 
 example, as specially to be kept in remembrance ? 
 Why select His death alone, unless it had a special 
 significance ? He explained what it meant. ' Drink 
 ye all of it : for this is My blood of the covenant, 
 which is shed for many unto remission of sins! So 
 that this Sacrament of Holy Communion was to 
 be observed till His Second Advent, to keep His 
 death and its purpose in constant remembrance 
 (Matt. xxvi. 26-28; Mark xiv. 22-24; Luke xxii. 
 19, 20). St. Paul by divine authority confirmed 
 the duty of preserving both the institution and its 
 meaning ' My body which is for you : the new 
 covenant in My blood : ye proclaim the Lord's 
 death' (i Cor. xi. 23-26). 
 
 Objectors often urge that the Apostles were 
 trained up in Jewish ceremonial and in the use of 
 sacrificial language, and so gave this colouring to 
 Christ's simple teaching. Christ knew this, and 
 deliberately used language which they would cer- 
 tainly interpret in this sense. In instituting an 
 observance for the whole Church, in all coming 
 time, to be significant of His death and its purpose, 
 He could ' not have used any figure borrowed from 
 the Jewish ritual, unless it were the very fittest that 
 could be found to embody His real meaning. Our 
 Lord must have used the words because He knew 
 they would so understand them, and because He 
 wished and intended them to do so. If He did not
 
 WITNESS OF THE WORDS OF JESUS 37 
 
 mean to say that His death was an expiatory 
 sacrifice, and that it was intended to procure re- 
 mission of sins, He was using language which He 
 must have known was sure to be misunderstood by 
 those who heard Him, and through them to mislead 
 every Christian Church which should afterwards 
 receive the Gospel through their lips V 
 
 After His resurrection the Lord continued to 
 teach the necessity and purpose of His death. 
 ' O slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets 
 have spoken ! Behoved it not the Christ to suffer 
 these things, and to enter into His glory ? ' To the 
 disciples, just before His ascension, He said, ' Thus 
 it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and rise 
 again the .ihird^day ; and that repentance and re- 
 mission of sins should be preached in His Name 
 unto all the nations ' (Luke xxiv. 25, 26 ; 46, 47). 
 
 How, in the light of such declarations by our 
 Lord Himself, can it be maintained that the Atone- 
 ment was a theory invented by His followers 
 without any intimation from Himself? His chief 
 mission was indeed to make the Atonement which, 
 when completed, was to be proclaimed : but this 
 was evidently in His heart all the while, and most 
 emphatically declared, both during His living 
 ministry and after His resurrection, in His parting 
 words. It was because their minds and hearts were 
 filled with this truth, which they had learned from 
 
 1 Holy Scripture respecting the Atonement. Prof. Crawford, D.D., 
 p. 51.
 
 38 ATONEMENT 
 
 His constant teaching, that after His ascension 
 and the gift of His Spirit they went forth at once 
 to obey His command to preach this Gospel to 
 every creature. 
 
 But even if our Lord had not thus emphatically 
 witnessed to the Atonement in distinct words, His 
 whole ministry breathed it. This pervaded His 
 teaching, animated the letter, explained the symbol, 
 interpreted the miracle, slept in His silence, lived in 
 His death.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WITNESS OF THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS. 
 
 THE Saviour's Passion is a prominent feature of 
 all the Gospels. It is contrary to the general rule 
 of proportion that a life crowded with important 
 incidents should be narrated with such brevity, 
 while the circumstances of death are described with 
 such elaborate detail. If the mission of Christ was 
 chiefly to influence morally by word and example, 
 why has so much that He said and did, adapted 
 to such purpose, been omitted ? The ' death of the 
 righteous' is in every case a mystery. Strange 
 that God should allow any loyal servant, any loving 
 child of His, although their righteousness is imper- 
 fect, to die as the wicked die. In the case of Christ, 
 God allowed His well-beloved Son to die, the object 
 of His perfect approval and delight, who had no sin 
 of His own to demand penalty, and could not be 
 guilty of that of others, but was a perfect reflection 
 as man of the perfect holiness of God ; and yet He 
 died ! He was not bound by the physical laws of
 
 40 ATONEMENT 
 
 death, for He saved others from dying. The Atone- 
 ment alone meets the difficulty. He died to ' take 
 away the sin of the world.' 
 
 He was born not simply with the liability, but for 
 the very purpose of death. Life is the great purpose 
 of heroes and philanthropists. They live for the 
 cause of humanity, and death cuts short their 
 labours. Christ came to die for humanity, and His 
 death perfected and perpetuated His work. This 
 was prominently in His mind during His active 
 ministry. Again and again He spoke to His dis- 
 ciples of the death He was to die. { From that time 
 began Jesus to show unto His disciples how that 
 He must suffer many things of the elders and chief 
 priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day 
 be raised up '(Matt. xvi. 21 ; xxvi. 12 ; Mark viii. 
 31 ; ix. J2 ; xiv. 8 ; Luke ix. 22 ; xvii. 25 ; xxiv. 
 6-8). It was unlike other heroes thus to dwell on 
 His death. Was it not because His death had 
 objects beyond theirs? In their case life was to 
 benefit, life which death ended : in His case life 
 was not so much for philanthropy as for salvation 
 by the surrender of it. * We behold Jesus, because 
 of the suffering of death crowned with glory and 
 honour, that by the grace of God He should taste 
 death for every man ' (Heb. ii. 9). 
 
 The Apostles were to be witnesses martures 
 if need be, martyrs in our sense ; but death in bear- 
 ing witness was not to be sought as an object. 
 They were to live as long as they might in order
 
 WITNESS OF THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS 41 
 
 to labour. Their Master instructed them, ' If they 
 persecute you in one city, flee to another.' But He 
 Himself sought death as His mission. ' He sted- 
 fastly set His face to go up to Jerusalem.' ' I have 
 a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I 
 straitened till it be accomplished!' When the hour 
 of death drew near, a glorious vision cheered Him 
 on the Mount of Transfiguration. What was the 
 theme when Moses and Elijah conversed with Him? 
 Not the joys of heaven, but the woes of earth ; not 
 the gorgeous triumph awaiting Him in the skies, 
 but the agonizing path to the dark and dolorous 
 tomb. They ' spake of His decease which He was 
 about to accomplish at Jerusalem.' Why, at the 
 hour of His greatest glory on earth, select as a 
 theme the hour of His deepest humiliation ? The 
 special importance thus given to His decease was 
 confirmed by the voice from heaven : ' This is My 
 Son, My chosen, My beloved, in whom I am well 
 pleased ; hear ye Him ' (Luke ix. 28-35 ; Matt, 
 xvii. 5). Is there any adequate explanation of such 
 emphatic references to His death, except that given 
 by the Atonement ? 
 
 Those sufferings cannot be accounted for by the 
 natural result of the enmity of wicked men, pro- 
 voked by His reproofs. He knew from the first 
 what to expect. Objectors say, ' Christ simply came 
 into collision with the world's evil, and bore the 
 penalty of that daring ; He approached the whirling 
 wheel, and was torn to pieces.' But this has been
 
 42 ATONEMENT 
 
 done by all martyrs. Why are they not called 
 ' saviours ' ? They contended with the world's evil, 
 as He did, and were vanquished. They were crushed 
 by the rotating wheel, but had no power to check 
 it, so as to save themselves and others. But He 
 who calmed the raging sea and raised the dead 
 could have overcome all forces of Nature or evil 
 men, yet He allowed Himself to be crucified. ' No 
 one taketh My life away from Me, but I lay it 
 down of Myself (Matt. xxvi. 53; John x. 18; 
 xviii. 11 ; xix. u). 
 
 His sufferings were not attributed by Himself or 
 His Apostles to His enemies, except as instruments ; 
 but to the ' determinate counsel of God ' (Acts ii. 
 23 ; iv. 24-28). When betrayed He said, ' The cup 
 which My Father hath given Me shall I not drink it ? ' 
 On the day of resurrection and on the eve of 
 ascension He reminded the disciples that it had 
 ' behoved Him to suffer,' as predicted (Luke xxiv. 
 7, 25-27, 44). His sufferings at the hands of men 
 were not unavoidable. He might easily have 
 escaped from Gethsemane. He said to Peter He 
 could have summonecLJegions of angels to His 
 rescue. To Pilate He said, ' Thou wouldest have 
 no power against Me, except it were given thee 
 from above' (John xix. n). 
 
 s^~ His sufferings were not chiefly those of the body. 
 \ Other martyrs to malice have died rapturously. 
 Bodily torture has brightened the victor's torch. 
 The agony of Gethsemane, the desponding cry of 
 
 X
 
 WITNESS OF THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS 43 
 
 Calvary, did not result from men. ' It pleased the 
 Lord to bruise Him.' He made ' His soul an offering 
 for sin' (Is. liii. 10 ; i Pet. ii. 24). It was not the 
 being crushed by a wheel which was still to go on 
 crushing those who oppose men's wickedness, but 
 it was the arresting of the wheel of retributive 
 justice which otherwise would destroy sinners. 
 ' His death was His triumph over the world's evil. 
 It was not the triumph of a whirling wheel ! He 
 was not conflicting with a physical or social law, 
 and paying the penalty of His daring. He was 
 magnifying the moral law and gaining the eternal 
 rewards of obedience unto death. He was not 
 helpless in the embraces of an infernal machine. 
 His cross was the weapon of His warfare and the 
 means of His victory/ 
 
 Some of His sufferings were incident to humanity. 
 His physical nature endured bodily pain. His 
 social nature suffered by ingratitude, hatred, and 
 betrayal. His intellectual and moral nature suf- 
 fered temptation, conflict, depression. His culture 
 increased His sensitiveness. His purity was shocked 
 by contact with wickedness. His sympathy shared 
 the sorrows of others. His divine love grieved over 
 the evils present and future which sin entailed. The 
 illustration of the basest depravity in men's treat- 
 ment of Himself intensified the sorrow of His death. 
 
 But this in a lower degree was ' common to men.' 
 He suffered grief peculiar to Himself. There was 
 an anticipation of death marked by a sadness not
 
 44 ATONEMENT 
 
 often felt by His weakest followers. Death in itself 
 could not have been shrunk from by Him who was 
 ' the Resurrection and the Life.' Why should He 
 say, ' My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto 
 death ; ' enough to break His heart and end His 
 life ? Why should He entreat again and again, 
 ' O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass 
 from Me ' ? Why on the cross exclaim, ' My God, 
 My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? ' (Matt. xxvi. 
 37-39 ; xxvii. 46). 
 
 He who said to His Father, ' I glorified Thee on 
 the earth, having accomplished the work which 
 Thou hast given Me to do,' did not groan under 
 conscious neglect of duty. If Christian faith, even 
 when linked with the memory of aggravated guilt, 
 has met death with composure, could the spotless 
 One shrink from that which multitudes of martyrs 
 have met with jubilant songs ? He invoked Omni- 
 potence. ' If it be possible ! ' If so many miracles 
 for others, why not one for c the Beloved Son ' ? 
 Why was not this particular cup allowed to pass 
 when no circumstances could hinder, no justice 
 forbad, and the Sufferer might have been spared 
 without injury to any, with benefit to all ? Why, 
 His death was to redeem ? 
 
 Consider the facts. ArT innocent Man, greatest 
 of philanthropists, the Son of God yet chief of 
 sufferers : not by irresistible forces, but by divine 
 appointment : for sins not His own. It was more 
 than sympathy; it was Substitution. As our Sin-
 
 WITNESS OF THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS 45 
 
 bearer, though He could not take the guilt, He 
 bore the penalty. He carried our burden, not to 
 share it with us, but to release us from it. ' Christ 
 redeemed us from the curse of the law, having be- 
 come a curse for us ' (John xvii. 4 ; Gal. iii. 13). 
 
 He allowed Himself to feel the pressure of God's 
 wrath against sin, that God's love might be revealed 
 towards sinners. As God's displeasure must be 
 felt towards those who break His laws, He, for 
 a short season, and for them, experienced the hiding 
 of His face and so endured the worst penalty of 
 transgression. To the perfectly holy, to the well- 
 beloved Son of God, this must have been an agony 
 beyond what the best of imperfect beings can know. 
 / In proportion as God was consciously present 
 /nabitually to the mind of Christ, the least with- 
 / drawal of that Presence was enough to break the 
 ^ heart Was not this the immediate cause of death ? 
 With similar bodily wounds victims have lingered 
 days on the cross. His speedy death surprised 
 the_authorities. What broke His mighty heart? 
 He might have exulted that the greatest work 
 ever achieved on earth was completed. He said 
 to His disciples, ' If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice 
 because I go to the Father.' Why did not He 
 Himself rejoice? Because He was bearing our 
 sins. This alone could explain the bloody sweat 
 and agonising cry. If He died only as a martyr, 
 could God desert suffering innocence ? Or, if Jesus 
 merely imagined Himself forsaken, shall we say
 
 4^ ATONEMENT 
 
 that the Author and Finisher of Faith, its chief 
 Exemplar, lost His faith and fortitude in circum- 
 stances in which even imperfect men have sung 
 their very paeans of victory, and that He wrong- 
 fully complained of the withdrawal of His Father's 
 face when, if His sufferings were simply personal, 
 that face must have been shedding its fullest light 
 upon Him ? What is the meaning of the cry ? 
 If the Saviour was not in error, there was a sense 
 in which He was forsaken. What is the sense? 
 If it is daring impiety to suspect that He was 
 abandoned, if His death were private, and not 
 vicarious, in what light must that abandonment 
 be regarded ? This question demands an answer 
 that shall preserve untainted the innocence, faith, 
 and courage of Christ, and preserve unimpeached 
 the love and faithfulness of the Father. No such 
 answer can be given save one, He was wounded for 
 our transgressions. ' It was on the cross that Christ 
 was working out the problem of reconciling the 
 bestowment of mercy on sinners with the main- 
 tenance of justice ; establishing an empire of grace 
 on the foundation of law; blending into everlasting 
 concord every element in the regal and paternal 
 relationships of God, and by sufferings inconceivable, 
 supplying securities for ever irrefragable, that the 
 pardon of sinners should never bring into contempt 
 the laws of heaven, but should impart to them a 
 sanctity and impressiveness unfelt before V 
 1 Atonement in relation to far Jon. Enoch Mellor, D.D., p. 39.
 
 WITNESS OF THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS 47 
 
 If the sufferings of Christ were endured only 
 as an example of patience, multitudes of sufferers 
 have furnished similar patterns ; if not to the same 
 degree, yet of greater bodily torture, and of much 
 longer continuance. If to exhibit love, others have 
 also shown love in suffering, but far more impres- 
 sively and efficiently when endured for the purpose 
 of relieving or rescuing others, and not as a mere 
 exhibition, otherwise useless. If Christ's sufferings 
 were for an example, they have an aspect terrible 
 to all who desire to imitate Him, showing that a 
 faultless life may have the most disastrous close, 
 that endeavours to please God may be attended by 
 the sternest signs of disapproval, ancl that God 
 seemed rather to frown than smile on His tender- 
 ness towards us and His endeavours to show how 
 much God loves us. 
 
 ' Surely He hath borne our griefs. 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 He may forsake, 
 in the hour of their sorest need, those who have 
 perfectly loved and obeyed Him. Either the death 
 of Christ was the Atonement for human sin, or else 
 it fills me with terror and despair V 
 
 1 The Atonement. R. W. Dale, D.D., p. 63.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE PETER. 
 
 ST. PETER was eminent among the disciples. 
 With James and John, the specially favoured three, 
 he enjoyed peculiar advantages in intimate know- 
 ledge of the Saviour, and had full opportunity of 
 knowing what He taught. His name was Christ's 
 recognition of capacity. To him were specially 
 entrusted ' the keys of the kingdom/ as the first 
 to preach both to Jews and Gentiles. He was, 
 therefore, a competent witness to the teaching of 
 his divine Master. 
 
 On the very first opportunity, on the Day of 
 Pentecost, when 'filled with the Holy Ghost,' he 
 spoke of Christ ' crucified and slain/ but ' by God 
 raised up/ as having ' shed forth this ' miraculous 
 gift. He said, ' Repent ye, and be baptized every 
 one of you in tJte name of Jesus Christ tmto the 
 remission of your sins ' (Acts ii. 38). ' The things 
 which God foreshowed by the mouth of all the 
 prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He thus
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE PETER 49 
 
 fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, that your sins may 
 be blotted out' (Acts iii. 18, 19). Thus he obeyed 
 his Lord's last instruction, ' that repentance and 
 remission of sins should be preached in His Name, 
 beginning at Jerusalem ' (Luke xxiv. 47). So also 
 to the rulers, ' In none other is there salvation ; for 
 neither is there any other name under heaven, that 
 is given among men, wherein we must be saved ' 
 (Acts iv. i a). So also to Gentiles in the person of 
 the Roman soldier, * To Him bear all the prophets 
 witness, that through His Name every one that 
 believeth on Him shall receive remission of sins' 
 (Acts x. 43). 
 
 If thus he preached to sinners, so also he in- 
 structed saints. ' Elect in sanctification of the 
 Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of 
 Jesus Christ. Concerning which salvation the Spirit 
 of Christ which was in them (the prophets) testi- 
 fied beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the 
 glories that should follow.' He reminded believers 
 that they were ' redeemed from their vain manner 
 of life, not with silver or gold, but with precious 
 blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without 
 spot, even the blood of Christ.' Redeemed, not 
 by teaching and example merely or chiefly, im- 
 proving their own nature; not by life lived for 
 them merely, but by life surrendered for them, 
 emphatically by this, 'even the blood of Christ.' 
 ' Delivered from their old heathen life because 
 Christ atoned for their old heathen sins ' ... by 
 
 D
 
 50 ATONEMENT 
 
 ' the sacrifice which created new relations between 
 men and God ' (i Pet. i. i, 2, 10, n, 18, 19). 
 
 In exhorting cruelly treated slaves to patient 
 endurance, he said, ' Christ also suffered for you, 
 leaving you an example that ye should follow His 
 steps.' The suffering as an Atonement gave occa- 
 sion to its lesson of patience. So the crew of a 
 lifeboat do not go out to a wreck to display 
 courage, but to save the perishing, though in doing 
 this they set an example. Peter adds this explan- 
 ation ' Who His own self bare our sins in His 
 body upon the tree ; by whose stripes ye were 
 healed.' He, the innocent, bare ' our sins,' i.e. their 
 penalty (see Ez. xviii. 20) ; not only by mental 
 sympathy, but ' in His body, 1 by His death ; as 
 one condemned ' on the tree ' ; so that we, for 
 whose guilt He suffered, having died in Him our 
 Surety, might be delivered from death and sin its 
 cause, and ' live unto righteousness ' (i Pet. ii. 21-25). 
 
 ' Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for 
 the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.' 
 Not with us, as merely sharing our suffering, but 
 for us, that we might escape it : the blameless One 
 on whom retributive justice had no claim, that we, 
 deserving punishment, might be saved through His 
 suffering on our behalf. Thus redeemed, we join 
 with St. Peter' Blessed be the God and Father 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, who begat us again unto 
 a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
 from the dead ' (i Pet. i. 3-11).
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE JOHN. 
 
 IF ' he that loveth not knoweth not,' conversely 
 he that loveth much knoweth much. John, who 
 was specially designated as ' the disciple whom 
 Jesus loved,' must have known, not only by long 
 and close companionship, but by heart-sympathy, 
 what was the main purpose of his divine Teacher. 
 
 In his Gospel narrative, containing Christ's own 
 testimony, the Evangelist's belief in the Atonement 
 is expressed in the explanation he gives of the 
 Lord's reference to His being lifted up for salva- 
 tion as Moses lifted up the serpent for the cure of 
 the wounded who looked to it in faith. ' For God 
 so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent the 
 Son into the world, that the world should be saved 
 through Him' (John iii. 16, 17). If, as some con- 
 sider, these words are not Christ's, they are the 
 explanation of His words by the beloved disciple, 
 
 D 2
 
 53 ATONEMENT 
 
 who must have learned from his divine Lord that 
 it was the love of God for our sinful world which 
 prompted this gift of His beloved Son, who was 
 lifted up on the cross to effect eternal salvation for 
 all who trust in Him. 
 
 In addition to St. John's Gospel we possess a 
 letter written in his old age, in which he says, ' If 
 we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we 
 have fellowship one with another, and the blood of 
 Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.' Is this 
 cleansing moral reformation only, or is it deliver- 
 ance from guilt? If the former, walking in the light 
 accomplishes it. If the teaching, example and love 
 of Christ effect salvation simply by influencing 
 our moral nature, these constitute the light which 
 drives away the darkness. If so, why does not the 
 Apostle say, 'and the light in which Christ dwells 
 and sheds forth in His teaching, this cleanseth us 
 from all remaining imperfection ' ? Why say, ' the 
 blood cleanseth'? Is not the blood that cleanseth 
 in ver. 7 related to the forgiveness in ver. 9 ? (i John 
 i. 7-9). 
 
 The same theme of forgiveness is continued in 
 the following chapter. ' If any man sin, we have 
 an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the 
 righteous.' Surely the meaning suggested is that 
 we are forgiven through the mediation of Christ. 
 He who taught ' God is Love ' represents men as 
 needing an Advocate, who in this passage does not 
 plead with us, to persuade us to become good, but
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE JOHli 53 
 
 , against whom we have sinned, to bestow 
 the forgiveness just before promised (i John ii. i). 
 
 Of this Advocate St. John adds, ' And He is the 
 Propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but 
 also for the whole world/ It is as Propitiation 
 that He is Advocate with the Father, who is ' faith- 
 ful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to 
 cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' Pardon re- 
 sults from the advocacy, and this forms the Pro- 
 pitiation. ' To propitiate always refers to that which 
 changes the disposition of the person offended ; 
 and when used in relation to offences against the 
 divine law, always describes the means by which 
 the sin is supposed to be covered, in order that 
 the divine forgiveness might be secured 1 .' The 
 result is not only pardon, but purity. ' He is faith- 
 ful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to 
 cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' ' I write unto 
 you, my little children, because your sins are for- 
 given you for His name's sake? Forgiveness, not 
 because the sin has been renounced and a new life 
 in the light of God commenced, but for the name 
 of Him who is the Propitiation for our sins, and 
 our Advocate with the Father (i John ii. a, 12). 
 
 The same subject is continued in the third chap- 
 ter ' Hereby know we love, because He laid down 
 His life for us : and we ought to lay down our lives 
 for the brethren.' Life is to be risked or surren- 
 dered for the brethren in protecting them from 
 1 The Atonement, by Dr. Dale. Lect. V, p. i6a.
 
 54 ATONEMENT 
 
 harm, because Christ so laid down His life for us : 
 an objective benefit, and not merely a subjective 
 influence (i John iii. 16). 
 
 The Apostle cannot let the subject drop. In the 
 next chapter we read, ' Herein is love, not that we 
 loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His 
 Son to be the Propitiation for our sins. If God so 
 loved us, we also ought to love one another.' A 
 propitiation was needed : and this was provided by 
 God Himself, and such love should prompt us in 
 our conduct to others (i John iv. 9-11). 
 
 Again in the fifth chapter he concludes his letter 
 with the same testimony. ' The witness that God 
 hath borne concerning His Son is this that God 
 gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His 
 Son. He that hath the Son hath the life ; he that 
 hath not the Son of God hath not the life. These 
 things have I written unto you, that ye may know 
 that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe 
 on the name of the Son of God ' (i John v. 10-13.) 
 
 Do not these words of the beloved disciple 
 teach that Christ's death meant more than moral 
 influence, and not merely his opinion, but the deep 
 feeling of his heart, the ground of his confidence, 
 the constraining motive of his obedience and in- 
 centive to his zeal? Such convictions harmonize 
 with the songs of heaven which he was privileged 
 to hear when he saw the Saviour in glory before 
 the throne : ' a Lamb as though it had been slain : ' 
 who said to him, 'Fear not, I am He that liveth
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE JOHN 55 
 
 and was dead ; ' in whose presence the glorious 
 company of heaven ' sing a new song, saying, Thou 
 wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy 
 blood men of every tribe. Worthy is the Lamb 
 that hath been slain to receive the power and 
 riches, and glory and blessing. Unto Him that 
 loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by His 
 blood, be the glory and the dominion for ever and 
 ever. Amen. These are they which washed their 
 robes, and made them white in the blood of the 
 Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of 
 God ; and they serve Him day and night in His 
 temple' (Rev. i. 5, 6 ; v. 6-13 ; vii. 13-15). 
 
 This presence of the Son of God in glory as the 
 ever-living Advocate and Saviour illustrates the 
 striking statement that He Himself, and not merely 
 His death, is the abiding Atonement. ' We have 
 an Advocate with the Father. . . . He is the Propiti- 
 ation for our sins. . . . Herein is love, not that we 
 loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His 
 Son, the Propitiation for our sins' (i John ii. i, a ; 
 iv. 10). In emphasizing the reiterated testimony 
 of the Apostles respecting His death we must not 
 separate this, as the act of sacrifice, from Himself 
 as the Propitiation. It was not merely the human 
 nature which suffered, but the undivided Person of 
 the God-Man who still exists. The Propitiation is 
 not the death, but He who died, and now lives and 
 reigns. It is not an event which happened at 
 Jerusalem nearly two thousand years ago, but it is
 
 56 ATONEMENT 
 
 the eternal Son of God who became incarnate that 
 He might suffer for sin and become an undying, 
 unchanging Advocate, our Representative in heaven, 
 ever presenting Himself as the Atonement for sin. 
 As He was eternal when He suffered, He, ever 
 living, is an eternal Propitiation. It is offered for 
 us daily. ' Who is he that shall condemn ? It is 
 Christ that died, yea rather that was raised from 
 the dead, who also maketh intercession for us.' ' If, 
 while we were enemies, we were reconciled unto God 
 through the death of His Son, much more, being 
 reconciled, shall we be saved by His life' (Rom. 
 v. 10 ; viii. 34). 
 
 It is Christ Himself who propitiates. Not He 
 apart from His sufferings, nor the sufferings apart 
 from His Person : not the sufferings past and gone, 
 but the Sufferer now glorified, who ' ever liveth to 
 make intercession, having obtained eternal redemp- 
 tion' (Heb. ix. i a). 'I am He that liveth, and 
 was dead, yea, and am alive for evermore.' The 
 temporary death efficaciously abides in the ever- 
 lasting Saviour, who is still present to us, and 
 even more accessible to those who believe than 
 He was to those who saw Him as Man on the 
 earth l . In heaven He still atones. As our High 
 Priest He daily offers Himself to God for us. 
 It is an Atonement ever going on. He is en- 
 throned, and is 'worthy to take the book* of 
 
 1 Doctrine of the Atonement. President Edwards, D.D., pp. 130- 
 136.
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE JOHN 57 
 
 universal government, destiny, salvation. Through- 
 out eternity His glorified Presence will be to the 
 innumerable multitude around the throne the 
 symbol, guarantee, certainty of their everlasting 
 safety, and the theme of their everlasting song. 
 Difficulties felt by some in receiving the doctrine of 
 Atonement would be lessened by contemplating, 
 not so much the death at Jerusalem as the Pro- 
 pitiation, but the Saviour, who having died, ever 
 lives to save to the uttermost.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE JAMES. 
 
 His silence respecting Atonement might com- 
 mend the omission of his Epistle from our argument. 
 But this might seem evasion of a difficulty. But 
 the omission by one witness or historian of a fact 
 clearly attested by others, is no disproof. So a 
 theological writer or preacher who omits from 
 some treatise or sermon an important doctrine is 
 not chargeable with non-belief of it His special 
 purpose may not need such reference. 
 
 So with St. James. His subject was not doctrine, 
 but duty ; not the Atonement itself, but its results. 
 He warns against false reliance on faith as a sub- 
 stitute for the practical righteousness which is the 
 outcome of it. It was surely not undervaluing 
 salvation by faith when he insisted that it is always 
 fruitful. This evidences its truth. 
 
 An argument for Atonement has been drawn 
 from this very silence. The warning against a 
 rising heresy was proof of the prevalence of the
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE JAMES 59 
 
 doctrine it perverted. Because the Apostolic 
 Church taught justification by faith, some false 
 professors, to cover their inconsistent conduct, 
 taught the perilous notion that faith supersedes 
 righteousness, and is a valid excuse for sin. So 
 St. James blew the trumpet-warning ' What doth 
 it profit, if a man say he hath faith, but have not 
 works ? Can that faith save him ? For as the 
 body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith 
 apart from works is dead ' (James ii. 14, 26). 
 
 Dr. Dale, in an exhaustive argument, shows that 
 the false views against which this Apostle con- 
 tended could not have prevailed if it had been the 
 doctrine of the Church that salvation consisted in 
 works resulting from moral influence. The absence 
 of works would have been self-condemnation for 
 those who proclaimed salvation by works ; but was 
 not inconsistent with fat profession of salvation by 
 faith. Therefore this reproof indicated the preva- 
 lence of teaching which exalted faith as the means 
 of salvation, and which was perverted to mean that 
 the profession of faith would save in the absence of 
 works. The inference is that Christ was habitually 
 preached as providing forgiveness, and faith as 
 securing individual salvation. ' By grace ye are 
 saved, through faith, not by works ' : this was the 
 Gospel ; ' By faith ye are saved without any works 
 as its result and evidence ' ; this was the heresy: but 
 the heresy bore witness* to the gospel as the actual 
 teaching of the Apostles. ' Had the early Church
 
 60 ATONEMENT 
 
 been taught that the Christian salvation is only a 
 salvation from sin, it is inconceivable that any 
 persons bearing the Christian name would have 
 supposed that they might be saved by faith with- 
 out works. Salvation must have been represented 
 as something else than a change in their personal 
 life and character, effected by the revelation of God 
 in Christ V 
 
 The doctrine of James, instead of contradicting, 
 sustains that of Paul when he wrote to the Ephe- 
 sians (ii. 8, 9), ' By grace have ye been saved 
 through faith ; and that not of yourselves : it is 
 the gift of God : not of works, that no man should 
 glory.' This verse must not be separated from the 
 sentence immediately following, in which St. Paul 
 affirms that works inevitably follow faith ; inasmuch 
 as the gra^ce which saves, so changes the heart that 
 good works are produced ; but these, being results 
 of God's own workmanship, can never be a cause 
 of boasting, or weaken the truth that we are saved 
 by grace through faith. ' For we are His work- 
 manship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, 
 which God afore prepared that we should walk in 
 them ' (Eph. ii. 10). Thus James confirms Paul 
 in the doctrine of salvation by faith in Christ's 
 Atonement, and with him insists that this is verified 
 by the righteousness which it is intended and cal- 
 culated to produce, and without which it is worth- 
 less and false. 
 
 1 The Atonement, by Dr. Dale. Lect. V.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL. 
 
 IT cannot be said that Saul of Tarsus was 
 prejudiced by personal friendship. At the time of 
 Christ's death he was a bigoted devotee of Pharisaic 
 Judaism ; proud of his own legal righteousness, and 
 clinging to the current expectation of a worldly 
 kingdom. Yet, from a bitter enemy of the new 
 sect he became its most able and zealous champion. 
 Whence obtained he such assurance of these hated 
 doctrines that he ' suffered the loss of all things ' in 
 publishing them ? 
 
 Luke, the physician, his intimate friend and 
 companion, relates how, on his cruel mission to 
 Damascus, he was converted by a vision of the 
 Lord Jesus (Acts ix. 1-23). St. Paul himself related 
 this to the angry crowd at Jerusalem, and to King 
 Agrippa at Caesarea, adding the special commission 
 given him by Christ ' To this end have I appeared 
 unto thee, to appoint thee a minister and a witness, 
 to turn them from the power of Satan unto God,
 
 62 ATONEMENT 
 
 * 
 
 that they may receive remission of sins, and an in- 
 heritance among them that are sanctified by faith 
 in Me.' From the first he was commanded to make 
 known forgiveness in the name of the crucified 
 Christ (Acts xxvi. 16-18). 
 
 At once admitted into the society of believers 
 at Damascus, he heard their personal testimony, 
 and could learn all their doctrines and practices. 
 A keen lawyer and judge of character, he must 
 have been fully convinced of their sincerity, and 
 accurately knew what they taught. At once he 
 bore testimony with them. ' Strait way in the syna- 
 gogues he proclaimed Jesus, that He is the Son of 
 God. 1 Luke goes on to relate how at Antioch Paul 
 said 'Through this man is proclaimed remission 
 of sins ; and by Him every one that believeth is 
 justified from all things, from which ye could not 
 be justified by the law of Moses ' (Acts xiii. 26-39). 
 Salvation, not the subsequent reward of amended 
 life, but the immediate effect of accepting Christ, 
 whom God had raised from the dead. To the 
 anxious inquiry of the jailer he said, ' Believe on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' Pardon 
 was offered, accepted, rejoiced in, at once, not a 
 reward of amendment, but by simple faith in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ (Acts xvi. 30-34). 
 
 His farewell address to the elders of Ephesus 
 shows what his doctrine had been there during 
 three years. ' Ye know how I testified repentance 
 toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 63 
 
 Christ . . . Take heed ... to feed the church of 
 God, which He purchased with His own blood' He 
 was on his way to Jerusalem, expecting bonds and 
 afflictions, but he did ' not count life dear to himself/ 
 if only he ' might accomplish the ministry he had 
 received from the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel 
 of the grace of God ' (Acts xx. 21-38). 
 
 In his Epistles, St. Paul reiterates with emphasis 
 the great theme of his preaching. 
 
 To the Corinthians ' Christ sent me to preach 
 the gospel, not in wisdom of words, lest the cross 
 of Christ should be made void. We preach Christ 
 crucified, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom 
 of God. I determined not to know anything among 
 you, save Jesus Christ) and Him crucified' He 
 sternly reproved those who said, ' I am of Paul, and 
 I of Apollos, and I of Christ. Is Christ divided ? 
 was Paul crucified for you ? ' If Christ's death was 
 for them by promoting moral culture, then Paul's 
 sufferings, by which he ' died daily,' were/<?r them 
 in the same sense. But this idea he indignantly 
 repudiated. Christ alone died for them. It was 
 unlike all other deaths, because it was an atoning 
 
 sacrifice (i Cor. i. 12, 13, 17, 23, 24; ii. 2). CAj 
 
 He prefaced his great argument for the Resur- 
 rection, by again explicitly asserting the truth he 
 was commissioned to preach. ' For I delivered unto 
 you first of all that which also I received, how that 
 Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures' : 
 not only and not chiefly to persuade men to cease
 
 64 ATONEMENT 
 
 from sin, but as bearing its penalty and securing 
 pardon as a necessary condition. An innocent man 
 unjustly accused may be said to die for the real 
 culprit who escapes ; so Christ died ' for us,' having 
 voluntarily interposed that we might be saved. The 
 good news which Paul had received from Christ 
 Himself, which the Corinthians had believed, by 
 which they hoped for salvation, ' in which they 
 stood,' without which their ' faith was vain/ having 
 no basis, was this, ' that Christ died for our sins ' 
 (i Cor. xv. 1-3). The Resurrection was evidence 
 of the acceptance of the Sacrifice. ' If Christ hath 
 not been raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in 
 your sins' (i Cor. xv. 17). But why should faith 
 be rendered useless by the non-resurrection of 
 Christ, if He saves only by moral influence ? This 
 would not need resurrection, any more than the 
 moral influence of any other teacher or martyr 
 needs it. But since Christ died as an Atonement, 
 His resurrection was evidence of its completion 
 .and acceptance. 
 
 This, as already shown, was the great truth set 
 forth in the Holy Supper, the obligation to observe 
 which Paul had specially 'received of the Lord,' 
 who said, ' This cup is the new covenant in My 
 blood. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink 
 the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death ' (i Cor. xi. 
 23, 26). ' The cup of blessing which we bless, is 
 it not a communion of the blood of Christ ? The 
 bread which we break, is it not a communion of
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 65 
 
 the body of Christ ? ' (i Cor. x. 16). Again we ask, 
 if salvation is chiefly by the influence of Christ's 
 example, why not show forth His life rather than 
 His death ? 
 
 He thus expressed the great theme of his ministry 
 ' God was in Christ reconciling the world unto 
 Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, 
 and committed unto us the word of reconciliation ' 
 (2 Cor. v. 18-21). The great work of the Christian 
 ministry is to reconcile sinners to God, who recon- 
 ciles the world /by ' not reckoning unto them their 
 trespasses' This sets them free from condemna- 
 tion, opens the way to God, inspires hope, and 
 prompts them to be reconciled to Him who is so 
 ready to be reconciled to them. The Atonement 
 removes man's unrighteous alienation by first re- 
 moving God's righteous displeasure. 
 
 He emphasizes Atonement in these almost start- 
 ling terms ' Him who knew no sin He made to 
 be sin on our behalf; that we might become the 
 righteousness of God in Him.' He, the sinless, 
 took the place of us sinners, that we, the sinful, 
 might be accepted by God on the ground of His 
 righteousness, and by faith and love through the 
 operation of His Spirit, become ourselves righteous 
 ' the righteousness of God in Him ' (2 Cor. v. 21). 
 
 As to the motive of Christian zeal he says, ' The 
 love of Christ constraineth us : He died for all, that 
 they which live should no longer live unto them- 
 selves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and
 
 66 ATONEMENT 
 
 rose again ' (2 Cor. v. 14, 15). The love of Christ 
 had been shown in human sympathy, compassion, 
 miracles ; but His love in dying to save us from 
 death is the impelling motive. His death was 
 unlike all other. It was representative of mankind. 
 He died for all ; and they who accept the mediation 
 died in Him, and so paid the penalty of law. They 
 now share in the resurrection, and their new life 
 belongs to Him. His love inspires grateful obedi- 
 ence, sweetly compels glad service, constrains to a 
 new life, not of self-pleasing, but of pleasing Him 
 who ' died for us and rose again.' 
 
 To the Romans. ' Justified freely by His grace 
 through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ; 
 whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through 
 faith, by His blood, that He might Himself be 
 just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in 
 Jesus. Being therefore justified by faith, let us 
 have peace with God through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Christ died for the ungodly. God com- 
 mendeth His own love toward us, in that, while 
 we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Being 
 ^ustified by His blood, we shall be saved from the 
 wrath of God through Him. While we were 
 enemies we were reconciled to God, through the 
 death of His Son. We also rejoice in God through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have 
 now received the reconciliation. The wages of sin 
 is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in 
 Christ Jesus our Lord. There is therefore now no
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 67 
 
 condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. 
 He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up 
 for us all. Who shall lay anything to the charge 
 of God's elect ? It is God that justifieth.' Here 
 we are taught that God forgives ; and in the next 
 clause that it is through the Atonement. ' Who 
 is he that shall condemn ? It is Christ Jesus that 
 died.' The death of the Righteous One is the 
 ground of the pardon of the unrighteous (Rom. i. 
 16; iii. 20-26; v. i-n ; vi. 23; viii. I, 32-34). 
 
 To the Galatians. 'Our Lord Jesus Christ gave 
 Himself for our sins. The Son of God loved me, 
 and gave Himself up for me. Christ redeemed us 
 from the curse of the law, having become a curse 
 for us ; that we might receive the promise of the 
 Spirit through faith. God sent forth His Son, born 
 under the law, that He might redeem them which 
 were under the law, that we might receive the 
 adoption of sons . . . Far be it from me to glory, 
 save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ ' (Gal. i. 
 3, 4 ; ii. 20 ; iii. 13, 14 ; iv. 4, 5 5 vi. 14)- 
 
 To the Ephesians. ' Christ, in whom we have our 
 redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of 
 our trespasses. God, being rich in mercy, even when 
 we were dead through our trespasses, quickened us 
 together with Christ . . . made nigh in the blood of 
 Christ. . . . For He is our peace, who came to recon- 
 cile both unto God through the cross ; through Him 
 we have our access in one Spirit unto the Father.' 
 believers are to ' forgive each other, even as God 
 E 3
 
 68 ATONEMENT 
 
 also in Christ forgave them.' It is more than 
 moral influence when we forgive the faults of 
 others. So Christ died that we might be forgiven 
 by God. ' Walk in love, even as Christ also loved 
 you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a 
 sacrifice to God ' (Eph. i. 7; 11.4-22, ; iv. 32 ; v. a). 
 To the Philippians. { Being in the form of God, 
 He became obedient even unto the death of the 
 cross ; wherefore God highly exalted Him, and 
 gave unto Him the name which is above every 
 name. For whom I suffered the loss of all things, 
 that I may gain Christ ; not having a righteousness 
 of mine own, but that which is through faith in 
 
 I Christ' (Phil. ii. 6-11; iii. 7-11). If Christ's right- 
 eousness was not one of Atonement, why should 
 Paul give up his own, which, however defective, was 
 better than nothing, and better to him than that 
 of any one else, which could not become his own 
 unless reckoned to his account, as that of Christ in 
 the Atonement ? 
 
 To the Colossians.* In whom we have our re- 
 demption, the forgiveness of our sins . . . He made 
 peace through the blood of His cross, through Him 
 to reconcile all things unto Himself . . . And you, 
 in time past enemies, hath He reconciled in the 
 body of His flesh through death, to present you 
 holy. You, being dead through your trespasses, 
 did He quicken together with Him, having forgiven 
 us all our trespasses, having blotted out the bond 
 written in ordinances that was against us, nailing
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 69 
 
 it to the cross. . . . Even as the Lord forgave you, 
 so also do ye' (Col. i. 13-23; ii. 13, 14; iii. 13). 
 
 To the Thessalonians. ' Jesus delivereth us from 
 the wrath to come'; not only from sinful conduct 
 by moral influence, but from wrath because of sins 
 already committed. ' For God appointed us not 
 unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, 
 that we should live together with Him ' (i Thess. i. 
 10 ; v. 9). 
 
 To Timothy, ' Faithful is the saying, and worthy 
 of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the 
 world to save sinners. There is one mediator 
 between God and men, Christ Jesus, who gave 
 Himself a ransom for all.' On the eve of martyr- 
 dom he thus expressed his hope : ' Christ Jesus 
 abolished death, and brought life and incorruption 
 to light through the Gospel, whereunto I was ap- 
 pointed a preacher. For the which cause I suffer 
 these things ; yet I am not ashamed ; for I know 
 Him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded 
 that He is able to guard that which I have com- 
 mitted unto Him' (iTim. i. 15; ii. 5,6; a Tim. 
 i. 9-12). 
 
 To Titus. 'Our Saviour Jesus Christ gave Him- 
 self for us, that He might redeem us from all 
 iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people for 
 His own possession, zealous of good works.' ' The 
 kindness of God our Saviour and His love toward 
 man appeared, not by works done in righteousness
 
 70 ATONEMENT 
 
 which we did ourselves, but according to His mercy 
 He saved us, through the washing of regeneration, 
 and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He poured 
 out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour' 
 (Tit. ii. 11-14; iii- 4~6). 
 
 It is difficult to understand how any candid 
 reader of St. Paul can interpret such statements 
 as simply meaning moral influence. Objectors may 
 question his inspiration, or even the correctness of 
 his human judgment, but they surely ought to 
 acknowledge that he taught forgiveness as secured 
 by the death of Christ. 
 
 We repeat that the idea of the Christian Atone- 
 ment was not originated by St. Paul. , It had been 
 taught by Christ Himself and proclaimed by the 
 Apostles when Saul of Tarsus was persecuting all 
 who held it. It was at variance with his early train- 
 ing and prejudices. To adopt it was to sacrifice 
 all his worldly interests. He could not have in- 
 vented it ; he would not if he could. As soon as 
 he was converted he was instructed in the doctrine 
 by men who had been taught it by the Apostles. 
 In addition to this, he received it authoritatively 
 from the Lord Himself. Paul's doctrine was Christ's 
 doctrine. 
 
 No wonder that having been so taught having 
 experienced the saving power of faith in his own 
 soul, and witnessed it in the case of multitudes, 
 attested as it was by divers miracles and gifts of 
 the Holy Ghost no wonder that he made the cross
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL 71 
 
 prominent in his preaching and letters, as the only 
 foundation of a sinner's hope, the only fountain 
 of a believer's joy, the great incentive of all holy 
 obedience and consecrated service : no wonder that 
 to all, though to many it was a stumbling-block, he 
 preached ' Christ crucified.' 
 
 'The cross of Christ was the centre of all St. Paul's 
 preaching. The most illustrious of missionaries 
 declared to the heathen that God was at peace with 
 them because Christ had died. 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. 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 V 
 
 1 The Atonement. R. W. Dale, D.D., Lect. VI.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 WITNESS OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 THIS Epistle, accepted as having Apostolic 
 authority, shows that its writer considered the 
 ceremonies and priesthood of the old dispensation 
 as fulfilled in Christ. 
 
 ' God hath spoken to us in His Son, who, when 
 He had made purification of sins, sat down on the 
 right hand of the Majesty on high. . . . We behold 
 Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned 
 with glory and honour, that by the grace of God 
 He should taste death for every man that through 
 death He might bring to nought him that had the 
 power of death, that is, the devil ; and might de- 
 liver all them who through fear of death were all 
 their lifetime subject to bondage. ... A merciful 
 and faithful High-priest, to make propitiation for 
 the sins of the people. ... A great High-priest, who 
 hath passed through the heavens, is the author of 
 eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him . . . 
 Because He abideth for ever, He is able to save
 
 WITNESS OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 73 
 
 to the uttermost them that draw near unto God 
 through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make in- 
 tercession for them . . . Who needeth not daily, 
 like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices; for 
 this He did once for all, when He offered up Himself. 
 Not through the blood of goats and calves, but 
 through His own blood, He entered in once for all 
 into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemp- 
 tion. . . . The beasts, whose blood is brought into 
 the holy place by the high-priest as an offering for 
 sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus 
 also, that He might sanctify the people through 
 His own blood, suffered without the gate.' The 
 teaching is that Christ offered, as those priests, a 
 sacrifice for sin, which was Himself. 
 
 ' Apart from shedding of blood there is no remis- 
 sion . . . but now, once at the end of the ages hath 
 He been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice 
 of Himself . . . once offered to bear the sins of many. 
 We have been sanctified through the offering of the 
 body of Jesus Christ once for all. By one offering 
 He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. 
 Having therefore boldness to enter into the holy 
 place by the blood of Jesus, through the veil, that 
 is to say, His flesh ; and having a great priest 
 over the house of God ; let us draw near in fulness 
 of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil 
 conscience; looking unto Jesus, the author and 
 perfecter of our faith. . . . Now the God of peace, 
 who brought again from the dead the great Shep-
 
 74 ATONEMENT 
 
 herd of the sheep with the blood of the eternal 
 covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect 
 in every good thing to do His will, working in us 
 that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through 
 Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever and 
 ever, Amen' (Heb. i. 3; ii. 9-17; iv. 14; v. 9 ; 
 vii. 24, 27; ix. 12-28; x. 10-22; xii. 2; xiii. n, 
 
 12, 20). 
 
 If the temporary arrangements of the former 
 dispensation are used as symbols of the abiding 
 facts of the latter, such illustration does not turn 
 these facts into figures. The Jewish priests 'served 
 that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly 
 things.' Christian facts and doctrines are the 
 heavenly, the abiding things, of which those tran- 
 sient ordinances were anticipatory copies (Heb. 
 viii. 5 ; x. i). 
 
 This interpretation of those earlier things was 
 not invented by human fancy, but was the teaching 
 of divine revelation. The entrance of the high- 
 priest into the Holy of Holies was interpreted as 
 typical of Christ's ascension ' The Holy Ghost this 
 signifying, that the way into the holy place hath 
 not yet been made manifest, while as the first 
 tabernacle is yet standing ; which is a parable for 
 the time now present. For Christ entered not into 
 a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to 
 the true ; but into heaven itself, now to appear 
 before the face of God for us' (Heb. ix. 8, 9, 24). 
 The law was ' a shadow of the things to come ; but
 
 WITNESS OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 75 
 
 the body is Christ's' (Col.ii. 17). Thus the precedent 
 indistinct types of the Old Testament foreshadowed 
 the substance of the New. If the Christian doc- 
 trine of Atonement, resting on its own independent 
 foundation, is so capable of illustration from an 
 ancient ceremonial ordained by God and elaborately 
 described in His Word, may it not be inferred that 
 the correspondence was designed by the Author of 
 both systems ? 
 
 Rejectors of our doctrine say that New Testa- 
 ment Atonement was evolved out of Old Testa- 
 ment ceremonial by the Apostles, who, as Jews, 
 had been brought up in the practice and love of it. 
 We say, that the Atonement having been divinely 
 revealed, the Apostles found in that ceremonial 
 much to illustrate it. There were differences be- 
 tween the two which rendered it unlikely that the 
 one could of itself suggest the other. Would 
 sacrifices offered by men to God develop a sacri- 
 fice by God for men the small gifts of irrational 
 animals the infinite offering of the Son of God 
 the sacrifices which removed ceremonial defect, 
 that which cleansed the conscience and saved the 
 soul ? Would those who abhorred the idea of 
 human sacrifice have invented the death of the 
 Son of Man as pleasing to God ? But those who 
 accepted the Atonement as a divine fact, readily 
 found in the old ceremonial illustrations of a 
 sacrifice transcending in nature, importance, and 
 results. This was their justification in relinquishing
 
 76 ATONEMENT 
 
 the Old for the New and better covenant What- 
 ever objectors may say as to the fulfilment of 
 Jewish ritual in Christian doctrine, they cannot 
 deny that the writer of this Epistle, and those who 
 accepted it, did believe in Atonement by Jesus 
 Christ.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLES AS A WHOLE. 
 
 DURING several years the Apostles were con- 
 stant companions of the Lord. They listened to 
 His teaching in public, and enjoyed opportunities 
 in private of more fully understanding it. They 
 thus were specially qualified to discharge the great 
 commission given them to preach His Gospel to 
 the world. Unless this greatest of all teachers 
 had been incompetent they could not have per- 
 manently misunderstood the great object of His 
 mission. Merely as honest reporters their doctrine 
 of Christ's death and its purpose should be ac- 
 cepted as His own. The Gospel of the Apostles 
 must have been the Gospel of Christ. Otherwise 
 ' how was it possible for men of ordinary capacity 
 so grievously to pervert and corrupt His teaching ? 
 . . . Objections against their teaching on a point 
 like this are an impeachment of the authority of 
 Christ. ... If their varying statements are har- 
 monious expressions of the same idea that the
 
 78 ATONEMENT 
 
 death of Christ is the immediate ground on which 
 God grants to the penitent remission of sins the 
 Apostles must have received the idea from Christ 
 Himself.' (Dale.) 
 
 The value of the evidence of the * glorious com- 
 pany of the Apostles ' does not depend entirely on 
 express statements, but also on the spirit which 
 pervades the whole of their combined teaching. 
 They referred all duty, encouragement, consolation 
 to the Christ whose atoning death they testified. 
 It was the cross which gave force to every appeal, 
 motive for every duty, reality to every promise, 
 courage for every trial, certainty to every hope, 
 life to every function of the spiritual nature. Prayer 
 was to be offered ' in the Name ' of Christ : praise 
 was 'giving thanks always in the Name of our 
 Lord Jesus ' : service resulted from being ' created 
 in Christ Jesus unto good works': benevolence 
 was encouraged by its being exercised for the sake 
 of Christ ; ' husbands are to love their wives as 
 Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it ' : 
 wives are to submit to their husbands, 'as unto 
 the Lord': children are to obey their parents 'in 
 the Lord': believers are to 'do all in the name 
 of the Lord Jesus': if they are 'blessed with all 
 spiritual blessings,' it is 'in Christ Jesus': their 
 happiness results from Him, ' in whom believing 
 ye rejoice with joy unspeakable ' : their very life 
 is Himself; ' I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth 
 in me.'
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLES AS A WHOLE 79 
 
 Of whom beside were such expressions ever used ? 
 If Christ were merely Teacher, Example, Martyr, 
 and thus exerted a moral influence of the same 
 nature as that of many others, could such claims 
 have been thus exclusively urged ? There must 
 have been an essential difference. This is clearly 
 declared to* have been that He died for our re- 
 demption. 
 
 It has been said that the doctrine of Atonement 
 was developed from slight allusions in the Gospels 
 into a great system in the Epistles as an after- 
 growth. But we have seen that it was taught by 
 Christ. If more fully by His disciples, the growth 
 was not greater than in His own personal teaching. 
 The advance, in development of doctrine, from the 
 Sermon on the Mount to the valedictory discourse ; 
 from Matt, v.-vii. to John xiv.-xvii., was greater 
 than any evolution from the Gospels to the Epistles. 
 So also had been the growth of spiritual teaching 
 in the Old Testament, from that of Moses to that 
 of the Psalmists, Isaiah, and the other prophets. 
 Compare Leviticus with Psalm li. : Is. i. 10-18 : 
 xii. : xxxiii. 20-24: xxxv. : xl. i-n, 28-31: xli. 
 10-20: xliii. 1-4: xliv. 21-23: xlix. 13-17: li. 
 1-12 : liii. : Iv. : Ivii. 15 : Iviii. : Ix. : Ixiii. 16 : Ixiv. 
 1-9, &c. 
 
 Such development was ordained by the Great 
 Teacher. ' I have yet many things to say unto 
 you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when 
 He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He shall guide
 
 8o ATONEMENT 
 
 you into all the truth, and He shall declare unto 
 you the things that are to come. He shall glorify 
 Me ; for He shall take of Mine and shall declare it 
 unto you. These things have I spoken unto you, 
 while yet abiding with you. But the Comforter, 
 even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send 
 in My name, He shall teach you all things, and 
 bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. 
 He shall bear witness of Me ; and ye also shall 
 bear witness, because ye have been with Me from 
 the beginning ' (John xiv. 26 ; xv. 26, 27 ; xvi. 
 8-14). 
 
 It is here expressly declared by our Lord, that 
 after His departure the Holy Spirit would reveal 
 more fully the truth to the disciples, whose testi- 
 mony would be not their own invention, but what 
 they, divinely aided, remembered of His own words, 
 and what they were specially taught by His Spirit. 
 The Spirit of Christ in them bore true witness 
 of Christ. 'Salvation from sin, procured by the 
 atoning sacrifice of Christ, is unquestionably a central 
 and fundamental doctrine of Christianity, as taught 
 by Christ and His Apostles, by the truth or false- 
 hood of which Christianity must stand or fall V 
 
 Surely with such witnesses ' evincing such har- 
 mony in the divine dispensations, such unity of 
 principle and design between the earlier and the 
 later portions of divine revelation, it would be 
 far more consistent to renounce the authority of the 
 
 1 The Atonement. By Archbishop Magee.
 
 WITNESS OF THE APOSTLES AS A WHOLE 8 1 
 
 Bible at once, than to admit that authority, and 
 deny that it teaches the doctrine of redemption by 
 substitutionary sufferings or sacrificial Atonement. 
 . . . To the mind that can contrive, to its own 
 satisfaction, to strip the Bible of the doctrine of 
 Atonement by vicarious suffering, it might, in my 
 apprehension, be safely pronounced impossible to 
 convey a Divine discovery at all ; there being no 
 terms conceivable which might not, by such a 
 mind, be explained away. SALVATION IS THE 
 LESSON of the Bible : and it is salvation by 
 ATONEMENT, OR SUBSTITUTIONARY SUFFERING V 
 ' If expressions such as these do not teach us 
 that the death of Christ and pardon are so con- 
 nected with each other that the latter is absolutely 
 dependent on the former, then there is no meaning 
 in language, then inspiration itself bewilders when 
 it should guide, obscures when it should illumine, 
 and infinite wisdom might well confess itself baffled 
 in the endeavour to find or fabricate words and 
 phrases to convey the truth that man is saved 
 through the atonement of Christ. If this verity 
 is not as visible throughout the whole Apostolic 
 writings, as if it had been traced in sunbeams, 
 then it is but little to say that the Apostles were 
 arrant blunderers when they used the pen. . . . The 
 Holy Spirit that directed them is compromised in 
 what thus becomes a systematic perversion of 
 speech, and the Bible, though from heaven, wins 
 1 The Atonement of Christ, by Rev. R. Wardlaw, D.D. 
 F
 
 83 ATONEMENT 
 
 for itself the inglorious fame of being the worst 
 written book in the world V 
 
 Surely there is more than enough in these 
 testimonies of the Apostles to justify the explicit 
 language of the Communion Service of the Church 
 of England, which speaks of Christ suffering 'death 
 upon the cross for our redemption ' ; and making 
 there, ( by His one oblation of Himself, once offered, 
 a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and 
 satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.' 
 
 1 The Atonement: its Relation to Pardon, by Rev. E. Mellor, 
 D.D.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 IN support of the Fact of Atonement we rely on 
 no a priori reasonings. We do not dogmatise on 
 eternal necessity, nor suggest that an infinite God 
 could not forgive sin without an infinite Atonement. 
 But we do infer from the law of Divine economy, 
 the Son of God would not have become incarnate 
 and have died to save sinners if the same results 
 could have been secured by a method less costly. 
 Whatever strength may accrue from other argu- 
 ments, our first and authoritative appeal is to God's 
 own Word, (interpreting this according to the 
 general laws of language, and relying not on iso- 
 lated texts, but on the whole tenour of the teaching, 
 we prove that forgiveness, through the Sacrifice of 
 Christ, as the necessary prelude to righteousness, is 
 revealed as Atonement. 
 
 The theory chiefly urged against this view is that 
 salvation results from the moral influence of Christ's 
 life and death in producing reformation of character. 
 F 2,
 
 84 ATONEMENT 
 
 We appeal with confidence to the Scriptures cited 
 in proof that such reformation of character results 
 from the forgiveness of sin through the death of 
 Christ. We refer once more to such statements 
 as the following. ' His own self bare our sins in 
 His own Body on the tree, that we, having died 
 unto sins, might live unto righteousness ; by whose 
 stripes ye were healed.' ' Our Saviour Jesus Christ 
 gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from 
 all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people for 
 His own possession, zealous of good works.' 'How 
 much more shall the blood of Christ, who offered 
 Himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your 
 conscience from dead works, to serve the living 
 God?' . . . ' Christ loved the Church and gave Him- 
 self up for it ... that it should be holy and with- 
 out blemish.' In these and a multitude of other 
 texts it is clearly stated that Christ's Atonement 
 was to obtain forgiveness and reconciliation with 
 God as preceding and producing conformity to 
 His law. 
 
 Explanations may vary, but the fact remains. 
 Sinners are saved by reliance on Christ who died, 
 and not by accepting any particular theory. ' The 
 Creeds of the Church Catholic tell us to believe in 
 the Forgiveness of Sins. They link that belief to 
 the great miracle of the Incarnation ; they tell us 
 that our salvation has been procured by Christ, the 
 Son of God, who, in order to effect it, came down 
 from heaven, was incarnate, suffered, died, and rose
 
 THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT 85 
 
 again. But how His life and death and resurrection 
 accomplished our salvation they tell us not. They 
 teach an Atonement ; but theory of Atonement, 
 they give us none. All that we are bound to be- 
 lieve and defend is, that there has been an Atone- 
 ment effected for us by the death of Christ, that 
 this has removed a hindrance in the way of remis- . 
 sion of sins other and beyond any that might exist 
 in ourselves ; but what that hindrance is, and how 
 that death availed to remove it, we are nowhere 
 expressly told.' (Magee.) 
 
 Mystery should be no hindrance to faith. Sin 
 itself is a mystery. The natural universe obeys . 
 its Creator ; while man, the chief work, sets up his^-f 
 own will as if he could be independent of the Divine 
 Will. If, without understanding the ( origin of evil ' 
 we suffer from the fact of it, so. without under- 
 standing the mystery of Atonement, we may rejoice 
 that the Second Adam died to ' take away the sin 
 of the world.' As we cannot ignore the disease, 
 we ought not to reject the remedy because also 
 mysterious. If one is abnormal, we might expect 
 the other to be so too. 
 
 As we may profit by the solar ray without 
 knowing the nature of light ; and be nourished by 
 food while ignorant of the process of digestion, so 
 multitudes are saved through the Atonement, who . 
 cannot explain it. ' Great is the mystery of godli- 
 ness ' ; yet it is reasonable that with the angels we 
 ' desire to look into these things.' Can we cross such
 
 86 ATONEMENT 
 
 a gulf and not desire to examine the structure of the 
 bridge ? When in natural processes we trace adap- 
 tation of means to ends our adoration of the Creator 
 is enhanced. Salvation by Christ exceeds all other 
 facts in importance to us. It cannot result from a 
 mere arbitrary decree. May we not try to discover 
 some of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge 
 contained in it ? 
 
 After the inspired statements quoted in preceding 
 
 chapters, it seems superfluous to attempt any other 
 
 explanation. They show that the Death of Christ 
 
 is substituted for our bearing the penalty of sin 
 
 ourselves, answering all the purposes for which 
 
 punishment might have been inflicted, and with 
 
 additional advantages which punishment could not 
 
 A have secured. Punishment would have honoured 
 
 V^Law, but destroyed the sinner: Atonement does 
 
 more honour to law, but saves the sinner. 
 
 Punishment is a fact in the universal government 
 y of God. Natural law demands inexorable physical 
 s penalty. Social loss follows social faults. Con- 
 science is a tormenting reprover when no one knows 
 our wrong-doing. Threatening and punishment 
 from Genesis to Revelation show God's resolve to 
 y uphold government by vindicating law. Suffering 
 in itself is an evil. If ordained as punishment, 
 it must be because of some resulting advantage. 
 Remission without such result would therefore be 
 injurious. The reasons that justify infliction seem 
 to forbid remission. But if the Sacrifice of Christ
 
 THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT 87 
 
 accomplishes all for which punishment was designed, 
 such substitution may be accepted as Atonement, 
 consistently both with justice and mercy. I repeat, 
 in the spoken words of an eminent poet-preacher, , 
 { Christ's Sacrifice is substituted for the sinner's J-" 
 punishment, answering all its purposes, and better.' 
 (T. T. Lynch.) 
 
 Punishment is not necessarily for reformation. 
 Its purpose may be answered by satisfying a sense 
 of equity, by expressing abhorrence of and deter- 
 ring others from wrong-doing. But the Sacrifice 
 of Christ, while accomplishing this, saves the trans- 
 gressor also not only from the penalty of sin but 
 from its ruling power, producing in him repent- 
 ance and reformation. While evil consequences of 
 sin are removed from the sinner, beneficial results 
 of punishment are secured to the universe. God 
 is glorified, law honoured, government upheld, at 
 the same time that guilt is cancelled and the 
 sinner saved. Thus did Jesus ' put away sin by 
 the sacrifice of Himself as a punishment by 
 securing its ends ; and as a power by giving 
 spiritual life to the dead sinner and turning him 
 from his iniquities. 
 
 Christ perfectly obeyed the law broken by men, 
 and echoed back from humanity God's thoughts 
 respecting sin and holiness. He offered, as our 
 Representative, a perfect obedience, so that the 
 Father beholding Him as the Son of Man, and 
 for men, could say : ' I am well pleased.' He 
 
 c * x r/' 

 
 
 88 ATONEMENT 
 
 could not as Divine, nor, as a perfect Man, offer 
 . the Atonement of remorse ; for He Hmew no sin.' 
 But He did suffer, on our behalf many of the 
 consequences of sin physical infirmities, social 
 wrongs, the malignity of the wicked, mental an- 
 guish, spiritual trials ; and ' became obedient unto 
 death.' Throughout His whole life His sym- 
 pathizing human heart was oppressed with that 
 just appreciation of sin for which His Divine 
 nature rendered Him competent. Though sinless, 
 He stood in the place of sinners, confessing their 
 guilt ; and thus ' His soul was made an offering 
 
 for sin.* 
 
 Death was not forced on Him to satisfy God's jus- 
 tice, but was His joyful concurrence with God's love. 
 Owing nothing on His own account, He ransomed 
 those who owed ; ten thousand talents, and had 
 nothing to pay.' In the words of Diognetus in 
 the first century, often cited, ' God Himself gave 
 up His Son as a ransom for us : the Holy for the 
 unholy; the Sinless for th$ sinful; the Immortal 
 for the mortal ; for what else but His righteous- 
 ness could cover our sins? O sweet change! O 
 unsearchable work ! O unexampled benefit, that 
 the wickedness of many should be covered by 
 One righteous, the righteousness of One should 
 justify many sinners.' His Divine nature gave 
 infinite capacity for this great work, and infinite 
 value to the work when performed. This was 
 substituted for the punishment which otherwise
 
 THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT 89 
 
 both justice and love demanded from the guilty, 
 for the welfare of the Universe. The method of 
 the forgiveness vindicates the Law. Its costliness 
 declares both condemnation of sin, and Love in 
 providing such a remedy. Thus reverence and 
 gratitude are together promoted in the pardoned 
 sinner. If he is taught the exceeding evil of the 
 sin needing such Atonement, so he is assured most 
 absolutely that the purpose of God has been ful- 
 filled in ' so great Salvation.' The Atonement pro- 
 claims Him to be both Light and Love : establish- 
 ing Law while saving the transgressor. If one 
 company of Cherubim exclaim, ' Holy, Holy, Holy, 
 Lord God of Hosts/ another respond, ' for His 
 mercy endureth for ever.' 
 
 Variations of theory may exist among those 
 who possess the same stedfast faith. It has been 
 truly said that all explanations of the Atonement 
 have partial truth : Christ -did die as a Martyr; 
 as an Example ; as a pattern of Self -surrender ; to 
 show Sympathy ; as our Representative ; to reveal 
 the Love of God ; to satisfy the claims of Govern- X 
 ment\ to make us good. The Atonement fulfils 
 all these purposes ; but each is not all ; and all 
 are defective without this * He bare our sins in 
 His own body on the~tree.' 
 
 Atonement is the first great lesson of the death 
 of Christ. But there are many others. It is the 
 brightest revelation of God, whose glory we see 
 'in the face of Jesus Christ' as Saviour of the
 
 90 ATONEMENT 
 
 world. His death, as man for man, binds all men 
 together in closest ties of brotherhood. His resur- 
 rection is a token of victory over the grave ; His 
 continued life, of our own immortality. All our 
 study of the fact will not fathom 'the manifold 
 wisdom of God ' ; the ' unsearchable riches of 
 Christ ' ; the ' breadth and length and depth and 
 height the love that passeth knowledge.' 
 
 It has been wisely said that arguments for the 
 fact of Atonement are not a chain which falls if 
 one link is broken ; but a net which still holds 
 together though several portions of it may be 
 defective. Readers of this book may question 
 portions of it without destroying the evidence of 
 the fact that Christ died to bring sinners to 
 God.__ 
 
 However imperfect any explanation, the fact is 
 independent of the theory. That Christ is the 
 Propitiation for our sins ' means, at least, this 
 much that our repentance could not avail to 
 obtain our pardon, were it not for what Christ 
 has done and is doing for us ; or, that in the 
 matter of our forgiveness, Christ is in some way, 
 for some reason, interposed between us and God, 
 and that through Him, because of Him, or as we 
 express it in our prayers, " for His sake," penitent 
 sinners are forgiven.' (Magee.) This preceded any 
 theory, and multitudes have rejoiced in Salva- 
 tion without any knowledge of the philosophy of 
 it. ' The power of the great Sacrifice for the sins
 
 THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT 91 
 
 of the world lies in itself, and not in our explana- 
 tion. It is not the doctrine of the Death of Christ 
 for human sin, but the Death itself, which has such 
 wonderful power that it inspires faith in God, and 
 purifies the heart.' (Dale.)
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS. 
 
 ENDEAVOURS to explain the profound mystery 
 of the Atonement, so as to render it easier of 
 belief, have often suggested other and still greater 
 difficulties. Thus many persons have rejected 
 Divine truth because of human mistakes ; the pure 
 light having been discoloured and distorted by the 
 refracting and clouded lenses interposed. Oppo- 
 nents, seizing on such misrepresentations, have 
 seemed to gain an easy victory, when they have 
 merely refuted errors of interpretation. With 
 much diffidence, therefore, fearing similar mistakes, 
 the writer ventures to offer the following sugges- 
 tions. 
 
 i. It is objected that the purpose of Christ's death 
 was subjective moral influence alone. 
 
 Opponents of Atonement, insisting on a sinner's 
 reformation in the future, make light of the guilt 
 accumulated in the past. According to them, God 
 might have forgiven the sinner as well without the
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 93 
 
 sacrifice of Christ as with it, provided only the 
 sinful disposition were changed. The purpose of 
 Christ's death was not, on this theory, to furnish a 
 ground for the bestowment of pardon, but simply 
 to be a power to turn man to righteousness. They 
 say that God's anger is against sin alone, and 
 ceases with it ; that ceasing to sin is salvation, as 
 by stopping the source of a torrent its streams 
 cease to destroy. But this does not rebuild the 
 ruin and replant the orchard. Repentance does 
 not neutralise the offence, which is not merely a 
 disease to be cured, but a crime to be punished. 
 
 The Scriptures that teach Atonement teach also 
 reformation, as its necessary result, providing special 
 incentives and power for producing it. Forgive- 
 ness by Atonement is the root from which, as 
 branches, righteousness grows. The whole of the 
 present volume is designed to meet this objection. 
 
 a. It is objected that this doctrine represents God 
 as angry. 
 
 Hatred of wrong is inseparable from love of 
 right. Righteous wrath is a phase of love. If 
 pleased with what is lovely, we must be displeased 
 with its reverse. Life would be intolerable if evil 
 ceased to be repulsive. The moral universe would 
 be in peril if the Ruler did not delight in those 
 who obey His laws, and 'hate all workers of 
 iniquity' while they cling to the sin He hates. 
 
 If it is pleaded that, judging from human nature, 
 God must be merciful as we are, we reply that for
 
 94 ATONEMENT 
 
 the same reason He must be angry as we are. 
 We cannot give our highest commendation to a 
 man, however generous, a woman, however tender, 
 who does not feel indignation at ingratitude, 
 tyranny, cruelty. The tenderer the benevolence, 
 the sterner the condemnation. We lower God 
 beneath His image, if we regard Him as cold 
 intellect, without emotion either of loving approval 
 or righteous displeasure. 
 
 Human beings in a healthy moral condition are 
 angry at crime, and desire the punishment of the 
 criminal. We are sorry and often indignant if law 
 is evaded. We justify such anger by the approval 
 of our moral consciousness, and the interests of 
 Society. Otherwise we should be showing more 
 compassion for the breakers than for the keepers of 
 Law, for the perpetrators than for the victims of 
 wrong. 
 
 If we feel righteous indignation when we only 
 hear of some single crime, what must be the 
 feeling of Him who is ' of purer eyes than to 
 behold iniquity,' when He actually witnesses all 
 the atrocious actions committed, and knows all 
 the abominable thoughts encouraged at every 
 moment, throughout all ages! Must not His 
 holiness and love compel anger ? 
 
 But the Atonement teaches that His anger is 
 against those who violate the laws of love only 
 while so doing. ' He waiteth to be gracious ' to 
 all who turn from their wickedness. ' Have I any
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 95 
 
 pleasure in the death of the wicked ? ' If some 
 have misrepresented the wrath of God, many more 
 have erred in speaking of Him as of a human 
 being simply good-natured. The wrath of God is 
 solemnly reiterated and awfully illustrated in Scrip- 
 ture. The Israelites were warned, ' Lest the anger 
 of the Lord your God h^ kindled against you.' 
 This was seen in the Flood, at Sodom, and in other 
 judgments. And while the New Testament teaches 
 that ' God is Love,' it also teaches that ' wrath and 
 indignation shall be on every soul of man that 
 worketh evil,' that Christ came to ' deliver us from 
 the wrath to come/ and that ' it is a fearful thing 
 to fall into the hands of the living God.' 
 
 None ever warned against wrath so emphatically 
 as He who died to save sinners from it. Of cities 
 that had seen most of His mighty works He said, 
 ' It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom 
 in the day of judgment than for thee.' To the 
 hypocritical Pharisees, 'Woe unto you, how shall 
 ye escape the damnation of hell ? ' In tender 
 compassion He 'wept over the city' against which, 
 in righteous retribution, He at the same time 
 denounced the awful destruction its sin was pre- 
 paring. To the finally impenitent the Judge is 
 represented as saying, ' Depart from me, ye cursed, 
 into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil 
 and his angels.' 
 
 Denial of the wrath of God against sin impairs 
 belief in His mercy. It is right to punish when
 
 96 ATONEMENT 
 
 justice demands it, and therefore it cannot be mer- 
 ciful to abstain from necessary infliction. Anger 
 against evil is a phase of the Love that upholds 
 Righteousness and blesses the universe. 
 
 The death of Christ did not exhibit the wrath 
 of God against the Sufferer, who was always His 
 ' well- beloved Son'; r^r personal wrath against 
 sinful men, towards whom He is ever ' merciful 
 and gracious/ and for whose salvation Love pro- 
 vided this Atonement; but towards sin itself, a 
 most emphatic proclamation to the universe that 
 it is the abominable thing which God hateth ; the 
 most earnest warning to avoid that which needed 
 such Atonement ; the most loving assurance that 
 He who provided it will pardon all who accept 
 it. The wrath of God is felt only towards the sin 
 that opposes His loving desire for the world's 
 welfare, and was displayed on the cross to deter 
 from the practice as well as to save from the 
 penalties of it. 'There is a wrath of God which 
 is kindled by the flame of love.' 
 
 3. // is objected that the Atonement represents 
 Christ as appeasing the wrath of God. 
 
 This heathenish notion may be suggested by 
 some disused hymns, and figurative utterances of 
 excited rhetoric, but it is nowhere to be found in 
 the Bible. Apostles, whose constant theme was 
 the Love of God as revealed in the cross, could 
 not have entertained a conception so contradictory. 
 It is culpable that in spite of reiterated abjurations,
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 97 
 
 such caricatures should continue to be exhibited. 
 We protest against the monstrous notion that the 
 death of the Son appeased the wrath of the Father. 
 Heathen sacrifices were to placate vengeful gods 
 surpassing men in every vice. This sacrifice of 
 Christ was offered not by men to God, but by God 
 for men ; not to appease wrath, but reveal love ; 
 not exacted, but provided by God. 
 
 We are not taught that God loves the world in 
 consequence of the death of Christ, but that His 
 death was the consequence of that precedent love. 
 ' God so loved the world that He gave His only 
 begotten Son.' The gift was the expression, not 
 the cause of love. 'This is My beloved Son, in 
 whom I am well pleased ' not because of wrath 
 soothed, but of a loving purpose accomplished. 
 ' I came to do the will of Him who sent Me ' (John 
 iii. 1 6, 17; vi. 29,38-40; viii. 29; xvi. 26-28 ; xvii. 
 1-4; Lukeix. 31, 35). 
 
 Christ is the brightest manifestation of God's 
 love, not the satisfaction of His wrath. He reveals 
 the Father, not as changing Him, but showing Him 
 to be what He always was. He said, ' He that 
 hath seen Me hath seen the Father.' Let us be- 
 hold Him as He blesses the children, touches the 
 leper, leads the blind for cure, delivers to the mother 
 the raised-up son, weeps at the grave, laments over 
 Jerusalem, prays for His murderers, dies for the 
 world, and let us in such actions see the Father. 
 The greatest proof of the love of God was in 
 
 G
 
 9 ATONEMENT 
 
 giving His Son a voluntary sacrifice for the sal- 
 vation of the world. ' The Father who dwelleth 
 within Me, He doeth the works.' We see God 
 when we behold His beloved Son dying for the 
 sin of the world. 
 
 Instead of seeing three distinct parties in the 
 Atonement the trembling sinner, an angry Judge, 
 .and the reconciling Saviour, we are taught that 
 ' God was in Christ,' not being conciliated by an- 
 other, but ' reconciling the world unto Himself, not 
 imputing their trespasses unto them.' The Atone- 
 ment is thus not the appeasing of wrath, but the 
 manifestation of love. 
 
 4. That the Atonement represents God as less 
 merciful than men. 
 
 It is our duty both to be angry and merciful ; 
 to resist wrong, while kind to the wrong-doer. How 
 can these duties harmonise ? We hand over to the 
 magistrate the duty of maintaining law, and reserve 
 to ourselves the privilege of showing mercy. God 
 is One, and cannot separate the two functions. 
 How can He forgive without damage to righteous- 
 ness ? How vindicate righteousness while forgiving 
 wrong? Our not demanding reprisals for personal 
 injury is distinct from not punishing offences against 
 public safety. Even a parent should not so pass 
 over the fault of one child as to injure the whole 
 family. Pity for a culprit is compatible with 
 maintaining law for the interests of society. The 
 Atonement solves the problem. God. vindicating
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 99 
 
 His own law in the person of His Son, does homage 
 to righteousness and justice to the Mediator when 
 He forgives the penitent transgressor. The re- 
 quiring of satisfaction to justice, and Himself pro- 
 viding it, illustrates rather than disparages the wise 
 and wide mercifulness of God. 
 
 He who knows all the calamities which sin may 
 entail, manifests in His method of forgiving it, no 
 less than in His threatenings against it, His care 
 for Plis great family. Pardon without Atonement 
 would not in the same degree benefit the sinner 
 in deepening repentance, calming anxiety, and 
 prompting obedience. The Atonement, instead of 
 eclipsing the mercy of God, unveils it. The love 
 that requires it bestows it. Provision for pardon 
 does not wait for, but precedes the petition for it. 
 The path for the prodigal's return is prepared 
 before he says, ' I will arise and go to my father.' 
 Divine mercy thus surpasses human. 
 
 5. That the Atonement represents God as unjust. 
 
 If sufferings undeserved- are unjust, so is pardon 
 undeserved. Justice demands the impartial execu- 
 tion of righteous law in protecting the innocent 
 and punishing transgressors. Penalty exacted from 
 the innocent, and immunity for the guilty, are alike 
 unjust. If objectors approve of pardon without 
 atonement to Law, they should not object to 
 pardon, through voluntary suffering by the inno- 
 cent, effected without detriment to Law. They 
 retort that if it would be unjust to pardon without 
 G a
 
 100 ATONEMENT 
 
 Atonement, it must also be unjust to punish with- 
 out guilt. We repeat that Christ was notjtunished ; 
 He was neither guilty, nor the object of Displeasure, 
 nor compelled to suffer : He gave His life freely, it 
 was His delight to fulfil His Father's pleasure by 
 obedience unto death, and so to redeem the world. 
 Whatever the view taken of Atonement, the suffer- 
 ings of Christ as martyr, teacher, example, were 
 equally undeserved and open to the same oojection. 
 ' If it be consistent with the justice of God to ap- 
 point an innocent and Divine person to suffer in 
 order to assure us of the truth of His heavenly 
 mission, to manifest His Father's love, or illustrate 
 self-sacrifice ; why may it not be consistent with 
 the justice of God to appoint such a Person to suffer 
 in order to exempt sinners from the penal conse- 
 quences of their transgressions? ' (Crawford.) 
 
 Life is full of sorrows, borne by the innocent 
 through the faults of others: parents, friends, philan- 
 thropists, thus suffer. Christ so suffered, not only 
 by sharing, but by removing the consequences of 
 sin. If objectors do not think it unjust that Christ 
 should suffer as a martyr to Truth, why unjust as 
 the Saviour of the world ? If, having no sins of 
 His own, He did not suffer for those of others, He 
 suffered for no sins at all. If suffering for no sin 
 would be just, why object to suffering for the sins 
 of others in order to save ? If the death of Christ, 
 not being needed as Atonement, was only to mani- 
 fest love, why should love manifest itself in so great
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 1OI 
 
 suffering without such necessity ? If it is difficult 
 to think of God approving such death to meet such 
 necessity, much more in the absence of it. It would 
 indeed be unjust for a ruler to compel an innocent 
 -persnn jo suffer in place of the guilty, but there 
 would be no injustice in allowing an innocent man 
 gladly to surrender his one life to save the lives of 
 millions of the gujlty ; especially if thereby not only 
 the interests of Law were secured, but those guilty 
 persons became good citizens, and spent their re- 
 deemed lives in their country's service. 
 
 The Atoning Saviour suffered no injustice from 
 His Father, since He not only was a voluntary 
 sufferer, but was not permanently a loser. In His 
 humanity which suffered, ' God hathTiighly exalted 
 Him, and given Him a name which is above eve 
 name.' The more that heroes suffer, the more they 
 are honoured. Christ ' for the joy set before Him 
 endured the cross ' : not a selfish joy in personal 
 exaltation, but delight in the salvation of sinners. 
 The innocent Sufferer is crowned with glory and 
 honour, while we, through Him, are partakers of 
 eternal life. Both the Saviour and the saved rejoice 
 together (John xiv. 3 ; Heb. ii. 9 ; xii. 2 ; Col. i. 14- 
 20; Phil. ii. 6-1 1 ; Rev. i. 5-7, 12-18 ; v. 6-13). 
 
 The Atonement is in accordance with justice, not 
 only because, by the death of Christ, it meets all 
 demands for punishment, but because of the perfect 
 obedience He rendered in the place of man's dis- 
 obedience. Law is honoured not merely by paying
 
 102 ATONEMENT 
 
 the penalty of transgression, but by supplying the 
 lack of obedience. Not only is payment made of 
 the sinner's debt to justice, but justice itself is put 
 into debt by the infinitely precious obedience of the 
 Mediator. Justice should reward merit as well as 
 claim penalty for demerit. If the latter was met 
 by Christ's death, the former was acquired by His 
 obedience. He was under no necessity to submit 
 to human obligations, but ' He humbled Himself, 
 and became obedient unto the Law,' in its fullest 
 demands, even unto death. This obedience of 
 supererogation acquired infinity of merit by the 
 union of the Divine nature with the Son of Man. 
 
 No other righteousness could be adequate to 
 supply the immeasurable defect. ' There was no 
 other good enough,' not only ' to pay the price of 
 sin,' but to fill the measure of righteousness. ' If 
 through the one man's disobedience many became 
 sinners, even through the obedience of One shall 
 the many be made righteous.' This righteousness 
 is presented to justice as a claim in the place of 
 man's lack of righteousness, his penalty for which has 
 been met by the death of Christ. Thus the Atone- 
 ment establishes justice rather than contravenes it, 
 both by satisfying its claims against the guilty, and 
 by giving the guilty a righteous plea, on the ground 
 of the perfect obedience of their Representative. 
 Justice is honoured while mercy is bestowed. 
 
 Atonement by substitution has been illustrated 
 by the supposed conduct of the chieftain of a clan
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 103 
 
 in rebellion against the prince to whom he himself 
 is loyal. Loving them, he grieves for their con- 
 duct ; in their behalf makes submission, and offers 
 himself as a substitute to Law. If human justice 
 forbids such transfer, the human conscience feels 
 that the offer is true to what is best in humanity. 
 Christ's grief and death for us prove that He is all 
 that a perfect man ought to be. ' Regard His death 
 not solely as satisfaction to inexorable justice, but 
 as expression of a perfect Being's abhorrence of 
 evil,' together with compassion for evil-doers, and 
 ' we can see, how, as perfect Man, He would desire 
 thus to die for His brethren, and how God would 
 permit and even desire that He should do so,' 
 especially when God 'has restored life by taking 
 it, and proclaimed that death, true penalty for sin, 
 was the means whereby sin should be slain, the only 
 true pathway to any true life for man V 
 
 6. That Christ suffered only to show Divine Love. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how such sufferings 
 display love, unless undergone for some positive 
 advantage. Useless self-sacrifice does not commend 
 itselt to our admiration. A mother dies by a con- 
 tagious disease contracted in nursing a son who 
 recovers by her devotion : he must always be im- 
 pressed by memory of such love : but it was love 
 with a practical purpose. Would it equally influence 
 his life if she had risked health and life without any 
 view to his comfort or recovery? Would a man 
 
 1 The Atonement. Rev. J. J. Lias. Lect IV.
 
 104 ATONEMENT 
 
 demonstrate love by entering his brother's sinking 
 boat only to sink with him, instead of with the 
 object of preventing that boat from sinking? If 
 love might rush through the flames merely to share 
 the fate of one beloved, love would be more wise 
 and impressive if the risk were incurred in extin- 
 guishing the flames and rescuing the victim. There 
 is no virtue in self-sacrifice, unless for some advan- 
 tage to others. -Loss, pain, suffering, death, are in 
 themselves evils ; not only injurious to the sufferer, 
 but when of no benefit to others may be morally 
 wrong when volunteered. 
 
 ' How should the sufferings of Christ be emphati- 
 cally proofs of His Father's love, if not in themselves 
 instrumental in obtaining substantial benefits, or 
 how could we derive from them any better ground 
 of assurance than we previously had, that God is 
 willing to be at peace with us ? The sufferings of 
 Christ are well calculated to convince us of the love 
 of our Father, when we view them as meanTT'of 
 procuring blessings which God did not deem it 
 consistent otherwise to_bestow.' Self-sacrifice for 
 its own sake as our duty, and pleasing to God, ' is 
 inconsistent with any view of the Divine character 
 which either reason or revelation has unfolded; and 
 is much less akin to the nature of that wise, holy, 
 and gracious God in whom we are taught to believe, 
 than to that of the capricious and cruel divinities of 
 heathenism, who were held to delight in aimless 
 austerities and tortures.' (Crawford.)
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 105 
 
 But the absolute refutation of this hypothesis is 
 presented in the positive and repeated declarations 
 of Christ and His Apostles, as adduced in previous 
 chapters. Christ in suffering did show forth the 
 Father's love, but it was love, in suffering endured 
 to save us from sin and woe. 
 
 7. That Atonement is inconsistent with Immuta- 
 bility. 
 
 God is unchangeably righteous. To remit punish- 
 ment without either exacting penalty, or in some 
 equivalent manner showing displeasure at sin, would 
 be a change. God illustrates immutable perfections 
 in varying methods. Differing substances may 
 reflect the same light. Changing seasons display 
 the unchanging Creator. He carries forward His 
 immense designs in modes which may appear to us 
 variations, but which are the evolution of an un- 
 alterable plan. God always has condemned and 
 punished sin. He has always upheld the law of 
 righteousness. The Atonement testifies to the 
 justice and mercy which have always been essential 
 attributes of God. The revelation has varied, but 
 not the truth itself. The quantity and strength of 
 the light reaching the earth has changed, but not 
 the Sun of Righteousness. Under all dispensations 
 there has been fundamental agreement. ' Prophet 
 and evangelist and apostle proclaim, each in his 
 appointed and successive measure, the great com- 
 plex truth that there is for the penitent the fullest, 
 freest pardon, and also that this pardon has been
 
 106 ATONEMENT 
 
 procured for him by the atoning sacrifice of his 
 Saviour Christ.' (Magee.) 
 
 An important change does indeed take place, 
 when, ' being justified by faith, we have peace with 
 God.' But this is a change in our relation to Him, 
 not in His purposes towards us. It is not that the 
 light has now begun to shine, but that we have 
 passed out of darkness. By faith in Christ we leave 
 the eternal shadow for the eternal sunshine, but God 
 remains ' the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.' 
 
 It has been objected that pardon was, in the Old 
 Testament, offered to penitents without mention of 
 Atonement. But silence is not denial. One aspect 
 of truth is not contradicted by the presentation of 
 its supplement. Repentance has always been the 
 condition of pardon, Atonement the ground of it. 
 The revelation of pardon preceded that ot the 
 sacrifice which made it possible. The testimony of 
 David that 'the sacrifices ol God are a broken 
 spirit,' and that of St. John, ' Christ is the propitia- 
 tion for our sins,' are equally and unchangeably 
 true. 
 
 God did not refrain from forgiving sinners till 
 Christ died. The Lamb was 'slain from the 
 foundation of the world ' in the loving purpose of 
 the Father. For ever unrolling was the parchment 
 on which pardon had been ever inscribed. Thus 
 St. Paul says that we are 'justified through the 
 redemption that is in Christ, whom God set forth 
 to be a propitiation, through faith, by His blood,
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 107 
 
 to show His righteousness, because of the passing 
 over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of 
 God" 1 (Rom. iii. 24-36). So that in the 'aforetime/ 
 in all ages, God was both righteous and merciful, 
 this being now shown in the Atonement, whereby in 
 all ages, known or unknown, sins repented of have 
 been forgiven. 
 
 8. That Atonement arrays the Divine attributes 
 against each other. 
 
 Viewed in one aspect, God is just : in another, 
 merciful. Could we comprehend the Infinite with 
 one glance, we should see every attribute blending 
 with every other, to constitute a perfect whole. 
 The justice is ever merciful, the mercy is ever just. 
 It is not justice which is the agent at one time, 
 love at another ; but God Himself, the Indivisible, 
 at all times, in all His works. 'The light of the 
 sun can be divided into all the various hues of the 
 rainbow, and we can make each of these the object 
 of distinct attention ; but it is the combination of 
 them all that constitutes the glorious element, of 
 which its colourless purity is the prime excellence. 
 God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all.' 
 (Wardlaw.) Christ is the manifestation of both 
 rectitude and goodness. There is no opposition 
 between the righteousness which demands satis- 
 faction and the love which provides it. God is 
 not just although the Justifier: but the Atonement 
 shows Him to be just and the Justifier. Christ is 
 not a barrier opposing the stream of justice, but a
 
 108 ATONEMENT 
 
 channel by which it flows to fertilise instead of to 
 destroy. 
 
 When there is no regard for justice, mercy is 
 indifference. Each shines effulgent in the light of 
 the other. God is righteous, and the cross exhibits 
 His hatred of sin : God is gracious, and the cross 
 proclaims His love to the sinner. Had not justice 
 demanded it, that sacrifice would have been wanton: 
 had not love provided it, that sacrifice would not 
 have been offered. At the cross ' Mercy and 
 Truth have met together, Righteousness and Peace 
 have kissed each other.' 
 
 9. That Atonement represents Christ as famished. 
 
 At the risk of repetition, in reply to a frequently 
 repeated objection, we say that punishment implies 
 guilt in him who suffers it, and displeasure in him 
 who inflicts it. An innocent person cannot share the 
 faultiness of another, although he may endure some 
 of its evil consequences. Though Christ was ' made 
 sin for us/ He ' knew no sin ' Himself, and could 
 not share ours, and therefore His sufferings could 
 not be penal. 
 
 Nor was He ever regarded by the Lawgiver with 
 displeasure. The voice from heaven declared, ' This 
 is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,' 
 immediately after He with Moses and Elias had 
 been conversing on the 'decease at Jerusalem.' In 
 His great agony He invoked God as ' Father.' 
 When crying out as one forsaken He said, ( My 
 God 1 ' He died saying, ' Father, into Thy hands
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 109 
 
 I commend My spirit.' As He neither shared 
 our guilt nor the Divine displeasure, He was not 
 punisJied ; though lie died that we \vho merited 
 punishment might be saved. 
 
 10. That the Atonement involves a ' 'legal fiction! 
 
 Pardon does not transfer our guilt to Christ, nor 
 His righteousness to us. He remains faultless; 
 and we, who were sinners s are delivered from the 
 consequences of our sin. God sees both exactly 
 as they are, but treats the sinner otherwise than 
 he deserves, because the Sinless One has suffered 
 in his behalf. Transfer of legal consequences is 
 possible without transfer of character, which is im- 
 possible. St. Paul did not become guilty of the 
 fault of Onesimus when he wrote to Philemon, ' If 
 he oweth thee aught, put that to mine account.' 
 God cannot see anything otherwise than it is, but 
 He does, by the substitution of 'the Just for the 
 unjust,' treat us otherwise than we deserve, and 
 make us other than we once were. The holy Jesus 
 does not, with His pardon, part with any of His 
 purity, nor receive any of our sinfulness ; but by 
 His Atonement we do escape the fatal consequences 
 of our sin, and so His righteousness is said to be 
 imputed to us. And when we believe in Him God 
 sees us, not as being what we formerly were, but 
 what we no^v are ; ' turned from darkness to light, 
 and from the power of Satan unto God ' ; ' created 
 in Christ Jesus unto good works, sons and daughters 
 of the Lord God Almighty.'
 
 110 ATONEMENT 
 
 11. That Atonement abrogates the eternal con- 
 nexion between sin and death. 
 
 Christ showed that even under a special act of 
 sovereign grace, death must be conjoined with sin. 
 Thus we, though sinners, may live but only because 
 Christ, our Substitute, died. Moreover we can only 
 share in this immunity by becoming identified, 
 through faith, with Him who died. We are crucified 
 with Christ. And in this very act of faith sin 
 ceases to be the law of our existence. Those who 
 continue in sin, continue in death. They who 
 escape death do so by dying with Christ a death 
 to sin and a new life unto holiness ; illustrating the 
 eternal connexion of sin and death. 
 
 12. That the sin of Adam could not be atoned 
 by another and greater sin. 
 
 Wicked men naturally hated Christ. But God 
 overruled their cruel designs to effect His loving 
 purposes. The Jews were guilty instruments in 
 effecting results not of their own purpose. 'Him. 
 being delivered up by the determinate counsel and 
 foreknowledge of God. ye by the hand of lawless 
 men did crucify and slay' (Acts ii. 23). But there 
 was a striking congruity between the manner and 
 the purpose of His death, the former illustrating 
 the magnitude of the evil which the latter was 
 designed to remedy. At the cross, human de- 
 pravity was exhibited in its deepest shades, and 
 divine love in its strongest light. It was fitting 
 that thus the disease and the remedy should be
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS III 
 
 exhibited together, associated, but not blended ; the 
 greatest act of mercy being performed in connexion 
 with, and as a remedy for, the worst excesses of 
 wickedness. 
 
 13. That the same penalty due from sinners can- 
 not be borne by Christ. 
 
 The doctrine of Atonement does not teach this. 
 Part of the penalty is remorse, and this cannot be 
 felt by a sinless Being : part is eternal death, which 
 cannot be shared by Him who is ' The Life.' He 
 did die bodily, but this part of the penalty has not 
 been removed, for it is still ' appointed unto men 
 once to die.' Nor did He undergo the same amount 
 of suffering which would have been endured by the 
 whole sinful race. But He did fulfil that which 
 otherwise would have required our punishment. 
 His sufferings were vicarioys, not because they were 
 identical, but / sufficienf^*ne so stood in our place 
 as to remoVe~ oEstacles to our forgiveness. We 
 may be saved, not because an amount of suffering 
 sufficient for the salvation of a certain number was 
 endured, but because His Atonement made it con- 
 sistent with righteousness that any sinner accepting 
 that Atonement may be saved (Rom. iii. 21-26 ; 
 Eph. i. 6, 7 ; i Tim. iv. 10). 
 
 But such salvation is still a free gift, and not 
 to be demanded as a right. The announcement 
 of a benefit to be bestowed on certain conditions 
 does not turn a donation into a debt. Though we 
 ask in the confidence of faith, we must come as
 
 112 ATONEMENT 
 
 undeserving penitents, not saying, ' Pay me what 
 thou owest,' but, ' Have mercy upon me a sinner.' 
 
 Nor is the punishment of the impenitent double 
 payment. They remain under their former load of 
 debt, which is increased by the rejection of such 
 mercy, as when an earthly father's appeal to a 
 prodigal child is disregarded. If the son of some 
 monarch volunteered at great risk and cost to go 
 as ambassador to a province in rebellion, proclaim- 
 ing an amnesty, the monarch would not be charge- 
 able with inflicting double punishment on those 
 who refused to lay down their arms. So the con- 
 demnation of persistent sinners is the necessary 
 consequence of continued sin, and not repayment 
 of a debt already discharged 
 
 14. That Atonement implies failure in the case of 
 those who perish. 
 
 The brazen serpent was God's method of curing 
 all who trusted His word, and if one alone had been 
 healed it would not have been uplifted in vain. If 
 even all had refused to look, it would still have 
 been an exhibition of Divine clemency. So the 
 sacrifice of Christ is a foundation for the mere offer 
 of mercy. Eternal life obtained by even one sinner 
 would prove that the blood of Christ had not been 
 shed in vain. But nothing more was necessary for 
 the salvation of the whole world. The great gulf 
 between man and God could not be crossed but by 
 abridge of Divine construction and infinite strength. 
 Countless hosts may pass along it, and it shall re-
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 113 
 
 main unimpaired ; but as nothing less would have 
 sufficed if but one sinner was to be saved, the refusal 
 of any to escape by it cannot render one of its 
 stones useless. 
 
 15. That Atonement, needed for all, is limited to 
 a few. 
 
 To meet the objection that the Atonement has 
 failed in the case of those who perish, some have 
 taught that it was provided for those alone who are 
 actually saved, and therefore has in no case been 
 provided in vain. This has raised objections to 
 the Atonement itself, on the ground of partiality 
 to the few and unmercifulness to the many. The 
 testimony of Scripture is emphatic, that Christ 
 offered Himself as ' the Propitiation for the sins of 
 the whole world.' 
 
 God is represented as desiring the salvation of 
 all. The solemnity of an oath confirms the as- 
 surance. He ' sware by Himself.' ' As I live, saith 
 the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of 
 the wicked,' &c., ' God our Saviour will have all men 
 to be saved,' ' The Lord is not willing that any 
 should perish, but that all should come to repent- 
 ance ' (Ez. xxxiii. 1 1 ; i Tim. ii. 3, 4 ; 2, Pet. iii. 
 
 9 ; &c.). 
 
 Salvation is provided for all. The language in 
 John iii. 16, 17 is explicit. 'God so loved the world 
 &c. that whosoever believeth should have everlast- 
 ing life.' ' He is the Propitiation for our sins, and 
 also for the whole world' (i John ii. a). It is 
 
 H
 
 114 ATONEMENT 
 
 co-extensive with the ruin it was to remedy. f All 
 we like sheep have gone astray ; and the Lord hath 
 laid on Him the iniquity of us all' (Is. liii. 6). 
 
 It is sufficient for all. If ' God was in Him, 
 reconciling the world unto Himself,' the Atonement 
 He provides must be adequate for its object. None 
 can measure the ' Mighty God ' ; and no arithmetic 
 can count ' the unsearchable riches of Christ.' 
 
 Salvation is offered to all. Old and New Testa- 
 ments re-echo the invitation. 'Ho ! every one that 
 thirsteth ! ' ' Come unto Me, all ye that labour ! ' 
 &c. 'He that will, let him take the water of 
 life freely' (Is. Iv. i ; Matt. xi. 28 ; John vii. 37 ; 
 Rev. xxii. 17 ; &c.). Could 'the Faithful and True 
 Witness * call to a feast those for whom there was 
 no provision? 
 
 Christ commanded His Apostles to ' preach the 
 Gospel to every creature' They were to carry 
 'good news' not only to the human race in general, 
 but to every individual in particular. But could 
 the Gospel be good news to every one unless pro- 
 vided for every one ? Nay, it would not be good 
 news to any one, unless those for whom alone it 
 was provided were infallibly marked out. If it 
 were announced to a hundred criminals sentenced 
 to death that half their number were pardoned, but 
 their names not given, each one would fear he was 
 excluded. 
 
 We are told of some perishing for whom Christ 
 died. ' Shall the weak brother perish for whom
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 1 15 
 
 Christ died"}' 'There shall arise false teachers, 
 denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon 
 themselves swift destruction' (i Cor. viii. ii ; 2 Pet. 
 ii. i ; Heb. x. 29). 
 
 Repentance and faith are enjoined on every one. 
 ' Let the wicked forsake his way. Seek ye the 
 Lord while he may be found. God commandeth 
 all men everywhere to repent. This is His com- 
 mandment, that we should believe in the name of 
 His Son Jesus Christ,' &c. Jesus preached, ' Repent 
 ye, and believe in the Gospel.' St. Peter at Pentecost 
 said, 'Repent, every one of you' (Is. Iv. 7 ; i John iii. 
 23 ; Mark i. 15 ; Acts ii. 38 ; &c.). If every one 
 is commanded to repent and believe, it is obvious 
 that pardon and salvation are provided for every 
 one. 
 
 A II are condemned who reject this Salvation (John 
 iii. 1 8, 19 ; Heb. x. 28, 29). 
 
 If the Atonement by Christ was not adequate for 
 those who perish, there was no Christ for them, and 
 therefore they could not be guilty for not believing 
 in what did not exist. But, ' This is the judgment, 
 that the Light is come into the world, and men 
 loved the darkness rather than the Light ; for their 
 deeds were evil' (John iii. 19). 
 
 The fact that it is God who has provided a 
 remedy for a universal evil implies that the supply 
 is equal to the necessity. That the Mediator is 
 Divine implies that His efficacy is unlimited. The 
 unwillingness of some to leave their prison does
 
 Il6 ATONEMENT 
 
 not alter the fact that the door is open for escape. 
 Rejection does not disprove the gift. Infant chil- 
 dren, and all, 'in every nation who fear God and 
 work righteousness, are accepted with Him,' and 
 saved through the same Atonement for the sin of 
 the world, though in this life ignorant of it (Acts x. 
 34, 35 ; Rom. iii. 35 ; Rev. v. 9 ; vii. 9). 
 
 * Was Christ a ransom for non-Christians ? 
 Undoubtedly. Why then did they not believe? 
 Because they would not. But His part was done' 
 (Chrysostom). ' God shows Himself propitious to 
 the whole world ; wherefore all men, without ex- 
 ception, are exhorted to believe in Christ ' (Calvin). 
 ' He offered so full a ransom that if there were 
 never so many to be saved, there needs no addi- 
 tion ' (Howe). ' Our commission is to offer salva- 
 tion, certain salvation, to every one of you, to the 
 worst, to drunkards and swearers and thieves, yea, 
 to the despisers of salvation ' (Baxter). 'All ought 
 to be invited to come to God through this all- 
 sufficient Atonement ; and all who accept this 
 invitation are as much "partakers of Christ" as if 
 He had died on the cross for them alone' (Scott). 
 ' It is on the stepping-stone of a universal offer that 
 each man reaches his own particular salvation ' 
 (Chalmers). 'The Gospel tells every sinner that 
 there is atonement for him, pardon for him, salva- 
 tion for him ' (Wardlaw). ' Christ made on the 
 cross a sufficient sacrifice for the sins of ihe whole 
 world' (Liturgy).
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 117 
 
 1 6. It is objected that Atonement is made to rest 
 on a brief event wJiich occurred long ago and far 
 away. 
 
 The importance of this truth is the apology for 
 again referring to it (see chap. ix.). In urging atten- 
 tion to the death of Christ too little prominence 
 has sometimes been given to His continued Life. 
 Atonement is not the event which took place at 
 Jerusalem, but Christ Himself, who continually 
 presents His sacrifice before the throne of God. 
 ' If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the 
 Father, Jesus Christ the righteous : and HE IS THE 
 PROPITIATION for our sins ' ; not the mere fact of 
 the death, but He Himself , now not a historical event, 
 completed and past, but a living Person, for ever 
 accomplishing the Atonement. 
 
 Our Lord dwelt emphatically on His continued 
 life. ' I lay down My life, that / may take it 
 again' (John x. 17); as if He said, 'My love for 
 you is seen not only in My dying for you, but in 
 My willingness, as man, to resume life in your 
 interest. I am not weary of this Mediatorship, so 
 as to hasten to cast off My humanity, and cease 
 
 to be your Advocate. JT will return from Hades, 
 
 , "* 
 
 and arise in me flesh, and as your brother ascend 
 to heaven, and there present My glorified body 
 with the marks of sacrifice on your behalf, and by 
 My intercession and the work of My Spirit, com- 
 plete in you the salvation which is deliverance 
 from all sin.'
 
 Il8 ATONEMENT 
 
 ' It is expedient for you that I go to My Father ; 
 I will send you another Comforter, who shall abide 
 with you for ever ; I am with you always ; I go to 
 prepare a place for you.' ' This same Jesus ' 
 ascended, lives on, and will return. The Apostles 
 rejoiced in this assurance. ' It is Christ Jesus that 
 died, yea, rather that was raised from the dead, 
 who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh 
 intercession for us.' 'The Forerunner is for us 
 entered within the veil ; a High Priest for ever, 
 unchangeable ; able to save to the uttermost, seeing 
 He ever liveth to make intercession. Through His 
 own blood He entered in once for all into the 
 holy place, having obtained eternal redemption ; 
 now to appear in the presence of God for us. We 
 have not a High Priest that cannot be touched with 
 the feeling of our infirmities. Let us then draw 
 near with boldness unto the throne of grace ' (Rom. 
 v. 10; viii. 38; Heb. iv. 14-16; vii. 24, 25 ; ix. n ; 
 x. 19-22, &c.). 
 
 As still engaged in mediatorial work He was 
 revealed to St. John as ' He that holdeth the seven 
 stars in His right hand, and walketh in the midst 
 of the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars 
 are the angels ^(ministers) of the seven churches, 
 and the seven candlesticks are the seven churches.' 
 He is also described appearing in heaven as ' a 
 Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.' Full 
 of life and energy, but with memorials of sacrificial 
 death. The death was an event past, the life was
 
 MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS 119 
 
 still going on, but not apart from the death ; Jesus 
 who once died, alive for ever to perfect the salva- 
 tion of all who believe. Thus He is extolled in the 
 celestial anthem, ' Worthy is the Lamb that hath 
 been slain" 1 (Rev. v. 6-14). 
 
 Christ is thus in His own person and continued 
 life our Propitiation. Having suffered for sin on 
 the cross, He entered heaven to plead the cause of 
 those for whom He died. As our High Priest, He 
 still receives our confessions, confers absolution, 
 presents to God on our behalf His own perfect 
 righteousness, bestows His Holy Spirit to make us 
 holy, reconciling us more an'd more to God, who 
 through Him has been reconciled to us. He was 
 ' delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for 
 our justification.' On account of our sins He died 
 as a sacrifice of Propitiation, that we might be for- 
 given ; and lived again on account of our justifica- 
 tion, that the purpose of God in our conformity to 
 His righteousness might be accomplished by the 
 continued agency of the ever-living Propitiation. 
 The sacrifice of the cross to atone for guilt, 
 accepted and avowed by the Resurrection, is daily 
 presented to God as a memorial and a plea, satisfy- 
 ing Law and proclaiming Love, securing pardon of 
 sin and purification of life. Not merely death, but 
 life through death, was the Atonement ; not merely 
 the cross, but the crown it won ; not merely for- 
 giveness through the suffering, but triumph through 
 the victory of Christ
 
 120 ATONEMENT 
 
 Thus we plead, not a historical fact and a doc- 
 trinal explanation, but our living Saviour on the 
 Throne, to whom, 'alive for evermore,' we bring 
 our daily homage of praise and services. 
 
 1 7 . That A tonemen t encourages sin . 
 
 In the time of St. Paul and ever since some have 
 objected to the Atonement as encouraging sin, by 
 substituting the righteousness and the sufferings 
 of Christ for the obedience and punishment of 
 men, who may be tempted to say, ' Let us con- 
 tinue in sin that grace may abound.' To meet 
 this objection, and illustrate the Apostle's protest, 
 ' God forbid I ' is the purpose of the following 
 chapter.
 
 CHAPTER XV] 
 
 ATONEMENT A POWER FOR PURITY. 
 
 DELIVERANCE from the penalty alone would not 
 be salvation. The Christ was named Jesus, 'be- 
 cause He should save His people from their sins' 
 He demanded from all His followers a personaT 
 righteousness, summarised in the purest code of 
 ethics the Sermon on the Mount. His perfect 
 life was a pattern to His adherents. 'If any man 
 would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take 
 up his cross daily, and follow Me ' (Matt. v. vii. ; 
 Luke ix. 23 ; xiv. 26). The Apostles demanded, in 
 His name, such practical righteousness. ' The grace 
 of God hath appeared, bringing salvation, instruct- 
 ing us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts 
 we should live soberly, righteously, and godly.' 
 ' Christ gave Himself for us, that He might redeem 
 us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a 
 people for His own possession, zealous of good 
 workT' (Rom. vi. 11-13 5 x "- I > J Cor. vi. 19, 20 ; 
 xiii. ; Tit. ii. 11-14).
 
 122 ATONEMENT 
 
 The demand for righteousness by the Gospel of 
 Atonement is clear. But does it supply the power ? 
 Does it change the evil tendencies and cure the 
 poisoned fountain ? Christ taught the necessity of 
 this. ' Ye must be born again/ And He produces 
 it. To be saved, He tells us we must be ' born of 
 the Spirit.' He came to bestow this heavenly 
 producer of holiness. The Baptist, His forerunner 
 and herald, said, ' He that sent me to baptize with 
 watery said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou shalt 
 see the Spirit descending, the same is He that 
 baptizeth with the Holy Spirit ; and I have seen, 
 and have borne witness that this is the Son of God. 1 
 Jesus claimed this power of bestowing the Holy 
 Spirit when He said, ' He that believeth on Me, 
 out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. 
 This spake He of the Spirit, which they that 
 believed on Him were to receive.' All who accept 
 Him as the Propitiation receive from Him the 
 Holy Spirit, whose influence is like that of a pure 
 fountain within their own hearts, sending forth 
 streams of holy thoughts, desires, motives, and 
 conduct (Matt. iii. n ; John i. 33; iii. 1-8 ; vii. 
 37-39; xiv. 16; xvi. 7-11). 
 
 The special fulfilment of this promise was the first 
 act of the Risen Christ, when St. Peter, linking 
 pardon with the Spirit of Holiness, said, ' Repent ye, 
 and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ unto 
 the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the 
 gift of the Holy Ghost ; ' and three thousand re-
 
 ATONEMENT A POWER FOR PURITY 123 
 
 nounced their sins. This work of reformation was 
 ascribed to Him who atones. ' This Jesus, whom 
 ye crucified, having received of the Father the 
 promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath poured forth 
 this ' (Acts ii. 33-42). 
 
 Apostolic teaching constantly links the gift of 
 the Spirit with the atoning Sacrifice, and the 
 reception of pardon with the purify the Holy 
 Spirit produces. ' Christ redeemed us ... that we 
 might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith 
 . . . the renewing of the Holy Ghost, through Jesus 
 Christ our Saviour.' It is ' through the Spirit ' that 
 we ' mortify the deeds of the body.' We are ' chosen 
 to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit: 
 walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts 
 of the flesh. The fruit of the Spirit is love.' 
 Holiness is thus inseparable from receiving the 
 Atonement. The hand that grasps the pardon of 
 sin is impelled by the Spirit who prompts to the 
 conquest of sin. Because 'He worketh within us 
 both to will and to work,' we 'work out our own 
 salvation' (Gal. iii. 13, 14; v. 16-24; Eph. ii. 10; 
 iii. 1 6, 17 ; Phil. ii. 12, 13 ; Tit. iii. 5-8). 
 
 This power for holiness helps us to obey the 
 Truth which teaches it. Our Lord prays, ' Sanctify 
 them through Thy Truth, Thy word is Truth.' He 
 was Himself 'The Word' revealing God to men. 
 The gospel of Atonement is the Truth specially 
 adapted to make men holy, not merely in addition 
 to forgiveness, but because of it
 
 
 
 124 ATONEMENT 
 
 Delivered from moral incapacity and despair, we 
 are encouraged to exertion. Our prison doors 
 being opened and our chains broken, we go forth 
 from the pollution and darkness of the dungeon to 
 'cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh 
 and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the 
 Lord.' The captive bound hand and foot cannot 
 render service, but when set free he exclaims, ' O 
 Lord, truly I am Thy servant, Thou hast loosed 
 my bonds.' Liberation precedes, but as surely 
 produces service. He who was so crushed with 
 debt that a thousand years of toil could not 
 perceptibly lessen it, may fold his arms in despair ; 
 but if assured that all his debts are cancelled, he at 
 once feels an incentive to diligence. 
 
 Gratitude impels to righteousness. I was * dead, 
 but am alive again, I was lost, but am found. What 
 shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits towards 
 me?' The prodigal yearns to please Him who 
 sent his well-beloved Son to bring him home. He 
 who died for me says, ' If ye love Me, ye will keep 
 My commandments,' and I exclaim. ' Lord, what 
 wilt Thou have me to do ? ' ' There is forgiveness 
 with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared ' the filial 
 fear that shuns whatever may displease a loving 
 father. 
 
 Gratitude for salvation is increased by contem- 
 plating the means by which it is bestowed. If 
 forgiven ; I owe it to 'the blood which clcanseth 
 from all sin.' If restored to God, I was ' reconciled
 
 ATONEMENT A POWER FOR PURITY 125 
 
 by the death of His Son.' If I rejoice in hope, ' He 
 died for us, that we should live together with Him.' 
 Love, more potent than fear, prompts obedience in 
 those who are now ' not their own, but bought with 
 a price.' 'We love Him because He first loved 
 us.' 'The love of Christ constraineth us.' Since, 
 in Christ's death, believers died, and in His resur- 
 rection rise to newness of life, can we plead His 
 death as excuse for continuing to sin ? ' God 
 forbid ! We who died to sin, how shall we any 
 longer live therein ? Let not sin therefore reign in 
 your mortal body, but present yourselves unto 
 God, as alive from the dead, and your members 
 as instruments of righteouness unto God ' (Rom. iii. 
 
 24, 25 5 vi.). 
 
 Those who accept Christ as their representative 
 not only plead His obedience for the pardon of 
 their defects, but acknowledge it as representing 
 what they themselves ought and strive to do. 
 Acceptance of Christ to escape from penalty is 
 a pledge to imitate His purity, and by constraint 
 of love secures obedience more complete than mere 
 law could compel. Thus the death of Christ was 
 a work not only for man, but in man: riot lowering 
 righteousness to our level, but lifting us up to the 
 righteousness of God. Salvation by faith, instead 
 of excusing sin, condemns and conquers it; true 
 faith being the sinner's response to God's love and 
 righteousness, exhibited by man's representative. 
 
 This is the argument of St. Paul in the Epistle
 
 136 ATONEMENT 
 
 to the Romans. Having shown that the law could 
 not justify, he then in the seventh chapter showed 
 its inability to sanctify. ' O wretched man that 
 I am ! ' Then he rejoices that ' There is no con- 
 demnation to them that are in Christ Jesus ' ; not 
 only because they are pardoned through the Atone- 
 ment, but because thereby they receive grace to 
 conquer the sinfulness which the law condemned, 
 but could not cure. The Holy Spirit given by 
 Christ, and the motives of love inspired, enable 
 the believer to attain a personal righteousness he 
 failed to reach by law. ' The law of the Spirit of 
 life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law 
 of sin and death. For what the law could not 
 do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, 
 sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh 
 and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the 
 flesh,' i.e. destroyed its power over those who 
 believe in Christ, 'that the ordinance of the law 
 might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the 
 flesh, but after the spirit,' i.e. the result of faith 
 in Christ is practical holiness of life. 
 
 Atonement promotes, and in those who truly 
 believe in Christ compels, that ' love which is the 
 fulfilling of the law.' What stronger bond of 
 brotherhood than this, that the same Redeemer 
 died, and pleads before the throne, for all men 
 alike ! What an obligation to ' honour all men ! ' 
 How can we despise, oppress, insult any who 
 equally share with us the redemption of the cross !
 
 ATONEMENT A POWER FOR PURITY 127 
 
 ' Hereby know we love, because He laid down His 
 life for us : and we ought to lay down our lives 
 for the brethren.' The enmities of Jew and Gentile, 
 of Greek and barbarian, should cease amongst those 
 who are ' made nigh in the blood of Christ ; for 
 He is our peace, who made both one'; through 
 whom we all have 'access in one Spirit unto the 
 Father ' ; no more strangers, but fellow-citizens of 
 the household of God. Thus the death of the 
 Representative and Saviour of all men should bind 
 all men together as a Divine brotherhood, by first 
 drawing them together under the one Fatherhood. 
 The problem of Socialism, Altruism, Humani- 
 tarianism, is solved by the cross. Belief of this 
 would make war impossible, and the very thought - 
 of it hideous. There is much in nationality, race, 
 language, to bind men together in patriotic affinity, 
 but there can be nothing which has so strong a 
 claim as community in the Atonement. Common 
 love to the one Redeemer is the most binding 
 influence to unite believers to each other, and 
 should so compel love to all for whom the same 
 Saviour died, that the all comprehensive law of 
 righteousness would be observed, ' Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbour as thyself.' 
 
 Thus the love of God is revealed so as to con- 
 quer man's indifference and enmity. Salvation is 
 reconciliation not by a merely external work done 
 for us, but by bringing us into loving harmony 
 with God and men ; so that as the Divine nature
 
 128 ATONEMENT 
 
 unites with the human in Christ, so we by faith 
 are one with Christ, and so with God. Faith is 
 ' the Amen of humanity to the righteous judgment 
 of God.' It is the recognition and confession of 
 our guilt, heartfelt sorrow for it, absolute renun- 
 ciation of it, acceptance of Christ's own obedience, 
 not as our excuse, but, while a plea for mercy, a 
 pledge that we will copy it as the true model. of 
 our life, and the sign that we are partakers of His 
 salvation. He saves us from the penalties of sin 
 by bearing them for us ; and from the power of 
 sin by the grace of repentance, the constraint of 
 love, and the help of the Holy Spirit (Matt, v., vi., 
 vii. ; John xv. 1-17; Rom. xii. ; i Cor. xiii. ; 
 Jas. ii., &c.). 
 
 In summing up this argument we are entitled 
 to say that those who object to the Atonement 
 as if it encouraged sin are ignorant of its nature, 
 purpose, and results. The Atonement, instead of 
 weakening love, establishes its foundations by as- 
 serting its just demands, by providing power for 
 meeting them, and by the pardon of violations of 
 it only in connexion with satisfying its claims. 
 The standard of those claims is not lowered, but 
 exalted by the Gospel. Sin is revealed as exceed- 
 ingly sinful by the exceeding costliness of the 
 ransom from its penalty. Practical holiness is 
 insisted on by Him who is the Propitiation, and 
 by His Apostles, as essential in all who are saved 
 by it, and as a necessary result and evidence of
 
 ATONEMENT A POWER FOR PURITY 129 
 
 faith. Without detracting from the free gift of 
 salvation, the motive of reward is not absent, inas- 
 much as although the saved by grace can have 
 no legal claim, yet grace upon grace is given in 
 the promise of recognition for all obedience and 
 faithful service ; and all such efforts are stimulated 
 by the motive of loyalty to the Saviour ' Ye did 
 it unto Me.' By the Atonement we obtain the 
 help of the Holy Spirit, who inspires the love of 
 holiness and enables the believer to practise it. 
 By the Atonement we are released from conditions 
 which rendered true service to God impossible, and 
 gratitude prompts obedience. ' We love Him who 
 first loved us.' The Love of Christ constraineth us. 
 Love is the fulfilling of the Law. All who share 
 in this Atonement are bound together by bonds 
 of a love which fulfils all obligations to mankind. 
 Thus the Atonement is not only a provision for 
 pardon, but a power for purity; not only demand- 
 ing righteousness, but producing it ; the Sacrifice 
 by which sin is forgiven realising its purpose only 
 when sin is slain. ' Do we make void the Law by 
 Faith? Nay, we establish the Law.' (Rom. iii. 31.)
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION. 
 
 THE reader is asked to excuse some repetition of 
 topics in preceding pages which have set forth what 
 is the basis both of Justification and Sanctification 
 the Atonement as the method of our pardon and our 
 purity. It may be useful in addition to refer to that 
 personal acceptance of the Atonement which at 
 once secures what is termed ' Justification' in its 
 connexion with the moral influence on character, 
 which commences with Justification, but which 
 is progressive towards perfection, and is termed 
 ^ Sanctification* 
 
 How can man be just with God? By obeying 
 the Law, or by suffering its penalty. In the former 
 he fails : by the latter he perishes. God Incarnate, 
 in man's nature and as his representative, perfectly 
 obeyed the Law, and suffered its penalty. By union 
 with Him through faith we so share His fulfilment 
 of Law that Justice is vindicated, while we are for- 
 tven. Christ's righteousness atones for our lack
 
 JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION 131 
 
 of it, and His death is substituted for our punish- 
 ment. Law has no punitive claim on a sinner 
 trusting in Him who 'was delivered up for our 
 trespasses and raised again for our justification.' 
 ' Justified by faith, we have peace with God through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ.' (Rom. iii. 21-26 ; iv. 22-25 5 
 v. i, &c.) 
 
 We plead His death in answer to the accusations 
 of Justice ; we present to God His righteousness in 
 homage to the Law we have broken, and as a pledge 
 by His grace to imitate it. Faith confesses our 
 guilt, pleads His righteousness, and accepts His 
 salvation, both to screen us from punishment and 
 to make us good. We so adopt all He confesses 
 and engages to do on our behalf, that we are 
 identified with Him ; and as the Father accepts 
 Him, so we are accepted in Him. ' There is now no 
 condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.' 
 Christ has borne our sins, not as sharing our guilt, 
 but as removing from us the penalty ; and we share 
 His righteousness, as having the advantage, though 
 not the merit of it. 
 
 Faith in Christ says, ' I confess for myself the 
 guilt He confessed for the race, the justice which 
 condemns it, the mercy which provides a remedy. 
 I also accept the righteousness He wrought out, not 
 only to cover my unrighteousness, but as a model 
 and incentive for imitation. In His death I die to 
 sin : in His resurrection I rise to a new life of 
 righteousness : in His obedience I desire to share, 
 I a
 
 132 ATONEMENT 
 
 not only by imputation of legal benefit, but by 
 impartation of moral influence to imitate it in 
 personal self-surrender. Lord, I believe, help Thou 
 my unbelief.' Such faith justifies ; for the justice 
 of God is acknowledged, His mercy accepted, His 
 rule recognised, and the sinner reconciled. Thus 
 we are justified, not continuing disobedient, but 
 having become * new creatures in Christ Jesus.' We 
 are now sharers in His own life, as branches in a 
 tree, as members in a body of which He is the Head, 
 sharing His thoughts and purposes. 'Justified by 
 faith, we walk not after the flesh, but after the 
 Spirit.' Thus Justification is virtually linked with 
 Sanctification, its object and result. 
 
 We thus ' win Christ, and the righteousness which 
 is of God by faith/ If Levitical sacrifices removed 
 ceremonial pollutions, ' how much more shall the 
 blood of Christ, who offered Himself without spot 
 to God, purge our conscience from dead works, to 
 serve the living God"? ' We ' enter into the holiest 
 by the blood of Christ,' and, cleansed from guilt 
 (justified), are now permitted, inclined, enabled, im- 
 pelled, to ' serve the living God ' (Sanctification) 
 (Heb. ix. 14). We 'know Htm,' i.e. accept His gift, 
 acknowledge His authority: ' and the power of His 
 resurrection' ; i.e. have been raised from the death 
 of sin into a new life of holiness : ' and the fellow- 
 ship of His sufferings' ; i.e. -grief for sin, our own 
 and that of others ; ' being conformed unto His 
 death ' ; i. e. acknowledging we deserved death for
 
 JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION 133 
 
 the sins He bore, trusting in His Sacrifice, and being 
 ready to die for His name (Phil. iii. 7-14). 
 
 Ancient sacrifices, whatever else their design, 
 taught these two lessons -forgiveness in connexion / 
 with the death of the victim, and the surrender of -^ 
 our best to God. So the priceless sacrifice of Christ 
 is a sure basis for our hope of pardon, and His per- 
 fect obedience both a plea and a pattern for our own 
 righteousness. Faith relies on this ' Lamb of God 
 that taketh away the sin of the world ' ; accepting 
 Him as our only Saviour both from the penalty and 
 power of sin. Thus faith is more than assent of 
 Intellect, it is compliance of Jft/MI^ not conviction 
 oi a rruth, but surrender to a Person. Atonement 
 is more than a dogma for the mind, a creed for the 
 tongue. Christ Himself is the Propitiation, and 
 therefore Faith is surrender to Him j not admitting 
 dead facts, but laying hold of a living Lord. There 
 is such a union with Christ by faith, that in the 
 sight of the Law we are regarded as if we obeyed 
 and suffered in His person, and had risen with Him 
 to a new life. 
 
 It is still more than this. It is such a union with 
 Christ that we not only receive the pardon He pro- 
 cures, but Himself as our indwelling life ; so that 
 we approve, desire, and perform His will. ' I live ; 
 and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me : and 
 that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith 
 in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Him- 
 up for me' (Gal. ii. 20, 21).
 
 134 ATONEMENT 
 
 As shown in the preceding chapter, holiness re- 
 sults from conformity to Christ by faith. If we 
 are 'members of His body, His flesh, and His 
 bones,' how can it be but that we are sharers in 
 His thoughts, His purposes, His will concerning us, 
 and so be sharers in His righteousness, not only by 
 the imputation which screens us from penalty, but 
 as the daily desrre of our heart and practice of our 
 life ? Such faith, though it can plead no merit as 
 of works, is yet work of the most comprehensive 
 nature, the germ of all future holiness. Jesus said, 
 
 / 'This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him 
 
 \ whom He hath sent.' 
 
 By Atonement we are delivered from death, 
 being justified ; and spend our new life in serving 
 God, being sanctified. In Justification our chains 
 are at once broken, in Sanctification we run contin- 
 uously and progressively in the way of God's com- 
 mandments : the latter needing the former, the 
 former prompting the latter. The pardoned sinner 
 is admitted to the arena of the saints; not till then 
 can he run the race ; but then, he cannot be re- 
 strained, and presses onward towards the goal. 
 Pardon and Purity ' are separate, but simultaneous. 
 Like the two gases under the electric spark, they 
 meet. There is a flash of light ; and then a calm, 
 pure river of life, clear as crystal proceeding out of 
 the throne of God and of the Lamb ' (Candlish). 
 
 St. Paul thus links Justification with Sanctification 
 by the Atonement ' Christ Jesus was made unto
 
 JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION 135 
 
 us from God, righteousness, and Sanctification, and 
 redemption? 'But ye were washed, but ye were 
 sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ.' ' By grace have ye been saved 
 through faith ' Justification : ' Created in Christ 
 Jesus for good works' Sanctification (L Cor. i. 30; 
 vi. ii ; Eph. ii. 10). 
 
 St. Peter thus represents Justification as the pro- 
 ducing cause of Sanctification. ' He bore our sins 
 in His body on the tree ' justification : ' That we, 
 having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness' 
 Sanctification : ' By whose stripes ye were healed' 
 both by His cross. ' For ye were going astray 
 like sheep, but are now returned unto the Shepherd 
 and Bishop of your souls ' ceasing to do evil and 
 learning to do well. ' Christ suffered for you ' 
 Justification : ' That ye should follow His steps ' 
 Sanctification (i Pet. ii. 21-25). 
 
 Justification and Sanctification cannot be sepa- 
 rated. Pardon is the fountain from which purity 
 flows, the sunshine in which it lives. It is not a 
 foundation on which a superstructure may be reared, 
 but a healthy root out of which the tree must grow. 
 So intimate is their association, that the Faith by 
 which we receive Justifying grace is evidence that 
 we are already under the influence of sanctifying 
 power. 
 
 Forgiveness by the death of Christ is the ob- 
 jective fact of salvation ; and justifying faith is 
 the subjective fountain from which all streams of
 
 136 ATONEMENT 
 
 righteousness flow. Instead of first trying to change 
 ourselves to effect Sanctification, we must believe 
 in Christ, by whom alone that change is wrought. 
 Union with Him produces reformation of life. Re- 
 moval of guilt in Justification not only precedes but 
 produces Sanctification. We must live before we 
 can work. ' Justification and Sanctification are the 
 two glorious pillars which stand at the entrance 
 of heaven, but the atoning death of Christ is the 
 foundation on which both, and both equally, rest. 
 Without this they stand on air. The Divine 
 philosophy of the Word of God is this without 
 redemption there is no forgiveness, without forgive- 
 ness there is no Sanctification of character and life, 
 for there is no root of gratitude from which it can 
 grow V 
 
 1 Atonement in Relation to Pardon. Enoch Mellor, D D.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE. 
 
 THE essential truth of the Atonement, as the 
 foundation fact of Christianity, is that by the suf- 
 ferings and death of Christ we obtain forgiveness 
 of sin, and, as the result of such change in our con- 
 dition towards God, experience such a change of 
 character in ourselves that we conquer sin itself. 
 This is a fact independent of varieties of theory, 
 clearly asserted by Holy Scripture. 
 
 It has been shown in preceding chapters that 
 sacrifices of the Old Testament did teach, sym- 
 bolically, the forgiveness of sin. The prophets 
 predicted the coming of the Saviour, and the death 
 whereby Atonement would be accomplished. The 
 writers of the New Testament referred to these 
 sacrifices and quoted these predictions as ful- 
 filled in Christ. The prophecy of Isaiah emphat- 
 ically testifies not only to the death of Christ, 
 but to its purpose ' He was wounded for our 
 transgressions.' The Herald of Christ pointed Him
 
 138 ATONEMENT 
 
 out as ' The Lamb of God that taketh away the 
 sin of the world,' the real Sacrifice, given by God 
 Himself, to deliver the world from the curse of 
 sin. 
 
 Christ Himself taught this as the great object of 
 His coming. He endorsed the statement of John 
 by vindicating the Baptist's Divine mission. He 
 said of Himself that He had come to give His life 
 a ransom for many. He instituted a solemn feast 
 in which the bread was to represent His body 
 broken, and the cup the ' New Testament in His 
 blood, shed for many for the remission of sins.' 
 
 Atonement as the Fundamental Fact of Chris- 
 tianity is testified in the perpetual celebration of 
 this Christian Passover, instituted for this very 
 purpose, to 'show forth the Lord's death till He 
 come.' All who bear the Christian name, with very 
 few exceptions, agree under various forms in thus 
 bearing testimony to the fact that Christ died for 
 the remission of sin. The Author is glad to con- 
 firm his feebler words by the following extract from 
 a Sacramental address to students and pastors, by 
 his honoured friend, the President of Cheshunt 
 College : 
 
 ' Let us take the sublime fact which we com- 
 memorate, namely, the Sacrifice of the Incarnate 
 Word for our sins, the Body broken, the Blood 
 shed for us, and shed for the remission of our sins. 
 ... If by faith we grasp the unseen and eternal 
 thing here foreshadowed, we come into direct
 
 THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 139 
 
 contact with an almost blinding light. The glory 
 of God in the face of the dying Christ is so un- 
 utterably resplendent, that only the eye of faith 
 can bear it ; but if it be indeed the glory of God, 
 then it is the outflashing upon us of that which is 
 eternal, which was before all worlds, is now, and 
 for ever. Infinite love and absolute righteousness, 
 exhaustless pity and consummate sacrifice, the in- 
 flexibility of eternal law accepting the anomaly of 
 humiliation and pain, the glorification of death in 
 the agony of holy love, God at His very best, and 
 as He is from eternity to eternity, breaks on our 
 vision ! The Lamb of God slain from before the 
 foundation of the world, the Lamb in the midst 
 of the throne, stands before our inward eye. Our 
 faith lays hold of these when we see Jesus. These 
 outstretched bleeding hands, as we look on them 
 by faith, become the everlasting arms, " mighty to 
 save." It is this faith in the unseen and eternal 
 that it is our function to evoke by all our ministries, 
 of whatever kind. Only so far as we call it out, 
 can we fulfil our course. Such a mission is worth 
 living for, worth dying for 1 .' 
 
 Our Lord, vindicating and applying to Himself 
 the prophecies of Messiah as dying for sin, com- 
 manded His followers, saying, l Thus it is written, 
 and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and that 
 repentance and remission of sins should be preached 
 in His name.' Obeying this injunction, St. Peter 
 1 Light and Peace. Rev. H. R. Reynolds, D.D.
 
 140 ATONEMENT 
 
 on the day of Pentecost exhorted the Jews at 
 Jerusalem to * Repent and be baptized in the name 
 of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.' St. Peter 
 and St. John uniformly taught that salvation was 
 to be obtained by faith in the crucified Saviour ; 
 whose ' blood cleanseth from all sin.' They who 
 had habitually listened to the Great Teacher must 
 have known what was the purpose of His death. 
 From them St. Paul learnt the great truth he pro- 
 claimed in his preaching and letters. The Atone- 
 ment he taught must have been the cherished fact 
 and doctrine of the early Church. The words of 
 the Apostles make it clear that they did believe 
 and teach that ' Christ died for our sins.' 
 
 We have seen that the Atonement professes to 
 relieve the conscience from guilty fear, and at the 
 same time to encourage reverence for law, love to 
 God, and cheerful obedience to His will ; and thus 
 to make us happy in the present life and hopeful 
 for the future. 
 
 But a Divine Revelation should be certified not 
 alone by credible testimony to supernatural facts 
 and by intrinsic worth, but by experimental evi- 
 dence testing and verifying its claims. ' A tree is 
 known by its fruits.' Besides promising, does it 
 actually confer benefits worthy of its Author ? 
 
 Any religion claiming to be from God should 
 
 . supply three great necessities of the human soul : 
 
 / relief from guilty fear ; power to become good ; 
 
 * ^*^ M ^*W L 
 
 y and such knowledge of God as will enable us while
 
 THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 141 
 
 reverencing, to trust and love Him. Christianity 
 certifies the need and supplies it. The Atoning 
 Sacrifice emphasizes the fact of sin and the reason- 
 ableness of guilty fear ; while it proclaims full and 
 free pardon to every penitent, pardon is bestowed in 
 such a way that while mercy is manifested Justice 
 is honoured, while transgression of the Law is 
 passed over, reverence for Law itself is strengthened. 
 Acceptance of this pardon is accompanied by the 
 supernatural influence of the Spirit of God whereby 
 the sinner is ' born again.' A new life is imparted, 
 so that the sin forgiven is also hated, and holiness 
 becomes the desire of the heart and the aim of life. 
 Gratitude for pardon so obtained prompts to glad 
 self- surrender. The cost shows the sin to be 
 exceeding sinful. In the very act of faith by which 
 the burden of guilt is removed the power of sin is 
 broken. Both Pardon and Purity are the result of 
 a true acceptance of Christ crucified. God is so 
 revealed to the soul that instead of being the object 
 of guilty terror, He is trusted and loved. He not 
 only forgives but embraces us as children, and 
 gives us ' the Spirit of Adoption, whereby we cry, 
 Abba, Father ! ' 
 
 We now contemplate the human life of Christ as 
 a revelation of Himself. Jesus said, ' The Father 
 that dwelleth within Me He doeth the works.' 
 When Jesus folded little children in His arms, 
 touched the leper, absolved the penitent, wept at 
 the grave, He was revealing to us God. ' He that
 
 142 ATONEMENT 
 
 hath seen Me hath seen the Father.' He is no 
 longer to us Unknown and Unknowable. We see 
 His glory in the life of Jesus Christ. We adore 
 the holiness and justice vindicated on the cross, 
 while rejoicing in the forgiveness so freely bestowed : 
 sin is made hateful by our receiving the amnesty : 
 the conscience, freed from the crushing burden of 
 guilt, soars upward to the heaven of holiness and 
 love : new creatures in Christ Jesus, we ' rejoice 
 with joy unspeakable and full of glory.' 
 
 No other religion and no philosophy thus recog- 
 nises and supplies what our consciousness testifies 
 to be the three great necessities of the soul. The 
 Atonement does offer peace by pardon, purity by 
 the motives such pardon inspires, and a knowledge 
 of God which produces peace and love. But does 
 reception of this truth actually produce such results ? 
 They are the logical and moral inference, but do 
 facts verify the theory ? Faith is not a mere dogma 
 accredited, but a new life experienced. We know 
 the truth by evidence stronger than logic, or 
 criticism, or testimony, or miracle. We have the 
 witness in ourselves. ' We know we have passed 
 from death unto life,' ' We know Him whom we 
 have believed.' 
 
 Condemned by conscience as well as by Scripture, 
 guilty fear prompts the question, ' What must I do 
 to be saved ? ' Are we told to amend our hearts 
 and lives? The effort reveals more clearly the 
 deadly evil. We learn the rancour of the disease
 
 THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 143 
 
 by our ineffectual efforts to cure it. Actions with- 
 out a pure motive cannot avail, and this needs a 
 pure heart. How can we create it? How trust 
 and lovingly obey a God we reasonably dread ? 
 How by mere self-resolve change tendencies long 
 indulged, and break habits perseveringly strength- 
 ened? Even were I henceforth to perform all 
 duties aright, payment of a present liability cannot 
 cancel a debt incurred in the past. 
 
 I may be told that these fears are nursery fables, 
 or superstitious dreams. But they will not be 
 silenced. When I think I have driven them away, 
 they return like a swarm of gnats. Other com- 
 forters advise me to find peace in the service of 
 Humanity, and I diligently pile up a barrier of good 
 works to shut off the spectre. But it thrusts its 
 threatening finger through the heap and says, ' I 
 will meet thee at the judgment.' On a granite 
 rock I see deeply inscribed the record of my sin. 
 What must I do to hide it from my distressed 
 vision? I cover it with cement, on which to in- 
 scribe the record of my virtues. But the frost 
 and the storm break off the thin coating, and the 
 record of guilt is again revealed clearly cut as before. 
 What must I do ? 
 
 I am directed to Christ as a perfect example of 
 righteousness. But how can the obedience of an- 
 other atone for my disobedience? It appals me 
 by the contrast ! I recognise it as the trueideal. 
 That is what I ought to be what I never have
 
 144 ATONEMENT 
 
 been what I never can become wretch that I 
 am ' who shall deliver me from this death ? ' 
 
 But when I am told that He obeyed on my 
 behalf, that His perfect righteousness was to honour 
 the Law I had broken ; that He paid my debt, and 
 died that I might live then my burden falls off. 
 I am roused from my despair, and I rejoice in par- 
 doning mercy. Forgiveness breaks my fetters so 
 that I am able to serve : the gift of the Holy Spirit 
 prompts me to serve ; the truth of the Gospel 
 strengthens me in service, by the animating motive 
 of love to my Deliverer. The Atonement causes 
 me to honour my own nature, for which so great a 
 work was accomplished, and also to honour my 
 fellow-men of every condition, for whom equally 
 such price was paid. 
 
 This is no fiction it is absolute fact, experienced 
 at the present hour by people of all conditions and 
 all nations. It is not a statement of what ought to 
 follow such beliefs, but what is the absolute con- 
 scious condition of the soul, and the actual character 
 of believers. What is it that gives the anxious 
 sinner peace that calms his fears, kindles his love, 
 animates his hope? 'The blood of Jesus Christ 
 cleanseth from all sin ! ' What is it that nerves him 
 in the battle with temptation, that girds him with 
 strength as he climbs the rugged path of obedience, 
 that sustains his constancy in the furnace of afflic- 
 tion ? ' He loved me, and gave Himself for me ! ' 
 What is the chief motive to self-sacrifice in those
 
 THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 145 
 
 who most diligently labour for God and their fellow- 
 men ? ' The love of Christ constraineth us.' What 
 is it that sustains the soul of the believer in the 
 prospect of eternity? Be he scholar, peasant, child; 
 one whose life has been unblemished, or stained with 
 every vice ; the reply of all will be substantially 
 the same ' He bare our sins in His own body on 
 the tree : and He is able to save to the uttermost ! ' 
 
 What has given success to preaching at home, 
 and missions abroad? Not learning, genius, elo- 
 quence, however valuable "such gifts; but the 
 proclamation of Christ crucified ; not the perfect 
 example which He set us, but the complete atone- 
 ment which He made for us. Where the terrors of 
 the law and the praises of virtue alike have failed 
 Christ crucified, the embodiment and expression of 
 Divine love, the tangible and priceless ransom which 
 reveals both the depth of our guilt and the measure 
 of that mercy which fathoms it Christ crucified, 
 the all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of a guilty 
 world has softened the obdurate, and humbled the 
 proud, and encouraged the desponding, and turned 
 from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan 
 unto God, a multitude that no man can number, out 
 of every kindred, and people, and nation. 
 
 In confirmation of consciousness bearing witness 
 to the Atonement, the Author again avails himself 
 of the words of others. 
 
 'The world is weary with its cumbrous and 
 futile methods of obtaining deliverance from sin. 
 
 K
 
 I4<5 ATONEMENT 
 
 . . . The fear of men is not hushed by being told 
 that they should be virtuous and calm, that evil is 
 an accident, and responsibility a dream. . . . The 
 sin of the world presses upon conscience as a fault ; 
 hence its awful burden. From this springs the 
 whole history of sacrifices and atonements. If sin 
 is to be taken away from the world, the twofold 
 process of redemption and renewal must be involved 
 in the act. The conscience must be assured that 
 the law has not been trifled with ; that it is safe 
 and right to believe that God is ready to forgive ; 
 that HOLY LOVE is at the heart of the universe \ 
 that GRACE will reign through righteousness unto 
 eternal life. But more than this the sin itself, as 
 well as its natural consequences, must be expelled. 
 There must be the new life, as well as the new 
 relationship with God 1 .' 
 
 ' A feeling that man cannot make satisfaction to 
 God for his own sin ... is at the root of all the 
 penanceg practised by heathen and Christian alike. 
 Nothing can satisfy but the feeling that a Saviour 
 has come who has discharged the debt no man was 
 ever able to pay. It is this doctrine of Satisfaction 
 that is the strength of Christianity. ... A man has 
 not to address himself tothe hopeless task of clear- 
 ing old scores before he can regard himself as free. 
 He is free already' (Rev. J. J. Lias, M.A.). 
 
 A striking admission of the testimony of the 
 
 1 John the Baptist. Congregational Union Lecture, 1874. By 
 Henry R. Reynolds, D.D.
 
 THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 147 
 
 experience of consciousness is given by an eminent 
 theologian who, though he argues in favour of 
 Atonement by moral influence, yet confesses that 
 the ' Evangelical ' explanation is needed to secure 
 that influence. ' Christ is good, beautiful, wonder- 
 ful : His disinterested love is a picture by itself; 
 His passion rends my heart. But what is He for ? 
 How shall He be made to me the salvation I want ? 
 One word HE IS MY SACRIFICE opens all to 
 me; and, beholding Him with all my sin upon 
 Him, I count Him my offering; I come unto God 
 by Him, and enter into the holiest by His blood. 
 . . . We want to use these altar-terms just as 
 freely as they who accept the formula of expiation. 
 Without them we seem after awhile toTfe in a 
 Gospel that has no atmosphere. Our very repent- 
 ances are hampered by too great subjectivity, be- 
 coming, as it were, a pulling at our own shoulders. 
 Our very prayers and thanksgivings get muddled ; 
 courage dies ; and so we sigh for some altar whither 
 we may go and just see the fire burning, and the 
 smoke going up, and circle it about with our 
 believing hymns 1 .' 
 
 Greeks may still sneer at the Gospel as ' foolish- 
 ness,' and Jews may still demand 'signs,' but 
 ' Christ crucified ' is increasingly proved to be the 
 ' Wisdom of God, and the Power of God.' If it be 
 wisdom to seek the best ends by the best means, 
 
 1 Vicarious Sacrifice, Dr. Bushnell. The Atonement, Dr. Craw- 
 ford, p. 377. 
 
 K 2
 
 148 ATONEMENT 
 
 then the Gospel, producing righteousness and hap- 
 piness wherever it is embraced, is 'wiser than men': 
 and however condemned as ' weakness,' is ' stronger 
 than men.' The word is ever being confirmed by 
 ' signs following.' To the Jews the great miracles 
 of Moses were signs : but the deliverance of the 
 soul from worse than Egyptian bondage, the 
 opening of the way of salvation through impedi- 
 ments more threatening than the Red Sea; the 
 bursting forth of the waters of repentance from 
 the flinty heart ; the writing of the Law of Love 
 on the soul of every believer ; and grace to press 
 onward in spite of surrounding foes, in the assured 
 presence of the Angel of Jehovah, to win the 
 heavenly inheritance these are signs more im- 
 portant, more numerous, constantly occurring in our 
 own day, before our own eyes. The miracles of 
 Christ were mighty signs ; but the realities signified 
 surpass the types the spiritually blind who see, 
 the deaf who hear, the lame who run in the way of 
 God's commandments, the dead in sins who are 
 quickened to a new life, not to return to the grave, 
 as Lazarus, but who, believing in Christ, shall never 
 die these bear living witness. 
 
 The miracles of which Jesus said, ' Greater works 
 than these shall ye do,' are being done wherever 
 Christ crucified is faithfully preached. These 
 moral transformations, varied and countless, can be 
 explained only by the truth of the Gospel and the 
 Spirit of God.
 
 THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 149 
 
 This self-evidencing power of the Atonement is 
 limited by no geographical boundary, ethnological 
 peculiarities, social distinctions, or intellectual 
 qualifications. Children and parents, youth and 
 age, peasants and philosophers, jiSUpers and princes, 
 savage and civilised, black man and white, ' Jew and 
 Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free,' now, as 
 at the first, everywhere, continually bear witness. 
 
 ' Christ crucified ' is the true glory of preaching. 
 Learning, logic, rhetoric, wit, fancy, without the 
 Gospel, are but 'sounding brass or a clanging 
 cymbal.' They may attract crowds, win popu- 
 larity, achieve what worldliness deems success, but 
 do not of themselves constitute Gospel-preaching. 
 Discourses without salvation by the cross may be 
 brilliant orations or interesting lectures, but are not 
 sermons at all. Would that to the pulpit more of 
 such intellectual gifts were consecrated ; but the 
 pulpit with these alone might have Ichabod in- 
 scribed on it. The least cultured evangelist who 
 lovingly proclaims the Saviour to perishing souls is 
 a greater preacher than the most accomplished 
 scholar or orator whose great aim is not to pro- 
 claim a crucified Christ to perishing souls. Oh, that 
 of all who occupy the position of teachers in all 
 Churches, it might be said, that they ' preach Christ 
 crucified ' ! 
 
 As we began so we close with referring to the 
 first Missionary to Europe of this Gospel. Christ 
 was the Author of it, the eleven disciples the first
 
 1 50 ATONEMENT 
 
 proclaimers of it, St. Paul its chief expounder and 
 preacher. It gave offence both to Jews and Greeks. 
 It meant defeat the capture and death of its Leader. 
 It meant condemnation for He was charged with 
 being an impostor, a blasphemer, a revolutionist. 
 It meant a Leader disgraced by a felon's death, 
 public scourging, the ruffianly insults of priests, 
 soldiers, and people, and the sharing the gallows 
 with robbers and murderers. The cross was to 
 Greeks foolishness, and also to Jews, to whom it 
 was specially a stumbling-block, because it con- 
 tradicted their ideas of the Messiah, and set at 
 nought their exclusive traditions. They prided them- 
 selves on being alone the favoured people of God, 
 with signs and privileges none others might share. 
 
 They gloried in the Law of Moses. Those who 
 might have accepted the Gospel if preached only to 
 Jews, and on condition that all Christian converts 
 should adopt Judaism, persecuted it when pro- 
 claimed to Gentiles without such limitations. Had 
 St. Paul submitted to their demands, in order ' to 
 make a fair show in the flesh,' he would have calmed 
 the jealous anger of the Jews and gained their 
 applause. But nothing could induce him to make 
 so base a surrender. Others might glory in cere- 
 monial and bodily marks, but he would glory only 
 in the cross. However much assailed by philo- 
 sophical criticism, or ecclesiastical bigotry, or vulgar 
 abuse, he would not hide, but proclaim it, not 
 apologise for, but extol it, not explain it away, but
 
 THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 151 
 
 enforce it ; not accommodate it to human philo- 
 sophy, but demand for it Divine authority. It was 
 not for him to conciliate critics, but to testify truth, 
 not to please, but save the world. Therefore instead 
 of whispering it he proclaimed it with trumpet-blast ; 
 instead of apologising for it he extolled it, he gloried 
 in it, chiefly gloried in it, solely gloried in it ; ' God 
 forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ' 
 
 And why? He appealed to his own experience 
 in what it had enabled him to do in conquering the 
 enemies of his soul. He did indeed glory in it as 
 revealing the righteousness and love of God, the 
 very shame of it emphasizing that love ; and he 
 gloried in it for all the truths it taught, and in the 
 full salvation it promised. But he gloried in it 
 because he himself had proved all this to be true in 
 his own experience and history, saying, ' Through 
 which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I 
 unto the world.' 
 
 By the cross of Christ, by Christ crucified, the 
 world had become to him as a man nailed to a 
 cross, doomed, dying, worthless, practically dead. 
 The world, whether praising, blaming, hating, was 
 nothing to him. And by the cross he himself 
 was to the world as one crucified, the world looking 
 on him with contempt and scorn. So each regarded 
 the other, the Apostle neither caring for the world, 
 nor the world for him ; he dead to it all, as it was 
 dead to him. In other words, he was delivered
 
 152 ATONEMENT 
 
 from the snares and temptations of the world, and 
 indifferent to its opinion, frown, contempt, and 
 hatred. Sin and self ' no longer reigned in his 
 mortal body.' He had ' mortified,' put to death, 
 corrupt inclinations and indulgence. He was 
 'crucified with Christ' From his own experience 
 of the sanctifying power of the cross he appeals 
 to all who truly believe, ' They that are of Christ 
 have crucified the flesh with the passions and lusts 
 thereof ; ' they share with Him both in death and 
 resurrection ; ' knowing this, that our old man was 
 crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be 
 done away, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 
 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto 
 sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus ' (Rom. vi. 
 i-i i ; viii. 13 ; Gal. ii. ao ; v. 24 ; vi. 14 ; Col. iii. 5). 
 
 The highest aim of a believer is to conquer sin. 
 ' This is the victory that overcometh the world, even 
 our faith.' Beholding the love of God in the cross, 
 contemplating Christ dying for our sins, and through 
 that Atoning Sacrifice living for ever as our Medi- 
 ator, this abiding, realising faith will overpower the 
 world, whether it frowns or smiles, and enable us 
 to sing, c Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the 
 victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.' Must we 
 not glory in this emancipation ? Glory in that which 
 sets us free from the world's debasing bondage? 
 Glory therefore in the cross which crucifies the 
 world ? 
 
 Christ by the cross, having ' forgiven us all tres-
 
 THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 153 
 
 passes,' has * quickened us together with Him' ; by 
 the cross He annulled the galling requirements of 
 legality, and the heavy burden of guilt and penalty; 
 'blotting out the bond of ordinances that was 
 against us, nailing it to the cross ' ; He took the 
 record of our debt, discharged it, and nailed it to 
 the cross ; He took the sentence of our condemna- 
 tion and nailed it to the cross, as undergone by 
 Himself, and no longer valid against us ; He took 
 our old nature and nailed it there, no longer to rule 
 over us, but put to death ; ' and having spoiled 
 principalities and powers, He made a show of them 
 openly, triumphing over them in it,' on that very 
 cross of which some are ashamed.' We will there- 
 fore glory in it, adorned as it is with trophic^ of 
 victory over the powers of darkness, with records 
 of the salvation of countless multitudes in heaven 
 and of other multitudes on their way thither sing- 
 ing, ' O cross, my only hope ! ' Earthly conquerors 
 returning in triumph have gloried in the captives 
 they have taken, the spoils they have won ; and 
 orators, poets, historians, have perpetuated their 
 praise ; but how contemptible all such triumphs 
 compared with that of the cross, whereby Christ 
 overcame sin, death, and hell ! Had Christ come 
 robed with sunbeams, encircled with the rainbow, 
 heralded with thunders, attended by twelve legions 
 of angels to the great battle this would have been 
 glorious, 'but to destroy death by dying, this is 
 the glory of glories.'
 
 154 ATONEMENT 
 
 Shall we be ashamed of the battle-field where 
 such a victory was won, and such immortal benefits 
 obtained ? Were Spartans ashamed of Thgrrq^pylap, 
 or Athenians of Marathon, or Scots of Bannockburn, 
 and shall those redeemed from the debasing tyranny 
 of sin be ashamed of the cross? It is the con- 
 queror's chariot, it is the Redeemer's throne, it is 
 the pledge of salvation. The grave of the Cruci- 
 fied is the gateway of glory, the death on the cross 
 is the anthem of the heavenly host. ' Worthy is the 
 Lamb that was slain.' 
 
 No wonder that the Apostles, fresh from listening 
 to the words and witnessing the sufferings of Christ, 
 and filled with the Holy Spirit, bore such testi- 
 mony ! No wonder they counted it all joy to surfer 
 in proclaiming to all men that ' In Him we have 
 redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness 
 of sins.' No wonder that instead of hiding, dis- 
 guising, apologising for this doctrine of the cross, 
 they triumphed in it, saying with St. Paul, ' God 
 forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ.' No wonder that the Church 
 of Christ still builds on it as its one foundation, 
 that penitents cling to it, that Zion's pilgrims chant 
 it on their way to the celestial city. 
 
 If in heaven saints and angels celebrate the glory 
 of the cross in their anthem, ' Worthy is the Lamb 
 that was slain,' we will glory in it on our way to 
 join them. We will anticipate the song of heaven. 
 We will make the desert and the valley ring with
 
 THE WITNESS OF EXPERIENCE 155 
 
 the same Hallelujah. Each successive hill we 
 climb shall fling forward the strain. And as we 
 sometimes by faith catch a note or two of their 
 triumphant chorus, they, in the pauses of their 
 anthem, shall catch a feeble echo of it from pilgrim 
 bands below, as they ' join their cheerful songs' with 
 those that rise around the throne, ' For He was 
 slain for us' 
 
 The general experience of believers in all ages 
 bears testimony to the truth of Forgiveness through 
 the Death of Christ. Whatever the varieties of 
 ecclesiastical government, of external ceremonial, 
 of theological theory, throughout the centuries since 
 the great Sacrifice was offered, there has been 
 essentially one confession by all who have embraced 
 the Gospel, The testimonies of martyrs, the ancient 
 liturgies and hymns of the Church, the utterances 
 of the godly of all denominations, the unspoken 
 emotions of human souls and the gathered voices 
 of the great congregation, have shown that the 
 Church of Christ is One in reliance for Salvation 
 on Him alone who ' tasted death for every man.' 
 
 'When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of 
 death, Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to 
 all believers. Thou sittest at the right hand of 
 God, in the Glory of the Father. We therefore 
 pray Thee help Thy servants, whom Thou hast 
 redeemed with Thy precious blood. O Lord God, 
 Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that takest away 
 the sin of the world, have mercy upon us. Unto
 
 156 ATONEMENT 
 
 Him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins 
 by His blood, be the glory and the dominion, for 
 ever and ever. For Thou wast slain, and hast 
 redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every 
 kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. 
 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive 
 power and riches, and wisdom and strength, and 
 honour and glory, and blessing.'
 
 INDEX 
 
 APOSTLES, the, witness of, 77. 
 Atonement, the, more than a 
 
 moral influence, 14. 
 an essential fact, 15. 
 witness of Jewish sacrifices to, 
 
 1 8. 
 
 of prophecy to, 23. 
 of John the Baptist, 28. 
 witness of the words of Jesus, 
 
 33- 
 
 the sufferings of Jesus, 39. 
 witness of Peter, 48. 
 of John, 51. 
 of James, 58. 
 
 of Paul, 61, 149, 150, 154. 
 witness of the Epistles to the 
 
 Corinthians, 63. 
 Romans, 66. 
 Galatians, 67. 
 Ephesians, 67. 
 Philippians, 68. 
 Colossians, 68. 
 Thessalonians, 69. 
 to Timothy, 69. 
 to Titus, 69. 
 to the Hebrews, 7 a 
 
 Atonement, the, witness of the 
 Apostles as a whole, 77. 
 
 development of the doctrine, 79. 
 
 theory of, 83. 
 
 purpose of, 89. 
 
 misrepresentations and objec- 
 tions to, 92. 
 
 a power for purity, rai. 
 
 witness of experience to, 137. 
 
 of the Old Testament, 1 37. 
 
 of Christ, 138. 
 
 of the Apostles, 149, 154. 
 
 of Angels, 154. 
 
 of general experience of be- 
 lievers, 155. 
 
 Baxter, quoted, 116. 
 Bushnell, Dr., quoted, 147. 
 
 Calvin, quoted, 116. 
 Candlish, Dr., quoted, 134. 
 Caricature of the cross, 1 1. 
 Cave, Dr., quoted, ao. 
 Chalmers, Dr., quoted, 1 16. 
 Christ, witness of the words of, 
 33-
 
 158 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Christ, witness of the sufferings 
 
 of, 39- 
 
 death of, not alone a moral in- 
 fluence, 92. 
 
 Chrysostom, quoted, 116. 
 
 Colossians, Epistle to, quoted, 
 68. 
 
 Communion Service, quoted, 82. 
 
 Corinthians, Epistles to, quoted, 
 
 63- 
 
 Crawford, quoted, 30, 36, 43, 
 100. 
 
 Dale, Dr., quoted, 15, 33, 47, 
 
 53, 59, 7', 77, 90- 
 Development of the doctrine of 
 the Atonement, 79. 
 
 Ephesians, Epistle to, quoted, 67. 
 Experience, witness of, 137. 
 
 Galatians, Epistle to, quoted, 67. 
 God not angry, 93. 
 Gratitude, effects of, 124. 
 Greeks, the cross foolishness to 
 the, 10. 
 
 Hebrews, Epistle to the, quoted, 
 
 72. 
 Howe, quoted, 116. 
 
 Isaiah, witness of, 35. 
 
 James, witness of, 58. 
 
 Jesus, see Christ. 
 
 Jewish sacrifices, witness of, 1 8. 
 
 Jews require a sign, 10. 
 
 John, witness of, 51. 
 
 John the Baptist, witness of, 28. 
 
 Justification, 130. 
 
 Lias, quoted, 103, 146. 
 
 Lord's Supper, institution of, 35. 
 Lynch, quoted, 87. 
 
 Magee, Bishop, quoted, 80, 84, 
 
 90, 105. 
 
 Mellor, Dr., quoted, 17, 81, 136. 
 Moses, witness of, 24. 
 
 Objections to the Atonement : 
 Christ's death only a moral 
 
 influence, 92. 
 
 represents God as angry, 93. 
 represents Christ as appeasing 
 
 wrath of God, 96. 
 represents God as less merciful 
 
 than men, 98. 
 
 represents God as unjust, 99. 
 that Christ only suffered to 
 
 show Divine love, 103. 
 inconsistent with the immuta- 
 bility of God, 105. 
 arranges Divine attributes 
 
 against each other, 107. 
 represents Christ as punished, 
 
 108. 
 
 involves a ' legal fiction,' 109. 
 abrogates connexion between 
 
 sin and death, no. 
 the sin of Adam could not be 
 
 atoned by another sin, no. 
 the penalty due from sinners 
 
 cannot be borne by Christ, 
 
 in. 
 implies failure in the case of 
 
 those who perish, 112. 
 it is said to be limited in its 
 
 application, 113. 
 made to rest on a distinct 
 
 event, 117. 
 
 said to encourage sin, 1 20. 
 Offence of the cross, the, 9.
 
 INDEX 159 
 
 Paul, witness of, 61, 125. Sanctification, 130. 
 
 Peter, witness of, 48. Scott, quoted, 116. 
 
 Philippians, Epistle to, quoted, Spirit, gift of the, 122. 
 
 68. 
 
 Propitiation, the, 53. Theory of the Atonement, 83. 
 
 Psalms, the, witness of, 25. Thessalonians, Epistles to, 
 Punishment, the purpose of, 86. quoted, 69. 
 
 Purity, the Atonement a power Timothy, Epistles to, quoted. 
 
 for, 121. 69. 
 
 Purpose of the Atonement, 89. Titus, Epistle to, quoted, 69. 
 
 Keynolds, Dr., quoted, 31, 138, Wardlaw, Dr., quoted, 81, 107, 
 
 I 45- 116. 
 
 Romans, Epistle to, quoted, 66, 
 
 125. Zechariah, witness of, 25. 
 
 THE END
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW.
 
 3 1205 00815 5036 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 001 004 772 8